Chapter Text
Palace of Apophis, Saqqara, November 9th, 1999 (Earth Time)
“So, Apophis has installed a new layer of security since your defection.” Adora nodded at Bra’tac. “Reinforced walls that turned sealed off sections of his private quarters.”
“So it would seem. I saw walls go down behind me - fortunately, not between me and you - but the rest is conjecture. If Apophis had meant to limit this to his women’s quarter, the walls would have been placed elsewhere,” Bra’tac said.
“And we know that the others are trapped in the dungeons,” Sam added, holding up the reassembled communicator. “The Colonel reported a similar armoured wall blocking their way. So, we can assume that this isn’t limited to just those two spots. Apophis probably has several areas of the palace prepared like this.”
“Well, let’s cut through it!” Catra moved to the wall they were looking at and lashed out with her claws - only to wince, then frown when, instead of a hole, she had only left shallow cuts, as Adora saw. “That’s a thick wall. I guess Apophis expected a lot of explosives.”
Adora nodded. “I should be able to cut through it, though.” She had yet to find anything that She-Ra’s sword couldn’t cut.
“Wait!” Sam snapped. “Let’s scan it first.”
“We’re a little bit pressed for time,” Catra objected.
“We already missed one trap,” Sam countered. “Let’s not run into the next.”
“Yes.” That was sensible. Adora nodded again, and Entrapata and Sam used Entrapta’s multitool that Bra’ta had handed over.
“It’s reinforced with a Naquadah-alloy,” Sam said after a moment. “And it includes the ceilings and floor.”
Entrapta nodded. “But in the centre… That layer doesn’t make sense from a structural point of view.”
After a moment spent scanning more in-depth, Sam gasped. “It’s a charge. Like reactive armour.”
“Cut too deeply, and the explosion blasts you?” Catra asked.
“If the explosion is triggered, it will blast most of the area,” Sam replied. “There’s a chance that cutting won’t trigger the explosion, but with the forces involved, and the nature of your sword, I do not think that the risk can be easily dismissed.
Adora winced. That meant…
“We are trapped here,” Catra said. “Better tell Jack before he tries to blast his way through.”
“I don’t think the explosives he has with him can damage the armoured shell,” Sam said. She still informed him, though.
Adora agreed - Jack was crafty and might rig up a more powerful explosion.
Entrapta shook her head, looking up from her tool. “How did we miss this? My tool’s scanner didn’t have the range to detect the walls from further away, but we hacked his security system! There was no sign of this there! How did it trigger?”
“He would have kept this off the main security system - a nasty surprise for any traitor or assassin,” Bra’tac said.
“Oh! So, he’d lose the synergy advantage that combining multiple security systems provides but gains better compartmentalisation.” Entrapta nodded. “That makes sense. But installing this would have taken a long time and a lot of workers, and since he has no bots that can be memory wiped, keeping it compartmentalised must have been hard.”
“Not as long as all workers were killed after finishing their work,” Bra’tac told her before Adora could stop him.
She winced at Entrapta’s expression.
“But…” Entrapta shook her head. “That’s…”
“He is evil,” Bra’tac said. “He would not hesitate to sacrifice millions to preserve his life - or win against a rival.”
“But… that doesn’t make sense! Not even if you don’t care about people does it make sense.” Entrapta shook her head. “He would have lost so many talented, skilled workers…”
“That’s one of the Goa’uld’s weaknesses,” Catra said. “But we can discuss that once we’re out of here.”
“I could get us to the Stargate - if you, you know…” Glimmer looked at Adora.
Adora pressed her lips together. She could restore the planet’s magic, but that would leave Apophis in possession of a world with magic. And one of his most developed ones, with a lot of people. Some of them probably would have a talent for magic. And Apophis was thousands of years old - he was alive when magic was everywhere. He would recognise the signs and know how to exploit it - those people thought he was their god…
Not to mention she’d have to use all that magic power rushing through her when she unlocked magic on a planet.
“We can hack into this system!” Entrapta suggested. “It has to have a control system.”
“And it has to have a way out in case it is triggered with Apophis inside,” Catra added. “He wouldn’t risk being stuck inside his palace if a more powerful enemy or an alliance attacked him. Or suffocate if the air runs out.”
Adora shuddered at the image this conjured. That would be an awful death - like in a collapsed mine.
“We could probably rig up a way to shelter from the explosion,” Sam suggested. “If we build a makeshift bunker far enough…”
“Strong enough so we survive it here?” Catra looked doubtful.
Adora shared her doubts. If they were wrong about the power of the explosion… And all the helpless servants would be at risk as well.
“I think I can predict the bomb’s yield so that we can avoid that,” Sam said.
Catra scoffed. “You think?”
Adora stepped up before her friends started a row. “Let’s try something less dangerous first. Entrapta, Sam - try to hack the new system. Everyone else - look for a secret way out. But don’t get split up - we don’t know if there are more people in here who’re willing to fight for Apophis.”
“Alright!”
“And if we don’t find a way out?” Glimmer asked as Sam and Entrapta moved ahead to check the metal wall Bra’tac had mentioned, with Bra’tac following them to keep them safe.
“Then you can make yourself useful as transport,” Catra said.
Adora frowned at her lover- It was correct, but she would have worded it differently. “Just be careful,” she said, picking up Sha’re.
“Alright.” Catra smiled, but Adora thought she was just humouring her.
“So, if Apophis wanted a way out of here, it would probably be located in Amaunet’s quarters since he’d spend most of his time here there,” Adora said.
“If he trusts her not to betray him,” Catra pointed out. “But even so, it should be close to her bedroom. Let’s start there.” She looked at Glimmer. “Unless you disagree? You’re the expert on palaces.”
Glimmer rolled her eyes. “We’re not Goa’uld.”
“Yeah, you’re not small enough to take over someone’s body.”
Adora sighed as she followed her friends to Amaunet’s quarters - well, once they found them.
*****
Even for a System Lord, Apophis is paranoid, Samantha Carter couldn’t help thinking as she and Entrapta started hacking his second security system. To prepare such a trap in advance, on the chance that some could defeat his primary security system… Was this aimed at SG-1? As a trap? They had managed to sneak into his flagship when he attacked Earth, but that had been as much luck as skill - or more so if Sam was honest.
That wasn’t likely, she deduced while they were scanning for the sensors that triggered the wall. If Apophis had wanted to trap them using Teal’c’s family as bait, he could have picked a less crucial location to place his trap - a remote planet, for example. Even if he had to build a special prison for this, it wouldn’t have nearly cost what he must have spent - in resources and lives - for this. And if he honestly expected them to infiltrate his palace, wouldn’t he have taken his queen elsewhere? Amaunet was one of the few Goa’uld to be able to produce larvae. Without a queen, a System Lord depended on someone else to replace the Prim’ta of his Jaffa, and that would require major concessions.
No, she thought after another scan netted them no results - where were those sensors? - Apophis must fear betrayal from within his own realm. Especially after the attack on his holdings and fleet by unknown forces. So, this was a way to strike back and trap traitors launching a coup, and the fact that it also trapped infiltrators from Earth and Etheria was an incidental result.
“No sensor here either,” Entrapta said. “But someone or something must have triggered the wall.”
“Amaunet,” Sam realised. “She would have had a panic button.”
“Oh?” Entrapta turned to scan the Goa’uld, who was still stunned - Sam reminded herself to stun her again as soon as it was safe to do so. “Yes! There’s a transmitter hidden in her jewellery!”
“Good.” Sam smiled. “If we can disassemble it, we can narrow down our search for the receiver.”
It didn’t take them long to take the transmitter apart. It was a very simple design - Sam would call it almost primitive, but for such emergency measures, simpler was often better since it generally meant fewer ways that it might malfunction.
But it also meant any receiver didn’t need to be advanced either.
“Oh… it sends a coded transmission on a general frequency,” Entrapta summed up their results. “The receiver could be anything - it could even be powered by the energy of the transmission.”
“We can duplicate it, then,” Sam said.
“Yes!” Entrapta nodded, then frowned. “But what if that triggers another reaction?”
That was… possible, Sam had to admit. But how likely was it that Apophis and Amaunet would risk accidentally triggering something because they triggered it twice by accident? It was meant to be used in an emergency. On the other hand, that could be avoided by a simple timer that delayed registering a second signal for a set amount of time. And Apophis was the type of System Lord who would probably plan to take his enemies with him if he was trapped without a way out. Although, would he hand such a trigger over to Amaunet? She might decide to take him with her, should he turn against her. “Let’s risk it,” Sam said.
“OK! I’ll set the scanner to detect a receiver powering up in range.”
Sam nodded and picked up the transmitter. “Ready.”
“Ready!”
Sam triggered it and tensed. But nothing happened.
“Alright! I found the receiver! And No sign of poison gas or anything like it!” Entrapta cheered.
With the receiver found, they only had to isolate and power it to find the link to the rest of the system. That didn’t take more than five minutes - but Sam was very aware that wherever Apophis was, he would have been alerted the very moment the walls came down. And the more time he had, the worse his reaction would be. And the Colonel was trapped in the dungeons - without Apophis’s queen as leverage or incentive not to simply try to kill everyone inside the wall.
She had to hold herself back from rushing things. If everything else failed, they could activate the world’s magic to get out with Glimmer’s power.
The minute they spent hacking into the system still felt much longer. But they managed it.
“Yes! We’re inside! Now let’s check the data… oh!” Entrapta’s voice fell.
Sam pressed her lips together. The system could only lower the walls - it had no way to pull them back. They had wasted all this time with nothing to show for it.
Except for the fact that this did support the hypothesis that there had to be a secret way out for Apophis and Amaunet. They wouldn’t risk being cut off from their troops in the case of a coup and rely on loyalist forces to free them.
“Let’s go help the others,” she said. Entrapta’s scanner had a limited range due to the power restrictions its size brought with it, but they should be able to find secret passages that the others might have missed.
*****
Apophis was one sneaky bastard. Catra clenched her teeth as she forced herself to focus on the task at hand. And since he was a sneaky bastard, he would have a way out - people like him were not keen on dying with his troops. And having an escape route ready was basic tactics. They drilled that into Horde cadets, at least in the command track.
And it would have to be located where he and his queen could get to it quickly. Which meant in or near his or, in this case, since they were in the harem, her quarters. But no matter where Catra looked, she couldn’t find it. The usual spots behind potted plants or tapestries were all busts - Catra had clawed enough walls to know. At least these walls weren’t as hard as the ones trapping them. Slicing at those hadn’t been pleasant.
Maybe Apophis had planned to escape without his host? Slither away as a snake, leave a decoy to die, and make the enemy think they killed you? That would certainly be like him, and he’d only need a tiny tunnel or pipe to get away. On the other hand, would he risk being stuck outside a host in such a crisis? He’d be very vulnerable and wouldn’t have any easy way to prove himself to his loyal minions. Except for taking them over, of course.
Wait! She blinked. Pipes! “Oh, that’s sneaky!” she hissed and dashed towards the private baths of the queen. As with everything else in her quarters, Apophis hadn’t spared any expense when it came to his queen’s private bath. The tub was big enough to serve as a swimming pool. If it were any bigger, Mermista would probably claim it as part of Salineas. But big pools needed big pipes, so a pipe big enough to travel through wouldn’t look too suspicious to anyone checking building plans. Like a saboteur.
She stopped at the edge of the pool, peering down at the bottom. Yes, there was an opening set in the bottom. Large enough for a human to pass through. But to use it, you’d have to either dive and let the water push you through - she shuddered at the thought of getting stuck and drowning in the pipe. Or just diving in general - or you’d have to let the water out first.
She didn’t see any diving gear stashed nearby, so she looked for the mechanism to release the water. It would normally be used by servants to clean the pool, so it couldn’t be obvious - anything servants did in palaces was usually done discreetly, as far as she knew - but it would also be easily accessible…
Ah! Right outside the bath, there was a small alcove with cleaning supplies hidden behind a tapestry. On the wall there, Catra found a control panel. “I think I found it!” she called out to the others.
Adora quickly arrived, followed by Glimmer - and Entrapta, still carrying Amaunet, with Sam. Good. They could analyse the controls - Catra was sure that Apophis didn’t want to end up in the sewers - or have a servant accidentally open his escape route when cleaning the bath - so there probably was more to it than pushing a button.
*****
A few minutes later, Catra’s suspicion was confirmed.
“Yes, if you push the buttons to open and close the drain simultaneously, it opens the drain and sends another signal out,” Entrapta said. “That goes to a sensor in the pipe checking for water.”
“So, once the water’s gone, the sensor reroutes the pipe,” Adora said. “Or something like it.”
“Exactly!”
“Well, time to leave, then.” Catra grinned. She cocked her head and put her fingers on both buttons. “Got anything you need to do before we leave? A parting message for Apophis?”
“No,” Adora replied seriously, shaking her head. “The less he knows about us, the better.”
None of the others said anything, so Catra pushed the buttons. Her ears picked up the sound of water rushing through the drain. The pool was already halfway empty when they entered the bath again. A minute later, only puddles remained on the bottom.
“I’ll go first,” Adora declared. “If I make it, all of us will fit.”
And if she didn’t, she could shrink by changing back. Or cut her way out. Catra nodded. She might not like her lover risking herself like that, but it made sense.
Adora took a deep breath and jumped into the hole. Catra heard her body slide through the pipe - tube - as they waited. If this was a trap… She clenched her teeth. The others had hacked the sensor; it didn’t check for anything but the water, so they shouldn’t need some badge or transmitter to reroute the tube.
But a bit of worry remained - until her ears twitched, and she heard Adora yelling: “It’s clear!” from below.
“It’s clear!” she repeated. “Let’s go!”
She jumped into the tube, clenching her teeth when she slid over the still-wet metal, down the pipe. It was like a waterslide from Earth, she told herself. Just completely closed.
And it was over in seconds. The tube suddenly evened out, and a moment later, she shot out of it into a bright room. Catra twisted and landed on all fours, sliding a yard - and barely managed to jump out of the way before Glimmer rammed into the pad mounted on the wall in front of her.
Glimmer wasn’t as quick, but Adora pulled her away before Sam arrived, followed by Entrpa and Amaunet, with Bra’tac bringing up the rear.
Catra looked around. They were in a small room with a sturdy door - and the walls to the side were lined with stuff. Armour, tools, wigs - and weapons!
She moved to check the door. It was unlocked. And behind it…
She grinned. How nice of Apophis to provide them with everything they needed to escape his palace!
*****
“Alright, folks, we’ve got a bit of a problem, but we’re working on it!” Jack O’Neill said with forced cheer.
Bow nodded. “We’re trapped in an armoured box that’s also rigged to explode, and we can’t get to the layer of explosives without using enough force to trigger the explosive. It’s a problem, yes.”
Jack glanced at him. Bow looked and sounded as if he was earnest, but this was coming a bit close to being sarcastic.
“We’ve been working on it,” Daniel said. “But nothing we have tried or thought of has worked.”
Jack frowned. Now, that was gloomy. And they couldn’t have that. “We’ll get out of here! We haven’t tried everything yet. And we won’t let our friends show us up by rescuing us!” He clapped Bow on the back. “Our resident tech master will find a way to get through all this armour plate, and then we’ll disarm the biggest shaped charge ever built!”
Daniel narrowed his eyes. “The biggest shaped charge that you would have triggered if the others hadn’t told us about the trap.”
Now, that was unfair! Jack was about to defend himself - how could he have suspected such a crazy scheme? - when Bow shook his head and said: “That wouldn’t have happened. We don’t have enough explosives to blow through the wall, which would trigger the blast. But I think we could try to melt a very small hole down to the explosive layer in the floor using one of my arrows. It’ll be a bit tricky since the arrow carries only a little bit of acid, enough to melt through a Horde tank’s armour, but I should be able to manage that with the tools we have here.”
That wasn’t how acid worked, in Jack’s experience. But Bow’s trick arrows were magitech, and that was more ‘anything goes’.
“And then?” Daniel asked.
“Then we see how we can disarm the explosives,” Jack said.
“And then? We’re on the lowest level of the palace.”
“The lowest level in use - but they have to have pipes and maintenance tunnels down there,” Jack pointed out. Unless the snakes used some alien tech to get around that. But they’d cross that bridge once they reached it.
Daniel still looked doubtful, but he nodded. Good.
And if this plan didn’t work, they’d think of something else. Or the others would save them, probably by Glimmer teleporting them out. Which wasn’t ideal - it would mean restoring magic to Apophis’s planet and exposing their powers - but still better than suffocating in the sealed dungeons. Or getting captured by Apophis and snaked. After being tortured for a long, long while.
Jack would rather trigger the explosives himself than suffer that, and he was sure everyone else would agree. Not that it would happen, anyway. But if it did, having a way to touch off that massive charge would come in handy.
At least everyone was staying calm. Bow was busy working, Daniel was holding it together - it helped that the other group had secured Sha’re - and Teal’c was talking to his family in the other corner. Jack couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Ryla’c looked happy, and Drey’auc hadn’t tried to tear off her husband’s head, so it looked like it was going pretty well. At least compared to their general situation.
But if they couldn’t get out, it wouldn’t matter. And it was Jack’s job to ensure they could get out. Alive and unharmed. Or at least alive - Adora could heal any wound, anyway.
“OK!” Bow held up one of his few trick arrows. One with a tip that looked like a green vial. “I’ve altered the tip so it’ll release the acid in a very small trickle!”
“Good work!” Jack was more than a little queasy about handling a vial designed to break upon impact that contained enough acid to melt a tank’s armour, but like Hell, he’d show it - a leader had to remain confident at all times. “Let’s see how it works!”
“Well, we’ll have to go through the normal floor first. We can’t waste the acid on that,” Bow said, smiling a bit sheepishly.
“No problem,” Jack told him, hefting a pilfered staff weapon. The hidden armour would withstand a staff blast, so it should be safe to shoot a hole into the floor until you hit the armour layer.
And blasting stuff was an excellent way to release tension and work off frustration. Jack knew that from experience.
“Everyone, stay back! It’s going to get loud!” he announced, aiming the staff at the ground in the corner farthest from everyone else.
Daniel scrambled to join Teal’c in the other corner, and Jack waited until Bow and his acid bomb were clear as well before he started shooting.
A bit later, his ears were ringing, but he was looking at the shiny and now slightly scorched reinforced armour in the hole in the floor. “Alright, you’re up,” he told Bow.
“OK! “ Bow approached the hole, then took a step back. “I think we better let it cool down a bit,” he said.
“Yeah, I think so too:” Jack could feel the heat from a few yards away. And when he dropped some water from the guard’s stash on the armour, it sizzled.
But it didn’t take too long for the metal to cool down enough so Bow could set up his contraption, and a bit later, the thing started dropping acid on the armour.
One drop at a time.
“I might have to adjust the drop rate,” Bow said, unasked, after the first drop had hit the armour plate. “But it’s working.”
“And when we reach the explosives? What then?” Daniel asked.
“Then we figure out a way to disarm them,” Jack said. Something. Anything.
Daniel gave him a look that showed he didn’t really think much of their chances.
Jack kept smiling. He didn’t think this had much of a chance to work, either, but a small chance was better than no chance at all. And it kept them too busy and distracted to panic.
*****
“A Tel’tak. Modified and likely equipped with a stealth device for ease of escaping an attack on the planet itself,” Bra’tac said, looking at the small ship they had discovered behind the door.
“Oh!” Entrapta beamed at it. “We have to analyse it - this could be the key to miniaturising our own stealth generators!”
Adora looked around in the small hangar. They had to be a bit below the palace’s basement if she had correctly calculated their descent through the tube. But not too deeply underground.
“I do not think we have the time for that,” Sam told Entrapta.
“But we’ll have all the time we need once we’re back on Earth!”
“It won’t fit through the gate,” Catra told her. “And we’ll have to scan it thoroughly for a bomb and other traps,” she added. “Apophis must be really paranoid about a coup, so I bet he has some nasty surprise hidden here as well.”
Adora nodded. A ruler who’d install a failsafe lined with explosives would also prepare to blow up an obvious escape craft.
“I think our covert attacks and the failure of his false flag attack on PZ-921 must have convinced him that he has traitors in his court,” Glimmer said, shifting her grip on the staff weapon she had taken from Apophis’s stash.
Catra snorted.
“He would already be aware of that,” Bra’tac commented. “The false gods are always ready to betray each other. But he would suspect one or more of them being about to move on him in this case, I would say.”
“Great.” Catra shook her head. “That’s good for fighting him in the field, but it makes covert ops more difficult.”
“And the purges will endanger the Tok’ra spies,” Glimmer added.
Bra’tac looked as if he wanted to comment, but before he said anything, Sam spoke up: “We’ve found a bomb.”
“Yes,” Entrapta added. “It’s placed at the main drive, so detecting it was a bit of a challenge.”
“Can you disarm it quickly?” Adora asked.
“Let us check!”
“Are you planning to use the ship to flee the planet?” Bra’tac asked as Entrapta headed inside the ship, followed by Sam.
“As a last resort,” Adora replied. “But we can use it to fly out of here.”
“And then return to the palace to grab the others!” Catra grinned. “Apophis wouldn’t suspect that.”
“He is aware of the loyalty the Tau’ri show towards each other,” Bra’tac said. “He would not expect SG-1 to abandon their own.”
“Would he expect an offer to exchange his queen for them?” Glimmer asked.
Bra’ac tilted his head, obviously pondering this for a moment. “Potentially, yes. But I cannot say what his state of mind will be after a direct attack on his palace. This will cost him a lot of face, and being forced to negotiate for his queen would make it even worse. It will make him appear weak to all his rivals, both outside and inside his court.”
“We’re not planning to exchange Amaunet for the others,” Adora told him. They had no way to safely extract her from Sha’re, anyway. And they wouldn’t abandon Sha’re.
“Or expect him to deal honestly with us.” Catra scoffed. “But if he thinks we left the planet, that will help us save the others.”
“And we can send such an offer to throw him off our real plan,” Glimmer said. “If we have to,” she added. “Not dealing honestly with him would make it harder to negotiate with others.”
Bra’tac frowned at that. “Negotiating with the false gods is a recipe for disaster. They have no honour and will betray their own without the slightest hesitation if they think it will improve their position even a little.”
That sounded a bit biased in Adora’s opinion. More than a bit. Then again, Bra’ta had been Apophis’s Prime for decades - he would know him best. “It’s not just the Goa’uld,” she said. “But how can we expect others, like the Jaffa, to trust us if we act like that?” Honesty was the best policy.
“They will be aware that dealing honestly with the false gods is a foolish proposition and not judge us for this,” Bra’ta retorted. But Adora thought he sounded a little defensive.
“Alright! We disarmed the bomb. And we also spoofed the tracking devices hidden in the ship!” Entrapta waved at them from the ramp leading into the Tel’tak. “It should be safe now.”
“And does it have a stealth device?” Adora asked.
“Yes! Although it doesn’t seem as effective as our own.” Entrapta pouted.
“You said it was modified. Does it have missile launchers?” Catra asked. “We could launch the tracking devices and send Apophis on a chase into space.”
“No,” Sam said. “The only weapons it has are two staff weapons.”
That was… not very impressive.
“Normal Tel’taks are unarmed,” Bra’tac added.
“Ah.” Catra shrugged. “Well, let’s go! We have people to save.”
“Yes.“ Adora nodded firmly. They wouldn’t leave anyone behind.
“Indeed.”
Now they just had to figure out how they would save the others.
*****
The others were trapped in the palace dungeons, locked in by armoured walls with an explosive layer - under specific circumstances, it might act as reactive armour. Might that be a way to get through it? Unlikely. Based on their scans of the harem walls, the reinforced armour would withstand the blast from the explosive layer in either direction.
Samantha Carter was briefly distracted from her attempts to find a way to save their friends when Bra’tac started the engine, and the Tel’tak rose to float in the hangar.
A moment later, the hangar doors slid back in the walls, revealing a tunnel leading up to the surface. A concealed exit would be waiting for them at the end, probably rigged to be blown open once the ship drew closer. But what if an inhabited building might conceal the exit? Apophis would have no scruples to kill dozens, hundreds of people to escape!
“We need to stop and scan the exit before we open it,” she said. “We don’t want to blast our way free through a residual building.”
“We cannot take the risk,” Bra’tac retorted at once as he guided the craft up the tunnel. “Apophis will soon be aware of our escape - if he wasn’t informed already by automated systems. He will be moving to block the exit.”
“We can’t risk killing innocent people!” Adora blurted out.
“We can check with our scanner,” Entrapta offered. “We’ll be in range soon… just stop when I say so!”
Bra’tac looked like he wanted to argue but nodded after a glance at Adora.
A few seconds later, they stopped at Entrapta’s command.
“Alright, let’s see… Oh.”
The exit was indeed concealed beneath a building, Sam saw on the scanner. But it was a barracks building, not slave housing - the people inside were armed, carrying staff weapons that showed up on the scanner.
“He would blow up his own guards?” Glimmer shook her head.
“In the eyes of Apophis, the fact that he was forced to flee his palace would mean they have failed him, for their duty is to protect him from any kind of attack. Whether they failed or betrayed him, the false god would see death as a fitting punishment,” Bra’tac said.
“We could scare them away with an alert after hacking the security system, I think,” Entrapta suggested. “Or… Oh! They are moving.”
The markers showing the positions of the Jaffa inside the barracks were indeed moving - towards the exit. “Apophis must have alerted them!” Sam said.
“He will attempt to lock us in here,” Bra’tac snapped.
“Push on. We need to leave before they manage to set up a blockade!” Catra said.
“Do it,” Adoara agreed.
Bra’tac was already moving the Tel’tak further ahead.
They might be too late, Sam knew. If Apophis had a remote command to block the exit… But would he risk that a rival or traitor could use that to trap him if he needed to flee? Unlikely.
She was still relieved when the tunnel suddenly shook, and the scanner’s readings showed the building being blown clear a moment before the doors ahead of them opened, and the Tel’tak flew straight into a cloud of smoke.
Bra’tac activated the stealth device and then quickly accelerated. A moment later, they shot out of the smoke cloud.
“Death Gliders!” Catra yelled.
“We’re hidden,” Bra’tac replied.
But the enemy craft were shooting in their direction. Had Sam and Entrapta missed a tracker?
No, the shots went wide - and hit the cloud. They had been dragging some smoke with them as they flew out of the cloud, Sam realised, giving away their initial position.
But Bra’tac was manoeuvring now, banking to turn back towards the palace, and the Death Gliders were still shooting at the slowly rising smoke cloud. Sam winced when she saw shots hitting the streets and buildings below - and the people on the ground.
But there was nothing they could do about that, and she had to focus on how to save their friends. The walls had come down, locking them in. And there was no quick way to raise the walls from either side - Apophis had intended them to lock traitors in or out. Would there be an escape tunnel like the one they had used? In the dungeons? Very unlikely, Sam decided. Apophis wouldn’t risk that. He could have prisoners brought to him if he wanted to personally interrogate or just torture them. That also ruled out a ring transporter set up to reach the dungeons.
They stopped in front of the palace - to the side, actually, in case an enemy craft approached the entrance or the landing pads above it.
“Now, how do we get back inside?” Entrapta asked. “And how do we get our friends out? Maybe we can construct a drill that won’t trigger the explosives? Though that would take a long time…”
Sam shook her head. Trying to find a way inside through the armoured walls was the wrong way to tackle this. She knew the layout of the walls now. There was no way to quickly raise the walls - they had no machinery installed to do that - but they could be raised from the outside. It would take an attacker long enough to let Apophis escape since they had to bring in cranes or hydraulic lifts - or gravitational manipulators - and install them to lift the walls.
They couldn’t do any of that. But sooner or later, Apophis would be ordering his guards to do that to get to the trapped team inside the dungeons.
And that would grant them an opportunity to intervene. They didn’t have heavy machinery to do the lifting. But Apophis’s troops would have access to the machines needed...
Sam nodded. “I have an idea.”
*****
Outside the Palace of Apophis, Saqqara, November 9th, 1999 (Earth Time)
“I don’t like this plan,” Catra muttered as their freshly stolen hoversled - or whatever the Goa’uld called their floating transports - stopped in front of the palace’s gates. And it wasn’t because she was wearing equally stolen worker robes again, which restricted her tail.
“We know. You told us so. Several times already,” Glimmer whispered. “Now shut up!”
“It bears repeating.” Sneaking into the palace disguised as slaves for the second time? Third time if you counted the harem infiltration separately? Sure, Apophis wouldn’t expect that - because it was a damn dumb plan! Trying the same thing three times was a recipe for disaster. Not even the Princess Alliance at its worst had been that gullible!
Fortunately, fighting their way inside was a valid backup plan. They already knew the layout, they still had the primary security system hacked - Sam had checked - and Apophis’s troops would be limited to infantry inside the palace and wouldn’t be able to match or stop She-Ra. Well, unless the Jaffa blew up their own walls, but they could work around that. Probably.
She was eyeing the gate guards - she could take the two standing to the side while Adora barrelled into the main force in the centre, and the others could kill the warriors who had brought them here - when the guard commander waved them on, yelling at them for being late. No checking under their robes and cloaks, no questioning their orders - though they had valid orders, taken when they took the hoversled carrying the gravity lifters or whatever Entrapta had dubbed them. The only ones getting checked were the Jaffa with them, and those were actual guards who - and wouldn’t enter the palace anyway.
It seemed like their foolhardy plan was going to work. Catra steadily focused on the potential threats as they entered the palace. And not on her undoubtedly smirking lover. They weren’t out of danger yet, anyway. The only one relatively safe was Bra’tac back in the Tel’tak, with the stunned and secured Amaunet and the stunned workers originally assigned to the hoversleds and gravity lifters.
“Move faster! The great Apophis is impatient!” one of the palace guards now escorting them snapped as they turned a corner.
Catra clenched her teeth and sped the hoversled up a bit - and resisted the temptation to accelerate even more and ‘accidentally’ bump the guard into the wall with it. Just a bit further…
It seemed that every hallway crossing was now guarded by Jaffa. Yet none of them stopped them to check the slaves’ identities, only their escorts’. As Bra’tac had said, the arrogance of the Goa’ud and their warriors would be their downfall.
Until they wised up, at least. You couldn’t count on the enemy not adapting.
They reached a lift that looked like the one they had taken down to the vault, entered past more guards, and then waited inside while they descended.
Her ears, flattered by her cowl, picked up Sam whispering into their communicator, informing O’Neill and the others that they were close. He sounded a little tense under all his flippant comments, in her opinion, as he acknowledged that.
Then the lift stopped - they had arrived. More nervous guards hurried them on, towards an apparently freshly created hole in the floor. Catra stopped the hoversled next to it and used the opportunity to peer into it. Yes, that was the armoured wall down below. And the hole had been so recently created, its walls were still hot - as was the barrel of the staff canon the Jaffa had used to make it.
It didn’t take long to place the gravity lifter over the hole, even though half a dozen Jaffa screaming at them to hurry up wasn’t helping at all. But despite that, Catra could hear the Jaffa down below, massing to storm the dungeons as soon as the wall in front of them was lifted.
It looked as if everything was ready.
“We’re ready,” Glimmer told the Jaffa leader.
“Finally! You will be punished for your failure to arrive more promptly!”
“No, I don’t think she will,” Adora told him.
“What?” He looked up from his communicator just in time to catch her fist to the face and fell down the hole.
Catra was already in the air, tearing her robes off. She threw them at the closest guard, blinding him long enough for her to rake all four claws of hers over his partner as she came down. She hit the ground on all fours, then whirled, sweeping the first guard off his feet with her legs just as he dropped the robes. A swipe with her right hand tore through his armour and his throat before he could aim or swing at her.
Next to her, Adora threw another guard down the hole. He screamed until he hit the top of the wall below. “That was the last,” she said. “Lift the wall!”
Entrapta’s hair flew over the controls, and the lifter started to hum. A moment later, Catra heard metal sliding against metal, and the wall below began to move upward.
And Adora jumped down the hole.
*****