Redemption Redux

by Elizabeth Carter

URL: http://www.area52hkh.net/ase/ecarter/redredux.php
Summary: This came from me yelping at the screen during the super soldier autopsy. 'Where the hell is Janet! So here's the explanation

General Hammond had given Major Samantha Carter the go ahead to run what ever test she had to discover the puzzle of this ebony armored warrior, a super soldier who had conquered two entire divisions of Jaffa - Ramius's warriors and those of Tilgath and even Tilgath was slain. Ramius had barely escaped alive.

The armor Sam knew had to protect the warrior, the Ashrak for a lack of a better classification for the moment, represented a whole new kind of technology, one they had never seen before, either the SGC personnel or the Jaffa. In all his hundred and thirty five years, Master Bra'tak had never before encountered such a formidable warrior.

Hammond was so eager to discover what the warrior had to hide, how it was able to survive the onslaught of several Jaffa and annihilate them as well as a Goa'uld in return, that he even agreed to the young major's request to bring in the Tok'ra. That Tok'ra was of course Sam's favorite.

Her father

~~~

Sam and Jacob stood shoulder to shoulder at the controls of the MRI, making ready to scan the warrior. And yet when they did, there was nothing to see on the control screen. Sam's mind ran a dozen different scenarios as to why there was no MRI image. She settled for the simplest.

Her blonde eyebrows scrunched into a frown. "The suit must be affecting the MRI." Sam wasn't at all pleased on how Janet's equipment was handling the armored warrior.

"As long as he is wearing that armor, we're not going to learn anything more," Jacob said as if the faulty test was somehow Sam's fault and she should have thought to remove the armor sooner.

They slipped the body from the MRI bed to a gurney so that it could be transported to the autopsy station in the infirmary. Sam knew she should wait for Janet, but SG6 had come in hot and had needed medical attention, and Jacob Carter as well as Selmac were rather insistent they not wait for the tiny doctor. From long experience there were battles one chose to wage and some you just didn't bother with. Sam knew arguing with her father and an impatient Tok'ra versus laboratory etiquette was futile at best. Sam gave into the greater evil and decided to begin the autopsy on the warrior.

'No, not an autopsy, just removing the armor, a job any medic would be made to do, so Janet could do her part with more efficiency. Yeah...I'm only going to remove the armor.' Carter conned herself into believing. 'I'm not encroaching on anyone's territory; I'm just using Janet's stuff, her infirmary, her autopsy room to cut open the armor of Vader, here.'

"Dad, maybe we should wait for Doctor Fraiser," Sam remarked.

"Didn't George give you an order to find out all you could about this warrior? You're not performing surgery Sam, you're removing the armor and following orders," Jacob commented dryly. "Besides," now the voice became that of Selmac's, "you called me in for a reason, to help you uncover the secrets this armored Jaffa holds. If Dr. Fraiser is able to assist so be it, but you called on my experience, not hers."

"With all due respect Selmac, I'd be more comfortable with her here," Sam tried one last time.

"And while we wait for her, whatever secrets this thing has could be lost," Jacob said. "We won't cut it up, yet. But we need to get the armor off," this time Jacob used more of the patronizing tone of an irritated father.

Sam took in a deep breath and nodded. It took little time to suit up in the blue paper surgical gown, head wrap, scrubs complete with booties and of course latex gloves, face mask and a face shield. Typical uniform of anyone performing either an autopsy or invasive surgical procedure. When Sam offered the same surgical accessories to Jacob, the man shook his head.

"Sam, I'm of the Tok'ra, Selmac will protect me, besides, blue isn't my color."

'Janet isn't going to like that. What about contaminants? Dad might not catch anything but he still could be a carrier.' The blonde opened her mouth to protest this very point but Jacob gave his child a warning glance and the argument died in Sam's throat.

For a long moment all the young blonde major did was to look over the specimen on the table, her fingers tracing the lines of the helmet, "This helmet is made up of two pieces. Pass me those forceps." Sam said reaching out her hand for the requested tool.

Jacob complied and Sam used the forceps to force the seam at the top of the helmet twisting the forceps so the seam would open just a bit. Taking up the pry bar from her side of the table the blonde used it to pop the seam open. Gaseous steam and clear viscous fluid escaped as she continued to pry the helmet open, with a slurping sound as if a boot was yanked out of mud the first part of the helmet was pulled away. The fluid that had leaked out congealed quickly as it hit the air into a sticky white substance that oozed out and onto the instruments and Sam's fingers.

Sam wasn't above hiding her shudder of distaste. The sound, the gelled look of the creature and the slime had had its effect. Looking at her, you knew she was grossed out. Jacob wasn't fairing any better, he looked like he would rather be anywhere but where he was.

'I don't know HOW Janet manages to work with internal organs, slime seeping wounds, viruses that make pussy sores, ichor and guts. God she even put her hand in that pouch Hathor made on the Colonel with all that goo. This is just nasty!' Sam shuddered again as she pushed down her gag reflex trying to distract herself from what her father was doing.

To prove to himself he was no push over Jacob without the protection the latex gloves the older Carter pulled the faceplate away, which it did with that same sick slurp-sucking sound, to reveal the top half of the warrior's "face". If it could be called that. Calling it a face was being kind. It looked like some albino insectoid, or the face of an aborted fetus of some anima production. The warrior has translucent white "skin" even its overly large eyes faded blue were glazed over.

The bottom half of the creature's face was still covered by some sort of breathing apparatus. Sam couldn't help but compare the thing lying on the table to the fleshy white face of Vader after Luke Skywalker pulled the helmet off of the Dark Lord of the Sith.

"Looks like he's fused right into the suit," the younger Carter said, her eyes wanting to shy away from the prone figure and yet unable to look away.

"Some sort of breathing filtration system," Jacob said in an oppressive tone, almost rebuking his daughter's nearly squeamish behavior. The woman could blow up a sun, infiltrate Goa'uld motherships and System Lord's bases of operations to take them out and here she was becoming 'girly' over a dead warrior. And she called herself an Air Force officer.

Sam nodded her agreement just before she proceeded to remove the breathing apparatus. Now Jacob wanted to vomit, his own face bunched up in what Cassie, when she was twelve would have called an "eww" look.

"Holy Hannah!" both Carters remarked.

"Come on, Kiddo we have the rest of the armor to remove." Jacob repressed another shudder. Even Selmac was disgusted with what she was seeing through Jacob's eyes. *That is not right.* the symbiote uttered within the older Carter's mind, *something is definitely wrong here.*

'Ya think?' shot Jacob.

Sam ignorant of her father's internal conversation had started to remove the shoulder guards, and one of the gauntlets closest to her, leaving the rest to Jacob to remove.

"We need to re-scan this warrior," Selmac said again dismissing any notion that they should wait for Doctor Janet Fraiser. Selmac didn't see the need to wait and Jacob was just as impatient to find out just what this creature was, and how it had survived hundreds of staff and zat'ni'katel blasts.

Sam's own scientific curiosity was her own driving force to comply as easily as she had to slip the warrior back onto the gurney to wheel it back to the MRI so they could proceed with the scans.

When they arrived however they found Janet Fraiser waiting for them. Her arms were crossed, her expression cool if not cold, her delicate lips pulled back into a fine line. Sam bit her lower lip she knew she was in for it. Janet wasn't at all pleased.

"Were you going to invite me to this little soiree or simply bypass protocols like you did before?"

The doctor asked her voice as frozen as the expression plastered on her face.

Both Carters had the decency to look abashed.

"Janet...."

"Save it Major," Janet held her hand up stopping the blonde from speaking. "You need to use 'my' MRI, then lets proceed shall we?" This time the doctor looked to Jacob, her expression even more accusing as she spoke, "it seems obvious you don't have the time to follow SOP."

Sam flinched, it was rare that her lover called her by rank, rather than by name. Occasionally when protocol demanded it but most of the time, Janet and Sam were on first name basis. To the outside world it was because of the close friendship they had formed being two of the highest ranked women on the base and raising an alien child together. Everyone saw their relationship as sisterly, and nothing more. This was perpetuated by the rumor that Carter and O'Neill having something for each other, caring for one another more than they should.

"It was my judgment call, doctor," Jacob said, trying to deflect Fraiser's wrath.

"Humph," Janet snorted and turned her back on the retired general.

Janet and not either of the Carters started the scan of the warrior creature. And as soon as it began the doctor frowned. "His pupils are fixed and dilated, Of course not knowing it that is a natural element of this ....species, but my first guess was pulmonary failure. "Take a look at this," Janet pointed to the monitor, scans of the creature's internal organs appeared as the small doctor had hit the enlarge button on the keyboard.

"His whole internal organ structure reminds me of Charlie. Like someone put him together in a hurry and exaggerated everything. Overly large lungs, heart, and yet they left his brain under developed, Petecchial hemorrhaging behind the eyes ... suggesting suffocation of some sort, but there's more. There is no energy weapon trauma to the body." Janet turned to Sam and her father. "How many times did he get hit with staff and zat-guns?"

"Difficult to calculate but this warrior single handedly decimated two legions." Selmac answered.

"There is no evidence to support he was hit at all." Janet re-directed. "There should be intercranial bleeding, There is no indication of electrocution as with a first zat-blast.’

Jacob and Sam nodded. Of course neither Sam nor Janet needed a reminder, that Sam's own body had been traumatized by two hits from a Zat'ni'katel and had been clinically dead. Only a remorseful plea from a love-lorn Colonel had stayed Janet's hand as long as it had from pulling the plug as per Sam's wishes in her living will.

"It's the armor." Sam repeated what she had stated in the Gate-Room.

"The armor didn't save if from arterial infarction. It died from pulmonary failure due to its abnormal organ construction. Natural causes, you could call it, given what constitutes as its Frankensteinian internal organs. Like Charlie would have died from the same cause, this creature died because of its poor construction."

"Shouldn't the Goa'uld symbiote have saved it?" Sam asked.

Janet shook her head. "Where a symbiote saved Charlie, it could not compensate for the serious genetic flaws of the host body. Its lungs and heart are abnormally large. Almost four times as large as that typical norm for a male his size. The creature was genetically designed abnormally large organs to supply enough blood and oxygen to its muscles. Whoever genetically engineered this super soldier did so without any concern for longevity, just as the Re'tu had done with Charlie."

"Well there is one difference 'Mother' in her own way loved Charlie, I doubt Doc Frankenstein has any love for his creature. You know if Nirrti was still alive, I'd say this stinks of her handiwork. It's something she would do. If her creation didn't work the way she wanted it she'd recycle it and use it as her own legion of Jaffa. Just like she did with Albrand's people."

Janet nodded her agreement to Sam's assessment that this reeked of Nirrti's handiwork, only that particular former System Lord gone Renegade was dead. But that didn't mean that some other System Lord or minor Goa'uld hadn't picked up where Nirrti left off.

"I'd like to do a 'Y' incision after all genetic material has been analyzed. I was going to do a biopsy on several of its major organs, that way I can gain a lot information by the invasive procedures. But you have enough material to brief the General." Janet's voice was still cool. She had not forgiven Sam nor Jacob for their earlier faux-pax of neglecting to adhere to proper protocols.

Janet was absolutely the epitome of professionalism which had Sam very worried. She had done more than infringe on Janet's territory she had slapped the smaller woman in the face and harmed her deep feelings. It was going to be a serious repair job.

"Major you should take the findings to the General." Janet repeated once more using the title of rank rather than her name. A sting to Sam, who winced inwardly, regretting she had been so unprofessional and inconsiderate.

Jacob seemed to pass it off, the small woman would get over it if she was a proper soldier, after all only children whined about what belonged to them and when someone else touched their belongings. A real Air Force officer took his...or in this case her licks, sucked it up and did her duty. The military didn't have room to coddle simpering sniveling cry babies who had hurt feelings.

Sam nodded, "Of course doctor."

~~~

'I can't believe that small woman is holding a grudge,' Jacob complained to Selmac.

*Yes and I am sure your wife was never upset with you.*

Jacob signed heavily, 'I forgot they are together....so this is more personal. But still they shouldn't cross personal lines with professional. Sam never brings her home into work.'

*Jacob don't be an idiot. Doctor Fraiser has every right to be upset that we encroached on her domain. Technically we have validation but if you want to play the ' professional card.' we lost that hand as you would say.*

"You have some serious making up to do with that little firecracker."

Sam turned to her father, her mouth hanging open. Obviously stunned. "Me? I was the one who said we should wait. Dad, don't even try to lay this all on me! You and Selmac pushed to do the test, yeah sure I was excited, I wanted to know how the armor worked in relation to the warrior, but I could have waited, we should have waited. Janet Fraiser has every right to be pissed."

"She's going to file a complaint." Jacob scoffed.

"I doubt it, but she has every right." Sam slowly admitted.

The young blonde major was spared any retort her father would have given as the doors to the elevator opened on floor twenty-eight. Both Carters pushed what had happened between themselves and Doctor Fraiser back for the moment so that they might share their findings with General Hammond.

~~~

"It's a Goa'uld. Quite frankly, that's not as shocking as the host." Sam said as she flicked the remote towards the monitor showing the MRI scan of the creatures skull and the skeleton of the symbiote.

"How so?" Hammond looked from his old friend to his blonde major.

Sam continued her explanation. "It has an incredibly unusual organ structure."

Jacob decided to take over the briefing otherwise his daughter would take forever explaining. Once some one asked her 'how' they got an in-depth theses on the topic. It was simpler just to summarize quickly. No one but a science geek had that long an attention span. "Everything's out of proportion. Physiologically, the heart and lungs had to be abnormally large to supply enough blood and oxygen to its muscles. Basically, it's like someone tried to genetically engineer the perfect athlete without any concern for longevity."

"Leaving it to the symbiote to sustain its life," Teal'c concluded.

"An engineered host," Daniel Jackson picked up the train of thought.

"A seriously flawed one. Even a Goa'uld symbiote wouldn't be able to compensate for long. We're still in the process of analyzing genetic data, but for now we can tell you...there was no evident trauma from energy weapons," Jacob said again cutting anything Sam would say off before she could say a word.

"What does that mean?" George Hammond looked to Sam, wanting the extended unabridged form. He wanted to understand everything there was to know about the creature.

"The warrior's armor seems to possess some sort of advanced energy absorption technology. If it works the way I think it does, it wouldn't matter how many staff or zat blasts were fired at it. Nothing would get through," Sam pointed out.

Hammond was a bit stunned at what he had heard. "Are you suggesting that Teal'c and Bra'tac didn't kill this Goa'uld?"

"Yes, sir. Apparently, the host was on the verge of a pulmonary failure long before it encountered them. Doctor Fraiser confirmed it," Sam added quickly.

"It had a heart attack?" Hammond wanted to make sure he understood his officer correctly.

Sam nodded, before she looked to Teal'c "Sorry, Teal'c. You didn't stop it. You and Bra'tac just got lucky." She hated the way it sounded but it was true. Lady Fortune had smiled upon the Jaffa warriors, they were in the right place at the right time to seize the black clad warrior.

"Doctor Fraiser is doing biopsies on it to discover more, with your permission sir, I'd like to return to the infirmary to assist and to collect the armor to run a battery of tests. Sir if we can extract the technological innovations in the armor we might be able to retro engineer it to implement into our own armor."

"You have a go, Major. And Major try to find out where he came from and who he serves."

"Yes, Sir."

"General, I'd like to see this..." Daniel requested. When he saw the subtle nod of the balding man the archaeologist almost bolted for the door out of the Briefing room and took the stairs down to the level proper so that he could ride the elevator up to level twenty one.

~~~

Back in the lab, Jacob, Sam and Daniel are looking at the black-clad, helmetless warrior. Janet had yet to perform the autopsy, however she had monitors hooked up to it, though dead the scans displayed the monitor read outs from the CAT-scans and MRI. As well as Janet's findings on the muscles tissue extractions she had made.

Janet must have ordered it returned to the morgue whilst the Carters had gone to brief the general. Its abnormally tall body and thick muscles made for an intimidating figure. In its armor it must have been quite a spectacle. Sam was grateful that she had not had to face such a menacing figure. If staff blasts and Zat-gun firing could not take it down what could? Ballistics? Her mind started taking notes on how to neutralize such an enemy.

'The chances of me facing one of these things alone are 10,759,348 million to one. Still even with SG-1 at my six it will be challenging...there has got to be a way to stop this thing.'

The older man was sitting down on the metal stool his eyes fixed upon the creature as Danny stood behind him, his hands shoved in his pockets. While Sam, herself stood to her father's left. Janet had left her notes on the table and set the monitors to display.

What the petite doctor had uncovered, Jacob was not paraphrasing. "It's entire cellular structure is less then three weeks old. It is organic, but it was definitely created in a lab," he was fixed upon the bone-white skeletal face of the creature now back on the metal slab of the autopsy table. Selmac was disgusted by its very creation, calling it an abomination.

Sam answered with her own comments, "Well, we know that the Goa'uld have been trying to physically perfect a host that would be superior to humans." Again a reference to Nirrti and to Pelops.

"Well this thing's definitely a lot stronger than humans but it's far from superior." Jacob offered his patented condescending opinion and at the same time corrected his daughter for her slip in thinking this creature, this abomination was superior. For someone who was a certified genius his child could sometimes hold the dumbest ideas. His duty as a father, it fell to Jacob to correct his little girl when she made such errors.

"And traditionally, the Goa'uld are also somewhat vain about their appearance." Daniel echoed Jacob's sentiment.

"This was 'obviously' intended to be a new form of foot soldier...possibly a reaction to the recent uprising of the Jaffa."

Sam ignored her father's chastising, she was fascinated by the creature if not reasonably terrified what it could mean as a new foot soldier. '5,253,709 million to one I will face one without anyone at my six. Think Carter, think how do you neutralize this enemy?'

Jacob of course continued to talk even as Sam was calculating ways to stop a legion of such devastatingly unbeatable warriors. "What's most interesting is that this being was not alive when it was first grown. It was given life after it reached its mature state."

"Frankenstein's monster." Daniel said.

"How do you know that?" Sam looked at Janet's findings and was curious, more than curious as to how her father had reached such a conclusion. Was there something Jacob had seen in Doctor Fraiser's notations that Sam had not?

Jacob tilted his head, sighed and lifted his head slightly. Of course it was Selmac who had answered. 'She' typed in a few commands upon the computers that Janet had left near the body. What came up looked like an EKG with bullet points near the spikes of the electronic readout. "Remnants of a unique energy signature within its cells. It's similar to the residual effects left by the use of a sarcophagus."

Daniel was befuddled, his blue eyes squinted as he tried to unravel all he had heard. Of course he had been saved three times by the sarcophagus not to mention addicted to its effects. "Could it give life to something that wasn't alive in the first place?"

Selmac shook 'her' head slightly, "No the sarcophagus is designed to boost health and longevity, heal or revive someone terminally injured. They are nowhere near powerful enough to animate non-living cellular matter."

"Then what could have?" asked an equally stymied Sam Carter, her blue eyes never lifted from the figure of her father.

"Thousands of years ago a Goa'uld found a device originally created by the Ancients. They determined its primary purpose was to heal. But it was so powerful, it's effects on human hosts ultimately proved devastating."

In hearing that Daniel found himself nodding 'that's for damn sure. Abducting, turning the mild-mannered hearts into maniacal despots who hurt their friends, yeah I'd say it was devastating....'

"However, after much research and experimentation, the Goa'uld was able to use the technology to create the first sarcophagus," Selmac continued.

"Obviously he wasn't able to eliminate all of its negative side effects," Voiced his earlier thoughts, the guilt of what he had done whilst under the control of the sarcophagus lingered still with him, making Jackson feel bitter about the whole experience.

Selmac went on as if Daniel's thoughts had not been uttered. "The Tok'ra have long sought this device in the hope of using it to perfect the sarcophagus technology so that we could all benefit from it. Now, it may be the key to fighting this new warrior."

"How?" Sam jumped at the chance to pick Selmac's mind for scientific answers to the questions she had been asking herself since the warrior had come into their possession.

"With the device we may be able to devise a weapon to counteract this life giving energy," Selmac answered.

Time for stories, myth and legend to play its part in all of this. There had to have been documented tales of wondrous healing device. The cauldron of life from ancient Celtic myths sprang to mind as did several other such tales. "Who was the first Goa'uld to find the device?" Daniel asked.

"His name was Telchak."

"Telchak..." Daniel clarified, his librarian's mind sorted quickly through the catalog in his head and came up with an answer. "I think I have an explanation... or....an ID on this guy. It's in my lab."

~~~

Not a short time after.....

Jackson had left with Dr Lee to fly to Southern Honduras, based upon the information recorded by Doctor Nicholas Ballard, Jackson's grandfather's recordings about the so-called Fountain of Youth. Doctor Ballard had claimed he found evidence indicating the source of the fountain's power was a piece of alien technology used by early Mayan tribes around 900 BC. They traced its origins to Chac, the Mayan god of rain. Daniel had reasoned that Telchak and Chac were one and the same.

Nick believed Chac's temple was located somewhere in Central America. He spent decades of his life searching for it but came up empty. The only reason Jackson had been given the go sign from Hammond was because the Goa'uld dialect Doctor Ballard had recorded and the reasonable explanation of the healing devices power and that it was responsible for the creation of the warrior.

But it wasn't Telchak that created the warrior, he had created the sarcophagus, but it was Anubis that gone to war with him for possession of the original Ancient device. That was long ago, before Anubis attempted to ascend. According to Selmac, Anubis defeated Telchak, but he never did find the device. It was believed to be hidden in one of Telchak's many temples.

Sam had her theories, she knew on a calculated educated guess that Anubis was behind it all. The Half ascended System Lord knew about the technology. While he never actually found the device he ultimately wouldn't need to. He would have gained access to the knowledge when he ascended. He could have built himself a new one. Obviously he had, still it was still only a guess. But it was a good one. What sold the general on the expense of personal and the trip and the red-tape the Honduran Government was Daniel Jackson's belief that the original Ancients device was most probably still here on Earth.

If they could analyze the technology of this device it might be possible to engineer a weapon the SGC and the Tok'ra could use against the warriors. Sam of course added the possibility of harnessing its power to heal. She was still feeling the guilt about taking over her colleague and lover's lab.

~~~

Sam came up behind her beloved in the autopsy room hesitant to intrude upon the doctor's work. The warrior had been stripped completely of his armor which now lay on the adjacent exam table. His chest was sliced open in the 'Y' incision as Janet was busily removing its organs for individual examination, as she was doing so she was recording her findings.

Sam scrunched up her nose at the horrid smell coming from its open chest cavity. If the creature stank from the congealed slime on the outside it positively reeked from the inside. The blonde was expecting red organs and blood, what she discovered was blueish blood similar to the silicon-Naquada based blood running through the Goa'uld's systems. Sam was accustomed to hemoglobin but this creature was so blanched it was like cutting up a - well she didn't know what - but it wasn't anywhere near human more like the internal organs of a symbiote

Janet herself was dressed similarly to Sam's earlier garb of surgical scrubs, gown, caps gloves and the face shield. The doctor looked up meeting the eyes of her lover, freezing them. And still the doctor would not speak.

"I am sorry." Sam said.

Janet ignored her.

"Janet.....can we talk about this?" Sam was helpless in what she should do next, how she could fix the line she had crossed.

"You want to be forgiven? Fine you're forgiven."

"Just like that?"

"What else do you want from me major," Janet was still glowering.

"Um... how about putting that scalpel down first?" Sam nodded towards the razor sharp instrument the Lilliputian physician was wielding.

Janet slammed it down on the tray causing Sam to jump. The next move Janet made was to remove the goo covered latex gloves then turn off the recording device in the room. "Satisfied?"

"Janet...look I am really sorry. I just got excited."

"And that's supposed to be a legitimate excuse?"

"No." Sam ran her hands over her blonde hair making it look even more like the bloom of a thistle. "But it is the motivating reason, as is the insistence of my dad and Selmac, he can be so stubborn sometimes."

"And you just couldn't stand up to your father?!" Janet ripped off the gown that covered her scrubs and ripped the helmet off as with the pink mask covering her mouth. Her arms crossed, her stare bore into Sam's heart. "Look, Major CARTER, I don't go into your lab and play with the naquada reactors, or hop through the Stargate to neutralize System Lords, or take over the Prometheus from hijackers, or jump on an Al'kesh to blow up suns! I don't play around with time travel, quantum mirrors or enhanced zero-point-generators to travel to the Asgard homeworld! And I don't take advantage of our relationship to storm into your lab to do what ever the hell I please. The only times I have ever gone there was on medical business and because I care about you, about my other patients...’

'Janet is leaving me....'

"... this is my place, mine! It's bad enough my opinions are cast to the wind when it comes to the health of my people. The lot of you major including Hammond decided my words was shit when it came to Teal'c when you took out Junior...’

'Janet is leaving me....'

"... and I was overridden when it came to Apophis. God, I know you were all tortured by him, don't you think it hurt me to have to heal him? But I made a vow, an oath I take more seriously than my own life. I will give up my life Sam to keep that vow, that oath that is how much it means to me! And YOU threw me to the side when that Tok'ra bimbo that calls herself a scientist latched on those fucking armbands! And you 'never' take me serious about your own health. You get anemic, and you don't sleep enough and I have had enough of it! This was the last straw major!"

Sam paled all she could think of was she had just lost Janet. She didn't even stop the tears that fell from her blue eyes. 'Janet is leaving me.....'

"Now you are going after another one of these things!" Janet was on a roll, her anger was rising to near volcanic proportions. "Even if Daniel does find the Ancient device, there is no guarantee the Tok'ra can devise a weapon capable of fending off these warriors. And I know you are capable of a lot of things, Sam but even you might hit a wall with this. We only have a limited amount of knowledge from our study of the dead warrior and its armor. The only way to learn more is through interrogation, Which means you have to capture one alive," Janet was livid and worried.

'Janet is leaving me....'

SG1 had done many impossible odd-defying things over the years, but capturing a live specimen seemed to be improbable. How could they capture it, if nothing harmed it?

Sam wasn't thinking about the warrior, about the up coming mission, the task laying before Daniel and Dr Lee in recovering the Ancient device. What she had heard was she was losing a part of her soul. 'Janet is leaving me....' Saddened blue eyes lifted to meet Janet's, her heart broken.

"I'm so sorry."

"Only now you're sorry! Like Cassie you're sorry you got caught doing something you shouldn't have."

"No!" Sam blurted out. "No, I'm sorry I wasn't thinking, I'm sorry I didn't stand up to my dad. I should have waited, I didn't. I'm sorry I took advantage of what we have to overtake your lab."

Janet didn't say a word.

Sam moved forward, her face imploring her lover to listen, begging the smaller woman's heart to yield. She couldn't find her voice, her throat too tight to gather the sound to speak.

"I am so pissed at you right now, you and your father. It must be hereditary." Janet was still glowering. "A Carter thing."

"Don't leave me." Sam managed to say.

"What?" Janet was frowning for an entirely different reason now other than anger.

"You said it was the last straw. I don't want to lose you." Sam uttered almost too softly to be heard. "I know I messed up and I am sorry for not including you. I can't lose you Janet. Not ever. If I lost you.....I would lose my world. I can't do that. I can't lose you, Janet."

"I am pissed with you, not leaving you." Janet growled. "When you go off on this mission don't you dare come back injured." The tiny doctor didn't feel like dropping her anger. Not just yet.

"You're not making me go? We're still together?" Sam reached for Janet's hand holding it tight.

Janet pursed her lips as if reconsidering her answer. "Pull a stunt like this again, Sam and...I'll have to re-think our positions. I won't be walked over, and I won't be taken advantage of and you can tell your father the next time he is in MY lab he better be needing my skills as a physician."

"I will," Sam nodded eagerly. "Janet, I will never take you for granted again. You are my best friend, my heart, my soul's ease and my heart's desire. You are my love."

Janet couldn't help but smile at Sam's admission. "Remember that when you're tempted to cross that line again, Sammy."

The blonde major flashed the brilliant 'Carter smile' "You just called me 'Sammy.' You have forgiven me," Sam was almost giddy.

"Yes, I've forgiven you," Janet stepped closer. "Sam be careful out there, this super soldier the way its constructed....limited brain activity, giving it an almost single minded agenda, almost child like, if I wanted to make a true comparison its like Cassie's Borg from her show. Driven to do its master's will. It uses the symbiote for longevity, but I examined it as well and it also had a very underdeveloped brain. The creature was even less. A dog with limited vocal capability, like a one year old child.

"It was made for the sole purpose of war. Not against humans but against Jaffa and other Goa'uld. It will massacre any human. If you're going to subdue this thing you're going to need a hell of a lot of tranquilizers. Enough that would kill a typical Goa'uld, it might make the super soldier slow down or even stop. Figure out that armor and if it can be touched by our armor piercing teflon bullets and I'll come up with something to hopeful knock it out. Too bad you can't just trap it in an enclosed space and take away the oxygen until it passes out. That way you'd be sure you have it under control. It would take a good ten minutes or more to suffocate it, but it would work."

"I'll keep that in mind," Sam said still in awe she hadn't lost the woman she had given her soul, her heart, her love to. 'I still have my girl! My girl still loves me! Hell I feel I can take on one of these by myself! My girl loves me!' Sam reached to take Janet into an embrace but the doctor stopped her.

"The goo." Janet said indicating that even though she had a surgical gown on, she had felt concerned about the way she smelled, she knew the stink of the slime had seeped into her pores and into her hair follicles she would have to take several lemon juice showers to get rid of the death-stink.

"I don't mind, I have my girl back," Sam retorted.

Janet smiled at that, more for the fact that Sam didn't allow the stink of the slime to stop her from being close. "Yes you do. Now go do your thing and let me do mine, Sammy. I'll let you know whether I find out anything more that will help you. And before you go off to capture a live one, I'll have a trank to hopefully neutralize it. Be careful Sam, I want you back in one piece."

"I'll watch my six, don't worry." She wanted for all the world to kiss Janet, but they were in the middle of the autopsy room and anyone could walk by and see, the military was still the military.

"I wont get hurt."

Famous last words.

"I'll hold you to that!" Janet mockingly threatened.

"Jan?" Sam looked down to her booted feet. "I really am sorry. I was out of line, and so was my father. It's not ever going to happen again." This was a promise, one Janet knew that could be kept, unlike the promise of not getting hurt.

"I'll hold you to that too, Major," Janet smiled this time as she said Sam's rank things were right between them once more.

The end