After all these years, and all the battles of his life, you'd think he'd get used to it. But the noise, the chaos, the stench… he'd never stop hating this.

Damn, damn. Whatever those weapons were, they scared the shit out of him. The flashes shocked his eyes; the ripping noise they made speared his eardrums. And the impacts were tearing the rock wall behind him to pieces.

Desperately, he clawed at the debris trapping his legs. The pile of shattered rock provided a modicum of protection from the attack of the five Jaffa, but it also effectively immobilized him. And…

He carefully kept his gaze from settling on the still body crumpled against the wall. From the shape of his head, Edwards wasn't going to care about the outcome of this particular contretemps. The first flurry of flying rock had taken him out. They weren't having a lot of luck with their… fourth.

He forced his thoughts away from that path. No time, no point.

Twisting, O'Neill shot off half a clip at the hazy shadows he thought represented the Jaffa. A yelp suggested he'd made some sort of contact. So far, he was holding them off. But he wasn't going to last much longer.

"Carter!" he shouted into his radio. "Gettin' hot here! What's your ETA?"

"We're about twenty minutes away, Sir. Hang on," her panting voice urged.

"Yeah, right," he murmured. "Shit!" He flinched down into his rock nest, body shaking at the ground-quaking impacts of the energy bolts. The already hazy air thickened with swirling smoke and pulverized rock.

As the latest salvo faded, he forced his body as upright as possible against the rock load pinning him down and sprayed the other half of his clip into the opaque mess. His answer was a renewal of the assault, the booming of the unknown energy weapons joined by the fierce shouts of the attacking Jaffa.

And something new had been added. There were now white, snake-like flashes twisting and writhing among the angry orange-yellow of the original energy bolts. The white flashes were almost continuous, whipping and striking through the dust and debris, leaving glowing trails behind them, adding a snarling whine to the cacophony.

Jack cringed down against the ground, hands whipping from the gun to his ears, eyes squeezing shut against the almost unbearable brilliance of the assault. If he survived, he figured he'd be blind and deaf. Sonofabitch.

Gradually, he became aware of the silence. No more booming shots, no more explosive assaults against the rock wall that towered over him.

Cautiously, he sat up. And realized that his legs were no longer trapped.

"Ooookay. This is… interesting."

There was no sign of movement. The air was still chokingly full of debris and smoke, and small writhing snakes of white still occasionally whipped through it.

Jack slowly rose to his knees, which showed a disconcerting tendency to quiver. Squinting, he thought he could see a couple of dark prostrate shapes that could very well be felled Jaffa.

He shook his head in bemusement, trying to wipe the grit from his eyes. Then he slowly swiveled around, searching for the source of his rescue.

And felt a gentle, whispering touch—a breath of a stroke across his right cheek.

His hand flew to his face. "Wha…?"

Another fleeting caress of his left cheek—and this time he thought he caught the flicker of a blindingly white ribbon.

"…Daniel…?" he whispered, rising shakily to his feet.

And as the dust and debris settled, he was sure he saw the receding flicker of brilliant white, fading into the distance.

Maybe they had a fourth after all…

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