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Date: 49:3:21 (14 years after the Battle of Yavin)

Sandoval Grey, Lieutenant Commander in a military that he'd unwittingly deserted over ten years ago, leaned back in his command chair and blew out a breath. "Well, I guess that does it, guys. We'll soon be prisoners of war."

"You coward," sneered Commander Cyndon, who was currently cuffed to a chair on the bridge. "You stinking, traitorous coward. How dare you surrender to those Rebel scum."

"Shut up you," Lieutenant Avers, a gruff, bearded man who was currently manning the tactical station, growled back at the bound man. "You'd have gotten us all killed, and for what, to blast a few troops on the ground?"

"To do your duty! To serve your Admiral!" retorted Cyndon, his cold blue eyes peering out from a merciless, hawk like face. "Or did you forget your oath?"

"I remember my oath," Grey replied mildly. "The oath I took was to serve and defend the Empire and its citizens, no matter the cost."

"And to follow the orders of your superiors! To follow Admiral Steele!"

"Ah, actually," spoke up Lieutenant Mikel from the helm in a hesitant voice, "since Admiral Steele's no longer part of the Empire, our oath in fact requires us to bring him to justice."

Grey chuckled quietly at that. Despite better than ten years of on-again, off-again war with the Rebellion, various self-styled Goa'uld "gods" and the frighteningly competent crew of Farpoint outpost, Mikel remained the same shy, soft-spoken, somewhat pedantic person he'd been from the beginning.

"Bah!" spat Cyndon. "This ship has always been a dumping ground for misfits, malcontents and incompetents of all stripes. You're useless, the whole lot of you!"

How useless this has all been, Grey thought. Just previous to this battle, Captain Tomalin had informed him of the true nature of their position in the Unknown Regions. Far from being the Empire's "point man," Steele had deserted the Empire, lying to the vast majority of his crew and dragging them with him to set up his own private space kingdom in alliance with the vile, body-stealing Goa'uld aliens. Tomalin had died in the battle, crushed by a fallen portion of the ceiling.

Unfortunately, this had left Cyndon in charge. While Cyndon was a competent enough leader in most ways, he was a fanatic when it came to following orders. And he'd point on the verge of sacrificing the ship and its crew to no good effect when Grey had the rest of the bridge crew in revolt against him. Grey had then attempted to make a getaway with the ship while explaining how things were to the rest of the crew, including Steele monstrous deception of them all.

Unfortunately, Farpoint's ships had too badly outnumbered them and had boxed them in. At which point, seeing no alternative, Grey had contact their Admiral Fel and offered to cease hostilities and surrender the ship.

Grey shook away his memories of recent events and looked over at Sub-Lieutenant Essel, who was manning the Sensor/Comm station. "Is there a problem, Essel?" Grey asked the man, who was working furiously at his station.

"Yes, sir, there is," Essel replied calmly. "Apparently somebody is working to subvert command of this ship and they have to be stopped."

"Oh, and who might that be?" Grey asked, standing up, his arm falling to his side.

"You!" came Essel's reply, in the cold, echoing tones of a Goa'uld, as he pulled out a blaster and fired at Grey.

"Yeah, I was afraid you'd say that," Grey said, diving for cover. The bolt slammed into the chair to which Cyndon was cuffed, shattering it.

"Fools, traitors to your God!" roared the thing from within Essel's body, as it laid down cover fire and bolted toward the doors. "Lord Sobek will devour your living souls!"

Cyndon, freed from his chair, also fled toward the door, just as Grey clawed out his pistol and fired dead center into Essel's chest. Essel reeled backward, crashing into the escaping Cyndon. Both men fell to the ground. Fire suppression gas clouded into the bridge, snuffing the burning chair and consoles. Pistol raised, Grey scooted over to the prone form of Essel, which was facedown, barely visible in the smoke and gas. He turned the body over with his boot and cursed.

Essel's chest bore a fatal burn over his heart. His mouth was opened unnaturally wide and his eyes wore an expression of utter disgust and horror. Then the smoke cleared and Grey noticed that Cyndon was gone. And most likely bearing a passenger. Grey signaled the door to open but it refused. Somehow Cyndon, or more likely the Goa'uld possessing him, had sealed them in the bridge.

"Avers, get what's left of security on the horn, tell them—"

"We can't," Avers said, scowling in anger. "The blasted reptile's locked down the ship's internal comm and most of the sensors."

"Right, well, fix it, somehow." Grey looked around and spotted a young-looking Ensign, Chalmers by name, one of the conscripts from occupied worlds that Steele's forces had impressed aboard their ships in an attempt to maintain sufficient crew and otherwise mitigate the attrition of near-constant warfare.

"You, Chalmers," Grey snapped. "Your file says you're decent with ships systems. Let me ask you something, son. Do you want to go home?"

"Sir?" the young man asked, apparently caught between puzzlement and the fear of an authority figure's trap.

"Just yes or no, do you want to get off this ship and go back home? See your family again. Go back to whatever life you had before you ended up here," Grey said. "Well, that's only going to happen if this surrender goes off without a hitch. Which it won't if whatever that damned snake did to this ship isn't fixed and he isn't stopped. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir!" Chalmers replied, with a conviction he'd most likely never before displayed toward the doing of his assigned duties.

"Mikel, what's our situation out there?" Grey asked, turning to the helmsman, who'd cloned that aspect of Tactical at his station.

"Our pilots have responded and acknowledge, but it looks like there's a few Defenders from the other ships planning to fight to the bitter end."

"Damn fools," Grey huffed, annoyed at the further waste of life. "Chalmers, have we still got ship to ship communication?"

"Um, yes sir," the ensign replied. "Oh, sir, I've restored your palm print access to the secure doors. Also, there's incoming message from Admiral Fel, he's 'requesting' you to come over on a shuttle to Ashleigh. Shall I acknowledge?"

"Do it," Grey ordered. "Mikel, contact those Defender pilots and let them know their situation. Maybe some of them will see reason and call it quits before they get atomized."

"Sithspit!" growled Avers. "I'm getting activity near the engine room. It think Cyndon's going to try to set the self-destruct mechanism!"

"Sir!" Chalmers called out. "We just lost ship to ship comms on all channels!"

"Cyndon. He's planning to blast Fel's whole fleet out of space along with the us," Grey cursed.

"Could we warn them off?" Mikel asked, "Maybe fire a warning shot or something?"

"Sure, Mikel," Avers chuckled bleakly. "And then Fel's ships'll blow us to bits to reward our nobility. Forget that."

"All right," Grey said, pacing toward the door. "Avers, you're in charge until I get back. If I get back. See if you can find a way to slow Cyndon down from here, or restore the comms and contact Fel or his people. I don't care how, just get it done."

"Where will you be, sir?" Mikel asked.

"I'll be out hunting snake."

* * * * *

The first few doors dutifully surrendered to Grey's palm print, reading the ridges and opening before. Then things got hard.

"Chalmers, what's going on?" he asked over a comlink headset he'd taken prior to ordering his bridge crew to don similar headwear.

"Uh, sir," Commander Cyndon's used his data link codes to look everybody but him out of certain parts of the system. "I still have low-level access and I'm trying to do a work around, bu—"

"That's what the codes are for, to prevent workarounds," Grey sighed, feeling older by the minute.

He looked up at the ceiling trying to think of an idea and then blinked as he saw a ventilation shaft entrance. Hoisting himself up while silently vowing to decrease the more sedentary aspect of his life, Grey managed to enter the vents.

"Lords it's dusty in here, what the hell happened to all the maintenance droids?" Grey muttered.

"Uh, I think most of them were eliminated for space and power conservation reasons, sir." Mikel replied.

"Sure, that makes sense," Grey said, pushing his way through the dirt choked shafts. "It's only air, right? Who needs to breathe clean air in space?"

"Well, it could explain the rise of upper-respiratory infections we've been getting lately, sir."

Grey attempted to shove the prospect of imminent lung disease from his mind as he navigated the air vents. "Okay, I'm at a fork, where to now?"

"Okay," Mikel said, apparently studying something, form his tone. "You should make the first of two right turns about now..."

A few minutes, a banged arm, and two annoying backtracks and several growled curses later, Grey whispered, "How much further?"

"Sir," Mikel replied, "you should almost th—"

A blaster bolt punched through the vent shaft directly in front of him. "Thanks Mikel," Grey said, squirming desperately toward a drop-down grating. "I think I got it from here."

Another bolt blasted where he'd just been. He reached the grate and tumbled through, feeling something burn in near his ribs as he did so. Ignoring the pain of the shot he braced to hit Cyndon, who was shooting at him near a partially disassembled engine console. The force of impact knocked both men's weapons away and they began rolling on the ground, wrestling for control.

At which point Grey recalled that Goa'uld possessed individuals tended to be much stronger than they usually were. A backhand from Cyndon sent Grey reeling up against the ship's hull.

Cyndon was now unhindered, and seized both blasters. Grey licked his sweating upper lip, looking for an opening, but there was none. Cyndon's eyes glowed in anticipation. He leveled the blasters—and then triggered the ejection mechanisms, dropping the powerpacks from each weapon before tossing them well behind himself.

"My host desires to tear you apart with his bare hands, traitor," growled the creature. "A sentiment I share. Never let it be said that the gods are careless of their worshippers' prayers."

"Awfully big talk for something that needs other people's legs to do its walking," Grey spat.

With a roar, Cyndon sprang at him and Grey sidestepped the charge, kicking the side of his knee. Cyndon let out a brief grunt of pain, but did not fall. Instead, he pivoted on his good leg and unleashed a spin kick that would've taken Grey's head off had it connected squarely. As it was, even the glancing blow he took near the top of his forehead was enough to stagger him.

"You tire already, hu-man," Cyndon muttered. "That is the trouble with your ilk. No patience. No perseverance. No ability to wait for your moment as does our lord."

"Well, given that your lord went up like a fireworks display with the New Republic's destruction of the Super Star Destroyer Steel," Grey commented. "I'd say his moment's well and truly come and gone. Especially since Steele's pretty well been cracking the whip on you folks ever since then. Oh well, I understand why you give in so easily. It's not like you things have spines of your own."

Instead of reacting with the thoughtless rage Grey had hoped to elicit from his taunts, Cyndon, or rather the thing inside him, merely gave a knowing laugh. "Oh no, stupid heretic. Lord Sobek is not dead. Far from it. Indeed, he and your Admiral are closer than ever before. Though their 'partnership'," the Goa'uld spat the word as though it were a curse, "has been replaced by a more proper relation. That of master and slave. But rejoice, worm, for Steele is favored above all other slaves. He has the reward of carrying his god's own self within him."

"No," Grey gasped, even as his mind knew the information made sense, explaining a number of things that had happened in the war of late.

"Oh, yes," it taunted in a hollow tone. "Soon the self-destruct will be unstoppable. This ship will die, and in so doing eliminate my lord's enemies, clearing the way for his ultimate conquest. The base below will remain intact and the invasion will go forward. Your Empire will become our empire. We shall then conquer the other heretic Goa'uld using its resources. And finally, even the vaunted New Republic, as the slaves-to-be style it, will be ours. And his reign shall last forever and an ulp—"

The last part of Cyndon's speech had ended with Grey's vicious kick to his groin. Cyndon's pain receptors had been greatly lessened by the Goa'uld inhabiting him and he recovered quickly, tackling Grey before he could get to a clip and a weapon. They rolled about on the floor, the Goa'uld quickly gaining the advantage.

"You are strong in spirit for a traitor," it said, throat beginning to bulge suggestively. "I think I shall wear your form instead of this one."

Great, Grey thought. The one time somebody wants me for my body and it's this asshole.

Cyndon's hand squeezed Grey's throat while the other pinched closed his nose, forcing his mouth open, preparing to launch his obscene passenger into Grey's own body. Grey squirmed and scrabbled, trying futilely to get free. One limb hammered at Cyndon, who ignored the pounding. The other reached behind himself, grasping for something, anything, there! Grey tried to speak.

"What, you have last words for me, slave?" it asked.

"Yeah, you have something in your throat," Grey gurgled.

"What?" it asked, frowning in puzzlement.

"This!" Grey croaked, plunging the now-active sonic screwdriver into the aforementioned neck with all the force he could muster. Cyndon's eyes bulged in his head and he let out an unholy shriek. He fell back, hands grabbing at the throat to try and preserve his life and that of the creature inside him. The scream of pain went on and on its pitch going up and up and up as Cyndon's body thrashed and convulsed.

Then it stopped as Grey blasted the body, having recovered and reloaded his weapon. Cyndon lay still and at apparent peace. Grey stood still for a second, then fired several more shots into the corpse. He stopped when he heard a noise behind him and whirled.

"Easy, sir," Avers said, holding up his hands until Grey lowered his weapon.

"Sorry, just a little jumpy," Grey explained.

"I can see that," Avers nodded, looking down at Cyndon's blasted remains. "Looks like you did a number on our snake, here. Just making sure it was dead?"

"Yeah, that sounds better."

"Than what?" Avers asked.

"Than saying I never liked Cyndon all that much." Grey confessed, then shook his head in annoyance. "Forget that, we have to shut down the destruct sequence."

Swiftly he bent down near the console and saw a tangle of wires colored red, blue, yellow and green leading off in all directions from an odd looking device on the floor in front of it

"Damn, which one do we cut?" Grey asked, tension edging his voice.

Avers looked at the wires, following them closely with his gaze as Grey gripped a cutting tool in white-knuckled anxiety.

"Hmm," Avers said. "I'd say... none of 'em. Looks like you got the slimy bugger before he hooked the thing up."

Grey looked at Avers in disbelief.

"Well, they can't all be nailbiters, can they sir?" the other man said with a shrug. "It'd start to get old after a while."

* * * * *

A little later, after some judiciously applied bacta patches, a sonic shower and a change into his rather uncomfortable dress uniform, Grey stood beside the Lambda-class shuttle that would carry him to Fel on the Ashleigh.

"What'd you tell Fel about the delay?" Grey asked Mikel and Avers. "It certainly wasn't the truth, since we're still here."

"Oh, I said that there'd been in a slight accident involving some space snakes infesting the ship's systems, but that we'd taken care of it and you'd be right over," Mikel seemed proud of his newfound talent for deceit.

"Space snakes?" Grey questioned. "You don't figure Fel found that to be a little fishy?"

"He's on a Mon Calamari ship," Avers reminded them. "Everything around him is fishy."

Grey opened his mouth to reply and thought better of it. "All right. Then I guess we're done. It was good to serve with, with all of you. Now, finally, we're free."

"Well, once we get out of New Republic Prisoner of War detention, anyway," Avers noted.

"Thanks, Lieutenant, I almost had a moment of optimism, but you killed it dead."

"That's his job, sir," Mikel put in.

"And I'm good at it, too."

"See you both later. Don't let them do anything stupid while I'm gone."

And with those final words of wisdom, Lieutenant Commander Sandoval Grey boarded the shuttle and set off to perform his last duty as an Imperial Naval officer.