SPARTAN Armory, SGC, Earth

"Colonel Prower? Are you in here?" Luna said as she entered the room she had been escorted to.

"Yeah, I'm back here Luna." Kerra replied from behind the partition in the back of the room.

"I was told that you had left earlier and that you had returned." Luna said. "Your Dr. Lam released me from her care. I was told that I would be in your charge for the time being."

"That is correct." Kerra said as she stepped around the partition, now clad in her armor's underlayer.

"During the times that I am not on mission I will be in charge of getting you acclimated to the experience of being an alien on a strange new world." She continued. "That is also contingent on what happens in the next few weeks."

"What is happening?" Luna asked.

"One of our scouting teams, by pure fucking chance, found my home world." Kerra said. "But, just our luck, a ship of one of our enemies is parked on the planet. So I am getting ready to go deal with it." She finished as she approached the rig to assemble her armor.

Pushing a few buttons on the panel next to the rig, she stepped into the boots as they deployed and slid her hands into the gloves where they were held for her. The rest of the armor was quickly attached to her underlayer and the reactor was taken out of standby once the helmet was sealed.

The arms released her and she shook her limbs and tails out to release the tension of holding the position to don the armor.

"What is that?" Luna asked.

"This is the MJOLNIR Mk VI Powered Assault Armor. I am the only one in existence that can run this suit due to the augmentations required." Kerra explained as she stepped off the platform and moved to have the shields initiated.

Luna watched as the armored vixen stepped onto the second platform and there was a buzz and a pop before a golden light shimmered around her.
"Energy shields." Kerra explained. "I can generate my own, but this takes the strain of maintaining them off me." She added as she moved to the rack of weapons and began grabbing magazines and grenades, slotting them into the pouches on her torso.

"I see. This enemy is dangerous then?" Luna asked.

"At this point they are like cornered animals. They spent millennia as the overlords of the galaxy, killing and enslaving trillions. In less than two decades, the SGC and our allies have all but wiped them out." Kerra said as she grabbed a rifle and loaded it before securing it to her back.

"So you have committed genocide?" Luna asked, a horrified look on her face.

"Luna, you have to understand. The Goa'uld, the Wraith, the Ori, they are monsters." Kerra said, removing her helmet to meet Luna's gaze. "They have enslaved countless worlds, used the inhabitants for their twisted experiments, as hosts, food, and power. They stood unchallenged and unchecked for countless generations. Every time there was a rebellion, it was quashed. They even ruled over Earth for a time until their slaves were successful in throwing them off the planet. They buried the gate and that was that." She said before sighing.

"That was over two thousand years ago. Then we dug up the gate almost a hundred years ago. It sat in storage after some early experiments until about twenty years ago. Then we made them aware of our presence and that the gate was active again." Kerra explained. "They struck first and started this war. We are just working on finishing this fight."

Luna's face took on an apologetic expression. "I am sorry Colonel Prower. I have judged you and these humans without the whole story." She said, eyes down cast until she felt a hand on her shoulder. She looked up to see Kerra smiling at her.

"That is because where you are from, friendship is quite literally magic. Your people have the ability to do amazing things and not have to suffer from want." Kerra said. "Your wars have probably not been anything like what humanity has waged, and still wages to this day. Until you came here, you had no concept of the wider universe as a place that contained other civilizations. I know that your people would make excellent diplomats, just by being yourselves. But our enemies are not ones for diplomacy. It is surrender and be enslaved or die for your beliefs."

"So you stand and fight?" Luna asked.

"I do." Kerra said. "As someone once said it is better to die on your feet and free than to be a content slave in chains for what is right and just. Of course I think I totally butchered that quote, but the point remains. It has gotten to the point that the Jaffa, the loyal soldiers of the Goa'uld, people who saw the Goa'uld as gods, have realized that they are slaves themselves. They have begun to cast off the shackles that bound them for generations. Their cry is 'Shel kek nem ron'
or 'I die free'. They have cast off the shackles of the false gods and in some cases have struck them down. Only the most fanatical remain loyal."

Luna smiled back. "I agree. Our wars might have been small, but when we saw injustice, we were driven to correct it. We always tried diplomacy first, but would not hesitate to do what was needed."

Kerra nodded. "That is all we can do. Now, the rest of my team is waiting and I have some bastards to kick out of my backyard." She said with a smirk. "Would you like to come and see me off?"

"I think I would, Colonel Prower." Luna replied.

"Luna, just call me Kerra. All my friends do." Kerra said as she led the way to the gate room.

Kerra and Luna entered the gate room to find General Landry talking to Dr. Woolsey.

"Dr. Woolsey, this is a surprise." Kerra said when there was a lull in the conversation.

"Colonel Prower. Good to see you again." Dr. Woolsey replied. "I will be joining you when you return to your home world." He added.

"Happened to be on Earth and they tasked you to do some diplomacy?" Kerra asked.

"Yes. Though, from what I understand about your home world from the old transcripts when you first arrived on Earth, your people, even when differing in their opinions, will be a nice break from dealing with the Wraith." Woolsey said with a sardonic smirk.

Kerra laughed. "This is true. The council may be obstinate, but they can be reasoned with. What is the IOA wanting? An alpha site?" She inquired.

"And a shipyard if possible. The lone shipyard we have on Earth is too hard to hide and limited in how much work can be done. That and it would be too hard to make adjustments to it to allow for other designs." Woolsey replied. "Which is where you come in."

Kerra blinked. "So wait, does that mean my designs will be built?" She asked.

Woolsey nodded with a smile. "We were finally able to convince them that while a good stop gap, the Daedalus-class is too limited and as the war with the Ori showed us, we are horribly out gunned in most of the universe. Your designs would level the playing field and let us approach things like this from a position of strength should it come to it."

Kerra's smile was reaching Cheshire cat proportions. "Dr. Woolsey, you have no idea how happy that makes me. So what would my role be? Lead designer?"

"How does commander sound?"

Kerra blinked. "And here I was thinking that the IOA merely tolerated me. I would be honored."

Woolsey nodded. "Then I suggest that we depart." He said, before turning to Luna. "Her Highness is welcome to accompany us as well if she would like. Give her a chance to breathe some fresh air."

Luna smiled. "Thank you Doctor. I would, if it is alright with Colonel Prower and General Landry." She replied

Kerra shrugged. "I don't have an issue with it. I know staying in the mountain isn't much fun. Especially when you have a desire to fly." She replied before keying her helmet's radio. "General, your opinion?"

General Landry smiled. "Dr. Lam cleared Luna for gate travel when she released her from the infirmary. This way, should she decide to stay on Mobius for a while, it will allow the IOA a chance to figure out how to handle her situation. At least there she will have a bit more comfort than we can offer here." He replied via the loudspeaker in the gate room. "Colonel, Doctor, Princess. You have a go." He added as the gate engaged.

Kerra turned to Luna. "Stay with Dr. Woolsey. I will be moving quick. He has been through the gate several times, and knows what to expect." She said.

"Of course. I will await your successful return." Luna replied.

"Count on it." Kerra said before polarizing her visor and keying her mike.

"Sierra Gulf One Niner, Sierra Zero Four Eight. I am Oscar Mike. Sitrep?" Kerra called for Cam.

"Things have kinda gotten warm here, Four Eight." Cam replied.

"What's going on?" Kerra replied as she double checked her rifle.

"Bad guys at the perimeter of the city. Aura was able to detect them and get the shield up, but it won't take much of a beating if they open up, even from the staff weapons. If the ship comes, we're humped."Cam replied.

"Understood. Any idea on who we are going up against?" Kerra inquired.

"Looks like another Ba'al clone we must have missed."Cam said before adding: "I really hate that guy."

Kerra chuckled. "I do too. I'm on my way. Make sure you have your beacon on and I have a clear path. Once I get going, there won't be any brakes on this pain train." She said as she took her stance, preparing to run through the gate.

"Understood. Beacon is active."Cam replied. "I estimate you have less than five minutes before Ba'al has his guys open fire."

"Alright." Kerra said before turning to look at the control room.

"Spartan Prower, you have a go."Landry ordered from over the intercom.

"Alright! Let's sprint this!" Kerra shouted as she charged up the ramp, the metal straining under the weight.

Kerra emerged from the other side of the gate and didn't break her stride as she blitzed through the open door, Rotor and Chuck standing off to one side with their jaws hanging in shock as her heavy footfalls cracked the concrete.

She paid that no mind as she gained speed, heading down the thoroughfare towards the nav beacon on her HUD.

Suddenly a pair of workers with a large piece of furniture walked into her path.

Swearing, she dropped into a slide, her shields flaring as she slid along under the large couch, before her thrusters fired, launching her into the air and landing on her feet and continuing to run in one smooth, awe inspiring movement.

Finally she reached the edge of the city, she was able to identify her team, Ba'al, and Robotnik there.

Ba'al and Cam were exchanging insults while Robotnik watched on and observed the background. Then his eyes widened when he saw Kerra charging at them, her black armored form throwing up dust and debris as she left clear boot prints in her wake.

"Aura! Make a hole!" Kerra shouted a moment before a hole opened in the shield, just in front of Robotnik. He tried to maneuver his normal egg pod away, but Kerra fired her thrusters once again and slammed into the pod with her armored shoulder.

"How do you like them apples Julian?" Kerra shouted as she turned her rifle onto the assembled Jaffa Loyalists and menagerie of bots before opening fire.

What followed was a brief, ten minute, one-sided firefight that left over a hundred Jaffa on the ground bleeding or dead and an equal number of bots destined for the scrap heap.

"Ba'al! What the devil is going on?!? Who or what is that thing?" Robotnik yelled at the system lord clone.

Ba'al merely shrugged. "This is the Demon of the Tau'ri, Lieutenant Colonel Kerra Prower. She has been a thorn in my side for years. Very intelligent, and as you can see, capable of extreme levels of violence." He replied.

"Wait, did you say Prower?" Robotnik said before turning to Kerra. "It can't be. Tails, after all these years?"

"You got it Egghead!" Kerra replied. "I'm still capable of busting up your kindergarten toys without my armor too! Now I just have one job left to do!"

"And what would that be Colonel?" Ba'al inquired, smug as usual.

Kerra vanished in a flash of green light. Seconds later a powerful explosion rocked the area as Ba'al's ship exploded, leaving a rising mushroom cloud as Kerra reappeared behind him.

"Taking care of your ship, and this." Kerra said as she ignited a plasma sword and drove it into Ba'al's back, drawing the blade upward, splitting his upper torso and head in two.

Kerra then turned to Robotnik, removing her helmet as she did so.

"As for you Julian, I would love nothing more than to punch you in your sorry face until your head is nothing but a bloody pulp, but I do follow the Law of Armed Conflict, so I won't." She said as she drew her sidearm. "Now give me one good reason not to blow your brains all over the ground here and now."

"Cosmo! Cosmo. She's alive, she came back from the seed Sonic recovered after the battle. I'm not sure how but she did. After you disappeared, I went rooting about your workshop and I found the plant. That little Seedarian was a thorn in my side, but I'm not so cruel as to just let your one connection to her die. I kept her plant safe, just in case you ever returned." He said in a panic.

Kerra narrowed her eyes. A trick like this would be right up Robotnik's alley. "Alright, where is the plant then?" She asked.

"My lab. Top level." Robotnik replied.

Kerra attached her helmet to her belt. "Alright, you're coming with me." She said as she grabbed Robotnik and teleported away.

"So, someone want to explain who this Cosmo is?" Cam asked the Mobians that had joined SG-1 at the city's edge.

Sally sighed. "She was an alien from a race known as the Seedarians. She was the last of her kind. Tails, Kerra, took a liking to her, but was just starting to understand those feelings when Cosmo sacrificed herself to buy Kerra a chance to take the shot that saved the galaxy. She never forgave herself for it. She probably still hasn't."

"She hasn't." Sam replied. She held up her hands. "She never mentioned names, but she did tell me about how a friend that she had come to care a great deal for sacrificed herself to save a lot of people. She just didn't mention that it was the fate of the galaxy at stake at the time."

Kerra and Robotnik arrived at the top level of his desert island lab.

"Done some remodeling I see." Kerra said as she looked around. "Now, where is she?"

"Down that path." Robotnik said, gesturing towards the center path.

Kerra grunted and pulled him along with her as she walked, her heavy footsteps thudding as she did.

"What are you going to do to me?" Robotnik asked.

"No idea yet." Kerra replied. "Make no mistake, you are going to die today, no doubt about that. But I haven't quite decided on the method of execution."

"You can't do that!" Robotnik yelped. "I'm a prisoner!"

"And with no one else here, there isn't anyone who can stop me." Kerra replied. "This isn't business like it was with Ba'al. With you, this is personal."

"But those humans you were with, they wouldn't let you get away with it." Robotnik said. "They would see you punished."
"They could try, but short of a black hole, no prison can hold me. I can't die, not for long anyways, and stasis is just making it someone else's problem." Kerra replied. "Same with banishment. I have been stranded off world before and was able to make a signal to get help with hardly anything appropriate for the task. Given enough resources and time, which I have plenty of, I could build a ship and become a right nuisance for them if I so chose. But the thing is, outside of those that I have known for years, very few of the humans that know me aren't afraid of me. My powers, my strength, my intelligence, it gives them pause and fills them with dread at the possibility that I might go off the rails and turn on them."

"What is stopping you?" Robotnik asked as they approached the central area of the chamber.

"Not much really. Losing the few people I could call friends and the thought of disappointing her are all that really keep me grounded and not going all "God Empress of Everything" on the known universe." She replied as they entered the central area, her breath catching as she saw her objective.

Standing near the tree, a plate of fruits resting on a table next to her, stood a painfully familiar figure.

Kerra stood silently as she looked over the individual. Definitely female, slender and about a head shorter than Kerra outside of her armor, her long green hair pulled back into a thick braid, a few loose strands framing her pale face as she stood next to the tree, one hand placed upon it, as if in silent meditation or prayer.

"Cos...Cosmo?" Kerra croaked out, her throat tight with emotion.

Cosmo's eyes opened and then widened as she saw Kerra.

"Tails, is that you?" She asked, taking a small step forward.

Kerra nodded. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" She said, swallowing back some emotion.

"Not so long for me. I only finished my regeneration a couple of years ago." Cosmo explained.

"Regeneration?" Kerra asked.

Cosmo nodded. "It is something that some of my kind were capable of. When we died, we would become a seed and from that seed, a plant of some kind would sprout. From that plant, eventually we would be reborn, usually as we were in our prime." She explained. "It was a very rare gift amongst Seedarians."

"Well, I'm glad that you have this gift." Kerra said. "There is so much I want to tell you, so much that I couldn't before the final battle

"We have time for that now, Tails." Cosmo said with a smile.

"Though, I do have to ask you to do something for me." Kerra said. "I, my team and I, we have been tricked by copies before. I have to know that it is really you. What is something that I had only told you, and where was it that I told you that thing?"

Cosmo stopped to think. "It was one night on the Blue Typhoon's main bridge. We were on watch that evening and everyone else was in their quarters. I had asked why you seemed to shy away from hugs and such from Cream. You told me that you were hiding your gender and why you were doing so." She said finally.

Kerra released the tension in her shoulders and slowly walked over to the other woman.

"You are the only one that I willingly told that story to before I went through the Stargate. The Quacks are the only other two who know because they helped me hide who I truly was to protect myself. I only talked about it with a couple of people on Earth. One was the woman who wound up adopting me and the other was a psychologist I have been seeing to help deal with some other things. She wanted to know my story so she could better understand how to help me work through things." She said after a moment.

"I understand. It was hard to hear you tell it. But what did you need a psychologist for, if you don't mind my asking?"

Kerra sighed. "I have a condition called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. From what my doctor was able to determine, it goes back to that night, and the coup that his," She paused to jerk a thumb over her shoulder, "predecessor staged and the ensuing years of fighting in the resistance didn't help with." She finished with a wry chuckle. "All of us have some serious issues. My time with Stargate Command has only deepened them and added a few more. Honestly, if I weren't capable of recognizing when I am too deep and pulling back, I probably would have been pulled off the line and thrown into Area 51 years ago."

"Is that armor part of it?" Cosmo asked gently as she approached and placed her hand on the chest piece.

Kerra nodded. "In the beginning, I only wore it when I needed to. But after a few bad missions, I started wearing the underweave all the time and would only wear the armor when I went into the field, even on simple missions to just meet up with the locals, ones where there was no threat. It became a problem when they found me sleeping in it in my lab one night." Kerra said quietly, her gauntleted hand gently resting on Cosmo's smaller one. "I had to be given a direct order to get out of it. I was also repressing my emotions to a dangerous extent. I was slowly turning into the perfect soldier. It took a lot to pull me back." She chuckled. "It took Teal'c and Ronan on one of his rare visits to Earth to knock me out of it. I was put on medical leave. Thankfully I had managed to figure out a way to blend in with the human populace by then. I got told to see the world, so I grabbed my passport and headed for the British Isles. Spent a month traveling around from town to town, just taking in the sights until I happened to run into a crusty old SAS officer in this little pub. Said he saw the war in me. He helped me out a lot."

"I'm glad." Cosmo replied. "I definitely want to get to know the real you though, not the front you put up."

Kerra looked at her. "You sure? There are a lotta things that I have done that aren't the best darlin'." She said before holding up her hands. "These hands are stained and my ledger is gushin' red. Nothing can wipe it clean at this point, and I probably won't be able to stop from adding to it. Either from my creations, or my deeds."

"But you understand that it affects you. That is enough to show that there is still good in you." Cosmo replied with a kind smile. "That is enough for me."

Kerra closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath.

"Julian, today is your lucky day. You just got a reprieve." She said, not turning to look at him. "My suggestion, retire. Try and do something that helps the world rather than try and dominate it."

Robotnik nodded. "I think I shall do that. Getting too old for the whole world domination thing." He replied, a rare sincerity to his words.

Kerra nodded before pulling Cosmo close and disappearing in a flash of green.

The pair reappeared just inside the shield of New Mobotropolis.

"Prower, how did things go?" Cam asked.

"Better than expected, Sir." Kerra replied. "Though I am finding myself in need of some sleep. Today has been a whirlwind of emotions for me and it is starting to catch up to me now that the shooting has stopped. Permission to find a place to crash?"

Cam nodded. "That sounds like a capital idea." He replied. "It is almost sundown according to Sally, so we were going to get some accommodations for the night and start talks tomorrow. Let's find a place and get you out of that armor."

"I think Chuck and Rotor can help me with that. Let's go find them. I saw them in the building with the Gate." Kerra replied as she turned to head back to the building.

Author's Note

Sorry for the long delay everyone! Had some issues with this after I had to rescue my files from a compromised google account. Finally got it working properly and can finally post this.