by Stargate
"They've got a ship!" the voice gasped. "An alien ship. They're trying to leave, Commander!"
An alien ship? Sam struggled to process the information. They're trying to leave?
"How many men up there?" Kenna sounded spooked. Instinctively, Sam knew the price of failure would be high. And not just for him. For his son too.
How do I know about his son?
"Twelve Squadron, sir. They've called for backup."
The Commander seemed satisfied, if not confident. "What about the ship? Why wasn't it detected?"
The soldier frowned. "Sir, apparently it was- Invisible, sir."
Cloaked! A tel'tak, something small enough to land on Tsapan. Hope stirred. Daniel and Teal'c. It had to be. But why are they leaving? God, they can't leave me like this!
"Invisible?" Kenna frowned and started moving toward the doorway. "They must be stopped. Tell Twelve Squadron to use any means necessary."
"Sir?" The soldier seemed surprised. "Are we not ordered to return them to the sheh fet?"
Kenna paused, and Sam sensed his indecision. He was afraid, mortally afraid for his son. For Esaum.
How do I know that?
A fleeting look came her way, barely perceptible, but Sam felt it like hot breath against her neck. Kenna was repulsed by his own inaction. So conflicted, he was ready to snap. "No," he said at last. "Shoot to kill."
Somehow, it felt like defiance.
Laser blasts were coming from everywhere at once, every single window. Daniel returned fire as best he could, but nothing stopped the relentless assault. "There's too many of them!"
"Keep firing!" Jack dropped an empty plastic clip and fluidly slid in the new one. It was the last. "Teal'c's almost- No! Damn it." Jack was on his feet, about to dart out into the battle.
"What?" Daniel scrambled upright, but dared not take his eyes from the enemy. "What happened?"
An angry burst of gunfire answered him. "He's down. Teal'c's down."
"Where?"
"I can't see him. I saw him go down." Another burst of gunfire.
"Now what?" Daniel figured they had two choices; surrender or die. Of course, for the Kinahhi, those probably amounted to much the same thing.
Jack spared him a fleeting glance, half apology and half regret. "We run for it."
Run for it? The tel'tak was out of reach, across an infinity of death and destruction. The odds of either of them making it were slim to none, and they both knew it. This was the end. "Just like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, huh?" The end of everything.
Jack grunted. "You're thinking of Harry Maybourne."
"Bonnie and Clyde?"
"Daniel...!" Anger and anxiety mingled with other emotions in the heated look Jack flung at him. Gratitude, affection, friendship. Regret. Things they'd never talked about and never would. It was a fleeting, silent farewell, and it cut to the quick.
Having no voice or time to answer, Daniel simply moved to stand at Jack's side. They'd face the end head on, shoulder-toshoulder, just like they'd faced everything over the past seven years.
Jack turned his eyes to the smoke-shrouded silhouette of the tel'tak. "Let's do it."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
elling his defiance, Jack charged into the fray. All thoughts were swamped by the adrenaline-high of battle, by the overwhelming, primal desire to survive. Every sense alive, clear as crystal. He raked the enemy with gunfire as he sprinted. Daniel was behind and to the right, the electronic fizz of his zat crawling over the Kinahhi, silencing their weapons. But more kept coming. Reinforcements. Too many.
Keep firing.
He could see Teal'c now. His right leg was bleeding, but he was moving, doggedly crawling toward the tel'tak. Never giving up. Never, ever-
A shaft of white-hot pain clipped Jack's shoulder, spinning him as he fell hard onto his right knee. He felt it blow, and cursed in pain and anger. Sonofabitch, goddamn sonofa-
"Jack!" Daniel was covering him. "Get up!"
"Go!" he shouted, nauseous with the pain. He wasn't going anywhere.
"Jack!"
"GO!" He fired again, dropping three men. "Daniel, get the hell outta-"
The bloodcurdling scream came from up high, where a man was falling, flailing to his death, from one of the tall towers. For a moment, all eyes were on him. Then the chill cry came again, but not from him. He hit the ground with a bone-shattering splat, just as a face appeared in the window above. A white, inhuman, insane face. Clutching fingers gripped the shattered window, skeletal limbs pulling the creature to perch like a gargoyle on the edge. Raising its head, it screeched again.
And was answered. Another cry rang out from behind them. Then another, closer, closer to the ground.
"What are they?" Daniel breathed, both horrified and fascinated.
The Kinahhi were in panic, backing away from the towers and into the center of the plaza. Their weapons were pointing up, down, everywhere. Someone was shouting orders, or yelling for backup - Jack couldn't hear the words.
From another window, much lower down the tower, another face appeared. Ragged hair hung from its cadaverous head, lips parted over decaying teeth. Despite the blazing agony in his knee, Jack backed up. He'd seen these faces. The creature screamed its own inhuman cry. Like Carter. Just like Carter... And then it pounced, flying like a monstrous, twisted bird through the air to land on the Kinahhi. They fired, and blood splattered from its white skin, but it didn't seem to care as it tore into the Kinahhi soldiers with all the ferocity of vengeance and hatred.
And then the others came, spilling from windows and doors in a frenzy of desperate, dehumanized retribution. The Kinahhi were swamped, screaming as they died.
"O'Neill!" Teal'c, his face glistening with a sheen of sweat, had hauled himself upright against the tel'tak. This was their chance.
"Help me," Jack ordered Daniel, grunting with the pain in his knee as Daniel hauled him to his feet. "Run."
Between his blown knee and Daniel's dislocated shoulder, it was more of a hobble, but they were moving. And no one was firing at them. Screams and howls echoed off the towers, eerie and insane. Like Carter just like Carter That's what she'll become. "No." He'd die himself before he let that happen.
"Jack?"
"Keep going." But his vision was starting to gray out. Blood oozed from the hit he'd taken to his arm, the pain in his knee cramped his gut into nauseous spasms. Stubbornly, he clung to consciousness, willing himself to move. They had to survive, they had to come back. His sight was tunneling, blood pressure falling. He could feel it drop, making his ears ring and his head dizzy. Keep going, keep going...
"O'Neill." Teal'c's firm hand gripped his shoulder as he fell into the tel'tak.
"Go," Jack whispered, sliding to the floor, mind spiraling away into darkness. "Teal'c, just go."
"This is it," General Hammond announced, breathless and dripping with sweat from the long climb. Beneath him, on the ladder, Woodburn wasn't in much better shape.
"Twenty years ago..." he gasped.
Hammond managed a rueful chuckle, but saved the rest of his breath to turn the heavy wheel on the access hatch. The loud grating sound made him wince, and he stopped. Had they been heard? He strained to listen over the thudding of his laboring heart and the rasp of Woodburn's breathing.
Nothing.
He kept turning until the seal gave way and the door cracked open, letting a flare of light into the darkness of the access tunnel. Again, Hammond stopped and listened. All was quiet beyond. Exchanging a here-goes-nothing look with Woodburn, he pushed open the hatch and climbed out.
The corridor was empty, but Hammond could hear the distant sound of footsteps as Woodburn emerged and closed the hatch behind him. "So far so good." He glanced up and down the corridor, making a swift calculation. He'd never gotten further than the checkpoint Kinsey had established outside the dedicated `testing room'. But they'd come out behind the checkpoint, and Hammond knew there was a back door. All they'd need was a little luck. "This way,"
he murmured, heading along the silent corridor.
Two days ago, this place had been home. Now it felt like enemy territory. Kinsey had stolen it from him, stolen his friendships, his people and his home. But not for long. Hammond would get it back. He'd get it all back.
Including SG-1.
Councilor Tamar Damaris sat once more behind the desk in her office, watching the man who stood before her. Or, perhaps, slumped would be a more appropriate description. Commander Kenna's shoulders sagged, his dirty, scratched face was pasty beneath its weathered skin, and his eyes were alive with indecorous emotion. He appeared distressed and unbalanced, which was unsettling in a man of his age and experience.
"And where is this alien vessel now?" she asked. "Did your men track it?"
He shook his head. "For some distance, yes, Councilor. But then it... It disappeared, from sight and from our sensors. I believe it must have left orbit." He frowned, as if uncertain of the truth of his words.
Damaris's eyes narrowed. The Tauri obviously possessed technologies greater than they had admitted, and the deception irritated her. "I find it hard to believe," she said acidly, "that the one-hundred men you had stationed on Tsapan could not restrain these three aliens."
The Commander's chin lifted, nostrils flaring in anger. "We had them cornered, Councilor. But the Outcast-"
"The Outcast!" she spat in disdain. "Your men were defeated by animals, Commander? Perhaps you had better rethink your training practi-
"They are not animals!" Kenna snapped back. His eyes flashed, almost as wild as those of the Tauri. "They are..." He hesitated, one hand drifting up to the scratches on his face. "They are no longer human, but they fight with human guile and strength. And rage."
Uninterested, Damaris rose and walked to the window. "I do not understand why the Kaw'ree insist that they be allowed to live."
Kenna offered no answer, but she could feel his disapproval burning like the heat of the sun on her back. She was not used to such insolence, and it frightened her more than she was prepared to admit. Carefully, she turned around and studied his face. "You have failed me, Commander." A flash of fear rippled across his features, but was soon swallowed by the darker tide of his rising anger. At that moment, she knew that Commander Kenna could no longer remain in Kinahhi. Neither could he be sent to Tsapan; she had no wish to spread the dissent she saw festering in his eyes by allowing his men to witness his absorption into the sheh fet. But there were other ways to neutralize him.
She returned to her desk and sat, hands folded before her. "Report to the Cordon, Commander Kenna. You are to relieve Commander Lah'hag, and remain there until recalled."
"But my son-"
"Your son," she replied coolly, "will transfer to Tsapan and serve the Kaw'ree."
"But he's only seven years-"
Damaris wove threat through her voice like steel through silk. "Do not provoke me to be less generous, Commander. The sheh Yet is always eager for new blood, and your son - Esaum? - shows much promise."
Ashen-faced, the Commander bowed. "My honor is to serve Kinahhi," he muttered in a hollow voice.
Damaris permitted herself a smile. "Yes," she replied. "I'm sure it is."
The need for water and to pee were becoming pressing issues, not to mention the cramping agony of her muscles, staked out like a lab rat awaiting vivisection. If the guys didn't turn up soon...
On the plus side, her head was clearer. The tumult of information stampeding through her mind was more distant, and she had the distinct impression she was disconnecting from the machine. The left side of her face burned, but it was mild compared to her other discomforts. And nothing compared to the nagging fear that no one was coming after her.
No one gets left behind. Good in theory, but not always possible.
She closed her eyes and tried to listen more closely to the cacophony in her head. If she concentrated, she could sense things, pick out detail amid the chaos. Right now, she could sense deep anxiety. Shock. As if something basic had been attacked, certainties overthrown. She wasn't sure if she was listening to the mind of one man or a hundred, and yet there was a familiarity to the thoughts. They reminded her of Commander Kenna. Could he hear her, she wondered? Help me. She sent the message out as best she could. Don't leave me here. You can help me.
There was no time to listen for any kind of response, however, for at that moment two dark-robed figures entered the room. Their faces and hands were filigreed with scarlet, their eyes as dark and deep as the ocean, and their minds... They slammed into hers with such force that she jerked back against the restraints, gasping for breath.
"She is strong," said one. A young man, Koash he had once been called, but no one had used his name for years.
"Yes," agreed a spindly woman - Elessa - watching her with hunger. "These Tauri are not like the Kinahhi. Their minds are richer."
Koash stepped closer, peering up at where Sam hung suspended in the sheh fet. "And yet the one called O'Neill is Mahr'bal." She felt his mind in hers, pressing, searching. "She does not understand me," he said, turning away. "Yet she feels that O'Neill is important."
"Perhaps if we bring her to the tower?" Elessa suggested. "A closer contact would provide the answer. If it is true that the Mahr'bal exist beyond Kinahhi..."
She said no more, but Sam could feel the shiver of revulsion that accompanied the thought. Rats. Hundreds of diseased rats, crawling all over each other in a dirty, abandoned hovel. Disoriented by the image, she tried to shake it away and found herself staring into the fathomless eyes of the strange woman. "Who are you?" Her voice was cracked and dry, but it was loud enough to be heard.
Elessa's eyebrows shot up. "You speak."
"I can tap dance too. You gonna answer my question?"
Koash turned back to face her. "Do you need to ask the question, Major Samantha Carter?" He smiled thinly.
Kaw'ree. The alien word was familiar, she understood its meaning as clearly as if it were English. Leaders. "You control the sheh fet."
Koash nodded. "We are the Guardians of the Kinahhi. We keep our people safe."
Safe? If she'd had the energy, Sam would have laughed. "No," she croaked through her parched throat. "You don't. You enslave them." She looked deliberately at the dying faces around her. "You're monsters."
"And you are a fool."
Sam shook her head. "No. You know I'm right - you can read my mind."
Koash exchanged a brief, startled look with Elessa, but didn't answer. After a moment they left the room together, their dark robes rustling in the silence. But she'd sensed their surprise. Surprise and something more. Fear? She didn't think they'd been expecting her defiance, and that meant some part of her still remained her own - separate from the sheh fet. It was enough to give her hope, and to keep her fighting.
Score one for the SGC.
Daniel could tell something was wrong, and he'd be the first to admit that he was no expert in the intricacies of tel'tak design. The ship was shaking like the wreck he'd driven as a freshman, reminding him vividly of the night it had ground to a halt ten miles out of town and never moved again...
"Daniel?" Jack's eyes drifted open. He lay sprawled on the floor, his right sleeve dark with blood and his face ghost-white. "What's going on?"
"Ah, we're having a little trouble leaving orbit."
Even semi-conscious Jack had an instinct for the tactical. "Pursuit?"
"Yeah. Teal'c had to re-engage the cloak or they'd have shot us out of the sky, but now we can't-" The shaking intensified, rattling Daniel's teeth together.
"I am attempting to reach escape velocity," Teal'c yelled from the cockpit, glaring at the controls as if he could intimidate them into cooperation. "Stand by."
The ship banked and Daniel started sliding back against the far wall of the cargo hold. Jack joined him in an undignified heap as Teal'c forced the screaming engines to their maximum. With a wince, Jack sat up. In the thin light from the window his face looked colorless, and Daniel was convinc
ed that willpower alone kept him conscious.
"Come on," Jack whispered under his breath.
Through the cockpit window Daniel saw the clouds scatter. The air was blue and bright and clear and- A loud bang clapped through the ship, followed by an ominous moment of silence. The engines had stopped.
"Oh crap."
And suddenly they were dropping, like an elevator in freefall. Daniel's stomach leaped to somewhere near the ceiling, and Jack was yelling. "Teal'c!"
There was a muted whine, and then another miserable clunk. Teal'c spun out of his chair, clinging to its back to support his injured leg. "I cannot reinitialize the engines!"
Jack tried to stand, grabbing hold of Daniel's arm for support. Together, they struggled upright. "Tell me we have escape pods!" Jack yelled.
"There are three left," Teal'c shouted. "But-"
"What?"
"I do not know where we are. All the ship's systems are malfunctioning. If we are over an ocean..."
The image of the coffin-like escape pods plummeting beneath the waves, entombing them forever, provoked a wave of claustrophobia. Daniel sucked in an involuntary, deep breath.
Jack cast him a quick look. "Only one way of finding out."
And no other choice. Together they lurched toward the escape pods, wrenching open the doors and all but falling inside.
"Go!" Jack urged. "Get the hell outta here!"
As the door slid shut inches away from his face, Daniel calmed his breathing and tenaciously thought about hilltops and wide open spaces. He ran his fingers over the familiar controls - how often had he been in one of these things? - and found the failsafe manual release. In his mind he could hear Jack barking the command. On my mark One, two, three. Mark! Daniel triggered the release and felt himself falling backward, whooping like a kid on a roller coaster as he plummeted toward the ground, or the ocean, or whatever else fate had in store...
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
t could have been the middle of the night or the middle of the afternoon. Sam had long ago lost track of time, her mind drifting between its two spheres of consciousness, sinking beneath the buffeting waves of a thousand voices and thoughts, then floating to the surface and staring through her gritty eyes at the reality of her imprisonment.