Hydra

by Stargate

  Status, he said as he faded back around the stump ahead of the flanking marine and slid his knife out to test its balance in his hand. The marine was breathing shallowly, his heart beating in a solid, unhurried thud-thud-thud.

  Two down here, Carter said. No sign of the alpha.

  Teal’c’s response was scored by impatience. I am pinned down and cannot advance. No visual on SG-1 or the alpha.

  Where are they? Jackson asked, managing to sound peeved and exhilarated all at once.

  O’Neill snatched the marine by his arm, pulled him in close to his chest and broke his neck. They’re here, south of the gate, forty meters. Jackson, get to Teal’c. Carter, with me. Go quietly. We only need one of them, but two would be better. O’Neill switched to the common internal comms frequency and said, Jackson — that’s alpha Jackson — I assume you don’t actually have the control device with you then.

  How dumb do you think I am?

  You really want to know? O’Neill scanned the dancing shadows. There was static in the air, lifting the hairs on his arms and his neck. So what about all that stuff you said about wanting to live? You can still do that, you know. You have a chance here to live a real life. All you have to do is lean down and snap the neck of whoever that is beside you.

  Not really my style, the alpha answered.

  On the theta frequency, Carter pinged for O’Neill’s attention, and he switched over. She was circling around and had eyes on him now. O’Neill acknowledged that and switched back to the broader frequency. You disappoint me, Jackson. But then again, you Jacksons always do.

  I don’t really care much what you think of me. The only Jack whose opinion mattered is dead. You killed him.

  Nothing personal. Pocketing the marine’s ammo, O’Neill stepped over the body and scanned for the alpha. He was completely hidden. O’Neill pinged for Carter, and she reported that she was working her way through some underbrush and had lost visual. The other two blobs were still there in the same positions as before, and the third remained hunched on the ground. He switched back to the common channel. I killed him because he got in the way. That’s it.

  Well, that’s not really all that comforting. A pause, and then the alpha came back. Even over the damaged comms, O’Neill could hear the satisfaction in his voice. And now we’re going to kill you.

  Everything went black.

  What the hell? Theta Jackson. Panicking.

  Teal’c reported, I am blind.

  Sensors down, Carter said, like that explained anything.

  O’Neill ignored them and groped for the tree next to him, grinding his fingers into the soft, crumbling bark while alerts stuttered across the darkness. After a few seconds, the blackness was pierced by a tiny circle of light that widened and widened until most of his visual field was clear again. But the world he looked at was a watercolor wash, grays on grays. He tried infrared but could access nothing. He focused on his hearing — still operational, but it was like he’d been wrapped up in layers and layers of cotton batting. Everything was muffled. He could no longer hear the heartbeat of the marine closing in on his right. For a moment the forest was eerily silent, the firefight on hiatus, the storm holding its breath, and then some kind of bird started singing, repeating a string of rising notes over and over again like an opera singer practicing scales. But even that stiletto of sound was dull and distant. The storm clouds hung low overhead, heavy and ragged with lightning, but he could no longer feel the static or smell the rain. Under his hand, the tree felt solid, but that was all — no sense of temperature, texture. Nothing. Carter —

  Movement in his peripheral vision. He ducked, and the tree he’d been leaning on exploded with a hit of staff fire. So, the marine wasn’t a marine then. Teal’c got off another shot and then dived for cover before O’Neill could bring his own weapon to bear.

  I can’t see, theta Jackson said over the comms. At least those were still working, even as the sensory world was eroding.

  O’Neill spun around to strafe the bushes behind him, then aimed another short burst in Teal’c’s direction. You can see, Jackson. Stop whining and get the job done.

  Sir, we’re compromised. Carter was on the ridge above the alpha now. O’Neill could make out the pale circle of her face between the low-hanging branches.

  We’re not leaving here without — A shot from behind chewed thick slivers of wood out of the tree trunk right beside O’Neill’s head. They couldn’t go back now anyway. He still had his speed and he used it, dashing ahead of a series of staff blasts and throwing himself over a fallen tree to roll to his feet in a small clearing.

  The alpha was there, Beretta raised. The muzzle was about two inches from O’Neill’s forehead. “Hi,” the alpha said. Time seemed to slow down as O’Neill watched his finger tighten on the trigger. The alpha smiled. “Bye.”

  To O’Neill’s damaged senses, the shot sounded like nothing more than a distant pop. The alpha jerked as the bullet caught him from behind and spun him around to fall in an awkward slump at O’Neill’s feet. Up at the top of the ridge, theta Carter was an indistinct flutter of shadow and light as she lowered her P90 and started to walk-slide down behind a small avalanche of leaves and dirt dislodged by her passing. Above her, a shiny silver bird clapped its way up between the branches and was whipped sideways on the wind, wings angled like boomerangs as it rode the updraft.

  Nice shot, O’Neill said.

  Theta Carter answered, You’re welcome.

  On her knees in the fallen leaves of the clearing, the human Carter was typing rapidly at a laptop perched on a flat rock. Before her guardians in the bushes could get any ideas about shooting him, O’Neill stepped over the alpha and closer to the human, so that she was in the line of fire. Just as her hand was reaching to tap the Enter key, O’Neill bent down and gripped her wrist.

  “Ah ah. I don’t think so.”

  With a thumb planted hard on the back of her hand, he twisted so that she slid off her knees to sit with a thump on the ground, trying to roll into the motion to keep her wrist from snapping. She ended up leaning back against his legs. Her blond hair was washed almost white in the erratic light, just like his own Carter’s. And, just like his own Carter would have, the human used her free hand to slip her knife out of its scabbard. O’Neill caught that before she could drive it over her head and into his gut, and he squeezed her wrist until the knife fell, point first, into the loam. Then he raised his head and shouted into the wind, “Come on out!” The branches thrashed and scattered new patterns of shadow across the little clearing. “You know I’ll kill her.” He was pretty sure the light did a nice job of showing off the edge of the blade he held against her cheek.

  Another shifting of branches, and the human Jackson stepped out of the bushes, his Beretta pointing at the clouds in one of his raised hands. Theta Carter took it from him and pushed him down to his knees. O’Neill tried to track the other guardian, but he couldn’t get a read. He met theta Carter’s eyes and she shook her head. No visual. Distant gunfire told him that Jackson and Teal’c were still occupied north of the gate.

  “So,” he said to the human Carter at his feet. “Whatcha doin’?”

  Keeping her P90 aimed at Daniel’s head, theta Carter went down on her haunches to peer at the laptop. She tapped a couple of keys and shook her head. “I don’t know for sure, sir, but it’s definitely code, and it’s set to transmit. First set’s already done; second set’s waiting to go.” She met her counterpart’s eyes but got no answer to her implied question. “Something to do with our sensors being down, I’ll bet.”

  On internal comms, theta Jackson reported that he and Teal’c had broken the line and were on their way back to the gate. O’Neill smiled and heaved the human Carter up to her feet. “Trash it and let’s get out of here.”

  The human Daniel’s mouth dropped open. He made like he was going to get up but sank back to sit on his heels when Carter pointed her weapon at him with a little more emphasis. “Where can you go?” he said. “Wh
at can you hope to accomplish without the control device?”

  “We came to acquire a bargaining chip, in case it turned out the alpha was as dumb as we thought and was actually going to kill himself for you people.” O’Neill pressed the knife harder to the side of Carter’s face. “And we’ve got that now.” He raised his voice to a shout. “Seems like a fair trade, don’t you think? One little bit of technology for one life. You bring us the control device, you get her back in one piece.” He lowered his head so he could speak right into the human Carter’s ear. “That’s a good deal, don’t you think?”

  Instead of answering, she kicked backward, her boot connecting solidly with his kneecap. If he’d been the real O’Neill, that would’ve sent him howling. But he wasn’t, and it didn’t.

  While theta Carter stomped the laptop to scrap, O’Neill started dragging her human counterpart out of the clearing. Without his broad sensor net to give him a finer picture of the situation, the forest with its strobing light and erratic shadow seemed denser and harder to navigate. And his own counterpart was still out there with the Jaffa. He waited until theta Carter was at his side before turning and hefting the hostage none too gently over the fallen tree and frog-marching her back the way he came.

  They didn’t get very far. Two blasts from a staff weapon brought them to a stop next to one of the fallen marines, who stared up at them, his face still wearing the expression of surprise he had when O’Neill killed him. Movement everywhere it seemed, and no way to parse it out, so O’Neill shoved theta Carter ahead of him and they took off at a run, slowed considerably by the hostage who dragged her feet and continued to be pretty much a pain in the ass. But there was no way he was letting her go. Not a chance. He stopped long enough to thump her with the butt of his knife and then threw her limp body over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The gate was close now, just beyond the screen of trees there. It loomed up, a bone circle against the boiling sky, catching a stray lightning bolt so that the chevrons flickered. More staff fire made him change his course, the staccato popping of P90 fire from the other side tearing up dirt and bark as he ran. Dial it up! he shouted into comms. In the clearing, Jackson was dodging bullets, zigzagging and finally skidding into the base of the DHD with his hands over his head. As O’Neill and theta Carter broke from the trees, theta Teal’c set down cover fire that drove the marines back into the shadows. The gate started to spin.

  Theta Carter ran backward beside him, firing into the forest, and O’Neill risked a glance over his shoulder to see Jack there, ducking for cover and popping out again. There was no shot, though, not with his oh so valuable hostage slung over O’Neill’s shoulder. The event horizon bloomed. They were home free.

  O’Neill. It was the alpha. He stepped out of the forest and into the clearing. The front of his jacket and vest gleamed with spilled fluid and his hair whipped around his face as the wind bullied through the trees, lifting leaves ahead of it and bringing the first needling drops of rain.

  Get moving. O’Neill told his team and they headed up the steps to the platform.

  This is for my team, you son of a bitch. The alpha smiled. EXECUTE.

  O’Neill froze. Beside him, the rest of the team was also frozen in awkward poses of flight. Some part of O’Neill’s robot brain recognized the message stabbing through comms as code, but for O’Neill it was only pain, lightning inside him that whited out his vision, erased first his body, and then the world. He didn’t feel himself fall.

  There was nothing. No way to know how much of nothing. And then there was something.

  Ow.

  Shut up, Jackson. And don’t move.

  I don’t think I can move.

  Experimentally, O’Neill wiggled his pinky finger. It brushed against his pant leg, obedient.

  What the hell was that?

  What part of “shut up” don’t you understand?

  Kill switch, Carter said. The alpha transmitted the second stage of the code. Pretty clever.

  You don’t have to sound so impressed. O’Neill curled his toes inside his boots. He could feel rain falling on his face and hear far-off thunder rolling, hollow like an empty oil drum. Still on the planet then.

  What’s impressing me, sir, is that we’re not dead.

  That is indeed impressive. What can account for this?

  There was a little crimp in comm space that was Carter shrugging. Not sure, Teal’c. Maybe the base code is more resilient than they thought.

  A presence above him. O’Neill couldn’t tell if his eyes were open or not, but he didn’t want to risk the movement, so he stayed still and listened.

  “Yes, sir. They’re down.”

  That was Jack. Over the radio, Hammond’s voice, fuzzed with static, ordered the return of the bodies to the SGC. That was the other sound then: the low water ripple of the open gate.

  “Roger that. We’re going to need a medical team and some help with the cargo. What’s the status on the mole?”

  “We were right about Aaronsen. Picked him up at his apartment as he was packing for a trip.”

  “Talking?”

  “Yes, he is, Colonel. It seems he’s more afraid of the NID than of us, so he’s willing to make a deal for his future protection.”

  “Sweet. O’Neill out.”

  Farther away, almost lost in the steady patter of rain, two versions of Jackson’s voice made halting conversation. The alpha must’ve been almost out of juice by now. Stupid hunk of junk.

  “Carter, you okay?” Jack’s voice was closer.

  “Yes, sir. OW!”

  “That hurt?”

  “Yes, sir. That hurts.”

  “Quite a goose egg ya got there.”

  “Yes, sir. Please don’t touch it.”

  The blackness O’Neill was staring at was pierced again by a tiny circle of light. As it grew, a number of alerts cascaded across his vision, followed by a scrolling diagnostic. By the time the circle had widened all the way, revealing a boot-level view of Jack and the human Carter, O’Neill had flexed all of his virtual muscles. The sensors seemed to be fried for good, but motor control was, if not optimal, at least acceptable. Energy levels were low. Not quite in the red, but close enough to demand some pretty immediate attention. In his peripheral vision, he could make out theta Teal’c on his back, staring upward, his face streaked with rain. On the other side were theta Carter and Jackson, looking about the same. As he watched, Jackson blinked.

  Don’t move until I say go.

  Obligingly, Jackson set his eyes. Nobody here but us chickens, said the fox.

  Jack crouched down beside O’Neill, his face scrunched up in a grimace of distaste. “Doesn’t really look like me, does it?”

  “Not at all, sir,” Carter answered at the same time Teal’c said, “You are very much the same.”

  Jack looked up at them with a crooked smile. “Honesty gets you nowhere, Teal’c. Remember that. Extra cookies for Carter.” The smile faded. “What’s the count?”

  “Six dead,” Carter answered. “Three injured, but they’ll make it, I think.”

  Bowing his head, Jack swore at the mud between his boots, then lifted his eyes a little to glare at O’Neill. “I had my way, I’d slap a brick of C4 to each of them and watch ‘em make like confetti,” he said.

  But this wasn’t the day Jack was going to get his way.

  At O’Neill’s command, all four of the thetas moved at once. It was almost too easy to take out Carter, who was still woozy from the knock O’Neill had given her. The Jaffa was more difficult, but after an exchange of blows that should’ve dropped a couple of elephants, theta Teal’c brought his counterpart down with a roundhouse to the head. As for Jack, O’Neill scissored his legs around the colonel’s neck, twisted — old school wrestling moves never went out of style — and flattened him. Half a second later, he gripped Jack’s head and brought it down with a crack against the stone platform under the DHD. The old guy went floppy like a rag doll. Humans. Delicate little things.

  O’
Neill heard the chevrons engaging even before he got to his feet with Jack slung across his back. Theta Jackson was dialing. Theta Teal’c had the human Carter in a half-nelson and was keeping her between theta Jackson and the remaining marines. When the gate opened, he kicked at her feet to get her moving. Theta Jackson ran ahead of them to meet theta Carter up at the top of the steps. He stopped to wave jauntily at his two doubles, a stolen Beretta in his hand. They stepped through the event horizon and were gone.

  O’Neill and Teal’c were halfway up the steps when a streak of motion made O’Neill jump aside. The alpha Jackson narrowly missed tackling him and kept going to barrel into Teal’c. They went down together, the hostage Carter under them both, and rolled back to the bottom of the steps again. By the time O’Neill covered the distance to the blue ripple, theta Teal’c was on his feet. He made it all the way up the stairs again before a staff blast caught him in the thigh and threw him through the event horizon.

  O’Neill shifted Jack on his shoulder and paused for just a second to look down at the remainder of SG-1 and their pet robot, soaked by rain, the scene washed a dismal gray by his damaged sensors. “You know what we want, and you know where to find us,” he said. “Don’t make us wait too long. Your CO’s got even less time than we do.” Then he fell backward and let the gate take him apart.