03 - The First Amendment

by Ashley McConnell - (ebook by Undead)

  “Deb didn’t pack them,” Carter informed him, keeping her voice low even though the moths didn’t seem to be able to detect the sound of their voices. “They’ll be on the next list, though.” Evidently satisfied that she had enough data—or having finally exhausted her supply of tape—she put away the camcorder and unslung her rife. “But that’s a great idea. For next time.”

  “It is?” O’Neill asked. Then an unholy gleam came into his eye. “Yes, it is. I like it. Teal’C!” The Jaffa vaulted the kraal fence and joined them. “You’ve got the sled out—good. You and Kinsey circle around and get into position as close to Daniel as you can. Carter, you go with them and cover their backs. I’m going to create a diversion. Wait for it, then get Daniel down and out and back to the Gate as fast as you can and don’t stop for anything. I’ll keep them busy and follow as fast as I can.”

  “What if…” Kinsey began.

  O’Neill cut him off. “There is no ‘try’, grasshopper. Do it.”

  “He really mixes his pop references when he’s under stress,” Carter murmured.

  “Smart-ass.” But they were already moving, fading out the back of the ruined hut and over the fence, working their way around the compound in opposite directions.

  So this is what the Lakota Sun Dance actually feels like, Daniel thought through a haze of shock. The catching-barbs on the moth’s legs had pierced just under the clavicles in front and through the broad muscles of the shoulder in back; in fact he was fairly sure one barb had punched a hole through the infra-spinous fossa of his left scapula. Fortunately or otherwise, when they’d hung him up to dry, they’d mistaken his fatigues for skin. He could feel the smooth surface of the hook against his back, and the weight of his own body—plus the extra gravity of this world—dragging against the armholes of his jacket.

  But there was no pain. Or at least, no immediate pain. Pain was out there somewhere on the horizon but hadn’t settled in for a visit just yet.

  Somehow he had managed to hang on to his glasses. They didn’t seem to be doing him much good, with half his vision obscured by a mist of condensation and an uncharacteristic inability to focus. He could see large things moving around, more or less at eye level. If he looked down at himself, he could see sticky yellowish ropes holding his arms to his sides. He could also see the dark, soaked surface of his heavy jacket, sodden clear to the waist and below with blood, smell it all over.

  Uh-oh, he thought muzzily. That’s not good.

  A wave of dizziness washed over him, and his head rolled. One of the moth creatures dragged itself over to him. He tried to concentrate on it, make mental notes about how it moved, how many limbs it had, the facets of its eyes, the odd smell of it. Useless. He peered at it and it blurred. The only thing he could see at all clearly was the curved spike on one leg, which it was holding up to him as if to show him his own blood, or perhaps the crack along the tip of the shaft. Look what you did, it seemed to say. What do you think you are, anyway?

  More than you bargained for, you bastard, he thought.

  The moth turned away to one of the other victims and began slapping the side of one clawed limb against it, rocking the entire structure. It wasn’t clear what, if anything, the alien thought it was accomplishing, but the movement hurt. Daniel gasped in agony and sank into the comforting darkness once again.

  “How can I help?” Kinsey asked as they moved around the perimeter of the family compound. “What do you want me to do?”

  “We’re going to get him down and put him on the sled,” Carter said. She didn’t bother to look at him as she talked; she and Teal’C were busy keeping an eye out for moths, tubenecks, and anything else that might sight them and sound an alarm. “You get to pull.”

  “I can do that.” It was the best use of his abilities they could have come up with, he realized. A neat and cleanly distinguished division of duties.

  Carter glanced over to him then and smiled briefly at him, an uncanny flash of sunlight in a dire situation. “Teal’C will help.”

  They had maneuvered to the back of the rack on which the moths’ victims hung. The three scavengers were crouching in the middle of the cleared area, their bodies distended with the grain that crammed every available crevice and cavity.

  “It looks like they’re getting ready to take off,” Carter murmured. “Damn, I wish I could record this.”

  “Give me the camera,” Kinsey suggested. “I’d kind of rather you concentrated on firepower.”

  “Just don’t lose the tapes.” The three of them pressed against the back of the rack, trying to keep out of sight as the scavengers rose in the air.

  Kinsey managed to load the last new tape and have the recorder up and running in time to catch the second moth launching itself, heaving its burden of stolen grain awkwardly against gravity. For a few long moments he wondered whether the alien would actually be able to take to the air, but then the wings lifted and curled, cupping the wind, and it staggered into the sky.

  Across the cleared area, he could see something moving behind the hut where the injured moths lay atop each other.

  The third scavenger moth forced its awkward way into the sky, leaving the two casualties and the two able-bodied ones he couldn’t help but think of as leaders.

  Teal’C and Carter had moved the sled into position behind the structure of poles that held the victims. Kinsey shut down the camera, securing the last tape in one of the pockets low on the legs of his fatigues, and watched as Carter, the lightest of them, climbed up the back of the pole structure, combat knife in hand. The rack swayed back and forth, and for one heart-stopping moment he was afraid the whole thing was going to come crashing down. Apparently Carter thought so too; she froze halfway up, waiting until the structure regained its stability. Kinsey could see the side of Daniel Jackson’s face through the latticework. Miraculously, through everything, he had managed to retain his glasses.

  Carter was probing carefully through the lattice of wood, vines, and dismembered insect limbs at the yellow ropes that bound Jackson. The blade stuck against the yellow ligament, and she cursed softly as she tried to twist it free.

  Jackson came to abruptly and flung his head back, his teeth bared with a rush of agony.

  “Daniel, it’s okay. We’re here, we’re going to get you out of here.” Carter’s words were soft and hurried. She had one arm hooked around a strut, her toes stuck into crevices of the framework, and the whole thing swayed as she tugged the knife free and tried again.

  “Sam?” He could feel the barb digging between his shoulders. It was a welcome distraction from the fire that devoured them.

  “Yeah, Danny.” She paused to look across the compound. If O’Neill was going to do something spectacular, this would be a really good time for it. The yellow stuff wasn’t going to give way; it stretched under the blade of her knife, stuck to the metal. “It’s me, Daniel. It’s going to be okay.”

  He was held to the rack by one of the insect hooks. She could see where the fabric of his jacket strained upward against the barb, but she couldn’t tell if it was dragging his skin as well. She slipped the knife back into her boot and tried to pull the shirt free from his belt without moving him. Daniel sucked in his breath.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she whispered. Glancing down, she could see Teal’C maintaining a steady scan of the area around and above them, staff at the ready, and Kinsey alternating between staring anxiously up at her and looking around frantically. Returning her attention to the problem of getting Daniel loose, she looked down the rack below him. There were a number of wicked-looking hooks set and ready to snag any body sliding downward. “Oh, shit.”

  “Unnerstatemt,” Daniel muttered. Despite herself, Carter chuckled, and for the first time began to think that this situation might come out all right after all.

  Across the compound, Jack O’Neill had pulled most of the wall away from the back end of the hut and piled it loosely against the front side next to the door. Through the opening of the door he could see
the expanse of one of the moths’ wings, a smooth surface that looked almost like velvet, the pattern of colors softer and more subtle than was apparent from a distance. This particular wing was torn across, and through it he could see a segmented leg with a series of ivory-white hooks in successively smaller sizes extending down its length. The leg shifted, and he held his breath, but the moths seemed oblivious to the sound and movement only inches away from them.

  Across the compound he could see Daniel flinging his head back. Behind him he caught a glimpse of blonde hair—Carter.

  He pulled out a lighter from his pocket and snapped the striker. It had been a long time since he’d smoked, but it held memories he wasn’t willing to surrender just yet. Besides, it was too useful a tool to discard entirely. A tongue of flame flared into life.

  As Carter watched, a wisp of smoke rose from the round building against which the crippled aliens lay. By the time the two leaders had noticed it, clear yellow tongues of flame were licking at the thatch of the roof and the walls.

  The fire spread with amazing rapidity, and Carter muttered unladylike comments under her breath as she tried again to cut the yellow ropes. When her efforts failed again, she cursed and slid one hand through the shirt where the hook had penetrated. “Sorry, Danny,” she whispered, feeling her way along the barb to Daniel’s back. He cried out as she touched the sodden, cold T-shirt and then his mangled muscles. The smell of blood nearly choked her. “Sorry, sorry,” she repeated in an endless soothing murmur, and continued grimly maneuvering the knife to cut him free.

  Across the compound, a bundle of smoldering thatch slid off the roof and directly onto the wings of one of the injured moths, and it rose up and screamed thinly as it caught fire and stumbled into its companion.

  The two leaders launched themselves, hovering over the flames, diving through the spiraling gray smoke, the beating of their frantic wings only feeding the fire. Kinsey looked up to see Carter using a lighter to burn away the last of the yellow strands, and then Jackson’s body collapsed, sliding unevenly down the rack, and hit the ground, boneless as a bag of winter wheat.

  Carter leaped down beside Teal’C, who was already lifting the once-again-unconscious body as if it weighed nothing, as if it were a sleeping child’s, and laying it in the light metal shed. The burning moths were screaming at an almost ultrasonic pitch. Teal’C and Kinsey threw themselves against the tow ropes, and the sled began to move as Carter backed behind them, Teal’C’s energy staff at the ready.

  One of the moths caught sight of them and shrieked.

  SG-1 and their guest ran for their lives. Twenty yards to the rear, and gaining rapidly, O’Neill crossed the open compound, ignoring the writhing, burning moths, and followed them.

  They paused for just a moment in the giant arch that was the gate of the city, and in that moment the alien was abruptly closer, a shower of dust flaking from dull gray double wings whose span covered at least twenty feet. It braked in midair at the sight of them, rising and falling rather than hovering in one place, its wings making a muted thunder. They could clearly see the dark-red sphincter in its underside opening and closing.

  “Good grief, it really is Mothra,” O’Neill muttered, raising his rifle. Carter tossed the energy staff back to Teal’C and unlimbered her own rifle.

  The alien pulled up then, made a staticky noise, and dived on them, the sphincter spraying as it came. The liquid was thick, viscous, and black, and where it touched, what it touched, turned dark and melted, bubbling. A glob hit O’Neill’s rifle, and he watched in amazement as the barrel melted off cleanly and dripped onto the ground. Casting the useless weapon aside, he pulled his sidearm and kept on fighting.

  Teal’C, O’Neill, and Carter were all firing, even as they pulled back behind the shelter of the gate. Carter was the only one using a standard military-issue automatic rifle, Kinsey noted, but Teal’C fired his staff at the thing, and unlike the bullets, the bolt of energy released by the Jaffa weapon seemed to have an effect. Half of the creature’s upper right wing disintegrated, and it spiraled downward to the earth, shrieking thinly. “That’s the paralysis sound!” Kinsey yelled, as O’Neill began moving in slow motion.

  “I think it’s trying to communicate with its friends,” Carter said grimly as she too began to slow.

  “I agree,” Teal’C responded from farther away, and fired again at the alien, blowing the rest of its head off. The sound stopped. So did the paralysis.

  “Then I think we’d better haul out of here, don’t you?” O’Neill asked, and suited his actions to his words. Rather than heading straight across the battle plain to the Stargate, however, he followed the original path, heading to the outcrop of rock, the sled with the unconscious Jackson bouncing behind them.

  “What the hell?” Kinsey panted. “Why are we taking a detour?”

  “The F.R.E.D. is there,” Carter said. “There’s some stuff we need in it.”

  “What—what kind of stuff? Why can’t we just jump through the hoop and g-get h-home?”

  “Because we can’t be sure these aliens, or the other ones, aren’t able to determine the last code entered on the Dial-Home Device. If they can, they’ll have the coordinates for Earth.”

  Kinsey had to envy the captain, who managed to talk without panting while moving at a very brisk, businesslike trot. “But they’ll catch us!”

  “Well, yeah, if you keep talking!” O’Neill snapped from behind them. “Save your breath and move!”

  Around him, the members of SG-1 lowered their heads and ran, making no attempt to keep to the cover of the vine-trees now. It took something less than half the time to return to the rock outcrop as it had to make the journey from it to Etaa, and Kinsey was shuddering for breath as the team threw itself on the peacefully parked mechanical puppy.

  Trying to make himself useful, Kinsey climbed up on a handy rock and looked around, only to find himself nose to something with a tubeneck, its horizontal jaws working. With a startled cry he fell backward, neatly clearing a line of fire for Teal’C, who blew the triangular head off.

  “Okay, got it,” Carter said rapidly. Teal’C started down the slope with the sled, Kinsey scrambling to catch up and take the second tow rope. Seconds later the packs were loaded onto the F.R.E.D. and O’Neill was making a last-minute adjustment to the machine.

  “Okay, ran!” he yelled and leaped off the rock outcrop.

  They were already running. The sled, made of some light metal, slid easily across the ground, somehow managing not to catch on the vines and the bodies. The weight of the injured man was barely noticeable once they got it moving. It was certainly easier to travel without being weighed down by sixty pounds of pack, adjusted for local gravity. Kinsey felt he was flying along the edge of the bubbled-over battleground, actually leaping alien corpses at full stride.

  Then the percussion of the exploding F.R.E.D. hit, and he really was flying for several feet. It was something of a relief to realize he wasn’t the only one who had been picked up and tossed through the air; the rest of the team were spitting dirt too. He looked back over his shoulder to see four or five tubenecks not far from the former rock outcrop also picking themselves up, and two moth aliens still pinwheeling through the sky.

  By the time they reached the last line of trees before the Gate, both sets of aliens were in pursuit, apparently having set aside their differences in order to deal with the humans. The moths weren’t yet close enough to spray, but the tubenecks had some short-range weapons that spat sharply and turned the near ground into an unpleasantly familiar bubbling mass.

  O’Neill reached the DHD first and began slapping coordinates on the domed surface. Teal’C and Carter took up positions on either side of him, guarding the route to the Gate. Kinsey shouldered the tow rope and dragged the sled as close to the Gate as he dared, then looked around again to find, first, a tubeneck rapidly gaining on him and second, O’Neill right beside him. The colonel was deliberately slowing his pace to that of the sled.

&
nbsp; The wormhole roared open.

  It was still fifty feet away, and the tubeneck was only thirty.

  O’Neill grabbed one of the ropes, helping to pull Daniel along, while Teal’C and Carter fired steadily at the tubeneck, which was weaving back and forth and returning fire. Then Carter stopped and knelt by the Gate. Three heartbeats later she rose and waved her arms in an all-clear gesture.

  “Go!” O’Neill roared, rolling away from Kinsey and then standing, yelling, to draw fire. Carter backed through the Gate. The sled caught, and Jackson moaned as it wobbled, nearly toppling over. Teal’C ran up to Kinsey and took the rope, hauling the sled up and over the rim of the wormhole. Kinsey tried to get up and untangle himself, but his foot slipped on the gravel on the base of the Gate and he fell to one knee.

  They were close now, within touching distance of the steps to the Gate, when a shadow crossed above them. Without thinking, Kinsey threw himself to one side, into O’Neill, knocking both of them sprawling across the steps, and at the same time something very, very cold touched Frank Kinsey’s left foot, barely missing the sled. He found himself staring at the base of the Stargate, at what looked very much like an impressive mass of C-4 with a very short delay.

  O’Neill scrambled to his feet, and Kinsey tried to follow as the colonel stood by, providing covering fire. His foot wouldn’t give him any purchase. Bewildered, he glanced down.

  It wasn’t there.

  The next thing he knew, he was thrown bodily into the silver shimmer of the Stargate and falling through a cold that wasn’t quite enough to mask that other cold that still possessed him.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “So,” O’Neill said, two days later when Frank Kinsey had been released from Medical long enough to visit Hammond’s office. The reporter was on crutches. Eventually he would graduate to a cane—he still had half a foot left. He looked wryly at O’Neill, who was spotless and superb in dress blues, seated to one side of the general’s desk. Hammond himself was sitting back watchfully, letting O’Neill do the talking for the time being. Kinsey lowered himself carefully into a chair and set his crutches to one side.