SG1-25 Hostile Ground

by Sally Malcolm

  At that, Hammond rose to his feet, leaning forward and bracing himself on his desk. The lacquered walnut felt sturdy and solid beneath his knuckles. Maybourne met his eyes, but Hammond could see the unease there; you didn’t get two stars on your shoulder without knowing how to intimidate. “I could have you arrested, Maybourne. One call and they’d bury you so deep you’d never see daylight again.”

  He feigned unconcern, but Hammond could see a shimmer of sweat on his forehead. “On what evidence?”

  “You just confessed.”

  “Your word against mine, General. Besides, right now, I’d say your word doesn’t stack up to a whole lot.” Maybourne gave a serpent’s smile. “You need to face facts, sir. SG-1 isn’t coming back and you’ll have to look elsewhere for salvation. That’s exactly what I’m here to offer.”

  There was truth in what Maybourne had to say, of course. Hammond wasn’t fool enough to deny the predicament they were in. There was a storm coming, a howling blue-norther ready to rip the very ground from beneath their feet. But Hammond would not allow a snake like Maybourne to have the upper hand. “Let me tell you a few things, Maybourne,” he said. “First of all, I’d rather jump in a hand basket and ride it straight to hell than accept any help from you. Secondly, you may accept that the end of the world is a foregone conclusion, but I like to think that the human race has something left to fight for, and I sure as hell won’t be giving up any time soon.” He rounded the desk and picked up Maybourne’s hat. “And lastly, I don’t care if God has opened the heavens and unleashed the seven plagues of Egypt upon these lands; I am still a general in the United States Air Force while you’re nothing but a pissant colonel. So when you enter my office you stand to attention until I say the words ‘at ease’. Forget that again, Colonel, and I’ll haul you up for insubordination and make sure you spend your last hours on this earth cleaning the filthiest toilet in Leavenworth.”

  Maybourne stood up as Hammond spoke, keeping the chair as a barrier between them. “You couldn’t,” he said.

  “That phone doesn’t dial Pizza Hut, son.” Hammond held out the hat. “Now get the hell out of my office and off my base.”

  Maybourne took his hat, clearly struggling not to snatch it. “You hide behind this good ol’ boy bluster all you want, General,” he said, “but sooner or later you’ll realize that I’m your last hope.”

  “Get out, Maybourne.” He nodded to the two airmen waiting outside his office. “Make sure the colonel leaves the base without incident.”

  As Mayborne stomped out the door, he shouldered past Harriman, who’d just come running up from the control room. One glance at the sergeant’s face and Maybourne was forgotten.

  “What is it, Walter?”

  “It’s not good, sir. At just after 0900, a ship came out of hyperspace, just beyond the Kuiper belt. And then another and then —” He shook his head and swallowed. “General, Apophis’s fleet has entered the solar system.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Teal’c took the rear as they made their retreat, Hunter leading them on a frenzied sprint through the ship’s winding corridors. There appeared to be no direction to their flight, but there was no time to question it. He must trust their new ally.

  Teal’c laid down a series of covering blasts, a few of them finding their target, but their pursuers were strong and difficult to kill. Just when he thought he had felled the last of them, he heard quick footsteps echoing along the corridor down which they had just fled. They were far from safe.

  Major Carter drew to a halt suddenly, causing Teal’c to collide with her, back to back. “Major Carter, we must keep moving!” But when he looked over his shoulder in the direction they were running, he saw why she had stopped. The door ahead was sealed.

  “Hunter?” she hissed. “Now what?”

  “We gotta get through that door.”

  But at that moment three Amam rounded the corner behind them, no more than twenty meters away.

  “Major Carter,” Teal’c said, warning her.

  She turned. “Damn it.”

  The Amam stopped and assessed the situation, sniffing the air. Hunters, with their prey cornered. Teal’c could sense their triumph. He raised his weapon, Daniel Jackson and Major Carter doing likewise. Prey, or not, they would not succumb without a fight.

  As one, the Amam lifted their weapons and began to stalk toward them.

  “On my mark,” Major Carter said. Her voice was tense but steady. “Three of them, three of us.”

  But suddenly a figure darted forward, low to the ground. Hunter. In his hand he held a metallic egg-shaped object, which, with a quick twist, he hurled down the corridor. There was a moment of silence, as the Amam watched the object sail towards them. Recognizing the weapon, Teal’c knew the outcome before it landed and cried out, “Cover!” He pulled Daniel Jackson to the ground, trusting that Major Carter would share his instinct.

  The grenade went off, showering them with debris and what may possibly have been Amam body parts, but he did not look back to find out, for the door now stood open and the four of them fled into daylight. Hunter had fulfilled his promise.

  “Keep going!” Hunter cried as they ran. “Into the trees!”

  Teal’c looked back once, but there was no pursuit. Only the ship loomed behind them, alive and threatening, like a beast ready to swallow them back up.

  The grenade had given them time, but they could not stop.

  “Hunter?” he shouted as they ran. They were blind now, no sense of direction beneath the heavy sky, no destination even had they known the direction in which they were running. Everything relied on Hunter.

  “This way,” he replied, breathless but showing no signs of slowing.

  Onward they ran, heading downhill toward a scrappy line of trees. They were free, they had escaped. But Teal’c felt no triumph, no victory, only a heavy sense of loss. And though he did not look at his friends, he knew their thoughts were one with his.

  O’Neill, left in the grasp of the enemy. Perhaps already dead.

  Grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, the Devourer marched Jack from the lab. Somewhere, further down the corridor, he could hear the echo of staff blasts and the rattle of gunfire. These life-sucking bastards obviously weren’t happy to let their lunch escape so easily and Jack could only hope that Hunter was honest enough, or at least self-interested enough, to show his team how to get the hell out of this place.

  Jack’s own weapons were still back in the lab with the rest of his gear, and the thing holding him was huge, bigger than any of the other Devourers they’d seen so far, so he guessed that any attempt at escape would just land him a broken neck — or worse.

  Despite his captor’s size, however, Jack got the impression that it was just a grunt and that he was being taken to face whatever counted for higher management among these sons of bitches.

  Eventually, they arrived at a door which slid open as they approached. Jack was thrown into a large room with a towering ceiling. Around the walls of the room and through its center sat tables with an array of equipment on each. None of it looked like anything SG-1 had encountered on its travels but, unlike the hodgepodge of tech that had been strewn about the laboratory he’d just left, all of this equipment had a similar appearance. He didn’t have Daniel or Carter’s expert eye, but Jack would have bet that it all had the same origin. Another difference he noted from the laboratory was that the tech in this room was very well cared for. Valuable, then.

  “You are Lantean.”

  The voice was a hiss from the corner of the room and Jack spun towards it. From the shadows, walked a shape. A Devourer, slender like the others, clad in a buckled leather robe. Its skin was pallid, almost translucent in the ship’s eerie blue light, and its ratted hair was white. Only with this one, something wasn’t right. ‘Walk’ was the wrong word to describe the way it moved, this thing’s movements were jerky, as if it hadn’t mastered basic motor control. It crouched as it came forward, arms held out at its side. J
ack tried in vain not to be seriously creeped out by the sight.

  “You,” it said again, with no inflection. “You are Lantean.”

  And there was that word again. Jack wasn’t sure what it meant, all he knew was that it had so far prevented him from being turned into a human juice box. “From Minnesota actually, but I guess my accent’s faded a little.”

  The thing closed its eyes and lowered its head, murmuring something under its breath. Jack strained to make it out and wished he hadn’t when the words resolved themselves into a chant.

  “Bloodbloodbloodbloodblood.”

  The Amam’s eyes sprang open again and Jack recoiled, pinned by a frightening reptilian stare. It pointed a clawed finger at him. “You have Ancient blood.”

  Jack narrowed his eyes, considering that for a moment. There was of course the question of how it seemed to know what had happened in the lab without the grunt having said a word — Jack himself was still trying to figure out exactly what had happened — but that wasn’t what struck him as being important right now.

  Ancient.

  Daniel had said their language was rooted in Ancient. And if they had some kind of connection to the gate builders then maybe they might also have the means to dial out without a DHD. It was worth pursuing.

  But he knew he had to buy time, play this one carefully. If he just asked straight out, they were hardly likely to help him. “Well,” he said, “I have some blood, and sure, sometimes it feels a little old–”

  But the Amam wasn’t listening. It jerked its head towards Jack’s silent guard, its chin jutting upwards, and bared its teeth with a hiss. It was then that Jack realized what was so unsettling about this situation, what was so wrong with this creature compared to the other Devourers they had encountered so far. They had been cold, emotionless, calculated. This one was plain, tinfoil hat, batshit crazy.

  Without a word, the grunt turned and left the room.

  “Hey,” called Jack, to its retreating back, “you don’t wanna stay a while? Split a six pack? Watch the game? Not leave me with Charles Manson here?” But the door closed and he found himself alone in the room with Crazy. With a grimace, he turned back to face his new companion. “I’m gonna miss that guy.”

  Crazy rounded the table and came towards him. Jack tried not to recoil as it leaned in as if taking his scent. The thing drew back and cocked his head. It looked down and to the side, as if searching its memory for some forgotten knowledge. “You… hunger. You require food.”

  “Um, no,” he replied, not exactly relishing this bizarre attempt at hospitality — Hansel and Gretel had probably had a similar offer. He ignored the sudden growling of his stomach at the thought of food. His last MRE had been in Aedan’s camp and who knew how long ago that had been? “I never eat standing up,” he said.

  But evidently Crazy had either forgotten the offer or hadn’t been that interested in Jack’s response because it turned back around to the table of equipment and thrust out its hand, pointing at the space next to him. Jack took this as a summons and keeping as much distance between him and the alien as possible, approached the table. “This is some pretty cool stuff you got here,” he said looking down at the array of gadgets.

  Although, in truth, ‘gadgets’ was doing these objects a disservice, because they were quite beautiful, each of them rendered in exquisite glass and metalwork. He was sure Daniel would have had a field day, but for his part, Jack could at least appreciate how pretty they were.

  The Amam ran his hand lightly across their surface, with something that looked almost like reverence. “Such beauty,” he murmured, in a way that made Jack doubt that it was speaking to him directly. “The gods who left their children. They made them and then they left them. Salvation or damnation. The choice was simple.”

  “Look,” said Jack, “I appreciate that you people are just trying to get on with… with whatever it is you’re getting on with here.” Crazy’s head spun towards Jack, as if it had only just remembered he was in the room. Unnerved, Jack plowed on. “All I’m saying is, we don’t want to intrude and I’m willing to forgive the whole ‘imprisoning us and trying to eat us’ thing if you can help me out. The Ancients. Do you know them? I mean, do you know who they were?”

  The Amam squinted at him and for one weird moment Jack felt like the crazy one. It looked to the table and back to Jack, then reached out and picked up one of the objects that lay there. It was a transparent disc of colored glass about the size of a dinner plate, edged in metal. From the center, were radiating rows of characters that looked similar to the writing that had so fascinated Daniel on the screen back in the lab. Ancient, he guessed, or something like it. “Touch,” said the Amam, holding out the disc. “I must see your blood. Touch.”

  “Oh, I’d better not. I’m sure you have some sort of ‘You break it, you buy it policy.’” Crazy hissed, baring its teeth, and Jack recalled the even more vicious teeth on the palm of its hand. He took a breath and gingerly took the disc from the alien and turned it over in his hands. The writing on it was gibberish to him. Daniel, of course, would have been able to figure it out, but right now he was hoping that Daniel was at least a mile away. “Listen, I really think you’ve got the wrong guy. I just–”

  The disc sprang to life. Beams of light spread across the ceiling of the vast room before contracting into myriad tiny pinpoints. He was no expert, but Jack knew a star chart when he saw one. He scanned the constellations, searching for any he recognized. He wondered if it was the Milky Way, and where among all those tiny points, Earth might be. That’s where Carter would have proven useful.

  I am so the wrong guy.

  But, as his thoughts dwelt on home and where among the stars it might be, the light show began to move, like a ship moving at sub-light.

  It’s searching, he realized, and I’m the one making it move. With sudden alarm at where the star map might be headed, Jack threw it onto the table before it led exactly to the place he never wanted this crazy bastard to know existed: Earth. It landed with a crash in the midst of the surrounding artifacts.

  The Amam snarled and Jack understood his mistake a second before he found himself knocked halfway to the door. Crazy stalked towards him.

  “I’m sorry!” Jack said, holding his hands up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” He pushed himself to his feet and shook the ringing from his head.

  But as Crazy approached with its shambolic gait, Jack saw something that was even more unsettling than the threat of further violence. The Devourer was grinning. “You will be of use,” it said. “You will lead us.”

  “And what use do you think I’ll be?”

  “I have not seen one with your power before,” it said, and for the first time Jack thought he glimpsed some semblance of sanity in its expression. “The others of your kind are weak, control falters too often, and they are spent before any progress is made. But the blood… your blood is strong. You may be the one we have awaited. You will lead us, Lantean. You will let us fly.”

  Perhaps sanity was the wrong word to use after all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The fire burned bright, bringing warmth to Daniel’s bones. Sam had objected to lighting it for fear that it would bring the Amam right to them, but Hunter had said it wouldn’t make a difference.

  It was true that their escape had seemed almost too easy. They had sprinted towards the cover of a nearby forest, downhill and away from the alien craft. Daniel had expected, with every passing moment, a clawed hand to close on his shoulder. But the only assault had come from the tree branches that tore at their clothes and exposed hands and faces.

  “They won’t chase us no further,” said Hunter, once they’d finally slowed. “They’ve got what they want.”

  “You mean Colonel O’Neill?” Sam had almost spat the words.

  But Hunter had been unfazed by her anger. “Right enough,” he said. “But don’t worry, they ain’t gonna feast on him. He’s safe enough for now.”

  “How do you k
now?”

  Hunter had just smiled, though his eyes were hard. “’Cause I know Snatchers.”

  He’d led them then to a clearing, canopied by skeleton trees whose jagged branches cracked the darkening sky into brittle pieces of gray. From the snaking carcasses of roots that jutted through the hard-baked soil, it looked like this area might once have been densely wooded. Now it was just a filigree of death and dust.

  In the near distance, the behemoth that was the Amam ship lurked on the mountainside like some brooding creature, and they sat in its shadow collecting their thoughts. Looking at his friends’ faces, Daniel knew they were all asking themselves the same question: What now?

  “Where did you get that grenade?” Sam asked Hunter. “How did you know what it was?”

  “Took it from one of the tables in the junk room. We’ve seen ‘em before. We use what we can find and we’ve stolen plenty like that in the past. Sometimes we just find ‘em in the dirt.”

  “The grenade appeared to be of Goa’uld design,” Teal’c said, “although unusual. Most likely they were abandoned here during the war with the Amam.”

  Hunter just shrugged. “Dix provides.”

  His devotion to the mysterious Dix was fascinating, and Daniel wondered what role he played on this world. To Elspeth he’d been little more than a legend, yet to Hunter he seemed very much a living person.

  “You said you would take us to him,” said Teal’c.

  Hunter just threw another bundle of sticks onto the fire. “If you lend me one of your knives, I could catch us a jacker. Some good eating in a jacker.”

  Sam grabbed his elbow. “Hunter, you said you would help us. We don’t have time for this.”

  Hunter nodded and said, “I’ll take you to Dix soon enough, but strangers can’t just go walkin’ in on him.”

  “Fine,” said Sam, “then you take us there. Let’s go. Let’s go right now.” She stood up, brushing the dirt from her BDUs, heading away from the light of the fire. Daniel could see how antsy she was to get moving and he could understand her impatience.