Stargate SG-1: Trial by Fire: SG1-1

by Sabine C. Bauer

  "Watch and wait," Sam muttered back.

  "They'll make mincemeat of the Tyreans!"

  "The Tyreans'll get their noses tweaked and then they'll retreat and think again. It buys us time. This isn't the Phrygians' main force."

  "I concur," came a soft rumble from Teal'c.

  "But -

  The Jaffa's head snapped round, and Sam's followed suit. Then Daniel heard it too: a gentle clatter andhiss rising from the shadowy cleft in the rocks at their six. He recognized the sound. It was made by wafer-thin layers of slate trodden loose and slithering down the gully he and Sam and Teal'c had climbed fifteen minutes ago.

  "Company?" murmured Daniel. If anyone had followed them up here, they'd have a lot of explaining to do.

  Sam waved him off impatiently. Finally she whispered, "Teal'c. Check it out."

  Quiet as a mouse - a very large mouse - Teal'c crept back to the edge of the ravine and stood looking and listening for what seemed like ages. At last he returned.

  "It was an animal perhaps. The noise did not repeat itself."

  "Okay." Sam visibly relaxed and checked on the Phrygians again. They were getting ready. She blew out a puff of breath and said, "Daniel, you're on. Find the guy who's running this show and talk some sense into him. A white flag would be good. Stay in radio contact. Teal'c and I'll try to slow down the Tyreans. Good luck!"

  "Thanks."

  How they were proposing to achieve the slowing-down part was beyond Dr. Jackson, but he didn't argue. Instead he ducked past a broken slab of basalt and under the lip of rock that overhung the ledge and started to sneak towards the inland slope of the crater.

  Jack felt like a can of Pedigree Choice Cuts and wanted that toga. Badly. That was the short version. The long one was unsuitable for mixed company.

  On the way out of the cave they'd stopped off at a chamber that served as an armory. It was devoid of any useful toys, such as guns or stun grenades or zats or claymores. Instead it housed the local museum of antiquities. Daniel would have swooned with bliss. Standard equipment was metal armor, a sword and scabbard, and a spear. After doing the math Jack had foregone the latter in favor of a dagger; no chance of him hitting anything that moved faster than a sloth with one of those pig-stickers. Besides he liked to have his hands free.

  He'd need them free. The armor chafed and doubled as a sweat lodge, and the scabbard bounced off his thigh with every step. He was waiting for the magic moment when it'd get caught between his legs, resulting in one colonel coming into intimate, if abrupt contact with the landscape.

  How the hell had the Romans ever managed to conquer half of Europe? The other guys' gear must have been worse. Go figure... He longingly thought of his P90, which safely sat in a bathtub at Hamilqart's house.

  Then he thought Loser!

  They were clambering up a damp, claustrophobic gorge littered with burst tree trunks and moss-covered boulders. There was no path to speak of, and the going proved difficult. Not helped by those pesky sandals. The only thing they were good for was scooping up pebbles at the toe end. Once scooped up, the pebbles would stay trapped under your feet for as long as they possibly could, before popping out at the heel just in time to make room for the next lot.

  Loser!

  Miss Marple would love this. Outmoded means of warfare, bareknuckled man-to-man stuff. Oh yeah. She'd lap it up. Once she'd finished lapping, she'd yell at him for having got himself involved. Jack grinned. Well, she'd yell at him anyway, but at least she was safe for now. According to Flavius, all women and children had been evacuated from the garrison.

  The guy on point, Tullius or Marcellus, hung a sharp left up the side of the gorge. The last six meters required a couple of pull-ups and some climbing, and then they emerged on a lightly forested ridge, perhaps two klicks from where the pass came up from the harbor. It was obvious why they'd chosen this spot: you could overlook almost the entire valley and had pretty decent cover while you were at it.

  The village dozed amid fields and outlying olive groves, looking small and vulnerable. The first thing Jack noticed was that the battlements seemed as woefully undermanned as they had the day he'd arrived. His headcount amounted to fifteen men.

  "That's it?" he gasped.

  Tertius crouched next to him and was doing his Mona Lisa impression again, which gave the game away. "Do you think we're fools, Deodatus? Look over there!"

  The finger pointed to the left of the V-shaped gap that cradled the pass. A sunbeam glancing off some shiny surface - a sword or a shield - helped. Tiny figures were moving across the slope, swiftly and stealthily fanning out in a broad line. Over on the opposite leg of the V a mirror image of the move was in progress. There had to be fifty men hidden either side of the trail. The garrison was the Judas goat bleating to be raided, and the way there led past those men.

  Cute. Jack gave an appreciative whistle. "How many on the pass?"

  "On the pass?"

  "Do you think I'm a fool, Tertius?"

  "No." The man laughed softly. "Twenty. The Tyreans will fight hard to get past, and our men will slowly retreat and lead them between the main force. They'll be crushed."

  Depends, Jack thought. Depends on who's with them... His Tyrean pals had wasted years trying to ferret out the Phrygians, and now they'd miraculously succeeded within three days of him and Kelly being kidnapped? This thing had Carter's paw prints all over it. And if she was here, so were Daniel and Teal'c. All of which might prove to be more of a hindrance than a help. Also, people might get hurt...

  Suddenly he noticed the twin columns of smoke peeking over the gap, realized what they meant. "It cost you."

  "I counted on it. We shall take their ships. Besides, this island isn't our only settlement. But we must hurry now. Come, Deodatus."

  "And do what?"

  "Spring the trap."

  If it hadn't been for the anxiety that pulsed relentlessly under all the hubbub, this could have been rather fun. One of those longgone Sunday afternoon church picnics, albeit with a dash of interest added. Dr. Kelly couldn't recall ever having gone spelunking on a church picnic.

  Rosy had insisted she squeeze through a nearly invisible tunnel mouth, overgrown with brambles and hardly bigger than a crawlspace. After a dozen yards the tunnel had widened dramatically and finally opened out into an enormous shaft. A few thousand years ago it must have been a lava duct up the flank of the main volcano. The round open space at its centre was about seventy yards in diameter, covered in gravel and a smattering of stubborn creeper plants. It was bisected by a small creek that gushed from a jagged hole in the rocks at one end of the shadowy arena and dropped into a dark fissure at the other, to go on and feed some subterranean body of water. Clammy air, fragrant with moss, told her that sunlight never quite reached this place.

  Children gambolled over the pebbles and splashed through the creek, squealing and impervious to the coolness. One group stood facing a rock wall, playing some version of Grandmother's Footsteps that involved a dunking for anyone caught moving. Their mothers didn't seem to mind. Most of the women were flitting about under an overhang that sheltered a number of fireplaces where a communal cook-out was being staged. To the best of Kelly's knowledge noone had been carrying foodstuffs or bedding on the trek up here, so some of those caves yawning under the overhang had to be larders and sleeping quarters. Quite a refuge, and superbly organised to boot. Unfortunately, the chances of anyone ever finding her here were next to nil.

  She hadn't been asked to help, either because they didn't expect her to - after all, she was supposed to be a `guest' - or because they assumed it would be futile. If the latter was the case, they were perfectly correct in their assumptions. Professor Kelly felt no desire at all to facilitate their task of keeping her prisoner. Besides, she was busy. She was observing, and the observations were much to her satisfaction. These good people believed that nobody could possibly be deluded enough to want to leave this alpine pleasure dome of their own free will. There were no guards by the tu
nnel that connected the sanctuary to the outside world. Logic dictated that there couldn't be any at the other end either. Armed men guarding a patch of brambles surely would rouse suspicion, wouldn't they?

  Stretching leisurely, Kelly rose from the slab of rock where Rosy had deposited her and started ambling in the general direction of the tunnel, smiling at toothless, half-blind veterans and gingerly circumnavigating the odd child tumbling before her feet. Every now and again, she stole a veiled glance at Rosy. If Rosy caught on to what was happening, she was guaranteed to make more noise than all the geese of the Capitol rolled into one. But no. She stood by a cauldron, her broad back to Kelly, arguing with another woman, probably about the merits of borage in goat stew or some such momentous issue. If the argument continued for the next ten yards, Kelly would be home free.

  "Lady Siobhan!"

  She froze, her back stiff as a poker. A quick scan of reactions around her revealed that noone was paying attention, neither to her nor to the boy. She hadn't been paying attention either, and she should have. He was uncommonly clever for a brat. A while ago she'd seen him talk to the two older Tyrean lads, the ones who, like Luli, had refused to be hoodwinked by Roman bribery. She'd relied on the fact that the conversation would keep him occupied.

  "What?" she hissed, turning around and wearing a look designed to make the Vice Chancellor of the University of Oxford quail.

  The boy stood three feet away from her, a scowl on his face. How had he ever got so close without her noticing? Lots of practice playing Grandmother's Footsteps? Sneaky things, children.

  "You said I could stay with you!"

  There! That's why she hated talking to brats. Did they have to take everything so literally?

  "It's too dangerous. Once it's all over, I'll come back for you."

  "I am not frightened. I know where you are going. If you do not take me with you, I shall tell her!" A skinny little forefinger pointed at Round Rosy, nattering and oblivious. So far.

  Kelly grabbed the finger and pulled it down. Outmanoeuvred by a child. It was all she could do not to splutter with rage. "Alright! But be quiet. Chop-chop!"

  Moments later she and Luli were crawling along the exit tunnel.

  Daniel lay sprawled on his belly, peering down on half a battalion of Phrygians and trying to hide in the lee of a rock that somehow seemed desperately small.

  Find the guy who's running this show

  Easier said than done. Problem being that he couldn't see anyone who even remotely looked like the alpha male. The men on the slope beneath had carried out a nice, slick maneuver, just the way they'd been drilled. The orders were delivered by a couple of centurions - NCOs, in other words. So where were the officers?

  For the fifth time inside as many minutes, Dr. Jackson raised his binoculars and scanned the troops either side of the path. Nothing. Not a whisker... Oh hello!

  Something new was happening. On the slope opposite a group of about twenty men broke from the trees and started running across the rubble field and up towards the pass. Their uniforms or whatever they called it were different. They were kitted out in white tunics. Not terribly smart. Set against the cinder gray of the crater, the shirts hollered Shoot me! On the other hand, the only people with guns around here were Sam, Teal'c, and himself, and he sure as hell didn't plan on shooting anybody. Whoever these guys were, they must have been mobilized in a hurry. One of them had left his javelin at home. Probably just got out of -

  Daniel interrupted his scan of the running men and panned back. Something in the way Mr Spearless moved seemed awfully familiar. Fast and graceful, and every day for almost six years he'd

  "Holy... !"

  Without losing track of the men, Daniel fumbled for his radio and pushed the call button.

  "Sam! Come in, Sam! Now!"

  A few bars of static, then she replied. "Daniel? Curtain's gonna go up here any minute, so -"

  "Sam, I got him!"

  "What? You got whom? Daniel?"

  "Jack!" He was grinning like an idiot and knew it. "I got Jack! Check out the hillside opposite, the group cantering your way. Sixth from point, the one without the javelin."

  There was a short delay, then he heard "Holy Hannah!"

  "Uhm... Sam?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Always assuming they're not playing paintball out there... He's with the wrong enemy."

  Personally, Daniel didn't care if Jack joined the Keystone Kops just as long as he was alive and in one piece. From a tactical point of view, however, Jack's unexpected shift in allegiance almost certainly had a knock-on effect on their plans.

  The radio crackled again, and Sam came back. "I noticed, Daniel. I don't know what's going on, but we've got to try and reach him. The man who's leading that unit is the guy we ran into in Tyros."

  "What?"

  It was the unthinking reflex of surprise that made him look up towards Sam and Teal'c's position, otherwise he would have missed it. Despite the gradient, the boulder rolled leisurely, almost reluctantly, each slow bounce knocking free more stones until the entire hillside seemed to liquefy.

  Daniel snapped from a petrified moment of shock, frantically keying the radio. "Sam, get out of there! Get out now! The whole damn mountain's coming -"

  His voice was drowned out by the roar of stone grinding on stone as the avalanche tore over the ledge. The basalt yoke that formed the narrows of the pass was buried under rock and a mushroom cloud of dust. Then, with the languid pace of the inevitable, the river of shattered stone and tom bodies delved into the canyon, picked up speed, and began to race towards the valley, swallowing everything in its path.

  Part of his mind coldly registered that he was safe, too far above that chute of destruction to be swept along. Tearing from below came screams, screams he could do nothing about. They sparked a gut-churning remembrance of terror and pain and death in another place, another time; screams he could have stopped, all-powerful as he was, should have stopped, no matter what, because -

  "Daniel!" His radio blurted through the cries, real and halfrecalled. "Are you okay?"

  "Thank God, Sam!" Panting with relief, he forgot to push the button, cussed, and tried again. "Sam! I'm still here. What about you?"

  Good question.

  She'd answer it once Teal'c decided to move. He'd practically thrown her under that stone canopy, and then two hundred and forty pounds of Jaffa had landed on top of her. Enough to wind a walrus.

  "You know, Teal'c, next time you get the urge to jump my bones we to ought find ourselves a room," she grunted.

  "I do not believe that it would have withstood the rockslide, Major Carter." He sounded a bit muffled as he finally heaved himself off her butt. "Are you unharmed?"

  "Ask me again in a minute."

  Sam scrambled to her feet, coughing up dust and trying to determine whether she'd get lectured by Janet Fraiser in the hopefully near future. No, probably not. Her right elbow felt pretty banged up, but it wasn't broken, just bruised. Teal'c attempted to look dignified through a caked grime facial and failed. Each time he moved his head, some of the silt that had piled up on his bald pate trickled to his shoulder. Eventually Sam realized that she was staring and turned away, stomping on a grin. The ledge was peppered with debris and ankle-deep in gravel. What lay beyond was worse.

  "Are you unharmed?" Apparently the sixty seconds were up.

  "I'm fine, Teal'c. I'm... fine..." she said slowly.

  Whoever had been posted below wasn't. Gradually the vanes of dust settled, clearing the view on a trail of death and devastation. The men who had guarded the pass were gone, either buried or carried away. From under a heap of stones jutted an arm, pale against dark volcanic rock, still clutching its sword, the blade gleaming in the sunlight with obscene luster. Sam wanted to retch. Suddenly a faint, whispering noise penetrated the unnatural quiet. She spun around, grateful for the distraction.

  A thin veil of dust and gravel hissed from the edge above and formed a mound on one side of the rock shelf.
Teal'c studied it pensively and, without warning, grabbed her arm and silently and swiftly pulled her into the shadows behind a boulder. Then she heard it too. Footfalls from above, halting and uneven; the step of someone negotiating difficult and dangerous terrain. Make that two someones. Footsteps One and Two crossed above the overhang until they found a place to climb down onto the sill.

  The soldiers wore Tyrean uniforms, but they weren't regular troops. They belonged to that award-winning collection of thugs - Temple Guards - who had sailed on the battle-worn third ship. Briefly scanning the ledge, they found nothing amiss and made for the gulch at the far end.

  Her radio chose that moment to crackle to life. "Sam? Come in, Sam."

  Teeth clenched with frustration, she ripped it from her jacket. Switching it off now would do more harm than good. One of the Guards had turned, alerted by the noise, and carefully crept towards their position. Sam squeezed through a gap behind their boulder and deposited the incriminating black box among some stones right by the precipice. Then she crawled back into cover, praying that Daniel would prove his usual insistent self. Teal'c, who had watched her antics with grave interest, nodded his approval.

  Bang on cue, the radio asked, "Sam? What's going on up there?"

  The man stopped for a second, listened, and changed his course past the boulder and towards the end of the ledge. Seconds later he found the device. Calling out to his colleague, he briefly weighed it in his hand and flung it out over the rubble field where the pass road had been. The radio squawked "Sam?", described an elegant arc, and disappeared from view.

  Their visitor rose and wiped a dirty sleeve across an equally dirty face, chuckling. Then he loped back towards the ravine, where the second Guard was waiting. Two minutes later the pair were out of earshot. Sam and Teal'c waited another two minutes before they emerged from cover.

  Staring at the graveyard beneath him, Teal'c muttered, "These men purposely caused the avalanche."

  She knew what he was thinking. She'd been thinking the same thing. The furtive noises they'd heard from the ravine just after they'd reached this place had to have been made by the two soldiers climbing past.