Fanfic, Stargate SG-1, Trouble with Timelines, PG-13, 9/24
9.
"Martouf!" Sam exclaimed, shocked.
He looked at her, and then at her team mates, his mouth gaping in surprise for several moments before he caught himself. "Hello, Samantha. Daniel Jackson, Teal'c, Colonel O'Neill." He turned to Jacob|Selmak. "Jacob. How is this possible? SG-1 was killed, almost two years ago."
"I think you're mistaken about who was killed, Marty," O'Neill said.
"You're alive!" Sam slowly shook her head.
Martouf frowned. "Yes. Why would I not be alive?"
"Long story. Probably also about why we're alive," Daniel said.
"We do not have the time." Martouf looked out the door as the sound of an elevator arriving could be heard. "That is almost certainly Jaffa."
"Daniel, tweak the cube and activate it. Now!" O'Neill ordered.
"But Jack, I don't know how to adjust it this qui-"
"I don't care! Just change the timeline - try not making it worse, but just do it. Now!"
"Of course." Daniel changed one of the settings marginally and pressed the red crystal. The white flash enveloped them all.
"All right, let's hope..." O'Neill began. He was interrupted by screams and sounds of weapon's fire coming from outside the door, in the corridor. "What the hell is going on?" He looked up. "And why is the stairwell blocked off completely?"
Martouf, who stood close to the door, opened it and looked out. He stared in disbelief for a few moments, then slammed it shut again as a man came running up to it in the corridor, growling and looking absolutely insane. "Help me push something in front of the door!"
Leaning against the door as hard as he could, Martouf only just managed to keep it closed. Teal'c ran to join him and put his shoulder against it, and now the person outside could no longer force it open.
"Was that Harriman?" Daniel asked, in shock.
"I think so," Sam agreed, shaking her head as she helped Jacob and O'Neill push a table up against the door so Martouf and Teal'c did not have to hold it closed.
"Okay, I think that will hold," Jacob said, when they had added a couple chairs to the table as well.
Someone outside was hammering at the door and snarling and growling all the time. It was most unsettling.
"Did the rest of you see what I saw?" Daniel asked, throwing worried looks at the door. "Those, those..."
"Zombies. Yes, we did, Daniel." O'Neill shook his head.
"I do not know what zombies are, but I do not believe it would be wise to enter the corridor again as long as they are there," Martouf said. "That man, Harriman, he tried to bite me!"
"He didn't succeed, did he?" O'Neill asked. "Let me see!"
Martouf shook his head. "No, he did not get close enough."
"Thank God! If that was the case I'd have to shoot you," O'Neill said.
"Shoot me? I don't understand."
"Sir, do you really think that real zombies - or whatever we're supposed to call them - would be contagious like that? Or even that they could be, zombies. It doesn't make any sense," Sam said.
"I don't care. I'm not going to take that chance," O'Neill insisted.
"Zombies are previously dead beings who have risen again, filled with an all-consuming taste for human flesh," Teal'c explained helpfully.
"Previously dead? This was caused by a sarcophagus?" Martouf asked, disbelief clear on his face.
"No," O'Neill said.
"It is usually a virus," Teal'c told him.
Martouf nodded slowly. "Maybe something created by Nirrti."
"Unfortunately, that makes a lot of sense," Jacob said.
They all looked towards the door. The 'zombies' were still trying to get in. A snarl could be heard from above the blocked off stairwell, and when they looked up a creature which probably once were human, tried to force itself past the stuff blocking the way down.
"Okay, we're not staying here," O'Neill decided. "Carter, Daniel, tweak the cube a bit and hit 'activate'."
Sam and Daniel put the cube on the table and began discussing the best configuration.
"What is that," Martouf wondered.
"It changes the timeline," Sam began. "We found it..."
"Not now, Carter! There's zombies outside the door and upstairs, and we haven't got nearly enough bullets. Any explanation can be done wherever we end up!"
"Yes, sir."
The zombies outside the door kept scratching and snarling, and the ones upstairs pulled at the furniture that had been stuffed into the stairwell to keep it blocked. It was unnerving everyone inside the room.
"Carter! What's taking so long?" O'Neill wondered.
"Sorry, sir, but we can't seem to activate the device. I think it's out of power."
"What? Does that mean we're stuck here?" O'Neill exclaimed.
"A shot from a staff weapon recharged it last time. We just need to find one and shoot it again," Jacob reminded them.
"And how do we get hold of a staff weapon here?" O'Neill asked.
"There should be one in my quarters," Teal'c said.
"Which is two floors up, through who knows how many zombies!" O'Neill pointed out. "Find another solution."
"I have a zat'nik'tel. It is not as powerful as a staff weapon, but we should attempt to use that," Martouf said, taking it from the holder in his belt and handing it to Sam.
Jacob shrugged. "I guess it can't hurt trying."
"All right, but no more than two shots! We don't want the device to disappear!" O'Neill warned. "I am so not getting stuck in this timeline!"
Sam sent him an insulted look, then put the device down on the table and took a step back. She fired at the device once, then tried pushing the crystal. When nothing happened, she fired at it again. "Still nothing, though the corners glow a bit stronger, so it has been charged some."
"Just not enough," O'Neill mused. "So if we fire at it enough times it should work?"
"Probably. Since this is obviously not the normal way of recharging it there is no way to know," Sam said.
O'Neill nodded curtly. "How long before we can shoot it again?"
"At least ten-fifteen minutes to be on the safe side," Martouf said.
Just as he had said that, a scraping sound was heard and they all turned to look at the door. The door was being pushed inward a little bit again, moving the table some before it slammed back shut.
"I think there's more of them out there now," Jacob said, worriedly. "And they are very dedicated to getting in here."
"I agree. We don't dare wait. Any ideas?" O'Neill asked.
Sam walked over to the large window set into the control room wall. The cover was not down, so she could see the Stargate and the gateroom. The empty gateroom. "There are no zombies down there. The access door is closed. I wonder if it is locked?"
"You dial your chaapa'ai from in here, so we could try doing so and see if the sound attract... zombies. If it does not, we make a whole in the window and escape offworld," Martouf suggested.
"Great idea! Dial it up, Carter!" O'Neill said.
They held their breaths when the first noise came from the Stargate as it began to move. Outside the door, the zombies became silent.
"Well, they heard that all right," Jacob whispered.
After a few moments they could all hear the sound of people moving outside, slowly walking away, some of them sounding as if they were perhaps dragging a foot.
"Creepy," Daniel whispered.
He got a warning look from O'Neill, and remained silent until the sounds outside was growing faint.
Down in the gateroom the Stargate had made its kawoosh, but no zombies came through the access doors.
"It looks like the doors are still locked down there. Good," Sam said, relieved.
"Where did you dial to?" Daniel asked.
"BP6-3Q1," Sam said.
"What planet is that?" O'Neill asked.
"The planet with those big bugs. You know, the ones that stings people and rewrite their DNA?" Sam said.
"Are you crazy? We don't want to go there!" O'Neill exclaimed.
"No, but since I didn't know if the... zombies could get into the gateroom and maybe walk through the wormhole I didn't want to risk dialling a world that could be populated, sir," Sam said, looking a bit miffed.
O'Neill nodded, looking a little apologetic. "Good call. Okay, let's figure out a way to make a hole in the glass and then we dial the gate address to somewhere nice." He tried to lift a steel cabinet that stood in a corner, but quickly gave up. "Teal'c! Come on over here and help me throw this through the window."
Together they managed, and soon one of the sharp corners of the cabinet hit the window with some force. The glass cracked, but did not break. They managed to lift the cabinet again and threw it one more time, and now the glass did break and the cabinet fell through and down into the gateroom.
O'Neill looked down to see folders and paper all over the floor of the gateroom. He smiled, satisfied. "Okay, try to find something we can use as a rope while I clean this up." He grabbed a fire extinguisher that hung on the back wall and started clearing away the remaining glass with it.
"I dialled 'the Land of the Light'," Sam said, when they were all standing down in the gateroom.
"Sounds good. Let's get going before the zombies make it into the gateroom and through the window," O'Neill said.
They walked up the ramp towards the open wormhole, turning briefly to look back before they walked through.
The zombies had clearly decided they would have better luck with the door to the gateroom, and had now forced their way inside. The last SG-1 and the two Tok'ra saw before they ran through the wormhole was a snarling zombie standing by the broken window.