ZOMG by Lanna_kitty (Amnesty 2007, Ways to Die)
Title: ZOMG
Author: Lanna_kitty
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU, AU, AU. also? DEATHFIC!!! and crack.
Timeframe: Post S4
Length: 3390 words
Pairings: John /Elizabeth, Sam/Jack (both established)
Summary: "Mitchell's going to be so jealous."
For thesga_flashfic 2007 Amnesty. The "Ways to Die" Challenge.
Elizabeth Weir breathed in the early morning air and sighed in contentment. She wrapped her long fingers around the steaming mug of coffee and watched the early morning light dance across the water. She was joined at the railing by Sam Carter who held her own steaming cup of coffee.
"Morning," the officer greeted.
Elizabeth arched a wry brow. "Good morning," she said, "You're up early," she observed.
"I snuck out," Sam admitted with the hint of a wicked smile.
"Oh?" Elizabeth asked, a second eyebrow matching the first. She had honestly expected Sam to arrive moments before the meeting with her hair possibly mussed.
Sam ducked her head slightly in a nod as she sipped her beverage. "I had to leave before he woke up, or he would have tried to keep me there," she admitted a little wistfully. Sam would have loved to have spent the morning in bed with Jack, but she had two teams off world and another scheduled to leave all before noon.
After lunch she was blissfully free to have her wicked way with Jack O'Neill, but until then she had to be all business.
"I wouldn't have held it against you, you know," Elizabeth mused, "If you'd come in late," she explained off Sam's inquisitive look. She wouldn't have begrudged Sam a moment or two with her husband. Elizabeth was lucky enough to see hers everyday, but Sam wasn't as fortunate.
Sam shrugged minutely. Her smiled turned wicked. "I notice you're up early,"
Elizabeth returned the cheshire grin. "Well, after you went to bat for us with the IOA, it wouldn’t do for us to be late every morning," she stated primly.
Sam chuckled and sipped her coffee in companionable silence.
For her part, Elizabeth wondered what the conversation had been like when Sam had been called to the carpet by the IOA for "letting her subordinates get married. All she'd heard through the grapevine was that there had been some kind of verbal confrontation between Carter and Woolsey. Whatever had been said, it was now painfully clear to the IOA that Colonel Samantha Carter was not the meek and biddable military officer they'd hoped she'd be.
Elizabeth had privately scoffed when she'd realized the IOA had actually expected Sam to hop when they said "frog". After all, the woman had spent a decade on SG-1 barely, and sometimes outright, defying orders. The commanders she's spent most of her career under weren't exactly fond of the IOA even if they grudgingly worked with them when they had to.
Elizabeth probably shouldn't have been as gleeful as she was the first time Woolsey had come by and Sam had put him in his place. She'd still been recovering from her near-death experience though and still felt it was justified.
The IOA had protested Carter's defense: Elizabeth would have been shocked if they hadn't. However the military wasn't stupid enough to do more than make empty cursory comments about either the new Atlantis commander or her immediate subordinates: they had a military commander in charge of the city now and they weren't willing to negotiate someone new with the IOA. John had grown into a highly capable officer and there was always the fact that he had the ATA gene, so he wasn't going to be reassigned.
Additionally, and this both flattered and annoyed Elizabeth, she was considered a "valuable civilian asset," and the higher ups hadn't really wanted to ship her back to Earth. Elizabeth suspected both Jack and General Landry had had a hand in that.
In the end, Elizabeth and John had received a perfunctory memo on proper conduct, but hadn't really heard anything else from either the IOA or the Military on the matter. That suited Elizabeth just fine. Coming back from the dead wasn't easy, though Daniel Jackson had been exceptionally helpful with the (standard, she was assured) Form 9B/54; the "Back from the dead" form.
"Are you going to skip poker then?" Elizabeth asked as she swirled the last of her coffee in the bottom of her mug, putting her mind off the IOA. She wondered if she should grab another cup now or wait until after her meeting.
"Oh, yes," Sam told her, her eyes dancing with mischief. "As lovely as you all are, I believe I will be staying in this evening." She drained the last of her coffee and turned around. "Shall we?" she indicated the door.
Elizabeth nodded. They both meetings in a few minutes; Elizabeth to brief Lorne's team on the customs of their new trading partners, the Feralyi and Sam with Captain Webber's team who'd be escorting Rodney McKay to a world that might have a ZPM. Since Teyla had the baby, John's team was effectively down a member
The 'gate began to spin and the two women gave one another mildly concerned looks as they quickly headed up the stairs into the control room.
"Chuck?" Sam asked.
"I'm not getting an IDC yet ma'am, and we don’t have any teams du- wait. Receiving Captain Anders' team's IDC and a transmission."
A burst of static cut off the beginning of the transmission. "…To Atlantis! Open the forcefield!" Captain Dylan Anders called over the radio. Sam activated her radio and gritted her teeth as another burst of static filled the line.
"What's your status?" Sam asked. She could hear gunfire in the background.
"We're being chased b-" The captain was cut off again by static. When the line resolved, the whole control room could hear the sound of someone falling, or possibly scrambling to their feet. There was distant cussing. "We're being chased by zombies," Anders said. Another burst of gunfire was heard over the line, then a very chilling sound.
It was as if a crowd of people were groaning. It would almost have been comical except for that fact that her team was clearly running for their lives.
"Zombies?" Sam questioned. She silently motioned for Sergeant Kauffman to get her people into position to cover the gate. Chuck and Elizabeth exchanged confused looks.
"I don’t know what else to call 'em ma'am," Anders said between panting breaths. "I had Davis run ahead and open the gate. The rest of us are covering one of the locals. He seems to know what's going on."
"Ahh! It almost got me!" a voice Sam didn't recognize said over the radio. It retreated into the distance as the yelling man ran past Anders.
"Oh, no," Elizabeth breathed. Chuck's fingered hovered over the force field controls, waiting for Carter to give the order to turn the field on again.
"What?" Sam mouthed at Elizabeth. It was too late, though. A pudgy, screaming man ran through the gate.
"Oh. Oh thank the Ancestors," the man huffed between breaths. He bent double and placed his hands on his knees as he heaved, unaware that Kauffman and one of her privates had the barrels of their P-90s trained on his backside.
"Anders, get home," Sam ordered. Muting her radio she looked at Elizabeth for explanation.
"Lucius Lavin," Elizabeth explained with a nod in the man's direction. Sam frowned in confusion at the sheer iciness of Elizabeth's voice then she remembered something she'd read in a report.
"The one who had you all drugged?" Sam asked in a low voice, eyes narrowing at the man. Lavin had slumped down to the steps. He was clutching his chest and had grabbed a grubby looking handkerchief from someplace and was mopping his brow.
Elizabeth nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised if he caused whatever is on the other side of the gate," she bit out as Anders team hurried through the wormhole, the rear pair covering their retreat.
On their heels were half a dozen shambling humanoid…things. They wore tattered clothing and moved jerkily. Their flesh still juicy and they oozed greenish and black fluids. The horrible droning moan emanated from their ruined flesh. Worse than the sound was the smell.
Lavin let out a girlish scream and scrambled up the steps.
"Close the gate!" Sam called out, but thirty of the shambling creatures had come through on one another's heels. They crowded into the space, expanding out as they passed the huge circle. Kauffman's Marines had opened fire the moment Ander's team was clear, but the bullets seemed to do very little to stop the…zombies.
The bullets impacted, sending sprays of greenish-black gore into the air. A couple fell, their limbs torn off by the marines, but they kept crawling forward.
"Oh my," Lavin wheezed as he looked down on the slowly advancing mob currently under a hail of bullets. The mob was advancing at a snails pace. The situation seemed to be under control for now, but it could go wrong at a moment's notice.
Realizing he was safe for the moment, Lucius relaxed marginally and looked around the control room. "Elizabeth!" Lavin said, throwing his arms wide. "Lizzie! I am so glad to see all of you!"
Elizabeth glared at him and the man's smiled faltered.
"I can explain everything," he said, taking in the cool looks from everyone in the control room. "I don’t know you, though," Lavin said, sidling up to Sam.
"Mr. Lavin," Elizabeth called tersely.
"Just a moment, I'd like to get to know your lovely friend, here," Lucious said as he eyed Sam up and down.
Sam and Elizabeth exchanged a shocked and outraged looks. There were Zombie-like creatures in the gateroom, and the man was not only hitting on Sam, he was dismissing Elizabeth and everyone else.
Sam turned a glare of her own on Lavin, who seemed oblivious to the wordless exchange between the women.
"Really, you are quite charming. Allow me to introduce myself, my dear. I'm Dr. Lucius Lavin. Purveyor of life-improving goods of all kinds." Lucius paused when he realized there was someone looming behind him.
"Carter," Jack O'Neill growled, his eyes on the now fidgeting man. His gaze softened and he looked at Sam. "You appear to have Zombies in your gateroom."
"Apparently our guest brought them in," Sam explained. She nodded to John who filed in after Jack and watched the marines now taking careful aimed shots at the slowly advancing zombies. They seemed to be targeting the joints in the legs which slowed the creatures down but didn't stop them.
"You don't know that!" Lucius protested.
"Did you?" Jack asked.
"Well," Lucious trailed off as he looked for an avenue of escape. He was surrounded by unamused gate techs and armed officers..
"There you are then," Jack concluded. He went as close to the edge of the railing as he dared and watched the carnage. The marines in the gateroom were slowly retreating from the advancing mob. Behind him he could hear the Atlantis staff coordinating with one another and Sergeant Kauffman. The doors to the 'gate room all shut with ominous 'thunking' sounds. They were locked in, but so were the zombies.
"Do you think there would be a safe way to push them back through the gate?" Elizabeth asked Sam and John. Sam frowned at the relentlessly advancing zombies.
"We have SWAT gear, don't we?" Sam said. Elizabeth nodded. "But would it be safe for us to send people in that close?"
"I don't know. The city hasn't activated the quarantine protocol," Elizabeth replied, not taking her eyes off the lead zombies, now little more than crawling torsos.
"Hey," John said, frowning down at the shambling monsters. "Think they're close enough to the Kawoosh to get vaporized?"
"The Kawoosh?" Elizabeth asked, arching a brow.
"You know the big…kawoosh when you dial the gate," John said, looking for some support. O'Neill nodded sagely.
"Yeah," O'Neill agreed, waving his hands at the now inactive Stargate, "You dial and it goes…Kawoosh" He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "We've used it to…eliminate? Undesireable problems before. I don't know of anything that can withstand the Kawoosh."
Elizabeth shook her head, amused. She got what they were talking about, but she hadn't heard that particular name before. Elizabeth wondered if it was Jack O'Neill's influence on John. She turned back to Sam who was nodding slowly.
"We should evacuate everyone who d-," Sam glared over Elizabeth's shoulder and shouted, "Stop him!"
Elizabeth turned just as two techs and a Marine grabbed Lucius Lavin before he could get any further up the staircase to the Jumpers.
"Just let me go," Lavin whined. "I have a very important meeting to make."
"Oh, I don't think so," John said, getting into Lavin's face. "I think we're going to vaporize these guys then you are going to tell us what you did this time, so we can go fix it," John told him very calmly. He noticed the way Lucius face grew very pale and though he knew he shouldn't have, he felt a little satisfied that this obnoxious idiot seemed terrified.
"You're going to do what?" he asked in a small voice as he watched non-essential personnel evacuate the room. The stench was getting worse as more and more bodied opened like overripe fruit.
"We're going to vaporize the zombies using the stargate," John told him.
Lavin's eye's grew wide as he saw the sixth and seventh chevron's lock. "No, no, no, you don't want to do that! You do-" He was cut off by the sound of the Stargate activating.
The silvery Kawoosh shot out, a whirling maelstrom of quantum forces that would obliterated anything in its path. The bulk of the zombies were destroyed in an instant. A few who missed total annihilation instantly became bodiless legs and feet. The orphaned limbs tumbled to the ground.
The smell of burning meat filled the room as the great vortex of the Kawoosh retreated and stabilized into the familiar blue event horizon.
"Oh no," Lucius said. John looked over his shoulder and swore.
The Kawoosh had missed a few. These half dozen or so individuals straightened up and seemed to be sniffing the room in a disturbingly feral way. They glowed with a bizarre inner light, a sickly yellow-green color that filled their eyes. The last Zombie had been brushed by the Kawoosh and half of it's back was missing, yet it was still standing somehow.
The intact zombies stopped their advance and turned, their movements changing from jerky to fluid. Their flesh began to fill out and the smell of rot increased. Growling, the revitalized zombies turned to circle their fellow.
The Marines beat a quiet retreat up to the control room under Kauffman's watchful eye. John started as Elizabeth put a hand on his shoulder. The injured Zombie screamed as the others turned on it and attacked. Elizabeth tugged him away and he followed her up the stairs to the jumper bay. He heard Lavin staggering behind.
They'd locked the exits to the gateroom. The only exit they'd left had been the one to the jumpers above. The marines clumped on ahead, led by Carter and Kauffman who had their heads together. Sam looked back and motioned him and Elizabeth forward.
The pushed their way up the stairs and joined her at the top.
"Well, that didn't go as planned," John muttered. Jack O'Neill joined them. He'd grabbed someone's side arm and held it ready. He eyed the empty stairwell.
"The gate is still open," Sam said, "I deliberately dialed a space-gate in case we had to shove them through someplace."
"Do you think there is any way we can get them to follow us?" John asked.
"I think it's possible," Sam shrugged. "If they follow us up here, we might be ab;e to get them to follow a jumper down-"
"And then through the gate," John concluded.
Sam nodded. "I'm hoping they'll follow us with the doors closed, otherwise we might have to take a chance with closing the door at the last moment. I don't like it, but we want their attention on us and not the rest of the city."
"Where's Lucius?" Elizabeth asked, looking around.
A chilling scream rose up from the stairwell behind them.
Elizabeth's wide eye's met John and Sam's. She'd never liked the man but he was suffering. The air was suddenly filled with a horrible smell. Jack fired twice into the stairwell.
The Zombie-creature hissed at them as it crawled in the stairway on all fours. The teeth were ragged and bloody. The hands had curved into claws and the eyes were filled with the inhuman green fire. Two large holes, one in the head and one in the chest, were filled with a green glow. The thing scrambled nimbly forward as the others flowed up the stairs as well.
"Into the Jumpers!" Sam ordered Kauffman. "We'll draw it through the gate!"
The Marines sprinted to the jumpers and John led the way to another, mentally ordering the floor to iris open. John, Elizabeth, Jack and Sam jumped into the jumper. The door closed behind them just in time. John and Jack took the pilot and co-pilot's seats and began to power up the jumper. The Marine jumper was second ahead of them. It darted down into the gate room.
One of the zombies launched itself into the air and landed on the jumper. The craft barely wavered from the impact, but the thing began to rip at the hull, trying to tear into the metal and expose the people inside.
The jumper sank downward and positioned in front of the gate. It shot forward and the Zombie on top was knocked off. It righted itself and shrieked in rage as it leapt after the jumper.
"How many were there?" John asked.
"I counted five. One just went through the gate," Jack replied.
"Are they following us?" Sam asked. The jumper rocked slightly as four heavy objects landed on top.
"Nah. They're ignoring us," Jack quipped. "Strap in,"
Elizabeth and Sam did so as the jumper continued to sink downwards. One of the zombies has crawled onto the top of the jumper and was trying to bite them through the crystalline glass of the forward viewport.
The things teeth scraped against the window. Fists pounded against the glass and the thing screamed its rage.
"If we go through, the ones on top might get knocked off and not follow," Elizabeth reasoned.
"Can we get all four to sit on the front?" Sam asked, looking around for resources.
"We've got three of them here now," John growled at the ugly monsters cluttering up his view. "If they leave now we might not get this many again," John warned.
"Go before they jump off," Sam said.
John nodded and the jumper shot through the gate. They exited the spacegate around a small forested moon which orbited a huge yellow gas giant. John shot forward.
"Hang on!" John called out as he threw the jumper into a number of wild dives and spirals. He changed directions abruptly to try and shake off the zombies. Finally they drifted off. Jack grinned as he engaged the weapons system and blew the creatures apart with well placed drones.
"You guys okay?" John asked the marines. They raidioed back an affirmative and the gate reopened. The marines headed through first and John's jumper followed.
"Well," Jack said, turning in his seat. "That was exciting," he mused. Looking from Elizabeth to John he added mildy, "you two always show us such a good time." He looked over at Sam, "I think this is an even more exciting double date than that time Ba'al tried to grab us."
"When we went out with Daniel and Vala?" Sam ginned back.
"Yep." Jack settled into his seat as John took them through the gate. "Mitchell's going to be so jealous," he mused when they were on the other side and ascending to the jumper bay.
John eyed the general and decided he was being serious. Mitchell, while being a decent guy most of the time, was really weird, John decided. He set the jumper down in its cradle. And they all stood up.
"Sad about that guy," Jack said, thinking of the one person who hadn't gotten away. His death hadn't sounded...clean.
"Not really," John and Elizabeth said simultaneously.
Jack arched a questioning brow at Sam. She shook her head to indicate she'd tell him later.
Author: Lanna_kitty
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU, AU, AU. also? DEATHFIC!!! and crack.
Timeframe: Post S4
Length: 3390 words
Pairings: John /Elizabeth, Sam/Jack (both established)
Summary: "Mitchell's going to be so jealous."
For thesga_flashfic 2007 Amnesty. The "Ways to Die" Challenge.
Elizabeth Weir breathed in the early morning air and sighed in contentment. She wrapped her long fingers around the steaming mug of coffee and watched the early morning light dance across the water. She was joined at the railing by Sam Carter who held her own steaming cup of coffee.
"Morning," the officer greeted.
Elizabeth arched a wry brow. "Good morning," she said, "You're up early," she observed.
"I snuck out," Sam admitted with the hint of a wicked smile.
"Oh?" Elizabeth asked, a second eyebrow matching the first. She had honestly expected Sam to arrive moments before the meeting with her hair possibly mussed.
Sam ducked her head slightly in a nod as she sipped her beverage. "I had to leave before he woke up, or he would have tried to keep me there," she admitted a little wistfully. Sam would have loved to have spent the morning in bed with Jack, but she had two teams off world and another scheduled to leave all before noon.
After lunch she was blissfully free to have her wicked way with Jack O'Neill, but until then she had to be all business.
"I wouldn't have held it against you, you know," Elizabeth mused, "If you'd come in late," she explained off Sam's inquisitive look. She wouldn't have begrudged Sam a moment or two with her husband. Elizabeth was lucky enough to see hers everyday, but Sam wasn't as fortunate.
Sam shrugged minutely. Her smiled turned wicked. "I notice you're up early,"
Elizabeth returned the cheshire grin. "Well, after you went to bat for us with the IOA, it wouldn’t do for us to be late every morning," she stated primly.
Sam chuckled and sipped her coffee in companionable silence.
For her part, Elizabeth wondered what the conversation had been like when Sam had been called to the carpet by the IOA for "letting her subordinates get married. All she'd heard through the grapevine was that there had been some kind of verbal confrontation between Carter and Woolsey. Whatever had been said, it was now painfully clear to the IOA that Colonel Samantha Carter was not the meek and biddable military officer they'd hoped she'd be.
Elizabeth had privately scoffed when she'd realized the IOA had actually expected Sam to hop when they said "frog". After all, the woman had spent a decade on SG-1 barely, and sometimes outright, defying orders. The commanders she's spent most of her career under weren't exactly fond of the IOA even if they grudgingly worked with them when they had to.
Elizabeth probably shouldn't have been as gleeful as she was the first time Woolsey had come by and Sam had put him in his place. She'd still been recovering from her near-death experience though and still felt it was justified.
The IOA had protested Carter's defense: Elizabeth would have been shocked if they hadn't. However the military wasn't stupid enough to do more than make empty cursory comments about either the new Atlantis commander or her immediate subordinates: they had a military commander in charge of the city now and they weren't willing to negotiate someone new with the IOA. John had grown into a highly capable officer and there was always the fact that he had the ATA gene, so he wasn't going to be reassigned.
Additionally, and this both flattered and annoyed Elizabeth, she was considered a "valuable civilian asset," and the higher ups hadn't really wanted to ship her back to Earth. Elizabeth suspected both Jack and General Landry had had a hand in that.
In the end, Elizabeth and John had received a perfunctory memo on proper conduct, but hadn't really heard anything else from either the IOA or the Military on the matter. That suited Elizabeth just fine. Coming back from the dead wasn't easy, though Daniel Jackson had been exceptionally helpful with the (standard, she was assured) Form 9B/54; the "Back from the dead" form.
"Are you going to skip poker then?" Elizabeth asked as she swirled the last of her coffee in the bottom of her mug, putting her mind off the IOA. She wondered if she should grab another cup now or wait until after her meeting.
"Oh, yes," Sam told her, her eyes dancing with mischief. "As lovely as you all are, I believe I will be staying in this evening." She drained the last of her coffee and turned around. "Shall we?" she indicated the door.
Elizabeth nodded. They both meetings in a few minutes; Elizabeth to brief Lorne's team on the customs of their new trading partners, the Feralyi and Sam with Captain Webber's team who'd be escorting Rodney McKay to a world that might have a ZPM. Since Teyla had the baby, John's team was effectively down a member
The 'gate began to spin and the two women gave one another mildly concerned looks as they quickly headed up the stairs into the control room.
"Chuck?" Sam asked.
"I'm not getting an IDC yet ma'am, and we don’t have any teams du- wait. Receiving Captain Anders' team's IDC and a transmission."
A burst of static cut off the beginning of the transmission. "…To Atlantis! Open the forcefield!" Captain Dylan Anders called over the radio. Sam activated her radio and gritted her teeth as another burst of static filled the line.
"What's your status?" Sam asked. She could hear gunfire in the background.
"We're being chased b-" The captain was cut off again by static. When the line resolved, the whole control room could hear the sound of someone falling, or possibly scrambling to their feet. There was distant cussing. "We're being chased by zombies," Anders said. Another burst of gunfire was heard over the line, then a very chilling sound.
It was as if a crowd of people were groaning. It would almost have been comical except for that fact that her team was clearly running for their lives.
"Zombies?" Sam questioned. She silently motioned for Sergeant Kauffman to get her people into position to cover the gate. Chuck and Elizabeth exchanged confused looks.
"I don’t know what else to call 'em ma'am," Anders said between panting breaths. "I had Davis run ahead and open the gate. The rest of us are covering one of the locals. He seems to know what's going on."
"Ahh! It almost got me!" a voice Sam didn't recognize said over the radio. It retreated into the distance as the yelling man ran past Anders.
"Oh, no," Elizabeth breathed. Chuck's fingered hovered over the force field controls, waiting for Carter to give the order to turn the field on again.
"What?" Sam mouthed at Elizabeth. It was too late, though. A pudgy, screaming man ran through the gate.
"Oh. Oh thank the Ancestors," the man huffed between breaths. He bent double and placed his hands on his knees as he heaved, unaware that Kauffman and one of her privates had the barrels of their P-90s trained on his backside.
"Anders, get home," Sam ordered. Muting her radio she looked at Elizabeth for explanation.
"Lucius Lavin," Elizabeth explained with a nod in the man's direction. Sam frowned in confusion at the sheer iciness of Elizabeth's voice then she remembered something she'd read in a report.
"The one who had you all drugged?" Sam asked in a low voice, eyes narrowing at the man. Lavin had slumped down to the steps. He was clutching his chest and had grabbed a grubby looking handkerchief from someplace and was mopping his brow.
Elizabeth nodded. "I wouldn't be surprised if he caused whatever is on the other side of the gate," she bit out as Anders team hurried through the wormhole, the rear pair covering their retreat.
On their heels were half a dozen shambling humanoid…things. They wore tattered clothing and moved jerkily. Their flesh still juicy and they oozed greenish and black fluids. The horrible droning moan emanated from their ruined flesh. Worse than the sound was the smell.
Lavin let out a girlish scream and scrambled up the steps.
"Close the gate!" Sam called out, but thirty of the shambling creatures had come through on one another's heels. They crowded into the space, expanding out as they passed the huge circle. Kauffman's Marines had opened fire the moment Ander's team was clear, but the bullets seemed to do very little to stop the…zombies.
The bullets impacted, sending sprays of greenish-black gore into the air. A couple fell, their limbs torn off by the marines, but they kept crawling forward.
"Oh my," Lavin wheezed as he looked down on the slowly advancing mob currently under a hail of bullets. The mob was advancing at a snails pace. The situation seemed to be under control for now, but it could go wrong at a moment's notice.
Realizing he was safe for the moment, Lucius relaxed marginally and looked around the control room. "Elizabeth!" Lavin said, throwing his arms wide. "Lizzie! I am so glad to see all of you!"
Elizabeth glared at him and the man's smiled faltered.
"I can explain everything," he said, taking in the cool looks from everyone in the control room. "I don’t know you, though," Lavin said, sidling up to Sam.
"Mr. Lavin," Elizabeth called tersely.
"Just a moment, I'd like to get to know your lovely friend, here," Lucious said as he eyed Sam up and down.
Sam and Elizabeth exchanged a shocked and outraged looks. There were Zombie-like creatures in the gateroom, and the man was not only hitting on Sam, he was dismissing Elizabeth and everyone else.
Sam turned a glare of her own on Lavin, who seemed oblivious to the wordless exchange between the women.
"Really, you are quite charming. Allow me to introduce myself, my dear. I'm Dr. Lucius Lavin. Purveyor of life-improving goods of all kinds." Lucius paused when he realized there was someone looming behind him.
"Carter," Jack O'Neill growled, his eyes on the now fidgeting man. His gaze softened and he looked at Sam. "You appear to have Zombies in your gateroom."
"Apparently our guest brought them in," Sam explained. She nodded to John who filed in after Jack and watched the marines now taking careful aimed shots at the slowly advancing zombies. They seemed to be targeting the joints in the legs which slowed the creatures down but didn't stop them.
"You don't know that!" Lucius protested.
"Did you?" Jack asked.
"Well," Lucious trailed off as he looked for an avenue of escape. He was surrounded by unamused gate techs and armed officers..
"There you are then," Jack concluded. He went as close to the edge of the railing as he dared and watched the carnage. The marines in the gateroom were slowly retreating from the advancing mob. Behind him he could hear the Atlantis staff coordinating with one another and Sergeant Kauffman. The doors to the 'gate room all shut with ominous 'thunking' sounds. They were locked in, but so were the zombies.
"Do you think there would be a safe way to push them back through the gate?" Elizabeth asked Sam and John. Sam frowned at the relentlessly advancing zombies.
"We have SWAT gear, don't we?" Sam said. Elizabeth nodded. "But would it be safe for us to send people in that close?"
"I don't know. The city hasn't activated the quarantine protocol," Elizabeth replied, not taking her eyes off the lead zombies, now little more than crawling torsos.
"Hey," John said, frowning down at the shambling monsters. "Think they're close enough to the Kawoosh to get vaporized?"
"The Kawoosh?" Elizabeth asked, arching a brow.
"You know the big…kawoosh when you dial the gate," John said, looking for some support. O'Neill nodded sagely.
"Yeah," O'Neill agreed, waving his hands at the now inactive Stargate, "You dial and it goes…Kawoosh" He stuffed his hands in his pockets. "We've used it to…eliminate? Undesireable problems before. I don't know of anything that can withstand the Kawoosh."
Elizabeth shook her head, amused. She got what they were talking about, but she hadn't heard that particular name before. Elizabeth wondered if it was Jack O'Neill's influence on John. She turned back to Sam who was nodding slowly.
"We should evacuate everyone who d-," Sam glared over Elizabeth's shoulder and shouted, "Stop him!"
Elizabeth turned just as two techs and a Marine grabbed Lucius Lavin before he could get any further up the staircase to the Jumpers.
"Just let me go," Lavin whined. "I have a very important meeting to make."
"Oh, I don't think so," John said, getting into Lavin's face. "I think we're going to vaporize these guys then you are going to tell us what you did this time, so we can go fix it," John told him very calmly. He noticed the way Lucius face grew very pale and though he knew he shouldn't have, he felt a little satisfied that this obnoxious idiot seemed terrified.
"You're going to do what?" he asked in a small voice as he watched non-essential personnel evacuate the room. The stench was getting worse as more and more bodied opened like overripe fruit.
"We're going to vaporize the zombies using the stargate," John told him.
Lavin's eye's grew wide as he saw the sixth and seventh chevron's lock. "No, no, no, you don't want to do that! You do-" He was cut off by the sound of the Stargate activating.
The silvery Kawoosh shot out, a whirling maelstrom of quantum forces that would obliterated anything in its path. The bulk of the zombies were destroyed in an instant. A few who missed total annihilation instantly became bodiless legs and feet. The orphaned limbs tumbled to the ground.
The smell of burning meat filled the room as the great vortex of the Kawoosh retreated and stabilized into the familiar blue event horizon.
"Oh no," Lucius said. John looked over his shoulder and swore.
The Kawoosh had missed a few. These half dozen or so individuals straightened up and seemed to be sniffing the room in a disturbingly feral way. They glowed with a bizarre inner light, a sickly yellow-green color that filled their eyes. The last Zombie had been brushed by the Kawoosh and half of it's back was missing, yet it was still standing somehow.
The intact zombies stopped their advance and turned, their movements changing from jerky to fluid. Their flesh began to fill out and the smell of rot increased. Growling, the revitalized zombies turned to circle their fellow.
The Marines beat a quiet retreat up to the control room under Kauffman's watchful eye. John started as Elizabeth put a hand on his shoulder. The injured Zombie screamed as the others turned on it and attacked. Elizabeth tugged him away and he followed her up the stairs to the jumper bay. He heard Lavin staggering behind.
They'd locked the exits to the gateroom. The only exit they'd left had been the one to the jumpers above. The marines clumped on ahead, led by Carter and Kauffman who had their heads together. Sam looked back and motioned him and Elizabeth forward.
The pushed their way up the stairs and joined her at the top.
"Well, that didn't go as planned," John muttered. Jack O'Neill joined them. He'd grabbed someone's side arm and held it ready. He eyed the empty stairwell.
"The gate is still open," Sam said, "I deliberately dialed a space-gate in case we had to shove them through someplace."
"Do you think there is any way we can get them to follow us?" John asked.
"I think it's possible," Sam shrugged. "If they follow us up here, we might be ab;e to get them to follow a jumper down-"
"And then through the gate," John concluded.
Sam nodded. "I'm hoping they'll follow us with the doors closed, otherwise we might have to take a chance with closing the door at the last moment. I don't like it, but we want their attention on us and not the rest of the city."
"Where's Lucius?" Elizabeth asked, looking around.
A chilling scream rose up from the stairwell behind them.
Elizabeth's wide eye's met John and Sam's. She'd never liked the man but he was suffering. The air was suddenly filled with a horrible smell. Jack fired twice into the stairwell.
The Zombie-creature hissed at them as it crawled in the stairway on all fours. The teeth were ragged and bloody. The hands had curved into claws and the eyes were filled with the inhuman green fire. Two large holes, one in the head and one in the chest, were filled with a green glow. The thing scrambled nimbly forward as the others flowed up the stairs as well.
"Into the Jumpers!" Sam ordered Kauffman. "We'll draw it through the gate!"
The Marines sprinted to the jumpers and John led the way to another, mentally ordering the floor to iris open. John, Elizabeth, Jack and Sam jumped into the jumper. The door closed behind them just in time. John and Jack took the pilot and co-pilot's seats and began to power up the jumper. The Marine jumper was second ahead of them. It darted down into the gate room.
One of the zombies launched itself into the air and landed on the jumper. The craft barely wavered from the impact, but the thing began to rip at the hull, trying to tear into the metal and expose the people inside.
The jumper sank downward and positioned in front of the gate. It shot forward and the Zombie on top was knocked off. It righted itself and shrieked in rage as it leapt after the jumper.
"How many were there?" John asked.
"I counted five. One just went through the gate," Jack replied.
"Are they following us?" Sam asked. The jumper rocked slightly as four heavy objects landed on top.
"Nah. They're ignoring us," Jack quipped. "Strap in,"
Elizabeth and Sam did so as the jumper continued to sink downwards. One of the zombies has crawled onto the top of the jumper and was trying to bite them through the crystalline glass of the forward viewport.
The things teeth scraped against the window. Fists pounded against the glass and the thing screamed its rage.
"If we go through, the ones on top might get knocked off and not follow," Elizabeth reasoned.
"Can we get all four to sit on the front?" Sam asked, looking around for resources.
"We've got three of them here now," John growled at the ugly monsters cluttering up his view. "If they leave now we might not get this many again," John warned.
"Go before they jump off," Sam said.
John nodded and the jumper shot through the gate. They exited the spacegate around a small forested moon which orbited a huge yellow gas giant. John shot forward.
"Hang on!" John called out as he threw the jumper into a number of wild dives and spirals. He changed directions abruptly to try and shake off the zombies. Finally they drifted off. Jack grinned as he engaged the weapons system and blew the creatures apart with well placed drones.
"You guys okay?" John asked the marines. They raidioed back an affirmative and the gate reopened. The marines headed through first and John's jumper followed.
"Well," Jack said, turning in his seat. "That was exciting," he mused. Looking from Elizabeth to John he added mildy, "you two always show us such a good time." He looked over at Sam, "I think this is an even more exciting double date than that time Ba'al tried to grab us."
"When we went out with Daniel and Vala?" Sam ginned back.
"Yep." Jack settled into his seat as John took them through the gate. "Mitchell's going to be so jealous," he mused when they were on the other side and ascending to the jumper bay.
John eyed the general and decided he was being serious. Mitchell, while being a decent guy most of the time, was really weird, John decided. He set the jumper down in its cradle. And they all stood up.
"Sad about that guy," Jack said, thinking of the one person who hadn't gotten away. His death hadn't sounded...clean.
"Not really," John and Elizabeth said simultaneously.
Jack arched a questioning brow at Sam. She shook her head to indicate she'd tell him later.