Stole Soul Picnic 2/?
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Chapter 1
Just Another Day in Outer Space
August 2011
Dr. Radek Zelenka’s day was not going well.
Part of the problem was that the experiment on which he had his team working had not been producing results as it should. This morning he had finally broken down and called in Dean, since the mechanism they were trying to use appeared to need someone with a stronger Ancient Technology Activation gene than any of the therapy-induced carriers on the team had. Radek himself didn’t have the ATA gene at all, and both Lt. Col. John Sheppard and Dr. Rodney McKay, whose genes (natural and induced, respectively) were strongest, were busy with other urgent projects elsewhere in Atlantis. Since their arrival in the city the previous November, Sam and Dean were the next strongest natural gene carriers available; Sam was still busy working on the Coalition law database, but Dean, who was assigned to Radek’s department as an engineer, wasn’t doing anything that day that couldn’t be reassigned to someone else. Barely had Dean located the problem and begun fixing it, however, when the infamously ill-tempered Dr. Peter Kavanagh, who had arrived a few hours earlier on the Daedalus, wandered into the lab to offer his assistance.
“No, thanks,” Dean said pleasantly without looking away from the device he was adjusting. “I’m gettin’ it.”
These two men had never met before, so neither knew the other’s temperament or sore spots. Yet Kavanagh seemed to have an uncanny knack for irritating everyone, and Dean was quickly to prove no exception. Kavanagh looked over the device Dean was working on and the method Dean was using to fix it and scowled. “That’s a very delicate piece of Ancient technology....” He paused, waiting for Dean’s name.
“Jones,” Dean lied. “I know that.”
“You can’t treat it like... like it’s a car!”
Dean replied in Goa’uld. Radek didn’t want to know what he’d said, but he could guess that the Czech phrases running through his own mind were probably close equivalents.
“No, no, you are doing it wrong! Where the hell did you get your PhD, out of a box of Cracker Jacks?”
Dean straightened to look Kavanagh in the eye, and Radek could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. “It may have escaped your notice,” Dean said in a tone that rivaled Rodney at his snarkiest, “that I’m the only person in this room who doesn’t have a PhD. In fact, I dropped out of high school to fight monsters that are worse than Wraith. So I don’t need you telling me that I’m doing it wrong. I’m doing it, and that’s what matters.”
Kavanagh scoffed. “Earth doesn’t have monsters.”
“Yeah? Tell that to the mom whose daughter got hooked on Twilight, only to be turned by a real vampire. Better yet, why don’t you go feed yourself to one and get the hell out of my way?” And Dean pointedly went back to work with music suddenly blaring from the lab’s PA system.
It took Radek a moment to place the tune: “You’re No Good” by Linda Ronstadt. He couldn’t be sure whether it was playing at Dean’s request or was a comment by Lantea, but he suddenly had a bittersweet flashback to his childhood-a homemade radio and a tape recorder kept hidden and passed among the children in the neighborhood, the radio being strong enough to pick up East German radio on Saturdays when they played Western rock music to prove how decadent and awful the West was. It had even gotten Radio Free Europe on a good day, more frequently later in the ’80s. He’d hardly dared hope then that he’d even have the freedom to choose his own music, never mind the freedoms he’d gained after the Velvet Revolution and the even greater freedoms he had here in Atlantis....
“What did you say your name was?” Kavanagh asked suspiciously.
Dean didn’t look up. “Jones. John Paul Jones.”
“Your parents must be Revolutionary War historians.”
Dean snorted, and the music changed to Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused,” which aptly described the look on Kavanagh’s face. Radek had heard that Kavanagh had been on personal leave in April and May of the previous year and had thus missed all of the Apocalypse-thwarting panic he would have been privy to had he been at his post on the Daedalus. It still surprised Radek somewhat that Kavanagh wouldn’t have overheard enough gossip to know who he was talking to.
Finally, Kavanagh’s annoyance at being ignored won out over his confusion. “Look, you cretin-”
The volume of the music increased, and Dean yelled, “What? Can’t hear you, music’s too loud!”
“He bothering you, Dean?” Sam suddenly called from the door.
The music turned down a bit. “Yeah. Hey, this guy remind you of anyone, Sammy?”
Kavanagh found himself on the receiving end of one of Sam’s long, searching stares, which would be unsettling enough for anyone-the man was Ronon Dex’s size, after all-even without knowing who Sam was, what he knew, what he’d been through, and what he could do as a result of being former Tok’ra and of having to hone his powers in order to escape from Hell. But the coward paled and squirmed as if he held a guilty secret.
“Yeah, he does,” Sam finally stated. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was the same guy.”
“S-same guy?” Kavanagh stuttered. “Look, I don’t know you....”
“Christo,” Dean muttered quietly, which earned him a nervous glance from Kavanaugh.
Sam huffed, and the corner of his mouth turned up. “Like I said, I know you’re not him. Not only are you not possessed-which I already knew, Dean, but thanks-he’s dead. We killed him four years ago.”
Kavanagh’s face turned even paler. “Whu-who?”
“Pride. Chief of the demons representing the Seven Deadly Sins.”
“Was that really four years ago?” Dean asked idly, still not looking away from his work.
Sam thought for a moment. “Devil’s Gate was 2007, it’s 2011... yeah, four years.”
“Damn. Lot of water under a lot of bridges since then.”
Sam’s smile grew. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Dude, shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You didn’t have to, and do I have to remind you what else started with that hunt?”
“Dean.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry.”
“Want me to get rid of him?”
Kavanagh looked ready to faint. “Zelenka, who are these people?”
“I told you,” Dean replied. “I’m John Paul Jones, and that’s Robert Plant.”
Sam barked a laugh. “Better known to the rest of the galaxy as Sam and Dean Winchester.”
Kavanagh did faint at that, but Sam telekinetically caught him before he could hit the ground and carried him over to a chair out of the way.
Dean did look up at that. “Did he seriously....”
“Yes,” Radek sighed. “He does not respond to pressure very well. We are lucky that it does not happen more often.”
Both brothers laughed, and Dean got back to work while Sam stood guard over Kavanagh. Dean had just finished and checked the device’s function with Radek when:
“Dean,” said a gravelly voice that wasn’t Sam’s.
Radek jumped, but Dean looked at the newcomer and frowned in concern. “Cas? What’s up?”
Castiel stared at Dean without blinking and began to raise his hand. “We need your help.”
“Hey! Whoa!” cried Dean, ducking away from the fingers Castiel was raising to his forehead. “It doesn’t work like that anymore, Cas. We gotta brief Woolsey.”
Castiel let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine.”
And with a snap of the angel’s fingers, Atlantis’ senior staff were in the conference room with the Winchesters, swearing in shock.
“I told you we’d have to explain,” Gabriel said from the video screen, and it was only then that anyone realized that the Stargate was active. How the angels had managed to create the wormhole without setting off the unscheduled activation alarm was beyond Radek, though he suspected Rodney would want him to run a diagnostic to find out. Another glance at the video screen showed that the SGC’s briefing room was full of equally dazed officers and senior civilian staff-aside from Teal’c, who looked his usual unflappable self.
Dean muttered something uncomplimentary about angels.
“We cannot waste time,” Castiel stated. “The planet may already be under attack.”
“What planet?” almost everyone asked at the same time.
Gabriel shot Castiel a warning look. “Long story short, Hell is in chaos, largely because you muttonheads,” he mock-glared at Sam and Dean, “killed off most of the senior staff and most of the ones who are left can’t agree on who’s Luci’s favorite. Some of the more enterprising demons have hooked up with the Lucian Alliance to try staking a claim on another planet. That would be disturbing enough were it not for the fact that according to Raphael, the planet they’ve chosen happens to be the one where Dishon and Salim have been working undercover to undermine a Lucian Alliance stronghold-and it’s an Icarus-type planet,” he concluded, glancing over at Lt. Gen. Jack O’Neill.
O’Neill swore. “They’re after Destiny.”
“Possibly,” Gabriel cautioned. “But there is also a fairly substantial human population on that planet. Considering that the last two planets used to dial Destiny went critical within minutes, my guess is that they won’t attempt to dial until they’ve had their fun creating Hell on... what’s it called, Vihanta?”
“Yes,” Castiel replied.
“Vihanta-that’s Finnish for verdant,” Daniel Jackson noted. “Sounds like an Asgard-protected race... why would they be on a planet claimed by Thanos?”
“It doesn’t matter, Daniel,” O’Neill snapped. “What matters is keeping it out of the demons’ hands. Winchesters, I want you Earth-side now.”
Castiel transported them before they could even get out a “Yes, sir,” and the Gate shut down.
Radek sighed and wondered how in the world his life had gotten so much stranger in the last year.
“How sure are you that Raphael’s on the level?” Dean asked as the angels escorted him, Sam, and SG-15 to the locker room to suit up. Three other five-person teams were joining the strike force, but the Winchesters were accompanying 15. “I mean, he could have delayed this info on purpose.”
“Conditions have changed in Heaven in the last year, Dean,” Cas replied. “Gabriel and I have persuaded Raphael not to resume the attempt to force the Apocalypse back on track. The delay was not intentional. Raphael’s informant was unable to get the information we needed without following the demons onto a Lucian Alliance ship, and by the time he learned the full extent of the danger, he was trapped in hyperspace. He informed us as soon as he could.”
“How many demons are we talking about?” Sam asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “Azrael wasn’t sure. Maybe twenty in the initial attack, more once they had a beachhead. It’s hard to tell how many factions there are and how many legions in each; most of the fighting’s going on Downstairs, and with the time dilation, any news that gets to us is already years out of date unless it’s about demons who are already topside. And before you ask, no, we can’t come with you this time. The less they know about how much we know, the better.”
But Dean was still stuck on Heaven’s politics. “Wait, wait, wait. Cas, Dishon said you guys had your hands full last summer.”
“It is difficult to estimate how much time passed on Earth while we were attending to matters in Heaven,” Cas stated with a shrug. “But we didn’t need to do more than talk to get Raphael to yield. Now, convincing him to give up on the idea altogether took more time, and some of his more determined supporters, like Naomi and Virgil, required reassignment and other forms of persuasion.”
“You mean Bible camp?”
“No. Only one who is truly in league with Lucifer deserves such treatment. So far we have found none, only those whose contempt for humanity has blinded them to Father’s true will. They are now in positions where they will learn but neither do harm nor come to harm.”
Dean nodded. “That’s good.”
“Yes, and it looks like less severe methods have been effective. We’ve been able to avoid the civil war I feared might result from our opposition to Raphael.”
Both Sam and Dean heaved a sigh of relief at that.
Gabriel nodded. “So yeah, basically, any angel you meet now is relatively trustworthy. At least until we can get Hell’s civil war dealt with. Then... well, we’ll have to see.”
“You’ll have to see?” the Winchesters chorused.
Gabriel conjured up a Magic 8-Ball and held it out for the brothers to see the plastic triangle declaring Reply hazy - Try again. “You mooks killed the only script we had. And that’s a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but unless and until I hear from Dad, I can only see so far ahead. Or, well, maybe Atropos or Chronos, but I don’t know how likely any of the Greeks are to help out right now.”
“Hey, Winchester,” called the major who was in command of SG-15, holding up a 28-round magazine for his USAS-12. “We got salt rounds in these. We need anything else?”
The brothers looked at each other and shrugged. “Not unless you’ve got some kind of full-auto spray pack for holy water,” Dean replied.
“Coming,” called Siler, who was hauling in a cart full.
The Winchesters laughed. “Okay, look,” said Sam. “We should probably set this up more or less like a WWII engineer squad, with each person armed differently-one holy water pack, one shotgun with salt rounds, two P-90s, one M-4. If we’re looking at both demons and Lucian Alliance-”
“You are,” Gabriel confirmed.
“-then it’s likely to be extremely hard to tell which attackers you can kill and which you can’t, unless the demons’ eyes have turned.”
“But getting shot with rock salt still hurts like hell as a human,” Dean noted, “and getting hit in the face with a stream of water’ll slow you down, too. So don’t discriminate.”
“Yeah. Just throw everything at everyone, and you should be okay.”
Gabriel looked around. “Oh, and-” He snapped his fingers. “You each have an extra dog tag now with an anti-possession charm on it. In case the demons smoke out, you’ll be less likely to pick up unwanted passengers.”
A few of the newer recruits on the other away teams were starting to look really weirded out at this point. “Is he serious, sir?” one of them even whispered to the major.
The major gave him The Look. “Evans, if you can’t handle being pinned to the wall by a possessed IOA agent, I’ll have Landry reassign you to Washington.”
The new kids visibly stifled their qualms and finished suiting up. Gabriel snapped his fingers again, more quietly this time, and saved Sam and Dean the trouble of doing likewise. Dean checked his belt and found the demon-killing knife sheathed just behind his holstered M1911. He nodded his thanks to Gabriel, who shrugged.
Then Cas handed him a piece of paper with a sigil drawn on it. “If you see this mark, break it. It’s most likely to be somewhere near the Stargate; the demons will place it as quickly as they can.”
Dean frowned. “This looks kind of like that trap Alastair had Tessa in. Reaper-proofing?”
“More or less. It will bind the Reapers and prevent them from taking the souls.”
Dean nodded and handed the paper to Sam, who studied it and showed it to the team leaders.
One of Evans’ teammates cleared his throat and spoke up. “Uh, ’scuse me, sirs... why would they want to stop the Reapers?”
“That,” said Gabriel, “is something for you to hear from the Tok’ra-after you save the planet.”
“One last question,” said Dean. “How sure are we that the demons will come through the Gate and not by ship?”
Gabriel and Cas exchanged a look. “We’re not,” Gabriel confessed. “The Lucian Alliance is short enough on ships that we’re assuming they won’t risk losing one if Vihanta goes critical dialing Destiny. But if a demon’s in command, that may not matter.”
Dean’s thoughts on the matter were best expressed in Goa’uld.
“Listen, kid, we’re pretty much flying blind here ourselves. You want to stand here cursing your lack of intel, or you want to go save some lives?”
“Can’t I do both?” Dean shot back as the strike force started moving toward the Gateroom.
Vihanta, it turned out, was very aptly named. The grass was emerald green-seriously, it looked about like Dean had always imagined Ireland would look in person. Leftover memories from Dishon told him there were vast tracts of orchards and farmland beyond the town that lay in front of them, as well as a number of other villages beyond those, each a day or two on foot from the others. The anti-Reaper sigil wasn’t visible anywhere, and given the state of the grass, it didn’t look like anything had been through the Gate on foot that day. Everything looked quiet and peaceful.
So naturally, Dean was on edge.
Sam was, too, and as soon as the wormhole shut down, he directed everyone else to a safe spot and quickly scorched a devil’s trap around the Gate. “That should buy us some time, anyway,” he said once he’d finished. “If they come only through the Gate and if they’re plain old stunt demons, this will hold them long enough to be exorcised. What happens then depends on whether the demons are possessing civilians or Lucian Alliance members.”
The major ran through the Enochian exorcism with the other teams and then assigned two teams, composed mainly of Marines, to watch the Gate while the rest of the group went into town. As they walked, though, Dean’s internal alarms kept blaring that something was wrong, and he finally figured out why. While some worlds genuinely didn’t have birds or birdlike wildlife, Vihanta did. But Dean wasn’t hearing any birdsong.
“Cas was right,” he murmured to Sam. “Something’s already here.”
Sam nodded as he looked around warily. “Question is....”
“What.”
“And how many.”
“And where,” the major chimed in.
“Now, that is one thing we won’t need to worry about,” Dean replied. “These guys usually don’t have the sense God gave a grasshopper. You’d be noticeable enough just from the uniform, but me and Sam could be in full Tok’ra gear and still be a magnet for every demon in a fifty-mile radius. They’ll come to us.”
“The Lucian Alliance base is three towns west of here,” Sam noted. “Fifty troops, one XO, one CO. It’s mostly been black market, weapons smuggling, and espionage up to now, maybe some low-grade Mafia-type extortion and such locally. But... I... think there’s some kind of major festival coming up in the next day or two-maybe today-that draws everyone in from the outlying villages. So whatever’s going to go down, it’ll happen here.”
“Uh, sir?” Evans ventured.
“They were Tok’ra for a while last year,” the major interrupted before Evans could ask his actual question. “You want to know how those memories work, you just ask Col. Carter when we get back.”
Evans shut up.
The sense of wrongness grew all the more oppressive as they got to the town. The Vihantans were out and about, which was something of a relief, but there definitely wasn’t a festival atmosphere about the place. People looked subdued, even scared. And some of those who noticed the arrival of Tau’ri with guns looked a little relieved.
When a man finally did speak to the team, the major asked, “We understood there was some kind of festival today. Did something happen?”
The man fumbled a bit for an answer. “Y-n-well, i-it begins after dark. Most everyone who was planning to come is already here. It’s... it’s just....”
“You’ve got a bad feeling,” Sam supplied.
The man looked a little relieved. “Yes. That’s it exactly. Nothing I can pinpoint, but we all seem to be feeling it.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. We feel it, too. Listen, has anything weird happened today? Like, somebody sick who should have died but hasn’t?”
The man frowned, but a woman behind him turned and hurried over to them. “How did you know?” she whispered.
“We’ve seen that kind of magic at work before.”
“I... thought the Tau’ri didn’t believe in magic.”
“Some of us do, ma’am,” Dean replied. “Your husband?”
“My son. He had a terrible fall yesterday, cracked his skull, and the doctor thought he would most likely die. But about an hour ago he suddenly woke up and asked for food. I would think it was a miracle, but-”
“That was about the time when the bad feeling started.”
Both locals nodded.
Sam pulled the paper Cas had given them out of his pocket. “Have either of you seen this sign drawn or carved anywhere here in town within the last hour?”
Neither the man nor the woman recognized it.
“What about people from three towns west? Have you noticed any of the men with weapons?”
The woman shook her head, but the man frowned. “I think I’ve seen a few near the square.”
Just then the team’s radios chirped. “Someone’s dialing in,” the captain of SG-23 reported from the Gate.
“Don’t fire until you see the blacks of their eyes,” the major radioed back.
“Understood, sir.”
Then the major looked back at the now-confused locals. “We’ll go check out the square. Thank you.”
“The... blacks of their eyes?” the man repeated.
“We’re expecting company. Their eyes are completely black.”
“Oh.” The man didn’t look much less confused, but at least he understood that it wasn’t just some weird Earth saying. “Well, then, may the gods grant you success.”
The team nodded and headed toward the square.
Sam was outright jittery by the time they got there. “It’s here,” he murmured to Dean. “Can’t tell where, but....”
“Feels like Hell?” Dean supplied.
Sam nodded.
Dean nodded back. He wasn’t as sensitized to that kind of thing as Sam always had been thanks to the demon blood, never mind now that Sam had physically spent more than twice as long in Hell as Dean’s soul had. But he could still feel whatever was bothering Sam, and it did remind him of Hell.
“You two find the sigil, then,” said the major. “We’ll keep our eyes peeled for the Alliance.”
“Yes, sir,” the brothers chorused.
As the rest of the team fanned out across the square, Dean let Sam follow his senses like an overgrown bloodhound. But it took maybe thirty seconds of seemingly casual strolling before he felt Sam grab his arm telekinetically.
“Dean,” he said, pointing toward a monument near the middle of the square. There was a man leaning against it, seemingly idle-but Dean vaguely recognized him from Dishon’s memories.
“Let’s go,” said Dean.
The brothers naturally fell into step with each other as they made their way toward the monument. The man lounging against the monument saw them coming but didn’t move.
“Can I help you fellas with something?” he drawled as they walked up to him.
“Need to inspect this monument,” Dean declared.
“Ain’t nothin’ special about this old thing. Nothin’ for the Tau’ri to be interested in, anyway.”
“Step aside, please.”
The man spat toward their shoes, though Sam deflected the spit wad, and it landed in the dirt.
“I said step aside,” Dean repeated.
“Make me.”
Sam didn’t move, just shoved the man aside telekinetically. And there, where his back had been pressed against the base, was the anti-Reaper sigil, newly carved. Dean quickly drew his handgun and shot a chip out of the rock, enough to mar the line and break the sigil.
And all hell broke loose.
“Death gliders!” SG-23 radioed just as the Alliance troops scattered around the square opened fire on the SG troops.
Civilians screamed and ran for cover. The SG teams returned fire on the Alliance troops, only to have their attention split when the Alliance’s stolen Goa’uld fighters screamed past, strafing the square. And seconds after that, the ring platform that Dean hadn’t even seen in the middle of the square activated, and then they were up to their ears in demons and Alliance troops. As fast as one group went down under a hail of rock salt shells and streams of holy water, another ringed in from what Dean had to assume was an Alliance mothership. Sam lashed out with all his powers, and Dean fought with the knife as best he could, but despite their best efforts to keep their backs to the monument, the fighting swept them apart. Dean found himself retreating toward a building at the edge of the square that had swinging doors like an old-school saloon.
No sooner had he registered it than two zat blasts shot out of the darkened doorway, sped past him, and took down the Alliance soldier closest to him.
Dean made a break for that doorway, still firing his P-90. The person with the zat continued to give him covering fire until he got inside. He could hear civilians screaming and sobbing behind him, but he didn’t pay that much attention until he paused to reload, at which point the person with the zat turned.
“Stay down,” a distorted female voice ordered sharply. “And stay quiet. You’re less likely to get hurt that way.”
Dean’s head snapped up. “Dishon?”
Dishon, still blended with Dr. Mary Adamson, shot him a wry smile. “Hello, Dean.”
Dean quickly finished reloading, but before he could say anything else, a staff weapon blast took out one of the windows. Together, Dean and Dishon turned back to the door and started shooting down the next wave of attackers.
“Any casualties?” Dean yelled over the gunfire.
“I don’t know,” Dishon replied. “I’ve been too busy to find out.”
“This place have a back door?”
“I think so.”
The conversation paused there until the current wave was stopped. “Okay,” Dean called over his shoulder, “everybody out the back way. GO!”
“And stay low!” Dishon added as the civilians started to rise from their hiding places under tables and such.
Barely had the last of the civilians made it out of the main room when the next wave arrived. There were demons in this batch, some of which came in through the broken window. Dean and Dishon were driven back behind the bar, but Dishon had apparently stashed a shotgun with salt rounds back there, and she bellowed an exorcism over the gunfire that sent the demons back to Hell while Dean made sure the Alliance troops they were wearing followed them.
During the pause after this wave, Dean and Dishon dropped down behind the bar to stay under cover. “You okay?” Dean asked.
Dishon nodded, then let Mary step forward. “Oh, Dean, thank God,” she breathed. “We couldn’t get away to send word to anyone that this attack was coming.”
“Thank Azrael. The angels were onto ’em.”
“All units, report,” the major barked through the radio before Mary could reply.
And all units did report, to Dean’s relief. A few of the Marines were wounded, none seriously. Sam had found Salim and his new host, Sgt. Peter Brzinsky, and they were planning to head up to the troop transport ship to try to take out the last of the demons.
“The Gate is secure,” SG-23 reported, “but there’s no telling how long it’ll stay that way.”
Dean opened a pocket in his tac vest and pulled out a fresh magazine. “Gonna get you out of here,” he whispered to Mary.
“Dean, wait.” While Dean ejected the empty magazine, Mary slipped a data crystal into his opened pocket and closed it. “If anything happens, get that to the SGC.”
Dean slammed the new magazine into place. “I said, we’re gonna get you out of here. Dishon wouldn’t let us leave Gabriel; I’ll be damned if I leave you.”
“But Dean-”
Whatever Mary’s objection was going to be, it was cut off by renewed gunfire.
There was no respite between waves after that. Even though Dean and Mary fought back with everything they had and took down so many attackers Dean lost count, one of the humans had a staff weapon and fired it into the bar, setting it ablaze and forcing Dean and Mary to retreat out the back door. Mary used her hand device to set fire to a barrel of ale to cover their tracks; that stopped the humans, but it didn’t stop one last trick on the demons’ part: a hellhound. Dean didn’t know it was there until he heard Mary scream as it attacked her. For lack of a better option, Dean threw the demon-killing knife at the hound, which howled and fell in a burst of flame. Mary summoned the strength to use the hand device to get it off of her.
As radio traffic revealed that the battle was over and that a couple of SG-28’s members had died, Dean retrieved the knife from where it was stuck seemingly in mid-air, then crouched beside Mary, checking her wounds. But there was no way Dishon could repair them in time to stop her from bleeding out, and all three of them knew it. They locked eyes for one despairing moment.
And Dean knew what he had to do.
“Goodbye, Mary,” he whispered, quickly lifting her head and shoulders and leaning over her as if for a last kiss. But Dishon couldn’t afford to wait and jumped before their lips could touch.
This time Dean didn’t gag. And this time the blending felt like an embrace.
Missed you, buddy, he thought as he felt the Tok’ra’s mind connect with his own.
As did I you, Dishon replied. I am only sorry we must reunite like this.
Yeah. Me too.
By the time Dishon got Dean’s eyes focused again, Mary was dead.
And seconds later Dean sensed Sam coming up behind him, but the startled gasp was followed by a “Dishon?!” so distorted that neither man nor Tok’ra needed to ask what had happened to his brother.
“It could not be helped, Salim,” Dishon replied, gently setting down the corpse. “Dean got to us as quickly as he could.”
“As did Sam to us,” said Salim. “But we had become separated, and a demon stabbed Peter through the heart before Sam could kill it. I had to jump, and Sam had to catch me with his telekinesis.” He sighed. “It’s almost as bad as....”
“Carthage.”
A beat passed. “I was going to say Revanna, but you’re right. It is like Carthage. Fewer are dead, but even so.”
Dishon sighed and stood, finally turning to face his brothers. “Have you burned the others?”
Salim nodded Sam’s head. “SG-15 is waiting for us at the Gate. The other teams will stay to ensure the site is secure.”
Dishon gave Mary’s body a final farewell glance before walking away, and Salim set it ablaze before following.
Neither the Winchesters nor their symbiotes said anything on the walk back to the Gate, and both Sam and Dean were content to let Salim and Dishon remain in control. SG-15 didn’t say anything, either, as they dialed the Gate and sent through their IDC, and the group filed through the Gate in silence.
Landry was waiting at the foot of the ramp when they returned and seemed to notice the difference in Sam and Dean’s posture. “What happened?” he demanded.
Dishon found himself putting on one of Dean’s smirks in spite of himself. “Well, General, I believe the Tau’ri saying is: ‘Oops, I did it again.’”
And Salim couldn’t suppress a snicker at Landry’s stare.
Next
Chapter 1
Just Another Day in Outer Space
August 2011
Dr. Radek Zelenka’s day was not going well.
Part of the problem was that the experiment on which he had his team working had not been producing results as it should. This morning he had finally broken down and called in Dean, since the mechanism they were trying to use appeared to need someone with a stronger Ancient Technology Activation gene than any of the therapy-induced carriers on the team had. Radek himself didn’t have the ATA gene at all, and both Lt. Col. John Sheppard and Dr. Rodney McKay, whose genes (natural and induced, respectively) were strongest, were busy with other urgent projects elsewhere in Atlantis. Since their arrival in the city the previous November, Sam and Dean were the next strongest natural gene carriers available; Sam was still busy working on the Coalition law database, but Dean, who was assigned to Radek’s department as an engineer, wasn’t doing anything that day that couldn’t be reassigned to someone else. Barely had Dean located the problem and begun fixing it, however, when the infamously ill-tempered Dr. Peter Kavanagh, who had arrived a few hours earlier on the Daedalus, wandered into the lab to offer his assistance.
“No, thanks,” Dean said pleasantly without looking away from the device he was adjusting. “I’m gettin’ it.”
These two men had never met before, so neither knew the other’s temperament or sore spots. Yet Kavanagh seemed to have an uncanny knack for irritating everyone, and Dean was quickly to prove no exception. Kavanagh looked over the device Dean was working on and the method Dean was using to fix it and scowled. “That’s a very delicate piece of Ancient technology....” He paused, waiting for Dean’s name.
“Jones,” Dean lied. “I know that.”
“You can’t treat it like... like it’s a car!”
Dean replied in Goa’uld. Radek didn’t want to know what he’d said, but he could guess that the Czech phrases running through his own mind were probably close equivalents.
“No, no, you are doing it wrong! Where the hell did you get your PhD, out of a box of Cracker Jacks?”
Dean straightened to look Kavanagh in the eye, and Radek could have sworn the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees. “It may have escaped your notice,” Dean said in a tone that rivaled Rodney at his snarkiest, “that I’m the only person in this room who doesn’t have a PhD. In fact, I dropped out of high school to fight monsters that are worse than Wraith. So I don’t need you telling me that I’m doing it wrong. I’m doing it, and that’s what matters.”
Kavanagh scoffed. “Earth doesn’t have monsters.”
“Yeah? Tell that to the mom whose daughter got hooked on Twilight, only to be turned by a real vampire. Better yet, why don’t you go feed yourself to one and get the hell out of my way?” And Dean pointedly went back to work with music suddenly blaring from the lab’s PA system.
It took Radek a moment to place the tune: “You’re No Good” by Linda Ronstadt. He couldn’t be sure whether it was playing at Dean’s request or was a comment by Lantea, but he suddenly had a bittersweet flashback to his childhood-a homemade radio and a tape recorder kept hidden and passed among the children in the neighborhood, the radio being strong enough to pick up East German radio on Saturdays when they played Western rock music to prove how decadent and awful the West was. It had even gotten Radio Free Europe on a good day, more frequently later in the ’80s. He’d hardly dared hope then that he’d even have the freedom to choose his own music, never mind the freedoms he’d gained after the Velvet Revolution and the even greater freedoms he had here in Atlantis....
“What did you say your name was?” Kavanagh asked suspiciously.
Dean didn’t look up. “Jones. John Paul Jones.”
“Your parents must be Revolutionary War historians.”
Dean snorted, and the music changed to Led Zeppelin’s “Dazed and Confused,” which aptly described the look on Kavanagh’s face. Radek had heard that Kavanagh had been on personal leave in April and May of the previous year and had thus missed all of the Apocalypse-thwarting panic he would have been privy to had he been at his post on the Daedalus. It still surprised Radek somewhat that Kavanagh wouldn’t have overheard enough gossip to know who he was talking to.
Finally, Kavanagh’s annoyance at being ignored won out over his confusion. “Look, you cretin-”
The volume of the music increased, and Dean yelled, “What? Can’t hear you, music’s too loud!”
“He bothering you, Dean?” Sam suddenly called from the door.
The music turned down a bit. “Yeah. Hey, this guy remind you of anyone, Sammy?”
Kavanagh found himself on the receiving end of one of Sam’s long, searching stares, which would be unsettling enough for anyone-the man was Ronon Dex’s size, after all-even without knowing who Sam was, what he knew, what he’d been through, and what he could do as a result of being former Tok’ra and of having to hone his powers in order to escape from Hell. But the coward paled and squirmed as if he held a guilty secret.
“Yeah, he does,” Sam finally stated. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think he was the same guy.”
“S-same guy?” Kavanagh stuttered. “Look, I don’t know you....”
“Christo,” Dean muttered quietly, which earned him a nervous glance from Kavanaugh.
Sam huffed, and the corner of his mouth turned up. “Like I said, I know you’re not him. Not only are you not possessed-which I already knew, Dean, but thanks-he’s dead. We killed him four years ago.”
Kavanagh’s face turned even paler. “Whu-who?”
“Pride. Chief of the demons representing the Seven Deadly Sins.”
“Was that really four years ago?” Dean asked idly, still not looking away from his work.
Sam thought for a moment. “Devil’s Gate was 2007, it’s 2011... yeah, four years.”
“Damn. Lot of water under a lot of bridges since then.”
Sam’s smile grew. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Dude, shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You didn’t have to, and do I have to remind you what else started with that hunt?”
“Dean.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Sorry.”
“Want me to get rid of him?”
Kavanagh looked ready to faint. “Zelenka, who are these people?”
“I told you,” Dean replied. “I’m John Paul Jones, and that’s Robert Plant.”
Sam barked a laugh. “Better known to the rest of the galaxy as Sam and Dean Winchester.”
Kavanagh did faint at that, but Sam telekinetically caught him before he could hit the ground and carried him over to a chair out of the way.
Dean did look up at that. “Did he seriously....”
“Yes,” Radek sighed. “He does not respond to pressure very well. We are lucky that it does not happen more often.”
Both brothers laughed, and Dean got back to work while Sam stood guard over Kavanagh. Dean had just finished and checked the device’s function with Radek when:
“Dean,” said a gravelly voice that wasn’t Sam’s.
Radek jumped, but Dean looked at the newcomer and frowned in concern. “Cas? What’s up?”
Castiel stared at Dean without blinking and began to raise his hand. “We need your help.”
“Hey! Whoa!” cried Dean, ducking away from the fingers Castiel was raising to his forehead. “It doesn’t work like that anymore, Cas. We gotta brief Woolsey.”
Castiel let out an exasperated sigh. “Fine.”
And with a snap of the angel’s fingers, Atlantis’ senior staff were in the conference room with the Winchesters, swearing in shock.
“I told you we’d have to explain,” Gabriel said from the video screen, and it was only then that anyone realized that the Stargate was active. How the angels had managed to create the wormhole without setting off the unscheduled activation alarm was beyond Radek, though he suspected Rodney would want him to run a diagnostic to find out. Another glance at the video screen showed that the SGC’s briefing room was full of equally dazed officers and senior civilian staff-aside from Teal’c, who looked his usual unflappable self.
Dean muttered something uncomplimentary about angels.
“We cannot waste time,” Castiel stated. “The planet may already be under attack.”
“What planet?” almost everyone asked at the same time.
Gabriel shot Castiel a warning look. “Long story short, Hell is in chaos, largely because you muttonheads,” he mock-glared at Sam and Dean, “killed off most of the senior staff and most of the ones who are left can’t agree on who’s Luci’s favorite. Some of the more enterprising demons have hooked up with the Lucian Alliance to try staking a claim on another planet. That would be disturbing enough were it not for the fact that according to Raphael, the planet they’ve chosen happens to be the one where Dishon and Salim have been working undercover to undermine a Lucian Alliance stronghold-and it’s an Icarus-type planet,” he concluded, glancing over at Lt. Gen. Jack O’Neill.
O’Neill swore. “They’re after Destiny.”
“Possibly,” Gabriel cautioned. “But there is also a fairly substantial human population on that planet. Considering that the last two planets used to dial Destiny went critical within minutes, my guess is that they won’t attempt to dial until they’ve had their fun creating Hell on... what’s it called, Vihanta?”
“Yes,” Castiel replied.
“Vihanta-that’s Finnish for verdant,” Daniel Jackson noted. “Sounds like an Asgard-protected race... why would they be on a planet claimed by Thanos?”
“It doesn’t matter, Daniel,” O’Neill snapped. “What matters is keeping it out of the demons’ hands. Winchesters, I want you Earth-side now.”
Castiel transported them before they could even get out a “Yes, sir,” and the Gate shut down.
Radek sighed and wondered how in the world his life had gotten so much stranger in the last year.
“How sure are you that Raphael’s on the level?” Dean asked as the angels escorted him, Sam, and SG-15 to the locker room to suit up. Three other five-person teams were joining the strike force, but the Winchesters were accompanying 15. “I mean, he could have delayed this info on purpose.”
“Conditions have changed in Heaven in the last year, Dean,” Cas replied. “Gabriel and I have persuaded Raphael not to resume the attempt to force the Apocalypse back on track. The delay was not intentional. Raphael’s informant was unable to get the information we needed without following the demons onto a Lucian Alliance ship, and by the time he learned the full extent of the danger, he was trapped in hyperspace. He informed us as soon as he could.”
“How many demons are we talking about?” Sam asked.
Gabriel shook his head. “Azrael wasn’t sure. Maybe twenty in the initial attack, more once they had a beachhead. It’s hard to tell how many factions there are and how many legions in each; most of the fighting’s going on Downstairs, and with the time dilation, any news that gets to us is already years out of date unless it’s about demons who are already topside. And before you ask, no, we can’t come with you this time. The less they know about how much we know, the better.”
But Dean was still stuck on Heaven’s politics. “Wait, wait, wait. Cas, Dishon said you guys had your hands full last summer.”
“It is difficult to estimate how much time passed on Earth while we were attending to matters in Heaven,” Cas stated with a shrug. “But we didn’t need to do more than talk to get Raphael to yield. Now, convincing him to give up on the idea altogether took more time, and some of his more determined supporters, like Naomi and Virgil, required reassignment and other forms of persuasion.”
“You mean Bible camp?”
“No. Only one who is truly in league with Lucifer deserves such treatment. So far we have found none, only those whose contempt for humanity has blinded them to Father’s true will. They are now in positions where they will learn but neither do harm nor come to harm.”
Dean nodded. “That’s good.”
“Yes, and it looks like less severe methods have been effective. We’ve been able to avoid the civil war I feared might result from our opposition to Raphael.”
Both Sam and Dean heaved a sigh of relief at that.
Gabriel nodded. “So yeah, basically, any angel you meet now is relatively trustworthy. At least until we can get Hell’s civil war dealt with. Then... well, we’ll have to see.”
“You’ll have to see?” the Winchesters chorused.
Gabriel conjured up a Magic 8-Ball and held it out for the brothers to see the plastic triangle declaring Reply hazy - Try again. “You mooks killed the only script we had. And that’s a good thing, don’t get me wrong, but unless and until I hear from Dad, I can only see so far ahead. Or, well, maybe Atropos or Chronos, but I don’t know how likely any of the Greeks are to help out right now.”
“Hey, Winchester,” called the major who was in command of SG-15, holding up a 28-round magazine for his USAS-12. “We got salt rounds in these. We need anything else?”
The brothers looked at each other and shrugged. “Not unless you’ve got some kind of full-auto spray pack for holy water,” Dean replied.
“Coming,” called Siler, who was hauling in a cart full.
The Winchesters laughed. “Okay, look,” said Sam. “We should probably set this up more or less like a WWII engineer squad, with each person armed differently-one holy water pack, one shotgun with salt rounds, two P-90s, one M-4. If we’re looking at both demons and Lucian Alliance-”
“You are,” Gabriel confirmed.
“-then it’s likely to be extremely hard to tell which attackers you can kill and which you can’t, unless the demons’ eyes have turned.”
“But getting shot with rock salt still hurts like hell as a human,” Dean noted, “and getting hit in the face with a stream of water’ll slow you down, too. So don’t discriminate.”
“Yeah. Just throw everything at everyone, and you should be okay.”
Gabriel looked around. “Oh, and-” He snapped his fingers. “You each have an extra dog tag now with an anti-possession charm on it. In case the demons smoke out, you’ll be less likely to pick up unwanted passengers.”
A few of the newer recruits on the other away teams were starting to look really weirded out at this point. “Is he serious, sir?” one of them even whispered to the major.
The major gave him The Look. “Evans, if you can’t handle being pinned to the wall by a possessed IOA agent, I’ll have Landry reassign you to Washington.”
The new kids visibly stifled their qualms and finished suiting up. Gabriel snapped his fingers again, more quietly this time, and saved Sam and Dean the trouble of doing likewise. Dean checked his belt and found the demon-killing knife sheathed just behind his holstered M1911. He nodded his thanks to Gabriel, who shrugged.
Then Cas handed him a piece of paper with a sigil drawn on it. “If you see this mark, break it. It’s most likely to be somewhere near the Stargate; the demons will place it as quickly as they can.”
Dean frowned. “This looks kind of like that trap Alastair had Tessa in. Reaper-proofing?”
“More or less. It will bind the Reapers and prevent them from taking the souls.”
Dean nodded and handed the paper to Sam, who studied it and showed it to the team leaders.
One of Evans’ teammates cleared his throat and spoke up. “Uh, ’scuse me, sirs... why would they want to stop the Reapers?”
“That,” said Gabriel, “is something for you to hear from the Tok’ra-after you save the planet.”
“One last question,” said Dean. “How sure are we that the demons will come through the Gate and not by ship?”
Gabriel and Cas exchanged a look. “We’re not,” Gabriel confessed. “The Lucian Alliance is short enough on ships that we’re assuming they won’t risk losing one if Vihanta goes critical dialing Destiny. But if a demon’s in command, that may not matter.”
Dean’s thoughts on the matter were best expressed in Goa’uld.
“Listen, kid, we’re pretty much flying blind here ourselves. You want to stand here cursing your lack of intel, or you want to go save some lives?”
“Can’t I do both?” Dean shot back as the strike force started moving toward the Gateroom.
Vihanta, it turned out, was very aptly named. The grass was emerald green-seriously, it looked about like Dean had always imagined Ireland would look in person. Leftover memories from Dishon told him there were vast tracts of orchards and farmland beyond the town that lay in front of them, as well as a number of other villages beyond those, each a day or two on foot from the others. The anti-Reaper sigil wasn’t visible anywhere, and given the state of the grass, it didn’t look like anything had been through the Gate on foot that day. Everything looked quiet and peaceful.
So naturally, Dean was on edge.
Sam was, too, and as soon as the wormhole shut down, he directed everyone else to a safe spot and quickly scorched a devil’s trap around the Gate. “That should buy us some time, anyway,” he said once he’d finished. “If they come only through the Gate and if they’re plain old stunt demons, this will hold them long enough to be exorcised. What happens then depends on whether the demons are possessing civilians or Lucian Alliance members.”
The major ran through the Enochian exorcism with the other teams and then assigned two teams, composed mainly of Marines, to watch the Gate while the rest of the group went into town. As they walked, though, Dean’s internal alarms kept blaring that something was wrong, and he finally figured out why. While some worlds genuinely didn’t have birds or birdlike wildlife, Vihanta did. But Dean wasn’t hearing any birdsong.
“Cas was right,” he murmured to Sam. “Something’s already here.”
Sam nodded as he looked around warily. “Question is....”
“What.”
“And how many.”
“And where,” the major chimed in.
“Now, that is one thing we won’t need to worry about,” Dean replied. “These guys usually don’t have the sense God gave a grasshopper. You’d be noticeable enough just from the uniform, but me and Sam could be in full Tok’ra gear and still be a magnet for every demon in a fifty-mile radius. They’ll come to us.”
“The Lucian Alliance base is three towns west of here,” Sam noted. “Fifty troops, one XO, one CO. It’s mostly been black market, weapons smuggling, and espionage up to now, maybe some low-grade Mafia-type extortion and such locally. But... I... think there’s some kind of major festival coming up in the next day or two-maybe today-that draws everyone in from the outlying villages. So whatever’s going to go down, it’ll happen here.”
“Uh, sir?” Evans ventured.
“They were Tok’ra for a while last year,” the major interrupted before Evans could ask his actual question. “You want to know how those memories work, you just ask Col. Carter when we get back.”
Evans shut up.
The sense of wrongness grew all the more oppressive as they got to the town. The Vihantans were out and about, which was something of a relief, but there definitely wasn’t a festival atmosphere about the place. People looked subdued, even scared. And some of those who noticed the arrival of Tau’ri with guns looked a little relieved.
When a man finally did speak to the team, the major asked, “We understood there was some kind of festival today. Did something happen?”
The man fumbled a bit for an answer. “Y-n-well, i-it begins after dark. Most everyone who was planning to come is already here. It’s... it’s just....”
“You’ve got a bad feeling,” Sam supplied.
The man looked a little relieved. “Yes. That’s it exactly. Nothing I can pinpoint, but we all seem to be feeling it.”
Sam nodded. “Yeah. We feel it, too. Listen, has anything weird happened today? Like, somebody sick who should have died but hasn’t?”
The man frowned, but a woman behind him turned and hurried over to them. “How did you know?” she whispered.
“We’ve seen that kind of magic at work before.”
“I... thought the Tau’ri didn’t believe in magic.”
“Some of us do, ma’am,” Dean replied. “Your husband?”
“My son. He had a terrible fall yesterday, cracked his skull, and the doctor thought he would most likely die. But about an hour ago he suddenly woke up and asked for food. I would think it was a miracle, but-”
“That was about the time when the bad feeling started.”
Both locals nodded.
Sam pulled the paper Cas had given them out of his pocket. “Have either of you seen this sign drawn or carved anywhere here in town within the last hour?”
Neither the man nor the woman recognized it.
“What about people from three towns west? Have you noticed any of the men with weapons?”
The woman shook her head, but the man frowned. “I think I’ve seen a few near the square.”
Just then the team’s radios chirped. “Someone’s dialing in,” the captain of SG-23 reported from the Gate.
“Don’t fire until you see the blacks of their eyes,” the major radioed back.
“Understood, sir.”
Then the major looked back at the now-confused locals. “We’ll go check out the square. Thank you.”
“The... blacks of their eyes?” the man repeated.
“We’re expecting company. Their eyes are completely black.”
“Oh.” The man didn’t look much less confused, but at least he understood that it wasn’t just some weird Earth saying. “Well, then, may the gods grant you success.”
The team nodded and headed toward the square.
Sam was outright jittery by the time they got there. “It’s here,” he murmured to Dean. “Can’t tell where, but....”
“Feels like Hell?” Dean supplied.
Sam nodded.
Dean nodded back. He wasn’t as sensitized to that kind of thing as Sam always had been thanks to the demon blood, never mind now that Sam had physically spent more than twice as long in Hell as Dean’s soul had. But he could still feel whatever was bothering Sam, and it did remind him of Hell.
“You two find the sigil, then,” said the major. “We’ll keep our eyes peeled for the Alliance.”
“Yes, sir,” the brothers chorused.
As the rest of the team fanned out across the square, Dean let Sam follow his senses like an overgrown bloodhound. But it took maybe thirty seconds of seemingly casual strolling before he felt Sam grab his arm telekinetically.
“Dean,” he said, pointing toward a monument near the middle of the square. There was a man leaning against it, seemingly idle-but Dean vaguely recognized him from Dishon’s memories.
“Let’s go,” said Dean.
The brothers naturally fell into step with each other as they made their way toward the monument. The man lounging against the monument saw them coming but didn’t move.
“Can I help you fellas with something?” he drawled as they walked up to him.
“Need to inspect this monument,” Dean declared.
“Ain’t nothin’ special about this old thing. Nothin’ for the Tau’ri to be interested in, anyway.”
“Step aside, please.”
The man spat toward their shoes, though Sam deflected the spit wad, and it landed in the dirt.
“I said step aside,” Dean repeated.
“Make me.”
Sam didn’t move, just shoved the man aside telekinetically. And there, where his back had been pressed against the base, was the anti-Reaper sigil, newly carved. Dean quickly drew his handgun and shot a chip out of the rock, enough to mar the line and break the sigil.
And all hell broke loose.
“Death gliders!” SG-23 radioed just as the Alliance troops scattered around the square opened fire on the SG troops.
Civilians screamed and ran for cover. The SG teams returned fire on the Alliance troops, only to have their attention split when the Alliance’s stolen Goa’uld fighters screamed past, strafing the square. And seconds after that, the ring platform that Dean hadn’t even seen in the middle of the square activated, and then they were up to their ears in demons and Alliance troops. As fast as one group went down under a hail of rock salt shells and streams of holy water, another ringed in from what Dean had to assume was an Alliance mothership. Sam lashed out with all his powers, and Dean fought with the knife as best he could, but despite their best efforts to keep their backs to the monument, the fighting swept them apart. Dean found himself retreating toward a building at the edge of the square that had swinging doors like an old-school saloon.
No sooner had he registered it than two zat blasts shot out of the darkened doorway, sped past him, and took down the Alliance soldier closest to him.
Dean made a break for that doorway, still firing his P-90. The person with the zat continued to give him covering fire until he got inside. He could hear civilians screaming and sobbing behind him, but he didn’t pay that much attention until he paused to reload, at which point the person with the zat turned.
“Stay down,” a distorted female voice ordered sharply. “And stay quiet. You’re less likely to get hurt that way.”
Dean’s head snapped up. “Dishon?”
Dishon, still blended with Dr. Mary Adamson, shot him a wry smile. “Hello, Dean.”
Dean quickly finished reloading, but before he could say anything else, a staff weapon blast took out one of the windows. Together, Dean and Dishon turned back to the door and started shooting down the next wave of attackers.
“Any casualties?” Dean yelled over the gunfire.
“I don’t know,” Dishon replied. “I’ve been too busy to find out.”
“This place have a back door?”
“I think so.”
The conversation paused there until the current wave was stopped. “Okay,” Dean called over his shoulder, “everybody out the back way. GO!”
“And stay low!” Dishon added as the civilians started to rise from their hiding places under tables and such.
Barely had the last of the civilians made it out of the main room when the next wave arrived. There were demons in this batch, some of which came in through the broken window. Dean and Dishon were driven back behind the bar, but Dishon had apparently stashed a shotgun with salt rounds back there, and she bellowed an exorcism over the gunfire that sent the demons back to Hell while Dean made sure the Alliance troops they were wearing followed them.
During the pause after this wave, Dean and Dishon dropped down behind the bar to stay under cover. “You okay?” Dean asked.
Dishon nodded, then let Mary step forward. “Oh, Dean, thank God,” she breathed. “We couldn’t get away to send word to anyone that this attack was coming.”
“Thank Azrael. The angels were onto ’em.”
“All units, report,” the major barked through the radio before Mary could reply.
And all units did report, to Dean’s relief. A few of the Marines were wounded, none seriously. Sam had found Salim and his new host, Sgt. Peter Brzinsky, and they were planning to head up to the troop transport ship to try to take out the last of the demons.
“The Gate is secure,” SG-23 reported, “but there’s no telling how long it’ll stay that way.”
Dean opened a pocket in his tac vest and pulled out a fresh magazine. “Gonna get you out of here,” he whispered to Mary.
“Dean, wait.” While Dean ejected the empty magazine, Mary slipped a data crystal into his opened pocket and closed it. “If anything happens, get that to the SGC.”
Dean slammed the new magazine into place. “I said, we’re gonna get you out of here. Dishon wouldn’t let us leave Gabriel; I’ll be damned if I leave you.”
“But Dean-”
Whatever Mary’s objection was going to be, it was cut off by renewed gunfire.
There was no respite between waves after that. Even though Dean and Mary fought back with everything they had and took down so many attackers Dean lost count, one of the humans had a staff weapon and fired it into the bar, setting it ablaze and forcing Dean and Mary to retreat out the back door. Mary used her hand device to set fire to a barrel of ale to cover their tracks; that stopped the humans, but it didn’t stop one last trick on the demons’ part: a hellhound. Dean didn’t know it was there until he heard Mary scream as it attacked her. For lack of a better option, Dean threw the demon-killing knife at the hound, which howled and fell in a burst of flame. Mary summoned the strength to use the hand device to get it off of her.
As radio traffic revealed that the battle was over and that a couple of SG-28’s members had died, Dean retrieved the knife from where it was stuck seemingly in mid-air, then crouched beside Mary, checking her wounds. But there was no way Dishon could repair them in time to stop her from bleeding out, and all three of them knew it. They locked eyes for one despairing moment.
And Dean knew what he had to do.
“Goodbye, Mary,” he whispered, quickly lifting her head and shoulders and leaning over her as if for a last kiss. But Dishon couldn’t afford to wait and jumped before their lips could touch.
This time Dean didn’t gag. And this time the blending felt like an embrace.
Missed you, buddy, he thought as he felt the Tok’ra’s mind connect with his own.
As did I you, Dishon replied. I am only sorry we must reunite like this.
Yeah. Me too.
By the time Dishon got Dean’s eyes focused again, Mary was dead.
And seconds later Dean sensed Sam coming up behind him, but the startled gasp was followed by a “Dishon?!” so distorted that neither man nor Tok’ra needed to ask what had happened to his brother.
“It could not be helped, Salim,” Dishon replied, gently setting down the corpse. “Dean got to us as quickly as he could.”
“As did Sam to us,” said Salim. “But we had become separated, and a demon stabbed Peter through the heart before Sam could kill it. I had to jump, and Sam had to catch me with his telekinesis.” He sighed. “It’s almost as bad as....”
“Carthage.”
A beat passed. “I was going to say Revanna, but you’re right. It is like Carthage. Fewer are dead, but even so.”
Dishon sighed and stood, finally turning to face his brothers. “Have you burned the others?”
Salim nodded Sam’s head. “SG-15 is waiting for us at the Gate. The other teams will stay to ensure the site is secure.”
Dishon gave Mary’s body a final farewell glance before walking away, and Salim set it ablaze before following.
Neither the Winchesters nor their symbiotes said anything on the walk back to the Gate, and both Sam and Dean were content to let Salim and Dishon remain in control. SG-15 didn’t say anything, either, as they dialed the Gate and sent through their IDC, and the group filed through the Gate in silence.
Landry was waiting at the foot of the ramp when they returned and seemed to notice the difference in Sam and Dean’s posture. “What happened?” he demanded.
Dishon found himself putting on one of Dean’s smirks in spite of himself. “Well, General, I believe the Tau’ri saying is: ‘Oops, I did it again.’”
And Salim couldn’t suppress a snicker at Landry’s stare.
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