SG: Wings of the Apocalypse 14-17
Part 1-4
Part 5-6
Part 7-8
Part 9-11
Part 12-13
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PART FOURTEEN
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Nuclear Facility
Janet’s eyes were tired and burning, dry with exhaustion and itching with frustration. Cassandra’s hand was hot in her own, two bright spots of colour burning on her otherwise pale cheeks. Someone’s shoes scuffed against the concrete floor behind Janet, but she didn’t turn around.
“Janet?”
“What are you doing up, Sam?” Janet asked quietly, gently stroking the back of Cassie’s hands with her fingertips. The girl shuddered faintly on the bed, but other than that there was no change.
“What’s wrong with Cassandra?” Sam demanded sharply, ignoring Janet’s question.
“She’s been stung,” Janet said softly. “Timothy and I gave her a shot of what we hope is an adequate anti-viral about an hour ago, but there’s been no change.”
“Oh, God. Janet, I’m sorry,” Sam whispered.
Janet heard Sam’s boots moving toward her, and a second later Sam was standing next to the small cot, staring down at Cassie.
“She was devastated,” Janet whispered, feeling her eyes burn with more than just exhaustion and fear. “Absolutely overwhelmed when you were accused and found guilty of the Colonel’s death. She never believed it, you know.”
“No,” Sam said, “I didn’t.”
“Out of everyone, Cassandra is the only one who flatly refused to believe that on some level you were capable of setting that bomb. Me? I thought maybe they compromised you somehow, with a drug or with brainwashing or anything. But Cassie, she believed in you Sam.”
Janet heard the hitch in Sam’s breathing, but she continued before Sam could say something.
“When I saw you - yesterday, was it? The day before? I can’t remember anymore. But when I saw you, you looked so cold and hard, Sam. That was the first time I really believed that you, Sam Carter, was capable of doing something like that.”
“What’s your point, Janet?” Sam asked coldly.
“I was wrong again,” Janet whispered. “Blinded, because I suddenly realised that all along I thought you were guilty. God, Sam, I was the one doing your evaluations. You were scraping through the psychological components - some days, McKenzie and I should have failed you. You were a complete wreck, but we let you go. We let you go because you were the best and the SGC needed you. I blamed myself for letting you go so hard you snapped.”
“But I didn’t snap,” Sam said quietly. “Three years in a fucking women’s institution has fucked me up more than any number of years on the Stargate program.”
Janet chuckled bitterly. “I know.”
“Is this your guilt trip, Janet?” Sam asked suddenly. “The part where you break down and cry because you failed me, and it’s your fault, and then I comfort you and tell you it’s ok, that we’re still best friends as though nothing happened?” The questions were asked calmly, normally, and Janet almost believed that Sam was okay.
Almost.
“No,” Janet said. “This is the part where I tell you I’m not perfect. Where I tell you I’m capable of breaking friendships by not trusting, of making mistakes because I allow myself to be led to a solution that I find the easiest to understand. This is the part, Sam, where I tell you I don’t know what to do. I’m as lost and confused as I was on the day you were sentenced and executed.
My daughter is lying on a bed and dying, because I failed to see through the lies woven around you by the enemy itself. I didn’t trust you, and I should have spoken to you about your mental evaluations to put myself at ease, because I would have known you were ok. If I’d known that, I would have known for sure you couldn’t have planted that bomb.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn’t it?” Sam asked, her voice brittle. “I thought you of all people would have trusted me.”
“Me too,” Janet agreed. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
Sam reached over and brushed a damp lock of hair away from Cassandra’s face, her fingers trailing lightly over the hot skin.
“Take care of Cassie, Janet,” Sam said quietly.
“Where are you going?”
“The Jaffa know where we are. I have to help Davis with the defences.”
Janet nodded briefly. “I’ll keep you informed,” she said.
Sam nodded in return, the light tread of her boots fading quickly up the passageway.
---
Elcor - Resistance Homeworld
It was still raining heavily, but Teal’c had grown accustomed the steady downpour many months before. He stood outside and let the clean water from the heavens pour over him, watching as it mixed the blood and mud and washed it into the soil until he couldn’t see where the blood ended and the earth began.
“How is Ishta?” Bra’tac asked quietly, also staring at the blood-soaked ground.
“She will recover,” Teal’c said. “The Tok’ra have healed her, but she is still weak and will not regain her strength for a while yet.”
“There could still be traitors among us,” Bra’tac stated.
“I am aware,” Teal’c agreed. “We must leave this world soon.”
“What of the Tok’ra?” Bra’tac asked.
“We will not win this war alone, Bra’tac.”
“They could be compromised.”
“As could we.”
“What are you thinking, Teal’c?” Bra’tac asked warily.
“O’Neill is right,” Teal’c said.
“You will give him the poison.” It was not a question.
“Yes,” Teal’c said. “It is hard to believe, but not all our brother’s would fight with us if given the choice, Bra’tac. They have been given a choice, and they have chosen their side.”
“There is no honour in this, Teal’c.”
“There is no honour in serving the Goa’uld and dying for a false god,” Teal’c responded. “It is war, Bra’tac, and the only way which we will gather more followers is to prove we are right and we will win. This will help turn the tide in our favour.”
“I pray you are right, my friend,” Bra’tac said quietly. “It is a large sacrifice to make if it proves to be wrong.”
Teal’c nodded.
As though it were timed, O’Neill appeared in the doorway of what was once Teal’c’s hut. Teal’c watched the Tau’ri as he walked toward them, noting the stiffness of his movements and the strain on his face.
“O’Neill is growing old,” Bra’tac said softly.
“Before his time,” Teal’c agreed, still watching. “But he is alive, Bra’tac, and a powerful ally to have. He is also a friend.”
Bra’tac didn’t reply, and as O’Neill picked his way toward them, Teal’c was again struck by relief and awe that O’Neill was alive. Bra’tac touched his arm as O’Neill approached, and disappeared into a tent to get the poison.
“Doesn’t the rain ever stop in this place?” O’Neill demanded. If O’Neill was growing old, his apparent sense of humour and wit had not changed at all.
“No,” Teal’c said simply. “Maybourne and the girl, Bek?”
“Maybourne’s going to be ok, apparently,” O’Neill said, grimacing in distaste. “He hasn’t woken up yet, but the Tok’ra have done their stuff and pronounced him well on the way to healing. Bek is… Bek is ok,” he finished.
“Garshaw?”
A small smile touched O’Neill’s lips but it was bitter and mocking. “Quiet,” he said simply.
Teal’c nodded. “The Tok’ra will spare you a Tel’tac,” he said, “and we will give you the poison.”
O’Neill’s eyes widened, and he stared at them. “Teal’c?”
“Not all our brother’s will join us in our fight, O’Neill. Those who do not are the enemy,” he said.
O’Neill nodded. “Thank you, Teal’c.”
Teal’c nodded again. “Bra’tac is retrieving the poison,” he said. “The Tok’ra Tel’tac is situated in those trees, there. Garshaw will agree to let you take the Tel’tac - it will be the easiest and quickest.”
“Hey, Teal’c?” O’Neill said hesitantly. Teal’c raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue. “When this is over and we’ve saved Earth again, come and have dinner with us one night.”
“As long as I do not have to go fishing,” Teal’c agreed.
O’Neill grinned, and nodded. “Thanks, T. I owe you one.”
“No,” Teal’c said. “You are a friend, O’Neill, and it is enough to see that you are alive.”
“Don’t go getting all sappy on me!” O’Neill warned.
“I will not.”
“Good. Oh, how is Ishta?”
“Ishta is recovering,” Teal’c said.
“She will bear many sons yet,” Bra’tac added wickedly as he reappeared, and Teal’c was almost ashamed to feel heat on his cheeks.
O’Neill merely grinned.
“Here, O’Neill,” Bra’tac said solemnly, holding out a small package wrapped in an oilskin cloth. “Take care.”
“Good luck, O’Neill,” Teal’c added quietly.
O’Neill nodded, and swallowed. “Thanks, Teal’c. Bra’tac.”
With a final salute and smile, O’Neill turned and walked back to the dwelling where Maybourne and Garshaw were recovering.
Bra’tac and Teal’c were silent as the rain continued to fall, and Teal’c felt a small smile touch his lips. “I will not be sorry to see the end of the rain when we leave this world,” he said.
Bra’tac chuckled. “You are right, my friend.”
---
Nuclear Research Facility
Her ribs ached and burnt with pain each time she moved, but she knew they weren’t broken. Only bruised. Sam drew a deep breath in slowly, savouring the splintering pain as it lanced jaggedly down her right side. Pain. It felt real and alive and so much better than the empty grayness of square cells and routine and shower cubicles with cold water and prying eyes.
It felt like a distant memory now, she thought as she lay on her stomach in the dirt with a P-90 in her hands and grenades at her side. It felt like a bad dream which still bothered her with lingering images she couldn’t quite recall but which had disturbed her so deeply and profoundly she felt compelled to do something.
Between the cracked concrete pillars and encroaching forest, she could see glimpses of the sky. It was burning a hazy orange, thick clouds with bruised purple shadows hanging ominously. She hadn’t seen a sunset in a long, long time, and she stared up at it silently.
Slowly the orange faded red and then purple until it was a deep velvet blue and the clouds were black and dark, hiding the cold star studs in from her sight.
“Think it’s going to rain?” Paul Davis asked next to her, his voice unnaturally loud despite whispering.
The air crackled with electricity and anticipation; waiting. For what?
“Maybe,” she said, nodding. Her head throbbed with the movement, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
“You okay?” Davis questioned.
“Fine,” she said shortly.
Fine. She was always fine.
Her fingers tensed on the P-90 as a dark object swooped like a bat across the velvet sky. “Here they come,” she whispered. She licked her lips anxiously. They were dry and cracked and she imagined she could still taste the salt of his skin faintly, and she felt a sudden pang of regret at what they’d done.
Why had they done it?
She wasn’t sure, and she wondered if whatever had broken inside her could possibly be fixed.
“Boys, the snakes are landing,” Davis whispered into his radio. “Maintain radio silence for now; we don’t want to give away our positions yet.”
Her breathing sounded loud and forced in the sudden silence around the facility. A gentle hum that rose in pitch and volume indicated the arrival of several death gliders; she watched them swoop past and disappear into the dark sky around them.
“Here we go,” Davis whispered next to her.
And in a sudden moment of clarity, Sam realised that she didn’t want to die broken and bitter with regrets.
---
PART SIXTEEN
---
Tel’tac
She felt distant from her body; as though she was a spectator and not completely in control of her movements. She wasn’t in control, she realised dimly.
I can let you have control, a voice whispered, cool and silken against her thoughts, but I am not certain you would be able to fly the Tel’tac yet.
Bek imagined that if she was in control, she would have shuddered. As it was, she felt trapped. Claustrophobic. Suddenly realising just how helpless she could be.
“Colonel O’Neill,” she heard herself say, but her voice was rough and hoarse, “I need you to pilot for a time.”
“Everything okay?” Jack asked.
Again, she felt her lips move but knew she hadn’t thought or formed the words herself. “We just need some time.”
She saw suspicion and bitter knowledge glint in Jack’s eyes, and she knew why he had tried to stop her.
No, the voice - Garshaw, she remembered - said, no, it is different with us.
Her limbs folded carefully under her, and she was seated on the cold floor of the Tel’tac, the walls solid behind her and the floor thrumming comfortingly underneath. With a rush, she could feel again, and her arms and legs were her own.
“Jack?” she whispered, her voice a croak.
“You ok, Bek?” he called back to her from the front of the ship, and she was surprised to hear a touch of concern on his voice.
“I… yeah. I think so,” she replied, closing her eyes and focusing on her breathing. In and out, in and out. The air tasted cool and dry. Artificially recycled. Slightly stale. She shivered, and wrapped her arms around her knees, trying hard to focus on everything and anything except the thing in her head. The presence in her mind. The sensation that there was something else in her head.
Was this what a schizophrenic felt like? Two people in one brain?
You are not crazy, or insane, Rebekah.
“Bek,” she snapped, “my name is Bek.”
Something like a wave of bemusement rolled through her, and Bek felt a frission of real annoyance. Even the goddamn snake thing was patronising her as though she was only a child.
But you are only a child, it pointed out.
“Which mean’s you’re a relic,” she returned sharply.
At the front of the ship, she heard a bark of dry laughter from Jack, and across from her the Russian scientist, Svetlana, was watching her curiously. Almost warily.
No one had ever looked at her like that before, Bek realised, as though she was something to be scared of. Something to fear.
They don’t fear you, Garshaw said, they fear what you have become. What I am.
And what have I become? Bek wondered.
More than what you were.
Bek bit her lip, glanced at Svetlana again who avoided her questioning gaze, and then climbed unsteadily to her feet. She felt strange; uncoordinated. As though she was tipsy but she hadn’t drunk anything.
Jack - or O’Neill, as Garshaw thought of him - glanced at her once when she came to stand next to him, but his attention was focused on the controls in front of him.
Chart, radar, rings, communiocation, hyperdr-
She snapped her eyes shut and tried to ignore the fact that she knew what the controls did and operated, without being told.
“Arguing?” Jack asked mildly, and there was underlying tone of humour to his question.
“No,” Bek said, opening her eyes and staring ahead and staring ahead. It was beautiful, she thought, flying through space. More colourful than she had imagined it would be, and a lot emptier. More quiet than she would have thought. She remembered once shortly after she’d met Cassie, the two of them had gone to stay at a cabin in Minnesota. They’d sat on the jetty late that night, talking, and when they’d fallen quiet the world had been silent. Up to now, she hadn’t heard anything more silent.
“You were a host, weren’t you?” she asked.
He stiffened next to her, but didn’t answer.
“Garshaw says it was different for you,” Bek pressed, despite the caution coming from Garshaw. It felt good to ignore the Tok’ra; to defy her.
He shrugged, and stared ahead but she had the feeling he wasn’t really watching what he was doing anymore.
“It feels strange,” she said at last.
“You regretting it?”
“I…I don’t know,” she admitted. “She’s arrogant and patronising and condescending but at the same time…”
“At the same time, what?”
Bek felt her lip quirk, and she was sure why she found it so amusing but she did. “She reminds me of my grandmother.”
His eyebrows lifted and he looked at her incredulously. “Your grandmother?”
“Yes. She calls me Rebekah.”
“You don’t have to stay like this, Bek,” he said quietly. “You had no idea what you were getting into.”
“I know,” she said. “I still don’t know what I’m getting into,” she added.
“No one ever knows what they’re getting into,” he said.
“My mom died when my youngest sister was born. My dad’s mother, my grandmother, helped him to raise us. She died last year - she had cancer.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
While Bek had no doubt he meant the sympathy, it was distant and hollow, as though he had forgotten the grief and pain that came with loss.
Or perhaps he has learnt to distance himself from it, Garshaw suggested.
“Major Carter - Sam - that was her Dad on the planet, wasn’t it? Jacob?”
“Yes.”
And Bek knew that he had been dying, and the Tok’ra Selmac was his last choice.
Jacob is happy with Selmak, Garshaw whispered. It takes time, Rebekah, but it is possible to be content as a Tok’ra.
“They aren’t all bad,” she said quietly. She wasn’t sure she knew what she meant by the words, but she felt Garshaw’s satisfaction and saw Jack give a barely perceptible nod of his head. “Garshaw wants to know where Jacob is?”
“I wouldn’t let him come - the poison obviously isn’t a joke and I won’t let him risk it.”
Yet, Jack was willing to let Garshaw risk her life.
No, the Tok’ra disagreed gently. I would not let him take the Tel’tac unless I accompanied him.
Bek watched Jack for a few seconds, wincing internally at his constant grimace of pain and tension. He is tired and worn, but he will not stop, Garshaw murmured. A fleeting touch of admiration and respect, and the Tok’ra retreated.
“Take a seat, Jack. We’ll drive.”
He looked as though he would protest, but he surprised her and nodded, stepping back to let her take over.
Thank you, Garshaw, Bek said, her fingers touching the controls lightly.
No, it is I who should thank you, Rebekah.
You’re risking your life for us.
Without you, I would not be alive now. Your mission is mine for the time being.
Bek found herself smiling, and for the first time in days she felt it was okay, that maybe there was a way to fix everything.
---
Nuclear Facility
The first wave of Jaffa was half-hearted. Obviously expecting the Tau’ri to be disheartened and ready to admit defeat, the ground forces moved almost sluggishly and with no thought to stealth or the possibility of ambush.
It took Paul’s squad five minutes to dispose of them with several well placed claymores, Tom acting as sniper and Andrews manning the heavy artillery. In the aftermath of the vicious bloodbath, the dark world was strangely silent. Even the bugs seemed to be scared away by the gunfire, though Paul new this was just fanciful hoping on his part and had more to do with dumb luck than anything they actually did.
A canteen was passed around, and Paul praised their work quietly on the small radios, still alert for any movement in the woods around them.
“I’m going to see if I can rig a shield over us,” Carter whispered in the dark, barely visible next to him as heavy clouds blotted out the pale moonlight. Paul hoped to God it would rain soon because he had a suspicion the bugs would be hampered in heavy rainfall.
“Ok,” Paul agreed, and then instructed Tom and Samuels to lay another round of claymores. He almost wished Bek and Cass were still around, because at they could have helped by hauling supplies and artillery around. As it stood, it was up to him and Andrews to retrieve more from their supplies.
They worked quickly and quietly in the dark, almost soundless shadows as the air grew thicker and heavier and the rough material of his BDUs chafed more than he’d thought possible. Within fifteen minutes they were ready for a second wave, but there was no sign of Jaffa - either air or ground troops.
“I don’t like this,” he whispered to Samuels who was crouching next to him, breathing heavily through his nose in what was probably a combination of fear, adrenalin and exhaustion. “It’s too quiet.”
The only advantage to their entire situation, Paul thought, was the facility they were defending - a clear area of approximately fifty metres extended all around the buildings, fringed by the light woodlands. It was easy to defend because they had clear targets as their enemy approached. Paul stared searchingly into the inky night ahead of them, straining to catch a glimpse of movement. Other than Carter shuffling around with small pieces of equipment, nothing moved except the air.
Paul blinked. The air was moving?
Next to him Samuels gasped and moved as Paul’s fingers tightened on his weapon. Carter stopped moving too, frozen and exposed in an open patch of grass between the trees.
“Get undercover, Carter,” Paul ordered quietly, even though there was no way she could hear him. Still, the woman knew what she was doing and slowly seemed to melt back into the darker shadows.
Again, the air rippled, and as a sudden rumble of thunder rolled ominously across the sky, it seemed to tear and twist and suddenly in front of them, on their nice, clean shooting range, a Goa’uld Tel’tac appeared.
Paul closed his eyes and bit on his lip, struggling to keep a small flicker of hope and defiance burning inside him. But it was so hard when everything went so horribly wrong.
---
Tel’tac
Saturn was bigger and brighter than she had anticipated. And the rings… Bek stared at them with awe, but the Tel’tac hurtled past and soon she saw a small speck which Garshaw informed her was Earth. She watched as her planet grew bigger and brighter, and slowly turned blue and green and white. Soon she could discern oceans and continents, and as they passed through the atmosphere she was horrified by the darkness of the North American Continent - hardly any lights fought against the night sky.
The cities would be under attack by the Goa’uld, Garshaw said. There are fires burning, the Tok’ra added, but it was unnecessary because already Bek could distinguish between the few lights still shining defiantly and the red glow of fires burning without opposition.
It was almost too soon, and suddenly they were flying through thick clouds and watching as dark mountains appeared beneath them, quickly rolling into darkened fields and forests Bek couldn’t see.
“There,” Jack whispered from next to her, and Bek didn’t even think as her hands guided the alien vessel down carefully onto the ground in front of the facility she’d left only hours - or was it days? - before.
“I don’t see anyone,” Bek whispered even though there was on need.
“They’re there,” Jack said, sounding distracted. “I think I saw Carter. Uncloak the ship, Bek.”
She hadn’t realised the ship was cloaked, but Garshaw nudged her gently and her fingers performed the requested task easily.
Bek walked behind Jack and Svetlana as they exited the Tel’tac and then paused a few steps from the ship. There was a rustle of movement from the buildings ahead of them, and the silence was broken by a hesitant “Colonel?” from the trees off to one side.
“Carter?” Jack responded cautiously.
“Oh, thank God something went fucking right for a change,” someone else - Bek thought it was Paul Davis - exclaimed loudly from the buildings shadows. “I cannot tell you how relieved I am it’s you, Colonel.”
“Good to see you all too,” Jack agreed as several dark forms appeared from various positions around the Tel’tac. It took Bek several seconds to realise they were dark because black paint covered their faces, and other than the whites of their eyes they appeared almost invisible in the dark.
A roll of thunder growled across the sky, and Bek looked up briefly.
“How did it go?” Samuels asked. “I’m assuming you found someone.”
“The Asgard won’t help,” Jack said bluntly, “but Thor took us to the Tok’ra. They’ve been underground, with the Jaffa rebels. They’ve given us something to help fight the Jaffa, but the bugs are still going to be a problem unless we work out how the Goa’uld planned on stopping them.
“The memory crystals would contain all the information,” Bek felt herself saying. “They would be kept either in the main fleet vessel, or if they are in the SGC as you suspect it is possible they are kept there.”
A moment of silence followed Bek’s short speech, and she fidgeted uncomfortably as everyone stared at her.
“We ran into some trouble on Elcor - the planet where the Jaffa and Tok’ra are.”
“The Jaffa and Tok’ra are working together?” Davis asked doubtfully.
“Some of them,” Jack agreed. “Maybourne’s there - he was hurt pretty bad but Teal’c’s looking after him.”
“You saw Teal’c?” Sam demanded sharply.
“Yes. He’s good, Carter, but he couldn’t come back with us.”
“Why not?” Samuels demanded. “Where is Walter Davis, and who is the woman?”
“Teal’c would be in danger here, more than he would be able to help, and Walter died in Russia so the rest of us could get out,” Jack said shortly.
“Whatever happened can wait,” Davis said sharply, “we need all the help we can get against the Jaffa now, Colonel. We’ve already held one wave back, but they’ll be smarter on the second try.”
For the first time Bek noticed the bodies heaped under the shadows, and she felt sick again. She would have staggered, if not for Garshaw.
“There’s a Goa’uld with you,” Sam said sharply.
“No,” Jack disagreed. “A Tok’ra. Garshaw. Her host was dying, and Bek volunteered to… to… Carter, you remember Garshaw, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Sam said faintly, and Bek felt a surge of recognition and almost affection run through the Tok’ra as she acknowledged Sam.
“What’s the help you got, O’Neill?” Samuels asked.
“A poison that will kill the Goa’uld symbiote but won’t harm humans or hosts - that’s why we left Teal’c. If something went wrong, he’d be in trouble.”
A flicker of fear shivered through Bek - or was it Garshaw? - but it disappeared quickly.
“We have three vials,” Jack was saying. “Atmospheric detonation is going to be the most effective way to use it against the Jaffa, but we need to get them out into the open.”
“I think they’re only letting a few get infected at a time, to maintain some force until they’re all immune,” Davis said.
“Well,” Jack said, “we’re just going to have to find a way to get them all out into the open, aren’t we?”
---
PART SIXTEEN
---
Tel’tac
“We’re clear, Samuels!” Davis called through the heavy metal door, banging his fist against it for good measure before stepping back several feet to where Sam and the others were waiting. Several seconds later they heard a muffled thud and the walls seemed to shudder faintly in the shadows.
“That’s it,” Davis said, and for a few seconds the group was silent.
Sam stared at the quiet walls of the nuclear facility, and hoped to a God she wasn’t sure she believed in now - if she ever had - that Janet, Harlowe, Svetlana and Cassie wouldn’t be found.
“Decoy’s up,” Andrews announced as he appeared out of the darkness. “Hopefully the Jaffa will think we’ve all left.”
Davis nodded. “Then I guess the show is the on the road. Everyone ready?”
Sam tightened her grip on the P-90 and nodded with everyone else.
“Let’s go then, people,” Colonel O’Neill said firmly.
He’d no sooner spoken than a crack of lightening flashed jaggedly across the open sky above them, followed several seconds later by a roll of thunder. The heavens seemed to pause for a second, and then opened in a sheet of water. Wordlessly, the group turned and jogged toward where the Tel’tac was once again cloaked. Sam was slightly amused by the sight of a rainless patch of air in the shape of a Tel’tac. It only lasted momentarily, and was filled in suddenly by the appearance of the solid vessel.
She stepped inside gratefully, rolling her shoulders to try and dislodge the water that had trickled beneath her BDU’s onto her skin. It felt cold and wet and she shivered at the sensation. It had been a long time since she’d felt the rain on her skin and smelt the damp of the earth after a downpour. She only hoped she lived long enough so she could smell the freshness again.
“This is going to make things complicated,” Bek said, breaking the silence in the Tel’tac as the vessel was once again cloaked and gracefully lifted off the ground under the girl’s control. “The rain means we won’t be able to have an atmospheric detonation.”
“We’ll still be able to get into the SGC though,” Sam pointed out. “The ventilation system won’t be affected.”
“True,” Bek conceded, “but Garshaw seems to think that once the Jaffa realise the SGC has been attacked they’ll come pouring out of the ships and surrounding area, and then we’ll have a problem because we won’t be able to release the poison.”
“Well hopefully it doesn’t rain for long,” Davis said. “And hopefully we were right about the rain making it hard for the bugs to get around.”
Sam didn’t feel like being the one to burst the bubble Davis seemed to live in, but there were an awful lot of hopefully’s in that sentence, and she wasn’t someone willing to trust her luck anymore.
“What do you think, Carter?” the Colonel asked her.
Standing next to Bek, Sam stared out into the dark sky as rain and lightning rattled around them. The Tel’tac was hovering smoothly in the atmosphere, and Sam imagined she could see Cheyenne Mountain below her despite the clouds and rain.
“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Sam said finally. “But I don’t think this rain is likely to let up anytime soon.”
“We should do it,” Andrews said. “It’s our best shot, right Colonel?”
Sam felt a hand on her arm, and she looked around to the see the Colonel standing next to her. There lines around his eyes and his mouth was pulled tight in a line of tension. He was battered and worn and suddenly Sam was scared. He looked almost beaten, and she’d never known Jack O’Neill to look beaten. She licked her lips.
“We’ll do it, sir,” she said quietly.
He paused several seconds, staring at her intently and Sam felt horribly uncomfortable under his gaze.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll ring you down. Good luck, Major.”
She didn’t remind him she wasn’t a Major anymore. Instead, she readjusted her pack and weapons and nodded her head like the good soldier she was pretending to be.
The impression of the rings were present in the Tel’tac, as in every other Tel’tac Sam had ever been in. She stepped inside its markings and stood close next to Davis and Andrews, feeling their warmth through the dampness of her clothes. And as she waited for the rings to activate, the Colonel watched her silently. She stared back until he vanished in a flash of gold and the empty storage room of the mothership hovering over Cheyenne Mountain materialised in front of her.
God she hoped this worked.
---
Nuclear Facility
Janet was tired. A bone aching tiredness that reminded her she hadn’t slept in a long, long time. Not a proper sleep since this entire mess began, she thought tiredly.
Her thumb moved slowly over the back of Cassie’s warm hand. On the bed Cassandra moaned briefly, her eyelids fluttering for a second before her body became still again. Janet sighed and pulled her feet up onto the chair she was sitting on, tucking her free hand around her shins and resting her chin on her knees as she looked at her daughter.
“Come on, Cass,” she said softly. “Hold on, honey, you need to fight.”
Her daughter moved again briefly, but the small movements were constant and had been for hours. Nothing changed; not Cassie’s temperature, heart rate or responsiveness.
“How’s it going, Janet?” Timothy asked from the shadows of the doorway.
“Still no change,” Janet said quietly, not turning to look at him.
“It should have worked by now,” he said gently.
“She was further along by the time she got the anti-viral than we anticipated the patients would be, Timothy,” Janet pointed out. “It could just take a little longer for it to work.”
Or, Janet felt the silent words mocking her, it was already too late for her daughter.
“I’ll go and Dr. Markhov and Colonel Samuels know how she’s doing,” Timothy said, and she heard the quiet tread of his footsteps disappearing down the hall.
Janet’s fingers tightened around Cassie’s hand as her daughter twitched on the bed.
“Come on, Cassie,” Janet whispered, squeezing Cassie’s fingers. “Come on, sweety. Don’t do this to me.”
---
Goa’uld Mothership
Paul had spent a lot of time over the years in the SGC. He’d met a lot of aliens, seen a lot of technology and read a lot of reports. Hell, he’d even been captured by aliens once. But he’d never actually been on a Goa’uld mothership, let alone been on a mission inside one.
His footsteps felt unnaturally loud as he followed closely behind Carter, and he was waiting for her to turn around and tell him to stop breathing because he was sure the breath whistling through his airways sounded like a hurricane.
“If I’m right, the intake to the ventilation system is through there. There should be a chute we can drop down, and that will put us right in the heart of the ventilation system,” Carter whispered, her voice almost nothing more than a breath of air he seemed to understand.
“How are you going to get out once you’re down?” Paul asked.
“Cables,” she said bluntly, and Paul felt a blush rise up his cheeks. God, he wasn’t cut out for this action crap; he was supposed to be a desk jockey.
“Ready?” Carter asked; Paul, Tom & Andrews nodded their agreement. “Good, let’s go.”
It had felt too easy from the start, Paul realised as he followed Carter through the door she’d indicated. When the staff blast hit the metalwork next to his head he felt something thick and heavy sink in his insides and his throat turned dry.
“Shit,” Carter hissed, spinning around the wall and pressing her back against it; he copied her movements on the opposite side of the doorway.
In the hall, the gunfire and staff blasts continued as Tom and Andrews returned fire from their hiding places behind the ornamental pillars.
“Cover me,” Carter hissed, “I’m going down now before it’s too late.”
Paul didn’t watch Carter as she wriggled away from him across the floor. Instead, he pointed his weapon through the doorway and joined the firefight, his P-90 coming to life in his hands. He turned back twice to check on Carter’s progress, barely making out her form as she approached a ventilation shaft and disappeared into it through the thick smoke now curling through the room.
A scream from the hallway drew his attention in time to see Tom flung backwards and to the ground as a staff blast struck him in the arm. Paul wasn’t sure whether it was his weapon or Andrews’ that took out the Jaffa who had shot Tom - perhaps both of them together - but the warrior fell to the ground as four more Jaffa appeared around the corner, staff weapons raised and ready to fight.
Paul was sure Andrews was dead when three more appeared from the other side of the corridor. He opened his mouth and yelled, turning his P-90 onto the approaching Jaffa. The Jaffa slowed, almost staggering, as though they were suddenly uncertain about attacking a few humans soon to be outnumbered. Paul was sure he didn’t really look that intimidating, and when they fell to the ground two seconds later, unmoving, he realised it wasn’t him. It was the poison.
After the firefight ringing in the hallway moments before, it suddenly felt oppressively quiet.
“What happened?” Andrews asked, staring at the dead Jaffa but not lowering his weapon.
“I think that was the poison,” Paul said quietly. A flicker of disgust for the tactics whispered inside him, but he stamped on it ruthlessly. They were the enemy, and there was no other choice.
But still, he thought, where was the honour and the justice in this? It was slaughter without giving the Jaffa a chance to defend themselves. Yet, the bugs…
“Let’s go get Carter,” Paul decided, shaking his head as though to dislodge the inner conversation. “You okay, Tom?”
“Nothing a little soak in the tub won’t cure,” Tom grunted.
Andrews helped Tom to his feet, checking the cauterised wound on his comrade’s shoulder. “You soak in the tub?”
Paul rolled his eyes at the jarheads, and led the way to the ventilation chute Carter had disappeared down. “Good job, Carter,” he yelled down it. “Want a lift out?”
“That’d be nice,” he heard Carter call back sarcastically. “Then we can go for a walk, find a crystal and get out of here.”
And Paul felt he couldn’t agree more.
---
Tel’tac
“The present has been delivered and appears to be well received.”
“Copy that,” Jack spoke into the communicator. “Get the crystal and get out of there, Carter.”
“Will do,” Sam responded. “Carter out.”
Bek sighed in relief and closed her eyes, smiling as she felt a similar feeling from Garshaw. “Not long now,” she whispered, sagging against the wall she was standing next to.
When she opened her eyes, Jack was staring at her. Bek raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“You’ve changed,” he said.
“How would you know?” she demanded. “You don’t even know me.”
“But you have,” he insisted. “A few days ago you couldn’t even do CPR without instructions. Now you’re standing here organising a military offensive and as relaxed as a cat lying in the sun.”
She raised her eyebrows at his description. “A cat lying in the sun?”
He shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “Ok, bad description. But… I’m right, aren’t I?”
She considered his words. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “Not really. A little, yes, but I’m still me.”
It was his turn to raise his eyebrows at her confusing speech. A smile tugged at her lips. “I’m still me,” she said finally, “but Garshaw is in here too, and she’s done this sort of thing so I sort of know what to expect. Sort of.”
“You’ve changed,” he said again, and Bek wasn’t sure whether he meant it in a good way or a not so good way.
She would have liked to ask him, but something outside the Tel’tac caught her eye. She looked through the clear window where dark storm clouds and rain roiled angrily, searching for what had demanded her attention.
“Oh, god,” she whispered suddenly as the clouds beneath her cleared once again for a few seconds, and she viewed the scene below.
After delivering Sam and the others to the mothership, they’d kept the Tel’tac cloaked and let it move with the clouds a short distance away from Cheyenne Mountain. And now, looking at the black fields below before they were once again hidden by rain clouds, Bek felt worried. Very worried.
“They won’t stand a chance,” Jack said quietly next to her. “Not once someone realises something’s happening in the mothership.”
Far below, camouflaged in the black night sky, the ground appeared to be moving. Rippling as though it was alive. It was alive, Bek thought, but it wasn’t the ground. They were watching a Jaffa army gathering. In the brief moments of light offered by slivers of lightening still cutting through the air, weapons glinted and armour gleamed dully.
With no bugs to sting and cripple the Jaffa - even momentarily - in the rain, they were ready to march. But the rain also meant no atmospheric detonation of the poison. Damn the rain.
“Carter,” Jack said quietly into the communicator. “You better hurry. There’s an army of Jaffa that could move into the mothership at anytime.”
“I’m aware of that, sir,” Sam responded. “Very aware. I’ll call you back.”
There was a strange squeal from the communicator, and Bek felt Garshaw wince. That does not bode well, the Tok’ra murmured quietly.
Jack seemed to freeze over the communicator for two seconds, and then straightened his back. “Hand me the vest, Bek,” he ordered, grabbing a weapon - O’Neill refers to them as zat guns - and sifting through a crate of weapons sitting against the bulkhead. “Bek, now!” he snapped.
“Are you insane, Jack?” she demanded, ignoring the vest he had asked for and grabbing his arm instead. “You can’t go down there!”
“Why the hell not?” Jack demanded.
“I thought Sam and Janet made it abundantly clear back at the shelter,” Bek snapped.
“And you’re telling me Carter was in better condition to go down than I was? Fraiser didn’t want her going either, damn it, but she went.”
“What do you think you’re going to accomplish down there?”
He pulled two vials from a protected pouch in the Tel’tac. “I’ll take the second vial down and clear out the ship again.” Garshaw felt uneasy at the sight of the poison so casually handled, when it had the potential to kill her instantly.
“Then what?” Bek asked, ignoring the Tok’ra’s concern. “They’ll just keep coming in fresh from outside. It won’t accomplish anything except wasting that vial, Jack.”
“It’ll buy them some time,” Jack said, snatching the vest himself and shrugging into it. He grimaced in pain, his movements strained and cautious.
“You’re in no condition to do it, Jack! Look at you, you can hardly move as it is!”
He stopped and looked at her, an emotion in his eyes she struggled to identify. “It’s the only chance they have. It’s the only chance we have, Bek,” he said quietly. “We need that crystal if we ever want to live on this planet again.”
It was fear in his eyes, Bek realised. The man was terrified.
“I’ll go,” she whispered.
“You can’t,” he said gently. “Garshaw will die the instant this stuff is released. We need you here, to fly the ship and release the poison the minute the rain lets up even for a minute.”
She didn’t want him to go, and neither did Garshaw.
“I have to go,” he said, as though reading her thoughts. “I can’t not go.”
Only when he positioned himself in the center of the rings, waiting for her to transport him to his death, did she realise he wasn’t scared of dying or fighting or killing. He was scared of losing something, and Bek had a relatively good idea of what it was he was so scared of losing.
When the Tel’tac was back in position, she turned to look at him one last time before activating the transporter. He lifted a hand in an odd, farewell sort of wave, and disappeared in the flash of light that was now familiar to her.
The clouds were lifting, Bek thought as she gazed out the window down onto the dark landscape, and she hoped the rain would soon end. And then she’d try and figure out just how exactly she was supposed to release the poison now that Jack wasn’t here to do the honours.
---
PART SEVENTEEN
---
Goa’uld Mothership
Sam had been in a lot of bad situations in her life, impossible situations and moments where the odds were piled so high against her that she wondered, briefly, just how exactly she’d managed to make it this far in life. She punched viciously at a key pad next to a door, barely refraining from screaming in frustration when the door stubbornly refused to open.
“Carter,” Davis hissed next to her, “Carter, do something!”
“I’m trying!” she snapped angrily, jamming her fingers over the keys once again.
Nothing. The sequence refused to activate the doors.
“Can’t you just rewire it or something?” Davis demanded. “Re-route the power?”
She stared at him with disdain, aware that scant seconds were trickling past as she took the time to show him just how stupid she thought his suggestion was. “I don’t need to re-route the power, I just need to alter the sequence of activation. But that still takes time, Davis, and time is something that we don’t really have right now.”
“We’d have more if you stopped staring at me and just did it!” Davis snapped in response.
Sam thought she heard Andrews or Tom stifle a snicker, but she ignored it. “Get some cover ready,” she said instead, and pulled out a small screwdriver which she used to pry the cover off the small circuit board just beneath the control panel.
The thing about technology, Sam mused as she fiddled with the crystals, was that no matter how advanced it was, there was always a control panel. Always.
“How’s it going?” Davis demanded.
“It would go faster if you stopped talking!” she muttered, switching another crystal. “The systems are different to what they were three years ago.”
“Technological evolution?” Davis guessed.
“I’d say more to stop what I’m doing right now,” she said.
From the hall they heard the distinct sound of Jaffa armour.
“Fuck,” Davis groaned. “How can they be here already?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Sam muttered. “Get ready to shoot - wait! I’ve got it!”
A second later the doors hissed open. Sam only wasted two seconds jamming the control panel cover back on before she grabbed her screwdriver and followed the others through the opening. The door slid shut silently behind them, and Sam tried to calm her beating heart.
The ship was rocking, she thought for a minute, before she realised it was her head spinning and not her surroundings. She rested her hand on the bulkhead for a second, steading her breathing and squeezing her eyes shut.
“You okay?” Davis asked quietly.
“Fine,” she murmured, forcing her eyes open and looking at him. He seemed to sway for a few seconds, and bright sparks burst over her vision as the steady burning in her chest and thumping in her head seemed to swell before settling down again. “Okay. I’m okay now,” she said, blinking once to clear her vision.
Davis was still watching her as though she had sprouted another head. She glared at him, daring him to push the matter further.
The man obviously valued his life. “Which way now, Carter?”
“Bridge is that way,” she said, pointing to their left. “We’re almost there.”
“I’m more worried about what we’re going to do once we are there,” Andrews grunted, and Sam pretended not to hear. She didn’t want to think about that at this point in time, not when it took everything in her to ignore the agony of moving, let alone breathing and running and carrying a P-90.
Half jogging past the fallen bodies of Jaffa was an uneasy experience; she half expected them to jump up with their staff weapons firing, yelling ‘Surprise!’ The closer they got to the bridge, the more dead Jaffa they encountered.
The door to the bridge was, unsurprisingly, shut, and once again refused to respond to her commands to open. This time, however, there was no handy control panel and the faint echo of marching Jaffa wandered wispily up the long passage to them.
“What now?” Davis asked quietly, staring at her with eyes that seemed too big for his face.
“We pry it open,” she said after a few seconds deliberation, pulling her screwdriver out of her pocket again. She was gratified to see Andrews and Tom position themselves behind bulkheads for protection, their weapons ready for any Jaffa that managed to reach them.
Sam carefully tried to wedge the flat head of her tool into the thin crack left by the shut doors. The metal head scratched and scraped against the doors, but it refused to find purchase against the barriers.
“You don’t wear a hair pin, do you?” Davis asked almost hopefully.
“God no,” she said, the brief bark of dry laughter escaping before the stabbing of pain in her chest forced her to be quiet.
“Just as well I have a penknife,” he said breezily, producing the small object form a pocket.
“That would have been handy a long time ago, Davis,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“But you were doing so well with that screwdriver,” he shrugged, offering her a half smile before nudging her out of the way.
The sharp point of the knife slipped into the small crack, and Davis grunted as he forced the rest of the knife in until it was resting with its hilt against the doors. “Can you get your screwdriver get in there now?”
Sam tried again, grinning with relief when the tip worked itself in just above the knife. She pushed against it, forcing it in a little deeper. Davis had produced a larger knife while she was busy with her screwdriver, and he pushed that into the crack too, forcing it open almost a quarter of an inch.
“Ready?” he asked, wrapping both hands around the hilt of his larger knife.
Sam nodded, gripping the screwdriver tightly. Together, they pulled on their respective tools, forcing the doors to give another two inches. The pain in Sam’s chest flared at the effort, and she grunted in pain, her grip on her screwdriver slipping.
“I can’t hold it!” Davis muttered, his face turning red with effort.
She didn’t stop to think; she jammed a hand into the large slit just as Davis’ knife snapped under the strain. The doors snapped shut on her arm, and she couldn’t stop the short scream of pain from bursting free as the doors crushed her bones. But the doors didn’t shut completely - her arm kept a small slit just wide enough for Davis and Andrews to get their hands in as well. Together, the two men pried the doors open for Sam to pull her battered limb out, and then they forced the doors open further, allowing Sam and Tom to slip through before they jumped back and allowed the doors to snap shut again.
“That was too damn close,” Tom muttered, his face shining with damp perspiration and pain.
“How is your arm, Carter?” Davis asked quietly.
Sam moaned in pain, her knees buckling beneath her. It was on fire, she thought, watching her vision dance and flares of light bloom beneath her eyelids. Fire and ice and they throbbed with each surge of her heart. She was dimly aware of Davis manipulating her wrist, but she couldn’t hear what he said or feel what he did. The world spun crazily on its axis and she felt pain rolling over her in an empty cloud of oblivion.
---
Nuclear Research Facility
Cassandra whimpered on the small cot, her skin hot and damp beneath Janet’s hand.
“Who is this girl?” Dr. Markhov asked quietly.
“My daughter,” Janet said almost reverently as her fingers traced the line of Cassie’s forehead and smoothed the sweat dampened hair back from her face. “Cassandra.”
“Dr. Harlowe said he injected her with a possible anti-viral, but that it appears to have little effect.”
“She’s deteriorating,” Janet said softly, the whispered words burning something inside her more sharply than she’d believed possible, “but not as fast as she should be. It’s something at least.”
“How did she get stung?”
“She was helping the Colonel with a diversion, so he could get to Russia.”
The silence in the room felt stifling, almost as though the heat of Cassandra’s body turned the air hot and thick.
“She is very young,” Svetlana observed.
Too young, Janet thought, closing her eyes and wrapping her fingers around Cassandra’s hand. “Yes,” Janet agreed. But Cassie was old too; older than Janet because she’d seen her world die. And now, Janet thought, she would be old like her daughter too.
“Dr. Fraiser?” Samuels asked from the door, his voice hesitant. It was good he was hesitant, Janet thought coldly; this man had helped in the downfall and the horror now facing Cassandra.
“What do you want?”
“I’m going to need your assistance on the upper levels. I think the Jaffa foot soldiers are moving in again, and we need to detonate the claymores and other defences Paul set up for us.”
Janet nodded reluctantly. “I’ll be there,” she said.
“Now, please,” Samuels insisted.
“I said I’ll be there,” she said sharply, anger flaring white hot. But it withered and faded and left only empty grief and despair. She kissed Cassandra’s forehead gently, the skin hot and damp beneath her lips.
“Hold on, Cassie,” she whispered, squeezing her daughter’s hand one last time. “You just need to hold on, sweetheart.”
Cassandra didn’t move.
Janet bit her lip and let go, stepping back.
Outside the small room the air felt too cold and heavy and quiet.
---
Goa’uld Mothership
“Carter, do you read me?” Jack demanded into the Tok’ra communicator. Pressed against an engraved wall with his one knee digging into the hard floor, he remembered why it was such a bad idea for him to be attempting this.
“Damn it, Carter, answer me!” he snapped, carefully shifting his weight around and trying to ignore the burning in his upper arm. He had no doubt the staff blast wound from Cimmeria was infected now; the constant heat radiating down his arm almost made him wish he had told Fraiser about his most recent injury and allowed her to give him an antibiotic shot. Of course, he always did have too much pride and not enough sense for things like that.
“Carter, it’s O’Neill. Do you read me?”
His communicator spluttered to life in his hand. “Colonel O’Neill?”
“You’re not Carter,” he said baldly, relief to hear someone but concerned that it wasn’t Carter.
“No, sir, I’m not,” a man said, and if Jack wasn’t so sore and old he might have found a smile touching his lips at the small touch of sarcasm.
“Well, where is Carter and who are you?”
“It’s Paul Davis, Colonel,” Davis identified himself, “and we’re in the control room.”
“What’s taking so long?”
“It took us a while to get in, sir, and then Carter…”
“And then Carter what?”
“She got her arm caught in a door,” Davis said. “She’s hurt pretty bad. And I don’t think she’s recovered from her ‘chute before.”
“Where is she, Davis?”
“She’s currently lying unconscious on the floor. Andrews is trying to bring her round because we need her to get the crystals, but he’s not having much luck. We have no idea which ones they are or if they’re even the rights ones.”
“Give me ten minutes,” Jack said.
“Sir?”
“I said give me ten minutes. Let me know if she comes round before I get there.”
“Before you get here?”
“Davis, would you stop repeating everything I say?” Jack complained, creeping around the corner. “Maintain radio silence for the next five minutes - I need to get around some of the patrols.”
And he turned his communicator off before carefully rounding the next corner.
---
Tel’tac
The communicators remained ominously silent after Jack’s request for silence, and Bek wasn’t sure whether she preferred the tense, vivid recounting of what was happening and their fearful voices, or the dead silence that told her nothing.
It is better when they communicate, Garshaw said gently, that way we at least know they are alive.
Bek nodded absently in agreement, even though Garshaw couldn’t exactly see the nod. She frowned. “Garshaw, does it look like the rain’s lessening?”
They peered out the window together. Perhaps, Garshaw said finally, or perhaps it is just the coming dawn that gives the illusion of a lessening in the downpour.
Bek hadn’t realised it was dawn, but the minute the Tok’ra pointed it out she realised the steady dimming of the sky from ink black to dove grey was due to a soft smudge of light appearing in the east.
“Well, I hope it stops raining too,” she said.
Garshaw remained silent, and suddenly Bek felt as though even the air itself was oppressive around her.
---
Parts 18-20
Part 5-6
Part 7-8
Part 9-11
Part 12-13
---
PART FOURTEEN
---
Nuclear Facility
Janet’s eyes were tired and burning, dry with exhaustion and itching with frustration. Cassandra’s hand was hot in her own, two bright spots of colour burning on her otherwise pale cheeks. Someone’s shoes scuffed against the concrete floor behind Janet, but she didn’t turn around.
“Janet?”
“What are you doing up, Sam?” Janet asked quietly, gently stroking the back of Cassie’s hands with her fingertips. The girl shuddered faintly on the bed, but other than that there was no change.
“What’s wrong with Cassandra?” Sam demanded sharply, ignoring Janet’s question.
“She’s been stung,” Janet said softly. “Timothy and I gave her a shot of what we hope is an adequate anti-viral about an hour ago, but there’s been no change.”
“Oh, God. Janet, I’m sorry,” Sam whispered.
Janet heard Sam’s boots moving toward her, and a second later Sam was standing next to the small cot, staring down at Cassie.
“She was devastated,” Janet whispered, feeling her eyes burn with more than just exhaustion and fear. “Absolutely overwhelmed when you were accused and found guilty of the Colonel’s death. She never believed it, you know.”
“No,” Sam said, “I didn’t.”
“Out of everyone, Cassandra is the only one who flatly refused to believe that on some level you were capable of setting that bomb. Me? I thought maybe they compromised you somehow, with a drug or with brainwashing or anything. But Cassie, she believed in you Sam.”
Janet heard the hitch in Sam’s breathing, but she continued before Sam could say something.
“When I saw you - yesterday, was it? The day before? I can’t remember anymore. But when I saw you, you looked so cold and hard, Sam. That was the first time I really believed that you, Sam Carter, was capable of doing something like that.”
“What’s your point, Janet?” Sam asked coldly.
“I was wrong again,” Janet whispered. “Blinded, because I suddenly realised that all along I thought you were guilty. God, Sam, I was the one doing your evaluations. You were scraping through the psychological components - some days, McKenzie and I should have failed you. You were a complete wreck, but we let you go. We let you go because you were the best and the SGC needed you. I blamed myself for letting you go so hard you snapped.”
“But I didn’t snap,” Sam said quietly. “Three years in a fucking women’s institution has fucked me up more than any number of years on the Stargate program.”
Janet chuckled bitterly. “I know.”
“Is this your guilt trip, Janet?” Sam asked suddenly. “The part where you break down and cry because you failed me, and it’s your fault, and then I comfort you and tell you it’s ok, that we’re still best friends as though nothing happened?” The questions were asked calmly, normally, and Janet almost believed that Sam was okay.
Almost.
“No,” Janet said. “This is the part where I tell you I’m not perfect. Where I tell you I’m capable of breaking friendships by not trusting, of making mistakes because I allow myself to be led to a solution that I find the easiest to understand. This is the part, Sam, where I tell you I don’t know what to do. I’m as lost and confused as I was on the day you were sentenced and executed.
My daughter is lying on a bed and dying, because I failed to see through the lies woven around you by the enemy itself. I didn’t trust you, and I should have spoken to you about your mental evaluations to put myself at ease, because I would have known you were ok. If I’d known that, I would have known for sure you couldn’t have planted that bomb.”
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, isn’t it?” Sam asked, her voice brittle. “I thought you of all people would have trusted me.”
“Me too,” Janet agreed. “I’m sorry, Sam.”
Sam reached over and brushed a damp lock of hair away from Cassandra’s face, her fingers trailing lightly over the hot skin.
“Take care of Cassie, Janet,” Sam said quietly.
“Where are you going?”
“The Jaffa know where we are. I have to help Davis with the defences.”
Janet nodded briefly. “I’ll keep you informed,” she said.
Sam nodded in return, the light tread of her boots fading quickly up the passageway.
---
Elcor - Resistance Homeworld
It was still raining heavily, but Teal’c had grown accustomed the steady downpour many months before. He stood outside and let the clean water from the heavens pour over him, watching as it mixed the blood and mud and washed it into the soil until he couldn’t see where the blood ended and the earth began.
“How is Ishta?” Bra’tac asked quietly, also staring at the blood-soaked ground.
“She will recover,” Teal’c said. “The Tok’ra have healed her, but she is still weak and will not regain her strength for a while yet.”
“There could still be traitors among us,” Bra’tac stated.
“I am aware,” Teal’c agreed. “We must leave this world soon.”
“What of the Tok’ra?” Bra’tac asked.
“We will not win this war alone, Bra’tac.”
“They could be compromised.”
“As could we.”
“What are you thinking, Teal’c?” Bra’tac asked warily.
“O’Neill is right,” Teal’c said.
“You will give him the poison.” It was not a question.
“Yes,” Teal’c said. “It is hard to believe, but not all our brother’s would fight with us if given the choice, Bra’tac. They have been given a choice, and they have chosen their side.”
“There is no honour in this, Teal’c.”
“There is no honour in serving the Goa’uld and dying for a false god,” Teal’c responded. “It is war, Bra’tac, and the only way which we will gather more followers is to prove we are right and we will win. This will help turn the tide in our favour.”
“I pray you are right, my friend,” Bra’tac said quietly. “It is a large sacrifice to make if it proves to be wrong.”
Teal’c nodded.
As though it were timed, O’Neill appeared in the doorway of what was once Teal’c’s hut. Teal’c watched the Tau’ri as he walked toward them, noting the stiffness of his movements and the strain on his face.
“O’Neill is growing old,” Bra’tac said softly.
“Before his time,” Teal’c agreed, still watching. “But he is alive, Bra’tac, and a powerful ally to have. He is also a friend.”
Bra’tac didn’t reply, and as O’Neill picked his way toward them, Teal’c was again struck by relief and awe that O’Neill was alive. Bra’tac touched his arm as O’Neill approached, and disappeared into a tent to get the poison.
“Doesn’t the rain ever stop in this place?” O’Neill demanded. If O’Neill was growing old, his apparent sense of humour and wit had not changed at all.
“No,” Teal’c said simply. “Maybourne and the girl, Bek?”
“Maybourne’s going to be ok, apparently,” O’Neill said, grimacing in distaste. “He hasn’t woken up yet, but the Tok’ra have done their stuff and pronounced him well on the way to healing. Bek is… Bek is ok,” he finished.
“Garshaw?”
A small smile touched O’Neill’s lips but it was bitter and mocking. “Quiet,” he said simply.
Teal’c nodded. “The Tok’ra will spare you a Tel’tac,” he said, “and we will give you the poison.”
O’Neill’s eyes widened, and he stared at them. “Teal’c?”
“Not all our brother’s will join us in our fight, O’Neill. Those who do not are the enemy,” he said.
O’Neill nodded. “Thank you, Teal’c.”
Teal’c nodded again. “Bra’tac is retrieving the poison,” he said. “The Tok’ra Tel’tac is situated in those trees, there. Garshaw will agree to let you take the Tel’tac - it will be the easiest and quickest.”
“Hey, Teal’c?” O’Neill said hesitantly. Teal’c raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue. “When this is over and we’ve saved Earth again, come and have dinner with us one night.”
“As long as I do not have to go fishing,” Teal’c agreed.
O’Neill grinned, and nodded. “Thanks, T. I owe you one.”
“No,” Teal’c said. “You are a friend, O’Neill, and it is enough to see that you are alive.”
“Don’t go getting all sappy on me!” O’Neill warned.
“I will not.”
“Good. Oh, how is Ishta?”
“Ishta is recovering,” Teal’c said.
“She will bear many sons yet,” Bra’tac added wickedly as he reappeared, and Teal’c was almost ashamed to feel heat on his cheeks.
O’Neill merely grinned.
“Here, O’Neill,” Bra’tac said solemnly, holding out a small package wrapped in an oilskin cloth. “Take care.”
“Good luck, O’Neill,” Teal’c added quietly.
O’Neill nodded, and swallowed. “Thanks, Teal’c. Bra’tac.”
With a final salute and smile, O’Neill turned and walked back to the dwelling where Maybourne and Garshaw were recovering.
Bra’tac and Teal’c were silent as the rain continued to fall, and Teal’c felt a small smile touch his lips. “I will not be sorry to see the end of the rain when we leave this world,” he said.
Bra’tac chuckled. “You are right, my friend.”
---
Nuclear Research Facility
Her ribs ached and burnt with pain each time she moved, but she knew they weren’t broken. Only bruised. Sam drew a deep breath in slowly, savouring the splintering pain as it lanced jaggedly down her right side. Pain. It felt real and alive and so much better than the empty grayness of square cells and routine and shower cubicles with cold water and prying eyes.
It felt like a distant memory now, she thought as she lay on her stomach in the dirt with a P-90 in her hands and grenades at her side. It felt like a bad dream which still bothered her with lingering images she couldn’t quite recall but which had disturbed her so deeply and profoundly she felt compelled to do something.
Between the cracked concrete pillars and encroaching forest, she could see glimpses of the sky. It was burning a hazy orange, thick clouds with bruised purple shadows hanging ominously. She hadn’t seen a sunset in a long, long time, and she stared up at it silently.
Slowly the orange faded red and then purple until it was a deep velvet blue and the clouds were black and dark, hiding the cold star studs in from her sight.
“Think it’s going to rain?” Paul Davis asked next to her, his voice unnaturally loud despite whispering.
The air crackled with electricity and anticipation; waiting. For what?
“Maybe,” she said, nodding. Her head throbbed with the movement, and she squeezed her eyes shut.
“You okay?” Davis questioned.
“Fine,” she said shortly.
Fine. She was always fine.
Her fingers tensed on the P-90 as a dark object swooped like a bat across the velvet sky. “Here they come,” she whispered. She licked her lips anxiously. They were dry and cracked and she imagined she could still taste the salt of his skin faintly, and she felt a sudden pang of regret at what they’d done.
Why had they done it?
She wasn’t sure, and she wondered if whatever had broken inside her could possibly be fixed.
“Boys, the snakes are landing,” Davis whispered into his radio. “Maintain radio silence for now; we don’t want to give away our positions yet.”
Her breathing sounded loud and forced in the sudden silence around the facility. A gentle hum that rose in pitch and volume indicated the arrival of several death gliders; she watched them swoop past and disappear into the dark sky around them.
“Here we go,” Davis whispered next to her.
And in a sudden moment of clarity, Sam realised that she didn’t want to die broken and bitter with regrets.
---
PART SIXTEEN
---
Tel’tac
She felt distant from her body; as though she was a spectator and not completely in control of her movements. She wasn’t in control, she realised dimly.
I can let you have control, a voice whispered, cool and silken against her thoughts, but I am not certain you would be able to fly the Tel’tac yet.
Bek imagined that if she was in control, she would have shuddered. As it was, she felt trapped. Claustrophobic. Suddenly realising just how helpless she could be.
“Colonel O’Neill,” she heard herself say, but her voice was rough and hoarse, “I need you to pilot for a time.”
“Everything okay?” Jack asked.
Again, she felt her lips move but knew she hadn’t thought or formed the words herself. “We just need some time.”
She saw suspicion and bitter knowledge glint in Jack’s eyes, and she knew why he had tried to stop her.
No, the voice - Garshaw, she remembered - said, no, it is different with us.
Her limbs folded carefully under her, and she was seated on the cold floor of the Tel’tac, the walls solid behind her and the floor thrumming comfortingly underneath. With a rush, she could feel again, and her arms and legs were her own.
“Jack?” she whispered, her voice a croak.
“You ok, Bek?” he called back to her from the front of the ship, and she was surprised to hear a touch of concern on his voice.
“I… yeah. I think so,” she replied, closing her eyes and focusing on her breathing. In and out, in and out. The air tasted cool and dry. Artificially recycled. Slightly stale. She shivered, and wrapped her arms around her knees, trying hard to focus on everything and anything except the thing in her head. The presence in her mind. The sensation that there was something else in her head.
Was this what a schizophrenic felt like? Two people in one brain?
You are not crazy, or insane, Rebekah.
“Bek,” she snapped, “my name is Bek.”
Something like a wave of bemusement rolled through her, and Bek felt a frission of real annoyance. Even the goddamn snake thing was patronising her as though she was only a child.
But you are only a child, it pointed out.
“Which mean’s you’re a relic,” she returned sharply.
At the front of the ship, she heard a bark of dry laughter from Jack, and across from her the Russian scientist, Svetlana, was watching her curiously. Almost warily.
No one had ever looked at her like that before, Bek realised, as though she was something to be scared of. Something to fear.
They don’t fear you, Garshaw said, they fear what you have become. What I am.
And what have I become? Bek wondered.
More than what you were.
Bek bit her lip, glanced at Svetlana again who avoided her questioning gaze, and then climbed unsteadily to her feet. She felt strange; uncoordinated. As though she was tipsy but she hadn’t drunk anything.
Jack - or O’Neill, as Garshaw thought of him - glanced at her once when she came to stand next to him, but his attention was focused on the controls in front of him.
Chart, radar, rings, communiocation, hyperdr-
She snapped her eyes shut and tried to ignore the fact that she knew what the controls did and operated, without being told.
“Arguing?” Jack asked mildly, and there was underlying tone of humour to his question.
“No,” Bek said, opening her eyes and staring ahead and staring ahead. It was beautiful, she thought, flying through space. More colourful than she had imagined it would be, and a lot emptier. More quiet than she would have thought. She remembered once shortly after she’d met Cassie, the two of them had gone to stay at a cabin in Minnesota. They’d sat on the jetty late that night, talking, and when they’d fallen quiet the world had been silent. Up to now, she hadn’t heard anything more silent.
“You were a host, weren’t you?” she asked.
He stiffened next to her, but didn’t answer.
“Garshaw says it was different for you,” Bek pressed, despite the caution coming from Garshaw. It felt good to ignore the Tok’ra; to defy her.
He shrugged, and stared ahead but she had the feeling he wasn’t really watching what he was doing anymore.
“It feels strange,” she said at last.
“You regretting it?”
“I…I don’t know,” she admitted. “She’s arrogant and patronising and condescending but at the same time…”
“At the same time, what?”
Bek felt her lip quirk, and she was sure why she found it so amusing but she did. “She reminds me of my grandmother.”
His eyebrows lifted and he looked at her incredulously. “Your grandmother?”
“Yes. She calls me Rebekah.”
“You don’t have to stay like this, Bek,” he said quietly. “You had no idea what you were getting into.”
“I know,” she said. “I still don’t know what I’m getting into,” she added.
“No one ever knows what they’re getting into,” he said.
“My mom died when my youngest sister was born. My dad’s mother, my grandmother, helped him to raise us. She died last year - she had cancer.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
While Bek had no doubt he meant the sympathy, it was distant and hollow, as though he had forgotten the grief and pain that came with loss.
Or perhaps he has learnt to distance himself from it, Garshaw suggested.
“Major Carter - Sam - that was her Dad on the planet, wasn’t it? Jacob?”
“Yes.”
And Bek knew that he had been dying, and the Tok’ra Selmac was his last choice.
Jacob is happy with Selmak, Garshaw whispered. It takes time, Rebekah, but it is possible to be content as a Tok’ra.
“They aren’t all bad,” she said quietly. She wasn’t sure she knew what she meant by the words, but she felt Garshaw’s satisfaction and saw Jack give a barely perceptible nod of his head. “Garshaw wants to know where Jacob is?”
“I wouldn’t let him come - the poison obviously isn’t a joke and I won’t let him risk it.”
Yet, Jack was willing to let Garshaw risk her life.
No, the Tok’ra disagreed gently. I would not let him take the Tel’tac unless I accompanied him.
Bek watched Jack for a few seconds, wincing internally at his constant grimace of pain and tension. He is tired and worn, but he will not stop, Garshaw murmured. A fleeting touch of admiration and respect, and the Tok’ra retreated.
“Take a seat, Jack. We’ll drive.”
He looked as though he would protest, but he surprised her and nodded, stepping back to let her take over.
Thank you, Garshaw, Bek said, her fingers touching the controls lightly.
No, it is I who should thank you, Rebekah.
You’re risking your life for us.
Without you, I would not be alive now. Your mission is mine for the time being.
Bek found herself smiling, and for the first time in days she felt it was okay, that maybe there was a way to fix everything.
---
Nuclear Facility
The first wave of Jaffa was half-hearted. Obviously expecting the Tau’ri to be disheartened and ready to admit defeat, the ground forces moved almost sluggishly and with no thought to stealth or the possibility of ambush.
It took Paul’s squad five minutes to dispose of them with several well placed claymores, Tom acting as sniper and Andrews manning the heavy artillery. In the aftermath of the vicious bloodbath, the dark world was strangely silent. Even the bugs seemed to be scared away by the gunfire, though Paul new this was just fanciful hoping on his part and had more to do with dumb luck than anything they actually did.
A canteen was passed around, and Paul praised their work quietly on the small radios, still alert for any movement in the woods around them.
“I’m going to see if I can rig a shield over us,” Carter whispered in the dark, barely visible next to him as heavy clouds blotted out the pale moonlight. Paul hoped to God it would rain soon because he had a suspicion the bugs would be hampered in heavy rainfall.
“Ok,” Paul agreed, and then instructed Tom and Samuels to lay another round of claymores. He almost wished Bek and Cass were still around, because at they could have helped by hauling supplies and artillery around. As it stood, it was up to him and Andrews to retrieve more from their supplies.
They worked quickly and quietly in the dark, almost soundless shadows as the air grew thicker and heavier and the rough material of his BDUs chafed more than he’d thought possible. Within fifteen minutes they were ready for a second wave, but there was no sign of Jaffa - either air or ground troops.
“I don’t like this,” he whispered to Samuels who was crouching next to him, breathing heavily through his nose in what was probably a combination of fear, adrenalin and exhaustion. “It’s too quiet.”
The only advantage to their entire situation, Paul thought, was the facility they were defending - a clear area of approximately fifty metres extended all around the buildings, fringed by the light woodlands. It was easy to defend because they had clear targets as their enemy approached. Paul stared searchingly into the inky night ahead of them, straining to catch a glimpse of movement. Other than Carter shuffling around with small pieces of equipment, nothing moved except the air.
Paul blinked. The air was moving?
Next to him Samuels gasped and moved as Paul’s fingers tightened on his weapon. Carter stopped moving too, frozen and exposed in an open patch of grass between the trees.
“Get undercover, Carter,” Paul ordered quietly, even though there was no way she could hear him. Still, the woman knew what she was doing and slowly seemed to melt back into the darker shadows.
Again, the air rippled, and as a sudden rumble of thunder rolled ominously across the sky, it seemed to tear and twist and suddenly in front of them, on their nice, clean shooting range, a Goa’uld Tel’tac appeared.
Paul closed his eyes and bit on his lip, struggling to keep a small flicker of hope and defiance burning inside him. But it was so hard when everything went so horribly wrong.
---
Tel’tac
Saturn was bigger and brighter than she had anticipated. And the rings… Bek stared at them with awe, but the Tel’tac hurtled past and soon she saw a small speck which Garshaw informed her was Earth. She watched as her planet grew bigger and brighter, and slowly turned blue and green and white. Soon she could discern oceans and continents, and as they passed through the atmosphere she was horrified by the darkness of the North American Continent - hardly any lights fought against the night sky.
The cities would be under attack by the Goa’uld, Garshaw said. There are fires burning, the Tok’ra added, but it was unnecessary because already Bek could distinguish between the few lights still shining defiantly and the red glow of fires burning without opposition.
It was almost too soon, and suddenly they were flying through thick clouds and watching as dark mountains appeared beneath them, quickly rolling into darkened fields and forests Bek couldn’t see.
“There,” Jack whispered from next to her, and Bek didn’t even think as her hands guided the alien vessel down carefully onto the ground in front of the facility she’d left only hours - or was it days? - before.
“I don’t see anyone,” Bek whispered even though there was on need.
“They’re there,” Jack said, sounding distracted. “I think I saw Carter. Uncloak the ship, Bek.”
She hadn’t realised the ship was cloaked, but Garshaw nudged her gently and her fingers performed the requested task easily.
Bek walked behind Jack and Svetlana as they exited the Tel’tac and then paused a few steps from the ship. There was a rustle of movement from the buildings ahead of them, and the silence was broken by a hesitant “Colonel?” from the trees off to one side.
“Carter?” Jack responded cautiously.
“Oh, thank God something went fucking right for a change,” someone else - Bek thought it was Paul Davis - exclaimed loudly from the buildings shadows. “I cannot tell you how relieved I am it’s you, Colonel.”
“Good to see you all too,” Jack agreed as several dark forms appeared from various positions around the Tel’tac. It took Bek several seconds to realise they were dark because black paint covered their faces, and other than the whites of their eyes they appeared almost invisible in the dark.
A roll of thunder growled across the sky, and Bek looked up briefly.
“How did it go?” Samuels asked. “I’m assuming you found someone.”
“The Asgard won’t help,” Jack said bluntly, “but Thor took us to the Tok’ra. They’ve been underground, with the Jaffa rebels. They’ve given us something to help fight the Jaffa, but the bugs are still going to be a problem unless we work out how the Goa’uld planned on stopping them.
“The memory crystals would contain all the information,” Bek felt herself saying. “They would be kept either in the main fleet vessel, or if they are in the SGC as you suspect it is possible they are kept there.”
A moment of silence followed Bek’s short speech, and she fidgeted uncomfortably as everyone stared at her.
“We ran into some trouble on Elcor - the planet where the Jaffa and Tok’ra are.”
“The Jaffa and Tok’ra are working together?” Davis asked doubtfully.
“Some of them,” Jack agreed. “Maybourne’s there - he was hurt pretty bad but Teal’c’s looking after him.”
“You saw Teal’c?” Sam demanded sharply.
“Yes. He’s good, Carter, but he couldn’t come back with us.”
“Why not?” Samuels demanded. “Where is Walter Davis, and who is the woman?”
“Teal’c would be in danger here, more than he would be able to help, and Walter died in Russia so the rest of us could get out,” Jack said shortly.
“Whatever happened can wait,” Davis said sharply, “we need all the help we can get against the Jaffa now, Colonel. We’ve already held one wave back, but they’ll be smarter on the second try.”
For the first time Bek noticed the bodies heaped under the shadows, and she felt sick again. She would have staggered, if not for Garshaw.
“There’s a Goa’uld with you,” Sam said sharply.
“No,” Jack disagreed. “A Tok’ra. Garshaw. Her host was dying, and Bek volunteered to… to… Carter, you remember Garshaw, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Sam said faintly, and Bek felt a surge of recognition and almost affection run through the Tok’ra as she acknowledged Sam.
“What’s the help you got, O’Neill?” Samuels asked.
“A poison that will kill the Goa’uld symbiote but won’t harm humans or hosts - that’s why we left Teal’c. If something went wrong, he’d be in trouble.”
A flicker of fear shivered through Bek - or was it Garshaw? - but it disappeared quickly.
“We have three vials,” Jack was saying. “Atmospheric detonation is going to be the most effective way to use it against the Jaffa, but we need to get them out into the open.”
“I think they’re only letting a few get infected at a time, to maintain some force until they’re all immune,” Davis said.
“Well,” Jack said, “we’re just going to have to find a way to get them all out into the open, aren’t we?”
---
PART SIXTEEN
---
Tel’tac
“We’re clear, Samuels!” Davis called through the heavy metal door, banging his fist against it for good measure before stepping back several feet to where Sam and the others were waiting. Several seconds later they heard a muffled thud and the walls seemed to shudder faintly in the shadows.
“That’s it,” Davis said, and for a few seconds the group was silent.
Sam stared at the quiet walls of the nuclear facility, and hoped to a God she wasn’t sure she believed in now - if she ever had - that Janet, Harlowe, Svetlana and Cassie wouldn’t be found.
“Decoy’s up,” Andrews announced as he appeared out of the darkness. “Hopefully the Jaffa will think we’ve all left.”
Davis nodded. “Then I guess the show is the on the road. Everyone ready?”
Sam tightened her grip on the P-90 and nodded with everyone else.
“Let’s go then, people,” Colonel O’Neill said firmly.
He’d no sooner spoken than a crack of lightening flashed jaggedly across the open sky above them, followed several seconds later by a roll of thunder. The heavens seemed to pause for a second, and then opened in a sheet of water. Wordlessly, the group turned and jogged toward where the Tel’tac was once again cloaked. Sam was slightly amused by the sight of a rainless patch of air in the shape of a Tel’tac. It only lasted momentarily, and was filled in suddenly by the appearance of the solid vessel.
She stepped inside gratefully, rolling her shoulders to try and dislodge the water that had trickled beneath her BDU’s onto her skin. It felt cold and wet and she shivered at the sensation. It had been a long time since she’d felt the rain on her skin and smelt the damp of the earth after a downpour. She only hoped she lived long enough so she could smell the freshness again.
“This is going to make things complicated,” Bek said, breaking the silence in the Tel’tac as the vessel was once again cloaked and gracefully lifted off the ground under the girl’s control. “The rain means we won’t be able to have an atmospheric detonation.”
“We’ll still be able to get into the SGC though,” Sam pointed out. “The ventilation system won’t be affected.”
“True,” Bek conceded, “but Garshaw seems to think that once the Jaffa realise the SGC has been attacked they’ll come pouring out of the ships and surrounding area, and then we’ll have a problem because we won’t be able to release the poison.”
“Well hopefully it doesn’t rain for long,” Davis said. “And hopefully we were right about the rain making it hard for the bugs to get around.”
Sam didn’t feel like being the one to burst the bubble Davis seemed to live in, but there were an awful lot of hopefully’s in that sentence, and she wasn’t someone willing to trust her luck anymore.
“What do you think, Carter?” the Colonel asked her.
Standing next to Bek, Sam stared out into the dark sky as rain and lightning rattled around them. The Tel’tac was hovering smoothly in the atmosphere, and Sam imagined she could see Cheyenne Mountain below her despite the clouds and rain.
“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Sam said finally. “But I don’t think this rain is likely to let up anytime soon.”
“We should do it,” Andrews said. “It’s our best shot, right Colonel?”
Sam felt a hand on her arm, and she looked around to the see the Colonel standing next to her. There lines around his eyes and his mouth was pulled tight in a line of tension. He was battered and worn and suddenly Sam was scared. He looked almost beaten, and she’d never known Jack O’Neill to look beaten. She licked her lips.
“We’ll do it, sir,” she said quietly.
He paused several seconds, staring at her intently and Sam felt horribly uncomfortable under his gaze.
“Okay,” he said. “We’ll ring you down. Good luck, Major.”
She didn’t remind him she wasn’t a Major anymore. Instead, she readjusted her pack and weapons and nodded her head like the good soldier she was pretending to be.
The impression of the rings were present in the Tel’tac, as in every other Tel’tac Sam had ever been in. She stepped inside its markings and stood close next to Davis and Andrews, feeling their warmth through the dampness of her clothes. And as she waited for the rings to activate, the Colonel watched her silently. She stared back until he vanished in a flash of gold and the empty storage room of the mothership hovering over Cheyenne Mountain materialised in front of her.
God she hoped this worked.
---
Nuclear Facility
Janet was tired. A bone aching tiredness that reminded her she hadn’t slept in a long, long time. Not a proper sleep since this entire mess began, she thought tiredly.
Her thumb moved slowly over the back of Cassie’s warm hand. On the bed Cassandra moaned briefly, her eyelids fluttering for a second before her body became still again. Janet sighed and pulled her feet up onto the chair she was sitting on, tucking her free hand around her shins and resting her chin on her knees as she looked at her daughter.
“Come on, Cass,” she said softly. “Hold on, honey, you need to fight.”
Her daughter moved again briefly, but the small movements were constant and had been for hours. Nothing changed; not Cassie’s temperature, heart rate or responsiveness.
“How’s it going, Janet?” Timothy asked from the shadows of the doorway.
“Still no change,” Janet said quietly, not turning to look at him.
“It should have worked by now,” he said gently.
“She was further along by the time she got the anti-viral than we anticipated the patients would be, Timothy,” Janet pointed out. “It could just take a little longer for it to work.”
Or, Janet felt the silent words mocking her, it was already too late for her daughter.
“I’ll go and Dr. Markhov and Colonel Samuels know how she’s doing,” Timothy said, and she heard the quiet tread of his footsteps disappearing down the hall.
Janet’s fingers tightened around Cassie’s hand as her daughter twitched on the bed.
“Come on, Cassie,” Janet whispered, squeezing Cassie’s fingers. “Come on, sweety. Don’t do this to me.”
---
Goa’uld Mothership
Paul had spent a lot of time over the years in the SGC. He’d met a lot of aliens, seen a lot of technology and read a lot of reports. Hell, he’d even been captured by aliens once. But he’d never actually been on a Goa’uld mothership, let alone been on a mission inside one.
His footsteps felt unnaturally loud as he followed closely behind Carter, and he was waiting for her to turn around and tell him to stop breathing because he was sure the breath whistling through his airways sounded like a hurricane.
“If I’m right, the intake to the ventilation system is through there. There should be a chute we can drop down, and that will put us right in the heart of the ventilation system,” Carter whispered, her voice almost nothing more than a breath of air he seemed to understand.
“How are you going to get out once you’re down?” Paul asked.
“Cables,” she said bluntly, and Paul felt a blush rise up his cheeks. God, he wasn’t cut out for this action crap; he was supposed to be a desk jockey.
“Ready?” Carter asked; Paul, Tom & Andrews nodded their agreement. “Good, let’s go.”
It had felt too easy from the start, Paul realised as he followed Carter through the door she’d indicated. When the staff blast hit the metalwork next to his head he felt something thick and heavy sink in his insides and his throat turned dry.
“Shit,” Carter hissed, spinning around the wall and pressing her back against it; he copied her movements on the opposite side of the doorway.
In the hall, the gunfire and staff blasts continued as Tom and Andrews returned fire from their hiding places behind the ornamental pillars.
“Cover me,” Carter hissed, “I’m going down now before it’s too late.”
Paul didn’t watch Carter as she wriggled away from him across the floor. Instead, he pointed his weapon through the doorway and joined the firefight, his P-90 coming to life in his hands. He turned back twice to check on Carter’s progress, barely making out her form as she approached a ventilation shaft and disappeared into it through the thick smoke now curling through the room.
A scream from the hallway drew his attention in time to see Tom flung backwards and to the ground as a staff blast struck him in the arm. Paul wasn’t sure whether it was his weapon or Andrews’ that took out the Jaffa who had shot Tom - perhaps both of them together - but the warrior fell to the ground as four more Jaffa appeared around the corner, staff weapons raised and ready to fight.
Paul was sure Andrews was dead when three more appeared from the other side of the corridor. He opened his mouth and yelled, turning his P-90 onto the approaching Jaffa. The Jaffa slowed, almost staggering, as though they were suddenly uncertain about attacking a few humans soon to be outnumbered. Paul was sure he didn’t really look that intimidating, and when they fell to the ground two seconds later, unmoving, he realised it wasn’t him. It was the poison.
After the firefight ringing in the hallway moments before, it suddenly felt oppressively quiet.
“What happened?” Andrews asked, staring at the dead Jaffa but not lowering his weapon.
“I think that was the poison,” Paul said quietly. A flicker of disgust for the tactics whispered inside him, but he stamped on it ruthlessly. They were the enemy, and there was no other choice.
But still, he thought, where was the honour and the justice in this? It was slaughter without giving the Jaffa a chance to defend themselves. Yet, the bugs…
“Let’s go get Carter,” Paul decided, shaking his head as though to dislodge the inner conversation. “You okay, Tom?”
“Nothing a little soak in the tub won’t cure,” Tom grunted.
Andrews helped Tom to his feet, checking the cauterised wound on his comrade’s shoulder. “You soak in the tub?”
Paul rolled his eyes at the jarheads, and led the way to the ventilation chute Carter had disappeared down. “Good job, Carter,” he yelled down it. “Want a lift out?”
“That’d be nice,” he heard Carter call back sarcastically. “Then we can go for a walk, find a crystal and get out of here.”
And Paul felt he couldn’t agree more.
---
Tel’tac
“The present has been delivered and appears to be well received.”
“Copy that,” Jack spoke into the communicator. “Get the crystal and get out of there, Carter.”
“Will do,” Sam responded. “Carter out.”
Bek sighed in relief and closed her eyes, smiling as she felt a similar feeling from Garshaw. “Not long now,” she whispered, sagging against the wall she was standing next to.
When she opened her eyes, Jack was staring at her. Bek raised her eyebrows. “What?”
“You’ve changed,” he said.
“How would you know?” she demanded. “You don’t even know me.”
“But you have,” he insisted. “A few days ago you couldn’t even do CPR without instructions. Now you’re standing here organising a military offensive and as relaxed as a cat lying in the sun.”
She raised her eyebrows at his description. “A cat lying in the sun?”
He shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “Ok, bad description. But… I’m right, aren’t I?”
She considered his words. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “Not really. A little, yes, but I’m still me.”
It was his turn to raise his eyebrows at her confusing speech. A smile tugged at her lips. “I’m still me,” she said finally, “but Garshaw is in here too, and she’s done this sort of thing so I sort of know what to expect. Sort of.”
“You’ve changed,” he said again, and Bek wasn’t sure whether he meant it in a good way or a not so good way.
She would have liked to ask him, but something outside the Tel’tac caught her eye. She looked through the clear window where dark storm clouds and rain roiled angrily, searching for what had demanded her attention.
“Oh, god,” she whispered suddenly as the clouds beneath her cleared once again for a few seconds, and she viewed the scene below.
After delivering Sam and the others to the mothership, they’d kept the Tel’tac cloaked and let it move with the clouds a short distance away from Cheyenne Mountain. And now, looking at the black fields below before they were once again hidden by rain clouds, Bek felt worried. Very worried.
“They won’t stand a chance,” Jack said quietly next to her. “Not once someone realises something’s happening in the mothership.”
Far below, camouflaged in the black night sky, the ground appeared to be moving. Rippling as though it was alive. It was alive, Bek thought, but it wasn’t the ground. They were watching a Jaffa army gathering. In the brief moments of light offered by slivers of lightening still cutting through the air, weapons glinted and armour gleamed dully.
With no bugs to sting and cripple the Jaffa - even momentarily - in the rain, they were ready to march. But the rain also meant no atmospheric detonation of the poison. Damn the rain.
“Carter,” Jack said quietly into the communicator. “You better hurry. There’s an army of Jaffa that could move into the mothership at anytime.”
“I’m aware of that, sir,” Sam responded. “Very aware. I’ll call you back.”
There was a strange squeal from the communicator, and Bek felt Garshaw wince. That does not bode well, the Tok’ra murmured quietly.
Jack seemed to freeze over the communicator for two seconds, and then straightened his back. “Hand me the vest, Bek,” he ordered, grabbing a weapon - O’Neill refers to them as zat guns - and sifting through a crate of weapons sitting against the bulkhead. “Bek, now!” he snapped.
“Are you insane, Jack?” she demanded, ignoring the vest he had asked for and grabbing his arm instead. “You can’t go down there!”
“Why the hell not?” Jack demanded.
“I thought Sam and Janet made it abundantly clear back at the shelter,” Bek snapped.
“And you’re telling me Carter was in better condition to go down than I was? Fraiser didn’t want her going either, damn it, but she went.”
“What do you think you’re going to accomplish down there?”
He pulled two vials from a protected pouch in the Tel’tac. “I’ll take the second vial down and clear out the ship again.” Garshaw felt uneasy at the sight of the poison so casually handled, when it had the potential to kill her instantly.
“Then what?” Bek asked, ignoring the Tok’ra’s concern. “They’ll just keep coming in fresh from outside. It won’t accomplish anything except wasting that vial, Jack.”
“It’ll buy them some time,” Jack said, snatching the vest himself and shrugging into it. He grimaced in pain, his movements strained and cautious.
“You’re in no condition to do it, Jack! Look at you, you can hardly move as it is!”
He stopped and looked at her, an emotion in his eyes she struggled to identify. “It’s the only chance they have. It’s the only chance we have, Bek,” he said quietly. “We need that crystal if we ever want to live on this planet again.”
It was fear in his eyes, Bek realised. The man was terrified.
“I’ll go,” she whispered.
“You can’t,” he said gently. “Garshaw will die the instant this stuff is released. We need you here, to fly the ship and release the poison the minute the rain lets up even for a minute.”
She didn’t want him to go, and neither did Garshaw.
“I have to go,” he said, as though reading her thoughts. “I can’t not go.”
Only when he positioned himself in the center of the rings, waiting for her to transport him to his death, did she realise he wasn’t scared of dying or fighting or killing. He was scared of losing something, and Bek had a relatively good idea of what it was he was so scared of losing.
When the Tel’tac was back in position, she turned to look at him one last time before activating the transporter. He lifted a hand in an odd, farewell sort of wave, and disappeared in the flash of light that was now familiar to her.
The clouds were lifting, Bek thought as she gazed out the window down onto the dark landscape, and she hoped the rain would soon end. And then she’d try and figure out just how exactly she was supposed to release the poison now that Jack wasn’t here to do the honours.
---
PART SEVENTEEN
---
Goa’uld Mothership
Sam had been in a lot of bad situations in her life, impossible situations and moments where the odds were piled so high against her that she wondered, briefly, just how exactly she’d managed to make it this far in life. She punched viciously at a key pad next to a door, barely refraining from screaming in frustration when the door stubbornly refused to open.
“Carter,” Davis hissed next to her, “Carter, do something!”
“I’m trying!” she snapped angrily, jamming her fingers over the keys once again.
Nothing. The sequence refused to activate the doors.
“Can’t you just rewire it or something?” Davis demanded. “Re-route the power?”
She stared at him with disdain, aware that scant seconds were trickling past as she took the time to show him just how stupid she thought his suggestion was. “I don’t need to re-route the power, I just need to alter the sequence of activation. But that still takes time, Davis, and time is something that we don’t really have right now.”
“We’d have more if you stopped staring at me and just did it!” Davis snapped in response.
Sam thought she heard Andrews or Tom stifle a snicker, but she ignored it. “Get some cover ready,” she said instead, and pulled out a small screwdriver which she used to pry the cover off the small circuit board just beneath the control panel.
The thing about technology, Sam mused as she fiddled with the crystals, was that no matter how advanced it was, there was always a control panel. Always.
“How’s it going?” Davis demanded.
“It would go faster if you stopped talking!” she muttered, switching another crystal. “The systems are different to what they were three years ago.”
“Technological evolution?” Davis guessed.
“I’d say more to stop what I’m doing right now,” she said.
From the hall they heard the distinct sound of Jaffa armour.
“Fuck,” Davis groaned. “How can they be here already?”
“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Sam muttered. “Get ready to shoot - wait! I’ve got it!”
A second later the doors hissed open. Sam only wasted two seconds jamming the control panel cover back on before she grabbed her screwdriver and followed the others through the opening. The door slid shut silently behind them, and Sam tried to calm her beating heart.
The ship was rocking, she thought for a minute, before she realised it was her head spinning and not her surroundings. She rested her hand on the bulkhead for a second, steading her breathing and squeezing her eyes shut.
“You okay?” Davis asked quietly.
“Fine,” she murmured, forcing her eyes open and looking at him. He seemed to sway for a few seconds, and bright sparks burst over her vision as the steady burning in her chest and thumping in her head seemed to swell before settling down again. “Okay. I’m okay now,” she said, blinking once to clear her vision.
Davis was still watching her as though she had sprouted another head. She glared at him, daring him to push the matter further.
The man obviously valued his life. “Which way now, Carter?”
“Bridge is that way,” she said, pointing to their left. “We’re almost there.”
“I’m more worried about what we’re going to do once we are there,” Andrews grunted, and Sam pretended not to hear. She didn’t want to think about that at this point in time, not when it took everything in her to ignore the agony of moving, let alone breathing and running and carrying a P-90.
Half jogging past the fallen bodies of Jaffa was an uneasy experience; she half expected them to jump up with their staff weapons firing, yelling ‘Surprise!’ The closer they got to the bridge, the more dead Jaffa they encountered.
The door to the bridge was, unsurprisingly, shut, and once again refused to respond to her commands to open. This time, however, there was no handy control panel and the faint echo of marching Jaffa wandered wispily up the long passage to them.
“What now?” Davis asked quietly, staring at her with eyes that seemed too big for his face.
“We pry it open,” she said after a few seconds deliberation, pulling her screwdriver out of her pocket again. She was gratified to see Andrews and Tom position themselves behind bulkheads for protection, their weapons ready for any Jaffa that managed to reach them.
Sam carefully tried to wedge the flat head of her tool into the thin crack left by the shut doors. The metal head scratched and scraped against the doors, but it refused to find purchase against the barriers.
“You don’t wear a hair pin, do you?” Davis asked almost hopefully.
“God no,” she said, the brief bark of dry laughter escaping before the stabbing of pain in her chest forced her to be quiet.
“Just as well I have a penknife,” he said breezily, producing the small object form a pocket.
“That would have been handy a long time ago, Davis,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
“But you were doing so well with that screwdriver,” he shrugged, offering her a half smile before nudging her out of the way.
The sharp point of the knife slipped into the small crack, and Davis grunted as he forced the rest of the knife in until it was resting with its hilt against the doors. “Can you get your screwdriver get in there now?”
Sam tried again, grinning with relief when the tip worked itself in just above the knife. She pushed against it, forcing it in a little deeper. Davis had produced a larger knife while she was busy with her screwdriver, and he pushed that into the crack too, forcing it open almost a quarter of an inch.
“Ready?” he asked, wrapping both hands around the hilt of his larger knife.
Sam nodded, gripping the screwdriver tightly. Together, they pulled on their respective tools, forcing the doors to give another two inches. The pain in Sam’s chest flared at the effort, and she grunted in pain, her grip on her screwdriver slipping.
“I can’t hold it!” Davis muttered, his face turning red with effort.
She didn’t stop to think; she jammed a hand into the large slit just as Davis’ knife snapped under the strain. The doors snapped shut on her arm, and she couldn’t stop the short scream of pain from bursting free as the doors crushed her bones. But the doors didn’t shut completely - her arm kept a small slit just wide enough for Davis and Andrews to get their hands in as well. Together, the two men pried the doors open for Sam to pull her battered limb out, and then they forced the doors open further, allowing Sam and Tom to slip through before they jumped back and allowed the doors to snap shut again.
“That was too damn close,” Tom muttered, his face shining with damp perspiration and pain.
“How is your arm, Carter?” Davis asked quietly.
Sam moaned in pain, her knees buckling beneath her. It was on fire, she thought, watching her vision dance and flares of light bloom beneath her eyelids. Fire and ice and they throbbed with each surge of her heart. She was dimly aware of Davis manipulating her wrist, but she couldn’t hear what he said or feel what he did. The world spun crazily on its axis and she felt pain rolling over her in an empty cloud of oblivion.
---
Nuclear Research Facility
Cassandra whimpered on the small cot, her skin hot and damp beneath Janet’s hand.
“Who is this girl?” Dr. Markhov asked quietly.
“My daughter,” Janet said almost reverently as her fingers traced the line of Cassie’s forehead and smoothed the sweat dampened hair back from her face. “Cassandra.”
“Dr. Harlowe said he injected her with a possible anti-viral, but that it appears to have little effect.”
“She’s deteriorating,” Janet said softly, the whispered words burning something inside her more sharply than she’d believed possible, “but not as fast as she should be. It’s something at least.”
“How did she get stung?”
“She was helping the Colonel with a diversion, so he could get to Russia.”
The silence in the room felt stifling, almost as though the heat of Cassandra’s body turned the air hot and thick.
“She is very young,” Svetlana observed.
Too young, Janet thought, closing her eyes and wrapping her fingers around Cassandra’s hand. “Yes,” Janet agreed. But Cassie was old too; older than Janet because she’d seen her world die. And now, Janet thought, she would be old like her daughter too.
“Dr. Fraiser?” Samuels asked from the door, his voice hesitant. It was good he was hesitant, Janet thought coldly; this man had helped in the downfall and the horror now facing Cassandra.
“What do you want?”
“I’m going to need your assistance on the upper levels. I think the Jaffa foot soldiers are moving in again, and we need to detonate the claymores and other defences Paul set up for us.”
Janet nodded reluctantly. “I’ll be there,” she said.
“Now, please,” Samuels insisted.
“I said I’ll be there,” she said sharply, anger flaring white hot. But it withered and faded and left only empty grief and despair. She kissed Cassandra’s forehead gently, the skin hot and damp beneath her lips.
“Hold on, Cassie,” she whispered, squeezing her daughter’s hand one last time. “You just need to hold on, sweetheart.”
Cassandra didn’t move.
Janet bit her lip and let go, stepping back.
Outside the small room the air felt too cold and heavy and quiet.
---
Goa’uld Mothership
“Carter, do you read me?” Jack demanded into the Tok’ra communicator. Pressed against an engraved wall with his one knee digging into the hard floor, he remembered why it was such a bad idea for him to be attempting this.
“Damn it, Carter, answer me!” he snapped, carefully shifting his weight around and trying to ignore the burning in his upper arm. He had no doubt the staff blast wound from Cimmeria was infected now; the constant heat radiating down his arm almost made him wish he had told Fraiser about his most recent injury and allowed her to give him an antibiotic shot. Of course, he always did have too much pride and not enough sense for things like that.
“Carter, it’s O’Neill. Do you read me?”
His communicator spluttered to life in his hand. “Colonel O’Neill?”
“You’re not Carter,” he said baldly, relief to hear someone but concerned that it wasn’t Carter.
“No, sir, I’m not,” a man said, and if Jack wasn’t so sore and old he might have found a smile touching his lips at the small touch of sarcasm.
“Well, where is Carter and who are you?”
“It’s Paul Davis, Colonel,” Davis identified himself, “and we’re in the control room.”
“What’s taking so long?”
“It took us a while to get in, sir, and then Carter…”
“And then Carter what?”
“She got her arm caught in a door,” Davis said. “She’s hurt pretty bad. And I don’t think she’s recovered from her ‘chute before.”
“Where is she, Davis?”
“She’s currently lying unconscious on the floor. Andrews is trying to bring her round because we need her to get the crystals, but he’s not having much luck. We have no idea which ones they are or if they’re even the rights ones.”
“Give me ten minutes,” Jack said.
“Sir?”
“I said give me ten minutes. Let me know if she comes round before I get there.”
“Before you get here?”
“Davis, would you stop repeating everything I say?” Jack complained, creeping around the corner. “Maintain radio silence for the next five minutes - I need to get around some of the patrols.”
And he turned his communicator off before carefully rounding the next corner.
---
Tel’tac
The communicators remained ominously silent after Jack’s request for silence, and Bek wasn’t sure whether she preferred the tense, vivid recounting of what was happening and their fearful voices, or the dead silence that told her nothing.
It is better when they communicate, Garshaw said gently, that way we at least know they are alive.
Bek nodded absently in agreement, even though Garshaw couldn’t exactly see the nod. She frowned. “Garshaw, does it look like the rain’s lessening?”
They peered out the window together. Perhaps, Garshaw said finally, or perhaps it is just the coming dawn that gives the illusion of a lessening in the downpour.
Bek hadn’t realised it was dawn, but the minute the Tok’ra pointed it out she realised the steady dimming of the sky from ink black to dove grey was due to a soft smudge of light appearing in the east.
“Well, I hope it stops raining too,” she said.
Garshaw remained silent, and suddenly Bek felt as though even the air itself was oppressive around her.
---
Parts 18-20