by Stargate
Mendez raised the 9mm and stepped out into the open. “Get away from the gate,” he said, low. He kept his distance. They were much faster than he was, and he figured there was a better than average chance they’d either disabled or killed the rest of his people.
Carter turned to him, an amused expression on her face. She made no move toward him, and Jackson didn’t even bother to turn. His back remained to Carlos as he gazed into the shimmering wormhole. It winked out suddenly, and Carlos breathed a soft sigh of relief. The last thing he needed was another debacle like the thetas.
“You should put that down,” Carter said, pointing at the 9mm.
“You should explain why you were activating the gate,” he answered, edging slightly closer. He raised his voice, pulling the sound from deep in his belly. “Siebert! Kutrell!”
“They’re not going to answer,” Jackson said, ever so casual. His back was still to Carlos.
A shiver went down Carlos’s spine. “What have you done?”
Carter looked as if she planned to answer, but just then, the Stargate began to activate, spinning as chevrons snapped into place. She waited until the sixth chevron locked, then said, “We haven’t done anything you wouldn’t do.”
The wormhole burst to life, and O’Neill and Teal’c stepped through — his missing gammas. They moved leisurely down the steps, stopping only when they’d reached Carter and Jackson. “You have it?” O’Neill asked Carter.
“Yes, sir. All the necessary equipment was moved whole during the evacuation.”
“We have found a suitable location,” Teal’c said.
“Let’s get a move on then.” O’Neill turned, and as if just noticing Carlos, he frowned. “Carter? Why is he still alive?”
“We haven’t gotten around to him yet, sir.” Carter gave Carlos a dismissive glance. “We assessed him as a less immediate threat.”
“Hmm.” O’Neill reached for his own sidearm, which pushed Carlos into action. He sprinted low across the short distance to the building, darted around the corner and burst through the unsecured doors of the main facility, looking for a more suitable weapon. The duplicates could certainly be stopped, though it would take a significant and concentrated burst of ammo to do so. To the left of the door, most of the power source equipment the duplicates would need was stacked neatly, as if someone was packing for a trip. And the duplicating equipment was smashed, all those fine, mysterious components crushed and twisted. The incubation unit was torn open and all the internal connections looked like they’d been fried with a blowtorch. Goddamned duplicates. He swore under his breath and sprinted across the room and down the corridors, scanning for his people.
Kutrell was sprawled in the hallway, half in and half out of what was to have been the new duplication room, his face on the wrong side of his body. So that was why no gunfire had awakened him; the duplicates had been snapping necks. Carlos sucked in a slow breath and glanced into the duplicating room. Peterson was crouched behind one of his consoles, looking pretty much like he’d wet his pants. Complete terror distorted his features.
“Hide,” Carlos said, in a stage whisper. “Now.”
Peterson stood on shaky legs and made a run for it, shoving past Carlos and beating feet down the corridor toward some unknown hiding place. Good for him. Carlos wasn’t going to get off that easy. He tucked his Beretta into the back of his pants and snatched up Kutrell’s P90. Behind him, quick footsteps — the duplicates. He stepped over Kutrell’s body and retreated into the lab.
When Teal’c pushed open the doors, Carlos hit him with a constant stream of gunfire, strafing him even as Teal’c approached with heavy steps, determined. The duplicate was only a foot away when it jerked, twisted sideways, and fell in a heap on the floor, oozing that gray goo that lubricated their insides.
Carlos backed toward the unfinished console and away from the duplicate, just in case. He had less than half a clip left. For a moment, he considered trying to negotiate for his life and Peterson’s, but he didn’t have a thing left to bargain with. Carter had already taken all the technology — duplicating and power equipment. That had been their strategy, he guessed: play nice and maneuver into a position to take what they needed from the inside.
Smart. But then again, they were walking computers, so it wasn’t such a stretch for them to plan ahead.
O’Neill stuck his face into the open doorway, apparently unafraid of having it blown off. He stepped into the open, and Carlos raised his weapon, fired the few token bullets he had left. One caught O’Neill in the shoulder, another four in the belly and chest. The duplicate froze in mid-step, then continued slowly on into the room, halting beside Teal’c’s body. “What a waste,” he said, looking down at the destroyed duplicate.
“You’re next,” Carlos said.
“No,” O’Neill said. “You are.”
The last thing Carlos saw was a blur of fire from the dark barrel of O’Neill’s Beretta.
NID Beta Site (P4H-268)
November 10, 2002
“I’m just saying,” Daniel started, and then the wormhole took him. On the other side, he continued his sentence. “ — there’s no reason they have to be destroyed.”
“Out of our hands,” Jack said, stepping to the left to allow Carter and Teal’c to come through, as well as the three teams of marines behind them — the cleanup crew. They’d managed to persuade their mole to give up most of his vital information, which led them to this secondary base, though Jack had no real expectation of finding anything with the program so compromised.
They’d pop up again somewhere else. The NID were government cockroaches. They could survive anything.
He glanced over at Daniel. “What, no arguments about sentience?”
Daniel’s gaze lingered pointedly on the healing wounds covering Jack’s neck. “Not today.”
They followed the marines across the open field toward what looked like the main building. A few smaller buildings were scattered across the compound, and Daniel could make out a couple more in the trees where there was an intermittent glimmer of water — a stream or a small lake. The place had a half-finished look to it and off to the right of the main building, a supply shack gaped open, no door, and empty inside. He double-timed it to catch up with his team and with them followed the marines into the building, down a long hallway and through what looked like it was going to be a lab. The consoles — the ones that had been unpacked — were dark. Carter stopped and gave them a cursory once-over, then said to Daniel, “Any duplicates we find will be taken to Area 51, like every other piece of technology.”
“Interesting way to put that,” Daniel said, but there was no heat behind it.
“It remains to be seen if any of the additional duplicates will respond to the summons,” Teal’c said. “We must assume they have exhausted their power. If they have not, it is unlikely they will return to face certain destruction.”
“Maybe they have faith in us,” Daniel said.
“They know what we’ll do,” Jack said. “Would you come back?”
“Point taken.” Daniel cleared his throat.
“Sir.” Colonel Souter rounded the corner into the lab, one prisoner in tow. The guy had a round face and pale eyes that blinked at Daniel through the cracked lenses of his glasses. He looked like he couldn’t decide if he was afraid to be captured or relieved to be rescued. “We found him hiding in the head.”
Jack jerked a thumb back toward the gate. “Save him a spot on the trip home.”
“Yes, sir.” Souter dragged him by.
“Lab coat,” Carter said. “Scientist.”
“Yes, that makes it all better,” Jack said drily. He lifted his P90 and pointed toward the door and the rest of the building beyond it. “Might as well take a look around. See if we want to buy.”
They proceeded steadily down the wide hallway, Carter flanking Jack, Daniel and Teal’c at the rear. Jack sighed once or twice, and finally said, “I’m going to be glad when there are no more of me tryi
ng to take over the galaxy.”
“Won’t we all, sir?” Carter said brightly. Daniel made a sound between a snicker and a cough.
“SG-one-niner.” Vara this time. His voice was thin through static. “Sir, there’s something here you should see. Right away, sir.”
“Your twenty?” Jack turned, followed Teal’c at point back down the corridor.
“Off the rear entryway, sir. Another lab. To the left, and then the right.”
“On our way.”
It was a short jaunt, and aside from themselves and their lone prisoner, the place was empty. Vara was standing near the lab, over the body of a burly operative with a broken neck. He nodded toward the room, then pushed open the doors and let them swing back.
In the middle of the room, one of the Teal’c duplicates was sprawled in a puddle of gray goo. Not far away, an NID operative — or what had been one, before he’d been shot — was crumpled beneath a long, low console of smashed and disassembled equipment. Jack looked to Carter, who gave a tight nod of confirmation. This had likely been the duplicating technology. Jack stepped closer. The empty eyes of the agent seemed focused on some faraway place where all this had made sense, and his neatly striped, blood-dotted blue tie was curled under.
“Sir,” Vara called, from his left. “Over here.”
Jack turned.
“Huh,” Daniel said, in that uniquely understated way he had.
Across the room, Jack, version 2 point whatever, sat motionless in a desk chair, legs crossed, 9mm still clasped in his hand. A piece of paper was across his chest, one corner of it folded down into his pocket, a hasty method of pinning it in place. Scrawled across it in Daniel’s overly neat handwriting:
You’re welcome.
Jack lifted the paper and handed it to Daniel. Beneath the paper above the pocket of the duplicate’s shirt was the only identifying label, the stitched designation: GAMMA.
“Guess that solves that problem,” Jack said, glancing back over his shoulder at the NID agent. Whoever he was, one less roach to propagate the agenda next time around. “Thanks to…me.”
“Yes,” Daniel said. He stared at the handwriting, then looked at the duplicate’s lifeless face. The duplicate had been damaged, but he didn’t look like he’d fallen from those injuries, taken down in the heat of battle. He looked at peace. Like he’d sat down and waited quietly for his death. When Daniel raised his eyes to Jack, a frown creased his brow. “But where are the rest of the gammas?”
EPILOGUE
emeritus
NID Primary “Hydra” Project Site, Perseus (P66-421)
November 21, 2002
The base had never been busy at the best of times, but now that Piper was the only person left — the only name on the list of “essential personnel” — the place was completely dead. The unofficial decommission of the post had come fast and with explicit instructions from Mendez as he beat feet to get to the tel’tak: get your crap together and get on the transport. Everyone but Piper, of course; someone had to stay behind to manage any last-minute issues. The two tech guys who glued together Piper’s equipment when it went down had practically broken their arms to cram all their little gadgets into their foam crates and get the hell out of there. Ditto the ex-military bruisers whose job it was to make sure nothing went on unless the brass approved of it.
Mendez hadn’t seemed to have any problem leaving him there alone. Mr. NID had told him what to monitor, and for how long, and what frequency to make the extraction call to the beta site on. Piper had dutifully taken notes. Good thing, because they’d only left him with two weeks’ supply of food. He supposed he was lucky to have that much.
He swiveled around in the ancient metal desk chair. The green seat was covered in duct tape, and the central spring protested every time he sat forward. Creak, creak. Creak, creak. It echoed off the walls. He ran a hand across the communications array, dozens of dedicated channels, each dutifully broadcasting an automatic return call. All his teams, his responsibilities, were dead — destroyed, Mendez would remind him — or off the grid. No one was going to answer.
Creak, creak.
The coffeepot with its liquid gold was in the break room, which had been the broom closet, just down the hall. Piper got up with a sigh and loped across the room toward the double doors. Quonset hut decor abounded: metal walls, concrete, and wide square windows, with the occasional poster to break the monotony. A pretty girl looking over her shoulder, black hair draped just so over a sexy tattoo; the French Riviera at sunset; a US Air Force recruitment poster, improved with graffiti.
He took them down as he went and rolled them into a cylinder, then deposited them in the trashcan that no one was around to empty.
The coffee was burned into the bottom of the glass pot, but that didn’t stop him from pouring a cup, sugaring it up, and taking a long sip. “Ugh,” he said, scrunching his face at the bitterness. He scratched his head, looked around the room at the tables without chairs, the randomness of abandoned equipment.
It was more cheerful in his little comms center.
On the way back up the hall, he thought maybe he should have waited to take down the posters. Gray metal didn’t exactly make for a fabulously cheery view.
As he neared the comms center, a faint beeping pulled him into a jog — old habit. He rounded the corner and stopped dead, staring. There was a signal. His chair squawked in protest as he landed in the seat with a thud and focused on the signal, ignoring the coffee he’d sloshed all over himself. It only took him a second to zero in, to narrow down, and then…
“Come in, Piper, are you out there?”
Piper shoved the headset down over his ears, tuned to the gamma comms channel. “I read you,” he said quickly.
“Piper! Stand by, I, uh, I have quite a story to tell you.”
Piper grinned and slung spilled coffee from his damp hand. “I’ll bet you do, Daniel. I’ll just bet you do.”
Acknowledgments
We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to our first readers, whose notes and excellent suggestions helped us sort out and revise our rough drafts: Ellen Ross, Terry McGarry, and Jeanie Oriold. Sue Factor’s fantastic, thorough copyedit on the revised draft was a thing of beauty. With her hard work, she saved us from ourselves on nearly every page, and polished away the confusing parts.
Thanks also to Sally Malcolm, for her edits and for the opportunity, and to Tom Reeve as well. And a thousand thanks to those who have encouraged each of us in one way or another — especially our friends, family and co-workers who bought the first book (even if they’d never heard of Stargate SG-1) and wished us well with the second.
THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE....
More STARGATE SG-1, STARGATE ATLANTIS and STARGATE UNIVERSE novels are available for your Kindle. Based on the hit TV series from MGM, the novels capture all the excitement and drama of the TV shows that we have come to know and love.
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Part Two
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Part Three
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part Four
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Part Five
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Part Six
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
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