Stargate SG-1 30 - Insurrection

by Sally Malcolm

  Jack turned his head at the same moment the Wraith at his side sucked in a stuttering breath. “No…” Its hand clamped down hard onto Jack’s chest. He grunted in pain, but refused to scream. Through the blue shimmer of the force shield, he could see Earthborn standing with a dozen Wraith at her back. Her hand was lifted toward them—he wondered if she was projecting her thoughts into the Wraith’s mind, because it was shaking its head, a low growl in its throat. “Fire the weapon,” it hissed, opened its hand and started to suck on Jack’s life force. “Fire the weapon!”

  Despite the agony, he ignored it and sent a different command to the ship.

  Drop the force shield.

  It disappeared, falling away like water, and Earthborn and her people swept into the room. The Wraith jerked away from Jack and he sucked in a breath of relief as the pain stopped, but he wasn’t kidding himself that he had much longer to go—he could already feel his body failing, pain wracking his ruined organs.

  “Help him!” Daniel called out. “Earthborn, help him!”

  Jack couldn’t see much of anything now beyond the images Atlantis projected into his mind, but he felt Earthborn approach, felt her hand on his chest.

  Instinctively he flinched away from her touch, but then he felt something new—a cool flood of energy, of life. He felt his broken body begin to mend. Just a little. Just enough. He opened his eyes—his vision was still blurred—and looked up into Earthborn’s face.

  “What are you doing?” Daniel said from somewhere behind him. “Don’t stop there, you have to—”

  He cut off abruptly, and Jack was peripherally aware of a struggle behind him.

  Earthborn leaned closer, her alien features and sharp teeth a breath away from his face. “The parasite ship will crash to Earth,” she said, “and in so doing release the poison that will destroy my people.”

  Jack struggled to swallow, tried to wet his dry lips. “Okay…”

  “Destroy it. Destroy it now, and I will grant you the Gift of Life.”

  He looked up at the display and said, “Nineteen minutes.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand.”

  “Carter…” His voice sounded cracked and reedy. “Sting… We can give them nineteen more minutes.”

  She shook her head. “It is too great a risk. Destroy the ship now.”

  Blinking up at her, he said, “But Sting—”

  “He would understand, as would Major Carter.”

  And maybe they would, but that wasn’t something Jack was prepared to live with—not unless he had no other option. “Eighteen minutes,” he said, bracing for the pain she could inflict. “We owe them that much. And I’m damn well gonna give it to them.”

  Hecate’s Ha’tak — 2098

  Sam’s arms were burning with the effort of carrying Janet, her deadweight cumbersome as she ran through the deserted corridors of the Ha’tak. Part of her—the sensible, soldier part—told her it was a dangerous waste of her energy to take Janet with them. She was risking their escape for what was little more than sentiment; it was clear that Janet was close to death, the wound in her chest fatal. But the other, larger part of her answered that with one simple fact: it was Janet. And Sam wasn’t leaving her behind.

  Hunter was slightly ahead, nursing his injured arm. His face had a sheen of sweat, and not just from the heat inside the Ha’tak—he was in pain and trying to hide it.

  “Almost there,” Sam said, grunting the words out as she shifted Janet in her arms. “Around the next corner and—”

  Janet moved. Sam almost stumbled with the shock, looking down at where Janet had turned her head toward Sam’s shoulder. “Janet?”

  There was no answer, but that didn’t matter; Janet had moved—something of her remained.

  “Hang in there,” Sam said, readjusting her grip so she could glimpse her watch. They had eight minutes until the Ha’tak entered Earth’s orbit.

  “Which way?” Hunter said as he slowed at the junction with a cross corridor.

  “Left,” Sam said. She could see the open door to the Al’kesh hanger bay. With luck, they’d make it out before the colonel started firing on them, although she’d kinda expected him to have already opened fire. If he left it too late and the ship entered Earth’s atmosphere… But she had to trust he knew what he was doing; it was very possible that Atlantis possessed enough firepower to blast the Ha’tak out of the sky with a single shot.

  Either way, there was nothing she could do about it now. Her only concern was getting herself, Janet and Hunter off the ship. “In there,” she told Hunter and he slipped into the hanger ahead of her.

  In Sam’s arms, Janet shifted again. “Easy,” Sam said, following Hunter inside. “We’re—”

  Janet made a noise, a harsh rasping sound.

  With a start, Sam looked down and saw that her friend’s eyes were open and staring at her. “Janet!” Everything else flew out of her mind. She was dimly aware of Hunter racing toward the single ship left in the bay, but all Sam could see were Janet’s brown eyes, fogged with confusion, gazing up at her. “Hey,” she said, easing Janet to the ground. “Hey, it’s okay…”

  Janet’s mouth moved, mouthing words. Bloody spittle bubbled on her lips as she tried to speak.

  “Shh,” Sam said, laying her gently onto the ground, resting Janet’s head in her lap. “It’s okay.” There was a deathly pallor to her friend’s face, a rattle when she breathed, and her eyes were distant. Sam swallowed the sharp lump in her throat; she’d seen this before, this face. She knew what it meant. Gently, she stroked Janet’s forehead. “I’m taking you home,” she said. “Back to Earth.”

  Janet blinked at her, lips moving again. “Sam…” Her throat, torn when Hecate’s symbiote had fled, made the word little more than a rasp.

  “Yeah,” Sam said, blinking through suddenly blurry eyes.

  Something like a smile touched Janet’s face and she lifted a feeble hand toward Sam’s wrist. Sam took it in her own, squeezing her fingers around Janet’s. “Knew…” Janet rasped again, so quiet Sam had to bend to hear the words. “Knew you’d come back…”

  Sam pressed her lips together and nodded. “Yeah,” she said, almost too full to speak. “Sorry it took so long.”

  Janet’s fingers moved, squeezing weakly. It was admonition, forgiveness, friendship. And then her eyes went wide, drifted past Sam’s shoulder. “Sam…” she rasped, and for a moment Sam thought this was it, her last moment. “Sam…”

  But then she saw the shadow fall across Janet, turned with a start to find Sobek looming over her.

  “This one, it seems, will not die.”

  He raised his feeding hand, ready to attack, and Sam lunged forward over Janet, shielding her with her body. It was a futile gesture, born of instinct, of everything she was.

  And then a staff blast shrieked across the hanger, catching Sobek in the side of the head and spinning him back and away. He landed with a heavy thud on the deck and didn’t move.

  Sam looked up. Sting stood at the entrance to the hanger, a staff weapon held in one hand and his injured arm hanging loose at his side. He stalked toward her, lips pulled back into a feral grimace. “Did you really think I would leave without seeing this abomination dead?”

  “Come on!” Hunter shouted from the open doors of the last Al’kesh, his wild gaze darting from Sam to Sting and back again.

  In her lap, Janet was very still. Her hand was limp in Sam’s and when she looked down, Sam saw Janet’s sightless eyes gazing up at the ceiling. A sob caught in her throat and she bent over, hauling Janet into her arms. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into her hair. “Janet, I’m so sorry.”

  “Carter!” Hunter yelled again, his voice piercing her grief. “We gotta go!”

  “I will help you carry her,” Sting offered.

  Shuddering in a breath, Sam shook her head. Her heart felt like lead, her chest too tight to breathe, but it didn’t matter; she still had a job to do. Obstinate as O’Neill, she got her feet un
der her and pulled Janet back into her arms and stood up. She was taking her friend home.

  But one look at her watch told her it may already be too late. They had less than a minute before the Ha’tak entered the atmosphere—before Atlantis had to open fire or see all the Wraith poisoned.

  Chapter 19

  Atlantis — 2098

  Jack felt his withered heart stutter as the clock ticked down past one minute.

  Earthborn made a sound, somewhere between a hiss and a growl. “Do it,” she said. “Do it now or my people will die—and so will you, Jack O’Neill. And your friend.”

  On the other side of the chair, Daniel cleared his throat. “They, uh—If they could have gotten off the ship in time…”

  Jack didn’t need to hear that; he knew it himself, felt it in his weakened heart. If Carter could have escaped, she’d have already done so. But there was no way to know whether she had—she’d made no contact—and he had no more time to give her.

  Closing his eyes, he reached for the weapons, felt the missiles bright in their launch tubes. Atlantis calculated the distance, knew when to fire in order to hit the Ha’tak and keep its debris—its poison—from falling to Earth.

  He felt Earthborn’s hand on his chest, her talons deepening the wounds in his flesh. He didn’t care; heal him or kill him, if Carter went down with Hecate’s ship—and at his hand—he was indifferent about what came next.

  But then he felt Daniel’s hand on his other shoulder, fingers warm through Jack’s shirt. An anchor, a route back to the light—a testimonial of the friendship SG-1 shared. Whatever happened, he would always have that.

  Taking a breath, Jack gave the silent command to fire.

  In his mind’s eye, he saw the bright missiles burst free of Atlantis, wend their way with deadly precision to the Ha’tak in its low, skimming orbit.

  One, two, three, four simultaneous hits.

  And the ship detonated like the Fourth of July. No hesitation, no slow death, the damn thing was vaporized. And with it, anything and anyone aboard.

  Under Earthborn’s talons, his chest constricted. Sam, he let himself think. Sam…

  And then he felt the cool, sweet, sensation of life flooding into his body and let out a sigh that was one part relief but mostly grief at what he feared he had done—and what he feared he had lost.

  Earth — 2098

  There had often been times when Teal’c mused that Apophis’s demise had been down to one factor—his woeful underestimation of the will of the Tau’ri. It was only once the battle was done that the thought struck him once more, that he realized anew how formidable this race of people could be. For they fought a foe unknown to them and more horrific than any they could have imagined. Some fought with clubs and knives and bows, some with guns that had never been fired in combat, but they fought all the same.

  The Wraith were powerful, but the Tau’ri were ferocious and gave no quarter.

  But then Teal’c heard the sound that he had dreaded since they had first come through the Stargate—the whine of darts. Panic gripped Aedan’s people, sending them sprinting for the trees, while those of the CMF simply squinted at the sky in weary concern—unsure what new horror approached.

  Yet it was no horror and it soon became apparent that the darts had come to rescue the scattered remnants of the Wraith on the ground, scooping them up in their snatching beams.

  Whether it signaled surrender or a simple regrouping, Teal’c would not know until he learned who now controlled Shadow’s Ancient city.

  Nonetheless, there was a moment of silence as the last of the Wraith disappeared into the blinding beams and then a cheer erupted through the valley. Teal’c watched, exhausted and aching, as Arbellans and Earth’s people embraced one another, jubilant in their small victory. He hoped it was not premature.

  Across the battlefield, General Bailey scrubbed a hand across her blood-streaked face, tears cutting their way through the black grime. As Teal’c watched, a young woman approached her and extended an arm of friendship; Elspeth Burne welcoming her people home. She looked behind her and made a gesture of summons. Aedan Trask came to join her, throwing his arm around her shoulder and kissing the top of her head with eyes closed tight.

  “Father.” Rya’c stood by his side, leaning heavily on his staff weapon.

  “You are injured,” said Teal’c. Halfway through the battle, he’d lost sight of his son and had dreaded searching the faces of those who lay still on the ground.

  Rya’c waved him down. “It is nothing serious. It was a hard battle and I am getting old.”

  That was a thought he couldn’t spare room for right now. “It was a well fought battle,” he said.

  Rya’c nodded and then said, “But not the only battle today.”

  Teal’c said nothing, but cast a glance to the skies and wondered whether his friends would also celebrate victory tonight.

  * * *

  The journey from Atlantis, back to the cock-eyed Stargate in Scotland, had been made in silence.

  Jack might have been restored to full health by Earthborn—the ‘gift of life’ as she’d called it—but he was wound as tight as a trip wire. Daniel had known better than to offer any platitudes. Jack wouldn’t take them at the best of times, and this definitely wasn’t the best of times. Anyway what was the point? Until they knew for sure that Sam had still been aboard the Ha’tak when it blew there was nothing either of them could do but hope.

  And that was best done privately, and in silence.

  Jack had brought the gate-ship in high over the site of the battle, a quick reconnaissance of the situation before dropping down lower. Whatever the HUD had told Jack, Daniel had seen the devastation with his own eyes as they’d flown over more bodies than he wanted to count.

  “I hope Teal’c and Rya’c are okay,” he’d ventured.

  Jack had just grunted.

  But as the gate-ship had landed, Daniel had seen Teal’c, standing close to the gate with Rya’c and General Bailey, lift his hand in greeting. Teal’c hadn’t exactly smiled, but his pleasure in seeing his friends alive had been evident.

  Jack had breathed out a slow breath. Neither of them had mentioned that there was no sign of Sam.

  That had been an hour ago.

  And there was still no sign of Sam.

  Jack sat with his back resting against the gate-ship, letting the world move on around him. He had his head bent forward, his arms resting on his knees. And Daniel didn’t know whether to go to him or let him brood alone.

  “It is probable,” Teal’c said at Daniel’s shoulder, “that Major Carter left the Ha’tak using the transportation rings. In which case, she would now be in the Shacks.”

  Daniel nodded. “Rya’c hasn’t heard?”

  “He is attempting to contact his people. There has been…” His face darkened. “Some among his people did not support his defection, and continued to fight for Hecate.”

  “And I’m guessing they wouldn’t be too pleased to see Sam…”

  “Nor Sting.”

  “Ah—” Daniel grimaced; he well remembered the hatred men like Hunter felt for the Wraith. He couldn’t blame them for it; they had good reason. He’d felt the same about the Jaffa, once, until he’d met Teal’c.

  “Daniel?”

  He turned to find General Bailey standing behind him, dirtied and bloodied by the battle, but alight with victory and—he had to imagine—the wonder of standing on Earth, the world her grandparents had fled. “General.” He found a smile for her despite his nascent grief for Sam. “Welcome to Earth.”

  She made a face somewhere between wry and wondrous. “It’s so green,” she said, which took him aback because, to him, it felt so gray, such a shadow of what it had once been. “And damp,” she added with a broader smile, turning her hand over. “Even the air feels moist on my skin. It’s very strange.”

  And he supposed, compared with the arid heat of the settlement on Arbella, Earth would seem all of those things: green, damp, st
range.

  “Do you think you’ll like it here?” he said.

  She glanced around the hills and scrappy woodland, took in the rag-tag group of Aedan’s people camped on the other side of the gate from the Arbellans. “We must,” she said. “This is our true home and we have a duty to return. President Jones is already organizing a relief effort so that we can help to rebuild.”

  “He has our gratitude,” Daniel said. “And remember, you’re not alone here. I mean, aside from us, there are other people who can help—in the Shacks, probably all over the world, and we can—”

  A commotion broke out on the other side of the makeshift encampment. At first he thought it was trouble between the Arbellans and the Aedan’s people, but then he noticed that the people were actually pointing to the cloudy sky. “What now?” he muttered, and turned to Teal’c.

  His eyes were already fixed on the sky, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the defused brightness. “A ship,” he said.

  “Whose?”

  Teal’c didn’t move, just said, “Hecate’s.”

  Daniel felt his stomach pitch, half in hope and half in dread. “Sobek?”

  “Or fleeing Jaffa.”

  Daniel didn’t give voice to the third option, he didn’t dare. Neither did Teal’c. Jack, he noticed was pushing himself to his feet, his gaze also fixed on the sky.

  A moment later, Daniel saw it too, a dark shape approaching through the low cloud. “It’s an Al’kesh.”

  Teal’c lifted his staff weapon, primed it and held it at the ready. Jack glanced at him over his shoulder, and then turned back to the sky. The Al’kesh were short range bombers—if it was hostile, none of them would stand a chance out in the open like this.

  But the ship didn’t seem to be lining up for a bombing run. In fact, it was flying erratically as it dropped out of the clouds and into the far end of the valley. Daniel squinted through the plume of smoke billowing from one side. “Looks kinda beat up.”