07 - Survival of the Fittest

by Sabine C. Bauer - (ebook by Undead)

  As he approached the car, one of the agents got out and opened the passenger door. “You okay, Colonel?”

  “I’ll survive.” Cradling his arm, Simmons sidled into the seat. “Phone our hacker back in DC. Seattle PD are bound to find Hammond’s fingerprints somewhere in that barn.” He jerked his chin at the hospital. “When they run the prints through AFIS, I want them to get back Hammond’s picture and vital stats together with the record of a likely heavy.”

  “Yessir.”

  Conrad had arrived and was folding his tall frame onto the rear bench. Simmons resisted the urge to turn around to keep an eye on him. Instead he squinted at the agent. “Actually, let’s get them the record of a cop killer. Increases the chances of some state trooper doing us a favor and shooting Hammond on sight.”

  The man grinned, closed the door, and climbed into the rear. Simmons could hear the soft beep of his cell phone keys. He had perfect pitch, could tell the number just by listening to the sounds: 555-377-8008.

  “Where’re we going, sir?” asked the driver.

  “Cheyenne Mountain. Hammond and Maybourne are bound to try and run home to momma. In the unlikely event that they get there, I want to make sure we’ve got a welcoming committee in place.”

  Indigo shadows crawled in, claustrophobic like cobwebs on your face, and Jack turned full circle, surrounded by stone walls, teeming plant-life, smirking statues. God, he hated those things! Couldn’t really say why. Maybe he just hated them for the sake of hating something. Shivering, Jack let out a deep breath. This place was getting to him, was all. Too damn quiet for starters. And who was mowing the lawn, anyway?

  The grass under his boots was short, evenly clipped, and the odds of the groundkeeper driving a John Deere through here on a regular basis struck him as slim. He remembered, ages ago, reading some science fiction novel where lawn care was handled by tall green things with mouths in their paws. They jumped real well, and when they weren’t grazing they sucked unsuspecting tourists dry. Not a good thought.

  On the upside and going by the pristine state of the turf, those monster hogs Carter had mentioned probably didn’t come to play in this particular circle of hell. Jack checked his watch. Twenty minutes left. He’d better find that firewood. Ahead was an archway, muffled by shadows. Either side of it, more statues, peering from the gloom with a greediness that made him squirm and broadcasted a recommendation to stay out. Yeah, well. Maybe next time. Ignoring the faces, the stares, he moved through the archway into some kind of temple.

  The darkness drooping beneath the vaulted ceiling seemed rancid, ancient, as if it’d been hanging there since the day this bastard of a planet had congealed from primordial soup to whatever it purported to be now. Evening twilight trickled through a high, narrow window, lifting charcoal to medium gray and outlining an array of wooden screens, not unlike the kind you’d find in an old Catholic church. Except for the artwork, of course. That was about as far removed from Catholic statuary as you could get. And the sense of being watched hadn’t lessened. On the contrary. It was almost physical, stroked his neck, his back, a congregation of popsicle millipedes boogieing up and down his spine.

  Pulse thudding in his throat, he did another slow three-sixty, staff weapon raised and primed this time. Nothing. But the creepy sensation of being touched by a ghost had ceased. For now. Jack struggled to control his breathing and slipped between two screens, in the hopes of finding something wooden and portable back there. Zip. Not even a chair. Carter was dying, and all they had on offer were goddamn screens and prying eyes!

  Fury, blinding and irrational, sloshed over him in a red-hot wave. He smashed the staff into a screen, sent splinters flying, threw the weapon after them. The Rakshasas again, Fear, Terror, and Death, and that was just fine by him; he’d take them apart chip by chip and with his bare hands if he had to, punch holes in their grinning faces. His fists crashed into the panel, leaving smears of blood, kept pounding regardless, needing the pain to numb a different kind of agony, again and again and—

  “Don’t move!” Though cold beyond freezing the voice sounded vaguely familiar.

  Notwithstanding, hanging around for the reunion didn’t seem advisable. Adrenaline still fizzing through his body, Jack dropped, rolled under a screen just ahead of the track of bullets that hammered dust and stone flakes from the floor. Damn! So he’d felt watched for a reason. Another round tore through the screen, whisked past his head. Slugs, not energy bolts. The shooter—a woman, incidentally—probably wasn’t Jaffa, but she had X-ray vision anyway. The next round was half an inch closer.

  You’re a shrub, O’Neill! What the hell made you think this was a safe place to throw a tantrum?

  His opponent was on the move, slowly edging her way around the wooden partition. Butted up against another screen four meters away lay his staff weapon, and the lighting or absence thereof would work to his advantage. Maybe. Disregarding the protests from assorted parts of his anatomy, Jack burst from cover, dived for the staff weapon—with catlike grace, he would have liked to think, though reality was more along the lines of a startled bullfrog—grabbed it, brought it up rolling onto his back, and fired. Some pals of Fear, Terror, and Death flew apart in a shower of shards and smoke, and then a shadowy figure gradually straightened up behind what was left of the screen. Along the handle of the weapon Jack was staring at the shell-shocked face of Dr. Janet Fraiser.

  “Colonel O’Neill! What in God’s name are you doing here?”

  “For cryin’ out loud! What is this? The local feminist association trying to eradicate me? First Carter and now you!”

  “Sam? You’ve found Sam?”

  “Let’s just say she found me. Mind pointing that gun someplace else? If it goes off now, it’ll take out equipment I’d hate to lose.”

  “I’m sorry, Colonel. I’m so sorry.” Hands trembling, Fraiser lowered her weapon. She had a nasty gash on the side of her head and a starved look about her, but otherwise she seemed to be in full working order. Thank God for that. “I could have—”

  “Save it.” Oscillating between irritation and giddy relief, Jack skipped the sideways shuffle and heave that would have allowed him to get to his feet relatively pain-free and hauled himself up the staff weapon instead.

  She watched his performance with an air of solemn curiosity and stated, “You’re injured.”

  “Yeah. Must have forgotten to read the health warning on the label before I let myself be dumped in this place. Where’s Teal’c?”

  An odd flicker of uncertainty and something else—indefinably wrong—raced through her eyes. It could be shock, grief, the twilight in this ghost train of a room, any of a hundred things, including Jack’s own paranoia. “We were separated. I’ve spent days searching, but…” She gave a small shrug and nodded at the jungle vista outside the window, now rapidly changing from green to black.

  “Crap,” Jack muttered softly. Then again, it probably would have been too much to hope for to get back Fraiser and Teal’c in one handy package and, admittedly, he was worried a little less about the big guy than he had been about the doc. “It’s alright. We’ll find him. Meanwhile, you ready to make a house call?”

  Shaking off whatever it was that had rooted her in place, she picked her way through the wreckage. “What did you do now?”

  “Not me! Carter. Here, take as much of this stuff as you can carry.” He gathered some chunks of wood, piled them into her arms.

  Over bits of splintered screen, she gazed at him wide-eyed. “Sam? What’s wrong with her? Where is she?”

  “I left her and Daniel in some lobby with a waterfall. Very feng shui.”

  “I’ve been there. Reminded me of The King and I. What about Sam, sir?”

  “She isn’t doing so good.” He picked up some more shards, stacked them atop the pile she was holding.

  “Colonel?” Okay, that was more like Fraiser, complete with her best Don’t hold out on me or it’ll hurt look.

  “It’s gangrene, Doc.”
<
br />   Fraiser damn near dropped the wood. “You’re sure, sir?”

  “Positive.” That impotent rage threatened to surge back, and he put a boot through what was left of the screen, scooped up the fragments, grabbed the staff weapon. “Let’s go.”

  Outside a lilac moon had begun to crawl over the treetops, casting dishwater light on forest and buildings and flattening perspectives until the statues looked like old black-and-white photographs. Fraiser headed for a narrow alley between two buildings. It was pitch-dark but seemed to have the advantage of being statue-free.

  “Hey, Doc? Where’re you going?”

  “It’s a shortcut.” Sensing his hesitation, she stopped and turned. The moonlight made her face appear bloodless. “I’ve been spending nights here ever since I lost Teal’c, sir. I know my way around.”

  “Fair enough. Lead on.”

  He followed her through oppressive silence. The grass swallowed any sound of their footfalls, and the only noises, barely audible, were Fraiser’s soft breaths and his own and, faintly, the splashing of the waterfall. It quickly grew louder, and when Janet led him from another alley out onto a broader thoroughfare, he could make out the pillared front of the hall.

  Somewhere behind the pillars hovered a dull gleam of brightness. Probably a flashlight, probably a lousy idea, and both Carter and Daniel ought to know better, but he was grateful to see it. Picking up his pace, he half-ran past Fraiser, past the outer line of columns, and across the hall.

  “Hey, kids! Look who—”

  Stopping hadn’t been a conscious decision. It’d been more like slamming into a wall. Daniel knelt by the prone figure on the ground, diving knife in hand—had to be Carter’s, Jack thought absently—and looked up at him with an odd mix of anguish and pity in his eyes. A tourniquet around Carter’s leg, on the floor a discarded syringe, empty, glinting in the beam of the flashlight.

  “Daniel?” Jack’s voice sounded alien, even to him.

  “We can’t wait any longer,” said Daniel, visibly bracing for an argument, a hint of accusation in his tone. “I just wish you’d—You’re early. The morphine took a while to kick in.”

  “Yeah.” There would be no argument. Because there was no sarcophagus, was there? There never would be. Half tempted to turn and see if the fight draining from him had left a trail, Jack inched closer.

  Carter was gazing at him with a doe-eyed alertness belied by the pin-prick pupils, “’s okay, sir,” she slurred. “Won’t hurt a bit.”

  Let her believe that. But Daniel was right. It had to happen now. Unable to look away from the hellish mess that was Carter’s injury, Jack crouched. “Need a hand?”

  Surprise or misery or both nudged Daniel into a shudder. “Fire would be good,” he murmured. “Hot water. Sam’s got cooking gear in her pack, so—”

  “How about you let me check her out first?” said an indignant voice behind them.

  Daniel’s head snapped up, and he blinked into the direction of the speaker. “Janet? My God, where—”

  “Let’s save the welcome home party for later.” With a brusqueness out of character for her, Fraiser shouldered Daniel aside, squatted next to Carter, and nodded at the flashlight sitting on the floor. “Somebody hold this for me.”

  “Sure.” Sounding a little uncertain, Daniel picked up the light. “Like this?”

  “Higher! And more of an angle! I can’t see a thing. Yeah, that’ll do.” Seconds dragged into minutes dragged into an eternity filled with Carter’s soft moans as the doctor probed the wound. Eventually Fraiser glanced up and straight at Jack. “Why did you wait this long? I can try, but whatever I do, I doubt she’ll make it.”

  Daniel flinched, stung. “For God’s sake, Doc, she can hear you!”

  Ignoring him, Fraiser kept staring at Jack, her eyes near-black and utterly cold. “If she dies, you’re to blame.”

  “I know.” He wasn’t quite sure how he’d managed to talk around the swirl of nausea rising in his throat. Nausea and an overwhelming sense of wrongness.

  The flashlight jerked, then clattered to the floor, its beam briefly shooting upward as it flipped. Mercifully, Fraiser’s eyes sank into shadow. Daniel had grabbed her shoulders and shook her roughly. “What the hell is the matter with you? Jack’s no more to blame than—”

  “Daniel!” Jack struggled to school his expression into something between neutral and dead. “This isn’t helping. Let her go.”

  A hint of bewilderment and panic flashed across Fraiser’s face, and she came to her feet, avoiding anyone’s gaze now. “I’m sorry, Colonel. That was out of line. She… Sam is a friend.” For a moment she seemed to listen inward, then said, “I can’t do much here. Bring her to where I’m staying. It’s safer, and I’ve got a small surgical kit in my pack. I’ll need it.”

  Wordlessly Daniel made to pick up Carter. With a swift pat to the back, Jack stopped him. “I’ll carry her.”

  Daniel acknowledged it with a nod, moved aside. “Jack?”

  “I can handle it.” Barely, but that wasn’t what Daniel’s question had been about anyway. His knees vigorously disagreed with the undertaking, and he found out the hard way why Fraiser had advised against heavy lifting when she’d first examined his ribs—a lifetime ago. Though Carter wasn’t heavy. Not exactly huge to start with, she’d lost a dramatic amount of weight.

  Now, dopey from the morphine, she nestled her head against his shoulder, smiled at him, and muttered, “Nice.”

  “We aim to please, Major.” He tried to smile back, didn’t quite make it. His gaze settled on Fraiser, who was watching them with the look of a scientist studying a pair of lab rats. “Which way?”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “But the others did get back. So there has to be a way off this planet,” Corporal Wilkins said for the eighteenth time since their encounter, and he was sounding anxious. “If it’s all the same to you, sir, I don’t wanna end up like Gonzo, poor bastard.”

  “Gonzo” was the man whose body they had discovered at some distance from the Stargate, hanging off a lintel in the perimeter wall. The corporal had served with him, and he had insisted on cutting down the flyblown corpse of Private Joe Gonzales. The beasts had inflicted terrible injuries, but Private Gonzales had died from a single shot to his head. Someone had possessed the mercy to spare him further suffering.

  Once they had buried him, they had continued in a south-easterly direction. Just after nightfall they had come upon a ruined guardhouse and set up camp for the night. Approximately two hundred meters further on, across open terrain, was a large gate in the city walls, now swallowed by shadows. Had they arrived earlier, Teal’c might have proceeded inside, although some indefinable instinct warned him against any such foray. However, instincts or no, tomorrow at first light they would have to explore what lay beyond the gate.

  “I was wrong. We should have gone looking for White, Lambert, and Ryder.”

  The corporal was referring to the soldiers who had arrived with him. His petulance was beginning to tax Teal’c’s patience. Or perhaps it was merely a combination of the relentless heat and humidity and the renewed silence of the forest. A nub of masonry was pressing against his still aching shoulder, and Teal’c noiselessly shifted his position, wishing he could afford the peace of kelno’reem. He had seated himself by the doorway, observing a jungle and ruins bathed in pale starlight. It imbued the world with a ghostlike quality, enhancing the now familiar sense of foreboding that had befallen him as soon as the silence settled over the trees once more.

  From behind came a soft rustle. Corporal Wilkins had risen and crawled closer on all fours to peer out the door. “I gotta go find those clowns,” he muttered and, with the next breath, “Got a stinking headache, though.”

  Unable to discern any smell and struggling to keep his tone civil, Teal’c replied, “I recommend you ingest appropriate medication and try to sleep. I shall wake you for your watch.”

  “Been popping aspirin for the past three hours, sir. It’s a mirac
le if I’ve got any stomach lining left after this.” More rustling. The corporal had retreated to the back of the room and was rummaging through his backpack. Then he returned, carrying his weapon. “Gotta go find them,” he said again.

  Teal’c grabbed a fistful of his sleeve. “Corporal Wilkins, we have discussed this repeatedly. It would not be wise for you to attempt a search. Not on your own, and especially not in darkness.”

  “Let go of me!” The corporal yanked his arm free and only barely seemed to curb the impulse to train his weapon on Teal’c. “I’ve got my orders, and you’re not authorized to stop me. Sir!”

  The address was made to sound like an insult, and Teal’c felt his blood boil. “What orders, hasshak?” he hissed. “Not long ago you were attempting to run back to M3D 335 like a frightened boy!”

  The weapon snapped up, but Teal’c was faster. On his feet in the blink of an eye, one hand clamped around the barrel, he wrenched the submachine gun from the corporal and jabbed its stock into the man’s midriff. For a moment Corporal Wilkins sagged back, winded, then he collected himself and was about to attack again.

  A sound from outside, a stone accidentally loosened and kicked by a boot perhaps, penetrated the scrabbling noises of their fight.

  “Quiet!” Teal’c barely breathed the command and his hand shot up in warning.

  The corporal’s training reasserted itself. Slowly and carefully, he recovered his submachine gun and moved in behind Teal’c who had retrieved his staff weapon. Directly south of them a dark shape oozed from the tree line like a thing spawned and bred in the jungle. Curled into a crouch, it approached the guardhouse, its silhouette broken up only by the black protrusion of the gun barrel. A Marine then, or perhaps—

  The half-formed hope was smashed by a shot tearing through the window at the far end of the room. Corporal Wilkins cried out, and Teal’c whirled around. The flare from his staff weapon briefly illuminated a blackened human face. It dropped from sight in a shower of dust and crumbling masonry. The corporal had been hit, but not grievously. Sprawled on the ground he opened fire on the man approaching from the trees. None of the rounds struck its target. But it could only be a matter of time.