07 - Survival of the Fittest

by Sabine C. Bauer - (ebook by Undead)

  “Do you know who I am, Marine?” Hammond asked.

  “You’re dead, whoever you are!” The man glared up at him, undiluted hatred in his eyes. “Lady Nirrti will destroy you!”

  “I don’t see her. Do you, son?”

  “I’m not your son, human! I have sprung from the goddess. And she’ll return to reward me.”

  “Sure she will. Where are Colonel O’Neill and his team, and Dr. Fraiser?”

  “The Tauri?” The clone’s mouth curved in a sly smile. “The Tauri has suffered much, and he’ll suffer more. Lady Nirrti has taken him. She ordered us to kill the others. You’re too late, old man.”

  “You’re lying, you son of a bitch!” Perhaps it was the green glow that suffused the vault, but Maybourne seemed pale. Which didn’t keep him from planting a boot on the bullet wound in the man’s thigh and stepping down. “Where are they? Where’s Jack?”

  “I told you!” The Jaffa grated out through clenched teeth.

  “Stop it!” Hammond clutched Maybourne’s arm. “This isn’t—”

  “It’s why you brought me along, isn’t it, Huggy? To do the dirty work. But don’t worry, it’s purely old-testamentary; an eye for an eye. If they had the bad taste to torture Jack…” He didn’t finish the sentence, shook off Hammond’s grip, and this time put a little more gusto behind the macabre step aerobics that punctuated his question. “Where? Are? They?”

  The clone screamed, sweat beading on his forehead and trickling down the side of his nose. He gasped once, twice, and finally hissed, “They’re somewhere in the building. I don’t know if they’re dead. They escaped.”

  “Told you he was lying,” said Harry, his voice flat. “Let’s go find them and get the hell out of here.”

  At that moment a low growl seemed to rise from the foundations of the building. Masonry creaked and a shower of dust rained from the ceiling. The smile crawled back onto the clone’s face.

  “You can’t leave. The fortress is falling, and the ring transporter doesn’t work from here. We tried it. You and your friends’ll be buried right here. With us.”

  Hammond whirled around and stared at that pulsing green aura.

  The rumbles had gotten worse, and something on the bottom floor was glowing green and growing—which, according to the iconography of every horror movie ever shot, was Not A Good Thing. Sam had held off on pronouncing a scientific opinion until they got closer, while Macdonald had opined that it might not be wise to get closer. Not that they had a choice.

  At least the screaming had stopped, and Daniel didn’t think he’d ever been so grateful for anything. Trying to persuade himself that it couldn’t possibly have been Jack, he stumbled down the last few steps to the sixth level, and almost bumped into Macdonald.

  The sergeant, Sam, and Teal’c had ground to a halt outside a corridor. Daniel blinked past them. His eyes had quit streaming, tears drying to itchy trails of salt on his skin. He resisted the temptation to swipe at them. The way his face felt, even a feather duster would cause too much friction. On the other hand, the guy lying prone in the doorway was worse off. Daniel could smell the telltale stench of plasma burns; the clone had been killed by a staff blast. But why? Palace revolution? Opposing factions of clones, having a go at each other after Nirrti had left the sinking ship?

  And Jack trapped in the middle of it. He and Janet.

  Looking at Sam, Daniel saw his own throat-clutching fear mirrored in her eyes, refused to listen to the memory of those screams, went for a travesty of encouragement instead. “We’ve got to get to the lab,” he mouthed, pointing downward.

  “Yeah.” One syllable, bitten off, all she could safely let past that bulwark of discipline. If she screwed the self-control any tighter, she’d snap. Lips compressed to a thin, stressed line, Sam dodged his scrutiny, picked up the dead clone’s staff weapon. “We need to find Janet.”

  They hurried along the gallery and down the stairs to the fifth level. More signs of fighting; another dead clone, burn marks around doorways, torn steps, reliefs in splinters, a sconce and torch ripped from the wall, all bathed in that sickening green glow. The next set of stairs was coming up ahead, and Daniel picked up his pace. Passing a doorway, a shadow of movement caught his eye—too late. The arm snapped around his throat, jerked up his chin, sent his headache squarely into migraine territory and all but drowned the shout that echoed from the corridor.

  “Don’t!”

  While Daniel still wondered if he was hearing voices, the pressure on his carotid ceased, restoring the oxygen supply to his brain and sparking a festive shower of stars—uniquely apposite. “Jack!” he wheezed, reeling into the wall.

  A Marine who made Teal’c look dainty ballooned into his field of vision. “He with you, kid?” Goliath hollered back over his shoulder.

  Kid? The guy was Jack’s age, if that, but managed to convey the impression that he’d been at it since the Marines landed on Okinawa.

  “Yes, dammit! So’s the rest!” Definitely Jack.

  Taking a step back, Goliath cleared the view. Definitely, definitely Jack.

  The rest gradually lowered their weapons and inched closer, as if a faster approach would dispel the apparition. Teal’c gave one of those rare, all-enveloping smiles, and Sam had gone still enough to suggest that any kind of motion might irreparably crack her armor.

  “Colonel,” she whispered. “Sir… With respect, sir, you look like hell.”

  “Thanks.” The bottomless relief written all over his face couldn’t mask it. Half-naked and filthy, Jack was drained to within an inch of his life, and if he went any paler, he’d start to glow in the dark. And he knew it. Skirting any discussion of what had happened to him, he made a show of taking in Sam’s dishabille in open-mouthed disbelief. “Interesting, Major. Love the legs. Especially the left one.”

  “Co/owe/?” Goliath boomed out. Introductions had been postponed, it seemed.

  Jack pointed at his bare chest, which probably wasn’t anywhere near hairy enough to impress Goliath. “On the rare occasions when I actually wear a uniform it says ‘Colonel’ right about here. I’m thinking of getting a tattoo.”

  “Uhuh. Next we’ll find us a general,” mumbled Goliath, not entirely convinced but tagging on “sir” to be on the safe side. Then his eyes settled on Macdonald, and he grinned. “Hey, Burger! Glad to see you made it.”

  “Look, kids, it’s all very touching, but we’d better blow this popsicle stand before it blows us.” As if on cue, a new rumble rattled through the building. Jack started shooing Marines from the corridor and toward the stairs.

  Daniel exchanged a glance with Sam, who shook her head barely noticeably. No symbiotes.

  “No clones,” supplied Jack, joining in the silent conversation. “They’re the originals. Nirrti kept them, just in case.”

  “O’Neill.” Teal’c hovered behind him, unobtrusively making sure that Jack wouldn’t keel over. “We have not yet succeeded in finding Dr. Fraiser.”

  “I have. Long story,” he added in a tone that precluded any questions.

  Roughly at that point Daniel knew for certain that what he’d sensed outside the lab had been real and it had been bad. And he’d gone on a wild goose chase instead of trusting his instincts. The weight of the mistake dropped into his gut, squirmed and started gnawing. This was how you got ulcers, Daniel supposed. How did Jack do it without practically living on antacids? By throwing knee-jerk reactions, being insufferable, and, ultimately, resigning when he thought he couldn’t face making one more mistake.

  “Daniel?” Sam was staring at him.

  “I’m okay. I—” He forgot the rest, thunderstruck, and his stomach twisted into another knot.

  One of the Marines was carrying Janet out onto the gallery. Teal’c’s eyes went wide, then he stepped into the man’s path. “I shall take care of Dr. Fraiser.” The stare he sent the Marine made clear that refusal would be a very dumb idea.

  Nodding, the man handed over his charge. Without that larger-than-
life energy and determination to drive her, Janet seemed tiny, like a child in Teal’c’s arms. The large, vicious-looking plasma burn on her upper chest made Daniel’s own shoulder twinge in sympathy. Been there, done that, died of it. And chances were that he was responsible for this, too.

  Sam had gone white as a sheet, fist clenching around the requisitioned staff weapon. “Is she—”

  “No. And she won’t, if I’ve got anything to do with it. Instead of ducking, she decided to save my life,” Jack said grimly. “Let’s go, folks, before that fungus down there takes over the joint.”

  “Fungus?“ Daniel couldn’t help it. He smiled.

  “Space fungus.” As if to make sure the green blob was still doing its thing, Jack cast a glance down the stairwell and snapped into a classic double-take. “Holy cow!”

  “What?”

  He looked past Daniel and at Goliath. “Hey, Shorty? You ordered a general?”

  Stay where you are, sir!

  It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, given the dire predictions of the clone Jaffa, but George Hammond assumed Jack knew what he was doing. Currently he was herding his little flock toward his would-be rescuers and the vault and a ring transporter that couldn’t be activated. Then again, he wasn’t the type to curl up in a dead-end set to self-destruct—not anymore. Which suggested that he might just have a way out.

  Green stuff speckling the toecaps of his boots, Hammond studied the odd procession rattling down the stairs and felt a little redundant. A day late and a dollar short, though it was preferable to any number of alternatives. Led by a guy half a head taller than Teal’c, ten tattered specimens of the Marine Corps’ finest arrived first, saluted on spec as they filed past and edged along the wall, trying to keep to the very fringes of that glowing green blight. Some of the faces he’d seen on the casualties in the vault—multiple times—but these men didn’t wear Jaffa armor.

  The tall guy in front—a gunnery sergeant, going by the stripes—called them to a halt, and watched the tail end of the ragtag assembly negotiate the final steps. Teal’c, surefooted and solemn, carried Dr. Fraiser who had a nasty staff burn on her shoulder; behind him Dr. Jackson; and, bringing up the rear, Major Carter and Colonel O’Neill, both so far south of military dress code that Hammond’s eyebrow gave an involuntary twitch.

  When they came closer, the facial tic subsided abruptly. As a matter of fact, they confirmed a suspicion he’d held for some time now; that, whenever possible, SG-1 tried to spruce up before gating back Earthside. Hammond felt a bit like a mother paying an unexpected visit to the playground and witnessing firsthand what the kids really got up to when they thought nobody was looking.

  Except, there was no way on Earth even SG-1 could have spruced up this one. Dr. Jackson looked like something that rightfully belonged in among the Halloween decorations, and Sam Carter’s clothes seemed to have been burned off her back, leaving the blisters to prove it. As for Jack, Hammond had seen that same gray complexion on his father, just before the man had had a heart attack.

  Jack must have read it in his face. He forced a grin. “I know. We look radiant. Nice of you to drop in, sir, but what the hell are you doing here? On second thought—what kept you?” The grin faded when he swayed a little, and Hammond’s hand shot out to steady him. He shook it off. “No time for that, sir. It’ll all be in the mission report.” Grabbing Sam Carter’s arm and turning her to face him, he mouthed, “Check out the fungus but make it fast.”

  The form of communication alone sparked a whole barrage of questions, but Jack was right. They didn’t have time for any of this.

  With a brisk nod Carter corralled Dr. Jackson. Together they headed into the vault to investigate the green stuff. Bra’tac, having convinced himself that Teal’c was unharmed, went to join them, just as Harry pushed through the ranks of the Marines. Jack gave Hammond a disbelieving stare.

  “What did you bring him for?” he muttered. “To scare the children?”

  “I’m hurt, Jack.” Maybourne actually pouted. “Besides, Huggy didn’t bring me, I brought Huggy.”

  “ Who?” Jack’s grin returned, positively beatific. “Hug—”

  Before Major General Hammond could find cause to slap Colonel O’Neill with insubordination charges, chunks of gallery tumbled from above and landed in the middle of the floor. By rights the impact should have resulted in a crash and shrapnel flying everywhere. In actual fact, it resulted in slurping noises and masonry stuck off-kilter in what seemed to be—

  “Green Jell-O,” Jack said. “I hate green Jell-O.”

  “Sir!” Major Carter shot from the vault and came sprinting over to them. “Sir! Hi, Maybourne. Colonel, we’ve got to get out. Now. Whatever Nirrti’s triggered here, it’s basically turning stone to—”

  “Green Jell-O.”

  “Exactly. The foundations are sagging, and it’s spreading exponentially. Bottom-line, the place is digesting itself. There’s no way for me to fix this. To be honest, I wouldn’t know where to start. We’ve got to outrun it before those tunnels Daniel and Teal’c found come down around our ears.”

  “Okay. Let’s—”

  “Major,” Hammond cut in. “What if it starts digesting… people?”

  “She can’t hear you, General.”

  Jack pointed Carter the right way, and Hammond repeated the question more slowly.

  “Won’t happen, sir. We checked out the dead clones in the vault. Floor’s softening all around them, but the bodies are unaffected—apart from the fact that they’re starting to sink.”

  “Great!” With a visible effort, Jack straightened up. “Daniel, Teal’c, take point. Shorty, you and your boys go next. Harry, you stick with the General—lose him and I’ll break your neck. Carter and I’ve got your six. Move out and don’t stop!”

  “And I shall be watching you, human,” Bra’tac barked, all five foot six of him squaring up to Jack’s six-two, toe to toe, brooking no contradiction. “You look to me as though you might delay us. I shall find ways to prevent it.”

  For a moment protest hovered in Jack’s eyes, then he backed down. “Thanks, Bra’tac,” he said softly. “And quit calling me human.”

  Dr. Jackson and Teal’c already were wading through the gunk and toward a nook under the stairs, the Marines following close behind. When Hammond’s turn came, he realized why Bra’tac had been so adamant. It was worse than running through wet sand, and Jack would need all the help he could get. The gunk—Jell-O, fungus, whatever—had better suction than most vacuums.

  The nook concealed a doorway and an anteroom behind, and the exit from the latter was blocked by chest-high pile of Jell-O—fallen masonry, once upon a time. Now glowing an unearthly green, it complemented the noises that had begun to fill the tunnels. The fortress seemed to be groaning in pain, hollow moans interspersed with sharp cracks whenever stone split somewhere. One more incentive to hurry up.

  Hammond started scaling Mount Jell-O and at the third lumbering step sank hip-deep into the goo, floundering like a beached whale to pull his leg free again. He managed—just.

  Behind him, Harry hollered, “Don’t walk, General! Lie flat and crawl up!”

  Good idea, though it had been a lot easier in basic training, forty-odd years ago. Hammond pushed and pulled and tobogganed down the other side in a wake of muck. Panting for air and soaked with sweat, he picked himself up and plodded on at best possible speed.

  Sam had expected they’d outrun it. Anybody would bet on being able to outrun, outsmart, outsing some pesky microbe. So much for the validity of the anthropocentric world view. In real terms, they barely managed to stay abreast of a massive case of architectural athlete’s foot. No, actually, they didn’t even manage that, she thought with another glance at the walls. The green, pumping malaise had risen to shoulder height, and God knew what would happen once it reached the ceiling. Well, God knew, and Sam Carter could take an educated guess. She could feel the vibrations that shook the structure each time another part of the building collap
sed or subsided.

  And subsidence definitely was starting to be a problem. As the softening foundations compressed under the weight of the fortress, the ceiling was sinking at the same rate. The top of Sam’s head occasionally scraped stone, and the Colonel had to run hunched over—if you could call it running. Glutinous goop stuck to their soles, making each step twice as hard as it had to be. Occasionally, globs of it would hit Sam’s shins, stick there, warm and itchy, until they died from lack of food, winked out, and confirmed her initial impression that it wasn’t directly harmful to the human anatomy.

  Up ahead, Maybourne and General Hammond slowed to a halt—their trek seemed to obey the same obscure laws as highway traffic, jamming without any apparent reason. She turned around to check on Colonel O’Neill. Despite the green wash she could tell that his lips had turned blue. Bra’tac slipped her a worried glance from behind him and said something that obviously improved the Colonel’s mood to no end.

  “What?” she asked. “I can’t hear you, Bra’tac.”

  “Air quality sucks!” Colonel O’Neill shouted very slowly and promptly started gasping.

  Damn! She’d never noticed it—one of the reasons why they kept canaries in mineshafts—but Bra’tac was right. Damn, damn, damn! Faced with relentless Day-Glo green, she’d automatically assumed photosynthesis, but that didn’t make sense, for all kinds of reasons. Whatever this turned out to be, fungus or bacterium, it was aerobic, and there was a lot of it, siphoning off oxygen at the rate of knots.

  At that moment, the column started moving again. “Go, Carter,” the Colonel mouthed, giving her a little shove. His hand felt ice-cold and clammy.

  She nodded, spun around, and sprinted to catch up with General Hammond. “Sir, can you pass word to the front that they have to keep moving? We’re running out of air back here.”