“Ready, Sam?”
“No!” For the first time, she sounded harried. “I’ve lost — that last shot took out the DHD, and I can’t reroute. We can’t dial the gate.”
Really? Jack glared at the jumper controls, and they glowed brighter in answer. “Crap,” he said, and keyed communications. “Carter, Mitchell. We’ve lost the DHD. One of you is going to have to dial the gate.”
“And fast.” Sam scrambled back to the copilot’s seat. “We have to lock in before Ra can set his beams.”
Jack tapped the console. “Carter! Mitchell! Come on, answer me.” There was only silence.
In the copilot’s seat at Ai’s right, Carter punched buttons, trying to get the com system to respond. Ai brought the ship up and around again, the craft wobbling as though they were losing power.
“Can we dial the gate from here?”
Ai shook her head. “We cannibalized the dialing mechanism years ago.”
“Damn it.” Carter punched buttons, got no result. “Why doesn’t Mitchell answer?”
“I think they’ve lost com,” Ai said. Her face was showing the strain, but she nursed the jumper into a careful turn, lining up for another shot at the pel’tac. She released the drones, and for a moment the ha’tak’s progress seemed to slow.
“We have to have the gate open if we’re going to hold it,” Carter said. Ai didn’t answer, probably because she was stating the obvious, and Carter scanned the tac screen again. “Mitchell!”
“Mitchell!” Jack’s voice crackled from the speakers. “Carter! Dial the DHD!”
“Put me down there,” Carter said.
“What?” Ai looped the jumper, bringing them down toward the courtyard where the Stargate stood. The ha’tak loomed overhead, lights flickering on its underbelly. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Somebody has to dial the gate,” Carter said. She grabbed up her helmet and P90, glad of the extra clips stashed in her pockets. “If you have a better idea —”
“Sadly, no.” Ai brought the jumper down almost to the ground, and there was a whine and a rush of sand and air as the rear hatch began to lower. She was slowing, too, not quite to a hover, but to a safe speed, and Carter made her way to the back, head down against the blowing dirt.
“Now!” Ai called, and the jumper slowed even further.
Carter took a breath, and ran down the wobbling ramp. She jumped and rolled, came up with the P90 ready, air swirling around her from the passage of at least one invisible ship. The ha’tak loomed overhead, impossibly enormous, blotting out the sky, but she made herself focus on the DHD. Ai had made a perfect drop, only a couple of meters from the device, and she slung the P90 as she ran toward it. Still no Jaffa, still no sign of the other jumpers, just the ha’tak’s shadow creeping toward her, and she pressed the first symbol. It didn’t really matter what address they dialed, just that the wormhole was open, ready to feed the jumper’s modified systems; she pressed the symbols for what would someday be the alpha site, watching the chevrons light and lock as the gate began to turn.
A blast from a staff weapon shot past her, and she grabbed for her P90, swung and fired in the same movement. She was horribly exposed here, just the console to protect her, and she made herself small, trying to see where the shots had come from. She heard the last chevron lock, and there was the familiar burst of light and energy as the wormhole opened.
Another blast struck the ground a few feet away, and she risked a second shot. The Jaffa were in the pyramid, she thought. If she could just get to the nearest outbuilding — but it was ten yards away, and might as well have been a hundred, for all the good it did her. She hunkered down behind the DHD, poked the muzzle of the P90 around its base, looking for a decent shot. Something moved in the dark behind the pyramid’s entrance, and she fired a burst, as much to keep them down as in any real hope of hitting anyone. Staff weapons fired in return, and she ducked back toward the DHD. One blast clipped her sleeve, fabric and skin smoking, and the next went through her calf, a wave of pain washing over her that for a moment blotted out the rest of the world. She managed to stay upright long enough to loose a long stream of bullets into the open door, then collapsed against the console, groping for a field dressing. At least the blast had cauterized the big blood vessels, she thought, her face screwed up in pain as she tied the dressing into place. She wasn’t likely to bleed to death, at least not yet, but — She looked over her shoulder at the outbuilding, now impossibly far, and settled herself behind the DHD. She wasn’t going anywhere either.
Jack brought the jumper down level with the wormhole’s shimmering center, trying to pretend he didn’t see the ha’tak hovering above him. Something like a proximity alarm was flashing on the control board, was joined by the two-toned warble of an audible alarm. Would you stop it? he thought. I see the damn thing. The audible alarm shut off, but the light kept flashing, brighter than ever.
“Sam!”
“I’ve got it,” she said, her voice steady. “Just one more — there, it’s done.”
The jumper rocked, the air suddenly alive with turbulence, and a whole string of lights popped into existence, a cascade of flashing orange and yellow. “I don’t think the ship likes it.”
“Just a minute more.”
Jack looked up, seeing ports opening on the underside of the ha’tak, weird stubby knobs protruding from their housings. “It’s now or never, Sam.”
“Got it,” Sam said again, and the cascade of lights flashed to solid orange. Jack scanned his boards, trying to interpret the displays. OK, that was the inertial dampeners, feeding through into the tractor, and linking them with the Stargate even as it drew power from the wormhole in an endless loop…
The knobs on the ha’tak’s belly glowed, and then shot thin beams of light that converged and merged into a single stream about ten meters above the top of the Stargate. The stream shot downward, enveloping the gate, and the jumper shuddered again. A thread of pale blue light uncoiled from within the wormhole, snaked slowly out toward the jumper.
“Sam?” Jack risked a glance over his shoulder, to see her still fiddling with crystals and dangling wires. The air smelled electric. “Is it supposed to do this?”
“What?” She looked up and he saw her mouth drop open for an instant before she scrambled forward. “I didn’t expect that.”
“Is it dangerous?” Jack held his hands ready over the controls. The thread of light was moving slowly toward them, weaving slightly as though it was following a scent, and it looked as though it was getting brighter.
“I don’t know,” Sam said. “I don’t think so, I think it’s just energy from the gate radiating into the visible spectrum —”
“Should I move back?” Jack interrupted. The tip of the thread was maybe five meters away, homing in.
“No.” Sam shook her head. “If you do, we’ll lose the gate. We’re locked in.”
“If it blows up, I’m never going to forgive you,” Jack muttered. The ha’tak’s tractor glowed white, brilliant as the filament of a light bulb; streaks of green danced in front of his eyes, obscuring the questing thread.
“It shouldn’t,” Sam said. She was bending over the console, reading numbers and what looked like some kind of graph. “We’re already connected to the wormhole, this is just a radiant effect.”
The tip of the thread was less than a meter away, and closing fast. Jack flinched as it touched the jumper’s skin, but there was no explosion, just a weird tingling that left all the hairs on his arms upright. The air itself seemed to vibrate, a low hum just below the threshold of his hearing. “How are we doing?” he asked, and had to raise his voice to carry in the weirdly thickened air.
“So far, so good,” Sam answered. “We can’t cut Ra’s beam, but he can’t take the gate, either.”
“Stalemate,” Jack said, and hoped the others could figure out the next move.
They slipped through the back corridors behind the temple’s public spaces, the torches flickering with ea
ch explosion. Vala clutched her zat more tightly, glad she’d remembered to put a penlight in her pocket, and peered cautiously around the next corner. The painted corridor was empty, and she looked at Daniel.
“They are aware, your other selves, that those drones could bring the whole pyramid down on top of us?”
“I sincerely hope so,” he answered, which was not quite the response she had wanted to hear. “Clear?”
“Clear.” They scooted across the corridor, took up positions on the opposite side, flattened against the wall. “Where is everyone?”
“The priestess, Mutnod, said they’d gone to the pyramid,” Daniel said, “but maybe they’ve withdrawn to the mothership?”’
“Not all of them,” Vala said. She could hear the distinctive scrape of armored feet, and Daniel caught her arm, dragging her into a darkened side corridor. They melted into the shadows, and a handful of Jaffa trotted by, their leader shouting something Vala couldn’t quite make out. There were only five of them, though, and she frowned.
“There should be more,” Daniel said. “And — that way, back the way they came from, that’s where the cells are. So either Danyel’s been left behind —”
“Which really doesn’t seem all that likely,” Vala said.
“Or they’ve already taken him to the mothership.”
“That would not be good.”
“That’s something of an understatement,” Daniel said. He checked the corridor again, looked back at her. “OK, let’s take a look in the cells.”
“If he’s not there,” Vala began, and the entire pyramid shuddered. There was a deep, grating groan, stone on stone on metal, and a few fragments of paint drifted to the floor. She caught her breath. It was a sound she’d never really expected to hear again, the sound of a mothership leaving its dock, and Daniel slanted her a wary look.
“What was that?”
“Ra leaving.” She hadn’t meant to be so blunt, but she was suddenly afraid. They couldn’t lose this other Daniel, this man who’d done his best to fix his mistakes, and in the process made a life here in the past. They just couldn’t… “Come on.”
They hurried down the corridor, past scenes of gods and men, figures that she would probably know if Daniel had time to name them to her, or at least the Goa’uld who had stolen their identities. The pyramid shuddered again, not as hard, and for a moment the stones throbbed underfoot. And then they had reached the cells, hastily abandoned, a few pieces of Jaffa gear still stacked in the corner of the guardroom.
“Danyel?” She risked calling, despite Daniel’s irritated glance. “Danyel, are you here?”
There was no answer, and Daniel turned back from the cell doors, shaking his head. “They’re empty. All of them.”
“We’re too late.” Vala lowered her zat to her side, the adrenaline washing out of her. “He must be on the ship.”
“We still don’t know that,” Daniel began, but she could tell he didn’t believe it either.
“We have to go after him,” she said, but Daniel shook his head.
“We can’t,” he said, almost gently. “At least, not now, not without knowing —” He shook his head. “He’s on his own for now.”
Chapter Thirty-two
The remainder of the Jaffa were guarding the pyramid’s main entrance, a suicide squad left behind to cover Ra’s retreat. Teal’c was content to leave them there for now, keep them busy and bottled up so that they couldn’t do any more harm, but weren’t desperate enough to try anything stupid. Above them, the ha’tak pulled away from the pyramid, rising into the bright morning sky. Drones struck seemingly at random, and the ha’tak’s guns answered, firing at an enemy they could not see. And still the ha’tak came on, heading inexorably for the Stargate. The wormhole opened then, the wave of blue steadying to a pool, and Teal’c realized there was someone at the DHD: Colonel Carter.
“Basa!”
The sergeant looked over his shoulder, and Teal’c pointed. The Egyptian took in the situation at a glance, and shoved a man toward him, and then another. “Go!”
Teal’c nodded, hoping that Danyel had been right when he said these men understood basic commands, and motioned for them to follow. More Jaffa fired from the pyramid, and he saw Carter stumble, drag herself into the dubious shelter of the DHD. Above and between her and the pyramid the air was hazy blue, a nebulous shape more or less the size of the jumper slowly taking shape. Something was overriding the cloak — or, no, the energy it was drawing from the wormhole was somehow making it visible.
But that could not be his concern. There was an outbuilding, a guard post, to one side of the square. If he could get Carter into that shelter… He grabbed the nearest Egyptian, pointed at the opening at the base of the pyramid. “Ra’s Jaffa are there,” he said. “I must help Colonel Carter. Cover me.”
He saw understanding dawn, and the man nodded vigorously. “Yes,” he said, and spoke quickly to the other men. They dropped into supporting positions — O’Neill and his other self had trained them well — and Teal’c handed the first man his staff weapon.
“Cover me,” he said again, and the Egyptian nodded, sent a blast toward the entrance. The others did the same, and the Jaffa’s fire tracked toward them. Teal’c took a deep breath, and raced for the DHD. He had covered maybe half the ground before he was spotted, and staff blasts slammed into the dirt to either side. Carter had seen him coming, was offering covering fire of her own. He lowered his head, kept dodging, and skidded at last to his knees beside her.
“You are hurt,” he said, taking in the bloody field dressing, the burn that scored her upper arm. Something, a chip of stone, perhaps, had carved a cut across one cheek, and she was squinting with pain.
“I can move if you help me,” she said. “Because we can’t stay here.”
“Indeed not.” Teal’c looked around, gauging the distance to the outbuilding, the safest line, the best shelter. Behind and to the right, the Egyptians continued to lay down covering fire, and he looked back at Carter. “Give me your arm.”
She cried out as he lifted her, got her arm slung over his shoulder and his other arm around her waist. He didn’t give her a chance to think about it, rushed her forward, half dragging, half carrying her toward the abandoned guard post. Staff fire crackled past them, the last shot close enough to singe his ribs, and then they were rolling into the safety of the walls, Carter swearing and holding her injured leg. There was no new bleeding, though, and after a moment, she leaned her head against the wall, eyes fluttering closed for just a moment.
“Thanks,” she said, and unfastened the P90 from around her neck. “Here, you’d better take this.”
She was right, of course. He was in better shape, should have the better weapon. He took it, checked the clip, took the extra clips she handed him as well. He gave her his zat, and settled against the corner of the building, scanning the courtyard. They were safe for the moment, at least, but Carter needed medical attention. He killed that thought, knowing it was pointless, and took aim at the pyramid.
Danyel sat back on his heels, hoping his guard was sufficiently distracted by the fight outside to miss him tugging at the bonds around his wrists. Unfortunately, they weren’t rope, weren’t knotted, but there had to be some way to slip free. Or some way to cut them, if he could only get his hands on something sharp. He realized abruptly that Teal’c was looking at him, could see perfectly well what he was trying to do.
Danyel froze, bracing himself to be hit again, but the Jaffa merely looked away. And maybe that was hopeful, maybe it was a sign that there was some other plan going on here, even if Danyel couldn’t see what it was.
Ra was poised at the main controls, his hands drawing tiny shapes on the control surfaces. The main viewscreen showed the ha’tak hovering above the Stargate. The tractor beams were engaged, Danyel knew, but so far Jack and Sam’s plan was working out.
He cleared his throat. “You know, it’s not too late to take Jack up on his offer. If you leave now, nobody�
�s going to stop you.”
“Only because they cannot,” Ra answered, without looking back. “You will see, you will all see, the cost of my anger.” He nodded to the waiting technician. “More power.”
Well, that went well, Danyel thought. Nice going, Danny. “They are Ancients,” he said. “With Ancient technology —”
“And even Ancients can make mistakes,” Ra said. “Look there.”
The image in the viewscreen changed, shifted to encompass the Stargate, enveloped in the lifting field. The wormhole was open, because a thin stream of something — energy? matter? — was pouring out of it, to form a shimmering bubble around what had to be the cloaked jumper.
“They have revealed themselves as a perfect target,” Ra said.
“Don’t forget the rest of the fleet’s there to protect them,” Danyel said, but knew it sounded weak.
Ra looked at his console. “I do not think there is as large a fleet as you would have me believe. My analysis shows that all I see being done can be achieved with only six ships, and perhaps as few as three. Your protectors are failing, and have been for centuries. They shall not defeat me.”
Damn. That was too good a guess, and he wasn’t Jack, to bluff his way through. “Your computers don’t know everything —”
“Be silent,” Ra said, and touched another control. “Launch the gliders again. They are to concentrate on the ship at the gate. Destroy it, no matter what our losses.”
The jumper shuddered as another wave of power rolled out of the wormhole, and Jack risked a glance over his shoulder. “Is it supposed to do that?”
“It’s not supposed to do any of this,” Sam said. Her hands were busy on the crystals, trying to match the fluctuating energies. “But, yes, some instability is to be expected.”
Jack could feel the jumper’s engines straining to keep up, all the systems laboring to hold the ship in position, to balance the tractor beam that was trying to drag the gate away. Warning lights were flashing all across the boards, though from the feel of things, the jumper would hold together a while longer. You’re just whining, he thought, and it seemed as though the lights faded a little.
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