“Colonel O’Neill.”
O’Neill blinked. “Sir.”
“Your team will be designated SG-1. The team will consist of yourself, Captain Carter—”
“And me,” Jackson interrupted. His hands were twisted together in a knot on the gleaming table.
Hammond shook his head. “Dr. Jackson, we need you to work as a consultant with the other SG teams from here. Your expertise in ancient cultures and languages are far too valuable—”
“No,” Jackson insisted, and tried to soften it with a quick, pleading smile. “I mean, I know this is your decision. I just… I really have to be on their team.” He leaned forward, trying to make the general understand. “My wife is out there, General. I need to go.”
Hammond’s look was troubled. Clearly he sympathized, but there was military necessity too. “I’ll take that under consideration,” he said at last, unwilling to deny Jackson completely. “Major Kawalsky, you’ll head SG-2.”
“I will?” Kawalsky gaped, caught flat-footed.
“Colonel O’Neill says it’s about time you had a command.”
Kawalsky swiveled to look at the colonel, who shrugged and said, “I had a moment of weakness.”
As he spoke, an aide entered and whispered in Major Samuels’ ear. Smiling, he repeated it. “Ferretti’s conscious, sir.”
Ignoring protocol, O’Neill lunged for the door. He was gone before Hammond could finish saying, “Dismissed.”
Carter seemed disposed to shove the medic out of the way as they entered the sickroom. “I’ll take over, thanks,” she said, and moved in beside the injured man’s pillow.
Ferretti was in good spirits, possibly because he was doped to the gills and too groggy to notice the tubes sticking out of him. He tried to smile around the respirator at O’Neill and Kawalsky, and even tried to wink with his unbandaged eye at Carter. A technician set up a bed tray beside the bed, careful not to brush against the patient, and placed a laptop computer on it, tilting the screen so Ferretti could see. Carter hit the keys to start her program running.
“Listen, Ferretti, I know you’re probably not feeling so hot, but we need something from you.”
Carter glanced at the colonel, surprised at the compassion and iron need in his voice. Ignoring her, O’Neill shifted to make it easier for the patient to move his hand.
On the laptop screen, the symbols of the Abydos Gate blinked on in slow succession. Ferretti pointed a trembling hand at one of them.
“Looks like he’s way ahead of you, Colonel,” Carter observed.
O’Neill continued to ignore her, focused completely on Ferretti. “You saw all seven symbols? You sure this is where they went?”
Ferretti nodded, gesturing to bring the screen closer so he could point more easily.
“Good eye, Major,” O’Neill said, smiling at him.
It took a long time, and when Ferretti was finished he was shaking with exhaustion. But they had all seven symbols, in the correct order. God willing, it would take them to Skaara and Sha’re.
The team was dressed in battle fatigues, waiting as the Gate spun for its new destination. In addition to regular battle kit—the uniform of the day was jungle camouflage for some reason—they had a motorized battle cart. The cart, the size of a sport-utility vehicle without the top half, was loaded with weapons and ammunition as well as other, more mundane supplies. Stenciled on its side was the cryptic acronym FRED.
Kawalsky had personally made sure that there was lots and lots of extra ammunition.
In the background, technicians did mysterious things, and they could hear a voice announcing, “Chevron five, encoded.”
Samuels, looking smart and crisp and every inch the desk jockey, gave them last-minute instructions.
“Colonel, I want to remind you that rescuing Dr. Jackson’s wife is a secondary objective. In the event you fail to return to base camp within twenty-four hours, SG-2 will scrub the mission and return without you.”
“Understood,” O’Neill said, expressionless.
Kawalsky snorted. “Not gonna happen, Colonel. SG-2 won’t leave without you.”
Samuels gave him an affronted glare.
Behind him a loudspeaker announced, “Chevron Six, encoded.”
Samuels decided to ignore Kawalsky. He held up a wrist remote-control device. “All right. Let’s confirm transmitter codes.”
Carter and Kawalsky pulled back their sleeves and showed Samuels the devices on their own wrists. The room began shaking, and Samuels had to raise his voice. “I want to remind you that only the right code will open the iris. If you lose the transmitter, you cannot get home.”
O’Neill, watching the Gate, was no longer even pretending to pay attention to him. Carter answered for him. “Understood, sir.”
“Chevron seven, locked.”
“Clear!”
The team shifted, eager to follow the retreating funnel up the ramp.
Over the loudspeaker Hammond’s voice sounded hollow as he repeated his warning. “SG-1 and SG-2, if you do not return in twenty-four hours, your remote transmitter codes will be locked out and the iris will be sealed permanently. At that point there will be no return. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” O’Neill snapped. Then, to the team, “Let’s move out.”
The troops lined up and started up the ramp. As O’Neill and Kawalsky passed Samuels, they heard him mutter, “Wish I was going with you.”
The colonel and the major exchanged a look. O’Neill managed to keep his mouth shut. Kawalsky didn’t. “Yeah? I’m kinda glad you’re staying behind.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
O’Neill hit the ground rolling, feeling the bite of gravel through his jacket. The cold of the trip through the Gate had chilled him to the bone and left a rime of frost on his eyelashes. He muttered a curse, brushing it away, and looked around, taking stock of their position and accounting for his team. Everyone seemed to be okay, but FRED the battle cart seemed to have landed half on top of a boulder.
Kawalsky catapulted out of the Gate, hit the ground, and snarled, “Damn it’s cold!”
O’Neill didn’t disagree, but that wasn’t the point. “Okay, people, get our gear out. Let’s move, move!”
They were in a large wooded clearing, with a centerpiece of the Gate and a stone altar standing before it. The clearing looked like a miniature Stonehenge, with rings of small boulders, set carefully on end, surrounding the centerpiece. It was a new world, a new planet; the trees were different somehow. O’Neill firmly quashed the temptation to gawk. They were in enemy territory, and the fact that it was a different world didn’t matter. Their strategic goals were defined, and tactics were tactics anywhere in the galaxy.
So far they had retained the element of surprise. The soldiers deployed in defensive perimeter were alert and ready. They needed to get organized, be ready to defend themselves….
Daniel sneezed. “Anybody have a Kleenex?” he asked, for all the world as if he were back home in the briefing room.
O’Neill glared at him. Scientists!
Sha’re sat by a wall, next to a fluted column, uneasily plucking the unfamiliar fabric of her gown. On a marble table nearby, another woman luxuriated in an oil rubdown. The other women were sampling delicacies from silver platters and talking among themselves; she could understand some of them, at least a word or two here and there. Sha’re wasn’t hungry, and even if she was she couldn’t bring herself to try the food of the Ra-gods and serpent soldiers.
The main subject of discussion was what had happened to the strange blond woman taken by the Serpent Guards. Many were afraid. Some were envious. They speculated eagerly about where she had gone.
When the Serpent Guards returned, those were the women who pushed forward, who postured before them, smiling, flirting, caressing. The Guards ignored them, scanning the crowd intently. Sha’re turned her back to them, refusing to acknowledge their existence. Since being separated from her brother and brought to this house of women, she ha
d felt desperately alone.
“You!” one said, pointing directly at Sha’re. She could feel his gaze on her, hear the movement of the other women as they moved out of the path of the guards. No, she thought desperately, not me. Daniel, Skaara, where are you?
Out of the corner of her eye she could see them coming, and could no longer deny that she was the focus of their attention. Horrified, she bolted, shoving her way past the disappointed volunteers, but the slaves grabbed her.
Sha’re screamed in denial, refusal. She kicked and fought.
It made no difference.
This time they had everything they wished they’d had before: mines, Stingers, infrared, everything O’Neill and Kawalsky could think of. O’Neill decided he’d feel better about it if he was more convinced they’d thought of enough.
Jackson, of course, simply sat cross-legged on a crate and watched the military do all the real work. He had his arms crossed, hugging himself—trying to keep warm. He could have kept warm by doing something useful, the colonel thought sourly, but no. How many calories can you burn by just thinking?
“It must be some sort of ceremonial place. The gate is—has to be—an integral part of their spiritual culture.” Catching O’Neill’s eye, he nodded to the arrangement before the Gate. “See? That’s an altar of some kind. This place was built for worshipers.”
Back in college O’Neill had heard a joke once: how come archaeologists can always identify all the junk they dig up? Because anything they can’t identify is obviously a ceremonial object.
“Let’s just be on our way before the worshipees show up.”
Jackson looked confused.
O’Neill changed tack. “You figure out yet how to align this Gate to get back home?”
Jackson nodded eagerly. “Yes, of course. The device is the same as on Abydos.” He hopped off the crate and pointed at the altar. The symbols surrounding the center stone were beginning to look very familiar. “This symbol represents—”
O’Neill interrupted. “Have you briefed Kawalsky’s team yet?”
Jackson tried again. “Yes. This symbol—”
“Good enough.” Jackson couldn’t get it through his well-meaning, fuzzy scientific head that O’Neill didn’t care about the esoteric meanings of the Gate symbols; he wanted to make sure his line of retreat was open, period. This wasn’t the time or place for lectures.
Kawalsky came step-wise down the slope, gesturing to an area of trees. “We’ll set up camp down there, where there’s better cover. I’ve found a trail on the mountain that looks like it’s seen traffic in the last couple of days.”
O’Neill looked over the proposed site for the second team’s base camp and approved. “We’d better start down…. Where’s Carter?”
As he spoke, thinking irritated thoughts about scientists again, Carter showed up out of the trees, calling to Kawalsky, “I set up a line of claymores along that ridge at intervals of ten meters and wired them back to the Gate.”
O’Neill raised an eyebrow. On the other hand, a bloodthirsty scientist might actually come in handy. There might be hope for Carter yet. “That sound about right, Kawalsky?”
Kawalsky chortled. “Yeah, that’ll work.”
The rest of SG-2 moved up, and Kawalsky directed them to the chosen camp site. The two officers watched for a few moments, and then, satisfied that things were going well, O’Neill got back to business. “Okay. If we’re not back in twenty hours—”
“We’ll come and rescue your sorry asses,” Kawalsky said jauntily.
O’Neill stared at him. “You’ll go back through the gate with the combination Daniel just gave you, before the iris is locked so you can’t go back.” The tone of his voice brooked no argument.
Kawalsky looked as if he wanted to argue anyway, but swallowed instead. “Yes, sir.”
“If we don’t make it back, we got our butt kicked, and that means you tuck tail.” O’Neill wasn’t about to let Kawalsky have any latitude at all in interpreting his orders. That was a privilege he reserved for himself, and besides, he had no intention of letting Kawalsky end up in the same shape Ferretti was in.
The frozen tête-à-tête was broken by a member of O’Neill’s team, an Airman Warren.
“Sirs, I found what looks like a trail down the mountain. Looks like it’s seen traffic in the last couple of days.”
Time to go. “Thank you, Airman.” He gave Kawalsky one last look. “Hold the fort.”
“Bring me back a T-shirt.”
Where the hell did Kawalsky pick up an attitude like that? O’Neill wondered as they traded salutes and headed downslope in the direction Warren indicated.
Sha’re fought savagely, but there were two Serpent Guards and two slave boys, and all her twisting and shrieking was for nothing.
Apophis entered through a gap in the curtains. Sha’re redoubled her struggles. The Ra-god watched, plainly amused. His eyes glittered under the kohl. “This one has spirit,” he observed, snapping his fingers to the slave boys.
They reached for the straps of her dress, and she snapped, her teeth sinking into flesh. Apophis laughed at the boy’s scream, and reached forward with the hand wrapped in the glowing serpent device.
It was… as if nothing mattered anymore. She felt remote, distant, as if watching something happening to someone else, someone who didn’t matter to her. Someone who was stripped naked to stand before the golden one. A part of her was very afraid, but it was far away.
“Does she please you, my love?”
She could hear the words, understand them, but they didn’t matter.
She could see a tall, beautiful woman step out of the shadows and move close; she could see the snakelike creature protruding out of the slit in the woman’s belly. The snake was whining to itself, making a painful, high-pitched sound, writhing, stretching itself to come closer to the disinterested body that was Sha’re.
Apophis signaled again, and the guards and slaves lifted her, placed her on an elaborate altar. The woman came close.
The snake slithered clear of its host, onto Sha’re’s belly. She could feel the weight of it, the cold slime, the little touches of its—teeth?—about her body, between her breasts. Up to the nape of her neck. Poking at her insistently.
The slaves rolled her over onto her stomach. She could feel the snake crawling down her back, to the base of her spine, as if examining each vertebra. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the expression of joy, of blissful happiness on Apophis’ face. The other woman sighed, as if in regret, and closing her robes, she moved away, back into the shadows.
She could feel part of the weight of the thing lift itself, as if it were rearing up….
And she screamed as the snake plunged into her neck, entering her, forcing the outer Sha’re and the inner, terrified one back together as it took possession of them both.
CHAPTER NINE
SG-1 moved down a steep path in the forest, O’Neill in the lead. Daniel Jackson was still shivering.
“Do we have any idea where we’re going?” he asked.
“Down, Daniel,” O’Neill said patiently.
“Get your mind off the cold,” Carter suggested. After a moment she added, “Tell me about Sha’re.”
Oh, good grief, O’Neill thought.
“Well,” Daniel said intelligently, catching himself as he slipped in the mud, “she’s, um…”
“She was a gift,” O’Neill said wickedly.
Carter made a shocked noise.
“She was,” Jackson said, protesting. “From the elders of Abydos the first night we were there.”
“And you accepted?” Carter was outraged.
Daniel shrugged: Of course, what could I do?
O’Neill, having set this particular cat among the pigeons, was more than willing to enjoy the carnage, but he kept his mind on his job too.
“Hold up!”
“What?” Daniel was confused. Apparently, O’Neill thought, the archaeologist was under the impression they we
re going for a simple walk in the park.
Carter grabbed Daniel more or less by the scruff of the neck and pulled him behind a huge log. The Captain Doctor really did have potential after all.
As they took cover, a line of—monks?—made their way up the path past them. At least, they looked like monks; there were six or eight of them, wearing heavy hooded robes. O’Neill slipped the safety off his weapon.
The lead monk stopped at the place Jackson had slipped, pointing it out to the others. Their voices rose in consternation.
“D’you see any weapons?” O’Neill asked softly.
“No, sir,” Carter responded.
Daniel sat up, fortunately still out of the sight of the monks. “They’re worshipers.”
Ignoring him, O’Neill said, “Captain, take a position fifty yards up—”
Ignoring the scientist was a bad habit he really should have broken a long time ago. Jackson was on his feet, walking out onto the path with his arms wide open. “Hi!”
O’Neill closed his eyes in despair. “The man has not changed.”
Jackson was still talking. “We just, um, we just came through the Stargate. The chaapa’ai.”
The monks pulled back their hoods. All men, fairly old; they looked harmless, except for the gold markings on their foreheads that were identical to those on the foreheads of the Serpent Guards. Then again, Jackson looked harmless too, and he was probably the biggest loose cannon on the planet.
The lead monk smiled. “Stargate?” He was tentative, as if making sure he’d heard this odd stranger correctly. “Chaapa’ai?”
01 - Stargate SG-1 Page 8
