SG1-25 Hostile Ground

by Sally Malcolm

  Hunter turned to the right, walking parallel to the trees that ran along the top of a steep escarpment. And through the trees, beneath the mist, Daniel began to see a camp emerge. The sight stopped him dead, stunning him with its sheer size. He’d been expecting something like Aedan’s encampment but this was on a whole different scale.

  He let out a breath. “Whoa…”

  The milky sun was behind them and the mountain cast a long shadow, reaching like a pointing finger across the valley below and the sprawling encampment that stretched out in all directions. It was vast and squalid, the worst kind of human misery, and even from where he stood amid the pine trees, Daniel could smell the rising stench of degradation.

  Hunter spat on the ground as if trying to get rid of the foul smell. “They say it was a city once, but there ain’t nothing left now. Just people on top of people, hoping they ain’t the ones to be snatched.”

  “How many people?” Daniel said, his heart sinking with a sudden, overwhelming sense of despair. Like the people waiting to die on the Amam ship, there was nothing he could do to help these people, and it left him feeling angry and powerless.

  “Dix thinks a hundred thousand.”

  Daniel shook his head. “I had no idea there were that many people on this planet.”

  “This ain’t the only camp,” Hunter said, giving him a sideways look. “Dix says they’re all over the world. He can see, from up there.” He glanced up at the sky.

  “From Hecate’s ship?”

  Hunter nodded. “Dix says there’s hundreds of thousands of people here. He says it’s an army, enough to drive off the Amam.”

  Hundreds of thousands of people in camps like this? It wasn’t an army — it was a catastrophe. “We can’t let this carry on,” Daniel said out loud, although he was talking more to himself than to Hunter.

  But Hunter answered anyway. “We ain’t gonna let it carry on,” he said. “Hecate will help us, Dix will help us.”

  “And we’ll help you too,” Daniel added, determinedly ignoring his inner Jack O’Neill warning him against making rash promises. But this was an atrocity on a global scale and Daniel didn’t give a damn what anyone said — he was going to ensure Earth helped these people if it was the last thing he did.

  “Dix takes anyone prepared to fight,” Hunter said, then nodded toward a narrow trail ahead. “That there’s the way down. Be careful, it’s steep.”

  It was steep, but there were enough trees around to hold onto and the descent was at least fast. Then they were crossing an empty patch of no-man’s-land toward the edge of the enormous tent city.

  There was no barrier to the camp, no wire fence keeping people in, which surprised Daniel. Contrary to his first impression, it wasn’t a prison camp. It was more like a refugee camp, with all the misery and desperation that entailed. Towers rose up at regular intervals around the perimeter, roughly constructed of wood with a large platform at the top — watch towers, Daniel thought at first, but he couldn’t see any Amam patrolling them. They seemed abandoned.

  “Not watch towers,” Hunter corrected, when Daniel asked. “Feeding stations.”

  He felt his eyebrows climb. “Feeding stations as in… ?” He made a clawing gesture with one hand.

  Hunter shook his head. “We’re fodder to them, sure enough, but it don’t do them no good if we starve to death before they eat.”

  “Wait…” It took a moment to process the thought. “The Amam feed the people in the camp?”

  Hunter nodded. “Twice a week they send Snatchers to leave rations atop the towers.”

  Daniel felt his stomach turn with a deep nausea; these people were being kept like animals, like cattle. “Why do they stay?” he wondered aloud. “Why do they live like this?”

  Hunter slipped him a look that said he should know better than to ask. “Because they ain’t got no choice.”

  And that was the truth of it, he supposed. No one lived like this if there was an alternative. Across the galaxy, humans clung to life with a tenacity that sometimes defied reason. If it was this or death, they’d choose this — no matter how hopeless their lives had become.

  “Now stick close,” Hunter said as they approached the edge of the camp. “There’s some here who’d stick you as soon as look at you if they think you’ve got a bite to eat.”

  Daniel let his hand come to rest on his weapon. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I can take care of myself.”

  Hunter looked dubious, but didn’t argue and together they headed into the sprawling, stinking camp.

  The ventilation chute was hot and cramped. Sam lay stretched out on her front, her arms folded beneath her. It was the same position she’d occupied for the past twenty minutes and for five of those she’d tried to ignore the pain that was creeping into her stiffening joints. Teal’c lay behind her, just as cramped, and she didn’t want to guess what discomfort the large Jaffa might be suffering.

  She watched the corridor, hidden from the patrolling Amam guard by only the thin mesh covering of the vent. She was anxious to make a move, but knew that rash action would mean an end to their plan before it had begun. Stealth was their biggest advantage. For now.

  She checked her watch. By her count, a patrol was due to pass within the next ten seconds, and sure enough she heard heavy footsteps approach.

  Wait, wait, wait…

  Shadows passed over the grill.

  Turning as silently as she could in the cramped space, she gestured to Teal’c, letting him know what was coming next.

  Two grunts, heading clockwise, move out in 5… 4… 3… 2…

  Sam pushed against the grill, which she’d already loosened with her knife, gripping it tightly so it didn’t go clattering to the floor, and placed it inside the vent. Then she wriggled forward, dropping down softly. Teal’c followed, but his boots hit the ground with an audible thump and she cringed, looking up the hallway to where the grunts had disappeared around the corner. There was no sound to indicate they were coming back. If her count was right, she and Teal’c had three minutes before they returned.

  Not very long for them to find what they were looking for, but it would have to do.

  They pressed themselves against the wall, weapons drawn, and followed the curve of the corridor.

  “Look for a screen like the one we saw in the lab,” she whispered to Teal’c. “Hunter says it’ll show us the brig.”

  After a few moments, they spotted another of the eerie yellow screens, this one emerging from the hull almost as if it had grown there. A quick check left and right, then she dashed forward, bracing her hand against the wall as she studied the screen. Once again she felt that awful sensation, that there was something alive within this ship.

  Alive, but still rotting from the inside out.

  She studied the screen and there it was — a collection of rooms almost identical to Hunter’s improvised map. The brig.

  It swarmed with yellow dots.

  “One of those must be O’Neill,” said Teal’c, and Sam prayed he was right, but her mind kept returning to the mawing hand that had been thrust against her chest, to the desiccated corpse of the nameless man on whom the Amam had fed.

  “It’s no use; we’ll never make it through those sorts of numbers.”

  “Major Carter…”

  “I know, Teal’c! I know.”

  The seconds ticked down. Somewhere along the corridor, the regular tread of heavy footsteps grew louder. The guards were returning, completing their circuit. Struck by a sudden idea, Sam thought back to the map she and Daniel had seen in the lab, conjuring the image back into her mind. Then she was moving again, down the corridor, a quick gesture to Teal’c telling him to follow.

  She knew where they were going now, and it wasn’t to the brig.

  Teal’c followed Major Carter along the winding lengths of the Amam ship’s hallways. They had fled from the approaching footsteps, finding a doorway through which to duck just seconds before the two guards had passed within in
ches.

  Now they made their way to an upper level. They’d spoken little for fear of being heard by any Amam who might be close by, but Teal’c did not question the last minute change of plan. He trusted Major Carter and knew her judgment to be sound. Even in the most difficult circumstances, she never lost focus and was not prone to rash, emotional decisions. She took point now, her stride determined, though her manner watchful, while Teal’c covered their backs.

  That was not to say that he was unconcerned, for her grim resolve held its own disquiet. This mission was fraught with danger and it was no exaggeration when Hunter had decried it as suicide. But they had faced worse and lived. And there was no question of them leaving Colonel O’Neill to whatever fate the Amam had in store for him.

  The life-signs shown on the schematics panel were further cause for concern. During his watch in the forest, he had seen many of the small alien gliders return to the grounded mothership and he’d wondered if they’d been on patrol around the planet, or if they’d been engaged in battle with the Goa’uld on a larger scale than the dogfight they’d witnessed near Aedan’s camp.

  Whatever the reason, it meant that there was now a greater enemy presence on the ship and every level swarmed with Amam. To find O’Neill and escape would present a significant challenge.

  Footsteps approached, rapid and uneven. Teal’c glanced around and then pulled Major Carter by the elbow into the shadows of a run-off corridor. The Amam who passed them was not a guard. He was of the same slim build as the one whom they had rescued from attack, and who had subsequently summoned the ship that had captured them. But there was a marked difference between the two.

  The Amam who had healed Daniel Jackson had carried himself as one who was in control, exhibiting a cold, commanding presence. The creature that approached them now moved in an unbalanced, erratic manner. He was no less menacing for it however. He passed by completely oblivious to their presence, more concerned with the object he held in his hands.

  Major Carter gave a start, clearly recognizing the object at the same time Teal’c did.

  O’Neill’s Beretta.

  Even in shadow, Teal’c could see the expression on Major Carter’s face. She wanted to follow this strange Amam, for he must know something of O’Neill’s location, but she held back. This turn of events clearly did not alter her plans.

  When the corridor was clear, they set off again, arriving shortly after at an intersection. Teal’c’s eyes were immediately drawn to a series of marks on the wall. He grasped Major Carter by the shoulder and gestured towards the scorch marks which were obviously caused by a staff weapon — his staff weapon.

  The major nodded. She knew this was the corridor down which they had made their original escape from the ship, the corridor that led to the lab where O’Neill had been captured.

  Teal’c thought of the alien ordinance that had been strewn across tables within that lab and remembered how she’d quizzed Hunter the previous night. A grin threatened, the flush of kalach-mek, what the Tau’ri called adrenaline. A battle was due and his blood was burning for the fight. This day, the Amam would know what it was to challenge SG-1.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Jack slept. Not deeply, not in this place, but he’d been in enough situations where exhaustion had outweighed danger and he’d learned how to find the balance between sleep and vigilance.

  His first realization on waking, therefore, took him more than a little by surprise: something was in the cell with him.

  There was a faint regular scraping noise, the nature of which he couldn’t make out, but he kept his eyes closed, wanting to gauge the situation before letting his guest know he was awake. Maybe he could work this to his advantage.

  “Your breathing pattern is different,” said a chilling, familiar voice. “Why does your kind sleep for so short a time?”

  His eyes flashed open. So much for that advantage.

  Jack pushed himself up from the floor, wincing as his joints cracked. He might not mind sleeping on hard surfaces in theory, but his body disagreed with him more and more these days. He eased out the kinks and looked around the cell.

  The first thing he saw was the door. It was open.

  Was this a test?

  The low light of the corridor cast the interior of the cell into starker shadows and Jack blinked away residual sleep, trying to gather his bearings and decide whether it was worth making a run for it. Somewhere close by, the regular tread of the guard patrols echoed down the hallways. The scraping sound continued.

  “Why?”

  It was then that he saw it. Crazy hunkered in the far corner to the left of the doorway, crouched so that its chin was almost on his knees, like a vulture perched on a tree limb. Its fingers flexed in a rhythm, long talons scraping the floor, producing that strange whispering scratch. Jack fought the urge to shudder. “Why what?” he said.

  “Sleep. What purpose does it serve you?”

  Jack had no clue how to answer this bizarre question. “You don’t sleep?” he said.

  Crazy closed its eyes and, despite the gloom of the cell, Jack thought he could make out some semblance of a smile on the Amam’s face. “Sleeeeeep,” it said, the vowels long and drawn out, as if the very word was something to relish. “We slept, so long, so long, so long. And when we awoke, we fed.” The thing raised its hand to its mouth and, to Jack’s disgust, licked the maw on its palm, as if tasting again the poor bastards whose life it had sapped.

  Its eyes were still closed, and so, slowly, slowly, Jack edged towards the open doorway. He leaned back, trying to get a look out into the corridor, but couldn’t see any guards. This was too easy, but if he didn’t take the chance now he might never get out of there.

  “You.”

  Jack jerked back, away from the doorway, hoping that Crazy hadn’t seen what he was doing. But the Amam’s reptilian eyes were suddenly fixed on him, alert where seconds ago he had seemed lost inside his own chaotic mind.

  “Uh, yeah?” he said, when Crazy seemed content to just stare at him, claws scraping softly on the floor.

  “You are different.”

  “Yeah. My blood. All ancient and stuff. You said that already.”

  “No, you are… unlike. You are apart.”

  Jack narrowed his eyes, wondering whether this creature could see inside his skull and read the thoughts he’d been batting around in there.

  I am apart.

  “Why do you try?” it asked. “Why do you think?”

  Jack was tired, hungry, thirsty, and the wild mind of this creature left him unsettled. He sighed. “I don’t know how to answer your questions.”

  The thing sprang to its feet. Jack fell back, heart in his throat as it came towards him, pinning him against the back wall of the cell. Something clattered to the ground as it moved, but Jack didn’t get a chance to see what it was before Crazy’s face was within an inch of his own. “Why do you try?”

  “Because it’s who we are!”

  Crazy looked to the side, as if the answer made no sense. Jack didn’t miss the irony of that. Out of this entire situation, it was his answer that made no sense. “Who are you people?” he asked wearily. “What is it you want with this planet?”

  But Crazy only hissed, as if wholly dissatisfied with Jack’s response. “You are small. A small worthless species. But you serve.”

  “As what? As food?”

  “Barely worthy as that. Thin, meager, like dust on the tongue.” It grimaced, as if tasting something bitter; the expression was hideous on such a face. “You huddle and cower. You let us feast.”

  Jack shook his head. He might not be from this planet, but he was just as human as its ragged inhabitants. “That’s bullshit.”

  The thing merely stared, clearly not understanding the epithet.

  “If these people are so worthless, then why stay? Why fight the Goa’uld for them?”

  Crazy gave a snort. “Small, worthless gods to rule a small, worthless race. The parasites are nothing —
like iratus larvae, easy to crush.”

  “From what I’ve seen, those parasites aren’t going down without a fight.” Defending the prowess of the Goa’uld? Well, that was something new.

  God’s honest truth, though, he’d rather go up against the snakeheads than these freaky bastards any day of the week and twice on Sundays. With the Goa’uld, you knew what you were getting. Devious and nasty though they were, they wore their villainy on their elaborately embroidered sleeves.

  This creature, however, was cold, callous in the very truest sense of the word. For a thing to be evil, it had to want to be evil. But the Amam were something else entirely. Right now though, he just couldn’t figure out what. “The question still stands,” he said. “Who are you people?”

  “We are Amam,” said the creature. “We are Devourers and Snatchers. We are the Soul Burners and the Blood Eaters. We are Wraith. We survive. We feed. We are.”

  “And you’ll destroy a species just to survive?”

  “We are.”

  Crazy scuttled back to crouch in his corner and resume his aimless scratching at the floor. As it moved, the light caught the object that had clattered to the floor and Jack felt a beat of what was almost hope. His Beretta lay just a few yards from the open doorway.

  This truly is too easy, he thought, and prepared to make his move.

  From within, the camp seemed even more ragged and sprawling than it had when Daniel had looked down on it from the mountainside. Shacks made of nothing but scraps of fabric or wood leaned drunkenly together, a mishmash of shapes and sizes, and everything the uniform drab of dust and dirt. Between the shacks ran muddy, rutted tracks and here and there lay piles of refuse. The stench was appalling.

  But poverty and misery aside, Daniel was struck by the huge ethnic mix he saw in the population. On most worlds they visited the people were pretty homogeneous — like Aedan’s people — having been taken from just one location on Earth, sometimes from a single village. But here, there were faces of all different races and with no apparent distinction drawn between them. It was an ethnic fusion few places on Earth had achieved. Perhaps, he thought, faced with the inhumanity of the Amam, racial differences had ceased to have any meaning here? If you were looking for silver linings, he supposed that might be one.