Stargate SG-1: Survival of the Fittest: SG1-7

by Sabine C. Bauer

  "Speak friend and enter" Daniel whispered ecstatically. Gandalf in the Mines of Moria, indeed.

  "I do not understand." Teal'c's tone was graduating from therapy to Diazepam.

  "It's from a book, Teal'c. These people are trying to open a closed gate, and Speak friend and enter is the only clue they've got toward the password."

  "I see. Unless I am mistaken, the password was mellon, meaning friend." At Daniel's one-eyed stare of disbelief, Teal'c looked just about as smug as he could manage. Very, in other words. "I have seen the movie."

  "Uhuh."

  "You believe that this is a similar mechanism?"

  "I believe it's a door," Daniel replied. "See those two figures. They're dikpals." Possessed by the sudden, inescapable notion of what Jack would make of that name, he brought his face back under control and pointed at the carvings. "It means guardians or gatekeepers-and they wouldn't guard just nothing. There's got to be an entrance here. Between you and our friends, we should be able to open it."

  Like rubberneckers who'd arrived at an accident site too late, the Marines had joined them without understanding what all the excitement was about. Wilkins was the first to twig on. When Teal'c leveled his staff weapon at the wall, the corporal placed a restraining hand on his arm.

  "Hang on. I'm thinking we don't wanna raise a whole lot of noise unless it's unavoidable. See this?"

  "There's a crack there?" And no, Daniel couldn't see it, though that wasn't entirely surprising. He watched Wilkins's fingers outline a six by six foot square on the wall.

  "Might as well try pushing," the corporal suggested.

  They did. Two United States Marines and one Jaffa were pushing that wall to within an inch of its life, and nothing moved. Teal'c longingly eyed his staff weapon. Not yet. Daniel reached for the nearest piece of metal, which happened to be Lambert's canteen again, unclipped it from the sergeant's belt, and started knocking along the invisible square Wilson had drawn. Down the left vertical, the sound changed pitch. The wall was thinner there, which only made sense-unless it had some kind of bevel, the door couldn't open. Never underestimate a sugar high.

  "It's got a central hinge," Daniel guessed. "Push on the right."

  Three brawny men applied their combined weight to the right half of the panel. Without so much as a creak, the massive stone slab began to pivot until it stood parallel to the corridor walls, leaving a two-and-a-half foot gap on either side.

  "Open Sesame," said Sergeant Lambert.

  "Wrong story," Daniel remarked under his breath and turned to Teal'c. "We've got to leave Wilkins and Lambert here. In there they'll be at too much of a disadvantage-besides, we need somebody to keep the door open."

  It took a while to persuade the Marines that it wasn't an issue of trust, but eventually they bowed to common sense. Lambert even went as far as offering Daniel his sidearm. The offer was declined in Morse, complete with an explanation of how Teal'c's staff weapon and zat would be quite sufficient. The two men, still grumbling, settled in behind the door, and Daniel and Teal'c slipped through one of the gaps into what Daniel hoped was Nirrti's fortress.

  At first glance it was a dead ringer for what they'd encountered on the other side; walls in need of repointing, rubble-strewn corridors, tree roots in search of space. But the tunnel was leading steadily uphill now, there was less water damage, and at last the roots gave up, too. After about an hour of silently creeping up the passage, Teal'c froze and snapped off the flashlight. Darkness dropped like a lead weight, but once his vision had adjusted, Daniel could make out a faint bright glimmer-miles away it seemed.

  "Someone is ahead," whispered Teal'c. "I can hear footsteps and voices."

  Daniel had long given up on jumping at this type of announcement from Teal'c. Jaffa hearing was at least twice as acute as anything mere humans had to offer. "Any idea how many?"

  "Not yet. We are too far away still. How do you wish to proceed?"

  How do Iwish to proceed? It was too dark to see Teal'c's face and determine if, maybe, this was a Jaffa joke.

  "Daniel Jackson?"

  Okay. No joke. So who had died and put Dr. Jackson in command? And that was a very nasty thought. Having decisions forced on him wasn't a happy thing either-probably dreamed up by some cosmic force that wanted to have fun at Daniel's expense. Something about the shoe being on the other foot. What was it Jack had said apropos of bad calls?

  Of course Daniel had done it before. Digs with SG-11, meet-andgreets with SG-9, he'd gone undercover-hell, to all intents and purposes he'd led the Abydonians. But that didn't mean he had to like treading that fine line between reason and instinct or embrace this other lives depend on my every move tactical stuff. The kind of stuff Jack did every day of his life. The kind of stuff Teal'c had done. And look what it did to them. So, unless it was to teach him a redundant object lesson at the worst possible time, why would Teal'c-

  "It is merely expedient, Daniel Jackson. Under the circumstances we both shall fare better if I supply the brawn to your brain."

  "It's not like you're stupid, Teal'c."

  "I am not. You, however, are not very brawny at this moment in time."

  "Point taken. Though I'm sure if you thought about it, you could put it little more bluntly."

  "Without doubt. How do you wish to proceed?"

  Ah, yes. The million dollar question hadn't gone away, had it? Dr. Jackson, how do you wish to proceed? Apart from sauntering into a Goa'uld Shangri-La overrun with Jaffa clones and asking politely if they minded handing back your team mates, washed and pressed if it wasn't too much trouble.

  Daniel's instinct was to charge in and free Jack, thus putting someone with the necessary training and experience back in charge. Reason told him it was a crap idea-and yes, he did hate treading that fine line. Jack was the one Nirrti wanted, which meant two things. First, he'd be under heavy guard-too heavy for two lightly armed men-and, second, he probably was safe for the time being. Probably.

  Other lives depend on my every move.

  It was a hell of a choice. "We try and find Sam," Daniel said softly and then, driven by some weird urge to justify himself, rattled on, "She's the technical wiz. So if I'm right about that transmitter, and if we're going to put that thing out of commission, we'll need her expertise. Besides, she's-"

  "I believe it is a wise decision, Daniel Jackson."

  "So what are we waiting for?"

  And that was that.

  Neon-bright streaks-stars stretched to infinity in hyperspace -rushed past the tel'tac's cockpit window. Hammond watched them with something that bordered on a five-year-old's sense of awe and a good deal of humility. Only a handful of Earthlings, for want of a better word, had ever seen this. But it didn't stop man from using pilfered technology he couldn't even begin to comprehend to build a vessel capable of these speeds. Hubris? Or the desire to defend a planet that, polluted and overpopulated, still was the only home he had? Maybe a little bit of both. And if that was the case, did George Hammond really have a right to judge Simmons and the NID?

  The hell he didn't. He wasn't quite that humble.

  "We shall be leaving hyperspace soon." Bra'tac glanced up at him, hands cupped around the navigational controls of the tel'tac. It looked like he was cradling a glowing basketball. "You may wish to sit, Hammond of Texas."

  "Why?" Maybourne asked suspiciously, white-knuckled fingers clutching the armrests of his seat. He wasn't really taking to this deep space thing and had been subdued ever since he'd first clapped eyes on the small transport ship.

  Hammond made it to a seat with less than a second to spare. Engines roaring in protest, the tel'tac gave a sharp lurch, and the bright streaks outside the window abruptly contracted into shiny pinpricks. Harry gave a soft groan and closed his eyes.

  "That is why," Bra'tac replied after the fact and in a tone that suggested smugness lessons were an integral part of Jaffa training. Teal'c had it down to a fine art, too.

  Seemingly ponderous at sub-light speed, the t
el'tac entered the system that was their destination. The second planet was a gas giant and, like Jupiter, had trapped more than its fair share of moons. The sixth of those moons was M3D 335, and it was rising; a small beige crescent that peeked over the orange and purple striations of its pri- mary's atmosphere and slowly rounded into a disc, still beige and still unremarkable-but for what had happened there.

  What had happened there-or what Hammond thought had happened-was the reason that he and Bra'tac had agreed not to use the Stargate. The trip in the tel'tac might take longer, but the fact that they could drop in unannounced and-thanks to the cloaking device-unobserved more than made up for the delay.

  "Do you wish me to approach the moon's Chappa'at, Hammond of Texas?"

  "Yes, Master Bra'tac. It's as good a place as any to start looking."

  "Indeed."

  Bra'tac slipped the little ship into a retrograde orbit around M3D 335, and they slowly spiraled toward the surface and the night side of the moon. There was no cloud cover, only a fine haze that softened what few contours the landscape showed. This was one heck of a boring piece of rock, Hammond decided and watched the holographic display in front of Bra'tac instead. Not that he could make any sense of the Goa'uld glyphs that flicked through thin air. His best guess was that the tel'tac's sensors were scanning for naquadah. Given that a Stargate's rings were made entirely of the metal, it was one sure-fire way of locating the gate.

  Up ahead the endless plains suddenly were broken up by some sort of elevation, craggy, black enough to make the evening gloom seem bright, and jutting from the ground like Ayers Rock-only much, much larger. At some distance to the east of it, between the ship and the range of cliffs, twinkled lights.

  "There's the camp," Hammond said, rising from his seat again.

  The tel'tac banked south to bring them in directly above the scattered collection of huts and tents.

  "Looks quiet enough," offered Maybourne. Now that terra firma was in sight, he obviously felt that it was safe to leave his chair and had stepped up to the window.

  "Yeah," Hammond muttered. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He wasn't quite sure what he'd expected-Goa'uld motherships, factory-size labs, the island of Dr Moreau-but all he saw was a thoroughly average training camp. "Let's find the gate."

  Bra'tac didn't acknowledge, but the camp fell away beneath them and the tel'tac sped for the cliffs, sniffing after naquadah. Within moments the rock face had grown into a humungous obsidian wall.

  "Dead end," Mayboume said dryly.

  "It is not." Bra'tac launched a pitying glance in his direction. "Observe, Maybourne."

  Presumably Sam Carter could have explained how this worked. George Hammond, on the other hand, didn't have the first idea-not that it bothered him too much, above and beyond the sudden covetous realization of how useful this gadget would be for long-range reconnaissance. The view from the window was replaced by a threedimensional topographic skeleton of the area ahead. Tightly packed contour lines shone bright green and, about a klick north of their current position, retracted sharply into a gorge that sliced the cliffs in half.

  "Very nice." As the map winked out, Harry gave a grin. "Listen, Master, if you got any of these to spare, I know some people who'd be happy to-"

  "Cut it out," snapped Hammond.

  It got him a sour stare, but Maybourne stopped wheeler-dealing for the time being. Without comment, Bra'tac shifted his hands over the surface of the basketball. The ship banked again and headed for the mouth of the gorge, climbing all the way to hug the top of the cliffs and turn east, following the canyon below. Seconds later, the tel'tac swept out over a sizeable crater and hovered, silently and invisibly, some fifty meters above the gate.

  Beneath, a platoon-strength group of Marines stood lined up in orderly rows of two, clearly waiting to embark and clearly not expecting a free ride. In addition to Spaz-12s and rifles, each pair carried a grenade launcher. One of four men who seemed to constitute the guard force at the gate stepped in front of the DHD and began to dial.

  "Where the hell are they off to?" asked Maybourne. "Kabul?"

  "Unlikely," Hammond murmured absently, squinting at the DHD. "I can't see a damn thing."

  Bra'tac's fingers slid over the controls, and the image in the window jumped closer-or so it seemed. Trying to ignore the knot of worry in his gut, Hammond stared at the brightly lit glyphs around the red centerpiece. "Earth," he said softly. "They're going back to the SGC."

  "With that kind of gear? Are they planning to stage a palace revolution? I mean-"

  "Hammond of Texas," Bra'tac interrupted, sounding a little vague. "You may wish to look at the Chappa'ai."

  Vagueness in Bra'tac was enough of a novelty to make Hammond take up the suggestion. At first it didn't register, but when it did, he let out a low, slow whistle. "I'll be damned," he murmured under his breath.

  The gate was spinning for its third lock. The second one, the one Hammond had just about caught, had been Auriga. It should have been Cetus. The third chevron engaged-on Lynx instead of Centaurus. Although the DHD showed the coordinates for Earth, the gate itself was dialing somewhere else entirely. The Marines below were either blissfully unaware of the situation-or fully aware of circumstances General Hammond had never been briefed on; they embarked briskly and without hesitation, pair after pair stepping into the event horizon and traveling-where?

  "Carter was right," Harry said. "It's malfunctioning."

  "I do not believe it is." Bra'tac didn't offer any further insights, and it was impossible to tell whether he contradicted Maybourne for the heck of it or whether there was something else on his mind.

  Below, the last pair of Marines mounted the dais. George Hammond was staring at the gate with the kind of desperate intensity that made your eyes water. Then the men disappeared, the wormhole collapsed, and the chevrons winked out.

  "I didn't catch the first glyph, but I've got the rest of the address," Hammond announced.

  "Indeed, so have I." Bra'tac flashed a sly smile, fingers gliding across the controls again. The tel'tac's onboard systems played back a holographic image of seven glyphs.

  Hammond wrestled down a growl and checked if Harry was entertaining any further notions of acquiring contraband technology. In fact, the ex-colonel wasn't. He was studying the gate and the surrounding area.

  As if he'd noticed Hammond's stare, he suddenly turned. "Four guards at the gate. That's a bit light. Unless-"

  "-the guards are Jaffa," Hammond finished for him.

  "These men are not Jaffa." Bra'tac's dark eyes glittered with a mix of pride and righteous indignation. "You are Jaffa here and here"-gnarled fingers tapped the old warrior's head and heart-"and it takes years upon years of training to truly understand this. You may become Jaffa without a symbiote, but a symbiote alone will not make you Jaffa.

  "However, I should not indulge myself. At one hundred and thirtyseven years of age and with these old bones aching, teaching sometimes seems more attractive than fighting." The shrewd glance he threw at Hammond gave the lie to that confession-Bra'tac could be as coy as a maiden aunt and obviously enjoyed the effect. Even when it was slightly marred by an agile leap from the pilot's seat. "Jaffa! Kree!"

  The door to the cargo compartment slid open with a promptitude that suggested Bra'tac's men had been standing right behind it, rigidly at attention, shin guards spit-shined to a luster. Contemplating his disembowelment, no doubt, Harry retreated to the farthest comer of the cockpit. Bra'tac pretended not to notice and began to issue a clipped string of orders in Goa'uld.

  Hammond felt a momentary twinge of sympathy for Harry. It passed when he remembered Teal'c, stolidly submitting to Maybourne's threat of using him as a lab rat. Had he considered it just punishment for his betrayal of Apophis? Or had he known it would never happen, because his trust in Jack O'Neill had been complete even then?

  The memories spun away, scattered by a hard hand slapping Hammond's back. "Observe," Bra'tac said and turned him back to the wind
ow.

  The glass-no, it couldn't be glass, Hammond reminded himself-the clear pane darkened to the charcoal tint of a celebrity limo's passenger windows, and from the cargo hold came an oddly rhythmic hum and a surge of light. He would have looked had Bra'tac's hand on his shoulder not stopped him. In front of the gate five metal circles-like miniature Stargates-seemed to pop from the ground, stacking on top of each other and infusing with sudden radiance. A ring transporter. Hammond was aware of the technology, of course, but he'd never seen it for himself.

  The cloverleaf of Marines had sprung apart, diving into cover behind the DUD and the dais. As the rings whapped out of existence again, apprehensive faces, MP5s glued to cheeks, peered from the respective hideouts. The weapons were trained on the object the transporter had delivered, a small silvery sphere sitting harmlessly in the dust. George Hammond could relate to silver-sphere-o-phobia. A similar globe, inhabited by sentient bacteria of all things, had nailed Jack to the gate room wall and just about killed him. Though this one seemed to be of a different variety, and if he was right, it-

  The little ball exploded into brutal brilliance-even the tinted window couldn't dim it completely-and if such nuclear brightness had an acoustic equivalent, Hammond was hearing it now, though tamped by distance and the tel'tac's hull. If it felt like this inside the ship, just how bad would it be it out there? Legends claimed a banshee's shriek could kill a person. Hammond decided he believed it.

  Outside, the Marines were reeling, eyes scrunched shut, hands clapped over ears, weapons discarded, mouths gaping in screams that remained inaudible under the noise. Within moments the men collapsed, crumpling like rag dolls while the light faded and the shrieking stilled.

  "Are they dead?" Hammond asked in a dry-throated rasp, suspecting the answer but needing to make sure nonetheless.

  "They are not," replied Bra'tac. "It was a stun grenade."

  "Flash-bang for grownups." Harry's enthusiastic tone was at odds with the wistful look he shot Hammond, correctly assuming that the grenades were off-limits, too.