Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis - Far Horizons (23 page)

Approval rose again, thunderously. If there had been any who doubted her choice, they did not doubt it today. He looked sidelong at Spark, who smiled sideways for a moment, and then bowed to him without mockery.

*And my masters of the sciences,* she said, motioning to Spark and Seeker, who both bowed considerably more theatrically before going down on one knee to her. Seeker had warned that the hive itself was still dangerously weakened; they would have to go carefully for a while. But there would be time now for the hive to heal, and Seeker and Spark were already plotting the improvements they wished to make to its structure once it had grown strong again. Some of their plans sounded entirely unwise, but Guide trusted that Snow would restrain them both from excesses of experimental zeal.

Seldom-Seen stood off to the side near her throne, for once visible but still not making any effort to attract attention; Guide caught his eye, and he nodded. He had his allies, then, and such allies as few could boast. Only a fool would challenge all the ship’s senior officers so long as they stood united.

*She means to keep him as her pallax, you know,* Seeker said privately to him as Snow raised Spark to his feet, letting her fingers linger in Spark’s for a long moment for everyone to see.

*I know.* It made the moment less than perfect, a twist of jealousy underneath his satisfaction, and yet — if Snow had bent to Guide’s will in this regard, she would have been less than herself, less than a great queen. *But we need him.*

*Do try and remember that.*

“My lords of the zenana,” Snow said aloud, amusement in her tone; if she had overheard, she gave no other sign. “Attend me.”

She ascended to her throne, and he came to stand at her shoulder, Spark and Seeker and Seldom-Seen standing beside her as befitted the ship’s officers.

“Set our course, my Consort,” she said.

“As my Queen commands,” he said, and strode down the steps of her throne toward the bridge, his heart lifting with every step as if on the wings of a winter wind.

STARGATE SG-1:
Perceptions
by Diana Dru Botsford

Cold metal
pierced his skin, bringing wave after wave of pain. Liquid sloshed, movement becoming possible in ways that it should not. He bent, arced, thrashed against a host no longer made of bone and cartilage.

Realization dawned when he bumped into the walls of a symbiote tank. Still… He could not see. He could not hear.

If only he could not feel.

He refused the relentless pressure, fought to deny the sounds and images filling his senses.

Until he could fight no more.

“Do not resist,”
boomed a voice in the dark.

A black-hooded figure filled his view, its face obscured in a swirling miasma of energy.

“I am your lord, Anubis.”

1. Denial (n): {
psychology
} —
a condition in which someone will not admit that something sad, painful, etc., is true or real. The first reaction following loss.

“Closer. Closer.” Colonel Jack O’Neill braced his disrupter against the empty Goa’uld queen tank, taking aim at the oncoming super soldier. After a wicked fire-fight, SG-1 had retreated inside Anubis’s latest drone factory — a chamber of horrors with slick marble floors, granite walls and a sky-high ceiling. The disrupter had enough juice for one more shot. That was all he’d need. That and a hundred yard dash through the tunnel ahead of them to the Stargate and his team would get home in one piece.

SG-1 would make it to the gate. Their first mission since Janet Fraiser’s funeral wasn’t going to fail.

The doc’s death had hit them hard, but they’d been hit before. Loss always sucked, he knew that. He had the T-shirt, a whole closet of them, to prove it. What he’d had enough of was missions gone bad. It was time for a win.

While a mission in the win column wouldn’t bring Janet back, it would move SG-1 forward. The team wasn’t gelling anymore. This first mission back was supposed to give them the chance to do just that.

But first, they needed to get to the gate.

The air reeked of burnt ozone. Smoke filled the tunnel leading to the gate ahead of them as well as the one to their rear. The solitary drone advanced, red plasma bursts erupting from its wrist weapon. The thing was a killing machine, both literally and figuratively.

The super soldier stomped across the central chamber, its black metal boots clanging against the marble floor. Obviously, the silent element of surprise wasn’t a factor. Anubis trained these living machines to tromp all over the galaxy, hence SG-1’s visit to do a little damage to the System Lord’s new factory. Anubis may have skipped town, but apparently he’d left some house-sitters. If it wasn’t for the disrupter Carter and her dad cobbled together, SG-1’s collective asses would be toast.

Two drones down, one to go.

“Close… Closer,” Jack promised his team.

Teal’c flipped on his staff weapon from his position behind a neighboring column. Crouched beneath the tank, Carter and Daniel hugged their P90s. All of them as ready for the fight as Jack.

Screw MacKenzie and his two-bit shrink shop
. ‘You need time to process. Time to accept,’ the SGC’s resident psychiatrist had blathered on before the team headed out. As if SG-1 hadn’t dealt with death before. No, what SG-1 needed was a win.

Hell, if anything, Fraiser’s death was fuelling this mission. Anubis was the latest in a line of sanctimonious megalomaniacs that needed to end. What better motive was there than wanting to hit that slimeball where it counted?

The super soldier stomped across the marble floor, searching left and right. Jack sucked in a breath, leveled the disrupter, and waited for it to get a wee bit closer. He’d shoot the thing dead and get his team home.

According to Jacob Carter, Anubis called them ‘Kull Warriors.’

Well, kull this —

Jack squeezed the trigger. The disrupter’s cobalt blue energy arc smashed into the drone straight on. The thing collapsed. A mechanical doll with its battery yanked out.

“Plant the C4, Carter, and let’s get out of here.” He holstered the spent disrupter and stood up. He winced as a spasm twisted his guts, a reminder that, even with a few weeks off, his wound from the P3X-666 fiasco still wasn’t healed.

“Daniel, Teal’c, grab whatever you can carry that’s useful —”

“Useful how, Jack?” Daniel crawled out from under the tank. “There’s nothing here.”

“There’s gotta be something.”

Teal’c strode to a box beside the tank and slid the lid back. He pulled out a shiny red crystal as big as a baseball. “This central control crystal might aid Major Carter’s research.”

“Now you’re thinking.” Jack turned toward Carter.

She hadn’t budged from beneath the tank. If anything, she hugged her rifle tighter.

“Carter. The C4?”

“Sorry, sir.” Out came the C4, the receiver, and the remote transmitter.

“You all right?”

“Yes, sir.” A barely perceptible swallow.

Jack took the C4 gear, knowing a lie when he heard one. They’d barely spoken since the funeral, and when they did, Carter would only talk about Cassie, not Fraiser. It was the proverbial elephant in the room; big enough that they couldn’t ignore it, too impossible to accept.

He offered his free hand to Carter. “A hundred yard dash down the tunnel, Major. Last one through the gate buys dinner.”

With a faint smile, she scrambled out from under the tank. “Dinner sounds good, sir.”

While Carter packed up the crystal, Jack took care of unfinished business. He pressed the C4 against the tank, plugged in the receiver and pocketed the remote. “I’m thinking tacos —”

A bolt of red plasma shattered the tank.

Jack slammed his eyes shut, feeling more than seeing the tank explode across his face and hands. A shard nicked his left eyebrow, others sliced across his palms as he covered his face. Heart hammering, he dived under the tank stand, warm, wet liquid running down his face. He dashed the blood from his eyes, lacerated hands stinging as he grabbed for his P90 hanging from its harness. But the rifle slipped from his fingers, his hands slick with blood.

Wiping them on his BDUs, Jack ignored the pain and raised his rifle. Repeated blasts erupted from the tunnel leading to the gate. Inside it, he could make out the silhouettes of at least five more super soldiers firing on the team.

A bolt shot toward Daniel, but Teal’c pushed him out of the way just in time. He returned fire, but his staff weapon was barely keeping the enemy from closing in. Then another super soldier slipped in to their left, aiming his wrist-weapon at Teal’c’s back.

“Watch out!” Daniel swung his P90 toward the drone, spending the better part of a magazine keeping the thing at bay.

Jack’s neck felt wet. He should probably worry about that, but at the moment he was more concerned with how his two guys were covering each other’s backs but leaving themselves wide open to —

Where the hell was Carter?

“Colonel!” She dived under the tank, but not before letting loose a stream of bullets that could take down a stampeding…

Elephant.

But they weren’t fighting elephants.

Or were they?

Spots clouded Jack’s eyes. Even through all the plasma fire and bullet reports, he felt woozy. He needed a nap. “We need to get to the gate, Major.”

“Not possible, sir.” Carter grabbed his left hand and pressed it against his neck. He could feel wet, sticky stuff seep through his fingers.

Daniel and Teal’c joined them below the tank stand, both out of breath. The drones kept up their barrage.

“The Stargate is unattainable, O’Neill.”

“Yeah, I get that, Teal’c.”

“And yet we continue to pursue that objective.”

Fair point.

Daniel ripped open a field dressing from his tac vest. “How you doing, Jack?”

“Peachy.” Jack wrapped it around his neck. “Any of you know another way out?”

The drones kept on shooting. Their shots hit the granite walls, sending rocks and dust down into the inner chamber. Unlike their recently deceased buddy, these drones just held their positions blocking SG-1’s retreat.

“We’ll never make it to the gate!” Daniel shouted over the enemy fire. “There’s too many.”

“Find a way,” Jack mumbled. God, he wanted to sleep. He wanted to get through that gate, eat a juicy steak, and take a long nap. “Can we backtrack around; dial home before they figure it out?” When no one said a word, he spoke louder. “Carter?”

The major pulled out her scanner and turned a knob. Her eyes widened. “I can’t get us to the gate, but…”

“For crying out loud, what then?”

Another plasma bolt smashed into the neighboring wall panel creating a man-sized hole. Wires and tubes sizzled and sputtered inside. It was all too noisy. He just wanted to forget how the day had gone to hell in a handbasket and —

“Sir, there’s an empty Tel’tak cargo ship down the tunnel behind us.”

Jack didn’t want to ride in a stinking Goa’uld ship. He wanted to gate home.

The view from under the tank slid sideways. Or rather, Jack did.

Daniel pulled him back up. “Okay, well… The other tunnel seems clear, but Sam, you’re sure there’s no one on board?”

Carter stuffed the scanner into her vest. “The power’s on, and there’s no discernible life-forms on board.”

“And you don’t find that the least bit convenient?”

Jack groaned. Since when had Daniel become so negative? “So… No elephants, I take it?”

“Sir?”

More plasma fire. He rubbed his eyes, but the fireworks kept on coming. “So… No Stargate.”

“No, sir. No Stargate.”

2. Anger (n): {
psychology
} —
a strong feeling of being upset or annoyed at oneself or others because of something wrong or bad. Once in this stage of loss, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue.

Sam led the way onto the cargo ship, one eye on her scanner. Anubis’s super soldiers hadn’t followed their escape, but Daniel was right: the ship was too convenient. The drones had blocked the tunnel to the gate, firing into the chamber, but their shots barely ever came close. It really was too easy an escape. She knew better, but still… What choice did they have?

And what had she been thinking, cowering under that empty Goa’uld queen’s tank like a cadet? She hadn’t even thought about her scanner until almost too late.

That wasn’t like her.

Teal’c laid Colonel O’Neill down beside an aft bulkhead. Sam hated seeing the colonel that way. Hated seeing him sprawled on the ground. That was how she’d found Janet during the battle on P3X-666. Stretched out. Dead. Gone.

A glass shard had nicked an artery below the colonel’s jaw, but Daniel was already on it, using his trauma kit to clamp the small gash. He ripped open a clot pack and applied it to the wound, then a pressure bandage. Swift, measured. Of all of them, he seemed to be handling their situation the best. He displayed no emotion. No anxiousness.

No sign of the Daniel who once wore his heart on his sleeve.

He administered a mild stimulant to keep the colonel alert. Sam silently approved. That shot would buy them enough time to travel to the Alpha Site and then gate back to the SGC where Janet could…

“Damn it.” What was wrong with her? She knew Janet was gone. And she knew better than to have been knee-deep in that drone factory without monitoring their situation.

Get a grip, Sam
.

Teal’c took the pilot’s seat and began the engine’s warm-up cycle. The ship responded with a steady hum. “Should we not insure the Tel’tak does not contain a recall device before — ?”

“Just get us out of here.” Sam laid down her pack carrying the salvaged crystal and stormed to the central console behind the cockpit. Teal’c raised an eyebrow at her hasty response, but he was a big guy. He’d do what needed to be done.

The thrusters rumbled to life. She grabbed a guardrail and held on as the ship lifted off.

So far, so good. Unclipping her P90, she secured it beside the console and popped the side panel open. A dozen crystals pulsated inside, blue, yellow, and green ones as long as her forearm. Shorter white crystals, connected to spools of black wires, surrounded the larger brackets. Everything checked out.

If she could avoid any more mistakes, they’d get the colonel home.

She pulled out her scanner again and double-checked the internal wirings. No recall device, but also no cloaking mechanism. She glanced over at Daniel and his patient. The blood had been sopped up from Colonel O’Neill’s neck and, though his face had drained of color, his eyes were open. His chest rose and fell more steadily, too.

The colonel would make it. That’s all that mattered.

At Daniel’s urging, the colonel drank from his canteen. Daniel turned toward Sam. “At least he isn’t mumbling about elephants anymore.”

“Good.” She snapped the panel back into place. “Keep him that way.”

“Sam —”

“Keep an eye on that wound, Daniel.” She knew he wanted to help, but unless he had a Stargate in his back pocket, he needed to focus. They all needed to.

A glance out the forward canopy revealed they’d left orbit. The ship swept past two lifeless moons locked in a push-pull orbit around a cyan gas giant. The view was almost hypnotic, until the steady thrum of thrusters yanked her back to reality. “Teal’c, why haven’t you engaged the hyper-drive?”

“I am attempting to do so, Major Carter.” Teal’c swiped down on the control interface. Nothing happened.

“Come on!” Sam strode to the navigator’s chair and studied the HUD display. All systems appeared normal. “It should work.”

Teal’c tilted his head. “And yet, it does not.”

Sam slammed her fist down on the controls. “That’s not possible. You’re doing it wrong!”

“Carter!”

She spun around. Colonel O’Neill had managed to push himself up to a sitting position. His glassy-eyed gaze knocked her breath away.

Through the silence that followed, the sound of the thrusters and her pounding pulse kept their grip on her, pushed her forward because SG-1 had to survive. They’d gotten into trouble; it was up to her to get them out.