Colorado Springs was burning.
The attack had begun before he left the base, dull booms echoing down into the mountain, rattling lights and turning frightened faces up to the ceiling.
Topside, things were worse. Death Gliders, flying in pairs, dropped out of the clouds and flew in long strafing runs across the city. From the direction of the Air Force Academy, Makepeace could see plumes of black smoke, but there were fighters in the air too — F-16s, scrambled from Peterson, roaring overhead to engage the enemy.
It was like something out of a movie and, despite everything he’d seen off-world, Makepeace couldn’t quite make himself believe that this — here — was real. No more than he could accept that his own actions had brought the catastrophe down on their heads. It was simply too enormous to be true, his mind rebelled against the reality of it.
But there was one thing he did understand, one simple human thing, and it was the flash of disbelieving shock he’d seen in Hammond’s eyes in the moment he’d understood the truth. His grievous disappointment, his hurt, cut deep and Makepeace knew that, somehow, he had to try and make amends. So he blocked out the sight of his home in flames, ignored his guilt — so enormous it could swamp him — and just kept on driving.
The road down the mountain was empty, but he could see that I-25 was jammed as the whole city tried to flee before this unknown terror. He tried not to imagine those people, the frightened men, women and children dying at the hands of the Goa’uld, but it was impossible to ignore as another wing of gliders screamed overhead. In the far distance, a fighter fell from the sky, impacting in a ball of flames somewhere in the city. He couldn’t tell if it was one of the enemies or one of their own. To the people below, it wouldn’t matter; they’d be dead either way.
The city was lost from view for a moment as the road curved around and down, and then it spread out again before him as he rounded another corner. He could see the overpass now, where he had arranged to meet Maybourne. He just hoped he’d made it; if the bastard had died without giving up the gate address for his Alpha Site then everything was lost.
As he got closer to the highway, he started to hear the frantic blare of car horns, the wail of emergency vehicles stuck in traffic, and the screams of panic and anger as the road clogged up. There were people running along the highway, cars abandoned. It was chaos.
He pulled off NORAD Road before he reached the overpass, not wanting to get trapped in the traffic jam. He reached into the back seat, slung his MP5 over his head, and started running. Above, he felt rather than heard the gliders approach and dropped to the ground before the compression wave knocked him down, hands over his head as staff-cannon blasts peppered the scrubby ground around him and the road behind. He was back on his feet and sprinting as soon as they were gone, and didn’t spare a look for the people behind him even though he could hear their cries for help. There was nothing he could do for them but this.
“Hey!” Someone grabbed his arm, dragging him to a halt — a middle aged woman with blood on her cheek. Her car was jammed in on the highway and Makepeace could see a man crouching next to it, holding two small children, their faces pressed into his shoulders, dazed with horror and disbelief. He felt sick. “What’s happening?” the woman said, staring at his uniform like it meant salvation. “What is this?”
Makepeace shook off her hand, catching his breath, and backed up a step. “Alien incursion,” he said. “Get off the road.”
“What?” She stared up at the sky. “That can’t be true…”
“Get off the road, ma’am. Take your family and head into the mountains.”
Owlish, glasses knocked askew, she looked like she was an accountant or a lawyer, maybe. “The mountains,” she repeated, as if Makepeace had suggested she go to the moon.
“Get as far from the city as you can.”
And with that, he started running again, dodging between the cars stopped on the onramp, over more dry grass and under the overpass. “Maybourne!” he yelled, his voice echoing against the concrete. “You bastard, where are you?” As his eyes got used to the comparative gloom, he saw a dark sedan pulled off the road further under the bridge. “Maybourne?”
A figure rose from where he’d been hiding behind the car. “What?” Maybourne said. “No military escort?”
“I’m it,” he said roughly. “Let’s go.”
“Wait a second.”
As he moved, Makepeace recognized a gunmetal glint in Maybourne’s hand. “You have got to be kidding me,” he said.
“I need assurance I won’t be prosecuted.”
Makepeace stared at him. “Prosecuted? Have you seen what’s happening out there?”
“I won’t just hand myself in,” he said, moving out from behind the car with his pistol leveled. “I want assurances.”
“Fine. If you stay here, you’ll die,” Makepeace growled. “How’s that for an assurance?”
“You can’t —”
The scream of an F-16, followed by the wail of a Death Glider in pursuit, cut him off. Weapons fire impacted on the road overhead, gliders strafing the length of the highway, sending chunks of concrete crashing down around them, filling their lungs with dust. Above, a crack ran across the bridge, widening as it snaked through the concrete. Makepeace could see daylight expanding through it. “Move!” he yelled, grabbing Maybourne’s arm and hauling him toward the light as the overpass began to collapse.
Cars, people, everything fell and Makepeace kept running, kept his fingers locked around Maybourne’s arm, as dust and debris bloomed out around them.
Coughing, streaked with dirt and gasping for air, they eventually made it back to his SUV. Maybourne was wheezing so badly he was retching, bent double, so he didn’t see the shadow fall. But Makepeace saw it and his stomach sank into his boots.
“Oh God,” he breathed as a huge, dark shape descended. He grabbed Maybourne’s shirt, hauling him upright, making him watch. “Look,” he hissed, as the ha’tak landed on Cheyenne Mountain, sending an avalanche of boulders and rock cascading down its sides. “This is on us, Maybourne. We did this.”
Coughing, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, Maybourne shook his head and spat concrete dust out onto the ground. He fixed Makepeace with a hard look. “It’s not over yet, Colonel.”
There were three Amam, Teal’c saw, and their business here was pleasure.
He had seen Jaffa stalk with the same hungry intent through the slave camps of Apophis, although the appetite they had sought to slake had been of a different nature.
They walked in silence, these Amam, one taking the lead and his seconds — Teal’c had no doubt of the power structure — a step behind at either shoulder. Their white hair gleamed like bone in the darkness, their pallid skin almost luminous, long coats flaring out behind them.
At his side, O’Neill stirred uneasily; he was afraid that these creatures could sense his presence.
“They hunt for sport,” Teal’c assured him.
“Yeah, and I’m the moose.”
Teal’c did not fully understand the reply but did not query it. The Amam were close now, passing within an arm’s reach of the place where they crouched, concealed. He slowed his breathing in the manner Master Bra’tac had taught him many years ago, letting the air flow in and out of his lungs like the tide flowed in and out of a river mouth. O’Neill simply stopped breathing.
The Amam’s heavy boots crunched into the earth, their eyes scanning the camp for movement. They were one step past them, two, walking on until Teal’c could only see their backs.
O’Neill released his breath in a low sigh that would have given him away had the enemy not moved on. Looking at Teal’c, he gestured that they should circle back toward Hunter’s house and Teal’c nodded. But before either of them could move, a terrified voice shouted out — an inarticulate cry of fear — and a young boy bolted from under a piece of fallen wooden paneling that lay almost beneath the feet of the Amam.
O’Neill made a strangled noise as the boy — perhaps ten years old — tried to run. He was not fast enough and one of the Amam snatched him up, its clawed hand seizing the child’s shirt and lifting him off his feet. It held him up, legs kicking, close to its face.
The boy was sobbing, clutching at the creature’s arm. “Jem!” he wailed. “Jem!”
O’Neill rose to his feet, but Teal’c grabbed his arm, holding him back. “You cannot.”
And then someone else appeared, a thin girl — older than the boy, but not full grown — with wide, frightened eyes and tears on her cheeks. She held a large stick in her shaking hands, as she emerged from her hiding place to stand before the Amam.
“Let him go,” she said in a trembling voice. “Put him down.”
The leader of the Amam hissed at her, its teeth bared. She flinched, let out a wretched sob, and fell back a couple of steps. But she did not run.
“Jem…” the boy was still yelling. “Jem!”
“Please,” she begged. “Please, let him go. He’s only little.”
The Amam took another step forward, but the girl held her ground despite the stick in her hands shaking so violently that she could hardly hold it.
“Screw this,” O’Neill snarled.
“O’Neill —”
“No,” he said, shaking off Teal’c’s hand. “I have to.”
Teal’c inclined his head toward the girl. “I will circle around behind her. Wait until I am in position.”
O’Neill gave a short nod of thanks and in two steps he was out in the open, moving around to the back of the Amam, his gun trained on their commander. “Put him down,” he yelled and the Amam turned in surprise. “You heard me. Put the kid down or I’ll blow your goddamn head off.”
Its expression was curious more than fearful, head cocked to one side as it turned away from the girl and moved toward O’Neill. Teal’c made use of the distraction to creep through the shadows toward the girl, placing the Amam between himself and O’Neill.
“You need a demonstration?” O’Neill asked, and with no further warning he fired into the ground at the startled Amam’s feet. It jumped back; perhaps it had not seen a Tau’ri weapon before? “Let him go,” O’Neill repeated.
“You are the one?” the Amam said in its strange, guttural speech. “The Lantean?”
“Let the boy go.”
Teal’c was close to the girl now, who stood watching O’Neill with terror and astonishment. The boy was limp with fear, dangling from the Amam’s hands as if he were no more than a toy. The creature’s strength, Teal’c thought, must be significant.
Crouching down, he took a moment to prepare. When O’Neill opened fire on the commander, Teal’c would need to take out the two Amam who stood behind their leader. From this range, it would not prove difficult, but the girl was directly in his and O’Neill’s line of fire.
“Child,” he hissed quietly. “Child, come here!”
She did not hear, too focused on the drama unfolding and on the boy whom he imagined to be her brother. He swallowed a moment of frustration but dared not speak more loudly for fear of alerting the Amam. Surprise was his most valuable weapon.
“Jem!” he whispered, making an assumption about the name, but still there was no response. The shock of the situation had robbed her of her senses.
“I’m telling you,” O’Neill was shouting. “One more step and I’ll blow your brains out.” The Amam stepped closer and still O’Neill resisted opening fire, afraid of hitting the girl, afraid that Teal’c was not in position.
Teal’c had no choice but to act. Moving as quietly as he could, he surged to his feet and grabbed the girl. One hand went over her mouth and nose to stifle any sound and the other wrapped around her thin body. “I mean you no harm,” he hissed into her ear as he dragged her silently into the shadows. “I am a friend, but you must be silent.”
“Hell yeah!” O’Neill yelled, clearly having seen Teal’c move. “You ugly bastard, I am so gonna enjoy this!”
The girl’s weak struggles abated and Teal’c risked loosening his hold on her mouth. “Make no noise,” he cautioned again.
She nodded and he let her go. Turning around, she stared at him with bright eyes, frightened but full of intelligence. When they fell on his mark of Apophis, they widened even further and something like a smile touched her lips. Her mouth opened, but Teal’c put a cautionary finger to her lips to keep her quiet and she nodded, only mouthing the word ‘Dix?’
Teal’c didn’t answer the silent question, just gestured for her to hide herself. With a nod and a backward glance at the boy she moved off, but not far. She was, however, out of the firing line. Lifting his staff, Teal’c took aim and gave O’Neill a slight nod. They were ready.
“Okay,” O’Neill said. “Time’s up. Drop the kid.”
The Amam holding the boy exchanged a look with the commander — and, perhaps, a telepathic communication — then bared its teeth at O’Neill and lifted its feeding hand. The boy screamed, the girl stifled a cry of her own. O’Neill opened fire.
Jerking backward, the Amam commander danced under the impact of gunshots that should have shredded his body. But it did not even knock him from his feet.
“Oh crap,” O’Neill hissed and retreated a step.
Teal’c shared the sentiment. Lifting his staff weapon, he took aim and fired two bolts into the back of the commander and another two into the Amam who held the boy. He was relieved that they proved more effective than O’Neill’s MP5.
The commander fell forward, onto his hands and knees, and the Amam who held the boy staggered hard to the right, losing his grip on the child. The boy hit the ground and scrambled to his feet, looking wildly in all directions.
“Kid, over here!” O’Neill yelled, opening fire again on the commander. But the boy stood between him and the other Amam who was already recovering from the staff blasts. Teal’c fired again, knocking him sideways, and then sent two bolts into the third Amam who was pulling his stunner free of its holster. He got off a shot in Teal’c’s direction before the staff blasts knocked him back, but it went wide and Teal’c did not even need to duck.
Meanwhile, O’Neill was edging his way past the commander toward the boy. “Come here!” he was shouting. “Kid, run!”
His barked order penetrated the child’s fear and he started running toward O’Neill who reached out as soon as he was close enough and dragged the boy behind him. “Stay down,” he snapped, opening fire on the Amam again. This time the bullets put the creature down and Teal’c began to realize that the Amam were not impervious to their weapons, it simply required more firepower to do significant damage.
The third Amam was back on his feet, but Teal’c took aim and blasted the stunner from its hand and then fired again into its chest. This time, he did not think the creature would rise.
“Teal’c!” O’Neill yelled, and he looked over to see that the commander and the remaining Amam were closing on O’Neill. He was backing up, the child cowering behind him.
Taking aim, Teal’c fired again into the Amam and he dropped to his knees, back arching in pain. O’Neill finished him off, loosing a burst of gunfire into the creature’s head that sent a spray of black blood up into the air.
That left only the commander. Teal’c advanced slowly and, realizing it was now vulnerable, the commander backed up, trying to watch both him and O’Neill. Then his hand moved toward the device on his other wrist, a gesture Teal’c remembered from the Amam who had healed Daniel Jackson. He had done the same to summon the fighter that had snared them with its transporter beam.
He opened fire on the creature’s arm at the same moment as O’Neill. The creature’s hand flailed, burned and came away from his arm. The Amam roared in pain and Teal’c fired at its head, twice, until it fell silent on the ground.
The grizzly business was done, and over the prone corpse, he met O’Neill’s grim gaze.
“That was fun,” he said.
Teal’c lifted an eyebrow but did not comment.
From behind O’Neill, the boy emerged and it was only when Teal’c took in his ashen face that he realized dawn had crept upon them.
“Hey,” O’Neill said to the kid, putting a hand on his shoulder. “You okay?” The boy just stared and O’Neill ruffled his hand through his hair. “You’ll be fine.” He looked over at Teal’c. “Where’s the girl?”
Looking back to where she was hiding, Teal’c lifted his hand and beckoned. She was running toward them in an instant and, when the boy saw her, he started running too until they collided together in a tangle of hugs and tears.
O’Neill cleared his throat, sniffed, then glared at Teal’c — daring him to comment. He did not dare.
“Hey,” O’Neill called over to the children. “You two got a home to go to?”
The girl looked up over her brother’s head. “We live in the Way Back.”
“Parents?”
She shook her head. “Just me and Bryn.”
“Then get outa here,” he said. “They might send back-up.”
With a nod, she took her brother’s hand, but before she led him away she turned to Teal’c. “You’re him, aren’t you?” she said, gesturing toward his forehead. “You’re Dix.”
He exchanged a look with O’Neill who just lifted his eyebrows and left it to Teal’c to answer. He chose to let the girl draw her own conclusions and simply bowed his head in silence.
She gave a short bark of laughter. “I knew it,” she said, bending down to talk in her brother’s ear. “Dix saved you, Bryn. How about that?”
The boy looked up at him, his tear-swollen eyes going wide as the girl, Jem, pulled him away.
“You kids take care,” O’Neill called after them, his voice tight with frustration. Teal’c understood his feelings; they could not protect these children, nor any of the thousands who lived here. The next night, perhaps, the Amam would come again and they would be taken — or the night after that.
O’Neill shook his head and stared down at the bodies at their feet. All around them Teal’c sensed people emerging with the morning light, staring in shock and fear at the fallen Amam.
“I’m not sure we did these people any favors,” O’Neill said, looking about with obvious unease. “Someone’s gonna come looking for these guys.”
Teal’c followed his gaze, but alongside the fear, he saw something else in the faces watching from the shadows. It was not exactly hope, but perhaps it was something that could turn to hope.
“It will do these people no harm,” he decided, “to learn that the Amam can die at their hands.”
“They’ve got no weapons, Teal’c.”
“Not yet,” he said. “But if they value their freedom they must learn how to fight for it.” He lifted an eyebrow and fixed his friend with a serious look. “This is not our battle to win, O’Neill.”
He gave a tight nod, accepting the point even if he did not like it, and then slapped Teal’c on the arm. “Come on,” he said, “let’s get back. The sooner we get off this rock, the better.”
Hunter was right and the flood of people washed past them. Daniel watched, sickened, through a gap in the canvas as three Amam stalked after their prey — driving the panicked population ahead like frightened sheep.
After the Amam were gone, they tried to eat. Daniel broke open one of the MREs in Sam’s pack, sharing out the content, but the wretched screams continued and no one had much of an appetite. He flinched when he heard a man shrieking in the distance, trying hard not to imagine that it was Jack or Teal’c.
“How often does this happen?” he asked Hunter, as much to distract himself as anything else.
Hunter sat hunkered with his wife, the child still sleeping in the hide they’d created beneath their shack. “A hunt?” He shrugged. “Depends. Sometimes they hunt the same place every night for a month. Other times weeks go by without a sniff o’them. Hunting’s just for sport, though. When they want to harvest, they use the Snatchers.” He glanced at his wife, who pressed her face into his shoulder with a shudder, and drew her closer. “That’s how they got me.”
“You mean the beams of light?” Daniel said, wiggling his fingers to illustrate a transporter beam.
Hunter nodded. “We call ’em Snatcher beams.”
“I can see why. That’s how they got us too.” He glanced over at Sam who sat guarding the entrance, as if her weapon and the scrap of canvas could keep out the Amam. He supposed it made her feel like she was doing something while they waited. “Hunter?” he said, in a voice loud enough for Sam to hear. “Have you ever heard of an Amam healing someone who was dying?”
Sam glanced over at him, gave a slight warning shake of her head.
“No,” Hunter said. “Why would they? We ain’t nothin’ but livestock to them.” He scratched a hand over the stubble on his jaw. “There are the Feeders, though,” he added, “people who slave for the Snatchers. Heard it said they get fed.” He made a clawing gesture with his hand. “Instead of taking life, they’re given more.”
“Really?” He resisted the urge to touch the place on his chest where the Amam had healed him. “I wonder what kind of affect that has on them?”
“They say their bodies live forever, but they ain’t got no soul left inside.” Hunter grimaced. “Makes me sick just thinking about it.”
“Yeah, it’s certainly… a disturbing thought,” Daniel said, meeting Sam’s alarmed look with one of reassurance. He wasn’t going to admit to anything. “So, um, you’ve never met anyone it’s happened to?”
“If I ever met one of the Feeders I’d kill him, not talk to him.”
“Right,” Daniel said, ignoring the ‘shut-the-hell-up’ looks Sam was throwing in his direction.
“Probably just camp-tales anyway,” Hunter added. “Can’t believe most of what people say around here.”
“But Dix is real?” Sam said from the doorway, changing the subject. “And the resistance?”
“Yup,” Hunter said. “They’re real, for dead sure.”
“I wonder,” Daniel mused, unwilling to be distracted, “why they’d do that — the Amam, I mean. Why would they heal people?”
Hunter shrugged. “Who knows? They’re monsters. Why do they do anything?”
But Daniel didn’t believe in monsters and whatever these Amam were, they were intelligent and rational creatures. That meant they could be explained. He rubbed a hand absently over his chest, where the Amam had touched him. Unlike Sam, he felt no lingering pain. A life for a life, the Amam had said, which meant they had the capacity for moral thought. For altruism, perhaps. They might look like monsters, they might act like monsters most of the time, but that was too easy a way to dismiss them — and, perhaps, to underestimate them.
“It’s getting light,” Sam said, opening the canvas a crack with the tip of her gun.
In the distance someone started screaming again — it sounded like a child.
She grimaced, moving into a low crouch as she opened the gap wider. He saw her recoil a little, and in a grim voice she said, “There are bodies out there.”
Hunter nodded. “There always are.”
“Do they only hunt at night?” Daniel said.
“Yes, mostly. They see better in the shadows. You saw how dim their ship was — I think they see differently to us.”
“Photosensitivity,” Sam said, still watching the creeping dawn. “It explains the shape of their pupils.”
“I wonder —” But Daniel’s question was cut short by the distant but familiar rat-tat-tat of an MP5.
Sam was on her feet in an instant and out the door, Daniel only a couple of steps behind her. Weapon raised, she was scanning the area, but the sporadic gunfire was at least half a mile away.
“It’s coming from over there,” Daniel said, gesturing off to their right.
“Yeah.” She lowered her weapon, jaw clenched tight. “I hope they’re okay.”
It went on for at least five minutes — swift bursts of gunfire and beneath it the sizzling sound of a staff weapon discharging. Then, after a longer and more intensive firefight, it stopped.
They waited, but nothing else happened.
“It’s over,” Sam said tightly.
But who had won? Daniel reached for his radio but Sam shook her head.
“Radio silence,” she reminded him with a grim expression. “The colonel will contact us when it’s safe.”
Behind them, Hunter emerged into the thin light that was starting to lift the shadows from the camp. He looked around with caution and then his eyes fell on something Daniel hadn’t noticed in his concern for his friends: two desiccated bodies, crumpled together amid the trampled shacks opposite. Daniel’s gaze automatically flinched from the sight, but Hunter walked toward them and dropped to his knees at their side. Head bowed, he sat in silence and Daniel wondered if he’d known these people. He supposed that he must have.
At the doorway to the shelter, Hunter’s wife appeared with their son on her hip, his sleepy head resting on her shoulder. She too looked over at the bodies, and all around, Daniel realized, people were emerging from within the ragged camp.
Lifting his head, Hunter reached out his hands and rested one on each of the bodies. “Oh Hecate,” he said, loud enough for his voice to carry, “you are the beginning and the end, Mistress of the Crossroads and keeper of the Gateway. You guide us on our path to the world hereafter. Hail, Goddess, and attend to this our sacrifice.”
Sam glanced at Daniel, but her usually bright curiosity was tempered by anxiety and her attention quickly returned to scanning the camp for signs of Teal’c and Jack.
Hunter rose to his feet. “That’s done,” he said. “Hecate will avenge them in the time to come.”
“You mean the afterlife?”
“I mean,” he said, “when we drive out the Snatchers.”
You and whose army? Daniel thought, but kept his skepticism to himself. After all, at first glance, no one would have thought the Abydonians could have overthrown Ra.
“Daniel?” Sam said suddenly, “I’m going to go check —”
Static burst out of their radios, making them both jump, and then Jack’s scratchy voice said, “Carter, Daniel, report.”
With a grin of relief, Sam toggled her radio. “Good to hear from you, sir. All okay here. What’s your status?”
“Heading your way, Carter. Have Hunter ready to move out.”
“Yes sir.” She hesitated a moment. “Colonel — we heard gunfire.”
There was a pause, another burst of static, then, “The bastards are hard to kill, Carter. See you in five. O’Neill out.”
Sam smiled at Daniel, then Hunter. “You heard the colonel,” she said. “It’s time to go see Dix.”
Rocks, dislodged by the ha’tak, blocked the road up to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex so they had to abandon the SUV and walk the last half mile.
They were in the shadow of the ship now, where it perched on the mountain like some great, ugly bird of prey. Death Gliders swarmed around it, returning to base.
“Ground assault,” Makepeace said, thinking aloud. “That’s why they’re calling the gliders home.”
Maybourne glanced at him. “Then we’d better get inside.”
There were two Marines on the gates; Makepeace recognized them both from the SGC. Nonetheless, he approached with caution, hands raised. He didn’t want to risk anyone’s jittery trigger finger. “Major Jefferson,” he said with a nod. “Lieutenant Booker. Draw the short straws?”
Jefferson gave a small, tight smile. “Something like that, sir.” His eyes darted to Maybourne, disheveled and out of uniform, then back to Makepeace. “General Hammond said to look out for you, sir.”
“How considerate,” Maybourne said.
Makepeace ignored him. “You still got comms, Booker?”
“Yes sir, I’ll tell the general you’re on your way down.”
He disappeared into the guard post and Jefferson came forward. Twenty-something and hard as nails, he’d been assigned to SG-5 for the past three months. He jerked his head toward the city. From this entrance you could see smoke rising over the trees, but the city itself was hidden from view. “What’s it like down there, sir?”
“Bad,” Makepeace said.
Jefferson shook his head. “Glad my folks are still in Austin.”
Makepeace didn’t answer that, he doubted anywhere would be immune from this by the end.
“Sir?” Booker called, stepping out from the guard post. “General Hammond said to get down to the gate room as fast as you can. They’re —”
The unmistakable sound of a ring-transporter activating cut off his words. Behind Booker, between the gates and the tunnel leading into the complex, Goa’uld rings dropped down and lifted again to reveal six Jaffa.
Makepeace opened fire immediately, took two down before the others had time to lift their staff weapons. “Get into the tunnel!” he yelled as another set of rings activated, depositing a further six Jaffa between them and safety.
Jefferson and Booker both dived to the side, firing from the shelter of the guard post, while Maybourne scurried behind them like the rat he was.
“Frag out!” Jefferson bawled, pitching a grenade with precision.
Makepeace turned his face away, ducked as the detonation threw up sharp pieces of stone, taking out half the Jaffa. “Nice!” he yelled at the major. “Got any more of those?”
“Yes sir!”
But the remaining Jaffa weren’t giving up. “Kalach shal’tek!” bellowed one as he advanced, leaping over the bodies of his fallen comrades. Staff weapon raised, he fired. Makepeace pressed himself against the wall of the guardhouse, felt the heat of the plasma scorch past him, as Jefferson yelled a warning and threw his second grenade. The detonation flung the Jaffa forward, face first into the dirt. Makepeace heard his neck break, saw the dead-eyes staring up at him. Jaffa or human, dead was dead.
“Colonel!” Booker shouted, gesturing with his weapon; there was a clear path to the tunnel.
“Go!” he barked. “Get the blast doors closed. Maybourne —” He turned just in time to see more rings activating behind them. “Damn it.”
Six, Jaffa appeared. Twelve. “Rak’lo najaquna shel’re hara kek,” hissed one of them, raising his staff weapon.
“Whatever,” Makepeace said and lifted his own weapon. “Maybourne! Get behind me.”
He did, scrambling to his feet as Makepeace took a step backward.
“You can’t hold them all!”
“You better hope I can.” He tightened his finger on the trigger. “Now run!”
He opened fire, sweeping backward and forward across the Jaffa as he slowly retreated, Maybourne sprinting for the tunnel behind him. Then he heard Booker and Jefferson open up. He hoped they’d taken cover in the tunnel entrance, but couldn’t look around to see.
The Jaffa scattered under the onslaught, diving for cover, and Makepeace could feel the cold of the tunnel at his back. He’d made it. But, at the last moment, a staff blast came blazing from somewhere on his left and clipped his arm. He yelled, the force of the blast spinning him around, and he fell hard onto the ground. Something popped in his left knee, pain shooting up all the way into his gut.
“Colonel!” Jefferson called.
He tried to stand.
“Stay down!”
Pressed into the dirt, he watched as another grenade flew overhead, impacting almost before it hit the ground.
And then Booker grabbed his arm, hauling him to his feet with one hand and firing with the other as he half dragged him into the tunnel. At the far end, light spilled from the complex but the huge blast doors were already closing.
“Come on, sir,” Booker said, as Jefferson grabbed his other arm. “We can make it.”
For a moment, Makepeace almost felt worthy of these brave men’s loyalty. But then he saw Maybourne darting past the closing doors, running ahead of them into the safety of the SGC, and he remembered the truth.
He’d betrayed these people. He didn’t deserve anything from them.
It felt like they’d been walking for hours. No, scratch that. They had been walking for hours, weaving their way through the endless labyrinthine shantytown. If they were following a path, Jack couldn’t make out where it went. But Hunter didn’t pause, didn’t waver, he just kept on going, leading them deeper and deeper into the camp.
Not wanting to stop and eat, Jack had pulled open a breakfast MRE on the road, so to speak, and eaten everything that didn’t need rehydrating. He was still working his way through the chocolate chip pastry when Daniel said, “So, Hunter, how big is this place?”
Hunter glanced over his shoulder, gave a shrug. “Maybe ten miles across?”
“Ten miles?” Daniel echoed in surprise.
“Big,” Jack agreed, but he’d seen that from the mountainside on the way down. The camp was vast.
“Most folk live on the boundary, near the feeding stations. But we’re heading deep, to the Way Back.”
He’d heard the name before — it’s where the kids had come from — and he felt a clutch of guilt at the memory of sending them back there alone. But what else could he do? He couldn’t offer them any safety. “The Way Back is the interior?” he said. “The center of the camp?”
Hunter nodded. “Way back from the ship,” he explained.
“Safer?”
“Ain’t nowhere that’s safer,” Hunter said, and walked on.
Reaching for his canteen to wash down the cloying taste of the pastry, he took a long swallow and then wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Daniel was frowning as he walked along next to him, his features contracted into an expression that usually meant he was puzzling over a particularly intractable problem. Jack nudged him. “What?”
“Huh?” Daniel said, looking up. “What?”
“You’re thinking.”
“Uh, yeah?”
When he didn’t seem about to expand on the point, Jack said, “Care to share?”
“Oh. Uh, I was just —” He gestured toward Hunter and dropped his voice. “He said this place was ten miles across.”
“Yeah? It’s big.”
“No. I mean, yes it’s big, but miles?”
Jack shook his head, genuinely confused. “I don’t follow.”
From behind him, Carter said, “I think Daniel’s talking about the unit of measurement, sir, rather than the actual distance.”
“Exactly,” Daniel said, still talking quietly. “Since when have the Goa’uld used ‘miles’?”
Jack lifted an eyebrow. “You think the Goa’uld went metric?”
“No, the point is —”
“I get the point.” He threw a glance at Hunter. “He is a fake Jaffa, remember?”
“I guess,” Daniel said. “It’s just unusual —”
Just then Hunter stopped suddenly, turning to face them with excitement in his eyes, and for a moment Jack was struck by just how young he was. Early twenties, maybe? “We’re here,” Hunter said, arms spread wide.
Jack glanced at the tumbledown shacks all around them, at the people crouching in the doorways, watching them as they cooked over meager fires. No different to anywhere else in this place. “I was expecting something… bigger,” he said.
With a cryptic smile, Hunter only said, “Follow, but don’t say nothing. I’ll speak for you.” Then he turned and slipped behind a wooden panel that was propped up against a stub of crumbling wall not much more than six feet tall.
“I do not believe we will find any assistance here,” Teal’c said in disdain. “This is not the abode of any First Prime.”
Jack had to agree and even Carter looked a little crestfallen. Only Daniel’s optimism remained intact.
“Come on, Teal’c,” he said, pushing past him to follow Hunter. “You know what they say about good things and small packages.”
“I do not.”
“Oh. Well, Jack can explain,” Daniel said, and ducked under the planking after Hunter.
Jack threw up his hands. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know anything about small packages.”
That earned him a snort from Carter and a dubious eyebrow lift from Teal’c, and he had to bite back a smile as he waved them both toward the entrance. “Come on, let’s keep Danny outa trouble.”
If he’d been expecting something grander inside, he’d have been disappointed. The shack looked pretty similar to Hunter’s own — small, cramped and with a smoky fire — except that it also came with three other fake Jaffa hanging out inside. With the four of SG-1 crammed in as well, it was downright cozy. If this was Dix and the resistance they’d had one hell of a wasted trip.
“You can’t bring strangers here,” one of the men said, getting to his feet. He was big, with a bullish face. Trouble, Jack thought, and let his hands come to rest on his weapon.
“Dix’ll wanna want to see these folk,” Hunter insisted. “This one?” He gestured to Teal’c. “He wears the mark of Apophis.”
The other man’s eyes lifted to Teal’c’s face, where the firelight made the gold of his brand glimmer. He frowned and then turned back to Hunter. “Where d’you find them?”
“In the larder.”
He grunted. “Heard you’d been snatched.”
“And freed.” He brushed his hand over the top of his right arm and said, “You see what they wear.”
The big guy looked and so did all the others. His eyes widened for a moment before his expression crashed down into a frown. “Take ’em in.”
“Uh,” Jack said, pushing past Daniel and Carter to reach Hunter. “What just happened?”
Hunter met his gaze. “You’re gonna meet Dix.”
“I don’t think so,” Jack said, tapping the SG-1 patch on his arm. “What does this have to do with it?” As if he didn’t know. Every damn System Lord out there wanted to get their hands on SG-1.
He brought his weapon up fast, backing up a step and cursing the cramped space. Behind him, Carter flipped off the safety on her weapon and Teal’c primed his staff as they both took up defensive positions. The fake Jaffa jumped to their feet in response, Amam stunners appearing in their hands, and just like that they had themselves a regular Mexican stand-off.
“If you think we’re going to let you hand us over to some Goa’uld,” Jack said, “you’ve got another thing coming.”
Hunter raised his hands. “Hecate won’t hurt you.”
“Bullshit.”
“Sir?” Carter said. “A ha’tak with a Stargate could be our best shot at getting home.”
“She’s right, Jack.” Daniel stepped forward — typically, he was the only person in the room without a weapon in his hands. “Hunter,” he said, “we want to trust you.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“You serve a Goa’uld,” Daniel explained, indicating his SG-1 patch. “And most Goa’uld we meet want to, um, hurt us. A lot.”
“Not Hecate,” Hunter said. “Not Dix. I swear on the life of my boy, they won’t hurt you.” He touched the mark on his forehead and looked at Teal’c. “Dix wears the mark of Apophis, too.”
“Though he serves Hecate?” Teal’c said.
“Apophis is dead, my friend. Now Hecate is Mistress of All.”
Teal’c didn’t answer and into the silence Daniel said, “Jack, do we have a choice? We could be thousands of miles from the Stargate and we still have no DHD.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack threw a quick glance at Carter but her gaze was fixed firmly on where she was pointing her weapon. He knew her mind had to be running in the same direction as his, though. They should have followed protocol and stayed close to the Stargate, because now they didn’t even know how to find it again. But there was no point in dwelling on should-haves, so he pushed the thought to the back of his mind and focused on the decision at hand: take their chances with Hecate’s First Prime or head back to the Amam ship and try to figure out a way to get back to the Stargate and dial home.
Daniel was watching him with a steady gaze, Carter standing tense at his side while Teal’c remained as still and silent as always. They were all waiting for him to choose their fate, trusting him to make the right call. After everything the past few months had thrown at them, after the way he’d been forced to treat them, they still trusted him to get it right. It was a heavy responsibility, but it was a weight he was glad to shoulder; nothing was more important to him than the trust of his team.
Taking a breath he made the decision. “Better the devil you know,” he said, lowering his weapon and flicking the safety back on. “Carter, Teal’c — stand down.”
Warily, they lowered their weapons and Daniel let out the breath he’d been holding in a whoosh of relief. “Good,” he said, rubbing his hands together in satisfaction. “So, Hunter, which way now?”
Hunter smiled. “Down.”
Daniel’s eyebrows shot into his hairline. “Um, down?”
Stepping aside, Hunter revealed a heavy metal panel on the floor — a trap door.
“He lives in the basement?” Jack said, flinging a doubtful look at Daniel. Who the hell was this guy, Dracula?
Two of Hunter’s men grabbed a crowbar each and levered open the metal plate until it fell with a dull clang and a cloud of dust onto the dirt floor. A waft of dank, chill air rose up as Hunter grabbed a bundle of sticks and thrust them into the fire. They lit, guttering and spitting, before settling into a serviceable torch. “Come on,” he said. “We’ve a ways to go.”
Peering over the edge of the hole, Jack fished his flashlight out of his vest and shone the beam down into the darkness. It bounced off the crude metal rugs of a ladder and glistened on a damp, rocky floor. “What’s down there?”
“You’ll see,” Hunter said, lowering himself onto the ladder. “Dix can answer all your questions.”
Yeah, Jack thought sourly, right before he shoots us.