"God, I'm bored", Colonel Jack O'Neill grumbled as he watched his good
friend, Dr Daniel Jackson, investigating the ruins in front of them.
Jack rolled his eyes; he could tell Daniel was excited, more than excited actually, as was evident from the way he was skipping round. He could not help but to shake his head at the enthusiasm of the archaeologist, even after four years he was still at a loss to how anyone could find some old rocks and bits of pottery even slightly interesting.
He picked up a few loose stones from the ground and started juggling to pass the time, they had not seen any sign of any current civilization, just a very old and ruined one, this left nothing for the Colonel to do except to kick his heels out and make sure his friend did not get overly excited and trip over his own feet, which, at this point, was looking rather too plausible for Jack's liking.
After a few hours of watching Daniel, Jack rediscovered his penchant for juggling and found himself also dreaming wistfully for a very large steak. He was not the sort of person who gave in to day dreams, particularly when off world, but after so many days on this planet there was little if anything to interest him. It had even been overcast the entire time they had been there meaning that Jack could not even do some astronomy at night.
Jack was longing to get home, have a long hot shower and head to O'Malley's. He had practically begged for them to be allowed back in O'Malley's after the whole fight incident caused by those damned armbands Anise had given them and the owner had finally relented the day before they left for this planet.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a crackle of static and Carter's voice coming over the radio.
"Colonel, come in."
"Go ahead Major."
"Teal'c and I are done for the day and are heading back to base camp."
"Acknowledge Major, we should be there in fifteen."
"Understood, Sir."
Colonel O'Neill looked over at the archaeologist; he was obviously oblivious to the radio conversation.
"Daniel, hey Daniel! Time to call it a day."
"No.ah.Jack, please just another half hour."
"No Daniel", Jack said, putting on his best 'command' voice. "It's getting dark and you know we're here to survey, we're not here long term."
"Thank God", he added under his breath. Daniel looked crestfallen, despite the numerous amounts of times it was explained to him, he still has the habit of getting totally caught up in the moment if he considered something to be the archaeological find of the century. Seeing the determined look on Jack's face Daniel relented and after packing up followed Jack back to the base camp.
Carter and Teal'c made it back before them and had rekindled the fire. His second-in-command appeared to be making a start on dinner, mmm.MRE's, he could not wait to see what was on the menu for that night.
"Find anything of interest Major?"
"No Sir, as before, only traces amounts of Naquadah. This means no Goa'uld but no real signs of anything else recent so.."
"So intergalactic waste of time."
"I don't know Sir. Daniel seemed to have found enough to keep himself amused."
"And luckily he has not got himself into any trouble, yet."
"There's still time of course", Jack added in afterthought as Daniel, his nose in a book, stumbled on a tree root and almost fell flat on his face.
"Danny boy, maybe you should, I don't know, look where you're going."
"I believe O'Neill speaks the truth Daniel Jackson. It is most difficult to read whilst walking. Perhaps you should engage in one activity only at any one time", Teal'c added and resulted in Sam letting out a small laugh.
"Thanks guys," Daniel said exasperated "I'm fine by the way, thanks for the concern."
"Dinner's ready, sir."
"What we got?"
"Uh.macaroni and cheese."
"The macaroni and cheese that tastes like chicken?"
"That would be the one", Carter said apologetically.
The idea of steak drifted back into Jack's head as he contemplated the culinary delight in front of him. As they ate Daniel began filling them in on what he had found; "The ruins appear to be similar to ones found in Greece but there are some subtle differences between the two."
Jack phased out what the archaeologist was saying and looking at the rest of his team it appeared as if Carter and even Teal'c have followed suite and Daniel, being Daniel, did not notice that he had lost his audience. Jack did not have the heart to stop his talking, he knew the death of Robert Rothman had hit his friend hard.
After about an hour, most of which was filled with Daniel talking about some ancient civilization or another Jack decided that it was time they got some sleep. Daniel was given the first watch, followed by Teal'c, then Carter and he had taken the final watch. Even though they had been on the planet for four days and seen nothing, threatening or otherwise, they still kept up the watches.
As Teal'c woke Sam for her watch she grunted and sank further into the sleeping bag, it was only when he threatened to soak her with water from his canteen that she woke up enough to begin her two hour watch.
As she positioned herself as close to the fire as possible to keep warm in the crispness of the night air she cursed Colonel O'Neill for teaching Teal'c that being covered in cold water tends to wake a person up very quickly.
Sam was almost through with her watch when she heard something and her ears strained to pick up the sound. She swore she could hear whispering though she could not find the source. Her military training immediately kicked in, she raised her P90 and scanned the tree line. As she was doing this Colonel O'Neill chose that moment to emerge for his watch, the sudden noise caused Sam to spin round and aim her weapon at O'Neill.
"Woah Major, jumpy tonight?"
"I heard something sir, at least I think I did."
"What kind of something?" he asked, concerned, his hand on his P90 ready for action.
"Whispering, I heard whispering." O'Neill looked slightly dubiously at his 2IC but he knew Major Carter did not scare easily and she did seem slightly spooked by what she had heard.
"Major, wake Daniel and Teal'c, we'll do a sweep of the area, check for anything out of the ordinary."
"Yes sir", Carter replied, relieved that O'Neill was willing to accept what she said, even though she was not 100% convinced she'd heard anything.
The search had turned up nothing, which left Sam feeling slightly embarrassed and guilty for disturbing everyone's sleep but no one seemed to blame her. Daniel in particular seemed glad at the earlier than anticipated start, he was eager to spend at least another few hours at one of the many ruins on the planet before SG-1 were due to return to the SGC at 13h00.
After dismantling the base camp in preparation for their return home, and as they were preparing to head out to the nearest ruin, Sam noticed her pack was open. She shook her head as she closed it back up, she was sure that it had been closed before.
"Is everything alright Major Carter", Teal'c asked.
"Yeah, fine just more tired than I thought", she replied as she grabbed her things and set off after the Colonel and Daniel.
O'Neill was relieved as he walked down the ramp back at Stargate Command, not that it had been a difficult mission, just a boring one and he now had his favourite part of the off world mission to follow, the post mission physical, who could not enjoy being poked, prodded and jabbed with a BIG needle.
As SG-1 took their places on the infirmary beds O'Neill began ribbing Carter about the previous night, which Sam took all in good humour since she has expected it earlier.
"Hey doc, maybe you should check Carter's hearing while you're at it", Jack teased as Doctor Fraiser went to finish up Carter's exam.
"Colonel?"
"Carter heard something last night and got all excited."
"What did you hear Sam?"
"I swear I heard whispering, but I guess I could have been mistaken."
"Hmm", was all that Jack chose to add - for now.
"You're probably tired." Once again Janet used the opportunity to goad Sam about her workaholism, "You've got three days of down time, use it catch up on sleep, relax, at least leave the base." Turning around she gave the rest of the team one of her stern looks, "That goes for all of you."
The last comment wiped the smiles of Jack and Daniels faces. Janet smiled smugly as she gave them a clean bill of health and cleared them to leave the mountain for their much needed break but she knew that most, if not all of SG-1, would spend at least spend at least some of their vacation time working on the base.
"So." Colonel O'Neill started as SG-1 rode in the elevator up to the surface.
"So. what?" Daniel replied.
"O'Malleys? Steak.beer.fun..steak", he said emphasizing the last word.
"Aren't we banned?"
"Not any more, I sorted it out", Jack smiled smugly at the happy reactions from his team mates at the good news.
"Sounds good."
"I'm in."
"I too will attend."
"Great, nice hat by the way T", Jack added, looking at the 6'3 Jaffa. He had to hide a grin at his friend's latest piece of headgear, a large white Stetson. Daniel had explained that Teal'c recently discovered country music and was eager to go line dancing during their time off. As they travelled to their respective homes Jack could not help imagining Teal'c in full country and western gear dancing to Johnny Cash in a bar with saw dust on the floor and this caused him to chuckle to himself at the notion.
"Does something amuse you O'Neill?"
"No nothing T", Jack replied but with the smile still on his face.
"Course not Jack", Daniel said sceptically from his side.
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Sam pushed open the front door of her house and picked up the mail that had collected. She idly flicked through it as she listened to her answering machine's messages. Despite the fact that she had been away for almost five days there were surprisingly few messages, one from her brother asking her to visit and another a wrong number. She separated the bills from the junk mail, which she tossed disgustingly into the trash. She left the bills on the kitchen counter for her to sort out the next day, as much as she hated to admit it Janet was right, she was tired.
As she dug through her purse for her keys she pulled out a lipstick and looked at it confused. "This isn't mine," she thought "maybe it's Janet's." Shrugging at this small mystery she put it on the side and reminded herself to ask her friend about it the next time she saw her. Pulling her keys out of her purse and locking the house up for the night she headed to bed. She was asleep within minutes.
Sam stared in to the fire, the jumping flames combined with the crackling of the logs hypnotised her. Suddenly the noise of the fire disappeared, as did all of the other natural sounds. She stood up and looked around her but saw no sign of anything, no threat and not a lot of anything, except the now silent fire.
Then, suddenly she heard the whispering, just as she had the previous night but with the surrounding silence it seemed much louder than it had previously. She strained to make out what was being said, the whispering voice seemed to be rapidly approaching her from behind, as it neared Sam swore she could hear her name among the whispering.
Sam span round as the sound appeared to be coming from all around her and she kept spinning round, trying to ascertain the source of the sound. Suddenly the sound was right on top of her and she could feel hands grabbing her arms.
With a small yelp Sam woke up and immediately sat up in bed, breathing heavily, the covers of the bed tangled around her legs. As she untangled herself and got up to get a drink of water her thoughts returned to the nightmare. She was not sure why it was bothering her so much, she'd had much worse in her time, particularly after Jolinar had entered and died in her brain but this particular nightmare was weighing heavily on her mind.
She looked over at the clock on the VCR, it was past four in the morning, on any other day she would have headed to the SGC early, but as she had some time off she might as well go back to bed and try to fall asleep again.
As she was just about to get back into the bed she felt a presence and before she could turn a strong hand grabbed her arm. As a reflex she clenched her free hand into a fist and swung around, surprised when she hit nothing but air. Another hand came swinging though the air, landing a painful blow across her face and had Sam not been restrained by the arm the force of the blow would have caused her to fall.
The next blow was delivered to her kidneys and the hand restraining her arm gripped her more tightly, painfully. She tried to swing with her free arm but to her horror she heard and felt her right arm break as a second hand grabbed it and manipulated it with force. Suddenly she was released and fell to the floor, grunting in pain. As she hit the floor she span round and finally saw her attacker and what she saw made her gasp. It was humanoid in shape but it had no other human features - it was just grey.
Whatever it was, it was unrelenting in the attack. She tried to kick out and managed to strike a couple of blows but it seemed to have no effect. Feet flew in to connect to Sam's ribs, causing her to yelp in pain. The attack continued and whatever blows she managed to land had no effect, while her assailant managed to rain one painful blow after another on her already rapidly bruising body.
Sam knew that unconsciousness was not far off, her vision was blurring and her head spinning, it was becoming clear that there was no way that she was going to be able to defeat this thing in hand to hand combat but she had one more option.
Pulling herself along the floor using her good arm, she tried to ignore the barrage of blows and as she reached her bed side table she used it to pull her self up slightly. Using all the energy she had remaining she hit out and for the first time it seemed to affect the creature, although slightly.
Sam used the brief respite to reach into the drawer and pull out her gun. She aimed the 9mm Beretta and pulled the trigger which resulted in her felling hard to the floor, yelling in pain. The creature let out a high pitched scream and turned around to disappear out of the room, leaving Sam struggling for breath on the floor.
After a few minutes, in which Sam regained enough strength to move, she pulled herself along the floor to the other side of the bed to where she kept the phone. This exertion was too much for her and she slipped into unconsciousness.
Half an hour later she regained consciousness enough to once again made a bid for the phone. Grabbing the phone with one hand she pulled it down but cried out in pain as the base hit her broken arm. The vertical motion was immediately put down as a bad idea as Sam vomited; this action brought her even more pain as her broken ribs protested in response.
She hit the speed dial and held the handset to her ear as she fought to remain conscious, after a few rings the phone was answered.
"What?" came the gruff voice, still obviously half asleep.
"Sir?" came the quiet reply.
"Carter, that you?"
Sam tried to speak but all that came out was a weak grunt.
"Carter, are you alright, what happened?" Hearing no reply Jack's voice became frantic "Carter, talk to me! Come on Sam."
"Something.here.not human.attack.hurt.help", came the reply.
O'Neill was relieved to hear Sam's voice but still incredibly concerned by the lack of strength in her voice.
"Hold on Sam, helps on the way, I'm on my way, just hold on."
He hung up the phone and immediately dialled the number for the SGC infirmary, absently wondering when he has learnt the infirmary's direct number, and demanded that an ambulance be sent to Sam's house.
He had debated calling 911 but since Sam had mentioned a possible alien attacker he thought it might be prudent to get her straight to the SGC. He threw on the clothes he had less than elegantly deposited on the floor the night before, grabbed his keys and cell phone from beside the bed and as an afterthought grabbed his gun. As he was running out the house he dialled Dr Fraiser's home number and filled the sleepy doctor in on what has occurred as he sped towards Sam's house. After Janet has promised to meet him there his next call went to Daniel.
"Daniel, get up", Jack ordered as soon as the phone was picked up.
"What, Jack that you?"
"It's Sam, someone attacked her at home."
"How bad? Is she OK?"
"Dunno, I'm on my way over there now."
"I'll meet you there", Daniel replied frantically.
As Jack was on the phone to Teal'c, who promised to meet them at the SGC, Jack pulled up at Sam's house; he was the first one there.
He ran up to the front door, his gun out. He tried the door and finding it locked he kicked the lock hard, as he kicked it a second time, it flew open and Jack ran inside, absently swatting at a moth that flew at him, scanning the house for threats.
He entered Sam's bedroom, seeing a blood stain on the polished wood floor. His stomach clenched as he rounded the bed and found Sam laying unconscious on the floor, the phone handset still in her hand and her gun in the other.
"Oh God", Jack muttered as he ran over to her, careful not to move her. He checked her pulse and respiration and relaxed slightly when he found her pulse, it was slow and weak but it was there, her breathing worried him more, the ragged sound and the apparent difficulty she was having breathing seemed to indicate that she had a punctured lung, probably from a broken rib.
Jack could see that she was hurt badly and wished the ambulance would hurry. He swore under his breath as he realised he had not alerted the SGC to the possibility of an unknown alien hostile running around and beating up SGC officers and accordingly phoned the base from his cellphone. The duty officer promised to send a team to Carter's house to see if there were any traces and promised to sweep the base and check all the recent security tape footage for anything out of the ordinary. This taken care of her turned his attention back to Carter.
"Come on Carter."
"Sir?" came the familiar voice of the SGC's Chief Medical Officer.
"Doc, in the bedroom", Colonel O'Neill replied.
As Janet entered and saw her friend unconscious on the floor she gasped, the medics who followed her in rushed passed her and over to Sam and began working on her immediately. Janet followed shouting orders at the medics.
"I need a c-spine collar and back board," she said, one of the medics ran "what's her BP?"
"BP 90 over 50, pulse 50, resps 80."
"Where's that backboard, we need to get her to the infirmary, I think she's bleeding internally."
"Is she gonna be alright doc?"
"I hope so Sir, I hope so."
Just as Sam was being taken out of her house Daniel arrived. Shocked at the sight he ran over to Sam shouting her name but she did not react.
"What happened Jack?"
"I don't know, she phoned me, said something about being attacked by some alien or something. I came round here and found her like this, still clutching her gun. Jack found his voice shaking as the adrenaline he had been running off dissipated and the shock of the nights events hit him. Daniel reached out and touched his friends arm, he closed his eyes as they loaded Sam into the back of the ambulance.
As the ambulance sped off Dr Fraiser came over to them, she told them that she was heading up to the mountain and that they should follow and without waiting for their acknowledgement she headed over to her car and sped off after the ambulance. Jack immediately jumped into his truck and followed the doctor with Daniel following right behind him.
Jack rolled his eyes; he could tell Daniel was excited, more than excited actually, as was evident from the way he was skipping round. He could not help but to shake his head at the enthusiasm of the archaeologist, even after four years he was still at a loss to how anyone could find some old rocks and bits of pottery even slightly interesting.
He picked up a few loose stones from the ground and started juggling to pass the time, they had not seen any sign of any current civilization, just a very old and ruined one, this left nothing for the Colonel to do except to kick his heels out and make sure his friend did not get overly excited and trip over his own feet, which, at this point, was looking rather too plausible for Jack's liking.
After a few hours of watching Daniel, Jack rediscovered his penchant for juggling and found himself also dreaming wistfully for a very large steak. He was not the sort of person who gave in to day dreams, particularly when off world, but after so many days on this planet there was little if anything to interest him. It had even been overcast the entire time they had been there meaning that Jack could not even do some astronomy at night.
Jack was longing to get home, have a long hot shower and head to O'Malley's. He had practically begged for them to be allowed back in O'Malley's after the whole fight incident caused by those damned armbands Anise had given them and the owner had finally relented the day before they left for this planet.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a crackle of static and Carter's voice coming over the radio.
"Colonel, come in."
"Go ahead Major."
"Teal'c and I are done for the day and are heading back to base camp."
"Acknowledge Major, we should be there in fifteen."
"Understood, Sir."
Colonel O'Neill looked over at the archaeologist; he was obviously oblivious to the radio conversation.
"Daniel, hey Daniel! Time to call it a day."
"No.ah.Jack, please just another half hour."
"No Daniel", Jack said, putting on his best 'command' voice. "It's getting dark and you know we're here to survey, we're not here long term."
"Thank God", he added under his breath. Daniel looked crestfallen, despite the numerous amounts of times it was explained to him, he still has the habit of getting totally caught up in the moment if he considered something to be the archaeological find of the century. Seeing the determined look on Jack's face Daniel relented and after packing up followed Jack back to the base camp.
Carter and Teal'c made it back before them and had rekindled the fire. His second-in-command appeared to be making a start on dinner, mmm.MRE's, he could not wait to see what was on the menu for that night.
"Find anything of interest Major?"
"No Sir, as before, only traces amounts of Naquadah. This means no Goa'uld but no real signs of anything else recent so.."
"So intergalactic waste of time."
"I don't know Sir. Daniel seemed to have found enough to keep himself amused."
"And luckily he has not got himself into any trouble, yet."
"There's still time of course", Jack added in afterthought as Daniel, his nose in a book, stumbled on a tree root and almost fell flat on his face.
"Danny boy, maybe you should, I don't know, look where you're going."
"I believe O'Neill speaks the truth Daniel Jackson. It is most difficult to read whilst walking. Perhaps you should engage in one activity only at any one time", Teal'c added and resulted in Sam letting out a small laugh.
"Thanks guys," Daniel said exasperated "I'm fine by the way, thanks for the concern."
"Dinner's ready, sir."
"What we got?"
"Uh.macaroni and cheese."
"The macaroni and cheese that tastes like chicken?"
"That would be the one", Carter said apologetically.
The idea of steak drifted back into Jack's head as he contemplated the culinary delight in front of him. As they ate Daniel began filling them in on what he had found; "The ruins appear to be similar to ones found in Greece but there are some subtle differences between the two."
Jack phased out what the archaeologist was saying and looking at the rest of his team it appeared as if Carter and even Teal'c have followed suite and Daniel, being Daniel, did not notice that he had lost his audience. Jack did not have the heart to stop his talking, he knew the death of Robert Rothman had hit his friend hard.
After about an hour, most of which was filled with Daniel talking about some ancient civilization or another Jack decided that it was time they got some sleep. Daniel was given the first watch, followed by Teal'c, then Carter and he had taken the final watch. Even though they had been on the planet for four days and seen nothing, threatening or otherwise, they still kept up the watches.
As Teal'c woke Sam for her watch she grunted and sank further into the sleeping bag, it was only when he threatened to soak her with water from his canteen that she woke up enough to begin her two hour watch.
As she positioned herself as close to the fire as possible to keep warm in the crispness of the night air she cursed Colonel O'Neill for teaching Teal'c that being covered in cold water tends to wake a person up very quickly.
Sam was almost through with her watch when she heard something and her ears strained to pick up the sound. She swore she could hear whispering though she could not find the source. Her military training immediately kicked in, she raised her P90 and scanned the tree line. As she was doing this Colonel O'Neill chose that moment to emerge for his watch, the sudden noise caused Sam to spin round and aim her weapon at O'Neill.
"Woah Major, jumpy tonight?"
"I heard something sir, at least I think I did."
"What kind of something?" he asked, concerned, his hand on his P90 ready for action.
"Whispering, I heard whispering." O'Neill looked slightly dubiously at his 2IC but he knew Major Carter did not scare easily and she did seem slightly spooked by what she had heard.
"Major, wake Daniel and Teal'c, we'll do a sweep of the area, check for anything out of the ordinary."
"Yes sir", Carter replied, relieved that O'Neill was willing to accept what she said, even though she was not 100% convinced she'd heard anything.
The search had turned up nothing, which left Sam feeling slightly embarrassed and guilty for disturbing everyone's sleep but no one seemed to blame her. Daniel in particular seemed glad at the earlier than anticipated start, he was eager to spend at least another few hours at one of the many ruins on the planet before SG-1 were due to return to the SGC at 13h00.
After dismantling the base camp in preparation for their return home, and as they were preparing to head out to the nearest ruin, Sam noticed her pack was open. She shook her head as she closed it back up, she was sure that it had been closed before.
"Is everything alright Major Carter", Teal'c asked.
"Yeah, fine just more tired than I thought", she replied as she grabbed her things and set off after the Colonel and Daniel.
O'Neill was relieved as he walked down the ramp back at Stargate Command, not that it had been a difficult mission, just a boring one and he now had his favourite part of the off world mission to follow, the post mission physical, who could not enjoy being poked, prodded and jabbed with a BIG needle.
As SG-1 took their places on the infirmary beds O'Neill began ribbing Carter about the previous night, which Sam took all in good humour since she has expected it earlier.
"Hey doc, maybe you should check Carter's hearing while you're at it", Jack teased as Doctor Fraiser went to finish up Carter's exam.
"Colonel?"
"Carter heard something last night and got all excited."
"What did you hear Sam?"
"I swear I heard whispering, but I guess I could have been mistaken."
"Hmm", was all that Jack chose to add - for now.
"You're probably tired." Once again Janet used the opportunity to goad Sam about her workaholism, "You've got three days of down time, use it catch up on sleep, relax, at least leave the base." Turning around she gave the rest of the team one of her stern looks, "That goes for all of you."
The last comment wiped the smiles of Jack and Daniels faces. Janet smiled smugly as she gave them a clean bill of health and cleared them to leave the mountain for their much needed break but she knew that most, if not all of SG-1, would spend at least spend at least some of their vacation time working on the base.
"So." Colonel O'Neill started as SG-1 rode in the elevator up to the surface.
"So. what?" Daniel replied.
"O'Malleys? Steak.beer.fun..steak", he said emphasizing the last word.
"Aren't we banned?"
"Not any more, I sorted it out", Jack smiled smugly at the happy reactions from his team mates at the good news.
"Sounds good."
"I'm in."
"I too will attend."
"Great, nice hat by the way T", Jack added, looking at the 6'3 Jaffa. He had to hide a grin at his friend's latest piece of headgear, a large white Stetson. Daniel had explained that Teal'c recently discovered country music and was eager to go line dancing during their time off. As they travelled to their respective homes Jack could not help imagining Teal'c in full country and western gear dancing to Johnny Cash in a bar with saw dust on the floor and this caused him to chuckle to himself at the notion.
"Does something amuse you O'Neill?"
"No nothing T", Jack replied but with the smile still on his face.
"Course not Jack", Daniel said sceptically from his side.
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Sam pushed open the front door of her house and picked up the mail that had collected. She idly flicked through it as she listened to her answering machine's messages. Despite the fact that she had been away for almost five days there were surprisingly few messages, one from her brother asking her to visit and another a wrong number. She separated the bills from the junk mail, which she tossed disgustingly into the trash. She left the bills on the kitchen counter for her to sort out the next day, as much as she hated to admit it Janet was right, she was tired.
As she dug through her purse for her keys she pulled out a lipstick and looked at it confused. "This isn't mine," she thought "maybe it's Janet's." Shrugging at this small mystery she put it on the side and reminded herself to ask her friend about it the next time she saw her. Pulling her keys out of her purse and locking the house up for the night she headed to bed. She was asleep within minutes.
Sam stared in to the fire, the jumping flames combined with the crackling of the logs hypnotised her. Suddenly the noise of the fire disappeared, as did all of the other natural sounds. She stood up and looked around her but saw no sign of anything, no threat and not a lot of anything, except the now silent fire.
Then, suddenly she heard the whispering, just as she had the previous night but with the surrounding silence it seemed much louder than it had previously. She strained to make out what was being said, the whispering voice seemed to be rapidly approaching her from behind, as it neared Sam swore she could hear her name among the whispering.
Sam span round as the sound appeared to be coming from all around her and she kept spinning round, trying to ascertain the source of the sound. Suddenly the sound was right on top of her and she could feel hands grabbing her arms.
With a small yelp Sam woke up and immediately sat up in bed, breathing heavily, the covers of the bed tangled around her legs. As she untangled herself and got up to get a drink of water her thoughts returned to the nightmare. She was not sure why it was bothering her so much, she'd had much worse in her time, particularly after Jolinar had entered and died in her brain but this particular nightmare was weighing heavily on her mind.
She looked over at the clock on the VCR, it was past four in the morning, on any other day she would have headed to the SGC early, but as she had some time off she might as well go back to bed and try to fall asleep again.
As she was just about to get back into the bed she felt a presence and before she could turn a strong hand grabbed her arm. As a reflex she clenched her free hand into a fist and swung around, surprised when she hit nothing but air. Another hand came swinging though the air, landing a painful blow across her face and had Sam not been restrained by the arm the force of the blow would have caused her to fall.
The next blow was delivered to her kidneys and the hand restraining her arm gripped her more tightly, painfully. She tried to swing with her free arm but to her horror she heard and felt her right arm break as a second hand grabbed it and manipulated it with force. Suddenly she was released and fell to the floor, grunting in pain. As she hit the floor she span round and finally saw her attacker and what she saw made her gasp. It was humanoid in shape but it had no other human features - it was just grey.
Whatever it was, it was unrelenting in the attack. She tried to kick out and managed to strike a couple of blows but it seemed to have no effect. Feet flew in to connect to Sam's ribs, causing her to yelp in pain. The attack continued and whatever blows she managed to land had no effect, while her assailant managed to rain one painful blow after another on her already rapidly bruising body.
Sam knew that unconsciousness was not far off, her vision was blurring and her head spinning, it was becoming clear that there was no way that she was going to be able to defeat this thing in hand to hand combat but she had one more option.
Pulling herself along the floor using her good arm, she tried to ignore the barrage of blows and as she reached her bed side table she used it to pull her self up slightly. Using all the energy she had remaining she hit out and for the first time it seemed to affect the creature, although slightly.
Sam used the brief respite to reach into the drawer and pull out her gun. She aimed the 9mm Beretta and pulled the trigger which resulted in her felling hard to the floor, yelling in pain. The creature let out a high pitched scream and turned around to disappear out of the room, leaving Sam struggling for breath on the floor.
After a few minutes, in which Sam regained enough strength to move, she pulled herself along the floor to the other side of the bed to where she kept the phone. This exertion was too much for her and she slipped into unconsciousness.
Half an hour later she regained consciousness enough to once again made a bid for the phone. Grabbing the phone with one hand she pulled it down but cried out in pain as the base hit her broken arm. The vertical motion was immediately put down as a bad idea as Sam vomited; this action brought her even more pain as her broken ribs protested in response.
She hit the speed dial and held the handset to her ear as she fought to remain conscious, after a few rings the phone was answered.
"What?" came the gruff voice, still obviously half asleep.
"Sir?" came the quiet reply.
"Carter, that you?"
Sam tried to speak but all that came out was a weak grunt.
"Carter, are you alright, what happened?" Hearing no reply Jack's voice became frantic "Carter, talk to me! Come on Sam."
"Something.here.not human.attack.hurt.help", came the reply.
O'Neill was relieved to hear Sam's voice but still incredibly concerned by the lack of strength in her voice.
"Hold on Sam, helps on the way, I'm on my way, just hold on."
He hung up the phone and immediately dialled the number for the SGC infirmary, absently wondering when he has learnt the infirmary's direct number, and demanded that an ambulance be sent to Sam's house.
He had debated calling 911 but since Sam had mentioned a possible alien attacker he thought it might be prudent to get her straight to the SGC. He threw on the clothes he had less than elegantly deposited on the floor the night before, grabbed his keys and cell phone from beside the bed and as an afterthought grabbed his gun. As he was running out the house he dialled Dr Fraiser's home number and filled the sleepy doctor in on what has occurred as he sped towards Sam's house. After Janet has promised to meet him there his next call went to Daniel.
"Daniel, get up", Jack ordered as soon as the phone was picked up.
"What, Jack that you?"
"It's Sam, someone attacked her at home."
"How bad? Is she OK?"
"Dunno, I'm on my way over there now."
"I'll meet you there", Daniel replied frantically.
As Jack was on the phone to Teal'c, who promised to meet them at the SGC, Jack pulled up at Sam's house; he was the first one there.
He ran up to the front door, his gun out. He tried the door and finding it locked he kicked the lock hard, as he kicked it a second time, it flew open and Jack ran inside, absently swatting at a moth that flew at him, scanning the house for threats.
He entered Sam's bedroom, seeing a blood stain on the polished wood floor. His stomach clenched as he rounded the bed and found Sam laying unconscious on the floor, the phone handset still in her hand and her gun in the other.
"Oh God", Jack muttered as he ran over to her, careful not to move her. He checked her pulse and respiration and relaxed slightly when he found her pulse, it was slow and weak but it was there, her breathing worried him more, the ragged sound and the apparent difficulty she was having breathing seemed to indicate that she had a punctured lung, probably from a broken rib.
Jack could see that she was hurt badly and wished the ambulance would hurry. He swore under his breath as he realised he had not alerted the SGC to the possibility of an unknown alien hostile running around and beating up SGC officers and accordingly phoned the base from his cellphone. The duty officer promised to send a team to Carter's house to see if there were any traces and promised to sweep the base and check all the recent security tape footage for anything out of the ordinary. This taken care of her turned his attention back to Carter.
"Come on Carter."
"Sir?" came the familiar voice of the SGC's Chief Medical Officer.
"Doc, in the bedroom", Colonel O'Neill replied.
As Janet entered and saw her friend unconscious on the floor she gasped, the medics who followed her in rushed passed her and over to Sam and began working on her immediately. Janet followed shouting orders at the medics.
"I need a c-spine collar and back board," she said, one of the medics ran "what's her BP?"
"BP 90 over 50, pulse 50, resps 80."
"Where's that backboard, we need to get her to the infirmary, I think she's bleeding internally."
"Is she gonna be alright doc?"
"I hope so Sir, I hope so."
Just as Sam was being taken out of her house Daniel arrived. Shocked at the sight he ran over to Sam shouting her name but she did not react.
"What happened Jack?"
"I don't know, she phoned me, said something about being attacked by some alien or something. I came round here and found her like this, still clutching her gun. Jack found his voice shaking as the adrenaline he had been running off dissipated and the shock of the nights events hit him. Daniel reached out and touched his friends arm, he closed his eyes as they loaded Sam into the back of the ambulance.
As the ambulance sped off Dr Fraiser came over to them, she told them that she was heading up to the mountain and that they should follow and without waiting for their acknowledgement she headed over to her car and sped off after the ambulance. Jack immediately jumped into his truck and followed the doctor with Daniel following right behind him.