Burt Collins took two unsteady steps in Daniel's direction and stopped. He lifted his head and his mouth opened wide. A stream of black vapour poured out of his mouth, spiralling up towards the ceiling making a loud howling noise as it emerged.
Jack dropped the clipboard and snatched hold of Daniel's arm. "Evacuate the Gateroom!" he yelled. "Walter! We've got a foothold situation. Shut down the mountain, level one security. Nothing gets in or out..."
"Sir, yes sir!" said Walter's frantic voice over the intercom. An alarm blared out in the background, but Jack could hardly hear it over the howling noise.
Daniel was staring at Burt Collins in horror. He took a hesitant step toward him.
Jack caught a hold of his arm and shoved Daniel behind him, watching as Airmen and maintenance personnel hurried towards the blast doors. Jack swore under his breath. This was the worst time to call for an emergency evac of the Gate room. The room was jammed with personnel and there were crates, trolleys and containers everywhere hampering movement. Another ten minutes and the room would have been totally cleared, but as it was... .
"No, leave it!" yelled Jack at an Airman trying to carry out one of the specially wrapped boxes. "Just get yourselves clear!" He had a bad feeling in his gut that things were gonna get bad.
Jack watched warily as the last of the black cloud emerged from Burt Collins's mouth and the man fell bonelessly to the ground, dead or unconscious, he couldn't tell. He took a few steps towards the downed man, keeping a wary eye on the black vapour that had collected at the ceiling. The cloud coalesced, then thinned out and twisted and suddenly, there was a violent tornado howling through the Gate room.
"Oh. Crap. Move, move, move!" yelled Jack, pushing personnel toward the door, he reached around to grab at Daniel and push him along with the others but Daniel wasn't there. "Damn it!" cursed Jack. He glanced around frantically and caught a glimpse of his friend racing towards Collins's downed body.
The tornado strengthened, howling viciously, and Jack could see that the situation was suddenly a hundred times worse. Boxes and crates and people were picked up and flung around the room. The howling was steadily growing louder, the debris flying faster, and Jack knew that very soon there was gonna be serious damage for anyone still trapped in the room. "Pick up the pace people, move out as fast as you can!" he yelled over the ever increasing noise.
Seconds later crates were being picked up and smashed together in mid air, splinters and larger pieces of wood spiralling up and spitting out as fast as arrows around the room. Sample jars smashed filling the air with dirt and minerals and flying glass splinters. The muffles cries of pain from various personnel could barely be heard over the howling wind.
Jack started to yell an order but the words were whipped out of his mouth and thrown away. He gestured with his arms instead, urging people to grab hold of each other and get down low.
Jack ducked a box, getting down into a crouch and managed only a few feet towards Daniel and Collins when he got struck in the back by something that drove all of the air out of his body and laid him out flat on the floor. He lifted his head gulping in air like a goldfish and the clip board that Daniel had given him smacked him hard right in the face.
Jack got up onto hands and knees and caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He dove, and snatched at the arm of a guy as he started to fly backwards towards the tornado. Somehow, he dragged him back down to the floor. "Move, belly crawl it out of here!" he yelled, not sure that the words could be heard. But the guy was nodding, and got down and crawled frantically.
It was getting hard to see through the debris filled air. Jack's eyes were already beginning to tear up with all the grit that was getting in, and his exposed skin stung in various places from tiny and not so tiny cuts.
He spotted an Airman clutching a hand over a bleeding eye and crawling one handed, then Jack caught a glimpse of Daniel getting struck hard in the side by a flying trolley just as he was reaching out a hand to Burt's body. The blow shoved him across the floor several feet, and it was his curling up around the injury that saved him from being air lifted away. Daniel turned, reaching stubbornly back towards Burt again only to find that the geologist was gone.
An Airman and Burt Collins's unconscious body had been snatched up and spun dizzily around the room caught up in the tornadoes spiral. Once the bodies reached the top of the spiral they were flung free. The Airman's body bounced twice against the ceiling and then was flung out at incredible speed, impacting with an audible crunch of breaking bones against the observation window. The broken body left a long bloody stripe as it slid down the window. Burt Collins's body bowled into a group of three personnel holding on to each other as they tried to get out, knocking them flying - literally.
"General, incoming!" screamed a barely audible voice.
Jack spun and ducked just in time to dodge a huge spinning crate. It smashed into splinters behind him and Jack cried out as something large lodged into the back of his thigh.
Jack caught the leg of one of the maintenance guys that had been bowled over by Collins. The guy was airborne, arms crawling at the air in a frantic attempt to pull himself downward. Jack dragged him down to the floor and yelled close to his ear. "Keep low to the ground and crawl out as fast as you can."
The maintenance guy tugged at Jack's arm frantically, yelling back at him "Sir! You've got to get out too!"
"There are still people inside!" replied Jack. The maintenance guy's eyes squinted passed his shoulder and he yanked Jack down flat to the ground. Jack caught a vicious blow to the side of his head, and rolled over to see the remains of something that once must have been human, sliding down the wall behind him in a big red mess. His vision greyed out for a moment.
The next thing Jack knew he was being hauled out of the blast doors by Teal'c and the maintenance guy.
"Close the blast doors," shouted Walter's voice from the control room. The doors were slammed shut and there was sudden deafening silence in the hall.
Jack wanted to ask how many had gotten out. Wanted to order a head count, wanted to check how many of his people had been lost but his head and leg hurt and it was hard to stand, even with arms wrapped around the shoulders of Teal'c and the maintenance guy. His hand reached around to ease the throbbing at the side of his head. It came back covered in blood. Teal'c was saying something to him, words he couldn't hear. Teal'c was frowning at him in concern. But Jack's couldn't hear, then couldn't stand, then couldn't stay conscious ...
SGSGSGSGSGSGSGSGSG
Hope this is okay, I'm not too good at writing descriptive passages - took me ages to get to this point. Please review.
