Twenty minutes later, a small but well-armed team composed of Colonel Makepeace, Captain Carter, Jordan and Haynes from SG-6, and a rebel Jaffa named Jerak headed toward Hathor's pyramid at brisk walk. Makepeace would have preferred to set a faster pace, but everyone except Jerak was already worn down. There was no sense pushing the troops so hard they'd be too tired to perform once they reached their objective. The few extra minutes to be gained weren't likely to make a difference. At least, he hoped they wouldn't.
Letting Haynes take point, Makepeace dropped back to the center of the group to check on Captain Carter. He was pleased to see that despite his earlier misgivings, she seemed to be handling the trek just fine. It was a pretty short jaunt—just a little over a kilometer—but they were moving at a good clip and he'd been concerned that she would be too exhausted to keep up. Instead, the exercise appeared to have done her some good. She wasn't winded, and the color had returned to her face.
"Doing okay, Captain?" he asked anyway.
"Doing fine, sir," she returned in a strong voice.
"Glad to hear it."
Carter said, "That's the second time you've questioned my physical condition. Do I really look that bad?"
"Not so much, anymore." Makepeace shrugged, jostling the rifle he carried slung over one shoulder. "But back at the Stargate, you looked pretty pale. In fact, with the exception of Teal'c, your whole team looked in pretty bad shape."
"I'm a blonde," she quipped. "People are always telling me I look pale."
He gave her an annoyed look. "Not that kind of pale. You're along against my better judgment, and I'd like a straight answer, if you don't mind. You looked a lot worse than you did in the tunnels. Did it all just catch up with you or what?"
"Don't worry, I won't pass out on you, sir, if that's what you're worried about." In fact, it was, but he didn't say anything. Carter stared straight ahead and said, "When I went back to blow the generator, I found Raully and Colonel O'Neill. Unfortunately, I also ran into Hathor. She ribboned me."
Makepeace winced. That explained a lot. "So, was it set to force-blast or brain-fry?"
She let out a delicate snort of laughter at his choice of words. "Brain-fry, I'm afraid."
"Ouch."
"Yeah. That's when Colonel O'Neill got the drop on Hathor, and threw her into a vat of cryogenic liquid. She really is dead, Colonel."
"I never doubted it." He paused, and added, "You should have said something."
She cocked a brow and maintained a straight face. "Then you and the general wouldn't have let me tag along, sir."
"Damn right, we wouldn't have," he said with disapproval. "General Hammond would have shipped you straight to the infirmary."
"You need me," she said. "Besides, I need to find out what happened to Raully. I had to come along. You don't know what she looks like."
Carter had a point about Raully, but sometimes she identified a little too closely with the Tok'ra for Makepeace's taste. It made him uncomfortable. He let out an exasperated sigh and chose not to pursue the issue. She'd just talk rings around him. Besides, there wasn't anything he could do about it, anyway, except reprimand her and order someone to take her back. He didn't want to do that to her, not after everything else she'd been through. Instead, he changed the subject to another mystery that had been bothering him. "Okay, Raully was the Tok'ra's inside operative. But I would like to know how the Tok'ra knew that my men and I were on 254. They were evasive on that point."
Carter pursed her lips thoughtfully. "I think I can answer that. Trofsky and Raully used a memory device on us." She touched her temple, where Makepeace saw a round impression. "Some kind of implant that projected our memories onto a holographic display. I believe that while Trofsky was questioning us and watching the trivia show, Raully must have been secretly accessing our knowledge about the SGC's mission schedules. She could have passed that information along to the Tok'ra."
"Sounds reasonable." Practical, too, he admitted privately, if a little on the creepy side. Make that a lot on the creepy side. It didn't make him feel any more comfortable about the Tok'ra, that was for sure. "Doesn't it bother you that she did something as intrusive as that without your consent?"
"She couldn't have asked us openly, sir. I think it was her only option, and I certainly can't complain about the end results. But I'm just guessing. The Tok'ra might have found you some other way."
Not a chance, Makepeace thought. Not unless they had a spy inside the SGC, and he didn't really believe they'd do anything like that. Not with Carter's old man blended with one of their leaders.
They walked along in silence. The towering fir trees around them obscured their view of the pyramid, although occasional openings in the heavy branches revealed a sky dark from the smoke. An acrid stench had become noticeable.
A terrible noise reverberated through the forest, a deep, drawn-out groan combined with a banshee's ear-splitting shriek. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks and readied their weapons, looking about uncertainly.
The noise crescendoed. There came the sound of grinding, as of metal against metal, and a sudden, booming crash. Then all was quiet again.
"What the hell was that?" Jordan exclaimed.
"I think—I think it was the pyramid," Carter said, looking shocked. "Metal fatigue; catastrophic structural failure... I remember the explosion being bigger than I expected. Whatever the generator used for fuel must have been involved, or maybe some other kind of chemicals. The blast put a huge hole in one wall, and probably ripped up the interior pretty badly. All that damage plus the heat from the fire...the structure might be giving out."
Makepeace stared at her in horror. If there was even the slightest chance that his men were inside the pyramid, alive... He bolted out in front, ordering, "Double-time, people! Let's move it!"
The team reached Hathor's pyramid a few minutes later. It stood in the center of an enormous clearing, rising into the sky, a peak of gold glistening in the sunlight.
The damaged side had caved in on itself, twisting the entire pyramid out of shape. The two adjoining walls were buckled, deformed. Thick smoke churned out of the jagged hole created by the initial explosion, the ugly clouds highlighted from beneath by a flickering aurora of colors: green, orange, red, blue, and violet. An intense roaring could be heard, occasionally punctuated with crackles and whistles. Fine particles of ash drifted through the air, coating the ground and nearby vegetation.
The group stood at the edge of the forest, gaping. Even from this distance, Makepeace could feel the heat radiating off the pseudo-Egyptian structure. Ash and soot floated down and settled on everyone's clothes, hair, and skin. The stench was almost overpowering, and the kaleidoscopic glow emanating from the hole told Makepeace that the fire—or maybe something worse—was still blazing. Who knew what chemicals or forces were feeding it, generating those strange colors?
Someone asked, "Is that— Is that a fire?"
Unnaturally quiet, Carter said, "Not a regular fire. Some kind of runaway plasma reaction, or maybe nuclear or naquada-fueled combustion..."
Makepeace stood in mute shock, staring at the disaster before him. Clearly, no one would be going inside to search for either survivors or casualties. The SGC wasn't equipped for this kind of thing. They'd have to wait for the fire to burn itself out, and for the structure to cool down.
The group was silent. Makepeace glanced around. Carter had turned pale again—as pale as the other men looked, as pale as he felt. Of the group, only Jerak appeared unmoved. Typical—damnable—Jaffa stoicism.
Makepeace turned his gaze back on the pyramid and prayed that Trofsky had been lying about his men. He couldn't bear the thought that they'd died in that inferno.
Carter said softly, "Colonel—sir, I'm so sorry."
He couldn't say anything yet, and just nodded.
She said, "I just... God, I'm sorry. This is all my fault. I—I can't..." Her voice trailed away.
She wasn't making any sense, but she sounded like hell. He forced himself to ask, "What are you talking about, Captain?"
"I pushed the button. Your men, Doctor Raully... I killed them. I killed our own people."
So it hadn't just been her attachment to the Tok'ra that had driven her to come along. Makepeace stared at the pyramid and thought about his own part in this disaster. "It wasn't your fault, Carter."
"It was my idea to blow the generator in the first place," she said, persisting in her guilt and self-recrimination.
"I authorized it," Makepeace said bleakly.
That stopped her. "Sir?"
"In the tunnels. When you came up with the idea. I let you go with it." Makepeace finally met her eyes. "You're not to blame. None of us could have known the explosion would do this, and it doesn't matter. It had to be done, or we all would have ended up dead, or worse." He looked back at the pyramid. "As for my men, this trip was always a long shot. They probably weren't ever in there. Trofsky probably lied about that; he had reason." But you don't really know, do you? a nasty little voice whispered in the back of his mind.
"Yes, sir." Carter didn't sound convinced. "But what about Raully?"
"She might have escaped." His throat felt scratchy, and he coughed. He wondered how toxic the smoke might be. They needed to get back to business and get out of here. Mourning and self-castigation would have to be postponed.
He moved forward and faced the group. "All right, listen up, people. Obviously, we're not going inside the pyramid. However, there might be survivors in the surrounding area, people who escaped before things got too bad inside." He coughed again, noticed the others having trouble breathing as well, and added, "This smoke and ash aren't doing our lungs any favors, so let's do this quickly and efficiently and get the hell out of here. Jordan and Jerak will search the left side of the forest around the pyramid. The rest of us will take the right. We'll circle around and meet on the opposite side of this clearing. Anyone locates any traces of survivors, like tracks or personal items, report in immediately. Everyone got it?"
The humans bobbed their heads. Jerak grunted his acknowledgment.
Makepeace said, "Remember, folks, this pyramid was crewed by Hathor's Jaffa, so be on the lookout for hostiles as well as our own people. Keep out of sight, stay alert, and signal any trouble. Now let's move."
As if in response to his order, the earth rumbled underfoot. The pyramid shifted and sank a few feet into the ground with a sudden boom. Clouds of dust rose around its base as it settled into the shallow sinkhole.
"What the hell?" said Haynes.
"The Tok'ra tunnels under the pyramid must be collapsing," said Carter. "We'd better hurry."
