Chapter 10

Location: Terra Nova, Caves Beneath Fort Jacob Carter MTP

Date: February 8, 2015

Time: 1030

Things had been quiet since the unlucky duo of Sergeant Jason Hanson and Hannah McGee had their first rather violent run-in with a new species in these dark foreboding caves. But that experience had really gotten the two young individuals to move that much more quickly towards the surface and more importantly, to a spot where Jason could make contact with the surface and get rescued. To do that they'd gone up, or at least tried. The caves of Terra Nova were impossible to successfully navigate, as the two of them were the first people to ever be down here.

But that didn't come without some astounding sights. The lights they used to see had shown them great caverns as large as warehouses with stalagmites and stalactites hanging and rising in all shapes and sizes. They'd seen several groves of quartz crystals ranging in size from nails to massive pillars that they had to climb over in order to move forward. Several clear streams of water had led them to tiny holes that led them to dead-end after dead-end. Their hopes had been dashed time and time again by this maze, and the wonder of this place was starting to fade.

"Dammit," Jason sighed again for what felt like the tenth time that day as they came yet again to another wall of stone where a stream of water had led them.

"Not again," Hannah groaned, her tired legs buckling as she let herself collapse against a pillar of quartz that they'd had to climb over and squeeze through a hole above it to get to this point.

"I'm afraid so," Jason said, examining the wall in the hope that there was a hole or something that they could try and squirm through.

Hannah ignored the ankle deep water she was sitting in, bottled up by the quartz like a dam, only flowing out where it connected a few feet above the floor. She was just too tired to really care right now. They'd been moving nonstop at Jason's insistence, and her stamina was just starting to give out.

"Can I just…sit for a little while, we're safe here aren't we?" Hannah asked, feeling the tingling pain of the soreness coursing through her feet and legs from all the moving they'd done.

"Tired?" he asked, shining his flashlight onto her.

"You think?" she snapped back testily.

"Yeah we can take a few minutes," Jason relented, moving over to the wall and held out his hand to support himself so he could sit down and lean against the smooth limestone.

But something happened right then that neither had been expecting. Jason's hand made contact with the stone wall, or at least it should have. But his hand continued moving unabated, passing through the wall itself causing a shimmering ripple to pass through the image of the entire surface. Jason stumbled and fell through the image and collapsed to his knees in the trickling water beyond the image and hoisted his rifle immediately and backed away. He found himself right next to Hannah who stood to her feet immediately, every bit as surprised as he was.

"What the hell?" Jason managed to stammer, aiming his weapon at the image of the wall as it came to a still.

"Is that?"

"A holographic image, yeah."

Jason stood to his feet, rifle still pointed at the image unsure of what to make of it. Behind him he heard Hannah also get up and walked around him to reach out and touch the hologram. To this move he instantly reached out and yanked her back by the handle on her backpack.

"Well this could be just some secret EDF thing right? We're the only ones on this planet."

"That we know of," he replied grimly.

"Don't," he said, making the decision of whether or not to go through it in his head, "Shit…stay behind me."

"What's the big deal?" Hannah said as Jason went right in front of the holographic wall, "It's just a hologram that your bosses set up to hide something."

"That's just it, we don't have any reason hide anything from…cave creatures. But…this is the only other way that we've come across," Jason said, contemplating the consequences, "I don't think we've got a choice."

"Not really," Hannah sighed as Jason tucked his rifle against his chest and walked forward, his barrel poking through the image.

She watched him go right through the wall, and took a deep breath before following him through. Hannah did not feel a thing, not even a little static electricity to make her hair stand on end. But when she came out on the other end she was slightly disappointed, all that was there was a continuation of the cave they were in. Nothing but rock and white milky crystals and the quartz was getting even bigger.

As the continued Jason's flashlight illuminated entire pillars of quarts growing in all directions, their pointy ends embedded into the ceiling at times with smaller ones entirely covering the walls ahea of them. It was a tight squeeze, but they also noticed something else they continued onwards.

"Is it just me or is getting warm in here?" Hannah asked.

"Yeah, and more humid," Jason acknowledged, looking at his HUD to get a reading, "Over ninety degrees and seventy percent humidity, and rising."

"We could getting closer," Hannah noted.

"Maybe but I'm still getting shit for signal, something's messing with my comms, or…" Jason started but then stopped as he looked over to the side, seeing a glint from his flashlight that was most definitely not natural, "The hell? Metal?"

"What? Where?"

"Here," Jason said excitedly, bounding towards what looked like a large pipe four feet wide. It was oddly built, with a rough texture with chips and rust spread across its face. There were even small crystals growing on it, "This is odd. Looks like it's been here forever."

"Yeah…" Hannah said, "But who cares right now? Could it be our way out of here?"

"We can follow it up and see."

Both of them started paralleling the pipe that they now saw was extremely hot to the touch, steaming in several places as drops of water splashed down upon it from the ceiling. They continued this path, going upwards thankfully, and finally reached what appeared to be the end of the road.

The two of them had to duck down underneath a bunch of crystals to find themselves on top of a limestone outcropping that just dropped away into a deep chasm. All Jason's flashlight could make out was steam and the far wall wasn't even able to be seen. Here there was the sound water falling and the heat and humidity were oppressive. Jason's uniform and armor could handle it, barely, but Hannah was sweating horribly, and due to the humidity it did no good whatsoever. Around them was steam rising in thick clouds that Jason's flashlight just couldn't cut through. The floor and walls were slick with condensed water, causing drips to stream down the walls and crystal formations in glistening trickling orbs that could be counted in the tens of thousands. Even Jason's weapon and armor weren't impervious. But thankfully his hydrophobic visor was prevented from clouding up.

"Damn," Hannah said, looking over the lip to see the cliff face covered in white crystals until the floor was obscured by the steam.

"Holy shit!" Jason all of a sudden yelled as he looked straight up.

Above them, where the pipe they'd been following was jutting straight up, was a large pentagonal shape, several glowing green lights on its highly corroded surface. Metal pillars jutted out to the sides, connecting to the walls as a great many pipes leading to it. But they could also make out a metal walkway into the structure just through the steam clouds. It was easily two or three hundred feet across and from what the two of them could tell at least fifty feet tall.

"Wow what is that thing?" Hannah gasped, taking in the incredible sight.

"It sure isn't one of ours," Jason replied, aiming at the thing looking for anything that could have signaled it as belonging to Earth.

"Well let's check it out, maybe that's what's stopping us your radio," Hannah suggested, looking to the right and saw the ledge began climbing up the wall with some metal railings finally visible.

"No, I'm checking it out!" Jason ordered her, grabbing her by the handle on her pack and held her in place, "You stay back, got it?"

"But I-," Hannah started.

"It is not a suggestion. That is an order!" he hissed back to her as he quickly stalked up the walkway towards the catwalk but then he heard her walking behind him and he whirled around.

"You can't just leave me there!" she said before he could say anything.

"If you get hurt…" he groaned, knowing he really couldn't stop her short of stunning her with the attached stun weapon on the end of his rifle.

"I won't, besides this place looks abandoned."

"Hard to argue that, I'm not seeing a bit of maintenance, look at this stuff," he motioned, kicking at the metal railings, and was shocked when the piece he kicked came loose and clattered to the ground.

"Well, I'm sure feeling confident in that catwalk now," Hannah chuckled nervously as they realized they'd reached the thing in question. Needless to say, the two of them were not wild about walking across it.

"One at a time, don't look down," Jason said as he took a first tentative step across the twenty foot expanse.

The catwalk shuddered at the first steps on it for many years, but held firm. Water condensed upon the grates made things slightly slippery, and Hanson kept one hand resting on the less than stable railings and one hand on his rifle. He could make out the square door, and with a few more steps was right in front of it. There was a small square window on it that was fogged up completely that Jason shined his flashlight into but couldn't make out anything. He then located what appeared to be a button on the right hand side of the entry as Hannah came up behind him.

"You think this rings the bell?" Jason asked sarcastically as he pointed at it.

"Wouldn't hurt," Hannah shrugged back to him as he pressed it.

With an audible click lights above the door lit up and then the door hissed open. The light was almost blinding at first as the door at least it tried to open. The metal face only opened about halfway before jamming open, shuddering as it tried to finish the programmed response. Jason poked his rifle through immediately, shinging his flashlight into what appeared to be an open hallway devoid of light aside from a few green lights mounted on the walls. Several doors also appeared along the white faced walls with several black screens scattered along the length of it.

"Clear," Jason said affirmatively and wrenched the door to fully open and as he led the way into the facility, "Earth Defense Force, anyone here?! Show yourselves now!"

His voice carried down the hall and he figured out no one was home after heard his own echo. He looked back at Hannah and both walked in surprised at the cool air conditioning that was apparently still functioning in this place.

"Wow, that's nice to walk into," Hannah said as she took in the cool but stale air.

"No kidding," Jason replied, "Stay close, don't touch anything."

"Don't have to tell me twice," Hannah responded holding up her hands as they made their way down the hall.

The lights of the building were green, and scattered on the sides of the walls to perform an emergency lighting system that was more than enough for them to use. Compared the pitch black cave they'd emerged from this was a pulsing disco room so they had no gripes. They first noticed the strange writing that was etched onto labels next to the doors and painted onto the walls. Jason went to the first room and looked through a window into it, seeing what appeared to be tables with lab equipment scattered on top of their black surfaces. Several cabinets colored the same color as the bleach white wall were also perfectly shut and everything in this place seemed nice and tidy. Hannah looked at a window across the hall to see an identical room to the one he'd just found.

"Labs of some kind," Hannah said, shining her glow stick into the room before she saw something on the ground right beside one of the tables. She had to do a double take but they looked like a person's legs, as if someone was lying on the ground, "J-Jason, there's some-something in there."

The young girl backed away from the window as Jason responded and was right at the door with weapon raised and saw what she was pointing at. With his weapon's light he could see it in detail, a pair of black shoes with a pair of gray pant legs attached with the rest hidden behind the table inside.

"I'm gonna check it out," he said before deciding to give her some measure of safety and reached down and pulled out his forty-five caliber M502 Assault Pistol with attached stunner and flashlight. This he put into her shaking hands, "Flip this to fire. And only fire if you know can hit it. Alright?"

"Okay," she said, hefting the heavy weapon and watched Jason open the swinging door into the lab and entered it.

Jason cleared the immediate wall, seeing several waste bins with some things still inside. Dust was everywhere, and there was also a slight sweet stink from the body he found on the floor. Whoever it had been hadn't died of natural causes, as on the bare bone of the skull Jason could make out a bullet hull and a cracked and flaky stain of blood still on the floor. The individuals arms were bent around the head, the fingers just next to the head. There wasn't even a speck of hair or flesh upon the corpse. All the remained were the fragile remnants of a white labcoat and gray pants. He could still make out the etching of several symbols on the shoulders and arms. Kneeling down next to the body he carefully poked it with his rifle. The metal went right through the flaking cloth and disturbed the bones. As he backed away his foot sent something colored silver rolling away and he turned and saw that it was an open cylinder. He recognized it as a spent shell casing.

"Jason?" Hannah asked, staring down the hall.

"Whoever it is has been dead a long, long time. Just bones and clothes," he said calmly as he searched the rest of the room, finding nothing but shattered glass and scattered papers with similar characters written on the fading papers that crumbled as soon as they were disturbed.

"H-how?"

"How'd they die?" Jason asked as he walked into the hall again, intent on searching the rest of the area, "Shot, back of the head."

"Oh my God," Hannah gasped, looking into the room Jason had just left. Jason was actually surprised that she said it in a more surprised manner than a frightful manner.

"Come on," Jason ordered her, walking down the hall to a T-intersection before stopping. Once there he halted them and swept his rifle to the left, saw nothing and then swept back right. What his rifle's flashlight picked up surprised him.

Lined up against the wall were more bodies. They too were just bones with the fragile remains of their clothing tangled amongst them. Most were dressed similarly to the first one. Their bodies lay in tangled heaps as they'd fallen, holes and stains in the walls evident from when they'd been lined up and shot. But several were not dressed like them. Two bodies, Jason noticed, were wearing a dark green uniform with a thick vest and helmets still strapped onto their skulls. They were not all that dissimilar from his own, albeit somewhat less advanced.

"What the fuck happened here?" Jason couldn't help but breath in curiosity as the skulls of the individuals were prevented from staring back at them thanks to black hoods placed over them.

"Must've had the wrong enemies," Hannah breathed in a calm tone as she leaned down and picked up a plastic card with a thin coating of blood that just flaked away as she brushed it aside with her thumb. The picture she saw was of an old man with a symbol of a green four pointed star with what looked like some sort of crown of leaves around it with more of that unreadable writing.

"No doubt," Jason responded, searching the two soldiers carefully.

As expected the old clothes didn't hold up, crumbling as he handled them and looked for anything that may have held any sort of useful answers. He wasn't surprised to find that there wasn't a scrap of really anything on them, as would be expected of a captured soldier that had been pinned to the wall and shot.

"Jeez, how long has this been down here?" Hannah asked as curiosity etched its way into her voice.

"That's the question we're asking now?" Jason asked with a slight chuckle, "No 'can we leave now' from the college girl?"

"Not all girls are going to cling onto the nearest guy they see when something scary or gross shows itself," Hannah scoffed.

"You seem like my kind of girl then," he laughed out loud, "Dated a clingy girl once. Got old, really fast."

"You wish," she said with an exaggerated roll of her eyes.

"Tell you what then, when we get out of here I'll take you to the restaurant of your choice. With this little incident I'll definitely have a weekend pass coming to me."

"You're seriously asking me out right now?" Hannah asked with her arms crossed over her chest.

"Why not? Everything here is dead, might as well lighten the mood. Although you could crush it with a no as your answer."

"I'm free Saturday for dinner, unless your superiors decide to hold me in some interrogation cell until they're satisfied that I won't talk about this."

"They wouldn't do that," Jason replied with a sigh as he led them down another hall, seeing signs of a fight etched into the walls with bullet holes and cracks and chips on the floor alongside dozens of shell cases.

"I'd bet you a round of drinks they will," Hannah replied.

"Oh you're one of those girls?"

"No I'm not!" she quickly snapped back, "I've never been wasted in my life."

"Is that so?" he responded, seeing a much larger pair of windows on the wall with a double set of doors open in between them, "Looks like a control center of some kind."

Both windows had numerous bullet holes in them, cracks spreading out like a massive series of spiderwebs. The doors were open, and Jason shined his flashlight onto another trio of bodies like the soldiers he'd seen back down the hall. There was a series of power cords running from the back of the room to a table in the center of the room. Around it were solid banks of control boards with screens mounted on the tops. Many were damaged or shattered entirely, pieces of them scattered on the ground alongside bullet casings and the bodies of their long-decomposed defenders.

However it was what was on top of the table that Jason was intrigued with. His HUD was just starting act weird when we got close to it, and that's how he knew that this thing was the problem. The device was about as large as a big lava lamp, with a glass case with a metal tube inside of it. A glowing red light inside the glass case was the only active piece of equipment they had seen aside from the emergency lights. The power cables on it seemed to had been jury-rigged from the existing systems here to provide power to it and that was his closest bet as to deactivating this thing.

"Well, this looks like it could be it," he grumbled, looking around for any sort of booby traps laid around it, "Nothing rigged to it…let's try turning it off and see."

"You sure that's a good idea?" Hannah replied.

"Unless you've got any other suggestions?"

"Fair enough."

"Better stand back," Jason suggested, "I don't wanna shock myself here so I'll just shoot the power cord here and see if that works."

He gently pushed her in the direction of the door as he aimed his rifle at the power cord and prepped his underslung plasma cannon. This weapon was basically a small Earth-made staff weapon that was smaller than a grenade launcher but held every bit of the power that the well-known Jaffa weapon had. So he held his hand on the trigger to the weapon, switched off the safety and pushed the unlock button. The housing around the weapon opened up and he pulled the trigger. A loud whooshing sound broke the silence and the powerful blast of white plasma smashed into the thick power cord and cut it clean in half. The humming device lost its power and died immediately with no real drama aside from the sparking coming from the partially melted cord he'd just blasted.

Right at that moment his radio immediately came back to life. His signal strength was right along with his full HUD capability. IFF signals were now pinging all over his HUD as he looked up, seeing the signals of his squad above him, their distance barely a kilometer away.

"Three-Two Actual, this is Angel, how copy?" the excited voice of the emergency channel operator called out, noticing that his transponder was back on line.

"Angel, Three-Two Actual, I read you five-by-five," Hanson said loudly, relief flooding into his voice.

"Thank Christ," Hannah breathed in absolute joy.

"Signal status Sergeant," another older voice ordered him.

"Status green, situation yellow. I don't know if you can detect this from the surface but…I think I know why our signals weren't working."

"We're reading you solid Three-Two, our sensors have mapped out the cave networks, it shouldn't be much longer until rescue arrives. Sit tight and watch over that civilian. That is your primary mission Sergeant. We'll be on standby for a red situation to beam you two out if it comes to that."

"Understood," Hanson responded, rolling his eyes as he contemplated why they hadn't done so already. The reason was simple, beaming technology was still top secret and the military didn't want that knowledge getting out to the general public if they could help it.

"Well?" Hannah asked.

"Rescue's on the way," he said calmly, "I guess that…thing in there was blocking our electronics."

"So that's it? They want us to stay here?" Hannah asked, hoping she wouldn't have to go back out there unless she knew that they were legitimately going towards salvation.

"Those are my orders. Stay here and keep you safe. Shouldn't be too hard."

Unknown to the two of them the deactivation of the device on the table set into motion a chain of events that they had yet to truly understand. But they would soon enough. Not only was that device a jammer, but it controlled a holographic projector designed to cloak the presence of the facility to the naked eye. And even more it was a transponder, an all-clear beacon that, when lost, would set off a series of alarms to those who'd placed it there. But there was no way for them to know that, all they knew was that they were getting out of this god-forsaken place.

Location: Planet P5X-359

"Okay…I think they've got this," O'Neill noted as he saw a large box-shaped dropship descend right outside of the ruins of the village.

"It went absolutely flawless, not a single Colonial casualty," Major Blanton agreed, looking through a pair of binoculars at the Colonial staging area.

"So now what?" Brenda asked from her spot behind a fallen pillar of stone along with the rest of the team.

"We're not going down there," O'Neill cut her off, knowing what she really wanted to do.

"Oh come on, their operation is over, they're calm enough."

"Don't be so sure," Blanton responded, "See those gunships above us? They're sweeping for contacts outside the AO to further secure their perimeter. Calm my ass."

"They're called Raptors Major," the voice of Captain Hailey piped up as she worked with the tablet she'd hidden underneath a raincoat she'd commandeered from Lieutenant Gibson, "They're actually a bit more than a mere gunship. Pretty flexible craft able to serve as CAS, SAR, and General Utility."

"I don't need the particulars Captain."

"I beg to differ sir."

Blanton brought his binoculars down and turned to look at Hailey who was just oblivious to how arrogant she was sounding. Then again, she was always like this. Having an IQ that was only matched by two other people tended to inflate one's ego.

"How do you figure then Hailey?"

"I want to know everything. Especially about something that can kill me," she replied from under her raincoat.

"Knowing everything can be a problem, especially when it's your opponent, you second guess, you over analyze, you forget to react," Lieutenant Holden said from where she'd popped her bipod on her sniper rifle and was carefully looking at the Colonials.

"Hailey's right," Brenda responded, "Know your enemy and you know yourself and in a thousand battles you will never be in peril."

"Look at you miss Art of War," Major Rosario chuckled from next to Brenda, giving her a good-natured shove.

"Sun Tsu's lessons apply to more than the battlefield," she replied calmly.

"But remember what its first purpose is," O'Neill grimly said as he now noticed that a fog was starting to roll in and obscure things now that the rain had stopped.

"It also says war is the last thing to embark upon," Blanton added.

"Don't join her side," O'Neill responded with smile. He of course didn't mean he'd rather fight than have peace, he just didn't want to give Brenda the satisfaction of winning an argument. It was a little bit petty but fuck it.

With that the group settled back into their overwatch of the Colonial position. The sun was starting to warm the distant horizon and an increasingly thick blanket of fog was rolling in, the wind driving it right towards them on their position on top of a high ridgeline.

The detachment from SG-1 was well hidden in their spot. They'd stayed in the protective cover of the hundreds of stone pillars worn down into a menagerie of different sizes and shapes that were like walking through a maze of spires with a slick floor and moss and grass growing out of any crevice it could get a hold. They had spread out, all eight SG-1 members staying groups of four with someone on constant watch behind them and on their flanks. But this was more for a last line of defense.

Dr. Underwood and Dr. Ellis had kept them well apprised of any Colonials or aircraft moving towards them throughout the observation of the Colonial rescue mission. The group hadn't come within a kilometer of a single Colonial, but one couldn't be too careful. Especially after they'd seen just how deadly the Colonials had proven they could be when driven into action.

Even the elite of SG-1 had been impressed. The Colonial rescue had gone off without a bad moment, at least for them. They'd seen the lifesigns drop by more than twenty as they'd basically went in, kicked ass and took names. From where they were they weren't able to see the majority of the combat but they had seen that the Colonials were in every way in their rights to conduct such a mission. They'd seen a young girl, presumably Colonial, taken away by a single pirate so he could do whatever unspeakable things he wished to her. But the Colonial special forces weren't going to put up with that shit, and they'd seen them strangle the man without hesitation. It was something that their expert sniper Lieutenant Holden had called out like an ESPN sports analyst, and they all found themselves cheering on these upstarts.

That had changed once Dr. Underwood, who was listening in on their radio chatter heard them call out mission complete. So with one common enemy gone SG-1 had refocused on staying off the radar of these Colonial forces. This was an easy task, they were a good few miles away from the Colonials as the crow flies, but realistically, the Colonials would have to travel three or four miles through rough terrain to get close enough to be a problem. With the security via distance firmly in place they made their observations, noting that the Colonial forces immediately evacuated their people and then evacuated their prisoners and then loaded up several crates of weapons and other odd items they scavenged from the Al'Kesh. Along with those they loaded up numerous body bags, whether they were pirates or their own civilians SG-1 couldn't tell.

"Colonel," O'Neill's radio piped up, oddly from Dr. Walt, "It might be nothing but would you look to the ridge-line behind you, or…to the Northeast rather, and look out and see if what our geological scans are showing us is true."

"What are the showing you?" Brenda asked before O'Neill could say anything.

"It seems to be a single…pyramid-like structure, well not like any normal one anyway," Walt replied.

"Mind if I borrow one of your guys?" she asked O'Neill, "And I promise I won't do anything stupid."

"Rosario, Newbold, keep an eye on her," O'Neill told them.

"Two? Aren't you generous?" Brenda chuckled as the third in command and one of the two machine gunners ducked down next to her.

"One to carry you if you get hurt or defiant and the other to cover them," O'Neill grinned with satisfaction, getting a scowl from the young blonde in return.

"Come on, let's get this over with," Major Rosario said, tapping Brenda on the back of her armor and yanked her back so they could get moving to get a look at whatever structure was behind them.

The three of them eased away from the ledge and into the maze of rock formations and started traversing their way through. Rosario led the way, her rifle at the ready, Brenda in the middle, and Lieutenant Newbold in the rear with a SAW in hand as he kept a watch for anything behind them. But there was nothing here. The only major obstacle was the slick rock itself.

By now the sun was starting to illuminate things to the point where they had deactivated their night vision, but the thick fog was beginning to close in, and they had a hard time seeing through it at all.

"Be very careful there Brenda," Dr. Ruby Ellis said all of a sudden into her ear, "You're only a few feet from the ledge.

"We can't see it doc," Rosario informed them, "The fog here is thick as hell."

"Well you should be able to see it by now," Dr. Walt informed them, "it's to your north-northwest."

"I don't see shit," Newbold muttered, "Unless we can get above this fog we're not going to get eyes on it."

"Above the fog…" Brenda mumbled to herself, and then looked back behind her to a goliath of a stone pillar, "Hold on to my pack."

"Jackson what're you doing?" Rosario demanded as Brenda unclipped her backpack, letting it fall to the ground before digging out a pair of binoculars with a built-in video camera.

"My job."

"For fuck's sake," Rosario groaned, "I really don't want to order Newbold here to have to carry you back or have to wait several months for a new mission because you broke everything in your legs."

"Don't worry, I've got this," Brenda replied as she began climbing the steep pillar, "Besides," she responded after getting six feet up, "If I break my legs our latest medical advances will fix it up in a few days."

"I'd still have to carry you back," Newbold said, still unhappy with the situation.

"Then catch me, you're a big boy."

"Not my point," the big man grumbled under his breath.

Brenda just ignored him. She had a job to do, and she was determined to do it. Thankfully the rock was almost porous, with ledges and holes burrowed into the rock that gave her fantastic hand holds that she used to pull her way almost twenty feet into the air. And then she broke the fog cover and found herself poking over the blanket of white and looking out to see a forest of black spires jutting up all the way behind her. In front of her was an unnerving sight.

The fog was cascading up and over the sheer cliff like an unstoppable wave that just seemed to drop away into nothing. Several other ranges of mountains also appeared in the distance, albeit much lower than the one she found herself on. But then, she saw it, the object that she'd needed to get eyes on for her cultural expert. Just from the way the light reflected off of its face she knew the whole thing was man-made.

A series of large step-like levels climbing their way up the slope of a solid mountain to her left peaked with what could only be called a complex of boxy buildings with a solid spire in the middle. She pulled the binoculars to her eyes and saw that there were six different levels, all larger than the last with a series of stone pillars arranged around the edges with two central shallow sets of stairs running parallel to each other. And in between these two sets of stairs was a waterfall that cascaded its way down until it dropped into the fog where she couldn't see where it landed.

But what was off about what she seeing was that the pyramid wasn't necessarily complete. It was like it had been carved from the mountain itself. The whole building was of course derelict, not appearing to have been used in thousands of years. The stone was smeared and dirty, there was no color visible from where she was standing, and the whole thing just appeared lifeless.

"Doc," she said excitedly into her mike, "You're gonna love this."

"Guys look out, looks like a Colonial bird is headed right for you," Dr. Underwood said rapidly into the radio.

"Where from?" Rosario immediately asked, going on the alert.

Right as she said that a loud and ominous noise drew her attention to her right and she saw it. Hovering slowly, searchlight shining down onto the pyramid, was a camouflage painted Colonial Raptor. It didn't appear to be searching for them, but its flightpath was moving in a lazy curve, but it was steadily coming right towards them.

"Jackson get down from there now!" Rosario ordered her immediately.

She didn't bother to argue, she knew that staying concealed was critically important at a time like this. So she shimmied down from her perch and landed back on the ground right next to Major Rosario and Lieutenant Newbold who was aiming his weapon right at the Raptor's searchlight which was starting to sweep along the ridgeline. To prevent themselves from being spotted all three of them ducked down behind cover, hiding further into the rock pillar maze.

"It might be time to bug out here," Rosario noted.

"Yeah maybe, there'll be another time," Brenda agreed.

"Hold on," Hailey called out on the radio, "Something's happening. There's a hyperspace window! We've got more company incoming. Underwood you getting this?"

"Three Al'Kesh and a pyramid ship. I guess those pirates must've gotten a call for help out to their buddies," the man responded.

"Now might be a good time to call for some orbital support," someone else added.

"Can't argue with that," O'Neill said, "SG-1 fall back to the gate, double time."

Back with the rest of the military portion of the team O'Neill was listening to all this looked up where the ID tags for the arriving fleet showed up as red dots closing rapidly on the Colonial armada already in orbit. He knew that they needed to get some ships here on the double. They just didn't have a clue as to what the Colonials and these people were going to end up doing to one another.

Major Blanton grabbed Captain Hailey and yanked the petite blonde to her feet, causing her to stumble as she struggled to put her tablet away and get moving while Lieutenants Holden and Gibson brought up the rear, keeping an eye on the sky. They knew that they would be safe from the naked eye thanks to the fog but they would have some trouble navigating. Thankfully the waypoints left for them by Ruby would guide them all the way back.

The group linked up with the other three members who'd detached earlier to take a peek at the pyramid their sensors had gotten a look at and ran forward in a loose column, just staying in visual contact with the person in front of them. They'd just made it to the first waypoint when Underwood about ruptured their eardrums.

"Whoa!" Underwood called out in absolute surprise, "What did those dudes just do?!"

"Underwood, specifics please!" Hailey snapped at him, eager to know what was going on.

"The Colonials, they just blew that pyramid ship apart!" Ruby added, "There was a transmission from the pirates, demanding they surrender but the Colonials answered with a volley from some new weapons that cut clean through it."

"Energy-based?" Brenda asked, panting in between breaths.

"Don't think so, no, it was a hypervelocity cannon. Four of the Colonial warships fired with them."

"The Battlestar?" O'Neill asked from his position in the lead.

"It sent two of them, the other three ships, the cruisers, fired one each. Uh oh, looks like the Al'Kesh don't want anything to do with those Colonials, they're turning tail with a several squadrons of Colonial fighters right behind them."

"What?" O'Neill asked, calling for a full halt.

"Well then," Brenda noted, "Looks like it's a false alarm."

"False alarm my ass," O'Neill grumbled, "These guys are more capable than we thought. We need to get the word back to the SGC about this."

"No argument here," Brenda chuckled, "This is already turning out way more exciting than I'd originally thought."

"Guys I think you've been made!" Ruby called into their headsets, "The Colonial frequencies are saying they've spotted something."

"Oh come on!"

"There's several Raptors starting to sweep and a foot patrol is moving your way," Underwood called out, "Looks like they picked you up on thermals."

"I thought these things kept us off of any thermal scans?" Holden demanded.

"Not all of it," Hailey piped up, "The armor covers the core and extremities but if you don't have the complete helmet attachment on your faces can still be seen. But someone would have to be looking really carefully at a close magnification."

"It wasn't heat they picked up on," Underwood said, realizing what is was, "The rocks. They're warming up and the armor isn't. As you pass the rocks it's movement, and they're seeing that."

O'Neill was taking all of this in calmly, his mind working over the situation like a pro.

"Do they see us now?" he asked Underwood.

"No, they're sweeping an area where they think they saw something, but you're in that area."

"You guys wanted to prove yourselves?" O'Neill asked with a smile and pulled the action of his rifle back, "Now's your chance. Welcome to SG-1."

I think that's as good a place to leave it as any don't you? Well of course you guys want to see more and I don't blame you. Personally I'm in the same boat, but I've had three beers and a long day so I'll leave it here and work on the next chapter as soon as I can. Hopefully I'll get it done before Christmas and on Christmas I'll have something very special for you all. And I'm saying this on all my stories this December, as politically incorrect as it is but fuck that.

May you all have a Merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Next Chapter Preview: Cat and Mouse in the fog and the titans of Earth and the Colonies face off once more.