Chapter 10: Dissension in the Ranks
Five hours and hundreds of miles later at the same cantina which Jackson, Lee and Cochrane had last been seen at, colonel O'Neill, executor Granger, lieutenant Newman and ensign Rockwell are all sitting down around one of the outside tables.
"Estas bien?" Asks a young lad that is the waiter at the cantina as he places down their next round of drinks on their table.
"Si, Bueno, gracious." Says O'Neill as he reaches forward to grab one of the fresh beers, just as the local CIA operative agent Burke snagged it out of the his hand and takes a seat uninvited.
"Hay. Man you look really pissed at seeing me, boy I would have given anything to have been there when you heard that I was going to be your contact down here." Laughs Burke, at least till he spots the looks from the other three men at the table. "Burke CIA, and you are?" He asked turning on the charm.
"Granger spec-ops." Was the only answer he gave to this man that he was sure that would never make it as an executor branch back home, hell Granger was sure that this man would never make it as a member of the Macross Fleet's own intelligence division.
"Charmed." Says Burke realising that the other three men where ice, before turning back to O'Neill. "Hay, it's cool, man…"
"It's not OK!" Snaps O'Neill, "We've got just under fifty hours to save our friends before they are killed, so just tell me what it is you know!"
"Okay, all business all the time." Jokes Burke, "I can get that." He said becoming serious for the first time since he sat down. "This is the last place that doctors Jackson and Lee along with their research assistant, one Zefrane Cochrane, where seen before they haired a local man by the name of Rogelio Duran as a guide to take them to a point somewhere in the southern jungles. A short time later the four of them where taken by a group of extremely radical anti-Honduran extremists."
"And you happen to know this… how?" Asked a clearly sceptical Newman as Rockwell just raised an eyebrow in query.
Shrugging Burke just takes a swig of his stolen beer, "It is how this particular cell operates. Last year they kidnapped an engineer who was key to the construction project oat the Cajon river dam, a huge contract for the URS Corporation out of San Francisco. The insurance agent pays out, their hostage is released and they get funding to continue their own little war, but this group are strange, it's said that their leader's eyes can glow and he sometimes talks with a deep double flanged voice."
"This engineer, did he live?" Asked Rockwell taking a sip of his own beer, while O'Neill grimaced at the fact that they might be facing another rouge Goa'uld not that he could tell Burke about that.
"Yeah," Answered Burke with a shrug, "but you know sometimes they don't."
"What sort of weapons and equipment are we looking at?" Askes O'Neill now that he had cooled off a little, and fearing that they might have to face Goa'uld staff weapons.
"Ok, so this is where it gets interesting. Honduras and Nicaragua are in the middle of a territorial dispute, and because of this anyone in the 'I hate Honduras' fan club can enter Nicaragua where you can buy guns. What type of guns? AK's, AK's for days. Nowadays they get their weapons direct from Russia, but twenty years ago before the fall of the USSR they got their stuff from Cuba."
"I think that you've been down here too long." O'Neill says as he takes a long swig of his beer to hide his relief that they shouldn't be facing any Goa'uld weapons.
"You think? You know why I got this god awful crappy assignment to the middle of nowhere?"
"Oh great here we go, are you going to blame me now?" Says O'Neill, completely forgetting about the other three being there.
"You bet I am, you know you could have help me out, stood up for me. I could have used your help when Hillary left me, or during the inquest. Do you know what happens during a blue on blue incident when one team member is killed and the other team member doesn't or won't vouch for you?"
"I didn't see what happened to Woods, I only told them what I knew, and I wasn't going to lie to an official board of inquiry." O'Neill said taking a swig of his beer finishing it. "I just told them what I knew."
"I'm not on about lying man, I'm talking about my head." Spat Burke in response, "we three were buddies, you, me and Woods."
After having finished his little argument, Burke finishes his drink.
"I just told them what I saw."
"Well, it wasn't enough and now you need my help down here in…" Started Burke before being interrupted by O'Neill.
"No, you're just the guide." Interrupts O'Neill.
"A guide? That's what you think of me now?"
"That's right, you're not so far gone that you've forgotten what a chain of command is for, are you?"
"You want to know how far gone I am." Burke says downing the last of his beer before walking off.
"That went well." Says Granger, realising that it was probably wrong for O'Neill to be sent on this mission.
"Quiere algo mas, Senors?" Says the same waiter from before returning to see if they needed any more drinks.
"Si, necesito un guia." O'Neill says as he slams back a shot of the local tequila in anger over how Burke was being as arrogant as any of the Goa'uld that he had faced in the last six years.
"I am a guide, senor," Says the waiter throwing a bar towel over his shoulder, "this, it is just my day job."
Hearing this Newman mutters in Zentradi to Rockwell, "That's convenient."
-{[]}-
After three hours of near constant screaming, the rebels drag the barely conscious body of doctor Lee back into the their small cell and throw him onto the ground. Once the rebels had re-locked the door and moved away Jackson and Cochrane moved over to Lee to check on him.
"I never… thought that… I would… die like this." Lee pants while convulsing slightly. "I'm… sorry Daniel… I just couldn't… take it… I… I told them…"
"What?" Asks Cochrane as he checks Lee over for any broken ribs, bones or other life threatening injuries, "What did you tell them Bill?"
"Everything." He pants, not really used to being out in the field let alone being electrocuted like Jackson was due to the curse of SG1.
"Deculture!" Swore Cochrane before muttering in Zentron about how truly screwed they were and that if he was lucky he would probably be going to spend the next year scrubbing the plasma exhaust conduits for this.
-{[]}-
While Cochrane was carefully examining Lee for any life threatening injuries, over the other side of the compound in the hut that the rebels had been torturing the three tomb raiders, the handful of rebels present all gathered near the doorway to the hut looking on nervously as the Goa'uld, whom had taken over the leader of them years ago, and had taken the lead in interrogating the three prisoners played around with the device. Around ten minutes of examining it and making it look like he was touching it at random he activates it.
Seeing this the Goa'uld stood back and smirked before turning to face the device so that his face was hidden from the others as his eyes glowed with the characteristic smirk of a happy Goa'uld, before muttering under his breath in Goa'uld, "Now I have Telchak's secrete nothing can stop me."
-{[]}-
"How's that sir." Asked an SGC technician as he places a small Tok'ra designed sub-space radio under the breast plate of the warriors armour that Selmak/ Carter was wearing in order to infiltrate Anubis' base, as they stood behind the safety lines for the gate preparing him for his part of the mission.
"It's fine, in fact it reminds Jacob of his old football days." Replied Selmak/ Carter with a smirk.
"Did they have helmets back in those days sir?" Joked a younger technician, earning him a small evil eye from Selmak/ Carter, and general Hammond from where he was next to Walter in the control room.
"Shutting up now, sir." The technician replies sheepishly.
Seeing that everything was going smoothly with the dialling sequence, Hammond makes his way out of the control room and into the embarkation room to chat with his long-time friend before he goes off on his part of the mission. "So Jacob you ok in there?" he asks once he is within ear shot so that he could be heard over the sound of the gate dialling, as the second symbol for the gate address to Tartarus is locked in.
"It's surprisingly light," Say Carter having taken control back from Selmak, "You know George I'd be very surprised if Sammie doesn't try to get her hands on the plans for recreating this stuff during this mission."
The two men laugh about this for a few moments, before becoming serious once again. "I guess its time."
"Good luck."
"Thank-you George." Says Carter before allowing the technicians to finish suiting him up in the warriors armour with the helmet and full face breathing unit. With the helmet on he stepped forward as the gate finished his dialling sequence and activated connecting the SGC to the planet that Anubis had his base.
Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves before he started up the ramp and stopped through the event horizon of the stargate.
Less than a second later he stepped through the other side, passing through the iris type energy shield on the other gate, and paused looking around at the heart of the volcano in which the stargate was in, after noticing that the only way out was through a door at the other end of a small bridge and into the base, Selmak/ Carter crosses it and enters the base.
After no more than a few paces in to the base and before he could even begin to search for a terminal so that he could shut down the sensor grid, he is spotted by one of Anubis's under lords.
"You come with me." The Goa'uld ordered turning and walking off without even waiting to see if Selmak/ Carter was following and lead him deeper into the base. After a round a minute he is taken into a room with three chairs and a Goa'uld style diagnostic station.
"Sit." The Goa'uld ordered pointing to one of the chairs as he moves to the diagnostic station. "You seem to be damaged."
"Thoth." Says Anubis from the doorway with his newest first prime who was carrying on of the new beam swords just a few paces behind his master.
"My lord, I was not expecting you." Answers the under lord while dropping down to one knew to show his respect as the defeated and captured Goa'uld he was.
"Tell me, how this one has fared." Anubis asks gesturing to Selmak/ Carter sitting in the chair with the scanner light active.
"This one has just returned my lord, I have only just activated the systems to begin my examination. I will need some time so that I my finish the preliminary analysis before I can make a more detailed report."
"That can wait," Orders Anubis, "there is a remote sensor probe which has malfunctioned and requires your attention."
"Yes my lord." Thoth says as Anubis turns and leaves with the first prime taking up his position again once his master had passed and Thoth following a few paces later, leaving Selmak/ Carter alone in the lab. When he was certain that there was nobody within ear shot he let out a very relieved sigh.
-{[]}-
Unbeknown to the handful of Jaffa and Goa'uld within the facility on the surface, hiding within the sensor shadow of one of Tartarus many moons a lone Goa'uld scout ship sat with almost all of its systems powered down, so that Bra'tac, Teal'c, major Carter and lieutenant Welsh aren't spotted shot down.
"Come on dad." Muttered Carter not realising that she had said it aloud.
"The sensors still need to be deactivated, ma'am," Commented Welsh from her spot leaning against the wall next to the ring room entrance playing with her exo-frames tac-pad, "give him some time." Which earned her a cold stare from carter whom was sitting in the co-pilots seat of the scout.
"We are helpless to act," Says Bra'tac sitting at the helm of the scout, "even if we were to attempt to communicate with your father…"
"We would need to power up the ship and break orbit of this moon, which would make us visible to the bases sensors and we would have a half dozen death gliders on us faster than you can say 'Cree'." Sighs Carter. "It's just that so many things could have gone wrong." She complains while voicing the thoughts of everyone in the small ship. "He can just be so stubborn at time, and it's only gotten worse since he joined with Selmak."
"Major Carter perhaps it is time that we…" Starts Teal'c before the console in front of Bra'tac starts beeping, which he reads the small display that had popped up in front of him.
"The small probe which we deployed has just sent a date burst which shows that the bases sensor grid is has been powered down." Says Bra'tac which causes major Carter to smile slightly.
"No doubt your father's stubbornness ma'am." Jokes Welsh as she starts to reattach the parts of her fire force assault system.
"Dad, we are on the move." Says Carter as Bra'tac begins to bring the ship back on-line and out of the sensor shadow of its hiding place.
"That's great news. When you get down here head to the south-west exhaust port assemblage, I might have a way to get your team in." Responds Selmak/ Carter over the comm-link.
"Roger that, ETA ten minutes."
-{[]}-
"Wait hold up." Says O'Neill as he taps the guide that he, Newman, Granger and Rockwell had hired to show them to where the GPS locators for Jackson and the others had last been up dated deep in the jungle. "This is it." He says as they enter a small clearing.
"As I told you senor, there is nothing here." Says their guide as he looks around the small clearing in the jungle.
"Well there is this well in the middle of nowhere," Says a voice which causes O'Neill, Newmann and Rockwell to take aim at the source, "with standard U.S. military boot prints all around it, and these sun-glasses that where floating on the surface."
Hearing the overly cheerful voice of agent Burke, O'Neill lowers his weapon, which the other two take as a sign to do the same, and rolls his eyes.
"Make a wish." Burke says before he drops in a five centaros coin into the pool. "So what took you four so long, hum? I mean it's like day one of SF training to track a GPS locator?" He asks swinging the three GPS units at arms-length while casually holding his special forces M4 MWS with an M203 grenade launcher slung under the barrel. "Nar, I'm just joshing with you I've only been here a few minutes or so myself."
"Change your mind?" O'Neill asks in a sceptical tone of voice.
"You could say that." Replies Burke, tossing O'Neill the GPS units and reaching into his combat webbing and pulls out a small roll of fifty Lempira notes rolled up and gives them to the guide. "Vete, regresate a la cantina."
The young guide took the money and smiles when he realises that there must be close to four thousand Lempira in the small bundle. "Cuatro mil? Muchas gracias senor."
"Momentito." O'Neill says to the guide with a small smirk and holding up a finger.
"This is the end of the road pal," Burke says pointing down to the GPS units on the floor in front of Granger, "you didn't think that these fella's would make it easy for your team did you? I'll get your squad where you need to go."
"For old time's sake?"
"Well you know, I took an emotional inventory recently and I realised that I have some serious issues. I thought that maybe we could put our petty differences to one side on this one. When this hits the fan you're going to need me, so what do you say give me a chance I won't let you down."
"We could use the firepower and support colonel." Says Granger staring at Burke, sizing him up while O'Neill thought about it.
After about a minute or two he shrugs accepting the login that they could use the fire power that Burke was packing if Jackson had gotten into his usual trouble, and if the reports about the leader of these rebels was true. "Si, vete. Gracious, vamos." O'Neill says as he passes the guide another hundred Lempira.
"Vaya con Dios."
"Now we're talking' sports fans!" Jokes Burke as he walks past Granger and slaps O'Neill playfully on the arm before heading into the jungle, and starts talking to the group. Like he was a tour guide. "Hi there my name is agent Burke and I'll be your guide, today we will be looking at the indigenous flowers and vegetation of this region of Central America. Watch your step now ladies were not in Kansas anymore."
"Easy." Says O'Neill as he catches up to Burke as Rockwell places Cochrane's scanner glasses into a pouch on his exo-frame.
-{[]}-
"If you value the life of your friends you will tell me what it is that I want to know about this thing?" Demands the Goa'uld that was in charge of the rebels pacing around in front Jackson, who was bound to the chair in front of a table in the same hut that he had been tortured in a few hours earlier. "I know that this thing is related to the 'Fountain of Youth' myth, your friend told us that much."
"May… maybe." Coughs Jackson before spitting a small amount of blood out from when he had been hit a moment before.
"And how does it work?" Asks the Goa'uld with his back to the others in the room, while one of the other rebels pulls a small crucifix out from under his top and kisses it.
"I… I don't… know." Stutters Jackson which earns him a punch to the gut, "Look you grabbed us five minutes after we found it and a minute after we had almost drowned." Wheezed Jackson.
"Who was this Telchak?"
"He's a mythological figure," Says Jackson having managed to regain some of his breath, "The ancient Mayan god of rain and rivers, who may or may not have been in this region during the pre-Columbian era."
"So this thing is many thousands of years old?" Asks the Goa'uld, slightly glad that his cover hadn't been spotted by this lowly Tau'ri scum.
"Poss… possibly."
"And this god," says the Goa'uld looking directly at Jackson as his eyes glowed, brought this device to his temple for what reason?"
Jackson remains quiet as he finally realises that he might be in even more trouble than a few rebels out to make a quick pay day, before he is once more hit across the face which causes him to cut his gum when he bites down on it. "To… to hide it… or use it? I… don't know." Coughs Jackson hiding the fact that he knows more and that the leader is possessed by a Goa'uld.
"Use it? On whom?"
"People! The Mayan people!"
"What would it do to them?!
"I don't know," Starts Jackson before he is backhanded again, "Look the research that we did which lead us to the temple just gave a very cryptic warning, that the thing was… dangerous, possible even deadly. That's all I know I swear!"
"I don't think that it is so harmful." The Goa'uld says grabbing the top of Jackson's head and snapping it back hard, "In fact I have never felt as good as I do right now." He finishes whispering into Jackson's ear in his normal double flanged voice, before letting go of his head and walking over to the table and uncovering the now fully active device.
"You… you turned it on?" Jackson asks, now mentally panicking that he was so far up the creek he might as well be dead.
"Of course."
"Turn it off." Pleads Jackson, "I'm begging you, you don't know what it is you are dealing with. The effects of the radiation that it emits, may be unstable, its centuries beyond our scientific knowledge. Turn. It. Off!"
"You are lying!" The Goa'uld says letting some of its normal double flange voice slip into its voice.
"What if he isn't? This thing is cursed, Boss, maybe we should turn it off." Begs on of the rebels.
"Turn it off? Do you not feel the way it has made you stronger?"
"I do, and it scares me. Por favour boss, I am begging you." The same rebel pleads, before issuing and ultimatum. "If you won't turn it off… I will."
Making a show of thinking about the issue for a few moments the Goa'uld continues to read the ancient script all over the device, before he suddenly pulls his Glock 9x19mm and shoots the scared rebel right through the heart with military precision, killing him instantly.
Seeing this Jackson gulps as he realises that not only is this Goa'uld insane, but the effects of the device are only enhancing the psychopathic tendencies of all Goa'uld at a much faster rate than any sarcophagus ever could.
-{[]}-
Back on Tartarus Selmak/ Carter finishes triggering the access doors into the base from the exhaust port to allow the rest of the team, minus Bra'tac who had to stay with the scout ship so that he could fly it in when they were ready for extraction. After a few moment with the doors open major Carter, Teal'c and lieutenant Welsh stepped through from the exhaust system and into the maintenance walkway.
"What happened?" Asked major Carter staring at her father while Welsh moved forward to provide cover since her exo-frame's helmet had a built in motion tracker.
"I Tricked the exhaust system into thinking that it was time to purge the system for maintenance." Says Selmak/ Carter even though the Tok'ra agent knew exactly what she was really asking.
"I meant with the sensor system." She said still staring daggers at him.
"We was kind of held up." Says Selmak/ Carter giving his host's daughter a small shrug. "You weren't worried about me now were you, kiddo." Hearing her father's joking tone Carter just rolls her eyes, causing him to smirk. "So can you give me some help to get out of this thing?"
-{[]}-
Several levels above where the infiltration team were linking up with Selmak/ Carter, Thoth re-enters the examination lab that he had been in prior to being sent to fix the malfunctioning probe. Looking around the first thing he notices is that the warrior he had started to run a test on was missing, not realising that it had been a member of the Tok'ra in disguise. Gulping Thoth sets off to the throne room to inform Anubis about the missing drone.
-{[]}-
"That's the third one that I've seen since I got here." Says Selmak/ Carter, now wearing a standard USAF flight suit over the warriors base layer, as he, Welsh, Teal'c and his daughter all came out of their hiding spots after a lone warrior had gone past and rounded the corner.
"How many of them do you think that Anubis has?" Carter asks as Teal'c moves forward to cover the next intersection of corridors, while Welsh planted a small remote detonating plasma charge.
"There's no way of knowing, but I'm guessing that it can't be more than a handful at the most. The lab which I was taken to seemed like it was configured to house around a dozen."
The team continued through the base, making sure to use an ultraviolet marker to show the way back to their infiltration point, around five minutes later the group enters into a lab.
"Symbiote holding tanks." Says Selmak/ Carter as the group look around the lab as Welsh takes up a position next to the door to provide cover and alert them in case someone was to come their way.
"Yer but they're all empty." Says major Carter as she looks around.
"This one is not." Says Teal'c walking over to a tank in the centre of the room.
"What the frack is that!" Walsh says taking a quick glance over to what Teal'c is looking at.
-{[]}-
"Speak!" Anubis says knowing that Thoth was behind him.
"Lord Anubis," Thoth says as he takes to a knee behind Anubis who was looking out over a training area filled with his warriors and most loyal Jaffa, "one of the Kull warriors has gone missing."
"What is the reason for this behaviour?"
"There was… some damage, but I believe that our method for controlling the mind of the symbiote might still be flowered."
"That is unacceptable. Determine what the origin of the flaw is then report back to me."
"Yes my lord." Thoth says as he stands and walks out of the room without another word.
-{[]}-
"The rebels tend to move around a lot." Says Burke as he leads the others through a patch of rather dense jungle. "A lot of the low level grunts are your typical self-taught bush fighters. It's the harvest season right now, so the majority of them are tending to their farms or are with their families right now. Those who aren't are all ex-military and are holding up around twenty kilometres or so north-west of Ocotal right now."
Noticing something is just off the trail they had been following just ahead, Rockwell signals for them all to stop. Instantly O'Neill diced into cover behind a tree before waving covertly to Granger and Newman to take up forward flanking positions while he, Burke and Rockwell moved up forward allowing the motion tracker on his exo-frame's helmet to detect any near-by movement. "At least we know we're on the right track."
As Rockwell and Burke moved into cover positions around the fallen person while O'Neill moves to check on the man to see if he is still alive, as he reaches to check for a pulse Rogelio wakes up which makes both O'Neill and Burke to jump out of their skin.
"I've been shot." Says Rogelio. "Argh! No, no, no." he moans as O'Neill lifts him slightly to see the wound.
"You have been shot." Deadpans O'Neill as he gently lowers him back down.
"Si"
"Air rescue should be here in about an hour or so," Says Burke hanging up the sat-phone he had used while O'Neill had been checking over Rogelio.
"Here this should help till they get here." Says Rockwell passing O'Neill a small bacta-gel pouch as Burke raised an eyebrow in curiosity.
"Mucho mejor, and since I've been here for a couple of days, what's another hour or so?" Says Rogelio as the medicated elements from the gel took effect.
"Who did this?" Asks O'Neill as Burke cuts binds that had been used to tie the young man's wrists together, while Granger and Newman moved up from their flanking positions.
"Uno malditas bandios que mueren del dolor del culo." Curses Rogelio.
"Alright, alright we get it." O'Neill reassures him while tapping him gently on the shoulder. "We're here looking for two scientists and their research assistant."
"Doctor Jackson? They have him. "Rogelio says having calmed down a little from his rant, thanks to the medication in the bacta-gel. "They went north back across the border, go."
"We're not just going to leave you." Says Rockwell having used the built in medical scanner in his suit to check him over for any internal bleeding.
"Sure you can, senor." Says Rogelio slight shrug and getting high from the pain med's. "Help will be here soon, don't worry. This isn't the first time that I have been shot, go save your friends please, the own me a lot of money."
"Ah." Says O'Neill as the others all start to laugh before standing to move out again. As they start to move Burke tosses the injured man a pack of Stride gum.
"I love American gum." Rogelio says as he opens the gum and takes a piece out. "Good men."
-{[]}-
"He moved. I killed him. It was as simple as that, I thought that he was a hostile, you know." Says Burke about half an hour after they had left Rogelio.
"It's all history Burke," Says O'Neill as he moved a low hanging branch out of his way, "and now's not really the time."
"I know that we were out of position. I wanted to cut down the angle as you approached the objective, I'm guessing that Woods was doing the same."
"So the pair of you both took it upon yourselves to improvise at the exact same time?" Asks O'Neill doing his best impression of his SG1 team mate and friend Teal'c.
"That's right."
-{[]}-
Selmak/ Carter continued to work at the console in the lab which was connected to the tank which was holding the Goa'uld queen while Welsh continued to cover the door.
"Judging by the number of holding tanks in this room Anubis must be planning to have this queen breed him an army of symbiote's, the question is why?" Says major Carter as she finishes planting a few C4 charges around the room and makes her way over to where her father was. "Goa'uld symbiote's poses the genetic memory of which ever queen spawns it, they're the very definition of egomaniacal and power hungry, not the best combination for a foot soldier."
"I've met senator Kinsey," Jokes Selmak/ Carter. "but that is correct, however take a look at these readings." He says as he points to the holographic screen which was showing a real time brain scan of the queen. "This queen whomever it is has to be in league with Anubis, she is preparing to go through a spawning cycle, yet her brainwave patterns are at almost at the bare minimum, she has absolutely no intention of passing on any of her genetic memory to the symbiote's, they'll be completely blank slates."
"Just like what happened with Egeria on Pangar." Says Teal'c remembering the mission a few months prior in which SG1 had found the Tok'ra's queen just before she had died due to complications from her captivity.
"And Anubis is free to imprint whatever he seems fit, with no free will, they're nothing but drones, the perfect foot soldier. Deadly, fearless and with total unquestioning loyalty." Supplied Selmak/ Carter.
"This is too similar to what happened on Pangar to be a coincidence. How on earth did Anubis find out about Egeria?"
"Jonas Quinn." Deadpans Teal'c in his monotone voice, having already worked it out. "When he was captured by Anubis, he must have discovered this information when he used a mind probe like he did on Supreme Command Thor, and took the information directly from his mind."
"If Anubis had any plans on creating a type of drone soldier, that information may have been the missing part of the puzzle."
"This queen must not be allowed to spawn again."
"Teal'c's right."
"One queen killer coming at you." Says Welsh as she tosses a high-grade anti-proton remote detonating explosive charge pack over to Teal'c.
"Alright, we'll take what time we have remaining and try and find out anything else we can to do with Anubis's plans. Then we detonate all the charges and get the hell out of here." Major Carter says as Teal'c places the demo-charge in a spot where it would do the most damage while being out of sight on the queen's tank.
-{[]}-
Back on earth Jackson is using a boot and their belts on the rear wall to make an opening so that they can escape while Cochrane kept watch on the rebels to make sure that they weren't discovered.
"Shouldn't we at least… wait till nightfall." Pants Lee.
"I don't think we have that long." Says Jackson over the sound of straining wood.
"We won't get even a hundred yards before they kill us." Mutters Cochrane.
"If we stay then the Goa'uld that's taken over the leader of these rebels will kill us. I've seen the short term effects of that device, I know what a sarcophagus does to a person's sanity, couple that with the already psychopathic nature of this Goa'uld, and this thing is easily a hundred times more powerful."
"I'm guessing that we don't want to hang around to see what the long term effects are going to be then?" Says Cochrane still leaning on the frame of the door to their cell.
-{[]}-
Over on the far side of the small compound, in the hut which they had been interrogated in, the rebel who had been killed by the Goa'uld suddenly took a deep gasping breath, like he had just emerged from under water, as the healing properties of the devices radiation revives him and he sits up.
-{[]}-
"Could be just a couple more kilometres now." Says Burke as he continues leading O'Neill, Newman, Granger and Rockwell through the jungle, before he turned to face O'Neill over his shoulder. "How can you trust me?"
"I don't." Replies O'Neill before he takes a swig from his canteen.
"You think that I asked for you and these three to come down here just so that I could kill you too?"
"Now why would I think that?" Asks O'Neill realising that Burke had stopped.
"Forget that I said anything." Burke says as he adjusts the carry sling for his rifle.
"You've had plenty of opportunities before this one."
"What's worse is that you think that I'm nothing but an incompetent enganor."
"For crying out loud Burke!"
"So you're perfectly willing to go into a hot situation with me watching your back?"
"We've," Says O'Neill putting emphasis on the word, "got no choice, and personally I was thinking of sending you in first and me watching your back."
"You wanna know the truth? I mean come on you mean to tell me that you honestly don't want to know?" Burke says almost pleading. "Man, it wasn't my fault, I mean I didn't chose too I just reacted. It stinks, the whole damn thing stinks. You wanna know what really happened, fine. I'll tell you. Wood's he was ghosting us, he'd sold us out, he was sending out a rouge transmission which was giving away our position. When he realised that I was onto him, he turned his weapon on me and I just reacted."
O'Neill looked at Burke realising that he had been carrying this guilt around with him for nearly twenty years, relaxed his facial features a little before he asked. "Why didn't you come forward with this?"
"You remember how close we were, what with the wives, the beers and the barbecues', I couldn't have done that to Cindy. If it ever came out that Wood's was a traitor you know that she wouldn't have seen a penny of his pension. He was a month away from retirement, but the thing is he wasn't planning on retiring he was setting himself up as a mercenary for that South American drug lord, Sanchez. He made his choice and now he's gone, that's all that matters." He says as he brushes past O'Neill to catch up with Newman and the others a little further ahead.
-{[]}-
As Jackson finished prising off the last of the wall so that could escape, the unmistakeable sound of an AK-47 on semi-fire mode makes all three captives realise that they may have just run out of time. Deciding to forego stealth Jackson and Cochrane just kick out the final piece of wall before squeezing out of the hole that they had made, and make a break for the treeline.
On the other side of the makeshift compound that the Goa'uld used as a base for these rebels, the rebels where taking cover as their recently killed comrade was walking around shooting at everything.
As he reached the treeline Jackson hugs a tree to shield himself from view as he looks back at the compound, and sees that all of the small number of rebels are shooting at the resurrected form of the recently killed rebel. "Not good!" he says as he pats Cochrane on the shoulder as he passes, and the three of them continue their escape into the treeline of the jungle.
"Disparen!" Shouts the Goa'uld as he and the rest of the remaining rebels open fire with a mix of AK-47's and several short barrel shot-guns. After around five minutes of continues fire the zombiefied rebel collapses, once he was down the Goa'uld nudges the rebel next to him, who in turn taps the next guy along to go see and make sure that he is dead for certain this time.
Once they are sure the Goa'uld and two of the remaining rebels practically run to the hut which they had placed their captives in and opened the door only to be confronted with the sight of the missing rear wall and no prisoners.
"NOOOO!" The Goa'uld screams allowing his anger to overcome him so that he loses total control, before he spins and snaps at the two rebels that were next to him. "You let them escape! Find them, and kill them NOW!" He commands using his normal double flanged voice, as they all make for the treeline behind the compound.
