Abduction
This one is slightly less puny, but these chapters are anything but consistent.
It was dark now. They had been hunting for Carter all day. The men were tiring but none complained. They had one warehouse left to search. She had to be there. She just had to be. A siren screamed somewhere behind them. A fire truck shot past, overtaking them. They'd be at the warehouse in three minutes. Another siren behind them. A police car followed the fire truck.
"Somebody called 911." The driver observed needlessly as a third siren heralded a second fire truck. A fifteen foot separated them from the warehouse.
"Is that smoke?" One of the retrieval team asked, pointing at grey vapour, rising beyond the wall. It was.
They all slid a little as the truck screamed into the warehouse yard. The driver swore and braked hard.
As Jack looked out of the truck's windscreen, the scene before him made him freeze. He couldn't feel his own body any more. His heart pounded in his ears. The police car was vacant, the cops standing surveying the scene. The fire trucks stood beside them, pouring water onto the warehouse. Except it wasn't a warehouse now. Two walls still stood, but the roof had fallen in on the blazing interior to burn with it. How?
Jack clambered out of the truck and ran over to the cops, shouting,
"What the hell happened here?"
"Airforce?" One of them asked unhurriedly.
"Obviously. Answer the damn question."
"Just a disused warehouse going up. Looks like arson to me. Probably kids on a dare, or just stoned. Trouble is, no CCTV in this area." Arson. They'd burned down the place they'd been keeping Carter. Please, somebody say she'd got out, that she was here somewhere, alive.
"OK!" The retrieval team leader shouted, having listened in. "We wait for the fire lot to finish putting it out, then search for the objective, alive or dead."
"You're looking for someone?" The cop interrupted.
"Yes."
"Major Samantha Carter?"
"Yes."
"Got the alert. Haven't seen nothing."
They waited. Jonas, Teal'c and Fraiser looked almost as fearful as Jack felt. It was an eternity, waiting, powerless. As the last vestiges of the fire died, he almost ran on to the hot rubble, hearing the orders for the perimeter sweep. He wasn't the only one on the building's skeleton now.
"Carter!" The dry, smoky air drained his voice, "Carter!"
Jonas heaved a chunk of plasterboard aside and froze.
"Oh, no." His voice and face were more than fearful now, shocked, pained. "Doctor Fraiser, Colonel, Teal'c, get over here!" Jack slid backwards off the rubble and sprinted round to Jonas. Doctor Fraiser was doing the same from the other side. He got there first and froze, as Jonas had. A body. A human body, burned out of recognition lay before Jonas. No! She couldn't be. Not now, not after all she'd survived. Fraiser appeared next to him. She half gasped, then began to look at the body carefully, holding her hands over it, as if measuring in fists or spans. Teal'c arrived, panting a little.
"It's not Sam Colonel." Fraiser said decisively. "This is a male body." Relief flooded Jack. There was still a chance she was here, alive. He hardly heard Fraiser's order to bag the body up. He was searching again.
For perhaps three minutes, Jack clawed through the hot rubble with his hands, then a retrieval airman's shouted curse made everyone freeze.
"Ah... Doctor Fraiser, you need to see this!" He shouted. Jack followed Fraiser to the Airman, mouth dry. She got there first and restarted her scrutiny, her measuring of another body. Jack drew closer.
"This is the part where you tell me this isn't Carter either." He said. The look Fraiser gave him replaced an answer. No! Oh God, no!