1600, Bollins Air Force Base, Washington D.C.
O'Neill ran from the office block and headed towards the heli-pad. He rounded a corner of the hanger and saw the Iroquois sitting on the pad with its rotors spinning and unhooked his P90 before jumping into the co-pilot's seat. "Ok major, get us in the air and head for Cheyenne Mountain!"
"Yes sir!" Shouted Sheppard as he twisted the throttle.
As the helicopter lifted into the air and headed South-Eastward, O'Neill turned to the people behind him and had to shout again to be heard. "Still nothing on the source of the transmission! We'll head back to the SGC, hopefully they'll have something for us when we get back!"
Mulder leaned forward. "But we know Krychek was around here! Going back to Colorado means going away from him!"
"I know! But with those Goa'uld motherships on their way, we need to get back to deal with them as well! Lesser of two evils, Agent Mulder!"
Carter, who was sitting with her back to the Pilot, turned to O'Neill. "Who's looking for the signal?"
"Dr Lee!" Shouted O'Neill. "So it's a safe bet we'll never find the damn thing!"
Five minutes later, Sheppard turned to O'Neill. "Colonel, SGC on the horn! It's General Hammond!" He tapped his earphones in emphasis.
O'Neill grabbed a second pair and put them on. "Sierra Golf Charlie, Sierra Golf One. Go ahead."
In his earphones, the unmistakeable Texan accent of General Hammond sounded loud and clear. "Colonel, Dr Lee has found an anomaly which he claims could be the source of the signal."
"Frankly sir, I'm amazed. Where?"
"In Northern Idaho, somewhere between Spokane in Washington and Missoula in Montana. It's pretty wild country up there Colonel. We'll narrow it down and get a grid reference to you asap."
"Ok. How did he find it sir?"
"It showed up as a seismic event. I'm not sure how he made the connection, but he did. I'm sending the co-ordinates to you now Colonel. Good luck, Hammond out."
O'Neill turned and told everyone else what Hammond had said. Daniel was the first to react. "The Tollan!"
O'Neill looked at him. "What?" He shouted incredulously.
"When we first met the Tollan, they used a communication device that sent a pulse! That pulse registered as a minor seismic event! Buluc must be using similar technology! Dr Lee did it, he found the source!"
"You and Lee had better be right about this Daniel!" Without waiting for a reply, O'Neill turned to Sheppard. "Do you have the co-ordinates?"
"Yes sir!" Replied the Pilot.
"How long?"
"Not long sir, it's not really that far!"
O'Neill gestured with his hand to indicate that they should go there now. Sheppard banked the Iroquois to the left and the pitch of the engine wound up as he coaxed more speed out of the aircraft.
No one really spoke much during the flight. Mulder asked Maybourne if he knew of any NID facilities in the area they were headed, but he said he didn't. Other than that, everyone was content to be left to their own thoughts as they watched the countryside pass by below them. By now, the area was quite barren. They could see various roads passing through forested hills, but the terrain was quite hilly and rocky with deep crags and high ridges, so communities were few and far between.
Suddenly, an intermittent buzzer sounded loud and Sheppard just had time to shout for everyone to hang on before he threw the Iroquois to the right. Something sped past the left side of the aircraft, leaving a trail of grey smoke behind it.
"What the hell!" Shouted O'Neill as he watched the missile continue on it's course away from them. He looked behind them and saw two black helicopters. "Two bogeys, five o'clock medium! They're Hughes H500s! Are we hot?"
"Over American soil?" Shouted Sheppard as he brought the Iroquois under control.
Carter leaned out the open door on her side of the helicopter. "Bogey number three, five o'clock low!" She ducked back in as streaks of light flew past the helicopter. "Tracer rounds! He's using guns!"
O'Neill, Teal'c and Daniel all grabbed their P90s, with O'Neill having to aim out of a small window. "Sheppard! Break left, now now NOW!"
Sheppard threw the stick over and manipulated the foot paddles, altering the angle of the rotor blades to throw the aircraft over to the left. As the aircraft banked over, the three men had to raise their aim slightly to compensate. Then they opened fire, just as the center helicopter opened up with its midi-gun mounted underneath. Just as the loud 'tat-tat-tat' sound of bullets striking the Iroquois could be heard, so a shower of sparks could be seen striking both chasing helicopters. The center helicopter broke first, darting to it's left as its pilot panicked. The center helicopter collided with its neighbour, just as it fired its second missile, slicing the tail boom in half and shredding its own rotors in the process. Ruptured fuel lines spewed fuel that ignited as wrecked rotors that were still spinning caused sparks as metal struck metal and the first helicopter erupted in a ball of flame, causing the second helicopter to also catch fire. Together, the two burning wrecks dropped out of the sky, trailing thick black smoke as they plummeted to the ground far below. The missile just missed the front of the Iroquois as the helicopter flew through the exhaust smoke of the weapon.
Sheppard swung the Iroquois back around to the right and dipped the nose, trying to maintain evasive manoeuvres. "Where's the third one?" He shouted.
Scully, who was hanging on for dear life in front of Carter, shouted, "Three o'clock high!"
Bullets ripped through the front canopy of the Iroquois, missing both O'Neill and Sheppard by inches. But these came from the left. Teal'c opened fire with his P90 as he shouted a warning. "There are more of them!"
"Of course there are!" Shouted O'Neill as he also opened fire. On the opposite side of the Iroquois came the sound of more gunfire as Carter opened up with her P90 and Mulder and Scully fired their handguns in a futile attempt to help out.
But it was too late, the damage had been done. The rounds that had just missed O'Neill and Sheppard had smashed the control console of the Iroquois and, as black smoke filled the cockpit and the Iroquois began to lose height, Sheppard could be heard shouting. "Not good! Not good! Hang on, we're going down!" As the nose of the aircraft dipped forwards, everyone could feel themselves being pushed to the side as the helicopter began spinning wildly out of control to the right. "They must've.. hit the.. tail rotor! I.. can't control it! Brace.. for impact!"
For what seemed an interminably long time, Sheppard kept the stricken helicopter in the air. With the black smoke obscuring almost all vision and the wild spinning disorientating them even further, all anyone could do was sit and wait for the inevitable impact. However, after what was, in reality, only a few seconds, it appeared that Sheppard managed to get some control over the helicopter. He had seen a small clearing that, if he could guide the stricken aircraft towards it, would give them a better chance of surviving the crash than hitting the trees. As he managed to almost pull it out of its wild spin, however, the helicopter hit the hard deck with a bone jarring impact.
For O'Neill, Carter, Teal'c, Sheppard, and even Maybourne, years of hard training came to the fore. Although still badly disorientated and shaken, they immediately escaped from their safety belts, grabbed weapons, packs and those without years of training and jumped out of the aircraft. Straight away they headed for the treeline, Carter and Maybourne pulling Mulder and Scully and Teal'c helping Daniel. The clearing wasn't very big and O'Neill, Teal'c and Daniel soon made it inside the trees and out of sight of any helicopters still flying around. However, just as Carter, Sheppard, Maybourne, Mulder and Scully were almost at the treeline, the ground heaved from an explosion behind them. The concussion from the blast threw them all forward onto the ground and they quickly scrambled into the trees to find cover from falling debris.
As the sound of the explosion and any falling debris receded, Carter ordered everyone to move and she led them deeper into the trees, away from the crash site. They had only gone a few yards when Sheppard shouted for everyone to get down as a hail of bullets slammed into their surroundings. "They can't see us so they're strafing the entire area! Everyone get next to a tree and stay down!"
Everyone did as they were instructed and it wasn't long before another hail of bullets ripped up the ground and the surrounding trees. Both Scully and Sheppard ducked reflexively as the trees they were crouched behind took extensive hits and Maybourne shouted for Scully to stay where she was, afraid that she might panic and make a break for it. But the auburn haired Agent held her ground and pressed herself back against the tree. A few seconds later, more bullets tore up the woodland, but this time further out as the remaining helicopters methodically worked their way away from the crash site.
And then there was silence.
Everyone looked up at the canopy of leaves above them, straining their ears for any sign of the pursuing helicopters, but there was none. Sheppard, still breathing heavy from the exertions of their escape, looked over at Major Carter and nodded his head.
Carter, also breathing heavily, nodded in response. She took out a compass and took a baring. "Alright, this way." She said and led them in a Northerly direction.
Half an hour later, they found O'Neill, Daniel and Teal'c who all looked none the worse for the crash and the subsequent attacks of the black helicopters. "Is everyone alright?" Asked O'Neill.
"Yes sir." Replied Carter. "A little shaken maybe, but good to go."
"Alright." He turned to Sheppard. "That was some damn good flying back there Sheppard."
"Thank you sir." Replied Sheppard.
"Could use a man like you at the SGC."
Sheppard looked taken aback by the comment. "Thank you sir, but I'm due to ship out to McMurdo soon."
"Good, so are we." Said O'Neill jovially. "Apparently, there's something out there that we need to see. Something cold, and old. And did I mention, cold?"