From Here To Eternity: The Road to Redemption, The Second Step
Part 6
All disclaimers can be found in Part 0
***
"Makepeace is here."
Crater smiled. "You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. I just watched them drive up and walk into the house. They here now."
"Where in the house?"
"Right now, they're in the kitchen all sitting around the kitchen table like they were getting ready for a friendly poker game. Jackson has just poured everyone coffee and Carter even put some sandwich fixings on the table."
"Well looks like it's lunch time at the OK Corral."
***
O'Neill watched as Carter finished emptying the refrigerator of everything that could be slapped onto a sandwich. When she was finished she sat down opposite him and shrugged.
"Sandwiches?"
"Well sir, I wasn't sure when the last time you had eaten so I ..." she trailed off when she saw the bemused look on his face.
"It's all right Carter, I'm sure that Daniel is hungry. He didn't eat or drink anything on the plane," he said.
"I couldn't eat anything on the plane and neither could anyone else." Daniel finished pouring coffee for everyone and sat down next to Teal'c. "Jack had the attendants so enamored of him that all they did for the entire flight was wait on him. How many bags of peanuts 'did' you eat?" he teased.
O'Neill shrugged. "Well I couldn't very well be rude now could I, Daniel?"
"No I guess you couldn't ... even when that little boy asked his Mom why the big man was getting all the peanuts and no one else was getting any."
"It wasn't my fault and I did give him a couple of bags," protested O'Neill.
"Only after he started crying."
The light bantering stopped when an arm reached out for a couple of slices of bread and everyone turned to look at the odd man out at the table. O'Neill's hand shot out and grabbed Makepeace's wrist as he reached for a knife.
"It's just a butter knife, Jack. What can I do with a butter knife?"
O'Neill didn't let go of Makepeace's wrist, staring into his eyes. "It's Colonel to you Makepeace and you can do the same thing with a butter knife that I can."
The rest of O'Neill's team watched in silence at the test of wills between O'Neill and Makepeace. All but Teal'c exhaled slowly when Makepeace's eyes moved to his hand and he dropped the knife.
"Fine, I'll just spread the mustard and mayo with a piece of cheese."
O'Neill let go of Makepeace's wrist and sat back in his chair. "Let's get something straight here. You're a prisoner. You're my prisoner. You'll do what I say and when I say it. Is that clear?"
Makepeace raised his wrists and shook them, rattling the handcuffs. "Like I could forget?" When he didn't receive a verbal answer, he turned to Carter. "Major could you pass me a piece of that swiss cheese, please."
Carter passed Makepeace the plate of cheese and watched with everyone else as he started to make himself a sandwich, handcuffs rattling with each movement. When O'Neill noticed Carter and Teal'c staring at him, he muttered, "Oh fer cryin' out loud." He reached into his pocket and produced a small key. "Makepeace give me your hands." He removed the handcuffs. "Teal'c's sitting right next to you Makepeace and he's got a damned good right. I know."
Makepeace smiled. "Don't worry Ja... Colonel. I don't plan on going anywhere else today."
***
"Sure you have enough men, Crater?"
Crater looked around and smiled. "Possibly. There's always a chance though that you'll need a few reserves," he answered nodding at the road where another SUV was pulling up. Six more heavily armed, heavily armored men spilled out. "They're the reserves."
***
The table cleared of all the food stuffs except for coffee cups, Daniel set up his digital recorder at the end of table facing Makepeace. It would be a visual recording of everything that Makepeace wanted to say.
Jack began, "All right Makepeace, you said you could give us the people over Maybourne and you. So start."
"Giving you the names will be the easy part," said Makepeace.
"And the hard part?" asked Daniel.
Makepeace paused and locked eyes with Daniel before answering, "You believing me."
O'Neill suddenly sat forward in his chair and clapped his hands on the table. "Oh fer cryin' out loud Makepeace. Just what exactly are you expecting here? You want us to just jump up and down for joy and welcome you back? 'Hey no problem ole buddy. Forget it ever happened. We all make mistakes and it really wasn't any big deal anyway. Who cares that you went against everything that we've tried so hard to accomplish over the last three years? Who cares if you almost lost us the only friends and allies we've got out there? Who cares that you betrayed our trust ... that you betrayed my trust?'"
All eyes were riveted on O'Neill including Makepeace's who when O'Neill was finished, lowered his head and whispered, "That's it isn't it Jack? I betrayed you ... not the SGC ... not Hammond ... you?"
O'Neill jumped up, knocking his chair to the ground, his hands fists as he towered over Makepeace. His face suffused with blood and his expression one of temper out of control. Teal'c too stood and took a step behind Makepeace's chair where he gently placed a restraining hand on O'Neill's closest shoulder. Makepeace continued to stare at his lap.
Seconds passed ... then minutes. Slowly the blood drained from O'Neill's face and his shoulders relaxed ... fists changed to hands again.
Daniel got up and replaced the chair that O'Neill had knocked over holding it for him. His face a mask as he waited for O'Neill to sit. Finally O'Neill did and Daniel went back to his chair and sat. Teal'c did the same.
As if nothing had happened, O'Neill sat back in his chair, crossed him arms over his chest, looked pointedly at Makepeace and said, "Names."
***
Crater took the lead into the trees surrounding the safe house. Just before reaching the line that had been set up by the perimeter guard, he paused. He looked left and right and smiled in satisfaction when he didn't see any of his people. He looked at his watch ... another 60 seconds and ... He felt rather than witnessed one of his people jumping the gun. Looking up quickly he saw one of the perimeter guards, rifle at the ready, racing across the yard in front of him toward his position. He calmly raised his Berreta and shot the man through the heart. That's when all hell broke loose.
***
Hearing rifle fire, the four members of SG-1 and Makepeace jumped from their chairs and ran to the windows staying out of sight, but peering outside. Sgt. Kamir came running into the room. "Someone has broken through the perimeter. We're under attack," she reported before leaving back the way she had come.
O'Neill pulled his pistol and chambered a round. He grabbed Makepeace's arm and hustled him towards the kitchen door to the hallway. "Carter you remain here. Teal'c upstairs. Daniel, living room. Kamir is in the back bedroom."
Daniel nodded, following behind Teal'c. "Where are you going to be?"
"Makepeace and I are going to be in the den with the surveillance equipment." Pulling an earpiece from his pocket he added, "Make sure your wires are in. Oh, and good luck." Then with Makepeace in tow, he ran from the room.
"Yeah," Daniel nodded. "Good luck."
***
Teal'c mounted the stairs three at a time. He had grabbed his staff weapon and a zat gun and ran into the bedroom facing the front of the house. Standing so he could see out the window but not be seen, he looked outside. Two bodies littered the ground. Both were wearing black BDUs, P90s laying unused next to motionless hands. He heard gunfire coming from directly under his position. Someone was down there shooting into the woods in front of the house. The bushes parted when a body fell forward. Three now dead on the front lawn.
He moved quickly to the back bedroom and the window that overlooked the lawn. He broke the glass from the window, pushed his staff weapon through and fired hitting the man who was running across the grass towards the back door of the house. Then he dodged a spray of bullets that tore into the window frame in front of him.
***
Carter had seen the man running across the lawn and just as she was going to fire, she saw the man go down from Teal'c's staff weapon blast 20 feet from the door to the kitchen. Silently thanking Teal'c she saw the muzzle flash of an automatic rifle, she took aim and emptied the clip of her .45 firing towards it. Not knowing whether or not she had hit anything of importance besides leaves and tree trunks, she released the empty clip and had a fresh one inserted before the empty one hit the ground. A heartbeat later, three men rushed from the bushes and ran towards the house in a zig zag pattern. She emptied another clip as staff weapon blasts tore up the manicured lawn of the backyard. Bullets tore through the broken windows and wall next to where she stood as she reloaded again. She didn't get the chance to fire before she had to drop to the floor to avoid being hit by the fuselage of bullets that peppered the house.
***
Daniel was glad that O'Neill had taken him to the range until he was proficient with the .45 he now aimed out the living room window. "Three rounds per target is all you need," O'Neill had said. That's what he tried to do now and one man 'had' gone down. He watched and waited for someone else to show themselves and give him a clear target when bullets began slamming into the window and the wall around it. Ducking splinters of broken glass and shards of wood, he covered his head.
***
O'Neill pushed Makepeace into an inside corner of the room while he went to the window in the west wall. "Stay there," he said as he looked out. He fired through the glass at the two men advancing from the tree line. One went completely down, the other one grabbed his left arm and ran back to the trees. Shooting someone in the back wasn't something O'Neill relished, but in this he had no choice. He aimed and pulled the trigger. Three rounds found their way into the man's back and he fell face down on the grass.
"Give me a gun, Jack," shouted Makepeace.
Without turning around, O'Neill yelled, "No. You're a prisoner, remember."
"Yeah a prisoner who has a couple of dozen people trying to kill him," he shouted back. "Jack, give me a sidearm and I'm another person who can help us all stay alive."
A hail of bullets forced O'Neill to duck for cover. "Damn it," he yelled as he dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a key ring throwing it to Makepeace. "In the top middle drawer of the desk. Don't make me regret this."
Makepeace caught the keys and scurried crab like over to the desk. He found the right key and unlocked the drawer pulling out a .45 and several clips. As he cocked the pistol he glanced around at all the monitoring equipment in the room, some of it now full of bullet holes. "All your fancy surveillance equipment didn't do a damned thing, did it?" he asked. "Can't even call for help, the radio's gone," he added joining O'Neill at the window.
Keeping one eye on the yard in front him as best he could considering that bullets kept hitting the house making the walls look like some giant sieve, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket. "Speed dial," he said as he pushed a button. "This is O'Neill. I've got a code red at the safe house," he got out before a stray bullet shattered his phone. He looked at his hand now covered in blood and slowly raised his eyes to those of Makepeace before he slipped into unconsciousness.
***
"Colonel!" Carter yelled into her radio, "they've got us seriously outgunned and out numbered." She aimed at another man trying to outrace her bullets and Teal'c's staff weapon in his bid for the back door of the house. The man went down but whether it was from her or Teal'c she couldn't tell ... didn't care just as long as he went down. "Colonel!" she yelled again when she didn't get a reply. Still no answer. "Daniel! Teal'c! I think the Colonel's down," she announced once more dropping flat onto the kitchen floor to avoid bullets.
"Maybe his radio's out," she heard Daniel say as she slowly raised herself to look out the window again.
"Where's Kamir?"
"I'm here, Major Carter. I'm almost out of ..."
"Damn," muttered Carter taking aim at another invader. "Kamir?"
"I'm on my way down to her position, MajorCarter," she heard Teal'c say. "Someone got past on her side of the house."
***
Teal'c ran down the stairs and barrelled into a man coming out of the room that Kamir had been guarding. He and the man fired at the same time. Teal'c his staff weapon, the man an AK-47 which jammed after delivering a short burst. The sound was deafening in the enclosed hallway.
Teal'c watched as the man fell to the ground, a smoldering hole in his chest. Then he too sunk to the floor to lay in a pool of his own blood.
***
Daniel was concentrating on staying alive. "Three round bursts," he kept muttering to himself every time he fired. Ejecting a spent clip and inserting a fresh one, he realized that he was getting good at this. It was almost becoming second nature as much as immediately trying to translate some writings he'd found. "Three round bursts," he said again as he rose up and fired at a man who had made it all the way across the yard to the living room window. "God how many people are out there?" he asked himself as his latest target died on the porch.
***
Carter was asking herself that same question and not finding an answer for it. She'd heard the sound of an AK and a staff weapon in the hallway and after that nothing. She wasn't going to even think that Teal'c might be dead ... or the Colonel. She knew Daniel was still all right. She could hear him muttering to himself over the radio. She reached to pull out another clip and to her horror found that it was her last one.
"Daniel, I'm down to one clip ... how are you doing?"
"Three round bursts ... I'm on my last clip, too. Where's Teal'c?"
Firing off two more shots at a man running across the lawn, she answered, "I heard him in the hallway. I don't know if he's still there. Daniel ..." She paused when she had to fire at another person trying to make his way to the house from the tree line.
"Yeah, Sam?"
"I think we ought to retreat to the hallway when we run out of ammunition. If Teal'c's there he has a staff weapon and a zat."
"Good idea. I'll meet you there in a minute."
The slide on Carter's .45 locked open indicating no more shells. She dropped it and started to crawl across the floor towards the door to the hallway. "I'm on my way, Daniel."
As she reached it, she swiveled her head when she heard the crunch of glass behind her. Her eyes met those of Corporal Jessica Peterson. She exhaled slowly in relief when she realized that she had been holding her breathe. "Corporal Peterson. I'm glad to see it's you."
"You shouldn't, Major," said Peterson as she raised her .45 and aimed it at the middle of Carter's chest. "Not at all." She fired and Carter was thrown back by the impact of the bullets. Peterson smiled when she saw the blood flowing down her left side. "So much for Major Carter," she said as she stepped over Carter's inert body.
***
Peterson walked down the hallway, stepped over the still body of Teal'c on the floor and glanced into the living room. Daniel had his back to her still shooting out the front window. She heard him mutter, "Three bursts only." then heard the slide on his .45 lock. He dropped it and turned only to see the muzzle flashes from Corporal Peterson's .45 just before he was slammed backwards leaving him in a sitting position against the wall. Blood from a wound in his forehead ran down the side of his face to drip on his legs and the floor in front of him.
Peterson raised the muzzle of her .45 up to her lips and blew on it. "Dr. Daniel Jackson down.
The sudden silence that occurred was almost a shock to the system. Peterson turned, heading for the den where she knew O'Neill and Makepeace had holed up. She'd heard Carter's communications and decided that O'Neill was out of the picture, but didn't know if Makepeace was. Since she didn't know if Crater's body littered the outside of the house, she'd figured she'd better find out about Makepeace and put an end to him. That was the only thing she was sure of because if she was the only one left, and if the silence outside was any indication that she was, then it was up to her to take Makepeace out of Jacob Castor's life once and for all. If she wanted to continue living that is.
She stepped over Teal'c again and as her foot hit the floor, something slammed into her back Just below her vest forcing her to stumble and fall. When she hit the ground, her .45 fell out of her hand and slid across the floor. She tried to push herself up. but was unable to do so. Laying there, her left cheek on the floor boards she saw a pair of boots come into view. Forcing herself she managed to raise herself enough to see who it was that was standing there.
"Hello Jessica, dear," said Crater.
"You shot me," she said.
"But of course. That was the plan all along," he said smiling at her. "You couldn't be left the only survivor of this little party. No one would believe that. And you couldn't just disappear after all this was over. Hammond would have figured that you were a plant. We can't have Hammond thinking that we had a plant in the SGC. He might think that where there's one, there might be more." Crater watched Peterson's face, especially her eyes. Just before the light in her eyes faded to nothingness, he knelt down next to her and whispered in her ear, "Besides, I really enjoyed shooting you in the back."
***
continued in part 7
Part 6
All disclaimers can be found in Part 0
***
"Makepeace is here."
Crater smiled. "You're sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. I just watched them drive up and walk into the house. They here now."
"Where in the house?"
"Right now, they're in the kitchen all sitting around the kitchen table like they were getting ready for a friendly poker game. Jackson has just poured everyone coffee and Carter even put some sandwich fixings on the table."
"Well looks like it's lunch time at the OK Corral."
***
O'Neill watched as Carter finished emptying the refrigerator of everything that could be slapped onto a sandwich. When she was finished she sat down opposite him and shrugged.
"Sandwiches?"
"Well sir, I wasn't sure when the last time you had eaten so I ..." she trailed off when she saw the bemused look on his face.
"It's all right Carter, I'm sure that Daniel is hungry. He didn't eat or drink anything on the plane," he said.
"I couldn't eat anything on the plane and neither could anyone else." Daniel finished pouring coffee for everyone and sat down next to Teal'c. "Jack had the attendants so enamored of him that all they did for the entire flight was wait on him. How many bags of peanuts 'did' you eat?" he teased.
O'Neill shrugged. "Well I couldn't very well be rude now could I, Daniel?"
"No I guess you couldn't ... even when that little boy asked his Mom why the big man was getting all the peanuts and no one else was getting any."
"It wasn't my fault and I did give him a couple of bags," protested O'Neill.
"Only after he started crying."
The light bantering stopped when an arm reached out for a couple of slices of bread and everyone turned to look at the odd man out at the table. O'Neill's hand shot out and grabbed Makepeace's wrist as he reached for a knife.
"It's just a butter knife, Jack. What can I do with a butter knife?"
O'Neill didn't let go of Makepeace's wrist, staring into his eyes. "It's Colonel to you Makepeace and you can do the same thing with a butter knife that I can."
The rest of O'Neill's team watched in silence at the test of wills between O'Neill and Makepeace. All but Teal'c exhaled slowly when Makepeace's eyes moved to his hand and he dropped the knife.
"Fine, I'll just spread the mustard and mayo with a piece of cheese."
O'Neill let go of Makepeace's wrist and sat back in his chair. "Let's get something straight here. You're a prisoner. You're my prisoner. You'll do what I say and when I say it. Is that clear?"
Makepeace raised his wrists and shook them, rattling the handcuffs. "Like I could forget?" When he didn't receive a verbal answer, he turned to Carter. "Major could you pass me a piece of that swiss cheese, please."
Carter passed Makepeace the plate of cheese and watched with everyone else as he started to make himself a sandwich, handcuffs rattling with each movement. When O'Neill noticed Carter and Teal'c staring at him, he muttered, "Oh fer cryin' out loud." He reached into his pocket and produced a small key. "Makepeace give me your hands." He removed the handcuffs. "Teal'c's sitting right next to you Makepeace and he's got a damned good right. I know."
Makepeace smiled. "Don't worry Ja... Colonel. I don't plan on going anywhere else today."
***
"Sure you have enough men, Crater?"
Crater looked around and smiled. "Possibly. There's always a chance though that you'll need a few reserves," he answered nodding at the road where another SUV was pulling up. Six more heavily armed, heavily armored men spilled out. "They're the reserves."
***
The table cleared of all the food stuffs except for coffee cups, Daniel set up his digital recorder at the end of table facing Makepeace. It would be a visual recording of everything that Makepeace wanted to say.
Jack began, "All right Makepeace, you said you could give us the people over Maybourne and you. So start."
"Giving you the names will be the easy part," said Makepeace.
"And the hard part?" asked Daniel.
Makepeace paused and locked eyes with Daniel before answering, "You believing me."
O'Neill suddenly sat forward in his chair and clapped his hands on the table. "Oh fer cryin' out loud Makepeace. Just what exactly are you expecting here? You want us to just jump up and down for joy and welcome you back? 'Hey no problem ole buddy. Forget it ever happened. We all make mistakes and it really wasn't any big deal anyway. Who cares that you went against everything that we've tried so hard to accomplish over the last three years? Who cares if you almost lost us the only friends and allies we've got out there? Who cares that you betrayed our trust ... that you betrayed my trust?'"
All eyes were riveted on O'Neill including Makepeace's who when O'Neill was finished, lowered his head and whispered, "That's it isn't it Jack? I betrayed you ... not the SGC ... not Hammond ... you?"
O'Neill jumped up, knocking his chair to the ground, his hands fists as he towered over Makepeace. His face suffused with blood and his expression one of temper out of control. Teal'c too stood and took a step behind Makepeace's chair where he gently placed a restraining hand on O'Neill's closest shoulder. Makepeace continued to stare at his lap.
Seconds passed ... then minutes. Slowly the blood drained from O'Neill's face and his shoulders relaxed ... fists changed to hands again.
Daniel got up and replaced the chair that O'Neill had knocked over holding it for him. His face a mask as he waited for O'Neill to sit. Finally O'Neill did and Daniel went back to his chair and sat. Teal'c did the same.
As if nothing had happened, O'Neill sat back in his chair, crossed him arms over his chest, looked pointedly at Makepeace and said, "Names."
***
Crater took the lead into the trees surrounding the safe house. Just before reaching the line that had been set up by the perimeter guard, he paused. He looked left and right and smiled in satisfaction when he didn't see any of his people. He looked at his watch ... another 60 seconds and ... He felt rather than witnessed one of his people jumping the gun. Looking up quickly he saw one of the perimeter guards, rifle at the ready, racing across the yard in front of him toward his position. He calmly raised his Berreta and shot the man through the heart. That's when all hell broke loose.
***
Hearing rifle fire, the four members of SG-1 and Makepeace jumped from their chairs and ran to the windows staying out of sight, but peering outside. Sgt. Kamir came running into the room. "Someone has broken through the perimeter. We're under attack," she reported before leaving back the way she had come.
O'Neill pulled his pistol and chambered a round. He grabbed Makepeace's arm and hustled him towards the kitchen door to the hallway. "Carter you remain here. Teal'c upstairs. Daniel, living room. Kamir is in the back bedroom."
Daniel nodded, following behind Teal'c. "Where are you going to be?"
"Makepeace and I are going to be in the den with the surveillance equipment." Pulling an earpiece from his pocket he added, "Make sure your wires are in. Oh, and good luck." Then with Makepeace in tow, he ran from the room.
"Yeah," Daniel nodded. "Good luck."
***
Teal'c mounted the stairs three at a time. He had grabbed his staff weapon and a zat gun and ran into the bedroom facing the front of the house. Standing so he could see out the window but not be seen, he looked outside. Two bodies littered the ground. Both were wearing black BDUs, P90s laying unused next to motionless hands. He heard gunfire coming from directly under his position. Someone was down there shooting into the woods in front of the house. The bushes parted when a body fell forward. Three now dead on the front lawn.
He moved quickly to the back bedroom and the window that overlooked the lawn. He broke the glass from the window, pushed his staff weapon through and fired hitting the man who was running across the grass towards the back door of the house. Then he dodged a spray of bullets that tore into the window frame in front of him.
***
Carter had seen the man running across the lawn and just as she was going to fire, she saw the man go down from Teal'c's staff weapon blast 20 feet from the door to the kitchen. Silently thanking Teal'c she saw the muzzle flash of an automatic rifle, she took aim and emptied the clip of her .45 firing towards it. Not knowing whether or not she had hit anything of importance besides leaves and tree trunks, she released the empty clip and had a fresh one inserted before the empty one hit the ground. A heartbeat later, three men rushed from the bushes and ran towards the house in a zig zag pattern. She emptied another clip as staff weapon blasts tore up the manicured lawn of the backyard. Bullets tore through the broken windows and wall next to where she stood as she reloaded again. She didn't get the chance to fire before she had to drop to the floor to avoid being hit by the fuselage of bullets that peppered the house.
***
Daniel was glad that O'Neill had taken him to the range until he was proficient with the .45 he now aimed out the living room window. "Three rounds per target is all you need," O'Neill had said. That's what he tried to do now and one man 'had' gone down. He watched and waited for someone else to show themselves and give him a clear target when bullets began slamming into the window and the wall around it. Ducking splinters of broken glass and shards of wood, he covered his head.
***
O'Neill pushed Makepeace into an inside corner of the room while he went to the window in the west wall. "Stay there," he said as he looked out. He fired through the glass at the two men advancing from the tree line. One went completely down, the other one grabbed his left arm and ran back to the trees. Shooting someone in the back wasn't something O'Neill relished, but in this he had no choice. He aimed and pulled the trigger. Three rounds found their way into the man's back and he fell face down on the grass.
"Give me a gun, Jack," shouted Makepeace.
Without turning around, O'Neill yelled, "No. You're a prisoner, remember."
"Yeah a prisoner who has a couple of dozen people trying to kill him," he shouted back. "Jack, give me a sidearm and I'm another person who can help us all stay alive."
A hail of bullets forced O'Neill to duck for cover. "Damn it," he yelled as he dug into his pants pocket and pulled out a key ring throwing it to Makepeace. "In the top middle drawer of the desk. Don't make me regret this."
Makepeace caught the keys and scurried crab like over to the desk. He found the right key and unlocked the drawer pulling out a .45 and several clips. As he cocked the pistol he glanced around at all the monitoring equipment in the room, some of it now full of bullet holes. "All your fancy surveillance equipment didn't do a damned thing, did it?" he asked. "Can't even call for help, the radio's gone," he added joining O'Neill at the window.
Keeping one eye on the yard in front him as best he could considering that bullets kept hitting the house making the walls look like some giant sieve, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket. "Speed dial," he said as he pushed a button. "This is O'Neill. I've got a code red at the safe house," he got out before a stray bullet shattered his phone. He looked at his hand now covered in blood and slowly raised his eyes to those of Makepeace before he slipped into unconsciousness.
***
"Colonel!" Carter yelled into her radio, "they've got us seriously outgunned and out numbered." She aimed at another man trying to outrace her bullets and Teal'c's staff weapon in his bid for the back door of the house. The man went down but whether it was from her or Teal'c she couldn't tell ... didn't care just as long as he went down. "Colonel!" she yelled again when she didn't get a reply. Still no answer. "Daniel! Teal'c! I think the Colonel's down," she announced once more dropping flat onto the kitchen floor to avoid bullets.
"Maybe his radio's out," she heard Daniel say as she slowly raised herself to look out the window again.
"Where's Kamir?"
"I'm here, Major Carter. I'm almost out of ..."
"Damn," muttered Carter taking aim at another invader. "Kamir?"
"I'm on my way down to her position, MajorCarter," she heard Teal'c say. "Someone got past on her side of the house."
***
Teal'c ran down the stairs and barrelled into a man coming out of the room that Kamir had been guarding. He and the man fired at the same time. Teal'c his staff weapon, the man an AK-47 which jammed after delivering a short burst. The sound was deafening in the enclosed hallway.
Teal'c watched as the man fell to the ground, a smoldering hole in his chest. Then he too sunk to the floor to lay in a pool of his own blood.
***
Daniel was concentrating on staying alive. "Three round bursts," he kept muttering to himself every time he fired. Ejecting a spent clip and inserting a fresh one, he realized that he was getting good at this. It was almost becoming second nature as much as immediately trying to translate some writings he'd found. "Three round bursts," he said again as he rose up and fired at a man who had made it all the way across the yard to the living room window. "God how many people are out there?" he asked himself as his latest target died on the porch.
***
Carter was asking herself that same question and not finding an answer for it. She'd heard the sound of an AK and a staff weapon in the hallway and after that nothing. She wasn't going to even think that Teal'c might be dead ... or the Colonel. She knew Daniel was still all right. She could hear him muttering to himself over the radio. She reached to pull out another clip and to her horror found that it was her last one.
"Daniel, I'm down to one clip ... how are you doing?"
"Three round bursts ... I'm on my last clip, too. Where's Teal'c?"
Firing off two more shots at a man running across the lawn, she answered, "I heard him in the hallway. I don't know if he's still there. Daniel ..." She paused when she had to fire at another person trying to make his way to the house from the tree line.
"Yeah, Sam?"
"I think we ought to retreat to the hallway when we run out of ammunition. If Teal'c's there he has a staff weapon and a zat."
"Good idea. I'll meet you there in a minute."
The slide on Carter's .45 locked open indicating no more shells. She dropped it and started to crawl across the floor towards the door to the hallway. "I'm on my way, Daniel."
As she reached it, she swiveled her head when she heard the crunch of glass behind her. Her eyes met those of Corporal Jessica Peterson. She exhaled slowly in relief when she realized that she had been holding her breathe. "Corporal Peterson. I'm glad to see it's you."
"You shouldn't, Major," said Peterson as she raised her .45 and aimed it at the middle of Carter's chest. "Not at all." She fired and Carter was thrown back by the impact of the bullets. Peterson smiled when she saw the blood flowing down her left side. "So much for Major Carter," she said as she stepped over Carter's inert body.
***
Peterson walked down the hallway, stepped over the still body of Teal'c on the floor and glanced into the living room. Daniel had his back to her still shooting out the front window. She heard him mutter, "Three bursts only." then heard the slide on his .45 lock. He dropped it and turned only to see the muzzle flashes from Corporal Peterson's .45 just before he was slammed backwards leaving him in a sitting position against the wall. Blood from a wound in his forehead ran down the side of his face to drip on his legs and the floor in front of him.
Peterson raised the muzzle of her .45 up to her lips and blew on it. "Dr. Daniel Jackson down.
The sudden silence that occurred was almost a shock to the system. Peterson turned, heading for the den where she knew O'Neill and Makepeace had holed up. She'd heard Carter's communications and decided that O'Neill was out of the picture, but didn't know if Makepeace was. Since she didn't know if Crater's body littered the outside of the house, she'd figured she'd better find out about Makepeace and put an end to him. That was the only thing she was sure of because if she was the only one left, and if the silence outside was any indication that she was, then it was up to her to take Makepeace out of Jacob Castor's life once and for all. If she wanted to continue living that is.
She stepped over Teal'c again and as her foot hit the floor, something slammed into her back Just below her vest forcing her to stumble and fall. When she hit the ground, her .45 fell out of her hand and slid across the floor. She tried to push herself up. but was unable to do so. Laying there, her left cheek on the floor boards she saw a pair of boots come into view. Forcing herself she managed to raise herself enough to see who it was that was standing there.
"Hello Jessica, dear," said Crater.
"You shot me," she said.
"But of course. That was the plan all along," he said smiling at her. "You couldn't be left the only survivor of this little party. No one would believe that. And you couldn't just disappear after all this was over. Hammond would have figured that you were a plant. We can't have Hammond thinking that we had a plant in the SGC. He might think that where there's one, there might be more." Crater watched Peterson's face, especially her eyes. Just before the light in her eyes faded to nothingness, he knelt down next to her and whispered in her ear, "Besides, I really enjoyed shooting you in the back."
***
continued in part 7