Daniel saw the brilliant flash of light, and felt the heat as the blast from Teal'c's staff weapon passed inches in front of his face. He felt Sam's hand on his shoulder pulling him back toward the tunnel entrance, he was temporarily dazzled by the flash of light. He could hear the whine of Jack's zat firing over and over, and continuous fire from Teal'c's staff. Bursts of fire from Sam's P90 joined the din.
His vision started to clear, and he saw the seething mass of bugs in front of him. He opened up with his P90 into them.
"We gotta get out of here!" yelled Jack. "Sam and Daniel, fall back to the tunnel! Teal'c! Cover them!"
More blasts from Teal'c's staff weapon raked across the spiders in front of him as Daniel turned, and sprinted back to the tunnel entrance, with Sam by his side. They stopped there, and turned back, to provide cover fire for Jack and Teal'c.
Between them, when they all got to the tunnel, they could keep up a rate of fire to hold the spiders back…until they ran out of ammunition, which wouldn't take long at the rate they were expending it. Jack was also finding that his zat wasn't very effective against the spiders. Sure it seemed to stop anything he hit, but it didn't have anything like the rate of fire of a P90, and the high speed armour piercing rounds that were standard SGC issue often ripped through several of the bugs, there were that many of them. Teal'c's staff was blasting swathes through the bugs.
"Give me your P90," he told Daniel, "and you and Sam get out of here! Teal'c and I will be right behind you!"
Daniel fired off one last burst, emptying the magazine. He swapped in a full one before he handed the weapon over to Jack, and took his zat. Sam gave her spare magazine to Jack too, and she and Daniel moved off up the tunnel together.
Jack waited a few seconds before he signalled for Teal'c to move. They backed up the tunnel together, laying down fire at any of the bugs that followed them. He wanted to just turn and run, but he'd seen how fast those things could move. He didn't think they could outrun them.
He could still hear Sam and Daniel behind them. He knew that they weren't running either. They were setting their pace by his and Teal'c's, staying close enough to come to their aid if the bugs overran them. He kept backing up the tunnel, firing short bursts at any bugs that he saw. It brought back strong memories of fighting Replicators. God, he hated those things!
"Teal'c! Can you bring the roof down?"
"Indeed!" The Jaffa tilted his staff upward, pointing it at a spot in the tunnel ceiling several meters ahead of them. He fired several blasts into it, and the ceiling collapsed, filling the tunnel with rubble.
"Go!" yelled Jack, and Sam and Daniel took off running. Jack didn't expect that to hold the spiders back long, there had to be holes left they could crawl through, but it should slow them down some. He and Teal'c ran after them.
"Get ready!" Jack yelled into his radio. "Shut the lid as soon as we're out!"
At first it sounded like a burst of static over the radio, but Buffy could hear the noise coming from the tunnel entrance too. She knew it was the sound of automatic weapons firing, and she snapped open the Scythe's case to pull her weapon free. She wanted to go charging into the tunnel herself, but she didn't want to go running through that confined space into a fire fight. Someone might shoot her by mistake.
Listening to the chatter on the radios soon told her that whatever was happening, Jack's people seemed to be holding their own, and were coming back out. Their voices were excited, but there was no sign of panic in them. She glanced toward Hawley at the computer, and saw him hit a couple of keys on his keyboard. Suddenly four windows popped up on the computer screen, labeled. 'Col. O'Neill,' 'Maj. Carter,' 'Dr. Jackson,' and 'Teal'c.' She quickly realized that they were video feeds from the night-vision goggles that all four were wearing. She could see that they were all falling back through the tunnel, toward the exit with Colonel O'Neill and Murray laying down cover fire for the others. She was really impressed by what Murray's staff was doing. Another look at the window labels, plus what she was hearing over the radios told her Murray's name was really Teal'c.
She heard O'Neill ask Teal'c to bring the roof down, and she saw the result of his staff blasts, and then the video image showed the blur of them moving up the corridor at a full run. She heard O'Neill's order to shut the lid as soon as they were out.
Buffy started to tell Giles and Xander to get ready at the tunnel entrance, but she saw that Jerry, Doug and Charlie had gotten there ahead of them. Jerry was already pulling on the rope. The knot at the top was tied so it could be freed by pulling on the slack end. It came loose and he tried to lift the slab enough to take the strain off the supports that Doug and Charlie were ready to pull free. He wasn't quite strong enough.
"Xander! Help him!" ordered Buffy.
Xander joined Jerry on the rope, and together they managed to lift the slab off its supports. Doug and Charlie pulled their supports free, and the slab was only held open by Xander and Jerry on the rope.
Sam and Daniel came running up the stairs and out of the tunnel, followed by Jack and Teal'c a second behind them. "Close it! Close it!" ordered Jack as he ripped off his goggles.
Xander and Jerry let go of the rope. The slab started to fall back down to cover the hole. The rope twisted through the top block with a sound like tearing cloth, and then it stopped so suddenly that they all felt the ground shudder. The rope had jammed.
Spiders started to boil out of the ground. Jack and the others opened fire on them, but they were coming too fast.
Buffy leapt, with the Scythe in her hand. It slashed through the rope holding the slab open like it wasn't there. The slab crashed down, crushing half a dozen spiders that were just coming out through the hole.
She heard screaming, and turned. Jerry was on the ground, with several of the spiders on him. She could see them sinking their fangs into his flesh. She saw Jack raise his gun, but there was nothing he could do with it, without shooting Jerry too.
Jack watched the spiders' fangs sinking into Jerry, knowing that he couldn't shoot all of them without shooting Jerry too. He heard Jerry's screams, and thought that maybe shooting him might be a blessing. He raised his gun.
"Protege!"
A golden shell formed around Jerry, throwing the spiders away from him. Jack identified the voice that had spoken that word as Willow's, but he didn't have time for that now. He opened fire, killing spiders wherever he saw them moving.
Sam, Teal'c and Daniel were all shooting too. He saw Buffy moving, faster than he thought a human could move, skipping around, swinging some sort of red and silver axe that cut through everything its blade met. He saw Willow standing still with her hands reaching out, balls of fire erupting from her palms, not unlike the blasts from Teal'c's staff.
It was all over in a few seconds, and an erie silence fell over the area. It seemed that even the wind stopped blowing. Jack looked around. His team were all still on their feet, as were most of their archaeologists. Jerry was lying on the ground, his body racked with convulsions. He looked at the 'tourists.' Buffy was standing still, looking at him, holding that weird sort of axe thing in her hands. Willow… He saw she was looking his way too, and her eyes… It was almost like looking at a Goa'uld in reverse. They were black, but as he watched the colour quickly returned to them. He looked around at the others, and saw that they all had some sort of edged weapon in their hands. Dawn was holding a sword that had a spider impaled on it. The bug was still quivering.
"Who are you people?"
