The cave-in was everything a cave-in should be, and more. After what Daniel guessed was about an hour, he pulled away from the mound of rubble, moving to stand beside Prometheus, who had been watching them instead of helping.

"This isn't going to work."

The rest of the team gave up on scrabbling at the rocks, and joined him, cradling their hands, which were now as bruised, scraped and bleeding as the rest of them.

"I'm surprised you took so long to realise that," said Prometheus, in a highly irritating, patronising manner.

Daniel glared at the Tok'ra before realising the only thing a glare would get him was eyestrain: they had turned off one of the flashlights to save batteries, and he could barely see the others. "We had to try."

"Any other options?" Jack's usual flippant tone was absent; he sounded as tired as Daniel felt.

They thought about it. Eventually, Daniel said slowly, "We could... zat it... three times?"

"That would risk bringing the ceiling down on us," Sam argued.

While Daniel was considering that possibility, Jack said, "Or, we could stay here and die of either suffocation or thirst, whichever comes first. Teal'c?"

"Stand back."

They scuttled back a few feet and watched while Teal'c aimed his zat at the obstructing debris, turned his head away, and fired three times. The familiar blue-lighting effect spider-webbed over the barrier, then faded – taking the rocks with it. The group cringed, waiting for the entire mountain to crash down on them, and only breathed a sigh of relief when two full minutes had passed.

"Okay," said Jack, dusting off his uniform. "Let's move."

They encountered only one other cave-in on their way out, and this one was small enough for them to dig their way out without using the zat gun. This time, Prometheus helped them move rocks and dirt. In no time at all – or what may as well have been no time at all, since none of them had a functioning watch – they emerged from an opening just big enough to squeeze through, and found themselves blinking in bright daylight, just a few minutes' walk from the foot of the mountain. They all gathered round to help pull Teal'c through the small exit, and Daniel, naturally, ended up flat on his back with Teal'c on top of him. Jack helped them both to their feet, and for a while the team stood still, dusting themselves off and checking each other for injuries. While the daylight revealed somewhat more blood than had shown up under torchlight, no one had been concealing life-threatening injuries for the sake of saving the team some worry during their escape from underground. This was just as well, as Jack had threatened to kill anyone that did anything that stupid ever again after Daniel had failed to disclose an insect bite on P4X207 that had turned septic and landed him in the infirmary for a week.

Jack nodded with quiet satisfaction. "That wasn't so hard, was it? No one dead, and it looks like an earthquake was the worst thing they had planned."

Daniel cursed inwardly. Why, when they all knew better, did one of them always have to say something along the lines of "It can't get any worse"? They might as well have sent a written invitation to the more aggressive goa'uld lords to come and kill them, slowly and horribly. True to form, the moment Jack had finished the sentence, the mountainside was filled with the sound of... bagpipes? Daniel frowned. That didn't seem very scary. Well, maybe if they were played very badly...

"Hey, Carter, Daniel. As our resident geniuses, can you tell me if the sky is supposed to be doing that?"

Daniel looked over at Jack, then followed his pointing finger up the mountain. At the top, approximately above the place where Prometheus had been held captive, the sky had turned a deep red. And, as the bagpipe sound continued, the colour deepened and began to spread.

"I don't think so, sir," said Sam.

Jack nodded. "Run away."

Sam took the time to answer, "Yes, sir", before bolting off down the mountain. Daniel followed as fast as he could, with Teal'c and Prometheus in front of him and Jack taking up the rear.

Since he was concentrating very hard on not falling down, it took him a few moments to realise that Jack was humming as he ran. Because the tune was distorted by the fact that every time Jack's feet thumped on the ground, the hum faltered, it took Daniel a few moments more to decipher the song. Eventually, however, the first line of the song came to him. "Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling..." He risked shooting Jack a dirty look, and Jack caught his eye, grinned, and stopped humming. Too late, alas: the song was firmly stuck in his head.

The irritating melody was only dislodged when the piping sound stopped, replaced by an ominous rumbling. They had reached the base of the mountain where it melted into forest, so Daniel dared a look back. The strange redness in the sky was spreading, in all directions. Not fast – they had a good chance of getting to the gate and home before it reached them, if it continued at its present speed – but fast enough to worry him. There could be no delays. The scientific part of him couldn't help but wonder how that was done, and what it was. He supposed Sam's curiosity was even worse. The rest of him screamed like a little girly-man – fortunately it was an inner scream – and made him run faster.