---------------
A/N: Soundtrack includes Fuel "Won't Back Down", The Calling "For You", Evanescence "Bring Me To Life", the "Warriors" opening from Yu-Gi-Oh, "One Night in Bangkok" from Chess.
---------------
"What do we do?"
"What can we do, Ambrin? Caiu's strangers were his death. And now they have fled, and brought destruction on us all. One of the new demons could be among us, even now!" Dark Basi scowled as the small group of Gaultish villagers gathered around this spring glanced at each other, fearful as children fleeing night-terrors. When the true terror, Ambrin knew, was a creation of daylight; a gleaming pyramid perched over the chaapa'ai, as Heru'ur's had so many years past.
"Better to wait until this new goddess tires of us," Basi grumbled on. "They all do, tales say; our world is not worthy of hosting them for year upon year."
"This one is different."
"Riyani?"
The graying falconer stepped out of the forest, loaded blowpipe in one hand, dark eyes watchful as he carried his eagle on his glove. There were a few new tears in the leaf-dyed leather of his jacket, stains that told of close acquaintance with rock and soil. "This one," he said deliberately, watching them all, "Wants something we do not have."
"Riyani!" Ambrin spread arms as if to hug the smaller man, halted at the eagle's hiss. Climbs High was a well-behaved bird, but he had never favored some of the villagers. "Where have you been? We haven't seen any of your clan for days...."
"Hiding," the old falconer said tartly.
"From the demons?"
"And from your kind, Ambrin. If that is your name." Riyani turned cold eyes away from him. "Basi. You always were a horse-stealing bastard. I never thought I'd feel sorry for you." Blowpipe at his lips, he blew.
A dart laden with the deadly toxin of the silk snake struck home in a blurring throat. Basi jerked. Snarled. Lunged-
Dark feathers slashed talons across his vision, screeching.
Basi fell, a twisting mass of grayish flesh.
"Back off!" Riyani growled as the others gasped and started forward. Deft fingers reloaded his blowpipe. Climbs High wheeled up into the sky, calling alarm. "It takes more than one of these to kill, and if that thing rises we're all dead." He blew again. "Get these people out of here, Ambrin. You owe them that. You and all of yours."
Three more darts. The demon thrashed once. Stilled.
"Mine? Riyani, you know me-"
"I knew Ambrin," the falconer said sharply, loading another deadly dart. "It took me three turns of the seasons to figure out what the birds were trying to tell me, but I haven't known you for a long time."
Now the others were looking on them both fearfully. Ambrin's fists clenched. "The demon. How did you know?"
Riyani raised his fist, whistled. Climbs High stooped, back-winged. Ruffled his feathers as he gripped Riyani's glove. "You can fool us, Ambrin. Maybe you can even fool the gods. But you can't fool eagle eyes." The falconer looked down on a breathless body, caught between man and monster. "And neither can they."
"Your clan must have found safe haven," Ambrin tried. "How can we find you?"
Riyani snorted, fading into the trees. "If we're lucky... you won't."
---------------
"...So that about covers it," Duo concluded, tapping a finger into the holographic diagram of various usual, unusual, and downright destructive methods of gaining entry to a ha'tak. "Dimme's going to be in atmosphere, so she won't be able to set the air vent sensors as sensitive as she did on the moon base. I think I could've foxed 'em if I'd had just one more minute, but-" The braided teen shrugged. "If you end up heading that way, you'll know they're there. That gives you a leg up."
"If?" Sam asked, peering over the ship plans.
"Your approach may depend on how she has dispersed her forces," Trowa said calmly, bangs shading his gaze more than usual. His hand moved as if he missed Hrere's presence at his side; the esmeril was probably clinging close to Quatre a few corridors away as the other three Wing pilots worked out shoot-don't shoot conditions with those SGC members who would be carrying shoulder-mounted missiles. "The situation will be in flux."
Shorthand for messy as hell, Jack thought, looking over his team. They'd pretty much taken over this set of rooms in the Preventer L3 facility, gathering equipment and serving as a kind of central organizing spot as the various Earth-native and Preventer teams tried to shake their various operational protocols into a workable whole. An effort that had involved a lot of compromises, flowcharts, dictionaries, two or three duels, and innumerable hair-sizzling curses on various hapless people's ancestries.
Thank god Alliance types have a sense of humor.
A little weird, by Earth standards. Then again, the Preventers were still looking cross-eyed at the bizarre things called forks in the SGC mess kits.
If that's the worst of our problems, we'll be luckier than we deserve, Jack thought darkly. We're good. And they're good. And hurray for us, we're all going to be shooting at guys in the same uniform. But to get two groups of people with different military training to work as a unit and not shoot each other - we'd need months.
They didn't have months. By now, they didn't even have forty-eight hours.
So, with a secure link to Commander Une and a few 'Gate-carried consults with General Hammond, Jack and Treize had hammered out a broad outline of what had to be done, then assigned teams based on who knew what. And crossed their fingers.
Defuse the bombs, Earth-specific, our job, Jack thought, mentally reviewing just a few of the highlights. EOD guys still aren't happy about letting Preventers guard them while they do it. But damn it, we had to yank most of them into the SGC in a hurry, they need people with off-world experience keeping an eye out - and with those Reavers around we're going to need SG-3 on the assault.
Take out the death gliders, Wing-specific, their job. Heero says they're willing to take their chances with our missile launchers. Sheesh. Better him than me.
Grab a Queen for the Tok'ra....
Well, that was going to be SG-1's job, specifically.
And I do not like it, not one little bit.
Daniel was nibbling his lip, covering a yellow pad with notes in a weird combination of English and hieroglyphs. Sam had been focused as a laser, quizzing the two Wing infiltrators on every last detail of How To Get Where System Lords Really Don't Want You To Go. More than once a flash of illumination had crossed her face, and her questions had ground to a halt as she scribbled down a fragment of Jolinar's memory of whatever diagram or nasty tactic had been under discussion. Teal'c looked simply bemused. Apparently Apophis had never trusted his Jaffa with knowledge of all a ha'tak's weak spots.
Worried, but not quivering masses of nerves, Jack concluded, walking away for a moment to stretch his legs. Good.
"They will be fine, O'Neill."
Ah. He had a Jaffa-shadow. "Helps to have good teachers," Jack said in the same low tone.
"Those with experience are the best instructors," Teal'c agreed.
"Experience, huh?" Jack raised a brow at him. "You know, Teal'c, if you're thinking what I'm thinking-"
"It is likely."
"-Then I'm thinking," Jack glanced at the two pilots, "Somebody's got a lot of 'splaining to do."
"Jack?" Daniel asked worriedly.
Shinigami do have good ears, Jack thought, not surprised. "They've done this before, Daniel. Not just with Dimme."
"I know."
"You see, you- what?"
"I know, Jack." The archaeologist smiled wryly. "Did you notice Colony Hall has a historical library?"
Trowa looked slightly surprised. "You were able to search the index for military references?"
"Daniel. Books. Like iron filings and magnet," Jack explained. "Only I'm guessing he didn't go through whatever you've got for a military index. Which you guys probably put a lock on anyway for us foreign SGC types?"
They didn't react. Which, knowing guerilla types, was almost as good as a taped confession.
"Relax. I would've done the same thing," Jack admitted. "Maybe we've got a common enemy right now, but humans are famous for screwing up a perfectly good working relationship. Give it a few years and we'll see if this one works out." He glanced at Daniel. "So what'd you find?"
Mischief gleamed in Daniel's smile. "Commemorative calendar."
Trowa's brows went up.
"And how does a calendar lead to them needing to explain something?" Sam asked warily.
"Well, kind of a calendar. You know, one of those books that goes through the year day by day, listing important historical events? Alliance Day was marked in red. So was Shigatsu 7th." Daniel met Duo's gaze.
Duo winced. "Aw, man...."
"What," Trowa asked bluntly, "Did you find?"
"AC 195. Operation Meteor," Daniel said in the rhythmic tone Jack knew meant he was quoting from memory. "In a move to counter Macha's tyranny, rebel colony citizens planned to bring new weapons to Sanq, disguising them as shooting stars. However, the System Lord's agents had caught on to this operation...." He nudged up his glasses. "Once I had some names and places, well - references to the Gundams show up plenty of times in strictly civilian contexts."
"So they dropped in the Gundams in 195." Sam frowned.
"They sent in the most valuable weapons they had." Daniel's tone was suspiciously neutral.
Yep. He sees it, Jack thought.
By the way Sam's eyes widened, she suddenly got it. "But... I thought Dr. Po said they attacked Macha in 196."
"What Sally said," Jack picked his words carefully, "Was that Maxwell over there joined the Preventers in 196."
"Which puts that very interesting career shift after Alliance Day, and therefore after Macha got herself rather messily smeared in orbit. No matter how you read the calendar," Daniel shrugged. "So exactly how old are you again?"
The two pilots didn't even glance at each other. "Does it matter?" Trowa said levelly.
"Alliance age of majority's sixteen. Assuming those other dates Relena gave us check out, you guys were blasting death gliders out of the sky at fifteen or less," Jack bit out. "You broke your own laws. Damn straight it matters!"
"Heh." Duo's smile had a sardonic edge as he perched on the far end of the table. "Heero said you'd figure it out."
"And Quatre," Trowa measured his words with micrometer precision, "Said you might be trusted."
"Might be trusted?" Sam eyed them dangerously. "We're about to undertake a major military operation together and you think we might be trusted?"
"The Scourge of Macha," Daniel put in, "Probably aren't used to trusting anybody."
Teal'c raised both brows. "An ambitious title."
"Not our idea, trust me." Violet eyes were bright and dangerous. "So what'd you find?"
"Death. Destruction," the archaeologist said quietly. "Chaos, panic, disorder. Death gliders raining from the sky. Columns of Jaffa disappearing without a trace. Bases blown. Commanders assassinated. Whole barracks found with their throats slit and their larvae beheaded. You name it, the Scourge of Macha did it."
"Those who see a Gundam will not live to tell of it." Trowa's green gaze was deep and merciless as the sea. "Those were our orders."
Damn. Jack fought the urge to step back. He'd known the Wing was seriously bad news. Bad news, hell. This qualifies for apocalypse! "Who the hell gives orders like that to kids?"
"Desperate people," Duo said bluntly. "The Alliance was dying, Jack. Macha ordered her Jaffa to kill off anyone over eighty and work their way down. She figured once she got through the people in their twenties she'd have munched through most of the Preventers and the civilian Resistance."
"With the benefit of destroying the most critical component of resistance." Trowa's voice was like wind in twisted pines on the shore, warning of storm. "Human memory."
"The Mad Five, the guys who built our Gundams - well, they were already in hot water with the Alliance before Macha blew in, and they knew they were on Macha's hit-list after." Duo shrugged. "They gave each of us every advantage they could scrounge up, a list of targets, and one set of orders. Forget the colonies. Get Macha before she gets you."
"None of us knew there were other pilots with the same orders until we encountered them." Emerald softened slightly. "Quatre and the Maguanacs could have destroyed me. He surrendered instead."
Jack cocked his head at Duo. "You really did shoot Yuy, didn't you?"
"Hey! This wild-looking kid was about to take out an unarmed blonde in a party dress. Who happened to be Relena, and how she thought I was the bad guy after that I still haven't figured out." Duo spread empty hands. "I didn't know he was a Gundam pilot until he dropped a torpedo on top of 'Scythe. Then I had to go break the idiot out of Sally's hospital ward...."
"Why teenagers?" Jack interrupted. Fifteen or less. They couldn't have been much older than Charlie when someone had decided to make them killers. Whoever those Mad Five bastards are, I want to hunt them down and hurt them. A lot.
"Oooh, let me draw you a picture." Duo waved a hand, painting the air. "You're the Jaffa commander at one of Macha's bases. You've heard about the human Resistance. Heck, you've probably strung up a few suspects in the town square and killed them with a torture stick to make your point. The uglier ones, anyway; any lookers get tossed into the holding cells in case Macha wants to Choose them for hosts.
"So. You've got the base. You've got the town. And in the middle of what used to be a quiet night, all hell breaks loose.
"And when the dust finally settles in the morning - assuming you're still alive in the morning - you start shaking down the area looking for whoever tried to punch your ticket for Duat. And you can't find them. Pfft. Zip. Zilch. No new adults in the area, no one's missing, and your informers say nobody they know went near your base. So you figure whoever it was flew in, and they flew out, and you might as well be looking for ghosts."
"And no one," Trowa summed up, "Notices when a transfer student in school - or two, or three - withdraws from classes to visit an ill relative. And fails to come back."
"That's-" Sam swallowed dryly. "Vicious."
"Worked, though," Duo said brightly. "Which is kind of funny. Sort of."
Teal'c nodded, understanding. "You were not expected to survive."
Trowa shook his head.
"Should've seen those Resistance blowhards' faces when they realized Macha was flaming bits of debris and they still had us to deal with." Duo's chuckle was bitter. "Heck, Treize and Une were easy to handle; they killed thousands of people, sure, but they were hosts. Nobody blamed them. Well - Treize still blames himself, some. That's why he wouldn't take Commander when they offered it to him. Figured it'd be too easy to fall into Redg's bad habits. But us...."
"Prior to Lady Peacecraft's argument on our behalf, the majority vote was for execution," Trowa reported.
"Relena managed to cut us a better deal." Duo crossed his arms. "We stay in the Preventers. We stay quiet. And the Scourge of Macha ends up as just another page in the history books."
"Is that why Wufei still wears white?" Daniel's hands clenched on each other. "Because your people killed the truth?"
A hint of a smile warmed Trowa's face. "Dr. Jackson, you, of all people, should know death can be a temporary condition."
Bingo. Jack nodded. "Let it go, Daniel."
"But Jack-"
"One of these days you and I should sit down and look at what the French did to some of the French Resistance fighters who were working undercover in WWII. After the Germans were kicked out." Jack grimaced. "Trust me, you do not want to have lunch first."
"...Oh."
Yeah, oh. Especially when it came to the records of what happened to some of the women. Spend a couple years worming your way into German beds so you can distract them from poking in somewhere before refugees get evacuated, so your field agents can get the right IDs and travel passes, or maybe just so your kids can eat, Jack thought bleakly. Then the war's finally over, and you can think about not hating yourself anymore-
-And your fellow "honest French countrymen" show up, strip you naked, shave you bald, and starve you in a prison for collaborators. If they don't rape and torture you to death first.
And nobody stops them. 'Cause they want blood, and you're there, and you did everything they didn't have the guts to do themselves.
Oh yeah. Jack knew why Jolinar hadn't ever told her fellow Tok'ra how she got off Netu.
From the bleak look in Sam's eyes, she knew it too.
"So. Refresh a tired colonel's memory." Jack gave the pilots one of his best poker grins. "What's Chang's hobby again?"
"'Fei?" Duo grinned back. "He's a historian."
Jack nodded. "See, Daniel? Play nice, and Chang might let you poke around in his library. I bet it's full of all kinds of dusty, musty, sneeze-worthy old records. You know, the kind nobody else wants anymore?"
Daniel raised a finger, stopped to think. "Right."
That settled, Jack picked up his own notepad. "So, kids... let's just see if there's anything else we can nail down to make sure we're not history."
---------------
Orbiting a planet within tel'tac range of Gault, rough dice rattled over a death glider's open communications line. "Ha!"
"No way."
"Read 'em and weep, Ishpi. The astragali just love me tonight!"
"Third seven in a row, Genu? Let me see those bones...."
From a modified tel'tac camouflaged to look like just another piece of orbital debris, a thumb clicked on a speaker. "You boys wouldn't be gambling on watch, would you?"
"No sir!"
"Uh-uh!"
"That's what I thought."
Silence. A metallic rattle came over the line, suspiciously like coins being scraped off a pilot's console.
"Do you really think they're coming, Apuki?"
"Yes, Genu," the older voice sighed in exasperation. "We wouldn't be watching over the minefield down there if we didn't think they were coming."
"Oh. Right." Linen rustled against a death glider's seat. "Do you think they're coming soon?"
"Ishpi?" Apuki's voice sounded slightly muffled, as if the older Jaffa were kneading a stressed forehead.
Thwack.
"Ow!"
"Other System Lords' fleets," Apuki said dryly, as if he didn't hear Genu's muttered curses mingled with Ishpi's snickers, "Might show up on schedule. The Sanq rogues don't. And as far as we can tell, neither do the Tau'ri. Even if they are allied with the Tok'ra."
"Scum-sucking blaspheming traitors," Ishpi grumbled.
"Yeah!"
"Why can't we be on Gault taking care of them?" Ishpi's fist smacked his palm to emphasize the point.
"Because First Prime Hursag picked the troops that know how to be subtle," Apuki stated. "As in, not throttling the spies before he gives the order. No matter how much they deserve it."
"Well...."
"And just like the rest of this sorry crew of mine, you two wouldn't know subtle if it bit you in the mikta."
"Oh." Genu sounded disappointed.
Quiet reigned.
"So, did you hear the one about the priestess, the scribe, and the Horus Guard?"
"Oh goddess, Genu, not that one again...."
"The priestess walks into the tavern and orders a beer-"
"Ra have mercy on us all," Apuki muttered.
"And the scribe says - hey! We got a signal!"
"Back up here, boys," Apuki ordered.
"We're not waiting for them?"
"Three chevrons, four... we let the mines take them first. Then we pick off the stragglers." Apuki's voice was calm and grim. "Don't worry. If that's Sanq... there will be plenty for all of us."
---------------
Timing is everything.
Suspended from the Gateroom ceiling, two missiles pointed like white daggers at the watery surface of the wormhole. "UAV's away, sir!" Davis reported. "Hoo, boy...."
Hammond ignored the slip into informality. Beside them, UAV tech Waters was chewing a dead lollipop stick with frantic speed, skating his craft around an endless supply of Goa'uld surface and air mines with all the determined ferocity of a champion pinball player on his very last ball. So the Preventers' predictions are right so far, the general thought, eyeing the monitor where other techs were analyzing the UAV data to map the minefield on this dusty backwater planet in Dimme's backyard. I don't know if I should be encouraged or gnawing my fingernails off.
On the one hand, it was good to know how deep an insight the Alliance had into its enemy. On the other....
Monitors went to static. Waters muttered one of Daniel's more colorful Abydonian curses.
"It's all right, son," Hammond said firmly. "We have enough."
"T minus five," Davis read off, "Four, three...."
"Fire!" Hammond ordered. The first missile lit, disappearing into the event horizon. In his mind the general could hear screams of some as-yet-unsuspecting paper-pusher in the Pentagon when this ordinance expenditure crossed his desk. You fired at an alien planet and didn't even have an operating UAV to paint the target?
With a minefield like that, it's not as if we're going to miss. Hammond crossed his fingers as the second missile flew. "Good luck, Colonel."
---------------
Sanq's sky dissolved into dark and streaking starlight.
If we run right into a zat blast, I'm going to be so ticked-
Colonel O'Neill ran out of the Gault Stargate to the sound of gunfire and staff weapons. Good and fast, he thought, leading his team in a swift scurry down blood-smeared steps as Preventers and SG-3 mopped up the last of the 'Gate guards.
Of course, it helped to know there weren't any friendlies on the other side when you threw the grenades through....
Sand and olive among Preventers' green and blue; Rashid. The tall Maguanac had just finished setting up a tripod while three of his fellows kept guard-
Something dark streaked toward Jack's face. Snake!
Alien jaws snapped just shy of his throat, squealing in impotent rage.
Jack let out a breath of relief. "Nice catch, T-"
The fingers around the near-grown larva were pale.
Not my day, the colonel thought, seeing Sam's alarm and Teal'c's wary step back. "Um. Daniel?"
"Hmm?" A faint, distant smile played over the archaeologist's face.
Damn it all, Jack swore silently.
Duo had warned him. Had taken him aside not an hour before and told him straight out, "The second Daniel's in a real fight, he's going right under the wave. Nothing you can do about it. Just get set to handle the fallout."
"We've had him on the firing range," Jack had objected.
"Not a real fight," the Shinigami shrugged. "Not you," he poked the taller man in the arm, "In real trouble."
"Like I have anything to do with it-" Jack started.
And then he'd seen the rare gravity in violet eyes, and shut up.
"You have everything to do with it, Jack," Duo said seriously. "Humans are pack animals. Ask Trowa. If the pack dies, you die. And Shi no Yami does not. Want. To die.
"If Heero's in trouble, Shinigami takes over. I don't fight it. I don't want to. Daniel's got the guts to fight it - most people who survive Shi no Yami do - but he doesn't have the training. And we just flat out don't have the time.
"If we had any other option, I'd ask Sally to sneak up on him with a sedative. And keep him out, until the mission was over." The pilot held up a hand before Jack could protest. "I know. I know you need him. You're going to be right in the middle of a ha'tak and he's the best Goa'uld translator you've got. It makes sense.
"But you better make sure he's got a shoulder to cry on after this is over. And a shower. He's going to be chimamire, and-" Duo cut himself off. "Never mind. Just remember, he is sane, he is thinking, he is on your side. He's just going to be a little... weird."
Cat with mouse. Remember cat with mouse, Jack reminded himself now. "Whatcha gonna do with that?"
A red light shone from both ends of Rashid's sight; one toward the 'Gate, the other aimed out the pyramid's grenade-blasted corridors to open sky.
Daniel shrugged. Tossed the squirming larva toward the event horizon.
Just as blue, red, and gold-marked white soared through.
Splat.
SG-1 hit the ground as the Gundam Wing roared for open sky. "Yuy's going to kill you!" Jack groaned.
Daniel snickered. "He's got to catch me first."
---------------
Here we go!
Duo flew Deathscythe through the burst of stars, through blackened stone, holding to that one, tight course Rashid had marked-
And the two of them punched into Gault's sky, screaming up past startled death gliders. Yep, Quatre called that one, Duo thought, sliding aside as Heero did, moments before the other three Gundams streaked through their airspace. Dimme planned to squash the Tok'ra from two sides, air and ground. Overkill.
Shinigami's grin spread across his face.
Not enough kill.
Nimble fingers played across his comm console, calling up the local Jaffa frequency.
"-orders-"
"-hold position-"
"-It's a GUNDAM!"
Aw. They noticed. Makes you feel warm and fuzzy all over. "And there's music, sweet music, music everywhere...." Shinigami laughed. "Welcome to hell, hebi!"
Deathscythe sliced through the sky.
---------------
Cold and light and- Janet swallowed, dragging a pull-cart of medical supplies as she stumbled down into the copper stench of blood. "Ugh."
"Ergh," Sally agreed, swaying, leaning on her own bundle. "Your guys are just as messy as my guys, huh?"
"Janet, look out!"
Caught in the blue burst of Sam's zat, a larva writhed, falling out of the air a foot away from the SGC doctor.
Sally pinned it under her boot, flipped a knife out of her sleeve, and stabbed the squirming creature through the brain. "I hate fighting Jaffa."
About to punch in the last command on a Wing transport ring code-breaker, Jack halted. "You guys going to be-"
"We're fine, Colonel," Janet snapped, belatedly drawing her own firearm as a few more medics tumbled through and the room finally stopped spinning. "Go!"
Stone circles slammed down, and SG-1 vanished in a wash of blue-white light.
And a band of very pissed-off Jaffa appeared in their place.
Janet added her own fire to the storm of bullets heading for bronze armor. Some bounced off rising stone rings - she heard a scream, catalogued ricochet, serious, one - but she could see the flash of rounds hitting home. Now we see how the armor-piercing rounds do.
From the spray of blood, reasonably well, as long as you got them in the throat.
Two Jaffa dove and rolled, bringing staff weapons to bear. Janet saw a head open, orange lighting crackling over its face-
Ugh. Oh. That. Hurts.
On her side on cold stone, Janet coughed, feeling as if she'd been kicked by half a herd of horses. Her nose caught the scent of smoldering cloth, tracked it to the seared hole in the padded blue vest over her greens. Thank god for Preventer body armor.
A shriek choked off as she staggered to her feet. Janet blinked, marked Jaffa, down, not moving, and the red smear along the knife of a panting Marine. Beside him a young brunette Preventer with glinting violet eyes was busily crushing their opponent's larva.
"I thought they could only jump people when they were nearly grown," Janet bit out, carting off the medical supplies to the side as EOD personnel and Preventers fell through the 'Gate.
"Dimme's a Queen. Her Jaffa's larvae will be all ages. Better safe than sorry." Sally wiped blue blood on a rag at her belt, glanced around the room for any more friendly casualties, and grabbed the swearing, bleeding SG-3 Marine by the collar. "Okay, Lieutenant, we're going-"
"This way," Janet directed. Goa'uld really didn't have much in the way of imagination; this pyramid's floor-plan was almost exactly like the one on Abydos. To the inch.
Which leaves a nice side room over here... what did Daniel say it was used for again?
She almost tripped over an outstretched arm. There wasn't much left attached to it.
Oh. Right. Ceremonial guards.
The tanned hand was covered in a metal claw gauntlet; Janet almost bent to touch its odd, lethal beauty. If I measured this, would it match the scars on Jack's back?
Focus, Doctor. "All right, people," Major Fraiser said clinically. "Let's make this place halfway decent. If you see anything you don't recognize, especially tech, toss it outside; otherwise, zat the big pieces. Let's go!"
Sally finished her own swift briefing in Universal as she snapped on latex and tore the Marine's sleeve open to expose the crimson gash. "Huh. Messy, but you'll live, soldier. Chihoumasui-Tau'ri. Hayaku!"
Oh, this is messy... focus. Treat it like an amputation. Oddly, the whine of death gliders and rumble of explosions helped. Yeah. Think more about the carnage that is coming, not the one that already happened. "Almost makes me want to set this up outside."
"Right," Sally said wryly, leaving Janet to clean Lieutenant Ericsson's wound as she started clearing out a suspicious corner. "An operating tent out in the wind? With Dimme loose?"
"I know, I know," Janet muttered, setting stitches in the Marine's arm as Ericsson tried not to look. Circulating air plus a bio-weapons-happy Goa'uld was a bad combination. "I just wish I had a real emergency room."
"I worked without one for years before the Resistance got me into a major hospital undercover," Sally said briskly, sorting out suspect pieces with swift efficiency while her assistants disposed of the rest of the remains. "Then... well, things got complicated for a while, and I ended up back in the field until after we got Macha." She shot Janet a swift look. "We do the best we can. We get them stable so they can get back through the 'Gate."
"Rebels, die-" someone shouted in Goa'uld from outside the pyramid.
P-90 fire cut them off.
"And we stay alive," Janet finished.
---------------
Translations from Japanese:
Chimamire - covered with blood.
Hebi - snake.
Chihoumasui-Ta'uri - loosely, Earth local anesthetic.
Hayaku - an adverb, means "faster/quickly".