It took them nearly thirty minutes to clear the hardened crust away from Major Annette Wales' face.
Five minutes later, however, she started having problems breathing.
After making sure her airway was clear, they intubated her. Ruth Poland, one of the medics with SG-8, was constantly at her side, her steady hand a necessity—especially when they decided to transfer her to the camp.
Daniel, of course, protested the entire way, at first refusing to move from the caves until Teal'c "talked him down".
Even when they were hiking back to the camp, Wales on the stretcher Peterson could still hear Daniel talking to Teal'c, trying to convince him to go back to the caves with him to look for the Colonel.
It was as if the Doctor had forgotten entirely about the person that he'd just saved.
It was still a life, a person, a member of the SGC. That should matter for something.
Granted, he knew that he hadn't had the best attitude when they had first started searching. He just figured that they'd all be dead and lost somewhere.
When Teal'c had radioed back that they had found someone, Peterson didn't think he had ever seen a team move so fast, covering the distance to the caves in half the time.
They'd gotten hope when everything seemed hopeless.
And for anyone, hope was a powerful emotion. It kept you moving, kept you focused on the job at hand, even if you only had a small part to play.
In a makeshift infirmary back at the camp, SG-8 had swarmed over the Major, hooking her up to whatever equipment and monitors they could given her current state of confinement while others carefully chipped away at the rest of the crust, one small piece at a time. There was no way she could go back to earth with any ounce of that dust on her, but it would take time.
Major Carter, along with some of the others, stood off to the side as they discussed their next course of action, their next step in the rescue of the Colonel.
Whatever happened to the rest of the scientists? Last time he counted, there were still five missing.
Colonel O'Neill would not forget about them so quickly.
Stepping closer to the group, his words were quiet, but there was a forcefulness behind them that even surprised him. "Major Carter, do you have a moment?"
She turned, confusion crossing her face for the briefest of seconds, and Peterson could see the weariness in her eyes, the tightness in her jaw. "Of course, what is it?"
"I couldn't help but overhearing your conversation with Doctor Jackson and Major Warren and I was concerned."
Out of the corner of his eye he saw several heads perk up at his words, pausing in their work. While his words were respectful, he knew his tone wasn't. A beat later Teal'c stepped into the circle, his eyes encouraging Peterson to continue.
"I think you've gotten your priorities a little mixed up. I hope you don't take this wrong, but from what I know of Colonel O'Neill he'd be appalled to hear that you put his life above anyone else's. It seems as if you've forgotten about the scientists who have been missing far longer than he has been. For all we know they could be dead, but don't they deserve a chance at life?"
The silence that greeted his words was thick.
He glanced between the people standing before him.
Carter finally nodded once, wearily. "Peterson, do you think you're up to going as part of the search teams?"
"Of course."
"Major Warren, could you join him?"
"Certainly, Major. What do you have in mind?"
"We received three more hazmat suits from the SGC and a dozen extra air tanks, which means that you can go, along with Daniel and Teal'c. Do you think that the four of you would be able to do a thorough search of the area?"
"Sure," Warren said, nodding instantly.
"Major?"
Carter turned to Colonel Hill, the medic's uniform askew, his face troubled. "What's wrong?"
"I'm worried about Major Wales. Her readings don't look right and with that crust on her, we have no way to treat her if something goes south—which is very possible. Her pulse is thready and we already know her breathing's compromised. We need a faster way to get that off of her and neutralize the dust. We're working with latex gloves, but I'm worried that my staff—and everyone else who stays in this room—might be at risk. Whatever we're chipping off is slowly starting to get into the air." He paused, his expression turning even more serious. "I don't want us to end up like Major Wales."
Peterson could see the wheels in Carter's mind spinning, various situations and possible outcomes measured and then discarded. When she spoke, her voice was heavy as if the very words were weighing her down, her final decision carrying the pros and cons of every solution she considered. "We can try a few things, but the dust I examined before wasn't like anything I've ever seen. I'm going to need some help figuring out some way to effectively destroy it."
"I'm sure Collins and Bosco can give you a hand, Carter," Warren said, volunteering some of the SGC members standing a few feet away.
She stood for a minute, her hands on her hips, glancing back and forth between the people surrounding her before finally nodding, her eyes not as dark as before.
In them, Peterson saw hope.
XXX
The noise was gone.
He was alone.
This was it. The final hurrah. His swan song.
Trapped in a cave, his mind alert and conscious of his death, his body a worthless lump of flesh, his muscles and his body betraying him.
Each breath he took was even more shallow than the one before.
Vaguely he realized that the time was coming, the time when he was down to his final breath.
His heart was slowing as well, he could feel the beats in his chest, each fainter than the one before.
Was this what death felt like, this quiet release and acceptance of what was to come?
There should be something more.
Instead, there would just be one last breath.
XXX
This was not working.
Sam sighed, pushing her chair away from the table as she found her feet, stalking away from the experiments she was running.
She'd tried water.
Distilled water.
Every type of light she could think of.
Different solutions from sugar water to salt water in varying concentrations.
Acids didn't bother it.
Alkalines didn't make a dent.
She'd paused in her work an hour ago to step into the med tent to check on SG-8's progress. Thankfully, they were getting somewhere by chipping away at the crust and scooping it away in various closed containers, but Major Wales' condition was deteriorating.
Peterson's words had struck a cord, reminding her that she had forgotten their real mission, their original mission, the reason they were here in the first place. Once the Colonel went missing everything else had gone out the window so to speak, her concentration fixed solely on finding him.
Peterson had been right. If the Colonel found out about her behavior he wouldn't hesitate to give her a nice swift kick in the mikta.
There had to be something that would kill this…thing. She didn't even know what to call it. For all intents and purposes it looked like dust or dirt, but it was alive. It kind of reminded her of an insect in its behavior, swarming its victim, taking it down by sheer volume.
But, it wasn't native to this planet, at least as far as she could tell. Someone had brought it here. But why? Their purpose might be hidden, but the results were clearly evident.
This bug had killed off all the living things that were on this planet.
And what was worse? It was created. Engineered. Someone made them, sent them here, and wiped out an entire planet.
The SGC was just here for the clean up.
There had to be a way to destroy them, kill them…
Her thoughts trailed off as her eyes watched the progress of a ray of sunlight on the nearby table as the clouds moved in the sky.
Liquid didn't work.
Light didn't make a difference.
What about sound?
XXX
Armed with new tanks of oxygen, additional rope, small chisels, and additional manpower, they attacked the caves with a vengeance.
This time every human-sized stalagmite was examined, pieces were chipped away, until it could be determined if it was a member of the SGC or not.
It wasn't a pretty sight.
And the smell…well, that was something Daniel didn't want to dwell on. Even through the skin of the hazmat suits and their oxygen supply, some of the odors lingered.
They tried not to think about the fact that most of these stalagmites were bodies, human corpses encased in a hard crust of dirt and dust—the original inhabitants of the planet, someone's mother or father or husband or wife or brother or sister—slowly decaying over time.
They couldn't think about any of that.
Instead, they pushed their own comfort and their thoughts to the back of their minds, focusing instead on the task at hand.
XXX
She'd killed it.
It had taken her longer than she had anticipated, but she'd killed it.
Racing out of the laboratory tent, her boot-clad feet kicking up dust, she stormed into the med tent, the members of SG-8 immediately moving to protect their patient.
She could only imagine what she looked like, her hair sticking up in various directions and thick ear-protectors covering parts of her head. She was wielding a strange contraption, part television dish, part stereo system.
"Whoever's staying needs to get ear protection, otherwise you have to leave the room." Her words were rushed and breathless as her free hand pulled off her ear protection.
"Major?" Colonel Hill said as he rose to his feet, confusion lining his features. "Before you wave that thing over my patient, I'd appreciate it if you explained to me exactly what you had in mind."
"Sound kills them," she said stepping closer, but paused at Hill's upturned hand.
"Sounds can do a lot of things, Major, including cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, deafness, among other things. Major Wales isn't exactly up for one of your experiments. I know Colonel O'Neill tolerates a lot of things, but when it comes to my patients, I'm not as flexible."
Sam took a deep breath, letting her hands fall to her side, the equipment hanging beside her. "We needed to find a way to neutralize the dust infestation before we can transport anyone back to the SGC, correct?"
"Correct."
"I've tried just about everything, but I realized that their structure was very brittle, crystalline in nature. Using sound, I can get them to vibrate and essentially break apart, killing them. By using ultrasound, the very high end of the sound spectrum, I can kill them, Sir."
"Those frequencies are not safe for humans."
"I know that they are in large amounts, but we don't need that. Short bursts should do it, but we need to make sure Major Wales' ears are protected, as well as anyone else remaining in the room."
Hill was not convinced. "I still don't think that's a good idea."
Sam paused, pursing her lips. "Wales is dying, isn't she?" Her voice was quiet, her words barely carrying the distance to the Colonel.
His nod was her only response.
"This is the only way to bring her home, to make sure she gets the best treatment she deserves."
A few beats of silence passed and Carter's stomach twisted. She knew this would work. This was the only way.
"Everyone clear the room," Hill said, his voice carrying through the tent. Locking gazes with Sam, his green eyes were hard, but hopeful. "Let's do this."
They cleared out quickly, their backwards glances their only response to the order. Sam ignored them, taking the few moments to set up her sound device. Hill dug into the supplies scattered throughout the tent, coming up with two pairs of heavy-duty earplugs. "I think these will work," he said, holding one up as he stuffed the other in his ears. Hill used the second pair on Wales.
She nodded and continued to tweak the device, making sure it was set correctly before she slipped on her own ear-protectors.
A sharp nod indicated his readiness and Sam positioned herself at the foot of the bed, the device aimed at the Major's body and the areas still covered in the thick crust.
Four pulses later and it was gone, disintegrated into a near-black heap.
The device had worked.
Briefly meeting Hill's eyes, Sam turned for the door. She needed a hazmat suit if she was going into the caves.
XXX
It was slow.
Agonizing.
Setting up the rope, they slid down the incline once again, searching the area where Wales had been found, where the radio had been dropped. There was a lot of ground to cover here, the passage opening up to a huge cavern, stalagmites and stalactites littering the entire area.
Peterson spotted it finally, a dark blotch on the otherwise taupe landscape, caught in the bright beam of his flashlight.
The lens was cracked, but it still worked.
"Concentrate your search over here," Warren commanded, his arm gesturing toward the discarded flashlight, nods of confirmation his only reply.
A yelp of surprise from Peterson brought everyone running. "I think I found someone," he said, his voice breathless and nervous, his hands still working at chipping away the crust surrounding the body.
"What did you find?" Daniel said, sliding up next to the man, squinting his eyes to see what Peterson has discovered—a hint of blue through the hole he'd made in the dust.
It wasn't Jack, but it had to be a scientist.
"Someone focus on the base. We have to separate it from the floor of the cavern," Daniel said, already working with Peterson to enlarge the hole he'd made in the side.
It took a few minutes with Teal'c and Warren working on the base to get it free, and several more minutes to hoist it up to the top. Daniel and Peterson, however, moved on to other stalagmites.
There were still more to find.
A crackle over the radio broke his concentration and he paused, leaning against the wall of the cave as the transmission came through.
"Rescue team, this is Carter. Do you read?"
"We read you, Carter," Warren replied.
"We found a way to kill the bugs, but you need additional equipment in order to use it. I brought it with me, but you have to meet me at the mouth of the cave so I can explain it to you."
"Teal'c and I are outside already," Warren answered. "Peterson and Jackson are still searching. We need all the time we can get. How long will it take?"
"Only a few minutes, but it will speed up your work. I'll be there in ten. Carter out."
"Acknowledged, Warren out." He paused for a beat before continuing. "Daniel, John, did you catch that? Start heading out now. It'll take that long for you to get here anyway."
Daniel and Peterson exchanged glances before the archeologist answered for the two of them. "We're on our way."
XXX
The concept was simple.
Aim.
Fire.
Watch the dirt turn black and fall to the floor.
Easy as pie.
Sam and Colonel Hill had determined that the standard radio earpieces would muffle the sound enough to protect one of their ears sufficiently with little concern for hearing loss. Since they only needed one earplug each, it enabled them to spread out the few pairs between the members of the search party.
A few quick bursts of the sound device at their recently exhumed stalagmite and the body emerged—the obviously dead body of Collin Gibson.
Bowed heads and respectful words lasted only a few moments, before they moved as one toward the caves, Daniel wielding the device.
"Now remember, we have to protect their ears, so you can't use it directly on their heads until we can clear it with our tools," Sam reminded him as they hiked back to the cavern where the other bodies had been found.
"I remember, Sam," Daniel replied, trying not to let her "mother-hen" tone annoy him. She was only trying to help just like he was. "I'll do it first about midway. That should give us access to their wrist and we can check for a pulse to see if they're alive."
"Right," she said, pausing at the top of the incline, her flashlight aimed into the darkness below. "Down there?"
"Yep," Daniel said, bracing himself and the device as he picked up the rope in his free hand, heading down the slope. Teal'c's light tracked his progress, lighting his way, until he reached the bottom. The others followed closely behind, but Daniel had already moved on, aiming the device at the stalagmites they hadn't touched previously, a single pulse clearing a large enough area for them to make a positive identification.
The smell was worse this time.
Five minutes later, Daniel located a scientist, the dust falling to the ground revealing a small silver bracelet, a bracelet he'd seen around Naomi Dean's wrist the other week, just before she'd shipped off for this assignment.
And she'd been so excited about it. This was her first off-world mission and one she'd been dreaming about for months.
Now, though, the wrist it encircled had begun turning an unnatural color.
They worked in silence to pull the body from its dirt-encrusted grave, pulling it outside to lay with the first.
Inside, the dust and dirt started to swirl. It wasn't noticeable at first, the thickening of the air ignored, everyone assuming that it was just the dead dust entities floating on the air currents.
It didn't occur to them until the next body, Mark Andrews, was found that the dust particles were moving on their own.
"Daniel, I think you have to hurry," Sam said, pulling Daniel's attention to her as a section of the cave wall collapsed and another swarm of dust entities swept by, the edge of her flashlight beam catching them mid-flight. "I'm not sure how stable this cavern is now that we're using this device, but I don't want to stay long enough to find out."
"I'm not leaving until we find everyone else," Daniel said, already moving to another stalagmite several steps away.
"Daniel—"
"Sam," he said, turning to face her, his eyes linking with hers. "Stay or go, it's up to you, but I'm staying." He held her gaze for several beats before turning away, aiming the device and activating it again. Another half-decayed arm emerged and he moved on, pushing any other thoughts to the back of his mind.
Three more stalagmites later and another familiar color appeared—BDU green, the wrist thinner than Jack's. "We have another one here," Daniel called as he aimed the device toward the floor, loosening the base before moving on once again, confident that the rest of the team would continue what he'd started.
"Damn. No pulse."
Warren's hushed words washed over him, but he kept going. He had to.
One more followed—in blue—but it took nearly an hour to find it, many more partially decayed corpses later, the swarms of dust entities thickening every few minutes. In the back of his mind Daniel was worried. There was only one left. What if the swarms got too thick? What if they couldn't find their way back out? What happened if they got trapped, encased in the very dust and dirt that had trapped the ones they were trying to save?
And Jack was still missing. Where was he? Where'd he wander off to this time?
Raising his arm once again to aim the device at the next stalagmite, Daniel noticed that his suit had a thick covering on it—and not the dark, dead remains of the dust insects as Sam had described them. These were the live ones.
"Daniel, we have to get out of here." Sam's voice came through his earpiece, her tone hovering on the edge of extreme anxiety.
"We can't leave now. We could be so close," he protested, already working on the next stalagmite.
"We could also be dead in a few minutes if we don't move now. Peterson and Warren have already headed back to the main passage. The bugs were starting to eat through their suits. We have got to go."
"I need more time."
"We don't have it." Sam appeared at his elbow, latching herself on and tugging him back the way they came. Her firm grip was not about ready to budge and, truth be told, now that he was paying attention, it was a lot worse than he originally thought. If it were snow this would be near white-out conditions.
Moving steadily, they made their way back toward the entrance of the cavern, the brief breaks in the swarms allowing them to see where they were going.
But, Daniel couldn't leave yet.
Stopping dead in his tracks, he could feel the tug at his arm as Sam tried to move him forward, but he wasn't budging. "We can't go now, not when we're this close. Just give me ten more minutes, we still have another section to try."
"Daniel—"
"Sam, please. This might be our last chance."
He could hear her sigh over the open radio channel. "Ten minutes, Daniel."
Shuffling along, moving when he could, when a clear spot gave him some visibility, he made his way to the stand of stalagmites he remembered from before, off to the side, away from the main groupings.
There were more here than he originally thought.
Switching on the device he started working, ignoring the smell and the sight of decomposition, trying not to think of these corpses as once-living bodies. It was easier that way.
In his haste, he nearly missed the glint of light against glass, his mind catching up with his body several stalagmites further down the row.
What was that?
Sliding back, the swarms thickening once again, he aimed his flashlight at the hole he had made in the crust, its light reflecting off a familiar SGC-issued wristwatch lens, the green BDU sleeve pushed up around an elbow the way Jack liked to wear it.
Daniel's hand snaked in to grab the wrist as he called for help. "Sam! Teal'c! I found Jack and he's alive! I need help."
Sam replied immediately. "Teal'c, stay where you are, I'm still down here. Daniel, I'll be there in a minute. We have to hurry."
"I know, I know," Daniel said, aiming the device at Jack's feet, trying to get the cavern floor to release his friend. Sam found him moments later as he was wrestling Jack's body forward, toward the slope they'd descended.
"Let me help you," she said, grabbing the other side, lifting the Colonel's body, distributing the weight between the two of them.
How they made it to the incline, he'll never remember, those minutes longer than anything he'd ever experienced before.
The sight of Teal'c standing at the bottom spelled a measure of relief for the archeologist. They were almost out. They were almost safe. Just a little bit more.
The three of them stumbled out of the cave carrying Jack's encased body, refusing to release it until they were outside where they found Colonel Hill waiting along with Warren and Peterson—and the rest of the bodies.
The Colonel took charge immediately, gesturing them to lay Jack down at the base of several trees, his medical equipment spread out on the ground within easy reach. Hill's hand immediately latched onto Jack's wrist, checking the pulse. Hill's hardening expression told Daniel all he needed to know.
They were too late.
"Major, I need to get this crust off of O'Neill now. He has a pulse, but it won't be for long."
"We can use the sound device," Daniel suggested, his hazmat suit's hood hanging from his hands, but was immediately dismissed by Sam.
"No, we can't. Without some kind of protection for his ears there's no telling what this high-frequency sound would do to him."
"Death is better?"
"I have to agree with Doctor Jackson, Major," Hill said. "While the potential hazards are high, I think we need to risk it. I don't see any other way. If we can get one pulse to clear away the crap from his head, we can put the earplugs in so we can do the rest of his body."
Sam nodded once, reluctantly, and Daniel switched the device back on, making sure the needles hadn't moved. They only had one shot at this. He had to get it right. After checking with Sam, he positioned himself so that the pulse would have the widest effect.
And he pushed the button.
The crust turned black and fell away, Jack's pale face coming into view. Along with a small trickle of blood running down from each of his ears.
"Oh God, Colonel, there's blood." Daniel could feel the strength leaving his knees and he dropped to the ground as Hill moved in, his otoscope already in his hands as he tilted Jack's face, checking his ears. He reached back and grabbed some gauze, wiping the blood away before he put the earplugs in place.
"Again, Doctor. We have to finish."
"But his ears—"
"We'll worry about it later. I need you to finish this now."
Daniel nodded wearily and he aimed the device again. Four pulses later and Jack's body was clear of the crust. He leaned back, exhaustion sweeping over him.
And then Jack's breath rattled and his chest stopped moving.