CHAPTER NINE
Planet
PJ3-176,
Milky Way Galaxy.
Samantha Carter had been vigilant in her observations of the two women who were, for all intents and purposes, her new warders in this more comfortable, illustriously-decorated prison cell... which was lucky for her, as she was able to pick up on the sudden change in the moods of the Goa'uld.
They were agitated, that was for sure, though about what Sam couldn't tell. She stayed in her room and didn't try to show her overt interest in Lyan and Kiana, but Sam leaned in close against the closed door and listened hard through the gap in the doorway, trying to make out something in their private, whispered conversations that could hold some insight into what had them spooked.
As she listened with strained concentration to the two low voices in the hallway outside, Carter heard bits and pieces of their conversation in the Goa'uld dialect. She made out a couple of key words – 'Tau'ri', she knew meant the original humans, from her own homeworld Earth; and the Goa'uld words for 'orbit', 'space-craft' and 'communications'.
From these little snippets of the converation, Colonel Sam Carter made a couple of educated guesses. She had little else to go on, but she figured with a good level of certainty that there was some kind of message coming through from a vessel out in space – probably the Odyssey, searching for SG-1 as the team had been far past their deadline in checking in with Stargate Command by quite some time, as far as Sam could gather.
With nothing else to go on, Carter pondered her situation and decided, after only a moment's thought, that it was time to act.
"Kiana! Can I take a tour of the grounds? I've seen the gardens from the battlements out to the east, and they look wonderful. Is it alright?" Sam asked, shouting through the door without opening it.
There was a long pause. Colonel Carter could imagine the two women, discussing the arrangement with one another. Sam knew how things were done already, as she had taken a couple of tours around the fortress since her transfer already. Standing out in the centre of the chamber, with her hands out in front of her in as non-threatening a stance as possible, Carter waited for the door to open, and her two 'guardians' to step through with wary, cautious motions.
The Lieutenant Colonel's eyes were fixated on the nearest warder, which was always Kiana, and watched as she checked out the situation and, with a forced smile that didn't quite reach her eyes, beckoned her forward. She planned on taking Kiana out first. She wouldn't be the hard one to deal with, though.
It was Lyan, the silent broody professional, Sam knew she'd have to be real careful of. Lyan was the one who always had her hand resting on the butt of her zat-gun. She was the one who was always taunt, ready for immediate action. It was almost as though she was disappointed every time they had returned with Carter back to her quarters in the past, without incident.
When she passed the Goa'uld Kiana on her way out the door, Sam suddenly sprung into action, tensing up and spinning around on the heels of her feet to send a brutal punch barrelling into the woman's chest. As Kiana staggered back from the vicious impact of the blow, Carter's left leg flew out to catch Lyan a high hit to the side of her face, even as she was turning her body away from the incoming snap-kick. Lyan was sent careening back against the far wall, temporarily out of the fight... leaving Sam to deal with Kiana before she was able to mount any proper counterattack.
The second and third blows were a couple of sharp left and right punches to Kiana's head, then there was a beautiful, final uppercut to her chin, that sent the Goa'uld warrioress flying back off her feet to crash with an almighty thud onto the ground by the door. Sam rushed forward to snatch her zat'ni'katel up out of her belt, then turned straight onto Lyan.
The other woman was actually starting to come to, and bring her own zat-gun up to bear. Sam could hardly believe it, but she was ready to fire, and did so without hesitation. One stunning shot resonated through Lyan's body, but the Goa'uld persisted, and tried desperately to keep her gun steady before succumbing to the weapon's energy-bolt. Carter was forced to fire a second time, and this immediately killed Lyan; her corpse dropped back against the far wall and stayed there.
Sam wondered for a few moments if she should shoot Lyan a third time, which would disintegrate her body and leave absolutely no disternable trace, but then thought it was hardly worth it. She quickly searched both women for anything of value to her escape, and came up with a set of keys on Kiana that Sam was sure would come in handy somewhere along the line.
Then she raced off through the open doorway, and down the hall, towards the staircase that wound downwards deeper into the twisting, turning catacombs of the lower section of this fortress.
What counted now above anything was speed, stealth, and decisiveness. Sam knew she was still in for a tough road ahead, but somehow, she had to make contact with whoever had the Goa'uld so spooked, and get some much-needed assistance in getting out of this mess.
# SG1 #
The city of Alden was... well, to put it bluntly, immense. Cam Mitchell had never seen another place quite like it. He supposed that there had been settlements like this back on Earth, sometime in the distant past – settlements on the Mediterranean, or back in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. But Cam had never seen such a metropolitan paradise before.
There were trees everywhere, and sprawling gardens that stretched all around the city's grand sprawl. Houses of all shapes, sizes and complements littered the area. There were walled conclaves and terraced apartment buildings, bazaars where the people congregated to barter and trade, and courtyards were the affluent came to gossip and make connections with their peers. In all, it was a remarkable place indeed.
Moving cautiously through the back streets and small alleyways of Alden, the makeshift SG-1 team, with Altan in the lead, made their way towards the High Temple of Tel'mar, which was near the very heart of the city. Thanks to some clothing Artan was able to accuire from a sympathetic contact on the outskirts of the city, the small group disguised themselves in the tattered garb expected of the lower-class populace around the place. They were able to blend in quite easily with the locals, despite the current war-footing most of the city's peoples were in.
Colonel Mitchell kept a close eye on everybody around him, though, and despite the fact that his assault rifle was concealed underneath his cloak, the heavy weight of the weapon against his chest was somewhat reassuring. There were armed Jaffa nearly everywhere they turned, and a number of humans were also taking up weapons and joining the cause of the Ori.
The rebellion was spreading far into all the disenfranchised, downtrodden castes of Tel'mar's society. There were many bitter debts to settle, and the Ori were willing to allow any person to join their holy quest so long as they embraced the religion of Origin.
When he saw the humans that were armed with Goa'uld staff weapons and zat-guns, Artan remarked to the others, "They must be rounding up fighters from the populations to the east and north. There, Tel'mar had naquada mines operating, upon which much of his empire was founded before the rebellion. These men are tough indeed, to survive such hardships. They will be valiant adversaries in battle, if it comes to that, and no doubt their hearts thirst for vengeance."
"And there'd be no blaming them for that!" Cam whispered back, before suddenly realising he had said that out loud, and right to Artan's face no less. However, he hardly felt any guilt for what he'd said. It had been the stone-cold truth in any respects.
"Look, let's just get on with the mission," Daniel, ever the mediator, interceded. "Maybe by the time our job's done here, there wont be any more need for bloodshed."
# SG1 #
In
orbit over PJ3-176, onboard the USS Odyssey,
the
Milky Way Galaxy.
They had been in realspace over the planet known by its SGC designation as PJ3-176 for the past two hours, and so far, had no luck establishing a radio link with SG-1. The Communications chief was certain the signal was being received on the planet, and they also had a firm location on all four team-members' transponder beacons – prerequsites for every person travelling in an off-world team.
But no reply from the world below them from their lost people... Colonel Emerson was left to decide on the next course of action to take, and he didn't like his options very much at all with the limited information available to them.
However, he knew that he had a job to do to try and find SG-1, and if that meant putting people in harm's way, then that's what Paul Emerson would do. He would have rather gotten a better picture of just what was going on down there.
Colonel Emerson depressed a button on the side console of his command chair, which patched him through directly to the transport room where the thirty-four person strong Special Forces strike force was ready to disembark. "Major Conner, are you and your people ready to go?"
"Just give us the word, sir, and we're on the way," came the sharp, confident voice of the Spec Ops commander. Paul smiled. Frank's assured voice was good to hear – it lent him strength, which he knew would be necessary to make the decisions that had to be made.
"You have it, Major – and Godspeed."
# SG1 #
Planet
PJ3-176,
Milky
Way Galaxy.
Carter dropped low to the ground when the bolts of staff weapon fire came zipping in over her head, barely avoiding a hit to the face, as the two human warriors came racing down the corridor towards her from the lower dungeons. They were warders from the cells belowground – big, strapping warriors who knew how to fight, but also how to intimidate and coerce.
Sam aimed fast but also with careful precision, and fired her shots quickly and in bursts of two. All four energy bolts hit their targets, two to each of the oncoming men, and they both came crashing to the ground in twisted heaps, dead before the hit the floor.
They were not the same tall, imposing guards that she had seen in her prison cell when she was with the rest of her team, but they had been an immediate threat to her and had to be taken out. The Colonel felt no real regret about the action, as it was simply a matter of 'shoot or die'. Sam doubted that they would have taken her prisoner, they seemed more intent on blowing her head off her shoulders.
She wasn't quite sure of where the armory where their gear was stored actually was located – Cam had filled her in as best he could about much of their situation before they had to leave on Tel'mar's infiltration missioin, so she knew about the storage room where much of their weaponry and equipment was, and a rough idea on how to get there. It would have to do.
There was a shout back the way Sam had come – obviously, someone had discovered the bodies of the two Goa'uld women. Cries went out further back behind her, then the deep, resonating sound of a horn-blast – the standard Jaffa infantry's call to arms. There would be alerts going out all across the city, and soon enough, this whole fort would be jam-packed full of Tel'mar's loyalist soldiers.
Sam knew her window of opportunity was fast shrinking away. She had to keep moving along the way she was going, because there was no real chance of going back now... her only hope left was to succeed in reaching her gear, hope there was a radio and a locator beacon there, be right about the 'cavalry' being somewhere within communications, and beaming, range.
If she was wrong, or not all the equipment was there that she needed, then Lt Colonel Sam Carter knew she was probably as good as dead.
# SG1 #
Prostration was a great time to move out across the city of Alden without being noticed, and the team was ready to take advantage of the opportunity when it presented itself to them. There was an extreme risk of exposure by one of the few diligant roving patrols sweeping through the city proper, because they would more likely shoot anyone not at the mandatory prayers dead on the spot, but they had agreed that the risk was well worth it.
And it was understood, not so much in words but in a general mood that was universally shared by the four of them, that this whole mission would be all the better for being over with, as soon as possible.
Despite the risks, they managed to slip right through the lopsided sweeps made through the streets of Alden – they weren't all that frequent as it was, and the Jaffa/human patrols were hardly ready for a vicious firefight so far inside their own territory. All the Ori followers were giddy with excitement at daily news of their victories across the entire sweep of the conflict. None of Tel'mar's depleted forces were a match for the warriors of the Ori, with their enhanced weaponry and enduring faith in 'the one true path to enlightenment'.
There were two human guards outside the High Temple building's main entrance. Artan knew of a secret way into the structure, so they were completely bypassed for the more covert pathway in.
"This was a secret tunnel constructed so that the High Priests of the Cult of Tel'mar could escape, in the event of an attack of some kind," Artan explained as they made their way cautiously down the dark, tightly-packed tunnel system, deep into the side of the mountain on which the huge building sat. They were guided only by the beams of Daniel's and Cam's torchlights.
"Then what happened to the priests in this instance? Denamor said they were all slaughtered by the rebels when they took the city," Cam said.
There was a long pause, as Artan contemplated this. "To be honest, we're not completely sure on this matter. Some of Tel'mar's council whisper that a small number of the High Priests were turned by the Prior, and betrayed those of their kin who would not join the rebellion. But no-one is certain," the Jaffa warrior replied. He seemed to frown at his own explanation – the light caught this look on Artan's face as Cam swept it back down the hallway, towards the end of the tunnel which was fast approaching.
At the other end of the secret passageway was a large, round stone slab, which well and truly barred their path further on into the temple. Daniel turned to Artan inquisitively. There was no way that they could move this obstacle, even with their combined strength.
But they didn't have to. When beckoned to do so by the Jaffa, Mitchell shined his flashlight's beam onto the surface of the stone slab, and saw that there was a myriad of runes and slashing symbols littered all over a porton of the rock-barrier. Artan touched a half-dozen of the strange alien writings in rapid succession, and the slab slowly grinded aside, sliding away from them to reveal an opening out of the passageway and into the interior of the High Temple.
"We are near the Wall of Martyrs, where all the fallen heroes of Tel'mar are engraved and venerated for all time," Artan said, his voice hushed with reverence. "It is truly a grave shame that this building must be destroyed..."
"Yeh, sure it is," Cam agreed, though he hardly meant it. To him, this was just another Goa'uld structure that was nothing more than a reflection of the alien species' grand, universal ego. "Now, where do you think these six rebel leaders should be located?"
"Follow me," the Jaffa warrior beckoned. He moved forward through the gap the secret door had made for them, and entered the great temple itself. Cam, then Daniel and finally Teal'c followed suit. They all had their guns up and at the ready – this was the very heart of enemy territory, so none of them knew what to expect around each corner.
This was near the end of their journey, but it was the most dangerous part of the mission so far.
