CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Planet
PJ3-176,
Milky
Way Galaxy.
"Sam! Oh thank God, Sam you're alright!" Daniel shouted out, from his hiding position on the other side of the street. He looked over at Carter and gave her a broad, relieved grin, just before ducking back as a staff weapon bolt fired from further up the street struck the wall by his head.
Daniel dropped back behind his cover as far as he could, then took up cautious aim around the side of the wall and picked off the man who had fired the salvo in the first place, hitting the warrior high in the chest-plate he wore and sending the enemy combatant staggering back from a full burst of bullets. He was dead before hitting the ground.
Colonel Carter moved up with the rest of her complement of Special Forces soldiers, firing short, concise bursts from their automatic rifles as they continued to advance against the depleted, disheartened enemy. The bodies were piling up further up the road, where the Ori followers were finally beginning to give ground against the onslaught, and in some cases break and run from the fresh reinforcements. Sam was able to race up to Colonel Mitchell's side, and hunker down beside the man as he smiled and gave her a hearty pat on the back.
"Damn Carter, nice to see you!" Cam said with a laugh, as he lined up another Jaffa in his sights and squeezed off a short burst of bullets, cutting the warrior down as he struggled to fire at the oncoming Spec Ops troops. "And who are these boys you've brought along for the ride?"
"Special Forces soldiers, sir, from the Odyssey. The vessel's high above us right now, ready to beam the whole group onboard once I give the signal," Sam replied. She clipped a small locator beacon to the side of Mitchell's vest, and he nodded his thanks as she rushed across the road towards Teal'c and Daniel, keeping low and running fast as bolter fire from the few remaining enemy fighters zipped past.
"Colonel Carter, multiple contacts coming in from all directions!" came the slightly panicked voice of Major Frank Conner over the radio-net, as Sam almost crash-tackled Teal'c in her desperation to reach the cover of the two other members of SG-1's current positions. The big Jaffa fighter pulled her in out of the dangers of open ground, and she was able to slide into a tightly-squeezed spot between the two other men.
Suddenly, the sound of heavy fighting crackling over the connection between her and the Major had Sam riveted to Conner's plight. The man's voice suddenly cried out from her radio, "Carter, they're everywhere! We can't hold them off for- ARRGGHH!"
"Dammit!" Sam swore, as she hurriedly opened up a pouch-pocket on the front of her vest to get at the last two little locator chips for the final two team-members of SG-1. "Teal'c, Daniel, the Odyssey's in orbit overhead. Here put these on, we have to get out of here before our position's overrun."
The two men quickly attached the beacons provided to different parts of their bodies, then Carter patched in a signal to the tech officer manning the teleporter controls aboard the ship high overhead. "We're ready down here. We need to go now, and there might be wounded incoming."
Lt Colonel Sam Carter tried to stop herself from shaking uncontrollably from the tension and the concern for Conner as the Asgard-designed beaming technology picked her, and the rest of the Tau'ri troops all around the immediate area, up off the surface of the planet.
# SG1 #
In
orbit over PJ3-176, onboard the USS Odyssey,
the
Milky Way Galaxy.
The medical orderlies were all already on standby just outside the operations area in the teleportation room. When Sam looked around the men and women all packed in together on the teleporter's dias, she saw almost instantly where Major Frank Conner was – he was lying amonst his comrades, who were all packed around him trying to help in some way or other.
The poor soldier had taken a full staff weapon blast to the side of his body, where a huge gaping black hole had been blown through his Kevlar vest. The smell of seared flesh and burning leather was clearly evident in the air around them all, and Conner, mercifully, had passed out from the pain after a short, fitful bout of screaming in agony.
With professional speed and competence, the medical crew onboard the Odyssey went about their business, forcing all the military personnel back and sweeping in to lift the wounded SF up onto a nearby gurney they'd wheeled in. Then, the men and women started to strip away all the combat garb the soldier had on him, as well as some of his outer clothing, as one of the ship's doctors carefully took a look at the fallen man's wound.
Colonel Carter, relieved beyond words at the success of the mission and the rescue of her dear friends, couldn't help but gringe at what had happened to Frank Conner. Something had told her he wouldn't come out of this operation unscathed, and yet despite everything, there hadn't been a single thing she could have done to stop it. She knew in her heart that there was nothing that could have been done any differently to protect her fellow comrade, but still that didn't stop the feeling of guilt that gripped Sam in an agonizing vice.
Cameron came up to stand beside her, and they both watched on in companionable silence as Major Conner was initally treated for his wound, then taken away on the gurney back to the infirmary onboard the vessel, with a small flock of doctors and nurses in close attendance. "Sam, you did all you could," the Lieutenant Colonel said simply. "You led the rescue team as best any of us could have done it, and you all fought with professionalism and skill to get us out of there before we were overrun. Trust me, you saved our bacon down there. Conner helped too, before he went down. Without you all coming down when you did, we wouldn't have lasted ten minutes longer."
The words that Mitchell spoke were true and from the heart, and Sam knew and appreciated them. But still, she didn't feel very consolible at the moment, despite everything. She knew the aching she felt inside wouldn't go away until she found out if Frank Conner would pull through. Carter followed Colonel Mitchell back after Teal'c and Daniel, through the corridors and bulkheads of the USS Odyssey on their way to the bridge of the ship, to their audience with Colonel Paul Emerson.
# SG1 #
"SG-1, I'm glad to finally see you all together at last," Colonel Emerson said with a slight smile, as he stood up to give the two officers who walked onto the bridge of his vessel the proper respect of a smart, punctual salute. Carter and Cam Mitchell returned the action in kind, while Teal'c and Dr Jackson simply but gratefully nodded. "We were all worried that it would be too late by the time we got here..."
"Well sir, it almost was," Cam replied with a huff, "but luckily, we were able to hold out until the cavalry arrived." There was a pause, then, "Thanks for coming all this way for us, Colonel."
"Nothing to thank me for, Mitchell," Paul Emerson said, waving the notion away with a brush of his right hand, "it's all part of the job description." Then, the commanding officer of the Odyssey turned his attention to Colonel Samantha Carter, and said, "Sam, you did some mighty fine work out there to get the rest of your team back. What happened to Conner, by all reports, was not your fault and there was nothing more to be done about it. Frank knew the risks just like everybody else, and he took the spot on that extraction team because it was what he did, and he was good at his job. Our medical personnel will do their best to save his life, but this is sometimes what happens out here on the front lines. Sometimes, not everyone makes it back home. But there was nothing that could have been done any differently to stop what happened."
"Yes sir," Carter agreed, though she gulped back the moan that threatened to slip out. She knew that one of the things that made her a great scientist, as well as a great frontline explorer and soldier, was her emotions... but they were also Sam's undoing. The soothing, encouraging words of others sometimes helped to alleviate the guilt and anguish she felt, at times, but only sometimes.
"Now, how about we get the hell out of here and head on home? Any objections?" Emerson asked the four members of SG-1. There were none, just as he had expected.
# SG1 #
In
orbit over the space-docks of Remarz Tor, onboard
the Ha'tak mothership,
the
Milky Way Galxay.
"We are ready to depart, My Lord," Denamor said in a respectfully hushed tone, as the Goa'uld Tel'mar sat slightly hunched over on his throne at the rear of the Pel'tak, the mothership's primary command centre. The vessel was still docked in low orbit over the industrial sprawl that was Remarz Tor, but at a wave of the supreme ruler's Unas claw, the clamps that held the Ha'tak in place were slowly retracted, and the vessel began to slowly pull alway from the main structure where Goa'uld ships were built and maintained on this planet.
The final Ha'tak mothership that the once-revered Goa'uld Lord was escaping from this world in was still heavily battle-scarred, and its compliment of Jaffa and human crew were the minimum number required to control all of the vessel's functions. The servants of Tel'mar went about their duties in a hushed silence, but there was none of the kinetic energy and buzzing feeling of excitement about them like the glory days of the past. Lord Tel'mar couldn't help but pick up on this as well, and despite himself, because of all the setbacks over the past months and years, he felt humbled by his own followers' gloomy outlook.
"We are detecting the Tau'ri warship on long-range sensors, My Lord," one of the Jaffa at a control panel said.
"Grr... where are they now? Running from us in fear, I wouldn't doubt!" Tel'mar huffed in disgust, as he pulled himself out of his depressing thoughts and rose up from his chair. Stepping down off the podium that dominated the back of the Pel'tak room, he continued, "Bring the Tau'ri vessel up on the viewscreen, and give me a bearing and distance on the ship as soon as you have one."
At Tel'mar's command, the viewscreen in the front section of the command centre changed from the starry, cloudless evening sky around their Ha'tak mothership, to show the Tau'ri ship in the far distance. The Lord ordered a more clarified view of the vessel, and a few moments later he had one; the ship became much closer and more pronounced in the viewscreen, and at last the Goa'uld ruler was able to see the opposing warship that had done so much damage and destruction to his empire on this world.
The Unas host bared is teeth and let out a low growl in anger, as the Goa'uld symbiote inside tried to wrestle with the intense rage building up within. The Jaffa at the control port rattled off the heading and distance of the enemy vessel from their own position, and Tel'mar, without a moment's thought or hesitation, ordered that they close the gap between their two ships. "Prepare for combat! Ready all sections, and prepare all death glider wings for immediate launch on my command!"
It was time, at last, to meet their foe head-on; although it was not a fight that Tel'mar himself had been expecting, but a week before, it was a more even match than any battle he could hope to wage against the insidious, immensely-powerful Ori followers. They would engage the enemy ship from just beyond the upper atmosphere of the planet, and destroy the vessel from that vantage-point with all of their firepower. If necessary, squadrons of death gliders could be launched from the Ha'tak's fighter bays, to take the battle right to their adversaries and give the noble warriors of Tel'mar a true taste of warfare. But the outcome was not in doubt, at least to the Goa'uld Lord.
It was a perfect opportunity to strike the warriors from Earth, now; their vessel was almost out of Ori-controlled territory, and they were too busy concentrating their weapons-fire on suppressing the Ori's gun positions to be worried about much else. There was even a chance that the ship could be damaged from engaging with the Ori followers and their powerful new weaponry. He knew that, either way, the outcome of this engagement with the Tau'ri vessel was hardly in question. There was no chance that they would escape... if he was to lose this world to the Ori, Tel'mar thought bitterly, then the humans of Earth would suffer greatly along with him!
# SG1 #
In
orbit over PJ3-176, onboard the USS Odyssey,
the
Milky Way Galaxy.
"Sir, we've almost cleared the Ori gun enplacements... but I'm picking up something faint on the long-range sensors," one of the junior officers onboard the Odyssey's bridge said curtly. "I'm afraid I cannot identify the bogey definitively, but there is a high probability that this signal return is a vessel of some kind, that it is hostile, and that it's on an intercept course for our ship."
Emerson didn't hesitate for a second. "Red alert, prepare for engagement with hostile vessel." Then, to the officer that had brought up the alert, a young female lieutenant, Paul said, "Sandy, I want more than 'there's something out there' ASAP. We can't operate on limited long-range sensors, not with a possible enemy vessel out there ready to descend upon us. Understand?"
"Yes sir," the junior-grade officer replied crisply, then went back to her control console. Colonel Emerson sat back in his command chair, and waited for the inevitable. His space-craft was still not nearly up to full specs, thanks to the initial barrage of Ori weapons-fire from the cannon sites far below, but his crew were doing a fantastic effort to get back the myriad of systems they had repaired, so he knew there was really no justification to complain. However, he was the C.O of this starship, and as such he expected nothing less than perfection out of his people, without fail on a 24-7 basis. It wasn't about him being a tyrant or a power-hungry monster; it was about Colonel Paul Emerson commanding the best of the best, in one of the most hostile frontline postings imaginable, and it was about him trying his damn best to bring everyone back home alive.
It took less than five minutes to get the sensors cleared up, which again was nothing short of an absolute miracle. As soon as they came online, the shout came out from the same lieutenant who had put out the first trepidatious warning - "Sir, a Goa'uld-designed Ha'tak mothership has been detected, bearing down on our position, heading 11814. Less than twenty seconds until they're within firing range!"
"Copy that, Lieutenant," Emerson said grimly. He had little doubt that this mothership was a hostile vessel... probably one of Tel'mar's, he reasoned. They weren't going to let them get away from here without some kind of challenge, if not an out-and-out brawl. The Colonel felt a sickly dread gripping his stomach. The Odyssey wasn't up to standards for a hard, bitter fight. Paul wondered to himself if his beloved vessel could stand up to an all or nothing battle with a Ha'tak, after everything they had all been through up to this moment.
He hoped desperately that they could, because something told the Colonel they would probably have to.
# SG1 #
The first impact from the Ha'tak mothership's opening salvos almost sent Daniel, Teal'c, and the young male soldier walking towards them both from the opposite direction stumbling to the floor. Teal'c had to grab hold of Dr Jackson, in fact, to stop the archaeologist from crashing to the ground. Flustered, Daniel thanked the Jaffa with a few quiet words, then they quickly headed on their route through the bulkhead up in front of them, heading towards the briefing room where they were to meet up with the other two members of SG-1, as well as some of the senior staff onboard the Odyssey for their regular after-mission debriefing. It was always best for all concerned to get the debriefs done and out of the way soon after a mission, no matter if it was a mundane, run-of-the-mill op, or a life and death battle for survival.
There were three more strikes that rocked the vessel severely, before Daniel and Teal'c at last ran into Sam and Cameron Mitchell as they came bolting out of the briefing room. Cam pulled them both up short, and before they could jump in with any questions or statements about the attack or what they were going to do about it, he started talking, "There's a Goa'uld mothership out there somewhere boys, layin' in the hurt, and Emerson isn't too sure how long we can hold out - seems the Odyssey went through the wars on their way in to pick us up from Alden. So, with the Colonel's permission already given, I've managed to secure us an X-302. T-Man, you're the top dog on this one, I'll fly shotgun with ya."
"What about us?" Dr Jackson asked, indicating himself and Colonel Carter.
Sam jumped in on this one before Mitchell had a chance to. "Listen Daniel, all the X-302s are being launched out of the fighter bays of this ship to engage with the death gliders the mothership is throwing against us. The crew of the Odyssey are trying to bracket the Ha'tak with railgun bombardments, then even throw in a naquadah-enhanced contemplorary warhead or nuke for good measure. There is little that we can do to assist anyone, but Colonel Emerson says we are welcome to join him on the bridge - so long as we keep out of the way."
Jackson nodded, then SG-1 split up yet again. Teal'c and Cam headed off to join up with one of the X-302 squadrons launching out of the left fighter bay, to take their position as the second lead-out space-fighter, in the dogfight with the Goa'uld-designed death glider spacecraft; while Daniel and Sam made their way hurriedly up towards the front of the vessel, to join the senior commanders and see the battlespace from a somewhat omnipitant viewpoint that the bridge provided.
The ordered chaos of the vessel in battle conditions was hectic in itself, but Sam and Daniel making their way up through the rush of people towards the heart of the action, the ship's bridge, was nothing short of an uphill fight against the tide of human traffic. But they managed to get there, in the end, as one of the controllers announced the launching of the first wave of X-302 fighters against the mass of incoming death gliders.
"How long until the two formations meet?" Colonel Emerson demanded, as Carter and Dr Jackson slowly began filtering around the room, trying to get a lay of the tactical situation while keeping for the most part out of everyone else's road.
"One minute twenty-six seconds and counting," a technician replied. The two formations of space fighter-craft, the 'friendly' X-302s in a nice, packed blue-colored cluster, while the Goa'uld death gliders were in a couple of slightly larger red-colored groups, dominated one of the larger tactical screens out the front of the bridge near the opaque observation window that looked directly out into the dark void of space. The two members of SG-1 couldn't help but wonder amongst themselves which one of those blue icons that indicated X-302s in flight was the craft Teal'c and Cam Mitchell had commandeered.
"Alright, prepare to fire forward silos and railgun batteries," the Odyssey's C.O said calmly. "Target the Ha'tak mothership. I want that Goa'uld vessel effectively taken out of the fight, before our fighters start dog-fighting those death gliders."
