A/N: Well, I've just had my first week at work… all induction and training. I'm also moving house this weekend so it's all a bit chaotic. What that means, of course, is that I had little to no access to the internet! This chap was ready to go on Thursday but I haven't been able to log on to post (sniff).

Thank you all for the fantastic reviews! It was so exciting to see them here once I FINALLY managed to connect and I hope you can all deal with my sporadic posting while I get settled in!

Here we go again…

Chapter 8 – Take-over bid

Janet sat perched over the microscope as she vainly searched for something common to both Jack and Stacey that also differentiated their bloodwork from that of the general population. Her hands were shaking. She had planted her palms flat on the bench in an attempt to control them. As she grew increasingly tired the waves of powerlessness that had been plaguing her became stronger. She knew that sooner or later whatever it was inside her would manage to completely infiltrate her actions. It was imperative that she found some answers – or at least some leads – before that happened.

"Stacey, I need you to get the other samples out of the centrifuge and serially dilute them 1:1000 with distilled water." Janet said calmly, without looking up from the microscope. Ever since reaching the lab, she had been verbally issuing instructions and explanations to the bright Australian so that some form of research analysis could continue should she be incapacitated.

"Serially, that's in stages, right?" Stacey asked as she carefully handled the disposable test-tubes.

"Yep." Janet said quickly, before pulling abruptly away from the microscope in disgust. "There's absolutely nothing unique about yours or the Colonel's blood." She said with frustration.

"Something will turn up – at least in those… um… phages and sequencing tests you were talking about." Stacey said, squeezing Janet's arm lightly as she passed her, moving towards the pipettes lined up on the bench for the dilution.

"But they won't be fast enough!" Janet said a bit hysterically. "D'you know how complex DNA is? It's nothing like on crime TV shows." She twisted her head to look at Stacey so abruptly her neck cracked. "We've only just managed to map the human genome – examining specific strains is still years away! Besides," she slumped slightly in her chair with the helplessness she felt, "we don't even know where to look."

A weak moan suddenly caused both Janet and Stacey to look to the corner of the room where Teal'c had been installed on one of the spare gurneys. He was strapped to the portable bed for security but had been housed in the lab due to the uniqueness of his predicament and the fact that he was the lest likely to suddenly start acting strangely.

"Teal'c! How are you feeling?" Janet was by his side in a moment, her resolve momentarily strengthened by the change in circumstances.

Teal'c's eyes fluttered weakly. His breathing was laboured and in short bursts, and there were beads of sweat coating most of his visible skin. "Dr Fraser." His voice was so weak it rasped at a whisper. "The Gas… it is gaining strength throughout the base."

Stacey, who had turned instantly to watch Teal'c, now moved closer and leaned in next to Janet. "What do you mean? How do you know?"

"Its communication…" He spoke only a couple of words at a time, struggling for long breaths in between. "It behaves as would an insect colony – the more it proliferates, the stronger it gets; what one colony learns, the other outposts in each host instantly knows as well." He strained briefly against the restraints, caught by a wave of pain. "The communication must be broken!"

"Yes but how?" Janet was leaning in so close she was almost on top of Teal'c now. "How do we do it? Why aren't Jack and Stacey affected? Why is Sam still ok when Jonas isn't?"

"AhhHH!" Teal'c grunted as his symbiote squirmed worryingly under his skin. "My symbiote, it cannot sustain the attack much longer…" He looked to Janet, calm for a moment, his eyes pleading with her. "The colony in Colonel Carter is almost no more…"

"Huh? Teal'c? Teal'c stay with us!" Janet grabbed him by his huge arms and shook slightly, trying to rouse him – without success.

"How does he know all that?" Stacey looked to Janet wide eyed as they hovered above Teal'c's now unconscious form. "Is he? Has this Gas…?"

"I don't know." Janet moved slowly away from Teal'c, fighting the desire to push a pillow over his head and stop him from giving any more information that could help.

"He didn't sound like Teal'c," Stacey had sat down in front of the test-tubes she'd been working with before and was striking a pose like 'The Thinker' as she ran through the possibilities. "He was so… verbose… if the Gas is attacking his symbiote… maybe he can hear their communications, as he said it?" As she continued to think out loud, she didn't realise that Janet was moving towards her, a strange watery quality now surrounding her eyes. "Then… he was talking about Sam… the key might lie with her!"

Stacey's face brightened up with the idea she'd just had and she whirled around to look in Janet just in time. Instead of celebrating in the fact that they had finally been given a lead to go on, she found herself faced with a clearly compromised doctor, holding the heavy microscope above her head. With brilliant instincts, Stacey ducked out of the way just as the instrument crashed through the bench. She threw everything she could in Janet's direction: a chair, a filing cabinet, and even the coffee pot that sat next to the door. She wrenched the door open and, with all her strength, pulled Teal'c's gurney out with her into the corridor, slamming the door behind her and slapping her hand against the emergency alert button on the wall. Her final action before sinking to the ground in a shaking mess was to electronically lock the door to the infirmary lab, using a trick Sam had shown her to ensure it couldn't be opened from the inside.

Sam crouched over the plethora of files that were almost streaming before her eyes on the computer screen; searching for anything that could indicate the smallest of weaknesses with the Gas. Some people would express scepticism at the idea of a race recording their weaknesses in their records, but Sam knew that in the most seemingly inconsequential of data, surprising insights could be found. Still, she was yet to find any her nerves were becoming increasingly frayed with the stress of all that was riding on her research.

She was concentrating so hard that she didn't hear Jack enter the room. Her first clue was the wonderful aroma of coffee that filled the space – but for a moment she thought that was just a figment of her exhausted mind. When a steaming mug of the smooth liquid appeared in front of her, however, there was no doubt about it.

Looking up with an appreciative smile she grasped at the rejuvenating tonic and brought the cup slowly to her lips, relishing the warmth both of the milky substance, and also the wonderful warmth of Jack's lips which were lightly feathering her neck as a way of saying hello.

"Mmmm. How's your arm?" She said dreamily. Looking around to Jack.

Jack feigned supreme suffering and pouted dramatically. "ArmS, plural." He corrected Sam haughtily. "After losing many pints of blood I think Janet's finally got enough to work with." He paused, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt to expose the offending sites.

"And yet you managed to bring me coffee?" Sam leaned up to kiss him quickly on the lips. "You're positively superhuman."

"Yep." Jack said with smugness. "Good thing Thor thinks so too – we might have a way outta this mess." He dragged a stool from the edge of the room to perch next to Sam, leaning in to look at the computer screen. "Whattawe got?"

Sam scrunched up her face and blew into her cheeks, leaning back from the computer to look at him. "A lot of statistics, population data, photographic records… nothing that leaps out at me for the moment." She said apologetically.

Jack leaned in to the screen as he looked at a slideshow of everything they'd managed to decode and translate using the decryption software devised. There were pictures of groups at different locations, but most of all population and predominance statistics.

"Almost everything is about what translates as 'colonies'," Sam motioned a particular piece of text. "That's what they seem to call the groups present within each host body. At the base of it," she said with amazing scientific detachment, "they're just like any other species trying to survive and prosper."

"Yeah, and Teal'c's just a big cuddly teddy-bear." Jack grumbled angrily. "I don't buy any of it."

"Maybe not," Sam said patiently, "but towards what we've determined to be the end of their existence, they had a real crisis in terms of population; too many of their number were being killed and they had no hosts to replace them – they even considered reproduction of the hosts."

This comment surprised Jack slightly and he looked up at Sam with an incredulous expression on his face. "What's to consider?" He said, baffled that a race would not want to reproduce.

"Well," Sam said, drawing the word out as she searched in the computer for a file. "One of the earliest files we found details how host reproduction is actually forbidden…" she finally found what she was looking for and gasped briefly in satisfaction. "A-ha! Here it is, yep… it's flat out forbidden, for the integrity of the colonies."

"I think it's a little ambitious to say that an evil cloud of Gas could have integrity in the first place." Jack said tiredly, suddenly disinterested with the reams of useless information in front of them. He looked to Sam to see if what he'd said had managed to make her smile, but was startled to see her face had gone incredibly pale and she seemed to be swaying on the stool.

Quickly he got to his feet and supported her by the arms, helping her stand carefully and swooping her into his arms to gently place her on the ground.

"Hey, you ok?" He said, leaning over her as she lay on the cold floor listlessly.

Sam, frustrated at her apparent weakness, sat up slowly, waiting for the dizziness to go away before smiling gingerly at the brown eyes that were wide with concern.

"Yeah, just a dizzy spell." She said breathily. "I'm still me at least…"

"Not that I'm unhappy about that… about you being you…" Jack seemed to be thinking deeply; his facial expression was one of painful effort. "But why is that? I mean, you saw how Janet was having more and more problems controlling herself – she's had to start giving Stacey instructions because she doesn't trust herself not to contaminate her research."

Before Sam could give the problem due consideration a general alarm sounded through the base and both she and Jack were instantly on their feet, the latter reaching for the phone.

A couple of SFs were the first to respond to the alarm emanating from the infirmary laboratory and they came running down the corridor to Stacey's position, followed a few moments later by both Sam and Jack, who had weapons drawn.

"Dr Faser's been compromised." Stacey rose slowly to her feet, catching her breath as she leaned against the wall, her eyes trained on Sam and Jack. "Teal'c had just come to for a coupla minutes before she lost it."

Jack moved quickly to Teal'c's side and shook him slightly, but was disappointed to see that he appeared unconscious as before.

"He passed out again," Stacey said quickly, before looking at Sam again. "He did say something that could be useful – but we'd need a lab and I dunno if we can do it without a doctor."

"We can use the biotech lab upstairs." Sam didn't question Stacey for a minute and was instead thinking ahead. "Let's get Teal'c to a secure location."

"I don't think that's a good idea." An eerie chill had infested General Hammond's voice. Sam, Stacey and Jack looked sharply behind them to see their CO bearing down on them; staff weapon in hand.

"We think a better idea would be to neutralise the real threats present." The Gas worked its way through his neural networks to exercise the General's vocal chords. "Brethren," he nodded to the SFs, who had suddenly stood to attention, their eyes watering just as his were. "Seize the threats."

Although the airman had a renewed strength they didn't count on the speed or agility of the fugitives that were in their midst. Jack quickly zatted the General and Sam took care of the two SFs while Stacey quickly sprinted down the corridor in the other direction, pushing Teal'c ahead of her.

The zats only served to stun the Gas-infested humans, and Jack and Sam found themselves running backwards as fast as they could. Neither wanted to inflict a second zat, but the speed of General Hammond's recovery in particular forced them to take the chance. Again, he wasn't neutralised, nor were the SFs. They did, however fall to the ground, affording the only un-compromised people remaining in the SGC to escape around the corner and into the elevator.

The Gas had dispersed, disoriented and scattered by the electric current coursing through the host body. It took a couple of moments for reintegration of the pathways and swarm sections of the General's colony; enough time for the infidels to escape. The instant its number had come together sufficiently, a general alert was transmitted to the others. All those contained would be released; the threats would be hunted down and killed – only then would the colony move to the next stage.

We will conquer this new land and cement our supremacy far wider. Our number will not be quashed; we will prosper once more.

All around the SGC, at every level and stage, the previously deserted corridors were filled with personnel. To an outside observer, nothing appeared out of the ordinary. There was, however, a silent hum that betrayed this illusion. Bodies were coordinated in their movements as the Gas went about establishing themselves.

In a corner of level 16, Jack, Sam, Stacey, and Teal'c unconscious form constituted the last hope for the SGC and Earth. Slamming the door behind them Sam instantly plugged in the laptop she'd grabbed from an adjoining room and began typing furiously, reinforcing all security measures and sealing off their sector. They heard the safety doors slamming shut just ahead of the footsteps running down the corridor and collectively breathed a sigh of relief.

The brief respite didn't last long, however. Wide-eyed, the three conscious members in the room seemed to appreciate the severity of their situation at the same time. Jack and Stacey instinctively looked to Sam for suggestions of a path they could take, recognising her scientific expertise.

What they saw when looking at her, however, brought an entirely new world of anguish and panic. All of a sudden, Sam's complexion blanched until she was white as a sheet. Before anyone could say anything or move, her eyelids fluttered and she fainted, dropping awkwardly to the ground.

To be continued…

A/N: Well, I hope this has managed to transmit the severity of the situation… there may be hope – but they've only got a VERY short amount of time to figure it out before the Gas spreads beyond the SGC! And then there's the begging question – what's going on with Sam? Hmmm…

Nice to see some ideas in the last round of reviews… hope you continue to think – but you'll just have to wait and see exactly what I've got in store!