AN: I've introduced a lot of things in this chapter, see if you can work out all the things. Some are very obscure (because the Soviets are seeing them for the first time), so you won't be able to work them out. Others though are fairly obvious for anyone who's watched a decent amount of Stargate.
-x-
Eight men went in front, each with the special scope on their rifles, while others came behind holding pistols and torches in each hand though neither was raised for the moment. Igor had no doubt Durov had already though to add rifle-held lights to his list of items to be requisitioned for the program.
The Colonel was beside him however, in the fourth row from the front, so that while Igor looked all around for any symbol that would indicate their path, Durov just glared into the corridor ahead.
The corridor itself was straight and quite wide, with occasional supporting pillars to buttress the roof and the upper floors. The walls were the same mineral of the outer shell, but were carved in a stranger way, and much more crudely. While Durov was no archaeologist, it looked to him like something had been scrapped off them.
"Try your radio Kamerov." the Colonel instructed one of the soldiers, and the man did, receiving only static. Durov's frown got worse. "If its not jamming its the building itself." he said to himself.
"Runners then sir?" Kamerov asked.
Durov nodded, and they kept moving forward. Corridors branched off and soon they would be lost, and Durov turned to Igor again, "Where should we be going?" he asked, for they were all in Igor's hands now.
"Up to that windowed room we saw, so anywhere sloping upwards or with steps. Alternatively, go down and inwards to find any vaults or anything else that needed protecting- "
But just then the riflemen in front opened up, their guns roaring in the confined space.
"I see no stairs either up or down." Durov said loudly over the firing, reaching for his own pistol but not drawing it yet.
Igor was looking round quickly, cognisant of the importance of speed to their mission, and he eventually pointed to one of the walls. "Look here," he said, "we should follow this metal strip."
And indeed, Durov had noticed but discounted a silvery coil of metal snaking along the wall near to where they'd come in. He had discounted it at first, but listened closely as Igor explained its importance, and that it might lead to a treasury or throne room as they had suspected would be in the palace.
"Push forward!" he ordered and the men advanced, firing bursts into the darkness as they went. Between the shots he could he the cries of pain as the Beastmen died. It was probable, thought Durov, that Vulcan had trapped them there for exactly the purpose of slowing them down.
They fought they way through with Durov giving orders that the corpses be cleared from behind them so as not to obstruct the corridor, and they came to a long shaft with a metal ladder on one wall. Not only the ladder, but the crudeness of its construction surprised them and they picked their way over broken ground and several large holes in the floor. Igor had no explanation, but they climbed swiftly, Durov commanding Suslov to continue exploring the lower levels as Durov took half the force upwards.
The climb was only twenty metres, but with only three men on the ladder at one time they progressed more slowly than Durov would have liked, but there was nothing else to do, and the Colonel refused to proceed without adequate support and cover if they needed to retreat. Three more packs of Beastmen crossed their path and were swiftly killed, though one made it to them and killed a solder from SG-6 before it died, and they left the body there with some others of the wounded.
Eventually however, Igor began to pick up on several repeating symbols, and claimed that he could direct them properly and lead them up to the top of the structure. They followed him along, watching the passageways all around them while he read the walls and consulted books.
They came to a dead end, Igor peering at the wall.
"Is it a door?" Durov asked, knowing better than to trust the strangely carved stonework after they'd barely been able to see the last one if they hadn't found the tracks leading to it.
"Yes, it's the same symbols." Replied Igor, "But its been locked, or jammed I should say. Someone has destroyed the keys, I can't open it."
He began to turn and twist some of the symbols as he had the first time, whispering to himself while holding his torch in his mouth. But then there can shouting down the line for them all to be quiet.
"Quiet… There's a vibration." Durov heard Ilya's voice.
The Colonel stilled and went to a wall, laying his ear fully against it, and indeed, it was as Ilya had said, a steady thrum, very deep and almost like a large engine.
"Well that's not good." Remarked one of the soldiers, Durov couldn't tell which as it was too dark. He frowned.
"We can blow the door sir!" hissed Dimitri, holding up some of the explosives they'd brought along with them.
"No, you can't!" replied Igor, "Let me just try to open it here! The whole structure will come down!"
"No it won't Igor, its not large enough and if this is a door the force of the blast will stop at the frame." Explained Durov, and he clapped the Doctor on the shoulder and led him off with the other soldiers down the corridor.
"I'm ready Colonel!" Dimitri called down.
"Light it and get back here then!"
The rest of SG-1 came swiftly down the corridor and dove into the alcove they were hiding in. A shouted warning from Durov and the whole Company clapped their hands over their ears, except for the young Captain Lubev and his team who would be sprinting down to breach the doorway after its destruction.
The boom as the door blew sent chunks of metal down the corridor, blasting out past them and filling the air with dust.
"Go! Go!" ordered Durov and Lubev stepped out, pulling the pin of a grenade and hurling it through the portal while his SG-3 shot bursts from their machine guns. The first team charged, Lubev leading them and Durov waited till they were through till he sent up another team.
Just as the last member of the second team left the safety of the secondary corridor, a golden burst of light struck him in the chest and he was thrown back, his uniform smoking.
Coming soon after a dozen more golden bolts flew out and they all fired their weapons around the corner, shielding themselves behind the supporting columns.
"Move up!" called Durov, and he sprinted through the broken doorway and dove behind the nearest column, "Ilya, what do you see?"
The sniper was not firing, but maintained a watch though his scope, calling out targets for the others about whether the enemy were. "They're hiding behind the columns like we are." He replied, and one of the bolts struck his column, making him jump back. "Two bodies on the floor just past the door, but I think Lebev is fighting them further up, I can see rifle fire!"
"Kamerov!" Durov roared behind him.
"Yes sir!"
"Run back to Suslov! I want a report from him, if he's facing what we are I want to know, if he's not, tell him to send two more teams here!"
"Yes sir!" said the runner again and turned for the corridor.
"Cover him!" Durov ordered, and Dimitri fired his Degtyaryov into the smoke.
"I don't see Lebev anymore." Said Ilya, "Either he's dead or he needs help."
Durov nodded, from what they'd seen of the Minotaur's staff weapon anyone could operate it, but he also recognised the possibility that more of the Beastmen had been armed with the weapons, and that they might drop them and try to fight the Soviets hand-to-hand if they approached. There was nothing for it though. Either they advanced under the golden rays of the staffs, or they sat there and waited for whatever the hum in the structure was to activate, which Durov was sure was either a new energy weapon or some kind of bomb.
"Ilya." He said, "Can you make us an opening?"
The sniper nodded, though Durov could barely see him in the darkness, and only the blue glow of his scope's light was visible, lighting up a small portion of his face.
"At your mark then."
Ilya took a long sighting, then fired twice, then twice again, and began a real assault on the enemy, calling out for them to move forward in between his shots. "Keep to the left side!" he said, "There's still at least four of them there." Another shot, "Three now."
Dimitri stayed in place, still spraying bursts down into the darkness whenever the enemy fired. Neither side was accurate in the darkness, and whenever anyone fired they could see the origin point because of the brightness of the muzzle flashes and the crackling lightening at the ends of the staff weapons. However, neither side needed to be particularly accurate because of the narrowness of the corridor, and the Soviets found themselves running bent double with 7.62mm rounds flying over them.
"Only one left sir!" shouted Ilya, "I can't get him!" and another burst of light flew down the corridor, passing all by, though Durov heard it strike the floor and send up smoke and cursing from the men near it. The Colonel had advanced, leapfrogging between the pillars and past the men, and found himself very near the front.
"Are you out there Lebev?" he called, hoping that the young Captain hadn't been killed in the crossfire.
"Yes sir!" came a voice, "Throw me a pistol, I can see the last one!"
"He's firing blind! Take him!" Shouted Ilya again from behind, but Durov quickly dropped his rifle and drew his pistol tossing it underarm to Lebev, several columns in front. The Captain caught it well, and turned, firing without pause into the right side of the corridor where Durov couldn't see.
The Soviets behind them kept firing in the meantime, but after ten seconds or so Durov gave the order to cease fire, and they waited.
"Ilya?" he called.
"I can't see well enough, but I don't see any of them sir." He heard movement as the sniper came up. "Wait, I think I-" and he fired twice. "Yes, he's dead, Lebev got him. No movement and I hit him in the leg."
Durov breathed a sigh of relief. "Lebev, are you alright?" he asked, coming out out and going toward the man.
The Captain was kneeling beside one of his men, taking another magazine from his belt. "I'm fine sir, one of them just grazed me." He said, but Durov saw that his shoulder was charred, and he gave the Captain a look, his frown clear in the torch's beam. "I can't move it sir." Said Leveb, "but it doesn't hurt. Vasiliev and Petrov are dead, but Mikhailov is fine and so am I."
"Can you hold a rifle?" Durov asked.
"No, but between us we can aim one. Leave us the machine gun and we can guard the rear till Major Suslov gets here with reinforcements."
Durov frowned again, unsatisfied with leaving wounded men to do anything alone when they knew of potential side passages where the team might be flanked. But once again he had to make a decision quickly. "Dimitri, leave him your gun and ammunition, and a few grenades. We will be back as soon as possible." He told Lebev, who did not salute, as he was being bound into a sling by another soldier to hold his mangled arm in place.
After that the Colonel turned and went to where Ilya and Igor were standing, inspecting some of the bodies. Where further up the corridor the dead men wore green camouflage and black caps, and carried ammunition and canteens, the dead attackers were dressed in strange robes, almost like long shirts or tunics, reaching to the knees and elbows. They also wore sandals but other than that had no other ornamentation or decoration. They race was unclear in the darkness, and under the beam of torchlight their skin looks sallow and pale.
SG-1 looked up as he approached, "Human slaves, or collaborators." Said Ilya, nudging the head of the subject with his foot, "No scars, and they're well washed and fed. This one shaved his head this morning."
"Ritual purification before a battle or sacrifice." Said Igor, "The same staffs as the Minotaur had, and they used them well didn't they?" he asked, nodding back down the corridor to the wounded and dead men.
"What do you think then?" Durov asked them both.
"The Minotaur's replacements." Said Igor, "More 'Sons of Vulcan', or just the most militant members of his cult. I suspect they're housed somewhere in this structure, perhaps Suslov has found them?"
Durov waved his hand, "Maybe, but we aren't there, we're here. And unless I'm much mistaken that humming is getting louder."
The other two stilled to hear it better, but there was no reason to. During the firefight and beneath the sound of shooting the humming had gotten louder, and there now seemed to be a pattern to it, almost like an engine or turbine changing gears up and down repeatedly.
"I wonder what it is." Said Igor. "Some sort of bomb? One that uses the same energy as the staffs?"
Durov smiled wryly, the man seemed remarkably unconcerned about the possibility. "Whatever it is I doubt its good." He replied, "Now you brought us here, where do we go next?"
"Well they didn't lock themselves in here. This room must be the antechamber or reception to some larger area." Said Igor, "If this were a tomb…" he thought for a moment, "Check the walls again, anything that looks like a door. I'm going to try and find that silver stuff." And he walked back toward the destroyed door, Dimitri following.
The rest of the soldiers scattered around the room, but Durov stayed in the centre, slowing tracing his torch along the corners and walls of the room. There was about two metres of empty space above his head, and nothing at all that looked like a light, but there were several strips of glassy material on the corners of the walls where they met the ceiling, which perhaps were what the aliens used for light.
Idly Durov went forward to one of the walls and ran his hand over it. There was already a soldier working on it, pressing the symbols systematically to check if any were at all moveable. The Colonel wondered if all the walls had passageways. It certainly seemed like each room did, and that any carving with letters was liable to spring open at the right touch.
He wondered if they were alien posters, or their type of art. Certainly great effort had gone into covering the walls of the antechamber in these symbols, but it was also possible they were of religious significance. The whole structure did feel like a temple.
As the soldier moved to a different section of wall he heard another crack like they had at the entrance to the structure. Durov turned suddenly and saw a door opening, seemingly on its own. He looked at the soldiers closest to it.
"It wasn't us sir, we checked that part, it was solid." One said.
"You go get the rest quickly, the rest of you follow me." He told them and stepped forward.
The path ahead was illuminated unlike the rest of the structure, with sunlight reaching down from some high point further on. Here again the walls were scrapped away to their base dark material and a coil of silvery metal came along at shoulder height. Durov suspected the coil was the same that they'd seen near the entrance, and that it had probably followed them through the floor or walls to emerge here. There certainly seemed to be more work and scrapping, as well as a rougher surface near where it joined the metal, almost like it'd been soldered onto the wall in one long piece.
They reached the light and looked up and Durov could see the sky through a large window. "This must be the room we saw from outside." He remarked, looking for a way up to the window.
They climbed up a set of steep stairs and found another body and a strange metal sphere waiting for them. Durov went to the body first, and saw that it was a man's but unlike the Sons of Vulcan below this one was dressed much more finely, in the same long robe, but with much more complicated sandals and a variety or rings and other jewellery, with his robe being very worn, but maintaining some of the shining patterns of woven gold and embroidery.
"Turn him over. Carefully." Durov instructed, and the men did so, revealing a weathered face and a white beard. "Is he dead?" he asked.
Ilya nodded, and continued to examine him.
"Try to get on the radio and raise the camp. If you can't, signal to them with your torches." Durov ordered, and turned to the metal sphere. Though the humming sound had gotten only slightly louder, evidently it was not coming from the top of the pyramid where they were. He crouched down to examine the device, seeing that like the rest of the pyramid it was intricately carved, but this time had several flashing lights. They were not glass, but some sort of crystal, with a series in blue and several others in orange. The lights flashed in some sort of sequence, but otherwise the sphere was silent and still.
"Sir." Said Ilya, calling him over. "He's dead but I don't know why. He's very old though, over eighty at the least." And he pointed to the man's mouth, "There's this residue here, I haven't touched it, I think it might be poison."
"Suicide?"
Ilya shrugged.
A burst of radio static interrupted them as an operator reported back. "I have the camp sir, both Captain Ivanovich and Major Reniv report no enemy activity for half an hour, the Major thinks since we entered the building. The Major also believes the energy weapon has run out of ammunition, it also stopped firing, even when our guns kept doing so."
Igor had come up the stairs behind them and was listening too. He glanced down at the body and the metal sphere.
"Do you think it's a coincidence that the humming gets louder, and the cannon stops firing?" he asked the archaeologist.
"You mean you think they run on the same power system? Or the generator has been switched over?"
"Maybe but take a look at that." He said motioning to the sphere. "I want to know why this man is dead without any wounds and what's so important about it to be in this room. Find out if it's a bomb."
Now faced with impending rather than hypothetical danger Igor bent
Just then the humming, which had become uncomfortably loud, abruptly stopped.
They all looked around, some of the soldiers stepping back in case they'd touched something that had affected the structure. The radio burst into life and the operator listened intently, "Sir! Sir! Major Reniv reports-"
"Don't bother." Said Durov blankly, "I can see it."
With two engines glowing blue behind it, an alien craft shot flew into the air from their left, passing across the window as the soldiers watched in amazement. It climbed rapidly, gaining altitude more rapidly than any aircraft Durov had ever seen. It had no wings, and left an afterimage of light as if a tracer round fired from a rifle.
But it didn't escape unharmed, and the divisional anti-aircraft guns and all the machine guns on the ground fired at it, their own rounds blazing across the sky, the smaller calibres missing or falling off as the distance increased. But the larger shells burst in the air near to the craft, and the pilot began to take evasive action. Just as the machine approached the extreme of accurate fire a shell struck it close enough to detonate the proximity fuse.
The blue glow faltered, and the craft fell smoking down back to earth, it still had some power, but its crash was inevitable.
Durov's blood roared and he seized the radio, "Get after it and secure the crash site!" he shouted into the receiver.
A voice crackled back, and the sound of a fast engine was clear over the connection, "SG-2 is on its way Colonel!" replied Captain Ivanovich.