Chapter 14

The next few hours went by painfully slow for Don and the men of the assault team. In hindsight, he realized that going to a world where they didn't know the length of day and setting a deadline for a sunset might not have been the smartest move. Still, the sun was gradually beginning to dip down over the horizon, which meant that the time of the attack would soon be arriving.

The men had been busy getting into position ahead of time; the vehicles were positioned behind the ridge. The advance squad had spent the past hour and a half slowly crawling through the thigh high grass towards the camp. While the earpieces were assumed to be a secure method of communication, Don had ordered the group to keep chatter to a minimum, less out of concern for interception and more for keeping the men quiet while they waited. They may have been fighting humans, but he wasn't sure if they had any special equipment which might allow them to see or hear the men. That might mean the attack he planned could be for naught if the enemy could see the men through the grass, but using the information he had and the knowledge they'd gained in several years of war on Earth, it was the best idea he had.

His main worry was that other flyers might pass by overhead and discover his men; the camp they were preparing to hit had several wings of the aircraft on the ground. He had most of the men on the team looking skyward for any possible threat, but fortunately, none seemed to materialize and soon the sun began its final descent over the horizon. Nodding silently to Powell, he started to radio orders.

"Alright, its time, check your gear one last time and get ready. Forward team; remember to engage once the tanks open fire." He said as he hoped into the back of the halftrack with several other soldiers.

"Remember, we want to take back as much salvage as possible, so try and avoid using explosives unless you absolutely have to. Good luck and Godspeed men." he added.

"A bit punctual, don't you think?" Powell asked looking up from his Universal Carrier.

"Eh, I'm not one for speeches; I tend to leave those to the Professor."

Shrugging his shoulders, Powell looked forward "Can't fault you on that." Crouching down, he talked with his men. "We'll follow the Yanks' lead and engage when they start this bout. Watch your fire and keep the sun to your backs if you can. Remember. . ."

"Careful observation, lieutenant." the carrier's driver noted dryly.

"Quite right!" Powell smirked.

Don felt a rumble as the half-track began to slowly move up the small ridge, the four tanks with the group were already ahead and beginning to crest the ridge. Looking around, he saw the other vehicles were beginning to do likewise, with the lighter Jeeps and Greyhounds nearing the crest with the tanks. The sun cast a faint red haze on the ground ahead as it began to dip more behind their backs. Unslinging his Thompson, he griped it tightly in front of him as he watched the tanks make their final ascent. Around him the men were doing likewise, griping their rifles and staring ahead, a few crossed themselves, but most just held firm and looked ahead.

The four tanks vanished over the top of the ridge, and Don gave the signal.

"Engage!"

All he heard was a loud rumble as the four tanks fired simultaneously, a half second later he heard four distant explosions. Already the tank commanders were radioing their situations.

"Tower One down."

"Got a hit on the grounded flyers."

"Scratch two more flyers."

"Aw, shit."

A loud explosion, followed a by three smaller explosions echoed across the field. As the halftrack finished its climb, Don saw a column of smoke rising into the sky as the he heard machine guns rattling and rifles cracking across the field. As he reached the top of the ridge, he was greeted by the sight of the battle.

The two towers had collapsed, and he saw that the tanks were now shelling the remaining flyers that were on the ground. Looking to his right, he saw that one of the Shermans was a wreck. Angry orange flames and opaque smoke bellowed out of the twisted metal chassis. A charred body was slumped over the cupola, unmoving. In front of him, he saw soldiers popping up and down like prairie dogs across the grass, rising to snap several shots at the enemy then dropping back down and changing position. Orange energy bolts were erupting by the dozens from the enemy camp, slicing through empty air where his men stood and dropped to avoid being hit. He saw several strike one of the Cromwells, but it kept moving, its main gun cracking as it lobbed another shell into the camp.

Meanwhile the Greyhounds and Jeeps had raced ahead, scything their machine guns across the camp; they began to drive in one big circle, moving to avoid the shots that were lancing out at them. Small formations of enemy soldiers fell as they clumped together, only to be mowed down.

In fact the enemy's response seemed to be rather strange, with the amount of fire his men were pouring onto the camp, he'd expected the enemy to scatter around the camp to make each individual more difficult to hit, but instead they looked like they were trying to form old fashioned firing lines. It didn't make sense, why the hell would such an advanced enemy use such an outdated tactic?

"Maybe we took out their senior leader in the first strike." he thought "This just screams junior officer not knowing what the hell to do." As the halftracks and carriers crossed the plain and approached the camp, the soldiers began to add their own fire, be it from their rifles or the built-in machine guns that the vehicles carried. "At this rate, we might not even need to dismount if they insist on clumping up like that."

Just then though, several bolts tore into one of the circling jeeps, its front end igniting as it came to a screeching halt. Black smoke erupted from the jeep as its gunner was thrown free and landed twenty feet away in a crumpled heap. More fire began to tag some of the Greyhounds, one of which seemed to lose two of its wheels.

"On fire, on fire, driver's hit!" Don heard over the radio.

Chancing a glance behind, Don saw the cupola of the Cromwell open up as the commander and gunner leap out of the vehicle, which was starting to resemble Swiss cheese. Dozens of holes appeared all along the vehicle's armor, with sections of the front seemingly melted away. It hadn't been wrecked like the Sherman had, but he could see smoke starting to rise from the top and from some of the holes. He saw a third man attempting to climb out when he refocused his attention back on the camp in front of him, by now the armored vehicles were near the camp, far ahead of the tanks.

"Dismount in ten seconds!" He ordered. "Spread out and find cover or go prone. Do not present a large target!" Several soldiers stood up and fired a few more shots at the camp.

Taking deep breaths, time seemed to slow around him, his heart beat faster in his chest. At ES-5 he hadn't had time to think and move, they just had to react; here though, they were leaping feet first into a fight with an unknown force, they'd already lost several men, and who knew how many more would die at the end of this.

Five seconds.

He hoisted his gun.

Four seconds.

The energy bolts seemed to shift focus on the rapidly approaching vehicles.

Three seconds.

He saw one of the British soldiers get struck in the chest and fly back off his carrier.

Two seconds.

Several men shot rifle grenades as the approaching camp; he agreed, at that point, extra softening up was necessary.

One second.

Placing a hand on the side, he felt the halftrack rapidly decelerate.

"Let's move, move move!" He yelled into his ear piece as he vaulted over the side of the halftrack onto the prairie below. He still carried some momentum from the vehicle but compensated and lunged forward several steps, before turning sideways and aiming his gun at the camp.

Several warriors were aiming their staffs at the convoy letting loose as many bolts as they could. Several small explosions tore through that line of enemies as the rifle grenades made their impact, throwing them back as their bodies were riddled with shrapnel. Yet there were more warriors still there, firing on the men.

Dropping to a knee, he shouldered the Thompson and fired a burst at one of the warriors. Don felt several small thuds of recoil in his shoulder as he shot at the Eagles. He once again saw several sparks dance across the chest of one of the warriors as it stumbled back, but didn't fall. Furious, he emptied the clip at the enemy group, only to see none of them fall.

"Fuck, still not working." he thought as he grabbed another clip and began to try and advance. As he did so, more soldiers dismounted and began firing on the enemy, Garands and Lee Enfields cracked at the foe, with the occasional BAR rattling as well. He was relieved to see several of the warriors fall as the rifles boomed over the din of the fight.

"Cover and advance!" he ordered as he and several others made a final push into the camp area. The area as a whole was a wreck; dozens of tents were set up along the area, each providing an obscuring view of the area. Some were knocked over, a few were shredded, but many more still stood. A bit further into the camp, the smoldering wrecks of the aircraft littered the ground, the bodies of several of the enemy littered the ground nearby, their forms in various states of being mangled from the explosions and the shrapnel.

Already he could also see the prone figures, warriors cut down by the combine fire of the assault team. But there were still foes inside the camp, he could see the warriors running to meet the squad, their staves raised, spewing the orange bolts of energy. As Don threw himself on the ground, he could smell the faint stench of ozone from where the bolts flew past where he stood.

The enemy closer now, he snapped several more blasts at them, and was finally rewarded with the sight of one of the enemy warriors falling over and not rising. Yet even with that victory the furious snap of the rifles of the other soldiers reminded him of the efforts of his own gun. Rising to one knee, he shouldered his Thompson and withdrew his revolver. Moving with the rest of the squad, they continued their advance though the camp, intent on finishing the sweep and ending the engagement once and for all.

Rounding a tent, he encountered one of the warriors, looking dazed from an earlier explosion. Aiming his gun, he was surprised as the warrior suddenly jerked to the side and began, sprinting at Don faster than he could compensate. The metal clad collided with him in a tangled mess of limbs as the two fell to the ground, Don's Thompson flying to the side as the strap slid away from his shoulder. Feeling several heavy blows impact his chest as a mailed fist whaled on him, Don flailed at the warrior, trying to land a solid punch, but only feeling sharp stabs as his fist ricocheted off metal. With luck though, he contorted his legs and managed to push off from the warrior, rolling across several feet of grass. Twisting around, he snatched his revolver from his side and snapped a shot at the warrior, whose face collapsed as the thick slug smashed through his skull.

Springing to his feet, Don saw the rest of the soldiers streaming into the camp, the rifle cracks began to become far fewer as they finished the sweep. He labored to breath as he attempted to keep pace with his men, fortunately, they were already at the edge of the camp, and the still circling vehicles hadn't seen anyone attempting to flee from the location. Relaying orders, his men made one final move through the camp looking for survivors, but found none.

Taking several more sharp gulps of air, he surveyed the area. Smoke was rising from the destroyed human and alien vehicles and all across the expanse, the dead littered the area. First priority would be to assess their own wounded and dead and make sure they left no evidence of their arrival to this world.

But after that, it would be time to collect the spoils.

For the medics, there were only a couple wounded, though those wounds tended to be fairly severe, usually it was varying degrees of burns on extremities. Don himself was lucky; the medic thought that he might have a couple cracked ribs, but nothing broken. Unfortunately though, the alien weapons weren't like bullets, a couple soldiers had taken hits to their center of mass and were killed instantly, including the one British soldier who'd been blasted back from his carrier. As the medic wrapped Don's torso in thick gauze, he mentioned that the doctors who'd dissected Donowitz's body mentioned that the blasts caused massive internal trauma due to the heat of the weapon.

Several men passed with covered stretchers, walking towards the deuce they'd designated for carrying the dead. So far, it looked as though they'd lost the entire Sherman crew whose tank had been blown up, in addition to the crew of the destroyed jeep. The Cromwell driver also hadn't made it. On the ground they suffered two additional casualties, the British soldier, and another American who died in the sweep of the camp.

As he saw that last bit of this recovery, Don took a painful sigh and looked down.

"You made the right call, you know." he heard a voice to his side. Looking over, he saw Powell standing next to him.

"Did I?" he wheezed. "We basically fought them in a way that played to their style."

"We had no idea that they'd fight like it was the Napoleonic War, Hammond, we're not exactly used to fighting in great battle lines anymore. Although, that circle you had going with the machine guns worked rather well."

"But if we'd been smarter, we could have had marksmen all along the ridge line and have picked them off. When I made the plan, I was expecting them to scatter and hide out all through the camp and make us work at it, not just line up how they did." He finished with a painful intake of breath, "Maybe we'd have had fewer bodies if I'd done that,"

"You can't hold that to yourself."

"Powell, look at all this!" he gestured to the large group of soldiers then to his chevrons. "I was an NCO the whole damn war. I represented the men and I gave them the orders, but the plans, the strategies, I left that to the officers and only gave a little advice here and there. I've had men die under my command before, but this is the first time I've been the one solely responsible for things, not just executing the orders or reacting like on ES-5."

"You've done a good job so far Hammond, remember we had no intelligence about these beings before this expedition, we only just learned they were humans a few hour ago. We're facing something we've never seen before. All in all, we got a lot out of today that we wouldn't have otherwise. We'll take this and make sure that next time we're even deadlier!"

Smacking a fist against the side of the jeep, Powell stood up. "So what's the next move?"

"We start grabbing everything that's not nailed down. The weapons, the crates, even some bits of the aircraft if we can manage. Anything that might prove useful. We'll probably want to take as many bodies back as possible also, good for figuring out if there's any difference between them and us, anything that might be useful to fighting them." Looking at the smoldering tank in the distance for a second before he looked down, he continued, "We also need to make sure we leave as little evidence as possible that we were here. We'll need to plant some thermite charges on the wrecks; we'll probably want to burn anything of the enemies that we can't take. No sense in leaving perfectly functional equipment."

"Makes sense, I'll have the boys start offloading the charges and start loading up those bodies."

The men began to move in a small frenzy of activity, one of the medics had Don stay close to the jeep for that portion of the mission so he wouldn't agitate his ribs any further. Looking at his men work, he felt small winces of annoyance at not being able to get his hand dirty with the rest of them, but he knew doctors' orders were something one shouldn't ignore.

As the soldiers busied themselves, Powell began to examine bodies for retrieval. He was actually the first to notice something off about the bodies; they really hadn't fiddled with the 5 they'd already taken back, given the injuries of the pilots and the general mess the two corpses were in. This was the first real chance to examine a fresh, relatively undamaged body.

Looking at the chain mail, Powell noticed that there was a weak spot in the armor there. Rather than forming one solid piece like the others, it was more a drape that covered the wearer's stomach.

"What have we here?" he though as he knelt down to examine it closer. Pulling back the drape, he saw a large X-shaped opening in the dead man's stomach, like some kind of wound that hadn't closed.

"What in the hell?" he though as he pulled out a knife to look closer, pulling back one of the flaps of skin, it looked like the opening went right into the dead man's abdomen. Curious he turned to call out to Don and the medic to take a look.

Just as he finished shouting, the alien parasite nestled inside the pouch noticed the presence of a host. Weakened by its incubator's sudden demise, and operating purely on instinct, it launched itself out of its former home and attached itself to Powell's neck, slicing away at flesh and burrowing as quickly as it could. The Lieutenant made an equally instinctual slap to his neck when he felt a painful biting, but his palm came away empty, and strangely the pain faded as quickly as it appeared. Standing up woozily, he saw that Don and the medic had arrived.

"What'd you see, Powell?"

"See? Oh yes, I found a strange cut on this dead bloke, I remember we didn't see anything like this on the Roswell aliens, and since these chaps look human, I thought it was curious."

The medic, taking out his tools quickly began to insert a several metal probes into the opening, using tweezers to peel back the flesh coverings.

"Well, I have no clue what this is, but it isn't a random wound, it's too clean. Whatever made this, it happened long before this man died."

"Weird, we're about to start loading the bodies, I'll have everyone check if they have similar wounds."

"Sounds good, I'll start coordinating with my lads to get things squared away" Powell said, rising from the body, as he turned though, no one noticed a strange silver-yellow flash in his eyes as the parasite firmly nestled itself in the spine of Lieutenant Powell.

As he finished walking towards a group of British soldiers who were loading one of the deuces with looted equipment, the Goa'uld in Powell became fully cognizant of its surroundings. Though still hazy from its sudden departure, it noticed that something was off. As its vision cleared, it noticed that dozens of Jaffa warriors were lying dead, and these . . . humans were picking off gear like scavengers! How dare they defile their god's warriors and to say nothing about their theft of their divine instruments! Angry, but still half dazed, it stumbled over to the universal carrier by a deuce and climbed in. The host's former memories swelled the creature, the metal rod it was next to; it was some kind of weapon of destruction. Yes, that would do well to punish the fools.

Vision still black at its side, the Goa'uld gripped the Bren gun and pulled the trigger, hosing down the back of the deuce with machine gun fire. The soldiers loading the back had no clue what happened as crimson geysers erupted from their bodies. Four men were dead before the machine gun ran out of ammunition. Squeezing the trigger several more times, the creatures balled its fists and smacked the gun aside, "Useless contraption!"

"Powell! What the fuck are you doing!?" it heard a voice yell. Turning it saw a pair of men running towards him; the lead mad had a small cylinder in his hand, leveling it squarely at the creature. Stopping about twenty feet away, he saw him wince in pain with each rise of his chest.

"Powell. . .Yes, that's what this hosts name was." it said as it made the eyes of its host glow. "But no longer, now his body is mine, and I've punished the fools who defiled the bodies of your gods servants!" the voice with an unusual bass echo to it boomed over the din, it saw several more people running towards them.

"All trespassers will pay for their treachery!" it finished as it reached for a similar cylinder to its side. All of the sudden, the creature felt a powerful hammer blow strike its chest. Looking down, it saw a hole in the middle of its torso. Still standing he felt two more hammer blows against its midsection as it fell backwards off the carrier. . .

Don felt his chest was on fire as he rounded the carrier with his pistol drawn. Powell. . .Well whatever was claiming to be Powell, was lying on its back; three large holes were visible in the uniform as it rapidly stained red. Leveling his gun at its head as best he could as his hands shook; he half shouted "What are you?"

Coughing, the figure looked up at him "It wasn't me." he said as he coughed up a large gout of blood "Don, it wasn't me. . .it wasn't me." The body went limp as his head fell to the side. Kneeling as best he could, Don reached out and closed the man's eyes. Shaking his head, he began to bark orders "Get his body loaded up." Opening up his radio, he spoke. "Handle the corpses with extreme care! Something from one of them took over Powell, it opened fire on us!"

Just as he finished the order, he noticed something move out of the corner of his eye, looking back at the body, he saw something dropping out of the back of Powell's neck, something long and white. Whatever it was it was writhing and twisting its self into a coil as it left. Eyes widening, Don quickly flipped his revolver around and brought the butt down on what he though was the things head. Seeing it twitch, he smacked it three more times, then pulled out his combat knife and impaled the thing, holding it arm's length. It looked like a cross between a finned snake and a worm. The head was badly messed up, but he could make out a long toothy mouth.

"What the hell?" he though as he looked at the creature. Opening up the radio, he started talking, keeping his eyes on the creature.

"Have any of you seen a weird finned snake/worm creature?" he asked cautiously. The radio was in a state of confusion for a minute as soldiers asked for clarification, until suddenly he heard a yelp from one man, followed by heavy breathing for several seconds.

"Holy shit. A worm thing just leap out of the belly of one of the guys we killed. I. . .I smacked it with my rifle, what's going on?!"

His breathing quickening, he slowly stood up and gazed across the camp, as he looked at the mess of bodies that surrounded himself and his men, Don realized the danger they were in. Thinking quickly, he shouted order into his earpiece: "New SOP, affix bayonets or get a knife out. Everyone, put two bullets in these bodies, one in the head, and one in the pouch. Get a knife in the belly and make sure if anything's in there, it's dead!"

The next minute was a frenzy of movement as soldiers whipped out their knives and brought them down with fleshy smacks into the bellies of their fallen foes. Gun shots rang out as men made sure to follow Don' orders regarding the bodies. "We won't want to stay out in the open for long, in fifteen minutes we move out, grab what you can!"

After the deed was done, the men busied themselves with the grisly job of loading as many bodies as they could, along with the equipment they could carry.

The next fifteen minutes saw soldiers assembling large stacks of the staff weapons, along with other odds and ends they found around the camp, crates and boxes were loaded up, along with parts they though looked useful from the flyers. Don was surprised, apart from a few badly damaged crates, the tents and the flyer and tower wrecks, they'd manage to pull most of the useful looking equipment from the base. What was left was arranged in several small piles, where thermite charges attached to timers were affixed to them. The same went for the human wrecks that littered the area. Twenty minutes after Don gave his order, the convoy was cresting the ridge back to the stargate, his jeep being the last one to vanish. Just as it dipped over, he saw several bright flashes as the charges activated, and burned what was left at the site.

Leaning back, he took several deep breaths and closed his eyes, his job wasn't done yet. Opening up his radio, he called Simmons.

"Simmons! Is everything almost done on your end?"

"Just about sir, we already sent back several wrecks. We're just about to send the last shipment through now. We . . . er . . . heard what was going on sir. Is everything alright?"

"I don't know, listen is Sam there?"

"No, he went back with the last shipment."

"Okay, when you go back, I need you to relay a message to him, tell him to prep the base, full containment and quarantine protocols, effective immediately"

"Sir? Full containment AND quarantine?"

"Yes, get them on that Simmons, we'll be back at the gate in about half an hour."

There was a short pause, before Simmons spoke "You've got it sir!"

As they drove, he heard other soldiers talk over the radio:

"Full containment and quarantine? What's that mean?"

"What's going on, sir?"

"Sir, is everything alright?"

"Its fine men," he radioed to the convoy, "I'm just having Simmons tell the base to be ready to receive a lot of foreign biological material, we'll need to screen it and make sure there are no nasties in it, apart from the potential parasites who can take over our bodies."

"Oh . . . That makes sense." he heard a general sense of agreement from the soldiers.

The convoy was mostly silent as they made their way back to the gate. In no time they arrived, the men activated the gate and one by one, the large convoy disappeared into the gate and left ES-2 behind them. . .

Several hours later, on ES-2

Master Bra'tac of Chulak led the small group of Jaffa forward. Their mission was to assault one of the Horus Guard encampments nearby. Each member of the group was armed with as many weapons as they could carry; staff weapons, Tok'Kals, Zat'nik'tels, a few Tacluchnatagamuntoron and the group was also pulling three Ma'tok cannons on wheels. They moved slowly up the ridge ahead of the camp, the two dozen soldiers all friends and former students of Bra'tac, with two exceptions: Teal'c and Arkad, both of whom were currently still pupils of his. The mission was highly risky, but the hope was that a surprise strike behind the main battle lines dozens of kilometers away would cause confusion among the ranks of Horus guards and result in a rapid redeployment of forces, which in turn would allow Apophis's soldiers to surge ahead and claim the world for their master.

This campaign had been progressing nicely, while Ra was the supreme lord, even he was not immune from the occasional dispute from his other lords. Currently, he and Apophis were waging battle over a trio of newly discovered worlds. Privy to more information, Bra'tac knew that the fights on the other two worlds fared more poorly than the battle here. He hoped they might pull a victory here and spare the lives of more of his soldiers from a costly and protracted engagement.

Teal'c, who had gone ahead to scout, came running back. "Master Bra'tac, we are too late." he said.

"Too late? What do you mean, Teal'c?" Bra'tac asked.

"The entire encampment bears signs of battle. There are no corpses, and it appears to have been looted. Apart from several wrecks of metal and scorched tents, there is little left there."

Bra'tac frowned "Another of Lord Apophis' forces?" he asked, unsure if his lord had ordered another attack without notifying him, it wouldn't be the first time, although such incidents were rare.

"I do not believe so. Some of the damage ... it is not of Goa'uld weaponry."

That got Bra'tac's attention. "Show me, Teal'c!" he commanded. Moving as fast as they could, the group arrived at the battle site. The sun was justbeginning to rise, casting a faint orange glow over the area.

As they moved through the camp, thoughts swirled in Bra'tac's mind. An enemy that would challenge Goa'uld and Jaffa ... Could it be?

Moving through the camp, he saw that Teal'c was indeed not exaggerating his story, there was little left there only smoldering wrecks, and tents. The only hints of something peculiar were strange metal tubes that littered the ground. Picking one up, it felt light in his hand, smelling it, it had a strange smelling aroma about it. Curious, he casually picked up several more of the things, as his men did likewise.

"What should me make of this, Master Bra'tac?" Teal'c asked him, appearing at his side, fiddling with one of the strange tubes.

He had to think quickly. "I will inform Apophis of this. It may please him to hear that another opposes Ra. But do not speak of this to others. There is no sense in spreading rumors and speculation!" He said loudly to the other men, who simply nodded in agreement and deference to their elder.

As the group scanned the site, Bra'tac noticed one thing in particular, a hint of reflection lying on the ground next to what his trained eye recognized as signs of a struggle. He picked it up. It appeared to be a necklace, with a square tag of metal attached. There were characters embossed on the metal, an unknown language. Holding it in front of him for several seconds, a million thoughts coursed through his mind as the necklace dangled in front of him.

Before anyone else noticed, Bra'tac slipped the necklace into his armor, making a silent vow to himself as he did so.

Whoever had done this, whoever these people were, he would find them, and he would confront them.

And then, then he would ask for their aid in freeing his people.

Several Hours Earlier: Camp Roosevelt

The jeep rumbled as it descended the camp into the main embarkation chamber of Camp Roosevelt. Already, he saw soldiers milling around outside their vehicles, and starting to unload everything. Coming to a halt, he quickly got out of the jeep and propped himself against the side.

"Is that everyone, Don?" He heard Sam ask over the radio.

"Yeah. . .Yeah that's everyone."

"Okay. . . Men, NOW!"

From behind several of the armored doors, a squad of soldiers rushed into the chamber, their rifles raised. Above them on the gangway, another couple squads rushed along the platforms, the guns aimed downwards.

Panicked, the soldiers from the away team started yelling, some raised their guns, others stood confused, over the din the soldiers rushing in were shouting:

"ON THE GROUND!"

"DROP YOUR WEAPONS!

"STAND DOWN AND DOWN'T MOVE!"

"DON'T MOVE!"

"HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEADS!"

"What the hell?"

"The fucks going on?"

"What's this shit?!"

"Everyone! STAND DOWN!" Don shouted, managing to get everyone's attention. "I mean, away team, stand down and comply. Now."

"Sir? What is this shit?" One of the men asked again.

"Full containment and quarantine, anything and everything potentially exposed to dangerous alien contamination is is to be locked down until in can be deemed safe, and that includes us. Hell, especially us. We're dealing with some kind of parasitic alien that can take over our bodies; we were all in that camp for a while before Powell went all nuts, who knows if someone else got nabbed. We're taking all precautions here men, I'm sorry I didn't say anything earlier, but I didn't want to chance an alien doing something while we were gone. Now everyone, put your guns on the ground, and line up single file, hands on the head."

Reluctantly, he saw his men slowly bend down and drop their rifles, pistols, grenades, knives and other tools and they slowly filed into one line on the other side of the chamber, under the careful eyes of their fellow soldiers. Counting heads, he saw everyone was in place.

Setting his Thompson on the ground slowly, he approached one of the men, one step at a time, and handed him his revolver butt first.

Over the intercom, he heard Sam giving orders: "Alright everyone, we've prepared one of the warehouses as makeshift holding quarters. It's basically bunks with scrap metal walls. Single file, we'll be moving in groups. The teams that went through earlier and helped handle stuff have already been placed in the holding facility."

Taking a breath, he heard Sam's voice firm up slightly as he relayed the next part of his instructions.

"The gate will be on 24 hour watch. I already radioed Earth and told them the situation and Lieutenant Hammond's invocation of containment and quarantine procedures. All gate travel is suspended. Once we're all settled in, Earth will dial in and keep a permanent wormhole active so nothing can try and get out. Any attempts to travel through the gate until that point will be met with lethal force, no questions asked, no exceptions."

Pausing, he added,

"Until further notice, Camp Roosevelt is on lockdown."