"What the...OOOMPH!" A wave of energy pulsed across the small bridge and violently tossed Jack against one of the bulk heads.
Michael pounced before Ventirii could turn towards him. Operating purely on instinct he grabbed the outstretched arm and snapped it across his knee as if it were a faulty golf club.
"YOU WRETCH!" Ventirii screamed and flailed at Michael with the staff in his other hand, sending him sprawling. Michael looked to Jack who was still sprawled at the base of the wall, blinking in to consciousness, disoriented and grasping at his arm. Michael spun around in time to see Ventirii coming at him with the staff. He rolled out of the way and kicked out, knocking Ventirii to the floor.
He rolled over again and pushed himself up on all fours but his assailant was faster and hit him solidly in the ribs. Michael felt the air get knocked out of him he struggled to get up again, kneeling in time to see Ventirii struggling to put the had device on to his non broken arm.
All of a sudden Michael was assaulted with the most incredible pain to his forehead. He wanted to duck out of the way but he felt frozen in place. All he could see of Jack was his boot on the other side of Ventirii and it didn't appear he would be moving anytime soon. He wanted to shout or cry. They had been so close! Things were starting to get dark.
Suddenly images of his girls floated across his vision. And Jack's voice, determined that Kira and Kaitlin would not lose their father. Michael managed as deep of a breath as he could and fought against the pain. The darkness began to recede.
Then, suddenly, the pain stopped. Ventirii's arm remained in mid air, his face frozen in an expression of confusion.
At first Michael believed he had stopped the attack through sheer force of will...until Ventirii collapsed revealing a knife protruding from his back.
Michael blinked and looked over to Jack who was still on the floor, propped against the bulkhead but was steadily looking back at him. It was only then that Michael realized Jack was talking.
"Okay? Mike. Mike. Mikey...yo! Michael, can you hear me?"
Michael nodded dumbly.
Wincing, Jack shuffled over to where Michael was still kneeling. "Hey, it's alright. You're alright now. You alright?"
"Ye.." Michael coughed, clearing his throat. "Yeah."
"Yeah?" Jack double checked, a hand on his shoulder and looking him closely in the eye.
Pulling himself together Michael nodded again with conviction. "Yeah. I think I bruised a rib but I'm really okay. You?"
Jack winced then glared at the fallen Ventirii. "Bastard broke my collarbone. I'll be alright."
Michael nodded, "At least you got the last word. Nice throw by the way."
Jack smirked cheekily "Thank you. Always have been proud of my knife tossing skills."
"You know that's an odd thing to be proud of." Michael remarked flatly but with a grin.
Jack tilted his head, "Yes." He deadpanned. He held up an arm "Can you help me up without hurting yourself? We need to get moving."
With a grunt Michael awkwardly helped Jack to his feet. Jack wasted no time in zatting away Ventirii's body as Michael hurriedly shut the door.
Jack got settled in one of the pilot chairs and indicated Michael should do the same. "Hold on, this is going to be rocky."
Within a few seconds the craft slowly hovered into the air but wobbled and tilted erratically and Michael had to grasp tightly to the arms of the chair to avoid being thrown. He shot a panicked look to Jack.
"I thought you've flown one of these before!"
"I have." Grunted Jack. "But it takes two hands to steer and I am having a little trouble in that department!"
Michael looked to the steering...ball?...and took note that indeed, while Jack's right hand was tightly grasping the ball, his left hand barely maintained contact as he struggled to support his limp left arm against the console.
He looked out the window and tried to withhold comment as they tilted dangerously near a large tree. He looked back to Jack whose jaw was locked tight. Michael licked his lips and tried to make sense of the controls in front of him. "How do I help?"
Jack looked over at him and the momentary lapse of focus caused the ship to veer dangerously again. He did his best to correct. "Get over here!"
Michael struggled out of his chair and steadied himself against the erratic movements of the ship. He stood next to Jack and hovered his hands over Jack's.
Jack slowly lifted himself out of the chair, "If you've ever played arcade games it's intuitive. Just level us out. Okay? Switch on the count of three...One…Two…THREE!"
Jack stepped away and Michael quickly stepped into his place, hands firm on the glowing ball.
The globe buzzed slightly warm beneath his hands and the ship suddenly nosed down.
"UP! UP! UP!" Shouted Jack, struggling to push himself away from the console.
Not knowing what to do Michael held tight and pulled back with all his might. Suddenly they were facing the blue sky and Jack fell to the floor.
"DOWN! DOWN! DOWN!" He shouted again.
"SO NOT HELPFUL!" returned Michael as he struggled to find the medium between the two extremes. Soon enough the ship was level and hovering in place about 30 feet above the tree tops.
Both men let out a simultaneous release of breath.
"So..." started Jack, gingerly picking himself back up, "That went well."
"Yeah. Well." Michael groaned.
Jack came up him, "Have you ever used a joy stick? Like on a flight simulator or a video game?"
Michael nodded.
"Same thing. Back noses up. Forward down." He mimed the motions with one hand. "Subtle, no need for big hand movements; small pressure. Each hand controls a thruster. Pushing with your right palm and left fingers will turn right, left palm and right fingers will turn left. Index and ring fingers control hovering height. Steady, forward pressure gets her going forward, pull away to get her to slow or stop. Once you move her she'll keep flying in whatever direction until you change course. Got it?"
Michael stared at the ball and let out a long breath, "Yeah, sure. No problem. Right?"
Jack smirked, "Okay so turn to about 2 o'clock and get her moving forward."
It was a bit shaky and Michael could sense Jack's impatience but for once the other man kept his mouth shut. They had been steadily following the path for about 20 minutes and Michael was finally feeling a little confident when he nearly jumped out of his chair when Jack put a hand on his shoulder, "Stop."
Michael looked up at him, quizzically, "Why?"
"Look."
He followed where Jack was pointing with his good arm. The facility they had escaped from was there, nestled into the rock face about a quarter of a mile away. Michael brought the ship to a slow stop. "Now what?"
"Don't touch anything." Jack moved to the other pilot chair and began pushing buttons. Finally he put his hand on the glowing control panel and a series of bright bursts leapt from somewhere beneath the ship and struck the facility in a series of explosions.
The men watched the building burn.
"I just hope the labs were above ground." Jack murmured.
Michael looked over to him, "What if they weren't?"
Jack's eyes watched the flames, "I'm sure it will come to bite us in the ass eventually." He looked to Michael, "Okay, keep going, need to go faster, they are going to be prepared for us if they heard that explosion."
"Damnit." Michael muttered and pushed forward on the ball, and quickly compensating when he almost ditched them into the mountain face. He grinned at Jack, "Oops."
Jack glared. "Oops?"
It was less than two miles before they came across a mountain summit. There were about 30 men with various weapons milling about a huge stone circle. Michael looked quizzically at Jack who was grimacing at the controls in front of him.
"What?"
Jack indicated the display in front of him, "We've got shields up but I was really hoping for a cloak. They're going to see us at any moment now."
Michael looked back to the group and indeed saw one looking in their direction, "So what do we do?"
"Hopefully, they won't know we're unfriendly until we get closer." He was pushing more buttons. "I will take care of firing but I need you to make a series of passes. Like a figure 8 but try to vary it up. And go as fast and low as you can. Start with heading toward those guys." Jack pointed to a group of 3 men who were standing by some sort of weapon on a tripod.
Michael took a deep breath, "Ready Jack?"
"Go."
Jack began shooting almost as soon as the word was out of his mouth. Michael paid little attention to the explosions on the ground as he concentrated on maneuvering the ship. He was thrown off by what felt like impact vibrations but everything continued to operate so he assumed those were the shields Jack had referred to.
"MICHAEL!"
He looked down and realized he had pulled away from the mountain top. He swung back around as smoothly as he could and pushed the awkward ship back toward the group of men firing back. There were more explosions and he veered over and back around again and again and again.
He tuned out all the sounds and ongoing vibrations, solely focused on keeping the ship moving around and across the mountain top.
"Hey Mikey...You want to keep flying or did you want to go home?"
"What?" Michael shook his head looked over to see Jack looking at him with an amused grin on his face and raised eyebrows. A glance at the ground below showed no sign of any more defenders. "That's it. Just land her..."
Michael pushed with his ring fingers and they thudded violently to the ground.
"...gently..." Jack groaned holding his shoulder and grimacing.
"Sorry..." Michael wheezed out grabbing at his own tender ribs and trying to breathe away the stars in his vision.
"C'mon." Jack had a hand at his elbow and helped him stand out of the chair and leave the ship.
"We're just going to leave this?" Michael asked.
"We'll tell someone it's here and it'll get acquired eventually." Jack shrugged making his way over to a large round pedestal.
"Yeah, no rush, just a hovering, intergalactic death ship we're going to leave unattended." Michael sarcastically remarked.
Jack nodded, "Yeah."
Michael shook his head, but decided to move on and take a look at what Jack was currently doing. "So this is it? The 'Stargate'?"
Jack nodded, "Yep."
"How's it work?" He approached it carefully, taking note that what looked like a solid ring actually appeared to have several moving parts.
Jack indicated the device in front of him, "You dial an address, it does its thing and you go."
He looked over his shoulder, "That's real descriptive. I can't believe you're not an engineer."
Jack shrugged, "The longer answer is going to have to wait until we're home and you can ask Carter. Just make sure I'm not in the room when you do; she can go on for hours."
"Astro physicist." Michael recalled.
Jack nodded, "Lt. Col. Dr. Samantha Carter. You want to know the mechanics of the device, she's the one with the answers."
Michael smirked, Jack had said it with a long suffering tone but his face reflected something else, pride perhaps? He decided not to mention it, getting impatient. "So if it is so easy why aren't you dialing?"
Jack looked up, "I'm about to. The address is slightly different depending on where you dial from. I needed to figure out which one of these was the point of origin."
Michael looked back at the device, "That's why there are 7 red things! 6 fixed points and a point of origin?"
Jack looked up from pushing buttons, an annoyed look on his face, "My god, my own brother is really a scientist. Unbelievable."
Michael didn't have time to respond as the Stargate began spinning and lighting up. "Wow..."
"Wait for it..." Jack smirked as he pushed the large red button in the center of the device and suddenly an explosion of water spewed forth from the ring.
"What..." Michael couldn't articulate any question but he looked to Jack for an explanation.
Jack sighed, "It's an illusion of water because of...science.? Again, ask Carter...but basically it's the event horizon of a worm hole through space."
"And we go through it...how?" Michael questioned.
"Just walk. C'mon."
Michael followed Jack up the stone steps and with a final look around he squared his shoulders and took what he hoped looked like a confident step through the event horizon.
...And stepped out to face a dozen men armed with staff weapons pointed right at them.