One year later.
"You have to come now!" Kawalsky exclaims.
"Just a moment..." I tell him as I try to calibrate the device.
"The Jaffa are coming through the door! We can't hold it anymore!" Coburn yells from somewhere at the other end of the corridor.
"Now!" Kawalsky insists.
"Coming..." I get up, hitting a switch on the device as I do so. It starts humming, and a glow appears around it. I briefly touch my fingers to the outer parts of the glow, then pull them back as a crackling sound is heard. "Force field is online..."
Kawalsky grabs hold of me and push me out of the door, ahead of him. Together, we run as fast as they could, Coburn, Casey, and Warren just behind us.
Staff weapon shots hit the wall beside the door, just as we throw ourselves through it, and slam it shut after us. The newly installed special locking mechanism activates, making the door at least a little more resistant to forcing it open.
Or so I hope.
We hurry on down the corridor, and reach the elevator, only to realize it is not working.
"Stairs!" Kawalsky shouts. "We have got to get to the connecting elevators on eleventh!"
"Listen... that's eight floors. We're not going to be able to make it there before..." I begin, realizing the bomb I have just activated may well go off too soon for us to escape that way. Kawalsky knows that.
"Run!" Kawalsky orders, not listening to my complaints. I guess we have no choice, in any case.
When everyone is through the door, he activates the locking mechanism. I guess he hopes the doors to the staircase on the lower levels are as well and truly sabotaged as they are supposed to be. And that all the sealed bulkheads will hold - which I am sure none of us believes for a moment.
We have made it up three floors before the sound of a door being destroyed is heard. Somewhere below us, the Jaffa are shouting something, and a couple staff blasts flow up through the hole in the middle of the staircase.
"Watch out!" Warren shouts.
Hurrying on - and taking care not to be hit by the regular volleys of staff shots - we continue up the stairs. We have just passed the thirteenth floor, when the ground shakes and a rumble is heard.
"The device is starting to go off!" I exclaim. "We need to get out of here - fast! As soon as it's finished building power, it will..."
"Two more flights! And then we'd better hope the elevators on that floor works!" Kawalsky yells. "Move it, people!"
Just as we make it through the door to the eleventh floor, everything shakes with a tremor, and a crack opens barely a feet in front of us. We jump across it, and continue on.
"The elevators have power!" Coburn exclaim.
I feel relief flood me, but it is quickly gone. We are still far from safe.
We rush into the elevator car, and Kawalsky slide his access card and hit the button to the top floor. The elevator makes a creaking sound, but starts moving.
I check my watch. "The main explosion will go off in less than three minutes! When that happens, the three-four floors immediately above and below my lab will be completely destroyed!"
"Well, it's a good thing that we're already ten floors away, then!" Casey grins.
Is he stupid?
"You don't understand! It's not a normal bomb! Those floors will cease to exist! They'll be pulverized! What do you think will happen to everything above them?" I ask, rhetorically.
Kawalsky looks worried, but then he smiles. "Does that mean it's going to be as good as the self-destruct?"
"It'll be about the same - I think. It's not as certain, so I'd still have preferred to use that..." I look at my watch again, concerned. "Two minutes."
"Well, it wasn't as if that was an option," Kawalsky observes. I am guessing he thinks about how the attack started.
The first group of Jaffa had come through, in close pursuit of a team coming in hot. The Jaffa wore some sort of shielding, protecting them from the bullets coming from the soldiers in the gateroom, and they also carried canisters of a gas which knocked out everyone - except the Jaffa themselves.
The gas had spread across a few levels before someone at the base had managed to shut down the ventilation, and when our people were ready to fight back, the Jaffa had control of levels 26-28, meaning there was no way to even arm the self-destruct.
The Jaffa had managed to block off access to the levels they were in control of, and even after two days of attempting to regain control, our attempts had been unsuccessful. More Jaffa had come through the Stargate, and they had slowly, but surely extended the number of levels they held.
It is damn difficult to fight people wearing shielding you cannot shoot through, who also brings gas they are immune to - but which renders you unconscious in moments!
Our teams have managed to bring back a good number of alien devices over the past year that has passed since Apophis attempted his attack, but no real weapons.
However, there were a couple of them that I had a feeling could be combined to produce a fairly effective bomb, and I succeeded. With the addition of one of the enhanced shields taken from one of the Jaffa our guys have succeeded in killing, it will even be tamper-proof. I think. I hope.
The Jaffa will not be able to stop the explosion - if they even guess it is a weapon.
"Let's hope everyone else has made it out," Warren says, calling my attention back to the present.
"I'm fairly sure we're the last - aside from the Jaffa." Kawalsky looks impatiently at the light that indicates what floor we are at. The elevator continued moving upwards, slowly, but steadily. Now and then it creaks, as a tremor hits from the overloading device below. Finally, we reach the top floor, and the doors open. "Okay, guys. Move it - run!"
The floor shakes up here as well, but thankfully there are no Jaffa. Just as we reach the exit, we meet General Hammond.
"I'm assuming the rumbling we're hearing means you were successful, Doctor Carter?"
"Yes - and we've got seconds - at most - before it blows!" I exclaim.
"The helicopter is waiting for us - this way."
"As far as we have been able to tell, we were successful in collapsing the entire structure of Stargate Command," I say.
"So Cronus won't be able to use the Stargate?" Kawalsky asks.
"No, but the Stargate is almost certainly intact. Given time, he can dig it out - but he has to get here some other way first," I explain.
"Which he soon will," a voice says.
We all turn to look who it is that has just entered through the door.
"Who are you, and what do you mean by that?" Hammond demands.
"I am Doctor Rodney McKay, astrophysicist. I usually work at area 51, but I was sent here to Washington because we've detected what we think is a fleet of ships. Motherships."
"Motherships!" Kawalsky exclaims.
"Do they belong to Cronus?" Hammond ask.
"How should I know? They're still outside the orbit of Saturn!" McKay says, looking affronted, somehow.
"It's most likely Cronus's ships - since he's the one who has been attacking us through the Stargate," I observe.
"Who cares what Goa'uld it is! The ship will be here tonight! We're doomed!"