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PART ELEVEN
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Russia
It felt like his lungs were splintering in his chest with each breath he took. He fought for each breath, drawing it in gingerly and raggedly, trying to get enough oxygen into his body to meet its demands.
"Jack, you okay?" Maybourne asked, his voice low.
"Fine," Jack managed, knowing his lie fell flat but grateful neither Maybourne nor anyone else called him on it. He coughed, and felt his breathing settle again. "God," he muttered, wiping at his sweaty forehead and straightening himself up. "Shit, I am too old for this crap. This is the last time," he promised no one in particular. "Dr. Markhov, nice to see you again," he said, holding his hand out to shake hers.
"The feeling is mutual, Colonel O'Neill," Markhov said, smiling. "I was most upset when I heard of your apparent death; to find you are still alive is a good turn of events."
"As lovely as this reacquainting is," Maybourne cut in sharply, "we don't have much time left."
"Does this facility have an automated destruction built in?" Jack questioned Markhov, motioning that she lead the way to the control room.
"This is a Russian facility, Colonel," she responded dryly, her lips curling with bemusement. "Surely you do not have to question our methods."
O'Neill met her eye with a smile of shared understanding, and nodded. "You can activate it?"
"No," she admitted. "However, I do believe I can over-write the programming with Sergeant Davis' help and a bit of time."
"I don't know if time is something we have," Maybourne countered.
"We can hold them for a time," Jack mused, "but not long. How long do you need?"
"Twenty minutes?" Markhov theorised. "We need to get in the backdoor to do it. I've already connected the gate – we only need to activate it and that takes only a few minutes."
"Shit," Jack hissed. "We won't have that much time. I'm guessing it's going to take all of ten minutes before this place is swarming with Jaffa."
"How many entrances to the control room and gate room are there?" Davis asked.
"Three in total," Markhov replied. "Two into the gateroom, and one into to the control room."
"Maybourne and I can hold the gateroom, and Walter will have to hold the control room once the Jaffa get through the building," Jack said. "Bek, can you help Dr. Markhov with the computers?"
"I should be able to," Bek said, her voice sounding quiet and unsteady.
"Bek, listen to me, I have to know if you can do this or not."
She licked her lips, her eyes wide with fear. "I can," she whispered.
Jack nodded. "Good. Maybourne, we'll go and block the doors. Hold them up a bit with C4. Walter, you take Markhov and Bek and get started on the countdown. Watch their sixes. Get a rope and break the control room window down onto the gate – you can get into the gateroom that way if you can't get the autodestruct set in time and the Jaffa are there. Get the wormhole to Cimmeria up as soon as possible – even if you can't get the autodestruct programmed we can still get out."
"Okay," Davis agreed. "Sir?"
"Walter?"
"Good luck."
Jack smiled briefly. "You too. All of you."
Nodding to Maybourne, they turned around and jogged back to the entrance to the facility.
The hollow clanking of the Jaffa's armour echoed loudly through the empty warehouse. Jack swore internally, dropping to his knees and peering cautiously around a corner.
The Jaffa were gathering at the entrance of the warehouse, staff weapons raised and ready for resistance. Jack motioned 'fall back' and both he and Maybourne dropped back to the first doorway between them and the Jaffa. Without needing to communicate, they pushed the large iron door shut and bolted it.
"That should keep them for a few," Maybourne said hopefully. "I'll go west and blow the stairs to the landings if you take the east side and blow a few doors to throw them off track."
Not commenting about the way Maybourne appeared to be taking control, Jack followed his orders and several minutes later found himself in the gateroom, staring at the rippling blue of the wormhole that would take them to Cimmeria.
"How's it going?" he called out.
"Getting there," Walter answered. "It's going faster with three of us."
"Keep working on it!" Jack yelled, spinning as Maybourne skidded into the gateroom. The door slid shut behind him. "Blow it?" Jack questioned.
"Blow it," Maybourne affirmed.
Several shots into the control panel from Jack's handgun and the door was sealed shut, only way it was going to be opened was by brute force or a large explosion. Jack hoped they were well out of the way before the Jaffa tried to blow it open.
"Here they come!" Walter yelled.
"Get down here!" Jack ordered.
"Nearly there," Markhov yelled. "Two more minutes!"
"We don't have two more minutes, damn it!" Jack yelled. "Maybourne, get up there!"
Maybourne nodded abruptly and ran to the rope hanging through the broken window of the control room. He'd grabbed hold of it when the sound of gunfire and staff blasts split the air. There were two windows in the control room overlooking the gate room – Walter had only broken one earlier. Jack watched with horror as a staff bolt threw a body backwards straight through the glass. It seemed to take days for the body to start falling, and the dull thud as it crunched into the ground rose up above the sound of staff blasts and screaming.
Bek was screaming; she came flying out the window and down the rope, panic on her face as she ran toward Jack. "We're done!" she screamed. "Let's go, we're done!" Markhov slid down the rope seconds later, her clothes blood splattered and a burn on her cheek.
"Walter!" Jack yelled, "Maybourne!"
Maybourne let go of the rope he'd been holding and skidded across the floor to Walter's unmoving form. "He's dead, Colonel!" Maybourne gasped, his voice strangled in his throat. "They killed him!"
"Oh, fuck," Jack whispered, casting another glance at the body lying unmoving on the floor. Staff blasts were raining down into the gateroom, skidding along the concrete floors and burning gashes into it.
They ran toward the gate, blasts firing down around them. Grabbing Bek's hand, Jack pulled her forward and they fell through the gate, the sudden cold of the wormhole jerking through him, a long forgotten sensation almost unexpected as he was pulled apart and spun around and put back together, tumbling into the sunshine on the hard, dusty earth of Cimmeria.
Energy bolts whizzed over head, and he dragged Bek out of range, ignoring her vomiting and gasping. Maybourne and Markhov rolled through, dragging themselves off to the side.
"Colonel O'Neill!" someone was calling, and he looked around the pretty landscape turning dark and hazy as pain radiated along his arm.
Hit. He was hit.
And so was Maybourne.
Shit.
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Nuclear Facility
Her body was hot and damp in his arms. The sweat sticking her dirty clothes to her flushed skin had nothing to do with the morning sun beating down on them and everything to do with the angry red swelling of the sting as inflammation streaked up the pale skin of her leg.
Paul Davis cursed as Cassandra shuddered in his arms, her breathing coming in oddly strangled hiccups and gasps.
Between his legs, the horse was straining, sweat lathering its tan coat and sticking his BDU's to the insides of his calves. The smell of hay and leather and animal was thick in the air, and the only sounds he could hear was the heavy breathing of the mare and the thunder of her hooves over the dried summer earth.
"Come on," he whispered, urging the animal faster. He hated pushing the beast; hated the way its breathing sounded so laboured and the way it was straining to meet his demands of faster, faster, faster, but they had no choice. Not if they wanted to live.
It wouldn't be long before the bugs were back, buzzing and swooping in the air around them.
Over the sounds of hooves and breathing, he heard something else. Something whining and insistent, a mosquito on a summer's night that circled and swooped its prey until it could strike and draw blood.
Paul kicked his heels into the mount, urging her faster and faster.
The whine grew louder, and he chanced a glance up and over his shoulder.
A death glider.
Pulling on the reins he turned the horse off the gravel road and into the forest, following the curve of the road under the shade of trees. It was dangerous, insane even, to gallop a horse through the woods, but he had little choice. Branches whipped at him, stinging his cheeks and his arms and he knew they were battering Cassandra and the horse as well.
The horse slowed, and he kicked it faster, hoping against hope the animal was smart enough to avoid the trees.
Next to him the trees exploded in a flash of hot fire, and the horse screamed in fear, skittering to the side and running him into a tree branch. He felt the crack of his shoulder popping out of its socket before he felt the pain, but the horse was panicking and the forest was on fire.
He yanked the reins again, trying to keep the horse close to the road where the trees were thinner. The animal was breathing heavily, hacking sounds rising from its ribs, but Paul didn't have to kick it faster; it was bolting as fast it as it could and he was simply along for the ride.
The next charge from the energy weapons hit the trees directly ahead of them, and the horse shied. As it spun to the side, Paul felt his feet slip out of the stirrups and he was flying through the air, still holding Cassandra.
A tree broke his fall, and it dazed him as he lay on the ground, watching the horse gallop with its stirrups and reins flying. A second later a bolt hit the animal, and the stench of burning meat and singed hair filled the forest which was suddenly too quiet.
Paul clutched Cassandra close, staring fearfully at the sky through the leaves of the trees.
The glider swooped once, twice, and then he didn't see it.
The world spun as he struggled to his feet, his right arm dangling uselessly. He hesitated, staring down at it and feeling his stomach twist and roil as the pain forced his breakfast from long ago up and past his throat. He retched into the bushes, his torn fingers – when had they gotten so torn and ragged, he wondered dimly – clutching at the rough trunk of a tree to hold him steady while he retched until nothing was left inside.
Swallowing, he tried to erase the vile taste left in his mouth, and found the world was starting to fade with little flecks of light dancing across his vision.
He couldn't pass out. Not now. Not when he was so close.
Gritting his teeth, he grabbed his useless arm with his other hand, holding it steady for a second.
He knew the physics about popping the bone back. He'd been trained on it in case of an emergency. But no one had told him how to work up the courage to do it to himself, or how it hurt and felt like his arm was being pulled out of his body by gravity alone.
Bracing himself against a tree, Paul shut his eyes and took a deep breath, paused, and jerked. The head of his humerus slid back in with a sickening crunch, and his nerves felt as though they were on fire. But he could use his arm.
Using his tree as a brace for a few more seconds, he got his breath back, waiting until the dizzying spinning of the world settled down and he could look around without feeling as though he was going to pass out.
Cassandra whimpered on the ground where she had fallen, and he leant over her cautiously, checking her pulse and feeling the heat of her skin against his fingertips.
"Come on, Cassandra," he whispered hoarsely, leaning down and gracelessly dragging her over his shoulders. "Come on. We're almost there. You just need to hang on a little longer."
The facility was in view when the death gliders came back, swooping angrily overhead. By the time he was inside and the door bolted behind him, he knew they had landed and it would only be a matter of time before they were found.
"They're here," he whispered, and everything went black.
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