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PART SIXTEEN

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Tel'tac

"We're clear, Samuels!" Davis called through the heavy metal door, banging his fist against it for good measure before stepping back several feet to where Sam and the others were waiting. Several seconds later they heard a muffled thud and the walls seemed to shudder faintly in the shadows.

"That's it," Davis said, and for a few seconds the group was silent.

Sam stared at the quiet walls of the nuclear facility, and hoped to a God she wasn't sure she believed in now – if she ever had – that Janet, Harlowe, Svetlana and Cassie wouldn't be found.

"Decoy's up," Andrews announced as he appeared out of the darkness. "Hopefully the Jaffa will think we've all left."

Davis nodded. "Then I guess the show is the on the road. Everyone ready?"

Sam tightened her grip on the P-90 and nodded with everyone else.

"Let's go then, people," Colonel O'Neill said firmly.

He'd no sooner spoken than a crack of lightening flashed jaggedly across the open sky above them, followed several seconds later by a roll of thunder. The heavens seemed to pause for a second, and then opened in a sheet of water. Wordlessly, the group turned and jogged toward where the Tel'tac was once again cloaked. Sam was slightly amused by the sight of a rainless patch of air in the shape of a Tel'tac. It only lasted momentarily, and was filled in suddenly by the appearance of the solid vessel.

She stepped inside gratefully, rolling her shoulders to try and dislodge the water that had trickled beneath her BDU's onto her skin. It felt cold and wet and she shivered at the sensation. It had been a long time since she'd felt the rain on her skin and smelt the damp of the earth after a downpour. She only hoped she lived long enough so she could smell the freshness again.

"This is going to make things complicated," Bek said, breaking the silence in the Tel'tac as the vessel was once again cloaked and gracefully lifted off the ground under the girl's control. "The rain means we won't be able to have an atmospheric detonation."

"We'll still be able to get into the SGC though," Sam pointed out. "The ventilation system won't be affected."

"True," Bek conceded, "but Garshaw seems to think that once the Jaffa realise the SGC has been attacked they'll come pouring out of the ships and surrounding area, and then we'll have a problem because we won't be able to release the poison."

"Well hopefully it doesn't rain for long," Davis said. "And hopefully we were right about the rain making it hard for the bugs to get around."

Sam didn't feel like being the one to burst the bubble Davis seemed to live in, but there were an awful lot of hopefully's in that sentence, and she wasn't someone willing to trust her luck anymore.

"What do you think, Carter?" the Colonel asked her.

Standing next to Bek, Sam stared out into the dark sky as rain and lightning rattled around them. The Tel'tac was hovering smoothly in the atmosphere, and Sam imagined she could see Cheyenne Mountain below her despite the clouds and rain.

"I don't think we have much of a choice," Sam said finally. "But I don't think this rain is likely to let up anytime soon."

"We should do it," Andrews said. "It's our best shot, right Colonel?"

Sam felt a hand on her arm, and she looked around to the see the Colonel standing next to her. There lines around his eyes and his mouth was pulled tight in a line of tension. He was battered and worn and suddenly Sam was scared. He looked almost beaten, and she'd never known Jack O'Neill to look beaten. She licked her lips.

"We'll do it, sir," she said quietly.

He paused several seconds, staring at her intently and Sam felt horribly uncomfortable under his gaze.

"Okay," he said. "We'll ring you down. Good luck, Major."

She didn't remind him she wasn't a Major anymore. Instead, she readjusted her pack and weapons and nodded her head like the good soldier she was pretending to be.

The impression of the rings were present in the Tel'tac, as in every other Tel'tac Sam had ever been in. She stepped inside its markings and stood close next to Davis and Andrews, feeling their warmth through the dampness of her clothes. And as she waited for the rings to activate, the Colonel watched her silently. She stared back until he vanished in a flash of gold and the empty storage room of the mothership hovering over Cheyenne Mountain materialised in front of her.

God she hoped this worked.

---
Nuclear Facility

Janet was tired. A bone aching tiredness that reminded her she hadn't slept in a long, long time. Not a proper sleep since this entire mess began, she thought tiredly.

Her thumb moved slowly over the back of Cassie's warm hand. On the bed Cassandra moaned briefly, her eyelids fluttering for a second before her body became still again. Janet sighed and pulled her feet up onto the chair she was sitting on, tucking her free hand around her shins and resting her chin on her knees as she looked at her daughter.

"Come on, Cass," she said softly. "Hold on, honey, you need to fight."

Her daughter moved again briefly, but the small movements were constant and had been for hours. Nothing changed; not Cassie's temperature, heart rate or responsiveness.

"How's it going, Janet?" Timothy asked from the shadows of the doorway.

"Still no change," Janet said quietly, not turning to look at him.

"It should have worked by now," he said gently.

"She was further along by the time she got the anti-viral than we anticipated the patients would be, Timothy," Janet pointed out. "It could just take a little longer for it to work."

Or, Janet felt the silent words mocking her, it was already too late for her daughter.

"I'll go and Dr. Markhov and Colonel Samuels know how she's doing," Timothy said, and she heard the quiet tread of his footsteps disappearing down the hall.

Janet's fingers tightened around Cassie's hand as her daughter twitched on the bed.

"Come on, Cassie," Janet whispered, squeezing Cassie's fingers. "Come on, sweety. Don't do this to me."

---
Goa'uld Mothership

Paul had spent a lot of time over the years in the SGC. He'd met a lot of aliens, seen a lot of technology and read a lot of reports. Hell, he'd even been captured by aliens once. But he'd never actually been on a Goa'uld mothership, let alone been on a mission inside one.

His footsteps felt unnaturally loud as he followed closely behind Carter, and he was waiting for her to turn around and tell him to stop breathing because he was sure the breath whistling through his airways sounded like a hurricane.

"If I'm right, the intake to the ventilation system is through there. There should be a chute we can drop down, and that will put us right in the heart of the ventilation system," Carter whispered, her voice almost nothing more than a breath of air he seemed to understand.

"How are you going to get out once you're down?" Paul asked.

"Cables," she said bluntly, and Paul felt a blush rise up his cheeks. God, he wasn't cut out for this action crap; he was supposed to be a desk jockey.

"Ready?" Carter asked; Paul, Tom & Andrews nodded their agreement. "Good, let's go."

It had felt too easy from the start, Paul realised as he followed Carter through the door she'd indicated. When the staff blast hit the metalwork next to his head he felt something thick and heavy sink in his insides and his throat turned dry.

"Shit," Carter hissed, spinning around the wall and pressing her back against it; he copied her movements on the opposite side of the doorway.

In the hall, the gunfire and staff blasts continued as Tom and Andrews returned fire from their hiding places behind the ornamental pillars.

"Cover me," Carter hissed, "I'm going down now before it's too late."

Paul didn't watch Carter as she wriggled away from him across the floor. Instead, he pointed his weapon through the doorway and joined the firefight, his P-90 coming to life in his hands. He turned back twice to check on Carter's progress, barely making out her form as she approached a ventilation shaft and disappeared into it through the thick smoke now curling through the room.

A scream from the hallway drew his attention in time to see Tom flung backwards and to the ground as a staff blast struck him in the arm. Paul wasn't sure whether it was his weapon or Andrews' that took out the Jaffa who had shot Tom – perhaps both of them together – but the warrior fell to the ground as four more Jaffa appeared around the corner, staff weapons raised and ready to fight.

Paul was sure Andrews was dead when three more appeared from the other side of the corridor. He opened his mouth and yelled, turning his P-90 onto the approaching Jaffa. The Jaffa slowed, almost staggering, as though they were suddenly uncertain about attacking a few humans soon to be outnumbered. Paul was sure he didn't really look that intimidating, and when they fell to the ground two seconds later, unmoving, he realised it wasn't him. It was the poison.

After the firefight ringing in the hallway moments before, it suddenly felt oppressively quiet.

"What happened?" Andrews asked, staring at the dead Jaffa but not lowering his weapon.

"I think that was the poison," Paul said quietly. A flicker of disgust for the tactics whispered inside him, but he stamped on it ruthlessly. They were the enemy, and there was no other choice.

But still, he thought, where was the honour and the justice in this? It was slaughter without giving the Jaffa a chance to defend themselves. Yet, the bugs…

"Let's go get Carter," Paul decided, shaking his head as though to dislodge the inner conversation. "You okay, Tom?"

"Nothing a little soak in the tub won't cure," Tom grunted.

Andrews helped Tom to his feet, checking the cauterised wound on his comrade's shoulder. "You soak in the tub?"

Paul rolled his eyes at the jarheads, and led the way to the ventilation chute Carter had disappeared down. "Good job, Carter," he yelled down it. "Want a lift out?"

"That'd be nice," he heard Carter call back sarcastically. "Then we can go for a walk, find a crystal and get out of here."

And Paul felt he couldn't agree more.

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Tel'tac

"The present has been delivered and appears to be well received."

"Copy that," Jack spoke into the communicator. "Get the crystal and get out of there, Carter."

"Will do," Sam responded. "Carter out."

Bek sighed in relief and closed her eyes, smiling as she felt a similar feeling from Garshaw. "Not long now," she whispered, sagging against the wall she was standing next to.

When she opened her eyes, Jack was staring at her. Bek raised her eyebrows. "What?"

"You've changed," he said.

"How would you know?" she demanded. "You don't even know me."

"But you have," he insisted. "A few days ago you couldn't even do CPR without instructions. Now you're standing here organising a military offensive and as relaxed as a cat lying in the sun."

She raised her eyebrows at his description. "A cat lying in the sun?"

He shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "Ok, bad description. But… I'm right, aren't I?"

She considered his words. "I don't think so," she said finally. "Not really. A little, yes, but I'm still me."

It was his turn to raise his eyebrows at her confusing speech. A smile tugged at her lips. "I'm still me," she said finally, "but Garshaw is in here too, and she's done this sort of thing so I sort of know what to expect. Sort of."

"You've changed," he said again, and Bek wasn't sure whether he meant it in a good way or a not so good way.

She would have liked to ask him, but something outside the Tel'tac caught her eye. She looked through the clear window where dark storm clouds and rain roiled angrily, searching for what had demanded her attention.

"Oh, god," she whispered suddenly as the clouds beneath her cleared once again for a few seconds, and she viewed the scene below.

After delivering Sam and the others to the mothership, they'd kept the Tel'tac cloaked and let it move with the clouds a short distance away from Cheyenne Mountain. And now, looking at the black fields below before they were once again hidden by rain clouds, Bek felt worried. Very worried.

"They won't stand a chance," Jack said quietly next to her. "Not once someone realises something's happening in the mothership."

Far below, camouflaged in the black night sky, the ground appeared to be moving. Rippling as though it was alive. It was alive, Bek thought, but it wasn't the ground. They were watching a Jaffa army gathering. In the brief moments of light offered by slivers of lightening still cutting through the air, weapons glinted and armour gleamed dully.

With no bugs to sting and cripple the Jaffa – even momentarily - in the rain, they were ready to march. But the rain also meant no atmospheric detonation of the poison. Damn the rain.

"Carter," Jack said quietly into the communicator. "You better hurry. There's an army of Jaffa that could move into the mothership at anytime."

"I'm aware of that, sir," Sam responded. "Very aware. I'll call you back."

There was a strange squeal from the communicator, and Bek felt Garshaw wince. That does not bode well, the Tok'ra murmured quietly.

Jack seemed to freeze over the communicator for two seconds, and then straightened his back. "Hand me the vest, Bek," he ordered, grabbing a weapon – O'Neill refers to them as zat guns – and sifting through a crate of weapons sitting against the bulkhead. "Bek, now!" he snapped.

"Are you insane, Jack?" she demanded, ignoring the vest he had asked for and grabbing his arm instead. "You can't go down there!"

"Why the hell not?" Jack demanded.

"I thought Sam and Janet made it abundantly clear back at the shelter," Bek snapped.

"And you're telling me Carter was in better condition to go down than I was? Fraiser didn't want her going either, damn it, but she went."

"What do you think you're going to accomplish down there?"

He pulled two vials from a protected pouch in the Tel'tac. "I'll take the second vial down and clear out the ship again." Garshaw felt uneasy at the sight of the poison so casually handled, when it had the potential to kill her instantly.

"Then what?" Bek asked, ignoring the Tok'ra's concern. "They'll just keep coming in fresh from outside. It won't accomplish anything except wasting that vial, Jack."

"It'll buy them some time," Jack said, snatching the vest himself and shrugging into it. He grimaced in pain, his movements strained and cautious.

"You're in no condition to do it, Jack! Look at you, you can hardly move as it is!"

He stopped and looked at her, an emotion in his eyes she struggled to identify. "It's the only chance they have. It's the only chance we have, Bek," he said quietly. "We need that crystal if we ever want to live on this planet again."

It was fear in his eyes, Bek realised. The man was terrified.

"I'll go," she whispered.

"You can't," he said gently. "Garshaw will die the instant this stuff is released. We need you here, to fly the ship and release the poison the minute the rain lets up even for a minute."

She didn't want him to go, and neither did Garshaw.

"I have to go," he said, as though reading her thoughts. "I can't not go."

Only when he positioned himself in the center of the rings, waiting for her to transport him to his death, did she realise he wasn't scared of dying or fighting or killing. He was scared of losing something, and Bek had a relatively good idea of what it was he was so scared of losing.

When the Tel'tac was back in position, she turned to look at him one last time before activating the transporter. He lifted a hand in an odd, farewell sort of wave, and disappeared in the flash of light that was now familiar to her.

The clouds were lifting, Bek thought as she gazed out the window down onto the dark landscape, and she hoped the rain would soon end. And then she'd try and figure out just how exactly she was supposed to release the poison now that Jack wasn't here to do the honours.

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