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PART SEVENTEEN

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Goa'uld Mothership

Sam had been in a lot of bad situations in her life, impossible situations and moments where the odds were piled so high against her that she wondered, briefly, just how exactly she'd managed to make it this far in life. She punched viciously at a key pad next to a door, barely refraining from screaming in frustration when the door stubbornly refused to open.

"Carter," Davis hissed next to her, "Carter, do something!"

"I'm trying!" she snapped angrily, jamming her fingers over the keys once again.

Nothing. The sequence refused to activate the doors.

"Can't you just rewire it or something?" Davis demanded. "Re-route the power?"

She stared at him with disdain, aware that scant seconds were trickling past as she took the time to show him just how stupid she thought his suggestion was. "I don't need to re-route the power, I just need to alter the sequence of activation. But that still takes time, Davis, and time is something that we don't really have right now."

"We'd have more if you stopped staring at me and just did it!" Davis snapped in response.

Sam thought she heard Andrews or Tom stifle a snicker, but she ignored it. "Get some cover ready," she said instead, and pulled out a small screwdriver which she used to pry the cover off the small circuit board just beneath the control panel.

The thing about technology, Sam mused as she fiddled with the crystals, was that no matter how advanced it was, there was always a control panel. Always.

"How's it going?" Davis demanded.

"It would go faster if you stopped talking!" she muttered, switching another crystal. "The systems are different to what they were three years ago."

"Technological evolution?" Davis guessed.

"I'd say more to stop what I'm doing right now," she said.

From the hall they heard the distinct sound of Jaffa armour.

"Fuck," Davis groaned. "How can they be here already?"

"Time flies when you're having fun," Sam muttered. "Get ready to shoot – wait! I've got it!"

A second later the doors hissed open. Sam only wasted two seconds jamming the control panel cover back on before she grabbed her screwdriver and followed the others through the opening. The door slid shut silently behind them, and Sam tried to calm her beating heart.

The ship was rocking, she thought for a minute, before she realised it was her head spinning and not her surroundings. She rested her hand on the bulkhead for a second, steading her breathing and squeezing her eyes shut.

"You okay?" Davis asked quietly.

"Fine," she murmured, forcing her eyes open and looking at him. He seemed to sway for a few seconds, and bright sparks burst over her vision as the steady burning in her chest and thumping in her head seemed to swell before settling down again. "Okay. I'm okay now," she said, blinking once to clear her vision.

Davis was still watching her as though she had sprouted another head. She glared at him, daring him to push the matter further.

The man obviously valued his life. "Which way now, Carter?"

"Bridge is that way," she said, pointing to their left. "We're almost there."

"I'm more worried about what we're going to do once we are there," Andrews grunted, and Sam pretended not to hear. She didn't want to think about that at this point in time, not when it took everything in her to ignore the agony of moving, let alone breathing and running and carrying a P-90.

Half jogging past the fallen bodies of Jaffa was an uneasy experience; she half expected them to jump up with their staff weapons firing, yelling 'Surprise!' The closer they got to the bridge, the more dead Jaffa they encountered.

The door to the bridge was, unsurprisingly, shut, and once again refused to respond to her commands to open. This time, however, there was no handy control panel and the faint echo of marching Jaffa wandered wispily up the long passage to them.

"What now?" Davis asked quietly, staring at her with eyes that seemed too big for his face.

"We pry it open," she said after a few seconds deliberation, pulling her screwdriver out of her pocket again. She was gratified to see Andrews and Tom position themselves behind bulkheads for protection, their weapons ready for any Jaffa that managed to reach them.

Sam carefully tried to wedge the flat head of her tool into the thin crack left by the shut doors. The metal head scratched and scraped against the doors, but it refused to find purchase against the barriers.

"You don't wear a hair pin, do you?" Davis asked almost hopefully.

"God no," she said, the brief bark of dry laughter escaping before the stabbing of pain in her chest forced her to be quiet.

"Just as well I have a penknife," he said breezily, producing the small object form a pocket.

"That would have been handy a long time ago, Davis," she said, raising her eyebrows.

"But you were doing so well with that screwdriver," he shrugged, offering her a half smile before nudging her out of the way.

The sharp point of the knife slipped into the small crack, and Davis grunted as he forced the rest of the knife in until it was resting with its hilt against the doors. "Can you get your screwdriver get in there now?"

Sam tried again, grinning with relief when the tip worked itself in just above the knife. She pushed against it, forcing it in a little deeper. Davis had produced a larger knife while she was busy with her screwdriver, and he pushed that into the crack too, forcing it open almost a quarter of an inch.

"Ready?" he asked, wrapping both hands around the hilt of his larger knife.

Sam nodded, gripping the screwdriver tightly. Together, they pulled on their respective tools, forcing the doors to give another two inches. The pain in Sam's chest flared at the effort, and she grunted in pain, her grip on her screwdriver slipping.

"I can't hold it!" Davis muttered, his face turning red with effort.

She didn't stop to think; she jammed a hand into the large slit just as Davis' knife snapped under the strain. The doors snapped shut on her arm, and she couldn't stop the short scream of pain from bursting free as the doors crushed her bones. But the doors didn't shut completely – her arm kept a small slit just wide enough for Davis and Andrews to get their hands in as well. Together, the two men pried the doors open for Sam to pull her battered limb out, and then they forced the doors open further, allowing Sam and Tom to slip through before they jumped back and allowed the doors to snap shut again.

"That was too damn close," Tom muttered, his face shining with damp perspiration and pain.

"How is your arm, Carter?" Davis asked quietly.

Sam moaned in pain, her knees buckling beneath her. It was on fire, she thought, watching her vision dance and flares of light bloom beneath her eyelids. Fire and ice and they throbbed with each surge of her heart. She was dimly aware of Davis manipulating her wrist, but she couldn't hear what he said or feel what he did. The world spun crazily on its axis and she felt pain rolling over her in an empty cloud of oblivion.

---
Nuclear Research Facility

Cassandra whimpered on the small cot, her skin hot and damp beneath Janet's hand.

"Who is this girl?" Dr. Markhov asked quietly.

"My daughter," Janet said almost reverently as her fingers traced the line of Cassie's forehead and smoothed the sweat dampened hair back from her face. "Cassandra."

"Dr. Harlowe said he injected her with a possible anti-viral, but that it appears to have little effect."

"She's deteriorating," Janet said softly, the whispered words burning something inside her more sharply than she'd believed possible, "but not as fast as she should be. It's something at least."

"How did she get stung?"

"She was helping the Colonel with a diversion, so he could get to Russia."

The silence in the room felt stifling, almost as though the heat of Cassandra's body turned the air hot and thick.

"She is very young," Svetlana observed.

Too young, Janet thought, closing her eyes and wrapping her fingers around Cassandra's hand. "Yes," Janet agreed. But Cassie was old too; older than Janet because she'd seen her world die. And now, Janet thought, she would be old like her daughter too.

"Dr. Fraiser?" Samuels asked from the door, his voice hesitant. It was good he was hesitant, Janet thought coldly; this man had helped in the downfall and the horror now facing Cassandra.

"What do you want?"

"I'm going to need your assistance on the upper levels. I think the Jaffa foot soldiers are moving in again, and we need to detonate the claymores and other defences Paul set up for us."

Janet nodded reluctantly. "I'll be there," she said.

"Now, please," Samuels insisted.

"I said I'll be there," she said sharply, anger flaring white hot. But it withered and faded and left only empty grief and despair. She kissed Cassandra's forehead gently, the skin hot and damp beneath her lips.

"Hold on, Cassie," she whispered, squeezing her daughter's hand one last time. "You just need to hold on, sweetheart."

Cassandra didn't move.

Janet bit her lip and let go, stepping back.

Outside the small room the air felt too cold and heavy and quiet.

---
Goa'uld Mothership

"Carter, do you read me?" Jack demanded into the Tok'ra communicator. Pressed against an engraved wall with his one knee digging into the hard floor, he remembered why it was such a bad idea for him to be attempting this.

"Damn it, Carter, answer me!" he snapped, carefully shifting his weight around and trying to ignore the burning in his upper arm. He had no doubt the staff blast wound from Cimmeria was infected now; the constant heat radiating down his arm almost made him wish he had told Fraiser about his most recent injury and allowed her to give him an antibiotic shot. Of course, he always did have too much pride and not enough sense for things like that.

"Carter, it's O'Neill. Do you read me?"

His communicator spluttered to life in his hand. "Colonel O'Neill?"

"You're not Carter," he said baldly, relief to hear someone but concerned that it wasn't Carter.

"No, sir, I'm not," a man said, and if Jack wasn't so sore and old he might have found a smile touching his lips at the small touch of sarcasm.

"Well, where is Carter and who are you?"

"It's Paul Davis, Colonel," Davis identified himself, "and we're in the control room."

"What's taking so long?"

"It took us a while to get in, sir, and then Carter…"

"And then Carter what?"

"She got her arm caught in a door," Davis said. "She's hurt pretty bad. And I don't think she's recovered from her 'chute before."

"Where is she, Davis?"

"She's currently lying unconscious on the floor. Andrews is trying to bring her round because we need her to get the crystals, but he's not having much luck. We have no idea which ones they are or if they're even the rights ones."

"Give me ten minutes," Jack said.

"Sir?"

"I said give me ten minutes. Let me know if she comes round before I get there."

"Before you get here?"

"Davis, would you stop repeating everything I say?" Jack complained, creeping around the corner. "Maintain radio silence for the next five minutes – I need to get around some of the patrols."

And he turned his communicator off before carefully rounding the next corner.

---
Tel'tac

The communicators remained ominously silent after Jack's request for silence, and Bek wasn't sure whether she preferred the tense, vivid recounting of what was happening and their fearful voices, or the dead silence that told her nothing.

It is better when they communicate, Garshaw said gently, that way we at least know they are alive.

Bek nodded absently in agreement, even though Garshaw couldn't exactly see the nod. She frowned. "Garshaw, does it look like the rain's lessening?"

They peered out the window together. Perhaps, Garshaw said finally, or perhaps it is just the coming dawn that gives the illusion of a lessening in the downpour.

Bek hadn't realised it was dawn, but the minute the Tok'ra pointed it out she realised the steady dimming of the sky from ink black to dove grey was due to a soft smudge of light appearing in the east.

"Well, I hope it stops raining too," she said.

Garshaw remained silent, and suddenly Bek felt as though even the air itself was oppressive around her.

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