"Jesus, those damn things couldn't have gotten here earlier?" Andrews spat out. "What the hell were they doing all this time?"
"Who knows?" Makepeace said, wondering the exact same thing. He'd believed that they and Varayimshaeta had abandoned SG-3, but it seemed he'd been wrong. His gut churned with anger, relief, a thousand other unidentifiable emotions. He clamped down on it with iron control. He'd deal with what he'd almost done later. For now, he kept his attention fixed on the unfolding drama.
Sitala rapped out a frustrated command. Her Jaffa opened fire on the servitors. The golden orbs zipped back and forth, up and down, with irregular, jerky movements. The staff weapons weren't precise enough to hit such difficult targets. As Makepeace watched the spheres dance in the sky, he thought it would take a sophisticated guidance system to bring them down. That or sheer dumb luck.
He looked back down at Johnson and Henderson, hoping the distraction would give them a chance to make a run for it. No such luck. The Jaffa guarding them were too well trained and hadn't been distracted by the impromptu air show. Instead, they let their comrades do the shooting, and kept their own weapons trained on their two captives.
The servitors rose up into the sky and formed a straight line. The electronic shrilling they emitted got louder and higher with every passing second, until Makepeace ground his fists against his ears in a vain attempt to keep out the knives of sound.
The ground trembled. Loose dirt and pebbles jittered in time to the high-pitched warbles. A low rumbling began.
Andrews stared at Makepeace with wide eyes. "Earthquake," he gasped out, as the deep sound grew in intensity, and the shaking rocks bounced and rolled.
Then all hell broke loose.
A deafening bang split the air. The earth lurched, throwing Makepeace and Andrews around like rag dolls. The two men tumbled backwards down the slope and crashed against a newly up-thrust tower of rock. The ground swayed, undulating drunkenly. Makepeace clung to the stone, hoping it wouldn't collapse on top of him. Mesmerized with primal terror, he could only watch as the earth rolled like a stormy sea. With a loud crack, the outcrop he and Andrews had used for cover broke away from the hill. The mass of crumbling rock and dirt slid downward, vanished from sight. A thick dust cloud rose over the crest of the hill, marking the outcropping's passage.
The spheres rose higher, their cacophony a crescendoing tsunami of unrelenting sound, triggering more rock fall, more shaking…and then the noise ceased. The earth went still.
The two men shared a panicky glance. A few moments later the sound of renewed staff weapon fire got them moving again. They grabbed their rifles and crawled back toward their former position. They lay on their bellies, overlooking the edge of the cliff. A few pieces of loose sediment and broken rock clattered down, but the ground beneath them held firm.
Below was chaos. The artificial quake had cleaved the earth in two, forming a chasm almost three meters wide. The rupture ran parallel to Makepeace and Andrews's hill, leaving Sitala and most of her forces on the far side. The servitors swooped down over them, drawing weapons' fire from the near-panicked Jaffa.
Ten more Jaffa were on the near side of the chasm, along with Johnson and Henderson. The two Marines were pinned down behind a large boulder, using captured staves to exchange fire with their nearest assailants. Several bodies lay nearby, flesh charred and smoking.
"Let's give them a hand," Makepeace said. He aimed his carbine and nailed one of the Jaffa. Andrews took down another.
Johnson ducked down as a staff blast exploded against the boulder, sending jagged pieces flying. Henderson popped out from behind the rock barrier and fired at the advancing warrior. Blood, brains, and shards of bone spattered the bleak landscape.
Makepeace and Andrews pressed their bodies flat against the ground as a flurry of energy bolts broke against the rocks. Andrews fired off two more shots in rapid succession. Two more Jaffa fell.
Across the chasm, Sitala screamed commands in Goa'uld while her troops frantically tried to organize themselves and fire at the orbs flying overhead. The servitors lined up and emitted another of their sonic blasts, and the first line of Jaffa collapsed. A lucky staff blast caught one of the globes, and it blew apart in a scintillating burst of pyrotechnics.
Sitala shouted something to her troops. Makepeace didn't understand the words, but the congratulatory tone made the meaning clear enough. Fucking Goa'uld bitch. Just the sound of her voice made his blood boil. Fiery hatred and all-consuming rage filled every corner of his soul.
Sitala had caused the destruction of this world, his World. She'd wiped out his People without thought for the beauty, the art, the knowledge that was now forever lost. That repulsive alien would do it again without a second thought, without even the merest hint of remorse.
He'd kill her if it was the last thing he did in this lifetime.
He looked through his sight and drew a bead on her, putting the crosshairs squarely in the middle of Sitala's beautiful/deformed face. A center-of-mass shot was out of the question. Even if Sitala didn't have a sarcophagus on hand, the snake in the brain might jump into a new host. He recalled how Captain Carter of SG-1 had gotten snaked—that the Tok'ra Jolinar had jumped into her when she'd given CPR to a dead man. Makepeace figured Sitala kept a few slaves around for just such an emergency.
With luck, the head shot would kill the snake along with the host. To be safe, he'd lob a grenade at her after she was down. Let that disgusting worm try to survive a transformation into red mist.
Sitala turned, squarely facing the hill, and stared up, almost as if she knew exactly what he was doing. Makepeace couldn't have asked for a more perfect target. He squeezed the trigger, firing off a three round burst from his carbine.
The bullets hit her forehead dead center—and ricocheted off. The nearest Jaffa jerked and dropped his staff as one of the slugs caught him in the arm.
Makepeace swore. The bitch had one of those personal shields. She pointed up at him and snapped off some sharp commands, and he ducked away as his position was bombarded with staff blasts.
"Nice idea, Colonel," Andrews said from his hiding place. "Might've saved the galaxy a lot of future grief." He popped up, fired off a few rounds, and ducked down again.
Makepeace grunted in response. Saving the galaxy grief had been the last thing on his mind, but he was still too angry to care. Foreign anger. He'd never hated an enemy so personally, so violently that it messed with his priorities. Never mind that killing Sitala was the rational thing to do. He'd tried to do it for other reasons entirely.
God damn Varayimshaeta.
Down below, a Jaffa broke cover, shooting at Johnson. Makepeace lined up a shot and took the fucker out. Johnson and Henderson killed the last two on their side of the chasm.
A volley of energy bolts erupted from Sitala's remaining troopers. The gold servitors lined up in the air. Makepeace didn't have time to shout a warning before another of those sickening sound pulses ripped through him. The staff blasts ceased. Fighting nausea, he raised his head and saw that the Jaffa had all collapsed.
"Johnson! Henderson!" he yelled.
Brandishing their stolen staff weapons, his two men cautiously emerged from behind their boulder. They both looked shaky, but functional. They surveyed the steep hillside, now littered with rocky debris, and had a hurried conference.
"Can you guys get up here?" Makepeace called.
Johnson replied, "It looks pretty crappy, but we'll give it a shot."
The pair started to climb, scrabbling for hand and footholds in the crumbling scree. Part way up, the earth came loose in Johnson's hand. A cascade of dirt and shale rattled down the slope, taking him with it. He crashed into Henderson, and both men slid down to the bottom, where they landed in an undignified heap amid a shower of pebbles, dirt, and choking dust.
Andrews shouted, "You guys okay?"
Johnson and Henderson got back on their feet, brushing the dust from their bodies and cursing their bruises. Henderson called back, "Yeah, we're fine, but I don't think we can climb this mess."
"You'll have to try a different spot," Makepeace said. He looked around, assessing. "It looks more stable about twenty meters to the left."
Andrews said, "Better make it quick. There's signs of life from the bad guys."
Makepeace swung his rifle around and peered through the scope. On the opposite side of the rupture, the Jaffa were stirring. A little farther back, Sitala rose to her feet. As she straightened, her eyes flashed. Repeatedly. "I'd say she's pissed," he muttered, watching the way Sitala's eyes flared and faded, flared and faded, as she berated her men and shouted orders.
Johnson and Henderson jogged along the base of the hill. A single staff blast blew a hole out of the slope, bringing the two Marines up short. Andrews took out that Jaffa, but more had already gotten their feet under them as they recovered from the sound-stun.
"Climb!" Makepeace shouted. "Move your asses!"
His two men took to the steep incline, scrambling toward the top. Two more energy bolts crashed near them. They paused, hanging on to the hillside while ducking their heads to protect their faces from the spray of dirt and rock shards.
"Cover them," Makepeace ordered Andrews. Both men fired a hail of lead across the chasm. Still stunned Jaffa crawled or staggered drunkenly, while those more recovered bolted for shelter, then returned fire.
"God damn it, hurry!" Makepeace yelled over the noise.
Johnson and Henderson resumed their climb, but their progress was slow, too slow. A burst of energy hit the hill, closer to them than the last one. Again they stopped, as sparks rained down on them like fireworks. Johnson cried out as an ember burned his left hand. Another staff blast hit near Henderson, forcing him to hurriedly scuttle aside like an oversized land crab.
They weren't going to make it, Makepeace realized even as he killed another Jaffa.
Then the four remaining servitors flew over the hillside. They formed into a square and settled down around Henderson and Johnson, actually landing on the slope. When they again lifted into the air, they held two startled Marines suspended as easily as they had carried SG-3's gear through the emerald city.
The golden spheres flew Johnson and Henderson to the top of the rise, and gently set the two men down next to their goggling teammates.
Sitala and her troops had apparently been just as surprised by this action as the Marines, because they hadn't fired a single shot during the entire maneuver. Now Sitala furiously shrieked something in Goa'uld, and the barrage of staff blasts resumed with a vengeance.
SG-3 dropped flat on their bellies, pressing their bodies into the ground. Terrifying fireworks exploded around them. Sitala shouted more commands, and suddenly three death gliders screamed through the sky. Blasts of energy strafed the hill, coming dangerously close to the four men.
"The kid gloves are off," Andrews said, blinking dust from watering eyes. "She's torqued off pretty good. I don't think she's worried about keeping us alive anymore."
"No kidding," Makepeace said. "We've got to get out of here."
"To where?" Johnson asked. "Where the fuck can we go?"
Amid the bombardment, a lone servitor bobbed just above the men and circled frantically. Makepeace stared at it. "I think this guy's got an idea."
Having captured the Marines' attention, the servitor zipped back toward the city.
"Didn't we come from that direction?" Andrews said.
"The road's that way," Makepeace said with rising excitement. Maybe there was a chance for survival, after all.
The weapons' fire tapered off. The death gliders retreated, to circle in holding patterns over the pyramid ship. Sitala's amplified voice echoed through the foothills, warning the Marines they would be taken by force. She emphasized that some of them might be killed if they didn't surrender immediately.
Makepeace ignored the threats. "Come on," he said, and headed down the hill, back toward the city.