XXIII

"Ah, Major." Daniel gave the man a polite nod as he caught up. He'd known Sheppard would follow. "The Goa'uld's just through there."

The Major gave him an incredulous look. "That's nice. Why the hell are you out here?"

He blinked. "Well, I was waiting for you." Wasn't it obvious?

"Did I or did I not say not to deviate from the path? You deviated!" he hissed. He pointed back the way they'd come with his weapon. "This is pretty damn deviant, Doctor!"

Daniel let out a small huff of breath. This was what was so frustrating about the military mindset. Always throwing a hissy fit about procedures that had already been abandoned as unuseful, instead of focusing on the situation as it stood.

He raised a hand. "Listen!" A faint sound of sobbing drifted out of the lab. He lifted his eyebrows at Sheppard. "Maybe it's an escaped prisoner."

"Maybe it's a trap," Sheppard said, in that 'I'm going to enunciate slowly and clearly and use big facial cues just so you get it' manner that appeared to be handed out to Air Force officers as standard issue.

Their radios crackled. They pulled back down the hallway, and the Major lifted a hand to his ear to respond. "Sheppard."

Sam's voice emerged. "Major, be warned. We have at least one confirmed case of the Goa'uld switching hosts. Be especially wary of anyone you encounter who you know has the ATA gene. Stay alert."

"Yes, Ma'am." He shut the radio off.

Daniel gave him an eloquent look, and then cautiously moved off toward the lab.

It took him a moment to spot her. She was hunched up in a corner beneath one of the lab tables, so that all he could see was a relatively small pair of standard issue boots and a fold of familiar drab green. That narrowed it to the Goa'ulded SGC members, and there was only one woman on SG-6. Alexandra Sorvino.

Daniel knew all of the civilian gate team members personally - hardly a surprise, since he was a major voice in their selection. Those who made it to the SGC were already the best and brightest in their field, that was a given. It wasn't breadth of knowledge or intellectual rigour that mattered out in the wider galaxy, but flexibility, the right balance of speed to thoroughness, and the common sense to know when to argue and when to duck. He'd recommended Sorvino on the belief that she would cope when she was under fire, do her job when under pressure, take injury and traumatic circumstances in her stride.

But none of that was preparation for being a Goa'uld host. Daniel's jaw tightened as he thought of Sha're and Sarah; one five years dead, the other finally rescued and freed of her symbiote. Though the thought made him burn with guilt, he didn't always know which he considered better off. After three years as a slave to Osiris, the Sarah that he'd once known would never be the same.

For Alex, it had been a matter of weeks - but that was more than enough time to do damage. He remembered Sam's depression after she'd been host to Jolinar.

He crouched down tentatively to peer under the desk. "Alex?" There was no reaction, and the quiet sobbing wrenched at him.

"Alex?" Daniel reached out to touch her arm. Alex gasped at the contact, and her head jerked up. Her grey-green eyes were rimmed with red, and in them he saw recognition, rising panic-

-And then a flare of light.

"Doctor Jackson," said the mocking tones of the Goa'uld. "How fitting. My host has always wished you could be her knight in shining armour."

He threw himself backwards, but not fast enough to avoid the slash at his leg. It was Sorvino's combat knife - a low tech weapon for a Goa'uld, but as it bit deep into the flesh below his kneecap, he wasn't inclined to fault it. He yelled in pain as he crashed to the ground on his butt.

He rolled to the side immediately, but as he tried to rise up on his hands and his knees, his injured leg betrayed him. As he staggered and lurched to the right, he was kicked in the back of the head.

Daniel went sprawling, but instead of trying to get up, he rolled back the other way, onto his back. He had his Beretta drawn and aimed with a speed Jack O'Neill could be proud of - but the Goa'uld was faster. The zat discharge plastered his limbs to the ground, and the weapon dropped from his loose fingers.

As luck would have it, the unpredictable effects of the weapon left him conscious... but that was no use to him at all, since he couldn't move a muscle. The Goa'uld loomed over him, wearing a smirk that had no business being on Alex Sorvino's face.

"The famous Doctor Jackson, vanquished at last," it said. "My Lord Baal will be pleased."

The Goa'uld raised the zat for the second, fatal blast, but the next sound Daniel heard was rapid gunfire. Sheppard's bullets slammed into Sorvino's torso, too fast and too many for the symbiote's healing powers to handle. She crumpled to the ground in front of him, and the glow in her eyes flared and died.

Daniel closed his own eyes, and allowed himself to slip into unconsciousness.

"All right there, Lieutenant?" Sam gave Brand an encouraging smile.

She knew him; he was a bright spark and an excellent engineer, though prone to garbling explanations when he was excited. She hoped he was going to bounce back from his Goa'uld possession - at least, as well as anyone ever could. Her own time with Jolinar had been traumatic enough, and Jolinar wasn't even a Goa'uld.

Sure could have fooled me, the General would have said, but she pushed his voice aside. Jolinar might have taken Sam over against her will, but at least her intent hadn't been evil. The Tok'ra could be... less than considerate, but they were still a world away from the malice of the Goa'uld.

"Yes, Colonel. Nobody's moving. One Goa'uld in the control room, and another in the medlab area." He interpreted her question as a check on the monitoring duty she'd assigned him rather than his own state of mind - probably deliberately. Doctor MacKenzie would doubtless disapprove, but so far as Sam was concerned, a little determined repression wasn't always a bad thing. "It's hard to pick out the others. They're moving in among the prisoners in the cells."

She was betting it was Baal in the control room. The one in medlab was probably checking out what had happened to the one that Sheppard and Teal'c had taken out. That left two more, at least one of them in an unknown host. "What about Doctor Weir's cell?" she said. Brand shook his head minutely.

"Still only reading three life signs. She was captured coming back through the Stargate with a marine Lieutenant and a Pegasus Galaxy native. So far as I know they were kept in the same holding cell."

"Good." She nodded. Teal'c and the General should be approaching the cell just about now, but thanks to McKay's neat little sensor blanking trick, she couldn't check on their progress without calling attention to it. McKay had the only handheld detector unit with him, and any instructions she fed to the city's main computer network were potentially open to interception.

The good news was, so were Baal's. The bad news was, she wasn't nearly familiar enough with the system to spot which commands were out of place. The translation software running would have been a boon in her lab back home, but here it wasn't nearly fast or complete enough to keep up with the volume of traffic. Her one consolation was that it would be of even less use to Baal - written English was as much a foreign language to him as the original text.

Of course, it was entirely possible he was fluent in Ancient. Who knew how many centuries he'd had to study it?

Daniel, probably. She could have done with him here now, to hang over her shoulder and tell her if-

Wait, what was that? She isolated a command that was flagged as an override. Oh, yeah, that little chunk of code had Baal's fingerprints all over it - but what was it doing?

Some of these subroutines looked familiar. This one here was the same security protocol she and McKay had called to seal off the hallway when they set their Goa'uld trap. Sam called up the ID of the affected hallway on the city map.

It was the one directly outside Doctor Weir's holding cell.

Oh, crap.

She keyed the radio. "Sir?"

Only static answered. They were being jammed.

O'Neill gave him the hand signal to proceed. Teal'c ascertained that the way was clear, then entered the small room, his staff weapon raised. The prisoners jumped to their feet.

Doctor Weir he recognised from her time as head of the SGC. She appeared wearied and under stress, but otherwise unharmed. The young marine Lieutenant was familiar also, although Master Bra'tac would have had harsh words for the fact that Teal'c could not recall his name or the circumstances of their meeting. Unlike Jaffa, Tauri warriors did not serve until death but came and went for many reasons, and Teal'c no longer considered it practical to personally assess every one.

The second woman was a stranger to him, but she carried herself like a warrior. And her tactics were wise; instead of mimicking the Lieutenant's defensive position in front of their leader, she remained in the furthest corner of the cell, forcing Teal'c to split his aim. Had he made a move against Weir, she would have had opportunity to strike while the Lieutenant's attempt to intervene distracted him.

Of course, it would have come to nothing, for Teal'c could move far faster than those unfamiliar with Jaffa ever realised. But nonetheless, he approved of such tactical thinking. Especially in those that he was not actually intending to fight.

"Teal'c!" Doctor Weir raised her eyebrows in surprise.

O'Neill joined him in the doorway. "Hey, kids," he said cheerfully. "Did someone here call for a cab?"

The Lieutenant straightened to attention automatically, but instead of relaxing afterwards he grew more tense. "They could be Goa'uld," he cautioned Doctor Weir.

"We could be Goa'uld." O'Neill pulled a dissatisfied face as he exchanged looks with Teal'c. "Why did we not think of that at the planning stage?"

Indeed, having been confronted with one set of impostors, it was only natural that the expedition members would regard others originating from the SGC with suspicion.

"We are not Goa'uld," Teal'c informed them.

"See?" O'Neill spread his hands and smiled. "How can you argue with that? And hey, Teal'c's a Jaffa. He can't even be made a Goa'uld."

A useful distinction but not, alas, a correct one. "In fact, O'Neill, since I no longer possess my symbiote, it is entirely possible for-"

O'Neill narrowed his eyes. "Way to give away the home team advantage, T," he accused. He turned to the freed prisoners. "Look. We're not Goa'uld. You can tell this from the fact that we're rescuing you. The SGC isn't compromised. This is a rogue group captured by Baal - we didn't even know they were still alive. In fact, would you believe that we're here on an entirely unrelated matter?"

"No," Doctor Weir said simply, but the wry twist to her mouth suggested she was beginning to be persuaded. Truly, there were few things that resembled the posturing of the Goa'uld less than a typical conversation with O'Neill.

"Exactly!" He shrugged. "If we really were the bad guys, we would have come up with a story that sounded much less stupid."

"Whether they are our enemy or not, we have little choice but to go along with them," the warrior woman observed. "What is the situation in the city?" she asked them.

Teal'c took point as O'Neill ushered them out into the hallway.

"There were five Goa'uld," he briefed them briskly. "One's been neutralised, but we know that at least one of the others has changed hosts since arriving on Atlantis. The main threat is Baal. He has a much greater understanding of Ancient technology than the rest of them, and a lot of years' experience at the galactic domination thing. The bad news is he's holed up in the control room, playing with the computers," O'Neill said.

"And that gives him total control over the Stargate," Doctor Weir said soberly.

"According to McKay, he probably hasn't been able to crack the database of gate addresses yet. He was muttering about upping the security because of some folks called the..." He exchanged a glance with Teal'c. "They weren't the Jedi, were they?" he admitted.

Indeed not. Hacking the encrypted files of others was not an activity of which Master Yoda would have approved.

"The Genii. We dealt with them," Doctor Weir said confidently. "Rodney's free?" she said, sounding more hopeful.

"Of course!" the Lieutenant realised. "The doc wouldn't let him out of the infirmary to go to the briefing."

"We have McKay and Carter," O'Neill informed them. "Working together - or killing each other, one or the other-"

He stopped abruptly at the sounding of a klaxon. Teal'c attempted to jam his staff weapon in the door ahead to prevent it from closing, but he was unsuccessful. The door behind them sealed itself also, trapping them inside the hallway.

"What's this?" O'Neill asked the Atlantis residents. However, they seemed similarly puzzled.

"This is new." The young Lieutenant looked up at the ceiling. A smooth, pleasant female voice began speaking in Ancient. Doctor Weir was clearly trying to concentrate on it to translate, but O'Neill's face went pale immediately.

"What's it saying?" the Lieutenant asked, as the message began to repeat for a second time. Doctor Weir frowned to herself.

"Something about... a contagion?"

"Contamination," O'Neill supplied brusquely. "There is a contamination in this sector, please stand by while the hallways are irridiated," he sing-songed in a mimicry of the computer's even tone.

"Okay, irradiation does not sound good," the Lieutenant observed, edging away from the walls.

"With us in here?" Doctor Weir demanded incredulously. "There has to be an override!"

"There is," O'Neill said. He slipped back into his computer voice. "If you are inside a contaminated sector, enter your personal identification code to be released for the med team's attention. If you do not have a valid authorisation code, contact the security team immediately." He slammed his fist uselessly against the closed door.

"Do we have these identification codes?" the warrior woman asked.

"No one has those identification codes!" Doctor Weir said. "The people who had them have all been dead for ten thousand years."

"This is a Goa'uld trick," Teal'c said. It was no coincidence the contagion warning had gone off at this time.

"Yeah. It has Baal's slimy little fingerprints all over it," O'Neill agreed darkly. He reached for his radio. "Carter? We have a situation here."

The only response was static. He exchanged a troubled look with Teal'c, and shifted to a different channel. "Daniel, respond. Sheppard, do you read me?"

There was still no response. Teal'c tried his own radio, but was unsurprised to find it similarly dead. They were cut off from their distant teammates. They could rely on no one else's help to get them out.

The Ancient warning message began to repeat for a third time.

"Sam, what the hell are you doing?" Rodney snatched up his radio. There were commands flying around the network that would catch Baal's attention in a heartbeat.

"It's not me, it's the Goa'uld," the Colonel said, and the frustration in her voice sent his heart rate into a higher risk band. "They have the General and the rescued prisoners trapped in a hallway. We've lost radio contact."

Zelenka leaned in to read the code over Rodney's shoulder. "That is the biohazard containment subroutine," he said, indicating a point on the screen. "The corridors will be scrubbed." Thoroughly. In a way not conducive to continued human survival.

"I can't get them released without an override," Carter said over the radio. "Can you use yours?"

Rodney shook his head, for Zelenka's benefit rather than the absent Carter's. "Elizabeth has a systems override code that's higher priority than mine. It won't work. We just controlled access to all the systems from root rather than assign our people individual user IDs. The decon procedure wants specific ID codes before it lets anyone out."

"Aye, that'll be to make sure they can track the contaminated individuals," Carson spoke up from where he was bandaging Doctor Jackson's leg.

"Well, it doesn't help us much now!" Rodney retorted.

"I am searching for valid emergency codes now," Zelenka told them. "Ah, I have-" He broke off and mumbled Czech swearwords, catching Doctor Jackson's attention.

"Oh, no." Rodney read the data for himself. "Colonel, we have the codes, but they have to be entered from inside the affected area."

"I've already tried four different ways to get around the radio jamming," Carter said, clearly agitated. "They're cut off from all contact. All the doors around the affected area have locked down: there's no way we could pass a message through to them."

"That may not be completely true." Doctor Jackson pushed to his feet, to the mutual disapproval of Carson and Major Sheppard. He limped over to the O'Neill clone, who was taking a 'rest' that looked a whole lot more like a nap, and gently shook him awake. "Jon? We have something here Jack needs to know." He gestured at Zelenka. "Show him the codes."

Zelenka was clearly as baffled as Rodney, but obligingly swivelled the laptop for the boy clone to see. 'Jon' leaned forward and squinted to read them - and then abruptly went rigid, his eyes rolling back in his head. Jackson caught him as he fell, and Carson rushed forward to check his vital signs.

"Well, that improved matters!" Rodney said incredulously.

Elizabeth had rarely felt so useless.

Even in a combat situation she could at least try to negotiate, but now there was nothing and no one to negotiate with - just that implacable Ancient voice, repeating its message over and over and beginning the countdown. She almost wished she didn't know the Ancient numbers as well as she did. At least the others were spared the knowledge of exactly how soon they would meet their demise.

She'd tried her system override code in both door panels, only to be repeatedly frustrated. Again and again she was given the same useless options: enter the ID number she didn't have, or contact the security team who didn't exist.

"Damn it!"

Knowing full well it was pointless, Elizabeth tried the code again. She would have given anything to have Rodney McKay with her right now. Or Zelenka. Simpson. Christ, even Kavanagh! Anybody who could pull this stupid panel off the wall and switch the right crystals to make it believe it ought to open.

The companions that she did have were trying to force the doors, but was obvious it wasn't going to happen. If Teal'c's astonishing muscles couldn't budge the door at one end, Ford and Teyla working together had no hope of moving the other.

It was a futile effort, but she was still surprised General O'Neill wasn't helping. It wasn't like him to be standing back. She looked for him, in time to see him stiffen abruptly and tilt his head as if he'd heard something. She thought for one delighted instant they'd re-established radio contact, but he didn't have an earpiece in, just one of the handheld units the SGC used. What had caught his attention?

All she could hear was the Ancient voice, counting down implacably. Dexis. Nova. Octa. Septem... She cursed, and slapped the panel as it rejected her override code once again. What use was it having the highest priority command code when it wouldn't even get you through a locked door?

O'Neill suddenly ran forward, unceremoniously shifting her out of the way by her shoulders. As he tapped furiously at the Ancient keypad, the countdown reached zero, and slots opened up in the ceiling. Chemical-scented spray rained down on them, and Elizabeth covered her mouth with her sleeve.

"General," she warned him, "it's not accepting any of the-"

There was a melodic chime and the door slid open. Teal'c, still in the process of trying to force it, executed an elegant pirouette to avoid falling through and turned to push Elizabeth towards it.

She stared at O'Neill in disbelief even as she was being ushered out. If he'd known the code, why hadn't he tried it earlier? "How did you-?"

"This stuff's corrosive." He spoke over her words. "It's going to burn if we don't get it scrubbed off immediately. T, escort the doctor up two blocks - there are showers in the living quarters on the left. I'll follow on with the other two." He ran down to the other end of the hallway to assist Ford and Teyla.

Elizabeth hadn't really taken that much of a hit from the spray, and she was sure the itching that sprung up at his words was wholly psychological, but nonetheless she jogged after Teal'c.

She couldn't help wondering, though, once she was under the welcome heat of the water, just how a man who'd arrived in the city at most forty-eight hours ago already knew where the bathrooms were.