Chapter 8: Back in Contact

The seventh chevron locked even as Mitchell reached the place where Carter and Bolton were standing.

"It's earth's IDC ," confirmed Bolton.

"Not that we could do anything if it wasn't," muttered Mitchell. The wormhole whooshed out and then stabilised.

"Receiving visual, audio … now," said Carter. She twiddled a dial and Landry's face appeared on a screen over the panel.

"Hello SG-1," boomed his voice over the speaker system. "How's it coming?"

"Well sir," began Mitchell. "We have found 3 full ZPMs ….."

"Great job!!"

" … however, the city's overrun with some kind of giant predator bug and Davidson's team has already lost two men."

"Oh," said Landry, his excited enthusiasm vanishing and his face falling. "That bad already is it? Should I send SG-3 through?

"No," answered Mitchell. "For some twisted reason Ba'al turned up in orbit a little while ago, offered to help us if we'd help him. The usual thing. We've agreed and we know he's scanning the place, so sending in more men would only agitate things. Apparently he's planning to ring down some Kroyta gas soon which we can …"

"Kroyta gas?" interrupted Landry with an enquiring tone.

"Yeah, Carter says it's some kind of bug killing agent …"

Here Carter broke in, "The Goa'uld have been using it for years to tame a planet's insect population down to a manageable level. We've modified it into a gas known as AR-16, specifically for use against Prior bugs."

" … yeah, that," continued Mitchell, "which we're gonna put in the ventilation. Hope McKay gets major systems back on-line and take them all out at once – but we need Ba'al's help on this."

"OK," conceded Landry. "Now, I'm guessing you've already guessed then, but the plague didn't kill the Alterans, a venom did … and I'll bet it was from your insects."

"Yes," confirmed Carter, "We'd figured that …"

"Also, McKay and Davidson are trapped in the ZPM room and Teal'c, Vala and Daniel are in a transporter waiting for power to come on." said Mitchell over the top of Carter.

"So you're sure there's nothing to be done?"

"Nothing."

"Alright then, SG-1, good luck!" On that note he cut the transmission and the wormhole disengaged.

Mitchell looked around the large, dark room. "Alright, Carter, Bolton, I want to know how Ba-al found us in the first place."

Silence reigned except for Davidson's pacing as McKay worked on the last connection. Soon he'd be finished thought Davidson and they could run (correction, McKay could run heavily while he jogged slowly)to the nearest transporter – just along the hallway and get the hell out of there. Should be easy, actually.

Suddenly, multiple things happened at once … McKay sat back, apparently satisfied saying, "Well … that's that – everybody thank me for the miracle later." … the city hummed to life around them, lights flickered on , and with a tearing of metal, 12 perfectly round holes were punched through the room's ceiling and a number of bugs dropped through each one of them. McKay leapt to his feet and tried to pull his pistol from the holster on his thigh. It wouldn't budge. "Oh no…," he moaned and jumped backwards, turned and climbed up onto the ZPM console. Several bugs spotted this tactic and climbed up after him. A flash from Davidson's gun and one fell, while McKay's heavy boot knocked another down.

"Out of the room!" roared Davidson.

McKay hesitated a moment, and then leapt rather spectacularly over towards the door. Davison fired another 3 shots, one of which hit home, the other two hitting dangerously close to McKay's newly repaired wiring. McKay saw this out of the corner of his eye and winced, then dived into the hallway with Davidson backing quickly after him.

The noise stopped and nothing followed.

"Why'd they stop coming?" asked McKay nervously.

"Who cares?" came Davidson's response. He led the way out and around the corner and then stopped. Something was glinting green in front of him ….

There was a dull thud as McKay bumped into him, despite the fist Davidson had raised into the air as he stopped.

"What's wrong?" squeaked McKay.

Davidson didn't answer, but instead, swung his gun out in front of him. It caught in an almost invisible, sticky fibre stretched out across the passage. Like a spider web, thought Davison, only solid. He fired a bullet at it. The web stretched and them snapped back into position, with the bullet held tightly inside the web.

"Wow!" said McKay. "If it weren't for the meat eating bugs, I'd come back to sample that stuff …"

Davidson ignored the comment and marked back around the corner. Another green web was now sprawled from ceiling to floor. "Blast …" said Davidson gloomily. "We're trapped!"

Ba'al watched with ever increasing annoyance as one of his Kull warriors fell to its knees. "Back!" he yelled to it. It stumbled behind the ranks of its other nine fellow warriors. "Four in front and 5 behind."

Seconds later, he was about to change his mind and call for a retreat as yet another of his 'invincible' warriors stumbled … Ori staff weapons were more powerful than he'd anticipated … when another stream of red light burst out, but this one came from behind the shield. The warriors of the Ori turned, tried to avoid the red fire, but too late. Another party of 10 warriors and a Ba'al appeared around the far corner, from behind the shield. Team 2, noted Ba'al. He ran up towards the shield and his warriors followed him, two of them limping heavily, but back on their feet, as the warriors on the other side blasted the area of walls that seemed to be producing the shield. It flickered, faltered and vanished.

"How did you get through the shield?" shouted team 1's Ba'al.

The other Ba'al smiled smugly at having figured something out before his clone. "Stun grenade," he stated, as if it were the most obvious thing in the universe. "The shield'd block any attack, but it didn't block light or sound, Then once they'd been stunned, I cut …" He held up a small laser cutter, "… a hole through the wall and zatted the generator." He smiled again. "Here all minds are equal, but it would seem some are more equal than …."

He was abruptly cut of as another group of warriors of the Ori arrived, who rapidly met the same treatment as the last group.

"Nearly there now!" shouted the first Ba'al and led the way up the passage to a door, inlaid more heavily than usual with gold and jewels. The door swung open noiselessly …

In front of a massive set of control panels, which covered the surface of the whole room sat a Prior, desperately struggling with the ship's controls. On sensing the door opening, he swung around and snatched up his staff and staggered to his feet.

The leading Ba'al commanded his warriors not to open fire and then looked at the Prior with an expression that quite clearly said, "Well, then?"

The Prior's staff glowed feebly in his hand and them died. His face contorted with anger, frustration and perhaps a faint hint of fear as he whispered, "What have you done?"

Ba'al walked forward, ignoring him. "Controlled with Prior mind powers, I suppose?" he said, admiring the massive ship's advanced systems. "Well, only one thing for it then," he continued, turning to the Prior. "You'll have to help us, my friend."

"Never …" hissed the Prior defiantly.

"That's where you're wrong." Ba'al's eyes flashed. "Very wrong indeed …"