Chapter 11: You are all the instruments of my conquest
Continuing their search the infiltration team suddenly take cover after the motion tracker on Welsh's H.U.D. detected a signal of somebody was coming towards them from one of the rooms just up ahead on the right, signalling to the others about the danger. After allowing the Goa'uld a few seconds to move off the group come out of their respected hiding places.
"There has to be a console somewhere that will allow us to access a log of recent activity." Whispers major Carter as she moves up next to Welsh, as the adaptive camouflage moved back to its basic black, who had taken cover next to the door that the Goa'uld had just exited from as a set of rings finished recessing into the ceiling. "Even if it doesn't contain any of Anubis long range plans, we might still be able to gather some intelligence on his fleet and ground force locations and maybe the plans for the drones armour."
"Nothing but labs, corridors and storage rooms down this way." Selmak. Carter whispers as he looks down the corridor next to the ring-room, before turning to see that Teal'c is nodding to indicate that it was the same on his side of the intersection. "I'm willing to bet that Anubis's personal quarters and the throne room are down this way." He says as he points down the way which the Goa'uld had just gone. After helping welsh to place one of her anti-personal mines on the hatch for the rings, so that if they were activated they would be destroyed to prevent any Jaffa from ringing in close to their location, the team moves on in search of an active computer terminal.
Ten cautious minutes later the team take up positions to cover each other as they enter the personal quarters of Anubis, which is also his throne room. As they begin their search of the room for an active terminal they hear the sound of very heavy and rhythmic marching coming from the open balcony.
"Where's that coming from?" Asks Welsh looking up from the shelves in front of her that she had just picked up about half a dozen Goa'uld PADD's off, as the team look around the room before seeing the open balcony the group cautiously make their way over to it. "Deculture!" swears Welsh, almost under her breath, "I knew I should have brought a neidhart war head with us."
Below the team they can see a formation of drones amassing as if for a parade review in front of a lone figure dressed all in black robes standing on an anti-gravity platform.
"You are all my children. Kull warriors!" Says Anubis as he looks out over the formation of two battalions worth of drones, while spreading his arms before continuing his speech. "You are all the instruments of my conquest."
"Hail Anubis! Hail Anubis! Hail Anubis!" The drones chant as they all drop to on knee.
"We are so fracked!" Welsh mutters as she begins to pan around the tactical camera on the side of her helmet to capture the view below them of the still kneeling drones below her.
-{[]}-
Back in the Central American jungle Burke is passing around his pack of gum to the group when they hear the sound of gunfire from multiple AK-47's being fired not that far away. As soon as they had worked out which direction the shoots had come from before taking off at a run towards the sound.
In the direction of the gun-fire less than a quarter of a kilometre from the rescue team, Jackson, Lee and Cochrane are running as fast as they can when Lee trips over a half raised root.
"Bill, you got to keep moving!" Says Jackson as he slows down long enough so that he could help his colleague up, just as some gun-fire clipped the tree that the root was from, while Cochrane scrambled past them still cursing in Zentron.
"Matenlos!" Shoats the Goa'uld while he continued to fire at the three retreating backs of the escaping prisoners. "Matenlos! Siganme! Kree!"
O'Neill and the others pause for a second in an attempt to get a hint to which way to go, when they hear the sound of more gun-fire over the sound of the one word that O'Neill has come to hate over the last six years 'Kree', which makes him gulp his suddenly dry throat before signalling to Granger to take Rockwell and Newman right and he and Burke will go left and circle around.
Before they can catch up with them Lee and Cochrane both trip with Cochrane twisting his ankle.
"FRACK ME!" Cochrane screams as he attempts to get back up only to see his foot facing the wrong way.
"I can't… I can't breathe." Pants Lee.
"Yes you can." Says Jackson as he helps Lee up guiding him to where Cochrane had managed to hobble behind some fallen trees. "Stay down, I'll draw them off."
A few seconds after Lee and managed to hide with Cochrane, the rebels and the Goa'uld go charging past them, without even slowing down to check behind the logs.
"Argh!" Jackson screams as a bullet clips leg while he was running, making him fall into a tree.
Seeing this the rebels close in on him while the Goa'uld fires at the dirt in front of Jackson before firing over everyone's heads, then throws his rifle down while holding out his hand to receive a machete. "I am going to skin you alive!" He says as he advances towards Jackson with a look of pure loathing on his face while his eyes flashed.
Seeing that he is doomed Jackson desperately grasps around him, searching for something, anything with which to defend himself with. Just as he spots a rock and turns to pick it up he hears the sound of three bodies all hitting the ground. Turning back slowly he sees Rockwell, Newman and Granger all emerging from the jungle with Granger replacing his silenced machine pistol to its holster on his thigh.
"How many are there?" Granger asks as Newman moves to cover Jackson while Rockwell begins to treat him. "Doctor Jackson?"
"That's… that's all of them." Says Jackson as he slowly slips into shock. "Keep an eye on that guy with the machete, he's… he's a Goa'uld. What are you guys doing here?" He asks, just as the Goa'uld begins to recover from the stun shot that Rockwell had fired at him to save Jackson.
"Urg!"
"Is that so, in that case if you will excuse me, I think I need to have a little chat with this parisi." Granger says, sending a shiver down the other three's spin, as he walks over to the Goa'uld and starts to drag him off slipping on a pair of magnetic cuffs around his wrists.
"What do you intend to do with me Tau'ri scum." The Goa'uld asked looking at Granger who walked over and dumped the Goa'uld on the ground a good distance from Jackson and the others, before he placed a small tube into the nook of a nearby tree.
"I want answers. Who sent you here? What did you plan to do?" Granger asked stepping on the Goa'uld's head forcing it into the dirt.
"If that's the best you can do release me and I'll…" Starts the Goa'uld before he chocks as Granger kicks him hard with his boot in the ribs, sending him tumbling across the ground, as he walks back to the tree which he had placed the tube in moments ago, picking it up revealing that it was now a two foot long bar of metal.
"What… what are you doing?" The Goa'uld asked as his eyes went wide with fear.
"Getting some answers." Granger said as the bar started to heat up to a brilliant cherry orange red colour and making the surrounding air shimmer as the water vapour in the air turned to steam due to the intense heat. "On your feet." Granger ordered as O'Neill came out of the jungle behind Granger.
The Goa'uld's eyes went even wider as he tried in vain to scramble away from the man that was intent on torturing him for information. "Please… have… have mercy!"
"Like the mercy that you showed the victims of those companies and organisations who wouldn't or couldn't pay?" Granger said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Sure."
The Goa'uld relaxed a little and managed to get to his feet just in time to see the swing of the bar before it slammed into his gut, which melted through his clothing. "BWAHHHHHHHHHH!" The Goa'uld screamed letting lose a bloodcurdling scream, as tears streamed down his face. Granger pulled the bar away allowing the smell of burnt flesh and melted fabric to fill the air as the Goa'uld collapsed to his knees in pain.
Burke reached the area and just stood next to O'Neill and watched as Granger rounded on the man again, this time slamming the heated bar into his back melting through his clothes once more and deep into his back, again he screamed louder as his eyes rolled into the back of his head from the pain. "AHHHHHHHHHH!"
Granger kicked him across the dirt to release the bar from his back. "Who sent you here?" He asked of the Goa'uld practically yelling the question so that he could be heard over the sound of the man's screaming, since the Goa'uld was unable to move his legs, the strike to his back breaking his spinal cord and rendering him unable to escape.
"Be… Belus!" The Goa'uld chocked out trying to drag himself away from granger towards Burke. "Please HELP ME!" He screams as O'Neill places his arm out to stop Burke from getting too close to the wounded snake head.
"You mean Ba'al?" O'Neill says glaring at the Goa'uld in disgust, which nods as it realises that this is O'Neill of SG1 and he is about to die, just like Apophis, Ra, Cronus and so many others had since the Tau'ri emerged on to the galactic scene six short years ago.
"He wanted information… he even told me the best way to get it." The Goa'uld gulped as some blood spilled down his face. "The fool though went and joined Anubis in his war against the other system lords." He chocked from the pain.
"Is that a fact?" Granger said as glared down at the Goa'uld. "Well that too bad, I guess that I'll just need to take it out on you then. I'm sure that you are aware of the ways of the Ashrak? The assassins of the system lord?"
The Goa'uld's eyes widened in fear once more as Granger reached behind him and pulled out a small metal contain which had was attached to his combat hard-suit. "Well… whatever, I'm sure that you've heard of their torture methods, well the people that trained me in the art would make their methods look those of a naughty child, and they have even taught me how to give any being the most agonizing death imaginable." He said walking over to the Goa'uld, now carrying two things. The first was the bar which was now angled down and glittering in the late afternoon sun that was coming through the canopy, while the other was the canister that he had just removed from his hard-suit. "Catch!" Granger says as he tosses the canister to O'Neill.
Catching the canister O'Neill asks, "What's this for?" as he begins to slowly turn it over.
"You'll see." Granger said walking over to a large rock nearby before dragging the Goa'uld over to it and pinning him to the ground with his foot before he rammed the bar down through his shoulder, the rock and into the dirt behind it.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" The Goa'uld screamed again as he struggled to try and remove the bar that was pinning him to the ground.
Granger turned and started walking away seeing that the Goa'uld was going no were. "Pull the pin and toss it at his nuts, then move back." Granger says casually.
O'Neill flips the canister over and Burke just stated to grin like a fined as he read the wording printed on it. "Oh man your crazy Granger. HAHAHAHAHAH! This is perfect!" He said as he pulled the can out of O'Neill's hands and tosses it in between the lifeless legs of the Goa'uld, before leaping away as O'Neill ran for it.
"NO PLEASE!" The Goa'uld screams as the white phosphorous grenade detonates. "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" He let out one final bloodcurdling scream as it explodes in a blinding flash that instantly disintegrated his legs and lighting what remained of him on fire.
"Don't you think that was a bit much?" O'Neill asks as he and Burke caught up to Granger on his way back to Newman and the others.
"He would have died from his injuries anyways. The trauma which was sent through his nervous system put an incredible amount of strain on both his lungs and heart." Granger said casually as he continues to walk slowly.
"Fuck!" Says Burke, shocked at what he had just witnessed, "If that is what you've been trained to do to get information remind me never, ever to get in your way or to piss you off."
-{[]}-
"There must be thousands of them?" Says major Carter looking down at all of the drones from the throne room's balcony.
"I'm reading just short of a small division down there." Supplies Welsh having used her tac-pad to scan the formation below.
Unknown to the team, Thoth had returned to the throne room and is moving closer to them while readying his Kara kesh to throw them all over the balcony. "Fools." He says when he is almost right behind them.
Hearing this the team all turn and face the Goa'uld who had snuck up on them. As Thoth is about to fire, Teal'c fires with his Zat'nik'tel only to watch in horror as the energy is deflected over his cloths like it had done days earlier when he and Bra'tac had been fighting the drone at the decimated meeting site between Ramius and Tilgath. Recovering from the energy of the shot Thoth moves to strike again only to realise that he is staring down the barrel of major carters HK-XM8 rifle and lieutenant Welsh micro Valliant linear cannon just before the two women opened fire directly into his eyes killing him instantly. As soon as Thoth's headless body hits the floor the bases internal sensors detect the team's presence and activate the intruder alarms.
"Times up." Says Welsh, bringing up the command codes for all of the demo-charges that she had placed on their search of the base.
"C4." Selmak/ Carter suggests as major Carter pulls out the sub-space comm unit to contact Bra'tac in the scout ship.
"Bra'tac we could use that ride now."
"I will be there momentarily." Replies Bra'tac as she pulls out the detonator for the C4 charges before nodding to Welsh, so that they activate all of the charges at the same time.
As the charges started to go off the team ran like made for their insertion point, due to the fact that they were attempting to escape without being pinned down the fail to notice a drone emerge from a room off the corridor behind them and begin to give chase without it opening fire.
After several minutes of running the team reach the insertion point, with Selmak/ Carter in the lead. "Got it!" he shouts as he triggers the override for the hatch again and the team race through as Welsh activates a Zentron anti-personal trip mine to cover their escape.
Racing across the walkway to the scout ship the team comes under fire from several drones that emerge from the main entrance.
"GO!" Major Carter shouts to Bra'tac as Welsh runs past her into the command area of the scout through the air lock, as the outer doors start to close the hear a thud indicating that something had hit the scout.
"What was that?" Selmak/ Carter asks bent over slightly due to being out of the practice of running for his life, while Bra'tac pilots the ship away as several gliders began to close in on them and the bases own anti-air defences started to open fire.
"Someone has opened the rear external engine-room access hatch." Says Bra'tac as an alert pops up on his flight display.
"We're in flight!" Says major Carter spinning to look at the engine-room just as a drone emerges from the inner access hatch to the engine-room. Instantly both Welsh and major Carter open fire but are swiftly knocked to one side, before they are even down Teal'c opens fire with his Zat'nik'tel only for all the shots to be once more deflected by the drones armour before he is forced to dive for cover when the drone opens fire on him.
Seeing that the drone is distracted by Teal'c's attack Selmak runs past the drones towards the rear cargo area. Detecting a moving target the drone switches targets and gives chasse and passes right by Welsh, who slips a timed nightshade plasma grenade on to the small of the drones back, as it enters the middle of the cargo hold Bra'tac activates the transport cycle for the rings and beams the drone a thousand meters below the ship just as the grenade detonates. Moments later the ship escapes the pursuing gliders by entering the safety of hyper-space.
With the ship safely in hyper-space on the way to the Alpha site, Bra'tac moves over to where Teal'c had dived for cover, as he approaches his former student he bends down to check on him. "Teal'c are you hurt?"
"Indeed." Teal'c replies ass he lays on the deck of the scouts command area.
"Where?" Bra'tac says worried that he may have missed a wound.
"My pride." Jokes Teal'c. "An old man did what I was unable to do."
Hearing the humour in the younger man's voice Bra'tac just smiles and helps him to his feet while over the other side of the command area Selmak/ Carter is helping Welsh to her feet.
"Sam? Sam?" Says Selmak/ Carter as he notices that major Carter was still lying on the deck near to the entrance to the ships airlock unmoving. As he bends down to check on her she starts to get up. "No, don't move, just stay still and let the lieutenant check you out." He says gently pushing her back down while Welsh activated her exo-frames basic medical scanner. "What hurts?"
"Everything." Major Carter says which causes both Selmak/ Carter and Welsh to laugh slightly.
"That's a good sign."
"Nothing too major, ma'am." Welsh says as she takes an auto-injector, filled with pain killers, and stabs it into the major's arm. "This should help with the pain, just follow your dad's advice and lay still for a bit." She finishes moving to the cargo area to start placing the components of her command variant fire force assault system into its transport container.
-{[]}-
"You going to be able to walk on that?" Asks Newman as he finishes applying some bacta-gel to Jackson's leg.
"I've had worse." Jackson says before the resurrected rebel fires a short barrel shotgun into the air hitting the tree above them.
"Telchak's device re-animates dead tissue." Jackson explains very fast as the rebel reloads the shotgun.
"Yeah, whatever!" Rockwell says as he and Newman pull him up and behind the tree he had collapsed into minutes ago. Once they were behind the tree the pair opened fire with their forearm mounted Gottfried repeater cannons, but they failed to bring him down.
"Hay! Get down!" Burke shots as he and granger open fire blowing the man into little pieces due to a combination of a round from the Scorpion pistol and a 40mm grenade.
"What's with the guy from evil dead and the weapons that those three are packing?" Asks Burke as Rockwell and Newman helps Jackson up.
""Um…" Starts Jackson, not knowing what cover story Burke had been given about the three Zentradi.
"Classified."
"Yeah." O'Neill says known that burke wasn't cleared to know the truth.
"You guys are into some crazy stuff, man!" Burke says back to his normal joking self, which makes Jackson look at O'Neill with a look that says 'who is he'.
"You have no idea." O'Neill deadpans thinking of all the crazy stuff he and Jackson had done with in the last six years.
-{[]}-
"The perimeters clear." Says Burke as he finishes sweeping the remains of the makeshift compound with Rockwell as Newman returns from the collecting Lee and Cochrane from their hiding spot. "I've just heard from air rescue, they got the guide." He says making his way over to O'Neill and the others.
"Rogelio?" Asks Jackson leaning on a long stick as a makeshift crutch, knowing that they will owe him at least three days-worth of pay.
"He's going to be ok. They'll be here in about an hour." He says as Jackson, Lee and Cochrane head into the hut that they had found the still active device in, while Newman, Granger and Rockwell move to sit by an aging Russian Kamov Ka-50 'Black Shark' attack helicopter.
"Hay," Says O'Neill playing with the peak of his baseball cap, once the others were out of ear shot, "so nice fire-support back there."
"Sure thing buddy. Anytime, anywhere."
"You know," O'Neill says, thinking if he might be able to convince Hammond to have Burke 'read in' on the SGC, "I was thinking that I should see if I can have you posted to a nicer place."
"A temperate zone?" Says Burke without a second thought, "Not to hot? Not to cold? Fine looking woman that put out like a broken candy machine?"
O'Neill looks at him, debating whether or not he was joking. "Whatever. I'll see what I can do."
"Thanks buddy," He says as he reaches out to shake O'Neill's hand, just as Cochrane, Jackson and Lee return with the device. "So is that the thing which made that guy do that thing?"
"Yeah, it's ok now though it's off." Says Jackson as Lee cautiously holds the device.
"Good. That's good." O'Neill says knowing just how much fun 'murphy' likes to have with the members of SG1, Jackson in particular, when it comes to alien do-hickies.
"Yeah," Says Lee nervously, "well that is to say we think it's off. It's not glowing anymore so…"
"It's the glowing thing that usually gives it away, so if it's not glowing then it shouldn't be on." Elaborates Jackson, used to dumbing down explanations when it comes to explaining things for O'Neill.
"Do you want to hold it?" Asks a very nervous Lee as he tries to pass it off to somebody else.
"Nooo." Jackson and Cochrane both say as they move slightly further away from Lee, causing everyone else to burst out laughing.
-{[]}-
"Chevron seven locked!" Announces the technician from the control room, over the public address system for the SGC as he opens the iris allowing Welsh, Teal'c, Bra'tac, major Carter and Selmak/ Carter to walk through the active wormhole from the Alpha site and down the ramp to where general Hammond, O'Neill, Jackson, Cochrane and commodore Hudson are just entering from the access corridor to the control room.
"So… did you miss me?" Jokes O'Neill with his hands behind his head, noticing that Teal'c has his side bandaged up, major Carter has her arm in a sling and Welsh carrying a small create as well as the backpack she had placed her equipment into.
"Of course sir." Major Carter says smiling at O'Neill's rather bad attempt at a joke.
"Well it can't have been that bad, since you're all back alive."
"As are you, doctor Jackson and lieutenant Cochrane." Says Teal'c noticing that both Jackson and Cochrane where on a set of crutches.
"Daniel?" Asks major Carter raising an eyebrow while looking over at Jackson standing by one of the airman that was manning a GAU-2B/A mini-gun fixed in the gate room.
"I'm fine." He says in response to her unasked question. "The good news is that we managed to get the device, even after being tortured by a Goa'uld sent by Anubis."
"Good." Says a shocked Selmak/ Carter that a Goa'uld had managed to land on the first world, "I would only hope we can counter the energy of it and work out how it works."
"I take it that time is of the essence?" asks Hudson, suddenly feeling like he was back on the frontlines of the 'Battle of Lantea' facing off against the Prometheans.
"Indeed." Says Bra'tac, noticing the small change in the Zentradi commodore. "If we are to have any hope of combating these new warriors then we must."
"We have bad news sirs." Says Welsh having passed the crate to a technician in the gate room so that she could remove her helmet which she places under her arm, "Anubis has an entire army of drone soldier's sir. We counted at least two full infantry battalions worth of them on that planet alone. The best we could do with the equipment we had was to delay his production of anymore and cripple the base."
"We'll debrief properly in one hour." Hammond says as he take Hudson and Selmak/ Carter out of the embarkation room, before stopping at the doorway he had come through moments ago. "Welcome home." He says before heading up to his office to discuss the logistics for helping the Archangel to begin construction of her base on the dark side of the moon.
After a few seconds Jackson leads Bra'tac, Teal'c, Welsh and Cochrane off towards the infirmary leaving Carter and O'Neill at the base of the ramp from the now deactivated stargate, just as SG4 come in from the other entrance chatting while getting ready to go their mission to P3X-2146.
"Hay." Says O'Neill suddenly nervous, and very much aware the looks that the older members of the embarkation room guards were giving him due to the fact that they could tell how he felt about is second-in-command. "So nice first command?" He asks trying to make small talk.
"We did make it out alive, sir." Carter says equally nervous, due to her own feelings.
"There is that." Deadpans O'Neill, before changing the subject and speaking slightly louder than normal so that SG4 could hear him on the other side of the embarkation room. "So lunch, I hear that it is tater tot day in the mess." Before moving off and heading in the direction of the mess with Carter following along and SG4 giving them a glare that would make any of the politicians that want to close down the SGC proud.
Authors Note:
I know I'm evil, beating the guy up with a heated metal bar then setting him on fire with a white phosphorus grenade, but what can I say part of me was upset when in the show they just shot the three rebels in the back but blow up the Zombie. Also really no-body has spotted the 80's cartoon referance's that I've drooped hints into the story other than Macross. Well if your interested they are the three main characters from the Centurions, Jake Rockwell, Ace McCloud and Max Ray as well as the Starmax, Starwolf, and Battlecrane from Starcom: The US space force. I mean I know that they are not that new but come on cartoon Network used to show the centurions on Toonarmi back in the late 1990's
Link to the Centurions intro: watch?v=hIajdXHRmJ4
Link to Starcom: The US Space force intro: watch?v=wKZfwih-3dM
