Sticks and Stones – Chapter 33 - by Emma Nisbet (grnfield)
It turned out that travelling around the ship undetected proved almost impossible for the four comrades. After initially following the three Jaffa they decided to go off in their own direction. Having to find somewhere to hide every twenty minutes became extremely draining and hindered their progress in regards to planting the C4 around the ship.
Realising that time was short it was decided that the four would split into two pairs, therefore enabling the more efficient placement of the explosive devices. Sam gave Sands and Davies a head start towards the pel'tak before carefully popping a control panel out of one of the walls in the corridor where she and Ferretti were hiding. By rearranging a couple of the glowing crystals inside the panel Sam started a gradual overload in the circuits. She pushed the panel back into the wall, nodded to Ferretti that she was done, and the pair of them quietly slipped away before the resulting explosion brought the Jaffa running towards their position.
As they hid in yet another insignificant storage room, they heard the control panel explode with a thunderous boom. They heard the hurriedly tramping feet of a Jaffa platoon run past their door and the shouted exclamations as to what had caused the blast. Sam overheard the word 'sabotage' being uttered a lot and heard Osiris's voice ordering the Jaffa to search the ship for intruders. She and Lou realised that their diversion, while being successful in keeping the Jaffa away from the pel'tak, had unfortunately alerted the Jaffa to their presence on the ship.
'Damn,' though Sam, she'd hoped the Jaffa would assume the panel had just overloaded but she'd unfortunately underestimated the level of paranoia that ran through both the Jaffa and the Goa'uld races. Apparently neither of them assumed that a simple mechanical error could have occurred and went straight for sabotage and infiltration being the cause of their problem.
Sam and Lou looked at one another as both realised their chosen hiding place was in no way far enough from the site of the explosion and that they needed to move - urgently. The problem was that there were now multiple Jaffa in the corridors outside the closet where the two Tau'ri were hiding and only one way into or out of the tiny room.
The pair crouched behind boxes and bundles and tried to make themselves as small and inconspicuous as possible. As they waited for what looked like inevitable discovery they could hear the Jaffa opening doors along from theirs and heard crashes and bangs as the warriors ruthlessly moved items out of their way in their quest to find those who would dare to insult their Gods by infiltrating his ship and causing such damage.
Sam knew that the systems she had caused to overload were non-vital to the operation of the Ha'tak, she'd targeted those particular systems deliberately as they were the least likely to raise suspicion. Had she wanted to, she could have affected many vital parts of the ship's administration. She could have disabled the shields, caused the unscheduled launch of some of the death gliders or she could have even caused the hyperdrive to overload. She would have never carried out this last option though as obviously it would have required a very brisk evacuation of the Ha'tak by all SGC personnel and would also have probably caused the deaths of most of the Chamakan people working on the base below them when ship finally the blew up.
"They're getting closer," Ferretti whispered to Sam, readjusting his grip on his P-90 as he fidgeted around in the confined space into which he'd tucked himself. "This isn't good…if you've got any great vanishing tricks then right about now would be a good time to demonstrate them. Can't see us getting out of this one without a scratch. Oh and Sam…?"
"Yeah," whispered Sam in reply, "I know. If we don't get back…it's been a pleasure working with you too, Sir."
The Italian chuckled at her formality, "Final hour, Sammie. Call me 'Lou'."
"Sure thing…Lou." She smiled, despite the situation, and her eyes scanned the room again as she huddled in her corner. Sam wasn't sure what but something attracted her attention in the ceiling. From the position she was sitting she could see the outline what looked like an access panel in the garish ceiling of the little storage room. Realising that the Jaffa could be onto them in a matter of moments she took the chance, left her hiding place and shot out into the middle of the room.
"Sam, what are you doing?" hissed Ferretti from his cramped position nearby.
"Hopefully creating that vanishing trick you asked for." Sam answered. "Come over here and lift me up, I can't reach."
Lou quickly crawled out of his spot and walked over to Sam rubbing his butt as he moved. He immediately saw what Sam was trying to reach and, bracing himself on one of the packing crates, hoisted Sam upwards until she could get to the panel.
With a satisfying click the panel dropped from the ceiling, hinged on one side like a trapdoor it was easily big enough to allow Sam access to the long shaft behind it. With a little help from Lou, below, she slithered inside then turned straight back around, braced her legs along the sides of the shaft and held her arm out to help Ferretti clamber into the shaft as well.
Once Lou was safely inside Sam reached down and grabbed the trapdoor. As she started to close it the door into the storage area swung open. Sam quickly closed the hatch until the two halves of the catch were touching. She knew it would make a noise when it snicked into place so, hardly daring to breathe, she held the hatch shut and willed the Jaffa not to notice anything out of the ordinary.
Luckily with the room below being so small it didn't take long for the two warriors to determine that there was no-one there. Neither of them looked up and soon left the room to continue their search, closing the door behind them as they went.
The two members of SG-2 looked at one another, shaking their heads in amazement. With a lot of luck and a bit of ingenuity they had escaped what looked like certain discovery - if not sudden death.
Sam pulled the hatch closed the rest of the way and the two friends allowed themselves a moment to breathe deeply and collect themselves before working out what the heck they were going to do next.