Chapter Summary: On the ground and away.
Chapter Word Count: 4,982
Disclaimer Update: Quote from Starship Troopers belongs to the estate of Robert Heinlein, not me.
"You think they knew we were coming?" O'Neill asked, ducking behind a short wall to avoid a burst of staff fire. "Loki must not be as good at hiding things as he thinks."
"Fortunately, you brought us along," Harry said, as she and Ginny leapt out into the hallway and started firing at the large number of Jaffa blocking the entrance.
"Why'd we even come along," O'Neill said, watching the Jaffa warriors dropping like flies under the onslaught of weapons fire from the two women.
"Because you don't trust Loki," Carter said, leaning around the wall to send a burst of bullet fire at several Jaffa trying to sneak closer. "And you wanted to see them in action."
"They are extremely efficient," he said. "And staff blasts are just bouncing off their armor. We really need the recipe for that material."
"I'm sure we can negotiate some mutually beneficial arrangement," Janice said. "We're some of the best traders in our galaxy."
"Not if you give away all of our secrets," Joy said, grumbling.
"Ladies, we need to know where Loki's lab is," Andy said over their comm. "Save the comedy routine for some other time."
"But we're just getting to our best material," Joy said.
"Save it for later," Andy repeated.
"Yes, ma'am," Joy said. "We have to go through that room."
"The throne room?" Carter asked.
"Yes," Janice said. "The entrance to the lab is in a storage room on the other side."
"So, it must have been obvious when the Goa'uld came here if they have a door into it," Carter said.
"A not so hidden secret lab," O'Neill said.
"I get the impression that Loki has no idea," Andy said.
"You'd be correct," Carter said. "He tends to ignore anything not directly affecting his experiments."
"Do we have an alternate extraction plan?" Andy asked. "Miranda isn't going to be able to get us all out of here if things blow up in our faces. Just grabbing Jan and Joy wiped her out."
"Stargate," Carter said. "As long as there's a Stargate, and there should be if there's a Goa'uld presence, we have a way out."
"Good," Andy said. She triggered her comm. "Joy, Janice, we need to find the nearest Stargate to us."
"That big metallic ring thing?" Joy asked.
"Affirmative," Carter said. "It's our backup way out."
"Okay. There's one showing up on our scans several of your kilometers east of us," Janice said.
"Can you work out several paths to it from the lab?" Carter said.
'Working on it," Joy said.
"That was fast," Carter said to Andy, over the private channel.
"They're experts at gathering intel," Andy said. "The Clan isn't that big so they need to know what is going on around them."
"You don't consider yourself part of this clan?" Carter asked.
"Technically, I'm not," Andy said. "Wrong DNA. But my family is considered honorary Clan. Our daughters are Clan, from Lady Shadow's original Clan, though Miranda hasn't explained how that is possible yet. My Aunt Sue runs the Clan peacekeepers, though she has no Clan blood."
"Sound very soap-ish," Carter said.
"That's one way to look at it," Andy said, agreeing. "Clan family relationships can be complex. But it works."
"Four different routes to the Stargate," Joy said. "Uploading them to all hard suits and Major Carter's data pad."
"When we get out of here, you need to show me how you did that," Carter said. "I designed the security on that myself. You shouldn't be able to access it."
"Sure thing, Major," Janice said. "Lady Shadow has written some tools that can break into almost anything."
"I'm almost afraid to ask what the 'almost' means," Carter said, grimacing.
"I try not to think too hard about what they are capable of," Andy said in a low voice. "My tech culture was almost on a par with yours until recently. A lot of it seems like magic to me, and not in a Clarke's Law kind of way."
"The Ancients are that way," Carter said.
"If you ladies are done chatting," O'Neill said, interrupting them, "we now have a straight path to the throne room." He waved at the suddenly quiet hallway.
"They're efficient," Sam said.
"Scary efficient," Andy said. "But they are some of the best troopers we have. And we're going to need them."
"A lot of fighting in your universe?" Sam asked.
Andy shrugged. "We're getting ready for a war."
"Bugs, Mr. Rico. Zillions of em!" Joy said, in a deep voice.
"Bugs?" Carter said. "That's what you're fighting?"
"No, that's just a line from an old novel about soldiers who wore armour similar to old style Clan hard suits," Andy said. "Very popular with some troopers."
"Our suits are prettier," Ginny said over the comm. "And a lot tougher. You could bounce a quantum nuke off one of ours and barely scratch the paint."
"Really?" Carter asked, as they cautiously came out in to the Hall.
"No," Janice said. "She's exaggerating. The Q troops do that. Nothing survives ground zero. But most radiation bounces off. And anything outside half a kilometer is survivable."
"And the bounce is awesome," Harry said. "Since the radiation can't go through a hard suit, it's like getting a big push in the opposite direction."
"Is it occupied?" O'Neill asked, standing off to one side as Harry and Ginny prepared to enter the throne room.
"A couple energy grenades and not anymore," Harry said. "Except that thing in the middle behind that energy shield."
"Too bad," O'Neill said. "I was hoping your energy weapons would take care of that."
"It's all about the angles," Harry said, stepping into the throne room. "And the power ratings."
"You can either have suits with long lasting power sources, or suits with high powered weapons," Ginny said. "It's a trade-off. For heavy action we have other suit designs and load-outs."
Entering the throne room, they stopped in front of a glittering shield. A female figure could be seen through the haze. Pieces of armor and Jaffa were scattered around the room in bloody clumps.
"It does seem to be in shock at the moment," Ginny said.
"Not very much with the self preservation," Harry said. "Somebody fighting outside my throne room and blowing up my minions, and I'd be running away."
"You're not Goa'uld," O'Neill said. "Though this one seems a bit on the quiet side."
"Looks like the grenades shocked it through the shield," Andy said. "Should we question it or get what we came for?"
"Lab first, then ask questions," Carter said. "Daniel will want to know who they are."
The Goa'uld seemed to shake itself off. "You! Bow down before your Goddess!" it said, its voice echoing in the room.
"Not my Goddess," Harry said, snickering. "And I think her equipment is defective."
"Ginny, keep it company while we do what we came for," Andy told her. "Don't let any reinforcements into the room."
"Got it," Ginny said.
"Joy, where's the door to the lab?" Carter asked.
"Here," Joy said, stepping around the shielded Goa'uld and behind the throne. She pressed a hand against a small engraved figure on the wall and there was a loud rumbling. A large portion of the wall slid up into the ceiling.
"What are you doing!" the Goa'uld demanded, as they slipped by it to the lab door.
"Got a name?" Ginny asked, trying to distract it.
"I am Ixchel," the creature said.
"No," Ginny said, shaking her head. "Ixchel was lost during the Passage of the Nine to the underworld."
"I am Ixchel," the creature insisted. "And what do you know of the lost Nine, the heart of the Dragon Clan."
"You are a Goa'uld parasite," Ginny said. "You cannot be our Ixchel."
"Who are you," Ixchel asked. "What do you know of the Nine?"
"My Nine are not yours," Ginny said, pompously. "The Nine are the ruling Council of the Clan of the Serpent of the Traveling Clans of the Way."
"My Nine have been gone for a long time, since Ra chased us from the lands of the west," Ixchel said.
"You know the true history of the Clans?" Ginny asked. "You know that you are not a goddess of the clans? It's all just Clan myth?"
"How do you know such secrets," Ixchel asked.
"I am one of the Lady of the Hands most trusted," Ginny said.
Miranda, unable to enter the lab in her energy form without turning on alarms, decided to join the conversation, materializing next to the suited Ginny.
"Ixchel, is that your name or the name of your host?"
"What's going on out there?" Andy asked, hearing the conversation between Ginny and Ixchel as they cautiously traveled down the long descending passage to Loki's lost lab.
"Ginny's been studying the ancient Clan histories, in her spare time," Harry said. "The Goa'uld thinks it's one of our Clan goddesses."
"Is that possible?" Andy said.
"Alternate universe," Joy said. "The Clan doesn't actually exist here. Now anyway."
"All Goa'uld system lords claim to be Earth gods or goddesses," Carter said. "This is the first one we've run into who claimed to be from Central America."
"What do we do with it?" Andy asked.
"Kill it?" O'Neill said. "You really don't want one of them running around your place if you can help it. Very unsanitary."
"From the little I've been able to dig up on the Goa'uld, I suspect Clan DNA would be fatal to them, to say nothing of what the nanites would do if one tried to grab one of us," Janice said.
"If only," Sam said. "I've had that experience and would rather not repeat it."
"The NID data I scanned has a lot of info on your decent to the To'kra side," Janice told her.
"There shouldn't be any NID data on that," Carter said. "You'll have to show me where you found it."
"You lot are very chatty," O'Neill said, as they reached the end of the passage.
"It's all comm traffic. Heavily encrypted, and no one can hear us," Harry said.
"That was a yes," Andy said.
"You should hear Lady Q in full battle mode," Ginny said. "She's awesome!"
"She's also the most talented battle leader the Clan has had in one hundred generations," Joy said. "At least that's what Lady Shadow claims."
"Are all of your leaders women?" Carter asked as she examined the grey door at the end of the passage. "This is not typical Goa'uld or Asgard construction."
"There are no men in our Clan," Janice said. "Just a bunch of femmes."
"Speak for yourself," Harriet said, with a smirk. "Some of those Fleet engineers can be awful butch when they want to."
"This looks like a really old Clan design," Joy said, interrupting them. "Maybe that Goa'uld is Clan, somehow. At least this universe's version."
"What's that mean?" Carter asked.
"Can't kill her," Joy said. "Extremely bad karma to kill Clan, even if they are possessed by evil parasites. Only the Council of Nine can pass judgement."
"None of that matters if we can't get this open," O'Neill said.
Janice examined the door, moving her hand scanner along the edges. "Looks like Serpent Clan tech installed by an incompetent Red Pirate tech. Piece of cake." Placing her scanner next to the door jamb, she pushed a couple buttons.
A low humming filled the end of the passage. Carter sniffed at the sudden smell of heavy ozone. There was a loud click and the the door slowly slide into the wall.
"Not quite C4 excitement," O'Neill said, "but open is open."
"If you wanted explosions you should have asked Ginny to open it," Joy said. "She excels at the flashy stuff. In the Shadows we're all about the stealth."
Shaking her head, Carter cautiously entered the lab.
"This is what an Asgard lab looks like?" Andy said. "From the way Loki's ship looks like this isn't what I expected."
"It's not," Carter said. "It's not a lab. It's an Ancient cryogenic facility." She walked over to the far wall and started examining the console built into it.
"But there's the big red destruct button," Jack said. "So, why does Loki want us to blow up whatever's in here?"
"After he grabs whatever is in the data storage," Andy said. "Is it actually malfunctioning like he claimed?"
"Our sensors are detecting serious chromo fluctuations," Joy said. "Reality is getting a bit thin in here."
"So, it's doing what?" Andy asked, sharing a puzzled look with O'Neill. "For the non-tech science people in the room."
"Loki was correct about this needing to shut down," Carter said. "If it escalates it'll become a spatial anomaly that'll swallow up this entire solar system, if I'm reading it correctly."
"It's worse than that," Janice said. "The energy in this area is showing signs of a destabilized portal like the one we came through. If it's triggered, this whole system is going to become a portal leading somewhere."
"And that would be bad?" O'Neill asked.
"Buffy Glory apocalypse bad," Joy said.
"Did you understand that Carter?" O'Neill said.
"TV pop culture reference, sir," Sam said. "Villain of the week opens a portal between universes and everything starts to merge before the hero stops it. As good a description as any."
"So, something we want to avoid," O'Neill said.
"Yes sir," Carter said. "To be avoided."
"I think we should keep her," Joy said. "She gets my references."
"I'm sure the Colonel prefers to keep her," Andy said.
"You betcha," O'Neill said. "So, what's the plan? Do we still want to press the big red button?"
"If it's the only way to stop it," Carter said.
"And Loki?"
"He wants something here," Sam said. "If we can keep it from him it would be good."
"Well, get to finding the hidden treasure," O'Neill said. "We've got two hours before Loki comes looking for us, unless he has us bugged?"
"We're blocking any listening devices," Janice said. "Standard OP."
"Eggcellent," O'Neill said, rubbing his hands together. "Maybe we should consider a recruitment speech?"
"You can't afford them," Andy said.
"I'm sure we can work out an arrangement," Jack said.
"Boss, we've got company coming," Harry said from her position near the door. "Ginny's bringing the faux goddess down here."
"You dare bring one of them into my presence?" Ixchel said, nervously stepping away from Miranda.
"Had encounters with them before?" Ginny asked.
"You do not appear to be a typical Goa'uld," Miranda said, circling Ixchel. "I had not heard it was possible to blend in such a fashion."
"I am your goddess," Ixchel said, "You will do as I command."
"I think not," Miranda said. "I have no need for petty squabbles. You will explain yourself."
"We're running out of time," Ginny said.
"Time for what," Ixchel said. "Where did the others go? The Tau'ri soldiers and the guards of my people."
"Do you know what is below this room?" Miranda asked.
"It is my sleeping chamber," Ixchel said.
"When did you last sleep in it?" Miranda asked.
"I do not recall," Ixchel said. "Ra mustn't know of it. His Jaffa do not belong near it. They disturbed my rest, for which I destroyed them."
"What do you think she is," Ginny asked over the comm channel.
"A mystery," Miranda said. "We cannot leave her here."
"We can't leave this open," Ginny said. "It's our only way out."
"You've killed all of the Jaffa in the temple," Miranda said. "We will take her down to her chamber."
"Yes, ma'am," Ginny said reluctantly. "Ixchel, your presence is requested below. We have questions concerning your chamber."
Ixchel nodded reluctantly, before turning and leading the way down the passage.
"What do you expect to happen?" Ginny asked Miranda over the comm.
"She is Goa'uld, but not exactly," Miranda said.
"What is she then?" Ginny asked.
"The answer is below in that chamber. She is hiding something," Miranda said. "She is much older than she looks, and much older than even a Goa'uld should be."
"I'd forgotten how cryptic you old farts can be," Ginny said. "I bet you would get along with Lady Q's crazy grandmother. She's a Hungarian princess."
"Your Lady Q is not full blooded Clan?" Miranda asked.
"She is now, it's a whole Clan genetics thing," Ginny said, as they slowly headed after the reluctant Ixchel. "I'm sure the Council can explain everything. Though your daughters are full clan but you aren't. Explain that one."
"The Clan of the Serpent is not the only of the Clans to travel to a small out of the way planet," Miranda said. "They may have prior claim but it's easy to hide if you need to avoid galactic entanglements. The girl's father was one such."
"Ha! I knew it," Ginny said. "It doesn't explain Lady Andy's affinity with Clan tech."
"I was not aware of that until recently," Miranda said. "And the girl's father did not explain about the workings of the Confederation. Once we return, I expect to learn more."
"I'm sure Lady Shadow can figure it out eventually, but we've been really busy."
"Preparing for war, yes, I've heard that," Miranda said.
"What are you doing in my sleeping chamber!" Ixchel said, stepping into the large chamber, followed by Ginny and Miranda.
"Sleeping chamber?" Carter said. "Can you show us what you mean?"
"It is my sleeping chamber," Ixchel repeated. She walked over to a section of wall covered with Mayan looking petroglyphs. Placing her hands on hand shaped spaces a shoulder's width apart, she leaned forward. The wall in front of her turned transparent and opened. "My chamber," Ixchel said. "Where I rest."
"Ah," Carter said. "A stasis chamber of some sort?"
"It's the center of the energy disturbance," Joy said. "I suspect it's broken."
"And causing the energy fluctuations you are seeing?" Carter asked.
"Yes," Joy said.
"That can't be healthy, even for a Goa'uld," Carter said.
"It explains so much," Miranda said. "How long have you been using this chamber?"
"I do not recall," Ixchel said. "We came here after Ra was chased from the Tau'ri home world and built our temple above it."
"So, for a very long time," Jack said. "What does it do?"
"It is faulty," Miranda said. "It was an Ancient memory storage and collection facility. Over time it appears to have blended the Goa'uld with her host. They are now one and the same."
"Well, that's certainly unexpected," O'Neill said. "I don't think we want Loki and his experiments near her. Who knows what ideas it would give him."
"Can you tell how much is Ixchel and how much is her original host?" Carter asked.
"It really has no meaning at this point," Miranda said. "I do not have the knowledge of Ancient technology to split them or to even know if it is possible to do so."
"And the Ascended Ancients?"
"Would they help her?" Miranda asked. "If she has been this way for so long, I suspect they would not."
"So she comes with us," Andy said. "She doesn't belong here any more than we do."
"You will take me back to my people?" Ixchel asked, a hopeful note in her voice.
"We cannot," Andy said. "Too much time has passed. But our Council may be willing to give you asylum among our Clan."
"Sure you want to do that?" O'Neill asked. "Snakes, blended or not, are not trustworthy."
"Do not all people deserve a chance?" Miranda asked. "Your friend Teal'c is an example of someone you gave a chance to."
"She's Clan, in a way," Harry said. "We'll take responsibility for her. Our Ixchel was a healer and fierce warrior."
"Your funeral if she bites back," O'Neill said. "So, we know what's causing this. Some wacky Ancient doohickey is having a meltdown. And Loki wants it. I say we don't let him have it. How do we stop that from happening?"
"Loki wants the contents of the memory banks," Carter said. "Do we have any way of taking it first?"
"Depends on the storage capacity needed," Joy said. "We can handle a couple petabytes directly."
"It is Ancient," Carter said. "There will be backup crystal storage available."
"Crystal storage? Like that?" Janice pointed at a meter high cabinet with faintly glowing crystals inside."
"Exactly," Carter said, quickly going over to it. "Carrying it might be an issue. We'd have to leave behind some of our equipment."
"I will carry it," Miranda said. "But I will be unable to carry anything else. The crystal resonates with my energy form in an unusual way."
"We've still got an hour until Loki wants us back," O'Neill said. "Can you move everything you want to keep from Loki to there and pack it up for her?"
"It'll be close," Carter said, "but between the four of us it should be possible. Just keep any stray Jaffa out of here."
"There's no other entrance?" O'Neill asked.
"None," Joy said.
"We'll set up in the throne room. More room to maneuver," he said. "Ginny, if you could keep an eye on our snake so she doesn't interfere?"
"Will do," Ginny said.
O'Neill nodded, leading Andy and Harry back up to the throne room. Grabbing a device from the floor, he said "A little clean up would be good. This is a zat. Not sure if you can handle them with your suited hands. One shot knocks you out, two kills, and three does this." He demonstrated on a dead Jaffa guard.
Andy shook her hand and it transformed into a glove, replacing the armor it had been covered with. "Of course," she said. Picking up another zat she began the task of cleaning up the death Jaffa, grimacing as she did.
"Ugh!" Harry said, also grabbing a zat. "Reminds me of that time we cleaned up after wiping out that drug lord and minions."
"So you don't just fight bugs?" O'Neill said, after they'd finished removing any traces of Ixchel's Jaffa guards.
"We have our own enclave in the Yucatan," Harry said. "We have a strict no addictive hard drugs policy and the local drug lords didn't take us seriously. They learned the hard way."
"It was before my time," Andy said, "but Lady Q's troops have a well deserved reputation for hitting hard and fast."
"No beer?" O'Neill asked, looking horrified.
"Yes, we have beer," Harry said. "And other types of alcohol."
"Had me worried for a moment," he said. "How'd you end up on your Earth? You don't sound like real aliens."
"It's a long story involving the Mayan apocalypse, and a missing Clan, and Bugs," Harry said.
"They're basically the local space cops," Andy said. "They picked our Earth for their base a few thousand years ago to use while policing that part of the galaxy. Something happened, and the base disappeared, and the Mayans living on the Yucatan are their descendants. A thousand years later the Galactic Confederation noticed and sent members of the same clan to investigate."
"And to get things ready for a war," Harry said. "They gave us a decade."
"The Bugs," O'Neill said. "If you have this huge galactic government why aren't they helping?"
"Which aren't really bugs but that's a different matter. The Clan is the help," Andy said. "The Bugs are attacking other sectors and other Clans are fighting them there. But the galaxy is huge and they won't reach us for a few more years, even at the speeds they are traveling."
"And while that is happening, why are you here in this universe?" O'Neill asked, as they kept watch.
"Lady Shadow discovered that Miranda was possibly here, and I wanted her back," Andy said. "Would you have left your wife lost in another universe if you could go after her?"
"Of course not," O'Neill said. "But she's ascended so there's no rush, right?"
"We didn't know that," Andy said. "And the portal is unstable. There's no guarantee it will be open still. A stray Bug might go through it or they might do something to destabilize it even more."
"A Bug might go through it," O'Neill said. "Any plans to tell us?"
"If it happened we would have come after it," Andy said. "But the plan was to figure out a way to close the portal before that could happen."
"Good," O'Neill said. "You'll want your experts to talk with Sam. She's our portal expert."
"We've noticed," Andy said. "But first we need to deal with Loki."
"If we can get to the local Stargate we don't need him," O'Neill said. "And we should probably warn the other Asgard that their little mad scientist needs a spanking again."
"So he's done things like this before?" Andy asked.
"Yup," O'Neill said. "He likes to clone people and see what happens."
"We have a 'no clone' policy in our universe," Harry said. She paused, and said "Looks like we have company headed this way." She closed up her suit, the suit helmet covering her face. Andy quickly followed suit.
"And they're just outside the room," Harry said. "They can't seem to decide to come in."
"Jaffa live longer if they show a healthy respect for their bosses," O'Neill said. "Goa'uld tend to torture first, ask questions later."
"We have no idea how many are on this planet, do we," Andy said.
"Or how many have come thru the gate since we got here," O'Neill said.
"Hey Janice," Andy said. "Did you place any monitors near the portal?"
"Of course," she replied over the comm. "It hasn't been active since."
"So any of these Jaffa we run into are already here?" Andy asked. "Thanks."
"So, you have company?" Janice said. "We need another twenty and then we can join you."
"Twenty, copy," O'Neill said. "We can hold out that long."
"Phew," Andy said, after the last Jaffa charge. "They don't stop, do they."
"They prefer hand-to-hand," O'Neill said. "And getting hit by a staff blast can be a real day ender. Though it looks like it hasn't done much to either of you."
"The suit has great energy dissipation," Harry said. "But too many hits and eventually it'll damage like anything else. Those staff are just too low power to do that."
"And the Chief takes any damage to her suits seriously so avoiding that is a good thing," she added.
"Her suits?" O'Neill said.
"You know techs," Harry said, laughing. "The equipment belongs to them and we're just borrowing it. There was this one time where a drug lord minion scratched the paint on Lady Q's command suit and the Chief chewed her out for an hour about trying to stop rockets by standing in front of them. She wasn't happy."
"I think that was the last of them, for now," O'Neill said.
"Did you leave any for us?" Ginny asked, coming out of the tunnel.
"There'll be plenty near the gate," he said.
"Did you set the self destruct?" Andy asked, as the last of them exited the tunnel.
"All set," Carter said. "Thirty second delay, remote trigger. And they won't know it's there until it's too late." She slapped the wall next to the door, causing it to slide back into place, appearing once more like the rest of the wall.
"And nothing for Loki?" Jack asked.
"Nope," Janice said. "Lady Miranda has it, though she can't be in her solid form while carrying it all."
"No," Miranda said over the comm. "Only while in this form."
"We'll do something about that as soon as we can, babe," Andy said. "Is Ixchel still going back with us?" she asked, giving the Goa'uld a quick glance.
"That whole merger thing messed her up," Ginny said. "They were keeping her prisoner more or less, waiting for their Lord to come for her."
"She's not Goa'uld anymore, or at least doesn't think like one," Miranda said.
"Ready to blow this popsicle stand?" O'Neill asked. "Suits at the front and back, everyone else in the middle?"
"I'll scout ahead," Harry said.
"Okay," O'Neill said. "Let's go."
Harry jumped out into the hallway to draw any fire, but it was eerily quiet. "Nobody here except the dead," she reported back. "Moving forward."
Except for a few Jaffa taking potshots from a distance, and learning to their detriment how accurate Ginny and Harry were, they traveled the five clicks to the Stargate with no trouble.
"Ready to destroy the 'lab'?" O'Neill asked, as they rearranged themselves just out of sight of the gate..
"Yes," Carter said. Joy handed her a small device with several buttons on it.
"No big red button?" O'Neill asked.
"They were all out," Joy said.
Carter pushed the button. For thirty seconds there was absolute silence and then a low rumble for several seconds before silence again.
"All monitors report destruction of the temple," Janice said. "It's just a big hole."
"And a surprise for Loki," Carter said. "And we should get going before he notices."
"Usual destination?" O'Neill said, getting up and standing over the DHD.
"The other one this time, sir," Carter said. "We stick out a little too much this way."
"Okay," O'Neill said. "Beaches and sand it is." He carefully entered their destination address. "Everyone stand back," he said, before pushing the last button. There was a subvocal hum and a sudden whooshing sound. A silvery substance appeared inside the ring.
"Carter first," O'Neill said. "Then one at a time."
Nodding, Carter lifted her knapsack over her shoulder, held her P90 at the ready, and stepped into the gate.
"Nothing to it," O'Neill said. "Next."
After the last of the women had gone through, O'Neill quickly followed, giving a last glance behind as he did so. With a large hum, the gate closed down and there was silence.