STARGATE SG-1 STARGATE ATLANTIS: Points of Origin - Volume Two of the Travelers' Tales (SGX-03) (STARGATE EXTRA (SGX-03)) Read online

  “Colonel!” O’Connell, her voice sharp. “The gate’s gone live! One chevron enga- no, make that two!”

  O’Neill felt the adrenaline surge, heard Dixon’s quick intake of breath. “Dial out, O’Connell! Try and beat those bastards to the punch! Daniel, Teal’c, get to the gate. Back up SG-7. Aldwin, I want as many Tok’ra as you can spare going with them. Griff, you don’t let the Jaffa near that b’tac’nesh. Blow it if you have to. Dixon and I’ll get to the gate when we can.”

  “Colonel, I don’t think —”

  “Dammit, Aldwin, that’s an order!”

  “I’ve got it covered, Colonel,” Griff said. “You and Dixon watch your six.”

  “Copy that,” he said, and spun around to stare at the sky above the village and beyond, to the unseen Stargate. Still empty. No gliders. Not yet, anyway. Dixon was staring too. “Dave, I suggest we pick up the pace.”

  Dixon nodded. “Couldn’t agree more, Jack. Hup hup hup!”

  They broke into a reckless curving jog, dodging the treacherous potholes, leaping over the runneled gullies, stopping every few minutes to check the rhythm of the gizmo’s clicking and listen for the lethal whine of Goa’uld gliders overhead. Wider and wider, moving further from the village with every loop, closer to the edge of the straggling woodland. No time to worry about what was happening behind them, who would win the desperate battle for the gate. And checking in was out of the question. He might distract his people at a crucial moment, get them killed.

  “Hey!” Dixon shouted, stumbling to a halt. “Hey, I think this is — is this it?”

  Heart thudding, his breath held, O’Neill listened to the gizmo’s steady click pick up speed and intensity. Faster — faster — until it sounded like a cicada, a swift urgent thrumming, heralding success… or death.

  “Okay…” Dixon muttered, slowing the gizmo’s sweep. “Come to daddy…”

  The gizmo’s clicking crescendoed wildly. O’Neill tried to pinpoint the spot, but Dixon beat him to it.

  “There!” he said. “That pothole!”

  Side by side, they ran. Got close enough to see that the pothole had collapsed through to some kind of underground cavern. Without pausing for a discussion, Dixon flung himself belly-down on the grassy dirt and commando-crawled to its edge, then thrust the Tok’ra gizmo elbow deep into the darkness. Its clicking swerved into a screech.

  “Bullseye!” He crawled back. “Here. Take this. See if you can shut the damn thing off. I’ll take a look at what else is down there. And be careful, Jack. Maybe back up a bit. This whole area could be unstable.”

  O’Neill stared at the proffered gizmo. Stared at Dixon. “Yes, sir.”

  “Jack.” Dixon’s answering stare was unimpressed. “Seriously.”

  Fine, he was being petty. And how rude of Dixon to point it out. “Take a look how? Your X-ray vision?”

  Dixon fished in a leg pocket. “No. My trusty flashlight. Eagle Scout, remember? Jack —”

  “I know, I know.” He grabbed the screeching gizmo out of Dixon’s hand and eased himself further away from the pothole. “Just hurry up. We could have company any moment.”

  Dixon’s grin flashed, inappropriate and oddly cheering. “Yes, sir.”

  Leaving him to poke his head down the pothole, O’Neill wrestled the Tok’ra gizmo to silence. He was reaching for his radio when it crackled to life.

  “O’Neill! Do you copy?”

  Teal’c. He felt a rush of breathless relief. “I copy. What’s your status?”

  “We have held the gate, thanks to SG-2’s timely arrival. Three wounded, no fatalities. The DHD sustained minor damage. Aldwin is repairing it. You?”

  “We’ve hit pay dirt too. Not sure yet how we’re going to retrieve the —” A crash of sound over the open radio link. In the background shouting, and a familiar, menacing, mechanical whine. “Teal’c!” he shouted, dropping Aldwin’s precious b’tac’nesh detector. “How many?”

  “Two gliders so far!”

  He was gripping his radio so hard his fingers were close to breaking. “Get the hell out of there, all of you! I don’t want those Jaffa bastards getting their hands on that b’tac’nesh!”

  Another radio crackle. “But Jack —”

  “You heard me, Daniel! Go! Teal’c, I swear, if he —”

  “We are dialing Earth, O’Neill. When —” Two explosions, in swift succession. The staccato chatter of P90 fire. “O’Neill, the gliders are heading for the village. Find concealment. We will return for you!”

  “Worry about us later! Go!”

  Retreated from the pothole, Dixon was on his feet and staring back at the village. At the sky. “What d’you want to do, Jack? Take our chances or blow the b’tac’nesh now?”

  Hell of a question. Dixon wasn’t even officially part of the SGC and he was offering to kill himself in their war against the Goa’uld. With two kids, no less, one of them not crawling yet.

  A split second to think. Weigh the options. Make a choice. “Blowing it’s a last resort. Hide first. Give the SGC a chance to get back here with reinforcements.”

  “How long do we wait?”

  He pulled a face. “As long as we can.”

  “No argument there.” Dixon turned to look at the woodland, then back again. “The trees are closer but there’s better cover in the village.”

  “Then you start running now,” he said, reaching for the clips on his backpack. “I’ll catch up.”

  “What?” Dixon frowned. “No way. Jack —”

  “Dixon, this is my mission! You’re just along for the ride. Start running!”

  Dixon’s lips tightened to a thin line. “To be continued,” he growled, and took off for the deserted village.

  Heart racing, fresh sweat trickling, O’Neill unpacked the plastic explosive, wired it with a remote control detonator, commando-crawled his way to the pothole and dropped the mini-bomb into the darkness. Then he leapt to his feet and ran, backpack clutched in his fist. Prayed with every leaping stride that his gimp knee would hold up.

  His knee held, but not his luck.

  A Goa’uld glider, diving out of the sun, caught him as he caught up to Dave Dixon, brave man but slower runner. They were just a handful of strides from a huddle of four ramshackle cottages. Eye-searing light as the glider fired its first volley, the twin lines of plasma tearing up the ground ahead of them in gouts of dust and shattered mud bricks and obliterated shingle roof tiles. As one man they dodged left, used the choking dust and smoke for cover, headed for a different cluster of cottages. Wheeling, the glider took its second strafing run. The air shuddered from the concussion. So did the ground beneath their feet. Roaring in their ears, the thundering whine of the glider’s engine as it looped tightly overhead for a third attempt on their lives. Then — a deeper, darker, rumbling roar. The ground shuddered like a huge beast in pain. And as they flung themselves through the nearest open doorway, as the glider opened fire, raining hell and destruction, the ground broke apart beneath them…

  …and they fell.

  “Jack. Jack, come on. Enough with the napping. We gotta keep moving — we can’t stay here. Wherever the hell here is. Come on. Up and at ’em.”

  Groaning, O’Neill opened his eyes. Not that there was much point. Dixon’s flashlight was smashed, and his own was fast running out of juice. He didn’t want to switch it back on, only to watch it die. So, eyes open or shut, nothing changed. Darkness wrapped them like folds of black velvet.

  “God, Dixon, you’re such a nag,” he muttered. “How the hell does your wife put up with you?”

  Dixon’s grunt of laughter was laced with sharp discomfort. “Beats me. Why don’t you ask her when we get back home?”

  “I will.” He closed his eyes again as a fresh wave of pain surged through his left shoulder.
Broken collarbone. Second time. Maybe he could convince Fraiser to start handing out frequent flyer points for the infirmary. “How’s your head?”

  “Still attached. Barely. How’s yours?”

  Pounding like a mother. Another friggin’ concussion. Talk about frequent flyer points… “Fine.”

  “Yeah. Sure. So how far do you reckon we made it that time?”

  “How should I know? Do I look like a groundhog?”

  “Ha ha. Funny man.” Rustling fabric, a chink of loose rock, as Dixon struggled to change position. A hissing curse as movement jostled his cracked ribs. “Seriously, Jack. We have to keep going. The air’s pretty bad in this stretch.”

  “I haven’t eaten beans in a month, I swear.”

  Another curse. “Shit, O’Neill. Don’t make me laugh!”

  “Sorry.”

  Silence, then, as they both fought for the strength to resume their daunting crawl through the network of caves and narrow passages that spread like a drunken rabbit’s warren beneath the surface of the planet. Or at least the part of it where the village had been built. This was the third time they’d clawed their way back to consciousness after waking in the aftermath of the Goa’uld glider’s attack. Bruised, bloody, broken and trapped, with no idea how much time had passed, because neither of their watches would work, they’d waited for Cronus’s Jaffa to find them. Kill them. Only the Jaffa never came and, countless hours later, after a lot of painful crawling and two more lapses into oblivion, they were still alive. Go figure. Somewhere ahead, in the stygian dark, there was a way up to the surface. Had to be. If there wasn’t they’d have suffocated long before now.

  All they had to do was find it.

  “Okay,” O’Neill sighed. “We can do this. Let’s go.”

  Cursing, swearing, letting the pain show because they had no other choice, they made their way, inch by hard won inch, out of the oppressive rock tunnel and into a small cavern, where the air was marginally less foul. But the walls and floor were damp, and a flick of the sputtering flashlight showed them gross and slimy fungi growing everywhere, like rancid tumors. So they kept on crawling, into yet another narrow passageway, following the teasing promise of fresh air. Please God this wasn’t yet another dead end. Another passage half-filled with rocky debris, impassable. They’d both long since lost their sense of direction. For all they could tell, they were going round in circles. But the alternative was to stop crawling… and die.

  “Hey,” Dixon panted, as they took a moment to catch their breath. “Tell me about the time you made it out of the desert on your own with nine broken bones, including a skull fracture.”

  O’Neill grimaced. “Frank had a big mouth.”

  “I don’t care about that. I only care if he exaggerated.”

  “You have to ask?”

  “Well… no. But —”

  “Simmer down. That one’s true.”

  “Good,” Dixon said. “Because Elliott flushed my lucky rabbit’s foot down the toilet.”

  He shook his head, which was a mistake. The darkness in front of his face swirled with little red dots. “Okay. Are you done now? Can we keep going?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Why not?”

  More crawling. More panting. More pauses, less space between them, as pain and thirst and exhaustion took their grim, inexorable toll. Then, feeling Dixon’s fingers grabbing at his ankle, he halted.

  “Hey. Jack. Am I dreaming, or is that —”

  “You’re not dreaming,” he said, and didn’t care that his voice was unsteady. “That’s clean air.”

  The promise of escape pumped fresh adrenaline through his battered body. Pushed him to crawl faster despite the throbbing pain in his head and the grinding ache in his shoulder. He could feel his scraped hands losing more skin and he didn’t care. Skin grew back. Broken bones knitted. He sucked in a deep breath, smelled the outside world, and forced himself to pick up the pace.

  Without warning, the space around his body expanded. He’d crawled out of the cramped passage and into another cave. The rush of fresh air was intoxicating. Then his reaching fingers brushed against something that wasn’t rock, wasn’t damp. Felt like plastic. Felt familiar.

  “Crap!” he said, halting. Looked up. Saw a faint scatter of stars through the hole high in the cavern’s ceiling. “Holy shit.”

  “What?” Dixon demanded, crowding him. “Jack, what is it?”

  He fumbled for his flashlight, turned it on. Awkardly shone its weak beam on the packet of plastic explosive and wriggled round as far as he could so Dixon could see. “Look what I found.”

  “Holy shit!” Dixon yelped. “Is that stuff still live? Where’s your remote detonator?”

  In his backpack, buried under what had felt like half the village, but to be on the safe side he yanked the detonating pin from the brick of C4. Slapped around for a loose rock, found one, and smashed the pin to fragments.

  “Relax,” he said. “We’re good.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Dixon demanded. “How are we good? We’re right underneath where we were on the surface. Hours we’ve been crawling around down here!”

  “And unless you want to turn tail for the village, we won’t be crawling any more.” He played his dying flashlight across the far side of the cavern, revealing a massive, fresh fall of rock and no more passages. “Our final dead end, methinks.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Am I laughing?”

  Dixon gave him a push. “Shove in, or over, or something. My ribs are killing me.”

  They managed to get themselves settled just as the flashlight gave up the ghost. With fresh air no longer an issue, and enough room to stretch out, it was the next best thing to a suite at the LA Hilton.

  “So,” Dixon said, slurring a little from tiredness. “Now we wait. You wanna risk the radio?”

  “Not really.”

  “I guess. Better safe than sorry.”

  “That’s my motto, Dave.”

  “Yeah? You could’ve fooled me.”

  They lapsed into silence. No point talking through what they already both knew. If the Jaffa were still lurking topside their best bet was to stay put and stay quiet. At least until daylight. And anyway, Hammond would send help as soon as he could. No need to panic because it wasn’t here yet. Could be any number of reasons for that. Then, thanks to Carter’s idea of putting tracking chips in their radios, hey presto! Instant rescue.

  They’ll be here. A couple more hours, max. They’ll come.

  “Hey,” Dixon said. “How long is that anti-b’tac’nesh vaccine s’posed to last?”

  O’Neill pulled a face. “Why? You worried we’re lying on top of the damn stuff?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, Dave, I’d put your mind at ease but the gizmo’s somewhere over our heads.”

  “You dropped it?”

  “I did.”

  “Damn. Frank forgot to mention you’re clumsy.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said politely. “I’ll do better next time.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Dave, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

  “Okay…” Dixon said slowly. “You do know you sounded disappointed then, right?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did!”

  “No, I did n — yeah. Okay. Maybe I am. A bit,” he confessed.

  “Because?”

  “Because if Aldwin’s right about the vaccine boost, he gets to say I told you so when we don’t die from b’tac’nesh poisoning.”

  “Hmm.” A clink of loose rock, a grunt of pain, as Dixon shifted a little. “You’re thinking you’d rather die a disgusting, horrible death and cheat him of the satisfaction?”

  Gingerly, he scratched his nose. “Well…
yeah. Kind of.”

  “Huh. You’re right. It’s a tough one,” Dixon said. “But nowhere near as tough as what happened with Carter.”

  He was too exhausted to throw a rock at the man. Too exhausted, too hurt, to start crawling away. He couldn’t even find the strength for anger. Instead he pressed a gritty hand across his eyes.

  “Seriously, Dixon. What the hell did Fraiser tell you?”

  “Nothing about you being in love with Sam,” Dixon said quickly. “That much I worked out for myself. Back on Adjo, when we all thought she was dying? The way you looked at her, when you thought nobody was watching? Dead giveaway, son.”

  Well, crap. “Oh.”

  “I’m guessing the feeling’s mutual,” Dixon added. “Does she blame you for zatting her twice?”

  So that was the secret Fraiser had spilled. “I’m going to kill that woman.”

  “No, you’re not. Janet cares about you, Jack. And she’s worried sick. Now answer the question.”

  It seemed there was no getting out of this conversation. And maybe, in a weird way, he kind of didn’t want to. The friggin’ situation with Carter was driving him nuts and who else could he talk to about it, if not Dave Dixon? All his other options had to pretend they were deaf, dumb and blind.

  “No. Carter doesn’t blame me.”

  Shifting again, Dixon uttered another pained grunt. “Nah. She wouldn’t. I’ll give you this, Jack. You’ve got superior taste. But your timing’s lousy.”

  “Ya think?”

  “Okay. So. What are you gonna do about it?”

  And there it was: the million dollar question. “I don’t know.”

  “Well you better figure it out, pronto,” Dixon retorted. “I mean, it’s not like things’ll get any easier, is it?”

  On the other hand, maybe deaf, dumb and blind was better. “Y’know, I must have missed the memo about how any of this is your business!”

  In the darkness, a soft snort of amusement. “Sure it’s my business. You’re my friend, Jack. You were Frank’s friend. Hell, I’m surprised he hasn’t kicked open the Pearly Gates so he can come back down here and bury his boot up your butt. You know what he’d say, right?”