SG1-25 Hostile Ground Read online

  “So,” he said, “the war?”

  She nodded, pushing the MRE container aside and settling down for the story. “Well, it happened long ago, when our parents’ parents were young.”

  “Longer ago than that,” Aedan corrected. He’d climbed up onto a ledge of rock halfway up the wall and sat there fletching arrows.

  “It was in the time of the old gods,” Elspeth said, ignoring the interruption. “They were beautiful, and very powerful, and our people served them and worshiped them.”

  “Some of our people…” Aedan, again.

  Elspeth scowled but carried on regardless. “Then the Amam came — Devourers, as we call them now.” She dropped her voice, adding a little extra drama. “It’s said that they came in a single night, pouring through the Eye from the underworld.”

  “The underworld?”

  Jack gave a disparaging grunt, but in fact the term made perfect mythological sense in the context of ‘Amam’. Not that Jack knew that, of course. Or would care much, probably.

  “And what — exactly — are the Amam?” Daniel said. “Are they people, like us?”

  Elspeth shook her head. “They are the undead. They come from the underworld to devour the flesh of the living.”

  “Zombies.” Jack raised an eyebrow. “That’s new.”

  Daniel ignored him and smiled encouragingly at Elspeth. “Go on — the Amam came and… ?”

  “And the old gods fought them. They sent every one of their mighty warriors against the Devourers, but they couldn’t defeat them. You see, the undead cannot die. And so the war lasted for many, many years. It is said that millions of people died.”

  Daniel glanced over at Aedan, to see if he’d object to the exaggeration. He must have sensed Daniel’s eyes on him, because he looked up from his work and gave a slight nod. “That much is true,” he said. “No one doubts that. We find their bones everywhere.”

  And that was an image to keep you awake at night.

  “The Goa’uld have been known to use tactical nukes,” Sam chipped in, talking around a mouthful of the stew she was eating. She gave a little shrug, “If we’re talking about WMDs and ‘old gods’…”

  Daniel nodded. It was pretty clear that the Goa’uld had been here at some point, and maybe they hadn’t left. “So these Devourers, the Amam, they won the war?”

  The girl’s expression darkened. “Yes. They drove out the old gods and then there was no one left to protect us. The Devourers swarmed over the world like rats, feeding on flesh ‘til they could eat no more. Some few of us survived, like this, under the ground where they can’t find us. But others…” She looked over at Aedan, her voice less certain. “In the south, they say, there are camps where humans live penned like animals. The Amam feed on them at their pleasure.”

  Aedan gave a curt nod. “That’s true. I’ve seen it.”

  He said no more, his face closing down into a hard expression that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Jack O’Neill. The room fell silent, everyone subdued, and suddenly Daniel realized that this wasn’t mythology, it wasn’t even history. This was a cold, dark reality. The thought raised a shiver along the length of his spine.

  “What about the Stargate?” Jack said, breaking into the silence. “Do the dead guys still use it?”

  “The Eye?” Elspeth said, glancing at Daniel for confirmation. He nodded. “Yes,” she said. “The old gods tried to destroy the Eye, but they couldn’t. And still the Devourers fly through it.”

  “Fly?” Jack threw a significant look at Daniel. “In ships, I presume. Not with… wings?”

  Elspeth blinked. “Neither boats nor wings,” she said. “They ride in fighters.”

  “Fighters?” Jack made a swooping gesture with his hand. “As in fighter aircraft? In the sky?”

  “Death Gliders,” Teal’c surmised from his place next to Sam.

  “It’s possible,” she said. “Maybe they have some kind of on-board DHD so they can dial the gate remotely before they fly through?”

  Jack nodded. “You ever see them land one of these things?”

  “Never,” Elspeth said. “When the Devourers are close, we stay inside and put out all the lights. Discovery means death.”

  With a soft clatter, Aedan dropped his arrows onto the floor and jumped down from his perch. “You can’t travel through the Eye,” he told Jack. “Only a fool imagines escaping this world. And there’s only death for those who try.”

  “That’s not true,” Elspeth retorted, turning to face him. “People have escaped.” She appealed to the rest of her people. “Haven’t they?” Some of them shrugged, while others just shook their heads as if bored of an oft-rehearsed argument.

  But she had one rapt listener. “How?” Jack demanded. “Tell me how they escaped.”

  “The resistance, of course.”

  “And they are… ?”

  She looked at him askance, eyes narrowing. “Why do you pretend you know nothing of them when you’re wearing their symbol on your arm?”

  Jack’s gaze darted to Daniel’s. “This?” he said, touching his SG-1 patch.

  Elspeth shook her head impatiently and pushed up her sleeve, revealing a tattoo on her arm. “This,” she said.

  The Earth glyph.

  Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Okay,” he said cautiously. “Daniel, any ideas?”

  “Well, think about it,” he said, mind racing ahead to make the connections. “If you’re looking for a symbol of resistance, of a place of safety, that’s a pretty good one.”

  “You mean because of what happened to Ra?”

  Daniel nodded. “Stories are powerful,” he said. “They spread fast and they’re almost impossible to stop. Over time they evolve into legends and myths, but there’s usually a kernel of truth in there somewhere.” He brushed a finger over Elspeth’s tattoo. “And there it is.”

  “The resistance is no legend,” Elspeth insisted, pulling down her sleeve. “It’s real.” She threw a defiant look at Aedan, as if daring him to object. “They’re led by a man called Dix, and he’s helped thousands to escape this world and join them.”

  “Through the Stargate?” Jack didn’t sound convinced and neither was Daniel. No one was escaping covertly through a defunct Stargate, with no DHD, that was the only thing standing for miles around.

  Elspeth shook her head. “I don’t know how. I just know that if you find him, he’ll get you out.”

  “Elspeth, stop it,” Aedan said at last, weary and frustrated. “Stop your nonsense.”

  “It’s not nonsense!” She turned back to Daniel. “Dix serves the old gods,” she said, “and the resistance is going to help them return and save us. The old gods will drive out the Devourers and we’ll be free again.”

  “The ‘old gods’,” Teal’c said darkly, “will not free you. They will enslave you.”

  Elspeth folded her arms across her chest and fixed Teal’c with a hard look. “Well, I’d rather serve the old gods than feed the Devourers.”

  “Then you know nothing of slavery.”

  “And you know nothing of the Amam.”

  Teal’c glared at her and she glared right back. Daniel had to swallow a smile at the sight of this stripling girl going toe-to-toe with Teal’c.

  “Easy there, big guy,” Jack said, not bothering to smother his own amusement. “This one looks dangerous.”

  “Take no notice of her,” Aedan said, glancing between Elspeth and Teal’c with a shimmer of concern. “Elspeth believes in fairy tales.”

  “Aedan,” she warned. “Don’t you —”

  “It’s a myth!” he snapped. “The whole Dix thing is a myth. How could he still be alive? The war was generations ago.”

  “The old gods can do anything.”

  “Nonsense! Everyone knows the ‘old gods’ weren’t gods, they were just creatures from another world. And now they’re gone and they’re not coming back to save us. No one can save us.” Aiden snatched up his arrows from the floor and headed for one of the passageways
branching off from the room. He stopped at the last moment, fixing Daniel and Jack with a serious look. “I don’t know where you’ve come from, but, trust me, it’s better to hide and live than to fight and die. That’s the reality of the world and anyone who thinks otherwise ends up dead.”

  After Aedan had stormed out, it wasn’t long before Elspeth and the others started preparing to sleep. Sam was surprised when the colonel suggested they sleep back in the ‘cell’ until she realized that it had a door, which meant they could talk with a modicum of privacy.

  So they dragged their kit inside, along with a straw pallet to help Daniel rest more comfortably, and made camp. Once they’d laid out their bedrolls Sam extinguished the lamp and groped her way back to her sleeping bag. It was almost pitch black, only the dimming firelight seeping around the door cutting the darkness. Crouching down, she misjudged her position and when she reached out for her bedroll, she hit a nose and part of a face instead.

  “Ow! Carter!”

  She snatched back her hand, wincing. “Sorry, sir.”

  Expecting another sour complaint, she was amazed when he just said, “Nah, it was only my eye. I’ve got a spare.”

  Bottling her surprise, not quite knowing how to respond, she found her sleeping bag in silence and crawled inside, pulling it up right under her chin against the chill of the cave. Away from the fire the damp stone seemed to be pressing in all around them. She shivered.

  They were all quiet for a moment, lying close together in the darkness. Outside she could hear the muted sounds of their hosts settling down for the night, low voices and the rustle of their straw pallets. It was comforting, in a way, and she could feel herself start to unwind for the first time in days — maybe months. Aching muscles sank into the scant comfort of her bedroll, her eyes closing as sleep stole up on her. Next to her, Daniel yawned. None of them had slept much the night before and she felt safe here — the colonel hadn’t even bothered to set a watch.

  “So… zombies, huh?”

  Despite the tension stacked up between them, Sam smiled; the colonel sounded like a kid telling scary stories after lights-out at camp. “Whatever they are, sir, I think we can rule out the cast of Thriller.”

  “It is most likely that they are Goa’uld,” Teal’c said.

  “Flesh-eating snakeheads?” The colonel gave an exaggerated sigh. “Is it me, or is this whole situation CATFUed, Carter?”

  “What?” Daniel said, puzzled. “Cat food?”

  Sam snorted a laugh, mostly born of stress and exhaustion, and then found that she couldn’t stop.

  The colonel didn’t laugh, but she could hear a smile in his voice when he said, “No giggling.”

  And that made it worse, made it harder to stop laughing, and for a moment — a moment — it felt like old times, like things were normal again.

  Shifting on his pallet, Daniel said, “Okay, what am I missing?”

  “Carter? Care to translate for our linguist… ?”

  It took her a couple of tries before she could get a grip on her giggles. “CATFU, Daniel,” she managed at last. “C.A.T.F.U. Completely and Totally, um, ‘Fouled’ Up.”

  “Ah. Military humor. Ha ha.”

  “Cat food,” Sam laughed again. “This situation is Whiskas, sir.”

  Daniel chuckled and even the colonel huffed a quiet laugh. Silence fell for a while as their laughter subsided, a good silence, as if they were all enjoying the rare moment of camaraderie. It was probably the first time they’d laughed together since before Edora.

  But eventually the moment passed and Daniel said, “You know, I think Teal’c might be right about the Goa’uld.”

  “You think they’re flesh-eating snakes?”

  “Well, no. I mean, I don’t know about the flesh-eating part, but I do know the term Amam.”

  The colonel shifted. Now that her eyes were used to the dark, Sam could see him loop his hands behind his head and settle in for the long haul. “Let’s hear it then.”

  “It’s quite simple really,” Daniel said. “The Book of the Dead describes a set of demonic entities that harrow the dead in the between-realm of the afterlife. They’re known as Devourers, or Amam, who feed on parts of the body and soul.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “Well, they are demons…” He cleared his throat. “Teal’c, have you ever heard of the Amam, or any kind of ‘undead’ creature?”

  “I have not,” Teal’c said. “But it does not follow that they do not exist. I have not encountered everything in this galaxy.”

  “True,” the colonel said. “You haven’t even encountered my lake yet.”

  “Is that an invitation to fish, O’Neill?”

  “Maybe it is.”

  And maybe, Sam thought, it was something about this darkness that was lightening the colonel’s mood because somehow he was more himself now than he had been in weeks. And she felt lighter for it too, because perhaps it meant he wasn’t so lost to them after all.

  “You know,” she said, “these Amam could just be the Jaffa of a new System Lord who’s come in here and wiped out whoever used to be in charge.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.” Daniel turned toward her, his glasses glinting in the faint light seeping around the door. “They’re probably Jaffa mythologized into ‘undead’ creatures by whatever Goa’uld first ruled this world. Perhaps they’ve even taken on the persona of Amam?”

  “And don’t forget the sarcophagus,” Sam added. “I mean, talk about rising from the dead…”

  “Yes! I think we can say we’re not dealing with real live — or is that real undead? — zombies.”

  “I hope you’re right,” the colonel said, “because Night of the Living Dead spooked the hell outa Teal’c.”

  “It did not, O’Neill.”

  “He’s just saying that. He was watching through his fingers.”

  Sam grinned, she couldn’t help herself. “At least one thing’s clear, sir. Whoever these ‘Devourers’ are, they can use the Stargate network. And that means there’s a way home.”

  “My thoughts exactly, Carter.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but it looks like tracking down the flesh-eating-snakehead-zombies is actually our best chance of getting off this rock.”

  Sam smiled into the darkness and, after a moment, Daniel said, “You know, Jack, it’s at times like this when I… I just…”

  “…wonder where it all went wrong?”

  “Yep, pretty much.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Hope was starting to fade, that was the worst of it. After three days without contact, or the slightest sign of SG-1, hope was starting to fade. He could do without a lot of things — sleep, food, good news — but hope was critical. Without it, everything started to collapse. And George Hammond could see hope fading in the faces around him every time the Stargate opened and SG-1 didn’t walk through.

  Take now, for example. Standing at a comfortable parade rest, his hands clasped behind his back, Hammond watched as SG-2 traipsed down the ramp and the wormhole fizzled closed behind them. Shoulders slumped, they looked defeated as Major Ferretti glanced up at the control room and shook his head: another hope dashed, another planet crossed off the list. There weren’t many left.

  Leaning forward, Hammond pulled the microphone toward him. “Welcome back, SG-2. Debrief in one hour.”

  Not that it looked like they had much to report, but he wanted every possible detail. You never knew what would become important.

  Sergeant Harriman looked up from his station as Ferretti’s team handed over their weapons to the SFs and trudged out of the gate room. “Sir?” he said. “We have a scheduled contact with Tollana. Shall I send ‘Situation Unchanged’?”

  “Yes, go ahead.” Hammond repressed a sigh, preferring to keep his feelings to himself around his people. The less they knew about what was going on with the Tollan the better, but the base was full of smart people and he couldn’t keep their frequent cont
acts secret.

  He watched as the gate started to spin again, Harriman counting down the chevrons until the seventh locked and the wormhole erupted into the gate room. In a couple of moments the message had been sent and the wormhole collapsed. Another ten hours before the next update, and by that point they’d be half a day away from the trade negotiations that were meant to spark off the whole operation.

  Come on, Jack. He sent the message out silently into the cosmos. Get your team home. But there was no response and the Stargate remained still and mute.

  “SG-3 is due out at 1800 hours, sir,” Harriman reported, interrupting his thoughts. “No scheduled activations until then.”

  “Thank you, son.” He thought for a moment, then added, “Would you ask Colonel Makepeace to report to my office before he gears up?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Leaving Harriman to his work, Hammond trudged up the steps to the briefing room. For the first time since SG-1 had gone missing he was starting to contemplate the idea that they might not be coming back, that they hadn’t simply fallen victim to a glitch in the Stargate network and that something nasty, something deliberate, had befallen them.

  Jacob’s warning was still fresh in his mind: there were a lot of Goa’uld looking at Earth with hungry eyes. And if any one of them knew that their relationship with the Asgard was hanging by a thread — and that that thread was in the person of Jack O’Neill — then wouldn’t it be in their interest to get him and his whole team out of the picture?

  There was another option that was even darker, in its own way. But if Maybourne had somehow gotten wind of their plan, then what better way to sow the seeds of distrust between Earth and her allies than to abduct SG-1 and continue to steal from their friends? With the SGC’s flagship team implicated in the collapse of their alliance system, the Pentagon would be more inclined than ever to adopt the aggressive policy toward off-world relations for which Maybourne and his ilk had long been pushing. The whole situation would play right into their hands.

  Stomping across the briefing room into his office he shut the door and slumped down into his chair, letting it rock back under his weight. Truth was, if that happened, General Hammond wasn’t sure he could continue to serve, because that policy would ultimately lead to destruction — not just of Stargate Command, but potentially of the whole planet. They had enough enemies out there without making enemies of their friends and, to put it bluntly, there was no amount of military hardware they could steal that would protect them better than the alliances they had spent almost three years forging.