Stargate SG-1 - Permafrost Read online

  He glanced over at Teal’c, who sat kel’no’reeming cross-legged on the counter. If he was worried about the others he wasn’t letting on, but Jack knew that—

  A gunshot, distant but clear.

  Teal’c opened his eyes and for a moment they just stared at each other.

  Two more measured shots from a Beretta.

  “Crap,” Jack hissed, and hit his radio. “Carter, Daniel – report.”

  Nothing but static, then another two gunshots.

  Teal’c was on his feet. “We must assist them.”

  Jack wasn’t arguing with that, pulling on his gloves and watch cap. “What the hell’s going on over there?”

  Teal’c didn’t try to answer the impossible question, simply pulled on his own gloves and moved to the door. Outside the wind had dropped, but it was still snowing hard. “It will not be easy to return in darkness,” Teal’c warned. “There is a danger we will become disoriented and lose our way.”

  “Yup,” Jack said, grimacing at the blast of icy air. “Let’s not do that.”

  Another gunshot rang out, and Jack felt it like a knot in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to be there, to help them, more than he wanted to draw his next breath. He reached for his skis at the exact moment something hit him, hard, on the back of his head and he fell face first into snowy oblivion.

  “We have to drive it outside!” Sam yelled, reloading her weapon as the creature advanced.

  It had its dead eyes on her, peering blankly through the bloody remains of its face. Perhaps she was the target because the gun made her the biggest threat? She could use that, she could work with that.

  Walking backward, she lured the creature away from the table and toward the outside door. It gave Daniel enough time to dive for his pack and pull out his weapon. She heard him chamber a round.

  “Hey!” he shouted at the creature. “Over here!”

  It didn’t respond, its attention fixed entirely on Sam. She felt her skin crawl, her heart racing with the unnatural panic the thing seemed to breed. Her palms were sweaty, but she kept the gun leveled.

  A brief glance past the creature showed her Daniel, his weapon aimed at the back of the thing’s head. He nodded, Sam dropped, and Daniel fired two shots in quick succession. The creature stumbled forward, roared a gasping, wet roar and turned back toward Daniel.

  “Okay,” he said, backing up. “Hello.”

  Sam was vaguely aware of Gordon, white-faced as he cowered close to the door leading back to the lab. He hadn’t left, but there was nothing she could do about that now. She ran to the outside door, stuffed her feet into her unlaced boots. “Daniel! We have to get it outside!”

  Daniel glanced at her, then back at the stumbling creature. “Don’t go out there,” he warned.

  “No choice.” She lifted her weapon. “Get down!”

  He ducked, she shot, the creature turned back toward her. “Come on then!” she goaded it, backing up. “Let’s go play in the snow.”

  The creature growled again, its slack jaw working as if it was trying to speak. She recoiled from the idea that Monroe might still be in there somehow, alive and aware.

  Behind her, she felt for the door handle and opened it. Biting air blasted into the hut, slicing through her clothes. No coat, no gloves, no hat. Crap. She figured she only had a couple minutes before the cold would impair her.

  Daniel, weapon raised, followed as the creature stumbled toward the open door – toward Sam. She felt like bait. Pity they didn’t have a trap to spring outside…

  She stepped down into the snow, fingers aching on the handle of her gun. Damn, but it was cold.

  The creature paused on the threshold, as if sniffing the snow, sensing the cold. Its head swiveled, jaw still working despite the gore.

  “Come on!” Sam shouted again, backing away from the hut. Snow was falling hard, the doorway was already blurry.

  And then the creature started running, charging toward her. She tried to dive out the way, but it was too fast. Plowing into her, it knocked her down into the snow and grabbed the weapon from her hand.

  “Daniel!” she screamed as it pinned her there, raising the gun like a hammer above her head.

  A bullet blasted right through the creature’s head, the force knocking it forward. Using its momentum, Sam pitched the thing over her head and face first into the snow. Then Daniel was hauling her to her feet.

  “Run!” he shouted. “Get inside!”

  She snatched up her weapon and ran. They both did.

  The ancient corpse stood over O’Neill’s inert body, a hammer in its hand poised to deliver the killing blow.

  Teal’c would die before he allowed that to happen.

  He aimed his Tau’ri weapon, wishing fervently that he held his staff instead. “Do not move,” he instructed the corpse. The irony of telling a dead man to be still was not lost on him, despite the situation.

  However, the thing did not appear to hear him, lifting its weapon for a second blow. Teal’c fired, the bullet aimed at the corpse’s hand. Its bones were fragile, its skin all-but disintegrated. The hammer, and the hand holding it, fell into the snow. The creature threw its head back as if to howl, but the sound it made was dry and dusty and barely audible over the moan of the wind. But it looked at Teal’c with such malevolence, with such murderous hatred in its desiccated face, that he took a step back. And then it launched itself at him, rotten teeth and fingers of bone reaching for his throat as if to tear it out like an animal. Teal’c fired again, but the bullet passed right through the thin corpse and did not halt it.

  The creature was light, however, worn thin by age, and Teal’c grabbed it by its ratted leather clothes and hurled it away, sending it crashing against the side of the shelter. Even that did not stop it, though, and it crouched, growling by the wall, close to where the hammer had fallen.

  O’Neill stirred then, groaning and drawing the creature’s murderous attention once more.

  In the space between heartbeats it sprang for the weapon, hauling back its arm to strike O’Neill. Teal’c moved, slamming into the creature, tearing the hammer from its hand and swinging it against the thing’s head. The blow knocked it to the ground, but did not kill it; he feared nothing could kill this monstrosity. So Teal’c reached down and grabbed it, lifting it into the air and flinging it bodily back inside the shelter. Then he slammed shut the door and leaned his weight against it as the creature trapped inside threw itself against the door.

  Catching his breath, Teal’c watched O’Neill push himself onto his hands and knees. There was blood in the snow.

  “We have been attacked,” Teal’c said. “You received a blow to the head.”

  “Yeah…” O’Neill’s speech was slurred. “Where’s the colonel?”

  Teal’c felt a pulse of disquiet. “Do you remember where you are, O’Neill?”

  “Gotta tell the colonel the charges are set,” he said, sitting back on his heels. His face was ghastly in the thin light leaking past the edges of the door and there was blood running freely from his temple. “Gotta…oh crap.” His eyes rolled back and he slumped sideways.

  Across the ice came the echo of another gunshot.

  Teal’c cursed, loudly.

  Then, gathering his composure, he considered his position: it was not good. O’Neill required urgent medical attention, Captain Carter and Daniel Jackson were under attack by an unknown enemy while, behind him, a murderous and ancient corpse was throwing itself against the door. His options were limited.

  But then his eye fell on the hammer the creature had used to attack O’Neill. It lay close to the creature’s hand in the snow. Teal’c had an idea.

  It was not difficult to use the hammer to wedge the handle so as to keep it from turning. Gingerly, he moved away from the door. He saw it shudder with another impact, but it did not open. It would not last for long, he knew, but at least it would give him a chance.

  He crouched down next to O’Neill, pressed his fingers to his friend’s nec
k. O’Neill’s heartbeat was slow and faint, but at least it was there. Teal’c tapped his face. “O’Neill? O’Neill, you must wake up.”

  Nothing. Behind him, the assault on the door continued. The hammer shifted a little against the handle; he did not have long and he knew what he must do.

  With some difficulty, Teal’c hauled O’Neill over his shoulder and began to run through the dark and the snow toward his friends and their unknown assailant.

  They’d barricaded the door and pulled the storm shutters over the windows. Outside, they could still hear Monroe – what had once been Monroe – prowling around the hut, its howls louder than the howling wind.

  Sam hovered close to the window, watching through a gap in the shutters, while Gordon sat on the sofa, ashen-faced and shaking. He hadn’t said a word since Daniel and Sam had barreled back into the hut and slammed the door, only to find him crouched and immobile in the kitchen. He had that crazed thousand-yard stare with which Daniel was oh-so-familiar, and he might have felt some pity for the guy if he hadn’t been such a colossal ass for the past three days.

  “He’s in shock,” Sam said, noticing the direction of Daniel’s gaze.

  “Aren’t we all?” He offered her a weary smile. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what…?”

  She shook her head. Her lips were still blue-tinged from her roll-around in the snow, but otherwise she looked okay. Well, as okay as he did, he supposed. Her fingers darted to the radio at her shoulder and away again and he saw the anxiety in her eyes. He shared it. They’d both heard the distant gunshots coming from the direction of the dig site and could guess what it meant.

  “What I’m afraid of,” Sam said at last, “is that we’re looking at an infection, not a single organism like a Goa’uld.”

  Daniel nodded. “Because if the body back at the dig is still…” he struggled to find the right word.

  “Animate?” Sam supplied.

  “Right. If it’s still animate then it must have infected Monroe somehow.”

  Sam held his eyes for a moment before she said, “Which means we might be infected too.”

  He remembered the spray of Monroe’s blood on his face and felt his stomach turn. “That’s… That’s bad.”

  “Yeah.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair, glanced again at Gordon. He wasn’t sure if he was listening, if he was even aware of where he was. “We should give him some tea,” he said. “Or maybe they’ve got a shot of something?”

  Sam nodded, visibly shaking off her grim thoughts. “Yeah,” she said. “Yeah, good idea.”

  But she didn’t move from her place by the window, and he could see from the distant look on her face that she was turning something over in her mind. He let her get on with it and started opening cupboards in the kitchen. It didn’t take long to find a half-full bottle of vodka and he poured a generous shot into a scratched glass.

  “Here,” he said, offering it to Gordon as he sat down next to him on the sofa. “It’ll take the edge off.”

  Gordon blinked and for a moment Daniel thought he’d refuse, but then he took the glass in a shaking hand and swallowed a mouthful. He shuddered, made a face, but after a moment breathed out a deep sigh and said, “Tell me this is a nightmare. I’m dreaming this.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Daniel said, even as the thing outside howled again. Eager this time, although thankfully farther away from the hut.

  Gordon wrapped both his hands around the glass, stared down into it, and said, “What…” He broke off, started again. “What happened to him? To Ed?”

  Daniel glanced over at Sam who was peering out past the shutters again. He doubted she could see much, but understood her need to watch. “We don’t know,” he said.

  “Not good enough,” Gordon snapped. “That’s not good enough.”

  “I’m telling you the truth. We’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  Gordon shook his head and when he looked up there was fury in his eyes. “I don’t believe you,” he said. “Something brought you here. You knew. You must have known something, or why else come? Why else bring soldiers here?”

  From the window, Sam said, “Tell him, Daniel.”

  He blinked at her. “Tell him?”

  She shrugged, but he could see a hint of a smile in her eyes – a little vicarious schadenfreude. “He’s seen enough, he might as well know the truth.”

  Gordon looked at her, then back to Daniel. “So help me, if you try to tell me this has anything to do with little green men I’ll—”

  “They’re gray, actually,” Daniel said. “And they’re about yea high.”

  “A man is dead, Jackson. Dead or… or I don’t know what. How dare you sit here and —”

  “They call themselves the Asgard,” Daniel plowed on. “And they left a warning on the grave binding you found. I recognized the script because I’d seen it before, on…other sites. So I could translate it.” He gave a humorless smile. “Basically, it said ‘Do Not Enter on pain of a gruesome death’.” He glanced at Sam, then back to Gordon. “I guess now we know why.”

  Gordon stared, his jaw working. “Good God,” he said, “you actually believe this nonsense, don’t you?”

  “Because it’s true,” Sam said, turning her back on the window and folding her arms across her chest. “Whatever you uncovered, Dr. Gordon, had been trapped here three thousand years ago by an alien race whose technology far exceeds our current understanding. What we have to figure out now is what, exactly, you’ve unleashed on the world. And how we can contain it.”

  Daniel swallowed, but couldn’t get rid of the sudden tightness in his throat. The men who had brought the ancient corpse here thousands of years ago had chosen a place far from civilization, but it wasn’t so far removed now. If it was a contagion, some kind of disease…

  “I wish I had a sample,” Sam said, pacing toward the door and back. “Maybe I could try and figure out what we’re dealing with if I could get it under a decent microscope?”

  “Once we’re in contact with the SGC,” Daniel said, “they’ll send a team. Dr. Fraiser will figure it out.”

  Sam nodded. “Maybe,” she said, and cast a baleful look at the radio. “But that might be too late.”

  For us, were the unspoken words. Daniel sighed. “Look,” he said, “we—”

  A loud gunshot made them all jump. It was right outside. Sam flung open the shutters and Daniel jumped to his feet. “Turn off the light,” Sam barked. “I can’t see out.”

  He did so and she pressed her face to the glass, hands cupped around her eyes. “It’s Teal’c.”

  Daniel didn’t bother to look. He just grabbed his gun and moved to the door.

  “Go to the lab,” Sam barked at Gordon. “Stay there.”

  Whether Gordon complied, Daniel didn’t know. He’d already shouldered open the door, his weapon raised. Teal’c was fifty yards out, turning in a slow 360, his gun raised and leveled. But he wasn’t trying to run toward the cabin, he was just standing there. “Teal’c!” Daniel yelled, stepping down into the snow. “Come on!”

  Behind him, Sam said, “Careful. We don’t know where it is.”

  “No, I see it,” Daniel said. There was a figure crouching in the snow; he could make out Monroe’s red snowsuit. It was moving, dragging its leg as if it were injured, and circling Teal’c.

  “We need to distract it,” Sam said, stepped out of the cabin and shutting the door behind her. The light cut off, but the snow had stopped falling and there was a low moon ghosting behind thinning clouds. The night had turned silver and black. “I’ll go— Wait,” she said. “Where’s the colonel?”

  That’s when Daniel saw the shape in the snow behind Teal’c and realized why Teal’c wasn’t running. He was guarding something; he was guarding Jack. “He’s down,” he said through gritted teeth. “Jack’s down.”

  “What? Where—? Damn it, I see him.”

  Teal’c was still turning, his focus intent. And then he stopped, facing
them. “Captain Carter!” he shouted, just as something fell from the roof and knocked Daniel into the snow.

  “Daniel!” Sam yelled.

  He felt leathery hands about his neck and the noxious stench of death filled his lungs.

  Horrified, disgusted, he bucked under the weight on his back and a moment later it was gone. He pushed back to his feet, only to see Sam wrestling with the monstrous corpse from the dig. Daniel gagged, on the smell and the horror, but he couldn’t let it freeze him again. Not now.

  Behind him, the thing that had been Monroe howled and he heard Teal’c’s weapon discharge – for all the good that would do.

  “Jackson!” The shout came from the door of the cabin. Gordon stood there with something in his hands. A can. “It’s petrol.”

  Daniel ran over, staggering through the snow. “Yes,” he said. “Good.”

  Sam had fought free of the creature – it was weaker than Monroe, its ancient body fragile. A hand was already missing and its arm was twisted. Sam was backing off, her weapon raised.

  Daniel crouched in the snow, unscrewed the cap on the can. “Sam, wait.”

  She glanced. “Hurry.”

  He did, hefting the open can and flinging gasoline over the creature. “Now!” he yelled, and Sam fired.

  The thing went up like a torch, roaring as it fell back into the snow.

  Sam didn’t wait to watch, she was already running toward Teal’c who was fighting off Monroe. Teal’c’s face was bloody, but whether it was his own blood or Monroe’s, Daniel couldn’t be sure.

  “Teal’c, back off!” Sam shouted as Daniel reached her. He was trying not to slosh the gasoline as he ran.

  Teal’c didn’t go far. “I cannot leave O’Neill.”

  “Hey!” Sam yelled, firing into Monroe’s leg. The thing staggered, turned, hissed through bloody lips. “Yeah, remember me?” she said, and backed up a step. Daniel kept pace with her as the creature moved away from Teal’c and Jack.

  As soon as it turned away, Teal’c ducked, grabbed Jack under his arms, and started dragging him through the snow. Daniel tried not to be distracted by the boneless loll of Jack’s head.