Stargate SG-1: Sacrifice Moon (27 page)

-- and her wrist was caught by another, larger hand.

"No!" the man roared, and threw her back, off-balance. The preychild scrabbled to hands and knees and darted away, into the shadows. She tried to follow. The man lurched into her path to block her.
"No! Captain Carter!"

She fell back a step, startled by the name, the face, the sudden flash
of sanity that vanished in the next cold stroke of moonlight. He'd
knocked her knife away, but she still had the metal weapon around
her neck, and hands that knew how to use it. They closed around the
MP5 and aimed, and she knew just how it would look when she fired,
how his blood would mist the cold pale air. How his death would
smell, blood mixed with terror and burning powders.

He could see his death coming. He had to see it coming. Now he
would run, and the hunt would begin...

He didn't run. "Carter," he said raggedly. "Put it down. Don't do
this."

She understood him, and felt her muscles trembling with a desire
to obey, but the heat surged through her again at the thought of pulling
the trigger, seeing his blood spill hot on the stones.

"Captain. Put down the weapon. That's an order."

Can't, she wanted to whisper, and almost did, but moonlight locked
her in silence. Something kept shifting inside of her, trying to escape.
Part of her that screamed in horror at what she'd tried to do, and still
wanted to do.

"Captain, I'm not going to tell you again, lower the damn - "

She saw someone lunge at his unprotected back. A knife glinted.

She instantly shifted aim and fired a rattling burst.

O'Neill dropped, rolled, and came up with his own weapon pointed
at her.

Behind him, a black-robed attacker swayed and collapsed with the
knife still in his hand.

She couldn't get her breath. She wanted to keep firing, turn her
commanding officer into bleeding dead meat, and it took everything
in her to toss the MP5 down on the street and sink to her knees, hands
locked behind her head in a position of utter surrender.

Run, the moonlight urged her. The burning in her turned toxic.
Run! The hunt is leaving you behind!

She had a sudden vivid image of Daniel, bleeding, running and dodging, of something terrible behind him.

Even the hunters are the hunted.

"Help," she gasped, and knew she was crying. She tasted blood
from a bitten lip. "Daniel. In trouble. Help him - "

She didn't know Colonel O'Neill's face could look like that, so
bitter and tired and cold.

"Teal'c's on it," he said. "Stay down, Carter."

"Can't." She was shaking all over with the pain, the need, the
burn. "Help."

He came, limping, and painfully went down on his good knee.
"How?"

"Tie me-"

"Need to be able to move. We're not safe, Carter."

"Can't -

"You will." His eyes held hers, merciless and utterly cold. "You
will. That's an order."

She wailed inside, wordlessly. The moonlight burned like acid,
and her shudders got worse. She felt a small, tortured moan work its
way free, and felt her eyes flood again with helpless, raging tears.

Help me.

He was helping her.

He wasn't running.

Teal'c did not dream, but he remembered with a vividness he suspected most humans could not achieve. Nobody remembers pain,
Jack O'Neill had told him a week before. We just remember that we
had pain. That's how we cope with it.

Such was not the Jaffa way. His memory of pain was exact and
exquisite, as was his memory of everything else. He could recreate,
with perfect detail, how it had felt when he had taken a staff bum to
the side. He could remember how it had felt to watch Apophis slaughter his brothers for a defeat in battle, though they had retreated with
honor and protected him with their blood.

He could remember, with precision, the hallucination that he had
experienced two nights ago, of running in the moonlight with predators on his heels.

Tonight, it was coming true, except in one critical regard: he felt no panic, no shame, and he was not helpless. O'Neill had given him
that, by example and steady, ironic endurance. So long as O'Neill
endured, he would be himself. He knew the tricks of the Goa'uld, and
rejected them with the same conscious, bitter anger that he had felt
in the dungeon on Chulak, watching his men advance to slaughter
another group of victims on the world of a false and faithless god.

I can save these people! O'Neill had shouted, and he had recognized in him someone worthy of his trust.

Tonight he had said, Go after Daniel, and in his dark, wounded
eyes had been the same burning purpose. I'll take Cartel. Even though
Carter was the more dangerous, even though O'Neill was wounded.
Even though O'Neill was not prepared to kill.

And Teal'c had obeyed, because he believed.

He ran, lungs filling and emptying with fast, regular breaths, and
felt his muscles stretch in welcome to the challenge. The streets were
stark-lit with white moonfall, black shadows, but he sensed others
watching. Following. He was not concerned with the Dark Company;
their spears and arrows could be dodged, or blocked.

The Jaffa ahead were a different matter.

Daniel Jackson was running with all his strength, all his heart, but
Jaffa were bred and trained to endure, and these were honed by service to a merciless god with a thirst for death. Teal'c was gaining, but
ahead he knew that the man would be tiring and growing clumsy.

They had been running for nearly an hour, and even the endurance granted by the power of Artemis's collar could not keep a mere
human at the level of a Jaffa much longer. Muscles would seize and
rip, deprived of rest. If not, stressed bone would shatter, or ligaments
break.

Or the tough fabric of his heart would tear itself apart.

Teal'c adjusted the balance of his hold on his staff weapon and
increased his speed. The human uniform of the SGC he wore was
lighter and more flexible than the Jaffa's armor; that worked in his
favor.

He heard more explosions ahead, saw the raw orange bursts, and
had a flickering glimpse of Daniel Jackson darting aside from the new
attack. Slower now. Still running.

The false female god ran with her Jaffa, silver in moonlight. An easy target. Teal'c leaped up on the unsteady support of a marble
block, aimed, and fired; at the last instant, his support shifted, and he
missed, bringing down one of the Jaffa next to her. She whirled, and
he saw the white flare of her eyes even at this distance.

"Jaffa, kree!" she shouted, and pointed at him. He jumped before
her dogs could fire on him, the marble support burst into melted
shrapnel behind him. He landed, sure-footed, and dodged into the
maze of broken buildings.

His last glimpse of Daniel Jackson had shown him that the human
was dodging to the right, down a street that dead-ended in a wall of
rubble. A killing trap. Teal'c scaled marble steps that led to nothing
but ruin, threw himself over, and rolled up fluidly to his feet, heading
at an angle to Daniel Jackson's position.

Behind him, the Jaffa were in confusion, but some were breaking
off to pursue him. He found high ground and fired, never staying for
more than one fast shot; each burst took down a pursuer. He knew the
weaknesses of the armor.

Artemis continued in her hunt, single-minded with fury.

Teal'c caught sight of two Jaffa ahead; as he sighted to fire, blackrobed figures ghosted out of the shadows and set on them with knives
and spears. One of the Jaffa went down. The other warrior won free,
but Teal'c's shot caught him low, crippling him for the survivors
among the hunters.

Cruel sport, this was. It sickened him, but he did not turn away
from the need.

He threaded through the maze and found a two-story building still
standing that faced down on the blind trap Daniel Jackson had fallen
into; the ground floor was blocked with ruins, but the steps were still
partly intact within. Teal'c vaulted the empty gap and threw himself
up the crumbling, unsteady stairs; they collapsed when he was still
two strides from the top. He rolled forward and clawed his way up as
the support fell away, slid breathlessly on the gritty, groaning floor,
and came up on his feet to lunge for the open, jagged window.

Daniel Jackson had reached the end of the street and found his
way blocked. True to his nature, he had not given up. He was grimly
attempting to scale the sheer cliff of rubble, but it shifted and shook
him free in a hail of stones and dust.

As he fell, a thick stone column rumbled loose and slammed down
over his legs. From his vantage point, Teal'c heard the sharp, agonized cry, and knew Daniel Jackson was finished running. He risked
a look, and saw his friend face down, pinned by the column across the
upper part of his legs.

Artemis rounded the far corner, surrounded by a pack of seven
Jaffa marked on the forehead with her sigil - a simple circle. The dark
moon. They advanced, staff weapons at the ready, but paused as she
paced forward toward the downed man, taut with rage and purpose.

Daniel Jackson's face was blank and focused as he watched her
come for him. He would die with dignity, Teal'c knew. He would
never surrender his life without a fight, even if that fight was in his
mind instead of his body.

As his wife had fought, so hard, to remain herself.

Teal'c had failed Sha're. He would not fail again.

He fired on Artemis, but one of her Jaffa threw himself in the path
of the blast as she extended her hand and bathed Daniel Jackson's
face in poisoned orange light. She seemed not to even note his attack,
and her Jaffa closed on his position. Teal'c shifted aim and fired at the
looming ruin behind them, choosing the spot with precision.

It shuddered, leaned, and fell, crushing all four beneath its thick
marble rush. On the ground, Daniel flinched, covered his head, and
then Artemis stood alone in the smoking street, and her eyes were full
of madness and hatred.

Teal'c faced her, and for the first time, he raised his hand directly
to a god. Something in him cried out, shuddered, tried to turn away.

She extended her hand toward him. "Betrayer!" she screamed. "I
am your god!"

"No god of mine," he said, and fired into her just as her energy bolt
hit him with stunning force, throwing him back into broken, empty
darkness.

Daniel saw Teal'c fire and felt a surge of fury as he saw Artemis's
attack hit, liquefying the stone wall. Teal'c disappeared, dead or
thrown back, he couldn't tell.

And then he realized that Artemis had been hit.

She stood still, staring down as if she couldn't believe it was possi ble - Daniel couldn't believe it himself, until he saw the black smoking hole in her stomach, and blood began to stain her white gown.
Spreading fast. Dripping down her bare legs. Artemis staggered,
holding both hands to the terrible wound.

"Impossible," she murmured, and tried to take a step. Her leg collapsed. "Impossible..."

Her eyes fixed on Daniel, and he saw the feral glow of the hunter
in them. Felt an answering bitter spark. Die, he thought. Just die, you
evil bitch.

She gave him a smile that he knew would live in his nightmares
and rolled up to her knees, then pressed shaking fingers to the controls
on her hand device.

"You," she panted. "Your death I taste later, little hunter. We will
have time."

Transport rings fell out of the sky, stacked, and she disappeared
in a streak of blue light. When the rings left, there was nothing left
except a pool of blood where she'd been, and the groan of shifting
rubble from the building that had buried her Jaffa.

"Teal'c," Daniel whispered, and closed his eyes. "Oh God."

He sat up and began the hard, agonizing work of levering a stone
pillar off of his trapped legs.

He passed out halfway through the process.

Okay, this is bad, Jack thought. Carter was watching him, with
those blank eyes and huge pupils, and there was a fine, delicate vibration going through her body every five seconds or so. As if she was
resonating to something Jack couldn't hear or feel.

"Carter?" he said, and kept his voice low and calm, as if talking to
a wild animal about to spring. "Talk to me."

She didn't speak. They were in shadows again, sitting down; the
moon was getting close to setting. Out in the darkness, they'd heard
the firefight, but Jack couldn't leave her, and couldn't trust her at his
back in any kind of a struggle.

So he sat, watching her, her watching him, both of them listening to the sound of their teammates fighting for their lives. The truth
was he wouldn't have been able to get there with his ankle doing a
good imitation of broken, and even if he had, it would have been over before he could have closed the distance.

And still, he hated himself for it.

"Daniel," Carter said. Just the one word, and then, slowly, as if
sounding out a foreign language, "Teal'c."

"Yeah." He kept eye contact. He'd found out the hard way that it
seemed to help her keep control. "Have to hope for the best."

"Help."

"Don't think we can, Captain."

She blinked, and he saw something change in her - not so much in
her eyes, which were damn close to blind, but in her body language.

He felt something in that exposed, vulnerable place in the back of
his neck, and risked a glance away from her.

They were surrounded. Shit.

Silent, black-robed figures. He hadn't heard a thing. They were
that quiet, that fast, that deadly. He had both MP5s, but that wasn't
going to help all that much. Too many bodies, too little time, and
somebody was going to get to him.

Maybe Carter.

"Help," Carter repeated, and Jack saw one of the figures shift out
of shadow into moonlight. He wished he could say it made him feel
better to see it was Eseios, but the truth was none of this was making
him feel better.