magibrain | [fic] Beneath a Beating Sun

Title: Beneath A Beating Sun ch.17: Fury
Chapter Summary: The final battle.
Index post: [Fic] Beneath a Beating Sun - Index

Zero Hour came about at 04:35 on a partly-cloudy Wednesday, as the al'kesh – staffed by Carter, Daniel and Teal'c – lifted off from the secure launchpad at Peterson Air Force Base with an ETA to the ha'tak of 19:30. That meant almost fifteen hours hurtling through the vast silence of space, with Earth nothing but a speck, ever smaller, falling behind them. With the distance came a strange unreal cast to the urgency of their mission. It was one more abstraction in a universe of abstractions, through which their lone ship moved and contained them.

In that enormity, even the massive hok'ha'tak seemed petulant and small when they dropped out of hyperspace before it. In the vacuum, with no reference against its size, it too was a meager bulwark against the space it found itself in.

Its original crew had learned that lesson both briefly and finally.

They docked and stepped aboard with weapons ready. Nothing jumped out at them. Still, the atmosphere didn't put them at ease as they moved through; if anything, the lack of life was a constant tension in the atmosphere, with the flickering lights, odd creaks and echoes rendering the ship something still not entirely dead.

Besides, if there was ever a candidate for a ship being haunted, Daniel suspected, it would be this one.

"You know," he said, a few halls in, "I did read the mission report on the ship Thor took over."

The implication missed both of his friends. "So did I," Sam said.

"Did we ask the entities to confirm that there weren't any Jaffa still on the ship? I mean, Anubis' elite troops..."

Sam shook her head. "They wouldn't survive the radiation any more than the ones on Anubis' second ship did."

Daniel shrugged. "Well, as I recall, no one thought they could survive in a condition where they emitted no readable life signs."

"They were hit by the same type of radiation pulse that killed me," Sam said. "That's beyond biologically-based survival mechanisms. If they were to survive, they would have ascended."

Daniel's forward momentum ran out, and he stopped. "...okay. Wait a minute."

Sam and Teal'c stopped a few steps ahead of him, turning back. "Daniel?"

"The whole crew of this ha'tak could have ascended," Daniel said.

Sam and Teal'c exchanged glances, and Teal'c nodded back at him. "It is possible."

"Probable," Sam corrected.

"Then they're probably among the entities we're relying on to blow the pulsar."

Teal'c nodded again. "They would most likely be."

Daniel looked from one of them to the other. Teal'c was always alien in his expressions, responses – it was a familiar alienness, by now. But he could usually rely on Sam to comprehend why he was bothered by something, even if she wasn't bothered, herself. "That doesn't concern you, a bit?"

"If they have been ascended," Teal'c said, "then their experience of the world is still, at this moment, the entities'. Should they regain their own forms, they will be unable to remember their previous lives in servitude to Anubis."

"Well, the Jaffa, maybe," Daniel said. "But for the symbiotes, the memory is genetic. And if they descend separately from the Jaffa..."

Teal'c made a noise somewhere below the back of his throat. "They will all die," he agreed.

Daniel stared. "Doesn't that bother you?"

"They were, in effect, already dead," Teal'c answered.

"Yeah, but–"

"All Jaffa understand that they are bred to be casualties of war," Teal'c said. "Some may find a way to survive. For those who do not, I am content that they will die free."

"I guess that's one way to look at it," Daniel said. It wasn't a way he was particularly happy with, but there wasn't much he could do about that now.

Teal'c turned and continued on his way. Sam followed, and after a moment, Daniel did, too. They went in silence until they came to the engine room.

Daniel and Teal'c were the ones to take up position on either side of the door, weapons ready to scope the chamber. Sam keyed in the usual door code and, when that proved incorrect, pried the cover off the controls and set to work inside them.

"It seems like we end up in these situations a lot," Daniel said, apropos of nothing.

Teal'c glanced over at him, with an inquisitive tilt to one eyebrow.

Daniel returned the glance, though not the eyebrow, and focused back on the door again. "You know. Running through one of Anubis' ships, trying to pull off something complicated and a little crazy, right after someone comes back from being ascended. I mean, granted, two times isn't that large a sample size, but given the improbability of that confluence of events–"

The door slid open.

Daniel shut his mouth on the last of his words, and followed Teal'c inside.

The room was massive. Columns rose from floor to ceiling, bristling with crystal banks and jagged bits of metal where the banks had overloaded and blown out. Residual ash and dust tinted the air, though most of it had settled; the floor was a uniform charcoal grey.

Nothing moved. Many of the crystal banks were glowing – courtesy of the entities, Daniel guessed. A low hum underlaid the air.

Daniel let out a breath, and lowered his rifle. "I think we're good."

Teal'c brought his staff weapon back to neutral, resting it against his shoulder. "It was always unlikely that we would find survivors."

Daniel shrugged. "Yeah, but everything about Anubis is unlikely. I mean, he is kinda the Goa'uld who conquered half the galaxy by not doing what anyone expected of him."

Sam said nothing. She headed for the main engine core.

Dnaiel followed, picking his way around a bit of blown-off casing, and paused to nudge it with his foot. Under the settled soot was a familiar pattern.

"Hello," he said, crouching down to brush away some of the detritus. "Rings."

Sam turned to look down at them. "Significant?"

"Well, I've never known a Goa'uld to keep their rings this close to their ship's vital systems," Daniel said, and looked up at the damaged engine core. "Maybe he had a lot of engineers coming and going."

"Maybe," Sam said, following Daniel's gaze up. "It looks like it would take a lot of work."

"This was the first ship of its advanced class," Teal'c said. "Made to exploit the power of the Goa'uld Eye artifacts."

Sam walked across the rings and brushed one of the control symbols for a crystal bank. It slid obligingly open.

Teal'c crossed to her.

"Patterns and states," she said, apparently to herself.

Teal'c touched one of the crystals, rotating it in its dock and setting it to rights again. "I cannot determine what, precisely, the entities have altered."

"The potential of this ship's shields weren't boosted by re-ordering the crystals. The energy inside them had to be re-initialized and reconfigured." She looked across at Daniel. "They couldn't enact their own potential until their form was altered."

Teal'c's mouth betrayed an extremely small smile. "Ironic," he agreed.

Daniel shook his head. While he wasn't exactly uncomfortable in conversations which veered suddenly to metaphor, aboard ha'taks about to be engaged by the enemy weren't his preferred places to have them. "So. What now?"

"Teal'c should make sure that the engines are running," Sam said. "I want to examine these shield crystals."

"Right." Daniel clasped his hands together. "Anything for me to do?"

"There is not," Teal'c said, brushing past him to the core. Daniel watched him go by.

"...all right, then."

Teal'c opened one of the banks, and frowned. "Major Carter."

Sam turned her back on the rings and came up to him. "What is it?"

Teal'c tapped a finger against a blue crystal, still frowning. Sam pulled a sensor out of her vest, attaching two small clips to the crystal's dock and turning on the display.

"Yeah; I see what you mean," she said. She disconnected the sensor, opened every bank from eye height to the bottom of the column, and knelt down. "...that's bad."

"Sam?" Daniel asked. "What's wrong?"

She looked up at him, then pulled a crystal entirely out of its port to examine it. "The hyperspace engines," she said, indicating the bank she was working on. "They're the most fragile and volatile systems on a ha'tak like this, aside from Anubis' experimental weapon."

(Uh-oh.) "What does that mean?"

"They've soaked up a lot of radiation – they're flooded. They'll work, but only for short jumps, and they'll be prone to interruption."

"Interruption?" Daniel asked.

"If we're taking fire, if any of our other systems explode, we might not make it all the way into hyperspace," Sam clarified. "In which case the jump will abort."

"Leaving us here," Daniel said.

Sam nodded.

"And there no way to drain the engines," Teal'c hazarded.

Sam shrugged. "The entities scrubbed them as well as they could. A full diagnostic might tell us exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, but it'd mean taking the engines down for too long." She pulled out another shelf, looking at its crystals. "I'm going to try to make our jump faster. That'll decrease the likelihood of interruption."

Teal'c nodded. "How may I assist?"

She pointed to another pylon. "I need you to disable every safeguard the hyperdrive has except for the ones that control energy regulation."

"Is that wise?" Daniel asked.

"Probably not. Is being bait?"

"Point taken. How can I help?"

She pointed to the nearest intact terminal. "There's something called a build configuration you should be able to access. It displays exactly how the engines are configured to function. Keep an eye on it, and if you see any errors cropping up tell us."

"Can do."

"How much time do we have?" she asked.

Daniel checked his watch. "Until Phase Three?" he asked. "An hour, maybe more, maybe less. Is that enough?"

"I honestly have no idea," Sam said, and set to work.

Jack inhaled as he stepped through the Stargate, into the dust and recycled air of his least-favorite alien installation. The Gatecloset was busy this time, crowded with a few last FREDs piled high with retrieved technology, and with SG-11 gearing up to go.

(Lucky.)

A pair of Lieutenants straightened up from fixing what looked like a terminal onto the back of a FRED, and he motioned them back to at-ease and stepped through the doorway. "Edwards."

Edwards was overseeing the securement of the last few alien devices, and looked up when Jack hailed him. "Look what the cat dragged in," he said, leaving it to his team and approaching. "I've gotta say, Colonel. You do have a knack for picking the short straws."

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "You just about finished up here?"

"Just about," Edwards said. "The place is all yours."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

Edwards snorted. "I hear ya. It's a great lab, but I wouldn't want to live here." He looked around. "We've taken as much as we can. Computers, machines, data. Shame we won't ever be able to come back, but I can't say I'm sad to see it go."

"I know the feeling," Jack said. The place might be advanced far beyond them, but it was also more trouble than it was worth.

"Listen, Colonel," Edwards said, "if Anubis jams the 'gate again, there's a green crystal in the base of the DHD. If you pull it out you might be able to get through."

"Excuse me?" Jack said. He didn't want to think about another jammed 'gate, but this would have been useful information to know.

"Capt. Lytton reorganized it a bit," Edwards said. "That has all the dialing protocols, and it's what Anubis jammed the last time. Ask him about it."

A brown-haired Captain detached himself from the detail loading the FRED and hopped over. "Sir," he said. "The protocols tell the Stargate, among other things, how to interpret the six primary symbols based on the order they're input. It's what lets you have two planets share the same six symbols in different orders without the system getting confused–"

"I don't need to know how it works, Captain, I need to know what it does."

Lytton nodded. "The idea is that removing the protocols will force a connection no matter what, unless the target 'gate is blocked or in use," he said. "Overrides errors, goes through suns or gravity distortions, makes connections without sufficient energy to sustain them. But I couldn't selectively isolate those protocols; you'll have to remove them all at once. If you remove the ordering protocol, there's the possibility that you'll wind up at a planet with a Stargate address only similar to the one you dialed."

"Oh, good," Jack said.

"You have a better chance surviving that than surviving a sun blowing up in your face," Edwards said. "It'll break the jamming signal."

Lytton dropped down, loosening and removing a panel on the base of the DHD. Sure enough, there was a single, glowing green crystal. "This one, sir. Just rip it out if you need to."

"Let's hope I don't need to," he said.

Edwards looked back over his team. The last FRED was loaded and secured. "Well, time to say goodbye and good luck," he said, extending a hand. "Good luck."

"Let's hope I don't need that either," Jack said, taking his hand. "Thanks for all your help, Colonel."

"Colonel." Edwards motioned to his team. Lytton hopped up again, dialing Earth. "Let's take this home."

Jack watched them go. Once the wormhole closed, he wandered into the hall to look out the window.

The base had never felt more empty. It had never felt full, and had more recently felt abandoned, but at the moment he was the only living thing on the planet and 25% of the life (excluding entities) in the system, and it felt that way. It was hard to believe that anything existed here, even time. Hard to believe there was life elsewhere in the universe, even though that was why they were fighting here today.

He could see the ha'tak in orbit – a pinhead-sized speck moving against the stars. "Good to know someone up there's got my back," he said, and waved. He sincerely doubted they saw him.

He pulled up his sleeve. He had a new watch – this one displayed time and a timer side-by-side. 20:19. Mission Time: +15:44. They were into Phase 2. He'd dubbed it the "Long Hours Of Waiting" phase.

Any time from eleven minutes to an hour and eleven minutes from now, Jacob would arrive to begin Phase 3. In the mean time he had the base to himself.

He'd actually considered bringing a book along. Or a Game Boy, or something on tape. He'd been working his way through the Bible on tape in bits and spurts for years now, whenever he had the time and remembered that he was doing it. The only problem was that he'd made it to Revelations, and had no intention of tempting fate. He wasn't completely ignorant of Biblical allusion, after all.

And I looked, and beheld a pale horse: and his name that sat upon him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

He shook his head. Well, if the silence made him paranoid, it would be a useful paranoia, at least. Keep him on his toes.

Above, in the gutted ha'tak, SG-1's scientists had come to the conclusion that the ship might not be a deathtrap. If they played their cards right and got very lucky. Maybe.

Actually, it was more of a hope than a conclusion.

They'd been putting the hok'ha'tak back together for over two hours, while both the planet beneath them and the various sensor alarms they'd set up on the terminals around them were quiet. It was long habit that had Daniel checking his watch in one of the quiet moments between requests for data from his terminal, though when he did, he turned immediately to key on another display.

"Okay, this is a problem," Daniel said.

Sam dusted herself off, and came to look over his shoulder. "What is it?"

"The sensors tracked Stargate activity on the planet," he said. "Two openings: 20:10 and 20:17."

"That would be consistent with planned times for Colonel O'Neill's arrival and Colonel Edwards' departure," Teal'c said.

"Yeah, but it hasn't tracked any additional activity," Daniel said. "Jacob should have been there by now."

Sam checked her watch. 21:44. Mission time +17:09. The window for her father's arrival had closed fourteen minutes ago. (Time.) It always came down to time.

"The fact that the Stargate has not opened means that the SGC has not issued a change in orders," Teal'c said. "We must assume Jacob Carter was delayed."

"If we break radio silence Anubis will know we've taken this ha'tak," Sam said. "This will look more and more like a trap."

"I know, I know," Daniel said. "I just wish I knew what was going on."

Sam looked over the readings. "We'll know eventually."

"That's not exactly encouraging," Daniel said.

Teal'c inclined his head.

Sam turned to him. "You should take the pel'tak," she said. "Make us ready to leave."

"I shall do so," Teal'c said.

One of Jack's least favorite parts of planning a strategic mission was deciding what constituted mission failure. This one had been worse than usual – more things could go wrong than one would expect at first glance, but of those, few would invalidate the mission itself. The ha'tak they'd claimed could be lost with all hands while still drawing Anubis into the kill zone, or the mission could stretch on significantly longer than planned without losing effectiveness. Hammond had said that if mission time reached +32:00 without entering Phase 4 (Anubis in-system) that Jack should contact the SGC for reassessment, but had left the declaration of mission failure to him alone.

Rationally, Jack knew that fifteen minutes was not terribly late as Tok'ra went. But rationally he'd thought that a handful of tel'tak-sized bogeys wouldn't be a threat to an untouchable planet, and that was provoking a very irrational bout of paranoia. The less-useful kind, this time.

Anubis could have jammed the 'gate long ago, and he'd be unaware.

Still, short of opening the 'gate to send an angry message through, he had no way to check that, and given his luck, the moment he did would be the moment Jacob tried to dial in. No. Waiting was the only option, not that he had to like it.

So he waited.

The base waited as well, silent and still, with the pulsar keeping time above him.

He was killing time by bouncing a tennis ball off the walls when the sound of a chevron engaging rolled through the hallway. He missed the rebound and the ball went rolling down the hall, forcing him to double back a few meters to scoop it up before he jogged for the 'gatecloset, but at least now something was happening. (Fashionably late, as always.)

He swung into the lab outside the closet with a grimace as the Stargate whooshed open. "Well, it's about time," he called as he rounded the corner–

–to find that it wasn't Jacob stepping through.

It was Anubis, flanked by two Kull Warriors. The Kull, in symphony, raised their arms to fire.

An entity flashed into the ha'tak, through the engine room's ceiling. It arrested its flight to hover in the center of the room, turning to regard the human contingent.

"What?" Sam asked, foregoing pleasantries entirely.

(Something is wrong,) the entity said.

"Things aren't going as we expected them to," Sam said. "We expected that Anubis would be in the system now."

(We are watching the wormhole conduit on the planet below,) the entity said. (It is inconsistent with our expectations. This introduces a new element into our plans.)

"What new element?" Sam asked. "Show me."

The entity flashed into the ring transporter, raising the rings and holding itself in them. It reached out, one long tendril passing between Sam's eyes.

Daniel edged forward. "Sam?"

She frowned. "It feels wrong," she said. "The Stargate feels wrong. It's like–" she broke off, and the entity broke contact. "Radio Colonel O'Neill! Tell him if he can get out, get out now!"

"What?" Daniel asked, already halfway to the controls.

"Anubis is jamming the 'gate," she said.

Daniel hit the comm, but before he could say anything it came to life without him. "Ha'tak team, this is Colonel O'Neill. I need an evac!"

Jack ducked behind a door, catching his breath and listening for sounds of pursuit. He'd made a hard sprint here – the last time he'd covered that much distance at that breakneck a pace, a mountain was exploding behind him.

He wasn't sure what kind of an evac the ha'tak could afford him, but with Kull and a half-ascended Goa'uld between him and the 'gate, ascension seemed more plausible than Stargate travel. He had three of the best minds in the SGC above him, and if they couldn't think of something–

Best not to think of that.

"Jack, say again?" Daniel asked over radio. "Evac?"

"Evac, immediately if not sooner. Anubis is here, on the planet. He came through the Stargate."

"What do you mean he came through the 'gate?" Daniel demanded. "He was supposed to come in ships!"

"Well, yeah, he didn't," Jack shot back, ducking into a windowless spur hallway. "He and his goons are about three halls behind me. Which is why I need an evac or, failing that, a really good place to hide!"

"When we detonate the pulsar, the planet itself will be destroyed," Carter said. "You can't hide. Are you sure you can't reach the Stargate?"

Jack covered his radio, holding still until he verified that he hadn't heard the tromp of a Kull's boots. "Pretty sure, yeah."

Silence followed of a most unreassuring kind.

"Carter?"

"Working on it, sir. The outpost doesn't have rings or the capacity the receive craft. We can't land anything there."

"Carter, at this point I will take a brief jaunt through hard vacuum over the alternative. Crash something through a window if that's what it takes!"

"No, sir, coupled with the radiation, you wouldn't survive. I think I have another way. Can you–"

That was definitely a footfall. He switched the radio off, sprinting down the hall and into one of a cluster of labs, making a beeline to hide behind a long counter. (Why, why, why aren't drone-killing weapons standard kit? Come to think of it, why didn't I request them for this mission? I knew something was bound to go wrong!)

The Kull followed, footsteps thumping over the composite ground. One of the other lab doors hissed open.

(Oh, you had better not be making an exhaustive survey,) Jack thought. He couldn't see from where he crouched – which was good if the drone was only peering in, but bad for anything else.

No more doors opened. Palm over the speaker, he flipped it back on and hit the talk button. "Carter," he whispered. "Quietly and quickly, tell me how to lock these doors."

Silence. He risked a glance from behind the table. The drone was out of sight.

"Carter!"

"On the panel to open the door," Carter whispered back. "Press these three keys at once: third from the top, two in. Fifth from the top, four in. Bottom right corner. Follow that with the top right corner twice, then the third key on the first row."

He flipped the radio off again, desperately wishing he could read alien. It might have made the instructions easier.

The drone stomped out into the hall again, and his footsteps faded into another room. Jack took a deep breath – and ran into the hall.

The drone turned and saw him as he lunged for the panel, counting faster than he knew he could. (Three-two, five-four, bottom right – topright topright agh!)

He twisted as an energy bolt flew past his shoulder, close enough that he could feel the heat through his jacket. Hitting the final key, he spun out of line of sight and the door slid closed.

Behind it, the Kull was already shooting his way out. Jack didn't know how long it would take, but barring terminal heart failure the Kull wouldn't give up until he was on the trail again. Jack decided to be as far away as possible by then.

He flipped his radio back on. "–espond, please!"

"Ran into one of the drones," Jack said, jogging down the hallway. "What were you saying earlier?"

"If you go to the audience chamber we may be able to trick the ring transporter into beaming you up," Carter said. "It's our best option."

"Best, eh?"

"Only," Daniel clarified.

"Then that's where I'm headed," he said, and sped to a sprint. The audience chamber wasn't far, which was good and bad.

He closed the door behind him but the inner console was different; he couldn't find the code to lock it. He dashed into the conduit, activating his radio again. "Okay. I'm here."

"Stand by," Carter said.

He was certain he could hear something coming down the hall. "For how long?"

"Stand by," Carter said again.

"Only option," Jack muttered, and the door opened. The second Kull, arm raised and weapon aimed. "Carter, now would be a good time!"

"Working! These systems are – wah!"

(Wha–?)

Jack didn't have time to wonder before the air concussed around him, slamming him back. The universe screamed white heat, coursing through the capacitors. (Hated one!) roared something, striking out of the chute and into the oncoming Kull full-bore. The entity's rage flashed through him, hot and deadly, like taking a full-body staff blast without burning.

The world whited out.

Sam ducked when the entity burst through the ring transporter, and the instant it had passed she was at the controls again, priming the systems. "Now! Bring him up!" (And hope the entity doesn't have other plans–)

Daniel input the commands and the rings activated, charging the conduit on the planet and pulling in the matter stream. The figure who resolved was slumped against the rings when they came up, and as soon as they vanished into the floor, he fell.

Sam and Daniel were at his side in seconds. "Jack!"

"He hasn't been shot," Sam said, checking over his torso. "If he was caught in the–"

She bit off the rest of the sentence. She could hear the rings' hum and, reacting before Daniel could, she grabbed the Colonel's collar and hauled him out of the circle an instant before they activated again. The entity returned in brilliant white violence, screaming out of the rings and through the bulkheads without pause.

"Oh, no," she said.

Daniel had nearly dived into the lightning in an attempt to take over with Jack. "What's going on?"

Sam hit her radio. "Teal'c! Get us out of here! Full engines!"

Daniel confirmed that Jack was breathing, his heart beating, and looked to Sam. "What–"

"Anubis is on the base. That entity went to alert the others. They're going to detonate."

"Understood," Teal'c said over radio.

"Now?" Daniel asked.

"Now, before, and later are what they understand," Sam said. "They can't do it before and they're not leaving it for later. Which means if we're not out of here–"

"Bad things," Daniel said.

Sam stared. "We explode."

"I'd rather not explode," Daniel said.

Sam hit her radio. "Teal'c, now!"

The engines whined to life – and spluttered, and failed. "We are within–" Teal'c began, and the shockwave hit.

The ship bucked and shuddered, gravity at odds with inertia and the force of the wave. A klaxon went off in the moment before the lights flashed out, plunging them into a careening, soundless darkness.

And for the first time since her death, she knew just how long a second could be.

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[fic] Beneath a Beating Sun - ch.17: Fury