“Are you insane?” Maybourne protested. “That would —”
“Shut up, Maybourne,” he snapped. “Booker — get someone to take this piece of shit downstairs. Then bring me every stick of C4 you can find in the next five minutes.”
In the end, it took almost fifteen minutes to rig the explosives. Enough time to send all the other personnel down in the elevators. Only Makepeace, Jefferson and Booker remained.
“Give me the detonator,” Makepeace said, holding out his hand to Jefferson.
He handed it over with a frown. “Sir, we could rig it remotely — set a timer.”
“Sure, if we knew exactly when the bastards were going to show up.”
“Colonel, let me do it,” Booker offered, with all the bullish bravery of the young. As if it didn’t matter, throwing your life away before you hit thirty.
Makepeace shook his head. “You need to make this count. Get Maybourne and the Alpha Site address to Hammond and get through the gate,” he told him. “Both of you. This fight isn’t over.”
“Sir —”
“That’s an order, Lieutenant. Major.” He settled himself against the wall, eyes on the steel doors, mostly hidden from view. He could see a sliver of light between the doors now as the Jaffa continued their assault. And it was only a matter of time before the first set of rings activated. Makepeace figured he could hold out for maybe ten minutes, let as many Jaffa as possible gather here for the assault on the base, before he detonated the charge.
He glanced up at Booker. “Go,” he said.
“Yes sir,” the lieutenant said, snapping off a crisp salute.
Makepeace reciprocated. Not because he felt that he had the right, but because the kid needed this moment. “Major?” he said then, turning to Jefferson. “Give General Hammond a message for me?”
“Yes sir.”
“Tell him…” He considered his words, but there wasn’t time for a full confession and even if there had been he wouldn’t have known where to start. So, instead, he simply said, “Tell him this is a better death than I deserve.”
“Sir?”
“He’ll understand.”
A screech from the steel doors echoed along the tunnel and, at the same moment, the first set of transporter rings dropped from the ceiling.
“It’s time,” Makepeace whispered, one hand firm on the detonator and the other on his gun. “Go. That’s an order.”
“Yes sir.” There was nothing else to be said.
He didn’t look around, but he heard the elevator doors open and close and knew that he was alone. Unobserved, he watched as the steel doors were pushed apart and daylight flooded back into the tunnel, along with ranks of Jaffa. Ring transporters continued to drop, depositing the enemy piece by piece as they massed for the assault on the SGC.
And Makepeace waited, finger on the detonator. He waited for just the right moment; he waited for his shot at redemption. It didn’t take long to come.
Eyes open, Makepeace tripped the detonator.
By Jack’s watch, they’d walked about ten minutes, although ‘walked’ wasn’t an entirely accurate term for their progress. They’d climbed, crawled and often stumbled through a warren of tunnels too low for them to stand fully upright, following the odd patch of red paint on the floor. He was glad of the breadcrumb trail because, without it, he wasn’t confident they’d be able to find their way back.
Just behind him, Daniel cursed as some rocks gave way beneath his feet and Jack looked back to find him flat on his backside. He bit back a grin. “You should probably watch your step there.” Daniel cursed again, but not at the rocks.
If there was one thing that Jack was glad about in this whole rotten mess they were in, it was that he’d decided to let go of the asshole act. He couldn’t control much of what was going on around them right now, but he could control that, and to have kept it up any longer would have risked the whole team. A weight had been lifted since he’d told Carter as much of the truth as he dared, especially because she’d accepted his word on it, knowing that there were certain things he just couldn’t say. He looked up to see if she’d found Daniel falling on his ass as amusing as he had, but she wasn’t even looking in their direction. She was sweeping her flashlight across what was visible of the floor and then up to the ceiling, peering through the debris that hung low above them.
“Everything alright, Carter?”
“Yes, sir, I think so,” she said with a frown. “It’s just… how many hours of daylight did you count before we got here?”