SG1-25 Hostile Ground(11)

“Stay alert, people,” he barked as they descended the steps, weapons readied, boots squelching into mud. The only sound was the drumming of rain on the plastic of his camouflage poncho.

“You think they’re still on this planet, sir?” asked Lieutenant Johnson, scanning the area through the sight of his P90.

“I guess that’s what we’re here to find out. By the looks of this place, they were under some pretty heavy fire. Let’s sweep the perimeter. Wade, check out the DHD, see if they dialed out. Bosco, stay with him.”

Makepeace and Johnson headed for the tree line, splitting up to cover more ground, while Major Wade opened up the front of the DHD and plugged himself in.

It was Johnson who made the find. “Sir, we got bodies!” Makepeace’s stomach dropped, but when he reached the lieutenant it was the steely gray armor of a Jaffa that glinted dully in the undergrowth.

“There’s another one over there,” said Johnson, nodding further into the wooded area.

That, at least, gave him some satisfaction. Whatever had happened to the team, they’d at least managed to take a few of the bastards down beforehand. “Well, let’s see who SG-1 had a tangle with, huh?” Makepeace wedged his toe under the body and flipped it over. The dead Jaffa’s sightless eyes stared at the sky, rain washing the mud from his pale face. Hunkering down, Makepeace brushed away the remaining dirt from the corpse’s forehead.

“You recognize it, sir?”

Makepeace pursed his lips and shook his head. The tattoo was unfamiliar, a horned circle with a strange looking cross underneath. He pulled the tiny camera from the side pocket of his BDUs and snapped a shot. Let the experts back at the base take a look at it and figure out who they were dealing with. If SG-1 were being held captive, they’d need all the intel they could gather, and if this was a new snake on the block, they’d need far more than that.

As they made their way back to the gate, Makepeace scanned the area. The place was a washout, the rain having spoiled any real chance they might have had of picking up a trail, but there were spent bullet casings everywhere. Whatever had happened, the team had obviously been balls to the wall and Makepeace saw three possible outcomes.

First, SG-1 had been cut off from the gate and then taken prisoner by whatever snakehead had attacked them. If that was the case, then he didn’t like the odds of finding where they’d been taken.

Second option: they’d dialed an address and made it through, but wherever they’d ended up it wasn’t Earth. And given their current MIA status, they’d possibly landed in a situation that was just as hot as the one they’d escaped. Makepeace didn’t much like that option either.

The last option was one he could work with: they’d dialed up, but had to take cover before they could reach the wormhole itself, which meant they were still in hiding somewhere nearby. But why not come out when the coast was clear and dial home?

He knew O’Neill and he knew what sort of a strategist he was. In fact, O’Neill and he were similar in many ways. Jack always sought the practical answer, not necessarily the one that conformed to the rules, but he was a man who got the job done, regardless. A fine leader and one for whom he’d always had a lot of respect. Who else could take a scientist, a civilian geek and a goddamned alien and turn them into a formidable unit?

Makepeace also knew that he wasn’t the only one who was watching O’Neill as a potential asset — which just made it all the more important to get them back in one piece.

“Anything?” he asked Wade, who stood squinting at the handheld unit he’d plugged into the front of the DHD.

“It’s the darnedest thing, sir. As far as I can tell, the last address dialed was Earth.”

“How is that possible? There was no incoming wormhole at the SGC.”

Wade shrugged. “Maybe it skipped to another gate? Wouldn’t be the first time. But if that’s the case…”

Wade didn’t need to finish his sentence. If SG-1 went through a wormhole that had skipped to some other random gate, they could be anywhere in the galaxy. How the hell would they have any hope of finding them? And if a Goa’uld had them, then the clock was most definitely ticking.

“Okay, people,” Makepeace said, “there’s nothing more to find here. Let’s move out.”

But as he turned to head up the steps to the gate his eye was caught by something lying in the mud. A USAF standard issue field dressing — and it was soaked in blood. Wherever SG-1 was, one of them was injured and bleeding badly.



The climb up the hillside was slow going. The mist made visibility difficult and often they had to backtrack on themselves after finding their path cut off by jutting rocks that had been hidden in the low light.