“Yeah,” Sam said, a beat of fear kicking in her chest, “that’s what I figured.”
Daniel was heavier than he looked and his feet kept slipping in the mud, threatening to send them both sprawling. He was doing his best, Jack knew that, but he was carrying a serious wound and he wasn’t moving fast enough. He just couldn’t.
From behind them came the rattle of an MP5 — Carter’s precise bursts of weapons fire. But there were too many staff-blasts and, worse, they were getting closer. Teal’c and Carter were falling back faster than he and Daniel were staggering forward.
“Jack…” The grim whisper cut through the sounds of battle. “Need to stop… moment…”
One look at Daniel’s ghostly face told him he didn’t have a choice; Daniel was halfway to unconsciousness already. Lowering him to the ground, Jack braced him up against a tree, gleaning what little shelter he could from the thin canopy above, and considered the situation. It stunk. Still, they’d survived worse. Probably. He toggled his radio. “Carter, what’s your position?”
He didn’t get an answer right away, but he could hear her weapon discharging, so he figured she was busy. Couple of seconds later, her voice crackled over the radio. “We’re falling back, sir. There’s too many.”
Damn it. He considered his choices for a moment, then made the decision and hit the talk button again. “Carter, you need to make a run for the gate, dial it up and hold it for us. Teal’c, I’m gonna need your help with Daniel.”
“On our way, sir,” was Carter’s immediate response, which probably meant she’d already reached the same conclusion. “Carter out.”
Daniel had a hand over his eyes, his bloodless lips pressed into a tight line of pain. “You should leave me here,” he said, hand dropping into his lap as he peered up at Jack through rain-covered glasses. There was no bravado, no self-pity; he was just stating the obvious. “It would be the logical thing to do.”
“Yeah, well,” Jack said, reaching down and hauling him upright. “You know how I feel about logic.”
“I mean it,” Daniel said, swaying on his feet. “No point in us all dying here.”
“No one’s dying here,” Jack said, as they staggered back into an ungainly hobble. “But maybe, just maybe, next time someone suggests a mission to study a bunch of ancient rocks instead finding of something useful, my objections won’t get shut down.”
Daniel didn’t comment, but he didn’t need to. Even semi-conscious, he managed to radiate indignation. Jack grimaced, but reminded himself that indignation was exactly what he needed from his team right now.
Sam darted through the trees, keeping as low and quiet as possible. She had to sacrifice most of her stealth for speed, but there was no point in advertising her presence if she could help it and so she breathed quietly and kept her ears open for sounds of pursuit.
She was traversing a hill, heading back to the Stargate, through a sparsely wooded landscape. The rain had started last night and hadn’t stopped since, transforming the valley below into marshland and the hillside into a mudslide. Not to mention soaking them all to the skin and turning what was meant to be a light mission into a grueling test of endurance. And that was before the Jaffa had shown up.
Behind her, but growing more distant, she could still hear the sounds of battle. Only staff weapons so far, which meant they hadn’t caught up with Daniel and the colonel. Yet. Teal’c was doing a hell of a job holding the Jaffa back on his own.
Suddenly, the ground shifted and she stumbled, feet tangling and slip-sliding over tree roots washed bare by water streaming down the hill. Stifling a curse, she grabbed at a branch and caught it with one hand, but the weight of her pack swung her backward, slamming her shoulder into the tree, and she barely kept from face-planting into the mud. “Damn it,” she growled, as she reached up to get both hands onto the branch. She scrambled back to more stable ground, getting her feet under her again. The dull throb in her shoulder promised it was going to hurt in the morning.
Sucking in a breath, she peered up the hill. She’d been sticking to the military crest for most of the way, but now it was time to head for the top. She had little but rain for cover as the trees grew increasingly scarce, but at least she had started to recognize the terrain they’d covered the day before — was it only the day before? — when they’d thought they were on a simple recon mission to an uninhabited world. A back-in-the-saddle mission, General Hammond had called it: SG-1’s first trip off-world since the colonel had returned from his extended stay on Edora.