“Teal’c! This way!” she called, darting off to the right. The brig should be around there somewhere, but with the smoke and the chaos she started to worry they’d got turned around somehow. Was it this — ?
Something barreled into her, knocking her to the floor, pinning her down and knocking the gun from her hands. She heard the hiss of Teal’c’s staff weapon opening…
“Teal’c! Don’t shoot — it’s me!”
“O’Neill.”
Adrenaline high, Sam almost laughed in relief. Colonel O’Neill’s weight disappeared from her and she grabbed up her weapon as he pulled her to her feet. “Colonel, how did you — ?”
“Later, Carter. My escape isn’t exactly one hundred percent complete.”
“Lanteaaaaan! I will hunt you!” The banshee wail came from somewhere in the colonel’s wake, a nerve-shredding sound. “I can smell your blood!”
“I suggest we depart this place, O’Neill.”
“Ya think?”
A shambling figure rounded the corner, inhuman in every sense. Behind it, Amam moved in the smoke, gathering to strike. Sam swallowed and took a step back, lifted her weapon.
“Carter?” the colonel breathed. “Run.”
They ran.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Daniel was on his feet and out the door in a flash. A dull boom still ricocheted around the mountains as smoke billowed from one side of the Amam ship.
“Sam,” he breathed. He wasn’t sure whether to be pleased or terrified by the development, but at least something was happening.
“You think your people done that?” Hunter said, following him outside.
“I just hope they meant to.”
There was a beat of silence while they both watched the ship, waiting for the next explosion. But nothing else happened. “You know,” Hunter mused, “one day I’m gonna watch that whole darn thing burn.”
Daniel couldn’t help smiling at the certainty in his voice. It was a young man’s certainty, the kind that hadn’t had its optimistic corners knocked off yet. He remembered when he’d felt like that himself. “Listen,” he said, glancing at Hunter. “I need to help my friends now. If they escaped the ship, they’ll be heading down to the camp and I need to show them the way.”
Hunter turned his gaze from the smoking ship and back to Daniel. “I’ll take you out to the boundary,” he said, “but we gotta hurry. It’s dangerous outside after dark.”
Daniel glanced around at the other people who stood staring at the smoke drifting in the misty evening air. “Because people might attack us for food?”
Hunter shook his head. “Because at night the Snatchers come to hunt.”
Daniel took that in, nodded, and then glanced past Hunter toward Faith who stood in the doorway to their home, watching her husband with a tense expression. He looked again at the Amam ship pouring smoke into the sky, at the steep mountainside down which they’d walked this morning and then back at Hunter. “You stay here with Faith and your son,” he said. “I’ll go alone.”
“You won’t find the way,” Hunter objected.
Daniel allowed himself a slight smile. “You think I won’t be able to see that Amam ship from anywhere in the camp?”
“And to find our home again?”
“Trust me. I have a good sense of direction.”
“But you —”
“Hunter,” Faith said from where she still stood in the doorway. “Please.”
Daniel reached out and put his hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “You’ve done enough for us,” he said. “And I can do this myself.”
Hunter looked torn for a moment, but then nodded. “If you’re not back by dawn, I’ll come lookin’.”
“Okay,” Daniel agreed. “Now go be with your family.”
The journey back out to the perimeter was much faster than the journey in, partly because Daniel was running and partly because no one was getting in his way. Everyone was hunkering down inside, a sense of anxious expectation pervading the whole camp. Daniel doubted the explosion on the ship had done much to steady anyone’s nerves and there was certainly no sense of celebration in the camp. It made him wonder about the relationship these people had with the Amam — both the givers of life and the bringers of death.
As the feeding station grew closer, he slowed to a walk to catch his breath. Stealth, he thought, might be helpful too, although so far he’d seen no sign of the Amam and he’d heard no tell-tale rattle of gunfire. Both of which could either be good or bad news, but he didn’t dare break radio silence to find out.