Hydra Page 11

  “Oh, dear,” he wailed softly. “No, no, no, there’s no time!” He made another attempt to get by Carter but she wouldn’t budge, so he gave O’Neill an appealing look over his shoulder while pointing in the direction of the siren. “You must help! The pump on the secondary coolant tank is not working! The gears in the heat exchanger will fuse!”

  “So?” Jackson asked.

  Harlan looked at him like he was the dumbest kid to fall off the apple truck this month. “So? So if the gears fuse, the heat cannot be expelled, and then — ” He made an expressive “poof” with his hands. “ — it will explode!” When nobody seemed to take this terribly hard, he added, “And it will be very bad. Very hard to repair. Very, very hard.”

  “Okay,” O’Neill said, coming close to pin Harlan between himself and Carter. “You give us what we need, and we’ll let you go fix your whatsis. Although why you’d want to is honestly beyond me.”

  Harlan’s mouth fell open and then closed in a tight, sad frown. “Want to? It is my home. I’m the last!” His hand fluttered up to pat O’Neill’s chest and away again like he’d touched something hot. “Except for you. Of course.” His gaze slid in Carter’s direction. “You have a servo loose in your left shoulder.” He leaned a little on her outstretched arm. “I can hear it. Not serious. Easily repaired.” Turning back to O’Neill, he continued, “But I am the last, the only one left to remember Hubbald, the last of my people.” As he spoke, he looked nervously in the direction of the faulty coolant pump and bounced a little with anxiety. “Please. If you have not come to help me, why are you here? Not, of course, that I’m sad to see you. I am so happy!” Putting his palms together, he said, “Comtraya!” and pulled them apart in a circular gesture of celebration. “I was told you were dead. Dead, gone. So sad — ”

  O’Neill slapped his hand across Harlan’s mouth. “Maybe somebody’s dead, but it’s not us.” He gave Harlan’s head a shake. “We’re not them. We’re us. And we don’t have a lot of time.”

  Harlan’s eyes widened.

  “The power source. We want it. Now.”

  Against O’Neill’s palm, he said, “Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, Harlan.” O’Neill nodded Harlan’s head up and down in time with the words. “And you’re going to tell us how to make it work so we can get the heck off this piece-of-junk planet.”

  O’Neill pulled his hand away as Harlan set off on another agitated filibuster. “I can’t do that! It’s impossible. Quite, quite impossible. And even if it wasn’t, if you take it I will die and all of this will be lost.” He swept an arm in a wide arc to take in the installation in all its rusting, stinking, oozing glory, and his expression brightened from panic to hopeful cheerfulness. “But you could stay! You could stay and help. I need help. This place, it’s so big for one person to handle.” As if in agreement, another siren started whining in counterpoint to the first, making Harlan shake visibly with distress.

  “By this time,” Teal’c observed, “the NID have discovered that they have lost contact with their outpost. They will know we have accessed their computers. It is likely that they will come here to retrieve us.”

  “Good point. Sorry, Harlan, we can’t stick around. We want the power source.” O’Neill was looming so close that Harlan started to shrink into himself like he was expecting to be crushed, which was probably true. “Talk, Harlan, or I’m going to have to resort to plan B.”

  “Plan B?” Harlan repeated timorously.

  “Yeah, that’s the one where Carter takes your head off and we figure it all out someplace else.”

  Behind him, Jackson snorted his disgust, but Carter obediently wrapped her hand around Harlan’s throat.

  “But it can’t be done!” Harlan squeaked as the pressure increased. “The power source is integrated. Fully integrated into the station’s systems!”

  O’Neill leaned even closer. “Then unintegrate it.”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Hubbald! He’s the creator of all of this. He knew everything. Everything. But he’s gone! Gone for so long now and I am all alone here.”

  Narrowing his eyes, O’Neill studied Harlan’s face for a moment, then reached down and untwisted Harlan’s hands from each other. He raised the left one by the thumb. “Answer me this, then.” He began to apply pressure, feeling the resistance as the joint strained against the motion. “How come this Hubbald left us with the capacity to feel pain?”

  “Jack — ”

  O’Neill stabbed a finger in Jackson’s direction to shut him up. Jackson lifted his hands in resignation and went to sit on the stairs. O’Neill turned back to his task. “It’s a design flaw, Harlan.”

  “It — it makes us more — ” His mouth opened wider but nothing came out.

  “More what?”

  “More alive.”

  Placing one gentle hand on the side of Harlan’s face, O’Neill used the other to snap Harlan’s thumb backward. When Harlan stopped screaming, O’Neill said, “It makes you weak.”

  The gate light didn’t do much for the decor, although Sam figured it at least gave the place a nice Gothic atmosphere, just in case anybody was feeling relaxed or anything. She took a moment to wonder whether she and Daniel had actually pulled the short straw, winning the maddening job of chasing Harlan around while he twittered and fretted and evaded questions in that cheerily desperate way he had. As she nodded to the marines to take flanking positions at the foot of the ramp, she decided that, no, even coming back to this depressing place had to be less awful than Colonel O’Neill’s task. She wouldn’t be surprised to gate home to discover Maybourne stuffed and mounted over the colonel’s mantelpiece.

  She felt the marine to her left — Rickert, more bear than man — raise his P90. A second later, the one to the right — Hassan, terrier-fast and ferocious — did the same. A siren was groaning and, in that direction, a red light was flashing in a panicked, erratic rhythm.

  “Huh,” Daniel said from behind them. “I don’t remember it being so...”

  Sam could picture him opening and closing his mouth a couple of times, trying to find a nice way to say it.

  “Horrible?” Hassan offered helpfully, her lip curling. Sam sympathized. The place had acquired a distinctly decrepit smell since they were last here.

  Daniel’s shadow rippled as he shrugged, and then it disappeared when the gate disengaged. “Not Netu horrible. More...old abandoned installation inhabited by B-movie zombies horrible.”

  “Are there any other kind of zombies?” Hassan asked. She was at the bottom of the steps now, aiming the P90 down through the grating where, on the next level down, it sounded like an industrial washing machine was eating a Volkswagen. Steam billowed up and she stepped back, coughing. “Nice.”

  “Okay, let’s just find Harlan.” Sam waved them toward the flashing light on the assumption that, if he wasn’t at the gate beaming and waving his arms around and singing “Comtraya,” Harlan was probably gluing bits of the installation back together. “And remember, there may be duplicates running around, so stay alert and don’t shoot the good guys.” She lifted her arm to indicate the orange band tied around her bicep. In case there was any confusion on this score, Daniel did the same. His band had written on it in the colonel’s hand, “Annoying but not evil.” Sam hid a smile.

  Hassan and Rickert nodded and fell in, Hassan behind Sam and Rickert behind Daniel.

  “Do you really think they’re coming here?” Daniel asked, although from his tone, he already knew the answer.

  “If I was hunting for information, I’d look into my origins, go back to the source.”

  Daniel made a noncommittal sound that was almost lost in the moaning of the siren. “If they know about this place.”

  “Some source,” Rickert said as he sidestepped a slick oozing from the bottom of a shuddering machine, only to step into another slick oozing from an identical machine on the other side of the corridor. “What’s th
at stink?”

  “My guess is the scrubbers are malfunctioning,” Sam answered. “We probably don’t want to be here too long.”

  “Or at all.”

  “Easier to keep your ears open when your mouth is shut, Ricky,” Hassan said.

  “Ma’am.”

  Not bad advice on Hassan’s part, except there was practically no chance they’d hear something coming. The siren was still grating away and the washing machine was still gnawing at its dinner. Something flickered in Sam’s peripheral vision. She raised her fist, and the team came to a stop and lined up against the hot flank of yet another machine. Cursing the siren, which blotted out more important sounds, she edged up to the next gap and peered into it. Another flicker of motion, but the pipe near her head was hissing steam and she couldn’t make out what it was. The strobing red light that went with the siren made the steam alternately an opaque wall and a shadow box filled with menacing shapes. Just as she was bending to get a better view, a shot from the next corridor over ruptured the pipe. The belching steam drove her back into Hassan, who caught her before she fell and pulled her away as the end of the alley filled up and another siren yelped in alarm.

  As she waved the team back the way they came, another shot gouged the concrete at Sam’s feet. A third caught Rickert in the shoulder and spun him around so that he landed on his knees, but he was up again in a second. It was unclear whether he was letting Daniel help him or was shielding Daniel with his body. Either way, they were heading back along the alley, sticking close to the minimal cover of the machines.

  They didn’t get far before the floor in front of them was strafed in a precise line of staff weapon fire. Rickert let Daniel push him into the space between the machines and then shuffled around to get Daniel behind him. Hassan and Sam ducked into the corresponding space on the other side of the alley.

  “There!” Hassan pointed up at the catwalk spanning the alley above them.

  Blinking condensation from her eyes and ignoring the sting of the burn on the side of her face, Sam followed Hassan’s gaze just in time to see a familiar shape disappearing up the stairs to the next level. “Teal’c,” she said, and saw Daniel nodding across from her, confirming. “Rickert?”

  The marine’s scowl was eloquent, but he unclenched his teeth long enough to say, “Arm’s no good, but I got another one.”

  “Sheep,” Hassan said.

  Sam grunted her agreement while Daniel raised his eyebrows and mouthed “Sheep?”

  “They’re herding us,” Sam answered. “Can’t go forward. Can’t go back.”

  “Ah,” Daniel said. “Sheep. Right.”

  Sam edged to the corner and risked a peek back along the alley. Steam was still hissing from the ruptured pipe, but it was starting to clear a little. She got her head tucked in again in time to avoid a shot from that direction. “Harlan’s control center is back that way.” Leaning her head against the metal side of the machine, she peered up through the slice of catwalk she could see from this angle. It seemed empty. Somewhere off to the right were footsteps, but she couldn’t tell if they were coming from the gate or from the control center. The first siren stopped abruptly, and a low rumble shook the floor under her. The second siren yawped one last time and cut out, and with it the warning light. In the sudden silence, she heard Hassan swear under her breath when the floor under them shuddered, followed a moment later by a percussion Sam could feel in her bones. Her ears popped.

  Sam turned to Hassan and said, “Take Rickert and get back to the gate.” She pointed with her P90 past Daniel and through the gap between the machines at the next alley. “Dial out and apprise Hammond of the situation. Tell him we’ve engaged the thetas. We think.” She looked the question at Daniel and he nodded again.

  “Seems a reasonable assumption,” Daniel answered. “Dan said that the other teams weren’t a threat, and these guys are definitely threatening.”

  “Okay.” Deciding safe was better than sorry, Sam looked from Hassan to Rickert. “If you see any of them, take your shot.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hassan responded while Sam checked to make sure that Rickert had the catwalk covered.

  On Sam’s signal, Hassan dashed out across the alley, shoving Rickert back and taking his place. Then Sam followed. A bullet tore a hole in the concrete at her heels, and Hassan fired a sweeping burst into the thinning steam at the end of the alley. After taking a second to look Rickert over — he was sweating and pasty but alert — Sam climbed over him and then Daniel to check out the next alley. It was clear in both directions, and the catwalk above ended in an empty staircase. No overhead vantage there. There was still a chance that someone could pick them off from atop one of the machines, but the floor was shuddering continuously now and staying put wasn’t doing them any good.

  She covered Hassan and Rickert as they darted across the alley and into another gap. No fire. Turning to Daniel, she said, “You good to go?”

  He nodded. “Go where, exactly?”

  “We do a quick check of the control center, try to find Harlan.” She paused, unable to be heard over the whining, groaning sound of stressed metal giving way. The floor shuddered again, but there were no sirens. That was a bad sign. “If he’s not there — ” She couldn’t hear Daniel’s reply, but his frown said it all. No help for it. Given what they knew about the duplicates, Harlan’s chances weren’t good in any case.

  Covering each other, they leapfrogged their way across three more alleys and then crept back toward the control room, keeping as much as possible under the crazy web of pipes and cables that made a virtually solid canopy in this part of the installation. They were almost back at the point parallel to the ambush and ready to cut across to the control center when the colonel’s voice rose gate-ward in a loud whoop, followed by a burst of P90 fire. Sam keyed her radio and Rickert answered.

  “Got two at the gate,” he panted.

  “Who?”

  “O’Neill and Teal’c. Jeez, Major, they look just like — ” A succession of staff blasts drowned him out.

  “Do you control the gate?” Sam asked.

  “No joy. But we will.”

  Hassan’s voice cut in. “Damn, these guys are fast!” More gunfire.

  “Okay, hang tight. We’re close to the control center. We’re gonna check it out and head back.” Holding onto Daniel to keep her footing, she waited until the floor stopped rolling underneath them and pushed him toward the control room. “Two at the gate. So where’re the other ones?”

  “You mean us.”

  “I mean them.”

  Just then Daniel tripped and fell headlong with a muffled “Oomph,” then rolled over to get a look at what had gotten under his feet.

  “Oh, God,” Sam said.

  “That’s — ”

  Sam bent down and picked it up. “Harlan’s arm.”

  “ — disturbing,” Daniel finished.

  As she lifted it, still in its quilted sleeve, the arm uncurled and the fingers opened beseechingly. “Hopefully the rest of him is still in one piece,” Sam said.

  He was, more or less. Somehow, even with only one arm, Harlan managed to convey hand-wringing. As they came around either side of his console, he looked up at them with a start and lifted his hand up to shield his face. “I have no more! It doesn’t matter what you do! I cannot do what you ask!”

  He hunched defensively away as Daniel leaned in and said in his soothing voice, “Harlan, it’s okay. It’s us.” He shot Sam a quick glance. “The flesh-and-blood us, not the — ” A wave of his hand in the direction of the gate. “ — you know, ‘them’ us.”

  Sam left Daniel to coax Harlan out of the emotional fetal position while she did a quick survey of the console. It took only a second to see that the thing was useless, every interface and monitor fried. No wonder there were no sirens. Harlan’s rising wail, half relief, half dismay, did the same job.

  “Harlan, what’s going on here?” Sam demanded as gently as she could, given that whatever had explod
ed was belching smoke into the main complex and gunfire was still popping like fireworks from the direction of the gate. The decrepit stench was worse now, and she was pretty certain that whatever counted as an atmosphere planetside was leaking in.

  “Them!” Harlan cried, pointing with a wavering finger toward the gate. “They wouldn’t let me — the coolant leak — overheating — and then they destroyed — ” His gesture began with the console and ended up taking in the whole place in a wide arc. He raised tearful eyes to Daniel. “How could they? They are Hubbald’s children, too!”

  Another explosion, this one closer, almost knocked him out of his chair. Daniel and Sam clutched the console for balance.

  “He made this place! He made this body, the technology — ”

  “They’re not Hubbald’s children, Harlan,” Daniel said. “He never made something like them, okay?”

  Harlan squeezed his eyes shut and bobbed his head in agreement. “No. Hubbald would never.” When he opened them again, his gaze was clear and as accusing as Harlan was capable of. “Your people! You Earth people! Months ago they promised to help me, and instead they took my duplicating equipment, your templates, and left me here alone with no help! They made these ones!” Even with the anger in his words, Harlan looked more hurt and confused than furious.

  Daniel glanced at Sam, his brow furrowed deeply. “Not us. Not our people. Not exactly.”

  Sam shook her head. They didn’t have time for this. “We’ve got to go.”

  Between the two of them, they got Harlan on his feet and moving in the direction of the gate where the occasional burst of gunfire could be heard over the groans and squeals of collapsing infrastructure and the rumble of secondary explosions.

  “And then they came — the duplicates — bad, very bad malfunctions, I think — and wanted to take the source, the power source — that’s mine, all I have to keep me alive — and they wouldn’t believe me when I said that it was integrated. The planet — it draws its power from the planet — and they were so angry. So angry.” Harlan’s litany broke as he bent to collect his arm from where Sam had left it in the alley, and then it started up again. “The others, the first ones I made those years ago, those first duplicates, they were angry sometimes but they were never, never cruel.”