"A what?" Their guide"s voice was even further away, the echoes of the shaft making the distance between them difficult to gauge.
"Nothing," grumbled the colonel. "Just... are we nearly there yet?"
"We"ve a way to go yet, O"Neill," answered Hunter. "Dix"s chamber"s real deep underground."
It made sense, thought Sam, in more ways than one. If this was the hideout of the resistance against the Amam, the last thing the alien creatures would expect would be to have it beneath their very noses. Hiding in plain sight was a common insurgent tactic. By the same token, caution was still a watchword and having the base so deep underground would ensure that the Amam didn"t stumble on it during one of their hunts. Obviously, though, it hadn"t been built by the Goa"uld, but rather adopted for their own purposes.
The colonel"s chain of thought had clearly followed the same path as her own. "So what exactly is this place, Hunter? Some kind of mine?"
"Your what, Colonel?"
"Huh? No, I mean a mine. An underground mine."
"I don"t get your meanin". We"re too deep to plant explosives."
"No, not a mine! I meana"
"Jack, I think we can a.s.sume that the people of this planet have no mining industry. I"ve yet to see anything that would indicate they have any economy based on production anda"
"Daniel?"
"Yeah?"
"I just meant that this is a really deep hole."
There was a beat of silence and then, "Yeah."
Sam pressed her lips together to keep from laughing and kept climbing down.
After what seemed like another age, she heard booted feet hitting rock and a few seconds later a light shone up the shaft. "Careful, Carter," said the colonel. "Ground"s a little uneven down here."
Moments later, she stepped from the ladder into the circle of illumination cast by his flashlight and tried to shake the ache from her arms and shoulders. They had reached a small chamber slightly larger than the shaft down which they had just climbed.
"Where now?" asked the colonel.
Hunter nodded towards a nearby wall that had collapsed in on itself, forming a large hole. "Through there. I can"t go no further."
Sam frowned and peered through the hole. The pa.s.sage beyond was dark and rubble-filled, just another rotten place on this rotten world. "But, Hunter," she said, "you said you"d take us to Dix."
"Yeah, Hunter," said the colonel, peering through the hole. "Jesus, it"s like a war zone down here... Which, I realize, it probably is."
"I ain"t Inner Circle," said Hunter. "From here, you go shadow."
"Shadow?" said Daniel.
"Yup," said Hunter. "Means you go alone." He glanced at each of their faces and Sam guessed he was seeing the same reluctance on each. "Don"t worry," he said, swinging himself back on to the ladder. "Follow the red. Follow the red and they"ll find you."
"What"s the "red"?" she asked, not liking the color connotations and hoping it was just an irrational instinct.
"You"ll see," he replied, his voice already an echo in the darkness. "They"ll find you."
The four of them stood staring up the shaft for a while longer, as if he would suddenly reappear, but when the only sound was the receding clang of boots on metal, Colonel O"Neill looked back down at the hole in the wall. "Follow the Yellow Brick Road, huh?"
Sam took a breath. "Sir, are you sure about this?"
He pulled his cap off and tucked it into his vest, scrubbing a hand through his mussed hair. "Nope, not really," he said, and stepped through the hole.
The pa.s.sage was barely that. Crowded and knotted up with rocks and fallen debris, they had to watch their footing and scramble through narrow gaps. But these weren"t the roughhewn caves of Aedan and his people. The debris had a distinct manmade look about it, fabricated with metal rods which would have posed a nasty hazard if not for their flashlights. Daniel noticed the same thing.
"I wonder what this place was built for," he said, picking his way over fallen masonry.
"Must be some kind of bunker," said the colonel. "I guess they knew the war was coming."
"It doesn"t look like it offered much protection."
"Not if they had bunker-busters. Wouldn"t matter how deep underground it was then."
"It was most likely a strategic location then, O"Neill," said Teal"c.
"Probably."
Sam kicked at the crumbling concrete in her path. "I don"t know, sir."
"Carter?"
She cast her light over the low-hanging ceiling and then down at the floor. There was another story here, another clue to be found.
Sixteen hours thirty. Twelve hours twenty.
"This damage seems to radiate from the ground up," she said. "It"s almost as if..."
"As if they self-destructed," Colonel O"Neill said; he wasn"t asking a question.
"I guess they had no option."
"They must"ve been pretty desperate."
Just like us, she thought.
"Red!" Daniel pointed his flashlight at a clear s.p.a.ce in the middle of the floor, and sure enough there, visible through the dust and rocks, was a streak of red. Just paint, from the look of it, contrary to the gruesome image Hunter"s instructions had conjured in her head. Scuffed and faded, but definitely red.
The colonel pushed away some of the rubble with his boot. "There"s more of it up ahead. Is that another pa.s.sage?"
It was a pa.s.sage, barely noticeable amid the wreckage around it.
"I guess this is our turn off," said the colonel, and set off into the gloom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.
The steel doors to the mountain closed with a clang, the noise echoing along the rest of the tunnel. Propped with his back against the wall, Makepeace fought down nausea as Jefferson hurriedly bandaged his bleeding arm. There was nothing he could do about his blown knee.
"Booker," Makepeace said, spitting words through gritted teeth, "get Maybourne down to the gate room."
Booker glanced at Jefferson, uncertain. "Yes sir."
Something impacted on the door, ringing it like a gong. "Staff blast," Jefferson said. "Those doors won"t hold them long."
Behind them the tunnel opened up into a parking lot and behind that was the security point and the elevators down into the complex. There were people there too, a last and hopeless line of defense. Makepeace looked up at the ceiling as another staff blast impacted on the doors.
"I don"t know why they"re bothering with the door," Maybourne said. "They can use ring transporters to get in here."
"But no deeper into the base," Makepeace said. "Not without a ring platform. They"ll have to fight their way in from here."
Maybourne glanced toward the elevators. "The sooner we get to the Stargate, the better."
Makepeace stared at him, at his jowly face, at the arrogance he still saw in the man"s eyes - and the cowardice. Maybourne was still running but Makepeace wasn"t, not anymore, it was time to pay the price for what he"d done.
"Jefferson," he said, "help me up."
The major hauled him upright, and Makepeace took a moment to let the dizziness pa.s.s. He could only stand on the one leg, but that would be enough. "How many explosives can we get our hands on?"
He saw Jefferson exchange another glance with Booker. "How much do we need, sir?"
"Enough to blow the tunnel, to bring this whole thing down on top of their heads."
"Are you insane?" Maybourne protested. "That would -"
"Shut up, Maybourne," he snapped. "Booker - get someone to take this piece of s.h.i.t 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.ds 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 a.s.sault. 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 a.s.sault 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. Un.o.bserved, 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 ma.s.sed for the a.s.sault 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 a.s.shole 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 a.s.s 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?"
He shrugged. "Three? Three and a half? Why?"
She shook her head as if clearing a troublesome thought. "Nothing. I"m just trying to work something out. I don"t know..."
Jack let it go, although normally, when Carter was concerned about something, they should all be concerned. He knew that it was best to let her work it out on her own; when she wanted to tell him, she would, so instead he turned to set off back down the pa.s.sage.
A face was staring at him out of the darkness.
"Whoa!" Instinctively, he brought his weapon round to bear. Behind him, he heard Carter and Teal"c do the same. Their new companion, he noticed, did likewise. "Easy," Jack said. "Hunter sent us here. To see Dix. He said he could help us."