03 - The First Amendment (23 page)

“Good grief, it really
is
Mothra,” O’Neill muttered, raising his
rifle. Carter tossed the energy staff back to Teal’C and unlimbered her own
rifle.

The alien pulled up then, made a staticky noise, and dived on them, the
sphincter spraying as it came. The liquid was thick, viscous, and black, and
where it touched, what it touched, turned dark and melted, bubbling. A glob hit
O’Neill’s rifle, and he watched in amazement as the barrel melted off cleanly
and dripped onto the ground. Casting the useless weapon aside, he pulled his
sidearm and kept on fighting.

Teal’C, O’Neill, and Carter were all firing, even as they pulled back behind
the shelter of the gate. Carter was the only one using a standard military-issue
automatic rifle, Kinsey noted, but Teal’C fired his staff at the thing, and
unlike the bullets, the bolt of energy released by the Jaffa weapon seemed to
have an effect. Half of the creature’s upper right wing disintegrated, and it
spiraled downward to the earth, shrieking thinly. “That’s the paralysis sound!”
Kinsey yelled, as O’Neill began moving in slow motion.

“I think it’s trying to communicate with its friends,” Carter said grimly as
she too began to slow.

“I agree,” Teal’C responded from farther away, and fired again at the alien,
blowing the rest of its head off. The sound stopped. So did the paralysis.

“Then I think we’d better haul out of here, don’t you?” O’Neill asked, and
suited his actions to his words. Rather than heading straight across the battle plain to the Stargate, however, he followed the original path, heading to the
outcrop of rock, the sled with the unconscious Jackson bouncing behind them.

“What the hell?” Kinsey panted. “Why are we taking a detour?”

“The F.R.E.D. is there,” Carter said. “There’s some stuff we need in it.”

“What—what kind of stuff? Why can’t we just jump through the hoop and g-get
h-home?”

“Because we can’t be sure these aliens, or the other ones, aren’t able to
determine the last code entered on the Dial-Home Device. If they can, they’ll
have the coordinates for Earth.”

Kinsey had to envy the captain, who managed to talk without panting while
moving at a very brisk, businesslike trot. “But they’ll catch us!”

“Well, yeah, if you keep talking!” O’Neill snapped from behind them. “Save
your breath and
move
!”

Around him, the members of SG-1 lowered their heads and ran, making no
attempt to keep to the cover of the vine-trees now. It took something less than
half the time to return to the rock outcrop as it had to make the journey from
it to Etaa, and Kinsey was shuddering for breath as the team threw itself on the
peacefully parked mechanical puppy.

Trying to make himself useful, Kinsey climbed up on a handy rock and looked
around, only to find himself nose to something with a tubeneck, its horizontal
jaws working. With a startled cry he fell backward, neatly clearing a line of
fire for Teal’C, who blew the triangular head off.

“Okay, got it,” Carter said rapidly. Teal’C started down the slope with the
sled, Kinsey scrambling to catch up and take the second tow rope. Seconds later
the packs were loaded onto the F.R.E.D. and O’Neill was making a last-minute
adjustment to the machine.

“Okay, ran!” he yelled and leaped off the rock outcrop.

They were already running. The sled, made of some light metal, slid easily
across the ground, somehow managing not to catch on the vines and the bodies.
The weight of the injured man was barely noticeable once they got it moving. It
was certainly easier to travel without being weighed down by sixty pounds of
pack, adjusted for local gravity. Kinsey felt he was flying along the edge of
the bubbled-over battleground, actually leaping alien corpses at full stride.

Then the percussion of the exploding F.R.E.D. hit, and he really was flying
for several feet. It was something of a relief to realize he wasn’t the only one
who had been picked up and tossed through the air; the rest of the team were
spitting dirt too. He looked back over his shoulder to see four or five
tubenecks not far from the former rock outcrop also picking themselves up, and
two moth aliens still pinwheeling through the sky.

By the time they reached the last line of trees before the Gate, both sets of
aliens were in pursuit, apparently having set aside their differences in order
to deal with the humans. The moths weren’t yet close enough to spray, but the
tubenecks had some short-range weapons that spat sharply and turned the near
ground into an unpleasantly familiar bubbling mass.

O’Neill reached the DHD first and began slapping coordinates on the domed
surface. Teal’C and Carter took up positions on either side of him, guarding the
route to the Gate. Kinsey shouldered the tow rope and dragged the sled as close
to the Gate as he dared, then looked around again to find, first, a tubeneck
rapidly gaining on him and second, O’Neill right beside him. The colonel was
deliberately slowing his pace to that of the sled.

The wormhole roared open.

It was still fifty feet away, and the tubeneck was only thirty.

O’Neill grabbed one of the ropes, helping to pull Daniel along, while Teal’C
and Carter fired steadily at the tubeneck, which was weaving back and forth and
returning fire. Then Carter stopped and knelt by the Gate. Three heartbeats
later she rose and waved her arms in an all-clear gesture.

“Go!”
O’Neill roared, rolling away from Kinsey and then standing,
yelling, to draw fire. Carter backed through the Gate. The sled caught, and
Jackson moaned as it wobbled, nearly toppling over. Teal’C ran up to Kinsey and
took the rope, hauling the sled up and over the rim of the wormhole. Kinsey
tried to get up and untangle himself, but his foot slipped on the gravel on the
base of the Gate and he fell to one knee.

They were close now, within touching distance of the steps to the Gate, when
a shadow crossed above them. Without thinking, Kinsey threw himself to one side,
into O’Neill, knocking both of them sprawling across the steps, and at the same
time something very, very cold touched Frank Kinsey’s left foot, barely missing
the sled. He found himself staring at the base of the Stargate, at what looked
very much like an impressive mass of C-4 with a very short delay.

O’Neill scrambled to his feet, and Kinsey tried to follow as the colonel
stood by, providing covering fire. His foot wouldn’t give him any purchase.
Bewildered, he glanced down.

It wasn’t there.

The next thing he knew, he was thrown bodily into the silver shimmer of the
Stargate and falling through a cold that wasn’t quite enough to mask that other
cold that still possessed him.

“So,” O’Neill said, two days later when Frank Kinsey had been released from
Medical long enough to visit Hammond’s office. The reporter was on crutches.
Eventually he would graduate to a cane—he still had half a foot left. He looked
wryly at O’Neill, who was spotless and superb in dress blues, seated to one side
of the general’s desk. Hammond himself was sitting back watchfully, letting
O’Neill do the talking for the time being. Kinsey lowered himself carefully into
a chair and set his crutches to one side.

“Tell me again about the people’s right to know—and tell me what happens
when they find out,” O’Neill continued. “Tell me what all the conspiracy
theorists are going to do, what your dear old dad will do, when they hear you
tell them that Earth is only one very small spot in a very big universe. What
will all the decent, rational, fair-minded citizens of the world do when you try
to give them a whole new perspective on their daily lives?”

Kinsey pulled another chair over and propped what was left of his heavily
bandaged foot upon it. He shook his head, ignoring the question for the time
being. “Is Dr. Jackson going to be all right?”

“He’s going to be in physical therapy for a while.” Janet Frasier, sitting at
the other end of the desk, was smiling as she closed her clipboard. “Apparently
he
was
injected with some kind of venom, but it’s a compound native to Etaa and the effect was negligible—anesthetic, if anything.
His injuries are pretty serious, but he should eventually regain full range of
motion in his shoulders.”

“Thanks. I’m glad to hear it.” He closed his eyes, still remembering for some
reason the contrast of a smear of blood against the utter paleness of Jackson’s
face. It was an easier image to hold than some of the others. “What about the
paralysis field? Is that going to have any effect?”

“None that we can determine. There are no residual aftereffects. So far as I
can tell from what you’ve all told me, it had something to do with the effect of
the sound the moths made upon the human brain. Unfortunately the recording
quality of the camcorders wasn’t quite up to reproducing the effect.”

They had tumbled back to Earth only to be pounced upon by a well-trained
horde of medical personnel. He’d found himself on a table next to Jackson, had
an opportunity to see for himself the shredded gore of Jackson’s torso. He’d
been grateful to whatever powers there were that the man was unconscious, and
wondered how he had managed to keep his lungs intact to breathe. Then the
doctors had closed in around him and he hadn’t seen Jackson anymore.

“Well, Mr. Kinsey, do you see why we insist that the Stargate project remains
secret?” Hammond inquired gently.

“Fire in the crowded theater,” Kinsey said softly. “Panic. Distrust. All
those things humanity does best.”

Hammond smiled thinly. “That matches our own assessment.”

O’Neill took up the thread. “Give us time to allow the teams to carry out our
missions of threat assessment and discovering ways to protect Earth. Give us a
chance to prepare a defense. In a war, you don’t take a vote on how to proceed. War isn’t a democratic process, not if you
want to survive. You limit your complications, and you follow orders.”

“Speaking of following orders,” Hammond said grimly, addressing O’Neill, “I
do recall ordering you to make sure our guest didn’t get hurt. You were supposed
to show him consequences, not let him suffer them.”

O’Neill sat up straighter in his chair, ready to protest.

“Wait a minute,” Kinsey interrupted, looking around at the three officers and
wondering how his father had managed to survive a full-court press. “I’m not
sure I completely agree yet that the public doesn’t have a right to know the
details, but I know where you’re coming from. And anyway, I’m not sure anyone
would believe me. Even with this”—he pointed to his injury—“it’s just not
believable. Praying mantises and giant moths that turn people instantly into
greasy black powder? If you think I’m going to put my name on that kind of
article, you have another think coming. They’d cart me off to the funny farm.
No, General.

“Going through the Gate like that—I don’t know. I could have written about
all this, maybe, if I hadn’t done that. It’s almost credible up until you really
do it—then it’s just, I don’t know, science fiction.” He paused and smiled wryly
at O’Neill. “But now I’ve got some idea of what you’re up against, and what
you’re willing to do to fight it. So you don’t have to worry about me. I’m not
going to say anything to anybody, at least for the time being. Not even to dear
old Dad.”

“That’ll drive him nuts,” O’Neill remarked.

“Yeah, won’t it?” Kinsey grinned.

“Good,” Hammond said, slapping his hand on the desk as if finalizing a deal.
“And you’ll let me know if you change your mind.”

“Oh, definitely,” Kinsey replied, with a small smile.

“I think I’d like to go lie down again,” he went on, and Harriman stepped
forward to escort him back to Medical. Frasier followed them out the door.

O’Neill and Hammond were left alone in the general’s office. O’Neill got up
and opened a cabinet, revealing a decanter of whiskey and a set of cut crystal
glasses. Cassidy and Pace were not the only ones who had emergency reserves.

Hammond shared a wry glance with O’Neill as the colonel handed him a
half-full glass. “It worked this time,” Hammond said. “But I don’t think we’ll
ever pull a stunt like that again.”

O’Neill heaved a sigh of relief and the two of them clinked glasses. “You’re
a good judge of character,” he remarked. “I wasn’t sure it would work.
Especially when we almost lost Daniel.” He took a healthy slug of liquor. “But
he pitched in. I’m not sure we would have made it back without his help.”

“That
wasn’t
in the plan.”

“Er, no sir. Especially the part about Daniel.” O’Neill started to take
another drink, looked at the glass thoughtfully, and set it aside. “And what
about our friend Samuels?”

“I have plans for Bert Samuels,” Hammond growled. “He’s going to find himself
on TDY. Very long term TDY. In a very, very cold place.”

Jack O’Neill smiled.

Late that afternoon, Hammond’s driver was standing by to open the door of the
sedan and take him away from Cheyenne Mountain. As he settled in on the backseat
with his briefcase full of reports, he wondered once again whether he should go
ahead and take retirement. He could throw a steak on the grill and plant irises,
sit back and have a drink, improve his golf game. Command, after all, wasn’t
what it was cracked up to be.

But within a few minutes, as the blue sedan wound its way down Cheyenne
Mountain, he was deep in studying the preliminary reports on possible new
destinations for Stargate missions. O’Neill was right. It
was
a war, for
Earth’s very survival, and like O’Neill and the rest he was signed up for the
duration, even if—if they were lucky—the world never knew.

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