Stargate SG1 - Roswell (43 page)

Jack chewed on that for several seconds. The notion didn't make him feel any better because if Cam Mitchell was standing here in 1947 a fully-fledged Jaffa—for whatever reason—it meant SG-1 had never made it back to 1908 to recover them.

Which also begged another question. What had happened to Vala?

It was no surprise that Carter's thoughts had been running along the same lines, because she turned to him and said, “We know we've gone back in time before, and managed to correct the timeline, sir, so I wouldn't take Cam's presence here as a Jaffa as proof that we failed to retrieve them from 1908.”

Except—and here it was again, the same argument—Jack distinctly recalled
not
going back in time and taking out Ra.

The smell of death and burned rubble drifted across the park. Suddenly, the sweat trickling down Jack's back and chest, the gritty sensation of not having showered or shaved for days—in any timeline—and the forest full of woodpeckers hammering away it his head, knees and most of all his chest, drove home the singular fact that he really was getting too old for this.

And yet, Carter would be flitting back and forth through time when she was another ten, even fifteen years older than he was now.

Time travel via the Stargate, huh. Go figure.

While Jack was pondering that dilemma, the Jaffa that used to be Mitchell continued to issue orders. He seemed unaware he was being watched, more concerned with deploying his Jaffa forces with the sure hand of a tactician trained by the US Air Force. Clouds scudded across the night sky, briefly blocking the moon. The air had that tense electric feel ahead of a summer thunderstorm. Mitchell seemed to feel it, too, or perhaps he sensed something else, because he turned in their direction.

“That's not Ra's symbol on his forehead,” Daniel whispered.

Beside him, Jack felt Carter tense. “Are you sure?” She turned to look.

“Daniel Jackson is correct, Colonel Carter,” Teal'c said, lowering his night vision binoculars. “Mitchell is not Ra's First Prime. He wears the symbol of Qetcsh, daughter to Ra.”

“Qetesh?” Carter repeated. “As in, Vala used to be...”

“The one and the same,” Daniel confirmed.

“Oh, well, that's just dandy,” Jack muttered.
Could this world
get any more screwed up?

Several
Jaffa strode out of the tent. Bronzed and bare-chested, their only garment was a short pleated skirt of gold embroidered cream, or maybe white cloth. Their onyx headgear was also considerably less bulky, more organic than the regular Jaffa helmets. Jack watched them with interest. He'd not
seen
helmets so detailed and life-like before.

Then one of the jackal-headed Jaffa spoke to Mitchell, his canine
tooth-filled jaw moving in a distinctly human fashion.

“Oh, my God!” Carter gasped before Jack could. “Did you
see
that?”

“That's not a helmet!” Daniel's jaw had dropped so hard that Jack could have sworn he heard it impact the tree stump.

“Ya'
think?”
He was feeling more than a little stunned himself, although he had to admit that these Jaffa bore a closer resemblance to the critters he'd seen embedded in the Stargate capstone,
than the standard model.

Even Teal'c seemed taken back. “It has been many years since I have heard of such creatures.”

“What are they?” Carter asked.

“Chimeras.”

“Which are...?” Jack prompted impatiently

“Centuries ago, Ra commanded Nirrti to create guardians for
his
daughters,” Teal'c explained. “Their bodies are human in appearance, but they are not.”

“Which means they're not likely to succumb to the wiles of Hathor and Qetesh,” Daniel concluded. “Makes sense, actually.”

Teal'c nodded in agreement. “Ra would not allow his daughters the opportunity to build armies of their own to overthrow him. I suspect these are the last of their kind, for while they are exceedingly long lived they are unable to bear offspring, and Nirrti's attempts to create other chimeras resulted in abominations.”

Personally, Jack would've classed these as abominations as well, but right now his only interest was in getting a look at the approach path to the Stargate. Antarctica was off the menu; Mitchell knew where to find it and wasn't likely to have left it unguarded. Jack just wanted to get the eight staff weapons they needed, and get the hell out of Dodge.

The Jaffa—or whatever it was—that Mitchell was speaking to, slapped his hand across his chest in salute, then took off at a light jog into the night, oblivious to the scattered chunks of wreckage beneath his bare feet. Mitchell took a last, suspicious look around, pulled the flap of the tent aside, and stepped in.

Carter glanced behind them, checking they were still unobserved. Then she turned back and leaned against the tree stump. “Am I the only one wondering what became of Vala?”

“No,” Daniel said.

Teal'c came right out with it. “If Colonel Mitchell is now First Prime to Qetesh, and they stepped through the 'gate together, it is logical to assume Vala is either dead or was retaken as a host.”

Daniel let out a soft moan. Jack glanced across and saw that he'd closed his eyes and was resting his forehead on splinted edges of the oak. It had been years since Shar'e's death, but compounded with his guilt for leaving Mitchell and Vala behind, sometimes the agony of that loss still crept up on him unawares.

“It is also highly likely that Qetesh is indeed the Goa'uld entrusted by Ra to lead this invasion, for until Ra's death, she was among his most favored,” Teal'c added, his eyes narrowed as he examined the nearby woods.

“This is fascinating,” Jack said, injecting the necessary harshness into his tone. He might not understand the physics of the damn thing, but he knew this timeline was monumentally screwed, and the only way they were going to fix it, was by getting out of here. Agonizing over the fate of lost comrades wasn't very helpful. Especially since they could make sure this screw-up never even happened simply by getting back to where they belonged. “We only came here to eyeball the 'gate, kids,
and
grab a few staff weapons, not take on Ra. Or his minions.
 
Even
if they're old friends.”

Daniel's
head snapped up. “We can't just leave Cam and Vala
behind!”

Carter
turned to look back over the Jaffa encampment. Her expression
said she understood what Jack was getting at. “If we
can
get back to 1908 none of this will ever happen.”

Daniel
seemed unconvinced. “Didn't you say this timeline might continue to exists in a parallel dimension?”

When Carter didn't immediately reply, Jack turned to her. “It's
a possibility,” she conceded.

Teal'c, as usual, cut right to the heart of the matter. “Ours is the only timeline that matters.”

“Teal'c's right, sir. We have to focus on restoring our timeline.”

“And if we can't?” Daniel said.

Jack sensed someone moving behind them and swung around, bringing his weapon to bear and firing. “Then we're screwed
anyway!”

A blast from a staff weapon hit Carter in the head as she also turned,
slamming her backward.

“Jaffa,
Kree!”

A second blast beside Jack sent splinters into his face. Teal'c and Daniel had abandoned their zats and were firing their P-90s at what had to be forty or fifty Jaffa converging on them from all over.

A peripheral view of Carter told Jack that she may not have been killed outright, but he didn't kid himself for a moment that any of them were getting out of this alive. The impact of the staff blast had impaled her on one of the splintered branches, and blood was gushing out of her chest and mouth.

The shock of that realization did nothing to deter him.
So this is how it ends.

He continued shooting the Jaffa with the single minded ruthlessness of a man who knows he's dead but has every intention of making life as nasty and as short as possible for his executioners. In that split second of awareness before the inevitable blast took him out, Jack heard Mitchell's voice commanding the Jaffa to—

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

S
arcophagus induced migraine.
Or maybe it was the residual combination of Scopolamine and whatever else Brylcreem and Cancer Man had slipped her.

Sam wanted to throw up, but that was a bad idea because she was lying on her back. Inhaling a predigested MRE was a
really,
really, stupid way to die. “Have to roll over,” she mumbled, grappling blindly for something she could pull on because she felt as if she was pinned to the ground. Her hands came in contact with a large and cool and slightly textured object—which toppled out of her reach and smashed onto hard
floor.

“Whoa! Sam, hang on a sec. Daniel'll have a fit if he finds you've been smashing up the museum's collection of Ming Dynasty
vases.” She stared blankly at a shadowy figure standing over her.

“Not that some busted pots really matters in the scheme of things,” he added in a conversational tone, “but let's keep the noise down a bit, okay?”

Strong hands lifted her onto her knees. The pain was too blinding and her eyes too gluey to see who it was helping her, but her ears were working just fine.

“Cam,” she croaked between heaves.

“Long time no see, Sam.”

“We thought...”

“Oh, yeah... I can imagine what you thought.” He knelt beside her, holding her upright. She opened and closed her eyes several times, vaguely repulsed by the sight of her stomach contents and confused by the pattern beneath. Carpet. She was throwing up on a Persian rug. Probably priceless. Throwing up on Brylcreem had been much more enjoyable.

“Where... Where are we?”

“The Met. I was hoping I'd catch up with you guys about now, although I admit to not being quite sure what year it was on Earth until we actually made it through the 'gate.”

With her stomach empty, the migraine fell away like a receding wave that had dumped her headfirst into the sand. “What...”

“Here, drink this.”

Staggering to her feet with Cam's help, she accepted a glass of water, rinsed her mouth and spat into a nearby waste bin, then downed the rest before she could fully appreciate the absurdity. Cam was a First Prime dressed in all the trappings of an Egyptian god, politely holding a hand towel out to her. She took the cloth and scrubbed her face. It came away clean, but that sure as hell wasn't how she felt.

“I...remember being hit in the head. God, that hurt!”

“Yeah, well, the General made short work of the Jaffa who killed you.”

That gave her pause. She met his gaze, and tried hard not to stare at the gold tattoo on his forehead. “A
sarcophagus!”