SG-7: Episode 1.3 – The Scourge

Complete
Action/Adventure, Drama

 Disclaimers:

Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, The SciFi Channel, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is written purely for my own entertainment, and that of anyone else who may happen to read it. No infringement of copyright is intended. It is not intended and should never be used for commercial purposes.

The original characters, situations and ideas contained within this work are the property of the author.

Author's Notes:

While her surname is actually Rasputina, the lieutenant follows the protocol set out in Stargate canon and uses the un-affixed, masculine form of her surname, Rasputin, while serving with US forces.

Acknowledgements:

Many thanks to my regular beta, Sho, and also to Uli, who cast a second eye over the text.

The Scourge

Stargate Command

The men and woman of SG-7 sat around the briefing room table; the atmosphere was tense. Their team had been four strong for years, with no change of membership in three; General O'Neill's unexpected announcement that they were now to have a fifth member had them off balance.

"I mean, why?" Roberts demanded. "Did we do something wrong?"

"We put an alien politician in a coma," Pearson pointed out. "Blew a diplomatic relationship which could have delivered thirty years of technological advancement in a matter of months."

"But that really wasn't our fault," the lieutenant pointed out.

"Do we know anything about our fifth?" Merlyn asked.

"Not a sausage," Ferretti replied. "Just that it has been decided that the team should be assigned a new member in light of our specialised mandrill."

Merlyn frowned. "Don't you mean 'mandate', Sir?"

"The General said mandrill," Ferretti assured her. "Figure we're getting some kind of monkey mascot."

"Or – just throwing this out there – some kind of specialist?" Roberts mused. "I wonder what kind?"

"Presumably a blue-assed baboon," Pearson suggested.

"Attention!" Merlyn barked, her eyes looking past Ferretti to the stairs.

The speculation halted as General O'Neill entered the room. "As you were," he ordered, as the team leaped to their feet. SG-7 began to sit again, but they froze in surprise at the sight of the woman who followed the General up the stairs into the briefing room. She was slight of build, with a pretty face and dark hair, cropped short. She was dressed in regular fatigues, but in a shade of olive green that the US personnel never wore.

"Sit," O'Neill said, firmly. He took his place at the head of the table but himself stayed standing. "SG-7, this is Lieutenant Alexa Rasputin, who will be joining your team, effective immediately."

Ferretti's face paled. "I...General, Sir; may I speak with you in private."

"Sure," O'Neill agreed. "Kind of expected it. Lieutenant Rasputin; why don't you mingle?"

Roberts coughed. "Excuse me, Sirs?"

"Lieutenant?" O'Neill raised an eyebrow.

"Permission to join you, Sirs?"

"The more the merrier. Anyone else?" O'Neill looked around at them. "Great. The rest of you get to know one another then."

The door to the General's office closed. Merlyn and Pearson looked at Rasputin; she looked back at them.

"Good afternoon," the Russian said, in a soft voice.

"Good afternoon," Merlyn replied. "I'm Captain Lloyd, but most people just use my callsign: Merlyn. This is Technical Sergeant Pearson."

Alexa inclined her head, respectfully. "Captain; Sergeant."

"Lieutenant," Pearson replied.

And then there was silence.

*

"So, Colonel; what did you want to say?"

"Sir...She's Russian!"

General O'Neill looked at him. "What gave it away? The name, the accent or the uniform?"

Ferretti sighed. "Jack; how many times did Colonel Chekov try to get you to take a Russian member on SG-1? You never let them do that."

"This is different," O'Neill insisted.

"Because SG-7 isn't SG-1?"

"No. It is different because Colonel Chekov didn't ask me to put a Russian in SG-7," O'Neill replied. "I asked the Russians to allow me to assign Lieutenant Rasputin to you, which will make it a personal kick in the head for me if I have to send her back and say you can't work with her. She has...specialist skills which I think your team could use."

"With respect, General," Roberts said, "I don't think she is reliable."

"Why? Because she's Russian? Look; I know I've said things like that myself in the past, but I've had cause to rethink on that score."

"No, Sir," Roberts replied. "That isn't what I mean. That woman...the lieutenant. She has ghosts in her eyes."

"Oh, here we go," Ferretti groaned. "You'll have to forgive my lieutenant, Jack; he has a flair for the gothic."

General O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "Care to explain that statement, lieutenant?"

"There's something in her past; a pain that she can't let go of. I've seen it before, and that kind of trauma makes a person unreliable in combat. I don't think that we can – or should be asked to – count on anyone carrying baggage like that."

O'Neill shook his head, gravely. "I've worked with her before," he assured both men, "and she's alright. Besides; there are her...specialist skills to consider."

"Don't we have our own specialists?" Ferretti asked.

"Not this kind."

"So...What is she, Jack?"

Jack coughed, awkwardly, as though he felt silly saying what he was about to say. "She's psychic," he said at last.

"Jack?" Ferretti stared in bemusement, as though struggling to spot the joke.

"According to...Well, to the kind of people who know these things, the Lieutenant is one of the most powerful psychics in either Russia or America," Jack went on. "Oh, don't look at me like that! I only found out that they have files on this stuff when they upped my clearance to take this job; I'm only allowed to tell you because I'm assigning a certified psychic to your team."

"So she's not only Russian, she's a Russian who can read our minds?" Ferretti asked, disbelieving.

"No; she can't read minds, Lou," O'Neill assured him. "I've got her file here, somewhere..." He rummaged through the mess on his desk, but came up blank.

"New secretary didn't  work out, Jack?" Ferretti asked.

"He's perfect," O'Neill replied. "Couldn't ask for better."

Ferretti frowned. "But he doesn't seem to have tidied...Oh; I see."

Jack grinned. "Anyway, I'll give you full details before you have to go on any missions with her, but she's a good judge of a situation and she bears up well under pressure. You'll get to like her, Lou; Russian psychic or not. It just seemed to me that you could use someone like her on your team."

"If...If you're sure, Jack."

"Trust me, Lou." O'Neill winked at his old comrade-in-arms. "What about you, Lieutenant? Any more problems?"

"If you say she's solid, that's good enough for me, Sir," Roberts allowed.

"Your faith in your commanding officer is touching, Lieutenant."

*

P3A-126

Eight days later

"Another day, another temple," Major Alistair Willis sighed. "Oh brave new world that has such rubble in it."

"At least we get to work indoors this time," Dr Alec Landers pointed out. The older man was crouching beside the ruins of a column in the shattered remains of the alien structure, studying a partially-eroded inscription.

Lieutenant-Commander Mary Raleigh, a nuclear engineer attached to the SGC from the US Navy, laughed. "You call this indoors?"

"Well, technically it's inside the doors," Sergeant Ellis Watts pointed out. He frowned, pensively and looked up. "Admittedly, there's no roof..."

"And they're more doorways than actual doors per se," Willis added. "Doors let less wind through."

"Aw," Landers cooed. "Is the poor widdle soldiers cold?"

"Airmen," Willis corrected.

"And sailors," Raleigh asserted.

"Oh, damn," Landers muttered.

"Don't sweat it, Doc," Raleigh said. "We're not really that sensitive."

"No...It's not that. Look at this inscription."

Raleigh crouched down beside Landers. "Oh Christ," she whispered. "Tell me that's not what I think it is."

"Sorry," Landers replied.

Raleigh turned to look at Willis. "It's a pre-Ancient script, Major," she said. "We have to go."

"Hallelujah!" Willis declared, with feeling. "Doc; prep the recorders for a data transmission." He lifted his radio. "Cowper; where are you?"

"We're just settin' out again, Major," Lieutenant Colin Cowper replied in his easy drawl. "With you in thirty."

"Negative, lieutenant. Turn around and dial the SGC," Willis ordered. "I need to speak to General O'Neill, right now."

"Yes, Sir," Lieutenant Cowper replied; he was clearly confused but he obeyed orders.

"Anything to report at the Gate?" Willis asked. An engine had been idling in the background, but now it stopped and a moment later was replaced by the distinctive sound of a DHD.

"Not a lot," Cowper admitted. "We loaded up that ugly hunka rock though. Dr Askew seems real excited by it; guess she likes ugly, which is okay by me. She wants more time to look over the shrine."

"Negative," Willis said, firmly. "Just dial that Gate and keep your hands to yourselves."

"Absatively, posolutely whatever you say, Sir. Wormhole established," he added. "Over to relay."

Willis nodded, somewhat pointlessly over an audio channel. "Sierra-Golf-Charlie from Sierra-Golf Twelve."

A technician's voice responded. "Sierra-Golf-Charlie; go ahead, Twelve."

"Inform General O'Neill that we have a Code Behemoth," Willis said. "I say again, a Code Behemoth. Dr Landers will transmit preliminary findings on this channel. Sierra-Golf Twelve are initiating Behemoth Protocols as per standing orders."

"Five minutes, Major?" Landers asked.

"Sorry, Alec; Behemoth Protocols demand immediate evac. You know the drill. Any sign of pre-Ancient occupation, we pull back to the Gate and allow SG-7 to take over. We get the site back if an when they declare it safe."

"Damnit!"

"Look on the bright side," Raleigh suggested.

"Which is what?" Landers asked, morosely.

She beamed at the archaeologist. "We just became the first SG team to initiate a Code Behemoth."

*

Stargate Command

"You rang, Sir?" Ferretti asked, joining O'Neill in the control room.

"SG-12 called in a Code Behemoth two hours ago," O'Neill explained. "They reported the presence of pre-Ancient scribblings and transmitted video of their evidence, but they never came back through the Gate."

"Trouble?"

"When is anything to do with SG-7's special mandate anything but?" O'Neill asked, wryly. His face grew serious. "We opened a wormhole to 126 and failed to make contact with the team. The MALP's still good, but there's no response from any of the members of SG-12. A UAV went up, but there's no sign of them anywhere between their work site and the temple. Your team will brief for search-and-rescue at sixteen-hundred."

*

The screen in the briefing room displayed a plan of P3A-126.

"The initial MALP inspection revealed a small temple at the Gate," Merlyn explained, gesturing at the map. "A UAV was launched, locating the ruins of a much larger building ten miles from the Stargate's location. The architecture of the two structures is similar, but matches no known examples in over a thousand offworld missions. SG-12 engaged in a basic archaeological reconnaissance, but at 1143 Romeo Time Major Willis called in a Code Behemoth after Dr Landers located these inscriptions."

At the touch of a button, the image on the screen switched to the video from the temple.

"Do you recognise this script, Captain?" O'Neill asked.

"Yes, Sir," Merlyn replied. "It appears to be a derivation of the Intermediate Argathian script; similar examples appear in the Pankoptic Manuscripts and the Lost Tract of Cornelius Agrippa. It is undoubtedly a pre-Ancient script, and given the design of these column bases, it seems certain..."

"How can you have read the Tract of Cornelius Agrippa if it was lost?" O'Neill asked.

"It was found again, but the provenance is questionable," Merlyn replied, without breaking her stride. "It seems certain that the temple is one of the oldest structures the SGC has ever discovered. Moreover, when we analysed Dr Lander's camcorder footage of the temple interior, there is a parallel to something in our records."

The image changed again.

"The giant green space gun," O'Neill whispered, with something more like fear in his voice than Ferretti had ever heard there before.

"Unknown artefact #1763," Merlyn confirmed. "Or rather a pencil sketch of same, drawn from memory by Jonas Quinn. The artefact was a weapon produced by a technologically advanced culture, which we also now believe to have worshipped the old ones. If anything remains of this culture on 126, then SG-12 could be in very great danger."

"Well, won't we be in danger if we go after them?" Ferretti asked, rhetorically. No-one thought for a moment that he was suggesting SG-7 not go.

"We should be better prepared to face the danger," Pearson assured his CO. "The prototypes have completed testing and the first units have been delivered."

"The units?" Rasputin asked, confused.

"Sergeant," O'Neill ordered.

Pearson nodded once. He rose to his feet and collected a weapon from a waiting armoury officer.

"Small, isn't it," Roberts noted.

"Compact and bijou," the sergeant corrected, smiling at the lieutenant's disappointment. "This is the MPX advanced assault weapon. The basic frame is the new Heckler and Koch MP7 personal defence weapon; lighter than the P90 but with superior range and armour penetration. The MPX has an expanded magazine capacity and the design additionally incorporates an integrated disruptor beam adapted from the X-12."

"The anti-supersoldier beam?" Ferretti asked.

"Correct, Sir. This variant has been recalibrated based on our readings to function against the energies which maintain the cohesion of a shoggoth's flesh. That effect is actually very similar to that of the resurrection technology used by Anubis' drones, but very much more advanced. Regardless of that sophistication, this weapon should be embodiment of the principle that it's always harder to hold something together than to tear it down."

"Sweet," Ferretti commented. "Oh. I'm sorry, General."

"Apology accepted, Colonel," O'Neill assured him. He turned to look at the weapon. "Sweet; although the P90 will always have a special place in my heart."

"It still looks kind of small," Roberts said.

"Surely size does not matter?" Rasputin asked, softly.

"Well, they all say that," Pearson quipped.

"This is your first contribution to the briefing, Lieutenant Rasputin?" Ferretti asked, incredulous.

Rasputin shrugged. "It seemed the thing."

Pearson gave a slight smile, but caught an irritated expression from Roberts and made an effort to look grave. "Anyway, the lieutenant can stop fishing," he promised, going back to the armoury officer. "The M181 Specialist Combat Weapon," he announced, placing a much larger weapon alongside the machine pistol. It looked like a heavy rifle, with a grenade launcher or similar mounted on top of it. "Structured on the HK Objective Individual Combat Weapon," Pearson explained, "but replacing the 20mm cannon with an experimental plasma-incendiary lance. Should be hot enough to take care of most things that need burning; the plasma is 350-degrees hotter than a staff blast, so mind where you point it."

"Shiny," Merlyn noted. "Has this thing ever been fired?"

"Several thousand rounds on the range," Pearson confirmed. "We're not going out with untried weapons."

"How soon do we get to try them...I mean, ship out?" Ferretti asked.

"One hour," O'Neill replied. "Familiarise yourself with the new equipment before then; sadly there will be no time for a field test. Sergeant Pearson will collect your transportation from the Gamma Site and rendezvous with you on 126."

"Sir," Merlyn protested. "I don't want to go in unprepared; I could use a few hours to work on this inscription."

"You have one hour," O'Neill repeated, adding: "and the entire anthropology team to back you up. All other research is suspended for the duration of this mission and we'll contact you immediately with any new information."

Merlyn gave a single nod. "Thank you, Sir."

O'Neill gave a grim smile. "Gear-up, people."

The members of SG-7 stood and filtered out of the briefing room. As the others left, Lieutenant Rasputin – very much aware that although they had trained together, this would be her first mission with the team– hurried after Roberts. "Lieutenant!"

"Yes, Lieutenant?"

"I know you don't trust me," she told him.

"Gosh. You really are psychic."

"How nice," Rasputin sniffed. "I'm a sideshow freak."

"Well, I'm afraid I don't believe in all this mumbo-jumbo," Roberts replied. "This being the case, I don't know why we need a flaky, Russian grifter on the team."

"It wasn't my choice, you know?"

"Which will make a great difference to me when you choke up and get us all killed."

Rasputin stopped in her tracks and scowled, darkly. "Are you sure that it's me you need to worry about, Lieutenant Roberts?"

"What do you mean?" Roberts demanded.

"One might think that you were deliberately concealing your personal attachment to Lieutenant-Commander Raleigh," Rasputin suggested. "If one didn't know better."

Roberts turned on the Russian, his blue eyes glittering dangerously. "You should be careful of listening to rumour, Lieutenant Rasputin."

"I never listen to rumour. I don't have to."

"I thought you couldn't read minds?"

"Again, I don't have to. I'm very good at reading people."

"So what are you going to do?" Roberts asked.

"I'm going to gear up," she replied. "I think I can trust you, Roberts; even if you don't think you can trust me."

Roberts watched her go with a scowl on his face. "I think I violently dislike that woman," he muttered to himself.

*

P3A-126

"What a dive," Ferretti declared, stepping forth onto the barren surface of 126. First Roberts, then Merlyn and Rasputin followed.

"The soil's been leeched," Merlyn explained. "According to the samples taken by the MALP if there were nutrients here at any time, they've gone now. Whatever it's like further from the Gate, this area is barren."

"A land of the dead," Roberts announced, flatly, tightening his grip on the M181. He had practiced with the weapon on the range for forty minutes before embarkation, and already he held it like an old friend. Some might have thought that the MPX holstered at his side was an unnecessary addition, but his comrades had seen enough to know better. If Rasputin questioned the decision, she was wise enough to keep her thoughts to herself.

"Well, a dead land certainly," Merlyn allowed.

The Gate closed behind them.

"Give me a hand here, Roberts," Ferretti said, stooping beside a stone idol which lay in the dirt in front of the Gate. "Let's clear a path for the Sergeant."

The two men took hold of the massive carved stone and pulled, hauling it to one side and letting it lie. Merlyn moved over to inspect it.

After a few minutes, the Stargate opened again. The team raised their weapons but it was only Pearson, at the controls of a lightly armoured buggy, barely narrow enough to slip through the opening. He passed by the spot where the idol had lain, swerved neatly around the DHD and rolled the vehicle to a halt a few yards from the Gate.

"Nice wheels," Rasputin said. "I see the SGC has not been resting on its laurels."

Pearson patted the dashboard, fondly. "The Jackal Fast Attack Vehicle," he explained. "She runs on advanced fuel cells; no top-ups needed, a must on worlds without reliable garages."

"We've got ten miles to go, through hostile territory," Ferretti reminded them all. "May as well get there fast and in style. Rasputin; we may need to call in at short notice. You'll stay here at the Gate."

"Yes, Sir," the Russian replied, not quite succeeding in hiding her disappointment.

"Sir," Roberts protested, grudgingly. "Is it wise to split the team? If we leave someone here, we may still be unable to phone home. Two members of SG-12 were at the Gate when they were taken."

Ferretti nodded. "Point taken. Scout the area, lieutenants. See if we can find any sign of those two. Cowper at least can't have vanished into thin air. Merlyn; take a look at that shrine while we're here. Sergeant Pearson; I'll thank you to vacate the driving seat."

"Shotgun!" Roberts called.

The team's search found no sign of SG-12 around the Gate, save the presence of the MALP, and to Merlyn's chagrin, any markings which might once have decorated the little shrine had long since been eradicated.

"As bare of information as it is of vegetation," Roberts mused. "A sterile world; bleached bones and desiccated brains."

"You just get worse," Ferretti sighed. "Don't you ever get out, Roberts? Go to the movies or anything?"

"I like Ingmar Bergman pictures."

"Why am I not surprised? Alright; all aboard. Pearson in the centre spot."

SG-7 stowed their gear on the rear rack and clambered onto the Jackal, Pearson taking the slightly raised seat in the middle of the vehicle, where he could – in the event of a fight – half-stand through the roof of the buggy and operate the 20mm cannon mounted there.

Ferretti shook his head. "We're wearing armour designed last year to protect against plasma weapons," he said. "Parts of our own weapons were created not long afterwards, with the aid of alien allies, to combat Anubis' supersoldiers. The vehicle we're driving contains almost as many alien parts as Earth-made."

"Actually, everything in this buggy was built in Scranton," Pearson pointed out. "Except the cannon; that's Belgian."

"I was just thinking how much things have changed in the last few years," Ferretti said. "Not all change is for the best." The Colonel slammed his foot down on the accelerator and the Jackal leaped forward. "But some of it is!"

The Jackal sped across the planet's surface, bouncing wildly across the terrain on suspension that was more hard-wearing than hard-working. Its maximum safe speed over such a landscape had been clocked at over sixty miles an hour; Ferretti was pushing eighty. The rest of his team clung to the frame for dear life.

It took less than ten minutes to reach the temple in the Jackal. Ferretti drew to a halt at the top of a rise. A steep drop below meant that the buggy could carry the team no further. Clearly SG-12 had met the same difficulty, and their field tractor was already parked on the ridge. The five of them walked to the edge and looked down on the ruined temple three hundred yards ahead of them.

"You know; I think we're overusing the term 'ruined'," Roberts said. "Run down, maybe..."

"That's not right," Merlyn said. She climbed out of the FAV and stared at the temple. "The reconnaissance UAV clearly showed..." Merlyn frowned and shook her head. She went around to the back of the Jackal and took a sheaf of photographs from her pack. "Oh," she whispered.

"Captain?" Ferretti asked.

"Look here, Sir," Merlyn said, laying three photographs on the hood of the Jackal. "This is the original aerial reconnaissance photograph of the site. Broken structures, heavily weathered; clearly abandoned for centuries at the least. Now look at the video stills SG-12 took as they approached."

"Much the same," Ferretti noted.

"Yes; but if we put the more recent UAV recon alongside, what do we see?"

"It's changed."

"More standing structures, a low wall around the entire site, and the incomplete edges look unfinished instead of broken. All signs of weathering and erosion are gone from the structure as well, and now..." She gestured down at the temple. "Towers, a dome that is almost complete and lesser buildings all around that weren't even there two hours ago."

"I don't want to be an alarmist," Roberts said, lowering a pair of field glasses from his eyes, "but that temple is growing."

Almost as one, the rest of the unit drew out their glasses and confirmed for themselves what Roberts had said. At the edges of the unfinished surfaces, the structure was blurred, as though a heat haze surrounded it, but each moment the haze moved a tiny bit further and left completed wall behind it. Swirls of similar haze danced across the surface of the buildings, leaving arcane markings in their wake.

"Almost as though..." Roberts began.

"It's alive," Rasputin whispered. "Something down there is alive. And hungry."

"Oh, wacko," Ferretti muttered. "Alright; if it's alive and it took our friends, let's go kill it. We'll leave the buggy here. Everyone keep your eyes peeled and stay frosty; I've got a feeling it's about to get weird."

*

From a distance, it was hard to appreciate the scale of the temple, but as SG-7 moved along the avenue of black obelisks which flanked the approach, they were almost overwhelmed by the cyclopean majesty of it. The obelisks must have been thirty feet tall, and the entrance to the temple compound was flanked by a pair of pylons twice as high. Beyond the massive gateway lay a precinct of no less than nine acres, and at its heart was the dome.

The dome would have encompassed the Great Pyramid at Giza with substantial room to spare. A doorway stood in the side of the dome, opposite the main gate and some thirty feet from the ground at the top of a narrow stair. Thirty-five obelisks rose from the edge of  the dome at regular intervals, towering fifty feet into the sky, and a pair of one-hundred foot obelisks flanked the stairway. The entire surface was a kind of blackish-green, traced with symbols, and a high-pitched hum rose from the dome, suggesting some great energy seething underneath. A ring of smaller buildings stood out from the dome, their lesser towers and cupolas grovelling like supplicants at the feet of their looming overlord.

"The text that SG-12 sent back called this place the Heart of the Hive," Merlyn mused.

"Hive," Roberts echoed. "I am really unhappy with the idea of this being a hive. Just imagine the insects that would live in that thing."

"Are these carvings text?" Ferretti asked Merlyn, trying very hard to not think about insects living in that dome.

"Not any that I know," she replied. "They look more like geometric figures."

"Or maybe circuit diagrams," Pearson added. "But...they look wrong, somehow. They are geometric, but it's as though they break the regular rules of Euclidean geometry."

"Colonel!" Roberts called.

Following the pencil-fine beam of the SCW's laser sight, Ferretti saw a figure descending the steps towards them. Roberts must have recognised her as soon as Ferretti did, because he shut off the sight and lowered the barrel of his weapon.

"Commander Raleigh?" Ferretti asked. "Report, Commander; you were due back at the Stargate over three hours ago. Why are you still out here? And why are you unarmed?"

"We found something, Colonel," Raleigh explained as she walked down the steps towards them. As Ferretti had noted she carried no weapons, in strict defiance of standard operating procedure. "It's incredible."

Ferretti stared in disbelief. "You found...Captain, you know full well you were supposed to pull back to the Gate; suspend all further activity on this planet until SG-7 could make an assessment."

"Yes, Sir; but we couldn't just leave this. Dr Landers thinks it's too important."

"That's isn't your decision to make," Ferretti reminded her, barely keeping his temper in check. "SG-12 are going home; now."

"But we have to show you..."

"Enough! Major Willis," he said into his radio. "Major Willis, bring your team out of the dome; you're to take the Jackal FAV back to the Stargate at once."

"Oh; our radios aren't working," Raleigh explained. "You'll have to come in and speak to the Major yourself."

"Just shout for them," Ferretti insisted. "I've had about enough of this."

Raleigh stepped towards them and raised her hand. "But Colonel; you have to..."

The roar of gunfire split the air. Ferretti and Roberts instinctively turned their faces from the muzzle flash of the MPX. Raleigh staggered back, splatters of blood erupting from her body as bullets ripped holes in her chest and throat; a final shot struck her in the face and she fell dead on the stairs.

Roberts half turned and drove the butt of his M181 into Rasputin's face before she could even lower her smoking machine pistol. He swung his weapon around and levelled the barrel at the Russian's face. His thumb moved a selector and the plasma lance began to charge with an ominous hum.

"Lieutenant!" Ferretti snapped.

"Stand down, Roberts!" Merlyn echoed. When Roberts hesitated, she stepped in front of him and wrestled the MPX from Rasputin, acting as though one of her subordinates were not pointing a high-powered incendiary weapon at her back. She pulled a pair of plastic cuffs from a pocket of her webbing and secured the Russian lieutenant.

The M181 gave an almost disappointed whirr as Roberts powered down the plasma lance. "Sorry, Ma'am," he murmured.

"Forget about it," Merlyn replied, tersely.

Rasputin groaned as she came around from Robert's blow. "Danger," she said. "Coming...Coming for us. Commander...possessed..." She shook her head to clear it. "Ca-captain...Merlyn; that woman!"

"Commander Raleigh," Roberts snarled. "The one you killed!"

"N-not Raleigh. Something else. Possessed!"

"What are you talking about?" Ferretti demanded.

"She was possessed. She wanted to...to do something to harm us. To take...take..." She coughed and her eyes rolled back in her head.

"Jesus, Roberts," Ferretti said. "Sorry, Merlyn. But how hard did you hit her, lieutenant?"

"Not that hard," Roberts assured him. "I wouldn't..."

"Oh sure," Merlyn said, acidly. She turned her head to face Roberts. "Because you wouldn't want to shoot a fellow officer you'd already..." Her eyes widened in horror. "Oh sweet Jesus," she whispered.

The three male members of SG-7 spun around, and Merlyn stood, raising both her own weapon and Rasputin's to aim at the broken form of Captain Raleigh, as she shambled up the stairs towards the door.

"What in God's name...?" Ferretti demanded.

"Nothing in God's name," Merlyn assured him.

"Stop!" Roberts called.

Behind them, a low growl arose. "Flesh!" The voice was inhuman, deep and rasping and cold.

"Lieutenant Rasputin?" Ferretti asked, uncertainly. He turned, slowly. Merlyn lowered one of her weapons to point at Rasputin.

The young Russian lay on the sterile Earth with her eyes rolled back, white and sightless in their sockets. Her mouth was flecked with bloody foam and she strained at her bonds so hard that her wrists were bleeding.

Merlyn stared. "Lieutenant?"

"Flesh is fodder," she croaked. "Life to serve. Mind to obey."

"What in God's name is happening to her?" Ferretti demanded, and for once Merlyn made no effort to chide his blasphemy.

Roberts raised his weapon against the Russian once more.

"No!" Merlyn ordered. "Lieutenant Rasputin; can you hear me?"

"She is ours. You are ours," Rasputin spat. "Your flesh is fodder for our flesh; your life will serve our life. Your minds are puppets to the will of the Scourge."

Ferretti drew the zat from his hip and shot Rasputin. The young woman went limp and – mercifully – her eyes closed.

"Move," Ferretti ordered. "Roberts, Pearson; bring the lieutenant, double time. I'm going to go out on a limb and call this area unhealthy."

"What about SG-12, Colonel?" Roberts asked, grabbing one side of Rasputin's tactical vest.

"Deeply compromised. We're not leaving until we know just what happened to them, but for now we assess the danger to ourselves, devise a strategy and if necessary call for reinforcements before we go anywhere near that dome again. For Chr...ying out loud, Roberts, the dead got up and walked; I don't know about you but that's one of Ferretti's twelve official indicators that we are out of our element."

SG-7 retreated up the slope towards the Jackal, Roberts and Pearson carrying Rasputin between them. "Have a psychic on the team, the man said," Robert complained as they hauled her to the top of the ridge. "She'll be a great help, the man said. How can anyone so small weigh so much?"

"Give the lieutenant her due, Sir," Pearson said. "She did twig there was something up before the rest of us."

"And when did you figure that?" Roberts demanded. "When she shot a Navy officer in the face without provocation?"

"No, Sir," Pearson replied.

"I think we probably got the message when said officer got up and walked away again," Merlyn told Roberts, pointedly.

"Alright, that's enough!" Ferretti barked. "Now we get back to the Gate and phone home; tell them we got a situation here. Everybody mount up; put Rasputin in her seat and strap her in."

"Sir," Roberts acknowledged.

Ferretti took one last look back at the temple and shook his head. "I just knew this was gonna get weird."

*

The Jackal slewed to a halt in front of the Stargate.

"I think Rasputin's awake," Merlyn said.

"Am I?" the Russian asked, groggily. "Ah, damn; I was hoping this was a nightmare."

"Please don't use that word, Lieutenant," Merlyn told her, patiently.

"Later, Merlyn," Ferretti said. "Let's just get her back to the SGC and..."

"No!" Rasputin cried out. "No, we mustn't open the Gate."

Ferretti harrumphed. "Just at the moment, lieutenant, I'm not really inclined to follow your suggestions; even if you did voice them appropriately."

"I'm sorry, Colonel," she replied, "but we must not open the Gate. They are here, with us."

"They?"

"I am not sure I can explain," she admitted, "but I will try. Everything seems confused to me, but I can assure you that I was in my right mind when I fired upon Commander Raleigh." She looked apologetic and tried to catch Roberts' eye, but he looked away. "There was some force possessing her; I sensed its power and malevolence and I could feel its desires. It intended us harm and it very much wanted for the Commander to touch you, Colonel Ferretti. It seemed to believe that if it could do that then it would have us all where it wanted us. I acted to prevent that."

"Well, later events seem to bear out your suspicions," Ferretti admitted. "But in future a timely: 'don't let her touch you' will be preferred to a barrage of gunfire."

"Yes, Colonel. I am sorry, but I was...distracted. There was a voice in my head, coming from that place; from within the dome; it was almost overwhelming. After I prevented its instrument from reaching you, the voice turned on me; it attacked using my own sensitivities as a vector and overwhelmed me for a time. The pain of the zat'nik'tel blast helped me to focus and break its hold; the distance is also helping, I think."

"You said some things while you were out," Merlyn told Rasputin. "About our flesh feeding yours?"

Rasputin shook her head. "Not I," she insisted. "It."

"And who or what is 'it'?"

"It called itself 'The Scourge'," Rasputin replied, quietly. "It is the will that controls that structure, although I can not say whether Scourge refers to it alone or to a collective of its kind. I do know that it was very powerful, but it was also clumsy. While it strove to control me – a futile endeavour while I was restrained – I was able to return the kindness and use the path of its attack to learn something of its intent.

"I saw...It – or they – use a form of nanite to open the minds of others to mental attack; my mind is open already and so it needed no such intrusion to attack me. Now that I am aware of the danger, I believe that I can direct my will to resisting further attempts to control me," she assured her team mates, as they leaned away from her and nervously fingered their triggers. "But SG-12 were all infected with these nanites; I am certain that The Scourge wished to infect you through contact with Commander Raleigh. While clearly none of you have been controlled, there is undoubtedly a risk that we are all carrying the nanites. If we open a wormhole, some may be able to make their way to Earth. Until we can establish the danger involved..."

Ferretti sighed. "Agreed," he said. "Alright; we'll report in as scheduled when the SGC open the Gate. In the meantime, now we've established what we can't do, does anyone have any thoughts as to what we can."

"We should request level Omega protection," Merlyn replied. "The suits were designed specifically to protect against nano-technology capable of penetrating regular biohazard gear, so that's our best shot."

"What if we're already infected?" Roberts asked.

"Well," Ferretti mused. "Maybe these things breed in our bodies, or maybe they die off. Since there's no way of knowing which, our best bet for not becoming atomic robot zombie men seems to be to destroy the source of the control. If we're really lucky, we may even get the rest of SG-12 back as well."

"Not Mary though," Roberts noted, darkly.

"Cool it, Lieutenant," Ferretti warned. "Don't make anyone regret sending you on this mission. This is a bad day; let's not make it any worse. Lieutenant Rasputin; are you in control of your own faculties?"

"Yes, Sir."

Ferretti drew his knife and cut through the cuffs on Rasputin's wrists. "Captain Lloyd will keep hold of your weapons for the time being, but I think it's safe to let you move around."

"Thank you, Sir."

"We have almost two hours until check-in. Pearson; break out the rations. Something that's edible cold, since there's nothing here to make a fire with. Roberts and I are on watch; let's not forget that this Scourge got two of our folks back here as well."

"Not necessarily," Pearson replied. "I saw the survey tractor out by the temple and it got me thinking; I'm sure the report mentioned an artefact being loaded up here." He passed out the food – for want of a better word –then turned to the MALP which stood silent by the Gate. He took out his laptop and opened the side of the probe.

"What you looking for?" Roberts asked.

"Signal analysis," Pearson replied. "The MALP's antenna stays in passive reception mode even when everything else is powered down. Whatever it 'hears' it logs on its mission recorder. The idea is that if the recorder can be retrieved we can get an idea of what happened to a team that gets wiped out in the field. Sometimes it'll pick up things that the primary log misses."

"Didn't they check that already from the SGC?"

"It's not designed for remote access," Pearson explained. There's one connection going into the recorder from the sensor bus via a magnetic induction loop, but nothing breaches the case. It's supposed to be able to survive a blast of some five-to-six kilotonnes." The sergeant reached into the body of the probe and pulled out a short, bright orange cylinder. "MALPs usually end up as casualties when offworld teams run into hostiles; this was added so we could find out what happened to them."

He removed six screws from the top of the casing, then unscrewed the cylinder itself to expose a small button. When he pressed this there was a sharp hiss of air and the cylinder came easily apart to reveal a blue crystal held in a cradle of electronics. Pearson connected his laptop to this cradle and stood, staring at the screen.

"Well," Ferretti asked, at last.

"Result," Pearson replied. "Person-to-person transmission, sent about ten minutes after the Behemoth Code was called in. I'll play it back for you."

A sharp hiss came from the computer's speakers, and after a moment voices could be heard among the static:

"Cowper; I think we need to get out of here, fast."

"That's Willis," Ferretti noted.

"Get on that tractor and come pick us up, would you? Bring Askew; I don't like the thought of leaving anyone alone on this planet."

"Yes, Sir. We'll be with you as soon as we can get the ugly great doohickey off the back." Cowper muttered a curse. "Just got the hoist packed away and all."

"Forget it, lieutenant; no time for niceties. Time is of the essence here; just dump the damn thing, I don't care if it gets a bit smashed up."

"The doc..."

"The doc can bill me," Willis replied. "Just get here."

"Yes, Sir; we're on our way." There the transmission ended.

"Who's Askew?" Pearson wondered. "I thought SG-12 was only a five-strong unit."

"Dr Madeleine Askew; a specialist in Mesopotamian architecture from Boston University, working with the SGC anthropology unit," Merlyn replied. "She was attached to SG-12 for this mission when the ruins were discovered. Not that they look very Mesopotamian just at the moment."

"She's the blonde," Roberts added. "Kind of over-skinny; nice legs though."

"Thank you, Lieutenant," Merlyn said, her voice dripping sarcasm.

"What was up with that signal?" Ferretti interrupted.

"Interference," Pearson replied. "A few minutes before that signal came through, there was a sudden surge in the planet's EM radiation levels. Hmm...That's odd."

"What's odd?" Merlyn asked.

"Lots of things; but specifically this interference. Normal EM interference is caused by sunspots or atmospheric conditions, but this atmosphere doesn't have conditions and this has been going on too long for any sunspot. Besides; look."

Merlyn came and looked at the screen. She gave a low whistle.

"Sergeant?" Ferretti asked.

"There's a regularity to these patterns that can't be random chance, Sir. They're also at extremely low frequency; just a few hundred hertz."

"Between one-hundred and sixty-one and two-hundred and thirty-eight hertz?" Rasputin asked.

"Two-eighteen," Pearson confirmed. "How did you know?"

"That is the frequency range which the old Soviet Project Castellan determined to be most effective in brainwashing, and which the Special Directorate for Extrasensory Perception in Espionage and Counter-espionage established to be generated as telepathic carrier waves."

"Let me get this straight," Ferretti said. "You're telling me that something is beaming out psychic boogedy-boogedy waves across this planet?"

"Specifically that dome," Pearson added, "or something further off in the same direction. But even if it's only the dome, the power must be incredible."

Ferretti sighed. "Wire that thing back to the sensors, Pearson," he ordered. "Take a copy of the data if you need to do any more analysis, and see if you can jerry-rig it so the SGC can access the core remotely. That way if we go the same way as SG-12, at least command will know about it."

*

After hearing Ferretti's report, General O'Neill was clearly not a happy man.

"I'm sending SG units 3 and 4 to back you up," he said. "Whatever this thing is, I want to make damn sure it's dead."

"Not sure that's a good idea, Jack," Ferretti replied. "We're making an assumption that the level Omega will protect us from these vector nanites; hell, we're making an assumption that Russia's greatest love machine is right about the nanites in the first place. You've got the mission recorder running; best to see what happens to us. If we all go South you can take off and nuke the site from orbit."

"I'm not using SG-7 as a tethered goat, Lou."

"Not suggesting it, Sir, but we may be infected already. Doesn't make sense to put another team on the ground while we might turn on them; you might want to lock out our IDCs as well. However, since we very much plan on making it, I would appreciate if you'd prep the Animal House to give us the once over when we're done."

"Will do. You look after those kids, though; you hear me, Lou."

"I hear you, old timer."

"Watch it, you antique reprobate. Now tell me what you need?"

"Incendiary explosives, Omega gear for five," Ferretti replied. "Oh; and a BF-9M, just in case."

On the MALP's tiny screen, General O'Neill frowned. "You don't think that might be overkill?"

"Well, I'd feel pretty dumb if we needed one and didn't have it," Ferretti quipped, failing to hide the tension in his voice. "Listen, Jack; this thing has taken SG-12. If the same thing happens to my team, I don't intend to let this goddamn thing get away with it."

"Fifteen minutes, Colonel," O'Neill said.

"Thank you, Sir."

"You want to thank me, bring back my people."

"Yes, Sir."

"They'll be ready for you at the Animal House," O'Neill promised. "Don't keep them waiting. Sierra-Golf-Charlie out."

"Sierra-Golf-Seven out." Ferretti turned back to his team. "Pearson, strip the armour off the Jackal; we've a lot of gear to load."

"Ooh, goody!" Pearson exclaimed. "Riding along in an unprotected vehicle with a naquadah-enhanced micronuke."

"Who says we don't know how to have a good time?" Roberts demanded.

"What about me, Sir?" Rasputin asked.

"You come with us, but unarmed," Ferretti replied. "I'm not going to risk you falling under the fluence with a weapon."

"I told you, Sir; I was myself when I shot Commander Raleigh."

"Nevertheless, it would be little consolation if you end up shooting one of us."

"Colonel...!"

"Sir," Merlyn said, hesitantly.

"Captain?" Ferretti asked.

"I should admit that I felt the same misgivings as the lieutenant."

"As did I," Pearson added.

Ferretti was startled. "You did?"

"I felt something, anyway," Merlyn hedged. "But I don't normally follow unfounded gut-instinct. Mind you, I've gone wrong that way before."

"All humans possess a degree of psychic sensitivity," Rasputin said. "It may be that you and the sergeant have a sufficiently developed faculty to detect the influence of The Scourge at a subconscious level."

"That's not really the issue," Ferretti insisted. "Lieutenant Rasputin, you will go unarmed. Now, you brain-types have had long enough to talk turkey; give me your conclusions in stupid Colonel speak."

"Well, we're primarily working on supposition and intuition," Merlyn offered as a pre-emptive caveat.

"I'll take whatever you've got to offer."

Merlyn nodded. "Based on Lieutenant Rasputin's psychic intelligence," she began, with a perfectly straight face, "we have hypothesised that The Scourge is some kind of colossal gestalt or hive intelligence which attaches itself to other lifeforms in a parasitic fashion."

"Like the Goa'uld?" Ferretti asked.

"No," Rasputin responded. "This is quite different. The Goa'uld attach themselves to a host and control the host's body with their own. The Scourge uses some kind of...brainwave manipulation to control their victims as appendages. I don't know what it needs from the people that it controls, but clearly it needs something."

"What makes you say that?" Ferretti asked.

"This temple was dormant until SG-12 arrived," Pearson noted. "That suggests, very strongly, that the two things were not unconnected. We figure that The Scourge has been waiting for millennia for someone to trigger its defences, and clearly it was waiting for some reason; for something that it has lacked."

"Perhaps SG-12 breached some kind of containment field and just let the things out," Ferretti suggested. "We've seen it before."

"Possibly," Merlyn agreed, "but then why take the team captive instead of killing them?"

"So...in even stupider Colonel speak?"

"We don't know squat," Pearson said.

"Thank you."

*

"When you think of things you want to be the first to field test...?" Roberts began, uncertainly.

"No," Merlyn agreed. "When I think of such things, as much as I think of them at all, I do not think of biohazard gear."

"Reassure us, sergeant," Roberts begged. "Tell me we're safe in these things."

"As safe as can be," Pearson replied. "You actually have five different forms of protection in these things: first, there's the padding to protect against impact; second, a close-woven, synthetic silk body-sheath which offers the same protection as conventional, level A hazmat gear."

Merlyn gave a soft laugh. "And to think that the NID said a world of textile makers wasn't worth a diplomatic mission."

Pearson smiled. "Then there's a combination of Kevlar, ceramic body plates, and light plasma dispersal armour to protect the biohazard sheath from combat damage. The helmet is a light plasma case with a high-strength poly-glass visor and airtight seals at the neck," he added, matching action to words as he secured Roberts' helmet.

"This light plasma stuff is the super-soldier armour?" Ferretti asked.

"Well, it's the best that we can synthesise: don't be zatting yourself though," Pearson advised with a shrug. "Our version is very much a work in progress."

"Hold still," Roberts said, as he snapped closed the seals around Pearson's neck. "I don't want to trap your airline."

"What about the fifth form of protection?" Rasputin asked.

"Well, that's the clever part," Pearson explained. "The entire suit, including the breathing filters, is impregnated with friendly nanites; an active protection to defeat active cyberorganic assault. You know; in theory."

Rasputin raised her eyebrow. "In theory?"

"Well there's no real way to test it until we come under hostile nanotech assault," Pearson admitted, "but the principle is sound."

"You're insane."

"We're on the bleeding edge," Pearson corrected. "It's all rather exciting; admittedly after a terrifying fashion." He snapped closed the seals on Rasputin's helmet. "Breathing okay, lieutenant?"

"Yes, thank you, sergeant."

"The tank on your back carries three hours of compressed air," Pearson added. "At the moment you're breathing filtered atmosphere, but if the nano-shield detects an assault it can't defeat, the suit will automatically switch over to the self-contained supply. You can use the toggle on your wrist to switch over manually if you feel the need."

"Right. Got it." The young woman tapped the side of her helmet. "This...this is better," she admitted. "The psychic pressure is less with this gear on. The nanotechnology shield must be blocking the signal."

"At those frequencies, that seems likely," Pearson agreed. "The suit's battery powers the nanites via an induced current alternating at about two-hundred hertz; there's rather more variance than there is in the signal, but the frequencies are close enough that there is bound to be some interference."

"That's good," Ferretti said, "but the lieutenant still doesn't get a weapon."

"I understand, Sir," Rasputin assured him, sadly. It clearly hurt her that her team mates had come to distrust her so swiftly.

"The suits will monitor our vitals, along with a gas analysis of the air we're breathing. You can check your own readouts – or anyone else's – on your wrist unit and as long as we have a signal the data will be picked up and recorded by the MALP."

"If you're done talking tech then lend a hand with the practical stuff, Pearson," Ferretti called. "Let's get this nuke into the trunk."

Pearson grasped one of the handles. "That sentence is wrong on just so many levels."

Roberts moved closer to Rasputin. "You have no more idea what you're doing here than we do, have you?"

"So you are not just a pretty face, then?" Rasputin replied, quirking an eyebrow, playfully. The effect was slightly lost behind a quarter inch of high-strength, transparent polymer.

"People only think that because I'm so damn pretty."

Rasputin's smile faded slightly. "But you're right. I don't really know why I'm here; except perhaps that I have worked with General O'Neill in the past and he...feels sorry for me."

"I make no claim to psychic abilities," Roberts assured her, "but that doesn't strike me as being the General's style."

"My abilities have been proven to have a very limited virtue in the field," Rasputin assured him.

"You...you knew that something had happened to Mary," Roberts reminded her.

"Much good that may do us," Rasputin replied. She paused, nervously. "I wouldn't have expected you to be so sympathetic," she admitted.

Roberts gave a mirthless laugh. "Merlyn and Sergeant Pearson may be kicking themselves for ignoring their untapped psychic intuition, but I shouldn't have needed it. I know Mary well enough to see that she wasn't acting like herself and I've been with the SGC long enough to know what that means. I choked, Lieutenant Rasputina; that doesn't happen very often, and I have you to thank that no-one else suffered for my mistake."

"And nothing says thank you like a rifle butt to the face."

"Yes; well, hindsight is twenty-twenty. It seemed like the thing to do at the time."

"Was that an apology, Lieutenant Roberts."

Roberts smiled, slyly. "You could take it as such."

*

Ferretti parked the Jackal on the ridge once more and SG-7 looked down.

"Sweet Jesus!" Roberts exclaimed. He looked to Merlyn, expecting the usual rebukes, but she was as taken aback as any of them.

"Merciful Christ," she whispered.

"That's not a temple," Pearson said, taking out his field glasses and staring down at the complex. It had grown again since the team's last visit; now struts and cables rose from the substructures to the dome, giving it a more industrial air.

"So what is it?" Ferretti demanded.

Pearson returned his glasses to his vest pocket. "Lieutenant, may I borrow your scope?"

Roberts took a slim telescope, much more powerful than Pearson's field glasses, and passed it to the sergeant, who spent several minutes studying the structure. "Capacitors," he mumbled. "Superconductor coils...directing vanes...plasma conduits..."

"Captain," Roberts said in a deep, level tone, "sensors indicate a plotion field, highly charged with Star Trek stuff."

"My. God. Spock," Ferretti replied. "These things are...not human!"

"Please, Sir," Merlyn said, respectfully.

Ferretti sighed. "Apologies, Captain. No offence intended. Sergeant?"

"It's a transmitter," the sergeant replied. "Colossal, powerful; the range on that thing must be incredible. To judge by the configuration of the array's underlying circuitry – and bear in mind that this technology is like nothing I've ever seen before – I'd hazard that it's designed to send out a sub-space transmission across half the galaxy."

"Which half?" Roberts asked, dryly.

"The half it's pointing at."

"It's a wake-up call," Rasputin said.

"A summons," Merlyn agreed. "To tell other Scourge minds that there is a world that can supply the servitors which they need, perhaps."

"It is worse than that," Rasputin said. "With a transmitter like that, they would not need nanites or psychic sensitivity to function as a control vector, and these suits would be useless. We would all be slaves to the will of the mind at the heart of that structure. I can sense it more clearly now," she added. "It is waking from a deep sleep. It's autonomic functions – the ones which defend the centre, construct this beacon, take the humans it needs – are already active, but its conscious mind is being roused now. I can feel its power gathering; its will to conquer and dominate and...consume is growing."

"That sounds bad," Ferretti admitted.

"Yes, Sir."

The colonel shrugged. "Let's kill it."

*

In the ten minutes that it took for SG-7 to lower the BF-9M down the ridge on the Jackal's winch, a network of new cables had already cast themselves from the nearest substructure to the transmitter dome.

"It's getting faster," Pearson said.

"Then we do the same," Ferretti declared. "Load me."

"I'm not sure I like this idea," Roberts admitted, as he and Pearson lifted the BF-9M and strapped its harness around the colonel's shoulders and waist. "It seems unnatural."

"A simple question of weight distribution," Pearson assured the lieutenant.

"Not the harness. I get that you can carry a lot if you balance the load properly; I just don't like the idea that the colonel is carrying a nuclear weapon on his back. I feel rather strongly that atom bombs shouldn't be carried by anyone or anything smaller than the Enola Gay."

"Technically it's a sub-critical, naquadah-enriched fusion device," Pearson replied. "The triggering mechanism is quite different from a conventional thermonuclear..."

"Guys!" Ferretti snapped. "Less talking about the nuke in my backpack, please! I'm nervous enough as it is." He shrugged the BF-9M into a more comfortable position, then drew his MPX. "Let's go. Better switch to disruptors, since bullets only seem to inconvenience these thing...I mean, our former colleagues," he finished, uncomfortably. He murmured an obscenity to try and relieve his tension, without visible result.

SG-7 moved warily across the open space before the transmitter. Around them, the sub-structures and cables hummed and hissed with transmitted power. They could feel the massive potential building up around them, the very air quivering with it; the surface of the dome almost rippled with the energy boiling off it.

"They're taking a huge risk," Pearson whispered. "This isn't a signal transmitter, it's an energy broadcaster; and currently the energy is building in the dome, but they haven't constructed any means to channel it away. Until they complete the actual antenna, what we basically have here is a gigantic pressure explosive. If we can destroy the main array, or even just delay its completion, the transmitter will be immolated by its own accumulated power."

"How can you know this?" Rasputin demanded.

"I'm good with machines," Pearson replied. "Always have been. Never trained or anything; I just seem to know how things work. My dad says it comes from always studying clockwork mechanisms and car engines as a boy. I see mechanisms and I get a sense of how they go together; I feel out in my mind how one thing feeds into another; cause and effect."

"That is quite a gift, Sergeant," the Russian noted.

"Has its uses."

"Heads up!" Roberts, walking point, raised his M181 as Dr Landers descended from the doorway in the transmitter's side.

Merlyn moved up on the right hand side of the lieutenant. "Hold it right there, Dr Landers," she ordered.

"You must listen to me," Landers said, not slowing down. His voice was cold and emotionless, and it grated as though his throat was completely dry. "You can not win; your only choice is to surrender to The Scourge."

"That's close enough!" Ferretti barked, flanking Roberts on the left.

Once more, Landers ignored the command and kept on coming. "You can not fight us, Colonel Ferretti. If you resist, you will..."

Ferretti tapped the trigger of his MPX and the disruptor beam stabbed out, striking Landers in the chest. The man staggered, his limbs twitching as though struck by a zat blast.

"You will..." he began, then stopped. "You will..." he said again. "You will..." Landers took a lurching step forward and Merlyn shot him again. His body continued forward, tipping from his feet until he slammed into the ground at Roberts' feet.

"Is he dead?" Ferretti asked.

"Looks it," Roberts replied, "although I can't tell for sure without taking my gloves off and...Great Caesar's ghost!" The hardened airman, usually one of the most unflappable men Ferretti knew, took an involuntary step backwards as Dr Landers' body began to collapse in on itself. It did not rot or decompose, so much as dissolve into a colourless slime.

"What is happening to him?" Merlyn asked.

"Bozhe moi!" Rasputin exclaimed.

"His body tissues must have been under incredible stress," Pearson hypothesised. "If the control signal The Scourge is using follows the same principles as this transmitter, it's probably grotesquely overpowered. All that energy focused on him, it must have destroyed the integrity of his cell membranes; nothing was holding him together but the energy fields and when we disrupted them...Darn it!"

"What about the others?" Roberts asked. "Will there be anything we can do for them?"

"I doubt it," Pearson sighed. "Their tissues are probably damaged beyond hope already."

Ferretti sensed his team becoming despondent. They were here for a rescue mission, and the probability that those whom they had come to rescue were beyond salvation was a heavy blow. "Alright," he said, forcing himself to sound businesslike. "Then let's focus on what we can do. We can't save SG-12, so we make sure and fix the bastards who killed them."

"Sir," Merlyn agreed. "Lieutenant."

Roberts nodded and went back on point, climbing the stairs to the doorway. Inside the structure the passages were dark; grey-black walls patterned with luminous veins which pulsed with green and blue light. The largest of these veins ran through the ceilings of the structure, casting a ghastly radiance down across the passage.

Just beyond the entrance, the path divided. "One passage sloping steeply down," he reported; "the other going in towards the centre of this dome. Which way, Colonel?"

"You take Lieutenant Rasputin and the sergeant and head in," Ferretti replied. "Merlyn; you're with me going down. I want to see how far it goes and plant this bomb as deep as we can."

"Is it wise to divide our number, Colonel?" Rasputin asked.

Ferretti gave a sharp laugh. "Wise? No; but then what exactly about this situation is wise?"

"I take your point, Sir."

Ferretti nodded. "Captain; I have point. Good luck, Roberts."

*

"Is it just me?" Rasputin asked, "or are these walls...growing?"

Roberts shivered as he looked at the walls. It did indeed look as though they were growing; layer-upon-layer knitting itself over the skeletal framework of the structure. "Is this place alive?"

Pearson shook his head. "I don't think so, Captain," he replied. "This structure does appear almost organic." He folded away the foregrip of his MPX and holstered it, freeing his hands for a portable scanner.

"What have we got, sergeant?" Roberts asked.

"This material is a composite of silicon, naquadah and various trace elements," Pearson replied. "There are strong energy signatures in the areas where the surface is growing. I think we're seeing some kind of nano-construction technology at work here; nanites arranging and depositing material; fusing it at the molecular level. These surfaces must be incredibly strong."

"Then I suppose the important question is: Can we destroy it?" Rasputin asked.

"Nothing we're packing would even scratch it," Pearson admitted, "but the disruptors should have some affect on the construction units. Our best chance is still to cause a feedback from the transmission array."

"Sounds good," Roberts admitted. "The passage splits up ahead. Do you want to make a guess which way we need to go, sergeant?" The wrist units of the three Omega suits bleeped as one. "And quickly, please; that's the start of our three hours of air."

"I think I can figure it out," Pearson replied. "This structure...I think I'm starting to understand the rules on which it works. If we follow this passage on the left, I think we'll be there soon." The sergeant coughed to clear his throat, a slight buzz entering his voice. "These...these veins carry the power to the capacitors which feed the transmitter. Once enough has been gathered and the antenna is completed..." Pearson stopped and sucked at the water tube inside his suit. "I'm sorry, Sir; my voice..."

"You are starting to sound like Landers," Rasputin realised. "Bozhe moi; it is beginning to control you. But how..."

Pearson shook his head. "Just don't let this thing get me and I'll get you to its black heart," he promised. "I can see how. This mechanism isn't really so alien; it..."

"Stop!" Rasputin exclaimed. "Don't think about it! Don't try to understand!"

"Lieutenant Rasputin?" Roberts asked. "What is it?"

"Focusing his attention on the mechanism is weakening the sergeant's resistance. It's using that focus to attack him, perhaps using his sensitivity. Who can say; perhaps his ability to understand machines is partially psychic. That could make a it a vector for mental attack."

"You heard the lady, sergeant. Don't think about this machine."

"I'll try," Pearson croaked.

"Lead the way," Roberts ordered, "and quickly. I don't think we have a moment to waste."

"Sir..." Rasputin cautioned.

"We don't have the time, Lieutenant," Roberts pressed.

Rasputin backed down, recognising Roberts' seniority.

Roberts nodded. "Keep an eye on him," he whispered.

*

"God," Merlyn gasped. "Oh sweet Jesus, I can hardly breathe."

"Is there a problem with your equipment?" Ferretti asked, concerned. He could tell that this was serious; Merlyn would never blaspheme, which meant that her oaths were a genuine and desperate plea. He glanced at his wrist and saw a green light which told him that Merlyn's internal oxygen supply was still operating at full efficiency. "I know these suits are pretty experimental still..."

"The equipment's fine," she assured him, "but the presence...I can feel it below us. Something, pressing down on me like a great weight."

"Pressing down from below?"

"Colonel, please!"

Ferretti nodded. "My apologies, Captain."

"It's almost tangible, Sir," Merlyn insisted. "There is definitely something down there; something potent and hungry. Something..."

"Evil?"

Merlyn shook her head. "Hostile, certainly, but since 541 I've been very wary of using the word evil. This is terrible indeed, but nothing like the pure, unadulterated malice I felt in that temple."

"You're starting to sound like Roberts," Ferretti chided, trying to sound casual. "Before we know it we'll be a whole team of gothic poets."

Merlyn forced a smile. "Yes, Sir. I'll try to avoid that fate."

"This thing just keeps going down, doesn't it?"

"Very subtle, Sir," Merlyn replied, gratefully. "I barely noticed the change of subject. How far do we go."

"As far as we can. You okay to carry on?"

"Yes, Sir. Not comfortable, but capable."

"That's the spirit, Captain," Ferretti applauded. "Perseverance in the face of common sense."

"I am starting to wish we'd brought one of those M181s down here."

Ferretti laughed. "Those things are heavy," he reminded her. "You really want to carry one all that way?"

At that moment a puff of wind ran up the corridor and washed over them, soft as a breath yet detectable by the melancholy sigh which accompanied its passing. The two humans shivered.

"For this, Sir, I'd carry the thing on foot from Earth."

*

"This is the centre," Pearson rasped.

"Yeah," Roberts agreed. "I got that." He stared up at the great pillar of iridescent stone that cast its eldritch, green glow into every nook and cranny of the vaulted chamber. From the capital of the pillar, black flanges, with edges like razor blades, rose to the ceiling. Emerald lightning crackled around these vanes, dancing with an uncanny languor. A sense of dread radiated from the surface of the pillar; even Roberts could feel its malevolence.

"This...This is the core from which the Song of the Scourge will be sung across the stars."

Roberts shook his head, sadly. "Right; that's enough. Get him out of here, Lieutenant Rasputin."

"You...you may need my help," Rasputin said, her voice harsh and grating.

"I don't think so, lieutenant," Roberts replied. "You're almost as bad as he is. I can take care of planting the explosives; you just get him away from this thing."

"Yes, Sir," Rasputin agreed, wearily. "I'm sorry..."

"You're getting worse, lieutenant; just go." Roberts reached out and gently removed the MPX from Pearson's shaking hands, then passed the weapon to Rasputin.

 "Yes, Sir." Rasputin inclined her head as she accepted the gesture of trust. She turned and laid her hand on Pearson's arm. "Follow me, Sergeant," she ordered, placing a deep tone of authority in her voice which seemed to penetrate the psychic fog which clouded Pearson's brain.

"Ye...Yes, Sir," Pearson whispered, hoarsely. "Ma'am. Yes, Ma'am."

Roberts turned some of his attention to the pillar as his team mates walked away, but it was only after their footsteps had faded that he felt safe enough to focus on the task in front of him. It was a terrible and unfamiliar thing to feel unable to trust his comrades, but just at this moment he really had no idea who or what his comrades were.

"Power flows; the lifeblood of The Scourge."

"Yes, Sergeant," Rasputin said, giving his arm a cajoling tug. "Nice lifeblood. Just try not to think about it." She tried to keep the croak out of her own voice, but it was getting harder; the insistent, implacable will of The Scourge pressed down hard on her mind. She could only imagine what it was like for Pearson to face such a pressure without her training; without her months spent sparring with the other psychics of the Special Directorate.

Not that that was in any way a comparable experience. There was more force in The Scourge's will than could be mustered by the entire Directorate. Alexa Rasputin's psychic nature had clearly attracted a great deal of The Scourge's attention and her defences would have been futile, had she met that force head-on. Fortunately, The Scourge Mind was like an ice pick; impossible to resist, but it could be turned aside by skill and guile. At present, her mind was twisting like a snake, writhing wildly as she struggled to avoid the grip of The Scourge.

"I do not think," Pearson croaked. "I feel. I feel the power flowing. I feel the Song of the Scourge in my veins; I can smell it growing within the capacitors, the sound building, ready to scream across the universe."

"Don't think about it!"

"Not thinking," Pearson repeated. "Feeling! Knowing! I know that we will die; we can not resist the Song."

"That's The Scourge speaking," Rasputin insisted. "You must not listen to it, sergeant. That is an order!"

"Orders are not important anymore. Don't you understand, I know what will be. I see it; the perfection of the devices, the power of the will. We...You shall be overwhelmed; your flesh is fodder for our flesh; your life will serve our life. Your minds are puppets to the will of the Scourge." The sergeant turned, suddenly, and grabbed for Rasputin's helmet seals.

"Like hell!" Rasputin replied. She drove her fist hard into Pearson's midriff, feeling the weave of his armour stiffen against the impact, robbing it of force. With desperate strength, she twisted from Pearson's grasp, turned her body against his and flipped him over her shoulder, employing the same principles of redirected force which she was employing against the will of The Scourge. His mind lost in a haze, Pearson's own training abandoned him. He was thrown easily and landed badly.

The sergeant lay on the smooth floor of the passageway, gasping out the monotonous threats of The Scourge. Rasputin took aim with the MPX. Nothing remained of the man, she told herself. He was not her comrade. Her finger tightened on the trigger, then released it.

"Niet!" she snapped. "I will not give up." She turned her face to the wall. "Do you hear me; I will not give up on this man! I refuse to lose another mind to a hunger like yours!"

Rasputin dropped to straddle Pearson's chest, her knees resting on his arms, holding him pinned to the ground. She snapped open the seals around his neck and pulled off his helmet; the face beneath was contorted with inhuman rage, the mouth flecked with bloody foam, dark skin grown pale and sickly. His eyes had rolled back, white and sightless.

After a moment's hesitation, Rasputin's hands went to her own neck; in a moment she was bare-headed and at once the pressure on her mind redoubled. She had been prepared for this, but still it was all she could do to avoid the iron talons which gouged at her consciousness. The world was ripped away as her senses were overwhelmed; sight, sound, touch and smell all gone, replaced by a single, unified sense of pain. Even the awareness of her own body was fading, as though she herself were unravelling. She felt small and isolated, lost in the midst of such power; every fragment of her intuition told her that she was alone and doomed.

However, beyond intuition lay knowledge. Rasputin felt as though she was past help, but she knew that Pearson lay on the floor below her. She knew that there was another mind within reach; a strong mind with its own power. She knew that she was not alone.

With numb, clumsy fingers she stripped off her heavy gauntlets, then groped blindly for Pearson's face. Her hands found him and she followed them with her mind, followed the fraying thread of her self until at last she touched the sergeant's mind. The hard, tearing clouds parted and she saw Pearson's self; tiny and cowed, but glowing with a golden light; smothered but not destroyed.

Rasputin reached out and touched Pearson's psychic presence. At once she felt his fear, his pain; his deep sense of failure at having been taken by this influence. Rasputin suddenly realised that she was about to touch a mind that was raw and bleeding, its defences stripped away so utterly by The Scourge that its thoughts were practically forcing themselves into her perception. If she followed her intent to its end, she would be invading Pearson's self in a way that she would never have thought herself capable of; she was unsure if she had the right to do that, even to save his life.

It was too late for second thoughts, however. Without the protection of the hazard suit, Scourge nanites were flooding Rasputin's body. She could feel them invading her own nervous system, unravelling her defences as they had unravelled Pearson's. There would be a degree of reciprocity in this; her thoughts would not be entirely hidden from him and that was a frightening concept. Unfortunately, there was no other course left open to her. She steadied herself for a moment, then plunged forward into Pearson's spirit.

 Not alone! She cried out. You are not alone, Sergeant Pearson. I am not alone. We are not alone, and together we can fight this thing. Do you hear me, Pearson? Panic gripped her. If the sergeant was too far gone to help her, then even with their psyches united they could never resist The Scourge.

What...What can I do? Pearson asked.

Just hold on, she responded, exultant. She could sense his fear at her presence in his mind, and tried to shut out the flood of images as every secret that he dreaded her discovering rose into the front of his mind. She had to focus now; to marshal their combined resources to protect them both.

The Scourge clutched at them, but Rasputin deflected its psychic tendrils, forging a defensive barrier around the bound minds of herself and Sergeant Pearson. The shell was a fragile thing before the might of The Scourge, but it was smooth, and the grasping mind simply slid off it.

How long will it hold? Pearson wondered.

I have no idea, Rasputin admitted. Long enough. I hope.

*

"Look alive, Captain!" Ferretti insisted, forcing himself to ignore his own intense weariness. He knew that the sensation could not be entirely natural; he had greater endurance, even at his age, than to collapse after half an hour's walking. He did not complain, having realised that however bad things were for him, they were far worse for Merlyn.

"Yes, Sir," the captain gasped. "Right behind you."

"I think we must be at least twice as far down as this structure rises above the ground," Ferretti guessed. "There can't be much further to go. Once we get to the bottom of this, we'll drop off the package and...Gah!"

Ferretti broke off with a cry as his foot hit air. His arms pinwheeled as he fought to shift his balance back onto the ledge, but the momentum of his heavy load was too much and he felt himself falling forward into empty space.

He stopped.

"I got you, Sir," Merlyn groaned, through gritted teeth. With a surge of adrenal might, she pulled her CO and his deadly burden back to safety.

"Oh God," Ferretti murmured, slumping heavily to the ground in the mouth of the passage.

"It's alright, Sir," Merlyn assured him. "Back on terra firma."

"Not that, Merlyn," Ferretti replied. "Just...just you take a look down that shaft."

Merlyn gave the colonel a quizzical look, but did as she was told. She left the passage and stepped out onto the narrow ledge. The black walls of the passage ended abruptly, vanishing into darkness so suddenly that Ferretti had not even noticed. Merlyn would not have noticed either; the luminous green vein which ran along the roof of the corridor continued straight out into space, so that the passage appeared to carry on where the floor in fact stopped.

The ledge ran around the circumference of a great opening, thirty feet across and roughly circular. There were five openings, from each of which a green vein emerged, the five meeting in the centre of the low ceiling of what might have been a spacious chamber if not for the shaft. When Merlyn cautiously leaned out over the space, she saw that it dropped fifteen yards or more to another gallery like the one she stood on. Fifteen yards below that was a third ledge, then a fourth, a fifth and more. The depth was impossible to even estimate, but green luminescence flickered below them as far as the eye could see. Even as Merlyn looked, fresh light appeared, deeper than any before.

"It's waking up," Merlyn realised. "Deeper and deeper, it's waking up."

"It must go down for miles," Ferretti agreed. "Captain Lloyd; I think we may be in over our heads."

*

A soft, scratching sound itched away at the back of Roberts' mind as he fixed the explosive charges against the pillar and primed the detonators. He tried to ignore the distraction, but the sound was growing louder and more insistent, eating at his concentration. He raised his hand to wave at the irritation, but there was nothing there to touch. The sound seemed to be inside his helmet now and Roberts barely kept himself from tearing open the seals of his helmet to get at it. With a grunt, he recognised that he was beginning to feel the influence which had utterly overwhelmed his comrades.

Another sensation cut through the scratching. Roberts raised his head a fraction. "Don't come any closer."

"But Tim..." Mary Raleigh stepped through the door and Roberts turned to face her. She was dressed as she had been when she met the team on the stairs, but her fatigues were unstained by her blood and unmarked by Rasputin's bullets. Her face was whole, and as remarkable as always in its simple charm. Mary Raleigh was no great beauty, but her green eyes were pretty and brimmed over with the strength of her character.

Roberts gauged the distances in his mind and realised that she was closer to his M181 than he was. "You look well," he noted, loosening the MPX in its holster. "No closer, Mary; I mean it."

Raleigh stopped. Her face was serious. "Please, Tim; just listen to me. It's important."

"I try to avoid listening to what dead people tell me," Roberts replied, wiring up another charge.

"You must stop, Tim. The Scourge is not your enemy; it is simply seeking a way to communicate. No-one has been hurt yet and no-one needs to be, if only you call off this attack."

"Flesh for our flesh? Puppets to our will?" Roberts quoted, wryly. "I'm sorry, but that doesn't sound much like 'we come in peace' to me."

"You don't understand, Tim; the contact is not easy. It takes time for the human mind to adjust. Soon your team mates will be able to communicate freely again; as I am."

"You are dead, Mary; I saw you die and I saw you get up again."

"And aren't you glad that I'm alright?" Mary gave a coquettish smile. "You almost act as though you wish I was dead."

"I would give almost anything for you to be alive," he assured her, "but no-one who walks around with half their head missing is anything approaching 'alright'."

"Tim, please. You won't shoot me." She took a step forward.

"I said stay back." He drew his MPX. "You're right that I don't want to hurt you, Mary. Whatever you are, I still don't want that; so please, stay back," he repeated, as she took another step.

"Come with me, Tim; let me show you..."

Mary took another step forwards and Roberts shot her. The disruptor beam struck her square in the chest and her body flickered as it absorbed the blue pulse of energy. Mary Raleigh looked at Roberts for a moment, her soulful eyes filled with shock and dismay, then she collapsed. Flickering green lightning arced from the floor of the chamber and the body twitched. With a shuddering motion, Mary began to rise to her feet and Roberts shot her again.

The energy of the blast flashed back along the groping tendrils of electric fire, coiling from Mary's body into the floor of the chamber. For a moment the emerald glow of the wall-veins flickered, and after only a moment Mary's body began to disintegrate; to liquefy as Dr Landers' had done.

Roberts returned his MPX to its holster and turned back to the pillar, his face set in a stony glare behind his biohazard mask.

*

The blue light of the disruptor blast flickered along the veins in the roof of the passageway. As the glow which bathed her briefly changed its hue, Rasputin felt her mind released from the death-grip of the Scourge. The awesome presence of her foe recoiled in pain, and once more its psychic ponderousness allowed Rasputin's more agile will to slip beneath its defences and snatch a brief glimpse of its intent.

"Ahhh!" she screamed, forcing the sound from her throat in an attempt to reactivate her voice. She snatched at her radio. "Colonel." Her voice was still a rasp, but it was recognisably human.

"Lieutenant?" Ferretti replied, uncertainly.

"There's a biotransmitter in the catacombs," Rasputin informed her CO. "That's the seat of the Scourge Mind; if you can destroy...Agh!" She cried out as the pressure swept back towards her.

"Lieutenant!"

"Veins...In the ceiling," Rasputin gasped. "Follow...Nah!" Desperately, Rasputin swept her defences into place once more as the weight of The Scourge crashed down upon her.

*

"Lieutenant?" Ferretti demanded, but there was no response. "Lieutenant!"

There was a long pause. The passageway around Ferretti – three levels down from the top of the shaft – was empty of sound, save for the crackle as the disruption force washed past.

"She's got troubles of her own." Roberts' voice, cracked and hoarse, broke the silence. Despite its distortion, Ferretti detected a new note in the man's tone when speaking of his fellow lieutenant; one of respect. "The charges are set; I've slaved the detonators to your remote."

"Alright, Roberts; get Rasputin and Pearson back to the Jackal."

"No can do, Sir," Roberts replied. "They've...They're pretty much gone, Sir. They're not going anywhere."

Ferretti swore. "Okay, Roberts; just get out yourself."

"They're not dead, Sir," Roberts protested. "They just...I don't feel right leaving them, Colonel. With your permission, Sir, I'd rather stay with them."

"Sir," Merlyn croaked. "We need to move. There isn't much time."

Ferretti closed his eyes, fighting to deny the inevitable. "Yes," he whispered at last. "Stand to, lieutenant. Stay with the others until...until you hear from me."

"Yes, Colonel," Roberts replied. "Good luck, Sir. And...you too, Captain."

"Thank you, Roberts," Merlyn replied. "The same to you."

Ferretti shot a sidelong look at his 2IC, but it was hard to see her expression behind the Plexiglas of her mask. He made a gesture for Merlyn to cut her transmitter.

"Sir?"

Ferretti turned his back on her. "Arm and set," he told her. "Put the timer at one hour."

"You can't be serious, Sir! Roberts and the others..."

Ferretti turned to face the captain. "This could well be it," he told her, seriously. "This could be where SG-7 cash in their chips and if we go, I swear to almighty God and the sweet Baby Jesus that this bastard temple goes with us! Pardon my blasphemy."

"In the circumstances, I think I can find it in my heart to forgive you," Merlyn assured the colonel in a whisper. She holstered the MPX, waited while Ferretti turned again, then opened the control panel of the BF-9M. She typed in her personal code and ran through the arming sequence of the device. The movements of the controls were familiar enough from dozens of simulations, but she had never expected to find herself arming a BF-class, naquadah enhanced nuclear explosive in earnest; not even one of the M-series subnukes. "One hour?" she asked.

"One hour," Ferretti confirmed.

"And then what?"

"We follow the veins. These things are pulsing."

Merlyn nodded. "As though the energy were passing along them; like blood through the circulatory system."

"Well, I'm going to take a wild guess and say we 'follow' by going to where those pulses come from. I figure that will take us to the source and then..."

"And then?"

"Boom," he replied, grimly.

Merlyn nodded, with stoic determination. She drew her weapon again, lowered the foregrip and locked the shoulder stock open. "It's been an honour, Sir..."

Ferretti halted her with a raised hand. "We're not there yet, Captain. There's still a thin chance and we've got out of worse scrapes in our time."

"We have?"

Ferretti thought for a moment. "Possibly not," he admitted. "But I'm sure that SG-1 have, so it must be possible."

"You think we're up to it then?" Merlyn asked, innocently, as she followed Ferretti along the passageway.

"What's that supposed to mean, Captain?" Ferretti demanded.

"Nothing, Sir."

"Captain?"

"Sometimes, Sir...Well, sometimes it seems like you don't think we're up it."

"It?"

Merlyn coughed, awkwardly. "I know that you suggested to General O'Neill that SG-1 should be assigned to the investigation of pre-Ancient threats in our place, Sir."

"They are the best we have, Captain," Ferretti replied, defensively. He would have been within his rights to reprimand Merlyn for her impertinence; that he declined to do so was a sign that he recognised her point. "You were the one who stressed how urgent all of this was."

"It's just not very encouraging," Merlyn explained. "I don't know how word got further than the General's office, but I've been running myself ragged trying to make sure that Roberts and Pearson don't get wind of it. They like to think that we have some faith in them."

"I have faith in you all," Ferretti assured her.

"But you still think SG-1 are better," Merlyn pressed.

"Well...SG-7 are an excellent team in many ways, but..."

Merlyn shook her head. "I'm not saying that SG-1 aren't good, but we are just as good. And we are the team for the job, Colonel; I didn't suggest us for this mission out of any kind of vanity you know."

"I kind of wish the General had gone along with it," Ferretti admitted.

"Uncharitable though it is, so do I."

"Ah well. If wishes were horses, we'd be the cavalry. Come on, Captain." Ferretti snapped off the safety catch on his MPX. "Let's do this."

*

The passageway wound its way, seemingly without end, into the rock. Ferretti was just beginning to wonder if he needed to reset the timer on the bomb when he and Merlyn emerged into what was clearly the control room.

The circular chamber had a low, domed ceiling, but was almost fifty feet across and with seven exits. Energy pulsed out through the veins in the roof of each of the openings, confirming that this was the centre. Dozens of alcoves were set in the walls, and smaller veins in the chamber floor carried energy from six of these alcoves to the centre, and to what Ferretti could only think of as an altar.

This centrepiece was a squat pillar of black, opalescent stone, shot through with a radiant web of fine capillaries. Atop the pillar sat a bulging dome with a corrugated surface; energy crackled between the ridges and emerald light glowed from the cracks. The air around the dome rippled with potential, and a cloud of shimmering particles coalesced above into a swirling column of light which rose into the great crystal which was set in the heart of the roof.

"Good God," Ferretti whispered.

"Hardly," Merlyn replied. "Sir; look. In the alcoves."

Ferretti wrenched his gaze from the altar, and his blood ran cold. "It can't be," he gasped. "We...We shot..."

The six alcoves from which the energy flowed stood out, in that they were occupied. A human being was held in each by a pair of thick, muscular tentacles which emerged from the walls and wrapped around them. Even half-hidden by these hideous pseudopods, Ferretti could clearly see that the occupants of the alcoves were the members of SG-12.

"It is them," Merlyn insisted. "What we shot must have been some kind of simulacra. SG-12 themselves are being used as a power source."

"Ri-ight," Ferretti drawled. "Don't I remember every engineer in the SGC scoffing at the Matrix and telling me humans aren't a good power source?"

"I guess it depends, Sir," Merlyn replied. "Bioelectricity and thermal energy aren't much for the food you take in, but maybe The Scourge taps them for psychic energy. You should see the estimates the techs have made of the potential energy output of Cassandra Fraiser's brain."

"Well, we can wonder about that later," Ferretti decided. "Meantime, let's smash things and get as many people out as we can."

A wave of energy surged from the alcoves to the pillar and up into the crystal. The blazing glow grew brighter, almost dazzling for a moment before the pulse flashed out through the passages. The walls of the chamber began to shimmer.

Merlyn's eyes widened in terror. "Colonel! I think it heard you."

*

Rasputin gave a sharp cry, then both she and Pearson collapsed, shivering and spasming on the ground.

"Oh heck," Roberts muttered, the avoidance of blasphemy so ingrained by now that it still held him, even when Merlyn could not hear him. Rasputin and Pearson's unnaturally static pose had been eerie enough, but this was infinitely worse. Roberts thumbed the selector on his M181 and the plasma lance began to gather atmospheric gases with its characteristic hum. He touched a second switch and the weapon's arming chamber went into ionising mode, transforming the gases into superheated plasma. His finger lay ready alongside the trigger and he wondered what he would do if one of his comrades were to rise up as a slave to The Scourge.

"Stand to and give cover, Captain!" Ferretti snapped. "This ends here."

"Sir."

Ferretti stepped forward and crouched down so that he could safely unsling the BF-9M from his back. "Has anyone ever detonated one of these things before?" he asked.

"I don't know," Merlyn replied. "I assume they must have been test detonated, but this is certainly the first time one of the subcritical devices has been set off in earnest."

"Cool," he said, although his voice remained grim.

"Nice to die doing something novel," Merlyn agreed, tightly. "We...Sir!" With a sharp whine, the disruptor in Merlyn's MPX fired, casting a blue glow across the walls. "The walls, Colonel! The simulacra of SG-12 are being spawned from the walls."

"Just give me a few more seconds," Ferretti ordered. He dropped the stabiliser legs and activated the internal gyroscopes. He pulled the arming panel and so activated the bomb's anti-tamper circuits; red lights began to flash, warning in as universal a fashion as possible that any attempt to move the bomb would be a very bad idea.

The pillar flashed. Ferretti felt a stabbing pain in his temple. He staggered back, barely managing not to jog the bomb.

Merlyn screamed. "My head! It's in my head!"

Ferretti began to turn, grappling for his weapon, but hands seized him. He turned his head and saw that his captors were Dr Landers and Major Willis, but they were stronger than any human Ferretti had ever come across. He lashed out with his foot, this time trying to kick the BF-9M, but he had already been hauled out of range. Hands seized him around the neck, fumbling for the seals of his helmet. "Captain!"

Ferretti was wrenched around, and saw Merlyn writhing on the ground, clutching at the sides of her helmet as though she were trying to dig through the material with her fingers.

"Captain!"

Roberts raised his weapon to his shoulder and slipped his finger through the trigger guard as two figures approached: The hulking form of Second Lieutenant Colin Cowper and the 'over-skinny' frame of Dr Madeleine Askew.

"That's close enough!" Roberts warned. When neither figure responded, he squeezed the trigger; the M181 pushed gently against his shoulder as the stream of plasma spat forth. He fired on Cowper first, seeing the giant Texan as the most immediate danger. The plasma enveloped the lieutenant and his big body went up like a signal flare, burning with almost obscene speed.

Roberts swung his aim towards Askew as she charged. His finger pressed down, but something came at him from the side and he was forced to hurl himself backwards to avoid it. He rolled awkwardly to his feet and pulled the M181 tight into his shoulder. Askew leaped over the twitching forms of Rasputin and Pearson, backlit by the flicker of Cowper's burning corpse, while the third attacker scrambled to her feet.

"Mary!" Roberts' brain froze up for a moment. Mary was dead; he had killed her and seen her liquefy. He hesitated only for a moment, but it was long enough. Askew and Mary were both too close to his fitting team mates for him to be able to use the lance at all.

Askew lunged and Roberts swung the butt of the M181 into the side of her head. He reversed the motion and slammed the shoulder stock into Mary's face, but neither woman was as phased by the impact as they should have been. Mary's hands seized the weapon and Roberts released it, then drew his MPX; he fired into Mary's chest, bullets shredding through her chest, and she staggered back.

Roberts thumbed the selector, but Askew hurled herself onto him. They fell together in the doorway of the transmitter room and the disruptor fired between their bodies. He shivered at the touch of the energy pulse, but Askew spasmed violently and her body began to liquefy. Roberts tried to wrestle free of the decomposing archaeologist, but Mary grappled his arm and ripped the weapon from his hand. She seized him by the shoulders and slammed him up and down into the floor, smashing the air from his lungs and rattling his brain around inside his skull as Askew's body flaked and sloughed off him.

Stunned by this savage battering, Roberts was unable to fight off Mary – or whoever and whatever this thing was – as she released the seals of his helmet. She ripped the protective covering away and bent down, pressing her mouth against his and exhaling a lungful of burning breath into Roberts' mouth. He could almost feel the cloud of nanites scrabbling at the lining of his mouth, burrowing into him and charging for the vulnerable synapses of his brain.

"Merlyn!" Ferretti screamed, struggling in vain against the strength of the simulacra; his MPX dangled uselessly in his hand. The zombie with the faces of Willis and Landers dragged the colonel slowly towards one of the empty alcoves. Merlyn still writhed on the floor, screaming in psychic agony as the mental force of The Scourge – as undetectable to Ferretti as the shrill cry of a dog whistle – ripped at her consciousness.

As his mind began to cloud, Roberts made a last effort to resist his assailant. He twisted an arm loose and slammed his fist into the Mary-thing's face. As she recoiled, he hitched his leg up and rolled himself backwards, pitching her off him. She rolled across the floor of the transmitter chamber and fetched up hard against the pillar. The bone-jarring impact hardly phased her, but Roberts had time to dive for his MPX and come up firing.

The disruptor beam stabbed out, five times in all, striking the Mary-thing in the chest. She gave a gurgling cry and staggered back against the transmitter relay. Once more that eldritch, emerald lightning arced out, seeking to revivify the pseudo-flesh of the construct, but the disruptor blasts spread their influence into the relay and the light flickered. For a moment – just a brief moment – the pressure on his brain lifted.

With a scream of pure release, Merlyn swept up her MPX and fired, blasting the simulacra on Ferretti's arms. They staggered back, the decaying force of the disruptor warring with the revivifying energy that leaped out at them from the dome at the crest of the pillar. Here, at the heart of The Scourge hive, the disrupting force had no chance of victory, but it was yet another drain on the psychic energy and that was a chance.

"The dome!" Ferretti ordered, bringing up his own weapon.

Merlyn nodded and both disruptors fired, two fingers jamming down on the triggers to send the disruptor blasts in continuous streams into the corrugated surface of that malevolent focal point. At once, the simulacra gave voice to a terrible cry. The light from the dome flickered in and out; on and off; blue and green.

The Scourge flailed about itself, psychic tendrils struggling to reach for...anything; any mind within range. The walls of the chamber bubbled madly as the Mind struggled to form more defenders, but the intruders' weapons were too much for it. The strange energies bored into the surface of the Mind's vessel, shattering its defences, scrambling its thoughts and leaving it agonised and impotent. With one last cry, its energy lost all cohesion and the Mind died.

*

The light burst out of the dome in a brilliant wave which washed over Ferretti and Merlyn. A scream echoed in Merlyn's head for a moment, then died. The chamber grew dark; only a faint trickle of emerald light flowed in and out of the pillar.

"Captain?" Ferretti asked.

"I'm here, Sir; present and pretty much still me."

"Pretty much?"

"Well, as far as I can tell."

Something soft hit the ground behind Ferretti. He spun around and activated the torch on the side of his MPX. The beam fell across a slumped form, lying close to the wall.

"More simulacra!" Ferretti cried.

"No, Sir!" Merlyn realised. "It's Dr Askew." She went over to the other woman's side and crouched down. "She's badly bruised where those tentacles held her, but she's alive. It must have..." With another soft thump, a second body fell down beside Merlyn. She turned her torch to the noise. "Major Willis."

A louder crash came from across the chamber. "Cowper!" Ferretti said, barely needing to check. He activated his radio. "Lieutenant Roberts, can you here me?"

"I...I read you, Colonel. I think we're all alright."

"That is a little strong, Sir," Rasputin interjected, "but we are alive and we are...we."

"Do you remember those directions you gave us, Lieutenant Rasputin?" Ferretti asked.

"To the control room? Yes, Sir; I could find my way in my sleep."

Ferretti chuckled. "Well, try to stay awake; we need the three of you down here right away. There's a lot of weight to carry."

*

Roberts was clearly shocked to see the members of SG-12 all present and correct; Ferretti was no less startled to see that both of his lieutenants and his sergeant had shed their biohazard helmets.

"We're almost certainly all infected," Roberts admitted, "but there's no compulsion."

"It's dead," Rasputin said, awestruck. She walked over to the dome and laid a hand on it, recoiling as though burned from the touch. "I can still feel its anger...It's fear...And its power," she realised. "The energy is still building; there's no will behind it anymore, but the signal is still being readied on automatic."

"How long?" Ferretti asked.

"I have no idea, Sir."

"No time to waste then. Merlyn, grab Dr Askew; Rasputin, Commander Raleigh. Roberts take Dr Landers and Pearson you carry Sergeant Watts. I'll take Al once I've reset the bomb to give us a little longer to retreat; I guess we'll have to come back for Cowper. We'll take the Jackal and the tractors, get back to the Gate, then blow the charges along with the BF-9M; torch this joint and hightail it to the Animal House. Any questions?" There were none. "Then let's move with a purpose, people."

SG-7 dragged the members of SG-12 out of the transmitter structure and loaded them onto the two vehicles. Willis and Mary were placed in the rear seats of the Jackal while Pearson and Roberts rode the tractor with Landers, Askew and Watts; Pearson also unscrewed the hood of the tractor to make a sled to drag the giant Cowper along behind. The tractor was not as fast as the Jackal, but it was much faster than walking, especially with five people carrying six; progress still seemed agonisingly slow, and it was almost half-an-hour before the two teams were back at the Stargate.

"Ten minutes to detonation," Ferretti warned.

"You gave us forty minutes!" Rasputin exclaimed. "You're an optimist, aren't you, Sir?"

"Always, Lieutenant. Dial the Animal House."

Rasputin shook her head. "Where is this...Animal House?"

"Delta," Roberts replied. "The SGC Delta Site. I'll get the DHD; you bring Mar...Commander Raleigh. We can drive the tractor through but we'll have to abandon the Jackal; there's no room for it in the receiving area."

Rasputin cried out. "The signal!" she screamed. "The Song of the Scourge!"

"Roberts!" Ferretti ordered.

The lieutenant already had the remote detonator in his hand, and the thumb of his right hand was pressing the switch, even as his left plunged down on the centre of the DHD. The event horizon opened and Roberts at once took out his last demolition charge and slapped it onto the pedestal.

"Go, go, go!" Ferretti barked.

Pearson gunned the engine of the tractor and the vehicle vanished through the event horizon. A flash of green lit the southern horizon and a pillar of emerald flame leaped high into the lowering sky. Ferretti snatched Willis' arm and hauled the man into a fireman's lift; Rasputin dragged Mary onto her shoulders. The two of them followed the tractor through the Gate, leaving Roberts and Merlyn backing towards the event horizon, listening as a deadly threat rolled towards them.

"We have to stop doing this," Roberts suggested.

"Works for me," Merlyn replied.

They turned and stepped through the event horizon.

*

SGC Delta Site, Maximum Containment Quarantine Facility

Five days later

SG-7 and SG-12 sat in the briefing room of the quarantine facility, facing the monitor from which General O'Neill gazed back at them. Dr Barbara Michaels and her medical team watched from behind the Plexiglas screen of the isolation area.

"We've sent three reconnaissance UAVs to 126 since your return," O'Neill was explaining. "There's no sign of any kind of transmissions, and the ruin is less a ruin and more of a crater, three miles deep."

"Well, that's a relief," Ferretti sighed.

O'Neill nodded. "The DHD is gone, but once you're fit I want SG-7 to return with the Prometheus and remove the Stargate. Now; what about the patients, Mike?"

Dr Michaels smiled in satisfaction. "The nanites in their systems have gone inactive and are being flushed out of their systems. They proved resistant to regular immune responses, but a shot of tretonin shook the nanites loose from their hold and now the teams' bodies are doing the rest. I think we'll be able to give them the all clear in a few days. SG-12 are pretty fatigued; I'll want to keep them under observation, but it doesn't seem to be anything a few weeks leave won't sort out."

"Huzzah!" Willis declared, punching the air in triumph.

"So what exactly happened?" O'Neill asked. "Biologically speaking, I mean."

"Commander," Ferretti invited, throwing the floor open to SG-12's technical expert.

Mary nodded in acknowledgment. "Sirs. As near as we have been able to make out, the nanites were released as soon as our team entered the ruin. They must have taken about an hour to colonise our nervous systems sufficiently to take control of our bodies. We lost control of main motor functions not long after we called in the Code Behemoth. They robbed us of the ability to speak; later they had enough control to make us say whatever they wanted. They put most of us in the alcoves and used our psychic energy to boost their mental control of Major Willis."

"They made me call Cowper and Dr Askew," Willis added, shamefacedly. "Once they were on their way they put me in one of their cubby holes too; then they made those replicas of myself and the Commander and used them to...infest the others."

"We could feel what they were doing to us," Mary said. "When the Mind created its simulacra, we knew it; we could..." She glanced briefly at Roberts, then cast her eyes downwards. "They tapped into our minds, used our memories, and they fed back to us the sensory input from the simulacra. We saw whatever they saw; whatever they did, it felt as though we were doing it. And whatever was done to them."

"We believe that the simulacra were very similar to the shoggoths," Merlyn added, seeking to change the subject, which was clearly distressing both to Mary and to Roberts. "Fortunately, that meant that the disruptors were fully effective."

"Well, let's look at this mission as a successful learning experience," O'Neill suggested. "We didn't lose anyone, we've field tested a whole bunch of our new toys and we know a little more about the makers of the giant green space gun."

"A very little," Roberts muttered.

"Optimism, Lieutenant," O'Neill chided. "You'll debrief more fully when you return to the SGC."

"That sounds great, Jack," Ferretti sighed. "Much as I love these guys, it's getting pretty wearing living in each other's pockets all the time."

O'Neill shrugged. "We have an expansion of the Animal House scheduled," he admitted, "but apparently it isn't a budget priority. Enjoy each other's company; play cards or something. O'Neill out."

*

Stargate Command

Alexa Rasputin could almost feel the fresh air, even this deep below the earth. She was aching to get out and stretch her legs after a week in quarantine, and aching to get away from the rest of her team. They no longer looked at her as a burden or a freak, but she was far from being 'one of them' and proximity to Pearson was still uncomfortable. When she ran into the sergeant at the elevator, she almost offered to wait for the next one.

"Permission to speak freely, Lieutenant?" Pearson asked, after the doors had slid closed.

"I suppose so," she replied, listlessly. He had clearly been wanting to do so since the end of the mission, but had been unable to while members of SG-12 might hear; they were not cleared to know about Rasputin's special skills.

"I can still feel you inside my mind, Lieutenant. Is that actually you, or just a feeling?"

"Residual presence only," she assured him. "Such a close connection will leave a kind of phantom touch for some time."

"I see," Pearson said. "Well, with all due respect, Lieutenant, may I request that the next time I am gripped by The Scourge or something similar, you just shoot me. I really don't like the idea of someone poking around in my brain."

"I had no intention of 'poking around', I assure you. I have never touched a mind that had suffered such an assault before."

"What did...?" Pearson paused, awkwardly.

"What did I see? Well, most of the things that you were trying to hide, I'm afraid. As you tried to conceal them they rose up in your mind and I...Well, I'm afraid I could not help but catch sight of them. I am deeply sorry for that intrusion, Sergeant, but I assure you that I will never divulge anything that I learned from that connection. I trust that I need not ask that you return the favour?"

"Return...But I saw nothing."

"Oh. I thought that you must have..." Rasputin coughed, awkwardly.

"But thank you, Lieutenant," Pearson added. "You did keep me sane."

"It was not all one way," she assured him. "I needed your strength to survive, just as you needed mine. Thank you, for that. And I swear I will not touch your mind without permission again."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

*

Rasputin arrived in the parking lot at Cheyenne Mountain just in time to see Mary Raleigh's car speed away, leaving Roberts standing alone in the cavernous space. Rasputin thought about trying to slip away unnoticed, but from the air of awareness which surrounded Roberts, she knew that it was too late for that.

"Good evening, Lieutenant," she said, politely

"Not really," he responded. "As a rule, I try to avoid workplace romance; now I remember why."

Rasputin was not convinced by Roberts' attempt at levity. "Did you ever forget?" she asked.

Roberts turned and gazed coolly at the Russian, his pain concealed behind a mask of defensive anger.

"None of my business," Rasputin agreed, trying and failing to meet that level, blue-eyed stare. "But if you want to talk..."

"I don't," Roberts replied. "But thank you."

"I know..." Rasputin tailed off.

Roberts' eyes narrowed. "Are you spying on my brain, Lieutenant?" he asked.

"There is no need to read your mind, Lieutenant Roberts. As I told you, I can read people better than minds anyway. There's a reason I don't play poker; it never seems fair."

"You won't mention this to anyone, will you?" Roberts asked, wearily. "It seems the relationship is pretty much over anyway."

"I won't say a thing," she agreed. "If it will not endanger the team, then I do not feel that it is my place."

In a flash the anger was gone from Roberts' eyes. "Thank you, Rasputin."

She laughed, still a little nervous. "Please; it is my day for keeping secrets, I think. And perhaps you could not call me Rasputin; it makes me feel like a mad monk."

"Alexa then?"

"My friends call me Shura; to be more formal, I am Alexa Vasiliovna."

"Bit of a mouthful," Roberts remarked. "If you don't mind, I'll stick with just Alexa for now, with an option on Shura."

"As you prefer. And what should I call you, Lieutenant Roberts?"

"Roberts," he replied. "No-one calls me Tim."

"Except Commander Raleigh?"

Roberts grinned, ruefully. "I really hate it," he admitted. "But how do you tell your girlfriend not to call you by name?"

"I see. Anyway, we have two days leave before we ship out on Prometheus, and I intend to spend most of it asleep," she announced. "Good afternoon, Roberts; and take care of yourself."

"Oh, I will," he promised. "And Alexa!" he called to her retreating back.

She turned to face him again.

"I think I know why the General assigned you here."

"You do?"

Roberts nodded. "I think he thinks a damn sight more of you than you do yourself."

"Really."

"Yes. And you know something? I think he may be right."

Rasputin smiled. "Thank you, Roberts," she said, with feeling.

He just nodded. "Look after yourself, Alexa Vasiliovna."