4: Thundergate
by Chaos_eternus
The ten soldiers poured through the gate, quickly taking defensive positions. Seeing no-one and hearing only the twittering of birds, they hurried to the tree line, quickly entering the cover of the dense foliage of the tropical jungle. There they paused for a moment, making one final check of their equipment check before moving stealthily towards the ancient ruins three miles away.
“No birds” Major Williams noted laconically, after they had gone about 2 miles.
“Major Williams is right; I have not heard any birds for quite some time”
“Something must have sent them scurrying since we arrived” Colonel Pierce noted, glancing at the more experienced Colonel O'Neill, who was in overall charge of this mission.
“All right, heads up people, keep your eyes and ears peeled at all times”
They moved slower, stealthier the last mile to the temple where SG-11 was being held by the Goa'uld, a feeling of danger settling over the teams making them jumpy.
Pierce glanced at O'Neill, caught his eye and nodded tight acknowledgement and agreement of what she saw there. O'Neil was worried and so was she, no doubt he too was feeling the dark tingle in the back of the spine that meant they were being watched yet no watchers could be seen.
But no birds could be heard now either, and the arrival of the team and the activation of the Stargate hadn't been enough to silence them. That in itself was worrying, the birds were so used to the gate that its activation had become background noise to them, same for troops making their way through the trees.
Yet, now they were silent.
Grimacing, Pierce signalled a halt then dived into her Burgan for her set of infrared binoculars. For some strange reason, she was certain she wouldn't see anything even with those.
SGC
Alert sirens and red lights filled the room as SF's rushed into the gateroom, pointing P90's, SAW's and rifles at the massive circular trinium/titanium alloy edifice of the iris. Another day, another alert, you could see it in their eyes. They knew this was likely nothing but as always, you could never quite be sure.
It was not always nothing.
Hammond smiled a tight smile of approval as he watched the thorough, disciplined way the SF's filled the room before turning to face the duty technician.
“Sir, receiving IDC, it's the Tok'Ra Sir.”
“Open the Iris.” he replied, striding swiftly off towards the gateroom, hoping this was more information on the situation he had just sent an unbloodied team and his best veterans into.
A metallic groan filled the room for a moment as the plates of the iris shifted apart, retracting into the stargate just in time for General Carter / Selmac to step through. Hammond smiled, of all the Tok'Ra, this was the certainly the pairing he was happiest dealing with. Carter still held some loyalty to Earth after all and Selmac was honest and, apparently uniquely for the Tok'ra, actually had a sense of humour.
“SF's stand down, Jacob it's good to see you.” Hammond said as he strode through the blast doors into the gateroom, the SF's filing out behind him, “We got your message; SG-1 and RSG-1 are dealing with it now.”
“What message?”
He paused, a dark certainty settling itself in his heart in a moment of realization, “We received your IDC five hours ago; you radioed a message about the Unas who captured SG-11 on PC-49X”
General Carter's voice turned gravelly as Selmac took over, “We sent no such message, and the IDC hasn't left our person since our last visit.”
Hammond stared in horror at Selmac for what felt like an hour but had to be mere moments, before rushing back up to the control room followed by a worried Jacob Carter, already barking orders.
“Siler, have a MALP and a UAV brought up immediately,” he barked, diving into the control room towards the startled but grimly reacting Master Sergeant, “start recalling SG teams who are off-base, all leaves are cancelled.”
“Yes sir,” Siler replied swiftly, “do I need to consider all GDO codes compromised sir?”
“Yes, I want new codes arranged for the rescue teams immediately and any other world teams as they report in.”
Nodding acknowledgement, Siler turned to his consoles as Hammond turned away, this time heading up towards his office.
It was going to be a long and unpleasant day.
Three hours later, three SG teams poured into the gateroom, having bypassed the whole loaded for bear idea, and gone straight to loaded for grizzly. Hammond could see at least 3 SAW's, as well as their usual P90's, pistols and a frankly ridiculous number of grenades and claymores clipped all over their fatigues.
Every person had also grabbed a Zat, Hammond blinked, and it appeared Colonel Reynolds wanted to play with the miniguns again. Reynolds sure loved those things.
“Dial up PC-49X and send the MALP through,”