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Lorne leans back against the wall he’s crouched behind, resting his 9mm on his knees. It’s not as good as
a P-90, and he’s only got one spare clip left, but it’s better than nothing, and P-90 ammo’s impossible
to get hold of now.
He’s due out at the pick-up site in two days, and, unfortunately, he’s almost certainly
going to be late; he’s never met anyone so consistently disinclined to accept excuses as Colonel Caldwell.
He
checks round the side of the building once more – it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you and burn
you to death as an example to other non-believers. Still no-one, and the patrol isn’t due by for another half hour.
He
double checks his gun, makes sure the radio in his pocket is turned down – not that anyone has tried to call him on
it for the last couple of days – pulls on his cap, and ducks round the building. It’s hard not to run, even with
years of military training, but he keeps against the wall, moving slowly and checking every patch of ground before he puts
his foot there.
It’s an hour past curfew, and most people are in bed; there’s not much to do now the networks
have stopped broadcasting and the Ori have banned everything but the Book of Origin. Good little intergalactic crusade fighters
need their beauty sleep, Lorne thinks, and even his thoughts are tinged with hysteria and exhaustion.
He ducks into
the doorway, hoping it’s the right one, and presses his back against the wall. This is the worst part.
He takes
a deep breath, checks every window for signs of life and, when he doesn’t see any, taps out the rhythm on the intercom
button.
There’s a pause long enough for panic to creep in at the edges of is mind: he’s asleep, he’s
converted, he’s forgotten, he never knew in the first place and, God, this is why Lorne was a pilot and a gate team
leader, not a member of Special Forces. He hates this covert stuff.
The static of the response code breaks through
his thoughts, followed by the too loud buzz of the door unlocking, and he ducks inside, fast.
The building’s
the same on the inside as on the outside: dingy, poorly lit and eerily quiet. He wonders if this is what it’s like to
survive in a town where everyone’s dead, instead of just subservient. All things being equal, he’d rather not
find out.
He makes his way carefully up the stairs, ignoring the elevator, and finds there’s a door half open
on the first landing. He lifts his gun and edges forward, wishing for someone to cover his back, but there aren’t enough
of them left to travel in pairs.
He takes another breath and leans round the doorframe, leading with his gun. The first
thing he sees is a gun pointing straight back at him.
The man slowly lowers his pistol as he gets a good look at Lorne,
or maybe at Lorne’s SGC issue weapon.
“Colonel Mitchell?” Lorne asks, and the gun goes all the way
down as Mitchell spins his chair and says, “About damn time,” as he wheels away.
*
They expected
the chair to work again, to make them impervious to the blasts from the Ori ships like last time, and Lorne never found out
why it didn’t. It didn’t matter why, watching a grainy monitor image of the beam slicing through the White House
like the Ori knew the symbolic importance of the empty building.
President Landry was transported to the Prometheus,
along with his leading advisers and the SGC’s leading scientists. Dr McKay was halfway through a tirade about the chair
when he was taken, right in front of Lorne.
The rest of them were left behind to fight the Ori soldiers.
*
Mitchell
knows more about the SGC’s contingency plans than most of Lorne’s extractions have and waves away Lorne’s
explanations.
“What do they want with me?” he asks, low-voiced, around a cigarette as they wait out the
patrol. “They didn’t want me two years ago, and I’m no damn good to them now.”
“They
want everyone who was ever involved in the program,” Lorne explains. “They picked up a doctor who was scheduled
to go to Atlantis, his thinks he might have-“
“A cure?” Mitchell interrupts, lip curled in disgust.
“My legs don’t work, it’s not the flu.”
“I can just as soon leave you here and say the
Ori brainwashed you if you prefer,” Lorne offers. He sympathizes with the guy, he does, but he hasn’t slept in
three days, moving across Colorado Springs after his last extraction turned out to really have been brainwashed. He’s
not got a lot of patience left.
“Hell, no,” Mitchell says firmly. “You’re not leaving me here
to get made into an example because I’m not fit to be an Ori soldier.”
“That’s the spirit,”
Lorne says, only mocking him a little. “So, can you walk at all? Because I don’t like our chances of staying inconspicuous
with you in that chair.”
*
They beamed down the Ori soldiers, the huge ship hovering above the Mountain
and casting everything into twilight darkness. Lorne had no idea why that stuck in his memory, but it did, that and the sudden
appearance of dozens of armed soldiers, ready and willing to die for their cause, reminding him of the Goa’uld back
when they used to go through the gate.
It would be a straight out battle to the end, Hammond said, before he sent them
out, P-90s and grenades against whatever ordinance the Ori soldiers brought with them. That they were out of other bright
ideas and it was a fool’s errand remained unspoken.
The Ori soldiers fired, and the SGC contingent scattered.
*
Mitchell
stumbles and Lorne wraps an arm round his waist, ignoring Mitchell’s glare. “I can walk,” Mitchell says.
“Uh-huh.”
Lorne leaves his arm where it is until Mitchell grudgingly puts his own arm round Lorne’s shoulders and leans into him
a fraction. “There’s a safe house two blocks down, we’ll have to hole up there for the day.”
Mitchell
doesn’t argue, just takes a deep breath and keeps going, to Lorne’s eternal gratitude. He’s picked up a
few civilians alongside the ex-SGC military, and it’s a nice change to have someone who doesn’t question everything,
or need him to explain that ducking patrols at night is a lot slower than strolling through the streets in the daylight.
They
make it to the safe house as the sun’s coming up, and Mitchell collapses on the couch, white faced and trembling. Lorne
decides discretion’s the better part of valor here, and goes into the kitchen to make coffee and check out their food
supplies. He’s pretty sure Stackhouse was the last one through and he sometimes leaves chocolate.
It turns out
not to be Lorne’s lucky night, but there’s bread and eggs, which is about as complex as he’s willing for
his cooking to get right now. It still amazes him how many places are still trading, even if the people behind the counters
do greet him with hallowed are the Ori and blind grins of conversion. The entire world’s changed in the last
six months, but he could still run down the block for milk if he needed it, and didn’t mind being taken by a security
patrol for breaking curfew.
Mitchell drains his coffee with a handful of pills, asks if Lorne’s got anything
stronger – no – or minds if he smokes – yes – and finally eats his breakfast.
“There’s
a bed in the back, and a bath, or you can just crash here,” Lorne offers, running water to wash up. “We’ll
stay here till the curfew patrol’s gone past tonight, but we’re safe here till then.”
“Uh-huh,”
Mitchell says dubiously from the other room, and Lorne knows he’s thinking about the gun Lorne’s still wearing.
“I’m not tired. You got any books?”
Lorne laughs, startled. “We’ve been a bit busy getting
people off the planet to save the great American novel,” he says.
Mitchell mutters something disgusted sounding,
but goes quiet till Lorne brings out more coffee; if Mitchell’s not going to sleep, Lorne can’t either, and he’s
not going to stay awake without help.
“So,” Mitchell says eventually, and when Lorne looks up, he’s
staring down into his mug. “You allowed to tell me what happened? One minute they’re threatening blackouts and
promising it’s all gonna be fine, the next we’re all willing converts to Origin.”
“Yeah.”
It’s the one question everyone asks, the one Lorne hates trying to answer. He can still close his eyes and see President
Landry, back from the Prometheus, formally ceding control to the Prior. He watched it on a store front TV with Ford
and Edwards, already defeated and on the run, and Edwards said, “The end of the world as we know it,” and Ford
looked at them both like they were crazy when they laughed. He hasn’t seen either of them in weeks, doesn’t even
know if they’re still on Earth, still free, and some days he thinks he never will. He’s pretty sure that, for
all the talk of marshalling an army on the Daedalus, or the hastily resurrected alpha site, when they’ve got
every SGC, ex-SGC or could-have-been-SGC officer off the planet, the Daedalus will leave and never come back.
“Hey.”
Mitchell throws an empty paper cup at Lorne. “Don’t fall asleep on me. Tell me what happened.”
“I
wouldn’t know where to start,” Lorne says honestly.
*
The fighting didn’t last long –
two and a half days, counting the last few hours of pointless skirmishes – and Lorne didn’t expect much more.
They were hopelessly out-matched by the Ori soldiers, even with the 302s providing air support. In the chaos on the ground,
they were more likely to hit their own people anyway.
When word came through that Landry, like most of the rest of
the world’s leaders, was going to bow to Origin while there were still people left alive on the planet, Lorne took a
look at his team, and the soldiers fighting next to them, and decided he wasn’t sacrificing any more of them to a battle
that was about to end in crushing defeat.
It turned out that plenty of the others thought the same thing, and, for
the first few weeks, there were a lot of people holed up in the SGC’s various safe houses, keeping in touch by radio
and out of sight of the general population, a large number of whom appeared to have genuinely converted. Between them, Lorne
thought they had maybe a third of the SGC, in one place or another, talking strategy.
That didn’t last long.
*
Lorne’s
plans have them reaching the truck the next morning, but Mitchell’s in too much pain, barely able to put one foot in
front of the other, and it’s slow going. They end up spending the night in another safe house, Mitchell out before Lorne’s
even had time to make him take his pills, and he resigns himself to another night without sleep.
He tried his radio,
without much hope, and there’s nothing but static on every channel. The Daedalus should be back in range by now,
but she’s been held up before, and he finds himself hoping it’s happened again. They haven’t heard from
the Prometheus since Landry transported down to Earth, and no-one knows what happened to it. He’s more worried
about the lack of response from anyone else on the ground, where there are at least three others meant to be at the pick-up
site with him.
In the distance, he hears the familiar chant of morning worship, and pulls to curtains to try and block
it out.
*
They get to the garage half an hour before sunrise the next day, too late to risk trying to leave
Colorado Springs, and the safe house Lorne lets them into obviously hasn’t been used for a while: the lights don’t
work, and Lorne can hear the movement of creatures he’s glad he can’t see.
An hour before they’re
supposed to move again, Mitchell’s sitting on the sofa, massaging his thigh and watching Lorne heat up soup, which is
all he can find that’s edible. “When’s the Daedalus due?” he asks finally, low voiced.
“Last
night,” Lorne says, stirring the soup vigorously. “She’ll wait a day, if we’re late.”
“When
we’re late,” Mitchell corrects. He’s been getting steadily less bitter since they left his apartment; Lorne’s
not sure if it’s because he’s in too much pain to find the energy or if he’s actually feeling better, but
he’ll take whatever he can get, even if it is pessimistic comments on their progress.
“She’ll wait,”
he says again, but he can’t help wondering if he sounds convincing. He still can’t get hold of the Daedalus,
and the brief contact he managed with Markham was too broken up for anything to actually get through. He’s starting
to get a really bad feeling about this.
Under the window, the curfew patrol clatters past, both of them falling silent
until the sound fades out again. Lorne knows the soldiers don’t have any of the Prior’s powers, but it’s
ingrained to hide when the enemy passes by. He catches Mitchell’s gaze and sees the same discomfort reflected there.
“You
ready?” he asks.
Mitchell drags himself to his feet, leaning on the arm of the couch. “This wonder drug
better fucking work,” he says.
*
It was Markham who confirmed the rumor that one of the safe houses was
turned over to the Ori – he’d been on his way over there, but the soldiers got there first. It took him a week
to get back, his clothes reeking of smoke and charred flesh.
When the call came from the Daedalus, two days
later, reporting that the ship and its crew had managed to evade the Ori fleet, there was a lot of debate about whether it
was genuine or whether they were playing into an elaborate Ori trap. The truth was, they didn’t have much choice –
they could maybe hide out for a while longer, but they couldn’t avoid detection forever, and if they could, what good
would it do them when there weren’t enough of them to even begin fighting off the Ori without help.
In the end,
everyone agreed to it. It wasn’t like gate teams didn’t have plenty of experience lifting people off planets from
under the noses of their rulers.
*
The pick-up point’s an old barn in the middle of an otherwise empty
piece of land, hard to hide the vehicles parked up outside it, but great for defensive positioning. There’s no-one inside
when Lorne and Mitchell get in, just the single large room, two beds and a food cupboard, same as always. Their truck’s
the only one out there, with no signs of any other vehicles having been through in the last few days.
“Now what?”
Mitchell asks, folding down onto one of the beds and lighting a cigarette. Lorne’s really tempted to ask for one; he’s
never smoked, but he could stand having something to take his mind off what’s happening and help him relax a little.
Instead,
he sets the transmission beacon going, and sits down on the other bed with his radio. He hails the Daedalus, and tries
to ignore the sick weight that settles in his stomach when nothing comes back but static.
“I thought you said
they’d wait,” Mitchell says accusingly.
“They will. Maybe it’s just not safe to decloak now.”
“Uh-huh,”
Mitchell says darkly. He waits till Lorne’s been through all the Earthside channels and got nothing, then asks, “What
do we do till then?”
“Wait.” Lorne nods at the transmission beacon. “If the Daedalus
is up there, she’ll pick that up.”
*
They wait a week, trying the radio every morning and every
evening. For the first couple of days, Markham’s voice comes through, the message too broken up to be meaningful, but
in the end, even that stops.
Mitchell spends most of his time sleeping, or pretending to sleep, Lorne’s not sure,
and Lorne spends most of his time attempting to come up with a plan. He doesn’t know if the Daedalus has abandoned
them or been destroyed, but it’s rapidly becoming irrelevant. They’ve only got enough food for a few days, and
once that runs out, they’ll have to leave.
“So,” Mitchell says finally. “Guess they’re
not coming for us after all.” His whole body is drawn and tense, betrayed by the SGC, again.
“I guess not,”
Lorne agrees. “We need to leave here.”
“And what? We can’t exactly run from the Ori.”
“There
are ships,” Lorne says slowly. “Not just the 302s, there was a program building hyperspace-capable ships at Area
51.”
“You want to leave?” Mitchell pushes himself up on his elbows to glare at Lorne.
“It’s
my job to get you off the planet,” Lorne reminds him. “If I can’t do it on the Daedalus, this is
the next best option.”
“Great.” Mitchell rolls his eyes. “No idea what’s happened to
the Daedalus, no idea if the alpha site’s been compromised or blown up, and your best plan is to send me into
hyperspace with an experimental ship that I don’t even know how to fly.”
“Fine, let’s hear
your idea,” Lorne snaps. “I don’t even know where the rest of my team is.” He’s trying not to
think about it, but he’s got a lot of free time right now, and he can’t switch his brain off.
“So
let’s find them. I know a couple of ex-302 pilots, you must know some more SGC officers.” Mitchells pushes himself
all the way up, raking his hands through his hair, his eyes bright and eager. “Don’t tell me you really believed
the SGC were marshalling an army at the alpha site. They look after their own.” He looks down at his legs.
Lorne
sighs, and goes over to the cupboard, pulling it forward to reveal the wall safe. He cracks the seal on the envelope inside
and hands the papers to Mitchell. “That’s more like it,” Mitchell says. He hands Lorne back the list of
names for extraction – “Check off the ones that are on the Daedalus already” – and starts going
down the list of personnel and prisoners who were at Area 51, who should still be there, assuming the bunker held. “We’ll
start there,” he tells Lorne, and Lorne wonders when, exactly, he stopped being in charge of this mission. He thinks
it was probably around the time he started thinking of the mission as evading the Ori soldiers, rather than getting Cameron
Mitchell off the planet, around the time he realized he wasn’t going to *get* Cameron Mitchell off the planet.
*
He
leaves a coded message in the safe, in place of the pack of papers, and turns off the transmission beacon, since it only has
limited power.
“Any time today,” Mitchell calls from the truck. “It’s not like we’ve
got a planet to save or anything.”
“I’m coming,” Lorne calls back. “Did no-one ever tell
you patience is a virtue?”
“Nope. My momma always said it was acting on your convictions.” Mitchell
shoves his hair back as Lorne climbs into the truck. “Acting on them with haste.”
“I’ll do
a hundred and fifty all the way to Area 51 if it’ll make you happy,” Lorne promises and, for the first time since
the safe house was torched, he actually feels a moment of wild, irrational hope.
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