jeriendhal | "A Slight Detour", Part Fifteen

Present

Leeza fired twice at the black-armoured soldiers, hitting one in the chest straight on. The drone, or whatever it was, didn't appear to be affected. Fortunately she did succeed in drawing its attention away from Teal'c and Terinu, who made it to the airlock without being hit.

"Terinu, are you all right?" she demanded.

"'m okay," he said. A lie. His face was covered in sweat, and he grew visibly paler as he lifted a hand and fired at another drone. His bion energy appeared to affect their armour where Leeza's blaster did no good, for the black soldier went down hard.

"His energy projection abilities appear to be our only effective defense," Teal'c said, even as he fired twice in succession with is own energy rifle, giving cover fire to the Galopados soldiers as they ran toward the Treona and took cover wherever they could find it.

"What happened! Who are those people?" Leeza demanded, as O'Neill began to fire as Teal'c reloaded.

"Anubis' drones! " the Colonel yelled back. "That armor of theirs can absorb pretty much anything, except for some experimental weapons and your buddy there!" He fire off an extended burst that at least managed to knock over one of the drones temporarily. "Incidentally, you were going to tell me about his little trick when?"

"When he wanted to tell you himself, not before!" Leeza shot back. The inner airlock door opened up, and Lance burst through, a small rucksack under his arm.

"'Bout time you showed up!" the Colonel yelled at him.

"You'll thank me later!" Lance said, grinning like a hyena. He slapped Terinu on the shoulder, yelling, "Teri! Cargo hold!" then tossed threw the rucksack like an Olympic hammer towards the approaching drones. Leeza had just enough time to hit the deck before Terinu's bion blast struck the rucksack that was hurtling towards the center of the drones.

The blast still knocked the breath out of her, and tossed everyone who hadn't had the chance to grab cover to the ground. The air was filled with smoke, dirt particles, and an awful, sour smell that she sincerely hoped she wasn't identifying correctly.

Colonel O'Neill coughed and drew himself up to his knees as he dusted himself off. "Well, that worked," he said.

"Indeed, it was most effective," Teal'c noted. He had fallen across Terinu as soon as the young Ferin had detonated the rucksack. Teri looked dazed, the final blast of his bion having taken the last of his reserves.

"What was that?" Carter demanded.

Lance, covered with dirt and still grinning, gave her a little bow. "Ten kilos of C-10 stabilized gelignite explosive. Plus a little additive courtesy of the little cretin here"

"Just ten kilograms did that?" Carter said in amazement. The smoke was clearing now, and Leeza could see that where the drones had been was now reduced to a crater at least twenty meters wide and four deep.

"Y'd b' su'prised, wha' y' kin do to tha' stuff," Terinu said woozily.

"Yeah, nice shot there, kid," O'Neill said worriedly, "You okay?"

"He needs food," Leeza explained. "Using his abilities like that drains a lot out of him." Movement from where the Galapados warriors had taken cover reminded her that every enemy hadn't been defeated yet. She reached for her pistol, but Lance took hold of her arm and stopped her.

"We're all friendly here," he explained, as General Gisko and his men approached.

"Excellent improvisation, as always, Lieutenant," the General said, "But I fear you have only bought us a brief respite."

"Lance, what the devil is going on?" Leeza demanded.

"Gisko has the same problem we do," Lance explained, "only even worse. Remember how Colonel O'Neill and his people were explaining about the Gou'ald, and how they're parasitic worms? Well guess who their latest host is?"

Leeza rubbed her eyes. "They got a Varn?"

"They got the Varn. The Genemage is on this world, and he isn't happy to be stuck here."

"Lance, we're all stuck here unless I can fix the Treona's drive."

"I fear you may not have time for that," Gisko interrupted. "Undoubtedly Altjira's drones reported their position prior to attacking your ship. He will return, no doubt with reinforcements, and quickly."

"And he's gonna have air cover," O'Neill added. "Lance and Terinu's little trick won't work against fighters, and the one piece of air-to-air capability we do have isn't going to do much good against a squadron of death gliders either. Looks like we're running out of places to retreat to."

"Wait, sir," Carter said, "Maybe not. The whole problem we've got revolves around getting a big enough power source to the Stargate, right?"

"No," Leeza said, taking a step back to hover protectively over Terinu. Teal'c had kneeled down beside the boy and was feeding him some sort of redi-meal taken from cargo pockets of his uniform. "He's not just a walking, talking fusion reactor, you got that?"

"We need to get out of here, and right now the Stargate is our only option," O'Neill countered. "We try and fly out in that tub yours and we'll get shot down. We stay here, we either get shot by the Gou'ald or buried when that asteroid hits. Right now we gotta retreat and regroup."

"I am not leaving Rufus on this planet!"

"And I'm not leaving Daniel. But if we don't back off now, they're both going to die, whether we're on this planet or not. We head through the Gate if we can, and then we can come back with reinforcements."

Leeza felt her fists ball up in frustration. "Terinu is in no shape to power up anything right now, can't you see that?"

"It doesn't have to be fed in all at once," Carter said. "Heck, it can be done with car batteries in a pinch. Slow and gentle."

"Well, not too slow," O'Neill added.

"No."

"H'y, Blake," Terinu said softly, "It's a'right, I think I c'n do it. Whatever's in this car'board Teal'c 's feeding me seems t' be workin'." Indeed, he didn't look quite as deathly pale just then, but Leeza still wasn't convinced.

"I can't ask you to do this, Terinu."

"Who's askin'? I'll jus' do it." Terinu blinked, and looked up at the Colonel. "Hey, y' said sumthin' about reinforcements?"

"Lots of 'em," O'Neill reassured him, "with big guns."

"Work's for me. Let's get this Stargate thing up and runnin'."

TBC