Sweating with both worry and exertion, Tony sat back and examined his handiwork. He'd bandaged the injury on three sides and left the fourth open to let air in and out. It had only taken a few minutes for Blake to pass out from the pain, but his breathing and heart rate had stabilized, at least temporarily. He didn't have long, though. Tony estimated twenty minutes, maybe half an hour, before the internal bleeding would have him at death's door again.
Zo'hait stood across from him, on the other side of the corridor, still watching for other Jaffa. The rest of his team couldn't join them because of the automatic weapons, so he'd ordered them to join Jahu and the others. A long way down the corridor they could both see the faint outline of some kind of launch bay, where an angular ship rested.
Tony considered his options. The fight at the mine entrance would be well underway by now. Jahu was probably too busy to send help, and that help wouldn't be able to get past the automatic defenses. They couldn't count on the Deuca Healer, then. Without Blake, disabling those defenses was out, as was commandeering that ship to fly away. Moving him would probably kill him anyway.
Tony almost put his hands to his face before remembering they were covered with blood. He felt his anger and frustration gradually being replaced with resignation. He might not be able to save Blake.
No! I'll make this happen. I'll find some way! He took a deep breath. God help me, I will!
And then, as he looked down the corridor again, an idea came to him.
-.-
Jahu winced as a staff blast hit his cover, spraying his right side with rock splinters. The ambush had gone well for the most part, wiping out most of the Jaffa guards in just a few minutes. However, the remainder were still causing trouble. The miners had scattered, naturally, leaving both sides exchanging shots across some kind of loading bay. Carts, some filled with naquadah ore, littered the area. They weren't sturdy enough to make good cover, but there were enough of them to make advancing a risky prospect.
Almost all of his people were out of ammo, and were now using the 'zat guns' the tau'ri had trained them with. Still, they had the upper hand. They covered the only nearby entrance, so the Jaffa couldn't retreat, and he was sure they wouldn't surrender. It would only be a matter of time.
As he considered how to flank them, his radio crackled with the Colonel's voice. "Jahu, come in!"
"Colonel! We feared you were dead!"
"Not yet." He sounded grim. "Are your heavy weapons people still stationed outside the mine?"
"They are. I was about to call them in to finish the fight."
"Get on the horn to them. Tell them to take out all the buildings we saw on the side of the mountain, and to collapse every mine entrance they can find except yours. Then call them in."
Jahu gaped. "Sir, that might seal you inside the mountain. You may not have another way out!"
"You have your orders, Jahu."
"Yessir." He answered on reflex. He had to trust that the Colonel knew what he was doing. Resignedly, he began radioing the support teams.
-.-
Deep in the mountain, from a security substation, Seraus watched the unfolding hostilities with pained fascination. Thermal sensors could only tell him so much, but according to the multiple incoming feeds, a group of intruders were involved in firefights in four locations along the mines: some outside, some within.
The attackers had to be tau'ri. Their weapons emitted very little thermal energy, and their kills were hard to distinguish, at first. Multiple flashes of energy discharges told him that the attackers were now using actual weapons and not their strange projectile ones. He glanced ruefully at the subspace communications terminal. It was blank; one of the first things the tau'ri had done was disable his communications. He couldn't call for help. All the same, he had a few tricks remaining.
Suddenly, two of his feeds flared brightly and then went dark. The others registered a series of explosions, at the mine entrances. One after another, until…
They were trying to trap him! Sealing the entrances, hemming him in from one direction. A bold tactic, if a pointless one. Still, with a sinking feeling, he knew he'd lost this one.
Rage and frustration warred with self-preservation within him. All that work. Years, decades, of painstaking research and records. Dozens of artifacts, carefully catalogued. Human specimens, still alive after their treatments, and waiting to be dissected for their secrets. All of his accomplishments, undone in just a few minutes, by a group of barely sentient monkeys!
You can still kill them, his host urged, if you get one of the pulse weapons armed in time. They already think you're weak. They'll probably just laugh at you if you run!
Through his rage, he considered it. It was a tempting thought. He would survive detonation, but all of them would die.
No, it was too risky. His host was just trying to goad him into staying and dying. He had to go, now. No time even to administer a very well-deserved lesson in pain to his host.
He shut down the security terminal and moved quickly to the others. With a twinge of reluctance, he deactivated the stasis field preserving his precious test subjects. The secrets to their survival died with them in moments, as their bodies liquified. At the last terminal, he hesitated. No, he'd go to Sokar before he let the tau'ri take his work. He entered one final command before locking the terminal down and fleeing.
On his way through the corridors, he cursed the loss of his beloved database. He'd only committed a fraction of it to memory; he'd have to rebuild it later. After he'd found a suitably powerful Goa'uld to employ him, of course. Even if Lord Nereus still lived, it was doubtful he'd be in a good mood after this disaster.
The ground underneath rocked at another nearby explosion. Throwing dignity to the wind, he ran down the hall. It didn't matter if any Jaffa saw him like that; they wouldn't live long enough to care. He entered the alkesh with a little more dignity, briefly wondering where the nearby Jaffa guards had gone, and headed up to the pel'tak. Once there, he allowed himself a moment's relief as he began powering up the ship's systems.
He heard a metallic click from behind, and froze.
"Going somewhere?" A cold voice intoned behind him.
