Stargate SG1 - Roswell (17 page)

Vala ran past the rows of display tables and, foregoing any kind of finesse, used the butt end of her zat gun to smash the glass of the cabinet, which instantly set off an excruciatingly loud ringing—either that, or the alarm had been triggered because the building had caught fire. The light from the blaze outside danced across the gems in the cabinet, bringing the fragmented rainbow colors to life. Most of the rocks on display with the opals were chunky, but she spotted a slab piece about the size of her hand and the thickness of her little finger. Careless of the shattered glass, she snatched up the rock and glanced out the window. Not good. While a half dozen people who had responded to the fire were pulling carriages and horses away, several more had redirected their attention to the geochem building. Worse, a large tree just outside the window was well and truly ablaze.

“Got the rock,” she announced through her com to O'Neill and Daniel. “Where are you?”

“Trying to get us both out of here!” Daniel barked.

“Howard!” Vala yelled, spinning around. The alarm seemed designed purely to deafen intruders rather than alert the guards or officials or whoever it was now headed for them. A coppery glow on the wall by the ceiling caught her attention: two hemispherical bells were mercilessly beating her eardrums into submission. A shot from the zat killed them and simultaneously extracted a terrified yelp from Howard, who had wedged himself behind a tall bookshelf. “C'mon!” she ordered, grabbing him by the arm and yanking him to his feet.

He stumbled, thrust out a hand to balance himself...and pushed the bookshelf off-balance. Vala kept running—until the sound of glass smashing drew her attention. Several windows had fallen victim to Howard's panic-driven clumsiness, and hundreds of glowing cinders rode in on a wave of heat.

So much for Carter's optimistic and impractical notions of non-intervention in the timeline.

They reached the stairwell and were halfway to the landing when the clump of heavy boots alerted her to the arrival of two burly figures, who, upon seeing them, began blowing more of those ear-splitting whistles. Zatting them too soon, however, had the unfortunate effect of blocking what appeared to be the only way out—which was rapidly filling up with even more people shouting something about thieves using the fire as a diversion.

“Not my idea, I can assure you,” she muttered to herself as she bolted back up the stairs.

There had to be another stairway, otherwise how had the owners of this place managed to drag all these hideous display cabinets up here? Turning back the way she'd come she was surprised to find no sign of Howard, so she ducked low between two wood and glass display cases filled with more rocks, and ran along a hallway to the opposite side of the building, away from the fire.

Stopping at the window at the end of the hall lined with hundreds of books, she glanced down. It certainly wouldn't be the first time her life had depended on jumping from this height—except those higher places hadn't had bars across their windows. And these weren't flimsy decorative things but thick iron posts welded into the surrounding framework.

She cursed the bars roundly for a moment, even using a few of the new words she'd picked up earlier, and then keyed her com unit. “This is not looking good, Daniel. Where are you?”

Back in the direction from which she had come, people were stomping around and bellowing things that did not bode well for her future. She glanced outside again to see several men in uniforms dismount from horses and run between the buildings. The pale haired animals tossed their heads back and shied away from the blazing light.

And then two figures, one being carried across the back of the second, stumbled around the corner of the next building.

“Daniel, I'm right above you!”

He paused, and although she couldn't see his face in the shadow of the building, was certain that he looked up. “Vala!” he yelled not bothering with the com. He lowered Mitchell to the ground. “Get down here. Now!”

The way Mitchell slumped, she was very glad she'd thought to bring the hand device. The only problem was actually
get-ting
down there.

“You! Stop or we'll shoot!”

Crouching and simultaneously spinning around, Vala fired the zat'nik'katel at the shadowy figures. Their cries had already alerted others, who, mistaking her weapon's discharge for flames, yelled, “This side of the building's already ablaze!” Or perhaps they were right and the sparks coming in through the window had taken hold of the rows of books. This entire situation really was becoming quite irritating.

“Barricade him inside! Let him burn!” cried someone else.

Let
him
burn? It seemed preposterous that anyone could mistake her for a man, particularly since she was still wearing a bonnet. A glance outside again revealed that Daniel had managed to secure one of the horses the uniformed men had abandoned in their haste. Sort of. The animal was rearing, trying to pull away. Vala assumed Daniel's intention was to use the creature as a method of escape. It gave her an idea.

Granted, it was not so much a choice but an option that required her to trust her teammates implicitly. And while that wasn't an entirely foreign concept, it was still novel enough to give her pause...

But not for long because the voices of the men pursuing her were getting closer. Forcing the window up, she shoved her arm through the bars. “Daniel!”

She wasn't certain if he'd heard her, but the beast certainly heard the
thunk
when the opal rock she'd tossed through the window hit the gravel in front of it, because it shied and danced away—directly into Mitchell.

Colonel Mitchell's failure to notice he'd been trampled when the hooves came down on him, sent Vala rigid with shock. Mitchell was either already dead, or close to it. She
had
to get down there. “Daniel! Get back to the jumper and beam us out. I'll take care of Mi—”

Something thick and stinking of onion and cabbage wrapped around her neck with enough force to jerk her off her feet. Elbowing her assailant in the kidney, she simultaneously planted her right foot behind his ankle, bent her knees and leaned forward. Her attacker's momentum carried him over her shoulder and into the barred window, ripping off her bonnet and headset and, by the feel of it, her ears, as he went.

Winded but unfortunately not unconscious, the man managed to grapple her ankle while she was feeling around for her com unit. A boot heel into his face put paid to that notion, but by the sound of things, several more of his friends were on the way.

A last quick check outside confirmed that Daniel had snatched up the opal rock and shoved it inside his vest. He'd shed his coat and bonnet, too, which Vala thought was a pity. In a display of agility that might in other circumstances have left her feeling rather tingly, he leaped onto the animal's back. The horse promptly took off, barely avoiding a team of larger and shaggier relatives pulling a cart with a gigantic smoking metallic urn on top.

Even with Daniel safely away it would be some time before the jumper was airborne and capable of beaming them aboard. Mitchell could quite easily be dead by then. Behind her she heard shouting and glass smashing. Her would-be pursuers were helping themselves to a few gems before the fire really did take hold. Nothing much she could do about Howard since he'd decided to make himself invisible. She ducked low and left, circling around and back toward the stairwell—which was now blocked by a burning beam. Flames had taken hold of the banister, and a set of thin drapes over one window vanished in a brief, illuminating conflagration in which she caught a glimpse of figures in the stairwell dragging out the men she'd zatted earlier.

There
had
to be another way out of this place.

The sound of someone puking came from behind her.

“Howard?” She turned and squatted down to see the shaking youth, tears streaming down his reddened face, trying to curl up beneath a display cabinet. Neuroses were one thing but this boy's trauma was so crippling that it was going to kill him. Somewhere nearby, glass popped and shattered in the heat, and a roar of greenish flames erupted. Chemicals in a storage cupboard, no doubt, or perhaps some crystals on this odd little planet were actually flammable.

“I'm going to regret this, I know.” She dropped to her hands and knees and crawling to him, yelled, “Howard, listen to me. We have to get out of here before we both end up toast. And I can assure you; being burned to death is
not
nice. I know, it's already happened to me once. Well, actually, twice, but that's another story.”

He stared at her, uncomprehending and seemingly incapable of movement. “How...how?”

“Help me out of here and I'll tell you all about it. Promise!” A burning beam crashed down beside her.
God
—
any god that cares to listen, really, because at this point I'm prepare to consider all options
—
please don't let me to die like this again.

Wiping his nose on his sleeve, Howard clambered out from beneath the cabinet—only to let out a terrified yelp as more glass shattered, spraying both of them with fine slivers. The heat was becoming intolerable, and the acrid smoke was choking. “Did you know I was once possessed by a god?” she yelled above the noise. “Well, she thought of herself as a god, it's a long story. But we really must leave before we both die, otherwise you'll never get to hear it, okay?”

Howard finally seemed to come to his senses, because he took off back the way she had come, but instead of turning left, he headed right along a corridor that opened to—

“Oh. This really is bad.” The wide, winding staircase was already ablaze. Just as she was deciding that perhaps getting a little crisped on the way down was far better than getting a lot crisped by staying put, the floor collapsed beneath them.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Daniel could swear in twenty-seven Earth and several alien languages, but all he could say as he snatched up the opal rock and leaped onto the back of the horse, was, “Stupid, stupid,
stupid!”

Although the horse took off in the right direction, Daniel barely managed to hang on when the animal almost collided with a team of Clydesdales pulling a steam fire engine. He shortened the reins and brought the horse's head down. The terrified animal pulled up short but continued to dance around for several seconds, confused by people dressed in night-clothes rushing past them with pots in hand to join a rapidly growing bucket line. Finally, Daniel managed to gain some control by directing the animal away from the clanging bells, shouts, heat and roar of the out-of-control blaze.

“Daniel! What the hell's going on?” Jack demanded through his earpiece. “Sounds like you've started a world war from down here.”

It'd been a while since Daniel had ridden, but his mount needed no urging to maintain a hard canter across the park, taking the low hedge in a fluid jump. “Forget the time machine,” he yelled into his com. “I'm on my way back. We have to beam Vala and Mitchell aboard.”

“You left them
behind?”

Despite the background noise, the incredulity in Jack's voice was unmistakable, which just added to Daniel's own frustrated anger and despair. Of all the
stupid
things to have happened.

After locating several clamps in the coach house, Mitchell had suggested trying the tack room for the other things on Sam's list. Daniel had caught a powerful whiff of sour whisky and vomit at almost the same moment as he'd heard a deafening gunshot and felt Mitchell slam into him. They'd literally walked into a guard coming around the corner. Daniel had instantly retaliated, but the shot from his zat had knocked the lantern from the guy's hand and onto a bale of hay. The flames had taken hold even before Daniel had disentangled himself from Mitchell. Then things had gone nuts with panicked horses and people running everywhere.