Chapter 132: Spy Games Part 8
Underground Base, Euronda, December 16th, 1999 (Earth Time)
One moment, they were talking. The next, all hell broke loose. Samantha Carter was already moving when the alarm went off. She threw herself out of her chair and dragged Entrapta to the floor.
"For the Honour of Grayskull!"
Adora's yell and Entrapta's surprised gasp were both drowned out by Isa's machine gun, followed by more shots ringing out.
Samantha Carter kept her head down and drew her zat. No one under the table - wait! Someone was on the floor! She aimed her weapon before she realised that it was a body chewed up by automatic fire. She twisted, checking the other end of the table. More corpses.
And the shooting had stopped.
"Secure that door!"
"Yes, sir!"
A moment later, something heavy slammed against something metal.
Sam got up, zat still in hand. The guards and half the Eurondans at the table were dead, cut down by Isa, Campbell and the General. Alar was on his knees, holding his bleeding right hand with his other hand. Sam caught a glimpse of two fingers on the floor.
Farrell was still in her seat, slumped over. Stunned. No, dead - Sam saw the blood dripping down the legs of the chair.
Isa and Campbell were at the door, Isa holding it closed with her sheer bulk. Daniel was getting up from under Sha're, and Teal'c was keeping watch over another surviving Eurondan, zat aimed at it.
And Catra was holding up a small device half-covered in blood. "He pressed the button on this before I could stop him."
"Oh! Looks like a communicator!" Entrapta said, peering at the device as her hair grabbed it. "Let's check!"
"That's how you return our hospitality?" Alar said, panting. "By murdering us during a diplomatic meeting?"
"You were about to attack us," Catra spat.
"I was about to order you to leave!" Alar retorted.
"Yeah, right." The General shook his head. "That's why you were triggering the alarm."
"We need to move!" Glimmer said. "The base is on alert - the guards will come at us."
"We've got the leader. Will that keep them from throwing bombs at us?" Catra asked.
"Ah… it is hard to say without knowing more about the society of our, uh, former hosts," Daniel replied. "It also depends on whether or not Alar has rivals waiting for the opportunity to remove him and blame foreigners for it."
"The people are loyal!" Alar spat. "We know our duty."
"And we know ours," the General said. "Let's get out of here before we get trapped."
"To the gate?" Campbell asked.
"No." The General grinned. "We'll need a diversion to reach it. And what better diversion than their command centre getting destroyed?"
"No! You can't!" Alar gasped. "The Breeders will murder us all!"
"We'll be back home before that," the General replied.
"We can't let them continue their war," Adora said.
Sam half-expected the General to make a comment about how they totally could, but he just sighed. "I hoped you wouldn't say that."
"Jack!"
"Daniel!"
Adora moved to the door, and her sword became a shield. "I'll check the hallway," she said.
She had barely opened the door when Sam heard what had to be the firing noise of Eurondan weapons, and Adora's shield was hit by multiple beams. The door shook as well, cracking in several places.
"Not exactly the best shots," the General commented.
"You are trapped in here!" Alar yelled.
"Shows what you know," Catra told him. "Didn't the Russians and Chinese warn you about us?"
"They told us about your technology!"
But not their magic? Sam raised her eyebrows. Either the Russians and Chinese had been setting up the Eurondans or the Eurondans hadn't believed them.
"We need to leave, sir," Lenkova spoke up. "We can take Alar with us."
Sam glanced at the Eurondan leader, expecting him to protest. But he was grinning. That was a remarkable mood shift… Oh.
She grabbed her scanner and aimed it at the door. A glance at the screen confirmed her suspicion: "There's a force field blocking our way."
"What?" The General glared at Alar.
The man grinned toothly at him.
"They might have taken the one from their gate room," Bow speculated. "Or used another one."
"Whatever - we need to get out of here," Catra said.
Sam agreed. But how? "We could cut through the walls, but… the field is quite powerful and might expand to cover such holes in the area as well."
"Oh, yes. Depending on the projector technology, the shield could do that," Entrapta said. "We should test it!"
Catra frowned but stepped up to the wall, lashing out with her claws, then kicked the material.
A piece of the material fell back and down, revealing the round hole Catra had slashed into the wall. No shots rang out from the other side.
And when Sam used her scanner again, it confirmed the presence of a force field.
"We're locked in here," she said.
"Shit."
*****
Catra eyed the ceiling. They might have set up a field to cover the walls, but did they extend it to the top? They probably had, but best to make sure.
She jumped on the table, which creaked but held under her weight - it was sporting a few new holes from the firefight - and raked her claws on the ceiling, carving out a piece of it. Catra jumped off the table a moment before the jagged mass of the piece smashed and broke it.
"That's also covered by a force field," Sam reported.
"Had to check," Catra said. "Would have been terribly embarrassing if we had missed the easy way out."
Jack snorted at that. "What about the floor?"
Catra was about to bend down, but Adora had her sword out and swung it in a circle. The cut material stayed - propped up by another force field. Or… "Is that the same forcefiled, or one each?" Catra asked.
"The spectrum of the fields is exactly the same," Entrapta replied. "That doesn't mean that it's the same field - their projectors could just have tight tolerances."
"They're massing outside," Isa reported.
"They'll have to drop the shield if they want to hurt us," Jack told her. "And if they can hurt us, we can hurt them."
"Or they try to poison us," Glimmer pointed out.
Catra glanced at Alar. The man had his lips pressed together, but she didn't know him enough to tell if that meant this was a possibility. Best assume it was - they had almost died because of Eurondan poison before, and it was obvious that they liked using such means.
"Mask up then," Jack said, reaching into a pocket of his uniform.
Catra slipped a hand inside her own uniform and pulled out her own mask - a new design by Entrapta that could be folded up until it was hardly bigger than a handkerchief thanks to new filters. It would help with a gas attack but wouldn't stop nerve gas.
So, they had to get away quickly. And since Glimmer couldn't teleport without Adora releasing the planet's magic, which she wouldn't do until she was ready to use the boost to save the world… "Walls, floor or ceiling?" Catra asked.
Adora eyed the ceiling.
"We did that in Apophis's palace," Jack said. "Let's try the wall."
The command centre was on this floor - and roughly on the way to the gate room. Catra grinned.
Adora slowly nodded. She had her 'determined face' on. That meant she wouldn't let anything stop her, Catra knew.
"You can't get through our defence field!" Alar snapped. "You should surrender!"
"You haven't seen anything," Glimmer told him.
Adora nodded again, then stepped to the door, holding out her sword. "Hah!" She swung it with both hands, striking at the force field. The blade hit in a shower of sparks, and Catra saw flickers appear in the air as Adora lifted the sword for another strike.
"Field strength is fluctuating," Sam reported. "Stabilising… at a lower strength." She moved her scanner.
"Just hit it until it breaks," Catra translated.
But Adora was already dishing out a flurry of blows, striking so rapidly that the entire door area was covered in sparks, obscuring the view of the waiting enemy.
Alar was staring, open-mouthed, at the sight, and Catra grabbed his collar to drag him out of the potential line of fire - he was, after all, a potential hostage as the enemy leader. And for later negotiations, probably.
Jack was pulling Lenkova to the side as well - judging from her earlier position, the woman probably still needed to understand that you shouldn't try to charge ahead of a princess.
Catra checked the ceiling. The field there was holding steady, no sparks or even flickers. So, different shield projectors, then.
And then suddenly, the sparks disappeared as the shield shattered. A second later, the Eurondan soldiers opened fire with their beam guns, but Adora had already changed her sword into a shield. Catra saw half the beams miss her lover as Adora charged down the hallway, straight into the enemy's ranks.
The Eurondans broke ranks even before Adora smashed into and through them, Catra noted as she sped after her. They must not have much, if any, experience with infantry combat, she thought as she kicked a dazed soldier in the head, knocking him into the wall behind him before he could reach for the gun he had dropped.
Another one was screaming and holding his broken leg - she could see parts of the bone sticking out through his pants - and Catra knocked him out as well.
She caught Daniel stunning the man for good measure as the rest of the group followed in their wake, Teal'c carrying Alar and Isa bringing up the rear and covering side alleys with Campbell.
Those two had no intention of getting ahead of a charging princess, Catra noted. Good - Jack was training his people well.
Half a minute later, they had cleared the area of any enemies and were standing in front of a big blast door.
Adora raised her sword, then hesitated. "They'll expect us to go through the door."
"And we can't count on them acting like the ones we went just through," Catra added.
She looked up at the ceiling, then at the walls.
"We need to check if they deploy poison." Before running into it.
*****
Jack O'Neill cursed under his breath. Of course, the Space Nazis would use gas. If only they could have brought NBC suits along - but not even Carter, Entrapta and Bow working together would have been able to build protective suits that could be concealed like those new masks. Maybe he should take another look at the proposal for new uniforms for Alliance troops that doubled as NBC and vacuum suits with a helmet added, even if they looked like Horde uniforms…
But you fought a war with the gear you had, not the gear you wished you had. "Carter?" He cocked his head at his second-in-command.
"Working on it, sir. Our scanners don't show any poison gas, but given the known capability of the Eurondans to create a gas that evades detection, we cannot exclude the possibility of another such case."
Jack eyed Alar. The Space Führer looked confused for a moment, then his eyes widened. So, whatever poison the Eurondans used, they were unaware of its effect on Alliance scanners.
But that didn't tell Jack whether or not they had such poison. "No bombs?"
"No explosive devices detected in range, sir," Carter reported. "Not with advanced technology or sufficient conventional explosive filler to function as a hand grenade."
That was one worry less. Unless… "Incendiaries?" he asked.
Carter blinked, then started pushing buttons on her scanner.
As soon as Jack saw her jaw muscles twitch, showing she was clenching her teeth, he knew he had been correct.
"They are concentrating fuel tanks on the other side, sir. I expected them to use hydrogen as fuel since they have fusion reactors, but this seems to be a fuel based on ethanol - distilled from the yeast they are growing in hydroponics, I assume."
"Probably," he agreed. Not that it mattered. What mattered was that they were about to burn if they forced the door. And not even Adora's shield would keep the heat back. It was already quite the break that the Eurondans weren't sucking the air out of the rooms. Maybe their bunker wasn't set up for that - they were pretty inexperienced with infantry combat.
The others looked concerned as well. Most of them, at least.
"OK… so, no forcing the door, Adora," Bow said.
"Ceiling?" Catra looked up.
"They're moving fuel up there as well," Entrapta announced.
The bastards are learning quickly, Jack thought. Of course, they might suck at infantry tactics, but they are probably naturals when it came to poison attacks and other war crimes, he reminded himself.
"Down then?"
"The level below seems clear, sir," Carter confirmed.
"Or we unblock magic, and I port us to the Stargate," Glimmer suggested.
Adora shook her head. "Not yet. We might need that power to save the planet."
That was fine - Jack would rather avoid being too close to Adora channelling a planet's worth of magic again. He didn't want to be turned into a plant - or an alien. "We're going down, then!"
"Jack!"
Jack chuckled at his friend's reaction, as did others. Spirits lifted, mission accomplished. "Let's hurry before the Space Nazis decide that their dear leader is an acceptable sacrifice to kill us."
Alar glared at him. "I will gladly die for my people!"
"Be my guest," Jack retorted with a shrug. The odds of the Eurondans being willing to negotiate were probably higher if they could blame everything on a conveniently dead leader. Not that Jack would trust them, anyway - after a decade or two of waging total war against 'racial enemies', their indoctrination would be hard to overcome. At least without utterly crushing their army like the Allies had done to the Nazis.
"Hah!" Adora slashed at the floor again, carving out a round section. Then she stuck her sword into it, bent down - and heaved it up with a grunt.
Alar was gaping at the display. Jack snorted - if he knew just how strong She-Ra was, he would probably piss himself. Or start worshipping her as an Aryan goddess or something.
Adora made short work of the force field covering the floor with a few more strikes, then jumped down, quickly followed by Catra.
Jack heard someone screaming, followed by a crash, before he reached the hole. He gripped the edge and lowered himself down before dropping. He wasn't some magical princess or catwoman, and his knees wouldn't stay healthy if he tried to imitate either.
He landed in a crouch, scanning the room with his gun out, but Adora and Catra had already taken down the Eurondan guards here. This seemed to be a storage room - he could see stacks of metal parts. Aero-Flyer parts, from the looks of it. No missiles or what looked like weapons, though. As far as he could tell, at least.
Behind him, Entrapta followed, carrying Carter in her hair. Then Teal'c jumped down with Alar, followed by the rest of their group.
"Which way?" Jack asked. There were two doors here. One led towards the direction of the Stargate, but that didn't have to mean anything in a bunker.
Carter and Etrapta used their scanners. "There are two lifts close to this room. One large, one smaller," Carter reported.
The large would be to transport the stuff in here to wherever they were doing maintenance of their planes. "Let's take the large one," Jack said. "Might take some of the parts here with us as cover."
"Good idea. We should…"
"Shh!" Catra snapped, interrupting Bow. Her ears twitched. Then she sniffed the air - and hissed. "They're pouring fuel into the area above us."
Damn! He had been right about those bastards! "Let's hurry - I don't want to end up in a Eurondan barbecue!" Jack clenched his teeth and rushed towards the closer door.
*****
Adora gasped and stepped below the hole she had cut in the floor - the ceiling now. She couldn't see any liquid yet, but she trusted Catra… oh, there it was. Dripping down the hole. "It's just a trickle now, but that won't last!" she yelled. And once the Eurondans ignited it…
"Can you stop it?" Sam asked. "The fumes are explosive. If it fills the room…"
Adora drew a sharp breath - and smelt alcohol. Clenching her teeth, she quickly eyed the opening. If she changed her sword into a large shield, she could plug the hole. Most of it. It wouldn't be perfect, but it should stop the fuel from reaching the storage room. Or… She looked to the side. Yes.
She grabbed a batch of armour plates and pushed them below the hole, then grabbed the uppermost plate and jumped on the stack. The fuel was falling down the hole now, drenching her. She raised the plate above her - and pressed it against the opening.
The stream slowed down to a trickle, quickly filling the hole above her and weighing down on the plate. She could take it tough - she was She-Ra.
"Open the doors!" Jack said.
"We need to hack the electronic locks," Entrapta said. "And their systems are good - better than Goa'uld technology."
Catra sniffed the air again. "We're getting fumes inside here."
Adora bared her teeth. She couldn't help that - the plate wasn't a perfect seal. The fuel trickling in formed a growing puddle beneath her.
"Can't you just slice it open?" she heard Daniel ask.
"If we do that, the fuel will follow us through the hole," Catra retorted.
"And if it starts burning, it will suck the air from outside in," Bow added. "Or blow up."
"The Eurondans must be crazy to try this!" Daniel blurted out.
"They probably don't realise that we've cut a hole into the floor," Sha're replied. "But even so, the damage to the level above us would be extensive."
Jack cursed. "Hurry!"
"We're working as fast as we can, sir." Sam sounded stressed.
Adora felt stressed. The weight on the armour plate was growing rapidly - it was getting harder to keep the pressure on to seal the opening above her. She could take it, though. She had to do it. Her friends depended on her. She wouldn't let them down!
"There are some parallels to the software used against the Stargate Command," Entrapta said - she sounded intrigued rather than stressed, Adora noted. "But it's only superficial. I think the software there was heavily adapted to First Ones technology while this is completely native Eurondan architecture."
"Whatever it is, solve it!" Jack snapped. "If alcohol has to kill me, it should be an expensive whisky. Not some cheap alien fuel."
Adora snorted at that - and almost fumbled her grip on the shield. The puddle of fuel below her was spreading, reaching the stacks of supplies next to her. "Just how much fuel are they using for this?" she snapped.
"They're fanatics," Jack replied. "Probably everything they have."
"That might hinder their aero-fighter strikes," Bow said.
"I don't think they care about that while we're threatening to destroy their command centre," Glimmer retorted.
"Carter, how much longer?" Jack asked. He sounded urgent, and when Adora glanced at him, she saw that he was staring at the fuel that was slowly spreading.
"Help me with this!" Catra snapped. She was dragging poles - pipes - with her. To prop up the armour plate, Adora realised.
Jack and Teal'c jumped to help, dropping Alar on the ground in the process. The man hissed with pain.
"I… ngh… don't think the poles will hold," Adora said.
"If we get enough, they will!" Catra insisted.
"They will help, at least," Jack said.
Adora doubted it. But her friends did their best to jam the pipes between the stack of armour plates below her and the one she was holding up.
"They are a bit too long," Jack said.
"Not any more," Catra snapped, slicing through them.
All three grunted and pushed the first pole into place, wedging it against the armour.
Adora barely felt a change but held her tongue. She could still take it, anyway. She had to. She had endured worse.
"OK! Let's get more!" Catra was already speeding off to grab more poles.
"Carter, how's it looking?"
"We're making progress, sir."
That was good. More poles joined the first ones as Isa helped as well. The fuel puddle was still spreading, but that couldn't be helped. It was covering half the floor now.
"If only we had some sealant…" Jack looked around.
"There might be something," Catra said. "But I can't tell from the labels."
Jack turned to Alar. "If you don't want to burn with us, you better help us out."
"I will gladly sacrifice my life for the people!" Alar spat. He sounded terrified, though.
But Adora had to focus on holding up the armour plate. How much longer until they had the door open? She could still hold out, but the pressure was increasing.
"Done!" Entrapta announced.
Adora gasped. Done!
"Or not!"
No!
"Wait -
that's the command to open it!"
Adra heard metal sliding over metal, followed by cheering. The door was opening! Yes!
But Catra cursed, staring at the ceiling. "They set it off!"
No!
"Everyone out!" Jack yelled. "Go! Go! Go!"
Adora turned to look at Catra. "Go!"
Her love wasn't moving. "What about you?"
"I'll jump once everyone is clear!" Adora said. "The poles will hold long enough."
Catra stared at her, then jumped up to her.
Adora wanted to protest, to tell her to run, but before she could say a word, Catra kissed her. "Don't die!" she whispered.
Then she turned and raced to the door, splashing through the puddle.
Adora strained. Was the armour plate growing hotter? Or was that her imagination? Could the fuel be burning that fast? Could it burn past the plate while there was still liquid above her?
"We're out!" Catra yelled. "Come!"
"Close the door!" Adora yelled. "Start to close it!"
"No!"
Adora hissed through clenched teeth: "I'll make it before it closes! Start it!"
"Close the door!" Jack snapped.
Adora heard the doors starting to close. Saw them moving. Guessed the speed. And the distance. If she was wrong, her friends would die. She wouldn't let them.
A bit longer… a little bit… Now!
She jumped, clearing half the room. Metal screeched behind her as she touched down in the puddle and launched herself forward, towards the door.
Catra was in the shrinking opening, staring wide-eyed at her. The sound of roaring, falling fluid filled the room as Adora flew towards her. The doors were almost closed - she could only see Catra standing there. A bright light lit up behind Adora, turning Catra even paler.
Adora hit the door, one shoulder scraping against the metal.
She hit Catra, grabbing her, rolling over the floor, curled around her lover.
Then she heard the explosion go off.
*****
Samantha Carter threw herself to the side when the storage room exploded, closing her eyes at the flash, waiting for the heat.
It didn't come. She looked up and saw the doors had closed completely and held. They were dented and buckled, and there was a burning patch of fuel in the middle, where the shockwave must have pushed burning fuel through the gap as it closed, but they had held.
She pushed herself up and looked at the group. Adora was up already, staring at the burning fuel, then at the doors. Catra was running a hand through her hair and frowning - both must be covered in fuel. Like Alar, whom Teal'c was dragging away from the burning puddle.
"Well, that was exciting. Let's not do it again and get back to the Stargate," the General said. "And see if we can get a shower on the way before a spark lights us up."
"Or before the fire reduces the doors' structural integrity too much," Entrapta added, looking up from her multitool.
Sam glanced at the screen and winced. The doors were rapidly heating up - the storage room must be an inferno. But that meant… "The ventilation must still be working, feeding oxygen to the fire!" she blurted out. Why hadn't the Eurondans shut that down?
It was a stupid question - they wanted to burn the group. But they risked dooming themselves. The ventilation could spread explosive vapours and poisonous smoke throughout the bunker if the filters couldn't handle it - or caught fire. "We need to move quickly!" she said.
"That's what I said," the General had to comment.
"Where is the closest bathroom?" Glimmer asked as they started moving towards the larger lift.
Sam tried to remember the floor plan she had derived from their scanners, but she hadn't paid attention to those facilities. An obvious mistake in hindsight.
"There's a toilet up ahead!" Entrapta, able to check her own screen while being carried by her hair, replied. A moment later, a projection appeared in the air, showing the layout of the floor they were on, with a blinking symbol. It was close indeed - around the next corner.
"OK! Everyone who's soaked with fuel, wash it off. The rest, move ahead to secure the lift!" the General snapped.
"That includes you, sir," Sam pointed out when he was about to move past the washroom - he had helped shore up the improvised plug Adora had used and so had been splashed with fuel, if not exactly soaked.
Before he could say something stupid, Adora reverted to her normal form, her soaked armour disappearing. Why would…?
"For the Honour of Grayskull!"
Ah. She was back as She-Ra - in dry armour. "I'll secure the lift!" she said - and sped off.
"I really have to revisit that uniform proposal," Sam heard the General mutter as they entered the bathroom.
Washing the fuel off - or, at least, diluting it sufficiently so the danger of catching fire was lessened enough - was a rushed, cramped affair. The washroom was far too small to fit everyone. Even worse, as was expected from a bunker running low on resources, they hadn't much to work with.
And the clock was ticking, as the General reminded everyone. The storage room doors wouldn't last much longer. Sure, the fire would take some time to spread through the level, but the smoke and vapours would spread quicker, and if more rooms caught fire… Sam shuddered at the thought.
Catra sliced off the sink and toilet, opening the pipes and turning the room into a fountain, and the General sent those who hadn't been splashed much with fuel in first so they could join Adora. That meant Glimmer, Bow, Daniel, Sha're - and Sam and Entrapta.
Sam hated leaving the others - she just knew the General would, given the chance, take too many risks for himself in order to keep others safer - but they had no choice.
They reached the lift, where Adora was guarding the closed doors. "Locked!" she called out.
Sam pressed her lips together. The Eurondans didn't have cameras in the bunker - as far as she could tell, another oversight perhaps, or the result of limited resources - but the electronic locks were linked. They couldn't just crack the doors open without the risk of alerting the Eurodans that they had survived the fire.
"We'll hack it," she said. Which might be easier said than done. The Eurondans weren't on the level of the Ancients, but their electronics were more advanced than Earth's native technology, and the system architecture was utterly alien.
Fortunately, she quickly discovered that this door worked like the storage room door that they had already hacked. That meant they already knew where the weak defences were. They still had to be careful, though, to avoid triggering an alert or lockdown, and checking took precious time. And they had to hack the lift as well, which was a challenge in itself.
But one Sam could handle.
Teal'c arrived, carrying Alar, followed by Lenkova. Shortly before they opened the lift's doors, Isa and Campbell joined them as well. That left…
"Where's Catra and Jack?" Adora asked, sounding tense.
"They are bringing up the rear," Isa reported.
Typical! Sam bit her lower lip. Then she froze. That sound… And did she feel the air moving, like a breeze? She checked her scanner. The temperature around the storage room was quickly rising - the doors must have failed! They were running out of time! And soon, air!
The General arrived at the nearest corner, running all out.
"Where's Catra?" Adora yelled.
"She's coming!" he replied. "She's faster than I am."
But the fire was spreading - the entire level was heating up. Sam could see it on her scanner as they piled into the lift.
Sam focused on removing the last defences of the system. And stopping the system from sounding an alert.
"Catra!" Adora yelled again.
But there she was! Sam looked up as the programs finished taking over the controls and saw her running towards them, on all fours, claws tearing up the floor.
And behind her, Sam could see flickering light illuminating the hallway - the fire was growing closer.
"Everyone aboard!" the General said. "Let's go!"
Sam pushed a button, and the doors closed.
Then the lift started moving.
*****
Catra couldn't help glancing at the floor of the cabin - or platform; it was a freight lift - for a moment. Below them, on the level they were leaving, the fire was spreading. Sooner or later, the flames would reach the lift shaft. They had to be out of the lift by then - and as far away from the shaft as possible. If that fire turned into the thing from the Earth action movie in that skyscraper while they were in the shaft…
But there was nothing they could do about that. If only the lift were faster - Catra was sure most would be faster climbing a ladder. The more time this took, the more time the fire had to reach them - and the Eurodans above them time to get ready.
At least their group was ready. Adora had changed her sword into a shield again and was standing in the middle of the doors, ready to block enemy fire, and everyone else was lining up behind her, weapons aimed.
Or keeping their head down, in Entrapta's case.
The lift stopped with a soft beeping noise, and the doors started to open. A moment later, Catra's ears twitched as she heard several of the Eurondans' ray guns go off, and the door rang from the impacts - few, if any, hit the widening gap.
Amateurs, she thought. They had fired far too soon - and with weapons that couldn't penetrate the metal doors. Even Kyle would have done better than this.
Despite the shots, the doors kept sliding open, and more and more energy bolts were hitting Adora's shield. But that meant the enemies were exposing themselves as well. They were as skilled at taking cover as they were at other infantry tactics, and Catra saw Jack put two bullets into the head of a guard standing at a corner, not behind it, before the doors had opened wide enough for Adora to rush through.
As the Eurondan fell back, gun dropping to the ground, Isa rose, a shot bouncing off her armoured shoulder, and cut loose with the heavy machine gun.
A group of Eurondans was shredded by the bullets, bodies collapsing in pools of blood, parts blown off, as Isa swung her gun around, and Adora charged forward, Catra right behind her.
The Eurondans were breaking before Adora reached their line but were too slow to get away in time. Adora smashed into their front, shield out, and half a dozen Eurondans were thrown back, slamming against the wall with loud cracks. One tried to rally them, screaming something at the running guards, but they ignored him - and when he turned to shoot at Adora, Catra sliced through his arm and weapon with a swipe of her claws, and he dropped to his knees, staring at his bleeding stump as if he couldn't believe his eyes.
Whether he managed to stop the bleeding or not, he was out. Catra was rushing after Adora. "Next one left!" she yelled - according to Entrapta's projected map, the Stargate was about three potential choke points this way.
Adora smashed a few more too-slow guards into the wall - and the ceiling in one case - and whirled, moving her shield to block a ragged volley from a side tunnel.
"Fire in the hole!"
Catra gasped at Campbell's yell - and pressed her hands over her ears the moment a grenade shot between her and Adora, going off in the side tunnel. The explosion cleared the tunnel. Thoroughly.
They rushed on, through and past the wounded and the dead. They passed the first two potential chokepoints without any resistance - the Eurondans must have lost all cohesion. The third choke point, right before the gate room, was held by three guards.
Adora didn't even slow down for them. She charged through them and the doors in one smooth motion - and drew up to a sharp stop.
Catra sprinted after her, then veered off to the side as soon as she was in the gate room. What was…? Oh.
She stopped as well, her claws ripping the floor open, and glared at Tarlan, who was standing next to the D.H.D. - which was covered in blocks of explosive.
Damn.
*****
"Don't move, or I'll destroy the command console, and you will be stranded here!"
"It's actually called the D.H.D. - the Dial Home Device," Jack O'Neill said with far more nonchalance than he felt as he joined Adora and Catra in the gate room. If the fool blew up the D.H.D., they would be stuck on a foreign planet
again. And one with far less friendly inhabitants than Etheria.
"I don't care what you call it. This is the device that controls the Stargate. Without it, you won't be able to flee," Tarlan yelled.
Jack wanted to just shoot the idiot and be on their way, but if the Eurondan had the detonator on a dead man's switch, that would be a terrible idea.
"Sir!" Carter had arrived.
Jack held up a hand. "Stand back, Carter! We don't want the nice Nazi to get nervous." More nervous, actually - the guy was already twitchier than a junkie going cold turkey. Too twitchy to bear more pressure - his eyes were already darting back and forth as he tried to keep Jack, Adora and Catra in his view. If they spread out, he might blow the D.H.D. up out of sheer desperation.
"Don't do it!" Adora said. "You gain nothing from destroying your last hope of surviving this!"
Tarlan clenched his teeth. "I heard what you told Alar - you want to destroy us!"
"We don't have any quarrel with you," Jack snapped. "We just want to go home."
"You sabotaged the agreement that would have saved us!" Tarlan was panting and sweating now.
Teal'c arrived, Alar slung over his shoulder. And stunned, Jack noted with relief. The last thing they needed was Alar telling the idiot with the bomb to die for their cause or something. Although the Space Nazi Führer hadn't seemed to be that willing to die. If he could be persuaded to order Tarlan to stand down… No, too risky - the rest of the Eurondans had had no qualms about sacrificing their leader to kill Jack's friends.
"Look, you and your people need the D.H.D. more than we do. Without it, you won't get any supplies - and can't escape the bunker when your power runs out," Jack said. "We can whip up a computer to control the Stargate with what we have with us."
"Well, it wouldn't be easy, or… Ow!" Entrapta piped up behind Jack, but Carter had that under control. Right now, honesty was the worst policy.
"You would die with us!"
"No, we would not." Adora took a step forward, and Jack held his breath. "We would restore your planet's magic, use that to cleanse the poison from the surface, and then leave this bunker."
"And we'd grab the Stargate and build a control device while we wait for your enemies to wipe you out," Catra added. "Or we construct an FTL communicator and contact our fleet to fetch us."
"You wouldn't survive!"
"We've survived worse," Catra shot back.
Isa arrived. "The fire is spreading, sir," she reported in a low voice. "It has gotten past the lift shaft."
Jack saw Catra sniff the air and then clench her teeth. Time was running out. Maybe if he shot the guy's hand off… or if he hit the detonator… A dead man's switch was one thing, but Jack doubted that Tarlan had rigged the bomb to explode if the transmission cut off or something. Still risky, but better than dying in the bunker fire.
"We all can survive," Adora said. "You, us, your people. No one else has to die. We can end the war, restore your planet, and help you set up a country for your sleeping people."
"We'd rather die than lose our world!" Tarlan spat.
"You're about to do both," Catra said. "The fire's spreading - I can smell the smoke coming closer. How much longer until you lose the command centre? And then your enemies can finish you off, and even if we all die, they can work on restoring the surface - as you planned."
"Whether you destroy the D.H.D. or not, you can't win the war any more," Adora said. "But you can still save your people - if you let us help you."
Tarlan remained silent - but as tense as a bowstring. He was looking around wildly now - at the walls and the floor, not just at Jack's friends and himself. And at the Stargate.
Jack drew a short breath through his clenched teeth. He hated trying to make fanatics see reason. Especially desperate ones. "You can't take us with you. We can escape the bunker. Your people can't."
"You're stuck here as well!"
"No, we are not," Adora said. "We have magic and much more advanced technology. We can survive here. But your people cannot. Not without our help. Let us help you, please. No one else has to die." She smiled at Tarlan. "Think about your people. They depend on you. They trust you. Do you want them to die in their sleep? From a fire your own men set? Or do you want them to live? In peace?"
Tarlan shook his head. He seemed to be crying. "We can't live in peace with the Breeders! They want to wipe us out!"
And with good reason, Jack thought. But not even attempted genocide justified a genocide.
"We won't let them kill you," Adora said. "Trust us. We can stop the war - we will stop the war. If you let us. We just want to help you."
Tarlan blinked - he was crying. "But…"
"Please."
Tarlan closed his eyes, and Jack held his breath.
A moment later, the detonator dropped to the floor, and Tarlan collapsed, sobbing.
*****