Chapter Eighteen

Get up
Everybody’s gonna move their feet
Get down
Everybody’s gonna leave their seat
Detroit Rock City
Kiss

 Dark, it was so damn dark. Sam realized it was so dark because her eyes were closed so she did what anyone else would she tried to lift the lids only to find they didn’t work. Numb hands reached for her face and she realized her aching hands were tied together. Fingers that didn’t quite work because they been smashed under the heel of a God fumbled along the unfamiliar outline of her own cheek. It was thick and bumpy, it was sticky and open in some places she felt the muscle beneath the skin. Sam let out a cry of pain and understood her eyes didn’t open because they had been punched shut.

“In case you’re interested,” a male voice intoned snidely, “the brat and the bitch are dead.”

“Wh…who?” She stuttered.

“The brat, Lilly, and the bitch….Annie. Though I must say she was a sweet little piece before she met her end. Well, when I met her ends anyway.”

Sam was instantly saddened but knew she could not show it, Eros would think it a weakness and that was the last thing she needed. He was known to pick on the weak and the sick. “You twisted bastard, Ares and Nicholas will kill you.” she mumbled.

“So little Annie informed me before I choked the life out of her, my cock still pumping its load into her while she breathed her last breath for me.” The salaciousness of his victory was evident in his voice.

Sam though he’d gone insane at some point. His Mother she sounded angry and vindictive but not crazy. “What have you done to me?” She couldn’t see and now she was beginning to notice she wasn’t exactly speaking right either, her lips felt fat and numb like she’d just come from the dentist. The numbness in her lips was matched by the cold on her bare ass and the equally numb and sticky place between her legs.

“Oh, let’s see now,” Eros began to pace around the small room in which he was holding her. “You must understand that I’ve done little but the others, well, let’s say they had a ball….or several…..with you. You do so look like Mother, what man wouldn’t want to get a piece of that?” He zeroed in on where she sat huddled naked on the floor, hands and feet bound. “I’m going to kill my Father, did you know that?”

“Fuck you.”

“Mortals so crass and rude. But I assure, you it’s true, I am going to kill him. Then, well, then, I’m going to rule the world. Do you want to live, Samantha? I hear you have a daughter of your own now, Amanda, isn’t that her name? What would you give to see her again? To save her life and your own when all others around you die?”

Mandy was home and safe with the babysitter. “Don’t you even think about touching my daughter.” Sam threatened through her swollen lips.

“Little girls don’t really do it for me.”

“Yeah?” Sam asked turning her head toward his voice. “That’s not what I heard.”

A harsh hand closed around her throat. “Callestah was born to be mine and she will be.” Eros hissed. “Just sit here like the good piece of bait that you are. After all, your little Amanda is about the same age Callestah was, is she not? If you’re very good and very lucky, when this is all over, I’ll kill you first that way you won’t have to watch what I do with her.” Eros shoved Sam’s back onto the cold concrete floor. “Even as you sit here rotting in the dark, our forces are going forth and taking over this planet. By nightfall the Earth will be ours for the taking and you nothing more than a bitter memory.” She heard the metal open door open and close when Eros exited. Sam began to crawl around on the floor like a snake with her hands and feet bound trying to find her bearings.

Something on the floor smelled strongly of urine. She sniffed and sniffed at it, there was something else in the air; blood. Maybe it was her own. Another inch along the cold floor in the pitch dark and her hands fell upon flesh that was cold and yielding. Trembling fingers worked their way along the skin until she made out the shape of a leg. It was wet and this was the source of the urine smell. “Hey, are, are you awake? I’m not getting fresh here.” She muttered nervously knowing there would be no answer. Further up she felt the curve of a woman’s bare waist and soon her hands were entangled in mounds of hair. “I don’t know who you are but rest well.” She said sorrowfully and tried to sit up. Using her hands to push her weight to her knees she found something else on the floor. A small little thing wrapped up in a sticky soaking blanket. Sam knew instantly it was a baby. “Oh no, Lilly.” If the baby in her arms was Lilly then that meant the dead woman in the room was Annie. For the first time since the nightmare began Samantha Carter started to cry. Tears forced their way through slits too small to slide the side of a dollar bill into. While Sam held the dead baby in her arms all she could think of was Amanda and how she’d do anything to make sure her own little girl didn’t wind up dead.

Since they were able to travel the Astral Plane getting to the SGC would be easier for Daniel, Cole and Nick than anybody else. Still the devastation and havoc being wrought were hard to miss. They had only to step outside their front door to know they were in the middle of a war zone, within milliseconds their ears were met with the sounds of screaming and gunfire. Overhead air raid and early warning sirens went off blaring the announcement to stay inside and lock all doors. It wasn’t just Greenbrier and Colorado Springs, within hours the warning echoed over the state of Colorado soon to reverberate through the streets of surrounding states and then to countries across the oceans before the night was through.

“It’s started,” Nick mumbled. “They took over the base and they’re using it to bring more of them through. That’s why Annie’s dead!” He shot at Daniel. “They wanted that fucking Gate of yours!”

“It’s not my Stargate, Nic….”

“Whatever,” he shot back, “let’s just fucking get there, I wanna hold my wife before I have to bury her.”

“I know you do and you will.” Daniel swore. “We have to think. If they’re coming out of the base in droves we can’t just pop into at any old point.” The light dawned in Nick’s eyes and Daniel nodded. “We have to be smart about this.” Looking at them, Nicholas had his weapon but Colleen did not have hers. “Can you summon the bow and arrow Ares gave you?”

“If they’re still there, if that bastard didn’t take them.” Colleen said.

“Give it a shot and how about a gun….a big one….for your old man?” He said as he laid his hands on her shoulders. “We have to find a back way into the base.”

“You need that tablet.” Nick reminded him. “We might as well keep it with us, sooner or later Umpa will be back with that device and he’ll want it.”

“Good thinking. I’ll get it.” Daniel dashed back into the house, through the living room and into his office where he grabbed the black tablet from the lazy susan. When he came back outside Colleen was holding Artemis’ bow and arrow. “All set. I think I know where we should go.”

“You want us to follow you?” Cole asked. “This is a hell of a time to start trying out your new powers, don’t you think, Dad?”

“No,” Daniel said easily, and so he didn’t think. Getting to the Astral and talking with Calla and kids there had been a lot easier than he ever would have imagined, all he had to do was want it. “Why don’t you see if you can keep up with your old dad, huh? Come on, this way.” Closing those beautiful blue eyes of his, for the very first time under his own power, Daniel Jackson disappeared from one place and reappeared in another.

“WHOA!” Came the loud startled cry and the man with the graying head back up and pulled a gun but soon he recognized the face of the other man. “What the fuck?”

“Jack!” Daniel said with much joy as he was relieved to see that Ares either sent Jack back too late or not far enough. “You’re all right!”

“Hiya kids,” Jack said as Nick and Colleen appeared behind Daniel and his own heart began to slow down. “Looks like we had the same idea, huh?”

“Hey Uncle Jack.” Colleen said sadly. All she wanted was to get inside and hold Lilly one last time just like Nick wanted to say good-bye to Annie.

“Other than the widespread chaos, what’s goin’ on?” Jack asked with deep concern as he looked in her eyes. All three of them looked as though they’d just been put through the wringer. Daniel came over, took him aside for a moment and in a very soft voice gave Jack the devastating news about their loss. “That’s a sick joke, right?” Jack asked unable to believe Daniel at first. He never thought anything like this would happen to any of his friends and least of all the Jackson family who’d been through so much at their start of their life together and then again just recently. General Jack O’Neill was a soldier he knew how to take news like this but that didn’t stop him from wanting to cry. There was a world to save, their world, like Calla said there would be time to mourn later. “Let’s get a look over the rise.” He suggested. “Come on kids, low and quiet.”

Out in the cold and the snow with no coats to protect them, the four of them crawled along the frozen ground until they reached the crest of the place where it read ‘Cheyenne Mountain Complex’ in big bold letters over the only entrance to the base. Right there below them, creatures, humanoid and not, in every imaginable shape, size, color and variation was streaming out through the half-shell opening. Hundreds, thousands, of them in one great long wave going forth to bring the United States to its knees.

Over head the first of the enemy ships came into view. It was no mere shuttle. Bigger than the Prometheus by far and heavily armed it blocked the moon from the night sky as it went on toward wherever raining down death from above.

“We’re on our own.” General O’Neill said to Doctor Jackson.

“I know.”

“We gotta get in there.”

“I know.”

“What are we waitin’ for?” Nick asked. “Hell to freeze over?”

Daniel snickered, that was one of Calla’s favorite colloquialisms when she was truly at the end of her patience with the children. God, I hope she’s all right.

“What do you say, Danny-boy? Once more into the breach?” Jack asked.

“I didn’t know you could be so poetic.” Daniel remarked pulling back from the ridge. Calla and the others would be here soon. But until the cavalry could arrive someone had to stave them off. “After you. Damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead, right?”

The four of them made their way back to the place Daniel and his children first appeared and the ventilation pipe hidden beneath the thick cover of the pine forest.

“You always did take me to the loveliest of places, Ares.” Achilles quipped as they climbed the icy peak of Mount Olympus. “Are you sure you can’t use your magick to get us inside?”

“Unless you’re invited, no.” Ares returned leading the way to Zeus’ grand palace high atop the fabled mountain. “You’re just going to have to follow me, I’ll get us there.”

After two hours of climbing they came to a narrow plateau upon which Ares settled his large frame with a heavy sigh. “We’ll rest here for a few moments. The palace isn’t far now.”

“Were it that you could use your magick to make us a fire.” Achilles lamented rubbing his gloved hands together and blowing upon them for warmth. He changed in Ares’ cave and was outfitted much like the God of War was, in black leather and heavy furs.

“I can use my magick out here but as you can see there’s nothing to burn. We will warm up once we’re in the palace, I will build us a huge fire.” Ares promised without any joy in his voice.

“You’ve been troubled since we left your cave,” Achilles ventured. “I know the sight of your slaughtered women upset you, Ares and rightly so but….”

Ares cold dark eyes looked up at Achilles. “The bitch killed my great-granddaughter and my grandson’s wife.” He confessed. “When we get back I’m going to tear her limb from limb.”

“And Callestah?” Achilles inquired. “Do not misunderstand me, Lord Ares, we have had a long and prosperous relationship…”

“But?”

“You swore if you ever had a daughter that she would be my wife, don’t you remember? Yet I wake after a sleep lasting thousands of years to find her full with the child of a mortal born man? I am insulted, Ares.” Achilles admitted. “What happened to your oath? Why did you not wake me when she came into this world?” It was clear that Achilles was more than merely miffed at the situation.

It was a long time ago that Ares made such a promise, so long in fact that he’d forgotten it. Then again he only said it because he knew he would never have a Daughter and it was easy to barter with something you’d never possess in the first place but here she was. The two of them had been engaged in a heated argument and Ares was extremely drunk at the time and trying his best to win Achilles over to his side. At best it was an empty promise. Still, he did make it. “What does it matter to you? You much prefer the company of men. What you would you do with my Daughter?”

“A man should marry and have many children, so that his name and his legacy will live on after he is gone.” Achilles said as they sat in the snow catching their breath. “She wakes me and tells me my name is remembered to this day.”

“It is,” Ares agreed. “You’ve gone down in history as one of the world’s finest warriors.”

“She tells me this and that she has named a son for me, yet when I meet this son she calls him Nikolai….”

“Nicholas.” Ares corrected.

“Nicho-las,” Achilles repeated, “Still a Bolshevik name, not Greek, not Spartan.” He complained bitterly. “I don’t understand why you’ve allowed this all to happen, why didn’t you kill Jackson long ago?”

“Were that I could have, I would have.” Ares said lowly. “She is completely in love with him. Callestah is stubborn and she’s not lead the easiest of lives. What did she tell you of this son she named for you?” Ares asked as the thought turned around in his mind. Callestah had two children that he was aware of and two children only. She did spend twenty-five years with Kanan, did she bare him children and name them for ancient Greek warriors? If she did, where were those children?

“She told me nothing other than his name. What did you ever care about love?” Achilles accused quietly. “You care about power. Yet you let Jackson breathe just to save face with your Daughter? I see many things about this world have changed during my long sleep. Women leading men into battle,” he scoffed, “and not only that but they’re wearing those,” he plucked at the black leather on his own legs, “what are these things?”

“Pants.” Ares said. “Not all women wear frilly dresses any longer, it’s a shame isn’t it?” He mourned. “I know what you’re getting at, Achilles, but she deserves to lay in a bed of love not lies.”

“In my bed there are no lies, you think that I would not tell her of my preference? That I would keep such a thing secret from a woman I took as my wife? A woman I swore an oath to protect?”

“Not if you hoped to keep her and have your line mix with mine.” Ares returned. “Why do we talk about such things? We need to be of one mind, with but one goal and one purpose.”

“Until we return to…Col-o-ra-do…..I’m sure we will be.” Achilles said with a smile. “With a predilection for men or not, I am still a better choice for her than Daniel Jackson.”

“Ah,” Ares sighed, “you may be right, old friend, but you will never take her from his side. Not for long anyway,” he added thinking about Andrew F. Hartley who almost pulled off the impossible. “She’s in love with him. “

Achilles rose to his feet and to the challenge Ares offered with his words. “Am I not brave? Am I not strong? Do I not have standing? Riches? Am I not handsome?” Achilles asked. “Thousands of women have thrown themselves at my feet just for the chance to lay in my bed…”

“Only to be trod upon.” Ares interjected. “Cast aside for the first young man to cross your path.” Indeed Achilles was all of those things and more. A real man’s man, a battle hardened warrior in the body of Sun God. Achilles was not effeminate in any way nor was he overly masculine. Not the type of guy who normally made even well functioning Gay-Dar go off. If one was not told of Achilles’ bend then one would never guess. In Days of Old he was simply what might have termed ‘a confirmed bachelor’.

“Now it is I who am hurt,” Achilles said in the same false tone Ares used with Jack O’Neill. “Not every young man is good enough to lay in my bed, I do expect a level of attraction, respect and possibly even love before going that far. You wanted me for her, remember? It was you who offered such a woman to me.”

Again Achilles spoke the truth while they sat there freezing on the mountain top. Ares, remembered that long ago when he promised an unborn Daughter to his best warrior. He’d been drunk and determined to get his way but he wasn’t so wasted that he didn’t realize what good breeding stock Achilles made. In fact he’d used that very ploy to get Achilles to agree. Achilles wanted children but knew it was unlikely he’d have many since his predilection was for males rather than females. “It doesn’t matter. As I said you will never take her from Jackson, no one will. Better men than you have tried.”

“Meaning you?” Achilles asked. “I saw…well…I saw what was left of that painting in your bedroom, Ares. It seems to have gotten Eros’ dander up, the way he ruined it and all.”

“I think our rest is over,” Ares stood up and turned his back on Achilles, something he normally never did but then again he trusted Achilles and Achilles had never let him down. “We’ve a challenge before us, let’s get this done with, I need to get back to my family.”

“What did you say?” Achilles asked in shock. “You need to get back to your what? Family? Seems you’ve grown soft and, dare I say it my friend, even old in the years since I last saw you.”

“Really? Well, why don’t you just try and keep up with this old man?” Taking long quick strides in the deep snow, Ares walked away from Achilles.

“What has gotten in to you? You honestly care about that little flaxen haired tart and that brat, don’t you? I can’t bel--”

Achilles got no further before Ares whirled around and grabbed him by the throat lifting him off his feet. “That…..is…..my…..family.” He spat vehemently. “Didn’t we just go over that? My Grandson is in pain and so is my Granddaughter. That little brr-rat,” he huffed, “as you called her was my Great Granddaughter!” With a loud snarl and hearty shove Ares pushed Achilles down into the snow and away from him.

“Seems Apollo’s deserted his post, I see. God of War indeed.” Achilles intoned snidely as he rose and brushed the snow from his body. “You’re more like a sappy little God of….” But Achilles quickly shut his running mouth when the fireball appeared in Ares’ palm. “I meant no disrespect,” he back peddled a bit. “It’s just that this is very unlike you, Ares.”

“The years change people but not that much, trust me, Achilles, you still don’t want to be on my bad side. If I remember correctly, Apollo was the reason you ended up with that arrow in your foot. You of all people should know better than to piss off a God.” Ares pushed past him making his way to Zeus’ Palace atop Mount Olympus. “Apollo,” Ares muttered under his breath, “God of …of all things.”

End of Chapter Eighteen
The Cradle Will Fall
Continue to
Chapter Nineteen

This story and all stories in the Cradle Will Fall series are copyrighted to Lisa Beth Darling these stories may not be transferred outside of this URL in any fashion.