Stargate Ragnarok

The First Rule

Four days into the assignment, and the sight of the installation still took him by surprise every time he walked past a window and spotted it. He was drawn to it, finding it hard not to look at it and examine its intricate design, to admire its extraordinary scale.

The light from the primary star was faint out here, but there was still enough illumination to show the vast silvery structure of one of the Gleipnir arrays contrasted against the impossibly black void of space – but not all of that light came from the sun-like star that sat twenty astronomical units away. Behind the seven hundred mile long framework of the installation sat a sphere of perfect black a little more than four miles across, visible only because of the faint and partly glowing accretion disc around it. The Apollo was a huge vehicle by Earth standards; larger than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, but she was a barely visible speck next to the Gleipnir station.

"Oh yes, why don't you stare out of the window. That'll help us so much as we try to determine the decay rate of the subspace impedance field."

Nesbitt closed his eyes and muttered under his breath before turning, smiling and still holding a travel mug in each hand. The laboratory was a surprisingly large chamber by virtue of the fact that it was a converted storage bay, but to Nesbitt it felt claustrophobically cramped with the other occupant's ego taking up so much space.

"Oh, its subspace impedance field is it now? I should have known you'd put your own label on it eventually. Anyway - remind me how much data you said we'd have to collect before we could make more than an educated guess? Was it three hours, or four?"

"Um...well...five, actually." McKay said sheepishly.

Fuming, the Canadian scientist turned to the computer terminal before turning back.

"You know, you should be grateful I agreed to come along and do this for you. I'm supposed to be on Atlantis right now."

"No no, with, you're doing this with me. You always have trouble with that word – maybe that's why you can't grasp the concept of shared credit. And for the record, I never wanted you here. I'm perfectly capable of handling this on my own. You're here because the UK government isn't exactly flavour of the month where offworld operations are concerned right now and Bill's still on holiday – I'm lucky I got to come at all, even if I had to have a babysitter the US government trusts. I hardly know a damn thing that's going on with the SGC, the IOA…anything. God, sometimes it makes me so angry – you annihilated a solar system, turned the Asurans into a race of Terminators somehow managed to make some Wraith even more dangerous, and you barely get a slap on the wrist. We let a few hundred wolves out of captivity and we get suspended and lined up for a joint DoD / MoD investigation. Are you going to take this coffee or what?"

McKay swivelled in his chair, pointing angrily as he grabbed the proffered travel mug.

"First of all, it was more like five sixths of a solar system, and secondly...secondly you antagonised a race that might prove to be a bigger threat than the Wraith and Asurans combined and showed them how to escape their prison!"

"At least the Fenrir are still in captivity. Well...most of them. And at least we didn't wake an entire species of human-farming space vampires from hibernation decades early..." Nesbitt muttered, sipping the tea and glancing at a computer display.

"Really? You just want to moan and complain for the next five hours? You know what, I'm so happy for you. You can just remind everyone that they'll be safe for a few more years while massaging your ego and telling everyone that you were right, it wasn't your fault and you couldn't have known." McKay spat as he raised the mug to his lips.

Nesbitt paused, staring at a monitor in contemplation before raising his eyebrows.

"You really have no idea how ironic it is to hear those words coming from your mouth, do you?"

"Gentleman, please tell me you have something right now? I'd hate to think you're just spending all your time arguing."

Nesbitt and McKay turned to see Colonel Ellis in the doorway, arms crossed.

"No, well, actually we were, uh..." McKay stammered, his hands quickly raised and gesticulating. Nesbitt saw it and shook his head – it was a familiar mannerism for Rodney McKay when he needed to explain something, the habitual 'invisible Rubik's cube' routine. "The good news is that we now know the array is heavily shielded, but beyond that, um, well, we, uh, don't have much. See, the problem is we still don't understand how the Asgard tapped the black hole's energy without depleting its rotation or using some variation on the Penrose process. We're assuming they bypass the ergosphere completely and somehow draw power directly from the singularity by means of a subspace tap that -"

"Doctor." Ellis said impatiently. McKay stopped abruptly.

"Colonel, what the world's most intelligent moron means to say is that the longer we stay here, the more accurate we can make our figure for the IOA We're guessing the decay rate is nearly constant, but we need at least a few more hours to make sure." Nesbitt said calmly.

"Um, yes, what he said...wait, what?" McKay said, pointing enthusiastically at Nesbitt before staring at him with his mouth open.

The intercom buzzed a fraction of a second before alarm tones sounded.

"Sir, we might have a situation here. We detected a hyperspace event eleven thousand miles away, looks like two vessels, unknown silhouette. They're on an intercept course."

"Raise shields, arm weapons and have the hyperdrive brought online – I'm on my way." Ellis said as he jogged out of the laboratory. Nesbitt quickly stood up and followed.

The Apollo's bridge wasn't far from the laboratory. As Ellis settled into the commander's chair, Major Marks updated him.

"Shortly after exiting hyperspace, the two contacts split. It now looks like six ships heading our way. Sensors are having a hard time getting much data on them, but we think the two main contacts are approximately the size of Puddle Jumpers, but with very different configurations, while the four other contacts are significantly smaller."

"All right, keep working on the sensors – Doctors, since you're here, do you mind assisting? Open a channel, Major."

As McKay began tapping fervently at his tablet PC, Nesbitt moved to one of the rear bridge stations and began conversing with the sensor technician there. Marks nodded and tapped a string of commands into his console.

"This is the Earth Vessel Apollo to unidentified vessels. State your business and halt your advance."

Seconds passed.

"I say again, state your business and halt your advance, or we will open fire."

"Sir…they're-" Marks began. The Apollo rocked as the shields flared. "-Opening fire!"

"All railguns, return fire."

Although there was only vacuum outside the ship, the railguns could be heard inside as a dull, fast pounding, the sounds of their loading systems gobbling ammunition at a phenomenal rate. The Apollo shook again as the mystery attackers fired.

"Colonel, our shields have dropped by almost twenty-five percent!" Marks said, alarmed and confused.

"What? Ships that small couldn't possibly do that much damage to Asgard shields." Ellis exclaimed.

"There's more – the railguns can't lock on the targets."

Nesbitt glanced at the view through the bridge's window. As Marks had said, the streams of hypervelocity projectiles he could see were erratic and tracked sluggishly, firing into space behind, above and below their distant targets as they jinked and rolled. One of the craft rushed towards the bridge, unleashing a volley of bright blue-white energy packets into the Apollo's strained shielding, and his blood chilled as it sped past. There was no mistaking the shape – an arrowhead, split along its length with a bullet between the two halves.

"It's the Fenrir!"

Almost as if to confirm this, one of the larger shuttles flew into view, spraying the blue-white bolts across the length of the Apollo's spine. Nesbitt had last seen one hauling a train of cargo canisters out of the Stargate on P7T-434.

"Shields now at fifty-eight percent! Hyperdrive is offline."

The Apollo shook again, and this time the lights flickered. A few displays blanked for a second before reinitialising, and somewhere in the nearby corridors, something blew with a bang. Alarmed voices called for fire extinguishers.

"Decompression on deck seven, port side. No casualties."

"Beam weapons, now!"

The dome-shaped turrets housing the advanced Asgard energy weapons came to life, firing long bolts of dense plasma at the Fenrir ships. Each bolt missed by a wide margin.

"No hits. Shields now at forty-three percent, decks four, eight and nine reporting damage. Three casualties." Marks reported as the ship trembled again.

"If you're going to do anything Doctor McKay, now would be a good time – we're getting our asses handed to us!" Ellis yelled.

"I'm trying, but the sensors can't get a solid lock on those ships. I'm attempting to compensate and redirect power to the arrays. Maybe if they have more power they can punch through whatever's jamming them."

Hearing this, Nesbitt hurried to the front, leaning over Colonel Ellis' shoulder.

"Colonel – the sensors are Asgard! The railguns and beam weapons are tied in to them…but the missiles aren't, they use their own human-made radar and infrared. Try them."

"Worth a shot. Major Marks…"

"Missiles, aye."

On the Apollo's spine, three hatches flew open. A fraction of a second later, a trio of white spears streaked out trailing flame and smoke, accelerating rapidly towards their targets. The first slammed into one of the larger shuttles as it arced out of a strafing run on the Apollo's starboard hangar, detonating with a brilliant yellow fireball. The shuttle's shield glowed almost solid scarlet for several seconds as the small ship was hurled on a chaotic trajectory away from the Apollo, its engines lighting sporadically as it tumbled.

The second missile annihilated one of the smaller split delta-shaped ships in a violent conflagration.

Even as the third missile was closing on its target, the Fenrir vessels began their retreat. The three remaining arrow fighters smoothly and swiftly docked under the outstretched wings of the two larger shuttles, and just as the last missile hurtled towards them, their hyperdrives engaged and they were gone. The missile, now without any targets, streaked through the points where a fraction of a second before there had been solid targets and hyperspace windows.

"Hostiles have jumped away." Marks reported.

"Send the self-destruct signal to that missile, get a damage report, and somebody tell me how the hell they took our shields down so fast."

Churning black clouds filled the sky, blocking out the early evening sun and hurling thick sheets of rain to the ground. Freezing wind slammed the falling water sideways. In the distance, a faint flicker of bright white light was accompanied moments later by an ominous rumbling.

"God, I've missed this place." Taylor murmured.

London was as busy as ever, both on the pavements and on the roads. As the staff car picked its way slowly through the early evening rush hour traffic, the wipers barely able to hold back the barrage of ice-cold January rain, he idly watched the crowds as they produced umbrellas, pulled their coats tight and hurried through the streets as if nobody else existed. Drivers beeped their horns, remaining typically intolerant of everybody else on the road.

Despite the weather, and even the people to a point, Taylor couldn't help but feel content at being back in England – it had been too long since he'd last been in the country. He had been pulled directly from a three-month tour in Afghanistan to be briefed on the Stargate program and his new role in it, and immediately flown across the Atlantic. There, he'd spent three months living in Las Vegas and commuting to the Nevada Offworld Training Establishment alongside the rest of his team and Major Hamilton's – even experienced soldiers needed to retrain for offworld operations. Following this, both teams had been posted to Colorado Springs to work at Stargate Command, with Taylor as the commanding officer of the second British offworld unit.

Now, a matter of hours since touching down at RAF Brize Norton, he was in London. He knew he should think himself lucky that he wasn't required to attend Whitehall today, but even with a day and a half to rest and prepare for the extensive and highly classified debriefing that awaited him, attended and run by very senior Ministry of Defence officers – Major General Bullock was certain to be among them – Taylor felt unease.

Part of him wanted to return immediately to the SGC, to get back to doing what he had been asked to do for his country, but other parts reminded him he was still injured, even if the incident on P7T-434 had been almost two months ago. Although almost healed, his ribs ached, and the three gashes across the left side of his chest itched and burned – the creature's claws had even punctured his Kevlar tactical vest and the ballistic strike plate inside. He'd still made a good (if somewhat slow) recovery, but his injuries paled in comparison to those of Sergeant Jarvis. After four different, and long, surgical procedures, Dr Lam had removed twenty-three trinium flechettes, patched up more than thirty-seven separate flechette wounds distributed across almost his whole body, replaced a little under two pints of blood and performed reconstructive surgery on his shredded right arm and shoulder. And yet the man was already back on his feet – barely – and doing what he could to get back in shape, and it was this refusal to lie back and recuperate that kept popping his stitches and aggravating his injuries. It would be a while yet before he was once again cleared for active duty, if indeed any of them were allowed to return to Stargate Command.

The rest of his team would also be called to the debriefing, eventually. They'd only just finished giving their testimonies and defences in front of US Department of Defence and International Oversight Advisory representatives in Washington. As yet, Taylor didn't know if the incident on 434 was considered a disaster or a triumph. Whichever it turned out to be, he was sure General Bullock would use it to further his objective of major British involvement in the predominantly American Stargate programme. He had numerous supporters in the IOA, thanks in part to carefully planned contributions to the Atlantis Expedition.

Only time would tell if Taylor was about to become a scapegoat or a hero.

The interview room was almost featureless and distinctly unfriendly, painted in a disgustingly bland shade of grey-green, and he sensed that the appearance of it not having seen any kind of improvement since the beginning of the Cold War was a carefully cultivated one – standard MoD décor taken to extremes for the purpose of making the occupant feel unwelcome. He also got the sense that many careers had ended in this room, given how out of the way it was in the labyrinthine mass of corridors and rooms in the Ministry of Defence.

Two small windows let in a meagre amount of light, and the only view was of a small portion of the roof of Whitehall and the rain trickling down the tiles. Cold strip lighting added to the effect. There was no decoration beyond the single plain table and chairs – three behind the table facing one in the middle of the room. Most noticeable of all, it was cold. Whether this was a failure in the central heating or a trick to keep interviewees alert and on edge he didn't know, but it was the least of his worries. Being called back to the Ministry of Defence in the UK to evaluate whether he and his team had escalated a major crisis in the galaxy or fortuitously alerted the IOA member states to a grave threat early was something of a cause for concern. Even if the outcome was positive, the decisions he had made in the lead up, about his team's selection, even his choice of equipment and firearms, could cost him the leadership of an SG team.

He had been sitting in the middle chair in his dress uniform, facing three senior MoD officers – one of them a Deputy Chief of Staff – for the last two hours.

"You say you observed one of these creatures release a single human being into what you described as," the General consulted the report in front of him, though it was obvious he didn't need to, "'a hunting pen' and proceeded to hunt him. You go on to say that the animal stalked the man and mauled him to death. Can I ask, Major...why did you not intervene?"

"It was the first time we had seen a Fenrir. We -"

"You hesitated because you had seen an alien?"

He could almost hear the General's unspoken words in his head – stopping and gaping because E.T. walked in front of you hardly befits an SG team leader.

"No sir. We didn't know the context of what we were seeing."

Major General Richard Bullock laughed contemptuously.

"You watched a terrified man be attacked and violently, viciously killed by a ferocious predator that you considered to be intelligent and technologically capable. I should say that's enough bloody context Major Taylor."

Sometimes, Taylor mused, facing angry insurgents with Kalashnikovs and RPGs was easier than facing an MoD general. Especially General Bullock, he thought. But Bullock was hugely in favour of continued British Stargate operations – so why was he giving one of only two team leaders such a hard time? Perhaps, he thought, he wasn't satisfied and he wanted somebody more competent and capable. Maybe he's simply putting on a show for the other two officers. Or he could be testing me, Taylor thought.

"With respect sir, it isn't. For all we knew, the man could have been a criminal, and this might have been his punishment."

"And what if it was? Do you condone violent, painful deaths for criminals? We no longer support capital punishment in this country."

"No sir. But we are trained not to jump to conclusions, and to be more tolerant of alien cultures than we might be of Earth cultures – we don't immediately know what factors have shaped their societies. And with respect, sir, we do have strong relations with at least one nation that still uses the death penalty."

Was that a trace of a smile on Bullock's face? Taylor dared not examine it for fear of what he might actually see.

"Now, the incident on P7T-434 once you returned through the Stargate. You were followed by the Fenrir?"

"Yes sir. I had requested Lieutenant Llewellyn set a large demolition charge in the DHD to destroy the Asgard crystal and therefore cause the Stargate to shut down once we were through."

"But it didn't work."

"No sir. I believe the charge was blown apart by enemy fire, and as such, failed to detonate."

"What happened next?"

Taylor swallowed. The battle had been almost a month ago, but the images were fresh in his mind.

"We had little choice but to engage the Fenrir as they came through."

Bullock nodded thoughtfully and glanced at his notes, and Taylor realised that the worst was yet to come.

"Let's get to the important part – we can come back to the rest. How many of their ships got out, Major?" one of the other officers said. Taylor had been introduced to him a short time ago, and he knew who he was – Air Commodore Frank Horner.

"I counted at least twenty of the larger craft, the ones pulling trains of pods behind them, but the non-combatants I sent away said they saw at least twenty-six."

Taylor knew what was coming next.

"Major - how many Fenrir do you think were aboard those craft, or the pods?" Horner asked.

"I expect much of the space was taken up with supplies and equipment, but I expect the number is in the hundreds, maybe a thousand sir."

Horner smiled in much the same way a snake might before sinking its fangs into a helpless rodent.

"Up to a thousand? Potentially one thousand Fenrir are roaming the galaxy, with a few dozen hyperspace capable ships."

Taylor wasn't sure how to respond, but as he opened his mouth, Bullock spoke. He mentally thanked the general for saving him the trouble of forming a response...and then he heard what the general was saying.

"I understand you've raised doubts about Stargate Command's methods as far as their search and destroy operation is going."

His boots pounded through the crisp white snow as fast as his burning muscles could force them. Behind him, he could hear nothing but alien snarling and the sound of several pairs of alien feet rushing towards him, trinium-laced claws slicing straight through the snow and clinking against the frozen ground underneath. In front of him, Dr. Nguyen was running faster than he'd ever seen the biologist run before, practically dragging the half-conscious Lieutenant Schreiner towards the gate. Schreiner had long since lost his weapon, concerned more with pressing down on the sucking chest wound inflicted by the flechettes and trying not to fall unconscious or scream in pain.

"Captain! Dial the gate!" O'Bannon bawled, hoping he'd depressed the transmit switch on his radio properly. His left arm was almost useless, an agonising bloody mess that he held tightly across his body with his right hand. It had been shredded by the same alien weapons that had nearly killed Schreiner, but for the moment at least, his legs still worked, and if he had his way, they wouldn't stop until he felt the clank of the ramp under his feet and saw a dozen marines and airmen pointing carbines and fifty calibre machine guns behind him.

The baying was getting closer with every second. The familiar whooshing sound and the flash of blue light to his right between the snow-covered pine trees suddenly became the most welcoming sight he could imagine, but this thought was quickly dispelled by a streak of bright orange close to his head.

"Gate's open sir!" Captain Tomlinson's voice boomed over the radio. O'Bannon didn't waste any time.

"Sierra Golf Charlie, this is Sierra Golf One Five Niner! We are coming in hot, repeat, we are coming in hot! Heavy Fenrir presence here, and we have significant intell. Team will require immediate medical attention, over."

For a second time, he wondered if his hand, numb from blood loss and cold, had been pushing down on the transmit button.

"Roger, Colonel. IDC confirmed, Iris retracted. Medical and defence teams are en route to gate room." Harriman's calm, distinctive voice was a huge source of relief.

"Sir! They're getti-" Captain Tomlinson yelled, abruptly cut off by a gurgling sound. O'Bannon knew what that sound was. The faintly visibly figure standing next to the Stargate keeled over as the lines of orange stopped suddenly, falling silently and limply into the open wormhole.

He grabbed his P90 with his right arm and fired it blindly behind him.

"Yes sir. I believe the SGC has underestimated the Fenrir, and their plan to find the ones that escaped is fundamentally flawed." Taylor said. He didn't know how Bullock or Horner had heard of his concerns, but he was sure that denying them or playing them down would be a mistake.

"How so?" Bullock asked. Now he was wearing the same smile Horner had used – Taylor couldn't think of a more humourless expression.

"Collectively, the SGC has tremendous offworld experience, but they're used to fighting against very large forces that are geared towards occupation and dominance over a relatively primitive populace, and as such make little use of strategic and even tactical options as we might see them, relying more on unsubtle brute force, intimidation and numerical and technological superiority. I believe the Fenrir are a very different kind of enemy, a very warlike and tactically minded enemy, and if the theories my teammates have come up with are even close to correct, they will be much, much more challenging. The Fenrir seem to be consummate hunters and the evidence of the hunting pen we encountered on PX2-95Y, the design and function of their weapons and their very shape would seem to confirm this. If their lives and biology revolve around the act of hunting, as Dr. Halverson and Corporal Moffatt have suggested, they almost certainly know how to apply the same knowledge and instinct to evasion, as well as their apparent talent for stealth. I fully expect them to be very, very hard to track down and harder still to engage in battle."

There were two wolves moving towards the Stargate – the ones that had chased them to the gate had merely been driving them here, forcing them headlong into a trap. Now it was simply a matter of getting to the gate before they were cut down.

Nguyen had his Beretta out, even though he knew how useless the weapon would be against the Fenrir. Schreiner was stumbling and staggering more and more, the snow behind him dotted with more and more scarlet. Tomlinson was almost certainly dead, and O'Bannon himself was feeling faint from the blood loss and exertion.

His P90's magazine was almost empty, down to the last eight rounds, and with his left arm so badly damaged, there was no way he could reload it without stopping.

"Go through, I've sent the IDC!" he bellowed to Nguyen, hearing his hoarse voice crack from the strain of the last half hour and his exhausted, burning lungs.

The gate gulped as Nguyen ran through, Schreiner toppling after him. Ten more metres, he realised, and he'd be with them. There was a high-pitched mechanical scream behind him, a brief but loud noise that ceased as abruptly as it started.

He spasmed as his right flank flooded with a sensation like a cluster of white-hot needles being jabbed into his body at the same time as a heavyweight boxer delivered a kidney punch. He screamed and tried to clutch the area, knowing his kidney was perforated by the hypersonic trinium flechettes, but kept moving forward.

A second burst clipped his left thigh and he screamed again, falling to his knees. It took all his strength just to remain upright. He could hear the wolves closing on him now, but slowly, as if taking positions around him.

A mountain of muscle wrapped in black fur and patchwork armour slammed into the ground four metres ahead of him, snarling in the distinctly alien yet extremely lupine manner of the Fenrir. Bright gold-orange eyes, devoid of pupils, stared at him as black lips drew back, exposing rows of sharp silver teeth. The wolf must have taken off almost ten metres away - he hadn't believed SG-27's report that the Fenrir could jump that far, insisting it must have been a mistake, the result of Taylor's understandably clouded perception in the heat of battle.

He knew he'd been wrong, and he knew he'd never see his wife again.

Sighing, he raised the P90 shakily.

Now even Horner seemed intrigued. Bullock made an irritated gesture for Taylor to continue.

"The SGC are working under the assumption that the Fenrir won't stray far from the Gleipnir arrays or the only gate known to be capable of accessing the prison. They have organised a massive search of key worlds with Stargates within fifty light years of the prison, backed up with the BC-304s as they become available. This strikes me as completely wrong. The Fenrir have hyperspace capable ships, and they've been planning their escape, and revenge, for thousands of years based on the gap in the Goa'uld cartouche. They're not going to risk being discovered – they'll head for a world without a gate, or maybe even a moon, asteroid or comet, in a non-descript, uninhabited system far from the prison. There, they'll consolidate their position, lie low, quietly gather resources and establish a major forward base of operations, waiting for the search to die down. They may even send out a few ships or patrols to make carefully planned 'appearances' in or near the search area, drawing the SGC's assets towards a single area...in completely the wrong part of the galaxy. Only once they've got a decent power base will they begin openly engaging us."

"And you determined all of this from a single engagement?" Horner asked, incredulously.

"They will return for you, prey?"

The puddle evaporated in the Stargate, but O'Bannon, kneeling in the snow with a P90 held in one hand and pointed unsteadily at the black furred Fenrir in front of him, had accepted he wouldn't get out of this alive. Six more of the animals stood behind him, but he suspected the one in front was an officer, or the werewolf equivalent. Even with snow settling evenly on its pitch-black fur, he could see an elaborate, curling design branded into its face, somewhat resembling a Maori tattoo. What had startled him was that the Fenrir was talking to him. Its voice sounded strange, unlike anything he'd heard before, neither Goa'uld nor Wraith. It was a deep, rumbling voice that rasped as if it was spoken through gritted teeth, but it was accompanied in odd places by bass rumbles, hisses and clicks.

Curiously, neither the animal's lips nor its jaws moved as it spoke – it simply gaped. At once, he suspected that the Fenrir couldn't make human sounds easily – instead it was mimicking a human voice the way a parrot might, entirely in its throat.

The creature, almost eight feet tall despite a hunched back, moved fluidly towards him. O'Bannon smiled. He knew his life was almost at an end, but that didn't matter.

"Steven Jay O'Bannon. Colonel, U.S. Air-" he began, calmly.

The Fenrir shuddered and its lips drew back further. A stuttering rumble accompanied by rapid clicking issued from its open mouth. He was sure that was laughter.

The back handed swipe came faster than he thought possible for such a large animal. Three metres away, he landed in the snow, his head shaking, his body screaming in pain, and his lungs desperately trying to suck down air. He pulled himself upright, but his ribs protested, sending electric strikes of agony into his brain – he knew instantly that if it had hit his head, it would be bouncing across the snow right now like an obscene football. For now, he curled over, his arms clutched to his chest and hidden from view. His P90 was still attached to its harness, but it wouldn't do him much good.

"Defiance is honourable, and refreshing to me...but futile. However, I will grant you this - you make good prey, better than we have known for a long time. You will also make a good trophy once you cease to be useful. The more useful you are, the swifter and more honourable your end will be."

Useful, he thought. So they didn't intend to kill him here - he was pretty sure that meant they expected to torture and interrogate him. He could hear their shuttles closing in now, so rescue was unlikely, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the Fenrir had long since perfected the art of human torture, a belief reinforced by the human finger bones sewn in a line into the wolf's elaborate hide and metal armour. He had also witnessed worlds they had visited and massacred, openly displaying their sickening cruelty and brutality – he had seen it on this world in sickening close-up. Some at the SGC had theorised it was their response to the SGC's search, like killing a hostage every hour until they got what they wanted.

"These trophies, you like the prey to be in good condition when you make 'em? 'Cause I think I'm about to disappoint."

There hadn't been nearly enough rounds in the P90's final magazine to kill even one of the Fenrir. But it wasn't the only weapon he possessed. He relaxed his thumb as he spoke, and the safety lever pinged off, landing at the black wolf's feet. It stared at the small, curved piece of olive green metal. Realisation flashed into the wolf's brain and its eyes widened, following the metal's arcing path back to the small metal globe the human was no longer concealing in the hand of its wounded arm.

"Enjoy the fireworks."

Snarling ferociously, the Fenrir surged forwards with lightning speed, one arm raised with the clawed fingers extended, ready to slice through O'Bannon's arm and grasp the little orb.

Just before the silver talon contacted his flesh, the grenade detonated. O'Bannon disappeared in a flash of grey smoke, and the Fenrir was struck with white-hot shrapnel, the concussive force throwing it backwards into the snow. The wolves behind the spot where O'Bannon had been stumbled and shielded themselves from the grenade's spray, hissing angrily. Roaring in anger and pain, the black Fenrir got to its feet and signalled the rest of his pack. An armed shuttle descended rapidly out of the solid grey sky, hovering a metre above the snow. The pack boarded it, the injured black wolf last, knowing he would have to abandon the small outpost they had begun to construct here, and the operations they had already initiated. There were other worlds, and they couldn't risk being engaged in combat now – they would simply have to start over somewhere else. He leaned out of the door, staring at the remains of the trophy he had been denied, but feeling admiration for the human's actions – it would bring honour to its clan.

A chevron lit on the Stargate, and the black wolf signalled again. As the shuttle rose, more chevrons lit. The spoiled trophy's pack mates were returning to claim his body, to fight his hunters. Eventually, they would find the beginning of the decoy outpost, and they would destroy it.

Yes, these humans would be good sport.