Where Dark Things Wait: Night Creatures Book One

Chapter Thirty-Five - First Mission

The 'Gate Room' comprised of a vast 'hanger' just off the car park, where vehicles and troops could assemble for off-world missions. While tanks and choppers proved too big for portals, Maloney admitted that she could make doorways sizeable enough to allow through armoured cars and vans when necessary. For this particular mission, they were relying of boots rather than tires, though, and while Kalyna wanted to make a portal big enough to get their men through quickly, she didn't need to worry about vehicles.

A line marked the floor towards the back of the space, a visual clue directing witches to where any gateway should open, and Kalyna felt anxiety knotting at the base of her neck as Dunstan led her towards it. Fear coiled and twisted in her belly too, making her feel sick, but she couldn't let it control her. She wouldn't. Not until after the job was done.

"You can still back out," Dunstan offered, perhaps sensing her terror. "No one would think any less of you."

"I'd think less of me," she answered, shaking her head. "I'd never forgive myself."

She couldn't turn a blind eye to those still trapped in Wren's lair. She wouldn't. That didn't make opening a portal back to that dungeon any easier. Her emotions and body rebelled against her will, remembered pain making her almost healed wounds ache as though two bottles of blood hadn't helped resolve her lingering injuries. Terror threatened to blot out rational thought, and her throat closed around a ball of dread. The fear went so deep that her heart finally gave a thump, which became a thump-thump, and then accelerated more with every passing second as though determined to declare to the world what she didn't want to say; that she didn't want to do this, that the thought of it horrified her because a nightmare waited on the other side of her portal.

She took a steadying breath, and her fingers brushed the stake holsters at her hip. She aimed to avoid combat, to comply with the Major's orders, yet they'd armed her anyway, just encase. As much as she would enjoy seeing the life fade from Wren's eyes, she also knew that the OTF would only trust her - both her mental state and her ability to be a team player - if she stepped back and let due process do as it needed to do. She couldn't allow emotion to get the better of her.

Behind her, the majority of both the third and weapons platoons had congregated, including Zhak, patiently waiting to see if she really could do as she'd promised. The Major watched on too, from a second storey observation booth, the windows of which looked down from the wall opposite the 'gate' position. It truly did remind her of Stargate SG1's Gate Room and command, from the glazed wall where commanders could oversee outgoing and inbound teams, to the Tannoy that allowed the Major to speak to those waiting to depart.

"You have a 'go', away team," the Major's disembodied voice ordered. "Ready when you are O'Cuinn-Lyall.

"Chevron one, locked," Kalyna said as she took another step towards the line on the floor, and the Major's laugh rumbled through the speakers.

'The CCTV cameras in this room pick up sound," Dunstan explained, without her needing to express her confusion. "Anything you say, he can hear."

"I better get on with locking chevrons two through seven then," she noted, then asked, "Am I Sam Carter to your Jack O'Neill here? Or am I Daniel Jackson? I don't think I could pull off Teal'c's stoicism."

"You definitely couldn't pull off Teal'c's stoicism, but you're procrastinating," Dunstan prompted, not unkindly.

He wasn't wrong.

Rolling her shoulders, she attempted to force the tension from her body, then she focussed on recalling the flare of warmth behind her sternum that ignited her magic. A sense of relief warred with one of dread when she felt it spark and flow outwards through her body. Maloney had said not all magic caused a light show, but Kalyna had no idea how to prevent the illumination which shone so bright it turned even the black sleeves of her shirt a vivid orange. Anyway, she suspected that portal making took so much energy that illumination was unavoidable.