TITLE: Spiders
AUTHOR: Tiffany Park
EMAIL: anderson7836@comcast.net
STATUS: Complete
CATEGORY: Action/Adventure, Horror, Halloween, List Challenge Response
SPOILERS: "In the Line of Duty"
SEASON: Season Two, after "In the Line of Duty" but before "The Tok'ra, Part 1"
PAIRINGS: None
RATING: PG-13
CONTENT WARNINGS: The usual: Language, violence, weirdness.
SUMMARY: Alien spiders, the SGC, and a generic horror movie plot. What more needs to be said?
ARCHIVE: Just here.
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Beware, this story contains as many spider movie clichés as I could cram in. Written for the ColRMakepeaceSG-3 list at YahooGroups.com.

SG-3 trudged through P8T-512's mountain forest on their way back to the Stargate. Colonel Makepeace grumbled as he brushed one of the annoyingly common spider webs away from his face, taking care so that neither Henderson nor Andrews would run into it as well. He stared ahead at Johnson's broad back, idly wishing he were home already. The mission had been pretty much fruitless; while SG-3 had found a few crumbling remnants of simple, standing stone structures, they hadn't seen hide nor hair of any intelligent inhabitants. There had been nothing to indicate that anyone had lived on this planet in a long, long time.

Suddenly, Johnson jumped back, yelled incoherently, and started shooting at the ground in front of him. Bullets tore into dirt and vegetation, ripped grayish veils of webs to shreds.

"Johnson!" Makepeace shouted over the ear-splitting thunder of the automatic weapon. As far as he could tell, Johnson was shooting at phantoms. "What the hell are you doing? Hold your fire, damn it!"

Johnson stopped shooting and lowered his rifle sheepishly. "Sorry, sir."

"Sorry, my ass! Just what the devil was that all about?"

Johnson stared down at his feet and mumbled.

"What was that?"

"I said, spiders, sir."

"Spiders," Makepeace echoed.

Andrews and Henderson started snickering. Makepeace silenced them with an evil look and motioned for Johnson to continue.

"Yes, sir, spiders." Johnson raised his head. He looked embarrassed. "I accidentally stepped into a great, big nest of the suckers, and they crawled all over my boots, and they were huge, and well..." He shuddered. "My reaction was just instinct, Colonel. You know I really, really hate spiders."

"No kidding." Makepeace shook his head, suppressing a smirk of his own. Big, tough, former college linebacker Daryl Johnson, scared of spiders. Not that Makepeace couldn't understand. There'd been more than a few times on this mission when he'd wished for a can of Raid, himself. This was really the wrong planet for anyone with even the slightest discomfort about arachnids.

P8T-512 was infested with the little bastards, and they had a lot in common with their earthly counterparts. Bulbous abdomens, multiple spindly legs, clusters of eyes, wicked-looking mandibles. They came in a variety of sizes, from as small as a mite to as big as a man's fist.

They were definitely alien, though. Makepeace had never seen luminous spiders before. Especially not like these. During the day they were a whitish color, but at night... At night they glowed in shades of orange and sickly green, with a few blue or purplish-red oddballs sprinkled in for variety. It was rather disconcerting to see the eerily moving spots of light as the creatures wandered about in the dark.

They also spun webs. Lots and lots of webs.

It seemed like you couldn't travel more than a few meters in any direction without stumbling through spider silk. The pine trees were draped with spider webs, both new and old. Large, sticky--and occupied!--webs blocked the trail at regular intervals, while tattered shreds of cobwebs dangled limply from branches and fluttered in the breeze. Nests of the arachnids, veiled with sheets of webbing, lurked everywhere--beside rocks, under bushes, in the trees.

As the staggering number of spiders suggested, the planet held an incredible plethora of insect life. Fortunately for everyone's sanity, most of the bugs on this misbegotten world saw fit to leave the humans alone. Unfortunately, the spiders were the exception. They didn't bite, but they seemed strangely curious, and whenever SG-3 had stopped to make camp the spiders had crawled all over the equipment with movements that appeared almost purposeful. Sometimes they just stared at the men, unmoving except for a twitching leg. It was downright creepy.

"Shit, Lieutenant, I hate spiders, too, but you don't see me shooting them," Gunnery Sergeant Andrews jeered.

"These spiders were big enough to eat rottweilers for lunch," Johnson retorted. "See if you like them crawling on your boots."

For some perverse reason, Corporal Henderson felt compelled to add, "Some of the spiders here are pretty damn big. Maybe some of them actually do catch and eat dogs." His teammates stared at him, and he smiled innocently.

Makepeace rolled his eyes and said, "All right, everyone, knock it off. Andrews, since you don't shoot spiders, you can take point. Johnson, you've got our six. Now let's move out."

Half an hour and two more spider nest obstacles later, SG-3 reached the Stargate. The MALP sat nearby, its sensors and recording equipment set up to come on at regular intervals and capture changes in the local environment.

Johnson jogged up to the DHD and hurriedly punched in Earth's code. Makepeace again had to hide a grin; poor Johnson sure had a bad case of the heebie-jeebies. That blunder into the nest must have really gotten to him. Makepeace shrugged. The spiders here were unsettling, certainly, but not that bad.

Makepeace was still fighting a smile when he stepped out of the Stargate's event horizon and into the SGC's gate room. He sidestepped the MALP and headed down the ramp, where General Hammond and the usual squad of armed Security Forces personnel waited.

"Welcome back, SG-3," Hammond said. He studied all of the Marines with a raised brow. Makepeace wiped the smile off his face, and hoped Andrews and Henderson had the sense to do the same. "Anything interesting to report that can't wait?"

The general sounded suspicious. He must have seen the smirks. Makepeace determined to brazen it out and said, "We found some broken-down standing stones, but no sign of anyone who could have put them up, General." He paused a beat, and added, "We also ran into a bunch of glow-in-the-dark spiders."

"Glow-in-the-dark spiders," Hammond repeated incredulously.

"Yes, sir. They and their webs were all over the place, but they were harmless. In daylight the spiders looked whitish, but in shadows or at night they gave off colored light. Most of them glowed orange or green, sir."

Henderson spoke up. "It's possible that they're just opportunistic imports, General, like kudzu in the American Southeast, or rabbits in Australia. They might have stowed away when Goa'ulds or some other aliens visited the planet. They don't seem to have any natural predators to keep their population in check, the food sources were edible for them, and so now they've overrun the place."

General Hammond gaped at him. Leave it to Henderson, Makepeace thought. It was nice having a biology major cum med school dropout on the team. He could spout bizarro stuff like that and still maintain a straight face. Who knew, he might even be right.

"The lieutenant really hates 'em, too, sir," Andrews added. Johnson pressed his lips together and stared off into space.

"Hates them?" General Hammond said.

"The spiders, sir."

Makepeace fought yet another smirk. "We all hated them, General," he said to take the embarrassing heat off Johnson, and to prevent Andrews from regaling Hammond with the tale of Johnson's violent reaction to the spider nest. Makepeace needed some time to figure out how to report that incident without making Johnson look like a complete idiot. There was no way to avoid the issue, since the armory would note that the lieutenant's rifle had been fired and that some ammo was missing.

General Hammond sighed. "So, you found some standing stones and a lot of spiders. Have I got that right?"

"Yes, sir." Having heard the impatience in the general's tone, Makepeace elaborated, "While the planet has clearly been terraformed with Earth flora, we didn't find any evidence of recent human or Goa'uld occupation, or anything of any strategic value. Unless the scientists want to study the spiders..."

"That can wait for your debriefing and written report," Hammond said quickly, cutting Makepeace off. "Go get cleaned up and checked out in the infirmary. I'll see you in the briefing room at sixteen-hundred." Shaking his head and muttering "Spiders" under his breath, he left the gate room.

"You heard the general," Makepeace told his team. "Let's hit the showers, people."

Henderson and Andrews made an immediate beeline for the exit. Johnson, though, stayed still, staring at the MALP. Makepeace looked at it, but the technicians surrounding it blocked most of his view. Makepeace walked over and stood next to Johnson. "Something the matter?"

"I dunno, Colonel. I guess it's nothing, but I could have sworn I saw something move on the MALP. Maybe one of those spiders?"

"More likely, you're just tired." And probably still a little freaked out from the nest incident, Makepeace thought privately. Still, it never hurt to check. Makepeace called over to the techs, "Hey, you guys see any spiders or bugs on the MALP?"

One of the technicians shook her head. "We've already looked it over, Colonel Makepeace. Everything's clean on this end."

"Could you double-check? There really were a lot of spiders on that planet. We don't want to have to call in the Orkin Man to take care of an alien insect infestation."

The tech grinned. "No problem, Colonel."

Makepeace turned back to Johnson. "There you go. They find any bugs, they'll bag 'em and tag 'em, and the lab'll dissect 'em."

Johnson looked embarrassed again. "Guess I'm still jittery, sir."

"A shower and a change of clothes will fix you right up. Of course, the medical exam will probably get you wired all over again..."

"Oh, God," Johnson groaned.

Laughing, Makepeace herded the lieutenant off to the showers.

Clean for the first time in three days and having survived the routine medical torture session, Colonel Makepeace sat at his desk and stared at his computer screen. In less than an hour, he and his team had to meet with General Hammond, and Makepeace still hadn't figured out how to spin the nest incident without making Johnson sound like a lunatic in need of a keeper. He was gradually coming to the conclusion that maybe he'd better just try to gloss over the whole thing. Pity that they'd already checked in their weapons, and that the SGC's armory staff was so damnably efficient. The discharge of Johnson's rifle had already been noted and logged.

Wondering if "you just had to be there, sir" would serve as an adequate explanation, Makepeace picked up his plastic jack-o'-lantern and tossed it from hand to hand. Originally the hollow toy had been full of candy corn, but his team had taken care of that little matter and Makepeace didn't feel like refilling it just yet. The bottomless stomachs that called themselves Marines would only gobble it all down again.

He set the jack-o'-lantern back down on his desk, then did a double-take at his coffee mug. He could have sworn he saw something move out of the corner of his eye... Johnson's jitters must be catching, he told himself.

He pondered some more on Johnson's--and therefore his own--dilemma. He thought Hammond might very well swallow a "you just had to be there, sir" excuse, as long as it was accompanied by a vivid and evocative description of the sheer number and variety of spiders, their peculiar behavior, and the creepy ambiance of a planet shrouded in webs. Over the last couple of years, the general had proven himself adaptable, reasonably open-minded, and supportive of his subordinates, no matter what weirdness they presented him with. He had also demonstrated a strong sense of the absurd. Makepeace figured that last trait would be especially useful in this situation.

He nodded to himself, and started typing. That creative writing class he'd taken way back in the Dark Ages had certainly come in handy any number of times since he'd been assigned to the SGC. And to think, back then he'd considered it a waste of time and energy. If only he'd known.

He had just finished writing a particularly colorful paragraph when his door flew open and a madman rushed into his office. "Colonel, I was right! The evil SOBs have invaded the base!"

Lieutenant Johnson, Makepeace reflected, was having a very bad day.

Johnson went on, "Sir, you've got to do something, we've got to warn the general before--"

"Johnson!" Makepeace barked. The lieutenant stopped dead and straightened to an attention stance. With resignation, Makepeace saved his report and leaned back in his chair. "Now, calm down and slow down. Who's invaded the base?"

"The spiders, sir. From P8T-512. They must've snuck in on the MALP or in our rucks or something--"

"Johnson..." Makepeace pinched the bridge of his nose. Daryl Johnson wasn't some green second lieutenant fresh out of the academy. After graduating from college, he had spent his first few years in the Corps as an enlisted man before receiving a commission, and had acquired a couple of years of active combat service, including some time in the Gulf War. He was highly decorated, and had been assigned to the SGC upon his promotion to first lieutenant. The incident with the spider nest had been an odd aberration; Makepeace knew first hand that Johnson wasn't the type to panic or cry wolf. If he believed there was a problem, then there might very well be a problem. "Lieutenant, the MALP techs claimed the equipment was clear of spiders, and no one found anything in our gear. Do you have any proof that they've gotten onto the base?"

"Yes, sir, I do." Johnson set a glass jar on Makepeace's desk. A small white spider sulked within the container.

"How do you know that one's from off-world? Lots of spiders don't have much in the way of coloring. It might have hitched a ride down on the elevator or something."

In response, Johnson walked to the wall and hit the light switch, plunging the room into darkness. The blue numbers of Makepeace's digital desk clock glowed. So did the little spider. Fluorescent orange.

Johnson's bad day had suddenly become Makepeace's bad day. In fact, it had become the entire SGC's bad day, as well. The rest of the base just didn't know it yet.

"Well, shit," said Makepeace, glaring at the glowing spider. "I wonder how many of these damn things came through the gate with us."

"At least one more, sir." Johnson sounded strained.

"What?"

"On your wall, to your left."

Makepeace turned his head, and saw another bright orange dot. So he hadn't been imagining things earlier. He'd caught sight of the little bastard moving around. "Turn on the lights, Johnson."

When he could see again, he picked up Johnson's jar, loosened the lid, and walked across his office. Sure enough, a white spider was busily constructing a web between the wall and a metal file cabinet. Charming. He carefully captured the creature, and put the lid back on the jar.

"Take these...things to the lab," he said, handing Johnson the jar. "I'll contact General Hammond and get a base-wide search and cleanup operation underway." He grimaced, imagining the general's reaction. No doubt he was going to get an earful over this one.

General Hammond troubled himself to order the base sealed and the spider hunt initiated before he started in on the ass chewing.

As he had expected, Makepeace got his earful. The rest of SG-3 also got an earful. So did the MALP techs, the gate room SFs, the supply and armory staff who handled SG-3's equipment, the medical personnel who conducted the post-mission exams, and everyone else who had been in contact with SG-3 or the gate room after the Marines had returned from P8T-512.

In the interim, several more white spiders of various sizes had been located, plus a number of webs and, unfortunately, a large, abandoned nest. All were sent to the lab for analysis.

Colonel Makepeace headed for the lab as well, having received a curt order to meet General Hammond there ASAP. There he found the general holding an intense conversation with Doctor Fraiser. The general broke off his discussion and indicated a row of specimen containers on the table. Each held a fairly large, white, and over-familiar spider. Hammond said without preamble, "Tell me, Colonel, just how fast do these things grow and breed?"

"I have no idea, sir," Makepeace answered honestly. "These guys seem to have gotten pretty big in a hurry, though."

"That's stating the obvious," Hammond snapped. "Unless everyone on this base is completely incompetent, there's no way spiders this size could have passed unnoticed through all our screening procedures."

"Yes, sir," Makepeace said. Sounded like Hammond was getting all warmed up for another round of reprimands.

He was saved from Hammond's ire when Colonel O'Neill's obnoxious voice chortled, "Damn, Makepeace, you do bring back some interesting souvenirs. Could've done without these, though." O'Neill strolled into the lab, shaking his head. "Have I ever told you how much I hate spiders?"

Bearing more specimen jars, the rest of SG-1 followed their CO in. They deposited the containers on the table with varying expressions of annoyance and distaste.

O'Neill said, "There we are, three more little beauties. So, what do you plan to do with all your lovely new pets, Bob?"

"Colonel." Hammond turned his jaundiced eye onto O'Neill. SG-1's leader abruptly shut his mouth.

Makepeace would never admit it aloud, but he actually felt grateful for O'Neill's needling. He'd have to thank the man for his timely interruption. Wouldn't Jack love that?

Demonstrating her own marvelous sense of timing, Captain Carter spoke up. "General, the spiders are all over the base, and they're breeding at a phenomenal rate. At least ten more abandoned nests with empty egg sacs have been located, sir." She glanced at the specimen containers and made a face. "As you can see, these spiders grow unbelievably fast."

"They must have found the kitchens," O'Neill commented. "Lots of yummy nutrition for growing little spiders."

"I take it you haven't seen tomorrow's menu," Makepeace said.

Doctor Fraiser consulted her clipboard and said, "Actually, from the reports I've been getting, Colonel O'Neill's suggestion may very well be correct."

"Really?" O'Neill said.

"A disproportionate number of the spiders have been located in or near our food storage and preparation areas. Apparently, they like our cooking."

O'Neill folded his arms across his chest. "In that case, I guess we'd better catch all these things, before they completely take over."

Jackson said, "Why don't we just call the Air Force version of Terminex and fumigate the base?"

"We've been looking into a chemical solution," Fraiser said. "Unfortunately, the spiders seem to be immune to every pesticide we've tried so far."

Hammond asked, "So what do you suggest we do, Doctor?"

"Well, good old-fashioned stomping works fine." Fraiser shrugged at the disbelieving looks she received. "I'm sorry, but until we can find or synthesize a successful pesticide, we're stuck with manual methods of extermination."

"The problem is," Carter said, "the spiders' lack of distinctive coloration, added in with their ability to hide in odd nooks and crannies, makes them difficult to spot. That, plus the sheer numbers of them..." She gestured helplessly.

"Colonel Makepeace, didn't you say that these things glowed in the dark?" Hammond asked.

"Yes, sir," Makepeace said, realizing what the general was getting at. "We turn off the lights, the spiders'll stand out pretty good. That's how Lieutenant Johnson found one in my office."

"Won't that make the base incredibly dark?" Jackson protested. "It'll be worse than a cave. We're underground, you know."

"Besides, Teal'c's afraid of the dark," O'Neill put in. "Aren't you, big guy?"

Teal'c gave him a perplexed look. "I am not."

"Right. Sorry."

Hammond pointedly ignored them. "How dark does it need to be, Colonel Makepeace? It won't be safe having personnel stumbling around with flashlights."

"These things glowed in shadows," Makepeace said. "We don't have to shut all the lights off, just reduce the lighting to levels similar to, say, late dusk or twilight. The spiders'll show up."

"And we'll be able to squish them at will," O'Neill added, looking pleased at the idea. "Sounds like a plan to me."

"Even with all available personnel working at it, you won't be able to get them all, but at least you'll have a fighting chance to keep the population down until we can find a suitable pesticide," Fraiser said.

Hammond nodded. "Let's do it. Get moving, people. We've got some spiders to exterminate."

Makepeace said incredulously, "Andrews and Henderson are where?"

Johnson eyed his superior warily and repeated his bad news: "They're at the armory."

The two men stood in the hall near Makepeace's office. They had intended to meet up with their teammates before the lights went out for the spider hunt. Apparently, no longer.

"What the hell are they doing there?" Makepeace demanded.

Johnson showed immense interest in his boots. He kicked at a few webs that some enterprising spiders had attached to the wall and floor. "They want to check out a couple of sniper rifles. To plink spiders--"

"In the base? Are they insane?"

Johnson prudently didn't answer.

Exasperated, Makepeace exhaled loudly. His whole team was going crazy. That was all there was to it. First Johnson had freaked out on that godforsaken planet, now Henderson and Andrews wanted to start shooting in the SGC's hallways. "You don't feel an overwhelming need to plink alien spiders, too, do you?"

"No, sir. I'll settle for squashing them."

"Well, that's something, at any rate."

Right on schedule, the fluorescent lights blinked off, one by one, until dark shadows filled the corridor. In the dim light the omnipresent webs took on an eerie, disturbing appearance more suited to a B-grade horror flick than a high-tech military base. A triumphant war whoop rang out in the distance. Obviously, someone had already found and killed a hapless arachnid.

"So begins the Great Halloween Spider Massacre," Makepeace said. He started walking down the darkened hallway. "Come on, Johnson."

"Where are we going, sir?" Johnson jogged to catch up.

"To the armory. To retrieve our two troublemakers before they do something we'll all regret."

As it turned out, Makepeace and Johnson didn't have to travel that far. Andrews and Henderson came trotting up the hall to greet them. Makepeace noted with disgust that both were armed with precision rifles fitted with laser sights. He honestly hadn't believed that the duty sergeant at the armory would let them have the weapons. "I see Sergeant Garvey has even less common sense than you two. Just what do you think you're going to do with those rifles?"

"Nail spiders, sir," Andrews cheerfully said. "I bet I can hit one of those bastards at five hundred meters."

"Only if it's a real big one," Henderson jeered. He brought his rifle to his shoulder and sighted down the hallway. "The little ones, now..."

"If it's bigger than a mite, I can pop it."

Makepeace ordered, "Put those weapons down, Marines!"

"But, Colonel, we want revenge," Andrews protested.

"Revenge? For what?"

Henderson held out his arm. Makepeace saw a raised red spot on the corporal's wrist. "One of those spiders bit me when I tried to squish it," Henderson explained. "One got Andrews, too, sir. They've got it coming."

So the creatures had finally started attacking humans. Odd that they'd do it here on Earth, when they hadn't bothered on their homeworld. Makepeace was sorry his men had been bitten, but he couldn't let them tear around with guns like drunken redneck yahoos. "I don't care if a dozen spiders bit you. You are not going to run off half-cocked shooting down here. Do you hear me?"

Henderson snapped to attention. "Yes, sir! No shooting, sir!"

Makepeace suddenly wondered if the spiders were poisonous. Weird alien venom could account for his men's loony behavior. "I want both of you to report to the infirmary and get those bites looked at." He met Johnson's worried gaze. "In fact, the lieutenant and I will take you there right now. Just hand over the rifles--"

Andrews shouted, "There's one now!" Before Makepeace could stop him, he had aimed and fired a shot. "Ha! Got him! Come on, let's go see!" He and Henderson took off running.

"What the hell--?" Makepeace stared after them. "They really have gone crazy. Come on, Johnson, we've got to catch them before they hurt someone!"

Makepeace and Johnson chased after their deranged teammates.

Andrews and Henderson turned out to be pretty damn quick, and for reasons known only to themselves, they didn't stop to check out the remains of the spider Andrews claimed to have hit. Instead, they raced to the end of the corridor and took a sudden left turn.

Makepeace and Johnson did their best to follow as the dynamic duo led them through a multitude of shadowy halls, doorways, and stairwells. Makepeace had never quite realized before that the SGC was such a labyrinth. As he ran through the corridors, he noticed that the webs grew thicker and more numerous, shrouding the walls and doorways. Brightly glowing spiders scuttled along their creepy new homes.

Another turn, and the chase stopped, at least for the two pursuers. Makepeace and Johnson found themselves at the cobweb-lined entrance to the base commissary. Their armed and quick-footed teammates had apparently disappeared into thin air.

"I don't know how, but those two morons gave us the slip," Johnson said.

Makepeace wasn't ready to concede defeat just yet. "They're probably in the commissary. Lots of hiding places in there, especially back in the kitchen area." He took a step toward the door.

"Sir, wait," Johnson said, glancing around nervously. "I don't know about this. Things have gotten...weird."

Makepeace looked at him. "Weird?"

"Real quiet. It's like a mausoleum in here. Listen."

Makepeace strained his ears. Johnson was right, not only was the place utterly silent, but it was also deserted. No one else was around. Makepeace remembered hearing the childishly cheerful sounds of base personnel as they located and killed spiders, but that had been at the start of the chase. Now that he thought on it, he realized that those noises had gradually faded the farther he and Johnson had traveled, and that the sightings of other people had also diminished.

Now, a heavy silence blanketed the surroundings. He couldn't even hear any machine noise--no fans, no sounds of air circulation, nothing.

"Let's just grab Henderson and Andrews and head back to the lab. There'll probably be people there who know what the problem is." Makepeace pushed open the door and went into the commissary.

In the dim light he saw even more webs, draped from tables and chairs, from the ceiling and walls. Tangles of spider silk covered the serving areas and steam trays.

"Oh, this is just perfect for Halloween, don't you think?" Makepeace grumbled, to cover his increasing paranoia. Cautiously, he and Johnson poked around. Other than a plethora of spiders, the men didn't find another living soul.

"Why wouldn't anyone want to stomp spiders in here?" Johnson wondered aloud.

"I've got no idea." Makepeace wouldn't admit it to Johnson, but he had developed a severe case of the creeps. He pointed to the open doorways behind the serving counters. "I just want to collect our two lost loonies and get out of here. Let's give the kitchens a once-over."

Johnson went to the left. Makepeace took the right side of the kitchen and walked down a long aisle of ovens, stoves, and food preparation counters. He hadn't thought it possible, but the spider webs seemed even denser back here. The telltale glow of spiders hiding in their tented lairs made him think again of horror movies--of glowing eyes and nightmare monsters lurking in the dark.

From the other side of the kitchen, Johnson exclaimed, "Oh, shit-- Colonel!!!"

"Johnson?" Unmindful of the webs and their noxious occupants, Makepeace raced around the carts and equipment. "What's wrong? Johnson!"

"Here, sir." Johnson staggered forward. "Sir, I can't-- Shit, shit, shit. God, I hate these things--"

"Johnson, what is it?" Makepeace grabbed his lieutenant's arms, but in that instant he saw what had spooked Johnson. "Oh, my God."

A number of bodies lay motionless on the floor. Each had been cocooned in spider silk. Makepeace let go of Johnson and took a few hesitant steps forward. Although the bodies looked desiccated, almost hollow, enough remained of their features for him to identify them as the kitchen staff.

He fought a battle against nausea and revulsion, and leaned over the nearest corpse. It was the head cook. As Makepeace looked on, a flurry of tiny, glowing spiders erupted from the man's mouth. Makepeace stumbled back. "Jesus--"

"Sir, are they...eating these people?"

Makepeace took a longer look at the other corpses. He could see pinpoints of luminescence moving around in the cocoons. "My God, they are." He looked wildly around the kitchen. In corners everywhere he saw nests and egg sacs. "They laid their eggs in here, all over the place, and when the babies hatched..."

Johnson's face went pasty gray. "They must have captured the cooks and webbed them up for the baby spiders... Jesus, how'd they do that? None of them are that big..."

"They must work together somehow, use sheer numbers to overpower large prey." And I told Hammond the spiders were harmless, Makepeace thought in horror.

"Do you think these people were alive when...?" Johnson stopped talking.

Makepeace didn't answer, but he feared they probably had been, at least for a while. "We have to report this ASAP. The spiders are all over the base."

The two men hurriedly left the commissary. Johnson went to a wall phone and punched some buttons. "Damn it! Colonel, it's dead."

"The spiders have probably gotten into the conduits and screwed up the wires or something. We'll head back to the lab, find out where Hammond is, let him know what's happened here."

"What about Andrews and Henderson?"

"We'll get the SFs to track them down, but first we have to make sure the base is warned and secured against the damned spiders, or we'll all end up like those poor bastards in the kitchen. Hell, can you imagine what might happen if any of those bugs manage to get up on the surface?"

"The Earth could end up like P8T-512, or worse," Johnson said with quiet horror.

Makepeace had expected the webs and spiders to thin out on the way back, but that didn't prove to be the case. Instead, the rest of the base seemed more heavily shrouded than the commissary. Glowing spiders in a wide range of sizes scuttled in and out of the thick veils of spider silk.

He wished he were armed, even though he knew a gun wouldn't do him any good against this enemy. Maybe bullets could splatter the larger arachnids, but there were thousands and thousands of their tinier brethren lurking in the webs. Conventional firearms wouldn't do a damn bit of good against them. Now, a flame thrower--that had possibilities. Burn the little bastards and their sticky nests. He'd have to suggest that idea to General Hammond.

Johnson suddenly stopped.

"Johnson? What's wrong?"

Johnson looked around. "Sir, the whole base seems deserted. Where is everyone?"

Makepeace had been so focused on the dramatic increase in the spider population that he hadn't really noticed the change. There should have been any number of people around, killing spiders and cleaning up the cobwebs, but the hallways were utterly devoid of personnel. "Shit."

"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder," Johnson said. "It's like a bad dream or something."

"I wish."

"You think maybe they abandoned ship and didn't tell us?" Johnson tried to smile, but it came out sickly.

"Sure, that's gotta be it."

Makepeace didn't want to come out and baldly state the fear preying on his mind, that perhaps the spiders had somehow managed to overcome the entire base. Johnson obviously didn't want to go there just yet, either.

On the surface, the mere idea seemed absurd. And yet, no other humans could be seen or heard, and no alarm had been sounded. The corridors were so copiously swathed that in many places the concrete surfaces couldn't even be seen, and uncountable spots of eerie luminescence glimmered amidst the spider silk.

Makepeace shuddered as images of the commissary and its horrific contents forced themselves back to the forefront of his thoughts. Could the entire base--friends and colleagues--could they all at this moment be spider food?

"We need to keep moving," he said nervously. "Find out if anyone's left--" He shut up abruptly. He hadn't meant to say that aloud.

Johnson took it in stride, though, only nodding and stepping more quickly.

The two men continued onward. Makepeace cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, "Hello! Is anyone there?" His call practically echoed, a shocking break in the frightening silence.

Johnson started at the shout. "Sir, should you be doing that? What about--?" His gesture took in the spiders surrounding them.

"They already know where we are, Johnson," Makepeace said reasonably, and called out again.

In the distance, a lone man acknowledged his call. "Hello! I'm here!"

"Sounded like it came from that way," Johnson said, pointing down the hall. Now that he had heard evidence of a survivor, he appeared to have recovered some of his equanimity.

However, no one was in sight. "Probably in a side room or corridor," Makepeace speculated. Makepeace and the other man kept exchanging calls to locate one another, while Johnson kept a weather eye on the SGC's unwanted tenants. After taking a confusing number of turns, Makepeace spotted a man in greens in the shadowy distance. "There he is."

The man came closer, and suddenly Makepeace recognized him. He strode forward and let loose with the questions that had been driving him nuts. "O'Neill! What the hell's happened here? Where did everyone go?"

"How the hell would I know?" O'Neill snapped. Makepeace couldn't blame him for his bad temper, considering what he must have been through. O'Neill looked completely strung out. "The whole place has turned into a bad monster movie."

"But you were here when...it happened, weren't you? Where's the rest of your team, anyway?"

O'Neill shook his head. "That's a damn good question. Carter got bit by one of your creepy-crawlies, so I sent her off to the infirmary to get checked out. I haven't seen her since."

"They're not my creepy-crawlies. What about Jackson and your pet ja...er, Teal'c?"

O'Neill glared at him. "We decided to have a bug-killing contest, so we split up into teams. Daniel and Teal'c, me and Carter. Each team took a different section of the base."

"You made a joke out of killing aliens?"

"Hell, you were the one who said they were harmless." Makepeace winced. O'Neill smiled grimly and continued, "Anyway, I haven't seen Daniel or Teal'c in a long time, either. After Carter went to the infirmary, I took a wrong turn and stumbled into an area just chock-full of the nasty things. When I found my way out of there, the whole base had been all webbed up and no one else was around. How the hell did these spiders take over everything so fast?"

"I don't have a clue," Makepeace told him, "but it's worse than you know." Briefly, he described the search for his two whacked-out enlisted men, and the nightmare he and Johnson had found in the commissary.

O'Neill stared at him, his mouth hanging open. "What?"

Makepeace rubbed his eyes. "I swear to God it's true... Johnson and I both saw it. We were heading to the lab, to warn the scientists and locate General Hammond... Do you know where he is? He's got to be told. And the SFs..."

"Hammond's MIA, like everyone else." O'Neill's brows knit. "There's no easy way to get hold of Security or the lab, assuming anybody's even around anymore. The base's entire communications system is out of commission."

"Sirs," Johnson interrupted. "I think we should keep moving. We're attracting some attention."

Makepeace looked at him, then around the hallway. Multitudes of spiders ringed the three men, on the walls, the ceiling, the floor, so many that their combined glow cast faint shadows in the dim half-light. Even more of the creatures slowly crawled nearer to join the crowd.

"Oh, crap," O'Neill said, his face pale. "I like your lab idea. We'll go there, see if the brainiacs ever came up with anything useful."

The men started jogging. The spiders didn't follow, as far as Makepeace could tell. If they did, they moved too slowly to keep up. It didn't matter, though. Everywhere Makepeace looked, more spiders lurked. The entire base was infested even worse than P8T-512 had been.

Makepeace said, "I don't remember the lab being this hard to find."

The base had assumed even more labyrinthine qualities, and the layout seemed to be constantly changing. The familiar routes stretched for uncomfortably long lengths, and mysterious hallways heading into parts unknown branched off from the more recognizable thoroughfares. Turns that should have taken the men to known destinations only led them in circles. From their tangled lairs, spiders watched the officers' every move.

"How did we get lost on our own turf?" Johnson asked.

"It's the bad lighting and all the spider webs," O'Neill said. "They're fooling with your sense of direction."

"I don't think so, sir. The SGC has definitely changed." Johnson pointed to one side. "That hall, for example, is new. I'm sure there used to be an office there."

"You're imagining things."

Johnson's lips compressed tightly, but he didn't contradict his superior. Makepeace said, "Johnson's right, Jack. This is all wrong."

O'Neill stopped, crossing his arms over his chest. "So what do you suggest? That we just bag it and call it a day?"

"Of course not."

"Then we might as well keep moving, right? Right." O'Neill started walking again.

Makepeace muttered some uncomplimentary words about autocratic zoomies, and motioned for Johnson to follow along. To tell the truth, he didn't have any better ideas, but running around in circles sure wasn't accomplishing anything useful. The lab had somehow become unreachable.

"Sirs, wait up. I think I hear something," Johnson said, his voice hushed. "Quiet, it's real soft."

Makepeace and O'Neill stopped and went silent. All three men even held their breaths so that the hiss of air moving in and out of their lungs wouldn't obscure any external noises. Makepeace barely made out the sound of pattering, as though thousands of tiny little legs were scuttling across the cement floor.

"Uh, oh," O'Neill said. "If that means what I think it does, get ready to run."

In the gloomy entrance to one of the mysterious hallways, something moved. Before the men could make a break for it, Captain Carter stepped out of the shadows.

"Carter, good to see you," O'Neill said with evident relief. He took a step forward, then stopped, frowning. "Carter? What's with the Elvira getup?"

Captain Carter had changed from her military greens into a revealing, floor-length gown of clingy, dark gray silk. Spider silk, Makepeace's mind whispered, but he put the thought aside as ridiculous. The skirt's side slits ran clear to Carter's hips, exposing her shapely legs, and the deep, V-neckline plunged almost to her navel. Delicate gray slippers adorned her feet. A necklace of glowing blue and green jewels encircled her neck, and a large, luminescent spider crouched atop her head like a crown.

O'Neill said more cautiously, "I like the new look, but do you really think it's appropriate for work?"

She smiled, showing brilliant, white teeth. Makepeace wondered if she had filed them. They looked...sharper, somehow. Her gauzy sleeves fluttered as she moved her arms in a sweeping, imperial gesture. "We are not concerned with such irrelevancies."

"We? Who's we?"

"Jack, I think you've got a problem," Makepeace said quietly. "Either your astrophysicist has finally flipped her lid, or--"

"Or that's not Carter," O'Neill finished grimly. His features set like stone, he faced his subordinate. "All right, who are you?"

Carter gazed at her comrades with unnaturally bright and clear blue eyes. The spider on her head shifted, and also focused its multiple eyes on the men. Makepeace saw bright stripes of green, orange, and purple flash on the alien's abdomen. "We have no name. We are the queen of... Well, my people have no name, either. I suppose you could refer to us as Arachnids, as this one does." The spider queen tapped Carter's head with a multi-jointed leg, and Carter's own hand rose and tapped the side of her head with an index finger. The men were treated to another glimpse of too-white teeth.

"Shades of Hathor," Johnson murmured.

"Or that Jolinar business," Makepeace said. "That spider on her head is controlling her."

"Damn it. Not again." O'Neill closed his eyes briefly. When he reopened them, his face was filled with hardened resolve, although his next words were irreverent. "So how about I call you Arachnia then, huh? Just so there's no confusion, since you don't have a name or anything."

Carter inclined her head regally. The necklace around her throat shifted. Makepeace realized that the "jewels" were actually spiders. She beckoned, and thousands of the small creatures scurried to join her, filling the corridor behind her. "For many years we have been seeking to continue our destiny. We are grateful you have provided us with the opportunity. We could not activate the Stargate ourselves."

"What is your destiny?" Makepeace asked her, dreading the answer.

"To spread throughout the stars. To become the dominant form of life on all the worlds of this galaxy."

"Well, that's rather grandiose, don't you think?" O'Neill inquired flippantly.

"It is our way." Carter smiled and spread her arms wide. The legions of spiders at her back surged forward.

"Run!" O'Neill yelled.

The men took off down the hall, followed by the seething horde. Makepeace risked a look back and almost stumbled. The arachnids raced after them with unnatural speed, and were slowly gaining on the three officers.

"Hurry," Makepeace gasped out.

Johnson uttered a strangled cry and went down under an onslaught of evil, multi-legged monsters. The aliens swarmed over him, covering him so completely in their squirming masses that his form was barely distinguishable. His body heaved once then collapsed.

Makepeace screamed "Johnson!" and turned back. A horde of the spiders left their latest victim and rushed at him, crawling up his trouser legs before he could even think of retreat. He swatted at them, shouting obscenities and stomping the repellent things where they fell. He was barely aware of O'Neill slapping the spiders from his own clothes.

Then O'Neill grabbed his arm, shouting, "Come on!"

Makepeace ruthlessly focused his mind on survival and ran for all he was worth. There was no other course of action available. He and O'Neill raced through web-draped hallways, with spiders practically nipping at their heels. Suddenly, O'Neill pointed to an open doorway. "There!" The two men bolted inside and slammed the door shut behind them.

They leaned against the door, breathing hard. O'Neill said, "Ah, crap." His voice almost broke.

Makepeace saw that they had finally found the lab. Like the rest of the base, it had been cloaked in webs. Bodies lay everywhere, encased in sheaths of grayish spider silk.

O'Neill moved forward and looked down at the nearest corpse. "Is this like what you found in the commissary?" he asked quietly.

Makepeace nodded, unable to vocalize the confirmation. His voice had deserted him, his vocal cords paralyzed. He made a tremendous effort and managed to step farther into the lab.

"Damn it," O'Neill said. He kneeled down. "This was Fraiser." He reached out and brushed away the webs that covered her face like a funeral shroud.

"Careful, Jack," Makepeace said. His throat felt hoarse. "There might be spiders still...feeding."

"Yeah." O'Neill pulled his hand away.

Makepeace moved to stand over several more bodies. "More scientists," he said, identifying the remains. He looked into the next room and froze. "Oh, God."

O'Neill came to stand beside him. "What is it?"

Makepeace walked into the room and sat heavily on the floor next to two corpses. His missing men. Andrews and Henderson. Both wore expressions of pure terror. "So this is what happened to them."

O'Neill didn't say anything, just crouched down beside him and clasped his hands together. He stared at the bodies, uttered "Shit," in a fragile voice, and Makepeace knew he was thinking of his own missing teammates.

"This is what's happening to Johnson, right now," Makepeace whispered. He felt like he might cry at any moment. His world was shattering, and he was falling apart right along with it.

"We'll go back for him, Bob," O'Neill said. It was an empty promise, and they both knew it. "Him and Carter. We won't let the spiders keep them. We can't let those things win."

"And just how exactly are we going to do a damn thing to stop them?" Makepeace lashed out. "There's no one left! How are the two of us supposed to kill them all? There's too damn many of them, and they multiply too damn fast."

"We don't know for sure that there aren't any other survivors." O'Neill looked down at his laced fingers. "Maybe there's something in the lab, maybe the scientists found a solution here before..."

"If they'd had a working pesticide ready to go, these people wouldn't all be spider chow, now would they?" Makepeace snapped. He got up and went back into the main lab.

O'Neill followed him. "Yeah, I know, but we've got to think of something. The way Carter was babbling about the queendom of the spiders and their manifest destiny--oh, hell. We need to get to the control room, fast."

"Why there?"

"Because that's the next place she'll go. She'll be after control of the Stargate, so she can bring more of her ugly little family to Earth, and then spread them all over the galaxy."

The control room was every bit as bad as the lab had been. More webs and enshrouded corpses greeted the two colonels. O'Neill walked across the room to a familiar body that had been secured to a chair. "Well, we've located General Hammond, at any rate."

Makepeace found himself staring at Sergeant Davis. The dead man's glasses were missing, and his mouth hung open in a silent scream. Makepeace looked away, out the observation window, and felt his heart pound against his rib cage. "Jack, Carter's already here."

Carter stood before the activated Stargate, her arms spread wide in triumph. The shimmering blue light provided a stark and dramatic backdrop to her gray-gowned form. Masses of spiders scurried from the event horizon into the SGC. They streamed around Carter and down the ramp, filling the gate room with their seething presence.

"Jesus," Makepeace said, unable to tear his eyes from the macabre scene. "There must be millions of them."

O'Neill leaned over the controls. "Carter's got this thing locked up tight. There's no way to shut the Stargate down."

Something heavy banged on the control room door. Both men jumped. O'Neill said, "They're trying to break in."

Another bang. In the gate room, spiders started climbing the walls, literally. They crept up onto the window and stared at the two men, their legs twitching in arachnid anticipation.

"We can't let them get out of the SGC." O'Neill's voice was the knell of doom. "There's still one way to stop this."

"And kill the spiders." Makepeace felt a strange combination of resignation, despair, and grim satisfaction. He might have brought this plague to Earth, but at least he could make sure it didn't go beyond the SGC. He went to another console and brushed away the cobwebs with a vicious swipe of his hand.

"It takes two, baby. It takes two, baaaby," O'Neill belted out the lyrics to the oft-remade popular song in a bizarre display of gallows humor. "It takes twooo."

"Can we just do this, already?"

The pounding on the door grew louder. So many spiders had crawled onto the observation window that the view had been completely obscured.

"Killjoy." O'Neill typed on his keyboard. "Let's get our authorization codes in."

The computer accepted both colonels' codes for the auto-destruct, and waited for the final command. The two men looked at one another. "Pucker time," Makepeace said.

"Only a jarhead would say something like that at a time like this." O'Neill's words were punctuated by a series of hard bangs on the door. Dents appeared in the metal, and one of the hinges popped off.

Makepeace shrugged and cocked his head. "Semper fi, flyboy."

"Back at ya, leatherneck." O'Neill returned his attention to his keyboard. "On my mark. Three, two, one, mark."

Both men hit their enter keys. The destruct mechanism started counting down from one minute.

The door finally gave out against the violent battering, flying off its frame and crashing to the floor. A river of alien spiders flooded into the control room in wave after churning wave. O'Neill roared defiant curses as an avalanche of squirming legs buried him alive.

Makepeace lunged to the side but couldn't avoid the living carpet streaming toward him. The arachnids swarmed up his legs, covered his torso with a creeping blanket of repulsive bodies. Delicate little feet skittered on the bare skin of his hands, neck, and face, and in his ears and hair.

He felt multitudes of spider abdomens working, moving rhythmically, spinning out thousands of threads of sticky silk. He tried to run, but his legs had already been cocooned and he crashed to the floor. He tried to slap the spiders away, but his arms were bound to his sides. He could only thrash helplessly as the creatures immobilized him and secured the webbing in place.

He tried to scream, but spiders swarmed into his mouth and crawled down his throat. Gauzy tufts of spider silk settled on his face and clung tight.

With a last, desperate effort, Makepeace managed to turn his head toward the computer console, to watch the auto-destruct's relentless countdown. Fifteen seconds, and the nightmare would be over. Ten seconds left. Then five. Four...

Three...

Two...

One.

With a wrenching gasp, Makepeace fought the restraining material around his body and sat upright, panting hard. He rubbed his arms with sweaty hands, trying to orient himself as he slowly got his breathing under control.

The sight of the military-issue tent's flimsy walls and his and Johnson's recon gear steadied him. This was reality, the here-and-now of camping on P8T-512, not the worst-case scenario of an SGC infested with intelligent spiders, not the gruesome deaths of his friends and comrades, not a last-ditch suicide to prevent the alien creatures from invading the rest of the Earth.

Calmer now, he untangled himself from his sleeping bag. That had been one hell of a bad dream. He felt completely wrung out. His skin and skivvies were damp with perspiration, and every muscle in his body ached. He sat for a while, collecting himself, then pulled a towel out of his rucksack, pressed it against his face and just held it there.

The dream had been so incredibly vivid, the imagery no doubt brought on by P8T-512's most common form of animal life. Johnson had dubbed the ubiquitous creatures "Glow Spiders" for their luminescent qualities, as well as their physical and behavioral similarities to earthly arachnids. Were it not for the fact that they had ten legs, rather than eight, and that they glowed in the dark, they might easily be mistaken for their Terran counterparts.

Good thing they were harmless, since they infested this area of the planet in unbelievable numbers, leaving webs everywhere. Henderson had speculated that the glow spiders were an import with no natural enemies, so they had overrun the place. Humans must not smell or look particularly interesting or edible to them, since for the most part they had ignored SG-3 for the entire mission.

Makepeace ran the towel down his arms and legs, sopping up the last of the sweat. He had hated this planet from the get-go, having blundered into a nest of the little bastards within five minutes of his arrival here. He had pushed his men to complete this mission as quickly and efficiently as possible. No one had griped, since the place was loathed by all members of the team.

Now that the mission was almost over--SG-3 would be heading home today--his subconscious had presented him with this charming gift. It had mixed the alien glow spiders with his lifelong distaste for arachnids in general, and thrown in some of his worst fears about the Stargate program for good measure. The fact that it was almost Halloween back on Earth only added frosting to the unpalatable cake, but Makepeace supposed the nightmare's theme had been appropriate for the season. At least his subconscious had had the good sense to put Carter in a sexy outfit.

He dressed quickly, grabbed his mess kit, and stepped out of the tent. The sun was just starting to rise, the warm pink of dawn visible through scraggly pine trees and rocky, mountainous terrain. Johnson sat calmly on a large, flat hunk of granite, keeping watch in the cool morning air. He held a metal cup of steaming coffee in one hand. A small coffee pot rested on the camp stove beside him.

At Makepeace's approach, the lieutenant stood up. "Morning, Colonel," he greeted with a respectful bob of his head.

"Morning." Makepeace helped himself to a cup of coffee. The hot liquid flowed down his throat and warmed his middle, helping to dispel the last vestiges of the nightmare. "I take it things have stayed quiet."

"Yep, everything's fine, sir. In fact, I was just about to roust everyone out of the sack." Johnson sipped his coffee and added, "If I didn't know better, I'd swear we were camping back home. 'Cept for the cobwebs and the glow spiders crawling around all over, of course. I think I'm getting used to them, though. They're kind of pretty in the dark, like fireflies."

Makepeace grunted and took a long swig of coffee.

Johnson peered at him. "You all right, sir? You look, I don't know, a little off, I guess."

"I'm just ready to get off this rock, that's all," Makepeace said evasively. "Unlike you, I haven't developed a fondness for glow spiders."

"Well, I didn't say I liked them, just that I was getting used to them."

Makepeace chuckled. "Point taken. Go drag our two lazy slugabeds out of their tent, and we'll get going."

While Johnson got their teammates out of bed, Makepeace put down his coffee cup and walked over to the edge of the camp. As he relieved himself next to a gnarled old pine tree, he planned out the rest of the day. He smiled when he realized why he had mentally put Andrews on point, rather than Johnson.

Makepeace didn't believe in portents or prophetic dreams, but he didn't intend to ignore the nagging warnings of his backbrain, either. Paranoia was a good thing in this line of work. Before he and his men so much as touched the DHD, they were going to inspect every single nook, cranny, screw hole, and seam on that damned MALP, as well as their own clothing and gear. Maybe even their hair. No hitchhikers allowed on this trip to Earth.

He buttoned up his fly and started to turn around. A glow spider dropped down from an overhead branch and dangled in front of his face on a slender, nearly invisible line of silk. Makepeace debated for a moment, then picked up a rock and squished the spider.

October, 2003

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