Female of the Species

by Geonn Cannon

  Daniel cleared his throat and looked at Odai. “You have to know something.”

  “Information is usually treated as currency in places like this.” Odai raised an eyebrow. “You fellows have anything to bargain with?”

  “I don’t suppose you like chocolate,” Cam asked.

  “The Tau’ri would owe you a favor,” Daniel said.

  Cam said, “Whoa, now… let’s not get crazy.”

  “A favor?” Odai said. “From the Tau’ri? Now that is intriguing. It might be nice to have SG-1 in my debt.” He considered for a moment, during which Cam glared at Daniel and Daniel ignored him as best he could. “All right. Just information. Viaxeiro was created a few thousand years ago when everything was going particularly swell for Goa’uld. Even back then with the snakes running things, humans did okay for themselves. We worked as bounty hunters, lo’taurs, messengers, attendants. You ever seen a Goa’uld pleasure palace?”

  Daniel said, “We’re familiar with the concept.”

  “So there was work to be had. There was also crime, and criminals had to be dealt with. Men could be put to death, sent to work camps, turned into hosts, any number of things. But people were more squeamish about that sort of thing happening to women. No one wanted to hand their women over to the Goa’uld, so they had to find a place to put their female criminals. A place where not even the Goa’uld could find them.”

  Cam said, “So they lassoed themselves a rogue planet?”

  “It was a little more complicated than that, I’m sure,” Odai said. “But essentially, yes. A group called the Overseers found the planet and set up the first colony. Then they invited anyone who had female prisoners to help populate the place. As far as I know, they’re still running things. Sending supplies and arranging for prisoner transports.”

  Daniel moved to the edge of his seat. “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. These Overseers, how could we arrange a transport?”

  “Jackson.”

  “Mitchell?”

  “Can we have a sidebar?”

  Daniel said, “We’re talking in hypotheticals. Someone called up these Overseers and set up the trap Vala and Tanis fell into. Someone was waiting in orbit for the signal that Vala had shown up. So it stands to reason someone makes their living transporting women to this prison. We need to find them and convince them to help us. The easiest way to do that is to arrange a pick-up.”

  Odai cleared his throat. “That won’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Vala Mal Doran and Tanis Reynard are well-known criminals. They both have reputations. The Overseers knew who they were getting. What’s your plan, to pick some random Tau’ri and tell someone to come pick her up? Won’t work. There needs to be recognition or a warrant. There needs to be some indication beyond your say-so that the woman you’re turning over belongs in Viaxeiro.”

  Cam said, “I guess it’s nice to know the people who condemned our friends to life in prison have standards. Look, Odai, we’re indifferent to one another. No reason to like each other or hate each other. There’s got to be someone out there in this whole, huge universe who can help us.”

  Odai tapped his fingers on the table and worked his tongue against his front teeth. “A debt from SG-1,” he muttered under his breath. He seemed to be calculating how much trouble such a prize might be worth. “I know some people who could help. They’re going to be pissed, though…”

  Daniel leaned forward. “Maybe we could owe them a debt, too.”

  Cam said, “Easy handing out the chits there, pal.”

  “They may settle for having you take the Ori out of the equation. Then again, they might throw me out an airlock for even bringing up their names in front of the Tau’ri.”

  “Hell, I like ’em already,” Cam said. “Who are these scoundrels and where can we find them?”

  ~#~

  Kimo hung upside down near the ceiling, her brown hair tied back out of her face and trailing out behind her head like a horn. Of course, upside down was relative in space. Her arms were out to either side and her legs were slightly bent so she could kick against the wall if she drifted too close to it. She looked toward the cockpit where Adamaris was still strapped in so she could keep an eye on their system readings. Life support was at the lowest possible setting. No circulating air, no gravity, no heat. She estimated if the patrol didn’t find anything in five rounds of scans, they would move on to the next section. It was currently on the fifth scan.

  Their ship hung under the bulk of a ha’tak which had been devastated in a long-ago battle. Dozens of gliders and vessels of an unidentified design hung motionless in the void. The patrol ship arrived just as they finished loading the last of their haul. Adamaris was quick enough to put everything to sleep before the first scan hit them. Now all they could do was wait patiently for it to get bored. She didn’t understand why the Swaran Authority felt it was their job to police this battleground, but unless she wanted to pay a hefty fine and bribe the officials to look the other way, she would have to freeze and gasp for a little while.

  Adamaris’ normally brown skin was painted yellow and blue by the display she’d kept online to monitor the predator’s progress. She was also wearing an oxygen mask over the lower half of her face to regulate her breathing. Kimo had been a swimmer when she was a child, so she was more capable of breathing in low-oxygen environments when necessary. It was just a matter of knowing when to breathe and when to hold her air. Adamaris watched as the sensor blip moved away from their location. She looked over her shoulder and gave a quick nod.

  If they’d been daring enough to risk speech, Kimo would have chided her for tempting fate. As it was, fate saved her the trouble. The panel in front of Adamaris suddenly lit up with an incoming message. Adamaris reached for the screen but the communication alert sounded before she could cut it off. The silence was shattered by its hollow pong. It only went off three times, but that was enough for the patrol ship’s sensors to detect an anomaly. Though it had been on the very edge of their radar range, now it had paused. Adamaris held her breath and let it out in a curse when the other ship started back toward them.

  Adamaris tore off her oxygen mask and faced the controls. “Damn it,” she said as she brought everything back online as quickly as possible. “Kee, you better hold onto something.”

  Kimo swam closer to the wall as gravity once again pulled at her limbs. It was a graceless descent, but she managed to hit the ground without getting bruised. The running lights at the base of the cargo hold glittered to life as she went forward to strap herself in.

  “Twenty more seconds until we were home free,” Kimo said wistfully.

  “Look at it this way,” Adamaris said as she fired up the engines, “we’re just shifting our luck to another day. In a few weeks or a few months, we’re going to need the luck we just banked.”

  Kimo said, “That philosophy requires us to actually survive the next thirty seconds.”

  “Details.”

  Their communications rang with another alert, this time delivering a message they were unable to ignore. “Unidentified vessel, you are currently occupying restricted space. Disengage your engines and await boarding by the Swaran Authority.”

  Kimo chose a sound file from their library and sent it back as a response. They couldn’t hear it through their own speakers, but the crew of the Swaran ship had just received a blast of noise that would render them insensate for thirty seconds, give or take. Long enough for Adamaris to plot a course and get a nice running start. She turned the ship as Kimo plugged in a series of commands.

  “Did I tell you about the dream I had last night?” Adamaris asked.

  “No.”

  Kimo executed the command she’d just set. A harpoon launched from the back of their ship and impacted a piece of wreckage. Their momentum pulled the space junk along with them until Kimo released the tether to send it careening into another abandoned vessel. That began a chain reaction of gliders crashing into gliders, which crashed i
nto the unidentified ships, which went spinning into the ha’tak, until the entire junkyard was a chain reaction between them and their pursuers.

  Adamaris opened a hyperspace window and took them out of danger. “I was standing by a river,” she said, “in the dream.”

  “Right,” Kimo said.

  “I think I was seven or eight years old, but I don’t think it was a memory.” She reached up and teased her short, spiky hair as she recalled the dream. “There was a bridge but I started walking straight through the water. I got about halfway across before the water was up to my chin and I realized I had made a horrible mistake. What do you think it means?”

  Kimo thought for a moment. “The apparently easy way might not be safe, so you might as well take a risk and have some fun.”

  “Interesting interpretation.”

  “I thought so.” She nodded at the console. “So who is going to receive my wrath for ruining our nearly perfect day?”

  “Odai Ventrell.”

  Kimo raised an eyebrow. “Odai? Unless it’s an invitation to his execution, I have no interest in what that cra’tu has to say.”

  Adamaris said, “He promises adventure.” She raised an eyebrow and grinned evilly. “And it involves the Tau’ri.”

  “The Tau’ri?” Kimo said, suddenly intrigued. “What sort of job does he need?”

  “Escort.”

  Kimo pursed her lips and watched the purple-and-black streaks washing past the ship. “We’ve never dealt with the Tau’ri before. It’s always been a goal of mine.”

  Adamaris laughed. “You just want to see if Daniel Jackson is as cute as everyone says he is.”

  “He couldn’t possibly be! But oh, to see him in the flesh… it might even be worth dealing with Odai Ventrell.” She leaned forward and drummed her fingertips on the edge of the console. “How far away is he?”

  “If we drop out of hyperspace and reroute, we could be there in about eight hours.” She looked over at Kimo. “Might not be the safe path.”

  “But it should be fun,” Kimo agreed. “Message Odai and tell him we’re on the way.” She twisted her chair around and stood to go into the back of the ship.

  Adamaris looked after her. “Where the hell are you going?”

  Kimo plucked at the lapel of her shirt. “If we’re going to meet the Daniel Jackson, I’m not going to show up in these rags.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  HE WAS NOT weak. Teal’c reminded himself of this fact even as he grunted with pain. He was Jaffa, with or without a symbiote. He stood up straight and put a hand against his side. He would fight through the pain and become stronger for it. His team needed him. Samantha Carter and Vala Mal Doran were in danger. According to their latest message, Colonel Mitchell and Daniel Jackson were involving themselves with very unsavory individuals.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Carolyn Lam dropped her files on a bed as she hurried past so she could take Teal’c by the arm. “You are by far the most stubborn member of SG-1, and that is an extremely tight race.”

  “I cannot remain,” Teal’c said.

  Carolyn wearily said, “I know the spiel. You’re fine. You’ll heal better when you’re on your feet and out in the universe letting people use you as a sparring dummy.”

  He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder. She looked at him.

  “I am not fine, Carolyn Lam. I am, in fact, in great pain. I was hoping to be provided with some of your medication to assist me. But my injuries do not change the fact that I am a member of SG-1. If I were in their position, and they in mine, do you doubt they would do everything in their power to render assistance?”

  She pressed her lips together and lowered her voice. “I understand that, Teal’c. I really do. But you have to understand that you’ve gone through two experiences which would have killed an ordinary man. You cannot keep going halfway in your recovery. There’s only so much I can patch back together.”

  “I am aware.”

  Carolyn looked at the bed he had escaped. He could tell she was weighing the odds she could convince him to stay there.

  “Okay. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll help you get to the control room the next time SG-1 calls in with an update. I think one is scheduled in a few hours. If they say they need your help, then I’ll sign off on letting you go through the gate and joining them.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Lam.”

  “Oh, I’m not letting you off the hook entirely. If you do go off-world, there’s not a chance in hell I’m letting you go alone. Colonel Mitchell thinks I don’t understand what you guys go through off-world. Going along will take care of you both at the same time.”

  Teal’c considered that for a moment before he nodded. “That is an acceptable compromise.”

  “Yeah,” she said, sounding less than enthused. “I was just thinking I haven’t gone on enough extremely dangerous missions. It’s not like doctors on this base have bad luck or anything like that.”

  He looked at her. “I believe you are employing sarcasm.”

  “Astute.” She guided him back to the bed and eased him down on the mattress. “Now, stay here and rest while you wait for Daniel and Colonel Mitchell to dial in. If I find out you’ve been sneaking around again, I’m going to strap you down in an isolation room.” She offered her hand to him. “Do we have a deal?”

  He took her hand in his. “Indeed.”

  Carolyn smiled. “From you, that’s as good as a signed contract.”

  She walked away and Teal’c lowered himself onto the mattress. It was not, perhaps, the ideal arrangement, but he could make peace with it. It made no difference if Carolyn Lam accompanied him through the Stargate. The most important thing was that he would be there if his team needed him. He folded his hands over his stomach and closed his eyes.

  If rest was what it would take to get him through the gate, he was going to be sure he got as much as possible.

  ~#~

  Lokelani’s home was definitely a point toward her being a Goa’uld. A far cry from the subterranean cold-water Tanis and Shein called home, Lokelani escorted Sam to one of the large buildings several blocks away from the city walls. If anyone ever did stage an invasion, this would be one of the safest places to be when it happened. She saw a flight of stairs clinging to one side of the building leading up to the roof, reminiscent of a fire escape without the safety railing. The façade was decorated by ostentatious carvings of animals Sam had never seen before. Lokelani saw her looking and smiled proudly as she opened the door.

  “Lovely, isn’t it? Amazing what art forgers with an endless amount of free time can produce.”

  Sam hadn’t seen any other buildings so ornately decorated. “And they just randomly decided to honor your home with their work?”

  “I do things for them, and they show their gratitude. We can talk about it all inside.”

  She dismissed her escorts with a quick sideways nod. The women returned the nod and vanished down a dark corridor that branched off the main hall. Sam had been watching them during the walk. They had never said a word and appeared so indifferent to everything that was happening that Sam started to wonder if they were some sort of automatons.

  “Please, come in,” Lokelani said. “I believe the cruelest thing about this prison is how our captors simply drop us here with no guide or hint about how things work. So I took it upon myself to take in the newlings.”

  The front hall was an open space larger than Tanis’ cave. Lokelani continued across the polished tile of the floor to a large curtained doorway in the opposite wall. The curtain was pushed aside to reveal a comfortably adorned room with plush furniture. Sam followed more slowly to examine the décor. A mirror with a gilded frame hung from one wall, flanked on either side by tall bronze vases.

  “More forgers?” Sam asked.

  Lokelani chuckled and shrugged. “I do enjoy surrounding myself with art. It helps me forget where I am and remember the places I will likely never see again.”

  “It’s… nice.�
�� She was actually thinking it was a bit gaudy. The statement made by the decor was less ‘prison cell’ and more ‘Goa’uld summer home.’

  Lokelani opened a wooden cabinet near a small fire pit. “The ladies will take care of our meal. While we wait, would you like something to drink?”

  “Water, if you have it.”

  “Of course. The temperature here can be rather balmy, depending on what you’re used to. The shield which provides us with the atmosphere and light also regulates things like that.” She poured herself a glass of something green and opened a second jar for Sam’s drink. “I believe it’s currently set to ‘two degrees hotter than would be comfortable.’ This is a prison, after all.” She smiled as she brought Sam a glass of water. She gestured at one of the seats. “Please, Sri Fraiser, relax.”

  Sam took the water and sat down without taking a drink. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little wary of kindness in a place like this.”

  “Mm, wise.” Lokelani sat in the center of a long divan. “A prison like this can be good for morale, but it also leads to idleness. Boredom. Honor among thieves is a credo which cannot be followed when everyone around you is a thief. Now where shall we begin? What would you like to know about this lovely little cage you now call home?”

  “How to escape.”

  Lokelani slapped her leg and laughed heartily. “That is the first thing everyone asks and, sadly, the one thing I cannot answer. The irony is that if I could answer it, I wouldn’t be here to tell you how I did it. But I’m glad that you asked because I believe it’s good to get that question out of the way early. This prison is inescapable. Countless people have tried. They’ve been slaughtered in uprisings, and their fellow inmates were starved by a severe limiting of rations in the aftermath. For a while, our Overseers left the bodies of attempted escapees on the salt plains where new condemned couldn’t help but pass them on the way in. I found that cruel, and disrespectful to the dead. So I had my ladies clear away the corpses as a kindness.”

  Sam narrowed her eyes. “You can turn off the sensors.”

  Lokelani regarded Sam for a long moment with an unreadable expression. Finally, she smiled and dipped her chin. “I have certain privileges which come with my position. Maintenance, that’s all it is. The guards allow me a modicum of control in exchange for watching over things.”