The Cost of Honor

by Stargate

Boyd sat forward in his chair. "Teal'c is under local confinement on base, but I've heard rumors of Groom Lake, sir."

  Area 51. Hammond remembered Crawford's blatant threat, and it turned him cold. God only knew what they'd do to Teal'c. Forcing words through tight lips Hammond said, "And Dr. Jackson?"

  "House arrest, sir. He's been barred from the base."

  And that was just the start. Kinsey was no fool - he wouldn't leave Daniel Jackson at large. The man was a walking encyclopedia of the Stargate program, and he'd never be intimidated into silence.

  "Sir?" Boyd stared up at him. "This is all happening because they came after us."

  Carefully, Hammond took a seat. "It's not your fault, Henry. They knew what they were doing."

  To his surprise, the young man nodded. "I know, sir. But that doesn't change the fact that we owe them. Big time."

  Hammond sipped his whiskey, relishing the transient fire in his throat as he appraised the soldier sitting before him. He was young in years, but not in attitude. Over the past couple of days he'd lost five years and gained a lifelong obligation in return. He'd seen an officer under his command die a horrible death and known that, if it hadn't been for the bravery of SG-1, he too would have died screaming in the inferno that had incinerated Lieutenant Reed. That was a powerful debt, one that couldn't be ignored. One that transcended the niceties of playing by the rules.

  "We can't leave them there, General."

  "No," Hammond agreed quietly. "We can't."

  Sam Carter stepped from the icy disorientation of the wormhole and stopped. A small contingent of Kinahhi soldiers, immaculate in gray, were lined up behind the defensive shields they employed in their gate-room. Beyond them stood three others dressed in the flowing robes of the Security Council, the silver cascade of hair marking one of them as Tamar Damaris, their leader.

  Suddenly the Colonel came stumbling from the Stargate as if he'd been pushed, just managing to keep his balance as he staggered to a halt. He looked furious, dark eyes glittering dangerously. If he'd had a weapon, Sam would have taken cover. For a moment he glared at the gate, as if he could see right through the event horizon and back to Earth. Then he snatched his gaze away and glanced around the Kinahhi gate-room. If he was looking for a way out, good luck to him.

  As the rest of their Kinahhi escort emerged, Sam found herself unceremoniously shoved into motion, down three steps and toward the waiting soldiers.

  O'Neill was at her side, hands flexing, testing the strength of his bonds. "I see the welcome committee's here."

  "Yes, sir." As she spoke, the troops moved aside to allow Councilor Damaris to approach. She was as imperious as Sam remembered, regarding them both with cold contempt. And yet there was something else in her eyes, an eagerness Sam hadn't noticed before. Damaris looked like a hunter about to make the kill.

  "Colonel O'Neill," the Councilor said. "I did not expect to see you on Kinahhi again."

  "Yeah. I heard that."

  She smiled, a slight parting of her thin lips. "You are a resourceful man." Her attention shifted to Sam, as incisive as a knife. Cutting through flesh with a hot, searing pain... Sam shook the unbidden image away, but not before the Councilor's elegant eyebrows had risen slightly. "And Major Carter. Strong-minded as ever, I have no doubt."

  Sam was about to reply when the Colonel stepped forward. "Yeah, great. Whatever. Let's cut the bullshit, shall we? I know what happened, Damaris. I know you set us up."

  What? She glanced at the Colonel but his attention was fixed on Damaris. A flicker of alarm lit the Councilor's eyes, swiftly extinguished like a spark falling into water. But it was enough to confirm the Colonel's accusation. They'd been set up. But how? How the hell... ?

  "Your lies won't work here, Colonel." The Councilor said. "We have ways of discerning the truth that you cannot understand."

  "I leave the understanding bit to Carter," the Colonel replied, taking another step forward. The soldiers shifted uneasily, weapons rising. He ignored them. "Just tell me one thing - did you murder Quadesh?" Damaris flicked an urgent look over Sam's head and gave a barely perceptible nod. "I mean, you knew he'd given me the plans," the Colonel carried on. "Did you kill him too? Did you-" A savage blow to the head dropped him to his knees.

  "Sir!" Sam spun around, trying to protect him from another blow. A tall, hard-muscled soldier stood with the butt of his weapon raised, eyes fixed on the Councilor. Waiting for his next order.

  Blood was running freely from a gash above the Colonel's right eye, and he sagged sideways, on the brink of passing out. At a signal Sam didn't see, the soldier raised his weapon again. "No!" she yelled, forcing herself between him and the Colonel. "Stop, you'll-"

  "Break off!" The barked command came from the direction of the Stargate and halted the soldier's weapon midair.

  With a tense look at Damaris he stepped back, lowering his weapon. Sam instantly dropped to the Colonel's side. "Sir?" He was white as chalk, blood dripping steadily onto the floor from the gash above his right eye. "Sir, can you hear me?" No response - he was clinging to consciousness by his fingernails. She glared at the soldiers surrounding them. "Someone help him!"

  No one moved. Damaris watched them coldly, and yet behind her hard eyes fear lurked. The Councilor was afraid of the truth, afraid to let her own people hear it. Sam's gaze fell on another man who was watching them silently from the lip of the Stargate. The man who'd ordered a halt to the beating: Commander Kenna, Damaris's right-hand man. Or so Sam had thought on their first visit. But there was something in his face now that looked like dissent. Or rage. Whatever it was, Sam sensed she could use it. "Please," she said, "help him."

  Kenna fixed his gaze on Damaris as he said, "Chief, call a Medic." Then he pulled a cloth from his pocket, walked down the steps from the gate and handed it to Sam.

  Carefully, she pressed it against the Colonel's bleeding head. "Thank you."

  Kenna didn't reply. Instead, in a loud voice, he said, "I apologize, Councilor Damaris, for the rash behavior of my officer. He will be punished."

  Punished? Sam glanced up at the man, who blanched but remained stoic. Hadn't he been acting on Damaris's orders?

  "As you wish," came the restrained reply. Yet it was laced with ice; it seemed that Damaris was less than happy with the charade, but apparently unwilling to say more. At least, not in public. "Have the woman held in Plaza 323," she said frostily, turning on her heel. "When Colonel O'Neill has been treated, transfer them both to Tsapan."

  Tsapan? Fear caught in Sam's chest. She'd glimpsed horrors there, but it was what they hadn't seen that frightened her most. Standing next to her, Commander Kenna shifted slightly. His jaw twitched as if with the effort of restraint, but all he said was, "Yes, Councilor."

  Letting out a slow, steadying breath, Sam returned her attention to the Colonel. To her surprise, his eyes were open and they met hers with dour understanding; Sam had no doubt their minds were running parallel. Clutching white fingers in the dark, corning out of nowhere...

  How the hell were they going to get out of this one?

  The night air was cool and fresh in his lungs. Daniel embraced the sensation. It tasted like freedom. No doubt it was entirely psychological, but the air in his apartment seemed stale and stifling. Out here, at least, he could taste the mountain breezes.

  He was the lucky one.

  Teal'c was locked up on base, and God only knew where Jack and Sam were. If they were even alive. His fingers tightened around the cold of the railing that ran around his balcony, as if the sensation could counter the ache in his chest. He'd never felt so powerless, so unable to help his friends. He had no phone, no internet, no way to contact anyone. And the guys outside the building - and the one outside his door - ensured there was no escape. He'd briefly toyed with the idea of climbing out, either from the balcony up to the roof, or down to the ground. But even for someone like Jack the climb would have been near impossible. For Daniel, suicidal. And he hadn't reached that point. Not yet.


  But the knowledge that his friends were out there, in desperate trouble, and that there wasn't a damn thing he could do to help them, was making him frantic. He felt it building inside, a suffocating pressure. He wanted to scream his rage out into the silent midnight city, to wake the people up to the injustice being perpetrated in their name. To show them the danger lurking in the heart of Cheyenne Mountain, in the minds of men like Kinsey, driven by fear and ambition to destroy everything that made humanity worth fighting for.

  He had to get out. He had to do something. He couldn't just-

  A noise, as unmistakable as it was out of place, cut through Daniel's frenzy in an instant. A zat. Someone in the street below had fired a zat! Heart racing, half in hope and half in dread, he leaned out over the balcony. He could see nothing. Cautiously, he crept back into the apartment. It was silent, and he suddenly wished he had a weapon. Glancing around he saw a kitchen knife, but quickly dismissed the idea. A zat he could cope with, he could even handle a P90 if he had to - but knives really weren't his style. Besides, if the intruder had a zat, Daniel would never get close enough.

  Stomach twisting unpleasantly, he moved to stand by the front door. His view through the peephole was obscured by a burly guard. Daniel pressed his ear against the wood. After a moment he heard footsteps approaching and a muttered exchange of words, quickly followed by an electronic fizz and the thud of someone slumping hard against the door. Backing up, Daniel braced himself, half expecting the door to burst inward. NID? Kinsey's own guys? The Kinahhi?

  Fingers itching for a weapon, he grabbed the nearest thing to hand - a bronze statue of Kali - and hoped the goddess wouldn't be offended. They called her the Destroyer, after all. Hefting its weight in both hands Daniel waited. And then-

  Someone knocked on the door, three soft, urgent knocks. Heart hammering, he crept closer. Through the peephole, now unobstructed, he could see a baseball cap. Could be anyone. The knock came again, louder now. Figuring any kind of action was better than nothing, Daniel reached for the door handle and pulled.

  Two men almost fell through, one out cold and the other... "General Hammond?"

  The General's grin was positively impish. "Thought it was about time we got back in on the action, Dr. Jackson."

  Half an hour later, Daniel found himself standing in the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo's deserted parking lot, freezing his butt off as he tugged on his guard's over-large uniform. The guard himself, in nothing but his underwear, lay trussed up on Daniel's bed, probably just waking from the close range zat blast General Hammond had inflicted. Daniel smiled at the image, and tried to imagine how that would read in the official report. Jack would have a field day. If he ever got to read it. If he wasn't already-

  "Major Boyd will be waiting for you inside the base," Hammond said, his crisp tones a welcome intrusion. "He'll take you to Level 17, where Teal'c is being detained. From there, head straight to the gate-room." He smiled, a glint of white teeth in the overwhelming darkness. "You've overpowered the night crew in the control room before, I'm sure you can do it again."

  Daniel grunted. The last time they'd pulled a stunt like this, on the way to take out Apophis's ha'tak, everything had been different. He pulled the belt tight around his waist; his borrowed BDUs were about two sizes too large. "That was four years ago, General," he said. "And we had Jack and Sam with us."

  "You've come a long way in four years, Dr. Jackson."

  Which was true, he guessed. Back then he'd still flinched every time he fired a weapon. Now he was practically a card-carrying member of the NRA. He shuddered at the thought. "So, where are we headed? The Tok'ra?"

  Hammond sighed, his breath misting in the cool air. "I don't see that we have a choice, despite the fragile state of our alliance. Besides, Jacob Carter should be told what's happened to his daughter."

  "If we can find him." And what were the odds of that? Even if they did find Jacob, what were the chances of the Tok'ra having a ship to spare to take them to Kinahhi? "It's not like we have much time," Daniel said aloud. "The Kinahhi don't have prisons, General."

  Hammond sucked in a sharp breath. "What?"

  "Whatever they do to their prisoners, they don't lock them up," he said, reaching down and pulling on the BDU jacket. "The Kinahhi I spoke to didn't even understand the word, and I don't think it was an issue of dialect or idiom."

  Hammond tugged his coat closer against a sudden, biting wind. "Then you're right, we don't have much time. But other than the Tok'ra, I'm at a loss. We can't contact the Asgard..."

  The General's words drifted away as Daniel's thoughts took a different path. "Actually," he said, "we don't need either of them."

  "If you're thinking of using the Stargate to reach Kinahhi, Dr. Jackson, I'm afraid it's impossible. The Kinahhi gate-room is too well guarded and-"

  "I know that, General," Daniel waved the notion away. "We can use the tel'takwe stole from Baal's fortress. The one we used to rescue Boyd. It's still on P3X-500. "

  Even in the darkness, Daniel could see the skeptical crease of the General's forehead. "According to Colonel O'Neill, it was barely flying when you landed."

  "It'll get us there," Daniel insisted, fishing his borrowed ID card out of a pocket and looping it around his neck. "And it's our best shot, General." The odds were long, they both knew that. But when had the odds ever stopped them? "If we don't find Jack and Sam soon..."

  Gravely, Hammond handed Daniel a cap. "I wish I could come with you, son."

  Pulling the hat on, Daniel tugged the bill down low over his eyes. As disguises went, he'd had better. But it would have to do. "The SGC needs you here." He lifted a wry eyebrow. "Without being overly dramatic, the whole planet needs you here, General. We have to find out what the Kinahhi are doing. And you have to stop Kinsey."

  "I intend to, Dr. Jackson," Hammond assured him, as quiet and as adamant as the shadowy mountain that loomed above them. "I intend to."

  With a nod of acknowledgement, Daniel opened the door of an old Pontiac; his guard's car, requisitioned like the uniform. With luck, in the dark, it would get him through the external checkpoints. If it didn't, he had the zat on the passenger seat. Whatever happened, he refused to fail. He cast a final glance at Hammond, the General's solid shape dwarfed by the empty night and the vastness of the crisis they faced. On impulse, Daniel extended his hand. "Good luck, sir."

  Hammond clasped it firmly. "You too, son. And Godspeed."

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  he courtyard where Sam found herself imprisoned was identical to the `guest quarters' on their previous visit to Kinahhi. Low white buildings surrounded an empty plaza, dark doors opened into small individual rooms. Or cells. Even last time it had felt like a prison. Doubly so this time. The fact that her hands were still bound didn't help.

  Above, the planet's large, cool sun was sinking toward the horizon. The air was warm enough though, and the sun's pale yellow light cast long shadows across the white stone floor. Sam glanced at her watch - 0200 hours on Earth. No wonder her eyes felt gritty and her limbs leaden. But she was too wound up to try and sleep. She hadn't seen the Colonel for three hours, not since he'd been hauled away from the gate-room, slumped between two Kinahhi, his face and shirt bloody.

  Her foot tapped an unconscious staccato against the flagstones, drumming out her anxiety. It was a tell, and she stopped as soon as she realized what she was doing. There were men on the flat roofs above her, pacing and watching; she refused to give them anything. But the image of the Colonel crumpling under the savage blow was persistent, and she knocked her head back sharply against the wall to try and dislodge it. Think about something useful.

  Studying the buildings around her, she tried to assess their chances of escape. Pretty slim, with guards posted on the roofs. Not to mention that last time they'd snuck out they'd had ropes and free hands. And maybe they let you get away? The thought crawled into her mind like a worm boring into an apple. Maybe it was all a setup.

  That's what the Colonel had said befor
e they'd beaten him into silence. She felt sick. Had they been dancing to the Kinahhi tune all along, and not realized it? But why? What could-

  The tramp of booted feet coming closer broke the still evening. Sam rose, heart thudding. Had they come to take her to Tsapan? Her fingers curled into fists, itching for her absent weapon, and she swallowed hard. She'd be damned if she'd let them see her fear.

  At the far side of the plaza, through the narrow passage that was the only way in or out, three men approached. Two Kinahhi, and - thank God! - the Colonel. He'd been cleaned up and seemed steady on his feet, though his face still had a grayish hue. Once she'd assured herself he was okay she took note of the men with him. Commander Kenna led the way, his weathered features as unreadable as always, and a younger soldier followed behind the Colonel. Apparently the kid hadn't mastered the Kinahhi poker face - his gaze darted from side to side in nervous agitation.

  Sam stepped forward, trying to figure out what was going on. "Sir?"

  O'Neill shrugged but said nothing, and it was Kenna who spoke. "You may rest here tonight," he said shortly. "Tomorrow you will be taken to Tsapan."

  "And then what?" The quiet question came from the Colonel.

  Kenna made no answer, but pulled a heavy knife from a sheath on his leg. Involuntarily, Sam took a step back and felt the wall behind her. Damn it!

  With a quick glance between them, Kenna motioned toward their wrists. For an instant, Sam hesitated, long enough for the Colonel to step forward. He held his arms out and with a swift slash Kenna cut his bonds, then turned to Sam. Eyes fixed on the blade, Sam held out her wrists and watched the knife slice through the plastic cuffs as if through butter. Or flesh.

  "Commander Kenna?" The young soldier's voice was a squeak of alarm.

  "Even the khaw-kar must eat," Kenna said calmly. He looked up, straight at the Colonel. "Let it not be said that the Kinahhi are cruel."

  O'Neill cocked an eyebrow. "Yeah, wouldn't wanna say that."

  A flicker of irritation tightened the Commander's eyes. "I will have a meal sent to you," he said, turning away. "You should rest."