The Cost of Honor

by Stargate

  He touched the arm of the chair, cool and smooth beneath his fingers, and felt a thrill of excitement. "What do I have to do?"

  Carter gasped through gritted teeth. "Sir... The chair. You have to sit-"

  "What for?" Jack's eyes dropped briefly from Koash to the strange chairs. They looked like some sort of weird-ass recliner, but there was no plasma screen TV "Carter?"

  He couldn't see her, but he could hear her ragged breathing. "To... destroy..." She stopped, crying out in pain.

  But she'd said enough. "Sit in the chair, huh?" He kept his eyes fixed on Koash and saw a flicker of terror in the man's eyes. That told him all he needed to know. "Don't like the idea?"

  Behind him Carter shrieked, a nerve-shredding repetition of her howl in the sheh fet. Jack's resolution wavered; they were killing her! He took a step closer, keeping a tight rein on his anger. "Stop," he growled at Koash. "Stop right now, or I swear to God I'll kill you."

  "You will not risk her." A sly smile touched the man's pallid features. "I have seen your mind, Colonel O'Neill. Albeit briefly. You would rather die than-"

  In two bounds Jack was up on the dais with the muzzle of the Kinahhi rifle pressed against the man's thin chest. "Actually, I'd rather you die."

  The apprehension Jack had seen earlier mushroomed into fullscale panic. "Go back!" Koash screeched. "Stand back!"

  Jack let his gaze drift to the recliner of doom. "What? You don't want me to touch this thing?"

  "Stand back!" The red veins criss-crossing his face bulged as if they'd burst. "Filthy animal-"

  Carter screamed again, the sound abruptly cut short.

  "O'Neill!" Teal'c sounded desperate. Jack's stomach twisted, hands tightening on the weapon. So help me, if he harms her...

  He jammed the gun against Koash's chest. "Let. Her. Go!"

  "You should have listened!" A toxic mix of fear and spite spread across the man's face and gathered into a terrible smile. "She's already dead."

  It was like swimming through noise, as if his mind were floating through a cacophony as thick as water. Pain and fear sank to the bottom, cold and dank, while above drifted treasured memories of joy and happiness, a thin film of light covering the depths of despair.

  Let them see you. The voice was Alvita Candra's, rich and dark in his mind.

  "Who?"

  The Kaw'ree.

  "How do I-"

  No need to ask. A giant fist seized hold of his mind, yanking him through the noise and the chaos like a shark hauled its prey. He tried to fight free, but it was impossible.

  You are Daniel Jackson. Not one voice, but many. The Kaw'ree, he guessed.

  "Yes."

  You corne voluntarily to the sheh fet?

  "I've come to show you the truth. About the Mahr'bal - the Arxanti. And the Ancients." He felt their unease as if it were his own, rippling in cold waves through his mind. "You don't need to fear them," he said. "They are not your enemy, the Ancients were a wise and-"

  His mind was cut open as if with a slash of a scalpel. We will see the truth, your lies will not hold here.

  "No lies," he gasped through the pain.

  We will see. We will see everything, Daniel Jackson.

  Twenty hands seized his mind, pulling it apart. Memories scattered like shreds of paper. His mom, holding him on her knee. Sha're's smile. Jack beating him at chess, Teal'c teaching him to fight, Sam asleep on his couch... A hundred, a thousand memories torn apart and discarded. "No!" He was losing everything, losing them all.

  The pain was all over, inside and outside. His cells liquefying, drowning him. He was dying. Oh God, he was dying again. So much pain, so much sorrow. "I don't want to die!"

  You must choose. Oma! You must choose.

  Oma. Always watching. The bright light of salvation, leading to a new life. A new existence of light.

  "I remember! I remember choosing."

  And then floating. Watching. An endless wait, always seeing, never acting. Trapped in an agonizing paradox, at once omnipotent and powerless. He saw darkness too, evil unleashed and unchallenged. Frustration and fear. Anger and conflict. He knew something terrible, something he had to stop. But the others refused to intervene, refused to act. But he knew, if only he could tell-

  No!

  He was dropped, as if the hands who grabbed at him had sud denly been burned, and the fleeting memories shattered.

  No, it cannot be.

  Crumpled amid the chaos of his mind, Daniel struggled to cling to the truth he'd almost grasped, but it slipped through his fingers like sand. He screamed with frustration.

  All around him rose the panicked cries of the Kaw'ree; they'd seen a truth themselves, something that had sent them fluttering like a flock of birds around a treetop, too afraid to land.

  He ignored them, tuned them out, desperate to return to the halfmemories that had promised so much. But they were fading, the fog was descending again. "Oma! Why won't you let me remember?"

  Faintly, distantly he heard something. Daniel!

  "Oma?"

  Daniel! Stronger this time, a desperate plea for help. Daniel!

  It was Sam.

  "No, it cannot be!"

  All nine of the Kaw'ree said the words together, like a horrorstruck choir. And then all hell broke loose. All around Jack, the Outcast leaped up onto the dais; whatever hold the Kaw'ree had on them was broken. It was like feeding time at the zoo and the Kaw'ree leaped in terror out of their chairs.

  A massacre was seconds away. The Outcast prowled the edge of the platform, hungry for revenge, herding the petrified Kaw'ree into its center. The white limbs of the Outcast were stark against the shivering black robes. "Help us!" Koash screamed. "Save us!"

  Jack stared back at him, the man's cold words stuck like a blade of ice in his chest. She's already dead. His weapon fell to his side. "Why?„

  "Have mercy..."

  "You killed her!"

  Koash's eyes were stark with horror. He knew the truth; he knew he'd find no mercy. Not after that, not ever.

  Jack turned his back and listened to the man scream until the end.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  aniel sprinted across the room, Alvita Candra on his heels. "Use the chair!" he yelled, dodging around the Arxanti warriors. "Jack, use the chair!"

  Jack's face was like ice, his whole body rigid. Sam lay bluelipped on the ground, her head resting in Teal'c's lap. But not dead. She wasn't dead!

  "Jack!" Daniel skidded to a stop and seized his friend by the arm. "You have to use the chair, Jack. Use it to destroy the sheh fet and free them."

  "I don't know how-"

  "You have to. It's the only way to save Sam."

  The ice cracked. "She's dead."

  "No," Daniel panted. "She's still trapped inside the sheh fet. She always was. Jack, you have to destroy it."

  Without hesitation, Jack leaped up onto the dais and threw himself into the nearest chair. It came alive immediately, flooding with a violet light and tipping right back in a way it hadn't done for Daniel. Or the Kaw'ree.

  "Exactly what am I-" Jack was cut off when a slim metallic strip whipped up and around his forehead. His body stiffened, as if readying itself for battle, and his eyes closed. Beneath their lids, Daniel could see rapid motion. Jack's lips moved too, but no sound escaped. Suddenly, a burst of energy shot along the cable that attached the chair to the dais, detonating into the floor amid sparks of silver.

  Jack frowned, as if listening intently. And then far, far away, from deep down in the bowels of the city there came a hollow concussion. It rippled like an earthquake through the tower, rocking it wildly. Daniel hunkered down as the room shook, shards of glass from its ceiling crashing like daggers to the floor.

  As one, the Outcast screamed, batting wildly at their heads, shaking them, running in all directions as they fled the dais. Daniel's gaze shrank from the pile of black robes they'd left behind. He dared not imagine what lay beneath.

  "Daniel Jackson!" Teal'c's urgent voice
drew his attention and he hurried over to Sam. Her back was arched, her face contorted into a grimace of pain. But she was very much alive. "Is he harming her?"

  "No," Daniel insisted. "Just wait. It's okay." Please God, let me be right about this.

  Suddenly the Outcast stopped screaming, and Sam slumped back to the floor, her face slack. Teal'c's hand darted to her throat, and he gave a slight nod of satisfaction. "Look," said Daniel, touching her cheek. The scarlet imprint of the sheh fet was fading, its hold loosening. Her mind returning, or so Daniel hoped. He'd seen her inside, trapped and lost, driven from her body by the power of the Kaw'ree. But they were gone now, and Jack had destroyed the sheh fet so she-

  Another explosion rocked the tower, this one much closer. Then another, more distant. And a third. Teal'c looked up. "We must leave."

  "Not yet. Let him finish."

  "Daniel Jackson!" The animated voice came from the far side of the room, heavy with a Kinahhi lilt.

  He spun around to grin at the sight of Commander Kenna striding through the open doors, with a small boy and at least thirty men in tow. "You've found him," Daniel said, rising.

  Kenna looked like a man reborn, his face alive with relief and determination. He placed a firm hand on his son's shoulder. "I have. As well as more men willing to join with us."

  "That's great. You-" Daniel staggered as yet another detonation jolted the tower. "You should get back to the ship."

  Kenna's gaze slipped past him, toward Sam. His face darkened. "What of your friend? Does she live?"

  "Yeah. She'll be okay."

  The Commander closed his eyes in a moment of profound relief, then nodded crisply at two of his men. "We will assist you. The whole city has become unstable, we cannot-" He stopped abruptly, eyes fixed on Jack. "Colonel O'Neill is... What is he doing?"

  Daniel followed his gaze. "Ah, he's destroying the sheh fet."

  "Then he is Mahr'bal?"

  "Something like that."

  As Daniel spoke, Jack's eyes snapped open and the silver band around his forehead slithered back into the headrest. Jack scrambled out of the chair, casting it a sour look as if it might reach out and drag him back into its clutches. "Whatever the hell that thing is," he said, jumping off the dais, "I never, ever want to sit in one again."

  His gaze came to rest on Kenna, then the boy, and he opened his mouth to speak. But someone else cut him off.

  "Sir...?" It was Sam, sounding groggy as Teal'c helped her to sit up. She rubbed her hands over her temples, shaking her head. "It's so quiet."

  "It's gone." For a moment it looked like Jack might reach out and touch the fading marks on her cheek. But he didn't. "The whole, stinking mess, Carter. Gone for good."

  She nodded. "How?"

  "I blew a few fuses." His attention roved back to the chair. "Don't ask me how, because I don't know."

  "And the people inside it?"

  Jack's face darkened, and Daniel instantly knew he was hiding something. "They're free."

  Sam just nodded again, not seeming to catch the deception Daniel had sensed. There was no time to press the subject, anyway. A Kinahhi ship roared overhead, spitting laser fire.

  "Get down!" Jack bellowed.

  A huge explosion shattered the dome above them. Daniel threw himself to the floor as splintered glass fell in a deadly rainfall, and all around the Outcast were wailing.

  "The military will not allow us to leave," Kenna shouted. "They cannot permit the truth to reach Kinahhi."

  "Screw that." Jack shot to his feet, boots crunching on broken glass. "We're getting the hell off this planet. Teal'c, Carter-"

  "Sir, wait," Sam said. "The Outcast - we can't leave them here."

  They were gathering around her now, disoriented and passive, as if all the fight had been drained from them. But still not human, thought Daniel. Still only husks of humanity. "We can't take them home, Carter," Jack said, dragging her into motion.

  She pulled away from him. "Sir, I promised I'd help them." Jack's silent answer was eloquent, but Sam wouldn't back down. "I won't leave them here."

  Eyebrows raised, Jack repeated, "Wont, Major?"

  "They saved my life, sir."

  "And ours also, O'Neill, " said Teal'c, brushing a shard of broken glass from his sleeve and sending it tinkling to the floor.

  Jack's eyes narrowed. "Et tu, Teal'c?"

  Shakespeare? Now he'd heard everything! "Come on, Jack," Daniel called. "No one gets-"

  "Ah!" Jack cut him off with a sharp lift of his hand and started crunching across the floor toward the doors. "Just... don't. Okay? Don't say it."

  Councilor Tamar Damaris stared at the paper in her shaking hands. The words seemed to slide together in a dance as impossible as the meaning of this message. "The Kaw'ree?" she whispered. "All of them?"

  "Yes, Councilor." Her aide, Matan Tal, struggled for words. "The sheh fet is... It is destroyed. All across the city, the arches are dead. They are... The people are in a panic, rumors are spreading of the Mahr'bal. Of an invasion!"

  "Impossible." But it was before her in black and white. And suddenly the truth crystallized, like frost on a winter's morning "So this is their plan. The Tauri have been in league with the Mahr'bal all along. This is why they have attacked our Stargate, why they sent their `explorers' here in the first place. It is a Mahr'bal plot to destroy us!"

  Anger, bright and pure as diamond, ran through her veins. It hardened everything it touched, silenced every remaining voice of reason. "They will not succeed." She skewered Matan Tal with a fierce stare. "Send everything we have to Tsapan. Destroy them - destroy the whole city if necessary, but do not allow a single Mahr'bal or Tauri to escape with their life. Afterward, send our people to the Cordon. The Mahr'bal will pay for this incursion; they will pay with their lives and with the lives of their children." She let the report fall to her desk. "From this moment, we are at war. And it will be the final war. The war that ends all wars."

  The attack had started at daybreak, flight after flight of Kinahhi ships, battering the city until it fell to its knees. If it had knees, Jack thought sourly, as he picked his way through the junk heap that had once been an elegant plaza. All around him scattered a ragtag army of Arxanti, disaffected Kinahhi and half-crazed Outcast. Hungry, frightened and losing hope. If they didn't find a way out of here soon...

  "Colonel O'Neill?" It was Kenna, coming to trudge at his side. "I believe we have no option but to seize another transport from the military. The one in which we arrived is not armed, and will not hold all our number."

  Not if you counted the Outcast. He glanced over at Carter, walking with her familiar long-legged swagger, surrounded by the skeletal creatures. She was almost as pale as them, but looked more herself now that the mark of the sheh fet was fading from her skin. No one gets left behind. Not even the dehumanized victims of the sheh fet, according to Carter.

  So what about inhuman sons of bitches whose ambition and greed overcame any sense of decency or loyalty to Earth? Did they get left behind, or did honor-

  "Colonel?"

  "Yeah," Jack pulled his thoughts back on track. "You're right. Any ideas?"

  Kenna nodded. "The central landing platform is not far. But it will be well guarded."

  "Figures." Jack squinted up into the early morning light. "If we wait for dark we could-"

  A deafening explosion, harsh as cracking rock, tore through the city. "Holy crap!" Then the shockwave hit, rippling upward, shattering windows and shaking buildings until they sagged on their foundations, cascading rubble like shrapnel. "Find cover!" Jack yelled. "Get out of-"

  They were falling. The whole city was falling, like an elevator with its cables cut. Jack hauled himself to his feet, looking for his team. Daniel and Teal'c were to his left, hugging the ground, and Carter was shouting, "Sir, I think they blew the antigrav-"

  The elevator hit the ocean. Jack smashed into the floor, landing hard on his shoulder, bounced up again, then slammed down on his knee with a purple burst of pa
in, cursing. Loudly.

  "Jack!" Daniel shouted, staring up in horror. "Oh my G-"

  The colossal wave thundered down like vengeance itself. Freezing cold and relentless. Over and over Jack went, tossed like flotsam, dragged through the debris that smashed at his head and body and limbs. He gasped for breath, was thrown sideways, breached the surface again, and saw a claw of brickwork reaching up above the water. He grabbed it, hanging on for dear life while the wave tore at his clothing, trying to drag down into the depths of the violently swaying city as it drained away like water in a tub.

  "O'Neill?" Teal'c was standing up shakily, dripping wet. "Daniel Jackson?"

  "Over here." Jack climbed down, landing with a painful jolt to his knee. The ground pitched and rolled, making it hard to stay upright. He scanned the ruins, still streaming with water, and saw Daniel struggling to his feet close to the edge of the plaza. He'd lost his glasses and was swiping the water from his face, squinting at the Arxanti, who were scattered like flotsam. Their number was desperately reduced. Nearby, Kenna was helping his boy to his feet, drying the kid's face with a tenderness that tightened Jack's chest painfully. He had to look away.

  Carter made her way toward them, stumbling as the ground swayed, surrounded by a handful of Outcast. All that were left? Had everyone else been washed away?

  "Sir." Water streamed from her hair, plastering it to her head. "They must have hit the anti-gray generator, we-"

  An aftershock rippled through the city. Jack froze, eyes locked with Carter's, holding his breath. And then, with a scream of tortured metal and stone, the entire city listed sharply to one side, sending junk and people alike sliding toward the edge of the plaza.

  "Hang on!" Jack lunged for an empty window frame as rocks, debris and water tumbled past, bounced off the walls around the plaza and plummeted into the city below.

  "Ah, guys?" Daniel was clinging to the side of parapet, surrounded by the small, frightened crowd of Arxanti. "I think we're in trouble."

  Clambering across the suddenly steep slope, Jack, Teal'c and Carter joined their friend and peered over the edge of the low wall.