by Stargate
She closed her eyes and let the cool embrace of the Stargate sweep her away. She did not have the courage to look back again.
GATE TEN
Boundless In Courage
am pounded her face and body. Sam halted behind the men on a water-slicked slab of rock which was patchily covered in sand. Gusting wind buffeted hard drops of rain in sweeping curtains, blending with the surf that crashed onto the wide beach in front of them.
She stood with the others in the battering elements, trying to reconcile what had just happened. One minute they were talking to Hammond as if it were just another mission report and now-now, they were as far from home as ever, that fleeting moment of safety just an intangible and surreal memory.
The colonel shook his head and turned his face into the wind and rain. He looked down at the Tacs in his hands, instinctively grabbed on the run to the Stargate. He stowed them in his BDU pockets and looked around.
Teal'c was searching for the moon-clock but Sam stared back through the Stargate, trying to keep hold of that connection to the SGC and family, now severed and scattered upon the winds. She shook herself and kicked her brain back into gear. Cold rain slid down her neck, making her shiver. She looked for Daniel, found him standing where the platform disappeared under encroaching sands, still breathing hard from their short run. He glanced over briefly, his face streaked with water underneath his sodden boonie.
Daniel gestured at the sand by his feet and yelled into the wind. "Jack, I don't think we're alone here."
What he pointed to was a pile of oval shells, crustaceans of some kind, cracked apart and empty of their contents. He knelt and carefully extracted a wedge-shaped sliver of stone from the mound. Holding it up, he ran a finger down its chipped and worn edges.
"It's a tool, fashioned for a specific purpose."
The colonel nodded and peered past Daniel along the beach. Unbroken coastline stretched away in both directions until lost in the obscuring rain. Inshore, scrubby, weather-hardened bushes formed a dense barrier. The land was flat with only a hint of faraway cliffs, glimpsed through shifting sheets of rain.
"Any idea if it's Goa'uld?"
"It could be, someone stranded here with no sophisticated technology perhaps, or it could just be a native life-form. People have been using tools like these for hundreds of thousands of years." Daniel shrugged and slipped the stone into a pocket.
"We have only seven hours, fourteen minutes here, O'Neill," Teal'c called over the thunderous crash of surf.
Sam hunched a little in her already soaked uniform, water cascading off the bill of her cap. "Sir, I saw what could have been a planetary shield come on just before I went through the Stargate. Martouf may not have been able to land. Do you think the SGC will find us again?"
"Carter, I'm sure they will. They managed to track us down once, they'll do it again."
"Yes, sir."
"Why don't you dial home, let them know we're all here safely."
"Sir."
Sam walked over to the DUD where sand lay in drifts at its base and dialed up Earth's address; once, twice, four times the chevrons lit up and sent a message across space that four lost travelers were alive and well.
They headed out along the beach, direction unknown, as this world's sun remained hidden behind thick gray clouds. Compacted by the rain, the sand was easy enough to walk on. The thick weave of their uniforms kept in precious body heat and ponchos kept off a certain amount of rain. After ten minutes of drenching, the rain slowly eased to a scattered drizzle. The wind continued its gusty howl, catching in caps and ponchos with tiresome regularity until Sam and the colonel dug out their little-used boonies and yanked them on securely. Daniel had the string on his boonie done up so tightly, she wondered it wasn't strangling him. Teal'c blithely ignored the drips running off his scalp and down his neck.
"You know," she said, "I've been thinking about that bounty the Goa'uld have offered for our capture. Aris Boch was going to hand us over to Sokar who, if Dad's information was right, would have delivered us to MR-779, expecting to claim the bounty as Miseanu was going to. Why send us there? Why not parade us in front of the System Lords, make an example out of us?"
"Are you suggesting that it was one specific Goa'uld who wanted us captured, rather than the System Lords in general, Major Carter?" Teal'c asked.
"Well, I'm sure a number of Goa'uld want us caught, Apophis for one. But he's been dead-we presume-for months now and yet we've only heard about this bounty recently. It can't be something he initiated and it doesn't seem feasible that the System Lords would want us sent somewhere so isolated and unknown."
"So, what...? How many folks in Goa'uld-town would have known about Ra's little setup here?" Colonel O'Neill asked.
"Not many. Maybe someone close to Ra?" Daniel mused.
"That might be more likely," Sam said.
"Okay, then who are we talking about?" The colonel shook his boonie out and resettled it on his head.
"Ra was known for keeping apart from the other System Lords," Teal'c said. "His eminence within their hierarchy was paramount and he did not engage in their power plays. His favor was much sought after but seldom granted."
"So that would certainly limit the options. What about a wife? Did Ra have another consort after Hathor?" Daniel asked.
Teal'c was silent for a time. "The few times I was at Ra's court when Apophis was granted an audience, Ra had no-one at his side other than child attendants. The only likely consort I have heard of is Mat. She was once favored by Ra, but has not been spoken of for many years. His son, Sia, fell from his grace centuries ago."
"So, bottom line, we have no idea who set the bounty, but we could be looking at only one Goa'uld, instead of a whole group of them."
"Uh, yeah, I guess so, sir." Sam shrugged and moved ahead of the team.
Daniel, walking a few steps ahead of Jack, shortened his stride a little to accommodate the persistent ache in his left side. He didn't think it was anything more than another bruise, added to a collection that was becoming less easy to ignore. Hardly surprising. Some ninety-six hours out from the SGC now-running, sometimes literally, on catnaps and infrequent meals-they were all feeling the tiredness in muscles and bones. He looked out at the stormy sea and just kept plodding on.
"Daniel?" Jack came up beside him and gestured at the frayed rips in Daniel's pants. "How's the leg?"
Daniel tore his eyes off the pounding surf and looked over at Jack. "Oh, it's healing, I guess. A bit stiff and sore, but okay."
"Good. How are you holding up otherwise? That run back to the 'gate seemed a bit hard on you."
"No, no. Actually, I landed pretty hard when we came through, think I bruised a rib or something. I'm okay." Daniel's eyes held Jack's gaze for a moment, then flickered away.
"You'd tell me if it were anything worse?"
"Of course. You know I would. How are you doing, Jack?"
"My feet hurt. And don't get me started on the knees, the back, the neck..." Jack grimaced and turned to the others. "Carter, Teal'c, how're you both holding up?"
"Doing okay, sir," Sam replied, not glancing away from her position on point. "Knife wound is healing up and the rest, well, nothing a few hours in a Jacuzzi wouldn't fix."
"Amen to that, Major. Teal'c?"
The hesitation before Teal'c replied spoke volumes more than his actual words. "I am becoming aware of the consequences of carrying the Books of Djehuti, O'Neill."
"How so?"
"My symbiote is less active than usual. I do not feel I am in optimal condition. It is-most disturbing."
"About how less optimal condition are we talking?"
"Approximately eighty percent of my usual strength." Teal'c frowned and looked away.
"Ali. Well, I wouldn't sweat it just yet, T. Even fifty percent of you would equal a hundred percent of anyone else."
Teal'c crooked an eyebrow at the compliment.
"Teal'c, are you getting anything from the Books?" Daniel asked as
they splashed through a mini lake of rain and seawater.
Hesitating again, Teal'c reluctantly admitted, "I have found myself thinking of words and picturing writing of a kind I have never encountered before."
"Any idea what these words mean?" Jack prodded.
"No."
"Ah. Well, you let us know how that goes, won't you?"
It took a few moments for Jack and Sam to realize they were the only ones moving. Daniel and Teal'c had stopped, Teal'c staring at the sky while Daniel stared at him, astonishment quickly turning to indignation.
"It's not Goa'uld script? Or anything we've come across before? Not even the pictograms the Abydonians used centuries ago or the Furlings' script from Ernest's planet?"
"I do not believe so, Daniel Jackson."
"You know what this is. Don't you?" Disappointment filled Daniel as he realized exactly what the Books of Djehuti held. "Teal'c? How... I... I'm right, aren't I?"
"Right about what?" Sam asked as she and Jack walked back to them.
"The Books of Djehuti are revealing a language that I am unfamiliar with, one somehow connected to Ra and yet it is not the dialect of the Goa'uld."
Daniel backed away a few steps, frustration rising. "An entirely new language-that's what you wanted to protect me from?" He turned and stalked off along the beach.
"Daniel Jackson, I did not know this would be the result of my actions," Teal'c began.
Daniel wheeled about and strode back to him. "You should have trusted me."
"I will, of course, place any skill I gain at your disposal, Daniel Jackson."
Seeing the regret in his friend's eyes, Daniel gathered himself and deflated. "Of course you would, Teal'c. I'm sorry, I just... I'm so tired I'm not thinking straight." He gestured aimlessly and turned away, embarrassed at his outburst. He shrugged his pack into a more comfortable position and walked on past Jack and Sam.
He looked up at the gloomy gray clouds scudding by overhead, a tired grimace on his lips-and then the world tore apart with a searing flash of light and shriek of sound and he was falling into a maelstrom of stinging wet sand and blackness.
It was the rain that brought him awake again, cold rain pelting onto his unprotected face. Dark-had night fallen? He blinked, squinted, saw nothing.
Oh, no.
Blind. That old, insidious fear leapt out of the dark, strangling reason with primal fear.
Can't see.
He fumbled a wet and gritty hand to his face, but felt no injury. Glasses were gone. Was he lying down? Vertigo seized him and spun him in dizzying loops.
Clenching his teeth, he forced himself to calm. Big, slow gasps of air gave space for reason to return. He was lying on his belly, the weight of his pack pressing his chest into the sand. There had been a flash of light... oh no. A Goa'uld shock grenade? He lay still, listening with all his might. No voices or footsteps nearby. No sign the others were awake. Just wind, rain, and surf disintegrating on the shore.
Eventually he couldn't bear the silence any more.
"Jack?"
He rolled over on his side, new aches making themselves known.
"Teal' c?"
He pushed himself to sit up, his pack making him list to one side. He put out a steadying hand and found his fingers curling around familiar thin, metal frames, so welcome yet so useless now.
"Sam?"
He fumbled in his BDU pockets and pulled out the pen light. He switched it on and squinted for all he was worth to see even a glimmer of light. Nothing. He shook it, turned the switch on and off until he'd lost track of the clicks. Maybe it was broken. Maybe he really was blind. Maybe not.
Daniel sat on the wet sand, isolated in darkness and silence, surrounded by the roar of nature, resigned to waiting for the light to return.
Sam became aware of the world once more but it seemed to have been turned on end. Her hips and legs were immobile, wrapped in something strong, yet her head and arms dangled free. Everything was dark, confused. Slowly her brain sorted itself out and-oh boy. She was hanging upside down, draped over the bony and... furry shoulder of something that jolted the breath out of her with every lumbering step.
She strained to listen for signs of the others, in pursuit or captive also, but there was nothing beyond the howl of winddriven rain, harsh breathing and the thump of very big feet.
Too disadvantaged to do anything while blind, Sam hung limply, playing possum until fortune favored her once more.
Consciousness returned to him in a sudden jolt. He lay face up; pack gone, wet darkness pressing down on him. He opened his eyes and found only more darkness, vision stolen by a Goa'uld shock weapon.
Confident his sight would return in due time, he sat up, groping to either side but found no-one near. Sound seemed to echo oddly around him. He felt, somehow, that barriers stood close by. He reached out and knocked his knuckles against damp earth. Kneeling, he ran his hand up until he could reach no more, then down to the ground. It felt rough though free of protrusions. He moved to one side, all too quickly coming to a right-angle. The same rough earth followed on to another corner, then another. Four sides: each no more than seven feet long. A pit, a prison, a trap. Within the earth.
Teal'c lifted his face to the rain pouring onto him and stood, feet sloshing in puddles. He stretched and strained, but could not reach beyond the flat slippery walls.
The first faint sense of lighter darkness gradually gave way to a stronger gray haze. Impatiently blinking, Daniel squinted and strained his eyes, desperate for some sign of the others. He fumbled out a tissue to clean the muck from his glasses but smeared as the lenses were, they hindered more than helped. He tucked them away safely and rose to his knees.
Still on the beach.
He caught a flash of white out of the corner of his eye. Blinking furiously, he jerked around but couldn't make out anything tangible. He froze for over a minute, heart pounding, fingers clenching in the wet sand beneath him. Nothing moved. Finally, he relaxed a little and peered around.
The rain was easing again, shapes becoming clearer. No sign of Goa'uld, Jaffa, anyone. Weird. Nothing moved other than water; slipping out of the sky, sliding up the beach, crashing down in thunderous waves.
He turned in circles again, desperation starting to kick in.
There.
Half hidden by a pile of sand, a still form lay-arms and legs out flung. BDUs made it nearly impossible to discern the features, but Daniel knew who it was.
"Jack!"
Daniel scrambled over the churned-up sand, tripping and falling into holes, brain inanely remarking how well the camouflage of their uniforms actually worked. He dropped to his knees by Jack's side and shed the wretched pack from his shoulders. "Jack?"
His eyesight was still blurred, the rain running into his eyes not helping. He stared at Jack, who lay with his face turned away. So still, so utterly... unmoving. Daniel felt time seize and slow around him. He wanted to reach out, touch Jack, believe the warm pulse of life was beating in his friend's veins, but-no-don't touch because if you do then it will be real.
"Jack." His voice was a strangled whisper, his heart a thudding monster. "Please.... ..
Jack's chest did not move. Nothing moved. Even the wind and rain seemed to pause between one moment and the next.
"No. "
There were a hundred things he should do, but he was frozen, as dead inside as....
"JACK!" Fear lent his voice a thready strength.
And Jack sighed, shifted and woke.
Time clicked back on, rain resumed falling, and Daniel began to breathe. Giddy unreality whooshed from his lungs and he leant over Jack. "Jack, it's Daniel. You okay?"
"Whoa, what happened?"
"Goa'uld shock grenade, I think. I can't see Sam and Teal'c anywhere."
"I can't see at all."
"You must have been closer to the blast. I've been awake for awhile."
"Hostiles?"
"No, there's no-one. We're still on the beach."
&nbs
p; "Damn. Help me up."
Daniel pulled Jack up to sit next to him.
"Are you injured, Daniel?"
"No. I'm... good. I thought...."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"How long have we been out?"
"Oh. Uh oh. Two hours, ten minutes since we gated in."
"Two hours? Damn. Gives us five hours to find the others and get out."
"Yeah."
Jack slumped and leant his shoulder against Daniel's, his weight a solid and comforting presence.
Within ten minutes Jack's vision had returned and they were prowling the beach, finding disturbing evidence of their attackers.
"That's not human," stated Daniel, staring at the imprint in the sand: ten inches long, six inches wide, four round toes over a central pad.
"May not be an animal either, only two prints per track."
"Jack, there's another set over here." Daniel was five meters away, circling a patch of trampled sand. "And," he bent and pulled a number of dirty, wet objects from the sand, "Sam's pack and guns and knife."
"Damn. Think it's an Unas?"
Daniel frowned, thinking back to the two creatures they had previously met. `No. They had long claws on their feet. I don't think they were retractable, either."
They followed the two sets of tracks up the beach to the fore dunes. As short, spiky clumps of grass began to poke through the sand, the tracks diverged, one heading inland, the other paralleling the shore. Here, they also found Teal'c's staff weapon and pack, the clips broken by some considerable force. Of Teal'c and Sam, there was no sign.
Jack hunkered down in the straggly grass and considered their options. "Whatever these things are, I think they've got Carter and Teal'c."
"That's a pretty big creature, to be able to carry Teal'c off." Daniel stood facing out to sea. The rain had eased again and there looked to be a break in the weather. Further back along the beach, the Stargate glistened in a random shaft of sunlight.