by Stargate
But how could he do that if people were dying? Jack hadn’t…
Without conscious volition, prompted by four years of training with Jack, and Teal’c, and Sam, and Hammond, with everyone who’d done their damndest to drum some military pragmatism into him, he pulled out the communicator and shoved it into his bowl of uneaten slops. It sank to the bottom without a trace. Then he shoved the bowl away with his foot, into a collection of other slop-filled bowls.
Nobody noticed, not even Sallah. And nobody could connect that bowl to him, now. Maybe, just maybe, he was safe. At least for a little while—provided Jack could convince whoever was shooting that he was here on his own. Until Jacob and Teal’c and maybe—hopefully—please God—Sam came to save them.
They had to be coming. They had to.
A Goa’uld’s voice sounded in the passageway, in the space between the cages. Mellifluous. Cadenced. Ripe with menace.
“I have O’Neill, Tauri SG-1. Now I want the rest of you! Surrender yourselves or I will kill these humans one by one until you obey my command or they are all dead!”
More dreadful silence. If Sam was here she was following orders. Daniel dithered. He should too, but the people… the children…
Then a shouting Jaffa, he couldn’t hear what was said. Taking a risk, having no choice, he eased his way to the front of the cage and stood off to one side, hiding most of his body, letting himself see just enough. Just a little bit, through the bars.
The Goa’uld’s First Prime Va’ton marched past the cage, dragging Jack with him.
Jack was limping, badly. Blood from a cut over his cheek-bone smeared his face. His eyes were wild and rage ruled every muscle: O’Neill on the warpath.
Their gazes met briefly, and then he was gone.
Shaken, sweating, cold to the bone, Daniel pushed his way back to the rear of the cage. Slid down the wall to the floor. Pulled his knees to his chest, crossed his arms over them and buried his face, so no-one would see.
Oh, God. Oh, God. I don’t know what to do. Sha’re, can you hear me, sweetheart? Tell me what to do…
Her’ur’s face in the long-range communication device was chilly and displeased.
“It is fortunate for you, Anatapas, that you have both a Tok’ra and a Tauri within your possession. If that were not the case you would be dead now, for breaking my treaty with Yu. It is also fortunate Yu’s grasp is weakening and he cannot afford to engage me in battle while he attempts to wrest back stolen territory from Ba’al.”
Anatapas shivered. “My god is merciful.”
“Your god wants to know of the booty you took from Yu.”
“Slaves, Heru’ur. The most beautiful bred in all of Yu’s empire. Adults, children and infants. The infants have been sent to your farm on Banto. They will know only your greatness.” He hesitated. Should he mention the five dead humans now cooling in their cage far below his feet? Doubtless Heru’ur would be angered by their loss. But he’d be more than angered if that truth was withheld.
Heru’ur said, “Tell me all, Anatapas. You know I will find out.”
“My god is truly omniscient,” he admitted, and got down on both knees. “It was necessary for me to kill five slaves in order to bring forth O’Neill from hiding. It might be necessary to kill more, so his evil companions can be unmasked.”
“No,” snapped Heru’ur. “I would have the use of these beautiful slaves. Find another way.”
Anatapas touched his forehead to the floor. Heru’ur was unpredictable. Appeasement, abasement: they were the only sure paths to success. “As my god commands. When will my god return to inspect his new property?”
“Soon.”
“And the Tok’ra, my lord?”
“Have you taken away its suicide pill?”
“Of course, my lord.”
“Hold it in close confinement, along with O’Neill and any other Tauri you uncover. But conduct no interrogations of them.” Heru’ur smiled. “That pleasure I reserve for myself.”
“Of course, Heru’ur. My lord…” He hesitated, then continued. “My lord, is it possible to send back one of your warships to help protect my fortress? We may be the victim of attack.”
“By whom? The Tok’ra? They do not rescue their own.” Heru’ur glowered. “And the Tauri do not know O’Neill is captured. Do they?”
Anatapas thought of the mysterious tel’tac that escaped from Panotek, that he’d neglected to mention to Heru’ur. If Heru’ur knew he’d been so careless…
He must keep that secret a little longer. “No, my lord,” he said faintly. “They cannot know.”
“Then why do you ask for a warship? Are you a coward, Anatapas? Incapable of serving me with competence?”
Heru’ur’s rage was palpable. “No, no, my lord,” Anatapas whispered. “I misspoke myself. We are in no danger. I serve you loyally and well. I am your truest believer.”
“Set extra Jaffa at the chappa’ai,” said Heru’ur, dismissive. “If you must fear your own shadow.”
“Yes, my lord. My lord is wise.”
“And slow to forgive,” said Heru’ur. “You would be wise too, remembering that.”
As if he could forget. Slowly, Anatapas straightened, daring to breathe again. “My lord, how goes the battle with Cronos?”
Heru’ur laughed. “How do you think? Am I not the greatest of all the system lords?”
“You are, Heru’ur. Our hearts hunger without you. We look to your coming.”
“It will not be long.”
And Heru’ur was gone.
Anatapas released a hard-held breath. He had to locate O’Neill’s companions. Success in that would protect him from previous mistakes.
A pity he could not use the other humans. Find another way. He would, and quickly. He had no intention of failing Heru’ur again.
As prison cells went he’d been in worse, O’Neill decided. True, this one was small and damned chilly. The single guttering torch shed some light, but no appreciable heat. Four stone walls, a stone floor, a stone ceiling, an unbreachable door and no windows, but at least the company was easy on the eyes. Leith—not Dedra, that was her hated Goa’uld name—looked to be about thirty in human years. Who knew how old she really was? Like every Tok’ra he’d ever met, barring Jacob, she was lusciously good-looking.
It was another thing the Tok’ra had in common with the Goa’uld, though you’d never get them to admit it. They liked nice clothes.
Oooh. Did he think clothes? He meant… hosts.
Leith said, sounding disinterested, “If it concerns you, Jacob managed to rescue his daughter.”
Thank God, thank God. Carter was safe. Just as important, it meant the SGC cavalry was coming. “It concerns me.”
“You should not have surrendered, O’Neill,” she added, mildly scolding.
“I had to. That snakehead bastard knew someone had spoken to you. And he was killing people. Killing children. He wasn’t going to stop until he got what he wanted. What did you expect me to do? Sit on my ass with my fingers crossed hoping he’d get bored and give up?”
Her eyes flashed, once. “And how many more will die, do you think, once the Goa’uld wring from you everything you know about Earth? About us? Your noble defence of those slaves will prove expensive.”
He didn’t quite repress his distaste. “Ah. Right. And who am I speaking with now?”
“That was Moradh,” said Leith. “My symbiote.”
“Yeah, well, you can tell Moradh I know how to keep my mouth shut,” he said emphatically. “Besides. We won’t have long to wait, dollars to donuts there’s a rescue mission on the way as we speak. All we have to do is sit tight and not panic.”
Do you hear me, Daniel? Sit tight and do not panic.
Leith looked at him, her eyes pitying. “O’Neill, every Tok’ra operative knows when he or she goes undercover… if something goes wrong we are on our own. The Tok’ra do not expend time or resources on hopeless attempts at rescue.”
“Yeah? Well, that
would be one of the many points on which our sides part company,” he retorted. “See, at the SGC we have this little saying. ‘Leave no man behind’. We borrowed it from the Rangers. Oh, and we changed it a bit—actually, what we say is ‘Leave no person behind’—Carter would kick my ass if I forgot to clarify that— and what it means, Leith, and Moradh if you’re eavesdropping, is that when you send your people into harm’s way you don’t leave them there when the crap hits the fan.”
“Another noble sentiment,” said Moradh, sounding snippy. “It would be interesting to know how many people have died while attempting these daring rescues. And how those rescued feel, having cost the lives of their friends.”
It was a sore point. “Hey. Ladies. It so happens I have been left behind and let me tell you, it sucks. I’ve also risked my life on rescue missions. We have another saying, see: What goes around, comes around. I save you, you save the next guy… it all comes out in the wash. Yeah. Sure. Sometimes a rescuer becomes a casualty and that sucks too. But we would rather take that risk than leave one of our own in a place like this. Call us crazy… but it’s a big part of being human.”
For a long time, neither Leith nor Moradh answered him. Then Leith said, very quietly, “For your sake, Colonel, I hope that is true. I hope your people do save you from Heru’ur.”
“Save us,” he said. “You Tok’ra may drive us little humans nuts but we’re not going to leave you here on the strength of it.”
“Colonel, by the time your people get here—if they get here—there will be no-one but yourself and your friend to rescue.”
“You’re talking suicide now?” he demanded. “Uh-uh. That is not going to happen. You are not going to chew on some damned cyanide pill or whatever it is you people use!”
“I know,” said Leith. “Anatapas found my capsule. But Moradh has devised another way.” A shadow of apprehension chased across her face. “It will not be… pleasant. But we have no choice. The Tok’ra must be protected.”
She was serious. Even though touchy-feely really wasn’t his thing, O’Neill grabbed both her hands and held them. They felt cold and fragile. “Leith. Moradh. Listen to me. We’re getting rescued. Okay, between now and then things might turn a bit ugly but who cares? We’ll survive it. The point is, we stay alive until my people get here. You got that? We stay alive.”
“You are overconfident, O’Neill. It is one of the Tauri’s greatest failings. What if Heru’ur implants you with a Goa’uld?” Gently, she withdrew her hands. “If you think you can survive that, human, you are sadly mistaken.”
Sudden flashback, wickedly unwelcome. Hathor’s larval Goa’uld, trying to take him over. Scrabbling around inside his body, wrapping itself around his spine. Pain like being shot in slow motion. The snake’s mind battering at him, like he was a locked door and it was trying to break in. But it had never taken a host before; it wasn’t certain what to do. All instinct, no finesse.
“You see?” said Leith, watching his face. “There are worse things than dying.”
An icy sweat slicked the skin between his shoulder blades. “Have they got any Goa’uld symbiotes here?”
She shook her head. “None that are ready to take a host. But Heru’ur can find one.”
“Yeah, well, Heru’ur’s not around, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record we are getting rescued. There is no call for anyone to be committing suicide!”
“I can kill you, if you’d like,” she said, ignoring him. “It will be quick. Painless. Death will ensure you are neither turned into a Goa’uld nor tortured until you reveal all you can about the Tauri and the Tok’ra.”
O’Neill shuffled away from her, quick damn smart. “Are you out of your mind?”
Now her expression was brooding. “Perhaps I should kill you whether you want me to or not. There is much at stake for the Tok’ra and I have a duty to protect us. Even from our allies.”
He held up a warning finger. “You stay the hell away from me! I have no intention of dying here.”
She fell silent, abstracted in the way that he’d come to recognise in Jacob meant host and symbiote were having a private conversation.
He thought perhaps he was having another very bad dream. If his damned knee wasn’t killing him, he’d be tempted to believe it. But the pain was real, and this was real, and not for the first time he found himself thinking:
So, Jack, was retirement really that bad?
Leith stirred. Looking outwards again she said, “Moradh refuses to have any part in killing you. She doesn’t like you but she says the choice must be yours to make.”
“Moradh doesn’t like me?” O’Neill echoed. “Well, color me surprised. And tell her the feeling’s mutual.” He bared his teeth in a smile. “Ooops. I forgot. I just told her myself.”
Leith didn’t reply. Her eyes rolled back so that only white slivers of cornea were visible. Her mouth dropped open, and he saw that all her mucous membranes had flushed a dark red. She began to tremble, then convulse. Frothy saliva dripped from her lips. Blood trickled from her nostrils; thinly at first, and then like a river in springmelt spate. She slid slowly sideways to the floor to thrash and jerk and flail on the flagstones like a suffocating fish.
“Leith!” he shouted. “Goddammit, don’t do this! Stop! We’ll get out of here, we’ll be okay, don’t do this! Please!”
But Leith was far beyond hearing him. There was nothing he could do but watch.
It took her—them— ten dreadful minutes to die. In the end the blood poured from every orifice, as though Leith’s insides had turned to slush. As though she’d been cursed with Ebola. Her eyes flashed and faded, flashed and faded, like a Maglite with a dodgy battery.
It was a filthy, filthy way to go.
When it was over, and at last she lay still, he took off his shirt and covered her face.
It was a long cold night… and he slept through none of it.
Anatapas’s Jaffa woke the slaves just after dawn, shouting and shooting their staff weapons into the air. Daniel sat up, startled out of the almost-sleep he’d fallen into barely two hours earlier. He had to shake Sallah awake; the poor little thing was drugged with exhaustion.
The cage was rank with the stench of unwashed flesh and the desperate relievings of human waste in one corner. They’d not even been provided with buckets. On the faces of his fellow captives Daniel saw, as though pressed into damp clay with vicious fingers, the marks of suffering and misery and despair.
Compared to this place, Yu’s slave farm had been a paradise.
“What’s happening, David?” Sallah whispered, her fingers like limpets around his hand. Why she’d latched onto him he didn’t know. There were other adults locked in here that she’d grown up with but somehow, for reasons only she could understand, she felt safest with him. It was a toss-up whether he was touched by that, or driven to the edge of tears.
No, actually; it was both.
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” he whispered back. “Now hush. Don’t give the Jaffa a reason to notice us.”
Eyes wide and dull with fear she nodded, and fell silent.
A short time after waking them, the Jaffa opened the cage doors and herded all the stolen humans outside. Back up the long stone staircases and into the fortress courtyard where the al’kesh had disgorged them the day before. No al’kesh now, just hordes of Jaffa in a ring and bristling activated staff weapons. No hope of escape, even if he could bring himself to leave without Jack… and Sam, if she was here. He looked and he looked but he couldn’t see her.
He couldn’t see Boaz or Mikah, either. He felt his guts tighten. Did it mean all three were dead? Or had they escaped, back on the farm?
Please, God. Let them have escaped.
The Goa’uld Anatapas was waiting for them. Dressed this morning in silks of indigo and emerald and dark blood red, he stood on a dais of inlaid mother-of-pearl. His right hand and fingers were encased in delicate gold, with crystals embedded where fingernails would be; a variation on
the ribbon-device technology he hadn’t seen before.
Daniel felt his skin tighten, crawling. Something very bad was coming…
The last of the stolen slaves were hustled and bullied and chivvied into place. He made sure he kept to the back of the crowd, with Sallah passed on to some other kind adult. Just in case things turned ugly and he was the target. As they waited he looked again for Sam. No luck. Still no Boaz and Mikah, either. He allowed himself to feel a flicker of hope.
The silence was unnatural. No dawn chorus of birds. Not even a whimper from the gathered humans. The morning air was cool and moist. Daniel breathed deeply, subduing fear, and waited to see what would happen.
The Jaffa Va’ton came up from beneath the fortress and into the courtyard. He wasn’t alone. Jack shuffled with him, still favoring that knee, bare to the waist and chained at wrist and ankle.
He looked… old. As though he’d aged ten years overnight. Beneath dirt and stubble his face was haggard, carved with deep lines of grim endurance. It was a worse face even than he’d worn after days and nights of brutal toil in the spent naquadah mine on Shyla’s planet. Worse than his face as he returned from Euronda and condemned Alar to death.
Daniel felt his breath catch in his throat.
Va’ton guided Jack to the dais and pressed on his shoulder till his knees buckled and he was on the ground.
“You’re wasting your time, Anatapas,” Jack said, breathing hard. “I’m here alone.”
Anatapas gave him a single, gloating look then gazed at the crowded humans before him. “Daniel Jackson. Samantha Carter. One or both of you stands before me. Surrender now. Or I will make your friend here suffer in ways none of you humans can imagine.”