Daniel eased around the guard and began entering symbols. Each solid chunk of the sequence eased just a tiny bit of tension in Jack's spine.
They were going to get out of this after all, and leave it for Hammond to fix whatever diplomatic valve they blew. Good in theory....
... until it all went to hell.
"Colonel O'Neill!" Teal'c yelled, a full-throated cry of warning, and the Jaffa's staff weapon fired with a shockingly loud burst. Whether they'd been looking for a fight or not, they were in one now; Jack instantly shifted his grip on the MP5 and slammed the butt around to connect with Acton's head. Acton went flying. Dammit, we're outnumbered, I don't want to kill these people...
He spun to assess the situation, just as Teal'c took a step back, firing over the heads of advancing security guards. Something happened Jack couldn't actually see; Teal'c went down in a haze of crawling blue sparks. Daniel stopped dialing and ducked for cover. Captain Carter leaped like a panther to Teal'c's side and let loose a rattling burst of auto fire - still aiming over the heads of the massing guards. Jack did the same, covering their six, and backed up to grab Daniel by the back of the shirt and drag him upright. "Dial!" he barked.
Daniel gave him a white-faced, anxious look and slapped a symbol with more than necessary force. There were five lit up so far. Two more...
Something hit Jack in the back, hard, and spread over him in a red convulsing haze. He heard Daniel yell his name, and then he was down with no sense of impact. The stone was hot under his cheek, but he couldn't move. Paralyzed. Dammit. A hit to the spine?
Daniel went for his holstered Beretta. Too slow. Clumsy. Needed more training...
Not that it would have helped. They swarmed him like ants and brought him down on the ground, next to Jack.
Jack had an ant's-eye view of sandals trampling past him. Acton was talking in a sharp, angry voice to the rest of the town council. That's it, talk it over he thought. The paralysis was temporary. Had to be temporary. He'd get movement back, and then he'd kick some bony Greek ass, no question about it. The stone felt warm and gritty under his cheek, and he saw a trickle of blood flow past his left eye. His own? Carter's? Teal'c's? It was just a trickle, not a flood, but it was very, very red.
The argument ended with some flat pronouncement from Acton. Dammit, Daniel, I need to know what's happening, a little translation would be good... Of course, Daniel must have thought he was unconscious. From time to time he heard Daniel's voice rising and falling, spiked with anger but unnaturally even, as if he was making a huge effort to be reasonable when all he wanted was to strangle somebody with their own guts.
One of the guards stepped in at a curt word from Acton, and, by the sound of it, slammed the heavy metal-clad butt of his spear against Daniel's face.
That ended the conversation.
Jack listened to the percussive sound of symbols being entered into the DHD. Seven symbols. Then the explosion of the wormhole forming.
The sun, warm and golden, beat down on his back like a giant hand, holding him still. He saw movement from the comer of his eye; black drifting veils brushed the stone next to him, and then somebody was tugging Jack's numbed body up by the collar of his BDU shirt.
Acton. He had something in his hands... a round silver mesh circle with a white stone in front. He touched the stone, and the circle opened.
He wrapped it around Jack's neck and fitted it together. Some kind of words that sounded formal. No, thanks, it really doesn't go with my outfit, Jack's brain babbled, at the same time the practical side of him was firing off questions about what this was, what it did, and why the hell hadn't he shot this damn bastard when he'd had the chance...
He felt the silver collar click together, and something cold shot through his body. The mesh constricted like a living thing, tight against his throat. He wanted to gag, but couldn't even do that.
Acton looked briefly into his eyes, and for a second Jack thought he saw something that might have been pity. Then Acton stepped back and ceremoniously covered his eyes with his hands, in a notseeing gesture. The floor lunged up at Jack as the guys holding him dropped him. Rustles and clicks told him that the same ritual was being repeated with Daniel, Carter and Teal'c. Daniel was the only one able to resist, but that didn't seem to make any difference.
Apparently, everybody who visited Chalcis got a free Goa'uld souvenir...
Hard hands grabbed Jacks arms, flipped him over, and towed him painfully up the steps. All he could see were the foreshortened faces of two security guards, looking pissed off at the effort of lugging him, and the harsh golden sun staring down.
Then the shimmer of the Stargate.
Then nothing.
he next thing Jack knew, he was in pain. Yep. Pain. Lots of it. Sharp spikes all up and down his body, an ankle that felt like it might as well have been chopped off with a dull axe, and a throbbing headache.
He tried to sit up, but something was holding him down. Daniel's hand, flat against his chest.
Jack opened his eyes, blinked, and brought the world into focus. First, a dim, dusty kind of sunlight, the wrong color, shading toward blue. Second, a cold dry wind loaded with sand that stung his exposed skin and made him involuntarily squint against it.
Third, the look on Daniel's face, which was somewhere between terror and relief.
"Jack?"
"Daniel?" He looked pointedly at the hand pushing him flat.
Daniel removed it and slumped back into a sitting position. He looked battered, but intact. The bruise turning purple along his cheek and forehead was going to be a real beauty. "I don't think you should sit up yet. You took a hell of a hit."
"Yeah, yeah." Jack not only sat up, he kept going. Daniel made ineffective don't-do-that motions as Jack rolled to his feet - creaky, infinitely slow, but still mobile. He got vertical with a sense of grim triumph, which eroded some when he tried to put his weight on his gimpy left ankle. Crap. Felt like somebody had taken a hammer and shattered his bones into ground glass. "Carter? Teal'c?"
"Here, sir," Carter said from behind him. She was sitting down, leaning against what looked like a ruined stone wall. Pale as milk, with a drying smear of blood on her cheek. "We're both fine, sir. Teal'c's having a look around."
Not a bad idea. Jack followed suit with a quick comprehensive scan of the immediate area. One big circular Stargate, and steps they'd probably tumbled down, which would account for all the bruises and sprains. One DHD, sitting off to the side.
His gaze swept it, stopped, and came back to contemplate it further.
"Captain Carter?"
"Sir?"
"I'm no scientist, but shouldn't we be, oh, dialing out of here? Right now?"
Carter didn't move. Her voice was weary. "Yes sir. It looks like somebody removed some of the control mechanism, probably a crystal of some kind. It's not broken, just disabled. I had a look around, but if the missing part's here, it's hidden. Without it, the Stargate won't dial."
"Peachy," Jack said. He kept going on the visual survey. Not a lot to see - they were in some kind of an open courtyard, like the airport concourse back on Chalcis, only this one was destroyed. Tiles broken and buckled, walls tumbling into heaps, wind dragging grit around in aimless drifts. "Daniel, what the hell just happened?"
"I don't know." The younger man sounded discouraged, not to mention tired and depressed. "Jack, I'm sorry, I had no idea they were going to attack us. Acton told his people to deal with us. But I thought he meant dealing as in trading with us, not - "
"Daniel, you really need to take a class in political doublespeak. Could come in handy if we ever get out of this alive." He tried putting his full weight on his ankle and couldn't control a full-body flinch at the immediate wave of protest. The ankle folded.
"Sir?" Carter was immediately at his side. "How bad is it?"
"I'm fine, Carter." He shook off her support and tried to focus on something else besides the sickening throbs of pain. His neck itched. When he tried to scratch it, his
fingers banged into slick silver mesh, and memory flooded back. Silver mesh around his throat, some kind of white stone at the front. A sensation of choking. Doesn't go with my outfit. He got his fingers under the silver mesh and pulled. He tried pressing on the stone, the way he'd seen Acton do. Nothing. "Okay, somebody want to fill me in about the jewelry?" Because now that he looked, they all had them. Identical matching accessories.
"We can't get them off," Daniel said. "We've been trying."
"Oh, there's always a way."
"Okay," Daniel amended blandly. "There's no way without taking our heads off, which is, forgive me for saying so, a little counterproductive."
"They went on. They'll come - " Jack's fingers stretched and strained, and the mesh seemed to constrict around his throat like a living thing. He choked. " - offs'
"Sir, maybe you should rest for a minute," Carter said.
Actually, his knees were feeling a little unstable. He grunted, hobbled a couple of steps and put his weight against the wall Carter had used for a backrest. It didn't feel too strong, but it would do. Jack slid down and stretched out his leg with a suppressed hiss.
"Jack?" Daniel's eyebrows had drawn tight together. "No offense, but you don't exactly look fine."
"Never been better. Captain? How are your first aid skills?"
"Depends on if it's sprained, broken or needs amputation, sir." Not that Carter looked to be any prize herself in the health sweepstakes; he kept sweeping her with looks, trying to see where the blood on her face had come from. No visible wounds. She crouched at his side with the kit and manipulated his ankle with ruthless disregard for the sounds of protest he made. Daniel stood watching, arms crossed, frowning tensely.
"Not broken, sir," she finally said. "You should probably keep the boot on, otherwise the swelling's going to be worse. Best I can do is anti-inflammatories and pain pills, and you should try to stay off of it.,,
"Which is, oh, not gonna happen, Captain." She was digging through the kit. "Just the anti-inflammatories. I'll dope up once we're back home."
"Yes, sir." She passed them over, along with her canteen. He downed them and passed the water back. "We have enough food for a couple of weeks, but we're going to need fresh water within the next two days. So far, there's no sign of life around here, no vegetation, no nothing. Just ruins, sir."
"Um..." Daniel shifted his weight anxiously. "That's not... exactly true. I found footprints over there, in the sand. I think they're from the people we saw being sent through the Stargate earlier. I don't think we're -
He was cut off by the thick metallic sound of the Stargate activating. One chevron lit up, then two. Jack motioned for Carter to help him up, and the three of them retreated to the relative cover of the sagging wall.
Jack reached for the radio on his tac vest and clicked it on. "Teal'c."
"I am here," Teal'c's voice came through his earpiece. "I have located some temporary shelter, O'Neill."
"Great. Get back here on the double."
Three chevrons. Five. Seven.
Ka-whoosh. The plasma flume swept out, then snapped back to stasis.
Daniel's head was exposed to whatever fire might be coming out of the Gate; Jack grabbed his collar and yanked him down, pulled the M9 pistol from Daniel's holster and pressed it into his hands, and gave him an imperative finger-to-lips signal for silence when he opened his mouth.
Then he peeked over the wall, squinting against the blowing grit, and saw two people step out of the Stargate, hand in hand. Nobody carrying staff weapons, or anything that looked like trouble - dressed in those flowing black robes again, with black veils over their faces. They were terrified, clinging together for support. They stumbled down the stairs and huddled together, whipped by the gritty wind, as others followed them out. Jack counted as they emerged - ten in all. The wormhole bubble snapped, and as one, all of them turned to stare at it. Somebody cried out, and two dashed back up the steps as if they could dive back through the empty circle.
One tall figure dragged the black veil from his head. An older man, bearded, with his curling shoulder-length gray hair worked with beads and shells. Fierce as a hawk.
"You dishonor us!" he snapped, and grabbed two of the most panicked of the party, shaking them hard. They calmed down immediately. "Would you have the others see us in such fear? Have you no pride? You carry the honor of your people! Unveil yourselves. Let the gods see you."
One by one, they did, dragging the black veils off of their heads. Apart from Grandpa Preacher, they were all young. Some were barely more than kids. Six men, four women. No packs, no food, no weapons.
Each had a thick silver mesh collar around their throat, white stones in front, just like SG-1.
"He says - " Daniel began.
"I heard him," Jack interrupted, and only then did it hit him that he had understood what the old man had said. As if the man had been speaking modem English.
Huh.
He looked to Daniel for an explanation...
...only to find Teal'c crouched next to him. He hadn't even heard the Jaffa approach. Damn, the man could give shadows a lesson in stealth.
Daniel, on the other hand, hadn't relied on stealth, just quickness. Jack threw out a hand - too late - and then Daniel was around the wall and approaching the new arrivals, hands held passively at his sides.
Great. Jack braced his elbows on the wall and sighted his MP5 on Grandpa Preacher, heard the dry metal rattle as Carter followed suit a bare half-second later.
Carter groaned softly. "Does he always do this?" she asked.
"Yep. Remember Chulak?"
She sent him a wide blue-eyed look. "Should I go after him, Colonel?"
"No. No, he may be crazy, but he knows what he's doing. Hold your position." Teal'c's warm body was next to Jack's, standing tall, his staff weapon held in firing position at shoulder height. "Teal'c. We've got it covered."
Teal'c slowly lowered his weapon and grounded the butt in the sand. He looked impassive, except for his eyes, intensely focused.
"Big guy?" Jack tugged on the man's BDU shirt. "You want to present a big easy target, join the Marines. In the Air Force, we duck."
The Jaffa reluctantly bent his knees.
"Hello," Daniel was saying, in his warmest voice. Hands relaxed at his sides. "Hi. My name is Daniel Jackson, I'm part of a group called SG1, don't be afraid, we're not your enemies -"
After the first instinctive recoil, the newcomers hesitantly stepped forward, gathering around him, spoiling any possible line of fire. Even Grandpa Preacher, though frowning and crossing his arms over his chest, looked interested. He stepped forward into the center of the little knot of people and said, "You are not of Helos."
"Well, no, we're not. We're peaceful explorers - "
"You are sent as tribute from another world?"
"Tribute? Ah... "
"You wear the mark ofArtemis. Do your people worship her?"
"No, I wouldn't exactly say worship..." Daniel was struggling. "Forgive me, but I think it's very strange that we understand each other. That we're speaking the same language."
Grandpa evidently had no idea what he was talking about. "You speak our language well enough."
"Okay, but see, you seem to be speaking mine..."
There ensued a tennis match of an argument about who was speaking what, which the other nine members of Grandpa's party watched with bright-eyed interest.
"Sir?" Carter asked. She hadn't moved, hadn't taken her focus off of Daniel's six. Iron concentration. Jack approved. "I could be wrong, but they don't seem all that dangerous."
"Yeah, getting that." He hesitated another second, then straightened up and took the MP5 to a neutral position, sliding the selector switch into safe mode. "Let's join the party, Captain. Teal'c, come with."
Jack limped out from behind cover, Carter and Teal'c at his shoulders, and a few of the newcomers shrieked and ran away. Daniel chattered on, earnestly trying to convince the rest of them there wasn't any danger.
Grandpa Preacher wasn't one of those who panicked, Jack noticed. Neither did a young man, maybe 18, max, who pushed a younger girl behind him and stood his ground.
"Jack," Daniel greeted him, as brightly as if he hadn't just disobeyed, oh, just about every order Jack had given him. "This is Alsiros..." Grandpa Preacher. "And this is Pylades, and his sister Iphigenia." The 18-year-old and the younger girl. She was already peeking out from behind her brother, cute as a button, probably about sweet sixteen. Both had long brown hair, curling in glossy ringlets; both had big brown eyes and fine, delicate bone structure. On Pylades, it looked noble and refined, and subtly morphed into innocent beauty in Iphigenia.
Pylades gave SG-1 a stiff nod, clearly wary. He didn't let his sister come near them.
Daniel gestured vaguely at the rest of the milling black-robed people. "Sorry, didn't meet the rest yet."
"We'll do name tags. What's the story?" Jack rested his hands lightly on his MP5, watching Alsiros's deep-set eyes. Not trusting, either. He had the special glow of the fanatic to him.
"We were just getting to that. I'm still trying to figure out how he understands me... Alsiros? You understand my friend?"
"He speaks Greek." Alsiros sounded out of patience with the whole thing. "Why should I not understand him? Do you think I am so feeble?"
Daniel turned to Carter, face alight. She looked just as fascinated. "This is incredible," she said. "If he's speaking Greek but we hear it as English..."
"...then the Stargate must be translating for us."
"That doesn't make sense. It didn't work for us before."
"Yeah, but look, we used our Stargate to get to Chalcis -
"-and their Stargate to get here," Carter finished, enthusiasm bubbling up. Her blues eyes took on that mad-scientist shine, as if it was contagious. Maybe Daniel was a carrier. "They had a DHD. We don't back home, we cobbled the system together by trial and error. Maybe there's something in the DHDs that translates languages - "
,,yes! Software, some kind of part, I don't know, but something's doing this." Daniel was almost jittering with excitement. "Captain - Doctor - do you know what this means? We can - "
Stargate SG-1: Sacrifice Moon Page 6