The Cost of Honor

by Stargate

  "I said don't touch it!" Daniel cried.

  "Shut that damn thing off!"

  Daniel snatched the device from Atella's hand and the room was plunged back into shadows. Too late.

  "The Kinahhi have made our position, O'Neill."

  "Yeah, color me surprised."

  Damn it. Damn it to hell!

  "No!" Sam hissed as her back crashed into the wall, strong hands and arms pinning her there. Fingers seized her face, digging into her flesh, holding her immobile. She was breathing in short, rough gasps. The knife was pried from her hand and fell clattering to the ground, tumbling down the stairs. Too far to reach.

  Limb from limb! Koash had curled himself into a ball, shivering with terror. His thoughts were barely coherent. Limb from limb from limb from limb from limb from limb...

  The fingers around Sam's chin belonged to the first of the creatures who'd approached her. His eyes were still misted with madness, but he was studying her intently. Then his fingers moved, sliding up from her chin to her cheek. Sam repressed a shudder, tried to keep her face neutral. His touch was cold and leathery, a grim reminder of the sheh fet. "Who are you?"

  He didn't respond, but she could feel him tracing the ridges on her cheek. The scarlet ridges that matched those on his own face. "Sheh fet?"

  "Yes. I escaped." She forced herself to meet his eyes. "Like you."

  He pressed harder against her temple, needle-points of pain driving through the trails of scarlet. A breath hissed over the decaying stubs of his teeth, and he closed his eyes. Suddenly a barrage of images flooded her mind...

  It was dark. Night. They always carne at night. His wife was screaming his name, Eytan! Eytan"

  Their daughter was sobbing, clinging to him. Papa"

  Elisha! Oh my baby, my sweet little girl...

  A long dark journey of fear and pain. And loss. Down, down into the depths. And then the stench, the bowel-churning stench. The sheh'fet Dead faces. Not me, I can't be here. This is wrong. This is all wrong. Save me! Someone save me!

  The fire, the deadly fire and pain and madness. And darkness. Death. Sweet death, and memories of laughter...

  But then the white light, the vile white light that heralded a terrible dawn. Back to living death. Over and over. A lifetime, too many lifetimes of suffering. And then confusion. Lost forever in this endless maze, consumed by hatred, wandering endlessly, trying to

  "No!" Sam wrenched her head from his grip, gasping with horror. A sob choked her throat. So much misery! His daughter, crying out for him. The pain felt like her own, so intense she could hardly breathe. Tears scalded her eyes, trailing down her cheeks and the creature - the man - touched one and brought it to his lips.

  In a shaking voice, Sam said, "Eytan?"

  He started in shock, crazed eyes wide. And then his hands fell away from her and he turned to the others. At a silent command they released her and stepped back, watching. Waiting. For what?

  An expectant silence fell, broken only by the whimpering of Koash.

  "Eytan?" Sam said again.

  The creature - man - waved a hand toward the sky. Bayith.

  Home.

  Sam felt her heart break. Did they know what they'd become?

  "Bayith." The word rasped from the man's throat, filled with longing.

  It was impossible. They could never go home, not like this. But she was in no position to turn down allies, in whatever form they came. "Help me find my friends," she said, swallowing the bitter taste of her deception. "Then we'll go home together."

  "Fall back!" Jack yelled, as the Kinahhi pressed down the narrow alley. He opened fire and took out the first rank, then the second and then-

  Nothing. Out of ammo. "Daniel! Take over."

  They swapped places in the cramped room, Daniel's zat lighting up the alley along with the red bolts of Kinahhi laser fire. A burst hit the door frame, spraying them all with sharp fragments of rock. Jack dropped the P90, picked up the less accurate Kinahhi weapon and returned to the door. The enemy were closer now, tucked into a doorway halfway down the alley. If their commander was smart, which he probably was, he'd have sent half his team around to the other end of the alley. Wouldn't be long before they were under attack from both sides.

  "Teal'c!" Jack shouted. "Any luck?"

  "There are stairs," his friend shouted back. "They go up three flights, then there are no more. There is no way out."

  What kind of house doesn't have a goddamn back door? "I'm open to suggestions," Jack hissed, ducking away from another laser bolt. "Anyone?"

  Behind him, the Arxanti crowded together nervously, hands flexing on unfamiliar weapons. They were scared, he could smell it. "Teal'c, take the kids upstairs. Two at each window. We'll make this harder for them." At least they'd have something to do. A fighting chance, as Daniel had put it.

  They clattered upstairs like kids home after school, and after a moment he saw their own fire raining down on the advancing Kinahhi, followed by an occasional whoop of success. Enjoy it while you can.

  "Jack?" Daniel was moving to the other side of the doorway. "I think I just saw something."

  "I'll bet you did," Jack breathed, taking Daniel's position. "Other end of the alley?"

  "Yup." Daniel was straining to see through the dim light. "I've got them. Looks like half a dozen men, maybe more."

  Too many. "I don't know how we're gonna get out of this one," Jack confessed quietly.

  By way of an answer Daniel opened fire, and in the distance a man yelped and fell, convulsing, to the ground. "We'll make it," Daniel said. "We'll- Oh."

  Jack didn't look around. "What?"

  "Ah... It's jammed. The zat's jammed!"

  Things were not looking good. Jack glanced over his shoulder as Daniel pulled out the Beretta, studying it as if it were a bad smell. "After this," he said dryly, "I'll be reduced to throwing insults."

  Jack grunted. "We'll be lucky if-"

  A barrage of laser fire blasted into their meager cover, coordinated and sustained. Rock flew in tiny pieces of molten slag, chunks of stone fell to the floor and shattered with explosive force. Daniel cried out, clutching the side of his head, blood welling between his fingers.

  "Daniel!" Grabbing him, Jack yanked him out of the line of fire while the assault continued.

  "I'm okay," Daniel insisted, wiping his bloody hand on his pants. "Shrapnel. It's just a scratch."

  Not that it mattered much. The attack intensified, crimson streaks of fire reducing the door to rubble, darting into the room and exploding against the floor. They were coming, and there was no way out.

  I'll be back. I swear to God I'll be back...

  "O'Neill!" Teal'c thundered down the stairs.

  "Over here!"

  He was with them in two strides, keeping low. "The Kinahhi are advancing."

  "I know. Teal'c, we have to-" Suddenly the ferocious assault stopped and the room fell into a ringing silence. The calm before the storm. Dust drifted from the ceiling like dry rain, pattering onto the floor. Through the shattered doorway Jack heard the crunch of feet over rubble.

  "They are here, O'Neill."

  I'll be back. I swear to God I'll be back...

  With a crash, Jack overturned the round table in the center of the room and dropped to the ground behind it. His friends followed, bracing themselves in the sparse cover. "Give 'em hell."

  He refused to let these bastards make a liar out of him.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  hey're definitely planning something, sir." Henry Boyd ducked back behind the transparent Kinahhi defense shield. "I can hear people moving about, sounds like they're bringing in some heavy machinery."

  Hammond nodded. "I'd be surprised if they weren't, son." He consulted his watch. They'd been holding the gate-room for three hours. Not long enough yet for Woodburn to have picked the maggots out of the SGC. "We'll be ready for them."

  "Yes, sir." Hands resting lightly on his weapon, Boyd kept his eyes fixed on the slim door at the apex o
f the gate-room. Through it lay their future. And maybe their end.

  As he watched the young man, Hammond was struck by a sudden thought. "Did you ever go see your family, son?"

  Boyd's gaze dipped to his boots. "No sir, I- I didn't know what to say to them. It's been so long. Five years. I've been dead for five years. What if Heather...? She might have moved on, and Lucy probably won't remember me. I just didn't know what to say..." He shrugged, and looked up. "Then I heard about what had happened to SG-1. There didn't seem any point in going home, only to... You know."

  "When we get home," Hammond said gently, "you'll take some time off. As long as you need."

  The man smiled sadly. "Yes, sir."

  "We will get home, Major," Hammond assured him. "Never doubt that."

  Boyd's gaze slid to the door, his ears open to the shuffling and banging from beyond. "Sir, there's a whole army out there."

  Hammond nodded. "A whole army -and SG-1."

  Boyd looked uncertain. "Sir, that Kinahhi woman said-"

  "I don't care what she said. SG-1 are out there, and they have an uncanny ability to beat the odds."

  "That's a lot of odds, sir."

  "Yes, it is." He cast Boyd a sly glance. "But better odds than bringing your team out of that black hole, wouldn't you say?"

  With a tremendous roar, the door to the gate-room exploded.

  For an instant, Hammond was airborne. Then the ground came up to meet him with a crunch that punched the air from his lungs. An eternal moment of silence and shock reverberated through his mind, and then he was shouting. "Return fire!" He scrambled to his feet, shaking his head to clear it. "All units, return fire!"

  Boyd was already on one knee, P90 rattling. Dixon was yelling, gesturing to his team as they darted through the smoke and the noise toward the gaping doorway.

  "Hold your positions!" Hammond bellowed over the chaos. "We stand here. We stand here!"

  And then he lifted his own weapon and began to fire. For God and country. And SG-1.

  "Look at them," Sam grated, yanking Koash's head upright by his hair. "Look at them!"

  His jaw was trembling, eyes wide as he stared at the group of Outcast gathered around them. They were hunkered down now, watching her with crazy, desperate eyes. Desperate with hope. She hated herself for using them, pretending she could save them from the hell they'd been thrown into, when the most she could offer was a swift death. Nothing could save these people, so far beyond salvation.

  "Look at what you've done to them!"

  Koash flinched away. "They are Outcast, dissenters-"

  "They're people!" Or they were. She sucked in a furious breath, trying to keep control of her rage. "How many times?"

  "What?"

  "In the sarcophagus. How many times?"

  Koash shook his head, recoiling from the answer.

  She shook him hard, then slammed his back against the wall. "Tell me. Five? Ten?"

  "Until there is no more use to be got from them," he hissed. "Until..."

  "Until their minds are destroyed?" Sam felt sick. "You bastard. And then what? You just throw them out here to starve? Why not just kill them?"

  "They are of the sheh Yet," Koash lifted a shaking hand to his head. "They are in here. To kill them would be-"

  "Merciful?"

  "Sacrilege."

  "Of all the screwed up..." She let him go with disgust, and he slumped to the ground, clutching his torn clothes around him. "You're lucky I don't let them pull you apart. Limb from limb."

  "You are appalled by us," he jeered, voice quavering between anger and fear. "Yet you are willing to manipulate them for your own purposes. Are we so very different?"

  For an instant her mind was clouded by doubt and guilt. But it was a passing shadow. "If you have to ask that question, Koash, then you don't know me at all. You've created an abomination, and I swear I'm going to bring it down. All of it. No one else will ever, ever suffer like these people."

  Koash began to shudder, shaking his head in denial. "You cannot, the Kaw'ree will never let-"

  "It's over," she hissed. "I'll-"

  A hand tugged at her sleeve, and she turned to see Eytan standing at her side. He was trying to speak, to form a word. His lips twisted, frustration making him twitch.

  "Here," Sam said gently, and reached out to touch the sheh fet marks on his face. At once he relaxed, and her mind filled with an image.

  A battle. Red blasts of hot Kinahhi fire, seen from far above. From a high window Many troops, scurrying like insects down a narrow passageway. But then a blue flame darted out from a dark doorway, sending the Kinahhi twitching to the ground. And a rattling-crack, over and over followed. An alien weapon.

  Sam's heart leaped. "It's them." Eytan nodded and capered. In pleasure? "Can you take me to them?"

  He was nodding again, grabbing at her sleeve. She moved to follow, but at the last minute turned back to Koash. "Run," she told him. "Run back to your tower and get ready. The end is coming."

  With that she turned and ran herself, surrounded by the leaping, scampering creatures of the sheh fet. Her people. For she knew she was one of them, she was Outcast. And she would have revenge, for herself and for them all.

  Face down on the floor, a boot crushing the side of his face, and his arms yanked behind his back, all Jack could see of Daniel was the top of his head. As for Teal'c, last time Jack had seen him he was going hand-to-hand with a dozen Kinahhi, swinging his empty P90 like a club. After that, Jack had had his own problems to deal with.

  "You fight well, Tauri," one of the Kinahhi said. "You have killed many of my men."

  "Glad you approve," Jack growled. "Want a rematch? See if you can do better?"

  "We have done well enough."

  With a rough tug, Jack was pulled to his knees. His jaw throbbed from the blow of a Kinahhi gun stock that had dropped him. But it wasn't broken, so at least he could talk. Some comfort. He briefly checked out their situation. Teal'c was trussed up like himself, his face bruised and blood seeping from a spectacularly split lip. But he was all there, and replied to Jack's silent question with tight nod. I am well, O'Neill. Jack could almost hear the words in his head.

  Daniel, however, was still sprawled on the floor. His hands weren't tied, and he wasn't moving. Bad sign. Jack glared up at the Kinahhi commander, a thin, wiry creature with an icy expression. "Is he dead?" He kept it neutral, in hopes of getting an honest answer.

  The man's attention flickered to Daniel without much interest. "No. Our orders were to capture you alive." He smiled nastily. "But perhaps he will wish that he were. You're to be returned to the sheh fet."

  "I hear it's nice this time of year." Sonofabitch.

  A sudden commotion on the stairs drew Jack's attention. Breathless with shock, one of the Kinahhi stumbled out into the room. He was white as a ghost and shaking. "Commander," he stammered. "It's... They're... OhRe'ammin save us!"

  "Control yourself, man!" the Commander ordered. "Give me your report."

  "Yes, sir." The kid was still shaking, fingers curling and flexing. "They're... Sir, they're Mahr'bal! The Mahr'bal have come!"

  The officer's head snapped back to Jack, color rising to red fury in his cheeks. "Mahr'bal?" he spat. "You dare bring Mahr'bal here? To Tsapan?"

  Jack shrugged. "Kinda looks that way, doesn't it?" He gave a bright smile. "Lots more where they came from too. And, boy, are they pissed at you guys."

  The flush of anger drained from the Commander's face, turning it chalky. "Bring them," he ordered the shivering soldier. "Bring them down where we may look at them. The Kaw'ree will know what to do." He nodded, as if convincing himself. "Yes, we will take them to the Kaw'ree. All of them."

  The soldier disappeared up the stairs, and after a moment Jack saw the Arxanti being ushered down. With their wiry limbs and ragged clothes it was hard to see what had the Kinahhi so spooked. Among them was Alvita Candra, taut with indignation as she paced down the stairs. But when her eyes fell on Daniel she darted forwa
rd with a desperate cry. "Daniel Jackson!"

  One of the Kinahhi grabbed her, his face twisted with fear and loathing. "Kelebl" he snarled, yanking her back.

  She struggled against him. "Daniel Jackson!"

  "Easy!" Jack cautioned. "Easy, he's just-" The butt of a Kinahhi gun came down on the back of her head, and she crumpled. "Hey! What the hell did you-"

  "Alvita!" Atella fought his own guards, the rest of his men joining the revolt, lashing out and kicking one man down the stairs. "Alvita Candra!"

  The Kinahhi crowded the foot of the steps, cursing and panicking, trying to hold back the frantic Arxanti. "Seize them!" the Commander was screaming. "Stop them!"

  And then someone fired the first shot.

  She was so tired, she couldn't keep up with this race through the endless, twisting stairways of Tsapan. Her legs were shaking with exhaustion, and she was light-headed with hunger.

  Keep going. Almost there.

  The Colonel, Daniel, Teal'c... It had to be them. She'd seen the zat fire, heard the rattle of a P90. It had to be them. But there'd been so many Kinahhi, and they were so far away.

  Ahead of her, at the top of the stairs she currently was fore ing her body to climb, she saw Eytan. She could recognize him now, the long hair, the stoop of his shoulders. He was waiting for her. With an effort, she lifted her hand and waved. Beneath it all, she thought as she sucked in another burning breath, there was a shred of compassion or humanity. Something left of the man he'd once been. For all its power, the sheh fet hadn't destroyed that, not entirely.

  At last she reached the top, her legs trembling with the effort. "Rest," she gasped, leaning against the wall, catching her breath. She didn't allow herself sit down; she doubted she'd be able to get up again.

  Eytan watched her for a moment, then tugged at her shirt. He didn't understand her exhaustion. "Mayray'ah." Friends.

  "Yes," she smiled. "I know." With a desperate effort she let him tug her back into motion. At least they were on level ground here, a wide street that disappeared into the night beneath the empty towers of Tsapan.

  A burst of gunfire split the darkness, not far away. A bloody flash. Sam's heart missed a beat.