by Jamie Duncan
“I know only that we made a promise in order to secure your freedom,” Teal’c said, and now he did turn his head so Jack could see the look of determination on his face.
Jack sighed. “We don’t have any weapons. What the hell are we supposed to do, ring over and take them on one by one? Look at us,” he said, gesturing widely to include all his walking wounded.
“This vessel is heavily armed,” Teal’c said.
“I thought cargo ships didn’t carry weapons,” Carter said.
“In general, they do not. However, this one does.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” Jack muttered. “Considering who owned it last.”
“Sir,” Carter said, pointing at the mothership that was now looming beyond the nearer one. Teal’c maneuvered around to get a closer look. The ship slowed, then assumed orbit.
“It is moving into position to bombard the surface of the planet,” Teal’c said. “If we are to act, we must act quickly.”
“Can we even do enough damage to make this worthwhile?” Jack asked.
Teal’c glanced back at Daniel, obviously weighing “worthwhile” with “promised”, and nodded once. “I believe we can.”
Jack looked at Carter, whose silence gave agreement. Then he raised his hand, capitulating. “Do it. But make it good, Teal’c. I want to be home in time for dinner.”
That tiny ghost of a smile that passed for a grin appeared, then Teal’c gave all his concentration to finding a point of vulnerability on the nearer ship. Both ha’taks glowed on the view screen in front of them.
“They have not raised their shields,” Teal’c said. “They do not expect attack from other ships.”
“Well, at least there’s that,” Jack said, and leaned back to watch the show. Nothing else to do now but play it out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“SG-one-niner, do you copy?” Jacob boosted the signal and adjusted the orbit of the cargo ship. Most of his attention was taken up by the approaching ha’tak, which he’d been watching with growing dismay. His ship was cloaked, not that it mattered; his tel’tak was indistinguishable from the other Goa’uld vessels drifting in orbit. The arrival of a second mothership here couldn’t be a good sign, not with Sebek’s ha’tak already on the planet, and this second one rotating into firing position, batteries aimed at the planet’s surface. Chatter from the ship in orbit told him that the newcomer belonged to Yu, and Yu was undoubtedly on board. Chatter from the ground told him the remaining city on the planet was in the throes of some sort of rebellion, which meant that, if SG-1 was really down there, they had either caused it or were trapped in it.
With the signal boosters on his ship, Jacob was pretty sure he should’ve been able to get through to them by now, if they had access to their radios. It was a gamble, but he had nothing else to go on.
He got up and stretched, restless, frustrated. There wasn’t much left for him to do here. Either they’d hear him, or they wouldn’t; either they were in the middle of chaos, or they were already dead. It could be they’d never come to this planet at all, but there was a part of Jacob that wasn’t ready to admit it could be true. It would mean he had no leads, no way to find Sam. This option was better than no option at all.
The display of the planet’s surface showed plumes of smoke rising into the atmosphere, circling up from large explosions below.
If there is a way to escape, they will find it, Selmak reminded him, ever practical. Jacob was having trouble believing it at that moment, and although he knew Selmak was troubled by his pessimism, he reached for the radio yet again.
“I could put the ship down and take a look around down there,” he said, only to be met with Selmak’s violent objection.
You are Tok’ra. In the eyes of half the galaxy, you are no better than a Goa’uld. These people have risen against their masters. Do you wish to kill us both?
With a sigh, Jacob said, “SG-one-niner, come in. SG-1, do you read me? This is Jacob Carter.”
As before, there was nothing but silence. Jacob stared at the ceiling. He’d have to keep hailing. They’d have no idea he was there.
The ship’s automatic beacon squawked at him, the proximity warning triggered by the nearest ship. He leaned forward to get a better view. This wasn’t exactly a fine specimen of a mothership, by any stretch. A vast section of the outer ring was actually open to vacuum. Maybe it explained why Yu had come to mop up the planet himself. Jacob was vectoring his cargo ship away when a tel’tak disengaged from the traffic around the ha’tak and blasted across Jacob’s bow, laying a heavy pattern of fire against the underbelly of the ha’tak, where many of the vital systems were. Then the tel’tak swooped around in an elegant turn to finish with a volley of shots directly into the open decks of the ring. The results were immediate and spectacular. Debris blossomed silently as the ha’tak started to yaw, the outer ring breaking up, separating in jagged sections. The mothership started to spin away, propelled by the force of the explosions, irreparably disabled.
Jacob double-timed it out of there and looped back above the plane of destruction to watch as Yu’s ship changed course in an attempt to avoid the expanding cloud of debris. Too slow, the mothership couldn’t avoid a section of the destroyed outer ring that collided with it in a glancing blow, raking and skipping along its underside before tumbling away. The explosions that erupted from the impact proved that Yu’s shields weren’t up, and, Jacob hoped, with that damage, they wouldn’t be. The mystery tel’tak emerged from behind one of the largest drifting sections, squeezing between it and the scarred angle of the ha’tak’s damaged central pyramid, and headed for Yu’s mothership.
“Son of a bitch,” Jacob breathed. There was a wordless stirring inside him. Selmak agreed.
The tel’tak rose up, gracefully slipping past two death gliders that turned to challenge it, and circled around to the sloped side facing the planet. A moment later, the ship’s navigational array was reduced to spark and cinder. Precision shooting, Jacob noticed, and precision flying. This was no local native who’d managed to grab a ship and take the fight to the air.
This was someone who knew how to fly.
The ha’tak returned fire, striking the ship’s thrusters and sending the little craft spinning for a moment before the pilot righted her, and then ducked to evade the gliders giving chase. Jacob leaned forward and switched the com signal over.
“Unidentified vessel, do you read me? This is Jacob Carter. Come in.”
A moment’s silence, and then, behind a burst of static, a familiar voice: “Jacob? Jacob, what the hell are you doing here?”
Jacob grinned, and Selmak mirrored his elation. “Jack! I could ask you the same question. Is Sam there with you?”
“I’m here, Dad.” At the sound of her voice, the tension Jacob had been carrying released, like a knot unwinding from the base of his spine, and he took a deep breath. “Your timing couldn’t be better,” Sam said.
“We’ve got damage, Jacob.” Jack was all business. “And we’ve got wounded.”
“Stand by to ring over. I’ll de-cloak.”
“No, wait,” Jack said. There was a period of silence, then Jack came back online. “Teal’c’s going to ram this thing right down Yu’s throat. Can you grab us out of here in time?”
“You bet.”
He watched Teal’c take out one of the gliders, then lined up behind him until the second glider had been blown out of space. Teal’c had probably never met a death glider he hadn’t dreamed of destroying. Jacob matched their speed and got into position below the other ship. It was a tricky maneuver, and he immediately ceded control to Selmak, who had the experience to get it right the first and only chance they’d have.
“Stand by,” Selmak told them, and then Jacob was up and moving, toward the ring controls. A press of a few buttons and the rings activated. No time to spare to make sure he had them all. He caught sight of people within the rings and ran back to the pilot’s seat to cloak and move away.
The tel’
tak above accelerated suddenly as the autopilot kicked in, headed straight for the command bridge of Yu’s ship. Selmak handed Jacob back control as he sped away, putting safe distance between them and the imminent collision.
Jack’s hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed hard. “I don’t know how you knew we were here, but I’m damned glad you showed up,” he said, and Jacob grinned.
“You should be glad. I saved your ass. What the hell were you thinking, attacking a mothership?”
“It was his idea,” Jack said, jerking a thumb at Teal’c, who was claiming the navigator’s seat as his own. “Thinks he’s invincible.”
“Unlike the rest of us,” Sam said. She leaned forward to kiss Jacob’s cheek. He raised an arm and hugged her, pulling her closer.
“It’s good to see you, kid,” he said softly, taking in the dirt and blood all over her. She shook her head, answering his unspoken question.
“You too,” she said, with a smile that told him she knew exactly why he was here.
“Carter,” Jack said, calling her attention forward and Jacob’s with it. The tel’tak-turned-missile slammed into Yu’s ship, creating a spectacular light show that died within moments, only to reveal Yu’s ship mostly intact, although there was a satisfyingly ugly scar on the pyramid below the command decks. Still, he’d hoped for better. “Crap,” Jack said.
“Considerable damage has been done,” Teal’c reported. “All weapons systems are non-operational. Yu’s shields are down.”
“He’ll retreat now,” Jacob said.
“It’s enough to give them a fighting chance, sir,” Sam said.
“Well, that’s nice,” Jack said, and his sarcasm alone told Jacob there was a long story behind it. “Glad we were there to help.” Jack crouched behind Daniel, who was unconscious on the floor. His face and arms were covered in fresh and dried blood. “I think it’s time we took care of our own now.”
“The closest planet is Relos,” Jacob said, and Jack’s head snapped up. The score he planned to settle was written all over his face, but Daniel stirred, and Jacob could see Jack setting that account aside for now. “I have a GDO. We can gate in from there. George’ll be anxious to see you.”
“It’ll be good to be home,” Sam said, taking Jacob’s hand.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Janet glanced up from her charts and slipped off her stool to meet Sam in the doorway of the infirmary. Her smile was bright, but her eyes were dulled with fatigue. She’d spent the night clucking over them, as the Colonel would put it, running tests and doing meticulous examinations of all their wounds, asking questions and patting each one of her wayward SG-1 gently with warm, firm hands in that way that was somehow both admonition and comfort. She took it personally when they came back broken.
“Right on time,” she said to Sam and nodded her toward a bed on the other side of Teal’c’s.
Teal’c’s eyes followed Sam as if he were in prison and pleading for a jailbreak, but he followed orders and stayed in bed, resting, aiming his eyes again at the ceiling when she shrugged helplessly at him. Sam grinned, even though that pulled at the bruises on the side of her face. It was the good kind of pain.
The Colonel wasn’t in bed; he’d claimed the only chair in the room, at the head of Daniel’s bed, and had tipped it back precariously on two legs, using the wall behind him for support. He was still in surgical scrubs and slippers, which probably were his only concession to medical protocol, and Sam was sure he and Janet had argued about that, too. His hands were laced over his stomach, and his eyes were closed. Sam was amazed he could sleep that way and not break his neck.
Daniel was awake, though, and sitting up in bed in the circle of lamplight, the lamp angled so that the Colonel’s face was in shadow. Across Daniel’s lap lay a heavy, battered book, open to the middle. His head was bowed, his gaze intent on the text, and his brow furrowed. The fingers of his left hand rubbed his throat absently.
Janet flicked her penlight into Sam’s eyes. “Any blurred vision? Dizziness? Ringing in the ears?”
The list of questions went on, and Sam answered them mechanically as she watched Daniel over Janet’s shoulder. When Janet paused to probe Sam’s black eye again, Sam took the opportunity to ask in a half-whisper, “How are they?” She could feel the Colonel’s attention turn their way, even though he didn’t move at all. Daniel kept poring over the book, oblivious.
Janet followed her gaze and then looked back at her, taking a moment to grasp the ends of the stethoscope around her neck, as if considering how much to tell and how much to tell by not telling. “Physically” she began, pausing to let the question of psychological wellbeing hang like a question mark between them, “they’re not in bad shape. Daniel’s mouth is pretty cut up from the symbiote’s exit, but his throat is in better shape than I expected.” She shrugged with her face. “I’m sure the Goa’uld—” Her eyebrows raised with the question.
“Sebek.”
“—Sebek—wasn’t concerned with being gentle when he left, but all Goa’uld secrete enzymes to aid with host transfer and… well, we don’t really know how exactly, but the enzymes do the trick, regardless. At least they closed the wound well enough for healing to begin, and Daniel’s body will do the rest.” She looked at Daniel again, a half-smile dimpling her cheek. “Lucky for him. He might have bled to death otherwise.”
“What about the protein marker?”
Janet shook her head. “No, nothing. Not even trace amounts of naquadah. It may be because the symbiote was having trouble with the blending. He won’t be operating any ribbon devices, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
Sam didn’t bother hiding her uncomfortable response to that image. The legs of the Colonel’s chair cracked down onto the concrete with a sharp clank. He was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them, his head bowed. Daniel dragged himself out of his book to. touch him on the shoulder, and he sat back again, slumped for a moment, then pulled himself up straighter to make a show of looking at Daniel’s book.
Teal’c gave up contemplating the lighting fixtures and gazed at Sam instead. As she slid off of her bed, he pushed himself up on his elbows. Janet helped Sam stuff an extra pillow behind his head and raise the bed so he could sit upright.
“Aren’t you supposed to be resting, Carter?” the Colonel asked without looking at her. He made as if to turn the page of Daniel’s book, but Daniel flattened his hand against it, refusing.
“I’m rested, sir. Just checking in with Janet.” She tucked her fingers into her pockets and came to lean her hip on the rail of Daniel’s bed.
The Colonel made another attempt at turning the page, and this time Daniel slapped his fingers. “Hey, commanding officer here,” the Colonel protested, shaking the sting out of his hand. Daniel snorted. O’Neill rolled his eyes. “Civilians.” Sam’s smile offered no sympathy, but the Colonel graciously overlooked the insubordination, asking, “You eat?”
She nodded. “Meatloaf.”
“Ah. Jell-o?”
She made a face. “Green.”
“Bastards.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Our Jell-o was red,” Teal’c added, smugly.
Sam grinned at him before turning to aim her chin at Daniel’s book. “What’s this?” She angled her head so that she could see the picture more or less right-side-up. It was a row of eyeless stone faces against a backdrop of long, wind-bowed grasses, and, at the upper margin, a sliver of ocean, a turbulent sky.
The Colonel tapped one of the faces with his knuckles, his little finger in its splint held up delicately to ward off Daniel. “Easter Island,” he answered. “Daniel’s obsessing.”
“Ah.” Of course he was. Sam didn’t divulge the fact that she’d spent most of her “resting” time poring over databases trying to find something equivalent to the technology they’d found in that mountain, something that could scour thoughts from a subject’s head, record and communicate them to others. The Tok’ra memory recall device
s seemed to function on a similar principle and were maybe some nth generation adaptation of technology scavenged in the distant past, but they used nowhere near the same level of destructive invasiveness. She wondered if that aspect was part of the nominal operation of the library system, or if it had been the result of some kind of malfunction. The former option was pretty creepy to contemplate, and she was glad that, whoever they were, the library builders seemed to be long gone.
“Did you know that those statues on Easter Island had eyes?” the Colonel was saying. “Big, blank, white eyes.” This time, Daniel let him page back and angle the book up a bit so she could see an example. The effect was chillingly familiar. She suppressed a shudder, and ran her hands over her arms to soothe the sudden pricking of gooseflesh.
“Yeah, my reaction exactly.” He flipped back to the centerfold.
“Do you believe that these people are descendants of those who built the library, Daniel Jackson?” Teal’c was leaning on one elbow so that he could see the book over the Colonel’s head.
In answer, Daniel shook his head slowly. “No,” he said, but it came out as a wisp of voice. He winced and swallowed carefully, his tongue running across the inside of his cheek. The Colonel leaned back and snagged a cup of ice chips from the table beside him, waited while Daniel shook a few into his mouth, and then put it back again. Daniel was quiet while the ice melted, his fingers tracing the outline of the stem stone face. “But they met them,” he finished finally.
“Too bad for them,” the Colonel observed flatly.
“Maybe—” Daniel began and paused to accept another offering of ice chips, this time twisting the cup into a fold of blanket by his side. “Maybe the memories of their ancestors were in there somewhere, in the walls.”
The Colonel sat back in his chair and rolled his head, left and right. Sam could actually hear the crackle in his neck. “Gone now,” he concluded, and wasn’t at all upset about that, it seemed.
