Pain
Prologue
Daniel didn’t even bother trying to pull himself off the dirt floor this time when they unbarred the door to his cell. Another shock of pain ran through him, starting in his gut and spreading outward to his limbs, and he let out a sob as his muscles spasmed. He was long past caring if they heard him cry; he was long past anything but hanging on until they came. If they came.
As if hearing his thoughts, the man who’d opened his cell came and squatted down on the dirt floor by Daniel’s filthy, trembling form and said, “They won’t negotiate, your friends. We thought they valued you more than that. They know what you suffer, yet they leave you here.” The man made a tsk-ing sound, then mused, as if to himself, “Perhaps we should have kept the woman instead.”
And then he left, barring the door behind him.
Chapter 1
Fifteen hours earlier
The Polistian minister’s expression seemed to change as Daniel sipped at the sour but not altogether unpleasant drink; although the man’s smile remained fixed, something dark and wary flashed behind his eyes before they took on what Daniel could only describe to himself as, what, studied nonchalance?
Hardly yet conscious that something was wrong, Daniel automatically sought out his teammates. Teal’c and Jack stood at the other end of the room chatting—well, Jack was chatting, anyway—with several dignitaries, the ceremonial head of the Polistian defense force among them, and Sam was a few yards away involved in a seemingly intense discussion with the minister of science. Daniel watched as a man with a tray approached Sam, who reached for a drink. The man turned the tray smoothly as she reached, steering one goblet into her grasp as the Polistians around her casually grabbed drinks of their own from the other side of the tray. With two goblets left on the tray, the man headed directly for Jack and Teal’c, while a young woman handed drinks to some others in between.
Daniel narrowed his eyes. Separate drinks? He looked back at Minister Gahry, who still had the same frozen smile on his face and then down at the drink in his hand and turned back to Sam, who was already sipping from her glass.
A voice in his head told him he was about to royally screw up any chance at relations with the Polistians, never mind access to their seemingly miraculous knowledge of medicinal herbs, but a more urgent voice drowned it out.
“Sam!” he shouted, more loudly than he’d intended. “Don’t drink that!”
Sam, startled, pulled the goblet from her lips and looked back at him.
“Daniel?” she asked.
Conversation stopped and everyone in the room stared at him. Teal’c drew himself up as if ready to take on an army and Jack’s hands grasped air as he reached in vain for the P-90 that he’d left outside the door with the rest of their weapons.
Daniel looked around feeling suddenly foolish.
“Just don’t drink anymore yet, please, Sam.”
“Is something wrong, Dr. Jackson?” Minister Gahry asked.
“I’m not sure,” Daniel said. “Is there a reason we are being served separate drinks?”
Sam looked at the drink in her hand and back at Daniel.
The minister stared at Daniel and then laughed, and after a beat several other Polistians joined in.
“Ah, once again you have proved how observant you are, Dr. Jackson. Yes, you and your team are being served separate drinks. We’ve discovered that our traditional vinio is very hard on most travelers through the Great Circle, so many years ago we started serving a less, shall we say, potent, version. I hope you aren’t offended.” Again Gahry smiled, but, Daniel thought, the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Daniel noticed Jack relaxing his pose, and he saw Sam give a weak smile.
“Well, that makes sense,” Jack said, reaching for one of the drinks that had been brought over as Gahry talked. The waiter offered a goblet to Teal’c, but Teal’c, who remained watchful, declined to take it.
“Uh, hold on a second, Jack, Sam,” Daniel cautioned. Jack gave him a long-suffering look, but, Daniel noticed, he didn’t drink.
Daniel wasn’t surprised at Jack’s impatience. Before they’d returned to finalize the treaty, the colonel had already expressed aggravation at Daniel’s concerns about the Polistians, particularly his suspicion that they were, despite their claims to the contrary, a society striving to return to their days of military glory. All the signs were there. Yet, “what difference could it possibly make, Daniel?” Jack had asked. “We aren’t giving them military technology, unless you can think of a military use for a tractor.” And Daniel had to admit that that was true, that the Polistians, despite their many questions about Earth weapons and military tech, had not seemed particularly upset when SG-9 had offered them only agricultural technology in return for their medicinal knowledge and herbs.
But wasn’t anyone else concerned that the people they were signing a treaty with were hiding something, that they were lying? Daniel had asked.
Apparently not, and so here they were, SG-1 instead of SG-9 at the Polistian’s request, in the city’s ornately decorated Great Hall, at a reception celebrating the signing of the agreement. And, here, once again, Daniel was fairly certain, they were being lied to.
“No offense taken, Minister, and I hope none is given,” Daniel continued finally, “but your explanation has reminded me that perhaps we have been a little… rash… in imbibing so readily of food and drink that may not suit our slightly different anatomy.”
“But certainly, Dr. Jackson, you are being overcautious?” a tall, portly Polistian—Counseler Praga—asked, with no guile that Daniel could detect. “After all, this is your team’s second visit and I believe the fourth visit altogether by a team from Earth, and no one has yet become ill from the food?”
“He has a point,” Sam said, with an almost undetectable nervousness in her voice.
“Yes, that’s true,” Daniel admitted. “So far everything has been fine, but…”
“But…?” Jack prompted.
Daniel took a deep breath and exhaled. Jack was so going to kill him.
“But…” Daniel continued, looking Jack straight in the eyes, “…but I’m afraid the fact that others have become ill from the drink here mandates that we should institute Rule 38 protocols concerning off-world substances and return to the SGC for a complete physical exam.”
Jack, to give him credit, didn’t blink.
“Rule 38 protocols,” he repeated flatly, looking back at Daniel.
“Yes,” Daniel said, steadily. “Rule 38.”
Jack held Daniel’s look for a moment longer and then sighed, glancing from Teal’c to Sam. Sam looked as if she were about to say something, but then closed her mouth and looked again from her drink to Daniel’s.
“Right. O.K., people,” Jack said, “pack it up. Minister, I’m afraid Dr. Jackson is correct on this one. I’m sure we’ll be back as soon as we can. Right, Daniel?”
There was an edge to the tone of the last question, but Daniel would deal with that later. By some miracle, Jack was actually going along with him on this one, and he didn’t want to waste any time in getting out of there. If he was right, the Polistians were up to something, and it wasn’t good.
“Right, yes, right,” he said, answering Jack, and turned back to Minister Gahry. “I offer sincere apologies on behalf of SG-1 and Earth, Minister, and I hope once we straighten this little problem out, we can return and continue our promising cultural exchange.”
As other Polistians around shook their heads and murmured Of course not’s and Oh, no, not at all’s the minister gave a smile, but to Daniel it didn’t look friendly. Rather it looked as if he’d just eaten something repulsive.
Daniel suppressed a slight shiver. He nodded at the minister and Counselor Praga and turned to go. Sam fell in beside him and they joined Teal’c and Jack by the door. The Polistians in the room made no move to follow, not even to escort them to the Gate as was their usual habit. They just stood, silently now, and watched them go.
Jack gave him a sideways glance, and Daniel knew that, finally, Jack was reading the same weird vibe in the room. Still, as they left the building and retrieved their weapons without a problem, Daniel’s own certainty began to fade.
Jack placed the strap of his P-90 around his neck and patted it unconsciously, as if it were a dog. Obviously feeling more secure with his weapon in hand, he looked at Daniel and queried quietly, eyebrows raised, “Rule 38?”
Daniel shrugged, looking back through the door to make sure they were out of earshot of their hosts. “It seemed better than asking if they were trying to poison us.”
“There is that,” Jack agreed.
“Daniel,” Sam said, tentatively, as they started to walk through the bustling town toward the nearby Stargate, “are you sure…?” She let the question hang.
“No,” Daniel admitted. “I’m not. But there was something about the way Gahry watched me drink, and the whole excuse for the separate drinks…”
Jack stopped short as Daniel talked, almost causing Sam to walk into him.
He turned to look at Daniel. “Wait, you already drank the whatever, the stuff?”
Daniel gave an unhappy smile. “Yes, unfortunately. I think Sam did too, didn’t you, Sam? So believe me, there is no one who hopes I’m wrong more than I do.”
“Carter?”
“Just a sip, sir, before Daniel stopped me”
“Crap,” Jack said. “O.K., let’s pick up the pace a little. I don’t know if there was anything in the drinks, but Daniel is right, something is definitely a little off here.”
“I concur,” Teal’c said. “The Polistian ministers fail to approach us but follow at a distance. This is very unlike their previous actions. I believe the people of the city are aware that something is amiss as well, since they too seem to go to great pains to stay well away.”
“I suppose it could be that our behavior—my behavior—insulted them,” Daniel said, with a reasonableness he didn’t feel. Yet as he spoke Daniel saw a mother pull her child from their path and shoo him inside. “Or maybe not,” he added.
As they reached the DHD, they all, even Teal’c, breathed a sigh of relief. Daniel glanced back at the Polistians, wondering if they would approach and see them off with their usual ceremony, but the six men who had followed remained several yards away. He nodded to Minister Gahry and said, “Minister, we thank you for your patience in this matter, and we will contact you as soon as we follow our procedure.”
“We are certain of that, Dr. Jackson,” Gahry said, and this time there was no questioning the threat in his voice.
“Shit,” Sam murmured under her breath.
“Dial it up, Daniel. Now,” Jack said, and he, Sam and Teal’c turned to face the Polistians, hands on their weapons.
Daniel hit four symbols rapidly and was reaching for the fifth when it started. He felt a sudden chill and then a burning sensation in his limbs and then a searing pain in his gut. He gasped and went to his knees, then tried to pull himself back up to keep dialing, but he couldn’t make his legs work.
He heard Jack say, “Daniel, what’s the…? Crap. Daniel! Carter, dial us home!”
He felt Sam step up next to him. “It’ll be O.K., Daniel, we’re getting you out of here,” she said quietly as she reached over him for the DHD.
Daniel tried to respond, but another spasm of pain shot through him and he cried out, then slid the rest of the way to the ground and curled in on himself.
Sam hit the last three symbols and seconds later Daniel heard the whoosh of the event horizon.
“Teal’c,” Jack shouted out, and a moment later Daniel felt Teal’c's strong arms lifting him off the ground. But before they could move for the Gate, another voice boomed out.
“I wouldn’t leave I were you,” the voice said. “Not if you wish Dr. Jackson to live.”
Chapter 2
“I wouldn’t leave if I were you. Not if you want Dr. Jackson to live.”
Crap, crap and double crap, Jack thought, shifting his weapon in the direction of the arrogant voice. Its owner, dressed in full military uniform, the first they’d seen on the planet, stepped out from behind the six dignitaries who had followed them to the Gate. Four other soldiers pushed through behind him. They all wore black, with red, lightning-bolt insignia, and except for their leader, they all had long, bayonet-like blades attached to some sort of handle. The weapons didn’t look like any match for P-90s, but they were no doubt deadly enough.
Jack stared at the man who had spoken. The uniform was alien, but the stance and the manner were not. He might not have been there yet, but there was no doubt where the man was headed. Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Earth’s recent history was littered with men like him. And even if Jack hadn’t been able to see it himself, the reactions of the dignitaries as he stepped to the front would have clued him in. Except for Gahry, who seemed hard-put to contain his glee, those men—although they tried to hide it—were afraid. They may have been the ministers of the people of the planet, but this was the man in charge.
Nevertheless, it was Gahry who spoke next, his voice filled with satisfaction. “It would save us all time, and Dr. Jackson a distasteful end, if you would heed Marshal Lioss’s advice, Colonel.”
“It would save us all a lot of time if you would cut the crap and tell us what you want,” Jack snarled.
“I believe that is obvious, Colonel,” Lioss said, his disdain for Jack’s title obvious. “You may have hoped that your patronizing attitude toward the great Polistian regime would go unnoticed, that your refusal to share your military technology and your knowledge of other worlds was not a grave insult to all who tread here and all who came before, but you were wrong. We will take what we need. In return, we will give you back your man’s life.
“Go now and refuse our demands, and Dr. Jackson will die an agonizing death within three days. Leave Dr. Jackson here while we negotiate, and we can extend his life indefinitely, and even—” and here the bastard smiled, “—reduce his pain enough that he won’t wish to die. Once we have what we require, we will give him the antidote and return him to you. The choice is yours.”
Son of a bitch, Jack thought, and it was all he could do to keep from squeezing the trigger and sending the martinet, Gahry and all of them to an early grave. “How about we try this instead,” he said. “You give us the antidote now, and we don’t come back here and blow your planet into the next galaxy.”
Again the man smiled. He gestured to the town around him. “And kill all these innocents? And destroy the only hope of saving your teammate’s life? I think I can call that bluff.”
Before Jack could answer, he heard Teal’c shout his name and at the same time heard the sound of the staff weapon charging. He turned and saw seven or eight other soldiers approaching from the other side of the Gate. Teal’c was supporting Daniel’s weight with one arm as Daniel struggled to keep on his feet, and a low moan escaped the archaeologist as Teal’c raised his staff with his other hand. Carter saw the men coming and stood sideways now, shifting her weapon back and forth between the two threats. Then movement came from either side and more soldiers stepped out from the shadows of the shops to their right and left.
They were surrounded.
“Colonel?” Carter asked, the tension vibrating in her voice.
“Move ‘em back, Major,” Jack ordered.
Carter nodded, and they both opened fire with short bursts from their P-90s, shooting up the dirt mere inches from the soldiers’ feet. Behind him, Jack could hear Teal’c firing his staff. The soldiers jumped back, then held their ground.
Jack turned toward Lioss then and aimed directly for him. He thought he saw the man flinch, but he covered it well. “Call your men off. We’re leaving.” He had never been so ready to pull the trigger, and he knew the sadistic man in front of him could see it. So could the ministers, and they all, even Gahry, took a step away.
Jack read the silence and acted. Any hesitation would be fatal here. “Take him through, Teal’c,” he said, even as dread for Daniel settled in the pit of his stomach. “Carter, you clear the Gate if they don’t move.”
There was no response, and he turned his head slightly to look in her direction.
“Major?”
“Yes, sir,” she finally said, but it came out as more of a gasp. She was pointing her weapon toward the men who blocked the Gate, but she held her other arm to her stomach and looked as if she were having a hell of a time standing upright.
Damn, he thought, a frisson of fear for his 2IC and for them all running through him, but he kept his voice steady. “You going to make it, Carter?” he barked, keeping his weapon trained on Lioss’s heart.
“Yes, sir,” Carter gasped out again, but then she let out a cry and went to her knees. “Sam?” he heard Daniel’s weak voice call out. At the same time he saw Lioss, who was smiling again, give an almost imperceptible nod in the direction of his men at the Gate. He heard an odd scraping sound and turned to see Teal’c pulling Daniel behind him and firing his staff. One man fell, but another had his knife-like weapon in hand and shot it from its handle like a missile, striking Teal’c in the leg. The Jaffa stumbled, almost dropping Daniel, but stayed on his feet, firing again and hitting his mark.
Jack turned his weapon on the other men at the Gate and started to fire as he shouted, “Teal’c! Take Daniel through. Now!” As another of the men at the Gate fell, he watched Sam struggle to raise her P-90 and fire at the soldiers behind him, and he heard a scream as someone was hit. Teal’c started to drag Daniel forward, but more men had moved to take the places of their fallen comrades and another of the knives flew, hitting Teal’c high in the chest below his shoulder. Daniel fell from his arm, and Teal’c, this time, went to his knees. Jack heard more of the scraping sounds of the Polistian weapons being readied and he spun to find two soldiers mere feet away, their knives pointing directly at his head.
“Lower your weapon, Colonel, or you will all die here and now.”
No way this was happening, Jack thought. No f***ing way, but he relaxed his death grip on his P-90 and let it hang, putting his hands out to either side. Carter had already dropped her weapon and knelt practically curled over to the ground, gripping her stomach. One of the soldiers near the Gate had managed to grab Teal’c's staff as he went down; Teal’c was still on his knees, and Daniel was lying on his side where he’d fallen.
At Lioss’s gesture, a young soldier stepped up and relieved Jack of his weapon.
The arrogant man smiled. “Now this is interesting. Our original plan was to poison you all and hold you for ransom, and I suppose we could still do that, but a much more… entertaining plan occurs to me. You evidently care a great deal about what happens to each other—an amazing weakness in a military unit, I must say—so… I believe we shall keep just one, and send the rest of you back through the Gate with a living example of what your comrade suffers. That should move our negotiations along splendidly. The question is, which shall we keep? Would you care to choose, Colonel?”
Jack looked behind him at Carter, Teal’c and Daniel and back at Lioss. “Yeah, sure, all right,” he said. “I’ll stay. Keep me.”
Lioss laughed this time, and Jack itched to wipe the smug expression from his face.
“Not acceptable, Colonel. You are a military officer, one of many. It is my understanding, however, that Dr. Jackson and Major Carter are irreplaceable in your program, so it is most convenient that they are the ones who have already ingested our little potion. We will keep one of them, of course.”
“Not going to happen,” Jack said, with steel in his voice, although he had no clue how to stop it. “We don’t leave our people behind.”
Lioss sighed. “You are either incredibly stupid or you believe I am. There is nothing you can do to stop us. Very well. If you won’t choose, I will. It was Dr. Jackson, I believe, who made it impossible to negotiate civilly in the first place for the weaponry and information we require, and I hear now that it was Dr. Jackson who almost ruined our plan today. I choose him.” He nodded toward the men by the Gate, and Jack turned to see two of the four guarding Teal’c and Daniel step forward to grab Daniel.
“You will not!” Teal’c yelled, struggling to his feet. Two of the men “armed” their knives and pointed them at Teal’c's head, but Teal’c continued to rise, grabbing the arm of one of the soldiers reaching for Daniel.
“Kill him!” Lioss ordered.
“No, wait!” Jack shouted, and when Lioss raised his hand, stopping the men from firing, he said more quietly, “Wait. Just wait.”
Lioss, his hand still in the air, looked at Jack expectantly.
“Send Teal’c and Major Carter through the Gate. I’ll stay here with Dr. Jackson.”
“O’Neill!” Teal’c said, his displeasure at Jack’s idea sounding in his voice.
Jack didn’t react and didn’t break eye contact with the man who, he had no doubt, would someday, if he had the means, gladly become a mass murderer.
“Very well,” Lioss said after a silence.
Still not turning, Jack said, echoing his orders about Daniel just short minutes before. “Teal’c. Take Carter and go.”
“Colonel,” Carter gasped. “We can’t…”
“That’s an order, Major.”
Jack didn’t have to turn around to know that Teal’c still hadn’t moved from Daniel’s side. “Teal’c,” he said again, and nothing more, but the command was clear.
This time he sensed movement, and he broke eye contact with Lioss to glance back over his shoulder and saw Teal’c, slowed by his injuries, moving to help Sam from the ground. Teal’c wrapped his arm around her waist, and Sam did the same to Teal’c. Then supporting each other, they limped toward the Gate. Just as they reached the event horizon, Sam looked back at him and their eyes locked, and he knew the pain he saw there was not just from the poison coursing through her system. He gave a short nod, and she turned and the two disappeared through the Gate.
Jack had a sudden, brief dread that he’d never see his two teammates again, but he swallowed it and turned, ignoring the weapons still pointed at his head, and started to walk toward Daniel, who was lying on the ground looking at Jack with pain and panic in his eyes. The soldiers surrounding him just watched, the only emotion showing on their faces that of amusement or, maybe, boredom.
Jack had only taken a few steps, though, when he heard Lioss command, “Take him!”
Son of a bitch! Jack thought, as strong hands grabbed his on both sides. He pushed one of the men off, but another grabbed him, and he stilled, waiting. He wouldn’t be able to help Daniel if he got himself injured or killed. But then came the next command and he started to struggle in earnest.
“Throw him through,” Lioss said.
“What the hell? We had a deal!” Jack shouted back at the man as he dug in his heels and tried to stop his forward motion toward the Gate. He threw himself backward, knocking one of the soldiers off-balance, and broke away, but then an elbow caught him in the stomach and he went down, and again hands grabbed him, dragging him back to his feet and toward the event horizon. Son of a bitch! he thought again, feeling panic for the first time since the whole mission had gone to hell. He was not leaving Daniel behind!
As he started fighting wildly to throw the men off, he looked toward Daniel again and saw that he had somehow pulled himself halfway off the ground and was holding something in his hand pointed toward the Gate. While Jack watched, Daniel dropped his hand and fell back to his side, bringing his knees almost up to his chest. He was close enough to hear his teammate gasp in pain—”God!”—as if in fervent prayer.
“Daniel!” Jack couldn’t help himself from shouting, as he kicked out in vain at the legs of one of the soldiers pulling him past his friend. “Daniel!”
But before he could see if Daniel heard him, he felt himself take flight and he was thrown headfirst into the vivid blue of the event horizon.
Chapter 3
Screaming.
Jack struggled back to consciousness. Something terrible was happening. The team was in trouble. The scream came again. Carter? Jack sat bolt upright, reaching for his P-90, but instead sent a piercing pain through his skull as he knocked something over with a clatter. He heard another scream, close by, and, ignoring the pain, rolled to get up. Instead of the dirt he expected, his feet hit air and he dropped two feet to a hard floor and stumbled, almost going to his knees. Someone grabbed his arms to steady him and called his name—”Colonel O’Neill!”—but he tried to push the hands away. “Team’s in trouble. Got to get to them,” he mumbled.
“Colonel O’Neill! Jack! It’s Janet. Colonel, you’re in the infirmary. You’re injured. Colonel?”
Reality started to catch up with his semiconscious state, and Jack blinked and looked around. The infirmary? Fraiser?
He must have said the last out loud, because Janet answered, “Yes, Colonel,” and guided him back a step so his legs were against the bed he’d jumped out of. He sat down gingerly, and closed his eyes against the pulsing in his head. Thank god, he thought, letting Janet maneuver him so he was lying down again. I must have been dreaming. The problem was, he couldn’t remember a damn thing. So, just to make sure, he said, “Team?”
“Just try to relax, Colonel, and let me take a look at you. You managed to give yourself a concussion…”
Jack’s eyes shot open, and he pushed away Janet’s hands and sat up. He knew the CMO well enough after all these years to know when she was avoiding his question, and that was a very bad question to avoid.
“Doc?” he said, urgency in his voice as his eyes darted around the infirmary. “Where are they?”
“Colonel, you need to…”
“Damn it!” Jack shouted then, causing his head to explode in pain again. He paused, closing his eyes, then went on, more quietly but just as insistently. “You need to tell me…”
At that moment there was another scream, more of a howl of pain, causing them both to jump, and even Janet closed her eyes this time.
Jesus, Jack thought. That was Carter. He hadn’t been dreaming. Carter was screaming. Jack looked toward the curtained-off bed in something close to shock. Carter never screamed. He’d seen her take a beating, yank her own dislocated shoulder back into place… Was it that she was dreaming? Had something so horrible happened that she was screaming in her sleep?
Jack swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up unsteadily, eyes locked on the white curtain hiding the bed where his 2IC was now letting out small gasps and moans. Janet reached out to stop him, but he held up his hand without looking at her, and she sighed and took a step back. He felt a surge of vertigo and grabbed onto the small table near his bed, but again he waved Janet off and started to walk across the room. Janet walked by his side, hands slightly raised in his direction as if to catch him should he fall. He passed a bed with an airman curled on his side in a fetal position, arms around his head as if trying to block out the noise, and for a moment Jack wished he could do the same.
He hesitated when they reached the closed-off area, and Janet stepped by him and around to the foot of the bed.
“Sam,” he heard her murmur quietly. “Colonel O’Neill is here.”
If there was any response other than a hitch of breath, he didn’t hear it, but Janet gestured him forward, and he pulled back the curtain and stepped through, letting it fall back behind him.
Carter lay on her side in a hospital gown, her knees drawn up almost to her chest. He scanned her quickly, looking for injuries, but he couldn’t see anything, just the usual tubes and monitors. But she was biting her bottom lip hard and grimacing, and there were tears in her eyes, something else she rarely allowed herself, in public anyway. A nurse, Sullivan, sat at her side, holding her hand, and Jack had to give the Lieutenant credit for not crying out herself at the death grip Carter had on her fingers.
Damn.
He schooled his face just in time as Sam lifted her head slightly to look at him.
“Sir,” she said, in almost a whisper. “Are you all right? Daniel…” Her eyes went wide then and even Jack could see the spasm that shook her and caused her to sob and then moan.
He reached out to touch her arm. “Carter?” he said.
She looked up at him again and choked out, “Sorry, sir. I’m sorry.”
Jack had no idea what was going on or what had happened, but he knew one thing with certainty. “You have nothing to apologize for, Major,” he said. Then he turned to Janet. Carter was in agony, and Teal’c and Daniel were nowhere to be seen. He needed answers, and he needed them now.
“What the hell is…?”
Janet cut him off with a raised hand, then turned to Sam. “Sam, I just have to talk to the colonel for a minute. I’ll be right back.” Carter gave one small swift nod. Her eyes were closed tight and she was biting hard down on her lower lip again. Jack reached out again and grasped Sam’s arm for a moment, then pulled his hand back and followed Janet away from the bed. She walked in front of him this time, her heels clicking in a no-nonsense manner on the floor. She stopped at the chairs by the wall and gestured him into one. He shook his head, but she just stared at him and he lowered himself slowly, aware now of aches and pains in other parts of his body. He was suddenly conscious, also, of his bare feet, his ripped BDU pants, the long gauze bandage on his shirtless chest and another smaller one on his right arm, a little blood seeping through. And the pounding in his head. Whatever had happened, he realized, hadn’t happened that long ago.
He turned to Janet. “What the hell’s going on? What’s wrong with Carter and where the hell are Teal’c and Daniel?”
“Colonel, we need to get you changed…”
Jack felt a spark of rage tinged with fear, and he jumped up from his seat. The pain spiked in his head and he staggered back and almost went down, but he righted himself.
“Damn it, Doc, you tell me what happened, now! Where’s the rest of my team?”
A med tech across the room, Sgt. Halas, made a move toward them at Jack’s angry words, but Janet just shook her head at the young man and turned back toward Jack. She sighed, and Jack knew he was finally going to get some information from her.
“Teal’c is in surgery,” Janet began, using her “clinical voice,” the one Jack had heard in a hundred briefings. “He has two apparent knife wounds, one to his chest and the other to his upper thigh. Providing there are no complications, Dr. Warner expects him to make a full recovery, with the help of his symbiote. Major Carter has been poisoned.”
Jack actually felt himself pale. What the hell? Poisoned? He closed his eyes, trying to remember something, anything, that would help make sense of what he was hearing. “Is she going to be all right?” he asked.
As if in answer to his question, he heard a crash from Carter’s bed, and he turned to look and saw that the IV pole was on the ground and Carter was jerking on the bed as if in convulsions.
“Oh, God!” she shrieked out. “Ah, not…”
“Doctor!” Sullivan called, but Janet was already at Carter’s side. Jack went to the foot of the bed and watched as Janet checked Sam’s pulse and held her other hand and said, “C’mon, Sam, breath through it. C’mon,” as if Carter were having a baby not fighting off some alien poison.
What the hell? thought Jack. Out loud, he said, “Don’t just talk to her, Doc. Give her something! Do something!”
Janet shot him a look but kept talking to Sam, who a minute later stopped jerking in the bed and lay still, panting as if she’d just run a marathon. Janet stood there for a moment longer, then straightened up wearily, and he bit off the yell he was saving.
She nodded to him and once again they stepped away from Sam’s bed. “Sit down, Colonel, please.”
Jack bit off his rejoinder and perched on one of the chairs, glancing back worriedly in Carter’s direction.
“I don’t understand…” he started to say.
“No, Colonel, I’m afraid you don’t,” Janet interrupted. “She has been poisoned by an alien substance. We have no idea what we’re dealing with. We are waiting for bloodwork and analysis of the sample Major Carter managed to bring back, but even then I don’t have high hopes that it will help us. If I give her something now, without understanding how the poison works, and it interacts badly with whatever is in her system, and it could make things worse, or even kill her… Do you understand now?”
Jack looked at Janet, who stared back unapologetically for the harshness of her words, and he realized he deserved it for suggesting that she wasn’t doing everything she could for her patient and friend. He thought maybe he should apologize, but instead just nodded. He needed to get to the bottom of this. He needed to know what was going on; he needed to remember. Teal’c and Daniel…
Jack blinked and a new feeling of dread settled in his stomach as he realized just what Janet hadn’t said, not yet. He thought about how she’d told him about Teal’c first, and then Carter, even though she was right there in the room, and hadn’t… God, he thought, please let it be because he’s being debriefed or in his office trying to come up with a solution or… something.
“And Daniel?” he asked, so quietly he wasn’t sure she heard him at first.
He saw Fraiser hesitate, and the no-nonsense look in her eyes was replaced with one of pity, and the rock in his stomach became a boulder. Oh, God.
“Doc?” he said, bracing himself for the worst.
“Colonel…” she said.
“Doc, just…” He made a gesture with his hands that she should just say what she needed to say.
“I don’t know,” she said, finally.
He stared at her, not understanding what she meant. “You what? What?” he repeated himself. “How could you not know?”
Janet hesitated again, then asked, “Exactly what do you remember, Colonel?”
At Janet’s evasive answer, Jack felt himself lose it, as panic and anger battled each other for dominance. “Damn it, Doc, this is no time for games! Where the hell is Daniel?”
Janet still didn’t answer, and he could tell from the look on her face that she was about to tell him instead to calm down, but before she could, another voice, weak and filled with pain, called his name.
“Colonel?”
Sam. As desperate as Jack was for answers, he couldn’t ignore her call, not when she was suffering the way she was. He took a deep breath to calm himself and turned toward her bed. She said something else, but he couldn’t make out the words, so he took several steps in her direction.
“What was that, Carter?” he said.
Sam pushed herself up part way on trembling arms so she could look him in the eye.
“We left him behind, sir. We left Daniel behind.”
Jack froze where he was, the words hitting him like a sledgehammer. He worked his jaw to say something, but he couldn’t make the words come out. He looked to Janet, hoping she’d say that Sam was confused, wasn’t remembering correctly, but the doctor wouldn’t meet his eyes.
Finally he said, simply, “Where?”
Janet looked up slowly. “I believe the planet designation is PX0-4593…” she started to say, but at Jack’s impatient gesture, she said, “Polistia.”
Jack put a hand to his head, then rubbed his eyes. “Polistia? You mean the guys who wanted farm equipment? Why would…?”
Janet saw Jack’s eyes widen and knew the exact moment it all came back to him. He staggered as if he’d been kicked, and he croaked, hoarsely, “Those sons of bitches; those goddammed sons of…” He stopped mid-curse and went to his knees, grabbing for a nearby wastebasket, and started to vomit. Janet walked to him quickly and put her hand on his back.
“Easy, Colonel. It’s the concussion,” Janet said, even knowing that was only part of it. She nodded to Halas, and he moved to Jack’s other side to help him up. “We’ll just get you back to bed…”
Jack practically growled then and yanked his arm from the med tech’s hand. “No,” he said flatly as he struggled to his feet. “I need some clean clothes. Now.”
“Colonel,” Janet said, although she knew she had little hope of getting him to listen, “you’re in no condition to…”
Jack didn’t even wait for her to finish, just shook his head, walked to the infirmary doors and shoved them open. A passing airman started as the doors slammed open and looked even more startled when he saw who was standing there bleeding and half-undressed. “Get me a clean uniform, now!” Jack barked out and let the doors swing shut in the man’s face. Then, not bothering to look at Janet, he stalked over to the phone and grabbed it off the hook. Janet knew it was pure adrenaline that was allowing him to move like that at all, and that when he crashed, it wouldn’t be pretty, but she also knew he wouldn’t be Jack O’Neill if he weren’t behaving exactly as he was.
“This is O’Neill,” Jack said into the phone. “Get me Hammond.”
He turned to Janet while he waited and said in the same no-nonsense tone, “How long was I out?”
“A little over 10 minutes,” she answered, and he nodded, before speaking into the phone, “I’m fine, sir, yes, sir. No. No, sir. I need four teams up and ready to go, stat. Full weapons complement, Goa’uld grenades. I’ll be in the Gateroom in ten minutes… Yes, General, I can. No, we can’t afford to wait… The MALP’s still there, if they haven’t destroyed it. Yes, sir. It’s the only way, yes… What? …No, no sir, I’m fine…” Jack grimaced and held the phone out to Janet, who stepped forward to take it, ignoring the hard stare he was giving her. He had his job, and she had hers, and he knew better than to think he could cow her into doing anything against her medical judgment. Still she didn’t find what she was about to do easy. She knew what it would cost him to be kept from going back for Daniel.
“General?” she said into the phone.
Hammond didn’t beat around the bush. “Is Colonel O’Neill fit to lead a rescue mission through the Gate, Doctor?”
Janet tried to keep her face neutral and didn’t look toward Jack, but internally she braced for the explosion she assumed was coming.
“No, sir, I’m afraid he isn’t. The colonel was unconscious for more than 10 minutes, is still suffering from light-sensitivity, dizziness and nausea…”
The doors swung open again, and the young airman came in with a neatly folded set of BDUs he’d obviously grabbed from the supply room down the hall. He’d managed to procure some boots as well, and Janet silently cursed the youth’s initiative as Jack stalked past her, his mouth in a grim line, grabbed the uniform and boots with a mumbled dismissal, then spun back toward one of the private rooms attached to the infirmary.
“…Thank you, Doctor,” General Hammond was saying. “Would you please put Colonel O’Neill back on the phone?”
Janet took the phone away from her ear and held it out toward Jack’s retreating back. “Colonel,” she said. Jack hesitated, and for a moment she thought he’d keep going, but he turned and came back, looking right through her as he walked. He dropped the boots and put the BDUs down and took the phone.
“General,” Jack said flatly, then, “No, I can’t do that, sir. No, sir… I need to…” Jack closed his eyes as he listened to the general speak, and balled the hand not holding the phone into a tight fist. “Yes, sir,” he said, finally, his emotionless voice belying the expression in his eyes. “I’ll need to brief them, sir, or they’ll be going in blind.” He listened to Hammond’s response, then turned back toward Janet and she almost winced at the look on his face, not anger exactly, although that was there, not despair, but something darker.
“He wants to talk to you,” he said.
She took the phone. “Yes, sir?”
Hammond, as always, spoke calmly, though she knew how hard he too must have found his conversation with his second. “I’ll need Colonel O’Neill to brief the rescue teams,” he said. “You’ll release him to the Gateroom?”
“Yes, sir, General. I’ll send one of my people to escort him, just in case.”
“If he complains, Doctor, tell him those are my orders.”
“Yes, sir.”
Janet hung up the phone and braced herself for another outburst from Jack, but when she turned he had already disappeared behind the door to change. Hardly two minutes later he was out, fully dressed. He stopped by Sam’s bed and mumbled something, then walked past Janet, barely looking in her direction. She nodded to Halas and said, “Colonel, I’m going to send Sgt. Halas with you. General Hammond’s orders.”
Jack, his back still to them, raised his hand in a “come ahead” gesture without slowing his pace, but then suddenly stopped and turned around.
Colonel? she asked and waited.
“Take care of her, Doc. And Teal’c. Take care of them both,” he said, then spun around again and walked rapidly out of the room.
Chapter 4
Jack stood in the control room, clutching the edge of the table as the chevrons locked into place. “Chevron three encoded,” Walter said, maintaining his usual calm tone, despite the tension in the room.
The Polistians had kept their first wormhole engaged for the full thirty-eight minutes and then had dialed in again before the SGC was ready to dial out. If they’d learned that trick from someone on SG-9, Jack thought now, there’d be hell to pay. Fifty-eight f***ing minutes since he’d been thrown through the Gate, fifty-eight minutes since he’d last seen Daniel, curled in agony in the dirt, and almost ninety since Daniel and Sam had been poisoned. Too goddam long. At least this time they’d started dialing as soon as the last wormhole had collapsed. The Polistians would have to be damn fast with the DHD to beat the computer.
“Chevron four encoded.”
Jack looked down into the Gateroom as SGs-3, 7, 8 and 12 stood ready to go, with Major Adul keeping them steady and reminding them of their roles. Adul was a good man, had done a fine job with SG-8, and today had not hesitated when they’d gotten nothing from the MALP—no picture, no sound—as if someone had thrown a heavy blanket over the thing. Adul, all of them, were ready and willing to face the unknown, risk their lives to bring Daniel—and the antidote, if there really was one—home; all of them were good people, good soldiers. And damn it to hell, he should be the one leading them through.
He’d marched to the briefing room, Halas, the med tech kid in tow, certain Hammond would relent and let him go through the Gate. There was no other choice; this was his team that had been attacked, his people who were suffering, and his whole body thrummed with the need to go back and pull Daniel out and then blow the bastards to… But Hammond had remained firm, had not even engaged in the argument Jack was spoiling to have, had just said, “We’re wasting time, Colonel. Please tell the major and his people what to expect.”
So he had, knowing all the while, even through his anger, that he was lucky Hammond had even agreed to send a rescue party through, given the risk and everything they didn’t know.
And then they’d waited.
“Chevron six encoded,” Walter intoned as the Gate continued to spin. C’mon! Jack pleaded silently. C’mon!
“Chev…”
No, dammit, no! Jack slammed his hand against the console as the telltale sound and sight of an incoming wormhole burst into the room, and without waiting for the order, Walter hit the button closing the iris. The sound of Adul’s curse carried through the safety glass as the iris spun shut.
“Unauthorized off-world activation,” Walter announced, unnecessarily, over the intercom. “Unauthorized off-world activation…” He turned toward Jack and Hammond: “PX0-4593, sirs.”
Polistia.
Hammond nodded and with a weary sigh gestured toward the control panel, and Walter pushed the transmit button and slid out of his way.
“This is General Hammond of Stargate Command. I need to speak with Minister Gahry, Marshal Lioss or someone else in authority immediately. Please respond.”
As before, there was only silence.
Another goddam thirty-eight minutes. Jack lowered himself slowly into the chair behind him and put his head in his hands. Carter’s screams still echoed in his head, and he could swear, somewhere, he heard Daniel wailing in pain. Alone.
Hammond shook his head and reached for the mike, ready to tell the teams to stand down once again, but before he could speak, a burst of static came from the speaker in front of them, and the previously blank viewscreen suddenly showed a bright, metallic-gray sky. Jack’s head shot up, and he got to his feet, staring intently at the image. A moment later, the smug face of Marshal Lioss appeared.
“This is Marshal Lioss of the Polistian Empire. Whom am I addressing?”
Polistian Empire, my ass,Jack thought, and he opened his mouth to say just that, but Hammond held up his hand and, with steel in his voice, said, “This is General George Hammond of the U.S. Air Force, Earth Stargate Command. You are holding one of our people, Marshal. I demand that Dr. Jackson be returned to us, in good health, immediately.”
Lioss smiled. “You demand,” he said. “You demand.” He pretended to muse this over for a moment, then dropped his smile and sneered into the MALP camera as if he could see them where they stood. “Apparently, the arrogance of your people knows no bounds. You are in no position to make demands. We will contact you when we see fit. If you attempt to send a rescue party through or even activate the Great Circle, Dr. Jackson will be immediately executed, as will ten of our less loyal citizens and their families.”
Lioss stood back from the MALP, and someone they couldn’t see turned the camera lens to face the area immediately behind the DHD. On their knees, with soldiers surrounding them, were maybe thirty Polistians, old and young, men, women and children, even babies clutched in the arms of parents and grandparents. Some of the prisoners were weeping, but most had the glazed look in their eyes of people who couldn’t quite comprehend what was happening to them.
Jack felt the bile rise again but held it back. From the moment he’d set eyes on that bastard Lioss, he’d known what kind of man he was, but seeing this…
“You would murder your own people?” Hammond snapped.
The camera turned back, and Lioss bent in front of it, his face filling the screen again. “They are traitors who would die for the greater glory of the Polistian people, a cause far greater than their worthless lives. In fact, General, should you decide to act out of vengeance and send a weapon through that would, as your Colonel O’Neill put it, ‘blow our planet into the next galaxy,’ “—Hammond threw Jack a sideways glance and he winced, remembering his words—”we would all rejoice in the opportunity to die martyrs to the Empire.”
Then Lioss smiled again. “Tell O’Neill, however, it was useful to discover that Earth possesses weapons of such power.”
Jack practically growled then and jumped up, ignoring the spike slamming his head, and leaned toward the console, but Hammond gave a quick shake of his head, and Jack closed his mouth and made himself sit back in the chair. He realized his hands were shaking, and he balled them into fists to hold them still.
“What is it exactly that you want?” Hammond said, barely restraining his own anger.
“Right now? Right now, I want you to wait. I want you to wait as you watch your Major scream in pain. I want you to wait as you imagine the unbearable suffering of Dr. Jackson. We will contact you with our demands when we feel you have had sufficient time to contemplate the consequences of refusal. Goodbye, General.”
And before Hammond could respond, there was a wooshing sound, and the wormhole blinked out.
There was dead silence in the control room as they all stared at the blank screen. In the Gateroom, obviously aware that the wormhole had disengaged but unaware of the drama that had just unfolded above them, Major Adul and the rest of the rescue party, still carrying their full gear, shuffled their feet and looked up toward the window, awaiting their orders.
General Hammond, uncharacteristically, appeared frozen with indecision, but a split second later he shook his head quickly as if coming out of a trance, then took the microphone. “Gentlemen, have your teams stand down. Team leaders, briefing room, now.” He let go of the mike and ordered, “Sergeant, contact SG-14 and tell them to come on home, and then contact our other off-world teams and make sure they haven’t been trying to reach us.”
“Yes, sir,” Walter affirmed, and started punching addresses into the computer.
Hammond turned to Jack then, who was slumped in his chair and still staring at the blank screen. “Colonel?” he asked more quietly. “Briefing room?”
Jack looked up tiredly and nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Hammond hesitated, and Jack knew the general was sizing him up, trying to decide if he should order him to the infirmary instead, so, despite the pounding in his head and the exhaustion that was making his limbs feel like hundred-pound weights, he straightened up and looked his CO in the eye. “I’m fine, General. I’ll be right behind you.”
It looked as if the general wanted to say something else, but instead he just nodded, put a hand on Jack’s shoulder for a moment that said more than any words would have, and turned and left the room.
Jack slumped again in the chair, despair threatening to overwhelm him.
So.
No rescue mission. No antidote. No way to get to Daniel. No way to help Carter.
What the hell were they going to do? And how the hell had this happened?
He closed his eyes and shook his head. Oh, he knew how this had happened, knew exactly who was responsible for this fiasco. The memory was there, had been there, buzzing about his brain ever since everything had started to go to hell on the planet: Daniel, at another briefing, pacing back and forth, hands flailing as he argued, “How can we sign a treaty based on what we know about these people, or, more accurately, what we don’t know? Isn’t anyone else concerned that the Polistians are hiding something so basic, that they’re lying to us?”
And Jack remembered, just as clearly, shooting Daniel down. “Everyone lies in negotiations,” he’d said, as if talking to a child. “And everyone knows it… Well, almost everyone.” Then he’d gone on to make some joke about what the Polistians could do with their farm equipment.
And Daniel had stopped talking.
Oh, yeah, he knew exactly where the responsibility lay for this one.
Waving off Halas, who was still hovering, Jack pushed himself out of the chair and headed for the briefing room. There had to be a Plan B.
Pain.
It had started inside his stomach and spread outward, up his chest, into his neck and head, into his very eyes, down his torso, out his limbs through his hands and feet, across his skin, as if someone had scraped it away, leaving his nerves raw and exposed.
Pain, god-awful pain.
But he thought he could control it. Teal’c had taught him. If he focused, let himself move toward a state of Kel’no’reem… Daniel closed his eyes, shutting out the tiny, dark cell, too small to even stretch to his full length, and tried, again, to slow his breathing. He just needed a little more time before the next spasms started, that horrible twisting of muscles and limbs…
Breathe, Daniel, breathe, he told himself. Slow it down. You can do this. In… out… in… out… Teal’c had taught him well. Minutes passed, and his long shaky breaths grew calmer, and he breathed—in… out… in… out—until he felt himself floating, floating, almost, above the pain. It was still agonizing, like molten lava in his veins, like some wild animal ripping at his guts, but it was growing farther away, just far enough, he thought, that he might not lose his mind. In… out… in… out…
Somewhere, almost beyond his conscious mind, he heard them coming, the demand to open the outer gate, the tromping of heavy feet on the ground, but he wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t. It was working…
The door banged violently open, and Daniel started, loosing his concentration, and fell back into his tortured body with a crash. He cried out, despite his best intentions, then bit off the sob that tried to escape him.
Oh, God, it hurts.
The laughter, close, derisive and cruel, drew his attention outward, and, still curled on his side on the dirt floor where he’d been dumped who knows how long ago, Daniel turned his head toward the door and saw three sets of legs, one in robes, mere feet away. He raised head further, straining his sore neck and back, to see the faces.
Two… thugs, he thought, for lack of a better word. Twin thugs. Two large men dressed in black uniforms with no insignia, gray, close-cropped hair, square faces, hands on the clubs at their waists. As if he might attack them. If he could have, Daniel would have laughed at the absurdity. Behind the twins, stood Gahry, still dressed in his colorful, ceremonial robes, a feral grin on his face. Bastard, Daniel thought. He’d never liked the man, and he be damned if he was going to let him see how much pain he was in, how afraid he was. Clenching his jaw with the effort, Daniel raised himself slowly until he was sitting, then, back against the wall, pushed up till he was standing. His limbs trembled almost uncontrollably, but he managed not to collapse, and he tried to put all the contempt he was feeling into his face.
Gahry laughed again and stepped in front of his guards. “Why Dr. Jackson,” he said, almost jovially, in that same false voice he’d used throughout the negotiations, “you seem angry.” Then his smile dropped and he took another step forward until he was so close Daniel could feel the man’s stale breath on his face. Daniel drew his head back against the wall, but otherwise didn’t move.
“I knew from the beginning you’d be trouble,” he whispered, naked hatred showing in his eyes. “So many questions, so many doubts. Such superiority. Such confidence. How confident are you now, Doctor?”
Daniel tried to think of an intelligent response, something to show he wasn’t intimidated by the repulsive little man, but between the searing pain and the lack of oxygen caused by Gahry’s too close proximity, it was all he could do to stay on his feet.
“Well, Doctor? Gahry persisted. “How confident are you now?
The words came out, but Daniel was pretty sure they weren’t his. A weird time to be channeling Jack, but what the hell.
“Fu** you, you pompous ass.”
Gahry’s eyes went black, and Daniel braced himself internally for an assault, a part of him wondering almost abstractly if he would even feel a punch through all the other pain. But the punch didn’t come. Instead, Gahry’s face cleared, and he stepped back. He was smiling again.
God, what now? Daniel thought, gritting his teeth against a new surge of burning. He could swear it was growing stronger, and it scared him. Please just leave me alone so I can curl up and cry.
“Marshal Lioss has granted my request that I be the one to interrogate you.”
“Oh,” Daniel said.
“You have information we require if we are to return the Polistian regime to its time of glory. That and the weapons your people will provide to save your life will guarantee our empire shall last a millennium and beyond. It shall dwarf all others that have come before it.”
“Right,” Daniel said.
“We can make your pain go away, or we can make it a thousand times worse.”
Daniel blinked. He didn’t think there could be a thousand times worse. Could there?
“You will give us the coordinates to every inhabited world you know, starting with the more primitive.”
Oh, of course.
Daniel slid down the wall until he was sitting again and closed his eyes. Maybe if he just ignored Gahry and the thugs, they’d go away. Pain swirled around him, inside, outside, everywhere, and it took all his effort now just to keep from moaning. He needed to breathe; he didn’t think he could take…
The boot crashed into his side, knocking him over, and Daniel cried out. Oh, yes, he could feel that. Damn. As if in response to the new stimulus, his nerve endings seemed to go wild with pain. Oh, Jesus, he thought, more of a prayer than anything else. Conscious of Gahry standing above him, he struggled to stay quiet, to not give them the satisfaction of hearing him yell, and after a few moments, the pain started to subside again, to the merely unbearable.
Gahry knelt by his side, spreading his robe around him, and put one of Daniel’s notebooks and a pen on the floor next to him. “Give us the symbols, Dr. Jackson. Let’s start with one planet. There must be a world you don’t care about, a world in need of a new order. For just one, I can make the pain go away for as long as I wish. A minute, an hour…”
“Don’t know any,” Daniel mumbled, closing his eyes again against the pain.
“But you do,” Gahry said. “One of your colleagues on SG-9 told us. Gilbert? I believe the young man idolizes you, Dr. Jackson. He says you know more ‘Gate addresses,’ as you call them, than anyone else possibly in the universe. His words, not mine.”
“Not me,” Daniel said, his voice little more than a whisper. “He must…” Daniel felt a twitch in his leg, and another in his arm, and his eyes popped open. Oh, god, no. It was starting again. No, not again.
He heard Gahry’s voice as if through a haze—”He must, what, Dr. Jackson?”—but he ignored him. Breathe, he thought, breathe. Maybe I can stop it this time. And he tried. In… out… in… out… Another twinge, and another, and his breath came faster. In, out, in, out, and he knew he was gasping. The first spasm hit, twisting him sideways, then the second, in his neck, jerking his head against the floor, and a third in his chest, and another in his leg, and he heard himself grunting, inhuman, animal-like sounds, but he wasn’t going to scream, he wasn’t…
Daniel screamed.
Chapter 5
Daniel couldn’t stop shaking. The spasms had stopped, but his thoughts still jumped crazily in his head, and at first he couldn’t remember where he was. All he knew was pain, terrible, terrible pain. An acrid smell filled the cell, and he realized that it was coming from him, that he had wet himself, and a rush of shame mixed with his fear and confusion.
Suddenly someone was speaking. “All that suffering, for nothing,” a voice said, its smug tone belying the sympathetic words. “You must see that, each time, the seizures grow worse. Can you imagine that, Dr. Jackson? Can you imagine worse pain?” The voice hesitated, as if expecting an answer, then went on. “But we can make the pain go away. You need only give us the symbols.”
A hand holding a notebook and a pen came into view, and Daniel remembered.
Gahry. The minister had stood by and watched as Daniel’s body jerked and contorted, had listened to his screams and done nothing. He’d enjoyed it, obviously.
Despite his exhaustion and the relentless burning in his veins and across his skin, Daniel somehow got his shaky arms to work, and he sat up once again with his back to the wall. He didn’t try to stand, knowing he wouldn’t make it. Instead, he simply stared up at Gahry.
Gahry sneered at him. “Here you sit in your own waste, yet you still believe you are superior, don’t you?” He bent and shoved the pen in Daniel’s face again. “The symbols,” he spat out.
Daniel leaned his head back against the stone wall and looked at a crack on the wall behind Gahry. Maybe if he just ignored him, he would go away. He started to concentrate on his breathing again. In… out… in… out…
“Do you really think you can win? I heard your screams, I saw your tears. You are less than nothing.”
In… out… in… out… i—
The backhand caught Daniel in the mouth, jerking his head sideways and knocking him to the ground. His thoughts scattered again, for a second, but then he was pushing himself up once more, knowing it was only pure stubbornness that was keeping him going. This time he ended up on his knees, swaying. He felt the blood dripping from his lip, and he raised his hand to wipe it away. Gahry watched him without moving, then shook his head and turned toward the door.
“It’s only a matter of time; you know that,” he said as he stepped out of the cell. He waved to his guards, who’d been standing in the corridor looking in, and they all strode away. Someone pushed the door shut with a slam, and Daniel heard the bar slip into place. He stayed as he was until the footsteps died away and he heard the outer gate shut, then he sank slowly back to the floor.
“Any time now, Jack,” he whispered, as he pulled his knees up to his chest and waited for the next spasms to hit.
It was hours before Jack finally returned to the infirmary. He trudged wearily down the hall next to Halas, who had followed his orders to the letter, virtually never leaving his charge’s side, offering Tylenol and a constant anxious expression and, at least twice on this last trip, a steadying hand. It was a sign of just how exhausted, how wretched Jack felt that the second time he’d actually accepted the med tech’s help.
In the debriefing, they’d gone around and around, looked at the problem from every angle, and after all that they still had nothing. No Plan B. If they dialed the Gate, Daniel was dead, and those terrified people with him. There was no doubt that Lioss would do it, would murder them all without hesitating. So they were left with exactly what Lioss wanted: waiting. Waiting for the Tok’ra to respond to their hails. Waiting for Kovachek and the rest of SG-9 to make it back from their canceled leave to see if they had gained any knowledge during negotiations that might help. Waiting to see if Fraiser and her people could come up with an antidote on their own and at least help Carter.
Waiting for that psycho Lioss to contact them, in minutes, hours or days.
Jack stopped briefly outside the infirmary doors. He felt so damn helpless, and now he had to go in there and tell Carter—and Teal’c, who’d they’d learned was out of surgery—that there was nothing they could do for Daniel, that he was trapped there, suffering, and they couldn’t get to him. And he had to tell Carter that they weren’t going for the antidote, that they still had nothing, no way to save her from all that pain.
And the pain was getting worse, he knew. Halfway through the briefing, Fraiser had contacted Hammond with that bit of news, that while Carter’s vitals had remained unchanged, the spasms that racked her body were occurring more often and more with more intensity. She was still unwilling to risk pain medication, but she was hoping that muscle relaxants would alleviate the worst of the spasms. She hadn’t contacted them again, and that at least had to be a good sign, right? If Carter had reacted badly to the muscle relaxants, she would have told them…
Jack sighed, knowing he had stalled long enough, and pushed through the doors. Ignoring Halas’s hand on his arm trying to steer him to one of the infirmary beds, he moved toward Carter instead—he needed to check on her and Teal’c; his pounding head could wait. One of the nurses moved to intercept him, but then Janet stepped into view, said something quietly to her, and she stopped. Jack was conscious of both their eyes on him as he walked.
The curtain around Sam’s bed was drawn, and as he drew a little closer, he heard a voice from behind it, calm, strong and steady: Teal’c's voice. Jack stopped in his tracks and glanced at his watch to confirm that it had been barely two hours since Teal’c had gotten out of surgery. Symbiote or no, that was an awfully quick recovery, and he wasn’t sure whether to berate the Jaffa for not resting or hug the big guy for watching after Carter while he was gone. Listening to him now, he was definitely leaning toward the latter.
“…slowly, more slowly. If you allow your mind to follow, it will be as a waking dream. Yes, I am certain. The pain will become distant, as if trying to reach you through a Verilian force field…”
Jack walked forward and stepped around the curtain. Teal’c, who sat in a chair by Sam’s bed holding her hand, acknowledged his presence with a nod. Teal’c looked almost himself, but Jack could see the effort behind his erect pose. Sam, who was still curled on her side, had her eyes closed and was breathing steadily, yet deliberately, her face a study in concentration, the lines of pain still drawn around her eyes.
“Do not analyze, Major Carter. You must release you mind, allow it to follow the path you have envisioned, along the beach, winding into the distance, the waves gentle roar in you ears…”
Sam took a deep breath, then another, but then her eyes popped open. Her back was to him, and Jack wasn’t aware that he’d made a sound or even moved, but she must have sensed him anyway. “Colonel?” she asked in a hoarse voice. Jack winced, and raised his hands a little in a gesture of apology toward Teal’c.
“Sorry, Carter. I didn’t mean to distract you. Just keep doing what you were doing.”
Sam ignored his suggestion. “Daniel, sir?”
Jack hesitated, then said, “No news yet. What I need from you is to take care of yourself. I’ll take care of…”
“No, sir,” Sam said. She turned her head toward him, gritting her teeth at the pain even that small effort cost her. “I’m sorry, sir, I need to know.” She took a shaky breath and continued. “You said you were going back through to get him, but something went wrong, didn’t it?”
“I too would like to know the answer to that question, O’Neill,” Teal’c said. “It is imperative that we bring Daniel Jackson home.”
Ya think? Jack almost snapped, but he knew that it was only worry for their teammate driving their questions. He took a deep breath and walked around the side of the bed so Sam didn’t have to turn to see him. He stumbling a little as he maneuvered around the IV pole andTeal’c reached up to steady him. Halas, who’d followed him across the room like some obedient shadow, pulled a chair around, and Jack sat down as naturally as he could, more relieved than he would ever admit to be off his feet. He looked up at the lieutenant and said, “Thanks,” then jerked his head sideways, and the young man nodded and stepped far enough away to give them some privacy.
“Sir?” Sam persisted.
Jack hesitated again, finding it hard to say the words out loud. Finally, he sighed, slumping in his chair: “We can’t get to him.”
“What?” Sam said, trying to sit up. “We have to—”
“Carter,” he said, interrupting her and putting his hand on her shoulder to encourage her to lie back down. When she didn’t move, he said more quietly, “Sam.”
Sam reluctantly let Jack help lower her to the bed, biting off a moan as she lay back down. She closed her eyes for a moment, opened them again and both she and Teal’c stared at him.
Jack knew he needed to just spit it out. “We can’t send a rescue party,” he said, “because Lioss has a bunch of people hostage, old people, kids, and he says he’ll kill them, and Daniel, if we even dial their Gate.”
“Oh, god,” Sam rasped, looking even more distraught.
“It will be O.K., Carter,” Jack said, not believing his own words but knowing he had to try. “We’ll figure something out. We’ve put in a call to the Tok’ra; they’ll lend us a ship.”
“If they answer at all,” she whispered.
“Major Carter is right. It has often taken the Tok’ra days, even weeks to respond to our hails.”
Way to sugarcoat it, Teal’c, Jack thought. He rubbed his hand across his face and sighed tiredly. “Yeah, well, let’s hope they’re faster this time. And you know when Jacob hears about this, he and Selmak will move heaven and earth—and the Tok’ra high council—to help.”
Sam smiled a little at the mention of her father, but she didn’t look convinced. Neither did Teal’c.
“And Marshal Lioss?” Teal’c asked, the disgust he felt for the man evident in his voice. “What has he demanded in return for the lives of Daniel Jackson and Major Carter?”
Jack looked sideways at Sam. “Teal’c…” he reprimanded.
“It’s all right, sir. I know what Lioss said. That—” Sam gasped and clutched Teal’c's hand more tightly, then let out a small whimper. She took three trembling breaths before she could continue “—that the poison will kill us,” she finished.
“Fraiser will find a way, Carter,” Jack said. “She…”
“Sir, please,” Carter interrupted through clenched teeth. “I don’t know how long I can… What did Lioss want?”
“He didn’t say. He wants… He wants to keep us hanging. He says he’ll contact us when he’s ready.”
They were all silent for a long moment.
“And so we wait,” Teal’c said.
Jack nodded, despair almost assaulting him again at the thought. “We wait,” he said.
Teal’c contemplated that for another long moment, then turned toward Sam and said, “Major Carter, we will try again to help you reach a state of Kel’no’reem.”
“No, Teal’c, you need to rest,” Sam protested weakly.
“My symbiote has repaired me sufficiently for the time being.”
I don’t know if I can, Teal’c. I tried…”
“We will try again. Remember, you must start by focusing on your breathing. Slowly…”
As Jack watched Teal’c work his magic, he shook his head slightly, wondering for perhaps the thousandth time what he had done to deserve such an incredible team, how he’d come to be so fortunate, so blessed to end up with these people in his life. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and looked up to see Janet at his side. She jerked her head, mimicking his motion to Halas earlier, and he gave a grimace but pushed himself off the chair and followed her to a bed far enough away so they could talk without disturbing Teal’c and Carter.
“Is the muscle relaxant helping?” he asked, as soon as they were out of earshot. “Carter didn’t seem quite as… bad as before.”
“It seems to be,” Janet said. “The muscle spasms had become quite intense, but after we injected the medication, we found that the next episode was not as severe, and didn’t last as long. And that was almost an hour ago. If we can find the right balance, we might be able to spare her at least that pain.”
“That’s good, Doc. It’s hard to see her so…” Jack didn’t know how to end the thought, so pressed on: “And an antidote? Are you anywhere close?”
Janet sighed and shook her head, and Jack could see that she was frustrated with his question. “I wish I could give you good news on that, Colonel, but right now it’s still all guesswork.”
Jack nodded, grimly, and looked over toward Carter’s bed.
“And Teal’c. Should he even be out of bed?” he asked.
Janet almost smiled, albeit grimly. “No,” she said. “And you should have been confined to a bed hours ago, and Major Carter shouldn’t be discussing anything upsetting…”
Jack just looked at her, and she went on. “But I know you all too well by now to think that you could do anything but what you’re doing. Teal’c will be fine if he enters Kel’no’reem in the next few hours, and right now he’s helping Sam more than I can. And Sam, well, Sam wouldn’t rest until she knew what was happening with Daniel. And you, Colonel… you are finally going to let me examine you and give you the care you need.”
When Jack didn’t have a comeback, Janet raised her eyebrows, then looked at him with concern.
“Not that I’m surprised,” Janet said, pulling out her penlight, “since you’ve been running around for hours with a concussion, but just how bad do you feel?”
“Not good,” Jack admitted. “On a scale of one to ten, I think my head’s maybe a twelve.”
Janet shone her penlight in one of Jack’s eyes, and he pulled back and growled, “Fifteen!”
Janet grimaced in sympathy but said, “Sorry, Colonel, you know the drill. And it could have been a lot worse than a concussion, obviously, if you hadn’t thought to send your IDC before the Polistians tossed you back through the Gate.”
“What?” Jack said.
Janet shook her head. She looked chagrined. “I’m sorry, Colonel. I know that wasn’t funny. Let me get you something for the pain, and then we’ll send you for a CAT scan.”
“No,” Jack said, “I mean, what do you mean, ‘If I hadn’t sent my IDC’?”
“I’m sorry,” Janet said. “I thought you realized… Teal’c and Sam thought you were staying on the planet and told the control room to close the iris. If they hadn’t received a second IDC…
Jack gaped at her. Jesus, he thought, for the first time realizing how close he’d come to being splattered into a thousand pieces. It hadn’t even occurred to him. They’d closed the iris. Jesus.
“I didn’t send the IDC,” he said.
Janet, who was checking the bandage on Jack’s arm, looked at him, then back at his wound. “You have a concussion, Colonel. Your memory is bound to play a few tricks on you.”
“No,” Jack said. “Even if I’d thought of it, there wasn’t any time. I don’t…”
Jack stopped, his mouth open, and stared through Janet as he remembered the last moments on Polistia. He could see it now, see the image that hadn’t made sense to him at the time. As he was dragged kicking and screaming toward the Gate, he’d turned toward Daniel and seen him raised part way off the ground, pointing his hand toward the Gate. Holy, crap. Jack suddenly felt nauseous again and put his face in his hands. Daniel, already in agony from the poison and even knowing he was about to be left behind, again, on some godforsaken planet, had still, somehow, had the presence of mind to realize what would have happened when Teal’c and Sam went through the Gate without them.
Jack raised his head and looked bleakly at Janet.
“Daniel,” he said.
“Colonel?”
“I didn’t send the code. Daniel did.”
