Title: The Price of Redemption
Author: Melpomene Blue
Rating: T
Summary: "The harmless recon mission she had been promised had failed to live up to its expectations."
Disclaimer: No monies made, no rights held.
The Price of Redemption
The flare of raw unadulterated pain renewed itself almost as soon as it had ceased and very slowly continued its path across her back, nearly stilling the beating her heart and making breathing all but impossible. Had she not already been so well secured against the wall, she would have long ago puddled to the floor as much out of desperation to escape their touch as from exhaustion and pain.
As it was, her legs had ceased to be able to support her - not that they had been of much use to begin with, forcing her arms to bear the brunt of her weight as she pressed forward against the rough rocks that made up the cell wall. The heavy metal cuffs biting deeply into the broken and bloody flesh of her wrists no longer worried her. Possible blood poisoning from the crusting rust was the least in her very long list of problems. On the bright side, her hand no longer seemed to hurt and her foot was nearly forgotten.
She had known pain before, endured it often enough to know her limits, but the slowly drawn out process of her ordeal was nearly beyond anything she had experienced. Even giving birth to Adria had been a walk in the park compared to this. The only experience she could draw on from her memories that held any semblance at all involved Qetesh and she struggled to keep those memories from resurfacing.
Her tormentors spoke to her, their voices low and calm in the terrible stillness of her frigid cell. Their words never ceased, spilling forth much the same as the blood that already slicked her back, their tone never rose to anger or despair. Vala could not say the same for her own vocalizations. The gag the guards had forced between her teeth muffled her words but didn't prevent her from trying to speak.
She thought that the provisioners' voices were likely to drive her deep into insanity long before the constant pain of their ministrations were ever given the chance. She tried to ignore them but found the attempt futile. Unwillingly, she could also hear her own groans and muffled cries echo against the shadowed corners of her own chamber of hell. Straining desperately, she could not hear the tell tale sound of her teammates arriving to rescue her and she wondered if they had even noticed she was missing from their appointed rooms.
The frozen air, which had chilled her through when she had first been thrust into the cell and set her teeth to chatter against the gag, burned her throat and only caused more trembles to quake her limbs, threatening to reawaken the pain in her foot and hand. It was so cold she was surprised she could not see her breath. The air, the stone, the blade, the provisioner's hands… it all worked to turn her to ice. If only she could truly turn to ice…
As the blade moved from the back of her right shoulder and sunk once more into the soft skin just below her left shoulder blade, Vala bit her lips to keep back the cry she desperately wanted to voice and pressed her forehead harder against the stone wall as the metallic tang of blood hit her tongue. The tears, however, had been beyond her control to stop. Calling on every fiber of mental strength she had left, she struggled to pull her mind from the slow torment and submerge her thoughts in a far more pleasant place.
The harmless recon mission she had been promised had failed to live up to its expectations.
-oOo-
"It's just a recon mission, princess. Thought we could all do with a change of scenery."
Vala cocked her head at Cam and shrugged, disregarding the magazine she had been flipping through, she rolled from her bed to stand and beam at him with a wicked gleam in her eye. "I'm not exactly dressed for the occasion."
The suggestive tone of her voice brought a smirk to Cameron's face and he swatted at her rollers and eyed the robe she'd casually draped over her pajamas with a broad grin. "In the interest of an uneventful recon, I think we can wait for you to get dressed - just don't be an hour. I promise you, there won't be anyone there for you to impress."
Her smile changed to a flirtatious grin and caused him to wag a finger at her in only partial mock consternation. "I mean it, Vala, if you're not in the gate room in fifteen minutes, we'll leave without you."
They hadn't needed to carry through with the threat to leave without her, she reached the gate room just as the last chevron locked. Vala bounced closer to Daniel's side, her grin spreading when he cut his eyes at her.
It had been three weeks since they had last been off world as a group thanks to a far too interesting mission to "Gopher Hole Province" as Cam had taken to calling the planet. That they had each stepped into one of the well-concealed holes during their recon had not been the issue, that both Daniel and Cam had sprained their ankles doing so was. Under Dr. Lam's strict orders, the pair had been grounded until she was convinced the sprains were completely healed.
During the interim, Sam and Teal'c had been loaned out to various other teams but Vala – Vala had been left to her own devices. She had spent a few days out shopping with Sam between the astrophysicist's missions with the other teams in order to further immerse herself in Earth's cultural offerings and she had learned how to play a rather pointless game called ping pong with one young officer she had cornered in the hallway on a particularly boring day. She had paid daily visits to both Daniel and Cam until Daniel decided he would be better able to recuperate at his apartment… off base, and Cam had taken to napping during her social calls. In the end, Vala had spent far too much time lounging in her own room on base and browsing through countless magazines.
"How's your ankle, Daniel? Are you feeling better? Well rested?"
He smiled slightly at the stream of questions. "Yes, thank you. How was your down time?"
She shrugged and hopped lightly from one foot to the other, her pigtails swaying with her eagerness. "I did learn the intricacies of hitting a ping pong ball with a rubber lined paddle," she offered at last. She turned her attention back to the gate as Cam stepped into the event horizon. Taking a deep breath and glad to finally be leaving the planet, even if only for a short and boring recon mission, she followed with a smile.
The planet they emerged onto was, by all appearances, essentially like most other planets they had visited. Trees and grass and little sign of life so close to the gate, just like most other worlds. But there was something vaguely familiar about it. Vala couldn't help but think that she should remember having been there before.
There was something about the place that she really didn't like. It wasn't anything outright disturbing, just a pervasive unease that seeped into her bones and wouldn't be shaken away. Perhaps it was the over-solicitousness of the people they had met, or the heavy dampness of the land in general. Whatever the unease, it would not leave Vala's thoughts.
She tried to talk her way out of staying for the feast to which the locals had invited them, reminding Daniel and Sam about those pesky minor food allergies she had inherited form her father, but she could not sway them to allow her to return early.
"It's just a meal, Vala," Daniel insisted. "Leaving now would only insult them. We're supposed to be goodwill ambassadors. They've gone to a great deal of trouble to organize this."
"Who asked them to? Besides, it wouldn't need to be all of us leaving, just me. Did you see what they were taking to the kitchens? If they're planning on having us eat those creatures I saw them carry in, they're gravely mistaken." She finally gave up the pretense at charming him to do her bidding. "They looked like they could have been scraped from the bottom of my boot."
That evening, she had been further disheartened to discover their feast was largely comprised of the creatures in question once they had been ushered into the great room of the main structure of the citadel. The small animals had been plucked, butchered, cooked and redressed in all their muddy colored feathers. She refused the serving offered her despite Daniel's heated glare.
She decided that Daniel could glare and glower all he wanted, she wasn't about to eat something that looked like it had first been stomped to death by muddy boots and then dipped in a vat of dirty oil. She settled on nibbling at a few of the raw vegetables that reminded her of Earth's carrots and sipping sparingly as the large glass of sour wine that had been forced into her hand.
Daniel, she noted humorously, didn't eat but a bite or two of his own feathered monstrosity. Of course, he was talking so much with the minister that his slight had probably been overlooked. Daniel and Sam had big plans for the following morning and the minister seems eager to discuss the ruins that had caught their attention. Vala had no idea what Cameron and Teal'c had planned for the morning but she knew she wasn't about to go traipsing across half a continent to peek at a crumbling stone structure that may or may not be giving off a Naquedah signature reading. She would happily find something to keep her occupied in the village until they were scheduled to depart the next evening.
Boredom soon sank in and she allowed her gaze to drift around the room. The notion that she should recognize the place nagged at her, but Daniel had already assured her that they had never been to this particular planet before. It was most assuredly not one of the planets she had called on prior to joining the SGC and reforming her ways. Regardless, she could not banish the idea that she had been here before.
The overly cheery woman who sat across the banquet table from her prattled on and on about the recent harvest and Vala did try to feign interest, for a while at least. But the truth was, she didn't particularly care about field product yield or rainfall measures in the lower fields or the rotation of crops.
When the woman found another more engaging audience, Vala allowed her eyes to slowly droop closed. Suddenly, staying awake seemed to be nearly impossible and the beginnings of a headache pricked at her temples. A hard jab to her ribs started her awake and she rolled her eyes at the return of Daniel's disapproval. What did he care if she fell asleep in her soup? He should be glad she wasn't kicking his shins black and blue for making her stay for the feast to begin with.
-oOo-
A hard hand shook her awake and she blinked rapidly to clear her vision. Nothing looked familiar.
"Come, the minister will speak with you."
Vala squinted at the man who had roused her from her sleep. "The minister? He wants to speak to me? No, no, you're mistaken, it's Daniel he'll be wanting, not me." She attempted to roll away from the man's insistent touch and allow sleep to reclaim her. Her head felt so heavy, she didn't think she could rise even had she wanted to try.
"The minister demands your presence in the great room," the man insisted.
Vala squinted up at him and tried to shake some of the fuzz from her thoughts but only succeeded in making the room spin. She wouldn't be going back to sleep any time soon. She pushed herself up on one elbow and glanced around the dreary chamber. How had she ended up here? The last thing she could remember from the feast was Daniel glaring at her for… something she had done, or failed to do, or possibly for something she had wanted to do.
Speaking of Daniel, she squinted into the gloom, where was the rest of her team? Had they left on their jaunt without even stopping in to say goodbye?
"My friends… They're already awake? They're not here?" She cast about in confusion. She couldn't remember retiring the previous evening, didn't recall ever seeing this room before.
The man gripped her arm and pulled her to her feet. "The minister will see you now."
"Yes, yes… the minister," she agreed wearily. Upright, Vala swayed wildly and she clutched at the man's shoulder in an attempt to remain standing. She smiled unsteadily. "Guess I drank more of that wine last night that I thought."
He said no more, but guided her along a passageway and into the crowded great room. The queasy feeling she had been battling ever since first stepping from the event horizon suddenly worsened. It was half way through the corridor that she realized her feet were bare but the man would not allow her to pull from his grip to retrieve her shoes from where ever they might have been hidden. She was still trying to put one foot steadily in front of the other without wavering too badly when she realized she had been sequestered into a barred cage, the door swinging shut to clang loudly behind her.
She spun around, her lack of balance causing her to fall against one of the walls of her prison. Her thoughts were still muddled when she faced those who watched her.
The man who had led her there stood with his back to her. "The minister will read the charges against the prisoner."
"Charges?" Vala's mouth quirked in confusion, she was waiting for the joke to end so that she could take out her anger on her teammates. However, she had yet to see any of them and her head was still aching and spinning alternately. She didn't understand how she could have a hangover when she had barely drunk any of the horridly bitter wine from the previous night's feast. "What charges? I haven't been here long enough to have done anything wrong yet," she complained, raising a hand to the base of her skull where the throbbing was so forceful she thought the pulse must be visible from across the room.
The man who climbed atop the dais barely stood at Vala's eye-level, despite the elevation of the platform. His heavy, dark robes rustled stiffly as he situated himself behind the podium and struggled to pry open a large book, flipping through the yellowed pages until he seemed to have found what he was searching for. He took a deep, haggard breath. "The crimes as committed against we the Tangata Whenua by the creature Qetesh are as follows…"
"Wait!" Vala's shout had brought the gathering to a stand still and reverberated harshly in her head. She had lifted her hands in a further plea but slowly, very slowly, dropped them back to her sides when several primitive but most likely highly effective weapons were pointed her way. "What I mean to say is, I understand now. You have a quarrel with Qetesh," she stated just as slowly. "I don't mind telling you, I have a quarrel with Qetesh as well."
The man looked at her, unmoved, and began to read from the list of Qetesh's atrocities.
Vala's skin prickled and chilled with goose bumps and she tried to calm her ragged heartbeat. "But don't you see, I didn't commit any of these crimes, it was Qetesh. I'm not Qetesh, she's not a part of me anymore. I'm just as much her victim as your people… probably more so." She cast her gaze at the others who filled the great room, desperate for an escape. "I couldn't stop her. Yes, she used my body to commit these crimes, but I couldn't stop her. It wasn't me."
No one moved. No one would even meet her gaze. She blocked out the minister's droning voice as she sought to find some means of escape. She was, after all, well aware of the evils Qetesh had inflicted upon others, she didn't need a recap. This was insane but it did answer the nagging question of why the place had seemed vaguely familiar. She had always known, somewhere in the back of her mind she had always suspected at any rate, that Qetesh would be the death of her but it didn't mean she had to accept it easily.
The walls looked solid enough, so did the bars of her cage, for that matter. No open windows, no unguarded doors… She would have tried her hand at picking the lock to her cage had there been fewer gawking witnesses. No, any escape attempt would have to wait until she could come up with a brilliant plan for getting away before they took out their frustrations with Qetesh on her.
Only when an approving murmur swept through the hall and the crowd began to disperse did Vala realize she had missed hearing the details of Qetesh's punishment. She jerked her gaze back to the minister who was slowly and painstakingly making notations in his hefty ledger.
"Wait, please…"
He raised rheumy eyes to regard her. "You should be grateful for our leniency. The crimes committed against us would easily bring a sentence of death, however, we are a compassionate people. It is understood that you were a prisoner of Qetesh at the time of the crimes, but punishment must be meted out. Someone must answer for these atrocities."
He eased the book closed, his expression softening slightly. "I am sorry. As minister, I tried to convince the council to at least allow you a potion during the castigation but the anger of our people is too great to allow so much leniency."
Vala shook her head, her brow furrowing as she watched guards approach the cage. Suddenly, she didn't mind being caged up so much as long as it meant she would remain untouched. "I don't understand."
The minister nodded sadly. "I fear you will all too soon."
"You drugged my wine," Vala stated. "You tricked me and my friends into believing you were interested in forming alliances, you encouraged them to leave to visit your ruins knowing I would remain here and now you're sorry you can't prevent your own people from heaping on me a punishment I don't even deserve?" It had taken her still throbbing head longer to piece the all facts together than it would have under ordinary circumstances but she was morbidly pleased she had managed it at all.
"And what of the rest of my team? What have you done with them?" She would have shouted her demand had the pain in her head not increased. Instead, her voiced dropped to an almost whisper and the minister had to lean toward her to hear.
"Your friends remain unharmed. They should be arriving at the ruins with their guides now. We have no charges against them."
Frustration gnawed at her words as she reiterated, "Just as you have no right to lay charges against me." Charm had not worked with these people when she wasn't incarcerated; she wasn't going to waste her energy on trying to charm them from behind bars.
"The Hara Tuhituhi will commence as soon as the provisioners are prepared." The minister watched her, his expression more sympathetic than before but still determined. "I am sorry, Vala Mal Doran, I believe you stand innocent of these charges. However, someone must be punished."
"So I'm to be Qetesh's whipping boy," she muttered. Forcing her voice to regain at least some of its usual spirit, she added, "Don't have your provisioners hurry on my account." She waved her hand in a broad gesture. "Let me stew for a few days, and then exact your revenge."
The minister's eyes widened. "The sentence will be carried out before the sun reaches its zenith on this day."
Vala's eyes snapped back to his face. "Today?" She glanced at the only window in the room, noting the golden glow that had begun to color the sky. "Now?"
"It is our way."
"Yes, well that's great for you then, isn't it? Speedy trial, even speedier punishment," Vala snapped. She backed into the furthest corner of her cage when the guards released the lock and swung the door wide. She weighed her chances of escaping against six muscle-bound men and knew that she didn't stand a chance against them, not without any weapons.
"If you struggle, it will be worse for you," she was warned.
"Will you at least tell me what this," she struggled for the phrase, "this… Hara Tuhituhi is? Shouldn't I be allowed to prepare myself? Or is allowing an innocent but condemned woman that much compassion not your way?" She slapped at the hands that reached for her, landing a punch against the guard who had pushed into the cage in his quest to take her out of her temporary haven.
The man didn't even waver, as if her strike had no force behind it at all, and by the way her fist ached, she knew that it had. Her struggle did not last long. Overpowered and outnumbered, she was pulled from the cage despite the curses she spat out at them. In a last ditch effort, she managed to curl the fingers of one hand around the bars of the cell's doorway. She might not be able to use brute strength against them, but she certainly wasn't going to make their job any easier.
She smirked at the guard who looked down at her hand. Fine, it would take them all of two seconds to forcefully remove her hand from the bars but that was two more seconds between the here and now and her punishment.
"What? Do you really expect me to allow you to take me quietly? Your minister himself admitted I'm merely being used as a scapegoat. If your people wanted true vengeance, they'd go after Qetesh herself. When my friends discover your treachery, they'll rescue me. If you don't release me now, you can kiss your hopes for a profitable alliance goodbye." She wished she could feel surer of her words than she did, but at least she sounded certain of the claim. Truthfully, she didn't know what might happen when the rest of the team discovered what had become of her.
The man watched her a moment more before he reached for the cell's door and slammed it against her clutched fingers.
Vala could do little more than gasp in realization of his intentions before she emitted a pained howl. Her crushed hand fell from the bar and dangled limply, the pain quickly overtaking the throbbing of her head. She tried to curl the fingers into a fist, an automatic response to the hurt inflicted on them, but quickly forced them to hang limp. Nausea flooded her stomach, making her glad she had not eaten any of the feast's offerings the evening before. She no longer fought against them as they took her from the great room.
She tried once more to pull away from the hard hands that held her as her guards reached a chilly room at the end of a long and winding corridor. It was her one last effort to flee the impending doom of whatever it was that lay within that room, but the pulsating pain in her hand combined with her throbbing head and an unexpected bout of vertigo prevented her body from fully cooperating with her tumultuous thoughts.
She continued to struggle against the hands, pulling backwards as they forced her through the doorway. Once in the room, she further refused to cooperate, causing the men to drag her the rest of the way. Being a dead weight, she decided was little worse than struggling fruitlessly but it did conserve her energy.
"Stand before the provisioners," a sour voice snarled in her ear.
Vala chose to ignore the demand, stubbornly remaining as limp and lifeless as possible. Hoping beyond hope that some one would find a way to get her out of this mess before it was too late.
"You were told to stand."
Behind her closed lids, she rolled her eyes. She wasn't deaf. She had heard the demand - she had merely chosen not to obey. With her eyes closed, she found her vertigo was not nearly so bad as it was when she could see things flashing about in front of her eyes, she also learned she could not protect herself from being lashed out at by her guards.
The pain was second to the distinctive sound of a booted foot stomping down with a snap and crunch. Vala's brain frantically worked to piece together what had occurred... the guard's anger, her bare feet dragging behind her and the excruciating agony radiating up her leg. Her eyes bulged and her mouth gaped open. Her lungs struggled to draw in air to no avail.
The guard who had first led her to the great room stepped forward and slid a gag into her mouth, tying it securely behind her head before she could clamp her mouth down against the pain of her foot..
to be continued...