~oOo~ Against His Will
"Daniel, if you knew –" Jack O'Neill stopped himself, regaining control with difficulty. He took a deep, somewhat shaky, breath. When he spoke again, his voice was husky with emotion. "If you knew what these people have done, you would, you'd understand…"
"I do understand, Jack. I know they did some terrible things." Daniel Jackson didn't get any further with his objection; his friend had turned away. "You can't let them be burned alive!"
"What are the alternatives?" Teal'c asked calmly, trying to keep the discussions on track. The coup had happened with impressive speed, and any new government had to be better than the last, so he was determined to help things along.
"Re-enlistment in the service?" a voice offered timidly. The idea was met with silence. Everyone here re-enlisted when their eldest child came of age, doing it a few years early would be fairly trivial.
"An eye for an eye," a voice spoke up from the crowd watching the newly formed council debate.
The idea quickly gained favor among the former slaves in the city, many of whom offered to help implement the practice. Some opposed it as too cruel, or too likely to result in more citizens who needed permanent help from the government.
An older man tried to mediate. "Give them a choice. Burn with your building or have done to you what you did to mayree."
"A choice!" This speaker was heavily disfigured, possibly from the somewhat common practice of leaving mayree out in the burning acid rain. SG-1 had taken some of the victims to be gargoyle statues before realizing the truth. "Who here had a choice?" he spat the question.
There was no answer, in word or movement.
"If you had been given a choice, who here would choose the burning building?"
That got a response, hands going up all over the room. Daniel turned, looking at the number of hands, amazed. When he turned all the way to his right, he saw Jack, who had moved a few feet away to end their conversation.
Jack was staring straight ahead, avoiding eye contact with anyone, his expression pained as he relived some terrible memory. His hand was raised.
Turning back, Daniel realized it was the same all around. The former slaves all stared ahead, with heartbreaking expressions, nearly all with their hands raised. The free men varied. Some had their hands raised, resolute or sad looks on their faces. Others did not, but those were either curious or appalled, clearly the ones who had no idea just how the slaves were broken.
The disfigured man who had suggested a choice pointed out those very expressions. "Look at the faces of the uninformed!" he cried. "See the surprise at the number of hands, see it turning to horror as the realization sinks in." He turned slowly, pointing at various people as he did. "This is why we must offer the choice, and we must do it in front of all the citizens. When the handlers choose the fire, it will speak for justice louder than any voice, it will show the atrocity better than any other action we can take. Even if they choose the other, people will see what has been done to create mayree."
oOo
They gathered the citizens before the first of the slave compounds, closest to the center of the city, and announced that the structure, and the others like it, would be burned to the ground. The news was met with cheers. The crowd eagerly piled kindling around and splashed flammable chemicals on it and the walls.
A group of people, mostly men with a few women mixed in, was herded to the front of the crowd.
Rilla, a member of the new ruling council, stepped forward. As a former slave, he had been chosen to speak at this event. "You were Mayree Handlers."
The group shifted uncomfortably but remained silent. They had been the ones responsible for taking newly captured prisoners of war and turning them into slaves. They were so vicious in their methods that the hardiest soldier would break in a matter of days. The trauma was so great that victims could rarely recover to independent lives, and spawned the saying "once a mayra, always a mayra." With slavery now abolished, and their argument that they were merely providing a necessary service getting a poor reception from the new council, one-third of whom had been on their way to becoming mayree, they waited to hear their fate.
"You are Handlers no more!" More cheers erupted from the crowd at that, and he waited patiently for them to quiet. "The new government of Adel gives you a choice," Rilla told them. "You may burn with your compounds, or you may endure what you did to your own mayree, after which you will have the same opportunity as they to become free citizens."
They were given a few minutes to consider, while the mayree broken at this compound came forward. They would be given the honor of lighting the fire that burned it to the ground. If the handler chose life, they would do to him what he had done to them, with the crowd allowed to watch if they chose.
"Calla, come forward!"
A curly-haird man shuffled out from the others, looking terrified. He threw himself at Rilla's feet and begged for mercy. Having shown none to the people he enslaved, none was returned to him.
One of Calla's former slaves separated from the waiting group, limping forward in the odd gait of "sport mayree" whose Achille's tendon was damaged to allow for unfettered resistance to a rough master's pleasure while preventing actual flight. His hair was roughly shorn, and what remained was reddish with silver tips, giving an appearance of frozen fire. He dropped his cloak as he approached so that he wore only the short kilt and sandals of mayree on display. There were painful-looking bruises on his body to match the one on his cheek, and he paused, turning to show them to the crowd. He tensed his back muscles, and flaying scars whitened against his tanned skin, clearly visible to all. "See the mercy of Calla!" he shouted. "He told me I was one of the lucky ones – let him have such fortune!"
The crowd went wild, and others of Calla's former mayree approached. Some partially disrobed to show the marks of their breaking while others hid them by hunching in their cloaks. A few carried various objects, showing them to Calla in obvious threats to use them on him as he had done to them. A trio clad in yellow approached, pulling off the bright capes and throwing them toward their former master as if to cover him. He dodged as if the saffron cloth were acid; whatever the color signified, he wanted none of it for himself.
Now on his feet, surrounded by reminders of his own past actions, Calla crept slowly toward the compound. He sobbed in terror as he looked for the last time at the door of his compound, his piteous wail only increasing when he turned away to find his former slaves beckoning him to experience their fate instead.
There was a move to stop him, to force him to endure what he had done to his mayree. Calla again appealed to the new council, this time reminding them that they said they prized asking over demanding, and had offered him a choice. He wept as he pleaded for the chance to enter the building, lying on his belly, palms down in the mayra gesture for mercy.
In the spirit of the New Order, of asking for a choice instead of demanding an action, they granted his request.
It was the same at all the other compounds. All but one of the handlers chose to burn with his or her compound. Daniel was stunned.
Jack wasn't. "If you knew," he said quietly, watching the last building burn.
Daniel turned to him. "Tell me, Jack."
Jack tried the humorous escape. "I could, but if I told you, I'd have to kill me."
"Jack!" Daniel objected with annoyance, then stopped, realizing what he'd heard. "What?"
"I said, if I told you, I'd have to kill you."
"That isn't what you said. You said if you told me, you'd have to kill *me.*"
"That's exactly what I said I said."
"Get off it, Jack," Daniel was getting annoyed at the diversion. "You said if you told me, you'd have to kill yourself."
"No, I didn't."
"Yes, you did."
"No, I didn't."
"You'll have to tell Hammond and the psychiatrist, you know."
"Not this time." His head was turned back to the building but his eyes were distant, no longer focused on the flames dancing before him.
"You have to, or you can't go back to active duty!" Daniel was worried now. He wanted Jack home, of course, but he wanted him "home" as in back-on-the-team, too.
"Did Morgan tell?"
Daniel pursed his lips, remembering how Hammond had called Morgan into the glass-walled conference room on at least two occasions about it, and those were just the times he knew about. The second time, Hammond had eventually raised his voice to her, clearly frustrated. She held fast, though by the end of that encounter the hard-as-nails Morgan sat with her head bowed, doggedly shaking it in the negative. Her teammate Finney had told him that the whole team had been all but interrogated on the subject since the Air Force was worried there was a fearsome new weapon involved, but only Morgan knew. "No," he admitted.
"And neither will I. I can't risk it. What if someone else did the same thing?" He shrugged his shoulders slightly, as if throwing off something unpleasant.
"Jack, the chance that you'd be a slave again, and that that person would know what happened here is a million to one."
Jack looked at him directly now. "What if someone found out about it first?"
Daniel's eyes widened. "You mean, deliberately do it to you again? To make you do something for them?"
Jack turned back to the fiery view. "I have my uses, Daniel. Skills and knowledge that some people value. And not everyone has your morals to limit how they'd get access to them." He waved a hand at the burning building. "I'd rather be in there."
oOo
Teal'c stepped under the warm shower, letting the water rinse from his shoulders down. He swept a last glance around the communal shower before ducking his head under. It was empty save for himself and O'Neill. His friend was thinner than before – the results of poor food and little exercise – but otherwise intact physically. He still displayed the wariness and exaggerated focus of one who was hunted, remnants of his ordeal here. What he really needed now was to be home again, and hopefully that would happen soon. Sensibly, it should have happened already.
Over slave-breaker Keyna's dead body – literally – O'Neill had taken Baron Honna captive and SG-1 had been on the brink of departure. But when a mayra child had been callously injured just to move her out of their way, O'Neill had hesitated, wanting to help the slaves before leaving. They'd tried to talk him out of it in a hasty whispered debate such as they sometimes had before making a major battle decision. There was extreme danger in O'Neill remaining on this planet after killing his former captor and almost no chance that the four of them could make a lasting change in a whole society. O'Neill had agreed to that sad truth but could not bring himself to simply walk away. Daniel Jackson had tried to find a middle ground by suggesting they take the child and Carter's animal home with them, which had earned a glare reminiscent of a child being offered a sweet in exchange for his pony. O'Neill had settled for giving the other mayree one opportunity. He ordered Baron Honna to free the slaves.
Those who had been here any length of time simply cowered, terrified to take action. The newer ones, though, recent POWs from the ongoing war with the neighboring city-state and not yet fully broken to slavery, had leapt into action. They knew full well there was a standing army in the field just outside the city, and time was short. There would be no running back to their original home town because both sides held to the belief that "once a mayra, always a mayra" and they'd just be re-enslaved there. They took the only sensible action – they overran the armories at the center of town with sheer numbers and used the weapons in a coup. Teal'c had been impressed by the speed and efficiency of the takeover. O'Neill had been surprised that there had *been* a takeover – he confessed later that he expected the unbroken mayree to throw themselves at the army and escape enslavement through death. The statement showed that O'Neill was closer to having his own spirit broken than were the people he freed, and Teal'c had tried not to think about that as he watched the revolution proceed.
Every adult in the city had military experience, but they did not carry weapons around. They were quickly rounded up and set between the former slaves and the army outside the city as a barrier. The army prepared to siege its own home base, but at the same time, its traditional enemy in the nearby city-state was massing an attack to take advantage of the quandary their opponent was in. The army had been prepared to negotiate, and fast. Three civilians, three military leaders, and three emancipated slaves had represented the major parties. Teal'c, Daniel, and Carter, believed to be emissaries from the long-cut-off city in the mountains, had been the moderators. O'Neill had been a not-so-innocent bystander. To the former slaves he was a hero, to the shocked civilians he was a villain, and to the military he was an uncertainty. They were warily neutral toward him, hopeful at the thought that the future might be different but leery that he had an ulterior motive waiting to be unleashed.
Time was short, and they had made a lot of progress. The nine would be the new ruling council, with some rather draconian measures in place to ensure their safety. There would be no mayree slaves anymore. They had all been granted equal citizenship, with those who were able finding work or enlisting in their army. Those who were unable to recover from their past enslavement would form a worker-class to handle menial tasks, but they would be paid, share group homes if necessary, and have laws to protect their rights.
The new council sent a treaty to the enemy city-state, offering a new condition. They would trade POWs back, alive, immediately after each battle. The armies of both sides would suffer less attrition, so the forces would grow to have ever more glorious battles. Over time, it might even become possible to allow older people to retire alive from service, returning to the cities to help grow them as well.
It had been a very satisfying three days, certainly, but he would still be glad to leave. SG-1 did not dare assume they were safe here with so much radical change underway, and travelled all together or in pairs even to the showers. He and O'Neill had decided to wash simultaneously, minimizing the overall time away from the others; Samantha Carter and Daniel Jackson took turns facing the door while the other showered. He soaped his face and after another quick glance around, ducked back under the water to rinse.
"Freeze!" The command was accompanied by the metallic sound of weapons activating, and the uneven drumbeat of many charging feet.
Teal'c stiffened, glad he had been in the act of raising his hands toward his face so that they happened to be in a convenient position to engage in battle at the first opportunity. Someone moved, very close to him, and he tensed, trying to sense details so he could counter the coming attack.
The water stopped, and the person stepped away.
Teal'c opened his eyes to find a half dozen armed men lined up shoulder-to-shoulder. They wore masks above the black jumpsuits of the former slave class. He kept his hands where they were, not having been told to move, but also not wanting to be ordered to move them to a less advantageous position.
"You," the speaker indicated O'Neill with a jerk of his weapon.
Teal'c saw surprise, fear, and then resignation flicker across his friend's face before it became expressionless. O'Neill started to go down into the crouch of a slave, clearly assuming, as Teal'c did, that these men had been sent here to reclaim him as a mayree, probably to be followed by punishing him for starting the revolution. Or perhaps they had come simply to execute him.
"On your feet!" one of the others, second from the left end, snapped.
O'Neill straightened, but showed no relief as it was now more likely he was to be taken away for a slow death than given a quick one here. With the healing properties of the local herbs, a man could suffer a very slow death indeed. Teal'c took two swift strides and put himself between O'Neill and the others. Probably useless, but he had to try. The fact that they had not shot him down the instant he moved was a good sign.
"You will not take him," he said with all the authority he could muster naked and unarmed.
"There are no mayree here anymore," the tall masked man told him sternly. He stepped forward out of the line. "And you will not take him to be one in your mountain city."
"Agreed."
The other man was surprised at the reaction. The hooded head cocked to one side. "You aren't going to resist us taking him?"
"He is my friend, not my slave," Teal'c corrected. "I will resist my friend being taken anywhere he does not wish to go."
"How can you stop us?" Another man waved at their bare bodies. "You have no weapons now."
That explained the choice of timing.
"Guys, I appreciate this," O'Neill stepped forward, but only halfway. The fact that he remained partially hidden not only conveyed that he did not trust the altruistic claims of the hooded men, it also spoke volumes to Teal'c about the man's feelings about a potential recapture. "I really do. But Teal'c's telling the truth. He's my friend, not my master."
"I do not believe it," the tall man said. "We have been watching. He does not make you serve him publicly but he has not allowed you to be alone for even a moment."
"True," Teal'c agreed. "You are warriors," he nodded gracefully at them, giving them their due respect, "and you understand caution. Would you leave your friend alone in dangerous territory? There has been a recent coup, of which we were a part. None of us have travelled alone since, and none of us will."
"Are you sure it's not because you don't want to lose the silver-haired brown-eyed male you so desired?" the tall man mocked.
"You are Calla's so-called 'Fresh Catch.' Do not deny it; only a few others were present when I said that." He did not have the slender build of the youth nor the magnificent physique of the other adult, and the trio's former master was now ash within the ruin of his training facility.
The tall man whipped off his mask. It was indeed the "fresh catch" that had been offered to Teal'c as a slave, though he'd hacked his silver-painted hair off short and reddish roots showed under it already. He was also the man who had displayed his wounds to the crowd and urged that his former master Calla should suffer the same instead of being permitted to burn with his building.
"He considered pairing us," the man waved at himself and O'Neill, his voice accusing Teal'c of his intent. "I have had enough vain battles and cruel conquests. No one will suffer that again as long as I breathe." The words confirmed Teal'c's suspicion that the man had been rented out by his master specifically to engage in unfair combat until he surrendered physically and sexually.
"Then may you breathe for many more years," Teal'c told him solemnly.
Again, the man was taken by surprise, but still he was not convinced. "You speak nicely here under threat, but where were the kind words when you asked Calla to send me to you for your pleasure if this one," he waved again at O'Neill, "was not found in a day?"
The other men shifted uneasily, either uncomfortable with the subject or the amount of time they were spending on what should have been a quick in-and-out extraction.
"Should I tell the master that I wish his servant to become my spy?"
The man scoffed. "What kind of spy can a mayra be?"
Teal'c arched an eyebrow. "The best kind. The ruling class speaks freely in a mayra's presence, giving away valuable information with the foolish assumption that he is helpless. You also could instruct me on the ways of slavery, the better to help find my friend. As a personal servant, it would not be unexpected that we spent time alone together."
He was considering. "Why me?"
Teal'c looked him in the eye. "Your master rented you out to violent customers on a regular basis," the other man's gaze flicked away for a moment in pained admission, "yet you were not cowed by the experience. You are brave and strong, a survivor."
"Perhaps you speak the truth," the tall man said slowly. "But we will not take chances. He comes with us. If he is truly your friend, you will watch him go and be glad in the knowledge that he will live the life of a free man."
"I don't want to go with you!" O'Neill objected, still half behind his friend.
The door banged open and a dark blur streaked through with a squeaky roar. Gonzalez hit Jack square in the chest, knocking him to the slippery wet floor. A heartbeat behind him, a larger shape dove for Teal'c's knees with the same intent. Teal'c dodged neatly, slipping to the floor on his own and even managing to cushion Carter's fall.
In the doorway, Daniel took a stance, siege weapon in open view, and primed for action. With his friends down out of the way, he had a clear shot at all the attackers while they no longer had the other men in their sights. "Freeze!" he bellowed.
Five of the men obeyed, including the unmasked one. The sixth took aim at Daniel.
Daniel turned his weapon directly on that one. "Feel lucky, punk?" he drawled.
The mask faced him for a moment, then sighed and surrendered. He started to go down into the slave's crouch before switching to a defiantly upright posture.
Carter and Teal'c exchanged a glance, a silent assurance from each that the other was unharmed. The colonel was still down, a gallant little beast standing guard duty on his chest with teeth bared at the black-clad men.
"Protect from in front of him," Carter said quietly, urging Gonzalez down to the floor. She turned to O'Neill. "Are you ok, sir?"
"What did you say?" The hooded man asked it sharply.
"I asked him if he's ok." She stood to face the attackers, and Teal'c stood with her, both of them between O'Neill and the others while keeping Daniel's line of fire clear. Gonzalez lined up alongside them, four-inch long baby fangs bared.
"No, what did you call him?"
She'd spoken automatically, not thinking about cover stories. Had she just given away that he was a high-value target? There wasn't anything for it now, one or more of them might remember and not trust anything further she said. Plus, he had been the target in the first place. "I called him Sir." She looked around at the black covered heads. "It's just an expression of respect," she began, hoping to offset any harm she'd done.
"We know what it means." They backed off a couple of steps to whisper among themselves.
"I'm sorry, sir," she whispered. "I didn't mean to give anything away."
They heard that, too.
"We believe you," one of them announced. "No one calls a mayra "sir.""
The un-masked man stepped forward, addressing himself to O'Neill. "We will not take you," he said. Sweeping his gaze across all four members of SG-1, he added, "but know that if they harm you, we and others like us are all around to help."
Teal'c stepped forward, offering his hand. "It is an honor to know you, sir." The other man hesitantly accepted the handclasp. "I would like someday to earn your full trust that we may call each other 'friend,'" he was deliberately being formal to show his respect. "For today, may I know by what name you call yourself?"
The man straightened with pride. "I am called FreeMan."
"An excellent name. FreeMan, I am called Teal'c." He wished he could share his own history with this man, to show that he understood the quest for freedom, the pride in achieving it, the determination to keep it and gain it for others like him.
The others did not want to be named, or un-masked.
"It is understandable," Teal'c said, bowing his head to them. "Know that you have my respect, even if I do not recognize you if we meet again."
They left as quickly as they had come, still too cautious from prior experiences to trust much. SG-1 could hardly argue the feeling – even though the threat was over, Daniel kept watch on the door and Carter murmured battle advice to Gonzalez while Teal'c and O'Neill dressed quickly.
"How did you know to come?" O'Neill asked. He'd finished first since Teal'c had the additional step of strapping on his siege weapon.
"Gonzalez heard from all the way down the hall. He said a door slammed then someone gave a sharp command in the local language, so we started to come and check. Then he heard Teal'c say 'you will not take him' and we knew to expect a fight. He and I were to take you and Teal'c out of the line of fire. He knows not to stay on top of you now." She rubbed behind his round ear and the little beast gave a soft trill of pleasure.
"Good job, Gonzalez. Thanks," O'Neill patted the animal's back, then wiped his hand and offered the towel to Carter, who did the same. Teal'c stepped up, ready to go.
As they left, O'Neill turned to Daniel. "Feel lucky, punk?" he repeated incredulously.
"Hey, it worked for Dirty Harry." His words were casual, but he blushed nonetheless.
"True." He paused just for a moment. "Dirty Dan."
Daniel turned through the door at that moment, but Teal'c could see the ghost of a smile on his lips. The affable linguist would enjoy being linked to Clint Eastwood's memorable character.
~oOo~ Uneasy Truths and Uneasy Truce
Jack was enjoying his first reasonably-good sleep since arriving in Adel City. It was the third night since he'd forced Honna free the slaves, but the first had been taken by the revolution, and the second too filled with wary disbelief that he and the others were truly free. Only now, and mostly due to sheer exhaustion, had he fallen asleep. Events intruded even there, but at least the dreams were positive.
He'd dreamed of the moments after killing Keyna and taking Baron Honna hostage. The rahi-beast trainer Blenna had been present, having stopped by to pay his respects to the Baron on the way back from training animals in the field. No doubt he'd heard of the visitors from the mountain city and taken advantage of the chance to meet them. Blenna had also taken advantage of the fact that he still carried the device he used in the field to silently communicate with his servants during competition. His slave Tarmo had taken the cubs-in-training back to their barn, and Blenna summoned him back. With his pair of adult male hunting rahi.
Jack smiled in his sleep as he relived the moment. Tarmo approaching with the huge animals, trying to show them off on the assumption his master was going to sell one. Blenna giving the command to attack just as Bruto recognized Jack and leapt toward him. The beast was gleefully shouting thanks to his friend, but the bellow sounded like a hunting cry to Blenna, who smiled in anticipation of being the one to rescue the Baron. Only the embarrassment of Bruto calling him "half-breed" had kept the full grin off Jack's face. The look on Blenna's face as Bruto joyfully licked Jack had been absolutely priceless.
"I could use your help here, buddy," he'd whispered.
Bruto, with a sharp-toothed grin reminiscent of a shark, happily stood on Jack's left, ready to act. He was still giddy with the joy of Jack curing the long-standing pain in his teeth, and used his long prehensile tail to tap his friend on the right shoulder, playing the same "made-you-look" game Earth children sometimes did. Jack rewarded him with a chuckle, but did not turn his head from the action in front.
Bulleto, Bruto's father and an even more impressive hunter, was standing soberly between Jack and Tarmo. He had only one question: was it true what his children were even now screaming about? Did the humans *eat* rahi? SG-1, courtesy of the Stargate, could understand and be understood by the animal. To Blenna, Baron Honna, and his wife, it would have just been a long and suitably menacing growl.
"Yes." Jack and Teal'c answered together.
Bulleto snarled so viciously that even his gums showed above his wickedly long fangs, a wordless roar of anger, before turning and racing for home, bellowing to his family that he was coming for them.
"Can he get through doors?" Daniel had asked quietly.
"Bruto here bit through a three-inch-thick wall," Jack murmured back.
Daniel looked at Bruto with new respect, and Bruto raised his head in pride. In sleep, Jack's smile widened a bit at the sight of them both.
"He really sleeps like that?" the voice was surprised, and amused. "I thought it was just to keep the flies off since they made him sleep in the dung heap."
Jack, startled awake by the voice, then dismayed that the speaker had revealed his sleeping location to his team, closed his eyes and sighed. He had been sleeping in the fetal position, but face down, which kept his hands, face, and belly mostly protected. He hoped the others would remember that he'd been in the same position when they woke him at home after the rogue Asgard had abducted and cloned him, that they would think it was common for him when he wasn't in a sleeping bag on a mission. In reality, it usually happened during or after periods of extreme danger, his body unconsciously moving to the safest possible position.
Another voice answered the first. "You'd sleep that way too if every man, woman, and mayra was beating the crap out of you all the time."
Jack appreciated the defense, but wished it hadn't come with more information he didn't want known. Time to get up before anything worse came out. He rose quickly, sneaking a quick glance at his team.
They all just happened to be looking elsewhere, which meant that they felt awkward about what they'd just heard. Good old Teal'c was quick to change the subject, asking why the visitors had come.
Packs of rahi were marauding in the darkness outside. There'd been one attack already, and several close calls. The animals were not as intelligent as humans, but they were hardly stupid. They were learning their new human prey's escape tactics, and it probably would not be long before serious injuries occurred. SG-1's remarkable ability to communicate with the beasts had been noticed, and the messengers had risked their own safety to ask if SG-1 could help.
Jack glanced at the others, not willing to offer if it meant that the visitors would be left alone with any of his team. Sticking together had had the added benefit that he knew no one had told them how he was being controlled. He had no concern that his friends would ask about it, but what if the newcomers said something unprompted, like the comments they'd already made about sleeping in the dung pile and everyone hitting him all the time?
"I'll go," Teal'c offered, taking a step forward. Carter joined him, Gonzalez alongside without even being asked. They checked their siege weapons, just in case, and headed out.
"Gonzalez, what do your kind call our kind?" Teal'c asked.
"The others are Partners," he said, the word automatically translated in their minds. "We share our prey with them and they share their dens with us."
"The others?" Carter asked, glancing down at him. "Do you have a different name for us?" She indicated herself and Teal'c.
"You are Half-breed." Gonzalez cocked his head as he thought about it. "Partners treated Jack like a Rahi, but he can speak to Partners and Rahi. Your breeding is perhaps a little more Partner than Rahi since they don't treat you like Rahi. Are you from a different litter than Jack? Who is your sire?" He craned his neck up at them. "And why are your ears so tiny?"
Carter smiled at the concepts. "All four of us are from different, um, litters. It's natural for us to have tiny ears. We can't hear as well as you, but we are good with our hands." She flexed her fingers for him.
They stopped talking as they reached the door to the outside, and heard the distant shouting. It took a moment for Carter and Teal'c to separate the Rahi voices from the Partners. They exchanged a glance as the words sank in. It seemed humans were "Partners" no longer. "Killers" seemed to be the replacement term.
Gonzalez spoke first. "It is good that you are from different litters. You can mate and create more Half-breeds. You'll need a bigger pack."
Carter, startled, dropped her gaze back down to him.
He misinterpreted her reaction, reassuring her that she could feel safe to breed, loyally offering to help guard her and her cubs when her males needed to hunt.
"Um, thanks," she began.
"There are more urgent matters at the moment," Teal'c reminded them. "Let's call to them."
"Call to them?"
"Why not? They understand our words, and they will not mistake our approach for us hunting them." Teal'c turned his head toward the street before them. "Rahi!" he bellowed. "The Half-breeds would like to talk. Please come this way!"
Gonzalez added his little voice in a long trilling cry. "I am a Rahi, and can smell the honesty of the Half-breeds."
They repeated a few times before the first shadowy shapes began to appear. The rahi approached as a pack, some directly ahead, others circling to the sides. Carter and Teal'c stayed near the wall. Asking to talk was one thing, letting a dangerous predator slip behind was quite another.
Three of the largest approached, one facing each of the group that had summoned them. "What do you want? And why should we listen to you?"
"We wish to avoid violence, and help to communicate between the races," Teal'c said, as seriously as if he were dealing with any other military leader.
"Why should we avoid violence? They have eaten our brethren!" he roared back. "The Killers should die!" The night air vibrated with rumbling growls; there were far more rahi in the shadows than the handful they could see.
"Because if you hunt them now, they will hunt you, and the circle will continue forever," Teal'c replied.
"They should die for their crimes!"
"You probably can't kill all of them," Carter put in. "There are a lot of them, and they have a variety of weapons. Even if you do get them all, there will be heavy losses on your side."
"There are alternatives," Teal'c put in quickly. They needed to keep attention on something beneficial to the rahi or this negotiation would fail.
The lead animal glared, but the one next to him at least asked. "What?"
"We can work out an alliance," Teal'c suggested. "You take over the hills, and hunt freely. Take your excess to an agreed location. They will take your excess prey and leave you," he hesitated, not sure what the Partners could offer now that shelter was not an option.
"You see? There is nothing they can offer us!" The big beast began to back away, not about to turn his back on them any more than they would turn theirs to him.
"Wait!" Carter said.
They paused.
"Um, uh, what about… what about winter? When it gets cold? Will you be alright?" They were cold-blooded, likely to either hibernate or die if the temperature dropped too low. Even hibernation could now be fatal, if the humans hunted them as the animals slept. She'd hit on something; the rahi stopped, staring at her. "Uh, what kind of shelter do – did – they give you before?"
"We slept in the shelters they build of trees, in straw with others of our kind."
"Then they can trade you straw," she offered triumphantly. "You've gone to the caves, right? To keep out of the acid rain?" Some dubious looks indicated that in their anger the four-legged rebels had not thought of shelter at all yet. "Look, it makes sense," she leaned forward, eager to persuade them. "You find caves to sleep in – the stone will keep the wind and rain off, and the badgers can't tunnel up under you. You leave extra kills and they leave straw, maybe in bales or bags or something you can move."
The rahi were muttering. Some commented on cubs needing shelter while others said the Killers had to die and the Rahi would find some other shelter on their own.
"Why don't you try it?" Teal'c suggested. "You can always go back to killing them later, but if you start out killing them, it will be very hard to return to peace."
There was discord among them. Teal'c and Carter waited patiently. Gonzalez cocked his head as he tried to understand the mature concepts being debated around him.
Voices, human voices, became audible over the low thunder of the gruff rahi. A group of human fighters had spotted the large rahi pack.
"Go, quickly!" Teal'c urged. "Do not fight now. Tell us tomorrow of your decision."
"How do we know you won't tell them where we will meet so they can prepare an ambush?" one demanded.
Teal'c actually chuckled. The answer to that was simple enough. "We understand you. They do not. You need only come within earshot of us and shout out a location. We will come to you."
The rahi laughed aloud at that, and the humor of it seemed to help soften their anger. They vanished into the shadows before the humans came into range.
~oOo~ Finally, Farewell
Teal'c maneuvered himself toward one side of their "honor guard." In truth, the 60 men were much more than that – even in the few days SG-1 had been here, there had been several attempts on their lives as the new reality sank in. Civilians and military alike were having to pay for work formerly done by slaves, or do it themselves, and the change was impacting everyday life in a myriad different ways. The majority of people were taking it in good humor, relieved that they themselves would never be slaves even after re-enlisting, and might even survive their second army stint to retire to their families. They laughed at themselves as they swept or cooked or fetched or carried for the first time, joyful at the new and longer futures ahead of them. There were some who were having a harder time adapting, however.
Rahi breeders, of course, were all out of work with the animals now independent in the fields and some had tried to act on their anger over that. The businessmen with the hardest and dirtiest work were not as cheerful to take it up personally as those whose wares involved lighter or more pleasant efforts. The makers of footwear also had somewhat of a grudge; the truce with the rahi had a specific exception for any human found wearing rahi hide, and the cobblers were scrambling to find another material. Most of these found non-life-threatening ways to show their displeasure. For instance, sewage handlers would reverse the flow so that when you flushed in any building SG-1 entered, a torrent of raw sewage spewed up. It shortened SG-1's visits to any building considerably, and may have made even the happier city dwellers willing to see them go sooner rather than later. A small number had worse things in mind, however, and a few had come close to killing their targets. If it weren't for the amazing healing herbs, they may not all be walking to the gate today.
Teal'c reached his destination, a place near the one who called himself FreeMan. "I am honored to have you among our escort, sir." The man's chin rose an extra inch at the title. Teal'c was happy to give this tiny bit of pleasure to one he felt such kinship with.
"I am honored to be here, sir," he returned. "You have changed our world."
"It is you yourselves who have changed it," Teal'c pointed out with concern. They must not believe freedom came from outside, or else it may not last after SG-1 left.
"You are the ones who freed us," FreeMan objected.
"We were merely the catalyst. We made Honna say the words to free you. You did the rest. And it is you who must hold what you have won. Keep your freedom, and spread it where you can." Teal'c said it loud and clear so that many of the honor guard would hear.
"Won't you be coming back?"
Best to leave that open ended. "I do not know. We will bring back what we have learned, and the city leaders will decide." They were nearing the gate. "Hold what you have won," he repeated. "If I do return, I expect to find you still a free man, FreeMan."
FreeMan grinned. "You will!"
Teal'c inclined his head, and stepped to the DHD with the others. Carter bent to whisper her goodbye into Gonzalez's round ear and he trilled his answer. Jack gave the slimy shoulder a squeeze. Teal'c and Daniel said their farewells to their temporary little teammate.
Teal'c turned slowly, one hand raised, and loudly wished them all, human and rahi alike, the best of luck. He repeated his message that they had won their own freedom and it was up to them to keep it. It was ironic, in a way, since he, Samantha Carter, and Daniel Jackson would in all likelihood lose their own freedom when they returned to Earth to face the consequences of their actions. Even O'Neill, whose body would not be incarcerated, would not be free of the demons from this place for quite some time.
Carter, Daniel, and Jack bowed their heads after their city leader spoke, and with that simple ending, they walked through the gate.
~oOo~ Just when you thought it was safe
"If there's anything I can ever do," he left the offer open. Jack had just thanked Colonel Morgan for everything she had done. She'd led the team that proved he was a slave and not a traitor, of course. But it was what came after that they were really talking about, even if neither cared to discuss details. She was the only other person on Earth who knew how they had controlled him in Adel, and she had not told anyone else, despite serious threats to her career and even her freedom. The only thing that stopped them from following through was her own decorated history and the fact that Adel was on a faraway planet; if there was any continuing contact with those people, the powers that be would stop at nothing to know so they could prevent it from happening to anyone else.
"You can give me $385.17," she said dryly.
He chuckled. "Uh, sure." Small price for what she'd done. "Do I want to know why?"
She grinned openly at him. "I may have drugged the Gate watch officer during the Christmas party so I could send SG-1 through the gate to Adel."
He gaped, then laughed. He could picture it.
"In return for him not pressing charges, I took him and his girlfriend to that fancy new Mountain View restaurant. Double-date kind of thing, so I could be there to pay. They tried to be nice when they saw the actual prices." She tilted her head and gave him a look of absolute disgust. "Nineteen dollars for a salad, and it was served *in a shot glass.* I'm not kidding! The girl had to order something else or she'd leave hungrier than when she got there. My date ordered bowtie pasta. Cheap and filling, right?" She gave a sarcastic 'uh-huh' kind of nod. "There were exactly five bowtie noodles on his plate. Count them, five! Artfully drizzled with a half teaspoon of sauce. For the bargain price of $28.99. Salad extra."
"Wow. Hope the view was good, at least."
"They advertise that its something unique, that you won't get anywhere else. And it's true. One wall is actually the bare rock of the mountain itself, and *that's* what the view is."
They both ended up laughing. Almost four hundred dollars to look at a rock and be fed enough food to hold you till you drove to McDonald's on the way home.
A hubbub in the halls caught their attention. Everyone in sight was talking and gesturing and hurrying. Morgan stopped a lieutenant to ask what was going on. She literally collared him as he rushed happily by, but the man was in too good a mood to object to it.
He smiled hugely, a combination of excitement and relief. His face was flushed and his words came out quickly. "The found a cure! They found a cure for the plague! Herbs from that planet where Colonel," he paused, realizing who was standing next to her, and sobering. Jack had been horribly abused there, and Hammond had let it be widely known in order to make it clear he was a prisoner and not a traitor after he had foiled the first rescue attempt. "Where you were, sir." After a moment with no more questions, he rushed off, quickly regaining his joy at the end of the plague.
Morgan and O'Neill just stared at each other as the implications sank in. The obvious thing was to buy the cure while you learned how to make more yourself. Someone would have to go back to Adel. And they'd want to know how O'Neill had been controlled before they did.
Until now, they'd held out on the grounds there was no reason to return to Adel anyway. Now there was a compelling, planet saving reason to explain what had happened. How could they not? How could Jack live if they did?