Letting Go Chapter 7
Last Stand – Revanna's Ruins
The immature symbiote within his belly pouch twisted and squirmed, echoing the unease of Teal'c's own thoughts. From the ill-conception of this mission, from the insistence on Daniel Jackson's departure with the Tok'ra blended human Jacob Carter, he had feared for his young friend. And now, after the brutal deaths of so many Tok'ra and the men of SG-17, and with the Jaffa of two Goa'uld stalking the collapsing tunnels, Teal'c believed that the hurried decisions that brought them to this place beneath the sands might well be the end of every member of SG-1.
He'd watched through narrowed eyes as O'Neill shared the last of his water with Lieutenant Elliot. He'd seen the pale concern on Major Carter's bloodied face, and he'd heard the gasping breaths of the wounded human/Tok'ra at his side. As Daniel Jackson met his own fate among the false gods, so his teammates could not avoid theirs at the hand of the same enemy. This trap had been well sprung.
The last Jaffa patrol had been dealt with some time ago and the tunnels again collapsed behind the fleeing team. His own symbiote would sustain him long after the others had died of thirst, or lack of oxygen, or wounds not yet suffered. And by the weight that dragged against his left shoulder, Elliot and Lantash would be the first to succumb. Facing certain capture and torture by the evil that had enslaved his people for centuries or a quick death in battle among these, his adopted people, Teal'c knew what his choice would be.
But, what of Daniel Jackson? If he yet lived, if he still remained himself, not lost to the rape of a Goa'uld symbiote nor the rape of his spirit through his ordeal among them – if he, somehow, returned to the ruins of Revanna to search for his friends, Teal'c would not allow young brother to find only the dead. No matter the cost, no matter his own intentions to die free, he would not leave Daniel Jackson alone.
"How many more of those things do we have?"
It was O'Neill's voice behind him, and Teal'c heard the exhaustion underlying the evenness of the human's tone. The Tok'ra crystals that fueled this endless flight were dwindling, and the strategist within O'Neill sought an escape for his people. An escape that Teal'c could not supply.
"Six," he replied simply.
"We can't stay down here forever, we're out of water." Major Carter had also seen the last few drops of the precious liquid disappear between Lieutenant Elliot's dry lips. But, while the surface might grant a temporary relief, it would not free them from the pursuit of the Jaffa.
Teal'c would not deceive his friends. "The Jaffa will not rest until they have found us."
"Why do you say that?" Was it true disbelief that colored O'Neill's tone or the unwillingness to admit defeat among those in his charge?
"If their intent was simply to kill the Tok'ra, then they have weapons that could have destroyed this facility from space." He and O'Neill and the doomed Tok'ra Aldwin had seen the landed ships with their own eyes, as well as the squads of Jaffa sent out into the tunnels. "Their tactics of using ground troops suggest that they are looking for something." There was no doubt that the Goa'uld knew of the Tok'ra poison and sought it with little regard for the number of soldiers who fell in its pursuit. Again his thoughts journeyed to his youngest friend. The Goa'uld knew of the poison, knew of the Tok'ra's plans. It was unlikely that Daniel Jackson still survived.
"The poison." Major Carter had come to the same conclusion, it seemed.
Teal'c heard the symbiote's words stutter from Elliot's mouth. "We can't let them have it. If it comes down to it, we'll have to destroy the crystal that contains the formula."
The Jaffa frowned. If Daniel Jackson had fallen before his mission was completed, the Goa'uld would already have the poison. Calculating the distance to the Goa'uld summit with the difficulty of maintaining communications among outlying troops, he evaluated the likelihood of the recall of the ground assault. No. It did not matter. Even if the poison was now in the hands of the System Lords, they could not allow any surviving Tok'ra or Tau'ri access to the recipe for a poison that could, once again, be used against Goa'uld symbiotes. The continued attack was not proof of Daniel Jackson's life.
O'Neill remained stalwart. "C'mon, they've got to stop looking for us eventually."
Teal'c honored him for his fortitude, for his resilience before an always superior foe. But the truth must be said. "Even if they do stop searching, they will never leave the Stargate unguarded."
"Well, Jacob and Daniel will be back sooner or later."
Ah, O'Neill. Your guilt demands that Daniel Jackson survive no matter the evidence of your reason. Teal'c would not end his brother's desperate hope.
Elliot's body stirred again. "The Tok'ra will broadcast an alert telling them to stay away. They will assume that we died along with the other Tok'ra."
Lantash's blunt words did not dim the gleam of assurance within O'Neill's dark eyes.
"Maybe," the human insisted curtly.
Major Carter's gaze returned only despair. "Well without any way of communicating with them, how will they find us?"
Teal'c saw the determined shake of O'Neill's grey head and the deep lines of worry on his forehead. "Let's keep moving," he finally ordered, clearly unwilling to hear the voices of defeat that echoed from the tunnel walls. His brother – the man who had convinced the First Prime of Apophis to abandon his god with only his unyielding attitude and his few words – would not admit hope was lost, for them or for his missing friend, until the last breath left his body.
Teal'c tightened his grasp on Elliot's weak body and followed him into the dark.
Last Stand – Extended Scene – Daniel's Risk
It was amazing what the human mind could withstand. Daniel blinked wearily into the muted light of the shadowy bedchamber, carefully stretching each limb, searching for the pain that his mind insisted should greet his movements. He brought one hand up to his face to probe what he remembered was a broken cheekbone and felt the smooth, intact bone under his fingers, wiggled those fingers before what he knew had been a blinded eye and felt his lips twitch into a bleak smile. Whole again. Healed again.
He spied the healing device on the table near his head, gaze caught by the dried smear of blood that darkened the gold handle. The System Lord's broad face showed no sign of regret when he'd ordered 'Jarren' to follow him to the council chamber. Yu had repaired his broken toy and now demanded that it dance for him. Again. But Daniel's mind insisted that he was still far from well – reminded him with memories of pain and phantom aches that lingered in his nerves and muscles.
This time, waking from the restless darkness that swam with snake-like images and echoed with the snapping of his own bones, Daniel's mind seemed to have abandoned fear and embraced anger. It sizzled along his nerves where the Tok'ra stimulant had once quickened him, it warmed the bare skin of his chest and arms, and it pushed him to his feet and steadied him when the remembered pain tried to seize him with a fit of trembling.
Osiris – Sarah – he'd let the two become muddled in his mind. It was time to fix that. She was right there, within his grasp, and Jacob had a handy cargo ship waiting nearby to get her back to Revanna where the Tok'ra could rip the symbiote from the woman's body. Maybe Daniel couldn't kill the System Lords, couldn't fulfill the mission that had sent him out here. But, no matter what Jacob or Selmac or the SGC wanted, Daniel had another mission now.
Donning his slave attire – again – adjusting the tight cuffs that bore Yu's mark, Daniel grabbed the Tok'ra communicator from its pouch and hurried out into the corridor. A plan had been born within his mind sometime during his last beating at Yu's hands, and this time he'd make Jacob listen. He'd had enough of following orders as if were truly a meek, subservient minion – the clothes he'd been forced to wear, the poses of humility he'd assumed, they were simply a disguise. And it was time to remind Jacob and Selmac that Daniel Jackson had fully earned his designation as the most stubborn man on Earth.
After years of working with the SGC he'd learned enough from the military men and women who crowded Cheyenne Mountain to know that it was the operative in the field who must make the split-second decisions, in whose hands life and death and the failure or success of his mission was ultimately held. Plan B – or letters much farther down the alphabet – often came into play with SG-1. Daniel gritted his teeth against a deep yearning for his team, for the days when every voice was heard, every scenario considered, when Jack had actually sought out Daniel's non-military, out-of-the-logic-box insights. A wave of dizziness made him stumble, but Daniel straightened his back and recovered just as another lo'taur passed, eying him with clear disdain. He shook off the weakness, the echo of pain in his chest, and brought the communicator to his mouth.
"Jacob."
"Yeah, go ahead."
Daniel winced at the volume of the Tok'ra's voice and hurriedly checked the corridor ahead. "They're going to vote on whether to accept Anubis back," he muttered quietly. "Apparently he has a plan to attack Earth."
"Did you get any details?"
Details? No, Jacob, Daniel thought to himself. A comprehensive battle plan was a little too much to expect. "Osiris didn't say." Osiris – Sarah – bringing her back with them made strategic sense. She – he – was within Anubis' inner circle and might have the intel that the Tok'ra was looking for. Daniel didn't have to stay on this space station to get Jacob's answers. And getting away from here with Sarah, without being snaked or beaten again or exposed as a spy was very high on Daniel's agenda right now.
"Hey, here's a question for you," Daniel began, "why do you think the Goa'uld are allowing their human slaves to hear everything that's going on?"
"I'm not sure."
Daniel narrowed his eyes, suspicious of the hesitation in Jacob's voice.
"The truth is we suspected they were going to kill the slaves when the summit was done," the Tok'ra admitted.
Well that made sense. Daniel pressed one hand to his side, wondering when the memory of pain there would disappear. If all the System Lords – self-styled gods - treated their 'most trusted slaves' as personal property, as toys and pets and punching bags – or worse - the way Yu did, then using them up and then disposing of them afterward was a simple yet elegant solution. Disposable humans. There were plenty more where they came from.
His anger spiked. "And you didn't think that was important enough to tell me?" Dammit. More secrets. More questions that were never asked let alone answered.
"Not considering that you were going to kill all the Goa'ulds," Jacob rejoined quickly.
"I'm not doing that anymore," Daniel snarled. He needed time. Time to get Sarah alone. Time to maneuver her into a place where her superior strength wouldn't kill him before he could get them both to Jacob.
"True. What's your point?" the Tok'ra asked.
His point – his point? Daniel swallowed the knee-jerk reaction to curse Jacob Carter and Selmac and all Tok'ra in every language he knew. His point was that now Daniel had to find a way to delay the completion of the summit long enough to survive. Where was the almost parental concern that Jacob had shown during their journey in the cargo ship? Now it seemed that Jacob was bored with this discussion, with the thought that, if Daniel didn't use the symbiote poison, he and all the other humans on the space station were going to be killed. If the vote was cast and the Goa'uld…
Daniel closed his eyes, the sudden memory of the sinuous slide of reptilian bodies within a silver tank gagging him, clenching his stomach into knots.
He forced slow, shallow breaths before he spoke. "There's a big vat of live symbiotes here."
The silence between them grew and, within his mind, Daniel dared the Tok'ra to ask again about his 'point.'
"So they're not planning on killing the slaves after all."
"No, not by the looks of it," Daniel agreed dryly. Those symbiotes needed hosts, and there was a captive audience right here of fit and able humans hand selected by the System Lords.
"Get to the shield generator and shut it down, I'll get you out of there," Jacob ordered.
Daniel found himself grinning at the irony. Pain, death, humiliation – yeah, these were acceptable risks. After all, if Daniel simply died the Goa'uld might never know about the Tok'ra plot. They wouldn't have access to information about Earth or Revanna or symbiote poison. One life just didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, isn't that what he'd decided when Jacob refused to consider saving Sarah? Saving that one life? But Daniel Jackson taken as a host, well, that, apparently, changed everything. Jacob wouldn't risk that.
Well, Daniel would. "Not yet."
"Daniel if you're caught and that poison falls into the wrong hands…"
Yep. Got it. The safety of the mission was the first priority, with human life falling far down on the scale. But if being taken as a host was worse than death, and Daniel admitted that he believed that, too, then leaving Sarah at the mercy of her Goa'uld was equally reprehensible. The risk was his to take, and so the decision his to make. End of argument.
He heard footsteps – someone was coming. "I won't get caught," Daniel whispered into the communicator. He twisted the switch to 'off' and quickly placed the device in his pouch, lowering his head as the female lo'taur paused to stare at him.
Yu was waiting for his slave. And, somewhere deep within the prison cell of her own body, Sarah was waiting for rescue. Daniel wiped the thin layer of sweat from his upper lip and focused on placing one foot in front of the other.
