AN: Sorry I haven't posted in awhile, I have been busy working, going home and occaisionally having really lazy moments!
Disclaimer: See first chapter!
Chapter 7 – Hope
3 Months later
"Unscheduled off-world activation, I repeat unscheduled off-world activation." General Hammond immediately responded. He had temporarily taken over command of the SGC until someone else could be found.
"We have the Tok'ra IDC coming through."
"Open the iris" Hammond said. Freya appeared through the Stargate and General Hammond instantly hurried down to the gate room. The look on Freya's face was difficult to make out. It looked like a mixture of elation, anger and sadness. Hammond asked her: "what is the matter Freya?"
"I have news," said Freya.
"What sort of news," asked Hammond perplexed at what sort of new would bring the Tok'ra.
"I think we should wait until Teal'c and Daniel are here," she said mysteriously.
"Ok, well come up to the briefing room then. Daniel and Teal'c will come quickly, Teal'c obviously lives on base, but Daniel hasn't been home for about a month!" said Hammond leading her upstairs.
Freya and Hammond were seated around the briefing table when Teal'c and Daniel walked in. You could see the toll on them from the last few months. Teal'c although never very emotional had smiled only once or twice. Now no one got a smile. Daniel looked lost, with his shoulders drooping and looking at everything with black circles around his eyes.
Teal'c surprised everyone by asking: "for what purpose are you here Freya?"
"As I have said to General Hammond here, I have some news," said Jacob gravely.
"Come on Freya what about?" said Daniel impatient.
"Concerning Jack and Sam," said Freya. At this everyone around the table looked up with more interest and Hammond said: "well, what about them?"
"They are alive and in the hands of Ba'al. We have just heard from one of our Tok'ra operatives in Ba'al's service who was finally allowed to guard them," said Freya.
"What did this operative know or find out?" said Daniel more eagerly and slightly losing the lost look he had earlier.
"Only that they are alive and…" she trailed off.
"And what?" Hammond asked.
"Well Ba'al is trying to get some information from them."
"Concerning what Freya?" Teal'c asked.
"The operative didn't know." Freya answered ominously.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ba'al was having a bad day. The prisoners had yielded hardly anything at all and Anubis wouldn't hold off for long. Thinking about Anubis he was meant to be contacting Ba'al soon. Ba'al was not looking forward to it. An insistent voice broke through his thoughts.
"My Lord we have a communication from Lord Anubis."
"Put it through," Ba'al snarled at his first prime.
"Ba'al what information have you gathered so far?" said Anubis in a calm, scary voice.
"We have learnt that the prisoners are called General Jack O'Neill and Colonel Samantha Carter. They are high up in the SGC…"said Ba'al trying to look confident in the information.
Anubis interrupted him: "We already have that information, have you ascertained why they were on the planet which you were exploring?" It was difficult for Ba'al to hide his surprise. How did Anubis know who the prisoners were?
"I am afraid not My Lord, we have not ascertained why they were there. However, they are close to talking My Lord," Ba'al was feeling a little bit more anxious now. He had no idea how Anubis would react to this. No that is not entirely true, Ba'al did know, but he did not know what his punishment would be.
"THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE, LORD BA'AL." Anubis shouted "I will be there in 2 weeks, by then you MUST have some results of your 'questioning' or I will have to do it my own way and then this puts the end of your fun." Again Ba'al was surprised he never realised that Anubis knew this bit of information about him as well. He replied: "yes My Lord" and terminated the conversation. Ba'al had some thinking to do. He had to devise a new way of getting the information within 2 weeks.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
It felt like hell, not that she had ever been to hell. Hang on what was she thinking she had been to hell that time when her dad had got caught by one of the goa'uld. Can't remember the name, Daniel would know. Anyway Apophis was there and in the end everyone was ok, that was all that mattered. Hmm so back to this hell, well she figured she was going a little bit crazy from the sarcophagus and then there was "ohmigod Jack."
She concentrated on her surrounding and it had a lot of nightmarish qualities. There was Ba'al whose features had been burned in her mind towering over Jack. Jack and Ba'al and the rest of the Jaffa were all looking at her, then she realised that she had said her last thought out loud. "sorry" she said apologetically.
"Now as I was saying before that little interruption I need to know why you were on that planet which I have heard from my Jaffa you called Serenity," he gave a snort "now I will have my information from one of you, or you will have to watch the other die, over and over again. Do I make myself clear?"
Jack looked up and said "Crystal". Sam looked at Jack and she knew she couldn't bear to see him die over and over and she knew the exact same thought was passing through Jack's mind as well. "Jack," she began.
"Sam, don't worry, it will be ok."
"No it won't I can't stand it anymore," Sam said thinking quickly. It wasn't far from the truth but Ba'al didn't know that. She glanced quickly at him, he was enjoying every minute of this. The she said to Ba'al viciously "we were on that planet for some paid leave. We were on holiday. I guess they will be paying us a lot more for this. Now will you let us go?"
Jack looked surprised for a second and then quickly smoothed his features into an anguished look instead. He then proceeded to shout at her: "Sam, why the hell did you do that. Why did you give him that?"
"We cannot go on like this, it is slowly killing us," Sam responded in anguish. She really did not need to act much to get the right tone.
"SHUT UP" Ba'al shouted and then proceeded to burst out laughing.
"Pathetic try, you think I would believe this story? Do you think me that gullible? Now who shall it be? Hmm yes since Samantha was the one to tell the lie I think she must watch the torture of O'Neill here. Jaffa Kree."
Sam watched in agony as the needles were applied to Jack and the sound in the room could be described as terrifying: a mixture of Ba'al's laugh, Jack's screams and Sam's pleading screams. The when Jack was unconscious but not quite dead they revived him and they had to go through it all again. Then they put him back in the sarcophagus and they took her back to their cell. She had a day of thinking before Jack was brought back.
---------------------------------------------------------------
"Sam!" said Jack. He realised how much he had missed her. Although you don't have conscious thoughts in the sarcophagus, Jack did know that he had seen her image there with him like a guardian angel.
"Jack, before you ask I figured something out which has been puzzling me," Sam said.
"Does this have anything to do with getting gout of here?" Jack asked hopefully. They both knew they could not withstand this for much longer.
"No," Sam looked downhearted "I have been wondering why they put us into the same cell," she plowed on "doesn't it make more sense in separating us so we can't try to make an escape of something."
"Makes sense, where are you going with this?" Jack asked.
"Well I think that Ba'al wanted an extra tool against us- our relationship. He wanted to know what we mean to each other…" Sam broke down in tears.
"He knows and we have no way of stopping him use it. So I am going to say this now and know that I mean it. You Sam Carter mean the world to me, you always have an always will. Sam I love you," he finished, put his arm around her and held onto her as if his life depended on it. Sam looked round at him and said brokenly: "you too Jack, I love you." They embraced like that for what seemed like an eternity.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Meanwhile at the SGC. Teal'c was sitting at the briefing table with Daniel; they were both in silence as they were both deep in thought. Teal'c wondered how O'Neill and Sam were doing. They would be almost going crazy by now from Ba'al. What was worse was that they hadn't got them out of their prison. Teal'c knew that Daniel was also feeling what he himself was feeling; they could not get away from it. A bang interrupted his reverie. General Hammond, Freya and several Jaffa came in. They had just got seated when Thor beamed in.
"Thor, welcome to our briefing. I hope we can all work together peacefully in this mission," said Hammond with a pointed look at the Jaffa and Tok'ra.
"I am sure that everyone will work peacefully to bring O'Neill and Samantha Carter back in one piece," said Thor. Teal'c then decided that the briefing should be started because this was getting them nowhere.
"General Hammond should we not concentrate on getting O'Neill and Samantha Carter out of Ba'al's little prison?"
"Yes of course. According to Tok'ra intelligence there are various ways into Ba'al's fortress. However, the first problem is getting onto the planet. It does not have a Stargate. We will have to use one of the Asgard ships to beam people into the woodland on the surface. While other Jaffa will take ships. They will go in and pretend to want to ally themselves with Ba'al. Meanwhile the Asgard ships will destroy the defence systems, this will mean that the members of the SGC teams can move around freely. They will find Jack and Sam and then as soon as they have been found the forces inside will send a communiqué to Thor and everyone will be beamed out, however, the Tok'ra operatives will be left there so that we can send another proper strike against Ba'al. Now any questions?" asked General Hammond.
"Why is this not designated as a proper strike on Ba'al? It seems to me he will be hit pretty hard," asked Daniel.
"Yes, but we are not doing this for Ba'al we are doing this to get Jack and Sam back. Once we have them and they have recovered we can plan a strike on Ba'al which will hopefully leave him permanently crippled or better yet dead. For this mission we will not be using all our personnel, we are going to be stealthier. The next confrontation, however, we will not be hiding!" General Hammond explained " anymore questions? Is the plan acceptable to everyone?" There was a general consensus of no more questions.
"Let us get to work then."
Everyone departed leaving Daniel and Teal'c alone again. This time they did not feel so guilt stricken. They were going to go and do something to help their friends and they both felt restored as a consequence to this thought. They left the briefing room together.
AN: Again I am sorry, but I would be extremely appreciative if you could read and review, hopefully I will be putting the next chapter up tonight as well.
