A thud from down stairs had Jack jerking awake, reaching for his weapon, his eyes targeted on the door to the bedroom they'd been sleeping in, crouched low, waiting for another noise to disrupt the silence which seemed just a little too suspect in his hyper vigilant mode.
Sam was up too, her own hand on her weapon, waiting, not saying anything, knowing that speaking now would be foolish.
Thud.
He met her gaze as the second noise had them both lurching to their feet. They weren't just hearing things. There was definitely someone or something down the stairs. They had to get the hell out of here before they were found here. Then they could work out who had disrupted their calm.
Moving out into the upstairs hallway, Jack realised that it was too late for an escape. Not without loss of blood, and he wasn't about to risk that.
"Find them." A strong, commanding voice demanded and Jack raised a brow before readying his weapon. Sam stilled his arm as he was about to move however, stilling his arm and shaking her head minimally, motioning to the people down below who had stormed the house. Jack noticed what she had.
These people weren't like the feral would-be rapists they had dealt with. These people were different. Ordered. Military. A clear chain of command.
They were part of the rebellion.
Which meant that they had to surrender.
"Looking for us?" Jack asked as he stood up from hiding, his hands raised as twelve weapons turned to train on them on the landing above.
They were subdued with little force, their weapons confiscated and Jack felt that familiar tug of helplessness dig into his gut, up under his ribs. The only thing that kept the panic he felt at being attacked was the fact that these people were better equipped than the last group they'd run into trouble with, the leader a sharp eyed man who wasn't looking at Carter with undisguised lust, but with suspicion.
"You are the outsiders. Responsible for the attacks." He stated with little kindness, like they had been seeking them out to gain retribution against them for this skewed fact. "I'd like nothing more than to kill you both."
"Don't!" Jack turned, watching as the girl from earlier appeared from behind the adults that clogged the front room, her large eyes wide in her pale face, looking scared. "They saved me…please." She begged, imploring the leader, reaching out in a familiar gesture to tug at his sleeve. The hard man did nothing to shove her away, merely eased her back from him gently, his hawk like eyes zooming in on them again.
"We aren't responsible for anything, Pal." Jack grated, feeling the sharp edge of anger stab at him. The man assessed their weapons, as if the foreign guns were testament to the fact that they were indeed responsible for everything that had transpired on this planet.
"The only reason you aren't dead right now is because our leader wants to see you." It was clear that he had argued with this choice vehemently, especially given the sneer he cast their way, as if he was disgusted with the very thought.
"You will come with us." He continued.
Jack tensed. "Will we now." He murmured on a low voice, eyes glimmering as he stared the man down unflinchingly. There was no way in hell he was going to go with these people without some pretty damn good incentive. Weapons or not, he wasn't going to allow himself or Carter to be taken without a fight.
"Jack." He felt Carter's hand squeeze his arm, and he tilted his head towards her, not taking his unyielding gaze from the other man's, a battle of wills going on in silence.
"This is what we wanted." She reminded him pointedly, her fingers tight on his arm, telling him more than her words. She believed these people were the rebels they had been looking for. Strange how he had been so intent on finding them before, the only real thought in his mind for the last three months in hiding, but now that they were standing right here before them, tough as nails and ready to battle the Goa'uld who had claimed their planet like a piece of fodder, Jack wasn't sure that his plan had been that smart after all.
But, despite his distrust of these people, she was right. They had been trying to find them for months. They had no choice.
"You will come freely." The man stated with a nod, before he motioned to his men, the ones who had disarmed them. Jack wasn't 100% sure why he always seemed to take Carter's words and run with them. He guessed that over the years he had come to trust her thoughts like she had to trust his orders. Off to meet the wizard…
The first thing Jack noticed was the fact that the rebel leader was not a man, but in actual fact, a woman. Her eyes were steely and unemotional, which explained why these people followed her lead so diligently. She was short, with dark hair and a no-nonsense expression that cut him where he stood before her.
"You have been searching for us. Why?" She asked with a sneer, obviously having the opinion of the others under her command. Hell, she had probably been the one that had incited the little riot outside the Council buildings before the Goa'uld had attacked the planet.
"We have come to help." He said, meeting the woman's eyes with just as much fierce determination as she held within her, and she lifted her chin as if he had insulted her with his direct statement.
"Help?" She asked incredulously. "You are the reason why this planet is under attack!" She said. One of the soldiers, if you could really call the crudely dressed gun-wielding individuals that, pressed into his shoulder to keep him still and Jack tensed.
He despised being touched. The amount of torture he had been through over the years was a testament to how much patience he was showing by not reacting to these men who thought to hold him.
"It was a coincidence." Carter said from beside him, gaining a rough shove from one of the men who stood behind them, and he shot a glare over his shoulder as Carter regained her equilibrium.
The leader turned her slate like eyes on Carter, assessing her with some form of insolent respect. Obviously any woman who acted independently of a man gained her notice, and Carter was way beyond taking orders from him.
"And what do you think you can help us with?" She asked, targeting her question at Carter, not him.
"Tactical knowledge." Carter stated without hesitation. "We've come up against this enemy before."
"My sources say the leader of these attackers is named…Camulus." Maia said with narrowed eyes. Jack swore under his breath.
"I thought he had no army left." He said to Carter. He had thought that the Goa'uld were on the run, their armies fallen to the Jaffa rebellion. The only one he could think of that had control of an army still was Ba'al.
"I thought he was dead." She responded pointedly. Last time he had seen Camulus, he had been stepping through the Stargate with a dead ZPM on his way to disappoint his master Ba'al. Maybe Ba'al had forgiven him. Jack was a little put off by this new information. He had rubbed Camulus off his list of bad guys the moment they had sent him back to Ba'al with that dud ZPM.
"We know him." Carter said to the rebel leader. Maia looked more interested in the help they could offer her by the minute.
"You will tell me everything you know." Maia commanded firmly.
"And then?" Jack asked, gaining a nasty glare from the woman.
"Then you are both being traded for our freedom." She stated, motioning for something behind their backs, her words nonchalant despite the desperation they incited within Jack. He didn't look at Carter, his anger igniting as he shrugged off the man who held him still.
"And what exactly makes you think Camulus will just leave if you give us to him?" Jack demanded sharply, not caring if he sounded disrespectful. He knew exactly what Camulus would do to them if he got his hands on them. What the Goa'uld had probably done to the others already.
Maia regarded him calmly for a moment, as if sizing him up, considering whether she should bother telling the bait an important detail.
"The transmission we received." She said.
"What transmission." Jack asked suspiciously, glancing back towards Maia's second-in-command who had shifted slightly, as if he disagreed with Maia's strategy in telling him the truth.
"Kalen." Maia said, meeting her second's eyes. They seemed to have a silent argument before the tall man turned and stalked out of the room with a gruff curse, returning moment later with some kind of crude radio, placing it roughly on the table and motioning for Maia to have at it with a jerky hand movement.
The woman stepped forward and clicked a button, Camulus' voice echoing in the room, the deep timbre that was so very clearly Goa'uld grating at Jack's head. He had hoped to never hear that loathsome sound again.
"Give me the two Taur'i infiltrators in your midst, and I will leave your pitiful planet. Do not, and I will raze it to the core."
"And you really think you can trust his word?" Carter demanded sharply. Jack turned to look at her, the frustration straining at her features vibrating outwards from her tension.
"We are not foolish." Maia responded with just as much intensity. Carter smiled humourlessly, her eyes meeting the other woman's.
"He won't leave." She said as a fact.
"Then we will use you both as a distraction so we can take back our planet by force. Our offenses have only failed because we had no effective distraction to succeed with our incursion. Now…we have something to bargain with."
"This is insane. He isn't even here for us. He won't just give up the planet as easily as you think!" Carter continued to argue.
Jack wanted to reach out to her, to ease her anger, but he felt what she felt. That they had been searching for these people as a ray of hope, but had only found more darkness. More corruption. More sacrifice, as if they hadn't already given up enough.
"Take them." Maia stated, not even looking at them now, motioning for Kalen to do his duty.
It was a dismissal.
Her soldiers stepped forward. Jack watched Sam tense, looking for all the world like she was about three seconds from snapping completely and breaking out a fight right here in this small room. He did reach for her then, his fingers squeezing around her arm tightly. She turned fierce eyes on him, her eyes only darkening with that rebellious streak of unwillingness as he minimally shook his head to belay her reaction to these people and their plans.