Daniel had been surprised when Jack took him to one side the following morning.
"I need you to do something for me…"
After all his fine sounding words, he'd needed help after all. Daniel had been a little annoyed at his presumption, but he'd also found a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact that this was something neither Teal'c nor Sam could do. If he'd ever wanted evidence that Jack trusted him, then this was it. He could have easily gone himself … if it weren't for the fact that the ship's computer and an alien language were involved.
Which was how Daniel had found himself in his current position.
He was wedged in the conduit between the inner and outer hull of the craft, inching his way forwards. Tal was behind him, so there was no way back. He had never been one for claustrophobia, but this was something different. A few inches of metal was all that separated himself and Tal from the vacuum. This crawl space had a twofold function. Firstly, it provided a channel for the control cables and secondly it added extra protection against any stray debris the ship might meet. It was a design feature the TelTak's could use, Daniel thought with a certain amount of irony.
According to Nez's intell, they still had a fair way to go. The same thought must have occurred to Tal. His breathing was unnaturally loud. Even though Daniel had no real problem with enclosed spaces, he realised the same couldn't be said for his companion.
"Easy," Daniel told him.
Tal whimpered and Daniel tried to move faster but it was almost impossible given the restricted space. It probably would have been better for Tal to go first, but Jack hadn't wanted it that way.
"Gotta go back," Tal was muttering to himself. "Can't stay here."
"It's not much further," Daniel lied.
"Can't breath."
"Hold on."
"Can't breath… let me out of here!"
He started banging on the internal wall. Daniel didn't know exactly what was between them and the interior of the ship but he couldn't risk anyone hearing them. There was a hatch close by and Daniel found himself fumbling to get it open. At that moment, he didn't really care where they ended up. He just wanted to stop Tal hurting himself. Kicking the hatch open, he found himself in an empty room. The bunks lining the walls and the unpleasant odour of unwashed socks hinted to Daniel that it was probably part of the crew quarters.
Tal had followed him out and was currently on his hands and knees, hyperventilating.
"Sorry," he panted.
"It's okay," Daniel replied, absently. "I think we've found what we were looking for.
The computer terminal sitting in the corner of the room had diverted his attention. He picked off a pair of discarded underwear and sat down in front of it. The on switch wasn't immediately obvious but Tal seemed to know what he was looking for. His panic attack forgotten, he motioned Daniel to one side.
"These things are activated by palm scanners," he said as he busied himself levering off one of the side panels. Pulling out two fibre optic cables, he touched the ends together, before putting his hand on the scanner.
Something started beeping, very loudly and Daniel was all for making a speedy getaway, but Tal signalled for him to wait.
"I'm converting the rejection into an acceptance signal," he explained.
Sure enough, the noise stopped and the computer screen flashed into life.
"Now what was it you wanted to know?" Tal grinned.
"Supplies, weapons… schematics," Daniel began.
The data was flowing across the screen in a script Daniel realised he had no hope of reading without time to study it. He recognised it as a form of cuneiform but that was about as far as he got.
"Is there any way to get a print out?" he asked.
With a flourish, Tal touched the screen in several places. A few moments later, sheets of a plastic material appeared, each of them covered with the strange script. Daniel gathered them up and stuffed them into his pocket.
"Come on," he said.
"You sure? I can control the ship from here," Tal grinned.
"I'm sure."
They didn't want to control the ship. Not yet. Jack's orders had been very specific and Daniel was going to make certain that they were carried out. They couldn't risk discovery.
"Enough, Tal," he ordered.
For a moment, Daniel thought he would have to haul him back by brute force, but Tal shut down the terminal and, with a certain amount of reluctance, crawled back through the hatch. Daniel took one more look around, making sure the room was exactly how they'd found it, before following Tal. He seemed a whole lot happier on the journey back. Daniel was the one left behind as he hauled himself through the tight space.
When he rapped on the correct panel, Daniel held his breath, hoping that Jack would manage to get them out. Now he was the one who was barely under control. What if they were stuck here? What if something hit the ship? What if…
A pair of hands grabbed hold of him and Daniel found himself pulled free and into Jack's arms. There were a group of people blocking the access panel from view. Acting as if he had been there all along, Jack led him through the wall of prisoners and over to one of the tables.
"All right?" he asked.
"Yeah," Daniel replied, pulling his arm free of Jack.
He pulled out the data they had retrieved.
"I'll need some time to translate this," he said.
&&&
Even after twenty years, Commander Melanby still suspected that he'd been recruited into the Space Corps under false pretences. As a boy, he'd loved holodramas. He'd been an avid follower of Captain Storm and the intrepid crew of the Spaceship Venture. It was only after he'd received his first assignment that he realised the terrible truth.
There weren't any new and interesting alien life forms.
Or a girl in every port waiting to be taught this Arkkadian thing called kissing.
No thrilling space battles.
Or victories snatched from the jaws of death.
Exoplanets had been discovered but there weren't any in range of the current space drives.
Space, he'd realised, was dull. Mind numbingly dull. Melanby had been doing this run for longer than he liked to admit and the only thing it had going for it was the fact that it was more interesting than mineral surveys of the asteroid belt or shuttling people around Arkkadia. At least out here there was always the chance that a riot might break the monotony.
Melanby was hoping that one would break out in the next five minutes, anything to save him from having to deal with Subcommander Yllac's unflagging enthusiasm. The man seemed to delight in bringing every detail of the ship's day-to-day operation to Melanby's attention. Even though Yllac had only had the post for three runs, the Commander was seriously thinking of getting him transferred. Yllac's only redeeming quality was that his companionship was slightly preferable to that of the security forces.
"And there was an unauthorized computer access in crew quarters 15QC at 15110," Yllac finished.
"Very good Mr. Yllac," Melanby said.
The younger man stood there, an expectant expression on his face.
"Was there something else?" Melanby asked.
"Don't you want me to investigate, sir?"
"For a grunt who's trying to scam an extra ration? I don't think that's necessary."
"But sir?"
"What?"
"What if it's one of the prisoners?"
This man's enthusiasm would be the death of him, Melanby realised. Eagerness, seemed to exude from ever pore. Melanby would have loved to ignore the younger man's recommendation, but there was a chance, however small, that Yllac was right. How it might have happened, Melanby could imagine, but he'd learnt not to underestimate the ingenuity of desperate man. The chances were the prisoners were planning something, even if it wasn't the conspiracy Yllac suspected.
"Go through the prisoner manifest," he suggested, "see if there's anyone capable of…"
But before he'd even finished the sentence, Yllac was waving a printout in front of his face.
"Already done, sir."
Melanby snatched the print out from him, annoyed at having to deal with this right away. He'd expected at least half a day's respite.
"Why have you highlighted these four?" he asked, scanning the list.
"Unknown's, sir."
"Unknowns?"
"Yes."
"Then cross them off. Let's concentrate on the ones we do know about… like Nez for example."
"He's an ex-guard, he could be trading information."
"Nez is a grunt. Trust me, he doesn't have the imagination… okay bring 'em in. We'll see if there's anything to this theory of yours."
&&&
Daniel hadn't been guilty of reading after 'lights out' since he had finally escaped the foster homes and moved into his own place. The light was dim but with his body curled around the papers he could just about make out the symbols. The guards were moving slowly through the room, picking prisoners at random and hustling them out of the room. Male … female… they didn't seem to be fussy. Daniel wondered if he shouldn't be sharing with Teal'c. Any actual couples, they appeared to be leaving alone. He wondered why those taken didn't fight … or why no one else seemed to care. There were still several faces missing when the lights went up the following morning.
"Jorb and Tal are gone," Jack whispered when the four of them sat down together to eat breakfast.
"You think they suspect something?" Teal'c asked.
"I don't see how," Daniel replied. "We didn't set off any alarms."
"That you know about," Sam warned.
The four of them ate in silence. Daniel could see the tense lines of Jack face and knew that his friend was worried. He couldn't have expected it all to go so wrong so quickly. Of course, they had no actual evidence that this was as a result of his and Tal's activities. Nez and Rek were still present, so perhaps it was nothing to worry about. Daniel could see how the tactic could work. Divide and conquer was the key. As and when the others were returned it was doubtful if anyone would trust them … especially if they were unharmed.
After they had finished eating, Rek started to make her way over, but Jack stopped her with a small shake of the head. Daniel guessed that, for now, the conspiracy would be put on hold.
"Any luck with the translation?" Jack asked.
Or maybe not.
"There's been some drift in the language," Daniel replied.
"But nothing you can't handle?"
Daniel was starting to understand how Sam felt sometimes. Jack never seemed to understand the demands he was making. Either he had no comprehension of the effort that was required to solve a problem or his own mind worked so fast that he expected everyone else to think as rapidly as he could. Now that was a scary thought. Perhaps it was a poor analogy, but now he thought about it, Daniel had never seen Jack put any effort into coming to a tactical decision. Even the delay in doing his paperwork was due to basic laziness and nothing to do with Jack's intellectual capacity.
"Daniel?" Jack questioned.
"What? Right? Uh … yeah… I didn't read the whole thing but it looks like a supply manifest."
"Cool… and?"
"And it looks like there are enough concentrated food tablets to last for a voyage of a year or so."
"What about water?"
"The same. There are plenty of seeds, tools … the kind of stuff to restock a colony."
Jack sat back in his chair, raising his eyes to the ceiling. He didn't need Sam to tell him that they couldn't make it back to Earth.
"Carter, you know what kind of drive this ship has?" he asked.
"Judging by what I saw on the probe, it's based on antimatter fusion pulse," she replied.
"So can you soup it up a bit? Get us home any faster?"
"Without getting a good look at it … I can't say, sir," she shrugged.
"So that's our next target."
"Yes sir."
Sam didn't appear too thrilled at the prospect and Daniel couldn't blame her. He knew that crawling through the ship's infrastructure was no cause for enthusiasm.
"When?" she asked.
"We'll give it a couple of days," Jack decided.
"What about our allies, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked, nodding towards Rek and Nez.
"Let's keep this one to ourselves," Jack said. "If it comes to a fight, we'll need their help, but until then…"
He let his words fade away. The implication was clear. In contrast to his earlier stance it seemed that right here and now, SG-1 were the only people Jack was prepared to trust. And Daniel couldn't blame him.
&&&
Tal Silvar had always been a coward at heart. This, if he was honest with himself, was a bit of a problem if you were a professional thief. He'd always known it would be a matter of time before he was apprehended. Anyone with any sense would have stopped years ago and retired on the proceeds… which led to another aspect of his personality. Tal was also an obsessive compulsive.
He just couldn't help himself.
This wasn't the first time he'd been imprisoned. There were lesser punishments available on Arkkadia, but Tal had just about run through them all. He was here because his 'condition' appeared to be incurable. His theft had reached the scale where he was
considered a danger to society… or make that a danger to the central government. Sometimes he wondered what might have happened if he'd actually managed to steal that money.
When he'd been sentenced to life on Irkalla , Tal had made a pact with himself not to get involved in any crazy schemes, but when the opportunity had arisen, he'd been unable to help himself. The compulsion to break into the ships computer system had been too strong … even though there had been nothing worth stealing. He regretted it the moment they came for him in the night. He wasn't the only one, but Tal just knew it had something to do with his little excursion. As he was bundled out of the room, he noticed that they hadn't grabbed the man who'd been with him. What had been his name…? Jackson? That was it. Tal couldn't help pondering on the unfairness of it all as he was taken to solitary confinement and left there.
The longer Tal was left alone, the more anxious he became. By the time the door to his cell slid open, he would have told them anything. But they didn't want information.
The man introduced himself as Sub-Commander Yllac.
&&&
The missing inmates were returned after a few hours. Crowding back into their living quarters the way they had left, quietly and without protest. Some of them had clearly been mistreated and it was all Jack could do to stop himself taking his anger out on the nearest guard. They'd made no effort to disguise their handiwork. Tal looked particularly bad. The man's face was bruised and swollen, Jack suspected his nose had been broken. Blood was flowing freely but there was no sign that he'd been given any medical treatment.
Finding a cloth and some water, Jack took both over to the stricken man.
"Tip your head forward," he advised.
Tal did as suggested, the blood dripping onto the floor.
"What happened?" Jack asked when the flow had lessened.
"They knew," Tal said. "Don't know how."
He coughed and Jack helped him to lie back on the bunk. Jack felt personally responsible for what had happened to this man… to all of them. This would never have happened if he hadn't lent his support to Nez and Rek.
"It was one of us," Tal went on.
"What?"
"One of the other prisoners."
"How do you know?"
Tal just shook his head. Standing up, Jack found himself looking around the room. There was no evidence other than Tal's say so, but he couldn't help feeling suspicious. He hadn't noticed anyone getting special treatment. It reinforced his opinion that no one here could be trusted.
"Get some rest," he told Tal.
But the other man was struggling upright. Before Jack could do anything, Tal hurled himself at Jorb. The other man might have been larger but he was knocked to the ground by Tal's momentum and didn't seem capable of fighting back.
"Hey!" Jack yelled as he pulled Tal away.
"Look at him!" Tal spat. "There's not a mark on him."
He was right; Jorb was the only one who had been returned unmarked. Jorb was on his knees, the silver disc clutched between his fingers.
"You don't know that for certain," Jack said, but Tal had raised a doubt in his mind and he wondered how safe they were to continue.
&&&
Colonel O'Neill tapped Sam on the shoulder, nodding as she turned to face him.
It was time.
The lights dimmed and, under the cover of the general movement in the room, she rolled from the bunk and slid under the one opposite. The hatch beneath it was already open and Sam pulled herself through, closely followed by Daniel.
They paused for a moment, their breathing unnaturally loud in the enclosed space. Sam was surprised that he couldn't hear her heart beating. It was certainly loud enough that she was having trouble listening for sounds of disturbance in the room beyond. Once satisfied that their flight had gone unnoticed, they started to make their way through the crawl space.
It had been two days since Daniel's last journey and Sam was definitely feeling the effects of poor diet and lack of activity. They were growing weaker by the day. How the Colonel was coping, Sam wasn't certain. He'd been living under these conditions for longer than the rest of them. Having slept with him for the past few nights, she could vouch for the fact that he'd shed a few pounds. Of course, she imagined that some of that was also due to his sojourn on Edora but something had certainly been sticking into her.
Sam imagined that Daniel was glad he had her watching his back this time. They had a lot further to go and she wasn't likely to have a panic attack. At some level, she suspected, he was actually enjoying this. Like herself, he probably relished the chance to do something… anything… to change their current situation.
Sam's musings were interrupted by the sudden clang of something hitting the outer hull of the ship and a vibration that seemed to run the length of the conduit. They were both shaken by the impact. Sam letting out an involuntary yell when she accidentally tried to brace herself using her injured arm.
"You okay?" she asked as soon as the tremors had subsided.
"Yeah," Daniel gasped. "What hit us?"
"Could have been space dust. We might be passing through the system's Oort Cloud."
Daniel nodded, but Sam suspected he didn't really know what she was talking about.
Or it could have been weapons fire, but Sam decided not to voice that thought.There were certainly several more impacts as they continued onwards, but none as violent as the first. Sam was starting to think this might be easy, until something much larger than dust grazed the outer hull.
She wondered if she had blacked out for a moment. There was certainly no immediate memory of the ship being hit. One moment she was crawling along and the next Daniel was slapping her about the face.
"We've got to get out of here," he gasped, but it was difficult to hear him over the hiss of escaping air.
The hull had been breached. Not in the immediate vicinity, but close enough that they had to make all speed towards the next hatch. It took Sam several seconds to notice her face was wet. Had she been crying, she wondered. She touched her face. The liquid was tacky, solidifying on her fingertips.
"They're sealing the breach!" she realised.
It was everywhere. Sam could feel her clothes stiffening, making it difficult to move, never mind at any speed. She was further hampered by the fact that she had to keep stopping to wipe the stuff off her face to prevent her eyelids from sticking together. Judging by the volume of liquid that was being pumped into the cavity, the breach had to be close by. They rounded a corner of the bulkhead only to find themselves faced with a blank wall. The damaged section had been sealed off from the rest of the ship.
"Back to the hatch," she ordered, indicating the nearest escape route.
By this time, the sealing compound was starting to pool at their feet and Sam felt like she was wading through treacle. In front of her, Daniel had reached the hatch and was struggling to get it open. The pressure differential that now existed between the two areas of the ship was making it almost impossible to move on his own. Sam added her weight to his and with a mighty heave, they managed to force the hatch and tumble into the room beyond.
It looked like some kind of control room. There were two men sitting at a monitoring station, but their reactions were dulled by surprise. Sam took out the first whilst Daniel dealt with the second. The chances of this remaining a covert operation had faded.
"Take that guy's clothes," Sam said.
Her own garments were almost solid with polymer, so much so that they were almost impossible to remove. Sam was struggling out of her jacket when she heard a yell of pain from Daniel. She whirled around, expecting the worst, only to find him standing there with his pants down.
"Daniel?" she questioned.
"I just gave myself a leg wax," he winced.
&&&
There was something going down, Jack could feel it with every fibre of his being. The lights had been out for several hours but he had the feeling that no one in the room was actually asleep. He hoped to God it had nothing to do with Carter and Daniel.
Despite the presence of the guards, a whisper seemed to be running through the room. Jack glanced over at Teal'c to see that his friend had not settled into kelnorim. A nod of the head was all it took to convince Jack that Teal'c had also sensed that something was amiss. And, whatever it was, the guards didn't seem inclined to do anything about it. There were four of them in the room, two by the door and two lounging by the entrance to the bathroom. When Jorb rose to use the bathroom, not one of them glanced in his direction. Not one of them moved when several of the prisoners followed him inside.
Jack knew damn well what was going to happen to Jorb and he didn't even hesitate before getting to his feet. Whatever Jorb may or may not have done, there was no way that Jack was about to let him be beaten up. At least not without proof that he'd sold them out. The guards, however, seemed to have a different idea and both of them moved to block Jack's path. For a race that had a no killing policy, they certainly didn't object to other forms of violence. Jack suspected that, as long as no one dealt a killing blow, they would let this pass … and if Jorb was wounded they'd let him bleed to death.
"I gotta pee," Jack said, clutching at himself and doing a little dance.
Neither of the guards looked particularly concerned. Jack tried to move forward again, only to find himself staring down the barrel of a gun. The weapon was designed to stun, but, from Nez's first hand account, the effects were unpleasant. A sustained blast could knock you out for days and there was a significant chance of brain damage. Jack was about to turn away… until he heard a scream from the bathroom. Figuring that his brain wasn't worth that much anyway Jack executed a neat pivot turn driving his elbow into the face of one of the guards, and kicking the second one in the groin.
All hell broke loose.
As Jack strode into the bathroom, he caught a glimpse of Teal'c heading towards the other guards. Satisfied that an alarm wasn't going to be raised immediately Jack decided to take care of Jorb's attackers. He wasn't surprised to see that Tal was one of them. Jorb was on his knees, held firmly by two of the burlier prisoners, whilst Tal prepared to kick him in the face. Jack felt sick. They didn't even have the guts to take Jorb on in a fair fight.
"Let him go," Jack said, not even bothering to raise his voice.
"Or?" Tal asked.
"I'll kill you."
Tal laughed and turned away. Big mistake. It only took Jack ten seconds to wrestle Tal to the floor, with his hands around the man's throat. Jack made sure that his face betrayed no emotion and he started to squeeze.
"Stop!" Tal gasped.
Jack ignored him. The other two men seemed frozen in the face of someone who was blatantly flouting their most deeply held belief.
"I don't come from your miserable little planet," Jack whispered, "I don't care if you live or die."
Then he released Tal and helped Jorb to his feet.
"Remember that," Jack said over his shoulder as he and Jorb left the room.
The fight with the other guards had been brief but effective. The four of them were draped, in a neat pile over one of the bunks. Jack suspected that Teal'c was responsible. Most of the other prisoners seemed confused by the turn of events and were milling around in an aimless fashion. Leaving Teal'c to look after Jorb, Jack started looking for Rek and Nez.
Foremost in Jack's mind was Daniel and Carter, blissfully unaware of what had happened. He wasn't sure whether to wait for them to return or take immediate advantage of the opportunity.
"Nez, what's standard operating procedure for this situation?"
"Riot? The Commander will order the prisoners quarters flooded with anaesthetic gas," Nez replied in answer to Jack's question. "We'll sleep all the way to Irkalla"
"So we need to get out of here," Rek added.
She had appropriated one of the discarded weapons, Jack noticed, he also had the feeling that she had no idea how to use it. Despite her tough words, Rek probably wasn't much of a fighter. Looking around, Jack realised that these people needed him. He'd gotten them into this situation and it was down to him to get them out.
"Let's do it," he ordered … just a something hit the ship.
Jack was one of the few who managed to stay on his feet, by dint of clutching hold of Teal'c.
"What the hell was that?" he yelled as the tremors subsided.
"It happens sometimes," Nez replied. "We're passing into the outer reaches of the Irkalla system."
"Anything to worry about?"
"Unless we're hit by something larger than an ice crystal."
"Good enough."
The crew were going to have their hands full controlling the ship, so maybe the time was right. If he could just get a message through to Carter and Daniel…
"Let's get that door open," he ordered. "Teal'c, Nez … you're with me, you to Jorb. Rek, keep an eye on things here."
Jack wasn't about to leave Jorb here for Tal and his band of thugs.
The continued impacts made their progress difficult. It was hard to be a force to be reckoned with when you couldn't stay on your feet.
"Crap!" Jack swore as a particularly violent collision sent him crashing into the wall of the corridor. Once he had managed to extract himself from the tangle of arms and legs, he realised that Nez was crouching down next to a nearby hatch.
"What?" he demanded.
"I think that last one holed us," Nez said, indicating the white substance that was welling out of the crack between the hatch and the surrounding wall. It looked like the stuff Jack had used on his bath.
"Sealing compound?" he asked.
"Yeah," Nez agreed. "It sets solid."
"How about if someone was in there?"
The other man just shook his head.
&&&