Plan B
They'd been separated.
Sam had fought it, grabbing Kawehilani's arm and holding tight even as one of Ku's Jaffa hit her across the head with the side of his Zat. Light and pain had burst through her—and she had the sinking suspicion that the wound on her scalp had reopened. The younger girl hadn't screamed—for which Carter felt undeservedly proud—but the look of terror on her face as another Jaffa had lifted her and carried her down the hall would swim in Carter's memory for the rest of her life.
The Jaffa who had hit Sam then lifted her with a beefy around her waist. She'd fought—although she knew it had been weak—the pain radiating through her head had precluded either thought or reason. She'd found herself unceremoniously dumped in a room, where she'd lain for a few precious minutes fighting to regain control over the pain in her head.
And a few moments was all she'd had before Kama pua'a had joined her, his robes shushing his way past where she lay as he crossed to stand on the other side of the room.
Carter had forced her eyes open, painfully surveying the place.
It was a chamber much like the women's quarters, minus the fountain. Wide and expansive, the room was white, with large swaths of red and gold color in drapes, and carpeting, and upon the vast bed in the center of the room. She raised herself on her arms, willing them not to shake as she pushed herself up onto her knees. With a self consciousness that she despised in herself, she reset the haku lei, covering herself, even as she lifted her chin towards the Goa'uld.
He stood near the foot of the bed, absently rubbing the strap on his left arm. Sam quickly took it in—the personal shield device was the key to her escape—the reason she was here.
"I know who you are."
Sam looked up at him, but didn't say anything.
"My First Prime has referred to you as Nohea o na wai. A common enough name. But I sense that you have been inhabited by a Goa'uld."
She watched as he fiddled with the gold device on his fat right hand, loosening it slightly, preparing it. She tested her limbs, knowing she could outrun this huge man if she needed to. She found herself casting a quick look behind her, to where the door stood, unguarded from the inside.
She was alone with the Pig God.
"You'll find that we are being given privacy—so that we may get to know each other better." He smiled, his mouth making little more than a crease in his round face. "Because I believe that you have much to offer—something more than your body."
"What could I have that you might want?" Sam steadied her eyes, her focus on the Goa'uld. "I have nothing. You see that I'm completely at your disposal."
The crease in the Goa'uld's face deepened. "I believe that you have much you could tell me." He stepped closer, apparently satisfied with the devices on his wrists. "You have been inhabited by a Goa'uld, have you not? Only you are not blended, at the moment. It's quite the mystery."
He drew closer still, until she could smell him, and his voluminous robes filled her area of vision. One hand reached down and grasped at her face, turning it up to meet his gaze. "Only I am a God, and therefore I can solve the mystery of who you are. You have come through the Stargate. You have once been blended. You must be working with the Tok'ra."
She allowed her eyes to close partway, hoping she looked weaker than she actually felt. Her only hope lay in his thinking that she was here by herself—and then she could wait for the cavalry to arrive. She needed to focus on parting the Goa'uld from his personal shield. Once she'd done that, the legendary lava wouldn't need to take him out—a well aimed slice of her knife would do that just as well.
"I'm not of the Tok'ra. I came here looking for the secrets of the Ancients on a mountain on the other island. I was caught in a flash flood and brought down river. Mano found me and thought that I might be a pleasing servant for you. A suitable sacrifice." She forced her voice to sound subservient. "He told me that if I gave you the pleasure you seek, if I gratified you, I would be a highly praised servant to the Lord Kama pua'a."
"And will you?" His hand lowered to take the haku off her head, letting it drop to the floor next to her. He fingered the tips of her hair, tsk-ing softly at the wound on her head. She saw his eyes take in the still-faint bruising on her shoulders, her face. The evidences of her previous injury that Mahina's medicines and ointments hadn't been able to fully erase. "Because believe me when I say that further disobedience will result in worse injury than this. Worse than you've already suffered."
"If you'll let me prove myself," Sam forced herself to bow at the waist, hands running down her thighs to rest on the ground. "I will please you."
Kama pua'a bent gracelessly, grasping her upper arm. "Then come and show me what you have to offer. You seem to be a woman of experience. Ku wants you for himself, but I can still choose to keep you."
Sam stood, aided by his moist hands. She allowed him to remove the haku at her wrists, forced back the revulsion as he stepped around her, touching random parts of her body. His soft, inelegant hands ran down her spine, touched her shoulders, measured the breadth of her hips, and he edged two fingers under the haku at her side, testing the weight of her breast. When he had completed his circle around her, he smiled down at her again, with real regret.
"It is indeed unfortunate that you did not arrive sooner. You are too old to be of much use to me as a breeder. But that does not mean that you cannot give me some small solace." He took a step backward. "Disrobe. I would have you now."
Sam couldn't move. For all of her prior bravado, she found herself unable to obey this order, unable to expose herself. The fact that the knife on her thigh would disprove everything she'd said weighed heavily on her—the Goa'uld would know that she was not an innocent, a sacrifice once he saw it.
"Or are you indeed what is whispered? A Tok'ra operative working under the name Pele?" The Goa'uld spread his hands. "I know the legends that the slaves here pass amongst themselves. Just because I choose not to travel amongst the stars waging useless war with my own kind does not mean that I am a fool." His eyes flashed briefly, brilliantly, before he nodded again to her. "It is either one or the other, is it not? Nohea or Pele. Sacrifice or enemy."
Carter swallowed hard, breathing in short pants through her nose. With a troubled resolve, she reached up and grasped the heavy haku around her neck, pulling it off over her head, discarding it. She lowered her arms to her sides, standing partially exposed, the kapa cloth skirt skimming her hips and reaching only to her knees. She summoned up her courage and stepped closer to the Goa'uld, watched him leer at her, his lips suddenly wet, his eyes glazing over with a frank hunger.
Standing this close, almost touching the Goa'uld, she knew he couldn't see the motions of her hands. She reached down and slipped her right hand under her skirt, hiking up the kapa on her thigh, until her hand touched the knife's sheath. His bulk prevented him from seeing anything below where their bodies nearly met. She raised her left hand and touched his bare arm gripping the flabby heft of it, pretending to exult in how he touched her.
His shield didn't prevent her from caressing his clammy skin, didn't prevent him from lowering his head to taste her throat. She felt his tongue, then his teeth on her left shoulder, but concentrated on the movements of his left hand. It had grasped her right shoulder. She cast a look sideways before raising the knife, moaning loudly in an attempt to disguise her actions, she fit the knife under the strap of his shield and flicked it outward, hard, slicing through the restraints and sending the device sliding down her back to rest on the ground behind her.
Kama pua'a raised his head in confusion. He instantly shoved himself away from Sam, who skittered immediately as far as she could from him, sending the device sliding behind her with a well aimed kick. With an angry, powerful roar, he lunged at her, lifting his right hand to use the gold ribbon device, but Sam dodged the beam, then hurtled back towards him, the knife gripped blade down in her hand.
The Goa'uld couldn't move quickly enough to dodge her blow—she bloodied his cheek before darting away from him, sashaying from side to side as he tried, with a furious bellow, to take aim at her again. He raised his hand, following her with the device as she moved. His eyes now held a continuous dim glow, betraying the degree of his anger. He was breathing too hard to speak, his face red not only with his host's blood, but also with heat from his own rage.
Carter took a chance and backed towards the door, felt for a latch and found none. She recalled that symbols often doubled as automated openers in Goa'uld construction, and felt with her free hand around the jamb for such a device, knowing that without being able to see it, her chances of finding it were dim. She turned in a haze of desperation, flinched when a blast from the Goa'uld's hand device hit a few feet away, then turned back towards Kama pua'a.
He had closed in on her, still holding his hand outstretched, ready to fire again upon her. She made a quick decision and darted for the opposite side of the room, locating the shield device and kicking it as she went. The Goa'uld was too slow, too heavy to keep up with her, but the ribbon device more than leveled the field. Her knife wouldn't do much against his ability to fire the beam at her. She stopped on the other side of the bed, between it and the wall, sending the shield device under the large bed with a slight kick. She doubted he'd be able to reach it—even while she recognized that she was essentially trapped.
"You are of the Tok'ra." Kama pua'a spat the words through a veil of sweat and saliva. "You have come to destroy me, but you will fail. That pitiful weapon is no match for me—even without my shield." He reached towards a table and into a container, withdrawing a Zat. "I don't want you dead, quite yet, Pele. I still must punish you for your actions here." He aimed the weapon at her, grinning as he pulled the trigger.
There was no place for her to go—the blast caught her fully, and she crumpled to the floor.
----OOOOOOO----
The Colonel heard the Zat blast, heard a body hitting the ground, hard.
He stood in the hall, alone, having made his way through the compound by himself after sending the brothers off over the rise and towards the beach with the women out of the room. They'd entered as soon as they had been sure that the Goa'ulds had gone, found the crowd of gestating women in the room accompanied only by the older woman left behind by Kama pua'a.
She'd immediately recognized the brothers, hurrying towards them to show the means by which they could release the chains. Within minutes the women had been freed, and quietly, after a low, mumbled conversation in their rapid native tongue, they had followed Keone and Kaipo out the rear door and up the rise.
O'Neill had been left behind—he'd unclipped his P-90 and stood at the door listening for several long minutes. He'd heard the footsteps down the hall, known Carter had objected forcefully to something happening. He knew her sounds—knew that she'd made an exertion of some sort from a brief, sharp groan. Then he'd heard the sound of metal making contact with flesh, and knew to the core of his being that she'd been hit with something—hard.
Footsteps had scurried, then faded, and after a moment or two of silence, he'd found the symbol on the door jamb that matched the outer door, and pressed it. The door opened quietly, widely, admitting him into the inner hallways of the palace. He raised the P-90 to his shoulder, scanning first one branch of the hallway, then the other. They were identical, but a tiny shred of something green lying in the hallway off to his left urged him forwards. He reached it and looked down—it was a piece of fern, and a single petal from a flower.
Carter's lei.
He hurried down farther into the corridor, passing one, then two doors, before he heard the noise—running—bare feet on a smooth surface. An infuriated shout—and then the Zat.
He sidled up against the door, listening in the deserted hallway for more. He heard a grunt, then the sound of a body being deposited on something soft. A weak protest—Carter's voice, garbled, disoriented.
O'Neill balanced his weapon in one hand, feeling down around the doorway and finding the fishhook. Depressing it, he shifted to the other side of the door as it opened, covering himself with the door while scanning the interior.
His eyes immediately found the bed, the bulk of the Goa'uld hefting himself onto it. He saw Carter pushing weakly against him, noted that the snake had pushed the kapa skirt so that it rode high on her thigh, his hand working at the sheath strapped there. She was practically nude—and his mouth went dry as he took note of her state of dress, the blood welling anew on her head, the blank, pained look on her face.
He stepped quietly inside, raised his weapon in both hands. Carter's gaze caught his movement, and her eyes widened briefly, and he could see her fight her way further into consciousness before she reached for and caught the Goa'uld's left arm in her hand, lifting it, showing the Colonel that the device wasn't there.
Kama pua'a wasn't shielded any longer. O'Neill moved to the side, sighted the side of the Goa'uld's head, and took the shot just as the Goa'uld noticed him. The bullet tore through the snake's throat, exiting out the base of his skull in a fine spray of blood and gore. His bulbous body jerked once before being thrown backwards and to the side, slumping bulbously on the lower halves of Carter's legs his head and one arm draping down the side of the bed.
Immediately, O'Neill moved forward. He lifted a foot and shoved at the body until it slid to the floor. Carter lay panting heavily on her back, her face pained, her entire being shivering, the beginnings of a sob working in her throat.
He fought the insane urge to crawl up next to her and gather her close—forced himself to disregard the fact that she lay, nearly completely exposed, a pinkish sheen of blood settled over her features. He couldn't comfort her now—he needed to get her moving—away from this place, before the echo of his single shot registered on people who knew what the sound was. He grabbed a curtain from where it hung on a wall, looked around and found the knife peeping out from beneath the bed, and grasping it, sliced a notch into the curtain. It was easy then to rip away a wide swath of fabric and hand it to Sam, who had sat up in the bed, her arms covering herself with an attitude of shame and embarrassment that broke his heart.
"Cover up, then let's get out of here." He knew his voice was harsh—he'd growled the words on purpose, to put some sort of distance between them. He turned his back and crossed back to the door, opened it a sliver to peer into the hallway. By the time he glanced back at her, she'd tied the fabric around her body like a sarong, and was trying to stand on legs that were too shaky to be supportive. He closed the door again, and moved back towards her, stalling her with a hand on the side of her face.
"Hold up for a minute. Get your breath. You're no good to me hyperventilating." He found his hands moving through the mess of her hair, unable, after all, to keep himself from offering some hint of comfort. She leaned—he was positive it wasn't by choice—into his touch, and her eyelids flickered closed while her breathing calmed. Finally, his thumb making gentle circles at her temple, he could ask, "You okay?"
She nodded. "I will be, sir."
"Close one."
She nodded again, and the sob finally escaped. "Yeah. It was."
She breathed deeply, searched for, and found, a loose piece of fabric on the bed next to her and wiped at her face, her shoulders. She dabbed at her head, next, and grimaced at the amount of blood that came off on the material.
"Probably needs stitches."
"Yeah." She made one more cleaning motion at her throat, swiped at her collar bone, then threw the material on the floor and stood—less shaky, less ashamed. She finally met his eye, and what passed between them was more than concern for each other as team mates, more than mere friendship. Someday, when the time was right, they would explore it, figure out where it could go. "I probably do."
Something welled up inside him—a heated, painful kind of caring—the knowledge that if he'd failed, if the Pig God had succeeded, then O'Neill himself would have been lost within an agony he hadn't felt since losing Charlie. She meant too much. He'd lost all control over that part of his soul.
If she recognized his struggle, she didn't allude to it. She held out a hand for the knife, and he shook himself out of his thoughts enough to give it to her and then unsnap and hand her his side arm, too. She calmed further while going through the familiar motions of checking the load, chambering a round.
His voice sounding hollow, he repeated himself, feeling like a fool. "Lotsa stitches."
She cast him a grateful, albeit weary, look before saying, "When we get home."
----OOOOOOO----
I have had some requests for the meanings of the words that I've used. I do have a glossary that I can send you, or I can just add it as a chapter. Which would be preferable?
And remember, you're always welcome to ask questions or leave a review. A reviewed writer is a happy writer! Thanks to all of you who have left comments—they're very motivating! Smiles and Aloha!