Chapter 25 - My Babi's Back
The Babi who emerged from the sarcophagus was enraged.
He walked towards Chanah, and dug his nails into her back and pulled them down along the bloody welts, ripping them open more. "I think she'll be more uncomfortable on her back. Do it." The First Prime flipped her around, pushing her back hard against the wall for good measure.
Jack was disheartened that Babi continued to focus his abuse on Chanah. But then the Goa'uld moved toward Jack and continued, "I would not want her to strain to see the pain I am about to inflict on you."
Chanah was equally disheartened. The endgame seemed still further away. And now she would have to endure Jack's pain as he had hers.
And that was really all any of it was about now. Pain. And the pleasure Babi derived from it. He didn't care if they ever answered his questions. He had all the time in the world. He believed he could know all either knew by taking either or both as host. He would keep them alive until then, in one condition or another.
"This game grows old and I have business to conduct. I will afford you one last opportunity to cooperate."
He ran his fingers along Jack's body. Then he brought out the pain stick. "It will leave no more marks upon you. I should not like too many more scars upon this body when it is mine."
He rapidly fired questions at Chanah. She either didn't answer or answered nonsense. She empathized with each bolt of pain visible in Jack's eyes and mouth. It seemed to go on forever. Finally, mercifully, Jack passed out.
Babi was anxious to conclude this business, however. He had Jack thrown into the sarcophagus. "His respite will be brief."
Babi returned to Chanah's side. "What have we left to do with you my dear? You seem to care little about pain or others. Perhaps humiliation. The female humans I have taken often seem to care more about that than pain."
"There's nothing under that dress that scares me, creep."
He licked his lips. "So you say."
"Bring it on, jerk." Chanah regretted saying it instantly.
"You are too anxious. Don't you wish to wait for your friend to revive?"
"Up to you. Don't think he'll care too much one way or another." She hoped she hadn't pushed him in the wrong direction.
"I think I'd like to gauge his reaction for myself. I think by now he's sufficiently recovered for the endgame."
O'Neill was removed from the sarcophagus. Chanah, with her back and limbs covered with bloody welts, somewhat envied him his quick trip there.
"Good morning campers. What's next on the schedule at Camp Scumbucket?" He was pushed roughly back to the wall and rechained.
"You two have put on quite the show," began Babi. "Now it is time to finish it."
"And that would involve what? Running us over with monster trucks?"
"I shall take your woman before you." He undid the front of Chanah's toga and began to molest her.
"She's not mine. So that would be between you and her."
"I do not believe you." He continued to fondle Chanah, but to look at Jack.
Jack tried to control his reaction. He didn't dare betray the angst he felt for Chanah. He reminded himself that she was prepared to accept this, but it didn't comfort him. Then Jack remembered what Chanah had told him and realized why the Goa'uld kept looking towards Jack and not his stated prey.
"Excuse me, but I have one question. Unless, I'm misreading Mr. TinkyWinky there, you're not even interested in the ladies. So to whom exactly are you trying to prove something?"
Babi stopped in his tracks. He looked at Jack, at Chanah, then back at Jack. "Perhaps you are right. I should be true to myself."
He moved towards Jack and stripped off Jack's toga. Jack could not stop the cringe as he did it. He looked Jack up and down.
"Turn him over," Babi barked.
As the guards complied, Jack's only thought was what the hell was he thinking. Chanah's was the same.
Chanah tried to lure Babi back. "Stop. I will tell you what you want to know."
Babi was not to be distracted. "You will tell me only lies. I will learn all I need from him when I have taken him as a host. But first, you will watch as I take him in a way that you will never enjoy."
Babi ran his hands down Jack's back, and then moved his body in close to Jack's. Jack tried to push him back, but his shackles afforded little movement and it only seemed to excite Babi more. Jack felt sickened as the Goa'uld caressed his neck. He felt even more disgusted when next the Goa'uld plunged his teeth into Jack's shoulder, and then again into the back of his neck. Jack just wished it would end quickly. Why did the freaking snake want foreplay too? Jack tried to mentally brace himself for what he expected would come next. But the Goa'uld suddenly writhed away. He let out a piercing howl before collapsing to the floor.
The First Prime and the two guards were transfixed at the sight. They hurried to the aid of their master. Chanah in the meantime used the diversion of attention to Jack and the Goa'uld to work on her shackles. She relaxed her muscles to their fullest extent, but there still was not enough room to slip the wrist restraints comfortably. But comfort did not matter now. She pulled downward on her wrists with all the strength she had. Her hands pulled free of the restraints, but the backs were stripped of large patches of skin. Suddenly her staff flew into her hands, and she quickly shot the three Jaffa huddling over their master.
O'Neill turned his face towards her, wide-eyed. "What the hell just happened?"
"You got lucky, O'Neill."
"And how do you figure that?"
"He was a biter."
"You put that stuff in my neck?"
"Yes. I told you that you could not be taken as a host."
"That wasn't exactly what he was aiming to do just then."
"As I said, you got lucky."
"Aaaah, yeah. See your point."
"Good. Then maybe we should finish up here." She used her staff to blast off the chain connecting her ankle shackles to the wall. Then she took from the Jaffa the device to free O'Neill's and her remaining shackles.
He looked at her hands. "Ouch. Sorry to rush you." Then he took one of the Jaffa's staff weapons and blew the door panel. "That'll give us some time."
"For what? Let them come. The toxin is unleashed in so potent a form they will all be dead within a few hours."
"We still need to get out. And those hands could use a little bandaging."
"You don't like my future scars to be?"
"No, but I like the concept of your future. Hope you're warming to it."
She allowed him a small smile. Jack was lucky to find some extra bandages in his gear, though he'd pillaged all the medicine from it earlier. She was definitely going to need some stitching or better still those healing patches.
"Think those hands can help with one more task now?"
"What do you have in mind?"
"Thought we might hang a little something to catch the guards' attention when they finally come." Jack shackled the dead Goa'uld's wrists and together with Chanah heaved and positioned his body against the wall so Jack could chain him to one of the metal rings.
"Now you rest, and let me have some fun."
Jack dragged and propped up the dead Jaffa into sitting positions ten feet back from either side of the entry way, two on one side and one on the other. He motioned Chanah to take cover behind the two. She went the other way.
"Oh, good, another one who ignores my orders," Jack griped.
"Orders?" Chanah looked at him reproachfully.
"Excuuuse me. Helpful suggestions."
"I'm a little bit smaller than you, Jack. One Jaffa will provide me with plenty of cover. After all that whipping, it's a little late in the game to get protective."
"Have it your way, will anyway," Jack harrumphed.
And then they waited for the ducks to arrive. The plan was simple. Jaffa come straight through the door, see the dead Goa'uld hanging and before they can react, ambush them from the sides. Jack would zat away as fast as he could. Chanah would use her staff on anything he didn't take out or that threatened them. But they didn't want to kill them all. Let the toxin do the job. Leave some alive to get up and spread it.
After two rounds of guards failed to penetrate the room, the coast was clear for an exit. They first went through the Goa'uld's private chamber. In a locked anteroom off of it, they found the three young girls who'd been used to threaten Chanah. They briefly spoke to the girls of what had happened, telling them they'd be safest where they were for now. Neither Jack nor Chanah wanted to risk getting children in the line of fire. They continued from the private chamber through a series of empty rooms, blowing the control panels as they went through each door.
All they had to do now was wait a couple of hours. The Jaffa would spread the toxin in its most potent form through the temple. Chances were good that no organized resistance would be met in the chaos that would reign upon discovery of the death of the Goa'uld and his personal guard. The head cut off, the body would be useless. Only the children they had come to rescue would remain standing. For now, though, Jack and Chanah believed the kids were safer away from them and any weapons firing at them.
For a while they could hear the Jaffa working to get into the sealed off corridor. But before they ever made it to the last chamber, all went silent.
"O'Neill, I think it's done. Exactly how are we supposed to get out of here with the control panel melted?"
"Mmmm. Usually Carter takes care of that."
"Carter's not here, O'Neill."
"Noticed that."
"Any other ideas?"
"You don't have any of those other useful doohickeys hidden on you? In you?"
"No. "
"You sure?"
"Want to search me?"
"Yup."
"Maybe later."
"Tease."
"O'Neill, you are easily distracted."
"Huh, you say something?"
"Very funny. We need to get out of here, and round up the children."
"Well, if you insist, there might be a little C-4 in my pack." Jack was a master of understatement. There was lots.
Jack blew the entire series of doors, and the rest was, as Jack would say, a piece of cake.
Jack and Chanah secured the temple. Not a Jaffa was left alive. There was no opportunity to offer the cure to anyone. The guards had disintegrated all the cure Chanah had. And truth be told, if they had the cure, neither she nor Jack were too interested at this point. Torture didn't bring out the humanitarian side in either of them.
The children were gathered together and shown the dead Goa'uld. All looked relieved. Whether or not they understood the words spoken, they all seemed to understand that they had been freed. Jack engaged them in a little arts and craft project, and then briefly left Chanah and the children while he took a glider to the gate. There were a few guards still there, but not for long. It was less than challenging for Jack to mow them down using their own ship.
Jack and Chanah decided to remain at the temple and await the help promised on the seventh day from Jack's arrival. The other options all were problematic: transporting all the kids to the gate by ship would have taken several trips; it was a mighty long walk for the kids; Jack's GDO was gone; and there was always a possibility of hostiles coming through the gate at any time. All in all, waiting at the temple seemed like the best option. Plus Chanah's body was rather torn up and Jack had no painkillers to offer, not that she'd have taken them. Jack was a little disturbed at how much of himself he saw in her.
Their attentions were not on each other now, though. The kids attached to them like glue. The young girls who had been present at Chanah's torture session followed her like groupies. Jack attracted his own entourage by starting juggling, throwing or kicking games with any object on hand. Neither Jack nor Chanah could provide the psychological or medical help that many of these kids would need, so they focused on comforting and distracting them.
That night – the sixth on that rock for Jack – marked the completion of Chanah's mission to free the children and, Jack hoped, his mission to free Chanah from her death wish. It had all worked out in ways neither of them could have imagined. Jack pondered the week as all of them camped out together in one room of the temple that night. He and Chanah rested side by side, taking turns on watch, flanked by dozens of children. "Very sweet," he thought.