Lost - part 38

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Sam awoke with a start, and immediately rolled over and threw up. She coughed and gasped, closing her eyes till the wave of nausea had passed, and slid herself across the cell floor to get away form the stench of her vomit.

She leaned against the cold cell wall with her eyes closed. She felt sick. She felt . . . empty. She lifted a tentative hand to her stomach, and gave an involuntary cry of anguish as she failed to find the subtle bulge that had been her child. Tears leaked from her eyes, a few sobs escaping her.

She jumped as the swirling white light of Daniel's ascended form descended from the ceiling and resolved itself into his body. "Daniel . . ." Sam whispered. He crouched beside her. "Sam, your baby is okay. She's alive."

Sam's eyes widened at Daniel's use of 'she', and she pulled herself up on shaking legs to carefully make her way to the bench. "What is Nirrti doing to her?"

Daniel bowed his head, then looked back at his friend with sorrow. "Nirrti has accelerated her development. At this rate, she'll be a baby, rather than a fetus, in three hours. That's all she's done so far."

"So far." Sam echoed, her voice catching. "Daniel, you have to save her. Please, if you do nothing else, just . . . just get my baby away from Nirrti."

Daniel's eyes filled with tears. "Sam, I . . ."

"No." Sam cut him off. "I don't want to hear that you can't interfere. You have to. This is mine and Jack's daughter we're talking about. You can stop this. Please."

She started to cry. She couldn't help it, her fear for her baby was too overwhelming.

Daniel looked away. He couldn't stand it.

"I can stop Nirrti. I can kill her. I can destroy this ship and get you and the baby back to Jack." Daniel said quietly. Sam's eyes widened as she looked at him.

"You can?"

Daniel regarded her carefully. "The others will intervene though. They might stop me before I can help, or they might let me do it and then punish me afterwards. I have no way of knowing for sure."

Sam stared at him. "What will happen to you?"

"I don't know."

There was a painful pause, and then Daniel was gone, leaving Sam sitting there alone, white-faced.

Jack and the hunters were in a circle surrounding the rings. He had gathered them up quietly, without the council's knowledge, and told them his plan. All had volunteered to help.

Now they advanced on the rings. The plan was to ring down using Jack's torch, take out the jaffa, and then wait for the rings to activate again, at which point they would be standing in the catch zone. They would then be ringed up to the ship, where they could find Sam and skedaddle back out of there.

That was the plan, anyway.

Jack nodded to the rest of his men, and they went to stand in the rings' catch zone. He shone the torch on the activator, and then leapt back to his group in time to be transported down.

At once, the air was thick of zat fire, arrows, and bodies punching, kicking, fighting. Jack's team had a numerical advantage, but the six jaffa who had been waiting were armed with zats, and at close range they couldn't miss. Within a minute all but three jaffa, Jack, and another hunter, Grego, were unconscious. With zats to their heads, Jack and Grego could do nothing as their bows and arrows were wrested from them. Jack looked at the jaffa around them, mentally calculating the odds of his and Grego's being able to take them out and escape. It didn't look good. Grego chose that moment to make the odds worse by making a grab for a weapon and getting himself zatted.

"You have made a big mistake, human." The lead jaffa spat in Jack's face. He hefted a staff weapon, and aimed it at Jack's face.

It clicked open.

Jack closed his eyes.

Daniel.

Sam couldn't stop the scream that escaped her, as for the fourth time Nirrti used the goa'uld hand device to try and pry information from her. How Nirrti expected her to be able to think enough about giving an answer while her brain was being fried eluded her.

"Why do you test my patience, Samantha?" Nirrti asked, irritated. "Are you forgetting I have your daughter at my mercy?"

Nirrti released Sam again, and signaled to a jaffa standing at the door, while Sam fell heavily to the ground. Unconsciousness seemed like a blessed haven to her, if she was only allowed to reach it . . .

"Perhaps we will try this another way." Nirrti said, yanking Sam's attention back to her. A jaffa carried in a box, and placed it on a table beside Nirrti, who reached in, and lifted out a baby.

"Samantha, meet your daughter."

Sam's heart screamed in agony. She knew what Nirrti was planning.

"Iris codes." Nirrti demanded.

Sam was shaking. "I told you, I don't know them. We've been away too long, the SGC will have changed them all as a matter of protocol."

Nirrti scowled. "Does your daughter's life really mean so little to you?" She took a small purple device from her robes, and held it over the baby in her arms. Sam didn't know what it was, but she wasn't taking the chance.

"No, please!" She screamed.

The device glowed bright magenta, but only for a second, as in the next second, everything was white, a bright, permeating white, everywhere.

Kollen and Makeen stood before a crowd of villagers out on the hill, when the bang sounded through the air like a bomb going off. White light was everywhere for a moment, and then it was gone, leaving nothing but that same crowd of people stunned by the intense light and noise.

In the next instant, chaos reigned. The people panicked, and ran away, back to their homes, convinced this was the first sign of the end.

And there, on the hillside, were a group of people who hadn't been there before. Kollen turned and saw them, immediately recognizing them.

"Wait! Wait!" He called to the crowd that were running away. They didn't listen. Instead he rushed to the group on the hill.

Jack was the only one conscious, the hunters still out from being zatted, and he crouched over Sam and a baby girl.

"Jack! What happened? Where did you come from?" Kollen yelled over the noise of people screaming in fear.

Jack ignored him, he was trying to wake Sam.

"Jack!" Kollen yelled again, pulling the younger man's shoulder until he listened.

"I don't know Kollen! I don't . . . God, I don't know!"

Jack stopped trying to rouse Sam, after checking that she was only unconscious, and seeing the burn on her forehead that indicated she'd be out for some time yet. He turned his attention instead to the baby. She was crying, and she had a piece of paper sticking out of the cloth she was wrapped in.

The handwriting was very familiar.

Jack,

I did what I could. Look after them. Maybe I'll see you again some day.

Daniel.

What did you think? Only two chapters to go now!

Beka