Chapter 20

Jack groaned. He had forgotten about the kids in the recreation room.

Carter raised her eyebrows in question. "Sir?"

"A bunch of kids from another planet. We saw them during the tour." He swore under his breath and muttered, "We don't have time for this." To the boy he said, "We need to get going, Nevan."

"But Jack!"

"Sir," Carter said urgently, "we know what will happen to them if we leave them."

O'Neill blew out a breath, his fingers playing staccato on his weapon. "Yeah. The knives." Another arpeggio along the P-90. This was so not in the plan, he thought. But he knew he was choiceless. There was only one right thing to do.

He looked at his second-in-command. "All right," he said. She gave him a quick smile and nod.

Carter followed Nevan to the next room as Jacob approached Jack. "Jack, what's going on?" O'Neill explained the situation. "But how many?"

"I don't know. Let's find out."

At the door Jacob whistled softly. "That's a lot of kids."

Nevan said, "There are more in the next room."

Jacob stared at O'Neill. Shifting his daughter on his shoulder, Jack gave a shrug. Jacob just shook his head.

"Carter," Jack said, "grab Garan and get the kids in the next room."

"Yes, sir."

While Jacob and Nevan roused the children in this room, Jack asked Nevan, "Who are these kids?"

"They were here when we got here. They said they were taken from their home many months ago."

"Where is home for them?" Jacob asked

Nevan spoke softly to one of the boys, then answered, "Their village is called Nagoth."

"Ah, Nagoth," said Jack. Real helpful.

Jacob said, "Jack, we're not going to fit all these kids in the tel'tac."

"Jacob, it's a cargo ship." If his hands had been free - Jaira was still asleep on his shoulder - he would have made quote marks with his fingers.

"I know, but there's a tonnage limit and-"

"We're talkin' poundage here, Jacob, not tonnage."

"- and space considerations." Jacob gave him the patented Elder Carter glare. "Where are you going to put them all?"

They had moved out to the corridor, and Jack looked at the rag-tag crowd, sleepy-headed, pajama-clad, whimpering, and restless. All totaled there must be about fifty kids now. He needed a plan B.

Jaira stirred in her sleep, and he looked down at her. Her long lashes fluttered on her cheeks and her rosebud mouth moved silently in a dream. He looked back up at Teal'c and Carter, who were waiting for his orders. The major held a toddler in her arms who stared wide-eyed with her thumb in her mouth at the chaotic scene before her.

Jack thought of what awaited these children in the morning if they didn't get them out of here. "We'll put them in the sink if we have to, Jacob," he said, his voice hard and determined. "No one gets left behind. Let's move out. And be quiet!"

With Teal'c on point and Jack on their six, the mob shuffled toward the stairs. For a crowd of kids, they were impressively quiet. Jack was just starting to say a silent thank you when the calm was shattered by a wail, followed by a chorus of hushes.

"Carter?" he called softly.

"Sorry, sir," she said. "Someone fell."

The back of his neck prickled. He swung around. Behind him a door to a room they hadn't visited was open, and a Kalam adult in nightdress and wild unbraided hair gaped at them. Jack recognized her as the teacher from the recreation room.

"What is happening?" she demanded.

Frustrated by his encumbered arms, Jack looked to his major. Carter was already shoving her way through the crowd and was past him like a shot, but not before the door slid shut. She slammed her hand against the door switch. Too late, Jack realized. The teacher had already locked it. Pulling out a zat gun, Carter fired off a shot at the panel. Teal'c was beside her now, and together they pushed and pulled until the door opened to reveal the teacher talking into her earpiece in an urgent voice. Carter fired her zat, and the woman went down.

Fumbling the weight of the child in his arms, Jack flicked on his radio. "Daniel."

"Yes, Jack?"

"We've been made. Get your kids out now, and get out fast."

"But Jack!"

"Just do it!"

~o~

Daniel looked up at the 8-foot wall at whose base he was huddled with his group of a dozen boys. The kids, dressed only in their flimsy nightclothes, shivered in the chill night air. If the Kalam security forces didn't get them, Daniel was afraid that exposure would.

When Jack's order had propelled them from the basement out into the cold night, Daniel's first impulse was to keep to the plan that Jack had briefed them on earlier. Once all the kids were out he would use a small explosive to blow the lock on the front gate. But Daniel realized that they would be too exposed there if security forces had been summoned. So he had led his charges to the rear of the grounds and only then realized he was unprepared for the task of getting the youngsters over the wall alone. What had been so easily surmounted earlier now looked impossible. He would have to hoist each one on his shoulders to the top and lift them down on the other side.

Sirens sounded afresh in the distance. Security would be swarming this place soon.

"Mister?" The shaky voice came from a boy about the same age as Nevan who was looking imploringly at Daniel, his dark eyes large. Two little boys clung to his side like barnacles. Shivering barnacles. "How are we going to get out?"

Jack's words replayed in his mind: Get out and get out fast. And he knew what Jack would do. "Wait here," he said. "I'll be right back."

He jogged along the length of the wall until he was confident he'd put enough distance between himself and the children. Accomplishing his task quickly, he jogged back. "Put your hands over your ears," he told the boys.

They did as commanded, and Daniel pressed the detonator. The explosion was deafening. The children screamed. "It's all right," he tried to reassure them. "Come on, we have to hurry."

Prodding, exhorting, and half-dragging the terrified children, he led them to the smoking hole in the wall and through it to the dark streets beyond.

~o~

Forty-odd pairs of feet made a hell of a lot of noise in a stairwell. Jack cursed inwardly and hustled the laggards on.

Jaira, who had slept through all the jouncing, kids crying, and the whine of zats, chose this moment to wake up. Lifting her head from his shoulder she stared at him sleepily.

"Hi," Jack said. "We met in the garden yesterday. Remember me? I'm Jack."

She poked a finger at the blacking on his cheek. "You wook different." She looked around. "Where we going?"

"We're all going home."

"To Mama?"

"Yes, to Mama." She squirmed, and he set her on the ground gratefully. He'd forgotten what a dead weight a sleeping child was. Taking her hand, he tugged her gently. "We have to hurry."

They made it down one flight when the muffled sound of an explosion nearby stopped them. Some of the children began to cry. Jaira clung to his leg.

Carter called up to him from the next level below, "It sounded like C-4, sir."

Daniel. "It's okay, kids," said Jack. "That was our friend. Let's keep moving."

The river of kids flowed on down the stairs. A half dozen steps ahead Jack saw a head go down, followed by a cry. Hurrying down the few steps, he found a boy of four or five with a cut and bleeding forehead where he had fallen against the edge of the stairs. The cut wasn't deep. Jack picked the boy up. "It's okay, buddy. You're gonna be all right." He unhooked his canteen and dribbled some water over the cut. "You'll just have to suck it up so we can get out of here."

The child didn't understand the phrase but he understood the urgency in the man's voice, and he stopped crying.

"Atta boy. Now let's go." Patting him on the bottom, Jack sent him on to rejoin the rest of the group. He stood up and looked around for Jaira.

She was gone.

~o~

Bok'n, his legs weary from pacing the stone floor of the Hall of Wydra, paused before the window overlooking the Great Plaza. To no one in particular he said, "Make sure that all security forces are fanned out across the city. He is a treacherous one, that O'Neill."

"We will find them," Oren said. "They will be trying to escape the city with the Silak'ha, but without vehicles they cannot get far."

"We have already underestimated O'Neill to our detriment," Bok'n said. Security had failed in their attempt to follow O'Neill and the female earlier, losing them in the darkness and the broken terrain of the Outlands. "Oren," he added, "I want the aliens alive if possible. They will be punished in proportion to their crime." He resumed his pacing back to the table where their votes had been cast the previous day. Folly!

From his seat on the divan Tallin said, "Where are D'nae and Viorel? Haven't they also been summoned?"

At that moment the door to the Wydra chamber opened and D'nae rushed in. "What's happening?" he cried.

"We are being attacked, that's what is happening," said Bok'n with disgust. "They are after the Silak'ha."

"'They'? Do you mean the aliens?"

"Of course. Who else do you suppose?"

"But how would they have known?"

"Obviously," said Oren, "someone must have told them." She and the others looked pointedly at D'nae.

"Don't be absurd," D'nae said. "I didn't reveal the secret."

"And who suggested using it as barter?" Bok'n said.

"I only suggested that as a last resort. I never mentioned it to them. I swear to you, Provost!"

Bok'n stepped close to the other magistrate, his teeth grinding in his fury. "Give me a reason to trust you."

D'nae met his look with a defiant one. "Because you have trusted me for fifty hek'tons?"

Bok'n took several deep breaths, then spun away from D'nae.

Tallin said, "Perhaps it wasn't D'nae, Provost. Perhaps it was none of us in this room."

Bok'n called an aide forward who had been standing at the back of the room. "Where is Viorel?" he demanded.

"Her whereabouts are unknown, Provost. She did not answer the summons."

On the divan, Tallin smiled and spread his hands. "There is your culprit."

Bok'n walked to the window and pressed his hand against the cold glass. How could she have betrayed them like this? He was right, he had always been right. Never trust Newcomers.

An alert sounded in his earpiece. He listened, and as he did, his fury grew explosively.

D'nae approached him cautiously. "What is it, Provost?"

"The children!" Bok'n roared. "They are taking our children!"

~o~

A bass drum beat out an erratic rhythm in Jack's chest. "Jaira!" he shouted.

Jacob's voice answered from the landing below, "What's going on, Jack?"

"I've lost Jaira." He hurtled down the steps through the crowd. "Is she down here?"

"She's not with me," Jacob said.

Jack leaned over the banister. "Carter?" he called down the stairwell.

She peered up at him. "She didn't come down here, sir."

Teal'c was even further down. "She is not amongst the ones with me, O'Neill."

He should never have let go of her hand!

"There's only one way she could have gone," Jacob said,

Jack looked back up the stairs. She must have slipped away when he was occupied with the crying boy. "Right. Get the kids out. Follow Daniel. I'll catch up."

Taking the stairs two at a time, he burst through the door into the second-floor corridor. "Jaira!" There was no answer. He looked into the first room. Empty. He looked in the second room. Nothing. But no, he thought. If she had come up here for whatever reason, she would return to her own room.

He skidded into the third room. It was as empty as the others. No no no. The bass drum behind his ribs reached a crescendo. "Jaira!" he bellowed.

A head bobbed up from behind the cot at the end of the room. Jaira stood up, her doll clutched to her chest. "You forgetted Star."

All the air left him in a rush. He lunged across the room. "Oh, baby," he rasped, hoisting her into his arms.

He heard sirens, and pelted out of the room and down the hallway.

~o~

Sam, Teal'c, and Jacob drove the children as fast as they could out the basement door and along the wall until they found the breach Daniel had made.

"Go! Go!" Sam urged them through the wall. Naytha leaned heavily on her husband as he helped her through the gap. Nevan brought up the rear of the last stragglers. His eyes turned to the building behind him.

Sam gave him a little push. "Come on, Nevan. Hurry!"

He twisted out of her grasp. "But Jack's in there!"

"I know. He'll be out soon." She wished she felt as confident as she sounded.

"We can't leave him!" He turned and began to sprint back to the building.

"No!" In three strides she closed the distance, grabbed his arm, and swung him roughly around. The face that looked up into hers was wet with tears, and her anger melted away. She felt the urge to clasp him to her breast and cry with him.

"You'll only make things worse," she said. "Colonel O'Neill needs you to follow his orders. Now come on!"

Dragging him back, she shoved him through the wall. From the far side of the building came the sound of vehicles screeching to a halt. Their pursuers would be entering through the main gate and storming the building. Sam stared at the basement door, willing the colonel to appear in that doorway with his daughter and jog toward her.

"Come on, sir," she mouthed.

"Come on, Sam!" her father called in a loud whisper from the other side of the gap. "They're going to be surrounding the building in a second."

"But the colonel-"

"Has given you an order!"

She snapped out of it. "Right." With one last, long look at the building, she reluctantly turned and stepped through the hole in the wall.