Chapter 21

Sam and Jacob soon caught up with Teal'c, who with the children had melted into the darkness of the neighboring buildings. She flicked her radio. "Colonel, are you out?"

There was a pause, and then his voice, breathless. "No. On the stairs."

Damn. In the darkness she could see Nevan, his face twisted in fear, reflecting the panic she felt inside. "Sir, they're at the building now. You won't be able to get out through the basement."

"Roger that."

"Did you find Jaira?"

"Yes. Plan B: get the you-know-what working. I'll rendezvous with you there. Maintain radio silence from now on. O'Neill out."

"Yes, sir," Sam whispered.

She felt a hand on her shoulder. "He'll be all right, Sam," said her dad. "Jack's a survivor."

She nodded. Swallowing hard she pulled herself together. "Teal'c?" she called across the huddled children.

"I am here, Major Carter," she heard his deep voice reply in the darkness.

"I'm going to head directly for the stargate," she said. "You and Dad find Daniel and take a roundabout route and meet me there. It'll be a whole lot easier if we can 'gate home."

"Understood."

"I'm coming with you," Jacob said.

"Why?"

"You might need Selmak's help getting the gate up."

She considered it. "Good point. Teal'c?"

"We will be fine. Garan will help with the children, and we will join forces with Daniel Jackson soon."

"All right. Let's go, Dad." And with one final look back at the Hall of Newcomers, she turned northeast, toward the plaza.

~o~

In the stairwell Jack stopped. He cracked open the door onto the ground floor. He could hear voices shouting outside the building, but none inside.

Yet.

Creeping into the corridor, he picked up his pace and hurried past the lobby and the classrooms, past the dining room, Jaira bouncing heavily on his back. He had shed his pack on the stairs. It might not have been the wisest idea but he needed speed, and carrying the child piggy-back was the best way to achieve that. He'd stuffed as many essentials as he could into his pockets.

"Not so tight, Jaira," he croaked, tugging her arms loose from around his throat. He heard footsteps and shouts coming toward them from the opposite direction. On his right was the recreation room. He raced into the big room to the far corner where the pads for tumbling exercises were scattered about. Above them was something he had noticed the previous day, a grate to a ventilation shaft opening into the ceiling.

He crouched down and told Jaira to climb down off his back.

"No, no!"

"Just for a second. Please!"

Reluctantly she loosened her hold on his neck and slid down. He dragged one of the tumbling pads on top of another.

"What you doing?" Jaira asked.

"Making them higher." Standing on the pads he was able to reach the grate in the ceiling. It gave some resistance to his push, but with a final thrust he was able to slide it aside. "C'mere, baby." Jaira dutifully stepped up on the pads. He lifted her up and into the hole. "Crawl in there. We're going to hide."

She did, and he dragged the pads away from the grate, over to the wall. The shouts outside and pounding footsteps were getting closer. He dashed back under the shaft opening. Jaira's head was peeking over the edge.

"Get back!" he said.

The head disappeared. He jumped and grabbed the edge of the opening, pulling himself up and heaving the upper part of his body into the shaft as voices were heard outside the door. With a grunt and another push, his legs were in. Scrambling around in the tight space, he pulled the grate back over the opening at the same time the searchers burst into the room below. Jack held his breath while he listened to the shuffle of feet. Then the room was silent again.

Jack looked at his daughter. She was staring at him wide-eyed. "Isn't this fun?" he whispered.

An uncertain smile crept onto her face. "What we doing, Jack?"

"We're playing hidey hole." That was what the children on Edora called their version of hide and seek. "You know that game, right?"

The smile grew more sure. "Yes."

He kept his voice a whisper. "Then you know you have to be very quiet so the Seeker can't find you."

"I'll be quiet," she whispered back.

"We're going to crawl through this tunnel. You go ahead of me."

Jaira got on her knees and began to shuffle forward. She was hampered by using only one hand, her other still clutching the doll.

"Jaira, let me have Star." She stopped and sat down, looking at him. "I'll keep her safe in here," Jack said. He patted his jacket. She considered a moment, then handed him the doll. He zipped it inside his jacket and urged her forward again.

Jack grimaced as they shuffled along the shaft. His knees couldn't handle this kind of abuse anymore. The shaft made a right turn, then a left, then continued straight again. Jack mentally calculated that they had left the recreation room, proceeded over the classroom, and were probably now over the dining room. They heard noises below them, and Jack grabbed Jaira's tunic to stop her. He put his finger to his lips, and she nodded. They sat, listening. This time the voices lingered in the room longer. He heard chairs scraping the floor. He cursed when he realized what was happening. The Kalam were using the dining room as a command center.

Jaira must have seen something in his face that frightened her, because her lower lip started to tremble. Before Jack knew it she was in his lap, curled up against his chest, sniffling and hugging him tightly. Jaira fumbled at the neck of his jacket, finally finding the zipper and pulling it down. She reached inside and pulled out her doll, holding it tightly against her.

He remembered this. Remembered what it was like to hold a child in his lap, remembered the feelings that would sneak up and ambush him at the oddest moments. After years of forced forgetting, the remembrance flooded him, making his throat close up. He wrapped his arms around Jaira and hugged her fiercely.

He didn't want to lose this again.

Laira's words came back to him: If you want to be a father to your daughter, Jack, then you shall have to live here.

Jack brushed the silken strands of Jaira's hair with his rough fingertips, his gut tightening. In the room below, the murmurings of voices continued. Staring sightlessly at the dark wall of the ventilation shaft, he waited and thought about farming.

~o~

From a parapet atop one of Tisne's many hills, Viorel watched the pillar of smoke rise from the Hall of Knowledge. She was arguing with herself.

Dan'l is a good man, a part of her said, and he has asked for my help. I must help him.

No, I'm a member of the Wydra, another part of her said. It would be a betrayal of my people. I must not help him.

But Dan'l is right, she argued back. We should not take children from their families. I will help him.

But I'll endanger myself, she objected. I cannot help him.

Leaning her elbows on the parapet wall, Viorel put her face in her hands and stifled a sob.

She had not been able to sleep for a long time after the Wydra adjourned. As she'd told Dan'l, Major Carter's question had haunted her. Did she miss her home? Did she even remember it? Was it possible to miss something one can't remember? She lifted her head and looked down at the city below her, at its domes and spires. Tisne was the only home she had ever known. Or had been until today.

She thought again of her dream and the memories it had unleashed, and she remembered something else - a big man, whose beard tickled her cheek when he hugged her. Her father? Perhaps. She thought: I once had a mother and a father. As she turned that knowledge over in her head, tears slipped silently down her cheeks. Why had the Kalam taken her from them?

Sirens rose and fell in the distance. She had been stunned when she'd heard of the attack on the Hall of Knowledge, and had almost answered the summons to the Wydra. Had Dan'l and his friends betrayed them? Were they really after the Silak'ha? But something, some instinct, made her keep her silence. She had left her apartment and gone outside to walk and to think. She had walked many blocks, climbed many steps, until she stood on this hill. With her communication device tuned to the security frequency, she followed the havoc the aliens were wreaking. But when she heard they had stolen the children from the Hall of Newcomers, she had clapped her hands in exultation. They were trying to rescue the children! They weren't after the Silak'ha. They had undoubtedly attacked the Hall of Knowledge to divert the Kalam forces from their true purpose. Dan'l had not betrayed her after all.

A stiff breeze chilled her. She thought of Dan'l and his friends and the children out there somewhere, running, risking everything to avoid immortality and perfect health. The illogic of it made her shake her head in wonder. And it was all in order to return the children to their families. To mothers chopping vegetables. To fathers with bristly beards.

But only if they could escape this city.

Tormented, Viorel yanked on her braids and resumed arguing with herself.

~o~

"Hold hands! Stay in the shadows! Not that way, this way!"

In the silent alley though which they crept, Daniel's whispered commands sounded in his own ears like bellowing through a bullhorn. The glow in the distance from the fire burning at the science building still illuminated the night sky, but it was thankfully inky dark in the back streets between the buildings. He knew he had to get to the bridge that would lead them out of the city, and he was fairly confident of the general direction, but his unfamiliarity with Tisne's labyrinthine streets had made progress difficult.

Black, bulky shapes loomed ahead of them, which Daniel judged from the odor to be large trash receptacles. He ushered the boys behind them.

"It stinks!" one of them whispered.

"Shh!" Daniel hushed him.

One of the children complained of fatigue, and another began to cry. "Can someone make him stop crying?" Daniel said in exasperation.

The cry was muffled behind a hand.

Daniel stood absolutely still and listened. No sirens. Nothing. Then he heard a soft shuffling coming from the street that intersected their alley. "Stay here," he said, and tightening his fingers on his zat he crept silently to the end of the alley. He pressed his back against the wall and listened. He heard only the hammering of his heart in his chest. Counting slowly to three he swung around the corner of the building and came face to face with another zat. "Teal'c!"

"Daniel Jackson."

Daniel blew out a breath of relief. "Where are your kids?" he asked.

"They and Garan and Naytha are sequestered behind those parked vehicles." Teal'c indicated a row of cars fifty feet behind him. "And there are additional children as well." He explained about the children from another planet.

"Ah, well, that's, uh, unexpected."

"Indeed."

Daniel mentally shook himself. "Okay, then. My kids are behind those trash bins. Where are Jack and the others?"

Teal'c informed him of Sam and Jacob's mission to try to activate the stargate, which sounded like an eminently sensible plan. Daniel couldn't imagine how they'd be able to get this many children now out of the city and across the desert to the tel'tac.

"Unfortunately," Teal'c continued, "Colonel O'Neill and his daughter were unable to flee the building before the security forces arrived."

"Damn! Were they caught?"

"That is unknown, but I have confidence in O'Neill's ability to elude his pursuers."

"We should help him, Teal'c."

"O'Neill's orders are to go to the stargate."

"But we can't just leave him!"

"If it were just the two of us, Daniel Jackson, I would agree. But the safety of fifty children is in our hands, and our hands only. We must proceed before the security forces extend the radius of their search to this area."

Teal'c was right, of course, and Daniel knew that Jack would be the first person to agree with him. They couldn't risk the lives of all these children just to rescue Jack and one child. And they couldn't spare either one of them to go after Jack, leaving the other to shepherd single-handedly more than four dozen kids across town to the stargate. Daniel had only had to manage a dozen for the last half hour, and that had been nerve-wracking enough.

He thought furiously. They needed to do something to give Jack a fighting chance, something that wouldn't quite disregard his orders. Not that he'd ever paid much attention to Jack's orders.

"I have an idea, Teal'c."

~o~

Jack looked at his watch. They'd been sitting here for fifteen minutes. He heard more chair-scraping below, voices, and footsteps. If those folks didn't leave the room soon, he'd have to risk continuing on in the air duct. The longer they stayed here, the greater their chance of being discovered. Surely someone would think of the ventilation shafts eventually.

He wondered how Carter, Daniel, and Teal'c were doing, if they'd made it away safely. Carter had to get that stargate up and running. With the whole city on alert for the missing kids, they didn't have a prayer of getting out of here and into the countryside.

Jaira wiggled in his lap, reminding him that he hadn't had the use of a bathroom in several hours. He shifted his weight to get more comfortable in the tight space, when a loud boom sent a shudder through the shaft. He clapped a hand over Jaira's mouth, stifling her scream before it escaped. The explosion was followed by the sound of weapons fire. Beneath them chairs toppled onto the floor, followed by confused shouts and pounding boots. He swore. If Daniel and Teal'c were trying to mount a rescue, he'd kill them. That is, if they all didn't get killed first.

Another explosion rocked them, but this time it came from a greater distance. More sounds of weapons, also farther away. Jack realized that his teammates were drawing the forces away from the building. And if they had any sense, they'd keep going.

Jaira was trembling in his arms. He hugged her more tightly. The seconds ticked by on his watch, and he let them tick for a full minute to be sure the dining room's occupants had all left. Then he put his finger under Jaira's chin and lifted it. She had been crying silently and her cheeks were damp. So was his jacket.

"I want my mama," she said plaintively.

"I know, baby. I'll take you home to her. I promise." She sniffed once. "Let me have Star again." Jaira handed him the doll, and he zipped it inside his jacket. "Let's go," he said, and nudging her out of his lap, he patted her behind to get her moving. They had to get out of this air duct before his knees gave out. The next grate they came to…

They were upon it within a minute. O'Neill peered down through the screen and onto countertops and sinks. The kitchen. And where there was a kitchen, there would be a delivery entrance. He laid his ear against the grate. Silence.

"We're going out now," he told Jaira. "Me first." He lifted the grate and lowered himself to the counter below. Then he helped Jaira down and onto the floor. Automatically, in the timeless gesture of children, she extended her hand. Jack marveled at the infinite trust displayed by that tiny hand as his large paw closed around it. He was amazed that she could still trust any adult after what had happened to her. He hoped her trust in him was not misplaced. That he would not fail her, now or ever.

They crept along behind the counters, Jack keeping low just in case. He could see the rear door across the room. Just a few more yards. Voices approached from the corridor. Yanking open a cupboard door beneath the counter, he pushed Jaira inside, cringing at the rattling of pots and pans, and squeezing himself in next to her, he pulled the door closed as footsteps entered the kitchen.

"I heard something," a voice said.

"There is nothing here," said another.

"Are you sure?"

"See for yourself."

Boots thumped past the cupboard to the end of the kitchen and stopped. More footsteps thudded across the floor. Jack pressed Jaira's head against his heart and held his breath. He could probably take a couple of them out easily, but he couldn't be sure there weren't more in the corridor. And he didn't really want to shoot anyone in front of Jaira.

He heard a cupboard door open and close at the other end of the kitchen. "What are you doing?" a voice said.

"I'm sure I heard something."

"You're wasting your time."

Another cupboard door opened and closed, nearer this time. Jack's fingers closed around his sidearm.

"Do you really think fifty children could be hidden in here? The attack on our guards shows that they have already fled the grounds."

Another door opened and closed. A sliver of light entering through the edge of the cupboard door illuminated Jaira's terrified brown eyes staring up at him. He put a finger to her lips. She nodded.

"Perhaps you're right," the first voice said.

The footsteps receded and a door slammed. Jack exhaled a pent-up breath. He tentatively pushed the cupboard door open a crack, then wider. Unfolding his creaking joints, he stood up and helped Jaira climb out. Her foot connected with a large soup pot, and it clanged against its neighbor, the sound reverberating through the room.

There was a shout in the distance and pounding boots. Grabbing Jaira in his arms, Jack dodged around stoves and chopping islands to the back door. Hitting it with his shoulder, he tore into the darkness. Within seconds he found the breach made by Daniel and the C-4. Clutching Jaira to his chest, he ducked through it.

At the same time his right arm exploded in pain.