Chapter 28

"Thanks be to the ancestors."

The words of the prayer intoned by Garan reached every corner of the hushed cargo ship. Even the children from the unknown planet joined in holding hands with the Edoran children as the young man pronounced the blessing.

Outside the view screen hyperspace streamed by in a kaleidoscope of color. As soon as they'd reached the outer limits of Kalam'zah's planetary system, Teal'c had engaged hyperdrive. Only then did SG-1 allow themselves the luxury of washing and treating their own injuries, followed by a long overdue meal. When Daniel and Sam passed out the MREs and showed the children how to open them, they'd been surprised that not one child touched the food, but rather waited quietly for the Edoran version of grace.

Garan continued, "Thanks be to the ancestors for SG-1, who saved the children from those who took them from their families." He looked at Jack. "And thanks especially for Jack, who saved my sister."

Daniel sensed something pass between the young man and the older man - forgiveness perhaps? Whatever it was, it felt like a dissolving of a tension.

The prayer went on. "Thanks be to the ancestors for our son." Garan looked down at Naytha lying next to him, their baby cradled in her arms. "And for Daniel, who birthed him."

Daniel said a silent thanks himself. He still didn't know how he'd managed to bring that baby alive into the world.

"And thanks be to the ancestors for this food we are about to eat," Garan concluded, echoed by fifty young voices repeating, "Thanks be to the ancestors!" Then everyone dug into their meals.

"Thanks be to the ansters," Jaira said from where she next to Jack, plunging her fork into her spaghetti MRE.

Daniel looked at the sea of young faces. "Quite a crowd."

"I believe this ship can handle the load," Teal'c said.

Jack stopped eating his own dinner and looked at him. Then he cocked his head as though listening to the steady hum of the engines. "Oh, Jacob."

"What, Jack?"

"I remember someone saying this ship might not be able to handle the extra tonnage."

"Hey, Daniel," said Jacob, "have you got anything besides chicken MREs there?"

"Excuse me," Jack said. "I distinctly remember someone saying, and I quote, 'There's a tonnage limit.'"

"Okay, so I overreacted. At the time I thought it might be too much."

"Yes, well," said Jack. "Seems to be handling it quite nicely. Maybe next time you'll be more open-minded."

Jacob sighed. "But I could have been right."

"Ah-ah! But you weren't."

"But-"

They were interrupted by the squall of the baby on the other side of the cabin, and their banter died on their lips. Although the infant appeared to be in perfect health, he was very small and probably should have been in an incubator. And Naytha - Daniel felt a tremor run through him at the memory of the difficult birth. He supposed it was too much to hope that everyone would have made it out completely unscathed.

When he'd felt the baby's foot where the head should have been, he'd panicked. In a modern hospital they would have done a C-section and easily removed a baby who was in the breech position. But he had muddled through the best he could, maneuvering feet and legs and arms and shoulders out of the birth canal while sweat drenched him in the chill night air. After the birth Naytha had passed out and had only regained consciousness a short time ago.

Across the cabin Sam rose from Naytha's side where she had been helping to tend her, and made her way gingerly through the children to where the rest of SG-1 was sitting. She had donned a new set of fatigues after Jack had changed the dressing on her thigh, which had bled through dangerously. Daniel recalled their conversation.

"Jeez, Carter," Jack had said when he saw her wound, "how have you been able to walk?"

"It's not that bad, sir," she'd said, wincing at his ministrations.

"You're lucky it didn't hit an artery." Grimacing, he bathed it with antiseptic as Sam hissed in pain. "Not that bad, you say?"

"At least it's not broken," she said. "I wouldn't want to have you setting it. Sir."

"You should talk, Major. I don't remember you being particularly gentle in Antarctica."

They exchanged small smiles at the shared memory. Jack placed a new dressing on the wound and wrapped it with gauze, his hands moving round and round her thigh tenderly. Sam's eyes didn't waver from that bent silver head, and Daniel had had to look away, discomfited by the unguarded longing he saw there. Sam was usually much more careful than that. But perhaps the thought that she might soon lose him to a life on Edora had shattered her caution.

Before he'd glanced away he noticed someone else watching the scene with a troubled expression. He sincerely hoped Jacob would keep whatever he thought to himself.

Now, as Sam sat down next to them, Daniel noticed dark smudges under her eyes. Her skin seemed drawn tight across her skull.

"How are you doing, Dad?" she said, stroking Jacob's face tenderly.

"Much better, Sammie, thanks to Selmak."

Jack handed her an MRE. "How's Naytha?" he said.

She cast a cautionary glance at Jaira, who was the proverbial all eyes and ears. "She's stabilized. I've given her what medicines we have and made her as comfortable as possible. All we can do is wait. But…" Her voice trailed off and she looked at Jaira again.

The child's mouth was sporting a red ring of spaghetti sauce from her MRE. "This is good. Want some, Jack?" she said. Without waiting for an answer she thrust her plastic fork at Jack's face. A noodle fell on his vest.

"No, thanks. You can have it all." While the child was occupied in retrieving the wayward noodle, Jack said in a low voice, "But?"

"It doesn't look good, sir. She's lost a lot of, you know."

Blood. Daniel closed his eyes for a moment. He had been drenched not only in sweat as he delivered the baby, but blood as well. He heard a thump, and opened his eyes to see that Jack had let his head fall against the bulkhead. His friend looked up at the ceiling and blew out a breath.

"Jack," Daniel said.

"What." He sounded very tired.

"It's not your fault."

"Daniel," he said to the ceiling with some impatience, "how many times do I have to explain to you about command responsibility?"

"But Jack-"

"Daniel."

"Oh, all right." It was useless sometimes, he was so stuck in his military mindset.

"Colonel?" said Sam.

Jack brought his gaze down to Sam. Maybe, Daniel thought, he would listen to her.

"It's their fault. The Kalam." Her voice was angry. "If Naytha…" another flick of the eyes to Jaira. "If anything happens to her, they're to blame. You couldn't have done more than you did, sir."

Jack shrugged slightly, his only concession to acknowledging the truth of her assertion.

"She's right," Daniel said. "And if Naytha can just make it back to earth, I'm sure Janet will be able to work her usual magic."

Jacob said, "It would be nice if Hammond could send a battalion of marines to kick some ass on that planet."

"It's lucky he let us go, Dad," Sam said.

"Somebody's got to stop them."

"Maybe they'll stop themselves."

"You hope," Jacob said.

"Well, Broken's gone," Jack said. "That's a start."

Gone in the most literal sense of the word, Daniel thought. As in zat-gone. Sam had given him the Cliff's Notes version of the provost's demise. He had pressed her for more details, sensing that she was leaving something important out of the story, but she had only said she'd tell him later, and he had let it drop.

"I agree with Sam," he said. "Viorel is determined to change things, and from what you guys said, D'nae is too. I think they can do it." Daniel pondered something a moment. "You know, I've been thinking about something."

"I'm shocked," Jack said sarcastically.

Continuing as if the other man hadn't spoken, Daniel said, "If you do the math, and take into account Viorel's memories of her home world, I think it's possible…" He paused.

"What?" Jack said.

"I think we may have met one of the children of Hamelin."

~o~

He must have dozed, because he was startled by a snapping sound in the otherwise silent cabin. Daniel opened one eye. Most of the children were asleep, curled up on the tel'tac floor. Sam and Jacob were slumped against each other, their eyes closed. Teal'c kept watch in the command chair.

Daniel located the source of the sound. Jaira was opening and closing the snap on Jack's pocket. Her fingers pressed it closed, then pried it open, then snapped it shut again.

Daniel had seen the child for the first time when he'd changed the dressing on Jack's wounded arm. Jaira had joined them and solemnly observed the proceedings.

"He got shooted," she informed him.

"Yes, he did, didn't he? He's always getting into trouble like this."

"Pot, kettle, black, anyone?" Jack said. "Ow!"

When Daniel was done with Jack's dressing he found himself with another patient, and dutifully wrapped a piece of gauze around the arm of Jaira's doll. Then the child skipped across the cabin to show the other children.

"She's beautiful, Jack," he'd said.

His friend cleared his throat self-consciously. "Yeah."

"She has your eyes."

"I noticed that."

Another snap roused him from his recollections, and Daniel wondered once again what his friend was going to do when they got back home, and what it would mean for the future of SG-1. His heart felt thick and dull at the thought of losing the ornery, sarcastic, exasperating old soldier he called his friend. But the heaviness was lightened a little by the adoration that illuminated Jack's face as he watched his daughter play with the snap. The man had obviously found his greatest treasure.

Jaira lost interest in the snaps and took up her doll, jerking it roughly by its bandaged arm. "Come here!" she said. Then she pointed one of her fingers at the doll's head. "Kill her!"

Jack's tanned face turn a sickly white, and Daniel sucked in a breath sharply. So this was what Sam had left out of her story! His chest hurt as he watched the scene enacted.

"Kill her!" she repeated. Jaira hugged the doll to her chest. "It's all wight, baby," she crooned. Then she crammed it inside Jack's jacket until only its head was poking out. "There. You're safe now with your papa." She snuggled under Jack's chin, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly.

"Jack?" said Jaira in a little voice.

"What, baby?"

There was a long silence. "Do you want to be my papa, too?"

Daniel pretended to be asleep but observed the pair through slitted eyes.

Jack's adam's apple bobbed once, twice. He coughed. "You think Star would be okay with that?" he said at last.

Her curls nodded under his chin. "She won't mind. She wants you to."

"Well, then." More throat clearing. "I'd be happy to be your papa." He dropped his lips onto her hair.

Daniel became aware that he wasn't the only surreptitious observer of this tender exchange. His eyes locked with Sam's, and the look that passed between them affirmed what he realized with a bottomless sadness: We've lost him.

~o~

Jack absorbed the news with a thumping heart. She's okay with me being her 'papa.' He looked across the ship at the other "papa" and smiled. Garan was watching adoringly as his son suckled at Naytha's breast.

Jack had stopped by to see the new parents while the meals were being handed round. Naytha had greeted him with a dazzling smile in spite of her exhausted state.

"How's the little fella?" asked Jack.

Garan held the infant in his arms out to Jack. "Do you want to hold him?" he said hesitantly.

"Um, sure." Jack took the bundle and gazed at the tiny face relaxed in sleep.

"Uh, Jack, what I said before you left Edora." Jack looked up. Garan went on, "I'm sorry. I was wrong. I'm really grateful for all you've done."

"You weren't exactly wrong, Garan. You had a right to feel that way. But …" He looked at the infant again, brand new, everything before him. "We couldn't have done this without your help." He held out a hand. "Thanks."

Garan clasped his hand and nodded.

Jack lifted his head from where it rested on Jaira's curls. Daniel, Carter, Jacob all seemed to be asleep. He stroked his daughter's hair. She seemed to be drifting off to sleep too.

A shudder vibrated through the floor, followed by a lurch.

His stomach knotted. He knew that lurch. The view out the window confirmed it. Instead of hyperspace, the black velvet of normal space appeared against a field of stars.

"The hyperdrive has failed," announced Teal'c unnecessarily.

"This is getting old," Jack said. "Carter?"

"I'm on it, sir." She jumped up so fast, Jack wondered if she'd even been asleep. She limped as fast as she could into the engine room, and Daniel got up and crossed to the view port.

"Oh, brother," he said. "Uh, Jack? We have a problem."

"I know that, Daniel." He moved Jaira off his lap and levered himself up. Damn knees.

"No. I mean an even bigger problem than the hyperdrive." Daniel pointed.

Jack looked. Hovering malignantly in the blackness of space was the distinctive pyramid shape of a Goa'uld mothership.

"What's that?" Jaira said. "It's pretty!"

Pretty. Ha. "It's just another spaceship," he said. "Are we cloaked, T?"

"Affirmative."

At least they had that. "Can you tell whose it is?"

"I am not certain."

Jacob came up behind them and scanned the coordinates. "We broke down in a bad neighborhood, Jack. This region of space is dominated by Ba'al. Presumably this is one of his ships."

Ba'al. His favorite bad guy. Jack's skin seemed to contract around his whole body. He became aware of Daniel's eyes on him. "What?" he snapped.

Daniel looked back out the window. "Nothing."

Jack sat down in the second chair and tapped his radio. "Carter, we've got company. One of Ba'al's motherships."

The radio was silent for a beat, then Carter answered, "Copy that. We've got another burned-out crystal."

"Well, you fixed it last time. Just do what you did before."

"I've already borrowed a crystal from the maneuvering thrusters. Another one would incapacitate them. Besides, I think it's a problem with the hyperspace window generator. I think there might be something wrong with the naquedah that powers it. Even if I-"

"Carter! Goa'uld mothership, remember? Can you fix the thing?"

"Sorry, sir. I'll try"

He could hear her unspoken I'd be making more progress if you stopped bothering me and ended the connection. He directed Daniel to go help her.

Jaira tugged on his shirt. "Can we play hidey hole?"

"Not now, sweetheart. T, can we put some distance between us and that ship?"

"If I engage the sublight engines, we may be detected."

"Guess we don't want to do that, then."

"Indeed."

They continued to sit dead in space, waiting. Jack looked around him. Jaira had disappeared. He swiveled and looked back at the cabin. The children, many of whom had been awakened when the ship lurched out of hyperspace, were quiet, watching the adults anxiously, sensing that something was wrong. As if enough hadn't gone wrong for them already. He scanned the room, looking for Jaira. It was hard to pick out one black-tunic-clad kid from the rest, but he finally spotted her honey-colored curls. She was sitting with Garan, fondling the baby. Jack raised a hand and waggled his fingers. Jaira grinned and waved back.

He turned back to the Goa'uld ship. Their vulnerability pressed on him with more than the usual weight. If he allowed himself to imagine what Ba'al would do to a shipload of children under SG-1's protection - if he let himself think what the system lord would do to his child-

He felt his MRE beef stew rise in his throat.