=) I very much like where this story is headed. Low-action chapter, but I'm pretty sure there'll be lots in the next one.
^ ^ ^
Teal'c, as usual, was the first to hear them coming. Daniel and Sam, the latter having calmed down somewhat, had been inspecting the room for any sign of escape. There didn't appear to be any, especially considering that she had caught them before and probably had since fixed any weakness that the team might use to escape. They were stuck in cages of rusted iron bars that rose into the ceiling at the command of a handpad, ten feet out of reach. Nirrti could no longer use her alien mutants to control the bars. The handpad was the only weakness they'd identified; the Jaffa didn't look like they were about to betray anyone anytime soon, and the bars were foolproof—even to Teal'c's formidable strength. Sam couldn't fit through, and the rest of them had no hope if she couldn't.
One Jaffa fingered the 'pad, and the other dragged Jack into the cell as the permanent guards in the room looked on with staff weapons raised. "You next," said the one now in the cell to Teal'c. He now also raised his staff, and pushed Teal'c in the back with it up the stairs. His companion followed.
Sam knelt down by her commanding officer. "Carter, why didn't you tell me it was so bad?" He held his head, and showed no sign of getting up off of the floor.
"I'm not sure the human language was built to portray that much pain, sir," she said. "To describe it, I would have had to make up a word: like 'intinegrient.'" She paused, then added, "Would that have been better?"
"Maybe!" Jack said, but thought, I don't understand half the stuff you say anyway. I'm surprised you haven't been making up any of the words you used before now.
She and Daniel managed to prop him up against the bars, but every movement was a new pain. He massaged his temples with both hands, eyes closed, and told them what happened. "Nirrti's changing us for fun this time around. Less scientific interest, more let's-see-what-this-base-pair-does." How he knew what a base pair was eluded him. He must've been listening to Carter's briefings again. It was too hard to think about that now.
"Fun? What do you mean, sir?"
Carter didn't know the Goa'uld well enough if she didn't know what they do for fun. "Fun. As in our misery for her amusement," he said, suddenly wanting to avoid specifics on his experience. He tried to get a degree of respect from his team for being the leader, but the announcement that he had been infused with a Goa'uld archive hyena gene print was sure to lower the bar on his leadership value. Not to mention that Carter and Daniel probably knew more less-than-enviable things about hyenas than Nirrti had told him.
"What did she do to you?" Carter's wide and confused blue eyes were almost too much. Why did she always have to know everything about everything?
"She's changing me into a damn hyena," he said, eyes closed again and voice helplessly angry. He didn't want to see her face, whether it showed disappointment, pity, amusement, horror, or anything else. He couldn't take the added pain of what she now thought of him.
"I can think of worse," Sam said, but her comment didn't have the intended effect. "Sir, I don't think the human form can physically be changed into another spec…" She trailed off, remembering that Teal'c was once changed into a few dozen poisonous alien dragonflies by the venom of their mother insect. Also remembering Teal'c's tale of terror, hiding in empty buildings covered in cobweb-esque matter coming from his own skin, she decided not to say anything else.
"Yeah. I mean, at least she didn't decide to get ironic and turn you into a Goa'uld," Daniel tried to agree as cheerfully as possible. He received a whack from the Colonel for his idea.
"Shut up! She'll probably change her mind and change me into that if she hears you!"
"Sir, is she planning on turning us all into hyenas?"
"No… sounded like she had different ideas for all of us."
The two younger associates looked at each other. "This just gets progressively worse," Daniel said dismally.
"I wonder what she has in mind for Teal'c," wondered Sam aloud.