Forged Steel
Part Five
It was like some kind of a nightmare from which she couldn't wake up. But the cold chill of the restraints they'd fitted on them was real, as were the staff weapons which prodded her along the corridor. "You okay?" The Colonel asked her softly.
She wasn't. She felt like screaming it at him. How could a person be okay when they'd just had their father killed before them? And the choice had been left to her. She could have stopped it. Could have saved him…
She knew perfectly well the Goa'uld would never have kept the bargain. It didn't make the horror of her choice any different. It didn't end the pain in her chest when she looked at her father's limp body, the indefinable something gone which had made him Jacob Carter, USAF Major General, father to Mark and Samantha, husband to the late Leah Carter, host to Selmak of the Tok'ra.
However you wanted to put it, Sam could have stopped it from happening.
Coulda, woulda, shoulda…doesn't make much difference now, does it? The little voice pointed out with inexorable certainty. Your responsibility now, Samantha, as a soldier, is to get out of here alive and make sure that he didn't die for nothing! You can grieve for him later – right now, you need to stay alive for his sake, for yours and for your team's sake.
Her team…
She glanced at the Colonel, who was still looking at her intently. "I'm sorry, Carter."
"No talking," growled the Jaffa, prodding him ungently in the kidneys. "Walk!"
She flashed her CO a forced smile to show she was still with him and kept walking.
Where were Daniel and Teal'c, she wondered? Had they been made similar offers – knowledge for the freedom of their team? Had they accepted where she had refused? Had her father's death been for nothing?
They were marched into a room, small and cramped, with two figures already held under guard.
"Jack! Sam!" Daniel got a fist in the belly for his pains and doubled over, gagging, while a Jaffa held a pain-stick just before Teal'c's belly, forcing him back away from his team-mate.
Teal'c growled, an animal sound in his throat and when he looked at his team-mates, Sam felt her heart contract. Whatever they had offered Teal'c, he had refused and Rya'c had suffered for it. Given how they'd executed her father, they'd probably killed the young Jaffa.
And Sarah? She looked to Daniel, who was straightening up, his breathing constricted by the bruised muscles of his diaphragm. They'd taken his glasses from him and his eyes were red and slightly swollen from grief.
"Good to see you guys again," the Colonel said, his voice light, but the undertones tense. "Sorry to keep you waiting."
The almost-joking tone of his voice might have offended them, had they not been so well-versed in heir commanding officer's foibles.
"Tau'ri." They turned as one to face Zipacna, standing tall and straight, defiant in their stance. "We give you a choice – a second choice, as you refused the first." He looked from Daniel, to Teal'c, to the Colonel, to Sam. "Serve Anubis. Serve him loyally and faithfully and your lives will be spared, or watch each other die."
There was silence. Then the Colonel spoke. "Zippy, why don't you take your offer and go screw yourself with it?" The words were hard and cold. There were no jokes now, no amusement in his voice. "And while you're at it, screw Anubis with it, too."
One eyebrow rose, the smirking face taken aback by the unequivocal reply. "And do you speak for your friends, Colonel O'Neill?"
The Goa'uld looked from face to face and must have seen their answer in their eyes. "Very well." The heavy lip curled and a harshness came over his face.
He lunged and thrust his fist into Teal'c's pouch. There was a sickening squelch as the muscles of his arm flexed and then Teal'c was on his knees curled over his belly in pain. The dark jaw gritted down hard, the muscles of the neck rising rigidly from the neck of his t-shirt.
Frozen where she stood, Sam felt her stomach lurch, nauseatingly. In such a way had Cronos executed Teal'c's father for failing him. In such a way had Sho'nak died.
"Teal'c!" The Colonel lunged for Zipacna, uncaring of the Jaffa whose staff-weapons rose to swing at him. One caught him on the jaw with the sickening sound of metal on bone, throwing him off-balance. He crashed to the ground in an ungainly heap.
Jaffa leapt forward, dragging them up and into the next room, where they were each flung into the corner of a cell.
Sam skidded on her knees, the material of her fatigue pants burning her skin, her bound hands making it impossible for her to balance herself as she slammed into the wall. Her head rang painfully with the impact and she hauled herself unsteadily up and glanced around.
Daniel was on his knees groaning and the Colonel had been unceremoniously dumped in the back corner of the cell and was leaning heavily against the wall. And Teal'c…
Sam took two steps towards her convulsing team-mate, only to feel the crackle of energy that signalled another force-field. It divided the cell into four smaller cells with one member of the team in each sub-cell. Able to see their team-mates, but unable to do anything for them. They were going to be left to watch Teal'c die, just as Zipacna had promised. And then what? Who would be next?
Daniel came to stand beside her on the other side of the force-field, facing Teal'c. Looking at the redness of his eyes, Sam had to ask, "Sarah?"
"Dead. They wanted information from me. The homeworld for the Jaffa rebellion and the Tok'ra remnants. The co-ordinates for Lieutenant Tyler's world. Kheb…" The pain in his voice wrung her out. Daniel was tired of losing people he cared about. Another gasp from Teal'c turned their heads to their team-mate. "We can't do anything," Daniel said from the corner beside her. There was a weariness in his voice which ached in her. "When a symbiote's fluids mix with human blood…it's fatal."
"They'll have a sarcophagus around here somewhere…" The Colonel said, opening his eyes and staggering to his feet. "We just have to find it…"
"How?" Daniel had to gesture with his chin to indicate the prison.
"I don't know, Daniel!" The Colonel had an edge to his voice, "We'll find a way! Carter?"
Dammit, why did he always come to her for solutions? She had none she could think of – and watching Teal'c's struggles growing weaker, she knew she was running out of time. The only good thing about a sarcophagus was that it could bring people back from the dead – as long as they hadn't been dead too long. How long had her father been dead?
She refused to think about that. Her team needed her to look at ways out of this place. But, glancing over the cell, she realised there were none. No buttons, no panels – nothing she could do. The force-field was being generated somewhere else and simply being channelled here in the cells… She was helpless – as they all were.
Another grunt from Teal'c caught their attention and brought the Colonel to his feet.
"Dammit, Teal'c!" Colonel O'Neill bellowed, "Fight! Hang in there…"
In his corner, Teal'c choked something husky and unintelligible as his body went rigid then limp. His breath hissed from his lips and his chest didn't rise again.
They stared, the silence growing until…
"Oh God," Daniel muttered, brokenly. "Teal'c…"
Sam shuddered, grief rising in her and being choked down. Grief was a luxury for which she didn't have the time right now. Maybe when they got out of here… If they got out of here…
The door hissed open behind them. They turned sharply to face Zipacna and Osiris.
"And so the shol'va dies." Zipacna sneered and gestured to his companion. "You should have accepted the offer of our master, Tau'ri."
And with no more warning than that, Osiris lifted the ribbon device and a wave of power slammed Daniel backwards into the force shield behind him.
He struggled to his feet, coughing. Sam watched in horror as he spat blood, then jerked forward as Osiris walked into Daniel's section of the cell and raised the ribbon device to Daniel's head.
Sam had only experienced the power of a ribbon device once. The extremes of hot and cold; pain like a thousand white-hot needles were stabbing into your brain as the blood vessels in your head throbbed like they were going to explode. Your thoughts slowed down, every second of real time slowing to a minute. Teal'c had once explained that the ribbon device could ruffle through your thoughts to pick out your knowledge – although the Goa'uld preferred brute force to the kind of finesse that required.
"Daniel," she begged him, dropping to her knees beside him, trying to catch his eye. "Fight it! You're strong enough…" She didn't know if he could hear her, didn't know if he could respond – but pleading with him was all she could do. "Break the hold on you, Daniel. Please…" She didn't know how he would break free, or even what he'd do once he'd broken the contact, but he had to try… Tears were running down her face and grief burned painfully in her chest – first Teal'c, now Daniel…it wasn't supposed to end this way. Not like this!
"Daniel…" Behind her she could hear the Colonel's voice, a grim rasp.
And then the ribbon device snapped off.
He slid sideways toward Sam, but hit the force-field mere inches from her, falling heavily to the floor. Blue eyes stared ceilingwards; open, empty. Devoid of mischief, delight, exasperation, anger, pain, tiredness. Devoid of life.
Sam gasped, her breath catching in her throat and turned her head to look at the Colonel. Dark eyes met blue and there was a wealth of communication in his expression: unspoken promises, words unsaid, hopes never expressed, and confessions closed away. Then his eyes slid past her to the Goa'uld who remained in the doorway. There was the sound of a staff weapon priming behind her. Cold fear slithered down her spine. Climbing to her feet, shaking with exhaustion and emotion, she turned to the doorway, where a Jaffa aimed his staff weapon at her.
"Sir," she husked.
"Carter?"
"It was an honour…"
"Don't you dare give me that crap, Sam," he interrupted her, his voice harsh. She continued anyway.
"…to serve…"
In slow motion, the ball of energy emerged from the tip of the weapon. Distantly, Sam heard the sound of the discharge in her ears. There was a burning, searing agony in her chest, spreading through her abdomen…
Then darkness.
----
The rings deposited Jack on the surface of the planet.
Lush green grass flourished around him and insects chattered in incessant noise. Beyond the DHD and Stargate, a magnificent pine forest spread for miles, scenting the crisp air with a resinous aroma and climbing a snow-tipped mountain in the distance.
He'd never seen this place in his life.
He hoped to never see it again.
No quips, no jokes, no smart comments sprang to his lips. There was nobody to hear them.
There would never be anybody to hear them again.
He dropped the thing in his hands into the grass as he fell to his knees, shaking like a sapling in a gale-force wind.
Daniel, Carter and Teal'c were dead.
Teal'c's empty eyes had been fixed on Jack after the Jaffa had fallen still from his death throes. There was no accusation in his dead gaze, only a calm peace. Teal'c died free.
Daniel had stared into the face of the Goa'uld, unable to move his head as the rays of the ribbon device turned his brain into scrambled eggs. The pale eyes had looked steadfastly at his killer until the device shut off and Jack's team-mate crashed to the floor, unmoving.
Carter had slammed back into the force-shield before him, then bonelessly collapsed in the fulfilment of a nightmare which had haunted Jack for two years. He didn't need to look at her to know there was a smoking, bleeding hole in her chest – he'd seen death-by-staff-weapon many times before. He looked anyway, heart-wrenchingly blue eyes bereft of their usual light, wide open and glazed in death.
His gaze transferred from her to Daniel to Teal'c, and something in him died.
He'd barely noticed as the shields came down and the writhing electricity of a zat blast coursed through him.
The physical pain was nothing.
Not compared to the emptiness as he looked upon his team and their blank gazes met his.
Jaffa had dragged him to the rings, removing the bindings at his wrists and he'd sat there limply, without even the energy to understand what they were going to do with him now. He tried to summon anger, hatred, grief, the burning desire for revenge…and nothing came. Only the aching hollow left by the deaths of his team-mates.
Zipacna had come to stand before him, the heavy features once again set in their customary smug expression. "Enjoy your life, Jack O'Neill, such as you will live it." Then he had tossed Jack something small and black as the rings flew up around him and beamed him down to the surface of the planet.
Sitting in the grass, Jack's gaze was drawn to the thing Zipacna had thrown him. Only instincts honed after years of military service enabled him to catch it before it hit his chest.
It was a GDO.
Understanding hit him like a blow to the soul and he doubled over, gasping as if he'd been dealt a blow to the belly.
The Goa'uld wanted him to live. They wanted him to live with the memory of his team-mates' death. His failure to protect them. His inability to die with them.
Enjoy your life, Jack O'Neill, such as you will live it.
Why? Why was he always the one to survive? Why did he emerge unscathed while the people he cared about lay cold and dead? Why couldn't the powers that be - the fates, whatever mocked him from the heavens - take him instead?
It tore at him, reopening old wounds. Memories of people who had died when Jack had lived. Memories of friends who never returned home from missions, of comrades who lived maimed while Jack remained whole, of a small white gravestone in a military cemetery and a child dead before he'd ever grown to be a man, of three friends whose bodies lay haphazardly in a cell on a Goa'uld ship.
He'd failed. Again.
It ached in him. A darkness welling up within him, flowing over him; sticky like blood, clinging to his soul, stifling hope. The wind was cold around him and his hands were freezing, but his heart was colder still.
Daniel had once told him the hardest thing about Sha'ure's death could be summed up in two words.
Never again.
No second chances, only regrets. No future, only past memories. No dreams, only painful reality.
No more explanations, dry comments, cups of coffee, or exasperated grumbles.
No more technobabble, brilliant smiles, Jell-O desserts, or intuitive support.
No more arched brows, calm statements, Jaffa jokes, or reliable solidity.
Never again.
Jack took a shuddering breath.
Why don't they have anyone for me?
They do. They have three of them.
He wasn't sure he could bear it.
Before him arched the stone arc of the Stargate, arcane and alien. The way home.
Slowly, he got to his feet and staggered over to the DHD.
One by one he depressed the keys to light up the chevrons that would take him back to the SGC.
He rubbed the back of his hand across his sore eyes and was surprised to discover that his eyeballs ached because he was crying.
The Stargate whooshed and Jack lifted the GDO…and hesitated.
It would be so easy.
So easy to walk up those stairs and into oblivion. Omit to send the iris code and end up as some molecular debris spread across the iris plates. Why should he have survived his team? Lived when they died?
But the weight of his responsibilities pressed down on him. He owed Hammond an explanation of what happened to his best people. He owed it to his team to let someone know how they died – how much they had sacrificed to keep their integrity. He owed it to his friends to see them honoured for everything they'd done – for the galaxy, for Earth and for him.
He owed them this.
So he sent the GDO code as he'd watched Carter or Daniel do so many times before and climbed the stairs with painful slowness, his bad knee a minor ache compared to the rent in his soul.
You can actually see the fluctuations in the event horizon…
One hand skimmed across the ripples of the wormhole entrance: tribute and homage to three friends with whom he laughed and gated and lived six years of his life after trying to quietly retire. There'd still been fight in him then – but not anymore.
In a single sweep, the Goa'uld had taken his soul, heart and strength from him and Jack O'Neill felt old.
Older than he'd been on Argos. Older than Machello. Older than the dusty stuff Daniel had loved to study.
He was just one old, tired, worn-out soldier with no hope left. Only the duty he owed his people.
It was duty which propelled him into the open wormhole. Nothing more.
Never anything more.
End of Part Five