95
With a Capital T
"My new queen is up to something," Anubis remarked, matter-of-factly.
"Surely no one with any wit would oppose you, Lord," his aide replied almost reflexively.
"About her wits I am not sure," Anubis admitted. "That one keeps her own counsel. But whoever heard of a queen who balked at breeding?"
The underling frowned. "An unnatural state of affairs. Are you sure you need a queen that badly, Lord Anubis? Your army is already mighty indeed."
"And I wish it to be mightier still," Anubis snapped. He paused a moment in reflection. "Have Evree watched. But discreetly, she is not to notice."
"I will attend to the details at once, Lord." And with a bow, he was gone.
"Just what are you up to, Evree?" Anubis murmured to himself.
&&&&&
"Was there a plan here that I didn't hear about?" Daniel whispered as he and O'Neill plastered themselves against a wall in a side corridor while a platoon of super soldiers marched by.
"You're the one that's familiar with the layout of the ship," O'Neill hissed, not quite willing to admit that no, he didn't have a plan.
"It's a big ship," Daniel murmured. "I didn't have time to get acquainted with the whole thing. But I think most of the living quarters are that way." He pointed in the direction of the corridor that Anubis' warriors had just marched down.
"Great," Jack muttered. "It looks like we're going to have to find another way around."
"Not to mention figure out a way to pinpoint her location," Daniel added. "I don't think sticking our heads into every door as we go by would be a viable option."
A lone figure was coming up the now empty corridor. Male, humanoid, but not Jaffa. Hopefully, Jack thought, not Goa'uld either, which had the potential of making him an excellent source of information.
&&&&&
Evree was almost ready to tear Draylea's hair out in frustration. For the past hour or more, she'd scarcely had a moment of privacy. No sooner had one slave left after inquiring if she would care for something to eat, than a Jaffa would beg admittance to offer to escort her on a tour of the ship. Did she wish to be bathed, massaged, read or sung to?
"I merely wish to be left alone," Evree grumbled. Then, it hit her. "He's monitoring my movements. Or deliberately circumscribing them. I had more freedom amongst the Tau'ri, who had no reason to trust me."
"We could test that," Draylea suggested tentatively.
"How so?" Evree was curious.
"Try leaving the room and see if there is ever a time in which there is no one in sight," Draylea elaborated.
"Interesting." Evree considered. "All right, I'll try it." She strode to the door purposefully and once it opened flung herself through it into a very startled Jack's arms. "O'Neill, I knew you'd come to rescue me."
&&&&&
"You did not warn me that your daughter has such formidable skills," Teal'c chided Jacob mildly.
Jacob made a face. "I forgot, myself," he admitted. "Never play poker with her when she out of sorts."
"Do you have anything else with which to wager?" Teal'c inquired. "I, myself, am, as I believe you put it, tapped out."
"Nothing that I can lose and still keep my dignity," Jacob grumbled. "I never did find out how she got so good at it."
Sam tossed their markers back to them. "Remember that guy I was dating when you were stationed in Nevada?"
The elder Carter looked thoughtful. "I seem to have a vague recollection," he answered slowly. "I don't believe I ever liked him, either. A real slick kid, too old for his years. But what does that have to do..," He broke off, and his eyes widened.
Sam shuffled the deck again, then turned over the first four cards. All aces. "I guess that I never did mention that his dad was a card sharp. Or that he was learning the trade."
"You cheated?" Teal'c was shocked nearly beyond speech.
"I prefer to say that I creatively engineered the outcome," Sam rejoined.
"She cheated," Jacob confirmed.
&&&&&
Jack almost reflexively returned the hug, albeit one-handed, his right hand encumbered by his weapon. Then, he gently disentangled himself from Evree, who did not seem to be inclined to let him go. "Think maybe we might see if we can get off Anubis' ship before we have the emotional reunion?" he suggested mildly. "Not that I'm generally adverse to having pretty girls throw themselves..,"
"Someone's coming!" Daniel, who had been watching the corridor, hissed urgently.
Evree nodded sadly as she allowed O'Neill to push her away from him. "Anubis is having me watched," she informed them. "I've scarcely had a moment's peace."
"Doesn't he have electronic surveillance?" O'Neill asked in surprise, as he and Daniel flattened themselves to the wall on either side of the door.
"He does," Evree replied. "But he also knows that there are always blind spots in any system. But if he has people with or near me at all times..,"
"Then he doesn't have to worry about the blind spots," Daniel supplied.
The door chirped to announce someone without, then opened to reveal Anubis' second in command.
Moments later, the trio left the room while the Goa'uld slept the sleep of the knocked unconscious on the floor of Evree's room, bound and gagged for good measure.
&&&&&
General Hammond looked at his watch, then, in disbelief at the clock on the wall for confirmation. They'd been gone less than an hour. So why did it feel like days?
&&&&&&
Daniel, Evree and O'Neill ducked back into a side corridor to avoid yet another troop of Anubis' super soldiers.
"You wouldn't happen to know a less conspicuous way out of here by any chance, would you?" Jack asked in a whisper.
Evree shook her head sadly. "I am truly grieved, O'Neill," she murmured. "But I neglected to learn the layout of the ship. I did not think I would need to know. At least, not for long."
"Why do you say that?" Daniel asked quietly as they cautiously started picking their way on a course infinitely less forgiving than a mine field.
"Well..," Evree floundered, then backed and filled. "Anubis did plan to keep me perpetually breeding. Knowledge of the ship would hardly be a prerequisite for that."
"I think I've figured out how to tell when you're lying," Jack remarked casually. "You sound so much more sincere and convincing than you do when you're telling the truth."
Evree, seeing no way out of that particular discussion decided that it was time for a change of subject. Besides, she really wanted to know. "Are my children well?"
&&&&&&
The cards had long since been set aside, and neither of the Carters nor Teal'c were bothering to hide the fact that they were all fidgeting. True, the team had been split before, but always when there was something else that needed to be done. There was seldom a time when their friends were in dire danger and they had, quite literally, nothing to do.
By tacit agreement, the room had been divided between them, and each paced, or pretended not to, within their own designated area.
It was probably the hardest work they'd done in years.
&&&&&
"Lord Anubis." The Jaffa was ashen-faced, and was barely managing not to tremble.
Anubis rose to his feet, towering over the bowed figure. "Speak," he boomed.
"Your aide has been found, bound, gagged and unconscious," the Jaffa managed to say, still leaving out one immensely pertinent fact.
"Where?" roared Anubis.
"The queen's quarters, Lord," the Jaffa returned.
"And was the queen still within?" Anubis' tones had dropped, become soft, silky, threatening. But he was already feeling the daggers of frustration digging into him for what he was certain the reply would be.
"No, Lord," the Jaffa admitted. He waited to be annihilated.
"Sound the alarms," Anubis ordered, other concerns taking precedence over killing the bearer of bad news. "She may still be on the ship. Find her."
&&&&&&
The sound of claxons rippled through the air in an ocean wave of cacophony.
"I believe I may have been missed," Evree murmured.
"Ya think?" Jack queried sarcastically. They dodged into a, thankfully, empty storage room as the corridors suddenly swarmed with hordes of Jaffa and super soldiers.
"Do you think they will seek us here?" inquired Evree in a small voice.
"How badly do you think Anubis will want you back?" Daniel asked pointedly.
Evree's face became a picture of misery. "They will look."
&&&&&&
General Hammond picked up his ringing phone. "Hammond," he answered a little abruptly, the quarantine was getting to him too, amongst other things. "Who? Curtis? Did you tell him that we were under quarantine?" Hammond could practically feel his blood pressure rising. Why was it that the bureaucrats always thought that the rules didn't apply to them? "Sit tight," he ordered. "I'll be right up."
&&&&&&
"I wonder..," Jacob broke the silence.
"Two hours and twenty-five minutes," Teal'c interrupted.
"And an odd number of seconds," Sam added for good measure. "Not that anyone's counting."
&&&&&&
"Well, we can't hide in here too long," Daniel remarked. "Sooner or later, someone's going to think to look here."
"Might there not be some sort of passage within the walls?" Evree suggested tentatively.
"I thought you said you didn't know the ship," O'Neill said accusingly.
"I don't." Evree took a step away from O'Neill, whom she'd been shadowing the whole time. "I saw it on the television. But I'm not a technical person. I truly do not know how much difference there is between the structures of buildings and ships."
"There should be some sort of duct or service crawlway," Daniel agreed. He started thumping the wall. O'Neill caught his wrist.
"Daniel," he said softly, with forced patience. "That may be the fastest way to find a duct. But if you're going to do that, you might as well hire a brass band."
"Oh." Daniel looked chagrined.
"Very oh," Jack agreed. "Why don't we try the obvious first? Like looking for some sort of hatch."
"You have no device for detecting such things?" Evree inquired. She wasn't sure just where Earth stood from a technological standpoint, but it seemed to her that such a simple thing ought to be within their scope.
"We were traveling light," Jack snapped. "We were more interested in carrying some firepower, not to mention getting here in good time to rescue someone who, so far, has been a hell of a lot more trouble than she's worth."
Evree looked as though he had struck her, and Jack suddenly felt like a horse's ass. But the situation was too urgent to stop for niceties. He'd apologize later. Preferably without an audience.
"I think I found it," Daniel informed them. He'd been carefully staying out of that little byplay. But he did intend to have a word with Jack later on.
"Well, it looks like a hatch," O'Neill agreed, inspecting it, and coincidentally turning his back on the still wounded looking Evree. "How were you planning on getting in?"
Daniel produced something that looked like a laser pointer. "A little gift from Sam," he explained. He flicked a switch, and systematically melted the rivets that held the hatch in place. "It's a miniature plasma torch. Limited fuel supply, though. We'd better hope we don't need it again."
Jack was eyeing the hole in the wall. "That's pretty conspicuous, wouldn't you say?" he queried. "We're going to have to find a way to camouflage that, or they're going to figure out where we went pretty fast."
There were several crates in the room, but they were large, meant to be moved with machinery, not muscles. The efforts of all three combined would not be able to shift one, that was obvious just from looking. But O'Neill was correct in that the hole in the wall would have to be disguised.
By dint of frantic, albeit silent searching, they finally managed to unearth some smaller debris. It wouldn't hide the hole completely, but if piled in front of it, with the last person in pulling it as close in as possible, it might fool any searchers long enough to give them a little breathing space.
"You first, Daniel," O'Neill instructed. "It's going to be one at a time, and you seem to have the best idea of where we're going."
Daniel obediently climbed in the hole, crawled in a good couple of body lengths and waited for the others to join him.
"Get in, Evree," Jack said, a little impatiently when she paused beside their escape route.
"O'Neill, I..," she began.
"Later," he halted her. "Let's concentrate on getting out of here in one piece, okay? Then you can tell me what a jerk I am."
Evree gave him one last, puzzled look before crawling in after Daniel.
Jack was just pulling their makeshift barrier into place when he heard someone enter the room. "Let's shift it, kids," he urged his companions in a whisper. "We've got company coming."
&&&&&&
"I'm sorry, sir," Hammond said, sounding not the least bit sorry. "But quarantine means just that. This entire base is under quarantine and will remain so until I, personally am sure that there is no longer any need for it."
The general was still speaking over a phone, but now he could see the ubiquitous Curtis, hovering near the front gate where he'd been harassing the guard.
"General, my orders come straight from Washington," Curtis replied. "I need to get into your facility and speak with our pris.., guest."
Hammond had managed to keep the number of people who knew about Evree's departure to a bare minimum. Curtis hadn't been on the list.
"Sir," Hammond replied with more than a touch of asperity. "I will not risk setting off a world-wide epidemic. Not even on the orders of the president himself."
"How many people are sick?" Curtis pressed.
"None at present," the general admitted. "But I felt the possibility was real enough to take drastic measures. I haven't yet found any reason to cancel the order."
"Does this have anything to do with giving asylum to that Goa'uld?" Curtis asked suspiciously.
"It does." Hammond didn't see any way around that one without out and out lying, and he really hated lying to anyone. Except, of course, for anyone on the wrong side. But some days it was hard to tell which was which.
"You realize that I'm going to have to make a report about this?" Curtis was all questions today.
"I'm a career military man," Hammond replied. "Everything has to be reported. I know that."
"And before I leave, I need an interview with the Goa'uld," Curtis went on. "Like this will be satisfactory. Just."
General Hammond was starting to think longingly of a glass of water and a couple of aspirin. And, preferably, all his people, plus Evree, back safe and sound. How was he going to deal with this without letting Curtis know that Evree was not only not on the base, but not even on the planet?
"Well, general," Curtis groused. "I'm a busy man. My time is valuable. And you're keeping me here waiting."
Suddenly, General Hammond had an inspired idea. "If you want a face to face," he said. "I could allow you to break quarantine. But once inside, you'll have to remain in quarantine until such a time as I see fit to lift it." There was the barest glimmer of an idea in his head that once he had Curtis inside, he could set in motions the wheels to give the Washington flunky the royal runaround until such a time as he had Evree.
Or, quite possibly, if O'Neill and Jackson's mission went wrong, all the rope that Curtis would need to hang him.
&&&&&&
Daniel stopped at a junction in the ducts, large enough to permit their group a small, quick conference. "I'm getting all turned around," he admitted. "I'm not entirely sure which way we're going now."
"That way." Evree pointed.
The men paused to turn and stare at her.
"One thing that is common to all ships with gates is the location of that gate," she explained. "We are going to the stargate, are we not?"
"We are indeed," O'Neill agreed. "Evree, you're doing the driving now."
"But I am not..," Evree started in.
"Just point out the way," Jack muttered. "And I'd suggest that we move it. I think I can hear something that says Anubis' boys found out which way we went."