"While I understand and sympathize with your predicament, O'Neill, you must understand that if the Asgard do anything to-"
Jack didn't even let Thor finish. He was beyond frustrated and well into terrified, and at the moment that translated into anger. Especially when he just knew what Thor was going to tell him.
He slapped his hand down on the briefing table, hard, causing almost everyone sitting around it to flinch.
"No, Thor," Jack said, standing up and leaning over the table towards the Asgard – who had been sitting across from him. "You understand this; if you don't call all your Asgard buddies – and I mean all of them – and get them to help me find Sam, I'm going to end the learning sessions with Shawn and Andrew right now."
He had the upper hand, here, and he knew it. And he was more than willing to use every advantage he could find.
"O'Neill, the protected planets treaty-"
"Says you can't interfere with us," Jack finished, his voice deadly cold. "You've done a hell of a job interfering so far, and I'm pretty sure the Goa'uld would love to know that you're imparting your wisdom and technology on a couple of kids – so don't give me that bullshit, Thor. You have a choice; help me now, or get the hell out of here and don't ever come back."
"Colonel O'Neill…"
Jack didn't look at Hammond. He didn't look at anyone but Thor, and the little gray alien met his gaze for a full minute before he sighed.
"Very well. I will contact the Asgard high command and have ships sent out to start looking for them. You understand, though, that it's very unlikely that we will be able to find-"
"It's better than not looking at all," Daniel interrupted.
Thor nodded.
"We will be in contact-"
"I want to go with you." Jack said, before he could leave.
"I-"
"Colonel O'Neill?"
Jack scowled, looking over at the Airman who had suddenly appeared at the door, looking nervous for having interrupted, but also as if it wasn't going to be able to wait.
"What?"
"General Nathan Brooks is waiting at the main gate, Sir. He says he wants to talk to you."
"Damn it."
"He says he-"
"I'll be right there, Airman. Thank you."
So much for going with the Asgard.
Jack looked at Thor.
"Let me know the minute you find anything. Okay?"
Looking decidedly unhappy with the way things had turned out; Thor nodded, and vanished in a white light that made both Jack and Jaffer growl softly from their positions under the briefing table.
Jack looked over at Hammond, but the General wasn't looking for an apology or an explanation. He understood that Jack was willing to do whatever it took to get Sam back – and Ian – even if it meant blackmailing the entire Asgard race to get them to help.
"You'd better get to the main gate, Jack," Hammond told him. "Tell Nathan that Sam and Ian are on a training assignment or something – he'll believe that if Ian's mentioned that he's been working with Sam."
"Yes, Sir."
It was as good a cover story as any. With Jaffer trotting beside him, Jack left the briefing room, and Hammond looked over at Jacob, who was looking as haggard and upset as Jack.
"Any news from the Tok'ra Jacob?"
"Not yet, George. We're looking for them, but we don't have a lot of ships, and who knows where they jumped to – if they left the planet at all. It was a good idea to get the Asgard in on things – they have far more resources than we do."
Even if they hadn't wanted to be…
OOOOOOOOO
As the heads-up display had shown them, the large cargo bay they were in was in the belly of the Goa'uld mothership. There was an exit under them that Ian hadn't seen – mainly because he hadn't had a lot of time to look – but because of the positioning of the weapons launchers on the Gateship, he wouldn't have been able to fire at it to blow it open, anyways.
As it was, he did it the hard way – but the hard way turned out to be almost ridiculously easy. The mothership was shielded. From attacks coming from the outside. The shields were set up to deflect from the outside, but no one had probably ever considered an attack from the inside out – if someone was trying to take over the ship form inside, they certainly wouldn't want to destroy it, after all.
Ian, on the other hand, didn't care if the mothership survived or not. He just cared about blasting a hole big enough for the Gateship to escape through – and it wasn't a large craft, thank God, so it wouldn't take much.
The weapons on the Gateship were up to the task, and the explosion that rocked the Goa'uld ship when Ian fired blindly into the wall was deafening. A huge hole appeared in the side of the ship, a hole that promptly started to decompress the Goa'uld ship and sucked all the Jaffa in the area – including Cato's inert form – out into the black nothingness of space, where those that were alive, weren't for long.
Automatic controls took over, saving the ship itself from a critical explosion, but as Ian rocketed the Gateship out of the escape hatch he'd just made, the crippled mothership had absolutely no chance of coming after them – even if the Jaffa on the bridge had had someone to order them to follow.
As soon as he was clear of the ship, and the read out told him that no one was following, Ian took a deep breath, shaking harder than he could ever remember shaking. He looked over at Sam, who was pale and in the middle of what had to be a contraction, and then looked around, helplessly. They'd escaped the Goa'uld – which had been an important first step – but they weren't safe, yet. He didn't have a clue what to do, next… only that he had to get them home.
"What do I do now?" He asked, more himself than Sam, because her hands were clutching the armrest of the chair she was in, and she wasn't in any condition to hear him just then, much less answer.
The Gateship had been paying attention to what was going on inside it. Even though it wasn't a sentient creature by any means, it had a degree of artificial intelligence that the people on Earth had never mastered – at least not yet. It knew what Ian needed, and the heads-up display came on again. Ian looked up at it and saw a very detailed – and illustrated – step by step instruction list of how to deliver a baby.
He jerked to his feet, taking a step back and holding his hands out in denial.
"Oh, hell no…"
Panic set in once more, and he looked at Sam.
"We need a gate," he said, this time more to the ship than to himself. "Find me a gate, goddamn it."
And the ship complied, its sensors stretching out around them as they moved through space. The heads-up display changed from the diagram of the delivery to show the star systems around them, planets and moons and other celestial bodies coming up and disappearing rapidly as the ship looked for what Ian had asked for.
Finally, it stopped on one – a blinking light that looked a million miles away – even on the heads-up display. But it was better than nothing.
Gingerly, Ian took the pilot's seat again, and put his hands on the controls. There was an automatic pilot; he just had to figure out how to activate –
A red light blinked, drawing his attention, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he felt the ship start to maneuver – apparently on its own.
He reached out and put his hand on Sam's arm, unsure where to touch her without hurting her.
"Hang on, Sam… we're getting there… Just… hold him in, okay?"
Sam nodded, only paying a little attention to him, but responding to the fear in his voice and knowing he needed reassurance. The only problem was, she did, too.