When All Else Fails

Chapter Eighteen

Disclaimer: Yeah, you and I both know it. The show and the characters do not belong to me, Thoth, the god, does not belong to me, the Jaffa don't belong to me... Sanchez, Fehr, and the made-up characters on the SG teams captured along with SG-1 are my property, however (the other teams, not SG-1). You cannot have them... so there!

A/N: Well, I'm glad you guys didn't think that my action writing totally blows... thanks for that! And, as for a wedding... I'm not sure if there will even be one! At least, not in this story. Who knows though, it all depends on my muse. You can ask her if you want, but she doesn't really talk much...

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Fehr wasn't sure how long he had been walking, but he hadn't gotten far- that was for sure. The large gash in his lower leg made doing much of anything terribly hard on him, and he couldn't run like he would have liked to. Nope, he had to limp to the 'gate. Which only left him vulnerable to attack from the Jaffa who had put him in his situation in the first place. Thanking God in Heaven that the planet he was on was heavily wooded he slowly wove through the trees, cautiously scanning his surroundings and doing his best to make as little noise as possible. The last thing he needed was to be found by a Jaffa. And it wasn't only his life he was attempting to save. He had to get to the 'gate, and soon. He wasn't sure how much time SG-1 and the other teams with them had left.

Glancing at his wrist-watch, the only valuable thing he had left besides his Kelvar vest and fatigues, he noticed that it was just after 1700 hours. How long had he been on the planet? Three days... more? It was kind of hard to keep track of time when you were running for your life- or in his case, limping. And, what time was SG-1 scheduled to make contact with earth? Was it possible they were already late and therefore the general had sent reinforcements through? God, he wished so, but doubted greatly. It had appeared to him when they came across Sanchez that they had just arrived on the planet, it would be idiotic to be scheduled to contact earth two hours after arriving off-world.

The forest was thinning out, soon he would no longer have the protection and shade the trees provided. With no hat and sunglasses he would be sun-burned, 785's sun was much closer than earth's was, and the days were longer. 32 hour days... 22 hours of sunlight and only 10 hours of darkness. There were at least five more hours of light before the sun would go down. He was still deciding if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

XXXX

Sam glanced around the cramped room, along with SG-1 there were three other teams, SG-2, 4, and 6. The past half hour (she was assuming that's how long it had been, the Jaffa had even taken her watch!) had been extremely boring and all together uncomfortable. There was no where to sit so either they were on the ground or still standing. Sam herself had long since sat down, but Teal'c, Major Anderson, Lieutenant Ghram, and Captain Knapp were still standing.

She couldn't help but think that they were at a disadvantage. Along with SG-1, SG-2 was an exploration and contact team, as was SG-4. That didn't depress her as much as the fact that SG-6, the search and rescue team, was currently imprisoned along with her. That didn't leave General O'Neill with much, seeing as the SG-3 marines were the ones they had gone to save in the first place. He could send the SG-5 marines through, as well as SG-8, but what good would a med team do her? None of them were harmed... yet.

"Dr. Jackson," Major Johnson, the leader of SG-4, inquired. "This Goa'uld... Thoth, who exactly is he?"

Sam stifled a groan, but scowled all the same. It wasn't his fault, Major Johnson didn't know how Daniel was, even in these situations. Asking that sort of question was dangerous, Daniel would be keeping them occupied for a long, long while now.

Her scowl only deepened when he seemed to perk a bit at the question, not because he was happy... but because he now had something to get his mind off of being captured. He could run off at the mouth for hours. "Thoth was the Egyptian moon good, who, over time, became the god of wisdom, medicine, astronomy, and many other things. He was depicted in human form with the head of an ibis, wearing a crown consisting of a crescent moon topped by a moon disk."

He would have said more had it not been for Dr. Craig, SG-2's linguist, making an observation. "That must be why the Jaffa had crescent moon's on their forehead's."

"Right," Daniel added, a bit perturbed that he had been interrupted. He got over it quickly and began explaining Thoth once again. "His principal sanctuary was at Khmunu in the Nile delta region. Thoth also served as a clerk who recorded the judgements on the souls of the dead..."

Sam groaned inwardly. This guy's job was to judge people? Her day just got worse.

"...Alternatively, it was Thoth himself who weighed the hearts of the dead against the feather of Truth in the Hall of the Two Truths."

Oh, great. Hearts weighed against a feather, eh? That didn't sound too promising.

"Thank you, Daniel, for that history lesson," she supplied before he could continue further. "But, I believe we should be discussing our escape rather than our captor."

He shrugged, he had just been answering Johnson's question.

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Lieutenant Fehr wasn't doing much better than Sam was. He had just managed to get out of the woods at a few minutes after 1800 hours and as he remembered it was a good half hour walk to the 'gate. And, with a bum leg to go along with the fact he was still hiding out from the Jaffa that time would be at least doubled. It was likely that he wouldn't get to the 'gate until after 1900- maybe even later.

Thankfully he had yet to be noticed. It was touch and go for a few minutes, he had been heard Jaffa coming his way fifteen minutes prior and barely managed to climb up into a tree before they passed. His first assessment of them had been right, they were not as smart as they were arrogant. He thanked God for that, if they had been half as bright as they were sure of themselves he would have been dead long ago.

As he painfully trudged closer to the 'gate he wondered how he would make contact with earth. The Jaffa had taken his GDO, but for some reason had failed to take his radio, which is how he had made contact with the SGC the first time. He hoped that his cryptic message had done enough to where Sanchez code was taken off of the list, because now that he was a Goa'uld it wasn't safe. In the end, his only option would be to send yet another SOS through the 'gate by means of Morse code. Technology was a grand thing.

So, for the time being he limped as surreptitiously as he possibly could towards the 'gate. Hoping that by the time he got through to earth it wouldn't be too late for SG-1.

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It was only 20 after 1800, but Jack was already starting to feel a strange amount of unrest. He couldn't place it, but something was off. He was in the briefing room, standing in front of the window which gave him a clear view of the Stargate, wondering what was causing his uneasiness. Yes, of course he always worried when teams went off-world, but never to such an extent. And, the worry never lasted for more than the first half hour- unless they were late returning or checking in. SG-1 was neither of those, for the time being, at least.

But still, he wasn't going to do anything rash just yet. Give it forty minutes and if they weren't back at exactly 1900 he was sending in the calvary. He'd probably even go through the 'gate himself- his feeling was that strong.

A sigh escaped his lips and he crossed his arms over his chest. Waiting definitely wasn't his strong suit.

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Sam leaned her head against the stone wall and sighed deeply. Daniel had started to prattle on about Thoth again and frankly it was beginning to bug her. They hadn't spent more than five minutes discussing their situation when the same Jaffa who had snapped at her and Teal'c had come barging into the room, scowling at them menacingly. After shouting a few threats in Goa'uld he exited the room again, Daniel translated, and then started up on explaining the many jobs of Thoth in the days of Ancient Egypt. There was one that Sam kept going back to.

Judgement. This guy judged people for a living... granted it was a Egyptian myth but the Goa'uld had taken on the personas of the gods, so her best guess was that Thoth was fond of judgement, as well as his Egyptian origin. One thing that she was stuck on was that he judged 'dead' people. Now that could either be good for her, or really, really bad.

When roughly ten minutes had gone by she spoke up again, cutting Daniel off in the process. "We need to work on a plan of escape." she informed them, standing up.

"Ma'am," Captain Bridges spoke out, "it has to be close to 1900 on earth. When we don't contact the SGC General O'Neill will send in reinforcements after us."

She nodded, "That may be, Captain- but what happens if the reinforcements are captured... or worse, end up in battle? We're stuck here waiting for help that's never going to come. And, if that Jaffa was truthful in his threat then Thoth isn't that far away, and neither is our judgement."

The whole group seemed to shrink back at that thought. Apparently they had been contemplating the same thing she had.

If Thoth got to them before O'Neill and other's from the SGC did they were in trouble.

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Fehr took a second to look at his watch, it was ten minutes until 1900 hours. From memory he guessed that he still had roughly fifteen or twenty minutes left until he reached the 'gate. It was odd, he hadn't come across any Jaffa since he had left the woods, why were they suddenly so scarce? He knew Thoth wasn't a very powerful Goa'uld, but surely he had more Jaffa than what he had seen.

Not that he was complaining or anything. Oh, definitely not. Heck, the less Jaffa he had to deal with the better. He was walking blind, in a matter of speaking. He had no means of defending himself should he cross paths with one. And, dealing with an armed and angry Jaffa was not high on his list of things to do. Getting to the 'gate, however, was number one.

Not much later the Stargate came into view, although it was still a good five minutes away. From where he stood it simply looked like a toy idly hovering over the ground. It was amazing, really- that small speck in the distance would actually connect him back to earth. And, hopefully, bring salvation for SG-1 and the others with them.

XXXX

It was two minutes until 1900 and Jack was standing behind Walter, watching as he dialed 785. To hell with regulation, what difference did two minutes make, anyway? Davis' had just finished calling out that Chevron 5 was indeed locked when the 'gate automatically stopped dialing and a gush of blue, shimmering water whooshed forward.

"Shit," he cursed under his breath. This was not good... not good at all. He needed to make contact with 785. Siler closed the iris and waited for an IDC to come through.

"Who is it?" he demanded, not even attempting to hide his anger.

Walter waited, no IDC came through. Just as he was about to inform Jack that it wasn't one of their teams a the radio wave spiked twice, once, and then twice. After that there was a pattern of different's pikes, then the SOS repeated itself.

"Who is it?" he repeated. Like earlier, he was familiar with Morse code, and he was certain that was what was coming through, but when it came to computers he was up a creek and such.

Siler looked back at him, concern dancing in his eyes. Great, that's exactly what he needed to see at the moment- more reasons to be worried. "It's Captain Fehr, sir."

Jack's stomach flipped. If it was Fehr then that meant Sam hadn't found her way to him. If she had, they would be contacting them using her IDC, not his radio. His feelings had been warranted, something had gone wrong. What though?

"Open the iris," he ordered. Siler didn't hesitate and the metal swirled open.

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A/N: Like I said earlier I am really green when it comes to action stories. Never really wrote one before. So, this is new. I'm glad that you guys liked my last chapter and I hope that this one wasn't a disappointment. Let me know what you think... please.