Chapter Six
Sam emerged from the Stargate's event horizon along with everyone else. Aiming her weapon around the village ruins, she saw five Jaffa that had been knocked out by the shock grenade. Sam gestured to the other members of her team to move out.
"Area's clear," Browning reported, when they finished their sweep.
"The complex is ten klicks north of here," Jacob told them.
Sam nodded and they all started stealthily forward.
They reached a hill and Jacob gestured for them to stop. "It's right beyond this ridge."
They started forward again, crawling along on their stomachs, and peeked over the hill. The complex stood about forty feet away, Jaffa patrolling outside.
"How do we get past them?" Daniel asked.
"Zats," Jacob answered simply, "and the element of surprise."
"Where's the door?" Colonel Browning asked.
"There." Sam pointed it out. "Ten Jaffa guarding the door, plus five patrolling—three to one. It's risky, but I think we can do it." The group drew and armed their zatn'kitels. "Daniel, Teal'c, flank left. Colonel, Dad, take right." Her team nodded their acknowledgement and Sam gestured for them to move out.
When everyone was in their place, Sam gestured again and they all opened fire. Sam dropped two Jaffa before they managed to shoot back. Another Jaffa got a staff blast off before she shot him twice, killing him. Colonel Browning killed the last of the Jaffa, and the team moved forward.
Silently, Sam touched four buttons in sequence on a small panel by the door, and it slid open. She checked the hall before signaling that it was empty. They hurried down the hall, turning at the first intersection to get away from the door and the unmistakable proof that someone had broken in.
"Shouldn't that have been harder?" Browning asked, his voice barely audible.
"The Goa'uld are arrogant. They wouldn't think we'd be able to defeat their Jaffa. But we should stay alert, just in case," Jacob replied.
They continued down the corridor, until they heard the familiar sound of metal boots on the floor. Slipping behind the gold pillars that lined the corridors, they stayed out of sight as two Jaffa marched past—One of the Goa'uld's shortcomings was their insistence on building pillars along their halls. Sam fingered her P-90 restlessly and pushed back the thought that these Jaffa that had killed Jack.
They followed the corridor until they reached another intersection, this time turning left.
"Do you have any idea where we're going?" Colonel Browning asked Jacob.
"Some, yes. Look, maybe you're new to the general concept of covert operations, but could you be quiet?" Jacob replied.
Makes me wonder how he made colonel, he thought.
I'm beginning to see a pattern in your Air Force, Jacob. Colonel O'Neill is another example, Selmak said.
There was another 15 minutes of stop-and-go through the corridors before they found the main computer terminal in a dark room lit only by the glow from the panel.
Jacob sat down at it immediately, pressing a button that brought up a holographic display. Sam stood looking over his shoulder, while Browning, Daniel, and Teal'c watched the door.
Jacob pulled up a list of prisoners and then a layout of the base. "There," he said, pointing to one of the cells. He punched a couple more buttons and a red line traced along the corridors leading from the cell to the room they were in.
"Alright," Sam said, committing the path to memory. "Daniel and I will go get Colonel O'Neill. Why don't you, Teal'c, and Browning set the C-4?" Sam asked, phrasing it as a question so as not to order her father around.
"Take Teal'c with you in case you have to carry Jack."
The anxiety Sam had been feeling since they had arrived sky rocketed as they neared Jack's cell. What would they find when they got there? Would there be anything left of him? She knew the Goa'uld Baal had done all sorts of horrible things to him, but Jack had never told them the whole story. Was he still the Jack O'Neill she loved?
Daniel seemed to notice. "Sam? You alright?" he whispered as they crept down the hall.
Before she could answer, footsteps resounded again. Taking cover, they waited them out. "The colonel's cell is just ahead," Sam told them.
They finally reached it. With a shaking hand, Sam pressed the same four buttons she had at the front door, but nothing happened. She exchanged a worried glance with Daniel and tried again—still nothing.
Reaching for her radio, she contacted her father, "Dad, this is Sam. Do you read me?"
"Loud and clear, Sam. Go ahead," his familiar voice replied.
"The cell door isn't responding to the normal entry code."
There was silence on the other end for a few minutes. Sam watched Teal'c study the panel, while Daniel looked from Sam to Teal'c to the shut door anxiously. "Dad? You still there?"
"Yes, I'm here." There was another pause and then a sigh. "Doors can only be opened without the code from the throne room and it's too heavily guarded to try to get in. You could try to blow the door open, but I don't know how large that cell is, and the blast could kill Jack."
Sam shut her eyes. "Teal'c…"
"I am sorry, Major Carter. Each cell has a unique access code. I know only those that were in use by Apophis when I was his First Prime," Teal'c explained gravely.
Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses down, and then dropped his hand in a frustrated gesture.
Suddenly, something Jack had said popped into Sam's head: Think you can hot-wire this thing?
"Dad?" she called into her radio.
"Yeah?"
"I'm going to try to bypass the security system and open it without the code."
"Sam, are you crazy? Don't you think the Goa'uld would be smart enough to put some sort of safety mechanism to ensure against that? I mean, otherwise it would be pretty stupid to lock him in there. They might as well put him in a closet with a chair up against the knob," Jacob said, unknowingly responding in the same way his daughter had when Jack had first offered the suggestion.
The irony of this entire conversation wasn't lost on Sam. It amazed her how Jack always seemed to look at problems at their simplest. He often managed to come up with a solution none of them would have thought of. What to him was a flippant comment sometimes gave Sam or Daniel an idea that could save them even when he wasn't there.
"The Goa'uld do not have knobs on their doors," Teal'c commented, his right eyebrow arching.
"Uh, yeah, well, I think it was a figure of speech," Daniel said, pushing his glasses up by the nosepiece.
"You yourself said that the Goa'uld are arrogant. Besides Selmak must know something about how the system works?" Sam insisted.
Another pause. "Sam, you need to realize that if this doesn't work it'll bring the entire complex down on you."
She looked at her teammates who nodded gravely, understanding her unspoken question.
Sam gave them a weak smile. "We understand. What about you and Colonel Browning?" she asked her father.
"Forget us. Get your colonel out of there."
"Thanks, Dad." She took hold of the side of the panel and yanked it open. "Alright, I've got it open, now what?"
Sam was startled when, instead of her father's familiar voice, Selmak's deep, distorted one came over the radio. "This will take some time, Samantha. First, you must… "
Sam ran a hand down her face and then brought it back up to brush back a strand of blonde hair that had fallen in to her eyes. "Alright, this should do it." She wasn't sure how long they had been working on the door. But what with Selmak unsure of what she was doing and the numerous times they had to hide from Jaffa, not to mention the time her father and Browning had almost been caught, it had taken at least an hour. Hammond would start to wonder if they were coming back.
"Yes, put the last crystal back and the door should open," Selmak assured her. On hearing this, Daniel stood up from where he had been sitting on the floor and came up beside her. Teal'c was still guarding the hall.
Picking up the crystal that the Tok'ra had indicated, she held it over its socket, her hand shaking. Question after question ran through her head; images of Jack, wounded or dead, followed them. She might be about to save him, but would there be anything left to save?
"Sam?" Daniel looked at her curiously.
"Right." She shook herself, giving her friend a reassuring smile. She pressed the crystal into place. The crystals immediately lit up and the door slid open with an audible whoosh.
The cell was bare and shaped roughly like an octagon, lit by five panels built into the walls. A still form lay against the back wall. There was a quiet groan, and the figure stirred.
Sam rushed forward. "Colonel?"
"Sam…" came the murmured reply.
Reaching him, she put her hand on his arm to roll him gently onto his back, but at her touch, he jerked in shock and rolled himself over.
His eyes, sunken in and glazed, were open, but he just stared up at the ceiling. His face was drawn. He was still wearing his green BDUs, but his jacket was missing. His black T-shirt had a gaping hole where he had been hit. Its edges were charred. His chest held no traces of the wound that had killed him.
"Sam?" he asked. Jack's thin hand flailed out toward her and she caught it.
"Jack!" She smiled tearfully. He squeezed her hand tightly and brought it to his face as he tried to sit up. She helped him, and when he was sitting, he pulled her toward him and hugged her tightly as if his life depended on it.
"Oh, my gosh, Sam. You're here! You're really here," he murmured.
She didn't answer, but held him, tears streaming down her face. He was so thin and weak that she felt like he would break if she squeezed him too tightly, but he was alive.
His grip tightened and then went slack as he fell unconscious.
Fear gripped her. "Jack, no!" Sam lay him down and checked his pulse. She had forgotten that Daniel was there until he put his hand on her shoulder as he crouched down next to her. "His pulse is weak and he's dehydrated. We've got to get him out of here!" Sam cried.
"It looks like he hasn't eaten in days." Daniel's voice was full of worry. "Teal'c!"
The Jaffa was quick to answer the archaeologist's call and stepped into the room, his face etched with concern. "Daniel Jackson."
"You'll have to carry Jack. He's collapsed."
Teal'c silently handed Daniel his staff weapon, which the anthropologist looked at skeptically, and lifted the debilitated Air Force colonel onto his shoulders.
"Um, Sam, you should…" Daniel started, offering her the Goa'uld weapon, but he trailed off as he realized Sam wasn't paying attention to him, but watching Jack. After a minute, Sam hefted her P-90 and started off down the hall, ahead of Teal'c, toward the exit.
"Dad, we've got him. Where are you?" she called into her radio.
"We've almost planted the last of the C-4. We'll meet you in the third hall off the main corridor," Jacob replied.
"Hurry, Dad. I don't know how long the colonel will last."
They made it to the hall without incident, but things went downhill from there. An alarm sounded, and a harsh Goa'uld voice echoed through the corridor.
"They know we're here," Daniel warned.
Sam moved her hand to her radio, but she stopped when her father and Colonel Browning came around the corner.
"How's Jack?" Jacob asked.
"He's dehydrated and really thin, but I don't think he's injured," Daniel answered.
"Does Selmak know where the tunnels are?" Sam asked.
Jacob bowed his head. "The usual access is a hidden door in the back wall of a storage closet," Selmak told them.
"We can't search them all," Browning said.
"And we won't. The most logical place would be a storage room on the outer wall facing the Stargate. Come."
Loud footsteps resounded through the halls. They all turned their heads toward the sound in time to see five Jaffa, in full battle armor, coming around the corner. Drawing their weapons, the team ducked behind the pillars just in time to avoid several staff blasts fired in their direction.
Daniel fired Teal'c's staff weapon, killing a Jaffa, and then ducked back into the cover of his pillar. When he stuck his head back out, only two Jaffa remained. He fired again, missing this time. The last Jaffa dropped dead, killed by Zat blasts, and SG-1 emerged.
"Come on!" Jacob yelled, running down the hall. Teal'c lifted Jack up on his shoulders again, and they all followed the Tok'ra.
They had reached the end of the hall when more staff blasts ripped through the air. They ducked down the right side corridor and Selmak lead them quickly toward the end.
"This is it," Selmak said, standing outside a storage closet.
"You sure?" Sam asked.
"Hold them off while I check," Jacob replied.
Teal'c put Jack down just inside the closet and took his staff weapon from Daniel.
Daniel pulled out his Zat and rejoined the battle. There were about twenty of them, and SG-1 was hard-pressed to keep them back.
Daniel ducked back behind a pillar as three staff blasts shot toward him. Three loud booms erupted from the pillar Daniel was hiding behind. It shook and chunks of stone broke away from it, creating a large hole above his head. Across the corridor, Sam and Teal'c's pillar was similarly focused on.
"They're taking out our cover!" Sam exclaimed into her radio, "Dad! Hurry!"
"This is it! The tunnels are here," Jacob called.
Daniel wondered how they were possibly going to get to the closet without being shot. Firing another salvo of Zat blasts, he jumped back just in time to miss the return salvo of staff-weapon fire. The pillar shook again, and Browning and Daniel dove away from it as the last piece of stone at the bottom broke away, revealing the two men.
The colonel was on his feet in a moment, the archaeologist a half step behind him. The other members of SG-1 tried their best to give their teammates cover as they ran, firing, to the other side of the corridor. They were almost there, but as Daniel reached the other pillar, a staff blast hit it sending a shower of stone shrapnel at him.
A burning pain shot through his left side, followed by a sharp, bone-crushing pain through his left shoulder. As he lost consciousness, he faintly hoped that Sam, Teal'c, and Browning hadn't been caught in the blast.
Sam ran down the corridor, with Teal'c right behind her. When Daniel and Colonel Browning didn't follow, a sick feeling began to form in the pit of her stomach. Sticking her head around the corner, firing into the slowly ebbing wave of enemy Jaffa, she crossed the corridor to their pillar, hoping Daniel, and Browning, were still alive. Teal'c laid down cover fire from the corridor.
The pillar still afforded some cover, but not for long. Browning was waiting behind it, he had obviously avoided the shower of stones, but Daniel wasn't so lucky.
He was lying on his back a few inches from the pillar, having been thrown back by the blast. Stone dust covered him almost completely. The left side of his body was covered in red spots where the shards stone had cut and imbedded into his skin. Fortunately, his glasses had fallen off; they lay just above his head, the lenses shattered. A large chunk of stone had landed on his left shoulder, probably breaking his collarbone.
Sam's breath caught in her throat. No! Not Daniel, not like Jack!
"Major Carter!" Teal'c called above the noise. "A grenade!"
Sam's eyes darted around, trying to find the grenade that Teal'c was warning her about, but then she realized it wasn't a warning; it was a command.
"Browning, when I give you a go, get that rock off of Daniel and get him back here!" she ordered.
She pulled a grenade out of her pocket, nodded at Teal'c, and yelled to Browning, "Now!"
Teal'c and Sam started pouring cover fire at the enemy, and Browning rushed over to the prostrate linguist. Heaving the large stone off Daniel's shoulder, Browning winced at the bloody mess underneath. Knowing that moving an injured person could make things worse, but not really having any other choice, he lifted Daniel and stood. He hurried first behind the pillar and then farther to the side corridor, heading for Jacob and the tunnel.
Sam pulled the grenade pin as soon as the colonel was safely down the corridor and threw it at the advancing horde. Diving for the wall, she slid behind it as an explosion ripped through the hall.
"Sam! Teal'c!" her father called.
Pulling herself to her feet, she rushed to the closet with Teal'c, into a hidden door in the back and the tunnels behind.
George Hammond stood in the control room looking out the large window at the gate room below. SG-1 had been expected back two hours earlier, but considering that it was SG-1, and that they were on a rescue mission, he shouldn't have been too worried. However, Hammond had learned long ago that he cared more about his flagship team than a general really should.
Hammond knew that he had a full desk of paperwork waiting for his attention, but he hadn't been able to pull himself from the room, in case his errant team should return. With an effort, he forced his eyes from the inactive Stargate and said to Sergeant Davis "I'll be in my office."
"Yes, Sir," Davis replied as the General turned toward the spiral staircase in the corner of the room.
Suddenly, all seven chevrons lit up at once and an alarm sounded. "Unauthorized off-world activation!" Davis called over the PA system. Hammond turned back as the Stargate emitted a swirling vortex of water that then settled back into the rippling event horizon of an active wormhole.
Hammond opened his mouth to ask a question, but Davis answered first, "It's SG-1, Sir."
"Open the iris," Hammond ordered, "Get a medical team down here."
"Medical team to the gate room!" Davis relayed the order.
The first thing through the puddle was an energy blast that hit the wall and left a charred mark on the concrete. Colonel Browning came next, almost tripping, a limp body in his arms. But he caught himself and rushed off the ramp out of the line of fire as Jacob came through, also carrying someone. Sam was next, flying out of the wormhole and landing hard on the metal ramp with Teal'c right behind her.
"Close the iris!" she yelled.
Janet rushed in with the medical team as the titanium iris slid shut. She was at Browning's side in seconds. "Daniel! Looks like a fractured shoulder and collarbone," she said, probing his injuries with her fingers. "Get him to the infirmary!" The med team took Daniel and placed him on a stretcher.
Janet moved over to Jacob and the unconscious Jack. "He's dehydrated and malnourished. Let's get him on IV nutrition!" Janet followed Jack's stretcher out of the gate room.
"SG-1, debriefing in one hour," the general told them as they removed their weapons and headed toward the infirmary.
Author's Note: Okay, next chapter will have Jack safe in the infirmary, but it's only halfway over. What else will go wrong? Or mabye it's what goes right? Hmm... Keep reading and reviewing! Thanks!