Chapter 12
A/N: Just 4 more chapters to go. I hope you like this one. I spent a lot of time re-writing this to try to get the tension I was looking for. I don't know if I was successful, but let me know what you think. I love the reviews!
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After 14 days in the mines, Sam had managed by buy everyone their own soap, towel, and razor and had a total of 58 tokens saved up.
As SG1 was eating their evening meal of bread and soup, Daniel began complaining about mining naquada. "Even in its raw state the stuff is so hard that I can hardly break enough of it off each day to make my asinine quota!"
"Daniel! That's it! I've been so stupid!" Sam exclaimed.
"What?" He said as everyone looked at her expectantly.
"Naquada is one of the hardest elements we know! The cave wall we're going to try to break out of is a metamorphisized granite called gniess. It's basically a slurry of various types of rock, ore, granite and so forth that were melted together under extreme pressure..."
"ACK! Carter! What's so important about this 'nice' rock?"
She smiled her patient smile that she saved for Jack when he didn't want details.
"Sir, naquada is much harder than the gniess that the wall of the cave is made of. Now I know the punishment for stealing is severe, but to get out of here we need shards of naquada that we can use to make hatchet and chisel type tools with. We can use the longer side pieces from the bucket I smashed a couple weeks ago, as the handles."
"I don't know, Sam, trying to get some naquada shards out of the mine is dangerous." Daniel warned.
Sam thought for awhile. "Have you noticed that the fire chondrite and naquada have a similar appearance?"
"Yeah,...so?"
"What if you said you wanted to increase your production and so you were not going to come home for lunch but were just going to heat your lunch at the work site with some fire chondrite you brought from home. You show the fire rocks to your boss when you first arrive so you aren't accused of stealing them. At lunch time you light the rocks, heat your soup, put out the fire and gather up the rocks. At some point you switch them for naquada leaving the chondrite in its place."
"It is very risky." Teal'c stated. "I will do it."
"Are you sure, T?"
"I am O'Neill."
Sam opened the bag of fire chondrite and searched through the rocks looking for ones the size and shape she would need for tools and then handed them to Teal'c.
"Try to find pieces similar in size and shape to these." She said.
Teal'c nodded and put them in the cargo pockets of his BDU pants that he would wear the next day.
"To make this believable you'll have to take the cook pot and the tripod so you can heat up your soup." Sam said.
"And if your cover story is that you want to increase your quota then you are actually going to have to do it." Daniel added.
"I understand, Daniel Jackson. I will be successful."
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The next day Teal'c successfully smuggled half a dozen shards of naquada out of the mine. Since Sam could easily tell the difference between the naquada and the fire chondrite they hid the naquada in the bag of fire stones.
Sam went to the concession area alone that evening and went right to the booth where Brenita was working. She told the woman that Daniel's bootlaces had broken and asked where she could get something to replace them. Brenita directed her to the leather smith who sold Sam several pairs of long leather laces. Sam intended to use the leather laces to attach the naquada shards to the wooden handles much as the Native Americans did to make hatchets.
Next she went to the cutlery vendor and purchased a sturdy handled knife that did not have a serrated blade. One that she could use to fashion handles for her tools out of the slats that had been the sides of the wooden bucket she smashed.
Since she wasn't going to have to buy tools with the 58 tokens she had saved up, Sam purchased a small, three legged wooden stool so the person on watch would not have to sit on the cold, hard floor. She was also able to purchase small feather pillows for each member of the team. It took every token she had to buy these luxuries but she was actually feeling quite happy and believed her naquada tools would get them out of the caves.
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Five days later, Sam and Jack were returning to their compartment after their daily showers in the laundry when Jack was suddenly hit by the blast from a modified staff weapon. He crumpled to the floor in pain.
"Jack!" Sam yelled and instinctively bent down to help him. She heard a low, wicked chuckle and looked up to see Dra'coe step out from behind another passageway. He had the weapon pointed at her.
"Yellow Hair, I want that sample from you now." he said in a sinister voice.
"Go to hell!" She said as she pulled herself up to her full height.
"I want to make sure your amator gets to watch this!" he said with an evil grin.
He leaned his staff weapon against the wall, well out of Sam's reach, and with one swift motion grabbed her by the shoulders. He powerfully slammed her back against the wall, nearly knocking the wind out of her with the force. Then he looked over his shoulder to make sure Jack could see everything that he was going to do to Sam. Jack was on his knees in pain and still unable to move or speak.
Dra'coe thrust his hips up against Sam's body and began kissing her. She pinched her lips together tightly and tried to turn her head to the side but that did not deter him. She closed her eyes in an attempt to block out the sight of him. "Get off me!" She yelled.
His hands began roaming her body. He violently pulled her t-shirt out from the waistband of her BDUs. Sam thought she was going to throw up just from his stench. He slid his hands under her shirt. She tried to wrestle away from him but he had her firmly pinned to the wall with his body. When she tried to free her arms to strike him, Dra'coe grabbed her hands and pinned them to the wall, her arms over her head. Jack, still unable to move, found his voice. "NO!" he croaked.
In one deft movement Dra'coe grabbed his staff weapon, walked over and kicked Jack in the stomach. Sam lunged at him and managed to plant a firm blow in his solar plexus before he shot her with the staff weapon and then for good measure shot Jack again.
Dra'coe stood patiently waiting until both SG1 officers were sufficiently recovered as to know what was going on, but still unable to prevent it. Jack, crouched in pain on his knees, watched in silent horror as Dra'coe advanced on Sam. She too, was on her knees, unable to move or speak. Dra'coe ran a finger down the side of her face, down her collar bone, and across her breasts.
Dra'coe then kneeled in front of Sam who was still paralyzed from the staff blast. He looked over his shoulder at Jack and said "How does it feel to know another man is going to have his way with your woman while you can do nothing but watch?"
"Leave her alone, you bastard!" Jack managed to utter in an angry, hoarse whisper.
Dra'coe smiled. Still on his knees in front of Sam, he began to unbutton his pants. Suddenly, Ledra, Sam's boss from the laundry, swung at his head with one of the wooden oars used to stir the dirty clothes. Using the oar like it was a baseball bat she connected with his head as if it were a pinata. Dra'coe fell to the floor and was out cold.
Ledra reached down and helped Sam up and then instructed her "use your towel to tie his hands behind his back."
Sam looked at her, awestruck, and then did as she was told. While Sam was tying Dra'coe's hands, Ledra went to help Jack. Once he was able to stand again she said "We must take Dra'coe to the prostitutes. They will take care of him."
"Ledra, why did you help us? You'll get in a lot of trouble..."
Ledra put her hand up to stop Sam from saying more. "Several years ago Dra'coe wanted me the same way he wants you now. He killed my amator so that I would have to go live with and work with the prostitutes. Dra'coe did horrible, unspeakable things to me, and I know he would do the same to you."
Sam and Jack exchanged glances and Jack moved closer to Sam in a subconsciously protective fashion. Ledra pulled up the bottom of her long blue skirt and showed them scars on her ankles where she had obviously been shackled. "I do not want you to know what else he did to me."
"How did you escape from him?" Sam asked.
"Eventually he tired of me and I was able to get a job in the laundry. Now I am merely paying him back for all the evil he did to me. I still have friends among the prostitutes and they have friends among the guards. Dra'coe is despised by many people. The prostitutes will have no trouble finding guards who will ...make him disappear forever. Now hurry, we must make sure no one sees us take him to the prostitutes."
Sam, Jack and Ledra drug the unconscious Dra'coe to the compartments where the prostitutes lived and worked. Ledra found the friend she was looking for and told Sam and Jack to get back to work, she would talk to her friend in private and everything would be taken care of.
Without any words being spoken between them, Sam and Jack quickly headed back to work, still feeling the effects of Dra'coe's attack on them.
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That night at the evening meal, Sam and Jack said nothing about the encounter they had with Dra'coe earlier that day. They thought it was safer for the rest of the team not to have the knowledge that they had helped make him disappear.
Instead Sam announced that her naquada tools were ready to be put to use. After the dishes had been washed Sam went behind the screen in the toilet area and retrieved the tools she had constructed.
"I thought the safest place to keep these would be in the toilet area. They won't be readily visible and I doubt that the guards would ever search there." She showed them the six tools with wooden handles that could be used as hammers and chisels.
"The biggest problem we have now," she continued "is making sure no one sees us or hears the chipping and chiseling of the cave wall."
"I've come up with a work schedule." Jack said. "We will work in teams of two, one keeping watch while the other works and you can switch off as you become tired. We'll start working every night one hour after lights out and quit one hour before reveille. That will give us 6 hours each night."
"We have just 56 days until the Goa'uld arrive to collect the naquada." Daniel stated as if they all needed reminding.
"I bought 2 new blankets today when I went shopping so we can use two of the old blankets to muffle the sound as we work. When I get more tokens I'll buy more blankets." Sam said.
It was decided that Sam and Teal'c would take the first 3 hour shift working on the cave wall each night and Daniel and Jack would take the 2nd shift. Lo'jess would rotate so that every 5th day one of them would get a full night's sleep.
Before Sam and Teal'c left the compartment, Jack pulled Sam aside "Are you ok?" He asked referring to the attack by Dra'coe earlier that day.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Good actually. I know we don't have to worry about Dra'coe anymore."
Jack studied her for a moment then pulled her into a hug. He knew they had survived a very close call that afternoon and he was relieved to have her there with him, intact.
At 10:30 that night Sam and Teal'c headed out of the compartment with 2 buckets filled with tools, 2 of the old blankets and one torch. When they arrived at their work sight, Sam showed Teal'c the weakest areas of the rock and where he needed to begin working.
The work space was very small and Teal'c and Sam barely fit into it at the same time. When Teal'c was ready to begin work Sam went down to the fresh water spring to keep watch. After an hour and a half she went back up the narrow cavern and took Teal'c's place while he went down to keep watch at the springs.
When Teal'c and Sam's 3 hour shift was up, they silently slipped back into their compartment and sent Jack and Daniel out to continue the work.