Disclaimer: Not mine! Just Al, Loki, Ben, and anyone else I made up.
Author's note: if you need translations for something, just ask and I'll put it in the next post.
A while later, the team arrived at the StarGate. Daniel dialed home and as soon as the 'gate was open, Sam sent the code. A few moments later, the team stepped through the 'gate together and entered the embarkation room. General Hammond was there to greet them. "Welcome back, SG-1. We debrief in one hour," he said.
As the team walked to the infirmary, Daniel and Al hung back and finished their conversation from earlier. "So you grew up with a little girl whose parents were your parents' friends?" Al asked.
"Yeah. Her parents died and my parents took her in until my parents died. Then we went into foster homes together," he said.
"You're Danny!" Al realized.
"You're Tanith Karino!" Daniel said, realizing that they were childhood friends. Between the time that they realized that they were childhood friends and Al left with Jack to go to the convention, they were inseparable. They talked about their separate lives and their early childhoods every moment that they could.
Hours later, Al and Jack were headed out of the SGC to the convention when they ran into Colonel Maybourne and some of his cronies. "Colonel O'Neill and Colonel O'Neill. Just the people I wanted to see."
"Jack? Who is this man, and why are they here?" Al asked, looking slightly nervous and twitchy.
"Look, Maybourne. The Colonel and I have a convention to go to, so if you don't mind…" Jack said, starting to push his way past the group, pulling Al with him.
"But Colonel, I have orders here that you two are to come with me." Maybourne said.
"Orders? To go with you? Why? And where?" Jack asked, alarm bells going off in his head. Maybourne looked around, staring pointedly at the security clerk.
"O'Neill, we can't talk here," he said. Jack nodded, and they stepped away from the desk. "Colonels, I have orders here for you to accompany me."
"Orders to go with you? Where?" Al asked.
"That's not your concern, Colonel. They're valid orders, signed by General Vidrine. You're to go with me." Maybourne said.
"No way in hell am I going anywhere with you, Harry, and Al isn't either," Jack snarled, starting again to push his way past him. The arm of one of the big quiet guys snapped out to block his progress toward the up elevator.
"What the..." Jack said.
The security guard was on his feet. "Is there a problem here, Colonel O'Neill?" he asked.
"Yes..." Jack started to say, then suddenly felt something cold against his neck, felt pressure and knew he'd just been injected with something. "I...I..." He started to turn, started to fall, and one of the silent men caught him.
"Colonel, would you like to follow peacefully, or do we have to do that to you, too?" Colonel Maybourne asked.
"I'll be good," she answered, quietly.
"Ma'am?" the guard asked.
Maybourne flipped his ID open toward the guard. "Sergeant, I'm Colonel Maybourne and I've got things under control here. Don't worry. I'll see to it that Colonel O'Neill and Colonel Karino get home safely. They're just exhausted." The sergeant was looking at the group uncertainly. Jack was desperately trying to form words, make his throat work, tell him to call General Hammond, but nothing was working and he sagged, semi-conscious, into the arms of two of the big guys. As the group entered the elevator to continue the rest of the way to the surface, Al was injected with the same drug as Jack had been. The drug started to turn her muscles to mush and she was wobbly and out of control. The men hustled the two out of the main gate, through the checkpoint where the NID man's badge quelled any protest by the guards. They were thrown roughly into the back of a van that sped out of the parking lot. Jack was tossed onto his stomach, his hands jerked behind his back, and cuffs snapped around his wrists. The men were a bit more careful with Al, carefully turning her over, pulling her delicate hands behind her back, and putting child-sized cuffs around her wrists. The two were then gagged. Jack and Al attempted to make noises to show their disagreement with the treatment, when they heard Maybourne's voice, again.
"Patience, O'Neills…I'll just call you Karino for now, patience. We'll have you talking soon enough," he gloated. Jack thought 'Oh shit,' knowing anything Maybourne was involved in was not going to be anything any good for Jack O'Neill, and definitely not for Al.
"They awake?" They heard Maybourne ask. One of the quiet guys poked Jack in the ribs with his gun, then kicked him in the shin. Then, more delicately, the man slapped Al's face. 'Good,' Jack thought, 'They don't want to hurt her. She does look almost fragile. That's a mistake, and they're going to pay for it.' Whatever that drug was, by then they were completely unable to respond with anything more than a moan. They could hear though, and they heard plenty.
The man above them chuckled, "Nah, they're out."
Maybourne's voice sounded very, very satisfied. "Good. What luck. That was perfect. Slipped them right out of there before Hammond or those other pains had a chance to protest. We'll have him safely in the lab before they even realize they're missing. With luck, it will be days before they check on them and discover they're gone. We'll have all our research done by then." 'Research? What research?' Jack wondered. Jack was facing Al and noticed that she looked absolutely terrified.
"We'll know everything they learned from those alien devices," an unfamiliar voice said from the front of the van. 'Oh no. They think we still know something from the aliens. I would have laughed, if I'd been able to. Maybourne, he thought he had accomplished something by getting his hands on us, and he'd find we didn't remember a damn thing of use to him. Of course, that brings up the ugly thought of what is going to happen to us. The NID is going to have to cover up what they'd just done. Even if he had the proper paper work to sign us over to NID custody, this was still kidnapping two officers of the United States Armed Forces and would be frowned on in a lot of places. Regardless, they'd gain nothing by interrogating me, and if the drugs they used to try to force me to tell them things I didn't know didn't fry my brain, I was entirely quite likely to end up very, very dead anyway. Al right beside me.' Cautiously, Jack tried testing his muscles, because he was beginning to feel less woozy, and discovered he could move, a little at least. He curled his toes inside his boots, wiggled his fingers and flexed the muscles in his legs, trying anything and everything he could to work toward regaining control and movement. If he could take them by surprise, he'd have the chance to make a break and save Al with him.
Al just lay there, curled up, more or less in a fetal position, scared out of her wits. 'What was she to do? She knew nothing of value. Yes, she was smart, yes she could read pretty much any given language, yes she had a perfect memory, but she remembered nothing from those devices.'
As Jack fought to regain some use of his body, his brain was feverishly working, following their route, and trying to think of a place to attempt a break. 'We're heading down the mountain, on the winding road I know so well, having driven it hundreds of times over the past few years. This series of sharp curves was about halfway down the mountain, and then there was an unfamiliar turn. The van had taken the side road. We weren't going into Colorado Springs. This back road cut off the main highway and headed across a range of mountains. They might have other transport nearby to take us somewhere, or maybe they were taking us to a place they had set up in the nearby wilderness. No, I didn't think that was likely. My bet was that they were going to try to get us as far away as possible from our friends at the SGC, and that meant they were headed across the mountains. They wouldn't be able to get a plane or chopper in here, but there was a little private airport a couple of hours away off this road, in a tiny little mountain town. They could ship us out of there, with no witnesses. So we had some time, time to try to fight off the effects of the drug and figure out a way to escape.'
Yet another Author's Note: I'll be going to University within two weeks. When I get there, I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have or when it'll start. All I ask is that you please be patient. I have this story finished in its entirety, and am now editing it.
