I'm flattered by your response to the last chapters. Thank you so much for your kind reviews. It's really good to know that you are enjoying this, and I hope that I can continue to keep you all interested to the very end.

UNITED WE STAND

By Lingren.

Previously:

The gate roared into life and the Sergeant's voice wafted over the speaker.

"It's SG-1's IDC Sir."

Chapter 10

"Open the iris!"

It spiralled open to reveal the blue shimmering flux. Long minutes passed before Captain Berman staggered through and collapsed onto the ramp. Three figures rushed up to him, pulling him away from the open wormhole, expecting that any minute Colonel O'Neill would also come hurrying through. Hammond took one look at the semi-conscious man and called for a medical team. He then joined the others, around the downed Captain.

"Captain? What happened?" questioned the General.

Sam had her eyes fixed firmly on the wormhole, willing Jack to step through, a wide grin on his face as he made it home again despite the odds. But, it wasn't to be. The event horizon flickered and shut down, leaving a cold, dread filling her heart. Hammond was just as stunned as was the Major and everyone else.

He turned back again to the Captain, but the man had succumbed to his exhaustion and injuries and fallen unconscious.

Janet Frasier and her team moved in and soon had Berman on the gurney, rushing him away to the infirmary.

Hammond tore his eyes away from the idle gate and snapped out an order, before leaving the scene, his displeasure beginning to get the better of him.

Sam left the room to arrange a UAV sweep of the planet, Teal'c and Jonas merely looked at each other before obeying their own orders. Teal'c felt the heavy burden of remorse. He just knew he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if anything bad had happened to his 'brother at arms'.

Thirty minutes later they were sitting round the table in the briefing room, waiting for Hammond to join them.

Both the General and Sam entered the room from the General's office, Sam carrying a sheaf of papers. Out of respect, Teal'c and Jonas stood up.

"Be seated gentlemen, Major...when you're ready!"

"Yes Sir!" She handed out a report of several sheets long to the others and took a seat herself. "This is the result of the UAV sweep we just completed. It shows there are several troops massing in what appears to be a fortress. But...this is what caught my eye. Just in the centre of this group here..." she pointed to the fuzzy image on page two of the report. "It's what appears to be someone slung between two Jaffa and being dragged along." Her voice faltered and she stopped for a moment to compose herself. She knew full well what this meant. "I believe we can all guess where Colonel O'Neill is right now."

Janet interrupted their thoughts when she entered the room.

"I have that report on Captain Berman Sir."

"Take a seat Doctor," Hammond invited.

"Sir...we can't leave him there!" Sam gushed. "We know what will happen to him, especially if this Anat hands him over to Baal. He barely made it back before."

"I am well aware of that Major. However, we don't know what we're up against as yet. We really need to assess the situation first before I think about sending anyone out there to rescue the Colonel."

General Hammond turned back to Janet.

"How is Captain Berman?"

"He has a staff wound to his side and one to his upper arm, but nothing too serious General. However, as you know, he was exhausted to the point of collapse, and suffering from heat stroke too. I expect him to make a full recovery soon Sir."

"Let me know the minute he wakes Doctor. I need to know what happened out there."

"What happened was, he left the Colonel behind Sir!" Sam retorted angrily.

"Major Carter!" Hammond was taken aback that Sam was so wound up over this, that she was bordering on insubordination.

Sam held her breath and looked down at the table, fighting the urge to cry, trying to control her fears. She couldn't give in to the tears; not here in front of everyone and certainly not in front of the General.

"May I remind you," the General reprimanded gently, "that you are not a member of SG-1, and therefore were not present when the decisions were made." Hammond knew she was upset. Knew there was no way she would have left O'Neill behind under the same circumstances, but she had her own team now. She was only part of this briefing because she had been responsible for the UAV report.

"I'm sorry Sir. That was uncalled for. I was out of line," she conceded.

Hammond accepted her apology with a gruff nod. Teal'c understood Sam's feelings and continued in the same vein.

"It is most likely that O'Neill ordered Captain Berman to retreat to the gate, before his own capture, whilst taking up a defensive position, therefore allowing Captain Berman the chance to return to the SGC," Teal'c speculated.

Sam was not happy with that thought any more than she was when Teal'c had returned with Jonas without ever going to help the Colonel out. She glared at the Jaffa across the table, and he in turn raised an eyebrow in bewilderment.

"Permission to head a rescue team Sir?" she snapped out at Hammond, turning abruptly away from Teal'c's gaze.

"If and when we find out just what's on the other side Major, and only then, I will consider it; but half your team are still off duty recovering from their wounds. Until you people come up with a reasonable plan, I'm not willing to risk any more men from this facility."

"Yes Sir." Sam held her temper in check, and managed to reply civilly. All she could think of was getting out there and bringing Jack home again.

"You have 24 hours. I suggest you make good use of it. Dismissed!" Hammond stood up and returned to his office. He shut the door behind him, slumping against it for a moment before flopping heavily into his chair, to look at nothing in particular. Nothing, except the images playing in his mind, of Jack suffering endless rounds of torture yet again. The state he'd arrived home in not all that long ago was evidence in itself as to what he had undergone at Ba'al's hands. How would the man possibly endure all that again if it came to that, and yet survive until they reached him, if indeed they could find him?

Sam left alone in the briefing room now, closed her eyes in despair. 24 hours could mean the difference between life and death for the Colonel.

OoOoOoOoO

Jack stirred. Slowly his senses kicked in and he realised he was lying flat on his back on a hard surface, not the soft open ground of the forest he had fallen onto when he'd been blasted. He listened hard, but heard nothing, not even a companion's soft breathing, all of which told him he was quite alone. His eyes flickered open, taking in the blurry darkness. Blinking a few times to clear his vision, he lay looking up at the cold grey ceiling.

The hardness of the floor beneath him, the solid walls surrounding him, all told of something he didn't want to acknowledge. Letting his eyes wander around the room to assess the layout, the truth was undeniably evident, he'd recognise a cell whenever he saw one, and the finality of his desperate situation hit home. He'd been injured and now he'd been captured. Not a good combination, and not one in which it would be easy to escape from.

He argued with himself that being captured was significantly better than being dead. After all, one could possibly escape from captivity, but not from death...unless...oh crap! He really didn't want to go there, but the reminiscent flashes of memory reminded him anyway. Unless...they had a sarcophagus!

He rolled onto his side, immediately regretting the movement. Agony bit into his very sole as waves of pain burned their way deep into his body. Gulping down a gasp, he held onto the desperate breath, keeping as still as possible against the blazing torture currently trying to claim his consciousness again.

'Well that answered that question, didn't it? These people couldn't have a sarcophagus if he was still wounded; else they would have thrown him in it to revive him, ready to torture him for their own amusement. Wouldn't they just?' he reasoned when the pain quietened down to a rational level to allow him to think straight again.

He had no idea what the time was, or how long he'd been out of it. They'd taken away his watch, his jacket, and his vest and with the feeling of coolness around his feet, it was a sure bet his boots had gone missing too.

He was left with nothing but his pants and T-shirt. There was nothing with which to clean or bind up his wounds, even supposing he could move that much. He lifted his head and tried to look at his injuries, and groaned in resignation. They were bloody, caked in mud and covered in litter and debris from the forest floor. If he didn't die from shock and blood loss, he knew he would almost certainly perish from the impending infection.

All he could do now was lie back and wait. For what, he didn't know. Whatever came first? Death, or Torture, or Rescue? Preferably the last on the list would be his ideal, but without any contact with the SGC he could only live in hope, or die in hopelessness. He smirked at his own unintentional joke…'Ha! Live? in hope? That's a good one O'Neill. You could still die before they reached you.' He continued to argue with himself. At least it was one way of passing the time before the end came, whatever it was that destiny had in store for him.

His attention was soon drawn to the only door to the private luxurious 'room' he was allocated in, in this five star hotel on Goa'uld Paradise Island. Wherever that was! The door slid upwards, opening with a grating hiss, and an overdressed Jaffa escorted by several others entered the darkened cell, their weapons trained on his every movement. Not that he could move much anyway, given his injuries.

"Hey, I was wondering when you guys were gonna show up!" Jack quipped weakly. "Ya know; the room service around here is pretty pathetic! Bed's a bit harder than I like for a start, then there's the... Argh!"

Jack knew he should have kept his mouth shut when he received a kick to his foot which jarred the frazzled nerves from his leg wound right up to his shoulder, but, he was Jack, and his reputation as a wise-ass was at stake if he'd kept quiet.

"Perhaps, seeing as you cannot stop talking, you can tell me who you are?" demanded the first prime.

At least Jack assumed the Jaffa held that position, seeing as his forehead tattoo was created in gold, just like Teal'c's was. Pushing the pain away to where it simmered in the background, he ignored the question. Another kick, this time to his thigh wound itself, had him rolling about in agony, which in itself set off another round of pain in his shoulder.

"Jack O'Neill!" he finally ground out through the persistent throbbing. "Colonel Jack O'Neill."

TBC