Name: Better Ways To Self Destruct (aka 'Politics...Oy')
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Summary: Some people just refuse to be helpful.
Feedback: Huge thanks to everyone who has reviewed, not just for this fic but for my others, too! It really does encourage me – and an encouraged Bekki means a happy Bekki, and a happy Bekki writes lots. –g–
Disclaimer: Stargate SG1 and the characters are the property of MGM. There is no infringement intended and no profit made.
–Part 4–
Defenders
"You must stay – stay and eat. We don't have much, but surely you will stay?"
"We cannot."
It felt like he had been repeating those same two words ever since they had arrived. These people were either unconcerned for the welfare of Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter, or they believed them to be dead. Both behaviours were unacceptable.
There were few signs to show the intensity of Teal'c's frustration. Only Jack O'Neill could have deciphered the slight changes in Teal'c's expression, the subtle inflections in his tone. It had long since become second nature for the experienced warrior to suppress his emotions. "Let your desires rule you, Teal'c, and they will betray you to your enemies," his former Jaffa master had once told him. Still, this time it was getting very irksome. He wondered briefly whether Bra'tac's advice really applied to a handful of self-destructive refugees.
Teal'c cast his dark gaze across to Daniel, who stood negotiating on the other side of the cavern. The underground cave network was being used for shelter and the chamber in which Teal'c now stood was buzzing with nervous excitement. The Jaffa allowed the conversations and movement to go on around him, satisfied that as long as he remained stoic and severe, he would encounter no further disturbances. The small, squeaky man who had been trying to tempt Teal'c to eat took the opportunity to slip hastily away into the crowd; he collided with Daniel, laughed a nervous apology and darted off as quickly as he could.
Daniel raised his eyebrows in question.
"He was nominated by unanimous vote to attempt to persuade us to remain," Teal'c explained. "He failed in his assigned task."
Daniel pursed his lips, thoughtful gaze following the mouse-like man as he scurried out of the cavern.
"What have you discovered, Daniel Jackson?" There was a certain impatience hidden behind Teal'c's level tone.
"Oh, er… not a lot."
Teal'c raised his chin and Daniel continued: "Don't get me wrong, they've been very willing to tell me what they know, but as for what the device does…" He trailed off with a hopeless half-shrug. "From what I can tell they have no idea where the device took Jack and Sam, assuming that it didn't just…" He made a grim hand-gesture resembling a small explosion.
"It did not." Teal'c's voice was anchored by certainty. "It was indeed a transportation device."
"We can't be sure, Teal'c," Daniel reminded him.
"If the people here cannot enlighten us as to the location of Colonel O'Neill and Major Carter, we must return to the Stargate," was Teal'c's response. Without waiting for a reply, he strode uncompromisingly towards the tunnel that led to the surface.
"Teal'c, we can't," Daniel called after him, but Teal'c, his patience expended, did not slow. Only when he stepped through into the tunnel did he hesitate.
"Do you refuse to listen even to your friend, sir?" The voice was frail, the question enough of a surprise to cause Teal'c to stop and turn. An elderly woman, leaning heavily upon a charred and blackened stick, surveyed him with watery eyes. Unabated by his cold stare, she prompted, "Well?"
"I have no time for excuses."
"And your friends have no time for mistakes," she observed calmly. "You cannot conduct a blind search: you will not find them; nor can you return to your world: the Circle is inaccessible and more time will be lost."
Daniel blinked at her through his lenses. "You know where they are?"
The age-worn woman shook her head slowly. "No," she said. "I know little…I am old."
"Well, you must know something," Daniel asserted, "otherwise you wouldn't have said anything."
She smiled at him. "You are an astute man, sir."
"Er – thanks."
Teal'c was impatient. "What information can you provide us on the location of our friends?"
"I know little," the woman replied, then raised her hand in anticipation of the strangers' protests. "However."
"However?" Daniel's voice was hopeful.
"However, I am willing to discuss matters my people fear to speak of. Come."
She spoke with an authority long ignored and Daniel could not bring himself to disobey; he helped the her to negotiate the uneven ground as Teal'c led the way restlessly toward the surface.
-------------------------
"Ready to move yet, Colonel?"
They had been sitting in restful quiet and Sam had left it as long as she could. Now she was getting anxious that if light began to fade, they were stranded with no cover. If they were to survive the night, they had to find shelter.
"Yeahsureyoubetcha."
Carter let her smile strengthen her voice. "Let me help you up, sir."
O'Neill grumbled something about not being seventy just yet, for cryin' out loud. Still, even he couldn't be sure on his feet when he couldn't see the ground on which he was standing. He felt for Carter's outstretched arms.
"I'm up," he announced a few moments later, "I'm up."
Sam's grasp on his shoulders remained strong for a second longer. Then she released him – a little reluctantly – and he smiled triumphantly.
"Piece o' cake!" he exclaimed. "Which way now, Major? Hey, we could do that game – you know. Five steps forward, turn ninety degrees to the right, forward five more steps…"
"Colonel." Her voice demanded seriousness. "Trust me when I say this isn't going to be easy. One wrong step, sir…"
"Spoil-sport," Jack muttered. "So how are we planning to play this? I knew there was a reason I should've sponsored a guide dog."
"I think that the best way would be for you to put your hands on my shoulders, sir, and follow me."
"Sounds like a good plan."
"I hope so, sir."
He heard her boots crunching on the gravel as she turned on the spot in front of him. He held his arms straight out in front of him and felt her warm fingers guide his hands to her curved shoulders. He gripped firmly.
"Lead the way, Major."
She took it slowly, as he knew she would. One step a time. She could be as methodical as Daniel when she needed to be; other times, she could be as quick to react as Teal'c. Slowly, through many cautious steps on a slight decline, he fell into rhythm behind her. His thoughts wandered.
He had her at arm's length. He could visualise her in front of him, the back of her neck visible as she concentrated carefully on the uneven ground they were treading. Her shoulders had started off as tense, consciously kept level; now they relaxed beneath his hold. She wore the same bulky backpack of supplies as he did, keeping him at a distance. It was as if all those military regulations and carefully devised 'reasons why not' had materialised in front of him, preventing him from getting any closer. For years he had been forced to hold Sam Carter at arm's length. One day he'd wrap those arms around her and–
"Argh!"
"Colonel!"
He'd stumbled, foolishly consumed by his preoccupation with his second-in-command. "I'm good," he said quickly, "I'm okay."
"Colonel, you almost fell!" There was a shade of panic in her voice and for some reason that irritated him.
"Yes, thank you, Carter, because I hadn't been aware of that at all." It was enough that he couldn't see, without feeling like a liability – which, of course, he was. "Let's get back to it, shall we?"
Sam touched his hand. He fell quiet. It wasn't the touch alone but the silence in which she did it, the way her shoulders were rigid again that told him something was wrong. Keeping one hand on Carter's shoulder, Jack slowly unclipped his sidearm.
There was a sound behind him, a sound so slight he almost missed it; but he wasn't one for missing things, not when lives could be at stake. Their lives.
Then his arm was raised, the safety was off, his finger was tense on the trigger.
"Another step and I'll blow you clear off this mountain," he growled to the assailant he couldn't see. There was a pause. Adrenaline was running high in O'Neill's system and he knew there was someone there. Knew it. Less than six feet away. Had to be.
Then: "Colonel?"
It was at that moment he knew it was over. He heard that waver in Carter's voice and understood it. She only spoke like that when they were outnumbered, outgunned and surrounded.
Reluctantly, he lowered his pistol.
----------------------------------
It was only when they surfaced, only when they reached the open air that Daniel became aware of the smell again. That smell. How he had ever forgotten its potent presence he could not fathom, but out amongst the trees the stench of human destruction was oppressive to the point of nausea. It brought back images of those bodies, conjured up the horror of their tomb. Daniel was no stranger to human remains, but that scene had been unspeakable.
He turned his attention back to their elderly guide. All she had told them once out of the caves was her name; now on level ground, Sarai strode meaningfully ahead. Daniel fought to keep up with her but his desperate questions were persistently ignored. Teal'c walked on behind, detached and resigned. If this delay resulted in his friends' deaths, he would not forgive these people.
At last Daniel gave up his torrent of questions. Much to both his and Teal'c's frustration, Sarai spoke as soon as he had fallen silent.
"As you have undoubtedly already found out, we are the last survivors of a devastating war," she said. "That war destroyed our civilisation twenty-eight years ago – still we do not know what became of our enemies."
"Twenty-eight days," Daniel corrected.
"That is not what I said, Doctor Jackson." Firmly, she repeated: "Twenty-eight years."
"That is impossible," Teal'c stated with authority.
"And what would you know of it, stranger?" Sarai enquired calmly. There was no offence in her tone.
"The bodies my friends and I uncovered," responded Teal'c, "had only recently expired."
Sarai raised fine white eyebrows. Anxious not to offend the only woman who seemed to want to help them – but at the same time wondering if she still had control over all her faculties – Daniel explained,
"Teal'c just means that it can't have been long since those people… passed away."
"No more than three or four weeks," Teal'c assured her.
Daniel added: "But not twenty-eight years, right, Teal'c?"
"Correct."
When Sarai responded, the twinkle in her eye reminded Daniel of a certain glowing entity he had once encountered. "Just because the fire still burns," Sarai said, "must that always mean the flames kindled yesterday?"
If this is one of those candle-lit, meal cooked long ago riddles, Daniel thought, I'm gonna scream.
Aloud, he said: "Okay, well, I guess it doesn't matter when it all happened… we just really, really need to find our friends, so if you can tell us anything…"
"Daniel Jackson!"
The urgency in Teal'c's voice caused Daniel to turn instantly towards his Jaffa companion. That kind of shout was always what Daniel liked to call a 'look or duck' yell, and either action tended to lead to fairly serious revelations. His muscular friend was pointing with a steady arm through the gradually thinning trees. Daniel cursed softly.
Perhaps Teal'c had realised beforehand, but Daniel certainly hadn't: they had been walking parallel to the road, and now the trees were thin enough to see across to the opposite plains. They couldn't have been far from the original track they had found – the Stargate was in sight some yards away – but the view could not have been more different. An imposing metal barricade obscured their vision, stretching along the very centre of the road's length.
Teal'c ventured forward to the edge of the trees. Drawing a flare from his pack, he triggered it; it erupted into a life of heat and sparks, and when Teal'c hurled it towards the road, it lit their eyes with a spectacular explosion.
"This barrier appears to be a defence system of some kind," Teal'c observed calmly. Daniel tried to blink away the floating patch of brightness that had invaded his field of vision and turned to Sarai.
"That wasn't there when we got here," he said, though he had a suspicion she already knew this. "There wasn't anything when we got here! Just, just the Stargate and the DHD…" He trailed off. "This is why we can't go back through – the others knew but were too afraid to tell us why we couldn't go home."
Sarai inclined her head gravely.
"How did this obstruction come to be here in such a short amount of time?" Teal'c wanted to know.
"Your friends activated one of our defence systems," Sarai answered; "inadvertently, I know, but they activated it nonetheless. It is how we came to know of your presence here. We sent our youngest out in the hope that whoever now walked through our land would have heart enough to spare a child."
"And if we had not?" Teal'c asked gruffly. "None should send out a child as bait."
"My granddaughter was not used as bait," Sarai responded, and for the first time her words shook slightly with emotion. It was anger. "She was protected, more than you know! I saw to it myself!"
Teal'c matched her gaze and for a long while it seemed neither would back down. Then, softly, Teal'c offered his apology. She took it. Daniel moved the conversation on hastily.
"I still don't understand how any of that made this huge fence suddenly materialise," he said. "We were walking along that road less than an hour ago."
"Our defences were dormant. You came; they reactivated. The barricade automatically reassembled itself underground as soon as you came through your Stargate."
"And when Jack activated that device, it…popped up?" Daniel guessed. "That's incredible."
Teal'c had no such fascination. To Sarai he was expectant: "You have not yet explained to us where our friends have been taken."
Sarai nodded slowly and made her way towards a protruding root at the base of one of the many trees. With the help of Daniel, she lowered herself down to sit. Then she gave Teal'c his answer.
"We developed a method of defending ourselves without killing our enemy infiltrators," she began.
"Without killing," Daniel echoed when she sighed heavily, "without killing is good."
"The wall would kill, as you have seen, but the outposts… the outposts were meant for asserting our humane values upon our enemies. If it were possible, we would not kill."
Teal'c questioned: "How, then, may such harmless technology be called on for defence?"
"I did not say they were harmless," Sarai replied. "First, they blind with great pain. Then, they erase the memories of their victims. Lastly, they transport the disabled conscripts back to their mountainous homeland. If there is an attempt made to withdraw the victim from the beam of the device, they are instantly transported, no matter their condition. This may be fortunate, allowing for only mild visual impairment; other times it would result in fatality. Memory alteration interferes with the brain, sirs, and the mind is always a dangerous place."
She let the silence hang ominously in the air. Then she continued: "Our enemies were barbaric in my people's eyes. They killed every one of our soldiers; so, in wishing to evoke guilt within their nation, we returned their spies to them. Yet they were disabled and useless. Humane? I think not."
"But you didn't kill them," Daniel insisted.
"And what good did that do? What good do you see here?"
Daniel glanced at Teal'c. The Jaffa looked soberly back at him, and he knew neither of them could provide an answer.
The stench still hung unyielding in the air.