this part follows the storyline of "Ten Commandments". It'll be continued in part 10.

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"I don't know, the Stargate is out in the middle of nowhere, I doubt it plays an active role in anybody's culture."

Carter walked forward and paused by the DHD, looking around curiously. Teal'c approached her from behind and asked, "Is there a problem Captain Carter?"

"No birds," she said rather incredulously.

A few moments later Colonel O'Neill and Daniel returned to the Stargate dragging a very pained and weary-looking Lieutenant Conner. They laid him as gently as they could on the stone steps that led to the Stargate.

"Alright, Conner, what's going on? Stargate Command received your signal six hours ago and no one showed up," Colonel O'Neill said. "Why?"

"Hansen," muttered Conner hoarsely, eyes shut wearily against the sun.

"Where is he?" Carter immediately asked. A jolt of fear sickened her stomach, but she forced it back. She was on a mission; this was no place for panic. She could scream and cry at the thought of Hansen when her nightmares came that night. Control was a must here.

She should've known it was Hansen; that was why Colonel O'Neill had asked her if she was alright with the mission several times. She'd forgotten that Hansen led SG-9.

"We need to know," she added carefully and forcefully.

"No!" Conner said, holding his hand up and breathing heavily. "Don't," he finished, dread in his eyes.

"Why?" Colonel O'Neill said.

Lieutenant Conner breathed for a moment, then his eyes widened and he stopped. "Franks," he said suddenly, forcing himself to his feet. "He…" Conner ran clumsily a few hundred yards away from the 'Gate to where scorched remains lay. Carter followed, her team on her heels, and she watched as Conner kneeled by his fallen friend, whose body he could not even bury.

"Conner…" Colonel O'Neill said.

Conner picked at the dust and remains, and found what he was looking for: he picked up the dog-tags of his friend, and looked at them miserably.

"Conner," O'Neill repeated less forcefully, "I need to know what happened." It was the same, soft voice Carter had experienced with the Colonel in the past, with her fears of Hansen and all. She looked to him with a faint, faint smile. The tender voice was mixed with urgency, but it was nonetheless tender. O'Neill cared about the people he worked with.

"Permission to speak freely about a superior officer, sir," Conner said finally, sitting up and looking at the Colonel bravely, a stony expression on his face.

Colonel O'Neill paused, tongue wetting his dry lips. "Yeah, go ahead," he said softly.

Lieutenant Conner shook his head. "He's lost it. He's out of control."

"Captain Hansen?" Captain Carter asked, not surprised in the least.

Conner continued shaking his head. "Maybe it was the sun," he said, his shoulders shrugging in helplessness. "The radiation…"

"Wha-what are you saying, the sun did this to Franks?" Daniel asked, worriedly and incredulously.

"No sir!" Conner said, "Captain Hansen did that to Franks."

"What?" Carter said.

"For trying to get back through the 'Gate," Conner clarified, looking at her, meeting her eye stubbornly.

Now she was surprised. Beating, raping, sure, of course, but literally burning a man alive? Hansen wasn't that crazy, was he? She thought back to the days since she found out Hansen had been transferred to the SGC. The beating he'd tried to give her, the way he'd chased her through the hall, the way he'd nearly raped her…yeah, he was that crazy.

"I don't buy that," Colonel O'Neill said. Carter looked at him, shocked. She did!

Conner looked to the Colonel, too. "Sir," he said, "we were trying to warn Command, about what's really going on." O'Neill was unfazed. "The people here, they think he's their god!"

"Because you came through the Stargate," Teal'c said.

"No, no, you don't get it," he said, sighing, shaking his head, his voice with a tint of whine. He groaned. "Hansen believes it, too."

Sounds like him, Captain Carter thought. Captain Jonas Hansen, demigod and bastard.

O'Neill chewed the inside of his lip and looked to her. "Carter?" he asked. Reluctantly she walked with him a few feet away from the group. He removed his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes with one hand. She moved her gaze to the ground, studying the multi-colored brownness of the dirt. She looked up when he started to speak.

"I want you to take Conner through the Stargate. Report to General Hammond what's happened here."

She knew what was going on. He was deliberately removing her from the mission. The scared Samantha in her thanked him immeasurably, but the liberated woman in her was pissed. Remove her from the mission? He really did think she was weak!

Captain Carter had two choices, and she decided she had to stay. She would run into worse than this in the future, and she had to be ready for it. If she followed his order and left, she would make herself resign and leave the SGC. She wouldn't belong there if she chickened out.

And this was possibly her last chance to prove to herself once and for all that she could handle not only Hansen, but the pressure and intensity of fear, and the threat of panic under pressure.

"No sir," she said quietly, averting her gaze from his eyes.

Colonel O'Neill raised his eyebrows. "No sir?" he repeated, as though tasting something foul.

"If you're going after Captain Hansen, I should go with you. I can get to him." She hoped. Well, not really "get to him" but she knew Hansen better than anyone else here and she knew his dastardly ways. She knew when she had to be worried and when he was amused enough to not harm her or anyone else. Of course, most of her knowledge rested around sex and rape when it came to him, but she had a good eye for his mood swings now.

"Look, Captain," he stressed. She looked down. "Either we're bringing him back for court marshal or not. I think we both know what the 'not' means."

She did know what the "not" meant. And a part of her really didn't mind. It would mean that he didn't get his ass whooped at home for his crimes, but he'd also be dead, and he wouldn't be able to hurt her or anyone else ever again; that would definitely serve to satisfy her.

"I know him, Colonel," she said, willing him to understand.

"Now that would be the problem, wouldn't it?"

Carter didn't want to reveal her weakness to the whole team and Conner, but she needed to say something. "I gave back the ring because I know how he thinks, how he operates!" To hurt and kill people, was how.

"How he likes to play god?" Colonel O'Neill finished pointedly.

She didn't need him to tell her; she knew it all too well. "I don't know how that could happen any more than you do –" she meant literally; Hansen always thought he was superior to everyone else, but it would take a whack-job to make him truly think he was divine, just like it would everyone else, "–then I am going with you."

"Wh—wh-whoa, you can't do that," Conner said, coming up to them. "There's hundreds, probably thousands of them, and he's their god. They'll die for him, they'll kill for him in a heartbeat!"

Captain Carter looked down.

"That is not your problem," Colonel O'Neill said. "Now I need someone to report back to the General and that is you," he said to Conner. Carter's hope soared; maybe he changed his mind after all!

"No sir," Conner said.

"No sir?" Colonel O'Neill repeated incredulously. She could just hear him swearing, "Oh f'cryin' out loud, is this a society of broken records or something!" He finally said, looking down at his vest, "Does it say 'Colonel' anywhere on my uniform?"

"I know the planet, the situation. I think it's suicide, but if you're going, I'm going too, sir."

"But you are not physically able," Teal'c said stoically from behind Conner.

"Franks was my friend," Conner said over his shoulder.

"This isn't about revenge," Carter said. Liar, liar, her conscience taunted.

"Maybe not for you," Conner said, walking past her. Carter stared at the ground. They were in the same boat, Conner and she. Conner lost his friend, she lost her confidence, the ability to believe in herself and what she could do. It was hard to have confidence when the mention or the presence of any one man sent you squirming or screaming into a panicky frenzy, unable to fight for yourself.

"We need to move now," Conner said, looking back at SG-1.

Colonel O'Neill sighed and looked from Conner to Captain Carter to Teal'c. "Well, we're off to see the wizard."

"I'll be back by sundown," Conner muttered.

Daniel rose to his feet. "We're mostly under cover," he said, indicating the trees.

"The probe indicated that shade, even heavy cloud cover won't protect us. It could be pouring rain and we'd still burn," Carter said.

"She's right," Conner admitted reluctantly.

"Then why on earth are we traveling during the day?" O'Neill asked, walking up to face Conner.

Carter understood why. The quicker we go the sooner he gets his hands on Hansen, she thought. Well, too bad, Lieutenant! I'm not planning on being cooked alive by this planet's sun, and when we do get to Hansen, he's mine first! I've had reason longer than you have. Granted, I'm not dead like Franks, but somehow I'd almost prefer it to the torture he put me through. He was torturing me even after I left him! She had the nightmares and the sleepless nights to prove it.

"We're not on earth. These people live in caves; I think they used to be mines," replied Conner. "They only come out at night. They're probably still after me, sir."

Colonel O'Neill sighed and put his sunglasses back on. "To Oz," he said, and Carter followed suit. It was going to be a long day…

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That night, Carter and Daniel sat by the fire. Carter looked closely at a package of MREs, holding it against the light, squinting to read the label.

"It tastes like chicken," Daniel said, chewing and putting his spoon down.

"What's wrong with it?" she asked.

"It's macaroni and cheese."

"Teal'c?" Colonel O'Neill asked from the darkness.

"The perimeter is established," said Teal'c. He tugged at a switch and lights came on, along with a warning alarm.

"Perfect," said Colonel O'Neill. Teal'c turned it off. "If any little rocks sneak up on us," he said, returning to the campfire, "we'll have plenty of warning."

When Conner sat beside her, Carter asked wryly, "So, any indigenous lions, tigers, or bears I should lie awake worrying about?"

Conner sighed. "Not much plant or animal life lives long against the sun."

Daniel put down his bowl and asked, "Now, how could something like this actually happen? I mean, the SG teams are made of supposedly well-trained professionals."

I'll tell you how, Carter thought venomously. Hansen's a flippin' bastard who's in love with control. He saw his chance at complete domination and jumped at the chance. Now he's probably thriving in it.

"When we first met the cave-dwellers, they immediately bowed down to us," Conner said. "Thought we were gods."

"Well…that's pretty common…phenomenon," Daniel said slowly. "It happens."

"Except to Hansen it has not," Conner said. "He thought it'd be safer if we allowed them to believe he was their god for a while. Said it was the system they needed for them to retake their world."

"And…you were okay with that?" Daniel said accusingly.

"Franks was our anthropologist," Conner sighed. "He agreed with Hansen, that it might be safer." Carter frowned as he continued. "The longer we stayed here the stronger they believed. "On our…fourth or fifth week here, a young child wandered out of the caves. Must've gotten lost. Hansen went out after him. He was gone for two full days before he came back, carrying the child barely alive in his arms."

Good grief, Carter thought, he sure knows how to put on an act. "Cave dwellers must've loved him for that," she said bitterly.

"Yeah, they did," Conner agreed. "He wasn't the same after that." His eyes were downcast.

"You're saying that's what sent him over the edge? The sun?" she asked. She wished suns could talk; she would've sent their sun a thank-you card if it could talk, read, write, or was intelligent in any way. Now there was no way Hansen would go back with them. She just wished Colonel O'Neill would let her pull the trigger.

"It…it wasn't any one thing," Conner disagreed. "If it was, me 'n Franks could've seen in coming. There was somethin' about him before…"

Teal'c tilted his head. "Before what?"

"There were…a few cave-dwellers who got the idea that Hansen was just a man, just like they were – thanks to Franks and I. He had them tied down to stakes and left them in direct sunlight. They were left there for seven days, then allowed back in the caves."

"There were several biblical events that took place over seven days," Daniel murmured his input.

"By then they were blind," Conner said with a small shake of his head. "Giant, bleeding burns all over them. Just took them a little longer to die… Personally, I'd rather eat a bullet."

They all stared, eyes shifting from person to person, silence reigning on them all. Finally, Colonel O'Neill said, "I'll take first watch…"

Later, Captain Carter fell into a troubled sleep. Images…flashing through her mind…sounds, sneers…it terrified her and she expected, knew that soon she should wake up screaming and sweating, but it never came. It was like she was trapped in an endless abyss of panic and torture and there was no ladder to safety!

She woke suddenly, immediately covering her mouth to muffle her scream. A few feet away, Daniel lay snoring. She looked to Teal'c, who had opened his eyes.

"Are you injured, Captain Carter?" he asked from his position of…what was it? Oh, yes, kel'no'reem.

It took her a moment but she was finally able to reply, "Yes…" in a small voice. She looked at her watch. 0221 glowed back at her in green.

Footsteps grew closer and she heard Colonel O'Neill's voice say to Teal'c, "Take watch for a minute, 'kay?" and felt him kneel beside her.

His hand rubbed her back cajolingly, and he murmured, "He's not here. I would've shot him if he were. It's okay. It's okay…" His hand stroked her covered flesh clumsily as her body began to shake uncontrollably. Carter heard him mutter under his breath, "Knew I should've sent you back…" and she fought back a dry sob.

"N-no, sir," she said defiantly, even though she was close to tears.

Colonel O'Neill paused, then continued to stroke her back wordlessly, soon lifting her into a hug. He held her until her tremors subsided, then let her go. "You okay?" he asked.

She nodded, and he left to go back to his watch.

Carter lay there, closing her eyes but never letting her body get what it wanted: sleep. She might not be consciously aware of the nightmares if she were to sleep, and might compromise the mission by waking up screaming.

An hour later, she was alerted by the alarm as primitive warriors invaded them. She picked up her gun and, along with the rest, began scaring them off. It was Teal'c's staff weapon that did the job, though, and he said, "It appears they are gone."

"Yeah," Colonel O'Neill muttered. "Conner?"

Daniel frowned. "Conner?" he echoed. He ran to check the other side of the camp.

O'Neill sank to his feet, resting against a tree, giving a dead primitive only a moment's glance.

Conner was gone.

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"They probably took Conner to…send us a message that everything's in control," Daniel said.

"Sounds familiar," Carter said.

"Which part?"

"He likes control," she told him.

"…What did you see in him?" Daniel asked in a rather pointed way. A shot of irritation flashed through her but she ignored it.

"I don't know. I guess I've always had a soft spot for the…lunatic fringe," she said. "He…he was charming," she added, shamefully. She wondered how Daniel knew…maybe Colonel O'Neill had told him so he could ask for advice on how to help her. Maybe her whole team knew and she just didn't know it.

"That's good, charming is good," Daniel said encouragingly.

"I don't know," she sighed. "I should be more surprised by this than I am, but I'm not. You know, he had this in him, Daniel. Too many years of black ops." She winced, remembering that the man behind her, who had been so kind and helpful, too had been in black ops for quite a while.

"That seems typical of U.S. officers," Daniel murmured. "The…crazier they are, the most dangerous the situations they seem to be put into." He looked back to Colonel O'Neill, who had been silent the whole time, offering no comment or input in his defense.

Carter sighed again, and spat off some load of lies about Hansen taking her rejection well. That was laughable; he hadn't even been told face-to-face! "Then we met up at Stargate Command…" Well, one could say that, she supposed. Wasn't really lying…just…telling the truth in a brighter, less-dark light.

Teal'c held up his hand to stop them suddenly, and motioned for silence.

"What d'you got, Teal'c?" asked O'Neill.

"This way," Teal'c pointed.

Over the edge of the cliff, they saw workers laboring in the rain and mud, pulling wagons and picking at stone with sharp tools. In the background there seemed to be an unfinished temple. In the center of their wet, grimy field, were several poles sticking out of the ground, a man tied to almost every one. Conner was one of them.

Colonel O'Neill sighed and tossed back the binoculars to Teal'c. "I'll be back in thirty minutes," he muttered.

"If you are planning to rescue Conner," Teal'c protested.

"I'm not," O'Neill assured. "Captain, when the time comes, I'll need your help to get through the front door."

Carter nodded. "I'm prepared for that, sir." She hoped.

He got up and jogged off.

"There will be none left to worship if this continues," Teal'c said.

"Like Abraham," Daniel murmured. Carter and Teal'c turned their heads to look at him.

"Who is Abraham?" Teal'c queried.

"Ah, a biblical figure, believed to be the father of man. God tested his faith by commanding him to give a great sacrifice, his son, Isaac."

Teal'c frowned worriedly. "Did he sacrifice his son?" he asked.

Daniel looked at him briefly before answering, "He gave it a good shot before an angel stopped him…at the last minute…" he looked away.

Suddenly, a man below them in the fields collapsed, and an authority figure – a man from SG-9 – began beating him for his "laziness".

Carter handed the binoculars to Teal'c. "Hey, look over there." Teal'c looked, and she got up.

"Whoa, whoa, where're you going?" Daniel asked.

"I can't just sit here and watch him beat that man to death," she insisted.

"You will be captured," Teal'c told her.

"A-huh," she agreed.

"And you think that's a plan?" Daniel said.

"Daniel, I can get to Hansen. That's what the Colonel was talking about."

"Well, can you at least wait 'till he gets back?"

"That man could be dead by then!" she said, and ran to help the man.

Idiot, her conscience accused of her.

I'm doing the right thing, she said to herself silently. I can't let that man die under Hansen's orders. I'm used to getting hurt because of him.

When she arrived at the bottom, at the field, she approached the man of SG-9 and grabbed him by the shoulder, landing him a punch that knocked him onto the rocks.

"Well, that was refreshing," she said aloud, imagining it'd been Hansen she just punched.

Two natives surrounded her and the man from SG-9 joined them. She held up her arms in surrender and let them march her to wherever Hansen was. She took a deep breath. Lord, she thought, and paused in her mind. The real Lord, have mercy.

She sure wouldn't get any from Hansen.