Author's Warnings: Here we are, then, finally, at the part of the story that some may have feared was coming and some have been waiting for... I've got to say, I've been waiting to get here all along. ;-) So, some serious Danny whumping below. Mwahahah.
Daniel's memories of SG-1's previous captivity in this place, in a cage exactly like this one, were hazy and vague. That was probably for the best, because he hadn't been feeling all that great at the time. He could remember how hard it had been to think, to concentrate, and to breathe. He'd been too sick to get a very good picture of the surroundings. As he tossed his pack to the ground, sat down with his back against the bars and looked around, he almost felt as if he was here for the first time.
The cage was actually quite spacious for the two of them. Nevertheless, the bars were close enough to each other that there was no way anyone could be able to escape through them. They were made of iron, and they were so thick that they'd easily hold even a T-Rex.
Jack was pacing around the cage nervously. "We've got to come up with something," he muttered. "There's always a way out."
Daniel wasn't entirely sure about that. All in all, the situation seemed dire. Maybe their best way would not be through action, but through talk and reasoning. "If I could just convince them to let us go. Maybe I could even reconcile between the rebels and the Goa'uldosaurs."
Even as he considered that, Daniel knew it was a long shot. The Goa'uld didn't negotiate. They just took whatever they wanted, using any means necessary. So, when a group of guards arrived to take Jack and Daniel to meet the ruler, Daniel felt chilled at the thought of what might be coming.
They were lead through the rings to the throne room again, and this time, it wasn't empty. A Goa'uldosaur sat on the throne, but not the old one that'd ruled the last time SG-1 had been here. The old, senile ruler had been overthrown and killed, and his son had taken his place. This new ruler, Rrragrathssh, was a younger, stronger and more aggressive dinosaur. He had dealt with SG-1 the last time, and he'd never been too gentle. He'd been the one who had forced Jack and Daniel down the stairs into the catacombs below the temple and closed the door after them. He'd also hit Daniel with his antique version of a hand device. Rrragrathssh was still wearing that hand device, in addition to the golden circlet of the ruler.
Jack and Daniel were taken to the foot of the throne, and then the guards retreated to give room to their ruler. The old ruler had just sat there and talked to them, but Rrragrathssh leaped down and stood right in front of them. He was shorter than they, but that made him no less threatening--he was armed with teeth, claws and the hand device, when Daniel and Jack had no weapons at all, except for the knives the dinosaurs hadn't bothered to take from them.
"I cannot believe you were stupid enough to get caught," the ruler hissed at them. "We spent many turns of the moon looking for you, and then you suddenly show up in the middle of the traitors' camp! Now that we have you, I will find out where you came from and how you disappeared like you did, as if you had vanished off the surface of the planet. Indeed, I believe that is what you must have done, although I cannot understand why you returned. I will find out," the dinosaur repeated menacingly, walking a circle around the two of them.
Jack was gazing at Daniel, raising his eyebrows, trying to express that he wanted to hear what the ruler was saying. "Just the usual threats and accusations," Daniel whispered.
Rrragrathssh stopped right in front of Jack, reaching out a clawed hand to grab his chin. "You. You do not understand me, do you?" it growled in Goa'uld-Dinosaurian. Of course Jack didn't, and Daniel desperately hoped that the dinosaur would leave Jack alone because of that.
"Yeah, roar all you wish, you won't get anything from me," Jack spat the words at the dinosaur, in English. Daniel figured the message was clear enough.
The ruler let go of Jack's face, leaving a set of shallow cuts where his claws had scraped the skin. "I have no use for you," he simply declared, and then gestured to his guards, pointing at Jack. He barked his orders to them in the true Dinosaurian language instead of Goa'uld-Dinosaurian, so Daniel had no idea what he was saying. But the thought that he had no use for Jack made Daniel fear for the worst. God, what if they were just going to kill Jack because he was of no use to them?
"No, no, no, wait, don't! You don't need to!" Daniel cried out--in English, without thinking--and tried to stop the guards who'd moved in to grab Jack, but another pair of guards grabbed his arms and pulled him away.
Surrounded by guards, looking startled, Jack shouted, "Daniel, what the hell's going on?"
Daniel couldn't tell him, since he really didn't know. He just shook his head, knowing that the worry and terror on his face would be enough to warn Jack. The dinosaur guards took Jack and escorted him away, taking him somewhere through the transport rings. Maybe to slay him as brutally as only such clawed predators could. To tear him apart... The thoughts of what the dinosaurs might do to Jack made Daniel feel sick, and almost made him forget where he was, and what he was faced with himself.
"You will tell me who you are, what you are, and why you have come here," Rrragrathssh commanded, taking hold of Daniel's jacket with his clawed fingers.
Daniel saw no reason why he couldn't answer some of that. "My name's Daniel Jackson. We are humans, Tau'ri, though I guess that doesn't mean anything to you. We are the race all Goa'ulds now use as hosts."
"Lies. Why would they choose such inferior creatures, so soft and defenseless compared to us and to the first hosts?" the ruler roared. In one fluid movement, he opened his fist and slashed down, tearing Daniel's jacket and shirt, and leaving a stinging set of claw marks on his chest. Gasping, he pressed a hand on them. He didn't think the cuts were deep, not really dangerous, but they felt nasty--and the thought that this was only the beginning made it even worse.
"Do not lie to me, human," Rrragrathssh tried the word that was strange and new to him, immediately making it sound like an insult. "So, you are not of this world. How did you come here?"
That was the one question Daniel must not answer. Never. The only dinosaurs who knew of the stargate were Ghhrrwuaghr and Grruarch, and in all the galaxy, only the SGC and the Tok'ra knew that there was a gate on P4X-215. The planet would stay safe and sheltered as long as the knowledge of the gate wouldn't spread. If the Goa'uldosaurs learned of it, they'd use it to contact other Goa'ulds, and who could know what that would lead to. No, Daniel would die before he'd let the Goa'uldosaurs know of the gate's existence.
"I'm not going to tell you," he answered, softly but determinedly.
The dinosaur stretched out the hand on which he wore the hand device, and flexed his clawed fingers. "You know what this is, do you not? You have already felt its effects."
Daniel bit his lip and stayed silent. He really had. He'd rather not feel it again, but he had little choice.
"Answer my question. How did you come here? In a space ship?"
Maybe he should say yes to that. Lie to the ruler, make him believe that they had a ship somewhere out there, hidden in the jungle. But he wasn't sure he could pull it off. He wasn't sure it'd do any good. He didn't answer.
The dinosaur pointed the hand device at Daniel, and hit him with it, the energy lashing out at him just like the familiar blue flash of a zat gun. Last time, the hand device hit had been bad enough to make him stop breathing, but then, he had been really sick. Now, he fell to the floor, engulfed in the pain that was all too familiar, unlike anything else he knew, coursing through his body, burning in every single cell. He knew it only lasted minutes, but it felt like hours.
He hadn't had time to recover, he was still lying helplessly on the floor, when the dinosaur jumped on him, a heavy weight landing right on his chest, the clawed feet drawing more cuts in the already injured skin. He groaned out in pain, but the ruler was relentless. The dinosaur pushed his reptilian face close to Daniel's. He couldn't quite make his eyes focus on it.
"This is the important question, is it not? There is something you wish to hide. Tell me, and I may spare you."
No, no, this was going all wrong, Daniel thought. He should've said they'd come in a ship. Should've said something. He had made things worse. Now, the ruler was even more suspicious, and would not take a simple answer.
Rrragrathssh brought the hand device right in front of Daniel's face. He knew all too well what two zat blasts would do. He did not want to die. He couldn't let them know about the stargate. But he was too shocked, too badly hurt, to come up with anything to say that would help, that would be convincing enough. He didn't say anything. He closed his eyes.
He saw the blue flash through his closed eyelids, and then the agony hit him, and he knew nothing more.
Jack heard the desperation in Daniel's voice as he protested to the dinos who'd stepped forth to take Jack away.
"Daniel, what the hell's going on?" he asked, but Daniel only shook his head. The fear was clear on his face. Jack got the feeling that whatever the dinos were up to, it wasn't good. It might be very bad. He tried to struggle against them, but the clawed hands tightened their hold of his shoulders, digging through his jacket. The guards activated the transport rings, and took Jack away from the room. Away from Daniel.
Daniel had clearly been afraid that the dinos were going to do something awful to Jack--kill him--eat him--whatever, but when Jack found that they'd taken him back to the roof, he realized that Daniel had probably got it wrong. The dinos dragged him back to the cage, and just locked the door after him and went away.
Jack grabbed the bars with both hands. "Hey! Come on! What's going on? You gonna bring Daniel back too?" he shouted after the dinos, but of course they didn't understand, and didn't even care enough to look back.
He sat down on the wet stone floor. At least it wasn't raining anymore. It was getting dark. He checked his watch--2100 hours. By now, Barney would either be Tok'rasaur, or dead.
Daniel might be dead too. Jack couldn't be sure, though he didn't really believe that. The ruler had wanted to interrogate them, and Jack wasn't much good when it came to that, since he couldn't speak the dinos' language. So they'd interrogate Daniel. Jack couldn't begin to guess what they'd do to him. One thing Jack knew for sure, and that was that Daniel wasn't going to break. Jack trusted him. Daniel knew the dinos mustn't learn about the gate, so he wouldn't tell them. Maybe they'd torture him and then kill him when he wouldn't speak. Jack tried all he could to force that thought out of his head. No, they wouldn't kill him yet. They'd not be that rash.
Jack couldn't think of anything useful to do. He went through every single bar around him, searching for any signs of weakness that might make it possible to break them somehow, but he found none. He sat down again, closed his eyes, leaned back against one of the all too strong iron bars and waited.
The distant sound of claws against stone made him jump up instantly. He gazed through the bars. The faint light of a quarter moon revealed the approaching dinosaurs. There were only two of them, and they were carrying something. As they got nearer, he saw that it was Daniel. He looked lifeless. Unconscious, Jack told himself. Daniel was just unconscious. They'd not bring him here if he was dead.
The dinosaurs opened the door, dropped Daniel carelessly on the floor, and left again.
Jack found his flashlight and pointed the beam at Daniel as he crouched by his side. Less than a day ago, he'd done the same, and found Daniel covered in Barney's blood. Now, the blood Jack saw on Daniel's chest was clearly his. Daniel's jacket and shirt were torn, revealing several bleeding cuts, which looked awful, but not life-threatening. Jack placed his fingers on Daniel's neck, and easily found a pulse--it was strong, but horribly fast. Daniel's skin felt warm to the touch. It didn't look like shock to Jack, but something was obviously wrong. What had the damn dinos done to him?
"Daniel, wake up," Jack shouted, and shook his friend gently, but he got no answer. After several unsuccessful attempts at waking Daniel up, his dread growing with each one, Jack gave up and began cleaning the cuts instead.
Once Jack had finished bandaging the wounds, he checked Daniel's pulse again, and felt his anxiety lift slightly when he found it clearly slower.
Unable to think of anything more he could do, Jack sat down by Daniel's side and waited.