("Guilt," Daniel said. "If you want to control a populace you can do it through fear, love, or guilt. The Goa'uld aren't big on adoring worship, and for fear they'd have the Jaffa and their own technology, but they created this... machine... as some kind of instrument of 'divine justice,' if you will.")
Jack woke up.
He shook off a thick mental fog--and then jumped, nearly crashing into a wall as he checked his watch. Midafternoon, Colorado time--not that it meant anything here, especially since he hadn't checked the first time.
Running through a mental list of every curse he knew, he felt around in the main run until he found the spur tunnel that lead to Daniel's cave and scrambled down it doubletime. With the totally inappropriate thought (Score one for the Colonel) he judged accurately the distance, turning his crawl into a semigraceful drop just as the tunnel ended.
He slowed once he was on the floor, feeling his way across to Daniel. Time--he had to know how much time he had been out, how long Daniel had been alone in here.
His friend's condition, though, was unchanged. He was still chill, still breathing. A light touch to the dressing showed that the outer layer was dry--whether because the bleeding had stopped or hadn't yet soaked through was an open question.
Maybe he had been lucky and only lapsed for a few minutes. Still unforgivable--he couldn't believe he'd gone so far as to sleep in a time like this. Even if he had been awfully tired.
"No excuses," he reprimanded himself. "Stay awake."
He rocked back on his heel, transferring his attention to the cave's sole other occupant.
"And if you want to wake up at any point, that would be totally okay, too."
Silence answered him, and his good humour crumbled. It was a good defense when there was someone else to hear it--he could raise his own spirits by raising those of his team, but standing in the darkness making jokes to himself brought only a feeling of abandonment.
Turning to the wall, he put a hand to the side of his head and dragged it up though his hair. He needed to know what had happened--what could have dumped them in separate rooms in a cave network, all variously injured--except for him.
Daniel had said "Ba'al." Or he had imagined Daniel saying "Ba'al"--he wasn't sure which. But if Daniel said it, maybe it was a clue; if he'd imagined it, maybe it was a subconscious clue. Ba'al had something to do with it.
...though this was a far cry from his usual M.O.
He squelched that thought before it could develop further.
After checking Daniel--again--he deduced there was nothing to be done in the cavern and hauled himself into the tunnel again. By the time he had crawled into the main run he had enough dirt on his hands and knees to plant bulbs in. Once more, he took stock of his surroundings--the grille before him to the right, Carter's cave to his left, the dead pedestal to the far left, the narrow tunnel upward to the right. Nothing could be done from here, but maybe--
"Colonel O'Neill."
He caught his breath, didn't make a sound. "...Teal'c?"
"You must fight, O'Neill."
Definitely Teal'c's voice. "Where are you?" His voice was close--the grille. Something else struck him. "Fight? Fight what? What's going on?"
No answer.
Jack practically dove for the grille, scrabbling at the dirt to either side and jamming enough of it under his fingernails to start a small farm. (Screw the penlight. My kingdom for a trowel.)
"Hey, Teal'c. Talk to me!"
Still no answer. But no sounds of fighting--gunfire, cries, impacts. Fight. What could he have possibly meant by "You must fight?"
He'd exposed almost a square meter of grille before he realized that digging around it wouldn't be easy. He was beginning to think that the bars extended far below the floor, that--
"Whoagod!"
His hand jerked back from the bars before he could think. There on the ground, half-buried in the dirt he'd been excavating, lay Junior--broken in half, tan organs scattered.
"Gahh," Jack breathed, forcing himself to press his face against the grille and look through. Junior's mandibles reached toward his neck--he tried not to think about them.
Teal'c sat against the far wall, a good meter and a half away. His shirt had been torn away--as had one flap of his larva pouch, exposing muscle and mucous and things Jack didn't want to see. He felt suddenly, intensely nauseous and turned away.
"...damn!"
He didn't want to think about what could have caused that. Hell, he didn't want to think about that. Or what would happen to Teal'c now that Junior was quite obviously (and disgustingly) dead.
...something about that struck him as wrong, above and beyond the obvious, but he couldn't put his finger on what.
In any case, he'd located the rest of his team, none of whom were in a position to help him. That was good and bad--at least he knew where they were.
(But I still have no idea what I'm supposed to do about it! ...what am I supposed to do? Stay put and wait for a rescue?)
He'd never been good at waiting for rescue--he'd rather be rescuing himself. Besides, what if a rescue wasn't coming? He had no idea what had happened--maybe they weren't where they were supposed to be. Maybe the mission had gone so wrong that Hammond thought they were already dead. Maybe they weren't supposed to be on this mission at all. He didn't know anything about the situation except for the fact that everyone was torn up except him. What could have caused that--
(Hey, genius,) he thought darkly. (Instead of trying to think your way out of this one with your world-class deductive skills, maybe you should stop moaning and do something?)
The passage up toward the light was narrow--easily as narrow as the passage back to Daniel's cave, if not more so. And steep--god, it looked steep. It reminded him of Antarctica--
He wasn't going to think about Antarctica.
In fact, he wasn't going to think. He was going to act. As soon as he started thinking he could feel panic edging up on him--not something he enjoyed. Moving meant progress. Meant approaching a solution. He walked to the tunnel, put his hands on the sloping floor, and climbed.
After a few meters the floor broke into stairs, rough and uneven. He had to feel his way, squeezing though places almost too narrow to allow him, stair edges digging into his shins and palms and threatening to spill blood.
But the light above him grew steadily stronger, and the air didn't smell like cave any more...
He quickened. Ignoring the low ceiling and hard floors he launched himself upward, scrabbling toward the light. He could see the surface--tan dirt, heat rising in eddies from the broken ground.
The surface was... flat.
He hauled himself out of the tunnel and stood, stretching abused muscles. He'd thought that Replicator-controlled Halla looked flat--and it had. This planet was just as featureless but for a city far in the distance (a day's walk at least, if his eyes weren't playing tricks on him), the cavern entrance, and the Stargate.
He had to look twice to believe his eyes. The Gate stood within a short jog of the caves, something which Daniel no doubt had a good explanation for. He didn't. He never could understand why so many cultures put their Gate out in the middle of some vast open place miles away from anything.
Then he noticed that the gate had no DHD.
The usual kit send through to worlds with a DHD was missing, too. In fact, there wasn't even a MALP or a FRED. The ground was hard, which explained the lack of tracks--but for the region to be so utterly devoid of life defied explanation. For a wild moment he considered using the batteries and the paper clip to form a conductive circuit with the gate, then laughed. (Sure. Coupl'a batteries, a Naqahdah reactor, they produce about the same amount of energy. Right?)
He pulled one hand up to his forehead. What was the use, anyway? Even if it had a DHD--hell, if it had a tel'tak hangar and a duty-free--he still had no way to get his team up here. The stairs were too long, too narrow and uneven. And while the city in the distance might be inhabited (he thought he saw smoke and patches of green), he couldn't leave his team in the caverns for the days it would take to make it there and back. Daniel and Teal'c would be dead by then, for sure--who knew what could happen to Carter.
His head hurt.
He collapsed, letting his head drop into his hands--for a moment. Just for a moment.
The ache began between his eyes, soaking into his skull and spreading. It felt like ice, hard and cold and dark--
-
(This has got to be a dream.)
He was wandering. Rather, his mind was wandering--at least in his dream, he was standing still, idly watching Daniel and Carter poking at a large machine. It was obviously Goa'uld make--a skull-sized red crystal in the centre of two standing gold rings obviously designed to rotate independently about it. It was set in a low depression on the ground, surrounded by consoles covered in hieroglyphics, still reaching to twice the height of a human and lording over the room in which it stood.
(I should wake up now. My team is in trouble. This is a bad time to be dreaming.)
The room itself was circular and maybe ten meters wide, with several doors opening into wide colonnades and a ramp leading up to a clear-shielded balcony which rimmed the second level. Daniel had gone on for a while about temples and architecture unlike other similar outposts, but he hadn't been listening.
(Okay, O'Neill. You're going to wake up in five, four, three, two, one...)
"Anything yet?" he called.
"We just got here, Jack," Daniel called back. "It's going to take a little more time than that."
(Dammit.)
The world fuzzed, and for a moment he saw the cave again--the light to his right, the dark caverns to his left and before him, the sun glinting off--glinting--
-
Six hours.
His watch light was failing. It was night in Colorado--wherever that was. Night shift at the SGC. Hammond and Janet would be home by now, or maybe they'd be staying late--holding out hope for him to lead his team home. Maybe.
He couldn't feel his hands any more. They'd gone over every inch of every wall he could reach, searching for anything--they'd been bruised and torn on a second trip to the surface, burned on the hot Naqahdah of the Stargate as he'd attempted a manual dial. It hadn't worked, and he hadn't expected it to. He'd nearly blinded himself when the sun dipped low on the horizon, lancing into his eyes as he'd tried to engage the first chevron.
He stopped himself from checking his watch again. If the light was failing the battery was, too--though he didn't know which would be worse, checking it until it ran out or not checking it and finding it had been dead all along. If he wanted the time he could climb to the surface, assuming the sun never set.
Down in the cave the silence drowned him. He walked from cavern to cavern checking on his team, an exercise becoming more futile by the repetition. It wasn't until he returned to the main run he found anything. Apparently one corner of the cave had collapsed while he was away, leaving a pile of loose dirt and--white plastic?
He dropped to his knees, sifting through it. He found mostly flecks--broken shards of plastic, torn and disfigured. But buried by the wall was a GDO.
The collapse (or something before it) had smashed the GDO's casing, exposing the electronics inside. It had no battery, and the C batteries were too large to fit--
(...but I have the paper clip.)
...something was very, very wrong with this.
He retreated to the bench with no relief. Apprehension gripped him as he turned the GDO over, checking it over again and again. The electronics were damaged, the buttons had been pushed back into the casing, and he didn't know if he could fix it--those things should have concerned him, but they didn't. He'd searched this cavern until his mind went numb. The GDO hadn't been here before.
He smacked the casing against his hand. It stung--it was real, or at least real enough to hurt. But it made no sense.
So much of this place didn't make sense.
(No one has anything they should, but they have things they shouldn't. I can't find Teal'c until suddenly I think I hear him, and then I find him in a buried room I don't think there's a way to get into. For that matter, how did Daniel get into that little cave with me and a gut wound?--he's on the other side from the tunnel, so it's not like he fell.
(Then there's this thing. Because I swear it wasn't here. Unless it fell from the ceiling.)
Putting the GDO on the bench, he dug around the grille until he found the stone he'd kicked earlier. (You'd think there would be more of these. It's a cave, for cryin' out loud.) Looking up, all he could see was a deep darkness. He threw the stone upward as had as he could.
Thwup.
Dirt above him. As soon as he found where the stone had fallen he picked it up again, threw it again--and found more dirt. (It's always too much to ask for a trap door, isn't it?)
Ten minutes and three near-misses with the falling rock later, he gave up. He hadn't expected to find anything. (Because it doesn't work like that. How it works is I get just enough to make me think there's a way out when really there isn't, because the GDO is useless without a DHD, but it's just enough distraction to make me forget how utterly screwed I am!)
He flung the rock at the far wall with a snarl. It hit dirt. "All right!" he yelled. "The whole carrot-and-stick routine? It's getting really old!"
The silence hung around him as if asking whom he was addressing. After a moment thw question caught up with him.
"Someone planted this GDO," he said. "It didn't fall from the sky. It didn't just appear. Who put it here?"
The silence gave the definite impression it thought he was insane.
"Who's in here? Tell me!"
...maybe he was.
He swallowed. "...Ba'al?"
Maybe he hadn't checked the cavern as thoroughly as he thought. Maybe that had been a dream, or this was a dream or hell all of it was a dream inside a dream inside a dream he couldn't seem to wake up from, or maybe he was at that trigger-thin edge of madness where he didn't know which way was up or what was memory or illusion or reality. That sounded like Ba'al.
(So Ba'al got ahold of my team and is doing this to me... as some kind of revenge? Stuck me in a cave with no memory and no way out? God, I hate him.)
He picked up the GDO and walked into Carter's cavern.
Whatever Ba'al had done to them--assuming it was Ba'al--he knew that Daniel and Teal'c were out of commission. But Carter wasn't injured--if he could wake her, she could help. (Because Carter can figure out anything. Like how to work a Stargate with three C batteries and a broken GDO. I dunno, maybe she can figure out how to use the Stargate's... subspace... psychic... wave field thing to loop the current and induce a... cascade technobabble overload. A controlled one. With magnets.) He surprised himself by laughing. (Yes. Exactly like that.)
"Hey! Carter! Up an' at 'em! That's an order!"
She didn't move. He hadn't expected that to work. He knelt and shook her with similar results. Carefully, he pried one eye open--and, though her pupil contrasted enough with her grey iris to see it, there wasn't enough light to make it constrict. He was beginning to wish for the penlight again.
(All right.) He chewed at the inside of his lip. (Brain-wrack time. She's not responding to shaking or yelling, her pupils may or may not be working correctly, she's unconscious and breathing. Her eyes aren't moving, so I don't think she's asleep--or was it only part of the time you're asleep your eyes move? Argh.)
Okay. Difference between coma and a stupor. He could do this one. (If you're only in a stupor or asleep, you can... you can respond to stimuli! Like pain! If you're in a coma, you can't.)
Of course. The old "injure your second in command to see if she's asleep" gig. He'd really prefer to avoid that.
(Choiceless. Again.) "Carter, I'm going to apologize for this now, but it's something I really have to do," he said, just before he reached into one sleeve, found the soft skin on her inner forearm, and pinched down hard.
(Unresponsive.)
Had he hopes left to shatter, the word would have shattered them. He frightened himself by nodding it off--one more dire realization, one more unexplained tragedy meant nothing in this place.
He dragged a hand over his face, smudging the skin with dirt. The headache was coming back, or maybe it hadn't left.
(...I'm not feeling so good myself,) he realized. (Even for being stuck in a pit.)
He leaned back into the dirt wall beside Carter, letting her weight settle against his shoulder. He could hear her breathing.
Letting out a sigh, he studied the back of one hand.
"You know, there was this one time in Iraq," he began. "Actually I shouldn't be telling you this, but it's not the classified stuff that's important, and who're you gonna tell anyway, eh? There was this time in Iraq..."
He trailed off. (What am I doing?) This was unpleasantly like a confession--an admission of defeat. He wouldn't be saying this had she been awake, had he a way out.
"Things got ugly, It was me and my CO, off the books, undercover... no support. I don't know what happened. His watch. But all of a sudden we're pinned down, we return fire, we get out of it--but he takes a hit and we have to scrub the mission. This was... what? Third of these missions, maybe? Everyone kept saying we don't leave people behind, so I tried to carry him out. We were miles from anywhere, hostiles closing in, and he orders me to leave him."
Carter breathed at his shoulder--inhale, exhale. A gentle rhythm against the darkness.
"I argued it, he said he'd have me court-martialed, our position got made... and I left. And I never saw him again."
He couldn't bring himself to finish the thought. For a few minutes he let the near-silence envelope him, drifting with the weight on his arm and the sound of breathing.
(As much as this might be pleasant, under different circumstances...)
He glanced to his side, nudging Carter with an elbow. "You can't hear me, right? 'cause I'm just gonna keep talking."
She didn't answer.
"'cause it's funny. We go on missions, and half the time when I sleep in the field I have these crazy, bad dreams. Can't even remember them, mostly, but I wake up and I know they're there. But there was this last time that Ba'al got ahold of me--" He swallowed. "You don't think you're going to be able to sleep, something like that. But I swear I drifted off, just for a bit--I was hallucinating the hell out of everything. But I fell asleep. No dreams."
Inhale, exhale.
"I guess my point is, I'd rather you guys weren't along for the ride. I could handle all of this. Y'know, if you weren't here." He chuckled. "I guess that sounds pretty selfish when I say it out loud, huh?"
Exhale.
He let his head drop.
"We wouldn't know what hit us, sir."
He jerked his head back up--to see Carter as comatose as she had been. (Auditory hallucinations, and becoming more pronounced,) he decided, fighting the knot that swelled in his throat. "I wish you weren't here."
(I could handle all of this) he thought, and closed his eyes--trading one darkness for a deeper and more abject sort.