"It doesn't make any sense!" Sam slammed the folder shut and pushed it into the middle of the conference table, as if distance would help her make sense of it. She looked at Daniel and Teal'c who sat across the table from her. "The gate diagnostics came up perfect. I've checked all the logs and everything matches with Colonel O'Neill's report." She had spent the last eighteen hours doing a complete gate overhaul and came up empty. Frustration didn't begin to cover how she felt.

"You expected something different?" Daniel asked.

"I don't know. I hoped that I would find something that would explain what happened. There's no reason for the blackout. The logs just register a power-surge right before everything went down. We couldn't come up with a reason for the surge and everything was back on-line within ninety-seconds." She looked at Daniel. "What did security have?"

"Nothing. Jack overrode the security camera's usual protocol so they couldn't record what he was doing at the computers. He admitted that in his report to the general. He said he didn't want Siler and Walter 'looking over his shoulder'. Siler tried to hack in and readjust the cameras, but I guess it takes a lot of work to hack Jack's password. The black-out reset everything but it was too late by then."

"Could not a malfunction of the Stargate disrupt the power?" Teal'c asked

"Yes, but that's not what happened here," Sam answered. "Everything points to an internal cause. The Stargate had the only uninterrupted power in twenty levels."

"Yeah. I heard that General Hammond gave Jack quite a dressing down for leaving the base open to attack." Daniel glanced back across at Sam. "Was there any damage to the gate?"

"No. The gate checks out fine. Besides managing to recall Teal'c and SG-14, we've even established a viable connection between here and P45-393, the planet Jack was connected to when the power failed. However, we can't make contact with the UAV or the MALP and there is no sign of either anywhere near the gate. Colonel O'Neill said he lost contact with them while he was surveying the area. General Hammond authorized a recon in three hours to locate and retrieve them."

"So until then, are we going to believe that Jack did all this for fish?"

"I cannot."

Sam and Daniel both looked over at Teal'c. "I don't want to believe it either, Teal'c, but do you have another explanation?"

Teal'c didn't respond and they sat in silence for a couple of minutes. Sam's mind drifted back to her conversation with the colonel just before he left. She should have known right away that something was wrong, but it was so hard to tell. On the surface, the conversation seemed normal enough, but in the end, it felt like he'd been saying goodbye forever, not just for a week. Daniel had told her he'd thought the same thing. She looked over at Teal'c. "Teal'c, did the colonel leave any messages for you? Any notes or explanations?"

"He did not."

"See, now that doesn't make sense. Why would he talk to me, then go all the way over to Daniel's and talk to him, but not leave a message for you. If he were saying goodbye, why wouldn't he say goodbye to you?"

"It is possible that he did."

Daniel leaned forward. "What?"

"Prior to the mission, O'Neill invited me to participate in a boxing match. He often engages me in simulated combat in order to discuss his thoughts. I was instructed to 'keep an eye on' the two of you and to make sure that you always had someone to 'watch your sixes' when you become involved in your scientific pursuits," Teal'c said. "He then said that he would miss our bouts and that he did, indeed, consider me as a brother to him."

"Jack said that?" Daniel's disbelief was obvious.

Teal'c inclined his head. "It is a sentiment I shared with him while trapped in the X-301."

"When you thought that you were going to die?" Sam didn't need to see Teal'c nod to know the answer.

"And you didn't ask him what was going on?"

"I could not, Daniel Jackson. O'Neill is a clever strategist and did not allow me the opportunity to discern his motives."

"He's good at running away, that's true," Daniel muttered. "He's a hit and run expert."

Teal'c inclined his head again, but Sam couldn't tell if he agreed with Daniel or not. A thought struck her. "If the colonel said goodbye to Teal'c four days ago, that means he planned this."

"Jack planned on blacking out the SGC?"

"Maybe not the black-out. But it had to be something that he thought would get him reassigned or up for a court-martial."

"Something besides looking for fish?"

"Colonel O'Neill would never risk his career over fish." Sam stopped and rephrased the statement. "He would never risk other people's lives over fish."

"I concur with Major Carter."

"Can't we just access the readings from the MALP and UAV sent beck to find out what he was up to?

"No. Colonel O'Neill had all the information fed directly to one data recorder and he took the disk with him." Sam made a mental note to make sure that could never happen again. "Diagnostics only show that the gate was open when the computer system went down."

"So, what could've he been doing on P45-393 that would overload our systems and crash the computer?"

"That's the problem: Nothing. According to the logs, the gate was only open a couple of minutes before the crash. That's barely enough time to send the MALP and UAV through."

"Could the logs be faked?"

"Well, I could do it. Siler might be able to come up with a work-around. There are a couple of the other techs who are quite good, but none of them could make the backup records match."

"And do they match?"

Sam nodded. "Perfectly."

"Could someone control the computers remotely?"

"No. Something of this scope would have to be done in the control room. We have too many fail-safes in place for someone to hack in."

"Well, there wasn't anyone else in the control room with him," Daniel said. "I looked into the possibility that someone could have used a personal cloaking device or that a Reetou had gotten on the base. The techs have checked everything they can think of and everything says that Jack was alone in that room. If the computer was hacked, Jack is the only one who could have done it." Daniel frowned. "Unless Jack's not Jack."

"No," Sam said. "It was definitely Colonel O'Neill."

"It would not be the first time O'Neill has been duplicated."

"Teal'c has a point. How can we be sure?"

"I, ah, I asked Janet to check," she confessed. "We all had complete physicals after our last mission and there was nothing wrong with the colonel. We haven't been off world since. There have been no breaches of base security, no sign of alien attack or infiltration to lead us to think that he had been 'replaced'." She didn't regret her actions, but she wasn't exactly proud of them. "Just to be sure, Janet took some skin samples off the lamp Colonel O'Neill was playing with in my lab and compared it to his DNA on file. It matched."

Daniel stared at her. "You checked his DNA?"

"Janet was mad that General Hammond had let the colonel leave without a physical." Sam shrugged. "It was the only way to be sure."

"It's too bad the general didn't confine him to base, " Daniel said.

"I agree. But he had all the paperwork done. He admitted what happened and had an explanation for everything. By the time we realized that none of it made any sense, he was gone."

"As I said, O'Neill is a clever strategist."

Daniel scoffed but didn't argue the point. "Okay. So, if we're sure Jack is Jack, what does that leave us with?"

"Nothing," Sam said. "It leaves us with absolutely nothing."


&&&&&


"This is so not good," Jack muttered to himself.

He crouched in the underbrush and studied the five Jaffa who guarded the Stargate. So much for the easy part. No one was supposed to be guarding the gate. For that matter, no one was supposed to be anywhere on the planet at all. Typical lousy intel work. He shifted his attention to the clearing off to the left where three large Jaffa-style tents stood. From the equipment and supplies, it looked as if the Jaffa had been here for some time and planned to stay a while longer. The gate had to be disabled and he had to do it without letting anyone know that he was doing it. At the very least, he'd have to do it without being caught and killed.

Jack rolled onto his back and slid down the slight incline into the dry riverbed that circled the clearing. The stone-strewn gully provided perfect cover as he worked his way a mile upstream to his stash of equipment. The Tok'ra had thought it foolish to drop him and his equipment down so far from the gate. If he had gone with their plan, he would have ended up in the middle of the Jaffa encampment. It was a miracle the Tok'ra were still around; they knew squat about black ops. They may be great at infiltrating the Goa'uld as double agents, but real action always involved a Tok'ra death. Well, dying wasn't on his agenda, thank you very much.

Once safe in the small cave where he'd cached his equipment, he did a quick survey. He couldn't use the claymores or C-4. That would bring all the Jaffa in the area down on him. What he needed was a distraction, preferably one that wouldn't alert them he was here. Of course, just because he couldn't blow things up, didn't mean he couldn't burn them down. As part of this mission, the Tok'ra had given him several containers of incendiary powder. Once lit by flame or explosive, it would burn hot enough to melt metal and blaze for hours. With the amount of bad intel the Tok'ra had given him already on this mission, Jack was happy for the chance to try it out.

He put one of the canisters of 'Tok'ra napalm' in his satchel and dropped a flare into his vest pocket. After he double-checked the load in his P-90 and his pistol, he dug out a zat and secured it to his belt. Then he circled around the entrance to make sure there were no signs that pointed to the cave, and slowly worked his way around to the clearing. Fifteen minutes later, he crouched directly behind the Jaffa campsite.

None of the Jaffa were visible, but he could hear movement inside the tents when he crept close to the shelters. The incendiary powder looked of sugar and a smell like stale peppermint wafted from it as he poured it along the edge of the tent. He ran to the next shelters and duplicated his actions. Then he retraced his steps to the cover of the wood, lit the flare and tossed it onto the white trail of powder he had just laid. It erupted to life with a quiet roar and raced along the path he had laid. Blue flames consumed the tents in seconds and sent their occupants running out in confusion and terror. Jack ducked into the underbrush and worked his way back to the gate. Smoke from the tents began to fill the air over the clearing and shouts from the Jaffa who fought the fires carried over to him.

The Jaffa that guarded the gate watched as the smoke rose and listened to the cries of their comrades. Jack could hear them argue, unsure of their duty. Another shout, this one a definite call for help, decided it for them. Two of the guards ran off and two more followed after, leaving only one, lone guard at the gate. He, too, seemed concerned with the flames, but he stood to his post. So it goes, the good soldier dies first.

Jack crept to the edge of the clearing and waited until the guard's attention was once again drawn to the smoke and flames, then he sprinted out into the open and zatted the guard. The Jaffa fell like a stone. Jack zatted him twice more, in hopes that a missing Jaffa would raise fewer questions than a dead one.

Ignoring the empty space where the dead Jaffa had lain not more than a second ago, Jack ran to the DHD and pulled open the control panel. He stared at the complex circuitry inside and fought to remember which doohickey did what. I am so over my head, here. After a moment's hesitation, he reached in, grasped a small greenish crystal and jerked it free from the machine. The DHD emitted a short moan, blinked twice, and then lost all power. Jack smiled to himself, pocketed the crystal and closed the control panel. Score one for the lucky inept. A blast from the burning tents rang through the air and Jack hoped he'd been lucky enough to destroy their armory.

It was the slightest whisper of movement that saved him, the tiniest suggestion of cloth rubbing on cloth and the faintest taste of ozone in the air. Jack spun and dove off to the side as the searing blast of a Jaffa staff weapon burned past his side. He rolled to the right, pulled his zat, and returned fire, a strategy that would have worked if there had been only one attacker. As it was, the two zat shots struck the lead Jaffa, but left the second one standing.

Jack continued his roll and ignored the burning pain in his side. The Jaffa shot again. The energy weapon blasted a hole into the ground where Jack had been a moment before and sharp fragments of rock bit into his face and arms. A second shot split the air next to his head. The wave of hot air from the passing bolt of energy singed his hat and left the smell of burnt hair hanging in the air. Jack spun out of his roll and turned his momentum toward his attacker. The Jaffa didn't keep up with Jack's sudden change. Jack dove under the staff weapon and drove his shoulder into the stomach of the Jaffa.

The Jaffa fell with a grunt. Jack slammed into the hard ground on top of him. The staff weapon clattered to the side and sent its final blast into the DHD. Jack's zat popped from his hand and landed out of reach. The Jaffa twisted and belted Jack across the face. Jack's world spun and his head rang. Something wet and warm dripped over his eyes and clouded his vision. Jack struggled to draw the knife sheathed at his side. The Jaffa grabbed for Jack's throat and squeezed. Jack fought to unsnap the leather band that held the knife in place. The world faded and his blood roared in his ears.

The knife came free from its scabbard.

Jack sliced the knife across the Jaffa's throat and rolled free of the dying man's grasp. Gagging for breath, he stumbled over to the zat. Six shots later, the only signs of battle were the burn marks on the DHD. Jack picked up the staff weapon that still lay on the ground and tossed it into the tall grass next to the DHD. In the distance, the camp burned white-hot and another explosion pushed more flame and smoke into the air. Jack didn't know how long his fight had lasted. No more than a few seconds. No one arrived to investigate the sounds of the staff weapon blasts. The sounds and confusion of the fire must have masked the fight. After one last look around, he melted into the concealing brush in the woods.

It only took fifteen minutes to arrive safely back in his bolthole. He sat on a low ledge of rock and took a personal inventory. The first blast had left an angry burn along his side that hurt like hell, but the flack vest he wore had absorbed most of the damage. The scorching on his face and neck wasn't severe and hurt less than did the bruises that the Jaffa's death grip had left. What bothered him most were the cuts and punctures caused by the debris the staff blast had thrown up. He wiped the dried blood off his face and covered the lacerations with some antibiotic cream.

Not a bad outcome, really. Three Jaffa were dead and his wounds were superficial. He pulled the green crystal out of his pocket and set it protectively on his stack of armament. Without the crystal, the DHD wouldn't work but if all went well, he would be able to replace it and get off this rock. The sounds of the Jaffa who fought the fire driftedintothe cave as he gathered the surveillance equipment he needed. It seemed the Tok'ra were right about the powder. The intel may have stunk but at least the equipment worked. With any luck, the fire would burn long enough to keep the Jaffa distracted while he reconned the area.

He might live long enough to finish the job after all.


&&&&&


The talk in the corridors of the SGC was all about Colonel O'Neill. Daniel could hear snatches of conversation as he hurried along to the conference room that SG-1 had commandeered. The speculation ranged from the mundane to the outrageous and Daniel fought the urge to eavesdrop on the rumors. Even after they had worked on the problem for twenty-four hours, the team didn't have any better idea what had happened than those who gossiped in the halls did.

Sam looked up from a report when Daniel entered. "What did the general say?"

"Nothing. Everyone he's talked to says that they have no operations going on that involve Jack." Daniel sat down, grateful to be able to rest. "He's afraid to push any harder because Kinsey already suspects that something is up. I think we're running out of time here. If we can't come up with something soon, Hammond is going to have to go with Jack's explanation in order to keep Kinsey from going after the SGC."

"I haven't had any more luck than the general," Sam confessed. "Teal'c reported back from P45-393. There's no sign of the MALP. They're doing a wider search in case something has walked off with it, but I wouldn't hold my breath. It's almost as if the colonel didn't send the MALP there at all."

"Then what did he do with it?"

"I don't know. I can't figure out how he could have done any of this." She rubbed her hands across her face. "We need to talk to him."

"Yeah, well, we can't."

"Why not?"

"We can't find him." He continued before Sam could interrupt. "Hammond sent a couple of Special Forces personnel over to his house this morning. The SFs reported that it was locked up tight and his truck was in the garage. The neighbors said he packed a bunch of stuff into a cab yesterday afternoon and left. The SFs are tracking it down now."

"Just . . . great."

Daniel thought that summed it up perfectly. By far the biggest mystery in the universe was Jack O'Neill. It was hard enough to understand him in normal circumstances; they didn't stand a chance when he started being underhanded. Daniel thought back over the conversation he'd had with Jack in his apartment and brought up the only possibility they hadn't covered yet. "I think we should contact the Tok'ra."

"What? Why?"

"Something Jack said to me at my house. Anise was here a week ago. She wanted to talk to Janet about the aftereffects of the armbands."

Sam nodded. "Yes. But she didn't talk to me."

"Me, either, but she could have talked to Jack."

"It's possible." Sam considered it for a moment. "So, this has something to do with the armbands?"

"I don't know, but I think we should check it out."

Sam nodded. "I'll see if I can get a hold of my dad. Meanwhile . . ." she pushed a report across the table at him, "see if you can find anything in this report."

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes until there was a knock at the door and Walter came in.

"Major. Dr. Jackson." He crossed to the table and handed Daniel some papers. "The general asked me to deliver this to you."

"Thank you, Walter." Daniel glanced at it. It was a report from the SFs sent to track down Jack. That was quick. He wondered what kind of pressure Hammond put on them to get results that fast.

"Sergeant," Sam's voice interrupted Daniel's perusal of the file and stopped Walter at the door.

"The MALP that Colonel O'Neill sent through, what was on it?"

"Ma'am?"

"According to the reports, the MALP was heavily loaded. What did Colonel O'Neill send through?"

"I don't know, Major. When he brought it into the gate room it was already packed."

"He loaded it himself?" Daniel asked.

Walter shrugged. "I could look into it for you." His eagerness to help wasn't lost on Daniel. The entire base seemed ready to jump to Jack's aid.

"Do that, Sergeant," Sam ordered. "In fact, I want you to look into what requisitions the colonel made in the past week. I want to know everything down to a paper clip."

Daniel looked over at Sam. "You think he sent supplies?"

She sighed and shook her head. "Assume nothing," she said.

In that case . . . "Then maybe we shouldn't stick to requisitions. We need to run a complete check for missing supplies," Daniel said. "Anything that Colonel O'Neill might've had access to and might need for a mission."

"That will take forever, Daniel," Sam said. "We'd almost have to do a complete inventory."

"All right," he conceded. "How 'bout if we just focus on the big stuff: survival gear, first aid supplies, the usual off world equipment?"

"That's still a huge job."

"I can get some volunteers to help," Walter said. "We could have it done in a couple of hours."

"Fine, Sergeant," Sam said. "I'll let the general know what you're working on."

Walter saluted and left.

Daniel grinned over at Sam. "Volunteering to do inventory, that's a new one."

"They're as worried as we are." Sam looked back at the report before her. "I don't think the colonel knows the type of loyalty he inspires in people."

"I doubt it." Jack's refusal to acknowledge feelings didn't end with his own. Daniel turned his attention back to the report Walter had brought in. He skimmed through it, stopped on the second page, and went back to read it again. Just when I thought it couldn't get worse. He put it down with a sigh and rubbed his eyes.

Sam looked up. "What is it?"

"Jack's movements since leaving home. The cab took him to the airfield where he hopped a transport up to Minneapolis. It looks like he's headed to his cabin. Hammond has sent someone round to collect him and bring him back here."

"That's good news, then."

"Not really. You know that stuff he packed into the cab?" He waited for Sam's nod. "He wouldn't let anyone handle it, but the crew on the transport thought it was armament."

"Weapons?"

"That's what they said."

"Why would he take weapons to his cabin?"

Daniel shrugged.

"Did they say what kind?"

"No, but it does say that it was several bags of armament. It's the only reason the crewman remembered it." He reached over to the phone and dialed an extension.

It was picked up on the second ring. "This is Sergeant Harriman."

"Yes, Walter. Dr. Jackson. Could you please add an inventory of the armory to your to-do list?"

"The armory?" Daniel could hear Walter's puzzlement. "If you think it's necessary."

"I'm afraid I do." Daniel hung up and looked back at Sam. "Walter will let us know if any weapons are missing."

Sam's concerned look mirrored his own. "Oh, Daniel, what is he up to?"

"I don't know, but it can't be good."


&&&&&


I just hate this. Jack lay in the tall grass and tried to find some good in his situation.

There wasn't any.

In the valley that lay before him, three Goa'uld pyramids glinted in the last rays of the setting sun. Dozens of Jaffa stood watch over people who cowered in the middle of fenced enclosures. Five tents were clustered together and Jaffa gathered around the open doorways. Large lights mounted on the top of tall poles that grew brighter with the gathering darkness. Movement along the edge of the woods told of the patrols that guarded the perimeter. This was not the secret, half-deserted base he'd been told to expect.

Jack's side ached with a sharp throb that he couldn't quite ignore and the blood from the cuts on his face and arms seeped into the bandages that he'd slapped on. He toyed with the idea of taking some meds to dull the pain, but he was afraid that it would dull everything else as well. He needed to have all his wits about him.

Jack backed off from the cliff edge and made his way to his cave of equipment. Sneaking in and blowing up an unguarded secret lab was one thing; infiltrating three guarded Goa'uld pyramids with the same intent was an altogether different animal. He was damn lucky he'd been paranoid when he packed for this mission or he wouldn't have had enough supplies. The Tok'ra had enhanced most of his explosives with a liberal application of naquadah and they had assured him that, when combined with the incendiary powder, it would only take three or four of the new, improved C-4 to destroy the base. It wasn't that Jack didn't believe them — yeah, right — it was just that he always preferred being safe to being sorry. Thirty bricks of the 'super C-4', carefully marked with a large red x, sat off to one side. Even if the explosives weren't as powerful as the Tok'ra predicted Jack hoped that ten bricks would bring down a pyramid.

It would be full dark in less than an hour, until then, he'd lay some charges to provide distraction or retreat support. Jack pulled out a satchel and filled it with claymores. He didn't have enough timers for them, so he opted to set them with a tripwire. He didn't like the idea of setting booby traps that anyone could walk into, but if it worked out as planned, there wouldn't be anyone walking around to set them off. If it didn't work out as planned, well, any little annoyance he could be to the Goa'uld was good, even if it happened after he was dead.

As he set the claymores around the perimeter, he kept an eye on the Jaffa and their captives. The prisoners were dressed in different styles of clothing and huddled together in small groups. They were from different planets, Jack realized. The Jaffa at the gate weren't on guard duty; they were the welcoming committee. If the planet had been uninhabited, they would've had to bring in people from other places. A quick count gave him at least sixty prisoners in three different enclosures. He was relieved to see that there were no children in the clusters of frightened people. It was going to be hard enough to do what he had to without having to face the death of children.

Satisfied with the deployment of the claymores, Jack returned to his makeshift base of operations and sorted through his remaining equipment. The sniper rifle and most of the extra clips for the P-90 could stay behind. He strapped the extra 9-mm to his leg in an ankle holster, hooked the zat to his belt and hung a pair of night-vision goggles around his neck. The spare zat, a med-kit, some extra ammunition and the Tok'ra powder went in a satchel that he slung over his shoulder. The bag rested heavily on his hip and he had to readjust it so it didn't cover his pistol. Finally, he transferred all of the 'super' C-4 to a backpack. It was a heavy load and his side protested when he slung it onto his back, but there was no getting around it. If his intel was correct — and that was a big if — he had seven hours of darkness. If he didn't get this done before dawn, he wouldn't get this done at all.

He circled behind the pyramids. Two Jaffa patrols passed within twenty feet of him, but they didn't even glance his way. The Jaffa in the camp didn't pay any more attention to their surroundings then did the ones on patrol. Singed and soot covered Jaffa occasionally came from the path that led to the gate and reinforcements reluctantly headed back to the still burning fire, but there had been no increase in wariness or patrols. With all the things that had gone wrong with this mission, it was about time a break swung his way.

Jack scoped out the pyramids once more. With his field glasses, he could see that only the center pyramid was used. The other two showed clear signs of abandonment, with unfinished upper levels covered in dirt and debris. He would start with those.

The fading light of the sun barely illuminated the doorway of the first pyramid and Jack had to use his night-vision goggles to work his way around though the deserted corridors. The inside of the pyramid was as incomplete as the outside and several inches of powdery dust covered everything. No matter how slowly he moved, the thick dust billowed up with each step and hung in the stale air. Nothing had walked these halls in years. Jack had never been easily spooked but the absolute deadness of the pyramid weighed on his mind. The dank air tasted foul and the dust settled on him. It crept under his bandages and caked the bloodstains on his clothes. He followed the main corridor until he came to a three-way branch. Each tunnel looked as dim and haunted as the others.

Jack chose a corner, pulled a small handheld device out of his vest pocket and frowned at it as he turned it over in his hands. I should have paid more attention to the 'How to use the alien technology' part of the mission briefing. He flipped it back to the front and tapped at it. The device came on with an electronic whine and the top half lit up to display a small screen with a directional readout. Not so alien, after all. His flack jacket pinched against his injured side and the bruises he'd earned in this fight with the Jaffa were beginning to ache. He panned the handheld device in front of him, watching for any change in the read out. There was a small flicker of light when he pointed it to the rightmost tunnel. He pushed his claustrophobic fears aside and followed the directional down into the darkness.

The signal on the device grew brighter as he traveled further into the gloom. The green tint of his night-vision goggles added to the ominous feeling that filled the halls. An eternity later, he reached a heavy door that rated the highest signal on the device. The door groaned when Jack pushed on it and the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. He eased it open, watching for any traps or alarms. Jack didn't find any, and he surveyed the room.

Tables and workbenches crowded the small space and shelves lined the walls. Ambient lighting began to glow when the door swung open and Jack slid the goggles to his forehead. Shadows of glyphs covered every surface of the room within, and Jack squinted at the barely illuminated writing that lay beneath the thick coat of dust that permeated the building. Daniel would love it here, he knew. He could almost hear Daniel expound on the wonderful enigmatic qualities of the writings. What a geek.

Jack fought back a pang of regret for keeping everyone out of the loop on this. It was necessary. Even if they understood why they couldn't have come along, they'd still feel guilty. Now they would just be angry. One thing Jack knew was that anger was easier to live with than guilt.

A slight vibration in the handheld device jerked Jack's attention back to it. The display pointed to the far wall, where vials and boxes sat and gleamed in the new light. As Jack approached the containers, the handheld's vibration grew stronger and it emitted a high-pitched alarm. Jack stabbed at it with his fingers and it silenced with an angry whine. He dropped it into his vest pocket and waited for signs that something had heard the alarm. The stillness of the pyramid settled on him like a blanket. He swung the pack of C-4 off his back and pulled out ten bricks of the explosive. After he placed the bricks around the room, he connected the detonators. With one last double-check, Jack pulled out a can of the incendiary power and spread it around the room. He took care not to walk in it. The last thing he needed was to bring the fire out with him like a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

Jack stood outside the room, detonation timer in hand. The charges could be triggered manually, but he needed a backup timer. The problem was deciding how long he should set them for. It had taken him just over an hour to find the room and place the charges. The second deserted pyramid shouldn't take much longer than that but the occupied one could be a problem. He needed enough time to complete the job, but not so long that the Jaffa would discover his sabotage. Deciding that dawn was his deadline for this job anyhow, he set the timers for five hours. The sun would rise on a dead world.

It took twenty minutes to wind his way out of the pyramid. The deep, velvet black of the night sky was set with stars arranged in strange constellations but it was a welcome sight after the suffocating closeness of the long forgotten passages. He drew in deep breaths of the fresh air and tried to rid his lungs of the pyramid's grit. The night air chilled him and the sweat that trailed down his neck and back left cold paths on his skin. The bandages on his face and neck had worked loose and he pulled them off with an irritated jerk. The cuts itched with caked-on dust but they didn't bleed anymore and the staff weapon burn in his side had ebbed to a tolerable level. After one more moment's recuperation, he worked his way around to the other deserted pyramid on the far side.

The tall lights illuminated the area in front of the pyramids, but the Jaffa seemed disinterested in watching either the prisoners or the surrounding darkness. Instead, they sat around a fire in the center of the corrals and talked among themselves. The fire by the gate still burned. Bright, hungry flames licked the sky just over the tops of the trees, but the Jaffa seemed content to ignore it. If only all Jaffa would be that apathetic. Jack studied the possible avenues of rescue and escape. If this were a rescue mission, it would be easy to sneak down into the camp, find a way to release the prisoners and—

He forced his thoughts and eyes away from the encampment and faded into the dark woods. This wasn't a rescue mission and there would be no escape for any of them.

Jack flipped on the night-vision, crept around the occupied pyramid to the one on the far side and scrutinized it. Unlike the first one that had looked abandoned, this pyramid looked battle damaged. Dark stains ran up the sides, looking like eerie green smoke through the goggles, and the top of the building was shattered and broken. Debris littered the approach to the entrance. Jack picked his way over the jagged edges of stone. He kept a close eye out for wildlife or booby traps but he made it into the pyramid without seeing either.

The evidence of fire was stronger inside, along with the scattered remains from explosive blasts. Jack slipped off the goggles and risked a light in order to study the damage. Staff weapon blasts marred the wall and a large part of the ceiling had collapsed and filled the corridor with of stone shards. His light glinted off a piece of metal and Jack eased several stones aside to reveal an old, dented staff weapon and the skeleton hand that had once held it.

This pyramid didn't just feel like a crypt, it was one. Jack flipped off his light and sat back on his heels while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the returned darkness. Whatever happed here happened a long time ago and may have nothing at all to do with why he was here now. Yeah, right. Jack stood, turned his back on the stone covered body and pulled the goggles on again. The battle damage and combatant remains did nothing to ease the oppressive dank emptiness. Jack made a mental list of the damage he ran into and tried to fill his mind with recreated battles rather than images of dusty ghosts.

The catacomb atmosphere grew as he followed the blinking directional of the alien device into the lower levels of the building. He had to crawl through several caved-in corridors and once had to backtrack several turns to work around a blocked passageway. The same fine dust covered everything in this pyramid. It worked its way into his clothing, clouded the lenses of his goggles and made each breath taste of grit and death. The further down he went the more skeletal remains he found. They lay along the halls, grinning sentinels that surveyed his intrusion into their grave. A paranoid feeling that he was being watched grew at the back of his mind, and he focused his attention on the signal and the floor directly in font of him.

Once again, he lost track of time. The surreal surroundings and blinking device blended to create a tunnel vision. He wasn't ready when the device split the silence with its sudden piercing alarm. A stone door loomed ahead of him. Unlike the door in the first pyramid, though, this one was several inches ajar, held open by the bones of a long dead Jaffa. Jack pushed against it but it didn't move. He pocketed the device, shrugged out of his equipment, and leaned into the door with his shoulder.

It moved with a loud, screeching groan. There was a muffled rumble somewhere above, dust showered to the ground. With a low, vibrating roar, the ceiling collapsed. Jack's ears filled with the splintering of stone and everything went dark.


&&&&&


"I just wish I knew what he thought he was doing," Daniel said.

Sam didn't have an answer, so she ignored him, as she had the first five times he's said it. Instead, she drummed her fingers on the conference room table and waited for General Hammond to get off the phone and join them. Daniel had given up sitting and paced around the room. Teal'c watched them both, elbows on the table, fingers steepled in front of him. Sam despised his calmness.

They had learned nothing new in the past three hours. The last time she had checked on Walter's progress with the inventory, he'd told her that he'd finish a lot faster if he didn't have to answer the phone every ten minutes. She'd read the reports so many times that she could quote them from memory. Colonel O'Neill had a future in fiction writing if his account was false. It was the most believable and well-supported report in the large stack of papers she'd been reading. Of course, the fact that he'd had his paperwork completed and handed in two hours after the incident and three hours before the general had demanded it should have been a tip-off that something was wrong. Colonel O'Neill never completed his paperwork before it was due.

Sam was about to join Daniel in his trek around the table when the general hung up the phone and walked into the conference room.

"Have a seat, Dr. Jackson, before I have to have new flooring installed."

Daniel had the good graces to look sheepish and took the seat next to Sam.

"That was Captain Jameson of the Minnesota Air National Guard." General Hammond took the seat at the end of the table. "There is no sign of Colonel O'Neill. The last anyone saw of our good colonel was the neighbor who gave him a ride from the nearest town to his cabin. She says that she left Jack standing next to the lake with a pile of supplies. She thought he was going to be there for a while and was surprised to learn that he was missing. No one else the captain spoke to even knew the colonel was in the state."

"We have no idea where he is now?"

"None," General Hammond replied. "But it's a small community, Captain Jameson is certain that someone saw something that will help. He has two men in the area and the local police are on the lookout."

"Excuse me, sir." Walter stood at the top of the stairs. He held several reports and waited for Hammond to nod him into the room. "We've finished the inventory. I have copies of the report here."

"Well done, Sergeant," General Hammond said. "What did you find?"

Walter paled as he handed out the reports. "Well, sir, there appears to be a large number of supplies that are, ah, unaccounted for." He flipped open the report that Teal'c hadn't taken. Looking at it seemed to give him focus. "From the equipment that he requisitioned and the items that are missing, I'd say he has enough camping and survival gear for a long term stay somewhere, sir. We're missing tents, cooking gear, solar heaters, and basic survival tools. A telescope, binoculars and infrared night-vision glasses are also gone. In addition, we are short some basics from the infirmary. Dr. Fraiser says that they are short six field emergency kits that are there for backups, as well as a medical supply box for a field surgical unit. The report will list all of the basic and medical supplies that we believe Colonel O'Neill could have taken."

"What? Jack's going camping?" Daniel's incredulity wasn't lost on Sam.

"There's more than camping gear," Walter answered. "Lieutenant Harding, a biophysicist from the lab, heard what we were doing and told me that she saw Colonel O'Neill take one of the laptops from the lab last Wednesday. When she inquired, he made some comment about not being able to play solitaire with cards anymore. She said she knew Colonel O'Neill was always a little different, but that she felt she had to mention it now. I asked her to look into what else was gone and her list of missing supplies is included. The most notable item is a naquadah generator."

"One of my generators?" Sam flipped through the report and scanned the list. Some of the missing items were so obscure that she doubted the colonel had taken them, but the missing generator was one of the new models. The report also listed that there was a power converter missing. "If he's planning on using it for electrical power, it would last for decades. Unless . . ." A terrible thought struck her. What if he's not using it as an energy supply? She looked back at Walter. "What about the armory?"

Walter paused for a moment and visibly gathered his nerve before he continued. "We confirmed that we are missing items from the armory."

"What items?" Hammond paged through the report.

"They're listed on the last page, sir." Walter hesitated and then said in a rush, "A P-90 with two thousand rounds; an M-16 with five hundred rounds; two zats; two 9-mm's with a thousand rounds each; two regular issue knives; twenty Claymores and fifty bricks of C-4 with accompanying detonators and timers."

Sam's quiet "Wow" was drowned out by General Hammond.

"How the hell did he do that?"

"The best we can figure, Colonel O'Neill altered Wednesday night's duty roster so that Airman Michaels was to be relieved at midnight, but didn't pass that change along to her relief, Airmen Jenkins. When Colonel O'Neill passed by at 00:15 hours and learned that Michaels should have been relieved already, he offered to stand duty for her and look into the matter. When Jenkins showed up at 02:00 hours, he relieved Colonel O'Neill, who explained that there had been a mix up in the duty roster and that there wasn't any real problem. Both airmen say they thought it was odd, but that they felt Colonel O'Neill was just being a 'stand-up officer'."

"That leaves two hours in which Colonel O'Neill could have taken anything he wanted from the armory," the general said.

"Yes, sir." Walter set the report on the table.

"Could he have put this all on the MALP?" Daniel asked.

Sam thought about it for a moment. "No. However, if he took the weapons to Minnesota with him instead of sending them through the gate, the rest of the equipment could have fit on the MALP."

"How the hell did he get that much weaponry off my base without our security stopping him?"

Walter cleared his throat. "If I may, sir? I checked into the SFs standing entry duty. The colonel didn't remove anything from the base on Thursday, but Friday he removed a large number of boxes. Colonel O'Neill stated that they were full of recyclables he intended to donate to the local schools for their recycling drive."

"Are not all items leaving the base inspected?" Teal'c asked.

"Yes, and the boxes they checked did contain recyclables, but they admit that they didn't check all the boxes. It was Colonel O'Neill, after all."

The general said something under his breath that Sam couldn't hear, but she could make a good guess at what it was.

"Thank you, Sergeant," said the general aloud. "You have done excellent work."

Walter nodded, saluted and left.

After a moment of silence, Daniel spoke. "I suppose it would be too much to hope that he sent the weapons through on the MALP and took the camping equipment to Minnesota."

"He couldn't have smuggled the generator out through the front gate," Sam said.

"Why not?"

General Hammond answered. "Because the sensors we have installed at the entrances will detect the naquadah. We installed a security protocol at Colonel O'Neill's suggestion. If he did take the generator, he must have shipped it through the gate."

"So the question is," Daniel said, "What would he be doing with weapons in Minnesota?"

Blaring klaxons spared her from having to answer. Walter's voice rang over the speakers, "Unauthorized incoming wormhole."

The four of them rose as one and headed for the stairs. A moment later, they stood behind the dialing computer and watched as a signal passed through the gate. Sam couldn't shake the feeling that it would be Colonel O'Neill's SG-1 signal.

"It's the Tok'ra," Walter announced.

"Open the iris," Hammond turned and nodded at Sam.

Sam let out the breath she didn't realize that she'd held. She nodded at the general and headed down the stairs, Teal'c and Daniel right behind her.

They walked into the gate room just as Jacob Carter walked down the ramp. "Sam," he said, smiling. "It's good to see you." The wormhole snapped shut and General Hammond's order to stand-down rang through the room.

"Dad," Sam gave him a hug in greeting. "I'm glad you could come so soon."

"I expected to hear from you earlier," Jacob said. "With the short time-line we're working on, I thought that you'd have started on this already."

Sam pulled away. "What?"

Jacob looked from her to Daniel and Teal'c. "Isn't Jack here? I thought he'd have some questions for me. Or is he already gone? Have you heard anything?"

"What are you talking about, Dad?"

Jacob frowned at them, and then looked up at the control room. "George, what's going on here?"

"That's the question I have for you, Jacob," Hammond's voice echoed through the PA system. "Come on up and we'll get to the bottom of this."

Jacob nodded and looked back at his daughter and her team. "Jack's not here?"

"No." Sam led the way up to the briefing room.

"Maybe it's best if he's not here," Jacob said. "He'd hate this mission."

For the first time, Sam hoped that this was all just an elaborate prank that the colonel was pulling. The alternative looked much worse.