Chapter 4
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Jack fell, despite his attempts to catch himself, and found himself in a secluded room invaded by vegetation and roots of all sorts. He disentangled himself from the various creepers that had managed to wrap themselves around his legs, stood up, and stepped cautiously inside.
The room was weakly illuminated by tiny holes left intentionally in the walls, probably to control the humidity level of the room. But it was the contents of the room that fascinated Jack: it was nothing less than a huge library, with shelves full of leather bound books, tablets, and other documents, still in a perfect state of preservation, or so it seemed…
He decided to keep this information to himself as he started browsing through the shelves, peering at their contents. He chose one book at random and cautiously opened it, fearing the book would turn to dust. Most surprisingly it didn't and, as it had seemed on the first look, was remarkably well preserved. He started skimming through the pages.
The book was written in Ancient. The language was oddly familiar to him, and he understood most of what was written intrinsically, but what amazed him the most was that he had absolutely no problem understanding the technical descriptions depicted in this book…
He was reading yet another book when he was startled by Sam's voice loudly calling his name. He closed the book and put it back on the shelf from which he had taken it. He picked up a few tablets and books from the ground where he had placed them before exiting the secret room, making sure no one could see where he exited. He rearranged the foliage in front of the entrance as the door slid shut and started walking in the general direction of Sam's voice. He found her in the empty library through which he had passed while exploring the area.
"There you are," she said, a disappointed tone to her voice.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Where have you been? You've been away three hours; An'ok's gone to fetch food for lunch."
"I'll tell you later, when I'm sure there's only you and I", he muttered.
"Oh?"
"So what have you been up to? Got tired of swearing?" he winked, cutting short the previous conversation at the same time.
She sighed. "I don't think we can do anything to make that machine work," she said dejectedly. "First, there's no power supply that we can use; second, there's no available schematics; and third, even if we got to this point, it would probably take a lot of time to get it to work properly."
"Ah-ah!" he said triumphantly, waggling a finger. "First, we can always use the Al'kesh's power supply."
"Not if we want to go back…"
"Well, we can always send a message and wait for the cavalry to save us…"
"That's if An'ok lets us," she stated.
"Thor will find us?" he suggested, his voice hanging in mid air.
"Ever the optimist?" she chuckled.
"Come on, do you think Daniel and T' have just been sitting on my pier doing nothing?" he frowned.
"No. I'm just not sure WHEN they will find us," she said, caressing his shoulder. Her eyes fell on the bundle he was carrying. "What's that?" she asked.
"The answer to 'second'," he grinned.
She sent him a puzzled look.
"I found the schematics and a few other things related to the machine, according to what's written here," he said, revealing his findings.
Sam took one book and opened it.
"I can't understand any of this, Jack…" she started.
"But I can," he interrupted, "and I'm sure you'll understand this…" he concluded, opening a book which held several technical drawings of a complex machine.
"Blueprints?" she asked, bewildered.
"Sorta… But it's the machine you've been working on, that's for sure. And I might have some clues as to how to operate it once you fix it."
Sam's look turned to that of a child discovering her Christmas presents. "We've got to tell An'ok! Where did you find these?" she said excitedly.
"That's what I don't want him to know. Let's keep that trump card up our sleeve. Can you work with that?"
"I think so, but he's going to ask where it came from."
"There's a room full of scattered books and broken tablets; it came from there…"
"That's your story?"
"The official story," he winked. "Even if I have to artificially make these look old or broken," he said, eyeing the items with a trace of regret.
She smiled, patting his forearm. "Okay, let's have lunch, then I'll start again. You can help with explaining what I have to do, and I'll talk to An'ok about taking some of the power supply from the Al'kesh."
Jack smiled and bent to lightly kiss her lips. When he rose again to his full height, she got a dreamy look on her face. "A girl could get used to that," she said, licking her lips.
"Oh, if that's what it takes…" he grinned smugly until she swatted his arm playfully.
"Let's go eat, Ancient genius!" she said playfully.
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Bra'tac returned shortly with another Jaffa. The man was as tall as Teal'c yet as blond and fair-skinned as Teal'c was dark. He bore Anubis's mark on his forehead.
He bowed slightly as Bra'tac introduced him. "My friends, this is Syp'ah, former member of Anubis's elite Jaffa. Tell your story, brother, please."
"As Master Bra'tac has stated, I am Syp'ah. When Anubis's fleet was destroyed during the attack on the Tau'ri, my partner An'ok and I were sent drifting through space by the explosion of a Ha'tak. As you can imagine, we were most distraught at the outcome of the combat and the fact that we had to acknowledge that he whom we had thought was a god was not. Once we had the Al'kesh repaired, we both decided to join the rebellion and fought together at the battle on Dakara. We have been here helping with the reconstruction ever since, but about a week ago An'ok disappeared with the Al'kesh."
"Excuse me for interrupting, but how does this help us?" Daniel asked.
"Before he left, he kept talking about how he might have a solution for all Jaffa to be freed from their dependence to Goa'uld larvae or Tretonin and that he had to go find O'Neill."
"O'Neill?" Teal'c asked. "Why?"
"I do not know precisely, but it had to do with him being able to power Ancient devices that could not be operated by any other. The Al'kesh was a modified one, with stealth capabilities and Asgard transportation devices. When I heard about O'Neill and Colonel Carter's sudden disappearance, I thought An'ok might be responsible."
"And Colonel Carter was at the wrong place at the wrong time," Teal'c muttered.
"It was most probably the case indeed," Syp'ah agreed. "Unfortunately, I have no idea as to their whereabouts. An'ok did not trust me; we had not known each other a very long time," he said regretfully.
"Well, at least we have made some progress," Daniel smirked. "We know Jack was most probably the only one targeted, and it might have something to do with his special abilities."
"The fact Colonel Carter was abducted may also be of some interest to An'ok," Teal'c remarked.
"Maybe… In any case, this won't lead us very far, unfortunately," Daniel said dejectedly. "With no precise direction where to look, we're back to square one."
"I disagree, Daniel Jackson. Our Asgard friends might have an idea where to look. Until we have their formal answer, I shall remain optimistic."
Daniel looked at him, surprised. "My, my, my! The mighty warrior Teal'c discovers optimism!"
"I have always known optimism," Teal'c replied with all the dignity he could muster. "I have never had the opportunity to experience such a feeling up until recently, that is all."
Bra'tac smiled and clapped their shoulders. "You will find them; fear not!"
"I wish I had your faith," Daniel said in a worried tone.
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After a few days using the schematics of the machine to rebuild it, Sam was fairly happy with the results.
Jack, surprisingly enough, had helped a lot with the technical side, explaining how he understood some things should be made, while An'ok supplied his physical strength, helping to assemble the repaired parts.
An'ok had been suspicious at first regarding the discovery Jack had made, since he had been the one overseeing the destruction of the documents in the first place. But Jack had dismissed his questions by saying that, since he understood what he was looking for, it was easy to put two and two together and assemble the jigsaw puzzle that was now the 'blueprints'. To lend veracity to his story, he had had to tear the blueprints apart before announcing to An'ok that he had found a way to restore the machine.
Now all Sam needed was a power source.
She stood up and looked for An'ok, who was nowhere to be seen in the room.
"Did you see where he went?" she asked Jack.
"I think he's in the devastated library. I think he went to kelnorim," Jack said, dusting the chair and getting it and the glass chamber ready for the next step.
Sam started in the direction of the library and found him indeed meditating. His face was apparently calm, but from time to time it was animated with involuntary movements that distorted it without truly disturbing him.
Sam watched him for a while, until he opened his eyes, staring directly at her. She felt a moment of uneasiness before smiling lightly and stepping toward him as he stood up. "An'ok, I need the crystals now," she said softly.
An'ok bowed in resignation. They had discussed this at length already; there was no use in having that discussion again, and he knew it was the only way to power the machine.
"Hold on a sec'," Jack interrupted, making his entrance into the library at that moment.
An'ok looked at him warily.
"First, I think we should send a message to our friends so they can find and rescue us should the power source be depleted for whatever reason… Now's the time to show us we're not your prisoners, An'ok," he concluded, the silent warning in his sentence not unacknowledged by the Jaffa.
"You were never my prisoners," he replied, unmoved. "We shall go to the Al'kesh now," he concluded, stepping forward to exit the library.
Jack nodded, as well as Sam, and they all proceeded to the Al'kesh. Sam sent a coded message using the broadest frequency spectrum she could think of, but she knew as well as Jack that even if some of their friends caught it, it might be a while before they were actually rescued.
"It's done, sir," she said to him.
"Good, then maybe it's time to dismantle this thing…"
An'ok nodded silently and led Sam to the power core location. Sam opened the panel and looked at the crystals inside, choosing several of them and laying them cautiously on a blanket she'd prepared for the occasion. A few minutes later, the three of them exited the vessel and went back inside the temple to put the final touches on the restoration of the machine.
Sam tried several combinations of the crystals before managing to get the machine to hum.
An'ok stepped back in surprise while Jack smiled and clapped her shoulder. "Good job, Colonel Doctor Extraordinaire!" he emphasized, winking at her with a proud grin.
She gave him one of her brightest smiles before starting to work on the console itself, pushing buttons and moving handles. Jack directed some of her moves, reading one of the tablets, helping her tune it to precision.
After several attempts with various settings, the knob above the chair finally started glowing. "I think I've got it, Sir!"
"Then let's test it!" An'ok said, a bit too enthusiastically for Jack's taste.
"Whoa, whoa! Hold on a second, would ya? I haven't sat in the chair yet; I have no idea how this thing actually works. It's okay on paper, but before I use it on you, I need a test run," Jack argued
"No! You will test it upon me now!" An'ok replied in a sudden fit of rage. "The Goa'uld in me is gaining power; I can feel it! Now you will sit in that chair and stop its growth! I will not allow it to gain any more power!" He took his zat and aimed it at Sam.
"If you zat her, the machine's not gonna work, you know?" Jack replied calmly.
An'ok's stance did not change. "I can zat her twice, then zat you, then kill myself!"
"And how're you gonna zat yourself twice?" Jack smirked.
"Enough!" Sam exclaimed. "Sir, if he wants to test it now, then so be it! It's not like we have a lab rat or anything anyway!"
Jack gauged the situation for a few seconds. "All right, but not before I actually sit and figure out what it does. That part I don't know anything about," he agreed.
An'ok relaxed a bit as Jack went to the stone chair and sat.
"I hate these things," he muttered before sitting down.
Just like the one in Antarctica, the chair tilted back, and Jack's arms were automatically supported by armrests. But unlike the Antarctica chair, this one didn't have gelatinous commands. As Jack's hands touched the surface of the stone, it opened, and a smaller console with symbols to punch down appeared on each side.
Jack seemed lost in concentration. The knob above the chair was directly over his head, and as his fingers pressed rapidly on the symbols, a beam formed between the knob and his forehead. His eyes opened suddenly, and a perpendicular energy beam erupted from the knob, hitting the glass chamber in the middle before shutting down quickly thereafter.
Jack shook his head as if disoriented, then stood up, the chair retaking its original position as soon as he was on his feet.
"Sir?" Sam asked, worry etched on her face.
"I'm okay… Just a little tired, that's all… How did it go?" he said, massaging his neck as he rolled his head on his shoulders.
"From my side, okay I think… What did you feel?"
"Well that's the problem, I can't really say…" he replied, wincing.
"Uh-oh…" Sam said as she finished checking the console.
"Uh-oh? I don't like 'uh-oh', most of all when it's coming from your mouth, Carter…" Jack frowned.
"You used about 40 of the power supply that we have, Sir. I don't think we can test it many times before the real thing," she said concerned.
"Then test it upon me now," An'ok said, stepping toward the glass chamber. "It is my only chance," he almost begged the humans.
Jack sighed and shook his head. "Carter? You keep that zat in case something goes wrong…" he said. "An'ok, get undressed…"
"I beg your pardon?" the Jaffa exclaimed, startled.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Look, this machine was built by the Ancients, and somehow I doubt they tested it with subjects in full armor…"
The Jaffa considered his words for a moment before sighing and unbuckling his belt.
"Err… Look, I think you can keep your pants on; the pouch is way above, right?", Jack said quickly.
An'ok looked relieved. "Indeed…"
Finally, An'ok stepped into the glass chamber. The Goa'uld in him squirmed. His chance, at last!
As he had done before, Jack sat on the chair and let the device adapt itself to him.
This time, when the knob started humming louder, he experienced something different, and a mental image of his subjects appeared. As if he were seeing an integral x-ray photograph of the Jaffa, Jack could discern both beings in front of him.
The energy beam suddenly burst and hit An'ok square in the gut, causing him to scream. Jack felt an enormous surge of energy directed toward the glass chamber, then nothing…