CRIMSON MADNESS PART FOUR
It didn't' go unnoticed , the colour that came to Umbra's cheeks the flush of life in her after her "feeding." Daniel slept like a contented innocent under her watchful gaze. Janet Fraiser had check Daniel's his vitals twice while he slept completely unaware of her medical touch. The doctor had then turned her attention to Umbra. Reluctantly the mysterious young woman allowed a small blood sample to be taken.
"I assure you I have done him no harm. " Umbra's tone was dulcet and reassuring for she had taken a liking to this dark haired woman of medicine .
Janet had heard her and believed her even as she inspected the wounds on Daniel's wrist. Sam had approached and seen the marks and gulped and returned to the cockpit . Teal'c had taken a moment and with a raised eyebrow he had asked his paragraph of questions. A smile from Fraiser had reassured him that Daniel was indeed in no harm.
"How many more times are you going to need to …." Janet waved a hand Daniel's wrist.
"It will depend on how long we are away from my home and how much is required of me. As with you who consume solids there is a direct relationship to the amount of nourishment needed to sustain one's strength and power." Umbra sat next to Daniel and began to stroke his hair softly, the gestures of a lover or of a master and favored pet, it was easy for Janet to see both.
Daniel on the other hand was still in a half way state between deep sleep and REM. It was a very pleasant place to be and dreams were forming mostly of his being naked with Umbra. It had been sometime since he had thought of a woman, there were always thoughts of Sha're and how he felt no one could compare to the love they had. Yet, now there was Umbra and she awoke in him a willingness to be submissive to her desires.
"Trust me , Daniel." The phrase seemed to echo in his head as he found himself floating back into consciousness. It was Umbra's voice. He woke to find her staring at him with a melancholy smile. Daniel offered her his wrist unwrapping the velvet as he lifted it to her lips. Umbra's eyes filled with tears as she took the offering and let her tears splash onto the two circular wounds.
He was naked, again, in pain again, but not in the sarcophagus . He had a name and he could almost reach it but his arms were leaden. Nothing about his body seemed to be right, it was as if he was moving into a new body and not quite ready for the break in period. His tongue seemed to still work and he licked his parched lips. Something was crusted on them and the scant moisture of his tongue seemed to liquefy the solid. It had a taste of spiced honey over cooper. It was a familiar taste. It was blood, her blood.
A wrist was pressed to his lips. There was blood, thick hot spiced blood and he wanted it. He lapped at it. He gagged. Someone inside of him screamed profanity at him but that was the one that was dying, the one who had given up for just long enough, a nanosecond long enough, for him to be free. He remembered the look of his mistress, the blonde tresses that caressed the body that he longed to be permitted to pleasure, the woman he loved who mastered him, who opened the door for his darkest secret self, the submissive.
The other voice continued to scream, it wanted to cry but had forgotten how years ago, its heart had become so hardened that is had shoved him into the darkness and lived off denial of his emotions. They both loved the woman, the blonde, the forbidden.A voice too battered to be heard screamed over the moans of pleasure , " Jack, Jack O'Neill."
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Jacob/Selmak and Teal'c guided the cargo ship into a synchronous orbit around the planet that the Tok'ra had determined to be Camazotz's base of operations. Even at hyper speed the trip had taken over 78 hours . Umbra had fed twice and Daniel, though slightly weakened, was being supported by Janet with vitamin and mineral supplements. There was a growing attraction between the two, though it seemed more like lust on Daniel's part. He was in a heightened state of arousal to the point he was ignoring coffee.
Sam had not slept more than two hours at any given time. Her stomach was in a knot the closer they got to the destination. No one had said anything to her specifically but she did remember after the last time the Colonel had been captured by Camazotz that he had reacted violently around her and then seemed to avoid her for weeks while he recovered. When she had questioned the nurse she had been given a brush off, even her friend, Janet had not been forth coming. There was something about Camazotz that no one was telling her.
Jacob knew as they began their orbit that he would now have to relay the To'kra intel to his traveling companions. It was not going to be received well. In some respects he was glad that Jack was not there for he would have had the Colonel in his face and once again Jack would have had it proved to him that he could not trust the To'kra.
"Sam, Daniel, everyone, there are some things that you need to know about what is going on, on the planet's surface." Jacob began hesitantly. Selmak was trying to persuade him that there would be no backlash and that the lesser developed Tauri would just have to accept that they should only know what they needed to know on what the Tok'ra had determined to be a need to know basis.
"Oh for crying out loud!" that familiar utterance came from an unexpected source. Janet was standing hands on narrow hips with a glare to her brown eyes that seemed too familiar but usually seen from a much greater height.
"Don't start." Jacob snapped back.
"Dad, what is it?" Sam tried to seem interested but not distressed, the pursing of her lips however reflected her anxiety.
"Camazotz has a slave labor camp set up. Since she arrived her five months ago she has been working the indigenous people to early and very cruel deaths. That is those that are working in the mines … there are others who just disappear. " Jacob ran a hand over he bald pate trying to conceal the horrors that had been described.
"Somehow, with her promise to either kill or deliver SG1 to the System Lords they gave her a mother ship and a small fleet of support and attack vessels. She is not serious enough of a threat to take on the whole gang but …."
"Jacob, what are you not telling us?" Daniel asked taking Umbra by the hand and leading her into the cockpit. Her attention was fully on the wonders of space and the planet that they circled below them. None of her people had been away from their planet since they were taken away and through the Stargate centuries before. Traveling away from the soil of their planet had been thought impossible, too fantastic and a death sentence.
"Many of the bodies of the missing are never found but those that are have been drained of blood abused. Some of what is going down there makes Netu look like a walk in the park. " Daniel and Sam shared looks that reflected the memories of the horrors they had experience at the hands of Apophis in his role as Sokar's captain. These were memories they best did without, Jacob had almost died there as had O'Neill.
"What is our plan to secure the rescue of O'Neill?" Teal'c interjected, always the pragmatist.
"Her strong hold is protected , but it appears she doesn't have any shields up. Camazotz, evidently does not believe that she is vulnerable out here. This area of the galaxy is kind of considered the Goa'uld trailer park. Our operative is posing as a over seer of the female workers and he has the duty of choosing those who are sent to serve the Goa'uld herself. "
"That is a death sentence. " Umbra's soft voice was an interruption that had the others looking at her with intense curiosity. "She was on my planet for centuries. The strongest were taken most often. She feared them the most and fed off them thinking she would strengthen herself with the very thing that could destroy her. It this way with your silver haired warrior, O'Neill. " Umbra paused knowing what she and her mother had witnessed. "She even was able to capture some of my own people. When she first arrived. We were younger and more naïve then, and there was a balance between ourselves and the Rusno."
Daniel brought his hand to her face, he could see that she was dealing with a sadness, a memory of some horror that she was not willing to share. "When she first arrived do you know if she was like she is now? "
Umbra looked deep into his eyes but was not comprehending the question.
"Was Camazotz what we call a vampire before she arrived? Did she require the ingestion of blood before she took any of your people captive?" Janet filled in the blanks that Daniel was unwilling to vocalize.
"In our collective memory it would appear that the first Gou' auld, as you call them was either dying or injured. This was when the soldiers gathered those from the Rusno and the Obryi and …." Umbra paused her mind racing and all the pieces, the secret that her mother held as the shaman of the clan, was revealed. If she spoke it out loud would these day walkers still regard her as a friend?
"She took one of your people as host didn't she?" Jacob/Selmak asked rhetorically, already knowing the answer.
Umbra turned away from them, her shoulders slumped forward and her head sagged nearly to her chest. " It was said that she was my own blood, what you would call my grandmother five generations removed. She was a shaman, medicine woman and she was taken. " Umbra turned and looked at the day walkers and then her gaze came to rest on Sam . "The shared visions we have, what you would call collective memory would have my ancestor, very similar to you in appearance Major Carter. "
Sam felt her knees go out from under her but some how grabbing on to the back of her fathers pilot seat she was able to remain standing. Janet had a hand on her elbow and managed to usher her out towards the cargo bay.
Once in a more secluded corner Janet looked into the eyes of her friend. She had suspected that there had been something more to Camazotz then she knew from the Colonel's last encounter with the vampire goa'uld. C.J. had been aware of some aspect and now it made sense as to why when Sam had come to see the Colonel in the infirmary that he had reacted so violently to her. If Camazotz did indeed look like Sam the Colonel was tortured in more ways then the blood letting and beatings. Janet was aware of the feeling, though well disguised at most times, that Jack and Sam had for each other. Jack had been carrying a torch for Sam since Antarctica . The torment of being tortured by the one you love , being brutalized, could even scar the iron walls of Jack's psyche.
"She looks like me?" Sam turned to Janet, her lip quivered and the tears poured soundlessly as Janet wrapped an arm around her.
"She has to die, Janet and I have to be the one.. so he … knows." Sam stated the sorrow displaced with growing anger, artic determination in her eyes.
Word count 2096 Tuesday, March 15, 2005