Chapter 11

Neja was easy to please. At least Jack thought so. He made the call to Carter and Teal'c on the radio – what Neja's purpose was, he did not know – and prayed they would understand that he was being forced and that it was in no way an order. The Goa'uld was true to his word and let the girl go. She ran out the door and into the compound.

That was the last he saw of her before the guards dragged the three men back to their cell and bodily threw them inside. It was about then that Daniel began heaving his guts out in the corner. The smell of the stagnating water was overwhelming. Jack's stomach rolled with the scent that was everywhere.

Avedra was slow to get up out of the water. On the way back, one of the guards thought it sporting to take batting practice on the man's ribs with a staff weapon for no particular reason other than to incapacitate him. O'Neill heard the distinct crack of bone as the weapon made contact. It had definitely left a mark and had accomplished what was intended. Even if they made it out of the cell, Avedra was no going to set any land speed records for escape.

After finding the medallion he had thrown into corner opposite Daniel, Jack forced himself to ignore his own nausea and began chipping away at the cell wall. His foothold was almost done. He tested it every now and then to see if it was deep enough to plant his foot amidst the overloads directed at the gate.

All was going well until the sound of Daniel's retching was too much to bear against Jack's own queasiness. In an instant, he took his own corner of the cell and emptied what little remained in his stomach against the wall. He clutched at the soft stone as he bent over and struggled to calm his insides.

"Ah, dammit," he said, out of breath and admonishing himself for his lack of willpower to fight the sickness. The world was spinning in six different directions at once, and all he wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Maybe get the world to stop spinning, too, but sleep would be better.

Avedra approached. "Colonel O'Neill," he said, wrapping an arm under Jack's torso for support, "sit. Rest a moment."

"Just give me a second to catch my breath," Jack insisted, not willing to give up on his plan for escape over a little vomiting.

"I'm afraid neither of us can hold this position long. You must rest."

O'Neill heard the quiet grunt of pain Avedra tried to mask. Then he remembered the broken ribs again. He sat down, relieving Avedra. The room was getting damned cold. The sun was beginning to dip toward the fast track to sunset. The shadows on the cell wall grew dimmer with each passing moment.

Jack's hands were shaking and his skin ached even with the touch of his clothing. A violent shiver rolled through his body. His eyes were closed when he felt Avedra's hand on his forehead.

Fever.

He looked over at Daniel who was curled up in a ball trying to get warm. He was sick, too. Another wave of nausea hit, and Jack turned to the side to relieve it, gagging as Daniel had until he was sure he would cough up parts of his anatomy.

When he was done, he sat up straight again. There sat Avedra who, though he was in pain, showed no signs of wanting to have his stomach removed forthright from his insides.

"Well, aren't you lucky you're not sick?" Jack said, still breathing in small gasps.

Avedra smiled wryly. "There are advantages to not having a fully human anatomy. Evolution plays an ironic role at times."

"But you still have ribs, right?"

The Tok'ra shifted against the wall, reminded of his pain. "Yes, I still have those . . . I think."

Another shiver rocked O'Neill. He curled his arms around his body, trying to get warm. His teeth were chattering. "I don't remember drinking the water here. So, why are Daniel and I so sick?"

"You do not have to drink it to become ill," Avedra explained. "Simple contact is enough this close to the weapons complex. All ground water appears to be contaminated in the valley."

The words went in one ear and out the other for O'Neill. His summation was that half the mission was screwed unless Carter and Teal'c were in the miracle business. Even if they were, none of the three men in the cell were in any condition to travel fast enough to reach the shuttle. It wouldn't be enough to break out of the cell. They had to have a place to go once they were out, and they'd have to get there quickly without getting caught.

Jack got up and grabbed the medallion again. He headed back toward the wall and started chipping away at the stone. There was no way in hell they were going to stay in there without at least trying to make a run for it.

"Colonel O'Neill, I implore you to rest. Even if we do escape, how far do you think we will make it before being captured? We have nowhere to go."

A wave of anger snapped inside Jack. He turned it on Avedra with burning eyes. "Look, if you want to rot in this hellhole, be my guest. But Daniel and I are getting out of here as soon as I can get those damned bars off the window. Carter and Teal'c are still out there, so we're not alone. They'll help us as soon as they can."

Another overload ripped through the air. Jack's ears were ringing with the sound, never quite having enough time to recover from one blast to the next. "Y'know, that's really getting old," he groused, pointing a finger in the direction of the complex.

He kneeled down in the water to get a better angle on the hole. It was so close to being finished. He had the time to work now. The guards were out doing better things, like trying to capture the rest of his team. There were no prying eyes to inhibit his efforts.

After digging a while more, despite aching skin and more riled waves of nausea, he thought the hold deep enough and stood to test it again. Slipping his foot inside, he put his full weight on the wall, reaching up and grasping the bars to pull his head up to the window. He caught a glimpse of something inside the complex. Or, rather, he saw someone.

It was Carter. It had to be. She was tucked down behind a panel, but he could see her head and the monocular aimed at the cell window. She was looking for them. She motioned for him to get down. She had seen him!

O'Neill jumped down off the wall and went immediately to Daniel's side. "Daniel, get up," he ordered, picking the younger man's curled up form off the cell floor. "Carter's out there. We're going to move soon."

Daniel reluctantly followed the tugging at his arms and got to his feet. "Jack?" he asked weakly.

"Yeah?"

"I feel horrible."

"I know, me too. What do you say we get off this rock and back to the SGC?" Daniel was burning up. O'Neill feared he matched the young scientist's temperature. Whatever was making them sick was gaining strength in their bodies and beating the hell out of their healthy insides.

Avedra went to the window and hoisted himself up using the foothold O'Neill had dug. He splashed down into the water a moment later, emitting another quiet grunt of pain from his broken ribs. "The sun is setting quickly. Darkness will be to our advantage."

O'Neill agreed. "Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, too."

Daniel coughed, a spasm wracking his insides into suppressed heaves. When he calmed, he asked, "What about the bars? Give me a few more days of throwing up, and I might be able to squeeze through them. But I don't think we're that thin yet."

"Carter's got party favors in her pack," O'Neill assured. She and O'Neill routinely carried a small amount of C4, "plastique", for blowing things to hell and back when it required. Blowing the foundation off the bars would be a piece of cake, albeit a loud one.

Another blast from the complex jolted all three of them. O'Neill inwardly admonished himself for being surprised every time it blew. It was glorified artillery with an electrical twist. The fact that it could arc their way and fry them into nothingness in their cell was more intriguing now than worrisome. They would never know what hit them if it decided to go anywhere besides the gate.

O'Neill noticed for the first time that his knuckles were bleeding. The stone in the wall had scraped away the thin skin. It made little difference, though. If roughed up knuckles meant getting home, so be it. His insides were feeling a lot worse than his hands. His skin was more painful now than it had been an hour ago. He could feel his temperature rising with the assault on his body's defenses.

He carefully led Daniel to the floor and sat next to him. Neither of them had the strength to be at the ready for whatever Carter and Teal'c had in mind. He and Jackson would get up when it was required, and not a moment before that. They didn't have that much energy to expend. They would need it all to hike the hills toward the shuttle.

The shuttle.

Jack closed his eyes in disappointment. They had probably missed it. What time was it? Probably past time to plop down in the cold hull of the ship and catch some sleep. He held his head, wishing the cell would stop its merry-go-round movements. Which animal was he on? Oh yes, the pirate cat with a fish in its mouth. Or was it tiger with the cowboy hat? No music. That was good. Music meant noise, and noise meant more aggravation to his headache.

He opened his eyes. Had he dozed? He must have, because the cell was completely dark. The sun was gone. The only light they had came from the small window to the hallway. Torches flickered, sending more shapes dancing around the room. O'Neill closed his eyes to them, taking away one less source of movement.

He was shocked awake by another emission from the complex. His senses were on fire, alert again to his surroundings. Avedra rested against the far wall, his arms folded against the cold of the stone and the night. O'Neill envied the man's immunity against the toxins in the water more than ever. Avedra should have been treated to all the fun.

It dawned on Jack, then, that he had gone unconscious. Time had passed. So might have Carter and Teal'c's attempt to free them from the cell. He swallowed hard, pushing down the spasms in his throat. "How long have I been out?" he said in Avedra's direction.

"Not long," came the quiet reply. "You needed to rest, so I did not wake you. Doctor Jackson has been drifting in and out, as well."

O'Neill checked on Daniel whose mouth was open in a gaping manner, his breaths coming in a rasping effort. Jack saw the beads of sweat on his friend's forehead, the body's effort to cool itself down amid the raging battle going on inside it.

Jack's head lolled backward against the wall, his strength to keep it upright sapped to the bare minimum. It made a small thump as it landed flat against the stone once more. He licked at his dry lips again, regretting it the action for waves it brought in his flipping stomach. He could taste the stagnate water on his skin.

"So, nothing spectacular happened while I was out?"

"If you are asking if our rescue came, then you did not miss it with your sleep."

"Comforting," Jack managed. There was a thought worming its way through the back of his mind that Carter and Teal'c were not coming to get them out of the cell, that Neja would have them until they died there. "They'll be here," he said aloud, more in an effort to assure himself than anyone else around him. "Yeah, any time now."