A/N:okay, here's chapter 21. i would like to thank all of those who have reviewed chapter 20 and the rest of the chapters in this story. oh yes, GateSeeker2, don't worry, nothing too bad will happen to sam. But i do need to but them through a bit more angst before everybody gets to be happy. anyway i also need to throw in a disclaimer for this part because once again i have slightly crossed this story with another series, this time though its, the pretender. don't worry is you don't know that series, my younger sister and unofficial beta completely missed it and the chapter still made sense to her. oh yeah, the disclaimer, i don't own the pretender, i just really wish i did. please remember to review, as always, reviews make me smile.
Chapter 21
Finally, out of the small cell, Kate poured her energy into finding her father and his friends. She and Jacob enlisted the help of every off-duty personal they could find to go over everything they could to find the missing team.
Letting her mind wander one name kept sticking in her brain. Ba'al. Over the years, she had learned to trust her instincts, and right now, they were telling her to concentrate on Ba'al. Picking up the file on that particular snakehead, she paused before asking, "Jacob, what has Ba'al been up to recently?"
Her sudden question after nearly three hours of silence on her part caused everyone in the room to look up at her.
"Um, the usual from what Sel and I remember from our last briefing. Uh, the only new thing with him is that he has been looking for a new host for his queen. But other than that all has been normal with him. Why?" Jacob replied.
"Well he does hate SG-1 rather a lot, doesn't he?"
"More like he hates your Dad, with the other three it's just the same hatred the rest of the System Lords have," Col. Reynolds said.
"Well, if I really hated my…..Col. O'Neill and I was looking for a new host for my queen, then I'd pick Major Carter. It would be a major blow to all of SG-1 and the SGC, and it would definitely make my….the Colonel mad."
"Yo, Doc, you can call him your Dad. It's not a big deal here like it would be on other bases. In fact you calling him Colonel is kinda weird, "Ferretti grinned at her.
With a quick but wan smile, Kate acknowledged his remark.
"She's right though," Reynolds said. "That scenario makes sense; all we need to do is find where the hell Ba'al is keeping them. And then there's the fact that we've been looking almost three weeks already. He could have implanted Sam by now."
"So we need to get back to these files and find where he might have them. Jacob, can you and the Tok'ra locate possible bases for him?" Hank rested a comforting hand on Kate's shoulder.
"Yeah, I can do that. But I will warn you, Ba'al has got a ton of territory, this could take a while."
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A while was an understatement. Three days later, they had narrowed down the list some, but the total list was still longer than any kid's Christmas list. Kate, having little experience in the area of SAR and strategic planning, mostly stayed out of the way and thus provided simply coffee and food.
Jacob was coming and going constantly from the Tok'ra base and was finding very little information at all. The Tok'ra, who were always willing to have SG-1 help them, seemed unwilling to help the missing team. Selmak, who considered Samantha and the other members of SG-1 her family, couldn't explain the unwillingness of the High Council beyond "Tok'ra Politics." In fact, the oldest and wisest of the Tok'ra was finding herself becoming disenfranchised with the High Council with all their politics and power plays.
All of the team leaders and their 2ICs were constantly going through what intel they had and going out on recon mission when they thought they had a lead.
But so far nothing had turned up.
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Kate was patiently doing her rounds in the infirmary. All the recon missions over the last weeks had left a few people injured. But all those who were hurt to badly to return immediately to their teams all sat going over files and brainstorming new possible locations for Ba'al to have hid the missing team.
In an entire lifetime of military bases and evil phone calls, she had never seen anything like this. She had never seen an entire base mobilize so quickly to find four people, nor an entire base willing to do anything and everything to bring those four people home.
In the deepest part of her mind, she wondered if things would have been different if this kind of effort had been put forth the other times her father had been missing. She wondered if maybe, had Sara had the kind of support and constant belief that he was alive and would be coming back that awful four months when he was MIA and in an Iraqi prison, if maybe the fraying of her father's marriage to Sara wouldn't have started.
Mentally shaking her head, she banished those thoughts. She knew the breakdown of her father's second marriage had startled long before those four long lonely months when Sara had given him up for dead. She also knew that to a degree her stepmother was still in love with her father. Kate certainly couldn't deny the fact that Jack O'Neill was an easier man to love from afar.
Despite the past, here and now she had the constant support of others who also believed that he was alive. When the General had quietly called her to his office earlier and told her that the higher ups had finally done what he had been stalling for so long. Today, a month after they had gone missing, and six weeks after her arrival, SG-1 had been declared MIA.
But the search would continue, the General had promised her that as long as he had breath left in him, he would not give up on them. After leaving his office three hours ago, nearly the entire base had approached her and given her the same promise. Even those civilians who worked only occasionally with Jackson or Carter or knew them only by sight or reputation were determined to find the missing team.
Trying to focus her mind on her job, her eyes settled on the silent and scared huddled form in the corner bed. Hebron had refused to speak after waking free from Tanith's control. Janet, remembering what Sam had gone through after Jolinar, had said it was normal. So as his body healed they attempted to draw him out of his self-imposed isolation, but in these last weeks he had been all but forgotten to all but the medical staff. His silence had made him invisible. Laughing out loud at the sudden realization that hit her like a Mac truck, she dropped her clipboard and darted out of the infirmary. Running full speed, she made it to the briefing room overlooking the Gate Room in record time. Gasping for breath, the men and women in the room didn't notice her until she managed a loud piercing whistle she had spent an entire summer learning when she was six. Then all heads turned to her and saw the full blown grin on her face. The first one in weeks. "Hebron. He knows all of Ba'al's bases. HE would know where they are."
Reynolds, feeling as though it were his duty to tell her, after all he was the official 3IC of the base and second highest ranking officer, next to her father, and the highest ranking one in the room, gently tried to set her down. "Doc, I…..we all want to believe but….."
"What have they found?" her sharp question and icy tone more than vaguely reminiscent of her best friend from college, a woman who had learned that with privilege does not come an easy life, nor loving parents. Parker had adapted Kate's father as her own and Kate had adapted her best friend as the sister she didn't have and always wanted.
"Kate…..I….."
"What did they find?" Once again, she unconsciously adapted Parker's tone for dealing with idiot underlings.
Finally, Reynolds gave in, "Four bodies, badly burned. The team identified them by their dog tags. I'm sorry there was nothing……the team will be back shortly." Reynolds kept his voice down, as well as his eyes. Everyone in the room had lowered their eyes, as if ashamed of their failure to bring the missing team back alive.
Kate stared at them incredulously. Another thing she had learned or acquired or had developed from knowing her sister was a sense of knowing. Actually she had always had it, had always know when her father was in trouble or missing, but after meeting Parker it had gotten sharper. She knew her father wasn't dead. Another thing she had learned from her sister after years of helping her friend adjust to the changing realities and uncovered lies that represented her past was that no one ever really dies.
"They are not dead, I would know if my father was dead. It's only a trick. A ruse to keep us from continuing to look." Her voice was strong and icy cold. Parker had also taught her that burying emotion helps get people to stop thinking that you are weak. "We need to get Hebron to talk, because he knows. I know he does." With that she stood and with a straight back and her head held high, she turned on her heel and gracefully left the room.
Those left in the room all looked at each other, trying to decide what to believe. On one hand, they had the burned bodies and dog tags as proof, on the other, Kate O'Neill had known before anyone else that SG-1 was in trouble. It was bizarre, but she seemed to know things. They shrugged and decided to believe the new Doc. After all, very little is more bizarre than an alien gateway to the stars.
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Pain clouded every thought. The desperate need to run caused the pain to overshadow everything. Dashing through golden palace corridors had never hurt like this, nor had crawling through a filthy hole. Climbing walls had once been easy, and now cause the world to tilt on its axis. Scrambling for the tree line could occasionally cause tiredness in numbed limbs, but never before anything like this.
Finally, after what felt like years of running and falling when tired legs gave out, the circle appeared. A majestic stone circle that to many represented slavery, to others, freedom. Between gasping breaths the sapphire blue still standing waters appeared and clutching the device that had brought more soul-killing pain to acquire than ever before thought possible a code was sent and after trying to will the world to right itself, or at least for the three stone circles to condense into one again, the running that hurt so much and killed the soul more began again. It had to, the shooting had begun again, and instinct and desperation took over. Finally, there was only the blissful frozen blue.
