CHAPTER FIVE
Planet
PJ3-176,
Milky
Way Galaxy.
There were roving patrols of enemy troops throughout their immediate area, so the somewhat understrength SG-1 - with their unwanted tag-along Artan quickly keeping pace with the rest of them - moved quickly and silently through the trees and thick foliage, making their way along a parallel line to the main pathway that the Jaffa warrior promised would take them almost all the way to their destination.
Suddenly, Teal'c pulled up short and held out his right hand for stillness. The rest of the team stopped where they were, and stayed completely still. Nothing could be heard but the sound of wind rustling through the trees, and the various natural sounds of a forest alive with expectant vibrance and activity.
But there was something, deep down when they focused on the unusual sounds amongst the normal clatter. Movement, off to the left of their position, further in amongst the trees and thick shrubs that dominated this forest. Every one of the makeshift team slowly, quietly swivelled around to face the direction in which the slight noise was coming from, bringing their weapons up to bear.
Artan had his automatic Goa'uld energy weapon mounted onto his right forearm, while the three men of SG-1 had either a MP-5 sub-machine gun or a P-90 assault rifle. They were all prepared to shoot their way out of the situation... but also knew that if they had to open fire, it would only alert all of the Ori forces within earshot to their presence.
Suddenly, a figure came out of the trees quite rapidly, dressed in a full-bodied cloak and holding a long, strangely distorted staff of some sort. Mitchell immediately thought that they were faced with a Prior of some kind, and raced forward with his P-90 levelled right at the person's mid-section.
He knew that if he fired that weapon and this indeed was a Prior, then there was little chance it would do any good and they were all probably as good as dead. But Cam wasn't about to give in, even in the face of hopeless opposition.
"Don't move!" the Colonel hissed, stepping right up to the figure. He looked at the hooded person's face, and saw that this was a young-looking man; without the pastey-white skin and proud, arrogant deamour of a Prior of the Ori. Just to be safe, though, Mitchell yanked the staff the man was holding right out of his grasp before he had a chance to struggle; though he seemed hardly bothered by the somewhat violent manner in which the Colonel releaved him of the long, wooden pole. "If you do anything stupid like try to call for help or run, you're dead - understand?"
The cloaked man hardly seemed fazed by the presence of the four armed men. He simply smiled, and reached up to pull back the hood that covered his face. Cam, Dr Daniel Jackson, Teal'c and Artan all tensed up, expecting some form of violent action or trick from the man.
There was none. He simply revealed himself to be a somewhat handsome-looking black haired man, with deep blue eyes and a distinguished, well-defined face. There was a burning light behind the eyes, though, that alarmed Lt Colonel Mitchell for some unknown reason.
"I do not mean you any harm, Colonel Mitchell, but I will defend myself if provided as would any noble servant of the gods," the young man said with a soft, harmonious voice. He glanced over at Dr Jackson. "Ah, Dr Daniel Jackson. Remarkable. You have shown us the light of existence as it truly is, and exposed the work of the harbingers of evil by revealing this galaxy to us. Our holy crusade will bring the divine harmony and benevolence of Origin to these dark worlds. Hallowed are the Ori."
"Is that what you think you bring to us with this invasion? Divinity? Benevolence? Don't you realize that your Priors and your Origin have brought nothing but suffering and chaos to this galaxy? Can't you see...?" Daniel countered angrily, raising his voice slightly louder than the others would have liked despite himself. "What do you want here? Besides slaughtering every single person that does not want to believe your religion?"
"Nothing, Dr Jackson. We spread enlightenment and wondrous knowledge beyond your wildest comprehension, and all that we seek in return is that you give yourselves over in supplicant worship to the Ori," the man continued on, undaunted.
"Umph, sorry buddy but I don't think we like what you're selling, so I guess we'll be on our way," Cam said to the man. He looked very much like a monk of some sort, perhaps a Prior-in-training or something of the sort. Mitchell shrugged his shoulders - it hardly mattered.
He knew that it wasn't right to kill the man, as he was unarmed and was covered by all four of their guns, but then again the Colonel also knew he couldn't leave the man conscious and just continue on to their objective. Cam turned to Artan.
"Stun him with a zat-gun." Artan reached down and pulled a zat'ni'katel out from its hip holster, then activated the weapon - which looked like a coiled serpent - by pressing a small button on its left side. He indeed understood the term 'zat-gun', though it was an alien connotation to the Jaffa warrior. "But leave him alive."
Artan did not agree with showing this enemy any clemency, but then he thought that the Tau'ri would hardly agree with him on this, so it wasn't worth voicing his opinion. They were a race of valiant fighters, yes, but they were also weak in some few key points in the art of warfare.
The Jaffa wondered if they would survive the coming conflict with the mighty Ori. Artan wondered in some darker moments if, indeed, any of them would live through the coming maelstrom, but he had more confidence in the Jaffa race and the Goa'uld Lords who had not yet fallen than he did the humans of Earth, with their morality and their compassion...
He pushed these thoughts aside with an angry grimace, aimed his weapon at the Ori follower, and fired. The energy burst shot out of the end of the weapon... and came into contact with some kind of force-field protection. None of the stunning bolt fired from the zat reached the monk figure.
The man then reached out with his right hand. The staff he had been relieved of shot right out of Colonel Mitchell's grasp and flew through the air, straight into the Ori follower's. The very tip of the staff glowed ominously with a dark, bluish-black light, and this end of the monk's pole was pointed right at the four of them!
Artan and Teal'c quickly split off from the other two, with the former First Prime of Apophis spraying the monk with a protracted burst of fire from his P-90 as he ran on ahead through the forest. The bullets simply hit the Ori worshiper's personal energy shield and ricocheted harmlessly away, doing no damage whatsoever except to the surrounding plant-life.
Cam and Daniel Jackson went the other way, to the left while their companions went to the right, and both men were blasting away at the monk with their own weaponry also with minimum results. The end of the foe's staff weapon fired, and a bolt of pure energy shot through the air towards Dr Jackson, striking the ground at his feet and sending him hurdling up into the air. He flopped end over end like a rag doll, and came crashing down into the foliage a number of feet away, still and completely unmoving.
"Oh no..." Cameron breathed softly to himself as he came crashing down onto the ground behind a nearby oak tree, looking over at Daniel lying sprawled out on his back right out in the open. The man had to be hurt, and there was little if anything the Lieutenant Colonel could think of that he could do.
This enemy he was facing had all the advantage in technology, Daniel was right out there in an open clearing within sight of their foe, and seemed pretty much unconscious from Cam's own vantage point or worse... but he had to do SOMETHING! Leaving a fallen comrade behind was not even an option, as far as the Airman was concerned.
Then the answer came from Teal'c, as they usually did in combat situations. The Jaffa warrior hurled a grenade onto the ground near the monk's feet while he was focused on trying to kill Daniel Jackson. The detonation came as a complete surprise to the man, and within such close proximity, having made it within the follower's personal shield by rolling into the protective cocoon the energy barrier provided, the devastation was lethal and horrific in its efficiency.
It was the energy shield that in the end contained the blast, and the grenade's explosion blew the monk of the Ori faith to pieces. At last, the shield failed because the tiny device on the monk's belt buckle that projected it was destroyed.
Teal'c and Artan came rushing over to Mitchell from another direction, to check on the Colonel and ensure that the Ori monk was indeed dead. Cam hurriedly bounded up onto his feet. "Good work there, guys," he said, "but Daniel's been hit. Come on let's go!"
They rushed over to where the doctor had landed, and saw that Daniel Jackson had indeed been knocked completely out by the impact back onto the ground, after being launched through the air by the concussive blast of the monk's weapon. It was just as Cam had feared. The SG-1 team leader glanced nervously around their immediate vicinity after he'd checked that Dr Jackson was unconscious, and suffering from no other visibile serious injuries, then looked to the two Jaffa.
"Come on, we have to get out of here right away," Cam said in a sharp, urgent whisper. "The sound of this fight as surely alerted nearby patrols. We're probably going to have some company very shortly, so I'd rather put as much distance between us and here as we can, as fast as we can."
"Agreed, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c replied. "We can move Daniel Jackson in his current state. I suggest we do so, and we make our departure straight away."
Artan nodded in silent agreement, and with that, the three of them, with an unconscious Daniel carried between Cam and Artan, started to make their way further on into the cluttered, twisting forest, hoping to elude the inevitable hunting parties dispatched on their trail. They hoped to rest at the earliest possible convenience to check on Dr Jackson and to rest, but this was a secondary concern to escape and evasion.
Their mission still lay ahead of them... in fact, it had hardly even begun.
