Chapter 2:

O'Neill felt an overwhelming sense of guilt watching Carter slowly fade away in front of him while he sat here in perfect health save for two bum knees. He should have gone with her. He should have been there enduring the pain with her.

She was sitting on the floor leaning heavily against a wall. Her face was battered and bloody; her left eye swollen shut. The garment she wore, or what was left of it, was covered in blood. He assumed hers. Her right leg was wrapped heavily in some type of bandage blood slowly seeping through. She held her left arm protectively against her body, protecting her ribs, a broken arm, or her bleeding abdomen, or all three. He couldn't be sure.

Sam paused in her account as a wave of pain encompassed her. She reached to turn off the camera but stopped when the pain or exertion or both were too much to bear. She closed her eyes as if commanding the agony to stop.

What seemed a lifetime later, she opened her eyes and continued. "Multiple injuries…blood loss…too much blood..."

She was called a political "detainee" by the government. Whose government, she did not know. The truth was she was a prisoner. She, along with the other "detained" scientists, was herded into the detention facility like animals going to slaughter where she was searched, stripped of her clothes, shoes, her identify. She was now a nameless prisoner in a war she knew nothing about.

Guards pushed her roughly against a metal wall. The metal was cold against her body covered only in a rough, thin tunic and feet bare. Metal doors could be heard opening. She was shoved through a door and forced to a hard unforgiving floor where she was chained, hog-tied and left bound and blind in the cell.

The silence was deafening. Her labored breaths under the suffocating weight of the heavy hood seemed to echo off the metal walls. Sleep was impossible, the pull of the restraints unbearable. She lay there thinking of all the times SG-1 had been in similar situations. They had always been together. This time, she was alone.

The door to the cell suddenly opened and heavy booted feet entered. She was released from her restraints and pulled forcefully off the floor her cramped, unused limbs screamed in protest at the forced movement.

"Move!" A guard shouted shoving her in the back with some type of weapon. Carter turned suddenly and lashed out blindly her fist connecting with soft flesh. A loud "oomph" was heard followed by an expletive. The small victory was cut short when a weapon landed viciously into her chest and another to the head. She dropped unconscious to the floor. The guards quickly moved in securing her wrists and ankles and dragging her lifeless body out of the cell.

A door opened and slammed shut. A chair scraped along the floor and a weight settled on top. The chair scraped again as it was moved forward.

"Remove it," a deep voice ordered.

Carter tensed and jerked when invisible hands pulled off the hood.

"Who are you?" The deep voice demanded.

"Wha…" Her reply was slurred and weak. The fog of unconsciousness was slow in lifting.

"Who are you?"

"Majr…" Darkness began creeping in again.

Hands suddenly grabbed a fist full of her hair and pulled her head back and held it firmly. "Speak. Who are you?"

"Major…Samantha….Carter."

Sam was left in the interrogation room unguarded. There was no chance she could escape. Her shackled wrists were attached by a short connecting chain to a metal ring on the table and her ankles similarly attached to another ring in the floor. The heavy hood had been placed back over her head and tightened so she could not force it off; her skull pounding from the blow she received when she tried to fight back against who, she was not sure.

She could hear metal doors opening and closing down the corridor and guards shouting at other detainees. The door to her room opened again. She heard the metal chair scrape against the floor and the same deep voice.

"Remove it." The hood was removed and her vision was assaulted by overhead lights. The pounding in her head increased. She closed her eyes willing the pain to go away.

"Who are you?" He demanded.

Sam did not respond. The man was large with chiseled features, black eyes, and closely cropped black hair. He was a solider. He was not part of the Volostrian military.

"I told you who I was." She responded irritated at being asked the same question over again. "Who are you? Why am I here?"

The man nodded at another guard standing behind Sam. Before she could react, she felt a blow to the back of her head propelling her forward. She was unconscious before her head impacted with the table.

Frigid water brought her suddenly back to consciousness.

"Shall we begin again?" The dark hair man inquired. "Who are you?"

Sam could not open her eyes, the pounding in her head magnified by the newest assault. Her head hung limply down.

"Do you need more encouragement?"

"I told you. Major Samantha Carter," she spoke weakly into her chest. "Who are you? Where am I?" She asked again finally lifting her head up to look her interrogator in the eyes.

"I am Reynarc and you are a guest of the government," he replied smugly.

"Does your government always beat and chain up its guests like animals?"

Reynarc smiled at the question nodded to the other guard again and spoke. "Please show the prisoner how we treat our guests."

She was shown to the "guest" accommodations, a three foot by three foot cage. The hood was shoved back over her head and tightened and she was pushed into the cage with her arms still bound behind her and ankles restrained. She could not sit nor stand and was forced to stay in a crouched position. The guards left slamming the heavy metal door behind them. She was alone. Within minutes her muscles were screaming; within hours she was in agony barely able to hold in the screams of anguish her body longed to release.

The metal door opened. In her haze of torment, she heard booted feet enter. The cage door opened and she was pulled out. She did not try to stand; she would not have been able. She was dragged down the corridor and dropped onto the floor of the interrogation room.

Carter could sense someone was already in the room, she suspected Reynarc was watching the results of his handy work.

"Remove it." She heard Reynarc order before the hood was loosened and jerked from her head. She inhaled deeply fighting to overcome the uncontrollable spasms of her body.

Did you enjoy the guest accommodations?"

"A little cramped for my liking" she answered her voice shaking with exhaustion. The remark earned her a boot in the stomach.

"Who do you work for?"

She could not respond as she tried to push the rising nausea down and regain her breath from the attack.

"Why are you consorting with the Volostrians?"

"Not consorting," she gasped, "explorer. Tau'ri." Another boot to the stomach followed.

"Do you expect me to believe your lies?" He asked

"Yes."

Reynarc's expression turned hard. "Return her."

Sam was dragged again from the room and returned to the cage. The process repeated three more times each time she left Reynarc more battered and she was left in the cage longer. Each time she lost more of her self control.

"What do you want from me?" Sam asked barely above a whisper.

"Where is the weapon you were helping the Volostrians build?"

"I don't know anything. I told you I am an explorer."

"You lie, we found you in the weapons facility with another Volostrian scientist."

"Yes, I was there but I don't know anything about the weapon. I was there to study it." She was too exhausted to argue.

"You killed three of my men. I should kill you now for your crime."

"You attacked, I was protecting myself."

Reynarc was frustrated by her denials. "I grow tired of your lies, prisoner, you will tell me what I want to know or you will die."