All right, it was official: topping the list of the ten worst ways to be woken up from a drugged sleep was to have a Goa'uld grab you by the throat and squeeze.

Daniel recognized the features of Dr. Barsamian, the forensic specialist, from earlier when the newly minted Goa'uld had seen him at the scene of the car crash. The glowing eyes were new, but the hand around the windpipe felt disturbingly commonplace. Pretty sad, Jackson, when you can describe being choked to death as normal. Says something about the changes that you ought to make in your lifestyle.

"Where is my map?" the Goa'uld roared.

Which was also pretty sad, Daniel wanted to say. Hard to talk when you're being strangled.

But, hey, this Goa'uld was no dummy. Shortly after realizing his error, Serus flung Daniel to the wooden floor in disgust. Daniel coughed, gasping for breath, trying to scrabble away. Door: blocked by angry Goa'uld. Window: small and several feet off the floor and Daniel didn't think that standing up was one of his strong points at the moment. Not when the world was spinning on an out-of-control merry-go-round right now. Escape? Maybe in the next life. Maybe to the next life. Jack? You somewhere close, I hope?

"My map!" the Goa'uld snarled.

"I don't have it," Daniel told him, never so grateful that the statement was true. "The others took it with them."

Serus said something unprintable in Goa'uld that Daniel understood perfectly well. Uh-oh. I don't like where this is going…

He was right. Serus possessed a hand jewel, and knew how to use it. The light flashed out from the Goa'uld's palm and tore into Daniel's brain, dragging out the information that Serus sought without regard for his captive. Agony flashed through Daniel's head, blocking out all light, pushing away all sound except for the roaring in his ears that signified the fading away of consciousness…

"I have never seen a brindit—"

"but—?"

"The tales that I have been told as a child suggest that that particular boulder over there," and Teal'c pointed grimly, "would come close to demonstrating the shape of the creature. That may be the rock that DanielJackson told us to look for."

"Which means that we're getting closer," Carter agreed. "It's around here somewhere. This is the place where a little more input from Daniel would be a good thing."

"Which we don't have. Fan out," O'Neill ordered. "Carter, left, Teal'c, right. Split the men up. Take a spiral pattern, see what you can find." He unlimbered his radio again, not objecting when both Carter and Teal'c elected to pause while he spoke on the radio. "Major Nelson?"

"Nelson here, colonel. Just coming in view of the cabin. It looks deserted…" The transmission trailed off.

"Major?"

This time the radio didn't stay silent. "Oppenheimer's down. Looks like a sniper, from a distance. He never knew what hit him." Nelson's voice was bleak. "Reynolds is alive, but unconscious. Torres is contacting the authorities to get some medical help in here."

"And Daniel?" O'Neill didn't look at the other two.

"Missing. No sign of him, colonel. The room is trashed; he put up a fight. The Goa'uld dragged him out the front door and drove off. One set of tire tracks unaccounted for."

Just what O'Neill had feared, when Reynolds stopped talking on the radio. Dammit, they were supposed to be trained soldiers, ready for anything. Damn Goa'uld must have cased the area, and taken out the guards one by one. Whoever this Serus was, he was no dummy. "Take care of your men, major. Notify General Hammond of the situation on a secure line. Get more teams up here ASAP. I'll handle operations from up here on the mountain, since that Goa'uld is most likely on his way to where we are. There's only one reason the snake needs Daniel, and that reason is hidden around here somewhere. O'Neill out."

"Colonel?" Carter asked the question with big blue eyes.

"Fan out, major," was all O'Neill could tell her. "Find it first."

Don't throw up. That would be bad. His insides didn't care; they threatened him with intense agony should he try to move.

And since the jeep that was being driven at breakneck speed by the Goa'uld was jouncing him up and down with little regard for such niceties as internal hemorrhaging, intense agony was a reality. The only good thing about his situation is that the pain kept him from thinking, and thinking would lead to guilt over being in the clutches of Serus who showed no hesitation in ripping the knowledge that he needed from Daniel's brain. He'd been able to withhold the last part, the part that was a little fuzzy because he didn't have the document in front of him, but with just a little more time and effort—and pain on Daniel's part—Daniel knew that Serus would be able to drill that out of him as well.

The jeep jerked to a halt, and Serus hopped out. He reached back and dragged Daniel out by his shirt. "Come," he barked. Daniel staggered to his feet, only to find himself on his knees. How did I get here?

Serus didn't care. He yanked Daniel back upright, shoving him forward. "The rock, Tau're," he insisted. "Find it!"

"I don't know where it is," Daniel yelled back, frustrated. "You wrote the map! You find it!"

"If I remembered where it was, I wouldn't need the map," Serus retorted. "Think, Tau're! Or must I pull it from between your ears?" He raised his hand threateningly, the one with the jewel on the palm.

"That way!" Daniel pointed in desperation. He didn't know whether that was right but one thing that Jack had taught him: when in a desperate situation, stall. Stall for time, hope that Jack and the rest of SG-1 would find him.

"Climb," Serus ordered.

Daniel climbed. Maybe I can fall down this slope. That's one way to escape. He looked again at the sharp rocks that littered the mountainside, interspersed with a large number of sturdy trees. That looks exceedingly painful.

"There it is!" Serus crowed. "The rock that looks like a brindit! It is there!"

So that's what a brindit looks like, Daniel thought wearily. And here I thought it looked like a tabby cat.

Serus dragged his captive along toward the boulder. "Hurry. We must get inside before the Tau're find us."

"You don't need me any more," Daniel said tiredly. "Just kill me and get it over." At least then I won't hurt.

Serus stared at the archeologist with disdain. "You will serve me, Tau're."

"Not a chance." It wasn't an argument, just a statement of fact.

"I am your god!" Serus glared as only a Goa'uld could, the glowing eyes flashing drawing himself up to Barsamian's full height. "You will serve me!"

"Whatever." Daniel could feel the darkness finally creeping in around the edges. It had been threatening him ever since crawling out of the jeep. Now it was time to give in. There was more than one way to stall.

"Find the entrance!" Serus thundered. "Find it!"

"What?" Despite the fleeing consciousness, the patterns clicked. That was what the document was saying, the part that he was having trouble translating. It was no longer a location that the Goa'uld had written down, it was instructions on how to open the door. The door in the boulder…

The Goa'uld slammed him into the rock, the sharp edges cutting another gouge into his cheek. The rock felt cold, the high mountain sun declining to share its heat even through the summer season. Daniel slid down the rock face, ending up on his knees beside the boulder, the Goa'uld looming over him.

"Now," Serus said, lifting his hand, the one with the jewel, "you will tell me how to open the gate."

Binoculars had their disadvantages, the chief one being the time needed to get to the site clearly visualized once it was realized that the shit was hitting the fan. O'Neill came to that conclusion mere nanoseconds after putting the lenses to his eyes and spotting the pair outlined against the boulder that they'd found.

No time for delay. He handed off the field glasses to Carter. "Fan out and move in," he ordered tersely. "Take two teams and hit him from both sides. Fast and hard, major."

"And you, sir?"

O'Neill unlimbered the large bore rifle that he'd brought with him. It was good for hunting, good for defense, and now it was going to be good for taking out a certain unsuspecting Goa'uld who happened to be sucking the brains out of his civilian archeologist with a damned hand jewel thing. No one was entitled to the intelligence lurking behind those glasses except the SGC, and definitely not a damn snake. "Just stay out of my line of fire, Carter. Move out."

Both Carter and Teal'c ghosted off in either direction, each taking half a dozen of SGC's finest in their wake. Teal'c sent a grimly satisfied smile toward O'Neill before he disappeared into the trees. O'Neill could do considerably better than hitting the broad side of a barn, and the Jaffa expected that the colonel would change the scenario ahead of them in a most desirable fashion.

This would be a tricky shot. O'Neill rested his elbow on top of a sturdy branch, relying on the trees around him to keep himself unnoticed by the Goa'uld. That wouldn't be a problem; the Goa'uld was intent on his victim. Daniel was already on his knees, and the brief view that O'Neill had of him through the telescopic sites said that O'Neill had better hurry if he wanted the archeologist back intact. He swiveled the sight onto the Goa'uld, trying to decide which spot to aim for: the head or a broad chest shot? It was for damn sure that he'd only have one crack at this. A clean miss, and that Goa'uld would be off and running, a dead linguist in his wake.

The chest, then. Enough to set the Goa'uld off, disable him enough so that the rest of the SG teams could move in and neutralize. O'Neill moved the sight slightly lower, wishing that the host body was not positioned sideways to him, wishing that he could have a bit larger target. At this distance, with this much riding on a single shot, one little uncalled for finger twitch would have fatal consequences.

He could see Teal'c in position with his squad, deliberately exposing himself to O'Neill's view but not to the Goa'uld so that O'Neill would know that it was time to take his shot; Teal'c would be ready. Carter he couldn't see but he had no doubt that she too had her people in place.

Caress of the trigger. Puff of smoke. Jerk of the rifle against his cheek.

The Goa'uld staggered and went down. Yes! O'Neill slammed on the safety, tossing the rifle onto his back and dashing for the boulder in the clearing, knees be damned. Teal'c burst forth with a roar, his men yodeling behind him and Carter's a bare half-second away.

The Goa'uld was far from finished. Faster than any creature had a right to, let alone one who had just taken a bullet to the chest, he sprang back up, slamming his hand onto the boulder.

The boulder split into two, revealing an entrance into the dark interior. It was no boulder that Daniel had led them to, but the covering to a centuries-old Goa'uld Daughter Ship. The last piece of the puzzle, the last part of the document to be translated wasn't another direction to the ship but instructions on how to enter. The Goa'uld, snarling, flung a meager blast of energy in Teal'c's path and vanished into the interior, the rock face closing behind him. Daniel sagged against the cold stone, sinking to the cold moss-covered earth.

O'Neill reached him mere seconds after Teal'c and Carter, saw that the man was still breathing. Good enough for government work. "Daniel! How do we get in?"

But—

"Booby trap!" Daniel gasped, clutching at Teal'c, trying to get his feet underneath him. "Run!"

O'Neill wasted no time. He grabbed one armful of archeologist, Teal'c the other, and they ran.

The resulting explosion behind them didn't quite turn the mountainside into a level baseball field, but it came close.

Daniel accepted the glass of water that O'Neill pushed on him, glaring. Not coffee, Jack?

O'Neill returned the glare with an unrepentant look of his own. His civilian specialist now boasted several angry red burns on his temple, courtesy of an over-used hand jewel, and the man had to have a headache the size of Cheyenne Mountain. "How's the head?" he asked pointedly.

Daniel grimaced, sitting back in his chair by way of an apology. "Let's not talk of unpleasant things. And let me recommend that from now on, vacation gear will contain as much morphine as field packs. I could use some right about now." He closed his eyes wearily, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Have I told you recently how much I appreciated the rescue?"

"It would have gone better if we could have taken the snake down and spared the ship," O'Neill complained. "Washington is not going to be pleased."

"Sam is not pleased," Daniel pointed out, keeping his eyes closed. "Think of all the technology we could have gotten our hands on." He grimaced. "If only I could've held out just another moment or two. You could have captured Serus and taken the Daughter ship for ourselves."

"I think you're a little more important than a Daughter Ship," Carter replied, the tone in her voice implying that she was annoyed that Daniel could have thought otherwise.

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," Teal'c rumbled. "A Jaffa warrior could not have resisted the hand jewel."

"Yes, how did this all go down?" O'Neill asked. "Why didn't the snake know about the booby-trap?"

Daniel shrugged, regretted the action when it pulled on muscles best left alone. "Not something that I'd like to make a habit of, but I think I'm getting used to the hand jewel." He rubbed at the reddened burns on his forehead, pulling his hand back down when he found out—again—that it hurt even more to be touched. "It took a while for Serus to get all the information he needed from my brain, and he didn't have time to dig for that last little speck."

"Ah. The speck that talked about the booby trap." O'Neill nodded sagely. "Good work, Daniel."

"Though it would really fun to come home from our vacation in a Goa'uld Daughter ship," Carter sighed. "Wouldn't that have been a feather in our cap?" She looked sideways at Daniel, mirth lurking there. "Much better than a little rental job."

"Speaking of which, where's the ride back? The regular, jounce over the dirt roads type." O'Neill raised his voice, taking on that little edge of command with the unspoken I want it now tone. "Major Nelson?"

No translation needed. The major hung up his phone, turning around to face a Colonel O'Neill who hadn't been on his well-deserved vacation for more than twenty-four hours. "The local base says that they'll have a chopper land in town in three hours. They're clearing a space for it in the parking lot of the local grocer's."

"A jet would be faster," O'Neill griped, knowing what the only response could be. Nelson didn't disappoint him.

"Yes, sir, but there's no place to put a bird down in these hills." Nelson glanced pointedly at his watch. "That gives us just enough time to get Dr. Jackson down the mountain and into town. If you wouldn't mind, sir?"

O'Neill sighed. "C'mon, Daniel. Vacation time's over." He frowned at his pair of science geeks. "Did it ever begin for you two?"