Chapter 8
Daniel felt the rush of the beam a second before he knew that neither of them had the balance to stay standing for long. They over-balanced and fell, landing with a thump on the floor of the Apollo's bridge.
"Medical team to the bridge!" A voice above them commanded. Daniel lay back with an exhausted smile, his shoulder throbbed from falling on it, but otherwise he felt pretty good.
"Daniel Jackson!" Daniel opened his eyes, and looked up to see the blurred but still concerned face of his favorite Jaffa.
"Perfect timing," he said reaching out a hand for help standing up, Teal'c grabbed his forearm and supported Daniel on to his feet.
"Are you okay, Daniel Jackson?" asked Teal'c looking deeply into his friend's tired face.
"I've been kidnapped, beaten and shot," said Daniel with a sigh, "I'm fine," he smiled, "Just another day in the life for me. You should have them look at Charlie. They were doing some kind of experiment on him. I don't know what, but he took a while become coherent and as you might guess his equilibrium is totally gone."
"We will take care of you both," said Teal'c, leading Daniel off the bridge following the gurney they'd lifted Charlie onto. Daniel nodded, he was too tired to argue, and truth be told it felt good to lean on his friend and allow him to take care of him.
"They got them!" said Sam grinning widely.
"Them?" asked Don.
"Daniel found Charlie and helped him get out too," she said, "They're both exhausted, but they're going to be fine." Don suddenly felt a huge weight lift from his chest, he looked around almost expecting to see everyone realize how much easier it was to breath now.
"He's safe," he sighed, "When can I see him?"
"They're going to drop him off at a hospital in LA, and we have a Cessna waiting to take us directly there."
"Fantastic!" Don grinned, "You're sure he's alright? Why are they taking him to hospital?" he frowned.
"He was drugged," said Sam, "our Doctor says he's fine but wants to keep him under observation, just as a precaution."
"Why can't we travel with them?" asked Don.
"They're already on the way. They didn't want to lose time stopping to pick us up."
"You guys are leaving?" asked Sheriff Carter, "Did I hear that right, you found your people?"
"Daniel got a message out, my people picked him early this morning," said Sam.
"How exactly did he manage that?" asked Allison walking in behind Carter, "We have satellite surveillance of the facility continuous from the time we realized he was there, no one we haven't cleared has gone in or out of that building since."
"Daniel's pretty good at what he does," said Sam.
"Which is what? Hack computers, mess with our EM barrier do you know the damage he could have done by pulling it down for the brief seconds he did?"
"Daniel would never risk anyone else's life to save his own," said Sam, "and I notice you said could and not did."
"It was probably Charlie who hacked the computer anyway," said Don, "he's good with that stuff he wouldn't intentionally put anyone in danger."
"But why would he drop the shield anyway?" asked Allison, "There's been no aircraft activity for more than 36 hours."
"That's classified," Sam snapped, her own exhaustion wearing her nerves, "Expect a team from the JCS, they're going to do a thorough review of this place. To discover how it happened that not only were you housing a highly illegal experiment involving the kidnap and assault of a brilliant man, but your security forces were unable to locate one injured archeologist hiding within your own facility."
"We know he sent a message out," said Allison, "and we were able to track the computer breadcrumbs, we found the storeroom where they were hold up."
"Storeroom?" asked Don.
"Next door to the infirmary," said Carter, "about twenty feet from where Jackson disappeared from."
"Sounds like Daniel," Sam grinned.
"We also found this," said Allison handing over a security pass.
"This is Daniel," said Sam, handing the laminated card back to Allison.
"It seems we couldn't find him, because Dr Jackson had assigned himself to the search," said Allison. Sam turned away biting her lip to keep from laughing.
Teal'c regarded his friend with concern as he lay far too still on the crisp white sheets in the Apollo infirmary, Charles Epps lay sleeping in the bed across the way, but unlike Daniel Jackson his sleep was a restful one. A nurse came to adjust the IV feeding fluids into Jackson's arm.
"His temperature increases," said Teal'c.
"By a couple of degrees," said the Nurse, "We're monitoring him closely, it's quite a severe infection he's got."
"How is Charles Epps?" asked Teal'c.
"Whatever they gave him, hyper stimulated his neural function to the exclusion of his motor functions. He's lucky his respiration resumed once he was removed from the life-support machines that Dr Jackson described."
"Will he be fully restored?"
"The drugs are almost completely metabolized into his system," said the Nurse, "the fact that he had regained the muscle function he did before he collapsed speaks well of his prognosis. We're monitoring his tox-screen and administering a drug we just received from Atlantis meant to cleanse the body of toxins, it seems to be working. He's sleeping peacefully and that's the best thing right now," Teal'c nodded, and the nurse left her rubber soled shoes squeaking on the decking.
Sam drove the rental car out of Eureka and smiled again tickled by what Allison had found out. She'd be very interested to know how Daniel had managed to secure himself a position on a security team and avoid all the cameras in the facility. Don sat quietly beside her subdued, but still free of much of the tension that had weighed on him since they'd started out from LA. Sam saw the incoming escort team and pulled over to the gas-station nearby. Two agents met them as they got out of the car.
"Why are we stopping here?" asked Don.
"These men will take care of the car, and your bags," said Sam.
"Okay, not answering my question," said Don.
"I've always been more of a fan of show than tell," said Sam grinning. A bright light flashed around them, Don turned away to shield his eyes and found himself staring out a window into a night sky.