Kel'tar of Perit'ak was not having a good day.
He knew better than to game with Lerac. Lerac's friendly little games always resulted in something unpleasant- for Kel'tar. Like today. Even now, Lerac was probably laughing it up back on the ship, lounging around while Kel'tar's subordinates scurried to and fro, busy with inventory.
All while Kel'tar was stuck in the roasting heat with the sorriest, stupidest patrol of young warriors to ever be graced with the name Jaffa. His great-grandfather, First Prime to Bastet, would have slaughtered the lot of them as an insult to their God. Truly, it had been a golden age, he thought glumly, watching as one of his warriors nearly tripped another with an ill-timed swing of his staff.
"Fool! See how you honor your God!" he bellowed, though his heart wasn't in it. The damned idiots didn't have the sense to lower their helms, as if there was anyone here to impress. They were like children. Some of them in fact were children, but he wasn't going to dwell on it. And in any case, any real warrior would have lowered the hood as to gain the benefit of his peripheral vision. But they- oh, they thought they looked so fine in their armor. He could hardly believe he had ever been that young. And he had surely never been as stupid.
Kel'tar shifted uncomfortably in his armor. It was too hot to linger. He was eager to get this pointless search over with and return to the cool shade of the trees.
If he were a younger man, he might run off and join the rebel Jaffa, who seemed to siphoning away the best and the brightest. There at least, one could find the glory that was so sorely lacking in the service of such a sorry lot of Gods as they had today. Of course, if he were still a young man, he'd probably feel honor-bound to remove his own head, rather than live as a shol'va. Such drama and passion was the purview of the young. Age, he believed, brought with it a certain pragmatism sorely lacking in youth.
He shook his head to clear it, to focus once again on the matter at hand. They had completed their circuit of the ruin at last. Hopefully they could make it up the hill without one of them tripping, accidentally firing his staff, and injuring the rest. He sighed.
No sooner did they start the trek back up the hill when a brilliant red light burst above the trees. From the look of it, it was somewhere near the clearing of the Chappa'ai.
Maybe a run would do the fools good. He glanced over at them. They weren't even in formation.
He glared at them.
"Jaffa, Kree!" They shuffled around but did very little else. Kel'tar was briefly tempted to shoot the ground at their feet to motivate them.
"Run, you fools!"
They took off at a shuffling march. Kel'tar briefly pressed one armored fist against his forehead.
He was going to visit a suitable revenge upon Lerac for this.
He jogged after his wayward troops. They even found themselves in something approaching a halfway decent marching rhythm. Kel'tar found himself grudgingly impressed. Not one had yet managed to trip over his own feet. It was an improvement from the last time he had gotten stuck with this group.
After cresting the hill and entering into the shaded bliss of the trees, Kel'tar allowed himself a sigh of relief.
It was short lived.
A shadow shifted, just off the trail. Kel'tar glanced over, but couldn't see anything, nor did he hear the tell-tale rustle of movement. Before he could dismiss it as just a small creature moving through the undergrowth, his patrol startled and fell into a loose attack form, circling around a metallic cylinder.
There was a great clanking as they all shuffled around, just short of shoving as they all tried to get a better look at the hissing thing. At least half of them lowered their helms, which was a start, Kel'tar thought glumly.
Just as suddenly, the canister loosed a huge bout of dense and colored smoke. They would soon all be blinded, and none of the young idiots had the sense to react accordingly. Before he could berate them for their idiocy, he heard a soft thump. Dimly, through the smoke, he could see another small canister.
It wasn't smoking.
Several choice phrases popped into his head, but he was given no chance to utter them.
BANG.
No fool like an old fool, he thought, and then it all went dark.
Dean tore through the forest like all the demons in hell were chasing him, figuratively speaking. It wasn't some mad, uncoordinated dash for him. Oh no. Precision and skill all the way. He and Sam had gotten a lot of practice with the real deal over the years and especially of late. Been there, done that, ruined plenty of t-shirts. These guys were chumps in comparison. All he'd had to do was cut a path that went right through them and hightail it out of there, yelling his lungs out. Just like that and the ones still standing after the stun grenade were on him like a particularly stupid pack of dogs. Whoever did their recruiting was either a double agent or monumentally incompetent.
He continued yelling, just to make sure they didn't give up the chase too soon. He'd gone with 'Tarzan' for a little variety. After running them around in half a dozen circles, he stopped yelling and quietly lost their trail. The poor bastards would be lucky if they could find their way back by dark.
He crouched at the foot of a tree and lurked behind an overly large grove of ferns until he was certain they'd gone far enough in the wrong direction not to notice him. Then he slipped back to the original trail to meet up with his brother.
He found Sam unsuccessfully trying to wrestle one of the heavier-set soldiers off the path. Sam stopped for a moment to catch his breath. He looked up and saw Dean.
"Hey, little help here?"
Dean stepped over the other body lying prone on the ground and grabbed the soldier's feet. Sam grabbed him under the arms and together they hustled him off the path.
"Shit, this dude needs to cut down on the Twinkies already," Dean said as they carried the guy deeper into the forest. They dumped the guy unceremoniously on the ground next to his buddy. Sam had literally just dragged that one over, judging from the faint marks still visible on the ground.
"The armor alone must weight a ton," Sam said, shaking his head. "It's stupid."
"Yeah, well, judging by their comrades, fighting smart is not a high priority for these guys."
Sam squatted next to the older man and began looking for some sort of catch on the armor as Dean stood guard. "They're the minions, I guess."
"Minions? As in "you have failed me for the last time!" minions?"
"It fits." Sam prodded at a promising looking swivel in the armor. Nothing happened.
Well, Dean mentally amended, nothing useful happened, as the soldier let loose a grating, buzz-saw snore. Bzzzzzzit.
"I never get those guys," Dean said after a second. He could swear he'd just seen the old guy twitch at the sound of the snoring.
"They exist to get knocked around by the good guys. What's there to get?" Sam let out a hiss of dismay as his prodding only resulted in the soldier's bull-head reappearing. The soldier's snores were dampened, if not completely diminished. The bull-head gave them an interesting resonance.
Dean kept an eye on the old guy, and said thoughtfully, "Oh, you know. Working for the big bad can't be good for morale. He sends 'em off to be slaughtered, he kills them for bringing bad news, he laughs evilly and gets them to sacrifice themselves to save his cowardly ass."
Hmm, he thought, definitely a twitch.
Sam looked up at him, having caught something in his tone. Dean knew what he was thinking- he was wondering where Dean was going with all this. Dean twitched his head ever so slightly at the old guy.
He could practically see the gears turning in Sam's head. Sam nodded and then went back to fidgeting with the armor, at least superficially. His posture was loose and alert, ready for action.
"It just screams stupid. No one in their right mind would want to work for a heartless, treacherous, bastard, and I just don't get it." he continued, then paused. "Why don't you fill us in, old man?"
The older soldier did not move.
"Come on, might as well tell us. We know you're playing."
Still nothing.
"Or we could shoot you," Dean said, tired of the game.
That got a reaction. A pair of brown eyes glared up at him.
"Good. Here's the deal. We're robbing you."
The old man stiffened.
"So start stripping," Dean drawled. He made a face, turned to Sam and said, "Urgh, that just sounds wrong."
The disgust on Sam's face suggested he agreed.
The man made an effort to sit up. "I have heard the Tauri have no honor," he said- practically growled. "You have even less. Even your own people must hate you."
"Guilty as charged," Dean said, gesturing with his gun, "Nice and easy does it."
The old soldier glared, but he undid his armor, which came free with a mechanical whirr. The soldier shook himself free of it and kicked it towards Dean. Sam pulled his gun and edged closer to the armor, kicking it out and away. The man was dressed only in the thin tunic he'd had under the armor. Dean could see the shadows of some horrific scarring on the man's stomach, but he tried not to get distracted. Sam edged away before stooping down and grabbing the armor.
If looks could kill, both of them would be crispy critters by this point. "My lord Mithras will have both your heads! Surrender now and perhaps he will make it a merciful death," the old solider said.
Sam rolled his eyes. "Of course he will. Peachy."
The old man's eyes darkened. "I am called Kel'tar of Perit'ak, and I have been serving under my God since before your father was born, insolent boy. Were you to face me on the field, I would relish teaching you to respect your elders."
"We'll pass on the etiquette lesson," Dean said, his voice hard. "You're not exactly Miss Manners. But how 'bout you tell us about your Lord-- Mithras?"
"You are not worthy to speak his name-" a snore (bzzzzzzit) cut through his diatribe. "His wrath will rain heavily down upon you," he finished severely, but his heart was no longer seemed to be in it.
"Oh, we're worthy, alright. So he's the wrathful type? He the kinky dude in the dress?"
"Are you questioning the choices of a god?"
"When it comes to guys in dresses, yes."
"He is fearsome in all guises," Kel'tar offered, though without much conviction.
Dean snorted. "Right. I'll take that as a yes, then."
Sam leaned closer to Kel'tar, and fixed him with earnest eyes. "Where did he take the others? To your ship?"
"Death could not compel me to betray my God!" Kel'tar said with just a little bit too much firmness after a little too much hesitation.
"Oh, really," Dean said skeptically, giving the old man a calculating look. "You know, there's a
saying-"
"I do not care for any such Tauri nonsense," their prisoner declared.
Dean ignored him. "- About how there is no such thing as an old bold soldier. Now substitute 'stupid' for 'bold' and I think we're getting warmer. No one as stupid as the recruits out there survive long under a megalomaniac. I'm guessing you're not as stupid as you look, so you know we're not going to kill you."
Sam shot him a look that clearly said 'what the hell', but Dean continued.
"Don't get me wrong. We will shoot you. But I'm thinking that the reason you're so bold about dying here is because you're pretty sure that it's not going to go down that way, because you're not going to do anything stupid, and we're not homicidal maniacs."
Kel'tar clearly thought Dean had lost his marbles, his expression hovering somewhere between frustration and apprehension.
"So here's the deal. You tell us what we want to know, and we'll knock you out and tie you up – just enough to keep you busy for a while. Or..." he let it hang.
Kel'tar blinked and visibly struggled not to take the bait.
Dean continued without him. "Or, and how about this – we'll do that anyway, but when we're caught, we'll tell your divine lord and master" - the last said sarcastically- "That you're the mole that helped us."
Kel'tar sputtered. "My lord would never trust the word of a Tauri spy over the word of his loyal servant."
"Really?" Sam chimed in. He'd stood up again at some point. "He'd believe you, and just let it go?'
Kel'tar deflated.
Sam stepped up the good-cop. "We don't need to know anything sensitive. Just stuff anyone would know. You don't have to worry about it. It's not really helping us."
With something approaching hope, the old man said, "And most surely you will be defeated. You will not prevail."
"Of course. It's practically certain death." Sam agreed. Dean nodded along.
"So it really won't hurt to tell us how very screwed we are, would it? All the stronger, smarter people who have gone against him and lost? You might actually convince us to surrender."
Dean looked askance at his brother. He was laying it on thick- but gears were apparently turning in the old soldier's head.
Kel'tar stared off into space, like he was mentally adding up his chances.
"Death awaits those who defy Lord Mithras, " he intoned. "Tok'ra scum once attempted to infiltrate his ranks, but he was not fooled by their cowardly tricks. He found the imposter and slew him with his own hand. And put his head on a pike," he added with some relish. "And that was but recently. He has, in his time, lead his armies to victory over....many villages, and laid waste to their lands."
"Villages? He's got a spaceship, and he's conquered villages?" Dean nearly laughed.
Sam glared at him, as if to say not helping.
But Kel'tar did not seem offended. "They were very valuable villages," he offered, without passion. "Lord Anubis insisted it would bring much glory to...uh...their alliance."
"Lord Anubis, he insist things often?"
The old man shrugged. "The Gods do as they will." He caught Dean's expression. "Yes," he quickly continued, "My lord does often receive his council."
"Right," Dean drawled. "So what's he done with our...friends?"
A stubborn line crept across the old soldier's face. Dean sighed, exasperated, and rephrased. "Fine. What horrors await us when we are inevitably captured?"
"When I was but a boy, it was said that he preferred slow and agonizing dismemberment. The rending of limbs and tearing of flesh, followed by the brand, and then the sarcophagus, followed by disemboweling-"
"Original," Dean said, his voice flat.
"Yes. Those were better days," the old man said wistfully.
"So," Sam broke in, "Not so much on the disemboweling today?"
The old man let out a grunt that sounded a lot like a harrumph. "My lord allied himself with other, lesser, gods. They – he does not-"
"Yeah, alright, ok, we get it," Dean interrupted, tired of the old man's attempts to avoid admitting that his boss was just somebody else's bitch. "But what- I mean, what will he do to us?"
"He will turn you over for interrogation to Lord Anubis," the old man said with some glee, like he'd just played his trump card.
His face fell when he realized neither brother reacted.
"It will be terrible! He is dread incarnate- He will pry the secrets of your world from your very mind!"
When he still didn't get the response he expected, he continued a little bit more desperately, "his very countenance is said to bring death to those who gaze upon it!"
"How...uh...interesting," Dean said.
"Definitely terrifying," Sam added, seeking to placate the old soldier.
Kel'tar stared at them, disgusted, and then shot a contemptuous look at the other soldier, still snoring away.
"Young men are all fools."
"Uh-huh. We don't really have time for this. Sam?" He looked over at his brother, who had been fiddling with the armor.
"I think I've figured it out."
"Great." He readjusted his grip on the gun and brought it up. "Okay then. We're gonna need to cut this short. We're really scared and all, but surrendering just isn't on the menu today. Good try though," he said with just enough insincerity.
Kel'tar turned an apoplectic-looking shade of purple at Dean's tone. He said a few words in a language neither brother recognized, but the meaning was clear. He did not get very far into his diatribe before Sam figured out how to cock the snake-gun and zapped him. Blue light danced over the old man's body. He twitched and then fell over.
"Huh. That was kind of anti-climatic."
Sam shrugged. "Good news or bad news?"
"There's good news?"
"Less bad news, anyway. I think I know how to get the armor on."
"What's the bad news?"
"We're not going to be able to get the other one unless the guy wakes up."
They both looked at the other soldier, who was still snoring soundly.
"There's gotta be a way, Sam. For field medicine if nothing else."
"You'd think so. But if there is, I can't find it." He looked ruefully down at the armor.
"Crap!" Dean pushed two knuckles into his temple. "I don't like it. We don't know how it'll play out."
"Sure we do," Sam, "we'll go in like action heroes. Save the day, like you said earlier."
Dean frowned and shook his head. "I can't put my finger on it, but there's something wrong here, man, don't you think?"
"There's a contemporary American expedition poking around improbable ruins on another planet. Fighting evil Roman gods with spaceships. Where they speak English. I think it's fair to say that there's a lot that's wrong here, Dean. Not the least of which is that we're stuck in a damn TV show."
"No – there's something...I dunno. Different. Off. Whatever." He glanced down at the soldiers. "Anyway, I guess it's not like we've got a lot of choice at this point."
"Probably not," Sam agreed. He looked down at the soldier, then started digging around in his own pockets. He pulled out a sharpie and brandished it triumphantly.
"Oh no," Dean said, catching where Sam was going with that. "Why do I have to be the guard?"
"The old man's your height, Dean," Sam said, advancing on his brother.
Dean shied away as much as it was possible without actually staging a full-scale retreat. "Yeah, but head-tattoos are far more your look than mine. Trust me on this one."
"No getting out of it. Think of it as revenge for that time in Dayton." Sam uncapped the marker and stepped forward.
"I am so killing that fucking Trickster."
"So far we're 0 for 3 on that one," Sam remarked, carefully copying the stylized bull's horns on to Dean's forehead.
"It only needs to stick once," Dean said when Sam was done. He walked over to the armor and struggled into it, and with Sam's help, managed to get it to work.
"Goddamn, this stuff is heavy," he complained. "Why the fuck do they wear this crap?"
Sam rolled his eyes. "Because it looks cool."
"Well it sucks." Dean clanked around for a minute, adjusting to the way the armor messed with his balance and getting familiar with its range of motion. He then practiced lowering and raising and bull's-head helmet. It was strangely satisfying. He couldn't see worth a damn when it was up, but he had to admit, it was awesome just for the way it appeared and disappeared. He wondered how it worked- it looked and sounded mechanical, but in operation, it was something else entirely.
"Dean," said Sam, his irritation and impatience snapping Dean's attention back to reality. Or what was currently passing for it.
"Uh, right. Your turn." Dean looked around for the rest of his kit.
"Uh, Dean, I can't wear the other armor," Sam said, patiently even, as if humoring his mentally deficient brother. ("Just kick him if he starts drooling on the furniture, dear...")
"Not what I meant," Dean snapped. He reached down and grabbed his backpack. "We're not going in there half-assed. We need to be sneaky." He already had plans for most of the goodies in his pack.
"This is going to involve a lot of uncomfortable hidden weapons, isn't it?" Sam asked with tired resignation.
"You bet your ass it is." Dean rummaged through his supplies, setting a few off to the side.
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"Suck it up." Dean focused on sorting through the weapons. It had been a long....day. Days? Whatever. If they ever got out of this, he was going to sleep for a week, then find a way to spend an entire day without coming within thirty feet of his brother.
He glanced over two knives before setting one in the pile and the other back in the bag.
Sam grumbled something under his breath.
Dean frowned at his brother than tossed the block of C-4 at him. Sam caught it and gave Dean an incredulous look. Before he could say anything, Dean cut him off. "Shut up and shove it...somewhere."
"You're kidding, right?"
Dean just raised an eyebrow.
"You've got to be kidding." A note of desperation had crept into his tone.
Dean just smirked. Sam's face fell.
"You're...not kidding, are you?"
"Hey, you never know when a stable plastic explosive will come in handy," Dean quipped. He had to remember to catch that particular show if they survived this. Ok, so the main character had shot him. But he had to admit, the guy had style.
The Trickster just had to introduce Dean to Burn Notice, Sam mused. It was not a grateful thought. There were many things that Sam wasn't going to be forgiving any time soon- hell, he had a list a mile long of all the shitty things the asshole had ever put him (them) through. This hardly made the list, but when there was finally a reckoning....oh. Sam was going to remember it as just one of many reasons the bastard deserved it.
There was...chafing.
Goddamn C-4. Stable plastic explosive, Sam's ass. And it was his on the line, after all.
It had only been a few minutes since they'd left their captives, as close to hogtied as they could get them with improvised restraints. They'd be able to get out of them eventually, but hopefully it would buy them enough time to...do whatever it was they needed to do.
The path back to the giant ring seemed a lot longer when he was forced to walk it at a shuffling pace, and it was giving his brain time to start coming up with second thoughts. And third thoughts, and fourth thoughts.
But no real alternatives. He had no desire to kill time by playing hide-and-seek with the morons back in the woods. And even if it were just a TV show, habits were hard to break. People being threatened by the supernatural? Coming to the rescue was more than habit- it was practically ingrained at a genetic level. Even when it was something as bizarre as gods with spaceships.
He knew what his dad would say, were he here. You do the job in front of you. Get it done, and deal with everything else later. Of course, that had never been in reference to being trapped in fictional worlds, but Sam figured his father would have still held it true.
It was funny how often John Winchester occupied his thoughts, these days. How much he had railed against him, and how much now he took comfort in his wisdom. Of course, their childhood was still all kinds of fucked up. Hell, their father was all kinds of fucked up. But so were their lives, and there was no escaping that. Just look at the current situation – prime example. Sam figured it balanced out in the end. That didn't stop it from being all kinds of annoying.
Sam was struggling not to let his irritation show every time his brother prodded him with the staff he'd stolen from an unconscious soldier. Spinning around and grabbing it away from him would kind of blow their cover, and they really needed the guys standing guard to beam them up to the mothership or whatever.
So he tried to look suitably cowed as his brother bullshitted his way through the conversation. He expected he looked more constipated than anything. It really was inexplicable, his brother's talent for fooling people into making them think he fit in. It came out of nowhere, sometimes. And it really bugged him, although he wouldn't admit it. Dean hardly ever cared to fit in, never seemed to care much what anyone thought. But when he did decide to, people just accepted him as one of their own. And he always seemed comfortable with that. There was a time Sam would have seriously considered maiming or murder to gain that ease. That boat had long since sailed- it hardly mattered anymore, he supposed.
Especially now. Dean had successfully convinced the guard that all was legit and kosher. Sam tried not to wince as the rings collapsed down on them. There was a flash of light-
And then they were in... a store room. Not what he'd call dramatic. Though the interior design was...interesting, to say the least.
"Wow, tacky," his brother commented.
He wasn't wrong. There were sloping gold walls and panels and panels of Egyptian hieroglyphs, and really...what the fuck?
"Roman gods...flying around in Egyptian spaceships. What part of this makes sense?" It was a rhetorical question. Sam knew the answer: exactly none of it, up and including the fact that a demi-god had plunked them into show after show. "Seriously, man, the Trickster must be losing it."
"Yeah." Dean was looking thoughtful again. "Right."
"What- you disagree? Come on."
"No- I do, it's just...." he trailed off, then shook his head. "Nothing. Never mind. So what do you think? Bad guy or civilians?"
Sam shrugged. "Civilians?"
Dean nodded. "Works for me. Gives us an excuse to wander around and case the place first."
"Alright, but I'm tired of playing prisoner," Sam said pointedly.
"Ok, so we'll mug some sucker along the way. Let's get moving." Dean rolled his shoulders, or attempted to. The armor clanked. He shifted his weight.
"Damn, this is uncomfortable."
"Dude, don't even." Sam pulled at the knife handle that was digging its way into his kidney. "Don't even start."
Dean rolled his eyes. His gaze ended up on the doors, and his face fell.
"Uh- question. You got any ideas on how to get those open?"
Sam turned to look at the doors. He could feel his own lips twisting into some unhappy shape.
"Yeah," his brother said. "Me either."
. . .
It only took a hundred tries (and a lot of swearing) to find the right combination.
"This is so not how I pictured charging to the rescue, Sam," Dean said.
"Shut up, you're gonna make me lose my place," Sam answered.
At long last, the doors slid open with a dramatic, scraping ring and they were able to make a triumphant charge into...a dull, empty, and still Egyptian-themed corridor.
They looked either way down the corridor. It was a long passage that ended at either side in right-angled turns.
"So...I'm guessing there's not going to be a map with 'you are here' around," Sam said.
Dean peered at the walls, which were covered in hieroglyphs just as the storage room had been. "Damn." He shook his head and shrugged.
Footsteps echoed from around one of the corners.
Sam looked at his brother, who was looking at him.
"Let's go-" Sam started.
"Yeah, thataway," Dean finished, glancing down passage. Sam legged it down the hall, and Dean jogged after him, each step giving off a clank of its own.
Halfway down the next corridor, it branched out. They hurried down one after another at random, hoping to get enough distance from their not-yet-a-pursuer to either work out an ambush or lose him.
The footsteps did not follow them, so that was good. Sam was pretty sure he could trace their way back to the original storage room, but other than that, they were lost. The place was a maze, and they still had no idea how to find anything or anyone.
The ship was huge and surprisingly empty, given its size. Which was to their benefit, but made it that less likely that they were just going to blunder into the captives by chance.
They rounded another corner. Sam spotted the guard half a second before Dean did, and froze. Dean hurriedly pulled the staff up into a menacing position. The guard, alerted by the sound of Dean's clanking steps, looked over and startled into an aggressive stance. He challenged them in the same strange language the old man had sworn in- it sounded like a cat hacking up a hairball to Sam's ear, but the meaning was clear: "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Sam hunched his shoulders and tried to look nervous and intimidated. It was harder than he expected; he had a lot of practice trying to look harmless, but now, the mask kept slipping. He wanted the release of being able to pound the Trickster or the nearest handy substitute (oh, like some self-important dick in stupid armor) into the ground. Something of this must have shown on his face; the guard's gaze was decidedly suspicious and entirely wary.
Dean, apparently trying to salvage the situation, tried for bored in his answer, but Sam could hear the tension underneath. "I'm taking this prisoner back to the cells."
"Fool! The prisoners are kept three levels down." He stepped forward, than froze. "You are not Jaffa." And tightened his grip on his staff-
Sam raised the snake-gun and held it level to the man's head before he could even begin to swing the staff around.
"Don't move," Sam said.
"We're robbing you," Dean added. The soldier was about Sam's height, after all. Unfortunately, their newest...prisoner? Victim? Mugee? Whatever, he was far less cooperative than the old man in the forest.
"I would die before I betray my God, Tauri dog!"
"We're not asking you to," Dean answered. He was growing impatient. "Just take off your damn armor."
"I will not aid you," the guard spat.
"Seriously, what is with you guys?" Dean began, but he was interrupted as the guard surged forward, either hoping to catch them off guard or to perform Suicide-by-Winchester. Maybe he didn't care either way.
Blue lightning danced over the guard's body, but it wasn't from Sam's gun. A tenth of a second later, Sam's shot zapped him as well. He twitched and fell over. Sam looked up to see an unfamiliar man wielding another of the snake-guns. He was dressed like the civilian members of the expedition, though he had the alert readiness of a soldier. Not to mention the fact that he'd beaten Sam to the trigger. That was unusual. Slow hunters were dead hunters, his father had often said, and despite their track record on the 'dead' part, he knew that he and Dean were among the best.
So he was impressed, albeit grudgingly. Despite their extensive arsenal and weapons training, Sam had never had the opportunity to get used to the particularities of an alien ray-gun. That was probably it.
"Talking them over only seems to work for Colonel O'Neill," the man said mildly, staring down at the unconscious guard. "And Bra'tak," he added after a second. "What were you trying to do anyway? It sounded like you were mugging him." He said it like it were a joke. If his tone got anymore, 'I'm deeply skeptical but I'm humoring you and I want you to know it,' Sam thought, I just might have to shoot him.
"You weren't with us earlier," Dean said. He didn't bother to disguise the accusation.
The man looked a little startled at this. "Well, no." The duh, while not vocalized, was still obvious.
It was only after that that he seemed to notice that they both still had weapons pointed in his direction. Sam sneaked a peek over his brother, who was wielding one of the handguns from earlier. Where the hell was he hiding that, he wondered, momentarily distracted.
"Please tell me you're part of SG-15," the man said, after the silence had dragged on for a little too long. It wasn't really a question.
"We are. But you definitely aren't.," Dean replied. His voice was even, and his words were mild, but he still managed to make the threat plain.
The man looked at them for a few seconds like they had lost their minds. Then he looked like he was waiting for them to crack and give up the joke.
"I'm Daniel Jackson," he still sounded surprised. "Doctor Daniel Jackson?" he added, as if the title would be the thing that would suddenly cause them to think, "oh, right, Dr. Jackson."
"SG-1," he finally stated, still sounding like he thought they were pulling his leg. "I was in the briefing this morning. You were there."
They all stared at each other for a moment. Awkward, Sam thought. He shared a look with his brother, and then said, "Oh! Right. Sure."
Dr. Jackson continued to give them a look that wavered somewhere between concern and apprehension.
He apparently wasn't convinced by Sam's last ditch effort to salvage it.
"Right," he said.
They all stared some more.
"So...could you...?" Dr. Jackson nodded at the guns with a slight tilt of his head.
"Oh- yeah, Sorry." Sam managed. They lowered their weapons.
The man gave them one last hard look. "So," he said, mock-casually, "What are you guys doing up here?"
Dean grunted as he dragged the guy off into a quiet corner.
"Looking for our captured comrades?" Sam tried.
"That explains the Jaffa suit," Dr. Jackson said, giving Dean a hand with the body, "But not, so much, what you're doing. The cells are all down three floors from here."
"So we heard," Sam said, under his breath.
"What are you doing here?" Dean answered back. "You're supposed to be... on a rescue mission, or something, right? You responded to the distress call."
It was a reasonable guess, Sam thought. But the funny look was back, and this time raised eyebrows accompanied it.
"Okayyy. Anyhow, yes, we were coming as backup."
"We? Where's the rest of you?"
The man not quite sighed. "Major Carter was breaking into the ship's systems when we were ambushed. We were standing guard, but there were too many of them so we tried to lead them away. We ended up getting separated- I managed to lose Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c. They may have gotten captured, I don't know- my radio was destroyed." He relayed it in the rapid-fire, bored way of someone forced to spell out something totally routine, like they'd asked about the traffic in his morning commute. ("It's not good, but you know, you get used to it").
"So I've been looking for Major Carter," he added, as if prompting a slow student.
"What does she look like?" Sam offered, trying to smooth it over.
Mistake. The man now seriously was looking at them as if they had lost their minds.
"Major Carter?" he asked, apparently unable to articulate anything more. He managed to sputter, "She ran the briefing!"
"Oh, her," Dean supplied.
"Um, we're new," Sam said.
"I'm getting that," Dr. Jackson said. Almost to himself he added: "And here you are, already off-world."
"Must be our winning personalities," Dean responded sourly.
"Okay then," Dr. Jackson said quickly, with a smile as bright as it was false. The situation hadn't gotten any less awkward.
"Well. Uh," Sam started. "So how about we help you find, uh, this Carter-" he winced as he said it, for the phrasing only deepened the apprehension on the man's face, "and then we'll all go find everyone else?" He didn't see any other way of proceeding; he and Dean weren't going anywhere, and it wasn't like there was an easy way to duck out of it.
The man seemed to have his doubts, but he shrugged. "That'd probably be best, yes," he said lightly. There was something in his tone, some slight hint of impatience.
Sam nodded in assent. Maybe they could get a little more of this figured out, and if nothing else- well, if it came down to it, it wasn't like there was any particular incentive to listen to some random (if admittedly very convincing) figment. It was groundhog's day, after all. They had to live with the consequences, but never for long.
"Fine," Dean said to the man, apparently coming to the same conclusion. "But first-"
"Yes?" There was definitely something urgent in his tone.
Dean shrugged in the direction of the fallen soldier. "Do you know how to get his armor off?"
"Um, yes?" He drew the word out and made it a question, as if he were unsure why they had to ask. Sam didn't care. He gave the man a grateful smile. Awkward or not, he could finally get rid of the damn C-4.