A/N - Thank you all so much for the wonderful reviews, follows, and favorites! I'm glad you are enjoying this story and hope it lives up to your expectations. This chapter took forever to write, mostly because there's so much going on, so I apologize for the delay. Enjoy!
Chapter 3
As they materialized in their new location, Sam immediately saw that they were inside what appeared to be an ancient version of a Tel'tak. But no sooner had the rings fallen away than Osiris grabbed Sam by the throat and began to squeeze.
"Where is she?" she hissed.
"Who?" Sam was barely able to get the word out of her rapidly constricting windpipe.
"My queen. Isis," she replied through gritted teeth.
Sam gasped for breath. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"You are trying my patience. Daniel Jackson has already told me that she is here." She began to lift Sam off the floor. "Now, you can either tell me exactly where she is, or I will tear your planet apart city by city until I find her."
Spots were dancing before Sam's eyes, and she clawed desperately at Osiris' hands. It was no use. Her grip didn't falter. For a split second, she considered lying but quickly realized that if she led Osiris to believe Isis was alive and on Earth, she very well might wreak havoc on the planet.
"She's dead," she said finally, or at least that's what she tried to say. It actually came out as a strangled whisper.
"You lie!" Osiris screeched, but Sam saw doubt in her eyes.
The Goa'uld let up on her throat somewhat, and Sam decided to take full advantage of her momentary reprieve. "She was in a jar...a canopic jar, like yours. The seal was broken. She died in stasis."
"Liar!" Osiris backhanded Sam across the face and sent her reeling. "If she is dead, then you must appreciate that I have no use for you. So, I'll ask you one more time." She picked Sam up off the floor by the throat once again and pressed her to the wall. "Where. Is. She?"
Sam struggled to breathe. "You can kill me if you like, but it won't change the fact that she's dead."
"No!"
In one fluid motion, Osiris threw Sam to the ground and trained her ribbon device on her. Excruciating pain shot through Sam's skull for what seemed like hours, though it was more likely only a few minutes. For a fleeting moment, Sam wondered if this was how she was going to die - alone, at the hand of an unknown Goa'uld. But Osiris apparently had other plans, because just as Sam thought she was going to pass out, the device suddenly shut off.
"Perhaps you will be of some use to me yet," the Goa'uld said with a cold smile.
She turned toward the control panel, leaving Sam whimpering on the floor of the ship. Within seconds, Sam felt the ship begin to move. It was more than her stomach could handle, and Osiris flashed her a murderous look as she vomited all over the golden tiles.
The last thing she remembered before she lost consciousness was the familiar tug of hyperspace.
oOoOoOo
Daniel jogged toward the Tok'ra scout ship that sat uncloaked on the tarmac at Peterson Air Force Base. He was exhausted, having barely slept on the transport from Egypt, but he was anxious to begin looking for Sam. As he approached, he saw that Jacob Carter was already sitting in the front of the ship, presumably having been called back from his trip to California.
He walked inside. "Jacob!" he exclaimed, by way of greeting.
"How long?" was his terse reply.
"What?"
Jacob spun around to face him, and Daniel noticed that his face reflected a grim determination. "How long has it been since Osiris took Sam?"
"Uh..." Daniel squinted at his watch. "23 hours and, um, 16 minutes."
"That's too long," he muttered as he turned back toward the front of the ship, his fingers playing rapidly across the display panel.
"What do you mean?"
"Where are Jack and Teal'c?" he barked over his shoulder, not bothering to answer Daniel's question.
Daniel winced. Walter had been trying to contact them since he'd alerted the SGC of all that had transpired in Egypt, but so far he'd had no luck. "Um...I think they're still, uh, fishing."
A grunt was Jacob's only reply. He placed his hands on the control orb, and the ship immediately rose into the air.
oOoOoOo
Sam's head was pounding, and when she opened her eyes, all she could see was the dim interior of a small, confined space. With some alarm, she realized that her hands were bound above her head and that she was half-sitting, half-lying on the floor beneath some sort of console. As her vision began to clear, however, she saw that she was aboard a spacecraft, currently being piloted by a woman with red, curly hair. She groaned as it all came back to her. Osiris.
Fully awake now, Sam realized that she had a whole host of additional complaints; her jaw ached, presumably from the blow she'd received earlier, and the muscles of her legs and arms practically screamed as she tried to move them into a less awkward position. She gave her restraints a good yank, only to find them securely attached to the control console.
Surprisingly, Osiris didn't even glance her way, her attention focused solely on the display. When Sam looked out the window, she thought she understood why. Something about the light being generated by the hyperspace window didn't seem quite right.
The ship lurched unexpectedly, causing Sam to nearly topple over. She scowled at her captor. "Where are we going?"
"Silence!" Osiris hissed.
The ship lurched again, then suddenly dropped out of hyperspace. Osiris let out a roar of frustration.
"What is it?" Sam asked, knowing she was unlikely to get an answer.
"This ship has been idle too long," Osiris replied, though more to herself than Sam. She brought both fists down on the console and swore. "We are stranded," she growled.
Osiris stood up abruptly and moved to the back of the spacecraft where she began pulling out panels lined with crystals of varying shapes and sizes. Sam watched her for a moment and quickly realized the Goa'uld had no idea what she was doing. She sighed. They would likely be there for a very long time - unless, of course, Sam helped her fix the ship. She leaned her head against the console and considered her options.
On the one hand, being stranded meant there was a better chance her team could catch up to them, assuming they were able to pick up the ship's energy signature and determine which way they were headed. Given the amount of time that had passed, she knew that was a long shot.
On the other hand, they might either be stranded out here indefinitely or, more than likely, captured by another Goa'uld. At that point, any hope of her team being able to track her would be lost. But even more importantly, if she were given access to the control crystals, she might be able to manipulate the ship's communication system to leave a trail of hyperspace breadcrumbs of sorts.
Her mind made up, Sam shifted her position to face Osiris, who was currently swearing up a storm. "I may be able to fix it."
The Goa'uld spun around, her eyes flashing. "You?"
Sam shrugged. "You said yourself that we've come a long way over the last several thousand years."
"Do it then!" she sneered, crossing the space between them in two long strides. She began to remove Sam's restraints. "But if I discover that you are deceiving me..."
"Believe me," Sam replied, rubbing her raw wrists. "I have no desire to be a sitting duck any more than you do."
oOoOoOo
Daniel looked out of the viewport to see the Earth turning beneath them. It never ceased to amaze him how peaceful everything seemed from orbit. Unfortunately, his reverie was interrupted by the cursing of the man sitting next to him.
"Damn it! I was afraid of this." Jacob muttered.
"What?"
"I was hoping I might be able to pick up the energy signature from Osiris' ship, but it's too late. They've been gone too long." He threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of defeat. "I have no way of tracking them."
But Daniel refused to believe there was nothing more they could do. "Maybe Selmak knows something about where they might have gone."
"I am sorry, Dr. Jackson, but I do not," the Tok'ra spoke with his distinctive timbre.
"Wait a minute," Jacob said, his voice returning to normal. "I'm picking up something strange." He touched a button and series of faint clicks could be heard over the ship's audio system.
Daniel's eyebrows rose when he recognized the pattern. "Isn't that...?"
"Morse code!" Jacob finished his sentence for him. "That's gotta be Sam!"
Jacob immediately began manipulating the control panel, and Daniel heard the hyperdrive come on line. "Wait, wait!" he exclaimed.
"What? Why?" The irritation in Jacob's voice was unmistakable.
"We need to get Jack and Teal'c."
"No." Jacob shook his head. "We don't need them," he said with finality.
Daniel wasn't sure where Jacob's reluctance to involve the rest of the team was coming from, but experience had proven that they would be much better off with them than without them.
"Listen, Jacob, we still don't know where Osiris is going or what might be waiting for us when we catch her," Daniel pleaded. "We've always worked best as a team. Besides, Jack and Teal'c are going to go looking for Sam anyway. Better that we do it together."
"Even though you may not like it, you know he's right," Selmak added in his head.
"Fine," the older man snapped, sending disapproving thoughts in his symbiote's direction. "But we have to make it quick."
Jacob piloted the cloaked ship back to Earth, eventually coming to hover over an open, grassy area near Jack's cabin. Daniel ran to the ring platform, and Jacob activated the controls, sending the archeologist to the ground below.
He leaned against the wall next to the platform and crossed his arms, waiting for Daniel's signal. "For the record, I can't be held responsible for my actions when I see the s.o.b.," he said to Selmak.
"I still do not understand why you are so upset with Colonel O'Neill," the Tok'ra replied. "Clearly, he cares for Samantha a great deal; you have said so yourself. And surely he wouldn't have pursued her without some indication that she would entertain such a relationship."
Jacob bristled. "That doesn't matter! As her commanding officer, he should never have allowed it to happen. It was his duty to protect her. Now, they could both be court martialed."
Realizing the futility of the argument, Selmak decided to let the matter lie for now. "Perhaps we should concern ourselves with that after we have retrieved her from Osiris."
Before Jacob could respond, the radio crackled and Daniel's voice reverberated throughout the ship. "Got 'em!" he said.
Jacob activated the rings and walked back to the front of the ship, having no desire to greet his new passengers. "Hold on," he called over his shoulder when he heard the rings retract. He activated the hyperdrive, and the ship flew into open space.
Jack, still in fishing garb, practically accosted Daniel. "Now you wanna tell me what this is all about?" He furrowed his brow and looked around the ship. "Where's Carter?"
"Osiris has her," Daniel replied.
"Who?"
"Osiris. He...she is a Goa'uld." Jack looked at him with a mixture of annoyance and disbelief, and Daniel steeled himself for an explanation he knew was unlikely to be well received. "You remember I went to the funeral of my old professor? Well, it turns out he had discovered two canopic jars, each containing a Goa'uld symbiote: Osiris and Isis."
"Wait a minute, you mean the Egyptian gods?" Jack reacted instantly to Daniel's surprised look. "What? I watch the Discovery Channel sometimes."
"Yes," Daniel confirmed. "Or, at least two Goa'uld who were pretending to be gods."
"False gods," added Teal'c.
Jack nodded. "Like Ra."
"Precisely. Anyway, it seems they had been put in the jars, in stasis, as some sort of punishment thousands of years ago. We confiscated the jars, and when we brought them back to the SGC for examination, we discovered that the jar containing Isis was cracked and she was dead. But the jar that was supposed to contain Osiris was intact - and empty. We think Sarah..."
"Who?"
Daniel took a deep breath. "A research assistant and, uh, an old...friend of mine. We think she opened the jar before we confiscated it, and when she did, Osiris took her as host."
By now Jack was growing visibly impatient. "Daniel, what does this have to do with Carter?"
"We figured out that Osiris, with Sarah as host, fled to Egypt, back to his, er, her temple, either to look for Isis or a way off the planet, or both. Sam and Janet and I followed her there."
"You what?" he exclaimed in disbelief.
"We had to stop her, Jack. A rogue Goa'uld, loose on Earth..."
"Without us?"
Daniel held up both hands in a placating gesture. "When we couldn't contact you, Hammond gave us a go to proceed on our own. We found Osiris in Egypt, but we, uh, we couldn't stop her. She grabbed Sam and took off in a Tel'tak of some sort she had hidden in the temple."
There was a long pause as Jack processed everything that he'd been told. He ran his hands through his hair and over his face, as he walked toward the front of the ship. "Do we know where she's going?"
Jacob responded without looking at him. "Sam left us a trail, but I'm having trouble following it. I'm pushing the ship as fast as I can, but Osiris has a faster ship and a good head start. I'm afraid I'm going to lose her."
Jack looked directly at Daniel, and the archeologist couldn't remember the last time he'd seen their leader look so unnerved. "What does she want with Sam?" he asked quietly, and everyone carefully ignored his use of her first name.
"She said something about her making a good host for Isis. But since Isis is dead..." Daniel's voice trailed off when he realized that train of thought was leading nowhere good. If Isis was dead, Osiris would have no reason to keep Sam alive.
Jack's features hardened. "What do we know about this snakehead, Daniel?"
"Well, Osiris was a very important god in Ancient Egypt. He supposedly ruled as Pharaoh -"
"I thought Osiris was a woman," he interrupted.
"No. No, in Egyptian mythology, Osiris was always male; I think he took Sarah as host purely as a matter of convenience. Anyway, Osiris ruled as Pharaoh alongside his wife Isis, who was also his sister. According to legend, he was killed by his brother Set, who cut him into several pieces that he scattered across Egypt. Isis, assisted by her sister Nephthys, who also happened to be Set's wife -"
"Wait a minute, Daniel." Jack was clearly exasperated. "You just said Isis was Osiris' sister, which would make Nep-knees his sister, too..."
"Right. Sorry. Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys were all siblings, the children of Nut and Geb. Osiris was married to Isis, and Set was married to Nephthys. And to make things even more confusing, Nephthys and Osiris were also lovers. In fact, some myths claim he fathered a child by her, a god by the name of Anubis."
Jack's eyebrows shot to the top of his head. "Okay, now that's twisted."
"Indeed," said Teal'c.
Daniel nodded. "Yes, well, incest was common among the ancient Egyptian gods. Anyway, as I was saying, Set killed Osiris and cut him into several pieces that he then scattered around Egypt. Isis, assisted by Nephthys, gathered the pieces together in an attempt to bring Osiris back to life. She was able to find all the pieces, save one, the phallus, which supposedly was eaten by a fish."
Jack grimaced. "Whoa. Bummer."
"Right, although legend has it that Isis created a phallus out of clay and then brought Osiris back to life long enough to father a child, Horus. However, Isis' power wasn't strong enough to bring Osiris back to life permanently, so he was forced to return to the underworld. Ultimately he became god of the underworld, or the Duat, as it was called."
It was Jacob's turn to interrupt Daniel now. "Wait," he said, turning in his chair to look at Daniel. "What did you say?"
"That Osiris was god of the underworld..."
He shook his head. "No, what did you call it?"
"Duat?"
Jacob turned back to the console, and Jack walked over to join him. "What is it?" he asked the former General.
But it was Selmak who replied. "If Osiris' ship remains on its current trajectory, it will eventually intersect this binary solar system." He pointed to a star chart on the display screen.
"Well, that's fascinating Selmak, but..."
"There is an uninhabited planet in that system known as Duat," the Tok'ra replied.
Daniel snapped his fingers. "That has to be it. That must be where she's going."
"You might as well settle in," Jacob told them. "It'll take a few days to get there."
Jack settled himself in the co-pilot's seat beside Jacob, while the others headed toward the back of the ship to begin sorting through the supplies that Daniel had thought to bring for the team. Jack let out a long sigh and looked sideways at his Second's father, who continued to stare straight ahead without saying a word. The silence quickly became uncomfortable, and it was clear to Jack that something was seriously wrong.
"So, how long...?" Jack began, trying to make small talk.
Jacob's response was clipped. "I've already told you. A few days."
Jack looked carefully at Jacob and could see that his jaw was clenched. "Is everything okay, Jacob?"
"No, Jack. Everything is most definitely not okay," he spat. "In case you weren't paying attention, my daughter has been abducted by a Goa'uld with a wacky family history and a gender identity crisis." Finally, he turned to glare at the military man, his tone accusatory. "Where the hell were you anyway?"
Selmak's voice sounded in his head. "It was not his fault, Jacob."
Jack looked at Jacob as though he'd struck him. "We were supposed to be on leave."
"And yet half of your team was chasing a Goa'uld while you were...fishing."
Jack's next words were colored by a mixture of anger and guilt. "Look, I didn't know..."
But Jacob was undeterred. "Seems to me that you've been derelict in your duty lately, Colonel. In more ways than one."
"This will not help Samantha!" Selmak warned.
Jack stared at Jacob, hardly believing what he'd heard. He felt his blood begin to boil, and he looked at the former General through narrowed eyes. His next words were low and measured. "What's that supposed to mean, Jacob?"
But Jacob Carter was not a man accustomed to backing down. "I think you can figure it out, Jack."
Jacob turned back to the control console, but Jack was momentarily unable to move, stunned by his words. Slowly, he rose from his seat and strode toward the rear of the ship. Daniel and Teal'c watched him carefully, having heard the exchange and not sure what to expect.
Without warning, Jack shoved all of their gear off the ledge on which it had been sitting, sending it crashing to the floor.
"Jack..." Daniel started.
"Not now, Daniel!" he barked in reply.
Daniel moved to follow Jack, but Teal'c placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.
In a far corner of the ship, Jack slid down the wall and sat on the floor, his knees drawn up and his head in his hands, trying to shut out the rest of them. As mad as he was at Jacob, he had to admit he was right, and he wondered just how much the other man knew. Had Sam confided in him?
Jeez, he'd fucked up, and good. Despite how he felt about her, he should never have gotten involved with his Second. They should have called it quits after their return from P3R-118, like they'd planned. He never, ever should have entertained the idea that they could somehow be together.
No, their relationship had clearly put her in danger, and it was his fault. If he hadn't slept with her...if he hadn't been hurt when she left and felt the need to get away, maybe he could have been there for her, as he was supposed to be - as her commanding officer. And maybe then he could have prevented this fiasco.
He knew at that moment that if anything happened to her, he'd never forgive himself.
TBC...
A/N - Daniel discusses the myth of Isis and Osiris in the episode The Curse. He left out the bit about the phallus, but it is part of the actual mythology, just in case you were wondering. Also according to Egyptian mythology, Osiris and Nephthys are the parents of Anubis, though since this story takes place in Season 4, our heroes haven't met him yet.
