Jack lay in bed quietly, watching the ceiling slowly brighten as dawn light suffused into the room, and enjoying the feel of Sam's naked body snuggled up against his. She lay on her side, with her arm flung over his chest. Her breath sighed against his cheek in the soft, slow rhythm of sleep. After their marathon love-making session in the shower, they had retreated to the bedroom in a state of delicious exhaustion and fallen asleep instantly. Apparently, Sam hadn't yet gotten all the rest she needed. The poor, sweet girl was still tuckered out.
Jack grinned to himself. He felt pretty damn good. Not like an old man at all. Where were all those little aches and pains? These days, his cantankerous joints kept up an almost constant background mutter of complaint, which rose to loud yells of protest whenever he asked them to put out a little extra effort. It usually took beer to shut them up. He'd had no beer, but his body and mind had just received something even better, so he was undoubtedly experiencing a natural high.
Yep. He felt twenty years younger. He hadn't felt this good since – well, since the last time he'd woken up next to a naked Sam. And the last time had been the first time he'd seen her in over a year.
A year without Sam. What a God-awful year that had been. But everything was okay now. They were together again. They were really together at last!
Jack closed his eyes a moment, full of wonder at the realization that he felt happy. Genuinely happy, despite everything that he'd been through, and all the dangers and uncertainties that still lay ahead. It was amazing how everything else could be swept aside by being with the one you loved – and knowing that the one you loved loved you back. That had to be just about the highest high that life had to offer.
But when Jack opened his eyes, he found himself refocusing on his surroundings. On the fact that he and Sam where lying in an unfamiliar room on a hostile planet a zillion light years from Earth. They weren't home free yet – not by a long shot.
His paranoid instincts kicked in, whispering that it was dangerous to be feeling so euphoric when his team was still such a long way up the proverbial creek. They'd found Sam, but he still had to get her and Daniel home. As for Teal'c, he could only hope the big guy was already home, because if he wasn't, there was nothing he could do about it.
Aw, crap. I'm still in command. As he remembered that, he found he didn't feel so good anymore. Because war was always hell, but the lowest circle of hell was reserved for those in command. And it wasn't just being responsible for keeping your friends alive that made it so hard. The worst part was knowing that, if it came down to it, you had to be prepared to sacrifice your friends. You had to be willing to weigh one life against many, and make the terrible choice…
Sam was standing at the intersection of several SGC corridors, looking fragile and vulnerable in hospital pajamas. But it wasn't really Sam. It wasn't her spirit staring at him out of those great, cobalt eyes. It was someone else entirely – something else. Some utterly alien intelligence that had flatly declared its hostile intentions toward Earth. It had occupied Sam's body, and was holding her hostage – or maybe just pretending to. Doc Fraiser had said she could no longer detect Sam's brainwaves, but he hadn't given up hope.
The entity raised Sam's arms, and lightning flew up from her fingertips, to be absorbed by electrical conduits in the walls and ceiling. Teal'c spoke, his voice even more stoical than usual, warning him that the entity was probably trying to return to the mainframe. He fired his zat, but the stun setting didn't work. The entity only paused for a moment, giving him a wide, defiant glare. Then it resumed shooting energy into the infrastructure of the SGC.
A wave of burning cold flashed through his body, and he found himself doing something that he'd long ago trained himself not to do, something that was usually lethal in combat: he hesitated. He knew what had to come next, but he couldn't do it.
Then he remembered – Sam was a soldier, too. That was the only thing that made the burden of command bearable. Those you led were your "brother warriors," as Teal'c would put it. And sister warriors. They, too, had pledged their lives to protect the innocent, and you had to honor that commitment. The last thing Sam would ever want was for him to betray his duty – their duty – because of his personal feelings for her.
So he took all his emotions and stuffed them down hard and deep. Then he raised his zat and fired for the second time. Feeling empty and not entirely real, he watched Sam's body crumple to the floor.
No, he thought, suddenly near panic. Don't ask me to do that again. NO MORE.
Jack shifted restlessly, but when he felt Sam stir beside him, he froze. Desperately, he began shoving the awful memory and all his emotional conflict into his mental basement. At first it wouldn't go in, which sent a jolt of fear up his spine, but then he got angry and kicked its ass down there. Relieved, he stared up at the ceiling while his heartbeat gradually slowed.
Okay, Jack, he told himself. You just went from on-top-of-the-world to scared shitless in 60 seconds flat. You are fucked up.
Which was no surprise. Even being with Sam couldn't entirely wipe away the repercussions of the ordeal he'd just been through. His head was kind of messed up right now, and he didn't need a shrink to tell him that because he knew the feeling all too well. But he also knew he was capable of functioning effectively anyway.
Yep. He'd done it before, he could do it again.
"Good morning, gorgeous," murmured Sam's sleepy voice.
Jack's heart gave a ridiculously frightened leap. He turned and wrapped his arms around her, hiding his face against her neck. Had she just woken, or had she been watching him for a little while? He didn't want Sam to know how discombobulated he felt.
Then he remembered what she'd said about being Mr. Invulnerable, and felt strangely self-conscious. Even a little guilty.
Jack pulled back and looked into her face. "Good morning, beautiful," he said. And God, she was. She looked so damn cute, with those panda-circles still around her eyes, and that sleepily self-satisfied expression. The panda that ate the canary.
He had to grin. Suddenly, he was back to feeling giddily happy. Impulsively, he started tickling Sam's stomach, where he'd already learned she was sensitive. She squirmed and giggled and counter-attacked, and they were off – tickling and play-wrestling, acting like a couple of fourteen-year-olds silly with first love.
Then Sam's expression sobered, and Jack could feel the high spirits rush out of her. He knew Sam had remembered, just as he had earlier, that they weren't home free yet. When she pulled away and sat up against the headboard, Jack did the same. "I know," he said, voice quiet and steady. "We've got a trip to plan." He gave her a deadpan look. "Don't let me forget to pack my underwear, honey."
Sam smiled and, as he had intended, seemed to relax a little. Glancing at the chronometer on the wall, she said, "Ifefal should be here in a couple of hours. With the equipment she's bringing, it shouldn't take us long to figure out how the Syndicate disabled your Collar."
"How long's not long?"
"I'm hoping we might finish the algorithm today, but after that we'll need to build and program the hardware. That might take another day or two. Sorry, Jack. I know you're anxious to be free of that thing. But at least we don't have to worry about alerting the authorities when your Collar deactivates, since it's already been removed from the official system. You can be our test case. I won't be able to disable Daniel's Collar, or Lagash's either, till the last minute, because the Collar System will report they've died, and the Government will investigate."
Jack sat up a little straighter.
"How would this hardware work, Sam? I mean, what would be the range? How close to a Collar would you have to get before you could disable it?"
Sam gave him a rueful look. "If you're imagining we might somehow broadcast a signal that would cause Collars to be deactivated en mass, creating total chaos and allowing us to escape during the confusion, I'm afraid I've concluded that won't be possible. It has to do with the way the Collar System is designed. You see, Ashoran women are jealous of their control over "their" males. I'll spare you the technical details…"
"You will?" put in Jack, giving her a pleasantly surprised look.
Sam smiled and continued. "…but the upshot is that the deactivation protocol will require input from a woman's neural implants, and since the woman in question won't be the Registered Controller, the "control radius" signature must be intact. That means the maximum effective radius of the Collar deactivation signal will be about 20 feet from the neural control point."
Jack smiled slowly. "I think we can work with that."
"What do you have in mind?"
"According to what you've told me, the main obstacle to reaching the Ashoran Stargate is the size of the guard contingent, right? You said there's thirty soldiers at the 'Gate Room, with another sixty nearby. And the 'Gate Facility has an anti-cloaking field, which makes it impossible to sneak in using personal cloaks. Which means our party would have to fight its way in, and you can't figure out how a handful of people would be able to do that. Well, I can't figure that out either. What we need is more manpower. How about forty men – most of them with military training, and all of them motivated as hell to get off Ashora?"
Sam blinked at him in surprise. "Are you telling me that forty men are being held at the Arena facility? We didn't think there were nearly so many."
"There are actually forty-three all together, but I was only counting the ones we can depend on to fight their way to the Stargate." He winced. "One of the men is brain-damaged, so we can't expect him to fight, but we can still take him with us. I'm sure I could get him to follow orders."
"And the other two?" asked Sam.
Jack's heart swelled with hatred and revulsion as he recalled Bruiser's face, with its mask-like swath of black paint. The mask was pierced by angry red rings, out of which Bruiser's eyes shone with a cold, empty glitter. He remembered the sound of Bruiser's laughter, which was strangely high and tinny for such a huge man, and his rankly masculine smell….
Looking away from Sam for a second, Jack pulled the emergency brakes on his train of thought. Nope. That memory stays in the basement. Forever. Carefully schooling his voice and expression, he said, "The other two men are collaborators. They're not coming with us."
Sweet Ass can stay on Ashora, since he likes it so well, thought Jack. As for Bruiser…. He found himself smiling as he imagined meeting Bruiser again – after Sam had deactivated the goddamn Collar. And it was going to be such a pleasure to drop in unexpectedly on his old friend Umala….
"Jack?" came Sam's voice. She was watching him with concern. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," he said shortly. In fact, he was annoyed with himself for allowing his mind to drift into a vengeful reverie. All this mental wobbling had to stop. They had a mission to accomplish.
Abruptly swinging his legs around, he got out of bed and walked over to a bureau. He picked up a glass ornament and began tossing it from one hand to another, using the repetitive action to soothe his thoughts and focus his mind. "How's this for a plan. We sneak into the Arena facility using personal cloaks, and deactivate the men's Collars. Then we take out the Trainers. There are only ten of them. We let the men know they can get off this fun-filled little rock if they help us attack the Ashoran Stargate, and we equip them with cloaks and Ashoran weapons. Okay, I admit most of them are used to swords, but they're still soldiers who've seen actual combat, and that's worth a lot. We'll give them a crash course on the joys of ray guns.
"Now, you said the Stargate Facility and the Arena are practically next door, right? So we literally march our little army to the entrance of the Stargate Facility, using the personal cloaks to hide our movements. Our cloaks won't work inside the Stargate Facility, but we launch a surprise frontal assault. Our forty-five soldiers overcome their thirty guards and take control of the 'Gate Room. The Ashorans send reinforcements from the nearby guard barracks, but our little army holds the 'Gate Room long enough for us to dial Earth and use that GDO you recovered to transmit SG 1's IDC signal. Then we get the hell out of Dodge. Once everybody's through the Stargate, we close the iris, and that's it. We're home free."
Jack stopped tossing the ornament and looked at Sam. "Okay, I realize a lot depends on the exact floor plan and defensive layout of the Stargate Facility, which I haven't seen yet. But you have, so what do you think?"
Sam bit her lip. "Using the men from the Arena to augment our numbers is an interesting idea. And I know you're anxious to rescue them."
Jack felt his jaw tighten. "But?"
"I'm afraid you're making some false assumptions, Jack. You're thinking I could supply enough cloaks and guns for all those men, but I can't. Even though I work inside the Bureau of Defense, I can't conceal the theft of more than five or six cloaks, and the same number of military-grade guns. If I tried to steal a larger number, or take more powerful weapons like bombs, I'd almost surely get caught."
"Maybe we could get the equipment from other sources, Sam." He smiled grimly. "We already know this planet has a lively Black Market."
"We could look into it," said Sam. "But I have to be honest with you: I'm not hopeful. Ashora has very tight controls on military equipment. It's possible we could acquire enough police-issue stun guns to equip forty men, but there's no non-military version of the personal cloak." Sam sighed. "And besides, your plan doesn't take proper account of the fact the Stargate Facility is inside Government House. I don't think you understand the nature of Government House – which isn't surprising, since you've never seen it."
Jack frowned. "You said it's a huge complex that includes all the agencies of the Ashoran Government, plus a bunch of other stuff. You said it's almost a city in itself."
"Yes. But when I say it's a complex, I don't mean a bunch of separate buildings. The whole thing is one enormous, labyrinthine structure, some of it underground. Besides tight electronic security, there are manned checkpoints at all the entrances and at numerous strategic intersections inside. Since the 'Gate Room is underground, at the bottom of the labyrinth, it's a long way from any of the entrances. So our 'little army' would have to start fighting long before they ever reached the Stargate security foyer. Any element of surprise would quickly be lost. They'd end up facing the full might of the Ashoran Government right inside its own House! Our 'little army' wouldn't stand a chance, Jack."
"But their security can't be that good, Sam. After all, the Syndicate breaches it all the time. They've smuggled me and a lot of other men out of Euthanasia House, which is also part of the complex. Right?"
"That's true. But Euthanasia House isn't one of the high-security areas, so it's not protected by anti-cloaking devices. I can imagine getting a cloaked man out from that point. I can even imagine getting a few cloaked people in as far as the entrance to the Stargate security foyer. I think I've got that part figured out. And I think I've got a viable plan for deactivating the automated weapons emplacements inside the 'Gate Room, too. The guards are the real stumbling block." Sam sighed. "Which is why I really wish we could use those men from the Arena. They would certainly increase our chances of taking and holding the 'Gate Room. Unfortunately, they would also make it impossible to reach the 'Gate Room to begin with."
Jack started to pace. He could feel his blood pressure rising. "Are you sure you can't get more personal cloaks, Sam? There must be a way to get our guys in there." He suddenly felt almost overwhelmed by pent-up rage.
A pleasant chiming sound rang through the room. Jack froze and gave Sam a questioning glance.
"It's okay, Jack. That's the doorbell. And this house has a robust security system. If our visitor were someone the house didn't recognize, that would have been an alarm. It's probably Ifefal, but I'll check."
Sam stared at the bedroom wall, and a holographic "window" opened in it. It showed a red-haired Ashoran woman who was obviously standing at the front door. The image had that perspective you got through a peephole, where you looked down at someone who was standing very close but staring ahead looking at nothing instead of looking back at you. Or, as in this case, glancing around rather furtively.
"It's Nara," said Sam, sounding surprised. "Wonder what she's doing here?"
###
When Sam opened the front door, she was careful not to be visible from the street. Nara slipped in quickly, and Sam closed the door behind her.
"Hi," said Nara, smiling rather wanly. "Hope you and your friend are…" Nara broke off and goggled as she caught sight of Jack. He was still a golden icon of masculinity, though he had put on a black loin-cloth. "…doing well," Nara finished, sounding rather uncertain. Jack was gazing at Nara expressionlessly, but there was something about him that screamed "dangerous wild male."
"Nara," said Sam, "may I present Colonel Jack O'Neill of Earth. Jack, this is Nara Daughter-of-Reinia. Without her help, I could never have gotten you out of the Arena facility."
As Sam had hoped, this caused Jack's expression to soften. That charismatic warmth began to shine through. "Thanks," he said to Nara. "I owe you. Big time."
"You're welcome," said Nara, studying him with fascination.
"So," said Sam, "I take it you have some news." One of the frustrating things about their little conspiracy was that they had to avoid electronic communications. Though Sam was able to fool the New Start Program's homing beacon surveillance, that was separate from the Ashoran Government's normal oversight of electronic traffic, which was highly sophisticated and was undoubtedly monitored by the New Start Program.
"Yes," said Nara. "A lot's been happening. For one thing, Ashasti knows about us now." And her features took on a sad expression that filled Sam with alarm.
"Did Ashasti alert the authorities?" she cried.
Nara looked startled. "No! Nothing like that. On the contrary, Ashasti has joined us. We won't have to sneak around anymore to use her computer resources or money. She's agreed to do everything she can to help you escape from Ashora."
"Oh," said Sam. "That's good news." Which left her wondering why Nara looked so sad.
"That's not what I came to tell you, though," said Nara.
Sam's tension level rose again. She glanced nervously at Jack, who was listening quietly, missing nothing.
Nara noticed her reaction and said, "Don't worry! I think this is good news, too. Possibly very good news. You see, I couldn't sleep last night, so I started doing more research on the Syndicate's connection to the Pleasant Boulevard Underground Garage. As you know, we've already discovered that the contractor who built the Underground Garage was a Syndicate front company. So we figured the Syndicate built the Arena facility at the same time, using the Underground Garage work to cover their activities."
"Yes," said Sam, wondering where this was leading.
Nara got an intense gleam in her eye that reminded Sam a lot of Daniel. "Something kept nagging at the back of my mind – something about underground facilities near the site of the Founder's Landing. So, last night, I did some digging in the historical archives."
She suddenly grinned triumphantly. "I don't think the Syndicate built the Arena facility. I mean, not the underground chambers that contain the facility. I think they just stumbled onto those as they were digging the Underground Garage and decided to use them for their own purposes. You see, I found some archival material about a bunker project that was begun by the Founders but never finished. They built some hardened underground chambers but never furnished or used them. They just filled the chambers in again, and over the years some of the records were lost and the whole project was forgotten. But the remaining records are consistent with the location of the Arena facility."
"Okay," said Jack. "So maybe the Syndicate didn't build a new underground facility. Maybe they just took over an old, forgotten one. How does that help us?"
A silent explosion went off in Sam's head. "Jack! Remember how I told you about Government House, and how part of it is underground? That's because Government House has grown out of some of the structures the Founders built right after the Landing, which included a system of bunkers. The Founders weren't certain if their new colony would be noticed by the Goa'uld, so they created an underground fortress."
Jack's mouth dropped open, and Sam knew he'd figured it out, too. "Holy crap! There's a secret tunnel between the Arena facility and Government House!"
"The records didn't say that explicitly," said Nara, "but it's a definite possibility."
"I'll say!" cried Jack. "I'm betting that's how the Syndicate's been smuggling men out of Euthanasia House and into the Arena facility."
"It makes sense, Jack," said Sam. "When the Syndicate dug out the Arena chambers, they must have found a tunnel that connected to a different part of the Founders' original bunker system – a part that is now within Government House. I'm sure the tunnel exit would have been blocked off, but the Syndicate must have secretly re-opened it. We know they have quite a few people on the take inside Government House."
"You're right, Sam," said Nara. "That does make sense. If the Syndicate or anyone else tried to actually dig a tunnel into Government House, the vibrations would be noticed. But since the tunnel has been there all along..." Nara's eyes widened. "Wow! A back door into Government House!"
Jack grinned. "You know," he said, "I'm a firm believer that whatever can go wrong, will. But, every once in a while, things go right." His grin widened, and took on a feral edge.