Chapter Five: Useless Guards
"Carter!?" Jack called banging on the door. "Open the door!"
Daniel shoved Jack aside, "Clever Jack - that should work. Hey Vala?" Daniel lightly tapped the door, "it's me Daniel."
The door opened and Daniel sneered at Jack a moment before turning back to Vala.
Daniel and Vala stared at each other grinning like fools until they both realized Jack watched intently, his brows furrowed.
"Yes?" Vala managed to say.
"Ah, Sam, Jack has something he wants to … to ahmm…" Daniel took a glance at Jack who stood, mouth open and speechless in the doorway.
Taking a small step into the room, Jack put on his best 'I'm serious' face, "Carter, it's not a good idea to …"
"Stay alone..." Daniel helped out.
"Stay alone and …" Jack was looking at the floor.
"...and be vulnerable to whoever might be out there." Daniel continued for him.
"…and be vulnerable to whoever might be out there, because…." Now Jack was looking around the room.
"…because it's not safe. Vala should come over with me and Jack will stay here with you. Just to be safe. Of course." Daniel pursed his lips, nodded once and smiled at Vala.
Jack jerked his thumb in Daniel's direction, "Yeah, what he said."
"I think it's a marvelous proposal, don't you Sam?" When Sam didn't answer Vala prompted her again, "Samantha?"
"I'd rather sleep with the artifact tied to my chest in the middle of the interstate." Sam stated with quiet, cold malice.
"Oh." Vala pouted, sighed in resignation and plopped down on the bed, head crossways on the mattress, arms flung out and legs dangling off the end.
"Look here Colonel Carter, I'm not staying up all night worried about you and your spacemouseketeer over there. We're switching partners for the night and that's all there is to it. Get my drift? "
Daniel's head pulled back and he gave Jack a double take look.
Sam stood at attention, "Is that an order… SIR!?"
"Well, of course it's not an order, Carter, it's a suggestion." Jack put both hands up in surrender and shook his head.
"Good. Because I am staying right here." Folding her arms across her chest, Sam stood her ground, glaring at Jack.
Vala groaned.
"Not a problem. We'll be right next door if you need us." Jack turned on his heels and left.
Daniel eyed Vala still prone on the bed, gave her an 'I tried' gesture and followed Jack out the door.
Arms still crossed and that furious expression still on her face, Sam stared at the closed door. "Ha! Of all the nerve!"
Vala groaned.
Sam went back to her computer and continued where she'd left off and poor Vala groaned again.
Sam slammed the laptop closed. "Fine! Go! Send the General over, but tell him he'd better not say one word to me – not ONE word!"
---
Late into the night the knock at the door sent Vala scurrying from Daniel's bed, heart beating wildly. Then she giggled, anf shimmied into Daniel's T-shirt and pajama bottoms. "We've been discovered! I can just see your tabloids now; Archeologist, Dr. Daniel Jackson, known for his wonko theory that pyramids are landing sites for alien spaceships is caught in bed with beautiful alien at a Roswell Motel."
Daniel laughed, then shushed her and motioned her towards the bathroom. He waved his hands around his head, as if telling her to rectify her mussed hair. She rolled her eyes, but went anyway.
Daniel dressed, yelling out, "Hold on a minute." He went toward the door, then thinking it had to be Jack – most likely banished by Sam - he turned back and messed up the other bed in the room so Jack wouldn't know he and Vala had been in the same bed. Daniel had barely put his eye to the peep hole when the door burst open, knocking him back. Trying to regain his senses, he moved forward toward his assailant when the zat blast hit him.
Vala nearly flew out of the bathroom, jumping on the back of one of the attackers, strangling him. He flung her off and the other one zatted her. Leaving Daniel unconscious on the floor, they hauled Vala out, dumped her in the back of a Van beside unconscious Sam, and drove off.
---
One of their captors, a large thug, with the innocuous name of Bud stood behind the still unconscious women, each tied to a chair in some sleazy, alien themed motel room. The other man, obviously the brains, manipulated the conjoined devices, identical to the ones now at Area 51.
The apparatus was glowing, it's circle of light expanding, exponentially. The brainy one, Mason, was studying Carter's lap top, then adjusting the device. He already knew the two components together created a transporter beam that used any Stargate in a thousand mile radius, he only needed Carter's technical information to complete his work. "I knew she'd figure it out. We only had to wait patiently." Mason looked closely at the pictures of the Area 51 device. "Their's is missing both crystals, good."
Bud looked at the two women. "Mason, what did we need these two for? We could have taken the laptop and not had the excess baggage."
"Because we have a store house full of alien devices, and we need Carter and her assistant to figure them out. We'll be rich, Bud, beyond any expectation. We'll use this, take them with us and transport ourselves out of here and no one will ever find us. Not even Jack O'Neill can figure this out."
"I don't like the idea of 'beaming' myself. I hate science fiction. It gives me the creeps." Bud moved around to Carter's side to get a better look at the scary machine that was now sending out a wide pulsing light.
"Too late, the beam's winding up, I've set the coordinates."
Suddenly, Sam stood, slamming the chair into the chin of the thug, knocking him back.
Vala rushed Mason, ramming her head into his stomach, then hitting him with the back of the chair she was still tied to.
Sam head butted the thug, turning suddenly and backed into him with the chair legs and managed to shove him hard into the dresser. He hit his head and fell unconscious to the floor.
Mason shoved Vala aside, sending her and the chair backwards, and he stepped into the active beam, the artifacts in his hand and disappeared.
Vala used her wiry strength to pull herself, chair and all to stand. Sam stood over the unconscious thug, pulling loose from her bonds. The two women grinned at each other.
That's how Jack and Daniel found them when they burst through the door.
"Oh my god!" Daniel looked at the scraped cheek and blackening eye on Vala, then turned to Sam who seeped blood from a cut on her forehead. "Are you two okay?"
Vala laughed. "It's nothing."
Sam nodded to Vala, laughing with her.
Jack stood over the thug, "I see you managed to beat the crap out of him, good job!"
Sam sent a resentful stare his way and Jack had the good sense to look contrite. He rubbed his aching zatted head, rolled his neck and walked outside.
---
It didn't take Mitchell and Teal'c ten minutes to arrive. After checking on the two zatted marines Mitchell searched the room before joining the others outside. The thug, awake now, was being interrogated by Teal'c in the parking lot, with Jack casually looking on.
Daniel tried to administer first aid but both Sam and Vala wouldn't sit still, as they retold the story with excited gestures punctuated with laughter. He left the women and started towards the thug with murder in his eyes.
"Ach…tsk…wait." Jack's arm went across Daniel's chest like a railroad crossing rail, stopping his momentum. "T's pissed, leave him be."
"I think I have a right to be involved in this." Daniel tried to shove Jack away.
"Do ya now, Danny-boy? And why is that?"
Again, Daniel tried to shove him aside. Jack took a handful of Daniel's shirt front and dragged him away from the scene. Daniel was shaking he was so livid. He kept turning his murderous, angry eyes back to Bud - who cringed in fear of the Jaffa - and Jack kept tugging Daniel along.
