Chapter 7
Daniel couldn't fall asleep that night. He was just tossing and turning in the bed, thinking of Vala. He was somewhat still angry at Jack but by then he had come to terms with his decision. He laced his fingers and put his arms under his neck, staring at the ceiling. He replayed the events of earlier that night, the moments when he looked away for a minute, a minute that was long enough to loose Vala. It happened so fast. He could hear her voice, crying for help but he just stood and didn't do anything. He made a decision to stay with Cameron until Jack, Sam and Teal'c arrived. It was hard to let Vala go but he was hoping that Jack would allow him to go after her. Maybe if he had gone after Vala she would have been there with them.
Daniel felt tired and wanted to sleep, hoping he could forget about the whole thing for a couple of hours. He didn't know when but finally his brain gave up the fight and he slipped away into the land of dreams.
oOo
Next morning the light of the yellow sun just didn't seem as beautiful as it seemed twenty-four hours before. When Jack arrived in the living room Teal'c and Cameron had been already awake, it was only Daniel who was still asleep.
Before heading for the living room, Jack stopped to check on Sam. She was still sleeping. As Jack stood, leaning against the doorpost he could tell that Sam was like an angel even when she was sleeping. He couldn't help but let a soft smile appear on his face.
Jack's eyes wandered from Sam to the other empty bed in the room. He didn't know Vala too much but he could tell that if General Landry let her join SG-1 she must have been a strong woman. At least strong enough to hold on until they found her, Jack hoped. He knew she was important to Daniel, he could simply tell by looking into his younger friend's eyes. He felt responsible for her disappearance and knew he had to do everything to save her.
Sam slowly turned around in her bed, still asleep but Jack knew she was soon going to wake up so he pushed himself off the doorpost and headed for the living room.
He wasn't too surprised to see Teal'c standing before the glass when he entered his living room. He wanted to shout 'Morning, campers!' as a happy greeting but he saw Daniel was still sleeping so he decided not to wake him. He didn't usually do that.
He was surprised by himself but let it go. He could see Cameron was already awake, sitting on the edge of his bed.
'How you feeling?' Jack asked Cameron as he headed for the fridge.
'I'll live. We should go find Vala.' He told Jack. His voice sounded weak.
'We will, but only after reinforcements have arrived.' Jack answered and walked to Cameron giving him a cold bottle of beer.
'Wanna drink something?' Jack asked looking at Teal'c.
'I am fine.' He answered without looking at him.
'He's been staring out the window since I woke up. Hasn't moved an inch.' Cameron told Jack not to take it personally. Without drinking of the beer, he just placed the bottle on the table.
'How long have you been standing there?' Jack asked Teal'c as he sat down on the couch.
'Maybe an hour. I am not certain.' Teal'c answered slowly, this time looking at O'Neill.
'Seen anything interesting?' Jack kept questioning.
'I have seen something moving in the forest, though I am unsure what it was. It could have been one of the beasts as well as a fox or a bear.'
'Bears and foxes don't' come this close to the house. At least not naturally.' Jack answered and sipped from his beer.
With a huge yawn Daniel opened his eyes and sat up on his bed, the exact same moment Sam appeared in the living room.
'I feel so bad about Vala.' Sam said as a greeting. 'We were sleeping while she's out there somewhere, probably waiting for us to do something.'
'Hey, we couldn't do anything ourselves. I'll call Landry to send reinforcements and we'll go in for Vala. We'll get her out.' Jack tried to sound as convincing as possible but he didn't know if he fully succeeded.
It was hard to talk about what had happened and none of them had the strength to do it. Maybe Jack had it but he decided it would be better not to talk about it.
'Sir, we still don't know what are those things.' Sam broke the silence after a couple of minutes.
Jack looked at her, waiting for her to continue.
'I mean, if we could somehow study one of them, we may be able to find something that could help us fight them.'
'How you wanna do that?'
'We could set up a trap.' She popped the idea.
'Ok. How do you want to do that?' Jack asked. It wasn't that he didn't trust her, he was only curious.
'I haven't figured that part out yet.'
Jack thought about it then said. 'Ok. Teal'c you help Carter capture one of whatever they are. I'll call the SGC.'
Sam nodded and walked to Teal'c to discuss their plan. Jack took the phone from the table and dialed the number of Stargate Command.
oOo
When Vala opened her eyes the first thing she felt was the stitching pain in her head. She slowly lifted her hand and touched the spot that hurt the most but as she touched her head she felt another sharp twinge. She was lying on the cold ground, with total darkness around her. She muttered something and slowly sat up which let another wave of pain flood over her body. Her sight was blurry so she couldn't make anything out of the environment around her but darkness. Vala was sitting in the dark, waiting for her sight to clear but it took longer than she first expected. Once the blurred shapes had disappeared she stood up and took a better look around the place. As far as she could tell she was in a cavern of some kind. She could see its walls not too far from her, but there was no sign of any corridor leading out of the hall. There was nothing with her and that popped the question; how did she get there? Her headache instead of subsiding just got worse. She started to feel dizzy so she walked to the nearest wall and sat down with her back against the cold rock.
She remembered as she was firing at the wolf-like beasts with Daniel and Cameron next to her. She heard Cameron shout but she didn't pay too much attention to it. She could see from the corner of her eye that Daniel lowered his weapon and went to help Cameron. She kept firing but it wasn't much use. From the direction Daniel had stood a second before a huge, grey creature jumped on her and knocked her off her feet. That must have been when she hit her head. She couldn't breathe as she hit the ground and she couldn't cry for help. She felt like her head was going to explode any minute and she barely had the strength to stay awake. She felt as sharp teeth dug into her leg giving her more pain to endure. She wanted to fight but her body just didn't obey the orders her brain gave. The fangs dug deeper in her flesh and she felt herself being pulled away. Using her final strength she cried out for help but it was too late. Everything happened so fast, she couldn't remember every detail. She couldn't remember being carried into the cavern; she had lost consciousness on the way there.
As Vala was sitting in her cell she could hear weak voices coming from the other side of the walls. As much as she could tell they were more or less human. The voices slowly started to fade until they had fully disappeared leaving Vala in full silence. Later when she could no longer hear any voice, she started to think she was only hallucinating and there were no voices in the first place.
She reached for her radio, hoping she could call for help through it but she couldn't find it in its place. That was when she discovered her P-90 had been also taken along with her zat gun.
'Great.' She muttered desolately.
She felt like losing consciousness again so she had to keep herself awake somehow. It was hard because of the cold in the cavern and the pain flooding over and over her body but she had to try.
How could she get there? Were those creatures that intelligent to put her in that cavern? Were they intelligent enough to take her weapons? If they were, they were something she had never before seen. If they weren't, that meant there was something else there too which probably meant even more danger than the wolves. That didn't mean much good.
She had no idea where she was, why she was there, and what her fate would be but she know she couldn't expect too much kindness in that place.
In the worst case scenario she was going to die. That scared her. She didn't want to leave behind this world, the places she loved, the people she loved. She didn't want to leave behind Stargate Command and SG-1. She didn't want to leave behind Daniel. It was two years ago that they first met. She could remember it as if it were yesterday. Since then they grew much closer to each other though it might not have been able to be seen from outside. And all that they built up together might crumble through a minute. She knew she couldn't try and escape without her weapons. She was in a helpless situation. She could only hope for the others to find her.
oOo
Sam and Teal'c were sitting around the coffee table, planning to catch one of the beasts. They couldn't come up with any usable idea so far but Sam felt they were close to a solution. They were thinking about C4s but those would probably kill them, no matter how strong their bodies were. Normal bullets might not be enough, only if they were shooting for a time that would be enough for the creature to flee. If they were on the base they most likely would have been able to find the necessary equipment to capture such an animal but going on a Christmas holiday the man just doesn't plan on being attacked by alien creatures that they later would want to set up a trap for.
First, Daniel was there to help them but he couldn't come up with anything useful. He didn't like it, but he just had to sit around waiting for something to happen. He went out to the front porch trying to calm him down, but he wasn't too successful.
'I'm totally out of ideas.' Sam admitted as the front door closed behind Daniel.
'We must keep thinking, Colonel Carter. There must be a way.' Teal'c heartened Sam.
'We barely have anything with us. I mean technology. I don't know what we can do with a couple of P-90s and a staff weapon.'
'And some zats.' Cameron added, lying in his bed listening to Teal'c and Sam's brainstorming.
'Doesn't make it better.' Sam replied.
'Hey, I'm just trying to help.' Cameron apologized.
Sam would have replied to that one too but Teal'c was faster.
'We cannot hunt them down, because it is unlikely that we would be able to find them.'
Sam knew there would be no point arguing with Cameron so she returned her attention to their original problem. 'That's right.'
'In that case, we have to lure one of them here.' The Jaffa explained.
'Good start.' Sam admitted. 'How do we do that?'
'Maybe we could use something as a bait.'
'We don't anything to use as bait. And even if we had, we don't know what they are after.' Sam pointed out.
'They seem to be after humans.' Teal'c said.
Sam couldn't disagree with that fact though she wasn't happy to face it. 'You may be right.'
'I would attract them here so that you will be able to shoot if with a zat'n'ktel.' Teal'c planned.
Sam thought about the plan. She didn't like the part where Teal'c would be the bait. He could see it in Sam's eyes so he assured her it would be ok.
'Are you sure?'
'I am. If this will help us to rescue Vala Mal Doran I do it.' Teal'c said bravely.
Sam smiled at his Jaffa friend's heart. He really became one of them during the years spent on Earth.
'Ok.' She said still smiling.
oOo
Daniel was watching the frozen surface of the pond as he remembered two years ago when they came here to have a short vacation. Back then he didn't think that he would ever see Vala again after their little trip on the Prometheus.
He heard the door open behind him and he turned back to see who was there. He saw Sam standing at the door, looking at him.
'We have a plan.' Sam told him.
'Oh, finally. I've been thinking here for a while but…nothing.' Daniel responded.
'Our plan isn't the best either but this is the best we could come up with.'
'So, what is it?' He asked and walked closer to the colonel.
'Teal'c will lure them here and I'll zat one of them.' Sam exposed their plan.
'Not very creative.' Daniel admitted. He was in a bad mood so he didn't quite say the words as he wanted to.
'No.' Sam agreed briefly and sent Daniel a sorry look.
'Well, let's do it then.' Daniel suggested and went into the house after Sam.
~TBC