Author's Notes

Apologies that it's taken a while to upload Chapter 2! I've approached this fic quite differently to others I've written (in that I'm kind of free-styling it a bit; I have very little in the way of a plan!) so I had to wait for ideas to arrive in my head. Thank you for reading Chapter 1, and I hope you enjoy Chapter 2. There WILL be more to come soon.

Daniel blinked. The blurriness cleared from his eyes a little, but the near-darkness didn't brighten. He groaned and rolled over onto his stomach, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees and closing his eyes tight again as the room swam in front of him. He regained his balance and sat up, shuffling backwards until he felt the wall, firm against his back. As his head cleared a little he opened his eyes and tried to think back, working out how he had gotten here, wherever here was.

He remembered being on the planet with Jack, Sam and Teal'c. He remembered following the cairns to a clearing in the middle of a forest. He shut his eyes again, pulled his glasses from his face and rubbed his forehead, trying to figure out what had happened next. The rings. He'd stepped into the clearing and the rings had swept him away. He vaguely remembered arriving on a Goa'uld Tel'tak before he'd been hit by what was unmistakably a zat'nik'tel. He focused on that memory and tried to conjure up the face of the person who'd zatted him. Nothing. Not a blurry face on a body, not a rough idea; but nothing. He forced himself to think harder, ignoring the worsening headache. The zat shot had come from in front of him, but he was sure he hadn't seen anyone actually shoot him. Whoever it was must have been cloaked, he deduced, and he immediately thought of Nirrti. He swallowed a bitter sense of anger and hatred at the thought of her, but knowing she was dead helped calm him. If not Nirrti, though, then who had shot him?

With no clue to reveal his attacker's identity, Daniel decided his best option was to try to get back to the rest of SG-1. First things first though, damage assessment. And then work out where the hell he was and how to get back to the clearing.

Aside from the headache, nothing else seemed to hurt. His limbs were all still attached, and seemingly working. Nothing was bleeding. Just the zat-induced anvil pounding on his skull then. He was beginning to adjust to the low light and the room he seemed to be in must have been the cargo hold at the back of the ship. Ship, he thought. Well that could make getting back to the forest a little problematic. He could fly it, of course, but first he'd need to overcome the invisible assailant with, he realised, no weapons. Fantastic. Actually, first he'd need to leave the cargo hold, and as much as he would have liked to play his part as the eternal optimist he was pretty certain he wasn't free to simply roam around. Worth investigating though.

He pushed himself off the floor, and whilst his headache was receding, his vision swam at the sudden movement and he reached out a hand to steady himself. The room stopped spinning and he stepped towards the doors, pressed the controls and cursed in a way that would have made Jack O'Neill proud. So, he was locked in. Predictable. And without Sam he stood next to no chance of hacking the controls and taking his captor by surprise. Time to resort to a course of action he was far better equipped to handle anyway; diplomacy.

He bashed

He bashed a few more times. "Hello!"

Silence.

Right, well that was fine. He could deal with someone who was attempting to ignore him. He'd worked with Jack for years. The best method for coping with someone blanking him was to make himself a nuisance. This time he bashed against the door repeatedly and didn't let up.

After several minutes, when his arms were starting to tire, he heard someone moving outside the door and immediately stepped to the side, wary of being zatted again.

"Would you kindly stop that!" A male voice demanded as the door slid to the side.

Daniel threw himself to the floor, and pulled his captor's legs from under him as the electric blue light of the zat whizzed over-head.

"We're heading back to the 'gate, Carter. Stay put." Jack's said.

"Yes sir." Sam turned her focus back from the radio to the controls for the UAV. She'd spotted what were presumably the Colonel and Teal'c's heat signatures and plenty of the planet's native wildlife, but nothing else in the vicinity of the Stargate seemed to be humanoid, and certainly wasn't Daniel. She widened the circle the probe was currently making around the 'gate, and hoped.

"Major, I'm assuming the clearing with the ring transporter was that way?" Colonel Reynolds pulled her attention briefly away from the UAV and pointed towards the path SG-1 had cleared through the forest.

"Yes sir. We headed maybe one click through the trees, following the rock formations Daniel had found. The trees thinned out, and we came across the clearing; the rings."

"But you didn't see or hear anyone else around when Daniel was taken?"

"No sir." Sam didn't question Reynolds on his choice of the word 'taken'. After giving it some thought it was the only scenario which made sense. None of them had touched anything, like the handprint on a tree Cassie had used to activate the rings to Nirrti's lab. It was far more likely that someone else had been with them. "We were sure we were alone. Colonel O'Neill had us keeping a close watch for anything unusual."

"Is it possible whoever might have activated the rings was wearing a cloaking device?"

"It's likely. We've certainly seen it before."

"Hmm." Reynolds nodded. "We'll stick by the 'gate til Jack and Teal'c get back, but we can still be of use here. Peterson, Bosco, Baker; check the area for signs of activity other than SG-1." The rest of SG-3 nodded and spread out through the area around the gate. "Major," Reynolds turned back to Sam, "Let me know if you get any hint of Dr Jackson from the UAV."

"Yes sir."

"Reynolds." Jack greeted the leader of SG-3 with a solemn nod before looking at Carter, a hint of expectant hope in his eyes. "Anything, Carter?"

Sam shook her head. "No, sir. And to be honest, I doubt he's on the planet at all."

Jack pursed his lips. "Reynolds, has your team found anything?"

"Actually Colonel, Bosco thinks he may have." Reynolds and Bosco strode over towards them.

"Whatcha got Captain?"

Fibres, sir." Bosco held his hand up to Jack. Pinched between his thumb and forefinger were some strands of black thread. "Definitely not SGC material; it's too silky. And Major Carter said you guys weren't round the other side of the 'gate where I found these."

"Ok." Jack looked disappointed that they'd found nothing more than a bit of fabric. "Well, it's a start. Reynolds, have SG-3 conduct a search of the area. Teal'c and I have already done a recon of the area North of the rings. Take the UAV, do a more extensive search."

"Sure, Jack. What about SG-1?"

"We're heading back to the SGC. See if we can't get a bit of intel from the Tok'ra about this planet."