Part Three: New Guy.
The five members of SG-1 were huddled around a campfire, shivering. The mission to PX3-495A had gone to plan – they'd known the distance to the village they were meant to reach was too much to cover in one day, and as a result were stuck camping in a forest for the night. That didn't make it any warmer.
"I'll take first watch," Jack said. "You guys try and get some sleep. I'll wake the next person in three hours."
The others nodded and crawled into sleeping-bags. Sam and Daniel fell asleep almost straight away – whether it was exhaustion or practice – and Teal'c stayed awake as the next person on watch. Matt lay there in the dark, listening to the sounds of the night. There were insects chittering nearby, and the faint rustle of larger animals in the distance. He relaxed a little. Daniel was nearby. There was someone on watch. It was probably no worse than sleeping out in the woods with Rath.
A sharp snap and a whistle somewhere close pulled him into alertness. He half sat up, listening intently.
A moment passed in silence.
Then the whistle of another dart through the air and the soft thunk of it hitting a target woke everyone up. He glanced down to see the feathered tuft stuck in his sleeping-bag and looked across to where Sam and Daniel were, only to see two more darts fly through the air and hit them both. They slumped, unconscious. Jack had already been hit – that must have been the first whistle, he must have been the first to go down – and Teal'c was awake and waiting for their attackers.
Without thinking, Matt hissed at him, "Play dead!"
Teal'c froze, but appeared to agree with the idea. He collapsed to the ground, pretending to be unconscious. As he waited, barely daring to breathe, Matt wondered if this had been such a good idea. Teal'c was probably more than able to defend the others from this threat.
The group began to move towards them, and it quickly became clear that they were hugely outnumbered. Playing dead was the only real option as they were carried away.
"Daniel. Wake up!"
The archaeologist was sprawled on the floor of the tiny cell, snoring softly.
"Come on, Daniel. Snap out of it!"
No response.
"Alright, fine. You're not going to like this at all, you know." As Daniel slept on, Matt leant over him and pinched his nostrils shut. Within seconds, there was a response.
"What are you doing… get off me!"
Matt laughed. "Never fails." He leaned back and helped Daniel sit up.
"What was that for?"
"Because I need you awake," Matt replied. "We are apparently stuck in here, and I don't know where the others are. We need to get out, we need to find them and we need to work out what's going on."
"What happened?" Daniel asked. "Last thing I remember is falling asleep in the woods."
"We were ambushed. A group of people surrounded us and shot us with what I think were tranquiliser darts, then brought us here. I wasn't hit, and neither was Teal'c, but I thought it was safer to go along than try and fight our way out."
Daniel nodded. "So we're in some kind of prison?"
"Looks like it. There are cells on either side of us, but everything seems really quiet. There's one guard at the end of the corridor with keys. I think he's going to be our way out of here. I mean, I'm guessing you can't pick locks."
"Nope."
"Me neither. Do you want to pretend to be sick, or shall I?"
"You can. You're a better actor than me. I'll get the guard over," Daniel replied. "Do you just want to knock him out and take the keys?"
"Yeah. Prison guards tend not to be the sharpest tools in the box, so he probably won't know much." Matt groaned and doubled over. "Oh god – it hurts – I think I'm gonna throw up–"
Daniel turned towards the guard and started yelling. "Hey! My friend – he's sick – you've got to help us!"
The guard looked over and obligingly wandered over to the door of their cell. As the lock clicked, Matt wrenched the door sideways, dragging the unsuspecting guard after it. He stumbled, still holding the door, and it was easy to trip him and hold him down on the floor of the cell.
"Thank you very much," Matt told him, yanking the keys off his belt and pocketing them.
As they locked the guard in the cell, Daniel asked, "Don't you feel a little bit sorry for him? He's only doing his job."
"And here we have the Fe'kireas Defence," Matt replied. "'I was only obeying orders.'" He turned and walked down the corridor, checking each cell as he passed. Daniel sighed.
"Hey, look who I've found."
Daniel quickly caught up with him and smiled slightly, looking through the bars.
"Hey, Sam."
She looked up at them and groaned quietly. "My head… what happened?"
"We were ambushed. You and me got hit with tranquiliser darts. We were brought here, but we're not sure why. That's what we need to find out," Daniel explained.
"How did you guys get out?" she asked as Matt unlocked the door and helped her to stand up.
"We tricked the guard into coming into our cell, then took the keys off him and locked him up," Matt said. "But we don't know where the others are."
"I think there's another wing down there," Sam pointed out. "Let's check that."
Daniel was about to step round the corner when the other two yanked him back.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"There are two guards on the other side, both armed with staff weapons," Matt said dryly. "I assumed you didn't want to walk into them." He pressed the keys into Daniel's hand. "Go find a nice empty cell we can stick these idiots in for a while." Turning to Sam, he added, "Left or right?"
"Left."
"Alright then," he replied. "Let's go take down the meatheads."
The two of them moved quickly, with practised ease. The guards never even knew what hit them. All they knew was that it really, really hurt. As they dragged the unconscious men to the empty cell, Sam asked, "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"
"I'm running on adrenaline," Matt said calmly. "As soon as we're out of danger, I'll feel guilty. But right now, I don't care."
Daniel and Sam exchanged a look that clearly said, we'll deal with this later. The three of them walked down the length of the corridor, glancing into each cell. Most of them were occupied, although all the inmates seemed to be asleep.
"They've all been sedated," Daniel commented.
"To stop them trying to escape? They all look pretty strong," Matt suggested. "That might be why everything was so quiet – most people were unconscious."
Sam had gone on ahead as they talked. Now she called them over.
"Look who it is."
Colonel O'Neill was lying on the floor, curled up, asleep. Daniel smiled slightly.
"You do realise that we're rescuing him, right?"
Matt smirked. "You're never going to let him forget it, are you?"
"Nope, not for a long time," Daniel laughed. "Sam, do you want to try and wake him up while we look for Teal'c?"
"Daniel Jackson?" said a voice further down the corridor. Matt ran down to find Teal'c standing in his cell, leaning on the door.
"Teal'c, are you okay?"
"I am fine. They presumed I was unconscious, and did not attempt to sedate me. I do not know what has happened to Colonel O'Neill."
"He's back that way" – Matt pointed back the way he came – "but he's asleep. Daniel and I managed to get hold of a set of keys…" He quickly unlocked the door and let Teal'c out.
"Let's go."
"Ugh… I feel hung over. What happened?" Jack asked, cradling his head in his hands.
"We were ambushed. You, me and Daniel were shot with tranquilisers. We were brought here and locked up, but we don't know why yet." Sam smiled. "The headache and the dizziness fade after a while. You'll be fine. Can you stand up?"
"Not sure…" The colonel slowly pulled himself up, leaning heavily on Sam. "Kinda."
"It wears off pretty quickly once you're awake and moving around," she said, helping him outside. "Lean on the wall until your head's cleared."
Jack did so, wincing. "Hey, if you, me and Daniel were shot with darts, and Teal'c was in a separate cell, how did you get out?"
"Matt was awake, and he woke up Daniel. They tricked the guard into letting them out, then they let me out, and we came down here and found you guys," Sam explained.
"So what you're saying is, the new guy saved our asses?"
Sam tried not to smile. "Pretty much."
"Should we unlock the other cells?" Daniel wondered, walking back down the corridor. "They were probably all captured the same way we were."
Matt nodded. "If we let them out, they're probably not going to attack us. I think they'll just want to go home once they come round." He glanced at Sam. "What do you think?"
"Most of them probably have no idea how they got here," she agreed. "And I doubt they'll attack the people who free them."
"Particularly if they're still out of it," Matt added, sliding the keys off the guard's chain.
As they walked back to the Stargate – after reaching the city and confirming that there wasn't much the people knew that they didn't – Jack turned to Sam and asked quietly, "Matt basically got us out of that, didn't he?"
"Yeah. We're gonna have fun explaining that one to General Hammond," she replied.
"We let ourselves be captured, though," the colonel said quickly. "You know, to see how Matt coped on his own. Part of his training…"
Sam nodded. "Of course, sir."
"Naturally."
"Obviously."
"I mean, normally that would never have happened."
"Of course not."
"And if it did, we'd be able to get out of it without the help of the rookie…"