Sticks and Stones - Chapter 51 - by Emma Nisbet (grnfield)
With Jack leading the way again the four men made good time travelling gradually upwards towards the uppermost part of the ship. As they travelled the vivid golden colouring on the walls was gradually replaced by a depressing gunmetal grey and the ornate hieroglyphs made way for riveted metal panelling. Further on the floors also changed - from an almost luminous, buffed marble effect they became a type of dark grey, almost black stone that bore a striking similarity to slate. Apparently the Goa'uld spared no expense when it came to areas they would be occupying but spent absolutely no money, time, or effort on the decoration or glorification of the areas used for their minions.
Any Jaffa resistance they encountered simply melted away as they approached their destination. Many Jaffa were spotted in the corridors but by the time the four men should have reached then they had always slipped into side doors or drifted away down other corridors. Not one of them met the eyes of any of the men and not a single word was uttered. As much as Jack and his men appreciated the fact they weren't being challenged, it gave the whole situation a somewhat surreal feeling.
The four Tau'ri team-mates were stunned by the number of different tattoos present onboard the ship. Many of the Jaffa were branded with the symbol of System Lords that Jack and the other members of the SGC knew to be dead but others seemed to have been randomly collected from around the galaxy whether their 'God' was still alive or not. 'No wonder they're on our side,' the Colonel thought to himself. 'It would start a massive war among the System Lords if they found out that Ba'al and Osiris were pilfering their Jaffa as and when they felt like it. Maybe that's the idea - to weaken the enemy from within. By both reducing the workforce and getting the enemy to fight amongst themselves Ba'al would effectively leave his enemies open to attack and, if left long enough, turn them into an ideal target for complete and total domination.'
~#~
As they rounded what Teal'c had advised as the last corner before the Jaffa quarters they met the first real resistance since ringing onto the ship. A squad of four Jaffa were guarding a crossroads in the drab, grey passageways, each warrior was armed with a staff weapon and all had Zat's clipped to their right arms.
Immediately Jack's eyes fell upon their foreheads and he saw that two were warriors allied to Ba'al, one to Osiris and one - slightly further down the corridors than the others - bore the mark of Lord Yu.
In the brief moment before the Osiris and Ba'al Jaffas reacted Yu's warrior, a slim Asian man with dark, almond shaped eyes, met Jack's gaze. With a barely noticeable movement he tipped his staff weapon downwards in an attempt to advise Jack both that he was in the right place and inform the Tau'ri Colonel that he would not be engaging in this battle.
Jack blinked slowly to let the ally Jaffa know the message was understood. Whether the other members of SR-2 had noticed the slight distance between Yu's man and the other warriors was something Jack couldn't be certain of but he hoped his men would have enough foresight by now to ask questions first rather than going in with all guns blazing.
Jack's moment of contemplation came to an abrupt end when the three nearest Jaffa primed their staff weapons and swung them forwards towards the four invading humans. The men reacted instantly, Jack and Reynolds both hit the nearest of Ba'al's warriors with a Zat blast, killing the man instantly. The second was hit with a Zat from Bell and the third, Osiris's warrior, fell due to a single bullet which hit him directly between the eyes.
Reynolds and Bell covered the one unconscious Jaffa while Jack moved towards Yu's man who was standing with his back against the wall and had his staff weapon pointed towards the floor in a gesture of submission.
As he stepped over the body of Osiris's Jaffa, Jack looked back over his shoulder at Sergeant Summerville.
"Nice shot," he said, clearly impressed with the other man.
Summerville looked up in surprise. The Sergeant hadn't worked directly with Jack before and had heard the older man was somewhat difficult to please. That Jack was willing to praise him directly filled the young man with a great deal of pride. "Er…thank you, Sir," he stuttered quickly.
The moment passed as quickly as it had come and Jack turned back to Yu's warrior. "Thank you," he said simply. "I take it you know why we're here?" he asked. "…and I assume we're finally where we need to be?"
The Jaffa nodded vaguely, his eyes darted around the corridor, not stopping on any particular spot for more than a couple of seconds. Looking at the man Jack realised that he couldn't be more than about nineteen years old. Sure, he knew the Jaffa didn't age as fast as 'unmodified' Tau'ri men but this 'warrior' was little more than a boy.
Watching his eyes nervously scanning the corridor, Jack realised that the young man was not only young, he was completely terrified. Looking at the man and noticing how he was avoiding looking at the bodies of the other guards the Colonel wondered if the young man actually served any time out on the battlefield or if Ba'al had raided some sort of Jaffa training camp and snatched him from there.
"Where?" Jack questioned the frightened man with a single word, raising his eyebrows as he spoke.
The young man pointed down the left hand side of the left-hand corridor leading away from the crossroads. He held out his right hand with four fingers outstretched and his thumb tucked in towards his palm. Flexing his fingers twice he met Jack's eyes as if asking for confirmation that the olive clad man had understood.
"Eight?" the Colonel queried, hoping he'd received the message properly. Why did the man not just speak to him and tell him what he wanted to know?
The Jaffa uttered a single guttural word which Jack failed to understand and flexed his fingers down the corridor again.
Suddenly insight hit Jack like a two-by-four. The warrior could not speak English. Being one of Yu's men he would have surely been brought up speaking the Sinitic dialect from whichever Asian populated planet Yu harvested his Jaffa from. The warrior presumably also spoke in Goa'uld but due to his age and obvious inexperience he had presumably had little or no need to be taught English.
Folding both his thumbs to his palms, Jack held up both hands so he had eight fingers towards the Jaffa. "Eight," he said.
The young warrior nodded and then as an afterthought gestured with his whole hand flat out down the line of doors along the right hand corridor. "An," he said earnestly.
Jack looked blankly at him. "An? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" he asked in frustration.
The Jaffa waved his hands in annoyance at the obvious language barrier and put the flat of his hand towards the end of the corridor on the right three more times uttering the word 'An' between each gesture.
"Alright," Jack grated out. "I get the idea. We wanna look down there as well." He nodded his head and waved his hand down the right hand corridor.
The Jaffa relaxed slightly now he'd got his message across and then pushed past Reynolds, Bell and Summerville darted off down the corridor. Bell raised his Zat in alarm but Jack called out to the Sergeant, "It's alright, leave him be. The kid's terrified enough as it is. Let him go, he's no threat."
Bell pointed his Zat back at the Jaffa who was showing signs of waking. "What do you want to do with him, Colonel?"
Jack thought for a moment before stepping to the first door down the right hand corridor. Pressing on the door he was grateful to find it swung open.
"Put him in here," he suggested. "Quick, before he comes round properly."
As Bell and Reynolds hauled the Jaffa into the small room and dumped him unceremoniously onto the cot, Jack took his Zat and disintegrated the bodies of the two dead warriors.
Summerville watched him with a distasteful look on his face.
Jack saw the look. "Yeah, I know," he said quietly. "Bit too obvious leaving 'em in the middle of the passageway though.
Summerville nodded and Jack turned back to the doorway just as Bell and Reynolds were closing the door firmly behind themselves.
"He's still pretty much out of it at the moment," Reynolds announced. "However he's gonna be a mighty bit p!ssed when he finally comes round."
"Yeah," agreed Jack. With the Zat still in his hand, Jack turned his attentions to the door controls. Clearly a crystal was required to lock and unlock the door. Jack looked from the 'lock' to his Zat and back to the lock again. Without another moments thought he discharged the weapon and sent a bolt of energy into the locking mechanism. The blue energy fizzled and crackled for a moment before the lock emitted a loud 'snap' and erupted in a small plume of black smoke.
Jack wafted the smoke away with his hand and noted that the lock was completely melted.
"He ain't getting outta there in a hurry," Reynolds commented from behind him.
"Yep. Well that was kinda the idea," Jack agreed. "Now, let us see what's behind door number eight…"