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12.
Choices
"You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear." ― Sammy Davis Jr.
Daniel teases out the likely sequence of events: uncovering the stasis jar, Sani showing it to Anoki, Anoki being left alone with it in the temple... it all makes sense, but he finds that he really doesn't care. It's all ancient history, and the only thing that matters now is how they're getting out of this mess without a snake in one of their heads.
He can understand why it's important to Daniel, though.
Jack slides down the back wall of his cell after another round of 'kick the bars'.
He's really not getting anywhere, and he'd be lying to himself if he didn't acknowledge that his concern for Sam was growing by the minute.
Anoki's - Amun's - words had implied that they were all captive, but Goa'uld lie; it's basically the foundation of their entire existence.
He props his elbows on his bent knees and rubs his hands through his hair distractedly.
"I'm sure she's alright, Jack," Daniel says quietly.
"Don't," Jack admonishes sternly, letting his head drop back against the wall and his eyes drift up to the ceiling. "You've seen the way Sani treats her. She's nothing to him, and if she has no value, they have no reason to keep her around."
"But he also doesn't perceive her as any kind of threat, Jack," Daniel replies, tone insistent. "She's not a priority."
"Well... that's disappointing to hear."
At the sound of her voice, Jack is on his feet and at his cell door within seconds. "Carter..." he breathes, and pauses for a moment to collect himself. "Took you long enough."
She looks stressed and rumpled, with smudges of red earth all down her fatigues, but she's also clearly relieved.
"Good to see you, Sam," Daniel adds, up on his feet now, too.
She holds her finger to her lips in a silencing gesture, and dips her head. "Your voices carry," she whispers.
"Right," Jack replies softly. "How did you find us?"
She's already moving from cell to cell, scanning the bars and their surrounds as though looking for something before coming to a stop in front of Teal'c.
She doesn't answer his question - it's not really important, and he can't help but appreciate her laser focus.
"Doctor Carter," the Jaffa says lowly, bowing his head.
She brings a hand up to lightly rest on the shackle encircling one of his wrists, and turns it gently. The chain shifts, the links clinking together.
"I don't know how to get you out," she says after a beat, turning back to their cells.
She walks over to his cell door and reaches out to grip the bars, stepping in close.
"These bars aren't rusted like mine were," she says, closing her eyes, her eyebrows drawing together in evident frustration. She exhales and he can feel it across his cheek.
"Where's Teal'c's staff weapon?" she asks.
"Anoki has it," he replies, and then shakes his head minutely. "I mean Amun."
"Dammit," she breathes. She doesn't ask him to clarify, so he gathers she must already know.
"You have to go, Sam," he says earnestly. "Get back to the gate. Get help. Warn the SGC that there's a Goa'uld here."
"It'll take hours, Jack," Daniel interrupts then. "And we don't know how long until Amun..."
"Leaves," Jack cuts across Daniel, raising his voice slightly and fixing the archaeologist with a wide-eyed stare; he has no intention of letting Sam know about Amun's potential plan to take one of them as a host.
She might do something stupid.
Like refuse to leave, he thinks.
Daniel blinks at him but gets it, lowering his head in acceptance. He knows Teal'c sees their exchange.
"I do not think Amun will move on from here for several days," the Jaffa adds quietly, filling the momentary silence. "He will likely send spies through the Stargate to gather information from his former territories."
"That makes sense," Daniel agrees. "It wouldn't be safe for him to move on until he's determined which territories are still loyal to him."
"OK," Sam says, nodding, pushing away from the bars. "I guess I'm calling for backup."
It's then that he hears it. The sound of voices drifting down the main tunnel towards them.
He was back for them already.
His eyes lock with hers, and he mouths the word 'go', but she freezes for a moment, anguish and indecision warring across her features.
He waves his arms violently in the direction of the unlit passage exiting the room on the opposite side, past Teal'c, and she finally moves, disappearing silently into the blackness.
He has no idea where the passage goes, but he hopes it takes her very far away from here.
/
/
The room where she left the team is just a small circle of light by the time she stops to look back - too afraid that they'd hear her if she stayed any closer. The inky blackness of the tunnel is consuming; so dark she has to place one hand against a wall just to feel anchored in the space.
She takes a moment to steady her breathing, her heart pounding from the adrenaline coursing through her.
She hates that she ran. Hates that she's left them behind - hates the creeping coldness of the fear growing in the pit of her stomach.
She takes all of it, and pushes it into a single, driving thought: reaching the Stargate.
It's the only way she can help them now, and she has the immediate problem of finding her way out of a Goa'uld mine in the dark.
She can't risk going back just yet: her escape will all be for nothing if they hear her, and if Sani has more villagers assisting Amun now, she's more likely to get caught in the tunnels they've been using. So, her options are to wait, or to explore the not insignificant chance that the passage she's in connects to other tunnels.
She resolutely decides on the latter, and turns away from that circle of light, stuffing down the thought that she's turning her back on her team.
She keeps one hand against the wall to give herself a point of reference and starts moving, but it isn't long before she can make out what looks like the faintest smudge of blue-grey somewhere up ahead - just barely there, but distinctly noticeable in the darkness, and growing progressively wider with every step.
As she draws closer she realises that it's another room of some kind, and when she finally emerges from the passage she can see that it's almost cavernous in comparison to any other area she's been in so far. Dark shapes appear to rise from the floor, some tall, some low, with only the tallest bathed in the barest slivers of silvery, blue light. She guesses now that it's moonlight, but she hasn't a clue where it's coming from - just that it means that she's probably not very far below ground.
She lets her eyes adjust, and picks what looks like a viable path through the space, taking her roughly through the middle of the room. Nearing the centre, she catches the toe of her boot on something very solid and low to the ground, and pitches forward into one of the shadowy heaps, sending a plume of thick dust up into the air that has her coughing uncontrollably for a second before she manages to suppress it.
Panicking that someone may have heard her, she quickly rolls off whatever she's landed on and presses herself against the ground, hoping for the darkness to swallow her up.
She lies still, pulling the collar of her fatigues over her mouth to stop from coughing again, and waits, but a minute or two pass without a single sound or sign of movement.
She sits up, vaguely aware of the dull throb in one hip where she'd struck something pointed, and realises that what she crashed into was some sort of box covered in something like a tarpaulin. On the ground where she'd tripped she can make out a raised surface - like a step - an inch or so high. It seems to stretch across the floor, curving as it goes, strange ridges cutting across it at regular intervals.
There is something familiar about it.
She leans forward to get a better look, and it dawns on her then; where she knows it from.
The mission reports on Abydos.
It's a Goa'uld ring transporter.
/
/
Sam's gone all but a minute before they arrive. This time, two men from the village and Sani precede Amun into the room. The expressions on the two men's faces shift from impassive, to surprised, to something like shock, as they take in the cells, the chains, and the people in them. Sani places a hand on the arm of one of the men and leans in to say something, too quiet for Jack to hear.
Not that it'd matter, anyway.
The shocked looks fall from both of their faces though, replaced by something closer to disapproval; whatever Sani was selling, they were clearly buying.
"So, what is it exactly that your people think we've done for them, Sani?" Jack says, echoing the old priest's last words before he'd drugged them. "Or are you going to keep telling these people fairytales until the day you die?"
A flicker of shame crosses the old man's face before it turns imperious. "Sacrifices must be made."
"Sure," Jack responds, leaning a shoulder nonchalantly against the bars and eyeing Sani. "So long as they're not yours."
"I would sacrifice everything for my people," the priest responds, placing his hand across his chest as though deeply offended, and taking several steps towards Jack's cell.
Jack shares a sidelong glance with Daniel.
"No, Sani..." Daniel interjects, "I think you would sacrifice anyone."
Like a snake striking, Jack darts his hand out and grabs Sani's tunic, pulling him forward abruptly, the old man just about stopping himself from crashing into the bars. "You have no idea what you've done to your people, Sani."
The two village men dash forward, grasping at his arm, trying to pry his fingers from the priest's clothing.
Amun laughs.
Jack barely notices them.
He has eyes only for the man staring at him from the other side of this prison he's found himself in; their jailor.
"Your people will be fodder in a petty war for a parasite that will never see you as anything more than slaves," Jack practically spits before his hand is finally wrenched open and Sani is pulled away from the cell.
"You have spirit," Amun says jovially as though it's all some sort of show for his entertainment. "This one will make an excellent host."
Sani is straightening his clothes, staring at Jack with something like fear in his eyes.
Good, Jack thinks.
He was glad he'd finally been able to rattle his sanctimonious facade.
Amun impatiently bangs Teal'c's staff weapon against the bars of Jack's cell then, startling everyone.
"I said this one, priest."
"No, wait!" Daniel says fervently, pressing himself up against the front of his cell. "You have to choose me, Amun. You have to. Because Amaunet... the woman taken as her host... she's my wife, Sha're... and I would happily see Apophis dead for what he's done."
Jack sees what Daniel is trying to do; the desperation and anger in his voice is palpable, and very likely real. He finds himself speechless - not because he didn't know how much the archaeologist wanted to be reunited with Sha're, but because of what he'd apparently sacrifice to get there.
"You think that I would touch what Apophis has touched?" Anoki - Amun - says, mouth twisting in bitter disgust; an unseemly expression on such a childish face. "I will find a new host for my Amaunet. One of my choosing - not his."
"And my wife?" Daniel asks quietly.
"You should not concern yourself," Amun responds, his deep Goa'uld voice oppressively filling the space. "She is already dead."
Daniel turns his face away at Amun's words, clearly trying to hide his anguish.
"Lo-kah," Sani says to the two villagers, waving his hand in Jack's direction.
It's pretty obvious even to Jack what it means, and he backs away from the bars warily.
"Enough," Amun states flatly, and raises the staff weapon. "You will submit."
"Oh... I'd much rather take a shot from that thing than a snake in my head," Jack protests, lifting his chin defiantly.
"Fine," Amun says, and his eyes flash like two burning coals in the dim light.
In an instant, the Goa'uld activates the weapon, and fires.
Only, it's Daniel that's his target.
The blast hits him square in his thigh, and Daniel grabs for the bars in an effort to keep himself from falling backwards from the force of it.
"Daniel!" Jack exclaims, launching himself towards the other man's cell, dully aware of the clank of Teal'c's chains as the Jaffa furiously tests their boundaries.
"You will submit," Amun says again, threatening. "Or his pitiful suffering will come to a very abrupt end." Daniel slowly slides to the ground with a low groan, the fabric surrounding the wound already shiny and dark with his blood.
"You son-of-a..." Jack breathes, turning back towards the door of his cell, open now as the two villagers cautiously enter.
"Please," Sani says, hanging back at the door. "Turn around."
He inhales, and closes his eyes, his heart pounding in his ears - a stochastic rhythm of anger and dread beating in his chest. Reluctantly, he turns his back to the two men, letting them bind his hands, the rope biting into the skin of his wrists.
He opens them again to find Daniel staring at him, shaking his head. He stubbornly holds himself upright against the bars, rigid with pain. He is so pale.
Jack tries to smile reassuringly. "Hang in there, Daniel. It'll be OK."
"I will ensure it, O'Neill," Teal'c says, determined.
"Thanks, T," Jack replies lightly, and allows himself to be turned and led out of his cell.
"I am truly sorry, Daniel," Sani adds, and Jack swears that he almost does sound contrite.
"And I'm truly not interested in your apologies, Sani," Daniel says angrily, his voice wavering slightly.
Jack doesn't even try to look back as they lead him out of the room - he really doesn't want to have to see the looks on either of their faces.
/
/
It's mining equipment. All of it. From boxes of tools, to scaffolding, to carts and stretchers that must have been used for lifting and carrying rocks and rubble; all haphazardly piled into the space when the mine was abandoned.
Sam guesses that the ring transporter was being used to deliver the mined naquadah straight to the surface, or to Goa'uld ships, which thankfully meant that they'd taken some care not to dump too much equipment directly onto or inside of the platform.
It still requires a bit of clean-up, though, and Sam finds herself doing battle with a particularly heavy box sitting across a small section of the transporter platform. She inhales a deep breath, braces her shoulder against it, and pushes with everything she has, her boots nearly slipping against the dry and dusty floor.
It eventually moves - one inch, then two, until there's a resounding thud and a puff of dust as it finally drops off of the outer edge of the platform. Sam stills reflexively for a moment, but she's very certain by now that no one can hear her.
With the transporter cleared, she tries to locate anything that resembles a control panel, but the light filtering into the room is too weak and she finds that she has to drop to her knees, searching its circumference with her hands instead, hoping that one of the heavy boxes isn't obscuring it.
She pauses as her hand grazes over something that is distinctly cold to the touch.
There you are, she thinks, brushing her hand gingerly over the strange collection of ridges and etchings that could only be the control panel.
A closer inspection reveals just two buttons.
From what she'd read, and also understood from Teal'c, the rings exchanged matter at their destinations to avoid any chance of interference with the rematerialisation of whatever was being transported. So, she wasn't so much worried about being integrated with a bug in some disturbing retelling of 'The Fly' as she was about where she was going to end up.
As far as she knew, if the destination point was destroyed, the transporter simply wouldn't work, and the only useful information she'd get from sending something else through first was if there happened to be something inside the rings at the destination.
Like a body of water, or half an antelope, she thinks sardonically.
She knows that is massively unlikely though, considering the evident purpose of this platform.
She stares at the buttons for a moment, the growing urgency of their situation prodding at her carefully cultivated sense of caution and desire for data.
She raises her hand, and then resolutely slams her palm down on one of the buttons before scrambling backwards into the centre of the platform.
She waits, still crouching low to the ground, and for a few seconds she thinks it may actually be broken.
Then the surrounding platform abruptly drops into the ground around her.
The mechanical hum as the other rings emerge and encircle her is like nothing she's ever experienced, vibrating right through her as though carefully unpicking her at the seams, her vision rapidly engulfed in an ocean of bright white light.
It didn't feel anything like the Stargate.
A moment later the rings are collapsing into the ground around her, only now she's staring out over a darkened horizon, cool breeze on her face.
She exhales a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding.
Raising her eyes to the heavens, she's greeted by a night sky that is speckled with a few rising stars that are nothing like Earth's, and the dimly lit celestial body that was this planet's moon.
She scans her surroundings, doing a slow circle around the destination platform to try and get her bearings. Behind her and a little way off, a dark, jagged slash cuts across the moonlit landscape, stretching from left to right as far as she can see. She suspects this is the gorge where the temple and the entrance to the mines are located, which means she's probably materialised right above the space she'd been in.
Which would place the village and the Stargate in the opposite direction.
She turns, studying the horizon for any confirmation that she was correct, but the only possible indicator is that there is definitely grass in that direction - soft and indistinct in comparison to the dry, bare earth near the gorge.
She'd been right so far, and she doesn't believe she's wrong about this, either.
Move it, Carter, she thinks, and starts jogging.
It's Jack's voice that she hears in her head, though.
/
/
He's thankful for the cool, early evening air that hits him as they exit the mine. It pulls him out of the thoughts unhelpfully churning and vying for priority, focusing him on his immediate environment, and if there was anything he could do to derail what was about to happen.
They lead him towards the temple, the orange glow from the torchlight eerily spilling out of it like the entrance to some haunted house of horrors.
It was definitely a ride he wishes he didn't have a ticket for.
He stops defiantly at the base of the steps leading up into it, which results in one of the villagers shouting something at Sani.
Sani turns, staring down at him, frustration and impatience and anger deeply creasing his weathered face in the shadows cast by the flickering torches.
Jack finds that he's only too happy to be the cause of this old priest's grief.
"Come!" the Goa'uld bellows, already inside the temple. "This impudence is no longer amusing."
"Funny that," Jack responds, eyes still locked with Sani's. "Hasn't really worn itself out for me just yet."
Sani says something to the two villagers, tone clearly exasperated, and they grab his arms, roughly shoving him up the stairs and across the main chamber where he's turned abruptly to face the big glyph-covered wall.
"Oh good, a history lesson," he goads, rolling his eyes with exaggerated boredom.
Anoki - Amun - pulls himself almost grudgingly away from the section of wall he'd been making a show of studying, and huffs an amused breath.
"I would show more interest if I were you," Amun says, giving him a long look as he saunters over to where Sani stands. "For it will soon be your history."
"I thought we weren't doing 'funny' anymore?" Jack says more seriously, tilting his head to one side and returning the Goa'uld's steady gaze.
Amun hands the staff weapon to Sani. "Do you know why this host bears these markings?" the Goa'uld asks, lifting his finger up to the inner corner of one eye.
Jack knows he's referring to Anoki's strange tear track tattoos, but responds with a lazy shrug, refusing to break eye contact.
Amun eyes Jack knowingly, mouth curving into a sinister smile as he slowly and deliberately traces a fingertip along Anoki's tattoo. The marking appears to shimmer in the torchlight, and then beads, and Jack realises with horror that he's drawing blood.
"It is because he is tainted," Amun continues, suppressing a dark chuckle as a single drop of blood trails down his cheek. "Filthy with the blood of Apophis's worshippers, seeded here to undermine my rule."
Jack surprises himself, recalling Sani's words to Daniel here in the temple just yesterday. "Let them feel sorrow and weep," he repeats softly.
"As they should," Amun says with finality, raising one haughty eyebrow.
Sani drops to his knees then, bowing his head low. "Yes, my God."
Jack feels his anger, his incredulity, rising like bile in his stomach. He'd thought Sani was misguided, but this...
"You've marked your own people for death."
"No!" Sani quickly replies, eyes rising to meet his. "We shall be made clean."
"You don't even know what that means," Jack spits.
"Priest," Amun interjects loudly. "He must kneel."
The chamber is silent for a long moment, and then Sani is issuing instructions to the two men still standing behind Jack. Hands grip his arms, and then push down on his shoulders at his resistance - eventually they use their own weight to pull him to his knees.
Amun disappears from Jack's periphery as he walks behind him, and his adrenaline spikes, blood pounding in his ears as he waits.
His thoughts begin to tumble like a house of cards.
He thinks about Kawalsky, about losing himself, about failing to keep his team safe...
... about her.
"This is a great honour," the Goa'uld says, his breath ghosting across the back of Jack's neck.
And then there is nothing but fire, scorching up and down his spine; white hot needles plunging into his brain like they were tearing into the very fibre of his being.
His mind runs from it, desperately pursuing the sanctuary of unconsciousness.
And just before he collapses into that perfect, black abyss, he thinks he can hear screaming.
He's quite certain that they aren't his screams.
/
A/N: Please don't hate me...
As always, thank you so much all followers/favouriters/readers/reviewers!
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of the Stargate franchise. All other characters mentioned in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.