14: Mob Justice

General and military Governor Lorvoss Valinno was packing his bags. His office had been mostly cleared out, and a shuttle awaited him on the roof of the fortress. Of course, the skies were full of death gliders as much as they were of Calsharan fighters, so his odds of getting away were not terribly high. Nonetheless, the time had come to put this world and its ungrateful populace behind him, and he fumed as he finished stuffing the last of his well-tailored outfits into a portable metal container. His secretary, a lithe and young, green-scaled female named Kalea, waited by the office door whilst the sounds of battle rattled on up from the temple's lower floors.

"You see what happens, when you attempt to civilise barbarians?" Valinno spoke aloud and with venom in his voice, yet he did not speak to anyone in particular. Kalea, dressed in a snug-fitting black uniform, was too preoccupied with watching the corridor outside than to listen to the ravings of her increasingly desperate commander. "Ungrateful, the lot of them. I'll have this place bombarded from orbit as soon as we're clear. The Jaffa will rue the day they ever—"

He was cut off abruptly when something exploded outside. The floor shook and the window at his back shattered into a hundred pieces. Valinno stumbled, covering his head with his hands as the glass rained down around him. Little of it made any cuts, as Calsharan skin was a little thicker than that on a human (or Jaffa, for that matter). Dust trailed from the ceiling and he could hear shouting travelling from somewhere distant.

Captain Dorvask barged into the room then, his uniform scuffed and dirty and one arm bleeding from a gash that had been shot through his forearm. Nonetheless, it hardly bothered him, and as he entered Kalea went to block his path. Without preamble, the burly Captain punched the young assistant in the face, bloodying her nose and sending her falling to the floor with a yelp.

"You goddamned coward," Dorvask barked, when he saw the wheel-fitted containers scattered about the General's desk, all packed with the older male's belongings. Dorvask's yellow eyes blazed with fury, and he stomped towards the General with his right hand still tightly clenched into a fist. "You would have us all die protecting this place whilst you flee?"

"It is your duty to protect me, Captain. I am the Governor here…"

"The same Governor who decreed that we would fight to the last man?" Dorvask continued to close the distance, only to halt when the General pulled a plasma pistol from under his desk. He trained it upon the Captain, aiming squarely for his chest.

"We should have abandoned this place months ago," Dorvask stated, his voice taut, his control on his anger straining.

"I told the High Protector that we would hold it, and we did. But in the end, these barbaric Jaffa rejected our attempts to civilise them. And don't pretend you did not have your fun here, Captain. I know what games you played, the favours you took from the desperate locals. And the explosives I ordered you to place, and yet you could not even do that properly."

"I did what I could in the short time I had," Dorvask growled, his anger about to explode from him once again. "If you were so intent on destroying this city, you should have given the order a week ago. But you were too busy indulging yourself in here, like some feudal king of the ancient days. You didn't even get your hands dirty once during this occupation. Aside from the occasional public execution, none of which you actually carried out yourself, just what did you do?" Now Dorvask took a step forwards. The General did not shoot, and from somewhere below the weapons fire continued to echo through the Great Temple.

"You never sullied your hands with the necessary violence," Dorvask added. "You sat up here and let yourself go. You somehow gained weight when every other Calsharan here lost some." The Captain's voice was brimming with contempt now. "I tolerated all this nonsense, as it was part of my duties as your second, but not anymore." A smirk crept upon the Captain's face then, and the General frowned when he saw it. "Your shuttle is gone, General. A Jaffa aircraft took it out."

"It was shielded…"

"I turned off the shield." Now his smile broadened, baring his pointed teeth. Valinno, anger surging, let out a snarl and in that instant, Dorvask charged him. He swatted the gun aside as it fired, the bolt slamming into the wall. Nearby, Kalea cradled her throbbing jaw and let out a panicked cry at the sight of her two superiors fighting. Dorvask headbutted the General squarely in the face, before he grabbed the wrist of the hand in which the pistol was held and twisted it. Bones audibly crunched and the General let out a pained cry, the gun clattering to the floor.

They grappled for a moment, the General clenching his jaw and mustering all the strength he had. However, it was not enough to fight off the veteran Captain, and suddenly General Valinno found himself face-down upon the desk, his arms pinned behind his back. Dorvask stood over him, his grip such that he could twist the General's arms to encourage further agonized cries from him.

"You went soft a long time ago, General," Dorvask spat. "Your family may be influential back home, but here? The law isn't what you make it, you pompous old fart." The Captain heard a whimper escape the General's throat, a noise that caused his face to scrunch up in disgust. "Pathetic."

He leaned closer then, such that his face was almost directly before the General's. "I reported your conduct to the UPD, by the way. Not that it matters now, of course."

Reaching for his waist, he pulled the lengthy and serrated blade that was a standard-issue Calsharan combat knife and, in a movement that was both quick and casual, plunged it into the back of the General's head. The older male fell silent immediately, and his entire body relaxed under Dorvask's grasp.

The Captain scrunched up his nostrils then, catching a whiff of something unpleasant coming off of the General. The old fool had soiled himself. Dorvask released the dead man's arms with a disdainful huff, before he moved about the desk and set eyes upon Kalea. The female had propped herself up on one arm, and her other hand rubbed her aching jaw. Blood trickled from both her nostrils.

"I guess it's just the two of us now, Lieutenant Kalea?" Dorvask asked. The answer came not from the young officer, but from the doorway into the General's private chambers. A trio of Jaffa stormed in, two of which Dorvask recognized immediately.

"Bra'tac." The insurgent leader was renowned across Chulak, and his image had been widely circulated amongst the local authorities. "Joined by Teal'c, of course." He had met Teal'c personally, during the time the Jaffa had been incarcerated in the temple's dungeons. Bra'tac stepped into the room, dirtied and slightly bloodied but otherwise alive and well. The same went for Teal'c and the scraggly old warrior who joined them.

"I took care of the General for you," Dorvask remarked, and he motioned for Valinno's body, slumped as it was over the desk.

"You are Captain Dorvask?" Bra'tac asked, the old man's eyes fixing themselves firmly upon Dorvask's own.

"I am," the Captain answered. "And I surrender." He raised his hands, half-expecting the old Jaffa to shoot him anyway. However, that staff blast did not come. Instead, Bra'tac motioned to the few other Jaffa who had followed him into the office. They marched forwards, weapons raised. Dorvask got the hint and so stepped forwards, allowing the warriors to flank him. He figured that being taken alive by Jaffa was hardly going to prove pleasant, yet he preferred it to going down in a blaze of glory. He had almost died once; he did not wish to go through it again. With a smirk on his somewhat reptilian features, he started forwards at a steady walk, the warriors following and occasionally motioning him as to which way to go.

The grounds surrounding the Great Temple itself were strewn with rubble and bodies. Jaffa were already in the process of clearing the corpses, both of their own and of the Calsharan defenders. The air stunk of smoke, of scorched metal, of blood and of burning flesh. It was a stink John had smelled before, many times, a particular mingling of unpleasant scents that always stirred up the same feelings. The most predominant of those was relief. That is, relief for the simple fact that he had survived. It was compounded by the fact that his team was still alive as well, and the five of them lingered in the temple grounds amongst the rubble from the damaged walls and the chunks blown out of the nearby residences.

Elsie stood off to his left. She had her canteen open and was in the process of gulping down whatever water she had left inside. Aithris had sat himself down upon an old stone bench, his jacket off whilst Natalia tended to the gash at his arm. Daniel was to John's right, wiping down his spectacles with a small cloth. All of them were dirty and sweaty, yet for now they could take a break from the chaos of battle.

At the temple gates, a small crowd of civilians had gathered. Some were handing out food and water to the Jaffa warriors. Others tended to the wounded. Daniel was watching the group, a good twenty metres away, with keen interest. With his glasses clean, he set them back upon his nose and allowed himself a more intense gaze.

"Some of those people are going to want blood," he remarked. The crowd, from what John could see, consisted mostly of women and children, with some old men in the mix. Most of the younger men would have been fighting, and many of them were probably dead, either killed during this battle or at some earlier point during the occupation.

"There's plenty of it around here," John remarked, and he found himself glancing at where a dead Jaffa was being dragged away. A trail of blood smeared upon the pavement under him. Somewhere else, a woman cried over a dead husband. Her wailing backgrounded what was otherwise an odd sense of calm that had fallen across the temple and much of the city as a whole.

"I mean, if any Calsharans were taken prisoner…" Daniel trailed off, before he simply shrugged. "Somehow, I don't think that happened much. This whole thing, it was—"

"Vicious? Bloody? Unrelenting?" John interrupted Daniel with a few suggestions of his own. The two men exchanged glances, with Daniel appearing a little more disapproving than John. Sure, Daniel could fight like a trained soldier, but at the end of the day he was an archaeologist and, by extension, a scholar. He was more comfortable in a library than on a battlefield. "You know how many times I've seen this kind of thing, Daniel? Not just with the stargate program, but as far back as Afghanistan. Like that woman, crying right now?" He nodded in the direction of the wailing woman, kneeling by her fallen man. "I saw that back in Afghanistan far too many times to count. After a while, you learn to tune it out."

"Desensitize, you mean?"

"No use letting it get to you. Otherwise, you'll get distracted and then you'll get killed." John noticed that a murmur had passed through the assembled Jaffa, and all heads were turning for the lane nearby that worked towards the temple's left flank. Even Aithris and Natalia and Elsie started looking that way, and a good dozen of the Jaffa civilians at the gate surged forwards. John followed their gazes, as did Daniel. He was somewhat surprised by what he saw.

Captain Dorvask was being escorted by a half dozen Jaffa warriors, with Bra'tac leading the group. Dorvask's arms were not bound, yet the Calsharan officer seemed to have enough sense to not try and take out an entire army of Jaffa. His rough-hewn features were set in a frown, and this look only deepened when he saw Colonel Sheppard.

John, of course, remembered Dorvask from the encounter he had had with the Calsharan last year, when he had helped rescue Teal'c from the temple's dungeons. At that time, John had assumed Dorvask had been killed, blasted more than once by Teal'c's staff weapon. Apparently, that 'death' had not stuck.

"Hey, aren't you dead?" John asked the Calsharan, as he and his escort came to a stop in the courtyard several metres away. Dorvask smiled then, a mean smile at that, an apparently common trait for Calsharans.

"I don't die quite that easily, Colonel Sheppard," Dorvask answered. One of the Jaffa behind him nudged him with the end of his staff weapon, coaxing him to take a few steps further. Several of the Jaffa civilians who had come in through the gate were glaring at him, and a few had even picked up some of the small stones littering the courtyard to throw at him. Dorvask raised an arm in front of his face as a few of those small stones pelted against him, but otherwise they were more of a nuisance than anything dangerous.

"You're taking him alive?" It was Natalia who asked this, and she directed the question to Bra'tac. The ageing Jaffa nodded his head, although his eyes drifted for the increasingly disgruntled and growing crowd of civilians nearby.

"The Governor was already dead when we reached his office," Bra'tac explained. "Captain Dorvask gave himself up."

"He could have some good intel," John said.

"It is not so much what he knows," Bra'tac stated. "Rather, he and the Governor committed many crimes against the people of Chulak. It is fitting that at least one of them face justice before a court."

"Your 'courts' don't mean a thing here, Jaffa," Dorvask spat, and he turned his head to glare at the old warrior. "And I certainly don't recognize the authority of any Jaffa 'court'. Your minds are already made, you'll have me executed in the same way I executed some of your own during the occupation."

John had seen one of those public executions during his last visit to Chulak. Dorvask had used his bare hands to drive a thick nail into the skull of a captured Jaffa resistance fighter, doing this all before a large crowd in the city's main square. A means of intimidation, or at least intended as such by the Governor. Instead, it had likely only spurred more people to join the fight against their occupiers.

"You utilised your role here to take advantage of desperate people," Bra'tac stated, and his voice remained level as he met Dorvask's mean glare. "It seems fitting that you be handed over to the very people you took advantage of." He gestured towards the growing crowd who were gathering just beyond the main gate. Dorvask's glare vanished then, as soon as he realised what Bra'tac was getting at. "Go on, Captain. As you are so determined to avoid our courts, let us see instead if you can escape this city alive."

Form the way several of the women amongst that crowd were moving towards him, it became apparent very quickly that Dorvask was not going to have an easy way out. Bra'tac and the other Jaffa simply stood back, allowing the Captain his chance to get away. John was surprised at the conduct of the Jaffa here, yet at the same time he could understand why they were allowing this. Months spent under the boot of an alien occupation had created such overbearing tension that here and now, some small fraction of those victimised could attain their catharsis. Unfortunately for Dorvask, that meant being left to the mercy of about a dozen mostly young Jaffa women armed with clubs and knives.

"Hey, Colonel." Elsie had sidled up alongside his left, curiosity etched upon her features. That included the soot that clung to her otherwise slightly tanned skin, adding a level of grubbiness to the otherwise good-looking thirty-six-year-old. "What did this guy do?"

John was not entirely sure, so he gave a shrug in reply. He continued to watch as Dorvask was goaded towards the disgruntled citizens, all while looking about for some other way out. The Jaffa warriors had him surrounded, weapons levelled in case he did something untoward. And then the first of the women was upon him, striking him hard in the stomach with a wooden club. The burly Calsharan was barely fazed, and he swatted the girl away with one hand. However, more came upon him from both sides, clubs swinging and knives slashing forwards. A few blows connected, blades cutting through his uniform and the scaly hide underneath. Blood was drawn, yet the Calsharan remained standing. He punched one woman in the jaw, dislodging several teeth. Another he kicked in the chest, no doubt breaking multiple ribs. All the while the surrounding warriors stood back and watched, allowing the people their dose of revenge.

Jaffa were certainly big on vengeance. Judging from the way Daniel watched the scene unfold, he had likely reached the same conclusion. As barbaric as it seemed to them, it was a direct response to the barbarism inflicted upon them by the Calsharan occupiers.

Daniel winced when one of the blades became stuck in Dorvask's lower back, the hilt jutting out in an almost obscene fashion. And then another knife was thrust into his stomach, and this time Dorvask let out a yelp and fell to his knees. Now his attackers dog-piled him, stabbing and slashing. Clothing was ripped away and John sighted at least one of the Jaffa women begin sawing away at his crotch, although the full sight was obscured by the cluster of bodies that surrounded the fallen Captain. Dorvask's screams turned into outright howls before a knife in the neck silenced him, his voice turning into a wet gargle before it cut out completely. By the time the crowd was through with him, there was little more than a bloody, pulpy mess left upon the courtyard pavement.

It was some hours later, when the fighting had died down that Daniel and the rest of the team had returned to the camp surrounding the stargate. The odd Jaffa patrol was present, but otherwise the place was quiet, with several of the more prominent tents having been packed up by those working in support roles than frontline warriors. The team was assembled before the stargate itself, a seeming constant here on Chulak for little about the stargate and the stone platform it was situated upon had changed for many, many years. Even the stones spaced about it, most standing at roughly waist height and inscribed with ancient text, had hardly changed. Sure, some had seen the odd piece shot out of them but otherwise they were as Daniel remembered them from the trips he had made here years ago. Even that first one, after he had been pulled away from Abydos by O'Neill and the rest, driven by a desire to rescue his wife and bring her home. Simply standing here was enough to dredge up those memories, even if they seemed to be from a lifetime ago.

"Allow me to thank you on behalf of all Jaffa," Bra'tac said, and he extended a hand to John. Both he and Teal'c were here to see them off, the fight for Chulak seemingly over. John, who appeared as scruffy and dirty as the rest of them, took the old man's forearm in the traditional Jaffa greeting. "Your assistance here will not be forgotten. Generations from now, they will tell stories of what happened here today, and of the warriors of the Tauri who fought alongside us."

"It was the least we could do," John replied, and after a moment he released Bra'tac's forearm from his grip. "I hate to say it, but it comes with a price. Everything does these days."

"Of course, I understand. You require our assistance in turn." Bra'tac smiled. "When the enemy comes, we will be by your side to meet them."

Daniel got the sense from Elsie and the others that they were eager to get home. He could not blame them, of course. They were all tired and dirty from the fighting, but there was no ignoring the reason they had come here in the first place. The Free Jaffa were a force to be reckoned with, and that force would need to be merged with that of Earth if they had any hope of defeating the other enemy, the Scourge that had started to sweep in from the farthest and darkest corners of the galaxy. Sure, the galaxy was vast, but eventually that enemy would come upon Earth, same as they would Chulak. As for what they wanted, Daniel still was not sure. It was one question that no one seemed to have a solid answer for.

"You could have just executed that Calsharan Captain," Elsie said. She frowned, apparently disgusted by what she had seen earlier. Bra'tac nodded his head, acknowledging this.

"Perhaps, but that was not for me to decide. The people made their decision then and there. He was a criminal who exploited the vulnerable, a tyrant in all but name." Bra'tac sounded remorseful, but in the end, he was assured of his choice and the conviction in his tone suggested as much. This was a man who did not make his decisions lightly.

"Our ways are not like those you have on Earth," Teal'c said. "Those people were entitled to their revenge."

"Maybe, but mob justice?" Elsie shook her head. "I still don't like it."

"We may look much the same, your people and mine, but we are different. Very different, in some ways." Bra'tac turned to Daniel then, and he extended an arm for the usual Jaffa 'handshake'. It was more of a forearm grasp, really, and it likely was symbolic of the trust between the two making the gesture as clutching the forearm allowed for one to feel for a concealed blade. The Jaffa, for all the Goa'uld technology at their disposal, were still very old-fashioned in their ways.

"Farewell, Daniel Jackson," Bra'tac said. Teal'c stepped forwards then and offered his own arm in turn. Their grasp was a little longer, and Daniel could see the confliction in Teal'c's gaze. Part of him no doubt wanted to join him on Earth, the other to stay behind and assist in the reconstruction of Chulak.

"It's okay, Teal'c," Daniel told him, as he released the big man's arm. "Stay here, help your people. I know you'll be there when we need you most."

Teal'c gave him a curt nod. Bra'tac strode over to the dial-home device nearby, whereupon he began punching in the symbols for Earth. With each push, a chevron lit up on the stargate and its inner wheel began turning, creaking audibly within its ancient housing. John shook hands with Teal'c and Bra'tac, before he turned to the others. They were all itching to get home. Of course, there was likely to be a crisis waiting for them back at the SGC, so John was not about to get his hopes up when it came to taking a break from all the chaos.

The stargate activated then, the familiar spout of swirling blue energy pluming forth before it snapped back and settled into the almost serene water-like portal suspended within the ring itself. Elsie had her ID transmitter out, and she keyed in the code necessary for those on the other side of the wormhole to know who was coming. She seemed keen to put Chulak behind her, and John sidled up alongside her as she fiddled with the small, cylindrical device.

"Lieutenant, something wrong?" John asked her.

"Nothing, sir. Not really." She looked up at him, narrowing her eyes slightly. "I mean, is it enough? The Jaffa, are they enough?"

"We'll have the rebel Calsharans with us too, if things work out."

"You think they will, sir? Work out, I mean?"

John had no answer for her there. He remained silent and offered her a shrug instead. Elsie nodded her head in understanding, her uncertainties etched upon her face. Whereas John and Daniel and even Aithris were better at keeping such feelings concealed, Elsie was much more emotive. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and more often than not she spoke her mind. It was no wonder she had gotten into so much trouble in the past, yet so far, she had proven to be a reliable member of the team. John figured it was down to how alike they were overall, in terms of mannerisms and overall character. She would disobey orders to do what she felt was right, and that was something John himself had made a habit out of during his own career. That was the reason he had been relegated to being a mere helicopter pilot in Antarctica, prior to falling in with the Atlantis expedition. That had been his second chance, and perhaps for Elsie falling in with SG-1 would be hers.

"You know what, Lieutenant? I do believe things will work out. You just have to take one thing at a time, one day at a time." John motioned for the others to fall in, and he waved farewell to Teal'c and Bra'tac. They would be there when called upon, this much he could be certain of. A Jaffa always kept their word, and Teal'c and Bra'tac were perhaps two of the finest examples of that particular race.