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Jack kicked at the bars of his current home away from home and glared at his new roommate. "Ancient's site, my foot," he snarled. "Tell you what: next time you find some cockamamie reason to request the presence of my team, just ... don't."
"I never said it was an Ancient's site; I said certain elements of the ruins indicate possible Ancient influence on the civilisation pre-dating the current one."
Balinsky was either very brave or seriously lacking in judgement, Jack thought. He immediately opted for poor judgement – the man clearly didn't know when to shut up – as Balinsky, seemingly unwittingly, added to fuel to Jack's fire by inanely adding, "And we didn't request your team. We requested Dr. Jackson."
Speaking of whom ... Jack pressed more closely to the rough-cast iron bars as the door to the cellblock squealed and creaked open. But it wasn't Daniel that the post-dated current civilisation's indigenous assholes dragged in. It was Dixon, and he wasn't moving under his own steam. Balinsky abruptly leaked anxiety all over the dirty straw on the floor of their cell and began chittering appeals that fell on deaf ears.
In satisfying contrast, Jack reached through the bars to make a grab for the throat of the nearest man as they passed by ... only to get his arm clumsily slashed at for his trouble. That was okay; it was more of a graze than a cut, and now he had a match set.
Dixon was tossed into the cell immediately next to theirs, and on their way out all three natives made a show – an equally clumsy, unconvincing one – of swinging their dirty knives through the air in front of Jack. No doubt they intended their manly display as advice that Jack keep his arms inside the vehicle at all times. Yeah, as if. Total amateurs.
The far door closed with a thud. Dixon readily enough climbed to his feet and approached the bars separating the two cells. Jack looked him over and was satisfied with what he saw. "Nice ride?"
"The suspension's pretty rough, but it beats walking," Dixon drawled, and gestured a 'settle down' to his fourth. "Relax, Balinsky. Just making them work for it. I'm fine." He moved closer to the bars between him and Jack, lowering his voice to a whisper as he indicated the high, barred openings on the back wall of each cell. "The walls have ears. I overheard a stray comment: they've got someone stationed outside."
"You figure they understand enough Earth-side modern English to follow what we're saying?" Jack asked, dismayed to hear their rough-around-the-edges captors had enough sense to do such a thing. That was disappointing, but as long as there was just the one, or two or four, and not a battalion out there, it was more of an inconvenience than an actual problem.
Dixon gave him a head-wagging, middling affirmative and raised his voice to speak at normal volume. "Sorry to have been so long. Not sure why, but they chucked me into a room and just left me there for, I don't know ..." He glanced at his wrist where his chronograph should have been, but wasn't. "Couple of hours or so, I figure."
Jack shrugged. "You've been gone at least that. They just left you there alone all that time?"
"All but the last bit. When they finally came back they seemed pretty upset. All they did though was ask me where the rest of us were, and I told them I didn't know; they'd left without us. They didn't seem to know what to do with that answer." He paused, then his tone changed from casual to concerned as he advised Jack, "I didn't see our gear anywhere. Didn't see or hear any sign of Dr. Jackson either."
Daniel and Balinsky had being trying to defuse the tension accompanying the sudden appearance of highly anxious natives at the ruins. Armed with knives and a variety of what looked to be farming implements, the group of men were disorganised and hadn't seemed to know what to do with themselves; Jack had been cautious – and yes, he had to admit to himself now, somewhat impatient – but he hadn't been overly alarmed. Abruptly, though, out of the blue, Daniel had taken a knock to the head from behind. He'd gone down and had been dragged into their midst before Jack could get to him.
The natives' possession of a dazed beyond functional Daniel posed a serious complication, and Jack's reaction had been immediate. He sighed now, remembering the scene, and scrubbed a hand down his face. "Guess that warning shot might not have been such a great idea," he muttered. The natives had abruptly panicked, unfortunately in the direction of fight rather than flight, and the confrontation had immediately degenerated into an outright melee. As he'd been pushed to the ground under a pile of four men, Jack had lost track of everything but his own situation.
"You followed SOP. I was about to do the same thing," Dixon assured him. "You had no way of knowing that crowd was so high-strung."
Not true, though, was that? Looking back, he now recognised all the signs had been there – this was a group of men trying to hide unreasoning fear behind a display of false bravado. And he could also see two other things: that Daniel had realised how fragile the situation was right away, and that the threat implicit in his, Jack's, pretentiously cocky attitude just might have earned Daniel that impulsive bash on the head.
Well, he'd apologise when he next saw Daniel. Because Daniel was all right and Jack was going to be seeing him again, sooner rather than later if the rest of their teams had anything to say about it. Actually, sooner than sooner would be good, he reminded himself. Because Carter, Teal'c, and the two remaining members of SG-13, following a stream containing trace amounts of trinium further upland toward its source, were due to check-in any time now ... and if any of these people were near the comms when the call came in, no doubt this situation would degenerate even further.
Dixon told them what he'd seen of the building, which unfortunately was precious little. Just outside the noisy door to the cellblock was a small storage room where their guards hung out, from which a short corridor led to a T intersection. Dixon had been kept in the room to the left, while to the right all he'd seen was a closed door.
Another squeal of rusty hinges heralded the door being opened once again. Jack moved to the front corner of the cell, where he had a better view of the entire doorway. He breathed a sigh of relief as Daniel, sandwiched between two men and moving under his own power, was escorted past the guard who'd opened the door. Satisfaction turned to concern, though, as he noticed those men were partially supporting his teammate rather than simply walking alongside him.
Looking decidedly wobbly, Daniel nodded to Jack and Balinsky as his captors guided him toward the empty cell on the opposite side of the room. Or at least he tried to nod – the movement had him grimacing before he'd completed it, and in the next instant his knees buckled. His guards were carried down into a near crouch before they could get a handle on him, and as they moved to straighten up Jack realised Daniel had passed out.
The natives' ensuing actions were worthy of audition for a Keystone Cops remake. "What the everlovin' hell ...?" Jack heard Dixon mutter, which coincidentally was the first thing that had just entered his own mind. The two men holding Daniel up appeared to panic, each of them excitedly turning in different directions at the same time. The guard at the door rushed toward them, only to be tripped up by Daniel's dragging legs. Amateurs, indeed.
A snarled conversation too low for Jack to make out ensued amongst the three as Daniel dangled between them, and in short order, despite an obvious lingering disagreement, hey hauled him more upright and manhandled him not into the cage in front of them, but instead down the aisle to the door of Dixon's cell. Dixon obligingly backed off as the two managing Daniel's limp body shuffled around to let the the third, unencumbered, man past them to unlock the cell door. Another bit of sad slapstick ensued when one of the men tried to unceremoniously toss Daniel into the cell while the second kept hold of him.
Once Daniel was finally deposited face down in the straw, all three men hovered around like drunken butterflies in front of the closed cell door. Dixon knelt to check Daniel out, and looking every bit as bemused as Jack felt, tried to shoo the three looky-loos away with a flick of his fingers. "Off you go," he told them. "I've got this," but they only moved to leave when a few moments later a moan and shift of legs indicated Daniel was coming around.
As soon as the cellblock door was fully closed with all three on the other side, Dixon abruptly fell onto his backside, grinning, and quietly hooted in amusement. Jack was about to tell him that even despite the three stooges' ineptitude there was nothing funny here, but was beaten out by Daniel rolling over onto his back and complaining, "Do you mind keeping it down? I have a headache."
Jack could easily see that he did, too, a real humdinger complete with slitted eyes, sickly pallor, and shaky hands. The collar and one shoulder of his tan t-shirt were darkened, clearly recently wet, along with the hair on the back and the near side of his head: he'd been cleaned up. That meant he'd been hit hard enough to have bled, which meant Jack's reason for regretting having fired that warning shot was open to revision – now, he halfway wished it hadn't just been into the air.
Dixon helped Daniel to sit up, and clapped him lightly on the back. "Well played, Doctor," he softly praised.
"What? I don't get it," Balinsky fairly whined in confusion. Jack rolled his eyes – so okay, yep, bit of a dearth of judgement there – and in a low voice warned him to keep the volume down for this particular conversation.
Jack had to admit that even as a crazy long shot Daniel's gambit had been worth trying, especially considering it had actually worked. But at the same time, he had no idea why it had been successful. Even as apparent novices, these people knew enough to lend the walls ears and to cage the most vulnerable team member, not to mention probably being the one with the most intel, separate from the rest of them. Surely they had to be smart enough not to give up a tactical advantage simply because their captive was ill ... no?
The four of them gathered into a huddle, seated by the bars between the two cells. "I didn't want to be put in the other cell," Daniel softly explained to Balinsky. "Apparently hurting me was an accident; they're appalled it happened and have done their best to take good care of me. So I figured trying to take advantage of their concern was worth a go."
"This," Jack hissed, waving an arm first toward Daniel then at their surroundings, "is taking good care of you? If this is their best, I'd hate to see their worst."
"Well you just might, if you foolishly keep trying to intimidate them," Daniel calmly advised.
"Hey, watch the name-calling. And I haven't done anything they haven't asked for," Jack protested, deciding to discard that apology he'd told himself he'd deliver.
Daniel looked skyward. "They think you're a lunatic, Jack."
Dixon snorted at that, and Daniel aimed the same long-suffering expression toward him. "Neither of you are doing us any favours. Look, they're afraid, and your posturing simply reinforces that fear." He looked at Balinksy and asked, "What happened here, Cameron? I assumed you had their trust, that you had permission to explore the ruins?"
"We did have permission. We wouldn't have called you in, if we didn't." Dixon raised his eyebrows in enquiry at his fourth as he added, "Although clearly, the trust thing can't have been very well established ..."
Balinsky was a picture of misery as he sat there trying to figure out what could have gone wrong. "I'm not sure," he eventually whispered. "They were a bit wary of us, but I really thought they understood we weren't a threat to them. I guess I missed something; I'm really sorry."
Daniel massaged his neck as he dismissed the apology. "It's all right. We'll figure it out and talk it through with them."
"Any signs of them having past experience with the Goa'uld?" Jack thought to ask. "Specifically, the Jaffa?"
Dixon looked affronted. "That's one of the first things we discussed with them, Jack. We're not rookies, and we're perfectly aware there's a Jaffa on SG-1."
Daniel's shaky hand went from the back of his neck to rubbing his eyes. He looked to be increasingly the worse for wear, and as he swayed enough that Dixon put a hand on his shoulder to steady him, Jack decided to put the issue aside for the time being. Obviously, Daniel believed figuring out why these people had gone from cautiously accepting to unglued might – yeah, like in a pig's eye, was Jack's opinion – help them talk their way out of here, but as their lead negotiator the man was nowhere near up to the task.
"All right, look, let's table this for a while, give you two –" he gestured to Dixon and Balinsky "– a chance to think over what might have set them off. At the moment, I'm more concerned at what the fall-out might be if they discover we tried to mislead them."
At a blank look from Daniel, Jack filled him in on Dixon's faux interrogation. "Given how reactive these guys seem, if any of them are near enough to the comms to hear Carter's check-in the shit's probably going to hit the fan, toot-sweet. We need to be ready to handle that."
"Or not," Daniel quietly mumbled, leaning forward to rest his forehead against the bars. He raised a hand, one finger extended to request a moment, and engaged in some deep breathing.
"You going to puke?" Dixon asked, shrinking back slightly.
Worried about the possibility of concussion, Jack met Dixon's gaze and jerked his head toward the floor of the cell. Daniel resisted Dixon's attempt to ease him down, though. "Wait, wait, just wait," he insisted. A quick grin passed across his face as he raised his head. "Unless I was hearing things that weren't there, and actually, even if I was, that's probably all we have to do – just wait. We still need to figure out what went wrong, of course, so we have a basis for settlement when the time comes, but ... yeah."
Yeah, what? "Now you're not the only one with a headache." Jack rubbed his own forehead. "Daniel, what the hell are you talking about?"
"I was pretty rough for a while ... fading out, threw up a few times ..." Dixon shuffled back a few inches and leaned away. "I told them we had medicine that would help me, and they took me to our gear." Dixon leaned forward. "It's in a different building. Everything was there, all intact; they hadn't messed with any of it. It's significant that they were worried enough about me to do that, Jack."
"Aside from injuring you being accidental, they know there's more of us where we came from," Balinsky whispered into a gap created by a renewed attempt by Daniel to cope with his nausea. "They don't want to hurt us, plus they're afraid of retribution."
Daniel nodded slightly. "Yeah. They really haven't a clue what to do with us. From what I saw and heard, from the people I came into contact with, anyway, I think they'd like nothing more than to just let us go. But they're terrified that –"
"Daniel," Jack gently interjected. "We get it. Our gear ...?" he prompted.
"Oh. Yeah. Well, they had all four vests in one convenient pile. I managed to turn off three of the radios and give Sam and Teal'c a couple of clicks. Pretty sure they responded."
Dixon frowned. "Pretty sure?" he jumped in. "I think we need better than pretty sure, Jackson. And they sure as hell will need more than just a couple of clicks. But thanks for trying."
Jack sat back, waiting. Sure enough, the criticism provoked a large enough spike in Daniel's energy level to fuel a longer spate of words, through which his irritation was all too clear even at a whisper. "I'm no rookie either, Colonel. Yes, okay? I'm almost certain they responded. It was a bit difficult to hear because I was being pulled away at the time – it's just a quick touch to turn them off, but the only way I could conceal what I was doing with the last one was to pretend to collapse onto the vest." The mulish tone faded into weariness as he added, "But it doesn't really matter."
What doesn't ...? Ah, aha. "What did you do?" Jack asked, understanding Daniel had managed more than just those clicks.
The surge of energy mostly drained away, Daniel rested his forehead against the bars again and smiled faintly at the ground. "Locked it on transmit as they hauled me off. Started babbling away." The rueful smile stayed in place as he quietly sing-songed, "It's okay, I'll be fine; please let us go; I know you're afraid but please, just let us go; I promise we won't hurt you ..."
Promise we won't hurt you, huh? Jack shook his head. Typical, just freaking typical.
What had to be at least a couple of hours passed before the Three Stooges tromped in and headed toward the next cell. They carefully stayed out of arm's reach as they passed Jack, somewhat blunting the excitement of having something other than staring at the walls to do. But oh well.
Dixon planted himself in a wide, assertive stance between the cell door and where Daniel slept curled up in the straw. His message was unmistakable, and after a short bit of vacillation in front of the cell, the men huddled into a short a whispered conversation then headed back out the door. Jack and Balinsky joined Dixon in moving to the bars between the cells, Dixon quietly commenting, "Good thing he's asleep. Ten to one he would have agreed to go with them."
"Yep. Never mind agree, he'd suggest it," Jack confirmed.
"And what's wrong with that?" Balinsky leaned in toward them both, spilling a mix of reproach and frustration familiar enough to Jack that he wondered if Daniel had tutored him. "In case you missed it: it looks like these people would like nothing better than to be convinced it's safe to let us go. They're frightened and have no idea what to do."
Jack deferred to Dixon; this was his team member, after all. "What's wrong with that," Dixon lowered his voice to just above a whisper, "is we need to avoid being separated again. If Jackson's trick with the comm worked, SG-13 and SG-1 are already here, scoping things out. The last thing we need right now is one of us closeted away with these folks in an unknown location." Then with a faintly apologetic glance at Jack he added, "And as we all know, frightened people can do unexpected things."
"Yes, like being talked into believing what they desperately want to be true," Balinsky insisted. "With a little time and some caref–"
He was interrupted by the cellblock door abruptly squealing its way open yet again. The same three men entered. As they headed directly toward the door to their cell, Balinsky quickly stepped in front of Jack, blocking his path toward the front bars. "Frightened men can do unexpected things," Balinsky quickly parroted, warding him off with an upraised hand that Jack dearly wanted to swat away. He ordered Balinsky out of his way, with no effect. Then as the cell door was opened both he and Dixon ordered him to not move an goddamn inch, also to no effect, and after that there was nothing much Jack could do short of initiating another melee.
They took him – took Balinsky, who went altogether placidly – and as soon as the cellblock was once again theirs alone, Jack whirled around to face Dixon. "What was that?" he complained loudly, arm outstretched toward the far door. "What did I tell him? What did you just order him not to do?"
From behind Dixon, the peanut gallery unexpectedly piped up. "Oh, please. Don't pretend he had a choice." Daniel climbed wearily to his feet and took just two steps toward Dixon before deciding the better of it and reversing his path. "They won't hurt him, and maybe he can make some progress." Reaching the back wall, he turned and slid down it to sit beneath the high, open window.
"Well, whatever they do with him is out of our control now, isn't it?" Jack retorted. "And whether or not they might hurt him isn't the point."
"It hasn't been within your control from the moment you got locked up, and I know exactly what your point is," Daniel shot right back. Dixon wisely retreated to the far side of the cell.
Daniel waved a hand toward the opening above his head. "If I'm not mistaken, it's still daylight, right? And that they won't hurt him is, in fact, an even more important point than the one you were trying to make. These aren't an aggressive or unreasonable people, and allaying their fears is probably the best way to get out of here without anyone on either side getting hurt."
"And if I'm not mistaken, someone already did!" Geez Louise!
Daniel had nothing to say to that, simply nodding slightly before he closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the wood planks. Jack took a deep, almost-calming breath. "All right, all right," he conceded in return. "I get what you're saying. Look, obviously we'd all like it to go that way, but considering how things went the first time you tried talking to these folks, I'm not inclined to pin my hopes on conversation."
"What a surprise." Clearly feeling unwell, Daniel slid sideways to lie down alongside the wall. His voice was thick with fatigue behind the arm he brought up across his face. "I get it, Jack; I know what's going –." He stopped dead there, simply rotating his free hand to finish off the sentence.
Good boy. Well done. "I know you do. Don't worry, it'll work out fine," Jack gently told him, his irritation melted down to nothing. "Go to sleep. It'll be okay."
He and Dixon waited for a bit, until Daniel was well settled, then met at the front corner of their cells for a hushed discussion. Dixon glanced toward the outside wall concealing their eavesdropper, and acknowledged Daniel's presence of mind with a tip of his head in Daniel's direction. "Nice save. You know, Jack, he's right about one thing," he whispered. "There is still time in the day. Even if our teams are out there, nothing's going to happen until dark anyway."
"He might be right about more than just that – he often is," Jack allowed. "But talk can go sideways just as easily as straight ahead. In this case, I'm not willing to risk the certain bird in the hand for a nebulous one in the bush."
Dixon huffed a quiet laugh. "I think both Jackson and Balinsky would take issue with which bird you think is which."
Yeah, no doubt they would. "Speaking of Balinsky ..."
Dixon shook his head, bristling slightly. "Give him a break, Jack. He's a bright guy and a reliable member of my team. I was right there with him when we met these people – he did and said all the right stuff. Quit ragging on him, okay?"
"Whoa, Dave," Jack soothed, both surprised and impressed by the outburst. Dixon's strong defence of Balinsky was good reason for Jack to rethink his impression of the man, and, okay, he would do just that ... but actually that had nothing to do with what he'd just been thinking. "I was just going to say I hope he's able to coax some food and water out of our hosts. We missed lunch." Not to mention that Daniel needed to replace the fluids he'd lost.
Dixon eyed what they could see of the sky through the window openings. "Still a while before dinner; hopefully we won't miss that too," he observed. "Gotta tell you, unless things improve drastically, the accommodations here are in for some pretty negative reviews."
"So you guys use a scale too?" Jack asked, and at Dixon's blank look he elaborated, "A rating scale?" The man still looked blank. "For the lock-ups?"
"For the lock-ups," Dixon repeated, shaking his head very slowly. "SG-1 has a rating scale to compare jails? Uh, Jack, just how many times has your team been forcibly confined?"
Jack's brain automatically began enumerating. "Oh, often enough," he slowly replied, pushing thoughts of Hadante, Goa'uld holding cells, and various other negative experiences out of his mind. He was puzzled for a moment by the odd expression on Dixon's face, then, abruptly, he got it. "Oh no, come on," he protested. "Zero? None at all?"
"None at all." Making matters worse, Dixon's faint embarrassment seemed more for Jack's sake than his own. "A perfect record," he confirmed, then grumbled,"Well, until today, at least. Thanks a lot, Jack."
They both sulked over the tribulations in life for a short while, then passed more time in hushed consideration of the most likely scenarios once the rest of their teams showed up. And when there was nothing more left to share save complaints, they fell into a silence that stretched out interminably. Daniel got up once to retch into the raised wooden trough in the far back corner of his cell, and a few minutes of pressure to his head wound was needed for some light bleeding. Otherwise, the tedium was uninterrupted.
Jack kept half an eye on the windows, tracking the day's slide toward evening. As visibility in the cellblock dimmed in concert with the onset of dusk, and an uncomfortable chill seeped in through the plank walls, Jack and Dixon began to exchange mutually concerned glances as to the whereabouts of Balinsky.
Dusk came and went, and the chill in the air moved toward outright cold. It was dim enough in the cellblock that Jack's colour vision was gone, everything muted into dark greys shading to black, when Daniel suddenly scrambled toward the centre of his cell, away from his resting place along the back wall. "Ah, hello," he softly uttered in caution, and flapped a hand toward the wall.
Jack moved as far over as possible to the other cell and joined Dixon in standing stock still for a moment, listening. It wasn't what he heard, though, but what he just barely saw that abruptly captured all of his attention: a small blob, just a bit darker than the night sky behind it, hovered next to a bar in the window opening above where Daniel had been resting. It swung first to the right, then left, in surveillance before disappearing from view.
Quiet, indiscriminate scratching sounds followed, seemingly moving higher up the wall. Within seconds, a medium-grey oval rose from below into the centre of the opening. Daniel moved forward and repeated his hello, this time in an entirely different tone of voice.
"Hey, Daniel. Got your message," Carter whispered. "Are we clear?"
"Clear," Dixon told her. "Three guards just behind a wooden door, though. Need to keep it down."
"Understood, Sir. Head's-up," she warned, then ducked down. A dark object sailed forward through the bars.
Daniel caught it, and, not altogether willingly from what Jack could see in the dim light, handed it off to Dixon. As faint noises along the wall indicated Carter's descent to the ground, they both joined Jack at the cell bars. The radio promptly emitted a double click, so they waited, both Jack and Daniel moving into positions that would block as much of Dixon as possible from view of anyone who might open the cellblock door.
A couple of minutes passed before Carter hailed them and they were able to share status reports. They were three out of four on-site, Balinsky's present location unknown, and, in response to her pointed enquiry, yes, Dixon assured her, when the time came Daniel would be good to go despite how dreadful she felt he'd sounded over his radio. Jack knew the state of Daniel's willingness might be another matter, but he kept that thought to himself. Daniel knew the score – it wasn't Carter's or Dixon's or anyone other than Daniel's own responsibility to ensure his reluctance wouldn't interfere with whatever had to go down. And it was Jack's job, and no one else's, to ensure Daniel lived up to that responsibility.
Jack nodded with satisfaction as Carter advised that the hapless native they'd encountered outside was presently asleep while on duty. Bosworth and Wells, concealed nearby, were ready to ensure he stayed that way for however long was needed. They were also prepared, at a moment's notice, to punch through the outer wall of the cellblock should that become necessary. She was a single word into some additional information when their handy-dandy warning system activated: a squeak-squeal announced they were about to have company. Dixon hurriedly turned the volume down on the radio, then, apparently re-thinking that, depressed the push-to-talk and held it on transmit.
Balinsky, laden with a large bundle, was framed in wavering light from behind as he was escorted to in front of Jack's cell. In his wake, two of the guards carried lit oil lanterns down the aisle. One of them hung his lantern high on the upper crossbar of the opposite cell, just across the aisle from Jack, while the other moved further along to do the same opposite Dixon's cell. In the flickering light, Jack recognised Balinsky's load as being their SGC-issue jackets, with four water bottles precariously perched on top.
Jack hastily moved back when he realised the guard with Balinsky was happy to let the man stand there with his arms full, for however long Jack remained even remotely within reach of the front of the cell. Staying alongside the bars between the two cells, he retreated to the back wall and stayed put until after Balinsky was let in and the cell door re-locked behind him.
"You okay, Balinsky?" he asked loudly, hopeful that Carter wasn't still transmitting at her end. "Light, water, jackets: good job." The outer door closed behind the guards, and Jack nodded toward Dixon, who flashed Balinsky a quick view of the radio.
They both moved toward Dixon and Daniel, Jack making sure he and Balinsky were properly arranged. Now that there was illumination, however dim, they'd have to be even more careful to block view of Dixon from the outer door, even despite rusty hinges. The jackets and water were handed out as Balinsky and Daniel shared enquiries as to one another's health, then, with the radio still transmitting, Dixon asked Balinsky to report.
"There's another problem, in addition to our being detained," Balinsky grimly told them. "I was Exhibit A in a council meeting of sorts. Eighteen men in total, not including me, most of whom are genuinely worried, to varying degrees, about the safety of their families. Four of them appear to hold exceptional influence." He sounded angry as he elaborated, "Two of those four are powerful manipulators. I'm pretty sure they're behind the existence of that fear. They're certainly doing all they can to heighten it; they appear to want to take advantage of it to increase their own personal power and prestige. That's probably the main reason why we're still here." He waved a hand to indicate the cells.
"Personal power?" Daniel asked him. "Over what? You mean, control of the Stargate?"
"Yes and no. Apparently a couple of curious townsfolk saw SG-1 come through. Despite us having already explained where we came from, they don't understand what they saw, and their descriptions of SG-1 literally materialising out of the blue have most people batshit scared of the Stargate." Balinsky leaned in toward Dixon, aiming his comments into the open channel. "These two men claim we're not what we say we are, that we can't be trusted. They're agitating for extreme deterrence measures and the creation of a 'defence force' – and they just might get instant approval for both if we do anything they can use as further evidence that they're right about us."
"They can plan all the extreme deterrence measures they want. Doesn't matter to me. It won't be us strung up in front of the 'gate, because we're about to get out of here." Jack gestured toward the radio.
"They have our gear," Daniel hastily interjected. "They're talking about messing with the weaponry?"
Balinsky nodded. "As we speak."
Daniel turned to Jack, looking horrified. "We can't leave zats and guns, and oh crap, grenades and C4, in the hands of people wanting to experiment with them – someone's accidentally going to get hurt, maybe killed." Balinsky vigorously nodded in agreement.
Dixon boggled at them both. "Let me get this straight: you expect us to recover gear they want to keep for themselves, most likely while on our way out the door without permission, without doing anything they just might consider uncooperative or untrustworthy? Just how do you suggest we do that?"
"Talk to them," Daniel insisted. "Convince them we're benign and they shouldn't be afraid to release us. Barring that, make sure they understand we don't want to hurt anyone, that all we want to do is leave."
That response was no surprise to Jack, and, considering who it'd been asked of, probably shouldn't have been to Dixon either by now. Balinsky did surprise him, though, by promptly disagreeing with Daniel. "I think it's past that, Daniel," he advised. "I tried but was shouted down by a very vocal minority. It's probably impossible to reach the rest of them – they aren't being allowed to hear what we have to say. There's some pretty powerful fear mongering going on."
"What channel's that on?" Jack asked as he gestured for the comm. Dixon checked and told him before handing it over, and Jack promptly changed its setting to their previous one. Daniel's radio was still transmitting – they immediately heard noises that might be people and objects moving around, then two native-accented male voices.
"Any chance you could find your way back there?" Jack asked Daniel, aware of just how sick he must have been when he'd been taken to their gear.
Rubbing the back of his neck, Daniel frowned and closed his eyes in thought. "It wasn't very far from where they had me bedded down – a left then a right, I think? So, yeah, maybe, as long as we headed out from the same starting point."
"Which was, where exactly?" Dixon prodded, getting a pained look in response. The short grilling that ensued made it clear Daniel would need some time, and no doubt copious amounts of Tylenol and anti-emetics, to try to align his hazy recollections with the possible relative locations of the three buildings he'd been shunted between. And all Dixon, Balinsky, and Jack himself knew of their own path through the town was that it'd been a long, blindfolded walk from the ruins. Great, isn't this all going so well, Jack thought, as he changed the radio's channel back again and hailed Carter.
It sounded like she was on the move when she answered. "Copied all that, Colonel," she advised. "Wells is monitoring Daniel's comm; he overheard their intentions just after Balinsky returned. It sounds like two or more men are with the equipment right now. What do you advise?"
Pale and sweaty, his headache obviously spiking again, Daniel sagged down to measure his length in the straw and Jack found himself snapping into the radio, "What I advise is that you get us the hell out of here, Carter."
There was a short delay before she came back in a measured tone, unfazed by his momentary fit of impatience. "Sixteen men have exited your location. Fourteen appear to be headed out of the town centre; I've followed the other two to another building. Wells reports now hearing two additional people in with our gear, Sir."
So that answered the question as to the location of their equipment. "Two left that we know of, plus our three friends," Dixon observed, and Jack nodded. Doable for their four teammates, provided there wasn't a small army hidden elsewhere in the building. Being locked in cages was a frustration; they couldn't be of any help at all if anything went south. Their other option was Wells and Bosworth punching through the outer wall – it would give them a direct route to outside, but it'd be noisy and they'd have to open holes into both cells.
Jack's thoughts were interrupted by Teal'c. "O'Neill. The two men of which Dr. Balinsky spoke," his voice rumbled over the comm. "Should they be available, might you wish to speak with them?"
What? Jack depressed the send key and Daniel immediately let out an emphatic yes from below. "That's a big negative," Jack overruled. Concerned that the question had even been asked, he then demanded, "Teal'c, please advise as to your status."
Jack stared at the radio in rising suspicion as Carter repeated his request, only for both of them to be told to please wait. The answer came a few moments later, however, via a shout and a series of thumps on the other side of the cellblock door. It opened and Teal'c stalked through into the cellblock, magnificently dragging two of their guards in with him. Both with their hands secured behind their backs, they appeared to be more off-balance and stiff-legged from fright than actively resistant. One of them began to protest but abruptly shut up when Teal'c asked him, "Are you not glad to still be capable of complaint?"
Jack, Dixon, and Balinsky stood clustered at the front inside corners of their cells, bemusedly watching as Teal'c pushed the two guards face up against the bars of the cell across the aisle, opposite Dixon's. As Jack hastily let Carter know where Teal'c was and just what he was up to, a scraping noise heralded the entrance of Bosworth, shuffling backwards as he dragged an unconscious third native into the cellblock.
Belatedly joined by Daniel, they all waited – none too patiently in Jack's case – as Teal'c and Bosworth locked the two upright men in the cell, then deposited the third well out of their reach, in the front corner of the cell opposite Jack's. Jack raised an eyebrow as Teal'c let him and Balinsky out. "They are most impressed by the zat," Teal'c answered the unspoken question. So that accounted for the bugged-out eyes of the two conscious guards, and the state of the third man.
Gazing around at the walls and ceiling, the barred cages, and into Jack's cell, Teal'c handed the iron key over to Jack and turned to glare disapprovingly at the unhappy men in the far cell. Jack released Dixon and hauled Daniel over to stand in the aisle under one of the lanterns, for the first time taking a good look at the back of his head. The large lump was expected, but he was startled to find the split in his scalp crudely stitched almost, but not quite, closed with two short bits of bloodied something-or-other.
"Ow," Daniel complained as Jack touched a protruding bit. "Leave it be. It's sinew of some kind, probably tendon." He pulled away from Jack and sidled past, his gaze intent on the unconscious guard.
"Ack! From what?" Jack couldn't help but exclaim, appalled at the thought of all the germs and ... ew, dead animal matter ... that had been pulled through the wound. Not good.
Knowing they could be discovered at any moment, he put aside angry thoughts of infection and the probable lack of local anaesthetics, and hastily followed Daniel. Teal'c ushered them all out the cellblock door, and Jack found himself in a square, dirty room piled with bales of straw. On the side wall, a doorway without an actual door led them into a short corridor lit by two oil lamps suspended on chains from the ceiling. Dixon's floor plan came to mind, and Jack was fully prepared to turn right at the T junction up the hall, as all that lay to the left was the room in which Dixon had whiled away several hours.
Teal'c went left. "Dr. Balinsky, please come with me," he instructed, and pointing to the right told the rest of them, "The exit is through a meeting area, in that direction. Dr. Balinsky and I will join you in the meeting room shortly."
Dixon frowned but nodded permission to his fourth all the same. As Balinsky pushed past the rest of them in the narrow corridor, Jack returned Bosworth's radio to the man then trailed along behind Balinsky, invited or not. He was aware of Dixon coaxing, then ordering, Daniel into following Bosworth toward the door on the right, and casually shot a, "Daniel, behave," over his shoulder. What might lay ahead was far more interesting than behind.
His attention to business sharpened as Teal'c drew and armed his zat as he opened the door to their destination. Peering through the gap between Teal'c and Balinsky, Jack wasn't all that surprised to see, in the uneven light from yet another lantern, two men lying on the floor of the small room. Jack sighed to himself; Teal'c, Teal'c, Teal'c – they were definitely due for a serious chat when this was all over with. Both men were bound hand and foot, their mouths taped, and at the sight of Teal'c they both near panicked and tried to wiggle their way through the wall at their backs.
Balinsky looked alarmed by what he was seeing. "What the –? Yes, that's them, the two I told you about. Silman," he indicated one of the men, then pointed to the other. "And Rostran." He reached out quickly as Teal'c and Jack both stepped forward into the room. "Wait. Don't hurt them."
"Would you like them to come with us, O'Neill?" Teal'c asked, and yeah, that was an interesting idea provided the two could be managed without slowing down their progress. It could be helpful, at the very least probably discouraging the sort of reckless impulsivity that had put Daniel down.
Balinsky recovered from his surprise quickly, sounding a lot less spooked and a lot more critical as he pointed out, "Surely eight of us can manage to leave without anyone being further traumatised, Colonel. Plus you'd be playing right into their hands."
"And I won't willingly participate in consigning the rest of these people to a life of fear and paranoia."
Daniel. Oh for crap's sake. Jack turned and shot Dixon a glare, to which the man simply complained, "He doesn't always follow orders very well, does he?"
"If you're referring to Teal'c, apparently not," came a voice from behind, then Carter stalked her way past all of them. Swatting Teal'c on the arm, in measure of her annoyance with him, she demanded, "What on earth do you think you're doing, Teal'c?"
"O'Neill clearly stated his priority." Teal'c was entirely unrepentant. "An opportunity arose; I took it."
"You've just put a lit match to a gas leak, is what you've done, Teal'c," Daniel contended, quickly adding, "And don't give me any crap about speaking metaphorically. You understand exactly what that means."
"Balinsky, out," Dixon quietly ordered.
"An entire way of life is at risk here – don't you get that? You may have meant well, Teal'c, but this ..."
Jack stepped into the space vacated by Balinsky, where he could see Daniel better. "We'll get the guns, Daniel. It'll be fine." Which reminded him to ask, "Seeing as you're here now, who's minding that shop, Carter?"
"Isn't anyone listening? It's gone past that now. Recovering our gear won't fix this."
Carter gestured toward the direction of the cellblock. "Wells repositioned; he has direct line of sight to both that building and the rear of this one. The town centre is fairly sparse, Sir."
"Dr. Balinsky contends these men are the source of the problem, Daniel Jackson. What better way to ensure these people need not live a life of fear, than to remove their malign influence."
Jack stepped in. "Daniel, Teal'c. Let it go," he ordered, then requested more information from Carter via a roll of his hand.
"Wells is continuing to monitor Daniel's channel. And with eyes on the only entrance, we should –"
"What? By trussing them up? Or worse? Teal'c, attacking –"
"– know right away if anyone else shows up, or if –"
"– community leaders just reinforces that fear."
"– anyone intends to leave the building."
Geez, Jack thought irately; what was he, chopped liver? "Daniel, I said that's enough." Daniel sullenly shied away from his stare after a few seconds, and Jack looked past him to see Dixon still in the corridor. "We have eyes out front?"
"There is no "or worse" intended, Daniel Jackson. I speak only of discrediting them." Oh, now Teal'c was affronted too. Wonderful. Jack warned him again – enough is enough – with a sharp slash of his hand.
"Yes, Sir. Bosworth." Carter looked over her shoulder, down the hall. "And ... Balinsky?"
"Yep," Dixon nodded, lazily adding, "They follow orders."
Teal'c abruptly moved from the doorway. "Perhaps you should sit down, Daniel Jackson."
Carter's voice overlapped with his own as Jack's head cranked around. "Daniel?" He stepped around Teal'c just in time to see Daniel do just that, plopping down hard onto his butt on the floor at the end of a uncoordinated stagger.
"I was referring to in the meeting room," Teal'c muttered, earning himself an irritated glance from Carter as they both moved toward Daniel. Yes, excellent, Jack thought. A perfect addition to the last five minutes. So nice to see his entire team functioning at their best here.
Wells' voice burped out of the comms. Two of the men he was monitoring were apparently the night relief for the three cell guards. They were readying to head over there, he warned. Dixon quickly told Wells to stay put, turning to Jack with a half-smile. "That's convenient. Easier to deal with two sets of two, than one group of four."
It proved easier than easy, in fact. The three in the cellblock readily kept silent in the face of the business end of a zat, while their two-man relief confidently moved through the empty meeting room and down the now-deserted corridor. They walked straight into Jack, Dixon, and Teal'c's hands, and were locked up in Jack's old cell not two minutes after entering the building.
The one hitch was that these two new not-guards were, unfortunately, not nearly as compliant as the others. Shouting and shrieking for help, they were noisy enough to wake the dead. Interestingly, it was the guard who'd been zatted earlier, now wide awake, who was most in favour of Teal'c carrying out the threat to zat the two into silence.
Once that proved inescapable and was done, the native man nervously told them, "We wish you to leave." The other two original guards nodded vigorously in agreement. "Please, do not hurt anyone. Just take your people and leave this night. The way is to your circle-home is free. All we have wished is that you leave, and not return."
"That's all we want too," Jack told them, then had to pause to listen as Bosworth came through on Teal'c's radio. He shared a satisfied look with Dixon, both of them pleased to hear that the rest of SG-13 had just secured the shed containing their gear.
Reminded of Daniel's concerns, he turned back to the natives. "We came here looking to be friends, not enemies. Tell your people that. Tell them they shouldn't be afraid."
"You ...you do not wish a revenge?" The native bunched up both fists and swung them through the air, then gestured toward him and Teal'c. "It is only a nature?"
Dixon snorted. "It's that lunatic thing you've got going on, Jack. Very convincing."
Jack sneered faintly at Dixon. "No, neither of us want to hurt any of you," he assured the guard. "We just want to go home."
Somewhat emboldened, the man shakily asked, "Your other, the injured one? He remains?"
Remains? As in ...? Dixon, more familiar with the natives than Jack, understood the question right away. "Yes, he's still in the building. Why?"
Visibly gathering all his courage, the ex-guard moved to the front of the cell. "I am Timean. I would see him," he did his best to assert, then faltered, "... if it be his wish as well?"
"Teal'c." Out of respect more for Daniel's peace of mind – not to mention Jack's own future peace and quiet – than to the native's request, Jack sent Teal'c off to liberate Daniel and Carter from the room they'd ducked into, to clear the hallway. "One minute only. We really do have to get going," he told the native, who clearly had no idea what a minute was. But that was what context was for, wasn't it.
Daniel wobbled into the room, Teal'c and Carter hand's-on to either side of him in unknowing repetition of the first time Daniel had been escorted through the cellblock door. Hopefully to be minus the burlesque this time, but Jack wasn't going to entirely rule out that possibility, considering the way things had been going. If what he now suspected about their guards was on target, and he was pretty sure it was, 'farcical' was an apt descriptor for the situation.
Daniel's expression, already tight with discomfort, contracted further at the sight of the two unconscious men in the near cell. Jack ushered Teal'c and Carter away, and with his hands on Daniel's shoulders gently turned him to face the other direction.
Timean abruptly straightened, drawing Daniel's attention. "I am Timean," he again introduced himself. "No matter he says not, it was my father that injured you." He indicated his friends, and even the two lying across the aisle. "Many know it was Rostran did the wrong, even that we cannot counter him. I am sorry."
Rostran. One of the two in the room up the hall. Jack's hands involuntarily tightened on Daniel's shoulders at the realisation the attack on Daniel – the instigation of this whole mess – had very likely been deliberate, rather than an accident borne of fear and impulsivity. He'd been wrong: farcical was not the right word. It wasn't nearly strong nor negative enough to describe what had happened here. Unforgivably criminal, immediately sprang to mind.
Behind him, Carter checked in with Bosworth, and apparently all was clear there. Jack halfway wished it wouldn't stay equally as quiet the entire way to the Stargate, because he wanted nothing more right then than to find some ass to kick before he left this planet. And dollars to doughnuts Daniel wouldn't let it be a restrained non-combatant's ass, no matter that Rostran deserved it.
Daniel stared at Timean for a long, drawn-out moment. "Oh my god," he eventually groaned, lifting a hand to his head. "Now I really, really have a headache. So, you ..." He waved the same hand around in a haphazard circle Jack knew was meant to encompass more than just the people in this room. "Some of you, however many of you, already knew – you've understood all along – we aren't a threat to you ... "
Jack waited for it. A probable concussion would slow anyone's processing speed, but he knew Daniel would get there nonetheless. "You, you ... you couldn't counter your father, you said," Daniel slowly reasoned it out. The light bulb suddenly went on, and he blurted, "Oh. You couldn't do anything about it publicly, but – you were going to let us go, let us escape. You were, right?"
"Yes. At full dark," one of the other two answered. "But your big man, he came."
"Okay, well, so how about now," Jack burst out, rubbing his hands together. "Where do you want us to leave the key? Here, I'll put it right over here." He took it out of his pocket and tossed it through the doorway into the hay storage cum guardroom. He tried hard not to, but in the end he couldn't help but get snarky. "Thanks for everything you didn't do for us. It's been interesting, but we have to go now."
Dixon readily headed for the door, Teal'c on his heels. Carter reached out for Daniel, but he balked at her attempt to steer him out of the room. "Wait, wait," he held back. "Just a second ..."
"We have to go while the streets are quiet and our equipment is secure," Carter urged. "Someone, or a patrol, could come by at any time."
Still, he tried to pull away from her, so Jack lent a hand in turning him in the right direction. "Jack, just a second!" At the vehemence, Jack relented slightly, because dragging a both apoplectic and concussed man all the way to 'gate wasn't anywhere on his bucket list. But if whatever was so important proved otherwise, or took too long to spit out, Jack was prepared to bodily remove Daniel if need be.
"Timean, listen," Daniel twisted around to say over his shoulder. "I know you can't go against your father ... but, tell everyone, they still don't have to fear. There's a way: you can bury the circle, and no one can ever come through again. It's difficult to do, but you –"
"Up-end it," Jack interrupted, because that was a great idea but if he left the details to Daniel they'd be here all night. "Dig a big deep ditch all around the platform to weaken it. Use chains to pull the circle over, flat onto the ground, and completely fill it with rocks. Lots of really big rocks."
"Yeah. Lots and lots of rocks ..." Daniel murmured as Jack and Carter guided him out of the cellblock. He lost his legs maneuvering around the bales of hay, but found them again in the corridor and managed to keep them as they moved through the meeting room and out into the night. Carter and Dixon split off to join SG-13 in recovering their equipment, while Teal'c guided Jack and a vertiginous Daniel through the town.
They needed to stop a few times for Daniel to pick his head back up from the ground, so Carter, Dixon, and the rest of SG-13 were already there, waiting for them, when they passed through the town's outskirts and onto the yellow-grassed flatlands leading to the ruins and the Stargate. The rest was even easier than easier than easy. A three-quarter moon in a clear sky lit their path, and, as Timean had said, the way was clear. No one and nothing, bar a few small rodents scurrying around in the field, interrupted their walk.
If not for the times they had to pause to check Daniel's wound, or allow him to rest or untangle his legs or retch into the bushes, they might have just been taking a nice night-time stroll rather than escaping forced captivity.
"Oh, I forgot to ask," Carter mentioned as the Stargate finally came into view, "What did you guys think of the accommodations? I only spent a few minutes in there, but it didn't look too bad."
"That's because you only spent a few minutes in there, Carter."
"We've seen worse." Daniel shrugged and promptly staggered into Teal'c.
Teal'c gently righted his unsteady friend. "You had illumination, water, and soft bedding, O'Neill."
"Dirty straw is hardly soft bedding," Jack complained.
"And our clothes," Daniel shakily breathed a reminder. "We had clothing."
"Okay, yeah, there is that," Jack allowed, fielding an appalled, disbelieving look from Dixon who walked just behind them.
"Well, for that alone I'd give it at least a six, Sir."
Teal'c vigilantly shouldered Daniel back into walking a semi-straight line again. "I concur."
Jack couldn't believe his ears. "Six? We had an open trough for a toilet, for crying out loud. I'm so constipated it's gonna take a week to get back to normal."
Both Teal'c and Jack cautiously reached out, just in case, as Daniel snorted a laugh then immediately gagged. He gamely struggled on, though, just as Jack knew he would.
"Now that's got to be an exaggeration, Sir. It was only one day."
"Yeah, well, it was a really long day," Jack griped. "I give a three, max ... but then again, apparently I'm a lunatic, so what do I know."
Picking up his pace, Dixon moved past SG-1. "You're all lunatics." Once he was a short distance ahead, he turned and walked backward a few paces. "Really, though, I think it was great. Can't wait to do it again," he drawled, an easy smile on his face. "Thanks for the fun, Jack, Dr. Jackson." Then he was off, striding along to catch up with his own team.
"And you think we're the lunatics?" Jack shouted after him, then shrugged. Maybe so, maybe not. Either way, he was still going with a three.