Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When you traveled by Stargate, you never knew what kind of environment you were going to find yourself in. Sometimes it was a desert, or a glacier, or a forest. Occasionally it would be the inside of a building, or the middle of a town or bustling metropolis.

Today, as the MALP emerged from the event horizon onto another world hundreds of light years away, Colonel Jack O’Neill saw a bright blue sky and a landscape brimming with sunshine and trees - lots and lots of trees - in the images the trusty robot beamed back through the video monitors. He tried to imagine what it might be like on that other world, designated P4Y-868. Major Carter’s commentary helped paint the picture.

“The atmosphere is about 22 percent oxygen, 76 percent nitrogen, and two percent other gases. Ambient temperature is 85 degrees. Humidity is 82 percent.”

“Balmy,” said Jack. So today it would be a jungle. A very dense, hot, humid jungle. Swell.

The MALP’s camera panned slowly around the entire area. “Hold on, hold on, go back. What’s that?” said Daniel, pointing. Carter swiveled the camera back around.

“It appears to be archeological ruins, Daniel Jackson,” said Teal’c.

Daniel leaned forward toward the monitor. His face lit up like a Christmas tree. Jack rolled his eyes. Oh boy.  Here we go. “Can you get a little closer? I-I’d like to see if I can determine what kind of architecture that is. It almost looks Roman, but I-I can’t quite make it out,” said Daniel. Excitement made his words speed up.

Carter manipulated the controls that advanced the robot. Then, boom: the machine stopped in its tracks. Just stopped, like it had run into an invisible brick wall before it had gone more than about five feet.

“What happened?” asked Jack.

Carter checked the readout. “I don’t know, sir. It looks like some sort of energy barrier or force field.”

“How far does this barrier extend, Major Carter?” inquired Teal’c.

Carter shrugged as if to say, let’s find out. She directed the MALP to make an exploratory circle. As she did, General Hammond stepped into the control room, hands clasped behind his back. “What have you found?” he asked.

“The MALP’s encountering some kind of energy field that goes all the way around the Stargate,” Carter reported.

“Is it natural or man-made?” the general inquired.

Carter shook her head. “I don’t know sir, but I’d like the chance to investigate. Even if it is some kind of natural phenomenon, it warrants further study. It may give us the means to construct our own defensive shielding.”

“There are also some ruins I’d like to check out, provided we can get past the energy barrier,” put in Daniel.

General Hammond paused, considering the video feed the MALP was still sending back. “Alright. You have a go, but proceed with extreme caution. If you can’t penetrate that barrier you are to return immediately. If I don’t hear from you within thirty minutes, I’ll send in an extraction team. Be ready to leave in half an hour.”

“Understood, sir,” came Jack’s reply. The ruins were nice, but this energy thing was much more interesting. Jack found himself pondering it as SG-1 suited up. Was it some part of the planet’s natural ecosystem, or some kind of technology they could get their hands on? Was it a defense system for the Stargate, like their iris? Did it stop everything from passing through, or only inanimate objects? Could they take it down with a little C4 or a couple of Claymores?

The passage of half an hour saw SG-1 on the ramp leading up to the Stargate with packs shouldered and weapons ready. “Chevron one encoded,” came the voice of Walter Harriman from the control room as the great circular ring began to spin. Before long SG-1 emerged, squinting, into the light of an alien sun.

Looking around, Jack took note of their surroundings. The landscape was flat with no hills or valleys. Jungle encircled the Stargate on three sides, though in the immediate vicinity around the ancient ring, only smaller plants and shrubs grew. Directly in front of the ‘gate was a more decent-sized clearing. To their right, a treeless stretch of land extended in a large ellipse. About two hundred feet or so away in this direction were the alien ruins, which were surrounded by more jungle.

Jack crossed over to where the MALP was at the edge of the mysterious energy barrier. He sent out a probing hand and received something like a static shock. His sharp eyes soon spotted a round grey object about a foot in diameter, kind of like one of those Goa’uld teleballs, but larger, and with stubby little antennae protruding from it and more multicolored flashing buttons and lights.

At that moment, six human-looking guys wearing jungle-colored camouflage emerged from hidden positions, their weapons trained on SG-1. “Who are you? What do you want?” one of them demanded.

Next to Jack, Daniel froze and raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, then went into his standard, ‘we come in peace’ spiel. “We’re explorers from a planet called Earth. We came here to learn about your culture, your technology. In return we’d be willing to trade.”

The man and his companions looked at one another. Cautiously, they lowered the weapons they carried. “I’m Merone, First Guardian of the Circle of Stone. These are my contingent. You’re explorers, you say?”

“That’s right,” Jack confirmed, stepping forward before Daniel could reply. “And we’d really love it if you’d let us out of this thing so we could, you know, do some exploring. How ’bout it?” He raised his hands in a non-threatening gesture and flashed them a disarming smile.

The guards shared a round of nonverbal communication with hand and arm signals. Finally, Merone tapped some controls on the handheld device he was carrying. The air shimmered. A subtle hum Jack hadn’t realized he was hearing suddenly ceased.

“Welcome to Giara,” said the Guardian.

The ruins turned out to be an active dig site. With one of the Giaran Guardians acting as an escort, Jack, Teal’c, Carter and Daniel were led to the ancient structure once they had contacted General Hammond to let him know they were prepared to explore this world. Jack’s attempts to learn about the devices that produced the energy barrier around the Stargate were met with silence, but the Guardian was happy to talk about his people’s culture.

It wasn’t long before they reached the dig site where a small team of alien archeologists worked. As they approached, an older man with thinning grey hair looked up from directing two other figures squatting in the dirt.

“Professor Darius,” the Guardian called, “these folks are explorers who have come through the Circle of Stone. One claims to be an archeologist.”

“Doctor Daniel Jackson,” said Daniel coming forward with a warm smile and an outstretched hand. Daniel introduced the rest of SG-1 while the Guardian saluted and left to return to the Stargate.

“I’m Professor Trattorio Darius,” said the lead archeologist shaking Daniel’s hand. “I teach at the University.” The Giaran called to the other two people he was working with. “These are my assistants: Siarra —” a slender young woman with reddish hair stepped forward, “— and Elio.” A tall man with long, dark hair and dark eyes raised a hand in greeting, though he didn’t move from where he was, and soon returned to the digging he was doing. SG-1 learned that Siarra was an advanced archeology student studying under Professor Darius at the University while Elio was a licensed archeologist who worked for the professor.

“We’d love to give you and your team a hand, if you’ll let us,” offered Daniel eagerly. Jack eyed him with a frown. The archeologist had that look again, the one of barely-contained excitement.

“We would enjoy the company,” the professor responded.

Jack sighed in resignation. Great. Digging up a bunch of really old stuff. Just how Jack wanted to spend the morning. They’d have to find out about those shield devices later.

“When did you first discover these ruins? How old do you think they are? Do you know what the structure was built for?” Daniel and Professor Darius were soon in deep conversation.

“Daniel’s made a new friend,” Jack remarked, watching the linguist chatting animatedly with the other archeologist.

Carter smiled, both at Daniel’s excitement and Jack’s grumpiness at spending time in yet another set of alien ruins. Teal’c said nothing, but arched an inquisitive brow and followed Daniel and the Giaran educator deeper into the ruins.

“These are Goa’uld markings, but it’s an obscure dialect,” said Daniel, examining the walls at one end of the ruins.

“Indeed,” confirmed Teal’c. “These glyphs tell of Geb’s rise to power as a system lord and his annexation of this planet several thousand years ago. His Jaffa built this temple in tribute to his greatness.”

“Geb was an Egyptian god of the earth who was supposed to have the power of creating earthquakes,” explained Daniel.

Jack raised his eyebrows. “Ya don’t say.”

“Goa’uld? Jaffa?” asked Siarra with curiosity.

“Oh, you know: they’re a bunch of ugly, clichéd bad guys who think they’re the greatest beings in the universe,” said Jack.

“The Goa’uld are a race of power-hungry beings who exist within human hosts,” Teal’c explained. “They are served by Jaffa warriors. The Goa’uld possess extremely long lifespans and have been known to reside in sarcophagus among old ruins.”

The archeology student’s ignorance seemed to be a sign that the snakeheads probably hadn’t been to this neck of the woods in a while, Jack thought.

“You don’t think there are any of these… Goa’uld are hiding down there?” Professor Darius cast a nervous glance down the dark opening of a narrow staircase that descended deep underground.

“Probably not,” Jack assured. Still, he decided it wasn’t a bad idea to keep his weapon ready, just in case.

“I’ll know if there are,” added Carter. “It’s a long story, but I have the ability to sense them.”

Darius seemed appeased. Nevertheless, he moved off to where Elio was working at the far side of the crumbling structure instead of joining Daniel and SG-1 as they clicked on their flashlights and descended the stairs into the bowels of the ruins.

They continued in relative silence through a labyrinth of passageways. Every so often, Daniel’s voice would echo around the place, pointing out anything he deemed noteworthy and looking like his birthday had come early. Despite his earlier grumbling, Jack couldn’t begrudge the man an opportunity to do some exploring. After all, Daniel deserved a little time to play every now and then. The archeologist practically scurried down the passageways, babbling excitedly to Carter, who was directly behind him. Jack followed after Teal’c to cover their six. Though studying ancient ruins wasn’t his thing, he couldn’t help respecting Daniel’s enthusiasm.

* * *

Daniel shone his flashlight over the ancient stone walls of the Giaran temple, admiring the wealth of glyphs and pictures he found there. It was so easy to lose himself in the study of ancient structures and artifacts. This temple, built by ancient Jaffa, was covered in Goa’uld writing that documented history and myth, and hopefully contained information that would prove useful in their struggle against this powerful enemy.

The archeologist stopped suddenly, nearly causing Sam to crash into him. “What is it, Daniel?” she asked.

It was hidden so carefully Daniel had almost missed it in the dark: a single line of text in a completely different language, a language he hadn’t seen depicted in almost four years.

“Look at this!” he said excitedly. Jack came over to where Daniel and Sam were standing, adding the beams of their flashlights to Daniel’s. Jack squinted at the inscriptions, a confused look on his face. “I-I think this is the language of the Furlings,” Daniel explained. Jack mouthed a silent, ‘Ahh,’ and peered at the wall with new-found interest.

“There is additional text over here, Daniel Jackson,” came Teal’c’s voice from farther down the passage.

Daniel came to join him. “This is written in Ancient,” he reported. “And this is the Asgard language.”

“What does it say?” asked Sam.

“I don’t know what the Furling text says, but the Ancient part reads, ‘For the worthy, the quest ends in reward’, …and-and here, the Asgard part: ‘For the false, torment awaits’,” he answered. He kept walking further down the passage, past where Teal’c stood. “Here’s more, written in the Nox language. I can’t read much Nox, but from what I remember of some lessons with Lya and Anteaus, I think it says, ‘Beware the lust for power lest it consume you.’”

“What do you think it means?” asked Sam.

“I have no idea,” said Daniel. He continued on down the passage to see if there was any more text written in anything other than Goa’uld.

“What do you think the alliance of Four Races were doing in a Goa’uld temple?” Sam wondered.

“I don’t know, but it could be “meaning of life” stuff,” answered Daniel from farther down the passage. He had come to a dead end in the form of a tiled wall painted in gold and covered with writing, some of it graven into the stone, some painted on. He noted that all of it was written in Ancient. He paused and swept the beam of his flashlight around the area, then scanned the carved inscriptions with his hands, talking quietly to himself.

“I believe the labyrinth ends here, Daniel Jackson,” said Teal’c from behind.

“No, no, hold on… Think I’ve found something.” He consulted his notes to help him decipher the symbols, then depressed five of the carved tiles in succession, watching them sink a few inches into the wall at his touch. Nothing happened. He tried again with no results. An ominous rumble rippled through the cavern.

“Daniel?”

“Just a second.” The archeologist thought carefully, still mumbling to himself, then keyed in a final sequence.

This time, with the sound of grating stone on stone, a large door opened ponderously. Dust rose out of the chamber, making Daniel sneeze. He stepped cautiously forward, followed closely by Sam, Jack and Teal’c.

He found himself in a small, perfectly circular room with a number of diminutive artifacts set in alcoves around the chamber. He paused to examine an amulet here, a statue there. A rectangular stone tablet covered in carved Ancient glyphs also caught his attention. After a moment of indecision, he stowed it carefully in his bag.

“Hey, Daniel, what does this say?” called Jack from the entrance of the chamber. He was shining his light over the backside of one of the heavy stone doors. Daniel went back over to where Jack was standing and scanned the Ancient text.

“It’s a map,” he said. “This looks like a drawing with landmarks. If I’m reading this right, there’s also a set of latitude and longitude coordinates here, which I assume correspond to someplace on this planet. Jack, I think there are more of these artifacts,” he said with palpable excitement while he copied the map and the symbols into his notebook, helped by the illumination of the rest of his team’s flashlights.

“It’s like a scavenger hunt,” Sam remarked.

“Scavenger hunt?” inquired Teal’c.

While Jack explained the concept to Teal’c, Daniel turned his attention to the main attraction, located at the far side of the room. It was a polished, perfectly-symmetrical golden cube about four inches tall resting on a chest-high stone pedestal.

“Hello,” said Daniel softly to himself. He called over his shoulder to the rest of the team, “There’s some kind of artifact here.”

“Can you tell what it is?” asked Carter.

“Not without having a closer look,” said Daniel.

“Be careful, would ya?” cautioned O’Neill from behind. “This place gives me the creeps.”

Daniel acknowledged Jack’s words as he slowly approached the pedestal —

— and unexpectedly sank waist-deep in thick, slimy mud - part of a moat-like feature that circled the stone pedestal. The mud encased his legs like cement, trapping him tightly and drawing him under with alarming speed. Daniel was reminded of the portrayal of quicksand in old Hollywood movies where people actually sank all the way under - only, here was a real-live version.

Daniel knew better than to struggle, yet it didn’t seem to matter. He felt himself being dragged further and further down as if a hundred grabbing hands were pulling him into the viscous mud.

Daniel was up to his shoulders now. “Help!” he called out.

The rest of the team came rushing over. “Dammit Daniel!” Jack exclaimed. “Knew I didn’t like this place.” He and Teal’c seized Daniel’s arms and pulled with all their strength while Sam provided the rescuers light. Finally after much grunting and tugging, Daniel came free.

Sam handed him a towel to clean himself of the clinging substance as best he could. “You okay?” she asked. Daniel nodded.

“Next time, watch where you’re stepping,” Jack admonished.

Daniel didn’t think this was entirely fair. “Jack, stand right there,” he directed. “Do you see anything?”

Jack did as Daniel asked. He scratched his head in obvious puzzlement when he found he couldn’t see the dangerous pool unless he shone his light directly at it. It blended in perfectly with the rest of the ground. He shrugged, conceding the point to the linguist. He sniffed in Daniel’s direction, wrinkling his nose in distaste. “That is not a good smell.”

Daniel gave him a withering look, then a shrug of grudging agreement and an amused grin. Being malodorous was a small price to pay for not ending up at the bottom of that mud pool.

“If you intend to proceed, you should exercise extreme caution,” Teal’c advised while Daniel got to his feet.

“Caution… yup, got it,” Daniel quipped, and vaulted over the dangerous mud moat before anyone could stop him. He circled the cube-shaped artifact carefully, noting the way Jack was glaring and grumbling something that sounded suspiciously like, “dammit, Daniel”. He shone his light over each of the artifact’s sides and found Ancient symbols etched upon the metallic surface of one of its faces.

As he removed the artifact from its resting place, a deep grinding sound filled the chamber. Then a ten-foot tall vicious-looking metallic spike erupted suddenly from the ground about a centimeter from his foot.

Chapter Text

“Ahhh crap,” said Jack. He watched Daniel dash, stumbling, away from the stone pedestal with the artifact in his hands while doing his best to avoid the spikes that were rising from the dirt and threatening to turn him into a human shish kabob. The killer stalagmites threatened Jack, Carter and Teal’c just as much, causing them to continually move their feet to keep from being impaled.

The archeologist leapt over the moat of quicksand mud just as a spike shot up where his right foot had previously been and landed with a wobble on the other side. Jack grasped his arm and tugged him forward to prevent him from losing his balance, and together with Teal’c and Carter fled the chamber while navigating the sea of sharpened metal.

Once out in the passageway the spikes did not follow them. “Everyone okay?” asked Jack, checking his team over, relaxing when they each murmured affirmatives. They headed back down the narrow tunnels at a slower pace. “You call that caution, Daniel?” Jack accused.

“Sorry,” Daniel offered. “Looks like the Ancients placed more protection on this than I anticipated.”

SG-1 emerged minutes later from the mouth of the stone staircase into the hot Giaran sun, squinting and taking a moment to catch their breath. Professor Darius came over immediately. “Doctor Jackson, there you are.” He paused, taking in the state of the off-world visitors. “What’s happened?”

“We found some kind of artifact in a booby-trapped hidden chamber,” Daniel explained.

Professor Darius’ eyebrows climbed toward his receding hairline. “Amazing.” He took the cuboidal artifact from Daniel’s hands and turned it this way and that. A few feet away, Elio and Siarra glanced over with interest from their excavation and soil-sifting. “What is this?”

“It looks like some sort of technology,” Carter answered.

“I think there may be more artifacts like this on your world,” Daniel added. He took out his notebook to show the Giaran professor his drawing of the Ancient map. “Do these coordinates mean anything to you?”

The professor set a pair of spectacles on the end of his nose and squinted at Daniel’s artwork. “No, but this drawing resembles the land around the ancient Piazza del Arrante.”

Daniel stowed the notebook in his pack. “Is it an archeological site?”

“Not currently. We examined it years ago. No one ever found anything of value there.” The educator returned the spectacles to his pocket. “You can read this script?” he asked in surprise, gesturing toward the Ancient symbols.

“Um, yeah.”

“Then if you’re willing, I’d like to take you to the Piazza.” The professor’s face lit up with excitement. “This is a very important find! The Giaran Archeological Society will want to know about this, especially if there are more artifacts like this one.” He handed the cube-shaped object back to Daniel to carry for the time being.

Daniel caught the eye of his CO. “Jack?”

Having known Daniel for nearly six years, Jack could easily interpret the archeologist’s meaning: ‘May we?’

Jack grumbled half-heartedly, sighed, then nodded his permission. They were provisioned for several days, and these artifacts could prove to be of tactical significance. “Sure. What the hell. Let’s find some artifacts.”

Daniel beamed. “Thanks, Jack.”

“Yeah, yeah. Exactly how long will it take it get to this Piazza?”

“It’s a one hour walk,” replied the professor. “I admit I’m not as young as I used to be, but I’m up for this trek.” Darius adjusted the daypack he was carrying and rolled up the sleeves of his lightweight shirt. The Giaran grinned. “It’ll be a rewarding journey.” He started off onto a narrow dirt path that led into the jungle with Daniel at his side.

Jack watched the two of them go with Carter and Teal’c behind, shaking his head. “Archeologists.”

It was decided that Elio would accompany the group while Siarra returned to the town. It was also decided that there would be a break halfway into the trip to participate in the first of three short Siestas observed by Giarans in order to stay rested during their planet’s thirty seven hour days.

“A break to take a nap? Sounds good to me,” said Jack.

The hike through the jungle was actually quite pleasant. The humidity had dropped, and the trees provided a pleasant shade. The Giaran archeologist delighted in pointing out native species of plants and animals, chatting gregariously about his work and his life.

“This is my good luck artifact,” said the professor, taking a little stone statue from his pocket as they walked. “I found this on my very first archeological dig when I was a student many many years ago. The Giaran Museum of Archeology didn’t want it - it’s not worth much since pieces like this are so abundant, and the museum already had a lot of them on display, so my professor let me keep it. I never go on a dig without it.”

He submitted the statue for Daniel’s examination, elaborating on its origins and history.

“My wife thinks I’m crazy, coming all the way out here,” Darius said with a fond smile when Daniel handed the little relic back to him. “But she’s ever so supportive. She knows how much I love my work.” He chuckled. “Though sometimes, when I get on her nerves, she threatens to lock me up in some old set of ruins.”

As talkative as Professor Darius was, Elio remained silent by contrast and preferred to walk on his own apart from everyone else. He soon went on ahead of the group at a faster pace, foregoing their Siesta.

Not long after resuming their hike, Professor Darius and SG-1 came to a wide clearing paved with irregular stones and dotted with crumbling pillars and archways now overgrown with jungle plants. The whole area was surrounded by dense rainforest on all sides. A mountain range with majestic snow-capped peaks rose out of the distance.

As they stepped from the shade provided by the trees, the heat of the sun slammed into them full-force. Elio was situated beside one of the deteriorated pillars and already engaged in some kind of archeological thing that Jack couldn’t identify.

“It’s said this was a place where powerful gods cast judgement on their people,” said Professor Darius.

“Goa’uld,” Teal’c confirmed, pointing toward some script on one of the more intact archways. “This appears to be an arena where the System Lord Geb selected hosts for his children from among the people.”

“Fun,” remarked Jack sarcastically, “Where did you say these artifacts were, Daniel?”

The archeologist circled the Piazza. He knelt, closely examining something on the stone base of one of the archways. “Here’s writing in Ancient,” he reported. Manipulation of some nearby blocks caused a number of stones on the floor of the Piazza to slide away like a trap door, revealing a sort of crypt down below.

Jack peered into the dark chasm. “I don’t like the look of that.” His hand tightened on his weapon.

“Do you think whatever’s down there could be a Goa’uld trap, sir?” asked Carter.

“The thought crossed my mind.”

The beam of Teal’c’s flashlight swept down into the cavern. “I do not see evidence that the Goa’uld were aware of this place, O’Neill. Even so, we should remain cautious.” He threw Daniel a brief look. The linguist seemed completely unaware. Unsurprisingly he was also unfazed by the ominous opening.

“I’ll stay above ground and see if I can find anything here the previous expeditions missed,” said Elio, and he began fastidiously setting up additional tools.

Jack followed his team into the belly of the beast, descending by way of a series of stones set into the packed dirt of the steep interior wall. When his feet touched bottom he found himself in a wide, straight tunnel that split into three equally wide passages about fifty paces down.

Daniel was already a few steps ahead. He shone his flashlight over the stone-lined walls, studying the inscriptions written there. Jack saw him pause, then turn back to face the rest of his team. “Uhh, Jack —” was all he got out before the stones of the trap door above began to slide closed. Smothering a curse Jack rushed to scale the steps to try and prevent their only exit from being closed off. He was not fast enough. The door sealed shut with a with a loud clack that echoed around the tunnels.

“Uh, yeah, there’s another problem,” said Daniel while Jack climbed back down.

“And what’s that?”

Daniel’s reply was cut off when the ground began to shake. A horrible grinding noise like stone on stone reverberated through the passage. Daniel gestured in front of them. “The passages shift, Jack; they change their arrangement and layout. If I’m correctly interpreting these inscriptions - well, mostly the Ancient and Asgard writing; I’m not very proficient with the Nox language, and I definitely can’t read —”

“Ahht! The point, Daniel?”

“The point is, to find the rest of the artifacts - and to get out of here - we’re going to have to navigate this ever-changing maze. I think only someone who can read this writing will be able to choose the correct way. And if we choose wrong—” He cut off uncomfortably.

“What? What happens then?” asked Professor Darius. The guy was nervous again, wringing and twisting his hands together, grasping his little good luck artifact like a talisman against danger.

“Then we might be trapped in here for a while.”

“You can’t read the Furling language, Daniel. What are you going to do about that?” said Jack.

The linguist adjusted the pack on his shoulders. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” The ground rumbled again, reminding them that time was ticking.

“I have confidence in your abilities, Daniel Jackson,” said Teal’c. “I will assist you any way I am able.”

“Thanks.”

Jack shrugged and sighed in resignation. “Alright. Let’s follow the yellow brick road.”

Chapter Text

Daniel studied their surroundings with an archeologist’s eye. Originally he had thought this to be a kind of crudely-excavated tunnel system, but this wasn’t the case. There were three stone-lined passageways before them, each looking like the beginning of a vast, underground city. One way had an inscription in Asgard, one had text written in the Nox language, and the final passage had Furling characters etched into the stone above its entrance.

Daniel decided to follow the Asgard path first since he was more confident with this language than the other two. He led the way down the leftmost passage. It was wide and well-lit with torches in decorative sconces, and carved with elaborate designs among the text.

It wasn’t long before they came to a meeting of ways where the main track split suddenly into five equally wide passages leading in different directions, each with inscriptions above the entrance. Daniel paused, reading the Asgard words. “This way,” he said at last, indicating the center passage. They entered as a group to prevent anyone from being left behind.

They continued like this for a while, with Daniel stopping every time the passageway split. The ground shook and the noise of grinding stone grated on their ears at irregular intervals. If Daniel took too long to figure out the correct way, the rumbling would start, the passageways would completely change configuration, the inscriptions would change, and Daniel would have to start all over again. And the clues would get harder.

The ground finally settled after the latest round of shifting. Daniel saw Jack peer back down the path they had just come from, examining the completely different arrangement of corridors, clearly wondering how it was possible. Stone passageways couldn’t just rearrange themselves. It defied physics. And architecture. Daniel had no explanation either.

At last, the group arrived at a complicated meeting of seven ways that had Daniel sweating. “This way,” he directed, just as the ground started to shake. They all entered the passage with milliseconds to spare before everything began to shift.

When the four members of SG-1 and the Giaran professor came to the end of the hall, they found themselves in a perfectly circular chamber similar to the one in the first set of ruins. It had a stone pedestal near the back and a number of smaller artifacts lining the wall set in alcoves, complete with a stone tablet covered in Asgard writing, which Daniel collected. That done, the enthusiastic archeologist eagerly charged forward.

“Hey, Daniel, slow down, would ya?” Jack cautioned. “Remember your little encounter with that smelly quagmire? You don’t know what kind of booby traps the Asgard set up in here.”

Daniel remembered alright. Though his clothes had dried and the mud had largely fallen off, he still caught a whiff of it every now and then. No sooner were the words out of Jack’s mouth when a deep chasm opened suddenly between the archeologist and the stone pedestal with the artifact. It circled all the way around leaving the pedestal on an island of land by itself.

Daniel skidded to a halt. “Oh, bother.” Heights. It had to be heights. He judged the distance. If he was going to get to the artifact, he’d to have to jump across.

“Do you require assistance, Daniel Jackson?” asked Teal’c, seeing Daniel’s dilemma.

“Nope… I’ve got it.”

Jack understood his commitment to the task despite his discomfort. Without a word he helped Daniel tie one of their climbing ropes around his waist for added safety.

Daniel approached the abyss. He peered over the edge with a shiver, feeling his palms prickle with sweat and his sense of vertigo kick into high gear. “What do you want to bet there are snakes in there. Or it’ll take ten thousand years to hit the bottom.” Reminded strongly of Indiana Jones, Daniel took a number of steps backward, then charged forward and leapt the distance, landing hard on the other side and crashing into the pedestal with a muffled, ‘oof’.

The moment Daniel took the artifact from the pedestal there was a subtle click from somewhere. Then the chamber began to rumble and shake. Daniel pushed the artifact into his pocket before getting a running start and vaulting back over the deep crack in the earth. He landed precariously on the lip of the chasm, arms pinwheeling. Sam managed to grasp the front of his clothing while Jack and Teal’c tugged on the rope fastened around his waist, preventing him from toppling backwards into the rift.

Daniel had scarcely gotten both feet planted on terra firma when an avalanche of large boulders burst suddenly from the walls at high speed as if shot from a catapult.

* * *

“For cryin’ out loud,” muttered Jack over the noise of cascading rocks that came crashing toward them like a tidal wave. Professor Darius let out a yell of fright and raced for the exit with SG-1 not far behind. Jack threw a look over his shoulder. No fair! The rocks were actually chasing them!

He saw Daniel stumble suddenly, then fall. “Dammit… Daniel!” Before he could double back, Teal’c gathered the unconscious archeologist into his arms. They continued to run until the rocks came to a tumbling halt at the mouth of the circular chamber and the passageways beyond trembled with another shifting.

Teal’c set Daniel gently down and Carter swooped in to check him over, doing a fine impersonation of Janet. She even had the penlight and everything.

Daniel groaned. “Wha… what happened? Where are we?” Squinting, he recoiled with a wince from the light stabbing into his eyes and the disinfectant Carter swiped over his injury. He ran his fingers over the lump that was forming on the left side of his forehead and removed the ruined glasses that had slipped halfway down his face.

“We’re still in the maze made by the Asgard, the Nox and the Furlings,” said Carter while she finished cleaning and bandaging Daniel’s head. “Lie still.”

“Oh…” said Daniel, blinking fuzzily. “Ow.”

“Are you alright, Doctor Jackson? What did you find?” asked Professor Darius in a voice that trembled almost as much as their surroundings.

“Yeah, I’m fine I —” Daniel’s hand went to his pocket. “The artifact!” He tried to sit up, only to lie back down with a grunt of pain, grasping his head.

“Whoa, buddy. Take it easy, will ya?” said Jack.

“It is here, Daniel Jackson,” said Teal’c. The Jaffa retrieved a strangely-shaped object from the ground beside the archeologist where it must have slipped out of his pocket. The thing looked almost like a piece from some weird 3D puzzle.

“There’s… there’s also another stone tablet like the one I found in the ruins of the Goa’uld temple, except this one’s written in Asgard,” Daniel added, sitting up much more slowly this time with Carter’s help.

“Easy, Daniel. You might have a concussion. Are you nauseous? Dizzy? Any double vision?” she probed.

“Headache… bad headache. Maybe a little dizziness. Vision’s fine…” Daniel squinted at her with one eye closed. “Mostly.” He gratefully took the aspirin offered by Carter and donned a spare pair of glasses from his vest, then got slowly to his feet, but he paused and wrapped an arm over his stomach, hunching over and taking shallow breaths.

Jack grasped his shoulder. “Hey, you alright? You gonna be sick?”

Daniel shook his head and eventually straightened. He took one more measured breath, then started to examine the artifact he’d found.

“Hey, you can look at that later. We’ve gotta keep moving. The sooner we get out of here, the better,” Jack reminded him.

“Right.” Daniel took a couple of unsteady steps forward.

“So… uhh… what’s next?” asked Professor Darius. Jack thought the guy looked very apprehensive, like he didn’t really want to know what came next.

Daniel answered, “I’ll try following the Nox path this time, but… my knowledge of the language is very spotty.”

“I’m not sure this is such a good idea,” said Jack. “You just got bonked on the head. You shouldn’t be doing any mental gymnastics if you’ve got a concussion.”

“I’m okay, Jack, honest. I’ll have to translate if we want to get out of here.” And with that, he turned to study the first inscription.

* * *

Sam observed Daniel’s deep concentration while he poured over the inscriptions that appeared on the walls and entrances of the shifting corridors. Though he seemed to be doing okay so far, the archeologist was quite adept at hiding discomfort. A shared look with Colonel O’Neill told her that he had a watchful eye on Daniel.

As they walked, Sam studied the elaborate construction of stone-lined tunnels, marveling at the beautiful workmanship. They were like an epic underground city of twisting, labyrinthine pathways. The stone was a light white-grey that reminded her a lot of marble. Along the way they encountered many intricately-crafted statues and carvings, as well as precious stones and jewelry set in small alcoves. “Holograms,” said Sam as a sudden inspiration hit.

“Carter?”

“I’ve been thinking about how the shifting passageways might be possible. I think they’re using holograms to simulate a changing environment.”

“But if it were holograms, we’d be able to put our hands through the walls,” countered Colonel O’Neill. He gave the stone wall a smack with his palm. “Feels like solid rock to me.”

“Maybe parts of it are solid.”

“What about the quakes and that god-awful grinding noise?”

Sam shrugged. “Effects for drama, probably. I think the technology can make the holograms alternate between transparent and solid, possibly with the application of specially-modulated forcefields and —”

“Ahht!” O’Neill quickly covered his ears. “I get the idea.”

Sam couldn’t help the smile that flashed across her face at Colonel O’Neill’s customary reaction to her scientific talk. She found it fascinating to speculate how the shifting passageways were achieved and wished she could examine the device that was responsible.

Sam’s smile faltered when she caught sight of Daniel’s strained face as he tackled the current set of inscriptions at an intersection of four passageways. He was definitely struggling with the Nox language. It took him a lot longer to pick the right way to follow. Somehow, he managed to do it, and they arrived at another circular chamber.

As soon as Sam entered, her skin erupted in gooseflesh. She was intensely creeped out and overwhelmed by a feeling that somebody was watching her. Sam was not someone who became rattled easily, yet every instinct was telling her to run screaming from the room.

“I-I think… I think I’ll wait out here,” came Professor Darius’ thin, shaky voice from out in the corridor. Sam found the man white-faced and shaking like a leaf. She saw Daniel give him a reassuring pat on the shoulder before entering the chamber himself. In the dim lighting, he and the other two men of SG-1 looked as though they’d seen ghosts, but all three plowed ahead.

“Anyone else feel like someone’s walking over their grave?” asked O’Neill, shining his flashlight around. Daniel jumped at the sound of the colonel’s voice. He let out a shaky breath and removed a stone tablet from one of the niches along the wall.

Daniel approached the pedestal much more cautiously than before. He removed the artifact. The minute he did so, the creepy feeling Sam was experiencing turned up to eleven. Disembodied voices whispered in her ear. Phantoms flickered along the periphery of her vision. She swore she could feel someone’s breath tickling the hairs on the back of her neck, and fingers brushing lightly over her arm. Sam did not believe in ghosts or spirits, yet she was inexplicably filled with intense fear.

Then she saw her mother. The ghostly image that appeared before her dripped with decayed, decomposing flesh, revealing bits of skull beneath. The hands were scabbed. The eyes were missing, leaving hollow, empty sockets. The rotting lips were twisted in intense anger or pain - perhaps both. Sam choked back a strangled yell.

“Arrgg! Daniel, put it back! Put it back!” shouted Colonel O’Neill. Sam saw he was pale and trembling and had turned his head away, eyes closed and hands clenching and unclenching in distress. Daniel was in fact rushing over to do just that, tears tracing twin paths down his ashen face, the artifact held in front of him by shaking hands as if it were radioactive.

“Daniel Jackson!” came Teal’c’s booming voice. “These apparitions are not real. They cannot harm us!” He came over and plucked the artifact from Daniel’s trembling hands, crammed it into his pocket, then turned Daniel around and steered him hurriedly toward the exit of the chamber. He seized Colonel O’Neill’s arm in his other hand and guided him out as well. Trembling badly herself, Sam followed them. As soon as they were out of the chamber, no one needed any prompting. They ran.

“What is it? What hap—”

“Don’t ask.” Colonel O’Neill cut Professor Darius off before he could finish his question. To Sam’s relief, her intense fear began to dissipate as she got farther from the chamber. They did not stop running until the passageway split into six new ways with what Sam assumed was Furling text above them.

“Alright, let’s take fifteen,” said the colonel. He dug into his pack for his canteen and took a long drink, then sat down heavily, leaning his back against the stone wall and rubbing his face with both hands.

Teal’c had removed the artifact from his pocket and was closely examining the oddly-shaped thing. Daniel and Professor Darius also came over to have a closer look. Sam caught Daniel wiping moisture from his eyes again.

“Did you see… was there someone…?” she asked haltingly.

“I saw Sha’re,” answered Daniel in a tremulous voice. “She was…” he trailed off uncomfortably. “She blamed me for her death. You?”

“My mom.”

“My father,” Teal’c chimed in.

“Charlie.”

Daniel looked up sharply. He said nothing, but placed a comforting hand on O’Neill’s arm and his expression overflowed with empathy.

“What was the point of that ghost thing anyway?” said O’Neill angrily. “I mean, it’s not like they could hurt us like those spikes in the Ancient chamber or the avalanche of rocks in the Asgard one.”

“The Nox don’t believe in physical violence,” Daniel said, absently rubbing his forehead. “And I’d argue that hurt a lot more than any spike,” he added quietly.

Sam privately agreed.

Colonel O’Neill stood. “Let’s get moving.”

“Do you think we should continue, sir?” asked Sam. “I mean, there must be a reason why the Four Races went through so much trouble to hide and protect their artifacts. They’re probably dangerous.”

“Undoubtedly. They must be weapons or devices for defense,” said O’Neill. “If we can use them against the Goa’uld, then all the more reason we should retrieve the last one.”

“I don’t think I can do it, Jack,” said Daniel sadly. “I was barely able to get us through the Nox maze. I can’t read the Furling language at all. Without knowing what the writing says, it’s impossible to navigate.” He hung his head. “I’m so sorry.”

“I might be able to do it,” Sam spoke up. “I’ve been studying the pattern of shifting and changing. I think I can get us through this maze without you having to read a word of Furling.”

Daniel looked impressed. “Really?” Sam nodded, sincerely hoping she was right. “Then I’ll let you lead this time.”

As if on cue, the passageways in front of them shifted. Sam took careful notice to confirm her suspicions about the patterns she’d observed.

They continued, this time with Sam in the lead. This was probably for the best; Daniel seemed exhausted. He was lagging behind, rubbing at his head and cradling his stomach when he thought no one was looking. She was concerned for him, but she said nothing. At the moment, she was too busy focusing on leading them through a crossroads consisting of five branching passageways. Her head rung from holding the pattern of shiftings carefully in her memory, and she grew increasingly nervous that she’d made a terrible mistake. Then, at long last, the familiar circular chamber came into view.

Nice,” Colonel O’Neill congratulated. Daniel conveyed his gratitude with a pat to her shoulder, and Teal’c with a bow of his head.

They entered the chamber carefully. Daniel started unsteadily toward the stone pedestal. Sam stopped him. “Why don’t I get the artifact this time?” she offered. Daniel disagreed.

“Carter found the chamber, Daniel,” O’Neill pointed out. “Let her do it. Take a break. You don’t look so hot.”

Still Daniel hesitated. In the end, the matter was decided by the sudden and violent evacuation of his stomach. Teal’c collected the stone tablet with Furling script while Jack soothed the injured archeologist and got him to sit down for a minute. Professor Darius kept him company while the rest of SG-1 went further in. Despite the danger and her tiredness, Sam felt a thrill of excitement. She advanced forward slowly.

Chapter Text

Sam found herself standing on a beach. A chilly breeze ruffled her hair. She could taste salty spray from the rolling waves that broke onto the shore. She could feel the wet, gritty sand between the toes of her bare feet. A sensation of extreme serenity and peace settled over her.

I know this place.

Sam had come here with her family many times when she was young. She recalled fondly how she and Mark would play, building sand castles and collecting shells while her parents walked along the shore, hand in hand.

Yet, Sam did not see her family. Instead, she saw Jack O’Neill approaching, wearing sunglasses and a ball cap. Wind ruffled his greying hair and loose tee shirt. He smiled and extended his hand. The instant her hand touched his, all other thoughts fled. This was where she belonged. Only she and Jack existed, and the life they would build together.

“Major Carter,” came a jarring, discordant voice from somewhere. Annoyed, Sam cast about for the source of the intrusion.

“Carter?” Jack was looking at her expectantly. She returned his smile and allowed him to lead her along the shoreline, where they walked, her hand in his.

“Major Carter!” came the voice again, insistent. Something tugged her arm, wrenching her hand from Jack’s. She snarled in fury. All at once, Jack disappeared. The beach disappeared, along with the blissful fantasy. She found herself face to face with Teal’c, who was grasping her arm. Behind him was the real Jack O’Neill, and several paces farther back, Professor Darius watched the scene with a seated and resting Daniel.

Teal’c released her. She followed his downward gaze to find the ground criss-crossed with a lattice of pools filled with some sort of sludgy substance. In her surprise at being jerked back into reality she’d dropped her flashlight into the nearest one. The light immediately went out. Smoke rose from the flashlight, along with a hissing noise and a foul smell. A minute later the whole thing had completely disintegrated.

“What’s goin’ on Carter?”

Sam shifted uncomfortably. No way she was going to tell Colonel O’Neill about the fantasy she’d experienced. “There’s some kind of acid here. It just dissolved my flashlight.”

Borrowing Teal’c’s light, she picked her way cautiously among the corrosive pools. She stopped in front of the pedestal and examined the Furling artifact closely, noticing its similarity to the other two they had collected from the Agard and Nox chambers. Sam braced herself. Then she removed the artifact. A snick from somewhere was the only warning she had before a stream of daggers came flying.

Instinct kicked in. Sam ducked. “Go!” she shouted, wanting her teammates to get to safety, but she found that all of them, including Daniel, had come to help her navigate the acidic pools and the seemingly endless stream of deadly blades, using their backpacks as rudimentary shields. Sam felt one of the knives slice through her uniform sleeve as it passed. Two others nicked her pant leg.

At last, they cleared the chamber amid more daggers flying, and sprinted down a passageway Daniel indicated would lead them out of the maze. The ground soon began to slope upward. Daylight seeped through the cracks of another trap door that opened by itself upon their approach. They emerged, panting, sweating and squinting above ground. Across the piazza, Elio stopped what he was doing and stood up.

Colonel O’Neill started to ask if everyone was alright when Teal’c grunted, then sagged against a carved stone pillar. Sam saw that a dagger had lodged itself squarely in the Jaffa’s side. She immediately found the medical kit and bent to examine the injury.

“He’s bleeding!” Professor Darius shrieked. Elio seemed freaked out too, and hung back instead of approaching the group.

“It’s alright, he’ll be alright,” the colonel soothed. “Teal’c’s a Jaffa. He’s made of pretty strong stuff. He can heal much faster than you or I.”

“Doesn’t mean he’s not in pain,” said Daniel, looking worried. “What if the blade’s poisoned?”

“There… are no… exogenous substances… upon the blade,” Teal’c reported in a weak voice.

That was a relief. Had the blades been poisoned Sam would have been in trouble too. She waited until Daniel and Colonel O’Neill withdrew antiseptic, bandages and gauze from the medical kit before before getting into position to remove the knife.

“You might want to look away,” Daniel suggested to a disturbed-looking Professor Darius.

Sam extracted the dagger, apologizing when Teal’c grunted in pain. The Jaffa closed his eyes and entered kelno’reem as soon as he was bandaged up.

“That’s his way of healing,” Daniel explained to the Giaran, who was peering at Teal’c with timid curiosity now that the blood had been cleaned up.

“And… he’ll recover… from that?”

“He’ll be okay,” Sam reassured. With Colonel O’Neill’s help, she turned her attention to her own injuries. She found a thin slice down her left arm that stung when she applied antiseptic, but otherwise, the cut was superficial. She found and cleaned similar cuts down the side of her right thigh.

Since they were out of immediate danger and with Teal’c in a healing meditation, everybody decided that a break was in order. They all flopped bonelessly down on the sun-warmed stones of the piazza, taking long drinks of water and munching on power bars. Daniel looked pale and tired and was avoiding food, but he seemed a little better than earlier. He took stock of the artifacts they had collected: a four-inch cube and three irregularly-shaped pieces that looked like they belonged to a 3D puzzle. He also had four stone tablets, each written in one of the four languages.

“What are we lookin’ at?” asked Colonel O’Neill.

Daniel turned the items this way and that in his hands. “I’m not sure.”

“Let me see,” said Sam. She took the artifacts from the archeologist and studied them. “Sir, I think these are part of one larger object,” she said, and without further explanation, proceeded to assemble the pieces together into a symmetrical pyramid with a square base that stood about nine inches tall. Writing from each of the four languages could be seen on the fully-assembled artifact.

“Way to go, Sam,” Daniel congratulated. He set about documenting it with his camcorder.

Colonel O’Neill peered closely at the object, examining it with care to avoid accidentally depressing any of the many buttons on its surface. “This is definitely some kind of tech. You got a guess as to what it does?”

Sam shrugged. “I have no idea, sir.”

“These stone tablets might tell us,” said Daniel. “I think they’re like an instruction manual.”

While they talked, Professor Darius was listening to a small, handheld communicator not unlike a cellphone. He signed off, spoke briefly with Elio, then turned to SG-1. “I’ve just received word: our weather center’s detected a very large storm headed this way. If we leave now, we should be able to reach the safety of the town before it hits.”

“What kind of storm are we talkin’ about? Could we pitch the tents and ride it out here, do ya think?” asked O’Neill.

Darius shook his head. “We need a much stronger shelter than what a tent could provide.”

O’Neill turned to Sam. “How far are we from the ‘gate?”

Sam checked her navigation. “About fifteen clicks.”

“You’ll never make it to the Circle of Stone from here,” said Professor Darius. “The town is closer. You should wake Mr. Teal’c.”

Sam gently roused the Jaffa and explained what was going on.

“How are you feeling? Will you be able to walk?” asked Daniel solicitously.

Teal’c blinked, considering. “Indeed,” he replied. “My symbiote has repaired enough of the damage and will continue to heal the wound as we move,” he said. The colonel helped him stand.

“If I may,” said Professor Darius, “I have instruments at the University Lab to study this artifact. I’d like to conduct some experiments to learn more about it. I’d be more than willing to share my findings with you.”

“Of course,” said Daniel. He handed the artifact to the Giaran, who stowed it in his daypack while Elio shouldered his own bag of equipment and started off at a clipped pace down a path into the forest.

“We have to leave immediately or we’ll never reach the town in time. Getting caught in the forest during a storm would be a death sentence.” Darius shuddered at the thought.

This statement was all Colonel O’Neill needed to hear. He glanced nervously at the sky, noting the clouds that had come in, and readjusted his backpack. “Alright kids, let’s get moving.”

“Damn bugs,” Jack grumbled. He swatted madly at the insects swarming around his face. They were large and blue and appeared to be this planet’s equivalent of a mosquito. He smacked the back of his hand where another insect had just bitten him. The remains of the squashed bug left a trail of bluish guts smeared across his fingers. He wiped them with a grimace of distaste on his vest. “These things are eating me alive,” he griped, wishing he’d donned the BDU jacket over his T-shirt despite the heat and increased humidity.

Carter was not faring much better. Even Teal’c appeared to be suffering through the insect onslaught, slapping his large hands against his arms and neck. “I believe the insects in Minnesota to be worse, O’Neill,” said the Jaffa calmly. This earned him a dark look. Carter failed to hide a smile.

“So… how far into this lovely paradise is your town?” Jack asked.

“It’s a two-hour walk,” Professor Darius replied. “I sincerely hope we can manage a pace faster than that.” He flicked a nervous glance upward. Dark grey clouds filled the sky. A gentle but steady breeze toyed with their hair.

Jack made a face at the prospect of yet another round of hiking. He wanted to get out of this bug-infested jungle. The dratted things were attracted to him far more than the others. He swiped again at his face, cursing the insects and the muggy atmosphere. He was hot, hungry, itchy, sweaty and tired, and he just wanted to reach the damned town already, never mind dealing with the impending storm that threatened to crush them with its fury if they lingered. He sighed resignedly, scratching at the little red welts that covered his arms, and picked up his pace.

* * *

A few feet behind, watching their six, Daniel lagged, moving sluggishly. His head was pounding. That rock from the Asgard chamber had clipped him pretty good, though he knew it could have been a lot worse. He shifted the pack on his shoulders, which now felt like lead with all of those stone tablets in it, rubbing at the persistent headache.

A sudden spike of pain in his abdomen made Daniel gasp. He stopped, undoing his vest, and raised his shirt. A misshapen purplish bruise marred the flesh just below the ribcage on his left side where another rock had gotten him. The injury hadn’t seemed that bad earlier, so he hadn’t bothered mentioning it to anyone. It was now throbbing steadily to the beat of his heart. Daniel set his shoulders with determination, leaving the vest unzipped but tucking the shirt back into his pants. He had to keep moving if they were going to reach the town before the storm hit.

An hour later Daniel was really flagging. In addition to the steady throbbing of his side, the dizziness and pain from his head injury were getting worse again and the water he’d drunk earlier sloshed uncomfortably in his stomach. He could see the rest of the team up ahead: Teal’c took point, walking in silence while Sam chatted amicably with Professor Darius. Jack was busy swatting flies and grumbling loudly about huge honkin’ bugs.

The treetops bent ominously back and forth in a sudden mighty gust of wind. Daniel bit his lip, determined to make it to the town before seeking medical attention.

This didn’t exactly go as Daniel planned. Whether from the uneven ground or his increasing dizziness, he stumbled suddenly. His hand shot out to grasp a nearby tree, and he leaned on it heavily, trying to brace himself and to breathe through the increasing discomfort.

Sam was the first to notice. “Daniel,” she called out. The others stopped immediately and doubled back.

* * *

Jack massaged his forehead between two fingers, observing his archeologist’s pale face and hunched posture, the unzipped vest and the hand clamped over the left side of his abdomen. Daniel’s current state strongly indicated that the man had been suffering in silence for some time. Jack kicked himself for not noticing. “Alright, everybody take five,” he announced to the rest of the group. Then he turned to Daniel. “Talk to me, buddy. What’s goin’ on?”

“Uhh, I’m kind of dizzy… a little nauseous… my head hurts. I, uhh… I think I hurt my rib or something too. I’m not sure.” He showed Jack the bruise.

“Why didn’t ya say something earlier?” Jack demanded.

“It didn’t hurt this much before. I-I didn’t want to slow us down.” Daniel paused, swallowing hard. “Uh, I think I need to sit for a minute.”

“Dammit, Daniel,” said Jack, feeling like a broken record. Teal’c came over to remove Daniel’s shoulder pack while Jack lowered him to the jungle floor so that he was leaning up against the tree he’d been using for support. He sat there, head angled downward, breathing heavily while the others conversed.

“How much farther is it to the settlement?” Teal’c inquired.

“We’re close. If we keep going at this pace I’d estimate another fifteen, twenty minutes,” the Giaran replied.

“Will Daniel Jackson be capable of trekking that long?”

“We don’t have much of a choice,” said Carter. The sky had now turned a threatening black. Gusts of heavy wind whipped the tops of the trees this way and that. Thunder rumbled in the distance. An intermittent sprinkle of raindrops began to filter through the canopy. It was then that Daniel lost the battle with his stomach, leaning over to decorate some nearby bushes.

Professor Darius wrung his hands and looked anxiously up at the sky again. “We really should go.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright. Why don’t the rest of you go on ahead. I’ll give Daniel a minute,” Jack ordered.

“It’s ok, I’m feeling better now,” Daniel interrupted. He turned to Jack and extended his hand. “Help me up.”

“Daniel.”

“Jack.”

“You look like crap.”

“I’m fine, I just needed a rest.”

Teal’c raised an eyebrow. Jack frowned. “You gonna make it?”

“Of course,” Daniel assured. “I’m fine.”

Jack shared a skeptical look with Teal’c. After a moment’s hesitation he grabbed Daniel’s outstretched hands to pull him up.

“Sir, I don’t think —” began Carter, noticing how the little color left in Daniel’s face had completely drained from it as he was hauled upright. It was a good thing Jack did not let go of the archeologist right away. The moment he was on his feet, Daniel staggered, then collapsed against him. Carter gave him an I-told-you-so kind of look.

“Alright, I guess I should have expected that,” Jack conceded. He grunted, lowering the unconscious man back down onto his uninjured side. “Get going. We’ll be right behind you.”

“Yes sir.” Carter and Teal’c gathered their gear and set off down the path with the Giaran professor while Jack surveyed the archeologist, watching Daniel stir slightly as he began to regain consciousness. Aware of the louder grumbles of thunder and the rain that had started to fall in earnest, Jack rummaged in Daniel’s bag until he found the canteen and a blister pack of Tylenol. He gave Daniel’s shoulder a gentle shake. “Hey, Dorothy. Time to go. Tornado’s about to hit Kansas.”

Daniel opened his eyes blearily after a long minute. “Go? W-we haven’t reached the town yet?”

The archeologist seemed disoriented. Jack didn’t like this one bit. Nor did he like the bruise on Daniel’s side. “Not exactly. We’re about twenty minutes out.”

“Where’re Sam and Teal’c?”

“I sent them ahead with Professor Darius. You and I will join them in a minute when I’m sure you’re a little more steady.” Jack handed him the medication. “Here. Should help with the pain.” He eased Daniel up much more slowly this time, hoping not to have an encore performance of fainting.

“Assuming I can keep that down.” Daniel swallowed the pills anyway, though he nearly lost his balance as he tried to move forward.

Jack stepped in quickly to steady him. “Easy, big guy. Take it slow. Promise to let me know if you’re gonna take another header, will ya?” Daniel gave him a weak half-smile. He led Daniel down the path the rest of the team had taken as fast as he dared in light of the other man’s condition.

Soon the jungle began to thin out. All at once, the sky opened up in a deluge. The wind picked up in steady, powerful gusts. Trees swayed wildly. Beside him Daniel was swaying almost as much.

“J-Jack,” came the archeologist’s weak voice. “Think I’m going to pass out again.” Jack turned to the younger man, noting how chalky his face had gone and the sweat beading up on his forehead.

“Can you make it a little further?”

Daniel didn’t get the chance to answer. A brilliant bolt of lightning suddenly bifurcated the sky. Booming thunder rent the air. Leaves and sticks flew up in a tremendous blast of wind, limiting visibility. Jack was caught completely off-guard when a series of violent tremors shook the earth. He struggled both to stay on his feet and to support the stumbling archeologist. “Jeez, what is this, Armageddon?”

The tremors grew stronger. Daniel was wrenched from his grasp when Jack lost his footing and fell. Amid the rumbling from the ground and sky, he heard the unmistakable sound of a zat gun firing. What the…?

Jack had the impression of a dark figure silhouetted against the sky before the zat fired again and he was overcome with pain and lost consciousness.

Chapter Text

By the time Sam, Teal’c and Professor Darius reached the edge of the forest, the rain was falling in a steady downpour, soaking them to the bone. Strong gusts of wind threatened to knock them over.

“This is a grandmother of a storm,” remarked Professor Darius, trying in vain to raise his vest over the top of his head. “I haven’t seen one like this since —” The wind ripped away the rest of his words.

Sam squinted through the downpour, holding up a hand to shield her eyes. Some hundred feet down the gently-declining slope was nestled a collection of structures surrounded by a chest-high stone wall with a white wooden gate built into it.

The town resembled a quaint little village you might see on the French or Italian countryside, with stone buildings, winding brick or cobblestone roads and various species of tree scattered among the structures. There were also red and brown brick buildings and wooden dwellings with rounded roofs interspersed among those made of stone. There were no signs of motorized vehicles, but there were bicycles and little four-wheeled “cars” operated by pedaling.

Sam saw that she, Teal’c and Darius were not the only people seeking refuge from the gale-force winds and driving rain. There were a number of families and couples traveling on other forest paths that joined up with the path they were traveling on. Officials stood by at the town’s edge to help the refugees.

“Follow the Storm Patrollers’ instructions. They’ll get you to safety,” said Professor Darius as they approached the gate. “Goodbye, and stay safe.” He hurried ahead on a route past the officials that was obviously well-known to him.

As Sam and Teal’c passed through the gate, a tremendous gust of wind picked up. The ground began to shake for a couple of seconds in a disconcerting mini earthquake.

A series of almighty cracks resounded suddenly from above. Sam barely had time to register the crashing descent of a group of gigantic tree limbs from a cluster of towering hardwoods overhead. She threw up both arms to protect her head and felt a burst of pain explode near her elbow where the tail end of one branch made contact with her right arm. Twigs and leaves abraded her skin.

“Major Carter!” Teal’c exclaimed in concern. The weight of the branch disappeared as the Jaffa removed it.

Sam hissed in pain. “I-I’m alright.” She could imagine there would have been many more falling branches to dodge if they were still beneath the forest canopy.

One of the Giaran officials rushed to help she and Teal’c. They closed and locked the town gate behind them. “Raise shields, raise shields!” came the frantic shouts. Sam felt more than heard a crackle of energy go up around her. Immediately the force of the storm lessened, but the wind and rain were still powerful. She cradled her right arm, feeling the acute pain of impact the tree limb had caused.

“Are you hurt?” asked a tall, heavy-set official. He was middle-aged and dressed in an ornate gold-colored robe that covered him from neck to toe and flapped chaotically in the violent gusts. The garment must have been specially made, for it seemed to repel water. His long, straight blonde hair was tied back at the nape in a tail that trailed halfway down his back. Even in the howling wind and torrential rain, his posture was solemn and almost regal as he approached she and Teal’c. Here was a person used to being in charge, and equally used to the wild weather.

“My arm,” said Sam. “I’m alright, I don’t think anything’s broken.”

The man gestured. “Follow me. Shelter is this way.”

“Thank you. Have you seen two others dressed like us?” she asked.

“No, I’m sorry,” the official replied. “This way, please hurry.”

The ground vibrated with another earthquake, stronger this time. The cyclonic winds combined with the tremors nearly caused Sam to lose her footing. She felt Teal’c’s strong arms steadying her. “Thanks,” she said to the Jaffa. “These storms are awfully powerful!” she shouted in the direction of the Giaran. Even so, her voice was swallowed up by the storm.

The official didn’t respond until they reached the safety of a reinforced one-story wooden house with a domed roof not far from the edge of the settlement. He wrenched open the door against the strong wind. “Such are the storms on Giara,” he answered once he’d gotten the door closed. “Hurricane-force winds, ground-quakes, torrential rain, and thunder and lightning. These storms occur a few times each cycle of the moons. On Giara, the sky and the ground are linked.” He clasped his hands together in a formal greeting. “I’m Jorah, Mayor of this town. I’m pleased to welcome travelers from the Circle of Stone to our world.”

“Many thanks for conveying us to safety,” said Teal’c solemnly, bowing his head.

The mayor returned Teal’c’s gesture. “I must go and help others in need. Please remain here until the storm passes. Do not go outside for any reason.”

Sam glanced out the window at the driving wind and rain and rubbed her sore arm. “Right.”

“Try not to be concerned,” the mayor reassured. “Giaran storms are strong, but our shield generators will minimize damage and flooding.”

“Shield generators? Is that the same technology you have around your Circle of Stone?”

The mayor gave an affirmatory nod. “They are the same. Shields are useful for defense, but they’re also essential in protecting our towns from storms. Though force fields won’t prevent the winds from blowing nor the ground from shaking, they do mitigate these effects.” Mayor Jorah yanked open the door, admitting a whirlwind of leaves and dirt past the threshold. “Good day to you both.”

Sam reached for her radio as soon as the mayor had gone. “Colonel O’Neill, do you read me?” She received nothing but static. “Colonel O’Neill, please respond. Daniel, can you hear me?”

“Perhaps the force field created by the Giaran shield generators is interfering with our radios,” offered Teal’c.

Sam exhaled, uneasy. There was nothing they could do until the storm abetted. “Yeah, could be. How’s your side?”

“It is healing well. Your arm?”

“Not too bad. Come on, let’s change into dry clothes. Then I think I’ll have another Siesta while we wait for the storm to pass.”

Professor Trattorio Darius squinted at his computer, marveling at the readout he was seeing. While Elio had gone home to weather the storm, Darius had decided to forego Second Siesta and come here, to the University Lab. He simply could not sleep while there were things to learn about this most unusual artifact. His wife understood. A call on his communicator told her all about Doctor Jackson and his adventures with the off-world visitors that morning and afternoon.

Darius double checked the numbers on his computer screen. Fascinating! The pyramid-shaped artifact was nearly three thousand years old! Who knew that the pieces of this amazing thing were buried underground beneath the ruins of the temple at Caruccio and the Piazza del Arrante - found by off-worlders, no less. Darius was impressed by Doctor Jackson’s uncanny ability to decipher languages, Major Carter’s talent for discerning patterns, Teal’c’s capacity for healing, and Colonel O’Neill’s fearlessness in the face of such danger.

Darius shook himself, running his fingers over the familiar curves of his good luck artifact, trying not to dwell on the frightening experience in the catacombs beneath the Piazza. The most dangerous things he dealt with during his work were structural collapses and unfriendly wildlife in some parts of the world - nothing like the trials he had faced today.

He turned back to the pyramidal artifact, admiring its beauty. It was surprisingly heavy. What on Giara was it made of, and what did it do? It was obviously a piece of advanced technology… but where was its power source? His next test was designed to answer this question.

The archeology professor crossed the room, stumbling a bit as the ground shook. Absently he reached for one of the many handholds mounted on the walls to steady himself. Good thing the lab and its equipment were protected by vibrational dampeners.

When the tremor passed, Darius set the artifact in his lab’s newly-acquired internal scanner, a machine which allowed one to glimpse the insides of things without the need to physically cut into them. It was very new technology, still under development. Darius was lucky to have access to one.

He typed sequence on his computer, positioned the artifact properly, then started the scan. Darius put on his spectacles and leaned forward, his nose almost touching the computer screen, to watch the live image slowly load.

Astounding! At the very heart of the artifact was something circular and composed of a substance he couldn’t identify. He removed the artifact from the machine and set it down next to him, then closely studied the digital image, seeing if there was anything else he could learn.

The rhythmic click of footsteps on the tile floor startled Darius from his musings. He turned to look over his shoulder in surprise. “Elio! I-I thought you went home.”

Elio didn’t answer right away. “I changed my mind,” he said at length.

“Ah, well, would you like to see what I’ve learned so far about this artifact? It really is quite fascinating! Did you know it’s composed of at least three different materials, and that it was made in… Elio?” Darius trailed off. His excited smile faded. Something about the way Elio was circling the room made him uneasy. He picked up the pyramid. “Is everything alright?”

Elio stopped suddenly and smiled. He answered, but the voice that emerged from his throat was unnaturally deep and weirdly distorted. “Never better.”

Before Darius could register what was happening, the senior archeologist found a strange weapon being aimed at him. The last thing Darius felt was an explosion of agony that radiated through his entire body. He crumpled heavily to the floor, dropping the pyramidal artifact with a dull thud.

Jack awoke to something hard and smooth beneath him. The faint smell of wood and wood polish tickled his nostrils. He opened his eyes tentatively to find himself in a small room with white painted walls and a gleaming wood floor. A beautiful wooden desk stood at one corner of the room, along with a wooden chair. An open doorway was positioned at the other end of the room, and beyond it, Jack saw a much larger space with tall, decoratively-carved pillars at regular intervals supporting a high ceiling lined with elaborate crown molding. It reminded him of a function hall of some kind, a place you might hold a wedding or a special party.

Jack sat up and found everything to be in working order. He also found a heavy, black iron chain clamped around his ankle. It was attached to an ugly iron ring set into the floor. An additional length of chain led from the floor ring to another ring mounted on the wall by the doorway. Daniel was lying unconscious on the other side of the room, similarly encumbered by chains on a separate set of rings.

Jack got to his feet. He moved as far as he could over to the doorway, finding he couldn’t reach it. In fact, his chains did not allow him to take more than a step in any direction. Well, at least their prison was clean. Sighing, he eyed the unconscious Daniel then sat back down on the floor. By leaning over and stretching his arm out, Jack found he could just barely reach him. He gave the archeologist’s cheek a couple of gentle slaps. “Daniel… hey, buddy, wake up.”

Daniel stirred with a soft moan.

“Hey there. How are ya feeling?”

Daniel didn’t bother to open his eyes. “N-not… n-not too good. Side hurts. Bad headache. Y-you?”

“Oh, I’ve been worse. Knees are a little sore.”

“We imprisoned?”

“Yep.”

“Figures. J-just like P3X-888.”

Jack shook his head. “Nah. This is way cleaner. No bars. No Unas. No smelly straw either.”

Daniel opened one eye and squinted myopically at Jack. His mouth quirked upward halfway in a weak smile. “Like P2D-656, then?”

“Not exactly. No handcuffs. Fewer women too.”

Daniel sat up gingerly and leaned against the wall, then replaced his fallen glasses back over his eyes. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe if we wait long enough—” He cut off with a wince.

“You alright?”

Daniel didn’t quite meet Jack’s eyes. “Y-yeah.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, Jack,” he answered in a tone that clearly said, stop fussing, but the way the other man was hunched over and clutching his stomach suggested otherwise. His posture reminded Jack of any number of times in the infirmary when Daniel had needed the services of Doctor Fraiser. Judging by the way he looked, the infirmary was exactly where Daniel ought to be right now.

Within the body of Elio his host, the Goa’uld Re’lar strode purposefully into the building that now belonged to him and marched down the length of the spacious main room.

Today was the day. He was finally ready: ready to claim this world for himself. Ready to begin his rise to power as a system lord.

Millennia ago, Re’lar had heard tell of an object of great power hidden by four advanced races somewhere in this sector of the galaxy. Through careful research and the torture of many people, he had determined that the artifact was hidden on Giara. However, when it came to figuring out what it was, how to acquire it and how to make it work… no one could say. So he’d come to this world, taken a host here, and operated secretly for almost three years, devouring all of the archeological information he could get his hands on with the hope of learning more about the object.

When Doctor Jackson inadvertently discovered the first piece of the artifact this morning, Re’lar knew things couldn’t have been better. He’d simply stepped aside and allowed the infamous SG-1 to do all the work recovering the rest of the pieces, careful to stay away from Major Carter lest she sense him. Then Re’lar appropriated the priceless object.

A sniveling sound interrupted his thoughts. Re’lar sneered in disdain. The pathetic, nearly useless Professor Darius whimpered and cowered behind a Giaran shield-generated force field, only left alive for interrogation. Re’lar’s desire to kill the man spiked, but he controlled himself. Darius could wait. Re’lar had a more pressing matter to attend to.

The Goa’uld set the artifact down on a long, decoratively-carved table, then entered the small room where his Tau’ri captives were imprisoned. He loomed over the huddled form of Doctor Jackson, careful to remain beyond Colonel O’Neill’s reach. He toed the Tau’ri man with his boot.

“Get up.”

Jackson didn’t move.

“Get up!”

“No.”

Re’lar’s eyes flashed white with menace. He grabbed the man and roughly deposited him on the chair in front of the desk. He dumped the four stone tablets from the linguist’s backpack onto the surface. “You will translate this writing and tell me how to utilize this artifact.”

The archeologist folded his arms protectively over his abdomen. Re’lar noted the wince of pain and the hitch in his shallow breathing as he answered, “Go to hell.”

Re’lar anticipated this obstinance. Luckily he had just the thing to counteract it. He raised the object in his hand. Careful application of the rod-like item to the ring on the wall holding the archeologist’s chains caused the man to arch his back against the chair. Light spilled from his face. Fire sticks were a crude but effective means of persuasion in lieu of the ribbon device he currently didn’t have.

“You can use that thing on me all you want. I won’t cooperate.” Re’lar noted with satisfaction how Jackson’s voice shook.

Re’lar bared his teeth. Without a word, he touched the device to the ring holding Colonel O’Neill’s chains. O’Neill collapsed to the floor and groaned loudly as the fire stick activated the appropriate nerves in his body. Re’lar took the device away and addressed the linguist. “Are you ready to cooperate?”

O’Neill interrupted. “Don’t do it, Daniel — arrg!” Re’lar applied the fire stick to O’Neill’s chains again. The older man gave an inarticulate yell. Light burst from his mouth and eyes.

“Stop!”

“You know how to make it stop, Doctor Jackson,” said Re’lar calmly.

The archeologist remained silent, glowering yet clearly uneasy.

“Do you know how the fire stick works?” Re’lar’s voice was casual. “It simulates grievous injury by activating the nerves that sense pain, all without putting a single mark on the subject. However, it takes a toll on the body.” Re’lar still did not remove the device from O’Neill’s chains, though the Tau’ri man looked close to losing consciousness. “One and a half minutes of prolonged exposure may cause the subject to have permanent muscle spasms. A little over two minutes causes convulsions. Three will cause brain damage. Longer than three will cause the heart to stop and the subject to die. I estimate I’ve subjected him to this for… thirty seconds? Perhaps forty five? And I have no idea what the effects of cumulative exposure may be.”

“Stop! Just stop it, okay? I’ll translate the data, just… take that thing off him!”

Re’lar let the fire stick fall to his side. O’Neill went lax, twitching faintly on the ground. Re’lar placed a series of photographs of the artifact on the desk in front of Jackson so he could translate the symbols that adorned it. “You will begin immediately.”

Chapter Text

Sam woke from her nap to the sound of hurricane-force winds battering the window and the rumbling of thunder. The rain was so loud that Sam could have sworn there was hail mixed in with it. She peered out the window. To her it seemed like the storm had greatly intensified. Outside she could see tree branches and other debris littering the streets. The sky was so dark it could have been twilight. Was it her, or did there seem to be an awful lot of water on the ground? It looked like a river had formed in the street. Exactly how much rain had fallen?

Sam joined Teal’c in the main room and they each had an MRE. A few hours later, the weather finally calmed. Except for a few last remnants of drizzle hanging in the air, the storm had blown itself out. Sam opened the door of the shelter and gasped.

Mayor Jorah had been wrong about the level of damage the storm would inflict. Buildings lay in ruins, their crumbled stonework in sad heaps in front of broken foundations. Entire trees had been upended, their roots exposed, their trunks lying across roads and houses. Broken branches, mud and jungle debris choked streets and walkways flooded with a foot or two of water. Worse, panicked people shouted and cried: their homes had been destroyed, their possessions gone, their loved ones missing or dead or trapped beneath the rubble. Sam’s heart went out to them.

Teal’c joined her in the doorway and surveyed the devastation. His fresh attempts to contact Colonel O’Neill and Daniel via radio were met with failure.

“We’ll have to start looking for them,” said Sam.

“Indeed. However, this will be difficult with so many obstructions,” Teal’c replied with a glance at a fallen tree that barred their path. “Does your injury pain you, Major Carter?”

Sam realized she was rubbing absently at her arm where the tree branch had hit her earlier. It felt better than before - the pounding throb had faded to a dull ache, but it was still sore. “I’m alright.”

Teal’c scrutinized her with concern though he said nothing more. His attention was diverted by the shouts and cries of a group of townspeople nearby. Someone was trapped beneath the rubble of a ruined building. It was clear the rescuers were unable to get them out.

Teal’c took action. He blasted a segment of the tree that was in their way with his staff weapon and plowed his way through the debris-choked water. Sam hurried after him with the med kit. She found a disturbing scene: the unmoving form of a youngster or a petite woman - Sam couldn’t tell which - lay pinned between two large pieces of masonry while three men worked frantically to move the stonework. Without any fanfare Teal’c leant the men his strength and together, they wrenched the heavy pieces of rubble from the trapped individual.

It was a boy of about twelve or thirteen years. He had curly blonde hair and dark, tanned skin. His clothes were dirty, ripped and sopping wet. Sam immediately bent to offer what medical assistance she could. Fortunately it was just enough to save the young man’s life. “I’ve got him stabilized for the moment. He needs a doctor as soon as possible.”

One of the men - probably the boy’s father judging by his nearly identical curly blonde hair - carefully scooped up his son and thanked her repeatedly. “It’s obvious you have medical knowledge that would help our people through this disaster. Would you come with us to our Triage Center?”

Sam hesitated. “I don’t know. My friends are missing; Teal’c and I need to look for them. One of them is injured.”

“Then your friends may have sought refuge there, or in one of the other shelters in town,” said the man.

“Please, we could really use your help,” echoed one of the other men.

“Alright,” Sam agreed. The Triage Center sounded like a good place to begin their search for the colonel and Daniel.

“We’re going to need some help clearing the streets,” said the third man, looking pointedly at Teal’c. “Our way to the Triage Center will be difficult to navigate with all of this.” He gestured toward the water and tree branches and rubble from collapsed buildings.

Teal’c inclined his head. “Very well.” And with that, Teal’c took point to clear a path for them to the Triage Center.

Jack was getting worried. Daniel had stopped translating for the fifth time in under an hour to put his head down on the desk. Jack noted uneasily that Daniel’s pain seemed to be getting worse.

He himself wasn’t feeling great either after being prodded with that damned fire stick every time the snakehead was unhappy with Daniel’s progress. All of his muscles were sore and they kept seizing without warning into tight balls of agony, like a charley horse on steroids. But he could handle it. He had to, for Daniel’s sake.

Daniel moved to clutch the left side of his ribcage, breathing shallowly through a wave of pain. Judging by his reactions, his friend had some kind of internal damage going on. He couldn’t tell exactly what was wrong without an examination. Regardless, Daniel needed medical attention.

Jack stretched an arm as far as his chains would allow and tapped Daniel’s arm, glad that Daniel had moved the writing desk to allow Jack to just barely reach him. “You alright?”

Daniel lifted his head up a few inches. “Y-yeah… f-fine.”

Jack sincerely doubted that. Daniel was shaking slightly. His eyes were glazed over, his face pale and sweaty. “Daniel—”

“I’m dizzy, Jack. My head is pounding; I-I can’t think,” the archeologist confessed. Not a good sign. “My rib or whatever it is hurts like hell.”

“Alright, take a break.” Before Jack could say anything else, Re’lar swept into the room and stabbed the fire stick onto Jack’s chains, causing him to collapse suddenly and writhe in terrible pain on the ground. “You are not working fast enough,” he accused Daniel.

* * *

Daniel jumped, startled by the sudden intrusion. The Goa’uld Re’lar had burst in so quickly and was hurting Jack again.

“W-wait!” he said. “I figured something out. I-I think these are numbers.”

“Go on.”

“Each triangular face of the pyramid has the digits zero to nine stamped on these buttons. The device is powered by some sort of miniaturized Naquadah reactor.”

Re’lar drove his fist into Daniel’s wounded side, then grabbed a handful of his clothing and slammed his back hard against the chair. Daniel yelled in agony, reeling. The whole left side of his abdomen and chest exploded in pain, causing his vision to grey and his stomach to clench with nausea. A piercing pain like the blow of an ax stabbed into his skull from the jarring motion. But at least the Goa’uld had stopped hurting Jack. “That is all you have determined?” Re’lar roared.

It took Daniel several minutes to find his voice. “I’m-I’m s-sorry! It’s taking me a while to translate these texts.” He indicated the stone tablets. “I can’t understand a lot of this language, and I understand none of this one. I don’t have the resources I need to make this go faster. I-I’m doing the best I can.”

“What does the device do?”

“I don’t know yet. I-I think the next section of the Nox and Asgard tablets should shed light on it.” Daniel’s vision was greying out again from pain and lightheadedness. His stomach threatened to empty. He prayed he wouldn’t pass out or vomit before Re’lar left. “The next time I return,” said the Goa’uld, his breath in Daniel’s ear, “I expect you to have progressed far beyond that pitiful quantity of information.”

“Hey! L-leave him alone. He needs a break… some water,” said Jack in a voice rough with pain.

Re’lar turned to face Jack. “When he makes sufficient progress and discovers what the artifact is used for, I will consider granting him the reward of water and rest. Until then he will keep working.” Re’lar let Daniel roughly go and swept out of the room.

Jack winced, then groaned, breathing heavily. “I take it back. This is starting to feel a lot like P3X-888.”

Shaking and fighting both to stay conscious and to avoid losing the contents of his stomach, Daniel bent over the stone tablets once more. He succeeded with one, but not the other.

“Hey y-you okay?” said Jack, trying and failing to get shakily off the floor.

Daniel wiped his mouth on his sleeve and gave him an untruthful, wobbly nod. His head swum and throbbed and pounded, and his whole left side was on fire. “You should rest, Jack.”

The older man groaned once more, curling up against the pain he was experiencing.

Daniel set to work on the translation again. I’ve got to figure this out soon, or Jack is going to keep suffering. But if I do, what’ll happen to the Giaran people?

“Hold this in place for me,” Sam instructed the injured Giaran man while she prepared a bandage, some sterile wipes and gauze.

“Thank you,” said the man with a smile, taking the sterile pad and pressing it against the bloody wound on his forearm.

Sam tried to smile back, but she was worried. She’d had no luck finding Colonel O’Neill or Daniel among the injured here at the Giaran Triage Center. Her instincts were telling her that something bad had happened to them. She was especially concerned about Daniel. He had a concussion and an unknown abdominal injury. He needed treatment as soon as possible.

“Is it true you’re travelers from the Circle of Stone?” said the man while Sam sterilized, then bandaged his arm. “I’m Carlim, by the way, Chief Technician of the Giaran Shield Facility.”

“Major Sam Carter,” she introduced. “And that’s Teal’c. I’m an astrophysicist with a little bit of field medical training.” She finishing bandaging the wound. “Chief Technician?” she inquired.

“Yes. Please don’t spend too much time on me. I-I need to figure out what went wrong… why our shield units didn’t protect the town against this storm the way they have for centuries.”

“I do have some experience with alien technology,” said Sam hesitantly. Had Daniel and the colonel not been missing she would’ve jumped at the chance to examine the Giaran shield units.

“I’d appreciate someone to give me a hand,” said Carlim. “The members of my staff who were on duty during the storm were injured when the south wing of the building collapsed. I have no one else to help me. In light of what’s happened…” He gestured toward the ruined buildings with a flick of his hand and a sad shake of his head. “I need all the help I can get.”

“I’m sorry. Part of my team is missing. I have to keep looking for them. Teal’c and I have searched the Triage Center as well as two other storm shelters with no luck.”

“There are a number of other storm shelters on the way to the Shield Facility,” said Carlim. “I’ll help you search for your missing teammates.”

“Go. I will continue clearing the streets of debris,” said Teal’c.

Sam packed up her gear and shouldered her pack. “Alright. Stay in contact.”

Teal’c bowed his head in acknowledgement.

Re’lar approached the pyramidal artifact smiling in triumph. At last. The pathetic Tau’ri had finally figured it out. He recalled key phases from the translation: ‘activate position locator’… ‘enter destination coordinates’… ‘formation of a stable bridge’.

Re’lar punched a series of buttons on the appropriate triangular faces of the pyramid. A field of rippling blue energy like an archway of water suspended in midair projected out from the apex of the device.

Re’lar’s smile widened. His atoms dissolved as he entered the portal, and reassembled beneath the red sky and flat, treeless landscape of his homeland. He breathed the smoke-scented air, then turned and went back through the portal. This device, unlike the Chappa’ai, was quite portable and allowed two-way travel with the formation of one doorway. It also allowed one to go to another location on the same planet, according to the Tau’ri linguist. Yes, this device was versatile indeed - well worth the hundreds of years of effort he’d spent to find it.

Test complete, Re’lar deactivated the portal. There was only one thing that bothered him: the linguist had said nothing about the controls on the underside of the pyramid.

* * *

Daniel watched the Goa’uld Re’lar use the pyramid device to open a portal. He saw him step through, and then return using the same portal. This is my fault. What have I done? His heart sank further when the Goa’uld paused for a moment, examining the base of the device. Uh oh… “I’m s-so s-sorry, Jack,” said Daniel preemptively.

“For what?”

Daniel never got a chance to answer.

“What are these symbols for?” Re’lar was in his face, demanding an answer and jabbing a finger at the photo of the square-shaped base of the pyramid.

Daniel didn’t answer right away. “I don’t… I don’t know.”

Re’lar applied the fire stick to Jack’s chains again. Daniel cringed at his friend’s fresh cries of pain. “I-I-I swear, I don’t know!” Daniel stammered. “I can’t translate that part of the text. I-I’ve been trying… I can’t figure it out. I’m sorry. Look, you’ve already gotten the device to work. Whatever these symbols are, they’re obviously not necessary for it to function.”

The Goa’uld waited a good ten seconds before finally lowering the fire stick. Daniel closed his eyes and exhaled in relief, but felt a pang of sympathy when he heard Jack moan in intense pain. He couldn’t stand for his friend to be hurt over and over like this. “If I find you’ve been lying to me,” came Re’lar’s voice, low and dangerous, “your friend will pay the price, with something far worse than this.” He tossed the fire stick aside with disdain.

Surprisingly, Re’lar undid their chains. He grabbed both men roughly and dragged them out of the small room and into the larger space beyond. Re’lar cast them down onto the floor in one corner of the huge room. Force fields immediately snapped up around them. Daniel blacked out for several minutes when his already-concussed head smacked into the wall.

When Daniel came to, he found that the shimmering blue portal had been activated again. Re’lar was speaking into his communicator, the thing Jack liked to call a “teleball”. A few moments later, rank upon rank of disciplined Jaffa warriors emerged into the room bearing staff weapons, zat’nik’itels and a ribbon device, which the Goa’uld slipped over his fingers and admired for a few seconds. A smile crept across Re’lar’s face as his warriors stood ready to receive instructions from their god.

* * *

Jack peeled himself off the floor after the most recent round of painful muscle spasms. He sat up once the pain had receded to a manageable level, heart sinking upon seeing how many Jaffa now filled the room. His limbs were shaking and he felt as though he’d received a hundred beatings. He sincerely hoped this wasn’t permanent. Dammit, he was too old for this!

The colonel watched Re’lar position himself beside a long table that held the artifact. The snakehead turned to his new army, spreading his arms as if to encompass them. “Jaffa! The time has come for you to prove yourselves in battle in the service of your Lord. Behold!” The Goa’uld gestured toward he and Daniel. “I have brought half of the infamous SG-1 into my custody. Bring me the others, and you will be rewarded!”

The Jaffa saluted. “You will go now and secure this planet in the name of your god!” shouted Re’lar. “Jaffa kree!”

They replied obediently in the Goa’uld language. With arms clasped behind his back, Re’lar walked among them, issuing orders and barking commands. The Jaffa inclined their heads in subservience at his passage, staff weapons held upright in their hands, then marched out of the building. A number of them were posted as guards around Jack and Daniel, and also Professor Darius, who Jack noticed was confined within his own shield bubble in the opposite corner of the spacious room. More Jaffa marched through another two-way portal. When most of the soldiers had gone, Re’lar pulled aside a special contingent of warriors. Instructions were given, and they set off in a different direction to do their god’s bidding.

Jack rubbed his face. How the hell were they going to get out of this mess? He turned to face Daniel when he heard the younger man groan. A trickle of blood was making its way down the side of his face where his head injury had broken open. Jack noted how dazed Daniel looked and how his eyes were not tracking properly. Daniel made a sudden movement, then sat up and vomited spectacularly all over the shiny, polished floor.

“Alright… it’s alright. You’re okay,” Jack soothed with a hand on Daniel’s back.

“I didn’… I didn’ tell ‘im, Jack. He won’t… f-find out,” Daniel slurred in response while Jack lowered him gently back down to the floor on his back.

“What’s that?”

The linguist gestured weakly toward Re’lar and the pyramidal artifact. “Told him… I couldn’t translate… that part. He doesn’t know. T-tell S-Sam—” Daniel grunted in pain, grasped his injured head and abdomen. From the way he was breathing Jack could tell his friend was in a fair amount of distress.

“Easy buddy.”

“Tell Sam… the time capacitor… bottom of the artifact… is unstable.”

“Time capacitor?”

“Yeah. On the underside of the pyramid. Was supposed to enable time travel. Doesn’t work. They couldn’t… get it to work. Component of the mechanism… unstable. We can… we can use it to… to destroy the artifact. Tell Sam… time capac… unst…” Daniel trailed off. His breath came in sharp, shallow gasps while he gripped his wounded abdomen, eyes squeezed shut in obvious pain.

Jack ran a hand through his hair. All signs pointed to internal bleeding. “Hey, take it easy.” He could only watch helplessly while Daniel did his best to stifle cries of pain. He moved suddenly, trying to raise his head. Jack recognized the problem and helped Daniel roll onto his right side just in time for him to start heaving again.

Shit. Daniel’s condition was rapidly going from bad to worse, and there wasn’t a damn thing Jack could do.

Chapter Text

“Try remodulating the field generator coil,” suggested Sam as she bent with Carlim over a partially dismantled Giaran shield module, one of several that had been recovered from the town perimeter and brought to the Shield Control Facility after the storm.

The Giaran shook his head. “Tried already. I’ve tried everything I can think of. I can’t find anything wrong.” His hand thumped against the control panel in frustration. “This unit seems to be working fine, except it won’t generate a forcefield.”

“This facility controls your shield devices remotely, right? Well, what if something’s wrong with the connection between the units and the computer?”

Carlim rubbed his chin. “I suppose, but I should still be able to turn the force field on manually.” He reached over and keyed in another series of instructions to the computer. “I’m going to run a Deep Scan. I am only one of a handful of people who can run and interpret this type of diagnostic. As Chief Technician, I know these systems better than most, if I may be allowed to say so. I’ll set it up to give us real-time updates.”

Sam nodded. “I’ve been meaning to ask… how do your shields protect you from the storms, aside from providing a physical barrier for the town that is?”

Carlim smiled knowingly. “With the correct modulation, the force field can absorb some of the energy from the ground quakes. They can also provide some resistance to very strong winds. You’re familiar with the concept of noise cancellation and destructive interference, yes?” Sam nodded. “This, coupled with their ability to turn aside water and physical objects is what keeps our towns and villages safe from storms. Or they did until today. This type of malfunction has never been documented since the shields were invented.”

Sam took this in, thoughtful. Her curiosity about these shield devices was strong, but her desire to find Colonel O’Neill and Daniel was stronger. “I have to go,” she farewelled. “I hope you figure out this problem with your shield devices.”

“Just a moment, Major Carter,” said the Giaran. “My scan is giving me a preliminary readout.” Carlim tapped a few controls, then scrutinized the readings on the screen, his expression troubled.

“What is it?”

“Someone knew what they were doing. The shield generator coil in this unit is counterfeit. It looks completely normal to the naked eye and is simulating normal readings to fool the computer. It fooled my earlier diagnostics, too.” He paused when more readings caught his eye. “That’s… that’s not possible. The transponder is also forged. If I didn’t know better, I’d say this entire unit is a counterfeit. But who would do this? And why?”

This news left Sam with a sinking feeling. “Either someone’s stealing the technology and trying to cover it up, or they're trying to sabotage you.”

“Or both,” Carlim said ominously.

“And you have no idea who would want to do this?”

Carlim shook his head slowly. “As far as I know, only the members of my staff possess enough knowledge of the technology. It’s a good thing whoever did this didn’t know how to circumvent a Deep Scan. I haven’t checked all of the perimeter units, yet I’d gamble a week’s wages that this is not the only counterfeit. Would you stay and give me a hand?”

“I’m sorry. I’ve got to keep looking for the rest of my team. They’ve been missing for hours.” Sam turned to go.

The sudden, dull boom of an explosion startled her. Outside, someone screamed. A familiar, yet unwelcome noise soon joined the sounds of rising chaos in the town: staff weapon blasts.

Sam’s heart dropped to her toes. Oh no… She saw three burly Jaffa come into view out the large window on the other side of the room and watched two of them drag a struggling man down the flooded street. The third Jaffa started shooting at one of the nearby buildings.

“Teal’c,” she radioed. There was no response except static. “Teal’c, do you copy?” More static. Great. Now she couldn’t raise Teal’c. Her concern mounted.

“What’s happening?” asked Carlim with trepidation.

Sam had no time to explain. She was startled by a loud noise, like the sound of a wind tunnel. She stared, unable for a split second to comprehend what she was seeing. There in the middle of the room yawned a gigantic arch. It was seven feet at its highest point and six feet wide, Sam estimated, glowing with a rippling blue light not unlike the event horizon of a Stargate. Five Jaffa soon emerged, bearing staff weapons and zat guns, as well as some of the Giaran shield modules. Sam guided Carlim quickly behind a large piece of equipment.

Together, they watched the Jaffa converse briefly before two of them lifted some of the working units and put what Sam deduced were counterfeits in their place. Two of the Jaffa then walked back through the portal with the stolen technology.

But… but that was impossible! The amount of energy needed to open the Stargate was staggering. The amount to open a stable two-way portal had to be astronomical! Or was the energy simply being utilized in a more efficient manner? Could the artifact we uncovered be generating these portals?

A harsh shout startled her out of her thoughts. One of the remaining three Jaffa had spotted them. “Stay down,” she instructed Carlim.

Her weapon barked. The Jaffa scattered and sent their own volley of weapons fire toward them. Sam was forced stop shooting to dodge a stream of zat blasts that missed her by inches. The use of zats suggested the Jaffa wanted her alive. Interesting. Well, guess it beat dead and burned to a crisp.

Beside her, Carlim stayed low, presenting as little of his body to target as possible while Sam continued her assault. She finally managed to hit one of the enemy warriors right in the symbiote pouch. He collapsed, groaning.

“What are they?” asked Carlim.

“Soldiers of a powerful race. Enemies we’ve been fighting for over four years.”

The other two Jaffa regrouped and unsuccessfully tried to flank Sam and the Giaran. Carlim bent over a small device in his hand while Sam continued shooting.

“What are you doing?”

“Setting an overload.” Carlim pointed toward a bank of computers. “Can you lure them over there?” Sam nodded. “Once they’re in position, I’ll blow the whole thing. Be careful: I don’t know how large the explosion will be. I’ve never done this before.”

“Right.”

Sam danced away, still firing, drawing the warriors away from Carlim. They seemed to be ignoring him anyway, which was good since he was weaponless and didn’t appear to know how to fight. She carefully maneuvered herself so that the Jaffa were between her and the consoles. As soon as they were close enough, Carlim triggered the overload. The consoles exploded magnificently in a shower of sparks.

The Jaffa reacted as if they’d received a massive electric shock. Sam had no idea whether this would be enough to incapacitate them, so she added a few bullets to the mix. The two Jaffa didn’t rise.

Sam went back over to Carlim. The shield technician stood slowly and pocketed his hand-held device. Now that the threat had been dealt with, Sam tried to raise Teal’c again on the radio with no success. “You alright?” she asked, noticing Carlim’s expression.

The technician nodded. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to help you, Major Carter. I’m not a fighter.”

Sam shouldered her weapon and retrieved her pack from beside one of the computer terminals. “You did fine. Come on. We have to get out of here. I really need to find the rest of my team,” she urged.

“I might be able to help with that.” Carlim brought her over to a display that looked like a map of the town. He typed a sequence into the computer, which overlaid clusters of white dots onto the display. “These dots represent active shield units.” He pointed to one of the buildings. “This abandoned function hall is where those Jaffa just took our stolen shield modules. It could be where your portal device is being kept, and possibly the rest of your team.”

Sam smiled in appreciation. “Well, that’s a good place to start. Thanks for your help.”

“I’m coming with you, Major Carter,” said the Giaran.

“Are you sure?”

They were suddenly interrupted by a loud whoosh from somewhere behind. Sam and Carlim turned in unison. “They’ve opened another portal. Come on, we need to go, now.” Sam grasped the Giaran by the arm and ushered him quickly down the corridor just as a pair of Jaffa emerged from the doorway.

“This way,” said Carlim. He led Sam out of the facility and down a series of narrow streets.

“You sure you want to do this, Carlim? It’ll be dangerous. There will probably be fighting.”

“I want to help you and my people any way I can, Major Carter.” Carlim drew his small controller device from his pocket. “I may not be able to do any fighting, but with this I can get you into anywhere that’s shielded.”

“That’ll certainly help,” said Sam.

Carlim suddenly gripped Sam’s arm, urging her to stop. A group of Jaffa had just come into view in front of them. Sam turned, looking for somewhere to conceal themselves, but it was too late. Another group appeared behind them. They were surrounded.

The downed tree was heavier than it looked. Teal’c couldn’t identify its species, but it appeared to be some type of hardwood. Its broad, many-lobed leaves brushed against Teal’c’s arms as he strained to lift the giant trunk out of the street. He dragged it little by little through the deep water until finally depositing it beside the thoroughfare.

“Many thanks!” called the Giaran Rescue Coordinator, who Teal’c had met just after Major Carter’s departure. The short, stout little man was positioned farther down the street removing smaller branches and other debris left behind in Teal’c’s wake.

“It is my pleasure,” replied Teal’c inclining his head in acknowledgement. His rescue efforts had removed many obstacles from the streets and saved many lives. Yet, Teal’c was extremely concerned for the safety of two lives in particular: those of Colonel O’Neill and Daniel Jackson. They had been missing for many hours. This debris and water frustrated Teal’c. He wished for a method to instantaneously remove them so as to hasten his search efforts.

A jarring sound behind him made Teal’c raise his weapon and turn sharply. He found the Rescue Coordinator down on one knee in the water, gripping an injured arm and whimpering in pain, his expression one of intense fear. Towering above the Giaran loomed a tall, muscular Jaffa wielding a staff weapon. Teal’c didn’t stop to think before firing upon him with his own staff weapon. The Rescue Coordinator took one look at the lifeless soldier, got clumsily to his feet, clutching his wounded arm, and took off at a staggering run as fast as he was able in the other direction.

More warriors soon appeared from an adjacent avenue. Where had these Jaffa come from? A ship? The Stargate? Or had they been on this planet all along, concealed until ready to make their move? Teal’c did not recognize their forehead markings, which meant they belonged to one of the less powerful, more obscure Goa’uld, or to a Goa’uld who had recently acquired enough power to amass an army. He took out his radio. “Major Carter.” There was no reply. “Major Carter, please respond.” Nothing. “Major Carter, do you read?” His failure to contact the astrophysicist concerned Teal’c a great deal.

Staff weapon blasts soon filled the air around him. Teal’c ducked behind another fallen tree he had helped move out of the street not long ago, and returned fire. He managed to kill two of the enemy and wound another. He had to stop firing when the remaining soldiers roughly seized and dragged away two fleeing townspeople.

Another knot of warriors closed in from a different direction. Teal’c eliminated a number of them before they could raise their weapons. A volley of staff blasts streaked past him. He crouched behind the tree, exchanging fire with the remaining warriors. The orange-tinted energy gouged smoking holes in the wood around him and sent splinters flying.

A contingent of Giarans dressed in brown uniforms soon arrived on the scene and began firing, their weapons emitting staccato barks of sound and white light. The streets erupted in chaos with shots fired from all directions and people running and shouting. More groups of Jaffa came into view, marching in disciplined rows to meet them. The Giarans fought bravely but they were no match for the Goa’uld soldiers.

A handful of ships of foreign design flew by overhead. Teal’c had to duck to avoid the fire they were directing at the enemy. Teal’c understood that he looked just like the enemy. Those who did not know him often assumed he was working for the Goa’uld.

Teal’c watched the Giaran ships fly past his position, on to target more Jaffa further down the street. A Goa’uld craft soon buzzed by, firing at the Giarans on the ground, who then aimed skyward. Alas, their weapons were not powerful enough to destroy it.

Teal’c activated his staff weapon. He took aim, tracking the ship’s engines, then fired: once, twice. The shots merely grazed the hull as the vessel dodged. Teal’c fired one final time before he was forced to dive and roll, feeling an uncomfortable pull on the still-healing wound in his side. The staff weapon jerked from his hands. The vessel sent out its own answering volley at him. Teal’c felt the rush of superheated plasma from the staff canons streak past him. His fallen staff weapon exploded in a burst of sparks as the blasts connected with it.

However, Teal’c’s final shot had struck true. He watched the Goa’uld ship navigate erratically out of control. It crashed partway into a tall building, then plummeted downward, showering the area with debris and chunks of stone. The impact sent a tremor rippling through the ground and a plume of smoke into the sky.

Teal’c stood slowly. Shouting soon caught his attention. A group of Jaffa had cornered two of the townspeople and were roughly marching them away a few yards down another one of the flooded main roads. Teal’c realized an instant later that one of the individuals was wearing a BDU jacket and had distinctive blond hair. “Major Carter!”

Teal’c dashed toward her location. He was intercepted by a large contingent of Jaffa. Their activated staff weapons surrounded him, leaving him with what seemed like no hope for escape. A huge, dark-skinned warrior stepped forward and spoke, his voice a deep, angry growl.

“Surrender, Shol’va!”

Chapter Text

Daniel drifted in and out of a disjointed haze, aware only of the fact that he felt terrible. He had no idea how much time had passed since his and Jack’s capture, and he had long since lost track of what was going on around him.

He was so cold, and sick to his stomach. A massive, migraine-like headache thumped a steady, pounding rhythm against his skull. He was so dizzy and lightheaded he couldn’t think.

Something inside him was also very wrong. At first he thought he’d bruised a rib, but he realized now that wasn’t it. Something else had been hurt, an injury which Re’lar had made many times worse. Sharp pains lanced through his left side with every breath. His abdomen felt stiff. His left shoulder hurt too - a dull ache that made its presence known.

Jack was worried. Oh, he tried to hide it behind jokes and jibes, yet Daniel still saw it in his friend’s eyes. He could easily guess what Jack wasn’t saying: he was probably bleeding internally and needed medical attention as soon as possible.

* * *

Jack watched ranks of Jaffa come and go from the shimmering portals made by the ancient artifact, contemplating how he was going to get he and his injured teammate out of here. Night had finally fallen, triggering rows of oil lamps mounted on the walls of their spacious prison to come on. Outside, the sounds of battle could be heard, and the bright flashes of weapons fire could be seen.

Recovery from the pain of Re’lar’s fire stick was slow. Jack continued to suffer periodic muscle spasms that had him balled up and biting his lip every time they struck. At least now that he wasn’t being jabbed over and over he was starting to form more coherent thoughts. Several half-baked ideas for escape were examined and rejected as Jack sat there, testing the force field around them with his hands for the hundredth time, studying the enemy for weaknesses and casting glances out the window at the battles taking place and the devastation wrought by the storm.

Come on, O’Neill, think!

He was worried about the rest of his team, too. For all he knew, Carter and Teal’c had been hurt. So many hours had gone by without any sign of them. He decided to believe they were okay, that they were doing all they could to survive and rescue he and Daniel.

Speaking of Daniel, his concern for the younger man was consuming more and more of his attention. The archeologist wasn’t doing well. He lay curled up on his side and shivering beneath Jack’s BDU jacket, violently throwing up every twenty minutes. Jack suspected the nausea was being caused by his head injury, exacerbated as it was by Re’lar’s rough treatment. Daniel was also extremely dizzy, which could have been attributed to his concussion, but could also have been due to a drop in blood pressure from internal bleeding. A look at Daniel’s bruise found it to be larger than before and slightly distended. Daniel’s skin had also become awfully cold and clammy - sure signs of shock. All of this worried Jack immensely.

Daniel whimpered. Jack smoothed his hands up and down his friend’s arms to stem the shivering and supported the injured man while he battled the pain. “Easy, Danny,” he soothed. “I’ve got ya. We’ll be outta here soon. Just… try to hang on alright?”

Daniel’s face went about five shades whiter. “D-don’t feel so good,” he croaked.

All Jack could do was cradle the archeologist’s head in his lap while continuing to rub his arms and offer him soothing words. Jack felt like slamming his fist into a wall in frustration. This was real bad. He needed to get Daniel to Doc Fraiser ASAP.

A deafening reverberation suddenly sounded outside. The large windows lit up in a flash of white light. The explosions were getting louder and closer. A massive blast then shook the building.

From his makeshift command post, Re’lar, snapped an order to a group of soldiers. They groveled and left the room to investigate what was going on. Soon Jack heard shouts and staff weapon blasts filtering in from somewhere beyond the large space.

Abused muscles tensed, preparing for a fight: this might be his chance to spring he and Daniel from their confinement. Jack stood, laying Daniel’s head gently onto the floor, tracking the retreat of some Jaffa back into the function hall. They were being shot at by someone wielding a staff weapon. One of them yelled and collapsed in a shower of sparks and smoke.

Then came the best part: Teal’c burst suddenly through the entrance like an avenging angel, firing his staff weapon in rapid succession. Another couple of enemy Jaffa went down.

Jack couldn’t help it. He raised both fists in victory. “YYYYes!”

At this point, two things happened. First, the energy field restraining he and Daniel abruptly winked out as if a switch had been flipped. Second, nearly every Jaffa in the place converged on Teal’c with much shouting and what Jack imagined to be cursing given the tone of their voices. He thought he heard the word “Shol’va” a couple of times.

Jack bent and slid his arm behind Daniel’s back. “C’mon, buddy, time to go.” The injured man moaned. Jack managed to get Daniel sitting up before he passed out cold in Jack’s arms. Jack had no choice but to ease him back down onto the floor.

“O’Neill!” called Teal’c. Jack straightened and turned just in time to catch the P-90 that Teal’c tossed in his direction. He started firing immediately at the nearest soldiers.

“Daniel’s hurt real bad. You’ve gotta get him out of here,” Jack ordered, knowing the big man could more easily handle Daniel’s weight under fire than he could. He also did not trust his sore muscles to deal with anything heavy just now. Honestly, handling the P-90 was taxing.

Teal’c dashed toward him while Jack covered him with more gunfire. Jack fought his way to the other side of the room where Professor Darius still sat in the corner, surrounded by a handful of guards training their weapons on him.

Jack risked a glance behind him. Teal’c had almost reached Daniel’s position, but his attention was caught by the snakehead in the center of the room. Re’lar had raised his hand, pointing his palm directly at Teal’c.

“Teal’c!” yelled Jack in warning. The Jaffa saw it coming at the last second and dove out of the way just as Re’lar triggered the handheld weapon. Without thinking, Jack fired his gun at the Goa’uld. Predictably, Re’lar had activated a personal shield. He turned his weapon on Jack. This gave Teal’c time to drag Daniel away from the danger, but forced Jack to swerve suddenly to avoid the bolus of kinetic energy that came flying at him. Re’lar stopped shooting momentarily to manipulate the pyramid-shaped device again. The portal sprung back to life in a burst of blue.

At last, Jack reached the place where Professor Darius sat with his back against the wall. “Come on, we’re gettin’ outta here.” He grabbed the professor’s arm.

Darius allowed himself to be pulled upright and kept up with the colonel while Jack held the Jaffa at bay with his P-90, but the Giaran didn’t say a word. His eyes were surprisingly hard. An expression like anger had taken over his features - nothing like the mild-mannered archeologist from before.

More Jaffa soon came pouring out of the open portal like ants from a nest. Jack skidded to a halt to avoid them, then swore. He and Darius were now completely surrounded by armored bodies and bristling staff weapons closing in on all sides. Jack kept shooting, but it was a losing battle. Eventually they would be overwhelmed.

The loud report of fire from another P-90 was the most welcome sound to Jack’s ears. He craned his neck over the host of Jaffa even as he pivoted to take out a number of them that had nearly punched his ticket.

There stood Carter near the entrance to the spacious room, picking off soldiers that surrounded the beleaguered colonel and his Giaran companion. Bolstered by the sudden reinforcement, Jack fired with renewed vigor and managed to clear an opening for he and the professor to run for the exit.

“Carter!” shouted Jack as he approached. “Daniel says something - a time capacitor - on the bottom of that artifact is unstable and could be used to destroy it.”

Carter acknowledged this while Teal’c reached their position and maneuvered Daniel to safety in the anteroom beyond. She indicated her P-90. “A burst of fire from this should do it, but you’ve got to knock the artifact over to give me a clear shot of the underside.”

Jack stared at the upright pyramid, still projecting its portal, and the Jaffa coming through it, contemplating how he was going to get across the room to tip the thing over. He glanced beside him, intending to tell Professor Darius to go with Teal’c to safety… except, he was no longer there.

“Darius! No!”

The Giaran archeologist had rushed directly into danger. Jack watched helplessly while he dodged and weaved his way among the Jaffa and staff blasts.

Darius reached the artifact. He extended his hand. Time seemed to stand still for a moment while he knocked the thing over, ensuring that the underside was facing Carter. He turned to face Jack and gave him a grim smile. Then a staff blast ripped a hole in his chest. Darius crumpled to the ground, dead.

Jack lowered his head in respect. His opinion of the man soared. Darius may have seemed like a coward, but he was brave when it really mattered. With that act, he may very well have just saved his world.

The disturbed expression on Carter’s face only manifested for a moment before she filed the feelings away. She took careful aim and fired successive rounds directly at the upended pyramid. A sound like the zap of high voltage electricity burst from the device. It exploded with a concussive boom in a spectacular shower of blue and white sparks.

The explosion overwhelmed Re’lar’s personal shield. He uttered a strangled cry and flew about twenty feet, landing dead in a twisted heap against the wall along with most of the Jaffa in the immediate vicinity.

Carter continued laying down fire as she covered their retreat toward the exit of the building complex. When Jack finally emerged behind Teal’c into the humid night air, a welcome surprise awaited him. There, parked just outside the building complex was a Giaran fighter, an impressive wedge-shaped silver vessel.

“Get down,” Carter instructed Teal’c and Jack, then turned toward the ship and shouted, “Fire!”

A jet of white light erupted from the front of the ship and struck the building just as a host of Jaffa issued out after them. They, along with about half the building were blasted into oblivion. A moment later, a thin Giaran man ventured hesitantly out of the craft.

“Whoa,” breathed Jack, standing up from where he had ducked quickly out of the line of fire. “Good shooting.”

“Nice work, Carlim,” Carter praised.

“Thank you for all you’ve done for us,” Carlim said addressing Carter, Jack and Teal’c.

“No problem,” said Jack. “Hey, I uhh… I want to let someone on your world know about one of your archeology professors - guy named Darius?”

“The Department Head of Archeology at the University? Yes, he’s well-known in our community,” answered Carlim.

“Yeah, well, he just died to save your world.” Jack gave Carlim an abridged version of what had happened.

Carlim nodded slowly. “I’ll make sure his sacrifice won’t be forgotten.”

Jack acknowledged this, satisfied. “Kick some more snakehead ass for us,” he farewelled.

A succession of staff weapon blasts from behind surprised them. Jack spun around, bringing his weapon to bear once more. Apparently some of the Jaffa had escaped the blast and were firing on them from the front of the ruined building. Carter sprinted for the open hatch of the Giaran fighter while Jack returned fire. Teal’c was already halfway inside, carefully carrying Daniel’s limp form. He had to duck awkwardly at the entrance to avoid hitting his head on the top of the hatch.

Jack fired one last volley at the remaining Jaffa then jogged up the ramp into the vessel. “Nice ride,” he said once he was inside. “How did you manage to get your hands on a Giaran ship?”

Carter closed the hatch with the press of a button. “You can thank Teal’c,” she said. “He shot down a Goa’uld glider, then single-handedly took down a group of armed Jaffa. The Giarans were so impressed with his skills in combat they were willing to lend him one of their fighters.”

Jack gave the Jaffa a nod of appreciation. “Way to go, T.”

Teal’c inclined his head with a satisfied grin.

The vessel lurched somewhat shakily into the sky while Teal’c lowered Daniel onto the floor beside one of the two chairs behind the pilot and co-pilot’s seats. The archeologist had regained consciousness at some point. A trickle of dried blood painted the side of his head. An expression of extreme discomfort marred his features. His already pasty face, covered in a sheen of sweat, looked even worse under the harsh glare of the cabin lights. His ragged breathing was much too fast and shallow.

“Oh my God, he looks awful,” exclaimed Carter with a grimace, shocked at how much worse Daniel looked than the last time she’d seen him.

“Yeah, well, poor guy’s in a lot of pain,” Jack replied. “Been that way for most of the time we were guests at the Snakehead Hotel. Very lousy establishment by the way - wouldn’t even give it one star. He’s also been throwing up for quite a while from a severe concussion, and I’m pretty sure he’s bleeding internally.”

The ship rocked again as if experiencing turbulence. Daniel let out a strangled grunt of pain and squeezed his eyes shut.

“Sorry. One of the engines was damaged by staff blasts on our way here,” Carter explained.

Teal’c assumed the pilot’s position while Carter moved to the co-pilot’s seat. Jack took a quick visual tour of the vessel. It comfortably seated four people. Instrument panels aglow with various lights and foreign symbols lined the front of the cabin and emitted soft humming sounds. His eyes came to rest on something familiar at one of the panels. “Is that one of those shield thingies the Giarans put around their Stargate?” he asked.

Carter followed the colonel’s gaze. “Yeah, it’s integrated into the ship systems,” she confirmed. “They put shields around their town, too.” Carter told him about her visit to the Giaran Shield Facility, where a bunch of Jaffa had exchanged counterfeit shield units for working ones. “The Jaffa must have replaced the real shield units from the town perimeter with fake ones before the storm,” she said.

“No,” said Jack. ”The Jaffa didn’t come into the picture until Re’lar used that pyramid doohickey we found. Chances are Re’lar’s the one who took the technology. He’s probably been stealing those shield devices from the Giarans little by little over the years, and this time, he took just enough of them to cause a failure when the storm hit.”

The Giaran fighter shook, interrupting their conversation. Carter made a frustrated sound. “If I knew how to read the Giaran writing, I might be able to fix the damaged engine, or at least reroute power...” Her eyes flickered toward Daniel. Jack filled in what she left unsaid: if the linguist hadn’t looked and felt like something recently run over by a freight train he would have eagerly had his nose buried in that alien text by now.

A weak voice from behind, little more than a whisper, made both of them turn. “L-lemme see.”

Daniel’s eyes were barely open, revealing the smallest sliver of blue. His rapid breathing was a testament to the effort it cost him for just a few words.

“It’s alright Daniel, I’ll manage,” said Carter gently. For a moment the archeologist looked like he wanted to object. A shallow cough put an end to any further attempts at speech. Jack could do nothing but watch while Daniel struggled with the intense pain of his injuries.

Suddenly, the cabin rattled with a violent tremor. At the same moment, a loud alarm started blaring. Red lights flashed throughout the space.

“Two Goa’uld needle-threaders are in pursuit - they are firing upon us,” reported Teal’c from the pilot’s seat.

Jack made his way to the weapons console at Carter’s suggestion. “Returning fire.” These controls at least seemed pretty easy to figure out despite the alien writing.

A series of violent quakes ran through the vessel as they came under more fire. Daniel went the color of milk, swallowing repeatedly, but it was no use. A moment later he lifted himself shakily up on one elbow and proceeded to decorate the cabin floor, or would have if he’d had anything left to lose. He remained this way even after the dry heaving stopped, breathing heavily with one arm wrapped protectively around his middle. Having no additional targets to shoot at, Jack knelt down beside his friend and ran his hand up and down Daniel’s back. “Easy, Daniel. Easy.”

“I-I think that was an explosion. Something just shorted out,” Carter announced. “I’m pretty sure our power output is dropping. … Shields are failing!” she reported a moment later.

There was a sharp, massive jolt, as if a giant hammer wielded by some angry god had smashed into the ship. The force of the blow nearly knocked Jack onto his ass. Daniel emitted a low groan and folded over. Jack caught him in his arms and lowered the unconscious man back onto the floor. All of this jostling and moving around could not be good for Daniel’s injuries.

“We are losing altitude,” said Teal’c over the noise of the engine whining and the compartment rattling. Something important had obviously been damaged.

Below them, the trees were growing alarmingly larger and closer. The cabin bucked as the craft scraped the topmost branches of the jungle canopy. It was inevitable; they were going to crash.

“I suggest you hold onto something,” Teal’c advised.

Down plummeted the ship. Tree branches cracked and snapped. Some were shorn off altogether as the vessel descended.

Whumph!

The bottom of the fighter struck something very large and very hard. The ship shuddered as if gripped by a powerful earthquake, then smashed into the jungle floor in a tangle of leaves and wood with the terrible screech of grinding metal.

Chapter Text

Jack woke slowly to incredible pain. His left calf muscle was knotted tightly in a terrible spasm. He could do nothing but ride out the pain, vigorously massaging the cramp. When it finally relaxed, he found Teal’c and Carter looking at him sympathetically. Teal’c extended a hand to help him up.

“Thanks, T. I’m alright.” He took quick stock of himself. His arms were badly bruised, and his knees were very sore. His muscles still felt shaky and weak from the fire stick, but the pain was manageable, and nothing was broken. All told, it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

Taking stock of his team, he saw that Teal’c had a gash on his arm where he’d struck a console. Carter was favoring her right arm and her forehead was bleeding from a nasty cut. Daniel remained unconscious but otherwise hadn’t sustained any other injuries. Considering how forcefully the ship had struck the trees, it seemed a miracle the craft was still mostly intact, and that they had escaped with so few injuries. He figured enough of the vessel’s shields must have been left to hold it together and provide them some protection. The amount of smoke in the air and the cacophony of blaring alarms told him they probably didn’t have much time before the ship disintegrated.

“We have to get out of here, now,” Carter urged. She began to cough from the acrid air.

“Yeah, I hear ya.” Jack grabbed Teal’c’s staff weapon while the large man adjusted Daniel’s unconscious form in his arms in a casual way that made Jack jealous of his superior strength. The Jaffa set off at a punishing sprint through a breach in the ship’s hull into the dense undergrowth, Jack and Carter close behind.

They had not gone more than a few hundred feet when the wrecked vessel finally gave out, exploding with a deafening boom in a tremendous cloud of smoke and fire. Jack flattened himself to the ground as a concussive shock wave washed over him. He caught sight of Carter’s pale face, which seemed to express exactly what he was thinking: that had been much too close.

Teal’c got to his feet first. “We require a better means of transporting Daniel Jackson,” he said. He and Carter set about fashioning a makeshift litter out of two long branches, smaller sticks and some spare clothes while Jack kept watching the smoldering remains of the craft, unable to look away. With dismay he saw the swath of destruction they had made. It was like a beacon telling anyone exactly where they were: gigantic trees snapped in half, limbs hanging sadly; undergrowth obliterated in the heat and force of the crash; and a huge trench gouged into the land.

Carter shook him out of his reverie. “Sir? Sir, we’d better keep moving.”

“Yeah. Right.”

Teal’c lead the way through the trees. Harsh voices and the flickering light of torches nearly stopped them in their tracks. “A Jaffa search party,” said Teal’c.

“How the hell did they catch up to us so quickly?” said Jack.

“It is likely they have been patrolling the forest, O’Neill,” Teal’c supplied.

It was pitch black among the thick undergrowth and low-hanging boughs of the trees. The darkness pressed in like a tangible thing. Jack’s legs soon felt like lead as they maneuvered to stay ahead of their pursuers, trying all the while to carry their injured team member and keep as quiet as possible.

* * *

SG-1 kept going at a hurried sprint for what seemed like hours to Sam. The voices of the search party continually rose and fell, sometimes to their right, sometimes from behind, but moving far faster than she would have thought possible given the dense vegetation. The Jaffa had split up, taking different directions in an attempt to surround them and cut off their escape. The flickering orange light of their torches cast eerie shadows through the tangled undergrowth. She also realized that they had become completely turned around in the dark despite their efforts to navigate true. Overhead, another three Goa’uld ships buzzed by, heading for the town.

At last, Sam could go no further without a rest. Her forehead throbbed from where she’d struck it against something, giving her a sizable lump and a bleeding cut. Her arm still hurt from being hit with that tree limb hours ago during the storm.

Colonel O’Neill was flagging too. Sweat dripped down his face. His breath came in panting gasps, and it looked like his knees were going to give out any second now. Even Teal’c’s pace was slowing. Though he was stronger and had increased stamina thanks to Junior, there was a limit to his endurance.

It was Teal’c who spotted a sort of shelter made by some rock formations and low overhanging tree limbs. They entered, and the Jaffa gently set the litter down on the ground.

Sam was as exhausted as the rest of her team, especially after taking a short turn carrying the other side of Daniel’s litter when Colonel O’Neill’s arms had seized. She collapsed down onto a flat rock struggling to catch her breath and dabbed the sweat from her forehead with her sleeve, clutching at a painful stitch in her side. Teal’c switched places with the colonel, taking up guard by the entrance while O’Neill cast himself down on the ground with a groan, massaging his arms and knees.

Slowly the hostile voices began to fade as the search parties passed their hiding place and moved on ahead. Only when the voices fell silent and the last torch disappeared from view did Sam finally let out the breath she was holding. Colonel O’Neill drew over to where she sat carrying a sterile wipe and a bandage, and began to tend to her injury.

“Thanks,” she said gratefully.

He lingered, smiling, and tenderly brushed a lock of hair away from her newly-bandaged wound. “No problem.” He gave her shoulder a pat, then moved off to see to Teal’c’s arm.

Sam dug a canteen out of her pack and downed some Tylenol to blunt her headache. Then she knelt down in front of Daniel. The bright beam of her flashlight illuminated the thin, haggard form of her teammate. He must have regained consciousness at some point, because he stirred listlessly. Her concern for the archeologist mounted when she took in his ashen complexion and his expression, which conveyed significant discomfort.

Sam carefully raised his shirt and examined his injury. A sizable area around his left flank had turned a dark purple and was rigid and distended - a bad sign. Next, she had a look at his head. She cleaned the dried blood from his face and gently lifted his head to give him a drink of water.

“What is the condition of Daniel Jackson?” asked Teal’c from his defensive position at the mouth of the rock formation when he saw what she was doing.

“Not good. His pulse is weak. He’s cold and clammy. I’m worried he’s going into shock.” Sam rubbed Daniel’s shoulder soothingly, then gave him a shot for the pain and got out a second thermal blanket to cover him with.

“Is there nothing more we can do for him?” asked Teal’c.

Sam shook her head with a helpless sigh and wrapped the blanket around Daniel’s shivering form. “I’ve done all I can. He has a severe concussion. He’s bleeding internally. We need to get him back to Janet as soon as possible.

“How far are we from the ‘gate?” O’Neill asked.

Sam checked the navigation. Thankfully they were somewhat back on course. “Not far.”

“Then we’d better get moving. I don’t want to get caught by another search party.”

Awareness came slowly to Daniel’s fuzzy brain. He had been drifting in and out of consciousness while imprisoned by the Jaffa, on the Giaran ship, and then during their sojourn through the jungle, lying on some kind of litter. He would wake periodically when the pain surged. This time, he was roused by light. Instead of the impenetrable blackness of the thick foliage, there was a brightness in the sky: the sun had risen and was casting reddened rays through small breaks in the trees.

Daniel kept his eyes closed. He didn’t have the energy to open them. His head and the left side of his abdomen were twin beacons of agony, thankfully numbed by the morphine in his system. He wished he wasn’t such a burden on his teammates, who had to carry him the entire way.

Through his closed lids, Daniel perceived the light getting brighter. Then suddenly, movement ceased as Teal’c and Jack stopped in their tracks. Daniel had the vague sense of being lowered to the ground. He inhaled sharply from a flare of pain caused by inadvertent jostling and battled with the dizziness and nausea.

“I count ten Jaffa beside the ’gate,” he heard Teal’c report.

“What about those shield thingies?” said Jack.

There was a pause, then Teal’c replied, “Though I do not see them, this does not mean they are not hidden somewhere.”

“What are those two doing?” came Jack’s voice again.

Teal’c answered after a moment. “I believe they are attempting to sabotage the DHD...”

Daniel lost track of the conversation, consumed by a fresh wave of pain as the drug in his system began wearing off. Cold… why was it so cold? Wasn’t this supposed to be a tropical environment? Yet he couldn’t stop shivering uncontrollably, even though someone had draped two of those thermal blankets over him. He realized he must have made some sort of sound that communicated his distress, for he felt a gentle hand on his shoulder that roused him from his semi-conscious state.

“Daniel,” came Sam’s voice. He opened his eyes a few millimeters to find his friend’s blurry face looking down at him with a sympathetic expression. He felt her hand rub his arm. “I know you’re feeling awful. I promise we’re doing everything we can to get you home. Try to hang on a little longer, ok?”

Daniel wanted to tell her he understood, to thank her, but he just didn’t have the strength to form the words. His eyes drifted closed once more.

“You’re dehydrated. Can you manage something to drink?” she continued.

Drink. His fuzzy mind struggled to process what she was saying. His throat was parched. A little water would be nice. He consented with a woozy nod. Daniel felt Sam’s hand shift to support the back of his head to help him sip the water she held to his lips.

Daniel had no idea how much time passed before Sam gently lowered his head down. His back had arched in response to another wave of agony. Daniel just concentrated on trying to breathe through it, unable to keep the pain from his expression. He barely felt it when someone administered another shot. A hand, likely Sam’s, then rubbed his shoulder in a soothing, circular motion.

A roaring in his ears warned him that he was going to pass out again. The last thing he heard before everything faded out was Sam’s voice discussing with Teal’c and Jack a strategy to retake the Stargate.

* * *

Carter stroked Daniel’s hair again as she watched him slip back into unconsciousness, clearly hating to see him in a state of obvious suffering, especially when there was so little they could do to help. Carter checked her weapon. “Are you ready?”

“If they’ve set up any of those shield devices this’ll all be over reeeaaal quick,” warned Jack. On his signal, they each took up different positions at the edge of the trees. Nearby, the archeological ruins where all of this had started stood abandoned, silhouetted against the rising sun.

Another hand signal went up, and three weapons fired simultaneously at the unsuspecting Jaffa. Four enemies went down in the initial volley. So they hadn’t set up any shields after all. Gee, it was nice to catch a break once in a while.

The remaining Jaffa, instantly alert, came charging into the trees, shouting orders and firing staff weapons in an all-out assault. Blasts filled the air, striking ground, trees and bushes. SG-1 took full advantage of their cover among the foliage. After firing a few rounds, Jack threw himself behind some kind of very densely-leafed bush, landing on his hands and knees, wincing as the latter bore his weight on the uneven jungle floor. He glanced to his right, where Carter had chosen a boulder for cover while Teal’c took up position next to Daniel behind a tree, in position to protect both himself and the archeologist.

As the Jaffa came at them, SG-1 fired from their defensive positions. Twice the warriors nearly cooked his bacon, but Jack managed to dodge the blasts. His bush, however, was soon obliterated and he had to dash to Carter’s boulder for safety, firing as he went.

“Get down!” he shouted suddenly, pushing Carter none too gently to the ground while he opened fire on a Jaffa who had circled around behind the large rock and would have killed them both. The warrior went down and did not rise.

Carter lifted her head and rose slowly into a crouch. “Thanks.” She lost no to time eliminating one of the two remaining Jaffa.

Teal’c dispatched the other. Cautiously the big man stepped out from behind the tree. “I believe the shoreline is unimpeded, O’Neill,” he said.

“It’s ‘the coast is clear’, big guy,” Jack corrected. He joined Teal’c at the tree where Daniel lay in a drugged sleep and together they bent to lift the archeologist’s bier. Jack ignored the loud protests from his still-shaky muscles, cursing when his right hand chose to contract into a painful claw.

As Jack stepped into the clearing, he saw the blasted remains of three shield modules and the bodies of six Giaran guards. It looked like the Jaffa had destroyed everything in their efforts to control the Stargate. The MALP was still there, and though it looked a little beat up, a quick check showed that the communication array was still functional.

Gently, he and Teal’c positioned Daniel close to the ‘gate while Carter went to examine the DHD. Jack took a seat beside the injured man while she worked. Teal’c, staff weapon held ready, kept watch for the arrival of any more hostiles. He seemed to be taking it personally that the Goa’uld had caused so much damage and suffering to the people of this planet. An angry tic worked in his jaw. Jack felt like he’d hear Teal’c growling if he got close enough.

His attention shifted away from Teal’c as the injured man next to him made a sudden motion. Knowing what was going to happen, Jack rolled Daniel onto his side, supporting him while he heaved. At this point there was nothing but water left in his stomach. When it finally stopped, Jack felt Daniel shivering again despite the heat and the blankets covering him.

Carter’s voice soon reached his ears. “Looks like we got lucky. They were only able to partially sabotage the DHD. I should be able to fix it.” She came over and knelt down next to where Jack and Daniel were to retrieve some tools from the pack beside them. “How’s he holding up?”

Jack shook his head. “Not good. He just lost that water you gave him. He’s in shock. Dammit, Carter, he needs the infirmary right now.” He exhaled in frustration and concern. “I’m not sure how much longer he can last without medical attention.”

“Daniel’s tough, sir. He’ll make it,” Carter asserted, then grimaced at the sound of Daniel’s stifled moans of pain. She smoothed the hair away from the archeologist’s face, wincing at how cold and sweaty his skin felt and how pale he was. She squeezed the linguist’s arm. “Hold on just a little longer, Daniel,” she encouraged, then stood and immediately got to work fixing the DHD.

Hardly two minutes had elapsed before Jack heard rustling in the nearby forest. His head snapped up in time to see five more Jaffa come jogging out of the trees.

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud.” Jack shouted a warning, fumbling awkwardly for his P-90. Staff weapon blasts soon filled the air once more.

Teal’c leapt in front of both he and Major Carter to return fire. His anger seemed to give him an edge, and he downed two of the enemy warriors within seconds. From his position on the ground supporting a vomiting Daniel, Jack was unable to offer Teal’c any assistance. “Easy, easy,” he tried to soothe, rubbing the archeologist’s back. He soon felt Daniel slump over limply. “Carter, I hate to nag, but are you almost finished?”

“I’m working as fast as I can,” Carter called back.

At this point Jack had to let Teal’c deal with the Jaffa threat, which he seemed to be handling well, for another enemy soldier fell to Teal’c’s expert shooting. Jack could do nothing but keep a low profile and keep Daniel as comfortable as possible while using their packs to elevate his legs. The injured man was still taking shallow, shuddering breaths, but they sounded labored and full of pain.

The image of his buddy John lying shot and drowning in his own blood flashed before Jack’s eyes. During his time with special ops, he had witnessed far too many men he cared about die right in front of him from horrible injuries that he could do nothing to fix. This situation was far too similar for his liking. He glanced down at Daniel, sincerely hoping they could get him home before it was too late.

“Got it!” came Carter’s triumphant voice, just as Teal’c neutralized the final Jaffa. Her hands flew over the controls, dialing Earth. As soon as the event horizon formed she immediately sent across SG-1’s IDC and radioed to let Hammond know they had a medical emergency. It was then that another three Jaffa came running toward them. Dirt and leaves sprayed into the air from the impact of their staff blasts.

“Go!” yelled Teal’c, “I will deal with these.” Jack carefully lifted Daniel while Teal’c covered their retreat. “Comin’ in hot!” Jack warned over his radio, and plunged into the rippling blue of the wormhole.

A medical team arrived to load Daniel onto a gurney as soon as Jack’s boots hit the ramp. Everyone had to take cover as staff weapon blasts flew though the event horizon. A few moments later, Teal’c leapt onto the metal incline and the wormhole winked out of existence.

There was a frenzy of activity as the medics rushed a shocky, unconscious Daniel to the infirmary for surgery. Jack exchanged worried glances with Teal’c and Carter as they listened to the medical personnel converse.

“What the hell happened?” General Hammond wanted to know.

“It’s a long story, sir,” said Major Carter. She was breathing heavily; all of them were.

General Hammond scrutinized the remainder of his front-line team. They looked exhausted and sweaty and generally worse for wear. He decided it was best to let them rest and be examined by Doctor Fraiser before he heard the details. “Alright. We’ll debrief later. Report to the infirmary.”

The rest of SG-1 followed Daniel to the infirmary for their post-mission exams and for treatment of their injuries.

Chapter Text

“You require rest, O’Neill,” Teal’c addressed the commander of SG-1. The military man sat slumped in a chair in the waiting area outside the infirmary appearing weary and concerned.

O’Neill glanced up at him without moving. “He’s still in there,” he said, gesturing toward the medical ward. “What’s taking so long?”

“Doctor Fraiser has already explained that the procedure to repair the damage to Daniel Jackson’s spleen may take ten hours or more,” Teal’c reminded him.

Nearly twelve hours had elapsed since their arrival at the SGC. Doctor Fraiser had examined them, treated their injuries, and instructed them to rest while Daniel Jackson underwent surgery.

Teal’c had followed these instructions. His kelno’reem had healed the remainder of his injuries and eliminated his fatigue. Major Carter had followed the instructions as well while being observed in the infirmary for her head injury. O’Neill, however, had not.

Teal’c noted the worried lines on his friend’s face and the colonel’s drooping eyes. He placed a reassuring hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Daniel Jackson will make a full recovery. Of this, I am sure. You must rest so that you may assist him in his recovery.”

“Yes, sir, please listen to Teal’c,” said Doctor Fraiser, emerging from the infirmary.

O’Neill leapt from the chair as if a contingent of Jaffa threatened him. “Doc… what’s the word? How is he?”

“He pulled through just fine, Colonel,” Fraiser assured. “He’s being moved to recovery.”

“Great.”

O’Neill charged forward. His entry into the medical ward was halted by the petite healer’s hand. “Excuse me, where do you think you’re going, sir? No visitors until he’s out of post-op, you know that.”

“But Doc —”

“No buts. Daniel needs rest. And so do you.”

“Aw, come on, Doc.”

“Sir, you barely slept during your observation period in my infirmary,” Doctor Fraiser accused, “and the fact that you’re still here tells me that you didn’t go to your quarters and take your muscle relaxants like I ordered you to. You endured a prolonged period of intense pain and spasms from that Goa’uld fire stick. You need rest to recover your strength.”

“Napoleonic power-monger.”

“Keep that up and I’ll sedate you,” replied Doctor Fraiser, shaking the medical chart threateningly in O’Neill’s direction.

“I will hold him down as you do so,” offered Teal’c. Doctor Fraiser smirked.

O’Neill raised his hands in surrender. “Fine. You got me. I’m going.”

“That’s what I thought.” The healer’s face softened. “You can see Daniel as soon as you’ve had a full night’s sleep.”

“Sure. Alright. ‘Night, Doc, T.”

Jack ended up sleeping far longer than he intended. He woke up ten hours later feeling rested and refreshed. He had to admit, the medication and extended sleep had done wonders for his sore muscles. He hadn’t suffered a single spasm since last night in the infirmary.

He met Carter sitting by Daniel’s bedside, head bandaged and arm resting in a sling. “How’s he doing?”

“Sleeping. Finally. He had a rough time.”

“Oh?”

“Let’s just say he went through a lot of anti-nausea medication, sir,” she reported with a little shudder. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better. You?”

“Great,” she said as Teal’c came to join them. Then Daniel began to stir.

“Hey, buddy. How ya feelin’?”

The archeologist opened his eyes partway. He squinted myopically at them, frowned and mumbled, “got a scar on both sides now,” then promptly dropped back off to sleep.

“He’s doing very well, all things considered,” Janet offered with a smile, drawing over to Daniel’s bed, chart in hand. “There were no complications during his surgery. However, he sustained quite a blow to the head. We’ll be watching that closely. Right now, I need to check his vitals, but after that you’re welcome to sit with him.”

Four days later, the team were back at Daniel’s bedside after returning from another trip to Giara. “How are the Giaran people holding up?” asked Daniel taking a tentative sip of water.

“Pretty well, all things considered,” answered Sam.

“It’s my fault their town was destroyed,” said Daniel sadly with obvious guilt.

“Not so fast, buddy,” said Jack. “We all share the blame in that. All of us were involved in digging up that pyramid doohickey. And to be fair, we had no idea what it did, or that it would end up in the wrong hands.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re not responsible, Jack.”

“No,” Jack agreed. “That’s why we’re helping the Giarans rebuild their town and to put some additional defenses in place. I’m gonna see if they’ll give us one of their shield devices —”

“Jack.”

“Alright, never mind. But the point is, the Giarans don’t blame us for what happened.

“Maybe they should. I translated that text for Re’lar, allowing him to use the artifact to invade their world. If anyone’s to blame it should be me.”

“You did the translation to stop Re’lar from hurting me,” said Jack. “The Giarans don’t know what went down while you and I were captive. They’re grateful for the part we played in helping them overcome the Goa’uld. Actually, they consider Teal’c to be quite the hero. They’re pretty fond of Carter, too.”

Teal’c fixed Jack with an inscrutable look. Daniel still felt uneasy.

“We thought you’d also like to know that the Chief Shield Technician, Carlim, along with Professor Darius’ student Siarra, and many of the university staff set up a memorial for him at the university,” said Sam. “Once you’re recovered enough I told them you’d like to see it.”

“Th-that would be nice.” Daniel winced as his pain flared, through he tried to cover it up.

“I almost forgot…” Sam dug in her pocket for something. She drew out a small stone statue. Daniel recognized it as Professor Darius’ good luck artifact. “Professor Darius’ wife wanted you to have this.”

Daniel took the little statue and turned it around in his hands, noticing the smoother areas where the professor had repeatedly run his fingers over it. “Are you sure? Wouldn’t she rather keep it?”

“She has informed us that there are other items of greater value to her which she will use to remember him by,” explained Teal’c. “She wished for a friend of her husband’s to retain a memory of him.”

Daniel was flattered to hear that Darius considered him a friend after knowing him for such a short period of time. “Thank you. Tell her I apprec—” Pain got the better of Daniel as he shifted. He grunted and sucked in a breath through his teeth.

“Hey, take it easy. You need a hand?”

“Please.”

Jack pushed the button to give his friend a dose of painkillers.

“Thanks.”

“Come on, sir, we’d better go. Get some rest, Daniel.” Sam patted his shoulder and gave him a quick peck on the forehead. As the team left, Daniel continued to examine Darius’ statue, idly fingering the bandage on his head, lost in thought.

“You alright?”

Daniel looked up to find Jack still standing there, studying him. He smiled briefly. “Yeah. I was just thinking… we travel to other worlds, we interfere in the beliefs and practices of other groups of people, we find dangerous artifacts that do serious damage... hell, we almost killed an entire planet of people when we screwed up their sun. At what point does the price of exploration become too high? At what point should we just stop meddling and leave others be?”

Jack heaved a sigh. “Exploration can be risky, Daniel, for us and for the people on the other side of the wormhole. Yeah, we make mistakes. We interfere in other cultures. We turn up stuff that probably should remain buried. But despite that, we’re not gonna stop exploring. We’re not gonna turn in the towel because of what might happen. We’re gonna keep goin’ out there and doing the best we can. Alright?”

Daniel bowed his head with a weak nod, again studying the little artifact in his palm and thinking of the man who had owned it.

“Hey, if you’re up for it, I’ll bring the gang around to keep you company for dinner. Your food will be pretty bland, but Teal’c’s got this great little recipe for Jamaican jerk chicken that’ll spice it right up.”

Daniel grimaced. Jack had to be joking. The thought of food made his stomach churn. Daniel swallowed uncomfortably, wondering if someone could increase his anti-nausea medication. “See you later, Jack.”

Jack smiled fondly in response. “Get some rest.”

Daniel watched him go, mulling over his words. He didn’t want to stop exploring. He didn’t want to stop meeting new people. Yet it was difficult to watch those same people get hurt or killed because of their actions.

Now quite sleepy, Daniel stowed the little stone statue on the cart beside his bed, vowing to be more careful with his quest for knowledge next time he stepped through the ‘gate - there most certainly would be a next time. He closed his eyes. Daniel’s last thought before drifting off was to imagine how Janet would react to Jack sneaking Teal’c’s jerk chicken (or anything that wasn’t broth or mush) onto his food tray. He smiled, deciding she would totally kick Jack’s ass.

THE END