• SPOILERS: None
• SUMMARY: When a mission goes wrong, Jack and Daniel are stuck together under the nose of a wannabe System Lord.
• RATING: G, Humor

Jack O’Neill leaned back in the rotating chair in the briefing room. He stared at the wall, bored and waiting for the General to brief them. From the memo, it seemed that mission ahead would be too easy. They’d had entirely too many of those easy missions lately.   Well, at least he wasn’t alone.   Daniel, sitting across from him seemed to think that way too. He was absentmindedly drumming a pencil on the desk, and it was getting annoying.   “Could you cut it out?” Jack asked.

Daniel glanced at Jack and stopped immediately just as General Hammond walked into the room. “Good morning, people.” All four of the team muttered a similar greeting. “Well, let’s get down to business. Major, what’s the situation?”

Carter stood and cleared her throat, picking up a manila folder and searching through it. She gave each of the team members a sheet of paper with some type of data written entirely in Carter’s language. Jack glanced at it but didn’t see it. Carter picked up a control for the screen at the far side of the briefing room. She clicked a few buttons, and the screen showed the video of the M.A.L.P they sent yesterday to the planet they would go to today. “As you can see,” she said, “the planet is apparently uninhabited, at least around the Stargate area. There’s no sign of footprints or torn underbrush, at least.” The planet looked awfully full of forest. They all knew Jaffa didn’t care much for the wild when they walked through it.   The screen switched to the UAV video from yesterday. “The UAV shows that some type of village existed here a while ago, but whoever they were, they aren’t there now.”

The General looked at Daniel. “That’s what I want you to do. Find out as much as you can about why they aren’t there anymore.” Daniel nodded. Carter continued.

“Now, the Tok’ra have just contacted us about a week ago about an alien device these people were devising, but they left it in fleeing their village.   The device is supposedly used to cure friends of the makers but harm enemies. I’m suspecting it has some of the element used to power a sarcophagus, but I’ll need a look at how it understands who is an enemy and who is a friend.

General Hammond nodded. “Your mission is to find and retrieve this piece of technology and find out as much as you can about this civilization. Good luck.”

They stepped through the ’Gate and glanced around them. This area sure was inhabited by a lot of tree life. “Okay, move out,” Jack ordered.

It took them a half hour or so to make it to the ruins. Daniel immediately started examining several writings on the crumbling stone arch to the town. Carter started walking through the ruins, looking for any sign of a device. “If it’s here,” she thought out loud, “it’s probably hidden pretty well.”

Teal’c sort of just stood around alongside his staff weapon and looked at his surroundings, taking it all in. “There is indeed a sense of old turmoil here, O’Neill.”

“Yeah, well, let’s grab the thingamabob and get off of this smelly planet,” Jack commented, scrunching his nose.

Daniel turned from deciphering symbols. “As much as I hate it here too, Jack, there’s an awful lot here to translate. It could take me a while.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “Alright!   Get moving, then. I want to be out of here by sunset.”

Teal’c went to help Carter look for the device, and Jack sat against the base of the ruins, watching the trees sway and Daniel work. He took one long walk around ten o’clock, claiming to be checking out the area and then regrouped at the entrance to the ruins at midday to check on everybody. Daniel was working on the other side of the collapsed arch, and Teal’c and Carter came back with nothing in their hands. “Going well, I presume?” Jack asked sarcastically while getting out a sandwich from his pack.

“Actually, no,” Carter frowned. “I’ve searched this entire town inside and out, and there doesn’t seem to be anything even remotely relating to a device of protection and healing. But I do seem to hear a buzzing or ticking sound everywhere we go, and Teal’c hears it to. I think…” she trailed off, looking like she knew Jack wouldn’t like this piece of news.

“You think what, Carter?” Jack turned to the side and pushed the back of his ear forward in a sarcastic effort to hear her. He was getting impatient with the lack of success from the team.

Carter looked down and then caught his eyes. “I think it may be underground, sir.”

Annoyed, Jack cursed under his breath. It was only natural that this would come up. It didn’t make the trip any more exciting. It just forced them to stay there longer. “Can you look any harder?” he said to Carter. “If you don’t find it soon, we’re going home and handing this problem over to the General.” Carter nodded reluctantly.

“Actually, Jack,” Daniel started, looking up from his pad of paper and pen, “there’s a good reason to stay longer.”

“And what could that possibly be?” Jack said and took another bite of his sandwich, taking into account the fact that Daniel had been more involved in his work than usual.

“Well, it’s interesting. See, I’ve encountered a different variation of both a certain Native American language and Egyptian. In that case, there must have been a culture diffusion of some sort when the Goa’uld brought this people here. It’s harder to translate it this way, but part of it is really interesting.” Daniel flipped his notepad back a page and read from it while Jack rolled his eyes in impatience. This mission was really starting to get to him. “It says here in the Native American dialect, ‘All that enter are fools.   Beware the Taker.’ Then it says in the Egyptian dialect, ‘All that enter are worthy. Befriend the Giver.’ At least, I think that’s what it says.”   Daniel looked up to see what his teammates made of this.

“It’s a contradiction of itself, for crying out loud!” Jack shouted.   “Shows how smart they were. They probably blew themselves to smithereens, for all I care.” Daniel, looking exasperated but holding it in, turned to Carter.

“Well, they could mean the device they made. It could be a warning.” She shrugged, indicating she was only guessing.

“Hmm…maybe it is a warning. And a welcome,” Daniel thought out loud. “Maybe whoever can read this form of Native American is warned, and whoever can read this form of Egyptian is welcomed. It’d make sense if it meant the device.”

Jack snorted. “Now, are we warned or welcomed?”

Daniel gave Jack a look at his making fun of how much Daniel can read.

Teal’c walked over to the arch and looked at it. “What you call Egyptian, Daniel Jackson, is in fact an early and presently unused dialect of Goa’uld.”

Daniel raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

“Well, I’ll leave you kids alone for a while,” Jack said to Daniel and Teal’c, finishing his sandwich. “I’ll keep looking with Carter. It’ll give me something to do.” He and Carter set off under the fallen arch.

They looked in several well-protected houses that hadn’t fallen yet, but found nothing. In one house, Jack found a vase of some sort with a powder in it that looked like a dried drink. There was still food on the table, or rather, plates that once held food. “Geez, it looks like they all just got up and left,” Jack said to Carter.

“Yes, sir. Creepy.   But worth a look.”

As they walked out, Jack stopped, listening. There was a sound, a clicking or humming. He couldn’t decipher which because, if it were clicking, it clicked very fast. Sort of like a motor, but Jack frowned at the poor analogy. “Shh,” he said to Carter. “Hear that?” It seemed to get louder. He looked around and tilted his head for a definite source of the sound. Yep, it was under them.

“Yes, sir. That’s what I was talking about. It could be the device.”

“It could be the device,” Jack was saying, “but it also could be a bomb.” He was always the one that kept an eye out for military traps. This was almost certainly one, in his mind.

“It could be a bomb, but we don’t know that,” Carter protested. “I mean, who would put a bomb here, especially recently. The M.A.L.P. didn’t show any signs of aliens having been by the Stargate. The UAV didn’t see any signs of—”

“Ah, yes, but M.A.L.P.s and UAVs can be deceiving.” He waved a finger in front of Carter’s face. “They could have had a ship or something.”

“But they would have had to land nearby to set the bomb and get out of here.   And the UAV would have picked the marks of the landing site up.”

“Not if this planet has rings,” Jack said to her. “And they could have been on the other side of the planet when we ran that UAV.   In that case, they might still be here, and we didn’t detect them. I want you and Teal’c to spread out and survey the area. I don’t think I could pull Daniel away from that arch for anything.   I’ll stay here and look for that sound, just to make sure. Stay on channel three on your radio, and expect the worst.” That was what his military experience had taught him, and he wasn’t about to omit that idea now.

Carter set off, and once she was out of sight, he lay down on the ground on his stomach and listened to it. He waited for silence to fall around him. Now, he could hear the hum in the ground, feel it traveling through to his ear.   Now that he could pay all his attention to the sound, he could hear a high-pitched beep every second, like a counter. His heart jumped at realizing he could be right. As he listened more closely, he could just barely make the assumption that the sound was about ten to fifteen feet below the surface. As far as he could tell, he was right above it.

He jumped up and looked around him. They couldn’t have just buried it that far down. There must have been a stairway or something in one of these houses. He jumped into the house with the vase and plates that they had just been in and stared around. Back in a little corner, he saw a door with no handle. He pushed against it, but it didn’t give.   Frustrated, he kicked it several times, and the door, made of rotten wood, cracked and fell apart, nearly to dust.   He ducked through it and nearly fell down a steep staircase. It was made of wood, which caused him to curse after seeing what happened to the door.   The ceiling was low and also made of wood, and there wasn’t a handle bar. He tested the strength of the wooden steps. They held, but they creaked loudly. He rushed down them, fearful of what would happen if he stayed too long on one.

All this time, the beeping and humming had grown louder. At the bottom of the stairs, he saw in a cold, dark, damp room made of rotting wood that smelled, two lights. One was a soft white glow seemingly on a table of some sort, and the other was a light blue one that changed location on every beep. By the deep voice the blue object shouted and the characters in blue on it, he knew at once he was right. But perhaps Carter had been right, too. He walked over to the thing glowing white, and looked it over after turning on his flashlight connected to his gun. It was a round object with apparent handlebars on each side.   It probably was the device, considering that it gave off the hum and the bomb gave off the beeping.

The weird thing was that if the early Goa’uld had made this, as Daniel’s translation might have suggested, then why was a Goa’uld bomb right next to it? It must have really given trouble to the Goa’uld or whoever had set this bomb.

Looking around the room quickly for anything else, he spotted a crack in the heavily written and scripted walls. He wouldn’t have checked it out except that the crack was straight and parallel to the floor, as if it was intentionally carved. He moved to it cautiously and tried to pull what was starting to seem like a drawer. It slid out, and he gaped at what lay inside.

Quickly, he moved over to the bomb and tried to find a way to disable it. He couldn’t take what was in the drawer, but he couldn’t let it blow up either. He cursed, realizing that this was Daniel or Teal’c’s area of expertise, considering they knew Goa’uld. He decided to run up and get Daniel before going on. But right before he turned to go up the creaking stairs, he decided to grab the device. If that thing did blow up before Daniel could disable it, then they’d want to keep the device out of harm’s way.

He turned to grab it by the handles—and felt a shock that jerked his entire body. He cried out and jumped back, cursing. He grabbed the device by the heavy base and ran up the stairs, hoping they wouldn’t give out.

As soon as he got out of the house, he radioed his team.

“Found it,” he said.

“That’s great!” came Carter’s voice.

“That is good news, O’Neill. Now we may return to the SGC, as you said you desired.”

“Where’d you find it?” Daniel asked in the radio, but he sounded like he had something else on his mind.

“Hold up, Daniel, I’m coming your way. Carter, Teal’c, keep looking, and be very careful. I found something else.”

It took him a while to get back to the arch, but he made it in ten minutes. Daniel looked up in interest and smiled. Jack smiled boastfully, but as he set it down by Daniel, he felt a little dizzy. “You okay?” Daniel asked, looking only somewhat concerned while he simultaneously tried to wipe some dirt off of a carved word.

“Yeah, fine.   Hey, I got a job for you. How would you like to dismantle a Goa’uld bomb?”

Daniel looked up at him in shock. “What?”

“Come on.”

Jack briefed him and told Carter and Teal’c the situation as they jogged to the shack and climbed one person at a time carefully down the stairs. They both turned their flashlights on, and Daniel went over to the bomb. “Uh, Jack?”

“What?”

“It says we have five minutes left.”

Naturally.   “Well get going!”

“It’ll take me longer than five minutes.”

“Try. Just try.”

He fiddled with an opening in the top and finally got it open after thirty seconds. “What do you want me to disable it for, anyway?   You know this is Sam’s department.   I don’t know if I can rewire this.   I’m a linguist.”

“Precisely.   Besides, I can’t get Carter personally in less than five minutes. Just do the best you can.” Once, when Daniel was working on some Goa’uld translation because Teal’c had some business on Chu’lak a few months ago, he’d asked Carter a few things about Goa’uld devices to help him out. Jack hoped that Daniel, with all his experience in languages, had gotten through to her language. Still, he knew Daniel needed all the help he could get.

“Carter, come in,” Jack said into the radio.

“Yeah?”

“Can you somehow help Daniel with this bomb?”

“I hope so, sir.”

“Great. You have five minutes,” Daniel told her.

“What?”

After a while of watching helplessly as Daniel rearranged the wires and Sam gave him specific yet problematic orders, Jack said, “How much time?”

Daniel stopped and listened for a moment to the echoing Goa’uld voice. “Shoot, Jack, only two minutes.”

“No hurry, just take all the time you need.”

“You’re really gonna wait until the last minute, aren’t you?” Daniel said and gave him a look.   Under the stress, Jack started feeling dizzy again. He blinked a few times.

“Sir, there’s no point in staying,” said Carter.

“Jack, we’ve got to go.”

Jack bounced on the balls of his feet anxiously. It was an awfully cool thingy in there, but maybe it could survive a bomb…he hoped. “Okay, time to go.”

They turned and started to climb the stairs. But their mistake was that they climbed them at the same time. The stairs fell to dust below their feet, and they fell.   Looking above him before they hit the pit in the rock below, Jack saw the waves of the bomb pass over the hole in the stairs.

“Colonel, come in,” Sam said into her radio, pushing aside some vines in her way.

No answer.

“Colonel, do you read me?”

Still nothing.

Her heart started beating fast. “Daniel?   Did you two get out okay?”

No answer from him, either.

Suddenly fearful for her teammates, she said, “Teal’c?”

“Major Carter.”

“Do you think they got out in time?”

“I do not know.”

“Okay, meet me at the arch.” She started making her way quickly through the thorn bushes to the town.

She arrived second, seeing Teal’c standing by the device the Colonel found. “Come on, we’ve got to find them.” She gulped, preparing for the worst.

They ran in search of a completely obliterated house. It must not have been a big bomb because they didn’t see it immediately, but soon they came across it. There was nothing left but a heap of rotten and scorched wood. The shacks beside it were badly damaged, also, if they could be any more damaged. Teal’c went closer, but Sam held him back. In a soft, sad voice, she said, “Don’t go near it, Teal’c. There might be radiation. We need to get back to the SGC.”

Daniel woke up with a terrible headache and, for that matter, his whole body aching. He felt like he had just been through a bad beating. He hated to open his eyes and face the situation at hand, but he knew he had to. He just knew whatever situation he was in, it was only a little better than death.

He opened his eyes and to his surprise found that he was lying on a wet stone floor in a prison cell. The air was cold and dead, as if they were underground. There was a mesh of bars on one side, and the rest of the walls were wet stone.   He could see torches lining the stone walls outside. On his right lay Jack, still unconscious.

Daniel tried to sit up but found that hard to do. All his gear was gone and he was left with his shirt and his military pants.   He was awfully battered and bruised, and from what he could see from the torches, Jack was the same. But he also looked awfully pale, like he had the flu or something.

Daniel noticed right off the bat that the cell they were in was Goa’uld. Of course. But why was everything made of stone? It wasn’t carved cleanly or anything. It wasn’t even vertical at points. It looked like everything had been made using dynamite.

A groan jerked Daniel’s head toward Jack. He was waking up. Jack opened his eyes and sat up immediately, but immediate things didn’t seem to go well with him at that moment. He coughed and lay back down on his back. “Where?” was all he managed to get out as he caught his breath. He sure was acting like he was sick.

“Are you okay?”

“Where?”

“Um,” Daniel looked around him. “A Goa’uld cell, but that’s all I can figure out.”

“How long…was I out?”

“I don’t know.   I woke up right before you. But it must have been a long time considering whoever got us out of that wreckage had to take us to a cell probably off of the world the bomb was on.”

Jack didn’t show any response but breathing hard and looking like it hurt to do so. Daniel leaned against the rough wall, waiting for the inevitable questioning and torture.

“Report!” General Hammond demanded immediately as Sam and Teal’c stepped through the ’Gate looking shocked and sad. “Where are the Colonel and Dr. Jackson?”

“They were taken in an explosion,” Sam managed to choke out.

General Hammond nodded and said in a much too civil tone for Sam, “Briefing room immediately.”

“He found the device in a cellar of one of the shacks.” She pointed to the device on the table in the briefing room. “From what I’ve seen so far, and that would not be much, it’s already turned on. I suggest no one touches it above the base. It’s possible it could make you sick. I’ll have to look at it more to find out how to turn it off.”

General Hammond nodded. “Now, what exactly happened with Colonel O’Neill and Jackson?”

Sam sat down.   “It was fast. After the Colonel realized there might be a bomb, he sent Teal’c and me to search the area for possible threats. Then he and Daniel were going to check out the bomb that had apparently sat alongside the device. But it was too fast. I tried to help him disable it by radio, but they couldn’t have escaped….” Sam looked away.   She was near tears now, and Teal’c got the idea that he should finish.

“I too heard the explosion.” General Hammond listened intently. “We traveled to the place of the bomb and saw it was demolished.”

“What are their chances?” General Hammond said.

“Little to none, Sir,” Sam said quickly, not letting the words sink in. “The truth is there may still be radiation there, but I’ll have to measure it. Then I suggest we get a team down there and…” she took a deep breath, “at least recover their bodies.”

“What I don’t understand is what was so important to risk their lives for.” General Hammond took a deep breath. “Alright. Get some rest and report back here at oh-five-hundred hours tomorrow morning.”

“But sir,” Sam said, “If they are alive, they’ll need help right now. The radiation could kill them.”

He sat there, contemplating. “Will you be ready and rested at oh-four-hundred hours this afternoon?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Indeed.”

“Then you’ll brief SG-6 at that time. Until then, get ready and refreshed. Good luck to you. Dismissed.” He stood and left the room. Sam and Teal’c exchanged looks of determination.

“Jack?”

“What?”

“Are you okay?   You don’t look too good.”

Jack sat up slowly this time and tried to make it look like he didn’t hurt so badly. But it was hard. “Fine, I’m fine,” he muttered. The fact was that he wasn’t exactly sure if he was fine. He kept his eyes closed tight so he wouldn’t see everything swimming around before him or the face of his friend that knew Jack was somehow hurt. He noticed right then that he felt chills all over, and a fever was coming on. He leaned against the cold rock wall.   “Bored, bruised, and captured all in one day. Oy.” He opened his eyes enough to see Daniel smile, but closed them again when he saw Daniel go quickly out of focus. “What was the last thing you remember?” Jack asked.

“Jack, if you think I have a concussion or something, don’t worry.”

“Actually, I was trying to figure out if I have one.”

There was a shocked silence. “Well, we were nearly blown to bits by that bomb.”

“Okay. I’m good, then,” he said, annoyed with the situation.

“Out of curiosity, why do you think you have a concussion?”

“Never mind.”   Jack then regained stable sight and tried to stand up. It worked, but he nearly lost his balance. “So, what’s for dinner?”

“Jack….”

Jack walked stiffly over to the mesh wall and shouted to some Jaffa down the hall.   “Hey! We’re hungry! Get your butts over here!”

“Jaffa, kree!” They got their butts over there.   Jack had to smile.

One Jaffa that had a golden symbol Jack had never seen before on his forehead grinned amusedly at Jack standing there in torn clothes and bruises. “You want food? You’re out of luck.” He pulled out what somewhat resembled a chicken leg and bit into it long and hard.

Jack ignored his beginning feelings of hunger. “Take me to your leader,” he said.

“If you are taken to Ammut, it will only be to suffer. For she is queen of suffering.”

“Ah. And who is this Ammut gal, anyway?”

The Jaffa trembled in fury at this. “Your god and your queen! You will kneel when she orders to see you.” The group of five or six Jaffa left, giving them smirks.

Jack turned, but felt like it took too much effort to do that. “So who the heck is this Ammut gal, anyway?”

Daniel shut his eyes and looked like he was racking his brain for some type of mythological character. “Ah, she was basically an Egyptian demon. In ancient Egypt, they believed that when you die, you basically have a court case with Osiris as the judge.”

“Ooh, they placed their lives in the hands of Osiris? Hate to be them.”

“Um, they weighed your heart against a feather, and if your heart was heavier, Ammut would devour you.”

“Great, she’s worse than Osiris?” Jack thought on this for a second. “She isn’t a System Lord, is she?”

“I don’t think so.”

Suddenly Jack got another dizzy spell and fell to the ground. He tried to get a hold of himself, but it was hard, and he broke out into a sweat. He could barely see Daniel walking toward him, and only heard his voice as an echo in his head. “Jack, there’s something you’re not telling me.   I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

Jack could barely get the words out. “I think we were warned, not welcomed.”

Sam finished putting on her gear and walked into the ’Gate room where SG-6 and Teal’c stood fastening a few more snaps and whatnot on their uniforms. The ’Gate was dialing and on its fifth chevron. “You ready?” she said to Teal’c.

“Indeed.”   The Stargate burst into life.

“Let’s move out!” she shouted.

They emerged on the other side a few seconds later and immediately made their way through the forest to the ruins. Sam had her radiation detector out and analyzed it as they approached the site.   As they came within twenty-five feet, Sam was surprised. “The radiation levels aren’t that bad,” she said. “I don’t think we’ll need the suits.” One of the SG-6 members dropped a duffel bag he was carrying on his back.   “Okay, let’s get them out of there!”

They spent the rest of the day throwing away rotten and scorched wood and shouting the colonel’s and Daniel’s names. They heard nothing back. At sunset, they managed, with Teal’c’s strength and SG-6’s tools, to get far down enough to the cellar to search for them. They turned on their flashlights and slipped down slanting wood into the rather well protected cellar. Sam searched thoroughly, hoping for a miracle.

“They aren’t here, Major,” pointed out one of SG-6. It couldn’t be.

“Keep looking.   They have to be here.”

“Could they not have escaped the wreckage, Major Carter?” Teal’c asked in the dark.

“No. By the small levels of radiation now, this was a small bomb, but with near contact, especially with the explosion and the amount of debris on top of them, they wouldn’t be able to get out without help.”

“Then I guess we’re back to square one,” the leader of SG-6 said.

“Well, wait a second,” Sam said. She’d seen this space before, but thought nothing of it. Right below what looked like had been a staircase, there was a pit.   It was possible Daniel and Colonel O’Neill had run up the stairs at the last minute but fell through due to the rotting wood. She stared down at the edge of the pit, but saw nothing but darkness. “There might be something down there.” Her voice strangely echoed. She aimed her light down there. Sure enough, something maybe ten feet down sparkled. “Get out some rope.”

Teal’c let her down inch by inch until she hit the bottom. She turned a full circle with her flashlight, but there was no one there.   But there was a ring platform.

“They’re not here, but they could have been transported somewhere nearby via rings,” she shouted gladly up to Teal’c and the waiting team. Some hope had begun to seep through her hardheaded military armor against emotion when she saw this pit. Now it was confirmed that they could be alive. No one would transport them if they were dead, she hoped. And then there was always the possibility of a sarcophagus.

She walked over to the controller for the rings, but it was clearly damaged. It could have been damaged with the bomb, but then how would the Colonel and Daniel have escaped before then? But it was also possible that debris had hit it and activated it. It was a stretch, but still possible. “Looks like I’m going to have to make some repairs,” she shouted upward.

“Ammut wishes to speak with you now.”

Daniel turned his attention to the Jaffa that slid open the cell. Two strong Jaffa grabbed Daniel and forced him to his feet. Two others lifted Jack. He made a grunting noise, but otherwise didn’t acknowledge them.   He was really out of it. Daniel took a deep breath as he was escorted with a staff weapon jabbing his back.

“Welcome, welcome, Tau’ri. Are you enjoying your stay?” said a Goa’uld in a woman’s body as they climbed stone stairs and turned a corner into a bright room. Like nearly all women hosts with power, this one was dressed fabulously in gold and silver and sitting on a throne. Daniel had decided long ago he would not speak at all for as long as he could, no matter how much Ammut toyed with him. “What is it? Do you not like your stay? Well, we can have none of that.” She smirked at them.

Daniel was hit behind him at the knees so he had to kneel. A strong hand was on his shoulder so he couldn’t stand, and a staff weapon was at his back. Beside him, Jack was on his knees and looked like he had just run several miles. The walk there, though, had revived him a little.

“Well, then, let us skip to the questioning. Who are you?”

Daniel kept his mouth shut.

“Naturally.   What were you doing when you attempted to disable my bomb? Did you not know that you could not halt your goddess’ will?”

Daniel didn’t say a word, even though he was very tempted.

“Speak, fool!”

“What were you thinking trying to blow up your own device?” Jack mumbled only loud enough for Ammut to hear.

“Ah, questions from all. We’ll make a deal. An answer for an answer. I ask you again. Who are you?”

No one made a sound.

“Very well.”   She nodded to the Jaffa. The one that was holding the staff weapon against Daniel turned to his left side and aimed the weapon at the side of his upper arm.   The same was done with Jack.   Daniel looked at him, knowing what he was going to do. At Ammut’s signal, they both shot their arms.

Daniel squeezed his eyes shut at the pain and fell to his stomach. He just barely heard the words, “This is what you get from disobeying your god. But you’re in luck. I can heal you.”  He heard Jack beside him grunt in pain. “Now tell me,” Ammut said matter-of-factly. “Who are you?” Even if Daniel wanted to answer he wouldn’t be able to get the words out. “Very well.” Suddenly he felt another shock of pain from his right arm. He cried out. Ammut jeered, “Do you wish this pain to leave or not? Who are you?”

Was it just him, or was Ammut a worse torturer than most Goa’uld? But he pushed that thought aside.

If only he was being shot, he wouldn’t have said a word. But Jack, sick no matter how much he denied it, was being shot too.   Another stifled grunt from Jack convinced him to blurt out whatever would stop this mess. “We’re travelers…explorers…we didn’t mean any harm.   We came in peace!” He could barely get the words out, so he spoke quickly.

“Ah, now we are getting somewhere.” He heard her light footsteps grow louder. Daniel dared to open his eyes and saw her kneel by his arm. He felt his left arm healing and the pain draining away. He could breathe easier now, but he noticed he felt nothing when he heard the healing device again. She was only healing one wound of each.   Smart girl.

A Jaffa pulled them upright by the shirt and held them kneeling. Jack looked terrible. He could barely stay aware because of the fever, and the wound on his arm didn’t help much. He looked like he’d had it. Still, he was aware enough to talk.

“So why’d you plan to destroy your own technology?” he asked wearily. “You promised.”

Ammut was back on her throne and glaring at them. “So I did. Well, I am one of my word. However, since you did not give a good explanation, neither shall I. The device no longer worked for me. That is all you need know.”

“So you mean it ‘harmed’ you instead of ‘healed’ you? But I thought it was supposed to heal the Goa’uld. Wasn’t it adopted and formed by the Goa’uld?” Daniel asked.

Ammut waved a finger amusedly. “Ah, ah, ah. One for one.”

“So no two for one deal? Shoot,” Jack mumbled through the fever.

Ammut ignored him.   “Here is your next question, and if you answer well, I will heal the other arm. Why did you try to disable my bomb?” Daniel pursed his lips, not letting one word slip out despite the pain.   “Do I have to warn you of what I may do if you do not answer me?” Not a word was spoken. “Very well.” She gave the cue. Daniel gulped. The Jaffa took his staff weapon and hit one end of it against his right arm, like a baseball bat hitting a baseball. The pain jumped all through his body. Daniel shouted out but quickly stifled it, and Jack grunted loudly through his clenched teeth. “I shall give you one more chance. Why did you try to disable my bomb!” There was silence besides Jack sipping air through his teeth. “You will suffer greatly. Obey and avoid this perilous fate.”

Nothing. And she would get nothing.

“Very well,” she said and snapped her over-dressed fingers. The sound of two zats firing echoed in Daniel’s ears.

“Major, we should report back to the base. They’ll be wondering,” shouted down one of SG-6.

“Fine. Use the M.A.L.P.” Sam was down in the ashes and scorched wood, dealing with fine wires and crystals with only a gun flashlight to light her way. They’d been there for several hours waiting for her.   Teal’c could wait eons and never mention boredom, but SG-6 was a different matter.

When they returned, she was only a few crystals away from finishing up. “Okay, guys,” she said, wiping off her hands and looking at her handiwork, “Start dropping down, we’re going in.” Teal’c started lowering the leader of SG-6 down the rope, but then an all-too-familiar sound and bright light came from above.   “They’re activating!” Sam shouted and quickly jumped out of the way, gun at the ready.

Amazingly, the rings above in the so-called dirt and concrete ceiling of the basement had not been damaged enough to pose a problem, so once the rings pulled upward again, Sam started shooting. She took down one or two Jaffa, and Teal’c shot some with his staff blast, but there were plenty to go around.

Sam backed up until she felt the cool, hard wall hit her back. She knew she couldn’t take them all. Fire was raining down from above where Teal’c was shooting, but she knew it wouldn’t help. Silently, one Jaffa stepped behind another for protection and aimed a zat gun at her.   She felt her muscles tense briefly and then fell to the ground.

Daniel woke up feeling like he’d been thrown around way too much that day. He sat up immediately but took care not to put weight on his right arm. He wondered somehow if Ammut knew that most humans were right-handed.

Without another glance or thought at his own wound, he stared at Jack, sweating and obviously feverish. It must have been that device Sam was looking for. He’d said he touched it….

Sam.

Would she and Teal’c come? Would they be able to find them?   How could they when Daniel didn’t even know where he was. If he and Jack were on a ship or on a different planet, she would never find them.   But if there was one thing he knew, it was that hope would get him and Jack through this.

If only Daniel had learned more from Sam on those rainy days, they might never have gotten in this situation in the first place.

Jack didn’t wake up for a few more hours, so all Daniel could do was sit and think things over.   He was getting awfully hungry, but Ammut didn’t seem to want to feed them. Was this another of her ways of torturing? What exactly did she want out of them anyway?

She said she wanted to know why he’d tried to disable the bomb, but he doubted that was all.   In fact, even Daniel didn’t know why they were trying to disable that bomb. He’d assumed at the time Jack wanted him to go over the writings down there, but now that he thought about it, Jack didn’t care at all about writings.   Well, Jack was right here, he could just ask him whenever he would wake up.

If he would wake up.

Daniel crawled over to Jack to look at his condition. He wasn’t good. He was breathing shallowly and was looked really pale and hot. He needed water. Daniel wasn’t sure how long it had been since their last meal, but judging by his hunger, it had been at least twelve hours. They could last a few days. Or Daniel could last a few days.

To make matters worse, he spotted some Jaffa coming down the rocky hall to their cell.   Without a word, they opened the cell and forced him to his feet. “No, he’s sick. He can’t stand,” Daniel told them when they tried to pull Jack to his feet.

The Jaffa with the gold symbol, probably the First Prime, took no notice of Daniel and kicked Jack hard in the ribs. When Jack showed no signs of waking, the Jaffa kicked him again, harder. Jack grunted and tried to roll over but was instead forced to his feet. He could barely support himself, though.

They were brought before Ammut again and forced to their knees. Ammut seemed to take notice of Jack’s weakening figure.   “What is wrong with him?” She asked Daniel.

As much as Daniel hated giving in to answering immediately, he realized it was Jack’s health and maybe his life at stake. “He’s sick.”

“I can see that. Why?”

“He…I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.   Tell me,” she said, putting on her most welcoming bittersweet smile. “I am intrigued. Perhaps I will even spare him suffering he already suffers.”

Daniel had learned not to take a Goa’uld promise literally, but she didn’t know that.   “He, um…He got an infection. You know, he got a cut in the woods, and he…got an infection,” Daniel lied matter-of-factly.

“You sound as if you do not care for this man.” The statement slashed through his heart, and he was speechless. “I can easily dispose of him for you. He will be of no use to me if he cannot speak.”   Daniel looked over to Jack. He couldn’t tell if he was conscious or not, but he was held up entirely by the Jaffa behind him.

“Couldn’t you heal him? Don’t you have a sarcophagus?”

Ammut didn’t answer him immediately but stared. “You know the price, Tau’ri. One for one.”

But Daniel already knew the answer to his own question.

“Why were you on the planet of Talpht?”

Daniel raised his eyebrows at the question. “You mean the planet with the bomb?” He asked quickly. Ammut nodded her head, not to him, but the Jaffa behind him.   He felt a hard kick from a boot of metal armor into the small of his back. The Jaffa wouldn’t let him fall forward.

“Do not speak to your god in that tone!” Shouted the Jaffa behind him.

“Yes, I mean that planet,” Daniel heard Ammut say calmly.

“I told you,” Daniel gasped. “We’re explorers. We explore.”   Daniel felt another kick in the same spot. He winced.

“I ask again.   Why were you on Talpht?”

Daniel let the silence fall for as long as it would hold. He decided this wouldn’t be too risky. “We heard of that device you were trying to blow up.”

“From whom?”   Daniel didn’t say a word. “Who is ‘we’? There are others?” Never mind.   It had been risky. Daniel waited for a blow.

But Ammut smiled.   “Ah. Did you not realize that I would know that information you will not willingly give is more important? Therefore I will work harder for it.” Instead of nodding toward the Jaffa behind Daniel, she nodded to the one behind Jack.   Jack was kicked hard in the small of the back, but he barely winced. “The Tau’ri are known for being protective. Is this not your weakness?” Daniel tried to keep his face unconcerned, but it was hard. “Let us see how far you will go to save this pathetic friend of yours.”

A Jaffa moved to Jack’s front and kicked his stomach hard. Jack grunted.

“From whom did you come by this intelligence?”

When he failed to answer, another Jaffa took his staff weapon and shot his left arm again.   Jack stiffened. Daniel just watched, helpless.

“Where did you get this information?”

A Jaffa threw Jack to the floor roughly.

“Who told you of that device?”

One Jaffa opened the front of his staff weapon and jabbed it into Jack’s back.

“Tell me or he dies. It’s as simple as that.”

Daniel looked from Jack to Ammut, knowing his fear showed obviously on his face. “The Tok’ra.” The Jaffa took the staff weapon from Jack.

Ammut smiled, knowing she was reeling in her prey. At her signal, the Jaffa pulled Jack up again. “Good. Now I have proven your weakness. This is possibly more valuable information than I could have ever pried from you.   But that remains to be seen.   Now. Who is ‘we’?”

Daniel took a deep breath as the frantic feeling left him. “Well, just him and me.”

Ammut looked stern, but slightly amused. “Do you mean that you two are the only ones having heard of this device?” Daniel lowered his head, trying to hide his disappointment in the productivity of his lie and waiting for the blow. “Do you take me for a fool?” He felt another sharp kick in an already forming bruise.   Ammut glared at him. “Let us try this again from a different approach.   What is your world called?”

Daniel had told countless Goa’uld and Jaffa of Earth, so he knew that Ammut would have heard of it. And he would prefer if this Goa’uld did not associate them with Earth. He fished through his mind for some world that she would probably not know, but at the same time, she could not possibly hurt anything on that planet.   He kept his eyes locked on hers while frantically sifting through his head. He finally found one. “Turnt.   We come from Turnt.”

She looked suspiciously at him. “I have not heard of such a world. How do I know you do not lie?”

“It’s…a recently inhabited world. We, um…our old one wasn’t suitable for life anymore so we moved.”

“What is the address to this world?” A Jaffa handed him a chipped rock tablet and a chalk-like material. Daniel was grateful she only wanted to know Turnt’s address and not their “old world”. He tried to look scared of what would happen as he wrote the address.   He handed the rock and chalk to the Jaffa. “Take them back,” she told the Jaffa behind them.

Sam opened her eyes to find herself in a dark room with a dark figure bending over her.   “Major Carter,” the deep but quiet voice said.

Sam sat up, shaking her head of the last remnants of the zat. It took her a minute to realize they were still on the ring platform, Jaffa bodies of a spectacular fight lying everywhere. “What happened, Teal’c?” she asked.

Teal’c helped her to her feet. “Once you were shot,” he said, “SG-6 and I fought the remaining Jaffa. They did not make the climb to the top of the pit.   However, one begged for mercy. I considered that you would wish to question him. Therefore I spared his life.”

Sam was grateful at this news. At least they had a way of knowing what they were getting into before they activated the rings. “Where is he?”

“He is tied at the top.”

Two members of SG-6 pulled Teal’c to the top, and then Teal’c pulled Sam up. Sam turned on her flashlight and shined it into the eyes of the Jaffa sitting against the crumbled wall, his hands tied behind his back.   “What’s your name?”

“Res’nak.”

Sam stood in front of him and organized her tired mind for a quick questioning. Her gun was always at the ready. “Okay, Res’nak. Let’s get to the point. Where do those rings go?”

Res’nak didn’t answer immediately, but looked at the floor covered in dust, wood, and rock.   He mumbled, “What do I get if I answer your questions?”

“You do not die,” Teal’c said in disgust.

“We’ll offer you refuge,” Sam told him.

Res’nak lifted his head, suddenly looking something like eager. He was young, probably in his twenties if he were human. His eyes were bright, and he didn’t look like a soldier at all, past his armor. “It leads to the domain of Ammut. Her domain is located half a world from here, but it is entirely underground.   The rings in her tunnels are the only way in or out.” It looked painful for him to give so much information, but it was clear he only wanted to be free of this Ammut. “We knew we would be taking a risk in setting the bomb here, but there was a thing we needed to destroy. My god thought it would not be dangerous to set it here. It was only hours after the explosion that we heard the news that the other way out was blocked. I think…” he paused, looking like it was hard to say the words. “I think my god is not a god. If she knew it would be blocked…why would she let the bomb be set so?   Even if the way became clear, why would she panic her people so carelessly?”

Teal’c smiled and nodded his assent. “You speak wisely.”

“It was the device, wasn’t it?” Sam asked him suspiciously.

“What?”

“It was a device, a machine that would heal friends of the town but hurt enemies of it. It was that device that you wanted to destroy, right?”

Res’nak looked a little confused. “Yes.   Yes, but there was another…‘device’.”

Sam was surprised, but not entirely. She knew they’d searched the entire area, but she’d gotten faint, odd readings from one part of the wall that strangely seemed perfectly unharmed. She shifted her weight. “Go on.”

“It was large and powerful. A weapon, in a drawer. I could tell Ammut feared its strength, by the look in her eyes.”

“Where is it?” Sam asked curiously. If a Goa’uld was afraid of a weapon, it must be powerful.

Res’nak struggled to get up with the ties on his hands, but he did. He walked over to the wall that was perfectly preserved.   “In there.” He gestured with his elbow at the wall. “I am quite surprised it did not become destroyed.”   With Sam’s nod, Teal’c cut the binds for his hands. Res’nak opened the drawer.

The light that rushed out stunned Sam after being in the dark for so long. When she got a look at it, what she saw stunned her even more. “We hit the jackpot, Teal’c,” she whispered when she found her voice.

As soon as they threw Daniel and Jack back into the cell, Daniel went immediately over to Jack to check out his condition. He wasn’t any worse from the outside than he’d been for the last few hours, but Daniel could tell his fever was going up. Daniel tended as best he could to the new wound and old one on Jack’s shoulders with two torn pieces from his shirt. But there wasn’t much else he could do.

Leaning back, he decided a good night’s sleep might put him on his feet again. But it was impossible to get a night’s sleep let alone a good one. It’d be nice to get some food, too, he thought as he felt his stomach growl noisily.   Daniel sighed and turned on his side on the rocky, uneven floor.

He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, but from his grogginess, it was probably only a few hours. The Jaffa roughly kicked him to his feet. It didn’t help that he kicked Daniel in the same sore spot in the small of his back.   He only spotted Jack being dragged alongside him for a moment.

This time, though, they were led into a different room. It had a low, rocky ceiling, and in the center of the room lit with bulky candles sat a sarcophagus. Ammut stood silently behind it. Some hope finally managed to fight its way into Daniel’s heart. But he knew there would be a price to pay.

“Welcome,” Ammut smiled. There was something thrilling yet sinister about that smile. They were brought before her and forced to kneel. Daniel’s knees were getting sore on this rock. “Now, Tau’ri, since it is quite clear that I will not get much information from you at my current method of questioning, I shall now try another.   Your weakness is friendship, yes?”   Daniel kept a totally blank expression and avoided her eyes. He knew where this was going, and he didn’t like it one bit. “Well, then. We’ll prove that sooner or later. Here are the rules of my little game.” Game?   “Your friend is sick. You clearly wish to heal him. Before me is a sarcophagus which can do just that.   Your job,” she said with a sickly smile, “is to answer me what I want. If you answer correctly, this friend of yours will be healed. If not, you and your friend will both be hurt.   If you fail to win this game, you and your friend will die a most painful death. But your friend will be first to die, so that you may watch it take place.”

Daniel gulped.   This was a game controlled by a Goa’uld. There was no possible way he could win.

“Now, then.   Shall we begin?” Daniel held still. “What world do you come from?”

Daniel was surprised by the question. “I thought I already answered that.”

But all Ammut said was, “Do you take me for a fool?” There was no way he could answer her question and not be penalized for it.

“Your time is up,” Ammut said after only a minute or so. She snapped her fingers on the hand that didn’t wear the wrist device. A Jaffa picked Jack up and laid him in the open sarcophagus. Daniel was allowed to stand to see Jack. The sarcophagus didn’t close, but the Jaffa that had put him there shot him several times in the chest. There was only a faint reflex in Jack, but then he lay still. Daniel gaped at what happened, but he knew there was a way out.

“He is dead,” Ammut was saying, “but I can heal him. All you have to do is answer one little question.” Earth or Jack. That was basically what was at stake.

But then one thought crept into his head that comforted him a little. Sam and Teal’c were still out there. They were getting help and trying to figure out where Daniel and Jack were. Daniel knew that they would try at all costs to find them. It was only a matter of when. Maybe then they would get backup and destroy this place and Ammut.   Besides, Daniel needed Jack. He needed another person to work on this problem with him. Yeah, he knew he’d get cuss words thrown at him because he saved Jack’s life, but it was worth it. He hoped.

“Earth,” he told Ammut reluctantly.

Ammut smiled.   “Yes. I do know that world.” With a whirr, the sarcophagus closed.

“What is this, Major Carter?” asked Teal’c from behind her.

Sam shook her head.   “I honestly don’t know, Teal’c.”   She turned to Res’nak. “What is it?”

Res’nak looked relieved that he’d pleased them. “It is a Rid’ik, a weapon of large scale killing.”

“How much damage does it do?”

“It could destroy nearly half a world.”

Sam gaped at that.   “It’s a WMP, Teal’c. A weapon of mass destruction.” Subconsciously, she took a step back from the drawer.   Res’nak noticed this.

“Do not worry.   It is not set.”

Sam walked forward again, embarrassed. “How does it work?”

Res’nak bent and pointed. “I believe the setting switch is here, and—”

“No, I mean, what’s in it? Naquada? How does it explode?”

Res’nak blushed.   “I do not know,” he replied.

“What will we do now, Major Carter?” Teal’c asked.

“Well, I guess we’ll take that thing back to the base, and then use the rings to get to wherever it is they go. We’ve got to—”

Res’nak interrupted her in a frantic voice. “No, no, there are hundreds of Jaffa in her ranks, soon to be thousands. Unless you have many warriors, you will not succeed.”

Sam raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like she could possibly become a System Lord.”

“Indeed.”

Res’nak only nodded in grave assent.

When they stepped through the Stargate and walked down the ramp of the SGC, General Hammond looked amazed at Res’nak, the tired, dirty team along with Sam and Teal’c, and the WMP that two of SG-6 carried on a stretcher originally meant for Daniel or Colonel O’Neill. “Get cleaned up, and we’ll debrief, people.”

Sam, Teal’c, Res’nak, and SG-6 sat in the rolling chairs of the Briefing Room as the General walked in and sat down. “What happened?” he asked.

It took about twenty minutes to tell the whole story, but when they finished, the General sat back. “So, Res’nak—that is your name, correct?” He nodded once in a way that spoke of more maturity than meets the eye. “How far from the rings do you keep your prisoners?”

“Not far,” Res’nak replied. “Only a mile or so away, by your measure.”

The General raised his eyebrows. “If that’s not far, how big is that place?”

“Very large.   Ammut wishes to grow in secret.”

“Well, she’s not secret anymore,” General Hammond said determinedly. You people rest up and you’ll head out early tomorrow morning.”   He turned to SG-6. “Do you feel up to it?” The leader looked at his teammates.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, oh-four-hundred.   Get a good night’s sleep.”

He was a jerk.   That was all Daniel could describe of himself while he stood and stared at the sarcophagus. Since Ammut knew Earth, she probably could dial and…he didn’t want to think of what she could do. Although the bomb he tried to destroy was small, he knew she was capable of so much more. All he knew now was to stall. Once she was done questioning, she would immediately dial the ’Gate. But that meant he had to come up with information that would keep her interested. He hoped Jack would somehow help him out.

When the sarcophagus slid open a few minutes later, Jack sat up, alert, and healed. He stared at Daniel, suddenly realizing what he’d done. “What did you give her?” he mouthed. Daniel only shrugged and looked at the floor.

“We are playing a little game,” Ammut was telling Jack. “If you do not give me what I want, you will be hurt, and eventually killed.   If at any time you decide to tell me what I wish to know, you will be healed. We are playing for information. It is your lives or information. Which is more valuable to you?”

A Jaffa grabbed at Jack’s torn shirt and dragged him to Daniel’s side. “You traded Earth, didn’t you?” Jack managed to ask him under his breath. There was no way he could possibly have done that! Jack knew Daniel, and he wasn’t about to do anything that drastic unless he had good reason to.

Ammut had wandered over to Jack and stared in his eyes. “I have never seen you not ill before.” Ammut nodded, and a Jaffa opened his staff weapon and shot Jack’s left thigh. The pain shot through his body.   He cursed loudly into Ammut’s face, and she slapped him. “I do not like you when you are not ill.” She looked him up and down. He suppressed his urge to show pain. “How many Tau’ri are on your world?”

Jack said nothing and acted uninterested. Daniel was staring at him, looking like his sacrifice was for nothing.

Ammut slapped him again. “Answer me!”

“Why should you care how many? You’ll just blow ’em up anyway!” And it hit him like the shot he got in the other thigh. She didn’t have enough to destroy Earth. No doubt she’d heard there were a lot, but never how many.   This place was probably underground, from the cool, damp, dead air and rocky walls. She was in hiding. Jack didn’t show this revelation. He just responded loudly to the shot.

“Very well,” she said to him and turned to Daniel. “Tell me,” she said to Jack, “Or he dies.” She didn’t wait for an answer but held up her wrist device against Daniel’s forehead. Daniel held his stare as the weapon activated.

Jack didn’t waste time. He knew Ammut was a little more vulnerable when she used that weapon, so he kicked her as hard in the ribs as he could. He braced himself against the sure firing that would come from the Jaffa onlookers.   But it didn’t come.

Ammut backed away, bent double, but managed to glance at Jack and the Jaffa, her eyes flashing. She looked like she was trying to hide pain, but she looked even more embarrassed and desperate by the fact that she was hit. Daniel was breathing hard.

The Jaffa she stared at immediately shot Daniel several times. Jack’s reaction was astonished, and he knelt by Daniel. He was alive, but just barely. By now, Ammut had regained composure and was staring down at him. “It was your fault,” she jeered. “Your own fault. But you’re in luck. It is a good thing your god is here with you.”

Jack turned to her in anger. “You are not a god no matter how much you snake-heads think you are! If you think this is a game, you are wacko.   You just nearly killed my friend, and I will not stand for that.” He was breathing hard with emotion.

Ammut sneered at him, holding her head high. “And what will you do about that, Tau’ri?”

Jack stared, feeling entirely helpless, his wounds settling into a pattern of pain and throbbing.   But he hardly noticed that. For once in his life, he was speechless.

“Ahhh…” Ammut smiled, knowing she’d won. “I have a proposition for you, Tau’ri. If you answer my question, I will heal him. However, you must act quickly. How many are on your world, and where is your Chappa’ai located?”   Jack glanced up at her suspiciously.   Ammut had an answer. “The stakes have gone up, and so has the price.”

Jack sank to the floor by Daniel, acting beat. “Twelve billion,” he said barely above a whisper, “and it’s in the middle of a field.”

It was a gloomy morning after a restless night. Sam couldn’t count how many times parts of SG-1 were out alone, but this was worse, knowing Colonel O’Neill and Daniel were somewhere on a cold, hard floor of a Goa’uld cell, torn up and worn out…while she was in a warm bed but still as unable to sleep as them.

She got ready at the SGC in a kind of daze, knowing what she was up against but still feeling clueless. But as commander of this mission, she wasn’t allowed to feel clueless, even if she wasn’t. As soon as the wormhole activated, though, she knew exactly what to do and how to do it. With a purposeful gesture, she led SG-6 and Teal’c through the Stargate into Goa’uld territory.

It was a gray morning on the planet, or as Res’nak called it, Talpht. They made their way to the ruins immediately, not saying a word about anything to each other. The air was cool and moist, their uniforms catching dew on the underbrush. Before they knew it, the completely obliterated house wasn’t far at all.

“Well, this is it,” Sam commented for lack of anything better to say. “You two,” she pointed to Res’nak and a member of SG-6 with medical supplies on his back, “Come with me and Teal’c. The rest, stay and watch. If anything happens or we don’t come back to check with you in six hours,” she said as she began climbing down the hole they’d cleared yesterday, “try to make contact and then get to the ’Gate.” They nodded.

It was hard to believe it could be any cooler or damper down in the basement of the hut, but it was. They very carefully slid down the rope one at a time into the pit with the ring platform, Teal’c last. He secured the rope as best he could with what little tied down there was, and came down. They all got into position, crossing their fingers and hoping for the best circumstances.

“If we get captured,” Sam told them before activating the rings, “or accidentally split up, do your best to make contact or get out and go to the rings.   Otherwise follow me and Res’nak.”   With one last breath, she activated the rings and moved to the platform, her gun at the ready.

Jack was locked in his cell alone, feeling invigorated on the outside but torn and unsure on the inside. Ammut had silently accepted his answer to her question and immediately ordered him to the cell, leaving Daniel where he lay. Jack had a feeling, though, that she didn’t believe his answer. His worst thought, which he tried to avoid, was that she would try to find out herself.

He called to the departing Jaffa. “Would ya drop her a line for me? I want her to know that, uh, if we got off on the wrong foot…” One of the Jaffa twisted his head, but the rest ignored him completely. “Well, then, it’s her fault.”

The Jaffa that turned his head turned his staff weapon in Jack’s direction, too, and opened it. “If you ever disgrace her name again, I will shoot your throat so even the sarcophagus will not be able to heal you,” the Jaffa said in an undertone just barely audible.

Jack raised his hand in a friendly, sarcastic gesture. “That’s okay, thanks.” They turned and walked off, grumbling.

Jack turned back around, butterflies mixing with his growing hunger. It was only a matter of time, now, that Ammut would find out his lie, invade Earth, and let Daniel die. But he tried not to think that far ahead. He had to deal with the here and now. There wasn’t much he could do, though, but hope. He sat in the corner, and waited.

Until Daniel was escorted roughly into the cell not long afterward.

“Oh, by the way,” Daniel told the Jaffa irritably, “could you manage to get some food down here?   We’re starving. Literally.” The Jaffa merely smirked.

Jack stood up, overwhelmed with relief. “So I guess she thought you were worth keeping,” he smiled.

Daniel looked at the ground. “Yeah, guess so.”

Jack didn’t dare tell him he’d lied for fear of Ammut listening…somewhere. Anyway, it seemed understood. If Daniel even thought about it for a minute, he’d know.

“You feeling okay?” Daniel asked.

“Never better,” Jack replied sarcastically.

Daniel suddenly leaned against the side of the cell in barely controllable frustration. He clenched and unclenched his fists. “I’m sorry, Jack. It was a life or death situation. I had to tell her about Earth.” He kicked the wall hard and then massaged his forehead and temples.

Jack had another dizzy spell that surprised him, but thankfully it didn’t last long and Daniel didn’t notice it. Funny, he would have thought the sarcophagus would help with that. But he dismissed it at that moment. “It wasn’t your fault,” Jack told him, seeing him beat himself up about it. “You were under pressure.   You thought it over the best you could.   You were deprived of food, water, and sleep for cryin’ out loud. How could you make a good decision?”

Annoyed but thoughtful, Daniel slumped to the rocky ground, his back against the wall.   “That’s no excuse,” he mumbled.   “And now because of me, Ammut is dialing Earth, probably at this very moment.” He banged the back of his head against the rocky wall only to rub it hard afterward. “I could have thought of something. I can think of a million planets right now.”

“The sarcophagus does clear your mind a bit, doesn’t it? Helps with the hunger too, for a while.” Jack patted his stomach in an attempt to cheer Daniel up. “Hey, did she say that sarcophagus episode was a game?   ’Cause if it was, I think we just won.”

Daniel smiled.   “Good to have you back.”

But at that moment, they heard footsteps creeping cautiously toward their cell.   “Colonel? Daniel?” a familiar voice said.

Thankfully, after the light and rings passed, they found they were alone. But the room they were in didn’t seem to have any relation to previous Goa’uld quarters. The rocky walls and floor were crude and uneven, and the entire place looked like it’d been made with an explosive. The walls were lined with torches that still didn’t light up the place very well. They were underground, of course. Sam looked to Res’nak for direction, as there were three halls—or tunnels—jetting from the room.

“This way,” Res’nak whispered to them, suddenly looking happy to take action on his old enslaver.

They wandered for a long time, staring down the long tunnels, all of which seemed suspiciously empty. “I thought you said there were hundreds of Jaffa down here,” Sam mentioned to him.

“I know that I said so,” Res’nak replied, looking down two opposite halls, trying to decide which way was the best. “Many of the Jaffa are finishing Kel’no’reem at this moment. However, these passageways seem more desolate than usual.   We must hasten.” Sam sighed inwardly as Res’nak chose the passageway to the right to take.

It was ten minutes or so of twists and turns when they heard a Stargate activate just a few rooms ahead. “Come on, let’s check it out,” Sam told the group. She was relieved to know of the possibility of a Stargate. It would make for an easy escape, if it weren’t guarded. But considering that the rings weren’t guarded, they had a good chance.

Sam peeked around the sharp edge of the wall to look into the room. There were many Jaffa silhouettes being engulfed by the blue light of the ’Gate. One glance of the DHD, since it was so close, told her they were going to Earth.

The iris would protect Earth—unless this Ammut girl had used the Colonel’s GDO. Her first impulse was just to shoot as many as she possibly could, but that would draw too much attention to them. Quickly, she grabbed Teal’c. “Shoot the DHD! Shoot it!” Teal’c was stiff and unsure at first, but as soon as he saw the address, he acted swiftly, firing it several times with the staff weapon.

The Jaffa stopped in mid-step as the Stargate disengaged, and as a chorus of “Kree!” rose, they rushed toward the small group.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” she shouted to them, and ran ahead with Res’nak. They twisted and turned, dodging the staff blasts. After a few minutes of this, Sam grabbed Res’nak and managed to pull the rest of the group into a smaller tunnel with a lower ceiling and the torches weren’t lit. The floor of this one was wet. They went a hundred feet or so into it and stopped, hoping the massive group of Jaffa had passed by.

But knowing Jaffa, they would split up. Sure enough, three Jaffa entered the passage behind them, grumbling. Sam spotted a large indentation in the right wall.   She ordered everyone to lean against it right before the Jaffa decided to send a staff blast experimentally down the dark tunnel instead of physically searching it themselves. Satisfied when the blast hit nothing near, Sam heard them noisily leave.

Wet, heart pounding, and out of breath, Sam climbed out of the low tunnel, followed by everybody else. “You okay?” she asked them.   She got one shaken nod and two slow, affirmative ones. “Okay.   Res’nak, lead the way.”

They weren’t far now. There weren’t as many twists and turns. And finally, as they rounded one more bend, they heard familiar voices in one of the cells.   “Colonel? Daniel?” Sam asked.

She saw Daniel step forward out of the darkness up to the mesh. The utter joy she saw on his face made her smile, too.   “Sam! We thought you’d never come. And Teal’c! And—who’s that?”

“Res’nak,” Sam told him. “He’s the one that got us here.”

There was a brief spark of distrust on Daniel’s face, but it passed quickly. Colonel O’Neill stepped out of the gloom, looking pleasantly surprised.

“Carter!   Great to see you. Uh…any idea how you’re going to get us out?” Sam turned to Teal’c.

Teal’c took a step forward and examined the mesh. “This is made of a weak metal,” he told them. “Human hands could not break it, but a staff blast could.”

“Stand back,” the Colonel told Daniel, backing away as Teal’c activated the staff weapon.   It was strange, though, how the Colonel seemed to stumble back and take hold of Daniel’s shoulder for balance.   Several blasts took out a nice chunk, enough to slip through. Colonel O’Neill and Daniel stepped out gratefully. They had to hurry, though. Jaffa might come at the sound of those blasts, not to mention they were still being looked for. Sam noticed immediately as they stepped into the light that their shirts were torn heavily, but there weren’t any wounds. She gestured at them.

“Sarcophagus,” Daniel told her. She nodded.   It was a good thing, too, or they might not be able to get out that fast.

“Let’s go, kids.”

The Colonel set out in the direction Sam came from and was soon joined by Sam and Res’nak.   “So. Carter,” he asked, “what’s the situation? Like have you been seen, what’s the escape plan…work with me here.”

“Well, sir, we found a Stargate—”

“Good news,” Colonel O’Neill commented.

“But we shot it.”

“Bad news.”

“It turns out,” Sam was saying as they turned a corner, smiling idly at the Colonel’s never-subsiding sense of humor, “that Ammut dialed Earth and was sending Jaffa through. You didn’t happen to explain to her how a GDO works, did you?”

“Nope,” the Colonel said, an amused smile on his face.

“Good. Well, we were afraid you did, so Teal’c shot it a few times.”

“Can you get it working again?”

Sam shrugged her shoulders, but caught herself as she became a bit too ignorant about her surroundings. When her CO was there, she always felt like the matter was out of her hands, even if he didn’t have a weapon.   “It depends. I’d have to take a look at it.”

“Will do.”

“And another thing, sir,” she said uncomfortably. “We were seen.”

“By who?” Colonel O’Neill looked even paler than before.

“By everyone trying to get through that ’Gate.”

“Oh! So every Jaffa in all of Ammut’s ranks is looking for us! That makes it a lot easier,” he grumbled to himself. “Well, let’s get a move on.” They hurried quicker now.

They only saw one small group of Jaffa while trying to make it back to the Stargate.   Luckily, the Jaffa had been outnumbered. By now, the Jaffa were probably gathering back together. In some ways, that was good. They wouldn’t have to worry about seeing Jaffa in the halls, but the Jaffa were most likely gathering at the Stargate.

They arrived and, miraculously seeing no one there, got to work. Carter went straight to the DHD. The one of SG-6 they took and Teal’c stood at the entrance to the room.   Res’nak was with Carter, and Daniel was wandering around the room, looking at the blank walls. If there was one thing Jack couldn’t understand, it was the fact that Daniel could be fascinated by the absence of writings.

“Sir, I don’t think I’ll be able to fix this,” Carter was saying.

Jack rolled his eyes. “Okay, what’s Plan B?”

Carter stood up.   “The rings, but that’s a ten-minute walk from here.”

Jack sagged his shoulders and prepared himself for the walk. “We’d better get going.”

“Uh, Jack?”

“What now, Daniel? What could you possibly find here worth mentioning?”

“I think there’s a bomb lying on the floor over here.”

Carter gave Jack a look and immediately went to the corner Daniel was standing in.

“Sir,” she said, “we found a duplicate of this on the planet in that cellar. It’s a weapon of mass destruction.”

Now Jack was curious. He walked over to where they were standing and saw what he’d seen in the cellar. Its duplicate was the whole reason they got into this mess, but he wasn’t going to admit that. He was glad the rest of his team had found it though, even after the sure debris from the smaller bomb.

Suddenly feeling a wave of anger flowing over him, he said, “Set it.”

“Why?” Daniel asked.

Jack turned to him.   “You of all people know what Ammut’ll do about Earth. Who knows?   Maybe she has more of these? You should want to destroy this place for that.”

Daniel thought on this a moment and vaguely nodded his head.

“How long?” Carter asked as she and Res’nak bent to set it.

“Ten minutes,” Jack told her.

“But sir—”

“It takes ten minutes to walk to the rings,” Res’nak said, staring Jack in the eye. There was a strange naïve feeling of fear wafting from him.

“Even then, sir,” Carter told him, “we’d have to get to the Stargate.”

“Fine,” Jack said.   “Twenty minutes. I don’t want Ammut to deactivate this thing.”

Carter took a while to figure out how to set it, but when she got it, they set off. It was hard to go fast at first, but they made good time, getting to the rings in eight minutes. As the rings came down, though, Jack couldn’t help but notice Res’nak looking longingly at the tunnels and rock.

It took them longer, though, to get up the pit. All the while, SG-6 was carefully watching their clocks and getting a little antsy.   “Come on, guys, relax. We’ll get there in time,” he said to try to ease their nerves while he watched Teal’c pull Carter up.

Teal’c nodded in the darkness. “Indeed.   We are half a world away from the labyrinth.”

“Labyrinth?” Jack asked. “Well, I guess it is a labyrinth.”

Once everyone was up, they strenuously tried to get to the ’Gate in five or six minutes.   Jack could see though, already, that it wouldn’t work. At about fifty yards away in the thick forest, they felt a faint earthquake.

“Sir, I’m no geologist,” Carter was saying, “but we need to get out of here fast.”

Daniel looked behind them, concerned. “Who knows how many we just killed.” He shook his head. “Well, we know now how the village was abandoned and ruined.”

Teal’c looked at Daniel out of the corner of his eye. “Indeed. There must have been several of those weapons.”

Daniel nodded.   “The town here must have built them, even though the culture looked so primitive. The writings on that arch hinted about the weapons. So the Goa’uld that probably enslaved them took the town’s technology and made that…contradictive device to protect themselves and the WMPs. But that’s all a guess.”

Carter raised her eyebrows back at him while she stepped over a particularly large log.   “You’re thinking pretty deep for someone who was just tortured.”

“Sarcophagus,” Daniel told her.

Suddenly, another earthquake, stronger than the last, erupted. Jack raised his voice. “Okay, kids, less talking, more walking.” They sped up.

But then a staff blast whizzed by Jack’s ear. “Take cover!” Carter, Teal’c, and SG-6 started returning fire to the nearly invisible Jaffa. But there were flashes of metal armor behind some of the trees.

Jack felt helpless as the rest of the team shot. Since he was basically commander of the mission now, though, he signaled to Daniel to run the last hundred feet and dial the ’Gate. Daniel set off, dodging behind trees, while Jack motioned the rest of the group to creep backward as they shot.

The sound of the Stargate bursting to life came, and within a few minutes, thankfully, they were almost there. Finally, unspeaking, Jack motioned for them to get up and run the rest. Carter punched in the GDO code and walked through.   Breathing a sigh of relief, after everyone else had gone through, Jack walked through the ’Gate, home.

They stepped through just as the Stargate disengaged, and Jack was surprised to find everyone crouching, the blast doors closed, and a few small scratches from the firefight shooting into the gate after Carter punched in the GDO code.   Soon enough, though, the Gateroom came back to life, and General Hammond walked into the room, looking them over.

Glad to see them without many wounds, he said, “Welcome back,”

Daniel was getting his papers and translations from Talpht organized when Jack strolled in, patting his stomach.

“Hey, how’s it goin’?” he asked casually.

“You really want to know?” Daniel glared, feeling agitated from the stress.

Jack shrugged.

“Well, on top of all of the usual writings from other teams I haven’t had time to translate, I need to somehow make sense of the, for lack of a better word, prehistoric Goa’uld on the arch, help Sam with the inscriptions on the WMP and all I’ve done with that is decipher that it is a WMP, and write that report the General wants that I haven’t quite gotten to yet. How about you?” Even though Jack usually wrote the reports for team missions, since Jack was out of it for part of their capture, he had to write what happened.

“No sweat.”   Jack shrugged again. “I’m fine. I just finished a piece of outstanding cake with extra icing.” It suddenly looked like Jack had a dizzy spell, and he reached out for balance. Daniel smiled for the first time in a while.

“Don’t jinx yourself,” he said.

“I just had a check-up with Doc Frasier. Says I’m healthy as a horse.” Jack bounced on the balls of his feet, smiling, but then grew serious. “Hey, do you happen to know whether a sarcophagus can’t heal something?”

Daniel looked up suspiciously. “No, that would be Sam’s field. Why?”

Jack looked like he was making a conscious effort not to look at Daniel’s eyes. “Oh. Just wondering.” He started to make for the door.

“Jack.   There’s something wrong. What is it?” Daniel was really getting suspicious, and curious.

“It’s just…you remember the healing-harming device thingy?” Daniel nodded. He had a vague idea where this was going. “I don’t think whatever it did ever left me.”

“Come on,” Daniel said, putting his papers down on his jumbled desk. “We’re going to the Infirmary.” Jack rolled his eyes, saying something about being as healthy as a horse, but all the same he went.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Frasier said when they walked in and told her the story. “You’re just as healthy as a horse.”

“What’d I tell you?” Jack mumbled to Daniel. Right then, though, Jack got another dizzy spell and this time, sank to the ground.   But he shook his head and stood right back up. Daniel helped him. Dr. Frasier gaped at him.

“I guess I could take another blood sample.” she said, and went off quickly to get the materials.

Daniel looked Jack up and down. “What’s going on?”

“I told you,” Jack said, suddenly frustrated. “The thing I touched. It was on.   Isn’t that what Carter said?”

Daniel thought to himself. “But then Sam should be feeling this, too.”

“No, I touched it by the handlebars. Or maybe it turned off or something. I don’t know.” Daniel sat on one of the empty beds, contemplating this. But it wasn’t long before Jack, trying to make his way to a bed to sit, slumped to the floor and didn’t get up.

“Dr. Frasier!” Daniel shouted, and he reached for the phone.

Sam literally ran into the Infirmary when she heard what happened. She immediately saw Colonel O’Neill sitting up in bed, looking pale. The General, Daniel, Teal’c, and Janet were all there. Jack looked up at her and smiled. “Whoa, there, Carter. Slow down on the caffeine.”

She smiled, knowing there was no real reason for her jog down there, but felt relieved that he was well enough to crack a joke. With a nod to acknowledge the Colonel, she turned to Janet. Janet immediately gave the group a rundown on his condition.

“Well, he has a fairly low blood-sugar level, and I think I know what’s causing that. From what I’ve been able to tell from the samples, he has a very strange infection. It’s not viral or bacterial, from what I can tell. The…specimen, let’s call it, is consuming the sugar in his blood, among other things.”

They exchanged glances, wondering what that meant. “What other things?” General Hammond asked.

“I have an idea, but I’m not sure of it yet. A few more tests,” Janet said while glancing back at Colonel O’Neill, who was rolling his eyes. “But I do believe I have a theory. It seems that his body is actually making these things. This definitely isn’t normal. It’s in a way like cancer, but the product is doing more than just being there.   Something is causing it, but I can’t figure out what. One thing I can say, though, is that it’ll only get worse from here.”

“The device,” Sam muttered under her breath. Of course.

“What was that, Carter?” the Colonel asked.

“It must have been the device. You said you touched it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.   ’Course that’s what it is. I felt weird right after.”

She had to get to it and start working. She turned to the General. “Sir, with your permission….”

“Granted.”

“Janet, keep me posted.” Janet nodded, and Sam left the room.

It was hours before she discovered anything in her little lab with the centerpiece the device.   And even then, the only thing she found was the on/off button.

Daniel sat at his desk, originally to try translating a stone writing another team had found some weeks ago. He was usually able to keep up with his work, but he’d let this one slide a little, due to recent events. But now, with Jack trusted to Dr. Frasier, he felt he could possibly concentrate.

But now he found he couldn’t. He was staring at the paper, but seeing his thoughts.

He wasn’t sure whether or not Jack eventually reached a coma on that planet, but it was a possibility. He’d put that in the report, but for some reason, he hadn’t told Dr. Frasier about it yet. He wasn’t even sure, but she was smart, she’d find out. Plus, he didn’t want to worry anyone. And by worrying them, he’d worry himself. He didn’t think he could take it.

Sam had been working for nearly six hours on that thing, but she still hadn’t found anything out. Daniel had sat with her for a while, but, not understanding a word she was saying or what she was doing, he left to try to take his mind off of it all with this translation. But it wasn’t working.

Frustrated, he stood up, and without thinking, headed out toward the Infirmary.

Jack was bad.   He was pale and breathing unevenly, just like in the cell, only seven hours after he touched the thing. It’d been seven hours since he’d been in the sarcophagus. He’d still been responsive then, though.

“Hey, Jack,” Daniel tried.

“Hey.” Jack flipped open his eyes, looking very much awake. Huh. Daniel guessed he looked better because he actually had food in him this time.

“So, uh, feeling okay?”

Jack gave him a look that said, “Are you seriously asking that?” But he said, “Fine. Just perfect. I’ve got a drum in my head, and the world is spinning in the opposite direction. The service is terrible here, but it doesn’t matter since all I get is carrots and ice chips anyway. Well, they give me energy bars, but it’s not the same. No, Daniel, I’m fantastic.”

Daniel smiled, and didn’t bother to hide it. “Yeah, you gotta hate hospital food.”

After pulling an all-nighter, Sam finally thought she had the answer.

It wasn’t simple, but it was the fastest she’d ever solved something like this. Assuming Janet had been right about the Colonel’s physiology, Sam had altered the device so another touch by the Colonel would change his makeup so his condition at least wouldn’t progress. She hoped it would cure him of the whole thing.

As soon as Janet and the General were in that morning, she proposed to try it. She brought it in, turned on.

“Did you stay up all night?” Colonel O’Neill said to her sternly as she walked in, bags undoubtedly under her eyes. “I told you to let up on that caffeine. Less caffeine means more sleep, missy.”

“I think caffeine was the only thing that kept me conscious last night, sir.” Even though he was making jokes, she heard a little tinge of hoarseness in his voice, strangely.

When he saw the device, he immediately helped himself into a sitting position, and Janet took a last blood test.

“That the thing?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“We gonna try it?”

“Yep.”

Slowly, he held out his hands, and, as Sam held out the device, he grasped it at the handles.   She saw his muscles in his arms contract from a short electrical blast, but it subsided, and he didn’t look better, or worse.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Nope.”

Janet, watching, stared at the Colonel suspiciously. “Let’s wait an hour, and then we’ll do another blood test.” The General nodded to them and left.

By the end of that hour, most of the personnel were in. Janet took the test, and half an hour later, all of SG-1 and General Hammond gathered into the Infirmary, where the Colonel was sitting on the bed, rather than in it. Janet came into the room, holding a manila folder.

“Sam, you did well,” she said. “His blood sugar is up, and there’s a significantly less amount of that infection left. And its numbers are decreasing as we speak.” She looked at them all, a smile spreading on her face. “He’s as healthy as a horse.”

Jack immediately stood up quickly. He looked around at them all, patting his stomach. “I don’t know about you, but I’m heading to the cafeteria for something other than ice chips.”

General Hammond chuckled to himself. “You owe me a lengthy report, Colonel. You too, Dr. Jackson.” Daniel rolled his eyes, but caught himself as he saw the General looking at him.   “As for everyone else, dismissed.”

As they walked out, Sam saw Daniel come toward her. “You know,” he said, “Ammut told us while we were there that the device didn’t work for her anymore.”

Sam raised her eyebrows. “How did you get that out of her?”

Daniel shook his head. “Never mind. The point is that it doesn’t work for the Goa’uld.”

The jolt hit Sam.   They had something against the Goa’uld.   The mission really was somewhat worth it anyway. “But we’ll have to get it close enough to touch them.”

Daniel shrugged.   “Yeah, but maybe you could work with it a little.”

Sam nodded and left for her lab. She had work to do.

Jack made for the cafeteria, but halfway there, he saw Daniel catching up with him.   “Coming to fatten up, I see,” he said.

Daniel smiled, but said, “Actually, I need some pointers on report-writing.”

Jack shrugged.   “Okay, well, we can talk about that while we’re fattening up.”

Daniel looked down as they turned a corner. “About Res’nak…”

“Yes?”

“Where’re they sending him?”

“Well, you know, having grown up in a tunnel, they’ll probably send him somewhere nice and sunny.”

“I heard he’s joining the Jaffa Rebellion,” Daniel said.

“Good for him.”   They turned the last corner to the cafeteria. “Now, Daniel, there’s an entire set of rules and ethics for writing a report.”

Daniel rolled his eyes.

June 15, 2005 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.