by Trish Williams
CHAPTER
FOUR
~
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Daniel needed a
translation.
He was back from Chicago,
working in his lab at the SGC. Not that
he would call it a ‘lab’ per se, but he liked that as opposed to calling it
just an ‘office. Shelves upon shelves
held books from over ten thousand years of Earth history, and artifacts from
other worlds lay around in no discernable order. His eyes roved over the canopic jar he’d placed on the desk; the
one he’d been rather creative in packaging for air travel back to the SGC. On the surface, it looked like any other of
the numerous canopic jars he’d seen in his lifetime.
Except this one had
goa’uld symbols on it.
Mistakenly put in a
different packing crate and tagged as item 14B in a museum basement in Chicago,
the jar had an effigy of Isis on it.
Like a good archaeologist, Daniel briefly recalled Isis’ relevance in
the Osiris legend. It was pretty
standard knowledge to any scholar of Egyptology. Osiris had been betrayed by his brother Set or Seth as he and
SG-1 had come to know him, and Isis being his consort. Isis had managed to resurrect Osiris only to
have Set rip him into pieces and scatter them across Egypt. How Isis, aided by her twin sister Nephthys,
had searched for and gathered the pieces.
Nephthys had also helped her conceive Horus. It was all pretty standard.
Before he could recall
anything further of the legend, his mind drifted to thoughts about Sarah.
God, it was so good to
see her again, even if they didn’t part on the best of circumstances. It was one of those things where love wasn’t
enough to sustain the relationship.
Graduate school, or even academia for that matter, wasn’t very conducive
to fostering relationships. The weird
hours, the endless publish or die cycle, the relentless pursuit of tenure no
matter whom you had to mow over in the process, and of course, teaching and the
never-ending cycle of writing research proposals for dollars. Sighing to himself, he realized tunnel
vision could be caught anywhere.
He picked up the phone, dialed
an outside line and paused for a few moments.
He knew Jack was on vacation. He
knew Teal’c was with him. He also knew
that, were it physically possible, Jack would jerk him by the neck through the
phone for what he was about to do. But
Daniel needed a translation, and he needed Teal’c in order to get it done. Finding out what the goa’uld symbols meant
was the key to cracking open this whole mess.
And if Jack wanted to blame someone, he could blame General Hammond for
giving him the cell phone number, and Teal’c for bringing the phone along in
the first place.
From what Hammond had
told him, Jack had finally gone on that fishing trip and had somehow roped
Teal’c into going with him. Daniel
figured maybe he would have wanted to see his former wife and son but guessed
Teal’c had other plans. He marveled at
the irony of how he depended on knowledge of the goa’uld from the very person
who had kidnapped his wife and then wound up killing her to save his life. And now, a person Teal’c obviously cared for
was a goa’uld, and he feared Daniel would be the one to kill her. He shook his head at how Teal’c made it a
point to let him know he’d forgiven him in advance should his fears become
reality.
Talk
about irony, he thought.
Daniel jerked back
reflexively when he heard the stabbing tones: which in phone-speak meant he’d
taken way too long to complete his call.
Swearing softly, he dialed an outside line and this time, didn’t
hesitate to dial the number he needed to.
The phone ran once, twice, three times, four times…
Dammnit,
pick up!
“What?” Jack’s cranky
voice demanded through the phone.
“Hi Jack,” he said,
trying to diffuse his mood. “It’s
Daniel. Is Teal’c around?”
“Yes, Daniel. He’s right here. Please hold.”
Oh yeah, Jack definitely
was not all that happy.
“DanielJackson,” Teal’c’s
voice came through.
“Hi Teal’c,” he said,
trying to make small talk. It was an
earth custom Teal’c was still trying to learn.
“What have you caught?”
“We have caught nothing,”
he proudly declared. “We are fishing.”
He felt sorry for the
guy.
“Right. Um, listen.
I need a little help with a translation,” he said. “I’ve got a line here that says Hakkor Kra
Terak Chree.”
Daniel heard Teal’c slap what
he presumed was a mosquito against the back of his neck. “Banished to oblivion,” he rumbled.
Well,
that clears that up, he thought. “Right,” he said. “Okay,
uh, thank you.”
“If you require
assistance, I would be more than happy to return to the SGC,” Teal’c said.
“No, thanks, I can take
it from here,” he said.
“Are you certain?” Teal’c
pressed in a lowered voice. Before
Daniel had a chance to respond, he heard Jack tell Teal’c to give him the
phone.
“Goodbye, Daniel!” Jack
quipped.
“No wait…listen” the
phone clicked off. Damnit Jack, you picked a great time to be an ass!
Daniel put the handset
back on the cradle, replaying in his mind what Teal’c had said and
cross-referenced it with what he already knew, which was not very much. The jar looked back at him as if enticing
him to unravel the mystery of its existence.
Isis and Osiris banished by their own kind? The young archaeologist figured the goa’uld would just as soon
sell their own mothers if it would give them more power. But banishment? Not outright execution but banishment? As he wondered why and for what reason, something told him it
wouldn’t be long before he found out.
Picking up the phone
again, Daniel sighed as he called Sam’s lab.
Time to catch her and General Hammond up on what he knew.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
She’d been missing for
two months now.
Jack figured that since
they’d been stuck in ‘Groundhog Day’ for three months that would make it at
least five months she’d been missing.
He didn’t want to postulate about what could be happening with
Kayla. She’d been taken over by a
goa’uld they didn’t know, and now joined at the hip with earth’s greatest
enemy—Apophis. She had to be scared out
of her mind right now. Besides spiders,
boogers and bad movies, there were very few things scared that woman.
Unconsciously he rubbed
the back of his neck, remembering how Hathor had a mature goa’uld symbiote
implanted him. God knows he had a high
tolerance for pain but that was unlike any he’d ever known. Fighting a presence for rental space in your
own mind was just too freaky. He’d
barely hung on long enough for the freezer to kill the snake in his head. If it wasn’t for that Tok’ra he would have
probably killed all his friends.
And as for the ass
kicking he’d planned on giving Teal’c, that had been postponed. Seeing the usually stoic Jaffa wracked with
guilt over what had happened with Kayla was tougher on him than anything
physical. When they were stuck in that
booby-trapped hybrid Goa’uld death gilder, Teal’c had confessed to him as if he
were a priest who could absolve his sins.
Even during their fishing trip in Minnesota before all the Osiris mess
happened, all he could talk about was Kayla.
He’d see something and it would remind him of her. Even when Jack had managed to catch a
catfish instead of the elusive crappie, Teal’c told a story of how when Kayla
was younger, catfish scared her to death because there was something terribly
wrong about a fish that had skin and a moustache instead of scales and fins.
Had Kayla been her normal
cranky self on earth, he would have fished the cell phone battery out of the
bushes and told Teal’c to put himself out of his misery and call her. But now that she was currently Apophis’ new
girlfriend, all he could do was reminisce.
The way he saw it, Teal’c talking about her was his way of coming to
grips with what had happened. And in a
way, it had helped him come to terms with losing a good friend.
A friend who had kept
telling him not to turn their several-night stand into a relationship, but that
was beside the point.
And now here they all
were, sitting in a conference room discussing the latest run-in with Kayla and
her canine bodyguards. Considering
Major Davis was there, Jack got the impression the Pentagon had a vested
interest. He didn’t have anything
against Major Davis, but it seemed whenever that guy showed up, something got
screwed up.
He wondered what news he
would bring this time.
“Ma’am,” Hammond said
politely into the phone. “I don’t care
if he’s having tea with Jesus, call me back immediately after he’s finished his
meeting.”
“I’ve read the mission
report of your rescue mission to P5X-458.
And the pictures confirm it,” Major Davis said after Hammond hung up the
phone and gave him his attention. “There
she is along with her Jaffa.”
“According to the Tok’ra,
she hasn’t left Apophis’ side,” Sam said.
“To sum it up for you,
Davis,” Jack said as he stretched a bit.
“We’ve got a jilted ex-girlfriend, who is not only possessed by a
goa’uld, but in possession of a hand device.
And she’s really pissed off.
And now she’s going around killing people.
What’s that about hell hath no fury?” he commented, looking directly at
Teal’c. The Jaffa didn’t even flinch.
Correction. He just raised an eyebrow at him. Sometimes he swore that gesture was the
formal Jaffa expression for ‘fuck you’.
“Not necessarily,” Sam
offered. “The Tok’ra say she never
attacks anyone. She’s always with that
cadre of Jaffa.”
Daniel rubbed his
shoulders as if to get warm. “The same
ones we saw?” he asked.
“Probably,” Sam said.
“Where was this
taken?” Davis asked, putting his hands
on his hips.
“On P2R-589 by the
members of SG-12,” Hammond said.
“And they got out alive?”
Jack questioned, remembering that one moment they had their own bullets flying
at them then the next minute he’d been knocked into the land of the unconscious
courtesy of Kayla’s hand device. “We
barely made it back alive by the skin of our teeth.”
“Apparently they did,”
Sam told them. “The team members said
they weren’t fired upon. She just
looked at them and then transported up to her ship with her Jaffa.”
“Leaving a heap of dead
Serpent guards there as well,” Daniel added.
“You know as well as I do
that they could have killed us,” Sam postulated. “But they let us go. So
the question is, why?”
“Why indeed,
MajorCarter,” Teal’c said, finally deciding to join the discussion.
“Well, let me answer that
question with another question,” Jack said, noticing Major Davis shifting his
weight to the other foot. “How do we
know they didn’t wipe out SG-3 and SG-11?”
Daniel ran a hand through
his short brown hair and said, “How do we know the Serpent guards didn’t do it
first?”
“That would presume those
Jaffa took the weapons of the SG teams and used them upon them,” Teal’c said,
making a steeple with his thick fingers.
“But given our offense against the Jackal guards proved futile, it makes
it most improbable that the SG soldiers died at the hands of Apophis’ Jaffa.”
Hammond folded his hands
on the table and said, “Word filtered through to the NID that we let Anubis
go.”
“I take it they’re still
pissed about that?” Jack quipped, his voice dripping with the usual
sarcasm. Personally, the NID could kiss
his sometimes-tanned ass.
“As far as they’re
concerned, you let a valuable piece of intelligence go,” Davis said, offering
an upturned palm. “The Pentagon would
also like to know why.”
“Sir,” Sam said, her eyes
still on Davis, “did you also inform them that if we didn’t let Anubis go, he
would have had a fleet of mother ships and a cadre of Ashrak descend down on
us?”
“Yes,” Hammond told her
as he gave Davis an indiscernible look.
“Which is why they’re whining rather than demanding. But their demands got a little higher
today.”
“How so?”
Davis looked around the
room nervously for a bit before he spoke. “The Pentagon has requested Doctor
Vidrine be...”
“I think you’ve got that
wrong,” Jack interjected. “That’s
Doctor Porter.”
“No,” Davis said, sounding
more than a little miffed. “It’s Doctor
Vidrine.”
“That is incorrect,”
Teal’c told them both. “It is Doctor
Porter.”
“Porter is her married
name,” Sam corrected.
“No,” Daniel said. “Rogers is her married name.”
General Hammond sighed,
pulled out a thick folder and plopped it on the table. Opening it, he said, “Michaela Rochelle
Porter Vidrine-Rogers. Bachelor of
Science in Mechanical Engineering from Texas A&M, Masters of Science in
Industrial Engineering from Tulane University, Doctor of Philosophy in Computer
Science from UNLV. Last known
assignment as a research and development engineer at Area 51. Currently assigned to the Cheyenne Mountain
facility on a highly-classified matter for an indefinite period of time.”
All of them sat with
their mouths agape.
“So you’re all right in a
sense,” he said with a tentative smile.
Jack wasn’t smiling.
“She’s Vidrine’s kid?!?”
the colonel exclaimed.
“Yes, Colonel. She is,” Hammond confirmed with a grin. “One of the reasons he was so eager to meet
SG-1 when he was here a few weeks ago was because your team were among the last
to see her.”
Jack’s mind spun wildly,
trying to put some of the pieces together.
Shit, if Vidrine found out half the things Kayla had done, or some of
the things he and Kayla had done they’d both have their asses handed to them on
a silver platter. God, he should have
known when those eyes of his narrowed at him when he’d made that crack about
General Hammond leaving something out.
Jack didn’t want to descend into everything he’d done with the
Lieutenant General’s daughter, so he did the best male bonding type of thing he
could do.
Put the focus on somebody
else.
“Oh, you are in such deep
cowpie right now,” Jack told Teal’c.
The Jaffa just flipped him off with a look. “So why weren’t we told about this earlier?”
“One of the conditions of
her being posted to the SGC was for no one to know of who her father was,”
Hammond explained. “There’s a lot of
bad blood there.”
“Yeah, I got that impression,”
Jack said, remembering some of Kayla’s tirades about her dad. “But of all people, Lieutenant General
Vidrine?” As he looked at Sam and
Daniel, he found they also had looks of confusion on their faces. Teal’c just looked stunned.
“She did not reveal this
information to me,” the Jaffa said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
Hell, if anybody should
be worried, Jack figured Teal’c should be.
After all, he was the last one to be ‘involved’ with the general’s
daughter. Mentally shaking his head, he
found it ironic how Teal’c and General Vidrine had stood face to face, neither
one of them knowing what they had in common.
“Well,” Jack began with a
declarative exhale, “it’s a good thing we didn’t know this when we tested the
X-301.” Jack should have made the
connection when Kayla told him she’d been pulled in as a ‘consultant’. It was probably dear old dad’s way of trying
to spend quality time with her. An Air Force brat. We’ll I’ll be damned.
“She has been going by
her mother’s maiden name,” Hammond explained.
“But legally her last name is Vidrine-Rogers, assuming she kept her
married name after the divorce became final.
The way Kayla explained it to me, it was her way of saying ‘screw you’
to the patriarchy.” Then his expression
turned a bit more serious. “Needless to
say, General Vidrine was not amused.”
“I’ll bet,” Sam said,
still stunned at the revelation.
“Kayla has told me much
of the animosity between her and her father,” Teal’c recounted. “But I had not ascertained it was someone of
such high station.”
“And all that aside, what
does the Pentagon want?” Jack prompted.
“You know, Davis, what you were saying before taking us into this pit of
confusion?”
Major Davis cleared his
throat a few times. “The Pentagon has
requested that Doctor Vid…I mean, Doctor Porter be recovered and brought back
to Langley for study.”
Everyone sat silently,
stunned again. Teal’c shifted
uncomfortably in his seat, no doubt remembering all the times orders had been
sent to the SGC to take him to Langley.
It was either that or Area 51 and he still wanted to break Maybourne’s
neck for attempting the latter.
“What?!?” Jack exclaimed,
finally breaking the silence.
“And General Vidrine has
put in a personal request for SG-1 to lead the effort,” Davis added.
“May I ask why?” Jack
interrogated.
“They feel since you let
Anubis go, the least we could do is capture Kayla and bring her back,” Hammond
said, his voice hinting he was not going along with this willingly.
“Not to sound like a broken
record here but do they know that if we hadn’t let him go we would have been
annihilated?” Daniel reiterated.
“They do indeed, Doctor
Jackson.”
“How come we’re not going
after Johnson?” Jack demanded, knowing everyone at the SGC was pretty much expendable. “For God’s sake, a US Marine is commanding a
legion of highly-trained goa’uld assassins.”
Hammond drummed his
fingers on the table for a few moments.
“Because the stakes are much higher with Kayla,” he said, trying not to
look at Teal’c.
“Because she is the
General’s daughter,” Teal’c said, his face strained.
“It’s even deeper than
that,” Davis said.
Daniel read between the
lines. “You don’t think Apophis would
try to have another harcesis, would you?”
“He would,” Teal’c said
softly, indicating he knew more than he let on.
“Teal’c,” Jack began,
leaning forward onto the conference room table, “is this something like finding
out Cronus killed your father? Because
this is stuff we need to know before the shit hits the fan, not after we’re covered
with it.”
All eyes were on Teal’c
now. He tapped his fingers together a
few times then said, “There is a deeper reason why Apophis took Doctor Porter.”
“Why?” Jack prodded.
“She resembles a favorite
concubine of his. One who was abducted
years ago,” he said as if reliving the memory.
“So she reminds him of an
old girlfriend,” Jack dismissed.
“Excuse my French but so the fuck what?”
“Teal’c,” Sam began, “not
to spell out your personal life but was this the same woman…”
“Yes,” he interrupted, obviously
not wanting Carter to air out too much of his dirty laundry.
Regardless, Jack was able
to read through the code and glared at Teal’c.
“So you were attracted to Kayla because she reminds you of an
ex-girlfriend?” he said, making sure Teal’c understood what he was getting at.
The Jaffa met his
expression with the same intensity. “My
love for her is much deeper than that, O’Neill,” Teal’c declared with
conviction.
Jack let that one
go. After all, Teal’c had been through
enough. And him conceding that Apophis
would try knocking her up was heartwrenching.
At least he admitted it to all of them.
“Okay, well, that story
is for another time over a few beers,” Jack said, putting a reassuring hand on
the Jaffa’s large shoulder.
Teal’c gave him a puzzled
look. “You know I do not consume alcohol, O’Neill.”
“Well, I’ll have the
beers. You can do the talking,” he said
with a smile, realizing the hatchet about the whole Kayla situation had just
been buried between them. “Either way,
if Apophis succeeds doing what he does best, we may be looking for another kid
in nine months.”
“Which is why we need to
bring her back into custody immediately,” Hammond urged.
“That’s easier said than
done,” Davis stated. “We don’t even
know where she is.”
Sam had an idea. Drawing herself up a little straighter in
her seat, she said, “We could start by asking…”
“Unscheduled off-world
activation,” Simmons announced.
Everyone snapped to
attention.
“To the bat cave
everyone,” Jack said as they performed the all too familiar drill of filing
down to the control room.
“Receiving Tok’ra IDC,”
Simmons announced as they filed in.
“The Tok’ra dropping in
unannounced?” Daniel asked, giving Sam an intrigued look.
Jack turned up the sarcasm.
“Isn’t that a little rude?” he asked.
The last thing he was in the mood for was yet another screwing by the
good snakes of Vorash. “Any idea what
they want?”
“No way to know until
they come through, Colonel,” Hammond placated.
The armed Marines did
their usual drill of training their weapons on the ‘gate as a preemptive strike
against any kind of attack. For a time that seemed longer than it was, only the
blaring of the klaxon signified something was coming through. Jack, Daniel and everyone else in the
control room and down by the ‘gate held their breath until two figures stepped
through the rippling event horizon. The
two figures removed their hoods to reveal the current hosts of Selmak and
Freya.
“Hello George,” Jacob
Carter said as the event horizon closed behind them.
“Greetings, General
Hammond,” Freya said, her eyes lighting on Jack.
“Well, if it isn’t our
friends the Tok’ra,” Jack said smugly as he and General Hammond met them at the
bottom of the ramp. “Should I drop my pants and bend over now or later?”
“To what do we owe this
visit, Jacob?” Hammond asked, trying hard not to see the image of Jack actually
doing what he’d just insinuated. Truth
be told, the image said it all.
Jacob Carter closed his
eyes briefly and let Selmac come forth.
“We are here on behalf of the Tok’ra High council. There is a matter of extreme urgency Anise
and I must discuss with you.”
“Define urgent,” Jack
asked.
“Life or death,” Selmak
replied.
“For us or the Tok’ra?”
“Let’s discuss this in
the debriefing room,” Hammond said, indicating the way. He motioned for the rest of SG-1 in the
control room to file back to where they’d been.
“I am glad to see you,
Colonel O’Neill,” Freya said to Jack.
The Colonel just shoved his hands in his pockets and gave her a
disdainful look.
“Both of you?” he asked
skeptically, turning on his heel and following Hammond and Jacob Carter. “I highly doubt that.”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Bra’tac meditated
silently as his Prim’tah healed his wounds.
The healing took longer these days, especially since he was over a
hundred and thirty-five years old.
Once, when Teal’c, his former student, and the humans went in search of
the harcesis child on Kheb, he thought he had finally found his place of
rest. The time when he could no longer
carry a Prim’tah was near, and once that symbiote took a host, he would die for
sure.
He hoped Shan’auc had
been able to convince Teal’c that the information she had that could defeat the
goa’uld was indeed valid. Bra’tac remembered
how she’d implored him to open the stargate and send her to the Tau’ri so she
could present her findings to the Tok’ra.
Bra’tac hadn’t been completely convinced, but he’d known Shan’auc since
she and Teal’c were children and her word was honorable. He could only hope
she’d managed to convinced Teal’c and the Tau’ri before her inevitable death.
He had managed to escape
being captured then. But somehow,
someone had informed Apophis’ new queen of his whereabouts. The guards had found his hiding place,
forcibly dragging him back to the palace dungeon. The Jaffa who beat him were beyond brutal. They interrogated him ruthlessly, demanding
to know the whereabouts of any and all Jaffa who dared to speak out against
Apophis and spread the blasphemous gospel that he and the system lords were
false gods. Laughing inwardly, he told
himself that he’d been much more skilled at the art of interrogation than they
would ever be.
But what Bra’tac couldn’t
understand was just whom these Jaffa were in the service of. Obviously they were Jackal guards in the
service of Anubis but he had not seen that system lord set foot on Chulak in
his lifetime. The only new system lord
who had arrived was Apophis’ new queen.
He did not know the name of the host nor the false god that inhabited
her body. Nevertheless, the people were in a panic, wondering in what way
Apophis’ new queen would rule Chulak.
The queen had spent most of her time in the temple. Bra’tac wondered why that was so.
He heard the doors clank
open, and the sound of heavy footsteps accompanied by lighter ones.
“Kneel before your
queen!” one of the Jackal guards barked, knocking Bra’tac to his knees with the
butt of his staff weapon.
“I kneel
before no false god,” he spat. As he
tried to sit back up, he caught a glimpse of well-manicured toes in elegant
sandals. The feet peeked out of a
curtain of purple robes trimmed in gold.
“If I were Apophis,” the
female began, tapping her foot, “I would have had you killed instantly for
saying such a thing.”
Bra’tac’s blood ran cold
when he heard the voice. It was the
voice of a goa’uld but there was another one behind it. One more familiar to him. As he craned his neck upwards, he came face
to face with a woman he’d caught his former student kissing rather passionately
back on the world of the Tau’ri. But
how had Teal’c allowed such a thing to happen?
He had instructed him to be vigilant against such a thing occurring.
Now the very thing he had
warned Teal’c about had come to pass.
“You know of my host,”
Nephthys said, taking pride in his alarmed expression. “And my host knows of you. That is how we found you.”
Bra’tac coughed a
little. “Whom did you kill to learn of
my location?” he wheezed.
“I had to kill no
one. It seems a substantial price on your
head was the only thing necessary for someone to betray you.” Nephthys put her hands on her hips,
spreading her robes like a monarch butterfly showing its colorful wings. “Not all of the Jaffa see my kind as…false
gods.”
“And which false god are you?”
Bra’tac asked.
“Blasphemy!” another of
the guards barked before striking him between the shoulder blades with the butt
of his staff weapon.
“She is the Blessed
Mother,” one of the Serpent guards said.
“Lady of the House. Mistress of
the Gods.”
“But to you,” she said,
raising Bra’tac’s chin with an elegant hand.
“I am your Queen. Queen Nephthys to be exact.”
Bra’tac spit in her face.
“You are nothing to me,”
he declared. “The Tok’ra and the Tau’ri
will destroy you and your kind. I only
pray I live to see it.”
The guard was about to
strike Bra’tac again, but Nephthys made a gesture for him not to do so. She wiped the spittle from her face as if it
were of no consequence. Standing in
front of Bra’tac, without warning she drew up her knee, catching the Jaffa full
in the chest.
“Insolence,” she spat as
he writhed in pain. “The goa’uld only
ask one thing of you. To carry our
young to maturity. And in exchange for
the good health and long life that comes with being a Jaffa, the only thing we
ask is your loyalty.”
“You enslave us,” Bra’tac
moaned. “You genetically manipulate us
to serve your own perverse purpose.”
“I know much of you from
this host,” she said, ignoring Bra’tac’s groans of pain. “You taught Teal’c all he knows. And because of your teachings his betrayal
of Apophis has caused much unrest on this world.” Nephthys looked at Bra’tac intently, as if trying to stare him
down. “An unrest I plan to resolve once
and for all.”
“And how do you plan to
accomplish such a thing.”
“By starting with this,”
she said, holding up an object he knew all too well.
It was his GDO.
Nephthys admired the
device briefly before her expression changed to that of contemplation.
“With this,” she began as
she slowly walked around him, “I will restore order where Apophis has
failed. I will subdue the Tau’ri myself
and send my son Anubis to hunt down those who dare stand in my way. And I will avenge the great wrong your
student has done to this host.”
“Great wrong?” Bra’tac
asked. He was indeed confused. What had Teal’c done to Doctor Porter?
“It is no matter,” she
said, indicating for her guards to pick him up off of the floor. Bra’tac struggled against them, but because
his symbiote had not yet healed his wounds, he was much too weak to fight
back. Nephthys came close to him,
tracing the curve of his neck with the end of the GDO.
Her eyes glowed
briefly. “What is the code to open the
Tau’ri stargate,” she demanded in her goa’uld voice.
Bra’tac was undaunted. “I will tell you nothing,” he declared.
“On the contrary,” she
said with a malevolent smile, raising her hand and activating the ribbon
device. “You will tell me everything…or
die.”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
“Want to fill us in on the reason for your visit,
Jacob?” Jack asked as they settled into their seats.
“I’ll let Anise explain.”
That statement alone made
Jack uneasy.
Freya shut her eyes
briefly to allow Anise to come forth. “We are in need of your assistance,” the
symbiote said by reverberating Freya’s vocal cords. “The situation is most urgent.”
“From lowly ol’ us?” Jack
asked. Yeah, the Tok’ra were the ‘good
guys’ but hell, a snake was a snake so he’d rather just call it like he saw it.
“One of our informants is
in grave danger,” Anise said urgently.
“It is imperative this person is retrieved immediately.”
“Why?” Daniel asked. He tried not to cringe as Anise looked at
him through Freya’s eyes in an admiring manner.
“The information provided
by said person is of extreme importance to the Tok’ra cause,” she said.
“Can we get a name here?”
“Not at this time,”
Selmak said through Jacob. “We will ask
you to … trust us. Their identity will
be revealed soon enough.”
“What kind information
has this, um, person provided in the past?” Sam asked.
“The information about
Apophis’ mother ship,” Anise said, trying to avoid the accusatory looks
everyone except Jacob gave her.
“Which we helped
destroy,” Jack reminded, then he pointed a finger at Anise’s host. “And if I remember correctly you slapped
those armbands on us to get us to go in the first place. What do you have for us this time? Nuclear-powered sneakers?”
Hammond gave Jack a ‘give
me a break’ look.
“Unfortunately, this
information has compromised her position,” Jacob said. “One of our operatives was forced to kill
one of Apophis’ Jaffa who had learned of our informant’s activities. The last transmission we received was
extremely urgent.”
“Why do I get the
impression this ‘informant’ is more important than your normal operative?”
Daniel asked as he adjusted his glasses.
Anise
looked frustrated but quickly regained her composure. “This informant is of great importance in providing us with fresh
blood and attempting to restore balance with the system lords,” she said.
“Explain what you mean by
that statement,” Teal’c pressed. Jack
could tell by his body language that he knew Anise was hiding something. It wouldn’t have been the first time.
“Exactly what I have told
you,” Anise reiterated. Neither Teal’c
nor Jack were convinced.
She’s
hiding something alright, Jack thought. Something friggin’ huge. “You should have known they wouldn’t try to
answer the question,” he reminded Daniel.
“I take it this is on a
need to know basis?” Hammond asked dryly.
“We won’t get any more information until we need to know it?”
Jacob confirmed his
questions with a nod. “But I will
provide you with this. This is a
goa’uld who may turn to our cause.”
“As you know,” Freya said,
“it has been several hundred years since a goa’uld has come over to our side.”
“Hence the need for
‘extraction’,” Teal’c ascertained.
Jacob nodded again.
“How can you trust this
goa’uld?” Hammond asked.
“We do not know if we can
completely,” Freya postulated. “But
that is a risk we’re willing to take.
This goa’uld is much too important not to investigate the possibility.”
“Consistent and accurate
intelligence has been fed to us,” Jacob said.
“Should this goa’uld choose to betray us, we will extract the
information we need in the various ways available to us. But we are hoping it will not come to that.”
“What about the host?”
Sam prompted, obviously unnerved by her father’s words. “The host is innocent.”
“In this case, the
goa’uld’s knowledge is more important than the host,” Jacob told her. “I’m sorry, Sam, but that’s the way it is.”
“However, it is what this
goa’uld is more than who it is that warrants immediate extraction,” Freya
added.
“So again I’ll ask the
question,” Jack said, his tone becoming edgy.
“Why come to us?”
“Unscheduled offworld
activation!” Harriman exclaimed.
“Who is it now?” Jack
whined. “The Girl Scouts?”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
“If it’s the Girl Scouts tell
‘em don’t show up unless they’ve got those thin mint cookies,” Jack said as he
stood behind Simmons. The screen still
flashed ‘no code received’, and Jack racked his brain to figure out who in the
hell would be contacting them now. The
Asgard? The Tollan? Santa Claus?
“Receiving signal,”
Harriman announced. “It’s special code
two.”
“Master Bra’tac,” Teal’c
said, looking at Jack.
“I hope it’s really him
this time if you get my drift,” Jack quipped.
The klaxon continued to
blare, heightening the tension in the room.
The Marines had their weapons aimed at the ‘gate, ready to take action
against anything or anyone who would threaten earth. Jack clenched and unclenched his hands, wondering just what the
hell was coming through to brighten their day.
Suddenly, Bra’tac burst
through the event horizon!
The former First Prime of
Apophis called out Teal’c’s name loudly.
He looked harried and beaten; blood caked in a gash on his
forehead. Without wasting another
second in contemplation, Teal’c hurriedly went to meet his former teacher at
the end of the gate ramp.
“Master Bra’tac,” he
said, grasping his forearm quickly in the traditional Jaffa greeting. “Who did
this to…”
“There is little time!”
he rasped. Bra’tac grasped Teal’c by
his broad shoulders and looked into his eyes. “Do you trust me?” he asked.
“Without question,” he
said. “But I…”
“Then you will let what
follows me through the Chappa’ai,” he said, clapping his shoulders
briefly. “Hammond of Texas!” Bra’tac
shouted urgently. “What follows me
through the Chappa’ai must be taken alive!
Please do not fire your weapons!”
Teal’c looked
puzzled. So did Hammond.
“Do not fire,” Hammond
said into the microphone. “But do not
stand down. I repeat, do not stand
down.”
Suddenly, two Jackal
guards stepped through the gate.
“Do not fire!” Bra’tac
pleaded.
“Hold fire!” Hammond
barked reflexively. After a few moments
he said, “What?!?”
“Oh…crap,” Jack said,
arriving at the gate ramp in time to see a hooded figure surrounded by four more
Jackal guards come through the rippling event horizon. They joined the two who had come through
previously and stood there on the ramp.
“Do not fire!” Bra’tac
pleaded again, this time stepping in front of the Jackal guards.
“Bra’tac are you crazy?!?”
Jack yelled. “These guards almost
killed us!”
“Do not fire!” Teal’c
reiterated to the Marines as he held up his hand. Turning his attention to the Jackal guards, his voice became more
threatening. “Surrender your weapons
immediately and the Tau’ri will allow you to live.”
All of the guards slowly
placed their staff weapons on the ‘gate ramp, then put their hands behind their
heads and sank to their knees. The
hooded figure still stood there, unmoving.
It was if the person was daring Teal’c to challenge them.
“Show yourself!” Teal’c
demanded of the figure.
He, along with everyone
in the gate room held their breaths as an elegant hand removed the hood to
expose the person underneath. When Teal’c saw who it was, he felt rooted where
he stood. A myriad of feelings swelled
through him like a tidal wave, and the emotional undertow threatened to pull
him down. Even with all his years of
Jaffa training, he could not stop his heart from racing when he saw her face as
it was revealed to him.
It was the face of Doctor
Kayla Porter.
Please,
Kayla, do not do this, Teal’c pleaded.
He was helpless, caught in the clutches of the ribbon device held by
Kayla, but controlled by the demon that possessed her.
My
host cannot help you, the goa’uld declared.
She does not want to help you.
She wants you dead.
Then
suddenly he heard gunshots.
Her eyes glowed briefly
before slowly returning the dark brown-eyed gaze of the host. Teal’c looked
between Bra’tac and ‘Kayla’, not sure what to make of the situation. Surely his former teacher must have some
reason for protecting this…this demon who had possessed the body of his Tau’ri
lover.
“Hold your fire,” Hammond
reminded the soldiers. “Who are you?”
he demanded.
“I am Nephthys,” the goa’uld
declared through Kayla’s vocal cords, the eerie goa’uld voice booming
throughout the embarkation room. “Great granddaughter and lover of Ra.”
“Oh, if only Hathor could
hear this…” Jack muttered, finally finding the strength to say something.
“And consort of
Apophis.” Settling her gaze on Teal’c,
she said, “Of the Tau’ri I humbly request kon mah.” She slipped off her ribbon
device and stooped down to place it on the ramp, then stood with her hands
behind her head.
“Sanctuary,” Teal’c
translated, his eyes still transfixed upon her. But he wondered why this goa’uld would want such a thing. And why was it fleeing from Apophis?
“At least she asked,”
Jack rationalized. “Unlike Apophis who
downright demanded it.”
Jacob, with Anise in tow,
stood next to Jack and Teal’c. “Onak
sha cree, shel Goa’uld?” Selmak demanded.
Translation: Which god do you worship?
“Goach sha cree, mi
Goa’uld,” Nephthys answered back.
Translation: I am the god
I worship.
Anise got a stern look on
her face. “That is not the correct
response,” she rebuked. Jacob rested a hand on her shoulder, then motioned for
Nephthys to approach.
“It is indeed the correct
response,” he said, assisting Nephthys as she came down the ramp. “Sorry, but this was only known to select
members of the high council. For
obvious reasons.”
Because
she is a system lord, Teal’c said in his mind.
“It sucks to be out of
the loop, doesn’t it?” Jack whispered to Anise, not masking the glee in his
voice.
“Well, George,” Jacob
said with a grin. “Looks like we won’t
have to send SG-1 out for our operative after all. Seems Bra’tac brought her to us.”
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
[Chapter
One] [Chapter
Two] [Chapter
Three] [Chapter
Four] [Chapter
Five] [Chapter
Six]
~ * ~ * ~ * ~