Jack watched Teal’c lean over Carter and put his fingers to her throat. The Jaffa turned and nodded. She had a pulse. Jack was incredibly relieved, not only because she would recover, but also because Daniel wouldn’t have to live with having killed her.
Jack turned his attention to Daniel, who was now flat on his back on the floor, trembling through the after effects of the zat blast. He knelt beside his friend. “I’m sorry.”
Daniel’s eyes were clenched shut against the pain. “Sam?”
Jack peeked behind him to see Carter starting to come around with Teal’c’s aid. “She’ll be okay.”
“I couldn’t—” Daniel shook his head. “Zat me again before I lose control.”
“That’s not one of your better ideas. A second shot will kill you.”
“Really? Is that how those things work? Someone should’ve told me.” Jack was somewhat relieved to hear the sarcasm, though the hysterical edge in his voice was concerning. Daniel’s eyes opened and looked straight into Jack’s. “Do it again. Please.”
“I’m not giving up, Daniel. We’ll get you out of this.” Jack started to back away, knowing the symbiote wouldn’t stay dormant for long. But Daniel grabbed his wrist and held him there.
“Promise me! Promise me that if you can’t remove him, you’ll kill me. That you won’t let us escape. I can’t live like this, Jack. Not like Sha’re. Please.”
Ah, Jesus. Jack leaned over and grasped Daniel’s head in his hands, looking straight into his frightened blue eyes. “I promise, Daniel. I promise. But you have to hang in there. No giving up, you hear me?”
Daniel’s eyes searched Jack’s for several seconds before he gave a tight nod. Jack let go of his friend and backed away just in time to see the arrogant mask slide back into place over Daniel’s features. Zippy was back. And judging by the new twist to his mouth, he was pissed. Good. He could stay pissed, as far as Jack was concerned, right up until the moment the Tok’ra yanked his smarmy, slithering ass out of Daniel’s head.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Jacob was worried. He hadn’t heard a peep from Daniel for several hours. He’d already thought through a multitude of possible explanations for the continuing silence, and it was getting harder and harder for Selmak to keep him calm.
The more he thought about the conversation he’d had with Daniel, the more it bothered him. Something wasn’t right. He almost wondered if the archaeologist had called him under duress, but he knew the man wouldn’t have caved under torture and tried to betray him. Certainly not so quickly, anyway.
But what if it hadn’t been his own pain Daniel was trying to avoid? Would he betray Jacob to save his team?
‘And to save the woman he loves.’
Jacob frowned. ‘We don’t know that he loves her.’ But he knew Selmak had a point. If Daniel was in love with Sam, would he hand them over to save her?
‘And what would you consider to be the correct answer to that question?’ Selmak asked.
Jacob had no idea. He would do anything, suffer anything to spare Sam from similar pain. He’d be able to forgive Daniel for such a betrayal. But he also knew that Sam’s values and loyalties would never let her forgive it. If Selmak was right, it would leave Daniel in an unenviable position if it came down to such a choice. Let his love die, or betray her father and lose her forever.
Reason enough for the frat regs right there.
‘Do you really believe he would deceive us to save her?’
‘I don’t know, Sel. I wouldn’t have thought so, but something is off with him besides a bump on the head. I just can’t figure out what.’
‘Perhaps he was attempting to send us a message without letting his captors know?’
Oh, lovely thought. Jacob tried to remember the details of the conversation. Had he failed to do something that Daniel had tried to imply? Was that why he still hadn’t heard from SG-1?
Just as Jacob’s mind was taking him in directions neither he nor Selmak wanted to go, the radio crackled to life. “Jacob!” hissed Jack’s voice. “You still up there?”
He flipped the response control on the helm. “Jack, where the hell have you been? Is everyone okay?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, before Jack’s voice came back. Jacob could hear what sounded like zat and staff blasts in the background. “We’re all accounted for. On our way to the rings. Be ready to punch the hyperdrive when we get aboard.” More sounds of weapons fire came through.
“Will do.”
‘They’re all accounted for? He did not say they were all okay,’ Selmak noted.
‘No, he didn’t.’ Jacob was trying hard not to think about it and failing miserably. ‘Please, not Sam.’
‘She will be all right, Jacob.’
‘She better be.’
Several tense minutes later, Jack radioed again. Jacob quickly lowered the defence shield and immediately heard the rings activate. He took a quick glance backward, counted four upright people of the right description, and then focused on getting out of there. Death gliders were launching from the base and beginning to converge on their position when the Tel’tak entered hyperspace.
Jacob sighed with relief and turned back to his companions, eager to know what had happened. There had been no explosions, no damage to the base. The mission had obviously failed, yet they had still managed to escape. Jacob, and especially Selmak, wanted to know why. He was expecting to see a guilty looking tableau of exhausted people who, hopefully, were not too badly injured.
Instead what he saw was Teal’c forcing a struggling Daniel to his knees, with Jack pointing a zat at the archaeologist’s head. Sam was pulling zip ties out of one of the packs, securing several around Daniel’s wrists with Teal’c’s help.
What the hell? Jacob got up got up from the helm and entered the cargo bay. He was just about to voice his question when the feeling of naquadah struck him, far more than he would perceive from Sam alone.
‘Goa’uld!’ Selmak yelled in his head.
Jacob didn’t have much trouble guessing who it was. ‘Daniel’ scowled up at him, eyes flashing his anger. “Selmak of the Tok’ra. How unpleasurable it is to meet you.”
Jacob winced at seeing the archaeologist in such a state, tied up and guarded by his friends. Suddenly, his previous conversation with Daniel made so much more sense. He hadn’t been concussed or under duress; he’d been possessed. And the plan hadn’t been stupid or hiding a cryptic message; it had been a deliberate attempt to get Jacob to reveal his position.
He let his head drop as Selmak took control, both to give Jacob some relief from the rage building inside him, and because the Goa’uld would more readily respond to another symbiote.
Jacob snorted internally as Selmak went for the most haughty expression he could. “And you would be?”
“Where are my manners?” Jack asked, never taking his eyes off the Goa’uld. “Selmak, this is Zipacna. Zippy, I see you recognize Selmak. Play nice.”
“I have nothing to say to this gonach,” Zipacna sneered.
So, it was going to be like that, was it? Jacob didn’t know why he’d expected anything else. Selmak bent down to stare into Zipacna’s blue eyes. “You may not have much to say to me, but I assure you there is much that the Tok’ra High Council will wish to hear. You will tell them all you know. And then you will be removed. I will be certain to be there, as I have great respect for your host.”
Selmak stood up again, turned his back on Zipacna, and went back to the helm. Jacob took over control when Jack and Sam followed a short while later. Sam sat in the co-pilot’s chair, and Jack flopped down on the floor.
“How long until we get back to the Alpha Site, Jacob? Please tell me it’ll be faster than the way here.”
“Sorry, Jack. Can’t tell you that.”
Jack looked back into the cargo area where Teal’c was guarding Zipacna. “Oh, yeah. I’m really looking forward to a three-day journey in this box you call a ship with a cranky Gould whose ass I can’t kick without hurting my best friend. Next time we go on a pleasure cruise, Jacob, I’m choosing the destination.”
“What the hell happened? How did the mission go from ‘blow the place up’ to ‘capture the Goa’uld lord living in your archaeologist’?”
Jacob immediately regretted his callous word choice when he saw both Sam and Jack wince. Sam looked close to tears.
‘What are you thinking, Jacob? She loves him, and you speak about him like that?’
‘It’s not that I don’t want you to be right, Sel, but wanting it doesn’t make it so.’
‘Look at her. She loves him.’
Jacob looked at his daughter, finally starting to see what his symbiote was talking about. He could only remember a few times that Sam looked as upset as she did now. When he’d told her that her mother had died. When she’d learned that he was dying. And when they’d watched Daniel die. Ascension or not, Sam had been inconsolable afterwards.
“I’m sorry,” Jacob said. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. But I do need to know what happened.”
Jack nodded. “We got caught. The charges were set but the Jaffa found Teal’c and Daniel. Carter and I went to help them. Daniel was down when I found him, but he wasn’t hurt too badly. I stupidly gave him the detonator before I knew he was the enemy. Then we had a little torture time, with Daniel getting a ringside seat I’m sure he didn’t want. Carter arranged our escape. We grabbed Daniel, hitchhiker and all, and high-tailed it back to the ship. It’s quite possibly our worst mission ever. I’ll have to think about it some more before I decide.”
Sam was looking back at Teal’c and Daniel. “The Tok’ra will be able to get him out, right, Dad? Daniel will be fine?”
‘Tell her the risks, Jacob. She’ll never forgive you if he dies and she wasn’t warned. Better yet, let me tell her what else we’ll be dealing with.’
Jacob set the ship on autopilot and turned to his daughter, pausing briefly to let Selmak take control. “Samantha, it is a delicate procedure, even for Tok’ra surgeons. Things can and have gone wrong in the past. The host does not always survive. Dr. Jackson’s chances are good, but they are not guaranteed.”
Sam wrapped her arms around herself and looked down at the floor. Jacob wanted to reach out and hold her, but even if Selmak was not in control of their body, it wouldn’t be appropriate in front of her commanding officer.
“Better and better, I tell ya.” Jack pursed his lips. “Any other good news you feel like sharing, Selmak?”
“Unfortunately, there is. The Tok’ra will want to spend time interrogating Zipacna before they remove him from Dr. Jackson. The intelligence he could provide would be invaluable.”
“Oh, I don’t think so. Daniel is the last of us to have a Gould take up residence, and I am not—”
“The symbiotes that blended with you and Samantha were Tok’ra, not Goa’uld!”
Jacob sighed internally and took control over from Selmak before the symbiote’s temper got the best of him and he really pissed Jack off.
Oh, boy. Too late. Judging from his facial expression, Jack was already way beyond pissed off. He got up off the floor and started to pace. “Carter wasn’t given a choice before Jolinar took over her body. And while I stupidly agreed to have a snake put in my head, I did not sign up to be carted across the galaxy before being abandoned to face Ba’al by myself. Pretty damn hard to tell the difference between Gould and Tok’ra from where I’m sitting.”
“Colonel!”
Jacob waved away Sam’s objection. “It’s okay. Let him finish.”
“And where were the Tok’ra when my ass needed to be pulled out of the fire, you might ask? Nowhere to be seen, that’s where. Carter, Teal’c and Jonas were the ones to figure out how to give me a chance to escape. After having to beg and threaten the Tok’ra to get the information they needed, I might add. And the only reason I was still sane enough to take advantage of that chance when it finally came was because that man back there,” Jack pointed a finger toward the cargo bay, “refused to leave me alone, despite having the incredibly good excuse of technically being dead at the time. So the Tok’ra will gather more ‘intelligence’ and leave Daniel living what is literally his worst nightmare for one second longer than is absolutely necessary over my dead body. Is that clear?”
Jacob waited a few moments for Jack to calm down, and then asked, “Are you done?”
Jack seemed to think about it. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Mind if I share Selmak’s idea now?”
“If you must.”
“He was about to remind you that we are very close to a planet protected by the Asgard. Which we believe has one of Thor’s symbiote killing machines on it. It would probably be more painful for Daniel than the surgery, but there would be no arguments or negotiations between Zipacna and the Tok’ra to deal with.”
“Selmak suggested that?” Sam asked.
“He’s fond of Daniel too, Sammy. He’ll support whatever decision you make, and will argue for Zipacna’s immediate removal if it comes down to it.”
Jack pursed his lips. “So the surgery could kill Daniel?”
“The procedure is tough. Sometimes the host doesn’t make it.” ‘Especially if the symbiote is particularly unpleasant and intentionally harms the host first,’ Jacob added silently.
‘As Zipacna no doubt will.’ Selmak agreed.
“And how long will the Tok’ra dither and debate whether the snake will be a decent source of intel?” Jack asked.
“Could be days, could be weeks if Zipacna spins a tale they’ll believe.” Jacob glanced back at the prisoner in the cargo bay. Zipacna’s eyes were closed, though Jacob didn’t believe for a second that he wasn’t listening. “And you can bet that he will.”
“Is the hammer safer?”
Jacob shrugged. “To be honest, we don’t know too much about them. The Tok’ra tend to avoid the planets protected by them, both because they are of little strategic importance in our war with the Goa’uld, and because the devices don’t distinguish between Goa’uld and Tok’ra. However, the Asgard have superior healing technology, and are well aware of the innocence of a Goa’uld host. I believe it would be less risky.”
“But more painful.”
“Judging from your reports on how the device worked on Cimmeria, yes, I’d say so.”
Jack stared at his trapped friend. Jacob had no doubt as to what Daniel would choose and knew Jack didn’t either. However knowing what would be chosen and having to make that decision yourself were very different things. Jacob quietly watched Jack watch Daniel until finally the Colonel turned to Sam. “Carter?”
She hesitated briefly but then closed her eyes and spoke. “He wants it out now, sir. He’ll suffer anything to have it out now.”
Jack nodded. “Head for the protected planet.”
Jacob turned back to the controls and complied.
XXXXXXXXXX
Zipacna was indeed listening to the plans the Tok’ra and the Tau’ri were making concerning his fate. How dare these invaders believe they could kill him? Zipacna was a god. He had lived more than four millennia, and no one, not Goa’uld, not Jaffa, and certainly not human, had ever threatened him with such disregard for his status. It was infuriating.
‘Long fall from that deity pedestal, is it?’
‘Are you never quiet?’
‘Not really, no. If you don’t like it, feel free to leave.’
The Jaffa’s attention as guard didn’t wander from him for a second. This one had been well trained before he’d betrayed his master. It was irritating in the extreme. Zipacna made a big production out of stretching and uncramping his legs, but in reality he was setting them to be able to move more rapidly. He twisted his wrists in his bonds, wincing exaggeratedly as the blood flowed from them, but confirming they were weak enough to break under a concerted effort. Now he only had to await an opportunity.
It came less than ten minutes after the Tok’ra had reoriented the ship toward the damnable Asgard treaty planet. The humans had separated from the Tok’ra and the female was speaking quietly to O’Neill. Zipacna watched as O’Neill pulled at the sliced section of Carter’s black shirt which was hanging below the bottom of her jacket, a querying expression on his face. She briefly closed her eyes and then answered him. O’Neill’s eyes widened and he abruptly stood up, fists clenched.
“I’ll kill him!”
Carter pulled on his arm, “No, sir! I’m fine. He didn’t— I’m fine. Remember, it’s Daniel too. You can’t hurt Daniel!”
Zipacna smiled internally. Their care for the host would help significantly. But, more importantly, Zipacna could see that the Tok’ra had turned a curious expression onto the humans, and the Jaffa glanced their way as well.
Zipacna didn’t hesitate. He pulled roughly on his bonds, pushing himself to his feet even as they snapped away from his wrists. He launched himself at the Jaffa, feeling his fingers brush against the shol’va’s throat before the incapacitating blast of a zat’nik’tel knocked him to the floor. Blackness enveloped him.
He woke only a second or two later, completely incapable of controlling his body. Zipacna dreaded the trouble the stubborn remnant of his host would cause in his incapacity, until he realized the human was still unconscious. That puzzled him, but then perhaps this second zat’nik’tel blast within such a short time was more than the inferior nervous system of the human could handle. Zipacna felt lucky that it had been as long between blasts as it had. Much closer together and it might actually have killed him. He revelled in the glorious silence in his head as he tried in vain to open his eyelids. The body would not yet respond. Damned Jaffa. At least he could hear what was going on.
“Oh, God.” That was Carter. “How long since the Colonel zatted him? Daniel?” He could feel her frantic touch at his neck, and assumed she was checking for a pulse. If he’d had control he might have tried to slow his heart enough that she would think him dead, but it was impossible now. Her other hand smoothed over his forehead, and she sighed with obvious relief. “He’s alive.”
“We must retie him before he awakens, Major Carter,” Teal’c said. Zipacna swore that one would die painfully. He tried to track where O’Neill and the Tok’ra were located, but he couldn’t hear them.
Zipacna felt one more caress along his cheek, felt his host take semiconscious comfort from it, and then the woman moved away. “You’re right. Hang on.”
The Jaffa hauled Zipacna upright, grasping him by the shoulders and pulling one arm behind him. His host let out a soft groan at the movement. And Zipacna scrambled to overpower the remnant before he could recover completely.
He was finally successful just as Carter returned with a handful of the disposable devices the humans used to bind him. He waited for her to kneel beside him before twisting into Teal’c’s arm, using his superior strength to break the Jaffa’s grasp. Then he struck the woman in the jaw and unhooked the handgun strapped to her thigh as she sprawled to the floor. Another split second and he was on his feet, pointing the weapon first at the Jaffa and then at Carter. He let his mouth draw back into his preferred sneer.
“Move and I will kill her,” Zipacna said. The shol’va, who had been slowly drifting towards him, stopped.
Selmak was on his feet near the helm. O’Neill stood in the doorway between the cargo hold and the pel’tac. He too had ceased moving. Carter glared up at Zipacna from the ground where she’d landed. Oh, yes. This one had spirit as well as beauty. He’d have to see if he could procure a symbiote for her once they returned. Ixchel would need a new host once she was done producing symbiotes for Anubis’s army. She might be grateful enough to receive such a fine one that she’d finally agree to become Zipacna’s consort.
‘Not while I live to fight you.’ Oh, good. His host was awake again. Just when the peacefulness was becoming almost unbearably pleasant.
‘You’re already dead, human. You just don’t know it yet.’ He felt his host’s fear at the thought of Carter becoming a host along with him. ‘Whatever is the matter? You would be with her for centuries. You’d have her in your bed every night. You should look at this as a mercy I am granting you. The only one you will receive. I will have all I desire in time.’
Zipacna felt only amusement at the creative curses his host cast at him, especially once he’d delved into the man’s memories for translations of the most intriguing. He let the rant continue in the back of his mind, though he did not allow it to distract him from the stand-off he’d created. He backed away from the Jaffa, carefully keeping his weapon trained on Carter.
O’Neill took a step forward, and Zipacna raised his gun to him instead. “Okay, so you’ve got us at a disadvantage. Now what are you going to do?” The human widened his hands in front of him, trying to appear non-threatening. Not that Zipacna considered him much of a threat.
Zipacna smirked. “Selmak. You will set a course back to my base, or I will kill the daughter of your host.” He pointed the weapon back down at the woman.
The Tok’ra’s eyes flashed as the symbiote took over without bothering with the mockery of lowering his head. “Release her or I will kill you. Slowly.”
“I doubt that. Do it, or she dies.”
Selmak’s eyes flicked to the woman and back before sitting back down at the helm and entering the new coordinates. The hyperdrive field shifted slightly, and they were soon on their way back. No wonder the Tok’ra weren’t a serious threat to the System Lords. Why they would care for the family of the humans they inhabited was beyond Zipacna’s comprehension. Selmak finished with the controls and glared at him from the console.
However, while he was distracted by the Tok’ra, both O’Neill and Teal’c had crept closer to him. It was time to set an example. He had plans for Carter and preferred not to kill her. However, any of the others would do. Zipacna swung the weapon around, taking aim at his target.
‘No!’ his host screamed in his head. ‘No, don’t!’
Zipacna’s pull on the trigger slowed momentarily, impossibly. He’d be damned if his host was going to thwart him again. He redoubled his efforts and was rewarded when his finger was abruptly released and completed its action. But apparently his host had not given up; he’d just switched tactics.
As the weapon fired, Zipacna felt his wrist jerk to the side, throwing off his aim, though not enough to prevent the bullet from tearing into the chest of his victim. The effort, though impressive, had come too late. His host cried out in denial. Zipacna smiled in victory, even as he spared a moment’s concentration to punish the resistance.
It was a mistake. Carter took advantage of Zipacna’s internal distraction and kicked at his legs. He felt something strike the side of his head with brutal force. Then he felt himself hit the floor.