They weren't there, and then they were again, rematerializing as the rings snapped down into the floor. There was only time to absorb the quickest of first impressions - large, and bright, and hot, and multi-colored beams of light sweeping the room - before the first of those beams of light struck Teal'c as it moved in a narrow-arced diagonal from ceiling to floor.
He gave an audible grunt of pain, and his left hand reached involuntarily for the symbiote pouch that he longer possessed. Daniel was turning to him in alarm when a second beam swept across, this one moving perpendicular to the floor at knee level. It hit Daniel, whose head snapped back in a spasm of agony, mouth open to voice a cry that never got past his vocal cords. He collapsed on the floor without a sound.
Sam saw the next beam coming, this one moving in a wider arc than the one that had struck Teal'c, but there was no way to avoid it. It sliced upwards from floor to ceiling, and there was a fraction of a second to brace herself for the pain before it hit.
She heard herself scream as the force of it drove her to her knees: white fire that seared along her spine, her brain suddenly ringing with the echo of a thousand silenced voices. Sensation raced along every vein and capillary. Something was writhing in the back of her throat, driving towards her spinal cord and wresting control of self and soul and...
Jolinar, she thought dimly. The beam had evoked the memory - and memories - of Jolinar. It was reading her as Goa'uld, only not quite right. The beams of light continued to criss-cross the room, and several more struck her in passing, but the pain was slowly beginning to subside.
She forced her eyes open and raised her head to see how her teammates were faring. Teal'c seemed to have already recovered from whatever the beam had done to him - identified him as a Jaffa? - and was bent protectively over Daniel.
She could crawl, she discovered, and she scrambled forward on hands and knees, her own stabbing pains forgotten in her sudden terror. Because every beam of light that hit Daniel stayed there, and half a dozen were focused on him already. And Daniel shuddered on the floor, eyes wide and staring, mouth opening and closing in a futile attempt to draw breath.
She reached out with shaking hands to grab him by the arm, trying to pull him out of the way of those deadly beams. Teal'c abandoned his efforts to shield Daniel from additional attack - the beams, without any apology to the laws of physics, simply passed right through him - and added his own considerable strength to the task. Working together, ignoring the pain, they managed to move Daniel completely off the ring platform. But the lights only followed, and they were joined by still more. Nearly every beam in the room was focused squarely on Daniel now, and Sam felt her fear ratchet up another notch as she saw the first trickle of blood leaking out of his left ear.
She wrenched her gaze away from him and followed the deadly beams of light back to their source. There it was: a dull black pedestal in the middle of the large room, topped by a gray globe that was studded with dozens of crystalline growths. The light beams pulsed sickly out of the growths, and even as she reared onto her knees and brought her P-90 to her shoulder, she saw another crystal skim over the top of the globe to refocus its lethal attention on Daniel.
Just as her finger tightened on the trigger, a staff weapon blast exploded harmlessly six inches before it reached the globe. Force-shielded. Sam flicked a glance sideways just in time to see a grim-faced Teal'c adjust his aim and fire again, aiming for the pedestal this time. The pedestal shattered and the gray globe tumbled to the floor in a shower of stone fragments, but the light beams remained solidly locked on Daniel.
Sam didn't waste time trying to see if bullets would penetrate the shield any better than the staff weapon could. She lurched to her feet and staggered forward, ignoring the sharp stabs of pain from the beams as they flickered around and through her. She reversed her grip on her weapon, raised it high over her head, and smashed it down on the globe with every ounce of strength she still possessed.
The globe crumbled like half-baked gravel. The beams of light winked out. The low-pitched whine they'd been hearing all along finally stopped.
Sam let out a great gasp of relief, then turned and stumbled back to the others. Teal'c had already removed Daniel's glasses and arranged his arms and legs in the recovery position. He was now stripping off his own jacket, folding it and placing it under Daniel's head. He glanced up at Sam as she dropped to her knees beside him.
"His pulse is erratic, as is his breathing," he reported somberly.
Sam nodded as her fingers rapidly assessed Daniel's condition. His eyes were closed now - she couldn't decide if that was a good sign or not - and his skin was alarmingly clammy. He was shocky, she knew, but they couldn't elevate his feet with a probable head injury. Blood still trickled sluggishly from his nose and ears, too bright against his white face. It might be an indication of swelling of the brain, or possibly intracranial bleeding. She peeled back first one eyelid, then the other. His pupils reacted too slowly for her liking, but at least they were even.
"Let's get him back to Earth," she said shortly. Two minutes of her leadership, and Daniel was half-dead...
She kept her eyes dry through sheer force of will, and focused on getting her friend and teammate to safety. Belatedly, she gave Teal'c a searching look. "Are you all right?" she asked. "What did the light beams do to you?"
"I have recovered, Colonel Carter." Teal'c grasped Daniel under the arms, and Sam positioned herself at his legs. Together, moving carefully and smoothly, they maneuvered him back onto the ring platform. "The beams seemed to probe me for a symbiote. I am unsure if the pain was because I no longer carry one, or if it is a routine effect of the probing for any Jaffa."
Sam blinked at the bland suggestion that the Jaffa would be expected to experience great pain as a matter of course. "I think it defined me as a Goa'uld," she said. "Jolinar. The naquadah in my bloodstream. And if that kind of pain was routine for anyone who passed the Goa'uld test, then Anubis must not have been expecting any friends to come by."
Teal'c cradled Daniel's head as he laid him gently back on the floor, now safely within the borders of the ring platform. "I very much doubt Anubis had many friends, Goa'uld or otherwise."
Sam huffed a laugh as she stuffed the jacket under Daniel's head again. "Yeah, that's probably..." Her voice trailed off. Something was niggling at the back of her mind, prompted by Teal'c's dry observation. No friends. Detecting Jaffa and Goa'uld...
She shook her head impatiently, dismissing the thought for the time being. She'd do an analysis of the whole debacle later. "Let's get out of here, Teal'c."
Teal'c shifted his grip on his staff weapon and pressed the crystal on the device to activate the rings.
Nothing happened.
"Well?" Sam said expectantly, looking up from her crouch at Daniel's side.
Teal'c frowned, examined the wrist device for damage, and tried again. The rings did not activate.
"Maybe there's a code you need to input," Sam said, feeling a little desperate. Her fingers scrabbled for Daniel's pulse again. Still erratic.
"There is no resource for entering a code. There is merely a single crystal to depress." Teal'c refrained from pressing the crystal a futile third time. "It is no longer operative, Colonel Carter."
Sam went for her radio. "Sierra Gulf Three, this is Sierra Gulf One Niner. Come in."
Nothing. Not even static.
"Sierra Gulf Three Leader, this is Sierra Gulf One Niner. Do you copy?"
Silence.
Sam met Teal'c's gaze. "Are you hearing me over your radio?" she asked quietly.
"I am," he confirmed. "The radios are not broken, Colonel Carter. But it would seem that this complex is shielded from outside communication."
She sat back on her heels, staring down at Daniel. "So we're stuck here, with one man down, and no way out."
"For the time being," Teal'c said firmly. "You will find a way."
Sam quirked a half-smile at him, grateful beyond words that he, at least, had faith in her leadership. "Yeah."
She circled Daniel's wrist with her fingers. Was his pulse stabilizing, just a little bit? She leaned forward a little. His breathing did seem steadier than before.
"Let's move him off the ring platform for now," she ordered. "Even if we're locked in, it doesn't mean others are locked out. Time to evaluate our options, I think."
Once they had Daniel settled as comfortably as possible against the wall, Sam considered what to do next. She and Teal'c were all right, but Daniel wasn't. They would have to watch him carefully. They needed to find out what was wrong with the ring platform - it seemed most likely that destroying the globe had somehow damaged the system, but they had to determine the exact cause and see if there was some way to repair it. Since they didn't know how long it would take, or even if it was possible to fix the rings, they would have to assess their supplies and ration them accordingly. Water, she knew, would quickly become the biggest problem. Daniel, in particular, would need fluids.
They were due to check in with SG-3 in... Sam glanced at her watch. Thirty minutes. SG-3 would realize that they were missing their check-in, and when they failed to respond, Reynolds would no doubt report back to the SGC. Then General O'Neill would pull out all the stops to find them and get them back home.
Except that she hadn't called Reynolds for backup when they found the rings' location on the surface, and Teal'c held the now-defunct device that was the only way to access the rings in the first place. Even if SG-3 and the S&R teams found the right spot, how would they be able to reach them?
She gritted her teeth, resolving not to waste time on second-guessing her decision to leave SG-3 at the Gate. It wouldn't have changed anything, anyway. It was up to Sam and Teal'c - and Daniel, when he recovered - to rescue themselves.
First things first. "All right," she said at last, reaching into the pocket of her vest that contained some very basic medical supplies. "Teal'c, I'm going to stay here with Daniel. Do a quick recon of this place and make sure we're alone. Be careful; we don't want to set off any more traps. Check in every five minutes, and immediately if you spot any sign of other people down here."
Teal'c inclined his head in agreement. He spared a single moment to look down at Daniel, then gripped his staff weapon a little more firmly before heading for the only exit from the chamber.
Sam watched him leave, then tore open the antiseptic cloths she'd fished out of her vest pocket. Gently, she wiped away the smears of blood from Daniel's face and neck. She was hugely relieved to see that the bleeding had stopped. The color hadn't returned to his face, but his pulse seemed to finally be settling back into a regular rhythm.
She opened a second pocket of her vest and pulled out the paper-thin emergency blanket. shaking out its silvery folds and tucking it around him. The place was hot enough, but she wanted to keep him as warm as possible.
"Hey, Daniel," she whispered, patting him gently on the cheek.
No response.
Sam moved her hand to his chest and left it there, trying to calm herself by the feel of the steady beating of his heart. She couldn't bear to think that she'd managed to nearly kill Daniel on her first mission as SG-1 leader.
Fifteen minutes passed in agonizing slowness. Teal'c reported at five-minute intervals, regular as clockwork. Sam kept her left hand on Daniel's chest and her right hand on her P-90; her eyes flicked back and forth like a metronome. Daniel. Rings. Door. Daniel. Rings. Door. Daniel. Rings...
"Colonel Carter," Teal'c's voice crackled from the radio. "Do you require my assistance?"
"Not at the moment, Teal'c, no. What's wrong?"
"I have completed my initial search. This complex is completely empty. If you can manage on your own, I wish to investigate certain matters further."
"Go ahead, Teal'c. And see if you can find water," she added as an afterthought.
"I have already done so. I am unsure of its potability, but we do have water purification tablets. Do you still require frequent check-ins, Colonel Carter?"
"Not if you're sure that we're safely alone down here, Teal'c. Let's make it every ten minutes."
"Very well. Teal'c out."
Teal'c's more intensive search took more than an hour, which gave Sam time to inventory their supplies. Between the three of them, they had three canteens of drinkable water, six MREs, and five power bars. Water purification tablets, antiseptic wipes, bandages, oral painkillers... She sighed. They'd gone through the Gate expecting a simple recon of a few hours' duration, although experience probably should have warned them that there really was no such thing. If they couldn't figure out how to escape in the next few hours, they would need to ration their supplies very carefully.
She checked on Daniel again. His heartbeat was strong and sure now. She wouldn't breathe easily until he woke up and proved he was compos mentis, but she dared to allow herself the tremulous hope that he really was starting to recover.
The sudden sound of footsteps outside the chamber startled her, but Teal'c called out her name just before he entered the room so she wouldn't try to shoot him. Sam glanced up from her seat on the floor next to Daniel and asked the question with her eyes.
"Anubis," Teal'c observed, "was a strange mixture of old Goa'uld and half-Ancient. Many of the systems here are constructed of outdated Goa'uld technology that has been spliced together with Ancient technology."
Sam bit her lip, thinking of the conclusion she'd made while she waited for Teal'c to complete his investigations. "So what does that mean for us?"
Teal'c sank into a cross-legged position with his usual smooth grace.
"Everything in this complex is linked by an old Goa'uld power system of conduits leading to a single source of energy. When we destroyed Anubis' anti-intruder system, the surge to the crystals essentially shut down everything else that requires power."
"So, basically, we blew the fuses?"
"Indeed."
"And we need to find the fuse box?"
"I have done so." Teal'c nodded at the doorway. "The power source - or 'fuse box' - is easily accessible."
"The lights are still working," Sam said a little doubtfully. She glanced at the ceiling. Perhaps it was coated with some kind of substance that made it glow so brightly? Was that the source of the oppressive heat?
He inclined his head as he conceded the point. "The water systems are operative as well. Everything else, however, is now without power."
"Including air circulation?" Sam asked sharply.
Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "I am unsure if air circulation in this complex requires power, or is due to natural causes. It seems likely that this was formerly a system of caves that Anubis enlarged for his own purposes. If power was required to circulate the air, then yes, that function is now defunct. Considering the size of this complex, however, I believe that it will not be a cause for concern for some time."
Sam subsided at this reassurance that they weren't going to suffocate in the next few hours. "So can we fix the central energy source?"
"I cannot," Teal'c admitted readily. "But I have faith that you can, Colonel Carter."
Sam took a deep breath, then looked down again at Daniel. In the last twenty minutes or so, his state of unconsciousness had lightened. He was no longer so frighteningly still. On the other hand, a few twitches of his fingers or head didn't offer any assurance that he'd escaped brain damage.
"The intruder system read you as Jaffa, Teal'c," she said softly. "It read me as Goa'uld. I think - I think it read Daniel as Ascended."
Teal'c stiffened.
"Anubis must have been terrified of the possibility that the Ancients might actually interfere," she went on. "The safeguards he set up against Ascended intrusion would have been exponentially harsher than anything else."
Teal'c's fingers skimmed Daniel's hair. "Do you believe that the attack was worse because Daniel Jackson is actually human?" he asked quietly.
Sam opened her mouth, then closed it again. Now was hardly the time to debate how much of Daniel's Ascension still lingered in his body and mind. "It might have been less damaging than it would have been if he really was Ascended," she pointed out. "There's no real way to tell."
"I see." Teal'c's eyes met hers across their fallen comrade, and she knew he'd also wrestled with those same questions. "Colonel Carter, I can keep watch over Daniel Jackson now. This complex is completely deserted and is relatively safe. As long as we are not invaded by hostile forces through the transport rings, you should be able to effect repairs without interruption."
Sam narrowed her eyes at him. "What aren't you telling me?" she demanded.
Teal'c only hesitated for a moment before acknowledging his evasion. "One of the rooms in this complex apparently housed experiments that were kept in stasis. I found evidence of disabled force shields, as well as freezer units that are now no longer operating. It is possible that these experiments and processes might pose a danger to us."
"Oh, boy." Sam scrubbed a tired hand across her face. "How about that weapons cache we're supposed to find here? Any sign of it?"
Teal'c gave her a cool gaze. "None. But I suspect that any weapons we find here will not be conventional, Colonel Carter."
Sam felt her lips twist in ironic agreement. "Okay, let's deal with what we can for now. Give me directions to the central power source. If I can get that up and running, most of our problems will be solved." She stood. "Report immediately if there's any change, all right?"
"I will," Teal'c promised. He gave her precise directions to the power core, then settled down at Daniel's side, his staff weapon laid aside for the more practical zat. Sam took a deep breath and headed out of the chamber to see what she could do.
She found the fuse box, as her brain kept calling it, and got to work. She'd been working for less than forty minutes, and had just finished stripping the insulation off the conduits near the central power source, when Teal'c's voice crackled over the radio.
"Colonel Carter. Daniel Jackson's movements have become more deliberate."
"I'm on my way," she said hurriedly. She spared her handiwork a critical glance, then quickly retraced her steps to the ring room. Teal'c looked up as she arrived, his face lightening into one of those almost-smiles that said more than most people's biggest grins.
"He has not yet opened his eyes," Teal'c reported, "but he is responding to the sound of my voice."
Daniel's head turned restlessly in Teal'c's direction, his eyebrows rising. His heels scraped against the floor as he shifted one leg, then the other.
"Daniel?" Sam went down on one knee at his side. "Daniel, can you hear me?"
"Grmph."
Sam blinked at that one. "Daniel?" she tried again. She tapped her fingers on his cheek.
"Daniel Jackson. Open your eyes."
To Sam's delight, Daniel actually obeyed. His mouth turned down in a puzzled frown as his eyelids twitched open just enough to reveal slits of slightly unfocused blue.
"...Teal'c?"
"It's us, Daniel. Teal'c and Sam." His eyes slowly closed again, and she patted his cheek a little more firmly this time. "Stay with us, Daniel. Can you tell me your name?"
He blinked at her in heavy-lidded protest. "...ackson." The word floated out in a weary sigh. "...ly ei...."
"Daniel? Come on. Daniel?"
It was no use. He'd definitely drifted off.
Sam sat back on her heels and looked across Daniel's body at Teal'c. "Did you catch that last bit?"
Teal'c tilted his head, considering. "It is possible that he was trying to voice his birth date."
"Of course! 'July eighth.' Oh, I hope you're right about that." Because if Teal'c's surmise was correct, it meant that Daniel had retained his wits enough to anticipate the next question. She couldn't help but smile in relief. Maybe all Daniel needed was enough time to recover, and he'd be all right.
"Okay." Sam patted Daniel's cheek one last time, then stood. "Stick with him, Teal'c. If he wakes up again, try to get him to drink. Little sips. And keep an eye on those rings. We probably did manage to disable them completely, but that doesn't mean we can ignore the possibility of unexpected visitors."
Teal'c inclined his head in acknowledgment.
"I've gotten the conduits freed of the protective insulation," she continued. "I'm going to see how badly they got fried. And I might be able to call up some schematics - it looks like the energy core does maintain some kind of memory, even in shut-down. Keep in touch by radio. I'll let you know if I get anywhere."
She went back to her interrupted task with a lighter step. Daniel was getting better. They would remove the damaged conduits and reboot the system. Things were definitely looking up.
But half an hour later, Sam was swearing furiously under her breath as she scrolled through the schematics. All that painstaking work in removing the worst of the damaged crystals, and for what? As things stood, there wasn't a single thing she dared even try.
She needed Daniel for this. And that necessity was so incredibly unfair that it made her want to throw her tools across the room. He was hurt. She wanted to be able to let him sleep off the effects of the light beams. And now she was going to have to chivvy him back to work as soon as possible, because it looked like that was the only way they were ever going to get out of here.
What kind of leader exploits her team instead of helping them?
Sam slammed an open palm against the wall, then forced herself back under control. Screaming wouldn't help, even if cursing seemed rather therapeutic. Time to take charge and determine what to do next.
She keyed on her radio. "Teal'c? How's Daniel doing?"
"He is sleeping at the moment, Colonel Carter. He awakened once, ten minutes ago, and asked for O'Neill. He seemed surprised when I reminded him that O'Neill is no longer part of SG-1."
Sam chewed on her upper lip. "Short-term memory can be a little messed up after a head injury, Teal'c. We'll see how he's doing when he wakes up properly. You say he's asleep again?"
"Indeed. He did speak coherently while he was awake, however."
"That's a good sign. Did he drink anything?"
"A few sips. Nothing more."
"Did you ask him how he felt?"
"He does not remember the attack at all; as you say, his short-term memory does seem somewhat impaired. He did compare his current state to the effects of a ribbon device, although he implied that it was much more intense than what he has experienced in the past."
Sam winced on Daniel's behalf. "I don't ever remember seeing him bleed from the nose or ears after being ribboned."
There was a pause before Teal'c's voice came again, carefully steady. "I have witnessed such symptoms, Colonel Carter."
Sam closed her eyes momentarily. "I'm sorry, Teal'c," she said softly.
"As am I."
"But Daniel is going to recover completely." She put all the confidence she didn't feel into her voice. "Keep him talking when he wakes up again, and try to get him to drink as often as possible."
"I will endeavor to do so, Colonel Carter. May I ask how your repairs are proceeding?"
"Not so great, actually." Sam glanced back at the power readings she'd called up, and then resolutely turned away. "Teal'c, we've got a bit of a problem. I was able to isolate some of the damaged crystals and remove them from the system. The problem is that I need to read the schematics to determine which conduits are for the rings, and... well. They're in Ancient."
A long moment of silence, then, "That is most unfortunate, Colonel Carter."
"Yeah." Sam felt her lips twitch into a reluctant smile at Teal'c's dry understatement. "So we're going to have to hope that Daniel's up to doing some translation when he wakes. In the meantime, I'm going to do a recon of my own. I want to check out the water supply and those experiments you told me about."
"I will remain here with Daniel Jackson."
"Thank you, Teal'c," Sam said, and signed off.
So, Daniel thought his symptoms were similar to that of a ribboning. She thought back to Daniel's previous experiences with the ribbon device. He'd recovered in the field, without medical treatment, when Klorel tried to kill him; in Egypt, he'd managed to hold himself together for nearly three hours, until they had Stephen Raynor safely hospitalized, before he'd collapsed. Of course, the time with Amaunet, he'd nearly...
She cut that thought off. Bottom line: she'd be a lot happier with access to an IV and EEG right now, but she probably didn't need to worry about Daniel dying in the next half hour. Time to concentrate on learning as much as she could about their temporary prison, so they could escape as soon as possible and get him medical attention.
She explored the halls of the complex, methodically ticking off corridor after corridor as she went. The place was bigger than she'd expected; she counted six different hallways and over twenty rooms of varying sizes. She could see, from the irregular shape of some of the halls and chambers, why Teal'c suspected that it had originally been a series of caves. There was no way to tell what Anubis had been doing down here. Every room was empty and echoing, with one exception.
The water supply was located in the only active laboratory, spilling steadily from an opening in the wall to flow through a stone trough and empty into a grill on the floor. She removed testing strips from her vest and checked the purity of the water. Not too bad, she decided, but it would be wise to use their water purification tablets just to make sure.
She crossed to the other side of the laboratory, stopping a good two meters away from the array of sealed containers, samples, and the Goa'uld equivalent of refrigeration units. She now understood Teal'c's unease regarding disrupted force shields and unpowered freezers. It seemed pretty clear that something was being grown there. Knowing Anubis, it could be anything from a new kind of Kull warrior to a deadly bio-weapon. The sooner they got the power back, the better.
The walls in the laboratory, like many of the other rooms, were covered with blank, dark screens. Sam recognized them as the Goa'uld equivalent of computer systems, no doubt modified with Ancient upgrades. If Daniel could help her puzzle out the schematics and get the power running again, she might be able to figure out exactly what Anubis was doing.
It all hinged on Daniel, though. And he was still down for the count.
"Time to pack it in, then," she said aloud to the specimens in their crystal jars and freezer drawers. "We'll get back to you as soon as we can."
Her canteen was nearly empty, so she took a moment to drain it dry before refilling it at the trough. She added a purification tablet, secured the canteen to her belt, and retraced her steps to the ring room to join the others.
Sam's heart leapt at the soft sound of voices that drifted out of the room at her approach. Daniel was not only awake, but talking! She hurried inside.
Teal'c had an open palm flat against Daniel's chest, apparently to keep him from rising. "It would not be wise for you to move at this time," he said calmly.
"Have to find Jack," Daniel said, his tone just this shade of petulant.
"O'Neill is not here, Daniel Jackson."
Daniel blinked at him. "Why?"
"O'Neill is back at the SGC."
"Daniel." Sam shrugged away the worry about his spotty memory and knelt down at his side. "Good to see you awake. How are you feeling?"
Daniel struggled to sit, but Teal'c kept him flat with little effort. "I'd feel a lot better if Teal'c would let me get up," he grumped. "What's going on?"
"Quite a lot," Sam conceded, smiling. "Could you answer some questions for me, before I start answering yours?"
Daniel twisted his head to look at her and snorted with impatience. "You're not serious."
"We are indeed, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c assured him. "Please humor us."
Daniel let his head thump back onto the floor. "Daniel Jackson," he recited. "July eighth. Archeologist, SG-1. And we're..." He hesitated. "Where are we, exactly?"
"What's the last thing you remember, Daniel?"
Daniel tried to shove Teal'c's hand off his chest, but he might as well have tried to shift Cheyenne Mountain. "Can't I sit up?"
"Are you dizzy?" Sam asked.
"How should I know, lying like this?"
"I'll trade you," Sam offered. "Tell me what you last remember, and promise me you'll try to drink, and we'll let you try sitting up."
Daniel glared at her. "You're patronizing me, Sam."
"So I am," Sam said, unapologetic. "Do we have a deal?"
"Stop her from patronizing me, Teal'c," Daniel complained.
Teal'c cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Fine! Be that way!" Daniel shoved at Teal'c's hand again. "I was - we were gearing up. To go off-world." A note of uncertainty crept into his voice. "We - without Jack?"
"The general is back on Earth, Daniel," Sam reminded him gently.
"Hammond?"
"O'Neill serves as commanding officer of the SGC now," Teal'c said. "He was promoted to general."
"I - I knew that. Didn't I?"
"You had your brains scrambled a little, Daniel," Sam said, rubbing his arm soothingly now. "It's all right for you to be a little confused."
"But Jack needs you both," Daniel insisted, trying to sit up again. "They won't let me help him. And it's stealing his soul."
Sam's fingers froze in mid-rub. She met Teal'c's gaze with widened eyes. Was this just residual confusion, or something more?
"You should drink, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c interposed smoothly. He lifted his hand from Daniel's chest, allowing him to rise. Daniel only got as far as forty-five degrees before the color drained from his face.
"Take it easy, Daniel," Sam said hurriedly. She unscrewed the lid from her own canteen. "Here, this water is safe to drink. Take small sips."
He stared at her, his pupils absurdly dilated. "Don't let Nirrti hurt you, Sam."
"I - what? Nirrti's long gone, Daniel. Drink."
He sipped obediently, then stopped and frowned at Teal'c. "You're all right?" he demanded.
Teal'c tilted his head. "Why should I not be?"
"And Bra'tac?"
Teal'c paused, then took the canteen from Daniel's shaking hands. "Daniel Jackson," he said firmly, "O'Neill is safely back at the SGC. Colonel Carter survived Nirrti's DNA machine. Master Bra'tac and I are now without symbiotes. Your memories are confused with your time as an Ascended being, but rest assured that you are here with us and that all will be well."
Sam's mouth closed with a snap.
Daniel stared at Teal'c for a long moment before he nodded, very carefully. "Okay," he whispered. His forehead wrinkled, as if he were trying to fit the pieces of a puzzle together.
"Rest now," Teal'c said, his voice a velvet purr as he eased Daniel back to the floor. "We will speak further when you awaken."
"I don't - I wanted..." Daniel's eyes closed of their own volition. "...ma," he added indistinctly, and fell asleep.
"Oma?" Sam mouthed incredulously to Teal'c. He met her stare and gave a fractional nod. Oh, this wasn't good.
***
Sam and Teal'c traded off watches for the rest of the day and into the night. They woke Daniel every few hours - partly to make sure they could, and partly to get him to keep drinking. He was sleepy and uninterested in talking, except to complain of his persistent headache. Sam, afraid to give him more than Tylenol, was glad that he didn't seem to expect anything stronger.
By one o'clock in the morning, fourteen hours after they'd first beamed down to the complex, Daniel seemed more or less recovered. He still grumbled about the jackhammer that had taken up residence in his brain, but when Teal'c questioned him more closely, he maintained that it was no worse than the regular post-ribboning effect that he'd unfortunately managed to perfect over the years. He did not seem to recall his confused memories of the previous day.
Sam wasn't sure whether she was concerned or relieved by this. While she'd been oddly consoled by the offhand confirmation that Daniel had, in fact, been watching her during his year of Ascension, it wasn't a topic that she felt comfortable discussing with him in any detail. Best to leave things as they stand, she decided.
As he still couldn't remember anything from their time on the planet, she and Teal'c explained the situation to him: they'd ringed down to Anubis' secret base and been attacked by his anti-intruder system. They'd essentially blown all the fuses, they were stuck without power until they fixed the fuse box, and the directions were all in Ancient.
"So, lights but no heat?" Daniel asked, squinting up at the brightly glowing ceiling.
Sam and Teal'c exchanged glances of surprise. Neither had noticed the gradually cooling temperature, but Daniel was right: the place had been uncomfortably warm when they first ringed down, but now it was definitely chilly.
"We have no idea how deep this complex really is," Sam said thoughtfully. "I doubt the temperature will drop to dangerous levels, though."
"Still, it sounds like we should get the power up and running as soon as possible," Daniel pointed out, his voice brisk. "So! Where's this fuse box?"
"The power source is two corridors away, Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said. "Are you able to walk?"
"I don't see why not." Daniel struggled to rise.
"I see plenty why not," Sam snapped. She sat him back down rather forcefully. "Daniel, you've been in and out for the last fourteen hours. Eat something before you go running off to translate, okay?"
Daniel only glared at her, which told Sam that he probably was a lot weaker than he wanted to admit. His expression was mutinous as he watched her heat one of the MREs, but he didn't suggest getting up again.
She handed him the beef stew and patted him on the shoulder. "We're counting on you here, Daniel," she said softly. "So do us a favor and take it easy, all right? Teal'c and I need you operating at one hundred percent, not collapsing on us. We'll all be happy to get out of here, but a few more hours for you to recuperate won't hurt."
He gave her a rueful smile. "I get the point."
She rubbed his shoulder again. "Thank you."
Sure enough, he hadn't quite finished eating before he nodded off , his fork slipping out of his lax fingers. Teal'c eased him back to the floor and covered him with the blanket, then rose to join Sam on the other side of the room.
"We'll let him sleep now," Sam said quietly.
Teal'c inclined his head in agreement. "Perhaps Daniel Jackson will be capable of work in the morning."
"Let's hope so." Because those samples in the laboratory were probably on some kind of schedule, and Sam really didn't want to be around to find out.
By five o'clock in the morning, Daniel was awake again, alert and in full grump mode. When he insisted that he was capable of working, Sam chose not to argue with him. Teal'c stayed in the ring room to guard the complex against any intruders, and Sam and Daniel went to study the schematics for the power source.
With Daniel translating the rolling screens of text, it was suddenly easy. They joked about Japanese manuals as Sam traced the power couplings to the ring room, the laboratory, the heating system, and the anti-intruder mechanism. Sam was surprised to discover that some of the most damaged crystals she'd removed were actually for the heating, not the anti-intruder system. The feedback from the damage they'd done seemed more or less random. It was a good thing she hadn't tried to guess.
"Whoa," Daniel said softly.
"What is it?" Sam looked up from the half-melted crystal in her hand.
"Sam..." He traced his finger along several lines of Ancient text on the screen. "Sam, if we'd been any other SG team - in fact, if we'd been anyone else at all - we would have all been killed."
"What do you mean?"
"This intruder system." Daniel shook his head. "Any human who entered the complex and got hit by one of those beams you described? Their heart would've stopped. Instantly."
"Wow." Sam blinked. "What if we'd really been a Jaffa, a Goa'uld, and an Ascended being?"
"Not much better," Daniel told her, still scrolling through the text. "You said that you and Teal'c both felt intense pain, right?"
"You could say that," Sam said dryly, suppressing a shiver at the memory.
"As far as I can tell..." Daniel backed up to reread several passages, then shook his head. "Anubis definitely wasn't the sharing type. Anyone who wasn't a half-Ascended Goa'uld would get zapped."
"So, basically, anyone who wasn't him," Sam concluded.
"Yeah. It looks like a regular Goa'uld would've died in - the symbiote would have been killed, and the host wouldn't have survived much after that. And Jaffa would suffer the same way. No more larva, no more immune system."
"So, it targeted the symbiotes," Sam said, her mind racing ahead. "Any way we can use that against the Goa'uld ourselves?"
Daniel slanted a look at her. "I thought you said you broke it."
"Well, yes," Sam admitted. "But if the schematics explain how it was done..."
Daniel rubbed his unshaven chin thoughtfully as he paged through the schematics again. "This is way beyond me, Sam," he said finally. "Look, we can copy this down, and maybe you can figure out how it works at your leisure. But as far as I can tell, there's no way to separate one reaction from the other."
"So we might kill Goa'uld symbiotes, but we'd also kill human beings?"
"Doesn't sound too helpful," Daniel agreed wryly.
Sam hesitated. "What about targeting the Ascended?"
"I'm not sure." Daniel stopped scrolling through the text and turned to look at her fully. "Sam, I still don't remember yesterday, and from what you've told me - and how I feel now - I probably don't want to. I think that Anubis was trying to target the Ascended, but hadn't quite figured out how. So he was going after traces of Ascension in corporeal beings."
"You mean he was specifically aiming at you?" Sam asked, incredulous.
"I suppose it's possible, but it's more likely that he was focusing on anyone even remotely like himself. Or Orlin, maybe." Daniel considered the question, looking remarkably blasé at the thought of being a personal target. "Didn't you say the beam seemed to focus on the protein marker?"
"Yes."
"So, maybe I've got some kind of marker we can't identify. Something left behind from the year I was..." He waved a hand vaguely.
"Glowy?" Sam supplied, deliberately using the same kind of term that General O'Neill would employ.
He chuckled. "Yeah."
"I suppose that makes sense." Sam tapped her fingers absently on the half-melted crystal in her hand. "We've seen enough hints that there's something left, even if you can't consciously control it."
"Yeah, well." Daniel shrugged and dismissed it. "I'm glad you and Teal'c were able to destroy the burglar alarm. If we'd left it behind, it definitely would've killed the next people who ringed in."
Sam started at his statement. "Daniel, you don't think that the anti-intruder system is the only weapon we'll find here, do you?"
Daniel blinked. "I hadn't thought of it like that. It was a pretty powerful weapon, wasn't it?" He turned back to the screen and scrolled through the schematics again. "But we have to check out that lab. See if we can read the logs there and find out what Anubis was planning."
"Not until we finish here," she muttered, feeling frustrated, and then jumped back as Daniel suddenly swung away from the schematics and gripped her by the arms.
"You can't expect me to just watch and do nothing!" His voice, pitched low, carried a fierce, almost frightening intensity. His pupils were hugely dilated again, ridiculously so under the ceiling's bright light.
"Ah - Daniel?" Smiling tentatively, Sam tried to pull away, but his bruising grip only tightened.
"The only thing that matters is whether we are good or evil. That's what you said," he hissed. "Well, we have a saying, too: All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. So tell me how good I am, Oma, if I just stand around and watch Bra'tac and Ry'ac die!"
Oma? Bra'tac and Ry'ac? Oh, Daniel, don't you do this...!
"Daniel. It's me, Sam." She didn't try to pull away from him again. Instead, she reached up and laid her hand against his cheek, skin to skin. "You're here with me, Daniel. You're not Ascended any more."
His grip on her arms slackened, and even as she watched, she saw his pupils return to normal size.
"...Sam?" he whispered, then sagged against the wall.
She lunged forward and caught him before he fell. He hadn't passed out, at least, even if he was shaking.
"Sit down, Daniel," she urged. "That's right. Take it easy." She fought back an hysterical urge to giggle. In her mind's eye, she could picture herself telling the general, 'Well, sir, I didn't actually get Daniel killed on the very first mission, but he is a little broken. Sorry about that.'
"N-no, Sam, I'm good. I think." He blinked up at her from the floor, looking puzzled. "Uh, what just happened?"
"You had a flashback to when you were Ascended," she told him carefully. "It must be the after-effects of those light beams."
"I don't remember," he said. He sounded blank, almost dreamy.
"It's okay." She nodded, trying to force herself to believe the words even as she said them. "It's going to be fine."
He scrubbed his face with his hand. "I don't remember," he said again. "We - we were talking about the anti-intruder system, right?"
"Yes, we were," she agreed, watching him carefully. "And you were looking through the system logs. And I'm beginning to wonder if reading Ancient might be a problem for you right now."
"That's ridiculous." He struggled back to his feet. "I'm not going to, to, to go glowy just because I'm reading a language!"
"Something gave you a flashback," Sam said evenly. "And you were looking at the schematics when it happened."
He crossed his arms and glared at her, his mouth pulled down into a stubborn scowl. "You can't do this without me, Sam."
She winced. "I know." And she was going to have to continue to put his mind at risk, because it was the only way to get them all home.
"Maybe Teal'c should be here, too." Daniel didn't quite meet her gaze. "Just in case it happens again."
Sam frowned as she considered the idea. "I don't like wasting Teal'c on guard duty," she admitted. "And if he were here, we could probably work a lot faster. But we can't afford to leave the front door unlocked, either."
"Could someone really get in?" Daniel asked, eyebrows raised. "I mean, there's no power from this end. How could the rings work?"
"The ring system can work two ways: as a transportation device of its own, and as a receiving point for another ring system." Sam gestured as she spoke. "So anyone trying to activate these rings won't get through, but if someone had a ship or something with its own ring platform, they'd be able to transport down here, even without any power on the receiving end."
Daniel didn't need her to form the obvious conclusion: Ba'al might fly a ship to the planet and try to send a group of Jaffa down through a ring platform of his own. And if that happened, SG-1 could find themselves playing a very deadly game of hide-and-seek, with no safe zone.
"Isn't there some kind of - oh, I don't know. A sensor or something? Motion detectors? Some way to alert us if the rings are activated, without Teal'c having to actually baby-sit them?"
Sam blinked, then grinned. "Actually, yes, there is. Good idea, Daniel." She thumbed on her radio. "Teal'c? We're coming back. We're going to set up motion detectors in the ring room, so that all three of us will be free to move around."
"I do not have any such sensors, Colonel Carter."
"Neither do I," Sam told him, "but there's enough leakage in the fuse box that I can set up an alarm. Give me a couple of minutes to rig things here, and we'll come relieve you."
Less than ten minutes later, Teal'c had joined Sam and Daniel by the power source. Sam had managed to get Teal'c alone for a few crucial moments and quietly appraised him of their newest problem with Daniel's continuing lucidity. Now, Sam was turning a crystal over in her hands, frowning at the damage.
"The big problem is that there are very few working crystals left," she explained. "And since they weren't designed to be interchangeable, there's a lot of splicing that needs to be done to make anything work."
Teal'c removed one of the less-damaged crystals from inside the power source and ran a finger along its jagged edge. "We must first restore sufficient power to the laboratory so that we may determine its purpose."
"And get those stasis fields back up, and the freezers working," Sam agreed.
"Ita," Daniel said absently, scrolling through the schematics again.
Sam stared at him. So did Teal'c. Daniel didn't seem to notice anything was wrong.
Sam and Teal'c exchanged a meaningful look over Daniel's bent head, then turned back to their own tasks.
Between monitoring Daniel's condition and the painstaking nature of their task, fixing the system turned into long hours of boring, tedious work. Teal'c continued to strip the damaged crystals out of the power source and follow the damage to the conduits, while Sam tried to salvage what she could and splice the working crystals into the most urgent systems. Daniel followed the ebb and flow of power on the rolling screens, reporting to Sam and Teal'c about their progress.
They stopped twice to eat; no one had much of an appetite, but they dutifully chewed their power bars and drained their canteens. Sam kept a wary eye on Daniel, but aside from a little extra fatigue, he seemed to have fully recovered - physically, at least - from the attack the day before.
His mind, they discovered, was another matter entirely. He slipped three times into speaking Ancient, only realizing it when Sam or Teal'c asked him to repeat himself. He experienced two vivid flashbacks as well. The first had him clinging to Sam, begging Oma to allow him to help someone named Fillo who was lost in a deadly sandstorm. Neither she nor Teal'c knew what he meant, but it came as no surprise that Daniel's efforts as an Ascended being hadn't been limited to his friends from Earth.
The second one was much, much worse.
There was no warning. Daniel suddenly screamed, a high-pitched keening that sent him to his knees. Teal'c got to him first, and Daniel frantically clutched at his shoulders as he howled his protest to the walls.
"No! Don't do this!" He flailed, shaking Teal'c in frantic desperation. "You can't punish me for something I haven't done yet! He'll destroy the whole planet! You let me bargain with him, you let me talk to him, you can't let me go this far and then pull me back!"
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c whispered. "Come back to us."
Daniel gave a single, agonized wail, then crumpled in on himself. "It's - it's gone." He sagged, and only Teal'c's strong grip kept him from pitching face-first onto the floor. "Abydos," he whispered. "No, no, no..."
It took close to ten minutes of near-catatonia before he finally snapped out of that one. By the time Daniel came alert again, with no memory of his fugue state, Sam's conviction that the ill-fated mission had irrevocably damaged one of her best friends had her mentally composing her resignation letter to the general. Only Teal'c's unwavering support - and the increasingly faint hope that maybe, just maybe, they'd find something in the computer system that might help fix Daniel - was enough to keep her doggedly going.
Finally, after seven o'clock that evening, Sam connected one last crystal. She nearly whooped out loud as Daniel gleefully reported success: full power had been restored to the laboratory.
"Let's go," she said briefly. She fitted the cover of the power source back into place and led Teal'c and Daniel down the hall. As they approached the laboratory, they could clearly hear the thrum of working machinery.
Sam slowed, and Daniel looked at her with surprise. "Would it be more dangerous now than it was without power?" he asked.
"It can't hurt to be cautious," Sam shrugged in reply. She eased against the wall next to the doorway and nodded at Teal'c, who silently slipped inside.
"You may enter," he announced after a few moments, and Sam and Daniel followed him in.
A faint shimmer in the air was the only indication that the open samples were now frozen in stasis again. The freezer units, at least, now had blinking lights to underscore the humming of their systems.
"That one," Teal'c said, pointing at the first specimen in line. "I estimate that it has grown to nearly twice its size since yesterday."
Sam took a wary look, and flinched away. Teal'c was right: the specimen was over two centimeters long.
"All right," she said. "Teal'c, check the machinery and make sure everything is working. Daniel, you're with me. Let's figure out what Anubis was doing here..."
She stopped short. The panels on the wall were as blank as ever.
"Daniel, didn't you say that the schematics reported that all power was restored to the lab?" she asked, frowning. "Why aren't the computer systems working?" She stepped forward, tracing a finger along one dark screen. "This doesn't make sense. We powered everything in the lab, right?"
No answer.
She turned. "Daniel...?"
Her breath congealed in her lungs at the sight of him. Daniel was on his hands and knees, trembling, whispering frantically to himself. Teal'c crouched at his side, one large hand pressed into the middle of Daniel's back, talking in a soothing, rumbling voice.
"You are here with us, Daniel Jackson. You are no longer Ascended."
"...won't act for lowers, at least defend..."
"Daniel?" Sam dropped to her knees in front of him, cradling his face in her hands and forcing him to look her in the eye. "Daniel, it's Sam. Sam and Teal'c. Can you hear me?"
His eyes wouldn't focus, and his whispers grew more desperate. "...call them lowers what are lowers when we don't act, you don't care, we have to stop it stop him stop now, it isn't working but it will it'll kill it'll..."
"Daniel!" She hated herself for doing, but she slapped him sharply across the face. "Wake up, Daniel!"
He gasped, like someone suddenly plunged into water, and his eyes came into focus again. But he still wasn't looking at her. Instead, he scrambled away from them both, still on hands and knees, lunging for the doorway to the hall.
Teal'c and Sam both pounced, pinning him back. As they pulled him away from the door, though, Daniel went nearly hysterical. Flailing arms and legs, hoarse cursing in English and Ancient and back again, desperate straining to escape...
But he was still in control, Sam realized abruptly. This was Daniel, who had managed to half-kill an SF when he was only in his second year of the program, at the time he'd been truly out of his mind from the sarcophagus. By now, he was six feet of solid muscle after his years of training with Teal'c and the colonel; and while he'd never be an expert in hand-to-hand, he certainly knew how to fight dirty.
He wasn't fighting them with that kind of insanity. He was only struggling to get through that doorway.
Teal'c and Sam looked at one another. Well, Sam thought grimly, she'd wanted command...
She gave Teal'c a nod, and they both released Daniel at once.
He was through the door in seconds, pausing only long enough to lurch to his feet before bolting down the hall. Sam and Teal'c dashed after him, just in time to see him disappearing through a doorway four meters down the corridor.
Bewildered, Sam ran down the hallway with Teal'c at her heels. Why would Daniel be so frantic to enter one of the empty rooms?
Things didn't make any more sense when they stepped inside the chamber, but at least they knew why Daniel wanted to go there. Because every screen in the otherwise empty room was brightly lit, filled from edge to edge with blocky Ancient script.
Daniel himself was on his knees in the far corner of the room, prying open a panel near the floor. He reached inside and fiddled for a moment, and all the screens went dark at once.
He stood on wobbly legs and turned to face them. "There," he said triumphantly, even as his shaking increased. "I transferred all the information back to the lab, so we can see what we're - what we're doing..."
This time, they didn't move quickly enough to catch him when he passed out.
He regained consciousness less than a minute later, blinking vaguely at Sam as she checked his skull for bumps.
"M'okay, Sam," he slurred. "I think it's over now."
"What's over?" she asked sharply.
"All this Ancient stuff." He licked his lips, then smiled in gratitude as Teal'c offered him his canteen.
"Take it easy," Sam cautioned, even as she helped him open it.
"I know. Little sips." His eyes were clearer now. "Sam, I was here, back then."
"Back then?" Sam repeated. "You mean, when you were..."
"Glowy," inserted Teal'c, utterly deadpan.
"Uh, yeah." Daniel took another swallow. "All those flashbacks, as you called them - I think it was my mind, trying to access the details of the lab. Anubis was doing something particularly awful here. I wanted to destroy it. They wouldn't let me interfere."
"That's no surpise," Sam said, frowning. "What was so awful, then?"
"I'm not sure," Daniel confessed. "I don't think it was just the anti-intruder system. Oma seemed pretty confident that Anubis would never be able to perfect it - something about the method of destroying Ascended beings being locked away forever. No, it was something else." He scowled at the canteen. "Something in that lab. And my mind remembered that extra security precaution that Anubis put in - that all the data would go to this room, instead of the lab. But it's switched back now." He handed the canteen back to Teal'c and tried to get his legs to work. "I think we'd better go and figure it out, don't you?"
"Are you up to it? Give me an honest answer, Daniel."
Daniel gave her a hurt look, then actually paused in self-assessment. "Yes," he said finally. "I've been feeling this - compulsion, I guess. Whatever it is, it's gone. The answer has got to be in the lab."
Command decision time, Sam told herself. She loved Daniel, she loved Teal'c, but she also needed to lead them - and that meant forcing herself to allow them to risk themselves when it was necessary.
She reached down and grasped Daniel's hand, helping him rise to his feet. She didn't know if she would ever command SG-1 as well as Jack O'Neill, but she promised herself that she could come close - and maybe, if she worked hard enough, she could keep Daniel's deaths down to an absolute minimum along the way.
"Come on, then," she said. "Let's get back to the lab and go to work."
They returned to the laboratory and found the screens active, filled with the information they needed so badly. As Teal'c moved from one unit to the next, checking the machinery for damage, Sam and Daniel put their heads together over the screens, Daniel translating aloud. It took time; Daniel needed to not only translate, but also find the right words for a subject that was out of his own field. As the hours passed, Sam was enormously relieved to see that Daniel had apparently recovered from the compulsion, or flashbacks, or whatever it had been. They eventually confirmed that it was something on the bio-chemical level, and Sam allowed Daniel to scroll ahead in the text while she worked out equations on her PDA.
"Okay, this is bad."
Sam turned at the hollowness in Daniel's voice. His face was pale as he slowly retraced several passages on the screen.
"What is it, Daniel?"
Daniel licked his lips. "Anubis was a cheater, right? He knew the Ancients would slap him down if he used Ascended powers, but there was nothing to stop him from taking the knowledge he'd gained as an Ascended and using it as a Goa'uld."
"Yeah, so?"
"So Anubis knew about the plague that wiped out the Ancients." Daniel swallowed hard. "And he tracked down the genome."
"This is the disease that nearly killed O'Neill?" Teal'c demanded.
"I don't know, but this is - Sam, Anubis was trying to refine it so that it would target a specific species - humans, or Goa'uld, or Jaffa. Right now, though, no one is immune. If this plague gets out..."
"...it would wipe out entire planets," Sam finished softly.
"Or, indeed, the entire galaxy." Teal'c unholstered his zat. "So we will destroy all the samples. Now."
"Wait, Teal'c." Sam pushed the muzzle of the zat downwards. "It's too risky. The electrical charge might jolt the organisms into active mode."
Teal'c frowned at this, then nodded. "How, then, may we destroy it?"
"I don't know," Sam admitted unhappily. "We could lock the whole thing back into stasis, but that wouldn't solve the problem - it would just leave a ticking time bomb for the next person who manages to get in here. And if that person is someone working for Ba'al..."
"And C4 wouldn't do the job thoroughly enough."
"No, Daniel, it wouldn't. Not only would traces of the plague's DNA survive the blast, but we might get infected - spores and dust and who knows what." Sam shook her head. "We need to come up with a way to destroy it completely."
The three of them stared at the samples behind their force screens. So innocuous at first sight. So incredibly deadly.
"The freezers," Daniel said suddenly.
"What?"
Daniel rounded on Teal'c. "How do Goa'uld freezers work?"
Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Not with freon gases, Daniel Jackson. I am unsure of the precise mechanism, but I have worked with this kind of storage unit before. It is simply a matter of rotating the raised hieroglyph -" Teal'c pointed it out. "- to obtain the desired temperature."
"Does it only freeze?" Daniel demanded.
Teal'c's eyebrow climbed higher. "It does not. It may be used as a sterilization unit as well."
"I see where you're going with this, Daniel," Sam said, her eyes lighting up. "We shove everything into the freezer units and turn it up as high as it can go. If it really gets hot enough..." She paused, doing some rapid-fire calculations in her head. "You say it actually sterilizes, Teal'c?"
"Indeed it does." Teal'c considered. "I believe that the unit's most extreme temperature would reach an excess of five hundred degrees Centigrade."
"That's hot," Daniel observed.
"That's hot enough," Sam corrected gleefully. "There's no way the DNA would survive that temperature." She sobered a little as a thought occurred to her. "Does it take more power than we have here, Teal'c?"
"It should not," Teal'c reassured her. "However, it will take several hours to accomplish."
"Oh." Daniel deflated. "That means we can't disconnect the lab's power until the job is finished."
"No, we can't." Sam bit her lower lip. "We're going to have to stay here and make sure everything is completely destroyed."
"That means we won't be able to get out until tomorrow," sighed Daniel. He slid down to a sitting position on the floor, and Sam suddenly remembered that he'd not only suffered traumatic flashbacks during much of the day, but he'd also spent most of yesterday unconscious.
"All right, let's get this done," she ordered briskly. "Daniel, go back to the fuse box and monitor those schematics. Keep an eye on the power flow and make sure we're not going to have a meltdown half-way through the process."
"Right." Daniel reached out a hand to brace himself against the wall, but Teal'c merely gripped his arm and hauled him easily to his feet.
"We'll wait for you to give us the go-ahead on the radio," Sam prompted him.
"Right," Daniel said again. "I'll call you as soon as I'm there."
As Daniel disappeared into the corridor, Teal'c titled his head at Sam. "Why did you send Daniel Jackson away?" he asked quietly.
"Because he needs a break, and this is the only way I can get him to take it," Sam answered simply. "Come on. We can use the equipment here to avoid touching the samples directly."
The two of them worked smoothly and efficiently, and in less than ten minutes, they were ready to begin. Sam watched Teal'c activate the units, one after the other, until all seven of them were set to sterilization. Then they backed out of the room, sealing it carefully behind them.
"Just in case," Sam said in answer to Teal'c's questioning gaze. "Let's go see how Daniel is doing."
They found him next to the fuse box, watching the power flow regulators with heavily-lidded eyes. He reported that everything seemed to be operating within regular parameters.
"So what now?" he asked.
"Now you get some sleep," Sam replied.
"Oh, come on, Sam," he started, but she cut him off.
"Daniel, there's nothing more we can do until the sterilization process is complete. From what Teal'c says, that can take ten hours, possibly longer. It's just a matter of keeping an eye on the power flow to the ring platform sensors and the lab's power readings, and we really don't need to be able to read Ancient to do that." Sam's voice softened. "I want to get you home in one piece, Daniel. I could make it an order, if you'd like."
He raised his brows at that. "Okay," he agreed grudgingly. "Where are we camping tonight? Back in the ring room?"
"One of the empty rooms would be more defensible," Teal'c said. "There is no reason why we should not utilize the one that is right here." He nodded at the doorway only three meters down the hall.
So SG-1 spent their second night in Anubis' secret base bunked down in an anonymous room across from the complex's fuse box, monitoring the destruction of a deadly plague from within and the possibility of intruders from without. A good night's sleep seemed to fully restore Daniel to what passed for his normal self, and by the time they officially called it morning by heating up the last of Daniel's coffee, Teal'c had pronounced the sterilization process complete.
"So, they're not merely dead, they're really most sincerely dead?" Daniel asked innocently.
Sam stared at him. Daniel merely raised his eyebrows over his coffee cup.
Teal'c reached out and patted Daniel on the arm. "I believe the proper conclusion, Daniel Jackson, is that 'you have been hanging around O'Neill too much.'"
Daniel spluttered his coffee all over his BDUs, and Teal'c calmly offered Sam a cup of her own. She hid her grin behind it, as well as her relief that the end of the awful mission was finally in sight.
Teal'c ventured into the laboratory long enough to confirm that the sterilization had done what they hoped. Then it was time to start the whole tiresome process again of transferring sufficient power from the laboratory to the ring platform, so that they could safely transport out of the base.
Daniel unwrapped their last power bar at lunchtime and solemnly broke it into three.
"Your tretonin supply is okay, isn't it, Teal'c?" he asked. "Because if you're running low, I've got -"
"I always take two weeks' supply with me, Daniel Jackson, even if our mission is scheduled to last only a few hours." Teal'c graced them with a slight smile. "I thank you for your concern, however."
"How much tretonin are you carrying, Daniel?" Sam asked curiously.
Daniel flushed a little. "Ah, about a week's worth. In my right boot." He shot her a look. "You?"
"Six days' worth of doses," she admitted cheerfully. "In a zippered pocket in my belt."
Teal'c inclined his head to both of them in thanks.
Finally, shortly before five o'clock in the afternoon, Sam slotted the final crystal into place.
"We're done," she announced wearily. The words I hope lingered unspoken. "Let's get back to the rings."
They collected their tools and headed for the ring room. "Jack is going to be annoyed at us for coming back empty-handed," Daniel mentioned.
"I think he'll be happy just to get us back in one piece," Sam snapped. Then, walking a little faster, she added, "but - yeah. Three days, and nothing to show for it."
"That is untrue, Colonel Carter," Teal'c said firmly. "We have gained greater insight into Anubis' methods, and we have destroyed a potential threat to all life in the galaxy. I would classify this mission as a success."
Sam smiled despite herself, and she slowed down to her normal brisk stride. "Thank you, Teal'c," she said.
They gathered together in the center of the ring platform, back to back. Sam checked that the safety on her P-90 was off, and Daniel unholstered his Beretta. Teal'c gripped his staff weapon in one hand and the wrist device in the other.
"Remember, we might find anything out there," Sam warned them both. "It's been over sixty hours since we disappeared."
"Right," Daniel said, gripping his pistol a little more tightly. "Just a little stroll back to the SGC. No problem."
"Do it, Teal'c," said Sam.
Teal'c pressed the button on the wrist device, and the others held their breath...
And the rings sprang out of the floor, as if they'd never balked at all.
They weren't there, then they were again, rematerializing on the same patch of grassy ground where they'd disappeared nearly three days before.
"Nice," Sam breathed. "Good work, Teal'c, Daniel. Now let's get home."
Teal'c immediately pointed them in the right direction, and they started walking toward the Stargate, some five klicks away.
Sam tried her radio. "Sierra Gulf Three, this is Sierra Gulf One Niner. Please respond."
No answer.
"Would they still be here, after three days?" Daniel asked doubtfully.
"It depends on the general." Sam tried again. "This is Sierra Gulf One Niner. All Sierra Gulf teams, please respond."
When the response came, however, it wasn't in the Air Force lexicon. The whump and flash of the staff weapon blast came out of nowhere, missing Sam by a scant few inches. The three of them dived to the ground and came up rolling, alert and scanning for hostiles.
"Jaffa! Kree!"
"Oh, great," Daniel moaned.
"Come on," Sam hissed.
The next three hours were a nightmare, as they backed each other's retreat through scanty cover to reach the Stargate. The hunting parties were only sporadic, but by the time they made it to the Gate, they found an entire platoon of Jaffa waiting for them. The situation had deteriorated into a full-fledged firefight, and they were running out of ammo.
Then they were dialing Earth, and they were discovering that they'd been reported captured, and they were running for the event horizon...
And then their boots were clanging on the beautiful metal ramp, and the sound of the iris closing behind was the sweetest music they'd ever heard.
General O'Neill came striding into the Gate room, his face outwardly calm but his eyes alight.
"Hey, guys," he greeted them, the words casual but meaningful.
"Thank you, sir," Sam said, a little breathless.
"So." The general rocked back on his heels. "Trapped in a secret base, all this time. Go figure."
"The wrist device allowed us access..." Teal'c began.
"We couldn't get back out," Daniel finished simply. He apparently felt that the minor details could wait until later.
Sam tried to process the incredible news that the SGC had been convinced that they'd been prisoners. "You thought Ba'al had captured us...?"
They talked out the probable scenario, but in the end, it didn't matter. Ba'al hadn't gotten what he wanted, and they were all safe.
"It's a great story," said the general, cutting off the discussion. "More importantly - did Anubis leave anything cool behind?"
Teal'c lifted his chin. Sam pursed her lips. She wondered if it would be worth it to explain in full: Well, sir, we stopped Daniel from dying, again. And we destroyed an intruder system that killed anyone who wasn't actually Anubis himself. We have the schematics for that, although the chances of actually developing a safe Goa'uld killing weapon are pretty slim. We thought Daniel's mind might be finally snapping under the strain, but he got better. Most importantly, we destroyed a plague virus that might have been potent enough to wipe out all human life in the entire galaxy...
Then Daniel solved her dilemma by saying evenly, "Not really. No."
It was a good call, Sam decided. Bottom line now, details later. And it warmed her, through and through, to see Daniel so calmly watching her back with the general.
She'd brought SG-1 back safe - and sound, and solid - and that was more than good enough for her.