Chapter 14
Chulak, Apep System
Parmoute, Peret
In the seclusion of Bra'tac's private quarters over their evening meal Teal'c concluded relaying all that Maz'rai had told him and his conversation held via an Asgärd tablet with O'Neill regarding the resistance against the Aschen that the Tau'ri led.
Bra'tac was silent for a long time after Teal'c had finished speaking. His fingers rolling the drug vial back and forth across the table they sat at. Watching as the indigo coloured drug within shifted with the vial's rolling movement and refracted the candlelight that illuminated the room. His mind engrossed in his memories and decision making.
They had put their trust in the Tau'ri before, allied with them, and look where it had led them to.
Yes, the Goa'uld had been defeated but at a price that cost the Jaffa their lives.
No, was costing them their lives as the offspring produced from the few—and now terribly prized—Queens seized in raids and still living did not match the Jaffa population growth now that they were free of the false gods.
Thievery of prim'tas was becoming the only course of survival for many Jaffa. And if they lost what few Queens remained then they as a people would have a decade or less to continue existing. Not unlike the situation that the Tau'ri were in with their extermination slated to be complete in two hundred years or so.
Should they throw in once again with an old ally under the adage that the enemy of my enemy is my friend? But the Tau'ri had cost them so much… what Jaffa would be willing to aid them once again?
The vial paused under Bra'tac's finger tips. Indigo liquid settling within.
But it was not the Tau'ri that was asking for aid, it was O'Neill the God Killer. The man who had taken the first step to free the Jaffa—to free the galaxy from enslavement to the false gods. Also it had been O'Neill that had cautioned his homeworld against allying with the Aschen, let alone joining as members of the Aschen Confederation.
No, no Jaffa would aid Earth. But they would aid O'Neill. Of that Bra'tac had no doubt. Especially the young warriors with only their first to third symbiote who did not wish to journey to Kheb having not lived enough in this life. They would follow O'Neill in droves to fight once more and if the drug worked as Maz'rai said it did, to have access to the drug to continue living.
That following could cost O'Neill's resistance its victory if Teal'c did as he thought to do, announce it to all the warriors of Chulak, for if word of O'Neill's fight was known to the wrong people from the mouths of careless Jaffa then the enemy could prepare or counteract first.
So, he and Teal'c would just have to make sure to be as careful to ally with O'Neill as they had in the beginning when fighting Apophis over a decade ago.
"I believe Teal'c," Bra'tac began to speak softly. "That following O'Neill once again should be done as cautiously as was done the first time."
"Master Bra'tac, I do not believe that any would want to aid Earth."
Bra'tac nodded, "You are correct. None of our people on Chulak or any other planet would want to aid Earth considering what our previous alliance to them has cost us. But I am not proposing an alliance with Earth and neither was Maz'rai. What was proposed was an alliance with O'Neill and his resistance."
Sudden understanding dawned in Teal'c's eyes.
"A resistance that I understand already has Jaffa allies, many worlds inhabited by humans, what remains of Egeria's children and from the sounds of it, the Asgärd themselves." Bra'tac concluded. "You did well to reaffirm your oath to O'Neill."
Teal'c bowed his head at Bra'tac's words. "And for the drug Master?"
Bra'tac looked at the vial underneath his fingertips and picking it up studied the synthetic drug contained within once again. A drug that had originated on a planet formerly of Apophis' domain, called Pangar, and been refined by a joint Tok'ra-Asgärd scientist team specifically for Jaffa physiology to end Jaffa dependence on symbiotes. "We will have to control its distribution just as we control the distribution of prim'ta now. The very young will have priority—for if it is as Maz'rai says, if we save them from the Age of Prata Ceremony and they do not receive a prim'ta pouch their offspring will have the biological advantage in eventually redeveloping a natural immune system."
"We will also have to screen them to find those that cannot be helped by the drug as Maz'rai cautioned," Teal'c agreed. "I will visit Ishta to speak to her more about the drug."
"She is our source for the drug and contact for O'Neill?"
"Our source and contact with other resistance Jaffa," Teal'c clarified. "I am able to contact O'Neill directly through the Asgärd tablet Maz'rai left in my care."
As Bra'tac offered the vial to him Teal'c closed the old Jaffa's hands around it. "My prim'ta still has time yet to sustain me. It is yours that grows ever restless to claim a host and makes you ill."
"I am an old man Teal'c, even for our people," Bra'tac chastised as he offered the vial once again. "A wonder drug such as this should not be wasted on one such as I. One who is ready to journey to Kheb."
Teal'c shook his head again and released his grasp around his mentor's hand. Bra'tac sighed at the stubbornness of his student and placed the vial upright on the table between them.
"Did we not agree that the drug is to go to the young? Did Maz'rai not say that this drug was for you?"
"You have said you have been ready to journey to Kheb for years," Teal'c countered. "Yet you continued to live to free us from the false gods. Will you not continue to live to see us truly free of them?"
Bra'tac sighed even as he acknowledged in his mind the point that Teal'c had just scored. Matching his eyes to Teal'c's he knew that this would be one subject that his student would demonstrate the full strength of his will.
"Ranoc named you too well," Bra'tac muttered beneath his breath as he began to shed his outer robes, "Stubbornness in a word."
Teal'c smiled at the lowly voice words knowing that this argument had been won by him. From the satchel that Maz'rai had left with him he found the auto-injector, and feeling that Bra'tac had rolled the drug enough to prepare it for injection, secured the vial in its place. That done, he placed the loaded auto-injector on the table beside Bra'tac.
Bra'tac exposed his pouch and slipped his fingers inside and waited. It did not take long for the goa'uld within to angrily bite down on his fingers and Bra'tac, ignoring his pain, deftly grabbed onto the symbiote and drew it thrashing from his pouch.
Reaching for the tray that held their evening meal Bra'tac seized the knife on the tray and with skilful practice acquired over his long years of service as First Prime waited until the symbiote screeched its protest and slipped the blade of the knife into the open mouth, aiming upwards into the brain. The trashing goa'uld went limp as it died and Bra'tac laid both knife and still impaled symbiote onto the table.
Picking up the auto-injector Bra'tac held it against the side of his abdomen, his eyes catching those of Teal'c. Holding the eyes of the man that was student, son, warrior companion, and friend rolled into one he pressed the device's injector and intoned, "To freedom."