Tel'ress
Tel'ress
by Trendicide
TITLE: Tel'ress
AUTHOR: Trendicide
EMAIL: trendicide@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: D/S Drama, Angst
SPOILERS: Vey minor third season, but you'd have to be really looking
SEASON / SEQUEL: none
RATING: PG-13
CONTENT WARNINGS: Angst and Death (but not of established characters)
SUMMARY: Sg-1 meet a girl with her past mixed up with the Goa'uld. But how much will she change them?
STATUS: Completed
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. We have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the authors. Not to be archived without permission of the authors.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Look, other people! And dialogue!! Ok not the most cheerful thing I've ever written but you can't win 'em all.
Prologue
Bracken. The low shrubs and sharp claws of the surrounding plants tore at her flesh and at her clothes. In the distance was the sound of weapons fire. The sharp crackle of discharged weaponry and the dull thuds of the natives primitive defences. 'So small, so insignificant' she muttered quietly as she half walked, half stumbled through the almost impenetrable screen of vegetation that would shield her from the invaders. Her back itched furiously from a three day old wound that refused to heal and she felt fuzzy and light headed from the lack of food, sleep and although she did not know it, the beginnings of an infection spreading throughout her body. She heard the sounds of the battle in the distance slowing, getting fainter. It would not be long she realised, until this world was silent again. The Jaffa gone, their tribute collected. What was left of these people, if the Jaffa chose to be lenient and leave any remains, would try to re-build their shattered cities, a smoking reminder to all of the price of ignoring the system lords. The girl hidden among the trees shivered, wincing at the pain of wounds both fresh and long healed and laughed inwardly of the irony of her, the one being on the planet who had nothing to fear from the Jaffa hiding whilst the people were turned to dust. It was sad, so short a time ago she would have helped them.
The sun rose high above Colorado Springs, making every colour more vibrant and blessing every object and person with an aura of happiness. At least that was how it felt to Jack O'Neill when he woke, grumpy and dishevelled on his couch at 5:30 am. It wasn't that he was a cynic he told himself forcefully, it was just that things shouldn't look so happy when it's early enough to still catch the last rays of pink from sunrise. No one he assured himself, could be happy waking up at a time like this.
He was partly right. Teal'c was not especially happy about starting for work at this time. Yet at the same time he was not especially unhappy either. He had endured what no other being on the planet could claim to have, yet or perhaps because of this Teal'c found small things like the time of day passed as inconsequentially as a gnat bite on his massive frame. It was to him simply another morning.
To Major and Doctor Samantha Carter, the first swim out of sleep was at first comfortably hazy, then a little sharper than she would have liked. Her first sensations were of soft cotton sheets, this was nothing unusual. Then she realised the reason she could feel them so well was because she was naked. Her sleepy self noticed this as being slightly out of the ordinary but let it pass. That was until she moved slightly and encountered another warm and decidedly naked body these two messages together waking her a little faster than she would have liked. Her eyes snapped open then focused and settled as her waking self took over. The angelic face of a sleeping Daniel Jackson stared unknowingly back at her. For the moment unlined and at rest. She smiled; this was still new enough for her unconscious mind not to just accept the presence of another in her bed, though her conscious and certainly her sleeping pattern welcomed it. Groaning softly she reached over to turn off her quietly droning radio alarm, then reached across, lightly running her hand down Daniel's arm.
"Hey Dr Jackson" she whispered "time to get up."
"Mmmhmmm" was Daniel's only response but she saw his eyes flutter gently open and rest on hers. She smiled, he was adjusting faster than she was. Four weeks ago when she had taken that action for the first time, his eyes had shot open like she had given him an electric shock. Now he was more like a lazy cat, as he reached across to pull her to him. "Don't wanna" he muttered sleepily into her hair as he dropped butterfly kisses on her neck and shoulderblades. She pushed away with some effort.
"We have to" she admonished gently as she pulled away and padded slowly across the bedroom floor towards the bathroom. "Work, travel, stargate, remember?" She said as she walked.
"Work, travel, stargate" he repeated sleepily as he hauled himself up. Then he looked round at her sharply. "You bathroom first." He said, leaping across the bed to try and beat her to it. But all he reached was a closed door. He sighed, looking between the closed door and the ruffled bedclothes, wondering if he risked going back there. "Sleep very tempting" he growled through the door, hoping she'd take pity and let him in. He leaned on the doorknob, waiting patiently and was rewarded, a few seconds later he heard the door being unlocked and just leaned his weight off just fast enough to prevent him falling in. It did not save him though, from the thin but deceptively strong arm that snaked round the door and yanked him into her lair.
The ramp to the Stargate had often been compared to the yellow brick road and apart from the bricks and the yellow, Sam Carter thought there were many similarities. 'Ok, so maybe it's a metal ramp leading to one of the moat complex pieces of machinery mankind has ever encountered and not a stone path to the emerald city' Carter argued with herself, 'but it's still a yellow brick road.' Satisfied now she had reached a certain, if somewhat unnecessary conclusion Carter shifted her rifle further onto her shoulder and stepped up closer to the Iris. Watching the undulating substance of the gate, which would appear to a bystander like the surface of a thick bubble 'which in simple terms' Carter thought to herself, 'is what it is.' She watched O'Neill's back disappear through the iris, closely followed by Teal'c then Daniel. She watched his disappearing form then stepped up to the iris herself, ready for what by now had become a familiar action. She was in soldier mode now, professional, trained and ready. Still her last thought as she followed Jackson into the wormhole was 'I wonder if Daniel found that clean shirt this morning.'
It all died though, when they reached the other side. It took all the self-control Jack O'Neill had not to turn and punch the DHD when he saw what awaited them. This first contact reconnaissance had rapidly turned very sour. Vegetation smoked around the gate and in the distance he could make out the smouldering ruins of what he was sure had once been a village. Scorch marks blackened the grass around the gate and on the platform itself was an ash-coloured burn. No birds sang in the trees and below the grey overcast sky, there was no movement at all. Jack recognised it and a nasty taste rose to the back of his throat 'bile' he thought 'and anger.' He looked at his team, they all knew as much as he did, from the second they'd stepped through that gate it was obvious what had happened here. Teal'c voiced the thought that had occurred t all of them.
"Jaffa" he said, his voice impassive. But behind it O'Neill could here the knot of anger, not only or the victims but anger for the slave people who had killed them.
"Recent" O'Neill replied, kneeling to pick at a piece of scorched earth. "No more than a few hours" he said looking at the small fires that still burned in the vegetation. Grimly he turned to face the rest of his team. They met him, stone faced, each pair of eyes betraying the mixture of anger and helplessness these scenes always provoked. Sighing, O'Neill ordered the inevitable. "Ok, we better check for anything usable left" he, said, motioning for the team to fan out among the surrounding trees. Quieter he muttered to himself "you never know, decimating a planet and killing it's population enough to make any absent-minded Jaffa leave behind the ultimate Goa'uld destruction device." He kicked a treestump in frustration. It at least had the good grace not to retaliate.
Silently, the four worked, combing the trees for signs of life, habitation, anything that might be remaining either of this world, or of the Jaffa that had destroyed it. Sam honestly did not hold out much hope of finding anything, too many hauntingly similar situations had left her with a cynicism it was hard to shake. Still she hunted away, pushing back branches and shrubs with her hands, or failing that the barrel of her M-16. The whole place seemed dead and empty but still she pushed on, slightly deeper into the surrounding woodland. She brushed through a tight screen of trees and into a secluded clearing. Around her the trees rose oppressively, but it did not concern her, compared to what she saw before her. Two Jaffa lay sprawled on the cold ground. Heads lolled to the side and obviously dead. 'Looks like not everyone on this planet was defenceless' she thought, unable to restrain a small feeling of satisfaction in the idea that at least someone had tried to fight back. Between the two Jaffa was sprawled a third body. Far too small to be a Jaffa. 'Probably the killer' Sam thought as she reached out to turn the third body over. It groaned as she moved it and Sam despite her military training, nearly jumped out of her skin. Huge frightened eyes met hers and Sam swiftly looked the girl -for she could see that it was now- over. 'She could barely be more than fifteen' Sam thought 'and for all intents and purposes, she looks human.'
"Hello" Sam tried cautiously, hoping the girl would speak English. But her eyes remained uncomprehending, though she tried to shift further away from Sam, watching her fearfully the whole time. 'Damn' Sam thought, 'I can't call the team over without frightening her away.'
"Hey" she tried again, edging slowly closer. "I'm not gonna hurt you." The girl stayed still her eyes fixed to Sam's chest. She looked down and realised the girl was staring fixedly at the weapon slung around Sam's neck. "Oh" Sam said and quickly she unhooked the M-16, placing it gently on the ground next to her. She held up her hands as if in surrender. "See" she said softly, carefully reaching out towards the girl, "nothing to be afraid of." The girl followed her arm as if it were a poisonous snake and when Sam finally reached out to tenderly touch her arm she flinched but she did not shy away. Sam took the opportunity of contact to gather the team.
"Guys!" she yelled loud enough to be heard in the silent forest "Over here!" She felt the girl stiffen when she called, but she remained still, watching Sam with less fear and with the beginnings of curiosity. Sam smiled reassuringly at her as the rest of the group approached. Then she turned to face them, still keeping a loose grip on the girl's arm. "It's ok" she muttered softly, feeling her body tremble more as they approached, "they're friends." Sam had no idea if she understood a word she was saying, she hoped the tone of her voice would be enough.
"She's injured but alive." Sam reported, looking up at the colonel. He smiled at the girl.
"Hi." She gave him the same look of bewilderment she had given Sam.
"But I don't think she speaks English Sir." Sam finished belatedly. O'Neill nodded and turned to Daniel, motioning him forward. He knelt next to Sam at the girl's eye level and gently spoke in what Sam had nicknamed his Bambi voice, so soft and gentle it wouldn't scare a baby deer.
"Hey" He said softly. "My name is Daniel." He pointed to himself and then to her "What's your name?" For the first time a glimmer of comprehension showed in the girls eyes. Opening her mouth she spoke a few words slowly in a foreign tongue. The other three looked bemused where as Daniel's face screwed up like he was trying to solve a particularly hard cross word clue. After a second he responded, speaking rapidly to the girl. She regarded him blankly so he tried again, this time in a different language. Still there was no response. He tried one more time in a different tongue. This time the girl looked up a small smile creeping to her face as she realised she understood. She replied to him speaking a little faster in her own language. Daniel pointed to the other members of the group and recited their names. The girl nodded then asked another question. Daniel pointed to the badge on his sleeve, then to the team again, all the while chattering in an unintelligible language. Jack sighed and tapped him on the shoulder.
"Daniel?" He said loudly. Startled Daniel turned, then had to reach out a hand to prevent himself overbalancing. "What's she saying?" Jack asked, motioning to the girl.
"Umm she told me her name and then asked who we were. Then she asked why we were here. I told her that we cam through the Stargate and that we were explorers and I said we could take her back with us to get her treatment." Jack looked at him for a moment, then spoke.
"Two questions, what is her name? And don't you think you could have mentioned we'd agreed to take her back kinda before we agreed?"
"Well it seemed the most logical thing to do, she is injured and she may be our best source of information on what happened here." He surveyed the carnage grimly for a moment. "Oh and her names kinda complex but it means 'Bringer of light'."
"Bringer of light?' Not that catchy. How about something simple, like Lucy." Jack was met by two sets of raised eyebrows from Daniel and Sam. "What?" He asked defensively.
"How'd you know Lucy was the Greek goddess of light?" Daniel asked.
"You just always underestimate me that's all" Jack replied condescendingly then picked up his own weapon. "Lets go people, back to the gate." Daniel gently scooped the girl into his arms. She whimpered when he touched her back, but otherwise remained still. Teal'c held out his hands, offering to carry her but the girl squirmed away. Grabbing fistfuls of Daniel's shirt to avoid being passed over.
"Bad Goa'uld experiences I'd guess." Daniel said softly, moving her slightly away from Teal'c, he nodded slightly but said nothing, understanding the girl's reaction. Jack turned round and started striding purposefully back towards the Gate.
"Thank God they show I love Lucy at 2 am" he muttered quietly to himself.
By the time they reached the ring, Lucy had lost consciousness. Daniel still held her, jogging as best he could towards the gate with the additional weight. Sam, way ahead of him had already punched in the symbols and sent the signal, her urgency mimicking that of the others. The gate spewed forth, then settled into a smooth liquid, only to almost immediately be disturbed as first O'Neill, then Daniel and Lucy, followed by Carter and finally Teal'c leapt through the rippling surface and a thousand million miles away. Within a few seconds the vortex was gone. The gate remained silent and still the last standing monument in the scorched earth. The gate wind dropped, the lights dissipated from where it had refracted on the polished stones around the gate's base. The world was as silent as a graveyard.
Within 30 seconds of their tumbling arrival onto the ramp, Janet Fraiser's medical team already had Lucy strapped onto a stretcher and halfway out of the gate bay doors. O'Neill still shaking the slight fuzziness gate travel left him with mused with the small part of his brain unaffected by adrenaline that Janet must have a sort of sick person sixth sense. It was all he could think of to account for her uncanny ability to be ready and waiting for the injured arrivals of their gate missions, whenever they were present. What he didn't know was that Janet always had a medical team standing by when Sg-1 returned home, she did not think of it as a sixth sense, but merely as forward planning. Nine times out of ten, they were necessary. Like now as she watched the body hoisted onto the bed her mind ran through all the emergency checks she could do, whilst the rest o it wondered about this girls provenance and her life. Quickly she surveyed the multiple wounds that criss-crossed over her body. Some were old and faded, barely even scars. But she was for now only interested in the fresh ones, like the festering sore one on her back had become, no doubt accounting for the fever and infection and probably her loss of consciousness as well. The team worked on rapidly stabilising her, whilst Janet called for bloodworks and x-rays, gathering the information she would need for treatment. The fresh wounds on her back and arms were cleaned and dressed and Janet made sure drips were started to replace what she thought must have been a substantial loss of fluid. Her skin told of dehydration and malnourishment and Janet could only pray that hey had got to the infection in time to save her with what must be by now a severely weakened immune system. Finally the flurry of activity calmed and at Janet's orders the girl was left to rest. Someone passed the chart into hr hand, the blood tests already done and reported back. Quietly she scanned them, seeing the tell tale signs of anaemia and low sugar levels t!
hat confirmed her earlier diagnoses. Her white count though was surprisingly healthy 'more fortunate her' Janet muttered she ordered antibiotics to deal with the infection and then thought or a minute before adding an order for a genetic test to the bottom of the chart. It would take a few hours, but Hammond would want one, despite her human appearance, there could be more to the girl than first appeared. From long experience Janet had learned to not to trust the face value of anything that came through the stargate. Signing off, she handed the chart to one of her nurses she wondered where the x-ray films had got to. Probably a lab hold up, the military lab handled the x-rays not only for medical but also for engineering and the sciences and with new equipment and discoveries all the time, their workload could be huge. Medical x-rays got the first priority of course, but still it could sometimes take them a while. Something in the corner of her eye caught her attention. Unobtrusively, sg-1 had appeared in the medical bay. Sam was staring nervously at the girl in the bed, chewing on her fingers as she was apt to do when she was worried. O'Neill playing at leader spoke for them.
"What's the prognosis doc?" he asked, doing his best to sound only professionally concerned and failing miserably. Janet looked up at him and then round at the rest of the group, Teal'c stood as staunch and reserved as ever whilst Daniel hovered at Sam's shoulder, stealing frequent glances at her as if trying to guess what she was thinking. She smiled inwardly; the obvious concern was touching and made Janet once again recalculate how lucky Sam was. Pushing the thought away before it turned into a full blown hallmark moment, she spoke to the Colonel.
"She's got an infection from a wound and she's malnourished and dehydrated but I've given her fluids and antibiotics and I think she'll be fine. She's very strong and is obviously fighting."
"So she'll be ok?" O'Neill clarified mostly for himself.
"She'll be fine in about two days, though I'd guess she'll wake up in a few hours she'll probably want to rest though, she's been through a lot."
"Right." O'Neill turned to face his team. "Hear that? She'll be ok." Janet also turned to look at them. Even Teal'c's stiff stance seemed to sag a little at this news, though it could have been Janet's imagination. Daniel turned to face Sam as if checking she'd heard this news. He knew her too well, knew how she felt about kids. She'd had a soft spot for them since before he'd met her and now he knew how she stiffened in his arms when pictures of starving children appeared on the news and he knew how many kids she had sponsored in third world countries. But children in war were what made her really angry and he was sure this would be no exception. Janet appeared at Sam's other elbow and spoke to her softly.
"She's gonna be ok Sam, I'll make sure of it." Then without any warning her voice changed from what Jack secretly referred to as her 'comfort anyone' voice to the one he called 'Attila-the-airforce doctor' though strangely never to her face. "I want you to go home and get some rest Sam, she'll be awake in the morning and you can come see her then." Turning to Daniel she spoke to him. "Take her home and do whatever you have to do to make sure she gets some sleep. I don't want to see either of you back here until tomorrow. " Her tone broached no arguments though Jack grimaced inwardly at the mental image her words conjured up. It'd been one of the ones he'd been steadfastly ignoring since he'd heard they'd finally got together. It wasn't something he needed following him around for the rest of the day. Daniel nodded and then draped an arm loosely over Sam's shoulders breaking one of their unspoken laws about base behaviour. Still today he knew she needed it and was not surprised when her hand drew up to find his, in a gesture of silent support. Gently he turned her and led her towards the door, just as they reached she turned and cast one last look at the girl in the bed. Janet gave her a reassuring smile that lasted until the door closed behind them. The she turned to face the last two team members cluttering her infirmary. "The same goes for you two, I'm sure you can find something to occupy the rest of your day." Teal'c turned and then unexpectedly turned back to face her.
"Thank you Dr Frasier." He said before leaving the room. Janet wasn't quite sure what he was thanking her for but still she was glad of the gesture. Without a word someone passed the sheath of x-rays into her hand. She clipped them to the board and snapped on the light automatically, forgetting for a moment that jack was even there. She surveyed them one by one, then gasped. It took Jack all of two seconds to appear beside her.
"What is it?" He asked, looking at her.
"Look." She said pointing at the last x ray on the row. It was the girls hand, Janet had been suspicious of the right forearm so had had the limb x-rayed, even Jack could tell that wasn't a normal hand. All the bones were there all right, but almost overlaid them seemed to be some kind of infrastructure, it's tendrils stretched out to her fingertips and halfway up her arm, whilst a ring was centred in the middle of her palm, off which the thin white lines radiated outwards. Turning almost simultaneously they stepped to Lucy's bedside. Janet carefully picked up her right hand and turned it over palm upward. Sure enough there were faint traces of what looked like metal underneath the skin, thin lines across her hand and forearm connected to a metal ring in the middle. Janet peered closer almost making out faint hooks on the edges of the ring, though the whole thing was so faint it was almost impossible to tell.
"What the hell..." O'Neill breathed behind her. She shrugged bemused and gently laid the arm at the girl's side again absentmindedly noting how warm it was. She almost stood up, when something else caught her eye. She'd yet to have time to make a catalogue of all the girl's wounds, she knew it was going to be a long and a grim job, but these scars were special and Janet berated herself for not noticing them before. Silently she reached up and traced the thin insertion line on the girl's neck. "Oh God." Jack said, he too recognising the scar as something all too familiar. "But she wasn't..."
"Look." Janet pointed to a second scar, the mirror of the first only slightly higher. Turning the girl's head she spotted a third on the other side all exactly matching. Both she and Jack stood bemused for a moment before jack voiced their thoughts.
"Why would she have three?" Janet looked at him confusion screwing up her features.
"I don't know. There's nothing in there, I x-rayed her back and neck and there's no Goa'uld. Maybe she had one and it was removed, but we don't know of anyone with removal technology that would leave a scar like that and besides, that still doesn't explain the third scar. " Gently Janet smoothed the girls hair away from her eyes, watching her chest rise and fall with regular breathing. Jack's eyes were clouded with both confusion and anger.
"Whatever, she's been through a lot." He said, his eyes softening as he watched her. Janet gently placed a hand on his forearm, urging him towards the door.
"So have you." She said softly. "And you both need time to recover so go home and let me work." With a final push she got him out of the door and turned again to face her patient. Quietly she walked up and sat down in the chair next to the bed, watching her chest rise and fall and listening to the rhythmic beeps of the monitors.
"What the hell happened to you?" she murmured, before closing her eyes for a second's respite.
The next morning dawned much as the day before. Only fortunately for Jack's temper, a little later. By 9:30 he was at the mountain, bright as a three-year-old button left in a cupboard and already on his third cup of coffee. Base coffee would win no fine taste prizes he was sure, in fact the most common theory was that the flavour was infused from the polystyrene cup. Still it was military coffee and there was something about the pure distilled caffeine that gave it a special place in Jack's heart. It was the coffee version of vodka, brewed purely for the active (or in this case hyperactive) ingredient. Smiling slightly, he drained the cup. Across the table Teal'c stared at him impassively. He needed none of the human pick me ups that were a side effect of that unfortunate necessity for sleep. He was as alert and prepared as ever. Jack wondered if the big Jaffa even knew the meaning of the word flustered. Further down the table Daniel and Sam sat, both looking tired. Jack guessed that neither of them had got much sleep last night. However their alert eyes gave away the fact that they too had swallowed several cups of the magic bean this morning. Jack idly wondered if it had been Sam or Daniel's own particular brand of home brew, both were lethal, he knew. It was one advantage of living together he supposed, coffee pooling. Even if Daniel still stubbornly refused to admit that's what they were doing. Jack had only managed to make him acquiesce a little when he had pointed out that not only did Daniel's place now contain less of his clothes than Sam's but that it was starting to look dusty even by his standards. But then Daniel had got that dopey look in his eyes and Jack had quickly switched subjects. He loved them both dearly, but he really didn't want to hear any more than was necessary especially if Daniel was about to turn all mushy, he could handle tactical operations, fire storms and war zones, but he just didn't do mushy. Finally General; Hammond!
's voice broke his reverie.
"As far as I can see" he began sweeping his gaze across the table "we have a sole survivor to a Goa'uld attack, no idea how she survived and how she apparently killed two Jaffa. As well as the problem of her language and of whether she was even a native of that planet. I need some answers people, before I can make any decisions what we do with the girl."
"Lucy." Jack interjected absently.
"What?" Hammond asked bemused.
"The girl, we're calling her Lucy." Jack replied meeting the General's eyes.
"All right, Lucy then. But I still need to know some more information." Without needing to be asked Janet Frasier spoke up. She sat diagonally from Jack and in front of her was a frightening array of charts and numbered sheets.
"I really don't know what to tell you about this girl" Janet began, looking at the assembled faces. "She presented with a fever, dehydration and malnourishment. I gave her antibiotics and fluids and she's recovering well, actually better than well, fantastically. With such things I would have expected severe weakening of her immune system, yet she's fighting back stronger than I think I've ever seen and her cuts are mending fast too, she really is an extraordinary healer. But that's not all." Janet drew the first of the x-rays from the pile. "When I did some tests and examined her more carefullly, I found some extremely odd things. This is the most obvious." She laid the arm x-ray out on the table. Even Jack, who had seen it the night before, reacted to the picture in front of them.
"What the hell is that?" Sam breathed staring at the film.
"As far as I can tell," Janet said, "it's some kind of metal implant, though it's so strongly linked to her central nervous system I'd say she could control it at will and that it's been there since infancy."
"Then how did it stay the right size?" Daniel asked looking away from the x-ray for the first time.
"From the small sample I did manage to take, I'd say the metal was bio-regenerative, it quite literally grew with her, replicating itself like a living thing to stay in contact with her tissues. Here" Janet pointed to the spot on the x ray where the trail stopped halfway up her forearm, "The metal doesn't stop, it merely becomes part of her body tissue, so similar that they're almost impossible to distinguish."
"Any idea of its function?" Hammond asked. Janet shook her head. "Impossible to tell, but there are a few clues in the other tests I made on her."
"Such as?" Hammond prompted.
"Well we took a DNA test, in order to compare it to the genome of an average human." Janet drew two more sheets from the folder and placed them on the table. "On the surface she appears normal and 90% of her DNA is no different from anybody else's."
"But?" Sam asked.
"But the other 10% shows minor changes, enough to have some interesting effects on her body. For starters her immune system is naturally more aggressive to fight infection and to repair tissues and I found other things as well. Her body seems to produce bio toxins, they run in her blood and are constantly broken down by her immune system, and hence I think the need for its overactivity. But these toxins themselves are fascinating, they're mildly poisonous to humans, but would be more than that, incredibly deadly to any species like the Goa'uld." There was silence for a moment as each person registered this news. Finally Jack spoke up.
"So you're saying she's Goa'uld resistant?"
"It would explain the multiple entrance marks I found on her neck." Janet replied. "Any Goa'uld placed in her would be destroyed and absorbed before it even had a chance to bond, I also found the protein markers left by absorbed Goa'uld in her bloodstream."
"So someone, somewhere engineered this girl to be resistant to the Goa'uld?" Sam asked, her eyes wide.
"No," Janet replied looking at the data for a moment. "The changes in her DNA bear none of the classic signs of engineering, the proteins have been changed slowly, not suddenly. My guess would be she wasn't engineered like this, she was bred this way?"
"Bred?" Jack asked incredulous, "you mean like selective breeding?"
"Precisely." Janet said "and from this DNA I'd say that someone, somewhere has been practising with humans for a very long time." It took a second for them all to digest this news. Finally Hammond turned to face Daniel.
"What about you Dr Jackson, do you know anything about this language she's speaking?" It took Daniel a second to respond to the question, he was still in mild shock.
"I've found that he's speaking a cross between Latin, Greek and Goa'uld." He began quickly settling into his 'teacher' mode. "At first I thought it was some kind of dialect a sort of pidgin cross between the languages. She can understand spoken Latin, but doesn't seem to understand Greek or Goa'uld. Eventually I realised hat she couldn't be peaking in dialect, there are certain common markers in dialects that suggest a common root language also it is rare that a dialect speaker won't understand at least some...." Jack broke in with a raised eyebrow. Daniel now long used to catching the unspoken nuances of raised eyebrows abruptly got back to the point. "What she seems to be doing is speaking by filling in the gaps with a mixture of words from these three languages. My guess would be that at one time she spoke all three possibly more as well. It's not a case of her speaking an unknown language but simply that she's forgotten how to use the languages she knows. It suggest that whatever she's been doing she has not had to speak for a long time." Daniel stopped, casting his eyes round he table most of them seemed to be digesting his words, but Janet's eyes were staring again at the x-ray of the girl's arm.
"What if it's retractable?" She murmured softly to herself.
"Doctor?" Hammond asked, his own practically non-existent eyebrows raised.
"I was thinking sir, what if this metal ring could be moved? It has spike on it that could certainly protrude through the skin. That way it could be used as a weapon or a tool. It'd certainly explain a few things I found in her DNA."
"Like?" Hammond asked.
"Well the Goa'uld killing toxin wasn't the only one I found being produced, there were others, although t hey were being made in much smaller concentrations and didn't flow in her bloodstream, I couldn't identify the function of most of them." She paused for a minute, thinking through then continued. "But if she could use this to inject them, then they might be effective against other lifeforms, like humans of Jaffa."
"So what you mean" Hammond concluded, "is that she could be wandering round with a weapon literally in the palm of her hand."
"Yes." Janet agreed looking at the x-ray. "Someone put a lot of work into designing this girl to be able to inflict harm." She looked up and her eyes showed a hint of steely anger. "They messed with her body at the most base levels t turn her into something."
"Not something." Jack said suddenly, comprehension dawning on him. It was brilliant he realised, in a cold sort of way. "She's perfectly designed to kill one life form. She's someone's idea for a Goa'uld assassin."
There was silence as one by one the others round the table caught the logic of O'Neill's reasoning. They glanced at each other, each testing whether the rest had grasped the full implications of what O'Neill was suggesting. Suddenly the phone on the General's desk rang and despite their military training, most of the table visibly jumped.
"Yes?" the general almost barked into the receiver. Then he listened for a few moments before turning back to the table. "That was one of your team," he said addressing Janet before returning his gaze to the entire group. "Apparently, our young visitor is awake." Janet began moving even before the General gave his unspoken say so. The others wasted no time in following her out of the door; their chairs left swinging around an empty table.
Jack watched as Janet carefully checked the vitals of the girl in the bed. When they arrived her eyes had been wide and frightened and Janet had taken Daniel in with her to calm the girl down before she'd allow the others to see her. Now they all stood around her bed probably looking very imposing in her eyes, he thought. Despite his own theory about her, he still could not shake the fact that this was an adolescent, still really a child. Janet asked the girl questions through Daniel, the standard queries about how she felt, whether anything hurt etc. She also gently asked the girl what she could remember about the attack, trying in the gentlest way possible, to pry some answers to their questions. Daniel all the time translated, listening intently to the Lucy's replies and deciphering them for the rest of the group. Sam stood near him as she could without touching Jack noticed wryly. The two hadn't officially declared their relationship to the rest of the base and especially to Hammond. Sam was still unsure how it would be received it was after all as close as she could go to breaking the fraternisation regulations without crossing the line. They both feared Hammond's reaction. But jack was sure Hammond already knew, contrary to popular opinion good generals tended to be both extremely observant and highly aware of the relationships of people under their command and Hammond was a damned good General, probably one of the best jack had ever met. Now though, it was obvious that his patience was wearing a little thin. Jack could understand whatever this girl carried inside her it was obvious it was extremely important. The ultimate Goa'uld killing device may indeed have been left behind by the Jaffa. It was from this thought that he was suddenly roused when Daniel translated the girl's words.
"She says she supposes we want to know about her hand and her DNA then." Daniel said, looking as surprised as everyone else did.
"Actually" he replied to the girl in Latin. "We did want to know what these devices and elements were for." She nodded as if she had been expecting it. Then gently, avoiding putting weight on her injured arm, she hoisted herself up a little higher on the bed. Still being translated by Daniel, she began. Jack got the impression she'd told this story many times before, from the smooth way she recited the narrative, as if it had been taught to her. He wondered what happened to the others she had told.
"My race began over 3000 years ago, when a race we call the ancients arrived on earth, looking for humans with some sort of natural immunity to the Goa'uld. Their plan was to breed together humans with particularly strong traits of host resistance. Accordingly they gathered the strongest traits they could find and used the gates to transport these people to their home planet. Their understanding of genetics was at the time fairly primitive, but as they bred through stronger and stronger Goa'uld resistance, hey also learnt how to change people's genetic structure to enhance other traits, like our strength and capacity to learn. They also began to tailor our bodies to produce other chemicals as well as the toxins we were already producing to fight the Goa'uld. Their biggest breakthrough came when they invented the ring." She opened her right hand to illustrate the metal under her skin. "They synthesised a substance that would grow with us and that could be given instructions to link itself more and more strongly to our central nervous system. So by the time we are ten years of age, we can control the ring and all it's functions at will. It can be used to inject toxins that we can also control and as a tool, although it has many different functions." She paused suddenly as if thinking how to phrase her next words. "Once we could inject poisons at will and were impervious to Goa'uld bonding, the ancients had what they wanted a tool to wipe out the Goa'uld."
"So what happened?" O'Neill asked "how come it wasn't bye bye Goa'uldie?" She listened to Daniel's version of the question before responding.
"For a long time, the Goa'uld and the Ancients were locked in stalemate, the Goa'uld converted people as fast as the Ancient's could use us to kill them off. It had been that way for centuries it would take a long time for the Ancients to push back the tide and overtake the Goa'uld. But about four years ago, everything changed." She stopped again and bit her lower lip before continuing. "Somehow, the Goa'uld gained co-ordinates for our home planet, our whole world died when the Goa'uld simply destroyed it from space." She stopped seeming for a moment as if she was about to cry and for the briefest second the frightened child appeared beneath the mask. But before O'Neill could even blink, it was gone again. "I and a few others like me were off world when it happened. Since then we've no longer had any orders so we've lost contact. I haven't seen another one of my kind for a long time. We're always trained to work alone anyway, but in the last year I've done little else than move from place to place, looking for somewhere to settle until I've decided my long-term next move." She sighed seeming to deflate with the effort telling her story had taken. "That's what I was doing on the planet where you found me, I couldn't help those people, there were so many Jaffa and I couldn't have stopped them all." She sounded quite reasonable as if she accepted that she could not defeat and army.
"Thank you Lucy." The general said, turning slightly. "You've given us all the information we needed." He nodded to her, then turned and left. Sam hovered nervously as if unsure of where she was going until Daniel gently tugged on her arm moving he ever so gently away from the girl. She turned and Daniel came with her. For a second they both stared at the girl then Sam gently smoothed away the hair on her forehead and Daniel softly whispered goodbye in the tongue only they shared. Then they both left the room. Teal'c also left almost as invisibly as he had stood there, despite his massive frame he had an instinctive ability to blend into the scenery. He did however offer Lucy a single raised eyebrow before he went. O'Neill wondered if that was a positive or negative gesture and whether Lucy could tell. Finally he decided that he too should go, he quietly turned away, she by now had settled back down under the covers and he presumed she was trying to sleep. But as he reached the door he heard her voice behind him. She spoke for the first time in English, though it was slow and faltering as if she was only very slowly remembering the language. Jack guessed she probably was.
"There was nothing I could do for them." She said, but this time her tone was different, almost forlorn. Jack turned and realised that he recognised the emotion in her eyes, he'd seen it in many a soldier and felt it himself until it almost rotted his soul. Survivor's guilt. He reached her in two long steps and gently cradled her small frame in his arms. She was no longer anything except a frightened unhappy girl with a problem Jack could sympathise with, for now that was all that mattered.
In a few days, Janet finally released her from the infirmary and a bout a week later, Lucy had become a common and accepted sight, bouncing around the corridors of the base. At first Hammond had attempted confining her to quarters, but he and the rest of the base had quickly learned that at least one of the functions of her hand device was the ability to open locked and even magnetically sealed doors. Eventually the General had given up, allowing her the freedom of the base on the condition she left certain areas alone and did not venture into the outside world. For now at least, she seemed happy to comply, fascinated by everything he found on the base. She was often found immersed in Daniel's library of Latin Greek and Goa'uld texts. Though her English was coming on well a testament Janet said to the geneticist who had given her such a high learning ability to learn, she still loved using her first languages and Daniel certainly wasn't complaining. Sam had already come to fetch him twice at two in the morning, only to find the two of them pouring over manuscripts making similar scrawling notes on paper by their sides. The two of them had found a common interest and Sam had found herself fascinated by Daniel's interaction with the girl. It promised things to her that she was not sure she could have. That was part of the reason she was down where this morning. Here was the gym in the Cheyenne Mountain complex. Most of the time Sam took her fitness training to be jogging or swimming, her work itself was pretty much one long day of exercise. But when she had some issues to work out, this was were she would come. Her hand to hand combat skills were not something she thought of often, unless she was wrestling unfriendlies in a foreign land or even worse, Daniel for the remote, but this gave them a little practise as well as venting her pent up aggression. She was venting it quite purposefully on a punchbag when she noticed a figure in the doorway. Lucy stood there, hands in the pockets o!
f her oversized military fatigues. So far no one had found anything that completely fit her small frame, so she had been wandering round the base doing an impression of what the colonel referred to as 'Coco the clown goes to military school.' Looking at her, Sam could see his point.
"Hey." Sam grinned and motioned for her to come in. Eagerly Lucy stepped forward grinning as she walked over the soft matting.
"Thought you must be down here." She said smiling at Sam. Sam smiled back.
"Just working out a few issues with Mr. Punchbag" Sam returned, holding the bag steady.
"Sounds like fun." Lucy turned a full circle and then came back to face her. "Fancy working out those issues with me instead?"
"What do you mean?" Sam asked bemused.
"I mean have a fight, just a warm-up, I have a few issues of my own to work out."
"Fight you?" Sam hesitated, on the one hand it had been ages since she had had the chance to train with a partner and if what Janet said about the engineering of this girl was correct, she ought to be pretty strong. But on the other, what would Janet say about her fighting a patient she still stubbornly insisted was 'recuperating.'"
"Please?" Lucy's pleading voice broke into her thoughts. Sam looked into her pleading eyes for a second and that was al it took.
"Ok." She said leading Lucy out to the mats in the centre of the floor. "But only quickly."
"Fine" Lucy replied then took up a fighting stance, Sam mimicked the gesture and for a second they watched each other, sizing up the potential threat. Then almost quicker than Sam could have imagined came the first strike. It was incredible. They fought in a rhythm each one gaining then losing the advantage. Sam quickly realised they were perfectly matched, a back and forth stalemate that she knew would continue until one of them acquiesced. She threw every ounce of concentration into the battle and they became locked, everything else falling away to leave just them and their battle.
"Having fun ladies?" Almost simultaneously they both stopped turning to face the voice, then again simultaneously the loss of concentration caused them to overbalance and they ended up as a tangled heap on the floor. Jack laughed from the doorway.
"Sir." Said Carter leaping up. Lucy however showed him much less respect.
"You did that deliberately." She said rising from her position on the floor to face him. O'Neill shrugged insolently at her. Then smiled. She growled her response then tackled him, throwing him to the floor with surprising strength. Sam quickly backed off the mat leaving them to it, then put her head in her hands, that was a bad move, a very bad move. Her worst suspicions were confirmed. Jack responded in kind and although Lucy had been evenly matched to Sam's size and strength, here she was out of her league, Jack had had more time to perfect his skills and more strength to use with them. They fought for a few minutes, O'Neill quickly gaining the advantage. Sam felt the aura round the battle change; it was no longer fun it was a true fight. Jack pinned her down holding her still. Lucy's eyes darkened and she seemed to almost sink into herself. She wrestled a single arm free and struck out blindly with the palm of her hand, striking Jack a glancing blow. For a second the both stood still then Jack's frame seemed to collapse he landed heavily in a heap on the mats. Sam raced forward just as Lucy backed away in shock.
"What did you do?" Sam asked as she quickly felt for O'Neill's pulse. It was strong and steady and his eyes were wide, following in a panicked fashion around the room.
"I didn't mean..." Lucy took a gasping breath, her eyes brimming with tears. "It's... it's a poison a paralysing agent, it's pretty mild, it'll wear off. I didn't mean...I just reacted....I'm sorry." She seemed about to break down and Sam tried to signal to her that she wasn't angry as she called a medical team to the gym. O'Neill's panicked eyes had calmed a little although he moved his eyes as if he was trying to find any part of his body that still had sensation.
"What happened?" Janet's voice spoke close to Sam's ear. She turned to find Janet her team and a stretcher had all invaded the gym.
"He's been injected with a paralysing agent. Lucy did it, she didn't mean to, it was an accident." Janet's eyes flicked away from the patient to the girl in the corner. Wide frightened eyes stared back at her. Janet whispered something to one of hr nurses and O'Neill by now strapped to the stretcher was hurried out of the room. Janet approached the girl, speaking softly.
"Lucy, I need you to come with me. Can you tell me which compound you used to do this?" Lucy nodded, dumbfounded. "Then we need to go to the medical bay, so I can analyse and find an antidote." Lucy nodded again, then placed her hand in Janet's outstretched palm as gently as she could, Janet led the shell-shocked girl from the room. Sam was left staring blankly at the wall. She turned sharply when the door swung open again, but was surprised to see Daniel standing there.
"I got a call about Jack being in the medical bay. What happened?" Sam turned and walked towards him, needing for the moment the assurance that at least some thing were as they seemed.
"Lucy injected him with one of her toxins by accident. He'll be ok but it's turned him into a temporary paralytic." Daniel's eyebrows shot up.
"Really?"
"Yeah, but she was a shocked as the rest of us, pretty upset about it too."
"Why?... I mean why did she do it?"
"She and Jack were fighting, he had her pinned. I guess it was just survival." Daniel nodded then placed his hands on Sam's shoulders, looking into her eyes.
"You ok?"
"Well I'm not in the medical bay, so I guess I got off best from the whole thing." She joked tiredly. Daniel still held fast to her shoulders.
"I'm serious." She looked up into his eyes.
"I'm fine Daniel." He accepted this at least for the moment, but to her surprise placed a soft kiss on her forehead before releasing her. Sam smiled both at his concern and his instinctive knowledge that she was in need of reassurance.
"Hammond's scheduled a briefing or three, providing Jack's up and about I guess, you wanna grab some lunch at home first?" Sam looked at her watch, it was barely half eleven.
"3 and a half hours for lunch Daniel? We could eat in half an hour at the canteen and we wouldn't have to sneak out."
"Yeah but..." Daniel whined then waggled his eyebrows at her. It took her a second to catch his drift, but when she did she smiled.
"That would be strictly against regulations, not to mention our personal rules about what we do on work time."
"Sometimes you gotta bend the rules a little." He looked so much like a naughty schoolboy is was impossible for Sam to resist. Slapping him lightly she turned to open the door.
"Ok then, but back here for three sharp."
"Yes ma'am." Daniel through her a sloppy salute and she giggled again before they both slipped out of the gym. As they walked down the corridor Daniel suddenly grinned. "Of course there is one thing" he said.
"What?" Sam asked turning slightly so she could almost face him.
"We finally know that there is a substance that can shut Jack up." Sam hit him again and they continued their journey.
By evening, the lights on the base dimmed a little. At least that as how it always seemed to Jack. It was always darker in the medical bay he supposed, but even in the corridors the lights seemed to go down and the atmosphere in the base changed. The support staff went home and all that were left were the military teams still on standby and the wandering academics, roving the corridors in hope of a free cup of coffee to chase the shadows away. Jack would rather have been away, far away at home with a beer and the TV, getting some rest before the mission tomorrow, but Janet had insisted he came back for one last check up before he could be released to the perils of driving. She was just checking his blood sample now and he was marvelling at all the places on the human body a practised hand could find to stick a needle. No wonder acupuncture was so popular.
"I'm sorry." He looked up to find Lucy staring at him from the open doorway, framed by the lights of the corridor. She looked nervous, like a faun ready to bolt.
"It's ok" jack reassured her, smiling wryly. "I guess it'll just teach me only to pick on people my own size." She smiled a little at that, though Jack wondered if she'd ever actually heard the expression. Cautiously she approached him and he gently encouraged her, shifting slightly so she had room to sit on the bed with him.
"Don't worry kid," he grinned at her rufully touching the small ring of cuts on his cheek where her implant had broken the skin. "I've been through a lot worse. But remind me to take you with me next time I see the dentist, that little drug of yours could be very useful." Her smiled but she looked at him with confused yes.
"Jack, what's a dentist?" He laughed slightly, this could be tricky
"A very evil group of people." He said finally looking at her.
"Worse than the Goa'uld?" she asked, her eyes wide.
"Hmm debatable, but I guess at least the Goa'uld only insert slugs inside you." Lucy puzzled over this remark, her eyes going from confused to horrified.
"Then what do they.." Jack could barely keep from laughing.
"When you're older kid." He said, neatly letting himself out. Lucy looked down for a moment then began idly kicking her leg against the edge of the bed. For the first time Jack realised how bored she must be in the base.
"Hey kid" he said, catching her attention. "Want to go on a trip?" She looked at him for a moment then asked.
"Where?"
"Outside" Jack replied smiling at her. "Just out to the park or something."
"Yes please." Her eyes were wide and Jack realised how much she wanted to escape the base for a while.
"OK, just don't tell..." for the first time he noticed Janet had unobtrusively entered the room; he wondered how long she'd been standing there.
"Long enough." She replied to his unspoken question. "And your bloodwork is fine, you're free to go."
"Thank you." Jack turned then grabbed Lucy's hand. "Janet could you jut not mention this to anyone?"
"Mention what?" Janet asked, her eyes wide and innocent. "I heard nothing." Then she turned and started filing charts away in drawers. "Now could you please leave while my back is turned so I can at least honestly claim I didn't see you go." Jack grinned then pulled Lucy quickly out the door.
"Thank you Dr Frasier" he called from the corridor. Janet put her head on the top of the filing cabinet.
"He really hasn't got this unknowing idea has he." She said to the empty room.
Jack took her to the park then to the station. She'd asked to go anywhere as long as there were people. He guessed that was what she missed most. Everything she saw she took in with the open-minded fascination usually only available to small children. At the moment she was watching a woman walking rapidly across the central plaza away from the station doors and into the crowded street. Jack tried to see what she was seeing, but the only thought he could come up with was art teacher. He could think of no other group of people who would mix that nice an outfit with flip-flops. 'Ah the jaded cynicism of old age.' He thought to himself, then looking up, noticed the evening sun was setting in the sky, he knew just the place to watch that. Com on he said to Lucy, tugging gently at he hand. |After a short drive they climbed Cheyenne mountain and sat on an outcropping watching the last rays of light defract into a palette of golds and oranges, whilst the cool blue of night chased them out of the air.
"Thank you" Lucy said, smiling at him as the sun dipped beneath the horizon.
"You're welcome kid." Jack returned, staring out into the distance wondering again at Hammond's words in the afternoons briefing. He couldn't believe this was happening all over again. SG 7 on an apparently safe mission had been captured by a Goa'uld named Alkesh. A minor deity Daniel had told him and a minor underlord Teal'c had added. However it looked as if this kid had decided to play with the big boys and saw a SG team as a good bargaining chip. What was worse he was probably right. So Sg-1 plus another strike team were to lead the rescue, their white horses leaving at 0900. He hated the thought of what he could find on the other side of that gate. Nothing could be good, either an army of Jaffa or bodies of friends, Troubled he returned his gaze to the darkening skies.
"What's wrong?" Lucy was becoming a silhouette in the encroaching darkness, but he guessed she must have been able to see his face. He was about to brush her off when he thought about it, reminding himself that she was not an ordinary kid, she'd probably seen more of the Goa'uld system than he had.
"Some of my friends have been captured, by a Goa'uld named Alkesh. Tomorrow we have to go and rescue them. I'm just worried, that's all." Lucy looked at him for a long moment, as if trying to gauge his mood.
"Take me with you." She said finally.
"No way." Jack responded without even thinking. "It's far too dangerous." She turned to face him, her eyes locking with his.
"No more than anything else I've ever done and less so for me than it is for you." He returned her gaze steadily accepting her argument but keeping his position.
"No. You're still weak, still recovering. I won't put you in unnecessary danger."
"Saving your friends is unnecessary danger?"
"No. But we can do it ourselves, have done it ourselves before I don't want to take you back through that gate."
"I was designed for this!"
"All the more reason for you to stay here. You may not realise it, but there's something very wrong in someone designing you for something. It's like slavery, it's worse than slavery."
"But I want to help you."
"But I don't want you to help. If we take you we'll be using you just like the ancients did and I won't be responsible for that." Jack's voice had risen, Lucy turned away slightly, understanding his argument, that at least for now she would have to stay. Jack turned to face her, worried he had upset her again. But she merely smiled at him and he was relieved she understood.
"Come on kid." He said rising and stretching an arm out to her. "Better get you back before Hammond finds out and has me for breakfast." She grabbed his arm and hoisted herself up. Together they turned and headed slowly down the mountainside.
By he time Jack had delivered Lucy to the base, it had gone nine. Hammond saw him but said nothing. Jack assumed he must have either not realised or knew and was remaining silent, in one of those Hammond-like moments of sudden understanding. About the same time, Daniel lay on Sam's couch, the woman herself sprawled haphazardly across his chest playing with apparent fascination with the buttons on his shirt. They were both tense. Daniel could tell and they nearly always were before a mission, particularly a mission like this. It was times like this that the subtle almost instinctive communication they had with each other could break down, leading usually to one of their explosive arguments. They didn't argue often, thank goodness but when they did the combination of two high intellects and two incredibly stubborn temperaments tended to lead to more than a few fireworks. Fortunately for their long-term happiness he mused, the make-ups tended to be just as explosive. He grinned at that thought then looked down surprised to find Sam's eyes staring into his.
"What are you smiling at?" She asked raising a single eyebrow.
"Just thinking" he responded, wrapping a single arm around her back.
"I was thinking too." She said, Daniel looked at her.
"What about?" He asked staring into her eyes.
"Lucy. What do you think will happen to her?" He shrugged giving the only honest answer he could.
"I don't know, I'd guess she'll be granted asylum here on earth and the general will find a way of protecting her from the more ruthless doctors in the programme. From there who knows, foster care probably, until she's eighteen." Sam nodded, it was obvious she had already reached the same conclusions.
"Daniel. We could.." She didn't need to go any further, Daniel immediately caught her drift.
"Are you serious?" He asked, staring at her.
"She's fifteen Daniel, who else is going to take a fifteen year old girl? And what would they do when they saw that thing in her hand? Or she got mad at school one day and accidentally stunned a student or worse a teacher? And how do we explain how far behind she'd be in some subjects? Or in earth's culture. At least if she was with us we could teach her, at least we would know the truth about her past about what she is. Even if they found a foster family she'd just be hiding all the time." Daniel nodded, understanding everything Sam said and feeling a personal pull on his heart to save any child from the yo-yo of foster care. Sam was right, no one would take a fifteen year old girl and she'd spend the time she had before they dropped her alone into the world in a children's home. Not understanding half the stuff going on around her and having no one with the time and patience to teach her. But still he had to point out the problems with Sam's plan.
"But what about us Sam? We don't exactly have the stabilist or safest jobs in the world. Would we have time to take care of her too? It'd mean some pretty big changes, moving in somewhere else, learning to become parents, finding schools and having someone else to worry about when were separated than just each other." He looked at her intensely, his eyes boring into hers, willing the truth from her. "Are you sure we're ready for that Sam?"
She gazed back at him steadily, her eyes never wavering. "No one has a safe job Daniel, we have as much chance of being run over on the intersection than of dying in a Goa'uld attack. I wouldn't even be suggesting this if I didn't think we were ready, I love you and I've known that for longer than some people I know have been married. I'd do all that with you right now, child or not, but I don't want to leave her all alone somewhere she doesn't understand. If though, you don't think we're ready then we won't, we have to be in this together." Sam looked back at him, ignoring the light playing off his glasses, looking straight into his eyes.
"We've been ready for this for a long time." Daniel replied, moving his face closer to hers. "Even before we realised it ourselves. I think you're right, if Lucy does become adoptable I think we should volunteer." Sam smiled broadly, then dipped her head to his. They kissed for a long moment. Gently she pulled back.
"Tha..." Daniel put a finger to her lips shushing her.
"Let's just be mutually grateful ok?" She nodded, then rolled herself fully on to him.
"Very grateful indeed." She murmured into his mouth.
Even the base was almost dark. The corridors were. lit of course, but the loss of many of the office lights changed the ambience of the whole base, making it seem quieter, more focused. Lucy noticed all these things as she walked down the corridors; her sense finely attuned to every difference in her surroundings, so often had her survival depended on it. She turned the corner to reach her destination and knocked gently on the door. She wasn't quite sure why she was doing this, her need to know perhaps at last outweighing her natural survival instincts. Or maybe it was just this place, she was safe here and even peripheral awareness of that fact had changed her reactions and perceptions of the new people around her.
"Come in" the deep bass voice reverberated through the door and cautiously turning the knob, she entered.
Teal'c sat surrounded by candles, his Kelnor'eem disturbed, he looked up at the intruder only to be mildly surprised at the figure.
"Lucy" he said matter of factly looking up at her. "Do you require something of me?" Lucy looked at him, then sat on the otherside of the lit circle, mimicking his posture.
"I needed to know," she said, locking her gaze with his. "Why you didn't tell them."
"There seemed no need, I have never truly believed the legends myself and when you awoke you were nothing like the Tel'ress they told us of, so I presumed the legends must be false."
"I am the closest thing to a Tel'ress you will ever meet." Lucy replied, looking into the candle flame. "And many of those legends were based on my people."
"But the legends speak of giants, of Goa'uld killers of such power, yet they can be cloaked and walk among us as one of our own. That they would slaughter all in their path, taking what they could before they left us." He looked at her, measuring her up with dark eyes. "You are none of those things."
"Yet once we were. The tales of us got mixed with the stories of the Ancients that followed us, when we were their hunting dogs and they would follow behind, killing those we had already weakened." Her eyes were dark filled with venomous memories of what they had done to her people. "I just wanted you to know that there are some elements of truth to the stories of the Tel'ress and that you were right to think of them." He nodded accepting her statement. Suddenly he felt a desire to know more about those who his people only spoke of in hushed tones.
"You speak very ill of your masters." He stated, watching her.
"Former masters" she corrected looking at the floor. For a second he thought she had finished speaking, but then she continued. "Just because they fought the Goa'uld, everyone assumed the Ancients must have been some kind of benevolent force. Could a benevolent force have done this?" She held up her hand indicating the faint metal ring that adorned its centre. "They wanted this galaxy a much as the Goa'uld do and they were just a ruthless about it. They murdered innocents too, terrorised worlds and destroyed homes in their thirst for power. I'm glad they're dead." Teal'c looked at her oddly, seeing suddenly the parallels between them, her race was as much in slavery as his was, both had been given things without their consent, things they were now forced to rely on and they had both been indoctrinated, given a false ideal to believe in. So many similarities Teal'c realised what he had really already known since hearing the girls story.
"You had broken away from them before your masters were destroyed hadn't you." Shocked by his perception she could only nod and it took a few seconds before she found the words to respond.
"About six months. I was in a Goa'uld settlement sent there to assassinate the overlord. I'd already completed my task and was ready to leave when.." she paused for a moment, gathering the words. "A Jaffa child saw me with my fingers in the pie, so to speak. I did exactly what I had been trained to do, injected him with a nerve poison to paralyse and eventually kill him, while I made my escape." She stopped again, looking deep into the candle flame as the memories returned. "But I couldn't leave him there, he looked so frightened when he died, his eyes were so wide, I was last thing he saw. I nearly didn't make it out at all, nearly stayed to long. But it was after that I decided I decided I couldn't go on doing what they were asking anymore. So I ran through the stargate to the farthest planet I could think of. I lived there for eight months until news filtered through that our home had been destroyed. I couldn't believe myself when I felt relieved."
Teal'c accepted these facts without a word. The death of innocents was something he was far too familiar with to be comfortable, something that filled much of the guilt he himself carried. For a long time there was silence. Lucy stared into the candle flames, reliving the images again and again. Finally she turned and looked at Teal'c.
"Would you mind?"
"Yes?" She indicated the circle, expressing her meaning without articulating it.
"If you wish, I take it you can." She nodded ruefully, then settled into the position.
"You learn a lot when you're blending in" she said. They both closed their eyes and silence reigned once more.
The ramp up to the Stargate had often been compared to the yellow brick road. For Jack it now seemed simply like a red streaked trail, leading to what he hoped against hope would be a happy ending. The teams stood nervously round, watching the wormhole establish itself, then waiting for the order top move out. Having felt he'd waited long enough he turned to the assembled troops.
"Right, lets go people!" He yelled before purposefully turning his back and heading out into the waiting iris. The intrepid leader, coming to bring his people home. They all stopped once they reached the other side. It was surprisingly quiet, no Jaffa welcoming committee. Yet in the distance rose an impressive structure. I t may have only been temporary, but it was certainly designed to stand out, only a true megalomaniac could have commissioned the building of it. 'Which suggests we might have just found our lucky winner Bob.' He thought before he motioned the troops to fan out into the tree line, suggesting that they surrounded the complex. Nodding the other team leaders led their people into the trees towards the sides of the complex, O'Neill took his own team in, sincerely glad of the unspoken communication between him and the rest of his team. They approached slowly, intently aware of every snapping twig. Sam had already nearly shot two perfectly harmless trees and Daniel was just being Daniel. 'Shoulda stayed in college' Jack though a little unkindly. Suddenly his earpiece chirped into life.
"Team one in position" he heard closely followed by the same message by team two. He led his own group into the last link in the formation and got his first good look at the temporary complex. Pulling out his binoculars he scanned the site, looking for the captives, finally spotting a flash of green fatigues being marched across the parade ground.
"I've got them." He whispered into his radio "parade ground at 2 o'clock." He thought for a moment. "We'll move in slowly. Team 1 be prepared to lay down covering fire on my mark. Team 2, we'll make a the break into the compound." Slowly the three teams crept forward, holding cover as best they could. Jack waited until the captives were as close to the fencing as they were going to get. "Mark." He whispered into the radio and then all hell broke loose. Under the fire of their own guns, O'Neill's team and team 2 broke the tree line, taking out as many Jaffa as they could before they reached the captives. Fortunatly, this Goa'uld had not had the good sense to tie them up. "Let's go!" He yelled as soon as the captured team was secure. Turning they started the journey towards the stargate, the back team laying down more fire so they could get the captives away. 'This is too easy' O'Neill thought, as he ran for the tree line. It was then that he saw it. From the trees behind their own position sprung another force of Jaffa. 'Damn, we musta walked right through them.' O'Neill realised as he and his team stopped dead, surrounded. From the approaching Jaffa came another figure. 'He must be Alkesh' O'Neill thought but he wasn't interested in him. He'd spotted a member of team one, moving slowly through the line of trees, having moved behind the second force of Jaffa. 'Go, go' O'Neill silently urged and was rewarded when the boy sprinted off in the direction of the gate, ready to open it. The Jaffa, too pleased with their victory, did not notice.
"Well what have we here?" Alkesh's voice, the peculiar double reed of a Goa'uld joining filtered through the air. "Not only more captives but the infamous Sg-1. Well I'm sure my status will rise with this capture. Not even Apophis could capture you." He smiled ferally and pointed to O'Neill who was absolutely positive he was not picked at random. "You." He said gesturing him forward. O'Neill came forward hands up, having really no other choice. "Put down your weapon" Alkesh commanded. O'Neill did so, laying at the Goa'uld's feet. 2Now" Alkesh continued 'say it, please say it'. O'Neill thought. "Kneel." Alkesh finished. As he moved towards the floor, O'Neill could not help a carefully hidden smile of victory. He knelt in front of the leader's feet and heard the jangling of a hand device above him. '1...2...3...4' O'Neill counted then on five grabbed his weapon, turning sideways on the ground and firing blindly upwards, satisfied with the cry of pain he heard. The moment of confusion was enough, Sam and Teal'c already ready took out a few more Jaffa whilst the rest followed O'Neill's unspoken order to run for the gate. Jack watched the Goa'uld trying to gain control of his forces for just a moment before he too broke for the tree line, flicking a glance behind him to see who was following. His own team had already gone, but a few of team one were already caught by the Jaffa along with the original captives. There was nothing O'Neill could do. So he concentrated on his dash through the trees. Breaking from the other side he saw the gate wormhole already established and he hoped the rest of his team already through. Hearing the footsteps of Jaffa behind him he dived for the undulating surface arriving with a crash onto the ramp at the other side.
"Close the Iris!" he yelled and heard behind him the click of metal. A second later the wormhole behind it disengaged and everything was silent except for the heavy breathing of the teams gasping for air on the ramp. General Hammond burst through the gate room door and looked at the gasping bloody team before him.
"Colonel" he asked his eyes surveying the carnage "what the hell happened?"
The other side of the gate Alkesh gathered his shattered force before him, many of his Jaffa were gone, but there were always more where they came from. He looked down at the prisoners, under heavy Jaffa guard. Blood was evident from their wounds, both old and fresh. But they stared back defiantly, their challenge however, meant little to him. A Jaffa still breathing heavily from the long chase reported to him fearfully.
2We chased them as far as we could My lord, but they escaped through the Chap'ri before we could reach them." The Jaffa looked up from where he kneeled, fearing fast retribution from the hand device. But Alkesh looked own, for once feeling lenient.
"It does not matter" he said, spreading his hand to encompass the prisoners below. "As long as we have them, more will come." The Goa'uld looked down, then at the Jaffa, then at the jewelled device in it's own right hand. Then he smiled.
They sat grimly round the briefing table. The General, having heard their story now stared like thunder into the eyes of each of them.
"The question is now people, what do we do? Alkesh now has several of our people and what's more he'll be expecting another attack. We need another strategy." He stared pointedly at Jack, who it seemed was intensely aware of the decoration on the table. Finally he looked up, staring straight at Hammond.
"We do know one thing." Jack said, thinking as he said it.
"Yes?" Hammond replied, impatient.
"Alkesh has no first prime, he's commanding his own army."
"So?" Daniel prompted from down the table.
"So remove Alkesh and you not only remove the Jaffa's God, you remove their military leader as well. It would weaken them exponentially."
"But how would we kill him? We proved with Apophis that killing a Goa'uld is almost impossible." This time Sam spoke up.
"Not if you use someone designed to kill a Goa'uld." Jack said slowly pointedly staring out of the glass panel, Lucy sat in the control room idly watching the stargate symbols flick by on the computer.
"You can't be serious." Sam said looking out at the girl.
"She wanted to come on the first mission" Jack replied "I told her no, that it was far to dangerous, but this time she may our only hope. I don't like any more than you do major."
"But she's just a child" Daniel protested from the end of the table.
"No Daniel Jackson" Teal'c spoke up, surprising everyone "she is a soldier as much as you or I. She has fought more battles than we could know." General Hammond looked round the table, trying to make the decision, he didn't like this one bit but still thy were his people out there and if this was a hot at getting them back...
"Alright." He said finally. "Let's get her in here." Sam stood and walked out to the girl, they talked for a second, then Sam led her inside the conference room. She sat down in the end chair, facing the group.
"Lucy" Hammond began cautiously "This is not an order in any way, this is simply a request. Don't feel under any pressure to accept, no one will think any worse of you for it. What we would like is for you to.."
"I accept." Lucy spoke before he had even asked the question, her eyes steadily meeting his.
"But you.."
"You want me to help you rescue your friends. I accept, I always said I would." The last part was directed slightly at O'Neill though he barely seemed to notice.
"Very well" Hammond nodded to her, treating her now as he would any other soldier under his command. "When should this mission set off?" the question was open, but Lucy answered it.
"It would be easiest under cover of darkness." She said, Hammond flicked his eyes to Sam. She looked at her watch and did a quick mental calculation.
"About three hours sir." She said. Hammond nodded.
"Very well Sg-1 you have your orders." As the group rose from the table Hammond watched them go, praying that they would come back unscathed once again.
"God speed." He muttered to the now empty conference room.
"Here we are again jig-a-de-jig." O'Neill danced a perfunctory jig on the metal boars of the ramp, making them rattle. 'Defensive humour, very professional' he berated himself. Teal'c held the staff in one hand, his other lain stiffly at his side. He watched as Lucy slowly ascended the ramp towards the stargate. She'd changed back into the clothes she'd arrived in, pointing out that they were a lot less conspicuous than fatigues. She carried nothing. Whilst briefing her on the location and structure of the complex O'Neill had tried to convince her to take a zat. She'd refused, telling him that she had enough armoury of her own without carrying something she had a risk of being discovered with. Much like Teal'c she seemed calm even before battle, he respected that. Daniel and Sam followed behind her occasionally casting nervous glances at each other behind her back, they knew the stakes here, as much as anyone but they ere the most unsure about letting Lucy go, she was more to them than she was to the rest still a child. Finally the whole team assembled in front of the gate looking warily at the open wormhole.
"When we get there, you go to free the prisoners. If O'Neill is right, there should be a way round for me to get at Alkesh." Sam seemed about to protest, but Lucy held up a hand.
"I have to go alone, assassinations don't work too well in pairs." Sam nodded accepting the statement.
"Lets go then people." They steeped into the blue plasma and arrived an indefinable second later on the other side. Sam had been right, heavy darkness had fallen and the structure was now the only light in the sky, stars and moons obscured by the clouds. Silently O'Neill motioned his team off to one side whilst Lucy almost without waiting for acknowledgement sprinted for the treeline, disappearing into the dense vegetation. O'Neill brought his team round to the front of the structure, more careful this time to check for Jaffa in the surrounding trees. The prisoners had been left out in the parade ground. O'Neill had an insane urge to wait until he knew Lucy had been successful before freeing them, but if he did that, there would be no way to get to them once the pandemonium broke out. So he motioned for Teal'c to stun the guards and together the team crept forward.
Lucy scaled the outside of the Goa'uld's watch tower like structure with relative ease, years of practise had taught her that most Goa'uld architecture, however temporary was fairly similar and she had learnt the weak spots they usually left. Swinging herself onto what seemed to be the balcony, she allowed herself to look down for a brief moment, spotting O'Neill and the team silhouetted in the darkness, already freeing the prisoners. She just hoped the noise didn't wake Alkesh, conscious Goa'ulds were so much more difficult to deal with. Creeping along the wooden boards, she listened for evidence of the sleeping Goa'uld or of his Jaffa guards. Led mostly by her indefinable sixth sense, she reached the door where she knew Alkesh must lie. Softly she turned the handle, the door was as temporary as everything else was and it creaked open, revealing the Goa'uld wrapped in a bed of brightly coloured silks. Cautiously she crept forward. Then in a moment of panic, felt the presence behind her. The huge Jaffa grabbed her before she could do anything about it. She almost injected him, but then she saw the Goa'uld's eyes opening and Alkesh stood up.
"They sent a child?" he said incredulously "I'm insulted." Lucy almost took the Jaffa out again but realised if she did, Alkesh would hit her with the hand device before she had a chance to get to him. So instead she remained still, putting up only token struggles against the big Jaffa. She hoped against hope that something
"Sire!" Another Jaffa burst into the room, forgetting his subservience in his haste.
"Yes?" Alkesh turned on him, his gold eyes flashing.
"The prisoners sire, they've escaped!" Alkesh growled then turned back to Lucy.
"So your just a decoy then." He turned back to the still gasping Jaffa. "Tell the forces not to let them escape. They know what to do."
"Yes Sire." The Jaffa fled from the room, as much in fear as in haste. Alkesh turned back to the struggling girl in the arms of the huge Jaffa.
"I'll deal with you later." He said and strode from the room. Lucy watched the door sing shut and then without thinking about, bit her hand device into the Jaffa's skin. He looked down angrily for a moment, then his eyes turned to panic as his grip slackened and he fell to the floor in a twitching heap. Lucy didn't stay to watch the poison do it's work, instead she ran to the nearest window and hauling herself over the ledge, rapidly descended the side of the makeshift tower. She sprinted for the treeline, running as fast as she could back to the gate. O'Neill and Alkesh would be headed there now she realised, but she had an uncomfortable feeling she knew what Alkesh's plan was.
O'Neill guided his team and the prisoners through the trees, making his way back to the gate. If all was well Lucy would rendezvous with them there. If not, well O'Neill didn't want to even want to think about that possibility. Suddenly he heard a familiar roar overhead. The gate was in sight, but he ordered the team into the undergrowth, recognising the high pitched whine of a death glider. He watched the huge ship pass overhead, then hover about the gate. 'Oh no' O'Neill thought, 'Oh no'. As if uncertain the Death Glider hovered for a moment, then a beam of white light shot from its underside. The DHD fizzled and snapped then almost melted, leaving behind little more than a charred mess. The team cast panicked looks at each other, but the ship sent down transport rings. As the light dissipated Alkesh and a team of Goa'uld stood in front of the gate platform. O'Neill swore under his breath, afraid of what Alkesh's survival meant and trying desperately to find a way out of this. His thoughts were cut short however, when another figure broke the treeline and sprinted towards the congregated Jaffa.
Lucy raced towards Alkesh, but was caught and held by one of the Jaffa in the circle around him.
"You escaped." Alkesh said calmly as he turned to face her, he felt in control now and his gaze was that of a satisfied cat. "Yet you ran straight back to me, are you stupid girl?"
"No my lord, but I wished to speak with you." Lucy replied as meekly as she could. From their hiding place among the trees O'Neill and his team strained to hear them. Alkesh looked in satisfied amusement at the small girl.
"Let her approach." He said motioning to the Jaffa who reluctantly let her go. Lucy stepped forward, then kneeled at the feet of the Goa'uld. 'Be ready O'Neill' she silently pleaded. His vanity satisfied Alkesh motioned for her to stand.
"What do you wish to say to me girl?" He asked. Rather than replying Lucy reach out her hand, bringing it arcing towards the Goa'uld's face. He caught her wrist and they stood frozen in that tableau.
"You are strong child," he hissed 2but who do you think you are to challenge me? Tok'ra, Tel'ress?"
"Tel'ress?" O'Neill mouthed to Teal'c the big Jaffa shook his head, playing dumb. But seeing Lucy's plan he opened his staff and aimed towards the Jaffa on the platform. Jack looked at him, then glanced at the scene on the gate platform. He nodded then prepared his zat, aiming towards the assembled Jaffa.
Lucy looked deeply into the eyes of the Goa'uld holding her wrist and her own eyes darkened, for a second longer they remained locked then Lucy quickly brought her hand down, bringing he protruding device into contact with the back of Alkesh's hand, drawing blood. "Don't believe everything you hear about the Tel'ress" she whispered then dived beneath the falling body as pandemonium erupted around her on the platform. Squirming away she raced for the side of the gate, slapping her hand against it and concentrating her will into moving the inner circle. Even whilst firing O'Neill watched with amazement as Lucy locked the chevrons. 'It's also a portable DHD, handy.' He thought whilst the firing hand that was almost completely disconnected from his brain took out some of the last few Jaffa.
Alkesh writhed, feeling the Goa'uld disconnecting from his brain stem, unable to hold on as it's own body chemistry was ripped apart by the powerful toxin. He turned, his darkening vision making out the figure of the girl moving the chevrons on the gate. He opened the palm of his hand, firing a pulse with the last of his strength. Lucy unaware pulled the last chevron into place, using her own strength to power up the gate, the pulse fuzzy and unfocused caught her only a glancing blow but it was enough to blow her off the platform as the wormhole established itself. O'Neill grabbed her body as his team dived through the open portal. Desperately he felt for a weak pulse in her neck.
"Go lets go!" He yelled and he leapt through the wormhole leaving the world behind.
"Status!" Janet yelled as her team worked desperately around Lucy's body. She was losing the battle she could tell. Looking at the bloodwork that had just been handed to her she could not believe what she was seeing. Lucy's body seemed to be producing free toxins and releasing them into her blood stream, essentially committing suicide. 'This must be how they prevented the Goa'uld from ever capturing a live prisoner' Janet thought angrily as around monitors beeped in a shrill alarm. Sg-1 stood in the corner, Daniel; held Sam tightly around the shoulders, unable both to watch and to tear himself away. O'Neill's face had settled into a mask of tightly controlled fury where as Teal'c's grip on his staff merely became tighter by the second. The monitors frantic beep suddenly changed to a high pitched whine.
"V-Fib" Somebody shouted. Janet reached her hands out.
"Paddles!" she yelled, willing for a miracle. "Clear!" She shocked her twice each time casting frantic glances at the monitor. Increasing the power she tried again. Still the monitor whined whilst the levels of oxygen in her blood quickly depleted, despite the respiration.
Janet sighed and steeped back. She knew it was over, Lucy's body had shut itself down from the moment the energy blast had hit her, the toxins that ran in her blood turning against her as soon as her overactive immune system dropped. She knew all this and she still couldn't believe it.
"Time of death 0214." Her voice rang out in the quiet. Someone had unobtrusively shut off the monitors and the bay now only held the heaviest kind of silence. Everything stood still. Sam, unable to look on anymore turned and sobbed into Daniel's chest. He laid his head on hers and his own tears squeezed out of the sides of his eyes, falling first into her hair, then mingling with hers. Teal'c stepped forward, his stiff gait stiffer than before. He stepped up to the girl in the bed.
"You were a true soldier Lucy and you fought for what we know is right." For a second his hand brushed the hair out of his eyes, tracing the place on her forehead where the tattoo was on his. "Sleep well Tel'ress." He intoned and then without a sideways glance, turned and left the sickbay. The oppressive silence returned again, only to be broken by a crash and a clatter when Jack, dry eyed violently threw the nearest tray of medical instruments clattering t the floor. The other occupants in the room jumped then turned to look at him. Silently he picked up the first of them, then felt his own tears well in his eyes.
Epilogue
*2 Days later*
The base had returned to normal as it always did, even after traumatic events, different but unchanged. General Hammond looked through the safety glass towards the gate room when of the lieutenants at the controls caught his attention.
"Remote gate activation." He said as automatically sirens went off and the iris slammed shut.
"It's the Tok'ra" he said as the code filtered through.
"Open the iris." The metal pulled back o reveal the event horizon of the wormhole. Turning the General nodded to Major Carter who had appeared beside him and the two of them headed down to the gate room. Three figures emerged through the gate. Two of them Sam immediately recognised, her father and Martouf.
"Dad!" She said grinning broadly as her father embraced her. "Hello Sam" he smiled.
"Samantha" Martouf's honey voice appeared close to her ear. She smiled at them both, her mind suddenly conjuring a picture of Daniel and she wondered how on Earth she was going to break that news. 'Well this should be interesting.' She thought. The third figure stepped forward. He was a boy, about eighteen in the General's opinion. Martouf gestured to him.
"This is Mai'ress. He is of the Tel'ress. We understand you have the body of one of his people here." Mai'ress opened his hand and gestured to the dark ring under the skin of his palm as if making the point. Sam's expression dropped and the General nodded.
"We have the body here. Would you like to see it?" He asked addressing Mai'ress.
"Please" the boy responded. Sam's father spoke up.
"After that we have some other business to discuss. We hope you don't mind if we patronise your facilities for a night?"
"Of course not." Hammond responded then gestured out of the gate room. "This way please."
They stood over Lucy's body. She was pale and cold, her eyes gently closed by the nurses shortly after her death. Mai'ress looked at her, opening her palm and gently tracing the line of the implant, still visible under he skin.
"Did you know her well?" Sam asked gently. Mai'ress shook his head. "Barely, but she was one of my people and there aren't very many of us left." He had already been told the story of her death. "At least she died well." He said, looking tenderly down on the prone e body. Then he turned and headed for the door, the others followed, uncertain of his mood. "Goodbye." He said to the corpse as he left the cold morgue.
Th base slept, at least the majority of it did. Mai'ress crept silently down the corridors following the memorised route back to the morgue. He had met no opposition and he was glad. Quickly opening the locked door he found what he as looking for. He stretched their hands palm to palm, breathing enough life into her to sustain her, whilst calling to her gently, using her real name, not the clumsy sounds the Tok'ra and humans preferred. The image she was known by responded in his mind and he smiled, she was still there after all. Gently he picked her up, following the traced route back to the gateroom. He wondered what would happen when they found them gone and if his sister had told them the same as he had. That their entire race was dead, that there were no masters left. He knew she wouldn't want this, she had left the maters and run away before the destruction of their planet came. But even what awaited her must be better than a lonely death here he reasoned. In a few more days she would have left her body completely and even the fate of his people on the beta site had to be better than that. The magnetic seals proved no more, of a challenge than the locks had. He had already sent the gate room staff into a pleasant slumber, nothing serious just long enough for them to go. Walking up to the gate he dialled it himself, not wanting to leave any trace in their computers. He prayed they wouldn't find a way to follow them, for their sakes. Hoisting her a little higher he headed through the wormhole, into the blue.
End.
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