Broken Ground
"Okay, that's a needle!" A big, honking needle. Jack twisted, tensing the muscles that would launch him to his feet, bonds or no bonds, when he felt the electrical surge hit him like a baseball bat. The Bedrosian woman jammed the thick needle into his neck and he gagged, trying to blink his vision back into focus. He watched the woman hand off the syringe to one of the brown-clad hard-bodies before she grabbed another one and moved towards Carter on his left. Smart move, major. His 2IC had learned from his mistake and managed to miss out on the raw electrical burns he could feel on his left arm. Another long, silver tube came out of the box and he heard Daniel's grunt of pain. Great. These guys sure liked their needles.
"Which of you is Daniel?"
Gotta nip that in the bud. "I'm in command—Colonel Jack O'Neill, here." They knew Daniel's name, knew that Daniel had made first contact with the native—Nylon? Nemo? The rampant paranoia that prompted the alien tasers, unconsciousness-causing force fields, and the sticking of the visitors with large shiny needles could lead to some seriously bad crap. He'd need to deflect that crap from its most likely target.
Naturally Carter and Daniel couldn't keep their mouths shut when the commander of the Bedrosian forces started talking. Jack didn't think that talking was likely to get through to this bunch, but he'd give it a shot. Bedrosians, Optricans, the alien said that they'd been fighting for decades over whether or not the Stargate existed. That left him and his team directly between two military forces that, if these jokers were any indication, had descended into fanaticism.
Well, that was just great. He shifted his weight, aching to relieve the pressure on his knees momentarily, trying to nudge away from the jagged rock that pushed up against his right kneecap. "...we'll just take our stuff and go," Jack offered with a smile, a smile that changed quickly into a grimace as the alien commander limped away.
Nah. Didn't think that was gonna work. Quarantine field, huh? Sounds like it was designed to keep everything inside. Damn. Wonder if that meant that Teal'c couldn't get in, either.
At least the bastards were keeping them together—for now. The three cages sat arms length apart within one of the two grey huts that had been hastily constructed. The mass of fire—and manpower that surrounded them kept O'Neill from trying anything, but his half-hooded gaze had flicked from point to point before they shoved him past the doors, adding up weaponry, troops, the flickering yellow curtain of energy that surrounded the area, as well as the distinct lack of a DHD. He'd dragged his feet as the Bedrosian goons hauled him into the alien version of a Quonset hut, watching over his shoulder as the aliens fiddled with Carter's naquadah generator. So, it didn't look like they'd be getting power to the 'gate anytime soon.
Daniel was being forced into the center cage as Jack turned his attention to the interior of the building, Carter already securely locked behind the door of the one on the far right. Jack's new abode awaited him and he didn't give the guards an excuse to start any rough stuff, crawling into the kennel-sized box as quickly as his aching knees allowed. The door slammed closed behind him and Jack fell less than gracefully onto his butt, facing forward in time to watch as two of the guards placed the ends of their weapons into the locking mechanisms on his cage and Daniel's. A buzz-click accompanied the movement and Jack noticed a decided relaxation among their burly guards once the prisoners were secured. The six men marched out of the small building, leaving the three members of SG-1 alone. But this wasn't their first barbecue, and Jack exchanged a guarded expression with Carter and Daniel, each obviously aware that they'd have no privacy here.
Jack drew his knees up and examined the metal enclosure, clearly designed to make the prisoner feel like animals. So, what did he know? The Bedrosians were fanatical, paranoid, liked needles and didn't mind inflicting pain, and evidently knew enough about psychological manipulation to have these handy-dandy people kennels all ready for use. Not a good start. He narrowed his eyes and lashed out with one foot at the cage door. An electric spark leaped up his leg and Jack felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand straight up. "All right—that hurts!" Concentrated zat combined with blunt pain at point of contact. And no handy unconsciousness to reduce the memory of the throbbing ache.
"Well this day just keeps getting better and better," Daniel observed dryly. Jack raised his head to meet the young man's gaze. Good. Keep it light, Daniel. This is just a slightly smaller holding cell than usual. Yep, we're having fun now.
An hour later and Jack was bored, his arms wrapped around his sore knees. They'd watched the Bedrosians haul in SG-1's equipment and lay it all out on the table at the other end of the room—zats, handguns, rifles, ammo, vests, radios, Carter's gizmos, Daniel's tools, his glasses—everything. The commander had made it a point to observe the three members of his team, limping slowly around the cages, his eyes fixed on each of them in turn. Jack hoped this wouldn't turn out to be the planet of mind readers he always expected to run into some day. Hey, but if the guy could read his mind, he'd know SG-1 really did come through the Stargate and weren't spies from the evil empire.
After the guy made another circuit of the cages, Jack noticed that Daniel was getting antsy, fingers nervously tapping against his knees, eyes squinting to follow their captor as he moved around to their backs. He knew from experience that the linguist was getting ready to relaunch his 'peaceful explorers' 'mean you no harm' speech, anxious to not only start some kind of meaningful dialogue with these Bedrosians, but to do his damnedest to get his team out of these cages. Not this time, buddy, Jack thought. Whoever took the lead here would likely wind up with the brunt of whatever coercive measures these fanatics intended to pull out of their apparently very full bag o' tricks.
"Come on," Jack started, shifting a pointed look in his teammate's direction as he stomped on the beginnings of Daniel's speech with both boots. "We've told you who we are. We've made no hostile acts. Tell us what it's going to take to convince you guys that we're not your enemies."
Daniel had apparently gotten the message and closed his mouth, head nodding in silent agreement with Jack's words. See, I can do diplomatic, Jack cocked his head and smirked.
The commander slowly moved to the front of the cages, stopping between Jack and Daniel, his assessing gaze wandering from one man to the other. One sharp glance from the Bedrosian sent three of his thick-necked punks to the rear, to stand just behind the three cages. Uh oh.
The snap of electrical discharge and the muffled groan from the man next to him made Jack wince inwardly in sympathy. Daniel had pulled in, head bowed over his knees, hands clenched behind his neck.
"Hey!" Carter's voice, doing her best to divert attention. Jack could imagine her outraged expression, her eyes wild and sparking fury in full protection mode. For once, Daniel hadn't done a thing to provoke the attack—he'd actually followed Jack's lead and yet was still on the receiving end, but Carter hadn't put it together yet. Jack slowly let out the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, his eyes locked with the enemy commander's. Yep. He was watching Jack's reaction to Daniel's pain. So that's how it's going to be. Time to shut up, Carter.
"We are not here to undermine your religion," Sam spit, "and we're not Optricans. Just look at our equipment—have you ever seen anything like it before? Doesn't it convince you that we're not from your world?"
Another discharge to his left drew another, deeper grunt from Daniel but Jack refused to look. Jack could almost hear his 2IC's brilliant mind wrestling with the implications for a long minute of silence broken only by the linguist's breath hissing in and out between clenched teeth.
The Bedrosian commander stood, waiting, glancing back and forth, but Carter had caught a clue and kept her mouth shut. The man turned his back and approached the team's equipment again. "I will interrogate them separately. Leave Colonel Jack O'Neill. Take the others to the detention space." The guards shifted their weapons to a horizontal position and snapped them onto the upper crossbars of Daniel and Carter's cages to act as handles. With only two hulks to each cage, Jack realized the Bedrosians were quite a bit stronger than the average human, the four guards easily carrying the metal cages along with his teammates' not inconsiderable weights, and deftly maneuvering the cages through the double doors and out into the sunlight. He felt the impact of two blue gazes directed back at him just before the doors swung closed.
Jack's eyes narrowed at the back of the brown-clad figure, still standing, fingering the Earth weaponry. The man didn't look up until Carter and Daniel plus their entourage had gone, but once he heard the doors close he turned, grabbed a weapon from one of his men and sending the two remaining guards away without a word. Again with the silence.
"We should talk," Jack drawled, knowing that, as long as the commander was in here with him, his two teammates should be safe.
"Yes. Let us talk about your friend in the woods."
Uh huh. Down to business. This guy was still assessing the threat that Jack and SG-1 brought to his people. "I have no friends—in the woods or otherwise." Nope. No friends. Let's just keep this between the two of us. Question after question Jack casually deflected: wormholes, Stargates, alien snake-heads—he could do this all day. It wasn't as if the Bedrosian really wanted to hear the truth, he'd already made that evident, so spinning him a pack of lies about magic and magnets ought to be enough to keep the man's attention. And it was—for a while.
"Hey! Where ya goin'?" he shouted as the Bedrosian limped to the doorway and gestured for two guards. "There's plenty more where that came from!" Crap. It was time for his own ride to the 'detention space' courtesy of the muscle-bound bouncers from hell. Jack noticed the blonde head of his second in command pass by going in the opposite direction, but only had time to meet her eyes and raise his eyebrows in an unspoken question. Her firm headshake told him that she was fine before the cages moved apart and Jack got his first look at his new digs. Hmm. Pretty indistinguishable from the other building, but lacking one MALP and a table-full of handy weaponry.
They put him down next to Daniel, who had crossed his long legs and was sitting Indian style, trying to keep his knees away from the edge of his kennel. The heels of both hands were pressed tightly against his eyes, telling Jack that the stress of constantly trying to focus without his glasses combined with the repeated shots from the energy weapon were ganging up on the young man.
"Hey," Jack muttered.
Daniel's head snapped up. "Hey. You okay?"
Crooking up one side of his mouth in a half-smile, Jack shook his head. That was supposed to be his question. "Oh, yeah. Just had a long chat with our host about wormholes and...."
"Rigar."
Jack blinked. "Say again?"
"His name is Rigar," Daniel explained, his gaze darting towards the four guards stationed around their cages.
"Okay, Rigar then." Leave it to Daniel to get information out of this laconic group. "You and Carter chat up the guards, did you?"
Daniel shrugged and absently started a distracted move to touch his left shoulder, wincing when his fingers made contact with a particularly sore spot. "Not really. I heard them talking..."
Jack caught the movement from the corner of his eye a second before the weapon jabbed through the bars, striking Daniel just below the shoulder blade. Daniel flopped forward, his right leg thrown out awkwardly to impact the side of the cage. He jerked it away with a gasp and Jack watched through narrowed eyes as the young man tensed every muscle in his body—his fists clenching so tightly where he steadied himself against the floor that the skin over his knuckles was white, his jaw muscles jumping, and his eyes squeezed shut against the pain. He found his own body tensing up in sympathy.
So, they were still at it, still focusing on Daniel even when Jack was being interrogated by Rigar. He swiped both hands roughly over his face. The rage tingled across his nerve endings, the need to stop this before it went any further, before the Bedrosians upped their game and started to really, really hurt Daniel screamed at him from the dark recesses of his brain. Imagined another voice in another darkness screaming at him to stop the pain, stop the torture, to get his team home from a desert prison. And, just like that time, Jack knew he couldn't respond, he couldn't let their captors see that their tactics were getting to him. It would only get worse for Daniel if he let that happen.
Jack let his eyes drift towards his friend for a brief moment, but Daniel still had his head down, his eyes closed. Did he know? Did he understand? Even after three years on SG-1 and the whole adventure of blowing up Ra in the first place, Jack wondered if the team's scholar grasped some of the finer points of strategy and survival. The blue eyes tended to glaze over during the SGC's infrequent training refreshers and planning sessions, kinda like Jack imagined his own did whenever the general made him attend the science geeks' scintillating lectures. Dammit. Daniel needed to understand that he wasn't taking this lightly, that Jack was right beside him, waiting for the opportunity to get him out of here. This kind of physical and psychological cruelty was not only aimed at breaking a commander's will by endangering one of his team, but at developing a sense of isolation within the victim himself—so that, if the commander held out as he watched his teammate hurt again and again, the victim of the abuse would break in impotent fury when his commander, the guy he trusted with his life, did nothing but watch. Come on, Daniel, look at me.
The dark head lifted and Daniel blinked watery eyes at Jack as if he'd spoken aloud. The wounded frown drew a deep line between the linguist's brows, but the intense gaze communicated everything Jack needed to know. It was okay. Daniel was pissed—yeah, as only a stubborn, Goa'uld-hating, open-minded, opinionated, self-sacrificing archaeologist could be—but he understood.
"Sweet." Jack mouthed the word and let himself smile at Daniel's half-sneer and eye-roll in response.
Carter was back in no time. She probably tried to explain quantum physics and the relationship of naquadah to the maintenance of a stable wormhole to the fanatical leader of this little band of band guys. Like any good military commander, Rigar would have dozed off after a couple of paragraphs. Jack watched two guards manhandle Daniel's cage through the door. Of course they'd leave their target for last. And, if Jack was any judge of tactics, they'd keep him in there by himself for a good, long time.
He was jerked awake from a light doze when his own cage was jostled, and Jack almost reached out to brace himself against the sides before he remembered the likely reward for that action. He contented himself with pressing his feet and hands against the bottom of the cage to keep from rocking with the guards' movements. Back in the main building, all three cages lined up again in a neat little row, Jack bit back a curse as he got a good look at Daniel's face. Grey. His skin was grey with fatigue, with pain, and the dark shadows under his eyes and in the hollow of his cheeks made him look fragile, his skin almost paper-thin where it stretched over the bone.
Daniel wouldn't meet his eyes, but Jack caught Carter's horrified expression and shot her a warning glance just as she opened her mouth. Ouch. The baleful look of an enraged major/doctor when one of her teammates was injured could take years off of a man's life. Jack glanced around, surprised that Rigar wasn't there to watch his response to Daniel's condition. Suddenly every single one of Colonel Jack O'Neill's well developed sensors was pushing all of the alarm buttons inside his head.
That didn't take long. The woman, the one with the big, shiny needles, stormed into the room with a guard in tow.
"Problem?" Jack tried, but the woman walked straight to Daniel's cage where a Bedrosian guard hit the linguist with another jolt from his energy weapon in exactly the same place on his back. Another guard jerked his weapon at the rectangular gizmo on the front of the cage and swung the door open, and the woman reached in and dragged the stunned man to his feet. Jack tasted blood in his mouth and realized that he'd bitten a gash in his own tongue as he'd watched the guards lug his friend out the door. Aiming carefully, he spit through the cross-hatched bars and felt a small sense of triumph when the wad of blood and saliva spattered against the remaining guard's boot.
Muffled shouts drifted through the thin grey walls, strident voices demanding answers. Jack strained to make out the words, the meanings, but the sounds wouldn't resolve into anything. What the hell were they doing to him now? A few minutes of silence were broken by one raw scream and Jack tensed, kicking out with both heels against the cage door. The flash of pain left him breathless, but at least the scream—Daniel's scream—had stopped. Panting, he looked over at Carter and saw his own rage reflected in her pale, blue eyes.
An hour later Daniel was still not back, and the thick-necked guards escorted Carter and him outside for a much needed latrine break. Jack shifted his gaze quickly over the ground searching for the familiar green of BDUs, but a stiff prod from the pointy end of the energy weapon sent him stumbling ahead. No sign of Daniel, but the uncovered DHD was a welcome sight. A quick trip to the Bedrosian equivalent of a porta-potty and the stiffs shuffled the teammates back into the hut where Daniel already sat slumped in the far right cage.
"Daniel, you okay?" Jack didn't blame her for asking, but Daniel's nonresponse worried him more than that scream had an hour ago. He had to get them out of here, and right now.
"Hey, Rigar, you know that 'we come in peace' business?" Jack had had enough—he was done playing the bastard's game. "Bite me."
The Bedrosian picked up a zat gun and smiled. "You have one last chance," he growled, his eyes never leaving Daniel's face.
"I don't know how that man was killed. We are not Optrican spies." Daniel's voice was quiet, stripped of emotion. Clearly he'd repeated these words more than once, probably many, many times. Jack saw the trembling in the young man's hands, and how he bit at his lips convulsively.
The firing of the zat took them all by surprise, and Carter's body jerked against the back wall of her cage before she slumped forward and passed out. Jack winced, but Daniel's face crumpled in despair.
"I don't know how that man was killed," the linguist insisted, his voice rising, desperate. "We are not Optrican spies."
Jack felt the zat blast hit him before he saw it, and then another burst of light and pain as his head and shoulders impacted the cage wall. Blackness dropped him into a deep pool of unconsciousness. Voices followed him—Daniel screaming, begging. An angry Texas drawl. Hammond? He fought the thick fingers of darkness and managed to open his eyes. Rigar. Shooting the MALP? What the hell?
He struggled to push himself upright, leaning heavily against the metal bars. Whoa. He jerked away and then reached out one hand to confirm. Nope. Power was off. Jack focused, watching the guards circling as syringe-girl stalked out. Escape. It was now or never—it sounded like their captors were getting ready to move them away from the Stargate. Couldn't let that happen—they might never make their way back. But he'd have to get rid of Rigar first; the guy was staring at Daniel again.
"You do not want me to harm your friends again, Daniel," the guy oozed, and Jack felt his fingers curl around a nonexistent trigger.
"No, I don't." It sounded like the linguist was clenching his teeth against the words' escape.
"Daniel." Don't say anything else. We'll get out of here. Jack sent his thoughts along that tenuous connection the two had managed to sustain since the super-geek got under all of Jack's formidable defenses back on Abydos. You've faced down worse guys than these, Daniel.
"Jack." The utter misery telegraphed Daniel's message back to him. I can't do this anymore. I'm losing it.
"Daniel!" Focus on me. Jack saw the small shudders roll down the man's body in waves. Okay, something was going on here besides electric shocks. Daniel dropped his head to his chest and Jack could swear he heard a muffled snort of amusement. He turned his head and gave Rigar his best smug-bastard grin. The Bedrosian turned on his heel and limped out. Nice.
The ground shook and suddenly the crap hit the fan. Jack crouched, ready to move, as the sound of energy weapons reverberated through the hut and the guards ran out. In a moment Nylon showed up and swept them out of their kennels, claiming Teal'c was making with the rescue.
Jack shifted to automatic. "Daniel, dial us up, we'll lay down cover."
He didn't know if he'd ever seen Daniel run that fast before. The linguist streaked to the DHD and threw himself into the hole as the firefight went on over his head. Teal'c wasn't hitting much, but his vantage point inside the downed aircraft kept the Bedrosians pinned down long enough to let Jack take out the guy who'd drawn a bead on Daniel's unprotected head. Jack squinted—was that a GDO in Teal'c's hands?
Yep, apparently so. With a word Daniel was off again, sprinting for the wormhole. Jack winced as the young man flung himself headlong through the 'gate. That was gonna leave a mark. The rest of SG-1, plus one, followed him a few minutes later, Teal'c and Nyan just a little worse for wear. And Daniel didn't need to know just how many shots of the zat went into Rigar's body.
On the right side of the wormhole, Jack slipped down the ramp to allow Janet Frasier and her own set of needle-happy nurses at Teal'c and the slightly dented Bedrosian, stopping behind Daniel. Yeah, the guy was vibrating, heat and tension palpable from a foot away. Jack dropped one hand onto his teammate's shoulder and rode out the expected full-body flinch, turning Daniel to face him.
"C'mon. We need to get you down to the infirmary, too."
"Jack, I'm..."
"Do not even attempt to finish that sentence, Danny." He moved next to his friend, gently guiding him towards the corridor as the solid steel door slid open and General Hammond hurried into the 'gate room.
"Colonel O'Neill?"
"General. Daniel and Teal'c are in urgent need of a trip to the infirmary before we debrief, sir." Jack never stopped moving, well aware that if he gave Daniel the least slack he'd slip out his grasp.
"I'm not..."
The general was also a veteran of these fun little Daniel Jackson moments, and Jack watched the small blue eyes walk up and down the shivering civilian. "Get going, son. Colonel, I'll see you and Major Carter in the briefing room in one hour."
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
The debrief was, well, brief, and Jack was grateful. He was beat and wanted a shower, some hot food, and a chance to check on their unexpected guest, Teal'c, and Daniel, not necessarily in that order. Jack rubbed his fists over his eyes like a little boy, and when he looked up the small form of Dr. Janet Frasier was standing next to the empty chair to his right.
"Dr. Frasier," the general gestured her into the chair and the woman sat, slapping the two file folders she had been carrying onto the tabletop crossly. "What can you tell us?"
Jack sat forward, linking his fingers together to keep them still.
"Teal'c is healing. His symbiote is responding well, and I expect his sight to return gradually over the next few days. He'll need to rest and kel-no-reem, and I'd have loved to get a chance to look over the technology that Nyan used to speed healing of the optic nerve, but," she squared her shoulders, "I'm happy to report that he'll make a full recovery."
Why didn't people understand that he hated these silences? "And Daniel?"
"Aside from the obvious electrical burns on his side, back, and arms," Jack didn't think he was imagining the steel that underlay the doctor's comments, "his elevated temperature, heart rate and blood pressure, it's going to be a while before we have a definitive reading on the foreign substance in his bloodstream..."
"What?" His and Carter's demanding voices overlapped.
The doctor's gaze rose from the medical reports before her. "I found two needle pricks on Daniel's neck. Both needles went into his jugular."
"Two punctures? Syringe-girl only did her vampire act once," Jack insisted.
Sam elaborated, reminding the general of her previous comments. "Taking a sample of our blood was one of the first things the Bedrosians did after our capture."
"That may be true, but Dr. Jackson also received an injection, this one releasing an alien compound into his bloodstream. I'm still running tests, but..."
"Doctor?"
Janet shuffled her papers, frowning. "Daniel tells me that Rigar, the Bedrosian commander, informed him that the drug would strengthen the neural response to outside stimuli." She met Jack's defiantly blank stare with her own angry gaze. "It would have magnified any touch, especially a particularly painful one, by a factor of a thousand."
"Son of a bitch," Jack seethed. Shooting Rigar twice was too clean a death.
"He also remembers that the shot itself was... particularly painful."
Jack closed his eyes and heard Daniel's scream again. He'd better get used to it—he'd probably be hearing it in his nightmares for quite a while, adding it to those other screams that still haunted him from his former life.
"Jack?"
He sat forward slowly, stretching the tired muscles of his back and neck with the slight movement. "Yeah, Daniel. How ya feeling?" The infirmary was quiet, the lights dimmed to simulate the dark Colorado night outside the mountain. The tiny red, blue, and green lights of the monitors could be coaxed into the forms of familiar constellations in the wee hours of a particularly anxious vigil, as Jack knew from experience.
"I'm fine," the young man scooted into a sitting position, flicking the thin sheet away from his body with a grimace. "You shouldn't be here. It's not like I'm injured."
"You are injured, Daniel," Jack kept his tone light, draining out the regret, the remorse that every time they stepped through the 'gate these days, Daniel came back... damaged.
The sigh seemed to start in his teammate's toes. "It's not so bad now," he muttered, rubbing one hand along his bare arm. "Just feels like a bad case of the flu—body aches," he squirmed restlessly. "Can't get comfortable."
"Frasier says the drug will be gone by tomorrow afternoon, and you'll just be left with about a dozen and a half electrical burns as your souvenirs from touring lovely Bedrosia, home to paranoid crazies with a fetish for the color brown." Jack smirked, but was relieved that the darkness hid his eyes.
Daniel reached for the cup of water that sat on his bedside table. Jack, anticipating the movement and reaching to help, bumped his teammate's hand awkwardly and a few drops of cold water splashed on the linguist's wrist. Daniel flinched.
"Sorry." Crap.
"Jack." A hint of amusement colored Daniel's tone.
Jack fidgeted as another silence lengthened. He was just opening his mouth when Daniel beat him to it.
"Thanks, Jack."
What? "Um, for what?" For another round of torture? For more nightmares?
Another sigh. "For getting us out of there. For getting me out of there." Another laugh. "I was definitely losing it."
"Oh, I think you lost it a long time ago, Danny," Jack allowed the familiar bantering tone to bring comfort, and not just to his aching best friend, as the snarls in Jack's gut began to unclench. He took the empty cup from SG-1's resident geek's grasp as the man snuggled back down into the infirmary bed.
Daniel closed his eyes, smiling. "Bite me, Jack."
The End
