Hostile Ground Part 24

"Could she be Tok'ra?"

Jack shook his head. "With her own Jaffa?"

"Okay," he conceded. "But that doesn't mean she won't help us. It wouldn't be the first time a Goa'uld has done a deal with their enemies when faced with a common threat."

Jack grunted. "And that always ends so well..."

They lapsed into silence, Daniel still up ahead and Teal'c walking close to his shoulder with his staff weapon at the ready. They looked tense, but Jack didn't feel any fear or hostility coming from the people around them - just curiosity.

Mostly there was a weary kind of resignation in the faces that watched them pa.s.s, and not a spark of hope anywhere. He wondered how long the people of his world had lived like this, in thrall to the Amam. A generation or two? More, perhaps.

A small child ran across their path and was s.n.a.t.c.hed up by a young woman who might have been her mother or sister. Jack gave a tight smile, like he always did when there were kids around, but kept on walking. He couldn't engage with these people, he had no way to help them. He couldn't even help his own people.

He yawned - G.o.d, he really was tired - and scrubbed a hand over his eyes; it was getting harder to think straight.

"Sir?" Carter nudged his elbow and held out a power bar. "I'm guessing the Amam didn't feed you?"

"Hey, I'm just glad they didn't feed on me." He glanced at the bar. "Have we got enough of these?"

"It's yours, sir. We ate this morning."

That was good enough for him, and after a couple of mouthfuls and a good sugar hit, he felt the weariness recede a few steps - not far, but enough. "There's a lot of weird technology back in the s.h.i.+p," he said between bites, throwing Carter a look. "Apparently it's Ancient - capital A."

"Really?" Daniel turned around again, fascinated as always by anything touching on the gate builders. "What kind of weird technology?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know - star charts, gizmos, all sorts. Crazy had me testing a ton of it."

Daniel blinked. "Uh, 'Crazy'?"

"My freaky friend." He frowned, remembering something. "They don't speak to each other," he said. "You notice that?"

"Yeah," Daniel said. "Actually I was wondering if they have some kind of telepathic ability, because their written language is literally unp.r.o.nounceable."

"Telepathy, huh?" Jack stuffed the rest of the power bar into his mouth. "Handy." He chewed, swallowed, and said what was really on his mind. "So I'm thinking that where there's Ancient stuff there has to be a way to open the gate... ?"

Daniel raised his eyebrows. "You want us to go back into the s.h.i.+p? Again?"

He opened his mouth to argue the point, but Carter got there first.

"Actually, sir," she said, "it might not be as simple as finding a way to dial the gate anymore."

He sighed. "I ask you, Carter - when is it ever simple?"

With a slight smile, she said, "Sir, I think we may have been transported a significant distance away from the Stargate." She glanced at her watch. "The first night here, I reset my watch to 1800 hours at sunset - it's arbitrary, I know, but I wanted to measure the planet's day/night cycle. That night lasted sixteen and a half hours."

"Wow," Daniel said, his hand moving involuntarily to his side. "And I thought it just felt like forever." Jack could still see the b.l.o.o.d.y splotch on Daniel's jacket and felt a ghost of the fear that had dogged him since they'd arrived on this rock with Daniel practically bleeding out in front of him. The wound beneath the blood was healed and Daniel was fine now, but he'd been healed by an Amam and Jack had no idea what that might mean.

"The thing is, sir," Carter continued, "last night the sun set at 1200 hours, by my watch, and when I measured the hours of darkness they only lasted twelve hours and twenty minutes."

Jack frowned, he didn't like where this was going at all. "So you're saying we're in a different time zone?"

"Yes sir." She gave a small shrug. "I mean, there's no telling exactly how far that would be on this planet - but on Earth it would equate to a couple thousand miles."

"A little more than a stroll, then?"

"It would be a long walk," she agreed. "And that's a.s.suming we could figure out which direction to go and that we're even on the same continental ma.s.s, because the -"

He held up a hand to stop her. "Any good news, Major?"

She shook her head. "I just think this Dix guy might be our best shot, sir."

"Yeah," he sighed. "I knew you were going to say that."

Not long after that, Daniel and Teal'c drew to a halt a short distance from a flimsy wood and cloth shack. "Looks like we're here," Jack said, instinct moving his hands to rest on his gun. Hunter served a Goa'uld, after all.

With a quick glance at Jack's weapon, Daniel said, "He has a family - a wife and a son."

"Then let's hope he knows how to keep them safe," was all he said.

Daniel just nodded and approached the rickety shack. "Hunter?" he called in a low voice. "Hunter, it's Daniel Jackson."

After a moment, the cloth drew back and Hunter appeared in the doorway. A grin flashed across his face when he saw Jack. "Looks like you're right hard to kill."

"So I'm told," Jack said. "Mind if we come in?"

Hunter's home was little more than a dirt floor, a smoky fire-pit, and some bed rolls. A couple of cooking pots hung on the wall and some shabby clothing was draped over a nail nearby. With everyone crowding in, the place felt cramped and claustrophobic.

"Um," Daniel suggested, "shall we sit down?"

It was better with them all sitting, although no one was small and it felt like there were long legs and booted feet everywhere. The weapons didn't help much either, but Jack wasn't about to leave them outside. At last, after a substantial amount of shuffling around, they all found a seat by the fire. Toward the back of the hut, Hunter's wife and child sat together on one of the bed rolls, the child's head in his mother's lap as he sucked his thumb and drifted drowsily toward sleep.

Jack didn't allow his gaze to linger there, instead turning his attention firmly back to Hunter who crouched close to the fire, feeding a few sticks to the flames. "So," he said, "you can take us to see Dix?"

"Yup." Hunter sat back on his heels. "At first light."

"Why not now?"

Hunter shook his head. "'Cause Dix won't be back till mornin'."

"Back from where?"

Hunter turned his eyes skyward, "From speaking with the G.o.ddess."

Jack followed his gaze to the ceiling before exchanging a glance with Teal'c. "She has a s.h.i.+p in orbit?"

"You'll see," Hunter said. "I've already said more than I should."

Jack was about to object when Teal'c said, "O'Neill, it would be prudent to rest while we are able."

He rubbed a hand across his jaw and considered the point. He was exhausted - he'd missed at least one night's sleep, maybe two - and Teal'c was right, he needed to rest and eat. They all did. But with Daniel no longer at death's door, Teal'c didn't realize how urgent it was that they get home. Beyond urgent at this point, it was critical, the whole d.a.m.n alliance system could already be falling apart.

"Sir, there's nothing we can do tonight," Carter added, weighing into the discussion. "And if the Amam are looking for us we should probably keep our heads down."

Another good point; there'd been no real sign of pursuit so far but he couldn't dismiss Crazy's threat about hunting him down. And as far as places to hide went, this was a good option. He didn't like it, but there was no real choice. Reluctantly he said, "Yeah, okay, we'll stay here tonight." He cast a glance at Hunter. "We'll need a place to crash."

"Um, he means a place to sleep," Daniel clarified.

Jack threw him an irritated look.

"What? You think the whole galaxy speaks idiomatic North American?"

Ignoring him, Jack glanced around the small s.p.a.ce. "A couple of us could stay in here, maybe?"

Hunter nodded. "You'd be welcome. I owe you folks my life and that ain't a debt lightly paid."

"Nah," Jack said, waving away his thanks. "It was nothing. A walk in the park."

Except that it was anything but nothing. He glanced over at Carter, noticing the way her expression tensed. They'd almost lost her, they'd almost lost Daniel. And he'd almost lost himself - in more ways than one. No, whatever this place was, it was no walk in the park.

He pushed the grim thoughts aside. There was no point in dwelling on near misses and might-haves, right now was all that mattered. "Teal'c," he said. "You okay to take first watch?"

Teal'c nodded. "I am."

"Okay. Two hour watches - Teal'c, me, Carter, Daniel."

"Um, how about Teal'c, me, Sam and then you?" Daniel said. "We all got some sleep last night, Jack, while you were up playing with Crazy and his toys."

"Daniel's right, sir," Carter chimed in. "You should take the last watch."

He considered arguing, but the huge yawn that stopped him from speaking did a good job of undercutting his case. So in the end he just grumbled "Fine" and accepted the fact that being too tired to argue probably proved Daniel's point.

In the end there hadn't been enough room for even three of them to sleep inside Hunter's tiny shack so Jack had just unpacked his bedroll outside, buried himself in his sleeping bag, and was snoring before anyone could object.

And with Teal'c also outside on watch, it left Sam and Daniel just enough room to bed down close together on the opposite side of the fire from Hunter and his family.

Like Jack, Sam was soon fast asleep, but Daniel had yet to master the skill of instantly switching off and his mind was racing as he lay in the dark, gazing up at the heavy fabric that const.i.tuted one slanted wall of the house. The fire still burned, its light casting dancing shadows over the material and its smoke drifting up and out through cracks between the wooden slats.

In some ways, it took him back to Abydos - the canvas, the firelight. But his home on Abydos, although primitive by Earth's standards, had been nothing like this. It had been warm and dry, full of laughter once Ra had been driven out and the Abydonians had been free to live as people again. He wondered if these people would ever be free, whether there was a way to save them from the Amam in the way they'd once saved Sha're's people from the Goa'uld.

"Hunter?" he asked quietly, thinking back to the question he'd asked earlier. "Why do so many people live here, dependent on the Amam? I mean, we've met others, people who hide from them and live free."

"There's some as choose to live in the wilds," Hunter admitted, his voice drifting with the sparks up into the cold air. "But there's thousands in the camp and how many d'you think could live off a few jackers in the mountains? Truth is, most camp folk don't have the knowhow or the plucks to run, so they stay here where there's food and family and pray that when the s.n.a.t.c.hers come they don't get took."

"You could run," Daniel said. "With your family. You have the skills."

"But I won't. I won't run and I won't hide," Hunter said, adamant. "I'm here to fight and, by the grace of Hecate, drive those s.n.a.t.c.hers out."

Daniel bit back his instinctive reply - that the Goa'uld would give no one their freedom - because, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, what choice did Hunter's people really have? If a Goa'uld offered their only chance of escaping the nightmare that had overtaken their planet then they'd be fools not to take that chance.

But the question it left behind, dancing like firelight through his mind, was whether he could give these people a better option. Because if Earth stood for anything, and Daniel thought it stood for a lot, then it stood for freedom.

Jack might disagree, and it wouldn't be the first time they'd argued over the real purpose of the Stargate Program, but Daniel was certain that it was their responsibility - their moral duty, in fact - to come back to this world and offer these people something better than an alliance with the Goa'uld.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

"Mr. President, I'm requesting DEFCON 1."

General Hammond spoke calmly into the red telephone, his gaze fixed on the far wall. There was a pause, then, "Yes sir, I will. Thank you, sir."

Janet felt sick at the reality of it all and glanced over at Colonel Makepeace who sat, stiff-backed, next to her. His hands were tight fists on his knees, and he looked even tenser than the general.

As Hammond carefully put down the phone, his steady gaze met Janet's. "Are your people ready, doctor?"

"Yes sir." As ready as they could be for a Goa'uld invasion, but it felt like standing by for a medevac with nothing more than a Band-Aid to hand. "I've had Ca.s.sie brought onto the base," she added, swallowing a swell of fear at the thought of her little girl. "I don't know if she'll be any safer here, but at least I can keep an eye on her."

General Hammond nodded. "I've told my family to head into the mountains. They've got a cabin up there."

There was silence in the room, because they all knew that if the Goa'uld came there'd be no hiding - in the mountains or anywhere else. Hammond's expression darkened, his mouth making a hard line of anger. "We have no Alpha Site," he said, as if to himself. "The Pentagon shut down Colonel O'Neill's plan and now we have no Alpha Site."

"Bureaucrats," Makepeace growled. "They've hamstrung this operation from the start."

The colonel's bl.u.s.ter wasn't exactly helpful so Janet ignored him and said, "I'm guessing the Tollan won't take us in?"

Hammond made a dismissive noise in the back of his throat. "They have 'no capacity', apparently, to house refugees from 'non-allied worlds'."

Janet just shook her head - how could you even answer an att.i.tude like that? "The Asgard?"

"Out of contact. And the Tok'ra certainly won't give us the address to their secret base with a fleet of Goa'uld s.h.i.+ps parked overhead." He slammed his fist on the table, once - a controlled measure of anger that sent ripples over the cold coffee sitting in a mug next to his keyboard. "I should have fought harder for the Alpha Site," he said. "Colonel O'Neill knew -"

"Colonel O'Neill isn't here," Janet said, and then added a hasty, "sir." She considered Hammond for a moment, took in the lines furrowed in his brow and the tense set of shoulders that bore the weight - almost literally - of the world. "And if he was, General," she said in a softer tone, "I think he'd tell you there's no point in dwelling on should-haves or could-haves."

Hammond gave a tight smile. "You're right, doctor."

Sitting forward in her chair, hands folded on Hammond's desk, she said, "Sir, there must be another world we can evacuate to? A safe world, somewhere we can regroup."

"Yes, of course," he said, "there are plenty of worlds. But we'll have nothing, doctor - only what we can carry with us through the Stargate. We'll be a rootless, homeless people with no way to resupply and no back-up." He shook his head. "I'm not sure it will save us, doctor. It might save a handful of individual lives, but I doubt it will save our civilization."

"General Hammond?" Makepeace got to his feet, his hard face intent and serious. "There is another option."

Hammond frowned up at him and, from the taut look on his face, Janet suspected he knew what was coming. "Which is what, Colonel?"