06 - Siren Song (25 page)

Teal’c glanced back over at Brenneka, at the stiff lines of her back. “Are
these people able and willing to fight?” he asked Sam.

At this, Brenneka turned on her knee to face them. “For you? No. Nor will we
give you weapons. If your plan is to use my people for gun fodder, you’ll sleep
in the street until you are discovered, Jaffa—no matter what you have done for
Aadi.”

“Brenneka, no one is suggesting that your kinsmen should die for what we need
to do,” Sam began, but Teal’c threw off the blanket covering his legs and forced
himself to sit up, one hand clutching at the crumbling brick to balance himself.

“I
am
suggesting it,” he said. Sam touched him on the arm, trying to
warn him away from the subject—now wasn’t the time—but he ignored her. “Your
people live in misery, yet there are but a few hundred Jaffa to control you. Why
didn’t you rise up?”

“Is it so easy for you to judge, Jaffa? Why didn’t
you
not rise up, in
all the thousands of years your people have been killing my kind?” Brenneka
reached into the pocket of her trousers and pulled out a tiny blue packet. She turned it over between her fingers, then gestured
to Aadi; he handed her a cup of water, and she emptied the
roshna
into
the cup. The liquid fluoresced to a vivid green-blue for a few seconds before
the color faded, leaving only a grainy scum on the top of the water. Sam knew
what it looked like. She’d helped the chemists work with it for a few days in
the lab, trying to wrench all the secrets from it in the hopes that it was
responsible for some immunity to Goa’uld possession, but she’d never been able
to find anything of use. Like most other things, they’d handed off the remaining
sample to Area 51, where it waited its turn in the scientific queue.

Brenneka drank deeply, emptying the cup in one long swallow. A moment later,
she flung the cup into the corner, inches away from Teal’c’s head. “You know
nothing of my people or our struggles here.”

“Perhaps not,” Teal’c said. He met Aadi’s eyes, where there was curiosity and
fear in equal proportion. “But I know what it is to depend on an outside source
for strength and life. And I know what it costs to be free.”

“And you would have us pay this price. For you.”

“For your freedom,” Teal’c said fervently.

Brenneka laughed, a scratchy sound, without humor. “It’s as I thought, from
the beginning,” she said, with a hard look at Sam. “You fight to save
yourselves. You persuade for your own cause. Not for ours.” She jerked her head
at Aadi, motioning him out of the room, and Aadi scrambled to obey, with a last
curious look at Teal’c. “We will not help you.”

“You already have,” Sam said wearily. “It’s a little late to back away from
that on principle, don’t you think? We’re here, you’re hiding us. We have
nowhere to go.”

Near the doorway of the hut, one of the men standing there spoke quietly. In
the dim light, his face was cut with shadows. “Brenneka. Perhaps we should hear
the words the strangers are saying, rather than judging them half-said.”

“Perhaps, Hamel, you’re anxious to throw your life away.” Brenneka turned her
head to glare at him. “You’ve been waiting for an excuse, haven’t you? This is not what we agreed upon.”

“No, but then again, opportunities like this don’t present themselves often.”
Hamel approached and squatted down next to the hearth; his grey hair glinted
silver in the flickering light. “We have two warriors, ready to help us, and
Aris is in a position to rid us of Sebek. What more can we ask? How much longer
can we wait?”

“Until we are ready,” Brenneka said. Her fingers flexed and pulled at the
fabric of her trousers.

“That day will never come,” Hamel said. He cupped Brenneka’s chin with one
hand and raised it gently. “We will spend our lives preparing to fight and die
without having fought. I don’t want to die a slave.”

Teal’c said, “Hamel is correct. When the moment comes, you cannot step aside
and wait to fight another day.”

Sam had a flash of memory: Teal’c’s anguished expression, and the profound
sadness on his face, at the moment when he’d switched sides to join them.

“Self-serving words,” Brenneka muttered, but she no longer sounded so
convinced.

“We are not afraid to die for those things in which we believe, if others may
live free,” Teal’c said. “We do not serve only ourselves.”

“But we want to save our friends,” Sam said. “And we’re going to try to make
that happen, with or without your help.”

Hamel pointed to Teal’c’s bandaged side. “You won’t get far without us.
Unless you have a clever plan you haven’t told us about.” He tilted his head to
the side. “Do you?”

Sam smiled in spite of herself. “I’m a little short on clever plans today.”

“Because you don’t know this place, or the mines, as we do.” Hamel smiled
back at her, but his smile was cold. “I can help you.”

“Hamel,” Brenneka began, but he shook his head.

“The time for discussion has finished,” he said. “You may do as you wish, but
I will do what I can to help them.”

“You go alone,” Brenneka said. “The others will not follow.”

“Be that as it may,” Hamel said. Like someone had snapped a wire between
them, he moved away from Brenneka and settled next to Sam with his back against
the wall.

“Thank you,” Sam said, quietly.

“Don’t thank me yet,” he said, watching Brenneka, whose eyes glittered as she
turned her back on him. “It is likely we will all die. Certainly you cannot save
your friend, the one Sebek took.”

Sam and Teal’c exchanged a glance full of meaning. They were going to have to
find a moment alone to talk about their options. Even if they got into the mine—even if they found the Colonel and Daniel—Sebek would never go willingly.
The chances of getting Daniel back had already dwindled to near zero.

“You have weapons,” Hamel said, making it less a question than an invitation
to tell him more.

“Just a
zat
,” Sam said. “Aris took our Earth weapons, and the ones we
picked up in the bunker seem to be missing.” Sam raised her chin pointedly at
Brenneka, and Hamel nodded, chewing his beard thoughtfully.

“We may be able to do something about that.”

“We?” Sam asked, not entirely sure if he was including Brenneka’s people in
that broad category. She didn’t dare hope there would be enough of them to
overpower even a small squad of Jaffa. Whatever plan they made would have to be
less about brute strength and more about cunning, and she was feeling pretty
short in the idea department.

Hamel’s gaze shifted back to Brenneka, who was now busying herself around the
room, studiously avoiding the area where the three of them sat. “She will
consider it, and when she puts aside her anger, she’ll see the wisdom of
striking now.”

“It is not easy to stand up, when one has lost the will to rise,” Teal’c
said. “Nor is it easy to know if one’s efforts will succeed.”

“No,” Hamel said. “And we’ll only have one chance to get it right. Brenneka
doesn’t want to jump until the pond is full of water.”

Sam watched Brenneka and reconsidered everything the woman had told her about
the Ancients, hoping to remember something she could use, something to sway Brenneka to their point of view. Too bad
Daniel wasn’t here to make helpful suggestions. He was a master of
re-contextualizing myths into persuasive arguments. But if Daniel could do it,
so could she. It was a matter of finding the right buttons to push.

Her eyes drifted closed, and before sleep claimed her, she saw the image of
Daniel’s smile in the darkness, and the Colonel’s face, etched with worry.

At first he thought it was a dream, but no dream was ever that vivid, so
gradually Jack decided it had to be real. He could smell dinner cooking in the
kitchen—meatloaf, maybe. Something with the tangy odor of burned ketchup, and
then there was the scent of salted water steaming the air. Probably noodles, for
macaroni and cheese. He smiled and shifted on the couch. Saturday afternoon naps
were the best, and then there was always his son, Charlie, who would be waiting
for him in the yard so they could play catch. Best part of the weekend, bar
none. He wished he had more time, for his family, for Sara, for everything that
mattered. A stretch and a yawn, and he’d open his eyes and Charlie would be
there.

Jack.

He frowned. That voice was familiar, but it didn’t belong here. Charlie was
calling to him from his room, but his voice was fading, and suddenly the memory
went rushing past like ice water over Jack’s skin, gentle afternoon sunlight and
comfortable sounds twisting fluidly into screams and blood and terror.
Not
this.
He shoved it away as hard as he could, and the world fell away
underneath him.

Jack!

So insistent… words, modulating from one range to another, familiar and yet
not quite the same. He knew the sound of that voice—
Carter,
he thought
at first, and then
Teal’c,
but he knew immediately that wasn’t right,
either.
Daniel.

His eyes snapped open, and he thrashed for a moment, unsure of where he was.
Someone was leaning over him, staring at him through silver eyes, glittering
circles like funhouse mirrors reflecting his entire life back into his mind. He
blinked rapidly, trying to clear his field of vision, but now he could see the shape of a face behind
those eyes. Light caught and scattered off its skin, which shimmered with tiny
rainbows. Iridescent, like…
scales,
he thought, and swung up with one
closed fist. The vision shattered, fragments flying apart like a prism, and he
gasped out loud.

“Bad dreams?”

Jack sat up and twisted in the direction of Aris’ voice. They were only a
few feet apart; a safe distance for Aris, since he was out of arm’s reach. The
scant illumination that had helped them find their way earlier seemed to have
disappeared completely, for the time being. Jack held his hand up to block the
light Aris was aiming at his face. “Put that thing down,” he ordered. Aris
leaned the flash against his knee, its glow narrowed to a thin beam. Jack
blinked away spots. “You had fun shooting me, didn’t you?”

“I always do.” So smug. Jack wanted to rip that satisfied smile right off his
face. A faint tremor went through his body, unused adrenaline built up with
nowhere to go and nothing to fight. He glanced around him, half expecting to see
a physical manifestation of his dream, but there was nothing there. No point in
asking Aris if he’d seen anything; he was sure now that he’d imagined it. Jack
shook off the sensation of those eyes, shining straight into him, and the sound
of his son’s voice.
Not now.

After a moment, it dawned on Jack: no Sebek. It had taken him far too long to
realize that the snake wasn’t standing there baiting him, and it was still
taking too long to get his bearings. Not like him, to
forget
to
threat-assess.
Get a grip.
He glanced around and saw Daniel face-up but
unconscious, sprawled on the ground at the edge of the area the light could
reach. “What happened to him?”

“I shot him, too.”

“Isn’t that going to piss him off a little?”

Aris shrugged, his armor creaking. “I’ll say it was collateral damage from
when I tried to save his life.” He waggled his blaster in Jack’s direction.
“Overflow, proximity.” He grinned a little at his own cleverness and shrugged
again. “I needed some peace and quiet. You two are like bickering children.”

“Nice way to talk about your god,” Jack said.

Aris shot him an ominous look. “You know better than to call
that
my
god,” he scoffed, as he indicated Daniel with the blaster. He sighted along the
muzzle, his finger twitching on the trigger. “But if you don’t stop interfering,
I’ll have to kill you, and that would be a shame.”

“I’m not the enemy.”

“I don’t have enemies. I have associates, and I have people who get in my
way.” Aris fished for his canteen, then for a small packet of
roshna,
which he dumped into the water. “Don’t be the latter.”

Jack watched him take a long swallow of the blue mixture, and had a flash of
craving, so strong that his stomach cramped and his skin went clammy. “You’d do
anything for that, wouldn’t you?”

Aris said nothing. Instead, he held out the canteen. “Thirsty? Shame I forgot
to ask earlier.”

Jack grimaced. “No thanks.”

“Smart move.” Aris took a bite of something he held in his hand.

Jack’s stomach rumbled, right on cue. “Don’t suppose you have any more of
whatever that is?”

“Sure I do.” Another bite, and Aris made no move to hand him any. Jack raised
his eyebrows. After a moment, Aris sighed impatiently. “Oh, all right.” He dug
into one of those strange hidden pockets in his armor and pulled out the scant
remains of a crushed power bar, half-unwrapped.

Jack caught it in mid-air and tore it out of the plastic. The smell alone
made him vaguely nauseated. It had probably come out of Daniel’s pack, since
Daniel always carried extra food for bribing natives. “Nice of you to bring
along some stolen supplies.”

“Finders keepers.”

“Your motto, clearly.” Jack took two large bites, watching Daniel as he
chewed. “Why is he still out?”

“I told you already, Sebek is weak. He hasn’t been able to sustain a host’s
strength for more than a day or two, and he hasn’t been in the sarcophagus since
at least a full day before he took Dr. Jackson as host.” Aris picked up the
light and shone it on Daniel’s motionless body. “Maybe he’s having a tough time
blending with him.”

“Who wouldn’t,” Jack muttered. He finished off the power bar, licked the
wrapper clean and tossed it aside, then felt around on the floor for his
flashlight until his fingers bumped up against it in the dust. Turning away from
Aris and Daniel, he clicked on the light and aimed it down the passageway in the
opposite direction.