Lions and Tigers and Igigi, Oh My
We are sticking with the "chapter a day" plan, so get 'em in order folks.
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1
Characters: Gibbs, Tony, Jack
Rating: TEEN (Gibbs/Tony)
Summary: Tony had never heard of goa'uld or tok'ra or igigi, and he sure as hell didn't know Gibbs had a passenger riding around in his head, but if Gibbs thinks one little alien parasite is going to make him go running, he has another thought coming. He's Gibbs' second, and that means he doesn't give up on his boss.
Ya know, just go read the old chapters on AO3 because coming up with links for every chapter is getting old.
Chapter 22
Tony leaned against a fancy looking console and tried to catch his breath. At least he did until Carter shoved him. “Don’t touch that,” she snapped. Then again, she had taken a bad hit to the head when one of Ba’al’s underlords had tossed her into the wall, so Tony figured she had a right to be cranky.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he shuffled to the side where he couldn’t touch anything.
“The drive controls are there, and so are weapons,” Carter said wearily. It almost sounded like an apology.
“Yeah, DiNozzo, don’t blow up the planet by accident,” O’Neill called from the other side of the room.
Daniel was bandaging O’Neill’s arm with supplies from SG1’s newly rediscovered packs. He exchanged a few hushed words with O’Neill, but the colonel just rolled his eyes. The only one of them that seemed to have come through unscathed was Teal’c. Even Kali looked a little worse for wear, although she had a manic grin on her face that rivaled O’Neill’s.
“We have won,” she announced. O’Neill narrowed his eyes and shifted the P90 he had in his lap, but he didn’t comment.
Gibbs gave quick nod. “We have. Now those of us from Earth are returning to the planet. We’re taking a tel’tak.”
The smile vanished off Kali’s face, and Tony watched the whole room shift. Daniel moved to the side of O’Neill and inched closer to a column. Teal’c’s hand rested against his staff weapon, and Carter moved to use the console as cover. Unfortunately, Tony didn’t have a weapon and he wasn’t sure which side to take cover with, so he stood right in the middle of the potential firefight.
“You should stay with us, Samas,” she said, her voice carefully controlled.
Tony could have pointed out that Samas wasn’t driving the body, but Kali, like all of SG1, seemed to think that the reverberation in the voice was a reliable gauge of who might be in charge. It wasn’t.
“I will not,” Gibbs said, imitating the slightly more formal tones of Samas. It was the first time Tony had heard Gibbs do that, either that or Gibbs was keeping control of the body and Samas was running the voice. Either way, Tony shifted closer to his boss.
“You would be welcomed back,” Kali said.
“Welcomed back by two creatures who did not defend their queens. Ra and other others were mad with power. What excuse do you have for allowing the near extermination of our species?” Gibbs had his best glare going-the one that sometimes made suspected pee themselves just a little.
Kali lifted her chin. “We survived.”
“And you left generations of children to die in ignorance. I will not forget that, so it’s best that we don’t see each other again,” Gibbs said. He took a step toward her and grabbed her bare arm. Kali stared at him with wide eyes, and Tony held his breath. They were saying something to each other in that touch. Eventually Gibbs pushed her away and took a step backwards. “We are taking a tel’tak.” He turned his back on Kali and started to leave the bridge.
“Samas,” Kali called out. Gibbs stopped, but he didn’t turn around. He waited with his back turned. She looked around the room, clearly not happy saying this in front of an audience. “Samas, we will not make that mistake again. We will defend the waters, and we will make sure that the rites of hosting are observed.”
Gibbs turned, but instead of looking at Kali, he looked at Tony. “Who are the most honorable and brave individuals on his ship?” he asked.
Tony glanced over at Kali, but her face was devoid of any expression. Given that she had refused to help Samas, she wasn’t going on his list, though.
“There is a slave named Stelli. He was willing to risk his life to come to our aid. There was a young jaffa with dark hair and a scar on his left cheek. He was always watchful, and I think he sees a lot more than he lets on.”
Gibbs gave a nod and then looked over at Kali. “If you’re going to see the rites are done well, that is where you start to prove it to me.” And with that, Gibbs was done. He strode out of the room. Tony hurried after, only half-hearing the snarky comments O’Neill seemed to fling at Kali as if throwing grenades to cover their retreat. O’Neill’s mouth seemed like it was much more capable of starting trouble than a grenade, though.
Daniel ran after them, and O’Neill called out his name along with “for cryin’ out loud.” O’Neill seemed to like that phrase.
“What are the rites?” Daniel asked.
Gibbs glanced back at Daniel and then his gaze moved farther back to O’Neill. For all his bitching, O’Neill seemed to be watching their six while Carter and Teal’c moved up.
“I too would like to know,” Teal’c said before passing them and taking point.
“Warriors had to prove themselves worthy before they were allowed near sacred waters. Now the onac seemed to swim everywhere, and they don’t seem to know the difference between someone getting water and someone trying to find a symbiote.”
Daniel cringed. “We actually lost a scientist that way. He was infected, and when he tried to kill us, we had to kill him.”
Gibbs stopped and turned. “Why would he try to kill you?”
“Maybe because we had him tied up and we were going to drag him back to earth and cut him out of his host’s brain to try and save the scientist,” O’Neill offered. He was definitely trying to prod Gibbs into some reaction.
“The onac don’t know any better now,” Gibbs said with a sigh. He started moving through the ship again. Slaves were starting to come out of hiding, and several bowed deeply as they passed.
“Okay, that’s kind of creepy,” O’Neill complained softly.
“Creepy is leaving Stelli behind,” Tony complained, and he didn’t bother being quiet about it.
“He wouldn’t understand Earth culture. We would make him miserable,” Gibbs said. “Besides, most of the slaves have families here, Tony.”
“Leaving him behind is not the way to make his life better, boss.”
“No, but you told Kali that he had the balls to get in the middle of the fight. That will mean something to her. She was always a warrior, and she’ll be looking for good men and women. Trust him to make the best out of the opportunity you gave him.”
Teal’c stopped at one of the rings rooms. “We can transport to the deck with the tel’tak, but I cannot predict who might be waiting.”
O’Neill sighed. “Right. We walk. At least the knees aren’t bothering me too much today.”
“Sir, the symbiote is probably trying-”
“Carter,” O’Neill cut her off, “do not suggest that this worm in my head is doing anything good.”
“Yes, sir,” she said in a tone that somehow made it very clear that she was implying exactly that. Carter had a knack for saying things in military-precise words while at the same time seeming to mean the exact opposite. Tony liked her.
“So,” Daniel said, drawing the word out as Teal’c now led them toward access corridors that linked the ship decks. “Why all the politics around this planet? Why were they all trying to get at you?”
Gibbs sighed, rubbed his face, and then dropped the pretense of speaking with Samas’ voice. “The others can’t leave their hosts. While in a body, communication through the skin is hard. The images are muted, and the onac can’t use his full language. So Kali and Yu and Ba’al can’t talk to the onac in the waters.”
“Samas can?” Daniel asked.
Gibbs nodded. “Before Samas brought everyone down to the planet, he went into the water alone and tried to figure out what had happened. Onac remember events from thousands of years ago, so one of the symbiote lines should have been able to share the information.”
O’Neill made a very unhappy noise. “Gunny, we are going to have to talk about some of the decisions you made, such as allowing that snake back in you. For your sake, I really hope you didn’t know the whole plan.”
Gibbs’ response was so predictable that Tony could have cried. “I knew,” he said. God forbid Gibbs cover his own ass. While the man might be willing to avoid talking about the things he’d done, he always refused to outright lie-even when he damn well should. O’Neill went from looking pissed to looking homicidal.
When Daniel physically stepped between the two men, Tony knew he wasn’t the only one to notice that shift.
Jumping into the breach, Daniel quickly asked, “Did any of the symbiotes know what happened?”
“None of them knew anything,” Gibbs said, his voice flat. “Samas thought he might find the genetic memories skewed. He was afraid he’d find a planet full of potential goa’uld who all remembered Ra’s stories of stolen power and how good it felt to control others. Instead he found they were all mute and ignorant.”
“Mute?” Daniel practically shoved Tony aside to get next to Gibbs. He even pulled out a small mini-recorder and turned it on before attaching it to his vest. Gibbs raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.
“Onac communicate through chemicals on their skin. As they swim, these leave traces in the water so that as another onac swims through, they can hear whatever the first onac was thinking about. Most of the symbiotes who have taken human hosts call it singing. None of them were singing.”
“Wait. None?” Daniel sounded alarmed.
Gibbs gave him a flat look. “None. When Samas tracked the onac down, they all acted like simple predators or prey. There was no sentience there at all.”
“But… You’re not just talking about a cultural collapse, but a complete de-evolution affecting the entire species down to the individual level. This is… this is…” Daniel clearly didn’t have words for what this was because he waved his hands without finishing.
“Bad?” Tony guessed.
“Catastrophic.”
“So, really bad,” O’Neill said. “I’m still not feeling the sympathy.”
They had been walking and climbing down levels and walking more, but now Gibbs stopped and looked at O’Neill. “This is no different than if someone had blasted Earth back to the stone age because they’d taken offense to the Nazis. The goa’uld are evil. I don’t disagree with that, but all onac are not to blame for the actions of a corrupt memory line that will die when the last of the goa’uld die.”
“The last die?” O’Neill pounced on that. “Are you talking in metaphors, perhaps?”
“Yu is unable to fully regenerate. Kali is significantly weakened. Many of the other ancient goa’uld have died because their conditions made it impossible to defend against others. They don’t return to the water, and being in the human host creates health problems they could not predict.”
“And the younger generation?” O’Neill asked, his mind already clicking away on threat assessments. It was freaky the way the man could go from goofy to deadly serious in a heartbeat.
“Ra had the queens weaken the younger symbiotes to make sure they never challenged him. That was the main contention between Ra and Samas’ queen,” Gibbs said. “Samas’ queen refused to do it, so Ra destroyed all her offspring. The queens who complied created generations of symbiotes who are inferior. They’re dying faster than the original generations.”
“Huh.” O’Neill didn’t look convinced, but he did look interested.
“We know Lord Yu is having trouble,” Daniel said. “It stands to reason that if Yu is aging, that means the goa’uld of his generation can’t regenerate anymore, yet we haven’t seen a new crop of younger, stronger goa’uld taking over. Ba’al is the youngest one we’ve seen take power, and he’s thousands of years old.”
“So, you think this could be true?” O’Neill clapped his hands together. “I’m all for throwing a ‘don’t let the door hit you on your ass on the way out’ party to celebrate their extinction.”
Daniel’s glare actually frightened Tony a little. With a sigh, Gibbs started down the corridor, and Teal’c, who had stopped, slipped back into point.
“Daniel, they’re bad guys,” O’Neill said.
“The goa’uld are. Gibbs is talking about an entire species facing extinction.”
“Good.”
“A species that is not evil.”
“Danny, Samas had you tied up and shoved you in a pond full of parasites. I think he falls on the evil side of the fence.”
Tony’s back stiffened and he wanted to turn around and argue, but it wasn’t his place. He hadn’t suffered the way these people had. He was actually a little surprised that Daniel was standing up for Samas considering he seemed to have suffered more than the others. Humans recovered from physical wounds faster than the psychological traumas. Tony had seen enough police work to know exactly how true that was, but Daniel was still in there defending Samas.
“What would you do to protect humanity?” Daniel demanded.
“I wouldn’t hurt innocent people.”
“And the Salish?” Daniel demanded.
“Oh for crying out loud. I wanted to help them resettle; I wasn’t trying to shove snakes in their heads.”
“You tried to take them off their planet, and look how well that worked out.”
O’Neill glared at Daniel.
“And how about Euronda?”
Whatever that was about, O’Neill practically bristled with aggression. “I didn’t take the deal, Daniel.”
“You were ready to cooperate with a mass murderer to get technology. I was the one who argued against it. And then there’s the people of Orban who weren’t really thrilled with you kidnapping one of the children scientists.”
“They brainwiped children, Danny. What was I supposed to do, let them keep destroying kids?”
Daniel’s voice got soft. “I think you did what you had to in order to save lives, Jack.”
They had reached the hanger doors, but O’Neill and Daniel had been so deep in their conversation that the rest of them had stood guard and waited while the two men went at it.
Tony disliked having to wait for Daniel to make all the arguments, but it didn’t matter how logical Tony was, he didn’t have the history with O’Neill that would make the other man listen. Tony got it. After all, there were days that Tim had perfectly reasonable requests, but Gibbs didn’t act on them as quickly as he would have if the same request had come from Tony. Part of Tony preened in the evidence that Gibbs liked him better, but part of him cringed in sympathy every time Tim hit that wall. Eventually Gibbs would trust Tim, but it took time.
Well, unless your name was Ziva, and Tony was still trying to deal with that bit of jealousy.
O’Neill reached out and caught Daniel by the arm. “Let’s go home and worry about the rest later.”
“We have to stop at the water and get the onac out of you first,” Gibbs said.
O’Neill snorted. “Just that easy, huh?”
“Yes,” Gibbs said.
O’Neill’s expression turned calculating. “I thought you said they were all dumb animals now. No more singing. They’re all instinct and no thought. Does any of that ring a bell?”
Gibbs faded away, and the soft smile was all Samas. “My people lack creativity. I am well aware of this flaw. However, we make up for this flaw by the speed at which we can learn things. I sang for the onac in the waters, and within an hour, they were starting to repeat my songs. They are already recovering-they are a blank slate that I can now fill with the memory of great quests and voluntary pairings. I will see my people return to what they once were, even if the unas refuse to join in the ceremony again.”
“That’s what Kali and Yu are agreeing to… they’ll bring people here for voluntary joining?” Daniel asked. O’Neill watched in silence.
“They remember the way. This is also the sacred water where they were born. Their genetic family is here… their offspring. If they can’t save themselves, they can save their descendants or they can watch as their genetic line dies with them. Ra has finally lost. His vision of the goa’uld will die, and the onac will survive.”
Gibbs triggered the controls and opened the hanger doors. Tony tensed, half afraid more of Ba’al’s jaffa would appear out of nowhere, but only a few servants bowed to them as Gibbs strode toward a squat, triangle-shaped ship.
“Move out, people,” O’Neill said with a sigh. “I wonder if I can claim amnesia and just skip this whole debrief.”
The look Carter gave him was almost sympathetic. Daniel’s wasn’t.
Fandom: NCIS, Stargate SG1
Characters: Gibbs, Tony, Jack
Rating: TEEN (Gibbs/Tony)
Summary: Tony had never heard of goa'uld or tok'ra or igigi, and he sure as hell didn't know Gibbs had a passenger riding around in his head, but if Gibbs thinks one little alien parasite is going to make him go running, he has another thought coming. He's Gibbs' second, and that means he doesn't give up on his boss.
Ya know, just go read the old chapters on AO3 because coming up with links for every chapter is getting old.
Chapter 22
Tony leaned against a fancy looking console and tried to catch his breath. At least he did until Carter shoved him. “Don’t touch that,” she snapped. Then again, she had taken a bad hit to the head when one of Ba’al’s underlords had tossed her into the wall, so Tony figured she had a right to be cranky.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said as he shuffled to the side where he couldn’t touch anything.
“The drive controls are there, and so are weapons,” Carter said wearily. It almost sounded like an apology.
“Yeah, DiNozzo, don’t blow up the planet by accident,” O’Neill called from the other side of the room.
Daniel was bandaging O’Neill’s arm with supplies from SG1’s newly rediscovered packs. He exchanged a few hushed words with O’Neill, but the colonel just rolled his eyes. The only one of them that seemed to have come through unscathed was Teal’c. Even Kali looked a little worse for wear, although she had a manic grin on her face that rivaled O’Neill’s.
“We have won,” she announced. O’Neill narrowed his eyes and shifted the P90 he had in his lap, but he didn’t comment.
Gibbs gave quick nod. “We have. Now those of us from Earth are returning to the planet. We’re taking a tel’tak.”
The smile vanished off Kali’s face, and Tony watched the whole room shift. Daniel moved to the side of O’Neill and inched closer to a column. Teal’c’s hand rested against his staff weapon, and Carter moved to use the console as cover. Unfortunately, Tony didn’t have a weapon and he wasn’t sure which side to take cover with, so he stood right in the middle of the potential firefight.
“You should stay with us, Samas,” she said, her voice carefully controlled.
Tony could have pointed out that Samas wasn’t driving the body, but Kali, like all of SG1, seemed to think that the reverberation in the voice was a reliable gauge of who might be in charge. It wasn’t.
“I will not,” Gibbs said, imitating the slightly more formal tones of Samas. It was the first time Tony had heard Gibbs do that, either that or Gibbs was keeping control of the body and Samas was running the voice. Either way, Tony shifted closer to his boss.
“You would be welcomed back,” Kali said.
“Welcomed back by two creatures who did not defend their queens. Ra and other others were mad with power. What excuse do you have for allowing the near extermination of our species?” Gibbs had his best glare going-the one that sometimes made suspected pee themselves just a little.
Kali lifted her chin. “We survived.”
“And you left generations of children to die in ignorance. I will not forget that, so it’s best that we don’t see each other again,” Gibbs said. He took a step toward her and grabbed her bare arm. Kali stared at him with wide eyes, and Tony held his breath. They were saying something to each other in that touch. Eventually Gibbs pushed her away and took a step backwards. “We are taking a tel’tak.” He turned his back on Kali and started to leave the bridge.
“Samas,” Kali called out. Gibbs stopped, but he didn’t turn around. He waited with his back turned. She looked around the room, clearly not happy saying this in front of an audience. “Samas, we will not make that mistake again. We will defend the waters, and we will make sure that the rites of hosting are observed.”
Gibbs turned, but instead of looking at Kali, he looked at Tony. “Who are the most honorable and brave individuals on his ship?” he asked.
Tony glanced over at Kali, but her face was devoid of any expression. Given that she had refused to help Samas, she wasn’t going on his list, though.
“There is a slave named Stelli. He was willing to risk his life to come to our aid. There was a young jaffa with dark hair and a scar on his left cheek. He was always watchful, and I think he sees a lot more than he lets on.”
Gibbs gave a nod and then looked over at Kali. “If you’re going to see the rites are done well, that is where you start to prove it to me.” And with that, Gibbs was done. He strode out of the room. Tony hurried after, only half-hearing the snarky comments O’Neill seemed to fling at Kali as if throwing grenades to cover their retreat. O’Neill’s mouth seemed like it was much more capable of starting trouble than a grenade, though.
Daniel ran after them, and O’Neill called out his name along with “for cryin’ out loud.” O’Neill seemed to like that phrase.
“What are the rites?” Daniel asked.
Gibbs glanced back at Daniel and then his gaze moved farther back to O’Neill. For all his bitching, O’Neill seemed to be watching their six while Carter and Teal’c moved up.
“I too would like to know,” Teal’c said before passing them and taking point.
“Warriors had to prove themselves worthy before they were allowed near sacred waters. Now the onac seemed to swim everywhere, and they don’t seem to know the difference between someone getting water and someone trying to find a symbiote.”
Daniel cringed. “We actually lost a scientist that way. He was infected, and when he tried to kill us, we had to kill him.”
Gibbs stopped and turned. “Why would he try to kill you?”
“Maybe because we had him tied up and we were going to drag him back to earth and cut him out of his host’s brain to try and save the scientist,” O’Neill offered. He was definitely trying to prod Gibbs into some reaction.
“The onac don’t know any better now,” Gibbs said with a sigh. He started moving through the ship again. Slaves were starting to come out of hiding, and several bowed deeply as they passed.
“Okay, that’s kind of creepy,” O’Neill complained softly.
“Creepy is leaving Stelli behind,” Tony complained, and he didn’t bother being quiet about it.
“He wouldn’t understand Earth culture. We would make him miserable,” Gibbs said. “Besides, most of the slaves have families here, Tony.”
“Leaving him behind is not the way to make his life better, boss.”
“No, but you told Kali that he had the balls to get in the middle of the fight. That will mean something to her. She was always a warrior, and she’ll be looking for good men and women. Trust him to make the best out of the opportunity you gave him.”
Teal’c stopped at one of the rings rooms. “We can transport to the deck with the tel’tak, but I cannot predict who might be waiting.”
O’Neill sighed. “Right. We walk. At least the knees aren’t bothering me too much today.”
“Sir, the symbiote is probably trying-”
“Carter,” O’Neill cut her off, “do not suggest that this worm in my head is doing anything good.”
“Yes, sir,” she said in a tone that somehow made it very clear that she was implying exactly that. Carter had a knack for saying things in military-precise words while at the same time seeming to mean the exact opposite. Tony liked her.
“So,” Daniel said, drawing the word out as Teal’c now led them toward access corridors that linked the ship decks. “Why all the politics around this planet? Why were they all trying to get at you?”
Gibbs sighed, rubbed his face, and then dropped the pretense of speaking with Samas’ voice. “The others can’t leave their hosts. While in a body, communication through the skin is hard. The images are muted, and the onac can’t use his full language. So Kali and Yu and Ba’al can’t talk to the onac in the waters.”
“Samas can?” Daniel asked.
Gibbs nodded. “Before Samas brought everyone down to the planet, he went into the water alone and tried to figure out what had happened. Onac remember events from thousands of years ago, so one of the symbiote lines should have been able to share the information.”
O’Neill made a very unhappy noise. “Gunny, we are going to have to talk about some of the decisions you made, such as allowing that snake back in you. For your sake, I really hope you didn’t know the whole plan.”
Gibbs’ response was so predictable that Tony could have cried. “I knew,” he said. God forbid Gibbs cover his own ass. While the man might be willing to avoid talking about the things he’d done, he always refused to outright lie-even when he damn well should. O’Neill went from looking pissed to looking homicidal.
When Daniel physically stepped between the two men, Tony knew he wasn’t the only one to notice that shift.
Jumping into the breach, Daniel quickly asked, “Did any of the symbiotes know what happened?”
“None of them knew anything,” Gibbs said, his voice flat. “Samas thought he might find the genetic memories skewed. He was afraid he’d find a planet full of potential goa’uld who all remembered Ra’s stories of stolen power and how good it felt to control others. Instead he found they were all mute and ignorant.”
“Mute?” Daniel practically shoved Tony aside to get next to Gibbs. He even pulled out a small mini-recorder and turned it on before attaching it to his vest. Gibbs raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment.
“Onac communicate through chemicals on their skin. As they swim, these leave traces in the water so that as another onac swims through, they can hear whatever the first onac was thinking about. Most of the symbiotes who have taken human hosts call it singing. None of them were singing.”
“Wait. None?” Daniel sounded alarmed.
Gibbs gave him a flat look. “None. When Samas tracked the onac down, they all acted like simple predators or prey. There was no sentience there at all.”
“But… You’re not just talking about a cultural collapse, but a complete de-evolution affecting the entire species down to the individual level. This is… this is…” Daniel clearly didn’t have words for what this was because he waved his hands without finishing.
“Bad?” Tony guessed.
“Catastrophic.”
“So, really bad,” O’Neill said. “I’m still not feeling the sympathy.”
They had been walking and climbing down levels and walking more, but now Gibbs stopped and looked at O’Neill. “This is no different than if someone had blasted Earth back to the stone age because they’d taken offense to the Nazis. The goa’uld are evil. I don’t disagree with that, but all onac are not to blame for the actions of a corrupt memory line that will die when the last of the goa’uld die.”
“The last die?” O’Neill pounced on that. “Are you talking in metaphors, perhaps?”
“Yu is unable to fully regenerate. Kali is significantly weakened. Many of the other ancient goa’uld have died because their conditions made it impossible to defend against others. They don’t return to the water, and being in the human host creates health problems they could not predict.”
“And the younger generation?” O’Neill asked, his mind already clicking away on threat assessments. It was freaky the way the man could go from goofy to deadly serious in a heartbeat.
“Ra had the queens weaken the younger symbiotes to make sure they never challenged him. That was the main contention between Ra and Samas’ queen,” Gibbs said. “Samas’ queen refused to do it, so Ra destroyed all her offspring. The queens who complied created generations of symbiotes who are inferior. They’re dying faster than the original generations.”
“Huh.” O’Neill didn’t look convinced, but he did look interested.
“We know Lord Yu is having trouble,” Daniel said. “It stands to reason that if Yu is aging, that means the goa’uld of his generation can’t regenerate anymore, yet we haven’t seen a new crop of younger, stronger goa’uld taking over. Ba’al is the youngest one we’ve seen take power, and he’s thousands of years old.”
“So, you think this could be true?” O’Neill clapped his hands together. “I’m all for throwing a ‘don’t let the door hit you on your ass on the way out’ party to celebrate their extinction.”
Daniel’s glare actually frightened Tony a little. With a sigh, Gibbs started down the corridor, and Teal’c, who had stopped, slipped back into point.
“Daniel, they’re bad guys,” O’Neill said.
“The goa’uld are. Gibbs is talking about an entire species facing extinction.”
“Good.”
“A species that is not evil.”
“Danny, Samas had you tied up and shoved you in a pond full of parasites. I think he falls on the evil side of the fence.”
Tony’s back stiffened and he wanted to turn around and argue, but it wasn’t his place. He hadn’t suffered the way these people had. He was actually a little surprised that Daniel was standing up for Samas considering he seemed to have suffered more than the others. Humans recovered from physical wounds faster than the psychological traumas. Tony had seen enough police work to know exactly how true that was, but Daniel was still in there defending Samas.
“What would you do to protect humanity?” Daniel demanded.
“I wouldn’t hurt innocent people.”
“And the Salish?” Daniel demanded.
“Oh for crying out loud. I wanted to help them resettle; I wasn’t trying to shove snakes in their heads.”
“You tried to take them off their planet, and look how well that worked out.”
O’Neill glared at Daniel.
“And how about Euronda?”
Whatever that was about, O’Neill practically bristled with aggression. “I didn’t take the deal, Daniel.”
“You were ready to cooperate with a mass murderer to get technology. I was the one who argued against it. And then there’s the people of Orban who weren’t really thrilled with you kidnapping one of the children scientists.”
“They brainwiped children, Danny. What was I supposed to do, let them keep destroying kids?”
Daniel’s voice got soft. “I think you did what you had to in order to save lives, Jack.”
They had reached the hanger doors, but O’Neill and Daniel had been so deep in their conversation that the rest of them had stood guard and waited while the two men went at it.
Tony disliked having to wait for Daniel to make all the arguments, but it didn’t matter how logical Tony was, he didn’t have the history with O’Neill that would make the other man listen. Tony got it. After all, there were days that Tim had perfectly reasonable requests, but Gibbs didn’t act on them as quickly as he would have if the same request had come from Tony. Part of Tony preened in the evidence that Gibbs liked him better, but part of him cringed in sympathy every time Tim hit that wall. Eventually Gibbs would trust Tim, but it took time.
Well, unless your name was Ziva, and Tony was still trying to deal with that bit of jealousy.
O’Neill reached out and caught Daniel by the arm. “Let’s go home and worry about the rest later.”
“We have to stop at the water and get the onac out of you first,” Gibbs said.
O’Neill snorted. “Just that easy, huh?”
“Yes,” Gibbs said.
O’Neill’s expression turned calculating. “I thought you said they were all dumb animals now. No more singing. They’re all instinct and no thought. Does any of that ring a bell?”
Gibbs faded away, and the soft smile was all Samas. “My people lack creativity. I am well aware of this flaw. However, we make up for this flaw by the speed at which we can learn things. I sang for the onac in the waters, and within an hour, they were starting to repeat my songs. They are already recovering-they are a blank slate that I can now fill with the memory of great quests and voluntary pairings. I will see my people return to what they once were, even if the unas refuse to join in the ceremony again.”
“That’s what Kali and Yu are agreeing to… they’ll bring people here for voluntary joining?” Daniel asked. O’Neill watched in silence.
“They remember the way. This is also the sacred water where they were born. Their genetic family is here… their offspring. If they can’t save themselves, they can save their descendants or they can watch as their genetic line dies with them. Ra has finally lost. His vision of the goa’uld will die, and the onac will survive.”
Gibbs triggered the controls and opened the hanger doors. Tony tensed, half afraid more of Ba’al’s jaffa would appear out of nowhere, but only a few servants bowed to them as Gibbs strode toward a squat, triangle-shaped ship.
“Move out, people,” O’Neill said with a sigh. “I wonder if I can claim amnesia and just skip this whole debrief.”
The look Carter gave him was almost sympathetic. Daniel’s wasn’t.