Well, I made this one hard on myself with all the italics to encode and stuff. But oh well.
Part 5 is written and will be posted tomorrow, probably.
Excerpt:
--
“Daniel!” I’m not going to win this one, am I?
“Jack!” You bet your sweet cornbread you’re not going to win this one, you sorry, sorry military idiot.
Daniel could be really vicious in these body language and voice tone wars.
--
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4: The High Ground
Jack and Daniel sat side by side at a metal table in an empty room. It was not altogether an unfamiliar situation for the two.
Here they were in a prison, yet again. Yeah, they weren’t prisoners this time. Yet. Jack wasn’t all that sanguine about keeping this status quo. He really, really hoped that they hadn’t traded Obi-Wan’s freedom for their own, but if they had . . .
If they had, so what? These guys had no reason to hate visitors from another galaxy, besides the fact that it was becoming increasingly obvious that they had lied about seeing a kid last night. Whatever they had wanted the young Jedi for, Jack and Daniel couldn’t possible serve the same purpose. And at least so far Officer Grumpy (he had finally introduced himself as Commander Beller, but Jack felt no need to be polite inside his head) was pretending that they were only here for a friendly visit. Jack just had to keep him from having any reason to interrogate them, that was all.
Daniel’s leg was bouncing relentlessly up and down. Jack looked at him, drawn out of his thoughts. Above the table the younger man’s body was completely still, but a fine sheen of sweat was starting to coat his forehead. Not so very long ago, they’d been held captive by another military leader with similar patriotic passion and autonomous authority. That little trip hadn’t gone well for Daniel at all. Jack still remembered the grim look on Janet Frasier’s face when she had helped Daniel out of his shirt and started treating the electric burns scattered across his shoulders, chest, and upper back.
No matter what else happened today, Jack would make sure that Daniel didn’t suffer for their defiance. This was not optional-it was carved in polished granite, immutable.
He laid his hand on his friend’s shoulder and squeezed. Daniel looked back at him, and slowly the tension around his mouth and eyes began to ease. Gradually, his leg stopped moving, and his knee rested against Jack’s for a moment, the confiding lean of someone young and trusting and utterly unafraid, someone who knew with utter faith that the one he leaned on could make everything right. Jack was pathetically grateful that Daniel still felt like that, despite everything he’d been through, despite how desperately untrue it was.
Don’t worry, big guy. I’ve got your six.
I know. Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.
As it had been with them from the beginning, they didn’t need words to say the important stuff.
The door made a ridiculously loud noise as it crashed open, allowing the entrance of Grumpy Officer Commander Beller. Jack was proud of Daniel for not startling, and gave his shoulder a last, casual squeeze before letting his hand drop and turning to face their visitor, letting one eyebrow arch upward. It was time for a new plan, time to retake the high ground, and he knew just how to do it.
“Hey, I’ve been thinking,” he said before the other man did more than open his mouth. “And y’know, it occurs to me that perhaps I haven’t been entirely truthful with you.”
Daniel’s head snapped around so he could stare at him, expressive eyebrows reaching for the sky, and Jack gave him a little half-nod, half-shrug. They hadn’t had a chance to discuss this, as Jack was absolutely certain that the room was bugged, but he hoped that Daniel would understand that he wasn’t supposed to fall out of character. This was Jack’s show, now.
Jack looked to Grumpy Beller and spread his hands open on the table, displaying his truthfulness. “To be honest, I didn’t even think about it until the trip over here. It happened pretty fast.”
Daniel’s eyebrows, still arched, clearly said, Yeah, right, and Beller said something very like it aloud.
Jack shrugged. “You figured it out, Commander. I’m a military man. We sleep lightly, and we keep watch in unknown territory. The kid came through the cave during my watch.”
Daniel blinked. Jack gave him an apologetic wince. “Sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Didja catch that, Officer Grumpy? Daniel’s innocent, always has been. Leave him out of this.
Beller stood back at military rest, hands clasped behind his back, mouth closed, forehead wrinkled. He got it.
“Kid came into the cave, ragged, breathing hard. He saw me looking at him, and looked back, begging with his eyes, y’know? I didn’t say a word, just let him see me lower my gun, and he took off. He didn’t look like a dangerous escaped felon-he looked like a scared kid.”
“Jack, you made contact with a native while I was sleeping?” Daniel sounded just as upset as he really would if this happened on some other world and Jack committed the terrible crime of not waking him.
“Daniel, we didn’t even talk-we just looked at each other.”
“An escaped prisoner?”
“He didn’t look like a murderer or anything. He looked like a refugee!”
“Well, we’ve met murderers who don’t look like it before, need I remind you?”
“Oh, that’s rich, coming from you.”
Daniel glowered. It looked very real. Jack suddenly wondered if he had gone too far.
“Still, Jack, you should have consulted me before making any sort of decision.”
Nah, that wasn’t hurt in Daniel’s eyes. It was excitement, as they improvised this little drama for their interrogator. Officer Grumpy Beller just continued to stare at them, letting them rant, gathering intel just the way they would have.
“Hey, I’m the colonel here. I’m still the commanding officer.”
“Yes, but I’m the cultural expert, and you’re supposed to defer to me in matters relating to my field. And contact with the first person we’ve seen in another galaxy certainly falls under that distinction!”
“Oh, you think you would have been able to tell that he was a dangerous convict on the lam?”
“I don’t know! I might have! You didn’t give me a chance!”
“There wasn’t time! I made the best decision I could based on the information I had!”
“What information? You saw a kid in a dark cave. What, did you think he was just out a little past curfew or something?”
“Or something! Daniel, the kid was covered with cuts and bruises! He looked like he was having trouble breathing, he was limping, and he was terrified! What was I supposed to do, yell ‘Freeze! Police!’ and knock him to the ground?”
“He was . . . Oh.” Daniel sat back, looking very much like a boat that had been sailing along beautifully until the wind suddenly died and it ran into a rock. “He . . . Oh. He was covered with cuts and bruises?” The archaeologist leaned toward Jack again, his hand out, a new kind of accusation sharpening his voice. The wind had come back very nicely. “The native, a kid by your description, a child, was having trouble breathing? Jack, he was obviously in distress! You should have stopped him and offered some help!”
Jack threw his hands into the air in exasperation. “I just can’t win with you, can I?”
“You should have woken me!”
“Daniel.” For cryin’ out loud, you really need to calm down.
“Jack.” Calm? Calm? I’ll show you calm.
“Daniel!” I’m not going to win this one, am I?
“Jack!” You bet your sweet cornbread you’re not going to win this one, you sorry, sorry military idiot.
Daniel could be really vicious in these body language and voice tone wars.
Grumpy Officer Beller cleared his throat, and Daniel whirled on him, one long, elegant finger pointing at him, promising retribution, hard eyes and set mouth promising that it would be fiery.
Just as quickly Daniel turned back to Jack, his voice hard and quiet. “These cuts and bruises . . . did they look like the kind you get escaping and running and maybe falling down in some rocks, or the kind you get from bunches of fists and maybe a few implements?”
“The second kind.” Jack gave him a tense little nod. I get where you’re going, Danny boy. Retaking the high ground, indeed.
They both whirled to Commander Grumpy, faces hard set in moral outrage.
“You,” Jack growled. “If he escaped from here, it was you. A kid, Commander? A kid? Is that how desperate you are?”
“We’re not talking to you anymore,” Daniel said, snub nose raised in just the same snooty tilt that would be used by an elementary-age schoolgirl saying the exact same words to someone she didn’t like. “We refuse to negotiate with someone who tortures children, and we demand to speak with a real leader.”
Okay, that might be laying it on a little thick, Danny. Just a little.
But Grumpy Beller just gave them a tight nod, turned on his heel, and marched out.
Well, that might have worked. Or it might have signed them up for a lot more trouble.
X
Obi-Wan had insisted that he could walk, and Sam hadn’t felt much like arguing after the whole mind control thing, so she had let him. (Teal’c had probably let him do it for an entirely different reason, like warrior-brotherly-respect or something, but she wasn’t asking.) But after several hours of wandering purposefully through the woods, doubling back and leaving false trails for the canoids to follow once they figured out that they needed to go back to the cave, the boy wasn’t looking so good.
Strike that-he hadn’t looked that great from the time they started walking. But as time had passed he had gradually lost all of the healthy color he’d managed to win back. His breathing came more and more hard, sweat began to reappear on his face, and he started to hunch a little as he walked. And then he started trembling, just very lightly, and Sam had had enough.
“Let’s take five,” she said, pointing to a defensible position on a slight rise immediately to their right, covered with dense vegetation.
Teal’c merely nodded assent, but Sam didn’t miss his hand coming under Obi-Wan’s arm to support him as they climbed the incline. Once they were behind the screen of underbrush, Obi-Wan sank gratefully down against a tree, still fighting for breath. Teal’c pulled a canteen off his pack, opened it, and placed it in the boy’s hand. Sam knelt beside them, keeping an eye on the countryside.
Obi-Wan stared at the canteen in incomprehension until Sam gently nudged his arm. “Drink.” He glanced at her, large bluish-green eyes blank and glazed, then back at the large, heavy object in his hand. He lifted it to his lips and took a slow, cautious sip, then another, working hard at not drawing it into his lungs along with gasps of air. His hands trembled, and he struggled to hold them steady.
Sam settled down beside him, one hand lightly stroking his tense shoulder. No, she would not reach over and help him hold the canteen. She would let him keep his dignity. After a lifetime of living with military boys-particularly the last few years spent with her own peculiar set of male siblings-Sam knew she shouldn’t try to help.
“We need a plan,” she said instead, desperate for distraction. “We can’t just keep eluding these guys forever. We need a goal and a course of action to reach it.”
Obi-Wan lowered the canteen and let it rest in his lap. “I need to contact my Master. We were . . . we were in the city, Tholia. It is too far to reach on foot . . . especially with canoids on our trail.” He let his head fall back against the trunk with a weary sigh. “I wish I had my com-link. And my lightsaber.” He smiled gloomily. “Or my Master. That would be nice.”
Sam managed a small, tight smile, but she couldn’t make it stay on her face for very long. “We’ll get you to him,” she said softly. She considered for a moment, then unclipped her radio. “What about this? We use these to communicate, but they’re relatively short range. I might be able to boost it, though, with a little fiddling. Do you have any idea if the technology might be at all compatible?”
Obi-Wan accepted the radio and turned it over in both hands. His fingers still shook, very slightly, but they were nimble and skilled. It didn’t take him long to find all the buttons and figure out what they did.
He looked up at her, eyes bright and curious, no longer dull with fatigue and helplessness. “Can you show me how to open it so I can look at the components inside?”
This time Sam was able to make her smile stick around for a little while longer. “Allow me.”
X
They were making them wait for it again. Jack looked at his watch for the third time in ten minutes, drumming his fingers on the table. It was times like this that he really hated, when they’d done everything they could, made all their arguments (literally, in this case), and it was up to some alien to make a decision before he knew what to do next. He was good at acting and reacting, but this was something else.
Even Daniel seemed restless, He of the Perpetual Curiosity, able to study a shard of a broken alien toilet for hours and be really excited about it. This room was bare and empty, no squiggles or rocks or . . . anything. Jack felt a little sorry for his bored archaeologist, but not as much as he felt for himself.
“Doing all right, Daniel?”
“Yeah. Just wondering about . . .” Daniel made a vague motion with his head.
“Ah.”
Jack hadn’t really let himself think about Sam or Teal’c very much. They’d gotten out of the cave before the dog-things came through, that much was obvious. After that . . . well, they hadn’t been caught yet. They’d have heard some sort of commotion, even if Beller didn’t come in to gloat.
Jack couldn’t do anything for them, so he tried not to waste his effort thinking about it. There were no two people he trusted more to carry out a military operation, whether it was as complex as a battle or as simple as a strategic retreat like this one. Teal’c had the experience of ten human generals, and Carter would see the ins and outs of any situation and be able to make decisions.
The only real complication, of course, was that they were currently just a tiny bit hampered by the weight of an unconscious adolescent boy.
But Jack wasn’t going to worry about it.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” he said.
Daniel nodded, and stared at the door for awhile.
“What about that kid you saw last night?” he asked eventually. “Do you think he’s okay?”
“Yeah.” Jack drummed his fingers a little harder. “He made it that far. I’m sure he made it wherever he was going.”
“Yeah. I’m sure you’re right.”
Jack went back to refining escape plans in his head-just figuring stuff out in case this whole thing went south. He had a couple dozen, depending on how many tried to guard them, how alert they were, and what kind of weapons they were carrying. It wasn’t an unusual exercise for him. He did it all the time, in restaurants, stores, boring meetings, Daniel’s ruins, that kind of thing.
He was going over the layout of the building he’d seen on the way to this room from the outside for the fifth time when Beller finally returned. Jack flicked him an incurious glance, head resting on his hand. “Hey, Commander,” he said with deliberate insolence.
“O’Neill. Jackson.”
Daniel Jackson tilted his nose upward again, mouth primly shut. Jack looked at his fingernails. “Dr. Jackson,” he informed his counterpart. “Three times over, if you were wondering.”
And Daniel had to break his silence at that. Jack had known he wouldn’t be able to keep it up very long. “Jack is a colonel,” he said frostily. “Short memory?”
Yeah, they could insult each other all they wanted, but let some outsider show the slightest hint of less than perfect respect . . .
The corners of Beller’s mouth turned down a tiny bit farther than they had been already. “I have relayed your request to my superiors, and they have agreed. I will now escort you to the city, Tholia, to meet with the governor. I will be sure to inform him of your proper titles. You have been recognized as ambassadors from your planet.”
“Earth,” Jack said helpfully. “It’s called Earth. You can call us the Tau’ri, or Earthlings. Either works.”
The commander nodded, but Jack continued to savor the way his lips twisted, as if he was being force-fed something sour, or maybe spoiled.
X
After a long discussion about frequencies, power, and atmospheric differentials, frequently interrupted for tangential conversations to define terms in words they both understood, Sam and Obi-Wan decided that it might-might-be possible for them to interface the technologies of their completely disparate worlds. Obi-Wan adapted quickly to her tools, strange as they were to his hands. Then he set to work on Sam’s radio and other assorted scientific paraphernalia, trying to MacGyver something that could reach his Master’s communicator.
Sam was pleased. Several of her goals were being met. They were working on a way out of this, but more importantly, Obi-Wan was distracted, busy, hopeful, and resting-without protest-while they took care of him. He’d already absently eaten two power bars Sam had casually placed in his hand while they were talking, taking only a moment to remark that the Earthlings’ rations tasted a bit better than similar fare in the Republic. Teal’c had slipped away a couple of times to keep an eye on their enemies, and though Sam knew Obi-Wan was aware of this, he hadn’t commented on it. Everything was going as well as could be expected, under the circumstances.
Not to mention that it was just plain fun for Sam to be able to talk electronics with someone from another galaxy. Though Obi-Wan insisted that he was by no means an expert, it was plain that he had an interest in technology, and a fair bit of talent with it. It was also refreshing to discover an alien world where technology was in more-or-less familiar circuits and wire, rather than the crystal technology so ubiquitous in the Milky Way.
Everything was strange, but somehow familiar, as Obi-Wan had been from the beginning. They had all recognized him, it seemed, even though they’d never seen him before. And he had recognized them. No wonder, then, that they had so quickly and easily come to trust and rely on each other. They were all familiar strangers.
She was already looking forward to meeting this Qui-Gon Jinn. He must be a remarkable man, to have earned the utter confidence of this remarkable boy. Obi-Wan was certain that if they could only contact him, he would make everything right. In another person it might have seemed like naiveté. But in Obi-Wan, faith was strength.
A lot like Daniel, actually.
After a while, though, Sam started to wonder if Obi-Wan’s eyes were a bit too bright, his movements too energetic. She had been watching him pull out and reconnect components and wire in what would have looked like an incomprehensible mish-mash if she hadn’t had a vague idea of what he was doing. Though she was unable to help for the most part, beyond holding the odd wire for him, she was fascinated by the process. But now she leaned forward and touched the boy’s knee.
She smiled when he looked up, face open and generous, ready to answer her questions. “I was just wondering how you were feeling. Are you all right? I worried, when you came out of your trance too early. I was afraid that might be harmful.”
He smiled back, warm and bright, pleased that she had thought of him. “Thank you for your concern, but early waking is not harmful. The Force warned me of danger-I knew that I needed to be conscious, or we would all be captured. It’s true that I wasn’t able to finish healing, though. I have difficulty with self-healing at the best of times.”
“Not one of your many talents, huh?”
He seemed to take this as a joke, chuckling quietly, as if the idea of himself as a talented person was completely nonsensical. “No, no. Just one of my many faults and weaknesses.”
Sam felt her forehead wrinkle, but refused to allow herself to be distracted. “But how are you, then? You didn’t have time to finish healing-are the internal injuries still troubling you? Do you feel hot, chilled, dizzy, or nauseated? I know you’re exhausted, but how bad is it, exactly? Maybe you should take a break, give yourself some time.”
The smile faded and he shook his head, looking down at the mess of electronics in his lap. “I’m well enough. The internal injuries were almost completely healed, as well as some of the larger wounds on my body. I am tired, yes, but I don’t need to stop. We have to get out of these woods before they find us.”
“Yes, of course.”
But Sam heaved a small, silent sigh. Another similarity between this determined boy and her passionate friend-a marked tendency to hide their pain, to push themselves beyond exhaustion, and to take all burdens on their own shoulders. “Well enough” sounded like “I’m fine”-all-purpose and completely unreliable.
Then she and Teal’c would just have to treat this young man with same care as they did their friend. At least they had practice.
Sam continued to watch her new friend work. But after their brief exchange, it seemed to go downhill. Obi-Wan’s movements became shorter and sharper, his face bent over the electronic hash, shoulders hunching and forehead wrinkling. He kept rechecking certain circuits with her voltage gauge, shaking his head, reconfiguring something else, then trying again. Steadily his fingers grew more and more shaky, and he wiped the sweat from his face with an already-filthy sleeve, all but panting in frustration and weariness.
And Sam felt utterly helpless. Everyone at the SGC seemed to think that she could do anything with technology, that she only needed a quick glance and a moment of fiddling to work a miracle. But she only barely understood what Obi-Wan was trying to do here, and she could offer nothing. Obviously the power requirements were not being met, but they had already looped in everything she had. Once again the Tau’ri were “too young,” too inexperienced, too far behind.
At last he looked up at her, and then to Teal’c, his expression stiff, trying desperately to hold despair at arm’s length. “I can’t do it,” he murmured. “I need one of our own power sources, smaller and more efficient. This is just . . . it isn’t enough. I . . . not enough.”
Sam wondered if it was truly possibly for a human heart to be broken by two whispered words. “Not enough.” No one should feel that what they had to offer was not enough, especially not someone this young, this bright and brave and talented. “Not enough.” It was the most damning of self-accusations.
And she hoped, she prayed, that in this one way, Obi-Wan and Daniel were not alike. She never wanted to see that look on her brother’s face.
Teal’c turned his head to look down the hill, and Sam followed his gaze.
“A patrol is approaching,” the Jaffa informed them, his voice completely calm. “They will reach this position within half an hour.”
“Then that’s it.” Obi-Wan sighed, carefully shifting the mess of wire off his lap. “I can do nothing else.”
Teal’c gave him a steady look. “We are not at the end of our resources, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“I never wanted you . . . I never wanted anyone else to be in danger because of me. If you leave now, they’ll never know you were here.”
“We can’t do that, Obi-Wan,” Sam said gently. “We know you now. We’re involved. We’re not going to leave you.”
“But I cannot ask you to fight for me!”
“You don’t have to ask. You don’t have to say a word.”
Teal’c raised one eyebrow. “And there are alternatives to fighting.”
Part 5