The Roots That Clutch - Part Two

[tittamiire]

written for the Apocalypse_Kree ficathon

Part Two

“We are approaching Woronsen,” Teal’c’s voice finally intoned over the ships internal communications and Vala jumped up to head to the control room. She was eager to be off this ship. She’d seen merrier funerals, much merrier ones in fact, but then she’d been to a few where everyone had turned up just to make sure the bastard in question was dead. Siler had been watching her and he had to drop what he had been working on to catch up with her (he’d been using a wrench? What on an Alkesh was repaired with a wrench?). He was looking rather relieved too, he didn’t appear to have enjoyed Vala’s company for the last three hours as she pinged around the room.

He overtook Vala to enter the control room first and then pulled up suddenly to a stop and attempted to look like he’d actually been in charge. The Colonel acknowledged him with a nod and looked towards Vala.

“We’re in orbit around Woronsen,” he informed her and gestured to the screen that showed the pleasantly blue-green planet below.

“Southern hemisphere, from our perspective anyway, there is a large city where the Stargate is.”

Teal’c brought the Alkesh’s scanners up and scanned around. He put an image up onto the screen, “This city?”

“That looks right.”

“Set us down nearby,” the Colonel ordered and stood up from the chair as Teal’c did as instructed. Sam, Daniel and he moved towards the door close to where Vala was.

“We’ll get prepped, Siler, soon as she’s down she’s all yours.”

“Yes Sir.”

“So, Vala, where about are these contacts we need to meet?”

This time it was Vala’s turn to hurry to keep up, “Guy by the name of Praysul, he has a base of operations near the city centre. But I’ll get word to him and then we can meet up with him in a bar where there’ll be less macho territorialism going on.”

“And this Platypus will have what we need?”

“Praysul and yes, well I can’t guarantee anything, but that’s what he was into the last time I saw him.”

The three others stopped outside a door and the Colonel opened it. They began to pull out weapons.

“Woah, woah, do you want to send this deal south before you’ve even started?” Vala protested.

The Colonel looked at her, his clip holding hand poised over his gun, and raised an eyebrow in question.

“Sam and I will go in without obvious weapons. You guys can stay on the edge of town for back up or whatever, but no show of force.”

“Why Sam?”

“Praysul has a soft spot for women.”

Sam rolled her eyes and the Colonel looked warningly at Vala.

“Oh not like that,” Vala tutted, “get your mind out of the gutter. He just underestimates us.”

~~~

Sam’s leg jiggled and shook the table while her hands toyed with the untouched glass of clear spirits in front of her.

“You need to relax,” Vala warned her, “drink up.”

“You haven’t drunk yours.”

“I don’t look ready to break someone’s face.”

Sam scowled at her, but she did almost relax. She at least sat still though she looked like she was concentrating on relaxing, which perhaps missed the point, but got a similar result. Vala drummed her finger nails lightly on her glass and waited.

Praysul was predictably late. He liked the idea of people waiting around for him and the message of uncaring he imagined it conveyed. Vala thought he was a bit of a dick, especially when he walked in flanked by half a dozen extremely well muscled guards, but he had his uses. Praysul was small and looked disproportionately frail for his age as he arrived in the bar and sidled over to them.

“Ah, my lady, it is always a pleasure to see you.”

“Praysul you slimy bastard, the last time you saw me was looking back as you accelerated away and abandoned me on that dung heap of a planet surrounded by some very angry people.”

“Bygones my girl, bygones, who wants to live in the past hmm?”

“I’m just reminding you that despite the massive grudge I bear you I have willingly brought some business your way.”

“Quite, well, let’s see what business you’ve brought me first, hmm?” He looked towards Sam curiously.

“Carter. We’re looking to purchase crystals and spare parts.”

“Oh so harsh and to the point,” Praysul mock winced at her words, “A business deal is a work of art and should be savoured.” He took a seat on the remaining stool and waved for the bartender.

“Now then, what specifically would you like to acquire from us.”

“Crystals for various systems within a Goa’uld Alkesh, cannon components too, casing and a power source as a priority and tools if you have them.”

“Ah, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“You don’t have what we need?”

“Hmm? I do have some of the things you need, but no, I just don’t believe you have anything to offer in return.”

“We have knowledge and information that you may find useful. We have components of other Goa’uld ships that could be of use to you. We have access to unrefined naquadah.”

Praysul shook his head slowly, “Nothing of use my dear. I have no access to any refineries for naquadah, it is useless for trade unless it is refined and I have all the information and spare parts I need.”

“You rat Praysul, you never had any intention of trading with us,” Vala said levelly and grimly.

The little man smiled coldly at her, “Of course not. I just wanted to finish what I thought I’d done when I abandoned you on that planet.”

He clicked his fingers and slid from the stool out of their reach in a slick move as his henchmen encroached.

Sam and Vala slid from their own stools and Sam gave Vala a dirty look, “Is your entire life a cliché?"

"That or a running joke," Vala suggested. She reached for her gun from the small of her back and pointed it at the advancing henchmen who were reaching for their own weapons.

"Duck?" Vala suggested and she and Sam threw themselves behind the table as the henchmen opened fire. Energy and bullets ricocheted off the table

“Back way out,” Sam declared with a hand already going to Vala's collar to fling her in the direction of the door. A fire fight against half a dozen men (albeit one of them missing an eye and thus lacking depth perception as well) wasn't balanced in their favour. Sam fired a couple of unsuccessful shots over the table before she followed and then they were running down steps and through the twisted maze of corridors that made up the underbelly of the inn. Vala whooped when she launched herself down half a dozen steps and skidded to fire discouragingly back at their pursuers. She never felt more alive than when someone was trying to kill her and the thrill of the chase was undeniable. Sam ran seriously.

"What did you do to that guy anyway?" Sam asked as they burst out of the back of the building and sent a bin of rubbish tumbling into the alley.

"I didn't do anything," Vala stated with a quick glance around before they set off again towards the main street and the hopeful obscurity of a large crowd. "It's not my fault his son fell helplessly in love with me. I tried to let the boy down gently, but he just thought I was playing hard to get."
They slowed down when they hit the crowds, threading and wending their way forward with many a backwards glance for their pursuers.

"Crouch Sam," Vala told her.

"Huh?" She asked, mid peer back.

"You're a little distinctive from a distance, even in this crowd."

"Oh," Sam's hand went to her hair and she did indeed endeavour to crouch a little.

"You should have a hat, a hat would work," Vala ducked to avoid a trader selling chickens at the top of his voice and then pulled Sam into an alley way. They paused for breath finally and Vala looked cautiously back the way they had come for any signs of pursuit.

"I think we lost them," she declared and relaxed. She was out of breath and she bent double to catch it back. Sam watched her calmly, she was breathing deeply, but nowhere near as out of breath as Vala was.

"Any other contacts?"

Vala shook her head, "We could try, but I am pretty sure that Praysul will have threatened the major players with retribution if they helped us and the smaller ones won't have what you need."

"Would they help us?" Sam asked, indicating herself and her absent crew and clearly excluding Vala.

"Probably, maybe if you sent in a couple of the guys. I can give you some names and probable locations."

"Excellent," Sam handed her a pencil and paper.

Vala wrote the names down and handed the paper back, "Well, it was entertaining at least. Thanks for the ride."

"Are you sure you want to stay here after what just happened?"

"Sure, why not? Oh Praysul, he'll get over it eventually."

"Why don't you go to a planet where no one wants to kill you?"

"Those planets are boring."

Sam shook her head, but smiled with it, "Thanks for this.”

"Thanks for getting me off that horrible moon. Well, be seeing you," Vala tucked her gun into her trousers and waved at Sam before disappearing into the crowd.

~~~

It was Daniel that tracked her down several days later as she indulged in a little light-hearted and below the radar swindling on the outskirts of the town. He lurked impatiently while she finished the game, standing with his arms folded and those blue eyes scowling at her. She won the game and while her opponents looked hatefully at her she swept her winnings off the table and flounced over to Daniel. He considered the malicious looking crowd behind her.

"Haven't you ever thought of not pissing people off so much that they want to hurt you?"

"Where's the fun in that?" She shovelled the winnings into her pockets and obtrusively linked her arm through his to lead him out of the bar.

He pulled his arm away from her the moment they stepped out of the door, "Your contacts were no good."

"Ah, Praysul must have got to them, hmm, he must hate me more than I thought," she finished brightly.

Daniel shook his head at her, "Is there anyone else?"

"I gave you the name of everyone I thought would be able to help," she shrugged blithely.

"Think harder."

"Ah ah, I held up my end of the bargain, you guys held up yours. I don't do anything for free."

"We could work out some kind of payment?"

"That's more like it. How dirty are you willing to get your hands?"

"What are you suggesting?"

"There's a secret warehouse of a certain Goa'uld, which a small, but efficient team could easily infiltrate and steal from."

"It'll have what we need?"

"More than you could need. It’s used to supply various ship yards.”

"We'll need details and to discuss a plan."

"I want fifty percent."

"We'll need to discuss that too."

Vala linked her arm through Daniel's again, despite his glower, and walked with him out of the town towards the Alkesh.

"Isn't it so nice when everyone gets along?"

"Can you give me my watch back?" he asked.

~~~

“In there,” she indicated the squat building lit only by surrounding braziers a few hundred metres ahead of them. The firelight reflected on the typically tacky gold the Goa’uld adored and made the building glow in the dense, starless dark. The cloudy night sky hung low and oppressive, obscuring the tops of nearby hills and making this attack feel oddly intimate.

“There’s an entrance on the right end that is the least heavily guarded. Once we’re inside there will be few guards, but lots and lots of locked doors,” she pointed out the door and Colonel O’Neill swept his field glasses to that area. She knew she was repeating information at this point, but she didn’t want to miss anything out and risk getting them all killed.

“Not a problem,” the Colonel muttered as he swept the field glasses slowly left and right on the scene.

“Okay,” he tucked the binoculars into the pocket of the worn and tattered black vest he’d chosen to wear and kept his eyes on the building as he spoke. “I count twenty guards altogether, patrolling predictable routes that overlap each other. There are three we’ll need to take out to get in the door Vala has indicated and we’ll not have long before the alarm is raised, but it should be enough.”

The others nodded. They’d been over and over the plan.

“Daniel, you’re on minding duty,” the Colonel finished and Vala felt a tinge of irritation at needing to be ‘minded’. She could understand why they didn’t trust her with a weapon, but she was more than capable of keeping herself out of trouble. The Colonel, Sam and Teal’c pulled narrow black tube like objects from their gear and attached them to their weapons.

“Silencers,” explained Daniel when he saw Vala’s look.

“Move out,” muttered the Colonel to them, and they did, keeping low and scurrying after him through the long grass towards their target. He signalled to them to drop when they were just under a hundred metres from the door and they all fell to knees or fronts, Daniel tugged Vala down next to him. The Colonel held up his P90, with silencer and took out the Jaffa guard visible from this end. He waved them on again and they moved. It was Teal’c who took out the next guard, with hardly a pause in his step. They were close to the door now, Daniel and Vala bringing up the rear. Colonel O’Neill dropped behind the remains of a low wall. He kept his gun trained on the nearest Jaffa guard and waved two of them forward. Sam and Teal’c lead the way to press against the wall where the door was. There was one more guard to take out who should be just around the corner. Sam peered around the corner and held up her hand to signal stop to Teal’c behind her.

They all froze. The only movement was their breath curling in front of each of them in the chill night air. Sam slowly lifted her P90 and edged round the corner. Vala found that she was holding her breath. There was the sound of a muffled shot and a thud. Sam kept her attention around the corner but signalled back the all clear to the rest of the team with her hand. Vala let out the breath she had been holding as Teal’c and Colonel O’Neill darted forwards as well to check the all clear. There were no signs of any further guards and Colonel O’Neill signalled Daniel and Vala over. They reached the door as Sam set to work on the door lock, prising the panel off with the back of her knife blade and delving into the innards of the controls.

“No rush Carter,” whispered Colonel O’Neill to her impatiently, but Sam didn’t even glance at him as she worked. The door popped open with a hiss and a satisfied grin from Sam. She and Teal’c pressed themselves each side of the doorway and carefully pointed first his gun, and then his head around the doorway. He signalled Jack and Sam through the doorway as he continued to cover them and then Daniel and Vala followed.

They paused in the corridor for Sam to rig the door behind them to slow down anyone trying to get after them as much as possible and then they were off again. They switched to using zat’s inside as the mission got progressively less stealthy and they could afford to make more noise. Like outside, the corridors were lined with lit braziers that bounced their meagre light off the walls, making it much brighter than it should have been in there from just the firelight alone. Vala hadn’t been here recently enough and the memories had been deeply buried so she wasn’t sure of the way, but she did her best to direct them down the twisting corridors. They encountered few guards and took them out with the zats. Vala tugged on Daniel’s jacket as they reached a particular corridor.

“Here,” she whispered and they all stopped. “The next corridor there will be a large door with two guards outside it, what you need should be in there.” Colonel O’Neill pressed himself against the wall and peered round the corner quickly. He nodded back to the rest of them to confirm that there were indeed two guards as Vala had said. Vala was painfully aware of how long they were taking. The alarm would definitely have been raised by now and they were on borrowed time. Jack communicated to Teal’c, via hand gestures, that they would move together and he would take the near guard and Teal’c the far guard.

Vala didn’t see exactly how it played out, but it obviously worked because Daniel was off around the corner with Vala hot on his heels. Sam was already forcing the store-room door open and as soon as there was a viable gap she and Daniel were crawling under the door and into the room.

“Nice,” Daniel commented at the large room filled with everything a Goa’uld ship builder could need. The Colonel and Teal’c ducked under the nearly fully open door and looked around.

“Load up,” the Colonel instructed and gestured to Teal’c to keep watch while the rest of them robbed. Sam poked around specifically and loaded her pack with bits and pieces that Vala didn’t recognise. The Colonel busied himself with filling his pack with anything he could lay his hands on and Daniel poked in boxes, presumably looking for something. Vala shook her head and followed the Colonel’s lead in grabbing as much as possible in the limited time they had.

It wasn’t enough. There was the unmistakable thud of Jaffa boots.

“We’re outta time, let’s go,” Colonel O’Neill told them, grabbing crystals out of the box open in front of him and stuffing them into his pockets to keep both his hands free. Their packs were pretty full by now. Daniel indicated to Vala that she should grab the other end of the long and narrow box he’d just been looking in. She gave him a dirty look, but did anyway. They knew they wouldn’t get out the way they had come in now, but they had other plans anyway.

Colonel O’Neill grabbed the small black communicator from his pocket. “Siler, you ready?”

“Almost Sir, will be by the time you get to the rings, Sir”

“Let’s move”

Colonel O’Neill and Teal’c had kept their hands free and switched back to the far more deadly P90’s they were armed with. There was shouting out in the corridor now as they grabbed as much loot as they could take with them and piled it ready to be grabbed as soon as they’d taken care of the Jaffa yelling and banging in the corridor as they attacked the doors. The door started to open in short bursts of movement, despite Carter’s preventative measures and Colonel O’Neill and Teal’c rolled Jaffa flash grenades under the gap at the bottom of the door.  They all ducked behind anything they could and waited for the blinding white light and the noise to fade. The grenades hadn’t succeeded in taking out all the Jaffa and those who remained conscious made their presence felt with staff blasts aimed at the gap under the door as it started to move again.

“Let’s rock and roll”

Vala elbowed Daniel. “Can I have something?” He glared at her, but handed her a Zat anyway.

“Move!” The Colonel yelled at them and Daniel was almost pulling her along with the other end of the box. They had to drop to their knees to crawl under the jammed door and trust that the Colonel and Teal’c were laying down effective cover fire. The corridor was a scene of devastation and littered with unconscious, dead or seriously injured Jaffa. Staff fire reflected off the golden walls like deadly firelight. Vala felt unusually vulnerable. This wasn’t the element of war that she was familiar with and a very loud part of her was telling her to put her head down and run away from it. The others were confident and they fought without a blink of fear or a flinch at death. Sam had lost her zat somehow and had seized a staff weapon from one of the Jaffa as a replacement. She was as competent with the weapon as any first prime Vala had seen (except Teal’c) and that alone was unsettling. Daniel was pulling on his end of the box before Vala had a chance to stand up and she swore at him.

Once they were all clear Teal’c was waving them down a corridor towards the ring room and there was more firing, but Vala couldn’t tell exactly where it was all coming from. Her peripheral vision was focused on keeping an eye out for anyone trying to shoot her and occasionally taking out a Jaffa if she saw them lining anyone else up. Maybe that was all everyone was doing, just trying to stay alive and keep each other alive, but they seemed so efficient. Daniel pulled up in front of the door to the ring room and Vala bashed her knee into the edge of the wooden crate, but didn’t feel it. She dropped behind the box to begin firing the loaned Zat towards their attackers. Sam peeled back from her position to crouch next to the door and gut the control panel. She flinched when shots came particularly close, but worked with an impossible level of calm to bust the door open for them. The door relinquished its lock with a resigned sigh and then they were peeling back and stumbling through the doorway into the ring room. Vala and Daniel found themselves side by side as they grabbed one end of the box and dragged it after them. Sam ducked and swung herself through the doorway to begin trying to close it behind them. The Colonel was flinging their haul into the circle of the rings and shouting inaudibly into the radio for Siler. Vala used the crate as cover and fired out at any signs of life beyond the doorway.

“Down,” Vala heard Daniel yell right in her left ear. He impacted with her as he yelled and she felt the direction of his jump turn into a fall as a staff blast hit him in the chest and forced him backwards. The staff blast burned Vala where some of it had still hit her in the side and knocked her back. When she hit the floor behind the box she bounced limply. The door was closing now. Too late to do Daniel any good, but protection for the rest of them and a last few shots from both sides impacted the closing sections.
It was uncomfortably quiet behind the doors. The Colonel was already at Daniel’s side when Vala managed to roll over painfully.

“Daniel,” Sam called, but there was little chance of him answering her. His chest was a massive burn and when he exhaled bubbles of blood popped and gathered at the corners of his mouth. The Colonel scooped him up into his arms and staggered into the ring circle where Teal’c already was. Vala and Sam both scrambled to join them, grabbing their haul almost as an afterthought and Sam called for Siler again into her radio. Someone hammered on the door angrily, but all the violence seemed so far away. The rings engaged and Vala exhaled on reflex.

Prologue
Part One

Part Three
Part Four