Archaeology (27a/30)
Title: Archaeology ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen
Chapter1a-- 1b Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5 Chapter6 Chapter7a-- 7b Chapter8 Chapter9a-- 9b Chapter10 Chapter11 Chapter12a-- 12b Chapter13a-- 13b Chapter14a-- 14b Chapter15a-- 15b Chapter16a-- 16b Chapter17a-- 17b Chapter18 Chapter19a-- 19b Chapter20a-- 20b Chapter21 Chapter22a-- 22b Chapter23 Chapter24 Chapter25 Chapter26
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Chapter 27: Vorash
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11 July 2001; Cronus's Hatak; 1200 hrs
Daniel had imagined doing many things upon joining SG-1 two years ago. Playing chess with a Tok'ra in the cargo hold of a Goa'uld mothership was not one of them.
It wasn't even Jacob, though that would have been strange enough; General Hammond had asked Martouf if he wanted to accompany them. If Jacob was the Tau'ri representative to the Tok'ra, Martouf was his counterpart at the SGC, and he hadn't seen other Tok'ra for months.
There were concerns, of course. While Martouf and Lantash together had become fairly good at daily tasks, it still required far too much concentration for him to orient himself in an unfamiliar room or situation, much less an unfamiliar world or section of space. Still, while Jacob might be willing to give them all flying lessons, it wasn't something they were going to learn immediately. If Jacob and Teal'c were both busy and something went wrong, they would need someone who had some idea of what he was doing.
"My condition makes me particularly unsuited to flying," Martouf had pointed out, looking bemused. "The instincts I once used for such tasks...my muscular response to sensory input and processing is not optimal, and..."
"You still know what all the buttons do, right?" Jack had pointed out. "You can backseat-fly."
Daniel was pretty sure that it was a combination of the prospect of returning to visit his own people briefly, spending free time in a ship with Sam, and going on any sort of mission at all that convinced the man that he should join them.
So while everyone else was running around the ship (Jack), examining the engineering room (Sam), or helping Jacob fly the ship and check the controls (Teal'c), Daniel found himself playing a strategy game with a former Tok'ra operative. Sam said that Martouf liked to do puzzles and play games like this as a sort of brain-exercise, and they did have a long trip with many hours to pass.
"Can I ask a question?" Daniel said as he pushed a Rook three squares forward.
Martouf looked up, then back down at the board. "Of course. Remind me again--this piece may move...?"
"Like this," Daniel said, pointing diagonally outward from the Bishop in question. Martouf nodded and considered the board. "How separate are you and Lantash? I mean...does one mind control your, uh...body at a time? Or can Martouf talk while Lantash moves a chess piece?"
"Mm," Martouf said.
He didn't say anything else, though. Daniel wasn't sure whether it was because this was considered impolite conversation in Tok'ra company or he was just focusing on the game.
Then Martouf captured a Pawn, put it aside, and said, "When I speak, I am in control of this body. However, Lantash is never silent to me. In a very real sense, through influence, we share control."
"Is that how you think of it?" Daniel asked. "That's the body that either of you can use, not, well, Martouf's body that Lantash...entered?"
"We share this body without reservation," Martouf said. "But it is still Martouf's--one day, the body that you see will die, and Martouf along with it, while Lantash will live on."
"Oh. Right." Daniel started to pick up a Pawn and then put it back down without moving it. "Lantash would need to find another host, yes?"
"Yes."
He grimaced at the chessboard, debating simultaneously whether to move that Pawn or that Knight and whether to ask his question or not. In the end, he moved the Pawn and stayed quiet.
Perhaps Martouf had heard the question anyway, though, or had thought of it himself. "We are aware that few humans are willing to blend with a symbiote without understanding it," Martouf said calmly, "especially when that symbiote is not...completely whole. Lantash did suffer some damage from the zatarc device, if not as much as I."
Daniel glanced at his face. "I didn't mean... I mean, you seem to manage pretty well most of the time." Sam would get everyone to withhold coffee from him when they got back to base if she thought he was being mean to Martouf. Either that, or she'd help him with sparring.
But Martouf said, "There are certain things that both of our minds lack--the ability to strengthen some types of memories, for instance--but Dr. Fraiser believes those impairments in Lantash would be compensated by a fully functioning host's mind. In truth, if Lantash sought another host now, he might be able to return to our work as an operative."
Startled by the man's bluntness, and the lack of bitterness in his tone, Daniel could only say, "Uh...well. Okay."
A moment later, he looked up from the board and saw Martouf glaring at him. Daniel couldn't figure out what had brought that on, and then realized it was Lantash. "It will be many years before I will need another host," Lantash said, sounding annoyed. "I will not abandon Martouf to find a new host, if that is what you ask."
"No, no, no," Daniel assured him quickly. "I wasn't trying to imply that you would. It's just that, what with the secrecy on Earth, and because there aren't many actually available to volunteer as hosts..." Lantash glared a little more, so Daniel, realizing his utter lack of tact far too late, added, "Sorry. I didn't mean to pry. You won't need another host for many years, I know."
He looked back at the chessboard, so he only noticed peripherally when Lantash's posture relaxed to Martouf's less-offended seat. "Forgive us," Martouf said.
"No, forgive me," Daniel said, embarrassed. "I'm sorry. Sometimes I talk without thinking first."
Martouf smiled. "So does Lantash. Your move," he said, gesturing at the board.
"No, it's your turn."
"No, I am quite certain it is yours."
"No, it's not."
"Yes, it is."
The whole thing suddenly struck Daniel as absurd, and he snorted a laugh. Martouf's smile widened sheepishly.
"In the next days, the fate of the Tok'ra will rest in our hands," Martouf said ironically.
Daniel scratched his head, knowing he'd been distracted. He thought he remembered that Martouf might have made a move, but he was pretty sure he'd made one, too, while both of them had been distracted... Abandoning the game, he sat up straight and leaned back on his hands. "You and Lantash are, uh...very different."
"He can hear you," Martouf reminded him.
"I know--I'm not trying to talk behind his back."
"Then you are correct."
"You don't ever disagree on what to do?" Daniel asked. He imagined Martouf trying to walk to the left and Lantash to the right. He thought Lantash would win out but couldn't decide whether he thought that because Lantash was more boisterous or because Lantash was the Goa'uld. "I'm sorry--is this something I shouldn't be asking?" he said belatedly.
"Do not apologize for curiosity, Daniel," Martouf said. "I work in Samantha's laboratory--I am well accustomed to questions."
"You can tell people to mind their own business, you know, if we're bothering you."
"Between SG-1, General Hammond, and Lantash," Martouf said, "you may rest assured that I feel very well protected."
"Lantash is very protective of you," Daniel said. "Of Martouf, not just the whole...ensemble."
"Two minds do not have to be the same to be devoted to one another," Martouf said, then smiled. "But all of you on SG-1 must know that very well. I sometimes imagine that I can hear you and Colonel O'Neill shouting from two levels above."
Daniel flushed slightly at the exaggeration. "Jack and I are not symbiotic," he pointed out. "We'd go insane if our voices were in each other's heads."
Martouf laughed softly. "Perhaps," he acknowledged. "It is difficult for you to understand without having experienced a blending. It is not...a voice inside one's head. We are two voices, but we act as one."
"I...have no idea what that means," Daniel admitted.
"You wouldn't," Jacob's voice said. Daniel turned around to see him and Sam in the doorway. "Trust me--you can't really understand until you've been blended yourself."
"Hm," Daniel said, not wanting to accept that he just couldn't possibly know but not wanting to continue badgering Martouf, either.
"Has something happened?" Martouf said. "I thought you were flying the ship, Jacob."
"Teal'c's watching the controls while we're in hyperspace," Jacob explained. "Jack's...'helping.' I was getting bored and Sam and I wanted to know where you guys had disappeared to."
Martouf perked up. "Do you need help in the engine room, Samantha?"
"She'd better not be messing around with anything she needs help with," Jacob answered, giving his daughter a sideways look that was returned as a scowl.
"I haven't been messing around with anything, Dad!" she protested. "I'm just looking. There are areas I still don't completely understand, that's all."
"I could explain to you," Martouf offered.
Daniel looked one more time at their chess game, then cleared the board. Martouf looked like he wanted to go and join Sam, and neither of them could remember where they'd left off, anyway. So Martouf thanked Daniel politely for the game and Daniel thanked him back for answering all the questions, and Martouf left, trailing after Sam.
He'd already finished packing the chessboard away when he first realized Jacob was still standing in the doorway. "Something wrong?" Daniel asked, standing up.
Jacob shook his head. "You know the way back up to the peltak? It's a big ship."
"Oh. Well, thanks, but I'm sure I could've found it eventually on my own."
Walking with him back out of the room and around the admittedly-confusing corridor that led toward the upper level, Jacob said, "Teal'c tells me you killed Cronus with him."
Daniel had to laugh at that. "Only if you count distracting Cronus by being stepped on. I just got in the way long enough for Teal'c to shoot."
"Team effort," Jacob said, shrugging unconcernedly. "I tell you, next time we need someone completely undaunted by System Lords to help us on a mission, we'll come right to you. Pick your specialty--infiltration?" When Daniel's eyebrows shot up, Jacob said, "Worked on Seth. Worked on Cronus. I hear it's worked on Heru-ur and more than a few human enemies. You know what--we should make you an honorary Tok'ra spy."
"Uh...right," Daniel said, unsure whether to be amused or disturbed.
Even knowing it was meant as a compliment, if delivered with the teasing, somewhat patronizing tone he'd come to expect from Jacob, Daniel couldn't help feeling...not resentful, exactly, but not completely happy about it, either. He hadn't ever expected that someone would say his speciality was espionage instead of translation, or collecting intelligence instead of collecting data. And that last mission had been one of the ones whose results seemed different to those who had been there. He imagined some efficient employee in the Department of Defense might skim their reports and include it in the President's briefing as:
'SG-1: killed Cronus, gained mothership, freed approx. 1000 Jaffa (allegiance unconfirmed). Android technology could not be salvaged.'
"You okay?" Now Jacob was frowning at him. Daniel nodded but didn't say anything. "That was a joke, you know."
"I know."
"That wasn't your first mission by a long shot..." Jacob said, looking like he was trying to figure something out. "You sure you're good for this one? You said you were."
"And I'll do what we need to do to get the Tok'ra to their new base," he said, more sharply than he'd meant. "Sorry. It's... We lost some...some friends on Juna. I was just thinking."
"The robots." Apparently, someone had explained the whole thing to him. "Daniel, sometimes we're gonna lose people--"
"I know that."
"Think of it this way," Jacob said in a tone that sounded like he was trying to be encouraging. "At least it wasn't one of the real copies--no human casualties, I hear."
Daniel reminded himself that, before seeing the robots himself, he'd been expecting to see something that set them apart from the humans, and that no Tau'ri or even Tok'ra could probably imagine anything like what Harlan's people had managed to design.
"Three people died, General," he said stiffly. "Don't tell me they don't count."
Jacob wasn't thrown, though; he never was. "They died getting Cronus killed, then, or keeping you alive long enough to kill Cronus."
Maybe the problem was that the deaths of the androids was mixed with too much shame and guilt. They had failed to keep an eye on Juna after overthrowing Heru-ur's forces; they'd failed to consider the implications of leaving people on Harlan's planet; they'd used the other team's rescue mission to assassinate Cronus, and the rescue itself had been a complete failure.
Perhaps the worst part was that, if Daniel had been part of the team the first time they'd abandoned themselves on an alien planet, he knew he would have done the same, no matter how much he'd argued this time. There were simply few other choices, with the combined issues of power consumption and security. He couldn't even honestly claim to have missed the androids over the years, not when he'd had his friends with him. Knowing that only made it worse, because he knew they'd missed Earth. They had mattered in and of themselves, and Daniel almost wished he missed them more, because they deserved that.
"Hey," Jacob said and Daniel realized he had stopped walking. Regarding him solemnly, Jacob said, "All right--maybe I don't get it, but I know what it's like to lose someone. If you want, you go back to the SGC once we hit Vorash, and that's fine. No one'll say a word. But if you're staying with us..."
"No--I'm okay," Daniel said. "Jack wouldn't have let me come if I weren't." When Jacob didn't quite look convinced, he pointed out, "We're providing transportation. I won't have a nervous breakdown loading equipment onto a ship, Jacob."
To his relief, Jacob dropped it and only said, "Not quite that flaky, huh?"
If anyone else had said it, with anything other than that smirk Jacob always wore along with two-thousand years' worth of memories and experience, Daniel might have been offended. As it was, he huffed a laugh and said, "Not quite."
They emerged into the peltak, where Jack seemed to be so bored with staring out the window into hyperspace that he'd sprawled over a chair and staring at the ceiling instead.
"Who won?" Jack said, nodding at the small, folded chess set Daniel still held in his hand.
"We lost track of the game," Daniel had to admit.
Jack gave him an incredulous look that said, 'Martouf's brain-damaged; what's your excuse?' and said aloud, "Well, I'm going out of my mind here. Who wants to play?"
Daniel sank to the floor across the board from him and decided there was something comforting, too, in the way Jack's mind worked. Maybe Martouf and Lantash had it right, after all--he and Jack were so different as to seem completely incompatible, and yet he sometimes thought it was all that kept them sane.
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12 July 2001; Cronus's Hatak, Vorash; 1800 hrs
"There it is," Jacob said. Daniel looked up from the report he'd started to write in his notebook and peered outside.
Jack came in from wherever he'd been lurking and stood behind Jacob's seat. Daniel settled at Teal'c's side and saw Vorash loom into view under them. "They know we're coming, right?" Daniel said, remembering that the Tok'ra had all sorts of sensors and alarms to prevent aerial attacks.
"I have already signaled the base," Teal'c assured him. "The Council is expecting our arrival."
"Brace yourselves," Jacob said suddenly as the planet grew larger and larger in their window. "We'll hit atmosphere in three...two..."
Despite the warning, Daniel and Jack both found themselves skidding backward away from their places anyway. "Need to put in more chairs," Jack muttered, holding onto the bulwark at the back of the peltak.
The rumbling turbulence of their landing must have alerted Sam and Martouf, who hurried in to join them. "All right," Jacob said as they neared the barren-looking surface, "no one say a word to Tanith until we get him into a cell. If he tries to escape, there'll be enough people to stop him, but we don't want to risk any casualties or the chance he'll get to contact Apophis first."
"You are going to extract him, aren't you?" Sam said.
"Yeah, of course," he assured them.
They slowed, then finally stopped moving. "Keep your radios on," Jack ordered as they prepared to move toward the ring platform. "Anyone disembarking, help out if you can, and see if we can't speed this up. Or stay on board if you want--guard the ship from sticky Tok'ra fingers." Jacob gave him an exasperated look.
"Should I...?" Martouf said, stopping just outside the rings.
"Up to you," Jack said with barely a hesitation. "Stick with someone while you're down there, though. The tunnels have probably shifted a little since the last time you were there." Martouf glanced at Sam, then stepped onto the platform. "All aboard? Let's go!"
...x...
As it turned out, Daniel was a bit useless as people much stronger, more efficient, and more savvy than he worked to move things to the surface. He stood at the rings at first, intending to help, but soon decided he wasn't doing any good there.
He wasn't sure whether it was by accident or on purpose on some subconscious level, but it wasn't until he saw Teal'c striding toward Tanith's makeshift cell that he realized where he'd been wandering.
Teal'c wouldn't kill Hebron, though. Daniel was...well, kind of sure about that. Besides, there were Tok'ra guards around.
He loitered some distance away, where Teal'c couldn't see him and where Daniel would see when Teal'c walked out. The Tok'ra gave him odd looks but didn't bother him. He had a feeling the Tok'ra had decided to accept him and the rest of the unblended humans as oddities, anyway, who were best left alone unless they were interfering with something. They were probably just glad he was staying out of their way.
It seemed like hours before Teal'c walked out again, though his watch said it had been barely a minute. To Daniel's surprise--and a little alarm--there was a smug smile on his friend's face.
"Hi," he said, stepping out and unable to help a wary look toward Tanith's quarters.
Teal'c nodded to him, saw his glance and said, "He is awaiting his extraction."
"Right, of course."
"You feared I would do worse," Teal'c said, looking down at him.
"No," Daniel denied, then admitted, "Maybe. Everything okay?"
Teal'c's smile became frighteningly gleeful. "I look forward to crushing Tanith between my fingers as he crushed Shan'auc's symbiote between his."
"Oh," Daniel said. "That's...nice."
Teal'c had given Daniel his word about not killing Hebron to kill Tanith if he didn't have to, though, and he hadn't. Daniel liked to think Teal'c was being rational about Tanith in a controlled situations, not just hampered by the difficulties of killing him when surrounded by armed guards.
Teal'c didn't say anything, but he moved one step to the side, enough to invite Daniel to fall into place beside him as they made their way down the corridor. Despite how hectic things were here today, and despite the fact that they were far from home, it was nice to walk next to his friend for a while and not carry a gun or listen in paranoia for footsteps behind them.
As usual, Daniel broke the silence first, because silence was fine until it became boring. "Have you seen Sam?"
"Major Carter is taking Martouf to the control room, where he can explain to her the specifications of Goa'uld motherships," Teal'c said.
It was an oddly careful way of phrasing it, but then, Martouf was an odd Tok'ra. Daniel wondered what it was like for him to see tunnels that looked familiar but whose layout he couldn't quite hold onto in his mind without long study, or to need a human to make sure he didn't get lost but be able to explain technical details to her once he was there.
"Are you glad Cronus is dead?" Daniel asked.
Even though it seemed an easy question with an obvious answer, Teal'c knew what he meant and said, after a long moment, "It was not as I had thought it would be."
Daniel nodded slowly. "What did you think it would be?"
"I have yearned for the moment of Cronus's death at my hand," Teal'c said as they wandered aimlessly through the crystalline corridors. "In my thoughts, Cronus was surprised, or resigned to his fate, or fearful."
"But always with you standing over him," Daniel guessed, "not still the one being punished and just barely escaping with our lives."
"Indeed," Teal'c said, then didn't elaborate.
"The Goa'uld are still stronger than we are in most ways," Daniel said. "We're always going to be winning by...by chance or by stealth."
Teal'c nodded once. "Cronus is dead, and my father has been avenged. That is what matters. I only wish you had not nearly died for it to pass."
Daniel shrugged. He glanced around himself, then admitted quietly, "I've dreamed of Apophis being dead, too."
The images in his dream weren't always of the death itself, though. Sometimes he was the one who pulled the trigger, but sometimes, the dreams were of simply knowing Apophis was gone, not of seeing it or doing it himself. Often, it was vague in his mind, not concrete images, and sometimes he woke gasping and terrified and other times it was quiet and almost gentle. He never knew what to think about it, which confused him more than anything else.
But Apophis was a difficult topic to breach between the two of them without going into more than they could afford to do while off-world, so Daniel added, "But I guess we have a lot to do before we need to think about that, huh?"
"That is likely," Teal'c agreed. "In fact, we must first finish transporting the Tok'ra to their new base." He picked up one end of a large console that had already been disconnected from wherever it had been plugged in before and gave Daniel a pointed look. Daniel picked up the other end and helped carry it toward the rings.
...x...
13 July 2001; Vorash; 2200 hrs
It took the better part of a day to load most of the supplies onto their ship. It seemed a long time until Daniel considered that they were actually trying to transport all of the Tok'ra, and their entire base of operations, and their Stargate. In light of that, it was actually a remarkably quick business. Moving was one of the Tok'ra's specialties. They were so efficient, in fact, that Daniel had almost begun to believe they would actually finish a mission as planned this time.
In retrospect, he supposed he should really stop thinking silly things like that.
He pressed himself against the wall of a tunnel when an alarm sounded throughout the base, already anticipating the stream of Tok'ra that ran past him a second later.
"What happened?" Daniel called when he recognized Aldwin.
Aldwin barely slowed. "Tanith's escaped," he said, and ran on.
Minutes later, the alarms had turned back off, and the frantic rush had slowed, but only because the search party was on the surface with Jack and Teal'c, and everyone else had focused his or her energy on the final steps of their move.
Even then, Daniel was left being useless again. Sam and her father closed themselves in the council room with Martouf to talk, so Daniel loitered at the ring chamber, waiting for news.
Finally, Jack returned with the group of Tok'ra patrols.
"Where's Teal'c?" Daniel said after a quick scan of the faces.
"Still looking for Tanith," Jack said, stepping off the platform and wiping sweat from his face.
Daniel looked up reflexively, as if he could see the surface from here. "You've been there for hours already--he'll get heat sickness."
Jack shook his head. "He'll be okay. He's a Jaffa." He led the way back toward the council chamber. Daniel followed, still anxious.
"He doesn't actually think he's going to find Tanith somewhere on this whole planet, on foot?"
"He's a Jaffa," Jack repeated. "He's Teal'c."
Unfortunately, that explained it pretty well.
Knowing there was more at stake than any one person--or even any team of four people--Daniel clamped down on the protest that wanted to emerge. Teal'c could get single-minded when he wanted revenge, and not in a good way. It was what made Teal'c do the kind of thing that Robert used to call stupid, and the kind of thing about which Daniel used to agree.
But Jack was doing that assessment that he thought was very subtle and actually wasn't, the one with fleeting glances at Daniel to gauge whether or not he could handle something, which was something he only did when they were about to step into a situation. A perverse part of Daniel was almost glad for whatever was coming up, despite the incredible danger it put everyone in, just because it gave him something to do and to think about.
So he only nodded and said, "The Council's been coordinating all the Tok'ra on base and trying to figure out what damage Tanith was able to do. Sam, Martouf, and Jacob are in that room; she said they needed to talk to you as soon as you got back."
"Then let's go," Jack said decisively, and strode into the chamber.
Both Carters looked up at their arrival, though Martouf continued staring at something on one of their screens. "It seems Tanith's been busy," Jacob said grimly. "We've received word from one of our operatives that Apophis has been given our location."
Daniel winced. "He must be trying to make up for months of mistakes."
Jacob nodded. "An attack fleet is being assembled."
"How long will it take him to get here?" Jack asked.
"Less than a day," Jacob said.
Alarmed, Daniel checked his watch, though he wasn't sure what he expected it to tell him. "We have to speed up the evacuation," he said. "It was supposed to take another...at least a day or two before we'd finish moving everything."
Sam nodded. "We're going to start sending people through the Stargate."
"What? Where?" he said. The whole point of evacuation by hatak was that the new planet didn't have a Stargate of its own. "If we leave some equipment behind, we can stuff everyone and the Stargate onto the ship and go right now before Apophis's fleet arrives."
"We have a temporary site with a Stargate on the other side," Jacob assured him. "We can go back there, pick everyone up, and take them to the permanent site afterward, but for now...Sam and I have come up with a different plan."
"If it works," Sam added, "we may be able to wipe out a significant part of Apophis's fleet, but this Stargate"--she pointed upward, toward the hatak--"will have to be destroyed to carry it out."
Jack exchanged a look with Daniel. "Okay," Daniel conceded, "that's probably worth it."
Martouf was being silent--not odd for him, exactly, but when there was some plan or some science going on, especially if it involved Sam and the Tok'ra, he was usually fairly involved. That he wasn't now, and that Jacob hadn't included his name in the plan...
Apparently, Jack had seen it, too, and asked, "Marty? You disagree?"
"There is much risk in this plan," Martouf said.
"You don't have to come--you can go with the rest of the Tok'ra to the temporary base, or go back to the SGC," Sam said, and while she didn't seem to mean it in any way but matter-of-fact honesty, Daniel barely suppressed a wince.
"My concern," Martouf said, sounding as offended as he ever did, "is not only for myself."
"Okay, wait," Jack holding up a hand. "What is this plan?"
Daniel had to admit that the apprehensive look Sam exchanged with her father did little for his confidence.
Martouf sighed but pressed something on the screen he was looking at as Jacob explained, "This is the sun Vorash is orbiting. It's a regular main-sequence star with a core temperature of about fifteen million degrees and enough hydrogen to burn for another five billion years."
"Yeah?" Jack said.
Jacob raised his eyebrows. "We wanna blow it up."
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Continued in Part b...