CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Between Catherine's help during the day and everyone else's help in the evenings, by the time the weekend came, virtually all of Daniel's possessions were in the new place.
It was Saturday morning now, and everyone was at the Colorado Springs airport to see Catherine off. She hugged each of them, giving an extra long one to Danny.
"I'm going to miss you," she said to the boy.
"I'm going to miss you, too," Danny responded. "I wish you lived here."
"That would be nice, but my family and my work are over there. But I'll try to visit as often as I can." She straightened, meeting Daniel's eyes. "Walk with me to the security checkpoint."
Saying a final goodbye to the others, Catherine walked with Daniel the final few yards.
"Daniel, I want you to know that I've been watching you with Danny, and I think that you are doing a wonderful job. You have displayed all the patience, wisdom and love of a good father. I know that your own childhood was not a happy one, and I'm glad to see that experience did not harm your ability to be a parent. I think that, instead, it helped you."
Daniel stared at the floor. "I just want him to be happy, Catherine. I want him to know that he's loved. I don't ever want him to doubt his worth, how important he is."
Her throat tightening at the thought of all the things Danny would have that Daniel had not had in his own childhood, Catherine embraced him.
"I know that you'll take good care of Danny, but I want you to take good care of yourself, too, Daniel." Catherine drew back and looked him straight in eyes. "Will you promise to do that?"
Daniel gave her a little smile. "I promise."
Catherine stepped back. "Now, I expect you to call me more often. You have to keep me updated on Danny, and I'll be wanting to talk with him, too."
Daniel's smile got a little bigger. "I will. Goodbye, Catherine."
The archeologist watched the woman get in line, then he rejoined the others. They all waited until Catherine had passed through the checkpoint, then left the airport.
"She's really nice," Danny said. "I wish she was my grandma."
"Well, maybe the next time you talk to her, you can ask if she can be your pretend grandmother, just like General Hammond is your pretend grandfather," Daniel suggested.
Danny smiled. "Okay."
Everyone back to Daniel's. They loaded up the rest of the furniture and the remainder of the other stuff and took it to the new place. Then they picked up the new furniture Daniel had purchased.
"Wow. I can't believe we got it all done already," the archeologist said after the last piece of furniture had been put where it belonged.
"Yes, and now comes the lovely job of unpacking," Jack remarked. "Good thing you labeled all the boxes so that you'd know where the most important stuff is."
"Well, right now, I need to start cleaning the other house, including shampooing the carpets. I want to get my security deposit back."
"I can help you with that," Sam told him.
"Sam, you guys have already been a big help. I don't want to make you do more."
"I don't mind, Daniel. Besides, the cleaning will get done twice as fast with me to help."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure."
"Okay, how about if Teal'c, Danny and I start unpacking the essentials here while you two get busy on cleaning the other place?" Jack suggested. "Oh, and don't try to shampoo the carpets yourself. For the time it takes to do it yourself, you'd be better off hiring professionals."
"That will have to be done on Monday, then. We can get everything else done today and tomorrow."
"After we take a break," Jack insisted. "I think we deserve it."
The five of them went out for a snack.
"When are we going to get my computer?" Danny asked Daniel as he ate his pie.
"I'm not sure. If there's time, we could go shopping for one tomorrow." Daniel looked at Sam. "Maybe we could get Sam to help. She's an expert in computers and would know which was the best one to get. I was thinking that a laptop would be good so that you can bring it to the SGC."
Sam smiled. "Sure. That would be fun."
Finishing their desserts, Jack, Teal'c and Danny went back to the new house while Daniel and Sam went to the old one to start in on the cleaning. Sam was right about the cleaning going faster with the two of them doing it together. When they got back to the new house, they found that the others had made decent progress in unpacking. All the kitchen stuff was sitting on the counters, ready to be put away.
"We figured that we'd better let you pick where you wanted the kitchen things put," Jack explained. "The TV, VCR and DVD player are all set up, and your collection of tapes and DVDs are in the cabinet. All of Danny's things are put away."
"Thanks, guys."
"So, did you get the cleaning done?"
"Yes, sir," Sam replied. "It didn't take long with the two of us. And Daniel's not a slob, so it's not like there was a lot of scrubbing to do."
"Great! So, this means that we'll have the whole day free tomorrow."
"Well, not exactly, Jack," Daniel corrected. "I'd like to get the rest of the unpacking done. But if you guys would like to take Danny somewhere tomorrow, that would be fine. Most of the rest of the unpacking needs to be done by me since I'm the one who has to decide where to put everything."
"We don't want to leave you here by yourself to do all that work while we go off and have fun, Daniel," Sam objected. "That wouldn't be right."
"Sam, you guys have been fantastic help already. Please, go have fun. You can take Danny to the electronics store and find a good computer for him. Either you can buy it, and I'll reimburse you or Danny and I can go down there later and get it."
"Well . . . okay, if you're sure."
"I'm sure."
Danny was excited about sleeping in his own room that night and took a long time to get to sleep. Once he was finally out, Daniel retired to his own bedroom.
The next day, as Daniel unpacked, the rest of SG-1 spent the day with Danny. They went shopping for a computer for the boy and found one that met with Sam's approval. She, Jack and Teal'c all decided to share the cost of the computer with Daniel, so they went ahead and bought it. They also got a whole bunch of games for the boy, plus some educational programs and electronic books.
When they returned to Daniel's new house, they had bags full of groceries, Jack having insisted that tonight would be a good day for the housewarming. Janet and Cassie were invited, and everyone sat out on the veranda in patio chairs that Sam and Teal'c bought as a housewarming gift. The chairs went with two glass top tables, one of which was now full of food. Jack was happily cooking barbeque chicken on a grill, which was his housewarming gift. Teal'c was standing by to make sure the chicken remained edible.
"I love the house, Daniel," Janet said.
"Thanks."
"We got it because it's like the one Mom and Dad had," Danny told her.
"Really?"
Daniel explained the similarities between this house and the one he and his parents had lived in.
After dinner, Danny climbed the tree, followed by Cassie, who stated that she wasn't too old yet to climb trees. The others, who all agreed that they were past the tree-climbing age, sat and chatted.
The tree-climbers came back down before it got too dark, and everyone went inside. Janet, Cassie and Daniel's teammates left shortly after that.
On the way to work Wednesday morning Daniel dropped off the key to his former landlord, the carpets having been cleaned the previous day.
That evening, shortly after dinner, Danny put down the book he was reading at the table.
"Daniel, you said that, after the moving was done, you'd tell me what Jack meant when he talked about keeping some of your things when you ascended."
Damn. Daniel had really been hoping that Danny had forgotten about that. Knowing that he really had no choice but to tell Danny the story, he asked the boy to come over to the couch and sit beside him.
"You know that I was gone away for a year, but I didn't tell you why or where I was." Daniel paused, deciding on his words. "On one of our missions, we went to a planet named Kelowna. While we were there, we found out that they were doing experiments with a mineral called Naquadria."
"Is that like Naquadah? Sam told me some things about Naquadah, that it's what the Stargate is made of."
"Yes, it is, but Naquadria is a great deal more powerful and more dangerous. We discovered that the Kelownans were making a bomb with it."
"A bomb? You mean to blow things up with?"
"Yes, unfortunately. You see, the country we went to was having trouble with two other countries, and they were afraid that those other countries would attack them. They wanted the bomb to protect themselves."
Danny frowned. "War is really stupid," he stated.
"Yes, it is. I wish that everyone felt that way. While we were there, there was an . . . accident."
"Did the bomb blow up?"
"No, but it was going to. It was going out of control and would have blown up if it wasn't stopped."
"Did you stop it?"
Daniel paused for a long while. "Yes, I stopped it. If I hadn't, everyone in the city would have been killed, including me, Jack, Sam and Teal'c. It's even possible that the entire planet would have been destroyed." He looked into Danny's eyes. "Do you know what radiation is?"
The boy thought for a while. "I think I saw something on TV about it, maybe on Star Trek or someplace else. It makes you really sick."
"Yeah." Daniel took a deep breath. "When I stopped the bomb from blowing up, I was exposed to radiation, a lot of it."
Deep concern filled Danny's eyes. "You got sick?"
"Yes, very sick."
"Did you die?"
Not hiding from the boy's eyes, Daniel replied, "This is very hard to explain, Danny, and I don't know how much you'll understand. In a way, yes, I did die, but not . . . completely."
"What do you mean?"
"A few years earlier, we met an alien named Oma Desala. Her people are called the Ancients, and they don't have physical bodies. They're made of energy." Seeing the confusion on the boy's face, Daniel asked a question as a memory came to him. "Danny, did you see an episode of Star Trek where Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a woman who was sick crash landed on a planet where a man had been living alone for over a hundred years? He hadn't aged at all, and they found out that it was because there was an alien on the planet that kept him young. The alien looked like a cloud of light."
Danny nodded. "The alien loved the man. She went into the lady in the end so that they could be together."
"Yes. Before she did, that alien didn't have a body. She was made of energy. That's what Oma and her people are, pure energy. From her and from another Ancient that Sam met a couple of years later, we learned that human beings can become like them, their bodies transforming into energy. While I was dying from the radiation, Oma came to me and offered to help me become like her. It's called ascension. I was dying, and there was very little chance that I could be saved, so I said yes. At the moment that my body died, I ascended."
Danny's eyes were wide. "You became energy?"
"Yes. I was no longer human. Because of this, I couldn't stay here on Earth. I had to leave. I was ascended for a year."
"You didn't come here that whole time?"
"I did at least a few times, but I don't know how many. You see, I have no memory of that year."
"Why?"
"Well, the Ancients have rules, ones that prevent them from helping other people."
"That's a dumb rule," Danny declared with a frown.
Daniel smiled slightly. "I have to agree, although, to be fair, I don't know the reason why they made the rules. Anyway, I had a hard time following those rules, and I finally broke them in a really big way. Because of that, I was punished by the others."
"What did they do?"
"They made me human again and took away all of my memories."
"All of them? Even from when you were my age?"
"Yes, all of them. But I eventually got back all of the memories of my life before I ascended."
"So, for a whole year, you were an alien made of energy?"
"Yep."
"Wow."
Daniel smiled again. "Yes, you could say that."
"Can you ascend again? Could I ascend?"
"Well, ascension isn't easy, Danny. There are certain things that have to be done. If Oma hadn't helped, I wouldn't have ascended, and I couldn't do it again without her help. If you learned how to ascend, you could probably do it, and if Oma or one of the others helped you, you definitely could, but nobody on Earth knows how to make someone ascend."
"That's okay. I wouldn't want to anyway, not if it meant that I had to leave everybody."
Daniel brushed a hand through Danny's hair with a smile. "Neither would I."
Danny had a nightmare that night. Daniel had been hoping it wouldn't happen, that he'd managed to tell the story in a way that would lessen the emotional impact of the fact that he had died. The cry of Daniel's name sent him running into the boy's bedroom. He gathered Danny into his arms.
"Shh. Wake up, Danny. It's just a nightmare."
The child awoke, clutching at him. "You died. You died and then you went away. The Ancients came and took you away forever!"
Crap. Okay, he hadn't anticipated that. "Hey. The Ancients aren't going to come and take me away, Danny."
"You promise? Do you promise you'll never ascend again and go away?"
Daniel pulled back a little and looked into his clone's eyes. "Danny, listen to me. I would never leave you on purpose. I would never want to leave you, not in any way. I've already told you that I can't promise I won't die, but I would never choose to ascend and leave you and everyone else forever. I love you all too much to leave and never come back. So, I'll make you a promise. If, for some reason, I'm faced with the choice to either die or ascend again, I will ascend, but I will come back. I don't know how long it might take me to come back, but I swear that I will. Do you believe me?"
Danny's wide, bright blue eyes gazed deep into his. "Yes, I believe you."
General Hammond invited Danny to have lunch with him the next day, so SG-1 ate their meal without the boy. Daniel mostly just poked at his food, deep in thought.
"What's wrong, Daniel?" Sam finally asked.
The archeologist put his fork down. "I told Danny about my ascension last night."
His teammates were silent for a few seconds.
"How did he take it?" Jack asked.
"He was upset that I got sick and died, but he thought the part about ascension itself was pretty cool. I didn't even try explaining the whole thing about other planes of existence. I had thought that he took everything pretty well, but I guess I was wrong. He had a nightmare. He dreamed that I died and the Ancients took me away forever."
"Crap."
"He begged me to promise him that I would never ascend and go away again. I didn't anticipate that he'd react like that. It's been days since he had a nightmare. He's had little bad moments here and there, but, all in all, he's been doing great. But this made me realize that any little thing can set him off again. I just hope that this nightmare was the only one, an isolated incident."
"He just needs a little more time to heal, Daniel," Sam said gently.
Jack watched Daniel stare at his plate of food. "Daniel, I need to say something, and I want you to hear me out."
The archeologist lifted his gaze to Jack.
"Fraiser and I were talking a few weeks ago, after your accident and Danny had that nightmare. We agreed that it might help him if he got some therapy from a child psychologist. Now, I know what you think about the psychiatric profession, but those child psychologists can do a lot of good for traumatized children."
"Jack, I don't have a problem with the psychiatric profession. I know that some psychologists and psychiatrists are good people who really help their patients. What I have a problem with is when I'm the one on the couch, so to speak. I will never feel at ease being under the scrutiny of or even just being questioned by a psychiatrist, not after what happened with MacKenzie. But, as for Danny, if you can give a child psychologist clearance to know all about him, who and what he is, I will let him get some therapy."
"Okay, then. Fraiser mentioned that they found somebody they think will be perfect. We'd have mentioned it sooner, but it's just been one thing after another. All that has to be done is for the person to be given clearance and told the whole story. I'll let Fraiser and Hammond know that they can move forward. It'll be fine, Daniel. You'll see."
A minor emergency came in with one of the SG teams late that afternoon, one that required both Daniel's and Sam's expertise. They wouldn't be going off-world, but there was going to be work for them to do on base.
As soon as the archeologist got a look at the required translation job, he knew that he wouldn't be going home any time soon. Not wanting Danny to have to stay there all evening, Daniel asked Jack if he could take the boy.
"I'd love to, Daniel, but an old Air Force buddy of mine is in town for the day, and I'm going to have dinner with him," the colonel said. "Maybe you could get Cassie to babysit."
Unfortunately, Cassie wasn't available either. Daniel considered asking Janet, but, even if she could babysit, she'd probably be tired after a long day on her feet.
Daniel had come to the conclusion that Danny would simply have to sleep in their quarters on base tonight when someone came into his mind. He thought about it for a few minutes, then picked up the phone and placed the call.
"Hello," the person answered.
"Hey, Jon."
"Daniel. What's up?"
"Well, you know how you offered to babysit Danny if I ever needed it? Is that offer still good?"
"Sure it's still good."
"Would it be good for today? An unexpected job just came in that can't wait, and it's going to take several hours. Danny could just stay here on base and sleep in our quarters, but I have no clothes for him here, and I'd prefer doing that as seldom as possible."
"Sure, I can watch him. I have no plans for tonight. So, how are we going to do this."
Daniel thought about that. Taking Danny into town, then coming all the way back would waste a lot of time, meaning that he'd have to work even later, but Jon would have no way to pick Danny up, short of a taxi.
"Hold on a minute," Daniel said. He put the teenager on hold and called General Hammond, asking if it would be possible for someone to take Danny home. The general said yes. Daniel got back on the phone with Jack.
"Someone will be bringing Danny home. You can meet them there. I'll give Danny a key."
"Okay. You have any idea at all what time you'll be home?"
"No, not really, though I'll try to make it before midnight."
Daniel gave Jon the new address. After hanging up, he went to his quarters and explained what was going on.
"I could sleep here," the boy told him.
"I know, but I think it'll be better for you to go home. Jack's clone is going to watch you."
That made Danny smile. "He is? That'll be fun."
An airman took Danny home a short while later, and Daniel got busy on the job. It was after eleven by the time he finished. Sam completed her part of the job at about the same time, and the two of them left the base together.
"So, who did you get to babysit Danny?" she asked.
"Jon."
Surprised, Sam stared at him. "Jon? As in the colonel's clone?"
"Yep. He told me that he'd watch Danny if I ever needed a babysitter. I decided to take him up on it. I just hope Jon doesn't corrupt him."
They both laughed. Daniel stopped laughing when they got close to his car. There was a puddle of dark liquid beneath it.
"Uh oh. That looks like brake fluid."
Sam knelt down and examined the puddle. "Yes, it is. You may have a cracked brake line." She got to her feet. "You might not have lost all your fluid, but it wouldn't be safe to drive. I'll take you home. We can have Siler or someone else take a look in the morning, maybe do a temporary fix until you can get the car to a garage."
When they got to Daniel's place, Sam decided to come in as well, wanting to say hi to Jon and see if he and Danny left the place in one piece.
Going inside, they saw that all the furniture and appliances seemed to be in the same condition they were in this morning. The kitchen, however, appeared to have been turned into a crayon art gallery, with pictures taped up everywhere.
Jon was on the couch, watching TV. He stood up when they came in.
"Hey, Carter. I wasn't expecting to see you."
Daniel explained the problem with his car. "I see that you two didn't tear up the place, but what's with the art gallery in the kitchen?"
"Oh, we were just having some fun, that's all. Daniel, I'll be happy to babysit Danny any time you want. He's quite the kid. We had lots of fun."
"Do you want me to drive you home?" Sam asked.
"Nope, I rode my bike here, and I can ride it back. It's not that far."
"It's going on midnight," Daniel pointed out. "It wouldn't really be safe for you to ride your bike."
"Daniel, I may have a fifteen-year-old body now, but all the training is still there. I pity anybody who tries to mess with me."
Both Daniel and Sam smiled, then said goodbye to the teen. After he was gone, curiosity drove them into the kitchen to look at the pictures.
Sam pointed at one. "Daniel, look at that one."
Daniel stared at it. Could that be. . . . "Is that the Ancient Repository of Knowledge?"
"I think so."
The picture was apparently of Jack's head being swallowed by an Ancient repository – with teeth.
Daniel laughed and looked around some more. "There," he said, pointing at another. It showed a very, very old man with a young woman beside him. The man was staring down at the ground, where a few teeth lay, apparently just having fallen out of his nearly toothless mouth. There was a speech bubble above him that said, "Oh, fer crying' out loud! Where's that dang Denture Cream?!"
"Argos!" Daniel and Sam shouted at the same time, then laughed.
The next one they found was clearly an image of the Nox, only with hugely exaggerated hair, complete with a few trees sprouting out of it. There were animals living within their hair, birds flittering above. Jack, Sam, Daniel and Teal'c were all standing together, staring at the aliens.
"Jack, we have to protect them," Daniel was saying in the picture. "Those ecosystems must be preserved for future generations."
Daniel and Sam burst into laughter again.
The next one they spotted was obviously of SG-1's robot doubles. The robot of Jack was saying, "We're better, stronger, faster!" The human Jack was standing by a wall, having just unplugged a power cord that led to Robot Jack. "Hope the Duracells are all charged up," he was saying with an evil smile. The picture brought on more laughter.
Still another one showed a dog sitting on the ground, its head held forlornly in its paws. Sitting beside the dog was Jack, who appeared to be scratching behind his ear with his foot. "I just knew Ma'chello was going to get even," the dog was saying. Jack was saying, "Woof!" Daniel was standing off to the side. "Cheer up, Jack. You've always said that dogs are your favorite people."
"These are really funny," Sam said, laughing.
"Yes, they are. It's too bad they're all pictures of things that are classified. He could get a job drawing comics."
"If I didn't know that the colonel would shoot us, I'd take them to the SGC and post them on the bulletin board."
"We have to keep these. I can torture Jack with some of them."
They began gathering up the pictures, separating out the ones that were recognizable as scenes from SG-1's adventures. Daniel and Sam kept laughing and giggling. One in particular nearly put Sam on the floor. It showed Jack talking to an ascended Daniel, who was glaring at him, arms crossed. In the background was Jonas, who was running around frantically, the seat of his pants on fire. Jack was saying, "Well, how was I to know that you wanted me to save your spot on the team? You never call. You never write."
"I know I shouldn't laugh," Sam gasped. "Poor Jonas. But it's just too funny."
Daniel's name being called drew their attention away from the pictures. They saw Danny come into the living room from his bedroom, rubbing sleepy eyes.
"Hey, what are you doing up?" Daniel asked, walking up to him.
"I had a nightmare, and then I heard laughing."
"I'm sorry if we woke you. Can you tell me about the nightmare?"
"The Ancients came. They said that you had to ascend and go with them or you'd die."
Daniel sighed. He sat on the couch, motioning for the boy to join him.
"Danny, there's something I should discuss with you. Do you know what psychiatrists and psychologists are?"
Danny nodded. "Dad said that Nick should go to one because of the things he said about the crystal skull."
"Oh. Yes, I remember that. Okay, there is a type of psychologist that treats children, helping kids who have experienced something terrible and are having problems because of it, like what happened with you because of the memories of seeing Mom and Dad die."
"You mean like the nightmares?"
"Yes. I'd like you to see one, Danny. I think it will help with the nightmares and other things."
"Did you see one when Mom and Dad died?"
"Yes, but I'm afraid it didn't do me much good. She got there too late to really get through to me."
"Would you be there when I'm with the psychologist?"
"Would you like me to be there?"
Danny nodded.
"Then I will be."
"And maybe you can talk to them about what happened to Mom and Dad, too, so that you'll feel better."
"It wouldn't be their job to treat me, Danny. They'd be there for you. Besides, I'm not a child anymore."
"I know, but you're still sad about Mom and Dad's death."
Daniel met Sam's eyes for a fleeting moment, seeing sorrow and understanding there.
"We can talk about this later, Danny," he said. "You should go back to bed."
Sam stood up and held her hand out to the boy. "Come on. I'll tell you a funny story."
Daniel remained on the couch, his head lying on the backrest. He listened to the sound of Sam telling Danny about one of the funnier things that happened to SG-1 on a mission. About fifteen minutes later, she came back out and sat beside the archeologist.
"He does have a point, you know," she said after a moment.
"You mean about my unresolved issues concerning my parents' deaths? It's been thirty years, Sam. I learned to live with and accept it a long time ago." He met her eyes, and he knew that she was thinking about that moment he cried in her arms. His gaze fell from hers. "Danny's the one who needs the help. He's the one we need to focus on."
Sam decided not to push the issue, though she believed that it would do Daniel a lot of good to talk to a professional about his parents.
Sam picked Daniel and Danny up in the morning. The archeologist had already called the base and requested that someone take a look at his car when they could. By the time he, Danny and Sam got to the SGC, Siler was able to tell him that there was, indeed, a crack in one of the brake lines. He said it would be any easy thing to fix, and he could do it himself once he got the hose he'd need.
Not long after that, there was an announcement of an unscheduled off-world activation. Daniel went to the control room and learned that a man who claimed to be a rebel Jaffa was requesting that Teal'c and the rest of SG-1 meet him. He said that his name was Ryk'l and that he had important information regarding the Jaffa in the service of the Goa'uld Moloc.
Jack, Teal'c and Sam had also come to the control room. The colonel turned to the Jaffa.
"Do you know this guy?"
"I do not. However, others have said that many of Moloc's Jaffa wish to be free. Bra'tac has sought to speak with them, but he has been unsuccessful so far. If this Ryk'l speaks the truth, this may afford us the opportunity to aid them."
"And it could also be an attempt to set a trap to grab you and the rest of us." Jack turned to Hammond. "Sir, I suggest that we tell him to call back. That'll give us the opportunity to decide what we're going to do."
Hammond nodded and told the technician to turn the microphone back on. He told Ryk'l to dial them again in one hour.
Daniel requested that someone go to his office to check on Danny and tell him that Daniel was going to be gone for a while longer. Once that was done, SG-1 and Hammond went to the briefing room. Teal'c began by explaining what he had heard about Moloc's Jaffa.
Daniel then told them what he knew. "Moloch, also called Molech, was the sun god of the Canaanites in old Palestine. He was sometimes associated with Ba'al. Unlike many other gods in mythology, who are portrayed as having both good and evil qualities, Moloch is shown as utterly evil. In the eighth through sixth century B.C.E., firstborn children were sacrificed to him by the Israelites to renew the strength of the sun's fire."
"Teal'c, what is your recommendation about meeting with this Ryk'l?" Hammond asked.
"Though, as O'Neill said, there is a chance that this is a trap, I believe that it is worth the risk. If we can turn many of Moloc's Jaffa against him, it would be a great victory."
"It might be a good idea if we have another team with us, sir," Jack suggested.
"It may be that, if we do not come alone, Ryk'l will not show himself," Teal'c responded. "He is taking a great risk in contacting us. The planet that he is on is in Moloc's domain and most likely has many Jaffa who are loyal to him."
Hammond pondered on the situation. "All right, you have a go. I will not send another team with you, but I want you to check in within an hour. If we don't hear from you in an hour and a half, I will send through two other teams. We'll find out from Ryk'l when he contacts us again when he can meet with you."
"Yes, sir," Jack said.
The briefing over, Daniel went to his office. He told Danny that he would be going on a mission soon.
"We shouldn't be gone more than a few hours," he explained, "but, just in case we do have to stay overnight, I'll make arrangements for you to stay with someone."
"Is it a dangerous mission?" Danny asked.
"I don't know. It could be. Almost every mission we go on carries some risk, especially if it has something to do with the Goa'uld, like this one does. We'll be as careful as we can be, Danny."
When Ryk'l contacted them again, he said that he'd meet with them tomorrow morning. The meeting place was about a twenty-minute walk from the Stargate.
Daniel talked with Janet, and she said that she could watch Danny tomorrow night, if it was necessary. The arrangements made, Daniel got busy on learning more about the god Moloch in mythology.
At 0800 the next morning, the gate on P3X-955 was dialed. Danny was in the gate room, saying goodbye to Daniel and the others.
"Be safe," he told them.
"Hey, don't worry, Danny," Jack said, ruffling his hair. "We do this kind of thing all the time, and we've always managed to come back. Sometimes, we were a bit worse for wear, but we came back."
The wormhole was established. With a goodbye to Danny, SG-1 stepped through the gate.
They did end up meeting Ryk'l at the arranged spot, but things did not go exactly as they had hoped. Only moments after meeting Ryk'l, they were all attacked by a party of Jaffa. Ryk'l was killed.
An intense firefight was going on between SG-1 and the Jaffa when, all of a sudden, someone else began firing upon the Jaffa, who were all brought down in a matter of seconds. SG-1 received a surprise when their rescuers revealed themselves to be a group of female Jaffa. SG-1 was asked to come with them. The appearance of a glider made it clear that things were going to get hot very soon, if they didn't leave. A dark-skinned woman who appeared to be leading the group confirmed that the Stargate would not remain accessible for long, and they needed to hurry.
Everyone's surprise at the turn of events turned to shock when a female Jaffa with short reddish-brown hair knelt beside a male Jaffa felled in the battle. As SG-1 looked on, stunned, she removed the larva from the man's symbiote pouch and put it in a metal jar, then sealed the jar.
"What is she doing?" Daniel asked.
"There is no time to explain here," the leader said, "please come with us."
The woman who had removed the larva apparently objected to this, exclaiming in Goa'uld. The dark-skinned one answered back in the same language, and the two argued for a bit.
"Hey, what's going on?" Jack asked.
Teal'c gestured at the leader. "This one believes we should return to her planet," he indicated the other woman. "That one believes it would not be wise."
The dark-skinned woman turned to SG-1. "Please. We knew you would be here."
"How?" Teal'c asked, suspicious of these women, as well as angry about the larva being taken.
"Our intelligence network runs deep within the Jaffa of Moloc. We came to ask for help. I promise you will be safe."
"Well, they did save us," Daniel pointed out.
Hoping they were making the right decision, SG-1 decided to go with them.
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter
