MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

1. La Haia

Chapter One
By Arrietty


2031


I thought I’d finished writing my memoirs, but it looks like I’m back here writing them again – actually not really writing, speaking but . . . Anyway a lot of things have happened since I was last here. I was called back to service. I really think I ought to pin a great big sign on my chest saying ‘I’m retired – go away.’ Knowing my luck, they’d just pin another one over the top of it – ‘Destined to serve’ I suppose it’s nice to feel needed, but really, I ask you – surely someone else can do this job by now.

My leg hurts, I’m bored, fed-up with the grey walls of the infirmary. It’s the beginning of a long six weeks of therapy, sitting still and being bored. Although, the view can be quite nice sometimes.

“General O’Neill, it’s time for your medication.”

“Why thank you, ma’am.”

Okay, now where was I? Oh yes, memoirs. Hmmm. Where did I finish?

‘Once again the warm leather coat hid all my weapons, not once had La Haia questioned my stock of weapons that I had stashed in my pack. Now they were firmly fitted into their holders inside my coat. Easy to get at, but not easily seen by prying eyes. Never had I regretted that choice until I felt La Haia’s arms reach around my waist to hang on and found she couldn’t as the P-90 dug into her arms and she found it too difficult to get a grip. After she pulled back, I felt her grasp the sides of my coat, disappointment rose up inside me at the thought, but then I had to remember this was La Haia, not Sam. Hopefully once we got home, Sam would remember who she was. Then we could go horse riding, without the coat and its weaponry.’

Yes - Sam. Who was also La Haia. It was hard for me, I was confused; my head was spinning, what was going on inside me was good old plain emotional upheaval. Sam was alive; alive and well. But not well, damaged. Damaged by Neeron and his traders; treated so abominably that she had forgotten who she really was. I had begun to like La Haia, more than I ought to, even though she was a stranger in Sam’s body.

After the replicator Carter, I was afraid, afraid of letting my feelings really show, letting them loose so they could be torn apart again. I was confused and didn’t know what to do with my emotions.



~*~

2008

The sound of creaking leather was a comforting sound in the chill air. The horse’s hooves added to the mood, making a soft crunching noise as they compacted the snow with each step. A cloud of vapour enveloped their wide nostrils in the cold atmosphere.

Everywhere I looked, I could see white snow covered hills and in the east the pale winter sun slowly rising behind them, breaking open a new day.

The two large horses lumbered good naturedly behind me. I had nick-named them Homer and Marge. La Haia hadn’t objected to their names, so I had to assume that they hadn’t been given any before.

A murmur came from behind me, a second before La Haia pressed against my back. I had both her hands held firmly with one of mine while she slept. La Haia had almost fallen off during the night and I had only just caught her in time before she toppled down onto the cold snow. I had dragged her up behind me from her precarious position, before pulling her arms around me and gripping her hands, so she wouldn’t fall again. Much to my satisfaction, it had worked.

It was now a week since we left the cave with the pool. And still, there had been no sign of Sam remembering who she was. La Haia hadn’t talked yet, unless you can count her murmuring in her sleep. Sometimes she spoke in English and other times in Ellinika. Unfortunately, none of it made any sense to me.

A cloud of vapour whisked by me as I let out a big sigh while I thought of Sam hidden away inside La Haia’s mind. I missed Sam. She was so close, yet so far. I couldn’t help cringing at the horror Sam would feel at La Haia’s antics. They were poles apart. I was filled with disbelief. After Fifth and the female replicator I daren’t hope ever of finding her alive. At first I’d hoped, just a little. This much I could admit to myself. Every time I thought of Sam hidden away in this rough scruffy exterior, my heart caught in my throat. I wanted to crush her to me and hold her tight. My heart was weeping from relief and joy at the thought of Sam – Sam is really alive. She may be hidden, but alive.

Now all I had to do was try and help her to remember who she is. Maybe when we get back to the SGC, they can help her remember. I felt the blood drain from my face at the thought of Doctor McKenzie running tests on La Haia. No. I couldn’t subject La Haia to that, she had suffered enough. With the quick decision made, I now had to think of another way to bring Sam back to me.

“Hmmmm.”

“Hey, sleepy.” My voice echoed against the surrounding hills.

I felt her move behind me, then a tug as she tried to pull her arms back. Releasing her hands, I felt bereft as she drew them back. Then a sharp prod in my back told me what I needed to know.

“A pit stop?” I asked. I twisted around to see her impish face grinning and nodding to me. I gently pulled on Meadow’s reins and caught hold of the ropes that tethered Homer and Marge to the pommel of my saddle. Before we had all drawn to a halt, La Haia moved back onto Meadow’s rump, deftly slipped one leg through between us and had jumped to the ground. She disappeared around a white snow-covered mound while I more slowly, dismounted Meadow.

“How about some breakfast?” I called out, ever in the hope of her replying. Sadly and unsurprisingly, no answer came.

I attached feedbags to the horse’s bridles and left them to munch away happily. I was just beginning to wonder where she’d got to, when a snowball hit me fair and square on my back. I swivelled around and got hit with another in the middle of my chest. They were coming thick and fast. Ducking for cover – behind Homer – I snatched up a handful of snow and lobbed one back. It was met with a squeal and a giggle. Delighted that La Haia actually made a noise, breakfast forgotten, we engaged in a full scale war. La Haia winning, but my excuse is she had spent time making ammunition so was better prepared.

~*~

The next ten days were pretty much uneventful, apart from the odd snowball fight. But they only lasted a few days as the planet came closer to the sun and the snow soon melted, leaving green spring grass underfoot. By my reckoning, we were only a six days ride from Leocold. My hand rasped across my short beard as I rubbed my chin. I was certainly looking forward to a bath and spruce up.

Only two hours ride away was a small stream and now the days are warmer, maybe we could go for a dip. I gave a gentle tug on one reign and we turned off the main road, following a small overgrown trail between two large hills.

I felt a familiar poke in my back.

“Can’t you hang on?”

Another poke.

“Ow!” This time it hurt.

I twisted around and I was met with two frightened eyes. La Haia wanted to know where we were going.

“Sorry, La Haia.” I smiled reassuringly. “There is shelter and water up there.” I pointed over Meadow’s head in the direction we were heading. La Haia visibly relaxed and gave me a small smile. I mentally kicked myself; I always had told her what I was going to do next, she never liked being surprised.

~*~

The stream was not as I remembered it, but was swollen with the runoff from the melted snow in the mountains. Realising this is the last decent form of shelter between us and Leocold; I decided we should stay here for a while.

“I think we should stop here for a couple of days. What do you think?” I asked La Haia as soon as we had stopped. She had the large horse’s ropes ready so she could lead them to the stream. Smiling, she nodded and detached the ropes from the horses and proceeded to hobble them.

I walked up to the entrance of the cave that was set a little away from the stream, hidden amongst some large rocks. It was a canny cave; you couldn’t tell it was there until you were quite close to it. I was anxious that the horses would be able fit through the narrow entrance way. I clicked off the safety of my P-90 before slipping through the gap to survey the area. The flashlight from my weapon illuminated the large space easily. As far as I could tell, no one had entered the cave since I had been here last. The pile of dried bracken and firewood collected from the nearby forest area was just as I left it so many weeks ago.

Seeing that all things were well, I went back out through the entrance and was relieved to see that the great horses would fit through easily.

By the time I had returned to the stream, La Haia had lifted everything off the horses and she was rubbing them down with a handful of hay. ‘I really must buy a brush for these horses in Leocold.’

It was hot work lugging all the gear up into the cave. I didn’t have the heart to load up these great animals again. Once again, I’d neglected to inform La Haia of my plans, so she had unloaded the horses. So here I was, carrying all the gear, including the feed I might add, up through the winding track to the cave entrance.

By the third trip, I had shed my coat, jacket and all of my weapons. I had enough to haul without carrying any extra. With the last trip back to the stream, I had my shaving kit and the now, nearly depleted bottles of shampoo and soap clutched in my hand. It was so hot even the icy stream looked inviting.

A feeling of deja vu came over me as I stood by the stream; La Haia was nowhere to be seen. My heart pounded in my chest, I couldn’t lose her again. I looked around, my eyes darting wildly, but I couldn’t see her. Anxiously, I bent down and looked along the stream banks. I heard a rustle of movement behind me, but before I could turn to look, a hand landed in the middle of my back shoving me forward into the water. My lungs emptied of air as I hit the freezing water. Gasping, I struggled to the surface, drawing in great whoops of air just as I emerged sputtering from the stream. The current dragged me down stream a few yards before I swam to the bank. La Haia, looking worried, reached down and grabbed my hands to help me out of the chill water. My knees scraped the bottom of the stream bed before I yanked her into the stream with me.

She gave a scream as she hit the cold water. I hung onto her hands the whole time, fearful that she could be swept away.

Laughing, I pulled her close to me. Her eyes flashed with mock anger.

“You,” she accused before laughing.

My laughter dried on my lips, but my smile didn’t. I pulled her into a hug and held her tight. She had spoken; finally. ‘Maybe there is hope.’ Then, I felt her hold me back. Here we were kneeling in an icy stream, shivering, holding each other close. Pulling back from her, I opened my big trap and shoved my even bigger foot in.

“See, Sam. You can speak.”

The contented smile on her face dried up with my words. Real anger flashed in her eyes, before they filled with tears. Angrily pushing me away, she clambered up the side of the bank. I painfully stood up; the cold from the freezing water had caused a deep ache in my knee.

I followed La Haia to the grassy bank. She had taken off her sodden jacket and was draping it across a sun warmed rock.

“La Haia?” I called.

She turned her back to me. I hadn’t convinced her of who she really is. In a way, I had known this all the while which was why I had been so careful until now not to call her anything but La Haia. I crouched down and unlaced my sodden boots and removed my socks. A breeze picked up and made me shiver in my wet clothes. I stood and watched as La Haia removed her footwear, I didn’t know what to say or do. Carefully, she placed her homemade shoes beside mine in the sun to dry before wandering over towards the forest; I thought it prudent to leave her alone.

After fifteen minutes and she hadn’t returned, I started after her.

“La Haia.”

It only took two minutes for her to respond in her usual way. A missile came from behind a large vine, in the form of a bright green husk. The husk hit me right on the nose, making it smart and my eyes water. It looked like I was forgiven.

Moving towards the vine, I found her picking long green husks and stuffing them into her pockets. Every so often, she would bite an end off one and suck out the centre before discarding the empty husk. I knew these things, they were the nourishing dried husks I had seen before, but these were bright green. La Haia smiled at me, making my heart skip a beat. Yup, definitely forgiven. She handed me a husk, before making a motion of biting an end off and sucking out the centre. I bit the end off, it tasted sweeter and certainly juicier than the dried ones. I searched around for more to pick, but the plant was depleted.

La Haia ferreted around in the ground. Making a small noise, she pulled up a thick long root. The diameter was easily as wide as my wrist. She pushed it back under the soil and took two steps and dug into the soft dark soil and pulled up the root again. She gave me a quick smile, jumped up and dashed into the trees. I wasted no time in following her; I watched her stop every so often and dig into the ground, pulling up the root, burying it again before running on. Finally, she stopped. With a broad grin, she beckoned me on and led me into a large intricate web of vines. Inside the canopy, large pod-like husks hung heavy from the ceiling.

Reaching up, she broke off a large pod and stuck it down the front of her t-shirt. I assume her pockets were full. I followed her example, the cold damp material of my shirt stuck to my skin as I pulled it away. I gave a small involuntary shiver in the gloom of the forest. The sun’s rays couldn’t penetrate through the thick foliage of the trees and vines and it was getting decidedly chilly. I put more pods into my pockets and took La Haia’s hand to pull her out. We needed to get warm, but she resisted and shook her head.

La Haia quickly broke off two more large pods and handed one to me. With her teeth she broke one open. It was the same sticky substance as before, but nestled inside was a large nut. She hooked it out with her long fingers and popped it into her mouth. I followed suit with mine. It tasted just like a brazil nut, but slightly sweeter. We drank the gooey substance. I felt full, this was much better than dried apple for breakfast any day. This time she took hold of my hand and led me out of the tangle of vines.

A quick whistling sound, a sharp pain in my side, then numbness. I looked down to see a dart protruding from my side, the feathers a bright yellow, stark against the black material of my t-shirt. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion as I looked over at La Haia. Bright purple feathers were sticking out of her hip. I fell to my knees as my legs crumpled beneath me. The trees, La Haia and feathers swirled around me and it went dark.

~*~

I was travelling backwards. My hands were tied awkwardly in front of me, with my elbows tied painfully together with another person’s elbows. All I could see were trees surrounding me, a brown horse’s rump beneath me and the scowling face of a man, sitting astride another horse.

“What’s happing?” I asked. I felt the person behind me wriggle. I hoped it was La Haia – in fact I was sure it was La Haia. He didn’t answer. “Where are you taking us?” I asked again. Once again, the person wriggled, this time she head butted into the back of mine.

“Ow! What ya doing?” She did it again and made a growling noise in her throat. Of course she was right; shut up O’Neill, we’re in enough trouble, but it took too long to work that out. The man following, rode up beside us and with his left foot kicked us off the horse. It was a very painful landing.

I heard laughter in the background. I turned my head towards the sound and saw two men on one horse. One of them climbed down, the other following and they walked towards us. I didn’t like the expression on their faces one bit. When one of them pulled out a knife, I forgot about the expressions and focused on the knife. He reached down and slashed the rope binding us together and roughly dragged La Haia up to stand. I started to speak, La Haia shook her had at me, but I ignored her.

I stood and demanded, “What is the meaning of this?” These men didn’t look like bandits; they were too well dressed for starters. My reply was a whack across the face. Our hands were roughly bound behind our backs and tied our feet together with a short length of rope. I glanced across to La Haia. She looked terrified, surely she knew who or what these men were. I wondered if they worked for Neeron’s crowd.

“My name is Jack O’Neill and I have papers. I am a free man.” I stated.

They stopped what they were doing and looked at each other nervously. The two I could see, both looked at the man behind me. One of the men nodded to him, seconds before bright lights exploded in my head. I started to fall to the ground, but I don’t remember landing.

~*~

I awoke to the sound of clinking chains. My head was pounding and my right shoulder ached. I cautiously opened my eyes and looked around me. I was sitting, leaning up against someone in the middle of a group of people. They were all joined together by a long chain. It threaded through a loop that was welded to the manacles on their ankles. I looked down at my feet. I too had a short length of chain between two large heavy metal shackles.

“Shhh.”

I slowly sat up and the pounding in my head was exacerbated by the movement.

“Shhh.” I turned around to see who I had been leaning on and to the source of the sound.

I found La Haia anxiously looking at me. Two large dark bruises on her cheek contrasted against her white skin. Her eyes were full of fear. She reached across with one hand and touched my cheek. I covered her hand with one of my own while I smiled at her as reassuringly as I could. She tentively smiled back.

Releasing her hand, I looked again at our predicament; it was obvious that this was a slave train. Everyone was shackled together in a long line. Fortunately, we were next to each other in the line. I could see our captors talking to another man in the distance. I could tell by his stance and actions that he was the head honcho. He kept glancing over at us and then shaking his head. They seemed to be arguing.

The sun was beginning to sink below the hills and I was cold. My pants and t-shirt were not fully dried from the dunking, nor had La Haia’s clothes. As far as I could see there was no way out of this predicament. I needed to talk to the boss man up there.

As I started to clamber to my feet, my shoulder and my right side began to complain. I twisted around to look at my side and back, lifting my shirt I could see skin had been scraped off leaving a painful graze, it must have been when we were kicked off the horse. My ribs also hurt from where his boot had made contact.

I felt a tug on my arm. La Haia was frightened. She shook her head at me, before placing her finger on my mouth. Again, she shook her head, pleading with her eyes for me to be silent.

The crunch of gravel as they walked through the prisoners signalled their arrival. Slowly, I turned around to face my captors. The leader nodded to his men.

It took four of them to hold me down. I certainly gave them a run for their money. La Haia sat quietly by, tears running down her face. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but those tears did tell me that it didn’t bode well for me.

“I’m a free man, I have papers,” I yelled. “You have no right.”

The leader grinned, shrugged. “Soon, you will have no rights.”

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

1. La Haia

Chapter Two
By Arrietty

2008

The slave trader pulled a familiar grey object out of his pocket. Memories of Neeron’s glee as he showed me this contraption flitted through my mind. “This one inflicts the mark,” he said while pointing to a small button, “While this one takes it away. Remember, never remove the line down the centre of the arm, this is the brand to show that they are slaves. This way they can’t escape.”

My body tensed waiting for the pain. The worst I could expect would be a like a knife cutting into my skin. I could handle that.

The doohickey was warm as it touched my skin. One of the men knelt painfully into my shoulder, while another pulled my arm out straight, leaning back with all his weight to maintain the tension in my arm and keep it still. I grimaced from the pain. A malicious sneer was plastered on the leader’s face as he pressed the button on the left. The machine started to hum and my skin under it began to tingle. It felt like a red hot knife was slammed down through my flesh, muscle and finally it bit through the bones right through to the other side.

I screamed in agony, thrashing against my assailants, trying to throw them off me. The excruciating pain travelled down my arm, cutting through sinew and bone, splitting my arm apart. I lashed out with one of my feet, hearing a grunt of pain before a heavy weight land on my leg to hold it down. Sweat ran in rivulets down my body soaking into the ground beneath me. The pain reached its peak and I passed out.

I awoke to the shock of a bucket of cold water being emptied over my head. Startled, I started to sit up only to find four great oafs were still sitting on me. I looked down at my arm expecting to find it rendered in two beside me. But miraculously, there was only a red line, less than an inch in length, just below the crook of my elbow that emanated a dull throbbing pain. I looked around for La Haia. Someone had trussed her up and she was lying on her side, tears were still flowing freely down her cheeks. I turned back to my aggressor.

“You see, slave,” he leaned in close to me, “The first cut is always the worst, but of course most slaves are weak and faint at the least bit of pain and miss the rest of the branding. You on the other hand will not miss out.”

I found myself shrinking in fear as he placed the terrible machine back onto my arm and pressed the button. This time there was no tingle, just excruciating pain. My jaw clenched and a familiar metallic taste filled my mouth as I bit right through my bottom lip. One of the goons pried my jaw open, and thrust a piece of leather between my teeth. My face was released and my teeth sank hard into the leather.

Each time they brought me around, I always lashed out, managing to kick or punch someone. I could hear murmurings of dissent from the remaining slaves at my treatment, but I couldn’t work out what they were doing different; surely they had this mark on their arms too.

A pale sickly looking moon was high in the sky by the time they had finished with me. A large fire had been built up near us so I was able to see the shocked and worried faces as they anxiously watched me.

I couldn’t move my arm. A dark red line ran down from my elbow to just above my wrist and I regretted having such long arms. There were two more lines that ran at right angles causing my arm to look like demented tic-tac-toe board. The flesh either side of my arm was raised and inflamed and my hand throbbed in time to my heart beat. Slowly, one by one, the men released their hold on me. In anger I kicked out with one leg, effectively tripping up one of the men. I felt a sliver of satisfaction as I watched him fall face down to the ground.

Everyone stopped laughing after he picked himself up and walked back to me. He brought back his foot and booted me in the side. I had used up all my strength with that last kick and was unable to ward off the blow. I heard the crack seconds before the pain registered as my ribs were fractured. Curled up into a ball hugging my injured arm to my chest, I tried not to sob with the added pain. I lay helpless as they moved towards La Haia.

“No!” I called weakly. No one heard me. “No.”

She thrashed and kicked. One guy knelt on her shoulder and I waited for the inevitable. I was in too much pain to smile while I watched La Haia sink her teeth into the man’s calf muscle. He screamed with pain and hit La Haia across the face. La Haia just laughed at him.

The man caught hold of La Haia’s hair and dragged her towards the other men. Between them, they held her down and he placed the machine onto La Haia’s arm and switched it on. She cried out in pain. They nearly reached the end of her arm before she passed out. The leader continued to brand her without waking her. I relaxed, I knew she wouldn’t feel pain if she was unconscious. When they had finished they quickly untied the ropes that bound her and left her lying on the ground. The whole operation had only taken three minutes at the most. I know because I had looked at my watch. I was sure it had taken longer with me.

Still hugging my arm, I rolled over onto my back. A shadow moved in front of me, and then a man’s face came into my view.

“Ti ekunness nu se kopsoon etsi?” he asked in Ellinika.

“I don’t know what you mean by a deep cut; please explain,” I answered in English their universal tongue. I couldn’t wrap my brain around translating my thoughts into another language. He shook his head and asked if someone knew universal language.

“ego xerro,” a woman said.

Another shadow joined the first one before it moved away.

“I know,” she repeated in English. “We want to know what terrible thing that you have done to warrant such a bad cut like that?” she asked.

I tilted my head to the side to look at her. “I don’t understand, isn’t that what you all have?” I asked.

She shook her head and said, “No. Only the really bad slaves get one of those. It will cause you much pain for a long time.”

I moved my head side-to-side slowly. “Nothing,” I whispered, “I did nothing.” I turned over onto my side and curled into a ball and tried to bury the pain.

~*~

I awoke the next morning to a hand gently touching my face. I opened my eyes a crack. There was a face but it was out of focus. I shut my eyes, squeezing them tight before opening them again and my vision was clearer this time around. My head was supported by Sam Carter’s legs and she was looking at me with sad eyes.

“Carper,” I croaked out between swollen lips.

She frowned.

I tried again. “Carter.” Pain joined the sadness in her eyes. I couldn’t work out where we were. “Where are Teal’c and Daniel?”

Carter lifted something to her mouth, bit off the end and spat it onto the ground. It was a dull green vegetable. She carefully opened my mouth and pushed a gooey sweet substance onto my tongue. It stung my lips. I swallowed. She then tried to lift me into a sitting position.

“Ack.” My shoulder hurt, in fact everything hurt. I rested my head back onto her legs. It certainly was a lot less painful there and the view was fantastic.

“Carter?” Her face wavered and swam before me. “Where are we?”

{“Jacob, we need your help.” - Daniel falling to the ground; smoke billowing from his chest. - Sam’s lifeless body in my arms.}

I opened my eyes and looked into La Haia’s tear-filled ones. “La Haia, are you okay?” I asked and she smiled immediately

I could hear the rustle of movement and then the clink of chains as people began to stand. I wanted to close my eyes again; be back where I was only a few moments ago – with Sam – not here – a slave.

I looked down at my arm. It was still marked with the dark red lines. I reached over to touch it. “No!” An urgent whisper came from above me. I stared up at La Haia. She looked as shocked as I felt. She had spoken again. I chose not to pursue it this time.

With La Haia’s help, I struggled to stand. Leaning heavily with my left arm across her shoulders, I hobbled along with the rest of the slaves as we were moved along the road.


I knew from experience that the chains would chaff our ankles raw in no time. La Haia and I tucked the bottom of our pant legs under the rough cast iron shackles, which gave us some semblance of protection. But it wasn’t enough to protect my softened feet that had been encased in military issue boots for so many years. Within hours they were bruised and bleeding, making it much harder to walk. Although I was satisfied to see that La Haia’s hard slave life had toughened her bare feet and they were unharmed. At least something good had come out of her enslavement.

Sharp stabbing pains pierced my innards with each jolting step. And, to make matters worse, the hot sun beat down onto our unprotected heads, making us feel weak and dizzy.

~*~

At noon we stopped for a break. It wasn’t until then I realised we were actually retracing our steps we had only just made the previous day. La Haia couldn’t carry the added weight when my legs collapsed beneath me and I landed heavily on the ground. We had stopped not a moment too soon.

My mouth dry, I waited patiently as the water bucket worked its way around the many slaves as each person took one ladle full. The way I felt right then, I’d have drunk the whole bucket, but it wasn’t to be. The slave traders watched our every move and I was lucky we received a full ladle. Then we were all given a bowl of mush our only meal for the day. The mush was cold and gluggy, I had no idea when they had made it, most probably the night before. I watched everyone, including La Haia gulp down the sludge. Realising this needed to be eaten; I joined the other slaves and ate it quickly, but not successfully avoiding my damaged lip. They let us rest for an hour before continuing on our journey.

By the evening, I could barely place my feet on the ground. The pain in my arm, shoulder and side were overpowered by severe throbbing in my feet and ankles. When we stopped for the night, we were given another ladle of water, and a blanket each. I noticed that the others had been carrying ones during the day. I was pleased to have one as I knew it would be cold tonight because there was no signs of a fire which I had seen the previous night.

I wrapped the blanket around me and curled up into a ball and tried to sleep. I heard a clink then a shuffle and I felt a hand touch my good shoulder. I reluctantly opened my eyes and saw a hand in front of my face waving a small husk. I took it thankfully, broke off one end and carefully sucked out the contents. I wondered how many of these La Haia had saved. All of mine had been taken or fallen from my pockets and clothing when I had first been tranquilised by the dart.

When I had finished I closed my eyes. I heard another clink of a chain then La Haia pressed up against my back. We slept back to back, trying to keep warm through the still night.

~*~

My internal clock woke me just before dawn, as I had intended. My whole body ached and protested when I sat up. Shivering in the pre-dawn air, I pulled off my blanket taking care not to knock my arm. The inflammation had begun to go down the previous night and I wondered what it would look like this morning.

I ripped strips off my blanket and tightly bound my tattered feet. I couldn’t see them in the pre-dawn light, and to be honest, I didn’t want to see what state they were in. They probably weren’t a very pretty sight anyway. And I certainly wasn’t looking forward to walking on my feet, but I knew I would have no choice.

The horses became unsettled as the clang of pots and pans startled them. I watched quietly while sitting amongst the slumbering slaves, the trader stoked up a small fire and set up a pot on a trivet. My salivary glands went into over time as I imagined what they were cooking. We were downwind and soon the aroma of frying bacon wafted over to where we lay when they added a frying pan to the fire. My belly rumbled with hunger. It was so loud, I’m sure it would awaken La Haia.

~*~

Early morning mist hung low along the road and in the valleys. This time, I was able to walk unaided. The woollen blanket strips tied around my feet had made all the difference. There was a chill in the air and I pulled the remnant of blanket over my shoulders.

La Haia hadn’t spoken again since she had stopped me from touching my arm. I found out why she had warned me. The first time I bumped my arm, excruciating pain encompassed my arm and shoulder. I had tried to wrap my arm, but again, anything touching it only made it worse. It was a very effective way of controlling the slave population. It would make it hard to conceal the mark in anyway without causing undue duress.

One of the traders had been taking an interest in La Haia ever since we had been brought into camp. At her silent plea, I had managed to keep out of it. Each time he had started to talk to her, La Haia had ignored him and when he had tried to touch her shoulder to get her attention, she had deftly avoided contact. By the end of the second day, he was angry with her.

“What’s your name?” he asked her for the tenth time. Swearing, he grabbed her by the upper arm and pulled her around to face him. Everyone stopped walking; fearfully waiting to see what would happen. I tensed my tired and sore muscles, ready to spring into action, not that I would be of any use in my state.

The trader took one look into La Haia’s eyes. Her feelings were obvious as she looked at him with disdain and loathing. In anger the trader brought up a closed fist, I lunged but I was too late as his fist hit her in the face. Using my shackled wrists I hit him across his shoulders and he fell to the ground. I was filled with fury at this despicable man. It was hard to stride, but I did the best I could and I bent down to hoist him up – to hit him again.

Without warning, my feet were yanked from beneath me and I crashed painfully to the ground. There were now two traders. I started to climb to my feet expecting to be beaten by these two thugs. They both sneered maliciously. I waited, my body so full of adrenalin I could barely feel any pain from my injuries. The trader who had tripped me, yanked hard on the chain, pulling me closer. This was not what I had expected.

“Jack!” Another warning from La Haia was spoken from the ground where she had fallen.

But my reactions were too slow. The trader reached out and gripped my forearm, pulling me to my feet in the process. His rough calloused hand encircled the brand on my arm. Instantly, a sharp pain travelled the length of the slice, he then gripped tighter. My legs turned to jell-o and collapsed under me and I fell to my knees. I yelled in agony as the pain moved up my arm into my shoulder and throughout my body. My vision started to turn black, tinged with red. Every nerve end screamed with pain, I could feel myself begin to black-out just seconds before he released my arm. I knelt on the stony ground, pulling on all my reserves of strength, but they failed me and I slipped into darkness.

~*~

I was abruptly awakened by a bucket of freezing water tipped over my head. I was ‘helped to my feet’ to put it politely, by the two traders and told in no uncertain terms to move it. My head was swimming and my vision bleary. Immediately, La Haia was by my side supporting me.

We trudged along the stony road. The pain in my arm was still so severe that I couldn’t walk unassisted. I remembered the time I had grabbed La Haia’s arm, guilt was now added to my distress. I couldn’t believe I had caused this woman so much pain. I stumbled along through the rest of the journey, in a daze.

~*~

I must have eventually passed out. I certainly don’t remember everyone stopping and making camp. Something cool was laid across my arm. Opening my eyes I found La Haia. She gave me an anxious smile and placed another dark green leaf on my arm. Now I was worried. My complete arm, including my hand was swollen to nearly twice its size. The flesh surrounding the brand was inflamed to an angry red. I couldn’t see any bushes or trees nearby where she could’ve got these leaves, so she must have collected them along the journey. I watched her gently bind the leaves onto my arm with a strip of blanket in the dimming light. Too tired to speak, I let my lids close.

“Master.” A soft voice penetrated though the fog in my mind. “Master, drink this.” I felt my head lifted and a cup placed against my swollen lip.

It hurt.

I opened my eyes.

La Haia spoke again. “Master, you must drink.”

“You speak?” My voice was croaky and strained. As I opened my mouth to speak again she took the opportunity to get the water inside me. I choked on the tepid water. Carefully, I pushed myself into a sitting position. The world stayed still - no swirling or spinning involved – this must be a good sign. I drank greedily from the cup that she still held.

“Slow,” she admonished and I obeyed.

I noticed that I wasn’t attached by a chain to the others nor was La Haia. And it was midday.

“What happened? I asked her. Last I remembered it was early in the morning. The scenery had definitely changed and the sun was now high in the sky. Had I walked without knowing it?

La Haia pointed to my arm that was still swollen, but not as bad - thankfully. And then she pointed to one of the horses. You didn’t need to be a brain surgeon to work out that I’d travelled this far on the back of a horse – ‘Sack of spuds O’Neill.’ But I wanted to hear her voice again.

“La Haia. How did I travel?”

She pointed to the horse.

“No, La Haia, you must tell me, I know you can speak.”

She turned her head away. I gave up I was too tired. Instead, I ate the sludge they called food. How anyone could survive on this much was beyond me. If it weren’t for the husks La Haia had collected and saved, I don’t know what would have happened.

I sensed La Haia stiffen beside me before scuttling around behind my back. I looked up to see what or who she could be frightened of. Neeron. I couldn’t believe it. Neeron was making his way to the summer sales in the big city by the Stargate. I clambered shakily to my feet. It didn’t help with La Haia clutching at my back and then my pant legs, trying to stop me from doing what I was about to do.

“Neeron,” I croaked.

Unhindered by the chain, I was able to move closer. La Haia followed closely, hanging onto the back of my t-shirt. This man, who I was hoping would save us, had a lot to answer for, especially what he had done to Carter, but now was not he time to follow that one up.

“Neeron!” I had found my voice and it boomed across the area. Adrenalin kicked in and I strode across the space. Two traders immediately came to knock me down.

“Neeron!” I yelled again. “It is I, Jack O’Neill. Tell these men who I am.” I was now standing directly in front of him, he held out his hand to the traders to stop them from attacking me again. A myriad of thoughts crossed his face as he weighed the pros and cons of what I’d just said.

He finally made his decision. “This man is a free man. How did you come by him?” he asked the head trader. Who was by now looking exceedingly nervous. He stammered as he spoke.

“I didn’t know. He fought a lot, so we just . . .” His voice petered out as he saw the anger on Neeron’s face.

“Did you ask?” The trader nervously shook his head. “Untie him.” Neeron then turned to me as the traders released my shackles from my ankles.

I quickly caught hold of La Haia’s good arm. “She is mine,” I stated. Neeron nodded. Our recent captors replaced her iron shackles with a rope. I didn’t object.

Neeron turned to me before speaking. “You are free to go, but I won’t be able to help you again.”

I nearly requested that we travel with him, but I sensed that this would not be a good idea. Pulling on the rope that bound La Haia, I quickly walked into the hills, with only the clothes on our backs and the one and a half blankets we had acquired.

We had walked for thirty minutes before I staggered, my legs buckled beneath me as all strength fled at once. La Haia struggled to help me to stay standing. Half dragging, half supporting, we made our way into a small overhang. I fell heavily to the ground. We were free.
~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

1. La Haia

Chapter Three
By Arrietty


2008

The next three days passed in a haze for me. La Haia seemed to know where she was going. I do remember releasing her from her bonds. I also remember her feeding me those husks and some berries which tasted like blackberries, but were bigger and redder in colour. On the fourth day I awoke clear headed. The fever had gone and my arm was back to its normal size. I rolled over and pulled myself up into a sitting position. Beside me on some leaves were the biggest berries I had ever seen. They were dark red – almost black. I heard the sound of gravel shifting, looking up; I saw the tussled head of La Haia pop over a small rock. I was then rewarded by one of Sam’s 100 kilowatt smiles.

My heart felt the pang of loss. This wasn’t Sam, this was still La Haia. I smiled back.

“Faye,” she said and pointed to the berries. I picked one up, they filled my mouth with juice, but they weren’t enough. I was weak with hunger. The hollow pit in my belly ached as it contracted trying to let me know to feed it.

The berries were quickly gone, but still leaving my belly unsatisfied.

“Come, Master.” La Haia took hold of my hand. I was careful this time to not mention that she was speaking. I stood carefully and watched the hills spin, and then stay still. La Haia was holding me upright, her arms wrapped around my body pressing painfully into my chest. I’m pretty sure I’d fractured a rib or two. Leaning heavily on her, we climbed around the rock and on to the trail that led further into the hills.

When we reached the bottom of the steep incline, I shook my head and sat down, almost falling as my body complained at the exertion. I was exhausted.

“Rest,” I puffed as I spoke.

“Please, Master, come.”

I shook my head again and said, “No.” quite sharply.

She winced and sat down near my feet.

“La Haia.”

She looked up at me fearfully. I knew I had spoken to hastily and I had to make it right.

“Don’t call me that, my name is Jack.”

She nodded. “Master Jack.”

I shook my head again. “No, La Haia. Just Jack.”

“Yes, Just Master Jack.”

I gave up, leaned against a sun warmed rock and closed my eyes.

~*~

After a while, La Haia managed to pry me off my butt and get me moving again. I struggled up the steep grade, my bruised and damaged feet protested with each painful step.

As we reached the brow of the hill, I could have kicked myself. I really should listen to La Haia. Over the steep hill, nestled a small valley was a stream and grazing on the lush grass along the banks of the stream were three fat horses. Still hobbled from when we had left them all that time ago.

We scrambled down the other side. The horses, hearing our descent, immediately came toward La Haia. She was hugging, patting and murmuring quietly to them. I ignored them and stumbled towards the cave. I was so far gone, I didn’t even check for occupants.

Our stuff was just as we had left it. I could see our packs in the dim light coming in from the entrance way. Nothing had been moved as far as I could see. I sank to my knees, opened my bag and pulled out the branding machine. I turned and looked over my shoulder to see if La Haia was behind me. I wanted to remove the ugly reminder of what she had been through, but she was still out with the horses. So instead, I placed the machine on my arm and pushed the healing button down.

I screamed. Unbearable pain shot through my arm and blood began to flow from the gaping would that the machine had left. I dropped the machine to the floor and clutched my arm trying to stem the blood flow. The pain didn’t let up and increased in intensity.


2031

“Daniel. What brings you here?”

“Janet told me that you were terrorising the nurses again and you needed to be entertained.”

“Oh! Do I see a chess set under your arm?”

“Yes, you do.”

“There’s a table over there you can use.”

“Jack, what are you doing?”

“Nothing much really. I’ll just move it out of . . .”


2008

“Carter.” I cried out, calling for help. “Carter!”

A shadow in the entrance, then La Haia was kneeling beside me. She snatched up the branding machine and moved it towards my open wound.

“No!” I shouted trying to fend her off.

“Yes, Master Jack. It will heal.”

I shook my head and moved away in fear.

“Trust me, Master Jack,” she implored.

I nodded. My body was tense, waiting for the certain agony this machine would inflict as she placed it onto my arm. A hum, a tingle and then it began to tickle. Slowly it healed.

She lifted the machine from my arm and I could see new pink skin where the red line had been. She pushed my hand away from the open wound and covered it with the healing device. Immediately, the bleeding stopped and again I could feel the tingle and the pain recede.

“Thank you, La Haia.”

She smiled at me.

“Please give it to me,” I said.

“No, you cannot heal yourself. The brander has a trick in it.”

“Booby trap?” I asked. She frowned at my words. “Yes, a trick. I understand,” I assured her, “but I want it to heal your arm.”

She turned away and delved into my pack and pulled out my sleeping bag and unrolled it beside me. With a gentle shove she pushed me back onto it. “I will heal you first; this will take a long time.”

I soon fell asleep to the gentle hum of the machine as La Haia healed my arm.

~*~

We stayed in the cave for several days. I had given up asking her to stop calling me Master Jack. Now that La Haia had started to speak, she wouldn’t stop. Her constant chatter would have normally have driven me up the wall, but I was so pleased to hear her talk, I didn’t mind. She spoke with an odd mixture of English and Ellinika, surprisingly more English than Ellinika, but even though she couldn’t remember her former life, she seemed to know a lot of English words. Ones that I had never used in her hearing.

“Master Jack.” La Haia bounded into the cave with all the exuberance of a six month old puppy. “Look what I have found – Lewberries.” She held out a handful of deep purple berries with pride.

My heart went cold. An uncontrollable anger coursed through me. Without thinking, I knocked the cursed berries out of her hand so they scattered along the dusty floor. Ignoring her cry of dismay, I ground them under my boot until they were a smear on the ground. The action left my body trembling. ‘Would I ever be free of the addiction?’

“Why, Master Jack?” La Haia asked.

I looked up into La Haia’s frightened eyes. “They are poison,” I shouted at her.

I saw tears fill her eyes, just seconds before she turned away.

~*~

It took two whole days before she spoke to me again. Not because she’d forgotten, but because it took that long for me to swallow my pride and explain what had happened to me in Leocold. She then explained to me the healing properties and that was what she had collected them for, nothing else. With my heart pounding, I then asked her to forgive me for shouting and scaring her. Her forgiveness was sweetness in the form of a hug. I held her tightly back, not wanting to let her go.

In the afternoon after my confession, I was sitting against the wall of the cave. It was stormy outside and La Haia and I with the animals were cooped up inside the cave for the second day in a row. I observed La Haia as she tended the horses. She was Carter, but not. Her face was different, her hair was even different, but then I had cut it with my knife. I couldn’t help smiling at that. Carter’ll kill me if she remembered before I could get her to the hairdresser.

My injuries weren’t fully healed. Unfortunately, because of my previous experience with the lewberries, I was unable to eat any of them to speed the healing of my damaged ribs. But we used them liberally for our cuts and bruises.

~*~

We waited until my feet were healed before leaving the cave. Even though I’d been wearing my boots, my feet weren’t quite up to long distance travelling. And if we met any marauders along the way, it would be hard to fend them off in my state.

The morning we left was clear and crisp. Spring was in full bloom and the days were getting longer and longer. We were nearly out of feed for the horses and we would need to buy some more when we arrived in Leocold. Even though Homer and Marge only carried my two packs and there was plenty of room for La Haia, she still rode behind me on Meadow. It was her choice, and I certainly wasn’t going to suggest anything else.

It was dark as we drew near Leocold, which nestled in a valley. Bright lights twinkled in the gloom. The sky mirrored the town as the stars slowly popped into view as the sun sunk over the horizon.

The lights shone brightly in the town as we entered Leocold. Shopkeepers were closing and locking down doors, scurrying inside to their warm hearths.

Even though it was a lot warmer during the day, the evenings could still be quite chilly. La Haia pressed up against me from fear or from the cold I wasn’t quite sure.

“It’s okay, La Haia. These are good people.”

I felt her relax, but she still held me tight. Somehow through the journey, we had managed the weapon problem and she could circle my waist with ease. Much to my satisfaction.

With each passing day, La Haia was growing closer to my heart, and a small part of me was going to miss her when Sam remembered who she was again.

Finally, we drew to a halt near Leocold’s inn. I quickly swung my leg over the pommel of the saddle and jumped to the ground. A sharp pain in my knee made me wince slightly, but the pain soon went. La Haia slid forward into the saddle and stayed on Meadows back while I led all three horses around to the stables that were situated around behind the main Inn. I remembered hearing the horses while I got over my addiction when I was here before. Surprisingly, at the time, I had found the sound quite comforting.

Leocold’s youngest son Brunoc was busy shutting the stable up for the night. I called over to him in greeting. He turned, saw is was me and his face broke into a smile.

“Jack. It is good to see you once again.”

“I have three for lodgings, do you have room?” I asked while anxiously peering at the rather full stable.

He expertly eyed up the three horses and nodded, all the time grinning. I quickly nodded to La Haia to get down and unstrapped my packs and left the feed in capable hands. They would be paid well for looking after the horses and we were both very tired after our run-in with the slave traders. I noticed that La Haia was reluctant to leave the horses, and I have to admit I was too. Meadow had been placid the whole journey, but I wasn’t sure what would happen when we left him with someone else. But I assured her that they would be fine.

“Come, they’ll be all right, they are in the best of hands.” I took her hand and encouraged her to follow me back to the front of the inn. I could see she was nervous with the surroundings. La Haia’s memories of people would be filled with cruelty and abuse. She stood close by my side, clutching my hand painfully tight.

I turned the handle and pushed the door open. It was Leocold’s night off and the Inn was empty, except for his old mother who was sitting by one of the tables, nursing a mug of something hot.

“Kind Mother.” I spoke gently and quietly.

She looked up. “Tzak.” She immediately stood up to greet me. A smile spread across her wizened face.

Unsuccessfully, I tried to let go of La Haia’s hand. Giving up, I walked towards Leocold’s mother and gave her a one armed hug. It is rather hard to use two when someone is hanging onto one of the arms.

She started to chatter away in her dialect, every so often I heard the name ‘Tzak’ in there, so I knew she was talking about me or to me. La Haia was nodding and smiling. She let go of my hand.

“Kind Mother.” I clenched and wriggled my hand around to get the feeling back in it. “This is La Haia.” I held out my bruised hand to La Haia and touched her gently on the shoulder. “La Haia, meet Leocold’s Mother.”

La Haia then started to prattle away in Mother’s dialect. I was stunned. They walked over to the fireplace and Mother lifted down a large kettle and put it onto the fire. I stood still and looked around, wondering where Leocold was.

“Jack O’Neill,” boomed a great voice.

‘Ah rescued at last.’ “Leocold, great to see you.” I clapped him on the back and found myself pulled into a big crushing hug. My vision turned slightly grey, I found it difficult to breath and my ribs were complaining bitterly at the treatment.

I heard a faint, “No!” It sounded a bit like screaming, but all sounds were like rushing water in my ears.

The tight grip on my body was released and I felt myself falling backwards, crashing into a table and a hard wooden bench along the way to the stone flagged floor.

I lay on the floor trying to pull in great whooping breaths, each time a sharp pain dug into my chest. My vision began to clear, and I could see Brunoc and his brother trying to pull La Haia off Leocold’s back. La Haia’s teeth were sunk into Leocold’s shoulder.

“La Haia.” My voice was weak and raspy. I took a couple of small breaths and tried again. “La Haia!” ‘Ah that’s better.’ Everyone stopped in mid fight. I struggled to a sitting position.

“La Haia, release him now,” I admonished.

The boys pulled her off and sat her down on one of the benches.

“Jack, are you all right?” Leocold knelt down beside me, rubbing his sore shoulder.

I peered at his shoulder. “Did she draw blood?” He shook his head.

“Are you injured?” he asked.

“Yeah, you could say that.” I climbed painfully to my feet and sat on one of the benches. La Haia was sitting looking at the ground. “My ribs took a beating again, plus a few other things.”

“Bandits?”

“Nope. Slave traders this time.” I grimaced as I prodded my rib cage.

Both women were watching. They didn’t seem to know quite what to do, or what was going to happen next.

“Sorry about the shoulder, but she thought you were hurting me.” ‘She was right.’ “Leocold, this is La Haia. La Haia, Leocold.”

Leocold’s mother realised that things had calmed down and moved over to me to check out my injuries. I fended her off. This time she let me.

“Leocold, can you ask your kind Mother to look after La Haia? She needs clothing, feeding, and a bed. Oh, and a haircut. Not necessarily in that order.”

“Sure, Jack.” He smiled at me. “What about you?”

“That’s easy, I just need a bed.”

He chuckled.

I stood and walked over to La Haia. She shrank from me. After all this time, I’d have thought she would realise I would never intentionally hurt her, even though I had yelled at her.

I softened my voice. “La Haia, thank you for helping me.” She looked up at me, her eyes bored into me. My heart began to quicken its beat. I dragged my eyes away and coughed into my hand. ‘Wished I hadn’t – it hurt.’ I turned back to La Haia. “I would like you to go with kind Mother, she will look after you. If you want to know where I am, just ask her, she will tell you.” I gave a small smile. She nodded. She promptly stood up and walked over to kind Mother. I watched them both walk through the side door into the passageway.

I knew she would be safe with Leocold’s mother. For the first time since I’d left this place I relaxed.

“Leo, I need to sleep.”

“Come, you can have your old room.” He led the way which was just off the main bar room. Leocold twisted his head over one shoulder and asked, “Did I hurt you much, Jack?” I could hear the worry in his voice.

“I’m okay, Leo. Just need sleep.”

He opened the door; the bed was made ready for travellers. I dumped my bag onto the floor, pulled my coat off and handed it to Leocold. He noticed all my weapons inside it and nodded to me before shutting my door. I knew he would put it in the safe. I promptly sat on the side of the bed, removed my boots and socks. I don’t remember what else I’d done, because the next thing I knew was that someone was in my room.

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

1. La Haia

Chapter Four
By Arrietty

2008

It was dark and I was under the covers, fully dressed. I could just make out a shadow from the starlight that came in from the curtainless window. The shadow moved over towards me and dropped to the ground and lay on the floor. My pack was on the floor out of reach by the door where I’d dumped it. A small sigh came from the person. It was La Haia.

“La Haia,” I whispered.

I saw movement.

“La Haia,” I whispered more harshly.

She sat up.

“What ya think ya doin’?”

She shook her shaggy head before letting it hang down. I couldn’t help the groan that I released as I climbed out of bed. La Haia stiffened; she knew she was in trouble, ‘hadn’t she learned by now, that I won’t hurt her?’

“La Haia,” I spoke softly before touching her shoulder. “Why are you here?”

“Kako dream.”

“You’re going to be all right. We’re safe here.” She raised her head and looked up at me; the moon touched her face with its soft light. My heart skipped a beat. “La Haia, you can go back to your room now.”

For a moment she hesitated. I stood up and opened the door. She wasn’t happy about it, but she silently walked out of my room towards her own.

After returning back to bed, I lay there awake, all night, unable to sleep at the disquieting thoughts.

I gave up trying to sleep, when the birds started to compete with Leocold’s noisy pan clattering in the kitchen. I certainly don’t remember it being so loud here before. My body was still sore and stiff, courtesy of Neeron’s friends. With difficulty, I dragged on my clothes, which were in need of a good wash and poked my head out through the door.

All was quiet in the main room except for the whistling, interspersed with a loud bang and clatter of a frying pan and pots, that came from the kitchen as Leocold got breakfast ready for the guests.

The first of order of business was to check on Meadow, Homer and Marge. They certainly would be looked after well here, but they were still my first priority. Plus, there was a good chance that Meadow might start to live up to his other name.

I weaved through the tables and chairs and made my way down the hallway and through the back door towards the stables.

The air was fresh and sweet; birds flitted from tree to tree calling out the alarm as I walked towards the low building set across the courtyard.

The warm smell of horses was strong in my nostrils when I opened the creaking stable door. All the horses were in stalls lined along one wall. A warm wicker of welcome came from Marge. Her large head towered above the half door nearly touching the lintel. I reached up and rubbed her soft nose. I was going to miss these great beasts. I could see why La Haia had grown so close to them.

A neigh and a stamped foot brought my attention to Meadow. He seemed agitated in his stall.

“Sssssssssss . . . Ssssssssss” I could hear a soft hissing sound. Someone was in the stall with Meadow. I moved carefully toward his stall, all the time watching him for any sudden moves. If he got spooked, anyone in the stall with him could get trampled.

Even so he was startled by my movements; he slammed his hindquarters into the back of the stall.

“Sssss… Meadow, it’s all right.” A voice, I recognised. I watched La Haia sooth Meadow. “It’s only Master Tzak.” ‘I really must stop her calling me that.’

I made soothing sounds and stood very still and Meadow settled down. Very quietly, I asked La Haia, “What upset him? Me?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure, something spooked him. I was asleep.”

I looked at the flattened straw; a crumpled blanket was mixed up in it. A sudden feeling of guilt overcame me. I should have stopped to listen to her last night, but . . . I reached over and pulled a piece of straw from her hair. I felt the soft tickling sensation as Meadow nuzzled the back of my neck and nipped my hair. I don’t remember coming into the stall, but I must have. Meadow gave me a small shove and the whiskers from his nose tickled my neck again.

“Leocold is making breakfast, do you want some?” I asked La Haia.

Her reply was a shy smile and a small nod.

Dismissing my confused feelings, I quickly made a hasty retreat from the situation and walked from the stable. “Leo makes a killer breakfast; eggs over easy, bacon and toast – mountains of toast.” I grinned at her.

La Haia’s eyes grew wide at the thought of all that food. Leocold’s cooking was certainly going to be an experience for her, especially after the bad treatment that Neeron had given. Maybe eating good food might help her remember who she really is.

The dining room was packed full when we got there. Leocold must have a full house. I was loath to enter the room with my clothes that would stand up by themselves with dirt and the dishevelled appearance of La Haia; we would draw way too much attention to ourselves.

Leocold rescued us. “Jack, come here.” He beckoned to us from the kitchen doorway. With La Haia in tow we scuttled into the hot steamy kitchen. It smelt of good hot food. I was famished. “Sit yourselves down here,” he bellowed and thumped down two great plates of eggs, bacon and something that looked a bit like hash browns. Two huge mugs of coffee were slopped down in front of the plates. La Haia cautiously poked the food with her finger, before pulling it away quickly.

“Yes, it is hot,” I smiled at her reassuringly.

I gestured towards the table with my hand. Sitting down, she pulled a fork over and plunged it into the middle of the hash browns, remembering to blow on them before shoving in a huge mouthful. ‘Yup, Sam was going to die of embarrassment if she ever remembered any of this.’

Unwanted memories came to me of Carter eating blue jell-o in the commissary. Although unwanted, it still made me smile.

I sat down opposite La Haia and started on my breakfast. The food was good and I felt the warmth travel up throughout my body.

The rest of the day was busy. As soon as we finished our breakfast, Leocold’s mother took La Haia and a small bag of my money away for the day. I was guided to the bathroom and a clean set of clothes waited for me. Admittedly, they were a little baggy around the middle as Leocold was a tad more rotund than me. But they fit me everywhere else.

As soon as I returned to the kitchen, Leocold handed me an apron. I wasn’t fazed, this was something I had done before while living here. In the absence of Leocold’s mother, I filled in. The kitchen was a bustling place, full of cooks and workers, preparing, cooking and cleaning up afterwards. Of course, I was in the cleaning up section. I didn’t mind. I knew La Haia was in the best of hands.

~*~

In the evening the Inn was full to capacity. Dish towel over my arm, I served customers like a pro. It reminded me of my high school days when I worked at Wolfburgers during the summer break. If Daniel could see me now; I couldn’t help but cringe at the thought. And then Teal’c’s raised eyebrow came to mind, and I audibly groaned. Fortunately, I wasn’t serving at the time.

The general buzz of the customers chatter was a sign that all was well in Leocold’s inn. Leocold hummed under his breath while filling large tankards with his home made brew. Dark, strong and warm; very much like what I’d tasted in London during my special ops days. A lifetime ago.

Suddenly, the chatter stopped. Spinning around, I couldn’t see what had caused the change in the demeanour of the customers. I shot back out into the dining room. After what had happened in Ellatha with the Kull warriors, I wasn’t taking any chances. I grabbed a long carving knife from the bench. Not that it would make a mark on any super soldier. I flipped the dish towel over to cover the knife which was gripped in my hand.

Leocold stood behind the counter with gormless expression on his face. I turned my head and looked at what he was gazing at. My heart missed a beat, and then made up for it by rapidly increasing its tempo. “Sam,” I hissed under my breath. La Haia pushed the hood back of her new dark brown cloak flicking drops of rain that sparkled in the fire light. Her eyes shone in the lamplight as she searched the room; stopping as soon as her eyes met mine. Her hair was shorter, but in a cut that Carter would certainly approve. The removal of her cloak revealed a dark green dress that fell to the floor in folds from her waist. Slowly the hum started back through the inn. Not from idle chatter, but appreciation of the beautiful woman who stood by the door.

“Go to her, you lummox.” Leocold gave me a shove from behind. ‘Where did he come from?’

I vaguely remember weaving my way through the tables, not once taking my eyes from this gorgeous woman. The rest of the room faded into a dream, along with La Haia. Sam stood before me.

“Master, Jack.” She bowed.

My heart fell with a thump to my boots.

“Do not call me Master Jack,” I hissed quietly. An unreasonable amount of anger grew within me, not only because she called me Master, but because my dream was shattered with those two words.

Immediately, La Haia’s smile went. I took her cloak and Leocold’s mother paused and kicked my shin as she walked past me, showering me with drops of water from her cloak. Confused, I followed the two unhappy women back through the noisy crowd to the kitchens.

Leocold’s mother spoke briefly to him and she and La Haia disappeared into the private part of the inn. I kept a wide berth around Leocold. I was sure if I got any closer, I’d get a slap upside the head.

“You idiot.” ‘What did I do?’ I raised my hands up, disavowing all understanding; he rolled his eyes and turned back to the stove. I didn’t see La Haia for the rest of the evening.

~*~

Three days later, Leocold and I were talking about this and that, basically minding our own business and keeping out of the women’s way. I still hadn’t been forgiven for whatever I’d done wrong.

La Haia rushed over to me. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Without a by your leave, she yanked back my shirt, a button popped and tinkled on the cobblestones at my feet. With trembling hands, she searched my skin for . . .

“What are you doing?” Gently, I took hold of her shoulders and held her a short distance away from me. Her face was smudged and her eyes were red and puffy from tears that were now beginning to dry on her cheeks.

More gently, I repeated my question. “What are you doing?”

“I . . . I thought, I saw . . .” La Haia looked at the ground. “Nothing, it was just a dream.” I didn’t pursue her comment to find out what she meant. I wish I had.

~*~

We stayed in Leocold for several weeks. Every day I saw a change in La Haia. Slowly, I weaned her off using ‘master’. Soon she was calling me Jack or Tzak in a voice that was disturbingly like Carter’s, it was hard not to let slip and call her Carter.

After four weeks, I decided it was time for us to leave. It was a hard decision to make as La Haia and I had grown to love it in Leocold, but I really needed to get moving with these horses. SGC needed the technology that these horses would be traded for. What made it extra hard was that I knew that there was no way I would be returning to this planet filled with slave traders - an abomination to mankind. The town of Leocold was a safe haven amongst the evil that permeated this planet. I was going to really miss Leocold and his family.

~*~

Dawn broke just as I helped Leo’s son Brunoc saddle up Meadow and load the great horses with enough feed for two weeks. It was only three days to travel to the city that had the Stargate, but there would be another seven days after we went through the Stargate to travel before we arrived at our destination. I didn’t like goodbyes at all and this time was no exception. They were all there to see us off. Leocold handed me a bag of food. His mother hugged La Haia. They talked quietly before I pulled her up to sit behind me on Meadow. Leo’s two sons stood beside him. I didn’t look back as we rode down the cobbled street towards the town of Leocold’s gate.

As the sun rose over the hills, it began to warm. Yes, it was going to be a scorcher. We had to move swiftly, because my next rendezvous with an SGC team was in ten days time. I had missed the last two, and there would only be two more chances before they considered me lost. When we met, they would take the horses onto Mongoon to exchange for the ancient thingy. I couldn’t help smiling to myself when Mongoon rubs in the fact he has some of Neeron’s horses and it was all because of us.

The journey was uneventful. La Haia insisted on wearing the spare set of BDU’s of mine on the journey right up until the day we arrived in the city. Then she wore one of the traditional outfits that had been purchased in Leocold. I have to admit, it wasn’t very practical for travel, but man! She looked good in it. The constant chatter that followed La Haia everywhere stopped as we approached the city. A slight tremble travelled through her fingers to my sides as she clung tightly to me.

The city bustled with activity. Animals of all kinds were herded through the streets, clouds of dust kicking up around them, causing us to choke on the minuscule particles. Slave traders called out from high platforms where they paraded poor souls. They were integrated with horse and stock sales. La Haia pressed close to my back. Her body trembled with fear.

“It’s all right, La Haia. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” I felt her relax, but she still clung tightly.

I stopped the horses and we climbed down and started to lead them. Meadow took that moment to kick-up a fuss at the noise. I’d almost forgotten what he’d been previously like. Whether he had sensed La Haia’s fear or just all the noise had caused it I don’t know, but he shied sideways then his front hooves lifted from the ground. I held him steady for a few moments.

“Hold on,” La Haia warned. But Meadow reared up fully, his legs flailing in the air. People scattered as his hooves came crashing down on the cobblestones. Homer and Marge waited patiently, as I tried to control the frightened animal.

“Keep back!” I yelled as a courageous ‘stupid idiot’ man ran forward to help. La Haia let go of me and there she was under his thrashing head holding his bridle. Between the two of us, we managed to get him under control. After this, we decided the best thing was for La Haia to hold onto him.

“Roll up. Roll up. Come and see these fine specimens.” La Haia blanched. It was Neeron selling.

La Haia lifted a small veil to cover the lower part of her face, leaving her eyes clear. Without saying a word, we both moved over to where he was selling. I was pleased to see that he was trading in horses and not people. Still hanging onto Meadow’s bridle, we weaved our way through the crowded streets towards the Stargate. I could hear the familiar Kawoosh in the distance as the event horizon opened. Someone was either leaving or arriving.

Our papers were safe in my inside pocket ready to produce when we left the planet for good.

I heard a gasp from La Haia. “Jack, look.”

On a large, raised platform stood several slaves for sale. The owner, I recognised, he was the man that had captured and treated us both so badly.

I grabbed hold of La Haia’s hand, “Come, we need to get out of here.”

“No, look, it’s Mara.” I looked again, taking longer this time. Standing, bent over slightly was the old woman that had convinced me to take La Haia with me; the same woman that I’d given some money to, so she could buy her freedom. The anger rose within me, making me sharp and ready for action. “We must buy her.” La Haia’s eyes pleaded with me.

“Yes, we will, La Haia.”

I had no proof that I’d given her money to buy her freedom, but my estimation of Neeron lowered another notch on the already non existent level of respect that I had of the man. We waited patiently in the crowd. La Haia stood very close beside me while I firmly held onto Meadow’s bridle and Marge and Homers halter ropes. Soon it was Mara’s turn. The angry red welt stood out vivid on her arm. Her clothes were ragged and she looked totally done in. I hadn’t seen her amongst the slaves when we were captured. It was a puzzle for me to find out later.

“Don’t let looks deceive you. This woman is strong. She has many years left in her yet.”

Mara didn’t even seem to notice the crowds or what the man was saying about her. Her eyes were downcast and her shoulders slumped. I did have one thing to say for Neeron – apart from La Haia, he had treated his slaves a whole lot better than this trader was.

“Come on! Someone start the bid.”

I complied.

“One gold coin. I didn’t want to attract too much attention by bidding for more.

He continued calling for more bids. No one bid.

“Sold, to the man in the black coat.”

I handed Meadow’s bridle and the horse’s ropes to La Haia and walked around to the back of the platform. The owner was standing waiting for his money. He didn’t recognise me.

“Where did you get the woman?” I asked. He still didn’t recognise who I was.

“From some of my men, they were scouting for stock.” I bridled at the inference, but chose to keep quiet. “They got her from two youths; not sure where from.” He shrugged. ‘The nephews’ a different kind of anger settled deep, mixed with sorrow for this kind woman.

I nearly revealed myself, but decided to leave well alone.

“Kind, sir?” she recognised me.

“Come, kind mother, I wish to take you somewhere safe.”

She smiled and a new light shone in her eyes.

“Mara!” La Haia hurried forward, dragging the three horses behind her, making a small wave of people as they dodged out of the way. “Mara,” she called out again, her voice breaking with emotion.

I paid my money over to the trader, supporting Mara by her elbow, I steered her towards La Haia.

“It’s me, La Haia,” she clutched Mara’s hands in hers. I rescued forgotten ropes attached to the horses.

“La Haia, it is you.” Mara touched La Haia’s cheek as a tear rolled down her smooth skin. La Haia pulled the dear old woman into a hug, tears making her eyes shine. Gratitude poured out at me. I coughed to cover my emotion.

“Come, we must move away from here, we are being noticed too much.” I steered them away from the sale area towards the Stargate; a shiny beacon rising above the dusty crowds. I really wanted off this planet as soon as possible.

It was as I thought, after paying Neeron for her freedom; she travelled home to her village. The two young nephews that were her only living relatives met her before she got there. They robbed her of her money and sold her to the nearest trader who then sold her onto the trader that brought her here. I quashed my anger; it wasn’t going to do anyone any good. Of course if the nephews had happened to be in my vicinity – well that would be another story. But they weren’t so I had to let it go.

La Haia and Mara prattled away in their language, talking so fast I couldn’t follow. I was pleased to see that La Haia was so animated, and I suspect that Mara was too. More of Sam was prevalent in La Haia as her confidence blossomed. All I needed now was for her to remember, and then I could take her back to her Dad. It was strange how much Jacob’s approval meant to me.

Finally, we made it to the Stargate. I had all the necessary papers clutched in my hand; we waited to pass through, for want of a better word, customs. Mara whispered quietly to La Haia in Greek, while Meadow nibbled La Haia’s blond short hair. Every few moments Mara would touch La Haia on the cheek, or push a stray piece of hair behind her ear, a caring touch. A touch that I . . .

I handed my papers over to the official. I started to walk to the DHD.

“What is the address?” I was stopped by a hand firmly placed on my chest.

“Pardon?”

“Where you want to go. What is the address?”

I frowned at him. “None of your business.” I tried to move forward again.

“I’m sorry, sir. You can’t go anywhere without logging in your destination.”

I closed my eyes, drew in a deep calming breath. “For crying out loud,” I muttered under my breath.

Glaring at him, I quickly wrote a totally different address I’d planned on using on his clip board. This planet was very much like Abydos, but no people, just sand, sand and more sand.

The official then walked over to the DHD and punched in the address. It was total bedlam. La Haia’s hair forgotten, Meadow reared up and screamed in terror at the kawoosh of the Stargate. It took both La Haia and myself to hold this horse and keep him from hurting himself. Mara took the ropes that held Homer and Marge. She went through first and La Haia and I dragged through a screaming kicking horse. The last thing I saw of that planet was Neeron’s smirking face as he watched from the sidelines.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

1. La Haia

Chapter Five
By Arrietty

2008


Meadow wrenched my arms nearly pulling them out of their sockets. It was extremely painful so I let go of the reins and La Haia did the same. I knew it would be bad if we lost him, but really we couldn’t hold on any longer. Mara stood quietly by while holding onto Homer and Marge’s ropes. Meadow was a small cloud of kicked up sand in the distance. La Haia sat down with a thump and proceeded to cry. Mara immediately trotted over to comfort her and I once again rescued the dropped ropes. I didn’t want to lose these horses; they were the whole reason why I went to that planet. My gaze wandered over to La Haia. An unusual feeling of the ‘warm fuzzies’ came over me towards these great beasts. They were the reason that I’d found Sam again.

‘She must really love that horse.’ I watched as Mara gently lifted the distraught La Haia to a standing position.

We needn’t have worried because by evening Meadow came back to us, tired and extremely dusty. We didn’t have enough water for everyone, so I was pleased he had returned. I didn’t want to leave him here, even though we would have had to by the following day if he hadn’t returned.

The next planet we would be travelling to would be Mongoon’s. There was a small outpost set up near his farm of SGC personnel. It would take several days to get there, or I could wait out the seven days for the planned rendezvous and hand over the horses to the SG team. Deciding this was the least of my problems, I watched La Haia as she vigorously brushed Meadow’s coat which was caked with dried sweat and sand. La Haia/Carter was a huge problem within itself without. . . I looked at Meadow; he stood quietly, energy spent from his fright. ‘How on earth am I going to get him through the Stargate?’

I couldn’t let the horse run free on the other side. There would be too many crops, fences, gates . . . people. And with La Haia still nervous of the Stargate she wouldn’t be much help with Meadow, so it would have to be me. I’d go through first and then they would follow. I didn’t want to run into La Haia and those two great horses on the other side.

Without wasting any more time, I instructed La Haia how to work the DHD. It was weird, telling Carter how to work something technical. But in the usual Carterish way, she picked it up quickly. Address clutched in her hand, with Mara standing patiently by holding the horses, Meadow and I made a hasty retreat quite a distance from the Stargate.

Hat firmly tucked inside my leather coat, I watched as the chevrons locked into place, the sun beat down on my bare head. Apart from a zat, all the weapons and stores were packed on Homer and Marge. The final chevron locked and the familiar kawoosh of the event horizon billowed out into the sunlight. Fortunately, Meadow seemed unaffected by it. I dug my heels in and clicked my tongue, Meadow was off. Exhilaration flowed through me as he built up speed, hooves kicking up the sand into a cloud behind me. Collecting him at the base of the steps, we clattered up the first steps and then with only four inches from the event horizon, Meadow planted his feet firmly on the ground and I carried on through the Stargate.

I’m absolutely positive I heard a giggle from behind me, and if I wasn’t sure about that, I’m definitely sure of the uproarious laughter at the other end. The SG team was seven days early. Go figure.

~*~

Fortunately I wasn’t injured, physically that is, my pride was a bit bent, but the rest seemed okay.

“General O’Neill!” Colonel Santos helped me to my feet. I glared at him and he backed off.

“You’re early,” I accused.

“Yes, well actually we are just changing the guard so to speak.” I did a perfect mimic of Teal’c and raised one eyebrow. “SG-6 have just returned to the SGC, we are the replacements.”

“Ah,” I nodded. “Any of you know anything about hors . . ?”

The Stargate shut down behind me.

Spinning around on one spot I stared at the empty hole. Now all I could do is wait, hoping that La Haia understood the dial up sequence . . . ‘what am I talking about? She’s already dialled the ‘gate, plus she’s Carter for crying out loud.’

Even with the stern talk with myself, I still waited anxiously.

Finally, after what seemed a lifetime, the chevrons began to lock. The familiar kawoosh filled the space in front of the Stargate and SG-5 readied their P-90’s. Too late, I remembered the fire bomb that might be flying through the Stargate.

“Don’t shoot!”

White terrified eyes, flared nostrils and bared teeth came leaping through the Stargate. La Haia hanging on for dear life as Meadow petrified out of his wits landed in a cloud of dust before leaping over the surprised SG team.

“Stand down!” I yelled again.

I waited, half an eye on the struggling woman trying to control a crazy horse and the other on the Stargate waiting for Mara to come through. With a small plopping sound, Mara leading the great horses followed calmly through the Stargate.

“Santos. The horses.” I ordered, directing them towards Mara and the horses, while I jogged over to the panting fiend. La Haia leapt lightly onto the ground and moved around to Meadow’s head. I watched as she calmed him down with her usual nose on nose trick. It always seemed to work, but only if she was calm as well. She’d mastered her fear of the Stargate. Once again, I was proud of Carter . . . no, La Haia I reminded myself.

“Colonel Carter!” The shout stopped me dead in my tracks. I didn’t think any of the members of SG-5 knew Carter. A slightly built lieutenant ran past me, I grabbed her arm.

“Lieutenant Mantel,” I hissed.

“Sir?”

“She doesn’t remember who she is.” I waited a second for it to penetrate. “Please, don’t say anything to the others.” She frowned. “Don’t worry, it will go through the right authorities, I just need . . . she needs more time.”

By now, La Haia had seen us talking and was watching thoughtfully. Lieutenant Mantel is a very astute young woman. She glanced over at La Haia, then back at me, gave a small smile and nodded. “I assume I will hear some good news when I return to the SGC, sir.”

“That you will, Lieutenant that you will.” I nodded in return, assuring her that the SGC will be notified.

She turned and walked back towards the large horses and the rest of her team. I followed.

I removed my pack and a few small bags off the horses, but left everything else on them. We wouldn’t need everything and anyway, we couldn’t carry it all.

“Colonel Santos, can you please get this letter through to General Hammond for me? Preferably sooner than later.” I handed over a rather crumpled sealed envelope which had seen better days, but inside was a letter for Hammond, detailing what had happened regarding Carter and my reasons as to why she hadn’t returned. “As you know, I don’t have an IDC code, so . . . “ I shrugged, he replied with a nod.

~*~

Homer and Marge quite happily followed Colonel Santos and his team. Without warning, La Haia leapt onto Santos’ back. “Let them go!” she yelled.

Immediately, the colonel’s team started to try and pull her off him. For the first time, I saw Homer and Marge react. Homer balked at the noise, stamping his great hooves on the ground, causing clouds of dust to mask the scene. Leaving Meadow with Mara, hoping that he would behave, I joined in.

“La Haia!” I pulled an airman off her back and then pulled her off the hapless colonel. She and I fell in a heap onto the dusty ground.

“Tzak, why do you betray me?” Her eyes accused me along with her words.

“La Haia, trust me.” I still held her shoulders to the ground. “They will be all right.” To my dismay her eyes filled with tears. I sat back onto my heels, releasing my hold on her. She didn’t move. A lone tear rolled down into her hairline. “They’re going to a man called Mongoon.”

Her head shot up and stared at me with surprise, and then a smile slowly spread across her face. “He’s been trying to buy Neeron’s horses for years.” I helped her up to a sitting position. “Jack, why?” she asked again, less accusation, but with more sorrow in her voice.

“This is the reason why I came to Neeron’s planet, to buy these horses. You,” I smiled softly at her. “Were just the icing on the cake.” She smiled her lovely Carter 100 kilowatt smile in return. My heart beat sped up and I helped her to her feet. I looked over to see the colonel and his team busy calming the horses. “They will treat them right, La Haia.” I spoke softly. Her eyes filled with tears again as she approached Marge.

“Santos,” I called, jerking my head away from the horses. “Leave her for a bit will you?” He and his men complied.

After several minutes, La Haia came over and leaned in close to me, “Tzak, Marge will be foaling soon.”

Surprised I looked at her closely. “Does Neeron know?”

She shook her head and smiled broadly. ‘Man is he gonna be one annoyed trader.’ Somehow the thought really filled me with a deep seated pleasure.

~*~

I was quite saddened to see the horses leave, but I knew they would be in good hands. Mongoon loved his animals and Earth would get access to the cache of weapons. That is if that was what was in there. Part of me wanted to go and find out myself, but I needed La Haia away from any the SGC personnel at the moment, she needed to remember in her own time. The word selfishness sped through my mind, but I damped it down and ignored it.

Tears were unashamedly running down La Haia’s cheeks as she held onto Meadow’s bridle. I reached out my hand, but didn’t touch her. I wanted to hold her tight and tell her that it would be all right, but I was afraid of what would happen if I did.

~*~

2031

“Dad!”

“Hello, son. How did you get in?”

“They gave me clearance, and as I’ve known about you and mom all my life . . .”

“Yeah of course. Take a load off.”

“Have these chairs always been this uncomfortable?”

“Yup. Unless you can steal Aunt Janet’s spinning one, which was always good to get. How’s flight school going?”

“Frustrating.”

“Why?”

“I am stuck in class, and yes, we do get to fly a bit, but only the really old 302’s, I don’t think I’ll ever get to fly the 320’s. They are cool . . . All the action is out there. Like you, Dad, you were in the thick of it.”

“And look where it landed me.”

“True. How much longer before you’re up and about?”

“Another five weeks they say.”

“Dad, I have a question.”

“Fire away.”

“What happened, what really happened to you and mom?”

“I don’t know if you have clearance for the full details, but I’ll give you the bare bones. Hang on while I switch this off . . .”

~*~

2008

After Santos and his men had left with the horses, we re-sorted our baggage. We would have to carry a lot of it ourselves now, as Meadow couldn’t carry the bags as well as one of us.

This time La Haia was going to ride him through the gate. Last time wasn’t a pleasant experience and I didn’t want to end up with any broken bones, like my neck.

We were going to Ellatha.

This time, La Haia went through first with the horse and Mara and I followed. We stepped onto the stones and looked out onto the busy cobbled street. It was so good to be home. La Haia was waiting patiently with Meadow. A small crowd had already gathered around her, and she looked relieved to see us arrive.

“It’s Jack!” A loud roar rose up from amongst the people, before they surged towards us. La Haia and Meadow were like a rock amidst the sea of people as they ran past her. I found myself pulled down from the steps and hands clapped me on my back and pulled my arms towards Alexander’s and Mariam’s home.

“Follow!” I yelled to La Haia and Mara, hoping they would hear me. There was no way I was going to stop this crowd from what they were doing.

~*~

It was quite a while before the crowds moved away from the house. One of the servants of the house took Meadow around to the stables. I assured La Haia that he would be okay. She didn’t look convinced.

Eimon slapped me on my back as he gave me a hug. “It is good to see you, Jack.”

Lisle came down the hallway with a small toddler in tow. “Lisle, how are you?” I hugged her. “And who is this? Mariam?” I exclaimed. She smiled shyly at me and ducked back behind Lisle’s skirt.

“I thought I heard your voice, Jack.” Mariam walked through a doorway; her smile was beaming as she leaned forward and gave me a hug.

“How are you all?” I asked. “Where’s Alexander?”

“He’s with a patient, come, you will need some food.” Mariam gestured to us all to go through into a small sitting room.

Mara looked uncomfortable with the rich furnishings, I leaned over and took her arm and sat her down on one of the soft, comfortable chairs.

“Everyone, I wish you to meet La Haia and Mara, good friends of mine.” I then introduced Mariam and her household to La Haia and Mara.

Food was brought in by Beatrice, who immediately dropped the tray of food onto the low table with a thump. Wine slopped over onto the tray. Without a thought to what she had done, she wrapped her ample arms around me and hugged me tight. “Jack it is so good to see you.” And gave me another good squeeze for good measure. With a smile she sailed out of the room, not giving anyone else or the food a second thought.

I sat down on a low sofa, La Haia scooted up and sat really close beside me barely touching, but I could feel her arm and thigh through my clothing. “It’s okay, they are my family,” I assured her. She replied with a tentative smile.

Mariam filled me in on what had happened since I’d left them. Thankfully, nothing much had happened like big black armoured super soldiers or snakes in people’s heads. All in all life had been really uneventful. ‘Sweet.’

After our snack, everyone was shown to a room. I pulled Mariam aside. “Mara would like to work for you.” I looked at her intently. She nodded slowly. “She’s been treated terribly, a basic slave most of her life. She is special to La Haia, which makes her special to me. In fact in her own right she is special to me.”

Mariam nodded again, “Don’t worry, Jack. She will be cared for here.”

“It is important that she works, she wants to work, be paid for what she does.” I looked intently at Mariam.

“I understand, Jack. She will work, but she will also have a good life here. Beatrice needs help with the serving. Leave her to me.” I nodded in reply.

For the first time in ages I slept peacefully all night. No bad dreams, no visitors in the night and no worries . . . for now. It was good.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

1. La Haia

Chapter Six
By Arrietty

2008

The following morning, La Haia bounced into my room closely followed by, an exuberant two year old. La Haia had made a friend already.

“Tzak! Tzak! Wake up,” as if La Haia couldn’t see I was awake already.

Mariam jumped onto the middle of my bed, “Oomph!” Of course I was still lying in it.

Mariam mimicked La Haia. “Tzak wakeup!” All shyness gone.

“So what’s for breakfast? Pancakes?” Mariam frowned at my words.

La Haia smiled, “With bacon and maple syrup,” she added.

I sat up, making Mariam roll onto the floor with a squeal.

‘It was a memory.’ “Okay, ladies, I’ll be down in a jiffy.” It was La Haia’s turn to frown at that comment.

~*~

The cook, Naleena and her husband Gamol were busy bickering good naturedly in the kitchen when we entered. Naleena bustled forward and enveloped me into a huge hug while tutting her tongue. “Tsk tsk, you’ve lost weight, Jack. What have you been doing to yourself?”

“Oh this and that,” I said as I untangled myself from her grasp, grinning.

I introduced La Haia to them and we sat down at the large kitchen table. Mariam climbed onto La Haia’s knee as though she had been doing it all of her short life. “Brekfus!” she demanded.

“No, you don’t, you’ve already had yours. Off you go find Mama,” Naleena gently admonished. Mariam obediently jumped down and scampered out through the door.

Freshly baked bread and a light red wine was our breakfast fare, no sign of pancakes and bacon, smothered in maple syrup. A bowl of fresh fruit was placed on the table so we could help ourselves.

“Where’s Mara,” I asked La Haia.

She smiled, “She’s helping Beatrice do the shopping in the market.” La Haia leaned close to me. “Thank you,” she whispered. I knew what she meant; thanking me for getting Mara somewhere to live and work. Somewhere safe.

“La Haia,” I started to tell her of my plans when Alexander walked in.

“Jack! Good to see you.” He gripped my elbow as I rose from the table and I pulled him into a hug. It was good to see him again. “It is good to see you again, Jack. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever see you again.”

“No,” I laughed, “You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.”

“So, this is La Ha. . . “ He blanched and stopped in mid sentence.

“Yes, this is La Haia, who doesn’t remember anything of her life apart from the past few years,” I said quickly. He was clearly shocked.

Alexander turned and looked at me, his eyes shining from unshed tears. “Jack, we have to talk.”

I nodded. “Be back soon,” I caught La Haia’s eye, she nodded in return.

I followed Alexander down the hallway into one of the side sitting rooms. As soon as I closed the door, I couldn’t contain myself.

“How did you know?” I shouted.

His face distraught, Alexander replied, “Kanan.”

The shock of his reply was like a physical blow and I found myself sitting on one of the couches.

“I’m sorry Jack, but I know a lot about your world and your life too. I know how you feel about Samantha Carter. Kanan showed me quite a bit before he died. He said that I needed to know about you, so I could explain better why he did what he did to you.”

I didn’t look at him, my friend, host to something that I hated; something that had deserted me during my most desperate time of need. I shook my head before resting it onto the palms of my hands.

“Jack,” he pleaded. “I need to explain.”

An all consuming anger flared. “What is there to explain? He deserted me, left the sinking ship, just like a rat. I could have done with his help while being tortured by Baal. Did he tell you what Baal did to me? Does he really know what happened to me every day, for days on end? I have no idea how many times I died; losing a little bit more of myself each time.” When I’d finished yelling into Alexander’s face, I found myself standing. My whole body taught with tension and anger, but Alexander had never flinched from my violent words.

“Jack, he knew what you went through.”

“How can he? He was slithering off somewhere else. Saving his own slimy butt.” Disgusted, I sat back down heavily onto the couch.

“Jack, he was there.”

I looked up smartly. “What! How?” I demanded.

“He hid in one of the servants. He knew what was going on, but couldn’t do anything to help you, Jack. He tried - really.”

“Not good enough, Alex. Anyway, why should you care what I think about Kanan?”

“I know you, Jack. I know that this hate could eat you up from the inside out. I also know how much Kanan respected you and cared about your welfare.” He paused, before he continued in a much softer voice. “As much as I do, Jack.” He looked at me with a piercing gaze.

I rubbed my hand over my face. “Okay, Alex, tell me what you want to say, I most probably won’t accept it, but fire away.”

I leaned against the back of the couch and rested my head on the plaster wall. I listened to him start to tell Kanan’s story, I had closed my mind to anything he might say that would sway me from my deep seated hate of the snake who had caused me so much pain and anguish. I almost hated it as much as I hated Baal. The only reason I was still sitting here was my friendship with Alexander.

Kanan’s Story

Kanan was dying. His host, a young man in his early thirties in all intense and purpose was already dead, only hanging by a thread by Kanan keeping his host’s lungs moving and his heart beating. The pain was all encompassing, filling Kanan’s vision with red and black shadows. He needed rest so he could have enough strength to tell his fellow Tok’ra what Baal was doing before this broken body he was trapped in, finally gave its last breath.

“Baal is go. . .” Weak words trailed into silence as Kanan slipped into unconsciousness.

~*~

Anise laid a blanket to cover Kanan as he lay there. Time was of an essence, they needed a host soon. Now. Moving quickly, they removed Kanan’s symbiote and put him into stasis.

~*~

Anise didn’t leave his side, constantly monitoring his condition. If they didn’t find a host soon, Kanan would not live. They needed the information urgently. They’d already managed to keep him alive for several days. He only had another three, maybe less. With a sigh, Anise moved over to a low chair and sat down. She pulled out her notebook and started to write down some thoughts. It helped her cope with the waiting.

One of the young Tok’ra came into the room and stared at Kanan suspended in stasis. Anise ignored him, often fellow Tok’ra came to watch; they were not only worried about the information, but they were also saddened by Kanan’s plight. Suddenly, the young Tok’ra spoke, his double voice reverberating in his voice box. “I will sacrifice myself so that Kanan can tell us what Baal is going to do.” He turned and looked at Anise. Sincerity filling his countenance.

“No, this will be unnecessary,” A deep voice came from the doorway, just before Thoran entered the room. “The Tau’ri have need of a symbiote to heal one of their own.”

Anise asked, “Who is it?” She wondered who would be joining their band of Tok’ra. Would it be someone she knew? Part of her or more appropriately part of Freya hoped it was going to be Colonel Jack O’Neill. Even if he did push away her advances and had feelings for Major Carter, at least once he is Tok’ra, there could be a chance he would change his mind.

“It is Colonel O’Neill.” Freya released the breath that she had been holding. Hope filled her only moments before Thoran dashed them with his next words. “Colonel O’Neill will only be a host for a short amount of time, just enough to heal him of his sickness then Kanan will have to find a new host.” The disgust at O’Neill’s request was evident in Thoran’s voice.

Anise felt the same as Thoran, Freya not so much, she just felt disappointment. Maybe Kanan would be a good influence on O’Neill. He and Anise had known each other all their long lives. He knew of her feelings for this Tau’ri. However misguided Kanan thought her feelings were, maybe he could sway Colonel O’Neill her way.

~*~

Anise under Thoran’s watchful eye carried Kanan, dripping from the solution he had been kept in, over to O’Neill.

Kanan could feel her hands holding him gently. The air cooled his warm skin as he moved through it. He could see the outline of a man on a bed; he was an older man, with greying hair. An unnatural flush on his cheeks offset the pallor of his skin. Without Anise telling him, he knew that this was to be his new host; his only hope of revealing Baal’s plans to the Tok’ra.

Anise opened the man’s mouth and Kanan shot in down the man’s throat into the back of his neck. There was no resistance to anything he did, the man wasn’t there, he was too ill to respond or acknowledge him. Straight away, Kanan set to work healing the virus that racked this man’s body.

After the first onslaught on the virus, Kanan started to work into this man’s mind. Worming his way through his memories. He needed something to be able to hold this man at bay, to stop him from fighting for control. Within moments he had found his subjects. Memories, fond happy memories of a child once lost and of a beautiful flaxen haired woman that he worked with. He filled Jack O’Neill’s dreams of these two people, while he began to systematically search through Jack’s memories for anything else that would be of help to him in keeping this man quiet.

Terrible memories of Jack’s lost friends and comrades filled Kanan’s mind. One particular one caused Kanan to really search into. Jack had been left behind. He had been tortured by his enemies, treated most cruelly. Everywhere he went in Jack’s past, he found this one strong thought. ‘Do not leave anyone behind’, even if you die trying you don’t leave anyone behind.

Visions of Shallan filled Kanan, memories of this beautiful woman. He loved her greatly and it had saddened him much to leave her, but he just couldn’t bring her with him. ‘Why not?’ The accusing words sprung into his mind. They sounded suspiciously like what Jack would’ve said if he was conscious. Concerned, Kanan searched Jack’s mind to see if he was awake, finding no sign of a conscious Jack, he relaxed. His thoughts drifting back to Shallan, their stolen moments together were bringing forward fond memories of his own.

~*~

It had been an arduous seven hours of revealing all of Baal’s plans for his dominion over the other System Lords. Kanan was done, finished with all the talking and reporting to the council. He was tired, healing Jack had been taxing on his reserves and keeping him subdued wasn’t easy either. Fortunately for Kanan, Jack had no idea what was going on. He was blissfully unaware, immersed in the dreams that Kanan had placed in Jack’s mind.

Kanan rose from his chair and walked to his room. Sleep would be good, something that he needed to complete the healing process.

He tossed and turned in his sleep. Visions of Shallan swam past his eyes, tortured and beaten by Baal. Accusing words left her lips. “You left me behind.” Kanan awakened with a start, sweat drenched his clothes and he was breathing heavily. He rolled out of bed and sat on the side. He checked to make sure Jack was still caught up in his memories, only to be surprised to find that he was sleeping peacefully, dream free. From what he had found out, most probably the first in a long time that he had slept so free from nightmares that seemed to plague him.

Kanan moved to the small bag that one of the Tok’ra had given him. Inside were some clothes that weren’t his, but fitted his new body. He quickly changed into fresh clothes. They weren’t very flattering, but beggars can’t be choosers. ‘Where’d that come from?’ He looked into Jack’s mind again, and found he had a whole host of clichés that he used from time to time. He smiled to himself as he walked down the blue crystal corridors of the Tok’ra’s hideout.

He couldn’t believe at how easy it was to leave the Tok’ra tunnels without anyone noticing. It was dark when he slipped up to the guards by the Chaapa’ai. They were talking quietly to each other and didn’t hear Kanan as he opened his zat’nik’atel. With two quick shots he downed both of the guards. He then dialled the Stargate to Baal’s home planet.

The other side was just as easy to get through, although this time he didn’t need to zat the guards, just announced his service to Baal and walked straight towards the fortress. Once inside, he made a systematic search for Shallan, he knew she wouldn’t be serving Baal at this time, but most probably preparing for the following day. The problem being is that she could be anywhere in the building. He finally found her in her quarters; it looked like she was getting ready for bed.

“Shallan,” he whispered.

She looked up and turned to Kanan. “Who are you?” she asked.

“It’s me, Kanan.” He moved closer.

Shallan took a step closer to Kanan, her face only inches away from his. She searched his eyes for any sign of the person she loved. “Is it you?”

“Yes,” he said simply. “Come with me.”

“No, he’ll stop us.”

“No, he won’t. I will protect you.”

Kanan took hold of her hand and led her along the corridors towards freedom. It was easy to slip through the dark places.

Once free, they ran through the woods towards the Stargate. A loud sounding alarm reverberated all through the forest as they ran. A shout of warning. “Kree!” Kanan ran faster, dragging Shallan along behind him.

“"It's too far," Shallan gasped just as she stumbled and fell.

Kanan stopped and bent down to help her to stand.

“I can’t. . .” she pleads.

“Hide there until the Chappa-ai is activated. Go,” Kanan said, pushing her behind a stand of thin trees.

Crouched over, he ran over to the DHD splashing through puddles as he went. With speed he punched in the first glyph followed closely by a second one. A staff blast hit him in the right shoulder causing him to fall to the ground.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to escape now. In the distance he heard Shallan’s cries as she was caught by the Jaffa. In despair, Kanan knew that Baal must never know that Shallan had come willingly with him. He loved her; he knew what Baal would do to her to find out what she knew. Her only chance would be if he escaped. Jack didn’t know anything, he couldn’t reveal Shallan’s treachery and if Kanan wasn’t caught, he could never reveal his true reason for being here. Kanan quickly slithered from Jack’s body and crawled away through the muddy ground. With a backward glance he saw Jack crawl towards the Jaffa, before he quietly slipped into a stagnant pool. The words, "Shek'mal, Tok'ra. Kree! Jaffa. Shal Kek," ringing in his ears.

~*~

Kanan was sick, in heart as well as body. The water was barely keeping him alive, if someone didn’t come by soon, he would die. He thought maybe it would be for the best, so far all he had managed to do was give Jack into the clutches of Baal and leave Shallan at the mercy of the cruel Goa’uld. Disheartened and if he was honest with himself, afraid, he swam down into the murky depths of the pond to die.

The morning sun shone bright on the water of his pond. The reflection of the blue sky gave the illusion of blue water. The sun’s rays managed to reach a sad and miserable symbiote as he languished in his wretchedness and fear. Waiting to die was his only thought, until he noticed he could see through the water. Trees swayed in the breeze, dipping and dancing to their own tune. A shadow past over where he lay just before he heard voices. Children were playing in the shallows of the pond. Curiosity overcame his fear as he slowly swam towards the laughing children. One boy had his head under the water, eyes wide open as he searched for small shrimps. Without a thought to the boy’s safety, Kanan swam closer to the boy. He saw him just too late, opening his mouth in surprise he swallowed a huge mouthful of water along with the Tok’ra symbiote.

Quietening the boy’s mind, similar to what he had done for Jack, Kanan quickly left the other children and ran towards the fortress. He was in luck, the boy worked as a runner. He carried messages and did errands for Baal. The boy had been given the afternoon off as Baal was busy. With a jolt, Kanan knew just whom Baal was being busy with. Eleven days already, ‘how could Jack survive this long?’

His host knew all the back ways in and out through hidden doorways. Wasting no time, Kanan made his way to the ‘The Grid Room’. Kanan felt no guilt in taking a child into this room of horrors; knowing full well that the boy had witnessed not only O’Neill, but many others before him. Sickened by this knowledge, Kanan filled the boy’s mind with memories of long past; memories of when he lived with his mother, as she sang him to sleep with a lullaby.

Crouched down low, Kanan had a clear view of both Baal and Jack. By the damage to Jack’s shirt, Kanan could see that he had suffered greatly. Even now, Jack was mumbling to himself, calling for his friend, Daniel. The acrid smell of acid hung in the air like a death cloud. Kanan knew that he had to get Jack and Shallan out of there. Giving him a shock, he heard his name spoken from Jack’s lips. Then his name said again, this time from Baal. If Jack knew his name, there was a good chance he’d remember Shallan’s. Fear gripped him at the thought of Shallan going through what Jack was going through. From what he had seen of Jack’s mind, he was a man that would resist this, but not forever.

“Oy!” A shout from behind him. Just as an iron grip clamped around his ankle and yanked him out of his hiding place. “Boy. What do you think you’re doing?” The iron grip transferred from his ankle to his ear – painfully so. Kanan in one move could have downed this man, but now wasn’t the time to reveal himself. He recognised him from the boy’s memories. He was one of the human slaves that worked in the kitchens. “Get down below where you belong.”

“It’s my day off,” Kanan said, using the boy’s vocal cords.

“Not anymore. And before you decide to run off anyway, you’re coming with me.”

Kanan followed. For now. He knew where Jack would be held and he was pretty sure Shallan wouldn’t be far away either.

The next two hours his time was spent carrying water for the cooks that worked in the hot steamy kitchen. It was noisy too as it was situated right next to the power generators.

Suddenly, there was an explosion, the ground shook and bits of masonry began to fall. Kanan ducked into a small air vent which led outside. Being small had its advantages. Something heavy landed on his head and Kanan fell unconscious.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

La Haia

Chapter Seven
By Arrietty


Kanan awakened to hear voices. The young boy he inhabited was still unconscious and was afraid for both their lives. The injuries sustained were fatal. He managed to find enough strength to call out for help.

Soon he was free. The man who had so viciously gripped his ear before, gently lifted his body over to a makeshift bed.

“I’ve found another one; I don’t think he’s going to make it.” Kanan saw the man bend down and look closely at him. “Can you hear me?” Kanan opened the boy’s mouth, left him and entered the man. No one saw it happen.

Avoiding Jaffa and Baal, Kanan managed to go undetected for several days. After a near miss, Kanan decided to leave. When hearing that Jack and Shallan had escaped during the attack, he had no reason to stay.

Kanan got as far as the Chaapa’ai before he was caught by a Jaffa patrol. It didn’t take them long to realise that he wasn’t human and they took him back to the fortress.

Too late, Kanan found out that Baal was packing his bags and leaving taking his forces with him. The fortress having been compromised by Yu’s attack.

Kanan was filled with despair. Jack and Shallan were gone. He had revealed himself when he needn’t have. Baal took only minutes to work out who Kanan really was. It took two weeks before Kanan managed to finally escape. Only to be pursued relentlessly for years. Kanan couldn’t find the Tok’ra so he hid out in unsuspecting humans on different planets only managing to avoid the Kull warriors by the skin of his teeth.

~*~

“And this is meant to make me feel, what?” I demanded tiredly.

“I don’t know, Jack. Kanan only asked me to tell you his story. What you do with it is totally up to you.”

“How much did Kanan tell you of my time in ‘The Grid Room,’” I hooked my index fingers depicting quotation marks as I said the name of that horrific room.

“A lot more than I repeated.” He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. If his butt was anywhere near like mine, it would be numb by now. “I didn’t think you wanted that part of the story repeated.” I nodded in agreement and shifted myself to let the blood begin to flow again.

“So, Jack. Can you forgive him?”

“Why should I?” I asked, my voice still sounding as tired as I felt.

“For your sake, Jack.”

“You want me to forgive a snake that deserted me when I could have really done with his help; a snake that left the ‘love of his life’ behind; a snake that entered people WITHOUT their permission; a snake that ” my voice softened, “caused a young boy to die.” I closed my eyes again and rested my head against the same spot on the wall.

I heard movement as Alexander stood up. “Think on it, Jack.”

Just as he left the room, I murmured, “All he had to do was ask.”

“What?” He turned back to look at me.

I sat still watching him. “I’d have gone with him, all he had to do was ask.” I shut my eyes again, as I said the last word. Alex left the room and quietly shut the door.

‘I was held down by an invisible force. The fear I felt was palpable as I watched Baal lift a knife and hold it over my body. As he released the dagger, I felt myself falling. A whining noise whisked past my ears, a different fear filled my being. I watched as the terror consumed villagers ran for shelter from the unseen foe. I couldn’t work out who they were running from. Baal? No, he wasn’t a threat here, something else, something far worse. A strange pointed ship whined overhead. Going so fast I couldn’t catch any details. But I knew, deep down inside this was pure terror.

A tractor beam shot down and began gathering the screaming villagers. Fear galvanised my legs into action and I ran into some caves nearby. Sam was there. Standing terrified as an alien, tall, white with long hair. Talons outstretched towards Sam. “Sam!”’

“Sam!” I awakened, lying on the floor where I’d rolled off the couch. The dream was still fresh in my mind. It was more of a memory than a dream. I shook my head to dispel the horrifying memory.

I quickly rolled up onto my feet, the aftermath of the dream still making my heart beat rapidly. I had to find Sam, make sure she was okay. No, I needed to assure myself that she was okay.

I found her still in the kitchen with both of the Mariam’s. It looked like they had been baking. Naleena was dozing on a hard wooden chair in the corner by the fire, I wondered if she would like a rocking chair. Little Mariam had flour everywhere, on her clothes, her hair and there was a tell tale circle of flour surrounding her chair on the floor. La Haia was up to her elbows in flour and a small smudge decorated her nose. Littered over the large table, were some egg shells, a stick of butter, some half chopped what looked like almonds and a small flagon, of what I knew contained Alexander’s best brandy.

La Haia looked up and smiled at me, just as she placed another crescent of dough to go with the others on a tray. “We’ve been making Kourabiethes,” she announced with pride. “There are some cooked ones over there.” She pointed with a floury hand over to a small table. Sitting on a plate were some golden crescent shaped cookies.

“Take one, Jack,” Mariam said softly. “La Haia has worked hard on those.”

I complied, I couldn’t remember when I last had a cookie, and I’m sure I’ve never had one made by Sam . . . La Haia, I corrected myself in my mind. With a small inaudible sigh, I reached over for a cookie. They were delicious and I told La Haia and both Mariam’s so.

~*~

Two weeks later, I walked into one of the sitting rooms. Mariam and La Haia were quietly talking between themselves. La Haia was settling in quite comfortably here. Apart from some very unusual instances of La Haia’s behaviour, there had been no sign of Sam whatsoever. I was beginning to wonder if we should return to the SGC after all. Maybe the familiar surroundings would remind her of who she really was. La Haia turned and smiled at me, my heart began to thump loudly. I couldn’t take her back to the SGC, what if she didn’t remember? Not being in the Air Force anymore, I wouldn’t have any clout with the head honchos and I could lose her to the NID goons. The conflicting emotions that were bouncing around inside me caused me to hesitate at the doorway.

“Hello, Jack.” Mariam smiled. “Come and sit down and join us, Beatrice is bringing in some refreshments soon.”

I wanted to talk to La Haia on my own, but it would have to wait. I nodded and continued into the room and sat down on the low couch beside La Haia.

“Tzak, Mariam wants to take me on one of her ships.” La Haia was excited, but also appeared to be nervous at the news.

My head shot around to Mariam. “For how long?” I asked.

“Two months,” she replied. “It was just an idea.” She shrugged her shoulders and looked at the floor.

I turned back to La Haia, her face fell at my expression. “I’m sorry, La Haia. I was hoping that we could start on our journey through the Stargate soon.” It looked like we were going to have this discussion anyway. La Haia’s disappointment changed drastically at my words.

“Really?” Her eyes were bright and hopeful as she looked into mine. Once again, my heart began to thump loudly. I just hoped that the ladies couldn’t hear it.

“Yeah,” I told her and I hoped I looked more nonchalant than I felt. “In about seven day’s time. If you are happy with this?

She nodded her head, “Yes Jack, I’d love to come.”

I glanced over to Mariam, to make sure she wasn’t offended by the change of plans, but she was smiling broadly, so I needn’t have worried.

Just then, Beatrice came in with a tray of food and set it down on one of the tables. Not surprisingly, there were three goblets for us; this woman was amazing she knew what was happening in the house at all times. I smiled my thanks to Beatrice before she swept out of the room.

Relaxed, I watched Mariam pour some wine into the goblets. I was going to miss this family, but I knew at any time, we could return and feel welcome.

~*~

“I don’t want to leave him,” La Haia wasn’t happy as I explained that we couldn’t take Meadow with us.

“He’s too much of a handful, he’ll be safe here.”

“No!” she shouted at me and then shock and fear came over her face.

La Haia started to back away from me. “It’s okay, La Haia. You’re allowed to disagree with me ya know.” She shook her head; tears began to fill her eyes and I felt a tightness around my heart. “I’m sorry, La Haia, we can’t take him with us.” I tried to keep my face soft and kind, but it didn’t work. La Haia tore off towards the stables.

I rubbed my hand across my face and followed her to Meadow’s stable. I found La Haia vigorously brushing Meadow’s coat. It glistened in the lamplight with a sheen that any groom would be proud of. Meadow’s coat wasn’t the only thing glistening; tears were tracking down La Haia’s cheeks. She stopped in mid brush and turned and looked at me, fear still etched in her face. After all this time, she still was afraid of me, of what I might do.

“Do you want to stay here with Meadow,” I asked.

Her expression of fear turned into amazement.

“And not go with you?” she asked.

“If that is what you want,” I replied, my heart sinking. There was no way I would leave her on her own, even here where I knew she was safe.

She turned and looked at Meadow, stroking his nose softly. “I want to go with you, Tzak,” she turned around and faced me, “but I don’t want to leave Meadow behind.”

“I promise,” I moved closer, she didn’t shrink from me this time, “We’ll come back and visit anytime you want.” By now I was standing just in front of her, tears were still rolling down her cheeks, but she didn’t fear me anymore. Without a thought I enveloped her into a hug, she buried her face into my neck and sobbed.

‘Sam, where are you?’

~*~

That night, I awoke with a start. Something had woken me, but I didn’t know what it was. I climbed out of my bed and looked out into the hallway. Nothing seemed amiss there, so I returned to my room, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was up. I pulled on some pants and my jacket and slipped on my boots, without socks, not very comfortable, but quicker. I quietly walked down the hallway towards La Haia’s room. She was definitely the source of my uneasiness. And I was right, she wasn’t in her bed; in fact, her bed didn’t look like it had been slept in. Then I noticed that some of her clothes were gone. ‘Meadow.’

I shot out of her room, down the hallway towards the back door. The locks were undone, just as I thought; she was leaving - leaving with Meadow. Fear gripped my soul as I ran across the stone cobbled courtyard towards the stables.

The warmth from the stable blasted into my face as I opened the door. I quickly counted the horse’s heads and was both relieved and surprised to see Meadow’s nose poking around the post of the doorway. His halter ropes stopping him from walking straight through the gap. He nickered softly as I approached. His skin was soft and velvety as I stroked his nose.

La Haia was there, bundled up in lots of blankets amongst the straw on the stable floor. A blond mop of hair stuck up out of the top of the blankets and beside her was a pile of her clothes. She seemed distressed, twitching and whimpering in her sleep.

I stepped around Meadow and moved over to La Haia and bent down beside her. I touched her shoulder and gently shook it.

“La Haia.” Her body stilled for a second then began to thrash violently around. Arms and legs flailing, one foot caught me off guard and whacked me in the ankle. I fell to one knee and I grabbed her shoulders trying to keep her still.

“La Haia, wake up!” I whispered loudly in her ear. It didn’t work.

“Arrrrgh!” She screamed.

Meadow stomped around his stall, hooves flying in all directions. I ducked out of the way and pulled La Haia out into the main part of the stable, away from Meadow’s killer hooves.

La Haia hit me with her fists, connecting several times before I caught hold of them and held them fast. “La Haia!” Her eyes opened without warning.

“Sir?” Surprised, she looked directly into my eyes.

“Carter?” Now my heart really started to thump loudly.

Carter’s eyes rolled back into her head and she went limp in my hands. I lifted her up into my arms and carried her back into the house, calling for Alexander as I went. I hoped he wasn’t out visiting one of his patients. Fortunately, he was at home.

I carried her into her room and placed her on the bed. She was still out cold.

“What happened, Jack?” Alexander bent down and listened to her breathing, before checking her pulse.

“I . . . I don’t know, she was asleep. Having a bad dream I think and then she flipped out. I tried to restrain her and she woke up and . . . wham! She was Sam . . . Carter, she was Carter.” I repeated. “Then she just passed out.”

“What did she do before passing out?”

“She looked at me, called me sir. Then her eyes rolled back into her head.”

Alexander glanced up at me. “You all right?” he asked.

“Yeah.” I gave him what I thought, was a firm look. Physically, I was fine, but emotionally, I was definitely not all right.

Sam was back. I was excited and nervous. If I was really honest with myself, I was afraid, very afraid that Sam would want to go back to the SGC, go back to Pete. I let out an audible sigh, earning another penetrating glance from Alexander. I quirked a smile at him, but I don’t think he was fooled by it.

“Is she going to be okay?”

“I don’t know, Jack. I don’t know what is wrong with her.”

Just then, she started to come around.

“Major Carter.” Alexander called loudly to Sam.

She frowned and then opened her eyes. One look into her eyes, I knew.

“Hi, La Haia.” I spoke softly, so as to not frighten her.

“Tzak? What happened?”

Alexander moved out of the way and I sat down beside her on the bed. “You had a bad dream and then you fainted. You okay now?”

“Yes, but my head hurts.” She screwed up her face with the pain.

“I’ll get something for you, La Haia.” Alexander looked at me before going to get her some pain relief.

“I don’t remember the entire dream, but I do remember you. You were in a box, a small metal cage and you were unconscious and you were dying. Something about bright pain – I don’t remember anymore.” She gave a small involuntary shiver.

“La Haia, I know you don’t like me talking about you being someone else, but this is a memory. It really happened.” I had been afraid she would dismiss my words like she had before, but this time; she didn’t as she listened intently to what I was saying. “We were all on a planet, Daniel, Teal’c, me, and you. We were captured by some people who didn’t believe who we really were and they decided to torture us. It was a very scary time. Do you remember anymore of it?”

“I remember fear, I don’t like the feeling. But it was a dream, not real.”

“It is real, La Haia, please believe me. You are Colonel Samantha Carter and you have lost your memory.” She shook her head at me. “It’s true, you’ve been dreaming things from your past, scary things – this is what happened last night.” I paused for a second before continuing. “And La Haia, just now, before you passed out you remembered who you really were.” I waited to see if it sunk in.

“Tzak, if it is that scary, I don’t want to remember.” Her voice was small and matter of fact. She’d hit the nail on the head, until she wanted to remember she never would. Sadness pervaded my being at the thought.

She needed time to heal, time to get over whatever had been done to her. To get over whatever happened that made her forget her true inner self.

“Okay, La Haia. When you’re ready and not before, I won’t push you, but you’re going to have to cope with me calling you Carter every so often, because it is really hard to remember not to call you that.”

She nodded in reply.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

2. Foe

Chapter One
By Arrietty

2008

I wanted to take La Haia to a planet where there wouldn’t be any nasty slave traders, Kull Warriors or Goa’ulds. I asked around before we left. I wanted to go to a ‘safe’ planet. Fortunately, I had found one, it was similar to Ellatha, but had a few more technological doohickeys. Hopefully, I’d find some things that would awaken Sam Carter within La Haia’s mind.

The farewell on Ellatha wasn’t too sad; they were used to my comings and goings and knew we’d be back some day. La Haia kept her feelings about leaving to herself.

We arrived through the Stargate without a hitch. I had to admit travelling without Meadow certainly made life a whole lot easier. Once again, the Stargate was situated in the middle of a market place. Tall grey buildings surrounded a large quadrangle, which was lined with numerous market stalls selling their wares; anything from fruit to doohickeys which should have kept Carter happy for hours. La Haia strolled right past a stall, heavily laden with technology and straight to a clothing stall. I couldn’t contain an audible sigh, I’d hoped, just a little that she would want to check out the techno stuff.

“La Haia,” I called her back to the tech stall. She turned and walked to where I was standing.

“What are they?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me.”

She picked up a small gadget and turned it over in her hands. “I’ve no idea, Tzak; I’ve never seen anything like this before. Don’t you know what it is?” She prodded my coat which concealed the zat. “I’d thought you would.” She looked down at her hand.

“Is it a weapon?” I asked her. Her reply was a smile as she placed the weapon/doohickey back onto the table.

“What does it do?” I asked the stall owner. He shrugged his shoulders and grinned. “How much?” I asked him.

As I counted out the necessary coins, I watched La Haia, her interest had waned from the stall and her eyes wandered over to the food stall. My stomach rumbled telling me it was time to eat. The stall owner wrapped the - most probably useless - piece of machinery in a scrap of cloth and handed it over. I tucked it into one of my inside pockets and followed La Haia to where she had wandered. We had plenty of supplies with us, but not freshly baked bread.

~*~

The rest of the afternoon was spent working our way around the different stalls. I kept steering La Haia towards tech stalls, but she showed no interest whatsoever.

It was getting late in the afternoon when the Stargate activated. I could hear the familiar clunking of the chevrons as they engaged and the event horizon as it billowed out into the quad. When I heard the screams, I grabbed La Haia’s hand and pulled her down into a dim alley. We could still see the quad, but hopefully no one could see us. People fled to their homes, stalls abandoned as two super soldiers loomed into view. A man stood between them; by the look of his pretentious clothes I was pretty sure he was a goa’uld. He bent down and placed a silver ball onto the ground at his feet then took a step back. With a loud voice, he announced.

“Listen to your god, Baal.”

A large image of Baal towered up above him, nearly reaching the top of the buildings. I’d come across one of these before on the planet where Apophis had tried to train an army to infiltrate the SGC. It was called a vo’cume. The puffed up self-important goa’uld Baal, spouted off some drivel about how wonderful he was and then said words that made my heart go cold.

This Tau’ri woman, known as Colonel Samantha Carter,” A large projected image of Carter was shown in place of Baal. Her clothes were ragged, pock marked with holes. Her eyes were deadened by something I couldn’t fathom. . . “Is a fugitive. She must be brought to me. Anyone who knows of her whereabouts will be greatly rewarded.” The image abruptly ended.

I turned to look at La Haia. I was shocked to see her huddled down on her haunches, hugging her knees. Pure terror marred her features.

“La Haia.” I moved closer to her, but she shrank from my touch. “It’s okay, he won’t find you,” I assured her, hoping that what I said was true. Her terror filled eyes met mine. I reached out again, and took her hand. “Come, we must get out of here. We need to find another alley, further away from the market, but still see what is happening.”

Thankfully, no one had approached Baal’s emissary. Would the people of this town recognise La Haia as Carter? Even though they barely knew us, would they betray us to this evil snake? I wasn’t sure, but I wasn’t going to risk it.

The goa’uld asked a few people, but most of them had left quickly as soon as the goa’uld had approached. After what seemed ages, the Kull Warriors and the goa’uld finally left through the Stargate. La Haia was still shivering beside me. All those weeks of finally getting her to talk had just been dashed in an instant by that slimy snake infested goa’uld. The Sam Carter I saw in that projection was not the Sam Carter I had known. I’d always thought Neeron had made Sam the way she was, but now I wasn’t so sure. What had Baal done to her to make her like this?

I waited until dark and everyone were in their homes. I then snuck out to the DHD, dragging La Haia with me. I didn’t waste time while dialling an address. Once the wormhole was established, I guided La Haia through to the other side.

~*~

The last time I’d been to this planet was with the replicator that looked like Carter. Bad memories flooded my mind, but I pushed them to the back. This was the real Sam Carter; not a copy. I turned to La Haia who had crouched down by the DHD and sat shivering.

“Come, La Haia, we have a little way to go yet.” I lifted her up by her upper arms, supporting her limp body. “You’re safe here, La Haia.” Her eyes met mine which shone brightly with unshed tears. I led La Haia towards my cave, supporting her wilting body all the way.

As soon as we arrived, I wrapped the silent shivering La Haia in my sleeping bag and all the blankets. The shivering didn’t stop. I built a fire and started to heat some food, but when I took it to her, she wouldn’t eat.

I was afraid; I didn’t know what to do. Unwanted thoughts and memories flew through my mind. I knew what Baal had done to me, could he have done the same thing to Carter? Is this why she is like this?

After a while, La Haia slipped off to sleep, and I felt my body relax. Without any blankets to keep me warm, I pulled my coat around me more tightly and hunkered down near the fire. Anyway, there was no way I would sleep tonight.

I watched the sun set, filling the sky with brilliant shades of red, orange and purple. Several hours passed before one of the three moons followed the sun below the mountains. La Haia had stopped shivering by then, but she was restless, dreaming most probably. I stood stiffly and walked over to where she lay. Her face was screwed up into a grimace like she was in pain – or remembering pain. This was one dream I didn’t think she’d want to remember.

“La Haia.” I called her name softly, not sure whether to touch her or not.

She murmured in her sleep. “No, I won’t.”

“La Haia,” I called again. This time more loudly.

She screamed.

Her eyes shot open, they were fixed on space.

“No!” She scrambled back from whatever she was seeing.

“La Haia . . . Sam.” Her eyes turned to me, unfocussed, but still stared in my direction.

“Tzak.”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Tzak,” she sobbed.

I collected her into my arms as she cried into my shoulder. The rest of the night I held her, watching the remaining two moons as they traced a path and disappeared behind the snow capped mountains.

It took three days before La Haia spoke again and another two days before she smiled. We discussed a bit about what had happened, but however much she tried, she couldn’t remember what had happened to her.

The real break through came on the sixth day.

“Tzak.”

“Yes,” I answered, looking up from cleaning the fish I’d just caught. The stream fed into a large lake which was teeming with fish. They were huge.

“When you’ve finished, can I please see the image.”

Puzzled, I asked, “Image?”

“Of you, me and the two men.”

“Ah.” I smiled, pleased inside. “The photo?”

“Yes, photo.” She smiled back

“No need to wait. It’s in my coat pocked, inside the left sleeve.”

She raised an eyebrow at me in true Teal’c fashion, before turning back to the cave where my coat was.

I found myself humming as I scraped the silver scales from our breakfast.

We stayed on the planet for a month. We had plenty of food, fish in the lake and fruit in the trees, and now, the pods too. La Haia found to her delight, a vine in the forest. We collected them and dried them in the sun. They would make good emergency rations if needed in the future.

Since that first night, La Haia had only dreamt twice. I on the other hand was dreaming every night. It was getting to the stage that I didn’t want to sleep. My nights were filled with the same dream. Strange aliens I’d never seen before with talons that reached out towards me, hissing with wide open mouths. The only difference from these, to my earlier ones was the presence of Baal as he laughed throughout my terror.

~*~

The morning we moved out, it was raining. A fine cold drizzle that seeped down the back of your neck making the damp rough clothing chaff your skin. I just hoped that the planet we were going to was a dry hot one with lots of dry dusty sand. It wasn’t on my list; the SGC had said that if I missed the next rendezvous, I was to meet up with an SG team at this address at about this time. I didn’t want to miss the team, so I decided we’d go a day early.

“Tzak, what planet are we going to?”

“I don’t really know, La Haia. But we are going to meet up with some of my people from our planet. You know, like me . . . us.”

She smiled shyly. “No . . . not like me.”

I stopped walking and faced her. “Yes, like you, it is in there somewhere,” I said pointing to her head,” We’ve just got to be patient.”

She gave me a small nod and smile. I turned back facing the Stargate and we continued walking. I knew it was frustrating for La Haia, but I was delighted with this progress; it meant that she was trying to remember; at least that was a start.

~*~


There wasn’t any sign of sand on the planet when we arrived. Just thick fog surrounded us with cold fingers of moisture creeping into our clothing working its way onto our skin and making us shiver. It was quiet, no sound from the forest that loomed out of the fog. The sun, pale yellow infused through the fog, giving it a more eerie look.

La Haia took a small step towards me; cold, clammy fingers clutched my left hand. I closed my hand around her small one and squeezed reassuringly. Squinting against the white light, I looked around us for any movement, but nothing, no movement, no sound. Nothing. It was creepy. I cautiously moved down the steps, carefully checking out each one before placing my foot down. For all I knew there could be a gaping hole only a couple of feet away. La Haia followed, still holding my hand tight.

The moist vapour swirled around our feet as we stepped down onto long grass. Beads of moisture flicked from the long grass onto my boots showed dully against the black leather. I didn’t fancy waiting for twenty-four hours on this damp planet, but it looked like I didn’t have much choice.

Thankfully, there weren’t any gaping holes in the vicinity of the Stargate, but I didn’t relish the thought of staying near the gate either. This meant we had to venture into the forest that surrounded the clearing.

Still clutching La Haia’s hand, we ventured into the dark formidable forest. Finding somewhere dry was the hardest thing, in fact it was impossible. Giving up on the idea, we made camp only about 400 yards into the forest. Far enough away to keep hidden, but close enough to hear what was going on. The emergency blankets being waterproof made an excellent base to our camp. Then with one blanket on top, we hunkered down and heated up some food on the little burner. Maybe some hot food would warm us up a bit. I hoped that the fog cleared as the day progressed, but a little voice in the back of my head told me that was a false hope.

The food long eaten, La Haia spoke my name. “Tzak.”

“Yes, La Haia.” Our voices muted by the fog.

“What is it like on your planet?”

My heart began to thump.

“What do you want to know?” I turned to her and looked at her face, which was obscured by her lengthening hair.

She lifted her head up and gazed straight at me, our eyes locked. “Everything.”

I breathed in a gasp. “Everything? I can’t tell you everything without you going.”

Her eagerness of knowledge was dimmed by my words. “I don’t want to go back to the planet yet.” She paused for a moment, hesitant to continue. “I’m afraid.” Her voice was small and unsure.

I was undecided, I wanted to reassure her that she would be fine if I went with her, but a stronger part of me didn’t want to share her with Earth; with everyone back at the SGC. I wanted her to myself just a little longer. A better man would’ve told her this, but I wasn’t a better man.

“You don’t have to go yet. When you’re ready we’ll go back.” I couldn’t look at her as I said these words, even though I could feel her gaze on me.

“Hey, I have an idea.” I turned and looked at her, pulling both her hands into my own. “I will tell you anything you want to know and when the team comes from Earth, I will ask them to bring a few things with them for you for when we meet up again. You know, things that might help you remember. More photos and things like that.”

She nodded and smiled. The smile that always reminded me fully of Carter, the smile I missed everyday I was with La Haia. “Okay, question away, your Jack-apaedia is awaiting.”

~*~

The night was just as miserable as during the day, in fact it was more so. Basically, the same weather but colder. I suppose I just had to be thankful it wasn’t raining as well. We ate breakfast, cleared up some of the campsite, shivered in the chill air some more and that was about it. We were back to asking and answering questions about Earth. Me, trying to explain astrophysics to Carter would be funny, but me trying to explain it to someone who understood it less than me, would be really comical if I didn’t find it so distressing. I had grown to care for this woman, she had all the qualities of Carter, but without the memories and the magnificent brain that Carter had. So, this is when I realised that La Haia was just a shell of who she really was. Right here sitting on the soggy ground, surrounded in dank mist. As far as I knew no one else on the planet anywhere, just this excited woman listening as I spouted off about how the SGC was run, what she did for a living, even the food in the commissary ‘for crying out loud’.

I was depressed. I needed my Sam back; the woman that prattled on about things that I didn’t understand; things that were way beyond me.

“La Haia.”

“Yes, Jack.” She remembered to use my English name. I smiled at her effort.

“How about we do go back to Earth? We’ll be fine, I’ll be right there with you.” I waited hopeful, not sure whether I wanted her to say yes or no.

She pulled her bottom lip with her teeth while she processed my offer. Her eyes fearful, she looked at me, “I’m not ready, Tzak.”

I let out the breath I’d been holding, then smiled. “That’s fine, La Haia. We’ll only return when you’re ready.” I pulled her into a hug and held her tight feeling relieved.

At that moment, I heard the kawoosh of the Stargate opening. We’d missed the sound of the chevrons engaging as we’d talked. Without wasting time, we packed up the rest of our gear and moved silently towards the Stargate.

From our vantage point close to the clearing we watched two grey shadows move through the Stargate. The outline of the Stargate made a shadow in the mist. The two men were silhouetted against the sun filtering through the fog. I felt my body tense as the outline of a staff showed beside the larger of the two figures. The two men turned towards each other, one started to speak, but the one with the staff stalled him with an upraised arm. He was good at his job; he knew that someone was watching him. With a fluid movement he ran down the steps and disappeared into the forest just to the left of us. I knew right then he was going to work his way around and come up from behind and trap us between the two of them.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

2. Foe

Chapter Two
By Arrietty

2008

La Haia must have known that something was up; my body one minute was taught as a violin string and then the next relaxed. “It’s okay, they’re friends.” I said quietly in her ear.

“Hey, Daniel!” I called out from where we crouched.

He spun around with weapon aimed straight at where we were.

“Show yourself,” he called out caution evident in his voice.

“O’Neill.” It was my turn to spin around on the spot.

“Teal’c. Buddy.” I smiled and walked towards my friend.

It wasn’t until I reached him, I realised that La Haia was still clinging to my arm as if her life depended on it.

Teal’c stopped in his tracks, all vestige of colour left his face as it turned a charcoal grey. “Colonel Carter,” his voice soft and full of hope. ‘They didn’t know.’

“Jack. Is that you?” I could hear Daniel stumbling through the undergrowth behind me. I waited for the accusing tone as soon as he would notice La Haia at my side. It took longer than I thought it would.

“Jack, it’s great to see you.” He bounded around me, his hand on my shoulder he pulled me into a hug, taking La Haia with me as she still clung to me.

His grin dropped as he looked at La Haia beside me. “Sam! Is that really you?” His grin replaced with a smile, he pulled her into a hug. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to realise when Daniel knew that something was wrong. His smile faded and he stepped back to look at La Haia.

His eyes slid across to me. “This isn’t. . . “ The question fell from his lips as he looked at me in horror.

“No, Daniel. It isn’t the replicator.”

I saw his shoulders visibly relax with my answer. “So,” he questioned me again with a look.

My eyes flicked from Teal’c to Daniel. I found myself hesitant to answer.

“Teal’c, Daniel, meet La Haia.” I smiled and slipped my arm around her shoulders and hugged her to me. I wasn’t sure if it was to give her or give me reassurance.

“But . . .” Daniel started to question my words.

“Wait, Daniel. Yes, I know she looks like Carter, there is a reason.” I watched his face drop. “And the reason is a good one.” I smiled. “Because she is Carter.” I grinned in triumph. I’d confused Daniel; it was good to see. “She just doesn’t remember that’s all,” I added and waited for the penny to drop. It didn’t take long, I’m pretty sure both Teal’c and Daniel realised at the same time.

“Wow, Jack. How long? When did this happen? Where did you find her? But she is dead. Wha . . . “

“Hold on there, Daniel. I’ll fill you in later. We need to find somewhere comfortable, preferably off this planet.” I looked around me, just in case something comfortable had appeared from nowhere and surprised me. But nothing had and we were left with looking at the dismal wet undergrowth of the dank forest.

Teal’c found his voice. “It is good to see you again, Colonel Carter.” He gave his small bow and La Haia returned his bow with one of her own.

“Jack, we can’t leave this planet yet.”

I groaned. “Dare I ask why, Daniel?”

“Because, Jack, we need to find the UAV that crashed not far from here.”

“You mean you sent a UAV in this lot,” I said referring to the thick fog that swirled around us emphasising my point by waving my free arm through the moisture laden air. “No wonder it crashed.” I totally ignored the fact that the UAV’s crashed ninety-nine percent of the time.

“Okay, impromptu debriefing, over here.” I waved my hand over in the direction that La Haia and I had camped for the last eighteen hours.

Once settled, I gestured for Daniel to go first. He didn’t agree with me, but then what’s new?

“No, Jack. You can’t turn up and surprise us with Sam who has been dead for nearly four years and not tell us where you found her.” He glared at me, but softened his expression before smiling at La Haia. I could see that La Haia was warming to these two, even though she hadn’t spoken to them yet. She ‘had’ let go of my hand.

“Okay, Daniel you win, but it will be the Readers Digest Condensed Version. I found La Haia a few months ago on the planet where we got the horses, you know Neeron’s planet.”

I watched as Daniel did the math. “You mean to say that you’ve known that Sam was alive all this time and you didn’t let us know . . . or even bring her back?” His outrage increased in strength as his voice got louder.

La Haia gripped my hand.

I ignored his outburst and continued telling our story. “La Haia doesn’t remember anything from her past, so I decided to wait until she remembered a bit before bringing her back.”

By now Daniel was standing up. “You decided . . . he did a three sixty on one spot and fired his words back at me, “What gives you the right to decide what is right or wrong for Sam?”

I stood up and faced Daniel. La Haia stood with me cowering behind my back in fear at the shouting.

“Daniel. If Hammond had wanted Carter to return to the SGC, he would have given you orders for me to return her.”

He frowned, “What do you mean? Hammond knew?”

I nodded, “Yes, he’s known for a long time. I gave him a sealed letter when I delivered the horses. If he chose not to inform everyone at the SGC that was his decision, not mine.”

“Oh.”

I’d have to say this for Daniel; even though he was quick to accuse me of wrong doing he was just as quick to admit if he was wrong.

“I’m sorry Jack. I . . . Oh, actually, Hammond did give us something for you.”

A cold dark lump formed in my gut.

He unclipped his back pack and pulled out a large parcel, wrapped up in cloth. “Here it is. I have no idea what is in it.”

I turned to La Haia, “Hey a parcel from home.” My lips smiled, but my heart didn’t.

I pulled her down to sit beside me as I slit the webbing that bound the heavy package. Inside was a sleeping bag, two complete changes of BDU’s plus a pair of new boots and some other things that looked suspiciously like women’s underwear. The boots definitely weren’t my size, nor were the BDU’s.

Inside the jacket was a crumpled sealed envelope. This I knew was for me and it was the item that filled me with dread.

“Look, La Haia, some clothes for you. You don’t have to use mine now.”

Her voice was quiet and full of amazement, “For me?”

I handed the whole parcel minus the letter to her. “You put these on; we’ll go off for a bit, you’ll be quite safe we won’t look.”

I stood up and left her sitting clutching the parcel of clothes in her arms.

We didn’t move far, I didn’t want to leave her vulnerable to anything that was on this planet that we were unaware of yet.

I didn’t want to open the envelope, but I knew I had to, so I ripped it open and yanked out the sheet of paper hidden within.

Dear Jack

In reply to your letter, I am delighted with the news. Please give my regards to the person you mentioned. There have been a few problems higher up and I have chosen to keep your letter quiet for now.

I have informed Jacob Carter of your situation and Janet Fraiser is also aware of this change. Other than these two people and myself, no one else knows.

Inside this parcel are some spare clothes, I am sure you will be able to put to good use. I recommend that you keep away from the SGC for quite some time. I will review the situation next time you rendezvous. Inside the downed UAV is something that is important, it needs to be retrieved, but please do not return it to the SGC until I contact you. I hope Teal’c and Dr. Jackson will be of some help to you on your ventures. I don’t expect to see them until the next meet which will . . .

The letter went on to explain the next rendezvous meeting and what planet with co-ordinates.

I was shocked. Things had to be bad back at the SGC and higher up for Hammond to write a letter like this. Part of me wanted to return there immediately to help sort out the problem, but the letter specifically said for me not to return. I just hoped that nothing like what had happened in the alternate universes had happened on my planet.

I handed the letter over to Daniel to read. I noticed he didn’t seem shocked as he was reading. When finished, he handed it to Teal’c.

“I’m not surprised, General Hammond seemed to be having trouble with someone higher up in the hierarchy, but I don’t know who it is.”

La Haia took that moment to appear. It was a shock; it was just as if Sam was standing there. Her BDU’s all Colonel Carter, right down to her shiny new boots.

She smiled cautiously, her eyes darting from Teal’c to Daniel then finally resting on me. She was seeking approval. I gave it to her.

“La Haia. Wow you look great. I bet the boots are way more comfortable than those slipper things you wore.” I walked towards her and took hold of her shoulders before spinning her around to look at her new clothes. “You know,” I said facing her again. “General Hammond sent you those. Just for you.”

She smiled shyly, obviously pleased with my response.

We moved back to our impromptu camp and sat down and discussed our plans. It was apparent that we needed to retrieve the downed UAV, salvage whatever was in the piece of equipment and then what? We didn’t really know what we wanted to do after that. Three months was quite a time to fill. It was fine when there was just me or even when it was just La Haia and me, but with Teal’c and Daniel too. We would stick out a lot more. But we’d have to worry about that later, after we’d got the UAV.

We decided to move out mid morning. It was still cold and there was no sign of the mist dispersing. I had the feeling that this was a constant on this planet.

Daniel pulled out a doohickey from his pack, pointing it into the dense fog. I recognised it as what Carter had used to locate downed UAV’s.

“We go this way, Jack.”

I turned to Teal’c. “T, you take point, then Daniel and La Haia and I’ll watch your sixes. In theory this should be the order, but knowing La Haia, she’ll most probably hang back with me, she seemed still rather nervous of these two, especially Teal’c.

The going was rough. The forest wasn’t the dry ground devoid of vegetation like we often see in the wilderness, but full of strange big leafy plants that wrapped themselves around trunks of strange shaped trees. It was more of a jungle than the forests we were used to.

Daniel seemed to be in his element; slashing through vines with a long knife. Apparently the years as a university graduate on out-of-the-way digs stood him in good stead after all. The thick mist still permeated the atmosphere of the jungle, bringing with it the cold that ate into your bones.

Usually the rainforests on Earth came with the unbearable heat, but here it was just plain cold.

“Hey, Daniel,” I called from beside La Haia. “How much further?”

He stopped, rechecked his doohickey and yelled over his shoulder, “Another couple of hours I think. It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“How long it takes to get through this jungle.”

I rolled my eyes and took a deep calming breath. We’ll make camp near the UAV.”

We continued on our scramble though the plants. ‘Why on earth did Hammond choose this planet?’ I wondered to myself. As if reading my mind, Teal’c gave me the answer.

“It is most unfortunate that this was the next scheduled planet when General Hammond had to send the UAV.

“Yeah, Teal’c, why did Hammond send the UAV?”

“I believe the answer is in the correspondence General Hammond sent you.”

Yes, of course. Originally the planet was just a rendezvous, no exploring involved. Unfortunately, he needed to get whatever it is, out of the SGC and quickly. I really wanted to know what was going on, but I couldn’t do it from here. Frustrated just wasn’t a strong enough word.

It took the rest of the day to reach the crashed UAV. One of the wings had broken off and was hanging from a vine in the trees. The rest of it had dug into the ground. What was really strange was the vines had already begun to grow over the machine. If we hadn’t had the little locator, we’d never have spotted it hidden amongst the foliage.

It didn’t take long to find the small cylinder fixed to the fuselage. I unscrewed the top and inside was a very old fashioned looking microfilm. It had been many years since I’d seen one of those. There was no way I could see what was on it out here, so I rolled it back up safely and put it into one of the my many hidden pockets.

“We’ll make camp here for the night.”

They all nodded in agreement.

“Teal’c you take first watch, then me and Daniel next.”

No one made any comments to the fact that I hadn’t included La Haia in this duty. Although Daniel did look at me sideways as La Haia settled herself down beside me on one of the waterproof ground sheets. I decided to ignore the questioning looks from both Daniel and Teal’c.

I was awakened by screaming. “No don’t, please don’t.” Teal’c was crouched down beside us. “Get away from me,” La Haia cried out.

“Back off, Teal’c,” I warned. He stood and backed away.

“La Haia.” Her face was filled with terror as she watched Teal’c move away. Daniel hovered nearby, but wisely kept his distance. “La Haia,” I spoke softly as I knelt in front of her. I tried to get her attention, but it didn’t seem to be working.

She looked down at the ground then back up at me. “Sir?” Music to my ears as Carter spoke and then dashed when she spoke again, “Don’t leave me behind.”

“I won’t Carter, I won’t.”

Carter clutched my arms. “Please don’t leave me,” her voice soft and desperate. A sob escaped her throat and she fell against me. I leaned up against a tree and held her as she cried into my chest. Slowly, the sobs subsided and she drifted off into a troubled sleep. Soon after, I followed.

~*~

Everything smelled sweet, like jasmine on a hot summers evening. La Haia or was it Carter, I couldn’t quite tell, stood two feet from me, completely clothed in white. Her hair shone in the bright sunlight; the fog had disappeared. I couldn’t believe I’d slept for so long.

I stood up and walked over to Carter. She smiled, “Come, Jack.” It was then I noticed I too was wearing a long white robe. The short grass was soft on my bare feet. Flowers bloomed in the bushes and high in the trees. “Come,” she repeated. I followed Carter as she walked towards a large bush. It was covered with a type of fruit; similar in shape to a pear, but tasted like mango. She laughed, my heart soared.

Holding hands, we ventured further into a huge garden, trees laden with fruit of all kinds. Nestled in amongst the trees was a large still lake. Carter immediately started to wade into the water, but I found myself hesitating. I felt the tug on my hand as she pulled on it and I stepped into the water. It felt like silk to my feet, soothing tired and sore muscles.

With Sam’s hand clutched in mine we stood knee deep in the tranquil lake. It was like we’d arrived. No more searching, no more heart ache and no more pain.

“Hey!”

I swivelled around to see where the voice came from. A man stood with ragged clothes hanging on his malnourished gaunt frame.

“You can’t stay here.”

The odour that came from his unwashed body was offensive and almost overpowering.

“Who are you?”

“It is no matter who I am; I’m one of the lost. But you must go back. Go back to yourselves before it is too late.”

“Why go back?” I asked. “This is paradise.”

“Is it?” he asked. “Take a closer look. Then you’ll see what you’ll see.”

We both stared around us, but all we saw were trees blossoming with flowers and heavy with fruit.

“Jack?”

“What, Carter.” Wary now by the tone of her voice.

“Trees can’t blossom and bear fruit at the same time.”

I began to see what she meant, it didn’t seem quite real. I moved my foot; it had sunk into the silt at the bottom. I looked down and to my horror all I saw was a murky stagnant pool of thick slime. The tranquil lake had gone. I spun around in the sludge and looked back up at the trees; they were laden with fruit, but not the fruit we’d seen earlier, but with putrid bulbs of rotting mess. The only thing that was green was the thick vines that wound their way around the dead trees.

“What is this place?” I asked the man.

Pulling on Sam’s hand, I helped her out of the thick sludge, the smell was strong.

He answered in a quiet matter of fact voice, “The place of nightmares.” I watched horrified as tears rolled down his dirty cheeks. “Go back and fight before it is too late.” He turned and walked into the rotting jungle.

The soft grass had gone, leaving sticks and stones along the path, leaving our feet bruised and battered as we sped back towards our campsite. We had forgotten Teal’c and Daniel, there had been no sign of them when we had awakened. Our lovely white robes were now grey and ragged as the man’s clothes we’d just met. It had all been an illusion.

When we arrived, Teal’c was frantically pulling vines from around a mound on the ground.

“Daniel Jackson!” His voice cracked with the emotion as he yanked back a large vine.

“Teal’c!” I called out, but he didn’t hear me.

He spun around and ran over to a larger mound under a huge tree. “O’Neill, you must awaken.”

Carter and I looked at each other in horror before starting towards the large mound. Teal’c pulled out a large knife and began to hack at the tough vines that wound around the mound. Immediately, I convulsed in pain, along with Carter we fell to the ground.

A scream came from Daniel’s direction.

The convulsing had stopped and Carter and I painfully stood and watched Teal’c run over to the other mound.

He knelt beside the mound and spoke urgently to it. “Daniel Jackson are you awake?”

“Yes, Teal’c; whatever you’re doing, stop.”

“The vine is . . .”

I didn’t hear what Teal’c was saying as we were now bent over the larger mound. Carter had pulled back part of a vine; the sight was horrific. We were staring at our bodies, still where we had settled down to sleep before. The vines had grown around us as slept; burrowing into our clothing and flesh. It was devouring us from within. I wanted to puke.

“I don’t want to return,” said Carter

“Ya think!” I looked at her again. Her eyes mirrored the truth I knew. We had to re-enter our bodies if we were to survive. It was going to be excruciatingly painful and it might not work, but living here in this decaying jungle just did not come into the equation.

“We have to wake up,” I said to her.

She nodded and asked, “How?”

“I don’t know.”

Teal’c found the answer, even though he didn’t quite understand what he was doing. He turned from Daniel. “I am sorry, Daniel Jackson.”

He knelt down beside our bodies and started to cut into a vine that lead straight into my abdomen. I saw myself scream in pain seconds before I opened my eyes from where I lay to see sweat beading on Teal’c’s forehead.

“Don’t stop, T,” I gasped for breath. “This is the only way.”

I could hear Carter screaming beside me, calling out my name. I found it nerve-racking that I couldn’t go to her, and then awareness sunk in as I listened to her words. “Tzak! Please help me, Tzak.” Not sir or Jack anymore.

Teal’c slashed another vine from my legs, screams echoed around the trees, from all three of us. The vines passed on the pain to our bodies. My vision began to darken as the throbbing increased. Carter had already passed out, I could feel her weight heavy on me, then movement as Teal’c pulled her away from me. Unbearable pain – far beyond what I’d felt before – then a flash of light – a sigh – then blackness.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

2. Foe

Chapter Three
By Arrietty

2008

I was lying on something flat and hard. The cold seeped through my thin clothes onto my skin. I gave an involuntary shiver before opening my eyes. I blinked them a couple of times before sitting up and the pale grey room began to twist and turn around me.

“Whoa!” I clutched the edges of the thin flat bed I was on. Soon the room righted itself. This looked really familiar.

“Thor!” My voiced was scratchy with disuse.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed onto the floor, this was when I realised that the clothing I wore looked like it must have come out of Thor’s closet (not that he wore any clothes) it was a tad short and didn’t quite meet all the way around the back. I wrapped the thin metallic sheet around my body and made my way to the door.

It opened just as I got there, a small figure stood in the doorway. ‘Crap.’

“What are you doing out of bed?”

I found myself propelled around and prodded to go back the way I’d come.

“Where’s La Haia?” I asked.

“She’s sleeping and quite safe.”

Dr. Fraiser pulled out the ever present penlight and shone it in each eye. I was beyond complaining and just sat on the side of the bed like a sack of potatoes. To be honest I was plumb worn out and most probably needed the rest that Fraiser was forcing upon me.

“Doc.” I hesitated to continue. “Does she . . ?”

“No, sorry, Jack. She is still La Haia.”

“She remembered, Janet. She called me sir.” I looked earnestly at her.

“I know, Teal’c told me.”

Oh how could have I been so remiss. “How are Teal’c and Daniel?”

“They’re fine; Thor got you all out just in time.”

“What are you doing here, Janet?”

She finished checking my pulse and then strapped one of those blood pressure cuff thingies around my arm and started pumping in the air.

“General Hammond thought it prudent to keep me out of the way, being from an alternate universe.”

I sighed. As if we didn’t have enough to contend with, without idiots as well.

“Jack, I need you to rest now.” She pushed me down so I was lying on the bed.

As I started to protest I felt a prick as a needle slid home.

Angry at Janet for sedating me, I tried to sit up again, but all strength left me and I closed my eyes.

~*~


“Jack!” Janet’s insistent voice penetrated into my sleep filled brain. It’s Sam; we can’t do anything with her. You need to wake up.”

I groaned, not because of what was wrong, but the huge honking drug induced headache that was batting at my skull.

“What hit me?” I asked.

“Sorry, I had to wake you, but we can’t do anything with Sam. She’s . . .”

I opened my eyes and sat up, once again pulling the thin covering around my body. “What’s wrong?” I didn’t really need to ask as I had a fair idea what it was.

“No one can get anywhere near her.” I looked into Janet’s fear filled eyes. “Teal’c said you were the only one that can.

I nodded, “I need some clothes.” As if on cue, Teal’c walked in with my pack dangling from one hand. He dumped it on the end of my bed.

Janet looked up at him. “You’ve left Sam alone?” she accused.

“I do not think my presence in conducive to Colonel Carter’s well being.”

I silently agreed as I pulled out my spare clothes which all seemed worse for wear. Basically, La Haia had been wearing them for the past few weeks.

Teal’c’s deep voice interrupted my thoughts. “Colonel Carter is not alone, Thor is with her.”

I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing either, for La Haia’s sake or for Thor’s safety. I’d seen La Haia when she was cornered and it wasn’t a pretty sight for the other party.

I turned pointedly to Janet. “Do you mind?” I said as I held a pair of pants in the air.

“Oh.” Janet nodded and left the room, Teal’c followed her.

It didn’t take long to get dressed and I was walking through the corridors of the ship alone. I wondered if the ship was ‘The Daniel Jackson’ or had they built another one and called it ‘The Carter’ or maybe even built another ‘O’Neill’.

Pushing the trivial thoughts away, I realised I didn’t know where La Haia was. I tried a few doors, but some were locked or the rooms were empty. Suddenly, I was walking in another room; Thor had beamed me there. The room was crowded, too crowded for La Haia who was crouched in the corner shaking from head to toe in fear. Thor was kneeling beside her trying to talk to the terrified woman.

“Thor, buddy.” He looked over his shoulder at me.

“This is interesting; Colonel Carter does not seem to know me.”

“I think everyone should leave the room. And . . .” I held up my hand to stop Thor from beaming everyone out. “Leave the conventional way, please.” Thor nodded, straightened and walked towards Janet and Teal’c. All three left and I turned back to La Haia.

“La Haia.” I sat down beside her on the floor.

“Tzak where are we?” Her voice trembled.

“In a huge space ship that flies in the stars.”

“I’m afraid.”

“I know.” I slipped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her onto my chest. It was then I noticed that she was only dressed in one of Thor’s skimpy clothing, but someone had wrapped a sheet over her. I pulled it tighter around her to try and help with the shivering and by wrapping my arms around her shoulders, but it didn’t work.

“What happened,” she asked.

“We were on that misty planet and trapped by those plants. Do you remember?”

“Yes.” She shuddered.

I held her more tightly. “Thor must have beamed us out and healed us.”

La Haia screamed and clutched her head. I didn’t know what to do. She spasmed and fell onto the floor and began to writhe with pain.

There was a flash of light, and she was gone. A second later I followed.

I was sitting on the floor of another room. La Haia was sedated and lying on a flat bed which was slowly moving towards a machine. It was grey and very similar to an MRI, but a bit smaller.

“Thor?” I scrambled to my feet and walked over to them. The smooth floor felt warm on my bare feet. “What ya doin’?”

“O’Neill, someone has interfered with Colonel Carter’s brain chemistry, I will now rectify this.”

“What do you mean interfered with her brain?” Worry making me impatient.

“I believe whoever held her captive tried to remove information from her mind, similar to what was done to me by Anubis, but in this case they have done it incorrectly and damaged part of Colonel Carter’s mind.”

I felt numb. The words damage, mind and Carter just didn’t go together very well.

“Can you fix her?”

He turned and looked directly at me. “I do not know, O’Neill. It depends on how her mind is damaged. I fear that what Colonel Carter has forgotten has been removed permanently, but there is hope that Colonel Carter herself, out of preservation of her thoughts, protected the one part of her mind that is most precious to her from the device.”

“It was Baal,” I spat out. “It was Baal that did this to her.” I was angry. Way beyond angry. I wanted to hit something.

Thor stopped the machine and peered at a screen covered in Asgard script. He gave a relieved sigh. “It is good, her mind is intact. Self preservation has placed her memories into a protective pocket which was most probably put there by Jolinar when she was blended with Colonel Carter.”

“Can you open the err . . . pocket? And how did she manage to hide her mind?”

“I do not know O’Neill. There are signs of tremendous abuse and scientific experimentation. Any of these could have been the cause for Colonel Carter to retreat into her mind. And yes, O’Neill, I can open the pocket, but it will be totally up to Colonel Carter whether she will access the information or not.”

“Can I touch her?” I asked. Not being able to touch her at this moment had been unbearable.

“In a moment, O’Neill.” There was a buzzing sound as the grey metal band passed over her head again. Then it stopped. “I have done all I am able, O’Neill. Now it is up to Colonel Carter.” Thor turned to leave.

I moved over to her and lifted her small cold hand in mine.

“Thor do you have anywhere we could go that is more . . .” I looked around the stark room, “Comfortable?”

He nodded and I suddenly found myself in a small room filled with furniture that looked suspiciously like my sofa, chairs and coffee table that I’d put into storage. Carter was lying on my sofa still out to the world. There was no sign of the others.

Sitting on my coffee table was a box of granola bars. I wondered which shop Thor had stolen these from as I picked one out the box. I was hungry. I reached over to Sam and gently pushed back a lock of hair from her cheek. She was so beautiful. I wanted my Sam back.

The sofa wasn’t long enough for me to sit on it as well as Carter, so I sat in my favourite chair. My body ached and my head still was thumping away. Soon my eyelids heavy with fatigue began to droop and I was soon asleep.

“Jack.” A soft voice in my ear. “Jack.” A little more insistent now. I reluctantly opened my eyes. It was La Haia. I was disappointed I’d hoped it would’ve been Carter, but I must give her time, I reminded myself.

“Hey, are you feeling better?”

I recognised the bright intelligence in her eyes, only seconds before they turned into horror and she sank to her knees beside my chair. I slipped out the chair and gathered her up and took her over to the sofa. Her body trembled in my arms and she clung to me like a limpet. A sob escaped.

I sat down on the sofa, making sure her legs were laid out on the seat. She scuttled up beside me and slid her arms around my torso holding me tight and buried her face into my chest. We sat like this for what seemed hours, but must have only been a few minutes.

A muffled, “Sir,” came from Carter. “Sir, hold me, don’t ever let me go.”

“No I won’t, Sam. I promise.” I tightened my arms around her shoulders and without a thought, placed a kiss on her head. I didn’t care what anyone thought anymore, I was retired anyway. My Sam was home.

Now it’s all very well hanging onto someone you care about, but after a while, other things start to make themselves known, like hunger and a visit to the facilities, of which I was well aware that Thor had none, which was a pain and a nuisance. I just hoped he’d stolen a portable toilet along with my furniture and food. He’d done that once before, so I am pretty sure he’d have done it again.

I really needed to move, but I’d promised, promised to never let go of Sam and I never break my promises. Sometimes, I wish I wasn’t so sentimental. I sighed. The granola bars were tantalisingly just out of reach. Then a stomach rumbled and it wasn’t mine. Sam stirred and slowly sat up and leaned against the sofa beside me.

“I need to pee,” was her earth shattering statement. She then dug me in the ribs with her finger.

I smiled. “You’re still there?” I asked, not needing an answer as I knew that La Haia was in there somewhere.

She nodded. “I remember everything.” Her eyes filled with tears. She dug me in the ribs again. “I need a pit stop.”

I laughed. I knew those eyes; they were Sam’s intelligent, lovely beautiful eyes. “Come,” I said, “Let’s go and see what else Thor has stolen, hopefully a portable toilet.”

I stood stiffly, my joints protesting after the prolonged stillness. I snagged a couple of granola bars and handed one to Sam. “I’m famished,” she stated before she ripped the end off the packet with her teeth.

“Sir, what happened back on the planet?”

I turned to face Sam, “I don’t know and you can cut out the ‘sir’ right now. My name is Jack.”

Sam stood in front of me, one hand clutching the sheet around her and the other grasping the food bar. Realisation hit me at what I’d just said and what it could really mean for us, at the same time Daniel barged in.

“Jack, Sam, you’re awake,” he said stating the obvious.

I reluctantly turned away from Sam’s gaze. “Daniel, Teal’c, Janet, Thor!” I said as they trooped in one after another.

“How is Colonel Carter?” Thor asked.

“I am well thank you, Thor.” She knelt down in front of him and smiled. “It is you I have to thank for restoring my memories.”

Thor inclined his head in acknowledgement. Janet rushed forward and hugged Sam. In fact Sam was hugging everyone, but none were directed at me. I watched Sam disappear in Teal’c’s bear like hug. A tingle of jealousy wormed its way into my heart. I didn’t like the feeling.

“Thor, where are the facilities?” I waved my hand in Sam’s direction. “And Carter needs some clothes.”

~*~

When I returned to the room, Sam was fully dressed. Her boots, although not looking shiny, were on her feet. She was wearing the second set of clothing Hammond had sent.

I saw my boots sitting on the floor and they were in a sad state, scuffed and a couple of holes in the toes. I tried not to think too hard about that, but I still checked my toes and mentally counted them to make sure they were all still there Yup, ten, all accounted for. Sitting on the coffee table in place of the granola bar box was a large grey metal box. Daniel and Sam were poking around in it with long metal sticks.

“I’ve found it,” Daniel announced. I noticed that they were both wearing latex gloves. Daniel’s hand shot into the box and pulled out the small canister which held the microfilm that Hammond had sent. He plopped it into a dish that Thor beamed away. I noticed my boots went with it. “I think that is all we can salvage,” he announced with a sigh.

“No,” Sam said and reached in and pulled out a battered photograph. Half was missing. She turned it around and showed me. All our legs had been removed at the knees, but our faces were untouched. It was the precious photo of SG-1. She placed it into another dish which was immediately beamed away.

I peered into the box and saw a heaped pile of blood soaked remnants of our clothing Buttons and belt buckles the only items untouched by the creeping vine. Remembered fear clutched at my heart. I turned to Teal’c to hide my discomfort.

“I’m sorry about the leather coat, Teal’c.” Why our leather boots survived was a mystery as the leather coat was decimated. I suppose it was all the spit and polish we rubbed into our boots.

“It is all right, O’Neill. The coat was yours to do with as you wished.”

I started to explain that the plants’ eating the coat was not my wish, but decided against it. Sam had slumped down on the sofa. She looked tired and worn.

I sat down beside her and she leaned her head on my shoulder.

~*~

The following day, I pinned Thor down and asked him what had happened on the planet. We were all interested and were grouped around his chair as he flew the great Asgard ship ‘The Daniel Jackson’ through hyper space.

“General Hammond contacted me and asked me to take Dr. Fraiser to meet with you on the planet Lanat. As soon as I heard the name we came as quickly as possible. It is known as the planet of ghosts. No one goes there and survives if they stay for more than two days. The plants wait until their prey is asleep. Once asleep the person dreams that they are in paradise and will not be aware of what is happening to their physical selves, by the time they realise it is too late. In fact, O’Neill if I had not come along when I did, it would have been too late for everyone but Teal’c.”

“Teal’c how did you escape the plants?” Daniel asked.

“I was checking the perimeter and was not asleep when the plants attacked you. When I returned I thought you’d gone, but I saw Daniel Jackson’s boot and pulled back the vines.”

Thor continued to fill us in the gory details. “The vines devour all flesh and live off the nutrients and then lie dormant until another victim comes along. They re-produce after digesting and thus making the planet even more unsafe. The reason why it takes a while for them to attack you is that they have to come out of hibernation.”

Remembering the poor unfortunate man who had warned us, I asked, “Is there anyway we can save the people that have already fallen victim?”

“Sadly no, O’Neill. Their bodies have already been consumed and gone.”

I shuddered at the thought of the lost man that had tried to help us.

“So what now?” I asked everyone in general.

Teal’c shifted slightly on his feet before speaking. “I wish to visit Rya’c and Brat’ac as I have not seen them in quite a while.”

Yeah, Ishta too I thought, grinning smugly to myself.

“Any objections?” I queried.

An all round shake of heads. “It’s off to Ishta’s planet we go then.” I couldn’t help smiling at Teal’c who pointedly ignored me.

It wasn’t until later that I managed to get Sam alone again. She seemed back to normal and didn’t want to talk about her time captured by Baal or Neeron. I’d hoped it was because she didn’t want to talk to the others about this, and would talk to me, but I was to be disappointed. She didn’t want to talk to me either.

“Sam, what happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Jack.”

“You need to talk to someone, if not me, at least Janet.” I caught hold of her arm, but she twisted it free and turned towards me.

“General, I do not want to talk about it,” she said with vehemence.

It felt like a slap on the face, she’d called me general.

She walked quickly away from me, towards the bridge. I stood like a stunned mullet. I suppose I should have listened to her when she’d said she didn’t want to talk about it, but La Haia and I had such a close relationship and I missed it terribly.

Things were going from bad to worse. I slowly followed her to the bridge, wondering where all this was going to go.

~*~


Since the disagreement in the halls of Thor’s ship there had been a distinct cooling from Sam, I didn’t know how to repair it or what to do about it. She hung around Janet and Daniel mainly. Maybe safety in numbers I don’t know. At least Daniel and Janet seemed to be making headway. They were definitely a ‘couple’ there was no avoiding it. I was glad for both of them. I always felt that there was something brewing well before our Janet had died and there was certainly something in Janet’s alternate universe. I was happy for them, they both deserved it after all their heartache and pain they’d suffered.

So what about me? I just grumped around the halls of Thor’s ship as he flew the ship towards Ishta’s planet.

Even though Sam had cooled somewhat we did seem to slot back into our old relationship; the one where I was the commanding officer and she was the subordinate. At least she didn’t call me general or sir anymore, but I felt she had to really work on it to stop herself from calling me either. Then again, I had to remember not to call her La Haia or Carter as well. So sometimes it was easier not to say her name or even not to talk to her at all.

~*~

Poor Brat’ac, he nearly died of a heart attack when we were beamed into his tent unannounced, but he soon got over it and was pleased to see us all; especially Sam. He’d had no idea that she was alive.

The strongest memories I have of our early days there was that we partied all night and I never got to dance with Sam. Everyone else seemed to, but me. It wasn’t from lack of trying, but she was very clever at avoiding my advances. It was then I decided to give up. I’d had enough of heartache over the past four years and this was just making me feel worse, so I drank myself into oblivion. I regretted my decision the following morning as I puked my guts out - repeatedly.

I received no sympathy from any quarters and Sam wouldn’t talk to me for several days. To this day, I have no idea what happened while I was drunk. Maybe I don’t want to know.

~*~

After a few miserable weeks, we began to get restless. Fortunately, my list of planet addresses had been in my pack and was safe from man eating plants. Daniel, Janet, Sam and I decided we wanted to explore, see what was out there. Teal’c was quite happy to stay with Ishta until our next meet. He had the address so would meet us there in two and half months time.

Thor had been busy when collecting my furniture. I hoped that this wouldn’t cause Hammond too many problems back at the SGC. He had enough to contend with. Thor had collected clothes and ammunition. With these supplies we headed out through the gate to our next destination.

~*~

We stepped through the gate onto a grassy semi-circle. An old beaten track meandered its way through overgrown hedges which once upon a time would have neatly lined the road. The dust rose in a small cloud around my boot as it touched the surface.

Beyond the hedges were fields of waving wheat stretching over the horizon, reminding me of similar plains in Kansas.

“After you, Dorothy,” I slipped her a private smile as I waved my arm out towards the track.

She moved forward without acknowledging me. Ignoring her, I spun around on my heel and watched Janet move up beside Sam. She studiously avoided looking at me. I just wish I knew what I’d done wrong.

Withholding a sigh, I fell in step beside Daniel and in companionable silence we followed the rest of my team up the dry, beaten track.

After about two hours of solid walking we came to a small village. No sign of activity, just buildings in severe disrepair, doors hanging on one hinge and tattered curtains blowing through busted windows in the small breeze.

The fountain in the middle of the village square bubbled up through the middle, sparkling from the bright sun. The water was clear and I could see the fresh footprints in the sand around the lip of the fountain. A few houses surrounding the square were in pristine condition with brightly painted doors and window boxes full of colourful blooms. It was nothing like the sorry state of houses on the edge of the village. There were still no signs of people.

I nodded to Carter and Janet to check out one of the nearest houses, while Daniel and I continued on through the village. Once again, we past houses in disrepair, obviously not lived in or been lived in for several decades.

“It’s like a ghost town,” Daniel muttered under his breath. I agreed silently with him. As we reached the outskirts of the village, Carter contacted us on the radio.

“Sir,” I visibly winced at the ‘sir’; Daniel was watching me openly, “There’s no answer from the houses, I don’t think anyone is home.”

“Right, Sam. We’re on the outskirts of the village, join us please.” If she wanted to act like it was business as usual and all commanding officer versus subordinate, she could, but I wasn’t going to stoop to that level of sour grapes and if she didn’t like it then tough, I didn’t like the way she behaved either.

Stretching away from the village were long rows of black plastic like material with small plants imbedded about a foot apart in the centre of the black mounds. I moved closer expecting to see bright red of strawberries peaking out from under leaves, but I saw a smaller yellow strawberry like fruit, nestled under the leaves.

I heard the scuff of a boot on the rough ground behind me, and turned to see Carter and Janet skirting some broken furniture piled up at the edge of the village.

“Hey guys.” I gave them a quick wave not lifting my elbow from where it rested on my P-90. “Check it out,” I turned back and gazed across the striped fields.

“Alpine strawberries,” announced Sam from beside me. She bent down and pulled one from the plant, “They’re ripe too.” She smiled and popped one into her mouth.

“Is that wise?” Daniel blurted as he reached out too late to stop her eating the fruit.

“Yes,” she replied, still smiling, reminding me of La Haia when she found the pods in the forest. “They are also called winter strawberries. Although why they are growing in the middle of summer I have no idea.” She bent down and retrieved another strawberry, bigger than the first one and popped it in her mouth. Yeah, this definitely reminded me of La Haia and the pod episode.

While I was remembering what’d happened on that adventure, at the same time, I heard Daniel say, “Uh, guys, I don’t like the look of this.”

Distracted, I followed Daniel’s pointing finger and saw a huge floating machine hovering over the strawberry fields. The familiar sinking feeling coalesced into a deep hollow feeling of fear. Then alertness, but we were too late. A sudden sharp pain, then I felt my limbs and torso begin to spasm and watched helplessly before following my team as they fell convulsing to the ground.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

3. P4C-970

Chapter One
By Arrietty



2008

Of course, it was no surprise that my head hurt. It was a big honking headache right behind my eyes. At least it had moved from the back of my head where it usually thumped away.

I rolled over onto my side and attempted to open my eyelids a crack. The top of Janet’s head was only three inches from my nose. I reached over and checked her pulse, it was steady, but she was still unconscious. I sat up and immediately regretted it as the thumping increased its tempo.

Sam was slumped over against the wall in a half sitting position; blood had dripped down from the side of her head onto the floor. Headache forgotten, I crawled over to her.

“Sam,” I called softly. She murmured and moved slightly.

I heard a scrabbling sound behind me then a groan. It was Daniel. “Janet? Janet! Talk to me,” his voice filled with concern.

I twisted my head around, making a pain spike down the back of my neck. Ignoring the pain, I kept twisting; Daniel was leaning over Janet, lifting her up into his arms. I could see Janet’s eyes flutter open, rest on Daniel and then she smiled.

I let out a big sigh.

I turned back to Sam, she was still out cold. I wish I’d had a bucket of water, the way I was feeling about her at the moment it would have suited me quite well.

“Sam” I touched her cheek with the back of my fingers. Fortunately, the bleeding had stopped as the blood had congealed. “Sam,” my voice was gentle, belying my previous feelings only moments before. I never would do anything to harm Sam. I just wish we could sort things out.

She moved her head to the side and groaned. “Jack?” Her eyes popped open momentarily before she shut them with a grimace.

“I know I’ve been bashed around a bit, but I can’t look that terrible,” I stated.

She smiled as she opened her eyes again. I helped her up into a more comfortable position against the wall. Her hand rested on my arm while I checked out her injury. She gave a hiss as I pressed around the wound.

“I don’t think there’s too much damage. How do you feel?” I asked Sam.

“Headache, but nothing I can’t handle.” She bristled slightly and moved away from me, making me immediately regret not using a bucket of water after all. Not that I could see a bucket of water in the room.

The walls were smooth and coloured a boring grey. The floor was made out of something I’d never seen before; dark grey ridges zig-zagged across a black shiny surface - oh hang on, it looked very familiar, which reminded me.

“Did I see what I thought I saw, before being knocked out?” I asked generally to the room.

“If you mean a harvester similar to those used by the Aschen, then yes,” Sam answered.

“Actually,” Daniel stood up, helping Janet get to her feet also, “I believe it was an Aschen harvester. This flooring and walls look very much like the inside of one.”

“I agree,” Sam said. She tried to stand up, but wobbled a bit and then slid down the wall onto the floor. I put out my hand to steady her, but she shook me off. ‘For crying out loud.’

Exasperated, I stood up and checked out the only door in the room to see if we could find a way out. It wasn’t very productive, but kept me occupied.

“Sam, you okay?” Daniel asked.

Janet scurried over and prodded and poked Sam. She let her and didn’t pull away. Yup, it was definitely me she was snippy at. I’d had a small hope that she was annoyed with everyone, but the hope had gone now.

I could hear footsteps outside the door intermingled with low voices. Adrenalin began to flow as I ducked to the side of the door. I signalled everyone in the room of the arrivals. Sam staggered to her feet, with Janet supporting her. Daniel stayed where he was in the centre of the room.

There was a beep then a swish as the door opened. The person, who walked in, was the last person that I expected.

“Ambassador!” Sam exclaimed.

Finding my voice, I managed to squeak out a sentence, “Faxon, you’re still alive?”

“Only just, by the looks of it,” said Janet as she moved forward towards him. The door swished shut behind him.

He looked old and haggard. His hair peppered liberally with white, his eyes bloodshot and his skin was yellowed and leathery.

He turned to Sam, “Hello, Samantha.” When he smiled it looked as though it hurt him.

“What happened to you?” Daniel moved in between Sam and my line of sight.

“I’m their latest guinea pig. Unfortunately, I’m not one of their more successful experiments.”

“We thought you were dead, Ambassador,” Sam walked into my sight and caught his attention again. “I’m sorry, I left you behind on P3A-194, but . . .”

“Its okay, Samantha,” he held up his hand to stop her from talking. “I most probably won’t have long to speak with you. We are on P4C-970.”

“The Aschen home world,” said Sam.

Faxon nodded, “Yes, the Aschen home world. You were brought here from Nartion which is part of their confederation of planets.”

Daniel ran his hand through his hair, “Of course, why didn’t we see it when we first arrived, an Agrarian planet.” He turned away from us and walked to the back of the room.

Faxon continued filling us in on what to expect. “They will experiment on you as they don’t like using their own people, so they use any unsuspecting humans that come along. I think they’ve run out of viable planets too. They keep dialling addresses, but don’t get what they want. Unfortunately, they soon cottoned onto your list of bogus addresses.”

“They weren’t bogus,” I interrupted, “They were real addresses. I suppose they didn’t find the black hole?”

“No,” was Faxon’s succinct answer.

“Oh that was a real shame,” my voice was laced with sarcasm.

“Anyway, soon they’re going to take one or two or maybe even all of you from here and start experimenting on you. I’m sorry, I can’t help you. The Stargate is totally inaccessible; it is surrounded with a state of the art defence system. The only way is to get into the mainframe computer and find out the codes to the system and shut it down. And they’re not going to let any of us anywhere near that.” He sighed and looked sad. “It’s really great to see you guys, but I wish it wasn’t like this.” Faxon’s gaze was totally on Sam the whole time he spoke. “I’m lucky they let me see you even now. I requested it.”

“So why would they let you?” I asked.

Janet answered, “Because you are dying, aren’t you?” She looked Faxon directly in the eye as she asked the question.

He nodded in reply. “Yes, they only give me a few weeks. Then that’s it.”

“And they can’t do anything for you?” I asked. “I mean they are these oh so wonderful scientists that can make people live for longer, but they can’t fix this?” I waved my arm around the room; I was annoyed and frustrated by this whole scenario.

He just shook his head.

I heard footsteps outside again and waited for the beep and swishing noises that came with the opening of the door.

Faxon leaned close to Daniel and whispered something to him, before smiling at Sam. He waved to all of us then turned around and walked out the door. It swished shut behind him leaving us with perplexed expressions on our faces.

“So, Daniel,” I moved over to him and got in his space, “What did he say?”

Daniel spoke very quietly, “He told me where the computer mainframe is.” Then he shrugged. “But it doesn’t mean much to me as I don’t know the layout of the city.

I looked over at Carter who had moved over by the door and was listening to see if anyone was coming. She shrugged at Daniel’s information.

Daniel was right, the information is no good to us, if we don’t know our way around the city. And Faxon had had seven years to get to know this place. Deciding that we most probably had a little while to wait before our debut in guinea pigdom, I sauntered over to the far wall and sat down.

“Carter, take a load off. I don’t want to have to make it an order,” I added as she had made no effort to move from her post.

Her gaze was penetrating as she looked straight at me. Then she pushed herself away from the wall and sat down beside me, with a foot of space between us.

She was silent. After a few moments of this, I decided to say something. Ignoring the little voice in the back of my head saying, ‘keep mum, don’t say a word, shut up, you idiot.’ The voice getting more belligerent as my mouth opened and the first word came out of it.

“You haven’t asked about Shanahan.”

‘You idiotic oaf, for crying out loud, what a twerp. You’ve gone and done it now.’

I should have listened to my voice.

“Why should I need to?” her voice was cold like steel. “You’ve already told me about him.”

‘I did?’

“I did? When?” I turned to look at her, but she was looking out into the room, her mouth in a hard line. She was one angry lady.

Her steely eyes turned and looked at me. I swear that I saw sparks fire out of them. “On the first night on Ishta’s planet.”

I groaned.

“So, I now have no need to ask you anything about Pete.”

I hung my head down on my arms hanging over my bent knees. ‘I’m dead.’

I heard a snort from Daniel’s direction. His life span was getting very short if he kept that up.

“Sam, I think you should put him out of his misery.”

‘Wha . . .’

My head shot up and I looked at Daniel. Was that a smirk I saw? Yes, the man was smirking. I turned to see Sam trying not to smile.

“What’s going on?” I asked, feeling a tad annoyed with everyone, but not sure why.

“Jack, it doesn’t matter about Pete, we were over anyhow.”

Bewildered, my gaze turned to Daniel, Janet and then back to Sam again. “You were?” I asked my head shooting forward.

She had the decency to look slightly abashed. “And when were you going to . . . quoting Daniel here,” I flicked a couple of fingers in his direction; “Put me out of my misery?”

“I’m still mad at you for that other thing, but about Pete, that’s fine.”

“What other thing?” I was really getting frustrated now. “And when did you finish with Shanahan? For cryin’ out loud. You were engaged.” My voice had risen an octave and I was definitely almost squeaking by now, but I really didn’t care.

She smiled in amusement.

“Pete broke it off with me a few days before we went to Baal’s fortress.”

“With you? He must be nutso. Why would anyone give up a chance to spend the rest of their life being with you?” ‘Ooops, I’d let a bit too much slip there.’

Her smile increased in size.

“And what other thing?”

She shook her head before scooting closer to me. I glared at Daniel and Janet who quickly looked away and started to study the plain grey wall as if it was covered in text.

“Pete and I are finished, we were over before I was taken by Baal.” Her voice was soft and gentle.

“Why,” I asked. The question burning in my heart.

“He said that my heart wasn’t in the relationship. That you kept on getting in the way.”

“Oh.” I was speechless.

“And I was in denial.”

“Ah,” I said reduced to one syllable words.

“He was right.” Sam moved slightly closer to me. I could feel the warmth of her shoulder through our clothing.

“Sweet.” I smiled broadly.

Just when things were going to get interesting, the door swished open. Borren walked through the door.

I quickly stood, my body tense. “I thought the audit was next month,” I quipped. The only people in the room thought it was funny were my team members.

“You,” he pointed Janet, “And you,” he pointed to Daniel. “Come with me.”

Two men that I hadn’t seen before, came into the room armed with weapons, they looked a bit like the phazers I’d seen under duress from Teal’c, on Star Trek. I was totally sure that they were just as lethal as the phazers from Star Trek were made out to be.

I nodded to Daniel and Janet to follow the men from the room.

“You and you,” Borren pointed to us, “Follow them.” He pointed to another two men holding the little rectangle mobile phone like contraptions.

“Not very chatty are you?” I goaded him as I walked past.

He looked at me in disdain and followed Janet and Daniel down the corridor. We, on the other hand went the opposite direction down the corridor, around the corner and into a large sterile room. It looked suspiciously like an operating room. I glanced over at Sam to see what she thought, by her expression; I’d say she agreed with me.

We were two very unhappy guinea pigs.

~*~

2031

Teal’c, how are you, buddy?

I am well, O’Neill.

I heard that you got hit bad.

I have healed sufficiently, O’Neill. I see that you are in your own room. You are most fortunate.

That I am, Teal’c that I am. Actually, the nurses got fed up with my rambling into this computer and kicked me out.

I can not stay long. Ishta and I are leaving later today.

Ishta is here? When did she arrive?

Several days ago.

Oh.

I wish to return to my family.

Don’t leave it too long before you come again, will you, Teal’c?

I will not, O’Neill.

You will stay a while though?

Yes, I have time.

I’ll just switch this computer off first.

~*~

2008

Now where was I? Oh yes, we were in the operating type room.

Mollem walked into the room, flagged by four large Aschen men. I could see the calculating look on his face as his eyes looked me up and down.

“Colonel O’Neill, we meet again.” His expressionless voice didn’t show any triumph at our capture, even though it sparked in his eyes.

“General O’Neill,” Sam informed him.

“Retired general, actually.” I looked pointedly at Sam.

He ignored us and nodded to the burly guards. They pounced, not gently either. I managed to get in a couple of good kicks and blooded one of their noses, but it didn’t work. I could hear the Aschen’s version of swearing from the other two guards as they grappled with Sam. I was proud of her.

Soon, we were both strapped to hard metal beds.

Mollem walked over to me and looked at me with a sneer. “You are so puny, you humans, but make excellent test subjects. We lost a whole planet to your treachery and now you’re going to pay.”

Before I could reply with something suitable, he shoved a honking great big needle into my arm and I was out cold.

* * *

I awakened feeling groggy and disorientated. Sam was lying only about two feet away still asleep. A large IV bag half full of green liquid was connected to her arm. I twisted my head up and a similar green bag was connected to my arm also. There was no way I could dislodge the bag because I was tied down too tightly.

Mollem came into the room. He totally ignored me and went over to Sam. He had a white small cylinder in his hand which he pressed against her neck. With a hiss it released something into her body.

He came over and did the same to me. “What are you doing?” He didn’t answer. “Why are you doing this?” I asked frustrated. I was really getting fed up with these robot like aliens. No emotion, no anger, nothing.

He stood over me for a second, smirked slightly and walked from the room. It didn’t take me long to succumb to the drug he’d just injected into me.

I don’t know how long we were in there, but I do remember waking periodically and being injected by Mollem or one of his lackeys. Annoyingly, Sam was never awake at the same time as me. I really needed her scientific input at the moment, my over active imagination was going rampant. I could only see her, not myself, so I was able to assure myself that I wasn’t turning green or growing another limb. Who knows what these freaky aliens were doing to us.

At least I didn’t have to worry about using the bathroom. As per usual when you were incapacitated, the medical profession had that sorted. But I was sure getting hungry, my stomach growled with annoyance. In fact, it was competing with Sam’s stomach that gurgled and grumbled away.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

3. P4C-970

Chapter Two
By Arrietty



2008

The next time I awoke, I was lying on a cold floor in what you’d term, loosely, I might add, a hospital gown. The back of my hand was sore where the IV had gone into, but apart from stiffness of my joints and the hunger that ached in my belly I seemed to be uninjured.

I slowly sat up and looked around. The room was sparsely furnished with a table and one hard chair, sitting on the table were two piles of clothing and they looked like our BDU’s newly laundered. Two pairs of boots sat on the floor by the chair. What appeared to be a bathroom was situated through a doorway on the far wall. Over against another wall was a small two seated sofa, and lying upon it was Sam, also dressed in a hospital gown.

I scrambled over to her and felt for her pulse, it gently thumped away under my finger tips.

“Sam.”

She stirred.

“Sam!” I called more urgently.

Sam’s eyelids fluttered open and her eyes searched the room before resting on my face. A smile full of tenderness and caring flitted across her face before she sat bolt upright and looked around in fright as she remembered what had happened.

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know, but not back in our cell.” I looked around with her, “But our clothes are on the table and it looks like there is a bathroom too.” I nodded to the small open doorway that led off to what looked like a sink and a toilet.

“Where are Janet and Daniel?” She asked.

“I don’t know.” I was worried, I didn’t like our team to be split or not know what was happening to them.

I helped her to stand and then handed her the clothes that sat on the table. She walked off to the bathroom very stiffly. How long we’d been sedated I had no idea, but I was extremely hungry and weak.

I quickly dressed in my BDU’s which were washed and neatly pressed. It felt good to wear clean clothes again. I was still lacing up my boots when Sam came out, also dressed, her clothes hung on her. She’d lost a lot of weight.

“Jack, what happened to us?” she asked.

“I have absolutely no idea. Do you?”

“I have some theories, but really I don’t know anymore than you do.” She let out a sigh.

Sam sat down beside me on the sofa with her boots and socks in her hands and proceeded to put them on.

“I really need a good meal at the moment,” she grumbled.

“Yeah, I totally agree,” and as if in agreement my belly rumbled.

She giggled. It was music to my ears.

“So, how much do you remember?” I asked.

“Not much, I was sedated most of the time.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said, feeling rather nervous at what her reaction was going to be.

“Oh, that?” She stopped tying her boot and looked up at me. “It is hard to talk about it, but I will when I’m ready,” she assured me.

I nodded and gave her the best reassuring smile that I was able to give her. “I can wait.”

She smiled and continued to tie up her boot laces.

Just at that moment the door swished open and four guards came into the room. Two were carrying trays while the other two were carrying lethal looking weapons. I knew they were lethal because they were our confiscated P-90’s.

The trays were unceremoniously plonked on the table. The gravy or whatever it was slopped over the edge and made a mess on the table top. I really didn’t care. I was famished. As soon as the guards had gone, I got both trays and brought them over and we sat down to eat.

The food was good, tasty and nutritious. I really didn’t care if they’d laced it with anything, if they wanted to poison us or give us something we didn’t want, all they’d have to do was tie us down and feed us intravenously and I didn’t want them to do that. Besides, we needed the food to give us energy so we could escape.

About ten minutes after we’d finished they returned and took our trays away. I tried to ask them a few questions, but they wouldn’t answer or communicate with us at all.

“You try next time, Carter,” I said after they shut the door.

She snorted, “Yes of course.”

I knew by that response that there was no way she was going to.

“Jack.”

“Yes,” I turned to her, she was watching me intently.

“I am ready to tell you what happened now. Please don’t interrupt me, I know you’ll have questions, but please, just let me tell you what I want to tell.”

I nodded and pulled her down to lean against me. I could feel her sigh against my chest. It felt good to have her there.


Sam’s story

Lieutenant Colonel Carter stepped through the Stargate straight into an ambush. She felt, more than saw Teal’c whisk off behind the gate into the line of trees to get a better angle. The Jaffa were everywhere, they must have arrived since the SGC received the telemetry from the MALP.

Ducking behind the DHD, she loosed off a volley of shots. Two Jaffa went down. She didn’t wait to see them land as she ran, bent double, towards several bushes that would give her better cover and concealment.

The familiar staccato of bullets from a P-90 behind her, told Sam that General O’Neill had arrived. He was crouched down beside Daniel who was trying to dial in Earth’s address.

The loud boom of a warning horn echoed around the surrounding hills. More Jaffa would be on their way, they were toast there was no way they’d survive this ambush. They needed to get out of there fast.

Sam heard over the loud exchange of fire Colonel O’Neill’s voice call out. “I’ll cover you.” She saw him lift his hand up, three fingers extended. The colonel then spun around the DHD, raking the bushes with rifle fire, trying the get the sniper that had them pinned down. He had moved. Sam watched in horror as Daniel caught a full blast in the chest from a staff weapon. He went down in a cloud of smoke. For a moment she was shocked by the sight. Collecting herself quickly, she twisted round to take out the offending Jaffa only to see his staff weapon lined up on her chest. She tried to jump clear, but the blast hit her with full force, pain exploded in her head and shoulder, she was dead before she hit the ground.

~*~

Sam was awakened by a soft grating sound that penetrated her slumber. Warm softness surrounded her body; she felt pain free and drowsy just like she felt on a warm spring morning after a good long sleep. Cold air disturbed the warmth of her cocoon and bright light shone through her eyelids. Opening her eyes to a slit, she could just make out a silhouette of a man leaning over her. He seemed familiar, but not in a good comfortable way. So she opened her eyes wide and stared straight at the goa’uld Baal.

“Why, Colonel Carter, it is good of you to join us.”

She closed her eyes and groaned.

Her upper arms were grabbed by two Jaffa and she was hauled out of the sarcophagus. Sam felt drugged and only half awake, but not enough to quash the fear that threatened to make her limbs quiver. Finding her feet, but still docile she went with the Jaffa out through the large room along a corridor and was shoved none too gently into a small cell. She had half hoped to find other members of her team here, but this wasn’t to be. The room was bare, no sign of anyone or anything. Sam leaned against the wall and slid down to a sitting position onto the floor.

Sam didn’t know if any members of her team had survived or had got away. The question most pressing on her mind and heart was, why did they leave her behind. With these thoughts rumbling around in her mind, she slowly dozed off into a much needed natural sleep.

They came for her only three hours later. The Jaffa weren’t gentle either. They pulled her roughly to her feet and dragged her along the floor, not letting her manage to get her feet firmly planted on the ground. So she fought; kicking and biting at whatever she could reach. One of them punched her in the face, almost knocking her senseless.

“Kree!” the Jaffa ordered and dragged her semi-limp form along the corridor.

Dazed, Sam let them drag her along. She needed time to think, to work out a plan of escape. She had a fair idea what could be in store for her. She’d read O’Neill’s report. Even though it hadn’t said much about what he’d suffered, she’d been with Janet when they’d gone over his clothes. Sam had seen the holes, the slits where the knives had penetrated and the holes that had been made with acid. The thought of this future for Sam filled her with dread. She didn’t think she’d be as strong as O’Neill had been to resist this kind of torture.

The room she was dragged into was roughly made. It was as though they hadn’t had time to finish it properly. It was big with high ceilings and a few sconces placed at intervals along the walls. Some were alight, while others were dead causing weird shaped shadows to dance on the walls. Baal usually used power to give light, but here she could see the naked flame flickering.

No one else was in the room with her, but the two Jaffa. Along a wall was a huge spider web of wrought iron. She recognised it from the description in O’Neill’s report, although he had described it as more irregular. She was sure this wasn’t the same place O’Neill had been held. The building was unfinished and the web was made differently. Whatever this place was, she was certain that it would have the same outcome.

With lightening speed, she ground her boot down the front of one of the Jaffa’s shins and with her elbow she belted the other one in the eye. Both went down in screams of pain. With a well aimed kick to the face, she knocked the shinned guy onto his back. He was out cold. The other grabbed her around the neck and pulled her back, slowly choking off her air supply. Pulling uselessly at the Jaffa’s arm with her hands, Sam began to sink to her knees as her precious oxygen was depleted. The Jaffa that held her in his death grip turned around and pushed her away from himself so she fell towards the giant web. Gravity took over and she landed heavily on the grid, her face pressed painfully against the cold metal. Sam gasped for breath, coughing as her throat hurt with each life giving breath that flowed into her starved lungs.

“Colonel Carter, you and I need to have a little chat.”

Sam closed her eyes, took a big breath and with difficulty, slowly turned over onto her back. Baal stood before her, his smile false and cruel. He was holding a knife with his finger tips. She wished fervently that he would cut himself and bleed to death. But unfortunately, her wish wasn’t granted.

“I’m sure, O’Neill has filled you in on our chats we’ve had together. So you know what this is about. You can stop this right now.”

“Not likely,” Sam gasped out.

Baal gave a small irritating laugh before turning a serious face towards Sam. “All you have to do is tell me the codes to your defence systems. It is easy really.”

Sam rolled her eyes before staring straight at Baal. Her gaze was steady and strong. There were no signs of the fear that gripped her innards showing on her face.

“Very well then,” Baal answered Sam’s obvious defiance.

He let go of the knife.

Pain seared into Sam’s shoulder, ironically enough it was the same shoulder that the staff blast had hit her before. This time it didn’t kill her, but bit deep into the sinew causing tremendous pain.

“The codes,” Baal stated.

Sam shook her head.

Another knife flew through the air and landed with a sickening thud into her thigh. A warm trickle of blood began to flow down her leg. He’d hit the main arterial artery. Sam smiled. Baal’s aim was off.

Baal managed to mask his displeasure at what had happened and picked up another knife. This time his aim was true and it sliced into the front of her thigh right to the bone. Sam cried out. Her whole leg was in excruciating pain.

Slowly the life blood began to seep out of her body, the edges of the room began to grey and turn black. The last thing she saw was a pin point of red with Baal’s smug face in the centre.

~*~

Sam lost count of the days, weeks or was it months that she was Baal’s prisoner. More and more each day, she lost some part of herself. What made her the person she was, what made her true and good. Her mind was in such a fog that even if she’d wanted to give Baal the codes she couldn’t remember them. They had been changed so many times over the years that she couldn’t work out which ones were the recent ones or which ones had been discontinued.

Daniel was dead, she was sure of it now. O’Neill had left her behind and Teal’c had gone back to his god. Convinced in her mind this had happened, Sam spiralled down into a well of despair.

It was when she was rock bottom that Baal changed his tactics. He started asking about Jolinar and the Tok’ra. This was something that Sam knew deep within her heart that she could not reveal. Her father was Tok’ra; he must be kept safe at all costs. Baal would ask her about the Tok’ra and she would reply with a list of numbers, no rhyme or reason. It infuriated him beyond measure. Anger replaced his smugness and with anger came rash decisions.

~*~

Baal had in his possession the device that Anubis had used on Thor and Jonas Quinn. It was time to use it on Carter.

Carter was put under a mild sedation, and they implanted the device and plugged it into a computer. Baal rubbed his hands with glee as information flowed out onto the screen. Baal learned about cars, planes and bus timetables. He learned all about how do clean out the fridge after being left for six weeks growing mould, but he didn’t learn anything about Carter.

Pulling up a diagnostic programme, Baal searched for why this was happening. Something was hiding information, keeping it safe. He needed to delve in there further and ordered the machine to be turned on full.

Immediately, Carter went into convulsions. Baal called out for the machine to be turned down, but it was too late, she was dead.

Baal was furious with the outcome and turned off the machine. “Take that thing out, it isn’t doing any good and put her in the sarcophagus, we’ll try again tomorrow,” he ordered and stormed out of the room.

This Tau’ri was driving him insane. Anger coursed through his veins, this woman wasn’t going to get the better of him. He still hadn’t quite got over O’Neill’s escape and to be thwarted by a mere woman only made it worse.

The following day, they dragged Carter into the room. The Tau’ri woman was kicking and screaming with a high pitched voice. Nothing like he’d heard from her before. Puzzled, he studied her as she thrashed between the two perturbed looking Jaffa.

“Jaffa, Kree!”

The Jaffa dragged her closer to the grid and let her fall backwards onto it. Terror filled eyes stared out through a tangle of hair.

“She is not healed,” he stated. “Put her back.”

Baal ran his hand over the release mechanism, the grid opened and Carter fell screaming to the bottom.

~*~

A woman crouched in the corner of a cell belonging to the goa’uld Baal. Fear clutched at her from every angle. She had known no different to what she now experienced. Every day two men came into her cell and dragged her from it and took her to another man. He was handsome, but cruel. He used everything he could to cause her pain. Each time he hurt her, he would ask her something in a language she didn’t understand. The woman tried to explain that she didn’t understand, but all that came from her mouth were unfamiliar sounds. Each time he’d finished hurting her, he would kill her and then revive her in a large golden box. Terror and pain dogged this young woman over several weeks and finally, the evil man stopped hurting her.

Every day a man with a symbol on his forehead would still bring her food, but he didn’t take her away and hurt her or put her in the golden box. For the first few days after they stopped hurting her, she writhed with pain and despair. Her body trembled and sweated as though she had a fever. Images flashed through her mind, ones of terror and fear. People she loved wafted past her eyes, only to be murdered before her by the very man that had hurt her over and over again. Finally, after six days, she awakened without the trembling and the sweating and the visions had fled.

A bowl of cold food sat just inside the door. The woman scrabbled over on all fours to the bowl and gulped it down. She was ravenous. She was covered with filth and dirt from the mud floor. She didn’t recognise this place, but whatever it was; she wasn’t going to stay for long.

Later that day, the man that brought her food returned with two women. He screwed up his nose in distaste at the smell that permeated the room. Wasting no time, he lunged for the woman and grabbed hold of her arms and pinned them behind her back. With one heave he threw her over his shoulder and marched fast down the corridor into a huge steaming room. In a large tub he threw the dirty woman in, clothes, boots and all. She made a resounding smack as she hit the surface of the tub and then sank down under the water. She came out gasping for a breath screaming at the top of her lungs.

The man shook his head and walked from the room and left the two women to wrestle the dirty woman’s clothes from her and clean her.

After a lot of work, the woman stood shivering beside the tub with a large towel wrapped around her. She felt clean, it felt good to her. Even though the women had been rough, they had been kind. And for the first time in this woman’s life she had felt some gentleness.

The women laughed when they put the bright yellow dress on her. It reached to just above her knees. “You look like a flower,” they said. “What’s your name?” they asked.

The young woman just shook her head not understanding them.

“You,” one of the kind woman said as she poked a finger at the woman, “You’re name is La Haia. You’re a flower.”

La Haia frowned, still not understanding. “La Haia,” she repeated, pointing at La Haia. “Say after me, LA HAIA.” The kind woman mouthed out the words to La Haia who copied.

“La Haia.” Her voice was soft, nothing like the wild cat that they had wrestled in the tub.

“Yes, yes, La Haia.” The women smiled and nodded. La Haia gave a small smile in return.

The women gave La Haia a small loaf of bread and some cheese. “Go eat, you need it, you’re to skinny.” They pushed her gently to sit on a stool beside the fire, while they cleaned up the mess beside the tub. It didn’t take La Haia long to finish off the food, she was still hungry, but seeing the women who had been so kind to her clean up the mess she’d made, La Haia grabbed a towel and knelt down beside them and began to mop the floor. The women were amazed at this lovely young woman that would help. This was not what they had heard about her. La Haia was meant to be a great enemy of their god and would do anything in her power to kill their god, but here she was willing to help them clean.

~*~

2008

There wasn’t anywhere for me to think by myself except the bathroom and I’d been in here long enough. Sam would be getting worried by now. I was shocked and my heart ached for the young woman called La Haia. I came in here, because I couldn’t stay to hear anymore. I’m not one for tears, very rarely do they ever come, but today I was fighting tooth and nail to keep them at bay. And to top it off, I knew this was only half of the story. Not only had Sam gone through the repeated torture of Baal, but La Haia had also, the young innocent woman that I’d rescued no, bought from Neeron. The ache turned into pain and I felt a tear escape. I quickly switched on the faucet and sloshed some cold water onto my face. There wasn’t a towel to dry my face, so I wiped it on the front of my shirt. It was clean.

“Jack. Are you okay in there?” Sam called through the door.

“Yeah, won’t be a sec,” I replied.

I drew in a deep breath and opened the door. Her anxious face waited by the door. I smiled my usual everything is right smile and brushed past her. I didn’t get far as she caught hold of my elbow and stopped me in mid stride.

“Are you okay?” she asked again.

“Yes,” I replied gruffly, trying hard to hide my feelings.

“I don’t believe you.”

Busted.

“We had no choice to leave you behind, Sam,” I said still facing away from her.

She walked around to face me, I looked away.

“I know, Daniel told me what happened.” She moved around so she could see into my face.

“Oh, Jack.” Her face crumpled with tears. It was my undoing and I pulled her to me. Her arms wrapped around my neck and she held me tight. My body shook with emotion as I held the most precious person in the world to me.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

3. P4C-970

Chapter Three
By Arrietty



2008

That evening Mollem came for us. Two of his guards escorted us through the building out into the city. It was amazing. Tall sky scrapers, higher than I’d ever seen in New York towered above us some disappearing into the darkening mist. Lights winked at us through the thin fog as the sun sank below the city skyline.

Sam let out a small gasp of admiration at the architecture of the city. Monorail cars twirled their way around the tall circular buildings, small bug like cars whizzing through the air from building to building. The absence of colour, stark in the grey landscape. This was worse than the Tollens. At least they had a bit of life in them. Well, they used to before the goa’uld decimated their world.

I felt Sam’s hand slip inside mine. It wasn’t what we should do, the last thing the Aschen needed was another tool to get what they wanted, but I really didn’t care. I found her hand a comfort and something precious to hold on to.

We were led into a large foyer in one of the skyscrapers. Here the colour was still grey and dull, like the people who lived here.

“Jack,” Sam whispered. “I haven’t seen anything alive except people.”

“I haven’t seen anything alive except you,” I retorted staring Mollem in the eye. He flinched. Oh dear, I’d hurt his feelings, too bad. I grinned.

He gestured towards two double glass doors. We walked towards them and they opened as we approached. Mollem seemed surprised that we weren’t. I wanted to taunt him with ‘we’re not that backward you know,’ but I resisted. Maybe the gentle warning squeeze on my hand had helped.

Once we were through the doors, we found ourselves in a large room with six people seated along one side of a large table. Another three people were standing in front. They were Faxon, Daniel and Janet. Daniel and Janet, like us were holding hands but behind their backs, trying to conceal it from the panel at the table.

In my usual brash way I decided to flaunt our new found friendship to the world and lifted our joined hands in the air and waved at the only three members of our planet.

“Hi ya, guys.”

Sam tried to tug her hand free, but she dismally failed. Daniel’s mouth dropped open, Janet smirked and Faxon wobbled a bit on his feet. He didn’t look to good.

We were ushered along side the others and turned to face the seated six which were now seven as Mollem had joined the throng. Borren was seated at the other end looking as boring as ever.

A man spoke with a deep voice, he was white haired, most probably the oldest in the room, including me. Then again, who knows with this lot with their long life medicine?

“You are our prisoners, you will be allowed to live in our city, but you will never be able to leave. Every six days you are to report to the Research Centre and be tested. You will work where we tell you to and do what we tell you at all times. You will have to wear these all the time.” He lifted what looked like a house arrest bracelet. “If it is removed you WILL be found and eliminated. Do you understand?”

“So when do we get parole?” I asked.

He frowned.

Sam spoke up beside me. “What the General means is do we get to go home at all?”

He raised one eyebrow and leaned his head on one side.

In other words, No.

I sighed.

After the bracelets were fitted, we were ushered from the room and escorted over to a terminal. Small cars attached to the monorail zoomed into a stop and the guards pushed us into one. The doors swished shut and we sat down on the comfy seats. Not a moment to soon as the car shot off fast along the track with only a small vibration, but no sound except the wind whisking past.

We sat in stunned silence.

“Well that was different,” came a sarcastic comment from Daniel.

I rubbed my hands over my face and looked at Sam. “So what now?” I asked everyone in general.

“We escape,” was Daniel’s response.

“Oh yeah, that’ll be easy.” ‘Not.’

“I think we should see what is in the city and what we can find first before we try anything, I have the feeling that if we act and get caught, we won’t get a second chance.”

“Sam makes a lot of sense, Jack,” Janet piped up.

I nodded, “I agree with Sam.”

“I don’t.” Faxon sounded tired.

“Why not, Ambassador,” Sam asked.

“Please, call me Joe.” He smiled at her.

She nodded. “Why not, Joe?”

“Because, I tried that twice. The first time, they were going to execute me, but Borren convinced them that I was more useful alive. The second time, they were still waiting on results from their experiment and when they found out the results, they didn’t care anymore.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. I knew what the results were and they weren’t good. “So, Sam and I got pumped full of this green stuff, is it what you were given.”

“No, I don’t think so. Mine was clear, but they won’t be using that stuff again as it didn’t work. And it was several years ago now. They’ve gone onto bigger things.”

“Ours was blue,” said Daniel.

I raised both eyebrows at him. “Blue. Wow blue blooded then,” I joked. “We’ve got Vulcan blood now.”

Faxon snorted. People didn’t always surprise me, but this man did. Who’d have known he was a trekkie?

It didn’t take long for Faxon to sober up a bit. “I’d better tell you where we’re going. I have a small apartment in a building. They try and keep the prisoners apart as much as possible, but this time they put the five of us together. There are two bedrooms, lounge come dining room and a bathroom. The ladies can have one room; there are enough bunk beds in the other for us.” He indicated Daniel, me and himself with his hand.

So much for quality time with Sam. I felt her squeeze my hand.

When we arrived it was as he had said. Two single beds in one room and a slightly larger room with two bunks on one side and a single bed on the other. The single looked like it was Faxon’s as it was made up.

“They put the bunk beds in two days ago, so I knew you were coming.”

He lifted down some sheets and quilts from a large closet in the ladies room. “Take your pick,” he said and dumped them on one of the beds.

“Ooooh, I want the grey quilt,” shouted Daniel.

Getting into the swing of things, I yelled out, “No, I want the grey one,” and we both dived on one of the quilts at the same time. It ended up with Sam and Janet rolling each of us up in quilts and leaving us stranded on the floor without being able to get our hands free. We were rescued by Faxon.

“You’re nuts,” he said laughing. “I’ve really missed humour. Good honest Earth humour. Thank you.” Faxon’s voice broke at the end. Seven years imprisoned on a planet full of accountants must have been terrible. To break the moment I threw the quilt over his head and walked out the room to leave him to his emotions.

~*~

Work consisted of stacking food on supermarket shelves. And yes, you better believe it all the packets of food were labelled grey on white. Didn’t they believe in any other colour? So far the only colour we had seen was the stuff they’d pumped into us when we were sedated. The food on the other hand was quite colourful, but not the stuff we were given to eat. Ours came in packets that you squeezed out of a small hole you cut into the corner of the box. It was colourless and tasteless mush, but it gave us all the nutrients we needed.

Faxon didn’t work with us, he had the day shift in a box making factory. Daniel and Janet had early morning shift at the supermarket and came home around lunch time. We had the afternoon shift right through until late at night. So basically we all saw each other except for Faxon. Mainly because we were asleep when he left and when he arrived. We had one day off every eighteen days. That was when we would manage to catch up and fill each other in on what we had learned, which wasn’t much.

I awoke in the middle of the night, cold. My body was racked with shivers and my head ached.

“Hush, it’s going to be okay.” I felt a cool hand on my forehead.

“Doc?”

“You have a fever, we’re trying to get hold of Mollem to find out what is wrong.”

“Sam.” I wanted to know if she was okay.

“Yes, she has a fever as well.”

I heard a slop of water. “Thanks Daniel, can you try and cool him and I’ll do the same with Sam.” Her voice even though steady had a sense of urgency about it. Memories of a similar experience came to mind. That time I’d ended up as Baal’s dart board.

~*~

“Jack.”

It was Sam’s voice, she sounded worried. I opened my eyes; I was lying on Faxon’s bed with one of the quilts over me. Sam was leaning over me, her face only inches from mine. I smiled at her. She returned my smile, moved away and sat on the side of the bed.

“We’ve been really ill,” she announced.

I knew that. “How come you’re up and about then?”

“I got better two days ago and convinced the Aschen to let me bring you home.”

I opened my eyes a bit wider that comment. “How long has it been and more importantly where have we been?”

“Eight days. They took us back to the hospital.” She shrugged, “I don’t remember anything about the time in the hospital, but we were both out of the danger zone so we came home here.”

“So, how long have I been here out of it?” I looked up to see an IV snaking its way into my arm.

“A couple of days longer than me. Janet has been monitoring your vitals and when she’s at work, I’ve taken over.”

“I could do with something to drink and I’m hungry too.”

“That can be arranged.” Sam stood and disappeared out of the room towards the kitchen.

“Hey, Sam,” I called. “Just how much of a danger zone have we been in?”

She poked her head around the doorway. “Major one, like we both nearly died. Apparently, we made a break through. The last test subjects died within two days of receiving the drug. We lasted several days before getting sick and then we still lived.” Her head disappeared again before I could ask anymore questions.

I yelled out to her, “I’m glad we make such good test subjects.”

I heard a faint snort then a clatter as a plate was put down.

Sam came into the room bearing a tray with the usual slop in a bowl. Two slices of bread were leaning against the edge of the bowl.

“Do you want your food heated or left cold?” she asked.

“Cold thanks.” The last thing I wanted was that disgusting mush heated. It just exaggerated the bland flavour.

I still felt a bit dizzy and the room dipped and swirled as I tried to sit up. Sam hoisted me up against the head board. “It’ll pass soon. Once you’ve got some solid food into you.” She dumped the tray down on my lap and walked back out into the kitchen. Sympathy seemed have fled with me regaining consciousness.

A few moments later she returned with two steaming mugs of something. Hopefully, coffee, though I didn’t hold out any hope. There was nothing on this planet I’d seen so far that could resemble anything like coffee.

“The good news is,” she said as she placed my drink down on my tray and then sat on the side of the bed, “That we get a whole three weeks off.”

I raised one eyebrow.

“You know, to sight-see.” She smiled.

We had already worked out that there was a very good chance we were being monitored in everything we’d said, and I was ninety-nine percent sure we were being watched as well. How? We hadn’t worked out yet, but with all this down time, maybe Sam could find the source.

She was still looking at me intently, apparently, I’d missed something, but then again, I had just got over nearly dying. My brain needed time to catch up with the rest of me.

“We can go and explore the city.” She looked at me hard.

“Ah,” I got it. “Yes, that would be nice.” We could find someway to escape. I can do cryptic.

“Maybe we could find some plant life,” she said.

“Not likely here, and even if we do they’ll be grey plants.” I wasn’t feeling my best at that point.

Sam left me alone to eat my sludge.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

3. P4C-970

Chapter Four
By Arrietty



2008

Three days later, we ventured out into the city. This time we weren’t travelling between work and our apartment, which seemed to be the only thing we’d done so far. It wasn’t much of a change as everything looked the same.

We got lost a few times, but Faxon had drawn us a rough map that Sam seemed to know how to read, which was good as I had no idea because it didn’t look like any map I’d seen before.

“The museum is here,” she pointed to a large oval building across the narrow street.

There weren’t any vehicles on the road, everyone walked or used the transport pads. We’d already found out the hard way that our pass cards wouldn’t work the transport pads so we had to use the monorail or walk. Walking wasn’t a bad thing as we were both sadly out of shape.

We sauntered over to the building, there were a few families queuing up to enter. We joined the queue, although a few glances would go in my direction. I’d noticed this before; they would look at my hair, then their eyes would glance straight to my ankle and there wrapped around my boot would be the tag. A sign that I was a prisoner-come-test subject, then the glance would travel to Sam’s boot and then they’d look away.

We had been issued with clothing from the wide variety of greys. Our BDU’s had been confiscated along with everything else we owned, including the much damaged photo of SG-1. This was a hard blow to me; I really didn’t want to lose that.

It was finally our turn and I went first. I swiped the card through the machine, but it rejected the card.

“You try,” I said to Carter. Maybe my card wasn’t working.

She swiped the card, but it didn’t work either. Disappointed, we left the queue and walked along the street a bit.

“Why wouldn’t they want us to go in there?” I asked.

Sam shrugged, “I really don’t know, but I have a sinking feeling that the only place we will ever be allowed to enter is our apartment and the back door of where we work.” She sounded annoyed and with good reason.

“Where else is there, where we could go?” I peered over her shoulder at the map.

“How about here?” She pointed with her finger to a small dark grey square with something that looked like a tree in the middle.

“Is that a tree?” I asked incredulous.

“Yeah, it does look like one doesn’t it.” Sam’s brilliant smile flashed across her face. “Oh, how I miss the countryside.”

I nodded before taking her hand. We decided to walk to the park, it didn’t look like it was far to go.

I could smell the plants from around the corner, we nearly broke into a run, but we got enough weird glances from the inhabitants of this city without drawing more interest. So we walked fast instead. The sight that met us around the corner was solid disappointment mixed with relief at the green. A group of small buildings surrounded a large patch of neatly mown lawn with one medium sized tree in full leaf in the dead centre. A few flowers in groups around the edges gave a splash of yellow colouring. Dotted here and there were some bench seats set into concrete overlooking the small green.

We couldn’t help ourselves; we pulled off our boots and stood on the soft grass. Sam immediately lay down on the grass and breathed in the aroma. I watched her visibly relax, most probably for the first time since we’d arrived.

“Hey!”

I spun around to see who was yelling.

“Hey! You! Get off the grass.” One seriously annoyed Aschen was almost coming at a run.

“Sam, quick.” I pulled her arm up and we quickly went over to the concrete path.

“What do you think you are doing?” He was angry. “You should know that you aren’t allowed on here. See,” he pointed to a notice, “Can’t you read?”

“Actually,” I grimaced, “I don’t understand the Aschen writing.”

His eyes travelled down to my bare feet, I knew it wasn’t those that he was looking at, but the tag that wrapped itself around my ankle.

“We can’t have anyone walking on here. There are too many people and if everyone does what you’ve just done there won’t be any grass left.”

“We are sorry, we weren’t aware of the rules,” Sam apologised.

“All right, but don’t let it happen again.” He walked off quietly, no sign of the anger that was evident only moments before. It was a shame I’d have really enjoyed a good scrap in the middle of his precious grass.

“Jack, come.” I felt a tug on my hand. “We need to find something useful, something we can use to get away from here.”

“I know, Sam.” I gave her one of my crooked grins. “Hey, that place looks interesting.” I pointed to a rather dilapidated building on the other side of the green.

After putting our boots back on, we walked along the concrete path, careful to miss the grass, around to the building.

“I bet we can’t enter,” I said grumpily.

Sam looked to find the slot to swipe our cards, but there didn’t seem to be any, so she just pushed the door open. Inside, it was dark and musty. Books covered with dust were piled high to the ceiling. Dim lighting illuminated the dusty shelves in the distance.

“Can I help you?” A mans voice floated up behind a huge pile of pristine looking books.

Sam led the way and we edged ourselves around the pile of books. Nestled in amongst them was an elderly man, his hair, white, long and in disarray. A large magnifying glass on a metal arm hung between him and an old tattered book laid open upon the desk.

“You don’t look like . . .” I found myself faltering through lack of words.

“I know, I get lots of looks in the streets, of which I imagine you do too,” he said before leaning around the desk and looking pointedly at my ankle.

He then pointed to a similar device on his foot that was tucked under the desk.

“Which planet are you from?” asked Sam the ever curious person that she is.

“From here, I am Aschen, but I did something that was illegal many years ago, so I was one of their first test subjects. Soon they ran out of the local population and then went further a field. Of which, I assume you are from.” He looked back down to his book and lovingly stroked the pages.

Sam asked another question. “What do you do here?” She waved her arm out over the many books.

“I restore books, they are all being destroyed by the atmosphere, and I don’t want that,” he shrugged, “so here I am.”

He looked back up from his book and stared at me. “What are you doing here,” he asked.

“We are from the planet called Earth and were captured several weeks ago, they pumped us full of gloop and now here we are.” Short and succinct the way I liked it.

Sam obviously didn’t think so. “We are their latest experiment and we survived. So I think it was a success.”

“It depends,” he said non-committedly.

“We were wondering,” Sam continued, “If we could look at some of your books. It would be nice to know a bit about the history of your people.”

“Of course, of course,” he pushed himself away from the desk, it was then we saw he was in an Aschen form of a wheelchair. He saw our eyes resting on his mode of transport. “I too was an experiment, I told you. Mine didn’t work out as well as yours.” He spun around and pulled down some books and banged them onto the desk beside him. A cloud of dust billowed up and made him cough.

“Go on ahead, help yourself, I’m busy.” He turned back to the book he was restoring slightly humming to himself.

He was unlike any Aschen I’d ever met before. I liked him.

For the next two hours we rummaged around the books, looking for anything that might give us some kind of clue of how we could get into the building that housed the Stargate. I was over by the dirty covered windows. My legs were tired; they were still not one hundred percent after my malaise. I was sitting on the floor with two piles of books either side of me. I’d already found one book that I didn’t understand the technical drawings in, so I had put that one aside, but mainly they were just lots of unreadable Aschen writing or pictures of weird looking animals and plant life.

“Jack.” An excited Sam popped her head over a pile of books in front of me. A large dirty smudge was smeared across one cheek, it made her very endearing. “I’ve found something interesting.”

I scrambled to my feet, bringing the technical book along with me. We walked a long way down the dark dusty shelves of books. There were millions of them, how Sam had managed to find something in this lot was amazing.

“Look,” she said with her arm outspread in a flourish.

Sitting on a desk was an old computer. It looked very much like the ones that were used in the 90’s; large heavy looking monitors and huge big boxed computers to hold all the circuit boards in.

“Does it work?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” she answered.

“Well find out,” I said irritably. I twisted around to look for the book man up the front, but he seemed to be quite happy where he was.

Sam crawled down under the desk and started pushing wires and plugs into sockets. The odd swear word wafted up from down there, but I ignored her and started on another pile of books. I had quite a pile of them now beside me opened up with this same odd looking animal in them. It intrigued me. It had the hugest two horns I’d ever seen on any animal before, a large thick neck with four stubby little legs. The tail was that of a horse, the nose that of a wilder beast. And that is just about the only resemblance of an Earth animal I could see, because it was coloured red, blue and purple. The trees in the distance were dark green like the tree in the lawn and the grass was covered in a myriad of coloured flowers, everything from yellow, to red to purple. The animal blended in perfectly. At first I thought it was something that had been coloured afterwards, but no, all the pictures had the colourful landscape with these strangely brightly coloured animals roaming the wild. It was amazing. How could these people have destroyed something so beautiful?

“It’s working,” Sam’s triumphant voice whispered.

I wasn’t really surprised, if anything was going to work, Sam could get it going.

She picked up a pile of what looked like floppy disks, but larger than a CD and blew the dust off them. I pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her, so she could wipe any dust off them. It wouldn’t do the computer any good shoving dust into it.

She smiled her thanks and started typing. Fortunately, Daniel had filled her in on a few of the basic Aschen words and she still remembered quite a few from when we were in negotiations with them in 2001. It didn’t take her long to find something useful. Sam shoved a disk into the computer and started to download some information.

“Have you found a way out of here?” I asked.

“I think so, but I need some paper, preferably a large sheet of it.”

I looked pointedly at all the books. “No, plain paper,” she said.

“Okay, I’ll go and ask matey up at the front desk.” She nodded and pulled out the full disk and put in another one.

The man was wiping some kind of cleaning fluid over a large tome when I arrived at the front desk.

“Did you find anything interesting?” he asked as I approached.

“Yes, actually we did; some pictures of colourful animals. They are really quite striking. Sam wants to draw some, do you have any paper we could have. You know large sheets. “ I held out my arms quite wide to show how big.

“Yes, up there,” he pointed to a cupboard quite high up. “In fact, while you’re up there, can you get a whole lot down as I can’t reach anymore?”

“Of course.” I opened the door and was met with gentle showering of dust. It made me cough and my eyes water. I blinked my eyes to wash out the dust and pulled down a ream of what looked like poster sized paper.

I pulled off a couple of sheets and dumped the rest down within easy reach of the book restorer.

I thanked him and then walked down to the back of the library.

By the time I’d arrived, Sam was studying the monitor which was covered with schematics of something.

“Here’s the paper. I think it is man made, I don’t think a tree has had anything to do with it. What ya got there?”

“Schematics of the defence system surrounding the Stargate.”

I was speechless.

“It is very out of date, but it has the basics and I don’t think it will have changed much. Well, I hope it hasn’t. Did you get the paper?”

“Yes,” I proudly produced the two sheets.

“That won’t be enough, I need lots of those.”

“Oh, okay.” I swivelled around on my heel and marched right back to the front of the library again.

“Hi, my name is Jack.” I waved at the man who was gently turning over a page of the book he was working on.

“Hello, my name is Telaran.” He smiled.

“I thought as we are going to be here for a while, we’d get down to names. My friend down there is Sam.”

“You have very short syllables in your name,” he commented.

“Yes, I suppose we do, but they are shortened from a birth names. Anyway,” I said, trying to change the subject, “Could we please have some more paper?”

“Yes, of course you can, take as much as you need. Actually, I found these left over from years ago, maybe you can use them.” He handed me a box of what looked like crayons, but they weren’t made of wax but of a more chalky substance, a bit like oil pastels.

“Oh, thank you,” I gave him a cheery wave and sauntered back down to where Sam was busy sketching what was on the computer.

I dumped the sheets of paper on the floor beside her and proceeded to clear a space about ten feet from the computer. It didn’t take long and I put the paper on the table. It was made out of metal; I hadn’t seen much wood around her even in this old building. Then I began to sort through the books, it took quite a while to find more photos of this strange animal. Idle curiosity I suppose, the fact that there was such a colourful animal had me intrigued and I wasn’t any use to Sam.

Over the next several days, Sam sketched more schematics from the computer and downloaded information onto the floppy disks. By the time we’d finished, Sam had four sheets full of lines and circles, that didn’t mean squat to me and I had about six half decent sketches of the animal. Merrin would’ve been proud.

It was the twelfth day that Sam announced she’d finished. It took us all the rest of the day just to hide the computer again and make it look like we’d never found it. On the other hand, the table was awash with sketches made by yours truly. I found five chairs and placed them around the table.

I glanced over to where Sam had been working on the computer there was no sign that we had disturbed it at all. In fact the books that we had cleared off the table were now covering it completely with the dustcover just peaking through the books.

“I think that’ll do,” Sam sighed.

“You sure you’ve got everything?” I asked.

“No, but I now need time to study these schematics, they are very different to what I’m used to and they’re most probably out of date.”

“You’ll work it out; I’ve absolute faith in you.” I grinned to give her encouragement. She just huffed in reply.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

3. P4C-970

Chapter Five
By Arrietty


2008

It was the following day and we had a couple of days to kill before our first break day. Our eighteen odd days would be over and we’d be sent back to work. But if our plan went as we had organised it, we would never have to go and stack shelves again.

Sam was pouring over the schematics again on the dining room table. She had one of my colourful drawings shielding the page she was looking at. We still weren’t sure if they had cameras in the apartment or not. We couldn’t risk it.

“How are you getting on?” I asked as I sat down beside her.

She let out a sigh, “I’m getting there.” She turned and gave me a smile.

I stood up and pulled down a couple of mugs from the cupboard. “Would you like a hot drink?”

“Yes please.” She stood and stretched the kinks out of her neck and back and walked over to the sofa. She flumped down onto the cushions and let out a huge sigh. “I hope it works,” she stated matter of factually.

“It will.” I still had faith in her.

Drinks in hand, I sat next to her. We’d talked about the plan of escape to death when travelling in between the library and our apartment and even if we could discuss it now, I really didn’t want to. I handed the hot drink to her and she took a sip, grimaced and placed it on the floor beside her. I did have to agree it was way too hot. I place my mug down beside hers.

“Come here,” I said and pulled her shoulders back against my chest. “Are you up to talking some more about while you were missing?”

I felt her stiffen slightly and then relax.

“Actually, yes I am.” Her voice was quiet and sounded tired.

~*~

La Haia’s Story 2005

La Haia’s respite from cruelty only lasted one day before she was dragged from the loving friendship of the two washer women in Baal’s dominion.

It took two Jaffa to restrain her as she screamed, kicked and bit her assailants. Pure terror gave her strength beyond what they could have imagined. Halfway down the corridor, one of the Jaffa lost patience with La Haia and threw her to the ground, drew out his zat’nik’atel and fired it at her. Blue light flickered over as her body spasmed on the hard surface then she went quiet. With a grunt of satisfaction, the Jaffa bent over and hoisted her up over his shoulder and took her away.

~*~

Unfamiliar men came for La Haia several days later. She had no idea where she was, everything seemed different and strange. It even smelled different to where she’d been held before. The only relief in her terror was that these men weren’t Jaffa. She knew not because of the lack of the tell tale markings on their forehead, but because of a deep feeling within herself. Whenever a Jaffa came near her or the evil man that had tortured her, the feeling would return. Even though the ever present feeling of evil was absent, she still felt as though she was in terrible danger - a feeling that she’d had all her life.

The men fitted cuffs onto La Haia’s wrists; they were lose and chaffed her sensitive skin. Bewildered and frightened she followed them through a crowded market place. People jostled and called in a language she didn’t understand. She was pushed up onto a large stage. A sea of faces stared up at her as she shivered with fear.

The shouting of a man beside her and the crowd turned into a roar in La Haia’s head. She wanted desperately to put her hands over her ears, but they were restrained in front of her. She tried to fill her mind with memories of the two washer women that had been so kind to her; the only kindness that she could remember. For a moment there was a lull in the noise, then someone tugged on the rope that tethered her and she found herself walking down some steps, out the back, away from the crowd.

A man painfully gripped her jaw and pried open her mouth. He was round, with bright glittering stones on his fingers. His clothes were a myriad of bright colours and two shiny pointed shoes poked out the bottom of his long robes. A bright golden turban topped off the colourful ensemble. He pushed her head back further and frowned as he checked out her teeth.

She bit him.

He howled with pain, then back handed her across her cheek, the rings tearing her delicate skin. His henchmen dived onto the terrified woman and pushed her to the ground, stretching out one of her arms in the process. The turbaned man pulled out a small grey object and knelt down beside her with a grunt. A tingling sensation ran down her arm as he placed it on her skin. A sharp pain, then more intense as it sliced a line down the length of her arm. He finished that line and started with a line across her arm. Pain was part of life to La Haia; this was no different to the bearded man that had hurt her before. This time, the gold man didn’t seem to want anything from her, just revenge. He pressed another button and the pain increased. The man’s face disappeared in a haze.

~*~

La Haia awakened and found herself slung over the back of a horse. She could smell the aroma of horse which mingled with the foul sweat of the man that was riding it. She had been tied to the saddle. It was uncomfortable and blood was rushing to her head. She started to squirm and wriggle. The man that was sitting on the same horse turned and flicked the end of the reigns across her shoulders. He said something that she assumed was something like keep still. So she ignored him.

Finally, out of desperation, the man stopped the horse, loosened her ropes and she fell head first onto the ground. He jumped down and pulled on the rope yanking her to her feet. Blood dripped down her cheek from a cut on her head where she’d hit it on a stone. He climbed back up on the horse and walked on, pulling La Haia behind him. She had to run to keep up when he kicked the horse into a trot to catch up with the group. The stones cut into her feet and the dust caught in her throat making her cough. La Haia didn’t think this was unfair or a travesty to mankind, she just accepted it as this was all she’d known.

For the next three weeks her life was filled with days of walking on battered painful feet, hunger that gnawed in her belly, and nights filled with cold and shivering. Over the three weeks fear turned to hate; hate that filled her with a hot burning desire to kill the man with the gold turban.

~*~

La Haia was barely able to walk when they arrived at the gold turban’s house. One of his slaves picked up La Haia and carried her to a small room in the slave’s quarters. There, a woman called Mara gently bathed her, cleaned and dressed her damaged feet. She fed her as she lay there not moving or talking.

“Here, eat something.” She spooned some clear soup between La Haia’s lips. “What is your name?” Mara asked.

La Haia’s eyes turned to the old woman and said, “La Haia.” Those were the only words that Mara ever heard this young woman ever say for the next three years.


~*~


2008

La Haia learned very quickly that she needed to keep her head down and out of the way. She’d tried to escape many times at first, but had been beaten severely each time. The last time Neeron, her master, had squeezed her arm with the marks on it until it swelled to twice its normal size. Beaten down and oppressed she chose not to run away again, but to stay with her beloved horses.

There were two horses that were a matching pair, Neeron was very proud of these great beasts and was hoping to sell them at the next market. La Haia loved these two gentle animals; she spent any free time she had in their company. The mare was in foal and to La Haia’s satisfaction, Neeron wasn’t aware of the fact yet. The biggest fear for La Haia was that these horses would be sold and she would miss them greatly. A plan had already begun to form in her mind on how she could steal the horses and escape. She knew how to live in the wild; there were plenty of wild plants and roots that you could eat, as she already regularly supplemented her mediocre diet with these.

Yesterday there’d been great excitement on the farm. A traveller had come bringing with him some riding horses. Neeron specialised with the great horses, but he and his slaves still needed horses to ride. Neeron had bought twelve of these horses, all of them were excellent, but for one. He was wild and untamed. So far, La Haia was the only person who could get anywhere near him. Neeron was not happy about the whole situation. He had already threatened to destroy the animal, plus his pride was dented.

~*~

La Haia was busy mucking out the stables. It was hot tiring work as she had to shovel the soiled straw out, then fork straw in onto the clean floor. She really didn’t mind doing this work, the horses always behaved and she was able to move them easily from stall to stall as she worked. Even though she had a bed in the slaves quarters, La Haia slept with the horses in their stalls. She reckoned she had the better deal anyway, as it was a whole lot warmer in the stables and there was always a horse blanket she could use if it got cold.

The children had filled the cart full of hay, so she could unload it into the hayracks. The haystack was at the end of the stables, it seemed a silly place to put it as far as La Haia was concerned, but then she thought that most of what Neeron did was stupid. She puffed out her cheeks and let out some air as he leaned on her pitchfork. The stables were clean with nice crackling straw. Now she had to fill the hayracks, but it hadn’t arrived yet. La Haia peaked out behind the doorway and could see the children were just finishing putting on the last fork load. They had put too much again, they’d never be able to move it.

Movement made La Haia look over and see Rabnor, he was talking to a tall stranger who was silver haired. His long black leather coat hid what looked like weapons. This man puzzled her, she didn’t know him, but she knew that he had weapons. He was a soldier she could tell. Fear gripped her heart as she remembered the bearded man, he had soldiers.

She watched warily as Rabnor led him over to the shelter where Neeron usually sits and watches them work. This man wore trousers, not robes like most traders when they visited Neeron. He had also come on foot as there was no sign of any horses. Intrigued she watched him as he looked around the compound. Rabnor had called over Mara who then shuffled off to get something for the visitor, most probably a drink of some kind.

La Haia heard grunting coming from the children, they really had loaded it too full again, but they wouldn’t listen to the adults and this was their job so they’d have to cope. Her attention went back to the visitor, he was watching the children and he was frowning. He looked angry. La Haia was afraid for the children, maybe this man will complain to Neeron that the children weren’t working properly and then Neeron would punish them. Even though the children would often tease her and call her names, La Haia knew it was just ignorance on their part and they would copy the other adults and that was no reason to let them be punished.

Except for the man, no one was looking so she ran out quickly and put her shoulder against the back of the cart. The children were afraid and shrank away from her, but she ignored them and helped them get the cart moving along the uneven surface of the cobblestones. With a final heave the cart started to rumble along, seeing the children had it going on their own now, she darted back into the stable. She had several minutes before she’d have to start putting the feed out for the horses. So she watched the stranger from the dark interior of the stables.

The man was now standing, he seemed hesitant about something. Whatever it was he got over it and sat down again. He was restless, he didn’t sit still, he kept looking around at the children and then at the large house. Mara came back with a tray and a tall glass of something cold in it. La Haia’s mouth watered. She had seen the glasses of clear juice, but had never drank it herself, which seemed strange to her as she knew what it tasted like, but never remembered ever drinking it.

Mara was agitated she was shaking her head at the man. The stranger then called out something after her which made her walk even faster as she scurried away. Something had upset her. La Haia was worried that this man going to take Mara away from her. The children were unloading the hay into the end of the stable she would have to go soon and start distributing the hay into the stalls. She just had time to observe Neeron waddling towards the stranger; she couldn’t stay to find out what the outcome was as the horses needed their feed.

“Skouliki!” It was Rabnor.

La Haia left her work straight away and walked towards Rabnor. When he called, she came it wasn’t negotiable.

He ordered her to get the two great horses from the bottom fields. La Haia was afraid, did the stranger want her horses now? Or was it Mara? She just didn’t know. If the stranger took the horses, she would escape and follow the stranger. If he took Mara, she didn’t know what to do.

The sun was warm on her skin as she ran easily down the dirt track. This was what she enjoyed doing. Running, feeling the wind on her cheeks the sun on her skin. Freedom. The horses plodded towards her as soon as she arrived at their field. She scrambled up the fence and slipped onto the mare’s back. Leaning over, she slipped a rope onto the other horse’s halter and with a click of her tongue she guided the great horses back up the track towards the stables.

It didn’t take them long to reach the stables. La Haia slipped off the back of the mare and led them into the courtyard. The untamed horse was screaming and thrashing around the courtyard. The stupid stable hands were frightening the horse and one of them was knocked to the ground by his flying hooves. Neeron was yelling at his men only scaring the horse further.

Out of the corner of her eye, La Haia could see the stranger watching the scene. Hate filled her towards this man; it was his fault that Meadow was frightened. Neeron would never have brought him out of the stable unless it was to show this man. Had he come to destroy the horse? She asked herself.

The horse was free of the men now and was thundering around the courtyard, he would hurt himself if no one calmed him. La Haia handed over the reigns to someone and darted in between the killer hooves. All the time, hissing through her teeth. Meadow snorted and stood quiet. She reached up and stroked his neck with her hand running up his neck down his face turning him so that she was facing his nose. She leaned forward and placed her face against his nose, letting her breath mingle with Meadows. Slowly Meadow began to calm as he felt the assurance of La Haia standing before him. As soon as he was calm, La Haia reached up and took hold of his halter and led him into the stable to his bed. Fortunately, his stall had been seen to first and it was full of feed and hay.

Once all seemed well with Meadow, La Haia returned to the courtyard to see to the great horses. The horses were being led in a circle and the stranger was watching them. He was buying the horses. They were going to be taken away from her. The hate that had bubbled beneath the surface erupted and she leapt at Neeron. Scratching, biting and hitting at the man that was selling her only lifeline.

Three of the guards grabbed La Haia and pulled her off him. She fought as hard as she could as two of them dragged her off behind the stables. A little later the third guard followed he was carrying the brander. She had been so well behaved over the past few weeks she only had one line running the length of her arm; today three more were placed at right angles across the line.

~*~

“Skouliki!” La Haia awakened to hear Rabnor calling her name. Her hands were shackled together and a rope was attached to them. Two guards pulled her to her feet and started to drag her towards the courtyard. Rabnor had hold of the end of the rope.

Realization hit her like freezing water. The man he hadn’t come for the horses, he was buying her. Fear gripped her soul. He was going to take her back to the bearded man she was sure of it. Struggling against the guards she fought them. One of them hit her across her face to try and calm her down, but all it did was make her try and stand her ground by gripping the cobbles with her toes. The man was sitting up high on Meadow, held in his hand were two ropes that held her friends the great horses. Realization hit her again, he was buying the horses and her. Immediately, she stopped struggling, she’d just wait her moment and escape when she could. There was no way she was going back to the bearded man.

~*~

The stranger seemed unusual, she hated him that was no different, but he behaved differently to any other man she ever met. He talked to her, it didn’t mean anything to her and he didn’t seem to mind that she didn’t reply. She walked behind Meadow alongside the horses not saying a word, but she imagined what she would do to him tonight, the rope was strong and his neck was long; it would wind around his wind pipe quite nicely and if she waited until he was asleep he’d never know.

Satisfied with those thoughts, she rumbled them around her head thinking out various scenarios as she walked.

Soon it was nightfall and the stranger led them away from the main road. There wasn’t a track it was just grass, but he seemed to know where he was going. They arrived at a cave and before he did anything he pulled out a large stake and drove it into the ground. He then attached her rope to the stake and went to see to the horses. However hard she tried she couldn’t reach the packs, but she could see that she could reach where he tethered the horses. A stream ran along the back of the caves, fresh water for the horses and themselves. This man knew what he was doing.

She watched through her mop of hair as he built up a fire and dumped his bag on the ground. He threw her a blanket said something unintelligible and continued to mess around with his pack. His sleeping roll would be out of her reach tonight, but it was a long way to the city, so she would have plenty of opportunity. La Haia was tired, it had been a long exhausting day and her arm ached. She quickly curled up in her blanket and fell asleep.

There was a clatter and a clink of something in front of her. Food. She was hungry. She reached out for the bowl, there was something sticking in it, something to stir the food, she didn’t need it, so she threw it away. Without hesitation she stuck her fingers into the food to eat. It burned her fingers, she dropped the bowl. He’d done it on purpose, given her something that would hurt her. A feeling of loneliness came over her, something that she hadn’t felt in a long time. Even Neeron wouldn’t have tricked her like this.

“Zesto.” The man told her it was hot. He walked over to her, she tensed waiting for him to hit her, but he didn’t, he bent down and picked up the stick thing and put it back into the bowl of food. He picked up the bowl using the stick hooked some food up with it.

He blew on it and said, “It is hot, but good. You need to blow on it, see.” He then blew on the hot food again.

La Haia watched him and realized that he hadn’t meant to harm her at all. She mimicked the stranger blowing on the food to cool it and ate it, which tasted good. The best she’d ever eaten. Once finished, she curled herself up into a ball by the fire, all thoughts of killing the stranger gone with the full belly.

~*~

La Haia had no idea why she had been bought by the stranger and he didn’t seem so bad after all. He’d got the measure of her already. How he knew she was going to kill him last night she didn’t know, but he hadn’t hurt her yet and she was willing to give him the benefit of doubt. Mara had smiled at her when she’d left, she didn’t seem afraid for her, but pleased so maybe this stranger wasn’t bad like the bearded man or Neeron.

La Haia felt relaxed as she rubbed the horses down with a handful of hay in the morning. She was slightly annoyed at the man for not rubbing them down the previous night, they’d walked only a little way, but Meadow had been scared earlier and he needed the dried sweat to be brushed away. She decided to ignore the man today and let him come to her. If she worked it right she could control him, he was soft.

The man began to walk towards her, she could hear his footsteps on the cavern floor.

“Zesto . . . Hot!”

Food.

La Haia turned around and took the food from the stranger, all the time keeping her eyes lowered like Neeron liked. It was hot again and was sweet. La Haia ate it quickly, blowing on the food like the stranger had taught her. He didn’t leave her long to finish it, there was some residue on the lip of the bowl and he snatched it from her hands. The hate returned.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

3. P4C-970

Chapter Six
By Arrietty


2008

The journey was less stressful for La Haia on this day as she began to understand the man that owned her. He wasn’t used to riding horses, that was apparent on the first day, and she found it amusing to see him in pain. He was soft, but didn’t miss a trick; she’d have to be careful if she was to escape with the horses. At least she’ll be able to travel faster with the horses than he could on foot.

He gave her some kind of food bar, it tasted even nicer than the fruit that he’d given her for breakfast, she wanted more, but he wouldn’t give her any. He seemed amused by her wanting it, not understanding, she thought she’d wait and see what would happen.

This time, she didn’t want him to not look after the horses as he hadn’t done it properly last time, so she unloaded them and started to care for them. He seemed pleased with her doing this. Maybe she could lull him into a false sense of security.

When La Haia had finished with the horses, the stranger came over and caught hold of her arm. Fear made her muscles tense, was he going to punish her, she still hadn’t quite got the measure of him yet. He reached forward and unlocked her shackles; they fell to the ground with a loud thump. He said something she didn’t understand.

Then asked her to come in the language she understood, maybe it would get easier, she wasn’t sure.

He took hold of the horses and led them into another cave. An underground stream flowed along the back of it, but it was dry and warm. The stranger turned around and left La Haia with the horses. She stood for a moment amazed and realised that he had left her to tie up the horses because a few moments later he returned with the packs that she already unloaded. Hoping to be of some use, La Haia collected some dried wood and made a small pyramid in the middle of the cave, she’d seen him do that the previous night before lighting it.

He said something again, but she wasn’t sure what it was he said. He pulled out some things from his pack and asked her something, she wasn’t quite sure until he gestured with his arm for her to follow him. With a glance back at the horses she followed him out of the cave.

They arrived at a large pool of water; the sun glinted off the surface. La Haia sat down amongst some purple flowers and watched as the man removed his boots and socks. He turned from her and started to wade into the water. La Haia stood up and followed him to the edge, the water looked inviting, but when she touched the edge with her finger it was cold. She decided that if the man was silly enough to get ill in the cold water he could, she turned around and wandered back to the warm spot where the flowers were.

The man ran out of the water and grabbed her around the waist and flung her over his shoulder. As soon as he started to wade into the water, she knew what was going to happen, it was cold in there and she didn’t want to get cold. La Haia started to fight, but he threw her in. She went down into the water, scrabbling to find the bottom with her feet. With a gasp she found the surface and drew in much needed oxygen.

He laughed, La Haia felt humiliated. She stood seething with anger. He was standing close to her, something smelled sweet and then she could feel him rubbing something into her hair. It felt good, it smelled good. La Haia looked out through her soapy hair and saw he was holding a bottle of something. She reached out and grabbed it and poured more on her head and began to rub it in. The smell reminded her of the washer women, who had been so kind to her and had given her, her name.

La Haia got right into this washing thing. The man had some other stuff in a bottle you used instead of the blocks of soap. It smelled just as nice as the hair soap. She watched as the man disappeared under the surface to rinse his hair of soap. She copied and went under as well. When she stood her hair hung down her face and she couldn’t see, so she slipped down under the water. This time when she surfaced, she tipped her head up to the sky. Turning, she looked over at the kind man who’d made her feel human again. Only two people had ever made her feel like this before and that was three years ago in the washroom of the evil man.

The stranger was crouched in the water with his head above the surface, his face was a mask of horror. He was angry; she could see it in his face. What had she done wrong? Fear rooted her to the spot. He stood and La Haia immediately lowered her head in submission. She didn’t want to be beaten.

He lifted her chin with his fingers and searched her face. Confusion and fear was in his expression, La Haia was confused. He reached around and touched the back of her neck, it made her more afraid. She could feel the man trembling, with what she didn’t know, was it anger, fear, hate. She had no idea, but the way he looked at her, made her want to run far away.

He spoke to La Haia again; she looked down at the water in submission.

He was angry; she could hear it in his voice. He grabbed her by her shoulders and twisted her around to look at him. He spoke then shook his head. Then suddenly, he turned from her and ran out the water, stopped at the edge spoke again and ran towards the caves.

La Haia feared that he was going for the brander so she lost no time in leaving the pool and running towards the hills. Fear giving her legs speed she flew over the grass, through the forest. Thunder rumbled in the distance, a storm was approaching. La Haia hesitated momentarily, fear for the horses, especially Meadow, he was sensitive maybe he was afraid of thunder. Then she remembered they were safe in the cave, she could get them later when the man was asleep.

Still running fast, La Haia ran through the heavy rain as it plastered her hair to her head, only making her colder than she was before. Although the rain was hindering her speed she knew it would hide her tracks. When she had escaped from Neeron the last time, she’d managed to elude the trackers for four days before they’d found her. She wasn’t so sure she could hide from this man for that long though. She’d have to be very careful.

Soon she arrived at a small stream, it was awash with the heavy rain that pelted down on the banks. Without a thought she leapt into the stream to climb up the other side. A rumble and rushing sound came from up stream and a wall of water came straight at her, collecting her amongst the broken branches and rocks the flash flood contained.

~*~

La Haia could feel someone’s mouth upon hers moments before she vomited and coughed up bits of leaf and stream. She could feel his hand rubbing her back, he’d found her. Twisting around, she kneed him in the groin and raked her fingernails across her cheek. She fought with him, she couldn’t be caught again. Freedom was too fresh in her memory. He grabbed her arm, it was the arm that had been branded, he held her down on the rock squeezing tight. Her vision clouded red then black and then she was unconscious.

~*~

It was warm and dry – La Haia snuggled into the warm blankets then the memories all came in a rush. He was there, standing right beside her. He lifted the sleeve on her arm, he was going to punish her for escaping. La Haia lashed out at the man, scratching his face and neck, but he was ready for her and held her down with his body. She had trouble breathing as his shoulder buried itself into her neck. Twisting around she got her head free and bit down on hard on his shoulder. His body went ridged beneath her, but still held onto her outstretched arm. A flash of grey as the brander was placed on her skin. There was some tingling and then softness. He was removing the brand, she released her grip on his shoulder and watched as he removed the cross lines on her arm and then continued to remove the long line that ran down the centre of her arm. He was freeing her.

~*~

2008

“Was I really that scary?” I asked.

Sam twisted around so she was facing me, her hands placed down flat on my chest. Tears had filled her eyes.

“I didn’t understand. I’d known nothing else but fear and brutality.”

“I’m sorry, I scared you. I thought you were dead and when I saw you I immediately thought of the replicator Carter and then when . . .” I couldn’t say anymore.

Sam laid the side of her head on my chest and slipped her arms around me. I sighed.

“It is no matter now, Jack.”

“But it does matter,” I said quite loudly and she quickly sat up and looked at me.

She shook her head, “No it doesn’t.”

“I nearly lost you again; you weren’t breathing when I pulled you out of that stream.” I stared at her for a moment. “It would have been my fault if you had died.” My voice broke on the last word and I stood up, moving away from her.

“Jack.” I ignored her plea.

The feelings were too strong, the memories of that day. Joy filled with pain of nearly losing her again and now . . . We were trapped amongst the Dr. Moreau’s of this world. What had they done to us? We didn’t know, and wouldn’t know until Janet could test us and find out. What had they done to Sam? My chest hurt with the thought.

“Jack.” Her voice was soft and right by my ear.

I turned slightly and looked at her. “I don’t blame you for what happened. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still be there or worse. I don’t think I’d have stayed there, I’d have run away and when Neeron had caught me he would have killed me.

I turned away and walked over to the kitchen sink and leaned on the edge. I wanted to vomit. Maybe I should hide in the bathroom.

“What Baal did to you . . .” I stopped, I couldn’t to talk. Too much pent up emotion was ready to burst out. I wanted to hit something, someone – Baal or Neeron. I didn’t care.

I felt a firm hand on my back. “Jack, I don’t blame you. I’m all right.”

My body shook, it was bubbling to the surface; four years worth of loss and despair - for both of us. If I’d known she was alive I would have searched, maybe I would have found her while she was captured by Baal before . . . The recent memory of her tale made my body shudder. I couldn’t contain it anymore; I had to get out of there, away from Sam away from my shame.

“Tzak.” Sam slid around between me and the sink. I pushed away from the counter and looked down at her. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks. Her voice was soft, “Come here.” I wrapped my arms around her slight shoulders her face buried into my neck. Before I’d comforted her in times of sadness, but this time she comforted me as I joined her as tears leaked from my eyes and I buried my face into her hair.

Slowly the shaking turned to a slight tremble. The last time I’d felt like this was after the replicator Carter had duped me. This time it was just reaction, not loss. Sam was here, the real Sam - in my arms. She pulled away from me slightly and looked at me searching my eyes for something. I reached up a hand and scrubbed at my face. Sam touched my hand and pulled it away and let it drop by my side. With a tentative hand she pushed some hair away from my eye. It needed cutting.

Blind to anything but Sam, I bent down and captured her mouth with mine. Her hand slid around the back of my head and pulled me down to her. All sadness and pain had fled. Nothing else mattered and all I wanted to do was capture the moment and hold it until the end of all time.

“Jack! Sam.” We’re home. Daniel burst into the apartment with his usual exuberance.

I broke away from Sam, but she still clung to me leaning her head on my chest.

“Oh! Sorry.” His mouth gaped open.

“A bit late now, Daniel,” I growled.

Sam giggled against my chest. I squeezed her with one arm. Janet smirked at Sam.

“Excuse me,” I gave Sam another squeeze and made my way to the bathroom. I needed to wash my face before those two had any idea what had been going on with me. There were some things that I just didn’t want to share with anyone, including Sam. I stared at the mirror, no, not including Sam. My face softened. She had got under my skin years ago and now there was nothing to hold us back. I was retired. I watched as my face broke out into a huge grin. There was nothing to hold us back.

I washed my face and strolled back out into the dining room. Daniel was setting the table and Janet and Sam had disappeared into their room. Girl-talk most probably. I shrugged off the thought, I didn’t believe that Sam would betray anything personal.

“So, Daniel what’s for lunch?”

“Ooooh grey goop. Or you could have grey gloop or even grey glop. Totally your choice.” He grinned.

I grinned back. It wasn’t hard not to smile at the moment. I had plans. First, get off this colourless planet and then . . . I smiled secretly to myself.

~*~

The following day, all five of us were dressed ready to explore the city. Joe looked a bit brighter these days, maybe it was the prospect of going home, but I thought it was more the fact that we were here with him. It gave him a bit of hope and more importantly fun. The poor man had spent all these years with these boring people who had absolutely no idea what the word fun meant.

Sam had the plans for the building where the Stargate was housed tucked into the waist band of her trousers. Joe had already passed over the screw driver and some packing tape he’d smuggled out of where he worked. Everyone was searched thoroughly when they arrived and when they left. I had heard him say something to Sam about an open window so who knows.

We hopped on the monorail and travelled to the library, even in the rail car we daren’t talk about anything to do with the escape. Everyone already knew their jobs and we couldn’t risk anyone overhearing now. We were too close.

Once we arrived at the library, I introduced everyone to Telaran. “We want to look at your books,” I announced.

He nodded. “Help yourself.”

Sam led the way down the aisles of books to the prepared table. Everyone sat at the table. Beside Sam’s seat were two books on the floor. She bent down and removed her ankle bracelet from her ankle and placed it carefully onto the books. I handed over the tape and she taped the locator to the books. Carefully, she stood up and knelt down beside my ankle and did the same thing. It didn’t take long for everyone to be freed from the locators. My foot felt lighter with it gone, it was good.

Daniel spread the pictures of the animals over the table top. I had been busy. Although I did notice no one commented on how good the drawings were. At least they didn’t look like Sam’s first attempt – stick legs and she coloured outside the lines.

Only one hour after we’d arrived we trouped back out the building. I hesitated by the door, I didn’t want to leave Telaran behind, but it just wasn’t possible to bring him with us. We’d be crawling through air ducts and a man in a wheel chair couldn’t do that.

“We’ve forgotten something,” I explained.

He grinned and looked pointedly at my ankle. “I can see that.” He winked. “Good luck.”

I stood there hesitant to speak. “We’d, but . . .”

“It’s all right. I’ll see you when you come back.”

I reached across and shook his hand. “Thank you, Telaran, for everything.”

I turned on my heel and followed the others out the door.

~*~

It was the middle of the afternoon and we were stuck half way down an air duct. I knew I shouldn’t have chosen the grey glop yesterday. Sam was on point and I was watching everyone’s six. Personally, I’d have preferred Sam just in front of me and not Daniel, but then sometimes you can’t choose whose six you are behind.

“Sir, it is too narrow down here, you’ll have to back up.”

Ignoring the ‘sir’ I shuffled backwards, it wasn’t easy. “How far back do I have to go?” I asked trying hard not to catch my knuckles on some rivets.

“About, ten yards.”

I groaned.

Soon we had shuffled back to where Sam wanted us to go. Fortunately, for Daniel’s safety he’d only booted me twice in the face; once more and I’d have removed his boots without undoing the laces.

What I didn’t like was I had to crawl backwards the furthest so Sam could still take point as she apparently was the only person that knew where to go; at this point in time I was beginning to seriously doubt that she knew where we were let alone where we were going.

“I do know where I’m going, sir,” she said pointedly as though she could read my mind.

That woman knows me too well.

I’m sure I saw a smirk on Daniel’s face.

Two hours later we arrived at another panel. The first one on the street had taken Sam no time at all to dismantle and deactivate the security beams. How she’d removed the ankle bracelets I didn’t know either, we had a lot to thank Telaran for. That computer was a find.

This took her longer and there was room for me to wriggle up beside her. “What’s the problem?”

“I’m not sure, the code is different I think.”

“What are we trying to do?”

“Deactivate the defence mechanisms surrounding the Stargate.”

I nodded. “You’ll do fine, Carter just fine.” I patted her shoulder. She shrugged it off irritably. I raised my eyebrow at her. She sighed and let her head hang for a moment.

“I’m trying to concentrate, Jack,” she admonished.

“Sorry.” I scuttled back a bit and let her do her thing. Yep things were definitely different. Back when I was a colonel and she was a major she’d have put up with me interrupting her thinking. I liked the change and I grinned to myself in the dim light.

“Done, we’re clear,” she announced.

“Where to now?” I asked.

“Back the way we’ve come.”

Fortunately, there was enough room for everyone to turn around, so we were all in the right order. My knees and elbows were almost raw from the crawling and my knuckles had got caught a couple of times on the rivets leaving smears of blood along the smooth grey walls. I was a bit concerned that there was lighting in the ducts, but Sam assured me that this was normal, so that if anything had to be fixed they didn’t need to worry about bringing lighting with them. I just hoped that it wasn’t the day to change the light bulbs.

After another hour of this crawling and the pressure beginning to build on my bladder we finally arrived to the last panel. Here there was room to crouch beside the face plate. With the procured screw driver, Sam removed the panel. Behind it was a grill and through the grill we could see the Stargate. There wasn’t any sign of guards or people, which was strange as this was quite busy during the day.

I looked across at Daniel. “You’ve got the address?” I asked him.

“Yup.” He clutched the paper in his hand.

I’d chosen the desert planet we’d taken Meadow to before. I didn’t want the Aschen following us to any of the planets where our friends lived. Sam made short work of the panel grid; she lifted it down gently and placed it on the floor. I carefully hopped out onto the smooth surface of the floor. We were weapon less so we didn’t want to come across any guards.

I waved everyone into the room and Sam placed the grid back up against the frame. She stuck it there with the Aschen version of sticky tac. We’d plastered the walls with it back at the apartment when we’d put up some of my arts of work. We’d left them there; I hoped they had fun trying to remove the sticky tac from the surface of the wall. Not that they ever had fun.

Daniel scooted over to the DHD and punched in the address, immediately the sirens went off. No one came rushing into the room brandishing weapons. I looked over at Sam.

“I locked the doors.” She looked smug.

The wormhole billowed out into the room. “Right, everyone get going. Janet you take Joe first, Daniel then Sam.”

Janet pushed Joe through the event horizon, with Daniel following closely. I felt naked without a weapon and I could tell that Sam felt uneasy as we watched the entry through the locked doors. We could hear weapons firing at the doors as the Aschen tried to get in.

“Sam go,” I yelled and pushed her through the blue puddle.

“O’Neill!” It was Mollem, his face was red, he was angry. I gave him a quick wave and dived through the Stargate, just in time as I heard the staccato of bullets fired from a P-90. I hoped no one was in front of the gate at the other end.

Unfortunately, there was one person in front of the gate as two bullets ripped through. The first one I felt the wind as is passed by my ear the second I felt as it lodged itself into my side and I fell onto the sandy steps.

~*~

“Janet!” Sam was scared, I could hear it in her voice.

“I can’t stop the bleeding, Sam. Here hold this.”

A sharp pain in my side.

“Janet, you have to, or he’ll die.”

“You don’t have to tell me that, Daniel, don’t you think I know.” Janet was angry.

“We have to go to the SGC.”

“We can’t Sam, we don’t have a GDO.” Daniel was agitated, I could feel my head move as he pushed something under it.

“I know,” Janet sounded a bit more hopeful. “We could go to Ellatha, but I don’t know the address.”

“I do,” said Sam.

I heard the familiar clunking sounds as someone dialled the Stargate. We were going to see Alexander, with Janet’s help they’d fix me up. I drifted off to sleep.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

4. Pegasus

Chapter One
By Arrietty


2009 – Six months later

The SGC was busy as usual as I walked the corridors. I received a few strange looks from people who didn’t know me, but generally I received a wave or a ‘hi Jack’ with the odd ‘general’ thrown in.

I was coming in for my monthly check-up with Janet. She was put in charge of all four of us to keep tabs on what the Aschen had done to us. She still wasn’t one hundred percent sure what had been done, but I had the feeling it didn’t bode well for me from the conversation I’d had with Janet forty-five minutes ago. I just hoped that it didn’t affect Sam. She’d had enough to contend with over the past few years without anything more.

Life was different here now, Hammond had retired and a General Hank Landry was in charge. He was a good man, seemed on the level. I’d come across him a few times in my career and I had never had any reason to doubt his capabilities. He was the one that had helped Hammond oust the trouble maker higher up. I’d thought with Kinsey out the picture we were free of vermin, but apparently Kinsey had left something nasty behind.

Joe Faxon had died only four days after we’d arrived back at the SGC. It was a tough moment for everyone, but he was content to be back on Earth, even for only a short time.

I was going to collect Sam from her lab first before going to the infirmary, Janet had wanted everyone there. I tried to push down the niggling worried feeling that wormed its way around my insides, but I wasn’t successful.

“Sam,” I poked my head around the door.

She gave me that 100 kilowatt smile that she seemed to point in my direction nowadays. I returned in kind.

“You coming?”

“Yup.”

“We got to make a detour to Daniel’s office.”

She nodded and side by side we walked down the corridor to Daniel’s office. He was sitting on his twirly chair staring into space. He didn’t look very happy.

“Hey, Daniel.”

He pushed with his foot and he slowly swirled around to face us. “Janet wants us.”

“I know.”

He stood and followed us down the corridor, now I was really worried. I glanced across to Sam. She gave a nervous glance at Daniel who was trailing behind us.

We arrived in the infirmary, Landry was waiting there with Janet and he too looked very glum. The wriggling worry increased.

“Please everyone, take a seat.”

We shuffled around and sat in her cramped office. I closed the door behind me I got the feeling that this was a good idea. I sat close to Sam and refrained from holding her hand.

Janet went into lecture mode.

“As you know, I’ve been doing tests since we returned from the Aschen home world. At first I wasn’t quite sure what they had done to us, but now I am sure and it isn’t good news.”

Sam’s hand slipped into mine.

“First of all, I’ll start with the good news. Daniel,” she turned to him and looked directly at him. “We talked a bit about this the other day, but I hadn’t done full tests to be one hundred percent sure. The Aschen has lengthened your life span by about three times normal.” She waited as it sunk in. “And, there doesn’t seem to be any side effects at all. So far.”

Considering he’d just received good news, I’d have expecting him to relax, but he didn’t. Janet turned to Sam.

“Sam, you on the other hand have a lengthened life span of about four times normal. I think this is what was different to what Daniel and I was given.” Janet’s eyes flicked over to me for a second, worry strong in her eyes. I felt Sam grip my hand tighter, she’d seen it too.

“Now for me, I am the same as Daniel, but I have a side effect, something that isn’t good.” She looked at Daniel. I felt him tense even more if that was possible beside me. “The drug given to me has ruined any chance of me having children.” I heard Daniel pull in a sharp breath. He had known all along, that’s why the sad expression earlier.

Sam leaned forward. “Janet?” she asked.

“No, Sam you are fine.” I felt her relax, but I also saw the tell tale tears in her eyes as she thought of Janet and Daniel not being able to have children.

“Now we come to the real problem,” she looked at me. ‘Uh oh.’ “You have something totally different to all four of us. It is totally beyond my expertise.” I watched her as she paced the room. “I think it has something to do with the Ancient gene you have. It has rearranged the properties in the drug used by the Aschen. Instead of giving you four times the normal life span like Sam, it has reversed the aging process.”

“Wha . . .” I trailed off as I tried to wrap my head around what she was saying.

“Basically, Jack you are getting younger.”

“Cool.”

I turned to look at Sam. All colour had drained from her face.

“How long?” she asked.

“Jack the rate you are decreasing in age, in ten years you will no longer be with us.”

“Huh?” I was confused.

She tried again. “In two to three years you’ll be about ten years younger, then again in another three years and another. It doesn’t stop. I don’t see any sign of it stopping.”

I drew in a deep breath. This wasn’t good at all.

Landry spoke. “Jack, Dr. Fraiser and I have talked at length over this and we think your only hope is Dr. Beckett.”

I frowned, the name seemed familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it.

Daniel piped up. “He went with the Atlantis team to the Pegasus galaxy.”

“Yes,” Landry confirmed. “We have received a couple of data streams from the Pegasus galaxy over the past few years. They have been doing a lot with the genetics over there and he might be able to help.”

“But how are we going to get there?” Daniel asked.

Sam’s hand was clammy in mine.

“Prometheus is ready to go. We had tried a couple of times over the past few years, but each time our ‘problem’ stopped us.” He was referring to the stinky leftovers from Kinsey.

I stayed seated still holding Sam’s hand. It was limp, cold and damp. She wasn’t feeling too good I could tell, but then I wasn’t all sun and roses either. Landry, Daniel and Janet all left the office.

“Sam.”

“Oh, Jack. I thought we were home free.”

I pulled her into my arms and hung onto her tight. I wanted to make a crack about losing my grey hair, but I didn’t think it would go down very well, so I didn’t.

~*~

Over the next few weeks I put all my efforts into getting ready for the trip. Now I was a retired general Sam could order me around. She was now a full colonel. It was a recent promotion and after numerous trips to see McKenzie she was finally ready for action again. I, on the other hand had chosen to remain retired. Landry talked it over with me, but I had complete faith in Sam’s leadership and it really didn’t matter anyway. I don’t think she would ever let me order her around like I used to.

I contacted Teal’c as I wanted him to come with us. He was a bit reluctant to leave Ishta, but when I told him we were going to the Pegasus galaxy he didn’t hesitate. It was SG-1 back in full force, for the first time since that fateful day in 2004. Janet was coming too because she wanted to explain her findings to Beckett. Of course Daniel didn’t mind, they had only been married two months and I didn’t think Janet would have let Daniel out of her sight anyway.

The journey was the most uneventful journey I’d ever been on. Nothing happened; except Teal’c taught me another Jaffa move and I taught him some sword fighting. Oh and of course, I slowly got younger. I couldn’t feel it yet, but Janet assured me after a year I would. Knee joints wouldn’t creak so much and elbows wouldn’t hurt and I would have more energy. I was still waiting on the energy.

Sam was very quiet. She didn’t like the waiting anymore than I did. We had mutually decided not to talk about her time with Neeron anymore and the rest I knew as I was there. I did ask her why La Haia always liked to throw things at me though.

“It was easy and you weren’t a very good aim so I was safe.” She smirked.

But that was as far as the discussion went. I half agreed with her, I didn’t want to stir all those memories up either. I had my Sam that was good enough for me.

After several long arduous days, we finally arrived at the co-ordinates that the Atlantis team had sent us.

I was relieved to hear Elizabeth’s voice over the radio.

“General O’Neill is that really you?”

“Yes, Dr. Weir. It’s good to hear your voice.”

“You can’t believe how pleased we are to hear yours.”

Soon we were beamed down by Hermiod the resident Asgard. Personally, I preferred Thor, he was much easier to talk to, although Hermiod had a wicked sense of humour; one that I really could appreciate.

SG-1 plus Janet arrived in a small huddle in this huge bright area. Sun streamed in from overhead windows and I could hear the swish of the sea breaking on the edge of something. I tried to peer out, but was stopped by a P-90 thrust into my face.

“Whoa.” I held my hands up in the defence mode.

“Stand down.” Dr. Weir’s clear voice sailed over the balcony.

“A nice welcome,” I couldn’t help myself.

“Sorry, General O’Neill, we can’t be too careful.”

“Actually, I’m retired,” I said as I shook her hand. “Colonel Carter is in charge.” I grinned at Sam and let her take over.

I sensed more than felt Teal’c stiffen beside me. I looked over to where he was staring. A man – a huge man dressed in what seemed to be skins with dreadlocks hanging down either side of his face. He was eyeballing Teal’c.

“Steady,” I assured Teal’c. No one else seemed to be alarmed at this man.

Carter moved off with Weir towards some stairs.

“Dr. Fraiser!” The Scottish accent was unmistakable.

Janet swung around to the voice. Dr. Beckett was bounding up towards us with McKay scurrying along behind him.

“I’ve heard so much about you.” He grinned and pumped her hand up and down.

Just then some of the marines that had been assigned to Weir beamed in, followed closely by another wave – soon the area were full of boxes and marines milling around looking at all the fixtures.

Meanwhile the dreadlock had started to walk towards us. I recognised the soldier in him. He came and stood directly in front of Teal’c.

“Who are you?” His face suspicious.

“I am Teal’c from Chulak, former first prime to the dead false god, Apophis, now part of the free Jaffa.” He waited patiently for the other man to reply.

He tipped his head on one side. “Okay.” Turned around on his heel and walked away.

During this exchange, Beckett had taken Janet by her arm and was steering her away, McKay seemed to be searching for someone and Daniel was . . . I had no idea, he’d disappeared.

I decided to follow the docs, they seemed to know what they were doing and talking about.

Someone grabbed my arm. “Where’s Major Carter?”

It was McKay. I raised my eyebrow at him, “Colonel Carter actually,” I corrected him.

“Oh, really. Cool. Where is she?” he asked again.

“Debriefing with Dr. Weir,” I said, he took the information in and then wandered off muttering to himself.

They’d all gone nuts; been away from Earth too long.

“General O’Neill.” I knew that voice. I swivelled around on my feet which squeaked on the shiny floor.

“Major Sheppard.” I grinned and strode forward and shook his hand. “Good to see that you’ve survived this far. From what I’ve heard things have been rather tough around here.”

“You could say that.” He gave a crooked smile. His eyes darted over to Teal’c.

“Oh, this is Teal’c.” I introduced them. “Teal’c this is Major John Sheppard.” He inclined his head at Sheppard.

Sheppard nodded his head, “I’ve heard about you. Good to have you here. Actually, it is good to have you all here.” He twisted around and observed all the marines. “I don’t see any colonels.”

“Colonel Carter is the ranking officer at the moment,” I said. “She’s in with Dr. Weir.”

“Ah, I’d better get in there then.” He started to walk towards where I’d seen Weir and Sam go and halted and turned around. “But, you’re a general . . . he tilted his head forward in a question.

“Not anymore, I’m retired.” I rocked back on my heels with pride.

“Ah, okay. So why are you here then?” He started to walk back towards me.

“I’ve got something wrong with me that we think Beckett can cure. Doc Fraiser seems to think so anyway.”

“Isn’t Dr. Fraiser dead?” he asked puzzled.

“Didn’t Dr. Weir tell you? Anyway, it’s a long story; she’s from an alternate universe.”

“Oh, okay.”

“And don’t even pretend to understand that either.” I pointed out.

He grinned. “Come with me, and I’ll show you what’s happening around here.”

~*~

Dr. Beckett came to collect me two hours later. Then the fun began.

“Are you sure you have enough blood?” I asked, exasperated as they took a fourth vial of blood from my arm.

“Ach, we need quite a bit, to do enough tests,” Beckett called over to me from behind the microscope.

Fraiser seemed in her element although I did see a small smirk flit across her face. Where was Daniel when you needed him?

“Jack.” Sam walked into the infirmary. “I thought you’d be here. Where’s everyone else?”

She spied Janet and nodded to her and turned back to me to wait for my answer.

“Teal’c is sparring with that dude Ronon somewhere. Not sure who’s gonna win that match. I’d have liked to have stayed around to find out.” I glared at the docs who where still poring over my blood.

“Daniel found some Ancient text that no one had managed to decipher yet. Oh and McKay is looking for you.” I grinned at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah he found me.” She snagged a stool with her hand and sat on it, facing me. “How are they getting on?” she jerked her head towards Janet and Beckett.

“I really don’t know, they seem to enjoy drawing blood though,” I said resignedly.

“I gave Sheppard the good news, he’s pleased.”

“I bet he is and so he should be. A promotion is always good.” I smiled at Sam, remembering when she received her promotion to full colonel only three weeks before we’d left.

“I have to go meet up with McKay and get him up to speed on the Aschen technology.” She didn’t look very happy about the prospect, but knowing Sam she could look after herself. I already knew how annoying McKay could be, I didn’t envy her. “You’re gonna be okay here?” she asked as she stood.

“Yeah, sure, although I might be a dried out husk by the time you see me next.”

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

4. Pegasus

Chapter Two
By Arrietty


2009 - One week later

I was bored, totally bored out my skull. From what I’d read in the reports that had come in the data stream, this place was a hive of excitement. I leaned on the door jam of McKay’s lab, he was spouting on about something or other, I wasn’t really listening – although the words sexy and bombshell did penetrate my subconscious. Three of the other scientists stuck listening to McKay looked bored while another woman, a Katy someone, the botanist, couldn’t quite remember her name looked miserable. It was something to do with what McKay was talking about, so I listened too.

“I knew she’d come back to me. I mean Colonel Carter and me,” he paused for effect, “Have this great rapport – we are just like this,” He held his hands in front of him and locking the fingers together. He grinned, “Soon we’ll be . . .”

“What?” I asked.

“Oh, General O’Neill.” He had spun around and looked a little pale.

“Soon, we’ll be what?” I asked again. I could see the botanist out the corner of my eye, she was watching intently.

“Erm…” he stuttered “We’ll be putting that reactor together.”

Nice save.

“Ah,” I sauntered into the room. “Because you do know that you are talking about my wife, don’t you?” I waited.

I didn’t know that McKay could go any paler, but he did.

“Wha . . . but . . . huh?”

I held out my left hand and waggled it in front of me. The lights glinted off the surface of the gold wedding band.

The botanist was positively beaming.

“Oh, congratulations.” He didn’t look like he was happy about the fact. “Excuse me, sugar level getting low, gotta eat.” He literally ran from the room.

I couldn’t help smirking as I left the lab.

Now I had to find Sam, she needed the heads up. Since we’d been here I had only seen her briefly. Either I was being stuck by needles or she had her head under a consol somewhere fixing something or talking to McKay. Actually it was more like McKay was talking to her.

I found her in a small lab not far from the main area. “Sam.”

She was bent over something mechanical all sorts of lights were winking and blinking on it. I snagged a chair with my foot and dragged it over beside her and sat down. “So . . . what ya doin’?”

She pulled in a deep breath and frowned slightly, here comes the lecture, but I didn’t really mind, I just liked to watch her talk.

“Do you really want to know?” she asked.

I grinned, “No not really.”

She smiled and buried her head back into the machine. I stretched my arms up above my head and sighed.

“McKay won’t be bothering you any more.”

“What!” Her head shot up and gave me the stare.

“Nothing,” I held my hands out, “Look, I didn’t do anything to him, I knew you had that covered.” I quirked my eyebrows at her. If McKay knew what Sam was capable of, I don’t think he would have been such a nuisance.

“I had it under control, Jack.” Yup, I was in trouble.

“Yeah, but did you know about Dr. Katy Brown?” I remembered her name.

“No.”

“Well she wasn’t happy about it so . . . “ I shrugged my shoulders.

“So what did you do?”

“I just showed off my nice new ring you bought me.”

She rolled her eyes at me. “So, now everyone will know we’re married?”

“Yup, that about sums it up.” I picked up a pen-like gadget and began to twirl it in my fingers.

She snatched it out of my hands and said, “That’s a delicate instrument.” And threw it down on the bench. ‘yeah delicate, yeah.’ I snorted. She ignored me.

“Has Dr. Beckett got any closer to finding out how to reverse this age thing?” She had swivelled around on her chair and was watching me intently.

“No, I don’t think so. They seem totally at a loss of what to do.” I picked up another item from the bench.

“They’ll find it, I know they will. They have to.”

“I don’t know, I quite like this at the moment. I’m beginning to feel it now.” I leaned back on two legs of the chair.

“You’re hair is getting darker.”

“It is?” My chair made a bang as I let it fall back onto four legs. “Cool.” I ran my hands through my hair. “Thicker too. You know this is funny, I never noticed that.”

“I don’t know, I quite liked the grey.” She smiled and tucked her head into the machine again.

“Sheppard and his team are going out on a mission tomorrow.”

She ignored me.

“I’m bored, Sam. I need to get out there.”

“Why don’t you and Teal’c do some sparring?”

“He and Ronon have hit it off, they spar. Teal’c said something about a formidable opponent.”

“What about Teyla, she teaches.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen the bruises on Sheppard.”

“There must be something else you can do to relieve the boredom?”

“There is a whole new galaxy out there, new stars, and new adventure.” I was leaning forward and I put my hand on her knee.

“And new danger.” She twisted her head around and looked at me.

“You want to come with?”

“No, I need to help Rodney set up the defences that we brought back from the Aschen. That is if he is still talking to me.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“I know,” she took hold of my hand and ran her thumb across the back of it. “Things are different now.”

“I know, but you go on missions all the time, you don’t hear me complaining.” She raised her eyebrows and was clearly amused. “Well, not much complaining,” I added.

“Oh go and have your fun,” her voice though sounding resigned was still amused.

~*~

“Why didn’t you tell me you and Colonel Carter are married?” Dr. Weir was certainly agitated.

“We didn’t think it was necessary, we’re on a mission.” I shrugged my shoulders.

I’d come to ask her if I could go with Sheppard’s team and was met with this. News travels fast in this city.

“I’d have given you different quarters – there are some rooms available to married couples. We have a few already here now.”

“Sa . . . Colonel Carter and I find it easier when we’re on a mission to ‘not’ be married. If you want to give married quarters to anyone, give it to Daniel and Dr. Fraiser.

Her eyebrow rose. “What’s in the Earth’s water supply?” she asked clearly amused.

“I was wondering, changing the subject, if I could go with Sheppard and his team when they next go out.”

“They were going tomorrow, but it has been put ff a few days. Ronon is in the infirmary.”

I groaned, “What did Teal’c do?”

“I’m not sure, but Ronon asked Teal’c not to hold back . . .”

“. . . So he took him at his word,” I finished for her.

She nodded her head in agreement. “They could go without Ronon, but Colonel Sheppard prefers to bring him along these days.”

“Have you managed to catch Lieutenant Ford yet?”

She let out a sigh. “No he still eludes us. We really were getting low on personnel and your arrival has been a God send.”

“You mean sixteen marines.”

“Oh yeah, they’ve been a huge help too.” She grinned.

“So how long will it be before we can go out?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, Ronon will heal quickly, its just Carson being extra careful I think. It is Teal’c I am more concerned about.”

I stood, “What’s happened to Teal’c?” I asked.

“He was knocked unconscious; I hope he has a hard head.”

“Oh yes, he has a very hard head,” I said irritated with them both as I rushed off to the infirmary.

I needn’t have worried, they were both regaling stories to each other about their many exploits when I arrived.

I turned to Beckett, “How long before they’ll be back to normal?”

“As I just said to Colonel Sheppard, they’ll be cleared for duty by tomorrow.”

I spun around looking for Sheppard, he was the only sane person in this city as far as I could see and he had been pretty busy the past few days getting the marines settled in.

I finally found him in one of the storage rooms. It was filled to the ceiling with Ancient doohickeys, giving me a deja vu feeling about smelly planets and spiders.

“What ya doin’?”

“McKay, seems to think that something in here might help them. I don’t know why as none of it works.” Just then one of the precarious placed metal boxes began to topple. I reached up and took the doohickey from him so he could climb up and secure the box.

I nearly dropped it. It sprung to life, making a whirring noise. The metal box from above crashed to the ground nearly hitting Sheppard.

I placed the machine on the floor. “What is it? And I thought you said they didn’t work in here.”

“They didn’t, we’ve found that only I can initialize some of the Ancient gear here as I have the strongest gene.” He stood back and grinned, “But it looks like yours are stronger.”

I couldn’t help feeling smug.

“Here’s another one, try this,” he handed me another machine, it was smaller than the one I’d touched before.

As soon as I touched it, lights flicked on and a small circular button spun round and rose from the side.

“Hey, you’re gonna be McKay’s hero.” He smirked.

“It’ll have to take something good for that,” McKay had avoided me as much as possible after that day I announced our marriage. Although good had come from it, Daniel and Janet had their own room now instead of being bunked down with the rest of us.

The rest of the day had me touching all sorts of mystery machines, Sam pulling them apart to find out how they worked and McKay hopping about like a four year old boy on Christmas morning. Some still didn’t work with me initialising them, but most did and there were enough to keep McKay going to months, so he said. There was another guy in there talking in Russian, it sounded like Russian although Daniel insisted it was Czech, personally I thought they sounded the same. Zelenka was his name and he was just as excited as McKay. It was quite funny in a geeky scientist sort of way.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

4. Pegasus

Chapter Three
By Arrietty


2009

The following day we were off, I felt really good, my knees didn’t hurt at all, I felt twenty years younger not just a couple. I received a couple of strange looks from the other members of the mission team, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. Teal’c opened his mouth to say something, but stopped, seemed to think for a moment and then kept silent. I was so excited at the prospect of action I didn’t ask Teal’c what was up.

The team was made up of Sheppard, Teyla, Teal’c, Ronon and myself. McKay had stayed behind with Carter to work on all the paraphernalia I had awakened with my ‘mutant’ gene.

Sheppard sat down at the controls and I plonked myself down in the co-pilots seat.

“While you’re here, could you see if we’ve missed awakening anything in here?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes.

“Puddle jumper ready.”

“Cool name,” I said.

The puddle jumper sank down through a hole in the floor and hovered in front of the opened Stargate. It was really cool. I could see Carter in the control room, I waved at her. I hadn’t seen her since yesterday. She waved back, her smile fell from her face and her hand dropped to her side. And then we were gone.

It was way quicker to go through the gate in the puddle jumper, and it lessened the effects of gate travel.

We arrived in space – which was even cooler. I turned and looked at Sheppard and grinned at him. He didn’t grin back.

“We have to return.”

“Why?” I asked.

Teyla came up and stood behind Sheppard and was staring at me. “I agree with Colonel Sheppard,” she said.

“As do I,” came the deep voice from Teal’c.

“I ask again, why?”

Sheppard turned and looked at me again, “Did you actually look at yourself in the mirror this morning?”

I remembered shaving, but the mirror was fogged up and I was in a hurry. Plus, I’d brought an electric shaver with me on this trip, but I didn’t remember actually looking in the mirror at all.

“No, why?”

I was getting worried. I turned to Teyla, “I suppose you don’t have a mirror handy do you?” Realising my mistake a little too late, Sam would never worry about her appearance anymore than we would when on a mission nor would Teyla, her thoughts on my question were evident on her face, ah someone else on Sheppard’s team I’d pissed off.

Sheppard banked the jumper around and flew back towards the Stargate. I began to feel a lot younger. The skin on the back of my hands were smoothing out.

“I think it has stopped.” Teyla was staring at me and she was frowning.

“I concur.” I glanced over at Teal’c.

“So, just how old do I look?” My voice broke. I groaned.

“About eighteen, you looked about thirty-five before we went through the Stargate.” Sheppard didn’t even look at me as he spoke. “Dial the ‘gate.”

I was about half way through the dialling sequence and the Stargate blossomed into action.

“Colonel Sheppard, come in.” It was Dr. Weir’s voice. “You have to return immediately.”

Sheppard replied, “Yes, we are aware of the problem, Elizabeth.”

Sam’s voice filled with concern came over the radio. “Jack. The reverse aging has sped up. We have to get you into the stasis chamber now, before you get any younger.

“Too late,” I replied.

“We’ll see you soon,” Sheppard informed them.

The Stargate shut down.

I started to dial up the address again; these were cool machines, much quicker than the DHD’s.

Teyla leaned against my chair. “The Wraith are here,” she warned us.

The Stargate opened, this time an outgoing wormhole. A whine, familiar to me, filled me with dread – memories flooded my mind – unwanted, terrifying memories of being chased.

The jumper shuddered and brought me out of my reverie.

Sheppard banked the jumper around towards the Stargate and lined it up.

“Crap!”

“Indeed.” I glanced over at Teal’c.

“We’re cut off,” yelled Sheppard. I looked back to see five more darts join the first two which were guarding the entrance to the Stargate. Another hit made the jumper shake. Sparks shot out of the bulkhead, narrowly missing Sheppard’s head.

He hit the consol with the flat of his hand, then another shudder as we were hit. “They’ve damaged the cloaking device.” He hit the consol again. Nothing happened.

“This has happened before,” Teyla told us.

“So how did you get through last time?” I asked.

“We had cloaking ability,” Sheppard said irritably.

“We’ll have to make a run for the planet,” he informed us as he swerved the jumper to miss another shot from one of the darts.

“Where is the hive ship?” asked Ronon, “There are too many darts for there not to be one.”

“I agree, with Ronon,” said Teyla. “The quicker we get on the ground the quicker we can get under some cover.”

With my increased youth, I noticed a distinct lack of respect and acknowledgement. I was the resident teenager and was being ignored. I looked across at Teal’c. He was watching me. He knew; he’d had experience with the cloned mini me. I barely noticed the slight incline of his head, acknowledging the seasoned general trapped within the younger body.

The whole ship shook violently, Teyla slammed to the floor.

“We’re losing power.” Sheppard was holding onto the ship trying to regain control.

The surface of the planet was rushing to meet us.

“Hold on, we’re going in,” Sheppard shouted.

Broken branches snapped past the windscreen, making spine crawling squeals as the ragged edges scraped down along the sides.

Another whistling sound led to a bone jarring thump. The ship skewed sideways, great clouds of soil obscured the front windscreen and I was thrown to the floor in a tangle of arms and legs.

Another screaming whine as a dart flew overhead.

“Everyone, out,” Sheppard commanded.

Teal’c hoisted me up by my arm. “O’Neill, are you injured?”

“Nope.”

The ramp opened and we ran out onto the groove dug into the ground. The smell of the freshly opened up soil was earthy and damp. Sheppard sealed the door shut behind us. I was impressed by his command during this attack so far.

Memories of the Wraith, Ancient memories not my own flooded my mind. I stumbled and fell to the ground; once again Teal’c dragged me to my feet. ‘A whine, explosions - villagers screaming in fear surrounded me.’ Still caught in the memory, I didn’t hear the warning shout from Teyla. Then it was too late.

~*~

I came to in a darkened room with blue lights set dimly glowing into the walls. The place smelled of fear and death. I looked around for my team mates. Fortunately, it looked like no one else was captured. I had no doubt that I was in a cell, imprisoned by these Wraith creatures. I tried to open what looked like the doorway, but it was shut fast. I could hear screams in the distance then a moan and it went quiet. Cold fear gripped my gut; maybe my team mates had been captured after all.

To take my mind off what had happened to them or what could be in store for me, I looked down at my hands, trying to gauge just how young I’d become. It was too late for the freezing chamber now. Whatever happened, I would always be a teenager or worse. My morbid thoughts turned to mini me. I hadn’t seen him going on for five years now. Maybe we should get an apartment together. Nah! We’d drive each other nuts. Plus he would be a couple of years older than me by now. Whatever happened, Sam wouldn’t want me anymore. I was overcome with the feeling of melancholy and I sank down in total misery onto the cold floor and awaited my fate.

It was four hours later they came for me. I recognised the hungry gleam in the eyes of the Wraith that stood before me. Two of his henchmen stood on either side.

The lead Wraith grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and pushed me down a long dark tunnel, past bodies of people wrapped in cobwebs. Was this my fate or would it be something worse?

I was shown into a large room. Another Wraith stood waiting for me. He circled me watching me all the time.

“Hi, there,” I said.

He stayed silent.

“What’s your name?”

He continued to circle.

“Oh, by the way, my name is O’Neill.”

He reached across and ripped my jacket apart exposing my black T-shirt. I couldn’t move, my body was frozen and my heart thumped loudly in my chest.

The Wraith’s hand snaked out towards me and slammed into my chest. I fell to my knees. Excruciating pain shot through my chest, my heart stopped beating then started again as the talons sunk into my flesh. Fetid breath washed over me as the hungry Wraith dragged life from my body.

I cried out with the pain. Then I heard a sound of bullets firing and thudding into the walls around me. I just hoped they killed me before this thing sucked me dry. Another shot and the Wraith arched his back, growled and continued to feed on me. The renewed pain in my chest developed into a fire.

“O’Neill!” It was Teal’c. His body flew past me knocking the Wraith to the ground. I fell sideways onto the floor unable to move.

A knife buried to the hilt stuck out from the Wraith’s neck. Teal’c retrieved the knife and wiped it clean on the creature’s clothes. Pulling out his zat, Teal’c fired it three times at the Wraith; the Wraith disappeared into millions of molecules and was gone.

Guarding me, Teal’c crouched over me protectively and fired the zat at any Wraith that came towards us. Ronon joined in the fray, blasting holes into the enemy. The pain in my chest had reduced to an almost bearable ache.

“We gotta get out of here!” Sheppard yelled.

Teal’c hooked his arms around me and slung me over his shoulder. It hurt, but I didn’t really care. We were leaving this waking nightmare.

“Come in jumper three.” I could hear Sheppard talking to someone on the radio. Teal’c started to run through a small crop of trees and I blacked out.

~*~

“Jack.” Sam’s voice penetrated the grey fog that encompassed my brain. “Jack, what have they done to you?” I could hear the sadness in her voice.

“Sam?” I felt my head lifted and a canteen of water touched my lips. I drank greedily.

“Slowly.” I opened my eyes. A bleary vision of blond hair swam before my eyes. “Jack.”

“I’m here,” I murmured. My eyes focussed on Sam. Her eyes were filling with tears. “So how old am I now?” I asked trying hard to keep things light.

She looked at me, eyes sad. “A lot older than you were.” Was her answer.

I read the sadness and horror in her face, I knew it was most probably closer to ninety than thirty. “Dang! It could have stopped at about forty,” I grumbled.

Sam stroked my hair and leaned close to me and whispered, “I love you, Jack, however old you are.”

I released a sigh.

I was lying on the floor of a puddle jumper with my head in Sam’s lap. Daniel’s worried face hovered close by and Beckett was crouched down beside us, poking my ribs.

“Ow.”

“Sorry, General, but I really need to see to these wounds.” In truth Beckett wasn’t hurting me at all, the wounds were doing a nice job all on their own.

A vivid memory of Baal dripping acid onto my chest flashed through my mind and I cried out in pain.

“Dr. Becket, can’t you do anything for the pain?” Sam’s voice was filled with concern.

“I’ve given him as much as I can and I wasn’t touching him either.” The broad Scottish accent faded and Baal’s echoed voice returned.

‘”You are O'Neill. What was the name of your symbiote?" A sharp pain hissed into my chest.’

“No! Please don’t,” I pleaded.

“Daniel, I’m worried. Dr. Beckett said that Jack shouldn’t be in this much pain.”

“I think I know what it is, Sam. We need to wake him.”

“He is awake,” said Beckett, “but I think he is hallucinating.”

Daniel’s voice whispered, “No, I think he’s having a flashback.”

Someone grabbed my jaw and gripped it tightly. “Jack!” I opened my eyes expecting to see Baal sneering at me, but I found Daniel peering at me, searching my eyes for something.

“You came back,” I said quietly.

“Yes, Jack. I am here, but Baal isn’t, you are safe now. You’re free.”

I looked around the small craft, Sheppard’s team stood watching me anxiously, while a few others I didn’t know were sitting over on the far side. I looked up and found Sam watching me too.

“So, what have I been saying while in space land?” I asked. I didn’t want to move and the view was pretty nice anyway. I gave Sam a smile. She tried to smile back, but didn’t quite make it.

“Nothing much, Jack.” Daniel spoke very quickly. That meant I’d said enough and by the look on Sam’s face, I had some explaining to do.

I had no idea how much life the Wraith had sucked out of me; by the way I was feeling, it must have been a lot.

~*~

The full magnitude of what had just really happened to me didn’t hit until we’d reached Atlantis. There was instant action as everyone bustled around me as I was taken by stretcher towards the infirmary.

I was placed on a hospital bed and my clothing was cut away from my chest. The makeshift bandages removed. I couldn’t help looking down to see five gaping holes punctured my skin. Suddenly, I felt tired in mind and as well as body. An edge of pure horror hovered just above my consciousness. I could do this old thing, I’d done it before, so I could do it again. As Beckett began to prod and poke my wounds, the pain began to return and I drew in a sharp breath.

“I’m sorry, General, but I have to make sure no foreign bodies have been left behind.”

My over active imagination kicked in and I imagined, little miniature Wraith swimming around in my blood stream, then they metamorphed into little Baal’s fighting the Wraith, and then joining forces to kill me from within.

“No! Please don’t. I don’t know his name. I would tell you if I could. I don’t care about protecting the Tok’ra.”

“Tok’ra have been a nuisance for centuries.”

“Don’t . . .”

“Even when we thought they had been wiped out. They’ve become all the more . . . insidious. Like acid . . . burrowing their way into our empires.”

Baal tipped the bottle over and slowly let a drop of acid fall towards me. The acid hissed when it landed, making me cry out in pain.

The pain increased as the acid worked its way into my chest, burning through flesh and bone. Baal’s face changed to reveal a Wraith standing over me, his hand plunged into my chest.’

“Janet! You’ve got to do something.”

Sam.

She can’t be here. “Sam get out of here, go,” I shouted.

“You’re safe, Jack.” Sam’s voice was close to my head reassuring me.

I opened my eyes and peered through my eyelashes, any wider and it hurt too much. “Sam,” I rasped.

“You’re going to be all right,” she assured me.

I didn’t believe her.

“This will help.” Dr. Beckett’s voice was near.

I began to feel the blissful numbing sensation slide through my veins as the morphine started to work and I slipped into a dreamless sleep.

~*~

“Janet, what are you saying?”

“He’s getting younger, Sam.”

“Not at the same rate as before, because I can’t see any difference.”

“We don’t know, Sam. We’ll have to just wait and see.”

I had some questions of my own; like how old I was? What had that monster done to me? When could I have some breakfast? I still couldn’t move, but at least the pain had gone. I tried to open my eyes, but nothing happened.

I felt a warm hand slide into mine. It was Sam’s, I would know her hand anywhere. She squeezed my hand gently, I tried to squeeze hers back, but again nothing happened.

“Janet, I don’t think I could bear to lose him.”

“I know, Sam, but you haven’t lost him yet. Dr. Beckett has some ideas of how we can stop this ‘getting younger’ process. I know it sounds awful, but the Wraith did him a favour, he’d be about three years old about now.”

Sam giggled.

Janet must have silently questioned her as Sam explained her giggle. “I’m imagining trying to control a three year old Jack. I bet his mum had her hands full.”

Janet laughed.

‘Hey!’

I tried squeezing her hand again, but I still couldn’t move. Maybe I could try and go back to sleep, but sleep eluded me.

“Sam.”

“Yes, Janet.”

“Are you and Jack . . ?”

“What, Janet?”

“You know, gonna have kids?”

“I hope so, we talked about it when we first got married, but we haven’t since. I’m not sure I want to bring them into a world full of so much danger, but then again if everything turns out okay and Jack gets back to normal. I would love to have children. Even if they are like their father and make my life . . .”

“What?”

“His hand moved.”

“You sure? It could have just been a twitch.”

“No he squeezed my hand. There he did it again.” Sam’s voice was excited so I obliged her and squeezed her hand again.

“He’s awake. Jack, can you hear me?”

I squeezed her hand twice.

I felt one of my eyelids being prised open and the infamous penlight was flashed into my eyeball.

I tried to move my head out the way, but it didn’t move.

“Yes, he’s awake, but still can’t move.”

“Dr. Fraiser, how’s our patient?” It was Beckett.

“I believe he’s awake, but has only moved one hand so far.”

I tried to wiggle my toes, but I couldn’t feel any movement in them.

Once again, my eyelid was pried open and the penlight was shone into my eye. I saw a glimpse of the Scottish doctor.

“Yes he is awake. The Wraith must have really pumped him full of their enzyme, I’ve tested his blood and there is more than what there usually is. The last time this happened, it happened to Lieutenant Ford and we know what happened to him. So we’ll have to monitor him carefully.”

“How serious is this?” Sam asked.

“Not as serious as Ford, he was totally overdosed with enzyme and I can’t see the same effects here on General O’Neill that I saw with Ford. So he should be okay.”

I was relieved to hear that news. It was bad enough being old, young and now old again without going Jekyll and Hyde as well.

“He needs time to heal and the best place to be is sleeping. We’re going to have to wean General O’Neill off the enzyme and it isn’t going to be very comfortable for him.”

‘Uh oh.’

I felt familiar numbness as the sedation travelled through my limbs and I slipped off into sleep once again.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

4. Pegasus

Chapter Four
By Arrietty


2031

Hey, Jack.

Sam.

Have you driven the nurses mad yet?

No, of course not . . .I saw you roll your eyes.

How are your memoirs coming along? You’ve been writing these for a long time now.

They’re going fine, but I do have a question. What happened that first night on Ishta’s planet?

What first night? We’ve been to Ishta’s planet lots of times.

You know the night I got blind drunk – just after we were rescued by Thor.

Oh that, it’s years ago now, why would you want to know about that?

Because you never told me what I did . . . or said.

I was in a tent with Daniel and we were talking. He was just bringing me up to speed on a few things that you and I hadn’t covered. . . I mentioned Pete just as you walked into the tent. You must have heard me because you went nutso and started babbling on about all sorts of things.

Sam . . .

What?

Can you please come and sit beside me. I want to know what I said to you. . . Please.

Okay. You said, that “Pete! Is that all you can think about? How you can get back to Shanahan. Well he’s ditched you, gone and married some other chick. He didn’t even have the decency to wait. He was married within three months of you dying.”

You were angry and drunk. It scared me at the time. I didn’t understand why you were behaving like you were.

I’m sorry, Sam. You know I wouldn’t say anything like that to you if . . .

I know. But then, I was fragile and I was trying to find myself again. You were my rock, I had leaned on you the whole time I was La Haia, but when I remembered who I was I wanted to distance myself from that person and to do that I had to keep away from you.

Is that why you began to ignore me and hang around Daniel and Janet?

Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t explain, I would have if that night hadn’t happened.

I don’t buy that, Sam. Me spouting off about Shanahan like that wouldn’t have caused you to be that distant. I must have done something else. . . Where are you going?

I . . . don’t want to . . .

Sam, please.

You sure? You won’t like it.

Well I have to know now don’t I?

Jack, when you finished yelling at me about Pete you started telling me things about yourself. Things I’d guessed anyway, but it still scared me . . . I didn’t know how to deal with it. The emotions of it were too immense.

What did I say?

You said, “Shanahan didn’t give up his life’s career because he couldn’t live without you, he just found someone else. I’ve been wandering the galaxy trying to get my life back together because of you. And all you care about is that lump of lard that doesn’t love you like I do.” Then you stormed out the tent. We could hear something smash and then you came back in again. I’ve never seen you like this before or since, thankfully.

It was ugly, Jack. If Daniel hadn’t been there, I don’t know what would have happened. Fortunately, you passed out before Teal’c arrived. I think if he’d been there while you were behaving like you were, you would have had more than a hangover to nurse the following day.

Jack, talk to me.

What is there to say?

Well you wanted to know. What did you expect?

What worries me is that you remember it so vividly.

These memoirs that you are writing, how much do you remember – vividly?

A lot – too much.

Well, you have to remember that these were the first days after my memory returned. Of course I am going to remember when the Jack I know behaved like I’d never seen before. I was scared that you had changed. . . Remember, it didn’t take me long to realise that was just one incident and that it was the drink that was talking not really you.

Don’t you understand, Sam? That was exactly how I was feeling at the time. I have no memory of that night. But I do know what I was feeling.

Yes, I do understand. I understood soon afterwards too. . . Jack. Is this why you have never got drunk since?

Yes, Sam. I had no idea what I’d done. And as far as I know, I’ve never got so drunk I’ve hurt someone before. Usually I just fall asleep. I didn’t want to risk it ever happening again.

I think you have Brat’ac to blame for that, his home brew kicks a powerful punch.

Ya think!

Jack I have to go now. Are you going to sit and brood on this for the rest of the day now? Or are you going to put it behind you?

Already forgotten.

Liar.

Will you forgive me, Sam?

I forgave you back on P4C-970 when I first realised that being with you didn’t take away anything from who I am. You just make me a better person, you always have – you always will.

I think I need time to myself now, Sam.

Yes, I believe you do. You need to forgive yourself too, and don’t dwell on it too much. I’d forgotten about it long ago. . . I love you, Jack.

I know.

~*~


2009

I was bored. Bored out of my skull. Where were these marauding wraith and Gennii that kept attacking Atlantis? I suppose I should be glad that they didn’t. I certainly was in no state to fight back. When no one was watching I sneaked into the bathroom and copped a look at myself. I didn’t look a day under ninety. I certainly felt that old. I nearly made it all the way back without anyone catching me too, but I collapsed. These old bones just weren’t what they used to be. It was Teal’c who rescued me and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t dob me in either.

“O’Neill, I do not think it is wise for you to be walking.”

“I wish I could, Teal’c. A hobble is about all I can manage at the moment. But it’s better than yesterday as then I couldn’t even get out of bed.”

“It is as it maybe, but I still think it is unwise.”

I sighed. “If you say so, Teal’c.”

He left me on my own and I went back to being bored.

~*~

The following day, Dr. Fraiser, Dr. Becket, Sam and Elizabeth Weir came to my bedside. All these people certainly made it seem ominous.

“Jack, we think we might have found something that will stop you from getting any younger.”

“I don’t think it is a problem, do you?” I asked Sam.

“Not right now, no, but . . . “ She looked over at Beckett.

“General, we think we’ve found a solution.”

“This is good news.” I didn’t like the way my voice quavered with old age as I spoke, but I really didn’t have much of a choice.

Beckett continued to explain. “If it works, it will stop the reverse aging in its tracks and you won’t get any younger.”

“I hope you aren’t going to try and test it out on me now,” I asked. I really didn’t want to be ninety for the rest of my short life.

“No.” Beckett laughed. “Of course not. We’ll wait until you get to about ten years older than you were before and then test you.”

“Why ten years?” I asked.

“Um.” He glanced at Janet. Sam wasn’t looking to happy either.

“Why ten years?” I repeated.

“Because there is a good chance it might speed things up instead.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to stop getting younger at sixty odd, I want to be the age I was before all this happened, or a bit younger; definitely not older.

I started to cough and couldn’t stop. Sam immediately rubbed my back to sooth the coughing fit. I really hated being old.

Over the next few days, I steadily began to get younger. It wasn’t really noticeable at first, until I found I could get out of bed easily and stand straighter when I was out. Visits to the bathroom weren’t such a mammoth event and my appetite returned. All in all, life began to get better. Of course Beckett monitored my progress every day, examining my cells to see how quickly they were getting younger.

“General O’Neill, the reduction in age is speeding up again. A bit like it did before, but more steadily this time.”

Beckett was standing beside my bed with a clip board in his hand.

“How quickly?” I asked.

“Well, if we don’t start thinking about testing this antidote, you’ll be younger than you want to be very soon.”

“Not yet, Carson.” I looked at him intently. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being seventy years old.”

“I can understand that, General.”

“Beckett.”

“Yes.”

“I’m retired.”

“I know.”

He walked out of the infirmary towards his office.

Four hours later he was back. I’d just finished lunch. It was good, but not enough of it. My appetite had returned tenfold.

“General, I’ve just done another set of tests and you’re about four years younger than you were four hours ago.”

“This is good?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” he answered. “I’m not sure if this is good or not. I have no idea how long it will take for the antidote to work or if it works at all.”

“If my math is correct you’ve got about sixteen hours before I get younger than I’m supposed to be.”

Beckett looked at me sharply; I could see the cogs whirring around in his brain as he tried to work out an argument against what I was saying. He must have lost the argument internally, because he turned and walked out the room. I hoped he hadn’t gone to get the big guns. Janet, for all her size can be very formidable when she wanted to be.

I was both wrong and right. He’d got out the big guns all right, but different ones. Sam was clearly concerned when she entered the infirmary and sat down beside me.

“Carson says you won’t let him try out this antidote on you.”

“Not when I’m seventy, no,” I replied incredulously. “I just want him to wait until I’m fifty or younger, that’s all.”

“Oh.” She turned and glared at Beckett.

He let out a large impatient sigh. “The only thing is it might not work first time and there is a good chance it won’t actually take effect for several hours. Meanwhile you are fast approaching adolescence.”

“Oh that is about everyday with him.”

I looked up to the source of the sarcastic comment. “Daniel. Nice of you to actually come visit,” I said petulantly.

“See,” he commented.

“Okay, I’ll do it, but not before I turn fifty-five,” I announced feeling totally exasperated with everyone.

Sam squeezed my hand and waited until everyone had left before she spoke.

“I think you’ve made the right choice, Jack. I’d rather have you old and alive than young and dead any day.” She softened her words with a smile.

“Hey, fifty-five isn’t old,” I exclaimed.

She just smiled and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll be back in ten hours,” she said and walked away.

I was bored.

~*~

I was woken in the middle of the night by Dr. Beckett. Sam was there too. She looked tired, it was the first time I’d actually noticed. I should have realised that this was very hard on her too.

“Good evening, General. You do realise that this may not work at all?”

I nodded.

“It could take several hours to take effect.”

“I know, Carson, you’ve told me many times. This is why we’re trying it now and not later.”

He nodded while he changed the IV bags over. “This hopefully, will do the trick.” He smiled. “I’m not sure how it will affect you if I’ve got the requirements wrong, so I’ll stay to see.”

Sam’s hand was firmly in mine and she was sitting on the side of the bed watching my face.

I didn’t feel any change.

“Nothing’s happening,” I said.

“Ach, give it a little time to work.” Beckett sounded a tad irritated with me. He pulled over a chair and sat down beside the bed.

I was bored.

He waited like fifteen minutes then took some blood and rushed off to test it. He was back in twenty minutes with the results.

“It’s sped up,” he announced looking devastated. “I think I know what I did wrong, but it will take several hours to perfect.”

I looked over to Sam, she was now standing. “Can I do anything to help, Carson?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m going to need all hands with this.”

“Just how sped up?” I asked, feeling a tad worried.

“Fast enough,” Becket threw over his shoulder as he rushed from the room.

I wasn’t bored anymore.

Daniel appeared bleary eyed from sleep about ten minutes later.

“Hey, Jack. What’s all the fus . . . Whoa! You’re looking younger,” he stated.

“Yes, Beckett’s experiment went a bit haywire.”

“Oh,” he said non-committedly and sat down on a chair.

Every so often Daniel would look at me askance and then look back at a book he’d brought with him. So much for having someone wait with me, while the scientists tried to save my life.

I was bored again.

Fortunately, for me they didn’t take long to make the adjustments. This time Beckett, injected something straight into my IV, no hanging bags to measure in the dose slowly.

“General, we can’t waste anymore time, we need to stop this now, before . . .” He stopped talking for a moment. “I think its working,” he said.

“A man can get a complex with all of you guys staring at me,” I joked.

They ignored me. I watched Beckett, his shoulders were tense, and he hadn’t relaxed yet. When he relaxed so would I. Becket removed some cells from the inside of my mouth and scuttled off to test them.

“Can I get a cup of coffee?” I asked.

“No,” was the answer from Janet, Daniel and Sam. They all spoke in unison.

“Oh come on, guys, give me a break.”

The one person I didn’t want to leave offered. “I’ll get you a cup, Jack.” Sam stood and walked out the infirmary. It must have been the hardest things she’d done, not knowing if when she came back that I’d still be alive.

Fortunately, for all concerned especially me, I was still alive and not any younger either when she returned. Her relief was almost palpable. I could see it in the set of her shoulders and the way her eyes shone with unshed tears.

“Well, General, It looks like my antidote has worked. Your cells are the same as when I tested them before the treatment. I would like to take some blood this time and be sure.”

He and Janet went off to the lab to test the results.

“Daniel, you must be tired,” I suggested.

He took the hint. “Yes, actually I am. Glad you’re gonna be okay, Jack.” He smiled and sauntered off out the infirmary.

Sam smiled at me and settled herself down on the bed beside me. “Jack.”

“Yes, Sam.”

“I was scared.”

“I know, but everything is going to be okay now,” I assured her.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

5. The SGC

Chapter One
By Arrietty


2031

After the Pegasus incident, life was pretty much uneventful for me. If you can say living many years with Sam and bringing two children into the world is uneventful.

Sam carried on at the SGC and I stayed retired for a long time. It worked for us, sometimes I was called in to chat to Thor or negotiate with some of our allies, but mostly I was a stay at home dad and I liked it.

Five years after we returned from Atlantis, the Stargate program went public. It threw the world into turmoil at first, but we had underestimated how adaptive the world could be to change. It pulled the different countries together and finally we had some form of peace between the nations. The Aschen technology that Sam had downloaded off the computer in the Aschen library had enabled us to build defences over the past few years that rivalled the Tollan space guns.

Sam and McKay managed to combine Atlantis and the Aschen technology to create a huge defence grid that circled the whole planet. The word got out that the Tau’ri were formidable and that trying to conquer Earth was not going to happen.

Sam and I continued to show no signs of aging; although Janet did say there were minuscule amounts of aging that only she could see under a microscope. We were relieved that our quirkiness hadn’t been passed on down to our children. Our son is in the Air Force training to be a fighter pilot, but I can see him going a lot further than I ever did, but then he inherited his mother’s brains. Our daughter, I can see will go far, but at only sixteen she has a few more years to decide what she wants to do with her life.

Janet and Daniel never had children, but they love Cassie and she has given them three grandchildren. I enjoy calling Daniel ‘grandpa’ he isn’t always amused. Of course it is a lot funnier when you see a man of forty referred to as grandpa. At least I look like a grandpa even though I’m not one yet.

Anyway, I digress. Life changed drastically about one month ago. Baal turned up. He came to wreck vengeance on the Tau’ri. It was to be our time to rid the Universe of this snake once and for all.

~*~

2031

It was Wednesday morning, Sam had left for work at the crack of dawn and the kids for school a couple of hours ago and I was just loading up the dishwasher. Later that afternoon, I was due at the academy to deliver a lecture on Stargate travel. Even though I was a civilian now, they still called on me for this once in a while, usually, with a bunch of new recruits. That was one thing, since the programme had gone public, the Air Force had an increase in their recruit quota.

Someone banged on the door, I recognised the sound as military. It had been a long while since I’d had a visit like this, and it didn’t bode well.

I was right, it was Major Satterfield. I hadn’t seen her in a while as she had been spending most of her time on one of the outpost settlements off world.

“General O’Neill, you are required to come to the Pentagon immediately.”

“Let me get my coat.” I grabbed my leather jacket off the coat stand and pulled it on against the cold fall weather. The sun was bright so I took out my shades and slipped them on.

“Colonel Carter is waiting in the car, sir.” I was a bit confused that she hadn’t come in herself, but then its best not to question the machinations of the air force.

“Sam,” I said when I sat down beside her in the back seat.

“Hi, Jack. We have trouble.”

“What?”

She had a pile of folders on her lap and one of them was open. She slipped out one of the closed folders and gave it to me. “Take your pick.”

I felt an old familiar sensation of dread seep into my innards.

I flipped open the cover just as the car drove away from our house. A photo of Baal was paper clipped to the top right hand corner. What was weird about his photo was he was wearing a t-shirt and a baseball cap with the New York symbol embroidered on the front. His name was listed as Michael Stevens and living currently in New York. He was a salesman for IBM. I pulled out another folder and again, Baal’s photo was attached to the file, but this time he was wearing a business suit and he was a franchise owner for Granny’s Apple Pies in California. His name was Richard Watkins.

“How many are there of these?” I asked.

“Fifteen at last count and we keep finding more. Baal is here and as far as I can tell these are clones. The biggest problem is we don’t know which one is the original. What puzzles me is how did he get here?”

“Or more worrying is how long has he been on Earth,” I added.

I took another file and it was much the same as the other ones, Baal with different clothes and with a different name and job.

“How long have they known about this?” I asked. I was annoyed that it had taken this long to come to my attention.

“I only found out this morning, but I gather they found the first Baal two weeks ago when his company bought out one of the largest public companies on Wall Street. Somehow this particular Baal is now one of the richest people in the United States and from what I can glean from these files his company has shares in every single business owned by his clones.”

She flipped through the files and pulled out one and handed it to me and said, “This one worries me the most.”

I opened it; Baal’s smug face stared off into space somewhere. It was a candied shot. He was wearing camouflage fatigues and had what looked like an old P-90 in his hands. Job description was arms dealer. It just got worse and worse.

“Anymore nasty surprises in there,” I asked pointing to the pile of folders.

“No that just about sums it up.” She sighed.

“So what now? Do we go to each of the places of residence and remove the problems or what? I asked.

“I’m not sure what they want us to do, but I don’t think that could be the full solution.”

“Why?” It seemed pretty straight forward to me.

“I really don’t know, Jack. I have an idea that the fact we know about these clones is part of Baal’s plan.”

She handed me a blue folder from the bottom of the pile. “This is a summary of what they’ve found out so far. It has taken me the past two hours to digest it all, but fortunately, we have a long flight ahead of us.” She gave me a grin that didn’t reach her eyes.

She was right this was no laughing matter. Both of us had history with this snake and this was definitely something that we’d left behind long ago, not something we wanted raked up again.

~*~

We arrived at the pentagon and met up with General Paul Davis who was in charge of the Stargate Program. He led us into an office bristling with medals and stars. I wasn’t overawed, mainly because most of these men were way younger than us, plus I was retired.

It didn’t take long for the general’s in the room to start arguing with Paul’s sensible suggestions. I totally admired the fact he stood by his decisions, but I didn’t envy Davis one bit.

“…but, sirs. We need to get the Stargate under the mountain again, where we can contain anything that comes through it.” Davis finished with a forceful, “I don’t trust Baal.”

I felt it was about time Paul needed a break from the pressure and backed him up. “General Davis is right; the Stargate needs to be in the Mountain. With Baal running around free, the Stargate access is too open.”

For the first time, they acknowledged our presence in the room. Someone had called us in and it wasn’t these guys for sure. Most probably it was Paul Davis. But, I was wrong.

Suddenly, everyone on the room stood. We didn’t, because we hadn’t sat down yet.

“Mr President.”

I swivelled around on one foot and behind me by the door stood our Commander in Chief. Ah . . . now I knew who had called us in.

I glanced across to Sam. She gave me a quick smile. One that I knew; triumphant. Now we had a listening ear.

“Jack,” he acknowledged me and then smiled at Sam.

“General Davis, your recommendations for this threat are?” he asked getting straight to the point.

Paul answered straight away. “We need to move the Stargate under Cheyenne Mountain. I know it has state of the art defence systems in place,’ he acknowledged Sam with a brief glance, “But it won’t be able to defend a direct attack from outer space.”

“We have the satellite system in place for this, don’t we?” The president asked. He had moved into the room now and stood in a place of command in front of the window.

“Yes, but from our intelligence we have gathered I don’t think it will cope with what Baal has in store.”

I looked hard at Paul, there was something else?

“What kind of intelligence?” The president beat me to the question by two seconds.

“A large armada is approaching Earth and will be here in three days. It is nothing like we’ve ever accounted before.”

Goosebumps sprung up on the surface of my skin.

“What else do you recommend, General Davis?”

“I’d like to see Jack O’Neill come out of retirement and head this defence. He and Colonel Carter know more about Baal than anyone else on Earth. We need a hands on person, who knows how Baal thinks.”

“Which one?” I asked, slightly sarcastically.

“We believe, Jack,” Paul turned to me, “That the real Baal isn’t even on Earth, but leading the armada here. The Baal clones are here to sabotage from within. We need to rid the Earth of all the clones simultaneously, ‘before’ Baal arrives.”

I nodded in agreement and then turned to Sam. “Is there anyway you can soup up the satellite defence system within the next three days?”

“Yes, I believe I can, but then it depends on the size of the armada and there are no guarantees.”

“What about the Antarctic outpost? Is there anyway you can get down there and use that?” asked one of the generals in the room.

The question was directed at me. So I answered him. “If you’d done your homework you’d know that the drones are depleted and it won’t work anymore. Atlantis has a few, but not enough to spare some for us.” I was frustrated with all this chatter; I wanted to get out there.

“Anything else, General Davis?” The president asked.

“No, sir that about sums it up for now.”

“All right, done. General O’Neill you’re recalled to duty and as of this moment, you are now Major General O’Neill and you answer only to me. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good, see all of General Davis’ recommendations are seen to. Thank you, ma’am and gentlemen.” He turned on his heel and walked out the room.

“Right,” I clapped my hands together. “Any questions? Good,” I said leaving no room for any. “Colonel Carter, General Davis, you’re with me.” I followed the president out of the room.

~*~


2031

Jack!

Jacob, when did you get here?

A couple of hours ago. I hear you and Baal had a run in.

You could say that.

Sam filled me in on what happened.

It is really good to see you, Jacob. It’s been years; Sam and I were really beginning to get worried. I heard about Selmac, how is it?

What the transition to a new blending? Hard for both of us really, but we’re getting there.

So how is tic-tac?

Ten’ack, you mean.

Yeah, him.

I’m fine thank you, General O’Neill. I am pleased to meet you.

Yeah, you too. . . Jacob, you there?

Yes, I am here, Jack.

I was wondering . . . you see, Sam tried the healing device on my leg and she couldn’t quite do anything and I really need to be back on my feet and I was hoping you and Ten’ack could you know . . . If you could pass me the phone there, I’ll ring for the healing device to be sent up.

What you mean this?

Jacob, you old . . .

Now, now, Jack.

~*~

2031

The SGC wasn’t the same without the old staff there. I missed Siler and Walter who had left and even Dr. Lee was now in the Pegasus galaxy. Some had retired, while others had moved onto other pastures. Even though I still looked as young as I did twenty odd years ago, everyone surrounding me looked too young to be in the positions they were in.

“Major Satterfield, what is the progress on the Stargate?”

The strong woman stood before me, no nervousness showing from being in my presence, she’d known me for a long time and knew that it was just gruffness.

“Expected arrival to be at 2000 hours, sir.”

“So, we’ve got four hours to get the place spic and span ready for its old home then.” I smiled encouragingly at her.

“Yes, sir.”

She saluted smartly and turned on her heel and left my office. I knew by the end of the day, the casualness will return, of which I didn’t mind at all.

Paul Davis took that moment to pop into my office.

“We’ve got the teams ready for the extraction.”

“How many in all?” I asked.

“Eighteen. A few more clones popped up on the radar. They seem to lead through to each other.”

I nodded, “Excellent, I’ll expect a report when done.”

“Yes, sir.” He smiled; I could see the anticipation of action excite him.

“Is the cell ready?”

“Yes, they’ve just finished welding the bars.”

“Good work, Paul.” I nodded for him to leave.

“Thank you, sir.”

There was one other thing that I would like to find out how it was progressing and to find out, I needed to go to the source. I wanted to stretch my legs anyway.

Sam’s lab was a hive of activity. Huge bits of machinery filled the benches and technicians were scurrying too and fro.

“Sam,” I called, her head was buried inside a rather tatty looking doohickey.

“Hey.” She turned her head around and flashed me one of her smiles that made my heart do flips.

“How’s it going?”

“We’ve nearly got there, we needed to see if we could get them to a higher standard down here and then we can up-grade the rest in space.”

“We?” I asked. A feeling of fear niggled in my gut.

She smiled again, “Well my team, no not me,” she assured me. “I need to be here to co-ordinate everything.”

“How much longer,” I asked.

“Most probably,” she looked at her watch, “By about 0200 hours.”

“Thanks.” I smiled, took a quick look around the lab and left. It was time to report to my Commander in Chief.

~*~

The following day, the teams were in space re-adjusting the satellite defence system. Sam looked exhausted, but then I could not of looked that flash either. We’d been up all night settling our new inmates into their custom built cells. They weren’t happy campers either, much to my delight.

The Baals were ensconced together with a number written on each of the back of their hands in indelible ink so we could tell them apart. I had already interrogated three out of the eighteen, but hadn’t got anywhere. Each one had claimed they were the original. Janet had taken blood samples, she hoped she could tell from that. This was a relief as they were just as puffed up as the original and it was just impossible to know. It took all my self control to restrain myself and not take a zat and send them all into oblivion.

After finding out nothing from the captured Baals we set about contacting the Asgard and the Tok’ra in the hope that they would come to our aid, but so far no response from anyone. We did receive a garbled message from Teal’c, but we had no idea what it was, whether they were able to come or not.

We were on our own.

More reports came in to say that the armada wasn’t far off and would be arriving at the expected time. We had done as much as possible to reduce casualties, but unfortunately, we couldn’t prevent them all.

We’d evacuated area surrounding the building that had housed the Stargate before it was returned to Cheyenne Mountain. This really was the best place; safe from bombing and we had all the defences we needed to prevent entry via the Stargate.

It was now a waiting game. I decided to try and get some shut-eye with an order to Davis to wake me if anything happened. I hoped nothing did.

~*~

MEMOIRS OF
MAJOR GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Re-activated)

5. The SGC

Chapter Two
By Arrietty


2031

The following day

I was standing in the briefing room when Davis came in and announced that Baal had arrived. Sam wasn’t far behind him and we moved through to the control room by the Stargate. Ships like the old Prometheus were concealed behind the moon waiting for Baal to arrive. We didn’t want him to pick them off one by one as they left Earth.

The new up-dated F320’s were ready; they had stealth as well as cloaking systems. They were far superior to Baal’s fleet. I hoped. Then again, we’d had help from the Asgard and unbeknownst to them the Aschen too. Our biggest problem was sheer numbers, from what we had gleaned from the intelligence collected; Baal had managed to conquer just about every single system lord or goa’uld in any form of power. What the Tok’ra had feared all along had finally happened; one goa’uld was in control, no one to appose him, but us.

We had a large electronic, computerised map thingy on the back wall that showed the world. Radio reports were coming in from all directions and whenever a place was hit by one of Baal’s weapons a red light showed up indicating just how far the devastation had spread. Likewise we also had another monitor that had all of Baal’s ships showing as small grey glowy dots. A cheer went up when one of the dots blinked out as the satellite defence systems did their work. Sadness pervaded the room when one of our cities was hit. We were right in transferring the Stargate, the building it had been housed was the first hit and obliterated.

Sam was in the room monitoring the satellite defence systems and I stood by her shoulder. Janet and Daniel and taken Cassie, her family and our kids to a safe place. Off world. It was something I had insisted on. There was no way I could concentrate on saving the world if my own family was in danger. Sam felt the same, so we had left them in Janet and Daniel’s charge and much to our son’s increased protests about being treated like a baby, we sent them through the gate. This way we could now concentrate fully on our jobs, without any distractions.

I placed my hand on Sam’s shoulder not only to reassure her, but to draw strength from her as well. It was tough to see our world being attacked by the snake that had caused us both so much anguish in our lives.

Sam didn’t acknowledge my hand, but I knew she was aware. She was busy on the computer keeping track of all the systems in space making sure that they fired at Baal’s ships and not ours. From the reports we were hearing there was full scale battle in space. It was hard being stuck down here in the SGC and not being in the thick of things. The joys of being a general.

There was no warning, but a tingling sensation and a flash of light. My first thought was, great, Thor has come, but it was quickly dashed when we arrived on the Pel’tak of a Ha’tak mother ship. Sam fell with a thump on the floor, as she had been sitting when we’d been beamed up. I lifted her to stand and we watched as several Kull warriors surrounded us pointing their weapons at us.

My gut twisted when I heard Baal’s slimy snake infested arrogant voice come through the doorway.

“O’Neill, Colonel Carter, it is good to see you once again.”

His smug smile curled up sideways. I felt a flutter against my hand as Sam was tempted to slip her hand in mine. An instinctive reaction, I wish we could, but once again, we couldn’t give the enemy any more fuel than he already had on us.

“Or should I say Mr. and ‘Mrs.’ O’Neill?”

‘Crap!’ He knew.

Baal gave a nod and two Kull warriors grabbed Sam by her upper arms, too quick for me to do anything, not that I could have stopped them. She struggled and I moved forward to help her, but was stopped by a firm grip on my shoulders. I felt their pincer like fingers dig into the fleshy bit below my collar bone. My knees buckled with the pain and I fell to the floor with a thump. It hurt.

Sam wildly looked back towards me as they dragged her from the room.

“Kill her,” said Baal.

He seemed to show no emotion on his face as he watched me closely. I hoped I’d managed to hide the fear churning in my gut, but I wasn’t so sure after he gave a triumphant sneer. This snake still enjoyed other people’s suffering.

“You’ll get your comeuppance,” I threatened.

He just raised an eyebrow and turned towards his throne. With two strides he reached it and with a flamboyant sweep of his cloak sat down and faced me.

I was seething inside, and I was one hundred percent sure I was showing it on my face.

Baal tilted his head on one side. “You and your lovely wife, don’t look any different. You have a sarcophagus.” It was more of a statement than a question.

“Something like that,” I replied non committedly. Even though I wouldn’t want to protect the Aschen, I certainly didn’t want Baal to get his mockers on their technology.

The Kull warrior was still leaning on my shoulders and he was very heavy. I wriggled trying to get him to loosen his grip, but only managed to get him to tighten it further.

Suddenly, the super soldier leaned back and the pain receded. Baal pointed to the window.

“Look and see your world die,” he said rather dramatically.

I painfully got to my feet, my knees protested loudly with a pop when I stood. With trepidation and a good dollop of dread, I walked toward the window and looked out towards the blue ball that is my planet. Surrounding it were thousands of black goa’uld ships of all shapes and sizes. Our fleet was already in full scale battle. I wondered when the rest were going to make their move from behind the moon. My heart sank, there was no way our ships could stop this onslaught. The Tok’ra had been right, we should never have let one single goa’uld get control of everything.

The ship I was on started to shake and shudder as the super weapon unfolded from the rest of the ship. With just a few well aimed blasts the satellite defence system was obliterated leaving behind a fine mist of particles in space. With dread I knew it wasn’t over. Instinctively, I glanced towards the dark side of the moon. I needn’t have worried about giving their position away as several of Baal’s ships were already waiting for our hidden ships to arrive. It was as though he already knew.

I stood still, something wasn’t right, something was different; this wasn’t the usual let’s blast the planet’s inhabitants to smithereens, this was . . . I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I turned and looked at Baal, he was smugly watching my reaction to the devastation.

“This is just the beginning,” he announced.

I opened my mouth to retort with a smart comment, but I paused because he turned his head to one side and frowned. He looked up at four of the black warriors and nodded once. They quickly walked out through the door. Baal hadn’t said a word. As if what was happening wasn’t enough to send me into a downward spiral of depression, but to find out that there was a very good chance that Baal was linked telepathically to his army as well, almost made me want to give up. And I believe if Baal wasn’t still frowning, I would have – right there and then.

The ship shuddered as if we’d been hit, but I couldn’t see any Earth ships in our vicinity. Another shake and Baal leapt to his feet. I found myself forced to the ground onto my knees by one of the super soldiers. Pain spiked through the knee caps into my legs. I couldn’t help but let out a gasp.

Baal stood over me, fuming with anger. “What have you done?” he demanded.

Seeing Baal so angry lifted my spirits.

“Things not going so well, Ball?” I asked. I let a small smirk lift the corner of my mouth.

He sneered before lifting his hand; I couldn’t move out the way as I was locked in the grip of a Kull warrior. The hand device glowed and seared a red hot pain into my head. I felt my brain begin to turn into jell-o inside my Kull.

The ship shuddered again and I felt the pressure lift from my shoulders as the Kull warrior let me go. I fell forward onto my hands as Baal released his hold on me. My head pounded and I couldn’t see for the bright lights that swam before my eyes.

Slowly my eyes came back into focus and I could see Baal standing by the large window; two Kull warriors flanked him either side. The rest of the room seemed empty. I stood shakily to my feet. The room spun a little, but at least it stayed the right way up.

I could just see between the goa’ulds out into space. Our fleet were being decimated by Baal’s ships. So why was Baal not happy? I asked myself. Then I saw coming out of hyper space, numerous Ha’tak and cargo vessels.

Baal breathed out under his breath, “Sholva.”

‘’Teal’c.’

Baal turned around and faced me. “The rebel Jaffa will not overpower me, I am a god!” He announced as though it was the first time I’d heard it.

“Really,” I answered, my voice dripping with sarcasm. It wasn’t lost on him either. He stepped towards me, anger making his eyes glow.

“Kneel before your god,” he demanded.

I stood still and gave the best sneer I could. “No,” I replied succinctly.

He was enraged, striding forwards he skidded to a halt in front of me. Without his weapons and super human strength, I’d have laid him out then and there, but he raised his hand and the orange glow burst from the palm of his hand and I fell to my knees.

“You will obey me, O’Neill.”

The pain was more excruciating than before, I knew he controlled this with his mind; I just had to be stronger. Pulling on all my resources I fought back. His rage didn’t dissipate but increased with my defiance. He strengthened his power and all thoughts of fighting back dissolved as my legs and body finally gave way and I could feel myself falling to the ground. The bright light began to fade into darkness.

~*~

The cold hard surface of the floor penetrated through my clothing as I lay still. The thrumming of the hand device burned into my Kull, pureeing my brain. This was it; I was going to die finally at the hands of this most hated goa’uld. My only regret was that Sam hadn’t made it to safety with our children.

I heard a crash then the rapid fire of rifle fire. Baal released his hold on me and fell to the floor beside me. I watched mesmerised as his eyes glowed – stark pain showed and then surprise that he’d been hit. Then suddenly, without warning, someone grabbed my legs and whisked me out of the way, not a moment too soon as the symbiote shot out of the body beside it and landed on the cold hard floor. A large boot landed right on the head of the snake and ground it into the floor. Blue blood schwelched out from under the sides of the boot.

“O’Neill, are you well?”

I looked up at the owner of the boot and Teal’c’s concerned face loomed above.

“I will be.”

I turned back to look at the flattened symbiote. It seemed so innocuous now. Not the tyrant he’d been.

“A lot better that him,” I said, pointing to the compressed symbiote.

‘Sam.’ I wanted to break down and cry on the spot, but that would have to wait until I was on my own.

Teal’c helped me to my feet. I wavered a bit, but managed to get my equilibrium quite quickly.

I pulled out a small plastic bag from my pocket and scooped up some blood and flesh from the puddle on the floor.

I wasn’t up to long sentences, I was trying my hardest to bottle up my despair inside.

“Give,” I asked, flicking my fingers towards his zat fixed to his belt.

As soon as I had the zat in my hand, I primed it, aimed it and fired three times into the squashed mess on the floor. I didn’t want any chances that the Kull warriors or some other miss-led goa’uld would revive him.

“What about the clones?” I asked Teal’c.

He shook his head and then opened his mouth to speak, but something crashed into the ship and we nearly lost balance.

“What’s happening, Teal’c,” I asked.

“I do not know, O’Neill.”

“Well, let’s find out th . . .” I stopped in mid sentence. The three remaining Kull warriors were standing still, staring into space.

I walked between them and looked out over the battle field. All of Baal’s ships weren’t firing at anything and our ships combined with the rebel Jaffa were decimating Baal’s attack fleet. Broken bits of Baal’s fleet were careening into each other, making huge explosions that made the ship we were on rattle.

I stared back at the Kull warriors.

“Teal’c, I think . . .”

“You are correct, O’Neill. It seems Baal controlled the Kull warriors with his mind and now he is no more, they have no leader.”

“Sweet.”

“O’Neill, we need to leave this vessel, or we will be destroyed by our own ships.”

“Yes, I agree, Teal’c, but I have to find Sam.” I wasn’t going to leave without her, even if we were only bringing back her body. Never again, would I leave her.

“She should be arriving soon, she wasn’t far behind me.”

I spun around on my heel and stared at Teal’c with my mouth open. “She’s alive?” I asked incredulous and my heart began its usual fast thumping when Sam seemed to be involved.

“Jack!”

I turned back to face the doorway. Sam stood looking rather dishevelled with blood tracking down the side of her face, but she seemed whole and alive.

“We have to leave now. Or we’ll go up with the ship.”

“Good to see you, Sam.” I gave a smile, belying my true feelings of what I really wanted to do. Which was to sweep her up into my arms and never let her go, but practically we didn’t have time. She replied with a quick grin.

The three of us pelted down the corridor towards a large room. Sitting upright was a Stargate. Someone was standing by the DHD punching in the address to a planet. It was Baal.

“Where’d he come from?” I asked no one in particular.

Three more Baal clones stepped out from the shadows aiming zats at us.

“You just don’t give up, do you, O’Neill?” One of them asked.

Another one walked over and said, “You two over there.” He waved his zat to his left indicating Sam and Teal’c to move to the side. Each of these clones didn’t have a hand device, I was relieved, I didn’t think my brain could handle another roasting.

“You, I’ve had enough of you O’Neill. You are going to die, for once and for all; a horrible slow painful death this time.” He smirked.

“What again?” I asked sarcastically.

Without warning, the other two Baal’s grabbed my arms and forced me to the floor. The first Baal stood over me and looked me up and down, searching for a way to cause me the most pain. He came to a decision quite quickly as he jumped into the air and landed on one of my legs. I heard the crack as the bone broke in two places, the pain making me yell.

The Baals were so caught up in their petty revenge they forgot to watch Sam and Teal’c. In a moment, Teal’c and Sam had got hold of zat guns and had felled all three Baals – obliterating their remains with two more blasts of the zat guns. The only evidence left that they had been there, was me moaning in pain on the floor.

The ship shuddered and moved violently to one side.

“Quick, Teal’c get Jack,” Sam called out.

Sam punched in an address on the DHD while Teal’c dragged me over one shoulder and hoisted me up into the air. My screams were drowned out by the event horizon bursting into the room and I blacked out.

~*~


I suppose this is the end of my story. They took me through the Stargate to the alpha site and then back here to the SGC. I don’t remember much at all about the journey, but I do remember that Sam was alive and was with me all the way.

Over the past four weeks I have been slowly filled in what had happened. The Baal clones had been beamed up along with us and then scattered throughout Baal’s fleet. The Baal that Teal’c had so unceremoniously destroyed was the original Baal; Janet had tested the tissue samples I’d collected. I was most relieved to hear she had destroyed all samples afterwards.

The Kull warriors had been telepathically linked to Baal and this was why we were able to destroy most of Baal’s fleet when he was killed. Only the ships that had Baal clones were able to fight back.

When Sam had been taken through by the Kull warriors to be killed, she had managed to escape and beam Teal’c on board when his fleet of ships had arrived. Between them they had managed to get through Baal’s defences and kill him – not a moment too soon either. Another two minutes and I’d have been fried.

Four hours after it was all over, the Asgard arrived. I suppose better late than never and they did help clean up the mess.

Thor visited me yesterday, he was most apologetic that they hadn’t got here sooner, but they were still having trouble with the replicators. I wonder if the fight would ever end. He did say something about meeting the replicator Carter, I don’t know what it was because I stuck my fingers in my ears. Thor wasn’t impressed, but to be honest I really didn’t and still don’t care.

I have my Sam safe and sound, with our two children. I couldn’t wish for anything more. Baal was dead, the system lords basically decimated by him before we finished him off. The Asgard seemed to have the replicator situation under control and our world was safe – once again.

It never got too old.

The End

“Jack, you ready to go?”

“Yes, just finished. Where’s Jacob? I didn’t get a chance to thank him properly for speeding up the healing time. I was slowly going nuts in this place.”

“Not as much as the nurses were.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you bring a bag?”

“Yes, it is here. You haven’t got much.”

“Only a couple of things and this computer.”

“Did you say you’d finished?”

“Yes, all done. Right up to date.”

“You look mighty pleased with yourself.”

“I am. It has taken me a long time to write all this down.”

“So General O’Neill, what you going to do now? Retire . . . again?”

“No, I think I’ll stay on here after my leave and see how things go. It has been quite fun.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really . . . Sam?”

“Yes, Jack.”

“Come here.”

The End