The Trap
Chapter One – The Mission
By Arrietty
Casting his fishing line into the blue lake, Jack leaned back in his chair and gave a contented sigh. ‘This is the life,’ he mused. Reaching down, he picked up a bottle of beer from his cooler beside his chair. He thoughtfully ran his thumb through the beads of moisture that had coalesced on the surface. Lifting the bottle up to his mouth he took a swig, enjoying the feel of the cool liquid as it trickled down his parched throat.
‘Yep, this is definitely the life.’ Jack thought, taking another swig of the cool amber liquid. The rest of his team had no idea what they were missing out on.
Closing his eyes Jack relaxed, letting his surroundings wash calmly over him. He could hear the buzzing of a bee as it busily hovered over some wild flowers near the water’s edge. Birds were twittering in the trees and a mild breeze swished through the bulrushes on the lake. Hidden amongst the soothing sounds, came a scuff of gravel.
“Colonel O’Neill!” A voice shouted out behind him.
“About time you two introduced yourselves.” Jack gently placed his beer on the jetty as if it was fine china and then smoothly rose from his lounge chair ready to face and execute, if possible, those who dare to intrude on his peaceful solitude.
Standing on the bank, were two men in United States Air Force uniform. Immediately, Jack recognised who they were, Lieutenant Fredricks and Sergeant Adams.
“Lieutenant. Sergeant. What brings you to this corner of the universe?”
“Colonel O’Neill. General Hammond couldn’t reach you on your cell phone, so he sent us instead. He wondered if there was anything wrong, sir.”
Jack kept his inner feelings of annoyance hidden from these two men as he replied.
“No, there is nothing wrong with my phone. I won’t be a minute.” With that last statement, he stood up. While walking towards his cabin, he made sure that they wouldn’t follow him by holding up the palm of his hand towards them.
As soon as Jack walked into his cabin, he grabbed a bag from the closet and dumped it on the bed. Delving into the bag he pulled out his cell phone and switched it on. Whatever it was, it must be have been very important if General Hammond had sent someone to get hold of him. Pushing the necessary numbers, he held it to his ear.
“This is Colonel O’Neill. General Hammond, please.”
Yanking open drawers, he started to pull out clothes and toss them into the bag while he waited to be patched through, sensing his vacation was most definitely over.
“General. I hear you wanted to talk with me . . . I AM still on vacation . . . aren’t I?” he asked, knowing what the answer was going to be.
His facial expression changed of slight interest immediately to concern, as he listened intently to the voice at the other end of the line.
~*~
The following day, General Hammond walked into the briefing room and the cacophony of noise that met him from the very full table was almost overpowering. Apart from the two seats that he and Colonel O’Neill were to sit, all seats were taken. Five members of Tok’ra were down one side of the table and six Jaffa warriors were seated on the other side. They hadn’t even noticed him walk into the room, they were to busy trying to out argue each other by talking all at once. With a sigh, General Hammond stood at the head of the table. Just at that moment, Colonel O’Neill walked into the room, so Hammond took the opportunity to call a halt to the chaos.
“Ladies! Gentlemen! Please!” he announced firmly.
Still glowering at one another, the eleven aliens to Earth turned toward General Hammond. Colonel O’Neill stood beside him waiting for the General to be seated first.
General Hammond nodded at Jack to sit as he sat down and then pointedly looked at Anise and asked her to explain what had transpired.
As Anise started to explain their predicament, the symbiotic voice added to the foreboding feeling that had come over O’Neill.
“Two days ago, four of our operatives and twenty Jaffa warriors met on a planet for a conference and they have disappeared. We believe that the Jaffa were traitors and gave up our operatives to the enemy.”
“That’s a lie!” One of the Jaffa stood up and shouted at Anise.
Chairs fell with a loud crash as the Tok’ra stood up and glowered menacingly at the Jaffa.
“Hey!”
Turning, they all looked at the source of the shout.
“Hey, guys, calm down.” Jack moved his hands with a slowing down motion.
Slowly one by one, the visitors to Earth sat down.
General Hammond leaned forward in his seat and gesturing with one hand, he asked the obvious question.
“Why have you come here?”
“Because,” answered the Jaffa Rogan, “neither of our peoples trust each other, but we are willing to trust the Tau’ri to work in both our best interests.” Anise and her fellow Tok’ra members nodded in agreement to Rogan’s statement.
“What is it you want us to do?” Jack was curious.
This time Anise spoke.
“Find out what happened on the planet and who betrayed us.” As she said these last few words, she pointedly looked at the Jaffa.
“Very well,” Hammond stated. “I will take it under advisement.” Nodding to the occupants of the table, he and O’Neill stood up and left the briefing room.
~*~
General Hammond and Colonel O’Neill were busy discussing the situation in Hammond’s office. They knew that the right thing to do was to help them, but they had been bitten a few too many times in the past.
“This is ridiculous, General. They’ll get us to do their dirty work, we’ll get pummelled and they’ll just accept it as a casualty of war.” Jack rolled his eyes as he finished his sentence.
“Yes I know, Jack, but . . .” He let out a small sigh.
“I’ll have to take another team, Carter, Daniel and Teal’c aren’t due back for another three days.”
Hammond looked up at Jack and stared fixedly at him. “Are you sure you want to do this?” Jack nodded once. “Okay, Jack. You have a go. Take SG-6.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Jack walked down the corridor, he already began to feel like kicking himself, ‘why oh why do I always get sucked in?’ But he knew that if one of his or another SG team had disappeared like this, he too would have liked the help of the Tok’ra and the Jaffa. Annoyed that he couldn’t take his own team, he went to find the leader of SG-6 to brief them on the mission.
~*~
Later that day, it was a large team that walked through the wormhole at 1500 hours, consisting of twelve members. Colonel O’Neill was leading SG-6, four Jaffa and three Tok’ra.
Once they arrived on the planet, they moved swiftly into the dark green forest as they followed some recently made tracks.
Back at the SGC, Anise gave a farewell to General Hammond, thanking him profusely for his aid. As she stepped through the wormhole, twin smirks flitted across the faces of the two remaining Jaffa warriors, while they waited to return to their own planet. The trap had been set.
~*~
Daniel tied his bandana firmly around his head. He had just soaked it with some water, vainly trying to cool himself down, knowing full well that the respite would only be temporary. He picked up his notebook from the sandy floor and proceeded to transcribe some of the text that was written on the walls. Just then, Major Samantha Carter and Teal’c walked into the building, sighing with relief in the coolness of the shade.
“This is slightly better, Teal’c.”
“Indeed, Major Carter.” Teal’c returned with feeling to his voice.
Sam was surprised, as Teal’c usually was able to withstand quite extreme heat without complaining. Realising that he most probably wasn’t as resilient as he used to be, when he carried a larval symbiote, she refrained from making a comment. Instead, she handed him a canteen of water that they had left in the cool shade. Even so, it was lukewarm.
“How much longer, Daniel?” she asked, hoping he would say that he was nearly finished.
“Oh, Sam, Teal’c, Hello.” He had turned briefly around to acknowledge them and then he went back to what he had been doing.
“Daniel Jackson!” Teal’c spoke firmly.
Daniel immediately stopped what he was doing and turned around to face them again.
“Yes?”
“Do you have the time in which you will be finished translating this wall?”
“Um . . . well . . . . Most probably not in both our lifetimes, Teal’c.”
Sam rolled her eyes and then stepped forward.
“Daniel! We are due to report to the SGC in twenty-six hours. Any chance, that you will be finished by then? Um . . . make that twenty-four as it will take us two hours in this heat to get back to the gate.” The exasperation in her voice made it obvious that she had had enough of this hot, dry, sandy desert.
“You mean we have been here for six days already?” Daniel replied incredulously.
“Yes, Daniel. We . . . have.”
“And I thought we had left Jack back at home, this trip,” he answered sarcastically, turning his attention back to the wall.
Sam wasn’t sure if it was a compliment or not. Choosing not to think to hard about it, she decided to take it as a compliment. Ignoring Daniel, she settled down on a large stone block and pulled out a ration bar. Daniel, realising that she wasn’t going to take him up on his sarcasm, sat down beside her and also pulled out a ration bar. Sam pointedly looked at him, lifted her watch, tapped the face of it and said.
“Tick tock. Only twenty-three hours and forty-seven minutes left, Daniel and then we’re outta here.” Deciding if she was going to be accused of being like O’Neill, she would behave like him too.
Sam was feeling rather rebellious on this trip. The transcripts hadn’t revealed anything technical. Although extremely interesting to an archaeologist, there was absolutely nothing of interest to an astrophysicist, ‘yet’ she hopefully thought.
The colonel had managed to wheedle his way out of this mission, using the excuse that he hadn’t had any vacation time for three months straight. “I won’t be needed on this mission. It will be all ‘brain’ things. Teal’c and Carter’ll be enough to look out for Daniel.” Sam wasn’t quite sure if the colonel had convinced General Hammond or General Hammond had just let O’Neill think he had convinced him. She knew for sure that Daniel had requested for Colonel O’Neill ‘not’ be included on this mission, as it was all going to be strictly archaeology. Sam knew that secretly, Daniel didn’t want the colonel breathing down his neck trying to hurry him along. Sighing to herself, she realised that was exactly what she was doing now, breathing down Daniel’s neck.
Just then, her radio crackled into life.
“Major Carter, are you receiving?”
“Carter receiving.”
“Major Carter, this is General Hammond. You, Teal’c and Doctor Jackson are needed back at the SGC, ASAP.”
“We’re on our way, sir.”
With speed and precision, they packed up the base camp in only thirty-five minutes. Daniel was loath to leave the interesting text behind, but he knew that when General Hammond called, they had to go. Teal’c taking point, they started the long hot, dry, dusty march back to the Stargate.
~*~
The klaxon announced the warning as it reverberated all around the SGC complex.
“Incoming wormhole. It’s SG-1, sir,” Sergeant Davis reported to General Hammond.
“Open the iris.”
“Yes, sir.”
Three hot, dusty and tired team members walked through the gate and tramped down the ramp. By the time they had reached the bottom of the ramp, General Hammond was waiting for them.
“Major Carter, welcome home.”
“Sir! What has happened?”
“Please, come to the briefing room and I will fill you in.”
Still dusty, dirty and tired, the three members of SG-1 thankfully sat down on the soft chairs in the briefing room. Hammond started to speak seriously.
“Colonel O’Neill, with SG-6, plus Tok’ra and Jaffa went to a planet for negotiations. Apparently, according to the Tok’ra, there may be some problems. The Tok’ra are insisting that you, Major Carter, lead a team to find out what has happened. They just don’t seem to trust anyone else.” He finished this sentence with a tired sigh.
“What about my dad? Is he here?”
“Unfortunately, they were unable to recall him from a very important mission.”
Sam was disappointed, but knew that this sometimes happened and she would have to accept it.
“Have you heard from Jack at all?” Daniel asked.
The General shook his head slowly as he replied. “No, Doctor Jackson. We aren’t due to hear a report from Colonel O’Neill for several hours.” Shifting in his chair, he continued. “This mission is by request from the Tok’ra. Normally we wouldn’t be sending anyone at this time.”
Teal’c sat still, not saying a word, but taking it all in. He was anxious to get out on the field. Something about this mission made him feel uneasy. Something was very wrong.
Hammond broke into Teal’c’s thoughts. “Go get cleaned up and cleared by Doctor Fraiser and report back here,” he paused to look at his watch, “in two hours.”
“Yes, sir.” Sam answered, pushing her chair away from the table.
Three hours later, SG-1, plus SG-7 and SG-11 were standing ready to depart in the gate room. They were all fairly sure that Colonel O'Neill and SG-6 were all right, but the Tok’ra had received intel that something was wrong.
Deep down, Sam felt uneasy, but wasn’t quite able to pin down what it was. Anyway, she was fairly sure that they were okay, as they weren’t due to report in yet. She and the two teams were only going, because the Tok’ra had wanted them to.
With the words of ‘good luck’ from General Hammond ringing in her ears, she stepped into the vortex.
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The Trap
by ArriettyStory Bemerkung:
This was originally published early in 2004 in the Revelation II fanzine.I would like to thank my Beta readers for a wonderful job that they have done. DJ Boyd, Crash for the awesome work and patience she has invested in beta reading this. Also thanks goes to Starry Eyed Surprise, who puts up with me while she beta reads my fic. And Steph for her medical knowledge and funny comments.
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