A Matter of Honor Read online

  "Daniel Jackson?" Teal'c's face loomed over him. Oddly, Daniel realized he was now staring up at the ceiling from the floor. A new lump forming on the back of his head testified as to how he'd gotten down there. "I believe you lost consciousness."

  Daniel grimaced - he'd fainted? "I, uh, like the view better from down here." Which wasn't entirely a lie. The fist of thunder looked different from this perspective, and he snapped a picture of it for good measure.

  A single raised eyebrow remained Teal'c's only response, for at that moment footsteps echoed through the chamber. Teal'c rose, whirling his staff weapon into a defensive stance as Daniel tried to scramble upright. But his woozy head just sent the room spinning in anarchic circles and he had to close his eyes before his last meal returned for an encore.

  Through the revolving darkness he heard Teal'c rumble. "O'Neill. Major Carter."

  Thank God!

  "Teal'c, we- What happened to Daniel?"

  Opening his eyes again, he valiantly squinted up at the rest of his team. "I'm fine," he assured them, although the mantra was wearing a little thin. "Spent too long looking up."

  "Up?" Jack replied, glancing briefly at the ceiling. "Why?"

  "It's interesting."

  O'Neill gave him a long look but didn't bother to argue. Next to him, Sam stood gazing curiously around the chamber. But she seemed unsettled, and something about the way she clutched her weapon reminded Daniel of the shriek they'd heard in the darkness. "We thought we heard something," he said, glancing between them. "A scream. Was it you?"

  O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "I don't scream." But as he said it a shadow passed over his face, and he abruptly glared down at the toes of his boots. They both knew it wasn't true.

  Ignoring the moment, or perhaps trying to ease it, Sam added, "We were attacked by some kind of creatures."

  "Creatures?" Daniel waved away Teal'c's offered assistance as he pushed himself to his feet. "What kind of creatures?"

  "Strong, skinny ones," Jack replied, recovering. He pulled at the collar of his jacket, and through the soft light Daniel could see vicious red welts forming on his neck. "Kind of human."

  "Kinahhi?"

  "Maybe. Either way, we need to make tracks and-"

  He stopped mid-thought as Sam unexpectedly wandered away from them, heading toward the wide column in the center of the room. "Sir," she called quietly, "I think this may be it."

  "I believe Major Carter is right," Teal'c agreed. "This appears to be the central core of the anti-gravitational matrix."

  Jack flung a wary look at the shadowy staircase. "You've got ten minutes, Carter."

  She turned. "But Colonel, I'll need-"

  "Nine and fifty-five seconds. Teal'c, Daniel, stay with her. I'm going to scout the room, see if I can find another way out."

  Sam bit back any further protests, slung her weapon out of the way and all but rolled up her sleeves as she got to work, muttering quietly to herself Teal'c stationed himself between them and the staircase, staff weapon at the ready. And Daniel...? Folding his legs beneath him, he sank back to the floor and lay down, camera in his hands. He actually did get a better perspective from down here, and if it also eased his hammering headache then who was he to complain?

  The whispered conversation of his friends was the only noise in the vast chamber as Jack stalked through the forest of pillars, searching for a way out that didn't involve a return trip through the Kinahhi Halloween special. Clutching white fingers in the dark, coming out of nowhere... How the hell had they managed to creep up on him like that? No sound. Not a single sound.

  He shivered; the place gave him the creeps. The whole damn city stank of decay and something worse. There was evil here. Not just the ancient evil of the palace's creator, but something else. A sense of dread that was all too alive.

  Keeping his P90 raised, he turned a slow three-sixty as he walked. Shadows streamed out from the pillars, wide and slovenly in the diffuse light cast by the gaudy ceiling. But there was nothing there, no monsters hiding in the darkness. No ghosts.

  He glanced up at the mosaic that was so enthralling Daniel. The face of the god wasn't familiar; it didn't wear the neat, trimmed beard of an urban sophisticate or possess the flat, dead eyes of a psychopath. Jack looked away and banished the thought - memory was a distraction. The danger was here, not in the past. His throat still burned from the fingers of the man - creature - who'd attacked him on the stairs. He had no desire to run into Skinny Legs and his creeping compadres again.

  He checked his watch - six minutes left. It wasn't nearly long enough for Carter to get what she needed, but he was too antsy to lurk in this maze of shadows longer than absolutely-

  A scuffing sound behind him yanked his heart up into his throat. Spinning around, finger on trigger, he scanned the shadows and pillars. He didn't breathe, straining to hear over the hammering in his chest.

  Nothing.

  Damn it. The shadows were deep here, back toward the wall of the chamber, dark and deep. Tension ran across his skin, crawling up onto his scalp as he backed slowly away from the ghost of a sound. Head toward the light, toward the guys, toward-

  Fingers brushed his shoulder. He jerked around so hard he almost lost his balance. Only twenty years in the field kept him from firing. A figure, half lost in darkness, stood before him. Baal! Shit.

  Fear clouded his eyes, suffocated him.

  Baal!

  His hands shook, his voice was dry and useless. But he stood his ground and faced the nightmare that had haunted him ever since he'd-

  Wait...

  Sluggishly, reason clawed through the panic. Baal hiding alone in shadows? No Jaffa? Baal dressed in Kinahhi robes? Like lightening in slow-motion, realization struck. It's not him.

  "Get out where I can see you," Jack rasped, "or I'll put a bullet in your head."

  The figure moved, tall and slender, but not him. Not him. And not white like the creatures who'd attacked them on the stairs. It was a man, and as he emerged from the shadows Jack's breath caught in surprise. "Quadesh? What the hell-"

  The Kinahhi councilor raised a narrow finger to his lips and whispered. "No one can know I am here, Colonel O'Neill. My life depends upon it."

  Still sick with receding panic Jack lowered his voice, but not his weapon, and said, "You've got thirty seconds before I start yelling. You've been following us. Why?"

  A hint of a smile wavered across the man's face. "You did not really think you could evade our security so easily, Colonel?" When Jack didn't respond, Quadesh simply shrugged and added, "I hid your escape from my superiors. Had I not done so, you would all now be in custody. Or worse."

  "And you did that because...?"

  "Because I believe I can trust you, Colonel. And I think you may already suspect that all is not well here on Kinahhi."

  "We got an inkling," Jack admitted, still staring at the man over the barrel of his gun. He didn't feel like lowering it. "Why don't you keep talking?"

  Quadesh paused, as if marshalling an inner strength. At length he appeared to make a decision, both hands twisting around a slim metal tube he clutched like a talisman. "Although the Security Council talks of dissenters, Colonel, there is no real dissent on Kinahhi. No freedom of thought or expression. The sheh fet sees to that - anyone harboring seditious thoughts simply disappears."

  A sickeningly familiar scenario. "Disappears where?"

  Quadesh stilled, hands tightening around the slim tube. "Here, Colonel. They are brought here."

  Holy crap. His mind raced back to the creatures, hungry and violent, on the stairs. "What happens to them?"

  "I do not know. But none return. I suspect they are killed."

  He was probably right, it was the MO of every tin-pot dictator he'd ever encountered. Tortured, dehumanized. Then murdered. Was that who they'd encountered on the stairs? Escapees? Inmates? He lowered his weapon, slightly. "Why are you telling me this?"

  Stepping forward, Quadesh's voice dropped. "So that you can tell your
people. Stop them from signing the treaty with Kinahhi and instead help us to gain our freedom!"

  Us? An image flashed into Jack's mind; the woman cradling her lost child, drowning in grief. "Are you one of them?" he demanded coldly. "Do you plant bombs? Kill kids?"

  Quadesh's face paled. "No! No, you misunderstand Colonel. I have never-" Closer still, his amber eyes were full of fear. "This is the first time I have dared to act against the Security Council. I am not a murderer, Colonel O'Neill. I swear to you." And then, hastily, he held out the narrow tube he'd been clutching. "Please, take this as a gesture of my goodwill."

  Reluctant to let go of his weapon, Jack studied the tube suspiciously. "What is it?"

  "What you need," Quadesh insisted, a hint of a smile returning. "It is why you have come here, Colonel."

  Jack raised his eyes. "And why have we come here?"

  "You wish to rescue your friends from a planet trapped within the event horizon of a black hole." The hand proffering the metal cylinder began to tremble. "You wish to understand our gravitational technology."

  And how the hell did he know all that? "Says who?"

  Quadesh bit lightly on his lower lip, eyes shifting as if considering his options. And then his narrow shoulders lifted in an apologetic shrug. "Your Ambassador."

  "Crawford?"

  The councilor nodded. "I overheard him talking to Councilor Damaris. He had heard you discussing the possibility with Major Carter."

  That night when he couldn't sleep, out in the courtyard. "The rat-bastard!"

  "It is all here," Quadesh promised. "All the schematics held in the Kinahhi database - a copy, of course. They will not know it is missing and it is more than your Major Carter will glean here." He glanced over his shoulder, pushing the tube toward him. "I must go before I am missed. Please, Colonel, consider my plea."

  His lips suddenly dry, Jack stared at the tube. Dare he take it? Could he live with himself if he did? The Security Council had already refused to trade the technology, so taking the schematics was tantamount to stealing from a would-be ally. It went against everything he stood for, everything he'd fought for when he'd brought down Maybourne's rogue NID agents who'd been doing the exact same thing.

  And Kinsey! If he got wind of this it would be the end of Colonel Jack O'Neill. And if Jack went down, he had no illusions about the rest of SG-1. Kinsey was after their blood.

  But none of that changed the fact that Henry Boyd and his team were still out there, still lingering in terror on the point of death. Or that this was probably their best chance of getting home... And nobody gets left behind.

  Letting go of his gun, he reached out and let his fingers close slowly over the cool metal tube. A glimmer of satisfaction passed through Quadesh's eyes as he stepped backward.

  "Thank you, Colonel." He bowed, hands pressed over his heart. "The people of Kinahhi thank you."

  Jack said nothing; he hadn't done it for the people of Kinahhi and he didn't deserve their thanks. "I need a way out," he said by way of a reply. "Not the stairs."

  Quadesh nodded and pointed a slender finger toward a thick pillar standing at the far end of the chamber. "In there is a conveyor. It will take you to the surface."

  Jack gave a curt nod. "I take it we won't be discussing this again?"

  "We will not," Quadesh agreed. "I just pray that I was not seen leaving the city." Then, with a short, nervous nod he turned and hurried into the shadows. Jack watched as he touched something on the mosaic surface of a pillar and a door slid silently open. Quadesh looked back once and gave a half-hearted gesture of farewell before he stepped inside and disappeared.

  In the silence that followed, Jack hefted the slim tube in his hand. It was light, weighed almost nothing. And yet it was heavy with danger, possibility and risk.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  aniel sat with his eyes at half-mast, his interest divided between the man opposite him and the sparse lights of the Kinahhi city below as they skimmed silently back toward their lodgings. He tried not to think about the climb up the side of the building that awaited them, concentrating instead on keeping the pain in his head at bay. What he wouldn't give for the sight of Janet Fraiser right now, morphine in hand and a lecture on her lips.

  To distract himself, he returned his attention to Jack, who gazed unseeing out the window. Even by Jack's standards he'd been taciturn since dragging them - over Sam's muted frustration - to the elevator in the depths of Baal's palace. Daniel wondered if he'd seen something down there that had spooked him. Something that had reminded him of Baal's other fortress...

  He was about to speak, although he wasn't entirely sure what he would say, when Jack moved. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a Mainstay energy bar, carefully opened it and started chewing. In Daniel's current state, the aroma of faux-lemon and vanilla made him nauseous, so he closed his eyes and deliberately sent his mind to the banks of the Payom, where the desert wind blew softly at sunset and the scent of frangipani filled the air. And Sha're's fingers found his, warm and strong. The pain and the nausea receded as the memory whispered gently through his mind. A lifetime ago. He'd been a different man back then. He'd-

  The rustle of plastic intruded on his sweet melancholy and he lifted his heavy eyelids. Jack was wrapping the remainder of his Mainstay bar carefully and tucking it back into his vest. His face was still pinched with a hidden concern. But perhaps thoughts of Sha're had brought the right words to Daniel's mind, because he suddenly knew what he had to say. Sha're had always known what to say, even when they'd been divided by language. "I was wrong, Jack."

  "About?"

  "Trying to protect you from this."

  A slight movement of his eyes served as both agreement and for giveness. "I know what you were trying to do." He paused, turning back to the window. "And I appreciate it."

  Daniel let the silence ride for a moment, then added, "I don't know if I could have done it. Gone there, after what you-"

  "Yeah." The word, short and clipped, cut him off. "Well, they pay me to be a hard-ass." He sat forward, fidgeted and pulled his cap out of a pocket. "What about you? How's the head?"

  A blunt change of subject, but that was Jack for you. At least he was talking. Going with the flow, Daniel reached up and touched the dressing on his temple. His fingers came away dry. "Feels like I drank too much moonshine."

  A smile edged across Jack's face. "That stuff packed a punch."

  "Yeah." He remembered the first time he'd spent the night drinking Skaara's concoction with Kasuf. Sha're had stood over him the next morning with such a look of amusement and irritation in her soft eyes that, despite the hangover, he'd been forced to smile. Sha're, Kasuf, Skaara... Abydos. All gone now, all its people gone. The loss hit him, as if often did, out of the blue.

  Jack must have seen it in his face because he stood up and clasped a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Get some rest," he said gruffly. "We'll be there soon."

  Daniel nodded, swallowing the taste of grief as Jack headed up toward the cockpit. But he'd left something behind, a slender metallic tube was tucked between the seat and the wall. "Jack?"

  He turned. "Yeah?"

  "Is that yours?"

  His friend looked, shrugged and shook his head. "Hope. Now rest, while you can."

  Thinking no more of it, Daniel let his mind drift back to Abydos and the short days that had seemed destined to last forever...

  Bill Crawford couldn't sleep, which wasn't unusual. Sleep was an elusive creature that rarely visited his restless mind. Sleep is for wimps, his father had liked to say. Although he suspected that sleep was really reserved for the dull, for those who had nothing more important to do with their pathetic lives than waste half of it between the sheets. He wasn't one of those people; his life had purpose and if the cost of sue cess was a good night's sleep then it was a small price to pay.

  On occasions, insomnia even proved invaluable. This morning was a case in point. He was staring out from the window of his new quarters, hou
sed high above the city and - at his request - far from O'Neill and his team. A reward, so to speak, for the little tidbit of overheard conversation he'd been able to pass on. A week's worth of trust earned in a moment, all thanks to his chronic lack of sleep.

  And from his new vantage point he was able to watch the dawn maneuvers of a small phalanx of Kinahhi soldiers trotting through the streets below. They were the only people moving, men on a mission. Something was afoot. Another bomb, perhaps? Nervously he moved away from the window and was just resolving to ask Damaris what was going on when three swift raps on his door made him jump. Glad that he was already dressed, he moved quickly to answer. And for a moment he regretted the absence of SG-1. If the Kinahhi had doublecrossed him...? Swallowing a fluttering fear, he opened the door, shoulders back and chin as high as he could thrust it. "Yes?"

  A Kinahhi soldier stood before him. "Ambassador Crawford, Councilor Damaris requests that you join her immediately. A grave matter has arisen that cannot wait."

  The fluttering fear didn't abate. "Regarding what?" His voice sounded higher and more snappish than he'd intended.

  "Espionage," the soldier told him sternly. "Your military personnel have been arrested outside the perimeters of the security zone."

  "They what...?" Crawford stormed from his quarters and along the corridor, leaving the soldier to catch up. Unsure whether to yell or laugh, he couldn't help the triumph that flared in his gut. SG-1 had been arrested? Arrested!

  This is your last mistake, O Neill! I'm going to serve your head to Kinsey on a goddam platter!

  "We went for a walk!"

  The colonel stood like a pillar of outrage in the center of the courtyard, arms folded across his chest. They'd been shepherded back to their quarters after their ignominious arrest, just moments from the rope that would have taken them onto the roof and to safety, and O'Neill was not taking it well.

  Sam watched him from where she and Teal'c stood, arms and legs spread against the wall. The Kinahhi soldier patting her down was none too gentle as he rummaged in her pockets. "Hey!" she protested, as a hand strayed a little too close to forbidden territory. What the hell was he looking for anyway?