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nightspear) wrote2008-10-06 08:26 pm
Diplomacy (6/27)
Title: Diplomacy (Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen
XXXXX
Thor's Might, Part I
XXXXX
17 August 1998; Nagada, Abydos; 1500 hrs
"That's what your team told us before we came through," Jack said to Teal'c and Ferretti, trying to piece together the bits of information he didn't have, because clearly those missing bits were pretty big. "Warren said you'd found Sha'uri here, so we knew she was pregnant and Daniel was supposed to be bringing her back. We didn't know that we were going to walk into a firefight."
"Neither did we expect that Apophis would come so soon," Teal'c said. "Nor that Heru-ur would discover that Amaunet was hidden here on Abydos."
Heru-who and what? Jack looked to Carter to make sure he wasn't the only one confused. "Ah...those names aren't ringing any bells, so..."
"No bells are present, O'Neill," Teal'c told him.
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn't in the mood for this. "Who did we just fight, Teal'c?"
Teal'c lifted his head, raising an eyebrow in understanding, and said, "The Goa'uld Amaunet, the mate of Apophis, is the one that inhabits Sha'uri. Apophis brought her here to hide her. Heru-ur is the one who kidnapped her and her child minutes ago. It was likely an attempt to ascend among the ranks of the System Lords."
Of course. Because dealing with human politics wasn't enough. "Why? Just for a baby Goa'uld? What are we dealing with here, Klorel the second?"
"No," Teal'c said flatly. "The child she carries is human. Sha'uri called it the 'Harsesis' and the 'forbidden child'. She indicated that there was some knowledge that he possesses."
Carter raised her eyebrows, clearly coming up with some theory already. "Would the baby have Goa'uld genetic material, or human? Because there's the genetic memory to consider."
Teal'c blinked. "I am uncertain. Perhaps the Harsesis child would possess the knowledge of his Goa'uld parentage, and it is for that reason that it is forbidden."
"Peachy," Jack sighed. He looked over his shoulder, where Daniel was studying the DHD.
As if sensing his gaze, Daniel turned and called, "Jack, I'm going to start dialing home. Earth."
With a final look around the room, Jack nodded and called back, "Fine. We'll be there in a minute. Wait for us before you leave."
"I know. I think my GDO was damaged in the fight, anyway."
To the rest of his group, Jack asked, "Ready, kids?"
"Wait--wait a minute. How did Apophis know he could come through the Stargate?" Carter spoke up as the DHD sounded behind them.
"Because...that's how Stargates work," Jack said, knowing that was somehow the wrong answer but not knowing why.
"But it was blocked until today, sir." Ah. That was why. "And if he left Sha'uri here before, it must've been by ship, and he'd've seen that the 'gate was buried until today: exactly today."
"What are you saying, Carter?" Jack said, though he knew.
She shook her head. "This is just too much coincidence--someone must've tipped him off. Sir, we need...to step carefully next time we come here, until we know exactly what's going on. That's all I'm saying."
Jack opened his mouth to answer.
"Daniel Jackson!" Teal'c yelled suddenly, making Ferretti groan and Jack whirl in time to see Daniel disappear through the wormhole.
"What the--"
Teal'c brushed past them and had already reached the DHD by the time Jack could pass Ferretti to Carter. The Jaffa made as if to follow Daniel through, but the Stargate inactivated just as he reached the ring. "The address was for Cimmeria," Teal'c told them, stepping over a discarded vest, backpack, and a sheathed bayonet--they must be Daniel's; what the hell?--and starting to punch in the address again.
"Wait, whoa, what?" Jack asked incredulously. "Cimmeria? The...Thor place?"
"Without Thor's Hammer," Teal'c said stiffly, "Heru-ur has taken control of the planet. It is likely that Amaunet has been taken there. If the Harsesis child is what Sha'uri believes it to be, we cannot allow it to fall into the Goa'uld's hands."
"So he decided to go alone to a Goa'uld planet?" Jack said, furious and horror-struck at once. "Empty-handed? On purpose?"
Teal'c fixed him with a sharp gaze as he finished dialing and hit the crystal. "You would not have permitted him to go if he had asked you, O'Neill."
"No, dammit, I would not, and he knows that perfectly well for a perfectly good reason!" He exhaled hard. SG-1 had to follow him now, which was, of course, what Daniel would have been banking on in the first place.
That idiot.
"If it is Thor's race he seeks, he may be an asset to us," Teal'c said. Jack started to shoot back an angry response when the Jaffa continued, "But it was unwise to proceed alone, so I will follow while Major Ferretti is returned to Earth." Without waiting, Teal'c pulled his zat and ran through the wormhole while Jack wondered why he wore birds on his shoulders at all if no one was going to listen to him, anyway.
"Don' worry 'bout me, sir," Ferretti slurred, wincing. "I c'n make it on my own. Go yell at Daniel f'r me."
"I'll send the major home and then follow you, sir," Carter amended, so Jack nodded and sped through after Teal'c before the wormhole could close.
XXXXX
17 August 1998; Cimmeria; 1505 hrs
The first thing Jack saw when he got through the 'gate was a Cimmerian man standing with a raised battleaxe, while Teal'c stood with his zat primed. Daniel had planted himself between them with a hand out to the Cimmerian and the other on Teal'c's fist as if trying--unsuccessfully--to push the zat down. He looked smaller than he was, terrifyingly unprotected next to the very large and armed men surrounding him.
"Teal'c, don't shoot--" Daniel was saying, then turned his head and said to the Cimmerian, "Please, if you would hear me out--"
Jack stepped forward and called, "Everyone just--hey, watch what you're doing with that thing!" he added as the man's attention--and his weapon--turned to him instead.
"Stop! Please!" Daniel cried. He flinched and took half a step back as the man turned back his way but held his ground. Giving up on moving Teal'c's arm and holding both hands up to the Cimmerian, he stepped to the side to block Teal'c's weapon and show off even better how utterly helpless (and utterly senseless) he was. "We know you have been plagued by a Goa--a great evil, and these people can rid you of the Ettin."
"Daniel..."
"Jack, calm down--"
"Calm down?"
"Lower your weapon. Please. We don't want to fight the Cimmerians," he emphasized with a pointed look at the man waving an axe at him and Teal'c. "We have to help them against the Ettin."
Jack ground his teeth together, but the fact was that there were sharp and heavy objects waving at his friends, and one of them had chosen today to become too stupid to move the hell away, so he pointed his gun at the ground instead.
The Cimmerian was not so accommodating. "These are the people who brought Thor's wrath upon us," he growled. "Thor has abandoned us to the Ettins because of them!"
A more familiar figure stepped out, and Jack cautiously relaxed a little to see the Cimmerian spokeswoman, Gairwyn, looking somewhat more wary and bedraggled than last year but every bit as sharp, this time holding a broadsword in her hand. "If they did not intend to help us, Olaf, why would they return at all?" she reasoned.
"To help the Ettin," Olaf suggested with a scowl. "Perhaps they come from the Ettin's world."
"No, no, no," Daniel protested, not dropping his open hands but lowering his head in her direction in a way that made the hair on Jack's neck rise in alarm. He knew better than to take his eyes off a potential adversary, which meant it was a deliberate gesture. "They are from Midgard, and--"
"The ancient home!" Gairwyn exclaimed, looking at them more seriously. "Then they are our brothers."
"What matter is it where they are from, woman?" Olaf countered, then spat on the ground. "Dogs! They are trying to make us lower our guard. It is only another of their games."
Gairwyn cast an almost gentle eye over Daniel. "And you, child? Why did you come to a place where such darkness has taken hold?"
"I am not from your ancient home," Daniel told her, letting his Abydonian accent grow thicker as he spoke, widening his eyes innocently and spreading his arms to make his dust-streaked T-shirt clearly visible against Jack and Teal'c's camo and weaponry. "I am from another world that the people from Midgard have defended from...from three different Ettins. My sister and her baby have been stolen by the Ettin who controls Cimmeria. I knew that there could be no one better than these people to help your world fight back. Please--I only ask that you let them help you the way they saved my people."
Sneaky. Not that Jack was going to complain right now.
Not that he wouldn't have a few strong words to say later.
"Perhaps we should hear them out, Olaf," Gairwyn agreed. "What choice have we left?"
"The Ettin's hold is too strong here," Olaf said grudgingly, his eyes shifting around the open area warily. "In the beginning, we were able to evade the patrols and strike back at the invaders, but we have lost too many men that way--it has become a futile task. Even remaining here for too long is dangerous, now that Thor has abandoned us."
Daniel nodded. "They have told me about Thor"--he grimaced as Olaf glared at Jack again--"and we don't think he has truly abandoned you. He could not know that Mjolnir was destroyed, or I'm sure he would come to your aid. If you have a way to speak with him, perhaps we can help you to make contact with him."
The Stargate activated again, and Jack hurried away from the ring to avoid the kawoosh. "One of ours," he told them, though he kept his MP5 aimed toward the wormhole until Carter stumbled out. Sensing his presence, she turned and raised her gun in his direction as well, then quickly dropped it.
"Sir," she reported. "I sent Ferretti back home to fill in the general and tell SG-3 to hurry up and get to Abydos."
"Good work, Captain," he said, seeing with relief that the locals were lowering their weapons.
"Gairwyn," Carter greeted a little warily, but the Cimmerian leader nodded back to her without rancor.
"The Ettin never leaves the ring unguarded for long," Gairwyn told them. "Hurry, before his armies find us."
With a nod from Gairwyn, Olaf led the way away from the main road and into thicker brush that offered some measure of concealment. It also offered some pollen, apparently--Daniel walked face-first into a bush and sneezed as SG-1 followed.
"Bless," Jack whispered automatically, thinking that all they needed was to be discovered because of a sneeze, and wasn't this just the best way to discover that someone had allergies when he wasn't breathing filtered, underground air? Daniel muffled another sneeze, pushing away a stray branch, but didn't answer. Jack stopped suddenly, his attention caught by something in the distance. "Whoa."
If they had had any doubts that there was a Goa'uld here, the gleaming pyramids left no room for question. Teal'c followed his gaze and told them, "They are landing pedestals for Goa'uld motherships. Heru-ur's hatak will use one of them for its landing site when he arrives."
"Which will be...?" Jack prompted.
"Soon," was all Teal'c said.
Carter caught up to Jack and said in a low voice, "Heru-ur just left Abydos by ship, sir. Even pushing a hyperdrive to its limits, I estimate at least an hour to get here, and he must have taken some of his Jaffa with him from here to there. But when he gets back, we can expect a lot more company."
"Good to know," Jack answered in a low whisper. "Keep your eyes open."
"Sir," she said, lowering her voice even further. "Have they mentioned the Hammer?"
Jack exhaled. "Oh yeah. Not happy."
"So, how..."
"Because Daniel's a sneaky little--" he broke off before he raised his voice too much. Daniel twitched, showing he'd heard, but didn't answer. Jack stepped in close to him and hissed, "I can't believe you walked onto a Goa'uld world alone, without telling us, without even any protective gear!"
"They wouldn't have welcomed us any other way," Daniel dared to whisper back.
"Yeah, funny thing about that 'us' part," Jack shot back. Daniel winced and crossed his arms. With the terror of his disappearance still fresh, Jack warned, "There's gonna be a long talk waiting for you at home, Daniel. I'm speaking as your commanding officer, not your friend."
Daniel dropped his gaze and shut up, looking almost sick. Jack let himself feel bad for a second before remembering that--oh right--he'd just dragged them all onto a Goa'uld world.
Sha'uri was personal for him. Compromised judgment was understandable on account of that, but this was crazy. Jack had to know if this was the kind of thing the SGC would be seeing from Daniel all the time. No one had gotten killed because of it this time--so far--but if it went on this way, one day, he'd end up in the middle of something he couldn't bullshit his way through.
The path they were taking was indirect, but that was smart, given the circumstances. The Cimmerians had clearly been taking care to hide their passing each time they came through, which must be why Heru-ur and his Jaffa hadn't found the caves they were creeping into now.
The caves were nothing more than a few passageways feeding into larger areas that had been minimally stacked with living supplies. Cimmerians huddled together against the walls, looking up as they passed. Most of these people weren't warriors like Olaf and Gairwyn, willing and ready to strike at the enemy from within; they were civilians, scared and trying to hide under the enemy's noses.
"Sweet," Jack said lightly, looking around. "Love what you've done with the place. The stone really goes well with...stone."
Carter shot him the sideways glance that meant she would be saying a lot more if she weren't so careful about respecting rank out loud.
Teal'c was surveying the place critically, too. "It is well concealed," he approved. "But is there no way to escape if the entrance is discovered?"
"No," Olaf said, a hint of threat lacing his words. "And so the entrance must not be discovered. These paths"--he pointed away from the direction they'd come--"lead to where the Ettin has set his camp and begun building his strength. They must not know we are here."
"Good plan," Jack said. "Speaking of plans...how do we blow the Horus Heads to hell?"
"Horus Guards," Daniel muttered.
"I was going for the alliteration," Jack retorted.
Daniel's gave him a look that asked if he was crazy, which, Jack thought, was pretty rich.
"I'm not sure we can, sir," Carter said. "We didn't bring full gear. It was supposed to be just a short trip to Abydos to help set up a trap for Apophis and bring Sha'uri back to the SGC." Teal'c only had his zat gun and now opened a pack that contained basic emergency supplies but not much else that would be useful. Daniel, of course, was empty-handed now that he'd left his gear back on Abydos, but honestly, he'd probably only brought a few personal journals and things in the first place--nothing that could help here.
"Yeah, I don't have much, either," Jack admitted, sifting through his own pack. "I don't suppose you any more of those pocket-sized naquadah bombs or anything, Carter?"
She didn't acknowledge the joke. "Just some first-aid things and minimum weapons, sir. I managed to grab a few claymores and several blocks of C-4 when I went back to SGC, but not enough to take out someone who's established himself here already. It'll make some noise, but that's it."
"We have to find Thor, then," Daniel said.
"Look, Daniel," Jack said impatiently, "we went over this months ago. I'm all for mythology, but I think we have to admit--"
"Mid'cha--listen to me, please!" Daniel interrupted. "If the Cimmerians have a way to contact Thor, or the people of Asgard, we have to try it. Otherwise," he added viciously, "Cimmeria will be lost, because of what you did to the Hammer. You owe it to them, Jack, and this is the only way, unless you think you can kill Heru-ur with a land mine when bullets can't even touch him!"
"Daniel!" Carter rebuked, taken aback. Daniel flushed and gulped but didn't take it back.
It was all right for her, of course. She'd stood around at the 'gate last time while Jack and Teal'c had destroyed this world's only defense against the Goa'uld. Anyway, when Daniel was in this mood, Teal'c was the only one he might possibly obey, and Jack noticed Teal'c wasn't telling him to shut up and behave, chal'ti, which probably meant the guilt trip was working just fine on the Jaffa, too.
Jack peered closer at Daniel in the dim lighting and noticed, now they were standing still for the first time since meeting up on Abydos, that he could see faint tear smudges in the shadows.
He'd known from the start that going back to Abydos wasn't going to be clean and easy, even without meeting a Goa'uld or three. And since that had been Daniel's very pregnant sister being kidnapped while they were being shot at, and considering that Daniel had actually attacked a wall back there and spouted something in Goa'uld at Heru-ur that sounded very impolite, Jack made an effort to keep his tone calm as he pointed out, "I think you're a little too close to this to be objective."
"I think we're running out of time," Daniel retorted swiftly, his voice steady but strained, hints of panic lacing the words. "If you want a strategic reason," he said, biting off the words, "Heru-ur is about to gain a child that Sha'uri says knows...something...some secret that the Goa'uld want. We can't let that happen, Jack."
'My sister and her baby,' he'd said earlier. 'Objective' was barely in sight anymore.
On the other hand, that didn't mean he wasn't right.
So Jack simply reminded him, "We're going to have a long talk later," and caught a glimpse of his chagrined expression before turning to ask Gairwyn about Thor.
"Perhaps we can gain access to the Hall of Thor's Might," she said. "The ancient tales tell of a hall in which Thor placed all of his powers to help us, to defend us."
"Powers, as in weapons?" Carter asked, sounding interested. "We could use the firepower, sir, especially if it's some alien technology as advanced as Thor's Hammer was."
"If we are to seek this Hall, we should begin immediately," Teal'c said. "It will not be long before Heru-ur returns."
Gairwyn nodded. "I will take you there. But we will have to leave the safety of this place."
Nodding, Jack started, "In that case, Daniel will--"
"Jack," Daniel broke in. "Jack. Please."
As much as Jack hated to admit it, he was pretty sure Daniel had taught himself a lot of crap about Thor that might come in handy if they were seeking some mythical mighty hall. Also, Jack was pretty sure no one had brought enough rope to tie him up and leave him in the cave, and that was obviously the only way he'd be staying behind unless they could get Olaf to sit on him, which didn't sound very safe, either.
"Yeah. Okay," Jack allowed. He turned away before he had to watch Daniel's shoulders slump in relief. "C'mon. Let's move."
Without being asked, Teal'c placed himself to walk behind Daniel, Jack taking point with Gairwyn and Carter bringing up the rear. As they went, he whispered over his shoulder, "You're sure Sha'uri and the baby are coming here?"
"They must be," Daniel said confidently. "There's nowhere else Heru-ur would bring my brother."
"Your...?" Jack glanced back. He'd learned early on that 'brother' didn't mean the same thing to Abydons as it did to them; it was apparently the only word they had for close family or friends, and while he knew blood wasn't always the most important thing...well, sometimes it was just healthier not to think of Goa'uld spawn as family. "Brother?"
"Or sister. The baby." Daniel lifted his chin. "Sha'uri's child will be kin to me, as well. And I promised Kasuf that his daughter would be safe. Perhaps I couldn't do that, but I will not give up the chance to right my mistakes. Or, at least, to save the baby."
Oh, hell. "Daniel, what happened wasn't your faul--"
"I promised, Jack," he insisted.
"Tobay's supposed to keep the whole village safe, and Ferretti didn't complete his mission. So they failed, too, huh?"
Daniel went red, though it was hard to tell whether it was from anger, embarrassment, or shame. "You know that's not what I meant."
"Then--" He cut off that line of thought and asked instead, "And this harsi-kid--"
"Harsesis," Daniel snapped back, scowling again.
"--knows some secret that the Goa'uld want?" Letting something like that fall into enemy hands...
As if he knew a little of what Jack was thinking, Daniel made a sound of frustration and hissed, "First Ferretti wants to interrogate Sha'uri, and now you're actually going to use a newborn baby as, what, a...a weapon? A bargaining chip? Jack--"
Jack snapped his head around. "Dammit, Daniel!" he whispered as loudly as he dared. "You think I'd do that to someone's kid?"
Daniel dropped his gaze even before Teal'c growled something at him. "No, I mean...Jack, I didn't--"
"Here it is," Gairwyn announced, casting a look between the two of them.
Jack stared another second, then tore his eyes from Daniel and looked up at the stone column in the wood. "Well, great," he said, less than pleased at yet another obstacle in a quest that was quickly beginning to look hopeless. "Another obelisk."
Daniel raised a confused look to Jack, then looked away as well and didn't try to resume the argument in favor of focusing totally on the pillar before them. "Not really," he said. "True obelisks are shaped like pyramids at the top, by association with the sun, just like the pyramids of Egypt. This is more like a...a stele, but without any writing. And the symbol at the top is associated with Thor's Hammer, obviously."
"Obviously," Jack said dryly. "So how do we get to the Hall of Might from here?"
"This is it," Gairwyn told him.
Carter came forward to examine it as well. "I don't see anything that could be a weapon," she conceded finally, sounding disheartened.
"Or a hall," Jack observed. He let a breath hiss out through his teeth, trying to think of how best to use their small supply of explosives and weaponry, if Thor was a bust. "Well, we gave this thing a shot. Now, Gairwyn, if we can get all of your people to the Stargate, we can try to hold off the Jaffa until you guys evacuate to somewhere safe. To Midgard, even--that's your original home planet, right? At least temporarily."
Daniel gave him an alarmed look and began to trace his fingers over the stone column, as if looking for a hidden mechanism of some kind. "Hold on; last time you saw something like this, it took you and Teal'c to Thor's Hammer," he suggested, a little desperately. "Maybe this can take us somewhere else, too."
Gairwyn looked anxiously up the length of the obelisk. Stele. Thing. "It is forbidden to touch the stone," she said, pointing.
"Oh. Okay," Daniel said in relief, and touched the stone.
Jack sighed in resignation as a light came down to beam them all away.
XXXXX
17 August 1998; Hall of Thor's Might, Cimmeria; 1600 hrs
It was dark.
Scuffling sounds echoed as people stumbled to find their footing, and he heard a muffled, "Ow," from Carter just before Teal'c turned on his Maglite. Jack followed suit, quickly scanning the area as Carter found her flashlight as well.
"Daniel," Jack said once he was sure that everyone was there and that no one trying to kill them just yet, "do we actually need a rule about touching things off-world that are...forbidden?"
"Um..." Daniel gestured around them. "But at least we found a hall. This could be it."
"Okay," Jack conceded, looking around as well. "But I'm still not getting the 'mighty' vibe." Even calling it a 'hall' was being pretty generous; it was more like an empty cave, bigger than the one the Cimmerians had been hiding in, but not much better in décor.
Carter shifted uneasily. "I'm getting a bad feeling about this." Her light passed over something at the end of the hall, and she stopped, tracking back to the spot to point at another, smaller stone pillar. "What's that?"
A familiar Viking warrior appeared.
"Ah," Jack said, gesturing toward it. "Everyone, this is Thor."
"Wow. It's a...an image, you said?" Daniel asked. "A recorded image?"
"Like an answering machine," Jack said.
And then the image started to speak. "I am Thor. You are brave to come before me."
Gairwyn lowered herself to one knee. "O mighty Thor--we need your help."
"It's only a hologram," Carter told her, urging her up. "He can't hear you."
"However," Thor went on, "only the worthy may witness Thor's might." Gairwyn raised her eyebrows and rose slowly again.
"Oh, for cryin' out loud," Jack muttered. "Just get to the part where you tell us we're worthy and show us your stuff." Thor ignored him and disappeared. Jack looked around, but the hologram was definitely completely gone again. "Or not," he sighed.
"That was truly only an image?" Gairwyn said. "He has not forsaken us?"
"Just a holographic recording, probably projected through that hole there," Carter confirmed, pointing up at something on the ceiling. "Although I really wish it had given us a little more information."
"Perhaps we must prove ourselves worthy," Teal'c suggested, standing stiffly where he'd landed when they'd been brought to the Hall of Might. Jack couldn't blame him; the last time something like this had happened to him, he'd almost had Junior ripped out.
"How?" Gairwyn asked.
Daniel looked around the mostly-empty hall and pointed at the only thing in the hall with them--the stone where Thor's image had been projected. "Maybe he's testing us. It has to have something to do with that stone over there."
Jack began approaching it cautiously. "Carter, want to take a look at this thing?"
Before she could, however, the ground began to shake.
"Thor is angry!" Gairwyn cried, stumbling back. "I should not have doubted him--he is preparing to strike us down!"
"No, he's, uh...not," Carter said, although Jack noticed she was looking around worriedly for an exit.
"Teal'c," Jack said, bracing himself against the tremors. "Remember how we got out of Thor's Hammer? That stone thing over there's gotta mean something."
Understanding, Teal'c raised his zat gun, aiming for the stone where Thor's hologram had been standing moments before. Remembering how Goa'uld technology didn't always work in Thor's places, Jack raised his gun as well.
"Wait, wait!" Daniel called. "Don't--I think this is part of the test."
Not seeing anything to suggest that himself, Jack didn't drop his weapon, but he paused, holding a hand up to Teal'c as well and hoping this was one of Daniel's moments of being very right instead of horribly wrong.
"It's stopping, sir," Carter said a second later. Sure enough, the ground stopped shaking--and then it fell away in front of them, leaving a gaping chasm between them and the other side of the Hall.
"What was that supposed to be a test of?" Jack said. "Our balance?"
"Actually, sir," Carter said, pointing at a narrow beam that crossed the chasm, "that sounds about right."
Jack walked cautiously to the edge, testing the ground under his feet as he went, then looked down.
And down.
Stepping back again, he eyed the thin strip of stone connecting both sides. "We have to walk across that?" He didn't wait for an answer, since it was pretty obvious they had to get to the other side, and it looked like walking across the beam was the only way. "This ledge is pretty thin. You think it's gonna hold our weight?"
"I don't think it's regular stone," Carter said. "We don't even know what it's made of." A familiar gleam of interest entered her eye.
"Captain, mineral check later," Jack warned.
"Of course, sir," she said quickly. "The point is, this must be part of their technology, and they could probably devise something that would hold a lot of weight."
"It's very old technology," Jack pointed out, "which hasn't seen any maintenance in...a long time."
She grimaced. "We should go one by one," she agreed. "Less weight at any given time."
Also, though she didn't say it, going one by one meant that, if one fell, the others wouldn't be taken down as well.
Jack did a last, quick visual search of the Hall for another way out, then eyed the people with him. "Fine. Carter, Gairwyn, one of you go first. You're the lightest ones--less likely to break it. Daniel next, and then me, then Teal'c. No dawdling, but don't rush and fall off, either, 'cause it looks like a long way to fall. I hope no one here is afraid of heights."
A shuffling sound came from somewhere beside him, and he turned to see Daniel inch forward and peek over the edge, then blanch and back away.
So much for that, Jack thought.
"I should attempt to cross first, O'Neill," Teal'c said. "If the bridge is able to support my weight, you will know it is safe."
"And if it doesn't, you're gonna end up"--Jack checked the abyss again--"a long way down. And we'll be stuck here, too."
"If any person is forced to remain on this side, another strategy would have to be devised. I am not familiar with the race of Thor or their technology." And Carter was, he meant, or, at least, she'd be most likely to figure it out. They couldn't afford to find out the bridge wasn't safe by letting her fall through, and Gairwyn was basically an innocent bystander they couldn't use for a trial run.
"I think it'll hold, sir," Carter offered.
Jack nodded, trusting her judgment. "Teal'c?"
Unsurprisingly, the Jaffa had near-perfect balance. It didn't mean he had anywhere near perfect sense, though, because he stopped dead in the middle of the beam and stayed there for a few, long seconds, as if testing it. "Teal'c, what the hell are you doing? Move it!" Finally, Teal'c continued on and effortlessly reached the other side.
"The bridge appears to be safe, Captain Carter," Teal'c said, waiting for her to go next.
"We had to cross worse than this in basic training," Carter said bracingly, walking to the edge of the chasm and placing a foot on the beam.
Not without a net, Jack thought.
She glared at the beam. "Thank you, sir."
Jack winced apologetically. "Did I say that out loud?"
Despite whatever misgivings she might have had, however, she made it across with little trouble. "Gairwyn, come on," she said encouragingly.
Gairwyn went more slowly and with what looked like a lot more trepidation, but, other than a few doubts before starting, she sucked it up and crossed over, as well.
"You're up, Daniel," Jack said. When Daniel hesitated with a foot on the beam, breathing a little too fast, Jack lowered his voice and added, "C'mon, you're not gonna let a couple of women show us up, are you?" He hoped Carter hadn't heard that, because that woman might kick his ass for it, superior officer or not.
"If you knew my mother, you know that's not going to work," Daniel said. Still, boyish pride won out over logic, and he lifted his chin determinedly as he stepped out onto the beam, looking unsure whether he should keep his eyes on his feet or on the other side.
"That's it," Jack said as he began to make his way across with decent balance after all, despite the clumsiness that came with gangly teenaged legs.
Just as the words left his mouth, the ground shook. Daniel crouched down to grab onto the beam with his hands, staring down into the depths of the chasm. "No, don't stop, Daniel," Carter said urgently. "Keep coming, just slide across."
"Daniel, don't look down, there's nothing there," Jack said, inching toward the beam himself.
"I know, Jack--that's not helping," Daniel said between gritted teeth.
"Look at Sam, you can make it."
The ground bucked again, and Daniel gasped as a foot slipped off, hugging the beam tightly with both arms. "Ay," he blurted. "Jack..."
"You're fine, that's it," Jack encouraged anxiously, watching Daniel begin moving again, not bothering to let go with his hands and stand upright as he crawled quickly across. "Keep going, you're doing gr--"
A yelp sounded as another, stronger tremor rippled through.
"Okay, okay, don't worry," Jack ordered, making the decision and starting across as fast as he could without falling himself. "I gotcha, just hang on and I'll--"
The beam--not the whole ground, he could see now, but just the beam--shook violently enough to dislodge his footing. Jack sprang toward Daniel to hook a desperate arm under his just as the beam fell away beneath them...
They landed about an inch lower than they'd started.
Jack blinked, his ears ringing with the cries of their teammates. He unwrapped his hands from Daniel's trembling, frozen form.
"Sir!"
"O'Neill! Daniel Jackson!"
"We're okay," Jack assured them.
"Thor's Might had better be really mighty," Daniel said shakily, slowly peeling himself away to come to his feet.
Carter tested the now-solid ground with a foot before rushing toward them, Teal'c approaching as well from behind her. "What was that all about?"
Thor's image flickered into life again.
"You again," Jack said, annoyed with the damn Viking now. What the hell kind of stupid test was that?
"You have shown true selflessness and bravery," the hologram told them. "Willingness to sacrifice oneself to save others is an honorable trait--I salute you. Now you must add wisdom to courage. Solve the riddle of the runes and I will show you my true might."
"That's amazing," Carter commented as Thor disappeared again, leaving them alone in the empty room. "I wonder how he knew what happened. There must be some sort of really advanced sensors if this whole system is automated."
Jack glanced at his watch, wondering how fast Heru-ur's ship would get there, or if it had already landed. "Right now, we need to let Thor sense some more worthiness, which isn't going to happen if we stand around here, so, ready or not..." He took a step toward the hologram platform and palmed the stone himself this time, sucking in a breath when the room disappeared in a sea of white light.
The next room was mostly empty, too, but--
"Runes," Daniel said.
"And...doodles," Jack added, gesturing at the other two walls.
Carter stepped in for a closer look. "So, basic geometric shapes on one wall, pictures--pictographs?--on another, and runes on the third. Those look like the writing we saw on the obelisk in front of the Stargate, the one that took Teal'c and the colonel to Thor's Hammer."
"It's the same runic writing system," Daniel confirmed. "People on Earth call it Old Futhark. Dr. Barr recognized it."
"Please tell me you do, too," she said.
"I don't know if it spells out a word, and if it did, I probably might not know it, either, because Thor's people might speak something different from even Earth's Vikings, which I don't know much about anyway, but I've been studying the meanings of individual runes, and their phonetic valu--"
"Daniel," Jack said.
He squinted at the runes. "Um. Thurisaz, pertho, al--"
"No, what do they mean?"
Daniel took a breath. "Thurisaz can represent...something to do with Thor. His enemies--that means the giants, which were probably the Goa'uld, but it can also represent Thor's Hammer. Pertho..." He grimaced, thinking. "Luck? Or...Dr. Barr's dictionaries say that it can mean a lot of things, and that people aren't sure. I don't...I'm sorry, I'm not familiar enough with..."
"Move on, then," Carter encouraged. "What's the third one?"
"Algiz--that's protection, specifically from Thor. And hagalaz can have to do with hail--or metaphorical hail, like projectiles in a battle."
Jack glanced at Gairwyn who shrugged helplessly. "We do not know the language of the gods."
"Fine," Jack said, unhappy at the thought of wasting time playing with riddles. "But what does it mean?"
"I don't..." Daniel tilted his head. "A lot of it has something to do with Thor, or protection, or the Goa'uld, so that could be a reference to whatever Thor does or uses to...uh, to protect Cimmeria against the Goa'uld."
Jack gave him an exasperated look. "Y'think?"
"I don't know! That's all I can figure out from this, Jack. If I had a little more time, maybe--"
A voice broke in. "There is no shame," Thor's hologram said. "Perhaps in more time, you will have come of age."
"No, no, wait," Daniel told it frantically. "Wait! Just give me a minute!"
Thor's image froze. A collective sigh whooshed through the chamber.
"Okay," Carter said, "let's all calm down and think about this rationally. Daniel, are you sure those are the only meanings of those runes?"
Daniel shook his head. "No, not at all; that's the problem. Every rune has many different meanings, and depending on the time period and context, they can function as phonetic units as well as...as ideographs, or as numbers, or--"
"Numbers?" she interrupted, perking up as a familiar thinking line appeared between her brows. "I can work with that--let's try it. What are these?"
At some point, she had moved toward the wall, and the two of them were now frowning at it together, the rest the team apparently banished from mind. Jack didn't speak, knowing that this was their last shot and knowing from experience that interrupting only ever served to break his astrophysicist's concentration. There wasn't much he could do with Norse squiggles, anyway, but if she was going to anchor Daniel as he churned out the information they needed, Jack could at least shut up and let them go at it.
It was a weird feeling.
Daniel took a calming breath. "Okay," he started. "Thurisaz is the...third. Three. Pertho"--he stopped to count--"is thir--no, fourteen, and algiz is fifteen. Hagalaz...um, nine. Three, fourteen, fifteen, nine." He turned to her expectantly.
Carter chewed her lip in thought. "It's not any common sequence or pattern I can see. Three...um, how about...three, one-four, one-five...nine!" she suddenly exclaimed. "Pi! Three point one four one five nine. It's the first six digits of pi."
Daniel's head whipped to the other wall where the geometric shapes were. "Pi? Like with circles?" he asked her, stepping toward it.
"Yeah," she said, following him to look more closely herself, "but what about the circle?"
Jack twitched when Daniel started reaching his hand toward the shapes on the wall. "Aht! Don't touch--"
Too late, because Daniel's finger had already brushed something on the wall. "It's okay, Jack. The inside of the circle is soft--I think we're supposed to do this. Sam, pi is...what should I..."
"Think, Daniel," she said. "The circumference of the circle is drawn out for us. Pi is the ratio of the circumference to...what? Remember, we went over this--"
Jack was about to remind her that this was not the time for a geometry lesson, Captain, when Daniel reached up again and drew a line through the circle, splitting it neatly in half. Jack tensed, expecting the ceiling to fall on their heads or some trap to spring out of the walls and skewer them where they stood, but the shape only melted away to reveal another forbidden stone behind it.
Daniel grinned delightedly and, without prompting, cupped a hand around it.
A little green man appeared.
Well, he was grey, really.
"What...the...?" Carter murmured in astonishment.
But holy crap--a little grey man.
"I am the actual one whom you know as Thor," the little grey man said, not seeming to be bothered by their curious crowding. "I am the supreme commander of the Asgard fleet. In the ten-span since I created this world, you are the first to reach this level of contact. You have finally grown wise enough to see me in my true form."
"How is this..." Carter walked up to the hologram to study it from a few inches away. "It looks just like the descriptions from Earth about alien abductions and Roswell Greys."
"Earth?" Thor replied directly, making her startle and back away. "The Asgard have long studied the humans of Earth." Daniel cocked his head at those words, a speculative look coming over his face.
"Did you just answer me?" Carter asked, leaning in close and then backing away again. "This is a...a live communication device of some sort?"
Thor's overlarge head tilted to the side, his own big eyes tracking her movements. "The image you see is a living transmission. I am communicating to you from my quarters aboard the Asgard ship Biliskner."
"See?" Daniel said triumphantly. "I told you we could find the real Thor."
"Thor, buddy," Jack said to the little grey man, because there really was nothing else to do when confronted with the hologram of an alien several times smarter than he was, "you gotta help us out. A Goa'uld called Heru-ur is on his way here."
"Impossible. Cimmeria is a safe world, protected by the Asgard," Thor told them confidently.
"Ah...ye-eah," Jack replied. Thor's large eyes narrowed slightly. Jack grimaced. "Right. So. This is...a little awkward."
From the next chapter ("Thor's Might, Part II"):
"A challenge to Heru-ur's most recent prize," Teal'c said. "If his attention can be diverted to a threat to Sha'uri and her child, the Horus Guards at the Stargate may be called away."
Jack looked to him warily, thinking that this was perhaps almost as personal to Teal'c--Sha'uri's first captor looking for redemption--as it was to Daniel. "By 'divert,'" he guessed, "you mean trying to steal them back from under Heru-ur's nose."
Note: I changed the runes--it didn't make pi in canon. It doesn't make pi here, either, because digits don't necessarily get strung together that way, but it's closer (as I understand it). If I'm wrong about the runes, feel free to tell me. Thanks!
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Daniel talking Gairwyn into helping them. Jack's fury, and Daniel's reaction to it. Daniel goading Jack into helping the Cimmerians.
“It is forbidden to touch the stone,” she said, pointing.
“Oh. Okay,” Daniel said in relief, and touched the stone.
:)
Interesting that it was Daniel who almost fell, and Jack who rescued him.
I loved Jack being taken aback at watching Sam and Daniel Wonder Twins springing into action!
Thor, buddy
::giggles::
And it's always about pi. Or pie. Or magnets. :)
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Yes. This has always always bothered me. Just one of those niggling little things that the writers didn't even try (to my recollection) to address.
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