Part 109
Website dedicated to Lieutenant Graham Simmons
There is a certain blood-curdling sound as a rusted metal pin is slid against an equally rusted brace. The door of the cell Jack and Daniel were now alone in had such a lock on the door. As the hairy-handed alien squeaked the metal surfaces together the shrill it caused alerted the prisoners to the impending intrusion, so they stood, in readiness to meet the alien. Jack had tucked Daniel in behind his shoulder slightly, and his hand was unconsciously held down and out at an angle to ensure Daniel was well and truly secured behind him.
The door flew open and the creature entered the rank cell, his breath only just rivaling the stench of the tiny room the team had been held captive in for the past day and a bit. Jack fanned the air before his face fruitlessly as he tried to pull back away from the creature as it stepped towards them. Daniel was pressed against the wall as Jack retreated against him.
"Jesus!" Jack groused as he fanned frivolously. "You guys ever hear of Pearl Drops?"
Daniel gave a soft grunt as Jack slammed back against him when the creature peered intently into his face.
"I'm going to pass out here," the older man mumbled over his shoulder between clenched lips.
"Don't do that Jack.." Daniel didn't get to finish his sentence before the creature suddenly snatched up Jack by the face and pulled him from the floor and over towards the door. "JACK!" Daniel instantly reached for him. Jack was unable to talk past the grip of the creature's large, hairy hand.
Daniel could hear the sounds of the soft gasps as Jack hung above the floor by inches. "Please! Don't hurt him!" he urged, coming forth and holding out his hands in placation towards the alien, stopping him from disappearing through the door with his friend.
Jack was gagging now, presumably drawing his last breath as he uncontrollably shook, his booted feet skimming the floor but not enough to get any purchase. Daniel gently laid his hand on the alien's hirsute forearm then, when the creature swung around to meet his eyes, he tried to sooth the savage with a friendly smile as he lightly lowered the arm to the floor, which in turn lowered Jack to the floor. The colonel's toes felt the surface and he took back his weight, the relief almost instant as he inhaled a large breath through his nose.
"You don't really want to hurt him.." Daniel was telling the creature as he surreptitiously lowered the arm. He continued to smile despite his slightly trembling lips - he knew that a smile might get through where words never could. Tone, too, he knew might help the situation so he kept his voice low and calm. "You *really* can’t eat.. us.." He heard the deep breaths by his friend and knew that Jack was at least breathing again, the florid face was returning to a more natural, if-slightly-pink, state again, despite being held in the disgusting mitt still. The alien looked at Jack then back at Daniel. Quick as lightening he snatched up Daniel by the throat, hanging him by the jaw much like he had with Jack.
"Oh, yeah, that's better," Daniel managed to squeak before breathing became hard. The creature released Jack and turned his full attention to Daniel. "GO!" he gagged to his friend.
"No!" Jack returned sharply as he watched Daniel's face grow redder and redder. "Tell me what to do!"
The roll of the blue eyes reminded him what a stupid request that had been and Jack knew it was, the second it left his mouth, but it was instinct with him. "Hey," he said to the creature, trying to remain quiet and calm like Daniel had been. The soft gasp from the captured man made him nervous as he saw the lips grow purple. "Please! Release him..." He also placed his hand on the arm and tried to lower it but the arm didn't budge this time. He glanced at the bloodshot blue eyes and saw the silent plea within them.
"Aw crap!" Jack said then instinct for him kicked in and he gave his best sharp jab to the creature, just below where he hoped the ribs might be. It was enough to distract the beast and it dropped Daniel from the height. The anthropologist slid down the wall and crumbled to the floor, coughing and gagging for air while the huge beast turned towards Jack.
"Great! Now I get to fight you... This is gonna.." He didn't get to say 'hurt' before the alien had slammed his hand across Jack's cheek, sending him reeling towards the door. Jack hit it forehead first, bounced back then shook himself to clear his head. The alien reached for him but the colonel, well trained in self-defense, twisted and hit out and upwards, swinging wildly and putting all his weight into the thrust of his double-handed punch. It looked more like he was attempting to hit a volleyball but the crunch that came indicated that the hit was good - right under the beast's jaw. Glass jaw, Jack thought, as the creature wobbled slightly, gave a rumble of a groan as it turned and slumped to the floor in one graceful move. Jack bent over, grabbed a handful of Daniel's jacket and hurled the gasping man to his feet.
They were out of the cell in a flash, Jack slamming the door shut and locking it before they took off out of the maze of corridors - following the way Daniel had gone when he'd left to go to the toilet earlier.
Once outside, their feet pounded the sludgy earth and branches of tree and bushes slapped against them in the dark as they ducked and weaved through the forest in the hope that they were traveling in the right direction.
They reached the apex of a hill and stopped abruptly.
"What?" Jack gasped for breath.
“Is it me-?” Daniel squinted through the dark- “Or is that a wide open space down there?”
Jack peered too, but it was hard to tell. “Space, I think.” He didn’t sound too sure.
"Through or around?" Daniel panted.
With a shrug, and a quick pat of Daniel's arm, Jack said, "Through," then took off down into the murky blackness.
"Quickest way.." Daniel agreed and headed off after his friend.
*
Sam looked up when she heard the soft scuffle of feet beside her bed. She was curled into a tight ball, her arms wrapped around her legs and her head lowered to her knees as she tried not to think about the team members she left behind. Graham's worried eyes made her catch her breath and she unclasped a hand from around her legs and reached out. He caught her hand in his and she squeezed him tightly.
"He was okay. Alive.." She swallowed hard when she saw the instant relief on the young man's face at her simple words. "When we left him and the Colonel."
Graham squeezed her hand tightly as the swell of relief rose within him. Then he let her go and nodded. "Thank you." His voice was hoarse, his throat raw from suppressed rage, fear and emotions. He looked her over and asked, "Are you okay?"
She nodded, holding back tears through a trembling smile. "I'm fine." Her mouth turned down as she spoke, like it always did when she was withholding her emotions. She saw him look at the IV attached to her arm. "Just dehydrated."
He gave a sharp nod then focused on her again. He didn't have to ask; she knew what he needed to hear. Patting the bed beside her feet she invited him to sit, which he did, then she told him, "We were taken almost as soon as we got through the gate. They bound our hands and feet.." A quick glance showed Graham that her wrists were raw from rope burn, "then they covered our heads with something like a sack and led us to some kind of dungeon area. They, whoever they were because at that stage we hadn't seen them properly, left us there, locked into this tiny cell.. nothing to eat.. no water.."
He sighed heavily and looked down at his hands. She reached out and touched his thigh. "Daniel had a chocolate bar and.."
They both laughed at that typical 'Danielism'. Graham's eyes grew misty but he sniffed harshly and cleared them away while he kept his head bowed.
"He offered it around but.." she shrugged then re-affirmed for him, "He was okay when we left."
"Why?" Graham's word caught in his throat but she knew what he was asking.
"The creature came into the cell and," she hesitated here, not sure if she wanted to tell Graham that the creature had focused onto Daniel. She was too fatigued to try to reason it in her head so she decided to obfuscate instead. As she rubbed her face with the tips of her fingers, she told him, "Daniel noticed the cell door was open and told us all to go. The Colonel wouldn't leave him behind but he ordered Teal'c and me to leave instead." She lowered her head, still unable to relieve her feelings of 'abandoning' her teammates. "He insisted we come back and send help."
Graham nodded. "We just sent SG 7 and 8 through. Let's hope they have more luck that teams 2 and 3 did last night."
"Now that they know where to look," Sam encouraged him.
He looked at the door when a nurse walked in. She past behind him, with a quick glance at Sam's hand on his thigh, then she went out to the office out the back. Neither of them noticed her attention. Instead Graham had gotten to his feet, licked his lips quickly and muttered, "I have to get back."
"He'll be all right," said Sam, very quietly.
Graham gave her a worn smile. She couldn't promise him that and so he just nodded, gave a soft "thanks" once more before he left the infirmary.
*
Jack and Daniel reached the other side of the huge expanse with ten minutes of solid running. Lack of food, and especially lack of water, made them slower than they would normally be and each man's throat was so parched that swallowing brought tears to their eyes. Jack tried to catch his breath by doubling over and putting his hands on his knees. Daniel, akimbo beside him, lifted his face to the night sky and sucked in deep breaths.
"I'm too old for this.." Jack muttered.
"I'm thinking of putting in for a desk job," Daniel retorted, without serious thought.
Jack straightened up, nodded (though it wasn't seen in the dark) then he said, "Be sure to visit me in my retirement."
"Paper cuts and all," Daniel said, also preparing himself to move on.
"This way," Jack said as he grabbed for Daniel's sleeve and dragged him off towards some thick trees.
As they crept through the forest Jack had a strange sensation that he'd been there before. He turned and sensed Daniel behind him in the inky blackness then they rounded the next bend and were surprised to discover some light filtering through the leaves. Jack stopped and Daniel stepped up beside him, peering over his shoulder as he tried to make out where the light was coming from.
"Good or bad?" Jack whispered.
Daniel turned to look at him, glad to be able to make out his features in the low light. "Does it really matter?"
Jack conceded that with a quirk of his head and a shrug. "After you."
Daniel did a double take. "Why after me?" Jack shrugged again and Daniel rolled his eyes. "My Knight in shiny armor!"
Jack grinned. "I stayed back to help rescue you, didn't I?"
The anthropologist huffed, "Really?"
"Could have left you there to become dinner."
"Actually I'm not sure we were to be dinner," he said matter-of-factly before stepping off.
Jack snatched his sleeve. "What?"
Daniel looked down at the hold then up at his friend. "It's just that I.."
With more relief than anger the older man squeaked, "Now you tell me?"
Seemingly oblivious to Jack’s attitude, Daniel pondered out-loud, "Did you notice his interest in my teeth?"
"Kinda hard to miss that, actually."
The anthropologist nodded and whispered, "I think he realized that we couldn't eat him. Not like that other creature.."
"The hood ornament in the corner?"
The young man sighed and nodded. "The very one."
"And all this came to you.. when?"
"When he was choking you.."
"Me?"
"Yeah. I decided that if we didn't pose a threat he might let us go.."
"And you didn’t think this was worthy of mentioning earlier?" Jack groused in a harsh whisper, recalling, vividly, the crunch as the beast backhanded him.
"By that time I was being held off the ground a few feet. I had other things on my mind, Jack!"
Jack stared at him. He hated it when Daniel was right. With a nonchalant shrug he conceded that point but in a harsh whisper, as he screwed up his face and made dimple appear on the tops of his cheeks, he said, "Why did he attack us then? Lock us up – if he didn’t want to make us dinner?"
"Don't we attack what we don't know? What we perceive as alien in our midst?"
Jack rolled his eyes. "Great.."
"We certainly lock up anything we're unsure about. Especially if it’s come through the Stargate.."
Jack reminded him though, still in a harsh whisper, "We feed our prisoners, Danny.."
"Maybe they don't consider that. We're alien to them, Jack. Maybe they didn't know we needed food and water."
Mumbling under his breath, Jack said, "Next time I'll carry a 'Manual on how to care for your captives' with me. You know. Food.. water.. bathr.."
Jack stopped abruptly when Daniel slapped his hand over his mouth. The brown eyes stared ahead at the clearing over the rise. There were two of the wild-haired creatures at the Gate, and they seemed to have some kind of weaponry in their hands.
"Doesn't that look like your P-90 in his hand?" Jack asked quietly, disappointed that their way was still blocked. They were so close to getting home, but still so far away. Daniel peered closer - it did look like his P-90.
"I guess they assimilate the weaponry that they take from their captives," the anthropologist concluded.
“But they weren’t the ones that captured us. The big honking smelly ones did.”
Daniel lifted his eyes slightly and pursed his lips. “Then maybe they killed one of them and got my gun..”
Jack stared at him then decided he didn’t want to think about that. If those creatures, almost like Nox with sharp teeth, could overpower one of the other kinds of aliens, then eat them, it didn’t bode well for him and Daniel, two unarmed men on the alien world.
"Peachy. Nothing like being shot with your own gun!" Jack muttered as he shouldered past Daniel and headed down the slope towards the edge of the forest to get a better look.
“And then eaten,” Daniel added, which Jack twisted to look back at him for.
*
The two men slinked towards the back of the Gate, careful not to make any sound that might alert the aliens to their presence. While they crept closer Jack was trying to work on a contingency plan for getting rid of the Aliens and making their way home free and open. He stopped behind the trunk of a particularly wide tree and, with his hand resting against the bark, he peered around the other side. Daniel waited for his silent command once more but was surprised when he saw, in the faint light from the clearing, that Jack pulled back and started to blindly grope the truck with both hands. He knew he couldn’t talk so he just watched, in complete puzzlement, as Jack ripped something from the trunk. As he watched him twirl it around his hands Daniel came to the conclusion that it was some kind of vine. With a jut of his chin Jack ordered him to do the same, so the anthropologist did. He wasn’t sure, though, if push came to shove, if he really could walk up behind someone, or something, and throttle it to death- despite the danger to his own life. He didn’t protest this though before Jack disappeared into the thicket of trees beside them. Daniel took a moment to clamp his eyes tightly, hoping that – if he did have the strength to do this – he could forgive himself for it eventually.
Keeping the colonel in view out of the corner of his eye Daniel followed his lead out from the relative safety of the trees and towards the back of the Stargate. The creatures were sitting on the slope of grass that led to the Gate itself. In the dark Daniel just made out the shape of Jack pressed against the back of the Gray ring and he, too, ducked in tightly behind it in case the creatures were to turn and see them. Aware of the value of surprise, they waited and Daniel even tried to control his heavy breathing for fear it might give them away.
Jack held up a hand and counted out three to Daniel. Then he twisted and ran, rounding the side of the gate more quickly than Daniel had, and he’d captured one of the unsuspecting creatures around the throat, brutally choking him into unconsciousness. Daniel, more reluctant to hurt another living creature, wasn’t as fast and the alien he’d crept up behind turned and saw him.
The anthropologist skidded to a stop as he made out the fuzzy image of a gun being raised at him. Instinctually his hands lifted up over his head, and in that same blinding second that the gun went off the alien tilted to the ground, pushed over by the sheer force of Jack’s body colliding with it. For a heartbeat Daniel wasn’t sure if he was hit or not. He felt a breeze but it might have been the wind. Quickly he checked himself for damage while Jack yelled to him, “Dial us home!”
Daniel jerked into full consciences and raced towards the DHD. “I don’t have a remote!” He yelled back over the sound of fist hitting bone as Jack punched the creature sprawled beneath him. The alien blacked out with a whimper but Jack knew it was better than the alternative. Suddenly Daniel remembered the GDO Sam buried when they arrived and raced to it. She’d told him before that she hid them now, and would leave it there if the team were ever separated so that all could get home safely. He was desperately hoping she didn’t take it through with her this time. He foraged around in the undergrowth but he had no luck in locating the unit. “Shit!” He said as he dropped to his butt and pushed his hand through his long hair.
“What?” Jack called as he ran to his side.
“The GDO’s gone!”
“Great!”
Suddenly the sound of gunfire whizzing overhead made both men duck and run for cover behind the DHD. “Forcryingoutloud!” Jack hissed as he listened to the sound of feet pounding towards them.
“Colonel?” A familiar voice, of Major Partenkin of SG 7, was music to Jack’s ears.
“Major Party?” Jack asked as he hesitantly rose from his hiding spot. He’d know Partenkin for many years, and the pet name was something he’d given the man on the night they’d all gone out to celebrate his promotion. The man liked to party - a lot – and Jack thought the name was most fitting. This was the only man Jack knew that could drink him under a table, and that, as Jack often told people, was not an easy feat!
The sounds of relief flooded the rest of SG 7 as they watched Daniel get to his feet too.
“We’ve been sent to rescue you, Sir.”
“Good job. Almost took my head off with that last shot though.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, Sir.” The officer beside Partenkin piped up. “All we saw was the gate was open and .. well it was too dark to see who’d opened it.”
“Major Carter told us she’d buried a GDO somewhere near those trees over there but we couldn’t locate it when we searched. I thought that maybe you were an alien trying to infiltrate earth using the Major’s equipment.”
“But you lot have a GDO on you, right?” Daniel asked impatiently.
“Yes Sir,” Partenkin said smartly.
Daniel gave a wry smile that wasn’t seen in the darkness. “Then,” He indicated to the DHD, “How about we use it.”
“Of course, Sir!” The major said then patted the man beside him to dial up the unit.
“Got it!” Came a cry from one of the members of SG8 who had been searching the forest floor for the lost property.
Jack frowned when the officer trotted over to them. “Where were you?”
“In there.” The younger man twisted and pointed towards the thicket of trees he’d just come from.
“The whole time?” Jack asked.
“What whole time?”
As the gate burst to life Jack and Daniel exchanged weary looks then, allowing the others to go first, they waited. Once the last member of SG8 was through Jack turned to stare at the mercurial wall, shimmering and throwing a reflective glow on their faces. With a faint smile kissing his lips he lifted his chin, shoved his hands in his pant pockets and said, “Let’s go home, Danny.”
The two men turned to look at each other, and then they both smiled. The anthropologist gave a slight nod and together he and Jack stepped through the gate, and back to the safety of ‘home’.
<End of Part 109>
Stories on this page are the property of Nessessitee and Slida. Please do not copy these without the written permission of the Author. All Rights are acknowledged for MGM, Gekko and Stargate Productions as to the Copyrights of the characters within this story and no infringement on the copyrights are intended. For the Bombshells Series the character of Philip Simmons is entirely the creation and intellectual property of Nessessitee and Slida.
While the performances given by RDA and MS help to fuel the author's desire to write for their characters in a niche that she feels is present on the actual show, the portrayal of their characters in loving relationships in no way reflects the Author's opinion of the men's private life, nor should it be construed in that manner.