There was nothing nice about being met at the gate--at least not when the welcoming party was a herd of Jaffa with arcing staff-weapons pointed at your head. Jack recognized their forehead tattoos as the marks of the Goa'uld Apophis, from whom Teal'c, his Jaffa team-member, had defected.
Sam stayed on all fours where she'd landed after the wormhole, the tip of a staff so close to her face that her hair stood on end from its electric field. Daniel's hands had been bound behind him, and he was already being passed through the throng. He could only conclude it was Teal'c beneath a loudly struggling mob of Jaffa.
The camera on the MALP had been replaced with some kind of alien device, no doubt sending false signals of 'all clear' back to the base.
He heard the fizz of a gate traveler behind him.
You picked a damn bad time to be impulsive, Margaret!
What he heard next, he hardly believed. It was some harsh-sounding gibberish like "Djeil khoel!" But the voice was definitely Goa'uld.
Jack wished for Daniel's linguistic abilities--so he'd have more words to swear in.
And then he heard the gate snap shut.
The room was silent. Every Jaffa was frozen in place, staring at whatever was standing behind Jack. Then as a body they knelt to the floor and lowered their heads.
Jack could make a pretty good guess what it was.
Sam slowly lowered her head to look under her arm at what was behind them. She then looked at Jack with wide, round eyes.
Teal'c started to rise from the floor but was cattle-prodded by a staff weapon and fell.
The commanding Jaffa rose and stepped forward.
"Who honors us?" he asked.
"That is not your concern," replied the Goa'uld voice behind Jack. "You are of Klorel's guard. I bring these to him. That one is of personal interest."
"We well know Teal'c. We anticipated they would arrive, by their device," the Jaffa gestured to the MALP. "We were instructed to kill..."
"These are mine," hissed the Goa'uld.
The Jaffa bowed low. "We serve the Gods."
The staff weapons were lowered and Jack and Sam's hands were quickly bound. Teal'c was bound hand and foot, and lifted on their shoulders like a giant sausage. Jack tried to look behind him to see the Goa'uld, but all he got for his trouble was a fist between his shoulder blades.
Those extra clips he'd packed just weren't going to be enough.
They were removed from the threshold of the Stargate, and forced to kneel while the lead Jaffa keyed a planetary address into the Stargate's dial-home-device.
Jack sneaked a glance at their Goa'uld captor. It was, as he suspected, Margaret, her eyes glowing fiercely with some Goa'uld emotion. She stood unnaturally straight and still, with an odd heaviness like a corpse held up by a string.
She must have felt his gaze, for within that heavy stillness, her glowing eyes flicked to meet his. She held his gaze a moment, then raised her eyes sultrily back to the Stargate, the faintest of smirks on her lips. By that motion there was no doubt in Jack's mind that this was the same Ra-like Goa'uld which had so recently inhabited Colonel Mayborne.
The gate activated. A squad of Jaffa went ahead. Margaret--the nameless Goa'uld possessing her--strode regally through its water-like surface. The likeness to Ra was such that Jack almost saw her in the dead ruler's mantle, instead of the fatigues she wore.
He was left with little more time to ponder, as the Jaffa hauled him to his feet and bludgeoned him ahead, never letting him recover balance.
He tried to remember the Stargate chevrons, but after three jumps in quick succession he was lost, and felt so cold he thought his bones would shatter.
The third jump landed them in a somewhat decrepit stone chamber where a circular hatch in the ceiling marked the location of a Goa'uld short-range transport device. The mysterious Goa'uld was first to step into it, accompanied by two Jaffa; the stack of rings, like shrunken stargates, fell from the hatch; the occupants in the center were lit by a glow before disappearing. Teal'c was next, still being carried by a group of Jaffa, and wearing a silent fury on his face that looked as though it would melt ceramic. Sam, Daniel, and Jack were transported together.
Daniel looked at Jack, and Jack knew they were both thinking of their capture by Ra, long ago.
They materialized not in the grand hall of a pyramid ship, but on a much smaller vessel. The Goa'uld, who Jack decided to call 'Nameless', barely turned her head to their arrival.
Teal'c was dropped to the floor, and the team was forced to kneel as another Goa'uld entered the room. It was one Jack had not seen before, and he guessed it was the captain of this, by Goa'uld standards small, vessel.
It briefly surveyed the captives before settling its attention on Nameless.
On this cue, Nameless strode toward the Goa'uld captain, in her stately gait. The captain's eyes widened; their glow intensified and briefly spread into the captain's mid-face before fading. She stopped a few feet from him, and cast a slow haughty glance at Jack's team. The captain hastily shifted its attention to the captives, and motioned crisply to the Jaffa.
Without another word, the Jaffa hauled SG-1 from the room, bullied them briskly through a maze of halls, and dumped them abruptly into individual cells, each with no windows and one solid door.
Less than an hour had passed since the team's briefing at SG command.
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