SG1-25 Hostile Ground(40)
Aedan gave a curt nod. “That’s true. I’ve seen it.”
He said no more, his face closing down into a hard expression that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Jack O’Neill. The room fell silent, everyone subdued, and suddenly Daniel realized that this wasn’t mythology, it wasn’t even history. This was a cold, dark reality. The thought raised a shiver along the length of his spine.
“What about the Stargate?” Jack said, breaking into the silence. “Do the dead guys still use it?”
“The Eye?” Elspeth said, glancing at Daniel for confirmation. He nodded. “Yes,” she said. “The old gods tried to destroy the Eye, but they couldn’t. And still the Devourers fly through it.”
“Fly?” Jack threw a significant look at Daniel. “In ships, I presume. Not with… wings?”
Elspeth blinked. “Neither boats nor wings,” she said. “They ride in fighters.”
“Fighters?” Jack made a swooping gesture with his hand. “As in fighter aircraft? In the sky?”
“Death Gliders,” Teal’c surmised from his place next to Sam.
“It’s possible,” she said. “Maybe they have some kind of on-board DHD so they can dial the gate remotely before they fly through?”
Jack nodded. “You ever see them land one of these things?”
“Never,” Elspeth said. “When the Devourers are close, we stay inside and put out all the lights. Discovery means death.”
With a soft clatter, Aedan dropped his arrows onto the floor and jumped down from his perch. “You can’t travel through the Eye,” he told Jack. “Only a fool imagines escaping this world. And there’s only death for those who try.”
“That’s not true,” Elspeth retorted, turning to face him. “People have escaped.” She appealed to the rest of her people. “Haven’t they?” Some of them shrugged, while others just shook their heads as if bored of an oft-rehearsed argument.
But she had one rapt listener. “How?” Jack demanded. “Tell me how they escaped.”
“The resistance, of course.”
“And they are… ?”
She looked at him askance, eyes narrowing. “Why do you pretend you know nothing of them when you’re wearing their symbol on your arm?”
Jack’s gaze darted to Daniel’s. “This?” he said, touching his SG-1 patch.
Elspeth shook her head impatiently and pushed up her sleeve, revealing a tattoo on her arm. “This,” she said.
The Earth glyph.
Jack’s eyebrows rose. “Okay,” he said cautiously. “Daniel, any ideas?”
“Well, think about it,” he said, mind racing ahead to make the connections. “If you’re looking for a symbol of resistance, of a place of safety, that’s a pretty good one.”
“You mean because of what happened to Ra?”
Daniel nodded. “Stories are powerful,” he said. “They spread fast and they’re almost impossible to stop. Over time they evolve into legends and myths, but there’s usually a kernel of truth in there somewhere.” He brushed a finger over Elspeth’s tattoo. “And there it is.”
“The resistance is no legend,” Elspeth insisted, pulling down her sleeve. “It’s real.” She threw a defiant look at Aedan, as if daring him to object. “They’re led by a man called Dix, and he’s helped thousands to escape this world and join them.”
“Through the Stargate?” Jack didn’t sound convinced and neither was Daniel. No one was escaping covertly through a defunct Stargate, with no DHD, that was the only thing standing for miles around.
Elspeth shook her head. “I don’t know how. I just know that if you find him, he’ll get you out.”
“Elspeth, stop it,” Aedan said at last, weary and frustrated. “Stop your nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense!” She turned back to Daniel. “Dix serves the old gods,” she said, “and the resistance is going to help them return and save us. The old gods will drive out the Devourers and we’ll be free again.”
“The ‘old gods’,” Teal’c said darkly, “will not free you. They will enslave you.”
Elspeth folded her arms across her chest and fixed Teal’c with a hard look. “Well, I’d rather serve the old gods than feed the Devourers.”
“Then you know nothing of slavery.”
“And you know nothing of the Amam.”
Teal’c glared at her and she glared right back. Daniel had to swallow a smile at the sight of this stripling girl going toe-to-toe with Teal’c.