SG1-25 Hostile Ground(89)

He pushed the grim thoughts aside. There was no point in dwelling on near misses and might-haves, right now was all that mattered. “Teal’c,” he said. “You okay to take first watch?”

Teal’c nodded. “I am.”

“Okay. Two hour watches — Teal’c, me, Carter, Daniel.”

“Um, how about Teal’c, me, Sam and then you?” Daniel said. “We all got some sleep last night, Jack, while you were up playing with Crazy and his toys.”

“Daniel’s right, sir,” Carter chimed in. “You should take the last watch.”

He considered arguing, but the huge yawn that stopped him from speaking did a good job of undercutting his case. So in the end he just grumbled “Fine” and accepted the fact that being too tired to argue probably proved Daniel’s point.



In the end there hadn’t been enough room for even three of them to sleep inside Hunter’s tiny shack so Jack had just unpacked his bedroll outside, buried himself in his sleeping bag, and was snoring before anyone could object.

And with Teal’c also outside on watch, it left Sam and Daniel just enough room to bed down close together on the opposite side of the fire from Hunter and his family.

Like Jack, Sam was soon fast asleep, but Daniel had yet to master the skill of instantly switching off and his mind was racing as he lay in the dark, gazing up at the heavy fabric that constituted one slanted wall of the house. The fire still burned, its light casting dancing shadows over the material and its smoke drifting up and out through cracks between the wooden slats.

In some ways, it took him back to Abydos — the canvas, the firelight. But his home on Abydos, although primitive by Earth’s standards, had been nothing like this. It had been warm and dry, full of laughter once Ra had been driven out and the Abydonians had been free to live as people again. He wondered if these people would ever be free, whether there was a way to save them from the Amam in the way they’d once saved Sha’re’s people from the Goa’uld.

“Hunter?” he asked quietly, thinking back to the question he’d asked earlier. “Why do so many people live here, dependent on the Amam? I mean, we’ve met others, people who hide from them and live free.”

“There’s some as choose to live in the wilds,” Hunter admitted, his voice drifting with the sparks up into the cold air. “But there’s thousands in the camp and how many d’you think could live off a few jackers in the mountains? Truth is, most camp folk don’t have the knowhow or the plucks to run, so they stay here where there’s food and family and pray that when the Snatchers come they don’t get took.”

“You could run,” Daniel said. “With your family. You have the skills.”

“But I won’t. I won’t run and I won’t hide,” Hunter said, adamant. “I’m here to fight and, by the grace of Hecate, drive those Snatchers out.”

Daniel bit back his instinctive reply — that the Goa’uld would give no one their freedom — because, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, what choice did Hunter’s people really have? If a Goa’uld offered their only chance of escaping the nightmare that had overtaken their planet then they’d be fools not to take that chance.

But the question it left behind, dancing like firelight through his mind, was whether he could give these people a better option. Because if Earth stood for anything, and Daniel thought it stood for a lot, then it stood for freedom.

Jack might disagree, and it wouldn’t be the first time they’d argued over the real purpose of the Stargate Program, but Daniel was certain that it was their responsibility — their moral duty, in fact — to come back to this world and offer these people something better than an alliance with the Goa’uld.





CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR




“Mr. President, I’m requesting DEFCON 1.”

General Hammond spoke calmly into the red telephone, his gaze fixed on the far wall. There was a pause, then, “Yes sir, I will. Thank you, sir.”

Janet felt sick at the reality of it all and glanced over at Colonel Makepeace who sat, stiff-backed, next to her. His hands were tight fists on his knees, and he looked even tenser than the general.

As Hammond carefully put down the phone, his steady gaze met Janet’s. “Are your people ready, doctor?”

“Yes sir.” As ready as they could be for a Goa’uld invasion, but it felt like standing by for a medevac with nothing more than a Band-Aid to hand. “I’ve had Cassie brought onto the base,” she added, swallowing a swell of fear at the thought of her little girl. “I don’t know if she’ll be any safer here, but at least I can keep an eye on her.”