Jack reappeared, running his hand along the tank’s walls. He tilted his head back and squinted. Bright yellow light pulsed across his face from whatever was out of view on top of the tank. With a scowl, he dropped his head and paused.
Daniel wished he could understand just what Yu’s intentions were and why he was showing Jack — and all of them, really — this cavern. What was in it that was so important?
On the display, Jack — being Jack — touched a tube. A burst of blue-white light raced down the tube and he jumped back, cursing. The tube reverted to its steady yellow glow.
The Goa’uld chuckled. “Intelligence is the second quality of a good leader.”
“Yeah, well, Jack’s never been the smartest — ”
Yu shook his head. “On the contrary, his demonstrated capacity for strategy and tactics has had much to do with the Tau’ri’s success, though he should be far stricter with his ranks.” He pointedly stared at Daniel.
“You mean me?” That was absurd. If anything, Jack’s relentless push for target practice was what started this whole mess.
No. That wasn’t true. As Daniel watched Jack continue to examine the tank, he realized he was lying to himself. Jack hadn’t started anything. Yu was the one who’d manipulated him. He’d manipulated all of them.
Which again begged the question. Why?
He glimpsed at his captor from the corner of his eye. Yu wrung his hands repeatedly, as if he was nervous. It was a first for the Goa’uld, leading Daniel to wonder what was in that cavern.
Yu must have been aware Daniel was watching him because he stopped and slid his hands into the opposing sleeves of his jacket.
On the display, Jack turned around. “
Carter, got anything
?”
“
Working on it, sir
,” Sam called out from somewhere off out of sight.
“
You’ll figure it out.
” He went back to studying the tank.
Yu grunted. “O’Neill is too lenient, but he does exhibit great abundance in the fourth quality of a leader.”
“Trust,” Daniel replied bitterly. The very thing which seemed to be in short supply with Jack since Daniel’s return.
“The warrior must trust his leader as well, if they are to succeed,” Yu said.
Daniel considered that a moment. He did trust Jack, when it came to military matters. It was the other issues —
“My lord!” Oshu jabbed a finger at the com device. Jack was poking at one of the tubes with the business end of his zat. “Permit me to stop the Tau’ri commander before — ”
“You will go nowhere,” Yu ordered, turning back to the
Wéiqí
board. The Goa’uld plunk down another stone by the last dragon. “The game must be played out. O’Neill must now demonstrate if he has the fifth quality required.”
Surprised at Yu’s sudden nonchalance, Daniel raised an eyebrow. “What’s the fifth quality?”
“Compassion.”
* * *
A throbbing hum echoed across the cavern as Jack returned to Carter’s side. She’d dropped the scanner on the ground and had put her head between her knees.
He put a hand on her good shoulder. “Don’t fall asleep on me, Carter. Frasier will have my hide.”
She groaned. “Nauseous, sir.”
“Stay put,” he assured her. “I’ll zat this thing bye-bye, we’ll grab our team, and then head back to the ship and that bottle of aspirin I promised you.”
“Yes, sir,” was the only reply he got. She didn’t even smile at his half-assed attempt at a pep talk.
Not good.
He stood up and studied the tank again. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the light on top.
A miniature sun? Even he knew enough to recognize solar energy would make the perfect power source. No care. No feeding. The thing just was, though how Yu managed to have something so insane in his possession was beyond Jack’s comprehension.
He walked back over to the tank and considered his options. The trick would be getting high enough up to zat it into oblivion. He could shoot out the tank and hope the power source went with it, but with Yu looking on, knowing his location, Jack knew he’d have only one shot to get rid of this thing before the Goa’uld and his sidekicks took him out.
There wasn’t any way to climb the tank. The sides were too smooth, and there weren’t any seams or bolts. Nothing to use as a hand or foot hold. He did, however, see some writing near the top. The letters sort of reminded him of the Ancient language, all square edges but narrow. He stared at them a bit longer and then gave it up. Besides, it wasn’t like he’d be able to translate the words, even if he could see them up close.
Ancient writing was Daniel’s thing.
Shooting out bad guys was Jack’s.
When they’d first entered the room, he’d seen a few random crates. Maybe he could pile them high enough to get closer.
He took a step back and his heels hit something. He looked down and for the first time noticed a slightly raised rectangular metal frame, maybe six feet in length. It held a black opaque panel in place. One of the tubes running down the side of the tank fed into one side of the frame.
“What the hell?” he muttered to himself.
Kneeling down, Jack ran a hand along a rubber-like seal which secured the panel to the frame. It was clean, almost too clean. Now that he thought about it, the entire cavern was pretty damn dust free. No easy task, considering how the whole thing was carved out of rock.
He tried pulling back the seal. It wouldn’t budge. Sliding over by where the tube fed in, he considered ripping the thing out. Maybe that would shut off the emitter. He grabbed hold of the tube, its yellow light turning blue again as he wrapped his hands around it. The tube’s temperature shifted from hot to cold as he tightened his grasp. Odd little side effect, but at the moment, he had bigger things to worry about. Bracing his feet against the frame, he tugged the tube toward him.
No luck.
He let go and the tube reverted back to its yellow pulsing light. Looking over at Carter, he considered asking for her help, but decided in her present condition, it was best to leave her alone. The only way out was up to Jack and he knew it.
That’s when he noticed the small hole to the side of the tube. Flipping end-over-end, he crouched down and looked more closely. It wasn’t really a hole, more like a depression on the side of the frame. A tear-drop shaped depression about the size of his thumb.
He’d seen that shape before.
“It can’t be this easy,” he mumbled as he reached under his t-shirt. He pulled out the jade pendant Jacob gave him to go through the forcefield. Same size, same shape.
He took the pendant off his neck and pressed it into the hole. With a whoosh, the panel slid back.
Inside, a young Asian boy opened his eyes.
“Uh… Carter?” Jack shot up. “We’ve got company.”
She stirred but didn’t raise her head.
“
Wo meng
?” The boy pulled himself up to a sitting position. He was dressed in a loose-fitting pair of white pants, but that was it. No shirt, no socks, no shoes.
Which made sense, considering how hot it was in the room.
As Jack peered back down at the boy, a sick thought occurred to him: Was this boy a future host for Yu?
Not if he could help it.
Reaching in, he grabbed the boy’s arm and pulled him out. “It’s okay. You’re safe.” He sat the kid down next to him.
“You wanna tell me your name?”
“
Wo meng
?”
Sounded more like a question than a name.
“Who the heck are you?”
Before Jack could stop him, the boy climbed into his lap and gazed up at him. Taking the kid by the arms, he held him back to get a good look.
The boy was human, maybe around nine or ten years of age. He had dark hair, a square jaw, and pitch-black pupils flecked with green around the edges.
Just like someone else he’d recently met.
“Holy crap.” The resemblance hit Jack like a ton of bricks. “You’re the spitting image of Huang.”
The kid clung to Jack as he clambered to his feet, repeating the same words over and over again. Whatever ‘
wo meng
’ meant, he was pretty sure it wasn’t Goa’uld. It sounded Chinese, though for all he knew, the kid was ordering takeout.
A tacky thought, but without Daniel around to translate, it was the best Jack could do.
Taking the boy in hand, he stepped back further from the tank and looked up at the top again. What the hell was going on here?
“
Wo meng
?”
Jack shook his head. “Good question, kid. I haven’t a clue.”
There were four tubes hanging down from the top. The kid’s panel had been attached to one of them. So where did the other three go?
Down the other side, nimwit
.
With a good mental kick to the ass, he snatched the jade pendant off the panel’s side and ran around the tank, dragging the kid along with him.
Three more paneled boxes later, Jack found himself surrounded by four very young, and very terrified, Chinese boys. No two of them looked the same except for their white pajama pants. While the first kid was a ringer for Huang, the other three varied in height, weight, and even physique. One kid had a broad face, another one’s was narrow. The fourth kid’s big eyes practically bulged from his face.
Then the first kid ran over to Carter and wrapped his arms around her. As she raised her head, the boy began to cry.
That just broke the dam. All four of the kids started to wail.
“Sir? What’s happening… who are these boys?”
Jack hurried over to her and clumsily patted the kid’s head, trying to calm him down. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay.” He kneeled down. “We’re going to get out of here.”
“
Wo meng
?”
Jack raised his hands up, hoping it was the universal language for ‘not a clue.’
It didn’t help. All four kept wailing.
There was nothing he hated more than hearing kids cry.
Not because the sound was annoying, though at the moment it wasn’t helping with the thinking.
No. Jack hated hearing kids cry because they deserved better. Kids were supposed to be happy. They were supposed to play ball. Run around with a dog at their heels. Have good and happy times.
Like Charlie did before he died.
The kid who looked like he could be Huang’s grandson climbed into Carter’s lap and laid his head on her chest. She put an arm around him, but the boy kept on sobbing.
Within seconds, the other three joined them, wailing as if their lives depended on it. Jack pulled them down between himself and Carter. He tried to calm them down with shoulder pats and soft words, but the language barrier wasn’t helping.
Jack remembered a time it had been next to impossible to console his own son. It happened only a few months before the accident. While sliding into home base during a Little League game, Charlie had skinned off a good six-inch strip of the skin along the side of his leg. All the soothing words in the world did absolutely nothing.
Instead, coin tricks had done the trick, along with a whopping double scoop of chocolate ice cream.
Or, more precisely, distraction with a capital D.
Jack didn’t have any coins, didn’t have any food, though he did have something that might work. He ripped open his vest pocket and pulled out his Zippo.
Clink.
Four heads shot up in unison, their crying stopped.
Carter raised hers more slowly. “Sir?”
“Amazing what interests rug rats, huh?” Jack thumbed the wheel and the flame sparked up. A collective gasp ran through the gaggle of kids.
Snap.
He ran the Zippo through its paces a few more times, making sure they each knew how to operate it without burning themselves. Each time he flipped it open and ignited the lighter, their eyes shone with excitement.
The boys’ shared wonder reminded him of how thrilled Skaara had been when Jack introduced him to the modern miracle of the Zippo eight very long years ago.
One of the boys reached out and tugged Carter’s hair. She groaned.
“Still hurting, Major?”
“Sorry, sir… I’m — ”
“Don’t apologize.” He stood up. “It’s time to get out of here.” Handing off his lighter to the mini-Huang, he shooed them off Carter. They ran back over to the tank and sat down on one of the paneled boxes.
With the kids distracted, he could check out the emitter again, figure out how shut the damn thing off. Otherwise, any possibility of getting out alive was next to none.
Besides, he now had four kids to worry about, plus extracting his team. Both mattered. To use one of Carter’s gambling analogies, it was time to double down, all or nothing.
He pulled his zat back out from its holster and headed toward the emitter tank.
* * *
“Are those future hosts?” Daniel demanded, whirling toward Lord Yu. “My god, I almost forgot how evil your kind can be.”
The Goa’uld didn’t say a word. With stoic focus, he kept his eyes on the screen, his hands within the folds of his sleeves.
“Daniel Jackson,” called Teal’c.
Daniel turned toward his friend and team mate. Beside him, Oshu, Lao Dan, Zheng and Kong Qiu… All four of them watched the communication device, their faces each twisted in obvious anguish.
“Are those your sons?” Teal’c asked the Jaffa.
Startled, Daniel looked back at the image of the boys, and then back at the Royal Guard. Teal’c was right. Each guard strongly resembled one of the boys. There was nothing unusual about Jaffa having children; Teal’c had Rya’c, after all.
“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why lock your children up? I thought — ”
“They are not our sons,” Oshu announced.
“Really?” Daniel raised an eyebrow. “Then whose — ?”
“In a manner of speaking, they are mine,” Yu said gruffly.
Daniel glanced at the boys again. None of them looked even remotely like Yu. He said so.
Yu shook his head. “I said, in a manner of speaking.”
“So… they’re not yours?”
Yu glanced over his shoulder at the jade statue of the woman and children by the back screen.
Daniel noticed the Goa’uld’s almost wistful expression. Pieces of the puzzle that were Lord Yu began to click into place.