Solid blood of the spirits
Disclaimer: I don't own any of it - I'm not nearly that creative. Please don't sue, I'm a poor student!
Summary: During SG1's first mission after Jack's torture by Baal, he is still struggling to come to terms with what happened to him. An interesting discovery and unexpected arrival while off-world places the team and Earth itself in danger. SamJacklater ofcourse! Please R&R!
Timeframe: Just after "Abyss" from Season 6. It's disappointing that I can't have Daniel as part of SG1, but you never know... he was only ascended so he may make a cameo.
Rating: I'm going to say "T" to be on the safe side, but apart from a bit of language and possible mushy Sam/Jack stuff later (which won't go too far for fear of the cheese factor) I doubt it'll live up to that.
Genre: In alphabetical order – action/adventure/angst/romance/partridge-in-a-pear-tree
Chapter 1 - I spy, with my little eye…
Jack O'Neill was perched rather uncomfortably on a rock. He contemplated the same expanse of wall ahead of him wondering whether the mission they were on would ever finish. The swooping lights of Teal'c's and Jonas' P-90s lit up small tracts of the cave walls, but for all intents and purposes their surroundings were void of any light. And yet, the stargate was only metres behind them. The lack of any light source didn't bother him as much as he felt the mission was a complete waste of time.
The whole team had just come off some enforced downtime and it felt like they'd been given the most unchallenging-looking mission available. He felt a twinge of unease as he remembered why they'd been on downtime. Apparently the shrinks thought being repeatedly tortured and killed was reason enough for him to go loopy unless he was forced to sit and do nothing for a while. Truth be told, the last thing he had wanted to do after being trapped in Baal's clutches was be separated from everything that was familiar to him. The SGC was his downtime – leaving it only made him feel as if he was trapped from everything he knew again.
"I've got it sir!" He was snapped back to attention by the sound of Sam Carter's voice, who was sitting on what looked to be an equally uncomfortable rock a couple of metres away from him.
"Huh?" he looked at her, confused.
"Something beginning with 'n'," she looked at him exasperatedly. "It's 'nothing' isn't it?"
He'd forgotten they were playing 'I Spy'. "Ah right, yes." Honestly he couldn't remember what it had been, however considering they were essentially looking into a black void most of the time, it was entirely possible that 'nothing' was the answer. "That took a while, I'd forgotten we were playing." His voice was distant.
He looked away off into the black expanse around him again, leaving Sam to her own thoughts. For her to be sitting, bored, and playing I Spy was really telling. Apparently Jonas had found some cave markings but they didn't appear to be related to any alien race – good or bad – they had encountered so far and so Carter was just as much the token military presence as he usually was. He felt like they'd been there for hours. Surely Daniel had been faster than this… he cringed inwardly at the mention of his name. Even if he was 'ascended' or whatever, that didn't help SG1 – Jonas was good, but no-one could replace Daniel Jackson.
"Um Sir?" Sam's voice was laced with concern. "It only took me about 30 seconds…" She looked intently at his unmoving profile, wondering what was happening in his head. He didn't seem to have registered that she'd spoken at all. "Sir!" she imbued her voice with force to attract his attention.
"Wha? Is it time to go?" Jack was still lost in his thoughts.
Sam stood up from where she was and moved the two steps over to where Jack was sitting. Crouching down in front of him, she looked him square in the eye.
"Are you sure you shouldn't have taken some more leave?" She enquired tentatively, not wanting to annoy the increasingly volatile Colonel.
Jack shook himself out of his detached state reluctantly and searched his mind for an appropriate answer to give Carter. "I'm fine Carter, just bored." He grumbled irritably. Seeing the mildly hurt look on her face, he softened his stance slightly, running his fingers through his hair. "Anyway, it's not as if they gave us a rigorous mission" he motioned to the emptiness surrounding them. "Not even a tree-planet… and I was going stir crazy at home, wouldn't you?"
Sam nodded almost imperceptibly. Although she had no idea how she would manage in his place, she was sure that being barred from her lab would have an adverse effect on her ability to deal with it. Standing up and stepping away from him she looked aimlessly around the caves again, letting out a long sigh. "So, another round of 'I spy'?" She decided it was better to keep his mind focussed on something, even if it was a child's game.
Before Jack could answer, the relative silence of the cave was broken suddenly by the sound of Jonas' excited voice.
"Colonel! Over here!" he wasn't shouting, for fear of causing a break in, but his voice echoed loudly all the same.
Jack hoisted himself up off the rock and winced at the stiffness that had taken over his tired legs. "God I'm getting old," he grumbled to no-one in particular. "We've walked, what, four metres since being here and already I feel like I'm getting arthritis in my knees."
Sam giggled slightly as she saw him struggle to his feet. "I'll get you a walking frame for your birthday, sir." She was looking ahead of her as they walked towards Jonas and Teal'c's position so he couldn't see her expression, which was classically deadpan.
Jack stopped briefly before shaking his head and continuing after her. She had been increasingly playful during this mission – probably the boredom – but it was still strange. It wasn't often that he was the one left without a response to someone's sarcastic quip.
As they neared Jonas and Teal'c, Jack could see that they had indeed found something. Everywhere in the many rooms of the underground caves they were in had some sort of markings on them, but these ones were immediately distinguishable from the others – they were in goa'uld.
As Sam approached she too saw the significance of the markings Jonas was looking at and crowded behind him to see what they said. The inscriptions were interspersed with rudimentary drawings and depictions of what appeared to be landmarks, but appeared to have no correlation with the text.
"What have we got?" Jack tried to sound business-like but only succeeded in sounding slightly annoyed. "Is there something interesting about this place after all?"
Jonas quickly finished reading the text in front of him and looked meaningfully at Teal'c, who raised his eyebrow, presumably expressing his intrigue at the words written before them.
"Actually, Colonel," Jonas was speaking slowly, trying to contain the rising excitement in his voice. "We do."
"Oh my God," Sam had just cast her eye on the wall and looked to the newest SG1 member. "Does this say what I think it does?"
"Hey!" Jack sounded hurt. "Someone wanna help me out here? All I see are weird squiggles and pictures of what looks like a massive rock," he paused momentarily, "Ironically enough, drawn on a rock." He added with humour, pleased to see a smile tug at Sam's lips.
"Ok," Jonas began, trying to put it in the most succinct form, "Apparently this is what's called Turramulli's cave, in the Dreamland – a world populated by some beings called Quinkins. It was here that a race of these beings called the Timara hid what's referred to as 'solid blood of the spirits' after defeating this Turramulli and his guards, referred to as the Imjim." Jonas was indicating separate pictures and symbols as he spoke of the characters. "Apparently, though," he continued, "they moved this 'solid blood' many years ago when it transpired that Turramulli wasn't in fact dead and that he was returning to claim this precious commodity."
Jack looked at Jonas, completely bewildered. "Turramulli? Quinkins? Solid blood! What on earth does all that mean?"
"Sir, it's likely that Turramulli was a Goa'uld and the 'solid blood' is naquada." Sam looked at Teal'c as she said this to make sure she was understanding it correctly.
"And the supposed good guys… the Ti-whatevers? Or the bad guys for that matter?" Jack looked to all three of them, feeling completely lost.
"I believe that the word timara may be referring to the Asgard, O'Neill." Teal'c deep voice seemed to reverberate throughout the cave for minutes every time he spoke. "There is a visual depiction of this being here." He motioned to the wall, where indeed there was a rudimentary drawing of what appeared to be a skinny biped with an abnormally large head. "In the case of these … imjim … I believe their shorter stature and the indication of the presence of staff weapons in their possession may mean they are jaffa." He motioned to the pictograph depicting Turramulli's guards.
"Ok," Jack was following so far. "But if these timmy-things moved the Naquada, then how exactly is this useful to us?"
At this point Jonas started hopping from one foot to the other with excitement. "This." He motioned to the picture of the rock. "I can't translate the word written underneath it, but phonetically, it says 'Uluru'."
Jack waited for Jonas to continue. "And?"
"Uh, well… I don't know." Jonas cast his gaze down to the floor, reaching the end of his excited presentation. But if we can find this place then we should be able to get a large cache of naquada – assuming it's still there."
"Uluru. That sounds somehow familiar to me…" Sam's face adopted an intense look of concentration as she searched the impressive database in her mind.
Jack knew the moment she had found the solution as her face lit up and a broad grin spread across it. Her eyes focussed on him. She looked positively energised with the information she held. As much as he loved seeing such a wonderful expression on her face, and indeed revelled in it, the suspense was killing him.
"C'mon Carter, spit it out!" he couldn't hide his amusement, the warmth in his voice showing her as much.
"Uluru is in Australia, sir, although it used to be known as Ayers Rock." Carter was still grinning from ear to ear with the possibilities that were presenting themselves. "If these Quinkins have hidden naquada where we think, there should be large quantity in central Australia just waiting for us to come and get it."
"But didn't we scan the whole planet looking for naquada years ago?" Jack vaguely remembered the name Ayers Rock and remembered it as being an amazing natural phenomenon – but nothing any more special than that.
"Well yes, but if it's somehow hidden underneath or within Uluru then it's entirely likely that we missed it." Sam looked to the wall markings again. "It says here the Timara created Uluru from a 'sky mountain'. Who knows what kind of technology was involved."
"It's a rock, a boulder even!" Jack blathered. "I've seen photos. It's this big, red rock. It's not like it's a pyramid or anything…"
"Yes but think about it Colonel," Jonas had read about Australia and was now looking almost as excited as Sam was. "If it's in the middle of Australia with pretty much nothing but desert surrounding it. It seems a bit unlikely it would be natural, now that we know what we do, doesn't it?"
Before Jack could think of a suitable response there was a far-off rumbling sound which came closer until part of the wall behind them just seemed to dissolve into nothing, revealing a long tunnel with a light at its end.
The team immediately fell silent, shut off their lights and positioned themselves, two at each side, at the tunnel opening. The all-too familiar, spine-chilling chink-chink noise of moving Jaffa echoed through the tunnel, becoming louder all the time. Just as they were about to reach the cave, SG1 heard the unmistakable sound of the stargate activating. They were trapped between almost definitely hostile aliens walking towards them and whatever would come through the gate. Jack motioned silently to the others – who could thankfully see him due to the dim light permeating through the tunnel – to fall back and he receded into a smaller cave behind him with Sam following. He saw Jonas and Teal'c slink into a similar looking alcove on the other side of the tunnel.
There was very little space in the alcove off the main cave, but at least they should remain hidden if the jaffa didn't see any reason to investigate their surrounds. In all likelihood, they were there to meet whoever was meant to come through the stargate. Jack looked passed the top of Sam's head, trying to ignore the fact that a couple of strands were persistently tickling his chin, and watched the jaffa pass them just as the great 'whoosh' sound of the stargate indicated that they would very soon know who was coming through. He subconsciously let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding as soon as the jaffa had passed them, and then let a small giggle escape.
"Sir!" Sam whispered urgently. She tilted her head around to look at him in horror. Now was definitely not the time to be making any noise, let alone laugh.
Jack abruptly clamped his mouth shut and they both strained their ears to hear if they had been detected by the jaffa. The chink-chink noise continued, however, and was joined by the sound of what appeared to be more jaffa coming through the gate.
"Sorry," Jack breathed into Sam's ear, which, now that she had turned her head, was mere centimetres away from his mouth. "But really, I was thinking, why is there always some kind of alcove for us to hide in when there are jaffa approaching? You'd think they'd learn to check them out, or something…"
Jack smiled as he felt Sam shake with silent laughter. She looked up to him briefly and he saw the amused sparkle in her eyes. Their private joke was interrupted, however, by the sound of an oddly familiar goa'uld voice talking with the jaffa.
"Have you discovered the location of Uluru?" the false-god demanded, sounding as menacing as ever. Sam's eyes widened as she heard the name. They knew. And they were searching. She glanced up to Jack, only to see his face was completely ashen. She looked at him quizzically but his eyes were unfocussed, staring at the passage ahead of them.
"Alas my lord we have not," one of the jaffa responded, "there appears to be no rock formations corresponding to the depiction for many days journey from here."
Jack flinched as he heard the noise of a staff weapon being fired, followed closely by the thud of a dead weight falling to the ground. The instant he'd heard the voice he knew who it was. The instant he'd heard the arrogant tone of voice he knew what it meant. This was bad. Baal had just arrived, and he was looking for something that was probably on Earth.
TBC
A/N: Welcome to one and all! If you've read my other completed fic, "Great minds think alike", you'll know that I live for the warm fuzzy feeling when I get a review from someone who has read what I've written! So please tell me what you think, good or bad, as long as it's constructive! I'm fairly nervous, considering I'm following on from a fairly well-received fic. I hope this can live up to expectations (or at least hold your interest).
In a side note, I am feeding off an Australian aboriginal dreamtime story about a kind of monster called Turramulli – a kind of Aussie Bigfoot. Most of my info is from a book: Turramulli the Giant Quinkin, by Percy Trezise which is a kid's book – but a damned fine one! I'm adapting all the info for my own purposes – the most glaring discrepancy being that Turramulli is supposedly from far-north Queensland, which is a HELL of a long way from Uluru… my apologies to indigenous Australians for so altering one of their myths!