Heart's Desire (6 page)

“It's an Asherah,” Daniel said quietly as they walked, as if that answered some question he felt Jack should be asking.

“You mean these people's ‘goddess'?”

“No, actually I mean the tree,” Daniel said. “Although probably ‘pole' or ‘pillar' would be better. It's a representation of the power of their goddess.”

“Most people make statues,” Jack said.

“Most people probably do, but how much wood do you see around here compared to stone? They probably figure it's more impressive. Anyway, it was traditional among the Caananites, and there are a lot of complaints in the Old Testament that some of the Israelites were
—”

Jack held up a hand. “Is this relevant right now?” He'd learned to ask that question frequently.

“No, probably not,” Daniel said after a moment.

“Then it can wait until after the ceremony.”

Daniel nodded, although he was getting that look on his face that suggested he felt he was being oppressed by being asked not to talk. Daniel fell back to walk beside Carter and bent his head to hers, probably telling her all about how somewhere in the Bible there was an interesting story about dead trees.

“You think that would impress a Goa'uld?” he asked Teal'c, nodding toward the courtyard and the tree.

Teal'c considered the scene. “No,” he said after a moment.

“No accounting, I guess.”

There was a crowd assembled around the edges of the courtyard and gathered on the terraces above and below it. Men dressed like the airship crews were keeping the crowd back from the center of the courtyard, some of them watching the terrace above with the careful eye of guards.

Walat led them down a staircase between terraces lined with spectators, some of whom threw flowers. Daniel seemed to be dodging them, but Hammond caught some with a victory-tour smile, handing a handful of brightly-colored blossoms off to Jack, who tried to catch Daniel's eye to see if he could drop them without offending anybody. Daniel was pointing out to Carter that she had flowers caught in her hair, tangled there as if she were wearing a dandelion crown.

“Here your servants must leave their weapons, Great General,” Walat said in apologetic tones. “The courtyard is sacred to the goddess, and she will not permit arms to be brought into her presence.”

Jack's eyes flickered to Daniel's, but he didn't seem alarmed, so Jack assumed that ‘presence' here meant that the goddess was symbolically present via tree. Several guards approached, bowing deeply but keeping their eyes on the team's rifles with a caution that Jack found himself approving.

“That's all right,” Hammond said. “SG-1, let the gentlemen take your weapons. As a gesture of good faith.”

“Yes, sir,” Jack said. He handed over his P90 to one of the guards, who took it gingerly like he wasn't used to firearms and laid it down on a wool blanket spread out on the courtyard stones. Carter and Daniel handed over theirs as well, and after a moment's hesitation Teal'c surrendered his staff weapon.

That seemed to satisfy the guards, and as they didn't ask about pistols, zats, or knives, Jack felt fine about not mentioning them either. Probably if they ended up drawing weapons in the presence of the High King, they'd be in trouble, but if it came to that it would be because things were already going badly wrong.

Walat led Hammond forward at a slow, ceremonial pace, and Jack and the rest of the team trailed him, trying to look like a kingly entourage. They stopped a respectful distance from the High King, and Walat spread his hands as if in entreaty.

“Great King, Bull of Saday, Protector of the People,” Walat began, addressing the High King in resounding tones clearly intended to carry to the surrounding crowd. “You who bring forth the seed and bring forth the harvest, master of the winds and of the high places, lord of the thunder…” Jack settled into a comfortable stance and resigned himself to this being a long ceremony. Teal'c was clearly doing the same, although Daniel was listening with what looked like actual interest.

Carter was looking up instead. Jack followed her gaze to see one of the bigger airships hovering some distance above the mountainside, its crimson banners billowing like sails. Steam puffed white into the air behind it, and he could see the flash of moving brass from its propellers and gears. She was shaking her head, and he could see her itching to talk through whatever she was thinking.

He kicked the side of her foot with his instead, just hard enough to get her attention, and she lowered her gaze reluctantly and made a creditable if unconvincing attempt to look like she was paying attention. Walat had thankfully finished listing the High King's titles and was now introducing the Great General George Hammond of the United States of the Tau'ri, although he looked like he would have been happier if they'd thrown in some extra ceremonial titles. Jack made a mental note to suggest ‘guardian of the orifice' for next time.

“We are honored that you have chosen to trade with us,” the High King broke in finally, which Jack suspected was about a hundred words fewer than Walat would have used to say the same thing. “Please allow us to present you with this small gift as a sample of our wares.” He gestured to one of the attendants standing about nearby, who unwrapped a bundle containing a couple of pieces of flat metal. They didn't look like much to Jack, but he could see Daniel practically quivering with the desire to get a better view.

“Thank you,” Hammond said. “We're honored as well.” He nodded to Daniel, who came forward to take the tablets as the attendant handed them over. He did so reverently, peering down at them and tilting them so that they better caught the light. They flashed in the sun, and Jack glanced away from their glare, wishing he'd made a case for sunglasses as appropriate ceremonial garb.

He heard the murmur of the crowd change, growing louder, and for a moment Jack thought it was just appreciation for the moment, a bunch of people saying
will you look at that
, until he caught the note of alarm. Teal'c looked sharply toward Jack, clearly hearing the same thing. He'd have had plenty of experience with upset crowds.

Jack glanced up at the terrace above, but couldn't see anything other than people milling around more restlessly than seemed appropriate to the occasion. Carter had her eyes determinedly forward. Teal'c was already turning to look behind them, and after a moment Jack gave up on protocol and did the same.

In multiple places, people were pushing through the crowd, knocking others stumbling out of their way. The guards were already moving to intercept them, but there weren't enough guards and they weren't heading in enough directions. At one edge of the crowd, a handful of men stepped out into the square, and Jack got a quick impression of leather coats and leather boots before his eyes fixed on the more important fact that two of them were raising zat guns and leveling them on the approaching guards.

There was the crackle of a zat'ni'ktel blast as one of them fired, and the uproar in the crowd turned immediately to screams. Hammond turned, reaching for a sidearm he wasn't wearing, and Jack went for his own pistol, hesitating with his hand on it under his jacket. If they showed they'd come to the audience heavily armed, even with the best of intentions, they'd probably screw the trade agreement.

“Pirates!” Walat shouted, apparently for the benefit of the guards, more of whom were already going down under zat fire or being backed into the crowd at knifepoint. Unbelievably, none of them seemed to have managed yet to draw weapons of their own, although several of them were throwing themselves bodily at the attackers, knocking them down and grappling for their weapons as the crowd scattered out of their way. “Protect the High King!”

“SG-1, draw your weapons,” Hammond said, and Jack drew his pistol, leveling it on one of a small knot of armed men who were heading their way.

“Back off!” he called.

“No, you must not,” Walat said, talking very quickly, “it is sacrilege
—” He grabbed at Jack's arm, spoiling his aim, and two of the king's attendants were reaching for Carter's zat as she drew it, trying to get it out of her hands.

“God damn it, get out of the way!” Jack yelled, and never mind if that was probably sacrilege too. Teal'c fired from behind him, and one of the armed men rushing them fell, his skin crackling with zat fire. Carter was wrestling with the two attendants, clearly trying to shake them off without having to shoot one of them.

Another zat shot dropped one of the other men, that one coming from Jack's right. Daniel, he registered. Most of their attackers were armed only with knives, but one of them was raising a zat in their direction, aiming past Jack at Hammond and Daniel, or maybe at the High King, Jack didn't know and didn't much care.

He hooked his ankle under Walat's and kicked his foot out from under him, not wanting to hurt him, just to dump him on his ass to get him out of Jack's way. Pain stabbed through his knee as he remembered too late about that leg, and it made him slow to bring his pistol up, just a couple of wasted seconds as he got his feet securely under him again
—

Too long, he realized as the zat blast hit him and wracked him with its crawling energy, the world going black around him.

S
am saw Jack go down, and abruptly gave up on diplomacy. “Sorry,” she said, and zatted the servants who were trying to hold her back from the fight. It would probably have been a good idea to respect these people's cultural beliefs about not using weapons in a holy place, but the other guys didn't seem to have gotten the memo.

She took a step back to get clear of the fallen servants, firing as she did. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see some of the guards running toward them, presumably trying to protect the king, although how much good they could do if they weren't willing to use weapons, she didn't know. Hammond was demanding that the servants get out of their way, to little avail.

“Sir!” she called, and tossed him her pistol. He caught it with a grateful expression as one of the
—
okay, given their current lack of any other useful information, she was going to go with ‘pirates'
—
closed in on him. There were too many of them, coming at them from all sides, and they were stuck in a ridiculously exposed position with no cover in sight, unless they wanted to dangle off the cliff or try to hide behind the dead tree.

Probably neither of those was an option. Teal'c was still up and firing, but when she looked for him, Daniel was down, sprawled unconscious with the tablets still clutched to his chest, with one of the pirates bending over him. She hesitated, but Jack was closer. She stepped over him to cover him, hoping he'd come around soon.

The guards were there, by then, surrounding the High King and Hammond, one of them grabbing at Hammond's pistol.

“Look here
—” Hammond began angrily.

She glanced up to see one of the pirates aiming his zat at Jack, already charged to fire. There was a split second in which she maybe could have dodged or fired. In which case the blast would probably hit Jack, too soon after the first one to be anything but a killing shot.

“Damn,” she said, crouching instead to shield Jack, and then saw the man crumple even as he fired, blue energy crawling around him as Teal'c shot him from somewhere behind her. The man's shot was going to go wild, Sam thought for a hopeful moment, and then felt it hit her, her chest clenching painfully at the jolt and her legs crumpling under her.

The world darkened for a moment but didn't go black. Not a direct hit, she registered, her muscles still twitching with the last painful crackling of the zat blast. She was still in the fight, if she could just make her muscles obey her. She clenched her hand, trying to hold onto her own zat, and realized she was clenching an empty fist.

Before she could make her hand move across the stone, searching for the zat, someone was hauling her up from behind and clamping something hard around her wrists behind her back. She kicked, trying to make herself as uncooperative a dead weight as possible, but she couldn't keep them from dragging her.

“Teal'c!” she yelled. She twisted as well as she could, trying to see behind her. A number of the guards were backing away toward one of the edges of the terrace, the High King protectively sheltered between them, and she thought she saw a flash of Air Force blue between them as well.

“Major Carter!” Hammond shouted. If the guards were trying to protect him by shielding him from the pirates, he wouldn't want to shoot them to get them out of his way, not with the pistol when they were only trying to help. Which made him a less likely source of rescue.