SG1-17 Sunrise (15 page)

“I think I know enough—like how half the population live in poverty while you—”

“
That
is the Lord’s will.”

“Oh, come on, you think I haven’t seen this same exact thing on a dozen other planets? Call it God or necessity, it’s always the same—the rich get richer and the poor get screwed.”

“Enough!” His face flushed red with anger. “I will not hear your heresy. Tell me now where Colonel O’Neill is hiding or face the consequences.” The demand contained a note of desperation, and Sam reminded herself that his daughter was also missing.

Getting hold of her own anger, she tried to imagine what Daniel would do in this situation. Reason, look for common ground. “Pastor, listen,” she said, striving for calm, “we have technology that could help you find your daughter. If you’ll let us return through the Star— Sungate we can bring back a device that would let us locate—”

He took a step back, horror-struck. “You speak of Knowledge?”

Confused, she said, “It’s a machine. We call it a UAV.”

“You would bring Knowledge here from
Acarsaid Dorch
?”

“No. It’s our technology. It’s not from there.”

Ennis shook his head, sweat beading on his brow. He swiped at it. “You have broken the law, Major Carter. You have left the Ark and consorted with criminals. Because of you, my daughter is now in the hands of the Seawolves. Do you propose that I just set you free to contaminate the Ark with your heresy?”

“Pastor Channon,” said Teal’c, “I believe the
Seachrání
acted out of fear. Had you not demonstrated such force, they would have left in peace. I do not believe they will harm your daughter.”

Channon made a noise of disgust. “They have already harmed her! The
Seachrání
are brutes. Savages! Their purpose is to sow seeds of unrest and cause disorder wherever they go. It is the sole reason they come to the Badlands.”

“You’re wrong, Pastor,” said Sam. “They came to warn the people there. To warn you. You have to–”

“The storm?” He waved a dismissive hand, but Sam could see a thread of fear in his eyes. “Storms do not concern us in the Ark.”

“And what of those outside the Ark?” said Teal’c.

For a moment he clamped his jaw shut, then said, as if by rote, “If it is God’s will that they be punished, then who am I to question Him?”

“But what about Rhionna?” Sam said.

Ennis didn’t reply, his face rigid.

“You can’t believe she deserves to be punished,” Sam pressed. “She was kidnapped. So was Daniel.” She took a step closer and might have put a hand on his arm if he hadn’t looked so brittle. “Let us out of here, let us help you with the search and rescue.”

His brow creased as she spoke, his eyes flitting away to fix on the screen behind her. The
Sunrise
music swelled into the room. “There will be no search and rescue.”

At first, she doubted she’d heard him right. “You mean you haven’t started looking for them? Five hours and you haven’t even started looking for them?”

“We have not the means. There is no need for ships in the Ark.”

“But the people of the Badlands, they have boats. They’re small, of course, but surely–”

“We have no need of ships, Major Carter, because anyone who turns their back on the Lord and puts themselves in the hands of the
Seachrání
is already damned. The Elect have passed their judgment on the matter.”

Silence fell as the meaning of his words sank in. No search, no rescue, and as far as Ennis was concerned, his daughter was lost to him. He wouldn’t even try to find her—or Daniel.

“You can’t mean that,” Sam said, incredulous. “Let me speak to the Elect. Let me tell them–”

“I said the judgment has been passed!” he cried. “There will be no reversal. Now I will ask you again. Where is Colonel O’Neill?”

But Sam could only shake her head in dismay.

Channon took a breath and when he spoke again his voice was calmer. “Very well. You will remain here and face the consequences of your lack of cooperation. But trust me, Major Carter, I
will
find O’Neill. I will not allow him to spread blasphemous lies about
Sciath Dé
.”

He turned to leave, but before he reached the door Teal’c spoke again. “Your daughter, Pastor Channon. How is it you can so readily abandon a child of your blood?”

Channon stopped, but didn’t look around. “If God chooses to smite the wicked,” he whispered, “then who am I to question His will?”

Then the door hissed open and, flanked by his guards, he was gone.

* * *

It was the stench that got to him first, that and the heat and the need for a breath of clean air. So he moved before he should, taking a chance that the dusky light would be enough to mask any untoward movement in the little boat.

He’d slipped underneath the tarp just as everything kicked off back on the docks, and had spent the best part of the day sweltering beneath the heavy fabric that covered the stern of the boat. He’d probably lost a couple of pounds in sweat, and only surreptitious swallows from his canteen had kept him going in the devastating heat. Not that he hadn’t endured worse. Jack O’Neill had suffered his fair share of stifling hell holes—some figurative, others more literal—and, by comparison, bivouacking under a stinking tarp for a few hours was a walk in the park.

He could have done without the stench, though. Whatever these people used to waterproof their gear reeked of dead fish.

It was that, in the end, which provoked him to risk lifting a corner of the tarp before night had truly fallen. The sun was a golden dazzle on the horizon and he had to blink until his eyes adjusted enough to let him assess the situation.

It didn’t come as a surprise.

Twenty minutes out from the docks, shouting had started. The language was obscure, but the meaning had been clear; they were docking with one of the ships. He’d heard the clank of chains and a few moments later the whine of winches—and then they’d taken flight. Slowly. The longboat had swung side-to-side in the davits and then been manhandled onto the deck.

That had been the most dangerous time, and his hands had been tight on his weapon as he waited, every moment, for the tarp to be whisked away and the stowaway revealed. It hadn’t happened. Clearly, something else was going down. More shouting, then the hum of servos far above him.

And then the ship had started moving.
Really
moving. Jack knew a thing or two about speed, and he’d never felt that kind of acceleration on anything that wasn’t airborne.

Now, peering out from beneath the tarp, he realized why. The damn boat was flying! Not in the air, not really, but damn close. He felt the familiar pump of flyboy adrenaline and suppressed a smile. Shuffling to the other side of the longboat, he lifted another corner of the tarp and this time found himself looking out across the deck of a large ship. Patches of it gleamed in the golden light, but others were dull and rusted and the whole thing looked too damn old to be traveling so fast. A couple of low cabins ran the length of the foredeck, with heavy doors shut tight against both sun and sea. They might once have been painted red, but the peeling remnants were a dull brown and dotted the steel surface like a scabrous pox. Only a few thick-glassed windows protruded along the length of the cabins, misty with salt-spray, and Jack doubted anyone inside would be able to see through.

He shifted again, his knee protesting, and made the decision to move out. He needed more information and, frankly, he needed to get away from the dead-fish stink. Glancing up and down the deck, he slid out from beneath the tarp, slipped over the side of the longboat, and dropped into a crouch on the deck below.

His knee was unimpressed and he bit back a curse. Moving silently, he darted between the cabins and stopped with his back pressed against the wall of one, his gun leveled at the door of the other. It didn’t open, and he heard no alarm sounding—which didn’t mean it hadn’t gone off.

He paused a moment and took stock of his position. The deck was about fifty feet wide and surrounded by a high, curved shield made of what looked like scratched plastic—a windshield, he guessed, given their velocity. Without it, no one would be able to come on deck while the ship was in motion. Clever, but it was the sight looming above him that really caught his eye.

Sails were the best description, though these were no canvas sheets. A half dozen vast metallic solar cells positioned so that they caught the dying rays of the sun, and they glittered so bright in the twilight that he had to shield his eyes.

Carter would have been fascinated. He wondered briefly where she was, then pushed the resulting coil of anxiety out of his mind. With luck, she and Teal’c had hightailed it back to the gate and were, even now, debriefing Hammond on the whole mess and planning to return with a platoon of marines at their backs. Daniel, on the other hand…

Keeping low beneath the windows, Jack made his way along the side of the superstructure until he reached its end. In front of him rose the mast, its massive trunk rooted into the deck. Behind it a shambles of cargo stretched back across the rest of the deck. Crates, barrels, and bundles of tarp-covered goods lay in a haphazard pile, as if flung there in careless haste. A heist, Jack wondered, or an evacuation?

In the distance, something glinted, drawing his attention to the sea. Sails gleamed on a dozen other ships of various sizes, all keeping pace with the sleek, predatory ship that flew out ahead of the Seachráni fleet. No prizes for guessing who captained that one—or where Daniel and the woman were being held.

On the upside, Faelan’s ship was close enough; Jack toggled his radio and murmured, “Daniel, do you copy?” The only reply was a hiss of static. Not that he’d really expected anything else, but still… “Daniel, do you—?”

A door slammed. He heard voices, indistinct beneath the rush of the wind but getting closer. Jack ran across the deck, launched himself up and over a tarp-covered bale and wiggled into the gap between that and a wooden crate. He stilled, evening out his breathing, and noted the words, in very faded print, on the side of the crate.

Emergency Re-hydration Salts
.

English, not the gobbledygook the Seachráni chose to converse in.

He had no time to ponder it, however. Two men swung around the side of the cabin. Like Faelan’s, their skin was tanned dark, and they wore tatty but sturdy clothes, with wide-brimmed hats pushed back on their heads now that the sun had almost set. They were talking, loud so as to be heard over the wind, but Jack couldn’t understand a word of their language. He watched instead, taking note as they opened a hatch at the base of the mast and began to haul on a number of huge levers. Above them, one of the sails began to move, folding in on itself like a shutter.

Immediately, the ship began to slow, the rush of wind diminishing, and the voices of the men grew louder. Jack still couldn’t understand what they were saying, but their mood was clear enough; they were pissed. He heard Faelan’s name mentioned a number of times, with much shaking of heads.

Far above, another sail began to furl. The ship slowed further.

Then a third man, little more than a lanky kid, appeared from around the cabin, less tanned than the others and with the look of the Badlands about him. When he spoke it was without the
Seachrání
lilt, and Jack caught every word.

“We’re to keep moving on reserves,” he said, hands buried in
deep pockets and a scarf tied low over his forehead. “Captain said we’re to keep traveling ’til sunup, then unfurl.”

One of the other men grunted and spat on the deck. “Aye, with no thought for the crew.”

“T’ain’t the captain’s fault,” the kid said, squinting up at the sails. “He got orders, is all.”

“Ain’t blaming the captain, am I? We all know what’s going on. We all heard what Faelan Garret done, stealing the Pastor’s daughter again. Bloody
dùr
, what’s he thinkin’?”

The other man snorted a laugh. “He ain’t thinkin’ with his head, right enough.”

“Aye,” said the first. “Well, the Cove isn’t needing a leader that’s thinking with his bleedin’
slat
. Not now, not with what’s comin’.”

“Garret’ll see us right,” said the other man. “He’s never failed us before.”

Conversation ground to a halt, all three men chasing their own thoughts. Then one of the Seachráni slapped the kid on the shoulder. “Get back to your supper, Geran. No point in blatherin’ on, eh?”

The boy nodded and turned away, but before he left he looked back and said, “Storm’s not gonna be so bad, eh?”

Jack felt his stomach twist. He’d seen that same look on the faces of men in his own command; kids themselves too, looking for certainty where none existed. Looking for hope.

“Sure, it won’t,” the older man said, casting a glance at his dour friend who just contemplated the sail levers in silence. “No worse’n we’ve seen before.”

It was a lie. But the kid nodded, determined to believe, and walked away with his hands still buried deep in his pockets.

The other man slammed down hard on the remaining lever, and the final sail began to furl. “
Mac an donais
,” he growled.