Set: Season 3

Spoilers: Deadman’s Switch, Legacy

Disclaimer: The Looney Tunes characters are the property of Warner Bros. Stargate & SG1 belongs to MGM, Gekko and the actors who so

wonderfully portray the characters. I just get to play with them for a short while (cries forlornly into pillow).

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Chapter 9: Ándale! Ándale! Arriba!

Three quarters of SG-1 (plus one), took cover behind a particularly dense clump of trees as advance riders from the posse thundered back along the track they had been following in their pursuit of Daniel.

As predicted, it had not been easy going, even with the advantage of trained horses, but they had been close to ranch they believed Daniel to be holed up in when Simon suddenly gasped at something he saw or heard on the VC and dragged them hurriedly deeper into the forest.

Sam stood still as she felt rather than heard more horses pounding along the path in their direction. Simon motioned for everyone to keep silent, even as he murmured something to the horses in his native tongue.

The second set of riders weren’t bothering to try to be quiet. They were whooping and yelling as they proceeded back towards Laroda City, dragging something along behind them. At Simon’s sharp gasp, Sam craned her neck to see better what was happening, and her startled oath was joined by exclamations from both Teal’c and Jack.

“Oh my god, Sir! They’ve killed Daniel!!”

“The Bastards!” the Colonel snarled back.

“What are we going to do?”

“We need to follow them, O’Neill. I doubt Daniel Jackson is dead. Being dragged behind the horses will not kill him in conditions such as these.”

“Won’t do him much good though, will it?” Jack snarled back with a frown.

Making his mind up, Jack turned to their guide, “Simon, will they take him back to Wyattville, or just to Laroda City?”

“Laroda City, Colonel. The weather is too uncertain to try to get Dr Jackson all the way back to Wyattville tonight, plus I do not believe it would matter to their ‘customers’ where they picked him up from. Laroda has the benefit of being closer to the Chapa’ai.”

He thought for a bit then continued, “They will probably use the Jailhouse to hold him until they are ready.”

“Is there some way we can sneak into the jail without he Hunters knowing?” Jack asked.

“Not to my knowledge, Colonel.”

“How about a safe place to watch them - someplace we can’t be seen, but can watch the front entrance.”

“The Hotel would do well. My cousin is the Proprietor there, so we should be able to get a good viewing position - so long as it is not booked out, that is.”

_#_#_#_

Seshat paced furiously up and down in front of the modified cell in the Laroda City Jailhouse, ranting angrily at the senior Bounty Hunters and the reporter unfortunate enough to be in the room with her.

After she had blown Elmer’s brains out in front of them with some weird hand-held Goa’uld plasma weapon, none of them were game to draw attention to themselves.

Perhaps literally dragging the prisoner half the way back to the City in his condition had not been such a good idea after all, Dusty admitted to himself. It had seemed like a bit of harmless fun after the chase the Tau’ri had led them, but they had failed to take into account the expectations of their paying customer - who was now steaming up the jail with language that was turning even their hardened ears red.

“I thought you reassured me that the drug on those darts was a harmless tranquilliser?” she yelled at Dorango who nodded meekly at her. “Well then, how do you explain the condition he is in?” she said, pointing sharply at the prisoner.

The Tau’ri certainly did not look good - if the heap of blood stained, torn and rumpled rags in the cell could be spoken of in such a positive way.

The young man had obviously had a severe adverse reaction to the drug, which amongst other things was causing him to have difficulty breathing and to hallucinate. The restlessness and talking in tongues - that was seemingly a direct result of a fever induced delirium.

The sensor attached to his skin under the tattered clothing was providing a constant stream of data on his fluctuating condition, and the fact that it had not improved in the two hours since the capture was doing nothing to pacify the Goa’uld.

“It is either that he has some underlying medical condition which has been affected by the drug, or Tau’ri human physiology is in some way significantly different to that of Melth’m humans”, Dorango replied calmly to Seshat.

“And your medicine has no way to counteract this adverse affect?” the flanged voice enquired.

“Not without detailed biochemical analysis of his blood, and in particular, his brain chemistry, by which time the effects will have worn off naturally.”

“If he survives!” Seshat snapped at him.

“Ay, if he survives. But if he has made it this far, the chances are very good.”

“For your sake, I pray that this is true. Lord Thoth will be here within the next two hours, and he will not be pleased if his prisoner is unable to survive the transfer to his ship! Need I remind you of your obligations to Lord Thoth, and of how … severe … his punishment can be?”

“No, Seshat. We will make every endeavour to see that the prisoner is firmly on the way to recovery before Lord Thoth arrives.”

“Very well, then. See that it is so. I shall retire to my room to await his arrival. I take it that the device you have affixed to Dr. Jackson’s chest will inform us of any turn for the worst on his part?”

“Certainly, Seshat and at least one of us will stay here as an added precaution,” Dorango added confidently.

“See that you do - and tend to his wounds before Lord Thoth sees the condition he is in!” Seshat said as she flounced out of the Jailhouse and over to the adjacent Hotel.

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Dorango sighed as he brushed a hand through his hair in frustration. He sincerely wished he had never accepted the commission to find the Tau’ri scholar for the Goa’uld. What had seemed to be an easy chance for money and prestige had devolved into something akin to a farce. The Tau’ri was much more astute in matters of tactics and evasion than he had been led to believe, and he had managed to make the Melth’m Guild members look like rank amateurs in comparison.

“If this is what the non-military member of SG-1 is like in the field, no wonder they have been causing the Goa’uld so much trouble!” he vocalized to the surprise of the others in the room.

“Boss? What if the others show up before Thoth does? They’re gonna kill us! - Hell! She’s gonna kill us if they do, ain’t she?” Dusty asked him.

“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least if she gave it a darn good try, Dusty. Seshat strikes me as the kind of being to ‘clean up the evidence’ if things go too wrong!”

“Well hell! That’s mighty reassuring!”

“Would have been better if you’d used the normal tranquilliser darts on the Tau’ri rather than the horse-sized ones!”

“Well, how in tarnation was I to know Elmer had a sadistic streak as big as the Goa’ulds? I thought he loaded up normal ones!”

Dorango sighed and moved to the desk terminal. “May as well log it in, then. At least if we can hold onto him until Thoth picks him up we’ll get paid for him - and acknowledgement for his capture!”

With a jerk of his head to the cell he added, “You and Jonno had better see if you can do something for Jackson before anything else happens!”

As the others got to work, he logged into the hyperspatial ethernet link to Guild headquarters to update the Bounty Database with relevant details of Dr Jackson’s capture. Whether or not the Tau’ri remained in Goa’uld hands, the Melth’m guild would gain an enviable reputation for having managed to achieve what so many others had been unable to do for three years - successfully capture a member of SG-1. And if only Thoth could relieve him of Jackson’s presence, he could try to capture the remainder of the Tau’ri team too - especially if they didn’t know of his removal!

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Jack sighed as he watched the movements of the Bounty Hunters through the window of the Hotel. Simon’s cousin had come through for them and the front of house, first floor suite gave an excellent view into the Jail.

He watched as the Goa’uld stormed out of the building towards the hotel. Hopefully the hunters would settle down shortly and only maintain a light guard of the premises.

Yeah, right! This was Daniel he was talking about! When did he ever catch a break!

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Daniel was floating across the glass pedestrian bridge, reclining on a soft white cloud and basking in the warm sunlight which was reflecting in a scintillating array of colours from the crystal arch above his head.

The eyes of the bridge supports followed his progress, lashes fluttering seductively, as a Mariachi Mouse band in yellow sombreros serenaded the twenty perfectly pearlescent, perennially perky porcelain pigs that formed the supports. He drank in the perfume from the pink rosebuds painted on the pigs’ posterior, whilst he hummed along to one of the munchkin’s songs from Jack’s favourite movie.

It was all very ‘Alice-in-Wonderland’ like: - a bit surreal and overly Technicolored!

Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew something was as rotten as the breath of a freshly animated zombie!

A mouse sped into sight and over to the Mariachi band shouting something that sounded like ‘Epa, Epa Andale!’ - urging the band to retreat to safer environs away from ‘El Gringo’!

Daniel shivered as the sun was suddenly covered by thick, black clouds which frothed furiously outwards, covering the sky with their darkness. Lightning sparked blue across the crystalline planes of the bridge as Yosemite Sam galloped into view on a monstrous skeletal horse, shooting phalanges* randomly into the air from his twin pistols, scaring away the mice.

Deciding it would be prudent to be elsewhere, Daniel made to sit up, only to find his arms tightly fastened to the cloud itself - along with his neck, waist and legs.

Speedy had reappeared wearing the Goa’uld-worthy robes of a Sorcerer (though still in his yellow sombrero), waving a pint-sized staff weapon about indiscriminately in time to the music of Paul Dukas*. Huge waves splashed over the sides of the bridge in time with the arcs of plasma disgorged.

Daniel watched the drama unfold as he struggled with his cotton wool bindings, seeing the perky pigs cover their eyes and cower as a particularly strong blast speared down from a nightmarish Martian centurion in brown leather standing amidst the darkest cloud, aiming his lightning bolts at the bridge. A blue bolt burst along the length of Daniel’s back, forcing a cry from his throat as his muscles spasmed in reaction to the charge. Despite his residual pain he watched in disbelief as Yosemite and steed were struck by several bolts at once, flashed fluorescent blue like a demented Christmas decoration and instantly burned down to a crispy pile of ashes.

With an enormous clap of thunder, the crystal arch above the bridge shattered, and splinters fell to the ground slicing through his cloud and his skin as he spiraled into the roiling water far beneath.

Floating away on the turbulent waves, Daniel could have sworn he heard one of the pigs muttering something like “Th…th…th...That’s all Folks!” before the cloud and river encapsulated his head and he heard no more.

_#_#_#_

Seshat relaxed back in the copious bubbles of the hot tub, an amused smile on her face as she accessed the thoughts of the young Tau’ri in the Jail across the road.

She was very pleased with the results of her ‘Field Test’ of the modifications to the Tok’ra memory device. Creating the ability to connect the personal disc-like receiver with a jack-in ‘3-D’ neural interface allowed her to ‘see’ whatever the subject was thinking or seeing directly, rather than via a vid-screen. A most beneficial improvement - especially when one was in need of a diversion to unwind after a stressful day of planetary domination!

She was finding Dr. Jackson’s mind an intriguing place to be. His current dreams (or more accurately, nightmares) were causing sensations analogous to that of being under the influence of a narcotic - with none of the extreme interactive effects that would occur if she was fully tapped into the young man’s brain.

The device was also sensitive enough to pick up the secondary thoughts underlying the experiences as they occurred to the subject in the dream, so she could, with a small recalibration, follow the Tau’ri cultural references as well as the subject could.

It was most enlightening!

The prospects for a greater understanding of human neural activity and cognitive processes was limitless - and the entertainment value was not half bad either! It was a pity Thoth did not approve of the mass production of the device for entertainment. She could make another killing on G-Bay!

She stretched out her hand for her galactic-roaming enabled communicator as it activated with Thoth’s private call tone.

“Husband?” she queried.

“I am approaching the solar system now, My Sweet. I shall be within range to ring you up within one planetary hour. How does our purchase?”

“Not as well as I had hoped, Love. These imbeciles have no idea of how to handle delicate merchandise! There is some damage, but nothing that cannot be remedied.”

“Good! I would hate to lose a contact as potentially useful as Dorango. Who knows when we will have further need of his services?”

“How went your golf trip with Zeus? Did you manage to relax, or shall I have to restrict your hours of play with your new toy?” Seshat queried.

“The trip was fine. I won - again - the benefits of a solid grounding in higher mathematics. Of course I do have an unfair advantage, seeing that I invented most of it! Zeus and Hera send their greetings, by the way, and extend an invitation to visit Olympus for the next Goa’uld Olympics, staying at their Palace - I think they have renovated again!”

“Always trying to keep up with the Cronuses!”

“Indeed!”

“As enjoyable as it is to converse with you whilst enjoying one of the truly great human inventions, if I am to be ready when you arrive I must finish now.”

“In the hot tub, are we?”

“Of course!”

“Hmm. I do not suppose you have a larger vidscreen handy, do you?”

“Now. now, Thothy. You can look your fill once I and our purchase are on board.”

“But then I will be too distracted to give you the attention you so richly deserve!”

“Do not whine, My Pet - it does not become one of your seniority!”

“Oh alright! In one hour then. Do not forget to wear something sexy for me - you know how … energized … a potential new investigation makes me!”

Smiling as she turned off the comm -link, Seshat stepped from the tub and enveloped herself in a large, soft towel before heading to the bedroom.

Allowing her mind to wander, she donned a pair of soft, tight, brown suede pants and a leopard print dress which clung to her figure in a way Thoth really loved. She just had to get more of the Tau’ri textiles from .gal. The galactic hyperspace mail order company was the only reliable source of her favourite patterned cloth, none of the alternative animal prints she had dabbled with over the past three millenniahad ever pleased her as much!

Sighing, she pulled on her long brown boots, grabbed her snake-skin overnighter and headed back to the jail. With luck Thoth would be early and she would not have to put up with those yokels for another thirty minutes!

As the snow fell silently around her, she wondered whether Dr. Jackson had dreams of such intensity all the time, or if it was only when under the influence? Maybe testing his susceptibility to narcotic agents could be incorporated into part of her research - she did so enjoy a good bedtime story now and again!!!

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A/N: *The music referred to in chapter above occurs in the relevant scene of the Disney movie ‘Fantasia’ and is “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” by Paul Dukas (1897), which in turn was based on the 1797 poem of the same name by Goethe.

*Phalanges are the bones of the fingers or toes of vertebrate animals.

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