There is a bird singing just outside my tent.

Incongruously, I find myself thinking that I wish I knew bird language so I could tell it I’m trying to sleep and it should shut up now unless it wants to become breakfast.

This is wrong.

Have you ever seen those pictures in kids’ magazines? The first one will show something completely ordinary, like a barnyard scene with cows in a pasture and pigs in a pen, but in the second photo things will be all wrong, like cows wearing roller skates and pigs drinking coffee. Not that there are any cows skating by my tent, and the only coffee addict around here is one Dr. Daniel Jackson, but there is definitely something wrong with this picture.

Like the fact that the sun has risen - no, wait, the suns have risen - and I’m still asleep. I should be up, awake, annoying people, shooting things, saving the universe. I should have been up a long time ago, as a matter of fact.

Worrying about such minor details is extremely hard at the moment, however. I want to sleep. I think I could sleep for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. I feel the way that a cat looks when it sprawls on a sofa during the hottest part of a summer day: as if there could be nothing better in the universe than simply staying where I am and sleeping my life away.

But the bird’s still singing.

Damn.

With Herculean effort, I manage to open one eye, followed by the other. Yep, it’s definitely daylight, and has been for some time. My drowsy brain scrambles for an explanation, hesitantly suggesting that maybe there’s some sort of natural anesthetic in this planet’s air or water or maybe in the mounds of horse shit we tromped through on our way here. In that case, the rest of my team should still be sacked out too.

They aren’t.

They’re gone.

Have you ever been awakened from a sound sleep by someone pouring a bucket of ice water over your head? That’s how it feels to realize that while I’ve been asleep, something - or someone - has happened to my team. They’re gone, with no signs of a struggle, and I do not have even the slightest hint of an idea where they are.

This is so not good.

Damn it, O’Neill, you’re the CO of this team. You’re supposed to protect your kids. You damn well aren’t supposed to sleep while they get kidnapped by God only knows who and taken to God only knows where!

Okay, first things first. I find my gear exactly where I left it - surprisingly. Daniel, Teal’c and Carter’s gear is still here too, and everything would be peachy if not for the small but highly significant fact that they aren’t here and I haven’t got the slightest idea under the sun - er, suns - where they are or how to find them.

I am able to ascertain, from the all-too-familiar haziness that’s currently fogging my brain, that I’ve been drugged, and I’m willing to bet that it wasn’t by globs of horse shit, not unless those horses have stumbled upon a great big honkin’ field of marijuana. Even if they have, I’d like to hope I didn’t breathe in too much of the stuff, and I seriously doubt I absorbed it through the soles of my shoes.

That means the friendly, grinning natives must have done it.

We met them early yesterday morning - morning here, anyway; it was afternoon when we left the SGC and do you have any idea how confusing that can be? Anyway, the natives seemed overjoyed to see us, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me considering that they had been terrorized by the Goa’uld for millennia, and the Goa’uld always came through the Stargate.

Daniel said they were descended from the ancient somebodies-or-other, and practically hyperventilated on the spot. Carter looked nearly as bored as I did, since the natives were pretty technologically primitive and there weren’t any cool doohickeys for her to play with. Teal’c raised an eyebrow.

Anyway, the natives - who called themselves the Catrians - generously invited us to share their evening meal. We’ve become pretty cautious about eating alien food, but this stuff seemed pretty safe and tasted too good to resist. It looked like fried chicken, smelled like fried chicken, tasted like fried chicken and, what do you know, actually was fried chicken.

Drugged fried chicken, evidently.

I’m still feeling a little woozy and I might shoot my foot off, but I’m going in armed to the teeth anyway. I’ve got my sidearm, Carter’s sidearm, Daniel’s sidearm, my zat, Carter’s zat, Daniel’s zat, Teal’c’s zat, and my P-90. I’d take Teal’c’s staff weapon if I could carry it, which I can’t. The GDO goes into my jacket pocket, because I know we may not be able to come back for it.

Z32-996 is a pretty planet, even if it does look like a thousand other planets we’ve visited. Our campsite is at the base of a steep slope; a zigzagging trail leads up the side of it, toward the village. Unless I’m very much mistaken, I’ll find Carter, Daniel and Teal’c in the village, or at least near the village, and drugged or not, it’s my job to find them and get them back home. I’ve already failed them once. I’m not going to do it again.

The Catrians are not good listeners.

We’ve tried to tell them a hundred times that we aren’t Goa’uld, but they’re not convinced. The only Stargate travelers they’ve ever seen have been Goa’uld, the dark ones who have enslaved and terrorized their people for so long. In a way, I can understand their fear and desperation, but that understanding doesn’t help our current situation.

Last night, the Catrians, under a guise of hospitality, fed us a delicious and evidently drugged supper. Early this morning, three of us - Daniel, Teal’c and I - were abducted by five Catrian men. We were still drugged enough to be unable to resist, but I caught snatches of conversation, telling me why the Colonel was left behind: they were hoping that when he awakened, he would return to his ‘dark master’ and tell him that the evil ones were not welcome here.

Even though I know the Catrians probably intend to kill us, I’m saddened by their naïveté. A System Lord would not be deterred by the capture of three mere humans. He’d send through a bomb or a legion of Jaffa, probably wiping out these people once and for all. Even if we were Goa’uld, they wouldn’t be doing themselves any good.

It’s been several hours since we were abducted; I’m not sure exactly how many, because our watches were taken away when we were thrown into this cell. It’s on the edge of the tiny, rundown Catrian village, and while it’s not the most comfortable room I’ve ever occupied, I do have to admit it’s got quite a view. The single window overlooks the steep slope we’re situated at the edge of. Too bad there are bars on the window.

Daniel is sitting on the cold stone floor, his back against the wall, knees drawn up to his chest. He isn’t saying anything, but I can tell he’s worried about Colonel O’Neill. The Colonel ate a lot more than any of the rest of us did, and he must have been deeply drugged, because he never stirred when we were taken away, and I know that he’s ordinarily a light sleeper. The Catrians may think he’ll return to ‘his master’ once he awakens, but they don’t know Jack O’Neill like we do. He won’t be going anywhere but back to the village to look for us.

On cue, someone taps on the window bar right next to my head, making me almost jump out of my skin. Turning, I see my CO standing with a goofy grin on his face. His brown eyes are unfocused, leading me to believe that he may have made it here successfully, but he’s still drugged.

“Hi, Carter,” he says cheerfully, his familiar voice bringing Daniel and Teal’c over to the window. “I think it’s going to rain.”

Yes, definitely still drugged.

“That’s nice, sir,” I say, somehow managing to keep my voice even and polite. Thunder rumbles distantly; he’s right, it probably is going to rain.

“Jack,” Daniel says, his voice a little patronizing, as if he’s talking to a child. “Do you think you could get us out of here?”

“Huh?” The Colonel looks a little surprised, as if that thought had never occurred to him. Then he brandishes a zat gun, smiling a little and looking more like the Jack O’Neill we’re familiar with. “Three shots should do it, kids,” he says, aiming at the barred window. “Stand back.”

We all move back automatically, and what happens next seems to take only an instant, although it is replayed in my mind over and over in the long hours afterward. Colonel O’Neill takes a step backward and starts to aim the zat, and then there is a sharp whizzing sound, like an angry bee whipping by the wall of our cell.

Daniel, Teal’c and I get only the briefest glance of our CO, open-mouthed in puzzled surprise, standing at the very edge of the slope with a long, ugly dart protruding from his chest. Then he falls backward and is gone, his downward descent marked only by a few faint thumps, each one more distant as he tumbles toward the bottom of the slope.

There are flowers next to my face, and it’s raining.

Where have all the flowers gone?

This seems to be a very pressing question, and I sense that the answer has something to do with young girls and wars, but the annoying sensation of rain pounding on my face is telling me that I really shouldn’t spend any more time speculating about flowers and songs I haven’t heard in way too damn many years.

Everything is going great, until I try to move.

It’s then that I discover I’ve somehow acquired a new decoration: a large, lovely blow dart which is currently sticking out of my chest at a cockeyed angle that seems to suggest it has recently gotten knocked out of place. I have a very vague recollection of falling, and considering the fact that I’m lying at the bottom of a slope, it seems reasonable to trust that memory and assume that the dart was knocked sideways when I fell.

I can only recall bits and pieces of the events that led to my current situation, but I know enough to realize that I have to get up out of the rain, and not just because the water is getting into my eyes and driving me nuts. My team’s back in that village, locked up, probably about to be sacrificed to whatever god or gods the ancient somebodies-or-other worshipped, and unless I get my butt into gear, I don’t think they’re gonna be escaping any time soon.

Getting up is more difficult than it might seem. I can live with the ragged hole in my chest; that’s okay, I’ve handled worse. I can even tolerate the blood currently draining from my body at an alarming rate. The dart, however, has got to go. No matter how careful I try to be, I bump it against something every time I move, and to use an understatement of gargantuan proportions, that doesn’t really feel good.

So, with the mini-Doc in my head screaming all sorts of warnings about increased blood loss and promising to use really, really big needles during my next physical, I grab the huge honkin’ dart, take a deep breath, and pull as hard as I can.

I don’t make a sound when the dart comes free, but that’s not because I’m a tough macho military type. It is, quite simply, because human beings must be able to breathe to make noise, and right now I’m not getting enough air to squeak.

After the pain gradually subsides, I make a few noises that sound suspiciously like sobs but absolutely are not sobs, then mutter hoarsely, “Damn, damn, damn.” From the way my voice sounds you’d think I’d just screamed as loud as I could. Maybe wanting to scream has sort of the same effect as actually screaming. If my brain thinks I’ve just screamed, then my throat gets hoarse. Mind over matter. I am becoming the scream ... I am the scream ... there is no spoon ...

It’s still raining.

Damn.

Priorities: bandage wound, don’t die, find Carter and Daniel and Teal’c, bust out Carter and Daniel and Teal’c, don’t die! Not until after busting out Carter and Daniel and Teal’c, anyway.

After I finish applying a sopping wet bandage to the hole in my chest, which seems to have missed anything vital but still hurts like hell, I fumble around to see if I’ve still got a zat gun. Thank God for small miracles: I’ve still got two of them, as well as the three sidearms I started out with. The zats should be useful to take out that window, or hell, maybe I’ll just take out the whole damn prison. Either way, they’ll come in handy. If I can ever get back up that damn slope.

With my first few steps up an increasingly muddy slope in the pouring rain, I make all kinds of unpleasant discoveries, the first being that I am bruised from head to toe. Secondly, my left arm doesn’t work all that well, presumably because I faintly remember hitting it on a rock on the way down, and my right ankle is trying really hard to swell right out of my boot. I hope to God it isn’t broken, just badly sprained. Either way, I have to walk on it.

So in the pouring rain on a Godforsaken planet called Catri, I take two steps forward, slide one back, and take two more forward, while my ankle throbs mercilessly and rich red blood is diluted by rainwater and drips off my body to join the muddy water gathering at the bottom of the slope.

According to the terrified-looking Catrian girl who showed up fifteen minutes ago, we’ve got a little less than an hour left to live. I felt sorry for the kid - she couldn’t have been more than twelve years old, with wide dark eyes, and I couldn’t help but wonder just how many loved ones she’s lost to the Goa’uld.

Daniel’s pacing now, his motions quick and agitated, and Teal’c is attempting to kelnoreem, although I’m not quite sure what good he thinks it’s going to do. I don’t think any of us have quite been able to accept what we saw when the Colonel came to try to rescue us. It all happened so quickly that it didn’t really have time to sink in: one second he was here, Jack O’Neill come to save us once again, and the next he was gone, leaving us with only a fleeting memory of his astonished face before he disappeared.

Colonel O’Neill is dead. He must be.

I don’t suppose it really matters any more; we’ll soon be joining him in the afterlife. The Catrians seemed upset that the Colonel didn’t go back through the gate, taking the message of their minor victory with him, but now that he’s gone, it’s back to business as usual. Right now that means planning the public execution of the three remaining ‘dark ones’, who aren’t, in fact, dark ones at all and who would gladly help save these people from the tyranny of the Goa’uld.

Life can often be ironic.

It’s raining outside; the grass bends in a steady wind and raindrops pound on the roof of our prison while dark blue clouds sweep in from the distant hilltops. It’s a beautiful sight, and I suppose I should enjoy it. I most likely won’t see many more beautiful sights.

“Carter,” a voice says weakly from outside.

For an instant I’m absolutely certain that I’ve seen a ghost, but then reality hits and all three of us rush to the window, our jaws hanging practically to the floor. Standing in front of us, bedraggled and sopping wet with an ugly red stain spreading down the front of his uniform, is the most beautiful sight any of us has ever seen.

“Miss me?” He asks with a faint, pained smile.

“J-Jack!” Daniel stutters, our linguist being the first to form an intelligent comment. A comment, anyway.

I’m so completely absorbed in the shock of the moment, in the sudden blooming hope that accompanies the knowledge that Colonel O’Neill has survived, that I don’t consider what it must have taken for him to climb that slippery slope, in the pouring rain, badly injured. Jack O’Neill may have many flaws, but lack of resolve is not one of them. He would go to hell and back - and, quite literally, has - for his team.

We stand away from the window, and the Colonel, shivering miserably in the slowing rain, fires three quick shots with a zat gun, disintegrating the bars. Daniel crawls through first, followed by me and then Teal’c; it’s a tight fit for our big Jaffa, but he manages to wriggle through.

Colonel O’Neill is barely able to stand, and Teal’c supports him as he comes up with a pistol for me and one for Daniel, and another zat’n’ktel for Teal’c. If we’re attacked on the way to the gate - and I sincerely hope we aren’t, because we’re not up to much fighting right now - we will at least have a chance to defend ourselves.

“I don’ need to be carried, Teal’c,” Colonel O’Neill insists, a few of his words actually coming out coherently. “Jus’ support me a little bit.” In the end, a compromise is reached: the Colonel puts one arm around Daniel’s neck and one arm around Teal’c’s and the two of them together support most of his weight.

We make good time down the slick incline, but every slip elicits a sharp gasp from Colonel O’Neill. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he’s obviously in pain, and becoming more confused by the moment. I have no idea whether it’s shock and blood loss combining to disorient my CO, or whether the huge, ugly dart was drugged. We won’t know until we make it back to the SGC, and, I tell myself firmly, we will make it back to the SGC. Colonel O’Neill has just put himself through hell for us and we will not let him down.

“This isn’t fun, Carter,” the Colonel announces, his words slurred and almost childlike. “I think I’ll go fishing when we get back.”

“That’ll be fun, sir,” I say, slogging through the mud behind Daniel, Teal’c and their increasingly incoherent patient. Of course, I know that he won’t be doing anything other than lying in the infirmary for quite some time, but I’m not about to say that.

“I’ll go fishing,” he repeats, almost cheerfully. The thought obviously makes him feel better. Daniel looks back and catches my eye, and the two of us smile sadly. We need to get him home, and we need to get him home now.

We’re a little more than halfway to the Stargate, still with no audible signs of pursuit, when Daniel stops suddenly. “Jack, you’re burning up,” he says, touching our CO’s forehead. No wonder the Colonel has become so confused; he’s obviously got an infection, and as luck would have it, we don’t have a medical kit or anything else with which to battle the illness.

We really, really need to get him home.

Colonel O’Neill looks confused. “No,” he contradicts. “I’m not hot. It’s cold. Like Antarctica, but not quite that bad.” He looks toward me, and I can sense what he’s thinking before it comes out of his mouth.

Sir, don’t say it, I will kill you if you say it -

“I don’t think it was really my sidearm, Carter.”

Daniel looks interested and Teal’c’s eyebrow rises. Our archaeologist turns to me, and before he can ask, I say quickly, “He’s delirious, Daniel. He’s talking nonsense.” I don’t think the fact that I’m blushing adds to the credibility of my statement.

Daniel doesn’t say anything else, but he gives me a pointed look that clearly means he isn’t done with this, and I moan inwardly. Between the Colonel and I, the Antarctica comment has become a fun inside joke, but if other people find out, it will be something entirely different. The word ‘mortifying’ comes to mind.

Of course I’m concerned about Colonel O’Neill, too concerned to really be upset with him, but as soon as I’m sure he’s all right, I’m going to kill him.

After a few brief moments of rest, we resume our trek toward the Stargate. “I used to have a teddy bear,” Colonel O’Neill announces suddenly. Daniel catches my eye again and, despite the seriousness of the situation, it’s all we can do to keep from collapsing into laughter.

“You did, sir?” I say, trying to sound interested and not borderline hysterical. “What happened to it?”

His face falls dramatically. “I think the dog ate it,” he says. Daniel snorts helplessly and Teal’c’s eyebrow goes up. I swear the muscles are twitching in our Jaffa’s face, and I think he’s having a hard time keeping the solemn expression in place.

All at once, we hear a bell clanging in the village behind us, and all levity disappears. Daniel and Teal’c try to speed up the pace, but Colonel O’Neill is obviously in pain and can’t go any faster. I can’t help but think that it would probably be faster to have Teal’c carry him, but even in his disoriented state, I don’t think the Colonel would go for it.

And then, looming ahead of us, gray and glistening, is the beautiful, wonderful piece of alien technology called the Stargate. The sounds of pursuit get closer as we practically run the last few feet to the DHD. Teal’c supports Colonel O’Neill’s weight while Daniel rushes to dial home and send the GDO signal.

We step into the event horizon and, after a dizzying second in a wormhole, the muddy ground of Z32-996 is replaced by the metal ramp of the gate room, with a medical team already waiting to bear the Colonel away on a stretcher.

“Sir?”

Carter knocks on the inside of the wall, as if speaking to me wasn’t enough to let me know she was there. She pokes her head through the doorway and smiles a little upon seeing that I’m awake.

Pumped full of antibiotics and, most importantly of all, painkillers, I’m feeling much better. There’s just one small, nagging worry: the fact that I can remember some of the things I said back on that muddy planet. The thing about the teddy bear was really embarrassing, but I can live that one down. As for the Antarctica comment, well ...

Carter sits down next to my bed and smiles again, a wicked, feral smile. This is really not good. After a moment of silence, I clear my throat. Disclaimer to follow.

“Carter, you know I wasn’t really myself back on Catri,” I say carefully, trying not to make any statements that will inspire her to smother me where I lay. “I wouldn’t have said all the stuff I said otherwise.”

She grins brightly, looking more like the Carter I know. “Oh, I know, sir,” she says cheerfully. “You had a serious infection and you were pretty much delirious. It’s completely understandable.” Her statement makes me feel better until she leans over until her lips almost touch my ear and whispers, “That’s why I’ve decided to wait until you’re fully recovered to kill you.”

Without further comment, she gets up and leaves.

Oh, damn ... I am so dead.