December 22

22.

Seth had rallied the guards of the town, and called in some of his Jaffa troops from the capital. SG-1 and the Tok'ra quickly had to realize they would not be able to sneak out of the city easily.

They were now hiding in a storage shed in the less affluent part of the city.

"We need different clothing," Martouf said. "It is too bad we did not purchase some before."

"Maybe we could, ah, 'borrow' some?" O'Neill suggested, spotting a clothes line. "We could always give them the stuff we're wearing in return."

"They would risk punishment if they were caught with the clothing of a Goa'uld Lord, or even his servants, so I doubt they would dare use it," Jacob said.

"I still have some of the jewelry I stole from Bastet. We could leave some of that," Martouf suggested.

"Okay. Let's just get this done before any guards show up," O'Neill said.


Jacob fired one more time at the pile of clothes with the zat'nik'tel. "All right, it's done."

"Great. Now give me the zat. You and Marty have your ribbon devices," O'Neill said.

"Sure, here you go." Jacob handed the weapon to him.

"It's a good thing we got these robes or whatever they are to conceal ourselves in too," Daniel said.

"Yeah, we can hide our faces somewhat, which is good since Seth knows how Daniel and I look," Jacob said.

"There's also the fact that we don't really look like the locals," O'Neill observed.

"Most just wears loincloths or thin tunicas, though, so robes like this may look out of place too," Sam reminded them.

"Sunset is in three hours. If we just stay out of sight until then, these clothes won't look as out of place. Nights can be pretty cold in deserts," Martouf said.

"Right, and we can just tell people we're travellers. Traders. That should work, right?" O'Neill said. "That's why we speak a weird language."

"It may work, but it's unfortunate to stick out in any way when they are looking for you." Jacob sighed. "I agree, we should hide until it's dark."


The sun was almost down when the door opened to the storage building SG-1 and the Tok'ra were hiding in. They ducked behind the crates that stood in the back, hoping no one would notice them.

Two men walked in and went to the sacks that stood in the corner nearest the door. Each of them picked up one sack and was about to leave the building when Daniel sneezed.

"Sorry, it's the dust," he whispered.

"Who is there?" one of the men called.

"No one!" O'Neill activated his zat'nik'tel and quickly shot both men. "Damn! We better get out of here before they wake up."

They ran outside - only to see a group of Jaffa turn the corner at the end of the alley and march towards them.

"Crap!" Jacob swore. "This way!"

They turned and ran down a side-alley. Behind them the Jaffa were shouting for them to stop, and one of them fired a warning shot with his staff weapon.

SG-1 and the Tok'ra raced down the alley, turned into another of the small passages, then another - and suddenly found themselves at a dead end.

"Maybe we lost them?" Daniel said, hopefully, when no Jaffa were immediately forthcoming.

"Not likely. Can you take them with your hand devices?" O'Neill asked.

"Possibly, but we need something to duck behind or we will all be shot before we have time to do anything," Jacob said.

Teal'c eyed the rickety wooden balcony on the building to their right. It was stabilized with several rafters that were stuck into the ground, while the top was tied to the balcony. "Help me pull this down!" He grabbed hold of two rafters and started pulling.

Martouf|Lantash and O'Neill grabbed the rafters at the other end and pulled as well. The balcony gave way almost immediately, and they quickly jumped aside to avoid being hit by the avalanche of wooden beams, sticks, and parts of the wall that came loose as well.

"Awesome! Good idea, Teal'c!" O'Neill told him.

At that moment the Jaffa appeared at the end of the alleyway and the Tok'ra and all the members of SG-1 immediately threw themselves down behind the cover created by the destroyed balcony. It was not much protection, but it was a lot better than nothing.

Lantash and Selmak had both put on their hand devices and now each fired off as strong a shockwave as they could. Of the group of eight Jaffa, only one was standing afterwards, and O'Neill got him with his zat'nik'tel.

"Impressive!" Sam grinned.

"We'd better check that they stay down - at least until we can get the hell out of here!" O'Neill said, hesitantly walking towards the fallen Jaffa, with his zat'nik'tel at the ready.

Selmak and Lantash followed close behind, the crystal in their ribbon devices glowing. Teal'c followed just after, having armed himself with one of the long rafters.

The Jaffa that O'Neill had shot with his zat'nik'tel was slowly waking up.

"Teal'c - could you put him to sleep again? I don't want to zat him again. No reason to kill the guards if we don't have to," O'Neill said.

"Certainly, O'Neill."

Lantash had leaned down to check on the other Jaffa. "These two are dead." He stepped over to the next. "Stunned, but will recover." He checked on the rest. "I doubt any of them will wake up soon, but those who are alive now should all survive - with the help of their symbiotes."

O'Neill nodded, a rueful expression on his face. "Got you. Let's get out of here before any more shows up."


They had made it out of the city after several near misses, and then set out through the desert towards the place where they had hidden their cargo vessel.

It was near morning when the exhausted group reached their teltac. Fortunately, no one had discovered it. Making sure they were not watched, they entered their vessel.

The Furling device would not be fully charged for another several hours, so the decision was made to rest until then - something they all needed.


"It's fully charged," Sam told them, having unhooked the device from the ship's engines.

"Good. Do you know enough about it now to be able to reset the timeline to what it was originally?" O'Neill asked.

"What it was when we found the device, you mean. There is no way to know if someone else has changed it before," Sam pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah. No need to quibble. Well, Carter?"

"Not completely, but I think we know enough to return it to something very close to right, and then tweak it from there."

"By all means, do that - and the sooner the better," O'Neill said.

"We should probably move the ship first. Get into space, maybe. There's people living around here in our own timeline too, and it's probably best that they don't see an alien spaceship," Daniel reminded them.

O'Neill nodded. "Right. There's enough UFO reports as it. Jacob - take her into space!"