Heart's Desire (7 page)

“Teal'c!”

She heard no response from Teal'c, and she couldn't see him. He was down, then, unconscious or dead. Her ankle pounded painfully on the ground as she was dragged even faster, and she managed to twist enough in the man's grasp to realize that they were headed straight for the edge of the cliff.

“You're crazy!” she yelled. “We'll both be killed!”

She kicked out with her feet, trying to tangle them around his legs, but she didn't have the coordination yet. She overbalanced and fell backwards, only the man's grip on her bound hands keeping her from going sprawling, her face turned up to the sky. The large airship was descending, she realized, too slowly to get there in time to help, but even now there was some part of her mind that said
no, it's actually moving too fast
.

The rest of her mind, more immediately practical, was screaming that they were nearly at the edge of the cliff. She could see Jack being dragged by two of the other pirates, sagging unconscious between them, but she couldn't see Teal'c or Daniel now at all. There were too many people running and shouting and getting in the way, and she couldn't tell which of them were pirates and which just frantic bystanders.

The man holding her jerked her hard toward the edge. The stone was smooth under her feet, and gave her little purchase. She dug in her heels anyway, wishing she had more time to figure out what the men wanted, and why they seemed ready to die.

She wasn't. It caught her by surprise, as it had been catching her at the worst moments since they'd returned from Ne'tu, the flash of Jolinar's memory, less images this time than raw emotion: she wasn't ready to die, not here and not like this. She'd do
anything
to survive.

“No!” Sam yelled, fighting with all her strength, trying to keep herself from going over the edge. She could still see the airship descending out of the corner of her eye. If she could just hold on until its crew reached the plateau, until Hammond broke free from his would-be rescuers, until something
—

“Be still, damn you,” the man growled, and toppled them both over the edge.

F
or a vivid moment, all Sam was aware of was the sensation of falling as she grasped for a handhold that persisted in not being there. She forced herself to look down, wanting to see just how far they were about to fall.

She flinched, disbelieving, at the sight of a gray mass rushing up toward her far too fast
—
surely they couldn't be about to hit the bottom of the ravine already
—
and then perception caught up to reality and she realized it was the canopy of an airship hovering some distance below the edge of the cliff. She tried instinctively to spread her arms to break her fall, but with them still bound behind her, the best she could do was try to go limp and hope her captor didn't land on her.

She slammed into the fabric of the canopy hard enough to knock the breath out of her, her nose stinging; she tasted blood as she slid wildly down the canopy's slope. There was no way to get any purchase on the rough fabric, and she figured this had only postponed the inevitable; it was still a long way down, and any moment she'd go tumbling off the canopy and start falling again.

Instead she was jerked to a stop by something that twisted and rocked under her thrashing weight; it took her a moment to realize she was hanging in a net extended out beyond the airship's canopy, and that hands were dragging her in.

“Let me go!” she demanded as she was roughly dumped onto the airship's deck. She rolled over and sat up, bracing herself on her hands.

The first thing she could see was that two more men were dragging Jack down out of the same net she'd landed in. He sprawled unmoving next to her, but he was breathing. In fact, he didn't look like the fall had done any worse to him than made him lose his hat, which she supposed was currently floating down to the distant ground below.

“Sir?” she tried, but he didn't open his eyes. She looked around, trying to readjust to a situation that, however bad it might be, was an infinite improvement over falling to her death.

There were at least half a dozen men moving purposely about the open deck, which had only a thin brass rail running around it to keep anyone on it from tumbling over the side. Ladders ran up from either side of the deck, probably to a catwalk above, and she could see an open hatch that must go down into the gondola below.

Toward the front of the deck, brass controls were set on a central pillar and surrounding consoles, broad levers and wheels and dials that must have been instruments of some kind. Two men were stationed there, one adjusting the levers, the other leaning over the rail to see ahead of them and making what Sam could tell were some kind of hand signals, even if she couldn't interpret them.

The propellers had to be aft and underneath them. She couldn't see the curve of their housing, but she could feel a mechanical hum through the metal deck. There were large swiveling brass devices mounted on the sides of the deck that might have been weapons, although from here she couldn't see them well enough to be sure they weren't telescopes of some kind instead.

She was currently being ignored. That rankled, after having been unceremoniously thrown off a cliff. The least they could do was talk to her.

“Hey!” she called. “This is all a big mistake.”

“You may be right,” one of the men said, leaning out precariously over the rail as if looking at something Sam couldn't see herself. He wore a heavy leather coat that fit stiffly enough in front that she thought it might be armored somehow, and had long dark hair caught back in a rough tail that whipped in the wind.

He turned to a stocky man who Sam recognized as her original captor, scowling. “Get us out of the Gap,” he said. “They'll be down on our heads any moment.”

“It's going to be a close thing already,” the man said.

“So move!”

The stocky man scrambled off, shouting orders to the rest of the crew, while the other man stood looking down at Sam. “If Reba didn't get what we were after, you'd better be worth something yourselves.”

“We're away, Keret,” someone called across the deck. She could feel as much, the propellers thrumming under the deck, and the man
—
Keret
—
also seemed to think it too obvious to require a reply. “The 
Heart's Desire
 is already away as well.”

“Of course she is,” Keret said. “Trust Reba to be ready to cast off at the first sign things are going wrong. Who's missing?”

“We lost three at least,” the man said. “Hemi, Bet, and Seneb. And Dayse
—
no, there he is. Arbel, though, I saw him go down. The Tau'ri had thunderbolts
—”

“I noticed,” Keret said, and glared down at Sam. “Where did you get the thunderbolts? Did your god give them to you?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Thunderbolts,” Keret said, drawing his zat by way of illustration and then pointing it at her.

Sam tried to hold perfectly still. It was probably still too soon for her to be able to survive another shot from a zat, especially at point-blank range. “We found them.”

“Of course you did.”

“It's the truth,” Sam said.

“Search them,” Keret said. “Make sure they've got no more weapons. Then get them below decks. I'll deal with them after we make the rendezvous.”

He leaned over the rail again, peering behind them as the other man began searching Sam more thoroughly than she would have put up with if she'd had any other alternative. Sam could see a flash of white against the blue sky, probably the canopy of a pursuing airship, but it was farther away than she'd hoped.

Then their own airship made one of those improbably sharp turns, angling out from the cliff and sweeping out into the Gap, the deck tilting as it climbed, and she could see the big airship that had been hovering over the ceremony now moored at the edge of the courtyard where the ceremony had been held. She could just make out guards climbing down from the airship and joining the others trying to clear the courtyard of spectators.

So much for their imminent rescue. They must have decided that protecting the king and figuring out what to do with the unconscious attackers was more important than pursuing them. Past the moored airship, she could see another smaller ship, its canopy the same dull gray as the ship she was currently aboard, sailing off into the Gap some distance away, trailing a streak of steam.

“Keret,” the other man said, in a tone that suggested he was about to say something Keret wouldn't like.

“I see it,” he said. He grimaced at the other, smaller airship, which was definitely setting a course of its own, aiming for one of the more distant passes. One of the royal ships was now clear of the hangars and moving off in pursuit, but Sam couldn't see that it had a chance of reaching the smaller pirate ship before it could lose itself in ravines too narrow for a larger airship to follow. She also suspected that bright crimson canopies and crimson and gold banners would make it a lot easier for the pirates to see the royal ships coming than the other way around.

“Do we still make for the rendezvous?”

“We do,” Keret said. “It could be they're just taking the scenic route.”

“You think so?”

“I think it doesn't matter,” Keret said. “We got away with enough ourselves to make the raid worthwhile.”

“You mean us?” Sam said. She probably ought to stay quiet, but she couldn't help herself.

“I mean you,” Keret said, and she didn't at all like his smile.

H
ammond hung onto his pistol as he was manhandled away from the center of the courtyard, firmly resisting the tugging hands that wanted to take it from him but unwilling to shoot into the largely innocent crowd. By the time he managed to shake off his would-be rescuers well enough to move, none of the pirates were still standing. A few lay sprawled on the courtyard stones, downed by zat fire or knocked down by the guards, but most were simply gone.

“The pirates have returned to their ships, Great General,” one of the High King's servants said insistently. “You must put your weapon away.”

“All right,” Hammond said shortly, tucking his pistol back into his jacket. He'd lost his improvised skirt at some point in the melee, which was the only bright spot at the moment. “What's happened to my people?” He couldn't see any of the members of SG-1, and he'd last seen Carter struggling dangerously close to the edge of the cliff.

“They have been taken as prisoners by the pirates,” Walat said, pushing his way through the crowd to his side. He looked bruised, and the hem of his robes were torn, but he was straightening them as he walked. “There is no great cause for alarm.”

“No cause for alarm? They were being dragged off a cliff by armed men, which your ‘guards' did nothing to prevent
—”

“It is forbidden to bring weapons into a holy place,” Walat said. “The evil men who have dared to do such a thing will be struck down by Her hand.”

“I didn't notice much striking down happening just now.”

“The Queen of Heaven is far away,” the High King said, brushing off servants who were clustering nervously around him. “When she returns, she will be told of these crimes so that her favor may pass from the evildoers all the rest of their days.”

Hammond tried not to sound too impatient. “I'm more concerned about what may be happening to my people right now.”

The High King shook his head, frowning. “Perhaps Asherah will be merciful to your servants, and not turn her face from them, since they are strangers and must not have understood that they stood on sacred ground.”

“I'm very sorry that we offended you
—
and your goddess
—
by using weapons in a holy place,” Hammond said, as diplomatically as he felt was humanly possible. “It's not the custom of our people to let ourselves be attacked without putting up a fight.”

The High King nodded, his expression lightening. “We have heard you are great warriors. It is one reason we thought you would make valuable trade partners. I hope this small disturbance will not be a distraction from the many profits to be gained from an agreement between our people.”