Magical Cage 6
Rated TEEN
The plane lay in the ruins of the tree Jack had managed to take down in his landing, but as the old cliché went, any landing you could walk away from was a good landing. Considering some of the weird shit he'd had to fly, Jack lived by that particular motto.
Now he just had to figure out how to make Xander walk away from it. Right now Xander was about as real as Bart Simpson, locked in some computer as a bunch of number that would make Carter squirm with joy. Jack really wished he could have Carter tell him which button to push. Jack flashed through several screens with red letters warning of failing systems as he searched for the screen that looked like the one Spike had shown him.
In command training, Jack had learned to give orders and make decisions, even when death was the natural consequence. The first time he'd gone to Abydos, he'd prepared himself to die on an alien planet to protect his wife and his son's grave and his country, although his duty to country wasn't the first thing on his mind. On Apophis' ship, he'd left Danny behind to blow up with the ship even though it had torn at his soul. But those were potential losses in the middle of battle. Now Xander's life or death lay in whether or not Jack pushed the right sequence of buttons, and Jack forced away the doubts as he scrolled to the right screen.
Taking a deep breath, Jack pressed the sequence, and a blue light swept the area, leaving Xander in its wake, and the man pulled the trigger on the P90, neatly killing a vine that hung from a nearby tree. A flock of birds screamed into the air, and Xander stopped firing.
"I think you killed the tree," Jack said as he climbed out of the cracked shell of the ship.
"What?"
"The tree," Jack said as he gestured toward the tree where bullets had ripped off the dark bark, leaving white chunks behind.
"Not what 'that'," Xander said as he looked at the tree. "What what?" And Jack had been around the kid way too long because that bit of mangled English actually made sense.
"I scooped you up," Jack said as he hopped to the ground and slapped the plane with his left hand.
"Well, unscoop me!" Xander demanded. Jack raised an eyebrow. "I'm thinking Spike is still up there since I don't see you beaming him down, so beam me back up. I'm not leaving Spike behind."
"It isn't a transporter," Jack said.
"I don't care. Make with the beaming or the flying or something." Xander's voice trailed off at the end, as though he knew he was asking the impossible. Jack considered the wreckage wedged into the trees and then looked back toward Xander.
"Unless you have an F-16 and an air strip in your pocket, it's not going to happen."
"I can't believe you left him behind."
"He could have stolen another scooper... thing," Jack defended himself despite the nagging guilt he felt even without Xander's help. Even worse, he disliked Spike so much that he wondered if his decision had been entirely about practical tactics. When he'd left Danny behind, he'd had zero choice in the matter, but with Spike… well, it was done, and second guessing his own decisions wouldn't change the current situation.
"Yeah, the invisible scooper thingy that landed right behind us?" Xander demanded, and Jack narrowed his eyes at the sarcasm.
"I couldn't get a lock on him, so the best course of action was to retreat and--"
"Save your sorry ass?"
"Hey, enough," Jack snapped. "I tried to get a lock on him but he moved too fast. In case you weren't paying attention, the Wraith eat guys like us. Spike is better off without having to worry about us," Jack pointed out even though he didn't think Spike spent too much time worrying about him. However, the vampire had acted to save Xander, so he did have a point. The stiffness went out of Xander with a sigh. His shoulders drooped, and Jack understood the fear and guilt; he'd felt it often enough.
"He would not have been big with the leaving us. Not anymore, anyway. Once, he totally would have left us, but then at one point he totally would have handed us over to the Wraith, if he hadn't eaten us first. But then, that was a long time ago, and now I can't believe I left him." Xander leaned back against a tree, his hand resting naturally on the butt of the P90 as he scanned the wreckage.
"You didn't leave him," Jack interrupted the self-flaggelation.
"I'm thinking I'm down here and he's up there somewhere, so that qualifies as leaving, and I'm not really okay with the whole stabbing a friend in the back bit," Xander nearly whispered. "Not that he's a friend. He's not, but he's--" Xander stopped. Jack understood that too. At one point, he would have called Daniel and Sam and Teal'c his team, but they'd become something more a long time ago, even when the annoyed the life out of him.
"I promised him once that I wouldn't ever leave him behind—that'd I'd stick a stake in him if he annoyed me enough, but that I wouldn't leave him, and now I've gone and done the 'et tu Brute' bit and left him." Xander said without any emotion, his words flat and dead.
"Once we find the others, Sam might be able to figure some of this tech out. We'll try to get him back." Jack offered the only comfort he could. "He's tough."
Xander snorted. "You have no idea. He's... well, he's Spike." Xander paused. "Someone's going to come to see that, aren't they?" Xander asked as he nodded toward the broken bits of plane strewn through the broken trees.
"Goa'uld can be pretty stupid, but not even the dumbest could miss that crash," Jack agreed. "We need to meet up with the others."
"Willow." Xander breathed the word and stood up straight.
"She'll be fine," Jack promised, but he headed for the area south of the gate instead of the cave. Unless he missed his guess, Xander wouldn't know the difference. The only reason he knew where to go was because he had seen the ridge of rock and the gate right before he had put the plane nose first into the jungle. He was just glad Teal'c wasn't around to see the wreckage because the man definitely would have been able to land the thing without getting a scratch on it, and Jack's ego was not up to competing with Teal'c right now.
As Jack walked, Xander fell in beside him. Jack struggled to ignore the voice that pointed out that they were making a target out of themselves. Xander might occasionally act like a soldier, but when it came down to it, he was a kid who had left his best friend behind in enemy territory. He didn't need Jack barking orders or expecting Xander to react like a soldier.
"Do you think that maybe I should, I don't know... walk point?" Xander asked in the silence. For a half second, Jack replayed the last minute or so to see if he had accidentally said something out loud, but unless his head was as banged up as his hand, he hadn't.
"I'm not sure it's a good idea."
"Oh," Xander said softly. "Yeah, me with the walking point and the snake demons and the seriously needing a hair cut demons... yeah, might not be of the good."
"Xander," Jack said wearily.
"Hey, no problemo. If there were a donut shop around, I could show you just how useful I can be, but I get the me not being a big help with the fighting part."
"Xander."
"Spike is right about me being a demon magnet, but don't you dare tell him that I admitted that."
"Xander!" Jack snapped this time.
"What?"
"Walk point."
Xander gave Jack a mock salute that still snapped formally forward before he trotted forward, his weapon held ready and his eyes scanning the ground. Jack sighed. Now if only the competent Xander stayed in charge, they just might get through to the rest of the team. Jack reached up and grabbed his radio, clicking it twice and waiting without much hope for some sort of response from his missing people.
They walked in silence as the sun climbed through the sky, until Xander stopped, his arm throwing up a closed fist in the silent warning of enemies on the path. Two fingers jigged left before Xander faded back into the shade of a tall bush. Okay, that was new. Jack stepped off the path and pulled his weapon as he watched the trail.
Jack could brush off the intermittent competence with a weapon as too many video games, and Xander's unusual history of fighting demons would account for the boy's steadiness under fire, but nothing explained his use of covert hand signals, or the way the boy pressed himself into the best possible cover. He wiggled onto his stomach, his head protected by a rock as he braced the P90 at an angle to cover the path. Oh yeah, Jack really hated surprises, and the kid seemed full of them.
Almost immediately, Jack heard the familiar clunking of Jaffa, and when would those guys ever learn? Of course, for his team's sake, and Xander's sake, he hoped this lot would stay just as dumb as all the rest. Five Jaffa came around a bend in the path, staff weapons held to their sides as they marched through the trees.
From his position, he could see Xander stiffen before his body sagged into the earth, and Jack sent up the same prayer he used for his own raw recruits. The Jaffa commander stopped, and the other four stopped behind him. One good land mine would take them all out, but unfortunately, Jack was one land mine short of a land mine.
The boy had a fairly good shot, but he continued to wait. Either the kid had seriously big balls and he was waiting for the Jaffa to put themselves in the crossfire between Xander and Jack, or the kid had frozen. Worse case, Jack would just keep his head down and let the Jaffa pass. He sure wouldn't be taking on five Jaffa with a hand weapon that he could only fire with his left hand.
Breathing slowly and silently, Jack knelt on the ground, dampness soaking into his knee as he waited.
"Kree," The Jaffa commander issued curtly as he started forward again. He had taken a half dozen steps and then the sharp bark of a P90 sent a flock of birds winging into the sky just as the Jaffa's head exploded. The other Jaffa fell back to the trees, and now Xander fired on full automatic, the bullets creating a rain of leaves as they tore through trees and even a couple of Jaffa.
Jack grimaced at the wasted ammunition as he targeted a Jaffa who'd taken cover behind a huge moss-covered trunk. He pulled the trigger only to have the bullet go into the tree. Shit. The Jaffa swung around, weapon ready, and Jack dropped to the ground for cover as he squeezed off two more shots. Either Jack's shots or Xander's continued spraying of the forest got the Jaffa, and his hands flew up as his mouth opened in a silent scream. His body fell, and Jack scanned the forest.
Three Jaffa lay on the path, including the commander of the unit. One more now lay slumped under the cover of the trees. That left one still in the forest. Xander had stopped firing, but Jack didn't know whether the boy had actually stopped or just run out of ammunition. It wouldn't be the first time a recruit couldn't stop firing until the bullets just ran out.
"In the name of our lord Sokar, surrender and beg for mercy," shouted a voice from the trees. Yep, count on the Jaffa to act like complete idiots. Jack sometimes wondered how Teal'c could have turned out so damn deadly when Jaffa training seemed to include lessons on giving away your position and making yourself as ineffective as possible.
Jack slid into the shadows, hoping Xander really was out of ammunition or else the kid would likely shoot him as he moved toward that voice. First stop, the fallen Jaffa and his zat. Jack flicked the weapon open with a familiar hum, flinching as the noise gave away his position to anyone listening closely enough, but Xander had started shouting, so maybe the surviving Jaffa had missed it.
"I'm really not good with begging. Can I just ask nicely? Maybe do the whole 'cherry on top' thing?" Xander called.
Jack seriously hoped that the kid was trying to cover Jack's movements because otherwise, he would have to call the boy as stupid as the Jaffa.
"Sokar will feast upon your entrails. Surrender now."
"And as good as that offer sounds, the whole feasing on entrails doesn't really make me want to surrender. That's more like an anti-surrender speech what with the entrails and the feasting. And I hope you mean that figuratively because I've seen things that feast on entrails, and they're never pretty."
Jack slid around a tall, moss covered stone and saw the last Jaffa crouched behind a tree, staff weapon clutched tightly.
"Surrender, and maybe our great god will have--"
Jack fired the zat, and the Jaffa stiffened before he fell forward, unconscious.
"Have what? Heartburn? Kittens? Really big ugly warts--the kind that have hair growing out of them?" Xander yelled his suggestions from his spot on the other side of the faint trail.
"He's not going to be answering you," Jack called. "He's out for the count."
"Oh."
Jack expected something more grateful, but Xander's voice sounded toneless as Jack stripped the weapons from the Jaffa. Jack used a plastic restraint to tie the Jaffa's hands before he looked up toward Xander.
Xander stood staring down at the Jaffa leader, his head exploded into a mass of hamburger with the jaw still attached to the bottom.
"Xander?" Jack checked the cuffs around the Jaffa's hands before stepping closer to the boy.
"Kinda different, fighting demons who look so much like humans. Usually, I kill things that have tentacles or gills or something."
"Vampires look pretty human," Jack pointed out. The kid had also helped to kill the Jaffa at the Stargate, but he hadn't really stopped and looked at those bodies. Now he stood staring down at that ruined face.
"Yeah, but vampires go 'poof', which makes it easier," Xander pointed out. "And what with the gun, it just sort of feels more real."
"I'd rather have them dead than us," Jack pointed out. "They're bad guys, and they made their choices, so killing them is just cleaning up the universe, so snap out of it soldier." Jack gave an abbreviated version of the speech he usually made at some point when he took recruits into a combat zone for the first time. Xander's back stiffened and he nodded before pulling his gaze away from the mutilated Jaffa commander.
"Did you capture a prisoner, sir?" Xander asked, and the correct grammar sounded distinctly un-Xanderish, even without the sir.
Jack raised his eyebrows. "Have one tied up as tight as a Thanksgiving turkey," Jack agreed as he gestured for Xander to head into the bush ahead of him. Right now, Jack didn't want Xander at his back any more than he wanted Spike there. Xander nodded and headed into the forest, his hand resting comfortably on the butt of the now empty P90.