Title: Catspaw
Author: Danielle
Rating: NC-17 (Somewhat graphic violence, sexual assault implied and some mild language)
Disclaimer: All characters from the television series ‘Stargate SG-1’ belong to Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions.I’m only borrowing them for my personal entertainment, and I promise I’ll put them back all nice and proper. I didn’t profit from writing this piece, though if someone wants to pay me huge wads of cash for the copyright, I won’t argue. All original characters and situations belong to me, but you can use them if you really want to - just mail me first. Also mail me first if you want to archive this somewhere. Thank you kindly.
Summary: Rhya is infected with an unknown parasite. Can SG-1 save her from herself?

Catspaw - Part I

Rhya took one last flying leap into the waiting wormhole as another projectile whizzed past her right ear -- and landed on the metal platform of the embarkation room with a resounding clang. Muttering expletives under her breath, she reached a hand behind her and felt for the dart she knew had hit her just before he had reached the Gate. Ah, there it was - right in the kisser. Pulling on it slightly she grimaced as the metal tip withdrew from her flesh.

“You alright down there?” Jack asked, crouching down beside her.

“Apart from the stick-pin in my tuckus you mean? Just peachy.” Groaning slightly, she pushed herself to her knees, then used Jack’s shoulder to heave herself to her feet. “Argh, I’m too old for this shit.”

“You’re too old?” Jack raised an eyebrow.
She grinned impishly and swatted at the colonel. “It’s all relative. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and be quarantined.” Pulling a face, she strode down the ramp and into the waiting arms of the medical team.

*****

Bast stirred from her slumber. What was this? A new host after so long. Things were definitely looking up. She slid her new host’s body off the bed on which she lay. Time to begin the prowl.

*****

Daniel rubbed his eyes and leant back in his chair. For the past few hours he’d been trying to puzzle out the messages of the scrolls sitting on the desk in front of him. Now, the delicate writing seemed akin to random scribbles and meaningless gibberish.

Maybe I should get some sleep he thought. But he quickly jettisoned that idea, he wasn’t going anywhere until Dr Fraiser let Rhya out of quarantine. He'd promised after all.

A gentle creak from his door caused him to lift his head from his hands. “Rhya? What are you doing out of quarantine?”

She ducked her head and shuffled her feet. “I got lonely.”

“Dr Fraiser let you out ‘cos you were lonely? Somehow I doubt that,” he said as he levered himself out of his chair and moved around his desk. “I think I’d better take you back to the infirmary.”

Rhya looked at him from under her lashes and pouted slightly. “Do I have to? I wanna stay here with you - med bay is boring.”

Daniel couldn’t help but smile at her petulance. “Yes, you have to.” He reached out a hand and took her arm.

“But-”

“No ‘buts’. Now, come on.” Pulling gently, he tried to lead her out of his office.

“No.”

The tone of her voice prompted him to look at her, really look at her. His eyes widened as he looking into her eyes. In the darkness of her pupils he saw tiny sparks of light. And then he realised that he could no longer sense her. No, dear God, no!!

“Yes,” she hissed, lashing out with a vicious back-hand across his face. The force of the blow knocked his glasses off and rocketed him back into the room. With hazy vision he watched her close the door softly and advance on where he was slouched.

“Poor Daniel,” she crooned, caressing his cheek, “always on the receiving end.”

She grasped his throat with a firm grip and slowly pulled him to his feet. He struggled for breath as her fingers hit into his flesh.

“Looks like your karma took a turn for the worse,” she growled and flung him across the room. He slammed into a bookcase, causing a shower of books and artefacts to fall on him as he slowly slid to the floor. Her bare feet made soft noises on the floor as she stalked to where he lay. Crouching, she ran her fingers through his hair, before grabbing a handful and wrenching his head up.

“You know,” she said in an almost conversational tone, “they say you always hurt the one‘s you love.” She slowly rose to her feet and dragged him with her. “Guess that means I love you a whole lot.”

Spinning him around, she pushed him into the desk with a nudge from a well-aimed fist in the kidneys. The items on his desk scattered to the floor as she shoved him onto the smooth surface and flipped him onto his back. Clambering up gracefully, she moved to straddle his waist. All he could do was moan groggily and thrash weakly.

She grasped his chin and leant forward to look into his eyes. He flinched at her heated gaze. “Poor dear. Nothing ever goes right, does it?” She let the hand holding his face drift down to rest on his chest - right over the erratic beating of his heart. “Let mommy make it all better.”

A lazy smile slid across her features and terror crept onto his.

“No,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

*****

Beep-beep.

Daniel moaned softly and moved his head experimentally. His whole body hurt in a myriad of ways. But he must’ve been unconscious for quite a while, since most of it was a dull throbbing.

Beep-beep.

He swivelled his head to his left and was confronted with a heart monitor. Oh Great, Doc Fraiser will just love me he thought miserably. He attempted to sit up, but a pain in his abdomen stopped that before it had really started. He fell back into the pillow with a groan - attracting the attention of the duty nurse.

“Dr Jackson?” she asked, sticking her head around the curtain. Seeing he was awake, she bustled in and proceeded to take his pulse - amongst other things. “How do you feel?”

“Like someone’s given me a good going over with a crow bar,” Daniel croaked. He fidgeted as the nurse scribbled something on his chart and put it back at the end of his bed.

“I’ll go and get colonel O’Neill. He wanted to be informed as soon as you woke up.” With that, she marched from the room and left him alone once more.

“Oh great. I bet Jack is about as pleased as Janet,” he muttered to himself.

His prediction turned out to be correct as the colonel literally ran into his cubicle. Seeing the surprise on his friend’s face, Jack stopped in his tracks and took a deep breath. Even though it’d probably kill him to admit it, the older man had been worried sick about Daniel. But since they both knew it, he didn’t have to say a word.

“How are you?” Jack asked as he grabbed a chair and swung it around to sit on it backwards.

“I think people who’ve been run over with steam rollers feel better than me,” Daniel replied.

Jack smiled wryly and nodded in understanding. “Know the feeling well.” They sat in silence for a few moments while the colonel thought of a way to broach the subject.

“Um, do you remember anything?”

“When Rhya, no, it wasn’t Rhya... Her eyes...” He dragged his wandering attention back to the question. “Um,When that thing attacked me?” Jack nodded. “Yeah, I remember everything up until it had a go at sticking my head through my office door.”

The older man blanched and actually went pale. “You’ve been out of it for nearly a week. Janet, I mean, Dr Fraiser has had to keep you sedated to give you body a chance to heal. She did quite a bit of damage.”

“I know, I can feel it.” Daniel tried to get into a marginally more comfortable position, only to aggravate what he knew, from experience, to be several broken ribs. “Did she-?”

Jack nodded mutely. “She attacked just about everyone who laid eyes on her. She managed to beat two to death with her bare hands, which admittedly wouldn't be too difficult for her. Whatever that thing inside her is, it’s given her a lot more than an attitude problem.”

“Where is she?”

“She managed to get through the gate back to RZ3 078. Don’t ask me why she’s gone there.” Jack fidgeted and suddenly found his hands very interesting. “We were thinking you might have some hint as to what this thing that’s got her is.”

“I tried to touch her mind not long after she came into my office, that is, before she started tossing me around the room. Whatever it is that has control, it’s angry. Really angry.”

“Was she... trying to fight it?”

“I don’t know.” Daniel gingerly shifted again. “Maybe it was too strong...”

“Let’s hope not.”

*****

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sam asked Daniel for the umpteenth time that day.

"Yes, Sam, I'm sure. Now can we please go?" The archaeologist shrugged his backpack onto his shoulder and made sure the safety on his rifle was on. The last thing he needed was a trip back to the infirmary because he shot himself in the foot. After spending nearly a month there, Janet Fraiser would have his guts for garters if he dared turn up again.

"You know, we've sent nearly five SG teams to RZ3 078 and there's been no sign of her. What makes you think that this'll be any different?" Jack asked, still mildly confused at Daniel's insistence that they try to find Rhya. As far as the rest of the base was concerned, the case was most definitely closed. Life went on and all that mumbo-jumbo.

"I just know it," the young man replied forcefully.

"Okay then. I gather you aren't going to give us much choice in the matter," Jack said, resigned to spending three days on a fruitless hunt for a being that they wouldn't know what to do with even if they found her.

The chevrons on the StarGate locked and the wormhole opened without incident. The colonel led the way up the ramp and into the glowing 'liquid' surface of the event horizon. Sunlight shone down on the grasslands that surrounded their exit point. Like their first visit, everything was deceptively quiet. Motioning for the others to fan out, Jack slowly made his way down to ground level. Their footsteps rustled through the knee-length grass as each person scanned the field for any signs of life.

Sam whistled quietly, the pre-arranged signal that she'd spotted something. SG-1 had learnt their lesson from their last visit - it had been the sound of their voices that had let the less-than-welcoming villagers know they were around and able to be attacked. Jack crept over to her position as quietly as he could manage, looking in the direction she pointed. What confronted his vision would've made him sick when he was younger - thankfully, he'd seen a lot during his time in the service.

"What is it?" Daniel whispered, coming up behind them and peering over Jack's shoulder. The archaeologist went as white as a sheet when he too saw the view. "Good God."

Bodies, lots of bodies, hung from the tree branches. Nooses still encircled their necks, clothes still hung in tatters from the rapidly decomposing corpses. It was grotesque.

"They've only been there for a week or so," Sam postulated. "Anything older would've fallen by now."

"That sounds about right. Thank heaven we're not downwind, that's all I have to say," Jack murmured, turning away from the sight.

"Who could've done that?" Daniel asked as they moved away.

Jack thought about it for a moment. "To be honest, I don't know. Whoever they are, they're in sore need of help."

The quartet moved into the forest to the left of the Gate and continued their search. Soon, they could hear the sounds of a river and with it, the sound of a voice singing.

"Wanna give it a go? Maybe our bathing beauty has seen her," Jack suggested. When the other three nodded silently, he pushed his way through some close-growing trees and into the open. A short way up the river, a woman was floating on her back, singing in a strange language for all she was worth.

"Jack?" Daniel whispered.

"What?" Jack hissed back, his eyes never leaving their soon-to-be interviewee.

"I know that song. It's an ancient Egyptian lullaby. I taught it to Rhya…" the archaeologist's voice trailed off as realisation dawned on him.

"Have your weapons ready kiddies, she might not want to play," Jack warned them all quietly.

Moving as quietly as possible, given the surrounding shrubbery, the group slowly sneaked up on their unsuspecting quarry. Well, they'd thought she was unsuspecting. Before Jack could even announce their presence, she was out of the water and running naked along the side of the river at what appeared to be top speed. Strangely, her pace wasn't as fast as it could have been.

"Sorry Rhya," Jack muttered as he took aim. Sending up a small prayer, he fired the dart that Janet had supplied them all with and watched as it connected with the fleeing woman's lower back. The sedative it contained took effect almost immediately and she dropped to the ground like a fallen tree. They watched for a beat as she twitched, before falling still.

"Come on," the colonel ordered them. "Let's get her back home before the drugs wear off."

They tramped to where Rhya lay and gently rolled her over.

"Dear God!" Daniel cried, before stumbling a short distance away and being violently ill. Teal'c followed the archaeologist to give what aid he could, leaving Sam and Jack with the unconscious woman.

"I see his problem," Jack said without humour, his gaze fixed on Rhya's grossly swollen abdomen.

*****

"This is impossible," Dr Fraiser murmured as she read the thermometer's readout for the fifth time.

"What's that?" Nurse Charlene 'Lenny' McCoy asked as she withdrew a second vial-full of blood from Rhya's arm.

"Her temperature - its 106.7°F! She should be having convulsions at least. I've never seen anything like this." She placed the thermometer into Rhya's ear again and waited for the beeps. "Same again. I don't understand."

"Join the club," Lenny said. "I'll take these to the lab." She scribbled on the vials' labels and marched dutifully from the cubicle.

The doctor pulled the chart from the base of the bed and recorded the temperature. "How?" she whispered to the woman, who appeared to be waking from the sedative.

Rhya groaned softly and tried to shift, but the straps on her wrists and ankles precluded most movement. Her eyes flew open and fixed the doctor with a furious stare.

"How dare you do this to me?" she growled dangerously.

"This is for your safety and our own," Fraiser tried to say in as reasonable a tone as possible.

"I care nothing for your safety human," came the swift reply. "Release me from this bondage!"

"I'm sorry, but I can't do that." The doctor backed towards the curtains of the cubicle and gestured surreptitiously for a guard to enter.

The major walked in with his weapon at the ready and stationed himself in plain sight of the captive. Rhya glared at him and struggled violently against her bonds - nearly succeeding in pulling them free.

"Hold her down!" Dr Fraiser ordered the slightly astounded soldier as she prepared a syringe of sedative. The guard yelled for his compatriot, who rushed in and helped to hold the increasingly violent woman onto the bed. Fraiser slid the needle into a hastily found vein and waited for the drugs to take effect. Which they didn't.

Instead of drifting into sleep, Rhya merely became more incensed - and succeeded in pulling an arm free. She grasped the nearest soldier by the throat and started to choke him with one hand. The doctor ran to the panic button and slapped it, prompting the sounding of klaxons throughout the complex. A security detail soon stormed the cubicle, wrestled the guard free and subdued his attacker. This time, Fraiser succeeded in knocking Rhya out by injecting her with the strongest sedative she on hand. The woman yelled something incomprehensible before slumping into unconsciousness.

"Take her to a detention cell and keep her in there. I have to report to the general," Janet told the man who appeared to be in charge and quickly left the infirmary.

*****

"Thank you all for coming," General Hammond intoned. "As Rhya's friends I'm sure you would all like to be kept abreast of the situation. Please, have a seat."

SG-1 all sat in their usual positions: Daniel next to Jack, Sam and Teal's across from them. All five people looked expectantly at Dr Fraiser.

"Well, while she was unconscious I was able to carry out as thorough an examination as possible. So far as I can tell, Rhya is nearly to term with regard to her pregnancy-"

"What about that... thing that's got control of her," Jack asked impatiently, glancing at a withdrawn and silent Daniel.

"We haven't had time to run the tests necessary to isolate and identify the organism. However, Rhya does not appear to be showing the normal physiological signs of a bacterial infection, except..." Her voice trailed away.

"Except for what Doctor?" Hammond prompted her.

"Rhya is running a fever of 106.7°F, yet is showing no symptoms associated with a severe case of hyperthermia. At that core body temperature humans would be exhibiting signs of organ failure, but she isn't even sweating!"

"106?! But that's impossible!" Sam cried skeptically.

"Exactly. But for the life of me I can't figure out why she's asymptomatic," Janet said in a defeated tone and slumped back into her seat.

"Some like it hot I guess," Jack muttered.

Janet's ears literally pricked up. "What did you say?" she asked the colonel excitedly.

He shot her a bemused look. "'Some like it hot'. Why?"

The doctor leant forward and rested her elbows on the conference table. "What if this particular organism is a thermophile and needs a high environmental temperature in order to survive and perpetuate the species? Maybe it is somehow able to induce an increase in core body temperature, yet somehow prevent heat accumulation in the tissues." She jumped out of her seat and began to pace the room. "That's got to be it! If it increases the metabolic rate past maximal exercise levels then it might be able to divide and mature faster than the average bacteria..."

As she prattled on about 'bacteria' and 'metabolic rates' Jack nudged Daniel and asked him in an undertone, "Are you following a word of this?"

The archaeologist shook his head and almost looked apologetic. "Micro-organisms aren't exactly my forte," he murmured back.

"-And that might be how she's managed to fit a normal human gestation period into little more than a month," Janet finished, looking triumphantly at them all.

"But can you remove the organism?" the General asked, not exactly swept away with the doctor's excitement.

Janet shook her head slowly. "If it has somehow managed to cross the blood-brain barrier and enter the cerebrum it will be very difficult to remove. I did manage to do a lumbar puncture, so we should be able to see if the organism is present in the cerebro-spinal fluid. That way we'd know it was present in the brain." She paused and thought for a moment. "It'd be easier if we could force it into the bloodstream proper, then we could use fine dialysis to try and get it out." She took her seat again and cupped her chin in her hands.

"What would happen if we lower her core body temperature?" Sam suggested after a moment of silence.

"That might just force it into dormancy and all we'll manage to do is give Rhya a bad case of hypothermia," she replied with a sigh.

"Would an electric shock aid in removing the organism into Rhyanidd's blood?" Teal'c asked.

"It could do, but that may cause her to lose the foetus. Just about anything we could do might cause her to spontaneously abort, or kill the child in utero and cause it to be stillborn." Janet shifted her gaze to Daniel, who fidgeted uncomfortably. "Unfortunately, it isn't my decision to make."

"What are your thoughts on the subject Dr Jackson?" Hammond asked passively.

"To be honest, I'm not all that comfortable with the idea of becoming a father..." He bit his lip, trying to quell the urge to say exactly where the baby could go. "Besides, what if it's infected too? Maybe the only reason why Rhya, um..."

"Took advantage of your friendship," Jack supplied.

"Right, uh, that," Daniel continued, "is so that the organism would have less of a fight on its hands in trying to take control of the host's mental functions."

"That is a hypothesis. Whatever this organism is, it's obviously very similar to the one we bought back from P5C 353, in that it displays a collective intelligence when present in large numbers. Maybe we could lower Rhya's temperature enough so we could communicate with her," Sam suggested. "At the very least we could ask her why it's angry enough at the villagers to massacre them."

"I have a funny feeling its angry with a lot of people," Jack interjected.

Janet had just opened her mouth to say something when a panicky voice rang out over the PA system. "Dr Fraiser to detention cell one!! Dr Fraiser to detention cell one!"

"Rhya!" Daniel said, guessing the reason for the emergency. "She's gone into labour."

The doctor looked at him for a beat, before gesturing that they should all come with her. "If that thing's still as violent as it was half-an-hour ago, I suspect I'll need all the help I can get!" With that, she practically sprinted out of the conference room.

The other four followed quickly behind, leaving General Hammond seated at the table. Leaning back in his chair, he sent a silent prayer up to God that things would once again turn out all right for his people.

*****

"Her water appears to have broken!" A nurse cried as Janet reached the cell that Rhya was being held in.
"Why isn't anyone in there?" She demanded, flinging open the door and stepping inside. She was greeted with the sight of a woman in very obvious pain. "Give me 5cc's of morphine stat!"

"Doctor-" the nurse started, before she was cut off.

"Stay away from me Janet!" Rhya cried frantically, backing further into the corner she was crouched in. "Please, I don't want to hurt you!"

"Rhya, I can give you drugs-"

"NO!!!" she cried again, her voice changing in timbre as the organism took control. "I do not need your assistance human!" If she hadn't been in the middle of giving birth, she no doubt would've been on her feet and out the door.

"Rhya-" Janet protested.

"No doc! Please, I can handle this!" She doubled over and groaned loudly as another contraction overtook her. "Use the cameras or something, just get the hell out of here!!!"

Although her doctor's instincts screamed at her to ignore the warning, Janet backed out of the tiny room and shut the door - gesturing for the guard to lock it.

"What? Why aren't you helping her?" Jack demanded angrily.

"It's not Dr Fraiser's fault Jack," Daniel interceded, stepping in front of the colonel. "I can feel Rhya on and off now - she's utterly petrified. Of what she might do to anyone who comes near her I assume." He laid a hand on his friend's arm. "She knows what she's doing. Trust her, she's been there before."

Even though he looked like he wanted to stick his fist through the wall, Jack nodded curtly. "Okay, but we're going to keep an eye on her through the security cameras."

A scream of pain echoed down the hall as they made their way to the nearest computer terminal.

*****

The group had been following Rhya's progress via the camera in the detention cell for nearly an hour. So far as Janet could tell without actually being present, Rhya wasn't too far from expelling the child. She was now crouched in a corner of the room that the camera could easily view - they suspected that Rhya herself had made that particular decision.

"How much longer do you think that it'll take?" Sam asked Janet quietly.

"I can't be sure without examining her. My guess would be that she's fully dilated and she's in the process of bearing down." The doctor slapped a hand against her thigh in frustration. "I just wish she'd let me help her."

Without warning Daniel, who'd been standing apart from the main group but nonetheless watching the goings on, collapsed to his knees with a low moan. Dr Fraiser darted to his side and crouched down beside him.

"Dr Jackson?" she asked, placing a hand on his shoulder as moaned again.

"I think I'm having a baby," he said through gritted teeth as he doubled over.

"WHAT?!?" Jack, Sam and - strangely - Teal'c demanded in perfect unison.

"What do you mean?" Janet added in a quiter tone.

Daniel's face reddened slightly as another 'contraction' overtook him. "If a situation is sufficiently traumatic, Rhya and I can actually experience it together emotionally," he paused and moaned again, "but she didn't say anything about feeling the same pain!"

Jack winced. "Ouch, that's gotta hurt."

"No kidding," Daniel gasped as he doubled over.

"Somebody help me get him to the infirmary!" Janet yelled at the technicians and various hangers-on that were in the room. "Daniel, we have to sedate you before you do any damage internally. Men just weren't meant to have children."

"Thank the Lord," Jack added quietly. He watched as the younger man was lead out of the room, still moaning in pain.

"She must be in agony," Sam murmured. "I didn't know they could do that."

"I don't even think she really suspected," the colonel replied. "Or maybe she just forgot to tell us."

"It would appear there are many things Rhya has forgotten to tell us with regard to her abilities," Teal'c intoned.

"She's got a lot on her mind right now." Jack glanced at the screen. "Like having the antichrist or something."

*****

Bast felt claustrophobic for a moment as her new host entered the world. Finally, a day withought fighting for control. She (for she was once again inhabiting a female of the species) felt the cold surface of the floor on her wet skin, before warm hands gathered her up. Green eyes bore down into her own as her 'mother' slowly stroked her head.

"I'm sorry," Mother whispered as her palm came to rest on the center of Bast's forehead.

All she could do was howl impotently as her mind shattered.

*****

Rhya fell back against the wall as a wave of heat swept over her entire body. She'd known that the moment she regained control that she was as good as dead - Bast had told her as much.

There can only be one Bastet it had whispered in her waking sleep.

"Well now there's none," she whispered as she closed her eyes and drifted away.

*****

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© Dan 2000