maddersahatter

 

Y is for Yoke, by Madders_Ahatter (PG)

 

Summary: Jack and Daniel are enslaved by aliens, but to what purpose?

Word count: 1,220 words

Characters: Jack O’Neill, Daniel Jackson

Era: Season 5

Categories: Team, tough times, humor

Author's notes: Post ‘Beast of Burden’; Dedicated to @KT_Starkiller with grateful thanks for ticket 80 allowing me to meet RDA

  

 “These guys are a pain in the neck,” grumbled O’Neill.

 

“So. Not. Funny.” Daniel grimaced. He’d have given Jack a filthy look, but his friend couldn’t turn his head far enough to see it. The heavy leather collars kept them looking more or less straight ahead, while the thick wooden beam the collars were mounted on meant they couldn’t move closer or further apart. They felt like a couple of Shire Horses.

 

“Haven’t they heard of the Unas?” Jack wanted to know. “Your pal Chaka could do this on his own without breaking a sweat.” Jack raised an aching arm and wiped perspiration from his eyes so he could see a little of where he was going. He’d have given a king’s ransom for his baseball cap to give his eyes a bit of shade. Daniel had more than once commented that he felt the same about his confiscated boonie hat.

 

“You’ll get no argument from me,” countered Daniel, “but they’ve got the whips, so keep pulling, okay.”

 

“Hey, I’m pulling. You’re the one lagging behind.”

 

“My legs are shorter,” Daniel complained petulantly.

 

“Yeh, you’d think they’d match slaves by stride. They’d get these logs shifted much faster if they were pulled in a straight line.”

 

Daniel hadn’t really thought about that before. He’d been too busy helping Jack haul the giant tree-trunk that was chained at each end to the weighty double yoke he and his commanding officer/friend were locked into. Now he did think about it, he glanced at the other two pairs of captives who were similarly occupied up ahead and to either side of them, just at the edge of their limited field of vision. Both were equally ill-matched, one with long legs, the other noticeably shorter. It had to be deliberate, but why?

 

The sharp crack of leather brought his mind back into focus. It had missed his bare back by centimeters. Wearily, Daniel trudged on, struggling to keep pace with a similarly topless Jack.

 

“Do ya get the feeling we’re getting nowhere slowly?” Jack asked after another half hour of toil.

 

“I’ve had that feeling since mid-morning,” Daniel gave back. He had only the merciless alien sun that had been beating down on them for hours to help him keep track of time, but from its passage across the cloudless sky he was pretty sure they’d been at this futile exercise since soon after dawn and it was now somewhere well after noon. Of course, he couldn’t be sure how many hours made a day on this backwoods planet. From the burning in his muscles and the sting of sunburn on his exposed flesh, not to mention the dehydration, it felt like they’d been at it non-stop for a week. He was so far beyond tired he’d forgotten how good it felt. In fact, they’d left exhausted behind a long time ago.

 

Daniel stumbled, and - not for the first time - the whip caught him sharply between the shoulder-blades as Jack reached over and yanked him back to his feet.

 

“Argh!” Daniel’s cry of pain was echoed by a grunt from Jack as the disturbance to their equilibrium caused the yoke to chafe his neck still further.

 

Both were dizzy and fighting nausea, their heads throbbing. They didn’t know how they kept putting one bare foot in front of the other. Their olive drab uniform pants were sticking to them with sweat. The only thing that kept them going was the hope that at any moment Teal’c and Carter would swoop in and rescue them. Surely they’d tracked them down by now?

 

Several times, they’d been sure they’d heard the hum of engines, and had strained against the dense wooden beam that lay across the back of their necks to look upwards in search of their liberators. Each time, they’d been disappointed to learn that the sound was just a swarm of the enormous bees this planet spawned. So far, they’d been fortunate to escape being stung.

 

The strain on their thighs and calves suggested that they were moving slightly uphill. Though it made each meter of progress harder to achieve, they were curiously grateful not to be going downhill. Both were acutely aware that with gravity in its favor, the slightest pause would have brought the full weight of the log rolling down to knock them both off their feet like nine-pins.

 

Ten minutes later it was Jack’s turn to falter, earning him a stripe across his back from the alien’s whip. He almost pulled Daniel down with him, but somehow they managed to regain their footing.

 

“You okay?” Daniel asked huskily, frowning with concern.

 

“Damn knee’s giving out on me,” confessed Jack through gritted teeth. He knew he couldn’t keep this up much longer, but no way was he going to let Daniel get beaten for his weakness. He’d keep moving if he had to crawl on his belly.

 

A warning snap of the whip got them moving again.

 

“Hey,” Jack gestured over his shoulder since he couldn’t turn to look behind, “Union says it’s time for a coffee break.”

 

Daniel would have drooled at the prospect if his mouth hadn’t been so dry. “No such luck, Jack. Come on, we gotta plough on.”

 

“So. Not. Funny.” Jack threw his words back at him.

 

“Too ‘corny’ for you, huh?” Daniel kicked at the sun-dried husks beneath his feet. Jack groaned. He might have slapped Daniel’s arm in chastisement, if he’d had the energy. Still, he had to admire the kid’s attempt to keep their spirits up.

 

More humming from behind. Getting louder. Getting closer. Much closer. Soon the sound was deafening. They were convinced they were going to get stung this time. They cringed and tried to duck down as low as they could, hoping against hope that the swarm would pass overhead and ignore them.

 

As the sound reached a crescendo, they found themselves bathed in a white light. The noise changed. Rings!

 

Next moment, they were aboard a Ha’tak. They collapsed with relief.

 

A door opened and Carter called, “Got them, Teal’c. Get us out of here.”

 

They flinched as she shot the lock off the yoke and helped them to get out of the heavy collars.

 

“What kept you?” Jack complained, fighting to stand up as Teal’c banked the glider to head for home.

 

“Lie still,” Carter advised, but Jack ignored her. Daniel too struggled to stand, accepting her steadying hand.

 

They staggered forward to join the pilot in the cockpit, Jack sinking into the co-pilot’s seat while Daniel held on to the back of it. They wanted to be sure they were leaving that hell-hole far behind.

 

“You gotta be kidding me!” Jack exclaimed as he looked out over the huge field they’d spent so many grueling hours in.

 

“No wonder they wanted mismatched pairings,” Daniel observed, shaking his weary head.

 

“That’s what they had you doing all this time?” Carter didn’t quite manage to stifle a giggle, despite the sympathy she felt for their condition.

 

Far below them, the other two pairs of slaves were still working on smaller versions of the pattern they had created. Together, it almost looked like a silhouette of Mickey Mouse’s head.

 

“Crop circles?” Daniel pronounced incredulously. “They had us creating crop circles? Now I’ve seen everything!”