The Umpire Strokes Back
Author: Gateroller
E-mail: Constructive feedback and criticism only please, flames will be laughed at. gateroller@hotmail.com or my site:
http://www.geocities.com/gateroller_sg1/home.html
Status: Complete
Date: 1 May 2005
Category: Humour
Spoilers: None
Season: None
Sequel: None
Pairing: Jack and Daniel
Rating: FRAO (Adult Only)
Content warnings: None, except being hit over the head by a frozen feathered vertebrate animal of the class Aves.
Summary: Follow up to Stargate Wars; this story recounts the fall-out after Daniel and Jack's victory over the Goa'uld Deaf Stair.
Archive: Here, there, anywhere but please ask first, thank you.
Posted to A52, The Cartouche and the Alpha Gate.
Disclaimer: SG-1 is not mine (though I wish otherwise) and neither are any of the other Stargate SG-1 characters. I haven't made any money doing this, and I haven't got any of my own, so don't bother suing. The characters have just come out to play for a while and when they've had enough I promise to take them home, and give them tea. After that they go back whence they came until next time.
Author's Notes: Thanks to Jude for her beta job.


The Umpire Strikes Back
by Gateroller

With the victory over the Deaf Stair, the Rebel Alliance pulled back its forces back to the secret base on the ice planet of Moth.

The captain of the Millennium Sparrow, Ham Silo, known to his friends as Jack, and his sidekick, Chulakabbacca, were freezing. Why the Alliance had chosen to consolidate their forces on this ice cube, Silo just couldn't fathom. They were living and working in a labyrinth of vast ice caves just below the surface, and even their location, sheltered from the cutting winds and sub-zero temperatures, didn't warm Silo's attitude to their current residence.

As Silo and his team mate worked on the ship, his mood worsened. His hands and fingers felt numb, but oddly, when he scuffed his hand against the engine's exhaust port, he felt the pain shoot through them. Throwing down his wrench in a fit of pique, Silo cursed. "Fuck this for a bag of monkeys," he yelled, stuffing his hand into his armpit, trying to dull the pain and warm his extremities. "I've had enough. Let's call it a day," he groaned. His grazed knuckles were throbbing.

"We still have more to do," Chulakabbacca replied, his voice steady. He was used to Silo's occasional outbursts, so he took it in his stride.

"It's all right for you," Jack shot back, "you've got plenty to keep you warm." Since they'd arrived on Moth, Chulakabbacca had grown his hair to protect his bald and shiny head from the cold. "You've even got hairy muscles," Jack went on, resentment lacing his voice.

"I am dressed in the same garb as you, Silo. I cannot understand why you feel the cold, when I do not," the Sparrow's co-pilot commented patiently.

Jack gave his friend a look through narrowed eyes. "I'm gonna get somethin' to eat." With that, he flipped his jacket's fur-trimmed hood over his head and glared at Chulakabbacca from under the loose and floppy garment. Plunging his freezing, painful fingers into the fur lined mittens dangling at the hem of his sleeves, Silo stalked away from the maintenance hangar to find some warmth and sustenance in the canteen.

As he navigated the long, winding, icy corridors, his mood darkened even more. He knew why his temper was so frayed; he wanted Daniel...badly.

Ever since his lover had dispatched the Goa'uld Deaf Stair, the mild mannered Bedi-in-waiting had been f?d by the upper echelons of the Alliance's military commanders. As a consequence, Daniel's time had been taken up with strategy meetings, combat training, and long hours studying the Farm Gate technology. He'd also spent a lot of time cosying up with Princess Layme Crater, as the two tried to make sense of how the Gate worked, and where it could take them.

Letting out a cloudy breath against the cold air, Jack was frustrated and jealous...and frustrated. Since the consummation of their relationship in the cockpit of his ship, Jack had been desperate to renew their sexual activity, but time and opportunity had been pretty scarce. Every time Layme had batted her eyelashes at either of them, Jack groaned. Daniel was too polite to give any negative response, and all Jack wanted to do was make Daniel groan, repeatedly and as loudly as possible.

Jack had already traded his poster of Earth and twelve bottles of beer to get his hands on a fur rug, and now it was thrown across his bed, waiting for some kind of frantic activity to happen underneath it.

He was only human, after all, and he longed to feel Daniel's hard, hot body beneath him, rocking gently against him as he ploughed a pleasurable furrow. Life just wasn't fair...

-o-

Daniel and Layme stared at the computer screen.

"What if you try highlighting that? You could cut and paste it," Daniel offered hopefully.

"No, it won't work. I've tried it," Layme sighed, skimming the mouse across the Budweiser mat.

"How about a right click here?" Daniel suggested, pointing a long index finger at the monitor.

"I think we should give up for today," Layme said, defeated by the Farm Gate's problematical security system. Why anyone would put in an unfathomable, impossible-to-win game of Solitaire as a way of opening the dialling programme, she had no idea.

Nodding, Daniel chewed his lower lip, which reminded him he should find food. He hadn't eaten all day. The trouble was, he was faced with a choice, to eat or to sleep, and he wasn't sure which he needed more.

Just as they rose from their seats, Daniel heard a quiet bleep from one of the sensors. He wondered why the alarm wasn't at the volume of an ear-splitting klaxon. It was so easy to miss any untoward movement on the surface, but he figured it was a plot ploy, designed to build tension and anticipation in the reader.

"What is that?" he asked as the quiet bleep continued. A tiny red light the size of a Christmas tree bulb winked fitfully from the instrument panel.

"I don't know," mused Layme as she bent over the table to take a closer look. "It could mean the smoke detector needs a new battery," she remarked, wondering whether she should just rip the thing from the ceiling. Doing so was her trademark. Throughout her travels in the galaxy, she'd left a trail of broken smoke alarms. It was like a calling card, along with numerous mystery blazes left in her wake. She was fast becoming known as the Mysterious Fire Bug Woman.

"I think we've detected some kind of intruder on the surface," Daniel muttered, frowning at the pulsing light bulb. "I think we'd better call Jack."

-o-

Jack heard his name being called over the loudspeaker system. "Crap!" he exploded, "Can't a man get a nice roast beef dinner, along with at least three out of the five daily portions of fruit and vegetables recommended for a healthy diet?" Plopping his knife and fork into the dark brown gravy on his plate, he scraped back his chair and marched out of the dining room.

"What is it?" he snapped as he entered the control room, his mittens jerking wildly like a pair of bobbing hand puppets.

"The alarm bulb is flashing," Daniel informed his lover.

"And, so? But? Therefore?" Jack prompted.

"Thought you might want to know." Daniel frowned.

"Couldn't you just send me a memo?" Jack retorted sourly.

"You never read them." Jackson swallowed.

Locking his gaze momentarily on the top of Daniel's head, Jack let out a dramatic sigh and sat down beside him, nudging the princess out of the way. If he could have reached one of those icicles dangling from the ceiling, he'd have used it to poke her eye out. She was way too attached to Daniel, rather like a freakin' tentacle.

Fiddling with a few switches, Jack watched as the monitor sprang into life, displaying an image of the brilliant white Moth landscape outside.

"Can't see anything," he muttered slowly. He ordered Layme to pan the external cameras.

"Wait! Look at that!" Daniel exclaimed.

Jack blinked, staring hard at the picture on the screen. Daniel had spotted a small airborne piece of machinery. It was round and black and had a large shiny lens rotating around its centre. "What the hell is that?" Jack breathed, searching his memory for anything that would give him a clue as to what it could be.

"What are those things sticking out at the bottom?" Daniel asked, taking in some bent and distorted protrusions that looked like angled and broken limbs.

"Dunno," replied Jack, "but it doesn't look very friendly."

"What makes you think that?" Layme asked, puzzled by the conclusion of the Sparrow's captain.

"Well it's got a creepy shape, and it's black. Don'tcha know that every baddie there ever was dresses in black?"

"Unless you're Yul Brynner in "The Magnificent Seven"," Daniel offered helpfully.

"Or Batman," Layme smiled.

"Of course, some baddies dress in white," Daniel went on.

"Like the man in the James Bond movies with the fluffy cat," the princess threw into the conversation.

"Fer cryin' out loud!" Jack blurted, rolling his eyes. "Just shoot it!"

One of the airmen on duty in the Alliance's nerve centre clicked a few keys on the board in front of him, and the floating intruder exploded.

"I didn't hit it, sir," the technician said apologetically. "It blew up before I had a chance to launch the missile."

"It's got a self-destruct," Jack explained grimly. "It must have detected the I.M."

"I.M?" Daniel queried, thinking Jack must mean Instant Messenger.

"Imminent Missile," Jack hissed. "I'll get Chulakabbacca, and we'll go take a look."

Daniel watched as Jack swept out of the control room. God, the man was so strong and brave, decisive and sexy. He loved Jack beyond reason, and he made up his mind to find some time to show his lover just how much...

-o-

Out on the frozen surface, Jack and Chulakabbacca searched for the strange object that had apparently blown itself up. When they found it, both men got out of the speeder and inspected the wreckage.

"It is of Goa'uld origin, Silo. I have seen these before," Chulakabbacca said quietly.

"Yeah, I recognise it, too. It's a probe druid, and you can bet the Umpire knows we're here. If it had a chance to relay its findings, we'll be overrun by Jaffa Cakes in the next few days. We're gonna have to think about evacuating, and soon."

Gathering up the pieces of the druid, Jack and Chulakabbacca settled themselves back into the speeder. As they hovered along over the icy plain, Jack's radio whistled the theme tune to MacGyver; it was his favourite ring tone.

"What is it, Danny?" As he answered the call, he noticed yet another frozen seagull plummet to the ground nearby. Boy, it was cold out there.

"Hey, Jack. I'm just gonna make one more security patrol before night fall."

Jack's heart skipped a beat at the sound of Daniel's voice. "Well don't stay out too long," Jack warned. "The temperature's dropping fast."

"Okay, I won't," said Daniel.

Jack could hear the playfully reprimanding smile in his voice. Daniel wasn't stupid; there was no way he'd be out past sunset, risking freezing his brain.

If Jack could even find his shrivelled dick in this weather, he was determined to warm it up inside Daniel's ass as soon as they were both back at the base.

"Later," Daniel laughed and signed off.

-o-

Jack had been back at the ice base for a while, making his report about the Umpire's druid-class droid and checking out how far Chulakabbacca had got with the Sparrow's oil change.

It wasn't until he'd got back to the room he shared with his lover that he realised Daniel wasn't there. Throwing himself on the bed, Jack decided he'd just have to wait until Daniel turned up.

When he awoke a few hours later, he was still in his clothes, and there was no sign of Daniel. Sitting bolt upright, the hairs on the back of his neck were bristling. Something was wrong...

-o-

Daniel rode the speeder out over the frozen Moth landscape, checking the horizon for anything untoward. Halting on a small rise, he took his binoculars and swept the ice in front of him. The area was pitted with rocks and boulders, and he paid particular attention to the rocky profile, just to make sure everything was as it should be, that is, a frozen, dead, and unmoving landscape, littered with unlucky seagulls.

Sighing, he knew Jack would be waiting for him. He absently dropped his gloved hand to touch his light vibrator. He smiled, thinking about Jack and how it seemed an age since they'd been together. Appalled, he realised it'd been back on Yadda Four. Daniel would have to make it up to him. As soon as he'd finished his patrol, he'd hurry back, and they'd warm each other up under a hot shower.

Scanning the view all around him, he could see the sun beginning to sink under the horizon, sending out the pink and purple hues of dusk. It was time to head back; as it got darker, the temperature would dip and get cold enough to freeze the balls off a polar bear.

Just as he turned to put the binoculars back in his coat pocket, Daniel felt a strange sensation, as though his hearing was muffled, and then he sneezed. Odd, he thought, there couldn't possibly be anything to cause allergies on a frozen planet like Moth. It was then that his vision blurred, and he was overcome by a sense of fatigue; he felt his body sink into something soft but at the same time scratchy.

"Jack," he murmured as black took over from white.

-o-

Jack hit the comm button and demanded to know where Daniel was. "Whaddya mean, he's not signed in?" Silo growled, training his temper on the hangar supervisor.

"Well, err, I don't know if he's actually come back from his patrol," Siler answered. Silo should hurry up and get himself laid, the superintendent thought to himself. Lately the man's temper had been the equivalent of paint stripper, and a little sack time might just help spread a nice, gentle coating of magnolia across the base.

"Are you telling me he's overdue, and no one's bothered to check it out?" By now Jack was ready to commit murder. How could Daniel have been gone for so long and nobody notice?

"You...you can't take a speeder, sir," the mechanic stuttered as Jack eyed a likely vehicle. "You know all vehiculars are in for maintenance and repairs during the hours of darkness. We don't have any serviceable speeders available."

Jack cursed under his breath. He had to find Daniel and quickly. If he were in trouble, he could freeze to death in moments. He'd tried raising him through the base's radio system, but to no avail.

"Um, you can use this, sir," Siler said carefully. He handed Jack a long, leather tether.

Slowly the Sparrow's captain looked along the length of leather, all his senses on overload. He smelt it first, then heard it and then felt it.

Jack wrinkled his nose. The smell was something akin to a ripe pigsty coupled with rotting oranges. Boy, it was pungent. As his sense of smell was being battered by the onslaught of odours, he heard a low snuffling sound, and felt warm, moist breath blow over his hair. It was like plunging his head into the nozzle of a boiling kettle, except twice as wet and a hundred times stinkier.

Then he saw his steed, a huge animal with a long neck, narrow head, and a pair of nostrils the size of Brazil. They opened and closed, winking at him, and he wondered if he could hide a couple of spare weapons inside there. His imagination took a quick trip into La La Land with images of him atop this monster, tweaking its fur-tufted ears to shoot blaster rays out of its nose. Smiling, Jack made a mental note to ask Siler if there were any mileage in his idea.

The creature was essentially two legged with a pair of short forearms resting on strong muscular hips and there was a big leather saddle strapped to its back, ready and waiting for someone to ride it.

"What the hell is this?" Silo demanded to know. Was he in a military base, or a zoo menagerie?

"It's a baby Gorbenic," Siler answered with pride. In his spare time, when he wasn't being a tech, he looked after a small herd of the creatures, in a pen set up next to his quarters. He knew when he'd first seen them they'd make good mounts, if the Alliance's mechanical vehicles failed. Now at last, his intuition and hard work were paying off, and the sturdy, reliable Gorbenic was coming into its own. He smiled proudly at Silo, patting the animal's flanks.

"You expect me to believe this...this thing is a baby?" Jack said in total disbelief. The creature's head was at least twelve feet off the ground.

Nodding, Siler pulled out a set of light metal steps. "This is the best way to mount up," he informed the pilot.

"Sheesh!" Jack groaned, shaking his head as he took his first step, and then he stopped. "Crumbs! I don't have my blaster," he
exclaimed.

Siler's eyes grew wide. He found it hard to believe that the famous, or was that infamous, Captain Ham Silo had forgotten his shoot-em-up-and-ask-questions-later weapon. "Here, take one of these," the tech said, throwing Jack a mark three, calibre eight, multifunctional damn-and-blast gun with a two thousand pixel viewer and George Bush directional sensors.

"Crumbs," Jack said again, staring at all the knobs and buttons. "It's got a set of George Bushes. I could look up my own ass with those!"

Staring at the blast settings, Jack was amazed by the choices at his disposal. Double Kill, Kill, Daze, Stun, and Startle. If only the thing made coffee, and offered him online banking, he'd be set for life.

Shoving the weapon into the saddlebag, Jack mounted up. He pulled on the reins and headed out into the freezing cold of the darkening early evening. Daniel had recorded his location through the automatic pathometer, which saved a history of his route or path, and was relayed to the central control room. The Alliance was nothing if not simplistic in the way it named its equipment. The pathometer offered very useful data, but there was nowhere on the Gorbenic to plug it in. Instead, Siler had given Jack a mobile tracker and a compass. Jack was going to head for Daniel's last known whereabouts, about four miles away from the base. He just hoped and prayed he could find Daniel as soon as possible, before it was too late.

-o-

Daniel woke slowly. He was no longer in the exposed landscape, but in a large vaulted chamber that he assumed was underground. The blue hue of light through ice illuminated the room, and a sprinkling of frozen snow sparkled around him.

He was lying on a soft, accommodating grey blanket. Sighing, he felt warm and comfortable, but his situation didn't make any sense. He was surrounded by ice and frosted snow. There was no obvious source of heat, so why did he feel so good? Probably because he was suffering from the onset of serious hypothermia.

A violent sneeze jarred his body. He groaned loudly as pain expanded and radiated through his nerves and muscles. As the vibrations of his sneeze calmed, he saw that his blanket was disintegrating into small flecks of... "Dust!" Daniel exclaimed as he struggled to sit up. He'd been lying on a pile of dust, no wonder his allergies were seething in his nose, throat and lungs.

The specks of dust rose in the air, moving and swirling to fill the atmosphere, though their movements did not appear as random eddies but were shifting in concert, amalgamating into one enormous cloud of detritus.

In a few moments, Daniel was looking at a ball of fluffy dust half the size of the space he was in. His eyes were streaming, and he sneezed again and again. Within seconds, the ball had solidified. In between his sneezing bouts, Daniel was aware of low humming sounds that made his head ache.

"The time has come to take over the galaxy," a smooth female voice announced. Through constantly watering eyes, Daniel could make out the distorted features of a face on the surface of the ball. "I will call my offspring to join me, and conquer the universe," she said haughtily.

Blinking furiously, Daniel tried to concentrate on blocking out the extreme discomfort of what seemed to be an allergic reaction to the entity in the ice cave. Through tangled and confused thoughts, Daniel tried not to cough. Here he was, faced with a power-hungry enemy that he would have to fight, as much for the fate of the universe, as for his own survival.

"I am the Mother Speck, and all life will bow before me!" the furball declared.

Fighting back uncontrollable tears, and with a throat that felt like sandpaper, Daniel reached for his light vibrator. As the blade of energy sprung to life, he hauled himself to his feet and challenged the giant speck.

-o-

Jack rocked and swayed as the Gorbenic loped along over the frozen wasteland. If he weren't so worried about Daniel, he was sure he'd have probably thrown up by now, as his stomach rocked and swayed along with the rest of him.

He was increasingly worried on two fronts. Daniel had been missing for several hours now, and his chances of survival in this hostile terrain were diminishing by the minute. Secondly, Jack couldn't help but play back Siler's parting words: the extreme cold might kill her, sir.

Stroking the neck of the furry Gorbenic, Jack encouraged it to move on. He didn't want to die along with his steed.

-o-

Planting his feet as firmly as he could on the icy surface, Daniel raised his light vibrator with a two handed grip.

The Mother Speck was having none of it, as one might expect from a mad and belligerent archenemy, and arch she was, shimmering as she gave a maniacal laugh. "You are nothing," she declared imperiously. "You cannot defeat me. Dust and dirt rules the universe. You will not destroy me, for my presence is everywhere! Just look for smudges on glass, cobwebs in corners, and cat fur will always dog your steps."

"I don't think mixing your metaphors makes you a superior being, Mother Speck," Daniel retorted as he struck the first blow in their conflict.

Slicing his blade down the centre of the giant ball of mess, Daniel fought against his allergic reactions, desperately trying to focus through streaming eyes. He hoped that his first blow would burn away the entity, and that it would disappear in a puff of smoke. Instead, the one very large speck disintegrated into a loose cloud, threatening to overwhelm Daniel in the process.

He quickly recognised the speck's strategy. He'd seen it many times, but had never equated it to this particular being. Every person intent on vanquishing the dust in their homes approached the job by assuming that one swipe with a duster would rid their world of the nasty film that took the shine off a table or interrupted the smoothness of a shelf.

Daniel knew the Speck was right; he could never destroy it completely. Dust was never totally removed; it was just rearranged to settle back on the surfaces that had just been cleaned. All Daniel could do was rain blow after blow on the creature, until its essence was so thinly dispersed, it no longer had the strength to fight back...for the moment.

Coughing and spluttering, Daniel scrabbled his way out of the ice cave and back onto the surface, drawing clean, fresh, cold air into his burning lungs. Staggering into the snowy wastes beyond the avern, he was eventually overcome by hunger and thirst, and the physical effort of fighting for his life.

Dropping to his knees in the snow, he was close to collapsing. He was warm, but cold. His mind was working overtime, but making no sense of anything, rather like a fan watching his TV favourite show and wondering why TPTB kept killing off all the best characters.

The only strand of clarity left for him was his thoughts about Jack. Associated with them were strong feelings of regret that he would lose the very best of a future that he would now never have.

He thought he heard a strange voice. Was it Brat, or was it just his imagination? Once again, white turned to black as he lost consciousness, a small, insignificant form lost in the immense wilderness of Moth.

-o-

Halting the progress of the Gorbenic, Jack took out his binoculars and surveyed the horizon.

Nothing.

Jack sighed and tried to figure out his next move. As he did that, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck bristle, and he looked over his shoulder. Using the binoculars again, he studied a low rise to his left. He switched the device to the heat seeker, cranked it up to its highest setting, squint-close. "Daniel!" Jack cried as he made out a dark, crumpled shape in the lee of a large snowdrift.

Quickly he urged the Gorbenic to move as fast as it could across the intervening land. He could hear the animal's laboured breathing and was aware of the stumbling gait beneath him, but he couldn't afford to feel guilty about the creature's imminent demise. He had to get to Daniel as soon as he could, and nothing would stop him now, including the death of what had proven to be a loyal and hard working animal.

"Daniel," Jack gasped as he dropped to his knees in the snow. Daniel was obviously unconscious and slowly freezing to death where he lay. Gathering him up, Jack cradled his lover to him, hoping his body heat would soon revive him. "Daniel? Danny!" Jack choked, shaking his charge back to awareness.

"Jack?" murmured Daniel. "You came for me."

"Well, duh!"

"Am I going to die?"

Swallowing, Jack loved him for the way he could get straight to the point when he needed to. "Not if I've got anything to say about it," he replied firmly.

Just as he was trying to reassure Daniel, Jack heard and then saw the Gorbenic keel over dead.

"Damn," he muttered. He'd been hoping the creature would survive long enough to get them back to the base.

"I'm sorry, Daniel," Jack went on, "but you need all the body warmth you can get." With that, he fumbled his mittened hands to release Daniel's light vibrator from its place on his leather belt.

Falteringly, Jack zapped the energy blade into life, and with one smooth stroke, sliced open the Gorbenic's very generous belly. He staggered backwards as its entrails spilled out onto the ice, setting up a cloud of steam. "Whoa! That's some smell there," he exclaimed. The Gorbenic might have been cute and furry on the outside, but it was definitely grossly scented on the inside.

Daniel was unconscious again. Carefully, Jack dragged him through the snow. He gently laid him right against the Gorbenic's corpse. The heat radiating from the animal would at least stop Daniel from dying during the fast approaching night. Pushing Daniel right into the spilled guts of the animal, and sandwiching him between the wasted Gorbenic and his own body, Jack breathed a sigh of relief.

He screwed up his nose when he found his mittens soaked in blood. Pulling them on slowly, he could feel the moist, sticky goo coat his hands. "Eeeewwwww," he breathed and tried not to throw up.

There was no point in contacting the Alliance base until morning. There were no land vehicles available, and no one flew during the deep frozen hours of darkness. Jack had no choice but to sit it out and pray that Daniel made it through.

-o-

The stench of the dead Gorbenic kept Jack awake most of the night. When dawn broke, he got on the radio to summon aid from the base. In a very short space of time, the men were back in the Alliance stronghold, and Jack was hovering over Daniel in the small infirmary.

Daniel was immersed in a fluid-filled tank and given a breathing apparatus. His pale, muscular body gently bobbed and floated in the warming aquatic environment as Jack watched, a deep furrow etched into his brow. He fought against the guilt of his growing desire as he looked at Daniel's naked body. His mittens quivered at the ends of his sleeves, and he drew his gaze away from Daniel's magnified genitals, the curved surface of the glass tank making everything look bigger.

Smiling to himself, Jack wondered if he dared take a photograph, just for reference during those long nights when they were apart. He did his best to ignore the angst-generating situation, combined with nakedness and lust. It was all really just a plot ploy to get them both together in the same bed at the same time before the end of the story. He didn't care; he just wanted Daniel well again and in his arms.

-o-

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Jaaack!"

"I'm just askin'. I want to make sure," griped Jack, feeling extremely protective of his lover's well being.

"Look, Jack," Daniel went on, "I'm not a clay-based, beautiful but brittle, vulnerable, heat-baked object, you know."

"You mean I shouldn't treat you like porcelain?"

"Exactly. I'm not going to break the moment you touch me, though I do worry you might accidentally knock me over with those mittens of yours."

"Good, I think," Jack breathed. "C'mere, and let me kiss you better."

"You'd better make it fast," Daniel grinned.

"Huh?"

"Didn't you notice the base klaxons blaring, and the red light flashing in the corner?"

"Wha??"

"The Umpire is about to invade, Jack."

"Fuck!"

"Yes, please," said Daniel quickly, as he made a grab for Jack's shirt.

"Daniel, are you crazy?" Jack asked eagerly. "The Umpire could be here any minute."

"I don't care. I want you, and I want you now!"

"But?"

"No buts, we're wasting time," Daniel gasped as he planted a passionate, bruising kiss on Jack's mouth.

Jack's preservation instincts kicked in, and he struggled to release Daniel's grip on him. "We can't?" but his words were stopped by Daniel's hand rubbing at his dick through the fabric of his trousers.

Daniel's determination won over Jack, whose initial reluctance was designed to assuage the likely disappointment of the reader, who up to this point, had been waiting with baited breath for the real action to begin.

Quickly, Daniel unzipped Jack and liberated his aching erection, doing the same for himself. Still fully clothed, save for the ventilation of their open flies, he jammed his lover against the wall. Taking both cocks in one hand, he stroked them together with rapid, urgent movements.

Planting his hands firmly against the wall, Jack thrust his hips forward and let Daniel take him for a fast, knee-shaking ride, his mittens reflecting the jerky up and down motion of his lover's hand.

"Hard and fast, Jack," rasped Daniel as he moved the double sized package towards a mutual climax.

Jack wondered who was likely to come first, Daniel, himself, or the mittens.

All around them, they could hear the imminent invasion of the Umpire's ground forces, announced by shouts and yelling as the Alliance evacuated as quickly as it could.

Both men were beyond halting now, and Daniel's skilled fingers played Jack's cock to a crescendo as his words encouraged Jack's need for completion, plundering his tonsils in a way that was meant to compensate for the absence of penetrating his ass.

"Danny!" Jack growled as his orgasm gathered speed and intensity, the breath pulled from his lungs.

"Come for me, Jack," Daniel whispered as he felt his own orgasm crashing through his body.

Together they climaxed, leaving their bodies heated and their faces flushed.

Daniel leaned his weight against Jack, the wall holding them both upright as they gasped through their highs. The sounds of nearby conflict assaulted their senses, and they knew they had to move fast or be killed.

They bundled each other out of the room, and with wobbly legs, headed down the corridor for the Millennium Sparrow. Jack hoped Chulakabbacca was already in the cockpit and firing up the engine.

As they sped along the icy passages, Daniel stumbled and fell. Jack was in front of him and wasn't aware that anything was wrong until he heard Daniel's cry. Turning, he ran back to help his lover to his feet. As he did, they were met by a black-clad figure wearing an expansive and expensive cape, looking for all the world like a sinister Liberace. His breathing was laboured, like someone who'd had one cigarette too many.

"It's Daft Ada," Jack muttered. "Hurry," he panted, hauling Daniel up and pushing him out in front. "Go, Danny. Go!" Jack insisted out of the corner of his mouth. "I can handle this."

"But, Jack?"

"Run, Daniel, I'll be right behind you!"

Daniel hesitated; he didn't want to leave Jack.

"Just go!" Jack yelled. Placing himself between the retreating Daniel and Daft Ada, he dropped his hand to his side for his blaster.

"I don't take kindly to people invading my privacy, especially when my privacy is still calming down," Jack stated with feeling. "And now I'm gonna shoot you!"

"What with?" Daft Ada asked quietly.

"You mean with what." Jack glared at him and flipped the cover of his gun holster.

"No, I mean what with?" the caped man retorted, pointing a black-gloved finger at Jack's empty weapon holder.

Looking down, Jack could see he didn't have his gun. He must have removed it for safety purposes, back when Daniel jumped him, and now he was entirely vulnerable to the Umpire's First Prime.

"You're my prisoner," Daft Ada breathed loudly and annoyingly, stating the obvious, just as all baddies do in this kind of situation. "You will tell me everything I want to know."

"I don't think so."

"You will," Daft Ada answered laconically. With complete confidence, he held up his hand, showing his prisoner a circular pulsating light in the centre of his palm. "I will stroke the truth from you." The voice held a grin, although the face did not, since the black shiny helmet on his head hid his terrible visage.

Suddenly Jack could feel the lancing pain from the light boring into his forehead. Everything around him blurred and darkened as he sank to his knees. "Daniel?" His mittens went limp.


The End until the next bit.