TITLE: Reconstructing Trust
AUTHOR: SGC Gategirl
STATUS: Complete
EMAIL: sgcgategirl@optonline.net
Content Level: 13+
CATEGORY: Angst, Hurt/comfort,
Action/Adventure, Jack whumping
SUMMARY: Friends are often the
ones most taken for granted. For SG-1, an off-world mission helps to seal the
breech before things get totally out of control. (Part of the 2004
Jackfic-a-thon)
SPOILERS: Season five. Takes
place immediately following Menace and prior to Sentinal.
WARNINGS: The usual whumpage when
I get going. And, well, Jack’s mouth of course. Y’all know how he gets when
Daniel doesn’t listen.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: I should have
stuck with my first instincts and simply organized this little challenge
instead of asking for a plot bunny. It’s all your fault! (And you know who you
are.) Seriously, much thanks go to the entire Jackfic-a-thon group for I would
not have gotten the plot bunny if it were not for you. Thanks also to Hoo, my
in-my-time-zone, YIM writing partner, who was very patient through my questions
and paranoia. An abundance of thanks must go to Lynette for her truckloads of
patience and her ever-willing red beta pen.
And even after all of this help,
if there are any mistakes, trust me, they’re mine.
ARCHIVE: Jackfic. Do not archive
elsewhere without the author’s express permission.
FILE SIZE: 385 KB
DISCLAIMER: The characters
mentioned in this story are the property of Sci Fi and Gekko Film Corp. The
Stargate, SG-1, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the
series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles, and back story are the
sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp,
Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions, and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd.
Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights
and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea, and the
story itself are the sole property of the author.
***
Reconstructing Trust
By SGC Gategirl
“I trust you because I need you.”
—Mason Cooley, City Aphorisms, Thirteenth Selection
“The major difference between a
thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that
when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to
be impossible to get at or repair.”
—Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless
“The most fatal disease of friendship
is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for
complaint, and too numerous for removal.”
—Samuel Johnson, The Idler, no.
23, Universal Chronicle
***
Nearly a week and a half later
and the words still echoed in his mind.
‘You stupid son of a bitch.’
It’s not that they were shocking,
or strange, or even undeserved. He’d been called worse things in his life.
It was more than that. Much more.
But it had taken this long for him to realize it.
He’d been busy, he knew, not that
it was much of an excuse, but it did serve its purpose. Over the course of the
week, they’d been through the base several times, but to Colonel Jack O’Neill
it still felt as if there were more of those bugs in the rafters. Every now and
then he swore he could hear the click-clicking of their metallic feet along the
concrete. That, and the absolute disdain dripping from Daniel’s lips.
‘You stupid son of a bitch.’
It was more than the words. It
was as if their entire friendship was wrapped up in that one simple sentence.
When did he lose their trust, his
trust? When did the decay of their friendship first begin? How could he have
missed it?
But when he had stood over
Daniel, his gun still warm in his hands, something was different, something had
changed. He’d turned and walked away, leaving Daniel in a heap on the floor and
had gone about his business as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
Maybe because the extraordinary
had become commonplace. Since when had he become so callous? Since when had
Daniel become a stranger?
With everything they’d been
through—the highs and lows of life and death—it all came down to
moments—moments of time, instances of seconds. Would he have done anything differently
given the chance?
Jack couldn’t lie to himself,
even sitting here on his back porch in the dark with a beer in his hand. He’d
done that too many times during his life, especially with Sara. But now, when
you got down to the facts, he knew for a certainty that things couldn’t have
happened differently.
If those Lego bugs had gotten
out, even just one of them—
The possibility of what might
have happened was something Jack did not want to think about, but the
nightmares still surfaced, crawling over his body, up his legs, under his
clothing, waking him up in a cold sweat every time he managed to catch a few
hours of sleep.
Tilting the bottle to his lips,
he took a mouthful. The beer was bitter, the liquid warm, but he swallowed it
anyway.
He wasn’t in the mood for it, but
there was nothing else in the house. He’d spent the better part of the last
week on base until he was absolutely certain that not one block of those little
buggers remained. Unfortunately that meant whatever edible items had been in
his fridge had quickly become science projects.
Sighing, Jack stretched out his
arm, placing the empty bottle on the deck railing, the glass thumping quietly
against the wood, the sound blending into the deepness of the night air.
Thinking back, Jack realized that
it had been nearly a week and a half since he’d last seen Daniel, last looked
him in the eye. He’d left him in the Gateroom, cradling his injured arm, anger
filling his features, those venomous words hanging in the air between them.
‘You stupid son of a bitch.’
It had been a week and a half
since he’d talked to him.
He’d been busy, leading the sweep
of the base, Teal’c and Carter helping him, each leading teams. He’d then had
to fight to make sure that every last piece of those damn bugs was
disintegrated instead of kept around for study. If the NID had gotten their way
truckloads of replicator remnants would already be making the journey to Nellis
and God only knows what might have happened then. Jack knew full well of their
ability to keep highly classified material safe. So much for a high-security,
secret facility. It was probably easier to walk into Nellis than the Colorado
Springs Post Office.
And while all of this was going
on, Daniel had been treated in the infirmary for his injury and sent home.
Their paths never crossed, neither of them going out of their way to find the
other.
Those words that had dropped from
Daniel’s mouth however, hadn’t exactly made Jack want to go calling.
Once the yelling and screaming
was over and the entire base wiped clean, he’d had dinner with Teal’c late one
night, a quiet affair at a local pizzeria. They’d been wired, the two of them
unable to sleep, craving a late-night binge and the flashing neon sign drew
them in.
The smell of baking dough mixed
with sauce and cheese instantly placed them in heaven, their stomachs rumbling
ravenously, and they couldn’t wait a moment longer. Settling down at a table in
the corner, the smell and the lights washed away the memories of dark, dank
places crawling with spiders and remnants of replicators.
The pizza wasn’t particularly
good.
The beer was warm.
But it didn’t matter. It was
perfect.
In the morning even Jack had to
admit that after a full night’s sleep and a breakfast of pancakes with a side
of eggs and bacon, he felt almost human. But the familiar routine of work and
meetings forced the next several days to blend, molding into an endless ream of
paper and people, until pizza and companionship were a thing of the distant
past.
And now sitting in the dark, the
stars his only companion, Jack had finally found a moment to sit back and
breathe. But what was he thinking about?
Daniel.
Those words, that tone, the whole
incident with Reese—it just set his blood boiling. Trust, he knew, had to be
earned, but hadn’t he? All those years of sacrifice, all those years of hard
work and sweat, fighting with every breath to make sure that the snakes were
defeated. Every day he fought to keep the Earth free of the disease that was
the Goa’uld.
After everything he’d done, why
wasn’t it enough?
Besides, it wasn’t as if he could
change who he was or what he did. This was a military installation not a walk
in the goddamn park. Sometimes, though, it seemed like Daniel forgot that.
Forgot that this was a highly classified government project, a project that
very well could come around and bite them in the ass.
How many times had the enemy come
close to winning?
And what was Daniel crying about
this time? That he didn’t have more time to talk to the robot. Well, her little
toys were about ready to overrun the entire base and if it wasn’t for his quick
thinking they might not be here anymore, another planet wiped out by the
replicators because he felt bad for a machine.
That self-absorbed, whining
little—
Damn him.
***
Dusting off the top of the book,
Daniel’s nose twitched and his frown deepened as the cloud of dust hovered
gracefully above the cover before dispersing into the room. Normally he
wouldn’t mind working in his lab, in fact with all of the fieldwork SG-1 was
required to do as a front-line team, working in his lab had become a luxury not
oft enjoyed. But the fact that he was still having problems using his left hand
made his work a little more cumbersome than usual.
Every twinge of his wrist, however,
only reminded him of the incident with Jack. What was it with his
shoot-first-ask-questions-later attitude? Why did the military continue to
support that kind of unnecessary behavior?
Dropping the book on the counter,
he turned to the door, his body tensing as he hesitated. Honestly, he had to
admit that he was bored, but everyone had been busy—even Sam and Teal’c. The
replicators had certainly infested the base and it had taken nearly a week to
make sure everything was clean. The teams had been through his office often
enough that, at one point, he was convinced it had turned into Grand Central
Station.
He could tell that it was Jack’s
order—the thoroughness, the single-mindedness that every corner had to be
examined fifteen times. That military mindset of his wouldn’t let anyone rest
until every single block was accounted for.
If only Jack had let Daniel do
his job—talking to Reese and allowing her to shut them down—they wouldn’t have
had to go through this whole circus affair. And they’d have a much better
picture as to how Reese was created and how she made her toys.
But, of course, things hadn’t
gone that way.
He could still see Jack standing
there, his face an unfeeling mask, the military man at the forefront. Even his
words—from his insincere apology to the curt orders he issued as he left the
Gateroom—just drove home the reality of the situation and the absolute
absurdity of everything.
Sitting on the cold floor of the
Gateroom everything was crystal clear. They could have learned so much from
her.
Sometimes he wondered why he’d
stayed around so long, why he’d insisted on it. He’d done what he set out to do
at the beginning. He’d unlocked the secrets of the Stargate only to watch later
on as his wife was killed before him.
Not exactly the best payment he
could have imagined. He’d been through the Stargate hundreds of times, met
hundreds of different races, fought the Goa’uld, and forged alliances that
helped them survive.
And what thanks did he get? Did
anyone trust him any more now than they had when he was a wet-behind-the-ears
bookworm?
Hardly.
He’d changed over the years,
gotten stronger, gotten harder. He knew that. The things he was doing were
worlds beyond anything he could have ever dreamt of when he was a student. He
was world-wise now. He knew the risks, but he also knew just how much they
still had to learn.
Reese would have been a piece of
the puzzle—an important piece—if only things had gone differently, if only Jack
had put some faith in him and his abilities.
Violence, while an answer, was
never the right answer. Knowledge was stronger than any weapon, but one that
Daniel never had the opportunity to wield.
He had that feeling again, the
same feeling he’d had when he stood on the sidewalk in the pouring rain, a
paper airplane ticket in his hand, as Catherine’s car pulled away from the
curb. It was time for a change, a major one—and this time he wasn’t afraid of
what it might be. At this point in time, anything would be better than this.
But why was he hesitating,
standing beside his lab table, his eyes fixed on the corridor outside?
If he were honest with himself
he’d admit that he didn’t want to run into Jack. He wasn’t scared, he was
tired. He just didn’t want any more aggravation. His wrist was giving him
enough as is.
The last thing he wanted to hear,
however, was the announcement over the loudspeaker for SG-1 to report to the
briefing room.
Expelling his breath, he rubbed
the back of his neck trying to brace himself for the confrontation he was about
to face.
Talk about timing. He grimaced as
he put one foot in front of the other, his steps taking him closer to the one
person he wouldn’t mind avoiding for the rest of his life.
***
Major Samantha Carter glanced up
from her microscope, glaring at the speaker above the door.
Why was it that every time she
was in the middle of a research project and it was getting interesting she was
called somewhere else? Was the universe just trying to pull one big prank on
her?
Sighing, she savagely punched a
combination of numbers on the speakerphone pad. “O’Shea.”
“Gillian, it’s Sam. I need your
help in my lab. Do you have some time to spare?”
Carter swore she could hear the
smile on the Sergeant’s face. “I heard the announcement and I was just packing
up a few things here. What are you working on?”
“General Hammond let me keep one
of the replicator blocks for study. I just need you to put it into containment
for me. I don’t want to leave it lying around.”
“Trust me, I understand. I think
I can still hear the Colonel’s yelling from the other day. I’m surprised you
were able to keep one of them for study.”
“Well, actually,” Carter said as
she felt her cheeks turn a little red, “the Colonel doesn’t know about this
one.”
“Ah,” O’Shea said, her tone full
of comprehension. “And he’s not going to know about it either. I’ll be there in
a minute.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem. You’d better go
before you’re late.”
“I’m okay. It should take Daniel
at least another ten minutes to get there. His coffee pot wasn’t working last I
checked and knowing him, he’d stop for coffee on the way.”
Gillian’s chuckle filled the room
as they signed off. Carter slid to her feet, her hands straightening the papers
on her desk as her eyes scanned its surface, making sure nothing was out of
place.
Reaching for her pad and a pen,
she gathered both in her arms before heading to the door. Footsteps in the hall
signaled the Sergeant’s arrival and ushered Carter out into the corridor in a
hurry. “Thanks again,” she said as O’Shea passed entering the lab Carter had
recently vacated.
“I’m keeping track.” O’Shea
kidded. “And I’m going to ask for a payoff soon.”
“Just tell me when,” Carter
called, already halfway down the hall.
Pausing to swipe her card in the
reader next to the elevator, she only had to wait a few seconds for the car to
arrive, taking her a few levels down to the briefing room.
She was surprised to find
everyone except the Colonel in the room when she entered. Daniel was sitting in
his usual place, his fingers tracing patterns on the briefing room table.
Teal’c looked like he had come directly from the gym and Carter realized that
the announcement must have interrupted one of his training classes. Teal’c had
started a program for those interested in learning some of the
“I’m sorry, Sir,” she said to
General Hammond as she dropped her pad and pen at her place at the briefing
room table. “I was in the middle of some research—“
“Understood, Major. We’re just
waiting on the Colonel who should be here any minute now. He was signing in
upstairs when I called the meeting,”
Carter nodded as she moved to the
sideboard table to grab a mug of coffee. Daniel, she noted, was coffee-less.
Catching his eye she gestured to the carafe in her hands. Shaking his head, she
nodded and poured herself a cup, surprised he didn’t want any.
A sudden shuffle of clothing was
the only warning Carter had before O’Neill strode through the doorway, his long
blue jean-clad legs taking him quickly to his seat. “Sorry, Sir,” he said
apologetically, gesturing to his attire.
“At ease, Colonel,”
“Problem, Sir?” O’Neill asked and
Carter swore she could hear his back straightening.
“That’s happened before,
General,” O’Neill said, his fingers twirling the pen he’d snatched from Carter
as soon as he slid into his seat. There went any thought about taking notes at
this meeting.
“True,” the General conceded,
“but that was because of weather conditions and it was only once. They missed
the last two check-ins, the second earlier this morning.”
“Were we not able to make contact
with them ourselves?” Teal’c asked, his baritone tones only adding to the
seriousness of the General’s announcement. Carter knew all of the scientists on
P3S-295 personally. She’d picked several of them
especially for this mission.
“We’ve tried twice but haven’t
gotten any response. The MALP appears to be operational and from the limited
perspective we can get from its camera everything seems to be normal. There’s
no weather anomalies and no evidence of battle. In short, I’m worried that we
may have overlooked something when we did our initial survey of the planet. In any
case, I want you to check it out and see what happened to the scientists.”
“When do you want us to leave?”
O’Neill asked. Out of the corner of her eye Carter swore she saw something
flicker across Daniel’s face, but when she turned to look at him, it was gone.
She raised her eyebrow in question, but he shook his head, waving off her
question.
“Within the hour if possible.
I’ve already alerted Supply and your gear should be in the locker room waiting
for you,”
Carter and O’Neill immediately
clambered to their feet, Daniel and Teal’c not far behind.
“We’ll be ready, Sir.”
“Good. I know you’ll find them.
Dismissed.”
Even before the General had
crossed to his office, Daniel was already gone, a spinning chair the only
evidence of his passing.
Carter raised an eyebrow at his
behavior, managing to catch Teal’c’s eye. O’Neill, on the other hand, just
shook his head, a sigh escaping from his mouth before his face hardened, as if
he was closing down, pulling down the shutters. “I guess we should get
ourselves geared up. Come on, campers. We’ve got work to do.”
***
By the time O’Neill and Teal’c
made it to the locker room Daniel was struggling into his tactical vest, the
unsecured bindings of the leg harness swinging free.
O’Neill walked over to his
locker, his gaze settling on Daniel every now and then, watching the younger
man’s fits and starts as he tried not to over-extend his injured wrist.
“You sure didn’t waste any time,”
O’Neill finally commented, pulling his folded BDUs from the top of his locker
and shrugging off his sweater. Teal’c had stepped into the adjoining room for a
quick shower, leaving the two men alone.
“What?”
O’Neill glanced over his
shoulder, watching as Daniel fastened the final pieces of his gear together,
tightening down the straps.
“I said—“
“I heard what you said,” Daniel
said, his clipped words interrupting O’Neill. “I’m just surprised by the
comment. I thought you of all people would appreciate efficiency—especially
when there’s a team missing.”
O’Neill could feel the flush of
warmth on his face as he turned, his eyebrows drawing close, his forehead
tight. “Me of all people? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Daniel shrugged, refusing to meet
his eyes. “I’ll meet you in the Gate room in ten. Can’t keep the General
waiting.”
Before O’Neill could say another
word, the archeologist slipped out the door and into the hallway, leaving him
standing shirtless in the locker room, his BDUs hanging from his hands.
This mission was going to be a
pip.
Sighing, he turned around and
tried to put his mind on the mission, on the missing scientists, but his
thoughts kept circling back to Daniel’s words and the coldness behind them.
When Teal’c finally returned a
few minutes later, O’Neill was nearly completely kitted up, his face set in a
military mask. It was the only way to get through the mission—otherwise he
might end up punching one arrogant archeologist. Although if it was the only
way to get some sense into the man’s head…O’Neill shook the thought out of his
mind. This was not the time or the place.
“Daniel Jackson is gone?”
O’Neill nodded once, tugging his
tactical vest and clipping his P90 into place. “Yep. Headed to the Gate room
already. How long you gonna be?”
“I shall be prepared
momentarily,” Teal’c said, already pulling on his BDUs.
“Good,” O’Neill said, one hand on
the door to the hallway. “I’m going to see if the General has any other
information and I’ll meet you in ten.”
“I shall be there.”
“Great,” he said, pausing in the
half-open doorway. “Make sure you grab Carter on the way.”
Teal’c inclined his head, a
simple gesture that held tremendous respect and meaning. With his temper
simmering just below the surface, O’Neill knew the little things—like the tilt
of Teal’c’s head—went a long way in easing the pressure that was building in
his head.
And it just emphasized the point
that through everything, Teal’c was someone he could trust.
***
Twenty minutes later SG-1 was
assembled in the embarkation room, minus one member—Jack.
Daniel paced at the bottom of the
ramp, his arms crossed over his chest. Sam and Teal’c were off to the side
waiting patiently, Sam double-checking her ordinance while Teal’c stood
silently, his gaze sweeping around the room.
Looking into the control room for
what seemed like the hundredth time, Daniel caught sight of Jack and the
General deep in conversation as they walked down the stairs from the Level 27
briefing room. What was he doing with the General? A brief flutter filtered
through his stomach, but he pushed it down. Instead, he pulled his attention
away from the window and glanced at his watch again. What had happened to
punctuality?
Jack appeared a few moments
later, the large metal door sliding back as he strode in, finally stopping at
the bottom of the ramp, a few feet from the archeologist. After a brief glance
at Daniel, Jack turned, including Sam and Teal’c in his conversation. “Sorry
about my tardiness. I wanted to make sure I had all the information from the
General before heading out.” Jack looked up, obviously catching the General’s
eye since the Stargate immediately started spinning, the chevrons locking into
place one by one. “We’re ready, Sir.”
Following Jack’s gaze, Daniel
watched as
“Yes, Sir,” Jack said, turning
his attention back to the team. “The General sent another MALP through about
fifteen minutes ago to get a reading on what was going on around the gate. He’s
going to have them scan the clearing again before we proceed through, but it
seemed fine.”
“Now there’s concrete intel,”
Daniel commented under his breath, but apparently loud enough for Jack to hear
since the older man flicked his gaze to him, his eyes narrowing, but ignored
the comment.
“The scientists hadn’t reported
anything out of the ordinary during their last communication with the SGC,”
Jack continued, the locking chevrons providing a backdrop to his words. “No
large predators, no signs of human or Goa’uld habitation for that matter. The
General was about ready to approve the establishment of a scientific outpost on
P3S-295 before their missed communications.”
The ka-whoosh of the opening
wormhole signaled an end to Jack’s short briefing. It really wasn’t anything he
didn’t already know. Unlike some people, Daniel read his memos.
“SG-1, the MALP indicates the
area around the Gate is clear. Good luck.”
O’Neill offered a partial salute
to the General before turning on his heel and heading up the ramp, Sam and
Teal’c not far behind.
Daniel sighed, but stepped in
line, hard on Teal’c’s heels.
Things were going to change. He
could feel it in the air and he was ready to follow wherever it led him.
***
The cold of the wormhole helped
to bring Jack’s temper down a few degrees, but from the looks and the comments
he was getting from Daniel it wasn’t going to take much to set him off. And on
a rescue mission the last thing he needed was a smartass.
He knew that from first-hand
experience.
Sliding down the stairs from the
Stargate, O’Neill’s raised P90 tracked the edge of the clearing, the early
morning sun filtering down through the leaves of the trees. The MALP sat in the
middle of open area, just in front of the DHD. Three squishes behind him
signaled the rest of his team’s arrival. A quick glance around showed them all
moving into position, Daniel heading to the DHD with Carter and Teal’c scanning
the clearing in much the same way he was.
Daniel gave a thumbs-up at the
DHD while quick nods from Carter and Teal’c confirmed his initial assessment.
O’Neill reached for his radio, depressing the button to report back to the SGC.
“General, we have all clear and are proceeding to the camp site. We’ll report
back in two hours.”
Hammond’s voice was clear through
the earbud. “We’ll be waiting for your call. SGC out.”
The wormhole snapped shut, the
blue tinge coating the closest trees changing to a more normal color.
“Carter, which way?”
A quick gesture with her head
indicated the direction. “About an hour hike, Sir.”
“Teal’c, take point, then Daniel,
Carter, and I’ll watch our six.”
The Jaffa nodded his consent and
moved immediately to the path Carter had indicated, his staff weapon at the
ready. Everyone else fell into line, the silence of the forest settling upon
them.
The hike was not difficult, an
easy trail over flat terrain, but there was something missing—and it was more
than the easy companionship of friends.
There were no birds.
No insects.
No animals.
The trees and the plants were
plentiful, but without the sounds of the forest—the birds crashing through the
leaves, the local equivalent of squirrels scurrying through the
undergrowth—something was missing.
O’Neill was surprised by the camp
when they arrived. Instead of the usual small tents SG-1 normally traveled
with, there were several temporary buildings set up—a bunk-house, a mess hall,
storage, and a complete lab. When the General said they were about ready to
approve the establishment of a scientific outpost here, he wasn’t kidding. Just
moving all the crap back to the SGC would take a week.
The silence, though, was
absolute.
“Everyone spread out. Let’s make
sure no one’s home before we go crazy searching the area,” O’Neill ordered,
watching as Carter and Teal’c moved to opposite ends of the camp. Daniel, on
the other hand, hadn’t moved. What was it about civilian scientists?
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Daniel caught his gaze, his blue
eyes cold. “Yes, Sir. Right away, Sir,” Daniel said, sarcasm dripping from
every word. He turned as if to go, but hesitated, swiveling around to look back
at O’Neill. “I noticed you’re very good at giving orders lately.”
O’Neill’s eyebrows drew close.
“And that’s different than normal? This is a military operation, Daniel, and I
am the commanding officer, if you haven’t already noticed.”
“Yeah,” he said glancing away,
his eyes scanning the compound, “I’ve noticed.”
“Well, from the way you’ve been
acting it seems like you’ve forgotten a lot.”
Daniel turned back to O’Neill,
his eyes flashing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
O’Neill shook his head, trying to
get his growing temper under control. His hand slashed across the air in front
of him. “Look, it isn’t the time or the place for this.”
“No, it’s not, but then again,
there’s never a good time for anything that doesn’t fall into your personal set
of preferred topics.”
“What the hell has gotten into
you?”
“Maybe I’ve finally come to
realize what’s important in my life.”
O’Neill’s voice dropped, words
forced out through clenched teeth as he took several steps toward the
archeologist. “What’s important? What do you think we’re doing? Do you think
we’re out here for our health? Do you think that I enjoy losing people, good
people, to the likes of the Goa’uld?”
“No, I know you don’t, but—“
“But what, Daniel? Right now,
there’s a group of scientists who need our help. If you’re not going to start
acting like a member of my team then you can hightail it right back to the gate
and go home, because we have work to do.”
O’Neill paused, narrowing his
eyes as he watched Daniel’s non-reaction. It actually looked like Daniel was
considering his options, his eyes focused on something beyond Jack’s shoulder.
“Am I clear?”
It took a few moments before
Daniel finally nodded once, albeit reluctantly. “Have it your way,” he replied
and O’Neill could hear the unspoken words hanging between them.
‘You stupid son of a bitch.’
Daniel’s mouth tightened and he
turned, heading down the path they’d hiked, the curving trail that led back to
the Stargate.
At that moment, if Daniel had
come anywhere within swinging distance of him, the rest of SG-1 would have
found one unconscious archeologist flat on his back on the ground.
A brief flash through his mind
nearly found him striding to grab Daniel’s arm, to stop him from going. He
couldn’t just leave. They were already missing six scientists, the last thing
they needed was to misplace an archeologist too.
But something stopped him from
moving.
Daniel was a big boy. He could
take care of himself. He’d been telling Jack that for years now. And you know
what, Jack thought to himself as the younger man’s figure blended into the
foliage, let him go back home. Have him explain why he left. Hammond would sure
get a kick out of that.
Taking a deep breath, O’Neill
forced himself to turn away from the path and the man striding away from him,
focusing instead on the mission and the camp in front of him. He had a job to
do and, unlike some people, he’d get it done.
***
Carter circled around the west
side of the camp first, checking the perimeter as Teal’c headed east. The camp
and planet were quiet, unusually noiseless. There was nothing out of the
ordinary, nothing out of place—except for the missing scientists.
She spotted Teal’c out of the
corner of her eye and she gestured, catching his attention. She pointed toward
the door of the nearest portable shelter, indicating that she was going inside.
He nodded once, and proceeded on, his staff weapon poised and ready.
Sliding into the hut, her eyes
adjusted to the dim light. From an initial glance around, it looked as if she’d
found their lab. Various pieces of equipment were placed throughout, papers and
files covering most surfaces. She reached out, testing the switch on the
nearest microscope, the little light shining immediately. She switched it off
as she felt the muscles in her jaw tighten.
Whatever happened wasn’t sudden.
They knew they were going—wherever it was—well enough in advance to turn off
their equipment.
Moving closer, her fingers leafed
through the nearest file, her eyes scanning their findings. High concentrations
of minerals. Fertile soil. Moderate climate. Long growing season.
Moving from desk to desk, she
skimmed the files, looking at their notes, trying to discover where they might
be, where they might have gone.
Nothing jumped out at her as
being unusual.
The opening door startled her,
her head snapping up to watch as the Colonel entered followed by Teal’c.
“What did you find, Carter?” he
asked, stopping on the other side of the table.
She shook her head. “Not much.
They’ve been running standard environmental tests, as far as I can tell. It
looks like Annette Wales and Mark Andrews headed up the biological studies.
They’d spent a lot of time down by the river recently, about a half-hour walk
from here. Collin Gibson and Naomi Dean spent a good amount of time in the caves
just north of here, while Colonel Carpenter and William Page were filling in
with supplementary tests and surveys in addition to making sure the SGC was
kept abreast of their findings.” Glancing up, she met the Colonel’s brown eyes.
“There’s nothing out of the ordinary about the planet or their reports.”
“Nothing about Sasquatch?”
The corner of her mouth twitched.
“No, Sir.”
His mouth set in a thin line and
he glanced away, his eyes focusing on some of the equipment in the back of the
room. Teal’c stood silently to his side, patiently waiting for his decision.
Daniel normally would have jumped
in right about now. But, where was Daniel? Her eyes searched behind the Colonel
until realization dawned: he wasn’t there.
“Sir?”
His head snapped back toward her,
his eyebrows draw together. “Carter?”
“Where’s Daniel?”
“I, too, wish to know this
information.”
If she hadn’t been looking, she
would have missed it. Something had filtered across his face, a bevy of
emotions, but they moved much too quickly for her to pinpoint any one of them.
If she’d blinked, she would have missed the subtle changes in his demeanor.
His words, though, were not what
she was expecting.
“Heading back to the gate.”
“Sir,” she began, not entirely
sure how to continue. The air in the room had changed as well, tension building
around the Colonel. “Is he okay? Is everything okay?”
“He’s fine,” he replied, much too
quickly. “He thought it was best that he returned to the SGC.”
“I shall accompany him,” Teal’c
said, already moving toward the door. “It is not safe for him to go alone.”
“Teal’c,” O’Neill said, his tone
stopping the Jaffa mid-stride. “He’s fine and we have a mission to complete.”
“But, Sir, Teal’c has a point. We
have no idea what happened to the scientists. Daniel shouldn’t be returning to
the Stargate by himself. Let one of us walk back with him.“
“Absolutely out of the question.
Have you forgotten why we’re here?”
“No, Sir, but I think—“
“Carter, your concerns are noted,
but we don't have time to argue about this. I had to make a choice between six
scientists or one archeologist. I don't like it anymore than you do, but other
than physically restraining him, I had no choice but to let him go."
“But, Sir. Daniel—“
“Can take care of himself. He
knows the risks. He knows the dangers. He knows the mission and he made the
choice. Most of those scientists out there haven’t had a hell of a lot of
off-world experience. I know Carpenter. He’s a good man. That team is in trouble
and it’s up to us to find them.”
O’Neill’s gaze was penetrating,
his tone deadly serious.
Before either her or Teal’c could
react, however, a crackle echoed across their radios.
“Colonel O’Neill, do you read?”
The Colonel turned, thumbing the
button on his radio. “Loud and clear, Sir.”
“What’s your status?”
“We’ve located the camp and
nothing seems out of place. We’re going to spread out and see if we can find
any sign of them. There’s a lot of ground to cover, so it’s going to take some time.”
She could hear the concern in the
General’s voice. “Do you need additional teams?”
“Negative. We still need to do
more recon before I can recommend sending additional personnel to the planet.
We may still be dealing with nothing more than the usual absent-minded
scientists."
“Understood,” Hammond replied.
“Report in when you have more information. I’ll have SG-3 and 5 standing by. If
we haven’t heard from you in six hours we’ll make radio contact.”
“Understood. SG-1 niner out.”
O’Neill turned back to them, his
brown eyes deep and Carter could swear that she saw the gears grinding away in
his mind. “Carter, I want you and Teal’c to follow Wales and Andrews’ footsteps
to the river. Check out the surrounding area. I’m going to head north and take a
look at the cave system, starting on the western end. When you finish up at the
river work your way back to meet me. Keep in radio contact.”
Carter nodded once. If only
Daniel had stayed the Colonel wouldn’t be forced to search on his own.
“Understood, O’Neill. We will
endeavor to journey swiftly so as to return in a prompt manner.”
“Don’t hurry on my account,
Teal’c,” O’Neill said, pausing in his movement to the door. Something filtered
across his face again, the emotion gone as quickly as it came. “The scientists
need our best. Let’s give it to them.”
***
Daniel stood up, taking a final
drink from his canteen before fastening it to his waist. He’d stopped to rest
against a large rock adjacent to the trail when he heard the General’s voice, a
gentle stab of doubt shooting through his mind.
That only lasted until he heard
Jack’s voice.
Everything about it set his teeth
on edge. Jack’s condescending comments about scientists didn’t make him jump
for joy either.
Rolling his shoulders to ease the
tension in his muscles, he started moving again, continuing his leisurely
stroll back to the gate. He wasn’t in any particular hurry and, honestly, he
wasn’t sure what he was going to tell the General when he got there.
‘Well, Sir, Jack ticked me off
and told me I could go home,’ didn’t seem like the best explanation.
He should have a draft of his
resignation letter around somewhere. He’d been plucking away at it lately.
Apparently his unconscious mind had made this decision a while ago and his
conscious mind was just catching up now.
Maybe he’d be able to go back to
Egypt and continue some of the work he sorely missed. His welcome back into the
archeological world might be a little rocky, but after dealing with the
Goa’uld, he could handle just about anything. He’d be away from the front
lines, away from the life and death decisions that marred every waking moment.
Low chatter over the radio pulled
his attention away from his internal musings, his left hand immediately turning
the volume back up so he could hear.
“…clear. Teal’c and I are going
to scout a little more by the river, but there’s no sign of them anywhere.”
“I copy. These mountains seem to
be infested with caves. If they’re in here they could be just about anywhere. I’m—“
A scuffle over the radio melded
into a thump before silence echoed over the line.
“Sir?” Carter’s voice held a hit
of anxiety, which only increased with each additional syllable. “Sir? What
happened? Sir?”
“—damn rocks. You know what’s a
good idea, Carter? I think they should outlaw rocks on planets.”
Humor colored Sam’s next words
and Daniel could picture the half-smile on her face. “Are you okay, Sir?”
“Fine. Nothing more than a
bruised ego and some scrapes and bruises. And this…dust…gets into everything.”
Jack coughed once before he could click off the microphone, coming back on a
few beats later. “Take a good look around the river and then head back to my
position. The caves are going to take a lot longer than I originally
anticipated.”
“Should we call for back-up,
Sir?”
“How much more daylight do we
have?”
“Not much,” she admitted, her
tone a little distracted. “I’d say another few hours at the most.”
“Negative then. It’ll take the
teams too long to get here. Let’s rendezvous in an hour at the camp instead and
we can plan our strategy for tomorrow. It might pay to get Hammond to send the
UAV. Even though there’s a lot of plant-growth, it should be able to pick up
the scientists if they decided to go on a field trip.”
Daniel turned the sound back down
low as Sam acknowledged Jack’s orders. They were working well without him, like
a well-oiled machine.
They wouldn’t miss him.
That bothered him—more than he
wanted to admit.
They’d been a team. Friends,
even. What had happened? When had things begun to change? Could he pinpoint the
exact moment when things had changed, when things had become about fifteen
degrees off-center?
He sighed again, his thoughts
deep and dark. Casting his eyes ahead, the Stargate rose into view, the foliage
thinning as he approached the clearing, The DHD appeared as he rounded the
final corner.
Thinking back, Daniel realized
that it had been a gradual decay, his tensions with Jack growing until they
enveloped everyone, everything he did, everything he said, everything he saw.
But now, standing before the DHD,
his hands hesitated over the glyphs.
Was he really being fair to the
team, to the scientists?
He looked at his watch before
casting a glance at the sky. It was already starting to darken, the afternoon
quickly rushing into twilight. He could make it back to the camp before night
completely claimed the landscape.
But did he want to?
Why should his issues with Jack
affect Sam and Teal’c? They didn’t do anything to him, in fact, they’d been
supportive, his constant companions. It wasn’t the scientists’ fault that Jack
was an ass.
His hands dropped to his side and
he sighed, but he already knew that his mind was made up.
He turned, his feet sure against
the uneven ground.
The time slipped away as he
moved, the fast encroaching darkness slowing his progress. Two unanswered calls
to Jack quickly turned to four. Each passing minute stretched out before him,
yet slipped away faster than he could count.
Something had happened. He knew
it in his bones.
After the fifth call, Daniel
raised his hand to the radio, his chilled fingers struggling to find the button
as his body continued to move. “Sam? What happened?”
The surprise in her voice was
expected, but it hurt nonetheless.
“Daniel? I thought…the Colonel
said…where are you?”
“I’m hiking back to the camp,
probably about three-quarters of the way there,” he answered, stepping over a
branch that stretched across the trail. He waited a few beats, wondering if she
was going to speak again. “Sam?”
“Sorry. Teal’c’s walking out to
meet you and he’s bringing a bigger flashlight. You’re going to need it.”
The worry in her voice nearly
sent his stomach into back flips. “Sam, what happened to Jack?”
Her soft exhale carried over the
channel. “We don’t know. He’s not here and he’s not answering our radio calls.
It could just be interference…”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No.”
“What was he doing off by
himself?” Daniel found himself asking, the words falling from his lips. At
Sam’s hesitation, he knew the answer instantly. He heard the confirmation in
the tone of her reply.
“His job.”
The same words that hung between
him and Jack now hovered on the air once again, this time aimed in his
direction.
‘You stupid son of a bitch.’
He was speechless.
If Jack were here, Daniel knew
what he’d say. Something about turn-about being fair play and all.
And for once, Daniel would have
to agree.
***
Even with the bigger flashlight
he’d swiped from the camp, the tunnels were still dark, the dust clinging to
every surface. His knee ached from where he’d tripped and fallen over the
stupid small stalagmite in the middle of the floor. He’d ripped the material of
his BDUs open and given himself a nice sized gash that seemed to have stopped
bleeding, but his leg and knee still hurt, the residual ache reminding him that
he wasn’t as young as he wanted to remember.
And it seemed as if he couldn’t
get the dust out of his lungs.
The cave system was larger than
he originally thought, the passages curving, angling up and down, forcing him
deeper into the mountain. He’d lost count of the number of tunnels he’d
searched, reaching the end before turning around and backtracking to the
entrance and starting again on another one.
Stalactites hung from the ceiling
in various shapes and sizes while hundreds of stalagmites rose up from the
surface of the cave floor to meet them. In some places he’d had to squeeze to
continue on to the end of the tunnel only to turn around and trudge back,
wiggling through a space that he swore had gotten smaller.
He coughed again, for what seemed
like the fiftieth time in the last ten minutes. Even after a few swigs from his
canteen, it wasn’t getting any better.
The passage he was in this time
was different than the others. Moving steadily, the floor had sloped downward
sharply at first before finally leveling out, his free hand finding purchase
against the wall, guiding him, the coating of dust and dirt getting thicker
with each step.
He’d stood in the middle of
several intersecting passages, holding the wall for support as he coughed,
taking a few minutes to decide which way to go. He picked one finally, shoving
himself off the rocks, his flashlight’s beam cutting through the darkness.
In any other instance wandering through
these caves would be fun. Looking for misplaced scientists wasn’t exactly his
idea of a good time.
The first passage he picked
dead-ended where the stalactites and stalagmites had joined, forming a wall
that blocked his way. Using the tip of his P90, he enlarged a small hole on the
side of the corridor, opening it enough to shine the flashlight through. From
what he could see—mainly the thick plume of dirt and dust in the air, floating
in the beam of his flashlight—it looked like the passage continued on but there
was no need for him to look any further. The scientists were not here.
Turning around yet again he
returned to the crossroads of passages, his feet making the next choice. Twice
more he picked paths before finally returning to that same intersection and the
last passage.
The floor sloped downward once
again, sharply in places, the loose dirt under his boots making it slippery.
Bracing himself against the wall, he placed his feet precisely before shifting
his weight, easing down the incline.
Movement in the corner of his eye
distracted him and he lost his footing, barely recovering before he stumbled
and fell. Squinting into the darkness, he tried to figure out what he’d seen,
but there was nothing there.
Darkness played weird tricks on your
eyes.
Shaking his head, he focused
instead on his exploration, calculating how much further he had to go. Shining
the flashlight forward he could just make out the end of the passage and the
point where it leveled off.
He wasn’t expecting the feeling
of movement under his boots.
***
By the time Daniel and Teal’c
stumbled back into camp it was dark and the wind had picked up. It wasn’t much
warmer in the tent, however—and Daniel wasn’t talking temperature either.
Sam eyed him from across the room
before returning to the papers she was reading. Stepping in further, the Jaffa
slid around him, laying the flashlight and his staff weapon on one of the large
tables.
Wiping his hands on his pants,
Daniel didn’t think he’d been so uncomfortable in his life.
Walking closer to one of the
desks, he leaned against it, fingering the papers cluttering its surface. He
knew she should probably say something, anything to break the silence, but he
didn’t know where to begin or how to explain. How do you apologize for letting
your friends down, for being an idiot?
“Sam?” he began, the word
hesitant. She stiffened at the sound of his voice, her shoulders tensing. A few
moments passed before she glanced up at him, her eyes hard.
“What, Daniel?”
He took a deep breath. “I’m
sorry.”
“You should be.” Her tone was
uncompromising.
Teal’c approached silently, his
gaze lingering on both him and Sam. His tone, while somber, was not accusatory.
“What has occurred between you and O’Neill?”
Daniel sighed, his eyes dropping
to the page his fingers were playing with, rolling the corner, bending and
folding it. “It’s a long story.”
He could hear the Jaffa shift
beside him and Daniel glanced up. He could feel his eyes widening as his friend
seated himself carefully on a nearby stool, his body relaxed. “I believe we
have the time you require.”
“Shouldn’t we be looking for
Jack?”
“If you haven’t noticed, Daniel,
it’s dark,” Sam commented, moving closer to where Teal’c was perched.
“Stumbling around in unfamiliar terrain is not exactly a bright idea.”
“But isn’t there something we can
do?”
“We are doing something. Unless
you’re willing to hike back to the Stargate to dial up the SGC, it makes more
sense to stay here and wait for General Hammond to dial in, which should only
be a few hours from now.”
“Oh.”
“Therefore we have sufficient
time for your lengthy tale.”
Daniel sighed, his fingers
shoving up his glasses to squeeze the bridge of his nose. Letting his hand
drop, he glanced back and forth between his friends. “I don’t even know where
to begin.”
Sam moved closer, her jaw tight,
her eyes flashing with an anger he knew he deserved. “Why did you walk, Daniel?
You knew we had a mission. The scientists are depending on us.”
“I was angry,” Daniel replied, the
words falling from his mouth. “Jack can be such an ass.”
Sam crossed her arms over her
chest, her eyes narrowing. “While I admit that the Colonel can be difficult at
times to deal with, being angry with him is no reason to walk away from a
mission.”
“I know,” Daniel muttered, unable
to hold her gaze.
“But you stormed off in a huff
leaving him—us—to find the scientists. And because you weren’t here the Colonel
was forced to search by himself. And where does that leave us now? One Colonel
short, that’s where.”
“It’s not my fault that Jack got
lost—“
“Lost? He could be lying in a
heap somewhere for all we know. There could have been a cave-in. Anything could
have happened, but we can’t look for him until morning because we don’t have
the right equipment. How exactly do you plan on explaining all of this to
General Hammond?”
“I don’t know!” Daniel yelled
back, his anger finally finding some release. “If Jack wasn’t so impulsive—“
“Impulsive? Since when did the
Colonel become impulsive about a rescue mission? Since when does he walk away
when someone is in trouble? He works his ass off protecting people.”
The unspoken words ‘like you’
hung in the air.
“But that’s just it, Sam. When
will Jack start to put some trust in me? He always second-guesses my decisions.
He never trusts me to do my job. He treats me no better than a child.”
“Apparently he’s right on the
money because that’s how you’ve been acting. If the Colonel didn’t trust you,
you wouldn’t be on the team—end of story.”
“Daniel Jackson, O’Neill trusts
your judgment implicitly,” Teal’c said, his voice a drastic contrast to the
high emotions running through the room. “I agree with Major Carter. If O’Neill
did not trust you or value your opinion, he would have found a replacement for
you on SG-1.”
“I’m not so sure about that,”
Daniel said, the Jaffa’s words giving him time to breathe, to get his emotions
under control. “I mean, look at what happened with Reese. If he’d trusted me,
if he’d just given me a little more time…He didn’t have to kill her.”
“Daniel Jackson, we were losing
the battle against the replicators. Had O’Neill delayed SGC personnel would
have perished. There was no room for error. O’Neill acted as he should. There
was no other choice to make.”
“She was shutting them down.”
Sam shook her head. “No, Daniel.
They were starting to act on their own. The Colonel did his job and saved the
mountain, and most likely the planet.”
Daniel sighed and turned away,
shaking his head.
“Do you disagree, Daniel
Jackson?”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. You
military types all think alike.”
Sam’s jaw dropped and it took her
a moment to find her voice. “Us military types? You of all people should know
better than to generalize since you’re the one who’s always complaining about how
narrow-minded people can be when they do just that.” Sam’s eyes narrowed and
she leaned in. Daniel felt a little uncomfortable under her scrutiny, but
refused to back down, to move. “Is that the real problem then? Are you
jealous?”
“No!” Daniel exclaimed
immediately, but lowered his voice as he continued. ”Of course not. Why is it
that anything we don’t understand we kill? Why do we always have to resort to
violence? We could have learned so much from Reese, but we’ll never get an
opportunity now. Jack made sure of that.” Daniel paused only long enough to
draw another breath before plowing on. “And it’s more than just that one
incident with Reese. Jack was going to blow up Lotan and the entire Gadmeer
civilization just because he didn’t have a better solution. What kind of a plan
is that? And Sam, he killed you for all intents and purposes when that entity
had taken over your body. But what does Jack get? A pat on the back and a
resounding ‘thank you, job well done’.” Daniel knew that if sarcasm were visible,
it would be pouring from his lips.
“Daniel, you know in every
instance that there was good reason for the Colonel to act the way he did,”
Sam’s voice was hard, but had lost some of its anger. “But you also seem to
forget the number of times he’s trusted you, relied upon you. In the case of
the Gadmeer, setting that bomb to explode—knowing you were on that ship—it was
the hardest thing he had to do. He had no way to know if you’d be able to talk
sense into Lotan—“
“He should have trusted me.”
“He didn’t have a choice but to
follow through with his plan. He had no idea what was going on up there. If you
hadn’t been able to convince Lotan to stop the ship, the Enkarans would have
been wiped out of existence. Yes, everything worked out in the end, but your
actions undermined the Colonel’s authority. And do you know what your actions
said to me or to anyone looking on for that matter? That you didn’t trust him
to do to his job, to do the right thing. Do you have any idea how difficult it
is to make those kinds of decisions—decisions that affect people’s lives?”
Daniel glanced away, unable to
bear her heavy stare. Sam, however, wasn’t finished.
“Did he stop you from going on a
nearly suicidal mission to the System Lord’s summit meeting? No, instead he
fought long and hard to make sure you were safe, to make sure that you had a
way to get home if things went bad. He trusted that you would be able to get
the job done. If he didn’t trust you, he wouldn’t have let you leave the SGC. I
think it’s time that you got your head out of your ass and started paying
attention.”
She paused for a moment, taking a
breath and letting it out slowly. “I also think that you should cut him some
slack. He’s only human, Daniel, just like you. He does the best he can. And if
our track record as a team is anything to go by, I know he’s the one I’d want
watching my six when things got tough. I know, without a shadow of a doubt,
that he’ll do everything in his power, anything it takes, to make sure everyone
gets home alive—even if it means pain on his part. You might want to consider
that before you go pointing your finger at him again, accusing him of not
trusting you, of being anything less than the honorable man he is.”
Maybe the fault wasn’t all on
Jack’s side. Perhaps, just perhaps, some of the blame rested with him. Sam
obviously interpreted Jack’s actions differently and despite his words to the
contrary, Daniel really didn’t dump Sam into the typical military mold.
Sam’s jaw was set, the muscles
tight, although her eyes held a note of sorrow that nearly broke his heart. The
last thing he wanted to do was to let her down, to let the team down. She was
right; he’d been an ass. And standing here, in the middle of a temporary lab
set up on an alien planet halfway across the galaxy from Earth, he knew how
wrong he’d been, how shortsighted he’d become.
He needed time to think, to mull
over the things she’d said. And then, if he decided that she was right, he had
some apologizing to do. And even if Jack still deserved part of the blame, was
it cause enough to lose a friendship, one that had been built up over time,
over years? Because Jack was a friend—something Daniel had forgotten in his
anger, a good friend, and one that he had let down. But even as realization
swept over him, shame rose up from within, mixed with feelings of desperation.
They had to find him. He had to
talk to him, to set things straight between the two of them.
But what if he didn’t get the
chance? What if they couldn’t find him? What if they found him and it was too
late?
The possibility of never seeing
his friend again nearly sent him reeling to his knees. That couldn’t happen.
There had to be something they could do here and now to ensure that he’d get
the chance to talk to him later.
“Sam,” Daniel began, his voice
hesitant, soft in the silence that had settled over them. “Is there anything we
can do before the General calls? What do we know about the caves?”
She shrugged slightly, running a
hand through her short blonde hair. “While I was waiting for Teal’c to come
back with you, I’d started going through the scientists’ notes, trying to find
a note, a clue, anything that could shed some light on what was going on.”
“Are you looking for something
specific?”
“No,” she shook her head. “I’m
just looking for anything that might indicate what they thought was in there,
but there’s a lot of paper to get through.”
“What do you say I put on some
coffee and we put our heads together and start looking?” Daniel suggested,
hoping that she’d take his version of an olive branch.
She stood for a minute, her gaze
resting gently on his face before nodding once. Her eyes slid to Teal’c for a
moment before returning to him. “I’d like that and I know just where you can
start.”
“Great,” Daniel smiled, a feeling
of relief settling down on him momentarily. He’d straightened one thing out.
Now he just needed the opportunity to finish the rest. “Let’s get started.”
***
‘What the…’ Jack thought as the
dirt beneath his boot moved. He glanced down and could feel his eyes widen as
he watched the dirt crawl up his foot, circle over his ankle, and continue
north up his leg.
Normally, dirt didn’t do that.
It was right about then that
commonsense exited stage right.
It seemed like a good idea when
it popped into his mind, but the execution of the idea was somewhat lacking.
Shifting his weight to his left leg, Jack lifted his right foot in an attempt
to shake the dirt free.
That, however, only seemed to
make it worse.
He started to backpedal, trying
to get up the slope, but it felt as if the dirt was making his legs heavy.
Trying to scramble backwards, he tried to move, but the dirt under his feet
kept sliding away, as if it were running water, his grip on the wall the only
thing keeping him upright.
Aiming his flashlight backwards
he glanced over his shoulder, trying to judge how much further he had to go
before he reached the top, but the particles caught in the beam had thickened,
the dust heavy in the air.
For a moment, he thought the dust
was swarming, like it was some kind of sentient life form. His chuckle turned
to a cough.
It was then that his feet slipped
out from under him.
In an effort to slow his descent,
he tried to dig in his heels, but nothing was working right. His legs felt numb
and unresponsive, his arms and hands feeling leaden. Each passing breath was
harder to take as the dirt and dust from his headlong flight to the bottom of
the slope kicked it high into the air.
Hitting a bump, he started to
tumble, head over heels, down becoming up and up down. With each and every
contact he made with the ground, scrapes and bruises were added to the total,
the numbers rising exponentially.
The stalagmite at the bottom
stopped him cold, the crack in its side showing green—a crack Jack didn’t see.
With his breath knocked out, he
laid on the ground in a heap for several minutes trying to pull oxygen into his
burning lungs. But with each successive inhalation came a series of coughs,
each deeper than the next.
Movement of the dirt under his
body propelled him to his feet and he stood there swaying as he tried to regain
his senses in the dark, his large flashlight lost in his tumble.
Searching his vest, his hands
finally latched onto the smaller flashlight he always carried and switched it
on, grateful it worked.
What he saw, though, surprised
him.
He was in a huge hall, a cavern
surrounded by hundreds and thousands of stalagmites and stalactites, in all
shapes and sizes. His feet dragging, he pushed himself forward, searching for
another way out, but it was hard and he was tired.
He pointed the light downward,
toward the ground that was still moving under his boots.
The dirt—non-dirt or whatever—had
shifted higher finding the tear in his BDUs and was sliding against his bare
skin, numbing it wherever it went. He was already losing feeling in his hands,
the fingers going numb where they were exposed to the air. His neck and face
were in a similar state.
The little buggers were getting
into everything.
He could feel them traveling down
his shirt, crawling down his spine.
He was covered in them.
The ones that weren’t on his skin
were coating his uniform in a thick beige crust.
He was tired.
He’d stopped moving, he realized,
several minutes ago. But even as he felt parts of his body go numb, his mind
was clearing.
His P90 was gone, lost somewhere
in the caves. It was the dust, the dirt, that caused this. It was sentient, it
had to be.
He had to tell his team, they had
to know.
Forcing his free hand upward, one
inch at a time, he aimed for his radio, a radio his fumbling fingers discovered
was not there.
Another thing lost, dropped
somewhere in the tunnels; his only link with the outside world gone.
The flashlight dropped from his
fingers, hitting the ground with a thump as the light dimmed and then
extinguished.
But even in the dark he could
still feel them moving.
***
Daniel’s eyes were starting to
cross. Reading pages and pages of scientific reports—most of which he didn’t
understand—made him want to gouge his eyes out. Must be the same reaction Jack
has to memos and staff reports.
Sliding his glasses up onto his
forehead, he rubbed his hands across his face, trying to wipe some of the
cobwebs away. They’d been pouring through everything in the room—from reports
to computer files to scribbled notes on napkins—and nothing significant had
popped up. They could spend weeks here and they’d hardly put a dent in it.
How could six scientists make so
much paper?
Teal’c had gotten up a few
minutes ago to take a walk around the perimeter of the camp. They’d set up the
lights earlier, illuminating everything, with the thought that if any of the
scientists or Jack were lost, they’d be able to spot the camp from miles away.
Sam had sectioned off the main
lab into three zones, each of them responsible for everything within that area.
Somehow, Daniel had gotten stuck with a good portion of the geological and
environmental data, which he though couldn’t be that difficult to understand.
How wrong he’d been.
From what he could gather, Wales
and Andrews hadn’t concentrated on any particular section of the planet,
instead choosing to do a general survey of the area from the river to the
foothills of the mountains.
Compared to Earth, things were
different from the apportion of minerals in the soil to the nutrients in the
air and water. Even the sunlight had its own characteristics.
An initial survey of the caves
and tunnels had shown an increase in mineral concentration and an unusually
rich soil base, some of which had been brought back for closer study. A
complaint about the lack of moisture in the caves was noted twice by Wales and
attributed to the altitude of the mountain range. The notes also indicated that
Wales had planned further investigation of the caves and mountains, but there
was no record as to whether it was followed-up up or not.
An aerial survey of the planet
was going to be part of their next step in mapping the area, a request penciled
in for the next communication with the SGC along with additional equipment—a
report that was never made.
“Sam,” Daniel said, shifting to
glance across the room at his teammate who was similarly slumped in her chair.
“Anything?”
She shook her head, her hand
rubbing the back of her neck as she stretched to get some of the kinks out.
“Nothing, at least nothing that looks menacing or dangerous. For all intents
and purposes this is an average, boring nondescript planet.”
Daniel chuckled humorlessly.
“Yeah, one that eats scientists and Colonels for breakfast.”
Before Sam could comment,
however, a crackle over the radios quickly pulled their attention to the little
box sitting on the table. “SG-1, this is Hammond, do you read?”
Reaching over, Sam snagged the
radio, pressing the button to activate it as he brought it up to her mouth.
“Carter here, Sir.”
“Major, where’s Colonel O’Neill?”
She hesitated for a fraction of a
second before responding, but her voice was steady when she spoke the words
they were all dreading, the words that made it all real. “Missing, Sir.”
“Missing? What happened?” Teal’c
entered the lab on the heels of Hammond’s words, his eyes meeting Daniel’s, a
silent shake of his head indicating that nothing had changed outside.
“We’d split up to cover more
ground and the Colonel missed a radio contact. By the time we got back to camp
it was too dark to start looking for him. We have to wait until first light
before we can begin again since we don’t have the right equipment.”
“What do you need, Major?”
“Complete search-and-rescue gear.
We’re fearing the worst since the Colonel was investigating the nearby caves.”
“I remember Colonel Carpenter
mentioning them in a recent report. Are you thinking cave-in?”
“It’s possible, Sir. There’s no
interference to speak of, so the Colonel would answer his radio if he were
able. You might want to send Doctor Fraiser.”
“Negative. Unfortunately, SG-2
encountered some hostiles during a recent recon and she’s up to her eyeballs
treating them. I’ll send SG-8 along with SG-3, instead. SG-5 can remain here
unless you think an additional team will be necessary.”
“I don’t think so, General.”
“I’ll have the teams prepare for
departure. How quickly do you need them deployed?”
“It’s pointless to send them now
since they’ll just be stumbling around in the dark. First light would be a
better option, Sir, which should be in about six hours. From the scientist’s
notes the days are shorter here.”
“Understood, Major. Anything
else?”
“General,” Daniel interrupted.
“Would it be possible to get an UAV launched? We might be able to get a better
idea on their location from the bio sensor on the UAV. It might help point us
in the right direction.”
“Major, do you agree with Doctor
Jackson?”
“I think it’s a good idea, but
I’m worried that if they’re within the caves the sensors might not be able to
penetrate the rock.”
“I’ll have Major Warren take a
look at the reports the scientists sent back to see what he recommends. Either
way, reinforcements will be coming to you in six hours. Get some rest people.
Hammond out.”
As the radio fell silent, Daniel
glanced between his friends, the finality of their situation crashing down
around him. At least with SG-8 on the way whoever they found would be in good
medical hands and Major Warren was nearly as bad as Jack when it came to sheer
stubbornness.
They’d find him and the
scientists. They had to.
Hopefully, it wasn’t too late.
***
It was strange.
This disembodied feeling of
floating was peculiar.
He knew he was standing, yet
couldn’t feel his feet.
He knew he was breathing, yet he
couldn’t feel the rise and fall of his chest.
Even if it wasn’t dark, pitch
black in reality, his world had become reduced to what he could barely hear.
For a while, he’d been able to feel the movement on his neck and face as the
crust of dirt or dust or whatever it was had continued to build, layer by
layer.
He could still hear himself
breathe, however.
But even that was slowing, each
breath more shallow than the one before.
He was dying.
Bit by bit, piece by peace.
He knew it was true, he could
feel it in his heart and his soul.
Soon the layers would be too
thick to allow even the passage of air and his inhalations would stop.
And on that final exhale he would
make his peace—with himself and with the universe.
But until that time he would wait
and listen to the slow breaths that kept him alive, as he became one more
addition to the cavern, a landmark of the most fragile kind.
***
A clamor in the camp quickly
roused Daniel from an uneasy sleep, his eyes squinting at his wristwatch in an
effort to see the time.
What was going on at the
god-awful hour of four in the morning?
Swinging his feet off the bed and
sitting up, Daniel rubbed a hand across his face and reached for his glasses with
his left hand, placing them lightly on his nose. A quick glance around the bunk
tent revealed it empty.
Had something happened?
Stumbling to his feet, grateful
for the three hours of sleep he’d gotten but knowing that it wasn’t enough, he
shoved open the door into the darkness outside.
Another glance at his watch
confirmed the time, but as he rounded the corner he discovered members of SG
teams three, five, and eight loitering outside the main laboratory tent
surrounded by piles of gear and two FREDs piled with more equipment.
Someone wasn’t taking any
chances.
And they were early, very early.
He heard his name and vaguely saw
an arm waving him over. Apparently, he’d been spotted.
Smiling hesitatingly, he picked
up the pace a little. As he got closer Lieutenant John Peterson stepped away
from the crowd, one of the members of SG-3.
“Doctor Jackson, did we wake
you?” Peterson said, apologizing as he approached.
Daniel glanced around again, his
eyes lingering on the people and the equipment that were littering their once
pristine camp. “Kind of, but that’s okay. What are you doing here? I thought
the General was only sending three and eight in two hours from now.”
“We had a briefing and once word
got around Colonel Harper insisted that SG-5 accompany us. He stayed at the
Gate along with Lieutenant Austin. It didn’t take us long to get the extra gear
together, so we decided not to wait.”
“So you left.”
“Yep. The General’s sending the
UAV through at first light so we should be able to set up the equipment to
monitor the readings from here. I think Major Carter is hooking it up right
now.”
Daniel didn’t know what to say,
so he settled for something simple. “Do you know if there’s coffee anywhere?”
Peterson smiled. “Inside the mess
hall. I think Bosco started KP duty as soon as he walked into camp.”
“You mean there’s food?” Daniel
asked, pausing only a few steps away from the Lieutenant.
“Of course. But I should warn
you, Bosco makes some mean coffee. Puts hair on your chest.”
“Trust me. It can’t be worse than
Jack’s and I drink that on a regular basis. This’ll be gourmet. And who thought
that Starbucks had set up a store here.”
Smiling for the first time in
days, he sauntered into the mess tent, a feeling of elation settling over him.
This was going to work.
Jack was as good as rescued.
Finally, plan A was working.
***
It was quiet.
Very quiet.
And dark. He couldn’t forget
about the darkness.
At least this time he couldn’t hear
the gnawing of the rats or the clicking of the cockroaches’ feet.
And he was pain-free, a blissful
state of non-being.
It was better this way.
And soon he’d sleep.
***
Glancing up from the computer
she’d finally finished tying into one of the workstations, Sam saw Daniel
enter, fully kitted up and ready to go.
The UAV was to be launched from
the SGC in fifteen minutes and the first of the search teams were ready to
depart.
It had been a busy morning since
Teal’c had gotten the call from Major Warren, stealing in to wake her as they
neared the camp. He had seen the benefits even a small amount of sleep on
humans because of his close association with them over the past several years.
She was thankful of his thoughtfulness and had gotten right to work when they’d
arrived.
An hour ago, the Major had
approached her, asking what her orders were.
She’d been a little taken aback,
figuring Lieutenant Colonel Harper would be calling the shots, but the Major
explained that Hammond had made it clear that she was in charge of the rescue
mission.
She was pleasantly surprised, but
the weight of the decisions that had to be made settled heavily on her.
The first team would depart just
prior to the UAV’s release, heading directly for the Colonel’s last known
location. Teal’c and Daniel had insisted on going and she hadn’t argued.
Instead, she decided to send Lieutenants Peterson and Collins along with them.
Huddled in the corner, Sam
watched Daniel weave his way through the lab. His steps were sure but she could
see tenseness in his frame. For a moment she saw him as she had last
night—slumped at the desk, sighs falling from his lips, his thoughts a loud
distraction.
But as quickly as that memory
came it was gone, replaced instead by the Daniel who would single-mindedly
search out the nearest pot of strong coffee, who would go to the ends of the
Earth to find a friend.
Right now was not the time for
ruminations or doubts. Now was the time to focus on the living and the lost.
“Sam,” he called, noticing for
the first time that she was watching him cross the floor.
“You about ready to go?” she
asked, straightening her back, rising to her feet, and stepping around to the
front of the desk. She needed to move, to stretch.
“Yeah, we’re about ready to move
out. Teal’c’s going to bring one of the FREDs packed full with some of the gear
we might need. He thought it would be easier than carting it all the way.”
Sam nodded. “Great. I figured
he’d do that.”
Daniel eyed her for a minute, his
blue eyes measuring her, before continuing. “Are you sure you don’t want to go
with us?”
If she had her choice she would
go, but someone needed to monitor the UAV and she was the one with the best
qualifications. “I’m sure. I’ll join the second team in a few hours once the
MALP gets some readings. Make sure you keep in radio contact.”
“We will. We’re expecting you to
lead us right to him you know.”
“I’ll do my best, Daniel,” Sam
said, the tone of her voice dropping.
“I know you will, but don’t
worry. We’ll find him, alive and well. Knowing Jack, he just got turned around.
He’ll probably walk into the camp minutes after we leave.”
“I wish that were the case, but I
don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Daniel sighed, his gaze shifting
away from her face. “I know, but it doesn’t hurt to wish it, right?”
“No, it doesn’t,” she said,
pausing for several beats, her own thoughts and doubts threatening to overtake
her. “Good luck. Bring him home.”
***
It was interesting. He’d always
thought that when the time finally came for him to go, it would be louder.
He’d always pictured his death on
a field somewhere in the jungles of Asia or on the sand dunes of the Middle
East. That had changed when he’d been assigned to the SGC.
Then it was to be an explosion on
a planet far, far away. Another loud and painful way to die.
And then, with each passing day
and mission, the possibilities of different types of deaths were opened to him.
Shot by a staff weapon-wielding
Jaffa.
Two taps from a zat.
Accidental friendly fire in the
heat of battle.
Blowing up a Goa’uld mothership
with no way off.
Going up in a blaze of smoke and
fire as the cargo ship was blown to kingdom come.
A knife in the gut.
Being eaten alive as replicator
bugs swarmed over him.
The smell of sizzling flesh as a
System Lord’s ribbon device bored a hole in his head.
An attack of unfriendly natives
that he did not survive.
Trampled by a horde of alien
elephants.
He could go on, he knew, with
more and more versions of his death, some more extraordinary than the next.
Yet all of the situations he
envisioned were loud, unlike this time.
This time it was quiet, the
slowing sound of his breathing his only companion.
It was more peaceful this way.
And it wasn’t so bad.
***
The hike to the foothills of the
mountains where the caves began was a quiet affair, each member of the team
wrapped up in their own thoughts, their own concerns and worries.
For Daniel, every step brought
him closer to his friend and the possibility that they might not find him
alive. Hope was fading fast under the thick gloom of clouds hanging above their
heads.
He tried to keep an ember alive,
continually fanning it, keeping it burning, for once that tiny flame diminished
there would truly be nothing left.
Peterson was quiet as he walked
abreast of Daniel, the young man's face was dark and brooding and he made no
effort to offer up his thoughts or feelings for conversation. If Peterson's
thoughts were as dark as Daniel suspected, perhaps it was for the best that
they didn't speak at all.
To Daniel’s eye, it seemed
little, if any, hope remained with him.
Teal’c’s determination, however,
burned bright as he led them forward, his feet sure against the broken ground,
his course never straying, his stride never hesitating.
Jack was like that.
Strong.
Bold.
Sure.
He instilled faith and confidence
in the men he led, which was ever more in evidence in the teams who had
appeared in their doorstep early this morning. They were here to find Jack. In
a certain sad way, finding the scientists had become a secondary goal, a
secondary mission.
Jack would never have stood for
that. For Jack, others always came first.
But even now, hiking as part of a
rescue team in search of a wayward Colonel, Daniel’s goal was clear and his
motives personal. To him, they needed to find Jack—come hell or high water.
A raised hand from Teal’c made
them pause. He tilted his head to the side, listening into the wind.
A few minutes passed before he
waved them forward and Daniel picked up the pace until he was striding
alongside his friend.
“What was it?”
“I am uncertain. The foothills of
these mountains are concealing something.”
“What?”
“I am uncertain,” Teal’c said
turning his head slightly and Daniel caught the hint of humor in his eyes.
”They are concealing it.”
Jaffa jokes, something he had yet
to understand. “How much farther?”
Teal’c pointed ahead of them,
past a clearing of trees. “I believe O’Neill began his search at the caves just
past this rise. He is most methodical in his methods in instances such as
these.”
“You mean there’s a method to his
madness?”
This time Teal’c didn’t pretend
not to comprehend the meaning of his words, the backward jab at an absent
friend. “I do not understand why you insist in tearing down O’Neill. Does not
every word you use against him also fall upon you? Did you not choose O’Neill
as a friend? Does not that speak badly of your judgment in the matter? You
might be well advised to adjust your perception of him prior to his discovery.”
“But I do trust—“ Daniel began to
say, but Teal’c increased his pace, leaving the archeologist speaking to
himself. Time to continue this discussion, however, was over as the entrance to
the caves came into view. Teal’c paused at the mouth off one of them, his staff
weapon at the ready.
“Lieutenant Peterson, accompany
Daniel Jackson down the passage on the right. Lieutenant Collins, you will
accompany me.”
Both of the Lieutenants moved
quickly to comply while Daniel stood off to the side, watching the dance in a
different way than he had before. He could see the decision of who to send with
whom weighing heavily on the Jaffa, but that did not hamper his movements.
Instead, it seemed to add a seriousness, a confidence that Daniel hadn’t bother
to look for previously. Was it the same with Jack?
“Doctor Jackson?” Peterson was
standing at his side, a puzzled look on his face.
“I’m sorry,” he said, realizing
that Collins and Teal’c had already entered their designated search area after
the young Lieutenant had parked the FRED at the mouth of the cave. “Was
thinking about something. And please call me Daniel.”
“Yes, Sir—eh, Daniel,” Peterson stumbled
over the words, but added a sincere smile at the end. “Sorry. Habits die hard.”
“I know how it can be.”
Switching on their flashlights,
Daniel and Peterson entered the passage, their beams scanning the walls and the
floor before them. Dust particles danced before their eyes, caught in the
light, gracefully floating along the currents in the air.
Moving forward, they kept up a
consistent pace, slow and steady, making sure not one inch of the cave was
missed.
The sound of Sam’s voice nearly
made Daniel drop his flashlight. “Carter to search party, do you read?”
“Affirmative, Major Carter,”
Teal’c replied, his thick voice carrying loudly over the radio.
“The UAV is in the air and is
heading toward the mountain range. It should be over your position in a few
minutes. So far there is no evidence of any life signs.”
“Understood.”
“Any signs of the Colonel or the
scientists?”
“No. We have only begun our
investigation of the cave system. It is most disconcerting, however.”
“How so?” Sam’s voice held a hint
of worry.
“I am uncertain as to the source
of my discomfort.”
“Daniel,” Sam said, “have you
found anything?”
“Nothing, Sam. Just a lot of dirt
and dust. Nothing more.”
“No weird feelings?”
“I’m an archeologist, we live in
small places for most of our life. This doesn’t bother me.”
Her chuckle over the radio
brought a smile to his face. “Understood. And, from the looks of things, there
is an energy reading to your east, and it’s pretty sizable. Nothing concrete,
but it is out of the ordinary.”
“We’re going to head that way
when we finish this passage. How far down is it from where we are?” Daniel
asked.
“Hard to tell,” Sam said, her
voice hesitating and Daniel could see her squinting at the readout before her.
“Several hundred yards, if not more. It has to be a big tunnel.”
“We’ll keep an eye out for it.”
“I’m going to send the UAV around
a few more times before I bring her down and then we’ll meet you at the caves.”
“If you see anything else let us
know.”
“Will do. Carter out.”
“So, Peterson,” Daniel said,
turning to the younger man, “are you ready to blow this passage and head for
the next one?” He was ready to move on, to check out that reading Sam had
mentioned.
“Look at this, Daniel,” Peterson
said several beats later, the beam of his flashlight focused on something in
the middle of the passage—a glint of metal in the dark lying beside a hunk of
rock.
He kneeled down, his hands
reaching for the hilt of the familiar blade as the queasiness in the pit of his
stomach deepened.
Lifting the knife, it reflected
the light from Peterson’s flashlight, even covered as it was in a light coating
of dust. But even as he took in all the details of the object he held in his hand—the
well-worn hilt, the sharpened edges—something beyond caught his eye, trapped in
the same light.
It looked like a rock, but as
Daniel bent closer he realized it couldn’t be, it had to be something else. A
stalagmite, perhaps? But why was it so small?
He kneeled down, poking the hard
substance with Jack’s knife.
It moved, tipping over.
Daniel could feel his eyes widen
as he looked closer at the small stalagmite. But even as he reached for his
radio, another call came through, the harried tones of a nervous Jaffa.
“Daniel Jackson, do you read?”
“Teal’c, I have to show you
something.”
“Remove yourself from the caves
immediately.”
“What?”
“Do not hesitate. Leave now.”
Glancing up at Peterson, Daniel
realized his own horror had to be reflected in the young Lieutenant’s eyes. For
something to spook the Jaffa—
Without hesitation, Daniel
climbed to his feet and ran.
He did not look back.
***
One last breath.
What if this was it? What if this
was the last breath he would ever take?
Was he happy with his life?
He’d done some good, he knew.
He’d saved some people’s lives, but yet, he’d also taken many in his time—more
than he wanted to count.
And the most recent was no better
than a child.
Reese.
A child in a woman’s…a robot’s
body. A child with a terrible past. A child who wiped out her own civilization
with a toy.
A child who only wanted to be
loved and accepted.
Daniel had bonded with her in a
strange and terrible way. He understood what she was going through, the
feelings of loneliness, of wanting to belong, of wanting to be loved—even once.
He’d been there before. He knew
how much it hurt, the gnawing ache that grew inside and consumed all hope until
it was mended.
What if Daniel had been right?
What if she was going to shut down all those replicators?
Had he killed for no reason?
But even now, only a few breaths
shy of his last, he knew in his heart that he’d done the right thing. Any
hesitation on his part and things might have gone horribly wrong.
He had been standing on the edge.
The decision was his to make.
And he had.
***
Sam leaned back and stretched,
her eyes still fixed firmly on the monitor in front of her. The UAV was heading
back for its final pass and she’d been able to put together the readings from
each of the three passes to make up a much more detailed picture of the area.
Movement distracted her
momentarily as a mug of coffee appeared at her elbow. She glanced up, flashing
a smile of appreciation to Major Warren who returned it warmly.
“Anything?” he asked, gesturing
to the monitor, the quiet sounds of conversation a comforting background.
She shook her head, sipping
slowly at the mug warming her hands. “Not much. For the last pass I increased
the altitude to see if we could get a better picture of the whole area. But,
honestly, I don’t think we’re going to find them this way.”
“It was a good idea,” Warren
said, pulling up a chair to sit beside her.
“But we ended up wasting time
when we could have been searching for them on the ground.”
“I don’t think this was a waste
of time. We know for sure that they’re not off in the middle of the forest
somewhere. They have to be in those caves. At least it narrows it down,” Warren
said, his reasoning sound, but Sam still couldn’t shake the feeling that they
were running out of time, that every second she sat in this chair was another
chance that something could go wrong.
She sighed and glanced back at
the monitor, checking the UAV’s readings. Her eyes widened immediately and she
sat up straight in her chair, shoving her coffee cup roughly to the side, drops
crashing over the edge, spilling on the tabletop.
What the…?
“Major?” Warren asked, noticing her
reaction, but she ignored him, concentrating instead on the screen before her,
her fingers walking hurriedly across the keys, checking to make sure the
readings were right.
Her left hand quickly snagged her
radio, but before she could press the button Teal’c’s voice came over the
airwaves. “Daniel Jackson, do you read?” His voice sounded strained and if her
readings were right, he had every right to be. But how did he know?
Daniel, of course, didn’t hear,
or didn’t notice the stress she could hear in the Jaffa’s voice. “Teal’c, I
have to show you something.”
“Remove yourself from the caves
immediately.”
Something had warned him of the
danger.
“What?” she heard Daniel reply,
something finally clicking with the archeologist.
Teal’c’s voice was firm,
unmovable. “Do not hesitate. Leave now.”
“What’s going on, Major?” Warren
asked, the tension thick in his voice. With the volume up on the radio, it was
hard to miss the conversation going on with the search party. And it was
obvious that no one had missed it, the silence in the tent palpable.
Sam raised a finger to the Major,
making him wait as she pressed the radio call button. “Teal’c? Daniel? Do you
read me?”
She waited several seconds before
trying again, the tension in her stomach a rock.
“Daniel, do you read? Teal’c?
Lieutenant Collins? Peterson? Someone please respond.”
The next few moments were
agonizing.
Before she signaled again,
however, Teal’c’s voice cut through the silence. “We are fine, Major Carter.
Have you discovered something?”
“You could say that, Teal’c.
Somehow—and I don’t know how—but according to the reading that I’m getting from
the UAV that entire mountain is alive.”
***
It was kind of annoying.
He had been enjoying the peace
and the quiet of finding a measure of calm before he met his maker. He’d more
or less resigned himself to the fact that it was happening.
But then, he had an itch on his
nose.
And as soon as he realized that
small point, other sensations started cropping up.
The ache in his knees.
The burning of various scrapes
and scratches all over his body.
The sensation of a crust covering
every part of him.
He could feel things again.
He couldn’t move a muscle,
couldn’t even blink his eyes, but he could feel every single grain of dust and
dirt on his skin.
He’d tried to move, but nothing
responded to his commands, like his mind was disconnected from his motor
functions, as if someone had short-circuited his wiring.
He liked it better the other way.
Much more peaceful.
Instead, he’d be able to feel
everything—every ache, every pain—until he finally died.
And all he could do was wait for
it to come—one painful second at a time.
***
Standing outside the mouth of the
cave, Daniel shook his head in disbelief when he heard Sam’s comment. “Alive?
You’re kidding.”
“On the contrary, Daniel Jackson,
I believe Major Carter is speaking the truth.”
Daniel turned to the Jaffa, his
eyebrows drawn together. Lieutenants Collins and Peterson, he saw, were wearing
similar expressions to his own. “It’s a mountain. It’s natural to find living
creatures in caves. I’d be surprised if we didn’t find anything alive in
there.”
“No, Daniel Jackson, Major Carter
spoke of the mountain itself being alive and I believe it to be true. When we
were exploring the passages my symbiote became agitated, much as it had once
before when it was forced to neutralize a poison in my system. There must be
something within the caves that emits a poison. My symbiote has only now begun
to dispel it from my body. You, along with Lieutenants Collins and Peterson,
have no such ability. It is not safe for you to enter these caves.”
It was difficult to argue with
Teal’c when he got that tone of voice, and Daniel didn’t have the energy. He
was too worried about Jack. He had to be in the caves, but where? And if the
only way to find him was search every one of these passages, he wasn’t going to
let a little poison stop him.
But there was something else. It
was nagging in the back of his head. If he was right, they might have even less
time than he originally thought.
“Teal’c,” Daniel said after
several moments of thought. “I saw something in the cave when I picked up
Jack’s knife. It was a small rock or stalagmite…something like that. But it
looked strange, not normal.”
“I shall retrieve it for you,”
Teal’c immediately responded, moving toward the mouth of the cave. “Where was
it?”
“About 200 or 250 yards in,”
Peterson replied and Daniel was grateful for the response since he hadn’t been
paying attention to where exactly they were in the cave, trusting the
Lieutenant to do that.
The Jaffa nodded once and entered
the passage at a run.
Daniel pushed the call button,
radioing back to the camp. “Sam?”
“I read you, Daniel. Everything
okay?”
“We’re fine. Teal’c ran back into
the cave to grab something I saw. Once he gets it we’ll return to camp. Sam, by
any chance do we have any hazmat suits?”
“I don’t know,” she responded, her
voice hesitant. “I don’t think they’re part of the standard supply, but I’ll
take a look. Why?”
“I have a hunch, based on
something you and Teal’c said. I’ll know more in a few minutes. Daniel out.”
“Carter out.”
“What are you thinking, Doctor?”
Collins asked, stepping closer, the young man obviously uncomfortable.
Daniel turned to Peterson who’s
face held a thoughtful expression. “Did you see the same thing I did?”
Peterson nodded slowly. “I think
so.” Daniel gestured for him to continue. “We discovered the Colonel’s knife
next to what looked like a rock, but when Daniel turned it on its side, it
looked like there was something inside of it. It didn’t look right.”
“Exactly,” Daniel commented,
offering the Lieutenant a smile. “Once Teal’c brings it out we’ll know for sure
if we were just seeing things. And that should be right about now.” He glanced
down at his watch and sure enough, sounds of footsteps were echoing out of the
cave, which were quickly replaced by the appearance of the running Jaffa.
“Was this the item to which you
referred?” Teal’c held out the medium-sized object to the archeologist, and
Daniel recognized it immediately.
“That’s it,” he nodded, reaching
for it, but the Jaffa pulled it back.
“It is unsafe for you to carry. I
shall bring it back to the camp.”
Daniel nodded and dropped his
hands.
As they started their trek back,
Daniel’s mind kept turning over possible scenarios—none of which ended
positively.
He sure hoped there were hazmat
suits in the camp because if he was right, Jack and those scientists might not
have much more time.
***
He was hungry.
Trapped like a fly in a spider’s
web, and he was hungry.
If he could laugh, he would.
Hell, if he could scream he’d do
that, but parts of him were still not in working order. It was frustrating,
actually. Being able to think, to comprehend everything that was going on, but
to do absolutely nothing about it.
The muffled groans and creaks of
the cave above his head reached his ears, reminding him of exactly where he
was, of how screwed he was.
They’re never going to find me.
***
Even under the glass dome, the
piece of stalagmite was terrifying. Not the object itself, but more of the
possibilities it revealed—the possible futures for their missing friends.
At one time that stalagmite had
been a protein bar.
Daniel had seen the telltale sign
of the protein bar in the cave under the beam of a flashlight, but until it was
brought to the lab, he hadn’t been positive.
There was no mistaking it,
especially now.
They’d managed to slice it down
the center, the two halves rolling back to reveal the encased bar, a favorite
of Colonel Carpenter.
Layers of dust and dirt had
formed on its surface.
How much time had passed since it
had been dropped by a careless hand? Three days? Four?
In that time, a thick crust had
formed, now more than two inches thick on each side.
How much time did that leave for
the scientists or the Colonel?
“What do you think, Sam?” Daniel
asked sliding up next to her, his voice just loud enough for it to carry to her
ears. Everyone else was hovering, some going though papers, others just milling
about, not sure what do to.
“I think I need a sample to put
under the microscope,” she said, setting her mind to her task. She glanced up,
searching the room for the Jaffa, but not finding him among the crowd. “Where’s
Teal’c?”
“Rummaging through the supply
tent I think, looking for hazmat suits,” Daniel replied.
“I already alerted the SGC that
we need hazmat suits. They should be here within the next hour and a half,” Sam
reported, surprised that the Jaffa hadn’t stopped to check in with her.
“That’s too long. We have to get
back to the caves. I don’t think Jack has much time. I mean, look at the
protein bar,” Daniel said, his hand gesturing to the crust coated bar. “That
happened in a few days, but even the barest of coatings with this dust will
suffocate Jack and the scientists. We can’t let that happen.”
“I agree,” he said, her eyes resting
on the coated bar.
“Teal’c thinks that the suits
might protect us enough to search the passages.”
“But?” she could hear the word in
the tone of his voice.
“But,” he continued, drawing the
vowel out, “they could be anywhere.”
“But, what about that first
energy reading I mentioned,” Sam asked, stepping to the computer that had tied
in with the UAV, her fingers racing across the keys, looking for the
information that she was referring to. “Here,” she said, tapping an area of the
screen that was highlighted in blue. “I think you should go in here somewhere.
If we had geological maps we might have a better idea of how many passages run
through this section, but we don’t, unfortunately.”
“I know, “ he said, his fingers
pulling at his bottom lip while thoughts ran through his mind. “Do you think
you can give me a rough estimate of how far that is from here and in what
direction?”
“I might be able to.”
“Great. I’m going to find, Teal’c
and come right back. Will you have something for me?”
“Not that quickly, Daniel,” Sam
said, chuckling. “I can point you in the right direction, but it’ll take longer
to make the correct calculations.”
“That’s fine. Point me in the
right direction. I’m not looking for you to give me a number down to the hundredth
decimal place. A rough guess.”
Sam nodded, a little taken aback
by Daniel’s words, but attributed them to the stress they were under. “I can do
that.”
He smiled, but the warmth never
reached his eyes. “Thanks. I’ll be right back,” he said and was gone, moving
quickly though the maze of tables, expertly avoiding the people milling about.
She turned back to the monitor,
her mind already working out the calculations she needed to give Daniel.
He was back before she knew it,
standing at her side, the red hazmat suit hanging from his hands, as she wrote
down the directions and her estimated distances.
“Teal’c found the suits?”
Daniel nodded. “Two of them, yes,
and two extra canisters of oxygen each. It should be enough. It has to be
enough.”
“More suits are coming.”
“I know, but we need them now not
later,” Daniel said, his voice taking on a nearly frantic quality. He was close
to the edge and she knew that feeling well—the feeling that everything was
going to go bad quickly. His next words only confirmed her thoughts. “I have a
bad feeling about this.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
Sam shooed him out the door, half
wishing that she was going with him. But, there was dirt to study and she was
the only scientist here.
Joy.
She sat down and eyed the
stalagmite, trying to figure out where to start.
***
How long had be been in here? How
long had he been trapped?
Right now he wasn’t sure which
way things were going to work out. Either he was going to run out of air or go
insane. It was a close tie as to which way things were going to go.
He wished he’d spoken to Daniel.
One thing this did give him was
time to think—not that it was a good thing. Thinking usually meant he ended up
dwelling on bad things, on things that should have been, could have been, or
would have been. Shoulda, coulda, woulda. That whole ‘hindsight is 20/20’ and
all that jazz.
Agreeing to this mission without
taking the time to speak to Daniel was not smart, not professional—downright stupid
when you got down to it. Especially since it was evidently apparent that Daniel
had issues with him—trusting him, relying on him, following orders.
Why hadn’t he talked to him? Why hadn’t he taken the time to find him,
to look for him?
Honestly, he had been too angry, too hurt. Those words had been even
more damaging than Daniel could have known.
But now, anything he could have said—should have said—was long since
lost.
Maybe now Daniel would come back to SG-1, support the program, and
stand by Carter and Teal’c. At least now Daniel didn’t have to worry about what
some sadistic son of a bitch would do.
Those days were gone.
And soon, he would be too.
***
Daniel had forgotten how much he
hated wearing the hazmat suits. They were hot, uncomfortable, and he felt like
he was wearing a tent, or worse, someone’s bad excuse for population control.
His image as a geek would be complete if anyone saw him wearing this thing.
But, this was not the time, or
the place to be thinking about his lack-luster social life.
This was the third passage they’d
entered and it seemed even more confusing than the rest. At least the others
dead-ended without any extra passages veering off in different directions.
This one, however, featured a
crossroads.
“Which way?”
“I am uncertain. O’Neill could
have traveled down any of these passages, but I cannot ascertain which. You may
have to…pick one.”
Daniel smiled at the Jaffa’s
attempt to lighten the mood. “Let’s start with the right one and work our way
through. How much oxygen do we have left?”
Teal’c kept pace with Daniel, the
beams of their flashlights crawling the cave walls and floor, looking for any
sign of their friend. “I do not believe we will have enough to complete this
entire section of passages. We shall return once the supplies are delivered
from the SGC.”
“They should have been at the
camp already, don’t you think?”
“I do not know how many suits
Major Carter requested, or if additional supplies were required. I am sure she
will contact us as soon as they arrive.”
“I guess,” Daniel said as he
tried to keep a steady pace. There was no point in running because he would
just end up using more of their precious oxygen reserves. He wanted to milk
every last ounce out of the tanks.
They’d passed many stalagmites
and stalactites—most of them too small to contain a person—but Daniel could
only begin to imagine what might be caught within that thick crust. Indigenous
animals he assumed. This would be a treasure-trove of information for the
scientists. They’d be able to gather hordes of data and DNA from the items
preserved in the caves. Of course, the danger of the caves themselves gave
cause for extra caution.
Why was it that everything good
always had such a high price?
Teal’c’s voice brought him out of
his reverie. “Daniel Jackson, what do you believe that is?”
The Jaffa’s flashlight had paused
on a lump in the middle of the floor. It was different than the other
stalagmites in the cave—wide but not tall and it was too skinny to be an
animal.
Kneeling down, Daniel prodded it
with his glove-clad finger. The shape seemed familiar, but he didn’t know why.
“Teal’c, did you bring a knife or anything?”
“I did,” he said, handing the
archeologist his knife, while his flashlight began to scan further down the
cave. Daniel glanced up momentarily from his work as he dug around the edges.
The Jaffa had reached the end of the tunnel, an assortment of stalagmites and
stalactites joined together to form a wall across it.
“Anything?”
“I believe O’Neill came to the
end of this passage and turned around.”
It was hard work, this chipping
away at the crust. It was thicker than it looked and far stronger. He should
have asked Teal’c to do this. “Why?”
“The dirt around this opening is
disturbed. It appears as if someone attempted to clear a section in order to
peer around the wall.”
When his knife hit something more
solid than the crust of dirt he paused his digging and began to widen the hole
he’d made, chipping away at the edges.
He didn’t like what he saw.
“Teal’c,” Daniel said, the word
coming slow, his mind not wanting to believe what his eyes saw. “Is this what I
think it is?”
Without glancing up, Daniel could
feel Teal’c kneeling down next to him, shifting his large frame so he could
see. His inhalations and exhalations were loud in the suit, too loud for the
small space.
“If you believe that you are
looking at a section of SGC-issued weaponry, then we are observing the same
item.”
“But why the gun?”
“I am uncertain, perhaps this
section of the cave is different than the others. Perhaps the oils used in the
weapon’s maintenance attracted the dirt. We have no evidence to support these
suppositions, however.”
Daniel turned to the Jaffa, and
he could feel his eyes widening as his thoughts formed. “Teal’c, how long has
Jack been missing?”
“More than twelve hours.”
“So, how long do you think this
has been sitting here? Look at it. It’s nearly an inch thick already. What
about Jack?”
Teal’c, though, did not answer,
his gaze focused instead on Daniel’s arm—Daniel’s dust covered arm.
“I believe we must depart and
return again with new attire and a new supply of oxygen. I do not believe it
will be safe for us to remain longer.”
“We still have oxygen left, we
can’t leave now,” Daniel nearly sprung to his feet, moving several paces away
from his friend and the encased P90. “Would Jack stop just because it got
dangerous?”
“Daniel Jackson—“
He shook his head, waving his
hands emphatically. “No, Teal’c. I’m not leaving. You can go if you want, but
I’m staying to search.”
Several moments passed, the
hissing of the air in their suits the only sound, before he finally nodded,
indicating his agreement. Daniel sighed in relief and moved back down the
passage. There were still more places to look.
***
He was cold.
The chill in the air had finally
settled in his bones.
And he was getting sleepy.
He found himself drifting off for
longer periods of time than the last—at least that’s what he thought. For all
he knew, it could have been seconds instead of the minutes and hours it felt
like.
He hoped SG-1 was okay, that they
hadn’t gotten caught unawares like he had been.
He’d been stupid and
short-sighted.
How that was different than
usual, he didn’t know.
Why did he insist on fighting?
He was cold and he was tired.
Maybe it was time to sleep.
***
It had taken her longer than she
thought to make the slide, the material difficult to work with. She uttered a
sigh of relief when she finally placed it on the microscope’s table, clicking
the arms down to hold it in place.
The fact that this was a
scientific outpost of sorts helped matters since much of the equipment she
needed was on hand. But even if she had needed something else, supplies were
already on their way. Lieutenant Colonel Harper had radioed ten minutes ago
that the items she needed would be arriving within the hour.
At least some things were going
as planned.
Rolling her shoulders a little to
ease the tension that had settled there, Sam leaned down, adjusting the focus
on the microscope to begin her study of the object.
What she saw surprised her.
Turning up the magnification, she
narrowed her focus, letting the image before her swim into view.
What was this?
It had all the marking of a
living creature, but it was dirt, wasn’t it?
Looking closer and longer, the
details were falling into place, making for a picture she did not want to see.
The dirt itself was alive, a
living being.
But its internal structure was
nothing like she’d ever seen before—its structure crystalline and beautiful in
its complexity.
But it was something not normally
found in nature.
***
He struggled against the pain in
his body, his mind sending out a scream of silent desperation.
He didn’t want to die. He didn’t.
But everywhere he turned,
everything he considered, ended in his failure, in his final demise.
No last minute rescues.
No last minute trips into the
sarcophagus.
No time to spend healing under
the rays of the hand device.
He could hear it.
He could smell it.
He could feel it.
He could see it.
It was dark, its dull eyes
staring him down, taunting him.
Each time he looked, closer than
the last.
Hauntingly beautiful, yet
grotesquely detestable.
If he could cry, he would, but
even that final release was gone, snatched away from him.
Lost and alone and light-years
from home.
Death had come a-calling, and
like a fool, he’d answered.
***
Daniel stumbled for the third
time, the visor making it difficult for him to see. If it weren’t for Teal’c’s
outstretched hand he was sure that he would have found himself in a heap in the
dirt.
They were running out of time,
his precious last few minutes nearly spent.
The passage they were traveling
had begun to slope downward, the ground beneath his feet not as secure as it
had been previously.
Would Jack have tried this on his
own?
Pausing for a moment, he aimed his
flashlight further down the tunnel, trying to make sense of the things he saw
before him. It seemed as if the path eventually leveled out some yards below,
various stalagmites and stalactites scattered throughout the area, some big,
some small. They didn’t have the time to go through every single one that was
just about the right size.
Jack could be anywhere.
Daniel sighed feeling the weight
of the entire situation settle down a little more firmly on his shoulders.
It was his fault that Jack had to
go searching for the scientists alone. It was his fault that Jack was missing.
He had to find him.
“Daniel Jackson?” Teal’c’s voice
broke through his reverie and he turned to look at the man beside him.
Gesturing with his hand, the beam from the Jaffa’s flashlight bounced a little
before settling down. “I believe this may require our attention.”
It was a radio.
***
His mind jerked awake.
Had there been a noise? Had he
heard something or was his mind playing tricks on him yet again?
Again he heard it, the muffled
tones of voices, of rocks tumbling, but then it was gone just as quickly as it
came.
Was there someone out there?
He listened intently, forcing
himself to pay attention, to truly listen to the things around him—but it was
hard.
He was tired.
And it was getting harder and
harder to breathe.
***
Easing down the slippery slope,
both hands clasped around the thick rope that Teal’c has secured at the top,
Daniel was trying to hurry, but the Jaffa’s constant reminders for caution
slowed him down.
If he got hurt now, Jack wouldn’t
have a chance in hell.
He flew down the last final part
of the slope, his feet kicking rocks and pebbles. Scurrying to the small black
radio, he bent down, picked it up, and tried to dust off its surface. A crust
had formed over the majority of it, but thankfully some of it was uncovered.
Angling his flashlight toward the
nearest stalagmite, Daniel noticed something different, something strange.
This stalagmite had a crack in
its side and green showed through. Jack had been wearing green BDUs just like
that.
“Teal’c!” he cried, jumping to
his feet as he started digging at the crack, trying to make it wider. “This has
to be him, it has to be.”
But even as he said those words
he noticed something else.
His air was running out.
“Daniel Jackson, we must leave
now.”
“I’m not leaving without Jack,”
he said, kneeling back down. With Teal’c’s knife in his hand he began digging
around the base of the stalagmite. “If I’m going, he’s going with me.”
“Daniel Jackson—“
“Don’t argue with me,” Daniel
said and he could hear the last wheezing breaths of his oxygen tank. It was now
or never.
“I was not,” came the reply, this
time from much closer. Glancing up, Daniel saw Teal’c standing a foot away, the
rope in his hands. “I was merely joining you to assist in O’Neill’s
extraction.”
Daniel nodded once and went back
to his task. Teal’c’s voice sounded over the radio as he signaled back to the
base.
“Teal’c to Major Carter. Medical
teams are required immediately at the main mountain chamber.”
“I read you, Teal’c. You found
the Colonel?”
“Daniel Jackson believes it to be
the case, but more time is required to make a positive identification.”
“Major Clarke and Major Warren
are on their way with SG-8 and Lieutenant Peterson. Expect them shortly,” Sam
said, her voice tiny through the radio. But before Teal’c could acknowledge her
reply, another voice cut in.
“Teal’c we’re already on the
move. We should be there in twenty. Clarke out.”
“We shall be awaiting your
arrival. Teal’c out.”
Daniel glanced up as Teal’c
signed off, gesturing for the warrior to step closer. “I think this should be
loose enough to move him up the slope. I need your help.”
“Would it not be wise to wrap the
rope around it in order to get it to the top? I do not believe we will be able
to carry it up the slope of the passage since the ground is unstable.”
Daniel nodded, saving his breath,
and with Teal’c’s help wrapped the rope around the stalagmite as the Jaffa
moved back up to the top, anchoring himself to pull up the body.
It only took a few minutes for it
to reach the top, but to Daniel it was forever. Especially as he stood at the
bottom waiting impatiently for Teal’c to toss the rope back down to him.
With the often-shifting dirt
there was no way for him to get to the top without help. And it wasn’t even a
steep slope, but it was just enough to make it treacherous. It took several
minutes for Daniel to reach the top, several more minutes than he wanted it to
take, more time than they had.
Under protest from Teal’c, Daniel
ripped off his hood as the last of his air was spent, but he didn’t care. They
had a job to do. A few minutes wouldn’t kill him.
Struggling every step of the way,
Daniel and Teal’c headed for the entrance sharing the weight of their heavy
burden between them. The dust swirled around them, as it were attempting to
obscure their vision, trying to keep them and their precious cargo inside the
cave.
The last few yards to the
entrance of the cave seemed to take forever and even as they dropped to the
ground, hand were there to support them. Major Clarke and Major Warren quickly
moved in, easing the dirt-encrusted body to the ground, the other members of
SG-8 working with small tools to try and chip the layers of dust and dirt from
the body.
God, don’t let them be too late.
Shrugging off the remnants of his
hazmat suit, Daniel didn’t argue when someone pushed a canteen in his hands and
ordered him to drink.
They started at the head—or where
they thought the head should be. It was hard to tell, the layers thick.
They were trying to work quickly
but safely, knowing that there was a person beneath all of that dirt, behind
that crusty film.
But something was wrong.
Jack didn’t have blonde hair.
***
It took them nearly thirty
minutes to clear the hardened crust away from Major Annette Wales’ face.
Five minutes later, however, she
started having problems breathing.
After making sure her airway was
clear, they intubated her. Ruth Poland, one of the medics with SG-8, was
constantly at her side, her steady hand a necessity—especially when they
decided to transfer her to the camp.
Daniel, of course, protested the
entire way, at first refusing to move from the caves until Teal’c “talked him
down”.
Even when they were hiking back
to the camp, Wales on the stretcher Peterson could still hear Daniel talking to
Teal’c, trying to convince him to go back to the caves with him to look for the
Colonel.
It was as if the Doctor had
forgotten entirely about the person that he’d just saved.
It was still a life, a person, a
member of the SGC. That should matter for something.
Granted, he knew that he hadn’t
had the best attitude when they had first started searching. He just figured
that they’d all be dead and lost somewhere.
When Teal’c had radioed back that
they had found someone, Peterson didn’t think he had ever seen a team move so
fast, covering the distance to the caves in half the time.
They’d gotten hope when
everything seemed hopeless.
And for anyone, hope was a
powerful emotion. It kept you moving, kept you focused on the job at hand, even
if you only had a small part to play.
In a makeshift infirmary back at
the camp, SG-8 had swarmed over the Major, hooking her up to whatever equipment
and monitors they could given her current state of confinement while others
carefully chipped away at the rest of the crust, one small piece at a time.
There was no way she could go back to earth with any ounce of that dust on her,
but it would take time.
Major Carter, along with some of
the others, stood off to the side as they discussed their next course of
action, their next step in the rescue of the Colonel.
Whatever happened to the rest of
the scientists? Last time he counted, there were still five missing.
Colonel O’Neill would not forget
about them so quickly.
Stepping closer to the group, his
words were quiet, but there was a forcefulness behind them that even surprised
him. “Major Carter, do you have a moment?”
She turned, confusion crossing
her face for the briefest of seconds, and Peterson could see the weariness in
her eyes, the tightness in her jaw. “Of course, what is it?”
“I couldn’t help but overhearing
your conversation with Doctor Jackson and Major Warren and I was concerned.”
Out of the corner of his eye he
saw several heads perk up at his words, pausing in their work. While his words
were respectful, he knew his tone wasn’t. A beat later Teal’c stepped into the
circle, his eyes encouraging Peterson to continue.
“I think you’ve gotten your
priorities a little mixed up. I hope you don’t take this wrong, but from what I
know of Colonel O’Neill he’d be appalled to hear that you put his life above
anyone else’s. It seems as if you’ve forgotten about the scientists who have
been missing far longer than he has been. For all we know they could be dead,
but don’t they deserve a chance at life?”
The silence that greeted his
words was thick.
He glanced between the people
standing before him.
Carter finally nodded once,
wearily. “Peterson, do you think you’re up to going as part of the search
teams?”
“Of course.”
“Major Warren, could you join
him?”
“Certainly, Major. What do you
have in mind?”
“We received three more hazmat
suits from the SGC and a dozen extra air tanks, which means that you can go,
along with Daniel and Teal’c. Do you think that the four of you would be able
to do a thorough search of the area?”
“Sure,” Warren said, nodding
instantly.
“Major?”
Carter turned to Colonel Hill,
the medic’s uniform askew, his face troubled. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m worried about Major Wales.
Her readings don’t look right and with that crust on her, we have no way to
treat her if something goes south—which is very possible. Her pulse is thready
and we already know her breathing’s compromised. We need a faster way to get
that off of her and neutralize the dust. We’re working with latex gloves, but
I’m worried that my staff—and everyone else who stays in this room—might be at
risk. Whatever we’re chipping off is slowly starting to get into the air.” He
paused, his expression turning even more serious. “I don’t want us to end up
like Major Wales.”
Peterson could see the wheels in
Carter’s mind spinning, various situations and possible outcomes measured and
then discarded. When she spoke, her voice was heavy as if the very words were
weighing her down, her final decision carrying the pros and cons of every
solution she considered. “We can try a few things, but the dust I examined
before wasn’t like anything I’ve ever seen. I’m going to need some help
figuring out some way to effectively destroy it.”
“I’m sure Collins and Bosco can
give you a hand, Carter,” Warren said, volunteering some of the SGC members
standing a few feet away.
She stood for a minute, her hands
on her hips, glancing back and forth between the people surrounding her before
finally nodding, her eyes not as dark as before.
In them, Peterson saw hope.
***
The noise was gone.
He was alone.
This was it. The final hurrah.
His swan song.
Trapped in a cave, his mind alert
and conscious of his death, his body a worthless lump of flesh, his muscles and
his body betraying him.
Each breath he took was even more
shallow than the one before.
Vaguely he realized that the time
was coming, the time when he was down to his final breath.
His heart was slowing as well, he
could feel the beats in his chest, each fainter than the one before.
Was this what death felt like,
this quiet release and acceptance of what was to come?
There should be something more.
Instead, there would just be one
last breath.
***
This was not working.
Sam sighed, pushing her chair
away from the table as she found her feet, stalking away from the experiments
she was running.
She’d tried water.
Distilled water.
Every type of light she could
think of.
Different solutions from sugar
water to salt water in varying concentrations.
Acids didn’t bother it.
Alkalines didn’t make a dent.
She’d paused in her work an hour
ago to step into the med tent to check on SG-8’s progress. Thankfully, they
were getting somewhere by chipping away at the crust and scooping it away in
various closed containers, but Major Wales’ condition was deteriorating.
Peterson’s words had struck a
cord, reminding her that she had forgotten their real mission, their original
mission, the reason they were here in the first place. Once the Colonel went
missing everything else had gone out the window so to speak, her concentration
fixed solely on finding him.
Peterson had been right. If the
Colonel found out about her behavior he wouldn’t hesitate to give her a nice
swift kick in the mikta.
There had to be something that
would kill this…thing. She didn’t even know what to call it. For all intents
and purposes it looked like dust or dirt, but it was alive. It kind of reminded
her of an insect in its behavior, swarming its victim, taking it down by sheer
volume.
But, it wasn’t native to this
planet, at least as far as she could tell. Someone had brought it here. But
why? Their purpose might be hidden, but the results were clearly evident.
This bug had killed off all the
living things that were on this planet.
And what was worse? It was
created. Engineered. Someone made them, sent them here, and wiped out an entire
planet.
The SGC was just here for the
clean up.
There had to be a way to destroy
them, kill them…
Her thoughts trailed off as her
eyes watched the progress of a ray of sunlight on the nearby table as the
clouds moved in the sky.
Liquid didn’t work.
Light didn’t make a difference.
What about sound?
***
Armed with new tanks of oxygen,
additional rope, small chisels, and additional manpower, they attacked the
caves with a vengeance.
This time every human-sized stalagmite
was examined, pieces were chipped away, until it could be determined if it was
a member of the SGC or not.
It wasn’t a pretty sight.
And the smell…well, that was
something Daniel didn’t want to dwell on. Even through the skin of the hazmat
suits and their oxygen supply, some of the odors lingered.
They tried not to think about the
fact that most of these stalagmites were bodies, human corpses encased in a
hard crust of dirt and dust—the original inhabitants of the planet, someone’s
mother or father or husband or wife or brother or sister—slowly decaying over
time.
They couldn’t think about any of
that.
Instead, they pushed their own
comfort and their thoughts to the back of their minds, focusing instead on the
task at hand.
***
She’d killed it.
It had taken her longer than she
had anticipated, but she’d killed it.
Racing out of the laboratory
tent, her boot-clad feet kicking up dust, she stormed into the med tent, the
members of SG-8 immediately moving to protect their patient.
She could only imagine what she
looked like, her hair sticking up in various directions and thick
ear-protectors covering parts of her head. She was wielding a strange
contraption, part television dish, part stereo system.
“Whoever’s staying needs to get
ear protection, otherwise you have to leave the room.” Her words were rushed
and breathless as her free hand pulled off her ear protection.
“Major?” Colonel Hill said as he
rose to his feet, confusion lining his features. “Before you wave that thing
over my patient, I’d appreciate it if you explained to me exactly what you had
in mind.”
“Sound kills them,” she said
stepping closer, but paused at Hill’s upturned hand.
“Sounds can do a lot of things,
Major, including cause headaches, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, deafness, among
other things. Major Wales isn’t exactly up for one of your experiments. I know
Colonel O’Neill tolerates a lot of things, but when it comes to my patients,
I’m not as flexible.”
Sam took a deep breath, letting
her hands fall to her side, the equipment hanging beside her. “We needed to
find a way to neutralize the dust infestation before we can transport anyone
back to the SGC, correct?”
“Correct.”
“I’ve tried just about
everything, but I realized that their structure was very brittle, crystalline
in nature. Using sound, I can get them to vibrate and essentially break apart,
killing them. By using ultrasound, the very high end of the sound spectrum, I
can kill them, Sir.”
“Those frequencies are not safe
for humans.”
“I know that they are in large
amounts, but we don’t need that. Short bursts should do it, but we need to make
sure Major Wales’ ears are protected, as well as anyone else remaining in the
room.”
Hill was not convinced. “I still
don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Sam paused, pursing her lips.
“Wales is dying, isn’t she?” Her voice was quiet, her words barely carrying the
distance to the Colonel.
His nod was her only response.
“This is the only way to bring
her home, to make sure she gets the best treatment she deserves.”
A few beats of silence passed and
Carter’s stomach twisted. She knew this would work. This was the only way.
“Everyone clear the room,” Hill
said, his voice carrying through the tent. Locking gazes with Sam, his green
eyes were hard, but hopeful. “Let’s do this.”
They cleared out quickly, their
backwards glances their only response to the order. Sam ignored them, taking
the few moments to set up her sound device. Hill dug into the supplies
scattered throughout the tent, coming up with two pairs of heavy-duty earplugs.
“I think these will work,” he said, holding one up as he stuffed the other in
his ears. Hill used the second pair on Wales.
She nodded and continued to tweak
the device, making sure it was set correctly before she slipped on her own
ear-protectors.
A sharp nod indicated his
readiness and Sam positioned herself at the foot of the bed, the device aimed
at the Major’s body and the areas still covered in the thick crust.
Four pulses later and it was
gone, disintegrated into a near-black heap.
The device had worked.
Briefly meeting Hill’s eyes, Sam
turned for the door. She needed a hazmat suit if she was going into the caves.
***
It was slow.
Agonizing.
Setting up the rope, they slid
down the incline once again, searching the area where Wales had been found,
where the radio had been dropped. There was a lot of ground to cover here, the
passage opening up to a huge cavern, stalagmites and stalactites littering the
entire area.
Peterson spotted it finally, a
dark blotch on the otherwise taupe landscape, caught in the bright beam of his
flashlight.
The lens was cracked, but it
still worked.
“Concentrate your search over
here,” Warren commanded, his arm gesturing toward the discarded flashlight,
nods of confirmation his only reply.
A yelp of surprise from Peterson
brought everyone running. “I think I found someone,” he said, his voice
breathless and nervous, his hands still working at chipping away the crust
surrounding the body.
“What did you find?” Daniel said,
sliding up next to the man, squinting his eyes to see what Peterson has
discovered—a hint of blue through the hole he’d made in the dust.
It wasn’t Jack, but it had to be
a scientist.
“Someone focus on the base. We
have to separate it from the floor of the cavern,” Daniel said, already working
with Peterson to enlarge the hole he’d made in the side.
It took a few minutes with Teal’c
and Warren working on the base to get it free, and several more minutes to
hoist it up to the top. Daniel and Peterson, however, moved on to other
stalagmites.
There were still more to find.
A crackle over the radio broke
his concentration and he paused, leaning against the wall of the cave as the
transmission came through.
“Rescue team, this is Carter. Do
you read?”
“We read you, Carter,” Warren
replied.
“We found a way to kill the bugs,
but you need additional equipment in order to use it. I brought it with me, but
you have to meet me at the mouth of the cave so I can explain it to you.”
“Teal’c and I are outside
already,” Warren answered. “Peterson and Jackson are still searching. We need
all the time we can get. How long will it take?”
“Only a few minutes, but it will
speed up your work. I’ll be there in ten. Carter out.”
“Acknowledged, Warren out.” He
paused for a beat before continuing. “Daniel, John, did you catch that? Start
heading out now. It’ll take that long for you to get here anyway.”
Daniel and Peterson exchanged
glances before the archeologist answered for the two of them. “We’re on our
way.”
***
The concept was simple.
Aim.
Fire.
Watch the dirt turn black and
fall to the floor.
Easy as pie.
Sam and Colonel Hill had
determined that the standard radio earpieces would muffle the sound enough to
protect one of their ears sufficiently with little concern for hearing loss.
Since they only needed one earplug each, it enabled them to spread out the few
pairs between the members of the search party.
A few quick bursts of the sound
device at their recently exhumed stalagmite and the body emerged—the obviously
dead body of Collin Gibson.
Bowed heads and respectful words
lasted only a few moments, before they moved as one toward the caves, Daniel
wielding the device.
“Now remember, we have to protect
their ears, so you can’t use it directly on their heads until we can clear it
with our tools,” Sam reminded him as they hiked back to the cavern where the
other bodies had been found.
“I remember, Sam,” Daniel
replied, trying not to let her “mother-hen” tone annoy him. She was only trying
to help just like he was. “I’ll do it first about midway. That should give us
access to their wrist and we can check for a pulse to see if they’re alive.”
“Right,” she said, pausing at the
top of the incline, her flashlight aimed into the darkness below. “Down there?”
“Yep,” Daniel said, bracing
himself and the device as he picked up the rope in his free hand, heading down
the slope. Teal’c’s light tracked his progress, lighting his way, until he
reached the bottom. The others followed closely behind, but Daniel had already
moved on, aiming the device at the stalagmites they hadn’t touched previously,
a single pulse clearing a large enough area for them to make a positive
identification.
The smell was worse this time.
Five minutes later, Daniel
located a scientist, the dust falling to the ground revealing a small silver
bracelet, a bracelet he’d seen around Naomi Dean’s wrist the other week, just
before she’d shipped off for this assignment.
And she’d been so excited about
it. This was her first off-world mission and one she’d been dreaming about for
months.
Now, though, the wrist it
encircled had begun turning an unnatural color.
They worked in silence to pull
the body from its dirt-encrusted grave, pulling it outside to lay with the
first.
Inside, the dust and dirt started
to swirl. It wasn’t noticeable at first, the thickening of the air ignored,
everyone assuming that it was just the dead dust entities floating on the air
currents.
It didn’t occur to them until the
next body, Mark Andrews, was found that the dust particles were moving on their
own.
“Daniel, I think you have to
hurry,” Sam said, pulling Daniel’s attention to her as a section of the cave
wall collapsed and another swarm of dust entities swept by, the edge of her
flashlight beam catching them mid-flight. “I’m not sure how stable this cavern
is now that we’re using this device, but I don’t want to stay long enough to
find out.”
“I’m not leaving until we find
everyone else,” Daniel said, already moving to another stalagmite several steps
away.
“Daniel—“
“Sam,” he said, turning to face
her, his eyes linking with hers. “Stay or go, it’s up to you, but I’m staying.”
He held her gaze for several beats before turning away, aiming the device and
activating it again. Another half-decayed arm emerged and he moved on, pushing
any other thoughts to the back of his mind.
Three more stalagmites later and
another familiar color appeared—BDU green, the wrist thinner than Jack’s. “We
have another one here,” Daniel called as he aimed the device toward the floor,
loosening the base before moving on once again, confident that the rest of the
team would continue what he’d started.
“Damn. No pulse.”
Warren’s hushed words washed over
him, but he kept going. He had to.
One more followed—in blue—but it
took nearly an hour to find it, many more partially decayed corpses later, the
swarms of dust entities thickening every few minutes. In the back of his mind
Daniel was worried. There was only one left. What if the swarms got too thick?
What if they couldn’t find their way back out? What happened if they got
trapped, encased in the very dust and dirt that had trapped the ones they were
trying to save?
And Jack was still missing. Where
was he? Where’d he wander off to this time?
Raising his arm once again to aim
the device at the next stalagmite, Daniel noticed that his suit had a thick
covering on it—and not the dark, dead remains of the dust insects as Sam had
described them. These were the live ones.
“Daniel, we have to get out of
here.” Sam’s voice came through his earpiece, her tone hovering on the edge of
extreme anxiety.
“We can’t leave now. We could be
so close,” he protested, already working on the next stalagmite.
“We could also be dead in a few
minutes if we don’t move now. Peterson and Warren have already headed back to
the main passage. The bugs were starting to eat through their suits. We have
got to go.”
“I need more time.”
“We don’t have it.” Sam appeared
at his elbow, latching herself on and tugging him back the way they came. Her
firm grip was not about ready to budge and, truth be told, now that he was
paying attention, it was a lot worse than he originally thought. If it were
snow this would be near white-out conditions.
Moving steadily, they made their
way back toward the entrance of the cavern, the brief breaks in the swarms
allowing them to see where they were going.
But, Daniel couldn’t leave yet.
Stopping dead in his tracks, he
could feel the tug at his arm as Sam tried to move him forward, but he wasn’t
budging. “We can’t go now, not when we’re this close. Just give me ten more
minutes, we still have another section to try.”
“Daniel—“
“Sam, please. This might be our
last chance.”
He could hear her sigh over the
open radio channel. “Ten minutes, Daniel.”
Shuffling along, moving when he
could, when a clear spot gave him some visibility, he made his way to the stand
of stalagmites he remembered from before, off to the side, away from the main
groupings.
There were more here than he
originally thought.
Switching on the device he
started working, ignoring the smell and the sight of decomposition, trying not
to think of these corpses as once-living bodies. It was easier that way.
In his haste, he nearly missed
the glint of light against glass, his mind catching up with his body several
stalagmites further down the row.
What was that?
Sliding back, the swarms
thickening once again, he aimed his flashlight at the hole he had made in the
crust, its light reflecting off a familiar SGC-issued wristwatch lens, the
green BDU sleeve pushed up around an elbow the way Jack liked to wear it.
Daniel’s hand snaked in to grab
the wrist as he called for help. “Sam! Teal’c! I found Jack and he’s alive! I
need help.”
Sam replied immediately. “Teal’c,
stay where you are, I’m still down here. Daniel, I’ll be there in a minute. We
have to hurry.”
“I know, I know,” Daniel said,
aiming the device at Jack’s feet, trying to get the cavern floor to release his
friend. Sam found him moments later as he was wrestling Jack’s body forward,
toward the slope they’d descended.
“Let me help you,” she said,
grabbing the other side, lifting the Colonel’s body, distributing the weight
between the two of them.
How they made it to the incline,
he’ll never remember, those minutes longer than anything he’d ever experienced
before.
The sight of Teal’c standing at
the bottom spelled a measure of relief for the archeologist. They were almost
out. They were almost safe. Just a little bit more.
The three of them stumbled out of
the cave carrying Jack’s encased body, refusing to release it until they were
outside where they found Colonel Hill waiting along with Warren and
Peterson—and the rest of the bodies.
The Colonel took charge
immediately, gesturing them to lay Jack down at the base of several trees, his
medical equipment spread out on the ground within easy reach. Hill’s hand
immediately latched onto Jack’s wrist, checking the pulse. Hill’s hardening
expression told Daniel all he needed to know.
They were too late.
“Major, I need to get this crust
off of O’Neill now. He has a pulse, but it won’t be for long.”
“We can use the sound device,”
Daniel suggested, his hazmat suit’s hood hanging from his hands, but was
immediately dismissed by Sam.
“No, we can’t. Without some kind
of protection for his ears there’s no telling what this high-frequency sound
would do to him.”
“Death is better?”
“I have to agree with Doctor
Jackson, Major,” Hill said. “While the potential hazards are high, I think we
need to risk it. I don’t see any other way. If we can get one pulse to clear
away the crap from his head, we can put the earplugs in so we can do the rest
of his body.”
Sam nodded once, reluctantly, and
Daniel switched the device back on, making sure the needles hadn’t moved. They
only had one shot at this. He had to get it right. After checking with Sam, he
positioned himself so that the pulse would have the widest effect.
And he pushed the button.
The crust turned black and fell
away, Jack’s pale face coming into view. Along with a small trickle of blood
running down from each of his ears.
“Oh God, Colonel, there’s blood.”
Daniel could feel the strength leaving his knees and he dropped to the ground
as Hill moved in, his otoscope already in his hands as he tilted Jack’s face,
checking his ears. He reached back and grabbed some gauze, wiping the blood
away before he put the earplugs in place.
“Again, Doctor. We have to
finish.”
“But his ears—“
“We’ll worry about it later. I
need you to finish this now.”
Daniel nodded wearily and he
aimed the device again. Four pulses later and Jack’s body was clear of the
crust. He leaned back, exhaustion sweeping over him.
And then Jack’s breath rattled
and his chest stopped moving.
***
Pulling off his hood, Teal’c
watched the dance of life and death before him, gracefully performed by Colonel
Hill. With concise orders to Major Jameson, they moved as if one, working on
O’Neill’s body, breathing life where little remained.
O'Neill's airway was cleared and
an endotracheal tube was efficiently placed. An Ambu bag quickly followed, the
Major’s squeezes keeping perfect time and Colonel Hill's cardiac compressions
providing the counterpoint. It was a familiar routine—too familiar—and every
time the finality of death awaited, hovering overhead, drifting in and out like
the clouds passing overhead.
“Carter, I need you,” Hill said,
his voice clipped and she moved immediately to his side, finding his rhythm and
continuing without a dropped beat.
Turning, the Colonel dug into his
gear, a stethoscope emerging along with several vials and needles. His
movements were precise, not a second wasted as he prepared the solution,
flicking out the bubbles in the syringe.
“Hold everything for a minute,”
he said and the stethoscope found its way to O’Neill’s chest, Colonel Hill
listening in the silence.
He checked once, and then again,
before nodding, allowing the symphony of life to continue. Pulling O’Neill’s
BDU shirt away from his shoulder, he shoved the dirty black T-shirt to the
side. A quick swipe of an antiseptic wipe and the needle slid home.
Another nod a minute later and
they stopped, Colonel Hill checking again. He signaled for Major Jameson to
continue
“We have a pulse. Let’s move him
out. But Ed, I need you to keep up the bag. I’m not hearing any ventilations.”
The Colonel glanced at the assembled search teams, his gaze lingering on the
still encrusted bodies in the next clearing. “We’re going to have to put him on
a stretcher in order to move him. It’ll be slow going since we have to keep up
with the Ambu bag, but we have no choice. I’ll stabilize him as best as I can
at the camp, but then we have to move him and Wales to the SGC as soon as
possible.”
No one argued, most too shocked
by the events to do more than trail behind, following the crisp commands of
Colonel Hill. For Major Carter, some of those scientists were her friends in
addition to co-workers, her pale expression and clenched jaw her only outward
reaction to the events that had transpired. The smudge of dirt along her cheek
only emphasized her waxen complexion.
Daniel Jackson merely watched,
still slumped on the ground, the sound device cradled in his hands, as O’Neill
was transferred to the stretcher. But once they began moving, he scrambled to
his feet and handed the device to Peterson, refusing to simply walk alongside,
insisting on sharing the load.
Colonel Hill did not argue with
him, nodding to Major Warren who finally stepped side, giving the archeologist
his spot.
And with a tired sigh, they moved
forward, Major Carter quietly radioing ahead, alerting the remaining personnel
to be ready to move out. The camp would remain until another team returned to
strike it down.
There were other things of far
greater importance that had to be accomplished.
The dead could wait.
***
Standing in the middle of the med
tent, Daniel let the medics move around him, his eyes fixed on the two patients
before him—both unconscious, both on life support, neither breathing on their
own.
They were alive, he kept telling
himself, but what if this was it? What if, after everything that they’d been
through, their conditions never improved?
This wasn’t life; it was waiting
to die.
Daniel closed his eyes, blocking
the sight of his friend lying so still, but the images were burned on his
brain—the paleness, the dirt, the blood. And Colonel Hill refused to say
anything more about the blood, which only made him worry more.
“Daniel?”
The voice was quiet and kind and
he forced his lids open, turning his head to meet the young Lieutenant’s gaze.
“Major Carter wanted you in the
lab,” Peterson said a few beats later, his tone apologetic.
Daniel nodded slowly and moved
toward the door, his booted feet dragging, the instinct to look over his
shoulder too hard to ignore.
His last glimpse of the room
nearly stole his breath away: Peterson standing, his shoulders slumped as he
stared at Jack and Wales; the medics swarming the room packing everything in
sight; Major Jameson continuously monitoring the patients, jotting down notes
in their respective charts, his face closed off.
The sound of death filled the
air, Daniel’s whispered words lost to the atmosphere.
“I’m sorry, Jack.”
***
Although Sam had thought that
nothing short of a bulldozer or the end of the world as we know it would move
Daniel from the Colonel’s side, when she had asked Peterson to get the
archeologist she’d known it was a good idea.
Watching him outside the caves
and on the way back to camp, she could see it in his features and his posture.
He was blaming himself.
In a way, his actions did play a
large part in their current circumstances. But what’s done was done and there
was no going back. Even the Colonel would tell him to get his head out of his
ass at this point.
If things got worse for the
Colonel…it might be better for Daniel to pull back now, at least a little. He
was close, too close, but weren’t they all?
She was glad—and a little
surprised honestly—that he’d joined her in the lab and she’d gotten him to help
her pack up some of the reports. He was good at organization and if she could
get his mind off of the Colonel for a little while, it would be a good thing.
But even now, as they walked back
to the gate, the two-stretcher caravan weaving its way through the forest, his
gaze rarely left the Colonel’s litter.
If she were honest with herself,
she’d have to admit that she wasn’t paying attention to much of anything else
either.
Teal’c, though, was paying
attention to everything—especially the swarm of bugs heading their way.
Stepping up beside her, matching
her stride, Teal’c spoke, his voice low, but emphatic. “Major Carter, we need
to hurry.”
“What?” she turned to him, only
half listening, stumbling a little as her foot caught on a rock.
“We are being followed.”
Raising an eyebrow, she glanced up
at the Jaffa before turning to glance behind the caravan.
Teal’c was right.
“Holy Hannah,” Sam muttered, her
eyes growing wide as a dark patch drifted on the air, heading in their
direction and getting closer. “Is that what I think it is?”
“If you perceive it to be the
dust entity, I believe you are correct. We must hurry.”
“But we’re not in the caves,
Teal’c. We should be safe.”
“I do not believe so, Major
Carter. The entity carries a poison that affects its victims, but there must be
another aspect to it as well, perhaps similar to the nishta Seth used to
control his servants. I believe the entity must use it to send its victims into
a confused state, eventually leading them into its lair. How else do you
believe that six team members—scientists and military personnel—were convinced
to enter when some had not returned? What force propelled O’Neill further into
the caves even though it may have been against his better judgment to enter?”
“We can’t move much faster,” Sam
said, realizing just how far away from the Stargate they were.
“Perhaps if we use the device…”
“Of course,” Sam said, gesturing
for Peterson to move closer. He’d packed the sound device in one of the packs
at the camp when she’d insisted that they needed to take it home. “I need the device.”
As soon as Colonel Hill saw her
pause in the middle of the trail, he immediately called out to her. “Major, is
there a problem?”
“Get Colonel O’Neill and Major
Wales to the Stargate. We’re just going to take care of a little bug problem we
seem to have picked up.”
“Problem…?” he began, but stopped
and Sam looked up at him, watching as his eyes widened. “Is that…?”
“Yes. We’ll cover your six, but
try to move a little faster if you can.”
“You’ll get no argument from me,
Major,” Hill said, turning back to the still moving caravan, shouting orders as
he strode forward.
Sam turned back to the device
that she was digging out of Peterson’s pack. “I need to get a pair of
earplugs,” she said, glancing up at the Jaffa who, she noted, was placing an
earplug in his ear, the other ear protected from the earpiece of his radio.
“Teal’c…”
“Major Carter, my symbiote
protects me from the poison this entity emits. Keep the caravan moving. I shall
endeavor to hold off the entity so you can reach the Stargate safely.”
She nodded once, slowly, seeing
the logic in his statement and handed him the sound device. He quickly moved
back the way they came, fading into the foliage of the forest.
By the time they reached the
Gate, nearly two hours later, after several stops—some to change those on
stretcher duty, other times to check the patients—she was exhausted. They’d
been on their feet with little time for food, water, or sleep and the emotional
toll of the day weighed heavily on every member of the search and rescue
contingent.
She’d passed command over to
Lieutenant Colonel Harper, who’d met them halfway, and he hadn’t argued, taking
one look at her and nodding once before turning to talk to Colonel Hill.
Standing on the stone platform of
the Stargate, Sam glanced back, waiting not so patiently for the Jaffa. She’d
radioed him several minutes ago and he’d indicated that he was near the gate.
But, where was he? With the wormhole already open, the rest of the team just
stepping through, she wasn’t about ready to leave him behind, but she was eager
to leave. She reached for the radio again, but movement at the edge of the
clearing caught her eye and Teal’c broke through the foliage, running toward
the Stargate, a grim smile on his face.
He nodded once, indicating the
job had been completed, and stepped through the event horizon.
Sam sighed and followed him
through.
She’d gotten the job done.
But at what cost?
***
Glancing down at the Gateroom
from the Level 27 briefing room, General Hammond watched as the decon teams
finished up, the device Major Carter created on P3S-295 coming to further use.
General George Hammond was still
waiting for word from the infirmary now nearly four hours after the search and
rescue teams had gated home, the two stretchers a sad reminder of the mission
and the dangers that they faced everyday.
After a very brief report from
Major Carter and Lieutenant Colonel Harper, he’d ordered the returning
personnel and the rooms and hallways they used decontaminated immediately.
There was no way that infestation would come to Earth if he had any say in the
matter.
But even as watched the teams
below, he knew he was only delaying the inevitable. There were letters to be
written and from what he saw of the two survivors, two more names night be
added to his list.
Shaking his head he stepped away
from the window, his feet already taking him to the elevator and then to the
infirmary. The lights were dim, the main ward quiet, the beds empty.
His footsteps echoed harshly on
the concrete as he continued on, pausing at the door to Doctor Fraiser’s
office, her light on, but the room vacant. A passing nurse stopped when she saw
him pause, pointing him down the hall toward the intensive care ward. Nodding
his thanks, he continued on, his heart hammering in his chest, his concern and
worry rising to an even greater height than before.
Stepping inside, he caught sight
of the petite Doctor standing at the end of one of the beds, scribbling notes
into a chart. He moved toward her, his steps loud in the relative silence of
the ward, and she glanced up, weariness etched into her face.
He stopped next to her, his eyes
resting on the still figure in the bed before him, various wires and tubes
coming out of every possible place—and then some—the pale, drawn features
peaceful in unconsciousness.
Sliding to the left, another
figure lay amid the same hardware.
Two survivors.
“Doctor—“ he began, but a raised
hand from Fraiser made him pause.
Tucking the chart into the bin at
the foot of O’Neill’s bed, she gestured for him to follow her, leading him into
the hallway as she pointed a nurse in the direction of her two patients. She
finally stopped, leaning against the wall, taking a deep breath and running a
hand across her face. “Sorry, Sir, but for conversations like these it’s best
that we do them out here.”
“What’s your diagnosis?”
“I can tell you what we do know,”
she said and Hammond nodded, not liking the tone of her voice. “Both Colonel O’Neill
and Major Wales are suffering from oxygen deprivation due partially to their
encasement in that dust or dirt Major Carter reported, but that does not even
begin to explain why they can’t breathe on their own. I have both of them on
full life support right now and I’m waiting for their blood tests to come back
so I can get a better idea of how to treat them. And, on top of that, Colonel
O’Neill has a nasty cut on his leg, but that should heal easily enough.”
She paused, releasing a long
breath. “There is one other thing.”
“What?”
“Major Hill mentioned using the
sound device on the Colonel, and that there had been some blood. I took a
closer look at his ears earlier and it appears as if there is a small puncture
in both of his eardrums.”
“Which means?”
“That, most likely, he had some
kind of hearing loss, but I won’t know for sure until he regain consciousness.
The tear isn’t large and probably will heal quickly, but only time will tell.”
“What do you think—“ Hammond
began, but stopped when Fraiser began to shake her head.
“Honestly, Sir, until I get some
more information I’m just treating the symptoms, not the cause. I should know
more in a few hours.”
Hammond nodded, his jaw set. He
didn’t like what he heard, but there were some things he couldn’t push and this
was one of them. ”Very well. You’ll inform me as soon as you can?”
“Of course, General.”
Glancing around, he realized
something else was missing. “Where’s SG-1?”
“In bed I hope. I sent the entire
delegation of them to bed after their post-mission checks. They were dead on
their feet and no good to anyone.”
He smiled, knowing the truth in
those words and the power she wielded so effortlessly. She was the original
immovable object when it came to her patients and no one—not even SG-1—was
going to stand in her way.
***
Deep in the bowels of Cheyenne
Mountain, past several locked doors and security checkpoints, a small vault
quietly stood.
It was non-descript, really,
nothing special, nothing out of the ordinary. In fact, if ordinariness could be
evaluated on a sliding scale of one to ten, with ten being the highest, this
vault would be a forty-two.
That very fact made it the most
unlikely of places for something to happen.
But inside that very fault, sometime
in the middle of the night, a small block twitched.
One block became two.
Two became four.
Four became eight.
Eight became sixteen.
Sixteen became thirty-two.
And before a single Asgard blink
the sound of clicking could be heard—but there was no one listening.
***
It was dark and quiet.
Too quiet.
Too dark.
But he could feel them.
He could feel everything, from
the hands against his skin to the pinch of needles and tubes in places best
forgotten. He wanted to scream, to move, to tell them somehow that he was here
and awake and alive, but he couldn’t.
Trapped again, but this time
within a body that refused to obey his commands.
Helpless.
And what was even worse, he’d
never lost consciousness.
He felt everything, heard everything,
until they’d done something and then everything had changed, as if the scales
had tipped sideways and he fell into a dark, deep abyss where light and sound
could not reach.
And then he felt his heart stop
beating and his lungs release their last breath.
He came back to his senses, a
tube down his throat, the rising and falling of his chest a gentle reminder
that he was alive. But how could that be true? He’d felt himself die, hadn’t
he?
The shifting breezes against his
face, caressed him and gently rocked him. At first he thought it a dream, but
the cold of the wormhole had dispelled that notion.
As did the careless touches as he
was stripped naked, poked and prodded until he knew what a pincushion felt
like.
But through it all, not a sound did
he hear.
He knew he was home. There was no
mistaking the feel of the infirmary—the tubes, the wires, and the needles
galore. The occasional brush of fingers against his wrist or forehead and he
knew that Doctor Fraiser was watching over him.
He was alive, but trapped in a
living nightmare.
And in the silence and the dark
he screamed, but there was no one to hear.
***
Daniel poked his head around the
door, his eyes resting on the two beds at the far end of the ward. Glancing
around once again, he finally crept in, approaching the beds with soft
footfalls. The attending nurse looked up from her desk that sat a few feet away
from Jack’s bed. Her expression of disapproval wasn’t unexpected.
“I thought Doctor Fraiser told
you to get some sleep?” Anne Matthews said, her voice low as she suspiciously
eyed the cup he placed in front of her.
“That was eight hours ago,”
Daniel said, leaning on the desk, cupping his own mug of coffee in his hands.
She narrowed her eyes at him
before commenting. “From the looks of things, you should still be in bed.”
“Anne…” he whined, although she
did have a point. He’d looked at himself in the bathroom before sneaking down
here and Daniel did have to admit that he looked a little worn around the
edges.
“Doctor Fraiser specifically said
you were to stay out of here for twenty-four hours. Now, I know you heard her
because you made a face as soon as the words left her mouth. I would suggest
leaving this general vicinity before Doctor Fraiser comes back.”
“Come on, just five minutes.”
“Daniel…” she sighed, shaking her
head. “What good is five minutes going to do? It’s not like he’s going to know
you’re here. He’s unconscious.”
“Anne, come on?” He flashed her a
smile, one he knew had desperation written all over it.
“Fine. Five minutes, but if
Doctor Fraiser—“
“I’ll take the blame, don’t
worry,” he said, already moving to Jack’s bedside. “I bribed you with coffee.”
“I know,” she said, taking a sip
of the beverage. “And I have the feeling that this isn’t going to be the first
cup, so from now on make it light and sweet, will you?”
***
Throwing the chart on her desk,
Janet Fraiser dropped into her chair and leaned back, her hands above her head,
as she tried to stretch the kinks out of her shoulders. The labs had been going
crazy for the past day and a half with little or nothing to show for it.
There was some strange chemical
in both Colonel O’Neill’s and Major Wales’ bloodstream, but nothing so far had
even come close to matching it. Intellectually, she knew that she was dealing
with some kind of strange alien chemical, but most of the things they’d
encountered had had some similarities with Earth’s biology. Why couldn’t this
too?
Because that would be easy,
that’s why.
Taking a deep breath and
releasing it slowly, she knew it was about time for her next rounds to check on
her patients. And she knew one member of SG-1 would be lurking around the door,
waiting for her—one of them always was. Their visits were limited to five
minutes each and Janet was refusing to allow more than one every four
hours—fifteen minutes tops for the three of them. If, for some reason, the
Colonel or Major Wales got some kind of cold on top of this it would be
disastrous.
As it was, this was flu season
and she was carefully monitoring her own staff, rotating only the healthy ones
to the intensive care ward.
Sitting forward she opened the
file, sorting through the latest results, her eyes scanning the contents. One
of the notations gave her pause, however, and she moved back to the beginning
of the item, reading it again.
According to the report, there
was something very similar to Phenytoin and Lidocaine in both patients’
bloodstreams, but no further explanation or description was given. She shook
her head, trying to fit that in with the symptoms her patients were exhibiting,
but nothing made sense. What did that have to do with anything? And how did
that dust they were encased in fit into the big picture?
Disgusted, she shoved the chart
away and stood. She had time to look at it in more detail later. If she sat for
one minute longer she knew she’d end up screaming.
Tucking her stethoscope in the
pocket of her lab coat, Janet moved out into the hallway, her heels clicking
against the concrete. She hated not knowing, not being able to help, to treat
her patients, but some of these alien diseases and chemicals were tough to
figure out. Her staff, though, was the best. Given time they could figure
anything out.
Time, though, was always an
issue.
Nurse Matthews glanced up as she
walked into the ward, offering a smile.
“How are we doing this
afternoon?” Janet asked, pulling out the Colonel’s chart first, checking the
readings before moving to his side. Placing the chart on the side table, her
hand moved to his wrist, circling it, checking his pulse, getting the feel of
him—not too hot, not too cold.
“No changes,” Matthews answered,
rising to her feet and moving to the end of the bed. “All readings are within
normal variances.”
“Good, good,” Janet said, patting
his wrist before moving across the aisle to Wales, her checks repeated on the
young Major.
“If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’m
going to run to the little girl’s room,” Matthews said and Janet nodded. It was
tough on the attending nurse because of her orders not to leave either patient
unattended for any reason. When Janet came on rounds, she usually gave the
nurse a chance to run down the hall.
A small sound, however, caught
Janet’s attention, giving her pause as she began to turn away.
“Anne, did you hear that?” Janet
asked, stopping the nurse in the doorway.
“Ma’am?”
“Shhh,” she ordered, waving the
nurse to be quiet. Matthews approached slowly, her footfalls barely reaching
Janet’s ears.
The noise repeated itself.
“That noise,” Janet said, moving
back to Wales, her hand reaching down to grab the Major’s hand. “Major, can you
hear me? If you can, please squeeze my hand.”
Janet waited but there was no
pressure on her hand. As she started to disengage her hand, she heard the sound
again. A moan.
Was she conscious?
How was that possible? For all
appearances, both Wales and O’Neill were unconscious and had been since their
arrival, with no voluntary movement of their own.
It was like they were paralyzed.
In the space of a solitary
heartbeat, something in the back of Janet’s mind clicked. There was evidence of
something similar to Lidocaine in their system, a sodium channel blocker. But
there were other sodium channel blockers, like Tetrodoxin, some of which caused
paralysis—especially respiratory paralysis.
And they rarely resulted in
unconsciousness, which meant that the Colonel and the Major were paralyzed, but
able to hear and feel everything going on around them.
But then the bottom dropped out
from under Janet as she realized one other point—Colonel O’Neill was suffering
from some kind of hearing loss due to his punctured eardrum. So for all intents
and purposes, he was deaf, dumb, and blind—and trapped in a body that wouldn’t
respond to his commands.
Damnit! Why did it take her so
long to figure out?
“Anne,” Fraiser said, turning to
the nurse. “I need you to prepare an intravenous bolus of hypertonic sodium
bicarbonate, 1 to 2 mEq/kg and administer it to both Wales and O’Neill
immediately. I have an idea of what might help counter the toxin in their
systems, but I need to go to the lab and see if they have any other thoughts,
but at least it’s a starting point.”
“Certainly,” Matthews said,
pausing at the door, turning to look over her shoulder. “Ma’am, are they…”
“Paralyzed? Yes. And conscious? I
think so.”
As realization sunk in of both
patients’ conditions, Matthews’ shocked face probably matched her own.
***
Senior Sergeant David Adams
stretched and leaned back in his chair, perusing the monitors spread out before
him. Two more hours and he could go home.
Sometimes it was interesting to
see everything going on at the SGC, peering into the lives of people he heard
about in the base mess. Although, the whole Peeping Tom stereotype wasn’t a big
plus when it came to his social life.
There were times he watched the
teams go through the gate to unknown planets and he wished he did that. It was
exciting, heroic. But then, he also saw them come home—injured and dead—or
there were some that never stepped foot on Level 28 ever again.
Sometimes uneventful was nice.
A flickering screen on his right
drew his attention and he slid his chair in its direction, hitting his hand
against the monitor. Every now and then one of these things went on the fritz.
His gentle prodding, however,
didn’t help.
A moment later the picture
darkened completely and then turned to static.
This wasn’t a problem with the
monitor.
Picking up the phone he dialed
base maintenance. “Hey, Marty, it’s David up on 16. It looks like one of the cameras
is out on Level 20, in the storage area…Yep, that’s the one. Thanks.”
Hanging up the phone, his gaze
slid across the snow-filled screen before resuming his perusal of the monitors.
His job was done.
***
Janet pushed down a bout of
nerves as she settled into General Hammond’s guest chair, her files on her lap.
“Doctor, thanks for taking the
time to see me. You mentioned something about Colonel O’Neill and Major Wales?”
Hammond began, folding his hands over his closed laptop.
She nodded, immediately opening
her folder and checking her notes, even though she’s read through them several
times before walking in the door. “It seems as if the dust entities from
P3S-295 secrete some kind of toxin into their victims, something along the
lines of tetrodoxin, the toxin found in blowfish.”
“Now I know a little about them
and that doesn’t sound good at all.”
“Like I mentioned, it’s similar
to tetrodoxin in some respects, but there are some noticeable differences. The
toxin is less concentrated, so it takes more of it to bring on symptoms. I’ve
had the lab examine its chemical structure and they’ve determined that we can
synthesize an antidote. We have already begun treatment. Major Wales has shown
improvement in the past four hours and I am confident that she will continue to
do so.”
“And Colonel O’Neill?”
Janet sighed, a worried smile
finding its way to her face. “And we have also begun treatment on Colonel
O’Neill, but I have been unable to see direct improvement in his condition. I’m
worried that the cut on his leg might have provided more complications.”
Hammond’s eyebrows drew together.
“How so?”
“It appears as if there is a
greater concentration of the toxin in the Colonel and I believe that it is due
to the fact that the entity had more direct contact with his bloodstream
through his injury. In Major Wales’ case, the toxin entered passively, seeping
through the skin and her mucous membranes.”
“So what’s your prognosis?”
“Good. I believe that once the
toxin is counter-acted they will begin to breathe on their own and I’ll be able
to take them off life support, but it’s going to take some time. With the
Colonel, though, we might have some complications.”
“More?”
Janet nodded. “With the injury to
his ears, we will be unable to determine the extent of his hearing loss until
he’s not paralyzed and able to move on his own. At least with Major Wales we
can explain what’s going on to her. With the Colonel, we can’t. I’m watching
his pressure very carefully, since until the paralysis wears off, that’s my
only indication as to his state of mind.”
“How is he doing?”
“His pressure is a little high,
and has been since he was brought into the infirmary, but nothing to worry
about—yet. Once the antidote starts working, I think he’ll be a lot better.”
“Keep me posted and good work,
Doctor.”
“Thanks, Sir,” Janet said, rising
to her feet, the sound of dismissal in Hammond’s voice. It was time to get back
to her patients.
***
Sam dragged a hand across her
face, trying to get rid of the cobwebs. The past few days had been hellish, to
put it mildly. But even once they got home, things hadn’t been easy. Barred
from the infirmary, SG-1 had found themselves a little lost. They kept drifting
back every few hours hoping to visit, but Janet had strict orders and the
nurses were sticking to them.
After Janet had found out about
Daniel’s little bribe, she’d put her foot down and now they were only allowed
to go every four hours. If it happened again, those visits would become reduced
further.
So, they were obeying, but the
waiting was killing them.
Daniel had stopped by earlier,
his expression dark. ‘No change’ had been his only words and he kept walking,
heading down the hall back toward the elevators.
Her hand shifted to the back of
her neck and she rubbed, easing the tightness there. Her eyes caught the gaze
of a passing Airman, one of Siler’s assistants. He paused and stepped into her
lab.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you,
but have you seen Airman Stewart?”
“No, I haven’t, why?”
“He was supposed to check on
something on Level 20 and then do some repairs on some of the labs on this
level.”
“Well, I need to stretch my legs,
so if you don’t mind I’ll walk with you,” she said, rising to her feet.
“Certainly, ma’am,” he smiled,
unsure of himself.
“Airman…?” she began, stopping
before him, tilting her head in question.
“I’m sorry…Airman Gary Ostroski.
I work with Sergeant Siler.” He gestured for her to walk past him and into the
hallway and they fell into an easy walking rhythm.
By the time they covered the
entire level, they were certain Airman Stewart was nowhere to be found.
“Shall we try Level 20?” Sam
asked, her hands on her hips as they stood outside one of the stairwells.
“After you, Ma’am,” Ostroski
said, opening the door for her to enter.
The broken lightbulb over the
door leading to the next level caught her attention. “I think you might have to
come back here later,” she said pointing overhead.
Ostroski shook his head. “Whoever
buys the bulbs needs to try a different brand. These things don’t last for
anything.”
Sam chuckled and pushed through
the door and into the darkened hallway.
This wasn’t right.
“Ostroski, there should be a
flashlight—“
“Already on it, Major,” he
answered, his boot-clad feet squeaking a little on the floor as he raced to the
nearest lab and the closest flashlight. He returned a moment later, the
high-intensity beam cutting through the darkness.
“What was Airman Stewart doing on
this level?” Sam asked, walking cautiously down the hall with the Airman at her
side.
“A report came in about a broken
security camera. They go out every now and then and we have to come and replace
them. It’s an easy fix.”
“Where was the camera?”
“In one of the supply rooms at
the far end.”
“The secure storage?” she asked,
a feeling of dread growing in her stomach.
“I think so. I’d have to
double-check the report that was filed to know for certain.”
“No, no, that’s fine.”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just call it a hunch.”
***
“The body was found just inside
the secure storage area on Level 20,” Janet said, stalking up to Sam’s desk.
The scientist glanced up from the papers she was organizing, tucking them away
as she prepared to join the teams sweeping the base. Surprise lined her
features at the sheer volume of the diminutive Doctor’s entrance.
“What?”
“Replicators, Sam. I’m talking
about replicators. It seems that the sweep teams missed some.”
Sam’s expression blanked for a
moment. “Not exactly.”
Janet raised an eyebrow. “Sam,
what’s going on?”
She sighed before she began
speaking. “I approached General Hammond during the base clean-up and requested
the opportunity to study one of the replicator blocks. I assured him that there
would be no danger to the base. He agreed to my request.”
“You what?” Janet paused when Sam
shot her a warning look and she rephrased her initial response, trying to set
her internal temperature to simmer instead of boil. “From our limited research
into the replicators, you know that even one block could be very dangerous
under the right conditions.”
“But—“
“Did Colonel O’Neill know?”
“I gave my request directly to
the General because the Colonel was involved in the final survey of the base.”
“But you knew the Colonel’s
feelings about the replicators. That’s why you went directly to General
Hammond. Airman Stewart was killed by a replicator, not a replicator block.
This thing has reproduced and there’s no telling how many there might be, or how
long it’s been alive. What were you thinking, Sam?”
Her expression was grim and a bit
sheepish. “I know, Janet, I wasn’t thinking as clearly as I should have been.
I’ve already heard it from the General, trust me. Teams have already begun to
sweep the base. I know you’re especially worried about Colonel O’Neill and
Major Wales because of the proximity and all, so please let me know if there’s
anything I can do to help you.”
Janet moved away from the desk,
her tone icy. “No thanks, Sam. Haven’t you done enough?”
***
They crawled through the ductwork
between the levels, their feet clicking against the metal and the concrete.
They were still few in number but they were growing stronger.
And they could sense their
brethren.
They needed to join with them and
it wouldn’t be long until they could.
***
The goggles Teal’c had given him
were giving him a headache.
He’d decided to wear contacts
this morning, but Daniel hadn’t anticipated staring through plastic for half of
the day.
When he’d heard the security
announcement a few hours ago, he’d called Sam to find out what was going on.
And she’d explained.
Jack was going to kill her—slowly
and painfully.
She’d asked him to help in any
way he could. With several SG teams off-world, extra volunteers to conduct the
sweep of the base were needed. He’d agreed, reluctantly, mainly because Sam had
asked. It was really Jack’s job, this running around the base playing action
hero.
But Jack wasn’t in any position
to do that, or anything else, for that matter.
So, now he found himself skulking
down semi-darkened hallways covering Teal’c’s six on the search for
replicators.
They’d found only two so far, but
there was no way to know how many there would be.
But Teal’c was attempting to
track them.
“Search party one, this is
Carter, come in.”
The radio crackled, nearly
causing Daniel to jump out of his skin. The Jaffa answered, his voice perfectly
calm and unflustered.
“Major Carter, it is Teal’c. Do
you have news?”
“I have a report from Adams in
the secondary bunker and it looks like there’s been a power outage on level 21,
near the isolation rooms. Can you check it out?”
“You believe it to be the
replicators, Major Carter?”
“I don’t know, but I’m not
leaving anything to chance. Carter out.”
The Jaffa turned and gestured for
Daniel to follow him to the stairwell they’d passed a few moments ago. “I
believe this is the quickest route to the section Major Carter indicated.”
Daniel nodded, following the
Jaffa through the door, his thoughts still processing Sam’s order. “Teal’c,” he
began, the words coming slow. “Isn’t the intensive care ward in that
direction?”
“I believe you to be correct,
Daniel Jackson,” he replied, edging out on to the hallways on level 21.
“Teal’c, what if they invade the
ICU?”
“We shall not permit them
access,” he said, his steps not hesitating.
“Easier said than done, don’t you
think?”
The single glance from the Jaffa
terminated any further thoughts on the matter. Daniel sighed and picked up the
pace, determined to find the replicators before they found Jack.
***
Time, for him, had no meaning.
The hours passed, the minutes slipping away, a continual flow. He’d tried to
judge how many times Doctor Fraiser had stopped by but it was difficult. With
no time reference there was no telling when her last visit had been—an hour
before, ten hours, three minutes.
He dozed when he could, when his
mind let him.
How long could he stay like this
before he started to go crazy, before the edges of darkness started crashing
down upon him?
There’d been a lot of activity
before, people tugging and touching, but it had gone as quickly as it came,
vanishing into the reality he couldn’t hear, couldn’t see.
A reality that was speeding by.
A reality that he was missing.
Only now did he realize how
important his senses were for the sheer enjoyment of life, for living it.
The sound of the squeaky front
door that he swore he would fix every time he opened it.
The birds chirping outside his
bedroom window in the early morning hours, just as the sun was coming up over
the horizon.
The ka-whoosh of the gate
engaging never got old.
He even missed the sound of
Daniel prattling on and on about some god forsaken ruin or another.
Carter’s insane scientific ramblings
would even be music to his ears.
The clatter of his P90 wasn’t
something he enjoyed, but it reminded him that he was living, that he was
defending something he believed in, protecting it until his last dying breath.
A light touch on his ankle and
his attention shifted, focusing on the sensation, waiting for something more to
follow.
He waited several moments, trying
to judge the time. When nothing happened, however, his thoughts began to drift
once again, finding more interesting pastures in the fields of his mind and his
memory.
And then something climbed on his
leg.
***
Standing in the dim light offered
by the emergency generators, Janet hovered over her desk, a phone receiver
pressed to her ear.
“I understand, General, but we
have to make sure the auxiliary generators don’t go down. There are two
patients that are relying on that machinery to keep them alive.”
She picked up the telephone and
pulled the phone cord along with her as she edged out to the door. She could
still see light down the hallway, toward the ICU, but everything from her
office and into the main ward was bathed in the glow from the emergency lights.
“I know, Sir, and I understand.
Right now the circuits leading into the ICU are untouched, but I’m worried that
they might be next. Everything around them—“
Janet paused, her words flashing
a possible scenario in her mind.
“General,” she began, thoughts
still racing, as she walked back to her desk, resting the base of the phone on
the edge. “What if they’re building a safe zone around their main target?”
Her eyes widened as she listened
to the General’s response.
“Yes, Sir, I’ll find them now.
Fraiser out.”
Racing out the door, she ran for
the ICU, on the lookout for Teal’c and Daniel. They were supposedly in the
area.
The lights in the hall dimmed and
then went out as she turned the last corner, only a few steps from the ICU
door. She hesitated, stopping short. She wasn’t armed unless you count the
stethoscope in the pocket of her lab coat and that wasn’t the best weapon.
Footfalls echoed down the hallway
behind her and she turned, a bobbling flashlight blinding her momentarily.
“Daniel? Teal’c’”
Breathing heavy, Daniel stopped
at her side, the P90 he carried uneasily in his hands. “We got here as quickly
as we could.”
Teal’c brushed by her, his gun
armed and ready, heading for the ICU.
As the door opened, the light
from within spilled out into the hallway, silhouetting the Jaffa in the
doorway. He stepped in, pivoting on his heel and freezing, his fingers
tightening on the hilt of the gun.
She could hear clicking.
Racing to Teal’c’s side, Daniel
close at her heels, she peered around the Jaffa, her eyes finding what she was
dreading.
There were replicators in the
room—nearly a dozen of them. Lori Johnson, new to the program, but a damn fine
nurse, was lying on the floor several feet away, a puddle of red growing
beneath her still frame.
Pulling her gaze from the body,
she focused on her patients, the replicators climbing on the beds, the walls,
and the machinery.
One was sitting on the Colonel’s
chest.
***
It was something he couldn’t
ignore.
There was something crawling on
him, several somethings if you had to be specific.
He knew what it felt like—dreamed
about it often enough after the whole incident with the robot—but they’d taken
care of that particular problem.
At least, he thought they had.
But there was something crawling
over him and it felt like it was nibbling on his leg, a little higher up than he
would have liked.
What if it was what it felt like?
A sharp pinch on his leg, right
where he remembered getting that cut, made the decision for him.
There had to be a way to him to
see what was happening. Thinking back, he didn’t remember anything wrong with
his eyes. It had gotten dark because he’d dropped his flashlight and the dust
had formed over him. But there was nothing wrong with his eyes, per say. He was
just having problems with his body listening to what he wanted it to do.
But what if his eyes were already
open and he was blind?
A fleeting second of sheer panic
settled over him, but he pushed it down, shoving it back into the box it had
popped out of.
With every inch of his strength,
he wrenched his eyes open only to discover that it would have been better if
they were closed.
There was a replicator on his
chest.
***
“Oh my god…” Daniel said, the
words pulled from deep within. “Janet…Jack’s eyes just opened.”
Heart thumping in his chest,
Daniel took a few steps further into the room, his first instinct to go to
Jack’s side, but stopped when the replicator at the foot of Jack’s bed reared
up and hissed.
This was not good.
“Daniel…” Janet warned, her hand
touching the back of his arm and he nodded.
And then all hell broke loose.
Alarms ringing, bells clanging,
and lights frantically flashing. Jack was panicking. And how could he blame
him? He can’t hear, can’t move, and the first thing he sees when he opens his
eyes is a replicator sitting on top of him. What could be worse than one of
your nightmares coming true?
Daniel stepped forward again,
instinctively wanting to go to his friend’s side, but the angry hiss of several
replicators, their backs rising in warning, stopped him mid-stride.
“Daniel…” Janet’s warning came
again, her voice strained, heavy with emotion. Here she was a doctor and her
patient was in pain—in obvious agony—and there was nothing she could do about
it.
“I know. I’m not going any
closer,” Daniel said, his eyes refusing to look anywhere else, his heart beating
as frantically as the monitors across the room. “We have to get those things
away from him.”
“I can effectively remove the
replicators from O’Neill’s person with little risk of injury,” Teal’c said, his
gun still pointed at the intruders.
“I don’t think that’s a good
idea,” Janet said, as she tried to contain her emotions. “We have no idea what
they’ll do to Major Wales or the Colonel and we can’t risk you hitting any of
the machinery. Right now it’s the only thing keeping them alive.”
And standing there, watching
their friend, was agonizing.
But the sound of the alarms
changed, Daniel glancing back to Janet, his eyes wide, his thought immediately
turning dark. “Janet…”
“No, listen. They’re slowing,”
she said, her hand on his shoulder.
And sure enough, the franticness
was gone. There were still alarms blaring, but one by one the readings leveled
off until everything fell silent once again except for the clicking of the
replicators’ feet.
Jack’s eyes were closed again,
but Daniel could only begin to imagine what was going on behind those lids and
the amount of sheer determination Jack had to exert in order to get himself
under control—even in the absolute worst circumstances.
He was a fighter, not one to give
in to anything—especially not his fear.
Daniel glanced back and smiled
tightly, his thoughts spinning back to what Janet had said a few minutes
before, her words all too true. If the power went out in here—
“Janet, the lights are still on
in here.”
“Yes, they are, Daniel,” Janet
said, patting him on the back lightly, her tone patronizing. In his current
frame of mind, however, his brain translated her words into ‘Thank you, Captain
Obvious’.
“No, no, no. I mean, the lights
are still on in here.” He waved his hand, encompassing the room with his
gesture.
Janet’s eyes widened a little and
she nodded slowly. “Yes, they are.”
“They’re not in the hallway. Why
didn’t the replicators shut them down in here too?”
“I don’t know.”
“Doctor Fraiser, what does it
appear as if the replicators are doing?” Teal’c asked, his baritone voice low.
Janet moved slowly, trying not to
spook the watch-replicator at the end of the bed. Squinting her eyes a little,
she observed them for a few moments before finally answering. “I’m not sure,
but it looks as if one of them is under the blanket, down by the Colonel’s
knee.”
“Then, we are in agreement,”
Teal’c said, dropping his gun to hang at his side. “I do not believe O’Neill or
Major Wales to be in immediate danger.”
Daniel and Janet whirled on the
Jaffa, their response spoken at the same time. “What?!”
“If the replicators intended
harm, would they not have killed Major Wales and O’Neill as they did Nurse
Johnson and Airman Stewart? I believe there is something else that they
desire.”
Teal’c paused for a moment, his
dark eyes thoughtful. “Doctor Fraiser, is there any significant difference in
O’Neill and Major Wales that would explain the way in which the replicators
have converged on them?”
Janet shrugged, obviously unsure
of what he meant. “I don’t know. It could be anything. They have the toxin in
their bodies and now the antitoxin. That’s really the main difference.”
“Are there other differences?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Observe their behavior,” Teal’c
said, inclining his head toward the beds at the end of the ward. “Most of the
replicators are concentrating on O’Neill. Only two are currently on Major Wales
bed and they are not injuring her.”
“Not directly, no, but I can see
that her blood pressure is up, just like the Colonel’s, and if we don’t get
them out of here soon I’m going to have other problems on my hands.”
“Is there a difference in Major
Wales’ and O’Neill’s conditions?”
“Slight. He had more of the toxin
in his system because of the cut on this leg. It allowed easier access to his
bloodstream.” Janet paused and Daniel could see her thinking back to what she’d
seen on their charts, running down the columns, comparing them in her mind. “If
I remember correctly, there were also trace amounts of the dust entity itself
in his system. I didn’t think much of it, since his kidneys would end up
clearing it out with the help of the dialysis machine.”
“Perhaps that is what they seek.”
“The dirt?” Daniel’s disbelief
dripped from his words.
“What other explanation can you
provide, Daniel Jackson?” Teal’c asked, turning his gaze on the archeologist.
“I don’t know,” Daniel said,
unable to meet Teal’c’s eyes. “But I do know we have to get them off of Jack.”
“I am aware of the situation,
however, at present I see no way in which to accomplish this task. Doctor
Fraiser, would Major Carter be able to confirm my hypothesis?”
Janet nodded slowly. “I think so.
She’s the only one who’s looked at both the entities from the planet and the
replicators.”
“Then I believe it is time to
consult with Major Carter. I shall remain here. Return when you have additional
information.”
Daniel opened his mouth to
protest, but a glare from Teal’c and a tug on his arm by Janet changed his
mind. He let himself be led out of the room by the doctor, his thoughts
whirling.
One thing he knew for certain:
Jack was going to kill them the first chance he got.
***
There was a damn bug on his
chest. Hell, they were crawling all over him, covering him, suffocating him…
He could feel his heart pounding
in his chest, hard enough and frantically enough that he swore it was going to
leap right out of body.
They were crawling on him.
Feeding on him.
And he was alone.
He was in hell.
He could feel them on his body,
their Lego-like feet sliding on the sheet, trying to find purchase, the sharp
ends finally digging into his flesh and moving somewhere else, but never far
enough away.
He wanted them off—now.
But try as he might, his muscles
refused to obey his commands, refused to move, to budge, leaving him completely
helpless, at the mercy of these bugs.
He couldn’t hear them chattering,
but they had to be. And it had to be loud enough for someone to hear, to
notice. Did anyone even know they were here?
What if the base been overrun?
Was the SGC infested, its personnel lying dead in the hallways? Was he going to
die here, alone and helpless?
He was a dead man…he had to be,
but, why wasn’t he dead yet?
Think, Jack, think, he scolded
himself. They should have killed him already, but he was still alive—if this
was living. Being swarmed by bugs wasn’t his definition of life as he knew it.
There was something he was
missing. The bugs, however, weren’t missing out on anything, continuing to
crawl over him, poking and prodding the wound on his leg.
He was disgusted and terrified at
the same time. He knew what these things could do, how they killed, what they
were.
There were better ways to die,
easier ways to die.
But he wasn’t dead yet.
Closing his eyes, he shut out the
sight of the replicator on his chest, as if by that very gesture they’d go
away.
But he could still feel them.
Pushing away the fears that
clouded his mind, he concentrated on making them disappear.
He could feel his heartbeats
begin to slow a little as reasoning slowly returned. Giving himself a
heart-attack wasn’t the answer. Killing the bugs was.
And he hoped like hell that his
team had a plan.
***
He could hear them arguing
halfway down the corridor. While he knew it had been less than an hour since
Doctor Fraiser’s report about the replicators in the ICU, as base commander he
needed to know what was going on.
In reality, he couldn’t sit
behind his desk any longer.
Rounding the corner, he paused
inside the door, watching the antics within. Daniel Jackson was pacing back and
forth, his hands waving in the air. Major Carter was standing in front of her
microscope, hands on her hips, glaring in the archeologist’s general direction.
Doctor Fraiser, noticing his arrival, flashed him a smile from where she sat on
a stool on the other side of the lab.
“Daniel, I do know what I’m
doing, you know,” Sam was saying, her voice tight with anger.
“Well, it certainly doesn’t seem
like it. Either they’re similar or they’re not. What’s with this ‘they seem to
have properties in common’ crap? We don’t have a lot of time here.”
“Progress, people?”
Hammond could swear he heard
their necks snap as their heads turned in his direction and he held back a
smile. Sometimes it was good to be a General.
“Major Carter thinks that the
entities on P3S-295 have similarities to the replicators, Sir,” Fraiser
replied, her voice level.
“I take it Doctor Jackson
disagrees.”
“I don’t disagree, General,”
Jackson said, stepping forward. “I just don’t understand where all of this is
going. We need to be doing something to get those things away from Jack.”
“We are, Daniel,” Carter replied,
forcing the words out through her clenched jaw. “There has to be a reason why
the replicators are interested in the Colonel specifically and the remnants of
the entities from P3S-295 seem to be the only plausible explanation. While they
are two very different types of entities, there are some similarities on the
cellular level.”
“Anything we can use to kill
them?” Hammond asked, base defense his highest priority.
“No. The sound device we used on
the dust entities won’t work here.”
“Then what options do we have?”
Carter pursed her lips, her eyes
taking on a glaze that he was used to seeing when she was thinking. “From the
behavior Janet and Daniel described, it seems as if the replicators are
protecting the Colonel. Am I right?”
“I’m not sure if I’d use the word
‘protecting’, Sam,” Fraiser said, rising to her feet. “They won’t let anyone
come close to them, but they’re not acting like they normally do when in
contact with humans.”
“As if replicators are normal,”
Daniel muttered, turning to walk a few steps away, his hand coming up to rub
the muscles of his neck.
“Why not, Janet? What are they
doing?”
Fraiser shrugged. “They seem to
be interested in the wound on the Colonel’s leg.”
“Isn’t that where you believe the
dust entities from P3S-295 entered his bloodstream?” Hammond asked, pulling the
information from the reports he’d received earlier.
“Yes,” Fraiser nodded, her head tilting
to the side before he locked gazes with Carter. “Do you think they could be
looking to consume the remnants of the dust entity?”
“It’s possible,” Carter nodded.
“But why is the real question.”
“How similar are they?” Fraiser
asked.
“Very. They have the same
chemical composition. It’s just arranged differently.”
“Lots of metals?”
“Yes.”
“What if they can sense the
entity’s presence? What if that’s the best ‘technology’ they can find? Or, what
if their motives are more personal in nature?”
Jackson snickered. “They’re a
toy, remember. Reese made them.”
“Yes, they were created,” Fraiser
said, turning to the archeologist. “But these replicators are acting on their
own. Reese isn’t here to control them. What if they believe they have some bond
to the dust entities?”
“What, are they looking to join
with them or something?” Jackson asked sarcastically, his fingers making
quotation marks in the air.
“Why not?” Fraiser challenged.
“This is alien technology, alien life forms, anything is possible.”
“So what do you suggest, Doctor?”
Hammond asked, amazed at the speed of the ideas swirling around the room. No
wonder why Jack looked dazed sometimes.
“If they follow the same pattern
as other replicators, when they’re done with one thing they move on to the
next, correct?” Fraiser asked, looking between Jackson and Carter for
confirmation.
“So, we just wait until they’re
done with dinner?”
“Doctor…” Hammond warned and the
archeologist raised his hand, mouthing an apology to him.
“Basically, yes. We wait,”
Fraiser answered.
“And then?” Hammond asked.
Daniel’s response surprised them
all. “And then we kill every last block of them.”
***
Standing absolutely still, Teal’c
watched as the replicators swarmed his friend’s body, each taking turns
feeding.
Doctor Fraiser and Daniel Jackson
had left more than an hour prior and had yet to return. Some of the replicators
had begun showing signs of departing once again, straying further and further
from O’Neill’s bed before returning to wait once again.
O’Neill had closed his eyes after
the initial glance at the replicator on his chest and had yet to open them
again.
The entire situation caused
Teal’c much pain, knowing the feelings his friend had for the creatures
infesting this room, and knowing how helpless O’Neill had to feel—unable to
move, to speak, to hear—a warrior trapped within a shell of a body.
It was agony just to comprehend
what might be going on behind those closed lids.
It took nearly all of his
self-control to hold himself back from acting.
He could see in his mind’s eye
what he would do: raising the gun and pulling the trigger, each bullet
penetrating the body of the replicators, breaking them into pieces. Three
blasts from his zat’nik’tel and they would be gone, completely wiped from the
face of this planet.
He’d considered that option more
than once.
Watching as he was, Teal’c began
to notice a change.
They’d begun to move as a group,
shifting to the end of O’Neill’s bed, the last of the replicators edging out from
under the thin infirmary blanket.
Slowly raising his hand, he
pressed the button on the side of his radio, and speaking low, he offered his
report.
“The replicators are preparing to
move. I would recommend teams two through five converge on the infirmary
hallways. The replicators will not leave this section alive.”
***
Daniel raced along the corridor
on level 19, heading for the stairwell that would take him directly to the
hallway outside the ICU, Sam and Janet running behind, their footfalls echoing
on the concrete.
“Daniel, wait,” Sam called, but
he ignored her, pushing the stairwell door open and heading down the stairs two
at a time.
Yanking open the door on Level
21, he raised his P90, steadying it with his left hand, his wrist protesting a
little, but he ignored that as well. There were more important things to do
right now.
He heard Sam and Janet enter the
level several long moments after him, their steps pausing when they entered the
dim light.
“All teams,” came Teal’c’s voice
through his radio. “The replicators are on the move, heading into the corridor
toward the stairwell.”
Daniel smiled.
They were heading to him.
***
The sound of gunfire was loud in
the confined space of the hallway, but it helped her to find Daniel—with pieces
of replicator at his feet.
“Daniel!” she yelled, tapping him
on the back to let him know that she was there. His muscles twitched under her
hand, but his hands remained steady.
“Keep an eye out, Sam. There has
to be more,” he said, raising his voice over the racket. Gunfire further down
the corridor followed by the sound of zats caught her attention.
“Teal’c?” she asked.
Daniel shrugged. “Probably, but
after what they did to Jack, I don’t blame him one bit.”
***
Detouring through the wards,
Janet moved quickly, her eyes watching for replicators. With all the noise in
the hall, she wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the bugs look for refuge
somewhere else.
She had one destination in mind,
however.
ICU.
This time, though, she made sure
she was armed.
The dim light made for slow
going, but she knew this floor like the back of her hand and her pace remained
steady, her gun held at the ready.
One room away from the ICU she
spotted one.
High up on the wall, hiding in
plain sight.
It didn’t have a chance in hell.
***
They were gone.
Or at least he didn’t feel them
anymore.
And while opening his eyes seemed
like a good idea, his mind protested. What if they were still there and he just
couldn’t feel them anymore? Maybe they’d just sucked him dry.
This had to be hell, because life
couldn’t be this bad.
Or could it?
Knowing Jack O’Neill’s luck
anything was possible.
And so he waited.
***
Stepping around machine and wires
to reach the Colonel’s side, Janet stretched out her hand and laid it on his
arm, rubbing it gently, trying to reassure him. His pressure was still up but
not nearly as high as before, which made her happy. The less drugs she had to
give him the better.
But he’d still not opened his
eyes for her.
Reaching up, she put her hands on
his face and turned it slightly so he could see her better, his eyes slowly
fluttering open under her touch.
In them she saw a flash of fear
and helplessness, but as soon as it was there it was gone once again, his gaze
resting on her face.
“Sir, I know you can’t hear me,”
Janet began, speaking slowly, hoping that he could at least read her lips. “The
replicators are dead. You’re safe. And you’re getting better.”
She closed her eyes briefly,
trying to gather her thoughts and feeling helpless that she couldn’t do more
for him. When she opened her eyes, her gaze locked with his and a flash ran
through her mind.
There was concern in his eyes and
worry. It seemed he understood, at least a little of what she’d said. As she
pulled her hands away, his heart rate immediately increased, panic flashing
through his eyes for a second. She reached for the pad at his bedside and
scribbled a quick note.
“SG-1 safe. Paralysis and
deafness temporary. Concentrate on getting better. Okay?”
He held her gaze for a moment
longer before closing his eyes once again, his blood pressure dropping another
few points.
She sighed. He was going to be
fine.
***
Peering around the corner of the
door, Daniel glanced in, his eyes finally settling on his friend.
Things looked the same as they
had before. He was still hooked up to multitudes of machines and life support,
but according to Janet the paralysis was wearing off. His hearing would take
longer.
It had only been a day since the
incident with the replicators and it was the first time he’d had the
opportunity to stop by. As painful as it had been to watch the replicators
crawling over Jack—especially knowing how he felt about them—it had also
brought him a measure of pride to see how courageous his friend could be even
in the face of horrible odds.
He had stared his fears in the
face and defeated them.
Nurse Matthews offered him a
brief smile, but he could see the grief in her face. Lori Johnson had been a
friend.
Offering her a supportive smile,
he walked to Jack’s bed and watched him for a moment.
What made Jack open his eyes
then, Daniel wouldn’t know, but he was grateful. Reaching over, he snagged the
pad and pen lying on the bedside table and began to write. His message was
simple.
“I’m sorry.”
Confusion passed along the lines
of Jack’s face and Daniel continued. “I’m sorry for what I said, for what
happened on the planet, for everything. It was uncalled for and unfair to you.”
Jack held his gaze for several
beats before blinking once, slowly and deliberately.
Daniel smiled, placing the pad
back on the table, his hand resting on his friend’s strong shoulder, grateful
that he could still call him friend.
***
The sweep of the base took two
days and by the time it was completed, Major Wales was already off of life
support and had taken her first steps.
For Colonel O’Neill, it took
another two days before he was allowed out of bed despite his vehement
protests.—in writing.
His hearing loss due to the
punctured eardrums was nearly complete but healing nicely. By the end of the
first week, his hearing was beginning to return, one small piece at a time. The
puncture had also affected his ability to get around on his own due to dizzy
spells and occasional bouts of nausea.
He was eventually released,
nearly two weeks after his initial admittance, to his on-base quarters, with
daily visits to the infirmary for check ups. It didn’t make him happy, but it
was either that or staying confined to the infirmary.
The nurses wanted no part of that
and neither did he.
But even as his hearing returned,
he’d remained quiet, much to the surprise of his team and the majority of the
base. At first, they’d attributed it to his hearing loss, but when Janet let it
slip during breakfast one morning with Sam that he was healing quicker than
expected, they’d become concerned.
A quiet O’Neill was a thinking O’Neill,
and a dangerous one at that.
***
Drumming her fingers on the top
of her notes, Sam finally made up her mind, shoving her stool away from the
desk, her feet hitting the floor. Striding to the door she was surprised when
she walked into Daniel.
“Oh God, sorry,” she said, her
hands grasping his shoulders as she steadied him.
“You’re in a hurry,” he
commented, a wry smile on his face. “Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.”
“Uh huh,” he nodded, his face
thoughtful. “Have you talked to Jack yet?”
“No.”
“And you’re waiting for…? You are
going to have to tell him you know.”
“I know, I know.”
“I did. Wasn’t so bad.”
She flashed him a grimace. “You
went before he could yell at you. He’s been brooding.”
“I don’t think it’ll be as bad as
you think, Sam. Admittedly, he’s not going to be happy about it, but I think
he’ll understand if you explain it to him.” Seeing her disbelieving expression,
he continued. “Use small words. Apologize a lot. Grovel if you have to.”
A half smile found its way to her
mouth and she ducked her head. “Is that your expert advice?”
Daniel nodded. “For what it’s
worth.” He shrugged, offering one final nugget. “Be honest. He trusts you and
values your opinion. Give him the same courtesy.”
***
Hammond paused outside the door,
his hand lifted as if to knock but hanging in mid-air, the gesture incomplete.
What was he afraid of? This was
his base.
But he was worried.
Shaking his head, he rapped on
the door, listening for the word to bid him entrance.
“Come in.”
Swinging the door open, he
watched as Jack O’Neill clambered to his feet, but he waved for him to sit. “At
ease, Jack. I wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Fine, Sir,” he said, shuffling
around his desk to clear off his guest chair, dropping the papers on the floor.
Hammond smiled. It was a unique filing system and one only O’Neill understood.
“Are you sure about that?”
O’Neill sank back into his chair
as Hammond settled into the chair that had been cleared. “Doc Fraiser should
give me a clean bill of health soon and I’ll be able to go home which will be a
nice change to the concrete gray I’ve gotten used to.”
“She just wants to make sure
everything is working right before sending you home. After everything you’ve
been through, I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to keep you longer.”
“She’s trying,” O’Neill chuckled,
rubbing an invisible smudge off of his finger. “I’m not being very
cooperative.”
Hammond raised an eyebrow and
chuckled, but his expression quickly turned serious. “I wanted to apologize to
you about approving Major Carter’s request. I was concerned about it but—“
“Sir, I’ve talked with Carter and
she explained everything to me. I would have done the same in your shoes. How
could you have known that the dirt on P3S-295 was a distant relative to the
Lego bugs from hell?”
“In a way, I’m glad they were
here since they seem to have helped speed your recovery by taking out the
excess dirt and toxin in your system.”
“How ironic is that? Saved by a bug.”
O’Neill shook his head.
“And I’ve already spoken with
Doctor Jackson. He approached me after the team briefing and explained what
happened on the planet. If you think additional punishment is due, just let me
know—“
“No, that’s fine. Daniel and I have
resolved things between us. And honestly, I should have taken care of it before
we left. It won’t happen again.”
Hammond nodded once, seeing that
Jack had made up his mind. Rising, he offered a smile and his hand. “Welcome
back, Jack.”
***
Leaning back in his desk chair,
Jack sighed and stretched his arms above his head, trying to get the kinks out
of his shoulders.
Good old Doc Fraiser had been
happy with his progress this morning, which meant less time under her thumb and
the possibility of getting off of the base was much higher. He was optimistic
that he’d be able to see the outside by the weekend.
Although, he’d never look at dirt
and dust the same way.
He’d had to talk to MacKenzie,
always fun when you only heard one in ten words—not that he listened generally,
but it was the principle of the matter. He hated missing things.
Like friendships.
He knew that he’d made a mistake
when it came to the whole incident with Reese. He’d had the chance to think
about it over the past week and there were some things that he wished he could
take back.
Daniel had apologized to him
early on for his behavior on P3S-295 and he’d accepted it, shouldering some of
the blame himself. Jack had known even before they left that there were things
that should have been said between then, things that should have been
addressed.
In that respect, Jack had acted
like an ass, putting his team’s lives on the line by allowing personal issues
to cloud his professional judgment.
But then, Daniel did have a
point. When it came to things he didn’t know or didn’t understand, his first
thought was of protection and self-preservation.
That wasn’t always the right
thing to do.
Jack sighed, rubbing a hand
across his face, wishing the piles of paperwork would go away, but a knock on
his door drew his attention.
“Come,” he called, leaning
forward, grateful for any interruption at this point. The petite form of Major
Wales appeared in his door, his infirmary buddy.
“Major, come in. How are you
feeling?”
She smiled as she entered,
leaving the door ajar. “Good, Sir. Everything’s back to working order. How
about you?”
“Nearly there, nearly there.”
Jack gestured for her to have a seat in his guest chair after he cleaned off
the papers he’d stacked there.
“Sir,” she began a few beats
later, her words slow in coming. “You don’t seem surprised to see me.”
“Nope,” he grinned. “Not
surprised at all.”
“You see, I am,” she admitted,
ducking her blonde head, a slight flush reddening her cheeks.
“You’re worried about something
like that happening again, aren’t you?”
She nodded once, her eyes meeting
his across the desk.
“I can’t tell you that you’ll
never encounter something like that ever again. The universe is a pretty strange
place and we’ve only explored a very small section of it.” Jack said, folding
his hands before him, movement in the corner of his eye catching his attention.
He knew who was standing out there, hovering, but he ignored him. “But, when it
comes to missions, there is one thing you can count on beyond the shadow of a
doubt. Two things actually.”
“What, Sir?”
“First, that no matter what
happens, the SGC does not leave its people behind.”
“I know that. It’s what kept me
going when I thought I was dead. I knew someone would come looking for us.”
Jack’s lips turned up in a smile.
“And the second thing?”
“That sometimes, when things look
the absolute worst, help comes from the last place you expect. In my case this
time, it came from the people—the person—I’d begun to take for granted.”
***
Daniel pushed himself away from
the wall, not wanting to be found loitering outside Jack’s office. He’d been
surprised to see the Major in there, but when he hear the words, listened to
what Jack was saying, he knew immediately that they were for him.
Jack wasn’t big on talking, he
knew, and even though he’d apologized for being an idiot, Daniel hated to leave
things so open-ended.
While he was still upset at what
happened to Reese, what Jack had done, Daniel understood a little better what
was going through Jack’s mind, and why he’d done what he had.
He didn’t agree with him, but
then, how many things did he and Jack see eye-to-eye on?
And honestly, there was no one
else he’d rather have standing at his side. With all of his faults and his
head-strong personality, he trusted Jack.
Shoving his hands in his pockets,
he ambled down the hall feeling lighter than he had when he’d arrived. Things
still weren’t perfect, but that was okay. They didn’t need to be. As long as
they could talk to each other, even if it was agreeing to disagree, Daniel
could live with that.
Imperfection was fine for him—in
all its splendid colors.
***
FIN
***
Plot bunny
A follow-up for season 5's
Menace, after Daniel calls Jack a "stupid son of a bitch". I want
those two to be at odds with each other after that little 'disagreement' over
Reese. Jack can be hurt/upset/guilty over it...and well, Daniel is too come to
think of it. But both are stubborn and so haven't sorted it out by the time
they have their next off-world mission (not Sentinal).
Basically, I want lots of
whumping of Jack, and you can whump Daniel too, and there to be lots of angst
between Jack and Daniel. By the end they need to have resolved their issues.