Disclaimer: Stargate: SG1 isn't mine. Neither is Stargate: Atlantis. Presuming only to own the things and people you don't recognize.
Title: Et Qui Sait
Summary: The five races have convened in order to determine an appropriate course of action, however the key to this new threat's defeat may not be as simple as one would have hoped, and the cost, far greater than anyone is willing to pay… Sequel to Savoir Aimer.
Pairings: Daniel/Vala, Sam/Jack, Cam/Carolyn
Rating: PG13
Genre: Drama/Angst
Chapter 1: Natural Selection
The klaxons sounded, the roar of the giant naquada ring turning beneath the chevrons rumbled through the embarkation room. The lights flashed red and orange across the ceiling as the blast doors whooshed open and dozens of airmen jogged through in their usual orderly formation, weapons strapped to their chests, swift fingers ready to slip the safety catches from their guns at just a moment's notice.
General Landry entered the control room in a hurry, his feet carrying him at a brisk pace as he reached the window and looked down. Walter was sat in a seat next to him. The technician's eyes fixed steadily on the monitor, his palm poised over the hand scanner that would permit him to reopen the iris should the previously unscheduled off-world activation become identified as one of the many teams currently not on Earth.
"It's SG1 sir," the sergeant reported, glancing up at his commanding officer as the IDC came through.
In a simultaneous gesture, he pressed his palm onto the scanner and the thin titanium shield recoiled back into its confines, the wormhole that was now being permitted to form erupting and an ocean of blue light danced across the concrete walls. The familiar popping noise of objects being reformed was the only sound within the 'gate room before the wormhole collapsed a moment later and silence reigned for all but a second;
"Welcome back," Landry spoke over the intercom, greeting the ten people that had returned safely from perhaps one of their most important missions yet.
"Home-sweet-home," Jack's sarcasm was evident and a trace of irritability hindered his normal tone of voice, however even that was partially concealed by something else… something worrisome.
"Did you find anything out?" Landry said a moment later. His gaze skimming from person to person, each sporting their own expression of awe and abject-disbelief, his curiosity would have been killing him if it weren't for the fact that he knew whatever it was that had elicited such reactions from these people would be anything but good.
Sheppard glanced at Cam before addressing the senior officer "oh yeah sir," he swallowed, looking again at Daniel "loads,"
"I told you it was too much like Buffy to be true," Cam pointed out.
Mitchell looked odd. They all did; tired but not; their faces fresh, their skin bright. There were no bags under their eyes, no one was yawning, or concealing drooping eyelids but their general demeanour was strained, they looked exhausted by very mention of the fact that they didn't.
It had been three days since the two teams had embarked on the journey to the planet whose co-ordinates had been provided by Thor. No one had thought to ask the prestigious alien how long the 'Last Summit' would be likely to last and therefore no return had been scheduled. GDOs had been provided as that and radios were the only electronic items that they had been allowed to bring. The presence of weapons at a summit of the collective allies was apparently offensive and given that the presence of the Tau'ri on the council was extremely new, it had not been within anyone's interests to put that position in jeopardy.
Teyla frowned a little at the analogy Cam had used but the others made no response; it was highly likely that this was a comment he had made before, most likely several times and the only one lacking enough cultural knowledge and the passive interest to either not understand the comparison or be curious enough to find out was the fair Athosian. Ronon's dark eyes just narrowed a little, barely noticeable as he seemed to be torn between asking what a 'Buffy' was and simply coming to the conclusion that it was neither worth it nor relevant.
"She's not even a year old," Vala's voice wasn't much more than a whisper, her incredulity and doubt as obvious as was possible; this could not be true, this was so… clichéd, there was no way that to defeat Adria, to bring down her forces, they had to use a little girl, "she can barely talk, how is she supposed to know how to defeat Adria?"
Sam gave her an apologetic look, her sympathy conveyed through her blue eyes.
"Thor must be wrong," Mckay said abruptly, though he looked as concerned as the rest of them, save for the fact his posture was far more tense. His eyes were the only betrayal of the feelings the summit had evoked in him. "It's ridiculous to even consider the possibility that a child could beat Adria,"
"Rodney…" Sheppard drawled in warning, sensing the warning signs of his friend going into an out-and-out rant there and then.
The astrophysicist barely even acknowledged the utterance. "I mean what next? Shall we just throw her in front of a Wraith and see what happens? Let the Replicators baby sit for a few hours?" his sarcasm was sharp and almost poisonous, "hey, what about sending her off to meet the Genii?" Mckay's outrage was surprising to say the least however in a way it also wasn't; the relationship the abrasive man had managed to forge with the baby was a unique one at best. "I'm sure they'd just love to meet her,"
"Mckay," Ronon growled.
"Your concerns are not misplaced Doctor Mckay," Teal'c informed him, the man was breathing in short, sharp bursts from his nose; he looked angry, nervous, scared. "However I do not believe that Lexy-Claire's function is as a weapon-"
"Of course not!" Vala exclaimed, almost jumping out of her seat, "she's a baby!"
Teal'c gave her a calm look, "but a key in the defeat of her own blood,"
"What we gonna do?" Jack said, "invite the nice Orisi over for dinner and let the almighty wrath of the building blocks loose on her?" he leaned back in his chair "God help her in the Tonka truck gets involved," he whistled under his breath.
Landry pinched the bridge of his nose; the sarcastic remarks, witty tongues and tension was overwhelming. The air was thick with words left unsaid; urgency present in everyone's tones. He shot a look at Daniel who had remained obscurely silent throughout the whole time they had been sat in this briefing room which was… now over an hour; wonderful.
"We can't send a baby into battle," Cam stated, "simple as,"
"Why not?" Ronon said, expertly avoiding looking at either parent or Teyla at this point, "if that's what she's meant to do,"
"We don't know that!" Vala snapped, "all we know is what Thor told us, and to be frank, that little guy is really beginning to get on my nerves,"
Ronon quirked an eyebrow at her, "I know she's your daughter," he stated tonelessly.
"Good," the brunette answered, "then you'll understand why I am not letting Adria anywhere near her,"
"Is not Adria your child also?" Teyla asked softly, her tone anything but harsh and her accent soft and lilting.
Vala's glare was enough to silence even Teyla.
"Vala if what Thor said is true, if Lexy really does have the power to stop Adria-" Sam was earnest, she more than understood Vala's reluctance and she didn't even have to think about her own gut response because it was as much outraged as that of the baby's mother.
Lexy was a child, a baby, she could barely talk and was just learning to walk. There was no logical reason why the infant would hold the information required to win the war against Adria but Thor had never steered them wrong and she would never pin the Nox as the type of… well people… to put a baby in danger. Nevertheless… Lexy? It was wrong, convoluted and completely unethical. And Sam hated the fact she was even contemplating such a possibility.
"We have no way of knowing whether or not it would work," Sheppard chipped in, "and we can't just give it a test run; this is a one shot thing and if it doesn't work…"
They all knew what would happen if it didn't, if they left Lexy and Adria to fight it out and it didn't work. Adria was the Orisi, child of the Ori, she wasn't even meant to be, accelerated aging, powers beyond any normal comprehension and abilities that are not scientific explainable. Lexy was a normal child, a ten-month-old, blonde haired, blue-eyed little girl, her vocabulary extremely limited and the heaviest thing she could lift was a plastic bowl. It wasn't worth the risk.
The silence was intense, a thick fog blurring everything that before they could have considered almost clear cut. Morally they all knew that using Lexy was wrong, fighting waves of nausea and tight knots in their chest as they went against every instinct that they had to protect the only shred of innocence left inside the mountain.
"How is Lexy supposed to even know what to do?" Landry pointed out urgently, "we've seen no display of power… unless… Doctor Jackson?"
Daniel shook his head "as far as I'm aware Lexy's a perfectly normal little girl," his words were concise, far more so than one would have expected to be possible but the hint of desperation in his voice, the jagged edge they had all been placed on was quivering beneath his feet.
He was the child's father, the ingrained instinct to protect his daughter was overwhelming, and all the emotion that had flooded him the day she had been born was still as real and intense as ever. Even considering the option that maybe Lexy held the key to defeating the Orisi made him sick to his stomach. He fought it back because what kind of dad did that make him if he was able to contemplate the possibility of placing a vulnerable child in front of one of the most powerful forces SG1 had ever come across?
"Is there not some way to determine the extent of Lexy's abilities?" Teyla said, refusing to even think about the logistics of this battle; her own maternal instincts pushing against any plausibility.
It surprised her that Colonel Carter was entertaining the concept but perhaps that was more to do with their cultures than how emotionally cold or protective either one of them was. She did not belief for a moment that the blonde was comfortable with the idea and perhaps there was no difference at all between them instinctively, but perhaps the other woman was relying too heavily on the emotions swirling through her about not using the baby as a weapon that she was compensating it by going to the other extreme and actually contemplating the unthinkable.
"What do you suggest?" Sam inquired, her eyes begging for Teyla to know something, anything that would mean that they would not have to choose between a baby and the galaxy.
Teyla leaned forward in her seat and Sam noticed her almost unperceivable wince; she did not press the matter though "maybe…" she stopped and began again "perhaps there is a simulation device we could use." She glanced at Vala who did not seem so infuriated by the idea that Teyla felt she should stop so the Athosian continued "much like those which you have spoken about in pilot training John,"
Sheppard blinked at her, it was a conceivable notion, practical even.
"I could write a program I suppose," Mckay tried to sound put upon, but once again was unsuccessful, genius he may be, but actor he was not.
"It could take weeks," Sam pointed out, "months even,"
It looked as if Mckay was seriously struggling to speak but apparently the desperation of the situation was weighing down on him much more than most had thought "half that time if you helped," he answered.
Sam stared at him and then smiled a little despite of herself. Teyla looked largely surprised and Sheppard looked as if he was about to start strafing the area for alien impostors. Because Mckay… and he wasn't even giving time for him to check everything Sam would have to do in that calculation and Rodney was not the sort of man to just overlook details like that.
"She'd be terrified," Daniel's implored, "we can't just put her in a machine and see if she does something unusual. Besides, this is Adria we're talking about would a simulator even be able to do what it would need to?"
"Of course," the caustic scientist retorted.
"Adria has powers none of us know about," Sam said, sounding defeated once more, "we wouldn't be able to account for all the variables,"
Mckay appeared to be trying to think of a suitable counter argument but his shoulders slumped when he came to the realisation that Sam was indeed right. He did not want to think about the surge of something he didn't recognise that had hit his chest when Daniel had said how scared the infant would be; he was getting far too attached to that child.
"That's it!" Cam exclaimed, his expression bright.
"Care to elaborate Colonel Mitchell?" Landry pursued the issue when Cam didn't continue for a moment.
"Sorry," he shook himself "that device… in your lab,"
Sam looked at him almost sarcastically; there were a lot of devices in her lab.
"The funny looking one…" Cam started then realised how stupid that had sounded "Thor left it for us when he stayed with us when his ship got busted up,"
When The Daniel Jackson had received considerable damage thanks to the a fire fight with the Ori ships, the Asguard had claimed refuge in the SGC until the ship could either be repaired enough to fly back to Aurila or another Asguard ship could come to their rescue. Thor had helped Sam and Mckay fix Arthur's Mantle but he had also provided them with some much coveted upgrades to some of the minor systems and devices in the lab. Amongst which, he had left them some of the more simplistic technologies that the Asguard no longer had much use for – like the cell phones of the early nineteen-nineties would be to those used to the compact palm-pilots in use today – for study. These devices either did not work as they were intended or they were so 'ancient' that their power sources were depleted, either way they had provided a basis for investigation.
It dawned on Sam what her co-worker was talking about, "we can't use that,"
"Why not? It might tell us something,"
"What are you talking about?" Landry demanded.
"There's a device," Sam started, shooting Mitchell a pointed look when he went to speak. "Thor was hesitant to let us have it… it's a temperamental technology even to them, abandoned years ago because they weren't sure how safe it would be,"
"What does it do?" Sheppard asked calmly.
Sam hesitated and Mckay picked up.
"Theoretically it allows you to travel time," he said "theoretically,"
Eyes widened.
"Like a time dilation field?" Jack asked.
Sam was hasty to cut this off before it got out of hand, they didn't need to get their hopes up. "Sort of; from what I've been able to figure out, the device works in a similar fashion to the quantum mirror at Area fifty-one except instead of parallel universes it jumps time,"
Landry looked doubtful but raised his eyebrows and looked at Mitchell "so what are you suggesting?"
"Well none of us are going to let Lexy anywhere near Adria as a baby are we?" Cam started "so we use the device to jump forward, maybe twenty or thirty years and find out there how Adria was defeated,"
"That's presuming she is," Mckay snapped.
His point was valid, and there was once more a tide of quiet.
"If she isn't, can't you just jump back through to this time?" Ronon's tone was measured.
"The device is temperamental," Sam reiterated, "it would be impossible to calibrate it to jump forwards to an exact moment in time, never mind jump back,"
"Not impossible," Mckay argued, "difficult obviously but I could probably come up with something,"
Sam resisted the urge to glower at him. "Sir," she turned to Landry and stated quite simply; "I don't recommend using the device,"
The General looked thoughtful then gave Sam an apologetic look before turning to Mckay "could you do it?"
The astrophysicist gave him an acerbic look which said as much as Landry needed to hear.
"Sir…" Sam started, indignant "the Asguard stopped using the device because it didn't work, if we use it and get stuck…"
"We don't have much of a choice Sam," Daniel said before Landry could respond.
"Daniel…" Sam began but she wasn't sure where to go; how was she supposed to tell him that he couldn't try and save both? That he couldn't try and avoid another agonising decision; daughter or the universe? Knowing Daniel he would have already thought over every possibility.
If he chose the universe, he would lose both Lexy and Vala and all you had to do was glance at him to know how much those two meant to him. He would spend the rest of his life blaming himself for the death of his daughter, he would fall into the same pit Jack had. And if he chose his child he would blame himself anyway for being selfish, he wouldn't see what everyone else would. He wouldn't be able to comprehend the fact that no one would blame him, that no one would be thinking 'if only Doctor Jackson had given up his little girl'. After everything, Daniel had the right to be selfish but choosing Lexy wouldn't be selfish, not that he would see it that way.
Swallowing and speaking with a voice heavy with trepidation, "I'll see what I can do,"
Next Chapter: Mckay's genius and Sam's patience is put to the test as they race to fix a device the Asguard couldn't.