Chapter one
"Incoming wormhole, Major!" Sgt. Harriman shouted. He knew there were no teams due back today, so this could only mean one thing...trouble.
"Are you getting an IDC, Sergeant?" asked Major Sam Carter as she hurried over to take a seat behind the computer terminal next to his. Sam had been working in the control room in her down time, trying to tweak a new, faster dialing program. She thought that today would be a nice quiet time in which to concentrate, but obviously she had been wrong.
"I don't understand, Major Carter...it's SG-1's IDC!" Sam's blue eyes concentrated on the monitor in front of her. She could see that Walter was correct, but that didn't make any sense! They both heard the heavy tread of General George Hammond on the metal stairs as he hurried down from his office one level above the control room.
"What is it, Major?" Hammond asked the highest ranking airman in the room.
"It's SG-1's IDC, Sir. What should I do?" Sam asked the older, bald man. She was clearly confused and very concerned. How could anyone else have SG-1's IDC?
"Call the marines and then open the iris, Major," he ordered her, and she did as he directed. Within seconds a number of marines dressed in battle gear ran into the gate room and placed themselves strategically around the bottom of the gate ramp, pointing their weapons at the iris.
"Open the iris, Sergeant!" Sam shouted, as the final marine ran to his position. The large metal covering retracted and now the shimmering event horizon could be seen. They all waited nervously to see what or who would step out of the wormhole. No one expected the sight that met their eyes. A person dressed in what appeared to be some sort of military, combat-style uniform stumbled through the gate. The individual took a few weaving steps and fell, rolling to a stop at the bottom of the gate ramp, just as the wormhole lost stability and blinked out.
Two marines ran to check the person's condition, and one of them turned his face up toward the control room.
"Well, is the person alive, son?" Hammond asked, upon seeing the shocked look on the young marine's face.
"Yes, but she's badly injured, Sir!" he called out.
"Get the medical team in there!" Hammond ordered, and Sgt. Harriman hurried to do as he was told, while Major Carter ran down the steps, followed by General Hammond. In less than six seconds they were standing aside to allow the medical team first access to the gate room. The blast door whooshed open. The base's CMO, Dr. Janet Frasier, took over, squatting on the gate ramp next to the stranger. After taking her pulse, she turned the injured person's face toward her, wiping the blood away with some gauze, and that's when Janet cried out.
"Oh, my God! Look," Janet said, holding up the name tag she had just removed from the stranger's uniform. Time seemed to stand still as Major Carter and General Hammond read the name, 'Capt. Sam Carter'. Janet stared up at Sam, her large brown eyes looking even larger in her pale face.
Janet was obviously in a state of shock, but she quickly recovered and began to give orders. "She's bleeding from several wounds. We need to get her to the infirmary stat!" The orderlies obeyed her instructions, and in seconds the injured woman was placed on a gurney. Finally both General Hammond and Major Carter got a good look at the stranger's face through all the blood. They were just as shocked as Janet to see that the woman looked very much like Major Carter!
"Dr. Frasier, I want a full report on her condition as soon as humanly possible. And I have to ask, how could this happen?" General Hammond asked the question that was foremost in all of their minds.
"I have no idea, General. But first I need to get her stabilized. When she comes to, hopefully she'll be able to explain," Janet suggested reasonably.
"I want to go along, if that's alright, General?" Sam was intrigued by this stranger who looked like her and even had her name, and she couldn't wait to hear how she'd come to be here.
"Go ahead, Major. You're supposed to be on down time anyway," he said, shaking his head. He knew, better than anyone, that Major Sam Carter didn't believe in down time. She spent all of her time working...or so it seemed to him. He sighed as he watched her follow the gurney down the hallway. 'I hope one day you get a chance to enjoy life, Major,' he thought with affection as he watched her go. Sam had become like a daughter to him, and he often worried that she worked way too hard for her own good.
In the infirmary the new patient was stripped of her uniform and treated for her injuries, none of which were life-threatening. Then she was given a complete physical, most of which was accomplished while she was still unconscious.
"I've stabilized her. She has two gun shot wounds...one in the left arm, and the other in her right thigh. She lost quite a bit of blood from the thigh wound. And she has a contusion on her forehead, which is not life-threatening, but most certainly caused her to black out. She also has lacerations on her hands, as though she was fending off an attacker with them. I'm giving her a transfusion of your blood, Major. It seems to be a perfect match, except for the naquadah that is. Her blood contains none."
"Will you need more?" Sam asked, thinking she would donate more blood for her look- alike.
"For her? No, probably not. But I should replace what I gave her," Janet told her, and Sam nodded.
Sam jumped up on empty bed next to Captain Carter's and leaned back. A nurse came over and pulled the privacy curtain around the bed and hooked her up to the machine that would take her blood and prepare it for storage. While she donated blood, Sam wondered about her duplicate, for want of a better term. The woman did look almost exactly like her, except for the longer hair and a one-inch scar above her left eyebrow. And when the cut on her right temple healed, she might have another scar there too.
Sam's mind, which rarely rested, began contemplating any possibilities that would explain just exactly who or what this Captain Carter really was. Of course Sam was familiar with alternate universes; Daniel Jackson had been to one just the year before. So was that where this Carter was from? No, that couldn't be it. Daniel had specifically said that the Samantha Carter he met there was not military. So, could this Carter be from an alternate, alternate reality? Yes, as odd as that sounded, Sam was fairly certain that was the only explanation possible.
Just then Sam heard a familiar voice laughing and joking with some of the nursing staff. It was her CO, and Sam was curious to see how he would react when he saw Captain Carter.
TBC