Colony

Writer:prometheus246

Rating: T+

Pairing J/S

Chapter 1

The first thing Sam heard every morning was the loud alarm from her laptop that sat on top of the large tin trunk by the door to her room. She never kept the alarm by her bed because, this way she actually had to get out of bed to shut the damn thing off, so wasn't able to simply hit 'snooze' and roll over. Very occasionally she had stopped just short of finding something heavy within arms reach, that she could throw at it – her private ambition.

This time was the same as countless others. As soon as the alarm penetrated her dreams she rolled onto her back and groaned loudly. Her eyes clamped shut and her arm flung over her face she allowed herself a brief moment of irritation before forcing herself out of bed to cross the freezing, dark room and shut it off.

She stretched her neck out, almost laughing at the loud cracks from her vertebrae. She rolled her shoulders and flexed her fingers. Gently loosening all her muscles, one set at a time until she felt completely in command of her body again. When she relaxed, she shivered against the cold that invaded her barely covered flesh.

Making her way to a small foot locker against the opposite wall, a whole two strides away, at the foot of her bed, she crouched to pull out some clothes that would keep out the chill slightly better than the boxer shorts and tank top she slept in.

Two minutes later, she walked through her office to the outside door and stepped out into the chilly early morning. The wind was brisk and she could see the scrubby trees higher up the slopes of the mountain being buffeted by the gusts of cold air rolling in from the ocean a few miles away. She paused for a moment, on her way to breakfast to look out past the edge of the precipice, over the tops of the trees towards the horizon. On a clearer day you could see the blue line of the coast.

"Sam!" She didn't need to look round. After a few seconds she was joined in her sightseeing as usual by her closest friend. He stood, hands in pockets staring at the same scenery, thinking his own set of thoughts. After a moment Sam turned to smile at him.

"Morning Daniel... Coffee?"

"Toast?"

"If I must."

"You must." He grinned cheekily at her as they set off across the stony ground. Sam rolled her eyes at his antics and tucked her hands into her pockets away from the cold as they walked to breakfast in the gray pre-dawn

SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1SG1

Ten minutes later, Sam sat across from Daniel at their usual table in the crowded commissary building. The warm air was filled with the smell of coffee and frying fat. The thin walls shook occasionally against steel brackets, the noise of the wind almost drowned out by the general chaos. Sam was on her second coffee, nibbling unenthusiastically at a piece of toast under Daniel's watchful gaze.

"You know Daniel - You used to live on coffee."

"Yeah yeah, whatever, now eat!" She raised her toast in a comic salute.

"Yes sir!" She forced two thirds of the slice down her throat, downed the rest of her coffee before standing to deposit her cup. On her way through the crowd and around tables, people made a path for her, nodding respectfully and wishing her a good morning. She nodded to each of them but wished that just once in a while she could walk through a crowd without everybody knowing her. She missed the ability to be anonymous when she wanted to.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a giggle and a small person running into her legs. She quickly steadied the little girl who was about to topple from the momentum of her impact with Sam.

"Sorry Ma'am." the girl offered, before her attention was once again on the mischievous looking boy chasing her through the jungle of adults. She giggled and hid behind Sam for a second. The boy looked bewildered at her sudden disappearance until another giggle alerted him to her whereabouts and the pair took off into the throng again, Sam watching them go.

They were the first generation. They were special, but they didn't know it.

The majority of the people who had arrived here on board Prometheus were adult. There had been some children, now teenagers. In the chaos that had preceded the destruction of Earth, young children and the elderly had stood little chance.

The Prometheus, along with the Odyssey and Korelev had landed briefly in several cities, taking on board who they could accommodate, while defending itself against attacks from the hundreds of death gliders. Sam and Daniel had been among the SGC staff who had ended up on the ship, trying, along with other air force and military personnel to keep some kind of order as people jostled each other, each trying to get their loved ones to safety. Sam remembered that that day had brought forth both the very best and worst of human nature.

The scenes that replayed in the minds of anyone who had survived the end of the human race on Earth were horrific, but not only because of the panic and violence but also because of the selfless acts of sacrifices they had seen made by some nameless individuals.

When the time for resistance had gone and the only option left for any remaining factions was to flee, the Prometheus had jumped to hyperspace. After almost an hour they developed engine trouble, caused by damage from glider blasts. Major Metburn, who had been in command at the time ordered that they shut down the hyperspace generator, until It could be fixed.

His decision was contested by many of his staff since they were still within the Milky Way and still, as far as they knew, being pursued by gliders and Ha'tak vessels. Ba'al was not about to underestimate the damage a few rogue Tau'ri left roaming around the galaxy could do.

Sam had worked with the resident engineers in the engine room of the Prometheus for 2 days, until two Ha'tak appeared on the radar and Metburn made the decision to make one last jump into hyperspace. The engines burned out minutes later, depositing them just outside the atmosphere of one of the inner planets of an unknown solar system. The sudden effect of gravity on the already fragile sub-light engines sent the ship into a spinning dive, until it crashed sideways into a forest on a mountainside, near the ocean.

Major Metburn was among the dozens who died in the crash and among the billions who had died overall.

When the sun rose, after hours in the dark, listening the the cries of mourning civilians, Sam emerged from the ship to a group of people dressed in varying military uniform saluting her and awaiting instructions. She had to admit that the fact that she was now the highest ranking officer left alive had completely evaded her and she stood bewildered for a moment until Daniel emerged from the group and after giving her a tight hug told her softly:

"Come on Sam, there are people depending on us." She had never been more grateful to hear the word 'us' in her entire life.

Now, five years later, Sam stood on the edge of a small but thriving colony. There were children, receiving daily lessons from trained teachers. Each person had a job to do and each person did their share. The landscape, though rough and not particularly sheltered was beautiful. They had power, thanks to a generator built in the nearby river. The were working on having a better hot water supply and justs recently they had unearthed an X-302 from the section of the Prometheus that had been buried in the earth since the crash.

There was a real chance of life here. People could live and grow and socialise and learn. Friendships had flourished and a family had been built. Sam and Daniel had made it their mission, with the help of the people around them to build a future for the people here, who as far as they knew, could be the last surviving humans from Earth.

Nobody had given up hope entirely of finding other survivors. Everybody had loved ones whom they missed but the topic was not regularly broached. Sam had set up a system, which sent sporadic radio messages on various frequencies but, they were sent very irregularly, to avoid alerting any more of Ba'al's ships of their presence here and so far, their attempts had proved fruitless.

They had not had the resources to continue the work of the SGC, as some of the military officers had wanted. The extensive exploration of their new home planet had so far yielded no Stargate and Sam had not been able to find a reference to one in the Prometheus' data bank. She had been determined to focus on the survival of the people left alive, rather than further exploration at that point. They were still extremely vulnerable here and could not afford to spread their resources too thinly. Now however, with the X-302, they may be able to spread their wings a little further. The possibility of finding more survivors on another nearby planet, had filled her with a tense energy since the X-302 had been discovered. If she could get it to work... She stopped momentarily at her office, to collect some tools and her laptop before setting of on the hike to the Prometheus crash site. She wanted to get a look at the progress on the second X-302 launch bay excavation as well as do some further work on the glider.

Sam lay on her back,shaded from the midday sun, under the front end of the X-302, tinkering with the interior workings. So far, she had engines working and if it still had wheels, it could be driven around on the ground but had no way of taking off. The circuit board controlling engine burn during takeoff and landing was fried. Sam had fitted a new one and was trying to figure out a way to connect the two somewhat different systems together; the spare circuit board had been taken from one of Prometheus' damaged computer banks and was slightly too small for the space allotted, as well as being designed in completely different ways: control of the X-302 was mainly based on crystal energy:now a precious commodity.

Ben Winson, a chemist who's wife has been killed in the crash five years ago, was now stood in front of a steel table in a tent on the edge of the cleared area of forest around the enormous ship: the likes of which he never dreamed he'd see before the day his wife died. He held a test tube in shaking hands;studying the compound inside carefully, he held it up to the dappled light. Please. Setting the test tube in a rack on the table, he carefully attached a pipette into the rubber end of a battery operated controller. He measured out the exact amount of liquid from a flask, slowly adding it to the test tube, making sure no drops escaped. He replaced the bung;shook the tube and turned away from the bench;taking a sample of the compound in a sample jar and slotting it into their one and only mass spectrometer. Pushing the buttons, he began the process and drummed his fingers on his leg, waiting nervously for the machine to finish ionizing, accelerating, deflecting and detecting particles until it finally beeped. Ben quickly hit the print button and moved to the printer on the opposite side of the tent to pick up the results. As soon as the sheet hit the tray, it was in Ben's hands. He scanned the page quickly, searching for one particular line on the graph.

"Come on, come on...YES!" He sprinted from the tent.

As Sam lay on her back, her hands raised above her head, up to her elbows in electronics, her mind began to wander. To people she used to know. The thing that everybody here had had to get used to, was not knowing. Not knowing whether people had escaped earth; not knowing what happened to those who hadn't; not knowing who had escaped,if anyone; not knowing whether they had survived this long; not knowing whether they would ever see them again. But worst of all was not knowing how to feel about all this:whether to continue to cling to the hope; or to cherish their memory and move on.

Ben crouched down to where Sam lay, ducked his head under the hatch of the control panel, to see what she was working on.

"How's it going?" Sam let out a yelp. The piece of wire she was soldering tore free of it's coupling and a drop of solder fell with a hiss onto her bare arm.

"Shit!" She scrambled out from under the hatch, grabbing her water bottle to pour cold water on the burn, gritting her teeth.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I—have good news."

Once the pain had subsided to a dull stinging, Sam put the bottle back on the ground.

"It's alright. I was just concentrating on something else and I didn't realise you were there."

Ben stared at her as she gathered herself together. "Uh—What's the good news?" She waved at the sheet in his hand.

"Oh! We did it! We managed a reaction that made enough naquadah! We can start mass producing it as soon as we have all the equipment set up."

"That's great! Fantastic, that's one less thing between now and when we can finally get this thing flying." She patted the X-302 as if it were a dog. Ben still stood grinning. "Uh... why don't you go write it all up for me?" She added hopefully.

"Oh right." Ben seemed to notice he was still grinning and shook his head sheepishly. "I'll get it to you by dinner."

She nodded "Thanks Ben. I can't tell you how great this is." The awkward silence was interrupted by Sam's radio:

"Sam!? You There?"

"Yeah Daniel, go ahead." Amongst the crackling of the radio, raised voices could be heard. Both Sam and Ben leaned close, trying to hear hat Daniel was saying. The bad quality of suggested that he was a good distance from them.

"...accident...the water..." Ben caught Sam's eye, his face showing similar trepidation to her own.

"Can you repeat Daniel?" Nothing but static.

"What do you think's happened?" Sam didn't know and did not want to worry the man by speculating.

"I don't know. I'm gonna go check it out though. If anybody needs me, I'm on my way to the river. Daniel was going to check on things there this morning." She set off at a sprint.

The water for the whole community came from the small river that ran downhill on the opposite side of the compound to the woods. One of the first things Sam put into motion when they had arrived here was the acquisition of a good water supply and ways of channeling, purifying and utilising it. The result was a 12 foot water wheel, which raised water into the first of two tanks where it was sterilised before it passed into the collection tank where each household could collect their days supply of water for drinking or cooking, if they chose, though most families ate in the commissary building and also for washing. Though the small population of the colony and the ready supply of water meant that there was plenty to spare; two men were responsible for monitoring the wheel, the tanks and distribution. So far the system had worked.

Jogging across the open space in the centre of the colony, with the head wind slowing her down and drying her eyeballs, Sam wished for a motorbike, or just some means of transport quicker than running, for traveling from one side of the compound to the other in a hurry.

Crossing onto the stretch of grass between the outer buildings and the river, Sam could see from a distance that all was not as it should be. She could not see the usual few people relaxing, entertaining children by the water and the familiar figures of Barney and Kenny, chatting with people who arrived to collect water and wandering between the wheel and tanks, taking their regular inspection very seriously though the design was simple and near enough fool proof. What she could see was the choppy spray of the water lifted by the wind, arcing into the air in icy waves and dampening the grass. She could also see a knot of adults and children stood huddled, in a circle around a figure, prone on the ground. Sam could not recognise the figure but Barney's white comb over and Daniel's worried features were unmistakable.

The group parted easily when she arrived, breaking their circle of protection to allow her access to the man on the ground. Despite the cold, sweat glistened on Kenny's bald head and his lips were turning blue. No older than 40, he had experienced stress related hair loss as a teenager but his keen blue eyes usually gave him a striking appearance none-the-less. He and Barney had formed a tight friendship that spanned the 20 years between them with no problem. Both quiet and reserved they understood each other perfectly and since neither had any family here, Sam was very glad that they had both found some companionship.

Barney knelt beside Kenny now, squeezing his shoulder. Daniel crouched at knee level, applying pressure to a pad of gauze pressed just below the man's ribs. Blood was beginning to seep out from underneath the gauze.

"What happened Daniel?" Her voice was sharp and she did not look at him, focused as she was on how wrong Kenny's breathing sounded. Pressing her fingers to his pulse point, she scowled at his racing heartbeat.

"The wind ripped a panel loose from the wheel. It caught him in the ribs. I can't figure it out Sam. It's not just a case of blood loss – something else is wrong. I thought it might be a punctured lung but I wouldn't know what to do."

"He can't breathe properly." Barney's southern accent was more pronounced in his anxiety. He looked desperately up at Sam but she avoided his gaze.

"Let me see." She crouched as Daniel lifted the cloth away. The puncture was small and much less messy than she had expected from a rogue, wind-borne piece of metal. "It must just have been the corner that got him." She pressed her fingers around the wound with extreme caution.

"Why can't he breathe?" Sam shifted onto her knees so that she was able to lean in close over the hole with her ear. A staccato hissing told her what was wrong.

"I need somebody to fetch Allan." Once one of the young mothers in the group had left at a jog to find the doctor, Sam leaned over again in the hope that she had imagined the sound the first time she heard it. She hadn't. The corner of the panel had pierced cleanly through Kenny's skin and then his upper abdominal cavity. Air was now being sucked into the wound from the surroundings, offsetting the delicate balance of pressure between the lungs and the surrounding space, which dictates a person's breathing. One lung had probably collapsed due to the surrounding pressure and Kenny was finding it harder and harder to breathe as time passed.

Sam sat back, her face set. There was little she could do but to stop more air entering the wound. Daniel pressing on the man's chest had probably not helped but that was water under under the bridge now. She almost scoffed out loud as the analogy sprang to mind. Cliche.

"Sam?" Daniel was holding the pathetic excuse for a first aid kit out to her. She took it doubting anything in the box would be of use to her. Tension pneumothorax – there's a trick!

"Barney – keep talking to him, try to keep him awake." Barney nodded curtly, squeezing his friends hand and muttering thing's like 'You'll be ok buddy.' while Sam got to work. Daniel too seemed encouraged by her apparent brainwave.

"What can I do?" She threw him a roll of medical tape and some scissors, instructing him to cut three pieces of about ten centimetres. Sam grabbed the clear, plastic wrapping that lay discarded in the kit from Daniel opening the gauze. She used her knife to cut a rough square and placing it over the small hole between Kenny's ribs, she took the pieces of taped as Daniel passed them to her; taping three side of the plastic to the skin and leaving the bottom edge of the square open. She made sure the plastic was secure as she could make it and sat back.

As if they were the audience of a television hospital drama the surrounding onlookers leaned in closer to see what Sam had done. What miracle had she conjured this time? The apprehensive silence was filled by the periodic rustle of plastic packaging as the clear cellophane stuck over the bloody skin alternately was sucked tight against the flesh as pressure inside the wound dropped lower than that on the outside and then blew out with a rustle as air was blown from the puncture. The one-way valve created by the plastic, effectively worked to equalise the pressure and make it easier for the patient to breathe. Though it y no means fixed the problem, it acted as a stop-gap until proper treatment could be given.

When 'Doctor Allan' arrived, Sam filled him in on what she had done, as Kenny was loaded onto the stretcher and carried by volunteers to the small infirmary.

"Sam, can I have a word?" Doctor Allan sought out Sam at dinner that night. He found her poring over a bowl of stew at her usual table with a chipper looking Daniel. The doctor was one of the population of civilians who had taken Sam's request to be called by her first name, to heart.

"Sure." Sam pushed her bowl away from her and stood from the table. She nodded politely to the smiling faces she passed on her way out of the commissary wishing she had found a good enough excuse to skip dinner or eat in her quarters tonight. News of her 'miracle patch' had spread like wildfire as news tended to do.

Allan stopped once out of the building and stood stamping his feet against the cold until Sam joined him. The wind had given way to a frosty chill but could still be heard in the trees a short distance away.

"I wanted to congratulate you." He smiled slightly through chattering teeth. "What you did for Kenny probably saved his life – otherwise he probably would have died before we got him back." Sam broke into a grin. Random congratulations from people who had not been there and just saw her as some kind of 'Jim'll Fix It' meant nothing but to hear this, made her heart actually lift.

"So he's going to be fine then? You know, I wasn't sure he was going to make it but--?" She stopped, because Allan's smile had gone. "What?" The doctor tried to avoid her stare.

"There was a lot of blood lost and it looks like the wound may be infected from the metal. ...There's still hope." He added quickly as the major's shoulders slumped. "But...I have to be realistic – we don't have the medication to fight any serious kind of infection."

Sam mentally kicked herself. She had been making rocket fuel when what they needed was antibiotics – so desperate for their little group to not be alone in the universe. Fuck the naquadah! "Can I see him?"

"Barney's with him at the moment. Stop by after dinner." He patted her shoulder before turning away and striding away in the direction of the infirmary.

By midnight, Kenny was dead. Allan found Sam still awake in her office, when he came to deliver the news. She sat for several minutes after he had left, feeling the sting of tears but also feeling completely numb. After a while, she stood and stormed from the room, into the wind, the door banging shut behind her.

She stayed as still as possible, not wanting any sound to interrupt the perfect stillness of the night. She loved the view of the stars from here. Because the ground dropped away at her feet and she was divided from the lights and sounds of the camp by the steel wall behind her, there was nothing to interrupt the expanse of the night sky. Though the constellations were not the ones she knew, they were beautiful and this was one of the rare moments of peace she allowed herself.

A weight settled across her back, warming her. She snapped her head around, startled at the intrusion into her solitude. Daniel draped the heavy jacket further over her shoulders and stood behind her silently. His heart bled for his friend.

"Don't leave it too late Sam." He saw her nod, though she made no other acknowledgment of his words. He turned back toward the camp. Even after five years, few of it's inhabitants had been able to call it 'home' - only the children. Once his footsteps had disappeared Sam inhaled deeply and the scent of her loneliness overwhelmed her.

This jacket was her guilty pleasure. It was all she had of him and it made her feel that bit safer, wearing it. Though she didn't wear it often. His smell still lingered in the aged leather and one of her greatest fears was that it would eventually disappear. Pulling it more tightly around her, she buried her face in the collar, remembering for the umpteenth time, the last time she'd seen her colonel.

Flashback: She had stayed on base, the previous evening, worked late – nothing unusual about that. As soon as the first attacks began, she was in the control room, barking orders over the speakers; doing her best to figure out how this had happened, just like everybody else. No warning, no mercy.

Within an hour, it was clear that this was no small scale barrage. People had to be evacuated. There was no way the Stargate programme was going to stay secret after something this huge. Several major cities already lay in ruins. Senior personnel were handed their evacuation orders.

Sam moved through the thronging hallway, towards the elevator to the surface. When she found him, he was directing human traffic, head and shoulders above most of the other airmen. His hair was a mess and she could tell from his leather jacket thrown on over air force T shirt and sweatpants that he hadn't bothered to dress. Reaching him she handed him the fax; office of the president letterhead at the top of the page; which he scanned briefly before continuing to shout orders.

The Prometheus swooped low over the streets of Cincinnati. As the bay doors slid apart, the sheer devastation of the suburbs shocked her.

Troops spilled from the mouth of the ship; some laying down cover fire against the continuing glider attacks while the rest, ushered terrified civilians toward the Prometheus and checked the scattered bodies for survivors.

Sam's ears rang as a squad of F-302s careered from the docking bays, over their heads. She moved as quickly as she could, awkwardly supporting an injured woman, with an arm around her waist, until another airman took the womans arm to help her up onto the ramp.

'Carter!' She turned toward the voice; enough to see approaching energy weapon fire. Hurling herself to the side, she landed on the ground and rolled over away from the smoldering remains of the doorway she had been stood beside. Her radio crackled.

'Colonel O'Neill, we have to go now! Another hit will finish the hyper drive. We've already taken heavy damage and we're sitting ducks here!'

Sam rushed to the colonel's side. He knelt over a teenage boy; pressing a sodden bundle of cloth over the hole in his side. Blood oozed between the his fingers and looking at the boy's white face, Sam was amazed he was still alive.

'Carter, take him, I have to check the houses.' Sam pressed her hands over his on the cloth and moved to slide her arm around the boy's back while the colonel pulled his hands out and turned away from them.

'Don't leave me!' The strangled cry stopped both officers dead. Jack turned back to the blood soaked child now laying in Carter's arms and a shadow passed over his eyes.

'I have to-- Here-' He shrugged the leather jacket off his shoulders and laid it over the boy's torso and Sam's arms before disappearing. Sam ran with the boy, up the ramp into the back of the ship, where she passed him off to a medic, Jack's coat still covering him.

'All units, pulling out!' Sam span back to the doors, which were now sliding closed. There was a roar as the engines started beneath their feet.

'No...' She scanned the people in the hold. 'Wait!' Running towards the doors, she was determined to somehow stop them from closing. She watched the people left on the street as they lay or ran forward, but the ship was rising. 'Colonel!' He was nowhere. 'Colonel!' She reached for the door controls to stop them, but strong arms closed around her and she was lifted bodily by the bulky SF, who hauled her away from the the doors and only released her once the doors had hissed closed.

End Flashback

Sam let out an anguished gasp, dropping her head and driving her fingers into her hair. She knew what it meant to be clinically depressed. To live a life void of hope. Constantly drowning in the feeling of emptiness. The loneliness always trying to pull your head beneath the surface,where you couldn't breathe.

The only way to fight it was to keep your head above. Never to let the brief moments when the pain slips through the cracks in your wall, so carefully built to keep it at bay, to take you over. Because if you allow it to consume you, even for a moment, it becomes almost impossible to fight your way back into control. And she couldn't afford to lose control. "There are people depending on us"

AN It took me several months to write this chapter to my satisfaction so that is how long I will spend on the next chapter too. I want to finish The Great Outdoors first. I don't mean to be mean and keep you waiting, but having finished this chapter I wanted to get it out there and see how it was received so...thoughts please?

prometheus246