Shelter Five
by Tracy LeCates
The warm air ruffled the shaggy hair of the archeologist as he maneuvered the rental car along the nearly deserted roads. The bright sunshine of the morning shone down through the trees, and cast shadows alongside the road. "Doesn't even really seem like work, does it?" Daniel asked his companions who had lapsed into silence as the miles stretched on. He stole a glance into the back of the car, and watched Jack O'Neill fidgeting with the sleeve of his lightweight black jacket, pulling at an errant thread.
"Are we there yet?" Jack whined from the back seat.
"Yeah, are we there yet?" Cassie chimed in behind Daniel.
Samantha Carter tried to hide her smile, turning to look out the passenger window as she added her voice to the growing chant. "Are we there yet?"
"Settle down, you three, or I'll turn this car right around," Daniel drawled, glaring into the rear view mirror at the Colonel, the instigator. "Don't make me stop this car, Jack."
"We've been on the road forever," the older man continued to complain, his brown eyes sparkling with good humor. "Could this place be any further from civilization?"
"That's the point, Colonel," Carter reminded him, turning in her seat to glance at the man behind her. "And, stop kicking the back of my seat!" she laughed, earning herself a view of her C.O.'s tongue.
"The further away from civilization this place is, the better," Daniel agreed. "Cheyenne Mountain is almost ideal for the Alpha gate, and the SGC, but an active second base for the Beta gate out in the middle of nowhere was a great idea."
"I know," Jack relented, relaxing back in his seat again with one last, playful kick at the back of the Major's seat. "What better way to make sure that Maybourne keeps his slimy little finger off it than to be using it ourselves?"
"Chances are you'll get command of the new base," Carter speculated, giving voice to the thought the three of them had privately had since General Hammond made the announcement of his intentions.
An almost cautiously hopeful expression appeared on O'Neill's face. "Ya think?"
"I wouldn't rule it out," Daniel agreed. "I mean, it does make sense. You led the first team to go through the gate, you've commanded SG-1 for the last two years, and Hammond is probably sick of looking at you," he laughed.
"That's probably why he picked us to go check out the facility, why he wanted our evaluation," Carter added. The trip to the former fall-out shelter outside of Twin Forks, Wyoming had been ordered days before, and seeing a bit of their own world together had held some appeal to the teammates. "Even if it did usurp our downtime."
"Hey, at least Teal'c still managed to get away for a real break," Jack said as he stretched his cramped muscles in the unfamiliar confines of the small sedan. "I wonder if Junior ever needs a vacation."
"Thanks for letting me come with you," Cassie yawned.
"We're glad to have you, Cassie," Sam answered, casting a fond smile back at the girl. "Even doctors get sick, and trust me, you do not want what Janet's got."
"Ewww, no way," Cassie agreed, her nose wrinkled in distaste. "She's been puking for days."
Jack snickered at the vision of Doctor Fraiser on the bathroom floor, or even more amusing, getting a shot from Doc Warner. He reached over and ruffled the girl's long blonde hair. "Sorry it's not gonna be more fun, kiddo. We're just gonna take a look around, see if the old place is something we think we could use for a secondary base and head back home again."
She shrugged, smiling as she batted the colonel's hand away and tried to smooth down her hair again. "That's okay. I don't mind."
"How much further, Daniel?" Jack groused a half hour later, shifting in his seat as he attempted to get comfortable. "I call shotgun on the ride back, Carter. I haven't been stuffed into the back seat since I was seven. And I didn't like it then, either."
"It shouldn't be far," Jackson assured the other man. "Maybe another half hour or so." Taking a deep breath he let it out with a sigh of contentment. "Just smell that air. Doesn't it do something for you?"
Jack's lips twitched upwards slightly in a small smile as he leaned forward. "Sure, it does a little something for me. How about you, Carter? Does the air do anything for you?" he asked playfully, resting his chin on the back of her seat.
O'Neill glanced over at Daniel, and back at the Major as he dropped his voice a notch. "Speaking of what it does for me… maybe when we get back to the hotel tonight, we could… go down to the restaurant, and the waiter could get us a nice, cozy corner table… maybe a little music, a little candlelight," he teased.
"Hope it's not dry," Daniel interjected, drawing an unamused look from the Colonel.
"Excuse me?" Sam asked.
Daniel granted the two officers a look of utter innocence. "Nothing, it's just that a lot of these little towns up here are dry. No booze. I'm all for music and candlelight, but it'd be a shame if we couldn't have some wine or something."
Scowling, Jack sat back in his seat. "Yeah. That'd be a real drag, all right, Daniel."
Daniel drove past the unmanned gate and turned down the long unused dirt road, headed towards the former Sundown Installation. "I guess they built a whole load of these things out here in the boonies after the Cuban Missile Crisis," he speculated as they rounded the last bend in the road and pulled to a halt outside the entrance to the first small barracks. The wooden structure had seen better days; the walls were peppered with holes where small starlings had made their homes for many years, one of the stairs up to the door was sunken into its frame, and only a single window still contained its glass.
"Whattaya think, Carter?" Jack asked as they climbed from the vehicle and stretched. "This could be home, sweet home. A coat of paint, some curtains, a few tastefully placed throw pillows…."
"Sure doesn't look like an army installation," Daniel observed.
Jack nodded. "That's because it's not supposed to."
The door to the barracks opened, and a young officer came out, approaching the group quickly. "Colonel O'Neill?" he asked hopefully, glancing between Jack and Daniel.
"Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Samantha Carter, Doctor Daniel Jackson, and Cassandra Frasier," Jack said, nodding at each of his party as he stepped forward.
The young man snapped him a quick salute. "Major Peter Katz. It's a pleasure to meet you, Sir."
"Thank you, Major," Jack said, returning the perfunctory salute. "You up here alone?"
"Yes, sir," he replied with a faint smile. "And, I'll be glad to get back to civilization again. Two weeks here alone was more than enough for me."
"The place isn't haunted, is it?" Jack asked, lowering his voice to a dramatic conspiratorial whisper.
The young man's eyes widened. "Sir?"
"Kidding, Major. Kidding," O'Neill chuckled. "Okay. I think we're ready for the grand tour of the facility."
Leaving the rental car behind, the travel-weary foursome followed their escort into the first barracks.
"This is pretty typical of the barracks," he explained, indicating the large open room. "There are six similar units on the base, and each could house twenty people, comfortably. The showers and lavs are in the back of each unit." The worn wooden floors creaked under their feet, the sounds echoing in the emptiness. "I don't know if these units are even worth the trouble of trying to save."
"You were saying, about that coat of paint?" Carter asked, nudging her C.O.
"This place is in better shape than my first house," he returned defensively.
"I think it's kinda cool," Cassie said, her eyes wandering about. "It's like that movie, you know, Friday the Thirteenth?"
"Okay, that's enough of that," Daniel pleaded, pulling out a small packet of Kleenex as the dust roused by their movement provoked a sneezing fit.
Jack glanced over at his friend. "Bless."
"Major, are these barracks the only quarters on the base?" Carter asked, hoping for a negative answer.
"No," Katz answered, leading the group out the back door and into the warm sunshine again. "There are accommodations underground, including the officers' quarters." He led them across the clearing in the woods towards a large bunker. "The aboveground command center, and access to below," he explained. "There's a lot of pretty exotic equipment in here. Outdated, for sure, but exotic."
Entering the bunker, he turned on the lights to join the glow of the monitors across the wall. "All the radio gear is still here, though most of the furniture is long gone. Looks like most of the contents of the powder magazine are still here, too." He moved over to one of the massive consoles, the screens displaying images of other rooms. "This is how they monitored everything going on below ground. There are cameras in almost every room in the four levels under us, except for the living quarters."
Sam lingered over one of the devices against the wall, an amused smile on her face. "Do you know what this is?" she asked Daniel as he peered over her shoulder.
"Radar console," he answered, confusion coloring his features as she shook her head. "It says Radar Console right there," he insisted, pointing at the dusty lettering.
"This isn't just a radar console," she explained. "It's an old polyban radar console. You can use them to measure the depth of an opaque surface-"
"Carter, please.…" Jack groaned, pulling at her arm. "Not today, okay?"
O'Neill steered the group to a large conference table, where their guide unrolled the blueprints. Jack had seen copies of them in General Hammond's office.
"This is a cross-section of what's underground," Katz continued. "There are two entrances; one at the stairway, here, which you get to through the building out back, and the elevator shaft, here." He turned away from the drawing and pointed to the corridor behind them. "The elevator is right down there."
"How far down does it go?" Sam asked, moving in closer to study the drawings.
"Three hundred feet," the other Major answered, guiding her attention to another part of the drawing. "This is an underground water storage tank, which was installed in case the aboveground supply became contaminated."
"What are those two vertical lines alongside it?" Daniel asked, leaning over the table.
"Those are air supply shafts. They'd be closed if the air was radioactive, but of course they're open now."
"Very nice drawings," Jack said with a touch of impatience. "But we're here, so why don't we go below and actually look at the place?"
"Yes, Sir. Right this way." Katz directed the group to the elevator, waiting for Cassie to catch up to them as she stopped to examine a large, shiny roach crawling up the wall.
"This place has bugs," she whispered to Sam as the elevator doors slid shut behind them and they started their descent to the next level.
"I'm sure an exterminator would be a good idea," Major Katz laughed. "This place has been deserted for years, aside from a yearly inspection to make sure that all the equipment still works. Which, it does," he assured them. "I don't know that any of it will do you any good for whatever you're planning on using this place for, though."
The elevator came to a halt, and the doors slowly opened out onto a long, dimly lit corridor. "These are the living quarters?" Daniel asked as they stepped out.
"I'm not sure who these places were designed to house, but they must have been pretty important," Katz said as he opened the first door in the hall.
Jack sauntered into the room, expecting to find the same standard quarters he'd seen a thousand times before in his military career. Instead, he was greeted by the sight of a luxurious sitting-room. "I guess they didn't take all the furniture after all," he observed happily, walking over to the leather armchair. He ran his fingers appreciatively over the dusty leather. "Oh, man. I've felt babies' butts that weren't this soft. Dibs on this room."
"Are all the quarters on this level this nice?" Daniel asked, peering into the adjoining bedroom.
"Yes, Sir, they are," Katz confirmed.
"Are you guys really gonna move here?" Cassie asked, tugging on Sam's sleeve.
Carter looked down at the girl, catching the look of disappointment in her eyes. "I don't know, Cassie," she answered honestly. "Maybe. If we do, you can always come visit. Who knows? Maybe you and Janet will come too." She watched as the notion of being uprooted again settled in uneasily. "Cassie, even if we do move here it probably won't be right away, anyway. This place would need to be completely overhauled, and we don't know how long that would take. Besides, just because we're checking the place out doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to be stationed here." She turned her eyes to Jack for confirmation.
"That's right, kiddo," he agreed. "Things will work out, one way or the other. Close a door, and a window opens, or… something. You'll see." He cast Sam a faint smile. For the first time I'm actually beginning to believe that old crock of shit saying.
"Ready to go on down?" Katz asked as he moved towards the door again.
"You seem a little eager to get this over with," Daniel observed as he joined him, followed by the others.
"I am. I'd really like to get out of here before nightfall and spend my last night in Wyoming in a nice, comfortable hotel in town. This place gets a little spooky here at night," he confessed. "Those tremors last night didn't exactly sit well with me, either."
The group filed into the elevator and Daniel continued. "Tremors?" he asked. "What kind of tremors?"
"You didn't hear?" the officer asked.
"Hear what?" Carter chimed in curiously.
"The tremors," Katz explained. "The earthquake? Well, okay, it wasn't much of an earthquake, and apparently they're not uncommon around here, but I'm from back East, and we don't have those out there. Hurricanes and floods, yes, quakes, no," he laughed nervously.
"We should check that out when we get back to civilization tonight," Jack grumbled. "We should have a…"
"…geological survey," Carter filled in.
"…done before we even seriously start thinking about setting up camp here."
Daniel nodded. "I agree."
Reaching the lowest level, the elevator stopped again and let them out into the underground base.
Jack stepped out into a large room, eyeing the old desks and darkened consoles. He wandered over to the thick glass wall and pulled up short at the sight of the ten thousand square foot vault he looked out into. "Wow…." His quiet exclamation echoed in the utter silence. His eyes took in the vast emptiness of the room, his brain filling in the possibilities. The Beta gate, the ramp, the control room where he stood.… His. For the first time Jack allowed himself to truly entertain the possible reality of a base under his command. More than just the base, other things. Other things so long just out of his grasp.
"This could work," Carter said as she stepped up beside him, vocalizing his thoughts. "This could really work."
"Lotta things could work here, Carter," he said softly.
"How come the walls are so cold?" Cassie asked, pressing her palms against the far wall.
Major Katz walked over to her and put his hands next to hers. "Ah. The water tank is right behind this wall," he answered, pointing to the large grate in the wall. "That's the airshaft." Leaning forward, he put his ear against the wall. "Hear that? Kinda sounds like we're in a submarine."
Cassie's face lit up in a smile as she mimicked him, listening to the sound of the water in the giant tank. "Cool."
"What else is down here?" Daniel asked, amused at the growing enthusiasm of the group.
Katz motioned for them to follow as he led them out into the massive chamber, heading towards a door at the far end. "There isn't much else to see. A few empty offices, conference areas, a small medical facility…."
Their footsteps rang out on the concrete floor as they followed the Major through the facility. The old overhead lights buzzed and hummed as they cast their dim, flickering glow in the corridors. Cassie followed at a less enthusiastic pace until they found the infirmary. "Wow… I'll be Janet could do a lot with this place," she offered hopefully, glancing at Jack to make sure he'd heard her.
"I'll bet she could, Cassie," he agreed, sweeping her off her feet and depositing her into an old wheelchair.
"I think we've seen everything we need to see, Major," Jack said as he donned his sunglasses against the glare of the early afternoon sun. "Looks like we'll all be back in town before sunset. We'll make our report and our recommendation when we get back, and see what happens."
"That's music to my ears, sir," Katz chuckled. "Your little friend is right, this place is a little too much like that camp in Friday the Thirteenth. I'm just going to grab my gear from the second level and head out myself. Good luck to you!" he called over his shoulder.
"Thank you, Major!" Jack yelled at the retreating figure, then held out his hand to Daniel. "Keys? I'm driving back. You can consider yourself banished to the back seat."
With a rueful smile Jackson dug the keys from his pocket and tossed them to the Colonel. "I hate it when he drives," he muttered to Sam as he walked by her, pulling open the back car door.
"Oh, no!" Cassie gasped. "My purse! Where is it?"
"Did you leave it in the car?" Sam suggested, leaning into the vehicle to look.
"No! I take it everywhere, it's got all my stuff in it!" the young girl insisted. "Oh, God, I must have dropped it when Colonel Jack put me in the wheelchair!"
"Ahhhh, jeeeez," Jack groaned, pinning Sam with an almost accusatory glare, conveying his silent commentary on women in general to the Major quite clearly, and garnering a look from her that spoke volumes of response. "All right, all right!" he said, holding up his hands in supplication. "We'll find the purse."
Daniel chuckled softly at the silent exchanges between the two, which were becoming more frequent. "We could save ourselves a trip down and take a look at the monitors in the control room topside. If we see it we can go down and get it."
Major Katz stopped short to avoid running into Jack O'Neill as he walked back in the door. "I thought you all would have been long gone."
"Nope, sorry, looks like we left something downstairs," Jack apologized. "Can we fire up the monitors and take a look down in the medical section?"
"Sure." Katz dropped his duffel bag on a chair and hit the switch to bring the monitors back online. After searching them for a moment he pointed. "There, that one." He panned the security camera about the room as Daniel peered at the image.
"There. There it is," he said, spotting the bright blue handbag.
Cassie sighed in relief, already jogging to the elevator. "I'll get it!" she called back.
"All right, but hurry it up!" Jack called back to her, leaning against the conference table. "What the hell does a kid that age keep in a purse, anyway?" he asked helplessly once the elevator doors had closed.
"Things," Sam said with a shrug, hiking herself up onto the table beside him.
"What kind of things?"
"Personal things."
"None of my business?"
"None of your business."
"Purses aside, I think today went well," Daniel said, turning away from the monitors. "We got a good idea of what we've got here, and we finished earlier than we thought we would. How about it we spend a relaxing night in town and head home in the morning? I mean, we're supposed to be on stand down. I think we deserve at least one night off, don't you?"
"I do," Sam agreed, catching a look of utter disbelief from her C.O.
"You? A night off? Carter, do you feel all right?" Jack asked in astonishment, laying a hand on her forehead to check for fever.
"Stop," she laughed, making no move to dislodge his palm. "Contrary to popular belief, I do take them. Every once in a while a night off is nice."
"What exactly do you do with your nights off?" Jack asked, a smile creeping across his face.
"Things."
"What kind of things?"
"Personal things."
"None of my business?"
"None of your business."
"Ah. Well, I think maybe tonight it is my business. I think tonight calls for a nice dinner, a few drinks, maybe shoot some pool - "
"Well, we'll be on our way into town in a few minutes," Katz declared, his eyes on the monitor. "The girl found her purse and she's heading back toward the elevator now."
Jack pushed away from the table, jingling the car keys in his hand. "Sounds good to -" His sentence was cut short as the rumble of shaking earth disrupted him. "What the -" The rumble grew louder as the floor beneath their feet shook violently, heaving beneath them.
"The doorway!" Daniel shouted, pulling Sam with him as he stumbled into the open doorway, followed by Jack and Major Katz.
"Oh, God, Cassie!" Sam gasped, pushing away from Daniel as she tried to cross the room to the elevator. Jack's hand grasped her wrist as he yanked her back into the doorway, holding her securely.
"Don't even think about it, Carter."
"Shit!" Katz yelled. "It wasn't this bad last night!"
The creaking of old wood and the snapping of beams punctuated the rumble as it faded away, and the ground again stilled. The moment the earth seemed stable once more Sam jerked free from O'Neill's embrace and bolted across the room to the monitors, her eyes frantically searching. Half the screens showed nothing but snow.
Jack followed without hesitation, peering over her shoulder. "There she is," he said quickly, bringing Sam's attention to the far monitor. "She made it all the way back to the other control room by the elevators."
Daniel grabbed the microphone from Peter Katz's hands. "Cassie," he called, breathing a sigh of relief as the girl climbed up off the floor, visibly shaken in the dim glow of the emergency lights.
"Daniel? Where are you?" she called back in panic.
"We're up here in the command room, Cassie. Are you all right?"
"I'm okay," she assured him, dusting off her knees. "What happened?"
"It was an earthquake, Cassie, but I think it's over now. We'll come right down and get you. Just stay where you are," he told her, handing the mike back to the Major. "Thank God…. Look, I'll go get her, and we'll get the hell outta here."
Daniel Jackson stabbed at the elevator button and the doors opened immediately, the car having returned to the upper floors after depositing Cassie below. The adrenaline rush beginning to wear off, he sagged against the wall of the car as it sank down to the lower levels. A grinding screech and a jarring crash sent the young man sprawling to the floor. "Goddamnit! Now what?!" he exclaimed, staring at the display above the doors as he climbed to his feet. Jabbing the "down" button once more to descend to the lowest floor yielded no results. "Oh, no," he muttered.
He dropped to his knees again and peeled back the carpeting on the floor to find the emergency trap door. He grasped the ring, pulled the door up and peered down into the mass of debris that clogged the shaft.
"Damn, damn, damn," he chanted, letting the trap fall back into place as he stood. With a silent prayer he hit the "up" button and let out the breath he'd been holding as the car started upwards again.
"Daniel, what happened?" Sam asked impatiently as she heard the elevator doors opening.
"The elevator shaft is blocked," he explained. "I didn't get any further than just below the second floor. I was maybe… two hundred and fifty feet down?" he guessed.
Jack stared at his companion for only a moment before striding over to the console and picking up the mike. "Cassie, I need you to do something," he said, quieting and calming his voice. "Hit the button to open the doors to the elevator, then get away from it quick, okay?"
The four adults watched the monitor as the girl did as instructed. After hitting the button to open the doors she ran across the room to safety. No debris came falling through the doors as they slid open with a tired groan. Cassie looked up at the security camera high on the wall in question.
"That's good, Cassie," Jack said, a small measure of relief in his voice. "Can you see anything in the elevator shaft? Any dirt or rocks or… anything?"
Cautiously Cassandra approached the open door to the elevator again and peered in. "There's a little dirt on the floor," she called back.
"But nothing blocking the opening?"
The young blonde turned back to the camera and shook her head.
"Okay, Cassie, just… close the elevator doors again and stay away from it for now, okay?" he asked, switching off the microphone. "No way to tell how much blockage there is," he said, looking at Sam. "It doesn't go all the way down to the bottom, so it could be a small amount of debris caught between floors. We'd never be able to dig through it ourselves though, not without taking the chance of falling through. Wait a minute… The stairs," Jack suggested, taking off for the building around back the Major had shown them housed the stairwell down, Carter and Jackson hot on his heels.
"If there's blockage in the elevator shaft, there has to be…" Katz began to protest as he followed, but let his words die out as Jack shot a warning glare his way.
The Colonel yanked open the door to the dimly lit stairwell and began his descent.
Slightly out of breath, the group halted at the sight of the debris the quake had broken loose, effectively blocking their path. "How far down do you figure we are?" Daniel asked in frustration.
"A hundred and fifty feet, maybe less," Sam estimated, kicking angrily at the blockage. "We'll have to go back up and call for the search and rescue to come get her. Fort Gunderson is the closest base, they'd be able to excavate."
"Does she have enough air?" Daniel asked her.
Sam nodded. "The area down there is huge, she should be just fine, even if the air shafts are blocked. She's probably terrified, though," she added as she began jogging back up the stairs after Jack and Peter.
Jack snapped shut his cell phone and walked back into the command room, where Sam was trying to distract Cassie with a game of twenty questions. "They're on their way, but it's gonna be at least six hours before they can get their excavation gear together and get up here," he said quietly to Daniel.
"Damn. I knew this was all going too well."
"At least she's safe," Jack reminded him. "She's shaken up, but safe, and that's the most important thing right now. And, I think we can safely say that I now have some serious doubts about setting up a base here."
"Sorry about that, Jack," he offered sincerely. Daniel settled into one of the chairs to begin the long wait. His eyes wandered over the control panel, drawn by a flashing red light on a nearby console. "What's that?" he asked, looking over at Major Katz.
Katz spotted the light in question wandered over to the panel, studying it for a moment, the expression on his face falling further. "That's… not good…"
"Ya think?" Jack snapped.
"Sorry, sir, it's… it's a warning light indicating that there's stress on the underground water storage tank."
"You're telling me this situation is about to get worse?" the Colonel asked, glaring at the younger officer.
"Yes, Sir, I'm afraid it -"
"What's going on?!" Cassie's frightened voice over the speakers cut him off.
"The door from the command room downstairs to the vault just slid closed by itself," Sam said, turning worried eyes to the others. "What happened?"
"Oh, no," Katz muttered. "It - it must be an automatic safety precaution. It must close the doors to seal off the area around the water tank in case of rupture."
"Rupture?" Sam asked with quiet urgency. "How much water is in that tank?"
"Fifty thousand gallons."
Cassie's desperate cry drew them back to the monitor. "SAM! The walls are leaking!"
Even over the monitor they could see the small jets of water springing from the wall, wetting the floor.
"We can't wait for the Fort Gunderson crew to get here," Jack said, turning away from the mike. "We gotta figure out some way of getting down there. Is there any way we can blast?"
"There isn't any dynamite within a hundred miles of here," Katz said, shaking his head.
"What about the powder magazine? What's in there?" he pursued.
"Some old artillery shells."
"Could we rig a charge?" he asked, glancing hopefully at Sam.
"I suppose we could," she agreed, returning to the blueprints on the table. "What did you have in mind?"
"There's too much blockage in the stairwell, but if we could set a charge we might be able to clear the way in the elevator shaft -"
"No," she interrupted, poking at the drawing, "it's too risky. Blasting there could completely block off the airshaft."
"Wait a minute! The airshaft!" O'Neill exclaimed. "How wide is it?"
Quickly moving to the table to consult the blueprints, Katz answered, "Forty-eight inches square."
"I can fit through that." Jack O'Neill didn't wait for agreement as he headed straight out the door.
"I'm coming with you!" Sam called as she hurried to catch up.
"Wait! You can't do that!" Katz attempted to protest.
Daniel pinned the man with a glare. "Either give us a hand, or stay out of the way," he warned as he grabbed the other man and dragged him out.
Slowing to a jog as the airshaft's aboveground head came into view, Jack heard Carter's footsteps right behind him. They reached for the grating covering the opening and together pulled it free. "Cassie! Can you hear me?" Jack yelled down.
The small voice filtered back up to him. "Colonel Jack? Is that you?"
"It's me, kiddo!" he called back down, an encouraged look on his face as he dug into his pockets. "Cassie, I'm gonna drop a couple of coins down the airshaft. You tell me if they come through, okay?" Without waiting for confirmation he reached into the shaft and let the coins in his hand go.
Moments later he got his answer. "They came through! Can I have them?"
"You sure can, honey!" he laughed. "Cassie, Sam and I are gonna come down there and get you, so you just sit tight, okay?"
The sound of a Jeep directly behind him drew his attention away from the air-vent and he turned to see Major Katz parking his vehicle. "We got some rope. Is the shaft clear?" Daniel asked as he jumped out, a large coil of rope over his shoulder.
"It's clear enough," Jack answered as he grabbed the matching coil from Katz and started securing the end of it to the Jeep's bumper. "We'll just go down, grab her, and you can pull us back up."
Daniel nodded as he tied off the end of the other rope to the Jeep as well, handed the other end to Sam, and tossed them each a pair of gloves. "That was the plan."
Jack quickly looped the rope around his hips and knotted it, then checked Sam's handiwork. "Let's go."
"Right behind you, sir." As soon as O'Neill had disappeared over the edge of the airshaft and began his descent, Sam climbed over. With one last glance at Daniel she started down.
Jack moved down the airshaft, his feet braced against the sides, allowing the Major to lower him. Sam hung above, following him down without question or hesitation. "This isn't the way I'd planned on spending the rest of the day, Carter," he muttered, loud enough for his voice to carry up to her.
"It wasn't in my plans either, sir, or I would have brought my climbing gear. And my bathing suit."
One piece? Bikini? He shook his head, trying to clear the sudden image that swam up into his mind's eye, unbidden.
Jack's feet finally touched the bottom of the shaft, and the dim light from the room beyond shone through the grating. He could hear the water within the chamber, pouring steadily from the walls. One swift kick and the grating tore loose from the wall, landing with a splash. "Hello, Cassie!" he said with a bright smile as he sat down on the bottom of the shaft, his dangling feet just touching the water.
"Hi, Colonel Jack!" she laughed from her perch on one of the desks. "Where's Sam?"
"Well, right now she's standing on my shoulders, so I think I'll get out of here," he chuckled.
Sam's voice echoed down from the confines of the dank shaft. "That'd be nice."
O'Neill jumped down, shivering as the chilly water reached his thighs. He slipped out of his improvised harness and turned to help his second in command down. "You were right, Carter. Should have brought our swimsuits." His eyes drifted sadly about the room as he saw a few of his own dreams sinking beneath the surface of the cold water. Maybe there are some things you're just not supposed to have, Jack.
"How do you like your private pool, Cass?" Carter joked as she untied herself and scooped the coins off the bottom of the shaft. She waded through the water to the desk and handed them over to the girl. "Here you go. A present from Colonel Jack. Spend it wisely."
"Thanks, Colonel Jack," she laughed. "Can we get outta here now?"
"Sure can, kiddo!" Jack said, wading over to her. "Let's -"
The tremor began slowly, an almost gentle rumble that grew louder by degrees, the water around them rippling with the shock waves. "No, no, no…" Jack chanted, willing Mother Nature to stop stomping her feet as he gathered Cassie and Sam close to him. The room trembled, the walls began to shake, and the sound of debris tumbling down the airshaft met his ears.
When the tremors faded, and Jack finally opened his eyes, the sight that greeted them sank his heart into his stomach. Rubble still tumbled out of the airshaft, splashing into the water.
"Jack! Sam!" Daniel's voice came over the speaker, high above them.
"Daniel!" Jack yelled back as he finished prying open the elevator doors again. "The airshaft is blocked now! We can't get back up that way!"
"We saw the much, Jack. We'll figure something else out. Are you three all right?"
"We're fine, Daniel," Sam answered. "But we're out of options. We're going to have to blast, and you're going to have to do it from up there!"
"Sam, if everything isn't just right -"
"Daniel, we've got no choice!" she insisted.
Jack moved back into visual range of the camera. "Daniel, I checked out the elevator shaft. Cassie was right, the blockage doesn't come down all the way. I can see about… fifty feet up, and that's where the jam starts."
"Okay," Daniel answered. "That means we've got maybe a twenty or thirty foot blockage in the shaft. If we blast we could wind up blocking the opening completely, Jack."
"We gotta try something, Daniel!" the Colonel insisted as he waded back through to stand in front of the camera.
"Get one of those artillery shells out of the powder magazine," Sam instructed calmly, pulling off her gloves as she came to stand at Jack's side. "You're going to have to drill maybe a ten foot hole, straight into that blockage. If you place the charge deep enough into the blockage it should just pulverize everything."
"What else?" Daniel asked.
Carter ran a hand through her short, disheveled hair, trying to visualize exactly what she was planning to improvise. "Well, you'll need some tubing to fit into the hole… some putty… a large pipe-cutter… a roll of twine.…"
"We don't have any drills, no post-hole diggers, we don't even have any shovels!" Katz exclaimed as he hurried back into the room, a forty-millimeter shell in his arms. "How are we supposed to cut a ten-foot hole?"
"I don't know, I don't know," Daniel muttered as he wandered about the chamber, kicking over a stray garbage pail. His eyes landed on a piece of equipment sitting forgotten in the corner. "That air-compressor - does it work?"
"Just about everything here works, Doctor Jackson," Katz assured him.
"Great! Okay, how much hose is there?"
"Gotta be over a hundred feet out in the -"
"Great! Now… pipe- pipe do you have any pipe?" he asked animatedly.
"There's a shed full of PVC out back," the Major answered, finally seeing where Daniel was going with his questions. Setting the shell down on the desk he hurried from the room.
"We're in business, guys!" Daniel yelled triumphantly into the mic.
"Kinda tough to pace in waist-deep water, isn't it, Carter?" Jack asked as he watched his second in command give it her best shot. Hoisting one of the stationary chairs atop a desk he helped Cassie stay out of the frigid water.
"Sorry," she apologized. Her eyes kept returning to the glass wall, the tantalizingly dry ten thousand foot expanse beyond it just inches out of reach.
"No chance that the pressure from all this water will break that glass and buy us time for the excavation crew to get here?" Jack finally asked as he waded over to her.
Sam shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not. It's too thick. We're… well, we're in a giant aquarium for all intents and purposes."
"Great. Great," he muttered. "I'm a guppy now."
"You know, I have to admit that I was getting more than a little excited about the prospect of setting this base up," she confessed with a smile as she looked up at Jack. "I mean, really being in on the ground floor, so to speak."
"And, I was getting more than a little excited about the possibility of getting command of the place," he sighed. "Of course, having a base under my command would have put me in Hammond's shoes. Sitting home while the kids went out to play."
"You… wouldn't have been able to travel with us anymore." A myriad of emotions and a spark of cautious hope glimmered in her eyes.
"Nope. I doubt Hammond would have wanted to give up his flagship team on a permanent basis, you know. Sure, for the initial set-up, and training, but, SG-1 probably wouldn't even have been assigned to this command. Things would have changed. A lot of things would have," he promised softly. "But, I guess it's not gonna happen here." I guess there are some things that are always gonna be just out of your reach, Jack, he thought morosely. For days he'd allowed himself to get caught up in his own thoughts, his own wants, his own needs and visions of a future filled with not only the attainment of professional satisfaction, but personal as well. Always together, but never… together.
"No. No, I guess it's not…but -"
"Major Carter?" The voice coming through the speaker cut her off. "Major Carter, Doctor Jackson and I have everything you needed. What do you want us to do?"
Jack caught the apologetic glance aimed at him and watched Carter slog back through the water to stand in front of the camera and take a deep breath. Her blonde hair was soaked from the number of times she'd run her wet hands through it, but she maintained her air of confidence, as always. "Major Katz, have you ever seen a Bangalore torpedo?" she asked.
"Would now be a good time to explain that I'm a legal officer, Major Carter?" he asked nervously.
"All right," she sighed. "Major Katz, take care of clearing the hole. Daniel, I want you to make the bomb. It's okay, I'll talk you through it," she assured her friend as he began to protest. She heard the soft splashing behind her as Jack moved to her side.
"I don't wanna rush you guys, but in about an hour or so this water is gonna be over our heads!" Jack warned, trying to keep his voice as calm and even as he could.
Pipe, hose and compressor loaded into the elevator, Major Katz took the car down as far as it would go, braced for the jolt when it struck the debris, and stopped. He pulled flipped up the emergency trap door, shining his flashlight down into the small cavity beneath him, the rubble clearly visible. "Here goes nothing," he muttered as he began to assemble the pipe and hose into a crude drilling device, and lowered himself through the hatch, praying the debris didn't give way with him on top of it.
Once satisfied that he his footing was firm he reached up into the elevator car and turned the compressor on. The noise from the compressor filled the small compartment and he positioned the pipe and hose in the center of the debris, pressing his full weight down onto it.
Daniel sat at the desk, the eighteen-inch long shell in a vise-grip in his hands. The makeshift canister and fuse sat waiting for the black powder he had to extract from the device. "All right, I'm trying to get it open now, Sam," he said, his arms straining with the effort as he twisted, trying to get the shell to open.
"Be careful of the detonator!" Sam warned sharply, nearly causing him to drop the shell. "And don't turn it too fast or the casing will overheat!"
"It's all right!" he yelled back. "You're in a bomb-shelter!" Getting a tighter grip on the shell he started to work in earnest. As the casing separated he allowed himself a brief sigh of relief, then poured the black powder carefully into a folded piece of paper, which he used as a funnel to fill the improvised canister. "I think we got it," he told his teammates, glancing quickly at the monitor, which showed the water level still rising steadily, now almost over Sam's chest. "How fast does this fuse burn?" he asked as he fed it into the canister.
"I have no idea," Sam answered. "I've never done this before."
Daniel had to smile just a little at the eagerness he could hear in her voice at the prospect of trying her hand at something new, no matter what the circumstances. "Great!"
Katz reappeared in the doorway, dirt smeared on his face and arms. "I got the hole down far enough," he said tiredly.
"Daniel, go place the bomb and then get out of the way," Sam urged him.
"I'm on my way! Hold on!"
Sam turned to Jack, shivering in the freezing water "Well, it's all up to Daniel now," she said with a forced smile.
"Yes, it is," he agreed, moving closer to her, his arms wrapping around her for a little warmth. "Maybe we should climb up on top of that desk with Cassie and get out of this water, huh?"
She nodded, seeming reluctant to move. "In case we don't get out of here… " she began tentatively, "there's… well, there's something I need to tell you -"
"Hey," Jack interrupted softly. "I know."
Sam turned her eyes upward to meet his. "Y-you know?"
"I know," he replied confidently. "And you can tell me, but do it when you want to, not when you need to."
"But, I -"
"Sam…" he interrupted again, chancing a look down into her eyes. "Wait until we get outta here, until we get back up into the real world… until we've dried off and come back to our senses. Then, if you're still ready to tell me, I'll be ready to hear it. Okay?"
A slight smile crept across her face as she nodded. "Okay."
"We should take cover," he reminded her. "Daniel's got a bomb and he doesn't really know how to use it."
The elevator hit the blockage once again, and Daniel dropped to the floor of the cab, hanging down through the open trap door to place the cylindrical bomb into the hole Katz had drilled. He quickly fed out the line of the fuse and plucked the matches from his pocket. "Here goes nothing," he muttered as he lit the fuse and scrambled back into the elevator cab, slapping at the UP button. The car seemed to move in slow motion upwards and moments later the explosion below knocked him off his feet again. White smoke billowed up through the open trap door. "Jack? Sam?" Jackson yelled down, praying for an answer.
The explosion cut through the debris, sending it showering down the shaft and into the water, raising the water level with its mass as Jack shielded Sam and Cassie with his own body. Once the debris stopped falling, Jack moved away from the others, wading towards the open elevator doors as he heard the call from above.
"Daniel! It's all clear!" he cheered loudly. "Come and get us, but hurry it up!"
The loud buzzing pop of a live wire as it swung loose from the ceiling just a few feet from the elevator doors cut short the relieved laughter of the three people trapped below ground. Sam stared at the wire swinging unsteadily just inches above the water.
"Oh, shit…" Jack murmured, motioning Sam and Cassie to hurry as he yelled up the elevator shaft again. "Daniel! There's a high-voltage wire just a couple of inches from the water! If you don't hurry up we're gonna fry down here!"
Sam carried Cassie through the water, which was over the little girl's head, her heart pounding in her chest as she watched the water level rise, and heard the hum of the elevator car as it rode down towards them. She saw the bottom of the cab appear, and Daniel's feet, then watched as the cab stopped short, just above the water, leaving less than three feet of open space for them to climb up into. Daniel dropped to the floor of the cab, holding his arms our to them. "C'mon!"
"Cassie first," Jack said urgently, hoisting the frightened girl from Sam's arms. Daniel caught hold of her and pulled her quickly into the elevator, then reached out to help Sam climb in with them. "Jack! Come on!" he yelled, grabbing hold of his friend's arms and throwing his weight backwards.
Jack felt his near-frozen feet clear the cab and yelled, "GO! GO!"
Sam reached up and slammed her hand down on the UP button, holding her breath until the cab jolted upwards just seconds before the live wire below contacted the rising water.
The elevator shuddered and groaned but didn't halt its upward trek and Sam sagged back against the wall beside Jack, one arm wrapped protectively around the shivering young girl at other side.
O'Neill slowly exhaled the breath he'd been holding, and cast a grateful smile at Daniel. "Attention shoppers; we have a blue light special on the ground floor. All water-damaged goods half price."
"Blanket for you, Major?" Major Katz offered the woman sitting on the hood of the rental car.
"Thank you." She gratefully reached for the worn blanket, wrapping it around herself, She shivered a little despite the warmth of the evening air, grateful for the dry clothes she'd gotten from her bag in the car. She draped her arm and blanket around the also-shivering blonde next to her. "You okay, Cassie?" she asked softly.
"Would be better if we had some hot chocolate," she replied with a shaky laugh.
"We'll getcha some as soon as we get back to town. Promise."
Jack emerged from the barracks in a pair of clean, dry jeans and a sweater, briskly toweling his short hair. "Sorry to hold you up, Major Katz," he apologized with a wry smile. "Again."
"That's all right, Sir. I'm glad I was here to help. I have a feeling this is the last time any of us are going to see this place."
"Yeah, if the rescue team ever shows up they're probably going to recommend just filling the whole place in," Daniel speculated, turning his attention to his teammates. "C'mon, whattaya say we leave 'em a note and head back into town."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Jack concurred. "Well, Cassie, I guess this trip wasn't as boring as we thought it was going to be, huh?"
"No," she agreed. "But, can we not tell Janet about this? She's never gonna let me go anywhere with you guys again."
Daniel settled into the back seat, letting Cassie lean tiredly against him, knowing the girl would be fast asleep long before they reached town. His own jaw-popping yawn let him know that he wouldn't be long behind her.
As the evening sky faded from the soft pinks and blues of sunset to twilight, Jack saw the lights of town appear in the distance. "Looks like all those changes we were talking about might have to wait a while," he said with a questioning glance at the woman who sat in the passenger seat. "But, it's still a damn good idea, and we're not going to give up on it just because of one set-back. But, some thing's are worth waiting for. Don't you think?" he asked softly.
"I do. Maybe we weren't ready for… those changes right now, anyway," she answered quietly, staring out the window.
"Maybe we weren't. Think we will be, someday?"
"Yeah. I think someday we will be."
fin