D. S. al coda
By calantha42
Summary: Wound and corner any creature, and it will invariably strike out at the nearest target. Sam and Daniel find themselves trapped on an isolated planet, struggling to survive an unexpected flood.
Genre: Drama, A/A, Angst, Sam and Daniel friendship
Rating: 14+
Timeline: Directly follows the season 2 episode 'Secrets.'
Author's Notes: For mik100, um, Merry Christmas? Sorry about the wait, this story grew far beyond what I expected in both length and complexity. I hope you enjoy! I'm close to finished this story, and I'll be posting a new part every week. Tentatively, it's looks like there will be 12 parts in total.
This is also my first time writing anything past 5000 words so any constructive criticism and feedback is welcomed the way my cat welcomes tuna. Which is to say, far, far beyond what's reasonable.
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment.
Part One
Sam stood nearly a third way up a deep valley, her MP-5 resting casually in hand, enjoying the vivid spring view. A light breeze ruffled her hair and all the leaves in the trees surrounding her. She could definitely appreciate the temperate interruption to the boiling summer heat they were experiencing back in Colorado Springs.
The world was in full spring bloom with breathtaking views across the valley they had been steadily climbing. Near the bottom of the valley lay the gate, cloaked in newly budded trees. Near the gate was a twisting stream, which from her vantage point looked like a string of silver. Daniel was beside himself with the steady supply of ruins littering the valley walls. Apparently, they came from a culture long lost on earth, which had not been nearly so well preserved on their own planet.
Sam's primary involvement on the planet was concerning its potentially rich source of minerals and oil. Oil, of all things. Sam let that one go, confident that it wouldn't take the SGC too long to figure out a more sophisticated and cleaner source of power. So far, the naquadah that the Goa'uld used as their primary source of power looked incredibly promising. Until then, she could humour the politicians.
According to Teal'c, none of the powerful goa'uld took any interest in the planet, though he wasn't sure why that was the case. Both Sam and the Colonel suspected it was due to the steep terrain to both sides of the gate, and the planet's remoteness in the galactic scheme of things. It would take most ships far too long to reach this planet.
Right now Daniel was crouched near a conglomeration of stones, the fifth one they'd found today. He scribbled madly in his notebook, making vaguely pleased sounds every few seconds. A light breeze fluttered her hair gently, tickling her ear. Sam could enjoy history and mythology as much, possibly even more than the next person, but she truly didn't understand the appeal of this part of Daniel's job.
She told him exactly that, and he smiled widely. "I know exactly what you mean," He replied. "Calculus 201. I'd rather be eaten alive by mutant tigers than take that course again."
She furrowed her brow, imagining a super tiger with powers of super speed and invisibility. "But math is fun."
He raised an eyebrow. "Sure it is."
She scanned the surrounding area again briefly. The perimeter had been secured but personal experience had shown her that one could never be too careful off-world. There very literally could be tigers lurking about. All though it was unlikely they'd be mutants.
Except all she saw was trees and the massive valley wall climbing up across from her. A glance at the sky and she realized the clouds had become quite heavy.
"Hey Daniel – I think it's going to rain."
"Hmm?" He said, most likely not hearing a thing.
"It's going to get wet soon. Why don't we check out the caves again while it's raining, and come back here when the weather clears?"
He seemed hesitant to leave his pile of rocks, but grudgingly packed his things.
They were at the mouth of one of the shallow caves, a ten minute hike uphill from their previous location when Sam's radio buzzed to life.
"Captain, it looks like we're getting my favourite thing – rain. Where are you guys?"
"I thought your favourite thing was trees." Daniel interjected over his radio.
She smiled. "We noticed the clouds and headed back up to the caves. We're inside them right now."
As though it had been perfectly choreographed, the heavy clouds suddenly dropped a slew of heavy raindrops. Sam decided she was very grateful for the presence of the rocky overhang to keep her dry. The caves were barely one meter deep at their widest, but it sufficed. At least they were tall enough that neither Sam nor Daniel needed to crouch down.
"Sounds good. Teal'c and I are gonna set up some shelter down here and weather it out."
He sounded cheerful enough, but Sam was pretty sure he was bored out of his mind, guarding the gate while she and Daniel did their thing. The planet may have been known for being a goa'uld backwater, but that didn't necessarily mean their presence was completely absent.
It was only the second day out of a ten day long mission, and Sam knew if the rain kept up, the Colonel was going to get less than pleasant to work with. Luckily, however, Sam was going to be returning early – she had received a surprising phone call several days ago from her father, asking if he could visit her.
She was loathe to opt out of a mission, but both Colonel O'Neill and General Hammond agreed that she should take the opportunity to spend some time with him She really didn't want to dwell on the sinking feeling she got when she remember exactly why everyone was so accommodating and flexible.
But lying to herself wouldn't make reality go away. God knew he had been avoiding the whole thing long enough – she thought she might never have this chance to see him, his stubborn pride keeping him away until he died.
Of course, it had been unspoken between her and General Hammond that they would not be mentioning her abbreviated mission to visit her father. There was no way in hell he'd ever allow that – even if he did think she worked in Deep Space Radar Telemetry.
So she'd be returning to earth this evening, and once the planet was deemed safe (and really, they'd seen nothing beyond some ridiculously large squirrels) SG-8, the new survey team would be coming to accompany SG-1.
The Colonel and Teal'c had a few supplies and a tent down by the gate, but she and Daniel had the bulk of the supplies that they had brought from earth. Most of if was ensconced in the deepest corner of this shallow cave they currently stood inside. A weeks worth of rations for two teams, clothing, supplies, tents - it had been less than pleasant carrying all of it up the valley, despite the mild weather.
She'd already covered the immediate area around their camp for any mineral related areas of interest, so she sat back and let Daniel get to work at studying the little scribbles along the rocky walls. Hopefully this rain didn't last too long.
Several hours had past and Sam found herself becoming restless. The rain had only become heavier, and Daniel was too involved in his work to provide any conversation.
"Daniel, I'm going to do a perimeter check." It was, after all, standard operating procedure, despite the buckets of water falling from the sky. She pulled a crinkly poncho out from her pack and pulled it over her head.
"Okay," He said waiving a distracted hand, "Watch out for those squirrels. They looked blood thirsty."
She laughed and headed out, her MP-5 in hand.
As expected, everything was exactly as it was before, except wetter. She couldn't see any signs of predator animals or other people near by. But, to her consternation, her boots were not as water proof as they claimed.
She was surprised how dark the sky had become, given that it was still midday on the planet. This was one hell of a storm. Maybe the whole team would head back with her, and the detailed survey would be postponed.
The hairs on her back of Sam's neck all rose in unison. Her heart skipped a beat – she had no idea why. It felt...it felt like someone one else was here. She ran her gaze across the area around her. Had she seen something? Her hands gripped her gun just a little tighter, ready. For what, she wasn't sure.
She couldn't see anything but grass and trees and rain. She couldn't hear anything except the rushing water. Sam stood alert for several seconds, but nothing happened. Cautiously, she continued back to the cave and Daniel.
For a half second she had expected to see Teal'c step out from behind the foliage. She frowned. That was random thought.
Almost immediately, the feeling went away. That was simply bizarre, she thought, still unsettled. Maybe something from Jolinar's mind had been triggered, and yet again, she wasn't able to recognize the context of her response.
Sighing, she realized that was probably exactly what it was. Sam had not told a single person, but she was quite certain that Jolinar's visit had left a significant imprint on her own mind. Sometimes, she thought things, or remembered things, or did things out of habit – but they weren't her own. And then she'd have this jarring impact with her actual reality and a terrifying moment of dissonance when she realized that the two didn't fit.
She was nearly back to the cave when her eye caught a glint of light from out from the running mud. Metal?
She crouched down and carefully reached towards it. She felt a minor tingling in her hands when she touched it – it was an alloy of naquadah.
Wiping away some of the runny mud, she found herself touching a shredded piece of metal, one jagged edge exposed. Sam pushed aside more mud, watchful for any other torn edges. The metal was warped, and light, but completely without rust.
She moved away more mud and pebbles. Encountering another edge, and then a third, she realized it was at least a half meter square, possibly larger. One side caught her eye – it had rivets of a sort. She'd seen something like this before.
For a moment, Sam thought she was having another bout of Jolinar induced déjà-vu. Then she placed it; Apophis' ship, when SG-1escaped inside the gliders. This is what the hull had looked like.
She reached across her shoulder a pressed down the button on her radio. "Colonel?"
There was a pause.
"What is it Captain?"
"I think I've found evidence of a ship being here at some point, while I was out doing a perimeter check." She told him.
The radio cackled, and through a hiss she heard his reply. "You found a ship?"
She stood up and pushed back a wet strand of hair away from her eyes, streaking her forehead with mud. "No sir, at least not yet. I've found what looks like a piece of a ship's hull, and it's been torn off."
"So, crashed ship?"
"Maybe. Or just pieces of goa'uld junk left over."
"Snakeheads," The Colonel said, "damn litterers."
"Ok then, you go get Daniel and start making your way back. Between this and storm, I think we've just hit a string of bad luck."
Sam took a breath. "Actually, sir, if this is evidence of a crashed ship, I think we should try and find it. We could learn a lot, even from the wreckage."
There was a longer pause. Finally her radio buzzed in response. "Alright, go and see if you can find the ship. But don't take too long, Teal'c says that that little stream we crossed has been getting wider."
"Yes sir." Sam said. The stream had been nearly a half kilometre from the gate, so she wasn't too concerned.
She walked over to the shallow cave and went to get Daniel.
Daniel clutched the hood of his rain poncho close to his head as a particularly strong gust of wind pushed through the trees. His glasses were covered in rain, and Sam's blurred figure in front him looked like an impressionist painting.
He was doubly unimpressed. First at being taken away from the caves, because even a week would barely be enough time to scratch the surface of what this planet had to offer in terms of history, and second, because the weather was awful and he wanted nothing more to be back in the dry caves.
His early memories were of warm summers in Chicago and trips abroad to desert climates. Only recently he'd considered the arid Abydos to be his home. So while he could tolerate almost anything to a point, one thing he had very little patience for was the wet and cold.
But then again, he hadn't seen Sam so excited since before her brief time as a goa'uld. Really, he shouldn't be too upset, if this was the result.
The ship wasn't that difficult to find, once they were looking for it. A quick perusal from a particularly high point down over the valley revealed several recently knocked down trees not far from where Sam had seen the torn piece of hull.
She and Daniel hiked through the rainy forest down to its location, sliding every so often in the gooey ground.
The ship itself was only partially uncovered. It looked like it had crashed, taken down several trees in the process and then slammed into a soft sedimentary cliff. The impact had caused a land slump and most of the ship was covered in earth and rocks.
"How did we miss this?" Sam said, a little bit of awe in his voice.
Daniel was more than a little surprised as well. The outer hull was twisted, and the top almost entirely ripped off, but it was still huge. And the inside looked relatively intact.
"Colonel," Sam said through her radio, "we found a crashed ship. It looks like it was about 10 meters by 15 meters, but one side is almost entirely crushed. The inside looks like it may be still partially functioning."
"Goa'uld?"
Even though Daniel's vision was too blurred to see writing, the build was unmistakable. Sam recognized it as well.
"Yes sir, it looks like a Teltak." She said.
Daniel took several steps into the wreckage, even though Jack had yet to give the go ahead. He was confident that was coming soon enough, so there was no sense in staying out in the rain longer than necessary.
He caught Sam's expression of concern, but she didn't say anything. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged a little in response. What Jack didn't see couldn't hurt him.
Part of the ship was still covered, blocking the falling rain. Daniel pulled off his glasses and shook off some of the dripping water rolling down the lenses. He pulled of his hood and replaced his glasses, the surface fogging faintly.
Only one console seemed to be intact, the rest crushed and compacted. The preserved one however still had several lights blinking, and he knew Sam would be ecstatic to get a closer look at the power source. He walked around what looked like it had once been a chair, twisted nearly beyond recognition and tilted on its side. He took in the view. Definitely goa'uld.
He heard Sam's crinkling poncho as she approached from behind. As predicted, Jack had ordered them to check it out.
"Wow." She breathed.
He turned to see her expression. Her eyes were wide, several stray pieces of stringy blond hair matted against her forehead. It was nothing short of beautiful to see that kind of wonder on her face again. Daniel smiled.
"One man's junk…"
She laughed. "That's an understatement."
She made a beeline for the most intact part of the consoles and started looking for the release. Daniel thought this must have been what she looked like as a child at Christmastime.
"I wonder who this belonged to." Daniel asked absent-mindedly, running his hands along the gold foil writing on one console. It was the typical goau'ld 'bow before your omnipotent and beautiful gods' spiel.
"Don't know. I'm pretty sure no matter how much someone knows about goa'uld engineering, this ship is never going to fly again." Sam muttered into the bottom console.
Daniel glanced behind him at the giant rip exposing an entire half of the ship, streams of wind angled rain falling inwards and pooling in the depressions of the floor. "Yeah…"
"It's hard to believe anyone could have survived this crash, but if there were any survivors, they probably gated home."
Daniel took another look around, walking twisting slowly around the warped metal. "I don't see any bodies."
"Animals could have gotten here first."
"Maybe." Daniel considered that. Except there were no plants growing around and in the crash area and few signs of extended water damage. "This crash looks recent, though."
"This is amazing." He heard Sam breath.
One more look in her direction revealed an open console, with Sam sitting cross legged several multi coloured crystals strewn around her and multiple loops of wire slung haphazardly. She had pulled out a small flashlight at some point, and it was tucked under her chin while both hands held pieces or cord and crystal.
He decided his cave writings really could wait.
This was confirmed with Sam's next exclamation. "Daniel! There's an intact storage crystal in here!"