Mistaken
Sam Carter walked through the corridor of the Prometheus, clipboard in hand, staring at her calculations. She hardly even noticed when Cam Mitchell caught up with her and walked next to her, looking at the clipboard over her shoulder.
"Interesting?" he asked after a few minutes.
She jumped, "How long have you been there?" she asked him.
He shrugged "What are the numbers about?"
She smiled. That was so typically Cam. Whenever he felt like it he would just change the subject. "We're on our way to P4M-399," she reminded him. "Remember, the planet without a Stargate? SG-13 bought back those artefacts that suggested that the Ancients may have been there."
Cam looked at her blankly. "So...cool weapons?"
Sam smiled again, and walked through the doors onto the bridge. Daniel and Teal'c were there.
"Hey Sam!" Daniel said, raising his hand in greeting. Teal'c just bowed his head.
"Colonel Carter," Colonel Pendergast greeted her distractedly. He was staring out of the front windows.
"Colonel." said Sam formally.
Cam was about to say something, probably to let Pendergast know that he was there too, when Major Gant spoke up. "Sir, we're coming up on something!"
Pendergast rushed back to his seat. Sam stood by and watched as everyone sprang into action.
"What is it?" demanded Pendergast.
"It could be a ship. sir, it is big enough."
"Can you get me a visual?" he asked.
"She's still too far out sir."
Pendergast sighed and leant back in his seat. "Shields to maximum," he commanded.
"Yes, sir" Gant obeyed immediately. "Sir," he said as a beeping sprang into life. "Picking up a distress beacon."
"Put it on."
White noise filled the silence. "Help...Life support...failing...families...on board...help." said a faint woman's voice. The transmission continued until Pendergast nodded at Gant.
"What do we do?" asked Cam, "These people are in trouble, going by what that woman said."
"Assuming they are people," retorted Pendergast. "It could be a trick."
"I understand that it could be a ruse," Daniel chipped in with the humanitarian argument, as per usual, "but can we really take the risk? If there really are people on board that need help by denying it on the possibility that they could be harmful, well, we may as well be signing their death warrants."
Sam decided to speak up. "And we don't have the right to do that."
Pendergast thought for a moment.
"Coming up on ship," said Gant.
An small image was just visible through the window, growing ever bigger as the Prometheus drew closer. Sam caught her gasp in her throat. The ship was definitely the last one she ever wanted to see. It was the ship that had chased the Prometheus into the gas giant and beamed up the crew to do who knows what to them. Pendergast had no idea, since it was Ronson who had commanding the ship at that time, and he was coming closer to the mysterious ship. Only Sam had any idea of how dangerous that ship was.
"Sir, I think this is a bad idea," she said faintly.
Pendergast turned and stared at her. "But you were only just saying how we had to help them," he said in disbelief.
"I know, but if I'm right, and I'm pretty sure I am, then we cannot go nearer that ship."
"What is it Colonel Carter?" asked Teal'c.
She paused. "I think that's the same ship that forced us into the gas giant about two years ago."
Gant sat up straight. "I remember that!" he said, suddenly. Everyone turned to look at him. "We were transported onto the other ship, and..." he trailed off.
Pendergast stood up and walked to the window. The strange ship was floating in space, looking derelict. "Run a scan," he commanded Gant.
"Scan shows life support failing and there are four life signs on board," he looked up at Pendergast. "All the escape pods have been launched," he said. "They're stuck."
Daniel looked at Cam. Teal'c looked at Sam. Sam just stared at the ship. "Sir..." she began, but he cut her off.
"Colonel! We have to at least try and help," he said, huskily. "Colonel Mitchell, take a team onto the ship and see if there are any survivors."
Cam nodded, and he walked out, followed by Daniel and Teal'c.
"Sir, requesting permission to go with them," said Sam, standing in front of him.
"Agreed," said Pendergast formally. She nodded and ran to join Cam and the others.
The light from the beam briefly flared in the silent ship. Tendrils of smoke drifted around the dim corridors, lit only by the pale red emergency lights on the walls.
As soon as they arrived, Cam lifted his gun, and scanned the area. He nodded and they quickly moved out of the rings. They crept around the ship until they got to the bridge. Or what was left of the bridge. Through the smoky haze Cam could see coils of wire hanging from the low ceiling, terminals spitting out sparks every so often illuminating further destruction. Cam peered through the dim fog, his eyes straining for anything to suggest... there!
"We have possible casualties!"
Cam ran towards a group of bodies that lay slumped over chairs and computers, accompanied by Teal'c.
Daniel walked over to the person in the chair in the middle of the bridge. Obviously the captain. As he drew nearer, he saw it was a woman, not more than twenty, he guessed. She lay slumped over one of the arms, her bright red hair escaping form it's pony-tail. She had been reaching towards something, as her arm was in front of the other, her fingers just touching the nearest terminal. She must be the one who sent the beacon, thought Daniel. He lifted her gently back into the seat, her head flopped backwards as he checked her pulse. "She's alive!" he called.
"So's this one!" answered Sam, kneeling by a man, dressed in the similar blue and silver overall as the Captain.
"Same over here," agreed Cam, next to a small, bespectacled man lying face down on the floor.
"And here!" said Teal'c crouching by another woman, who was bent backwards over her seat.
"Ok," said Sam, straightening up. "I think these are our four life signs."
"Uh...Don't we have to move quickly?" asked Daniel. "I mean, because of the failing life-support?"
Teal'c nodded. "That is indeed correct, Daniel Jackson," he intoned solemnly.
"Ok, Prometheus, we need you to beam up the four people to your infirmary," said Cam into his radio.
"Copy that," Pendergast said.
A few seconds later, a tell-tale glowing light told Cam that the Prometheus was about to beam them up. He was right, as the next thing they saw the bridge and Pendergast's concerned face looking at them.
"Don't worry, sir," said Sam, looking a little pale, "the people seemed to be fine."
He nodded. "I think we need some questions answered," he sighed, getting up. SG-1 followed him out of the bridge, down to the infirmary.
The captain of the ship was lying on the white sheets of the bed in the Infirmary. The colour made her look pale and vulnerable, but with her shock of hair she caught Cam's attention as soon as he entered. Or it was the fact that she was very pretty, with a short, sharp nose and full, stern mouth.
"How's she doing?" he asked the nearest doctor.
"She's stable, for now," she replied. "Bit of oxygen starvation, but she seems ok now. It was lucky you found her when you did: a little longer and she wouldn't have made it."
Cam nodded. He walked over to her, standing beside her body. Restraints held her wrists in place, but her neck was free.
Sam joined him. "Are you ok?" she asked.
"Yeah," he replied.
"She will be out for a little while longer, then she'll be fine for questioning," the doctor told Pendergast, who had shadowed Sam as she entered. He nodded. "Inform me when she wakes up," he said, then he turned on his heel, and walked back to the bridge.
"I'll stay with her," said Cam.
Sam nodded. "Come on," she said to Daniel and Teal'c, and they followed her out of the door.
Cam stood over the woman for a while. She looked so pale. She really was very pretty, and that hair!
She sat up suddenly. Cam leaped backwards, "Whoa!" he cried.
The woman looked around, her dark eyes surveying everything. Her long red hair fell loose around her shoulders. "Where am I?" she whispered. Cam opened his mouth, but she had more to say. "Who are you? Where are my crew? Why am I here, where's my ship?" she demanded.
"I'm," he began, and she turned and stared at him. "Lt Colonel Cam Mitchell," he finished.
She shuffled so she could sit more comfortably, wincing a little as the restraints cut into her. "Commander Bryony Wallis," she said, "of the Earth ship Navis. Where am I?"
Cam froze. "Earth?" he said, huskily.
Bryony nodded. "Where did you think I was from?" she said, looking at him as if he was stupid.
"You're, um," he said, clearing his throat, "you're on the Earth ship Prometheus."
Bryony's eyes showed no emotion. She just sat there, perfectly still, until her eyes grew wider and wider. "Um," she coughed. "Earth?"
"Yeah."
"Prometheus?"
"Yeah."
"You're lying," she said, decisively. "This isn't from Earth, it's too..." she trailed off, looking for the right words.
"Too?" Cam prompted.
She smiled at him, patronisingly. "Basic," she said shortly.
"What?" Cam said, blinking. "What do you mean "Basic"?".
"Well, for one thing, you'll never revive my crew with this," she nodded at the machines, "stuff."
Cam looked around him, at the high-tech medical machines in the space-ship's Infirmary. "And why is that?" he said, smiling inwardly. Bryony seemed so sure of herself.
Bryony sighed. She had dreaded this moment, having to tell someone about what she had done. "I drugged them," she said, glaring at Cam, daring him to judge her.
Cam met her gaze. "Why did you do it?" he whispered.
She paused. "Because their whole families had been put in stasis," she explained matter-of-factly. "They were torn up with grief, and they began to make mistakes that jeopardised the mission and the millions of souls in stasis. It was the only thing I could have done." Having finished her explanation she looked around her once more, as though her story was no longer important enough to merit her attention.
Cam looked at his hands. Even though she seemed so cold about it, he could understand why she did it. But still...
"Did you give them a choice?"
She looked back to him, her expression stony, affronted, and somehow a little hurt.
"Of course. I'm not a complete monster."
There was an awkward silence. Cam didn't really have an answer.
"And, when we came under fire, I thought they would divulge crucial information," she said huskily, bowing her head.
Cam looked at her. She lifted her head, composing herself. "So," she said coldly. "Why are you here?"
He blinked "What?"
She rolled her eyes. "In this quadrant," she said, talking to him as if he was seven years old. "We were the only Earth ship that was supposed to be travelling near this section."
"Why?"
Bryony smiled "You gotta lot of questions there, boy."
Cam raised his eyebrows. Boy? She couldn't be much older than he was!
"Anyway, it's swarming with...wait!" she gasped. "If you were really an Earth ship you'd know this!" She narrowed her eyes at him. "Who are you!?"
Cam groaned "I told you," he sighed. "I'm Lt Colonel.."
"Yes, I know that!" she interrupted, crossly. "I mean..."
She broke off as four people entered the Infirmary.
"Ah, she's awake," said Pendergast, strolling over to her bed.
Bryony glared at him. "She has a name, you know!"
Pendergast put his hands behind his back. "What would that be then?"
"Commander Bryony Wallis."
Pendergast raised his eyebrows. "Colonel Pendergast of Prometh..."
"Prometheus, yes I know," Bryony shot a sideways smile at Cam. "Well, my ship is the Navis of Earth, and seeing as I out-rank you, I suggest you take me back to my ship, seeing as I can now fix it." She raised her eyebrows at Pendergast, full of dignity, even though she still had restraints round her wrists and had to look up at him.
Pendergast was stunned into silence.
"Wait a minute," said Sam, stepping forwards to look at Bryony. "Did you say you were from Earth?"
Bryony rolled her eyes. "Takes long for you guys to get the big picture, doesn't it?" she muttered to Cam. "Yes!" she told Sam, loudly as if she was dumb.
"And what year do you think it is?" Sam continued, relentlessly.
Bryony laughed shortly, a funny little sound, mocking. "20056" she said, smiling.
There was a silence, broken only by the beeping of machines. "It isn't, is it?" said Bryony to Sam, stunned.
Sam shook her head. "No," she replied quietly.
"Ah."
Cam joined Sam in the Canteen later. Bryony had been so shocked at this news, and she had obviously not really believed them, she had refused to say anything else in case it "caused serious repercussions in my time".
"How did you figure it out?" he asked, after a while.
"Well, her ship was the clue," began Sam, "then.."
"Wait a minute, is this gonna take long? 'cos I haven't had my coffee," Cam interrupted.
Sam smiled. "It was the plan for her ship," she explained. "They were very similar to the floor plans for this ship, so similar it was strange. And we taped the whole of your conversation, and the way she was looking around, as if she already knew where everything was. And we are the only planet we have come across with exactly the same military ranking as the one she referred to."
Cam was still. Sam thought he was thinking, but she realised that he was day dreaming. She sighed, got up without a word and left the Canteen.
"Hey!" called Cam, long after she had gone.
Bryony was out of bed, to Sam's surprise. She started as Sam entered, looking up guiltily from examining the inside of the heart monitor. She had managed to cut through her bonds and remove the cover of the machine.
Sam raised her eyebrows. "Should you be up?"
"Should you be letting me?" came the curt reply.
Sam smiled and fiddled with the broken bonds. "Aren't you the least bit bothered about the fact that you got sent back in time?" she burst out.
"Yes!" snapped Bryony. "I was deep in thought when you arrived!"
Sam hid a sideways smile. Cam may be able to deal with Bryony, but she was a bit of a puzzlement to Sam. Every time she thought that Bryony might be trusting them, she built up a wall of hostility between them. "So," Sam began, "what were you thinking?"
Bryony looked at her sideways through a curtain of bright red hair.
"We were travelling through hyperspace when I think it happened," explained Bryony to Cam, Daniel, Teal'c and Pendergast. They were gathered around the table in the briefing room in the Prometheus. Sam and Bryony were standing in front of a screen, on which a projection showed a ship travelling through hyperspace.
"We were travelling past a sun at the time," Bryony clicked a button, and the picture changed to a micro-singularity being formed. "The window must have been travelling past the sun, at the precise second that the singularity formed."
"We believe," cut in Sam, "that the window must have been jolted in the formation, and the window came out in our time."
"And as soon as we came out, we came under fire from what looked like the old Goa'uld Motherships," continued Bryony, placing her hands on her hips, and cut off the projection.
Cam raised his hand. "Sorry, but didn't you say that there were families on your ship?" he asked.
Bryony, for the first time, looked somewhat uncomfortable. "There were," she confessed, "But we had to launch all of the escape shuttles as soon as we took of from my Earth," she explained quickly.
Daniel leant forwards. "Why?"
Bryony gave him the Evil Eye. She was very good at it. "Because we weren't really supposed to bring families on board," she said haltingly.
Daniel looked at Cam. Cam looked at Daniel. "What?" they asked, at the same time.
Bryony shifted. "The ship wasn't ready," she blurted out. "It was finished, but I was told to take it on a test flight. Our..." she paused "Allies, had given us beaming technology. There were thousands of refugees on our planet. The last war against our enemies had decimated the planet, leaving hundreds of people homeless. I, and the other members of my crew, saw that the Navis was their only hope for survival," she stopped, and gave a deep sigh. "The plan was to beam them all aboard, put them into stasis pods in the escape shuttles, so the engineers wouldn't detect them on the life-signs detectors, take off, then launch them as soon as we were close enough to the habitable moon we had found." Bryony stared at Pendergast, who was looking at her as if she was crazy.
"So," said Cam. "You stole a ship."
"No!" retorted Bryony. "I, we, borrowed it!"
Daniel rolled his eyes. "But how do you plan getting back then?" It looked as though Pendergast and Bryony were about to have an argument about what was stealing, and what was borrowing in the ship department. Daniel wanted to stave it off.
Bryony stopped staring at Pendergast, and re-directed her gaze at Sam.
"Well, we were thinking," began Sam.
"No, I was thinking, you were listening," interrupted Bryony.
Sam rolled her eyes. "Anyway, we thought," Bryony rolled her eyes "If we could open a hyperspace window close enough to another micro-singularity close to the one that caused this, then theoretically,"
"Oh boy, when she says that, I know I wouldn't understand the rest of what she's sayin'," murmured Cam to Daniel, who smiled.
"The window should jump forwards to Bryony's time," continued Sam, as if she hadn't heard him.
"How will you know if you will exit at the right time?" queried Teal'c.
"Well, we don't, but,"
"You don't!" burst out Bryony. "I could end up in the Jurassic period!"
"But," Sam tried to calm her. "I don't think we have any other choice."
Bryony sighed. "Alright," she shrugged. "I know I'm gonna regret this, but, like you said, I don't think we have a choice."
Sam sighed, and pushed he hair with her free hand. She and Bryony were sitting alone in the briefing room, surrounded by papers and laptops and countless empty coffee mugs.
Bryony was staring at a map, a grey folder poking out from underneath it, of the space that they were travelling in. "This is hopeless!" she groaned, tilting her chair back and stretching her arms.
Sam didn't say anything. She could feel her concentration slipping, so she made to take a sip of coffee, only to find the mug was empty. She closed her eyes, and put her head on the desk.
Bryony thoughtfully chewed a thick bit of hair, and stared at Sam's head. She looked at the charts in front of her. Then she sat up straight. "Sam!" she whispered hoarsely. Yuck. Her mouth felt as if something furry had died in there. "Sam," she tried again.
Sam lifted her head, and looked at her with bleary eyes. "Yeah?" she asked croakily.
"I need to go back to my ship."
Bryony ran back to the Bridge, her heart pounding loudly in her ears. She didn't know if this would work, but to be honest, she didn't really care.
Cam followed her. "What's your idea?" he asked.
"You wouldn't understand," said Bryony shortly, slipping back into the captains seat. A large diagram flickered onto the large window in front of them. It jumped, and died. Bryony growled. "Piece of crap!" she muttered, thumping the arm of her seat.
"Er, I don't think that'll help..." said Cam, but then the Screen flickered again. Bryony turned to him with a smirk on her face. "Diagram of this Quadrant," she said out loud. The diagram panned out, but it wasn't just the camera that did that. The picture zoomed out, engulfing the entire room. Stars filled the black translucent space, planets grew bigger, the detail on them amazing. Bryony up, walked in between them, looking at the stars. "Just suns," she commanded. The stars vanished, leaving just the suns and a few smaller planets orbiting them. She leaned closer towards a large, bright sun. "This one," she decided. The suns and their planets disappeared, except the one Bryony was pointing at. She pulled a small device, not unlike the one Nerus had when he had shown SG-1 the Ori's Beachhead, out of her pocket. She held it directly underneath the sun, and it folded away into the device with a small beep. "Let's go," she said.
Back on the ship, Sam was preparing everything for Bryony's plan. Daniel was trying to help, as was Teal'c, but they found it hard to keep up with Sam's demands, so they were sitting and watching. She rushed from computer to computer, loading programs, changing them, downing them.
Cam and Bryony beamed into the middle of the room. "Ready?" asked Bryony.
Sam nodded.
"Good, let's go."
Bryony settled into the seat of her ship, the familiarity of it's material made her happier than she had been in days. She spun round and looked at the first mate. Her crew was awake, and ready to go. Jenni (the First Mate) smiled back at her, then placed her hands on the computer. Bryony sighed with pleasure, and stared out of the window at the front. "Prometheus, we are good to go," she informed them.
"Good," replied Sam. "Have you uploaded the co-ordinates?"
"Of course." Bryony had remembered their plan to fly close enough to the sun, which was already a black hole in her time, and due to collapse in Sam's time. Sam had been worried, but theNavishad good enough shields not to be pulled apart. Bryony silently thanked their precious allies, the...
"Leave on my mark," Sam's voice cut through her thoughts like a knife.
"Ready to embark," ordered Bryony to her crew. She could hear the engines powering up, vibrating through the whole ship.
"Three, two, one, mark!"
Cam watched from the Bridge as Bryony's ship turned and zoomed out of the sky in a flash of purple.
Bryony sat in her seat for thirty seconds, counting silently inside her head. "Drop out of hyper space," she ordered suddenly.
Jenni turned and stared at her. "What?"
"Just do it, or it'll be too late!" Bryony sighed and smiled. "I have something I need to do."
"Sir, a bogey just appeared on our sensors, dead ahead, three thousand clicks away," Major Gant said suddenly to Colonel Ronson.
"Can you identify it?" he asked, sitting in the captain's seat in the middle of the Bridge of the Prometheus.
"Negative Sir. It's closing on our position very quickly."
"Sounds general quarters," muttered Ronson.
"Bogey is now at two thousand clicks."
"Raise shields. Arm weapons," ordered Ronson.
Bryony nodded in satisfaction as she saw the little ship in front of the greenish-pink gas cloud. "Keep going, don't slow down." she ordered. She had looked through mission reports when she was supposed to be thinking of a plan, and had found this one. She knew what she had to do. "Scan them."
"This is Colonel William Ronson, commander of the Prometheus. Please respond. If you can hear me I offer you peaceful greetings." came a man's voice over the speakers.
"Don't open a channel," she told Jenni, who looked at her in fear. "I know what I'm doing. Power weapons." Jenni jumped to obey.
"Fire."
I think you all know the rest. Bryony beamed the crew straight up into her spare Stasis pods. No-one saw her, except for Major Gant, who caught a glimpse of her. What's not in the episode, is at the end, the ship flies away into a hyper space window. What Sam doesn't know, is that inside that ship are four people, one with bright red hair, and she is their Captain. They all return to their home, and fight in the first great battle of the New Empire. The Navis goes down over the very planet on which Bryony gave to the refugees. She continued fighting until the very end, standing up for her believes, that we all die sometime, so we might as well make the most of life. She is the type of person who stands up for the little guy, and that is what I like most about her.
Note: Navis (pronounced Nar-Wis) is Ship is Latin, so it is called the Ship Ship!