Disclaimer: None of the characters from Stargate: SG1 are mine; I just enjoy playing with them. No remuneration of any kind has been exchanged in relation to this work of fiction. All rights are retained by the legal owners of the Stargate franchise, its subsidiaries, licensees and assigns.
Set in Season 5 after Desperate Measures, between Wormhole X-treme! and Proving Ground.
Summary: When SG-1 gate to a planet to study an atmospheric anomaly what they discover could change Sam's life forever, and may destroy an entire civilization. S/J ship, but I've done my best to keep it within cannon; so massive angst!
Author's Note: I'm trying to get back to writing after a long time away. I've had this story in my head for over a year and I realized I'm never going to finish it if I don't publish as I go instead of waiting until it is all done. At the moment I've got the story outlined at 14 chapters. My plan is to finish at least a chapter a week. So if I don't keep on schedule feel free to give me a hard time.
Noble Sacrifice
Chapter 1: Planet Fall
Colonel Jack O'Neill stepped out from the event horizon, weapon raised, alert to any potential threat as he took in the alien landscape. The trip through the stargate was not as disorienting as it had been in the early days, but he definitely felt the change going from dark emptiness then exiting the frigid wormhole onto the hot, dry planet with its bright orange sun. It took him a barely moment to get his bearings.
The stargate was located on a barren mesa overlooking a gorge that made the Grand Canyon look like an irrigation ditch. The plateau was covered in boulders and unusual rock formations. Bluish gray scrub and a cactus like plant were scattered infrequently about the reddish soil. It reminded Jack of a family camping trip he had taken with Charlie and Sara to the national parks in Southern Utah not long before Charlie died, but he quickly pushed those thoughts aside. The landscape below was even more inhospitable. There was no vegetation at all and the surface was pocked and cratered like the far side of the moon.
His team, clad in desert camo, was spread out before the familiar stone steps leading to the stargate. Jack took note of each one as he calmly descended. Teal'c was a few yards from the gate to his right. The Jaffa warrior stood in a pose of rigid alertness, staff weapon in hand, as he took in all the sights and sounds around them at a sweeping glance. The MALP and UAV that had preceded the team through the gate had sent back only limited telemetry, enough to conclude there were no immediate threats around the gate, but the former First Prime would not be so foolish as to discount possible hidden dangers. He always remained vigilant.
To Jack's left, his second in command, Major Samantha Carter, held her P90 before her in a loose grip as she too expertly scanned the area. His eyes lingered on her for a time. Standing near the MALP, Jack could tell she was anxious to relinquish her soldier role in favor of her scientist cap and begin an analysis of the planet's atmospheric anomalies. He was pleased to see how comfortable and confident she looked. This was her first off-world mission since the kidnapping. Jack's face contorted into a grimace. He was still enraged by the whole fiasco.
A few weeks before, Adrian Conrad, a terminally ill internet tycoon, had arranged for Carter to be abducted from the parking lot of her gym and subjected her to numerous medical experiments in a desperate effort to save his own sorry life using a goa'uld symbiote he had purchased from the Russians with Maybourne as an intermediary. Conrad believed that because of Carter's experience with the Tok'ra symbiote Jolinar, her physiology held the key to safely removing the goa'uld after it cured his disease. Jack and Maybourne had busted into the room in the abandoned hospital where Carter was being held prisoner, handcuffed to a gurney, just as Conrad's doctors were about to inject her with a substance that would have killed her almost instantly. Jack blew out a long slow breath. He didn't even want to think about how close he had come to losing her, again.
In the aftermath of her ordeal Jack had not been as attentive to Carter's recovery as he probably should have been because he himself was recovering from a gunshot wound he had received while attempting to capture the now goa'uld infested Conrad. And wasn't he just going to kill that SOB Maybourne the next time he got a hold of him for that one. Jack's thoughts quickly returned to Carter before his anger at the disgraced former NID leader. But when she beat the crap out of an NID agent a couple weeks later who was attempting to hold her and Daniel in a warehouse to keep them from providing him and Teal'c with back-up during the whole Martin Lloyd, alien ship fiasco, it was obvious she was still dealing with some residual trauma from her recent captivity. Not that Jack had any problem with her wailing on NID agents; he could barely suppress the urge himself most days.
When the MALP telemetry came in from this planet it was the first time since the kidnapping Jack had seen Carter really acting like her old self. She was almost giddy with excitement as she technobabbled to him about something to do with magnet spheres and air bubbles. OK, honestly, he wasn't really listening. He was too caught up in the sparkling blue eyes and dazzling smile he hadn't realized how much he had missed until that moment. That was enough for him to make it a priority to get P3J-something, something, something on to SG-1's mission list as soon as possible.
It helped that Daniel seemed to be equally excited about taking on this mission. Jack reluctantly swung his gaze away from Carter as he arrived at Teal'c's side looked over to the fourth member of his team. Somehow Jack managed to combine both a sigh of frustration and a twitch of a grin. While the rest of the team was poised and ready for any trouble that might arise on an unfamiliar and potentially hostile alien planet, Daniel could have been standing on his own front lawn. He had one hand on his boonie hat to keep it from slipping away in the grit laden breeze. He stood off to Jack's right a good deal apart from the rest of the team examining a ghost of a trail leading down a shallow ravine to the valley below, the direction they were most likely to encounter any civilization. Jack still wasn't exactly sure what had Daniel so worked up about this particular planet except that it was an address Jack had programmed into the base computer when he had the Ancient repository downloaded into his brain and it wasn't on the Abydos cartouche. So if there were inhabitants here, they likely weren't brought here by the goa'uld and may have some connection to the Ancients.
Before Daniel could wander further down the path he called him back to the group. Then he turned to his Major. "Carter, start taking your readings. Let us know what we've got."
Sam snapped off a crisp, "Yes, sir." and removed a handheld electronic device from her vest with which she began scanning the area.
Jack turned to Teal'c, "You and I will take a quick look around. Make sure we're secure here."
Teal'c gave a slight nod in acknowledgment as Daniel approached.
"Jack, we should . . ." Before Daniel could really get up steam, Jack cut him off by talking over him loudly, all the while keeping his eyes on Teal'c.
"Daniel and I will follow the yellow brick road over there and see if it leads us to munchkin land, after," Jack turned a hard stare at Daniel as he put emphasis on the word, "we're certain everything is safe around here." Daniel looked back at Jack like a rebellious teenager trying to decided just how far he can push his parents before losing his driving privileges.
Teal'c calmly surveyed the two men and spoke to diffuse the tension. "O'Neill, Daniel Jackson has indicated a desire to follow merely a dirt path. Nor is it yellow."
Daniel looked triumphant, as if Teal'c had just validated the argument he was about to make. Jack huffed with mock exasperation and was preparing to explain the reference, when Sam looked up from her instruments and quipped, "I wouldn't worry about it Teal'c, since the yellow brick road is supposed to lead to the Emerald City anyway."
"Thank you, Dorothy." Jack tried to put some bite in his voice but he couldn't hold it when he saw Sam duck her chin to hide a smile as she went back to fiddling with her doohickeys.
Jack glanced over at Teal'c and the two of them strode off to do a sweep around the vicinity of the gate. "We'll be back in ten." Jack called over his shoulder. Then gesturing somewhat in Daniel's direction, he added, "Don't let him go anywhere, Carter."
Daniel flapped his arms out to the sides as if to say to the turbulent orange sky, "You see what I have to put up with?" He moved away from the weathered path and started helping Sam with her equipment. She smiled back at him with fond understanding.
It didn't even take a full ten minutes for Jack and Teal'c to determine that there was nothing in the immediate area but more rocks and scrub. They returned to their other teammates busily unloading electronics equipment from Sam's pack and keying up instruments on the MALP. Daniel jumped up as they approached. Jack was reminded of a puppy anxious for a walk. Jack enjoyed his little game of keeping Daniel waiting, but he wasn't doing it just to be cruel. He wanted to get a preliminary status report from Carter before he allowed Daniel to go off exploring.
Jack pulled down his sunglasses, removed his hat and slapped it on his thigh to remove some of the gathering dust while rubbing a hand through his hair. "Carter, what've you got?"
Sam set her laptop aside with a brief look back as she moved toward the other three members of her team to close the loose huddle. "Sir, from what I can tell so far my readings are consistent with what we observed before coming to the planet." She sounded confused, which certainly didn't help Jack's confidence.
"So that's good, right?" Jack prompted as he returned his hat to his head, brim backwards.
"It doesn't make any sense." Sam lifted both hands as she moved into explanation mode. Jack braced for impact. "Intense solar winds and a weak magnetosphere indicate that this planet should not have a breathable atmosphere."
"Well since we're all breathing just fine, I'm going to assume there's another explanation." Jack paused. "Are we in any danger here?"
"No Sir, I don't think we are." Sam responded without hesitation. "On earth, the rotation of the planet in conjunction with circulation of the planet's liquid metal core creates a sort of magnetic shield around the planet extending from the poles that deflects solar winds, preventing the atmosphere from being peeled off and scattered into space."
Sam moved over to her laptop sitting open on the MALP and pulled up a complex schematic. Her team leaned over her shoulder from behind as she pointed at the screen. "This planet doesn't appear to have any planetary magnetosphere, but there's an intense magnetic field extending from the edge of this mesa, along the ravine, and for several hundred kilometers in every direction around the stargate."
Daniel spoke up. "So the source is the stargate?"
Sam shook her head. "No, that's highly unlikely. The stargate has never shown that it can do anything like this. But I still need to determine the exact extent of this atmospheric bubble. Maybe if I can find where it's centered we'll discover what's creating it."
"You believe this field is being artificially generated?" Teal'c queried.
"I don't know anything that can do this naturally." Sam replied.
Having now had it with the science lesson, Jack waived his hands to put an end to it. "Carter, just tell me this bubble isn't going to pop and throw us off into space."
Sam gave him an amused smirk as she turned away from the laptop. "Even if the magnet field were to suddenly collapse it would still take some time or a massive solar storm to strip away the atmosphere."
"And no chance we're going to accidentally go outside the zone and find ourselves without air."
"Unless you decide to jump off that cliff, Sir" she pointed toward the immense canyon, "no."
"Good enough." Jack replaced his sunglasses, turned and waived his arm for Daniel to follow. "Come on Daniel let's go meet the neighbors, if there are any." Daniel, temporarily distracted by Sam's report, did a quick turn back and forth until he located Jack heading toward the path that had so consumed his interest until just a few moments ago. He moved swiftly to fall into step with the SG1 leader before he had gone far.
"Teal'c, stay with Carter." Jack called back. "We'll be back in an hour. Check in at the half."
Before Daniel could protest the abbreviated time frame Sam spoke up. "Sir, I'm not sure our radios are going to work at a distance with the strong electromagnetic interference in the area."
Jack slowed briefly and turned back. "Yeah, alright. So if we're not back in an hour contact Hammond and let him know what's going on." Jack turned to Daniel like he was bracing for the inevitable argument, but with the extra wrinkle of no radios Daniel wisely chose to drop it.
Sam went back to her atmospheric analysis as Teal'c kept vigilant watch. Jack and Daniel entered the narrow ravine and began working their way down the path in search of a civilization of the Ancients.