Warnings and Disclaimer in Chapter 1.
Enjoy.
Briok looked up as the door to the brig opened. He stood up when he saw General Hammond enter the room. The General stared at him for a moment before motioning everyone out of the room. "I find it hard to think anyone would volunteer to be a host for a Goa'uld."
"You have met the Tok'ra have you not?" Hammond nodded. "Everyone who joins with a Tok'ra does so willingly."
"The Tok'ra aren't megalomaniac evil oppressors," Hammond countered. Briok shrugged.
"A matter of opinion. You can accept someone offering their body for a noble cause, but have trouble accepting the opposite could also be true." Briok stood, approaching the bars of the cell. "Pandora and I had more in common than you can believe. Our partnership was mutually beneficial for each of us."
Hammond nodded, understanding even though he couldn't comprehend anyone ever doing such a thing. "I am inclined to let Teal'c finish what he started in the briefing room," he said as he crossed the room. "Tell me why I shouldn't."
"I assure you," Briok said in the most respectful voice they have yet heard from him, "I have nothing but the utmost respect for Major Carter. I have no desire to inflict any further harm on her. Her presence is not for my personal pleasure, but required for any hope to recover your people and stop Pandora once and for all."
"And why does this burden fall on her shoulders?" he asked. "Haven't you already put her through enough?"
"Actually, her previous experience with us is why she is the only one who can help." He sighed, stepping back and sitting on the bunk. "I am dying. I have few days remaining. Once I am gone all the knowledge you will need will also be lost. Unless it can be given to another."
"You want to give her another memory transfer?" Hammond asked incredulously.
"The knowledge I have is essential. I can tell you where the information is stored, but by the time you find, study, and decipher it's meaning it would be too late to do any good. Pandora will have grown beyond your reach and it will most certainly be too late to help your friends. You need the information here," he pointed to his own head, "and you need it now while it can do some good."
"We'll ask for a volunteer," Hammond decided. Briok shook his head.
"It can be no one else."
"Why?"
"It takes months to prepare a subject for the procedure. I have days. Samantha is the only one who is capable of accepting the imprint." Hammond was silent. Briok hesitated momentarily before continuing. "I may be able to help Samantha at the same time."
"How?"
"Samantha's mental mapping was quite fascinating. Much more than any other volunteer." Hammond frowned. "Pandora kept a separate copy of her neural network. I could reintegrate the copy of her original scan."
"You could give her back to us?" Hammond asked hopefully.
"The copy won't be as complete as the original," he cautioned, "but it would be better than the blank slate she is now."
"How do you know of her current state?" Hammond asked. Briok smirked but remained silent. Hammond sighed. "I will not order her to do anything she doesn't want to." Briok nodded in understanding. Hammond stood, making the hardest decision of his life. "I will pass on your request, but the final decision will be up to Major Carter." Briok opened his mouth to reply, but Hammond forcefully shut the door on him.
The General slowed as he approached the lab. He had searched for Sam in her quarters, the infirmary, the cafeteria, the gyms, even the control room and briefing room. All with no luck. The last place he had to look was her lab. He knew it was the right choice as soon as he stepped into the hall. The room was silent, but there was a tenseness in the air that almost made him turn around. Gathering his courage he continued down the hallway.
He stopped at the doorway, slowly easing himself around the corner and stopping in the doorway. He could easily see Sam. She was standing in the middle of the room, staring fiercely at something sitting on the worktable. What he was surprised to see was the enraged anger that shone clearly on her face.
Jacob noticed him first. He carefully made his way over piles of paperwork that were thrown all over the floor. "Sam?" Hammond asked, gesturing to the destruction that was evident in the lab.
"Yeah," Jacob confirmed. "After we finally got her down here she just lost it. Thankfully Joris was able to calm her down after a few minutes. He was able to keep anything dangerous out of her hands too." He sighed. "I was completely useless. And here I was jealous that Joris was still so much a part of her life." George put a hand on his friend's shoulder as he surveyed the room. Sam hadn't moved from her spot at the workbench. Teal'c was standing slightly behind her to the left while Joris was seating at her right. Janet, Cam, and Vala were on the other side of the table. Everybody was silently watching Sam, waiting for her to react.
Hammond coughed quietly, wincing when everybody jumped at that small noise. Janet, Cam, and Joris silently joined him at the doorway. Teal'c stayed by his friend's side, though they could tell he was listening when he subtly shifted his head in their direction.
"They told me what happened," Jacob started. "What that thing wanted. You can't seriously be thinking of letting him anywhere near Sam."
"He made a compelling argument. And a very tempting offer." He quickly told them what they discussed. He let them digest the news for a few minutes before turning to Joris. "Is it true what he said? No one but Major Carter can do this?" Joris sighed.
"I don't know," he admitted. "There is still so much I do not understand about the procedure."
"We have experienced cultures that have used memory stamps before," Janet reminded them. "Given that they managed to capture and stamp the entire team in just a few days suggests that very little preconditioning is needed, let alone months to get the subject ready for the procedure."
"But their memories started returning quickly," Cam countered, "and their false personas dissolved within a matter of weeks. Sam had been living on Birona for years without any signs the process was failing."
"That is not entirely true Colonel Mitchell," Joris spoke quietly. "While I agree her conscious mind accepted the story the Inturi fabricated for her, her subconscious mind continued to fight. She would dream of people and places I have never heard of and would have nightmares so intense she would wake up screaming for Jack." Heavy silence descended on the group, each lost in their own thoughts.
"Minister," Hammond spoke softly, "You have the most experience with the Inturi procedure that was used on Major Carter. In your opinion, is Mr. Briok being honest when he says no one but Major Carter can do this?"
Joris was quiet as he thought it over before he answered. "It was several months before Kianna came to live with me after we returned her to the Inturi. That amount of time implies more than a simple download of her new persona was needed. During the years she has been my daughter I never noticed any warring memories fighting for dominance, save when she was asleep or later when the procedure began to erode. That indicates her former memories were repressed. And after she sacrificed herself to access all her memories and save us she was lost, as if her mind was a blank slate that was waiting to get the next fabricated life story." He stopped and looked General Hammond in the eye. "Based on my experience I find it not only possible but entirely plausible that Kianna is the only one who can undergo the procedure in the limited amount of time we have available."
Hammond nodded before turning to Janet. "Do you agree Doctor?"
"After hearing the Minister's reasoning's, I do," Janet agreed reluctantly, though her face showed she didn't necessarily like what she was agreeing with.
"So the other part could be true too?" Jacob asked hopefully. "Could they really have Sam's consciousness on a hard drive somewhere? Hit a button and get her back?"
"That I know to be true," Janet added hopefully. "We've come across many civilizations that have downloaded a person's consciousness into an artificial storage device. The question is did the Inturi advance to that level?"
"And do we trust Briok to deliver what he promised?" Cam threw out. "How do we know he isn't just dangling a carrot to get us to help? First he suddenly knows where Colonel O'Neill and Jackson are located then he can magically give us Sam back to. At what point do we start thinking this is too much of a good thing?" Several heads nodded in agreement.
"It doesn't matter." Everyone turned back to the lab. Sam hadn't moved from her spot, was even still staring at the spot on the workbench, but every eye was on her. "It doesn't matter if he's lying. All that matters is getting Jack and Daniel back." She stopped and looked up, catching Jacob's eyes. "When I first saw Mark doing the crossword I remembered doing them too. I thought if I could just finish one then I could be me again." She grabbed the puzzle book and threw it to the ground. "I can't be me without them. I don't want to."
"Sam," Jacob said quietly, grabbing the book from the ground and placing it on the table again. "They haven't given up on you just like we won't give up on them. But there are other ways." Sam shook her head.
"Even if it turns out to be nothing I have to try. I won't let my fear keep us from a possible lead." She spoke with determination in her voice, but Jacob could easily see the fear in her eyes. He pulled her into a hug which she returned fiercely.
"We don't have to decide anything yet," he reassured her. She nodded into his shoulder. "You don't have to say anything. You don't even have to listen. You just have to be there."
"I just want to help," she sobbed. Once the tears started they didn't stop. Jacob held her as she cried. The others quietly left the room, leaving father and daughter alone.
"Sir," Cam said once they were far enough away to not disturb them. "I take it we will be talking with Briok again?"
"It seems that way."
"Major Bailey and the rest of SG-1 have spearheaded the Inturi effort while I was recovering." Hammond nodded. "Bailey has spent more time with that damn laptop than even Jackson. If we're dealing with the Inturi we'll need their expertise." Hammond agreed.
"I'll have SG-18 finish their mission with the archeological dig. As soon as they return we will sit down and discuss the situation with Mr. Briok."
Three hours later the rest of SG-1 joined Cam and Vala in the briefing room. Sam sat quietly at the back of the table, surrounded by her friends. Healer Vash and Healer Zuva were also present at the General's request. A few minutes after Hammond joined them Briok was brought in. "Time for business I see," he said after scanning the room again. His eyes found Sam and locked on her. She returned his stare without backing down. He nodded his approval before taking the last seat available, next to General Hammond.
"How do you know Pandora took our people?" Hammond started.
"I don't know for certain," Briok started, "but it's the only thing that makes sense. As I told you before we create a map of our volunteers synapses before we begin the process. Pandora found Samantha's scan intriguing, even before she started rejecting our procedure. When she rejected the imprint she did something that no human has ever done. After that Pandora was obsessed with her scan. As Samantha continued to resist our procedure, Pandora became more obsessed with her scan, convinced the answer had to lie in her neural pathways. She discovered whenever the process failed Samantha's mind was always drawn back to three individuals: Colonel Jack O'Neill, Dr. Daniel Jackson, and the Jaffa Teal'c." He glanced back to Teal'c. "Her obsession has expanded to include them. One of the last scans Pandora looked at was Samantha's."
"How did she know where to find them?" Hammond asked.
"After the destruction of our base we became aware that you were helping our volunteers reunite with their worlds. I believe she waited on one of these worlds, hoping you would visit. No doubt she wanted to capture all three, but when the opportunity came to grab two of them she took it."
"And where is she now?" Briok reached for the pad of paper and wrote down an address.
"Here," he said, sliding the paper toward Hammond, "but it would be foolish to attempt to capture her yourselves. This planet was never meant to be anything more than a stepping stone when we finally decided to reenter the world. Chances are she will depart and never return at the first hint of a problem."
"Which is why we need you," Cam remarked. Briok smiled.
"I have intimate knowledge of the facility. I know the defensive capabilities as well as the number of Jaffa stationed there. I also know the traps and alarms she put around the fortress. Remember we have been hunted by the Goa'uld for centuries. That kind of paranoia doesn't come with an off button."
"And all this knowledge you'll just give to Samantha?" Vala asked. "That seems mighty generous for the Inturi of legend. What's in it for you?"
"All I want is revenge," Briok snarled, his hand curling up into a fist. "That's all I ever wanted. You don't know what it's like. I trusted that bitch for centuries, only to have her abandon me when it suited her needs. No one does that to me."
"If the lab on Birona was destroyed, how do you intend to transfer your knowledge to Samantha Carter?" Teal'c asked.
"We have a personal lab located beyond Birona. As soon as you rescued Samantha we departed for it. Our craft was caught in the explosion and we barely survived. Pandora was able to keep me alive long enough to make it to the lab then she left me to die. Didn't even say a word."
"So you're dead?" Cam joked, but Janet gasped.
"You're a clone." Briok nodded.
"We became quite skilled at cloning."
"You've been cloning yourself this whole time?" Janet asked. Briok nodded again. "Why is this clone failing?"
"The clones have an unstable genetic makeup. After a few weeks they simply die. Since our clones were never needed for more than a few days we never studied the problem. The Goa'uld's natural healing abilities counter whatever causes our clones to become unstable, keeping me healthy. I simply imprint my own knowledge onto the blank mind of the clone and continue where I left off."
"Until suddenly Pandora chooses another host, leaving you hanging," Jacob said.
"And that's what you want to give to Sam?" Cam asked. Briok nodded. "All the knowledge we need to stop Pandora?"
"It is all prepared. All you have to do is put her in the machine and hit a button. But time is running out. Pandora could abandon that world at any moment."
"I'll do it." Sam's words were quiet, but everyone heard them clearly. Briok smirked. Hammond closed his eyes in resignation.
"Doctor, take our guest to the infirmary. See if there is anything you can do to prolong his life." Janet nodded before Hammond turned to Briok. "I expect full cooperation." Briok nodded.
"I recommend we send a recon team through to the address provided," Cam piped up. He looked at Briok. "Unless there's some reason we shouldn't know what we're getting ourselves into." He shook his head.
"As long as you stay away from the fortress and off the path leading to the Stargate you should be able to remain undetected."
"See to it Colonel," Hammond ordered. Cam nodded.
"General," Vash hesitated, "if you are truly going up against the Goa'uld that experimented on my ancestors I would like to help. I believe many Monks would." Hammond sighed and turned to Zuva.
"Has your position on this matter changed?" Healer Zuva shook his head. Hammond turned back to Vash. "We would gladly accept any help the Sanctuary can offer."
"The more the merrier," Briok said cheerfully, though his smile looked forced. "We'll have to return to the Sanctuary anyway. That's the closest gate to the lab."
"Colonel Mitchell. I want SG-1 ready to leave within the hour. Recon only. I want to make sure Pandora has not already left before I agree to this."
"Yes Sir," Cam agreed.
"Dismissed."
Four hours later Hammond watched as the groups were gathering some last minute equipment. SG-1 had returned and reported a large amount of activity in the fortress. They watched for an hour before deciding to return. During that time they did not see any sign of Pandora or their missing officers, but there was enough activity around the fortress to support Briok's statements.
The Monks had returned to the Sanctuary. They promised several of the repaired shuttles to be at the SGC's disposal. Bailey suggested sending a science team to study the lab. Hammond readily agreed to the suggestion. Several scientists jumped at the chance. Hammond smiled as he listened to them debate over which equipment they might need.
"Sir," Cam announced as he approached. "We are almost ready to leave. According to Briok it is approximately a four hour flight one way. He wasn't sure how much time we would need inside the lab itself, but I'd say if you haven't heard back within twenty-four hours something is wrong." Hammond nodded, sighting the figure that had just entered the gate room.
"There's nothing you can do for him?" Hammond asked again. Briok's condition had deteriorated rapidly during the last few hours. He could no longer walk long distances unassisted and had trouble doing simple tasks such as eating.
"All I can do is make him comfortable," Janet said sadly. "Perhaps if there was time the Asgard could help…"
"But there's no time," Hammond finished. He turned to face his Chief Medical Officer. "Remember you are only authorized to accompany SG-1 to the lab to oversee the procedure. After you return to the Sanctuary you are to immediately return to the SGC. You are not authorized to continue to the planet with the rest of SG-1. Is that clear?"
"Yes Sir," she agreed. Joris shook his head as well. They both hated waiting this one out but both of them realized the best chance this plan had was if SG-1 wasn't wasting resources keeping them safe. He dismissed them and they hurried down to the gate room. He turned to the two remaining people from the group.
"Sam," he said, approaching them slowly. He acknowledged Teal'c with a small nod of the head, which Teal'c returned before placing his hands on Sam's shoulders. It was a gesture she never would have allowed before. "Sam," he said again, tightening his grip slightly until she raised her chin and looked at him. "You do not have to do this."
"Yes I do," she said quietly. Her voice was shaking but she had a look of determination plastered on her face. Hammond couldn't help himself. He pulled her in for a quick hug, committing her face to memory knowing it was a possibility she wouldn't make the trip home. She clung to him for a minute before pulling back.
"I am so proud of you." She blinked away the tears that were threatening to fall. "If there's any doubt…"
"I will ensure no procedures are performed without Samantha Carter's consent," Teal'c promised. He stared at her for a few minutes before turning and heading to the gate room, leaving her the option to stay or go. She hesitated momentarily then followed.
"Dial it up," Hammond told the waiting technician. He nodded and soon the wormhole blinked into existence. "Godspeed," he wished as his people started going up the ramp.