Chapter 7 – The Al'Kesh
Author's note: Sorry for the big delays between chapters. Rest assured I am still working on this and I will finish it! I'll try to get the next chapter up a bit quicker this time, especially as we're entering the final stretch now.
Disclaimer: I have used some dialogue and plot from the movie Stargate: Continuum in this chapter. I am not claiming any of those wonderful words as my own.
Barrett was going stir-crazy. Sam could hear him, prowling the apartment, cleaning and re-arranging the furniture and all but climbing the walls.
She stayed in her room, curled up on the bed, staring out the window at the blue, cloudless sky. She took a perverse pleasure in it – she was Barrett's prisoner, but if she stayed in her room, she held him prisoner in the apartment. He couldn't leave her alone.
He hadn't resorted to dragging her out by her hair yet, but she figured it was only a matter of time.
The trouble was, her life now was a waiting game. She stayed put, toed the line, and fervently prayed that McKay would come through for her. She wasn't allowed to leave the apartment without Barrett escorting her, and even if she were to leave, she wasn't permitted to work, or interact with anyone other than Barrett.
She could have gone outside, to the park perhaps, to enjoy the sweet-smelling summer air and warmth of sunshine on her skin … but she was hurt, torn away from her life and her friends once again, and the only outlet for her pain was to lie here, and punish Barrett with her inactivity.
It was small comfort, but she'd take what she could get.
Barrett lasted exactly three days longer than Sam expected.
He burst into her room, eyes wild and features haggard. "Taylor, we're going out."
Sam rolled onto her back and closed her eyes. "I'm not 'Taylor' anymore. Remember? Your buddies renamed me again."
"Fine, Fraser. Come on, you need to get out of this apartment."
Sam didn't budge. "My best friend's last name was Fraiser. My god-daughter, too."
Barrett stared at her for a moment, flummoxed by that. He cleared his throat uncomfortably. "Would you rather I call you by your first name? Alison?"
"Call me whatever you want Malcolm. It doesn't matter."
He huffed. "Well, regardless. Put your glasses on, we're leaving."
She rolled over again, away from him. "I'm staying here."
"No, you're not. You need some fresh air and some sun."
"You mean you do."
"Since you mention it, yes, yes I do. It's not healthy staying cooped up like this, for either of us."
"You can leave whenever you want."
"You know perfectly well I can't leave you alone." Barrett said, sounding tired.
Sam smiled humourlessly into her pillow. "Sucks to be my babysitter, huh?"
"Look, I think I've been very patient. We're in this situation because you betrayed my trust, but rather than taking it out on you, I've given you time and space to adjust to the relocation. But come on, enough is enough. If you don't come outside with me, I'm going to have to seriously consider recommending you be moved to secure facility where you'll be under twenty-four hour medical supervision."
That got Sam's attention, and she looked over her shoulder at him. "Medical supervision?"
"To treat you for depression." He elaborated.
"I'm not depressed." Sam said hotly.
"Oh really? You've been completely disengaged from life, you won't get out of bed or leave the apartment, you're disinterested in anything going on around you … need I go on?"
"What exactly is it that you expect me to do?" Sam asked, sitting up and pushing her short dark bangs away from her face. "I'm not allowed to go anywhere or do anything without you, and I'm not allowed to talk to anyone but you. You say I'm disengaged from life, but from where I'm sitting I don't have any other choice."
"You could come outside with me." Barrett said. "A walk outside, and then maybe we get something to eat, out there in the world."
Sam scrubbed her hands over her face. "And then what? I live here as your 'kept woman' for the rest of my life?" She knew she was pushing it now, and this wouldn't help her goal of staying out of trouble until McKay called for her, but the conversation was making her angry.
"That depends on you!" Barrett retorted. "I would think by now you'd understand how this works. You behave and follow the rules, and maybe you start getting some of your freedom back."
Sam dropped her head into her arms, wrapped around her knees. Maybe Barrett had a point about her mental state – the future he wanted her to aspire to was as depressing as hell.
For long moments there was silence. Sam hid her face and breathed, and Barrett stood there, watching her.
"If there was one thing, one freedom that you had before which would make this bearable for you, what would it be?" He asked eventually.
She looked up at him in surprise, and then thought about it, taking a deep breath.
"A job. My job at the garage was what made it bearable before." She said.
Barrett frowned and nodded, folding his arms. "I can't promise anything, but I'll raise it with Lieutenant Commander Jefferson."
Sam blinked slowly. "You're kidding."
"I'm not saying it would be the same as it was before, I'd still have to be there with you supervising, but I happen to agree that giving you something to occupy your time would be a good idea."
"I – thank you."
"You're welcome. Now, in the name of all that is holy, can we please leave this god damn apartment?"
Sam chuckled at the desperation in his tone. "Alright."
"You can't be serious." Jefferson scoffed. "What the hell does this woman do to you idiots? I thought you had more sense than to let her wrap you around her little finger like she did Harrison."
Barrett bristled at the implication. "With all due respect sir, this isn't that. The prison system gives inmates day-jobs inside as part of their rehabilitation. What I'm proposing isn't that different. She needs something to occupy her time, otherwise she's either going to end up breaking out again and causing us all a world of hurt, or she'll lose what's left of her sanity and I'll find her in the bathroom one morning having slashed her wrists with a razor blade."
His dramatic speech gave Jefferson pause, and the large man steepled his fingers, elbows on the desk, studying him.
"Is it really that bad?"
Malcolm sighed. "I don't know, maybe. She's hard to read. I'm no psychologist, but in my opinion her mental health isn't exactly stellar. I just really don't think that giving her nothing but free time to think about her situation is a good idea."
He watched as Jefferson stood and walked over to the window. The Lieutenant Commander looked out at the street for a moment before speaking again.
"I'm sorry Barrett. I understand your concerns, but at this point I can't authorise it. She's too much of a security risk."
Malcolm concealed his irritation with effort. "May I ask why?"
"Because, Barrett, that's how she duped you last time." Jefferson said with bite in his tone.
"Sir?"
"She was hiding a laptop computer at that damn garage, right under your nose!" Jefferson said, face turning red as he warmed to his topic. "The IT nerds still haven't managed to unpick all the security she put on it, but dollars to donuts that's how she organised whatever she was doing on that midnight stroll she took on your watch!"
Malcolm stared at him in shock, trying to organise his thoughts. "I don't understand, I didn't see any laptop."
"No, you didn't, which is why I'm less than eager to entrust you to supervise her in a work environment now."
"But I was the only one watching her, if she had a laptop, how did you find it?"
Jefferson looked at him like he was being deliberately stupid. "I had a second agent watching the pair of you. After the fiasco with Nathan Harrison, I didn't want to risk her turning another of my agents against me."
Malcolm felt sick. Not only had he not realised he was being surveilled himself, but he'd let Taylor – Fraser – Carter, pull the wool over his eyes and conceal a laptop from him. The thought of what a woman with her skill-set could do with such a device boggled the mind.
"I don't know what to say."
"Then I suggest you keep your mouth shut. And for the moment, the pair of you can just sit on your hands in that apartment for all I care. Just keep her under control."
"Yes sir." Barrett said numbly.
"Dismissed, agent."
Sam was in the middle of a game of solitaire, with half an eye on the nature documentary the bored stand-in agent was watching, when Barrett returned to the apartment in a barely-contained rage.
"You're relieved, Granger." He addressed the other agent sharply, who left wordlessly, giving Barrett a wide berth.
"I assume it didn't go well." Sam said, and then regretted it. Barrett rounded on her, red-faced, like a volcano about to erupt.
"You had a laptop at that damn garage." He said, his tone unnaturally even and measured. "You were doing god knows what with it, right under my nose. My superiors assigned another agent to spy on the both of us because they didn't trust me, purely because of the way Harrison got compromised. That agent found your laptop, which means now Jefferson has even more reason not to trust either of us, because you were violating the rules behind my back with that laptop and I didn't notice!"
Sam groaned. "So that's where it went. It disappeared out of the store room about a month ago."
"What were you doing with it?" Barrett demanded.
Sam licked her lips carefully. "I think you know I'm not going to answer that."
"Like hell you're not! You humiliated me in front of my superiors, so you are damn well going to tell me why you did it!"
"Or what?" Sam asked calmly.
Barrett was almost shaking with rage. She didn't think he'd turn violent, but she was tensed and ready just in case.
In the end, he didn't answer her.
"You can give up hope of ever getting a job in this town." He hissed, eventually. "Jefferson doesn't trust you, and neither do I. You're going to stay in this apartment under my supervision until such time as I earn my way back into Jefferson's good graces and get reassigned, and then you'll stay in this apartment under the next poor bastard's supervision. And that will be your entire sorry, miserable life."
The weather turned colder as summer burned out in the remains of September. Sam was locked in a holding pattern, going through the motions robotically as she waited in numb, helpless patience for McKay to ride to her rescue.
She and Barrett barely spoke except when absolutely necessary. They went out to jog in the park every morning, and grocery shopping once a week. Other than that, she remained indoors. Barrett gave her what distractions he trusted her with – a deck of cards, library books, the TV … eventually out of sheer boredom she even learned to knit, and her cooking skills improved dramatically.
When the holding pattern broke during an excursion to get groceries in town, it took a moment for Sam to process what she was seeing.
An al'kesh, soaring overhead in a scream of engine noise, tailed by what looked like an F-16. A sight from another life.
Someone nearby was screaming. She was jostled to the side as people ran down the sidewalk, in the direction the ship had gone, not running away in fear, but running towards the spectacle, phones held aloft as they tried to capture the UFO on video.
She shook herself out of her shocked stupor, and realised Barrett was yelling at her, demanding information.
"Fraser! Are you listening to me? Do you know what that was?"
"An al'kesh." She said, grabbing his arm and towing him out of the river of people. "It's Ba'al, he's here. Call your superiors, I need to speak with the President right now."
Barrett stared at her incredulously.
"I'm not kidding." Sam yelled at him. "That was probably an advance scout, but the rest of the fleet won't be far behind, and Earth is practically defenceless. I can help, but only if you let me."
He shook his head in bewilderment, but mercifully pulled out his phone and dialled.
"Commander Jefferson, this is Agent Barrett. I'm out with my primary Alison Fraser and we just saw an alien spacecraft flying overhead. She says she needs to speak with the President."
Sam watched impatiently, her veins thrumming with adrenaline. She felt alive. Her mind worked furiously as she thought through the implications of the al'kesh's appearance.
"Yes sir, we're on our way." Barrett put the phone in his pocket. "I'm bringing you in."
"Where? Who are you taking me to?" She asked urgently.
"Washington DC. The President's probably being taken to the command bunker, but Jefferson's going to try and get his staff on the phone."
Sam nodded, and started running. They'd walked from the apartment into town, but Barrett had a government-issue sedan in the apartment building's parking lot. She heard Barrett fall into step behind her, keeping pace. Thankfully the morning jogs in the park had kept her in shape.
In ten minutes they were back at the parking lot.
"Give me your keys." She said, holding a hand out to Barrett.
"Are you serious? Hell no, I'm driving."
"We need to get there fast. How much experience do you have driving at speed?"
Barrett just blinked at her.
"Keys! Now!" She barked at him, and incredibly he complied, tossing them to her in an underarm throw. She snatched them out of the air, pulled the driver's side door open and swung into the vehicle. Barrett had barely shut his door behind him when she gunned the engine and tore out of the parking lot, tyres squealing.
At the Pentagon, after a painfully time-consuming series of security checks, Lt. Commander Jefferson met them in his office.
"Have you spoken with the President?" Sam asked, the moment she laid eyes on the man.
"He's in a security briefing, but he'll be informed that you're here as soon as he's available." Jefferson said, gesturing for her and Barrett to take seats. Sam ignored the tacit instruction and stayed standing.
"What about Daniel Jackson and Cameron Mitchell? Are they being brought here too?"
"I've asked their agents to bring them, but it's going to take some time. You only had to come from Maryland, but Michael Stephens is in Chicago and Bryan Bennett is in a small town in Utah. I think Jackson is Stephens and Mitchell is Bennett, from memory."
"As long as they're coming." Sam said, letting out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. It was dizzying, after all this time … Daniel and Cam, on their way back to her. At last.
"What about the stargate?" She asked after a moment. "Can I speak with Dr McKay?"
"Let's just wait to see what the President says." Jefferson said, sitting at his desk, opposite Barrett, both of them looking strained and exhausted.
"We don't have time to stand around." Sam said, planting her hands on Jefferson's desk. "If that al'kesh was an advance scout, it may already have reported back to Ba'al that Earth is defenceless, and the rest of his fleet could arrive at any time now."
"And what is it that you think you can do about it, that the President and the combined might of the United States armed forces can't?"
"Where do I even begin?" Sam said incredulously. "I can get the stargate operational, I can advise the President on the likely tactics Ba'al will use, I can give him details of the capabilities of the attacking ships, and we can come up with a plan to defend the god-damn planet!" Her voice rose in volume as she spoke until she was all-but shouting.
"Fraser, calm down and sit. I'm not sending you anywhere or letting you speak with anyone until I get instructions from the President."
"My name is Carter." She hissed, but sat down.
Luckily, at that moment the phone rang, belaying any further argument.
"He what?" Jefferson exclaimed, having answered the phone. "Send him up to my office now!"
"Sir?" Barrett asked.
Jefferson didn't answer, but went to his office door and opened it, looking out down the length of the corridor, waiting. Sam exchanged a look with Barrett, but he just shrugged, at a loss.
"Inside, now!" Jefferson barked after a minute, clearly spotting the person he'd been waiting on.
Sam was still in her seat in front of the desk, twisting her neck to look at Jefferson in the doorway. The approaching footsteps reached the door, and for a moment her view was blocked by Jefferson entering the room ahead of the new arrival, but when he moved out of the way, she gasped and jumped to her feet.
"McFly?"
Sam sat on a hard plastic chair out in the corridor, staring at the closed door of Jefferson's office. Her leg jumped restlessly with pent-up energy.
"I thought he'd been sent to Germany." She muttered eventually. Barrett raised an eyebrow at her.
"How exactly did you hear that?" He asked.
She didn't answer.
The door opened, and she jumped to her feet. McFly came out, and gave her a tense smile. "Hey, Taylor."
She couldn't help it, it was just too good to see him. She crossed the few steps between them, threw her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely.
"It's good to see you too." He chuckled, hugging her back.
Barrett cleared his throat noisily behind her. She pulled back, giving Nate a rueful smile.
"What are you doing here?" She asked.
"Yes, I'd like to know that too." Barrett added caustically.
"I saw one of the ships, and figured that the invasion you'd been warning about was starting. I want to help, and I was on assignment not far from here, so I came straight in."
"And Jefferson's not tossing you out on your ass?" Barrett asked.
"Hey, man, there are hostile aliens in orbit around our planet. It's pretty much all hands on deck."
"Has the fleet been spotted?" Sam asked.
"Not unless the 'fleet' is the five small ships that have been buzzing cities around the globe."
Sam shook her head. "No, those are just the advance scouts. They're all in orbit now?"
"That's what I heard." Nate said.
"Damn." She muttered. "Then we don't have much time."
"How do you figure?"
"If they're just sitting in orbit, they've finished surveying the planet and will have already sent a message back to Ba'al. Depending on how far away he was waiting, his fleet could arrive at any moment."
"Barrett, get in here!" Jefferson's voice boomed from inside the office.
Barrett shot Sam a quelling look and went back in, shutting the door behind him.
"How are you?" Nate asked.
Sam frowned at him. "My planet's under attack and no one's letting me try to stop it, so right now, not great."
"I meant, how have you been in general?"
She shook her head. "I don't know; bored, trapped, miserable."
"I'm really sorry for just leaving like that." Nate said softly.
"It's ok, I know you didn't have a choice."
"Did you at least get my letter?"
She gave him a nervous smile. "I did."
He took a deep breath. "Good, good, I'm glad. I meant every word, by the way."
Sam looked down at her hands. "Look, Nate, this isn't really the time …"
"I know." He squeezed her shoulder. "You don't have to say anything."
She nodded, and shifted from foot to foot. "This is taking too long." She muttered.
"I'm sure the President will want to see you soon, he knows you've got useful intel." Nate said reassuringly.
The office door opened again, and Barrett strode out and down the corridor away from them without a word. Jefferson appeared in the doorway a moment later. "You two need to get upstairs. Stephens and Bennett have just left the airport in a transport, there'll be here shortly, and then a car will take the four of you from here to the White House."
"The four of us?" Sam repeated, glancing at Nate.
"I'm going with you." He told her.
"I've assigned him to be my department's official escort for you and the others from this point forward." Jefferson explained.
"What about Agent Barrett?"
"I need him elsewhere. Now get going."
Sam didn't need telling twice.
"Is that them?" Sam asked as she caught sight of an SUV pulling around the corner onto the long ramp down into the garage.
"Could be." Nate answered, and they both stood to watch as the truck drew closer.
The door to the backseat opened before the SUV had fully stopped, and out jumped Cameron Mitchell, worry etched into his features mingling with relief when he locked eyes with Sam. Before a single word could leave her lips she was wrapped in his arms.
"Sam." Cameron said into her shoulder, her name a low, pained sound that reverberated inside her.
"Hey you." She breathed. She opened her eyes and saw the door on the other side of the SUV was open, and the back of a brown tousled head emerging.
"Daniel!" She called, and Cam reluctantly let her go so that she could run around the vehicle. Her old friend's face crinkled into a smile, and he opened his arms.
"Daniel." She all but sobbed, and hugged him, burying her face in his shoulder and allowing herself a few tears.
Cam's hand alighted gently on her back.
"We need to keep moving, guys. We might not have much time."
Sam pulled back and wiped her eyes, nodding. "You're right. Let's go."
She watched Daniel carefully as he walked with them towards the waiting sedan, apparently without difficulty.
"Haven't needed the cane in a while." He said, noticing her scrutiny. She smiled at him, and squeezed his hand.
Nate was already in the front seat beside the driver, so Sam, Daniel and Cam climbed into the back, Sam in the middle.
"Guys, this is Agent Nate Harrison." She said, introducing her friend in the front seat. Nate gave Daniel and Cam a sloppy salute and a grin. "He was my original handler."
Daniel's eyes widened. "Oh, the one who –"
"Yes." Sam cut him off quickly, looking nervously at the unknown driver.
"It's an honour to meet you both." Nate said.
"Likewise." Cam replied, and Daniel just beamed and put an arm around Sam's shoulders, giving her a squeeze, still high on the thrill of the reunion.
"Nice hair, by the way." Cam said to her teasingly. Sam scrunched her nose in distaste at her dark hair in its harsh, short style.
"It wasn't my choice." She said. At least given the emergency circumstances she hadn't been made to wear the glasses for this trip, too.
The drive to the White House was a short one, made shorter by strategic use of an emergency light and siren which the driver deployed when the traffic got heavy.
At the White House, they were met by an aide who, to Sam's great relief, advised he was to escort them directly to the President in the command bunker.
Having spent a large portion of her adult life working in a secure underground facility, descending into the White House Bunker felt almost familiar. She didn't have time to dwell however, as they were hurried through the halls, and her thoughts were fully occupied by the danger orbiting hundreds of miles overhead.
As they passed the last security checkpoint, Sam heard voices up ahead, the sound of dozens of people working in an orderly but urgent fashion, and over it all, the President himself speaking, as they approached the doorway of the main command centre.
"Why would they come all the way from wherever the hell it is they came from, fly around with a bunch of F-16s on their asses for half a day, and then just sit there?" President Henry Hayes asked.
"They're advance scout ships, Mr President." Cam answered.
The President turned, noticing the four of them standing there in the doorway.
"You asked that they be brought to the Command Bunker the moment they arrived, sir." Their escort spoke up.
"That's fine Alex, thank you." The President replied, shaking each of their hands. "Henry Hayes. Thanks for coming. You were saying, Mr Mitchell?"
"The ships in orbit are called al'kesh. They serve both as scouts and as ground support bombers."
"And they're nothing compared to what's coming next." Sam warned.
"Really? So what's coming next?" Hayes asked.
"Death. Slavery. Uh … more slavery, more death." Daniel answered caustically. Sam shared a bitter grimace with him as he met her eye.
"Look, if you want to say 'I told you so', go ahead and get it off your chest." Hayes retorted. "But then you can do one of two things. You can help, or you can leave."
"Ok, bye!" Daniel said, turning away. Sam had half turned to stop him with a hand on his arm, when Cameron stopped him with a sharp word instead.
"Jackson."
"Right, I forgot to say I told you so!"
"Now are you gonna help, or not?" Hayes asked.
"Have you got the stargate working?" Sam asked.
"Not yet, but we have our best scientists working on it." He answered. Sam rolled her eyes, having been told not so long ago by their 'best' scientist, that he was effectively stumped. "It's not the one you sent down, we couldn't find that one, but we did manage to find the other one, in Antarctica. It's still there, at McMurdo base."
Hayes narrowed his eyes suspiciously when none of them showed the faintest flicker of surprise at that news, but Cameron cut in before he could question them on it.
"How quickly can you get us there?"
Hayes smirked. "Don't forget, I'm the one who gave the order to keep you away from that thing. Erasing the timeline is not an option."
"Then why are we here?" Daniel asked, annoyed.
"When I was first briefed on you three, I thought my Chief of Staff was yanking my chain. I didn't believe him the second time, either. Finally, he had to bring in the National Security Advisor to convince me that he wasn't kidding. On page two thousand and something of the brief, one of you, I can't remember which, talks about how I handled a similar invasion in your timeline to the one that might happen here."
"Of course, in our case, you had the benefit of an operational Stargate Program for about seven years." Daniel pointed out.
"Well, to be fair, it was actually the Ancient weapons platform in Antarctica that saved us." Sam said.
"Exactly… Shouldn't it still be there?" Hayes asked.
"It's under a mile of ice." Sam said. She'd thought of the Ancient weapons platform herself, but couldn't think of a way to get down there fast enough to use it with the technology currently at Earth's disposal.
"The Army Corps of Engineers have been drilling at the coordinates you gave us for the last three months. We're not there yet, but we're close." Hayes told her.
Sam gaped a little, surprised at that. Back when she'd been able to spy on the Navy's stargate programme a little, with her contraband laptop, she'd checked to see if anything had been done about that, but beyond guarding the area, no activity was in evidence. Of course, it had been longer than three months since she'd last been able to check.
"Even so, its power source is depleted. We'd need a fully-charged Zero Point Module."
Daniel suddenly turned to them. "Taonas. There's no reason it still shouldn't be there."
"We'd have to steal a cargo ship." Cameron said.
"Well, it's not like we haven't done that before." Daniel pointed out.
Sam frowned, thinking. "Once we recover the ZPM, we can gate directly back to Earth, because the Stargate's already in Antarctica. We'll just need –"
"– someone with a gene that could operate the chair." Daniel finished.
Sam turned to the President. "If there's still time, sir, this can work."
"That's the SG-1 I read about." Hayes said, smiling.
"If the control crystal's intact and the power relay's in position, I should be able to dial out the gate in a couple of hours." Sam said. Given what she'd learned from McKay and from her own snooping, she was reasonably confident everything was in place.
"General Hammond?" Hayes said, turning.
Sam blinked in shock as she registered the Air Force General facing away from them, whom she hadn't paid any attention to until now. Hammond turned towards them.
"Sir! It's good to see you."
Hammond looked at her blankly, with a disturbing lack of familiarity. "If you say so." He turned to the President. "There are four F-15s on the tarmac at Andrews, each carrying minimal armaments and extra fuel tanks."
"Once the Stargate is operational, you'll be escorted through by a squad of four marines. That's not negotiable." Hayes told them.
"To keep us on mission." Cameron surmised.
"That's not necessary, sir, but we'll take the back-up." Sam said.
"Ah, sir, with your permission I'd like to go with them." Nate spoke up from his place on Sam's right.
The President looked at him in surprise, as though he hadn't even realised the agent was in the room. "And you are …?"
"Agent Harrison, sir. I was Colonel Carter's handler." Sam felt a twinge of irony that he was finally using her real name rather than 'Taylor'. "Sir, I have the training to be an asset to the mission, and I'm fully briefed. Commander Jefferson himself assigned me less than an hour ago to make sure Carter, Jackson and Mitchell don't make any attempts at altering the timeline during any necessary interaction with the stargate."
"Fine, go with them." Hayes said, with a dismissive wave.
"Even if everything goes according to plan, it's going to be a couple of days at least until we get back. What are you gonna do if Ba'al shows up before then?" Daniel asked.
"Is there anything we can do, Doctor Jackson?" Hayes asked.
"Well, I wouldn't mention us." Daniel responded glibly.
"Thought of that one." Hayes smirked. "Good luck."
"To all of us, sir." Cam replied, and the four of them headed out.
"I need to place a call to McMurdo." Sam told Nate as they got back into the black sedan, now en route to Andrews AFB.
"You mean to get them started on setting up the stargate?" Cameron asked over his shoulder from the front seat.
"McKay should be able to follow my instructions. It would give us a head start."
"I'll see what I can do." Nate said, dialling his cellphone.
"Did either of you name people with the Ancient gene in your interviews last year?" Cameron asked Sam and Daniel, as Nate talked on the phone.
"I don't think so." Daniel said, and Sam shook her head. "Although I probably mentioned that Jack has it."
"Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard might be around." Sam suggested. "He has it, and he was probably the most adept with the chair, besides Jack." She felt a little frisson of pain as she used her husband's name, despite the time that had passed since his death.
"Still, we should leave them a list of as many people as we can remember, in case there's trouble locating Jack or Colonel Sheppard." Daniel said. "Whoever does it will need to be flown up to Antarctica as soon as possible."
"Yes sir, she's right here." Nate turned to Sam, catching her attention. "McMurdo." He said by way of explanation, handing her the phone.
"Thank you." She said, lifting the phone to her ear. "This is Colonel Samantha Carter, whom am I speaking with?"
"Brigadier General Jack O'Neill."
