Chapter 10

Flames exploded from the gate. No one had a chance to warn the guards posted in the gateroom. In only moments, they were incinerated.

"Shut down the gate! Close the iris!" General Landry shouted to his technicians. The flames sought out every open space in the gateroom filling it like a fiery flood. Just outside the control room, SG1 watched the scene in horror, the blaze so hot, the thick glass started to blister under the intense heat.

"Blast doors!" Landry hollered. Heavy metallic doors dropped down over the window with a deathly shudder. "Open the vents. Put those flames out."

The technicians did as they were told while everyone waited for the report.

A minute passed before Sam spoke, looking up from her console, "The flames are out, sir, and the gate … is no longer active."

Everyone stared at Sam in stunned silence.

What the hell just happened? Only minutes before, Landry had begrudgingly left the iris open at Daniel's insistence, while the gateroom took a barrage of weapons fire from the gate. They had stood protected behind the blast doors until the blasts seemed to cease, then after a few minutes of quiet, Landry ordered the blast doors to be reopened.

Their view cleared just in time for them to watch Jonas and a second man tumble out of the gate and roll down the ramp. Jonas appeared to have knocked himself unconscious as he hit his head on the rough dive out of the gate. No doubt his tumble hadn't helped his previous concussion. The other man who had followed him looked far worse and had probably needed medical attention before they had entered the gate. Vala, on the other hand, had been nowhere in sight.

Dr. Lam and her staff had responded accordingly and retrieved her former and newly acquired patient. The door had just closed behind Carolyn and her new residents when the gateroom seemed to explode.

"Open the blast doors," Lam ordered once again after a few moments of silence, in a tone far calmer than one would expect.

The technician next to Sam quickly input the command code into the system. They waited as the doors slowly followed suit, allowing those in the control room to see what damage had been done.

The gateroom looked as if it had just taken the brunt of a Mark IX. Systems and control panels sparked angrily. Once gray walls were now a scorched black. The entry ramp had been completely displaced from the gate and was sitting in two misshapen chunks of steel on the ground. Nearby two charred bodies lay where they had only moments before guarded the gateroom.

Only the gate seemed relatively unharmed with a few scorch marks marring the stationary outer and concentric spinning inner rings. Since the wormhole had collapsed and was no longer active, the room had taken on a peaceful quality. Only one suited to a graveyard.

"Someone want to explain to me what the hell just happened to my gateroom?" Landry turned a demanding look on his staff.

No one replied. They simply stared at the sight before them in disbelief. No one could have imagined Vala's rescue mission would have resulted in this.

Realizing he wouldn't receive any sort of explanation in the immediate moment, the General turned his glare back to the gateroom and asked a question that his staff could answer. "What's the status of the gate?"

Sam replied quickly, studying the monitor in front of her. "Preliminary system analyses show the gate has suffered cosmetic damage, but all systems are operational, sir," she finished, looking up, unable to hide the surprise in her voice.

While there were few, if any, circumstances in interstellar travel history where a gate had been destroyed, fire that had melted glass and steel had to be a formidable enemy. The fact that the gate had survived was a wonder in itself.

"Great. We got a working gate," Cam began, as he moved away from the control room window. "So that leads me to ask the first question." He pointed at the scorched out room opposite of him. "What the hell was that?!"

"It looked to be fire, Colonel Mitchell," Teal'c offered the obvious.

"Yes! Yes, Teal'c! Thank you for that," Cam managed some over-exaggerated enthusiasm, slapping the Jaffa on the shoulder. "How about someone with a little more insight?"

"The steel ramps buckled under the heat," Sam observed. "Steel only melts at temperatures over 1800 degrees celsius. And the melting point for glass is about 2500 degrees celsius."

"So it's safe to assume it was pretty damn hot in there," Cam finished for her.

She raised her brows and nodded expectantly.

"All right," he said with a sigh, "it's pretty clear we have no idea, what the hell that was. How about question number two? Where the hell's Vala?" He looked at Daniel.

Daniel didn't reply. He was staring out the control room window, using every ounce of strength he had to keep his emotions under lock and key. He couldn't explain the fury and fear that had taken up permanent residence inside him when he had first heard her voice over the radio transmission. He was so furious that she had gone there to begin with that it had been difficult to maintain his normal subdued reactions. Now, after this, it was nearly impossible.

"I'm assuming that guy who rolled down the ramp was the source Jonas was talking about," Cam said, trying to encourage a reply.

Daniel crossed his arms over his chest and covered his mouth. What the hell had she been thinking! Her actions had put the entire SGC at risk. Two more men were dead because of her. He needed to be angry. If he were angry, he could ignore the soul-crushing fear beginning to take over. A fear he last remembered feeling when he saw Share's eyes glow for the first time. Where was Vala?

Sensing he wasn't going to get much of a reply out of Daniel either, Mitchell turned his attention to his other two teammates. "Do we even know if she got to the gate?"

"The wormhole could've shut down while she was on route," Sam offered, though was unhappy at that possible prospect.

"In that?" Mitchell's eyes widened, pointing to the once-enflamed gateroom.

She made a face. She didn't like the idea either.

"Is it not possible we would see her energy pattern stored in the memory buffer if that were true?"

Sam looked at Teal'c, "You mean like when your energy signature was caught in our system after you destroyed Tanith's ship."

He nodded.

"Yes, it's possible." She looked at the general, "But we won't know that unless we dial back to the planet."

The idea of dialing back to that planet clearly didn't thrill him.

"Sir, energy patterns like the fire we just experienced can only pass through the wormhole from the place the gate was initialized. It's unlikely we'll experience any ill effects from dialing back to the planet."

He nodded, albeit unhappily. "Go ahead, Colonel."

"Start the dialing sequence," she ordered the technician next to her. "If she's in there, a gate error should show up during the initialization." They watched the gate spin while Sam checked the stats of the gate's systems. By the fifth chevron, she glanced up and shook her head.

"Well, at least we don't have that problem to deal with." Mitchell glanced over at Teal'c. "I heard they had a hard time getting you back, Big Guy."

"I heard this as well," Teal'c admitted with a nod.

"Uh, okay we have another problem." Sam interrupted.

"What is it?" Landry asked, his voice tense.

The dialing technician looked up and answered, "The sixth chevron won't engage, sir."

"Is the problem on our end?" Cam asked.

Sam frowned. "It shouldn't be. Diagnostics show all systems are up and running."

"Doesn't this only happen when we have a second working gate on the same planet."

"Well, no, that's only been true when the seventh chevron won't engage and there's no power spike to indicate the use of another gate."

"So what else could it mean?"

She shook her head looking up at Cam. "The problem has to originate on the other end."

"Langera," Daniel elaborated.

Her expression sobered seeing his face. She nodded. "Judging by the speed at which that fire was able to destroy our gateroom, it's likely any extended time under that kind of intense heat and pressure could have damaged their gate."

"You think the gate was destroyed?" Cam asked his voice filled with disbelief.

"Best case scenario? Its dialing sequence may have only been damaged."

"How would we find out?" Daniel asked quietly, turning his gaze to Sam.

She matched it with an unhappy one of her own. It was an answer she couldn't provide. She looked at the general.

Landry frowned. "I'm sorry, Dr. Jackson. As you know, the fleet is stretched thin dealing with Ori movement into our galaxy. I currently don't have any deep space carriers to dispatch to Langera nor would I have any confidence in their safety on such a mission. Until we speak to our two patients, we can only hope Ms. Mal Doran's ever present luck has helped her so that she may cross paths with us again."

Daniel simply nodded, his jaw tight.

"In the meantime, I want this gate tested and cleared for travel. And a new ramp while we're at it," he demanded of his staff, who were already busily making it happen. "Colonel Carter is scheduled to leave in a couple of hours. And SG1 is scheduled to return to P4X-587 tomorrow morning."

"Sir," Sam tried to interrupt.

He cut her off, with a knowing look of fatherly disapproval. "Colonel, you have a command waiting for you in the Pegasus Galaxy where you have enough to concern yourself with. We won't keep you."

Sam looked a Daniel who was back to staring out the command center window. "Yes, sir," she complied quietly. She understood what they were facing and the last thing she wanted to do was leave them in the midst of it, but the general was right. She was responsible for a whole city now. She couldn't shirk her duties no matter how much she wanted to for her friends.

Landry turned his gaze on Daniel. "When Dr. Lam informs me that our two patients are well enough to share their adventures, I will notify you." He was speaking to the team, but his focus was on Daniel.

Daniel looked up, seeming to recognize the direction of his words. Giving everyone a brief look, he said, "I'll be in my office."

"I'll stop by before I leave," Sam called as he started to exit.

He paused, looked back at her for a moment, and half nodded before finally leaving the command center.