Chapter 10
Alarms began to sound throughout the ship and Sam gripped the back of Caldwell's chair to keep her balance.
"How the hell did they get through our shields?" Caldwell demanded, his eyes narrowed to tiny slits.
"I don't know, Sir!"
"I'm detecting an energy signature coming from the ships, Sir."
"Are they powering weapons?" Sam asked, leaning toward the helmsmen and the console that would give her an answer.
"No, Ma'am."
"Broadcast on all channels. I want to know why they've taken General O'Neill!" Caldwell ordered as he returned to his seat. "Power weapons but do not fire."
"Sir, I'm picking up a transmission, but its nothing our system can understand or translate."
Daniel hurried over to the console and pressed a headset to his ear.
"Let's hear it, Lieutenant," Caldwell said quickly.
When the transmission was piped through the speakers, a peaceful tingle rushed down Sam's spine. The emotionally charged bridge fell silent as the tranquil melody of a million tiny bells all tinkling their own rhythmic sound echoed through the room.
"What is that?" Caldwell asked, eyes narrowing.
"It must be how they communicate," Daniel answered absently, his eyes still glued on the console in front of him.
"It's beautiful," a female helmsman commented, a wondrous smile on her face.
"Beautiful though it may be, Lieutenant," Caldwell stared hard at the young woman seated to the side of him. "They are an enemy combatant that has taken a three star General off this ship without his consent."
"Let me see if I can communicate with them," Daniel said, standing suddenly. "Can you open a channel?"
Caldwell nodded curtly to his second. "Do it."
****
When Jack uncovered his eyes, the white light had vanished and he was standing in the middle of a large empty room.
"Well this is – new," Jack quipped. "Doesn't much look like my old buddy's ship, though."
At the far side of the room a door slid open and he stared for a long minute before cautiously moving toward it. His eyes cased his surroundings and his body coiled tight and ready to strike out if something harmful approached.
He hadn't been in the field in years, but instincts honed from decades on the front lines were difficult to forget. Sense memory ruled his every step now. He only hoped he wasn't where he thought he was, but really, in the back of his mind, he knew he'd been transported onto one of the enemy ships. Why, was his next question and he wasn't a very patient man. He wasn't going to wait for them to come to him.
The room through the now open doorway was dark and Jack hesitated. But instinct and a burning need to know why these people had fired on Earth ships pushed him forward. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, the door slid shut and light flooded the room.
Jack stared, eyebrows raised, at the familiar-looking equipment that lined every available surface space in this cavernous room. He recognized a few pieces instantly; and Ancient communications device sat on a polished table right in front of him. To his right sat a full size Puddle Jumper.
"I've never really been a fan of museums," Jack muttered to himself as he reached for a small item he recognized to be an Ancient personal shield device. Contrary to popular belief, he'd actually read all the reports that had come out of Atlantis.
"It has been a long time since we have met someone capable of using the devices of the Creators."
Jack whirled at the sound of the melodic voice and his eyes widened when they fell on a very tall, waif-like humanoid being. Her eyes were wide and pear-shaped and her skin was like the whitest ivory, almost translucent. Her hair, as dark as her eyes, was pulled into a golden coif-like thing that Jack couldn't even begin to describe. As she moved closer, Jack had to crane his neck upward to look at her rounded face.
"Who are you?" Jack asked as his fingers flexed over the Ancient shield device. "And I find that hard to believe if you make it a habit of plucking people off their ships."
Her head tilted to the side and her large eyes swept across his body. The appraisal wasn't surprising and Jack did the same, his mind cataloguing what kind of threat this being could pose to his safety.
"We do not venture into the stars lightly nor do we with any regularity seek out younger races," she answered, her voice a melodic sound to his ears.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Why now then?"
The being stared at him for a long minute as if trying to decide how much she wanted to say. Just as Jack opened his mouth to speak, she answered.
"We are a dying race," she said softly. "And we need your help."
She touched a pendant at her neck and smiled at him, which, oddly, had a calming affect on his coiled nerves. He had a fleeting thought that the item was translating her speech into something he could understand.
Jack gestured around the room. "You Ancients?"
"No."
"Didn't think so. They didn't really look like - you."
"We were allies, long ago." The look on her face was sad, regretful.
"Yet you're still here and they're not." The words were accusing but the tone in which he'd said them were not. He found himself hoping she wouldn't be offended.
"They – left the corporeal world and we found ourselves unable to generate the power requirements necessary for our existence."
Jack blinked rapidly, his smallish brain trying to soak in the information being given to him. They'd so beamed the wrong person onto the ship if they were looking for someone who could store a wealth of knowledge in their fron. Jack winced inwardly. It was rare when Ancient words popped into his thoughts but this time he found it oddly comforting.
"And you thought attacking us would give you more power?"
"You destroyed our home." The voice was soft, tranquil and so matter-of-fact, Jack had to appreciate the simple answer. "It was our duty to retaliate."
"Icarus," Jack muttered. It wasn't a question.
The being slowly inclined her head. "We slept beneath the surface of the planet. Our lives sustained by the power that churned within its core."
"You have to know we weren't responsible for Icarus being destroyed," Jack said quickly, his hands outstretched at his sides. "That base was attacked by an enemy dangerous to us both. We lost people, too."
"You should not have tapped into a power you do not understand. You are too young. Still learning." The voice was mildly chastising.
"I've heard that before," Jack muttered with a roll of his eyes.
He had heard it all before. Usually from the Asgard. He spent a split second mourning their demise before he turned hard eyes on this alien woman.
Realization dawned in his overwhelmed mind. "You don't know how to use this stuff."
The woman inclined her head and he was momentarily surprised at the easy admission. "We do not have the gene carried by the Creators."
"And that's why you need me."
"All that remains of our race resides on our ships and we are dying. We have no other ancient power source that could sustain our lives." There was a sad look on her face that made even Jack's hardened heart melt – a tiny sliver. "We need you to send us back in time to – the Icarus of the past where we may live out our lives."
"Back in time?" Jack spluttered. "Even if I knew how to do that, there's no way in hell. I've had enough time jumping to last for two lifetimes."
The being's boney finger rose to indicate the puddle jumper. "Within is a time dilation device. You can send us back and then return yourself to this time period."
Jack almost laughed. "Hate to break it to you but just because it all hums to life whenever I come near it, doesn't mean I know how to use it."
Jack's attention was drawn to a black statue with a cylindrical base sitting on the floor a few feet away. Its reddish dome was pristine and Jack squinted at it. He'd seen one before.
"It is a repository of knowledge," the being said. "It contains the history of our alliance."
Jack suppressed the urge to shudder. Daniel's incessant quest for knowledge had almost gotten them all killed the last time they'd come across one of these. "I - may have seen one before."
"Can you read the symbols?"
Jack glanced down and sure enough, there was writing inscribed in long columns all the way around the circumference of the base. He recognized some of it as Ancient, and some of it had those little squigglies he would always recognize as belonging to the Asgard. Jack inhaled sharply and his head whipped around so fast that he knew he'd strained a muscle.
The woman pointed at the column beside the language of the Nox. "Those are written in our tongue."
Jack stared, open-mouthed, at the tall, ethereal being. "You're the Furlings." It wasn't a question. He already knew the answer.
****
"They're just sitting there, Sir," Caldwell's XO said as his hands flew across his console.
"Maybe they've decided not to blow us into tiny bits," Daniel said with a raised eyebrow.
"They took General O'Neill for a reason," Sam said, her eyes glued to the front viewscreen. "Only the Asgard have ever beamed him out of one of our facilities."
"That wasn't an Asgard beam," Caldwell said. He nodded to his helmsman. "Try and get a lock on General O'Neill's transmitter."
"We're being blocked, Sir. I can't even tell what ship he was beamed to."
"Well," Daniel shrugged. "Whoever they are, he hasn't pissed 'em off yet."
Caldwell turned a skeptical eye on Daniel. "Why do you say that?"
"Because we're still here."
"He must have something they want," Sam said absently, her eyes still glued to the largest ship looming big and deadly out the front screen.
"We got no response when I tried to talk to them," Daniel said, coming to stand by Sam's side.
"Why would they bother to answer if Sam's right?" Caldwell commented. "If what they wanted was General O'Neill, then, well, they got him."
Sam barely heard Daniel when he leaned close and softly said, "You need to sit down. You shouldn't be standing on that leg."
"I'm fine." She wasn't concerned with herself right now and Daniel had worked with her long enough to know that.
Blessedly, Daniel left her alone after that and moved back to his own console to continue working on a way to translate that language being piped in through the comm.
She hobbled over to a console and the chair was vacated immediately. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, wondering how she was ever going to concentrate on getting them out of this when she was barely conscious herself.
She was exhausted, sore and it was time for more pain medication.
But she wasn't going to abandon Jack and the rest of this crew if there was something in her head that could help them. She could work through the pain. She'd done it before.
She scrubbed a hand over her face and through her hair determined to find a solution before the aliens decided to make off with their prize.
****
Jack snuggled closer and wrapped his arms around the slumbering woman in front of him. He inhaled deeply, grinned when she moaned in response and dropped a kiss to the back of her neck. When she snuggled closer, he slid a hand up her smooth stomach and cupped her breast.
It didn't take long for him to fall back to sleep, but when he did, instead of dreaming about spending the day in bed with Samantha Carter and engaging in all kinds of formerly forbidden very dirty activities, he was standing in a large green field.
Jack frowned in his dream and pulled Sam closer. In sleepy answer, she draped her ankle back over his calf and settled her backside against his very exhausted groin.
She was there with him. In his dream. So were Daniel and Teal'c but Jack so didn't want to dream about them right now. Sam smiled at the large clearing, full of trees and grass and – little furry creatures that stood only as high as his waist. To Jack, they looked like Wookies that had been cut off at the knees. Except with bigger heads. And shorter legs. He shook his dream head in resignation. He'd been spending far too much time around Teal'c and his Star Wars obsession.
Jack pulled Sam impossibly closer and moaned into her neck but the dream wouldn't fade. One of the creatures took his hand and then took Sam's. It led them toward thatched homes with a dome roof that couldn't possibly belong to a race technologically sophisticated enough to be allies of the Ancients.
Jack groaned and squeezed the smooth little nipple beneath his hand. In his sleep, he gently rolled and tugged until it hardened between his fingers.
"This is so not what I want to be thinking about right now," Jack muttered as his dream self walked toward the domed dwelling.
"Jack?" came the sleepy response from the woman lying in his arms.
Jack mumbled something incoherent and his eyes snapped open when Sam rolled over and sent him a quizzical look.
"Bad dream?" she asked, her fingers resting lightly on his bare chest.
Jack pushed a hand through his hair and chuckled. "I'll say."
He buried his face in her neck and began to drown out the uncomfortable memories by kissing the soft skin beneath his lips. "Martin Lloyd's movie is going to haunt my dreams for decades."
He could feel her chuckle and tighten her arms around his neck. "Which one? The unfilmed one or the television series?"
Jack groaned. He'd forgotten all about the series. "Both!"
Jack blinked rapidly and pulled himself out of the memory. The being's round face came into view as she bent down to eye level and smiled at him.
"Yes, in your tongue, that is how we are called. I am pleased that you have heard of us."
Jack shook his head, a small smile spreading across his face. "You aren't anything like we pictured." He looked her up and down, his eyes twinkling. "Less . . . fur . . . for one thing and . . . taller. Much. Much taller."
****
"Who the hell could they be?" Caldwell asked no one in particular. "And why are they just sitting there. They could easily destroy us."
Daniel looked up from his console. "That's a comforting thought."
Caldwell moved closer. "Find anything?"
Daniel frowned. "Nothing."
"We've got a lot of artifacts stored at Groom Lake," Sam said as she joined Daniel at his console. "It'll take a while to go through them all."
"So far I haven't found anything even remotely like the design of the primary ship." Daniel said as he moved over and let Sam take a seat.
"What about the smaller ones?" Caldwell asked.
Daniel shrugged. "Well, they in part look Ancient in design with a bit of Asgard thrown into the mix."
"Scavengers?" Caldwell asked with raised eyebrows.
Sam shook her head. "I don't think so. I've been going over the personnel manifest for the Daedalus and the Hammond. No one on either ship had the ancient gene."
"You think that's why General O'Neill was taken?" Caldwell asked, glancing out the viewscreen at the unmoving ship.
"It's the only logical explanation."
"Our enemies rarely use logic when engaging us," Caldwell muttered.
Sam glanced out the viewscreen and sighed. "Well they wanted him for something and we have no way to get him back."
Caldwell scowled. "That's just not acceptable."
Sam continued to scan through the artifacts stored at Groom Lake. "Their energy signature is unique, though. It doesn't resemble the Asgard or the Ancient technology we've encountered."
"So this is an entirely new race that has lived this close to Earth for – how long and we've never come into contact with them?"
Caldwell was frustrated and Sam couldn't blame him. At least his fiancée hadn't been beamed off his ship without consent.
"Nope, only his boss," Sam whispered to herself.
"What was that?" Caldwell asked as Daniel raised an eyebrow at her.
"Nothing," Sam said as the console in front of her began to beep.
"What'd you find?" Caldwell leaned closer, into her personal space and Sam found it disconcerting.
"Well, the design is similar and the trade signatures from the artifact seem to match." Sam's eyes scanned quickly through the documentation.
When she heard Daniel's sharp intake of breath, she squinted at him.
"Do you know where this was found?" Daniel asked.
Sam raised an eyebrow and pointed at the screen. "It says right here." She glanced at the date and then turned her complete attention to Daniel. "You were dead at the time."
Daniel shrugged. "Doesn't mean I wasn't – around." He jabbed excitedly at the screen. "Mayborne took the only artifact with him through the portal but the trace signatures from the power source left behind once he activated it match."
Sam swallowed deeply. She remembered that temple all too well. She'd been taken by surprise and allowed her CO to enter into an unknown situation without backup – and he'd almost died as a result.
By the time she'd managed to get back from the briefing, he was all settled and relatively, as much as O'Neill trapped in the infirmary could be, comfortable.
"Took ya long enough," he quipped with a lopsided grin that did regulation breaking things to her insides.
"I'm sorry it took us so long, Sir," Sam said as she came to sit at his side.
"I was joking, Carter." He swung his legs over the bed and was rewarded with a glare from an approaching Janet.
"You're confined to the infirmary until morning, Colonel," Janet said firmly. "No arguments or I could arrange for a longer stay." She pushed something into his IV and Sam had knew that he wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon
"Yeah yeah, I've heard all the threats by now," he groused.
When Janet turned to her, Sam glanced up, careful to wipe the amused grin off her face before the Colonel noticed it. ""He'll stay. Or I'll call in the big needle."
"Oh, I know he will." Satisfied, Janet left Sam to the patient.
"Too bad Dad couldn't stay," Jack said as he shifted into a more comfortable position.
"Yeah. He had an important op to get back to."
"Well, thank him for me, will ya?" His eyes began to droop furthering Sam's assumption that Janet had spiked his IV.
"I will."
He began to relax and Sam was about to settle back in the chair when his hand stretched out and covered hers. When their eyes met, words weren't needed. She knew he was happy to be home and grateful to everyone who'd had a hand in the rescue.
She squeezed his hand in return and when she glanced around the room, there was no one around. She leaned forward into his personal space and smiled warmly at him.
"Welcome home, Sir."
"Yeah," he whispered, voice thick with an emotion Sam couldn't afford to try and identify. "It's good to be back."
His eyes fluttered closed and Sam simply sat there with him, hand covering his. She watched his face relax into medically induced sleep, grateful that yet again they had escaped a situation that she knew would only end in heartbreak.
TBC
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