Sam and Jack tumbled out of the open wormhole after Daniel just in time to see a few bursts of electricity before the connection was lost and the Stargate shut down.
"Redial the gate!" Jack barked as soon as he had stood up, brushing the ample dirt of his pants as he spoke.
From up in the Control Room, Sergeant Harriman nodded and began his systematic countdown to wormhole activation.
"Chevron one, encoded…"
"Sir, the chances that we can reconnect…
"Chevron two, encoded…"
"…are fairly minimal. I mean, we've seen gates destroyed before by massive hits from spacecraft…"
"Chevron three, encoded…"
"…but even if the gate itself is still functional, it's likely that it's…"
"Chevron four, encoded…"
"…been buried in rubble, in which case we won't be able to connect anyway…"
"Colonel!" Jack barked. "We don't leave our people behind!"
"Chevron five, encoded…"
"I'm just saying sir, we might need to find a different mode of transport, should the gate fail to connect. I think we need to contact the Tok'ra, or the Asgard, or…"
"Chevron six, encoded…"
"Let's just wait to see if the gate connects before we start on plan Bs," said Daniel, calmly. "Who knows, maybe the gate wasn't affected and the wormhole will…"
"Chevron seven will not lock. I repeat. Chevron seven will not lock,"
"…connect," Daniel finished lamely.
Jack swore loudly.
"So what's the plan?" Jack asked, a few hours later in the briefing room.
"We tried to contact the Tok'ra," Sam said. "But they can't provide any ships at the moment."
Everyone in the room except for Daniel was staring at her. "What?" she snapped.
"Uh, Colonel," Sergeant Harriman said. "You're…uh…out of uniform."
The SFs in the room sniggered at the sight of the SG-1 leader dressed as Dorothy.
"Ah, pipe down!" Jack barked. "In case you haven't noticed, we've got work to do!" He turned back to Sam. "So the Tok'ra punked out?" He asked politely to put out the glare on his 2IC's face.
"That's right," she answered, ignoring his attempts completely. She unconsciously stroked her arm, where a medic had bandaged her staff-weapon graze.
"The Asgard?" Jack asked.
"We can't get a hold of them," said Daniel.
"Damn it!"
"And the Prometheus is still out of commission," Sam said with a look at Daniel. His last trip in the ship had caused considerable damage, due to the fiery thief who had changed and sabotaged many of the control systems onboard.
"Crap!"
"You said it, sir," Sam replied.
"What do you think will happen to Teal'c?" Daniel asked.
"It depends how quickly we can get to him," Sam said. "Who knows what might be happening. If the ship did crash into the Stargate, the explosion on impact could have been huge. If so, it's possible that the ship was destroyed along with all the Jaffa that were waiting for it. And if not, there are about a hundred Jaffa and a few Goa'uld on the planet, if they didn't die in the crash."
"Oh wee oh, we o-o-oh," Jack dirged.
"Sir," she reprimanded, and he stopped his imitation of the Winkies.
"So the gate still isn't working?" Daniel confirmed.
"We've attempted to establish a wormhole a totally of eight times," Walter said, "and each time has failed."
"Maybe Teal'c can click his heels," Jack grumbled, smoothing down his headache with his hand. Sam rolled her eyes.
"About that sir," Walter asked, glancing back to Colonel Carter again. "What exactly happened on the planet?"
"A whole lot of 'don't ask'," Jack said.
"Harry Maybourne has been posing as the God of their planet," Daniel provided, repeating the same story he had told them before. "We discovered that the Goa'uld who originally ruled there was returning. A contingent of Jaffa came through the gate and we fought them as best as we could. We headed back to the Stargate to call for back up, but the Goa'uld's ship came out of orbit. Something must have gone wrong because the ship was crashing. We had to get out of the way. So we came through the gate."
"And left Teal'c behind," said Sam.
"Right," he said with regret and turned his attention back to his team. "Daniel, write a list of all the allies we have who might be able to give us a ship, Harriman, try dialing the gate again, Carter, try and find us another way there…wait…change into your BDUs and then try to find us another way there. Dismissed!"
His team nodded and began filing out of the briefing room.
"Do you think he's alright?" Sam asked, before she left.
"I don't know, Carter. Let's hurry the hell up and find out!"
The next three days could not have been longer. The attempts at contacting the Asgard and Tok'ra were still failing and little progress had been made. All hopes of getting Teal'c back lay with Sam and the hope that the Stargate had not been completely destroyed.
Sam sat down at her lab desk and sighed. How on earth was she supposed to find alternate means of getting to that planet? If the Stargate had been destroyed then there was no way of establishing a wormhole, but if it had only been buried, then they had a good chance. She pulled out the extensive files she had written when General O'Neill had been trapped on Edora. She had pulled them out at lest a dozen times over the last few days. These files were the closest thing she had to tangible solutions to the problem.
The fact that they could not even establish a wormhole however, meant that they could not use the same methods. Sam hoped to god that the Stargate had just been damaged and not completely destroyed. If it had, there was almost no chance that Teal'c was still alive. Regardless, it seemed very unlikely that they would be able to use the Stargate at all.
She took a look at the files with a feeling of nausea. Of all her missions risking her life and going beyond the call of duty, this was the one that she wished she never had to make. She shook herself off with a thought of Teal'c and opened the cover of the file.
"Unauthorized of World Activation!"
Sam dropped the file and ran out of her lab to the control room.
"What have we got?" Jack asked Walter.
"Radio transmission," Sergeant Harriman replied. "Listen!"
"Ding dong, the Witch is dead. Which old witch? The wicked witch!"
"Oh, for crying out loud!"
Sam and Daniel looked to each other excitedly.
"What?" Jack snapped at them.
"It's the Ozzians!"
"They're celebrating!"
"And they're using a radio!"
"It's got to be Teal'c's!"
The pair were buzzing.
"Hold your horses," Jack waved at them. "How do we know it's them? It could be a trick."
"Jack, I doubt Maybourne would have taught the Jaffa how to sing," Daniel said, a wide grin on his face.
"Good point. Get a team in the control room and open the iris."
A team of armed SFs jogged into the gate room and the metal iris opened. From it spun a scorched hand device bearing a set of symbols.
"It's a gate address," Daniel exclaimed.
They beamed at each other. There was still hope!