CHAPTER 20

GONNA GO BACK IN TIIIIIIIIIME!

According to Carter and McKay's calculations, about a month had to pass before the sunspot happens. In that time Zim spent a lot of his life trying to get a nap but instead being sent on adventures through the Stargate. In one world he found himself stuck in a quantum pocket where he wound up meeting alternate universe versions of himself. (He really couldn't stand the one with the soul patch and the ninja sword. Fuck that guy.) In another he caught an alien disease and almost melted in the infirmary. In yet another he found that his mind had been swapped out with DD's, so he was stuck living in that scumbag's body until McKay found a way to reverse it.

In the meantime Jacob had forsaken the Tok'ra and joined SG-1, hoping that his efforts would one day lead to bringing the original SG-1 back to life. And to take the fourth slot they found a guy from SG-4, Lt. Sheppard. At first he tried talking to Zim, just shooting the shit, but Zim always wondered why this guy was talking to him, so he only answered in terse sentences. After a while, Sheppard gave up.

DD and Pervdoz were permanently assigned to SG-1, not that it mattered much. They didn't contribute a single solitary fucking thing to the group. Somehow through sheer luck they managed to survive several firefights with the Jaffa, and once they rescued Jackson from a Goa'uld named Baal.

Zim became a decent shot after a while, but his specialty was not the P90. The recoil was too much for him. He was satisfied with the zat guns, though. He liked the cool sound they made when he fired them.

But as time for the sunspot drew near Hammond pulled everyone into the briefing room to prepare for this all-important mission. McKay stood at the front of the room, ready to begin.

"The sunspot will occur at 0523 and 35 seconds tomorrow morning," he said. "We will need to be assembled in the gate room with the Stargate dialed out to P2X-345 by that time. On my mark, you must all go through the Stargate. If we're off by a second, this won't work."

"Which is where this thing comes in." Jacob held up the time device that they'd gotten from the Mayans.

"Right," McKay said. "If you wind up on P2X-345 but not in the past, then you must push the button. This will set you back ten seconds, at which point you must tell me which calculation to try next. There are ten calculations. Since I won't be the one pushing the button, I won't know which one to try next. If things work out well, then we'll have just enough time to try again."

"That sounds confusing," Zim said.

"God help me," O'Neill said, "but for once I agree with this idiot. Help me out here, Rodney."

"You don't need to understand it," McKay said. "I get it, and that's what's important here."

"So what happens if we get to where we need to be?" Lt. Sheppard asked. "Because I don't remember if you guys recall how things went down or not. The Jaffa nearly took the Stargate from us. It was a hell of a firefight. We could be walking into a crossfire."

"Crossfire!" Zim shouted. "Crossfiahhhhhhhhh!"

Everyone in the room looked at Zim, and Robo-Rico shook his head. "I don't know this guy."

"Was that a reference to the 'Eighties game?" Sheppard asked.

Zim nodded. "Sorry. Fitz wasn't here, so I had to do it."

"Nah. It's funny in a lightly amusing kind of way. But my question still stands. What do we do in that situation? We can't send a MALP through into the past to check things out."

"That's the risk we run," McKay said. "There's no way around it. Duck and roll and hope for the best."

"Well that's reassuring," O'Neill and Sheppard said at once. They looked at each other, and O'Neill frowned.

"Aren't you going to jinx each other?" Robo-Rico asked.

"Come on, Rico," Sheppard said. "Now you're just talking to hear yourself talk."

"Now you're just talking to hear yourself talk," Robo-Rico said.

Jackson looked to O'Neill. "We should have never left Altair. It wasn't so bad, was it?"

"Here's a neat thing I've been thinking about," McKay said. "The time device. Who's to say it can't be used over and over again? We don't know much about the power source, whether or not it can be drained and all of that. However, in theory if you go back in time ten seconds, the button would technically not have been pressed. Therefore I suspect it might have an unlimited supply of power. If worse comes to worst, you can probably keep hitting the button."

"What are you talking about?" O'Neill asked.

"Never mind," Jacob said. "I understand."

"I'm glad someone does."

"Anyway, the idea is to fight your way through the Jaffa, if there are any, and get to Anubis's mothership, which is located here." McKay pointed to a map on the screen behind him. He hit a button, and the schematics for the ship showed up. "From the biometric signatures I've studied, SG-1 was located in the engine room of the ship, here. From what I've been able to gather, the Naquadria engine overloaded, and that's what caused the explosion. You need to get there in time to stop that from happening. Understood?"

"Piece of cake," O'Neill said.

"Then we'll meet in the gate room at 0500," Hammond said. "Get a good night's sleep. You're going to need it. Dismissed."

Everyone went their separate ways to enjoy what was possibly their final day in this universe. Zim had a dim understanding that this world would end if they were successful tomorrow. It would be no big loss, as far as he was concerned. Still, this was probably his last chance to get a really good nap. Who knew what the world would look like when they changed the past?

He tried to get a pass off the base so he could maybe hit up a bar, try to get laid, but nothing happened. Hammond didn't let anyone go. Sulking, Zim returned to his quarters, where Robo-Rico waited. Spanking it.

"You're a robot," Zim said. "What good does that do for you?"

"It relaxes me," Robo-Rico said. "And shut up. I saved your life, remember?"

"You can't ride on that forever," Zim said.

"Won't have to. This time tomorrow I won't be around. So let me spank it in peace."

Fuck. One more day, that was it. He just had to deal with this one more day.

The next day they gathered in the gate room at five in the morning, decked out in their field uniforms and loaded down with a metric shit-ton of weapons. McKay stood in the booth with Sgt. Harriman and General Hammond. They went over a few last-minute details, and then they dialed out to P2X-345. As soon as the burst of energy poured out of the gate and then pulled itself back in, everyone mounted the steps and approached the wormhole.

"On my mark," McKay said. "One minute."

DD picked his nose and ate what he found. Pervdoz rolled his eyes, annoyed all to hell because he couldn't bring his Simpsons with him. His fingers twitched, missing the chance to flip the channel to FXX.

"Thirty seconds," McKay said.

O'Neill, Jackson and Jacob took their positions at the front of the procession. Zim and Robo-Rico came next. DD and Pervdoz took up the rear with Sheppard.

"T minus ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, MARK."

Everyone rushed through the Stargate, and as soon as they jumped out the other side, the world was filled with energy blasts from staff weapons. Bullets from P90s whizzed through the air. O'Neill and Jackson dove for cover, but Jacob, who held the time device, took a staff blast to the face. Robo-Rico, who had stood behind him, took three blasts to the chest and one to the balls.

Zim would have laughed if not for the chaos around him. Staff blasts sizzled off the Stargate, and the others took cover and hoped that this wasn't the end.

The time device rolled out of Jacob's dead hand, and before Zim could grab it, it went down the steps and out of his reach.

"We're so screwed," Zim said.

"Word," DD said.

"I hate you."