Sam shot up as the low hum of power died, all lights fading out with it.

"What the hell?" Olivia said. Everything was dark for several seconds before the emergency lights kicked in.

Sam looked over towards the controls. The crystals were all dim, there was no power running to them. "The power's been cut."

Ignoring her head, Sam went over to the controls. She pressed the main crystal, trying to initiate a system restart, but nothing happened. The panel was completely dead. She kneeled in front of the controls, prying loose the panel. With the dim light and her already impaired vision there wasn't much to see.

"Can you fix it?"

Sam pulled out one of the circuit crystals, and didn't notice any damage. "The problem isn't here. The systems must have been disabled from the engine room."

And as far as Sam could tell, every system was down. So they were floating dead in space with no life support. Air wouldn't be an immediate concern, unless the damage was severe. She was pretty certain there was damage, no way with their luck that the bad guys simply flicked a switch and shut everything off. As long as there were no fires, they'd freeze to death long before they suffocated.

Olivia was staring at her, clearly fighting panic. "It's bad, isn't it? You have that look."

"Well, it's definitely not good. We need to get out of here and find out what happened."

Sam walked over to the door, trying the panel. It wasn't surprising that it was as dead as everything else. She'd hoped that there was a tiny bit of juice left.

"If we have the lights, shouldn't the doors work too?" Olivia asked. The woman was smart. Of course on a ship doors would be as vital a system as lights, and both worked off the emergency power.

Assuming one didn't remove it from the circuit. "When the emergency battery activates, all sealed doors are opened. Unless, of course, they were disabled, and thus pulled from the grid."

"Oh."

"Big oh."

"Can you put it back on emergency power somehow?"

Sam shook her head. "Not without a blow torch. I'd need to get inside the wall and reconnect it physically."

She needed to find a power source she could wire into the door. A naquadah reactor would be nice. Overkill, but nice. That device Jack built while the Ancient's repository was downloaded into his brain would work, too.

"Of course!" Sam nearly kicked herself. She went back to the controls, rifling through the open panel.

Olivia came to kneel beside her. "What is it?"

She reached in to undo one of the auxiliary power lines, wouldn't do to disable the whole console when they did manage to get things running again, and her voice came out in strained huffs. "With any luck I can splice the zat into the control panel, use its power source to open the door."

Sam pulled out the line and studied it in the light, making sure it was intact. If it was compromised she could get a nasty jolt, lethal. It was solid. "I'll have to take apart the gun, and that will leave us with nothing."

Olivia followed her logic. "Isn't doing us much good locked in here."

"No." Sam agreed.

She twisted the handle of the gun, removing the casing. The power cell was a dim blue, glowing from within the dozens of filaments disappearing further into the gun. The filaments attached at the base of the power cell. With the edge of the handle casing, Sam popped out the cell, catching it in her other hand. It was shaped a lot like a narrow light bulb.

Now that she wasn't going to shock herself, Sam snapped most of the filaments, they weren't made to be disconnected. Full power would fry the door rather than give them enough juice to open it. At the top of the handle, she removed a plate in the circuit, and connected the line in its place.

"Hold this." Sam gave Olivia the jury-rigged gun and disconnected power cell. With her hands free, she started undoing her belt. She used the buckle to pry loose the door panel. Several small control crystals reflected the dim light. Sam started to pull out the crystals, digging for the power lines, when she heard the muted thump of hurried footsteps outside.

"Carter, you in there?" Jack yelled through the door, the words almost muffled to obscurity.

"Yes, sir. Are you guys ok?"

"We're all here. Can you get out?"

"I was just about to try something. We'll talk after."

"Right."

After a few minutes she had the gun rigged into the door. Now she just had to see if it worked.

"Ok." Sam replaced the power cell back into the zat, closing it back up except for the line running out of the handle. She gave it back to Olivia. "Squeeze the firing plate and hold it."

Olivia did as she was told, and the crystals inside the panel began to glow. They grinned widely at each other, then Sam keyed in the code.

The three men on the other side were far less ecstatic.

"We've got a problem," Jack said.

Sam's smile faded. Of course they did...