A/N: Alright! To the person who sent the Update Police to my door—you know who you are!—you…are…cruel! Do you know what they did to me? Do you? Do you? Well let me tell you! I was hauled out of my cosy writer's block, thrown into a two-by-two cell with a bunch of muses on a caffeine high and left to fend for myself for three whole days!! Bail was set at eight—eight!!—chapters of this story!
Well alright, I suppose there must be some gratitude involved on my part…but begrudgingly! My fingers are all raw and bloody from working to make that bail!
To the rest of you, who did not rat me out to the Update Police…much love :D.
To my beta-reader, Dawn, many thanks as always. And if the Update Police asks about my whereabouts, I've last been seen diligently typing away in a coffee-shop…in Timbuktu! :D
Chapter 25: Comes Around
It was not until two days later that Landry summoned them to the conference room again. Usually, the team would come in and have a seat before the general made his entrance, but today they found him already seated at the end of the table, gripping a thin blue file. The scowl on his face portended nothing good.
SG1 exchanged grim looks as they greeted the General and sat down. Without an introduction, Landry raised his head and went straight into business.
"The President has approved the mission to retrieve the knowledge from the Ori library," he started, then his scowl deepened. "However…he refused to allow us to use the ZPM to power up the supergate."
A collective moan went around the table, as everyone's expressions soured to match the General's.
"How exactly does he expect us to get to the Ori galaxy without the supergate?" Mitchell demanded, more than a hint of annoyance in his voice. "Sir?" he finally remembered to add, with a quick glance to the General.
But Landry was not inclined to comment on the lack of formality. It was obvious to them he shared their frustration. Sam shook her head, thoroughly disappointed.
"With all due respect, Sir, denying us the ZPM is the same with scrapping the mission."
"This is ridiculous," Vala said bluntly, and Daniel and Teal'c were about to voice their protests, as well, when Landry raised a hand to halt it.
"Believe me, I've said all this to the President—in fact, I said a lot more to the President...it still didn't get him to sign off on the ZPM." He sighed and pushed the folder across the table to Mitchell. "SG1, you are cleared take the Odyssey along with the smallest necessary crew through the supergate. As to powering it," he looked towards Sam, "Colonel, you'll have to find another way."
Find another way, the General had said. And so they would, even if it meant giving Landry's words a rather loose interpretation. That same night, gathered in Daniel's office and with the doors securely closed, SG1 worked on devising an alternative.
"I take it none of our appeals worked," Cam remarked with not an ounce of surprise.
After the disappointing news from the morning's briefing, each of them had grabbed the nearest phone and begun some serious string-pulling. Except for Vala and Teal'c, who, Cameron imagined, had jumped straight to thinking up plan B. A plan B that no sane SGC officer would ever even consider listening to, let alone following.
Daniel dropped into his chair.
"The President might still change his mind," he offered in a doubtful tone. Sam, propping an elbow on the back on his seat, thought it her duty to add:
"Maybe I can find another way to power up the supergate…"
But her voice sounded every bit as unconvinced.
"We don't have another way, Samantha," Vala declared openly. "So let's just go straight to what we know we have to do," she crossed her arms as though daring any of them to beat around the bush any longer, "which is get that ZPM you say we need."
For a moment, it seemed as though there would be further argument. Then Mitchell took in all their expressions, one by one, and finally rested his palms on top of the desk, shaking his head in obvious agreement.
"Better tell Ma' to have my best suit ironed for the court-martial," he muttered, not without a hint of amusement. "Alright people…suit up for the bank job of the century."
Once they had put aside all qualms, things had begun to roll smoothly. They would use the Odyssey to get the ZPM. However, they were only cleared to take the ship in four days, and they needed it much sooner. Too much could go wrong in four days.
Drumming her fingers on the back of Daniel's chair, Sam bit her lower lip, her expression a mixture of bashfulness and mischief.
"I…might've overheard that the Odyssey is scheduled for a maintenance flight tomorrow morning."
Her statement left everyone surprised for a moment, except for Vala, who took it all in stride.
"Which means," the brunette reasoned, "they'll be expecting it to leave hangar. All we have to do is be on board when that happens."
"Sam?" Mitchell gave his fellow Colonel a questioning look.
"Nothing an Asgard beam and some improvising won't do."
Daniel shook his head, still slightly bemused.
"Guys!" He put up his hands to halt the discussion. "Are we seriously considering this?"
"I believe we are, in fact, already implementing this plan. Daniel Jackson," the Jaffa pointed out, and Vala rewarded the comment with a grin.
"Yup. Way past the considering point."
Daniel sighed, trying not to think about the insanity of it all. So they had the means to sneak aboard the Odyssey days earlier than they were supposed to. That, however, wasn't the hardest part.
"Hate to be the bearer of bad news here," he frowned, "but what about the ZPM?"
To his surprise, it was Sam who answered, again, with a slight blush.
"I…might know the coordinates…and codes….to where it's being held."
Daniel frowned. Teal'c tilted his head at her admission, fixing her with one of his impenetrable gazes. Vala just grinned happily.
"So I wasn't the only one thinking ahead," she commented under her breath.
Mitchell was utterly mystified.
"Just where do you know all this stuff, Sam!?"
As Sam's blush deepened, Vala's grin turned into a smirk.
"Cameron…let me just say it is a good thing you became a pilot, and not a detective."
Less than an hour later, the details were all set. They would drive Sam's car to the hangar where the Odyssey was held on the morning of the maintenance flight. One of them (Sam) would then either sneak onto or use her credentials to board the ship—alone, it would be far easier and less suspicious. Once inside, it would be easy for her to get to command and lock the ship's Asgard beam onto the emitters the rest of SG1 would be wearing.
"Then we fly to the coordinates Sam gave us, use the codes she has to get through the signal jam and just beam the ZPM on board!" Vala finished her recap of their plan with a definite air of satisfaction.
"And high-tail it out of there with half of Earth's fleet on our tail," Mitchell added.
"Earth has no fleet, Cameron" she calmly pointed out, "that's why your people are relying on the ZPM in the first place."
"Still, he has a point," Daniel agreed, "they won't just stand for it. They're bound to send every ship they've got after the Odyssey."
"Does the Odyssey not have cloaking and hyperspace capabilities that other Earth vessels do not possess?" Teal'c offered, and they all agreed it was well possible to dodge whatever smaller ships came in pursuit until the Odyssey left the planet's gravity field and jumped to hyperspace.
"That's the plan then," Mitchell concluded, and nodded to the rest of his team. "Go pack your bags—"
"Wait."
Daniel let out a small groan. He had seen it coming. And by the unsurprised expression on Mitchell's face, so had the colonel.
"Vala…" Cam tried to convince her to not even bring it up, but she would not go for it.
"Tomin has to go with us," she half-declared, half-pleaded, then proceeded to rattle arguments in her best persuasive tone. "We need him there. He's been to the Ori galaxy before—lived there all his life, he knows the customs, knows the way things work—"
"So do you, you lived there for a while, remember?"
But she completely ignored Daniel and continued her shower of arguments.
"He's served in the Ori army and knows their ships and their ways—which I don't," she said to Daniel, showing she had heard him after all, "he's at home in a galaxy we barely know anything about! His perspective and his help are invaluable! And—"
She stopped for a breath and lowered her head; wisely, no one spoke up. After a second, Vala looked back up again, moving her eyes from one to the other.
"And I just won't leave him behind." She focused her appeal on Mitchell. "He's locked up, a prisoner and that obnoxious man wants to have him tortured for information! What do you think they'll do to him once we're gone? He'll take the brunt of our actions as well, and I won't stand for that!" Her voice switched from firm to earnest to downright pleading in seconds, and she looked at her teammates expectantly. "Can you seriously tell me you'd leave him here knowing what they might do to him?"
None of them answered. Cam just let his head drop back as he fixed the ceiling with a resigned stare.
"There's no way we'd be allowed to just take him," Daniel murmured. "We'd have to break him out, and we're already pushing the limits here."
Vala knew when a battle was won. She gave him a lopsided glance, a mixture of amusement and disbelief.
"Daniel…We'll be hijacking the best ship and stealing Earth's most precious artefact. Springing a prisoner from his cell won't even show up on the indictment next to that."
He actually bit back a smile.
"Good point."
Mitchell nodded. "In for a penny…in for a bucket o' gold…"
"Wow…" Sam let out a long breath and shook her head. "It's just dawning on me exactly how much trouble we're about to get ourselves into." She looked genuinely awed at their formidable insanity. "This even tops that time I shot my way off-base and tried to convince everyone the SGC leaders had gone insane."
"Not even close," Daniel smirked. "At least you were right, then—well, sort of. The time we snuck on to Sokar's prison planet?"
"At least you had the official 'go' then," Mitchell picked up the game. "That time you rallied the women on base, knocked out the men and clobbered General Hammond over the head to get rid of Hathor?"
"Ohh." Sam grimaced. "Really thought my career was over then. Good one," she winked at Cam, "and pretty close, too. But way, way smaller scale, though."
Teal'c leaned against the wall, catching on with his usual impassive air.
"I believe our current situation most resembles the occasion on which we unlawfully escaped through the Chapa'ai once your government had decided to shut down this project."
"Yeah! Government overruling SGC suggestions, impending Goa'uld attack, crazy unauthorized mission to prevent it…" Mitchell pointed a finger at Teal'c. "Closest one yet, big guy!"
Teal'c bowed his head in acknowledgement, and the shadow of a smile glinted in his eyes.
Everyone's gazes instinctively turned to Vala, as she had yet to do her part in their little game. She sat on the edge of Daniel's desk, lips puckered in an expression of great concentration. Then the corners of her lips turned upwards in a smirk.
"All those endless, agonizing lectures, that each of you inflicted on me about ethics and morals, about rules and regulations and following orders...and what do you know?"
She gave them her best grin.
"We end up doing exactly what I was doing when I first ran into your lovely people. Remember that, Daniel?" she finished with a wink.
A/N: There really are seven more chapters completed after this one, so we can be expecting fairly regular updates for a while! No need to involve fanfic update authorities, yes? (again, no names, but yes, I mean you! :P)
Until next time!
Myosotis