Season 10 Episode 14 – The Shroud
Episode summary: SG-1 find Daniel. He has been turned into a Prior. They secure him with an anti-Prior device aboard the Odyssey, and he tells them about his plan to commandeer an Ori ship, finish building Merlin's weapon to destroy ascended beings, and send it through the supergate. He wants them to shut down the wormhole they have open connecting the Pegasus galaxy to the Milky Way supergate, which is the only thing blocking more Ori ships from coming through. He says Merlin is still sharing his mind, but that Merlin will fade from his mind within the next 24 hours and when that happens he will turn back into a human and lose his Ori powers – including the ability to pilot an Ori ship. Jack talks to him, and he and SG-1 agonise over whether Daniel is telling the truth, and they come to believe him, but it's too big a risk to go completely along with Daniel's plan. They convince him to tell them enough to try the initial stages of the plan themselves. Meanwhile, the IOA wanted to kill Daniel, due to Woolsey's experience with Caleb, the 'son' of Anubis. Jack and Landry talk him down, but Woolsey still wants to put Daniel in stasis in Antarctica until such time as SG-1's mission is deemed a success. Daniel won't go along with this though, and having overcome the affect of the anti-Prior device, takes over the Odyssey, beaming the crew safely down to Earth, and abducting Jack. He informs Jack that he has installed cloaking technology on the Odyssey. He takes the Odyssey to the supergate, where SG-1 have arrived aboard the Ori ship. However, Adria has taken back control of the ship, and Daniel intervenes to help them. He knocks Adria out, dials the supergate and sets the ship on a course through it, turning back into a human in the process. With the weapon set to go off on a timer, SG-1 beam out with Daniel. Later, they and Jack watch aboard the Odyssey as the supergate activates again and spits out six new Ori ships to join the one already waiting at the gate. They are left to hope that the weapon successfully destroyed the Ori themselves, but that is small comfort in the face of the overwhelming power and resolve of the Ori's Priors, armies and ships.
"Follow them." Jack ordered, and Sam moved quickly to comply, bringing the Odyssey's hyperdrive online to follow the seven Ori ships.
"They'll split up at some point." Daniel pointed out, his gaze fixed on the sight of the ships in the distance. "We can't follow them all."
"We should keep up with them as long as we can." Mitchell pointed out. "If there's any chance of picking up some intel about their plans …"
Jack canted his head in oblique agreement. He turned back to Sam. "Can we activate the supergate again, block more ships from coming through?"
"Not immediately. We'd have to do the same thing we did last time, getting a stargate close to the supergate on this end and close to a black hole on the Pegasus end, and detonating some Mark 9's close enough to make the wormhole jump. And to be honest … we were lucky we got it to work last time. I'm not 100% confident that McKay and I could replicate the results."
Jack sighed. "Then I guess that's a discussion to be had when we get back to Stargate Command."
He glanced at Daniel, looking him up and down. "If you're going to stay 'up', you might want to put on some clothes."
Daniel frowned at him in confusion, and then glanced down, abruptly realising he was still in his infirmary scrubs. "Right. I'll, uh, I'll be right back."
"I'll go with you." Vala said, running after him.
Jack caught Sam watching the pair go with an indulgent smile, and he raised an eyebrow when she looked back at him. She shrugged. Daniel and Vala were still 'Daniel and Vala'. It was comforting.
"They appear to be parting ways." Teal'c said suddenly, and Jack squinted at the ships far ahead of them. His eye-sight wasn't a hundred percent these days.
"Teal'c is right. Each ship is heading in a different direction." Sam said. She looked up at Jack with a helpless shrug. "Sir?"
"Are any of them headed towards Earth?" He asked.
Sam looked at her console for a few moments. "Not directly. Should I follow the one that comes closest?"
Jack sighed. "No, there's not a great deal of point. Take us home."
"Yes sir." She programmed their course into the navigational computer.
He sat down in the commander's chair heavily, Sam already seated on his right, and Mitchell took the seat to his left.
"Sir, with your permission, I'd like to go and take a closer look at that cloak." Sam said.
"Go." He said, waving her away, and she smiled at him, vacating her seat. Teal'c took her place.
"The IOA are going to be pretty irate with Daniel." Mitchell commented. "Abducting you, stealing the Odyssey … and we just let six new Ori ships into the galaxy."
"Yes, well … Daniel's always been a trouble-maker." Jack said. "At least we can say we probably just killed the 'big-bads'. And he gave us cloaking technology."
"Technically, that was Merlin." Teal'c rumbled.
Jack squinted at him. "Same difference."
"Do you think Carter can figure out how it works and replicate it for our other ships?" Mitchell asked.
Jack levelled an incredulous stare at him. "It's Carter, Mitchell."
The Colonel had the good grace to look contrite. "Right."
"How long till we reach Earth?" Jack asked.
"Three hours and forty-seven minutes."
Oy. Wish I'd brought a yoyo. "Mitchell, hold down the fort." Jack said, standing. "I'm gonna go help Carter."
It was doubtful he was any actual 'help' to Sam, but it was nice to have the opportunity to watch her work again. It wasn't an opportunity he was presented with overly much, these days.
Daniel and Vala turned up after about an hour, and Vala rendered some actual assistance to Sam, while Daniel hung back talking with Jack. Vala, as it turned out, was pretty savvy with technology herself, something Jack hadn't been fully conscious of previously, despite knowing in an abstract way of her previous exploits aboard the ill-fated Prometheus.
Watching the dark-haired woman kneeling next to his wife, Jack was struck again by the resemblance to Serena, the young woman he'd met in the future who he was now certain was Vala's future progeny. He missed Serena, as much as he missed Beth and Jake. He'd sensed a kindred spirit in the young woman, and he resolved to try and get to know Vala a little better.
After a couple of hours of work, Vala suddenly whooped and Sam exclaimed 'Yes!' and high-fived Vala enthusiastically.
"Good news?" Jack enquired.
"I found the base code." Sam said. "See, the technology itself is very similar to Arthur's Mantle … the cloak that Merlin invented to shift people in a localised area into another dimension, which Dr Lee and I later developed to hide larger areas as a defence against the Ori."
"The one you used to hide the village when you got shot by that Ori soldier." Jack said, trying to follow along.
Daniel looked between them sharply. "Shot?" He asked.
Sam lifted the hem of her shirt a little, showing off the still livid scar.
"Ouch!" Daniel said, recoiling a little.
"Yeah, that wasn't fun." Sam said. "Anyway, while the technology is similar, as far as I can tell it's not actually transferring the whole ship out of phase. We're still physically in our own dimension, it's just the visual spectrum that's been shifted. The closest comparison is the Sodan personal cloaking devices. Now, in order to duplicate it, I needed to locate the base code used to program Merlin's device, as that's what determines the frequency of the cloak – see, at the right frequency there's a resonant reaction at the subatomic level that shifts the visual spectrum …" She trailed off as all three of her listeners' eyes glazed over. "Long story short, I found it, so I'm pretty confident that with some work at R&D, we can duplicate it."
"Excellent." Jack said, jumping up. "Nice job."
Sam beamed at him. "Thank you sir."
"Why do you do that when it's only us here?" Daniel asked suddenly.
Sam looked at him, confused. "What?"
"You called Jack 'sir'."
"We're in uniform. On a mission." Sam pointed out, speaking slowly as though it was obvious.
"Yeah, but, you're married to him and the only people around are your closest friends." Daniel said, matching her tone exactly.
"It's an Air Force thing, Danny." Jack said.
Daniel rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I just think it's nuts to carry on with the charade that you're just colleagues when there's no one around to fool."
"There is such a thing as 'professional decorum'." Jack said.
Daniel looked at him askance. "Since when have you displayed any of that?"
"How about the eight years I spent refraining from flirting outrageously with her?" Jack offered smoothly. Sam flushed, and Vala snorted with laughter.
Daniel coughed awkwardly. "Point taken."
He patted Daniel on the shoulder. "Don't worry Daniel. I'm not the least bit professional with Sam in private." He winked suggestively, and Daniel recoiled.
"Jack!" Daniel exclaimed in shock at the innuendo about a woman he loved like a sister, as the ladies both burst out laughing.
"I'm going back to the bridge." Jack announced. "As you were Colonel Carter, Dr Jackson, Ms Mal Doran."
He made his exit, smirking. He could exhibit professional decorum. He just chose not to, on occasion.