"So, I meant to ask this the last time I was here." Mac asked Jack as they entered the gate room. "You guys always match going out, but how do you know what color to wear?" He asked as he glanced down at his gear and then his cousin's.
"We text each other." Jack said sarcastically.
Sam fought to keep a grin to herself then looked Jack up and down. "Are you coming too, sir?"
"Still your gig, Carter. You're in command of the mission. I'm just coming along to save his ass." He said, his head indicating towards Mac.
"Hey!" Mac defended, before Jack shrugged and offered him a gun. "I don't use guns, you know that."
"Course not, my mistake." He said loudly, as he re-holstered the gun.
Sam chuckled and pulled out a zat. "Here, almost purely for defence." She told him. He looked at it in apprehension while Sam told him. "It fires a high energy electrical bolt which immobilizes the victim for a few seconds. A single shot will give you time to get away."
"I don't know, Sam." He protested and he winced as he heard himself whine.
"Works to overload powered items, too." She told him which seemed to interest him. "Just point and shoot."
He spotted a fairly harmless looking torch next to Siler, so he pointed it and shot, only to miss the torch and hit the ladder that Siler had his hand on which shot right through him.
"Oops. Sorry." Mac muttered to himself quietly. "Out of practice." He looked over at Siler and saw Daniel help him stand up. "Is he okay?"
"Don't worry about it. Happens all the time to Siler." Jack admitted, patting Mac on a shoulder.
"Sorry." Mac said apologetically looking nervously at the now passing sergeant.
"One stuns. Two kills." She told him as she moved to his side to give him further instructions.
"And three?" He asked.
"Three, umm, disintegrates." She said carefully choosing her words.
Alarmed, Mac looked at her as if she were crazy then tried to hand her back the zat.
"Mac, please, I can't let you go on this mission unable to defend yourself. Even Daniel has a zat." She pointed out. 'He also has a gun but let's not dwell on that!' she thought to herself.
He sighed heavily and then took off his backpack to put the zat inside. When he looked up, he saw Daniel chatting to Teal'c who had the same stoic expression on his face as always. He then turned to Jack and Sam who stood at almost the opposite side of the gate room. He saw Jack's hand come up to her elbow, an intense gaze passed between them. He noticed that Jack was standing just a little closer to Sam than he should be. Most people would probably miss it, but their stances, the distance between them, and the position of his hand it was obvious to him at least, they were closer, much closer than the last time he had visited. He watched as she blinked once and a new look passed between them, her eyes softened to one of sympathy. Mac was far enough that he didn't hear what was said but he saw her mouth move. "it'll be okay."
Jack closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath. When his eyes opened, his arm dropped down to his side and he turned outwards to stand beside her again but slightly further away. Mac stared trying to interpret what he just saw just as a familiar voice over the Gate Room speakers said, "General O'Neill, the Prometheus is in orbit, sir, and is ready to transport you aboard."
Mac took a step closer to his cousin as the other man joined him at the base of the ramp, Sam a few steps behind. "Hey Jack, how does this transport thing work?"
Jack glanced over at the base personnel not assigned to the mission and watched them leave the Room. Once the room was cleared and only the mission team remained, Jack looked at Mac then at Sam before he screwed his face to a serious look and said, "Very well, thank you." Turning his head, he called up to Walter. "Thanks Walter, whenever they're ready. It's everyone in the Gate Room."
"Acknowledged, sir."
"Jack, that's not what I meant. I mean how does-" Mac started but didn't get to finish as a bright light engulfed them and when it faded, he was no longer at the SGC but on a ship. He looked around confused, patting himself down as if he may have lost a limb in transit before the view screen caught his attention and he could see planet earth below them. His mouth opened in awe as he turned his back to the crew and gazed in wonder out of the ship's window.
"General O'Neill." Colonel Pendergast greeted as he stood up from his chair. "Welcome on board, sir."
"Colonel." Jack acknowledged.
"Colonel." Pendergast acknowledged Sam.
"Colonel." Sam smiled back. "And please, it's Sam."
"Lionel." He nodded to her. "It's great to have you and the original SG-1 team on board!" He smiled. "And this is- whoa!" He exclaimed, finally seeing Mac's face which was still stuck to the view screen. Daniel chuckled and nudged him, which made Mac jump and look between Daniel and the Colonel awaiting introduction.
"Name's MacGyver." Mac introduced himself.
"Wow, that's, ummm, quite the resemblance! A relative?" Pendergast joked.
"I'm the one with the stars." Jack quipped back.
"Ummmm…" The colonel struggled to respond but shook his head instead as words momentarily escaped him.
"It's easier just to roll with it." Jack told Pendergast, with a slight nod to his cousin.
"Right, well." He nodded. "We had some good news coming into orbit, sir. Major- Well Lieutenant Colonel-" he said remembering the Major had been promoted while he was in a coma but had been one of the promotions General O'Neill had handed out on his promotion to General "-Mitchell has started to respond to treatment."
Jack looked surprised and looked at Sam, who gave him a hopeful smile.
"Cam?" She questioned.
"It's very early. He's not even awake yet, so it'll be slow." Pendergast acknowledged. "When he's ready, I'd love him to come back to the Prometheus. He's an excellent pilot."
"We should arrange to go and see him when he wakes." Jack said quietly to Sam. "He deserves a medal or two."
"A command of his own at least." Sam nodded. "It's noted, I won't forget."
"That is good news." Jack nodded.
"Yes sir." Pendergast agreed. "On to business." He nodded as he led the way to the science station. "You can see we've had no anonymous readings or unauthorized access or use of the system." Pendergast explained as the officer at the station pulled up the most readings since the failed update.
"Carter?" He asked her, seeing she was looking at the records.
"How would Sam know in particular?" Mac whispered to Daniel.
"Sam was on the design team for the ship." Daniel answered him back in a low voice.
"Get outta town. " Mac asked, turning to Sam. "You designed a ship?"
"I was part of a team." Sam said, shaking her head as she downplayed her role in the process. Turning to Jack she answered. "And no sir, I can't see any immediate anomalies." She admitted.
"Focus your search, Colonel. I want answers within an hour. If there is a ship nearby, we only have a small window of time before we lose the trial." Jack commanded.
"Yes, sir." She nodded before taking a seat at the console and turning her attention back to the readings.
"In the meantime, I want to look at the sensors for any light and sublight engines. Search for signs of any ships in orbit."
"Mac?" She asked him while the others walked away. "Could use your help."
"Sam, I don't know this technology." Mac admitted as he stared at the screen.
"It's easy." She showed him. "Basic Fortran and C+." She said as they started to look through the data.
They stood for a couple of minutes looking through the records before he spoke again. His voice low so no one can overhear. "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure."
"It's just…" Mac stopped and tried to get his thoughts in order for a brief moment. With a side glance at her, he asked. "Back in the Gate room, you and Jack seemed really cozy, but then… just now he just commands you about like a common soldier. I thought he said this was your gig when we were still in the Gate Room?"
Sam shrugged. "SG-1 works well because of our relationships with each other. If he put my team in danger, I would remind him this is my command, but I don't need to. We're SG-1. The man in the gate room was my friend. The man over there is my commanding officer. "
Mac frowned. "You know it's the same person, right?"
Sam chuckled. "I know but separating them is important. One is the emotional connection; the other is a military connection. I know the one from the other." She said matter-of-factly. "Otherwise, it might never work." She muttered under her breath.
"What was that?" He asked, not quite hearing her.
Internally sighing, Sam said in a clearer tone. "We need to get back to work."
He nodded then turned back to the screen and printouts. A short time later, he asked curiously. "What exactly are we looking for?"
Sam sighed. "Anything out of the ordinary. Any personal input or external data. Anomalies in the data. We're looking for how Murdoc and his symbiont had access to an Asgard beam. Other than an Asgard ship, this ship is the only other ship we know of with that technology. We're looking for windows of opportunity, restarts, updates, even the staff coming and manually inputting the access."
"You think anyone here would?"
"There have been known incidents of people being programmed to complete tasks for the Goa'uld without them knowing they've been reprogrammed. They might have unwittingly done so."
Mac looked at her gravely before he said, "You make it sound so commonplace."
She shrugged before admitting, "I guess it is in my world."
"You know Jack once got a whole scout troop lost for two days." He told her. "He's not the best leader."
Sam laughed. "I'm sure he's had a bit more experience since then and I bet he got everyone home-wait?" She replied absently before turning to him and asked with surprise in her voice. "Jack was a scout?"
'Oops!' Mac thought as his face suddenly dropped. To distract Sam from her line of questioning, he asked. "How often does the system update?"
"Every 24 hours while in orbit, which means for the past month."
"And systems shut down?"
"Only for a second for a quick reset, right after the systems update."
"Once a day?" Mac asked.
"Like clockwork." She nodded. "Why?"
"Right here." He answered, pointing to the screen. "Five days ago, it restarted, but then it did again less than five minutes later." Sam came over and looked at the data.
"That doesn't sound right." She told him before confirming it herself. "But you're right. It looks like the update didn't occur the first time. That's never happened before."
"What would make that happen?" Mac asked.
"Someone would need to manually pull out a crystal from the communications processor," She said then added a thought, "which also houses the teleportation and the updates to the system." Sam looked at the tablet she had in her hand then back at the data in front of her. "Look at this." Sam pointed out on her tablet. "This was the data being sent from the Homeland Security server."
"Data being sent the first time - and was not received. The second time - huh? That's the same identifying file as the first one, not a separate second one." Mac paused. "You think there was a second ship intercepted the transmission, downloaded these files and modified the first update before it received the second update? During the second update transmission the first was transmitted to us simultaneously?"
"Let's find out." She said, flipping the data to the screen. She smiled as Mac's face dropped in amazement at the ability to do it. "Pretty neat, huh?"
"Yeah." He grinned. "Jack-"
"Once he was so frustrated that he took his computer monitor to the top of the mountain just to throw it down the mountain." Sam smiled as Mac nodded a grin on his face, knowing his cousin's affection for technology. "That wasn't even the funny part. You should have seen the disappointment on his face when all we had to do was replace his monitor and all his work was still there." This made Mac laugh and it was only interrupted when he sat up and pointed at the monitor screen. "Look at this function."
"That's it! You found it." Sam nodded. "Nice going, Mac." Sam grinned as she got up and grabbed the tablet. "Let's go and tell the General what we found. Now we just need to find out who accessed the crystal."
"Yes Ma'am." He grinned.
Chapter End Notes
AN: there are a few references to outside things happening here and I just wanted to point out-
This story can be read as a standalone piece, I do however drop one or two things happening external to the main plot which can be read with the other stories.
Example: Mention of Cameron's progress and recovery ties in with my in-between 8 and 9 story/post threads (Sorry this in on A03 ONLY ATM). This is so anyone wanting to read both can slot it into approximately the right time frame for the story to take place in and it mostly happens in relation to SG-1 because MacGyver had been off air for a long time by this point. AND it also slots into the Bobbsey Chronicles again giving a time line idea of when it happened.
It's not to say all which happened in Bobbsey happened in the Prime Universe (to borrow that phrase meaning the one we all know and love on Stargate) or visa versa, it's also not to say it didn't happen. I have them closely intertwined they're very close together, it's just they also aren't in certain aspects, but I leave that to the reader to determine for themselves a lot. So while the self contained story happens in both Bobbsey and Prime universe, certain details are different.
If that makes sense?
It's kind of a meta!