Previously:
Following the Starfleet Prime Directive to the letter, Janeway has decided to hide her true origin to avoid contaminating the alternate Earth with technology and knowledge from her own timeline. General Hammond from Stargate Command however has made no secret that he was interested in her weapons to help Earth's fight against the Goa'uld. After he allowed her to return to the shuttle to secure it, Janeway took her first steps through the stargate.
Back and Forth
Sam kept an eye on O'Neill and Teal'c who were scanning what remained of the Alpha site for unwelcomed intruders. Most of the equipment had been removed and the dead repatriated to the SGC, but the devastation left behind was no less vivid. The footprints of the tents were still clearly visible among the debris left behind from the self-destruct explosion and the Goa'uld attack. The only structure that had survived intact was the airstrip shimmering in the heat half a kilometre away.
O'Neill signalled the area was clear and ambled off. Janeway followed him, Teal'c at her side. Sam watched the team's six, her leaden feet dragging her to a place she had no wish to revisit.
The walk was easy, a mere half an hour stroll through montane forests and gentle slopes. It had seemed so much longer while being hunted down by the supersoldier. Maybe she had wanted to believe she'd led the drone on a long and arduous chase when all she had done was stumble two steps ahead of it, and all she had managed was to exhaust herself and think of giving up. If it had not been for the three people walking ahead of her, she'd now be lying on a cold slab back at the SGC.
She stared at the blackened scree where the drone had finally given up its non-life. The heat of the sun did nothing to warm her up and a shiver run down her back.
"Carter? You're good?"
O'Neill's expression was his usual 'I-need-my-team-alert', but she was thankful for the sunglasses he was wearing. She was not willing to see the concern she could hear in his voice.
"Yes, sir." She hitched her P-90 gun a little higher.
The nose of the alien spacecraft lay a few feet from a massive boulder. Either the pilot was an ace, or it had been one rough landing. Or both, Sam thought as she noticed the deep ruts furrowed in the gravel for fifty metres behind it and the odd leaning position of the squarish spacecraft. Its scorched hull bore the marks of the drone's weapon fire, but it looked otherwise intact.
Teal'c stood guard outside. "Just in case," said O'Neill in a jovial tone.
Sam entered after Janeway into the rear compartment, noticing the subtle change in hierarchy. While the captain had followed O'Neill's directions during their hike from the gate, it was clear she was in charge now and that they were her invited guests.
The colonel rapped his knuckles over large cubic containers lining the cargo bay like sentinels. They sounded empty, and for the first time, Sam wondered what Janeway had been doing on the planet. The captain had not said, focusing instead on the supersoldiers and the threat they posed to her people. Sam didn't even know their name, or what planet they were from. Janeway had said they were travellers. Going where? So many unknowns, so many things left unsaid, and yet those riddles were not all that was puzzling about the alien woman.
The cockpit was busy with seats and consoles, their purpose unclear. "Cool," O'Neill said as he flopped on one of the back seats and stretched his legs. "You know, Carter, this beats our F-302. Not as fine looking from the outside, but so much bigger on the inside."
Sam dipped her head in agreement. The human-built F-302 was a glorified fighter jet in essence, and about as spacious as its conventional counterpart. She happened to have helped design it and she liked it. However, the two-seater Tau'ri flyer bore little resemblance to this spacecraft which screamed advanced technology in its comfortable layout. The people who had built this were true space farers, not just aircraft engineers slapping borrowed technology onto an old design.
She sat down near Janeway, her fingers lightly touching the console in front of her. At first glance, the distinct design felt oddly familiar. There were none of the multi-coloured crystals the Goa'uld liked to use, no neural interface from the Ancients, no Tok'ra holographic display. As if the shuttle was something Earth would have developed over time in a world with no Goa'uld.
The computer responded immediately to Janeway's command code, but the AI voice did not waver, 'unable to comply' being the more frequent answer to the captain's questions about engine status, something called a warp drive, communications, navigation, environmental systems, hull integrity. This shuttle might have been meant for space, but it was not going anywhere.
Janeway pushed herself off the console. Sam thought she was going to hit it with her fist. "This naquadria," the woman asked in a frustrated voice. "What is it exactly?"
"It's a highly unstable isotope of what the gates are built of, naquadah. We've managed to stabilise it for use in hyperdrives—faster than light propulsion systems," Sam explained when she saw Janeway's frown, "but it requires a large buffer to keep it from going critical."
"If it is unstable that might explain why the engines' energy matrix is draining away, like our weapons did." Janeway pinched her lips together.
"The energy transfer could be due to radiation outflow," Sam offered, getting concerned.
O'Neill rose from his seat. "Look, Janeway—" The glare from the woman stopped him in his tracks. "Captain," he corrected with a sharp tilt of the head. "We've had pretty bad experiences with naquadria. We lost Daniel once to radiation poisoning and I'm not willing to repeat that little experiment. So, I say we are out of here."
Janeway raised her head to meet his eyes. "Computer, check for radiation."
~Background emission load is within normal parameters for human life.~
"It's not radioactive decay," Sam said, frowning. "A stable isotope?"
"Why are the engines powering down, then?" Janeway retorted. "Does naquadria take any other entropy paths?"
"It goes kaboom. In a big way," O'Neill said, surprising Sam. The colonel rarely showed off his scientific knowledge, and when he did, it still came as a shock.
"There's no indication the engines are overloading. They are just not working."
"Carter?"
"I believe the shuttle is safe for the moment, sir. But we can't move it to the Beta base."
Janeway stood, holding tight to the seat. "You were thinking of bringing my shuttle back to your base?"
"Not to Earth, but to a place a bit more secure than here."
Janeway's glare ramped up. "Not without my saying so, Colonel."
"It's that or leaving it here in the open for Anubis to pick up next time he comes around," O'Neill noted with a hard smile.
"I'll put the shuttle on security lockout. That will prevent any alien trying to enter."
O'Neill returned Janeway's gaze. "And everybody else too."
Sam held her breath, sensitive to the shift between the two well-matched COs—one she would gladly give her life for if the need arose, and the other, she was starting to suspect, who was as uncompromising as he was.
"Carter, do we have a plan B?"
Sam frowned. The General had never discussed a plan B. "Well, the captain could borrow the SGC lab facilities to work on the weapon and extrapolate the findings to what's happening with the shuttle," she said, thinking on her feet. "I'll be happy to oversee her," she added at a questioning eyebrow from O'Neill.
"What about her rule about not sharing her fancy technology with us?"
Sam dipped her head and smiled. After years of non-stop contacts with aliens, O'Neill had learnt a thing or two about making deals.
"She can't give you the technology," Janeway said, right hand on her hip. "But I can hardly prevent Major Carter from watching. There's nothing I can do about knowledge you gather by yourself."
The colonel looked at Carter, who nodded her agreement, before facing Janeway. "Let me talk to General Hammond."
"Good. I'll start checking a few systems while you return to Earth." Janeway turned around and pulled out a panel underneath the front console.
"Oh no, you don't. General's orders: we all go back to SGC before sunset."
Janeway protested. "Take Carter back. If Tuv—I mean Teal'c doesn't mind, I'll stay. There's too much to do."
"No can do, Captain. Collect whatever equipment you need to get started at the SGC. We'll help carry it back to the gate."
The dirty look Janeway threw at O'Neill's back could have rivalled the supersoldier weapon, in Sam's opinion.
###
"Pizzas!" O'Neill opened the lid of the top box, fanning the aroma with his hand.
Carter waved, her attention on the wall of equipment at the back of the room. "Thank you, sir. Can you put it on the desk? I'll be with you in a sec."
Janeway made some room on the table by moving her PADD and tricorder to the side and a pile of manuals on the floor. O'Neill tore the first slice of pizza, put it on one of the paper plates he'd brought with him and handed it to Janeway. "Captain."
Janeway's mouth watered. Her last meal had been lunch about fourteen hours before, followed by a dozen cups of flavourless brownish water. How she had managed to find the one alternative Earth with such an atrocious coffee was beyond bad luck.
She took a bite. Tasteless too, but edible. "Thanks," she said.
"You know…" O'Neill cut another slice and started eating. "I'd like to thank you too," he said in a low voice, tilting his head at Carter's back.
Her mouth full, Janeway could only convey her confusion with a raised eyebrow.
"If you had not engaged the supersoldier, Teal'c and I might not have arrived on time before it got to Carter." Sam swore at something, and O'Neill lifted his eyes, watching his teammate with an impassive look on his face.
Feeling she was missing something, Janeway nodded warily and continued to eat. O'Neill was comfortable in his role as leader, but it was not difficult to sense the great camaraderie and respect that existed between the three SG-1 she'd met so far. Long years working closely together would deepen personal bonds within a team, until the thought of losing one team member could feel like losing a part of oneself. She knew too well how that felt.
She quashed the thought at once. "And the pizza is…?" she asked instead.
O'Neill's lips turn upwards in a smirk. "A peace offering," he said with a drawl in his voice. "Janeway."
She chuckled and finished what was on her plate before refusing a second serve. "I do appreciate the gesture. Thanks again." She left the table with PADD and tricorder in hand, glad that the hatchet of mistrust between them had been well and truly buried.
"Carter, it's your favourite," O'Neill said, tucking in his third slice. "Come and have a bite before it gets cold."
An inverse harmonic would better fit the data, Janeway deliberated, linking her PADD to the equipment measuring the weapon output before getting herself another cup of coffee. So far, most of her time had been spent hardwiring the tricorder to the SGC computer. She had to hand it to Carter, the woman seemed to have a knack for finding solutions, while her own brain seemed to be getting more and more sluggish.
Waiting for the analysis to run its course, she pondered her options. Her priority was to go back to her future and the right universe. The shuttle was safely locked down, but she needed SGC help to access it and most likely to make it work. How to do that without trampling all over the Prime Directive was a problem. In the few hours she'd spent with Sam, she'd been struck with how agile and knowledgeable her mind was, despite a reticence to recognise her own worth. Given time, the woman would deduce what most of the shuttle systems were about and their theoretical underpinnings. Not today, not tomorrow, but give her a few months, a couple of years at most, and who knew what this Earth would achieve with Federation technology. As much as their needs were dire, she could not allow that to happen.
The PADD was still analysing the data. She sipped the warm coffee, her attention drifting as snippets of conversation between Carter and O'Neill reached her.
"Still hot. Thanks."
"Well, there are some perks in being a colonel. I requisitioned Hammond's car to go into town. Mine's still got problems with the ignition."
"I could have a look at it if you want."
"Carter, I would not think of getting your hands dirty."
Sam laughed. "What did the General say about his car disappearing?"
"He does not need to know. He's gone off world and I returned the car without a scratch."
"The Jaffa?"
"Yes, he's still trying to get them to return to the Beta site. Daniel has gone with him, but you know them. As stubborn and proud as… well, you know. Anyway, what's wrong with Janeway's weapon? You two have been at it for most of the night."
"We've established that it's not fuelled by naquadria, but a crystalline version of a closely related isotope. It's not decaying either although the weapon is still losing energy. The thing is, we don't understand where that energy is going."
"You'll figure it out, Carter. You always do."
Silence hovered, and Janeway lifted her eyes from the PADD. Sam and O'Neill were sitting across from each other, the dim light of the room hiding their faces.
"I should have been there," O'Neill said. His fingers brushed Carter's hand, a gesture which caused Kathryn's chest to tighten.
"You couldn't have known. The Alpha site was supposed to be safe."
"But it wasn't."
Sam dropped the pizza slice on the plate. "No, it wasn't."
"You're okay?"
"It's just…I wish there was an end to all…this. I'm so tired of it all," Carter answered in a bitter tone, the tip of her fingers touching his.
"You need to give it time, Sam."
Janeway stared back down at the PADD, the figures and words blurring as her eyes began to sting. She remembered the woman leaning against the tall man after he'd killed the supersoldier, his arm around her shoulder. As much as the colonel seemed to live by his team, she now realised that it was Samantha Carter he couldn't bear to lose.
O'Neill pushed himself against the back of his chair. "You know,"he said in a lighter tone, "sometimes the most important thing is not the destination but the journey. Or so, I've heard wiser men say."
Journey. Janeway's ears pricked. She jumped to her feet. "You are right, Colonel. We need to focus on how the shuttle got onto that planet."
Carter startled, wiping her cheek, while O'Neill straightened his back, but Janeway hardly noticed. She put the PADD on the table between the left-over pizzas and searched for the shuttle logs. She thought of apologising about eavesdropping on what had obviously been a private conversation, then forgot as her voice and that of Ensign Dorado filled the room.
~Captain, the sensors indicate the solar flare we were monitoring is on an intersection course.~
~Compensate, factor two zero—~
~Unable to compensate. Gravimetric rift straight ahead. We're—~
"There," Janeway said, stopping the recording. "A gravimetric rift is usually a good indication a wormhole is forming."
"Carter?" O'Neill waved his hand. "Wasn't a solar flare responsible for us going backwards a few years ago?"
"Backwards?" Janeway asked, baffled.
Sam unceremoniously shoved the pizza boxes on a chair and opened her laptop. She scrolled through files, then turned the screen towards Janeway. "Five years ago, we learnt that when the matter stream from the gate intersects a solar flare, the magnetic field of the planet acts as a slingshot. The temporal position of the distal end of the wormhole moves out of sync with its origin and winds-up in the past. If something or someone is moving along or across the wormhole at that same instant, they end up—"
Rolling his eyes, O'Neill pushed his chair back, leaving the table to the two women bent over the computer screen.
"—back in time," Janeway exclaimed, ignoring him. "The gravitational rift the sensors noted was—"
"Don't worry about me," the man said, grabbing the last slice of pizza.
"—the gate wormhole opening over the Alpha site. Your shuttle got caught—" Carter said.
O'Neill licked his fingers. "I am used to it by now."
"—in the gravitational eddies surrounding the wormhole linking the two stargates. That was the rift we detected. The shuttle fell into the past." Kathryn concluded.
"Mind you, I still find Daniel difficult to follow at times. Talks way too fast."
"—but our present—" Carter added.
"—is not my past. I know nothing of gates or Goa'uld."
Janeway's legs gave out and she half-sat, half-collapsed on the chair behind her. For the first time in days, there was the hint of an explanation as to why the shuttle had found itself on the wrong side of time. It did not help her dead team members, but it meant it was very unlikely that Voyager would now be facing an armada of supersoldiers. Her ship had been too far away to be affected by the wormhole. It was safe, and her crew was unscathed.
A wave of relief swamped her, bringing tears to her eyes for the second time in less than ten minutes.
O'Neill scraped his chair on the concrete floor. "Okay…Can you two run all that by me again? I think I might have missed a couple of details."
###
"So, if I understand you well, Major Carter, Captain Janeway has not only travelled back in time from a far away future, but also in a different universe from her own past."
"That is correct, General." Sam refrained a yawn. She hoped the debriefing with Hammond would be short. She glanced at Janeway who was nursing a cup of coffee as if it was her only anchor to the present.
"I knew you would follow, General. Only took me a few minutes myself but—"
"Thank you, Jack. Captain, I assume you realised the truth about your situation well before Major Carter did. Why didn't you tell us?"
"I had not realised that you had already experienced time travel and alternate universes. In my twenty-first century, those were still theories at best or cheap ways used to prop up science fiction stories."
"But our experiences so far have been limited to the SGC timeline and a couple of SGC alternate universes," Carter added. "What's happening here is unknown territory. The consequences could be widely different."
"Are you implying that what happened to the Captain might have some impact on our timeline?"
"I don't know, sir. The captain's knowledge of quantum theory way surpasses mine."
O'Neill interjected. "For crying out loud, Carter, give yourself a bit of slack. Janeway's got a three-hundred-year heads start on all that science stuff. Can't you…hypothesize a little?"
"Well," Carter said. "The situation is similar to the interdimensional mirror we encountered four years ago. Because the time divergence then was only a few years old, the effect was limited to people who moved between the two universes, and there were no other noticeable effects in our world." She was thankful for the General to order the destruction of the mirror. Finding her alternate-self had been married to the alternate-Jack had been enough to put her off wanting to investigate other universes.
"But you are assuming we are looking at something else here," the General said.
Carter nodded. "We are talking about a separation of hundreds of years in addition to shifting into a different universe." She threaded her fingers together. "The consequences of those two worlds suddenly intersecting could be much wider in extent. Although the captain is hardly going to meet herself or a close relative, so there might be less urgency from that point of view."
"Why make you say that?" Janeway asked.
"Our alternate-selves got sick soon after they arrived in this universe. We could not co-exist within the same world, so we had to send them back," Sam explained.
"You never know, Carter, you could be Janeway's great-great-great-grand mother, in her universe."
Carter frowned. "That's not funny, Colonel." Pete had talked about having children during one on their pillow talks, citing her age. She had cut him off, and he had wisely dropped the subject.
"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you haven't spotted the resemblance. You are both bright, sciency, standing up to whatever is thrown at you. She's your spitting image, give or take a few generations in between."
Janeway was grinning. "I would be honoured to have Major Carter as one of my forebears," she said.
"See!"
"Colonel." Sam was past being nice to Jack. The man could be insufferable at times.
"The only ancestor I know who was alive around your time was a NASA engineer by the name of Shannon O'Donnell." Janeway sounded wistful. "She was one of the first female astronauts from what I understand. Although maybe not here."
"Going back to the problem at hand, how large will these impacts be?" Hammond asked.
"My apologies, General. We don't really know, but the energy drain of my shuttle and weapons could be part of the effects."
"So, what's your plan, Major, Captain?"
"We need to study that energy drain in more details," Carter said.
"And find a way for me and all that I brought here to return where I belong," added Janeway.
"I want a daily update on your progress." Hammond stood. "I will inform my superiors of this development."
"General. One more thing."
"Yes, Colonel?"
O'Neill tilted his head towards Janeway. "Given when the captain comes from, she can hardly be considered a threat to the SGC."
Hammond frowned, then nodded. "You have a point, Colonel. Captain Janeway, considering what I've learnt today about your origin, I grant you full access to this base. You may leave for short outings as long as somebody from SG-1 is with you at all times. I trust you will not discuss this facility with anybody else than SGC personnel."
"Of course, sir. Thank you."
Janeway had a spring in her step as they walked back to the lab to gather their things. Sam was feeling much less optimistic. SG-1 might have gone into the past, but going back to the future was a totally different thing. Not to mention in a different universe. The whole situation was just too hard to comprehend.
And fascinating.
Thank your for following this story and for the reviews which are proving a great boost to my writing. As I have said before, this story is finished (minus a few corrections) - I will not leave you hanging.