Langford's whiz kid made a difference, all right.
I met him for the first time the next day, after spending a sleepless night studying West's report and drinking way too much coffee. Ten thousand year old Egyptian artifact, found beneath the Great Pyramid at Giza. Doorway to Heaven, the inscription said, supposedly. And the US military, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that meant space travel.
There were three other people in the room when I made my way down at 0300, to get a look at this artifact myself. I wasn't going to be sleeping at all tonight, so I might as well see what it was the Air Force was going nuts over now.
Okay, I admit it. I was curious. Shoot me.
In front of the wall-to-wall bank of computers, bullet-proof glass separated us from the artifact itself. Two civilian technicians didn't even look up as I came in, gazing fixedly at their computers, oblivious to everything but the data flickering across the screens.
An Air Force officer turned away from the window, looking at me briefly as I came to stand at the glass. I was still out of uniform, but the look he gave me said quite clearly that I didn't look like any civilian scientist he'd ever seen. He gave me a faint nod, but didn't say anything.
I'd thought I was on the bottom floor of the mountain, but looking down I could see that the artifact was sitting on a level at least a story below us. A huge ring of stone, or some kind of gray metal I'd never seen before, and carvings around the edges that I recognized from drawings in the report. It looked more like a monument, some kind of ancient religious symbol, than a piece of modern technology that could transport a man into space.
But then it was built by aliens, so who said their technology would look anything like ours?
Or that we'd ever be able to figure out what it did, much less how to make it work?
West seemed to think these scientists were pretty close to making it work, or he wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here. I opened the report again, scanned the little pictographs and the fragmented translation beneath. A million years into the sky is Ra, sun god, sealed and buried . . . A million years? Ancient religious mumbo-jumbo, or were the Egyptians talking about light-years, as in an actual distance to an actual planet? Did the ancient Egyptians even have a concept of the speed of light, or how far light traveled in a year? I didn't know all that much about astrophysics, and next to nothing about ancient Egypt, but it seemed pretty far out.
Of course, for all we knew, "sealed and buried" referred to the death of this Ra character, and this "doorway to Heaven" was actually the bomb that had blown him "a million years into the sky" in as many pieces.
Yeah, I could see why the military was interested in keeping a close eye on Langford.
The next morning I paid the scientists a little visit, informing them that this was no longer a private scientific venture, and that everything to do with the artifact was now classified.
The scientists all stared at me. Jackson didn't react to the whole classified bit, and I wondered if it had gone right over his head. He seemed more shocked by the idea that the whatever-it-was was really ten thousand years old. Apparently that was significant somehow, although I had no idea how.
The only other officer in the room, who turned out to be the guy I'd seen last night, and none other than the Captain Charles Kawalsky West had told me about, just saluted like he'd been expecting this. Which he probably was.
Langford followed me out into the hallway.
"Colonel O'Neill."
Old, but elegant in her way, and obviously not intimidated by all the military brass running around what had been her private project. She'd been with the team that discovered the artifact, and I supposed she probably felt like she had a right to her say in what happened to it. Welcome to military intelligence, lady.
Welcome to the real world.
I turned, but didn't say anything. "I believe you owe me an explanation. I was told I had complete autonomy."
Not by me, you weren't. Take it up with the General, I don't make the rules here. "Plans change," I said simply.
She cocked her head at me. "Why are you here?" she asked. Suspicious. She thinks we're gonna take over her little project.
Ya think?
She was still looking at me, piercing curiosity. "Why did they bring you on this project?"
Why is the Air Force here? Or why is Jack O'Neill here?
If she'd managed to have a look at my record, she wouldn't see much. Graduated OTS, assigned to Special Operations. Deployed overseas two years, location classified. Missions classified. One month medical leave. Promoted to captain, received commendation. Deployed overseas three years, Middle Eastern theater. Missions classified. Two months medical leave. Received multiple commendations. Deployed one year, Nicaragua. Missions classified. Two months, Libya. Missions classified. Three years, Pakistan. All missions classified. Six weeks medical leave. Promoted to major. Received commendations.
1991, deployed to Persian Gulf. Mission classified top secret. MIA four months. Medical leave three months. Promoted to colonel, awarded Air Force Cross.
1993, retired from active duty.
She wasn't stupid. Naïve, maybe, but not stupid. She could guess why I was here, as much from what my record didn't say as from the little that was there.
Why do they bring you here?
I thought of West's piercing glare, so much like hers but in a different way. Two very determined personalities. One with visions of exploration, scientific discovery, diplomacy with extra-terrestrials, or whatever the hell they thought they were doing here.
The other with a Mark III nuclear bomb, and a suicidal colonel to set it off for him.
One had the backing of the US government. The other was about to learn the hard way that all this was out of her hands.
"I'm here in case you succeed."
Welcome to the real world.
I've decided I don't like West too much.
Not that the US military really gives a shit if you like your CO. I learned that a long time ago. Maybe it's just I've been out of the Air Force too long. But he has this way of looking at you, like he's not seeing a person, but a wind-up tin soldier. Cheap. Expendable.
Not that I have any intention of ever coming back alive from this mission. If I ever see Earth again after I step through that—what was it Jackson was calling it now? Star Gate?—I'll be very disappointed.
But I'm not going on this mission alone. And not all the guys going with me are exactly suicidal. Some of them have families. Some of them want to come home. And as an officer in the United States Air Force, I have a duty to see that all the men under my command come back in one piece.
A duty West doesn't seem to take nearly as seriously as I do.
Well . . . I can do that . . .
Are you sure?
. . . Positive . . .
Okay, granted the man had walked into the mountain less than two weeks ago and solved what the rest of them hadn't in two years. And granted it really didn't make too much of a difference in my life or death whether Jackson figured out how to align those little symbols to go back to Earth or not. But the military part of me couldn't help thinking this was a hell of a lot to risk on the assurances of one young civilian scientist. Whiz kid or no.
You're on the team.
Is it just me, or is it looking like West doesn't really care if any of us come back alive, as long as we manage to blow up that—Stargate, or whatever it's called?
Not like there's anything I can do about it. Jackson says he can do it, it's easy. Nothing to it. And for all I know, it is easy for him. None of those scratchings and weird pictures on the stones or the 'gate make any sense to me, but Jackson takes one look at them and reads them like he's reading the Sunday paper.
But I'm a soldier, and I don't like it when my men's lives depend on something I don't begin to understand.
It's way past time to worry about that now. In about two minutes, we'll be going through that Stargate, off to kick the aliens' asses. Our mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations . . . and blow them up. To boldly go where no man has gone before . . . and no one from Earth will ever go again.
In a few days, maybe a week, an Air Force chaplain will knock at the door of our house, and tell Sara about my tragic death in a training accident. She'll never know what really happened to me. Likely the chaplain won't, either. But she'll know it wasn't a training accident. She doesn't know anything about the space aliens, if there are any, or the Stargate, or West and his nuclear bomb. But she knows I never intended to come back alive. The details don't really matter. They never did. She knows everything that's important.
The warhead is packed carefully inside that little automated sled, just waiting for me to put it together and initiate the countdown. It's not very complicated. A tech showed me what parts go where, just last night. Never understanding what exactly it would be used for, of course. He knew better than to ask.
That sled will go through first. It's already sitting on the ramp, engine humming. My men are waiting for me, all geared up for combat. If they're excited, afraid, happy, they don't show it. Officially, we're assigned to recon, our mission outlined vaguely as "exploration". I know better.
Jackson looks a little lost dressed up in fatigues, kind of like a kid in a costume that's too big for him. I wonder if he knows anything at all about self-defense. Last thing I need on a recon mission is to baby-sit some civilian geek in a possibly hostile environment. But he's the only chance the rest of the guys have at getting home, so I will keep him in one piece, whatever it takes.
Because I'm the only one here who signed on for a suicide mission. And Jack O'Neill does not leave anybody behind.
"If anybody has anything to say, now's the time to say it."
No one says anything. Professional, alert, they know their jobs. They know what our mission is.
Or they think they do.
I look at Kawalsky. A big guy, a veteran, experienced. Dark eyes calm, ready. He looks like nothing could rattle him. The kind of guy you want watching your six, if half his record is true. Not the sort to talk much, but he'll be there where it counts.
He nods, but doesn't say anything.
The way they jump when Jackson sneezes shows how keyed up they really are. Kawalsky's the only one who doesn't react, as Jackson blows his nose loudly, oblivious to the way the guys are looking at him. God help us if we have to hide from anything, and he sneezes like that.
This would be the time, back before I retired, when I'd think back to Sara and Charlie, think about why I was fighting and who was waiting for me, before I left for a mission. This would be the moment when I'd picture their faces in my mind, as clear as I could make them—the ties that would pull me back from whatever storm I was about to enter, the love that would give me the strength to make it home.
Goodbye, Sara, I think silently. The metal ramp starts to vibrate underneath our feet, and the big ring starts spinning. I've seen it do this before, but it still looks pretty amazing. One after another, the chevrons around the edges glow red.
A few of the younger guys start when the—water? I know it's not water, but it sure as hell looks like it, and the technical explanation of what it was went straight over my head back at the briefing—shoots out from the circle of stone. Jackson just stares at it like it's the answer to the mysteries of the universe. No fear, just open-mouthed wonder. Absolutely no thought for the potential dangers that watery—stuff—might hold. Kinda like Charlie looked when I took him on base for the first time, staring at the uniforms, the airplanes, the ribbons. The guns.
My hands clench very hard around the MP-5. Yeah, it's gonna be a challenge to keep this guy in one piece, if he reacts to alien hostiles that way. And I have this feeling he will.
But I'm leaving at last, leaving this life and this world and everything that has ever protected me behind. This moment has been coming ever since that gun fired, and now there is nothing left, nothing to hold me back, nothing to tie me to this earth.
Off we go, into the wild blue yonder . . .
The sled is moving forward now, activated by a remote control. It disappears, leaving just a ripple behind. The men stand in two lines, waiting for me to go first.
It looks like some kind of weird, demented swimming pool standing sideways. According to the computers, matter—including human beings—is actually disintegrated when you step through, and put back together again when you get to the other side. Again, the technical explanation went right over my head. As long as my men come out the other side in one piece, I don't care what it does.
The circle has stopped spinning, and the only sound is the clank of my boots as I walk up the ramp. The entire complex seems to be holding its breath. Somewhere on the other side of the galaxy, the last shadow of hope is waiting for me, a silvery-gray cylinder waiting for me to push a few buttons, a few atoms ready to split apart and take a stone ring, half a planet, and one suicidal Air Force colonel with them.
Light ripples across the surface of the water. I don't slow down as I take those last steps, staring hard at the light like it's a target I'm about to strafe, or some Iraqi prison guard I'd love to strangle slowly and painfully. The metal of the gun isn't cold anymore, as I lift it without thinking, teeth bared against the ultimate unknown. I don't even feel it when I finally pass through that ring. Whatever it was that looked like water, it didn't feel like it. Didn't feel like anything. I might be still on the ramp, except I can't feel anything under my feet anymore. Can't feel anything at all.
Everything goes dark.
Then I'm falling, and there are lights around me, swirling, blue and white, and damn but I have no fucking clue where I am or what's happening except that this is one hell of a deep hole I just jumped into and I'm not even close to the bottom. And are those lights actually there, am I in space or am I just seeing stars as I get ready to pass out, 'cause it feels like I'm pulling out of a high-speed bombing run without the g-suit, hell, without the damn plane, I'm just spinning around and around oh my God I'm fucking dizzy and I can't even breathe . . . shit there's no oxygen in space how come I'm not dead?
My shoulder strikes rock, and old reflexes take over, rolling into darkness and onto my feet before my mind begins to process the fact that I'm out, I'm through, I'm on the other side. It's all dark but there's a light coming from somewhere, there it is, the stone circle again but there's no ramp, just a wavering light. I'm swaying, trying to look around for threats without falling over, but the world is jumping crazily back and forth every time I move my head. Yeah, I'm gonna fall over, please God don't let me pass out, and I try to fling a hand out to catch myself but both my hands seem to be frozen around my gun.
I land on my knees, unwrapping one hand very slowly just in time to see Kawalsky fall forward out of the 'gate.
"Colonel!" he yells. He's smarter than I was, and doesn't try to stand up right away, pushing himself up onto his knees and looking around wildly. There's frost in his hair, and on his face, sweat frozen around his eyes, and he's shivering violently. It takes me a few seconds to realize I am, too, even though it's warmer here than it was in the mountain.
There is a dazed sort of look in his eyes, but we reach out for each other in the same instant, my hand locking onto his shoulder as he grabs my arm, and we stagger to our feet. We stand still, leaning on each other, holding on tight and breathing hard as the rest of the team are hurled at us one by one.
Slowly, looking about as stunned as I feel, they stare around at each other and the apparently blank stone walls of whatever structure we're in, gasping for breath, and taking a while to stand up. I wait until I can breathe halfway normally again before I try to speak.
"Everybody okay?" Heads turn, startled, at the sound of my voice, but those two words are all that's needed as training takes over, and they straighten, nods and yessirs, and the snap-click of guns getting ready to fire.
My hand doesn't want to let go of Kawalsky's shoulder, but I pry my fingers open and find to my surprise that I can stand on my own now. He lets go of me, and I automatically check my gun, looking around again. I'm gonna have bruises where he was holding onto my arm.
"Where's Jackson?" It's Ferretti, one of the younger guys. A quick head count, all soldiers accounted for, but no geek. I step forward, walking toward the 'gate, as if I can reach all the way back to Earth and pull him through, but there's no need. I stumble back as he hits the ground practically at my feet, lying where he falls.
"Jackson!" I bend down, a hand on his shoulder, and he looks up. That same dazed, shell-shocked look, but he's never been in a fighter plane, never jumped with a parachute, and has nothing to compare this to. For a second I feel sorry for him. "It's all right, it's over." Brown comes up to stand next to me, and I tell him, "Stay with him."
It occurs to me just then to look for the sled, and it's right where I expected to find it, along with the probe they sent yesterday. And the Stargate goes dark, the water disappearing like it was never there. I reach into my pocket, take out a flare, light it.
"Three teams, let's go."
I met him for the first time the next day, after spending a sleepless night studying West's report and drinking way too much coffee. Ten thousand year old Egyptian artifact, found beneath the Great Pyramid at Giza. Doorway to Heaven, the inscription said, supposedly. And the US military, in its infinite wisdom, had decided that meant space travel.
There were three other people in the room when I made my way down at 0300, to get a look at this artifact myself. I wasn't going to be sleeping at all tonight, so I might as well see what it was the Air Force was going nuts over now.
Okay, I admit it. I was curious. Shoot me.
In front of the wall-to-wall bank of computers, bullet-proof glass separated us from the artifact itself. Two civilian technicians didn't even look up as I came in, gazing fixedly at their computers, oblivious to everything but the data flickering across the screens.
An Air Force officer turned away from the window, looking at me briefly as I came to stand at the glass. I was still out of uniform, but the look he gave me said quite clearly that I didn't look like any civilian scientist he'd ever seen. He gave me a faint nod, but didn't say anything.
I'd thought I was on the bottom floor of the mountain, but looking down I could see that the artifact was sitting on a level at least a story below us. A huge ring of stone, or some kind of gray metal I'd never seen before, and carvings around the edges that I recognized from drawings in the report. It looked more like a monument, some kind of ancient religious symbol, than a piece of modern technology that could transport a man into space.
But then it was built by aliens, so who said their technology would look anything like ours?
Or that we'd ever be able to figure out what it did, much less how to make it work?
West seemed to think these scientists were pretty close to making it work, or he wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here. I opened the report again, scanned the little pictographs and the fragmented translation beneath. A million years into the sky is Ra, sun god, sealed and buried . . . A million years? Ancient religious mumbo-jumbo, or were the Egyptians talking about light-years, as in an actual distance to an actual planet? Did the ancient Egyptians even have a concept of the speed of light, or how far light traveled in a year? I didn't know all that much about astrophysics, and next to nothing about ancient Egypt, but it seemed pretty far out.
Of course, for all we knew, "sealed and buried" referred to the death of this Ra character, and this "doorway to Heaven" was actually the bomb that had blown him "a million years into the sky" in as many pieces.
Yeah, I could see why the military was interested in keeping a close eye on Langford.
The next morning I paid the scientists a little visit, informing them that this was no longer a private scientific venture, and that everything to do with the artifact was now classified.
The scientists all stared at me. Jackson didn't react to the whole classified bit, and I wondered if it had gone right over his head. He seemed more shocked by the idea that the whatever-it-was was really ten thousand years old. Apparently that was significant somehow, although I had no idea how.
The only other officer in the room, who turned out to be the guy I'd seen last night, and none other than the Captain Charles Kawalsky West had told me about, just saluted like he'd been expecting this. Which he probably was.
Langford followed me out into the hallway.
"Colonel O'Neill."
Old, but elegant in her way, and obviously not intimidated by all the military brass running around what had been her private project. She'd been with the team that discovered the artifact, and I supposed she probably felt like she had a right to her say in what happened to it. Welcome to military intelligence, lady.
Welcome to the real world.
I turned, but didn't say anything. "I believe you owe me an explanation. I was told I had complete autonomy."
Not by me, you weren't. Take it up with the General, I don't make the rules here. "Plans change," I said simply.
She cocked her head at me. "Why are you here?" she asked. Suspicious. She thinks we're gonna take over her little project.
Ya think?
She was still looking at me, piercing curiosity. "Why did they bring you on this project?"
Why is the Air Force here? Or why is Jack O'Neill here?
If she'd managed to have a look at my record, she wouldn't see much. Graduated OTS, assigned to Special Operations. Deployed overseas two years, location classified. Missions classified. One month medical leave. Promoted to captain, received commendation. Deployed overseas three years, Middle Eastern theater. Missions classified. Two months medical leave. Received multiple commendations. Deployed one year, Nicaragua. Missions classified. Two months, Libya. Missions classified. Three years, Pakistan. All missions classified. Six weeks medical leave. Promoted to major. Received commendations.
1991, deployed to Persian Gulf. Mission classified top secret. MIA four months. Medical leave three months. Promoted to colonel, awarded Air Force Cross.
1993, retired from active duty.
She wasn't stupid. Naïve, maybe, but not stupid. She could guess why I was here, as much from what my record didn't say as from the little that was there.
Why do they bring you here?
I thought of West's piercing glare, so much like hers but in a different way. Two very determined personalities. One with visions of exploration, scientific discovery, diplomacy with extra-terrestrials, or whatever the hell they thought they were doing here.
The other with a Mark III nuclear bomb, and a suicidal colonel to set it off for him.
One had the backing of the US government. The other was about to learn the hard way that all this was out of her hands.
"I'm here in case you succeed."
Welcome to the real world.
I've decided I don't like West too much.
Not that the US military really gives a shit if you like your CO. I learned that a long time ago. Maybe it's just I've been out of the Air Force too long. But he has this way of looking at you, like he's not seeing a person, but a wind-up tin soldier. Cheap. Expendable.
Not that I have any intention of ever coming back alive from this mission. If I ever see Earth again after I step through that—what was it Jackson was calling it now? Star Gate?—I'll be very disappointed.
But I'm not going on this mission alone. And not all the guys going with me are exactly suicidal. Some of them have families. Some of them want to come home. And as an officer in the United States Air Force, I have a duty to see that all the men under my command come back in one piece.
A duty West doesn't seem to take nearly as seriously as I do.
Well . . . I can do that . . .
Are you sure?
. . . Positive . . .
Okay, granted the man had walked into the mountain less than two weeks ago and solved what the rest of them hadn't in two years. And granted it really didn't make too much of a difference in my life or death whether Jackson figured out how to align those little symbols to go back to Earth or not. But the military part of me couldn't help thinking this was a hell of a lot to risk on the assurances of one young civilian scientist. Whiz kid or no.
You're on the team.
Is it just me, or is it looking like West doesn't really care if any of us come back alive, as long as we manage to blow up that—Stargate, or whatever it's called?
Not like there's anything I can do about it. Jackson says he can do it, it's easy. Nothing to it. And for all I know, it is easy for him. None of those scratchings and weird pictures on the stones or the 'gate make any sense to me, but Jackson takes one look at them and reads them like he's reading the Sunday paper.
But I'm a soldier, and I don't like it when my men's lives depend on something I don't begin to understand.
It's way past time to worry about that now. In about two minutes, we'll be going through that Stargate, off to kick the aliens' asses. Our mission, to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations . . . and blow them up. To boldly go where no man has gone before . . . and no one from Earth will ever go again.
In a few days, maybe a week, an Air Force chaplain will knock at the door of our house, and tell Sara about my tragic death in a training accident. She'll never know what really happened to me. Likely the chaplain won't, either. But she'll know it wasn't a training accident. She doesn't know anything about the space aliens, if there are any, or the Stargate, or West and his nuclear bomb. But she knows I never intended to come back alive. The details don't really matter. They never did. She knows everything that's important.
The warhead is packed carefully inside that little automated sled, just waiting for me to put it together and initiate the countdown. It's not very complicated. A tech showed me what parts go where, just last night. Never understanding what exactly it would be used for, of course. He knew better than to ask.
That sled will go through first. It's already sitting on the ramp, engine humming. My men are waiting for me, all geared up for combat. If they're excited, afraid, happy, they don't show it. Officially, we're assigned to recon, our mission outlined vaguely as "exploration". I know better.
Jackson looks a little lost dressed up in fatigues, kind of like a kid in a costume that's too big for him. I wonder if he knows anything at all about self-defense. Last thing I need on a recon mission is to baby-sit some civilian geek in a possibly hostile environment. But he's the only chance the rest of the guys have at getting home, so I will keep him in one piece, whatever it takes.
Because I'm the only one here who signed on for a suicide mission. And Jack O'Neill does not leave anybody behind.
"If anybody has anything to say, now's the time to say it."
No one says anything. Professional, alert, they know their jobs. They know what our mission is.
Or they think they do.
I look at Kawalsky. A big guy, a veteran, experienced. Dark eyes calm, ready. He looks like nothing could rattle him. The kind of guy you want watching your six, if half his record is true. Not the sort to talk much, but he'll be there where it counts.
He nods, but doesn't say anything.
The way they jump when Jackson sneezes shows how keyed up they really are. Kawalsky's the only one who doesn't react, as Jackson blows his nose loudly, oblivious to the way the guys are looking at him. God help us if we have to hide from anything, and he sneezes like that.
This would be the time, back before I retired, when I'd think back to Sara and Charlie, think about why I was fighting and who was waiting for me, before I left for a mission. This would be the moment when I'd picture their faces in my mind, as clear as I could make them—the ties that would pull me back from whatever storm I was about to enter, the love that would give me the strength to make it home.
Goodbye, Sara, I think silently. The metal ramp starts to vibrate underneath our feet, and the big ring starts spinning. I've seen it do this before, but it still looks pretty amazing. One after another, the chevrons around the edges glow red.
A few of the younger guys start when the—water? I know it's not water, but it sure as hell looks like it, and the technical explanation of what it was went straight over my head back at the briefing—shoots out from the circle of stone. Jackson just stares at it like it's the answer to the mysteries of the universe. No fear, just open-mouthed wonder. Absolutely no thought for the potential dangers that watery—stuff—might hold. Kinda like Charlie looked when I took him on base for the first time, staring at the uniforms, the airplanes, the ribbons. The guns.
My hands clench very hard around the MP-5. Yeah, it's gonna be a challenge to keep this guy in one piece, if he reacts to alien hostiles that way. And I have this feeling he will.
But I'm leaving at last, leaving this life and this world and everything that has ever protected me behind. This moment has been coming ever since that gun fired, and now there is nothing left, nothing to hold me back, nothing to tie me to this earth.
Off we go, into the wild blue yonder . . .
The sled is moving forward now, activated by a remote control. It disappears, leaving just a ripple behind. The men stand in two lines, waiting for me to go first.
It looks like some kind of weird, demented swimming pool standing sideways. According to the computers, matter—including human beings—is actually disintegrated when you step through, and put back together again when you get to the other side. Again, the technical explanation went right over my head. As long as my men come out the other side in one piece, I don't care what it does.
The circle has stopped spinning, and the only sound is the clank of my boots as I walk up the ramp. The entire complex seems to be holding its breath. Somewhere on the other side of the galaxy, the last shadow of hope is waiting for me, a silvery-gray cylinder waiting for me to push a few buttons, a few atoms ready to split apart and take a stone ring, half a planet, and one suicidal Air Force colonel with them.
Light ripples across the surface of the water. I don't slow down as I take those last steps, staring hard at the light like it's a target I'm about to strafe, or some Iraqi prison guard I'd love to strangle slowly and painfully. The metal of the gun isn't cold anymore, as I lift it without thinking, teeth bared against the ultimate unknown. I don't even feel it when I finally pass through that ring. Whatever it was that looked like water, it didn't feel like it. Didn't feel like anything. I might be still on the ramp, except I can't feel anything under my feet anymore. Can't feel anything at all.
Everything goes dark.
Then I'm falling, and there are lights around me, swirling, blue and white, and damn but I have no fucking clue where I am or what's happening except that this is one hell of a deep hole I just jumped into and I'm not even close to the bottom. And are those lights actually there, am I in space or am I just seeing stars as I get ready to pass out, 'cause it feels like I'm pulling out of a high-speed bombing run without the g-suit, hell, without the damn plane, I'm just spinning around and around oh my God I'm fucking dizzy and I can't even breathe . . . shit there's no oxygen in space how come I'm not dead?
My shoulder strikes rock, and old reflexes take over, rolling into darkness and onto my feet before my mind begins to process the fact that I'm out, I'm through, I'm on the other side. It's all dark but there's a light coming from somewhere, there it is, the stone circle again but there's no ramp, just a wavering light. I'm swaying, trying to look around for threats without falling over, but the world is jumping crazily back and forth every time I move my head. Yeah, I'm gonna fall over, please God don't let me pass out, and I try to fling a hand out to catch myself but both my hands seem to be frozen around my gun.
I land on my knees, unwrapping one hand very slowly just in time to see Kawalsky fall forward out of the 'gate.
"Colonel!" he yells. He's smarter than I was, and doesn't try to stand up right away, pushing himself up onto his knees and looking around wildly. There's frost in his hair, and on his face, sweat frozen around his eyes, and he's shivering violently. It takes me a few seconds to realize I am, too, even though it's warmer here than it was in the mountain.
There is a dazed sort of look in his eyes, but we reach out for each other in the same instant, my hand locking onto his shoulder as he grabs my arm, and we stagger to our feet. We stand still, leaning on each other, holding on tight and breathing hard as the rest of the team are hurled at us one by one.
Slowly, looking about as stunned as I feel, they stare around at each other and the apparently blank stone walls of whatever structure we're in, gasping for breath, and taking a while to stand up. I wait until I can breathe halfway normally again before I try to speak.
"Everybody okay?" Heads turn, startled, at the sound of my voice, but those two words are all that's needed as training takes over, and they straighten, nods and yessirs, and the snap-click of guns getting ready to fire.
My hand doesn't want to let go of Kawalsky's shoulder, but I pry my fingers open and find to my surprise that I can stand on my own now. He lets go of me, and I automatically check my gun, looking around again. I'm gonna have bruises where he was holding onto my arm.
"Where's Jackson?" It's Ferretti, one of the younger guys. A quick head count, all soldiers accounted for, but no geek. I step forward, walking toward the 'gate, as if I can reach all the way back to Earth and pull him through, but there's no need. I stumble back as he hits the ground practically at my feet, lying where he falls.
"Jackson!" I bend down, a hand on his shoulder, and he looks up. That same dazed, shell-shocked look, but he's never been in a fighter plane, never jumped with a parachute, and has nothing to compare this to. For a second I feel sorry for him. "It's all right, it's over." Brown comes up to stand next to me, and I tell him, "Stay with him."
It occurs to me just then to look for the sled, and it's right where I expected to find it, along with the probe they sent yesterday. And the Stargate goes dark, the water disappearing like it was never there. I reach into my pocket, take out a flare, light it.
"Three teams, let's go."