Author's Note: Once again I'd like to thank everyone for their feedback and even all the creative criticisms. Things like that make me strive to be a better writer. If you guys see something incorrect, or something that you simply love to see more of, then please let me know. Even if it's to tell me that you hate something I just wrote. I aim to please. Like being reminded that a Goa'uld shuttle doesn't have any weapons. ;-)
Chapter Sixteen: Allies United
For Lt. Hailey, what started out as a mission to rescue Major Carter had taken a completely unexpected turn. First they'd found a group of humans who were not only refugees, but who had also a most curious story to tell. About a legendary world called Kobol where all humanity apparently originated from, including the people of Earth. The tale began when the Thirteen Tribes of Humanity had to flee from their dying world. The last one to leave happened to be the Tau'ri and for some reason, either deliberately or by accident, they headed off into deep space nearly fifty thousands of years ago. They were never heard from again.
These people they encountered, who call themselves Colonials, are supposed to be their long lost brothers and sisters. That piece of information was hard to believe, but the SGC encountered equally baffling tales during many of their previous Stargate missions.
Daniel Jackson immediately broke out his pen and paper to get all of this down. Captain Apollo was more than happy to explain the great tale of the Thirteen Tribes of Humanity and the Twelve Colonies.
Amazingly, the entire crew on Talyn, with the exception of Aeryn Sun and a Captain Crais, were all able to speak English. Still more surprising, the young woman named Athena was able to speak several Earth languages, including French and Japanese. Apparently they learned to speak the languages of Earth when they found an alien ship adrift in space. Stored inside its computer database, they discovered a vast trove information on countless worlds within this galaxy, which included Earth and its numerous cultures and languages. O'Neill was shocked when they described the dead crew, and the SGC identified them as the Asgards.
Daniel tried to build a timeline of exactly when this Thirteenth Tribe became lost in space, and compare it to the earliest records on Earth. If this was true, it could rewrite the entire beginnings of mankind. Daniel could just picture what this information could do back on Earth when everyone learned that human life hadn't begun there, but rather out here. For better or worse, things wouldn't be the same on Earth again.
For the moment though, Daniel talked with Apollo, learning more about his people and their culture as Talyn headed back to their fleet.
They'd met Talyn's Captain, and this Crais fellow wasn't too happy to see that Apollo had permitted them to keep their weapons without asking his permission first. Apollo smoothed things over by assigning a Colonial warrior to each of them as a chaperone.
Naturally, Daniel stayed with Apollo to learn to more about Kobol and the Colonials history. Crichton paired off with Colonel O'Neill, and Hailey heard Crichton asking the Colonel something about football...Who won the last three Super Bowls? Starbuck decided to keep an eye on Teal'c. Poor Starbuck was more than a little intimidated by the huge Jaffa warrior, but was surprised at how unfailingly polite Teal'c was. Sheba was assigned to Anise and the female warrior wasn't too thrilled in hanging around a Goa'uld. However, Sheba eased up a little after listening to the host, Freya, talking for a bit. Hearing a normal human voice coming from the Tok'ra relaxed her wariness somewhat as Freya explained the difference between being a Tok'ra and being a Goa'uld. As for Lt. Hailey, she had the one called Aeryn Sun looking after her.
Right off the bat, Aeryn had a few points against her with Lt. Hailey. First, she was a Sebacean. The same race that kidnapped Major Carter, almost killed her and Teal'c. Second, Aeryn reminded Hailey of her 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Rich. That was one lady who could put the fear of God into her entire classroom with a single glare. And you couldn't imagine what it was like if you actually got into trouble.... Hailey and the rest of her classmates couldn't graduate into the 6th grade fast enough.
Hailey was fairly confident that she would never like this Aeryn Sun. Apollo gave her one of their portable universal translators, which looked like a computerized neck collar connected to an earpiece, so the two them could talk to one another. However, Hailey did not have much desire to speak to the alien. Although she was curious as to why Aeryn was wearing a Colonial uniform. With the Command Area getting a little crowded, she decided to go for a walk and see more of Talyn.
"So, you are a soldier?" Aeryn inquired trying to make conversation. She studied the petite woman as they walked side by side. Hailey's P-90 that seemed too big for her to handle. This was Aeryn's first real chance to speak to a Human female from Crichton's home planet.
"I'm a Lieutenant in the US Air Force and I graduated at the top of my class," Hailey answered firmly. "Find that so hard to believe?"
That wasn't a question, Aeryn sensed easily. It was more of a challenge. The hostility from Hailey was clearly evident. Aeryn couldn't blame Hailey for wanting to hate her. She and her friends had suffered at the hands of Scorpius and the Peacekeepers. "No, it is just... I mean no disrespect, but you seem so small to fight effectively," she said.
"I'm tough enough," Hailey shot back. "And a person's height isn't always a deciding factor in being a good effective soldier."
Aeryn could see it in her eyes. She was indeed a fighter. "I believe you."
Hailey sighed. It's hard to be deliberately angry with someone; especially if they're trying to be nice.
"So, you're an alien," Hailey commented. "You look perfectly human."
"Only in outward appearance," Aeryn answered. "My internal organs are much different than yours for one thing, and my species is cold blooded."
Hailey stared at Aeryn for a moment, still weighing her. "Have you been friends with John Crichton for a while?"
"I've known him almost since the day he arrived here in the Uncharted Territories..." Aeryn paused and added hesitantly. "... We are close. I owe him much for all has he done for me. You said you know Crichton from a C.N.N?"
It sounded like an honest response. Maybe Aeryn isn't such a bad person after all, Hailey thought. So she tried to open up to her a little and tell her what she knew about John Crichton.
"John Crichton was my hero of sorts back on Earth," she said. "I watched him on CNN as he struggled to gain funding for his Farscape Project. Ah, CNN is a news broadcast network. It tells day to day events on our world. Anyway, I listened to him and his passion for breaking through the boundary of space purely for the sake of exploration. He inspired me, you know, to push further and to do something that no one had ever done before. I was thinking of trying a shot at NASA after graduating from the Academy, although there were hundreds of others lined up ahead of me trying for the same thing. Then I met Samantha Carter. She took me under her wing and introduced me to the top secret Stargate project. Now I'm visiting worlds that I thought would be impossible to see beyond staring at them through highpowered telescopes, or in virtual reality. This job sure beats flying military cargo planes."
Aeryn smiled. "John Crichton has that effect on people."
"What's that?" Hailey asked.
"He makes you want to become something more than you ever believed that you could be."
***
Up in Talyn's command area, O'Neill and Crichton chatted away, the long lost astronaut a chance to catch up on current events which he missed on Earth when he was gone. Needless to say, he had a lot of catching up to do and some of the things he learnt were simply too horrible to believe.
"Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire?" Crichton said incredulously. "You're joking… Right?"
"No joke," O'Neill insisted.
"Are you sure you are from Earth?"
"For crying out loud," O'Neill grumbled. "For the hundredth time, YES, I am from Earth! Although I believe the Executives who run Fox may not be."
"And Arnold Schwzrzehegger is no longer the big action star of the movies?"
"No. He never did recover from the 'Last Action Hero' fiasco. A Vin Diesel guy is merging as the big muscleman draw. Actually in his first movie, 'Pitch Black' there was a woman in it that looked a lot like your alien girlfriend."
"Hmmm, another Aeryn lookalike. That's a rather exciting and scary possibility all at the sametime," Crichton said, letting him daydream for a second about the possibly of having two Aeryns. No, that would be too dangerous, even for him to risk fantasizing about it. He quickly snapped out of it, asking.
"You like watching science fiction movies?"
"Ya," O'Neill said. "I watch them from time to time for a good laugh and Teal'c just loves Star Wars and can't get enough of it. But I have to admit those Hollywood people don't know a thing about life on other planets."
Crichton chuckled. "Tell me about it. Steven Spielberg sure got it all wrong. ET wouldn't last two seconds, but his big bad villain Darth Vader could stomp out a good living out here."
"Sorry but that's George Lucas' character," O'Neill corrected but then frowned when he saw Crichton smiling, realizing what just happened. "Just how long are you planning to test me to see if I'm a fake?"
"Oh, the way my lucks goes sometimes, maybe forever."
Meanwhile on Talyn's huge forward monitor, a large 3 dimensional image of the Peacekeeper base on Tobin appeared. Being a former Goa'uld installation, the base was naturally shaped like a pyramid. Crais examined the structure closely and was grateful that they were able to successfully download the data from the Tok'ra shuttle and integrate it into Talyn's systems. Now they had an idea what they were facing.
Next to him, Athena turned and called to the people behind them. "We're getting something. You may want to see this."
Crichton, O'Neill, Anise, Apollo, Daniel, and Sheba gathered around to inspect the images that Talyn was displaying. The 3-D pictures were broken down level by level, showing highly detailed floor plans. There were even life scans, represented by hundreds of blue dots, showing the location of the Peacekeeper troops during the moment that the scans were taken.
Crais looked at Anise. "Impressive. Most impressive. This gives us what we need to finish off Scorpius. Talyn, can you locate Scorpius lifesign please?"
A moment later, Talyn display the huge floor plan , down at ground level and focused on one large room with a single red dot and a green one.
"That's the Stargate chamber." Anise observed.
"And there's old Scorpy," Crichton added. "He's home."
Interested, O'Neill scrutinized the map and pointed. "What's that green dot next to him?"
"It's a human lifesign," Crais informed him.
O'Neill took a step towards the monitor, staring hard at the single glowing green dot. "Anything else you can tell me about it?"
"Talyn informs me that the human is female and that her lifesign is somewhat weak, but stable," Crais said.
"It's Sam," Daniel said aloud. "We've found her!"
"That could be anyone," Crais countered. "Peacekeepers have captured humans from the Goa'uld before."
"No," Crichton shook his head. "If Scorpius is after the Stargate secrets and he thinks that your Samantha Carter has what he wants, he'd keep her close to him. I know how that bastard thinks. It's his game."
"Even if that is her, how do you purpose to rescue her? There are nearly thirteen hundred Sebaceans in that base. And, chances are, half of them will be Peacekeeper commandos," Crais said. "Do you believe that you can just shoot your way in to find her. Even if you can, it will be unlikely she would be alive, let alone in one piece."
Annoyed, O'Neill glared at Crais. "I don't know how you Sebaceans operate, but we Humans don't leave our people behind!"
"I'm not saying that, but you have to face the facts. She is more than likely dead, or wishing she was right now," Crais insisted calmly. "It's best if we let the Colonial's use an MDB on the base to put an end to Scorpius and the Stargate."
"MDB?" O'Neill said.
"Mass Destruction Bomb," Apollo explained. "Just one will do the job. There wouldn't be anything left except a huge crater twice the size of the Galactica."
O'Neill stared at Apollo and Crais for a long moment before turning to the rest of the group. "Is there anyone else not completely thrilled with this plan?"
"Colonel O'Neill," Anise said slowly. "I know your feelings for her, but to risk a near impossible rescue attempt, which could only result in the lost of your own life and countless others, would be foolhardy."
"It's not impossible," Crichton suddenly interrupted, moving to stand beside O'Neill. "And it's not foolhardy. Come-on, Crais! We pull off the impossible on a weekly basis around here. And I, for one, will be damned if I'll leave another soul to the tender mercies of that pale faced ghoul."
"I agree," Apollo nodded. "We didn't come this way to find the Tau'ri, just to kill one in a bomb run without attempting to rescue her first. We have to try."
O'Neill looked gratefully at Crichton and Apollo for their support. "If you have any helpful ideas, I'd love to hear them."
"We've already discussed forcibly taking the base, but we don't have the people for it, and the casualties would be too horrific," Apollo said.
"I know," O'Neill replied in near defeat. He glanced again at the base 3-D image. "And it's too well protected for a small insertion team to sneak in because of that dome shield."
O'Neill shook his head in frustration. There had to be a way!
"I can get her out."
All eyes turned to John Crichton. Crais shook his head slightly, almost sensing what the human was considering.
"I'll just offer a trade to Scorpius for your Samantha Carter." Crichton announced rather calmly. "Something too tempting for him to resist."
O'Neill looked at Crichton confused. "Just what can you offer for Sam that could be more important to him than she is?"
"Me."
***
The last thing Carter saw was the broad point of the spear as Scorpius drove it down towards her head. She had closed her eyes bracing herself for the blow when suddenly she felt herself falling, and landing on loose grainy soil... Sand.
Carter slowly opened her eyes and sat up to survey her new surroundings. There were sand dunes as far as the eye could see and not a living thing in sight.
What is Scorpius up to now? she wondered.
She looked up at the bright sun blazing down on her. She should had been sweating already, but the temperature felt comfortable.
To her right, Carter spotted a lone figure just cresting a nearby dune, slowly walking towards her. Immediately, Carter could see that it wore the familiar garb of the Tok'ra, draped as it was in a large hooded cloak.
Curious, Carter stood and waited for the figure to reach her. Whoever it was, she was through with running.
Soon, the mysterious visitor stopped within a few feet of her. Carter could already tell that it was a woman by the grace of the Tok'ra's walk. The hood covered all but the lower part of her face, revealing her smiling mouth.
"I guess this is the part that we introduce ourselves?" Carter said cautiously. This didn't feel like some sort of trick that Scorpius would pull.
"Hello Samantha," the Tok'ra said, the symbiont part talking. "I am most pleased to speak to you again after so long."
Confused, Carter shook her head. "Should I know you?"
The Tok'ra reached up and pulled her hood down. In that instant, Samantha Carter found herself was staring at her own mirror image. Except her Tok'ra twin had the look of complete serenity, just before her eyes glowed.
Bewildered, Carter stepped away from her apparent doppelganger. "Who the hell are you!?"
"I'm slightly disappointed that you don't remember me, but then again, we met under rather difficult circumstances." Carter's Tok'ra twin said then held her head proudly.
"I am Jolinar of Malkshur."
