Chapter 25 – Deeper Still

Twenty-five degrees Celsius set as the on-board standard temperature was not yet comfortable for people who had just been lifted from eighteen months exposure to the Andan climate, and particularly not the four who had spent nearly all that time in the jungle, where the range had rarely deviated outside thirty to fifty degrees. On their first night in captivity – for that was what it was – the O'Neill's clung to each other for warmth in the single bunk bed, dozing fitfully as unfamiliar noises and odours from the Prometheus assaulted their senses, repeatedly waking each other as they inadvertently stirred. Eventually they gave up trying to sleep and she lay spooned against him, holding his hand in place across her stomach, not wanting to lose the greater intimacy of his touch and the slowly growing glow of wonder at her condition.

Sam's active mind rolled over a long, random succession of silent statements and discoveries about her rapidly-changing life.

'It's not about me being willing to die for him any more, it's about living for the two of them.'

'He'll be unstoppable about protecting *us*. He won't care about himself when he's like that and I've got to stop him going too far. I won't live without him now.'

'Wonder how long it'll take to stop feeling cold? I'll withdraw his privileges if he warms up his hands on me like that too often. He's hot enough now though. We could get used to this.'

'It's a girl, I'm sure of that. But even if it isn't, Jack won't mind. Hell, I won't either. I love it when he holds me like this.'

'I think I know now how he must have felt about losing Charlie. No..... Stupid. No, I don't. She's not even grown inside me yet and already I couldn't bear it if..... No, stop thinking that. God, Jack. How did you face it?'

'Got to be strong. Strong as we've ever been since I've known him. We'll get out of this; I know he's weighing up the odds. Take Jen and Jeff with us if we can.'

'I love him. I mean, *really* love him. It's not like it was with Jonas, with Pete. Pete..... Oh, God, why did I throw Pete in Jack's face like that? What would I have felt like if he'd done it to me? Like shit, that's what. I'll never lose him again, not that way. Got to find a way to tell him somehow. 'Sorry' doesn't cut it. Show him he's got me for life. My life..... His life..... Her life. Long life. Got to get out of here, live our lives away from all this killing.'

'Time to stop fighting, start living. Away from here, away from Earth, too. Maybe, God damn it. No friends left there, 'cept Cassie and Daniel. And Mark. Been too busy to miss them, until now. Now I do.'

'Wonder when they fitted Transporter Rings to the ship? Gotta be an improvement.'

'I'll bet his butt's freezing. If I just reach round..... Yup! It's freezing, right enough. Oh! Shouldn't have done that. The rest of him's warm enough. Not now, Jack. Maybe I should stop wriggling around. Yeah, that's better. Down, boy.'

'Catherine? Alexandra? Maybe. Elizabeth? Janet? That's a good thought. Hold that. Grace..... Oh God, Grace. On this ship, too. When I thought Jack told me he would always be there for me. The real one was, too. Despite what I did afterwards. It's no good; I've got to tell him.....'

"Jack?" she whispered, turning her head slightly to the side so that he at least could see her lips move in the dim light. "I just want you to know....."

"Grace is good." he murmured in her ear. She tensed in surprise.

"Did I say that out loud?" she asked softly.

"Not sure." he continued almost inaudibly, and she felt the goose bumps march across her back at the touch of his lips on her ear. "Seems like a good idea, though. Grace O'Neill. Got a ring to it, hasn't it?"

"Jack?"

"Grace Roxanne O'Neill."

"Grace *Janet* O'Neill."

"Better."

"Jack?"

"What?"

"Your butt's freezing."

"Tell me about it."

"Jack?"

"What?"

"How soon into pregnancy do the cravings start?"

"I don't know. Sarah never got them with Charlie. Why? What do you want?"

"Lizard meat and red-fruit. Like we have at the Quarter-Day feasts."

"Try my tunic pocket. There's some pemmy and fruit in there, unless they took it away."

"It's here. You're a life-saver. Want some?"

"Surprisingly, no, not at the moment. Settle down, you're letting the cold air in."

"Jack?"

"What now?"

"I'll never leave you. Promise."

"Good to know."

"Jack?"

"Yes, my little omnivore?"

"I don't mind if it's a boy."

"Me neither."

"But it *is* a girl."

"Suits me."

"Jack?"

"Still here."

"We get out together, or not at all, OK?"

"We'll see."

"Jack!"

"You know me better than to lie to you, Sam. You and Grace will be safe, I promise. And just hold the thought that I don't want to miss out on a moment of our lives together. But I'll do whatever it takes, you know that."

"I love you."

"I know."

"Jack?"

"Sam?"

"My front's cold now."

"I can fix that little problem. C'mere."

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Colonel Davis, Captain of the Prometheus, was done arguing with his fellow officer.

"The decision is made, Edwards! You exceeded your authority in notifying the Andans that we had them on board and have jeopardised our mission objectives. Now recall the last of your men from the surface. We will proceed with phase two immediately they are on board. Dismissed!"

"Yes, *Sir*!" Edwards retorted, in just the right voice to convey both military discipline and his underlying contempt for a man he considered had no right to have appeared almost 'out-of-the-blue' from the Pentagon and taken a position that he himself might have contended. He turned smartly and left the cabin. 'Take your time, boy.' he thought as he strode down the corridor. 'It'll come right enough, when that asshole trips up.'

Davis watched the empty doorway whence his adversary – for that was how he was beginning to think of Edwards – had exited. He sat still for a minute, and reaching a decision, got up and set out for 'B' Deck and the erstwhile prisoners' quarters. On reaching the entry hatch, he dismissed the guard and entered the first store-room to find the four fugitives sitting around an upturned box indulging in the traditional military pastime of five-card stud. Although he had organised the heat to be turned up in this area by a few degrees, he was surprised to see them all wearing coats over their BDU's. The deep bronze colour of all their faces was matched only by their fingers protruding from the black hand-warmers they were all using. On seeing the captain, they made to get up but he gestured for them to remain seated. To their amazement, Davis drew up another box and sat on it.

"Who's winning?" he asked casually.

"Hailey, of course!" said Jack. "She's just taken my next 26 days of R and R as well as our accumulated back-pay. I reckon she was born with that poker face." The winner stuck her tongue out at him in retaliation. They put down the cards and listened.

"I've decided to take you back to Earth and let Washington work out what's to happen." said Davis. "And don't look at me like that, Colonel O'Neill. You know I can't let you go. But on the other hand, I am currently refusing the Andan Government permission to come on board and take you all away."

"How did they know we were here?" asked Jack.

"Edwards told them. Without my permission, I might add." said Davis. "I know what they would do to you, and I won't have that happen."

"Thanks for that." replied Jack, and the others added their support.

"But here's the problem." Davis continued. "There's a good chance that you'll be returned here anyway by the folks back home. The SGC isn't the way it used to be. It's more secretive, more aggressive in its dealings with other worlds, more acquisitive and more tightly under the control of Washington than it's ever been."

"What, you mean The President....." Sam started to say.

"The President has very little involvement in, or control over the SGC. The people you saw taking over when you left are now firmly in the driving seat. The NID has manoeuvred The White House and Senate in such a way that they cannot intervene to change the chain of command without publicly revealing the whole program to the world, which they aren't ready to do – yet."

"So why did you take on this position?" asked Jack.

"I should sit in The Pentagon and watch the goons take it all unopposed?" Davis said vehemently. "I'm not going to start a mutiny, Jack. But in some cases – like this one – I may be able to make a difference. Wait for the right moment."

"So how are you going to make a difference if we get sent straight back to an Andan firing squad?" said Jack.

Davis hesitated for a moment, knowing that he was about to go down a one- way street concerning his own career as much as anything that these four would face. He looked at each of them in turn. "We have orders to lift the Andan Stargate from the sea bed and take it back to Earth for *refurbishment* before returning it here."

"Except that mending it might take a whole lot longer than any Andan would reckon, right?" said Sam, her eyebrows raised.

"It would, let's say, remove a possibility that the Andans might discover how you sabotaged their Gate with their own Multipliers and be in a position to apply the technique to other worlds, yes." Davis explained.

"Do they know you're taking it?" asked Jen.

"Not exactly." said Davis. "We've never let on that we know where it is, and as far as they are concerned we're going to search for it starting now. Washington still wants to trade weapons for Multipliers, even if the transport has to be made by ship instead of Gate travel."

"So why are you telling us all this?" Jack interjected.

Again Davis hesitated. "It's only logical to test that it's in some sort of working order before we transport it all the way back. Be a waste to cart scrap metal around the Universe."

"And..... We might be invited to be present when it's *tested*?" Sam asked hesitantly.

"Be a pity to waste the talents of two of the world's foremost experts." replied Davis in an even voice. The underlying implications were quite clear to them.

"How are you going to raise the Gate?" was Jeff's first contribution to the developing conversation.

"There's a two-man deep sea submersible in the hold and a remote undersea robot. We can hover for hours over the area if necessary: we'll survey the site with the robot and use the sub to attach cables to lift it." Davis explained. "Then if we recover it successfully we can take it to dry land and test it by manual dialling with power input from the Prometheus."

"I think we can help with that, don't you, Sam?" said Jen, still wearing a neutral expression.

"Yeah sure you betcha." Sam added, unconscious of her husband's quiet smirk.

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No-one except Edwards had objected when the four were given freedom of the ship. The O'Neill's were still SGC heroes, and Hailey and Grogan respected colleagues to most of the crew, and their offers of help in the routine on- board tasks, or at least promises to keep out of the way, were readily accepted. As far as the crew was concerned, their previous mission to Andar had been terminated by the arrival of the Prometheus and a new one had superseded it. It was of little concern that the Andans were still fighting a civil war: the two sides were indistinguishable to them.

For three days they had hovered only a few metres above the surface of the sea. Although they knew the location of the Gate in the sub-sea trench, getting the robot to it was a difficult operation, thwarted by strong currents and low visibility as a result of the sand being stirred. Each trip between the surface and the deep took over an hour to accomplish.

The manned submersible had made several dives in tandem with the robot, and Jen had lost no time in grilling the crews on what they could see down there.

"Not much of anything below one thousand metres." the sub driver had told her. "I think we're in the general area of the Gate but it's probably half- submerged."

"Why not rig up a pulse generator to a sub-space coil from the Prometheus' hyperdrive?" Jen had suggested. "Look for the echo in the S-Band oscilloscope. The Gate's a sub-space generator itself: it should light up like a giant circle."

And of course, it worked beautifully, and Jen's standing with the crew went up another notch. The last dive of the day was in the final recovery phase before they would ascend to orbit before returning for the next day's planned activities, when they would attempt to attach the lift cable to the Gate. Sam was a little surprised when Jack grabbed her playfully while she was watching proceedings from the rear of the bridge, and pulled her to their room on 'B' Deck. His flirting stopped the instant he closed the door behind them, as he turned her round and embraced her, kissing her neck and then her ear.

"I think Edwards knows that something's going down soon." he whispered closely in her ear. "He's watching like a hawk and it doesn't take a genius to know we won't go like lambs to the slaughter."

"Jack! You're insatiable!" she said loudly for the benefit of anyone who might be eavesdropping. But she murmured back "So what do we do?"

"I'll write it down so we can pass it to the other two." he whispered back, unzipping her coat so that the sound would carry to any microphone. And so, under the cover of faked grunts, groans and rustling of clothing from both of them, he started to scribble, letting her take over the writing when she had something to contribute.

Sam smiled wryly at the completed page. "Yes, Jack, yes!" she cried out loud, and she pocketed the paper to give to Jen later. But her mood was black, as black as she had known since they had first arrived on this planet.

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Overpowering the three-man 'night watch' on the bridge had been easy once Sam had picked the lock of the ship's armoury and they had extracted a couple of zat guns. Sam still knew her way round the ship's controls and locked down all hatches around the ship, effectively sealing the rest of the crew wherever they were quartered.

She then expertly de-orbited the ship and resumed station fifteen minutes later above the site of the sunken Stargate, engaging the autopilot to hold them in position. The four then made their way down to the cargo bay where the undersea vehicles were waiting, fully recharged for their next journeys. Jack and Jeff manhandled the smaller robot to its launch position over a hatch and attached the umbilicals. In the background, the sounds of hammering and scraping made by the rest of the crew trying to escape from their sealed areas seemed to be getting louder, and they knew that time would be limited.

Each couple had had their almost-silent arguments during the night, and it was now reluctantly accepted by all that this was their only chance of a future. But none was happy about the fact that only Sam and Jen would be getting away now, relying on one hell of a lot of good fortune to be reunited with their loved ones at a later – hopefully not too much later – date. And even the women's escape was risky. No-one was happy, and no-one could think of any alternative, so they didn't hesitate except for brief hugs when Jack and Jeff helped their partners into the mini-submarine and sealed the hatch.

Jeff went back to the bridge to make sure it remained secure long enough for them to complete their task. Jack immediately turned to the robot control station at the side of the cargo bay and initiated the launch sequence, seeing to his satisfaction the hatch doors open and the umbilical cables running out freely as the small craft plunged into the water only two metres below. He set it for maximum rate of descent, steering unerringly towards the circular target image visible in the monitor. The robot could climb or descend in only ten minutes, much faster than the pedestrian pace of the mini-sub.

Jack had been watching the operators closely for several days, and his own piloting skills enabled him to quickly pick up the 'feel' of steering the robot through the water. In what seemed like no time, he was watching the camera image of the Gate peer through murky water in the spotlights, and he brought the craft to a halt over one particular marking on the annulus. After a few hesitant errors, he was able to get the robot's arm to scrape away the dirt to reveal clean metal. He then switched to the camera mounted on the robot's arm and turned it round to look back at the robot itself. Manoeuvring gently, he detached an electric cable from the robot and just minutes later was satisfied that he had clamped it securely to the ancient metal.

Looking across the cargo bay to see two anxious faces in the observation port of the mini-sub, he gave a brief 'thumbs-up' and flicked on the power switch. No fuses blew, so he was as sure as he could be that some current was flowing into the Gate ring. Every step of what they were doing had to work in order for them to succeed in what now seemed like a lunatic's plan.

Jack then manipulated the controls deftly for the next few minutes, each time anchoring the robot to one part of the ring and using the arm to move the chevrons into alignment. He kept swimming the little vehicle up to check that each one had illuminated correctly, and finally he was working on the seventh and last. In the background, he could hear crashes as an inner door was finally broken open by some of the trapped Prometheus' crew, and he knew he only had moments left.

The robot camera gave a brief glimpse of a mighty eruption before cutting out altogether, and Jack knew that the wormhole he had just generated would be sending a mighty up-current from the sea bed. But just as Sam had predicted, this would soon be reversed as thousands and then million of tonnes of water poured downwards into the open Stargate, to be deposited on what he fervently hoped was a suitable planet where the mini-sub might land without too much damage to itself and especially not its occupants.

The robot could not survive in such close proximity to the Gate when it was activated, and so without a view of the scene on the sea bed, he had to trust that his next action would be saving Sam and Jen's lives and not ending them. As another crash from outside the cargo bay counted down his last few minutes of freedom, Jack moved across the room and without hesitation, hit the start button for the Transporter Rings. With their characteristic flash of white light, they enveloped the mini-sub and a second later it had vanished from view. He prayed that Sam's calculations had been correct, and that the craft would be deposited down in the sea around two hundred metres above the open Gate, where the down-current of water leaving the planet would swiftly carry it through without impacting the sides, without a hull breach, without malfunction to the life-support system.

As he waited for his imminent capture, Jack prayed fervently that the people who mattered most to him in the Universe, both living and yet-to- live, would be safe and free. It would be a bonus if he ever got see them again, but he doubted the chances of that happening.

Up on the bridge, Jeff Grogan felt exactly the same.

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