AN: This was a very odd story to write, because I took a bunch of people who almost never get screen time together and made them a team. And I tried to make Janet into something she isn't. It was also very sad, sometimes, and yet, still a rush when I got to this chapter.
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Friday's Rebel
1000, Washington DC
"You're quite the celebrity, my dear doctor," McKay said, getting into the van Jacob had 'procured' and distributing coffee to the occupants of the back seat. "The newscasts, of course, all paint you as a paranoid schizophrenic, pushed over the edge by your inability to adapt to a world that you see no longer needing you, but word on the street is a bit more. . .speculative."
"That's oddly comforting," Janet said, taking a sip. "I suppose it's better to be schizophrenic than a blackmailer."
"Or poor Davis here," McKay looked over his shoulder with an unrepentant grin on his face. "Whose weak personality was overcome by the legendary charisma of Colonel O'Neill, and who then committed suicide when he realized the effects of his actions."
"Suicide!" demanded an irate Davis, while Janet giggled in spite of herself.
"Oh yes. You were quite creative. You – "
"I don't want to know."
"How many times did the broadcast play?" asked Jacob who, by all appearances, seemed to be driving aimlessly through Washington morning traffic.
"Three times," McKay reported. "According to the computer geeks in front of me in line at the coffee shop, the design was ingenious. A virus would have been detected immediately. Making the broadcast look like an innocuous file made it harder to pin down."
"Weak personality indeed."
"So, um, what exactly are we planning on doing today?" McKay asked.
"We are going to take a tour of the Embassy," Janet said. "You and Davis are going to sneak off and sit yourselves down in front of the first computer you find. Then, you'll download everything you can find out about public reaction to yesterday's broadcast. Davis will release a virus into the system, and you'll get the hell out."
"What does the virus do? And won't it be detected?"
"We want to be detected," Jacob reminded him.
"Oh. Right."
"It will disable the automated defense systems, or, two of them anyway," Davis said. "That will trigger an alarm, which will be their signal to go for it."
"Go for what?"
"Anything we can," Jacob said. "Janet and I both have several small explosive devices. We'll plant them wherever we can and detonate them by remote after the system goes down."
"Meanwhile, SG-3 will be doing the same thing from the other end of the building." Janet finished.
"No offence, but that doesn't sound like it's going to be very effective," McKay said.
"This isn't for the Aschen. This is for other humans," Janet said. "We need to show our people that we're not paranoid or suicidal. We need to get in and blow stuff up, but we also need to survive to do it again tomorrow. And the day after that. And every day until it is done."
"I see," McKay was quite overcome by Janet's vehemence.
"Also, there are Tok'ra cells all across the planet, and they all have targets," Jacob said. "At 1100, they'll all go active, and we'll attack in concert."
"You people scare me, you know," McKay said. "But I'm strangely reassured at the same time. Earth is in good hands."
..................
1100, Washington DC
Amy Peredhil had almost called in to work sick this morning. She had been up all night with her television trying to decide if she believed the Aschen. She had Aschen friends. They sent her birthday cards, and always remembered to give her Chanukah off.
She had been trying for two years to conceive a child.
But she came to work anyway, because that was the kind of woman she was. If her tours of the Aschen Embassy were a little less enthusiastic than normal, no one commented on it. Everyone, it seemed, was having an odd day.
As she was showing her latest troop through the final hallway, she dropped to the rear, smiling at each person she passed as they made their way into the Gift Shop. She saw a woman with short hair and sunglasses set her cellular phone down behind a potted plant and continue walking next to the man beside her. Amy quietly stopped them, and told them the woman that she had forgotten her phone. The woman tensed, but then relaxed and thanked Amy profusely. The young tour guide thought there was something familiar about the voice, but couldn't quite place it.
A commotion at the front of the group drew Amy's attention away momentarily, and when she looked back, the couple was gone. She presumed they'd gone into the shop. As she was turning away, Amy saw a metallic glint from the flower pot. She squinted. It was a cell phone.
My name is Janet Fraiser and I will fight for this planet.
Amy Peredhil took an early lunch.
..................
The problem with the computer was that to see the monitor, one had to be facing the wall. Davis began the download, McKay standing next to him, facing the door. As he passed the encoder-cum-programmer disks with one hand, his other held the service pistol rock steady and pointed at the door. For one strangely out of place moment, McKay flashed back to his stint as captain of the UC Berkley modern pentathlon team. All those hours spent on the shooting range were coming in terribly useful right about now. As the information downloaded in one window, Davis began to enter the virus program into another.
As the former sergeant pocketed the final back-up disk and activated the virus, several things happened at once. The ear splitting alarm began to sound, gun-fire could be heard in the distance, and four armed Aschen guards entered the room.
"On your feet!" barked one of them, showing none of the customary Aschen reserve. Davis complied.
"If you're caught, play along," Janet's voice echoed in McKay's head. "They won't be expecting explosions. Use that to your advantage."
McKay looked at Davis who nodded almost imperceptibly. When the time came, they would act. For now, they surrendered their weapons to their captors, and allowed themselves to be surrounded. One of the Aschen sat down at the computer terminal and, with a few key-strokes, disabled the alarm. McKay didn't speak much Aschen, but he recognized the inflection of swear words in any language. Apparently, Davis' virus was not only still disabling the automated defense systems, they were also having trouble tracking it down.
"What have you done?" demanded one of the Aschen, waving a gun in Davis' face.
Davis said nothing. The Aschen was about to backhand him when the room was rocked by a series of explosions. The two humans sprang immediately into action. McKay couldn't see Davis, but he wrestled his gun away from the Aschen who had taken it and shot him point blank. The astrophysicist turned back and engaged the second Aschen. He heard the distinctive sound of a zat being fired, but couldn't see who had fired it. As McKay dispatched his opponent, he heard gunfire. Then, there was a burning pain in his right arm. As he doubled over, be missed seeing Sergeant Walter Davis fire his zat'nikatel three times at the last remaining Aschen, and collapse in a pool of blood.
..................
Jacob Carter had been many things. Husband, father, general, ambassador, and none of it had prepared him for what he was currently neck deep in. Selmak had been many, many things. Farmer, engineer, interior decorator, interstellar intelligence operative, and all of it combined to make her perfectly suited to the situation. Between her experience and Jacob's humanity, she knew that they could cope with anything this guerilla war threw at them.
As soon as the tour guide had turned away, Jacob had pulled Janet into the Gift Shop. They had been milling around for about five minutes when the alarm went off and a mechanized voice came on the PA system warning of terrorist attacks. In the ensuing confusion, they were able to duck back into the hallway, where they were close enough to begin the remote detonation of their explosives. Janet could clearly hear the gunfire as Griff's team began their attack, but she forced herself to concentrate on her own tasks.
According to the schematics they had obtained, there were three separately controlled defense zones. The most deadly protected the ambassador's office, but the other two, the ones surrounding the shops and offices of the lesser dignitaries were the targets. However, since the layout of the building was circular and the Ambassador's office was in the centre, its shields prevented a signal being sent across it. This meant that signals had to be sent from all four cardinal points.
Griff's team was in charge of North and East, the two wings to which the tour did not go. After all of their devices had been set off at North, Griff sent his team East while he headed in the other direction. The consummate military professional, Griff was uncomfortable putting Jacob and Janet together. It was too close to all eggs in one basket, and Janet was not a field officer. Worse, she was a doctor, and Griff wanted to be sure that she always had someone around her who would not hesitate to pull the trigger.
Fully aware that he was almost defying a direct order, Major Griff followed the curving hallway, sticking to the wall and ready for anything.
..................
Once, when he was a small boy, Walter Davis had stolen his older brother's bicycle, determined to learn to ride it. He had, of course, gone all of two metres before he'd gotten his feet spectacularly tangled in the pedals and had taken the whole bike with him when he fell. Lying there, with the crushing weight of the too-big bicycle on his chest, he had wondered if this was what dying felt like.
He knew now that it wasn't. Because he was dying, and it wasn't heavy. Heck, it didn't even hurt. Much. Well, just when he breathed, and then it was agony, but something told him he wasn't going to have to worry about it for much longer.
Across the room, Rodney McKay got to his knees and, cradling his injured arm, crawled across the floor to Davis. He gasped at the hole in the sergeant's chest, surprised that the man could possibly still be alive.
"Pockets," Davis gasped, and McKay went looking for the disks.
He found them, put them in his own pockets, and began tearing strips from the fallen Aschen's uniform to pack in Davis' wound. A surprisingly strong hand closed around his wrist and pushed him away.
"Go!" Davis was spitting blood now, and his voice had a horrible crack in it. "Survive."
With one look behind him, McKay shook the dying man's hand, grabbed the zat and fled. The explosions lulled momentarily, and just before he reached the door, McKay heard in the silence the unmistakable rattle that always accompanies a human being's last breath.
..................
Griff, Jacob and Janet all reached the West point at the same time. Jacob began to reprimand the major, but a troop of Aschen came into view, stalling his tirade. Tossing Janet the detonator, Jacob turned to flank her, while Griff did the same thing on the other side. As Janet entered the last detonation sequence, a young man wearing the uniform of the Embassy support staff emerged from an office brandishing a gun. Janet was the only one in position to see him. He leveled his gun at the centre of Griff's back. Janet threw down the detonator and drew her own gun. As Jacob brought down the last of the Aschen guards and turned back towards her, Janet fired once, twice, three times, and the man fell, dead before he got anywhere close to the ground.
Selmak cursed inwardly, and Jacob echoed the sentiment. The one thing they had hoped to prevent today was Janet herself killing anyone, and she had killed a human while their back was turned. They would cope later. Right now, they had to get her out.
Ordering Griff to cover the rear, Jacob bodily pulled Janet to their predetermined escape route. She followed him woodenly, but she followed. And right now, that was all he needed.
..................
1300, Washington DC
The whole raid had taken less than an hour. Jacob had taken half an hour to get himself and Janet to the rendezvous point, a warehouse in the old industrial section of the city, and they were still the first ones to arrive. Griff had arrived about fifteen minutes later, they had split up as soon as they cleared the Embassy, and the rest of SG-3 had dribbled in separately by 1230. There was no sign of Davis or McKay, and Janet had neither spoken nor moved from where Jacob had set her.
Above in the catwalk, the lookout whistled. Someone was coming. A few seconds later, a second whistle followed. It was a friendly.
Jacob met McKay at the door and half carried the wounded astrophysicist inside. Pausing briefly to order Griff to go out and make sure there wasn't a blood trail to give them away, Jacob was about to begin treating McKay when he felt Janet materialize beside him. No, Selmak told him, it wasn't Janet. It was Doctor Fraiser. And this was completely necessary.
"Abernathy, I am going to need clean water and some material. Anything will do, just tear it into strips." The tone in Janet's voice was reassuringly familiar as she issued the orders. "Jacob, hold him still. I have to clean the wound and cut his shirt out of the way."
There was a healing device in Jacob's pack, but the only thing that would make him get it was if McKay went into cardiac arrest.
"The bullet went clear through, Rodney," Janet was saying as she tightened McKay's makeshift tourniquet. "It didn't get the bone. I am going to have to pull the dressing tight, but you'll use the arm again."
Jacob stuck his belt between McKay's teeth to give the man something to bite down on. They were going to need medical supplies. Selmak added it to the list.
"He's stable," said Janet. "He'll recover."
"Davis?" asked Abernathy. McKay shook his head and sat up painfully.
"We were attacked in the computer room. There were four of them. I – I killed. . ." McKay drifted off.
Janet looked away from him. Here it comes, Selmak warned her host.
In turning away from McKay, Janet was now facing the door, so when Griff came in to report that there was no blood trail, he was the only one who could see her face.
"I killed," she said quietly, dully. "I killed."
"You'll kill again, Doctor." Griff said. "You'll kill and you'll heal. You'll inspire the world to follow you and you will save us all."
Janet let out one choked sob and swayed on her feet. Griff made no move to catch her, and she found her own footing.
"You will save us all."
..................
AN: This chapter was so exciting to write! I am particularly proud of the tour guide part. It's all about the little actions and big heroes. Also, I'm sorry about Davis, but it couldn't all be sunshine and roses, now could it? What did you think?
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Friday's Rebel
1000, Washington DC
"You're quite the celebrity, my dear doctor," McKay said, getting into the van Jacob had 'procured' and distributing coffee to the occupants of the back seat. "The newscasts, of course, all paint you as a paranoid schizophrenic, pushed over the edge by your inability to adapt to a world that you see no longer needing you, but word on the street is a bit more. . .speculative."
"That's oddly comforting," Janet said, taking a sip. "I suppose it's better to be schizophrenic than a blackmailer."
"Or poor Davis here," McKay looked over his shoulder with an unrepentant grin on his face. "Whose weak personality was overcome by the legendary charisma of Colonel O'Neill, and who then committed suicide when he realized the effects of his actions."
"Suicide!" demanded an irate Davis, while Janet giggled in spite of herself.
"Oh yes. You were quite creative. You – "
"I don't want to know."
"How many times did the broadcast play?" asked Jacob who, by all appearances, seemed to be driving aimlessly through Washington morning traffic.
"Three times," McKay reported. "According to the computer geeks in front of me in line at the coffee shop, the design was ingenious. A virus would have been detected immediately. Making the broadcast look like an innocuous file made it harder to pin down."
"Weak personality indeed."
"So, um, what exactly are we planning on doing today?" McKay asked.
"We are going to take a tour of the Embassy," Janet said. "You and Davis are going to sneak off and sit yourselves down in front of the first computer you find. Then, you'll download everything you can find out about public reaction to yesterday's broadcast. Davis will release a virus into the system, and you'll get the hell out."
"What does the virus do? And won't it be detected?"
"We want to be detected," Jacob reminded him.
"Oh. Right."
"It will disable the automated defense systems, or, two of them anyway," Davis said. "That will trigger an alarm, which will be their signal to go for it."
"Go for what?"
"Anything we can," Jacob said. "Janet and I both have several small explosive devices. We'll plant them wherever we can and detonate them by remote after the system goes down."
"Meanwhile, SG-3 will be doing the same thing from the other end of the building." Janet finished.
"No offence, but that doesn't sound like it's going to be very effective," McKay said.
"This isn't for the Aschen. This is for other humans," Janet said. "We need to show our people that we're not paranoid or suicidal. We need to get in and blow stuff up, but we also need to survive to do it again tomorrow. And the day after that. And every day until it is done."
"I see," McKay was quite overcome by Janet's vehemence.
"Also, there are Tok'ra cells all across the planet, and they all have targets," Jacob said. "At 1100, they'll all go active, and we'll attack in concert."
"You people scare me, you know," McKay said. "But I'm strangely reassured at the same time. Earth is in good hands."
..................
1100, Washington DC
Amy Peredhil had almost called in to work sick this morning. She had been up all night with her television trying to decide if she believed the Aschen. She had Aschen friends. They sent her birthday cards, and always remembered to give her Chanukah off.
She had been trying for two years to conceive a child.
But she came to work anyway, because that was the kind of woman she was. If her tours of the Aschen Embassy were a little less enthusiastic than normal, no one commented on it. Everyone, it seemed, was having an odd day.
As she was showing her latest troop through the final hallway, she dropped to the rear, smiling at each person she passed as they made their way into the Gift Shop. She saw a woman with short hair and sunglasses set her cellular phone down behind a potted plant and continue walking next to the man beside her. Amy quietly stopped them, and told them the woman that she had forgotten her phone. The woman tensed, but then relaxed and thanked Amy profusely. The young tour guide thought there was something familiar about the voice, but couldn't quite place it.
A commotion at the front of the group drew Amy's attention away momentarily, and when she looked back, the couple was gone. She presumed they'd gone into the shop. As she was turning away, Amy saw a metallic glint from the flower pot. She squinted. It was a cell phone.
My name is Janet Fraiser and I will fight for this planet.
Amy Peredhil took an early lunch.
..................
The problem with the computer was that to see the monitor, one had to be facing the wall. Davis began the download, McKay standing next to him, facing the door. As he passed the encoder-cum-programmer disks with one hand, his other held the service pistol rock steady and pointed at the door. For one strangely out of place moment, McKay flashed back to his stint as captain of the UC Berkley modern pentathlon team. All those hours spent on the shooting range were coming in terribly useful right about now. As the information downloaded in one window, Davis began to enter the virus program into another.
As the former sergeant pocketed the final back-up disk and activated the virus, several things happened at once. The ear splitting alarm began to sound, gun-fire could be heard in the distance, and four armed Aschen guards entered the room.
"On your feet!" barked one of them, showing none of the customary Aschen reserve. Davis complied.
"If you're caught, play along," Janet's voice echoed in McKay's head. "They won't be expecting explosions. Use that to your advantage."
McKay looked at Davis who nodded almost imperceptibly. When the time came, they would act. For now, they surrendered their weapons to their captors, and allowed themselves to be surrounded. One of the Aschen sat down at the computer terminal and, with a few key-strokes, disabled the alarm. McKay didn't speak much Aschen, but he recognized the inflection of swear words in any language. Apparently, Davis' virus was not only still disabling the automated defense systems, they were also having trouble tracking it down.
"What have you done?" demanded one of the Aschen, waving a gun in Davis' face.
Davis said nothing. The Aschen was about to backhand him when the room was rocked by a series of explosions. The two humans sprang immediately into action. McKay couldn't see Davis, but he wrestled his gun away from the Aschen who had taken it and shot him point blank. The astrophysicist turned back and engaged the second Aschen. He heard the distinctive sound of a zat being fired, but couldn't see who had fired it. As McKay dispatched his opponent, he heard gunfire. Then, there was a burning pain in his right arm. As he doubled over, be missed seeing Sergeant Walter Davis fire his zat'nikatel three times at the last remaining Aschen, and collapse in a pool of blood.
..................
Jacob Carter had been many things. Husband, father, general, ambassador, and none of it had prepared him for what he was currently neck deep in. Selmak had been many, many things. Farmer, engineer, interior decorator, interstellar intelligence operative, and all of it combined to make her perfectly suited to the situation. Between her experience and Jacob's humanity, she knew that they could cope with anything this guerilla war threw at them.
As soon as the tour guide had turned away, Jacob had pulled Janet into the Gift Shop. They had been milling around for about five minutes when the alarm went off and a mechanized voice came on the PA system warning of terrorist attacks. In the ensuing confusion, they were able to duck back into the hallway, where they were close enough to begin the remote detonation of their explosives. Janet could clearly hear the gunfire as Griff's team began their attack, but she forced herself to concentrate on her own tasks.
According to the schematics they had obtained, there were three separately controlled defense zones. The most deadly protected the ambassador's office, but the other two, the ones surrounding the shops and offices of the lesser dignitaries were the targets. However, since the layout of the building was circular and the Ambassador's office was in the centre, its shields prevented a signal being sent across it. This meant that signals had to be sent from all four cardinal points.
Griff's team was in charge of North and East, the two wings to which the tour did not go. After all of their devices had been set off at North, Griff sent his team East while he headed in the other direction. The consummate military professional, Griff was uncomfortable putting Jacob and Janet together. It was too close to all eggs in one basket, and Janet was not a field officer. Worse, she was a doctor, and Griff wanted to be sure that she always had someone around her who would not hesitate to pull the trigger.
Fully aware that he was almost defying a direct order, Major Griff followed the curving hallway, sticking to the wall and ready for anything.
..................
Once, when he was a small boy, Walter Davis had stolen his older brother's bicycle, determined to learn to ride it. He had, of course, gone all of two metres before he'd gotten his feet spectacularly tangled in the pedals and had taken the whole bike with him when he fell. Lying there, with the crushing weight of the too-big bicycle on his chest, he had wondered if this was what dying felt like.
He knew now that it wasn't. Because he was dying, and it wasn't heavy. Heck, it didn't even hurt. Much. Well, just when he breathed, and then it was agony, but something told him he wasn't going to have to worry about it for much longer.
Across the room, Rodney McKay got to his knees and, cradling his injured arm, crawled across the floor to Davis. He gasped at the hole in the sergeant's chest, surprised that the man could possibly still be alive.
"Pockets," Davis gasped, and McKay went looking for the disks.
He found them, put them in his own pockets, and began tearing strips from the fallen Aschen's uniform to pack in Davis' wound. A surprisingly strong hand closed around his wrist and pushed him away.
"Go!" Davis was spitting blood now, and his voice had a horrible crack in it. "Survive."
With one look behind him, McKay shook the dying man's hand, grabbed the zat and fled. The explosions lulled momentarily, and just before he reached the door, McKay heard in the silence the unmistakable rattle that always accompanies a human being's last breath.
..................
Griff, Jacob and Janet all reached the West point at the same time. Jacob began to reprimand the major, but a troop of Aschen came into view, stalling his tirade. Tossing Janet the detonator, Jacob turned to flank her, while Griff did the same thing on the other side. As Janet entered the last detonation sequence, a young man wearing the uniform of the Embassy support staff emerged from an office brandishing a gun. Janet was the only one in position to see him. He leveled his gun at the centre of Griff's back. Janet threw down the detonator and drew her own gun. As Jacob brought down the last of the Aschen guards and turned back towards her, Janet fired once, twice, three times, and the man fell, dead before he got anywhere close to the ground.
Selmak cursed inwardly, and Jacob echoed the sentiment. The one thing they had hoped to prevent today was Janet herself killing anyone, and she had killed a human while their back was turned. They would cope later. Right now, they had to get her out.
Ordering Griff to cover the rear, Jacob bodily pulled Janet to their predetermined escape route. She followed him woodenly, but she followed. And right now, that was all he needed.
..................
1300, Washington DC
The whole raid had taken less than an hour. Jacob had taken half an hour to get himself and Janet to the rendezvous point, a warehouse in the old industrial section of the city, and they were still the first ones to arrive. Griff had arrived about fifteen minutes later, they had split up as soon as they cleared the Embassy, and the rest of SG-3 had dribbled in separately by 1230. There was no sign of Davis or McKay, and Janet had neither spoken nor moved from where Jacob had set her.
Above in the catwalk, the lookout whistled. Someone was coming. A few seconds later, a second whistle followed. It was a friendly.
Jacob met McKay at the door and half carried the wounded astrophysicist inside. Pausing briefly to order Griff to go out and make sure there wasn't a blood trail to give them away, Jacob was about to begin treating McKay when he felt Janet materialize beside him. No, Selmak told him, it wasn't Janet. It was Doctor Fraiser. And this was completely necessary.
"Abernathy, I am going to need clean water and some material. Anything will do, just tear it into strips." The tone in Janet's voice was reassuringly familiar as she issued the orders. "Jacob, hold him still. I have to clean the wound and cut his shirt out of the way."
There was a healing device in Jacob's pack, but the only thing that would make him get it was if McKay went into cardiac arrest.
"The bullet went clear through, Rodney," Janet was saying as she tightened McKay's makeshift tourniquet. "It didn't get the bone. I am going to have to pull the dressing tight, but you'll use the arm again."
Jacob stuck his belt between McKay's teeth to give the man something to bite down on. They were going to need medical supplies. Selmak added it to the list.
"He's stable," said Janet. "He'll recover."
"Davis?" asked Abernathy. McKay shook his head and sat up painfully.
"We were attacked in the computer room. There were four of them. I – I killed. . ." McKay drifted off.
Janet looked away from him. Here it comes, Selmak warned her host.
In turning away from McKay, Janet was now facing the door, so when Griff came in to report that there was no blood trail, he was the only one who could see her face.
"I killed," she said quietly, dully. "I killed."
"You'll kill again, Doctor." Griff said. "You'll kill and you'll heal. You'll inspire the world to follow you and you will save us all."
Janet let out one choked sob and swayed on her feet. Griff made no move to catch her, and she found her own footing.
"You will save us all."
..................
AN: This chapter was so exciting to write! I am particularly proud of the tour guide part. It's all about the little actions and big heroes. Also, I'm sorry about Davis, but it couldn't all be sunshine and roses, now could it? What did you think?