Chapter 11 – Turning Point

Elapsed time on board (ETOB): LD Plus 30 days. Elapsed time at origin (ETAO): LD Plus 36 days

The hours spent awaiting the return of Prometheus to near-Earth space broke all records for TV ratings around the world. All available ground and space telescopes, including the much-repaired Hubble and its intended replacement, the larger instrument on board the International Space Station, were reoriented to the region of space beyond the Moon's orbit in the direction of galactic centre where the astronauts had estimated that their final wormhole jump would deposit them. But in the way that these things are, what held the audiences tuned in and glued to their sets was not only the hope of seeing the Prometheus as a shaky blob in the scope at extreme distance, but the fear – no, the expectation of many that it wouldn't. There had been nothing like it since the return of the fateful Apollo Thirteen mission to a safe splashdown in 1970. And just as before, tensions ran high because there were no guarantees of a happy ending for the on-board crew. Whether it would turn out well this time was in the balance according to all the experts – whether real or self-appointed – who were brought before the cameras. There was much talk in studios of poor Komarov, whose Soyuz capsule had plunged to the ground in 1967, and of the deaths of Dobrovolsky, Volkov, and Patsayev when their cabin atmosphere had leaked into space during re-entry in 1971. Not to mention, of course, the tragedies of fourteen lives lost aboard Challenger and Columbia.

Nothing had been certain during the last ten days since the story of their attempts to return had wiped all others from the media headlines. By the latest count, this last would be the eighty-seventh wormhole jump that the ship had made during that time in its disjointed, crazy attempt to re-enter normal space at low speed, hopefully with its naquadria reactor now stabilised. Brief, sometimes strained conversations over the sub-space communicator had been testament to a chaotic, punishing journey: hardly any progress towards their goal of drastically reducing their speed from seventy percent of the speed of light had been achieved during the first three days of trying. Little control had been possible over their speed and direction on exits into normal space, and more than one re-entry had been so near to a star that only seconds were available to jump again to anywhere, anywhere at all away from meltdown.

A degree of mastery over their errant propulsion system had only begun to appear after Jocelyn Stevens called a halt to their almost random hyperspace jumping after three and a half days, when the whole crew was tired, anxious and most of all suffering from the effects of the severe vibrations that had shaken the whole ship almost to destruction during several transits. They had spent twelve hours taking turns to rest, to watch over the generator and secure as best they could any remaining loose, unbroken equipment on board. The galley was no longer usable and cold field rations were taken with cold water. The highlight of the day had been sharing out the last portions of fruits that Jack had picked in the Bio-pod just before his own abortive attempt to leave. Their thoughts were of him and his selflessness, and Stevens had begun to notice that Celia seemed particularly morose despite the strain of their current circumstances, even though actions required for their own survival filled everyone's thoughts for most of the time. However Chen had refused to talk about anything other than their immediate emergency work programme, so Jos dropped the subject, her own time being too valuable to dwell on it.

During this enforced break, Mohammad Sesele had made the suggestion that started to change their fortunes. He had called every waking person's attention and cleared his throat as they stared at him expectantly across the table.

"We slow down out of the wormhole when we manage to make a significant increase in shield potential while we're still inside it, don't we?" he had asked no-one in particular. "But we haven't been able to rely on the generator to deliver a smooth, controlled increase in power." Nodding heads and grunts confirmed his observation. "So what if we enter a wormhole with the generator working to provide only a moderately strong external force field to protect the ship, but as high an internal load as we can possibly have. Then, we switch off the internal load and divert the extra power to the shield. The resultant sudden, large increase in the external field potential should slow us down significantly. Well, maybe a little more than we've succeeded in doing so far. We're still at sixty two percent of c after, what? Thirty four jumps?"

"Yes, but the external force shield is by far the greatest power drain on the generator." Stevens had replied. "How can we deliver a big enough jolt of power so that it makes a difference?"

"The artificial gravity field!" Sonja had exclaimed, smiling at Mohammad in recognition of the idea's brilliance. "How high? Ten gees?"

"I don't think our bodies could stand ten gees after this much time in zero and low g." Mohammad had replied. "I was thinking of starting at, say, six and then increasing to eight if it works. The exponential increase in demand for power for every g increment should make a big enough demand on the generator."

And it had worked. Not a very large decrease in speed in one go, but much more than they had achieved so far. The side–effect of nausea after they shunted power from the internal gravity field to external shield during the next jump when their bodies went instantly from super-heavyweight to floating was unexpected, but was in retrospect a small price to pay when their exit speed was found to be two percent lower than before.

Further jumps had brought down the speed a little at a time, interrupted by enforced holds in normal space to make running repairs to essential items that had been shaken apart by the unusually strong vibrations and jolts caused by their reckless use of power shunts. By day six of their return journey, the ice nose cone had fragmented and mostly departed in large chunks, and at the other end of the scale, the ship's only remaining functional wash cubicle decided that it would gurgle no more.

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The moment of their arrival when it came, was memorable for its seeming ordinariness. They entered the Solar System before anyone on Earth realised the fact, the final wormhole jump having spat them out unobserved at a point in the direction of the constellation Virgo, well away from the galactic centre where the long-range cameras were trained. Sam recognised instantly that Jos' voice was coming in over the S-band radio and not the sub-space communicator, and she shouted to the studio and the world in general "They're here! Oh, God, they're here!" and such was her relief at their safe return that she couldn't think of anything to say for several seconds. Just as well, she soon realised, as at this distance there was around a three-second delay between transmission and receipt of the signals. After several moments of stop-start conversations as the two women got used to this fact, they were able to exchange messages in an orderly manner.

Further talk revealed the ship's location relative to Earth, and the final hours to a rendezvous in orbit with the International Space Station whence they had departed could be calculated. Crews would be waiting to board and help them off, and to start tending to the serious business of decontaminating the engine room where Vittorio's irradiated remains still lay, badly abused by the effects of the radiation and the of unrestrained vibration each time they had jumped – something only made possible by his selfless actions during his final moments of life.

And then suddenly, Sam's joy at their homecoming evaporated. 'He' wasn't amongst them, and after remembering to first switch to an external camera shot of the space station, she slumped back in her seat in abject, overwhelming despair.

As soon as she had seen the red light in the studio go out, Sam breathed a deep sigh and rubbed at her sleep-deprived, reddened eyes. Before she could discard the headset, though, Bregman's voice stopped her once more.

"Sam, there's a visitor for you. He'll meet you in the office upstairs in five."

She swore silently to herself, and replied in a weary voice "Not now, Emmett. I really can't face anyone just yet. Get rid of him, please. I'm too tired."

"Sam, the guy says he's on official business. Gave the name Shanahan and showed police ID. Should we kick him out?"

"Oh crap." said Sam, realising only afterwards that she would not have uttered those words in times past. "Tell him to wait, OK?" She stayed slumped in the chair for a few moments longer before suddenly getting up and heading for the washroom.

"What do you want, Pete?" Sam said somewhat coldly as she entered the room some ten minutes later, eyeing him steadily as he sprang out of a chair. She stopped as he approached.

"Hello Samantha." he smiled at her. "I see you've been keeping busy these last weeks. Fame suits you." He hesitated at her lack of response. "Sam? I'm glad to see you again."

"Pete, I'm very tired right now, so cut the crap, OK?" she sighed. "What do you want?"

"Now, Sam, don't be that way. I've been feeling bad about the way we broke up and I thought, well, it was about time I tried to do something about that."

"For crying out loud, Pete, you busted in here to tell me that? I told you before that what's in the past is in the past." She suddenly frowned and stared at him. "Why now?"

He feigned a hurt expression. "Does there have to be a reason, Sam? I've missed you more than you can know." He swallowed and ploughed on "I'd like for us to try again."

Sam closed her eyes and sighed audibly before she suddenly turned to face him again. "I repeat, why now? I know you. There's always a reason why you do things when you do."

"See? That's a good sign, Sam. That you know me so well, I mean. It's what I've missed the most these......"

"Tell me why or you can leave right now." she replied in a frosty tone. "I'm listening."

"OK, OK!" he laughed, holding his hands up in mock defeat. "You taught me before how much your SGC career meant to you. I guess that goes for your new one as well. Truth is, I just thought that you might be more inclined to listen to me when the astronauts got back safe and we could all relax a little. We've all seen on TV how much you've been involved with the crew during the mission. Well, they're back now, and so am I. I want to be with you again, Sam. Anyhow you want it."

Sam's mouth stayed open in astonishment at his words, as he stared back at her. Her momentary silence led Pete to believe that now was the right time to deliver the most difficult part of his plea, so he continued. "I know that O'Neill was a special person in your life, and he sure got everyone's respect for the way he gave his life for Meyer. I feel your hurt too, Sam. But he's gone now, and I want to help you move on with....."

"He's not dead." Sam uttered in a voice so full of determination that it put his nerves instantly on edge.

"Maybe not yet, Sam, but let's be realistic. Yeah, I followed some of those discussions in the news about the chances of surviving for weeks or months in that pod thing. But face it, he's never coming back, is he?" he reasoned. "After this screw-up with that super-generator nuclear gizmo, there's no way to get to him, is there?."

"Well, you'd better stay tuned to your TV then, hadn't you?" she retorted, still with the icy edge to her voice. "Because that's exactly what I'm planning to do."

He remained speechless as she turned and left the room, her tiredness having temporarily evaporated.

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