Author's Notes (amendment2 - 20.3.04): Thanks again to Jezowen and Village Mystic.
Thank you so much for your reviews, do keep them up, I always enjoy and am thrilled to see people still liking it (as well as to hear from the newcomers)! Glad people liked the explanation for Methos and the Horsemen. In response to a few points raised:
Sidhe-ranma - yes, my Colonel Edwards is (I hope) in line with the series one. Gateworld describe him as "brash and no-nonsense, devoted to duty and with little patience for those who stand between him and his goals."
GGS: I checked all the relevant episodes, plus the main guides to the Stargate universe, and couldn't find anything suggesting the iris can be operated manually. However, Jedi Buttercup now tells me its in Lost City 2 (us poor deprived Australians haven't seen it yet - I knew I should have given in and watched the squinty!). I initially decided to take out the reference to the iris (and revised accordingly) but have since had a better idea - what if the ability to do a manual override was added as a response to these events? This story after all takes place earlier in Season 7 (pre-Heroes). Expect to see it later in the story - assuming the Mountain survives Methos' efforts!
CHAPTER 15: FIXED?
"58, 57,..."
Sam's gaze hardened as the computer started its countdown to the destruction of the SGC. From his station at the far end of the room, Sergeant Davis stared wide-eyed at the two officers.
"Couldn't we at least extend the countdown?," she said to Ferretti. She turned back to the computer, hands poised to type in the override code, when the phone from the Control Center started ringing. She went to pick it up, but Ferretti put his hand over hers, blocking her. She looked you up at him inquiringly.
"Code 10 means we are under quarantine; no communications outside the base," Ferretti reminded her, his voice edged with tension. "Colonel Edwards could be right, we may have been infiltrated," he said as he glanced back up at the countdown.
Glaring back, she snapped, "Yes, but more likely it's just a computer glitch, " she snapped. "And there's no way I can tell one way or the other in time."
She glanced quickly at her computer, still frozen on the override screen, and then met Ferretti's gaze again. "I really don't think I'm quite ready to die yet, " Sam said, pleading with him. "Not unless I know why I am doing it."
"The order was clear, " he replied, but he no longer sounded so sure.
"Yes, but Colonel Edwards isn't here. How can he make a proper threat assessment?" she replied. "Only the officer on station has the power to make the decision. And you're senior, Lou, " she said.
Ferretti stared back sat her as the computer continued its muted count. "25, 24...."
They broke eye contact as the door burst open behind them. A second later, Colonel O'Neill almost fell into the room. He was wearing white medical scrubs, which only accentuated the perspiration beading on his pale face, together with heavy field-boots. His hair was spiked and wild.
"So, Carter, Ferretti, " he said, nodding at them. "I know I was a bit tough on you both last time we met. But isn't blowing up the Mountain a bit of an over-reaction?"
***********
General Hammond glowered at the phone as it rang out yet again. Above his head, a clock displayed the countdown to the auto-destruct. His board showed that power had been restored to the SGC - yet they were still in lock-down mode. This was looking bad. He started pacing the room, ignoring the sidelong glances of the officers around him.
Over the intercom, the computer generated voice murmured its countdown to doom. "SGC self-destruct in 15 seconds."
"Sir, Space Control are reporting OSCAR II now re-entering the atmosphere, " Lt Forrester said.
General Hammond resisted the urge to shout at him, Don't you know all my people are about to die? What do I care about a piece of old space junk? Instead, he asked, "What is the projected impact?"
"Space Control believe it will burn up in the atmosphere, Sir", the Lieutenant responded. "But in any case it's coming in over the Arctic. Little risk of hitting anything. "
"Thank you, Lieutenant " he forced himself to acknowledge calmly. The clock was showing 8 seconds to go. "Notify all relevant authorities."
"Yes, Sir."
"6, 5, ...."
He waited for the clock to turn over, but it hung there, unchanging.
The General blinked and looked again, but the image of the clock on the screen stayed still, then changed to a message saying "Self-destruct aborted at T minus 5 seconds."
"Yes!" he shouted, punching the air with his fist. "Get me the SGC on the phone, NOW. "
***********
"Sir, " Colonel O'Neill said to the phone tiredly, "We're fine. No sign of alien infiltration. The power is back up, but we don't know what caused the outage."
"Colonel O'Neill, what are you doing out of the infirmary? And where is Colonel Edwards?" General Hammond demanded.
Jack could feel the General's relief pouring through the several hundred meters of rock that separated them, though his excitement and relief was clearly mingled with frustration.
Jack tried to share the General's elation, but the miasma of sleep and drugs had started to creep back, clouding his thoughts now that the prospect of imminent death was over.
"Well Sir," he began, "it was pretty hard to sleep with that siren wailing in my ear. And then, letting a bomb go off seemed liked a fairly drastic cure, even for the big honking headache I had, so I told the kiddies to shut the damn destruct thing down. As for Colonel Edwards, haven't seen him. Apparently he left the Control Room to play engineer, but didn't leave anyone in charge as such. Sir."
Jack sagged back in the chair to wait for a response from the other end of the phone. Sweat was stinging his eyes, so he rubbed his forehead to push it back. He winced as the movement pulled the burn on his arm. He really needed to get back to the infirmary, he realized as he rubbed his eyes. He wiped his hand carefully on the infirmary scrubs he was wearing, then grimaced as the thin synthetic refused to absorb the moisture.
The General replied, "Very well, Colonel, you'd better stay in charge for the moment if you're up to it. Let me know as soon as you find anything."
Jack shifted his grip on the phone to ease the ache in his arm as the General's voice shifted to a growl. "And have Colonel Edwards report to me up here as soon as you locate him."
"Yes sir, " Jack replied, and replaced the phone in its cradle.
Jack brought his attention back to the little group standing in front of him. They were still looking at him puppy-dog eyed, grateful to him for digging them out of the hole Colonel Edwards had dug for them. Nothing like a crisis to bring a team back together again, he thought..
"Right, Davis, you had better start doing a floor by floor status check."
"Yes, Sir, " the Sergeant replied, and moved across to his computer station.
"OK, Carter, Ferretti you had better fill me in properly. Where were you when this started and what have you done so far? You can start, Carter. "
He watched, disconcerted, as Sam's face flushed bright red. OK, so maybe overruling Edwards on the auto-destruct hadn't been quite enough to overcome her anger at him.
"Well, Sir, I wasintheinfirmary, " she mumbled quickly, avoiding his eyes.
Despite her embarrassed mumbling, he had heard what she had said just fine. It had obviously been her figure he had seen fleeing his room in the infirmary when the alarm had started. Woohoo, he thought. So maybe we are ok again.
He stared at her as she continued, trying to look encouraging at this sign of reconciliation, but didn't interrupt.
"I reached the Control Room and took charge, as the most senior officer present," she continued. "Major Ferretti was in the gateroom, looking after the defenses, so I had him join me so we had a second officer for the override. I also sent Ziplinski with a radio to find Colonel Edwards. The Colonel managed to get the power back on, but ordered us not to override the Code 10, sir," Sam replied.
He rolled his eyes at the Major's descriptions of events. "Oh for crying out loud!" he said. "Hasn't Edwards read the rules about staying at your post? So no indications at all that we've been infiltrated or something?" Jack asked.
"No, Sir. We had a power outage that triggered the code 10, but there is no evidence as to what caused it, " Carter replied. She was still looking carefully at anything but him.
"Ferretti, anything to add?"
"No, Sir, Major Carter's pretty much covered it. The SGC's computers were next on my list, and so I was looking for Major Carter in her lab when the power went down."
"Alright, let's see if we can find out what happened. Carter, you take the computer records. Ferretti, get a status report from the SFs on each level, then co-ordinate a sweep of the base just in case. I'll just wait to have a little word with Colonel Edwards."
"Yes, Sir, " he heard Ferretti say. "Um, Sir, " Carter asked. "Would you be able to check on the alpha site delegation? My father and Bra'tac are in the briefing room."
Jack's face turned hard as he looked at her. "Major Carter, what did I say when you suggested contacting our allies in the briefing upstairs?" he asked, his voice deadly quiet.
"Sir, you ordered that we not contact our allies at this point." She rushed on quickly before he could interject. "But I didn't, Sir," she looked back at him defiantly. "They arrived at their own instigation, without any advance warning to us."
He decided to let it go for now. "Very well," he replied. "I'd better tell the world what's going on before I head over to the briefing room, " he said, and switched on the intercom.
******
Methos hurried up the last few steps of the ladder to the next entrance, and hung there, listening intently for the sounds of any SGC personnel nearby. He eased the hatch door open and checked that no one was in sight. The corridor was silent and empty, save for the message echoing from the speakers.
"...repeat, auto-self-destruct has been terminated. All personnel, remain at your emergency stations until we have determined the cause of the power outage, " Colonel O'Neill's voice said. "All floors, report status to Sergeant Davis in the control room."
Methos let out a sigh, half-relief, half-disappointment. It would have been poetic justice for the SGC to blow itself up. Never mind, he thought, the SGC would still blow up - but at his hands, not theirs. Inside him, something gloated. He quickly suppressed it, and started walking stealthily down the corridor towards the archive room, listening intently for any extraneous sounds.
*******
Jack walked out of the control room into a milling crowd. His headache started throbbing viciously again, and he rubbed his eyes in irritation. He decided he needed some caffeine, together with any happy juice the doc would let him have. He grabbed the nearest tech, and said, "OK, you, make yourself useful and get me some coffee! And you, grab me some BDUs, would you. Better get the doc up here as well." He raised his voice. "The rest of you, get back to your posts. The excitement's over for the moment."
As the crowd dispersed, he wondered what had detained Colonel Edwards. He clicked on the radio he had picked up. "Edwards, " he said, "This is O'Neill. Report, Over.
"I'm right here, Colonel O'Neill," Colonel Edwards replied grimly, as he came around the corner towards him. "And just what do you think you are doing here overriding my orders?"
"Oh, for crying out loud, Edwards, " Jack said, "Get your ass into gear. Have you found out what caused the power to go out?"
"No, " Colonel Edwards replied. "But it wouldn't be an issue if your 2IC had followed her orders."
"Yeah, well personally I'd rather have a few problems and be alive. And unless the aliens are actually pouring through the Gate, I'd rather have Earth's frontline defense facility actually operational if it's all the same to you. Have you had your head up your ass, or should I put you on lock-down?"
Jack held up a finger, effectively cutting Edwards' reply off, and proceeded to check off his points on his fingers. "First, you were not at your post, so you had no power to give orders to the officers who were there. Secondly, it was pure luck that they were in the control room, since you appear to have decided to wander off and play Mr Fix-it without putting anyone in charge in your place. Thirdly, I am second-in-command of this facility and CAN therefore override your orders. And right now I am ordering you go to up to the Operations Center and explain to General Hammond just why you thought it would be a good idea to blow up his command. Unless you actually did have some concrete evidence of an immediate threat to Earth?"
"No, SIR," Edwards replied, through obviously gritted teeth. He came to attention and gave Jack a mock salute before turning smartly and heading back down the corridor.
Jack waved at the nearest SF, and indicated that he should escort the Colonel to the General.
"Asshole, " Jack muttered. On the plus side, he noted that anger had dissipated the pain in his head.
**********
Seated in the control room, Sam tapped at the keyboard, attempting to access and analyze the log to the power system. Then she found it: the computer had been instructed to close down all power systems. She started tracing back the command. The phone to the Operations Center rang. She reached to pick it up. "Carter, " she said.
"Is Colonel O'Neill there, Major?" General Hammond's voice said.
Sam shifted in her chair, and forced herself to concentrate on the General's query. "No, Sir, sorry, he's in the briefing room. Would you like me to page him?"
"No, it's OK Major, I don't think it's urgent. Can you let him know that the response to his inquiry on some scientists in South Africa came back. They didn't have much luck in tracking them down from what I can see. Tell the Colonel that I'll get the full report sent down to him," the General said.
"Yes, Sir," she replied.
"Any progress yet, Major?" the General asked.
"Some, Sir," she replied. "I think I've found something in the computer log, but I need to backtrack a bit to see what triggered it."
"Alright, Major, good work. Let me know what you find."
"Yes, Sir," she replied.
**********
As Jack re-entered the control room, he saw that Ferretti had moved across to the command and control station in the corner, while Carter was still working on the main Gate computer. From her excited face, she had obviously found something. He blinked wearily and tried to dispel the fog of fatigue that swirled around his head.
"What have you got, Carter?" He sat down heavily in the chair next to hers. The screen of the computer at his station, he noticed, was now filled with the dreaded screensaver. That little cartoon was really starting to get on his nerves. Ferretti, he resolved, still had some work ahead of him once this crisis was over. There were security implications at having stray software on top secret screens after all.
"Well, Sir, the log shows that a C245 was sent, instructing the system to close down. Here I'll show you," she said reaching over to tap a key. "I'm trying to backtrack the source of the command now, " she replied, "But it looks like it came from another program."
"Corrupt code or a virus?" he said, thinking out loud. "OK, that's a start. Keep going and let me know what you find, " he said.
"Oh, by the way sir, the General rang to say there had been a response to an inquiry you made - something about South Africa? He's sending down the full report, but said to let you know that they hadn't been able to track down the people you were after."
Jack considered this latest piece of intel and fitted it with what he had already found out. He thought for a moment.
"Carter, where did you park Lieutenant Adams?" he asked.
"He's in Major Carter's lab," Ferretti said before Carter could reply. "I was talking to him and Daniel when the alarm went off and we had to get to our emergency stations. I told him to stay put, and anyway, there was an SF outside the door."
Jack thought over what he knew about Adams for a moment. No-one at MIT had heard of Adams, and now his alleged supervisors couldn't be found. If ever there was a time to play safe, this was it. "Ferretti, get someone to check in with the SF and have them bring Adams here."
His eyes turned back to the screen, thoughtfully. The screensaver danced through its now familiar routine once more.
"Holy Hannah!" he exclaimed, stealing one of Sam's favorite expressions. "What are the prime sources of a computer virus, Carter?" He didn't give her a chance to reply. "Emails, infected files on disk,...and screensavers."
She watched, flummoxed, as he quickly started clicking his mouse and typing on the computer. With impressive ease, he pulled up the code that generated the screensaver, and started carefully scrutinizing it.
She blinked and looked again. The Colonel, she had to concede, clearly did know what he was doing when it came to computers.
Only a few seconds later he leaned back, looking, if possible, even more pained. "Well," he said, "it seems we have a saboteur." He pointed his cursor at a few short lines of code embedded in the little program. She paled as she viewed the evidence, all thoughts of the Colonel's computing prowess pushed to the back of her mind.
"The base's mainframe is completely isolated from external systems," she said. "You need to have physical access to the SGC to trigger the shutdown order. And the whole Mountain is still sealed." Sam looked up and stared at him. "Whoever did this - they're still down here."
****
Still liking? Please review and let me know...
Thank you so much for your reviews, do keep them up, I always enjoy and am thrilled to see people still liking it (as well as to hear from the newcomers)! Glad people liked the explanation for Methos and the Horsemen. In response to a few points raised:
Sidhe-ranma - yes, my Colonel Edwards is (I hope) in line with the series one. Gateworld describe him as "brash and no-nonsense, devoted to duty and with little patience for those who stand between him and his goals."
GGS: I checked all the relevant episodes, plus the main guides to the Stargate universe, and couldn't find anything suggesting the iris can be operated manually. However, Jedi Buttercup now tells me its in Lost City 2 (us poor deprived Australians haven't seen it yet - I knew I should have given in and watched the squinty!). I initially decided to take out the reference to the iris (and revised accordingly) but have since had a better idea - what if the ability to do a manual override was added as a response to these events? This story after all takes place earlier in Season 7 (pre-Heroes). Expect to see it later in the story - assuming the Mountain survives Methos' efforts!
CHAPTER 15: FIXED?
"58, 57,..."
Sam's gaze hardened as the computer started its countdown to the destruction of the SGC. From his station at the far end of the room, Sergeant Davis stared wide-eyed at the two officers.
"Couldn't we at least extend the countdown?," she said to Ferretti. She turned back to the computer, hands poised to type in the override code, when the phone from the Control Center started ringing. She went to pick it up, but Ferretti put his hand over hers, blocking her. She looked you up at him inquiringly.
"Code 10 means we are under quarantine; no communications outside the base," Ferretti reminded her, his voice edged with tension. "Colonel Edwards could be right, we may have been infiltrated," he said as he glanced back up at the countdown.
Glaring back, she snapped, "Yes, but more likely it's just a computer glitch, " she snapped. "And there's no way I can tell one way or the other in time."
She glanced quickly at her computer, still frozen on the override screen, and then met Ferretti's gaze again. "I really don't think I'm quite ready to die yet, " Sam said, pleading with him. "Not unless I know why I am doing it."
"The order was clear, " he replied, but he no longer sounded so sure.
"Yes, but Colonel Edwards isn't here. How can he make a proper threat assessment?" she replied. "Only the officer on station has the power to make the decision. And you're senior, Lou, " she said.
Ferretti stared back sat her as the computer continued its muted count. "25, 24...."
They broke eye contact as the door burst open behind them. A second later, Colonel O'Neill almost fell into the room. He was wearing white medical scrubs, which only accentuated the perspiration beading on his pale face, together with heavy field-boots. His hair was spiked and wild.
"So, Carter, Ferretti, " he said, nodding at them. "I know I was a bit tough on you both last time we met. But isn't blowing up the Mountain a bit of an over-reaction?"
***********
General Hammond glowered at the phone as it rang out yet again. Above his head, a clock displayed the countdown to the auto-destruct. His board showed that power had been restored to the SGC - yet they were still in lock-down mode. This was looking bad. He started pacing the room, ignoring the sidelong glances of the officers around him.
Over the intercom, the computer generated voice murmured its countdown to doom. "SGC self-destruct in 15 seconds."
"Sir, Space Control are reporting OSCAR II now re-entering the atmosphere, " Lt Forrester said.
General Hammond resisted the urge to shout at him, Don't you know all my people are about to die? What do I care about a piece of old space junk? Instead, he asked, "What is the projected impact?"
"Space Control believe it will burn up in the atmosphere, Sir", the Lieutenant responded. "But in any case it's coming in over the Arctic. Little risk of hitting anything. "
"Thank you, Lieutenant " he forced himself to acknowledge calmly. The clock was showing 8 seconds to go. "Notify all relevant authorities."
"Yes, Sir."
"6, 5, ...."
He waited for the clock to turn over, but it hung there, unchanging.
The General blinked and looked again, but the image of the clock on the screen stayed still, then changed to a message saying "Self-destruct aborted at T minus 5 seconds."
"Yes!" he shouted, punching the air with his fist. "Get me the SGC on the phone, NOW. "
***********
"Sir, " Colonel O'Neill said to the phone tiredly, "We're fine. No sign of alien infiltration. The power is back up, but we don't know what caused the outage."
"Colonel O'Neill, what are you doing out of the infirmary? And where is Colonel Edwards?" General Hammond demanded.
Jack could feel the General's relief pouring through the several hundred meters of rock that separated them, though his excitement and relief was clearly mingled with frustration.
Jack tried to share the General's elation, but the miasma of sleep and drugs had started to creep back, clouding his thoughts now that the prospect of imminent death was over.
"Well Sir," he began, "it was pretty hard to sleep with that siren wailing in my ear. And then, letting a bomb go off seemed liked a fairly drastic cure, even for the big honking headache I had, so I told the kiddies to shut the damn destruct thing down. As for Colonel Edwards, haven't seen him. Apparently he left the Control Room to play engineer, but didn't leave anyone in charge as such. Sir."
Jack sagged back in the chair to wait for a response from the other end of the phone. Sweat was stinging his eyes, so he rubbed his forehead to push it back. He winced as the movement pulled the burn on his arm. He really needed to get back to the infirmary, he realized as he rubbed his eyes. He wiped his hand carefully on the infirmary scrubs he was wearing, then grimaced as the thin synthetic refused to absorb the moisture.
The General replied, "Very well, Colonel, you'd better stay in charge for the moment if you're up to it. Let me know as soon as you find anything."
Jack shifted his grip on the phone to ease the ache in his arm as the General's voice shifted to a growl. "And have Colonel Edwards report to me up here as soon as you locate him."
"Yes sir, " Jack replied, and replaced the phone in its cradle.
Jack brought his attention back to the little group standing in front of him. They were still looking at him puppy-dog eyed, grateful to him for digging them out of the hole Colonel Edwards had dug for them. Nothing like a crisis to bring a team back together again, he thought..
"Right, Davis, you had better start doing a floor by floor status check."
"Yes, Sir, " the Sergeant replied, and moved across to his computer station.
"OK, Carter, Ferretti you had better fill me in properly. Where were you when this started and what have you done so far? You can start, Carter. "
He watched, disconcerted, as Sam's face flushed bright red. OK, so maybe overruling Edwards on the auto-destruct hadn't been quite enough to overcome her anger at him.
"Well, Sir, I wasintheinfirmary, " she mumbled quickly, avoiding his eyes.
Despite her embarrassed mumbling, he had heard what she had said just fine. It had obviously been her figure he had seen fleeing his room in the infirmary when the alarm had started. Woohoo, he thought. So maybe we are ok again.
He stared at her as she continued, trying to look encouraging at this sign of reconciliation, but didn't interrupt.
"I reached the Control Room and took charge, as the most senior officer present," she continued. "Major Ferretti was in the gateroom, looking after the defenses, so I had him join me so we had a second officer for the override. I also sent Ziplinski with a radio to find Colonel Edwards. The Colonel managed to get the power back on, but ordered us not to override the Code 10, sir," Sam replied.
He rolled his eyes at the Major's descriptions of events. "Oh for crying out loud!" he said. "Hasn't Edwards read the rules about staying at your post? So no indications at all that we've been infiltrated or something?" Jack asked.
"No, Sir. We had a power outage that triggered the code 10, but there is no evidence as to what caused it, " Carter replied. She was still looking carefully at anything but him.
"Ferretti, anything to add?"
"No, Sir, Major Carter's pretty much covered it. The SGC's computers were next on my list, and so I was looking for Major Carter in her lab when the power went down."
"Alright, let's see if we can find out what happened. Carter, you take the computer records. Ferretti, get a status report from the SFs on each level, then co-ordinate a sweep of the base just in case. I'll just wait to have a little word with Colonel Edwards."
"Yes, Sir, " he heard Ferretti say. "Um, Sir, " Carter asked. "Would you be able to check on the alpha site delegation? My father and Bra'tac are in the briefing room."
Jack's face turned hard as he looked at her. "Major Carter, what did I say when you suggested contacting our allies in the briefing upstairs?" he asked, his voice deadly quiet.
"Sir, you ordered that we not contact our allies at this point." She rushed on quickly before he could interject. "But I didn't, Sir," she looked back at him defiantly. "They arrived at their own instigation, without any advance warning to us."
He decided to let it go for now. "Very well," he replied. "I'd better tell the world what's going on before I head over to the briefing room, " he said, and switched on the intercom.
******
Methos hurried up the last few steps of the ladder to the next entrance, and hung there, listening intently for the sounds of any SGC personnel nearby. He eased the hatch door open and checked that no one was in sight. The corridor was silent and empty, save for the message echoing from the speakers.
"...repeat, auto-self-destruct has been terminated. All personnel, remain at your emergency stations until we have determined the cause of the power outage, " Colonel O'Neill's voice said. "All floors, report status to Sergeant Davis in the control room."
Methos let out a sigh, half-relief, half-disappointment. It would have been poetic justice for the SGC to blow itself up. Never mind, he thought, the SGC would still blow up - but at his hands, not theirs. Inside him, something gloated. He quickly suppressed it, and started walking stealthily down the corridor towards the archive room, listening intently for any extraneous sounds.
*******
Jack walked out of the control room into a milling crowd. His headache started throbbing viciously again, and he rubbed his eyes in irritation. He decided he needed some caffeine, together with any happy juice the doc would let him have. He grabbed the nearest tech, and said, "OK, you, make yourself useful and get me some coffee! And you, grab me some BDUs, would you. Better get the doc up here as well." He raised his voice. "The rest of you, get back to your posts. The excitement's over for the moment."
As the crowd dispersed, he wondered what had detained Colonel Edwards. He clicked on the radio he had picked up. "Edwards, " he said, "This is O'Neill. Report, Over.
"I'm right here, Colonel O'Neill," Colonel Edwards replied grimly, as he came around the corner towards him. "And just what do you think you are doing here overriding my orders?"
"Oh, for crying out loud, Edwards, " Jack said, "Get your ass into gear. Have you found out what caused the power to go out?"
"No, " Colonel Edwards replied. "But it wouldn't be an issue if your 2IC had followed her orders."
"Yeah, well personally I'd rather have a few problems and be alive. And unless the aliens are actually pouring through the Gate, I'd rather have Earth's frontline defense facility actually operational if it's all the same to you. Have you had your head up your ass, or should I put you on lock-down?"
Jack held up a finger, effectively cutting Edwards' reply off, and proceeded to check off his points on his fingers. "First, you were not at your post, so you had no power to give orders to the officers who were there. Secondly, it was pure luck that they were in the control room, since you appear to have decided to wander off and play Mr Fix-it without putting anyone in charge in your place. Thirdly, I am second-in-command of this facility and CAN therefore override your orders. And right now I am ordering you go to up to the Operations Center and explain to General Hammond just why you thought it would be a good idea to blow up his command. Unless you actually did have some concrete evidence of an immediate threat to Earth?"
"No, SIR," Edwards replied, through obviously gritted teeth. He came to attention and gave Jack a mock salute before turning smartly and heading back down the corridor.
Jack waved at the nearest SF, and indicated that he should escort the Colonel to the General.
"Asshole, " Jack muttered. On the plus side, he noted that anger had dissipated the pain in his head.
**********
Seated in the control room, Sam tapped at the keyboard, attempting to access and analyze the log to the power system. Then she found it: the computer had been instructed to close down all power systems. She started tracing back the command. The phone to the Operations Center rang. She reached to pick it up. "Carter, " she said.
"Is Colonel O'Neill there, Major?" General Hammond's voice said.
Sam shifted in her chair, and forced herself to concentrate on the General's query. "No, Sir, sorry, he's in the briefing room. Would you like me to page him?"
"No, it's OK Major, I don't think it's urgent. Can you let him know that the response to his inquiry on some scientists in South Africa came back. They didn't have much luck in tracking them down from what I can see. Tell the Colonel that I'll get the full report sent down to him," the General said.
"Yes, Sir," she replied.
"Any progress yet, Major?" the General asked.
"Some, Sir," she replied. "I think I've found something in the computer log, but I need to backtrack a bit to see what triggered it."
"Alright, Major, good work. Let me know what you find."
"Yes, Sir," she replied.
**********
As Jack re-entered the control room, he saw that Ferretti had moved across to the command and control station in the corner, while Carter was still working on the main Gate computer. From her excited face, she had obviously found something. He blinked wearily and tried to dispel the fog of fatigue that swirled around his head.
"What have you got, Carter?" He sat down heavily in the chair next to hers. The screen of the computer at his station, he noticed, was now filled with the dreaded screensaver. That little cartoon was really starting to get on his nerves. Ferretti, he resolved, still had some work ahead of him once this crisis was over. There were security implications at having stray software on top secret screens after all.
"Well, Sir, the log shows that a C245 was sent, instructing the system to close down. Here I'll show you," she said reaching over to tap a key. "I'm trying to backtrack the source of the command now, " she replied, "But it looks like it came from another program."
"Corrupt code or a virus?" he said, thinking out loud. "OK, that's a start. Keep going and let me know what you find, " he said.
"Oh, by the way sir, the General rang to say there had been a response to an inquiry you made - something about South Africa? He's sending down the full report, but said to let you know that they hadn't been able to track down the people you were after."
Jack considered this latest piece of intel and fitted it with what he had already found out. He thought for a moment.
"Carter, where did you park Lieutenant Adams?" he asked.
"He's in Major Carter's lab," Ferretti said before Carter could reply. "I was talking to him and Daniel when the alarm went off and we had to get to our emergency stations. I told him to stay put, and anyway, there was an SF outside the door."
Jack thought over what he knew about Adams for a moment. No-one at MIT had heard of Adams, and now his alleged supervisors couldn't be found. If ever there was a time to play safe, this was it. "Ferretti, get someone to check in with the SF and have them bring Adams here."
His eyes turned back to the screen, thoughtfully. The screensaver danced through its now familiar routine once more.
"Holy Hannah!" he exclaimed, stealing one of Sam's favorite expressions. "What are the prime sources of a computer virus, Carter?" He didn't give her a chance to reply. "Emails, infected files on disk,...and screensavers."
She watched, flummoxed, as he quickly started clicking his mouse and typing on the computer. With impressive ease, he pulled up the code that generated the screensaver, and started carefully scrutinizing it.
She blinked and looked again. The Colonel, she had to concede, clearly did know what he was doing when it came to computers.
Only a few seconds later he leaned back, looking, if possible, even more pained. "Well," he said, "it seems we have a saboteur." He pointed his cursor at a few short lines of code embedded in the little program. She paled as she viewed the evidence, all thoughts of the Colonel's computing prowess pushed to the back of her mind.
"The base's mainframe is completely isolated from external systems," she said. "You need to have physical access to the SGC to trigger the shutdown order. And the whole Mountain is still sealed." Sam looked up and stared at him. "Whoever did this - they're still down here."
****
Still liking? Please review and let me know...