Part XI
The next morning, after breakfast, everything was set and Thunderbird Three was about to take off – the devcie worked best at the highest possible altitude. And what higher altitude than Thunderbird Five was there? However, in order to get to Thunderbird Five, they had to use… Thunderbird Three. At first, Jack, Sam and Daniel had watched in awe at the red, gigantic, red, impressive, red rocket.
'Are you guys seeing what I'm seeing?'
'I think so, Sam, if you're seeing a big, red rocket?'
'I am.'
'Alright, I'm too.'
Sam had sighed in admiration. 'And we get to fly in it. This is the best day of my life, guys.'
'What? You've flown in Goa'uld vessels before!'
'I know! But this is something different… I mean, this is made by humans! On Earth!'
'Alright, I get the picture…'
Back in the present, everyone (Alan, John, Sam, Jack and Daniel. Gordon had to stay behind, much to his annoyance, because Thunderbird Five only had five seats) had buckled up, and they were preparing for lift-off.
"Virgil, everything clear?"
"Affirmative, no air traffic anywhere in the vicinity of Tracy Island."
"Command and control?"
"Permission for lift-off. Good luck, boys."
"FAB," Alan replied, and turning to the three visitors, "You all set?"
"Yes!" Sam replied immediately, while Jack and Daniel just nodded. They all saw the two Tracy-boys press various buttons, and within the minute, they were off Earth's surface, up in the sky, through the atmosphere… and suddenly, all they could see was… stars. And a lot of them.
"Was it just me, or did that go way too fast for my mind to register? We're in space already?"
"Yes, we are," John replied, "Thunderbird Three's boosters are way more advanced than those of the twentieth century space shuttles. We can go to the moon and back in less than half an hour, if we wanted to."
Not much later, they'd docked, met up with Virgil ('Nice fellow,' Jack had thought) and now, Sam and John were working on trying to install the device that had to send out the signal, while Jack and Daniel got the Thunderbird Five-tour by Alan and Virgil. They watched in awe (again) as the two Tracy-boys explained everything. However, the tour didn't last forever, and after two hours, Jack and Daniel were getting a little bored. Virgil and Alan were now unloading stuff from Thunderbird Three, and shipped it to the storage room of Five. John and Sam were still working on the… vacuum cleaner, but judging by the excited voices coming from the kitchen, Jack and Daniel had a faint suspicion it wouldn't take long before the… vacuum cleaner would be finished. And indeed, it didn't take long for Sam come out of the kitchen, holding the vacuum cleaner-like device in her arms. She handed it to John, and he installed it somewhere under the device to control the power core settings.
"Okay… and now it's just waiting for your friends to reply," John said, after he'd pushed some buttons, apparently sending out the signal to the Asguard.
Jack sighed. As if he hadn't waited long enough yet.
"What's… that…" Daniel muttered, opening one eye. They had been waiting for hours, by now, and still no reply from the Asguard. But… things were about to change.
"Wow," John said. This time, it was their turn to watch in awe as they saw a huge alien vessel floating in space, right in front of their eyes. "Someone, tell me I'm not seeing things."
"Ah, you've gotta love 'em," Jack said with a smirk, "Can you… communicate with them?"
Virgil immediately started pressing some buttons on the control panel, and immediately another light started to blink. "We do now."
Various gasps could be heard as Thor's face appeared on one of the many monitors aboard Thunderbird Five.
"That's…"
"An alien!" Alan exclaimed, "Oh, Gordon's so gonna be jealous when we get back!"
"O'Neill?" Thor said, "In all these years, I never would have thought I would see you again. I thought you had vanished more than ten years ago?"
"Yeah, well, we sorta ended up here, in the future. And now-"
"You would like us to use our time-traveling technology to bring you back to the past."
"Well, assuming you have that kind of technology, we'd appreciate that, yeah."
"Alright, O'Neill, who needs to be send back to the past, and when do you want to go?"
"Oh, just me, Daniel and Sam here. And we'd like to go as soon as possible, if you'd like."
"Eh, Jack?" Daniel interrupted, "I think he means 'when', as in, '1999'."
"Oh, that? Okay, 1999. And how exactly are you going to send us back to 1999? You don't happen to have a DeLorean standing in one of your ships, do you?"
Thor nodded, and signaled something, probably to a fellow-Asguard. "I do not know what a 'DeLorean' is, O'Neill, but I can assure you, that you will notice our ways in time. Alright, O'Neill and friends, prepare yourselves to go back to the past…"
WOOSH-
As the wormhole had roared to life, and General Hammond's 'SG-1, you have a go' sounded all over the gate room, the four members of Stargate Command's all-famous team walked into the watery liquid.
But what SG-1 didn't know, was that one their most unwanted enemies was standing at the other side of the gate, not knowing what to expect when the chevrons of the Stargate at their side started to encode, though no one from his squadron had dialed any planet. So, it had to be an incoming traveler…
As the man yelled, "Guards!", his men responded quickly and formed a line directly opposite the gate, aimed and ready to fire.
The men waited patiently for the chevrons to lock, and when the wormhole formed its usual watery liquid, they tightened their grip on their weapons and their fingers were aching to shoot.
"Oh, boy…" was the first thing Dr. Daniel Jackson, SG-1's translator and archeologist, let out. "That doesn't look very good."
Jack, or Colonel Jonathan O'Neill, the officer in command of SG-1, let out a grunt. "No kidding."
Suddenly, he saw the face of his best friend ever, Apophis. "Oh, well…" he sighed. "When you think things can't get worse…" But Jack stopped talking as soon as he saw the face of his fellow team member Daniel, full of anger and hatred. Jack wasn't really surprised though. In fact, he'd expected something like this would eventually happen. Hell, he'd probably do the same thing if your mortal enemy – in this case Apophis – had imprisoned hiswife, and then unwillingly used her as a host for a Goa'uld.
Jack sighed. With an entire unit of serpent guards, the situation was pretty hopeless. Apophis however, was on the contrary to Jack, very pleased.
"And I thought this day couldn't get any better. If that isn't the infamous Tau'ri and the shol'va Teal'c walking straight into my hands."
"You know us, anything to make you happy," Jack bit back, while assessing their situation.
Twenty serpent guards, one Apophis, four SG-1 members. Hiding places? He heard the Stargate behind him disengage. Make that one. One problem though. We need to get closer to the DHD, instead of backing away. Problem two: how are we supposed to get the gate up and running while we're surrounded by a bunch of trigger-happy serpent guards?
But Apophis interrupted Jack's deep thoughts by giving the solution to all of Jack's problems, though he was unaware of that, of course.
"You will make a perfect asset to my plan. You there!" he yelled, while pointing at Daniel. "Give us the address of the Tau'ri world."
Damn, Jack thought, as he heard Daniel say 'No'. There goes my plan.
But instead of becoming even more desperate, a new plan developed itself in his mind.
If I dial Earth, I can give Daniel, Sam and Teal'c the chance to escape. But before any of the serpent guards can follow, I'll attack Apophis hand on hand, so that the guards will focus their attention on me. Hopefully, I'll buy enough time for the Stargate to disengage, or at least for closing the iris, before the serpent guards will continue their pursuit.
But even before he had the chance to say 'I'll do it', Teal'c said the exact same thing, and when he looked to Jack, the Colonel knew that he was also planning to do the exact same thing.
He was about to say something along the lines of 'No Teal'c, damnit, don't sacrifice yourself like that, I'm the damn leader of SG-1, it's my damn duty to sacrifice myself in order to save my team!', but realized that it would shatter the entire plan, so Jack decided to stay quiet, when Teal'c dialed Earth and the wormhole behind him came to life. He turned to Carter, and she nodded, to show that she understood what they were planning to do. She pressed the GDO button for SG-1's iris signal and knew this was the moment. He looked at Teal'c, who also nodded.
"On my mark…" Jack whispered. "Three, two, one… NOW!" he yelled, and jumped into the Stargate.
While Jack, Daniel and Sam traveled across the galaxy, Teal'c grabbed Apophis around his waist and threw him on the ground.
Several thousand light years away from Apophis, the three remaining SG-1 members arrived back in the SGC – and as they made there way down the ramp, Jack yelled, "Close the iris!" and General Hammond was to say, more than just a little bit confused.
"Colonel, what the HELL is going on here? And where's Teal'c?"
"That depends, do you want to hear the bad news or the very bad news?"
"Spill it, Colonel."
"Well, the bad news is – we encountered our dearest friend Apophis at the other side of the gate. I think it's fair to say he was just a little more pleased to see us than we did to see him."
"And the very bad news?"
"Eh, in order to escape, Teal'c had to…"
"I see," replied the general, knowing what his second in command was implying, "Well, Jack, if you want to go for a search 'n rescue, you have a go. Take SG-teams three, five, six, eight and twelve with you."
"Thank you, sir."
"Depart in thirty minutes."
Somewhere in the middle of the South-Pacific ocean, on an isolated island surrounded by bright blue water and white beaches, filled with all sorts of tropical plants, was the Tracy residence, where life was peaceful and quiet. The many occupants of the house were either relaxing in the sun, swimming in the pool, eating a sandwich – or in Brains' case, designing some high-tech multi-functional tool. Little did they know, that the peace on the island was about to be rudely interrupted.
About 7500 kilometers higher, John's mind wasn't occupied with relaxing in the sun or swimming in the pool – he was, however, just about to grab a sandwich, when something on his console desk started to blink.
"Let's see what we've got here…" he said, but when he saw what exactly had interrupted his
"Alright, boys," Jeff said, "There's been a emergency situation in Ouagadougou…"
"Where?" Alan asked, a trace of a smile on his face, "Ouaga- what?"
"That's in Burkina Faso, squirt," Scott answered his little brother.
"Oh."
"Boys, please," Jeff continued, "A local factory has exploded, but at least five or six people are still trapped under the debris. Ready?"
"FAB," all his sons replied in unison.
"Okay then," Jeff said, still proud to see of all of his sons standing there in their IR-uniforms, "Thunderbirds are go!"
Alright, that's definitely it. And I mean it this time. Six months after starting, Lightning is finally finished. Obviously you will have noted by now that I have removed all review responses at the end of every chapter, doesn't mean I care for you less, but I just thought it would be easier to read. To answer on a reviewer's question – I don't believe there's gonna be a sequel, but maybe I'm planning to write another Thunderbirds/Stargate SG-1 crossover… I don't know yet.
After all, who knows what's gonna happen in the future?
May Portland, June 1st 2005