Author's note: I don't want to turn this into ' the story that would never end', but I keep having ideas for it that won't leave me alone 'til I write them down- and oh no, this new idea could be a complicated one...your thoughts would be very appreciated!
On to Chapter 8 of 'Hope For Tomorrow'...
Grace O'Neill skipped down the stone hallways of the Ancient city like a sprite on water, singing a tuneless made-up song in between bouts of talking to herself. She had once again escaped from the not-watchful-enough eye of her father, who had brought her with him to the newest excavation site within the old city. Excavation and exploration had only just begun on this quadrant of the enormous underground city left by the Ancients on Beta.
Jack had been hoping to actually get some work done while watching his young daughter.
"Teal'C, is Grace over there with you?" Jack called on the two-way.
"She is not, O'Neill. Has she wandered off?"
"Apparently. Keep an eye out for her, will ya?"
"Indeed, I will."
Jack dropped the shovel he'd been using to help dig out a chamber and strode out into the empty passage.
"Grace! Grace, where are you?"
"Daddy!" The echoed cry sounded farther away than Jack was comfortable with and he set off at a lope towards the sound of her little voice.
"Grace, tell me where you are!" He responded.
"Right'cher," her voice sounded out authoritatively. After a few more calls from Jack to his daughter and her answering cries, Jack found her in a tunnel in front of a doorway he'd never seen before.
"Look at dis, Daddy!" Grace commanded eagerly, pointing her chubby finger at the open doorway.
His curly blonde, just out of babyhood child stood facing an opening in the wall of the tunnel. He scooped her up and held her tightly against his chest, his heart pounding and eyes squeezed shut with relief and love for the irrepressible little girl, before doing as she directed.
When he did look into the chamber beyond the doorway, his eyes widened in shock and excitement. Without a second thought, he carried Grace through the door and into the room.
"Wow. Alright!" Jack enthused, gazing around him.
The chamber resembled an airplane hangar. Small spaceships, each of which would carry several people, and yet looked small enough to go through a stargate, sat in neat rows before them. They were of a design he'd never seen before.
Grace wiggled so violently that Jack was obliged to place her on the ground. The girl ran to the nearest ship and placed her hands on it. To Jack's astonishment, thesmall ship lit up and the back lowered down revealing a ramp to the interior.
"Don't go in there Grace!" He called out, fully intending to go in himself as soon as he'd assessed the potential dangers.
"How did you do that?" he wondered out loud at Grace's accomplishment. Thinking hard through all that he'd just seen, he scooped her up protectively and returned to the entranceway.
"Show Daddy how you found this door, peanut," he asked her.
"Like dis," she answered, placing her tiny hand against a depression in the wall. The doorway immediately closed and looked like a part of the stone wall. Grace removed her hand from the mechanism and stuck both hands in the air.
"See?" she squeaked happily.
"Let's get your mother," Jack muttered, grabbing her hand and running off, dragging her behind him with her little legs pumping to keep up with his long ones. She tripped and fell, resulting in her being dragged a few steps.
"Ooops, sorry, peanut," he apologized, throwing her onto his shoulders.
"Keep your head, down okay?"
"Weeee!" Was her only reply.
"Sam! Sam! Hey, Sam!" Jack bellowed as he approached her lab on the other side of the city. He was panting and sweating but his eyes glowed with excitement.
"What? What happened? Is Grace okay?" Alarmed, Sam had run out into the hallway to greet them.
"She's fine! You have to see what Grace found, come on!" He tried to pull at her, but she backed out of his attempt to grasp her arm.
"Let me finish what I'm doing, it will only take a few minutes," Sam protested.
"Go on, I'll finish up for you," Catherine offered, standing in the lab archway with crossed arms and an amused expression on her face. Jack and Grace never ceased to entertain her.
"Catherine! You come too!" Jack cried upon seeing the older woman. She smiled even more widely at that. Jack and Grace waited, although very impatiently, as the two scientists closed up their experiment.
As soon as they could return to the spot in the hallway where Grace had inadvertently opened the hangar, Jack stopped them and placed Grace on the ground. He had marked the spot with a backpack left in the dust by the side of the wall.
"Okay, show Mommy what you found," Jack prompted proudly, shoving her gently towards what appeared to be a blank part of the wall.
Sam's eyebrow raised quizzically.
Grace repeated her earlier performance by placing the palm of her hand in the concavity on the wall and then turning to watch the amazed expressions of the women as the doorway shimmered and appeared.
"How did she..."
"Grace must have the Ancient gene, and this is an Ancient storage room."
Jack ushered them in and they all gawked at the spaceships standing in silent rows before them.
"Now, watch," Jack instructed further, and he walked Grace up to the closest ship. As before, she touched the ship and it began to glow. The ramp lowered to reveal the ship's interior flight deck. This time, Jack didn't stop. He and Grace walked up the ramp, hand in hand.
"Jack, be careful, Grace might turn on something she shouldn't," Sam cautioned.
Catherine had also clambered into the ship, eyes and mouth open wide. "Look at this, Jack! This looks a lot like a hyperspace drive!" She was already investigating the instrument panel.
"Can we fly it?"
"I don't know, I can't find an 'on' switch..."
The engines roared to life for a second or two. Jack and Catherine jerked around to look at Grace who had her two little hands splayed near the instrument panel. Grace burst into horrified tears and ran to the safety of Sam's arms. The engine noise diminished and died out.
"Uh oh! Uh oh!" Was all they could understand from her anguished babbling. Jack laughed with delight.
"I guess she turned it on," he deduced.
"No my didn't!" Grace protested in a panic.
Jack walked over to the panel where Grace had been and sat in the chair. Placing his hands on either side of the controls, as he'd seen her do, he closed his eyes and concentrated. The sound of the engines returning to life again caused Grace's sharp cries of dismay to echo painfully through the small cockpit.
"Jack, stop! There will be time for that later, but Grace is afraid!" Grace's hiccups and sobs bore testimony to Sam's reproof, and Jack lifted his hands, allowing the ship to fall silent again.
"So, what do you think?" Jack smiled quietly.
The two women peered appreciatively around them.
"I think this is maybe the most important find on Beta to date," Catherine offered, astonished at all she was seeing. She was intently studying some runes she had found on the inside wall of the ship. "If we can figure out how to fly these, we will have a ready force of spaceships at our disposal. Are there weapon systems on board? If there are, we'll be able to defend our planet against the Goa'uld!" Catherine explained rapturously.
Jack's smile was so wide it was about to crack his face.
"C'mere, baby," he encouraged Grace, reaching out his arms towards her.
She slowly raised her round face from where she had hidden it against Sam's dress and looked hopefully, anxiously towards her Daddy. When she saw he was not angry at her, she ran to him and bodily threw herself into his welcoming arms. He whispered assurances to her as they embraced.
"Grace," Sam began, "We just want you to be safe and not touch something that could hurt you. Do you understand?"
She nodded vigorously.
"Good." Jack swung her up onto his shoulders again. "Now let's go tell everyone what we've found."
After Grace was asleep that night, Sam approached Jack where he stood at the stone window, looking out over the vast valley floor below. It was his favorite spot in the city when he felt the need to think. He looked towards her as she came up next to him.
"Jack, if these spaceships are capable of hyperspace travel..." Sam's mind was busily formulating a plan, Jack recognized, "...maybe a few of us could go back to Earth. Just to see if anything..." Sam cleared her throat and tried again. "I know the Asgard and Tok'Ra say Earth appears dead, but they've only just scanned it from a great distance away. I can think of several incidences where our scans for life signs were inaccurate. Especially from such a distance."
"No," Jack spoke softly, looking away.
"I know it would be hard. But if we could save something... anything... more than what we have now, wouldn't that be worth it?"
Jack was silent.
"I can't stop thinking about Earth, wondering what is left, if anything... .anyone... survived." Sam trailed off and stopped in a fog of uncertainty, waiting for a response of any kind.
"I've stopped thinking about Earth, Sam. I don't want to think about it. Beta is our home now, and we're happy here. I'm happy here. About the happiest I've ever been in my life."
Jack finally looked at her, and Sam saw a deep sadness and misgiving in his eyes that had not been present for many months. It physically hurt to see it. She began to question her desire to visit their devastated home planet.
"I'm sorry, Jack." She finally whispered, not sure why he was so hurt by her plan but sorry to see his pain nevertheless. But as they readied themselves for bed and then slipped under the warm furs, Sam's mind could not let go of her plan. She had to see for herself. She was determined to discover Earth's fate once and for all.
TBC
