Name: Better Ways To Self Destruct (aka 'Politics...Oy')
Pairing: Sam/Jack
Summary: Daniel tries to persuade the Dueteri council to evacuate whilst Teal'c makes a discovery. Meanwhile, Sam tours the Triyan science facilities.
Notes: If all goes to plan, this will be the penultimate part to the story.
Feedback: I'm hoping there are still people out there reading this, so review if you are!
Disclaimer: Stargate SG1 and the characters are the property of MGM. There is no infringement intended and no profit made.
-Part 10-
Gravity
The council had only been in session for ten minutes but already Daniel was losing hope of ever getting through to these people. It was a typical barrier of fear that prevented them from seeing reason and Daniel knew that fear was a strong emotion. They would not be swayed easily.
Teal'c, meanwhile, was navigating his way through the numerous passageways through the underground shelter. He had a vague idea of the direction in which Sarai had gone and knew that a methodical search would uncover her location before long. Though usually a peaceful man, Teal'c had become anxious to locate O'Neill and Major Carter; moving through the underground corridors gave him a sense of advancing toward that end.
After half an hour of searching, he decided to seek the aid of a young girl. He recognised her to be the child sent out to greet them after the incident with the transporter and when she asked what he was doing he responded: "I am endeavouring to find Sarai. She is your grandmother, is she not?"
Smiling up at him curiously, the little girl answered: "How do you know that?"
"I have spoken with her," he explained. "I wish to speak with her again."
"She is sleeping," the girl told him. "We're not supposed to disturb her."
Teal'c replied, "very well," and made to retrace his steps towards the main chamber. The little girl dashed in front of him and he stopped. He tilted his head as she beamed at him.
"You're not from here."
"I am not," Teal'c confirmed.
"Are you Triyan?"
"No. I am not from this world."
"Oh." Her smile brightened. "Even better."
"How so, child?"
She giggled. "My name is Ailah, not 'child'. You're very strange, you know."
"Perhaps to you," Teal'c responded with the smallest hint of humour in his tone; "just as you are strange to me."
"Some people think you're Triyan, but I think you're even stranger than that," Ailah commented. "If you do come from another world, what are you doing here?"
Teal'c replied: "I am here in search of my friends."
"Yes," Ailah laughed, "but why did you come through the Cosmic Circle in the first place?"
"We are explorers," Teal'c informed her.
"I'm an explorer, too," Ailah told him proudly. "Me and my best friend Nathan, we explore all around the place! It's so boring in these caves. We're not supposed to go out because of the bad air but we're adventurers."
She studied him a moment with an expression of deep consideration; then she caught his hand. "Come on," she exclaimed, tugging earnestly. "I've got something important to show you."
-----------------------------
Sam paused outside the building and looked back. He'd woken up. He'd woken up. Had he even been asleep? Damn, what if he'd been awake the whole time? She closed her eyes but that didn't make any of it seem less real: instead she was reminded of how good it had felt to be close to him, touching him; her face close to his, taking in every wonderful detail; the soft skin on his eyelids reacting to her touch; his leg beneath her grasp, tensing…
Oh, no.
Feeling abashed and slightly ill, Sam opened her eyes, gripping her P-90 more tightly than usual. She felt tense - so tense she wished she was back home, firing some rounds in the practice range.
And then Gale appeared, and Sam wondered if she would have enough self-restraint not to start shooting now.
"Major Carter." Each syllable was expressly uttered in the harshest way possible. "Where, in all Triya, have you been?"
Sam began to formulate an excuse but Gale had no patience for it.
"Never mind!" she exclaimed, sighing loudly. "Are you going to come and look at our technology or not?"
Forcing a smile, Sam replied: "Yes, please, lead the way."
Gale did so, striding ahead briskly. Sam smiled a little; if Gale thought a member of SG-1 would have trouble keeping pace, she was to be disappointed. This was nothing compared to a march with Colonel O'Neill.
Before long they had reached the central building in the manufacturing quarter. They entered through a security checkpoint which called for Sam to leave her weapon at the door; with recent discoveries she was less than inclined to do so, but it was clearly the only way get inside. Gale watched with satisfaction as her visitor was disarmed.
Inside, the building was immense. Open plan floor space with no partitions, it was reminiscent of an Air Force hangar during wartime: dozens of people all attending to different tasks, clustering around tables and running between work stations. At the far end sparks were flying in some kind of dramatic demonstration.
"So this is a control centre?" Sam asked, taking in the confusion and movement around her.
Gale nodded shortly. "All of our technology projects are directed from here, under supervision of the Council."
"The Council of what?" Sam enquired, feeling that she already knew. Gale failed to answer, striding forwards through the maze of work stations. Sam followed her to a bench near the side wall, where a young man sat alone, inspecting a blob of silvery metal through an electronic lense.
Gale cleared her throat. He looked up and visibly paled.
"Gale," he exclaimed, "what are you doing here? I mean… oh - hello." His face warmed again as he noticed Sam; he smiled amiably. "You're the alien visitor, aren't you?"
"That's right," Sam replied, returning his smile.
"Matthew, stop flirting," Gale snapped, "you're embarrassing yourself."
He blinked at her. "All I said was 'hello'."
Gale reprimanded him with a severe look and said, "Major Carter and her commander are here on the condition that they help out, so see that she does something useful. Don't you start being lazy, either."
Matthew gazed back at her with an expression of polite confusion; she shook her head and stalked away. Matthew watched her go; then, letting out a controlled breath, turned his attention back to Sam.
"My fiancée," he cringed. "I tell you, the rest of my life is doomed."
"Why are you marrying her?" Sam enquired. "If you're not so keen on the idea, I mean."
"No man is capable of saying 'no' to that woman," he replied. "We're all far too scared." He smiled; Sam smiled back.
"What are you working on?" she asked, craning her neck to gain a better view of the metal beneath his lense.
"Something fascinating but probably of no practical use whatsoever," Matthew told her cheerily. "When the Stargate connected on your arrival, we were startled into resuming our research. We'd assumed that something had happened during the war that rendered it inactive. Anyway, I found an old sample along with the files."
"That's metal from the Stargate?"
"Yes. Well, not from the Stargate itself; there were traces in the soil. That was before the new defences were installed, of course." His gaze shifted thoughtfully down to the ball of metal. "It's not like any other metal I've ever seen."
Sam gestured towards the lense. "May I?"
"Of course."
Matthew swivelled the machine around to face her. After a brief glance through the lense and a mental assessment of the electronic readings, Sam nodded. "Yes; that's naquada, the Gate element. Very powerful; very dangerous."
"You've come across it?"
"Oh yes," Sam replied. "Naquada has a number of uses. We have an enemy, the Goa'uld; they use naquada in a lot of their technology. They mine it quite extensively throughout the galaxy."
"What about you? Have your people been able to put it to use?"
"We're still experimenting," Sam told him, "but yes, we've developed a method of refinement."
"Fascinating."
Sam smiled at his enthusiasm. "Yes, it is - but maybe we should…?"
"Oh! The gravity alternators, of course." Matthew touched a button on the side of the electronic lense and a container rose up from its base to encapsulate the naquada sample. He then touched another button and it disappeared altogether.
"Perhaps you could tell me more about the Stargate on the way?"
Sam reminded herself that however friendly Matthew was, he was still a member of a potentially hostile race; she imagined how Colonel O'Neill would react if she let slip about the explosive potential of naquada. Deciding to keep it purely theoretical, she smiled and nodded.
---------------------------------
"Why won't you listen?"
"Daniel Jackson, if you do not calm your tone you will be considered unfit to continue in this debate."
There was a murmuring of agreement around the hall; Daniel closed his eyes for a moment and summoned the words to apologise.
"I'm sorry," he said, "but you must realise we're trying to help you."
"We understand your intentions are honourable," the leader of the assembly replied, "but we do not appreciate your assumption that you know what is best for us."
"That's not what it's about," Daniel responded. "We just want to give you another option."
"A better option."
"Yes! I mean, no…"
"We will now consider your proposal. If you'd please step outside the chamber…"
"No, wait, I haven't finished--"
"Doctor Jackson, please. We have done all you asked of us in listening to your argument."
Daniel looked around the assembled Dueteri and could not deny that they had. He nodded reluctantly and, after a word of thanks, made his way out. He looked up as Sarai's voice greeted him.
"I take from your dispirited expression that it did not go well."
"Well, they listened," Daniel sighed, slowing to a halt in front of her, "but I don't think I got through to them in any practical sense."
"They're scared," Sarai consoled, patting Daniel on the arm, "and there's no man I know that could dissuade a people from their fear."
"Will you come with us?" Daniel asked, looking to her for the remnants of hope.
"When you leave?" Sarai replied. "Oh, I don't think so, Daniel. I'm an old woman and I should stay with my people."
"What about your family?"
"I could never ask them to do what I will not."
"So none of you will leave," Daniel sighed. "Right." He turned away slightly, taking hold of his radio and speaking into it: "Teal'c?" He waited. When there was no response, he tried again: "Teal'c, this is Daniel, do you read me?"
He was about to try again when Teal'c responded. "I read you, Daniel Jackson. I must urge you to come to the surface immediately."
"I have Sarai with me at the moment," Daniel began.
"Have her accompany you. There is something you both must see."
------------------------------
The most incredible thing about the gravity alternators, Sam thought, was the way they looked so familiar. Every piece of Triyan technology looked so much like something out of a 1960s sci-fi film that it was just eerie. She peered down into the bowels of the alternator below, its turbines moving graciously in unison beneath a force shield.
"The problems we're experiencing are a result of flaws in the design," Matthew explained. "The alternators were made before the war and were only really intended for short-term field generation while we created more efficient means to operate them. We didn't expect to need them to survive for so long."
"What happens if the alternators fail?" Sam asked, drawing her gaze away from the turbines and looking to Matthew for a response. His face was grave and so was his answer.
"The alternators provide the gravity fields that support most of our domestic quarter," he said. "We would have enough reserve power to evacuate if the alternators stopped without warning, but thousands of people would be left homeless."
Sam thought about that. No matter what their government was doing, these people still had a right to life, the basic needs of which required shelter. In her mind, Daniel's voice listed half a dozen other factors to consider and she had to concede; on a humanitarian level, she should offer her help.
Matthew was pointing to a row of fans on one side of the metal cavern below.
"The cooling system uses recycled air to blow across the metal of the turbines. The force shield we're looking through is airtight, but this means that over the years the temperature of the air has increased. We've had to slow production in order to prevent the system overheating and the alternator elements fusing together."
"How have you compensated for the loss in field production?"
"The back-up alternator," Matthew replied, "but now we're dependent on both alternators. We should have stopped the first to conduct repairs when we had chance."
"So essentially you need to lower the temperature in the core," Sam clarified; Matthew nodded. She thought for a moment, then said, "Have you considered liquid coolant?"
"It was to be incorporated into the improved design," Matthew answered, "but to install a piping system to the elements now would be impossible."
"You don't necessarily have to change the whole cooling system," Sam replied; "you could just add to it. Maybe you should try cooling the air instead of the elements themselves."
Matthew thought for a moment, and gradually his face lightened as possibilities were made conceivable in his mind. "Yes," he murmured. "Yes, we were looking for the answer in the wrong place. We should be looking at the wider system instead of the heat being generated in the core elements. We saw the effect but ignored the cause."
"Easily done," Sam smiled. "Is there anything else I can help you with?"
"Oh, much," Matthew replied with an eager nod; he beckoned her away from the alternator and over to a computer workstation, where he removed one of the drives from the open unit; taking a small, hand-held device, he slotted the drive inside and handed the device to Sam.
"Schematics for all our problem areas," he informed her, "including detailed reports by our scientists."
"Great," Sam enthused. "Can I take these back to the guest room?"
"Of course," Matthew smiled obligingly. "I assume you'll want to pick up your weapons first?"
"Yes," nodded Sam. As they made their way out of the alternator building and back towards the city centre, she commented casually: "The atmospheric conditions of your planet are really quite remarkable."
"Oh?" asked Matthew pleasantly. "How so?"
"When we arrived, the difference between the purity of the air around the Stargate and over the old Dueteri city was quite startling," Sam answered. "I couldn't work out why there would be such contradictory readings."
"Ah." Matthew frowned; then he sighed. "It's been like that since the war. We think there was some kind of catastrophic explosion that caused a reaction within their generators. The toxins just haven't stopped since."
"Matthew," Sam said after a moment, "have you ever seen an explosion cause that kind of mass pollution over such a duration of time?"
"Well, no - not aside from that one - but the Dueteri had different technology to us. They used energy crystals; we have much more straight-forward approaches to engineering."
"So you don't know what your government is doing," Sam said, coming to a halt. Matthew stopped and turned towards her with a confused smile. His expression fell when he heard Sam's grave elaboration.
"Your government is pumping toxins into the ruins of the Dueteri city. Aside from the clear environmental implications, I've learned that the winds are about to bring the pollution down onto the plains near the Stargate. I don't even want to think about the type of damage that could do to anyone trying to access the Gate."
Matthew was looking at her as if she had gone mad. "I'm sorry, Major," he said, "but I think you've been wildly misinformed."
Sam looked at him. "I've seen the Atmospheric Modification Plant."
"No, no," Matthew answered, his expression clearing: "that's for regulating the atmosphere up here in the mountains, to compensate for the thinness of the air."
"Then why is it certified by the Triyan Council of International Warfare?" Sam challenged. "Why is it hidden away in the backstreets of the city centre? And why has Cain been petitioning to close it?"
Matthew had no response for that and Sam took the opportunity to continue: "It was the way they won the war. They exterminated the Dueteri by making their air unbreatheable. You have to stop it before the damage to your planet's atmosphere becomes permanent."
"I'm sorry, I just don't believe that. You have only just arrived on our world and you're making assumptions about a war you know nothing about! Maybe indiscriminate killing is how you settle things on your planet, Major, but it's not how the people of Triya behave. We respect all our counterparts."
"And that's why they're all dead?"
The challenge hung threateningly in the air for a long, painful moment. Eventually Matthew's face harshened. "I think you should go back to your guest accommodation," he told her coolly.
Sam looked at him a moment, then nodded slowly. "I'll pick up my equipment first."
"Fine." He began to walk and Sam caught up with him.
"I still want to help," she said, an apology in her eyes. "That's what I was trying to do by telling you what I know."
"Yes, well…" Matthew looked as though he didn't really know how to take that, his unbelief rocked for a moment by her clear sincerity. "I'd rather keep to science, if you don't mind."
"Right," Sam sighed as he started to walk again. "Science."
And she wondered just how much it would take to open his eyes to his government's crime.
A/N: The next part should see the conclusion of the story. Then again, I'm not sure how long it will end up being, so I may split it into two parts. Either way, we're drawing to a close, but I hope you're still enjoying it enough to stick with it. :)