Over the past few days, Sam had feared it might come to this. Each small piece of information about fruitless searches had added to the slowly rising panic. This was the next step, an official statement that they were missing. Her team had been missing before and they'd come back from worse situations, hadn't they?
PART 14: GOING HOME
The next day, George Hammond sat down with General Landry and representatives of Homeworld Security. As Hammond had anticipated, the Daedelus was ordered to scan P3X-779 from orbit for any sign of the missing team members. At best speed on their present course, it would take them 4 days to arrive from Pegasus. The assembled leaders all but acknowledged that it was likely the team, including Teal'c and Jack O'Neill, had already been transported off the planet or were in fact, dead.
OoOoOo
On P3X-779, Jack and the team had just arrived on the surface and found the gate missing.
"Oh, for crying out loud, what is going on here? Can anything else happen on this mission?" O'Neill bellowed in frustration.
The seven SGC personnel, along with Bashir, made their way to the original location of the gate. Both the gate and the DHD had vanished as if they had never existed.
"We know the gate was here and so was SG7, up until a few hours ago, when we transported to the lab".
"So where are they now?"
"I'm picking up multiple energy weapon signatures in the area," Lt. Higgins volunteered.
"Staff weapon blasts?"
"No sir, I believe the area was bombarded from orbit".
"So its possible SG7 didn't make it?"
"Jack, if they were here when this bombardment occurred, I don't think they could have survived". Dave Reynolds said.
Jack paled somewhat at the thought of loosing the entire team that had come to watch their six. "We'd better stop and reassess our situation, Dave. Options, anyone?"
"I see none related to leaving this planet, O'Neill. I believe our priority is to maintain the integrity of the team until rescue can be effected."
"You know how I love sitting by and doing nothing, T."
"Indeed. I'll take first watch," Teal'c replied in a matter of fact manner.
It was rapidly getting dark and most of the team had had no sleep in the nearly 48 hours they'd been on the planet. However, sleep was the last thing on Jack O'Neill's mind right now. After setting up a camp site of sorts, he paced the perimeter trying to make some sense of what was happening.
As he completed his uneventful rounds for the umpteenth time, he caught sight of something a bit more interesting -- the flash of a Goa'uld long range communication device. None other than his favorite Tokra of all time, the current bane of his existence, was speaking in hushed tones to a comrade, probably light years away.
Infuriated, Jack walked up to Bashir from behind and snatched the device from his hand.
"Okay, next chapter, Bushey. What game are you playing with us?"
"Ambassador, I do regret the amount of subterfuge we've needed in this mission and I can understand how bad it looks to you."
"No, Bishar, I don't think you do. Right now you're looking a lot like a Goa'uld to me."
"I am not a Goa'uld, Ambassador. I am here on a mission of vital importance to the Tokra. As you know, the Tokra, much like the Asgard, are a dying race. Long before the downfall of the Goa'uld, it had been difficult to find willing hosts for our symbiotes. The Tokra I represent believe that the specimen you have recovered is a model for the perfect host which would be able to sustain cloning procedures as needed. The stakes were too high to leave to a single Tauri team, despite the confidence of the Asgard in SG1."
"The battle which led to the destruction you now see on this planet was waged between the forces of Amoun and the Tokra for whom I am a scout. We have been tracking the Amoun entity for some time now. Our intelligence determined that Amoun was making his play for the Asgard specimen sooner than we thought. That is why our fleet followed and engaged them here.
"Alright, so where are they now? And where the hell is the gate?"
"I can only surmise that this battle ended in a stalemate and both fleets have departed the vicinity. It is likely that a cloak of some sort was triggered following our skirmish with the Jaffa in the research lab. To the best of our knowledge, this was a failsafe device intended to prevent a group like ourselves stealing the specimen. It only activated once the giant Jaffa was neutralized."
"And the gate?"
"The Tokra have been aware of research done by the remnant Goa'uld in the area of cloaking technology. Much of what we believe they accomplished was built on information they pilfered from the original Ancient/Asgard lab. From my time reviewing the documents we found in the lab, I believe they were able to expand the cloak to cover large areas, possibly the gate itself."
"So the gate may still be here."
"It is possible, Ambassador".
By this time, Teal'c hearing the lengthy conversation and O'Neill's agitated voice, had come to join the two, accompanied by Higgins and Dr. McCoy. While these three moved to surround Bashir, O'Neill, held his hands to his head and grimaced.
"There's been an awful lot of fuss over this specimen. I think it's about time I got a good look at what we all seem to be fighting over."
Jack walked over to the stasis pod, now simply sitting in the midst of cartons of materials they'd retrieved from the lab. As he pulled back the opaque covering to reveal the cloned figure, what he saw caused him to stand back and freeze in place.
Finally, to no one in particular, he said in amazement, "It's Jake, it's my son."
OoOoOo
Meanwhile, Thor, still the supreme commander of the Asgard fleet (3 cloned bodies removed), had made his way to '779. Although, as usual, he'd been occupied elsewhere when O'Neill got himself in trouble, he'd finally come to the rescue. Within 30 seconds of his arrival planet side, Thor beamed his Tauri Ambassador, looking beside himself with confusion, to the bridge of the Asgard vessel, The Samantha O'Neill.
When he'd recovered enough to realize exactly where he was, Jack began, "You really should stop doing that, old buddy. Not that I'm ungrateful right about now. In fact, I'm very glad you showed up when you did."
"I am also glad to see you, O'Neill. Your world had great fear that you were lost to them."
"Not lost, just a little delayed. That reminds me, I think you'll be glad to see what we found in our little treasure hunt.
"You are correct, O'Neill, I have been most anxious to see the results of your mission.
General Hammond contacted me over one week ago in your time, requesting our assistance in recovering the team. I regret that we were unable to come sooner."
"Better late than never, but what's this about a week ago? We've only been on that planet 3 days".
"I believe that the energy field you encountered on the planet, when combined with the unique atmosphere of the world itself triggered a time dilation effect, not unlike the one you encountered in our battles with the Replicators. In fact after more consideration, it would appear this is one of the reasons the Goa'uld were interested in the planet. Actually, it's been exactly two of your weeks since you embarked through the Stargate to P3X-779."
"Two weeks! Thor, buddy, I need to contact Sam right away; we haven't had any communications on the planet because of that energy field. She thinks I'm dead. I have to talk with her! Let's do the hologram thingy."
"I regret that this is impossible, O'Neill. The communications array on the Samantha O'Neill is also being effectively blocked as long as we remain in the vicinity of the planet. However, as soon as your friends and the cargo are loaded, we can be in Earth orbit in mere minutes, as you are aware."
Jack calmed slightly at Thor's words. After 2 weeks, probably an hour or so wait wasn't too much to ask. Of course he quickly figured out that the wait for Sam would probably be more like another day. Time dilation, relativity, it all gave him a headache. God… he needed Sam to explain it all to him. Who was he kidding, he just needed Sam. Right now he needed to ease his own mind by comforting her. He could imagine the hell these past two weeks had been for her, because he could imagine his feelings were their positions reversed. And how were the kids handling this? What had she told them? What could she tell them?"
"One more thing, Thor. Before we get on with this loading operation, the specimen you were searching for looks awfully familiar to me. Is there anything you think I should know? Loki wouldn't be interfering again, would he?"
"Undoubtedly you refer to the fact that the ancient Asgard specimen resembles your son, Jake."
"And why would that be, I wonder?"
"I hesitate to explain this to you O'Neill without Col. Carter's assistance as this involves concepts of relativity and multiphasic universes which I've learned tend to be troublesome for you."
"How about a simple answer? And is Jake in any danger?"
"If you recall the incident with your clone, that was a misguided attempt by Loki to harvest your DNA which we were certain would produce a viable cloned body and assist us in our current dilemma."
"Yeah, I recall. The attempt was a pretty dismal failure, if the rest of my memory is accurate".
"Unfortunately, yes. At that point in our research we were missing the final component of the equation which would have allowed the project to be successful. Our initial miscalculation was to look to your generation for our answer. In fact we learned from exploring this planet that the very experiments we were considering had been done long ago and had produced the specimen you have now retrieved for us."
Jack simply stood, looking at Thor with his mouth half opened. He really needed Sam to explain this to him – if she could.
"Not Jake, right?
"No, the specimen you found is certainly not your son. However our assumption is that he was most likely created by DNA contributions from Ancients who greatly resembled yourself and Col. Carter."
"Okay, old buddy, you are loosing me again. You are trying to say that Sam and I, thousands of years ago … what?"
"In simplest terms, O'Neill, several patterns of what you call DNA recur throughout the known universes. Certain patterns when combined will produce offspring which are most likely to survive and prosper. Indeed some of these combinations will recur over time as was the case with the pattern which most recently produced Jake O'Neill. Therefore, although Jake himself is not part of the Asgard solution, in many ways the genetic inheritance that currently belongs to your family will likely allow us to flourish once more as a race."
"I won't pretend I understood much of that old buddy, but I'm glad for you and glad we could help. Now about getting home to my family…"
OoOoOo
Jack tried to calm his thoughts during the next hour. Certainly he was busy enough, carefully stowing materials from the team's exploration of the subterranean lab. But Sam was foremost in his thoughts. If he were honest, he wouldn't have it any other way. After almost fourteen years he remained entranced by Samantha Carter (now O'Neill), and deeply, abidingly in love. At the beginning, he couldn't imagine what such an incredible woman saw in him. When he looked in the mirror in those days, he'd seen a beaten down, aging military man whose best years were behind him. Allowing himself to love Sam and to be loved by her in return, spun that image on its head. In her eyes, Jack had found a true image of himself as honorable and even heroic (not to mention, devastatingly handsome). In her heart, which she chose to share freely with him, he'd found a depth of love and understanding which healed more wounds than he'd known he'd had. And in her touch, in her selfless devotion, he'd found ultimate redemption and acceptance.
This was the woman who was now and always the focus of his thoughts. The woman who had borne him four incredible children and who was even now laboring under the belief that she had lost him forever. Amidst the wonders he'd discovered the past few days, all he could focus on was the surety that he was the luckiest man in the world whose single minded goal was to return to his family without delay.
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