CHAPTER SIXTEEN - Base-Eight Math
So am I as the rich, whose blessed key,
Can bring him to his sweet up-locked treasure,
The which he will not every hour survey,
For blunting the fine point of seldom pleasure.
Therefore are feasts so solemn and so rare,
Since, seldom coming in the long year set,
Like stones of worth they thinly placed are,
Or captain jewels in the carcanet.
So is the time that keeps you as my chest,
Or as the wardrobe which the robe doth hide,
To make some special instant special-blest,
By new unfolding his imprison'd pride.
Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had, to triumph; being lacked, to hope.
Sonnet 52 by William Shakespeare
It had been several hours after the foreboding stargate activation that Amelia had received a visit from General Hammond which went way beyond unexpected. His eyes and his posture communicated danger and reluctance long before he opened his mouth. He took a seat in one of her bedroom's chairs and in grave tones explained SG-1's situation.
"Miss Kinsey, I'm very loath to ask this of you, but—"
"I'll do it," she said. Even as she spoke, her stomach lurched nervously.
"You have to understand, you have no obligation to this program. I can't order you."
"I understand, General, but with all due respect I feel I do have an obligation. Your program and the efforts of all your people saved my life. The least I can do—" she paused, swallowed, and gave a tight laugh. "I've got to tell you," she said, "I'm scared to death. But if something happened to— if they die when I could have helped them—"
"I know how you feel, Miss Kinsey. Now, if you'll accompany me to the briefing room, I'll introduce you to some folks who will do their best to keep you safe. We don't have much time."
Now she sat here, mulling over the briefing and her fears. Her right heel tapped the floor impatiently. The women's locker room at the SGC was a place Amelia had been quite certain she'd never see again, and certainly not like this. She'd put on all her bulky gear as instructed by Lieutenant Hailey, and was now sitting nervous and silent on the bench, waiting for the other woman to finish dressing. Beside her were the two extra musical keys, representing the twist of circumstance that had precluded her involvement in this mission.
She tried concentrating on said mission. In a little less than an hour they were scheduled to rendezvous with SG-1 at the newly discovered southern entrance to the Ancient mountain complex on PX3-651, and Amelia needed to use one of these two keys to get them out. Before that they had to get through a whole lot of jaffa footsoldiers, and probably several death gliders as well.
She was worried. Worried about Jonas, worried about dying, worried about failing… she couldn't help but think with regret that if she hadn't been helping where she had no right, Jonas would not have gotten this far in his research yet, and the Goa'uld would have invaded the planet without a hapless SG-1 at their mercy.
Hailey finished zipping her jacket and looked up. "Ready?" she asked.
"No."
"Yeah, I get that," the brusque lieutenant said. She headed for the door and Amelia trailed after her. "Just remember what General Hammond said. Listen to Colonel Dixon and do anything he says without questioning. Stay behind the rest of SG-13. My team will be on your six."
"Stay in the circle, obey orders, and keep moving," Amelia repeated, giving a shaky exhale.
"I can't tell you if you'll keep your cool or not," Hailey said, glancing over. "You never know till you're there."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Amelia said wryly.
Their next stop was the armory, not far from the gateroom. The sight of all the weapons being loaded and passed around did very little to ease Amelia's fears. They did not give her a weapon. General Hammond explained that her lack of experience in both firearms and combat training would only make it ten times more dangerous for the people who were fighting, and she wholeheartedly agreed. Thinking back to her lack of skills with darts and archery back in her college days, she figured probably even more so than the General realized.
Colonel Dixon had given her a crash course in how the P-90 worked, in case for some reason she needed to defend herself as a last resort, but Amelia was thinking that not putting that scenario into her head might have been a more effective means of helping her keep her cool. Still, she felt a little bit naked without one of the black hulking menaces, but she was just going to have to be satisfied with her protective vest.
When they reached the door to the gate room, about twelve people altogether – Hailey was the only woman beside - Amelia, the door was shut tight. To Amelia's puzzlement, everybody stopped, and appeared to be waiting, checking over their gear one last time or staring in concentration, or speaking with their comrades in low voices. "Why are we stopping?" she leaned over to Hailey with a whisper.
The lieutenant did not whisper back, but said quietly, "They're deploying the missile strike first, to try and plow the road for us a little."
"Oh, right," Amelia said, nodding.
The sounds weren't exactly clear. Some came muffled through the thick steel door beside them. Others filtered down the corridor from the steps up to the control room. Amelia recognized the formal shouting of commands and also the distinct loud fizz that signaled a missile had been fired through the gate. When the ruckus moved on and the doors were opened, the acrid, tangy smell of the smoke the missile (or missiles, she wasn't quite sure) had left behind teased her nose.
General Hammond was already approaching from the opposite door to come and meet them. The three SG teams came to a formal halt in formation and saluted. Amelia stood awkwardly amidst them, clutching the bag where she'd stowed the keys.
"SG Teams Two, Seven, and Thirteen, Miss Kinsey" General Hammond began, returning the salute, "You have your orders." Amelia glanced sidelong at the pulsing surface of the wormhole and swallowed. General Hammond continued, "As soon as you step through the gate, you will have approximately forty minutes before the appointed time to rendezvous with SG-1 at the mountain complex's southern gateway. Your mission objective is the rescue of SG-1 only. Godspeed, people."
He caught Amelia's eye last and gave a curt nod, which she returned with a watery smile.
"Okay, people. Move out. Some time today," called Colonel Dixon. His posture was almost casual, but he was such a huge man Amelia figured he could get away with it in a time like this. Besides, there was a focused gleam in his eyes that was far more reassuring. Amelia shrugged her backpack on and joined the move forward.
Her heart was doing far more than merely pounding as her feet began progressing up the ramp. Muffled drums beating funeral marches to the grave, she kept thinking over and over. Ironic, considering the poem was about being heroic. Instinct made her want to stop and gather herself before heading through, but she decided at the last second that this situation would probably go easier if she treated it like jumping off the diving board instead of getting wet little by little.
With that bolstering analogy in mind, she squeezed her eyes shut and plunged into the wormhole, resisting the urge to hold her nose.
A few moments later, she emerged into the sights and sounds she'd feared most. Bright flashes, thundering sound to match, and more jaffa than she'd hoped to see.
"Kinsey!" Colonel Dixon shouted as soon as she'd come through. "Get down, stay down, and don't move till I say so!"
An airman she didn't know half-pulled her off the stone steps and into the shelter they provided to the left. He pushed her head down and began shooting, using the short staircase for cover.
Much sooner than Amelia had expecting, the firing stopped. "Good work," Dixon called. "Okay, everybody here?" After a mismatched chorus of replies, he added, "Good. Let's go; we've got a long jog. SG-13 is on point with me. SG-2, you're flanking Kinsey, SG-7 on our six. Keep your eyes open."
"Carter, this is O'Neill."
Jonas watched Sam pause in her work. "I read you, sir," she said. Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c were maintaining communication with Stargate Command back in the DHD room. Jonas and Sam had spent the last hour or so configuring the Ancient systems to overload. It hadn't been as difficult as Sam had feared to figure out. The Ancients themselves had provided a self-destruct system, but a diagnostic had revealed a power center a couple of miles from the control room that needed repairing. Sam stood beside the familiar panel of pull-out crystals, which were casting multi-colored shadows onto the walls of the corridors. When they'd arrived, half of the crystals had been darkened and inactive, but Sam had now managed to replace or cobble the panel into working order again.
Sam tossed the last irreparable black crystal aside as Colonel O'Neill said, "We just got word from Hammond. The strike force is through. We've got thirty-five minutes to reach them. Is our big boom ready?"
"That's a go, sir," Sam replied, shutting the panel closed with authority. She nodded at Jonas and together they put their packs back on and began the trek back the way they'd come. Sam cast a regretful eye back toward the unexplored part of the tunnel before turning forward again with determination.
"Okay. I've dialed the Stargate to hold it open another thirty-eight minutes," Colonel O'Neill said.
"Hopefully with the missile attack, the jaffa will be on their guard and worry more about the gate than our teams on the surface," Sam said.
"Which might make it trickier when we get back to the gate," Jonas muttered.
"One problem at a time, Jonas," Colonel O'Neill said. "What concerns me more is getting to the south entrance in time to meet the others. You two better high tail it back here, but I think we'll still end up being late."
"Actually, I've been working on that," Jonas said, now joining the conversation. "If we go back to the train terminal, I think we can get a ride to where we're going. I was looking through some logs on the systems when we you and Teal'c were exploring earlier. It looks like the rail system is functional, it was just powered down to conserve energy. We'll have to backtrack, but if we get it working we'll more than make up for the borrowed time."
"Are you sure you can get it working?"
"Sir, I think Jonas is right," Sam said. "There didn't seem to be anything wrong with it."
"All right. Teal'c and I are heading in that direction. We'll meet you there. O'Neill out."
Sam said little as they walked purposefully back toward the front of the complex, circumventing the control room in favor of a more direct route to the double doors by which they'd first entered the labyrinth of tunnels. She kept looking around with regretful eyes, and it wasn't hard for Jonas to share her feelings of loss.
"Don't worry, Sam," he said, trying to cheer her up. "I'm sure the Ancients must have built other places like this. We'll have another chance at it some day."
"Yeah," she said dispassionately. "I know."
"Meantime, let's focus on getting out of here alive so we can find them, eh?"
"Right." She sighed, then seemed to gather her focus again. "Right," she repeated more confidently.
When they reached their destination, they found Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c already waiting for them. "We were uncertain whether or not we were to proceed to the train itself," Teal'c informed them as they met in the middle of the terminal area.
"I don't think that will be necessary," Jonas said, already looking around for a console of some kind. "But if I'm wrong, it isn't actually that far—"
His words were cut off by an ominous trembling of the floor beneath their feet, followed a moment later by the muffled but unmistakable sound of an explosion coming from further down the tunnel.
"—away," Jonas finished reluctantly.
Colonel O'Neill was eyeing the passage. "Oh great," he muttered, and hoisted his weapon. "Looks like we're going to have company. Carter, Jonas," get to work. "Teal'c, come with me. We need to hold them off."
"You really think they could have blasted their way down here?" Jonas asked Sam.
"We thought we could," she pointed out. He'd followed her to a promising-looking indentation in the wall, and already she was searching it with her fingers for clues to its purpose.
"Let me try," Jonas said. He reached out, touched the panel, and it instantly split horizontally across the middle. The two sides retracted up and down, revealing a diagnostic screen.
"Okay, that is really annoying," Sam said, stepping forward. "Must be some kind of physiological trigger, though why you and Colonel O'Neill should share it is beyond me."
"Sorry," Jonas said, though he knew how ridiculous it was to apologize.
"Just help me figure out what this says."
When Colonel O'Neill called again over the radio, they had made less-than-comforting progress. "Carter," he said, his voice subdued. "What can you tell me?"
"Not much, sir. What's your status?"
"Tromping boots are tromping down the train track, Carter, and by the sounds of it, far more than one. I'd like to leave them in our wake if at all possible. So can we get this thing turned on and be whisked away yet or are we going to have to fight?"
"Well, that's the thing, sir." Sam looked at Jonas grimly. "There is no autopilot. You're actually going to have to drive that thing, but you can't even do that until we figure out how to get the doors open."
"I'm going to help them," said Jonas, adjusting his grip on his own P-90. "They may need another gun and if there's anything needs translating when we get on the train—"
"There's plenty that needs translating here," Sam pointed out. She sounded very much like she was trying not to snap.
Jonas sighed. "Should I stay or go, Major?" he asked.
She frowned, then shook her head. "Go. I'll quiz you over the radio." She clicked her radio. "Sir, standby. Jonas is coming to you."
The process of telegraphing the Ancient translations over the radio as Jonas hustled off in aid of his teammates was sloppy at best, but by the time he reached the train itself, they'd figured out what they thought was the command menu that would help them get the train's doors to open.
Jonas rounded the corner to see the beginning of the firefight between the Colonel, Teal'c, and the attacking jaffa. He ducked and hurried to the cover the others had taken, between the first and second cars of the train. Every now and again, they would pop out from the cover long enough to take a shot at the oncoming jaffa, but their opponents were quickly making progress along the length of the cars.
"Carter, now would be a good time!" Colonel O'Neill screamed into the radio after a staff weapon blast almost grazed his ear. A half a moment later, Jonas almost fell headlong into the forward most car as the door he'd been standing in front of opened with a soft but sudden whoosh. "That's more like it," the Colonel said, and he and Teal'c quickly followed Jonas, who was still rediscovering his feet.
"Quick, shut the door," the Colonel ordered. As Jonas turned follow the order, Colonel O'Neill turned to Teal'c. "Think you can drive this thing?" he asked.
"I will attempt to do so," Teal'c said.
"Uh, Jonas?' Sam called over the radio. Jonas had succeeded in shutting and— he was pretty sure— locking the door. He reached for his radio.
"Yeah, Sam, you did it. Go ahead."
"Great. Could you tell me if any of the other doors opened?"
"Huh?"
"I had no idea what part of the train you were using for cover. I think I opened all of them at once."
"Well, close them again," Colonel O'Neill called over.
"Done, sir. I'm just saying—"
"I get it, Carter."
"What's she saying?" Jonas asked, confused.
"We might have jaffa on board with us," the Colonel replied with a bit too much patience.
"O'Neill," called Teal'c.
Jonas and the Colonel stepped over to the front console where the former first prime was standing. There were four seats behind the front-sloping window, and a lot of buttons, but no matter how many Teal'c pushed, nothing happened.
"Oh, great," Colonel O'Neill said. "Let me guess. It only works if I do it."
Amelia decided that ongoing gate travel would be something she would find most appealing if like on Enna she'd had time to stop and enjoy the scenery. The Stargate there had been at the edge of a thickly wooded forest. Here it was on top of a fairly high hill, and the view spread out before them was breathtaking.
Unfortunately, as soon as Colonel Dixon had rallied the rescue team, they'd taken off at once down the hill at a brisk jog. It was fortunate Amelia had taken all those brisk walks, or she would have had an impossible time keeping up. As it was, she was soon greatly winded, and knew with an unspoken realization that the others were being forced to match pace with her.
When they finally reached the cover of the trees— which felt like eons later— things got a little easier. The troops fanned out, darting from tree to tree with caution, but with far more focus on momentum than stealth. Still, without the nagging glare of the open air pounding around them, it was slightly easier to relax. And it looked as though misdirection was in their favor. The Goa'uld did not seem to have yet begun exploring in this direction.
Amelia began to put her belief in success.
"You know, I think this just might work," said Jonas.
Colonel O'Neill was staring intently through the forward window at the track racing before them as if uncertain he could trust it. He did not reply.
Sam swiveled in the co-pilot's seat. "Five more minutes, we should be there," she announced. She checked her watch. "And a little bit ahead of schedule," she added. She turned to the Colonel. "How about that?"
"Oh, just wait for it, Major," he muttered, still eyeing the view before him with suspicion. Jonas wasn't sure what was making the Colonel so edgy, but he'd long since learned not to dismiss the older man's instincts.
Yet it seemed this observation had done nothing to hone his reflexes. He was turning to ask Sam how long on the countdown for the mountain to blow when he was pummeled to the floor of the car by a massive blur that was Teal'c.
"O'Neill!" the jaffa cried simultaneously, and Jonas heard the unmistakable sound of a staff weapon being fired. He glanced up in time to see Teal'c already back on his feet taking the shot with the brunt of his arm. Jonas realized with lightning-quick horror that the shot uninterrupted would have hit either Colonel O'Neill or the glass on the other side of him, killing him almost instantly.
Teal'c grunted loudly as Jonas scrambled to his knees, already bringing up his gun to fire at the two enemy jaffa who were straddling the bridge between the lead car and the second.
"Jonas, get over here and drive this thing!" Colonel O'Neill shouted from behind.
"No time for that, sir," Sam called back. "Just keep us going; we're almost there! We'll handle this!"
She'd been taking careful shots at the jaffa as she spoke, but it was difficult. They had extremely good cover. Getting a shot through the narrow doorway at the correct angle was no easy feat. Jonas wasn't having much luck, either. Adding to the difficulty was the effect their own bullets would have in this tiny little car if they missed the doorway by too much.
"We must drive them back into the second car," called Teal'c.
"Or off," Sam added, coming up behind them. Jonas was still on one knee, trying to follow Sam's example of taking meticulous shots. Any time the jaffa so much as peeped around the edge of the doorway, Teal'c fired a precise shot through it with his own staff weapon, causing them to fall back. Jonas realized that with the loss of surprise, their enemy had also lost their greatest advantage. It wasn't very easy to maneuver a staff weapon in that narrow space, and they'd have to be much faster than was feasible to manage more than one shot with a zat, provided they even had one. It was a perfect standoff.
"Jonas," Sam whispered. He glanced up and over his shoulder and she made a couple of familiar hand gestures. Jonas nodded.
He lowered himself to a crawling crouch began quickly but quietly edging forward along the edge where the floor and the wall of the cabin came together. Sam and Teal'c kept up the barrage behind him.
Luck was with him. The jaffa to the right of the doorway spied his progress a second too late. By that time Jonas had already pulled his own zat from his side and aimed squarely at the intruder. With a panicked cry, the disoriented jaffa fell tumbling from the train, and Jonas leapt to his feet.
Sam and Teal'c rushed forward, but Jonas reached the doorway first. Unfortunately, he wrongly anticipated how the final remaining jaffa would react, and was unprepared for the strong arm that darted around with perfect timing to seize him by the vest front and the heavy, armored leg that kicked his feet out from under him. He landed with a painful thud onto the floor, with his knees, shins, and feet dangling dangerously over the cable connection beneath them.
The next few moments were a bit hazy. Jonas lay stunned, all breath knocked from him, and was vaguely aware of Sam shouting his name, Teal'c engaging their assailant, and himself being dragged back into the safety of the car. When Sam had helped him achieve an upright position, Teal'c was staring coolly at the rushing ground outside the doorway, and the second jaffa was no where to be seen.
"Uncouple it!" called Colonel O'Neill from the forward half of the car. "There maybe more of them further down."
"Yes, sir."
Sam got up to obey the order, and Teal'c turned to address Jonas. "Are you injured, Jonas Quinn?"
"I'll live," Jonas said tightly with a wince.
"Hey, I think it's almost our stop," the Colonel called again. "Somebody want to come help me out?"
"Sure," Jonas managed. Sam had finished decoupling the cars and he barely caught a glimpse of the rest of the train whisking out of sight behind her back as she shut the rear door once more. "Help me up, Teal'c."
Sam looked at her watch. "Three minutes till the rendezvous," she said.
It was a little bit tricky finding the back door entry to the mountain complex. No convenient obelisk marked the site, and Colonel Dixon was forced to further disperse his team to look for it. Still, everyone's spirits were considerably relieved when they reached SG-1 over the radio on the very first try.
"Jack, I hope your team's rested and ready to run, because once we get you out of there, it ain't gonna be a walk in the park." Colonel Dixon looked around at the forest trees ironically.
"Why thank you, Dave." Colonel O'Neill paused. "Any luck with that ring platform? We're already at our end. Jonas has got it turned on, but of course his toy isn't working."
"That's a negative. Any chance we can use the radio signals to track our way to you?"
Amelia wanted very much to talk to Jonas, but it wasn't like there was any sort of conversation that could be considered appropriate just now. She was shadowing Colonel Dixon, doing her best to help in the search. She could've searched on her own, but she was still undefended, and the Goa'uld were still wandering around who knew where.
There was another pause and Colonel O'Neill spoke again. "Carter says maybe, but Jonas suggests that Amelia try the keys first. If it works the same as the obelisk entry they'll turn on the console and save us the trouble of triangulation."
"Good thinking. You know how I hate triangulation," Dixon replied, and nodded to Amelia out of the corner of his eye. She nodded back, and scrambled to retrieve the keys from her bag.
"And just so there's no added pressure, we've already got jaffa in the base," Colonel O'Neill went on as Amelia fitted the first of the keys to her hand. "Don't know how long it's going to take them to catch up to us."
"Sure, no pressure at all," Amelia muttered.
The first key produced no result. She felt a little silly, pressing the buttons and looking around in vain. Not wanting to waste much time, she abandoned it in favor of the second after a few uneventful moments. This time, the outcome was much more satisfactory.
"Colonel," came the voice of one of Dixon's team over the radio a few seconds after she'd activated the key. "We found it. It just turned on by itself."
"Guess this is the key we want," Amelia observed. She put the first back in her bag to get it out of her way.
"Good work, Wells. We'll be right there. All teams, fall in. Form a perimeter."
They joined Sergeant Wells a few moments later, who'd been about three hundred feet away, deeper into the forest. "I'm not sure we could have found it quickly, Colonel," he said as they approached. "It was pretty overgrown."
He was right. As opposed to the way Jonas and Major Carter had described the obelisk, the smaller, less obtrusive console they found now was heavily overgrown, and also half-sheltered in a small, rocky overhang. It was similar in size and proportion to a DHD, and the text was similar to pictures Amelia had long-studied of the obelisk.
Colonel Dixon ordered Wells to join the perimeter and took over clearing off the foliage from the surface of the console. "Balinsky, Hailey," he ordered. "Get over here and help Kinsey."
At first everything seemed pretty straightforward. The holographic menus were identical to the first ones, and Jonas and Major Carter talked Hailey and Balinsky through them. They found the code stream quickly enough. It was when Amelia began playing along with her key that they encountered a snag. Though the console began playing its own music in response to Amelia's, nothing else happened.
"This has to be the right key, Jonas," she said with frustration. "The console didn't respond to the first one."
"This doorway system was designed as a security measure," Sam observed. "It makes sense that there would be some kind of variation from door to door."
"Each entrance had a number associated with it," Jonas said. Amelia recognized the note of excitement and stimulation in his voice and knew he had an expression on his face to match. For the first time since she stepped through the stargate, she gave an unimpeded smile. "I didn't think much of it till now, but that could have something to do with it."
"What were the numbers?" asked Hailey. Her expression was intent as well, though she was frowning.
"The obelisk was a four," said Jonas with confidence. "The mountain entrance was seven. This entrance is—" he paused.
"Fourteen," Major Carter finished knowingly.
"Right."
Hailey shook her head and sighed. "There's an interesting and nonsensical combination," she said with frustration. "So— work the problem: We know that the answer probably has something to do with numbers and music."
"It's the interval."
There was a pause of half-disbelieving silence. Finally, Sam asked, "What makes you say that, sir?"
Colonel O'Neill spoke up again. "I just now thought of it. When Jonas played his key against the obelisk, the music was pretty. When Amelia played, it wasn't."
"Oh my gosh, I think he's right," Amelia murmured. She looked up at Colonel Dixon excitedly. "The way Jonas and I learned it, you have to play the harmony in thirds against the music you're reading. Always in thirds."
"I'll take your word for it."
"Well, that's definitely a basis for a pattern," Major Carter observed.
"So the number four is equivalent to a third?" Jonas offered.
"Yeah, that makes all kinds of sense." Colonel Dixon shifted his hold on his P-90 and tried to look patient.
"Actually, it does," Amelia said. "Jonas and I have studied this stuff a really long time. The Ancients numbered their scales chromatically."
"On Earth, a third numbered chromatically would be a fifth," Jonas said. "But if you don't count the first note—"
"Then it's four half steps away," Amelia concluded. She grinned with excitement and looked around.
Hailey had her head cocked and slowly nodded. Dixon seemed amused. "The sad thing is, my eight-year-old might actually understand what you're talking about," he said.
"That would make the Ancients' seven an Earth fifth—" Jonas began, then paused. Amelia could practically hear him frowning.
"And fourteen?" Hailey asked.
"Is kind of puzzling," Amelia admitted with a frustrated frown. "Assuming our guesses are right, that'd put it at an octave and a whole note away from note one."
"That doesn't work?"
"I wouldn't have thought with this interval idea they'd deliberately skip a whole octave, but I guess it's possible. Even so, it wouldn't sound pretty."
"We should try it anyway," Sam agreed.
They tried. The situation did not improve.
"You're right. That didn't sound pretty," Dixon said.
"Uh-oh—" said Hailey.
Amelia too had noticed. The screen was doing something different now. Another submenu had popped up beside the code stream. There was an unmistakable familiarity with the flashing symbols it was projecting.
"Fantastic," Dixon muttered.
"What's going on?" asked Colonel O'Neill.
"A countdown just popped up," said Hailey.
"I hate countdowns."
"You said it, sir," Hailey agreed with a sigh.
"I don't understand," said Balinsky, looking nervous. "Is it going to explode?"
"Yeah, we don't want to explode," Colonel Dixon added.
"I think that's unlikely, sir," said Hailey. "Major Carter already found a self-destruct routine for the complex. My guess is that after the countdown we'll be locked out of this access screen."
"I agree," said Sam over the radio.
"So how much time do we have?"
Hailey had been staring intently at the countdown since it had begun. "I have no idea," she concluded succinctly.
"I guess this rules out systematically trying all the intervals," said Colonel O'Neill.
"Glad I wasn't the only one with that idea," Dixon muttered.
"No sir, and who's to say another wrong guess wouldn't accelerate the countdown?" Sam pointed out. Then she said, "Hang on—"
"What?" prodded the Colonel after Sam was quiet for minute.
"Amelia, what would the interval be if the third number was twelve, not fourteen?"
"A perfect octave," Amelia said without hesitation.
"That has to be it," Sam muttered. "Sir, when you had the library of Ancient knowledge downloaded into your brain, do you remember the equations you provided on the blackboard? The ones I couldn't figure out?"
"Oh…vaguely."
"It was base-eight math. Since then we haven't encountered very much evidence that the Ancients ever used it consistently, but—"
"Try it," Colonel O'Neill ordered hastily.
"I don't get it," Balinsky said as he began pulling up the code stream again. "If the math is funky for this entry, how come it wasn't for the other two?"
"Because between base-eight and base-ten maths the numbers one through seven would be the same," Hailey said simply.
"Weird."
Perhaps it was because they'd all gotten used to their attempts failing, but this time when they all heard the sounds of the rings activating, everyone's surprise was plain. Then there was a mad, panicking scramble as everyone realized at once that they weren't exactly sure where the rings were.
It was Amelia who'd been standing in the right place. She barely had time to register relief that she hadn't been cut into by the device before it was whipping her below the ground and out of sight.
It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness of the tunnel below, but she forgot all about it as soon as she saw the bedraggled SG-1 standing there. "Thank God," she said with relief, and took two hasty steps forward to hug Jonas tightly.
He returned the embrace but pulled her away quickly. "And thank you," he added with a smile.
"Good job, kid," Colonel O'Neill said with a smile. "Ready to do it again?"
Amelia nodded. "Yes, sir. Now the worst is over, at least for my—"
"Sir!" Major Carter shouted, and raised her weapon with wide eyes.
Amelia turned around to see what she was looking at, and screamed as a staff blast hit the wall somewhere to the left of and above their heads.
"Amelia, get down!" Jonas cried. He seized her by the shoulders and knocked her to the ground, just as another staff blast nearly took their heads off. They landed with a painful thud on the floor.
The next few hellish minutes were a blur. All Amelia remembered later was that Jonas kept her safe the entire time, pulling her dazed person into a sheltered alcove, then keeping his body between her and the jaffa as he helped his teammates in their retaliation.
The barrage of fire finally ceased when Colonel O'Neill managed to get a grenade pulled and tossed it amidst the enemy forces while Teal'c, Major Carter, and Jonas provided cover fire. Amelia couldn't have said how long the firefight had lasted. Jonas shielded her again as the grenade went off, leaving her ears ringing.
There was a general round of coughing and recovering as the echoes of the blast died down, and the attack seemed to have been halted. Jonas pulled a trembling Amelia to her feet.
"Are you okay?" he asked with concern.
She swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and said, "Sure. But I think I might change my mind when we get home."
"Then let's get there," Colonel O'Neill said.
"Yes, and we'd better hurry. Who knows how that blast affected the tunnel structure," Sam pointed out.
Fortunately, they reached the surface again without further incident. There was a few moments' worth of greeting between the rescue team and their charges before Colonel Dixon began barking orders, preparing his men for the dangerous march back to the gate.
"Carter," said Colonel O'Neill. "Light up the mountain. Let's go home."
A/N: One of my very favorite geeky moments of Stargate was Sam's revelation about base-eight math in The Fifth Race. The concept that alien cultures would probably approach even scientific things with a different paradigm was one that I found very cool, and was partially responsible for my ideas about how alien cultures might approach music. I always wished the show's writers would have revisited the math thing, but it seems that since then it was a one-time card.
Oh, and in case anybody wants to know what the 'train' looks like— think a row of puddle jumpers on a track. ;-)
Colonel Dixon and SG-13 appear courtesy of Domi Lyswho specifically requested them. As for me, I have no objections whatsoever to using canon characters, and Dixon turned out to be tons of fun to write. Free gold star for anyone who finds the Firefly/Serenity nod. ;-)
Onward and upward!
Saché
