Tag #22 – Oblivion
Daniel paused in the middle of his excited scribbling. Letting the notebook droop slightly, he looked around. Sunny skies, light breeze, blue trees, four bored Marines. Everything certainly looked normal. Well, normal for P3X-808 in any case.
The archaeologist frowned, unable to put a finger on what he was sensing. There was something…off. Out of place. Skewed. He had hundreds of words for what he was feeling, and yet he couldn't figure out what precisely was wrong. Go figure.
Briefly, he contemplated asking Colonel Pierce if he felt anything wrong, but similar ventures in the past had always been laughed off by just about everyone. He turned back to his notebook and continued his careful transcription of the cuneiform on the crumbling stone wall.
Barely five minutes passed before he threw down his notebook, shaking all over at the intense wrongness. Lieutenant Braun heard the soft thud of the journal hitting the hard-packed ground and looked over to see the borrowed archaeologist hugging himself, a weird look on his face. "Doctor Jackson, are you okay?" he asked, drawing the attention of his teammates as well.
Daniel would've blushed from having four pairs of eyes watching him acting so strangely, but the screaming alarm in his head drowned out any embarrassment. "I don't know," he admitted, hauling himself to his feet. "Something doesn't…feel right."
Captain Stockwell scoffed at that. "You're having bad feelings?" he said scornfully, continuing to clean and oil his P90.
Pierce, however, didn't dismiss what Daniel was saying. He'd heard about the legendary SG-1 and how their already well-honed battle instincts had saved them on several occasions. "Explain, Jackson," he said instead, shooting a chastising look at Stockwell, who flinched and mouthed an apology.
"I think we should contact Earth, immediately," Daniel confessed. To his surprise, Pierce didn't question this advice at all. Instead he ordered his three subordinates to start packing the camp while he and Daniel dialed Earth.
The sight of each chevron lighting up should have brought him a small form of comfort, but Daniel's dread increased with each humming glyph. Almost reluctantly, he pressed on the finalizing crystal in the center of the DHD.
It took a moment for it to register that the address had winked out without establishing a wormhole, but the significance was immediately realized. "Try dialing the alpha site," Pierce ordered. Daniel obeyed, and he didn't know whether to feel better or worse when the wormhole connected.
"Something's wrong back on Earth," Daniel concluded, disconnecting the Gate before they headed back to help pack up.
"We don't know that for sure," Pierce argued half-heartedly. "It might've just been in use at the time we dialed. We'll try dialing again once camp is packed, and if it doesn't connect we'll go to the alpha site until we can get through."
Daniel knew that wasn't the case, but he nodded anyway.
The next time they dialed the Gate, it still wouldn't connect with Earth. Upon arrival at the alpha site, the offworld base personnel set up a schedule of dialing home every two hours. When SG-4 arrived a half a day later, they knew they were in trouble. Every day, the alpha Gate made multiple attempts at dialing Earth. All of them failed.
Daniel's bad feeling did not disappear. If anything, it got worse and worse as the days went by. In an attempt to ignore it, he threw himself into helping set up the potentially permanent settlement. Two weeks of being stranded offworld found him foraging for local foods to sustain their small population, but he dropped everything at the sound of the Gate activating and dashed back to base.
"What happened?" he shouted as he bolted into camp.
Major Harper, standing at the DHD, stared at the shimmering blue event horizon, stunned. "We connected with Earth," he blurted. "Go get Colonel Pierce!"
For the first time in two weeks, that horrible feeling was gone.