--
Chapter 1
--
"How long do you think they're going to keep us here?" Joseph asked.
Sam shrugged and looked around the room for what seemed to be the hundredth time. It was exactly the same as the last time she'd looked. Blank, dark grey walls, and no door to speak of. She couldn't help a smidgen of grudging admiration for the design of their holding cell. Much better than Goa'uld holding cells, which were more for decoration than anything else. She wasn't sure how they could breathe, but she supposed that the walls were permeable.
When they had been escorted to the cell, the door had materialised in the grey wall and then closed behind them as they entered. Sam stared at the spot to her left. She knew the wall was there, but no amount of pounding with her fists made it open. She wished that she had somehow managed to hide some C4 on herself, but the Aschen search had been thorough.
"Probably until they decide what to do with us," she said.
Joseph looked worried.
"They probably won't kill us," she said. "After all, they didn't kill the Volians."
"No, they just wiped them out slowly through systematic sterilisation." Joseph's voice was tight. Once in the holding cell, Sam had filled him on everything they had discovered about the Aschen and Joseph had been understandably horrified.
"General Hammond will send more SG teams through the gate once we don't return," Sam said, trying to sound upbeat. "We don't leave our folks behind."
Joseph pursed his lips. "You don't know Senator Kinsey as well as I do. He's determined to make this alliance work."
Sam stared down at her hands and shifted her legs to a slightly more comfortable position. "It's not that easy to get rid of General Hammond." Nor is it that easy to get rid of Jack O'Neill, she added silently.
They lapsed into a tired silence.
Joseph jumped as there was a sudden sound. The door to Sam's left suddenly materialised and an Aschen guard stepped through. He was dressed in as uniform a grey as the rest of the Aschen delegation with the exception of a large gun in his hands.
"Come with me," he said crisply.
Sam stood up and then helped Joseph up. She watched as he winced slightly. "Those floors are hard," he said.
She nodded.
They followed the guard back towards the chamber they were in originally for the negotiations. Ambassador Mollem was standing by the table holding the laptop Sam had given him earlier.
"Your co-ordinates are useless," he said evenly and placed the laptop on the table.
Sam blinked. She had no idea what he was talking about. "They were given as a gesture of good faith. Obviously all good faith is out of the window." She silently berated herself for what she said. It sounded like she was claiming that co-ordinates changed according to the circumstances.
Mollem's expression didn't change, but she distinctly got the impression that he wasn't amused. "Obviously certain members of your military did not want this alliance to proceed. The first co-ordinate was to a planet that was in the process of being pulled into a black hole."
"I had no knowledge of this," Sam said honestly.
"This is inconsequential," Mollem said. "We easily disengaged the Volian Stargate from the black hole."
"If you believe that this was done deliberately, then there is obviously no point in a further alliance with Earth," Joseph said.
Sam hid a wry smile. It was good of him to try, but she doubted the Aschen would fall for that.
"On the contrary," Mollem said with a thin smile. "We believe that your government did not know this. We will continue our negotiations with your Senator Kinsey."
Sam couldn't help but feel that Earth was doomed. She could already see the images of a beautiful agricultural Earth, devoid of all but a handful of humans.
"What do you plan to do with us?" she asked.
"You, Samantha Carter, will give us co-ordinates to habitable worlds. It's time the galaxy met the Aschen Federation."
As Sam looked at the expressionless Mollem, she felt a shiver go down her spine. Suddenly, she began to feel sorry for the Goa'uld.