Here's chapter 5, I haven't got much to say here (for once) except to thank Naliza, my great beta.
So I'm just going to get on with the story…
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"Sergeant, what the hell is going on?" Hammond demanded.
"I don't know Sir. The computers have died, I'm frozen out. I can't do anything unless I get access Sir," Davis said.
"Well, get access then."
"It's not that simple Sir," he tried to explain.
"Well how SIMPLE is it then?"
"I don't know. It depends if it's just affected the dialling computer or all the base systems."
"I want an assessment as soon as possible, take whatever and whoever you need to get this fixed. I want control of the gate back ASAP."
"Sir, we really could use Major Carter for this. She knows more about the system than anyone."
"I'll call her," Hammond sighed. He had hoped to keep SG-1 off the base, he should have known that it would not have been so simple; things never were where SG-1 was concerned.
*~*
Sam dialled up the speed on the treadmill at the fitness centre, she was running hard and her heart was pounding. She stared straight ahead, ignoring the people around her, including the guy that smiled at her as he had passed by.
She always went to the gym after bad missions in order to allow the exercise to take away some of the memories. Still this was one of the hardest workouts she had put herself through for years.
Looking at the display, she noticed that she had completed her pre-programmed workout. Slowing the machine into a comfortable jog, she started a cool down; the last thing she needed was a pulled muscle. After a few minutes she shut off the machine and, grabbing the towel she had hung over the side of the treadmill, wiped the sweat off her face.
"You in training?" came a deep male voice behind her.
"Excuse me?" she asked, turning to face him. He was tall and quite attractive, he reminded her of Martouf. Thinking about him brought a pang of grief back to her.
"Are you in training for something? You were going pretty hard."
"No," Sam replied slightly shortly as she started to the necessary stretches.
"One of those days then?" he asked conversationally.
"Something like that," she replied, trying to be as non-committal as possible.
"I'm Tom," he smiled, offering a hand.
"Sam," she said as she took his outstretched hand.
"Are you done here? Maybe we could get a coffee?" he asked.
Sam smiled slightly, she was taken aback a little bit and it was also the last thing she wanted right now. She came here to work out, not to get dates, especially from a man who reminded her of someone she had been forced to kill.
"I've really got to get to work," she lied seamlessly.
"Maybe later then?"
"Later," came the aggression filled voice.
The simple question brought something back to her, Alamagor's voice. She quickly shook it off.
"I'm sorry, I'm very bust at work at the moment," she replied. It was the truth, she had a number of experiments she wanted to do but as it was at the SGC, she just could not do any of it while she was forced to take some downtime. Not that the man in front of her knew that, she hoped that he would not press any more. She really was not in the mood for his advances.
"That's okay, well it was nice to meet you Sam," Tom said, with a shrug. He could take a hint when he needed to.
"You too," Sam replied distractedly. She was thinking about the voice, as far as she could recall, Alamagor and Malatesar had never spoken to one another.
Shaking the memory off, Sam headed to the changing rooms, planning what she could do with her downtime. Her ruminations were interrupted as her cell phone rang.
"Carter…
Really Sir?
I'll be there as soon as I can."
Sam hung up the phone with a smile, at least now she would have something to do. She was mildly concerned since, from what Hammond had said, there was a major problem with all the base computers and the dialling computer had totally shut down.
*~*
The base was a flurry of activity when Sam arrived. The SF's were rushing around and everyone with any knowledge of computers was doing their best to get the problem fixed.
She walked into the control room and was immediately struck by just how many people were in the room, she could not think of a time when it had been so packed.
Sergeant Davis was at his usual post, frantically tapping at the keyboard but he did not seem to making any progress. She made her way over to him, he looked up as she approached, a grateful smile on his face.
"Sergeant, what happened here?"
"I don't know, the system just shut down," he replied with a shrug.
"What about the iris?" she asked, looking up at the protected Stargate with a quizzical look on her face.
"It shut itself, just before the system went down completely. The screens showed random characters for a second before that."
"Right," Sam replied, deep in thought. Still assessing the situation she took the workstation next to Davis.
As soon as she started work she realised that the problem was much more complex than she had first thought, it was going to take a while.
*~*
Almost six hours later Sam raked her fingers through her tousled hair. With a deep sigh of relief she watched as the monitors around the room flickered back into life.
"Run a full diagnostic, Sergeant," Sam instructed as she stood and stretched out her aching muscles.
She walked slowly out of the control room and up towards General Hammond's office. Seeing her arrive, Hammond waved her in with a hand.
"Major?" he asked, expectantly.
"We've got the system back; we're running a full diagnostic to make sure the system is functioning properly."
"What caused this, Major?"
"I don't know Sir but whatever it was; it did a pretty good job. I'll hope to know more once we've got the results of the diagnostic."
"Good work, Major," Hammond offered with a smile.
"Thank you Sir," Sam replied, smiling broadly.
*~*
"Jeez," Sam exhaled as the results of the diagnostic filled the screen in front of her.
"Major?" Davis asked, not recognising what she had seen.
"Basically a virus spread through the system but this is the most effective virus I've ever seen and it seems that it was programmed to particularly attack the dialling computer."
Sergeant Davis' eyebrows shot up as he grasped her insinuation.
"So, you're saying this was deliberate?"
"I don't know, but it looks that way. It would have to be one hell of a coincidence."
"But who could do that, the system is supposed to be secure."
"I know. I'll see if I can trace it but I'm not holding out much hope, this was one smart virus."
Sam was still trying to trace the origins of the virus two hours later. It seemed to have wiped its tracks along with a sizable chunk of the data stored on the system. Thankfully much of it could be restored from the back-ups. As she gratefully took a refill of coffee from Sergeant Davis, she hit another dead end in her search. She sighed as she realised that she had no more avenues to go down, the trail was dead.
"That's it," she exhaled, feeling utterly defeated. She hated admitting defeat, she had invented a particle generator but she could not trace a computer virus and that was not sitting well with her.
"Major?"
"I can't trace this thing; it wiped every trace of itself from the system. I'd better tell General Hammond," Sam replied. She was resigned to the fact that Hammond would be less than pleased to learn that she did not really know what had caused it and how it had resulted in one of the most secure computer systems in the world to crash.
She was right, Hammond was definitely not pleased.
"I'm sorry Sir, there's nothing more I can do. Whoever released this thing was smart and knows the system well; it did a lot of damage. There are significant security systems, particularly on the dialling computer which are supposed to stop these things from happening."
"The system is secure again though?"
"Yes Sir. I've made some improvements to the security but there are some more upgrades I'd like to try but they might take a while."
"But there's no immediate need."
"No Sir, but…"
"Major, you've been working for eight hours straight. And to make it worse it's your day off. Anything else can wait until after the weekend," he commented in a kind but commanding voice.
"Yes Sir," she agreed, reluctantly.
"Dismissed," he said genially.
"Yes Sir," Sam replied as she left his office. She was almost glad to be leaving, her head was throbbing but as she had spent the best part of eight hours staring at a computer screen she was not particularly surprised.
She barely registered the drive home, once inside she flopped on the couch and shut her eyes for a second.
Once she reached a state of deep sleep her mind was invaded with a whirlwind of images -
Daniel being hit and falling outside the cell…
The interrogation room which had brought such a feeling of foreboding…
Alamagor and Malatesar's cruel faces…
Daniel and Colonel O'Neill losing consciousness during the initial attack…
"Later," came Alamagor's voice, loud and filled with anger.
Disorientated, she sat up and scanned the room for the source of the voice. Slightly out of breath she sunk back into the couch as she realised that it had just been part of her dream. Despite it being the second time she had heard the voice, she still had no memory of it happening.
A cold shiver raced down her spine as she considered that maybe something had happened on P2X-739 that she could not remember and that could only be bad.
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So, please send some feedback my way, it's always good to know what you think!!
I hope to post chapter 11, the penultimate chapter, of Against the Wall either tomorrow or Wednesday, just as soon as I've put the finishing touches on it.