IV
"General?" Walter appeared in his office doorway.
"What's up, Walter?" Jack was feeling pretty good about himself. SG-1 had returned unscathed from a thoroughly uneventful mission, he'd managed to escape without Daniel telling him all about it, and his paperwork was finally almost caught up.
Well. The 'done' pile was a tiny fraction of an inch taller than the 'waiting' pile. Admittedly, that still left him a six-inch high stack to get working through, but he counted it a victory.
"SG-6 are an hour late for their scheduled check-in, sir."
Jack frowned fractionally. Normally anything up to four or five hours was little cause for alarm. Things came up. SG-6's current assignment was an uninhabited planet, but any mission where the scientists had free reign usually involved a certain amount of wandering off, losing track of time, and being too preoccupied to notice that the towering grey thunderheads across the horizon might, possibly, indicate some form of approaching weather condition. But still, Casey was usually conscientious.
He spun a pen on his desk pensively, deciding.
"Give it another hour," he told Walter finally. "If Casey hasn't called in by then, dial P2C-491 and find out why."
"Yes, sir." Walter nodded and departed.
As always, as the door swung shut, Jack was left with the chilling feeling that if there was something wrong, his decision to wait might have condemned a good man and his team to their deaths.
John turned to look back at Teyla in disbelief. "I thought you said these people were religious pacifists?"
They'd stumbled into the middle of... well, if he hadn't been certain that the Wraith would have taken steps to stomp out anything resembling college, he would probably have called it a frat party. A large gathering of Iaeronan natives dressed in ornate if camouflage-toned costumes were currently drinking, laughing, singing, wrestling, and generally having the kind of fun that tended to end around oh-four hundred with a desperate charge for the facilities.
Teyla smiled. "I said they were dedicated to their belief in the Cycle," she corrected. "To the Iaeronans, the hunt is a sacred duty, and one marked by much celebration."
"What do they hunt?" Ford asked, scanning the terrain around them warily. They'd all learned to step carefully around Pegasus Galaxy wildlife. People who'd lived for centuries under the threat of the Wraith could sometimes have... interesting ideas about what should be counted safe enough to get close to.
"At this time of year, they hunt beasts called hraka," Teyla supplied. "They are not predators, although they are large enough to be dangerous if startled."
"Oh, great. We're gonna be stamped to death by wild hraka." McKay looked pale, and he was still sweating from the hike. John made a mental note to get his fitness reassessed sometime, figure out if he needed some more intensive training. Actually, he should probably do that for all the scientists.
Boy would they love that.
Teyla stepped out and hailed a short, stocky man who looked hale and hearty despite his ragged shock of white hair. "Aethred! Greetings."
As always, John was momentarily conflicted. Teyla was used to leading her people, and while she fitted very smoothly into a team and followed their mission objectives perfectly, she didn't always look to him for confirmation before taking action. Which... okay, on the one hand, it wasn't like she was doing things he wouldn't have asked her to anyway, and he didn't want to be the anal military guy demanding to be consulted before anybody breathed; on the other, the need for a clear chain of command... It was complicated.
McKay, of course, didn't get the whole orders thing at all, and would argue them in any situation that didn't involve the likelihood of instant death - which was, God help them, a step above many of the other scientists. So really, John didn't so much have a command as he had Ford and a mini-democracy that accepted his authority if no better options presented themselves. But still, he was technically in charge, and that made him feel responsible.
He stepped forward to join Teyla.
"This is Major Sheppard, Lieutenant Ford, and Doctor McKay," she was just introducing. The little man - Aethred - bowed his head slightly, and made a little circle gesture with one hand.
"May the Cycle ever spin," he said politely.
"May you never have to switch it to economy wash," John responded gravely, nodding back. This seemed to satisfy as an answer, or at least not actively offend.
Aethred clapped his hands together. "Welcome, welcome! You have chosen the most blessed of times to visit our people. The hunt is about to begin! Please, you must join the celebration."
McKay stepped forward. "Well, actually, we were hoping you could-"
"-Talk to us about a few things, but we can get down to business after the party," John interrupted him. "Teyla, you know these people - why don't you and Ford go with Mr Aethred here. We'll just... hang around and mingle."
Teyla smiled in acknowledgement, but McKay gave him a dour look as the others moved off. "Major, while I'm sure you're hoping that these people and their apparent obsession with going round in circles will have defied all probability and invented the Ferris wheel before having an industrial revolution, it's hardly an efficient use of our time to-" He broke off to cough as a group of boys bearing smouldering torches charged past, and John took advantage of the moment to break in.
"Look, McKay, I know it's a radical idea, but how 'bout we try making nice with the bicycle people before we go asking them to give up their national treasures?"
"Oh, sure." McKay even managed to cough scathingly. "Isn't that what we always do? Inevitably followed by the part where they try to kill us."
John had to admit, he had a point.
He smiled pleasantly at the cavorting natives as they wandered through the festivities, but he still kept a loose grip on his weapon, and a wary eye on the other members of their team. The Iaeronans might be every bit as friendly as they seemed... but just in case they weren't, he stayed on guard.
"Sam!" A smiling Daniel appeared in the doorway of her lab, followed by an almost-smiling Teal'c. Their Jaffa teammate had lightened up considerably in recent months - Sam and Daniel were both fairly sure it was thanks to the strides made in freeing his people, whereas General O'Neill maintained it was because he now had hair - but it was still disconcerting to see him looking, well, cheerful. Sam couldn't help but grin back, despite the weighty matters on her mind.
"Hey guys, what's up?"
"Daniel Jackson was under the impression that you were in need of sustenance," Teal'c said, in that deadpan way that hadn't fooled her for years. There was definitely a suspicion of a smirk lurking around his mouth as a mountainous array of snack foods began appearing from her teammates' various pockets.
"Yeah, Sam, you've been holed up in here ever since we got back," Daniel said, snaffling one of the candy bars from the pile for himself. "I'm pretty sure those soil samples weren't that interesting."
"I thought those were for me," Sam protested archly, temporarily ignoring the fact that if her teammates actually expected her to consume everything they'd brought her she would end up the size of a house. Daniel shrugged innocently.
"Hey, I've been busy too."
"Any news of SG-6?" she asked, momentarily sobering, but she wasn't surprised when Daniel shook his head.
"We remain unable to dial in to P2C-491," said Teal'c gravely. Daniel glanced at them both.
"You think it's Baal?"
Sam sighed, leaning forward over the workbench. "It fits the MO," she admitted reluctantly. "The initial report mentioned structures of possible Ancient origin - that's why SG-6 were given the mission in the first place. And the last time Baal's Jaffa struck a site close to the gate, they kept the wormhole open while they scoped the place."
"They may not even know our people are there," Daniel suggested optimistically. "Colonel Casey would have pulled his team out of the way the moment they got an incoming wormhole, and it's pretty obvious that Baal is after something on one of the planets rather than specifically tracking our people."
"The trouble is, what?" Sam grimaced. "It's not like the Goa'uld to be in it for the pursuit of knowledge. Baal must have got wind of something he thinks he can use."
"At least we may take comfort in the fact that he does not appear to know where it is," Teal'c observed.
"Yeah." Daniel scratched his jaw. "The trouble is, he's got a lot more manpower to commit to this kind of search than the SGC's ever had."
"Both SG-11 and SG-14 reported that Baal accompanied his forces personally." Teal'c looked, to those select few who'd spent enough years with him to read the tiny hints of such expressions, rather smug. "I believe he can no longer trust that his Jaffa will remain loyal to him should they find something that would give them an advantage over the Goa'uld."
"That's probably why he's undertaking the search right now," Sam said. "His power base is eroding, and he's desperate enough to commit the last of his forces to the pursuit of something that could turn the tide."
"Let's hope it turns out to be a wild goose," said Daniel, smiling wryly. Rather than comment, Teal'c simply raised an austere eyebrow.
Daniel leaned forward, frowning down at the fax she'd been staring at until it made her eyes cross. "So anyway, what are you working on?"
She swivelled it round to face him. "This was faxed to an astrophysicist who has a loose connection to the SGC. It came from a teacher at a Colorado high school. Apparently, somewhere out there is a teenager with a good enough knowledge of wormhole physics to start doodling classified information on the edge of his science homework."
Daniel studied it for several moments, pursing his lips pensively. "Want to hear something really crazy?" he said, raising his eyes to meet hers. "I'm pretty sure this is Jack's handwriting."
"You think I did what?" Jack stared at his team from under lowered eyebrows.
"Not you, sir," Carter piped up helpfully. "Your clone."
Jack tapped the sheet of paper. "He wouldn't understand that equation. I don't understand that equation. Hell, I don't even understand the high school homework ones!" Not strictly true, but there was no need to muddy the waters.
Daniel folded his arms. "Well, good point, but... that is your handwriting."
"That... looks like my handwriting," he was forced to concede, screwing his face up.
"You believe there to be subterfuge at work, O'Neill?"
He snapped his fingers and pointed at Teal'c. "Yes, right. Exactly. What he said."
"You think it's a frame-up?" Carter looked sceptical. "Who'd benefit? It's a massive coincidence that it was forwarded to somebody with SGC connections at all."
"Not that massive," Daniel countered. "It's handed in to his science teacher, he's relatively likely to recognise the field or at least show it to someone who does. If we don't keep tabs on potential genius astrophysicists, the NID sure does."
"The NID's clean now," Carter said, and Jack snorted. Yeah, right, he'd believe that when- Well, come to think of it, he'd believe that never.
"What would the NID - or whatever quasi-conspiracy group is pretending to be them today-" he threw in to quell Carter's predictable objection, "-want with the kid?"
"He is, to all intents and purposes, you, O'Neill," Teal'c said.
"Hey, I am not sixteen!" he objected.
"Indeed you are not."
"Teal'c has a point," said Daniel. "Jack, your clone is you - only younger, physically easier to subdue, and a whole lot less likely to be missed."
"The failsafe the Asgard used to prevent a clone of you from growing to full maturity was to protect your genetic code," Carter reminded him. "Yours was the first example of the ATA gene they encountered, and you're still the only human to have had the knowledge of the Ancients downloaded into your head."
"Twice!" he felt obliged to point out.
"Only once at the time you were cloned, sir," she corrected. "Although the Asgard said they removed it all, if the process did leave any traces your clone would bear them too. Not to mention all the other things you've been through during your time at the SGC." She shuddered slightly, and Jack was reminded that she herself had once come unpleasantly close to being dissected to satisfy someone else's scientific curiosity.
He had to admit, things weren't looking too great for Jack O'Neill, junior edition. And although it was way weird to contemplate a miniature version of him running about the place, he wasn't exactly thrilled at the idea of his duplicate ending up on a slab somewhere, either. And not just because the mad scientists in question might decide to look up the original to do a compare and contrast.
"Okay," he sighed. "Carter, Daniel, go check out the school. The kid's going to make whoever we send in there, so we might as well make it somebody he'll trust. Find out what the hell Jon thinks he's up to, and try to figure out if anyone else there is doing the same thing."
"Jon?" Daniel raised a curious eyebrow.
Jack rolled his eyes. "He's keeping the name O'Neill. He might not look too much like me yet, but he's gonna, and it's better that we can pass him off up front as a cousin or something than have people start thinking I've been... sowing my wild oatmeal, et cetera." He had nightmares of his ex-wife running into the kid one day, and thinking- no, he was not going to go there. "Two Jack O'Neills in the system is too much potential for screw-ups, and he didn't want to change his name... seemed best to re-Christen him Jonathan so he could at least go by something I did, in the dim and distant past, actually answer to."
"The very dim and distant past," Daniel amended, smirking.
Jack glared, and then flicked his hands at them all. "Go on, shoo. And Daniel... just remember, I'm the one that gets to respond to the call if the two of you get arrested for stalking high schoolers."
Sometimes, being General had its up side.
The teenagers on Iaerona were pretty much the same as teenagers Ford had met on any planet anywhere. The game of choice here was zhiko, a complicated variant of frisbee played with multiple rings, but the antics going on in and around it were familiar enough from the basketball court that he quickly made himself at home.
"Teo Ford! Here!" Garven, one of the boys on his team, jumped and waved madly at the far end of the game field. Ford wasn't entirely sure what 'teo' was supposed to mean. According to Teyla, it was a friendly honorific used for talking to adults, but from her slight flicker of a smile he had a suspicion it might well mean something like 'one who is too old to be playing zhiko like a big kid'.
Oh, well, like that was anything new.
He tossed the ring to Garven, who almost fumbled it, and ended up falling on his back with it clutched to his chest. Somebody blew the horn that signified a point had been scored - Ford still wasn't sure how they were awarded, and was leaning toward the idea that the ref just gave them to anyone who did something he liked the look of - and then it blew again, twice over. Apparently, the game was over.
"Did we win?" he asked Besla, a tall skinny girl who looked about fourteen. She giggled at his silly question.
"Suka's team wins. Garven caught the blue ring for the fourth time, which means that it's out of play now, but Suka's team had already won the red and green rings, and together they're worth more."
"O-kay," said Ford, pretending that he got it. He joined the players for their post-match refreshments, which were a vaguely orangey fruit juice he'd have to warn McKay to avoid, and little flat seed cakes that were surprisingly non-horrible.
"Are your people here to join the hunt, Teo Ford?" Garven asked him, stealing three seed cakes at once.
The Iaeronans seemed like nice folks, although they'd been misled by that before. Still, Ford went with his instincts. "Uh, no, we actually came by to look at some crystals Teyla told us about. They were left by the Ancients- the Ancestors..."
"The people of the First Cycle," Garven supplied, beaming. "Yes, we have some of their things on display at the Hall of History. It is important to look at what went before."
Hall of History? That sounded sort of promising, and sort of not. "The things are just there to look at? No one uses them for anything?"
"Uses...?" Garven looked puzzled.
Besla was also frowning at him. "We cannot use the tools of older peoples," she said, in about the tone of voice you'd use to tell a small child that people couldn't fly. "That would be going against the Cycle."
Ford gave her a slightly sick smile. "Yeah. No going backwards. Of course. I get it."
He guessed they wouldn't be giving the full disclosure on what they wanted the crystals for, then.
Reynolds was shaking his head even as he descended from the ramp.
"Sorry, sir," he said as he came level with Jack. "The planet's deserted. No sign of SG-6; there's evidence of a fairly large party of Jaffa having passed through, but we can't say for certain that they're Baal's."
Jack pulled an unhappy face. "Who else has the manpower? ...Jaffa-power," he corrected himself lamely. Most of the old usual suspects had been sent off to the big old snake pit in the sky; Anubis was neutralised, Yu was by all accounts kinda losing it, and most of the remaining Goa'uld were nobodies like Camel-whatsit. No, it had to be Baal.
"They set off some kind of explosive in the ruins," Reynolds continued. "Doesn't look like it was one of ours, and Casey's scientists would have chewed their own feet off before they willing damaged structures left by the Ancients anyway."
"No sign that anyone was killed in the blast?" It was his unpleasant duty to ask. Reynolds shook his head.
"We found three dead Jaffa, all taken out by automatic weapons fire, and signs that somebody else was wounded." Jack grimaced. In situations like this, it would have been better to hear that their guys hadn't taken out any of the enemy, because at least that could mean they'd remained undetected.
"It's possible they rerouted to another planet if they were under heavy fire," Reynolds suggested, trying for optimism. Jack didn't respond.
They both knew that if SG-6 hadn't made it home under their own power by now, chances were they weren't ever going to.