Out of Time
Part 5
Infection Plus Twelve Years
"Didn't I tell you to go to bed?"
Eyes that were as brown as her father's blinked back at her in feigned innocence.
"I guess I didn't hear you."
"Ahh," replied Sam with a knowing look. Jade threw her a grin. Oh yes. So very Jack. Even her mannerisms.
"Can I please stay up? It's hardly even dark out!" There was the slight whine in her voice that Sam was sure only eleven year old girls could pull off.
"May I please stay up," corrected Jack coming up behind her and tickling her. She squealed and twisted out of his grasp. "And no. You may not. Mom and I have work to do tonight."
Jade's eyes lit up.
"Are you planning another attack on the Aschen? Can I help?"
Sam saw Jack's face go taut. She understood too well. When she was eleven she'd been listening to ABBA and hoping for a ten-speed bike for her birthday, not volunteering to go on missions to help save the human race. On Chulak the only music were Jaffa battle songs and the only way to get from Point A to Point B was on foot, and even that had to be done with care. The refugee camps-turned-settlements were not all safe havens. When they'd opened the stargate and evacuated as many people as they could six years ago they hadn't exactly asked for resumes. The bad had come with the good. It was humanity, after all.
"No. You can not help. And don't ask us that again." Jack's voice was sharp, harsh. He was never that way with Jade. The girl blanched slightly at her father's tone and meekly said good-night, hurrying quickly out of Jack's sight.
Sam followed her back to her small bedroom and waited while she crawled into bed.
"Dad's mad," she told Sam pulling the blanket up tight around her chin.
"I think he just has had a very long day," Sam reasoned out. Jack did seem more on-edge than normal, but Jade didn't need to think that it had anything to do with her. "Now…no eavesdropping," she warned as she leaned over and kissed her, touching her lightly on the nose. Jade grinned. It was Jack again.
"It's not eavesdropping if you guys are talking loud and I can't help but hear it," she claimed. Sam narrowed her eyes.
"It is if you're sitting over there by the door with your ear pressed up against the gap instead of here in bed," she countered. "Now…no more getting up."
"What if I have to go to the bathroom?"
Sam sighed.
"Do you have to go to the bathroom?"
"No. But what if I do?"
"Good night, Jade."
"You didn't hug me."
Sam returned for the needed hug.
"Can I have some water?"
"No. Then you will have to go to the bathroom. Now, good night."
She waited a half a beat for at least one more request, but Jade seemed unable to come up with anything else. Turning down the lamp, Sam closed the door firmly behind her. Tonight's discussion really didn't need any extra ears.
"She asleep?" asked Jack when she joined him at the small table in the larger room that was both living room and kitchen. The dwelling had only two other rooms: a small bathroom, which in many ways was little more than an indoor outhouse, and another bed room. It was cozy, but better than what many others had. Ry'ac had insisted they take this dwelling, assuring them that his father would have wanted it no other way.
Sam still grieved for Teal'c. Somehow, when they'd arrived at the Alpha Site six years ago she had half-expected to find him there, waiting for them. When Reynolds told them he was dead…killed in battle with Anubis at a place called Dakarra…she had felt as though she'd lost one of the pillars in her life. Teal'c's quiet, stolid presence had been a rock for them. He'd learned long ago the truth about her feelings for Jack, and yet had never said a word to her in all those years, except to give her a place to go when she needed extra strength she could not find from within. She knew he would be pleased that, even in the nightmare their world had become, she and Jack had managed to finally be together. In some ways she'd been anticipating the look on his face when they told him—when he met Jade—when they, with Daniel, could be the odd sort of family they had been before.
Which was why his loss had had such a profound effect on her, compounding all the other losses from that time. She'd grieved for weeks, trying not to let Jack know. But then she'd seen that, in his own way, he was grieving too. As he had when Daniel had ascended and he wouldn't let anyone near him. With Teal'c though, she wouldn't let him be. Not this time. She couldn't. She'd needed him, damn it; and he had needed her, and she wasn't going to let him run and hide, like he had before. So she'd bullied him into talking about it. It hadn't exactly come pouring out. Jack simply wasn't the type. But it had helped. And things were better. Or at least as good as they could be, under the circumstances.
"No, but I think she'll stay put tonight," Sam answered, taking the cup of water Jack handed her and sipping it. In the blue evening light she noticed suddenly how much more silver his hair had become. Maybe it was just a trick of the light. Still, he looked tired and drawn. Shadows lurked beneath his eyes and she realized he hadn't shaved for a while. He'd been at the Alpha Site for three days, only getting home this afternoon. But he'd come bearing gifts: a supply of naquadah, some scavenged goa'uld bits and pieces of technology, a case of zat guns and, best of all, a small collection of books, which Jade had grabbed like a dog would a bone and, after kissing her dad repeatedly, had scurried off to add them to her growing stack. These were even in English—an added bonus, although when they arrived in other languages of the galaxy she and Daniel would spend hours pouring over them, translating them. It wasn't much of a classical education, but it was a nice change of pace from all the science and technology Sam tended to pour into her.
Jack ran his hands over his face and through his hair. It half stood on end in that mussed-up way that used to give her an overwhelming desire to ruffle it. A desire that hadn't exactly gone away, although she resisted it at the moment. There was a mission to plan.
"Reynolds says they've got some intel on a cache of goa'uld weapons on some planet." He pulled out a piece of paper and pushed it across the table to her. "P5X-776. Word is that they're Ba'al's. Apparently he's got these little arsenals seeded all around the galaxy, just in case things between him and Anubis don't quite work out."
"They've worked out all these years, why should that change?"
Jack shrugged.
"They're snakes. Back-stabbing is just part of what they do, I guess."
"Well, if we know about it, I can't imagine that Anubis doesn't."
"Yeah. I thought that too. Maybe he's just so damned powerful now, Ba'al's little delusions of grandeur don't even make him bat an eye."
"Or the intel is false."
"And I thought of that too."
"A trap."
"Yeah. A trap."
"By who? The Aschen? It's not their style."
"Neither was bombarding a planet."
Sam had to give him that. She bit her lip and nodded. Thinking.
"Anubis, then? Although I don't know why. We're hardly a threat."
"No. But we are a pain in the ass. And when a mosquito bites you enough times, you finally swat it."
"So…do we go after it, or wait until we get confirmation?"
"Confirmation is going to be hard. The way Reynolds tells it, the temple where the cache is hidden is home to a sect of Jaffa priests. The warriors stationed there are ostensibly to protect them. The only way we're going to know for sure is if we go in."
"And if it's a trap…."
"Then we'll be screwed."
Sam sighed.
"Not much of a choice, is there? We need more weapons."
"Yeah. Not much of a choice," he echoed her. They were both silent for a few moments. Jack was staring out the small window at the growing darkness. He seemed uncharacteristically pensive. Something was going on with him. Something apart from the mission.
"Jack…what's wrong?"
He looked at her startled, as if he'd forgotten she was there.
"Nothing," he answered, after it finally seemed to register with him what she had asked. "Nothing's wrong."
She tried to give him her best "Don't give me that crap" look, but he'd turned back to the window. It was probably best if she dropped it. There was no getting him to talk if he didn't want to.
"So…when do we go?" she asked, trying to draw him back to the topic. He acted like she'd startled him again.
"Huh? Oh…day after tomorrow. SG-3 and SG-4 will be our back-up. They'll go by gate. We'll take the tel'tak so we can ring up the weapons and save everyone an aching back."
"Plus it gives us two routes of escape, if we need it."
"Yup."
Sam nodded.
"Sounds like a plan," she said. "Did Reynolds provide intel on what we're likely to find there, aside from some Jaffa priests, that is?"
"Yeah. Here. Look it over." He fished in his pocket and found a small SD card. Sam went for her laptop. The thing was ancient and beat-up and she'd built and rebuilt it almost a dozen times, developing the interface needed to power it off the naquadah generators she'd also built; but it worked, and that was all that mattered. It wasn't like she could waltz down to her corner computer store and just pick up a new one. She slid the card into the slot and waited for Reynold's report to pop up.
The card was blank.
"Jack are you sure…." She looked up, but he was looking out the window again, paying no attention to her. His hand was holding one knee…the one that gave him the most trouble. The one he'd been obviously favoring since he got back from the Alpha Site.
"Jack…?"
He finally turned to her, again, almost surprised to see her there.
"I'm sorry—what?"
She came over and squatted in front of him, covering the hand that was on the bothersome knee.
"What's going on?" she asked quietly.
A shadow passed over his face. The one that came when she knew he was going to shut down, shut her out. There was a hardness to his eyes and in them she saw none of the warmth he usually held for her there.
"Nothing. I'm fine."
The edge to his voice alone would have convinced her of exactly the opposite, even if she didn't have almost twenty years of experience with the man.
"I don't think so," she pushed. She could either leave him to brood or try to draw him out. Brooding, she knew, led him to even darker places. She wouldn't let him go there alone…not if she could help it.
"Is it the mission? If you've got some hunch you're not telling me about…."
"No. The mission is a go. We need that ordinance."
Sam bit her lip and nodded, wracking her brain for what else could be eating him.
"How were things at the Alpha Site?"
He gave a short, derisive snort.
"Oh, swell. They allowed another group of refugees through the gate last week, so Tent City is at full capacity again. Pierce has got to learn to say 'no'."
"That's hard to do when it's mostly our fault that the virus spread all across the galaxy," replied Sam.
"Well…at least their planets didn't get turned to giant bombed-out dustbowls because of it. I don't know what they expect us to do for them. We're barely hanging on ourselves." His voice was hard. Unyielding. "And it's not our fault," he added, vehemently. "It's the damned Aschen. They did this. Not us."
She had no come-back for that. It was true—their only culpability was in their ignorance at the beginning, and not confining the off-world teams to the Alpha Site. It had only taken a few years for the virus to spread to all the human populations across the galaxy. So far they hadn't come across a single planet that had been spared.
" No…but if anyone can make a difference…."
He interrupted her.
"Come on, Sam…we're nothing more than a bunch of damned rats, scavenging for the garbage in the goa'uld's back alleys."
The bitterness in his voice took her aback. She let her hand slide off his and sat back up in the chair, watching him.
"We do what we have to do to survive," she reminded him.
"Yeah. I guess." The flash of anger had faded. He was back in brooding mode.
"What choice do we have?"
There was a moment before he answered.
"We could stop."
He said it quietly. So quietly she hardly thought she'd heard him. But she had.
"Stop? What…you mean, give up?" She couldn't help sound incredulous. Jack O'Neill never gave up.
"Stop. As in—stop. Take the life we have and be happy with it. Stop before we lose what we already have, instead of trying to get something that, in the long run, won't make a damn bit of difference anyway."
Sam was silent. Pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. There was always risk on one of these raids, whether it was against the goa'uld or the Aschen. Just as there was always the possibility that their sanctuaries, here on Chulak and at the Alpha Site, would be discovered. One well-aimed blast, one Aschen spy…and it would all be gone. But they'd always agreed that it was worth it, if it meant the safety of their people and a chance for the human race to persevere, in spite of the deathly blow it had been dealt.
Still, she didn't think either she or Jack had been prepared to see their child stand there and offer to fight beside them. It had disturbed her, she had to admit and it must have hit Jack even harder. They did what they did so that one day Jade could maybe live without the fear she'd had to grow up with. The possibility that she would ever have to step in and take their place had been something they both had tried to push far from their conscious thoughts. Tonight, seeing her standing there, offering to go with them, the likelihood of that happening had come a whole lot closer.
And now she understood. Now she knew the dark place where Jack had gone. It was the place where he lost yet another child. The place she lived in cold fear of herself, ever since that day she'd searched the ruins of Peterson with terror in her heart.
But he didn't need to know that. His own demons were burden enough.
Besides. She refused to completely abandon all hope.
"It might make a difference," she insisted gently. "Who's to say there isn't some way to undo this. We can't stop, Jack. If we give up…then it is over—for you, for me, for Jade—all of us. The Aschen will have won. I don't know about you, but I can't let that happen, even if it's with my last breath."
She'd taken his hand again, without realizing it. He'd gone back to staring at the window; by the working of his jaw she could see the things he could not say.
"Yeah," he said finally. "Me either."
He reached into his pocket and fumbled for something. Another SD card. He met her gaze as he handed it to her. The shadow over his eyes was gone.
"Here. Try this one. Reynolds said the place was like a maze. If that's the case, we'd better start figuring out how to leave a trail of bread crumbs."
OOOO
It was a trap. He'd known it was a trap—felt it in his gut from the moment Reynolds had laid it out for him.
And surprise. He was right.
He hated being right.
He wasn't sure what irked him more…the fact that he'd led his people into it anyway, or the fact that there was no weapons stash to be had. If they got out of this alive, he'd pick one. At the moment though, it hardly mattered.
He peered around the corner of the moss-covered stone pylon and looked for Carter. He caught a glimpse of movement, more of a shadow, really, from where he'd known her last position to be. He didn't risk calling to her to give their positions away, so he had to assume she was okay. He couldn't allow himself to think otherwise.
They'd been trying to get out of this hell-hole for forty-five minutes. It was like a damn fun house at the circus. Nothing was where it was supposed to be. Some goa'uld's idea of sick fun, probably. He'd have to ask Daniel about it when they got back.
If they got back.
They'd only taken a couple of the Kull disruptors with them, just as a precaution. Part of him hadn't wanted to believe it was a trap, and the damn things were too hard to come by to issue them to everyone. So they'd only had two, mounted atop their P90s. And neither he nor Carter had one. Which was why they weren't being particularly successful in taking down the Kull Warriors who were stalking them. And which was why it would be a better strategy to just get the hell out of there than to stand and fight. The only thing they seemed to be lacking was a giant "EXIT" sign pointing to exactly where it was they were supposed to go. It would have made everything so much easier.
In his periphery he saw that shadow again. Yes. It was Carter. He tried not to pay attention to the fact that his stomach lurched with relief that she was still in one piece. He leaned out further and she obviously saw him too. She gave him a tight smile and a curt nod before indicating that she could see two Kulls from her position. Their two friends, who'd been hunting them relentlessly through this mess of a maze.
It wasn't like they hadn't left their trail of breadcrumbs. Sam had chalked the walls as they went, indicating the way in and hence the way out. What she hadn't counted on—what none of them had counted on—was the walls changing position. The way in suddenly was not the way out. They were like rats in a damned maze, and he couldn't shake the feeling that some goa'uld somewhere was laughing his damned ass off watching them try to outsmart it.
And they'd gotten separated on top of it. Reynolds and his team—Sheppard and his. Jack had ordered them back to the gate while he and Carter and their two rookie tag-a-longs high-tailed it back toward the ring platform.
Now the rookies were dead. Edmonds had been crushed when one of the pillars had been shattered, raining chunks of stone down on him. Huetzel had taken a direct hit as she'd tried to run for cover. Neither of them had had the training they should have had to come on a mission like this, and Jack blamed himself for that. But then this was supposed to have been simple grand larceny, not a fight to the death.
Yeah. He hated being right.
And he hated being pinned down here, having no where to go, waiting for those damned Darth Vader wannabes to find him and Carter. He could tell from her position she had no place to go either except straight into the line of fire. She was trapped, just like him.
The only difference was, if he could provide some sort of distraction, she would probably be able to get out of there. He, on the other hand, wasn't going anywhere. Not with this knee.
The damned thing had finally given out. He'd wrenched it a few days before at the Alpha Site trying to be more agile than he was. He'd sucked it up then. Couldn't let the lower ranks think the old man couldn't keep up. Still…what he wouldn't give for some arthroscopic surgery about now. It had been on his to-do list after he'd taken command of the SGC. Right after solving that jello crisis. Oh. And kicking Anubis' ass. But it seemed the Aschen had other plans for him. And there wasn't a orthopedic surgeon in sight these days, so he had just made do the best he could.
But the knee was blown this time. There was no way he could put any weight on it. He couldn't make it out of here on his own if those Kull Warriors had rolled out a red carpet for him. And since red carpets were probably the furthest thing from the drones' puny minds, making it out under heavy fire—even if he knew where to go—wasn't even an option.
But Carter could make it. Alone. Without having to drag his sorry ass with her. The trick would be getting her to go and keeping her from realizing he wasn't right behind her. If she suspected…if she had any inkling, he knew she wouldn't budge. So he had to sell it. And sell it good.
He could hear the methodical creaking of the armor as their pursuers steadily approached. God what he'd give for one of those disruptors about now. Aw hell. He might just as well wish for an Asgard beam-out. Both were just as likely to happen. Still, he did have a couple of grenades. They wouldn't inflict any serious damage on Laurel and Hardy but they would distract them for a few seconds. Enough for Carter to scramble out of her cover and make a break for the ring room, wherever the hell it was.
He made a motion to get her attention. A few hand signals and she understood…and was shaking her head vehemently "no". Crap. Just when had she gotten so damned insubordinate? There was a time was when she'd do what he told her to without question. Living together for eleven years had really taken the edge off of his authority. If he actually thought he might make it out of here, he'd have given her a good talking to, CO to 2IC. Not that that was looking particularly likely at the moment. But he was determined she was going to make it, no matter what she said.
He made the signals again, this time adding what he hoped was an insistent enough look to get her to do as he said. Again she shook her head no. Damn it, anyway! The pair were getting closer. If they didn't do this now, they'd be on them in a few seconds and both of them were done for. That was unacceptable. One of them had to make it back. Sam had to make it back.
Taking a deep steadying breath, he shifted position so she could see him better and he could show her that he had the grenade in his hand ready to launch. His foot caught on the edge of the crumbling base of the pillar sending a scattering of stone and debris across the floor. In the silence of the tunnel it might as well have been a siren. The Kulls stopped and Jack could hear the whirring of their weapons being brought to bear on his position.
Damn. This was it.
A shot.
Two.
Except not at him.
He rounded quickly on his hip to look in Sam's direction, expecting the worst, but she too was hunkered against her barricade, tense, as if she was the one expecting the blast. There were two nearly simultaneous thumps, as of bodies hitting the ground, and then silence.
"It's safe, General. Colonel. You can come out now."
Jack glanced at Sam and saw her lean her head back against her rock and sigh with relief. They both recognized the voice.
Jack struggled to his feet, using the pillar for support.
"Sheppard…what the hell are you doing? Didn't I order you and Reynolds back to the gate?"
The lanky major hefted his modified P90 and walked over to where the two Kull Warriors now lay motionless on the ground. He prodded each one with this toe and then nodded as if satisfied. Looking up in Jack's direction he grinned.
"It's good to see you too, sir. And you're welcome."
"Hmmph," muttered Jack, loud enough for Sheppard to hear. "We had the situation under control." He tossed a look in Carter's direction and saw that she was on her feet now, looking gratefully at Sheppard. "Or we would have…in a couple of seconds…" he added, noticing the long-suffering look Carter was now giving him.
"Thanks, Major," she told Sheppard. "We appreciate it, don't we, sir?"
"Well…it did save us having to use a grenade. So…yeah. Thanks. Now why the hell are you here and not already back at the Alpha Site?"
"We doubled back once we took out the guys who were on our tail. Figured maybe since you didn't have the disruptors you could use a little help."
"So where's Reynolds?" asked Jack. Sheppard jerked his head in the opposite direction.
"Through the gate. With SG3 and 4."
"So…you doubled back. Alone," clarified Carter, walking over to where Sheppard stood, dusting off her clothes. The major looked sheepish.
"Well…yeah. Maybe," he admitted.
Carter looked his way, he could see she was trying to hide a smile.
"I'm sorry…does it say 'General' anywhere on my uniform?" Jack asked in mock sarcasm. Damned fool. Damned lucky fool. And damned lucky for them too. He saw Sheppard grin.
Carter was studying her handheld again. It had supposedly held the map to the place, for all the good it had done. He saw a frown crease her forehead before her eyebrows shot up in surprise as she pressed a couple of buttons.
"I think I've found our way out of here," she said excitedly.
"The rings?" asked Sheppard, peering over her shoulder. Jack had no choice but to stay where he was. They'd find out soon enough he was lame.
"See…now I understand what these are. I didn't know what they meant before. But these are the moveable walls. If I do this…." She futzed with some more buttons. Jack tried a little weight on the knee and felt a pain that brought to mind words that would have made a Marine blush. Fortunately the pair pouring over the diagram didn't notice.
"There!" exclaimed Sam with satisfaction. "We were headed in the right direction after all. I think the ring room is down this corridor about three hundred meters." She pointed in the direction they had been heading before they'd been forced to take cover. Good. At least he wouldn't have to tramp all over this god-forsaken maze again.
"There more of our friends out there?" he asked Sheppard, indicating the way back through the maze. Sheppard glanced in that direction too.
"Yeah. I wouldn't stick around here too long if we can help it."
"This way," said Sam, heading off in the direction she'd pointed. She'd gone a few meters past him when she must have realized he wasn't joining them.
"Sir?" she asked, stopping and turning. Jack winced. Time to fess up.
"Yeah. Well. I've got a bit of a problem, you could say." He hopped forward a couple of steps, still holding onto the pillar for support. "The knee is kinda shot to hell."
Sam was there in an instant.
"What happened?" She'd squatted down and was trying to examine his leg, gingerly poking it with her finger. It took everything he had not to scream.
"That's…ow!" He couldn't help it. He saw her wince in apology as she stood up.
"Sorry."
"Yeah. It's okay. Just…a little tender, ya know?" He tried to say it without sounding in pain but his words kept coming out in little gaspy spurts. He could see in Sam's eyes that she was worried now. When she finally put two and two together and figured out he'd been going to stay behind while he had her run for it, there was going to be hell to pay.
"We do need to move, sir," Sheppard said coming over. The major was throwing concerned looks back in the direction the warriors had come from. He was probably right. Standing around here examining his torn cartilage would only get them all killed. Time to hobble on.
As much as he hated to, he allowed Sheppard to take his weight. A giant ice pack would feel good about now. And some nice pain meds. Neither of which were available on Chulak, unfortunately. He'd have to settle for some kind of Jaffa herb voodoo. Tasted like crap, but it did pack a hell of a punch. At least as much as he remembered, the last time he'd needed it.
They followed Carter down the corridor. Maybe it was his ears playing tricks on him, but he could have sworn he heard the creaking of Kull Warrior armor coming up behind them. Sheppard was moving him along at a comfortable speed, but they needed to pick up the pace.
"Faster, Major," he muttered, finally glancing over his shoulder. He couldn't see anything, but that really didn't mean a thing. He saw a flicker of concern on Sheppard's face. He too glanced over his shoulder.
"Yeah. I think you're right."
They moved along a little quicker. It hurt like hell, but really, when he considered the other option, pain was not a bad choice. Up ahead Cater turned a corner. A few seconds later they followed her.
It was the ring room.
Now they could definitely hear the sound of Kull Warriors coming behind them. Not just one or two, but maybe a whole squad of them. Creaking in unison, like they could have used an oil can or something.
"Get us out of here, Colonel," he murmured to Carter. She was working the controls. Sheppard centered them in the circles on the floor. The creaking was getting closer.
"Carter…" he growled when she didn't move from the panel. She was scowling. He hated it when she scowled. It never boded well.
"Sorry, sir…it's just…oh wait…there," she said with satisfaction. Moving swiftly she joined them in the center of the circle. The creaking was damned loud now. Any second and…
The rings activated. Dark forms appeared through the horizontal lines that surrounded him and then they vanished. The next thing he saw was the cargo hold of the tel'tak and Daniel standing there frowning at them.
"What took you guys so long? I was starting to get worried."
"Ran into a little trouble—but nothing we couldn't handle," reported Sheppard, helping Jack over to a seat on a crate.
"I can see that…" said Daniel, eyeing Jack appraisingly. "So…where are the weapons?"
"Just…get us the hell out of here, would you?" Jack barked. "And be careful…we might have some goa'uld on our tail. Carter…go make sure he doesn't fly us into a mothership or something."
He saw her give him a quizzical look, but nodded and followed Daniel to the flight deck. Sheppard had developed a sudden interest in his P90.
"Hey." Like it or not, Sheppard had saved their butts. "I owe you for that one. Thanks."
Sheppard glanced up and gave him a lop-sided grin.
"Actually, I think that's two you owe me, General. There was that sweet piece of flying with that drone in Antarctica."
"Ah. Yes. Well. Put it on my tab. And find a med kit, will ya? There's got to be a vial of morphine somewhere on this ancient tub."
OOOO
"Reynolds? Pierce? Mitchell?"
Sheppard's face was gray as a ghost. He looked like hell. He looked like Jack felt.
"Yes, sir. Everyone. The whole place. Whatever it was must have packed the same kind of punch as a nuclear warhead…and it was a pinpoint strike. The mountain was pretty much rubble. The gate's buried. No way anyone is digging that one out."
"What about the civilians?" Beside him Sam was ashen too. When they'd returned from P5X-776 they'd tried to contact the Alpha Site. The wormhole wouldn't lock so Sheppard had taken the tel'tak and gone to investigate. It had taken almost a week and a half by ship. They'd feared the worst, and it looked like they'd been right.
Sheppard was shaking his head, looking at his hands.
"Maybe a few escaped…fled up into the mountains. I don't know. I couldn't spot any, and I did a few low and slows over the nearby terrain…at least as far as I thought anyone could get by foot in that amount of time. I didn't see any signs of life."
"Oh my god," murmured Sam, her voice catching. Jack put his hand on her back. He knew what she was thinking. Over half of the civilians they'd evacuated from earth had opted to settle at the Alpha Site. If they were all dead….
"Who did it? The goa'uld? The Aschen?" he asked.
Sheppard grimaced.
"The residual energy signatures were consistent with Aschen weapons fire. They found us, sir. Plain and simple."
Jack felt his gut clench. If the Alpha Site had been compromised, it was possible Chulak was too. Any moment Aschen ships could start bombarding the planet. They were sitting ducks.
He could see Sam was thinking the same thing. And he knew what she was going to say.
"We should think about implementing the evacuation plan."
Yep. That was it.
When they'd first come to Chulak, after it was pretty clear that the Alpha Site would not be able to accommodate all the refugees, they'd sat down and devised a plan to move people again if they needed to. He'd been damned if he was going to find himself in a situation where he had to be responsible for relocating people again without a better strategy than the seat of the pants effort they'd used to get off earth or to get to Chulak. So they'd worked out a plan, in the event they ever had to beat a hasty retreat one more time.
It looked like it was time to put that plan into play.
He moved to stand up and didn't get very far.
Okay. So he'd have to put it into play from where he sat. There was still no going anywhere on that knee.
"Find a planet," he told Sam. "In fact…find us two planets. No sense in putting all our eggs in one basket."
"I've already green-listed about a dozen," she replied, noticing, he was sure, his failed effort to get up. "I'll pick a handful. John can take some people and check them out."
"I don't think the Aschen are coming here," Sheppard interrupted. "I don't think we need to evacuate…just yet."
"Why not?" Sam asked him. "You can't think it was just a random coincidence that of all the millions of planet in the galaxy they were able to find the Alpha Site?"
"No…I don't. But I don't think it happened like you're assuming it did."
Jack looked at Sam to see if she was getting what Sheppard meant. He was gratified to see that she still looked as unenlightened as he felt.
"You're thinking we were compromised by a spy maybe," Sheppard continued. "Or one of our off-world traders…or maybe they captured someone and got them to spill the beans about our location."
"And you don't?" Jack replied, archly. Sheppard shook his head.
"No sir. I think it was the mission to P5X-776. It was a set-up."
"Yeah. That we pretty much had figured out when the Kull Warriors started shooting at us."
To his credit, Jack thought, Sheppard didn't even look annoyed at his tone. But then he remembered that the guy used to hang out with that royal pain in the ass McKay at the Alpha Site. Obviously blatant sarcasm didn't phase him one bit.
"I don't think it was Anubis, though—I'll bet anything it was the Aschen. And when Reynolds and the others gated back to the Alpha Site, they got the coordinates from there. We came back in the tel'tak. They weren't expecting that, so they have no clue where we went."
Jack looked at Sam to see what she thought of Sheppard's theory. If they didn't have to evacuate twenty-thousand people, life would get instantly less complicated.
"It's possible the Aschen got their hands on some super-soldiers," she conceded after considering it for a moment. "I mean—the biggest problem we've had in fighting them is that their technology is so far ahead of ours—so I guess it's conceivable that they may have reprogrammed a few of Anubis' warriors. I wouldn't put it past them."
She looked at Jack. And yeah. He could practically read her thoughts again. Moving all those people was no small task. They'd finally settled into a sort of life here on Chulak. Not normal, exactly, but then nothing was ever going to be normal again. At least not how he defined normal. If they disrupted what they had—if they separated people again and sent them to different planets, it would be like starting all over again. He wasn't sure how many restarts they had left in them.
He wasn't sure how many restarts he had left in himself.
And yet…if they were wrong? That was in Sam's look too. Did they dare risk the entire colony on the assumption that the Aschen had traced the humans only to the Alpha Site and not here to Chulak? If they did…and they were wrong…they'd worked too hard—sacrificed too much—to let that happen either.
Still…Sheppard's theory had merit. If the Aschen had intended to attack Chulak, they'd have done it already. The major had made it to the Alpha Site and back and no Aschen warships had shown up in the meantime. In itself, that was a pretty strong case.
Jack wished he could stand up and walk around. This immobility was driving him nuts. He thought better when he moved. Damn knee anyway.
"Fine," he sighed. "We'll do it your way. If they were coming, we'll assume they'd have been here by now. We'll stay put. But I want that list of planets narrowed down," he told the major. "Take some people and see what our best options are. If we need to get out of here in a hurry, I want to know where exactly it is we're headed."
Sheppard nodded. He was looking a little better. Giving a guy like him a mission was always a good idea. It would take his mind off the fact that everyone he knew at the Alpha Site was gone. Jack half-envied him the recon—he'd like to take his mind off that fact too.
When the major had left, he turned to Sam. She seemed lost in thought.
"You okay?" he asked quietly. The room suddenly seemed deathly silent. Daniel had taken Jade on what he liked to call a "field trip". In point of fact, Jack knew it was Daniel's way of giving him and Sam some private time together. Something he'd actually been looking forward to, the knee notwithstanding—at least until Sheppard had shown up.
"Yeah," she replied wearily. "I mean…no. I mean…I'm just so tired of it all, Jack. Just when we think we've gotten on our feet again—this happens. They're never going to rest until we're all dead, are they? Every last one of us."
He put his arm around her and she leaned back into his shoulder. It was the only thing he knew to do. She'd figured out years ago that he was never good at this stuff. Besides, there wasn't anything he could say that would make her feel better anyway. They both knew that what she'd said was the truth. The Aschen would hunt them until they were all dead. They were damn well patient enough for it.
Well, he wasn't.
Their little hit and run tactics against the odd Aschen vessel hadn't done them a damn bit of good. It was time to aim for a higher goal.
And different tactics.
It came to Jack what they had that the Aschen didn't.
Nothing to lose.
Something made him pull Sam closer, hold her tighter.
It was time for an all-out war.
-o-o-o-o-
Time Incursion #10
Infection Minus Fourteen Days
"So…after you evacuated earth, where did you go?"
"At first, the Alpha Site. But it was so crowded and conditions were so bad that some of us relocated to Chulak. We set up a refugee camp there…after a while it was a settlement. The Free Jaffa were the only ones who welcomed us. Other planets weren't so hospitable."
"We've had some good relationships with a lot of other planets…I would have thought that would have come into play."
She had to stifle a humorless laugh.
"Well…it's always a question of 'what have you done for me lately' isn't it? When the symptoms were first detected on earth, all off-world travel was suspended. Because they didn't know the source at first, SG teams were sent to the Alpha Site. They ended up staying there because some of the brilliant higher-ups decided that the best thing to do was to mothball the stargate and strand those people there. Which, it turned out, was the worst thing they could have done."
"Why was that?"
"Because they were already infected. And as they continued to travel to other worlds from the Alpha Site in search of supplies and support, they spread the bioweapon. Every planet they stepped foot on became a victim as well. Before long, humans all across the galaxy were exposed. It was a pandemic of galactic proportions. Humans were on their way to becoming extinct. People didn't exactly haul out the welcome wagon after that."
"Except for Chulak."
She shrugged.
"Yeah. That whole killing Apophis thing carried a lot of weight with them. And besides, they didn't have the same issues with the food supply as earth had. There was just enough of a genetic difference to protect their planet. So we did okay. We even started to fight back. Some of the SGC and military personnel began to plan missions against the goa'uld or the Aschen. Others were sent to find trading partners so that we could get a regular food supply. By the time we'd left earth…well…things were pretty lean. I don't think those who were left behind lasted long after the stargate closed. I was back once…it wasn't a sight for the faint of heart."
She shuddered. They'd gone back once, trying to scavenge any technology they could. She felt like one of the crows they'd discovered there, picking at the carcass of a civilization. It had given her nightmares for months. But she had never told the Commander. Not that he would have cared anyway.
"Why didn't you just leave well enough alone, once you got to Chulak? Why antagonize the goa'uld or the Aschen?" Barrett wanted to know.
"Well…the hits on the goa'uld were more for supplies and technologies. We came through the gate without a lot of gadgets and gizmos. We had to sort of start from scratch. It's hard to ask people who've been used to using computers to make do with parchment and quill pens, if you know what I mean."
"You stole from the goa'uld?"
She couldn't help a bit of a grin.
"Sort of poetic justice, don't you think…considering they stole all their technology from someone else?"
Barrett said nothing for a while but took more notes. Finally he looked up again.
"What about the Aschen? If they'd bombarded earth wouldn't they have assumed we were pretty much wiped out?"
She shook her head.
"No. I mean…it might have taken them a while to figure it out, but they're no dunces. They started to hunt us down. The ships that had left earth had gone to unpopulated planets. The rest of us were on Chulak...or at the Alpha Site. The Aschen started to hunt us down. The Alpha Site was taken out first."
More memories. Damn it.
"While you were on Chulak?"
"Yeah."
"You do seem to have an inordinate amount of luck, don't you." She heard the tone of voice as he spoke. No. Not again. She thought she'd done so well this time! Now she only had one more chance. One more try to get it fixed before the Commander stepped in.
She put her head down on the table. If she'd been the type of person who was so inclined, she could have cried.