Vala and Tomin stood on a plateau overlooking a large mountain range on the surface of Ortus Mallum. Vala glanced uneasily at the man who technically was still her husband. She noticed his pain-stricken and pensive demeanour. She asked, worried,
"You okay?"
Disturbed as his thoughts of the Ori continued, his feelings of seemingly endless guilt raged through his mind as he thought once again about how he had been duped by them, and had lost his wife's faith and trust in him in the process. He replied softly, "I was thinking about what this place really was."
She looked at him worriedly, and he asked, gazing at her sadly, "Vala... can you ever forgive me?"
She placed a hand on his shoulder and replied, looking as though she was in pain, "Tomin, don't. Not now. We'll talk about it later. I don't want you to be upset."
"How can I not be? Do you plan to wed Colonel Mitchell?"
She turned away from him and said, her voice low with the memories of not-quite-so-old pains and memories. "He can love me without hurting me."
"If I could relive that moment when I had struck you, I would not do it." Vala turned to face him, seeing the conviction in his eyes before he turned to look at the mountains again.
"Tomin." She held his hand. "You only have one chance to live... you can't keep thinking about what you could have done. All you can do now is think about what you will do rather than what you did. You're a wonderful man, Tomin, and I'm sure you'll make any woman very happy."
"If I had not..." He stalled, not sure of how to phrase the next words.
She shook her head. "I don't think so. Look, it's not your fault. To tell you the truth, it's me. I can't love you like that. And, hey, sure I'll go back to Ver Isca with you when all this is all over, but would it be fair to you if you love me and I can't return that love?" She raised and then patted their linked hands with her other hand. "I love you, Tomin, but not like that. You deserve someone who can and will love you like that though. And I enjoyed our time together. I just don't think we're right for each other." She gently kissed him on the cheek.
He gazed at her sadly once again. "You are only saying that because you believe that I am not worthy. You believe that I have not truly turned my back on those whom I once served."
She closed her eyes and muttered an expletive that Cam often uttered in times of stress and usually while off-duty, and she said, looking at him, envisioning a struggle in the near-future, "Tomin..."
Seemingly with renewed vigour, Tomin said, walking away from her, "Come, Vala, we must assist Daniel in searching for the Ark."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Daniel began to dig in a part of the wooded area that the team had beamed down to. Teal'c stood next to him with a scanning device, monitoring local atmospheric and energy readings. Neither for the first time, nor the last time, Daniel wondered, despite the clues and the feeling of almost being on the right track, whether it was all for nothing and whether perhaps he had dragged his friends out on a wild goose chase. At least they knew that the Ark had existed at one time or another. Whether it still existed was another matter.
He glanced back at Sam as she searched an area that was lower than the mound that he and Teal'c were on. While Cam was turned the other way to glare at Tomin and Vala as they held hands in the distance, Sam caught Daniel's eye and smiled briefly. Daniel smiled back and they both resumed their respective searches. Some minutes later, after hearing a radio crackle into life, Daniel ceased digging and he and Teal'c turned to look down at the two Colonels as an annoyed Cam shouted up at them,
"Jackson! Teal'c! We gotta go! Keep looking!"
Daniel, confused, asked as he looked from the team lead to his fiancée, "What's wrong?"
Sam replied, looking concerned, "Merek's up to something. He's turned on the Asgard core."
He tried to reassure her with his eyes but his own feelings were too mixed up to be of any good to himself, let alone her. He just blinked slower than usual, and her lips quirked up for the briefest of moments, the worry still in her eyes. Teal'c voiced a concern with regard to Merek's activation of the core, drawing the Archaeologist's attention momentarily to his other team-mate as he too tried to fathom Merek's reasons,
"That will alert the Ori ships to our presence."
Cam remarked, inwardly wishing that he had confined Merek to the brig for the duration of his temporary command, "Yeah, I think that's the idea. We got it. You guys... find the Ark." He called into his radio to Major Marks aboard the Odyssey, "Marks, transport Colonel Carter and myself back up to the ship now."
Daniel turned a little too quickly back to his digging as Teal'c resumed scanning. Seconds later, Cam and Sam disappeared in a burst of white light as Marks beamed them back up to the ship. Teal'c watched his friend for a long moment, and then simply said as he returned his attention back to his scanner, "We will overcome this tribulation, DanielJackson."
Daniel nodded but said nothing as he continued to dig, focussing his mind on the end goal and not the means by which to achieve the said goal. Teal'c patted him on the shoulder comfortingly and then looked back to see what Vala and Tomin were doing.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Daniel, Teal'c, Tomin and Vala resumed their progress along a tunnel that they had discovered earlier. They had only recently learned from an interrupted radio transmission from Cam aboard the Odyssey that the ship not only had a Replicator problem, but also that beaming them off the planet could take a while. These problems gave the team more time to search for the Ark, although whether the extra time would be sufficient was one factor of many that weighed heavily on the minds of the Archaeologist and his friends most of all. Daniel sighed as he held his flashlight up, he and Teal'c taking turns to lead the team through the rough-shod and treacherous, at times cramped and narrow terrain, taking care not to trip over pieces of rocky rubble that were strewn everywhere. They also kept their eye out for any potential tunnel collapses, considering that there already must have been at least one collapse in the past.
Eventually they reached a section which had been blocked up with boulders, and just as Daniel was about to suggest moving them manually, Vala looked at Teal'c. "What do you think, Muscles?"
Teal'c didn't say anything – as usual, his actions spoke louder than any words could.
He retrieved a block of C-4 and a detonator from a pocket of his combat vest. Daniel rolled his eyes briefly, thinking just how much of an effect Jack had had on the Jaffa, that now using highly powered explosives was second nature. He then realised the possible implications of setting off a large explosion in a cramped tunnel of unknown stability. As Teal'c began to arm the explosive, Daniel said by way of objection,
"Wait, wait, wait! You can't! We don't know how stable this tunnel is."
Teal'c immediately retorted in a way that usually had Daniel feeling undeniably foolish, and still had that same effect after so many years, "Shall we turn back, then, Daniel Jackson?" The expression on the Jaffa's face was a teasing challenge, but which also suggested that if there was another less risky way, he would forgo the use of explosives.
Following a moment's hesitation, as he considered just what was at stake, and how far they had already come to find the Ark, Daniel said, a touch of resignation in his voice, "Bombs away."
After Teal'c had detonated the C-4, and when the dust had settled, the team, from their hiding place, could see a path through the rest of the passage which had now been unblocked. They cautiously advanced, walking through the cleared gap in single file, knowing all too well that there was a chance that it could still collapse on top of them, or slightly less worse, separate them from the way that they had entered. With Teal'c taking point, they walked into a chamber, seeing dead tree roots and more stone.
Suddenly, Teal'c's attention was drawn to something in amidst a pile of rubble. He raised his flashlight, aiming the beam at an object barely visible underneath the stones that covered most of it. Not sure of what it was, but knowing that it was unusual for their otherwise barren and uninteresting surroundings, Teal'c called his friend.
"DanielJackson."
Daniel kneeled down beside the pile of stone, frowning as he readjusted his flashlight to get a better look at the object. Teal'c moved a large boulder that lie immediately on the object and Daniel removed some more rubble as Vala stood somewhere between his position and the entrance to the chamber, her P-90 close to her chest as she unconsciously imitated her absent fiancé. Daniel paused to gaze at a large dusty grey chest that was partially visible in amidst still more rubble.
As he gazed at the chest, he surmised that at some point in the past, there must have been a cave-in of the immediate surroundings. Suddenly, an image burned in his mind's eye, an image he had seen in previous visions – a flat topped mountain – perhaps a dormant volcano – collapsing in a large explosion. Snapping back to reality, he could barely contain his excitement. They had finally found it – armeria verimas – the Ark of Truth.
"This is it!"
Vala remarked none too kindly, recalling highly uncomfortable hours and days of excavations on Dakara, "Oh, you're sure this time?"
Daniel replied, wishing briefly that Sam could have been there to share the excitement of the moment with him, "Definitely. We found it."
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
Aboard the ship, Cam's triumph at shooting a Replicator was short-lived, the Colonel initially thinking that he had finally dispensed of the metallic creature that had been created and released by Merek earlier as part of the IOA's insurance policy for what they believed to be a futile quest on SG-1's part. Just as he reported this to Sam, and the ship's crew, he became aware of more Replicators in his vicinity; a lot more. He uttered an expletive and then made his way to a junction in the corridor where he could see a horde of Replicators scuttling towards him. The Colonel fired at them and began to run back towards a doorway as some of the Replicators exploded into their constituent blocks as others continued to come forth.
After a narrow escape from the doors almost closing on him, and Replicators attempting to pry the door open, Cam now lie on his back in a dark corridor. Breathing heavily from the harsh impact of his body against the floor, he called into his radio, "Hey, Sam! They seem to be living up to their name. There's definitely more than one at this point." Ignoring the pain in his back, shoulders and neck, or at least trying to, he closed his eyes and grimaced, not wanting to be out of action at such a critical stage of the impromptu mission.
Sam replied, sounding worried at the latest development, "How many?"
He retorted, feeling grumpy at the situation as well as a lot of other things, "A lot!"
The doors in front of him began to open, Replicators pouring through, and Cam groaned as he got up, running down the corridor as he resumed firing at them. As he did so, he heard Sam say,
"The original has probably converted into a queen by now."
Yes. Like that was a consolation just as he was running low on ammunition. Knowing that he would have to hide soon, he murmured into his radio as he continued to fire upon the Replicators, "Tell Vala I... Aw, hell, she knows." He continued to run and Sam said, trying to sound optimistic,
"Cam, stay focussed." She paused for a brief moment as though she was appearing to gather her thoughts. "The good news is that it's likely stationary..." He didn't hear the rest of what she had to say as he realised much to his dismay and frustration that he had finally run out of ammunition. Still running from the metallic multitude in pursuit, he cast his now useless firearm aside, sprinting faster now that he couldn't shoot. Gaining a lead on the Replicators, he switched his radio to 'silent' and dived into a doorway, closing it quickly before the pursuers reached his stretch of the corridor.