Chapter 9 The Naquadria Incident
The George Hammond arrived back in Earth's orbit a day or so later. Vala was transferred straight to the infirmary, where Carolyn insisted on keeping her for another three weeks.
Most of the time she spent either eating or asleep. Daniel couldn't believe how much food she could put away, now that she was feeling better.
"I'm making up for lost time," she told him, noshing her way through a huge bowl of chocolate ice-cream. She rapped the back of his hand as he stole a smidgeon on the end of his finger and popped it into his mouth. "Besides, Carolyn says that I have to put weight on."
Vala had been so thin and frail when he'd brought her home that the doctor had flatly refused to discharge her until she'd put at least five pounds on in weight. The alien had viewed this as an invitation to consume as much chocolate and ice-cream as she could get her hands on.
Almost four weeks after the fateful trip on the Hammond, Carolyn caught Daniel on his way into the infirmary one evening and told him that she'd discharged Vala.
"But you must keep an eye on her," she told him, firmly. The doctor folded her arms, frowning. "She's on stand down for another two weeks at least, and I want to give her a full check up again before anyone, especially her, decides that she's well enough to go running through Stargates. Is that understood?"
The archaeologist nodded, slightly cowered by Dr Lam's rather severe outburst.
She smiled, relaxing a little. "Sorry, Daniel, but you know what she's like. Keep her away from the gym too – no physical exertion at all, okay? She'll burst open those wounds – they've only just healed. And no going off the mountain – at all! Not even to your place – is that understood? She's grounded!"
With an understanding nod Daniel backed away. "Absolutely, Carolyn, absolutely. And perhaps you should get some rest too?"
She grinned and threw a pen at him. "Point taken. Now get out of here and keep an eye on your girlfriend!"
Vala was sitting on the couch in his office when he found her, hugging the orange giraffe tightly. Her face was buried in it's neck. He thought at first that she was crying but realised as he sat down next to her that she was sniffing it.
"I missed it," she whispered, a little bit weepy but mostly smiling. "I forgot how it smelled. It reminds of home. I mean, this home. SGC home. My proper home now."
She rubbed her face against it's furry body. "Thank you, Daniel." Vala leaned up against him.
"You're welcome." He kissed the top of her head. At this precise moment, he thought that he must be the happiest man in the world.
"Daniel?" she whispered, looking up at him through her lashes.
"Mmm?"
"Can I please put the TV on?"
And so the next couple of weeks went by – Sam came by briefly in the Hammond, which cheered the mountain-bound alien immensely. The blonde colonel whisked her away from Daniel to the cafeteria, and then back to Vala's own quarters where they spent the rest of the evening watching Teal'c's Farscape DVDs' and eating popcorn.
The Jaffa himself had returned to Dakara for a time, catching up on all that had been happening there in his short absence.
Mitchell went off with SG-5 for a while – he tended to go a bit stir crazy if he was cooped up in the mountain for too long.
And the long suffering Dr Jackson did as much fiddling about with his antiques as he could, in between chasing his girlfriend and team-mate around the corridors of the SGC.
He had to admit that she was actually a lot less trouble to look after than he'd envisioned – she liked to help him with his translations and deductions most mornings, before her attention would waver and she'd head over to the couch, grabbing one of his books to skim through, before generally falling asleep in front of the TV.
They were all aware that, brave and teasing as she was, the alien still wasn't quite firing on all cylinders yet.
Landry called all of SG-1 into his office at the beginning of the third week. An unscheduled wormhole alert had gone out across the SGC about half an hour previously – Lt Redwell had come up to Daniel's office to tell him that Jonas Quinn came through from Kelowna and was in with Landry.
Daniel frowned. "Sounds serious."
"Jonas looked pretty worried, if you ask me," Simon tapped the desk, unsmiling. "He brought something with him, something in a wooden box."
"Naquadria, you think?"
The young lieutenant shrugged again. "Not sure, sir. He went straight in with the general."
So neither of them were surprised about ten seconds later when their conversation was interrupted by Walter calling them to the conference room.
Daniel rushed in to find that Mitchell and Vala were already there. The colonel was listening intently to the Kelownan scientist, who was talking earnestly to him in a low voice.
Looking over at Vala, Daniel shook his head. She was eating an apple –catching his eye, she winked at him.
"Gentlemen," Hank Landry indicated that they should sit down. "Mr Quinn here has some news for us. And a gift."
Everyone sat around the table, except Jonas who still stood. He held a small, wooden box.
"Good morning everyone," Jonas began sombrely. "Sorry to arrive unannounced like this but I figured that you would all want to hear the news. Firstly.." he paused and watched Vala, "…your friend Dalton Frayne was intercepted close to the city boundary two evenings ago."
"Can I shoot him?" asked Vala, eyes flashing. Nobody in the room dared ask her if she was joking.
Jonas smiled."Maybe later. He's in our custody at the moment. Hasn't said a lot about naquadria or Tel'taks' although he had to admit to kidnapping, seeing as I was actually a witness."
"What are you going to do with him?" Vala spat out, narrowing her eyes.
"Patience, Princess," Cam nodded at her across the table. "Your time will come."
She leaned back in her chair, arms folded and scowling.
"Go on," Landry told Jonas.
"Frayne's ship has been practically taken apart by our security teams – it was clean, apart from several small, hidden spaces, which indicated contamination with naquadria, and this." He held out the box towards the archaeologist.
"For me?" Daniel accepted the wooden box.
"For all of you. I think that it's what you're looking for."
Daniel opened the box. Inside was a grubby, opaque, golden-brown crystal. Everything about it was unremarkable, except the fact that it had obviously been cut precisely. It's sides were perfectly and symmetrically faceted. One side was flat. It was also very small – only about half an inch in diameter.
The other members of SG-1 leaned forward to look at the strange little gem.
"Can you explain further, JonasQuinn?" asked Teal'c, taking the crystal out of the box and rotating it between his fingers.
Jonas rubbed his hand through his hair."Frayne refused to tell us what the little stone was, but looked decidedly put out once he realised that we'd found it. Wait one moment."
From a leather satchel he took out a tiny metal box and a pair of gloves, which he slipped on.
"May I?" he asked General Landry, holding up the small container.
"Be my guest." The general looked rather dubious. "But the repairs are going on Kelowna's tab!"
Jonas smiled briefly before opening the little box and placing a tiny silver-coloured disc on the table, sprinkling a minuscule amount of black-ish powder on top.
"Naquadria," said Daniel, wryly.
The Kelownan nodded. He took the crystal from Teal'c and very carefully placed it on top of the disc, rotating it very carefully and grinding the powder gently.
In just a few seconds he achieved the desired effect. A narrow beam of white light shot up through the crystal and hit the ceiling of the conference room, leaving a sizeable hole and black scorch marks across a five feet square area.
"Sorry!" Jonas smiled, apologetically.
Landry glared at him.
Mitchell interrupted before a full scale shouting match broke out.
"So – this is what our friend Frayne was trying to get his hands on then? Smuggling it out of Kelowna so that the Lucian Alliance can make weapons with it?"
Jonas nodded.
"Well, I can see why," The colonel sent Landry a worried look.
Daniel nodded. "A weapon like this would be devastating. Presumably the bigger the crystal, the wider the beam?"
Jonas nodded again. "I guess so. This is the only crystal that we found on the ship so the rest is just conjecture. I thought that perhaps Colonel Carter might like to take a look at it when she's in the neighbourhood."
"Well, I think until the Hammond arrives back in our neck of the woods, I'll keep hold of this and lock it up somewhere nice and safe." General Landry gingerly pushed the crystal with a pen.
Jonas picked it up and tossed it to Hank. "It doesn't get hot, sir," he told him. "And once the naquadria around it has been depleted it's of no danger anymore."
"It's still mine for the time being," said Landry, looking pointedly up at his ceiling.
Jonas shrugged. "Sorry sir!" he repeated.
The general shook his head. "Needed a lick of paint anyway," he smiled. "Well, leave this with us Mr Quinn. We'll have another briefing tomorrow morning. Can you stay?"
The Kelownan shook his head ruefully.
"I must get back," he told them. "Frayne's trial is tomorrow also, I need to be there to testify."
"Ooooh, can I come?" asked Vala excitedly, bouncing in her seat.
Daniel frowned. "No chance," he mouthed across at her. She pretended she couldn't see him.
"Can we all come?" Mitchell put in, surprisingly.
Everyone looked at the colonel.
"Well, I figure that we'd also be good to testify, plus we might be able to get some intel out of him. Either in the court room or outside of it. Plus he stole something that belonged to us – ." Cam paused and looked at Vala. "- and I for one don't want him to get away with that."
"Me neither." Daniel's face was murderous. His much-loved alien changed seats to come and be next to him.
She squeezed his hand under the table. "General?"
Landry had leaned back in his chair and was tapping his pen against the table. His face was thoughtful as everyone waited for a few moments.
"I don't see why not," he told them. "You may be able to help the Kelownans', plus retrieve some good information from this smuggler. At any rate, we have nothing to lose. Apart from you –." he pointed at Vala, "If you think that you're going, young lady, you've got another think coming!"
"Please!" she jumped to her feet. "Please General Landry, please sir! I'm the one who he's done the most harm to! I'm the one who he kidnapped – although I did get him back by kicking him in the head – but that doesn't count! And it meant that I was lost for ages and couldn't be on SG-1 and I missed everyone, especially Daniel! Please General Landry!"
She threw herself onto the floor next to his chair, hands clasped in front of her. "Please, please, please! I'll never do anything bad again, I swear, and I'll always read my briefing notes in future, however boring they are, and I promise to give back all of the spare key-cards that I took, and the Kor-mak bracelets, and my other Gou'ald healing device and I'll never fall asleep when you're talking again, never, never, never I promise if you'll only let me go with them, please!"
There was silence after her outburst. The general had an odd, almost wistful look on his face.
Vala wiped her nose on her sleeve.
"IF – and I stipulate the IF – if my daughter gives you the all clear you may go with the rest of your team to Kelowna, but ONLY if Carolyn agrees, is that understood?"
Vala nodded excitedly, hands over her mouth.
"At no point are you to be alone with this smuggler, is that understood? At no point are you to be alone at all. You are to remain with at least two other members of SG-1 for the entire time that you are on Kelowna, is that also understood?"
She nodded.
"Very well. And if those Kor-mak bracelets aren't back in the lock-up by lunchtime I'm changing my mind. Agreed?"
"Agreed." Her eyes were huge and sparkling. God, she was beautiful thought the general. No wonder the archaeologist had lost his heart to her.
"And don't you ever tell me how you managed to get those bracelets back out of there in the first place! Dr Jackson, are you alright with this latest development?"
Daniel looked resigned.
"Yes sir. And believe me, I won't let her out of my sight the whole time."
"None of us will," agreed Mitchell.
"Then you have a go." Landry stood and nodded to Jonas. "Good luck with the trial. Ship out at 1600 hours."
SG-1 members, past and present, looked at each other.
"Let's do this!" said Cameron gleefully, rubbing his hands.
Teal'c smiled. "Indeed."
Thanks for reading!