Season 6 Episode 12 - Unnatural Selection

Episode summary: SG-1, stranded far from home aboard the yet-to-be-named X303 (Prometheus), are found by Thor who enlists their help to trap the replicators inside a time dilation field. However, they discover the replicators have evolved and modeled themselves after their human-form creator Reese. Sam convinces Fifth - who appears more human - to help them complete the mission and escape, but Jack orders her to cut short the time they allow Fifth to follow them and escape, trapping him in the time dilation field with the others. Back on the ship, Sam and Jonas voice their discomfort to Jack over what they have just done to Fifth.

Bounce.

Bounce.

Bounce.

"O'Neill." Teal'c deep voice rumbled a warning.

"Sorry." Jack put the little ball in his pocket. He pulled out a pen.

Click-click.

Click-click.

Teal'c stood suddenly, facing him.

"Why don't I go see how Carter's doing?" Jack said, pocketing the pen and raising his hands in capitulation to the big jaffa. Teal'c remained standing, watching him with narrowed eyes, until Jack had left the room.

He wasn't really all that eager to drop in on Carter. She was pretty mad at him. He could tell by all the uncharacteristic back-talk she'd given him when they had all discussed his decision to order her to leave Fifth behind.

Still – there was something they should talk about privately. Might as well do it now while they were cooling their collective heels waiting for Thor to come and tow the X-303 back to Earth.

He found her in the engine room, futzing with something in a floor-level electrical panel. She had looked up at him when he opened the door, and he saw her expression close off when she saw it was him. Yup, still mad.

"Hey." He said, closing the door behind him.

"Sir." She said.

"What are you doing?"

"I figured I might as well do some work on the ship while we're waiting for Thor." She answered, turning back to her task.

Wow, no techno-babble. She really is mad.

"Carter … you know I made the right call." He said.

She didn't respond.

"He was a Replicator. Even if he acted more human, he was still a Replicator. We don't know for sure he wouldn't have gone all dark-side like the others. We might have ended up with another Reese on our hands, and you know how well that turned out."

"I'm not questioning your orders sir."

"You were."

She sat back on her heels for a moment. "I apologise for my insubordination, sir." She said coolly.

"Oh for crying out loud …" Jack muttered, scrubbing his hand through his hair. "Sam, I'm not going to apologise for leaving him behind."

"I'm not asking you to!" Sam protested.

"Well, will you stop giving me the cold shoulder then please?"

"I just want you to acknowledge that it wasn't a completely black and white decision. He helped us, he trusted us, and we betrayed him. We're supposed to be the good guys, we're not supposed to do things like that."

"It was a difficult situation, but there's no other way it could have gone down. Letting him out wasn't worth the risk." He shook his head, frustrated. "Why am I explaining this to you, you're military, you understand the concept of tactical decisions. I feel like I'm having a fight with Daniel."

Sam scowled but didn't meet his eye, staring instead at the electrical panel.

"I'm not really mad at you." She admitted eventually.

Jack raised an eyebrow. "Good …?"

"I just hate that I did that. I'm the one who convinced him to help us, I'm the one he trusted. I'm the one who set the timer and betrayed him."

"You were following my orders."

"For the last part – the timer – yes. But you didn't order me to manipulate him into helping us or to make him a promise I couldn't keep. I promised him we'd take him with us, but in the back of my mind I knew there was a pretty good chance you wouldn't allow that to happen. I lied to him."

Jack leaned against the wall, looking down at her. "Don't beat yourself up about it. If you hadn't got him on side, we'd still be down there, getting our heads examined from the inside out over and over."

Sam nodded, but looked unconvinced.

Jack sighed. "Listen, there's something else I wanted to talk to you about …"

"The Replicators would have seen our memories of the future. Of 2034."

"Yeah. Do you remember them looking at that?"

"No. You?"

He shook his head. "But … they're trapped back there now, right? So it shouldn't matter?"

"I don't think it would matter too much anyway. The only thing they would learn from our memories is that in one possible future Earth isn't overrun by replicators by the year 2034. They weren't targeting Earth anyway, and if they have anything going for them it's patience."

"So … it's no big deal that our super-secret trip to the future was out-ed to a bunch of replicators?"

"I don't think so, sir, no." She nodded.

"Good." He said with a sigh of relief.

There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence, and he rocked on his heels feeling awkward.

"O'Neill." Teal'c radioed him.

"Go ahead Teal'c."

"Thor has arrived. You and Major Carter should return to the bridge."

"We're on our way."

Sam closed the panel and stood.

"Let's go home." He said.