Chapter 19: The Distance Between Us
Daniel blinked owlishly at the rapidly blurring page as he forced his exhausted eyes to focus on the Ancient text laid out on the glass and metal desk before him. The spirit was so willing, but the body was weak.
He knew he'd blown through several needed breaks from the parched feeling inside his mouth and the long forgotten rumbling down in his stomach. His feelings of hunger was something he was used to ignoring, but he usually had a thermos of hot coffee beside him to assuage his thirst. In his haste to get deep into the texts - from past experience, opportunities like the one he'd been currently presented rarely turned out well, and usually ended with some sort of alien attack, or the entire thing being decimated by age and/or weather - he'd forgotten to fill one up or even fire up a Sterno.
Without SG-1, and with only Ilana watching out for him, there'd been no help in that regard. From what he could tell, Lantian physiology held out far better without regular sustenance than normal humans did.
With the dry feeling in his tongue and throat becoming unbearable, and a throbbing of decaffeination starting in his head, Daniel chose to abandon for the moment his precious manuscript detailing the beginnings of the Wraith/Lantian war, and get something to ease his thirst and hunger.
He immediately spotted a silent Ilana still in the same place where he'd last seen her. She was intent on some sort of silver/grey hand held device that she'd picked up in one the labs they'd passed.
"Ilana?"
He watched her deactivate the device before she looked up at him.
"Daniel," she acknowledged him with a small smile.
"I'm gonna get something to eat. Would you like to join me? I'm pretty sure Sam or Jack would've at least started some coffee by now." He indicated back to the direction of the control room they'd left his team in hours before.
"They have not," she told him again, her expression remaining the same. She stood up and preceded him out of the records room.
Daniel opened his mouth to say something, but quickly closed it as Ilana glided further out into the corridors, leaving him alone to follow.
"What do you mean?" he asked, suddenly concerned, as he caught up to her.
"They have not made coffee," she glanced sideways at him while they continued down the windowless, artificially lit hall.
"How do you know?" he probed further.
They stepped into the empty control room, confirming Ilana's statement. No coffee smell welcomed them, or any of SG-1 in fact.
Daniel reached for his radio. "Jack. Sam. Come in." He waited a few seconds before trying again. After a few more seconds of silence, he frowned at Ilana.
"What's going on?"
"Your communication device cannot penetrate inside the tunnels."
"Tun… tunnels? What... Did I miss a check-in? I was a bit preoccupied…" he drifted off.
"You did not. Your friends found the tunnels. I've been tracking their progress with this," she raised the device she'd been playing with earlier.
"Oh," he said taken aback. "Why didn't you just say so in the first place? Could you use that thing to talk to them?"
"I cannot."
"Then we could just follow them..."
"Daniel?"
"Yes?"
"I could not help but hear your discussion with Jonas back at your base."
Daniel tried to think of which conversation she was referring to, since he and Jonas had had long discussions in front of her before she'd let on that she understood everything they were saying.
"You expressed concern regarding Colonel Carter and Jack," she clarified further for him.
"Oh! That. Um, yeah. Sam and Jack have a very, um, very, let's just say 'complicated' relationship."
"They feel affection for the other, but deny themselves for the sake of duty."
"I guess that's the simplest way of putting it," he said suddenly grinning.
"You also expressed a solution to this quandary."
Daniel started nodding, starting to catch on. "I may have said that all they need is some time to be alone together to sort things out."
"I am confident that your friends will eventually find their way back to us, but the trek through the jungle will not be easy or without its hazards. Are you certain you wish for them to continue without our assistance?"
Daniel thought through what Ilana was proposing. Jack would probably shoot him for effectively stranding him in a jungle without supplies and just Sam for company. Maybe not so much for the latter. Still, once he got back, he was definitely going to be pissed - if he were to find out that Daniel was involved in the stranding, albeit passively.
Could he actually go through with it? Deliberately put his friends in potential danger to once and for all, save their relationship? That was a tough one.
When Ilana had said that the Lantians had constructed escape tunnels in case of attack, Sam had pictured something out of Indiana Jones, dark passageways roughly carved underground with spiderwebs and root systems hanging from the ceilings.
She at least got the underground part right. She really should have known that the Tok'ra weren't the only ones who'd perfected crystal tunnelling technology, and the Lantians probably had a head start on the fine tuning.
The first thing that struck her was the air quality. The Tok'ra used air scrubbers to remove carbon dioxide from the tunnels and convert it back into a nitrogen/oxygen mix. The process while sufficient, still left old tunnels smelling slightly recycled. The Lantian equivalent, despite its long disuse had no discernible difference in quality from the air inside the outpost.
"Carter? As much as I'm enjoying our position here, my ass is getting cold."
Sam finally looked down from her musings and back at where she'd ended on top of her boss. "Oh!" she scramble away from the General, feeling like an idiot for forgetting his presence under her, which normally wouldn't happen, but it wasn't everyday she stumbled into a technological haven full of new things to study.
Jack jumped to his feet and dusted some imaginary dust from his green BDUs. He did a 360 of the smoothly and evenly constructed tunnel that looked to be made of black glass. "This is nice. Very 80s decor. Just needs a few neon lamps and some Stevie Wonder playing. "
"It looks like they used the same core technology as the Tok'ra, but I'd say a far more advanced implementation."
They couldn't see very far into the tunnel as only several meters of the corridor was lit up.
Jack grabbed his radio. "Daniel, come in."
His signal was met with static. Jack repeated the the call to no avail.
"Alright, any idea as to how we can get back up to where we came from?"
Sam used her P90's flashlight to check the walls around them. When they found nothing after ten minutes, Jack directed them to continue on down the tunnel to search for an exit.
"Ilana did say it's an escape route. The key word being 'escape'."
"Sounds good to me, Carter," Jack indicated with his P90. "Lead on."
After only a few minutes of walking they were faced with another wall identical to the other end of the tunnel.
"Not much of an escape route if there's no actual means of escape," Jack complained in his familiar 'I'm losing my patience' voice.
"Maybe they designed it so that if they were somehow followed by unfriendlies the entire network wouldn't be compromised."
"Then it's a perfect design, Carter. I'm certainly not seeing it."
"There has to be something, sir. It might not be obvious, but it's got to be here."
They started pointing their P90 lights once more to scrutinize every inch of the wall on both sides of the tunnel.
It was Jack's enhanced eyesight that finally allowed him to see the recessed area in the otherwise smooth wall.
She was startled when he suddenly grabbed her hand, his grip firm and strong as if warning her not to let go. But there would be no struggle on her part. Beside him was always the safest place she'd ever felt in her life amidst all the firefights, prisons, and torture they'd endured together. Instead, she entwined her fingers with his, and held on even tighter.
"Sir?" she asked needing to say something for appearance's sake, not because she didn't trust him or his instincts.
"I see something on the wall here, and I'm thinking if I touch it, I don't want to go poof and leave you stranded."
She squinted at the part of the wall he'd indicated and was hard pressed to distinguish anything different from the surface.
"It's right here," Jack held on to her hand with his left and reached towards the wall with the other.
This time, unlike when he'd leaned into the wall, transport beams similar to that of the Asgard engulfed them. When the bright light dissipated, they were in another tunnel that was larger in circumference than the one they'd just left. More importantly, they could both literally see a light at the end of it.
"I spy an exit, Carter. Shall we?"
Sam acknowledged him with a nod.
Jack cleared his throat and let go of their still entwined hands, this time taking point. They emerged from the tunnels into thick vegetation, passing through an invisible barrier that protected the inside of tunnel from the wild environment at the mouth of the exit. Jack had the presence of mind to grab Sam's hand once again when he felt the sensation of the barrier.
Once she let go of the general's hand, Sam tried to stick her hand back through the forcefield and was unable to penetrate it. Jack did the same and his hand went through without incident.
He pulled his hand back and wiped the sweat that had immediately formed at his hairline from the far more humid temperature on the other side of the forcefield. The tunnel was well camouflaged by vines hanging down from the side of the moss covered mountain face that rose well above the towering vegetation.
They could see a cloudless bright blue sky beyond the jungle canopy, but light was filtered to green where they stood. A combination of sweat and moisture from the air soaked through their clothes in the minutes they had left the controlled environment of the tunnels, the heavy material of their BDUs a suffocating blanket that they quickly shucked off leaving Jack in his black t-shirt and Sam in her standard issue tank top.
They both tried their radios once more without success. Wherever they had ended up, it was either outside radio range from the base or something was interfering with the signal. The end result was the same: no contact with the rest of their team, and no supplies apart from the ones that they were carrying when they'd disappeared inside the tunnels.
"You said this planet had a 30 hour day, Carter?"
"Yes, sir. We should have another 7 hours of daylight based on our calculation of the planet's rotation - assuming we're still around the same latitude and longitude where we landed."
"Plenty of time to continue searching for whatever it is that we're looking for and maybe find a way back to the Outpost."
"A ship would certainly do it."
"That's the spirit, Carter. I like how you think."
Sam looked side to side. "Any ideas which way, sir?"
Jack turned his back on her. Ever since the Asgard futzed with his body he'd had some sort of special awareness when it came to Ancient technology. He had to really concentrate on specific things, but the common things, like how to open locked doors or rig reactors, came to him naturally.
He worried his lower lip, scanning the forest in front of him. In the end he went with his gut instinct and pointed straight ahead.
As a testament to her sometimes blind-faith in him, she didn't hesitate at all to follow him as he moved forwards in the direction he'd chosen for them. If he was wrong, she wouldn't say anything. They'd come up with another plan until a solution finally presented itself, and it would be another save by SG-1.
The sun was low in the sky and dusk had settled over the rainforest that reminded Jack of his stint in the Hawaiian islands, by the time he decided to stop for the night. He'd wanted to cover more ground, but the shallow looking river in front of them convinced him that it was a good a place as any to settle in for the night.
Small waterfalls that looked like wide steps created a cascading effect with the startling blue and green water. With the light dimming, Jack was able to ascertain that the minerals that had settled as silt at the bottom of the pools had luminescent properties, as the caves created by the carving motion of the river underneath the waterfalls were softly lit in the gloom.
The edge of the river was bordered by wide flat rocks that sloped gently into the water, tropical flowers almost neon in appearance bursting from bright green ferns, and the occasional tree that resembled mangroves.
Vines upon vines hung thickly from giant trees that curved and meandered sideways and skywards, with alien foliage carpeting the fat gnarled trunks, interspersed with aromatic flowers that subtlety perfumed the air.
They collected dried-out vines hanging from the oversized tree trunks to start a fire. While they weren't in any danger of getting cold, they had no idea what sort of wildlife came out at night. From both their experiences, a good campfire usually kept the beasties away. There was also something psychologically warming about having a fire at night, something reassuring about the crackling and popping that helped them feel a measure of safety.
The abundance of good-sized rounded rocks by the edge of the river was ideal to construct a fire-ring, and wordlessly they got the fire started, each familiar with what had to be done. Survival was an easy thing for them, familiar. They were trained for this eventuality and having each other's back was comforting, whether they wanted to admit it or not.
They both had stainless steel flasks and they used those to boil water from the river. They snacked on energy bars in silence, both contemplating the turn of events that placed them in their current situation.
Jack's first thought was for his little girl. He'd promised her that he would return in a couple of days and she'd become very upset insisting that he shouldn't go. She'd clung to him in a sobbing mess as he'd handed her over to Teal'c, one of the few people who he trusted with Grace. Both Janet and Charlie had assured him that they would help out Teal'c should problems arise. While he knew she was in capable hands, and that Janet and Kawalsky had been taking care of his daughter far longer than he'd known of her existence, he still felt that urgency to return home and be there for Gracie.
Where Jack felt the need to get home, Sam's feelings were far different. As she watched his darkened profile illuminated by the fire and the luminescent riverbed, she couldn't help but think that this was the chance she'd been hoping for. This was precious uninterrupted time that he couldn't run away from even if he tried. They had to depend on each other for survival and she knew from past experience just how much those times had brought them closer than any two human beings could get without actually crossing that line.
If they were ever going to fix things between them this was their chance. She needed to be completely honest with him and tell him exactly what she was willing to give up to have him and Grace in her life. He needed to know what happened with Pete and why she'd agreed to marry him in the first place. She knew she had not covered herself in glory with that relationship, and that she'd potentially torpedoed any chance she might have had with Jack. She'd had her reasons though, and he needed to hear it directly from her. It was an entirely different matter if he would be willing to accept them.
And it begins ;-)