Our Legacy - Chapter 7
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters nor profit from their use - I merely toy with them for my own amusement.
Summary: A gate accident strands Jack and Sam in the year 2034, when the SGC is under the command of General Samantha Carter. But all is not as it seems, and to get home, they first need to save the world.
Sam led Beth through the building calmly and quickly, having memorised the building's layout back in the safe-house.
"How's your British accent?" She asked in a whisper as they walked.
"It sucks. How's yours?"
"Not great. Let's hope we don't run into anyone." They had been headed up a stairwell, and stopped at the fifth floor. The entrance to the level was passcode protected, and Sam stood aside while Beth pulled another instrument out of her laptop bag.
A moment later there was a click as the mechanism unlocked, and Beth pulled the door ajar slowly, letting Sam check out the other side, before opening it all the way at Sam's nod.
Sam led them along the deserted corridor, took a left, and then another, and they reached another security door. Beth took another box from her bag, and handed it to Sam.
Sam opened the box, and took out a contact lens, fitting it to her eye and then blinking rapidly against the sting. Beth applied her device to the passcode lock again, and Sam put her eye to the retinal scanner. A few tense moments later they were admitted to the server room.
Noting that it too was deserted, Sam let Beth hurry ahead, locating the right computer bank.
She touched her communicator. "Colonel, this is Carter. We're in the server room."
A moment later, the Jack's voice was in her ear. "That's good. Any activity?"
"None, we haven't seen a soul. I'm actually a little concerned, I would have thought there should be at least some security up here."
"Yeah, we haven't seen anyone either. Just stay vigilant, and stay in contact."
"Yes sir."
She took up a guard position, as Beth began the work of downloading the files.
Jack had a constant tingling of unease in his spine. Something wasn't right, the headquarters of the T.U.M. should have more security than the average high-rent corporate office block, not less.
He and Jake were progressing slowly through the sub-levels of the building. There were two registered and unsecured basement levels, and then below that were the five off-books levels, where General Carter was allegedly being held. Having swept the second basement level and finding nothing and no one, they were now approaching the oh-so-clichéd secret entrance to the organisation's secret lair.
Serena's voice suddenly shouted in his ear. "Jack, Jake, abort, get out of there now!"
They did a one-eighty and sprinted back the way they'd come, and Jake – who had been a few meters behind Jack at the time of Serena's warning – made it round the corner ahead, out of sight.
That was some comfort to Jack as he felt the familiar agony of a zat blast discharge envelope him and send him crashing uselessly to the cheap laminate floor.
Sam heard Serena's warning, tried to hail Jack, and unsurprisingly got no response.
She turned to find Beth watching her anxiously, awaiting orders, and after a furious moment of thought Sam gestured the young woman back to work.
"Let's finish our job quickly and get back down to Serena." She said. She keyed her comms again. "Serena, what happened?"
"The security cameras have a blind spot, there were about a dozen security guards down there waiting for them. I didn't seem them until they moved towards Jack and Jake, I'm sorry."
"Not your fault. Is your position still secure?"
"Yes, as far as I can tell they have no idea I'm here. There's no one in your vicinity either. They're all concentrated below ground."
"Listen, Serena, stay in touch, and at the first sign of anyone moving towards your position, get out of the building. Beth can pull us all out with the transport at a moment's notice, but we're going to try and finish the job first."
"Understood. By the way it looks like Jake got away and has gone to ground somewhere in the lower levels."
"What?" Sam's eyes widened, and she exchanged a surprised look with Beth. "He wasn't captured with Colonel O'Neill?"
"No, he was further away from the guard position and got round the corner before they saw him. I can't raise him on comms though."
"Why not?"
"I don't know, he's just gone dark, but I saw him getting away on the cameras."
"Ok. Let me know if you spot him again."
"Will do."
Jack had managed not to lose consciousness, and tried to keep track of the route as he was dragged along by a couple of the guards who'd caught him.
He wondered idly and irritably why General Carter's master plan hadn't mentioned this, given that his understanding was everything that was happening to him had happened to her and the other Jack before.
He was just deciding that he would be having some very choice words with the good General after he found her, when he was abruptly dropped face down on a concrete floor.
"Ow." He complained loudly. He rolled over on to his back, stretching out his arms and legs slowly and trying to will his muscles to start co-operating with his brain again.
He tried his in-ear communicator. "Carter, do you copy? Carter, come in. Serena? Beth, Jake, anyone?" He got nothing, and guessed the zat blast had fried it. "Well, crap."
"Jack?"
He blinked a couple of times, and turned his head to the side, blinking in the darkness to try and make out the source of that voice.
"Finally." The voice said, and a figure stood shakily and walked slowly towards him, a hand leaning against the wall for support.
"Carter." He said with a sigh as he recognised her. "I understand you were expecting me."
He pushed himself up into a sitting position with difficulty, as she knelt down in front him.
She looked awful. Her face – already weathered with age – looked drawn and tired compared with the imposter's façade he'd see at the SGC. There was a lot of dried blood at her temple, and her movements were slow and shaky.
"You're here." She said, sounding like she scarcely believed it.
"So I am. You want to tell me why your brilliant plan didn't mention me getting captured?"
"If I'd told you, you would have taken steps to avoid it, and that might have changed the timeline." The older Sam said. "Things have to play out exactly the way they're supposed to. We didn't get warned about your capture, so I couldn't warn you either."
He took a second to work his way around the various pronouns of that sentence, and then shook his head to try and clear the zat-induced fuzziness.
"You ok?" He asked. "Your head looks a little …" He gestured vaguely.
"Head injury. It was a while ago, but I've still got the tail-end of a concussion." She said, touching her temple delicately.
"Have they been treating you ok? Are they feeding you?"
"I get one meal a day. It's enough. You came here with Beth, Jake and Serena?"
"And the Carter from my time. Yeah, they're all here, somewhere. Jake got away from the ambush; but you already knew that."
"Right." She looked at him with big, sad eyes, that reminded him painfully of the moment not so long ago when he'd been standing on the opposite side of Goa'uld force-field from his own Sam Carter, and she'd looked at him in the exact same way.
"I've missed you so much." She whispered.
He winced and looked down. "I'm sorry. They told me, the other me …"
"He's gone. It's just me now."
"I'm sorry." He said again. He flexed his arms and legs experimentally, pleased to find he had reasonable control of his movements again. He clambered painfully to his feet, walking around a bit to work out the last of the zat's after effects.
"So, what happens now?" He asked. He saw something steely fall into place in her expression, Sam's pain being completely overwritten by the General's professionalism.
"Now we wait. I take it Jake had the subcutaneous transmitter injector?"
"Yes."
"He and the girls will get it to us, and we'll all get out of here. We just have to wait."
Jack sighed, and sat down. "Ok. Waiting it is."