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This story was first published in Fragments from Pyramids Press.
* TITLE: Rearranging Fate
* AUTHOR: Redbyrd
* EMAIL: redbyrd (at) mindspring (dot) com
* RATING: PG
* CATEGORY: drama
* SUMMARY: Missing Scenes, Tag and Sequel for Point of View
* SPOILERS: Anything through POV
* AUTHOR'S NOTE: What can I say? I set out to write a few missing scenes for POV, because I thought it would be cool to find out what Kawalsky thought of it all, and then just kept writing. About the time I committed the story to Fragments, I broke into a cold sweat over the keyboard, went for the best two falls out of three, and finally wrestled it into submission just short of novel length. Oh, and while I usually try to get things like the spellings of names right, this had already been submitted when I realized it should probably have been Kawalsky instead of Kawalsky.. I guess in this universe, Charlie's ancestor got a different clerk at Ellis Island :).
* DISCLAIMER:
The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.
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Kawalsky was just about ready to turn in. He looked around at the gray walls. "Same old government decor." The last several days of the Goa'uld attack seemed like a dream when he looked around at the undamaged and peaceful surroundings of the SGC. He was grateful to hear a knock on the door. Probably someone for the tray. "Come in," he called.
"Major."
Kawalsky turned around at the familiar voice, but it was this universe's Carter, not his own. "Major."
"We've heard back already. They're going to let you stay." Carter gave him a sympathetic smile.
Kawalsky was a bit startled. "That was fast."
"I expect they think you're going to be an asset." Carter said. "I didn't know our Kawalsky that well. We only served on one mission together, but he was a good man."
"Er. Thank you. If that's what I should say." Kawalsky shook his head. "This is weird."
"I bet." Carter's glance was curious. "I've thought it fascinating ever since Daniel found the mirror. But without the controller, we never figured out how to operate it."
"SG-1 found the mirror in our universe in the alien lab. I guess that was the same in your universe. We only did a quick recon. We sent SG-2 back for the followup. They took a couple of weeks to do the survey and clean the place out." Kawalsky said. "A shame, too. The world was contaminated, unsafe. They brought back everything they found, but not before they got too much exposure."
"Oh, god."
Kawalsky nodded grimly. "Yeah. Radiation poisoning. We lost three of them within a couple of months. The fourth one lasted a while longer, but the cancer got him." He hesitated, but he had to ask. "So I take it you guys didn't stay that long."
"No." Carter paused, then went on. "There was a Goa'uld warning icon up by the gate. Teal'c read it and told us it wasn't safe. We'd have been out of there in an hour if it hadn't been for Daniel finding the mirror. As it was, we only stayed for six or seven hours and sent back a different team in hazard suits to quickly grab what they could."
"Teal'c." Kawalsky shook his head. "I see."
"He's a good man, Kawalsky. His people are enslaved by the Goa'uld, just as humans are. He joined us so he could fight against them." The major's tone was certain and sincere. It was evident she believed what she was saying.
"If you say so." Kawalsky said dubiously. "All I can see right now is the enemy who took the mountain and slaughtered most of my friends. Including Jack."
"Ours is different." Carter insisted. She turned toward the door. "I should let you rest. You've had a long day."
"Yeah, thanks." Kawalsky felt like he was coming down off a three-day caffeine high, he was so exhausted. Wait. He was coming down off a three-day caffeine high. That would explain it. As soon as the door closed behind Carter, he shucked off his outer clothes and crawled into the familiar-strange bunk. Thankfully, he went straight to sleep.
#
Kawalsky woke early out of uneasy dreams, finding it hard to believe they were actually safe, that he wasn't going to open a door and find grenade damage and dead bodies from the Goa'uld attack. He met Samantha coming out of her room. She smiled wryly at him. "Guess you couldn't sleep either."
He patted her arm clumsily, wishing there were something more useful he could do. "Somehow, the stress doesn't all go away just 'cause they said we could stay. However grudgingly."
She sighed, "I suppose I can't blame them. They must be kind of weirded out, seeing us. I know I'm weirded out seeing them. Being here."
As they collected breakfast, they spotted O'Neill and Carter sitting at a table with the Jaffa, Teal'c. He didn't see the other unfamiliar member of SG-1. Despite the uniform, they'd called him doctor- another astrophysicist like Carter, he supposed. He wondered why they'd put scientists, even military ones, on a field team.
Major Carter smiled at them politely as they approached, "Good morning. Would you like to join us?"
Kawalsky was trying to decide whether to curtly refuse or more politely point out there weren't enough chairs when the Jaffa rose. Kawalsky tensed. "You may have my seat; I am finished." He said, in unaccented if formal English. The look in his eyes was not unkind. Kawalsky gritted his teeth, ignoring the disapproving look from O'Neill. He sat down as Teal'c disappeared. He supposed that if they were staying, he'd have to get used to the presence of the Jaffa.
Major Carter was asking her double about her early work on the stargate program. Kawalsky gathered that his Dr. Carter had joined the Stargate program earlier than her counterpart had.
"I suppose you got to go on the first mission." Dr. Carter said, a bit enviously. "I wanted to, but it was military only."
Major Carter matched her, envious look for envious look. "I wish. General West had me transferred to the Pentagon just before they launched the first mission. I suspect he thought it was going to be a one way trip and didn't want to have to explain mislaying the daughter of a general."
"Ah, I see." Dr. Carter said, understanding. Kawalsky remembered her father had been an Air Force general on active duty until the cancer had forced him to retire. Jacob Carter had hung on stubbornly, taking far longer to die than any of them had expected. Sam and Jack had buried him three days after they'd found out about the Goa'uld attack being prepared against Earth.
Major Carter was continuing, "But what really made it bite, was when I wasn't allowed to go to Abydos, but Daniel, a civilian, was." The kid was a civilian? Kawalsky wondered more than ever why he was on the team.
His Carter was asking, "Why did they let him go?"
"So he could figure out the address to bring them back. West wasn't going to send a team out without some kind of chance for them to return. And unlike me, Daniel didn't have any family to make a fuss if he didn't make it," the major said.
Dr. Carter looked surprised. "You sent the team through without knowing how to bring them back? It took us three probes and six months of calculation to identify the return address before we could send a team through."
"Really." Major Carter looked fascinated. "Well that could partly explain why the attack came so much later in your world."
O'Neill paused, a spoonful of cereal halfway up. "The Nox," he said.
"Of course." Carter nodded. "We not only killed Ra, we took a shot at Apophis only a few months after we opened the gate. Maybe that also helped moved up his timetable to attack our world."
Dr. Carter started to say something about quantum something-or-other that made Kawalsky tune out instantly. He looked across at his friend-no, not his friend Jack, though the man was certainly very like him. He dropped his gaze as O'Neill looked back at him, seeming uncomfortable. Kawalsky was finding it a bit awkward himself roaming around this SGC, so like and so unlike his own SGA. It had been a trip seeing Ferretti in the infirmary yesterday, though. The friend he'd lost on the first mission through the stargate was still alive and very well here, despite a scar over his left eye and a freshly plastered cast on his leg. "A damned nuisance," Lou had told him. It was his third broken bone since the start of the program. He'd originally had command of SG-2, the other Kawalsky's unit but had been out of action so long with his first injury that his place had been filled, and he'd been reassigned to another unit after he recovered.
"I can't get over seeing Lou again," Kawalsky said to O'Neill. "I never expected he'd be alive here, and I'd be dead. I wonder why that is?"
"This stuff makes my head hurt." O'Neill said. The major couldn't help but grin. It was so exactly what his friend would have said.
Major Carter looked at him sympathetically. That was another thing Kawalsky couldn't get over. He would never have imagined that Dr. C could have joined the military, and yet this woman wore the uniform with a bright, hard-edged confidence, like it was a part of her. As far as he could tell, O'Neill was nearly identical to his own Jack, but he could barely recognize Carter as the same woman. She asked, "Did your Major Ferretti die on the second Abydos mission?"
Kawalsky looked at her, "What do you mean, second mission?"
O'Neill looked surprised. "When Apophis' forces showed up here, didn't you send a team back to Abydos?" Kawalsky started to feel some curiosity. "We couldn't. Didn't you kill Ra?"
Dr. Carter was looking puzzled. "If you didn't kill Ra, why did Apophis attack in your reality?"
"Oh, we killed Ra." O'Neill said. "I guess you managed to tell the Abydonians to bury the gate even without Daniel to translate, huh?"
"Abydonians?" Kawalsky said blankly. "I don't know what you're talking about. The gate was destroyed when we set off the bomb."
O'Neill's eyes narrowed and became very cold. Kawalsky drew back involuntarily. "You set off the bomb on the ground?"
Major Carter's eyes widened and she looked shocked. "Oh, no."
Kawalsky looked from one to the other, "What?"
"There were natives on that planet." O'Neill said.
"We never saw any people." Kawalsky said defensively. "It was desert. Completely lifeless."
"No. It wasn't." O'Neill looked angry, then suddenly very tired. "Don't tell Daniel."
"Why?" Kawalsky thought a little bitterly that the deaths of a billion people on Kawalsky's version of Earth seemed to affect this man less than the deaths of some natives on a planet they'd spent a day and a half on over two years ago. "Anyway, he already knows."
"I asked him about it last night, Jack." The doctor had come in quietly behind O'Neill as they were speaking. He pulled up a chair from an adjoining table and sat, wrapping both hands around the cup he was holding, as if they were cold.
O'Neill looked at him, "Why didn't you say anything?"
A brief flicker of amusement went over Daniel Jackson's face. "Why did you ask him not to tell me?"
The two men exchanged a wry look, seeming to understand one another despite neither having answered the other's question. Even Major Carter looked like she knew what was going on.
Kawalsky felt a pang of loneliness as it struck home again his own world was gone. Before, he would have been the one who Jack shared that unspoken understanding with. He wondered a bit drearily if everyone was replaceable. Evidently, Jack would have been best friends with any guy who served on his team.
Major Carter said, "God, was I wrong." She was staring at Jackson with an expression that was piercingly familiar to Kawalsky. He'd seen it before on Dr. C's face when she had just figured out something that had been eluding her and was kicking herself for not having seen it sooner.
Jackson blinked. "What?"
Everyone looked at her. She turned to Dr.Carter, "When I said yesterday that me being in the military had made a contribution- I was wrong. It didn't. It made almost no difference, or if anything, slowed us down."
"Huh?" Jackson and O'Neill gave her a puzzled look.
"Why do you say that?" Dr. Carter asked.
The major looked at her with chagrin. "Well, you joined the Stargate program earlier than I did. Between flight training and my service in the Gulf, I got here almost a year later."
"But you still opened the Stargate about the same time as us, didn't you?" Dr. Carter asked. "Wouldn't that mean you were right, that being military helped you open it sooner?"
"No. I mean, yes we opened it at the same time, but it wasn't because of me. Daniel figured out the Stargate. Judging by your experience, it would have taken me another year to get it on my own. And if I hadn't been military, West couldn't have transferred me. I wouldn't have lost a year of research, and Daniel and I would have been working together from the beginning." She looked around at the puzzled faces and slowed down. "Look, we both opened the gate three years ago. You kept working at it, but you did it the hard way. Six months to get the return address, and if you never found the map with all the stargate addresses, it was much slower for you to find worlds to explore, right?"
Dr. Carter nodded slowly.
The major gestured at the young man in glasses sitting beside O'Neill. "What I just realized- As far as I can tell, Daniel is responsible for almost every important way that our realities are different."
Daniel Jackson gave her a puzzled look. "I don't think so, Sam. I mean there's no way I could have influenced you to go in the military. We didn't even meet until the stargate program."
"No, Daniel. I know you didn't have anything to do with that, but as far as the course of history goes, it's not a significant difference." She gestured to her twin, "And the proof is right here. Whether I went military or not, I still wound up with the program. The same goes for Colonel O'Neill. And like I just said, my being in the military may well have slowed us down."
"Well, I didn't convince Teal'c to join us." Jackson protested. "That was Jack."
Kawalsky threw a quick look at O'Neill. Jack convinced the Jaffa to change sides? He wondered how. Why? What on earth had made the colonel trust him?
Carter was replying, "But if it wasn't for you being on Abydos, we wouldn't have been there when Apophis attacked, Ferretti wouldn't have seen the coordinates for Chulak, and we wouldn't have gone to Chulak to rescue Sha're and Skaara."
Kawalsky was looking from one to the other like he was following a tennis match. "Who?" He couldn't work out what they were babbling about. "What?"
Jackson was nodding as if he understood that. "Like you said when we went back in time. If we hadn't gone to Chulak, we would never have met Teal'c, and he still would have been first prime of Apophis."
"Exactly!" Carter smiled at him brightly, clearly caught up in the interchange of ideas. "And in their reality, Teal'c still is first prime of Apophis."
Dr. Samantha Carter was still stuck on one of the first revelations. "You opened the stargate?!" she said, staring at Jackson. Then she blinked. "Went back in time?"
He gave her a rather distracted look, "Yeah." and turned back to his own Sam Carter. "You think this was all my fault?" It wasn't at all clear if even he knew what he meant by 'this'.
"No, Daniel." O'Neill put in. "Ra was killed in all three realities. Earth was attacked in all three realities. That didn't change whether you were there or not. Anyway, from what Kawalsky just said, if you hadn't been on the first mission, I'd have set off the bomb, and everyone would have died hideously painful deaths from radiation."
"No, they wouldn't," Jackson protested.
"Daniel, as it was, I almost did it." O'Neill's look was haunted. Kawalsky suddenly was grateful his own Jack O'Neill had never known that he had killed innocent people on Abydos.
"But you didn't." Jackson said, "Anyway, I expect they'd have died more or less instantly."
O'Neill flinched, and Carter said, "No, Nagada was over six miles away; they wouldn't have been caught in the primary blast-"
"Carter!" O'Neill protested. "Can we just not-"
"You're forgetting something, Sam." Jackson ignored O'Neill's protest. "If they detonated the bomb on the ground, it was sitting right next to sixty-four thousand pounds of refined naquadah."
O'Neill and Carter both stared at him. "The stargate." Carter said, sounding stunned. "Oh, my god."
"What are you talking about?" Kawalsky asked.
"I had a lot of time to think about this on Abydos," Jackson said softly. "I wondered why Ra was so convinced that sending the bomb back would strike us a mortal blow, even if it was enhanced. Until I remembered the gate-- I figured he needed the raw ore to make sure the gate blew."
"Naquadah? That's what you call the material the stargate is made of?" Dr. Carter was frowning as she tried to follow the discussion. "But- oh." She looked at Kawalsky. "It's explosive. Theoretically."
Carter nodded, obviously thinking it through on the fly. "Not just theoretically. Roughly speaking, for every couple pounds of naquadah, you can add a force equivalent to another small nuke. I really ought to run some numbers--"
"And that's without factoring in the raw naquadah ore present on Abydos." Jackson said.
Carter nodded, obviously doing mental sums, "At a guess, if the stargate detonated, the explosion would have left a glass-lined crater a couple hundred miles in diameter. There would have been enough debris thrown into the air to change the climate for decades, killing anything left alive outside the blast radius. And that's assuming it didn't simply crack the crust of the planet like an eggshell." She was staring past O'Neill, eyes unfocused while her voice trailed off to a mumble, "Um, no, force directed outward- but it could have ripped away a significant fraction of the atmosphere-"
Jackson turned back to O'Neill with a sort of weary pain behind his eyes. "So you see, Jack, I don't think anyone in Nagada would have had time to feel anything. Even if you had done anything. Which you didn't."
O'Neill swallowed. "Jesus, Daniel."
Kawalsky tried futilely to picture an explosion thirty thousand times as powerful as that of the small nuke they'd taken to Abydos and felt his own mouth go dry. He wondered how many people there had been on Abydos. He wasn't sure he wanted to know. "Then how did you kill Ra, if you didn't use the bomb?" he asked.
O'Neill said, "We sent the bomb up to the ship using the ring transporter. It detonated in orbit. Nothing on the planet was touched." He turned to Jackson. "Carter is right, Daniel. Without you there to start the rebellion, Ra would have sat on the ground waiting for his Jaffa to wipe us out. They had no choice but to use the bomb the way they did. It could very easily have happened the same way here."
"Rebellion. What rebellion?" Dr. Carter asked.
"It's a long story and not very important now." Daniel said. He turned to Kawalsky. "Jack's got a good point. Even if you had known about the people, you'd have had no choice but to use the bomb. And there was no way you could have known." He looked from Kawalsky to Dr. Carter, who were sitting with food untouched on their plates. "I'm sorry. This wasn't a good time for this to come up."
Kawalsky found it vaguely incongruous that after all the horrors he and Samantha Carter had seen, Jackson was trying to make Kawalsky feel better about a bunch of unintended deaths he hadn't even known about. He didn't miss that no one was talking about the number of people. He assumed it had been a lot. Maybe he'd be bothered by it later, but in a world of nightmares piled on nightmares, he found he was numb to the added tragedy.
"When would have been a good time?" Dr. Carter asked. She looked at him intently. "Dr.- Jackson? Why you?"
"Yeah, well, I wonder about that myself," Jackson said. He exchanged a look with her counterpart.
"For want of a nail?" Major Sam Carter said.
"Something like that." Jackson shrugged. He looked at Kawalsky's puzzled expression. "It's a children's rhyme. 'For want of a nail, the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe, the horse was lost, for want a horse, the rider was lost.' Something tiny and ordinary and normal that has an effect all out of proportion to its importance." He turned the cup around in his hands.
"Like a catalyst?" Dr. Carter said. "Something that starts off a much larger reaction, but isn't changed by it?"
He smiled faintly at her. "I wouldn't go that far. Just some weird coincidence-- I was in the right place, at the right time. Catherine Langford offered me a job on a rainy night in Los Angeles. I said yes." He looked up with a self-deprecating gesture.
"And worlds are changed as a result." Major Carter said.
"Worlds?" O'Neill said. "Isn't that a little grandiose, Carter? Abydos, sure- "
Carter shook her head. "No, sir. If we assume Daniel was critical to finding the map room on Abydos, the rest follows logically. Without the stargate addresses we found on Abydos, we wouldn't have visited so many worlds, so quickly. The SGA only had three teams. Dr. Carter figured out the planetary drift problem and then they just dialed at random, looking for hits."
"That's not entirely true." Dr. Samantha Carter said. "We targeted coordinates in parts of the galaxy where it seemed likely we'd find stars with planets. And we got lucky. SG-1 found a handful of addresses on P7C-231."
Major Carter was looking impressed. "Wow, you did well to visit as many worlds as you did, even so." She looked at O'Neill. "Those must be the addresses that SG-5 found last year. They're all on the Abydos cartouche."
'Which we blew up. Great.' Kawalsky thought.
Jackson said slowly. "Think about it. They never visited the Shavadai, the Land of Light, or Argos. They never found Ernest Littlefield or the Keeper's planet. All those places we changed." O'Neill was again looking like it made his head hurt, and he'd rather not think anymore. Jackson's expression was more ambivalent, as if he didn't want to believe his choice had made such a difference.
Major Carter spoke softly. "And that wasn't the only time you tipped the balance, Daniel."
He raised his eyebrows and gave her a quizzical look.
"P3R-233," she said. "Without the information you brought back from the alternate reality there, we would have had no chance of preventing the invasion of Earth."
"I didn't do it alone. I couldn't have. As it was we nearly all died." Jackson looked rather alarmed at the thought of personally determining the fate of worlds. Kawalsky couldn't blame him. He'd seen what had happened when they failed.
#
After the rather unsettling breakfast, Dr. C went off with her twin to look over Major Carter's current research projects, and Jack took Kawalsky up to the range.
"I'm gonna want to review all your training before we let you out with a team." O'Neill warned him. "I don't want some niggling little difference between your reality and this one to come up on a mission and bite us on the butt."
"That makes sense." Kawalsky said. "Uh, sir." O'Neill raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. Fortunately this O'Neill didn't seem to be any more of a stickler for protocol than his had been. Kawalsky frowned and looked at him more closely.
"What, did I a miss a patch shaving?" O'Neill ran a hand over his chin self-consciously. "Celery between my teeth? What?"
Kawalsky grinned and shook his head. "I was just noticing that you've got a scar my Colonel O'Neill didn't."
Jack touched his brow lightly. "This? Everyone's got in in for this eyebrow. First the pseudo-neanderthals of P3X-797-"
"Pseudo-neanderthals?"
"They turned out to have a disease." He grimaced. "A very contagious disease. Fortunately we were able to contain it and find a cure. But the scar was actually a little souvenir of our time travel experience. Got it right here, down in the gate room, in 1969, courtesy of a USAF sergeant who wasn't terribly amused by having us turn up twenty-eight stories below the surface in a high security missile silo."
Kawalsky shook his head. "Man, and I thought we'd seen some weird shit."
They checked out guns and fired them, finding no particular procedural differences, though Kawalsky did notice some of the forms they had to fill out were different. As they were cleaning the weapons, the conversation resumed.
"You've evidently gotten to see a lot more of the galaxy than we have." Kawalsky commented.
"Oh, yeah." O'Neill smiled. "Yeah, we have. Granted not all of it was fun. For example, I cannot recommend the hospitality of Hadante prison. In fact I'd suggest avoiding it like the plague."
"Sounds rough." Kawalsky carefully reassembled the pistol and set it aside.
"We managed." O'Neill seemed to be suddenly struck with a thought. "Say. You wouldn't have had a lot of the same experiences as us, but Hathor shouldn't have changed."
"Who?"
"Goa'uld found locked up in a sarcophagus in central America? Tried to take over the SGC?" O'Neill said.
Kawalsky frowned. "Um, breathed some kind of narcotic mist?"
"Yeah, that's her." O'Neill gave him a funny look. "Guess she wasn't as memorable in your reality."
"No, it's just that she didn't try to invade the SGA. She tried to take over Area 51. There was quite a to-do over it, but they finally sent in a group of all-female troops to take her out. Casualties were low, but they couldn't take her alive." Kawalsky explained. He wondered why she had gone to the SGC in this reality instead of Area 51.
O'Neill nodded. "Ah, you lost the sarcophagus too, eh?"
"The what?" Kawalsky asked.
"Big gold box? Heals people?" O'Neill asked.
"Is that what it does? I think they still have it." Kawalsky said.
O'Neill stared at him. "You do know that that thing will heal practically any injury, don't you?"
Kawalsky's eyes widened. "It will? We knew the Gould have some kind of healing technology, but they're pretty conservative about testing stuff on people until we're sure we know what we're doing."
"Yeah, well, that's it." O'Neill said. "There are some days it would be really nice to have one. But you don't want to use it if there's any reasonable alternative. It's addictive as hell, and there're some squirrelly side effects."
"Ah, that doesn't sound quite so useful." Kawalsky said. "I take it you don't have one?"
"No, ours was destroyed," the colonel said.
"So what happened to Hathor in this reality?" Kawalsky asked.
"I killed her." O'Neill's tone was grim.
"Eh?" Kawalsky wasn't sure whether he should ask for more information or not.
"With my bare hands." O'Neill clarified in a flat unemotional tone stamped 'keep out' in flashing red letters.
The airman paused at the door. "Colonel O'Neill?"
"Yes?" O'Neill said.
"General Hammond would like you to come down to the infirmary. It's Major- uh, Doctor, Carter." The man looked a bit confused. "Something's happened."
O'Neill handed his guns back to the sergent and turned to the elevator. Kawalsky followed. 'Now what?' he wondered.
#
Kawalsky headed toward the door of the infirmary, stomach churning. He had only just started to accept the idea they were safe. Learning that Sam would die if she stayed here ripped open the barely healed wounds. They'd had enough trouble just finding a reality where the Goa'uld hadn't overrun Earth. The chances of finding one where they were both dead and could stay safely must be pretty small. And no way could he let Sam go back alone, not even if it meant they both died. He turned back to ask one of the nurses, "Excuse me, do you know where Colonel O'Neill went?"
"The general called him to the briefing room, sir," the woman reported.
Kawalsky turned toward the elevator, using his brand-new keycard to access it. He was conscious of the occasional curious glances. His miraculous 'return' had been a source of astonishment and pleasure even among the nearly unshockable troops of the SGC. When the elevator stopped, he got out and headed for the stairs to the briefing room. Possibly he could talk them into arming him with something that would at least give them a shot at making it out of Cheyenne Mountain. As he walked quietly up the stairs, he realized their situation was already under discussion.
Dr. Jackson was saying, "-- only way to really help Dr Carter is to stop the Goa'uld in her reality and save whatever's left."
Kawalsky shook his head. Ivory tower, indeed. He wondered again what the scientist was doing on a field team. Then he heard the general answer and realized with some surprise he was actually taking the statement seriously.
"How do you suggest we do that, Dr Jackson? The resources of their entire world couldn't defend against the Goa'uld." The concern in his voice was a sharp reminder of his own Hammond, whom he had left to die when he and Sam had escaped through the mirror. Kawalsky wondered queasily if he was still alive. He'd almost managed to block the man's plight from his mind, the last couple of days.
"What about the resources of our world?" Jackson was asking.
Sam's voice, nearly as familiar as his best friend's, yet crisp and military, "What do we have that they don't?"
Jackson answered readily, and Kawalsky slowly saw that he wasn't just speculating. The man was putting a serious proposal on the table. "Our fate. We made contact with the Asgard." Who were the Asgard?
Jack-- O'Neill-- asked, "So?"
Jackson replied, "So if Dr. Carter can make contact with the Asgard in her reality, maybe their Asgard will be willing to help them."
"Defend their world against the Goa'uld?" Hammond asked.
"Yes."
"And just how do you propose we raise the Asgard, in their reality?" Jack asked.
Kawalsky listened in stunned silence as they hammered at the details of a plan to try and save his world. He regained his senses when the subject of getting Dr. Carter to the stargate came up. He climbed up the few remaining stairs and walked through the doorway. "That's where I come in. Permission to join the briefing, sir?"
#
Kawalsky followed Daniel Jackson to the storage room where they'd left the mirror. "Here it is," Jackson said. They hadn't crated it at Area 51, just put it on a pallet, covered it with a shroud and shrink wrapped the whole thing to hold it in place. Jackson fished out a pocket knife and sliced through the packaging.
Kawalsky studied the scientist curiously. If Major Carter was right, this guy was the difference between the chaos in his world and the relative peace in this one. "So how come you're here instead of helping the doc and the major with the alien power thingy?"
Jackson gave him a mildly puzzled look, starting to peel back the plastic. "What could I do to help them? It's not like there's any writing on the device."
Kawalsky juggled the controller from hand to hand. "Aren't you an astrophysicist, like the doc?"
The man looked startled, then actually laughed. "God, no. I'm an archeologist." He looked at Kawalsky's dumbfounded expression. "I didn't open the stargate by understanding it mechanically. I just read the instructions." He gave Kawalsky a small smile. "Sam says it's the first time in history a guy read the manual."
Kawalsky watched Jackson pulling the covering off the mirror. "You know, if this works out, you'll have done it again."
Jackson gave him a mildly puzzled look. "Done what again?"
"Saved a world." Kawalsky said. He was beginning to see why they'd put Jackson on a field team.
Jackson shrugged, abashed. "Everyone contributed ideas. If I hadn't suggested it, someone else would have."
"You do this often?"
"Travel to other dimensions so we can get shot at again by people we've already killed?" Jackson asked. "That would be no." He pushed his glasses up and peered at the controller in Kawalsky's hands.
Kawalsky ignored the mildly sarcastic tone. "Why are you helping us?"
Jackson gave him a serious look and fell silent for a moment. When he spoke, he started slowly. "When I arrived in the other alternate reality, the Goa'uld attack had been underway for three days." He picked up speed. "They had no idea who I was. At first they thought I was Goa'uld. Then they thought I was crazy. Hell, I wondered if I were crazy. By the time we figured out that I'd come through the mirror from another reality, there were over a billion dead. My counterpart in that reality was dead. Most of the cities of Earth had been destroyed. You know what it was like. You lived it, or something similar."
Kawalsky nodded dumbly. When Hammond had said they knew what he and Dr. Carter were going through yesterday, he'd wanted to protest angrily. For the first time since he came here, he felt like someone did understand.
Jackson paced back and forth in front of the mirror, gesturing in short choppy motions. "There were so many things I could have told them. If I'd been just four or five days earlier, I might have been able to save them all. But there wasn't any time. I watched the Goa'uld mothership land on top of Cheyenne Mountain, watched them kill Sam, Jack, Catherine, other people I knew. And even if they weren't really the same people, it hurt to see them die. They still felt like my friends, you know?"
Kawalsky thought about this universe's O'Neill and Ferretti and Carter. Weirdly different or not, he certainly wouldn't want to see them killed. "Yeah."
"They saved me." Jackson said. "Saved us all, really." He blinked behind his glasses. "Jack- General O'Neill in their reality- he gave his life to buy us time. Sam and Catherine dialed me out, back to P3R-233. The Goa'uld caught them before they could join me. The self destruct was on final countdown when I went through the gate. I was the last one to make it out of the SGA/ and they did it to give my world a chance. To get me back to my own reality with the warning the Goa'uld were coming. "
He smiled a little wryly. "And so I got back- and no one believed me."
Kawalsky said, "If they didn't believe you, how- "
"I didn't have any proof." Jackson said. "Just the mirror, which I couldn't operate without the controller, a stargate address- in my own handwriting, no less- and a really strange story. In the end, Jack agreed to at least check it out. Even though they didn't believe me, if by some chance I was right, the potential consequences were too horrible to be ignored. As it was, we were far, far luckier than we deserved to be. The stargate address really was for Apophis' homeworld, and not for any one of a hundred other Goa'uld planets it could have been. We gated onto one of the motherships only about ten minutes before they left for Earth. The ships were actually in orbit preparing to attack when we blew them."
He looked seriously at Kawalsky. "So you see. The only reason my reality is still here is thanks to another one helping us out. There wasn't any way for us to help them in return once the controller for our mirror was destroyed. But we do have the chance to help you. So-" He waved one hand in a vaguely circular motion. "If we can't save everyone, at least we can try to save something."
"What if the Carters can't get the generator working?" Kawalsky wondered aloud.
Daniel said, "Then we send you both to Cimmeria. The planet itself is protected from the Goa'uld so you'd be safe, and there's an Asgard communication device there. I'll make sure you have coordinates and directions in case you need them. It will take longer than if we send you to the Asgard homeworld though. That's why we're trying that first."
Kawalsky nodded. "Sweet."
Jackson checked the time. "You need to show me how this thing works."
Kawalsky nodded and held up the controller. "Okay, the way Dr C explained it, the controller is not what you'd call an exacting science. You can't just dial up an address like you would on a Stargate. You have to kinda figure out where you are."
#
Kawalsky swayed with exhaustion as he looked around the crowded briefing room. His hand brushed the mirror controller in his pocket. Daniel had handed back to him before they went through the mirror. He really should lock it up somewhere, he reflected muzzily, before he lost it.
It had been a grueling day- more than a day- since they had come back through the mirror and contacted the Asgard. The good news was the casualties, though heavy, were not as bad as had been feared. The miraculous Asgard healing technology that they had used to restore General Hammond had also brought back many of the other dead. In some cases, the damage to the bodies had been too great and the oldest casualties had been dead too long to be revived, but the eventual death toll was expected to be millions lower than was originally reported.
The bad news was while the Asguard had restored many of the dead and most severely injured, provided some food and supplies, and had helped them move things around with their beam-me-up-Scotty transporter technology, they weren't staying long or helping to rebuild. The whole world had a huge task ahead of them, and millions of refugees would probably die of hunger and lack of shelter before the world could be restored to anything like normality. In all likelihood, it would never be the same again.
Despite the incredible devastation, people's spirits were high. The flood of Asgard-orchestrated miracles made a disproportionately huge difference to their state of mind. Kawalsky had felt the biggest grin of his life split his face as a rather confused-looking Jack O'Neill had been beamed down to the SGA, a huge charred and bloody hole in the front of his uniform, but completely unharmed. Samantha Carter had gasped, then flung herself at him and burst into tears.
He looked at his friend now. Jack had sent his wife off to sleep hours ago while they slogged on, helping to coordinate the relief effort. Jack turned around and gave him a tired grin. "Hey."
"Hey, yourself." Kawalsky grinned at him.
"You're staring." Jack said. "What, have I got celery between my teeth?"
Kawalsky's gaze went involuntarily to the lack of a scar on his brow, and his smile faded. "Charlie?" Jack asked.
"That alternate reality stuff, that was some weird shit, Jack," he said.
Jack O'Neill looked mildly curious and leaned back against the table. "Oh? Did you meet me? What was I like?"
"The same." Kawalsky shook his head. "And not. You and Sam weren't together. She was a major in the Air Force."
"Sam?" Jack shook his head. "Go figure. Huh, she told me once she considered going into the military. Thought it would please her dad. But in the end she wanted to be a scientist more."
Kawalsky said, "Oh, Major Carter was a scientist too. Overachiever, did it all. She was really, uh, different." He considered a moment, thinking he should suggest to Dr. C that they not tell Jack about the people on Abydos. And that reminded him of Jackson doing the same thing in the other universe. "I was dead in that reality. Your best friend there was another scientist, guy named Jackson."
"My best friend? A scientist?" Jack looked disbelieving. "Hey, I may have married one, but she's an exception."
Kawalsky smiled. "Oh, this one sort of grows on you." He looked at the map. "I wonder if he's still alive in this reality? We could use him."
Jack shook his head. "If you say so. Another physicist?"
"No, an archeologist." Kawalsky watched as his best friend's eyebrows went up. Daniel had said it was a coincidence, he'd just been in the right place at the right time. Kawalsky wasn't so sure. If the Daniel Jackson in this universe could have the same kind of catalytic effect as the one who'd helped them contact the Asgard, Kawalsky wanted him on their side. "He's got a sort of talent for uh, rearranging fate."
Jack O'Neill rolled his eyes. "Too deep for me, Charlie. Why don't you turn in? You look like shit." He clapped a hand on Kawalsky's shoulder and turned the gain back up on his earpiece.
Kawalsky would normally have made a smart remark, but this time he only smiled at his friend's back and spoke too softly for Jack to hear. "Yeah, buddy? Well you look great." He turned to the stairs, feeling the exhaustion rolling over him in waves. "Not such a bad day after all."
#
Daniel Jackson looked at the woman driving the jeep. "This is far enough, Julie. If the disaster is as big as they're saying, there's probably going to be a lot of theft and looting. We want to keep our transportation as long as possible. We'll come back to the dig or try to send word if there's nothing to be done." From the sound of it, they were lucky their dig had been so remote. The historic sites at Kharnak and the Valley of the Kings had been devastated.
He and David and Colin got out of the vehicle and shouldered their small packs. They'd seen the explosions and the fires that had lightened the night sky for nearly five days before they had abruptly disappeared. The news stories had been wild, unbelievable. David and Colin both wanted to return home. But with the news describing city after city being destroyed by huge alien ships, and the authorities advising everyone to avoid urban areas, they had opted to stay put on the dig until the news had changed for the better. Then the second set of alien ships had arrived and started kicking the butts of the first ones. With the news reporting the cessation of hostilities, David had pushed for a couple of them to venture into Cairo and see what the situation was.
The general feeling of the planet Earth was a resounding 'why us?'.
#
The further they trudged along the dusty road, the more dismayed they became. Cairo was a shambles. Most of the major buildings were flattened, and looters had stripped the ruins. Street vendors had set up shop in the rubble, but the prices were ten times what Daniel was used to seeing. They had to detour around one block which was flooded with what smelled like raw sewage.
David looked around in dismay. "Wasn't that the embassy?"
Daniel said, "Yes." He'd taught a couple of language classes there. "Let's ask around."
It had taken time and patience to find someone willing to talk- the survivors they saw on the street were unwilling to be approached by three obvious foreigners, despite the comfortable light robes they wore over their western shorts and T-shirts. Daniel finally found a woman with a street cart who recognized him. She told him that the best place to look for an official American or British presence would be the refugee camp.
They walked through the city, seeing the signs of life and rebuilding already starting. David looked at the new construction in astonishment. "I can't believe they're already starting repairs. It's only been a few days."
Colin said, "Cities are hard to kill. When the Germans bombed London in WWII, a lot of people thought the city would cease to function, but despite the destruction, life went on."
"This was faster and even more destructive." Daniel pointed out.
"Also over more quickly," the Englishman replied.
The refugee camp was a seething mass of humanity, but there was a rough order to it. People were queuing for food and medical attention. A man with a laptop was taking the names of survivors. They set a time to meet up again, and Colin went off looking for any British embassy officials while David joined the information queue.
Daniel's attention was caught by a woman with a howling baby. A young man in American military uniform was trying to talk to her in broken Arabic, but she clearly didn't understand. He drew closer, guessing from her dress she was probably from outside the city. He came up and asked the woman, "Can you tell me what is your problem?" in first one, then another of the local dialects. Her eyes lit up over her veil at the second, and she explained her baby was sick.
Daniel let her get a half sentence ahead, then began translating. The sweating young man in desert camoflage looked surprised and then relieved to hear Daniel's American accent. After listening to the question, he directed the woman to another table where she could get a doctor to see the baby. He turned to Daniel, looking a bit dubiously at his shabby cotton robe. "Thanks, that was useful. I had no idea what she was saying."
Daniel shrugged. "You're welcome. Though, um-"
"What?" the young man didn't look upset, just grateful for the help.
"Well, she probably did understand some Arabic, but I think she found your accent a bit difficult." Daniel hoped the guy wouldn't be offended, but he ought to know his Arabic was pretty unintelligible. Daniel wasn't sure hewould have understood it if the guy hadn't been muttering what he wanted to say in English as he obviously groped for the Arabic words.
The man laughed. "If she understood anything I said, it's a miracle. My Arabic sucks." He gave Daniel as speculative look. "I don't suppose you have some time to volunteer."
Daniel blinked, "Sure. Whatever you need."
He grinned and stuck out a hand, "Lieutenant Pat O'Brien. Call me Pat. One of the problems we're having getting the relief effort organized is making people understand what we're saying. I couldn't even follow that woman's Arabic."
"I'm Daniel." Daniel shook his hand. "I can certainly translate for you. She wasn't speaking Arabic though. That was a related local dialect."
"Oh." O'Brien looked at him. "So you speak that and Arabic both?"
Daniel shrugged. "I know a few languages."
"Like what?" O'Brien asked.
"I can probably make myself understood in anything you're likely to run across here." Daniel said. He took in the other man's raised eyebrow. "Honestly, it will be easier to let you know if we find something I can't translate."
O'Brien looked dubious. "How about French, Turkish, Greek?"
"Yes." Daniel said. "I speak all those. Really."
O'Brien said. "O-kay, then. Why don't you follow me?"
#
"Stay quiet." Daniel told the injured man as reassuringly as he could. "The doctor is coming." He kept up a flow of speech designed to sooth and reassure.
After their first foray into the devastation of Cairo, they'd gone back and dismantled the dig site. Daniel had helped Julie pack up their supplies with aching regret. It wasn't the first work he'd gotten on a dig since he'd trashed his career with that disastrous lecture in Los Angeles, but it was the first dig he'd been on where he was getting full professional credit. Prior digs had employed him as a cheap but experienced excavator but explicitly prohibited him from conducting research or writing about them.
He'd never thought of himself as proud; his upbringing would have been enough to knock a sense of self-importance out of anyone. But he'd learned some new lessons in humility in the last three years, not to mention finding out who his real friends were. Julie and Robert told him he was becoming too cynical. He preferred to think of it as less thin-skinned-- always self-reliant, he'd grown less communicative, dealing with problems alone and turning away concern and sympathy with sturdy independence.
The real silver lining to his academic suicide was the chance to return to Egypt permanently. Dirty, impoverished, thriving and exotic, Daniel had never fallen out of love with the country of his birth. If jobs there paid poorly, rent was still cheaper, and he relished the scenery, the food, the people and the antiquity of the place. Seeing it now made his heart ache.
As soon as they had gotten to Cairo, Julie, David and Colin and the others had started trying to make arrangements to go home, and spending their free time helping the reconstruction crews. Finding his tiny room on the outskirts of Cairo buried under tons of rubble, Daniel had gone back and volunteered at the refugee camp. Between his language skills and his meager training in first aid, he'd been quickly co-opted.
"All, right, what have we got here." The tiny woman with reddish hair wasn't anyone Daniel had met before. She immediately began examining the wound in the man's side. She was wearing a soiled white coat with shiny metal bars pinned to the collar. Military insignia, Daniel had learned. She was a captain, and evidently, also a doctor.
"This is Andreas." Daniel said. "He was climbing around a partially collapsed building when it completely collapsed."
The woman said, "Well, this is going to need more than a bandage." Daniel translated what she told him about the course of treatment. Andreas, a short dark-haired teenager, visibly relaxed as Daniel explained what was happening.
The doctor had given him a surprised, then approving look as she realized she wasn't going to have to communicate in sign language. She quickly sorted out a local anaesthetic, then looked around. "Damn, I really should have a nurse-"
Daniel said, "Because you need a trained medical person, or because you need a second pair of hands?"
"Second pair of hands-" she looked at him appraisingly.
"I can do it," Daniel said.
"You're not going to go all squeamish on me?" she asked.
Daniel felt the first smile in a couple of days flash over his face. "I'll do my best not to swoon at the sight of blood."
"Okay."
Daniel translated easily while following the doctor's instructions. He didn't especially like blood, but he'd never been panicked by it. He did feel a certain queasiness in his stomach when the doctor had him hold open the ragged cut so she could neatly suture some mysterious internal bits, but he concentrated on the dual flow of words, English and Greek, switching back and forth as the conversation demanded.
When she had finished, he wheeled Andreas off to get his medication and retire to a cot where he could rest for the next couple of days. When Daniel returned to the camp volunteer coordinator, he was looking harassed. "Daniel!" he handed over a slip of paper. "Can you go-"
"I'm on it." Daniel nodded, glanced at the note, and strode back off through the now-familiar blocks of the camp. He swiftly found the section he was looking for. "Dr. Fraiser?"
The woman he'd been assisting an hour before looked up from a stack of papers and smiled. "Ah- good. I asked if they'd assign you to me permanently. I hadn't realized how much easier things would be with a translator until I'd tried it. I don't know Arabic at all."
Daniel wondered if he should tell her that Andreas had spoken Greek, then shrugged. It wasn't especially relevant. "Glad I could help. Where to next, doctor?"
"I'm checking up on the condition of a bunch of patients that I've treated over the last several days." She explained, leading him to one of the convalescent areas. At the door of the tent she paused, looking surprised. "I don't know your name."
"I'm Daniel."
#
Daniel looked up as the plane took off from the military airstrip outside Cairo, wondering what David would find when he finally got home. He might be okay. His parents lived in a small town in upstate New York, well away from large cities. Julie was in for a harder trip. Her New York apartment was probably toast; she was planning to head out to Robert's parents' place in New Jersey until she could sort out alternative living arrangements. Daniel turned from the window and waited beside a desk while another group of people headed out to the airstrip, dragging duffle bags and other assorted luggage.
Almost two months after the alien attack, things were gradually assuming a sort of normalcy in the streets. Once they had closed down the dig, everyone started trying to make their way home. Colin had taken a boat to Spain more than a month ago, trying to get to London, but chances were he was still in transit. Europe, being so densely populated, had been hit hard.
David and Julie had waited impatiently in the refugee camp outside the ruins of Cairo until the US military finally had the capacity to start airlifting civilians home.
"Where are you on the list?" the young female airman behind the desk said sympathetically.
He glanced at her, startled and smiled. "I'm not." Evidently his sunstreaked hair and blue eyes were enough to identify him as American, despite his native dress. He waved a hand back toward the city. "I live in Cairo." He'd scarcely left the refugee center since the first day he'd gotten there. He was almost permanently hoarse these days, talking, translating, explaining from dawn until late into the night. And they were so short of medical personnel that even with his modest experience of first aid, he'd been pressed into service helping the injured. Not that he minded. It felt good to be able to help. Funny, there was nothing like an alien attack on your planet to put petty concerns about one's academic reputation into perspective.
He continued easily, "Besides, in some ways I'm fortunate. No family to worry about. A few friends I wouldn't mind knowing were okay but nothing close."
The woman smiled at him. "I can look up your friends for you if you like." She patted the computer. "This is linked in by satellite to the Survivors database back in the US." Daniel was vaguely aware of the database. With so many cities destroyed and millions displaced, the database had been created so people could let their families know they were okay. The distributed structure of the internet had survived the devastation amazingly well. Email was currently the most reliable communications medium on the planet.
Daniel was interested. "Could you?" He took a couple of steps closer, and gave her Dr. Jordan's name, as well as Stephen and Sarah. He already knew that Robert, his sister and his parents had made it. He drew a deep breath as they all came back as alive and checked in. Not extremely surprising-- in the US, they'd had more warning and had managed to evacuate a significant amount of the population from the largest cities. He smiled brightly at the young woman. "Thanks, uh-"
"Gina." She said.
"Gina." He felt unexpectedly relieved and happy knowing his friends had made it. He hadn't realized how much he had worried about them. "Thanks very much."
She said, "No problem-"
"Daniel." He supplied promptly. He hoped he wasn't too obviously admiring her sleek dark hair and trim figure. If he was, she didn't seem to object.
"Daniel." She said, "That's why they've been trying to register all the survivors and identify the casualties. Your friends have been able to see if you're okay ever since you first put your name on a list."
Daniel blinked. "Um, actually I don't think I did. Put my name on a list, I mean. No family to contact, remember."
She said, "Well, you should, so your friends will know too. Look, I can enter it for you now." Unexpectedly, she gave him a mischievous smile. "And isn't that a slick way to find out your name and phone number?"
He laughed, blushing under his tan and didn't mind a bit. "Daniel Jackson." He told her and watched her type it in.
She frowned at the screen. "Um, that's strange. Dr. Daniel Jackson, archeologist and linguist, last known location Egypt?" She asked.
"Yeah-" Daniel was surprised. "Was I already in there after all?" Maybe David had put his name in.
She shook her head, "No, your name has been flagged-- they do that with people they urgently want to locate. It says you should report to the nearest US military facility." She reached for a phone. "I'd better call my CO."
Daniel frowned, tapping his fingers on the counter. That was weird. Archeologist and linguist certainly sounded like him, or he'd have been sure that it was some other guy with the same name. What could the military possibly want with him?
#
Daniel sat freezing in the back of the military transport, packed in like a sardine with a bunch of other military and civilian passengers and scowled furiously at the handcuffs. He'd gone from puzzled as to the source of the message, to irritated at their insistance he come with them and eventually arrived at livid when they had handcuffed him and escorted him to the plane over his vehement protests.
The only explanation he'd received was they'd been ordered to return him to the US immediately. They didn't know anything more or at any rate wouldn't tell him. The other passengers on the plane had checked out the cuffs and then looked at him like he was a pariah. Daniel didn't find that surprising. Routine law enforcement was pretty sketchy at the moment. Actually dragging him out of Cairo this way was bound to give people the idea he had done something pretty bad.
They landed at an airstrip in Scotland. "Used to be, we'd have gone to Germany", one of the MPs said. "Or Mildenhall in England. But they both took a pasting from the aliens." They waited for all the other passengers to disembark before helping Daniel to his feet. He supposed he should be grateful for their professionalism. They certainly had treated him politely enough.
Daniel climbed awkwardly down the steps, feeling cold, stiff and uncoordinated. It was overcast with a light mist in the air, and the icy breeze cut right through the light cotton robe and the frayed cutoffs and T-shirt underneath. "Damn, it's cold." Daniel said. He glowered at the sky. "Bad enough I've been arrested for no reason I can determine, couldn't the sun have at least been out?" They walked across the tarmac into a drafty metal building that was no warmer than the outdoors.
The guard laughed. "In Scotland? Not a chance." He looked down at the miserable archeologist. "You really have no idea why you're here, do you?"
Daniel raised his brows and looked back. "No. I really don't. Does that mean you're gonna tell me?" he asked hopefully.
The man shook his head, "Sorry, sir, I don't know. But you're not under arrest."
"Really?" Daniel held up his cuffed hands. "Could have fooled me."
"You're in custody."
"Oh, how could I have been confused? The difference is so noticeable." They did get to stand in a slightly warmer room for half an hour, and Daniel managed with some difficulty to use the men's room despite the cuffs. Then a different pair of guards escorted him out to another plane.
The previous guards seemed to have told the new ones Daniel had no idea what was going on, and they were reasonably friendly from the start. He peered at their name tags; Anderson and Wilkins. Or perhaps they were just happy to get a trip back to the States, he thought as he settled on the hard seat of the plane. By this time, Daniel had gone from cold and hungry to actively shivering. One of the MPs escorting him noticed his attempt to curl into a tight ball and threw a heavy blanket over him. He mouthed a grudging 'thanks' back over the engine noise. With the warmth he finally was able to fall asleep.
He awoke as the plane touched down with a bump, feeling stiff and confused and half sliding out of his seat. He tried to put out a hand to steady himself and briefly panicked at the restraints on his hands, but the pain as he struggled against them quickly brought him the rest of the way awake. He awkwardly pushed his hair out of his face with his bound hands. "Where are we?" He asked the guard groggily as the punishing noise finally lessened.
"Petersen Air Force Base," the man told him. "Colorado Springs. You slept right through our refueling stop."
"Why Colorado?" Daniel asked, trying to stretch as they got out of the plane.
The man shrugged. "Damned if I know. Someone wants you badly though. This plane was only supposed to go as far as Bangor, Maine. It was retasked in flight to refuel and go on to Colorado."
"That's insane." Daniel shook his head. "I'm nobody. There's no imaginable reason for the military to have any interest in me. What on Earth is going on?"
The man wordlessly handed Daniel a cup. "I know, I know. You have no more idea than I have." Daniel inhaled the welcome aroma of coffee and took a large gulp, recklessly ignoring the danger of burning his mouth. "Wow. But it might have been worth it for a cup of coffee." Luxuries like coffee had been in short supply over the last months.
Sergeant Anderson actually smiled. "Actually sir, I've been told to escort you to NORAD."
Daniel shook his head. "Look, are you absolutely positive you have the right Daniel Jackson? It's not that uncommon a name, you know-" Anderson looked sympathetic but led him to the car. He sighed, "I know. You have orders."
At the gate of the Cheyenne Mountain complex, Anderson turned him over to another similarly uniformed guard, who unsmilingly led him into the depths of the mountain. They went down 11 levels, walked a short ways and into yet another elevator. Daniel was surprised to see him press a button labeled 28. He whistled as the elevator started to sink. "All the way to the bottom, eh?"
The man ignored him. After walking through a bewildering maze of corridors he was finally led up a staircase to an unexceptionable-looking conference room, stuffed with computers and chattering people. As they entered, several men turned. The tall gray-haired man and the bald one regarded him dubiously. The third man, who had a long nose and an interesting lived-in face, looked at him with recognition and a sort of interest.
Daniel looked back with a certain belligerence. "Isn't it time somebody told me what the hell I'm doing here?" he demanded. Answers. These people had to be the ones with answers, and Dr. Daniel Jackson was more than ready to hear them.
#
"Isn't it time somebody told me what the hell I'm doing here?" the young man demanded irritably.
Kawalsky looked at him with interest. He'd wondered how the Jackson of this universe would be different. It was clear that this one had never submitted to military discipline. In place of the military haircut and uniform he had seen on the other Daniel, this one had shaggy long hair, lightened by the desert sun and rounder glasses, broken and mended with frayed adhesive tape. He also was thinner and filled with a sort of restless energy Kawalsky didn't remember the other Jackson having. From his grubby state and day's growth of stubble, it was clear he hadn't been given time to shower or change. Kawalsky's eyes fell on his wrists. "Why is Dr. Jackson handcuffed?" he asked the guard.
The guard looked like he wanted to say 'he was handcuffed when I got him' but managed a neutral and professional, "I believe Dr. Jackson objected to accompanying the MPs, Major."
"Well, take them off." Kawalsky ordered. This was going to be hard enough without having already pissed off Jackson on top of it.
He looked at the young man, who said, "About time," flexing his shoulders as he was at last allowed to move freely. He muttered something under his breath in an unfamilar language. Kawalsky realized he must have been handcuffed all the way from Cairo and winced in sympathy. He had to be pretty stiff. But he seemed to take it in stride and turned an enquiring blue gaze on Kawalsky.
"Um, hi." Kawalsky said. "Dr. Jackson. You don't know us, but actually, we sort of know you. I'm Major Charles Kawalsky. These are General Hammond, Colonel Jack O'Neill."
"Speak for yourself," O'Neill said. He looked around the swarm of people in the busy room and turned to the bald man. "May be we should take this in your office, sir?"
As they turned toward the office, Jackson's gaze fell on the two story stone ring outside the window of the room. He stopped dead. "Wow. What's that?" He nearly pressed his nose against the glass, trying to make out the symbols. "Those symbols, I've never seen anything like them."
Kawalsky put his hand on Daniel's shoulder. "C'mon. You're about to find out."
Inside the office, Jackson put his curiosity about the ring on hold and said, "Okay, what am I doing here? And what do you mean, you know me?"
The three men exchanged a glance, then Kawalsky pulled out the piece of paper from his pocket. He handed it to Jackson. "Can you read this?"
Jackson unfolded the creased yellow sheet and squinted at the heiroglyphs. " 'Beware the destroyers'? Melodramatic. What's going on? I can't imagine anyone going to all this trouble to play a practical joke." He handed the paper back. "Where did you get this?"
Kawalsky grimaced. "Well, that's where the story gets a little weird. See, you gave it to me." He'd asked Daniel for sample of translated Goa'uld writing when they had transferred the supplies and computer files from the SGC. He'd thought the linguist would have to find an example in his files and photocopy it. Instead he'd just grabbed a convenient pad of paper and written out the phrase.
"I gave it to you?" Jackson repeated skeptically. "Really."
Hammond grunted. "Oh, it gets better, son. That writing? It's Gould. The alien language."
"No, it isn't." Jackson contradicted instantly. "It's an early form of ancient Egyptian hiero-" His voice suddenly trailed off. "Alien?" he looked a bit wildly from one to the other. "But, but, but...the dig at -" he started mumbling as his mouth couldn't keep up with his brain, "-Khufu's pyramid- Giza-pre-Old Kingdom. Damn it." He stopped dead, eyes blazing with excitement. "I was right!"
Hammond smiled, Kawalsky grinned and even Jack looked amused. "Yes, Dr. Jackson. You were," the general said. He pointed in the direction of the gate room. "The big stone ring is an alien artifact we call a stargate. It was found at Giza in 1928. We use it to travel to other planets."
The young man's mouth dropped open. "Wha-" He visibly floundered for a moment, then got a grip on himself. "Okay, so all this is really, really fascinating, and I'm dying to hear more. But it doesn't explain why I'm here."
Kawalsky spoke again. "Well, in addition to traveling through space, we also have a device we call a quantum mirror. It lets us travel into different alternate realities- parallel worlds with all the same people and places as our own, but where things turned out a bit differently." He paused but he couldn't tell whether Jackson was buying any of this or not. "I recently visited a different reality, one quite similar to our own. You were there-"
"No, I wasn't." Jackson contradicted stubbornly.
"Well, not you, of course, but the Daniel Jackson who belonged in that reality."
Jackson didn't look like he was finding this especially plausible. Kawalsky was relieved to hear a familiar voice at the door.
"Dr. Jackson." Samantha Carter said warmly as he came in.
He gave her a rather wary look. "Let me guess. You know this 'other me' too."
She smiled. "We've met, yes. I'm Dr. Samantha Carter. In that reality, my counterpart and yours were good friends. I must admit I've been looking forward to meeting you."
"Ri-ight." Jackson looked from one to the other. "You do realize this all sounds more than a little, um-"
"Nuts?" suggested Jack O'Neill.
"Thank you. Good word." Jackson said.
"As I was saying," Kawalsky continued. "Dr. Carter and I visited this alternate reality. It was a lot like ours, only in that reality, they stopped the alien invasion before it happened. They stopped it because in their reality, you were a part of the Stargate Program."
"M-me?!" Jackson couldn't have sounded more incredulous than O'Neill was looking. "What did I do, ask the aliens nicely in ancient Egyptian to leave us alone?"
O'Neill was shaking his head. "Charlie, this is crazy. Just because this guy was magic in this hocus-pocus other reality of yours doesn't mean Jackson here is going to be the same. I mean look at him." He waved a hand at the archeologist's disheveled appearance.
Jackson gave him an unfriendly look. "I'd like to see how good you'd look after being hauled halfway around in the world in handcuffs without so much as a clean shirt."
"Come on, guys." Kawalsky said. "Look, Jackson can read Gould. He's just shown us that much." That was the only thing that had persuaded Hammond and O'Neill to put out the high-priority order to have Jackson brought here. Well, that and finding out the scientific team who translated the Giza coverstone had extensively referenced Jackson's research. "If he never does another thing, that will be invaluable."
Jackson crossed his arms across his chest and muttered, "Assuming I want to read Gould-". Despite this, there was an increasingly curious look on his face.
Samantha Carter nodded. "Look, the other Daniel Jackson opened their stargate in two weeks. It took me three years- more if you count working out the return addressing for the trip back."
"Opened the stargate?" Jackson looked at her in disbelief. "Look, I'm just an archeologist. I don't know anything about alien technology."
"See-" O'Neill started. His wife gave him an irritated look, and he shut up.
Jackson said abruptly, "And for that matter, what's the big emergency? Why is this such a big deal you had to haul me out of Cairo by the scruff of the neck? The bad aliens kicked the crap out of us; the good aliens rescued us. Did we only have a one-time, get-out-of-the-alien-invasion-free coupon?"
O'Neill raised his eyes at the astute question and Kawalsky replied, "Something like that. The Asgard are powerful but spread a little thin right now. There's no guarantee they'll be around the next time we need help. We badly need to be able to defend ourselves if necessary."
Kawalsky knew Hammond was more than half convinced. But then he'd met the other Daniel Jackson, seen him face Apophis in the control room. Kawalsky figured there was no real point in going into the whole SG team thing now. His own people were skeptical, and the other Jackson had told him that anyone enough like him to be useful was going to jump at the chance of going through the gate when it was offered. "Look, give us a chance," Kawalsky said. "We know you're not him. But you're close. You're one of the few people on the planet who can read this language. We need you. Your planet needs you."
The appeal to his sense of duty was obviously reaching this Jackson, though Jack was rolling his eyes at Kawalsky's hyperbole. Jackson gave him a wary look. "If I stay, I get to learn about this stargate thing?"
Kawalsky nodded. "Yes."
"And no more handcuffs?" Jackson asked.
"Of course not." Kawalsky said.
"And if I want to leave, you give me transport back home." Jackson pushed.
"Sure." Kawalsky promised recklessly.
Jackson met his eyes for a moment, then nodded briskly. "Okay then." He looked around the room. "So now what?"
They all stared at him. Then Hammond said, "How long has it been since you had a square meal, son?"
#
Daniel had opted for the hot shower and change of clothes first, rescuing his journal before the clothes were taken away. It was a good thing he'd made a habit of carrying it with him since the attack. He couldn't remember when he'd last had a hot shower. Not since before the dig preceding the alien invasion, that was for sure.
The locker room brought back vaguely unpleasant memories of high school gym, but he ignored it and reveled in the luxury of being clean. He even shaved the two days' worth of stubble, the mirror being an unaccustomed convenience. His reflection was oddly normal. He'd have thought the last three years would have shown on his face, but he couldn't actually pick out any detail that was different from when he had left California. Even the sunstreaks in his hair and the tan that made his eyes look startlingly light were no different. It was almost as if the years in Egypt were a meaningless interlude, an unwarranted interruption beween his old life and his destiny.
'Superstitious nonsense,' he thought, splashing cold water on his face with unnecessary force. For sure, a military base twenty-eight stories underneath a mountain was nowhere he was ever intended to wind up. Daniel Jackson had never believed in fate.
Kawalsky was waiting for him when he came out, looking surprised to see the stitches along his arm. "What happened?"
"Guy with a knife." Daniel said economically. The doctor had looked looked him over and said Daniel should be able to handle it on his own. He'd been cleaning a wound in the man's leg when his patient had regained consciousness and pulled a knife. There had been some inevitable confusion before he had talked the man into lying back down and letting him finish. Janet had shaken her head over the gash the man had put in his arm and insisted on stitching it herself.
"What did you do?" Kawalsky asked.
"Told him to put the knife away and let me finish treating his wounds." He saw Kawalsky's puzzled look and relented. "I was helping in the big refugee camp in Cairo."
"I thought you weren't that kind of doctor," the major asked.
"What, there's something about me you don't know?" Daniel said. "No, I'm not a medical doctor. I just know some first aid is all. People with real medical training have been spread a little thin lately." Daniel had found himself treating all sorts of minor injuries, delivering babies- though at least he'd had prior experience there- and even setting the occasional simple fracture.
Kawalsky nodded as he tied his boots and led him out the door. In the commissary, the food was classic institutional, but it couldn't possibly have looked better to Daniel. Two months of inadequate nutrition plus an eighteen hour trip from Cairo had left him feeling decidedly hollow. He glanced at Kawalsky. "What's the ration system?" he asked.
The major's eyebrows went up. "None, really. There are some things that are hard to buy right now, but you can eat as much as you want of what's here."
Daniel nodded and wondered if things were really that close to normal here, or if the military just had priority. Regardless, he was going to have enough to eat for once. Despite his hunger, he didn't take huge portions. After three months on short rations, it would be a while before he'd be able to eat normally sized meals. Colonel O'Neill joined them as Daniel wolfed down a pair of sandwiches. "Been a long time since I've seen anyone that enthused about military food," he remarked.
Daniel washed the sandwiches down with a gulp of coffee. "The food situation has been a little rough in Egypt," he said. As a relief worker, Daniel could have been better fed. Like most of the others, he'd gotten by on the minimum to leave more for people who really needed it. "How long have you been traveling to other planets?" he asked.
Kawalsky answered, "Oh, a little over two years. We deciphered the gate three years ago, but it took us a while to figure out how get the teams back once they'd gone out."
Daniel froze with his cup halfway to his lips. "Two years? Did you know about these aliens before they attacked?"
"Yeah," O'Neill said. "We tried to stop them, but we couldn't."
"How long?" Jackson asked.
"How long what?"
Jackson looked suspiciously at the tall colonel. "How long did you know they were coming before they showed up?"
O'Neill met his eyes levelly. "Six months."
"Six months." Daniel said. "And you couldn't warn anybody? Evacuate the cities?"
"We thought we knew." Kawalsky said. "But we could have been wrong. It could have been six years instead of six months. The president decided creating a panic ourselves was as bad as the aliens attacking. There was nothing we could do."
"Forget it, Charlie." O'Neill said. "This guy was digging in the dirt, not here trying to defend the planet. What does he know?"
"Nothing." Jackson said. "Obviously. If I'd had any idea there was a threat, let alone that I might be able to do something to help, I'd have volunteered." He glared at O'Neill.
Kawalsky laughed.
"What?" O'Neill and Jackson asked simultaneously, then gave one another a nearly identical startled look.
That only made Kawalsky laugh harder. "He's got a point, Jack."
#
Sam pulled up a picture of the stargate symbols. "So, a stargate address consists of six symbols, defining a point in a three dimensional space, plus the symbol for the originating point." She pointed to the inverted V with a circle that he'd seen on everyone's sleeves. "That's the symbol for Earth."
The stargate symbols had puzzled Daniel from the first moment he'd seen them. He couldn't relate them to any Earth language he'd ever seen. Now he realized what they were. "Oh, I get it. They're constellations."
"What?" Sam said. "No, Daniel, it's just a symbol."
Daniel shook his head. "Not the Earth symbol. The others." He traced the outline of the one that had just jumped out at him. "See? It's an idealized version of Orion."
Sam looked from the symbols back to him, pulled the keyboard toward her and started typing furiously. "You know, I've spent years wondering why they assigned the coordinates they way they did. I mean, they seem to be completely random. The distances between coordinates are different, coordinates adjacent on the gate are on opposite sides of the galaxy." Star charts were flashing by on the screen. "Now I finally get it." She typed in strings of numbers. "The coordinates' absolute location is roughly equidistant from the major stars of the constellation. Or they were before we had to account for stellar drift."
"Oh. Interesting," Daniel said politely. It didn't seem very important, though Sam appeared to be excited.
She gave him a warm smile. "I wonder--"
"What?" he asked.
She rummaged through a file drawer and extracted some photographs and a copy of a hieroglyphic inscription with a translation. "I'm just wondering what else we might have missed. This is a picture of the cover stone that was found on top of the stargate."
Daniel looked at the picture of the artifact, then down at the rough translation, winced and picked up a pen. "Well, this is wrong," he said. "I'm amazed you even got 'stargate' translated right." He crossed out a phrase. " 'In his sarcophagus?' Try 'sealed and buried'. " He crossed out several more portions of the translation, writing in corrections. "You know what this means?" he asked, looking up at Sam.
Sam shook her head.
"I'm going to need to see every piece of translation you've ever done. I can't trust any of it."
She nodded. "I think I have something that will help." She turned to her computer. "This is a database of reports that Major Carter in the other reality gave us. The Major sent it through just before they destroyed their mirror," she told Daniel. "I'm only sorry that she didn't give us more, but what we have is amazing. Plans for a prototype naquadah reactor that could revolutionize power generation. And the part you'll be interested in-- There's a dictionary, grammar and pronunciation guide for both ancient Egyptian as it's spoken in the galaxy today, and Goa'uld. And we've got abstracts of the mission reports for all the planets that they have visited."
Daniel watched her create a security profile and login for him, and test it. "Hey, what's this?" Sam said, as a note popped up on her screen. She looked at Daniel. "Looks like a personal message for you. Encrypted."
A personal message from an alternate reality. Daniel didn't have to wonder who it was from. He leaned over her shoulder and typed in a password. The screen cleared instantly to display the message. "Apparently, I'm predictable," he said. He glanced over the message, and chuckled. "It's in a code I made up as a kid. I used to keep my journals in it, so other kids couldn't read them."
Sam asked, "Well, what does it say?"
Daniel quickly scanned the brief note, then summarized without going into specifics.
Hey,
If you're reading this, I guess you aren't dead. Congratulations. You've also joined the stargate program. That means the whole staying alive thing is about to get a lot more complicated. Sorry. For what it's worth, it's a hell of a ride, and I don't regret it.
I could write volumes, but I know Sam's making up a list of planets where we found bad stuff, so I'll just pass on a little personal advice:
Always memorize gate addresses. You never know when you'll need to go back somewhere. You'd figure that out soon enough on your own but I figured the additional hint couldn't hurt.
Don't get in the sarcophagus. There are extenuating circumstances, like being dead or about to be dead, but I don't recommend it for anything less. It's severely addictive, and repeated use will destroy your mind.
Don't eat cake on Argos, especially if it's 'only for you'. Don't let anyone else eat it either.
Don't help people fleeing Taldor.
Don't let Jack juggle artifacts (at least not any you care about).
Good luck. You'll need it.
~DJ
Daniel made sure to translate the last piece of advice verbatim. Sam laughed. "Okay, he's got Jack's number." She frowned. "I wonder how he knew? The Asgard hadn't revived Jack yet when the other team left."
Daniel shrugged. "They had already revived some people, right? He probably just assumed the colonel would be healed in due time." He'd assumed some other things too, Daniel realized with a frisson of excitement. Major Kawalsky had said the other Daniel Jackson was on an exploratory team, and went through the gate regularly. His alternate seemed to think he was going to get that chance too.
"I guess," Sam said. "But that's awfully short. I'd have thought he could have said something a little more, um, useful."
Daniel felt surprisingly pleased with this message from his other self. "Oh, I don't know. I expect there are going to be a few times I really wish he'd been more explicit, but for the most part, it's kind of like he's saying I'll be fine." He looked at Sam. "If he'd given me a ton of advice on how to behave or something, I'd probably try to second guess it. Instead I think he's only warning me about stuff where my natural instincts would have given me the wrong answer."
#
When he came in, Kawalsky was surprised to see Daniel sitting at one of the control room consoles wearing a headset, babbling away in what sounded like Russian. "What's going on?" he asked Jack.
"Kid's making himself useful," O'Neill said. Charlie thought he looked unwillingly impressed. "You know how much trouble we've had coordinating on the international side? Well, if there's a language that guy doesn't speak, we haven't found it yet." The whole world knew about the stargate these days, and while the Cheyenne Mountain location wasn't a matter of public record, it was an open secret among the other nations of the world.
Charlie nodded approvingly. In between marathon sessions of translation, reading through the information forwarded by the SGC and reviewing writing systems the other SGC had discovered out among the stars, Daniel pitched in wherever he was needed, usually with cheerful good humor and an automatic courtesy that had gone a long way toward winning him acceptance among the military personnel.
Jack lowered his voice. "Tell me something, Charlie."
"What?" Kawalsky asked.
"Was the other guy this- this- peppy?" O'Neill asked.
Charlie chuckled. Jack was in no position to criticize people for peppiness. When things calmed down, Charlie fully expected to see his friend bouncing on his toes, looking forward to the next trip through the gate. But it was true Daniel also seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of energy. He started groggy in the morning, hit full speed ahead after his second cup of coffee and then threw himself into whatever he was doing with impressive concentration. "Not that I recall. The other one was more, um, focused." Charlie said. Also more quiet and somehow sad. He found himself hoping that whatever bad shit the other Jackson had been through, they'd find a way to protect theirs.
#
Daniel brushed his hair out of his face to shave and, reflected, not for the first time, that it would be more practical to cut it. Not to mention he would stop getting critical looks from the military. Daniel thought the military preoccupation with hair length was fairly silly, but decided he didn't like it long well enough to keep it just to spite them. He fetched the pair of scissors from the other room and looked at them dubiously. Sharper would have been better, but this was what he had. He hacked his hair off an inch above his collar.
He thought he'd gotten it pretty straight, but when General Hammond's assistant saw him, she started laughing and sent him to Sergeant Thomson, the unofficial base barber. The man seemed to have two cuts, stubble and short. Daniel went for short. Looking in the mirror afterward, he wasn't entirely sure how he felt about the result. At least it was neater and would help him to fit in.
When Charlie walked in, he did a classic double-take. "Daniel?"
Daniel winced, "That bad, eh?"
Charlie shook his head. "It's fine. It's just uncanny, between the uniform and the haircut you look so much like-" he broke off.
"Him?" Daniel looked chagrined. "Let me guess, he wore his hair short?"
When Hammond and O'Neill walked into the briefing room ten minutes later, the general looked nearly as astonished as Charlie had. "Dr. Jackson?" he asked incredulously.
Charlie started laughing at the look Daniel turned on him. "Yes, general. It's me. No, I'm not him. If you know what I mean."
O'Neill gave Kawalsky and Hammond an I-don't-know-these-people look, and told Daniel, "Nice haircut, Jackson."
Daniel muttered something extremely rude under his breath in Arabic. It only occurred to him that he shouldn't assume he was the only one who spoke other languages when O'Neill looked briefly amused.
#
After a protracted search, Kawalsky found what he was looking for and collected Jack. "Come with me," he said mysteriously. "You're going to want to see this."
O'Neill said, "What is it?"
"Wait and see," he replied. Charlie led him to Sam's lab carrying the tape, Jack half a step behind him. "Hey, Doc. You'll never guess what I found?"
"What?" Sam turned from the mysterious device that she and Daniel had been poring over.
"Where's the video player?" Charlie asked.
Sam looked from Charlie to her husband.
O'Neill shrugged, "No idea."
Sam pointed suspiciously at it, and said in an ominous tone, "If this has anything to do with either the Simpsons or sports, you two are history."
"Not me," Jack protested grinning. "This is Charlie's show." Daniel watched the byplay with amusement.
"I'm tired of having my veracity maligned," Charlie said mock-indignantly. "So I went looking for proof."
"Proof of what?" Sam asked.
"It turns out that not all the security cameras were disabled during the invasion," Kawalsky explained, feeding in the disk and turning on the monitor. "The control room one was still recording, even though it wasn't showing on the monitors upstairs." He clicked the controls. "Watch."
The screen lit up with the image of Sam, being escorted into the control room by a huge Jaffa. Jack stiffened. "That's the guy who killed me."
"No, it isn't," Sam told him. "That's the other Teal'c, from the alternate reality."
"Kel Apophis," Teal'c said.
The goa'uld replied, "Teal'c. Who is this?"
"She was captured attempting to escape, my lord."
They watched the other Teal'c order the guards to attend the goa'uld, leaving him alone with Sam and Hammond.
Hammond faced his new supposed tormentor bravely, "You might as well kill me."
Teal'c responded in a respectful tone, "I would never do such a thing, General Hammond."
The pictured Samantha reassured the general, "It's okay. You're not hallucinating. He's from an alternate reality."
Charlie fast forwarded past Sam's explanation of what they were doing and skipped ahead. They saw the gate begin to spin in the corner of the frame, Sam in fast forward kissing Teal'c's cheek and heading for the stairs, Teal'c staring into the control room and barking orders. As the shimmering event horizon died away, Apophis returned and Hammond was forced to surrender his weapon.
"Teal'c." Apophis was staring at the Jaffa in bewilderment and dismay. "Why do you betray me?"
The Jaffa stared back contemptuously for a long moment. "You are no god. I no longer serve your kind."
Apophis turned to one of his guards and barked something in Goa'uld. Daniel cocked his head curiously. He'd only had a few days with the Goa'uld materials, but he was already starting to get the sound of it in his mind. "He's calling for someone named Shak'l- Teal'c's second in command, I guess." Kawalsky fast forwarded again until they saw the Jaffa warrior come in, pushing three men ahead of them. One of them was Kawalsky. The other two-- Jack and Daniel leaned forward in narcissistic fascination.
Sam and Charlie looked back and forth curiously from the alternate versions on the screen to the ones in front of them. "Uncanny," Charlie said. "Jack is all but identical. Our Daniel is a little thinner and a few shades lighter in hair color, but still--"
On the tape, Jack was mouthing off to the Goa'uld, and the Jaffa guard hit the back of his legs with a staff weapon to force him to his knees. The other Jack winced in sympathy. Teal'c and Hammond were forced to kneel beside them. The Jaffa said something to Apophis. Daniel said, "Um- he's saying Teal'c is an imposter."
"Teal'c killed his counterpart," Kawalsky said. "They found the body."
The other Daniel looked up at the security monitor. "Deja vu," he said, staring at the image of the Goa'uld mothership descending on Cheyenne Mountain.
Apophis was staring at Jack. "Who are you? My First Prime killed you before my very eyes."
"I'm feeling much better, thank you," O'Neill replied.
Apophis turned to Teal'c, "Then who are you? What magic is this?"
Daniel said, apparently unafraid, "Well, you should know better than anyone, there's no such thing as magic."
An order from Apophis and a zat gun was raised behind Hammond. "I will ask you one more time. How could you have risen from the dead without a sarcophagus?"
When no one answered, Hammond was zatted.
O'Neill said to Kawalsky, "All right, I'm guessing the second shot kills in this world too, huh?"
"Tell me what I want to know!" Apophis demanded.
"Hey. I'd love to," O'Neill responded jauntily. "But I don't understand it myself. He does," And he nodded to Daniel.
"Some friend," the O'Neill watching the screen said sarcastically. They watched Daniel gamely try to explain the improbable to the impatient and get zatted for his trouble.
"That looks like it hurts," Daniel said.
"Oh, yeah," Charlie and Jack answered in unison. On the screen, Apophis and his guards started looking around in apparent consternation, then they disappeared in a blur of light.
O'Neill glanced at Jackson. "Okay, I'm guessin'-"
"Asgard," Daniel said.
O'Neill said enthusiastically, "All right!"
Charlie stopped the tape at the image of the two men frozen in perfect amity, with Kawalsky grinning beside them. Daniel glanced at the other Jack O'Neill curiously and caught him staring back at him in a disconcerted fashion. "So--" Charlie said firmly. "I don't want to hear any more comments about my sanity, or Sam's."
"I have to tell you, Charlie, " Jack drawled, "we have known all about your sanity, or lack thereof for quite a while now."
#
Charlie found Daniel in the briefing room, staring at the gate. "Penny?" he offered.
Daniel raised his eyebrows and smiled. "Oh, just admiring what passes for a view around here."
Charlie realized with some chagrin that Daniel had been here nearly two weeks, keeping a gruelling schedule of translating their backlog of artifacts, studying Goa'uld, and mundane translations of Earth communications. But as far as Kawalsky knew, he hadn't been off the base once. "Come on. Let's get out of here."
They met Sam and Jack at the elevator. They looked surprised to see Daniel. "I've invited Daniel to join us for dinner," Charlie said firmly. "He hasn't been out of the mountain since he got here."
"Great idea." Sam smiled at him.
"Yeah." Jack didn't look nearly so enthused.
Daniel looked at him and said, "Uh, Charlie. Maybe tonight isn't such a good time. I just remembered there's another piece of translation I need to get done tonight." He smiled brightly at Sam and Charlie. "Sorry, I'll have to take a rain check." He turned back toward the labs.
Sam and Charlie turned an identical accusing look on Jack. "What?" he said defensively.
Charlie shook his head. "Look, Jack, I'll go out with Daniel for a burger instead. I'll see you some other time."
Jack gave him an irritated look. "No, don't do that. Wait here, I'll go talk to him." He went down the hall after Daniel.
#
"Hey."
Daniel ignored the colonel calling behind him and swallowed the disappointment at not getting out of the mountain. Charlie was a good guy. He'd make the offer again.
"Hey, Daniel."
O'Neill never called him Daniel, always Jackson, military style. He almost stopped but didn't. He'd grown a shiny hard shell the last few years. Nothing stuck to it. Nothing penetrated. He didn't hear the footfall behind him, only felt the hand on his shoulder. He jumped, spinning around warily. "What?"
"Daniel." The colonel looked uncertain, for the first time that Daniel had seen. "Come to dinner."
Daniel shook his head. "Look, you just want a quiet dinner with people you care about, not to entertain a stranger. I get that. It's no big deal. Some other time, colonel." Nothing personal, no hard feelings, no harm done. Daniel had told himself this sort of thing for years. His childhood had made him an expert at dealing with rejection, and he was good at it. Convincing. Most times he even convinced himself. A pity today wasn't one of them. He liked Sam and Charlie a lot, probably more than he ought to. Heck, he even liked Jack O'Neill.
"Well, you're not completely wrong." O'Neill said. "But you're not right either. Look, I'm not a social butterfly. I leave that to my wife. But aside from the little lapse when she married me, she's a great judge of character. So's Charlie. They both like you a lot."
Daniel watched him thoughtfully, "And they gave you grief for being unwelcoming, and you don't want to disappoint them." Daniel wasn't a half-bad judge of character himself, when he paid attention.
O'Neill's face twitched slightly, and Daniel knew he'd read the man right. Now the question was, would he give up or keep pretending he went for this idea. But O'Neill surprised him.
"You're right," he admitted. "And I don't like getting reproachful looks from either of them. So you want to help me out here? There's a trip out of the mountain and a home-cooked meal in it for you. And I'm thinking you don't want to disappoint them either."
Daniel was amused and somewhat apalled at O'Neill's devastating honesty. The man was right. He didn't want to disappoint Sam or Charlie. And in a bizarre way if they lost some of their faith in O'Neill because he was being prickly about accepting this invitation, it would be like Daniel was the one hurting them. Not that he was getting attached or anything. "Okay."
"Great, so you're coming...okay?" O'Neill looked at him suspiciously. "Just like that?"
"Trip out of the mountain, home cooked meal, not disappointing Sam or Charlie. I'm sold." Daniel said. "Are we going, Colonel, or what?"
"Okay." O'Neill looked surprised, but less unhappy with the outcome than Daniel expected. "Why don't you call me Jack?"
#
Kawalsky was genuinely surprised when Jack reappeared only a few minutes later with Daniel at his side. "Changed your mind?" he said.
Daniel gave him a perfectly opaque look. "Jack convinced me the translation could wait."
"Good." Sam smiled at her husband. Kawalsky watched in amusement as he seemed to stand a little straighter. Maybe he shouldn't wonder why Jack was inspired to be persuasive.
On the drive down, Daniel chatted easily with Sam and Jack, talking about some of his travels. Seeing Jack and Daniel together, Charlie felt like they should be polar opposites, but in fact, they were surprisingly similar. Both good-looking, with that touch of charisma that made them attractive to others. Both guarded. Charlie was suddenly struck with the observation they both had emotional armor about a mile thick. Well, Jack's was melted through in a few spots that had Sam written all over them. Daniel, though-
Charlie tried to remember what background they had on file for Daniel; no family, brought up in foster care. Moved more often than some people changed shirts. The bare facts were surprisingly pathetic. Not an adjective he would have associated with the intense, energetic and competent young man beside him. He waited for a lull in the conversation. "So, Daniel, where're you from? Originally, I mean."
Daniel said casually, "Don't you have all that in a file somewhere?"
"Probably." Kawalsky said. "But I don't remember." He waited.
"Cairo." Daniel said after a moment. "I was born there, lived in Egypt as a kid."
"And after that?"
Daniel shrugged. "I moved around a lot. New York metro area mostly. Nothing exciting. How about yourself?"
Kawalsky found himself talking about growing up on military bases around the world, traveling in the wake of his army officer father. Sam chimed in with some military brat references of her own and by the time the subject turned, Kawalsky had forgotten his curiosity.
Dinner eaten, Daniel was sitting crosslegged in the armchair beside the hearth, as close to the fireplace as he could get. Jack looked at him enviously. "Young knees." He pointed out to Kawalsky mournfully. "I used to be able to do that."
Daniel took off his glasses and hung them on his shirtfront, leaning forward to stare into the fire. Without the glass lenses, he looked younger. At least ten years less than his actual age, Kawalsky estimated, given how young he looked with them on. "That's cause we're old, Jack." Charlie told him.
"More like old fakers." Daniel suggested. "I've seen the mission reports. They don't say anything about you tottering out with your canes to do battle with the Goa'uld."
Charlie laughed and Jack said, "That's because the canes aren't standard military issue, and so we can't mention them in the reports."
Sam came out bearing bowls. "Ice cream?"
Daniel accepted a bowl. "Chocolate. Wow. I haven't had this in a while." Sam gravely passed him a bottle of chocolate syrup to go over it, and he poured it on. "Yum." He ate it with an uninhibited enjoyment that took another decade off his age.
So Charlie was doubly surprised that Jack chose that moment to lean forward and broach a subject Charlie hadn't yet dared mention. "So, Daniel. Would you be interested in going through the gate?"
Daniel licked the chocolate off the back of his spoon. "Yes."
Charlie was a bit taken aback at the bare answer, but Jack seemed unsurprised. "Just yes?"
"Hell, yes?" Daniel offered. He set down his bowl to polish his glasses and put them on so he could see O'Neill's face. "Look you wanted me to read Goa'uld writing. I've read and translated as much as I can of we've got. You want me to translate other ancient languages you might find- no problem. But you really need someone on the spot to talk to people, and who can tell what's important and what's not." He waved a hand at Kawalsky. "Charlie's told me about a hundred times that my counterpart was a member of SG-1." He shrugged. "It made sense that you might ask. And sure, I want to go. Any scientist would."
Charlie looked up and met Sam's eyes, standing in the doorway. "He's right about that," she said casually. "I really envied Major Carter." She and her husband exchanged a private look.
Kawalsky gave O'Neill a speculative look, "You know, Jack, if Hammond is going to relax the rules about civilians going--"
"No!" Jack said immediately.
"The Carter in the alternate universe--"
"The Carter in the alternate universe was a major in the Air Force." O'Neill said.
"Now wait just a minute," Sam said. "Charlie has a point. Daniel's not in the Air Force--"
"And he's not going through the gate without getting some training, you can bet on that," Jack said.
"I could do training," Sam said.
Jack's knuckles were white on the rim of his bowl. "You're needed here."
Sam scowled at him, "And I may be needed out there, too, but you won't know that until it happens."
Jack waved a hand impatiently at Kawalsky. "Charlie thinks if our SG-1 was the same as this wacky other universe of yours, that things would go better for us. But we aren't the same people. You aren't the same person. And there's no way you could serve on SG-1, even if Hammond was willing to let you go offworld. There are rules about people in a chain of command not being married."
"I know that," Sam said. "But one of the new SG teams is going to be an engineering team."
"Hammond will never approve it." Jack predicted grimly.
"He already has, Jack." Sam looked at him a little wryly. "We agreed I should be the one to break the news." She shrugged. "I was going to wait until later, but since Charlie brought it up--"
Charlie noticed the expression on his CO's face and decided discretion was the better part of valor. "So, guys, thanks for dinner, but it's getting late, and Daniel and I should be getting back to base."
Sam gave Charlie a reproachful look. Jack said tightly, "Yeah, pal, why don't you do that?"
Charlie didn't need to prompt Daniel, who was scrambling up. Charlie realized he'd sat through the whole argument in unnatural stillness, managing to look completely insignificant without moving at all. When the front door had shut behind them, Daniel let out a sigh of relief and said, "Okay-- I hate to bring this up, but Jack drove. How--?"
Charlie nodded to the curb. "My car's parked over there. I rode in with Jack and Sam the other day. Gas rationing."
Daniel nodded. He knew that gasoline was one of a number of critical things in short supply. "And how about--?" He jerked his head back in the direction of the house.
Charlie grinned, "Oh, they'll be fine. Jack just needs some time to get his protective streak under control."
"Ah." Daniel said curiously. "So you and Sam set him up?" he asked.
"Not exactly," Charlie said. "We'd talked about it before, and I knew Hammond was going to be assigning personnel for an engineering team. I didn't realize they'd already talked about it. But Sam's worked harder than anyone on the program. She deserves the chance to go through the gate. Jack will be worried about Sam going offworld, but he's not going to screw this up for her."
"You think Sam's going offworld then?" Daniel asked.
"I think this planet isn't going to be big enough for the both of them if Jack tries to convince Hammond to ground her," Charlie predicted cheerfully. "She'll make it onto a team."
#
Daniel was looking forward to meeting their fourth. Two of the original SG-1 team members, Warren and Casey, had been killed in the Goa'uld attack on the mountain. Unlike Jack, their bodies had been crushed by falling debris and could not be revived. As he waited with the others in the conference room, he admitted to himself he was also relieved to be released from the grinding routine of military training. Having seen what the Goa'uld could do, he accepted the necessity, and he wanted to go through the gate badly enough to suffer the endless repetition of hand-to-hand and marksmanship drills. He suspected Jack and Charlie, exchanging cheerful sports banter beside him, were just as relieved. Daniel hadn't realized just how klutzy he could be until he had to run obstacle courses with men who'd done this sort of thing for a couple of decades.
He wondered how the other Daniel had dealt with it. Ironically, the one mission they had no information on from the alternate reality was the first one. He knew that the other Daniel had stayed on Abydos and found the cartouche that had given the SGC their gate addresses. He supposed they hadn't included any more information on Abydos since they knew that its stargate had been destroyed in this reality. His attention snapped back to the woman who had just entered the room.
"Captain Clare Tobias, reporting for duty, sir!"
The woman was his own age, with straight blond hair. Daniel wondered what she'd be like under the military facade.
"At ease, Captain." Jack returned her salute and motioned her to a chair. "Come and say hello. Major Charles Kawalsky."
Charlie nodded to her. "Captain."
"And Dr. Daniel Jackson."
Daniel smiled and reached over to shake her hand. "Hi."
Tobias gave him a curious look and turned back to O'Neill. "Sir."
"Welcome to SG-1."
A flash of pure incredulity went across her face. "You mean he is a member of SG-1?" She shot an angry look at Daniel.
Daniel was puzzled. That had sounded almost personal, but he was pretty sure he'd never met this woman before.
"That's right." O'Neill said, coolly. "Is there some problem, Captain?" The sharpness in his tone evidently told the woman she was overstepping.
"Sir. No, sir." Her face went blank and unrevealing.
O'Neill's full attention was on his new subordinate, but if he was coming to any conclusion, Daniel couldn't tell. After a few seconds, he turned to Daniel and Charlie. "Tobias has spent the last two years at the Groom Lake Facility."
"Area 51?" Charlie said to her, smiling.
Tobias turned to him a bit cautiously. "Yes, sir." Daniel remembered Area 51 was the facility in Nevada where alien tech was analyzed and reverse-engineered.
"She distinguished herself and helped save the facility when they had a Goa'uld attack there a year and a half ago." O'Neill continued.
"A goa'uld attack?" Daniel sat up straight. "I hadn't realized there had been any before the invasion. At least in modern times."
"Hathor." Charlie said, with an expression like he was trying to remember something.
"Yes." Tobias answered after a moment. "She had been in stasis on earth for centuries, apparently. A couple of archeologists dug her up in Mexico, and she killed them."
Daniel realized who they had to be talking about. "Kleinhouse and Cole," he said. He remembered reading a notice of their deaths and thinking that Nick would be sorry. He was pretty sure Kleinhouse had once worked with his grandfather years ago. With a flicker of shame, he realized he hadn't tried to check on his grandfather and make sure he was all right. He hadn't even thought about him. The knock-down drag-out argument they'd had the last time they'd seen one another had led Daniel to turn his back on the man along with his academic career and many of his former friends.
"Yes, I think so." Tobias said.
Daniel answered her unspoken question. "I didn't know them, but I heard about their deaths. I'm also an archeologist."
"And linguist," Charlie put in. "He's already been a big help in deciphering some of the stuff we've brought back. "
"Oh," Tobias gave him a slightly apologetic smile. "We could have used you in Nevada. We never had enough linguistics people. Too few people in the military with the right skills, and it was hard to get civilians cleared."
"That's one thing that's gotten easier," O'Neill said. "For some reason, the President doesn't seem to think we need to keep the aliens a secret anymore."
#
Daniel walked up the ramp beside Charlie, trying not to grin like a maniac. He'd gritted his teeth through the physical conditioning Charlie and Jack had insisted on. He'd been dumped repeatedly on his ass in the gym. He'd practiced tedious hours on the shooting range with the handgun that still felt unnatural at his side. He had passed with respectable marks in every area, even if his grades had not been especially stellar. And now they were stepping through the gate. They'd chosen to try and meet a race that their counterparts had alienated. Their world was rich in trinium, a metal not found in any quantity on Earth, but which Earth could use. UAV footage had located the small village where they planned to start.
The gate was every bit as disorienting as they had said, and Daniel stumbled down the steps and fell flat on his face after stepping out of the wormhole. He staggered dizzily to his feet before Jack or Charlie could give him a hand and swallowed hard against the urge to puke. He was too curious about his first new planet to pay much attention to his stomach. Tobias exited the wormhole with considerably more grace but a pale green complexion. She'd looked ready to hurl but gritted her teeth and followed him down the steps in a rather more controlled fashion. O'Neill raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. Daniel decided they both owed a debt to Sam, who'd quietly warned them not to eat much before their first time.
As the wormhole shut down, Daniel started sneezing. It was spring in Colorado, but he'd hardly left the base since the pollen hit. He'd finished his physical training just in time and then managed to arrange his only off-base excursion with Charlie on a rainy evening when the pollen was too damp to bother him much. On this world it was evidently mating season for trees. He fumbled out a tissue and blew his nose.
"You coming down with something?" Jack looked at him suspiciously.
"No, it's just allergies," Daniel confessed. "It's no big deal." He'd minimized his allergies to the medical staff as much as he could. It wasn't like they were life-threatening, after all, just uncomfortable. And he hadn't wanted to give them any excuse to keep him off the team.
Charlie gave him a funny look. "I never noticed you having trouble at home."
"At home I live and work twenty-plus stories underground, breathing heavily filtered air," Daniel pointed out. "I just get a little stuffed up in the spring is all." And the summer. And the early fall. And any time plants were reproducing. But he could live with it. O'Neill had evidently accepted the explanation and was motioning them to move out, Charlie in the lead, followed by Tobias, Daniel and O'Neill bringing up the rear.
Daniel hiked along after Tobias, looking around avidly, wishing the place looked a little more alien. He caught a glimpse of something shiny and veered off the trail toward it. "Daniel!" O'Neill barked.
"Look at this!" Daniel stopped in front of a large carved pillar, examining the fine carving. Parts of the pole were in a silver metal he presumed was the trinium they'd come to negotiate for. Daniel scanned it, recalling the Salish Indian legends he had read to prepare for this mission. "Look, it's a clan crest." he said, pointing up. "It tells the story of the clan's origin. This one talks about how they were brought here from a distant planet by evil rulers. Now, according to this figure, uh, the evil rulers were probably Jaffa, taking them from Earth." He turned to the three soldiers, who were all looking around uneasily.
Jack said, "Kawalsky?"
"I know." Charlie said.
Tobias looked from one to the other, "I have this feeling that we're being watched," she said.
Daniel gave them a puzzled look. "Well, yeah. The Spirits of the Salish are probably all over us. We could just talk to them, I suppose. But it seems only polite to go talk to the villagers first unless the Spirits show themselves."
Jack muttered something under his breath that could have been, "Civilians!" and led the way toward the village.
They hadn't traveled another hundred yards when a man with long black hair stepped out of the shadow of the trees into their path and regarded them silently. Daniel took a couple of steps forward. "Hello. We are peaceful explorers. My name is Daniel."
The man spoke, "For peaceful explorers, you sure carry a lot of weapons, Daniel."
"The weapons are only for defense," Daniel said. He personally thought they were rather heavily armed considering they were visiting a peaceful planet inhabited by aliens whose technology far outstripped their own.
"We sometimes meet people who try to harm us," Jack put in.
"We do not mean you harm," The man said. "I am Tonane."
"These are Jack, Tobias and Charlie," Daniel said. "We come in search of an ore called trinium. I think you would call it ke."
"You would need to talk to the Spirits about that," Tonane said.
"We would very much like to meet the Spirits," Daniel assured him.
"Come." Tonane turned and led them into the wood.
#
SG-1 returned from their meeting with Zales and Takaya. Jack and Charlie were practically swaggering as they came down the ramp.
"Mission, oh-so-accomplished," the colonel said. "The aliens really, really don't like the Goa'uld-- kicked them clear off their world several centuries ago. They're going to share some basic scientific theory with us, as well as help us build some simple devices to get us started. They're going to help us mine trinium using clean environmental techniques in quantities that will not affect the native population. And best of all, they are willing to join us for joint military actions against the Goa'uld, at least on a limited basis." He gestured broadly, "They can do this really nifty disappearing thing with their arms--"
Hammond nodded, "Very good, Colonel. And good job SG-1. We'll debrief in half an hour."
#
As they got in the elevator after the debrief, Charlie said, "So, anybody for lunch?"
"Sure, meet you down at the commissary in five?" O'Neill said. He looked at Tobias and Daniel. "You in?" They nodded. He gave them a second look as they got off at the same floor he did. "Where are you guys going?"
"I was going to get the translation I left in Sam's lab yesterday," Daniel said.
"I was wondering how the naquadah generator testing was coming," Tobias said. "They were supposed to be firing it up today."
"Oh." O'Neill started down the hall toward the lab.
"How about you, Jack?" Daniel asked.
"I was going to invite Sam to join us for lunch," he admitted.
Daniel shook his head. "Five bucks says she blows you off for her new toy."
"You're on, Jackson."
Daniel glanced back at his teammate. "C'mon, Captain. You're my witness."
Tobias caught up with her longer-legged teammates with a rather reserved expression. As they approached the door of the lab, the ground seemed to heave under their feet, and a shiver went through the air. Daniel staggered. Alarms started to blare, and they could hear yelling from inside the lab. "What was that?" he asked.
"An earthquake?" suggested Tobias.
Daniel shook his head. "No way. I used to live in California. That wasn't like any earthquake I ever felt."
Jack had taken two long strides to the lab door and yanked it open. Sam and a bunch of the engineering crew were whooping in triumph. One of her new teammates, a tall good-looking major, was standing next to the generator wearing safety glasses and grinning from ear to ear.
"What was that?" O'Neill asked.
Sam was going to answer the phone and held up her hand.
The major said, "The reactor works, sir."
On the phone, Sam was saying, "Yes, sir. We're fine. Yeah, it was just the reactor. No sir, just an initial energy pulse. There's no threat to the base." There was a pause, and she said, "Yes, of course, General. It won't happen again." She put the phone down. "Ian, in future, before we activate any device that includes the word 'reactor' in it, General Hammond would like to be notified." She grinned.
"Oops," the major said, but he couldn't stop smiling.
"Howard, have you met Captain Tobias?" O'Neill asked.
He shook his head, and O'Neill continued, "She's another engineer. Tobias, Major Howard."
"Pleased to meet you, sir," Tobias said politely.
O'Neill invited both Sam and Howard to join them for lunch, but they were too keen to continue working on the reactor. Tobias gave the machine a slightly wistful look as they left. Daniel suppressed a smirk until they reached the hall. "Well?"
Jack handed him the five sourly. "Smartass."
Tobias' lips twitched at her CO's discomfiture. He noticed. "You too, Captain."
"Sir."
"Hey, at least the captain didn't blow us off for a good-looking reactor," Daniel said. "Though I must say you looked tempted."
Tobias gave him a slightly uncertain look at the gentle teasing, "It's very interesting. I hope I'll get a chance to see more later."
"Just remember, Tobias. SG-1 is a field team," O'Neill advised. "If you really prefer to play in the lab, you're in the wrong place."
"I'm very happy to be on SG-1, sir," Tobias said. They joined Kawalsky in the food line.
O'Neill said, "We've been making an effort to integrate scientific expertise with the first contact teams. Hence you and Daniel. Our original team makeup was more heavily slanted to special ops skills. You have both alien tech experience and special ops background, which makes you a natural for a field assignment. Unlike Howard, for example, who's pretty much exclusively a techie."
"Thank you, sir," Tobias seemed both surprised and flattered. Daniel was a little startled himself, he hadn't realized Tobias had a special ops background.
Kawalsky grinned, "Yeah, but Howard has one of the best stories from the invasion of anyone on the base." He chose food from the line and went to grab a table in the back.
When they had all settled, Daniel asked, "So what happened to Howard?"
"He's one of our NASA guys." Charlie said. "He was on Columbia."
"Oh!" Tobias looked surprised and respectful. "One of them."
"One of who?" Daniel said curiously.
"They sent five astronauts up in the shuttle Columbia to attack the two Gould motherships that were attacking Earth," Kawalsky said. "They had a couple of nukes, but that was about it. They set course for one of the motherships, who just ignored them. Until they ran into her shields. Then the shuttle broke up. They had nothing that would detect the shields, of course."
Daniel said, "Uh, wow. I hadn't heard anything about this."
"In Egypt, I guess you might not have," Charlie said. "It was a pretty big deal. Four of the five astronauts survived the collision; they were all suited. They decided to go EVA - well, or already were EVA, but they tried to get the bombs onto the motherships. The Gould used their ring transporter to pick them up. And then of course they were taken prisoner, and that was the end of that."
"How did they survive?" Daniel asked. "Did the Asgard set them free?"
"That's right," Charlie said. "At least the two who survived interrogation. They apparently got a lot of credit for bravery and fortitude. See, the Gould kept asking them questions about the stargate. Which they of course denied knowing anything about because they never worked here."
"They must have been pretty surprised when they were transferred to Cheyenne Mountain," Tobias said smiling. "I believe that Major Lewis was also assigned to the SGC after he recovered?"
"That's right," Kawalsky said.
"I think I know him," Daniel said. "One of the anthro guys, right?"
"That's him."
Daniel shook his head, "Sitting on my butt in the desert listening to the radio sounds pretty tame by comparison."
Tobias laughed. "Funny, that's what I was about to say. Different desert of course."
"Speaking of dessert," O'Neill said, "Are you going to eat that Jello, Charlie?"
#
SG-1 lined up at the foot of the ramp, O'Neill grousing. "I can't believe this. We're being sent bargain-hunting. "
Daniel couldn't help but be amused. "You know, Jack, many of the great explorers of history had mercantile motivations. Spices from the east, beaver pelts from north America--"
"Trinium from the Salish and a virtual reality machine from the Keeper?" Charlie finished. "You gotta admit, Jack, it's exotic."
"Exotic?" Jack's eyebrows went up. "We're negotiating to hook our people's brains to a machine because the government is too cheap to buy ammunition."
"Actually, based on the report, getting them to hook us to the machines is not going to be a problem," Daniel riposted cheerfully.
"And that doesn't bother you, just a little, Daniel?" Jack demanded. The huge stone ring was just starting to turn.
"I think it sounds fascinating." Daniel wasn't joking. It did sound fascinating. The report had said the machine could pull out memories and replay them with with astounding realism, and even create realistic scenarios that had never happened based on the user's own experiences. It was that last capability that interested the SGC. They were hoping to arrange to do training missions in the virtual reality. The huge expense of rebuilding after the alien invasion had put the government under pressure to cut costs wherever possible.
With the whole base now drawing power from Sam's naquadah generator, the complex had drastically cut its operating costs. Being able to train SGC personnel in a very realistic virtual reality with no expenditure of rations or ammunition would be another enormous bonus to the budget. Every little bit helped. Best of all, the Keeper might let them do it for no other fee than letting his Residents watch.
Daniel had noticed the report summary hadn't said anything about what memories were replayed for the other SG-1, but it did say the Keeper had wanted them to provide entertainment and new experiences for his Residents. Daniel wondered what they'd find interesting in his mind. He'd really enjoy showing the Residents some of the places he'd traveled.
"It's not surprising government resources are rather strained right now, " Tobias put in. She'd been quiet and a little reserved on the mission to the Salish. Daniel wondered a little guiltily if she was feeling left out of the growing camaraderie between the three men. He resolved to try and make more of an effort to include her. Though she'd opened up a bit over the last couple of weeks.
He ought to find it more surprising he got along so well with Jack and Charlie, Daniel thought. Though with Charlie, he sometimes had the uncomfortable feeling that he was receiving a respect a different Daniel Jackson had earned. But he and Jack just seemed to be tuned to the same wavelength, scary as that sometimes was. Already the three of them were developing a comfortable rapport. Whether Tobias would find a place in that or not was too soon to tell.
"Seventh chevron is locked," the sergeant announced over the intercom, and the gate did its amazing whoosh. Daniel watched it, rapt. As often as he'd seen it from the control room or the briefing room window, it still filled him with awe.
"SG-1, you have a go."
#
Charlie walked down the steps from the gate, looking around at the beautiful garden. "Nice," he commented to Jack. He wasn't knew his friend was not looking forward to voluntarily subjecting himself to mysterious alien machinery, but the place certainly didn't look malevolent.
"Yeah, but where's there's a garden, there's snakes." Jack turned to look at their two newbies, exiting the gate.
'At least this time Daniel managed not to fall on his face', Charlie suppressed a grin. Daniel had done a great job of presenting their case, both to the Salish and their Spirits, even if he'd spent most of the mission too excited to stay still. Charlie and Jack had exchanged seriously dubious looks as Daniel had gravely addressed the wolf and raven with respect. Even having read all the reports, Charlie wasn't sure he could have kept a straight face. But it had paid off for them in spades.
This time Daniel didn't even get off the ramp before he started sneezing thunderously. Charlie winced. "Have you talked to a doctor about that?" he asked.
"It's not serious," Daniel insisted, mopping his nose.
Charlie wasn't so sure. Daniel had been stuffed up for hours after their last mission, and his reaction this time was if anything worse. Charlie looked around at all the flowers. Not that that was any surprise. "Don't they have medicine for that sort of thing?"
"Antihistamines," Daniel said. "I have some, if I need them. But they make me too dopey to take all the time."
Jack was obviously exercising heroic restraint not to pick up on that straight line.
"The Dr. Jackson in the other universe took antihistamines," Tobias said.
They all stopped and stared at her. She looked a little defensive. "It's in one of their reports. The planet with the neanderthal disease. Jackson wasn't affected because of his medication."
"Well, if we go there, I'll consider taking something," Daniel said, with a stubborn set to his jaw. He was sometimes a little touchy about his alternate, something Charlie was afraid was largely his fault. Daniel pointed to the dome. "Our virtual, not alternate, reality awaits."
The dome was exactly as it had been described: greenery everywhere, the still forms of the Residents locked into chairs, organic looking tubes piercing their skin. Daniel tapped the symbol on the door. "This is supposed to be the symbol that marks the exits inside the program." The others nodded, and walked cautiously forward. They came to four empty chairs near the back.
O'Neill looked at them without enthusiasm. "Okay then." He looked around at his team. "Remember we aren't here to play games. We tell the Keeper that as soon as we see him, and try to find one another. Keep in mind that any SG-1 person you find is just as likely to be part of the virtual reality as not, so don't trust any of it. Ah-" He shook his finger warningly at Tobias, who had just opened her mouth. "I read the report, Captain. Keep in mind there are differences, and we could have one bite us on the butt at any time. We can only trust the reports to a point." He looked around at his team-- Charlie and Tobias standing alertly, and Daniel blowing his nose again. "Okay, let's do it."
There really wasn't any trouble getting into the virtual reality. As soon as they moved close enough, the black tubes whipped out and dragged them in. Charlie could see a tube approaching his temple and then everything went--
#
Daniel wasn't conscious of any transition at all. One moment he was being dragged into the chair, the next he was-- "In a museum?" He looked down at his unfamiliar civilian clothes, then looked around delightedly. Daniel couldn't help grinning. He'd have thought the Keeper would be interested in something more conventionally exciting than a museum. He seemed to be alone, so presumably the others had been shunted into different fantasies. It looked vaguely familiar, as it should if the program was drawing on his own memory. He squinted at a particularly fine decorated statue of Nefertiti in one of the cases. Oh. This was the New York Museum of Art. Well, he'd been here many times, even if the place had poor associations.
There came a creaking sound and faint babble of voices that filled him with dread and creeping horror. He turned on his heel and took three steps toward the noise.
"Move it towards the back...careful...," a familiar voice was saying.
"Watch it on your left," the woman replied.
"On your left," the man repeated. "Jake, can we bring this in? Careful, bring it down." He gestured to the man on the hoist. "Come on. Let's look at the front."
On the hoist, Jake replied, "Yes, Doctor Jackson."
"It's swinging," Claire Jackson said.
Her husband replied, "It's okay, it'll be fine.
Daniel breathed, "No..." Only a memory, he tried to tell himself. "This isn't real," he said aloud.
He walked toward the scene of an exhibition being set up.
"I'm sorry, this area isn't open to the public," a woman tried to tell him.
Daniel pushed by her, walking closer toward the huge temple entryway that was being reassembled at the end of the room.
"Jake, bring it down," Melburn Jackson was saying.
Daniel had dreamed this scene a thousand times, and imagined it more often then that. But he'd never seen it in this kind of detail. Not since the first time. The sandy texture of the stone. The way the sun slanted in through the high windows. The vivid cobalt of the blueprint his mother held. The pattern on the bandana covering her hair. He'd forgotten she had even worn them. Wearing a bandana to cover his head in hot climates was a habit he'd acquired completely unconsciously on his first dig as an undergraduate.
He watched in horror as the scene played out to its original ending, the stone crashing down, the cries of his parents, the would-be rescuers rushing to their aid, too late, too late. Even knowing it was a memory, that none of it was real, could not prevent the tears from filling Daniel's eyes and running down his cheeks.
#
Charlie and Jack abruptly found themselves standing on a drive outside a sizeable house. They were wearing special ops gear and carrying different weapons than they'd had when they left the SGC.
"Where are we?" Charlie asked, looking around in puzzlement. "Doesn't this seem awfully familiar?"
Jack frowned, "Ah, I dunno, I can't put my finger on it."
"I don't see any sign of the Keeper," Charlie offered.
"Maybe this is him now," Jack suggested, nodding to a truck that was just pulling up.
The two of them immediately recognized the man behind the wheel. "John." O'Neill said.
"It's Colonel. You can lower your weapon, Captain." Charlie hadn't even realized they had pointed them. Two other familiar men got out of the truck. He remembered which mission this was, now. "I remember this," he said.
"Me too." O'Neill said flatly.
The simulacrum of the other soldier, Thomas something, Charlie thought, asked, "Why you acting so spooked, Captain?"
"Maybe because I am." O'Neill turned to Michaels. "You're supposed to be dead,"
The virtual simulation of the late Colonel John Michaels laughed. "That's real cute, Jack. Look, the intel on this one is good; they keep Boris here during the day and take him underground at night. Our bird confirmed on it's last fly over-- no snipers, only two guards inside; it's a piece of cake. This ain't the one you and me die on."
Charlie said softly, "As a matter of fact this is the one you die on."
"You ready to move out or not?" The colonel asked them.
"No, because this isn't real," Jack said. "You're not real."
John told them, "Oh it's real, it's very real. Your stall here is putting the rest of this unit in jeopardy. Now let's move out."
Jack said, "No. This is all a dream. An old memory being replayed."
John punched him. Charlie winced. For a computer generated simulation, the colonel seemed solid enough. Jack wiped a trickle of blood off his lip.
"Is that real enough for you, Jack?" the colonel asked sarcastically.
Jack kept a wary eye on him. "I guess the thing to do is to go ahead and look for the Keeper. I don't see any point in this. We know how it ends." He pointed his gun at the figure of John. "Stay away from me or I'll shoot you."
After several minutes of hectoring, John and Thomas-- Lt. Thomas Green-- Charlie finally remembered, and the other man turned and approached the house without them. They heard the sounds of shooting. Jack ignored them, his jaw set. "Let's try this way," he suggested, pointing away from the house. "I guess we look for any sign of a person who doesn't belong here."
As they walked down the road, a man in an elaborate brocaded robe and headdress appeared in front of them in a spiral of whirling ribbons. "You're going the wrong way! You must return to the house and proceed with the mission. Allow me to introduce myself, I am the Keeper."
"Finally!" Jack said. "We were wondering how long we'd have to wait before you showed up."
#
Daniel must have stood staring at the fallen stones for several minutes, their outlines blurred by tears. He finally wiped his eyes and felt in his pocket vainly for a tissue. When he looked up, he was astounded to see that the scene had reset. He gaped for a moment, started to turn away. Then he spun back, looking hard at his parents' dimly remembered features, trying to memorize them. After several long moments, he turned again and walked toward the door. In the adjacent gallery, he could barely hear the sounds from the other room. He strolled over to a display of stone tablets. He was supposed to go looking for the others. But somehow, he didn't think they were in this scenario. He could search virtual New York City in 1973 for years and never find them. He needed another idea. He wrapped his arms around himself, trying to ignore the sounds from the adjacent room.
"Dr. Jackson?" He almost didn't turn at that, but realized it was Tobias, still wearing USAF fatigues, but without the SGC patches.
He said. "Captain, how did you find me?"
"Sat down on the floor and yelled, 'take me to my teammates'," she admitted wryly. "A simple plan, and yet--"
"I'm sure Jack will love it." Daniel said. "I hadn't thought of it."
Tobias looked around curiously. "Where are we?"
"Inside the virtual reality on PJ7-989," Daniel replied literally.
"I meant in here." Tobias said. "It looks like a museum."
"The New York Museum of Art." Daniel said quietly.
She frowned. "Are you all right?"
"Nothing here is real. What could have happened?" Daniel said. He tucked his hands more firmly under his arms, so she wouldn't see them shaking.
Tobias sounded puzzled. "I don't know, you just look--" She cocked her head to catch the noises from the adjacent room. "What's that?"
"They're setting up an exhibition," Daniel said.
Tobias walked to the door. "Wow. Those look heavy. Damn, it's swinging--" She plunged several steps into the room yelling, "Look out!"
"Tobias!" Daniel yelled angrily. "Come out of there!"
She turned back into the room, "Doctor?"
"It's.. not.. real." Daniel enunciated. "If you react, you play the game. I suggest we both sit on the floor and yell for Jack and Charlie." He suited action to the words and sank down on the dusty floor.
"He called for Dr. Jackson," Tobias said.
"Those were my parents," Daniel said shortly. "This is apparently a recreation of their death in 1973."
Tobias blinked. "You must have been fairly young."
"Eight."
She seemed to realize something, "Oh, Lord. And you saw it happen?"
"Captain." Daniel said. "We're supposed to be trying to find Jack and Charlie. Or the Keeper. Or both."
Tobias looked behind him. "How about the Residents?"
He turned to see what she was looking at, then got up. "Or the Residents."
#
Daniel and Tobias sat on a bench in the garden, watching the Residents wandering around, staring at the plants and picking the flowers. The Keeper had been livid that Daniel had explained to the Residents how to get out into the real world. Fortunately he and Jack had already come to a tentative agreement on the use of the virtual reality for SGC training. Jack and Charlie had smoothed things over and were currently discussing logistics for the first training sessions.
Tobias was looking at Daniel with that irritating mixture of pity and surprise he had always hated in his foster care days. He pretended to ignore it.
"My dad left when I was three," Tobias said suddenly.
Daniel looked over at her and accepted the conversational gambit. "That must have been hard on your mom."
"Not really," Tobias sounded bitter. "Nothing was hard on my mom. She was an expert at dumping her responsibilities on other people."
"Ah." Daniel said.
"I mostly got shuffled around to different relatives. A year here, a year there. Nobody was willing to put up with the expense of another child for long." Tobias continued. Her voice had taken on rather the same flat tone Daniel himself had used earlier.
Daniel reached across the two feet of empty space that separated them to lay a hand lightly on her arm. "You don't have to tell me."
Tobias swallowed. "It seemed only fair. And I wanted you to know that I understand, at least a little."
"Thank you, Captain." Daniel said, rather touched.
She smiled at him. "You know, you call everyone else by their first name, but not me."
"You haven't invited me to," Daniel said.
"You need an invitation?" she asked.
"It's foster family etiquette," he explained. "You stick to formal unless invited otherwise and always call people by the name they want you to use. People are weird about names. It bothers them to have them butchered."
"Oh." Tobias said. "Well, please feel free to call me Clare, then."
Daniel smiled a little sadly, "You have the same name as my mother. And you should call me Daniel." He cast about for a change of subject, "Ah, I take it you did not have to relive your least favorite childhood memories in there?"
She shivered. "No, mine were rather more recent." She stared across the peaceful garden. "You know that we had a Goa'uld on Earth?"
"Hathor." Daniel remembered seeing the report. "Didn't you succeed in stopping her?"
"Yes," Tobias said. "But not before she turned my CO, Colonel Maybourne, into a Jaffa."
"What?!" Daniel said in surprise. "They can do that?"
"Apparently so." Tobias ran a hand through her blond hair. "The process destroys the immune system. Once made Jaffa, only a symbiote will keep one alive."
"And you didn't have a symbiote?" Daniel asked.
"Oh, we had a tubful of them." Tobias said. "Until I shot into it. The tub was laced with volatiles." She looked at Daniel's incomprehension. "It caught fire. All the symbiotes were burned to ash."
"What happened to Colonel Maybourne?" Daniel asked.
"He died." Tobias said. "They tried to put him in a sterile bubble, to keep him alive without an immune system, but he'd already been exposed to too many contagions. It took five days for him to die, all in hideous agony."
"I'm sorry." Daniel said.
"Oh, don't get me wrong," she said. "He was kind of a sleazeball. I never really liked him. But nobody should have to die that way. I've thought it through a hundred times, trying to see what I could have done differently."
"But there was no way for you to know," Daniel said.
"I know that!" Tobias said. "But I still feel like I should have been able to save him. They gave me a medal, for god's sake."
"A medal?"
"For stopping Hathor." Tobias said. "You know, there was a time I would have been so proud. But I got the medal and the promotion and the colonel got cremated and buried in the Nevada desert. Ten people went to his funeral. Six of them were the miliary guard. The other four were his CO, his aide, one other soldier and me."
Motion on the path caught their eyes, Jack and Charlie strolling toward them with satisfied expressions. "Are we there yet?" Daniel asked in a mock whine.
Jack laughed. "No, and if you ask one more time, there won't be any ice cream for you tonight."
Charlie was looking at him assessingly. "Maybe you should have waited inside, Daniel. You sound like you can hardly breathe."
"There are plants all over the damn place," Daniel said. "It wouldn't have helped." He stood up. "Going home, on the other hand..."
"Dial it up, Doctor." Jack gave the order as they approached the DHD.
#
Tobias glanced over at Daniel, sitting on the gurney, submitting with less than his usual grace to the required medical exam. Charlie had told the doctor about the allergy attack he'd had on the planet, and he was glad to see they seemed to be giving him some extra attention on that account.
"Dr. Jackson had a rough time in there," she said tentatively.
O'Neill rolled his eyes. "He's an archeologist. How bad could any of his memories be?"
Tobias looked irritated, "What memories did the Keeper play for you, sir?"
"Oh, he tried to rerun one of the most fucked up missions Charlie and I were ever on," O'Neill said. " I'm just glad I knew going in it wasn't real. It must have been a real bitch for the other O'Neill."
"Well, I got to relive Hathor's attack on Area 51. But I'd rather go through that a dozen times than what he saw-" She jerked a thumb in Daniel's direction, looking like she'd like to slug someone.
"What did he show Daniel?" Charlie asked uneasily.
"The Keeper made him relive his parents' deaths." She glared at both of them. "For which he was an eyewitness. At age eight."
Kawalsky winced, and Jack actually looked chastened, but there was no chance to talk to their civilian as they were shepherded firmly through the routine exams and MRIs.
By the time they had cleared medical and made it to the conference room for debriefing, Charlie thought Daniel was looking less sad and more angry. A chance mention from Jack of the alternate universe SG-1 brought Daniel to his feet. "I don't even want to think about that jerk!" he said.
Charlie looked at his young friend curiously, "Why? What did he do?" He could understand Daniel being angry with the Keeper after hearing Daniel had been forced to watch his parents die but not why he'd be pissed with the alternate Daniel Jackson.
"I'd like to strangle him," Daniel paced back and forth, waving his hands. "The bastard tells me not to let Jack juggle artifacts, but he can't warn me about this?"
Jack looked offended, "He told you not to let me juggle?"
Charlie could see Daniel's point. "You'd have thought they'd have mentioned it, even in the summary report," he said thoughtfully.
"What's wrong with juggling?" Jack asked plaintively.
"Daniel?" Tobias said. "You know, you might be able to figure out why he didn't tell you. I mean, if you were going to tell yourself something about the Keeper's world, what would you say?"
Daniel stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "Damn, you're smart."
Charlie looked at him. "You mean you know? Why wouldn't you warn yourself?"
Daniel looked at the floor. "Because I might not have gone."
Jack looked confused, "Well, isn't that what you would have preferred?"
"Not really." Daniel let his anger go on a deep sigh. "It was just a simulation. Nobody really got hurt. And at least I got to see them again."
Once Hammond joined them, they skimmed over their experiences in the virtual world, and concluded with the successful negotiations to use the alien reality for SGC training.
Hammond nodded, "Well done, SG-1. With resources as strained as they have been, being able to do training with no expenditure of terrestrial resources is a decided benefit."
By the time they finished the debrief, Daniel was showing no overt signs of distress. When Charlie asked him how he was, Daniel said he was fine. Kawalsky watched him stuffing away the emotions under a calm exterior. "Now that worries me." Charlie said to Jack.
"What?" Neither he or Jack had enjoyed the replays of their own failed mission from so many years before, but they'd quickly convinced Keeper to deal. When they had rejoined Daniel and Tobias, the younger man had led the Residents to an exit portal and was passionately describing the beauty of the world outside despite the marks of tears on his face.
Charlie nodded to Daniel. "He just saw his parents crushed to death a few times. Jesus, Jack, if I'd had any idea, I'd have suggested he sit this one out."
"It's not what he would have wanted." Jack pointed out.
"Yeah, but he should have had the choice." Charlie said. "And the way he's closing down and not admitting it bothers him- that can't be healthy."
"Not everyone thinks confession is good for the soul, Charlie." O'Neill said.
"I know, Jack. Who do you think he reminds me of?" Charlie replied.
#
"Major Kawalsky, Dr. Fraiser." O'Neill introduced. "Dr. Fraiser will be our new base CMO."
Kawalsky smiled at the short woman. "A pleasure to meet you, doctor. I'm positive you'll fit right in." He gave Jack a significant look.
O'Neill rolled his eyes. "Still trying to collect the whole set, Charlie?" he asked.
Fraiser gave the two of them a suspicious and puzzled look. "Excuse me?"
That was when Daniel walked in, head down and already fairly launched into a convoluted explanation. "-very important data from PXY-887. I think-"
Their new CMO's expression went from puzzled to astonished to delighted in a couple of seconds. "Daniel?!" She looked like she wanted to hug him, but only the demands of military decorum were keeping her feet nailed to the floor.
Daniel's head came up and his mouth dropped open. "Janet?"
She gave a slightly nervous look at O'Neill, who raised an eyebrow, but said, "You've got a few minutes, Major. The general's tied up with a phone call."
She took three steps forward and threw her arms around Daniel in a crushing hug. He froze for a second, then returned it with interest, lifting her off the ground. She laughed and looked up at him as he put her down. "Daniel, it's great to see you. We were sure something ghastly had happened when you disappeared in Cairo."
Daniel grimaced, "Yeah, well that really wasn't my idea. The Air Force shanghaied me."
She shook her head, reaching up to ruffle his short hair. "I almost didn't recognize you in that haircut." He half-shrugged, and she went on. "And you've gained some weight."
"Yeah, porkiness is setting in." Daniel said, pretending to suck in his gut.
She laughed fondly and poked him in the stomach. "Silly man. I was always nagging you to eat."
"Some things never change." Jack drawled.
Daniel stuck his tongue out at Jack.
Kawalsky hastily intervened before his two friends descended to playground name-calling before his eyes. Once the ice had been broken, Daniel and Jack had started to display an alarming tendency to silliness at the drop of a hat. "So I take it you two have met?"
Daniel explained, "Janet was one of the doctors I worked with at the refugee camp."
"The best assistant I had," Fraiser confirmed. "Not only does he not have a squeamish bone in his body, he could translate any dialect we got, no matter how obscure."
Daniel looked a little embarrassed. "They were all local and not all that obscure, really."
Janet looked back at Daniel curiously, "So what are you doing here?"
Daniel coughed, "Well, it turns out that one of the obscure dialects I know is a language the aliens speak. You can see why the military would be interested."
"The aliens?" Janet said. "How can that be?"
"I have a theory-" Daniel began, to a chorus of moans from Jack and Charlie. He gave them a dirty look, "But we can talk about it later."
Hammond came out just then. "Ah, Dr. Fraiser?"
The doctor turned and straightened, saluting. "Dr.Janet Fraiser, reporting as ordered, sir."
The general returned the salute. "At ease, Captain." He glanced around the room. "I take it you've already met Colonel O'Neill, Major Kawalsky and Dr. Jackson?"
"Dr. Jackson?" Fraiser said in a puzzled tone. Kawalsky wondered why, when she'd just told them she knew Daniel.
Hammond apparently took it to mean that they hadn't been introduced. "Dr. Daniel Jackson, Dr. Janet Fraiser."
Fraiser turned her stupefied look on Daniel. "When did you become a doctor?"
Daniel blinked. "Oh- years ago - not a medical degree of course- archeology and linguistics."
She shook her head. "You told me you were in Egypt on a dig, but I thought you were a student."
Daniel shrugged. "I'm older than I look."
"Evidently."
"Ah-" Hammond was puzzled.
"Dr. Fraiser and I were acquainted in Cairo, sir." Daniel told the general.
#
"I don't know about this," Charlie said, leafing through the mission summary. "I mean, good Goa'uld? Really? The SGC gave us dozens of reports on useful allies. Why not someone else first?"
"Not so many as you'd think," O'Neill said. "The Tollan gate was in the process of being buried under a volcano in the other universe, and we can't open their gate now. And even if we could persuade them to help us, we don't know where their new homeworld is. And the other advanced race the SGC contacted was the Nox. They seemed like nice people, but not inclined to help us. The Asgard are about the only advanced race around with any interest in helping humans, and they are already overextended fighting, and I quote, 'an enemy far worse than the Goa'uld'. Earth's other allies are low-tech. Earth helped them build their industrial base, not the other way around."
Sam rushed in late and out of breath. "Sorry, they wanted me to help troubleshoot some problems we're having with the naquadah generator. I really wish Major Carter and I had been able to work together longer to get the quirks out of it when I was in the other reality." She scooped up the pile of papers in front of the empty chair beside Jack and started skimming.
"The SGC people insisted the Tok'ra were different." Daniel said. "Their very name defines their opposition to the Goa'uld- 'Tok' is against, 'Ra', well, you know who he was."
"As the good Teal'c would say, a dead false god," Charlie said.
"If we can persuade them to let us borrow a ship, we can get to our people at the beta site and tell them to unbury the gate," Jack added.
There was a slight rustling from Sam's direction, and Charlie looked over in time to see the blood drain from her face to be followed by a dark flush. She looked upset.
"Sam?" O'Neill said. "What's wrong?"
She looked up at him. "In their universe, my father was still alive, and she never told me."
Four sets of eyes went back to the report until they found the name of Jacob Carter. "He let them put a snake in him? Eew," was Jack's reaction.
"He must have thought it was worth it," Sam said. "God, all the places we went, all the things we saw. Why couldn't we save him?"
"You can't save everyone, Sam." Daniel said. "Some days you're doing well to save yourself."
Jack reached over to take her hand.
Sam looked down at their clasped hands. "I still miss him. Which is stupid because we were never close. My brother Mark was the one who wanted to follow in his footsteps and join the Air Force. I just wasn't ready for him to die.
"I'm not sure anyone ever is," Charlie said.
They fell silent for an awkward moment, then Sam let her husband's hand go and blinked hard. "The Tok'ra."
"We need to give the general a recommendation." O'Neill said.
"You know, even if we go looking for the Tok'ra, we may not find them," Daniel said. "In the other universe, they were betrayed, and the Goa'uld attacked their base. They could easily be long gone by now."
O'Neill shifted in his chair, "Honestly, I'm no more keen than Charlie is to deal with these folks. But I think we have to give it a shot."
#
They stepped into the hot sun of Vorash, looking around cautiously. The gate shut behind them. Daniel studied the DHD for a moment to pick out the point of origin, then turned toward the others.
"The new medication seems to be working," Charlie said. "I heard our new CMO bullied you into actually taking it."
Daniel said, "If she wanted you to take meds, you'd take them too. She's scary. But the lack of sneezing has nothing to do with the medication."
"It doesn't?" Charlie said.
Daniel gestured to the expanse of sandy dunes around them. "Deserts aren't noted for pollen. Why do you think I like Egypt so much?" He took several steps forward, looking for any signs of life. "I don't see any sign the Tok'ra are still here."
O'Neill shook his head. "I don't even know how we're supposed to find these folks if they don't want to be found. They apparently live in underground tunnels."
"I guess we should look for an entrance," Charlie said.
O'Neill led off around a dune. "He-llo. What's this?" He stooped to pick up a shiny sphere.
Tobias' eyes widened, "No, Colonel, don't. That's a--
Everything went dark.
#
When Charlie opened his eyes, it was completely black, and his head ached fiercely. He fumbled for a light but quickly found that all his gear had been taken. He felt along the floor, until he found a body. Patting the face, he touched glasses, "Daniel?"
He heard a groan a bit further away. "Ow."
"Jack?"
Under his hand, Daniel twitched. "Umn."
Charlie patted his cheek. "Come on, buddy, wake up." He belatedly realized the floor beneath them was smooth metal or stone.
"Charlie?" Jack's voice said.
"Here, Jack," Charlie called. "I have Daniel, but I don't know where Tobias is. "
"H-here," Tobias stammered.
"Why's it so dark?" Daniel asked dazedly, trying to sit up.
"It's not dark, you're blind." Tobias said.
"What?!" three voices said simultaneously.
"Temporarily," she explained hurriedly. "That was a goa'uld shock grenade. SG-3 brought a couple of them back from a mission last year. We analyzed them at Area 51, but unfortunately they set them off trying to figure out how they worked."
"That was smart," Charlie said.
"Why haven't we heard of this?" O'Neill asked.
Tobias said, "I don't know. I'd have thought you'd have gotten a report. Anyway, one of the side effects is temporary blindness. It'll wear off in a few minutes."
#
They could all make out blurry shapes when the Jaffa showed up to march them off to interrogation. Daniel had been running his hands over the Egyptian symbols in the pale stone walls, reading passages he recognized as being very similar to the Book of the Dead. He probably would have been terrified, if the reading material hadn't been so interesting. He squinted nearsightedly at the guards. "Are those Serpent Guards?"
As it turned out, he didn't need Charlie's affirmative, his question was abruptly answered when they were marched into the throne room. The immense room was filled with people. Apophis sat on a heavily carved jewel-laden throne. There were at least a dozen armed Jaffa guards, a man in the tall peaked hat of a priest, another whose rich garb suggested he might be a lesser Goa'uld. The scene was lit by tall smokeless torches.
Daniel was fascinated by the walls. Unlike the plainer carvings in the corridors, these walls were not only carved but colorfully painted and gilded with-- he squinted and tried to sidle closer-- looked like descriptions of battles fought against other System Lords and-- "Ow!" he yelped as a Jaffa slapped him roughly back into line and kicked him in the back of the leg so that he crashed ungracefully onto his knees beside his teammates. "Worship Apophis your god!" instructed the Jaffa guard.
"You must be joking," O'Neill said. "He's no god. We know he's no god. He knows we know he's no god--" The Jaffa clubbed him to the ground.
Apophis rose from his throne and looked hard at the three men, as Jack pushed himself back onto his knees. "You!" he said, obviously recognizing them.
"This is going well," Charlie said resignedly. He wrinkled his nose at the Goa'uld. "Still have lousy taste in aftershave, I see."
Daniel was beginning to spot a pattern reminiscent of the film he'd seen of the encounter in the control room. He wondered if he and Jack could discuss the 'piss off the Goa'uld until he has you beaten insensible' plan. It seemed to have a few flaws.
Tobias was a little pale, but she followed O'Neill's lead and shook her head firmly. "I can't do it. I could never worship a god with no fashion sense." She turned to Daniel. "You?"
Daniel couldn't let the team down. Besides, Apophis was just a bigger brand of bully. If Daniel showed he was scared spitless, he'd only get singled out for special treatment. He looked Apophis up and down critically. "It's pretty bad. But I guess I could learn to overlook the fashion sense. What I want to know is, what happened to his hair?"
Apophis was looking more and more furious. "You will pay for what you have done."
"Ah." Daniel waggled his fingers at him. "I'd like to point out at this time we've never actually met. You're thinking of the other guy who looks like me."
"You three will suffer untold torments." Apophis prophesied.
"Yeah, we noticed the terrible dialogue. Or would that be told torments?" O'Neill said at the same time as Tobias protested, "Hey, what am I, chopped liver?"
Daniel added, gesturing to Jack. "In point of fact, you've never met him either. He was dead the last time you were on Earth." There was one corner of his mind that was petrified with terror, but he managed to keep his tone flippant with an ease that startled him. Compared to facing the censure of his peers, and the disappointment of people he respected, Daniel found that he cared very little about pissing off this god-wannabe. Of course the god-wannabe could order him tortured and killed...
"Actually, that's not true, Daniel," O'Neill said. "He watched Teal'c kill me, then he met the other me and the other you--"
Daniel nodded, "Oh, sorry. And then the Asgard kicked his butt, as I understand it."
"The Asgard will not save you this time, human," Apophis roared. He raised the hand clad in the ribbon device and leveled it at Daniel. The pain of the beam burning into his brain was worse than anything he had ever imagined. He could dimly hear Kawalsky and O'Neill protesting violently, just as Kawalsky and the other O'Neill had protested the abuse of the other Daniel Jackson on the tape from the control room.
'Deja vu,' he thought dizzily. Clare was struggling in the grasp of a pair of huge Jaffa, both considerably larger than she was. Then the beam blessedly stopped, but the pain went on, and Daniel slumped bonelessly to the floor, gratefully letting go of consciousness.
#
When he awoke again, he was back in the cell with his head in Clare's lap. It would have been a lot more pleasant if his head hadn't felt like it was about to come off. He blinked blurrily up at her concerned face. "Daniel?" she said.
Daniel was him. He. Something. He was Daniel. He should answer. "W-what happened?"
"You passed out." Jack said. "Very traditional response to being ribboned to within an inch of your life. Congratulations. You might want to consider not pissing him off quite so much next time. Though you did it very well for a beginner."
"He's a natural," Charlie said.
There was something wrong with that advice. "You do it," Daniel blurted.
Jack scowled, "And it usually works out about the same way it just did for you."
Daniel gave up on trying to work out why Jack was annoyed and asked, "Is everyone okay?"
"Nothing serious," Charlie said, and grasped his shoulder. "Take it easy. You might want to stay flat..."
"Too late," Daniel gasped and curled up as his head throbbed mercilessly. "If anyone cares," he said, his voice muffled in his knees, "I've decided I don't like that guy much." After a couple of minutes he dragged himself into a sitting position and looked at Jack. "What's the plan?"
"Plan." O'Neill scowled. "Hang tight and look for an opportunity."
"Oh," Daniel said. That bad.
"What, oh?" Jack said defensively. "I've gotten farther on worse."
"That's what I was afraid of," Daniel said. Charlie and Clare were grinning, and the corners of Daniel's mouth twitched up in response.
After a half second pause, Jack laughed. "Well, business as usual, I guess."
They turned at the sound of a heavy tread outside the bars. An older Jaffa stared at them disapprovingly. Charlie frowned. "Hey, aren't you..."
"Tek ma tae, Master Bra'tac," Daniel said.
The Jaffa was startled. "How do you know my name, human?"
#
Charlie watched Jack and Daniel. Jack was talking persuasively to the Jaffa, while Daniel clung to the bars beside them, managing to stay conscious and translate the occasional phrase they had trouble with.
Clare turned back from her examination of the lock. "I don't even know how it works, let alone how to short it out," she complained. "But I bet it's alarmed."
"I don't think this is going to be the kind of problem that a little reverse engineering and a sonic screwdriver are going to help," Kawalsky told her.
She smiled wryly. "I'm finding that so few are."
Jack turned back to his team. "If anyone asks, we were scouting Vorash as a favor to our friends the Tok'ra. They thought they might sneak back there after the Goa'uld had left and hide where he'd least expect them."
Charlie said, "But if they have a spy in the ranks, they'll know it isn't true."
"Not at all." Jack said blandly. "We met Jolinar after all, and she introduced us secretly to Garshaw, and now we do favors for one another. In fact, it's a Tok'ra spy who's going to break us out."
"It is." Charlie said skeptically.
"Help me get Daniel away from the bars." They dragged Daniel back into the center of the cell.
Bra'tac was pulling a small panel off the wall and removing a crystal. Then he zatted the lock and pulled the door open. "Come, humans. There is little time." He led them to an armory where they retrieved their own weapons, plus a useful-looking selection of Goa'uld toys. They'd captured a few zat-guns from the goa'uld Seth after finding out about him from the SGC database, but the alien weapons had all wound up at Area 51 to be reverse engineered. The SGA could certainly use a few in their armory. To Charlie's surprise and respect, Daniel was managing to walk unaided, if a little unsteadily, once they had pulled him to his feet.
O'Neill unclipped his radio from his equipment vest and hid it behind a box, showing Bra'tac where it was. "You can use this to contact us via the stargate", he said. "We'll use it to set up a rendezvous on a neutral world we select. If you suggest coming to Earth, or that we come directly to you, we'll know you were compromised.
"I understand," Bra'tac nodded. At the door he paused. "I will leave you here and set a small explosive to draw the guards away from the gate. One or two will remain. Zat them once making some remark about Tok'ra aid before you escape. I have already told Apophis I suspect there is a Tok'ra spy among us."
"Thanks." O'Neill said. "We're going to owe you for this."
"Yes." Bra'tac said. "You will."
#
The restricted vision the tall clumsy helmets imposed on the Serpent guards served them time and time again as the four members of SG-1 concealed themselves behind ornate pillars every time a troop went by. Each time, the Jaffa failed to see them. They waited tensely near the gate for almost fifteen minutes until they heard a large boom. The temple shook violently, dust sifting down from overhead. Several statues crashed to the floor, and the wall behind the stargate developed an unnerving zigzag crack down the middle.
The two guards remaining by the gate flinched and looked nervously at the wall. Charlie and Jack exchanged a quick look and zatted them both in the back. They trotted to the gate and Jack pushed the symbols for Earth. Charlie restrained an urge to tell him to hurry up. Usually Tobias or Daniel did it, and they were a lot faster. He glanced aside. Tobias was standing beside Daniel. Her gun was pointed at the door, but she looked equally ready to grab Daniel if he passed out again. The younger man was swaying on his feet and the unnatural greenish white pallor of his skin made the reddened blistered mark of the ribbon device stand out all the more clearly. "Hang in there," Charlie said. "We're almost home." He looked over at Jack. "We'll have to tell Garshaw that Apophis sends his regards."
"Yeah, the Tok'ra really saved our butts this time," Jack agreed, with a flicking glance at the twitching forms of the two Jaffa lying in front of the gate. The light on his GDO turned green and the four members of SG-1 stepped into the wormhole.
#
Daniel could hear the familiar beeping of medical equipment and the murmur of Janet's voice in the background, but it was too cool to be Cairo. For a moment he was confused, then he remembered. SGA. Apophis. Ribbon device. Ow. His head still hurt. He cracked his eyelids experimentally. The blurry image of the infirmary swam into view.
Close by his side, he heard Charlie's voice, "He's awake, doc."
Janet came over and shone a penlight in his eyes. He blinked, and it got as clear as it ever did without glasses. "What happened?" he asked.
"You don't remember?" That was Jack coming up to the foot of the bed.
"Um." Daniel tried to think through the fog. "We went to Vorash. Apophis caught us. Bra'tac helped us escape. We went through the wormhole. After we stepped onto the ramp in the SGA it's a blank."
"Oh." Jack looked a bit relieved. "That's when you passed out again."
"Oh." Daniel echoed. His teammates were clustered around his bed in attitudes of concern. That was wrong. People weren't supposed to worry about him. Or at least they never had before. It made him self-conscious and a little uncomfortable. He said, "I may be jumping to conclusions here, but I think Apophis is not a nice person."
Charlie grinned at him, "Good to see your usual razor sharp intellect is still on the job." Charlie and Jack both had bruises on their faces, and Clare's knuckles were skinned, but otherwise they all seemed to be in much better shape than he was.
"Okay, people." Janet started shoeing them toward the door. "He woke up. He's as sane as he ever gets. You're all safe. Now let the man get some sleep."
#
The next morning, Daniel talked Janet into releasing him. His head still ached, but he figured that would have to ease in its own time. He ate breakfast with Clare, and they walked up to the debriefing together.
They were surprised to find Hammond, Sam Carter and O'Neill already there with another man, empty coffee cups and scattered papers attesting they had been there for some time. Kawalsky followed them in. "What's going on? I thought our debriefing was at 0800?"
"The debriefing has been postponed." Hammond said. "Get me your written reports sometime today. We have a bigger problem at the moment." He turned to the unfamiliar face. "Have you met Major Davis?" he asked.
When Daniel and Clare said no, they were introduced to the SGA's Pentagon liason.
"I thought the Pentagon was just a large hole in the ground these days," Daniel said.
"It's normal functions have been redistributed," Davis explained. "SGA mission analysis is now operating out of an air base in Virginia."
"What's going on?" Charlie asked again.
Sam picked up the remote and pointed it at the TV on a cart that was sitting in the corner of the room. The big rear projection screen at the end of the room had been damaged during the alien attack and still not been fixed. Daniel, Charlie and Clare took their seats, looking at the white screen. Then they saw black dots moving on it. "This film was taken late yesterday in Antartica," Sam said.
It was an aerial view of a snowfield, Daniel realized. The black dots were rocks sticking up through the ice. A ridge slid by underneath the camera and they could see an enormous hole in the ice. It looked like the site of an explosion. Jumbled blocks of ice surrounded it. As the craft flew lower, they could see the tracks of heavy equipment around the rim of it.
"What's going on?" Charlie asked.
"This was the site of the second stargate," Sam told him. "Remember the report that the other Carter and O'Neill found it accidently in Antartica?"
"A small team was sent down to secure the second gate once we found out about it," Hammond said. "They were pulled out two weeks ago, as the Antartic winter was approaching. We figured that this late in the season, no one could do anything about it anyway."
"We figured wrong," O'Neill said.
"We were making plans to retrieve it in about six months. It wasn't a priority to get to it right away, so long as we were sure it wouldn't fall into the wrong hands," Davis said. "A couple of guys flying around doing maintenance on weather stations saw the hole and reported it."
Apparently there really were parts of the world where life just went on. Daniel tried to remember the report on how the alternate universe folks had lost and found their gate. "I suppose it's too much to hope it's at an airfield in Utah?" he asked.
"We checked," Hammond confirmed. "But we're assuming the NID or whoever has taken the gate found out about it the same way we did-- from the database of reports we got from the SGC."
"And we've already tried to access it from offworld, the way the SGC sent through their locator beacon," Sam said. "It seems like they've got it buried or have a shield on it so it can't be activated from offworld without their permission. Another indicator they've had access to the SGC database."
"I'm surprised they bothered," Daniel said thoughtfully. "I mean, they can't actually use it without us knowing, right?"
"Not if we're looking for it," Sam said. "It would create an energy spike that would show on our instruments.
"Do they know we know the gate has been taken?" Tobias asked.
"Probably," O'Neill said sourly. "The news wasn't well contained."
"Unfortunately, thanks to the SGC report, anyone who's seen the database would know we have triple redundancy on data backups," Clare said thoughtfully. "So, if they used the gate, and our records have been modified, we'd never know."
"So what?" Daniel asked. "Will they stop using the gate?"
"Not if they think they have control of our internal records," O'Neill said slowly.
"So we set a trap, grab whoever's modifying our records, and squeeze them for information?" Charlie sounded dubious. "They probably won't know much. Assuming they even exist."
"No," Clare and Sam said. The two women grinned, and Sam motioned to Clare with an 'after-you' wave. "We secretly set a fourth backup. Then we use the power and seismic data to trace the location of the other stargate. That's what we need to find," Clare said.
O'Neill was nodding, "And we leave our computer mole undisturbed until after we get to the gate. We don't want to grab him and have that warn off our opposition."
"It won't," Sam said. "They've probably already written him or her off. They know we've seen the database report too. They'll assume we can stop the data tampering whenever we want."
"What about the seismic effect that the SGC used to locate the second gate in the first place?" Davis asked.
"We'll check," Sam said. "But there are a couple of problems. The seismic monitoring network relied on satellite links to collect a lot of its data, and the Goa'uld destroyed nearly all satellites in Earth's orbit during the attack--"
"I thought you could get seismic data directly via the internet?" Daniel asked.
"Some," Clare said. "But the other problem is, the people who have the gate knew about that too. I expect they would have installed the same kind of frequency dampeners we have."
Several hours later, they had figured out a bunch of things that wouldn't work. Davis excused himself to make a report to his superiors.
Hammond said, "All right, people. Where do we go from here?"
"The computer mole?" O'Neill asked.
"We know who it is," Kawalsky said. "A woman who lost her husband to the goa'uld. She almost certainly doesn't know anything."
Clare stared into space with a tiny frown creased between her brows as she thought, while Charlie started to say something, but Daniel tuned them out. He stared at the image on the screen. Something about that hole. Abruptly Daniel pushed back his chair and jumped up, going to the window to stare at the big stone ring below them.
"Daniel?" Jack said.
"Jack," he replied absently. The rest of the room had fallen silent.
"What'cha doing?" Jack asked.
"We're looking at this the wrong way," Daniel said. He had that elusive tip of the tongue feeling, the one he always got when he was about to see something important.
"What do you mean?" Clare said.
A vague idea was starting to coalesce. Daniel turned back to the table. "How much does a stargate weigh?" he asked.
Sam replied, "Sixty-four thousand pounds, give or take."
"And it's what, almost thirty feet in diameter?" Daniel said.
Clare said, "Oh, I see where you're going with this. How did they move it?"
"I don't think that helps us," Jack said. "We know they lifted it out in a C5. Apparently that was something of a project, since they are a lot larger than anything that normally lands in Antartica. It went to the normal refuelling stop in New Zealand, stopped again in Hawaii and then flew into Houston."
"And then?" Daniel asked.
"We don't know," Jack replied.
"They must have loaded it on a truck," Sam said.
"That would be pretty conspicuous, though." Daniel looked at the map assessingly. "Big truck, big tall load. How would you disguise that?"
"Crate it?" Charlie said.
"No," Daniel shook his head. "Containerize it."
"You mean a shipping container?" Sam said. "It wouldn't fit."
"It would in two," Daniel replied.
"Only if they were stacked on top of one another," Sam said impatiently. "And that's-"
Jack looked suddenly interested, and joined Daniel in looking at the map. "You think they shipped it by rail?"
"It would have been the least conspicuous way to move something that large and heavy." Daniel said. He remembered his parents supervising the loading of the dismantled temple onto a train in Egypt, where it could be sent down the river to be shipped by sea to New York. Rail was one of the most efficient ways to ship very heavy cargos. And he had often seen trains pulling long lines of cars with one container stacked atop the other when he lived in Chicago.
"It would have limited where they could send it," Charlie said thoughtfully. "There are some tunnels and bridges that are too low for a double container-load."
Daniel nodded and sat back down as Clare took a seat in front of the computer. "Okay, rail lines. So, if tunnels are a problem, it probably didn't go over the Rockies."
"Um," Clare looked around at them a bit uncertainly. "I'm thinking that rather than going by process of elimination, it might be easier to see if we can track the shipment."
"We'd need access to train company records," Sam said.
"Which would probably be hard to get permission to look at, ah, legally." Clare admitted.
There was a brief silence. "I think I'll leave you people to it," Hammond said. "This is one assignment when results are important. Let me know if you find anything."
"Sir, yes, sir," Tobias said with a straight face.
Charlie had a surprised expression. "Did our CO just encourage us to break the law?"
"Not you, Charlie, us," Sam said, pulling the other keyboard toward her.
"I think we can handle this," Clare said.
Sam smiled at Kawalsky and her husband sweetly, "What she's trying to say is go away."
Jack put up his hands, "Okay, okay." He turned to the other two men. "What do you say we check out the pie in the commissary."
"Sure," Charlie said.
"Not Daniel," Clare said.
Daniel had been about to push his chair back but stopped.
"Hey, why him and not us?" Jack asked.
Clare and Sam exchanged an understanding look. "Because he's useful," Sam said.
The two older men's expressions were priceless. Daniel tried not very successfully to stifle a grin.
Clare said, "Look at it this way, sir. Do you really want to sit in front of a computer sifting masses of data looking for any clue, no matter how small, as to where this thing went?"
"When you put it that way--" O'Neill said.
Charlie waved as he followed his CO to the door. "Have fun, kids."
Daniel looked at the third computer Clare was urging him towards. "I'm kind of having second thoughts about missing the pie," he said, reseating himself in front of the screen.
"Look for any public sources of information," Sam told him, then turned to Clare. "You want to do the train companies?"
"Why don't you take those?" Clare said. "I'll look into the military rail records. These guys seem to have a penchant for borrowing military hardware."
Daniel got up again, "I'll make another pot of coffee."
#
"Montana," Sam said.
"Not a bad choice," O'Neill said. "There's enough empty space up there they could hide a dozen stargates, and an alien spaceship besides without anyone noticing."
"Where in Montana?" Charlie asked.
Sam and Clare exchanged a dismayed look. "We're not sure."
Sam put a map up on the screen. "We traced the container-load from the dock in Houston to a military train that hauled a load to Billings, Montana. It was shunted to a siding there and unloaded. We're not entirely sure where it went from there."
Daniel took up the account, "But we figured that NID-- who for the sake of argument we're assuming are behind this--" he glanced at Hammond and at Davis, who was wearing a noncommittal expression, "wouldn't necessarily own heavy equipment. So we looked at equipment rentals." Daniel looked down at the pad in front of him. "I called heavy equipment rental locations in Billings. There are two that have equipment capable of moving a stargate and one that rented out a crane to people they didn't know in the timeframe we're interested in."
"Fortunately, they were cheap," Clare said, smiling. "They only kept the crane for five hours." She tapped some keys and a circle popped up on the map. "With some reasonable time for loading and unloading, it has to be somewhere in this area."
"Do we have satellite footage?" Hammond asked.
"No, sir." O'Neill replied. "Only a few of our satellites have been replaced since the attack, and there wasn't any bird in a position to see Montana in the five hour window we're interested in."
"That doesn't sound like a coincidence," Hammond said.
"No, sir." O'Neill repeated. "It's some of our own people who are doing this." No one challenged his statement.
Davis said, "How do you want to proceed? I can arrange to have some manpower available in Montana--"
"Any one of whom might be part of this operation." O'Neill said. "General, permission to take SG-1 and go look for a stargate."
"Granted." Hammond said immediately. "I'll have a plane standing by for you at Petersen."
"Something with surveillance capabilities," O'Neill suggested. "We may want to do our own aerial survey of the area."
"Thermal imaging," Sam said. "The stargate is an enormous heat sink. Unless they've got a pretty solid roof over it, you may be able to pick up the temperature difference against the background."
"Can you be ready to go in fifteen minutes?" O'Neill asked his team. The other three nodded.
"You're taking Dr. Jackson with you?" Davis sounded surprised.
"Yes," O'Neill said.
"But he's an archeologist, not a special ops soldier." Davis protested.
O'Neill gave him an unfriendly look. "Daniel is our cultural expert. Who knows what weird customs they've got in Montana?"
In the gear up room, Charlie finished stripping the ID from his uniform first. "I'll just go see if Tobias needs a hand with the computer gear," he said.
O'Neill nodded, rechecking his pack efficiently.
Daniel said, "Ah, Jack?"
"Yes, Daniel?"
"Why am I on this mission? Davis is right that I'm not really trained for this."
Jack met his eyes and evidently saw that he wanted a serious answer. "You're the one who thought of trains. That's not the first time you've spotted something the rest of us missed. And anybody who can spit in Apophis' eye isn't going to be intimidated by a few guys with guns. You're part of the team."
Daniel looked pleased and a touch embarrassed. "Oh. Thanks."
"Thanks?" O'Neill shrugged. "For what, new and exciting opportunities to be shot at? You're weird, Daniel."
"When you put it that way--" Daniel said, smiling. But he still felt an unaccustomed warmth as he followed the colonel to the elevator. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt as much a part of something as he had SG-1. As they joined Charlie and Clare on the surface, he straightened his shoulders and resolved not to get complacent. He had a place here because he was useful. He'd better keep on being useful.
#
Clare and Daniel settled wearily into seats in the diner. "Just coffee," Clare told the waitress.
"And I'll have a slice of the cherry pie," Daniel added. "Jack's malign influence," he told Clare.
The woman gave him a cheerful, "Comin' right up darlin'."
Daniel rolled his eyes and Clare giggled. "Your fatal charm strikes again." The pie and coffee were delivered with a promptness that was clearly more than just efficient. Daniel could feel himself flushing.
Clare continued to tease him, "I wasn't sure you were going to get out of there without having to make a date with that receptionist."
The woman at the equipment rental had fallen in instant lust with Daniel, something he'd been more or less oblivious to until she'd started to get physically familiar with him. Clare had glared at him behind the woman's back as he'd started to edge away, and he'd reluctantly stayed put while she more or less opened the books to them, despite their rather lame cover story. It had been productive, as they had gotten a license number for the truck used to tow the small crane they thought had been used to unload the stargate. Daniel wasn't sure which was worse, the familiar way she had patted his butt, or the disgust he had felt about using her reaction to gain information. "I feel dirty," he complained.
Clare gave him a more serious look. "Sometimes we do things we're not very proud of to serve the greater good."
"The end does not justify the means." Daniel protested.
"No." Clare said. "But if it's important enough, we may choose the questionable means and take the consequences."
Daniel wondered what she was thinking about and remembered that she never talked about her experiences in special operations any more than Jack or Charlie did. "You think that's what these NID guys have done?"
"I'm sure of it," Clare said, watching him eat his pie. "Though some of them may not have had much in the way of conscience to begin with. Their kind of work tends to attract the type."
"Think Jack and Charlie have found anything yet?"
She shook her head, "If they have, we'd have heard." Just then, her phone rang. She opened it up, then pulled out a pad and scribbled down an address. "Okay, thanks." She snapped the phone closed. "We've got an address on the truck."
Daniel swallowed the last of the coffee and put some money on the table, over-tipping generously.
Clare raised an eyebrow. "You're not doing anything to discourage her," she said, smiling.
"The service was fast." Daniel said defensively. "And we may want to eat here again before we leave-- aw, leave me alone."
"You're too nice, Jackson. That's your problem." Clare led the way back to the car, chuckling.
#
The company where they found the truck seemed to be a bust. It was a construction company, and when they inquired about renting a vehicle they were firmly told they didn't do rentals. The fellow in charge of the desk gave no sign of being susceptible to blue eyes on either gender and they withdrew across the street to discuss their options.
"Maybe we can come back tonight and take a look through their records," Clare suggested. "They'll have security on tools and equipment, but the office system didn't look like much."
Daniel shook his head, "When I came to work for the Air Force, I never expected I'd be able to add breaking and entering to my CV."
"And then again--" Clare said, pulling him further behind the vehicle they were concealed behind. "We could just follow that guy."
Daniel followed her gaze. "The dark-haired one?"
"Yes. His name is Major Chris Newman. I worked with him in special ops years ago. And I can't think of a single good reason for him being in Billings." She handed him the keys. "Get the rental car and drive around the block. Pull over there and wait." She noticed his curious expression. "He might recognize me."
"Right." Daniel pocketed the keys and walked back to their sedan, feeling ridiculously cloak-and-daggerish.
They followed him out of town, staying well back. Their quarry drove sedately and legally, unmindful of their presence. As they rounded a curve, Clare said urgently, "Pull over!"
Daniel brought the car to a stop, seeing the car ahead of them stopped in the road. "I don't like the look of this--" Clare began.
Daniel caught a glimpse of movement behind them. "It's a trap," he said, starting to turn the wheel. A tap on the window alerted him to the presence of an armed man aiming an M-16 at him through the window. Several more surrounded the car. "Okay, now what?" he asked.
"Now, we surrender."
#
Daniel rattled the cuffs experimentally, wondering why it was that US government agents seemed to have this penchant for chaining him up. Two armed men in fatigues watched them carefully. He wondered if the fact that they hadn't seemed concerned about he or Clare seeing their faces should worry him.
Clare was sitting beside him, apparently relaxed. Daniel wondered why she wasn't cuffed. If someone thought he was the bigger threat, than their intelligence wasn't all that good after all.
Newman came in. "Well, Clare, long time, no see."
"You're looking good," she told him.
"What brings you to Billings?" he asked conversationally.
She gave him a disgusted look. "Your ineptness, I think. You've got the whole SGA breathing down your neck here. Did you really think they wouldn't miss the second gate?"
"It seemed worth the risk. It was just bad luck we didn't have six months use of it free and clear before they even found out." Newman said. "So who's your friend?"
Clare gave Daniel a cool look. "Him? The great Daniel Jackson. Or the local version of same."
"Huh," Newman gave him an appraising look. "So, think he'd consider helping us out? He's supposed to be able to read Goa'uld, or at least the other one was."
"Oh, he can read it," Clare said.
"But I won't." Daniel said firmly. "What do you think you're doing, anyway?" Then his phrasing registered. "And who do you mean by 'us'?"
Clare shook her head sadly and got up to stand beside Newman. "You know, for a bright guy, you're kind of slow on the uptake, Jackson."
"W-what?" Daniel couldn't believe it. Clare was one of these guys? Area 51, he suddenly remembered. The NID in the other universe had infiltrated Area 51. He gave her a reproachful look, "Clare, why?"
She laughed unkindly and turned to Newman. "See what I mean? Clueless." She paced restlessly. "But they were a little too sharp in following your trail. I made sure I was assigned to the ground team."
Newman looked a bit suspicious. "And leading them right to us was supposed to be helpful?"
"If I didn't want you to spot the tail, I certainly wouldn't have let Jackson drive," she returned impatiently. "And if I hadn't, you would have had O'Neill and Kawalsky in your face, with a Special Ops strike team inbound to back them up. This way I could at least get here to warn you."
"You've blown your cover with the SGA," Newman said.
Tobias shrugged, "It didn't seem like much of a loss. They're so focused on making alliances, they've barely visited any worlds where we could acquire useful tech. And Hammond will never approve the necessary means in any case. I figured it was more important you guys don't get taken."
"And we appreciate it," Newman said. "But you shouldn't have worried quite so much. We have a backup plan."
"I was sure you would," Tobias said. "Care to let me in on it?"
"Not in front of him," Newman said, waving a hand at Daniel. "In fact, I'm thinking Dr. Jackson here has outlived his usefulness."
Clare said coolly, "Oh, let's not be hasty. He really is a competent linguist, and we are technically on the same side. I think we can persuade him to utilise his talents on our behalf."
"He sounded pretty definite to me," Newman said.
She said contemptuously. "You forget I've seen him in the field. Whatever training or conditioning the other one had, this guy doesn't. He's a geek."
Daniel glared at her. "I won't."
Tobias said, "So Major, shall we go talk escape plans? There'll be plenty of time to introduce Dr. Jackson to reality later."
"This way," Newman opened the door and led Tobias out, one of the guards following.
The other guard simply stood stolidly, attention firmly fixed on his prisoner. Daniel sat and tried to think. The situation wasn't good. Jack and Charlie didn't know they had followed Newman and in fact were probably miles away. Daniel was cuffed, disarmed and had no means of communication. And his teammate was playing for the other team. Screwed was the word he was looking for. He looked down. And his bootlaces were untied.
He glanced around the room. The place was a large aluminum barn, identical to several others they had passed on the drive out. He was sitting in a smaller subdivision of the barn. He'd seen the stargate in the larger portion as they had been brought in. This room contained a couple of folding chairs and tables, and several crates of computer equipment. It looked like they had already been making plans to move out.
The only other item in the room was the guard. Daniel looked at him, and decided on his plan. "I need to pee," he told the man bluntly.
The guard's eyes shifted toward him, then he shrugged and reached down for the object Daniel had noticed on his belt. "Prisoner wants to go to the men's room," he said into his cellphone.
"Take him," it squawked in return. It was evidently a combination cellphone/walkie-talkie. The SGA didn't use them, but Daniel had seen them carried by American troops in Cairo.
The guard clipped it back onto his belt, then motioned with his gun. Daniel got up and walked to the door. A yard away, he looked down and said, "Oh, I should tie those." He stooped as the guard looked bored and impatient.
"Hurry it up," the man ordered. As Daniel had hoped, he was standing carelessly, his gun not pointing directly at Daniel in his crouched position.
"What, so you can get back to your exciting regime of standing a--" Daniel launched himself in mid-sentence in a knee level tackle for the guard.
The surprised guard let out a yell as Daniel hit him low and the two of them crashed to the floor, Daniel sprawled across the man's legs. Daniel managed to head-butt the man in the groin, which caused him to let out a further howl. The door was flung open, and with Daniel handcuffed, the struggle came to a foregone conclusion. But when the two new men hauled Daniel upright, the first guard's cellphone had disappeared up Daniel's sleeve.
"Son of a bitch," the guard was swearing, clutching his crotch. He finally let go and got up, reversing his rifle as if to smack Daniel, but one of other guards caught his arm.
"Leave him alone for now. Orders," he instructed. "You can be part of the interrogation team later."
"What's going on? Report," was heard coming from several transmitters. Including the one up Daniel's sleeve.
"What the hell?" The first guard checked his belt, and then cursed. This time no one tried to stop him from hitting Daniel with butt of his rifle.
#
When Daniel woke up, one of the cuffs had been transferred to a water pipe at the side of the room, and the cell phone was missing. On top of the residual ribbon device headache that was still thrumming in the background, the new blow sent stabbing pain through his head.
Newman and Tobias were back. Newman said, "He's been enough trouble."
"Not very effective trouble," Tobias said critically.
Daniel couldn't fault her analysis. It hadn't been a very good plan, just the best he'd had. "Why are you doing this?" he asked her again.
She shrugged. "I worked at Area 51 for three years. I must have put in for transfer to the SGA about twenty times. I'm good at what I do. I wanted to work with the front line lab, even if I couldn't make it onto an SG team. And all that training, all that work, and it takes an alien invasion that kills half the Air Force before they're desperate enough to take me. And here you are, a civilian, also on the team. I guess that tells me how highly they value my contribution." Her tone was bitter. "And once we do go through the gate, then what? We're not collecting technology we could use to defend ourselves. We're 'talking' to people. What a waste."
Daniel said incredulously, "We're making alliances. Finding other people to help us fight the Goa'uld."
"Alliances. Sure," Tobias said. "Like your friends Zales and Takaya, who are condescending to instruct us in 'basic physics'. Or the nonexistant Tok'ra. Or how about Bra'tac and his three-Jaffa rebellion?" She shook her head. "I've got a better idea, Jackson. Why don't we just turn you over to the Goa'uld? You could talk them to death."
Daniel couldn't believe how badly he'd misjudged her. He should have seen this. He remembered how startled and resentful she'd been when they were first introduced. But she'd instantly seen which way the wind was blowing when Jack had called her on it, and then pretended to make friends. "I'm sure the Goa'uld would be thrilled to know you're here doing their work," he returned. "You were right, you know. We really are on the same side. It doesn't help anyone to fight each other like this."
An alarm blared. "What's that?" Tobias asked.
"Troops have tripped our outer perimeter alarms," Newman said. "Time to evacuate."
"Okay--" she said.
"Not you." Newman said, and zatted her. She collapsed to the floor. He turned to Daniel, "Her turning up now is just a tad too convenient for my taste." He tossed a pair of small keys to the floor next to her. "I've set the self-destruct on this facility. When she wakes up, you should have just enough time to get clear of the explosion. If you hustle." In the room outside, Daniel could hear the whoosh of the stargate activating.
Daniel tugged at the wrist attached to the pipe. "How about just unlocking me now?"
Newman ignored him and strode out of the room. Two other men picked up the cases of computer equipment and followed him.
Daniel tugged at the cuff again. He wasn't really thrilled with the idea of waiting for Clare to wake up. Based on their recent conversation, she was just as likely to flee the explosion and leave him there. If Daniel died, there wouldn't be anyone to contradict whatever story she chose to tell. She'd be free to go back to the SGA, where she could hide until the NID decided to ask her to betray Jack and Charlie. Though the timing of the SGA attack did suggest an alternate interpretation--
He yanked harder on the cuff. During training Charlie had once mentioned that there was a way to get out of handcuffs, at the cost of some pain and inconvenience. Dislocate the thumb, he'd said, and the hand would go through. Daniel compressed his hand as small as he could, gritted his teeth, and threw his whole weight against the cuff. He could feel the small bones in his hand grind together and skin shred. Then something cracked and he yelped in pain, but his hand came free, oozing blood from the abraded skin. Daniel fell to his knees gasping. Goddamn, that hurt. He staggered to his feet, cradling the injured hand and ran for the door.
In the outer room, men were heaving the last crates into the event horizon and leaping to follow them. They were too busy to see Daniel enter the room behind them. Daniel ran forward as the last of the NID agents disappeared into the gate. Daniel had a full five seconds to stare at the glyphs before the gate deactivated and was grateful he'd deliberately taught himself to quickly memorize gate addresses. Beside the gate was a C4 brick with a timer attached. As Daniel looked, the digits clicked over to fifty-nine seconds. He was about to reach over and yank the detonator when he spotted similar bricks attached to the support beams of the building. No way could he get to them all before they exploded, and Newman had probably hidden a couple just to be sure.
Daniel turned back to the room where he'd been imprisoned, swearing under his breath. Newman might have given them a chance, but it wasn't much of one. Clare was twitching with returning consciousness but not actually mobile. Daniel hauled her over his shoulder in a fireman's carry, yelping involuntarily as the injured hand was jarred again. There wasn't time to think about that. How far did he need to go to get clear of the explosion? He staggered toward the door. Probably further than he could get carrying Clare. He went instead to the gate. The detonator read fifteen seconds as he laid his hand on the first glyph and an address popped into his mind. Clare was starting to struggle as the gate whooshed, and Daniel ran for the wormhole, pushing his straining body to the limits. He wasn't sure, but he thought he felt a heat at his back as they passed through the event horizon.
On the other side, they popped out onto the dias with considerable velocity and fell down a set of stone steps in a tangle. Daniel jarred his injured hand hard enough to make his head swim. A blast of incandescent fire roared out of the wormhole behind him, hot enough to singe their hair, even though the flames passed a foot above their heads. Then the flames died and the gate shut down. Several green clad figures came running toward the gate. "Daniel--" Clare said.
"Nice friends you got there," Daniel said. "I can see why you like them." He rolled over on his back, trying to not move his hand. It didn't seem to make a difference, it was still ablaze with pain.
"Daniel, I can explain," she began.
The first person to reach them was Major Howard, with Sam Carter trailing him by a hundred yards. "Captain Tobias, Dr. Jackson--" Howard said. "What are you doing here?"
"We were in the neighborhood," Daniel said a little shakily.
"Where are we?" Clare asked, looking around at the dusty ruins.
"PC3-244," Howard answered.
"I remembered the engineering team would be here," Daniel said. "Which was important because we'll need their GDOs to get back."
"And you remembered the address?" Clare said incredulously. "Daniel, what I said back there--"
"Was you trying to convince Newman you were on his side," Daniel nodded and then regretted it. He'd forgotten the recent blow to the head until just then. He winced and managed to pull himself to a sitting position. "Yes." She seemed astounded. "How did you--"
"What happened to you two?" Sam asked them, taking in their disheveled appearance. Well, Daniel's disheveled appearance. "And where are Jack and Charlie? Daniel, you're hurt."
Clare was staring that his twisted right hand, still oozing blood. "What happened to your hand?" She twitched as if to move toward him, then froze.
"I was handcuffed to a pipe," Daniel said. "I pulled it through the cuff." He turned to Sam. "Jack and Charlie are back on Earth, I presume securing the second stargate. At least after clearing the debris off it from the explosion," Daniel said. "And before I forget, someone give me a piece of paper." He took the pad Howard proffered and clumsily drew stargate glyphs on it left-handed, regretting the misfortune that it had been his right hand chained to the pipe. He was in for an annoying few weeks. He handed the pad back to Howard. "We need to get back to the SGA right away. That's the gate address that the NID agents gated to-- I want to make sure that gets back to Hammond in case I pass out on the ramp."
Clare was still staring at his hand and had gone a pale greenish color. "You don't trust me," she said in a choked tone.
"I do trust you," Daniel said. "Mostly. But I'm not willing to risk losing the address if I'm wrong. Anyway, if I'm right, Jack will exonerate you as soon as I talk to him. I don't think they'd have found the NID base so fast if you hadn't been carrying a locator."
That earned him another surprised look from Clare, and then Ian Howard was dialing the SGA and sending a GDO signal.
Daniel supported his injured hand with the other and stepped into the familiar chill. Popping out the other side, he stumbled, and Clare caught his good elbow to steady him.
#
Three hours later he was in the briefing room, his hand blessedly numb and the whole thing heavily splinted. Daniel had an icepack he was holding to the side of his head while he listened to Clare debrief to the general. He was vastly relieved to find out that he'd been right about Clare.
"If we'd been able to suppress the news we were aware of the theft," she said, "I might have been able to go undercover and try to infiltrate. I was never part of the NID, but while I was working at Area 51, they had made some overtures." She was directing some of her remarks to the general, some to Daniel as she explained what had happened. "I told Colonel O'Neill about it after the gate was stolen, and he gave me the transponder, just in case."
"I know, Captain," Hammond said. "Colonel O'Neill briefed me on his plans."
Tobias nodded and continued, "We didn't think they would fall for it because of the timing, but when they captured the two of us, I tried it anyway." She looked rueful. "Frankly I wouldn't have stood any chance at all, except Daniel gave such a brilliant impression of being shocked and dismayed at my defection." She gave Daniel an impressed glance. "I never knew you were such a good actor."
"I'm not." Daniel said bluntly, lifting his head away from the ice pack. "I was more or less convinced until the cavalry showed up. Then, like Newman, I found the timing too convenient." He was irritated he hadn't been let in on the locater plan, but in all honesty had to admit that his acting skills probably wouldn't have been up to the job. It still stung though, especially after what Jack had said about being part of the team.
"Oh," Clare said, wincing. "Um, I'm glad you figured it out in time to save me from the explosion then."
"Colonel O'Neill and Major Kawalsky reported the building blew up as the strike team approached it," Hammond said. "They thought you two were dead until we told them you'd just walked back through the stargate."
Clare was still looking at Daniel. "I don't know how to thank you. Especially since you weren't really sure which side I was on at the time."
Daniel ruthlessly suppressed his hurt feelings to give Clare a small smile. He said, "No thanks necessary. You'd have done it for me. Although--" he lifted the bulky splint a fraction, "if you take dictation, I won't say no. I'm going to be typing one-handed for a while."
Hammond smiled, "I think we can find you a typist for a few weeks, son." He added approvingly, "Good work, both of you."
Clare stared after him as he left. "God, is he serious?" she muttered.
"I don't think he'd have said it if he wasn't," Daniel said. "What's wrong?"
She swallowed. "I was useless, is what's wrong. Got us captured, got zatted. The things I said to you-- You were the one who saved us both."
Daniel looked at the guilt in her expression. "How much of that was the truth, Clare?"
She started, "What?"
Daniel said mildly, "I do remember how you reacted when we were first introduced, you know. And good actor or not, that speech about trying to transfer in to the SGA and being rejected had a real ring of conviction to it."
Clare couldn't meet his eyes, "Some of it was true. Used to be true. I don't feel that way now, really."
"Why not?" Daniel said. "You do deserve to be on an SG team."
"Do I?" she sounded lost, her eyes flickering to his splinted hand. "The end doesn't justify the means, Daniel. But there was a time that might not have mattered to me. If I hadn't gotten to come here when I did-- maybe I would have joined the NID for the chance to go through the gate. Maybe that's why I wasn't at the SGC in the alternate reality."
"I don't believe that," Daniel said. "I understand how badly you wanted to go through the gate, believe me. But in the end you would have done the right thing."
Clare blinked hard. "You can't know that. How can you-- I made you think I was one of the bad guys-- and you had faith in me anyway. Saved my life."
"Well, I wouldn't have been around to do that if you hadn't talked Newman out of shooting me," Daniel reminded her. "And the things you said to me helped convince them to underestimate me. If they'd cuffed both hands around the pipe instead of just one, I doubt I could have gotten out." He raised his injured hand fractionally. "Janet says it'll heal fine, you know. Good as new in a couple of weeks."
Clare gave him a sickly smile, "Daniel, I underestimated you. If you'd known I was just acting, we could have worked together--"
"Or I might have given the show away completely," Daniel said. "Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. Anyway. You can make it up to me by not strangling me when I bitch about the splint, which I assure you is going to happen a lot." He brightened, "Hey, I can ask you to bring me coffee."
"Don't push your luck." Clare replied automatically, then checked to see if he was serious.
He smiled and patted her shoulder. "Good, I was afraid you were going to mope all day."
She actually laughed, a little incredulously. "I guess not." As he stood up, she reached over to pick up his cup and pad of paper, "I'll take those. You put that ice pack back on."
#
A week later, it was all wrapped up. The second gate was stored safely in Cheyenne Mountain and the NID offworld team members were all under arrest. The three military members of SG-1 had gone out with the team that captured their base. Daniel would not be cleared to go offworld again until his hand healed.
"Steaks." Jack said. "Large thick juicy steaks." The four of them were going out to dinner to celebrate. Charlie had suggested the outing. Sam's team was still in the field, so it was just SG-1. It seemed a little surreal to Daniel to be driving down the mountain, passing the occasional other car on the road. Utterly normal, but for him lately, normal was a tiny office deep underground and a bunkroom he shared with three other men.
They climbed out of Charlie's car and walked into O'Malley's. The server looked somewhat askance at their attire. Jack and Clare were unremarkable in civvies, but Daniel and Charlie were both wearing unmarked fatigues. Daniel because he didn't have any other clothes-- something he should fix one of these days, he supposed-- and Charlie because he'd forgotten to do laundry at home, apparently a fairly regular occurrence.
They were seated in an unobtrusive corner in the back. "What's with the cold shoulder?" Charlie wondered aloud. "It's not like we haven't spent enough money here."
"Military folks aren't exactly the most popular right now," O'Neill said soberly. "Especially here. A lot of people blame us for the Goa'uld attack. They think we antagonized them."
"That's not true," Clare protested. "We know both from our own experience and the SGC files that the Goa'uld routinely attack worlds with our level of technology or higher. If we hadn't used the stargate, it might have taken a little longer for them to find out. But when the Goa'uld did attack, we'd have had no warning and absolutely no hope of stopping them."
She'd been rather subdued after the operation to arrest the NID agents but was nearly back to her old self, except for a tendency to fuss about Daniel getting to meals and medical appointments. He'd have given her mild grief about it, except Jack, Sam and Charlie were behaving almost the same way. And it was sort of nice.
"Tell that to Joe Public," O'Neill said sourly.
"Anyway," Daniel said, "From my own recent experience, breathing antagonizes them." The SGC files had made it clear the Goa'uld would never be interested in peaceful coexistance, and his own encounter with Apophis had driven home the lesson.
The food was good, the company lighthearted. When the last scrap of dessert had been consumed, they paid the bill and went back outside. They stopped at the sight of Charlie's car in dismay. All four tires were flat, and someone had scrawled 'warmonger' across the windshield in what looked like soap.
"Crap." Charlie said. On examination, the tires had simply had the air let out of them, so the four of them pushed the car across the road to a gas station where they could be re-inflated.
"An impulse vandal," O'Neill said. "If they'd come prepared, they would have slashed the tires and used spray paint instead of soap. "
Charlie looked at the scrawl across the windshield. "Yeah, great. Some days, it seems like it's one step forward, three back. First Apophis, then this NID operation, now this. I don't expect to have to deal with this at home."
Daniel felt a little depressed. It was easy to forget just what a battering the Earth had taken. Colorado Springs had not been bombed, so there were no visual reminders, and the military had priority on many resources. The gas shortages and food rationing were the only local effects, along with enormous number of refugees that had flooded from the large cities to the countryside.
The food shortage had more to do with the damage done to the nation's transportation and business infrastructure than it did with lack of food. The farms had been left largely untouched by the attacks. But the means to transport the food to the people who needed it had been sadly impaired. And it was made more difficult by the displacement of enormous numbers of people from the cities to the countryside. It was the refugee population that had discouraged Daniel from trying to find off-base accomodation just yet. There were virtually no apartments to be had. He knew Clare was sharing a tiny studio with three other female Air Force personnel. He said, "Hey at least you've got a home. A lot of folks don't-- that's probably part of why they're acting out." He gestured to the windshield.
Charlie gave him a swift glance, evidently hearing something he hadn't intended in his tone, "Daniel, if you want someplace to crash off base, mi casa es su casa."
"Or Sam and I have the spare room," Jack said, only half a beat behind.
Daniel blinked, rather startled. "Um, thanks. I appreciate the thought." The instant welcome was nothing he had expected. To cover his surprise, he tried to joke. "I think I'll wait until I own something that isn't military issue before I worry about a place to keep it though."
"Hey, if you want to shop, Daniel, I'm there for you." Clare said smiling. "That I can do."
"Want, not necessarily," Daniel said. "But I'll need to get some civilian clothes sometime."
"On our next downtime," Clare promised. She gave him a calculating look that amused Jack and Charlie and alarmed Daniel. "I'm sure we can find something that suits you."
Jack shook his head. "You are so doomed, Dannyboy. Never tell a woman you need help shopping."
Daniel blinked. "I was thinking a pair of jeans and a couple of shirts. Nothing fancy."
"Fine," Clare said. "We'll talk."
Daniel had a sinking feeling Jack might be right about doom but joined in the good natured laughter at his own expense.
#
"If you kill us, our lord will send many warriors to avenge our deaths, and the insult you have paid him," Daniel asserted in a confident tone. "If you simply banish us through the chappa'ai, we will tell him that Pyrus Godslayer is no more, and he will not bother to send people here again."
Andrus frowned, "Pyrus Godslayer was an old man, weak and feeble. I rule here now."
Somehow Daniel doubted Andrus had ever dared to call Pyrus weak and feeble when he was still alive. They had learned that the false Jaffa had been second in command to Pyrus' First Prime, and had killed him in a duel to the death after the old ruler's passing. The daughter SG-1 had dealt with in the other universe had apparently gone through with her suicide here. Her father had lost heart after his daughter killed herself and had not long survived her.
Daniel looked desperately at his teammates. Their third mission since he had been cleared to go offworld, and it seemed like nothing had gone right since they had arrived on P3R 636. Jack had been beaten nearly into unconsciousness by Andrus' thugs. Clare was holding him up, despite an ankle so swollen she could hardly stand. Charlie wasn't in much better shape. With only bruises and a slash across his shoulder, he was the least injured. If they were going to get out of here, it was up to him.
"Andrus," he said in reasonable, persuasive tone. "Really, you don't want to kill us."
"Really," Andrus said. "I think I will enjoy killing you quite a lot." The false Jaffa tattoo on his forehead stood out darkly against his pale skin.
"Pyrus sent his naquadah through the chappa'ai," Daniel said. "You could do the same. My lord will trade--" Daniel felt honour bound to try and salvage the trade deal they'd come to negociate. Earth needed the naquadah.
"What will he give me for your lifeless bodies?" Andrus demanded arrogantly.
"Death and pain," Jack croaked.
"He will not suffer such an insult without retribution," Daniel assured him.
The man studied them. The three soldiers glared at him defiantly, while Daniel wore a confident expression.
Unfortunately, it seemed that Andrus didn't feel he could back down enough to agree to trade without losing face. He raised his voice, "Guards! Take these to the chappa'ai. I will banish them from my realm, never to return." He turned back to SG-1. "You! Tell your master his minions are not welcome here."
Daniel bowed slightly, "Certainly, Lord Andrus." He ignored Charlie's sotto voce curse.
They were marched back to the chappa'ai across the broad open space before the pyramid, and along the lengthy tree-lined trail. Charlie was weaving slightly, but waved off his helping hand while Clare and Jack limped along at a reduced pace that made the guards mutter with impatience. When they arrived, Andrus stepped forward to the DHD. "I can do that--" Daniel started to offer.
"Silence!" One of the guards hit him with the staff. Daniel stumbled into Jack, who swore.
"Sorry," He muttered. Daniel looked over to see the address that Andrus had dialed and realized that it wasn't anything he recognized. The gate activated.
Jack was tugging at the device still strapped to his wrist, "GDO, Daniel..."
"That wasn't Earth's address-" Daniel whispered, and then the guards were grabbing him by the shoulders and throwing him bodily into the event horizon.
Daniel landed hard and rolling, for once managing to tuck before he hit the ground. At least this gate wasn't at the top of a flight of stairs. As he raised his head, two startled Jaffa stared back at him from their positions beside the gate. Horus guards. "Oh, shit," he said with feeling. They'd been sent to a planet controlled by Heru-ur. The stargate sat in a large chamber that reminded Daniel of the pyramids of Egypt. The tightly fitted stone blocks were plain, though long fluttering banners hung to either side.
As his three teammates came hurtling out of the event horizon a couple of seconds later, Daniel threw himself at the nearer of the two Jaffa, his goal the zat at the man's waist. He got it, but the Horus guard swung his staff, clubbing him brutally in the ribs. He hit the floor hard, frantically thumbing the control to activate the device and firing. The Jaffa collapsed. But it was too little, too late-- Daniel could see the other Jaffa had an activated staff weapon pointed straight toward him and there wasn't time...
As Daniel saw the charge build on the head of the weapon, Clare launched herself in a low flat dive off her good leg, slapping the staff aside and sending the blast just past Daniel's head. The surprised guard staggered and regained his balance, shaking off the attack, but it slowed him enough for Daniel to aim. As Clare rolled out of the line of fire, Daniel shot the Jaffa. Blue fire crackled around his armor, and the second guard hit the floor with a metallic clang.
Charlie and Jack were lying on the floor staring at the two of them as the event horizon winked out. "That was.. good," Jack said.
In the sudden stillness, they heard the tramp of Jaffa feet double-timing toward the gate. "Oh, shit," the four of them said, nearly simultaneously.
Clare grabbed a staff weapon and passed a zat to Jack as he crawled to the side of the gate. Daniel tossed his zat to Charlie, and pulled himself up by the rim of the DHD. There was something badly wrong in his ribs where the Jaffa had hit him. Daniel dialed a gate address for an empty world SG-1 had visited before he had ever joined them. "Go, go, go," he said as event horizon settled. He scooped up the other staff weapon as he and Clare waited just long enough to see Jack and Charlie drag themselves to the gate, then they jumped.
On the other side, Daniel turned and activated the staff, pointing it toward the gate. The gate closed without anyone else coming through, and the last traces of the old wormhole were still visible as he instantly hit the address for Earth. The wormhole connected before Heru-ur's troops could dial in, even if they had gotten the address. Daniel sent the GDO code and waited, something he hadn't wanted to do in Heru-ur's palace. He heaved a sigh of relief as it flashed green and turned to his teammates, sitting on the ground in front of the gate in attitudes of exhaustion. "C'mon guys," he said, gesturing to the gate. "There's no place like home."
"Follow the yellow brick road," Clare said, climbing to her feet and helping Charlie up. She limped painfully up the stairs with Kawalsky, the two of them leaning for mutual support.
"Kids today," Jack bitched feebly to Charlie. "First they rescue the team, then they steal my lines."
Daniel came alongside and carefully looped Jack's arm over his shoulder, trying to not to grunt as he hoisted the older man to his feet. Based on the unequal size of his pupils and a certain look of fuzziness, Jack was probably seeing about three of him. He certainly had a severe concussion and needed to get to the infirmary. "It's your fault for making us watch that movie."
"Three times," Clare put in with a certain amount of asperity. She and Daniel exchanged a glance across the other two men's sagging bodies, and they all stepped through the gate.
They stumbled out of the event horizon and three of the four members of SG-1 sat or slumped on the ramp. Daniel leaned heavily on his staff weapon, trying to ease the stabbing pain in his ribs.
"SG-1!" Hammond took in their Goa'uld weapons-- certainly not the MP-5s and 9 mm pistols they'd left with-- and their extremely worse-for-wear appearance. "You're twenty-four hours early, what happened?" They could hear Harriman calling over the intercom for a medical team to report to the gate room.
"No, General," Daniel corrected. "We're about twenty-three hours and forty minutes late."
Clare picked up the mission report, "The mission was a bust practically from the moment we got there, sir. Pyrus was dead and so was his daughter Shyla. The place has been taken over by one of Pyrus' former Jaffa-wannabes. He's declared himself lord and master. He doesn't have as strong support as he'd like though, or he wouldn't have been so worried about us. He beat the crap out of us, then heaved us back through the gate. We had a run in with some Horus guards on the way back, but we got away."
"I..see," Hammond said. "Report to the infirmary. We'll debrief at 0900 tomorrow providing you've cleared medical by then."
In the infirmary, Janet looked at the four of them, then went straight to O'Neill and assigned the others to her assistants. Daniel drew a young Japanese-American doctor named Nimzicki. "Hey, Brian," he said. "How's it going?"
"Very quiet, until SG-1 came back," Nimzicki grinned. He gently cut the T-shirt away from the slash on Daniel's shoulder. "This will need stitches."
"I figured," Daniel said. He hesitated, then sighed. "I think I bruised my ribs, too." He gestured to his left side. He drew in a sharp breath as the doctor prodded them.
Nimzicki looked at the massive bruising. "Did you fall on something?"
Daniel shook his head, "Jaffa hit me with a staff."
"I'm going to X-ray this." Nimzicki said. "I think there's at least one cracked."
That was what Daniel thought too, but he hadn't wanted to say it aloud. He looked over at his teammates. Curtains had been drawn around Jack and Charlie's beds. Clare's left hand was swathed in bandages and a nurse was applying a cold pack to her ankle, " I'm sure it's just a sprain," she was telling her.
"Clare." He waited until she looked over, "What happened to your hand?"
"Oh," she looked sheepish. "It was too close to the head of that staff weapon when it discharged. I got a little scorched."
Janet popped out of Charlie's cubicle, and said briskly, "Second and third degree burns is more than a little scorched, Captain." She glanced over the notes that Nimzicki and the nurse had made and said, "Get these two into X-ray, and then do their MRIs." She disappeared back into the curtained area.
"Thanks for that, by the way," Daniel said sincerely. "I'd have been seriously crispy myself if you hadn't ruined his aim."
She laughed. "I was just afraid you weren't going to leave one for me." A more serious look in her eyes told Daniel she still thought she owed him something for carrying her through the gate in Montana.
"One what?" Sam asked from the doorway.
"Jaffa," Daniel said. "He's going to be all right, Sam."
She looked from the curtained area back to Daniel, "Thanks. What is it?"
"Concussion and slapped around, Jack and Charlie both," Daniel said. "Janet will keep them awhile for the head injuries, but they'll be fine."
"Or in other words, the usual," Sam murmured resignedly. She glanced at Daniel and Clare. "I thought there weren't supposed to be any Jaffa on that planet."
"There weren't." Daniel said. "And there weren't. We made an unscheduled stop at Heru-ur's place on our way back."
"You what?!" Sam looked worried.
"Dr. Jackson, Captain Tobias. I have to take you to X-ray now," the nurse said.
Daniel gave Sam a jaunty wave and insisted on walking after Clare's gurney. She gave him a crooked, upside down grin. "We're off to see the wizard," she singsonged.
"Captain, are you feeling dizzy or confused?" the nurse asked in a concerned tone. Clare started giggling.
Daniel grinned back, firmly suppressing a chuckle of his own for the sake of his ribs. He knew exactly how euphoric and relieved his teammate was feeling. Any time you survived a mission like that, it was a pretty damned good day.
#
They'd actually done that debriefing in the infirmary, as Janet had been unwilling to let either Jack or Charlie out of her sight. "I'm starting to wonder if I should just reserve beds for you four," she said. "Can you maybe consider not coming back injured once in a while?"
"We don't do it deliberately, Janet." Daniel protested. "But if you are taking reservations, I call dibs on the bed in the corner."
The debriefing had been mildly embarrassing, with all three of his teammates giving Daniel the lion's share of the credit for their escape. "He talked that Andy to a standstill," O'Neill said. "I swear they heaved us back through the gate because Andy was starting to worry Daniel was getting to his people."
"Or maybe they were just tired of the sound of my voice," Daniel suggested.
Jack grinned at him. "I wasn't gonna say it."
"Well, I am going to say it's time for my patients to rest," Janet Fraiser said. "If you're through, sir?"
Hammond nodded and dismissed the debriefing. Clare picked up her crutches and swung nimbly back in the direction of the lab, while Daniel headed back to his own office. He looked back to his two friends bantering about who would escape Janet's dread clutches first. He was a little surprised at the depth of his own relief. He'd only been here, what, five months? How could he have come to care about these people so much in only five months? He turned to the door. Of course they'd probably think he was cracked if he told them so. He stepped quietly out, hearing Janet's lighter tone threaten the two men with long sharp needles if they didn't settle. He grinned. In that contest, his money was on the doctor.
She'd released Charlie two days later, but kept Jack for observation due to the severity of his head injury. "However reluctantly," she told Daniel as they walked toward the bored colonel's bed.
"Difficult, is he?" Daniel asked guilelessly.
She gave him an irritated look. "Almost as much of a pain as you, Daniel. I like having you as an assistant a lot better than I do as a patient."
"Oh," Daniel said, as Jack chuckled. He turned to Jack with a mischievous look. "I brought you a book."
Jack looked at it suspiciously. "Egyptian mythology? That's suspiciously like work, Daniel."
"But probably better for your blood pressure than sports," Daniel said.
"Thanks but no thanks," Jack said morosely. "I can't wait until hockey starts again. I miss it."
"How about a game of chess then?" Daniel suggested. "Charlie said you play."
"That would be fun." Jack perked up, evidently desperate for distraction. "I asked Charlie earlier, but he said he wasn't in a mood to be drubbed."
Daniel raised an eyebrow. "I'll try to be more of a challenge." He fetched the board from the rec room and came back, setting up the pieces deftly. He said, "I'll be just as happy when we run out of worlds the other SG-1 visited. I feel like we've been exploring the universe with Cliff Notes."
Jack smiled, "Look on the bright side. We haven't had to go to all the worlds that they reported as boring."
"Also we haven't gone and done preliminary surveys of places that were reported as being solely of archeological or anthropological interest," Daniel said. "We really should go to Argos and the Land of Light, if only because they are places where we could easily help the people there and find a safe haven for our people if for any reason they can't get back to Earth." Not to mention being full of fascinating insights into the cultures that had spawned them. Daniel positively slavered to get a look at the Minoan-descended culture of the Land of Light. Not for the first time, he wished they'd gotten the full text of the SGC reports instead of just the summaries.
"It's a good point," O'Neill said. "I'll mention it to the general."
Daniel gave him a surprised look and gestured to the chessboard. "Great. Do you want white?"
"Nah, you take it. Do you want me to spot you a piece?" That was certainly a little cocky, since Daniel couldn't think of any way for Jack to know whether he was any good or not.
Daniel said mildly, "Let's see how the first one goes. If you cream me, we can negotiate a handicap for the next one." He took white and advanced his knight. The game proceeded swiftly, with neither of them hesitating for long. "Do you normally play with Sam?" he asked.
"Sometimes," Jack admitted. "She's pretty good but has never played consistently enough to develop a really strong game."
Daniel studied the board. Jack had just given away more free information. His remark, along with the offer to spot Daniel a piece, seemed to imply Jack had played consistently at one time. The people who fell for Jack's dumb-as-dirt act should try playing chess with him, he reflected absently. From what Daniel had seen so far, his play was aggressive and tight, with few errors. Of course that might mean he'd be susceptible to a more sophisticated trap.
Daniel thoughtfully sacrificed a bishop to take out one of Jack's forward knights. Jack's return move was encouraging. Daniel maneuvered a couple more pieces into the positions he wanted, sacrificing a pawn and a knight to do it, neatly blocking attack openings each time. Then he made a move that looked entirely stupid. Not that Jack was going to have a lot of choice but to respond, since his queen was threatened.
Jack frowned at the board, "You sure you want to do that?" he asked.
Daniel looked seriously at the board, retracing the possible lines of play. He suppressed a smile. Jack didn't have a clue; he thought Daniel had been playing defensively. "Yeah, I think so," he answered, trying not to sound overly confident. Daniel was aware Jack would have him in serious difficulty if he got a single free move. But Daniel wasn't planning to allow that.
Jack shook his head, "O-kaaay." He captured the exposed bishop and looked back at Daniel.
Daniel advanced his pawn to reveal the trap. "Check."
Jack's smug assurance melted away. "Shit." He stared at the board a moment, looking for escape routes.
Then the intense concentration shifted to resignation, and he moved his king to get out of check.
"Check." Daniel made his next move and looked at him with mild interest.
Jack wore the expression of a man who had eaten something sour. He made the only move he could.
Daniel felt a certain satisfaction at the final move. "Checkmate."
Jack met his eyes. "Ouch, teach me to not take an opponent seriously! Can I have a rematch? And no, I don't think I need to spot you anything."
Daniel smiled. "Sure."
Jack set up the board this time. The game proceeded a little more slowly, but ended the same way. Jack looked suspiciously at Daniel's innocent expression, then asked. "One more?"
"If you like," Daniel said. This time Daniel realized only a little too late the Jack had changed tactics and was playing deliberately to stalemate. He made a couple of attempts to break the pattern, but finally accepted the tie with a grimace. "I wasn't expecting you to try to tie," he complained mildly.
"In the face of overwhelming force, the wise soldier fights and runs away," Jack said. "I wasn't expecting you to be a shark on the chessboard."
"I did use to play fairly consistently," Daniel admitted with a faint smile. "I could spot you a piece next time." It would probably be more fair, he thought a little guiltily. Daniel had long since discovered the pattern-matching skill and formidable memory he had honed in his language studies gave him a significant advantage in chess. Not that Jack wasn't pretty good. He played with flair and intuition. With more practice, he'd be a respectable challenge.
Jack gave him a slightly offended look. "Hell, no. If I keep playing with you, my game is going to improve like anything." He gave a slightly rueful look to the ending positions on the board. "Anyway, I lost the first two purely by underestimating you. You're a man of unexpected talents, Dr. Jackson."
Daniel started to pack the chessmen deftly away. "So are you, Colonel." He'd recognized early that O'Neill's playing dumb was affectation. But in the studied formality of chess, he'd truly seen the sharp tactical mind the older man hid underneath the act. 'Looks like we both learned something today.' Daniel thought and snapped the lid down over the abstract battlefield.
#
SG-1 had just returned from a routine mission to a world with modest stores of naquadah. Daniel could foresee naquadah becoming a significant diversion from exploration, given there were several naquadah generators now pouring power into not only into the Earth stargate, but the Colorado electric power grid. Two naquadah reactors were also powering the new omega site, the offworld base that would take the place of the lost beta site. Nine months since the attack and they still had found no way to get a message to the beta site that catatrophe had been averted, at least in part. They had tried to contact the Nox, but the Nox had been barely willing to speak to them and adament about not granting assistance.
Daniel poured a cup of coffee and glanced out the window toward the stargate. A trick of the light gave him an unexpectedly sharp reflection of his own image. Fatigues, short hair, new glasses, even the Air Force logo on the mug in his hand did nothing to dilute the military look. Of course if he ever said such a thing to his teammates, they'd probably fall over laughing. Still there seemed little to connect him with the thin, fair, shaggy-haired man he'd been only a little more than a half-year before. As General Hammond emerged from his office and his teammates stood in respect, an alarm blared. "Unscheduled offworld activation!"
Daniel set the mug down on the table and followed his teammates down to the control room. Harriman looked up as they came in and said. "No IDC, sir. But we're receiving a radio transmission on one of the normal channels.
Hammond leaned into the mike. "This is General Hammond of Stargate Command. To whom are we speaking?"
"This is Bra'tac. I wish to meet with O'Neill and his team. I have news of great import."
O'Neill had pulled up the address database, selected one and read it out. "Bra'tac, we will meet you here in one hour."
"I will be there," Bra'tac said.
#
An hour later they stepped through the wormhole into a primordial swamp. The rain hissed down in sheets. "I can see a real need for the Galactic Weather Channel," Charlie said, hunching his shoulders against the downpour.
"How was I to know it would be pouring?" O'Neill asked defensively.
"It will make it difficult for anyone to observe us," Clare offered.
Daniel said. "On a jungle planet, at a meeting set up on an hour's notice. Clare, isn't that just a little paranoid?"
O'Neill gave her an approving look. "We don't have so many dealings with people from Goa'uld-occupied worlds. It never hurts to be cautious."
"O'Neill of the Windy City."
Jack almost jumped out of his skin as the Jaffa appeared behind him. "Yeesh!"
"We must talk." If the Jaffa was even aware that it was raining, he did not betray it. "I have received a communication from Garshaw of Belote, of the Tok'ra. She would like to meet you."
#
"So this Garshaw is apparently the tippy-top of the Goa'uld ten-most-wanted list," Jack said, twirling a pencil around his fingers absently. "Apparently she heard about us attributing our escape to her and wants a chat." They'd all gotten into dry clothes, but their damp hair showed how hastily they'd changed. Daniel had both hands wrapped around a hot cup while he tried to stop shivering. Going through the gate soaking wet was not his idea of a good time.
"Do you think this Bra'tac is trustworthy, Colonel?" Hammond asked.
"Sir." Daniel leaned in, caught Jack's nod and continued, "In the alternate universe, Bra'tac was one of the first two Jaffa who rebelled against the Goa'uld. He helped the other SG-1 when the Goa'uld attacked their world. And the Bra'tac of this universe had nothing to gain by helping us escape from Apophis, and quite a lot to lose."
Kawalsky nodded, "He took a pretty big risk, sir. And by setting up this meeting, he's taking another one, with no more benefit than capturing us. If that's what he wanted, he could easily have kept us the first time."
Hammond nodded, "All right, SG-1, you have a go."
#
The world that the Tok'ra had selected for the meeting was heavily forested and covered with snow. Bra'tac met them at the gate. "O'Neill. The Tok'ra are already arrived. This way."
They followed a snowcovered trail that led up a long slope. The oxygen level seemed a little higher than that of Colorado, or perhaps the altitude and gravity were lower, because despite the steep rise, they all climbed quickly without becoming winded. Daniel was looking around alertly, his eyes darting over the landscape. "See something?" Charlie asked. He didn't sense anything himself, and he'd normally expect his special ops-trained instincts to be better than those of the scientist, but he wasn't going to ignore anything Daniel said.
Daniel gave him a vague look. "This world was inhabited once." He pointed off down the hill, "It's hard to tell with the snow but see the regular pattern? That's walls. Possibly a city."
"There are ruins on a lot of worlds," Charlie said.
Daniel gave him a sheepish look. "And we generally avoid the interesting ones because we know there's nothing strategic there. We haven't visited this world, and neither has -uh, anyone else." Charlie was glad he remembered they'd agreed not to talk about the alternate universe to Bra'tac and the Tok'ra and was taking it seriously. "I just hope we get a chance to come back and take a look at them when the weather is better. You never know." His eyes traversed the landscape, bright with curiosity. "There could be anything there."
Charlie smiled and made a note to himself to talk to O'Neill and the general when they got back. It was clear from the SGC's files that their Daniel had been just as useful at exploring and deciphering the relics of ancient cultures as he had at first contact. And it was equally clear for all their progress, the SGC hadn't yet come near to defeating the Goa'uld. Their universe shouldn't be letting their possession of the SGC database make them lazy. He remembered the sentiment he knew Daniel had expressed to both him and O'Neill- 'exploring the universe with Cliff Notes'- and grinned. Not hard to see why that wouldn't appeal to Daniel. They tramped through the icy drifts under the sullen grey sky. "Bracing weather they chose," Charlie remarked.
Bra'tac said, "The Goa'uld do not in general care for cold weather. I believe the Tok'ra chose this world for their meeting because they would never wish to use it for any long-term purpose. I find it quite pleasant, however. It reminds me of Chulak in the spring." They had walked perhaps a mile, past a curve of the path that turned them away from the hill. Behind them, they could see some distance despite the overcast. The rectangular outlines of the walls of Daniel's city were clearly visible.
"Great," O'Neill said, almost running into him as he stopped. "Why are we stopping?"
The others halted behind them. "Because we are here." A set of rings sprang up around them, sending snow flying into the air. The light swallowed them, and they were whisked underground to a dim blue tunnel, studded with translucent crystals.
"Whoa!" O'Neill said. His expression became grim as he took in the people with weapons that surrounded his team. "What is this?"
"A simply security precaution," A young-looking man told them. "I am Martouf. You will have no need of your weapons during the meeting."
O'Neill looked unhappy, but Bra'tac was surrendering his staff without complaint. He slowly unlooped the strap of the MP-5 from around his neck and lowered it to the floor, motioning to the rest of the team to do the same. When they had set down their weapons, Martouf led them through a series of blue halls.
"Quite the place you have here," O'Neill remarked. "Grown from crystals, I understand?"
"Your information is very good," Martouf said. "How did you come by it?"
"We have our sources," O'Neill said blandly. They were led into a large chamber where several people waited.
A tall dignified woman stepped forward and her eyes flashed. "I am Garshaw of Belote of the Tok'ra High Council." Charlie had to suppress a shiver at the doubled tone of her voice.
"Uh, pleased to meet you," O'Neill said. "Colonel Jack O'Neill of Earth. These are Dr. Daniel Jackson, Major Charles Kawalsky and Captain Clare Tobias."
The woman looked them over with a certain dubious surprise. "Your reputation precedes you. Apophis is offering two million shesh'ta for the capture of O'Neill, Jackson and Kawalsky." Her gaze went to Tobias.
"I'm new," she said.
Garshaw did not seem especially impressed. "What do you intend here? Bra'tac claims you are the Tau'ri, inhabitants of the first world. Yet you have attempted to shift the blame for an attack on Apophis to the Tok'ra, and now you wish to talk?"
"If what we said made anything worse for you, then we do apologize," Daniel said. "At the time we were mostly worried about making sure that Apophis did not suspect Bra'tac of assisting our escape. We didn't figure he could actually get any more upset with you than he already was."
"I encouraged this," Bra'tac spoke up. "I was concerned with protecting my position."
"We actually went to Vorash looking for you," Daniel continued. "We both oppose the Goa'uld. We seek allies in our struggle against them."
"By all reports," Garshaw said, "You have already gained the friendship of the Asgard. What need have you of us?"
O'Neill said, "The Asgard are powerful but few. They cannot be everywhere. And they have made no commitment to oppose the stranglehold the Goa'uld have on our galaxy. We seek freedom from Goa'uld domination forever."
Charlie was just as glad he didn't have to do the diplomatic dance. O'Neill was surprisingly good at it when he put his mind to it, and O'Neill and Daniel together were just magic. Trying to negotiate an alliance with the Tok'ra without mentioning the Asgard were up to their little gray butts in problems elsewhere and likely unable to provide more than the occasional assist-- Well, Charlie would take the boredom of an silently observing the extended negotiation anytime.
"I must say, I fail to see what a group of unblended humans could have to offer us." Garshaw said. "Your technology was no match for the Goa'uld when they attacked your homeworld."
"What do you need?" O'Neill riposted smoothly. "Our technology was sophisticated enough to take out Ra, Hathor and Seth. We have manpower, and the resources of a world that has been largely free of Goa'uld interference for millenia. There are those among us who would choose to become hosts if given the opportunity."
Charlie suppressed a shudder and was impressed O'Neill betrayed none of his own distaste. That had been a long argument at the SGA. But there were certainly people who, whether for reasons of health or simply a desire for adventure would choose to become Tok'ra.
There was a gleam of interest and alertness that flashed around the faces of most of the Tok'ra at the mention of hosts. It seemed their universe was little different from that of the SGC in that respect as well. "You were among those who rid the galaxy of the Supreme System Lord Ra?"
O'Neill glanced at Kawalsky, "We were."
"You seem to know much of us," Garshaw said neutrally.
"We would like to know more." Daniel said. "We seek to learn about other cultures whenever we can."
"And would you be willing to share your own culture?" A younger woman asked from the side of the room. Unlike the other Tok'ra outfits, she wore a short, tight-fitting dress that bared a lot of skin.
Daniel smiled at her, "Of course."
"Anise!" Garshaw said reprovingly. She turned back to the Americans. "Anise is a student of history and ancient cultures. When she heard you claimed to be from the First World, she asked to be included in this meeting."
Anise took a step forward. "There are many things about our own history we cannot understand without access to the historical sites present on the First World," she said. "No doubt your people are unaware of the possible knowledge to be gained from such study."
"Actually, historical research has been an important activity for centuries on Earth," Daniel said. "Tens of thousands of our people have made it their life work. Myself included."
Charlie struggled to keep a straight face. He hadn't realized patronizing Daniel in his own field would get such a strong reaction.
The Tok'ra woman took the implied rebuke with a slight twitch of irritation and a somewhat stronger interest in Daniel.
Charlie felt Clare stiffen slightly beside him.
"Well," Garshaw observed the byplay blandly. "It seems there are indeed areas that might be of mutual interest to us. Perhaps we should sit for further discussion."
"Thank you," O'Neill said, with only a bare trace of sarcasm.
They were led into a conference room, equipped with the most uncomfortable looking chairs that Charlie had ever seen. When went to sit in one, he found that it was not a freestanding piece of furniture, but rather an outgrowth of the floor. "More crystal growths," Tobias said in fascination.
"Apparently," Kawalsky said. He looked at his two teammates, who were making polite conversation with several Tok'ra. "What do you think so far?"
Clare muttered under her breath, then said, "I think we'd better keep an eye on Daniel. I don't think Anise's interest in him is solely intellectual. If he's not careful, he's going to find himself exchanging a lot more culture than he wants to."
Kawalsky swallowed a chuckle, "I dunno, Tobias. Maybe he thinks she's attractive?"
Tobias gave him an incredulous look, "Major, this is Daniel we're talking about. It's not going to occur to him she's not just interested in history. And he's too damned nice to be as suspicious as he ought to be of other people's motives."
As they settled around the table, Garshaw reopened the discussion. "So, you think you have something to offer us?"
"I think we've already laid that out," O'Neill said. "We also will want to find out what you can offer us." He looked at her coolly. "For example, the Tok'ra are said to share their bodies equally between symbiote and host, but of all of you, the only host to which we've been introduced is Martouf."
Garshaw's expression was again becoming suspicious, "A matter of greater concern is where you have gotten your information. How did you know Martouf was the host?"
O'Neill gestured impatiently, "The voice-thingie is a dead giveaway."
"And you are strangely unsuspicious for people meeting Tok'ra for the first time," she continued.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," O'Neill didn't bother to conceal the sarcasm this time. Charlie wondered if his opinion of his CO's diplomatic abilities had been overly optimistic.
O'Neill and Garshaw stared at one another in silence for several moments.
Two men came striding into the room. "Garshaw! We have received word Apophis has been informed of our location," the younger one said.
Garshaw rose, looking concerned. "Aldwin, sound the alarm. We must evacuate. Kordesh," she turned to the other man. "How much time do we have?"
Kawalsky frowned. He remembered the name Kordesh from their briefing. In the other universe, Kordesh was a Goa'uld spy.
"Not much," The Tok'ra said. "There is a ha'tak entering orbit now, and there are Jaffa troops already coming through the stargate."
"Then we are cut off!" Garshaw said. She whirled and stared at O'Neill. "Whatever your source of information, it seems it flows both ways."
"It's not our sources of information you should be concerned about," O'Neill said. "Sounds like you have a leak." Charlie thought he could see a flicker of indecision on O'Neill's face. They hadn't expected Kordesh would still be roaming around freely.
"You and we were the only ones who knew of this meeting. And Bra'tac." She looked from O'Neill to the Jaffa.
"But this isn't the first time the Goa'uld have found out where you were," Daniel said. "Or we wouldn't have walked into a Goa'uld trap on Vorash."
"You also knew of our presence on Vorash," she said.
"If we'd known the Goa'uld had already driven you off the planet, why would we have been looking for you there?" O'Neill asked.
"Jack," Daniel said.
O'Neill and Jackson exchanged a silent look filled with private communication that Kawalsky recognized with a shock of deja vu. Some things were the same from universe to universe it seemed. Then O'Neill nodded. "Tell her."
Daniel turned back to Garshaw and nodded to Kordesh. "We have reason to believe that Kordesh here is a Goa'uld spy."
"That's ridiculous!" Kordesh protested indignantly. "I'm no spy!"
Charlie almost yelped in surprise. What the hell were they thinking? "Daniel? Jack?"
"Charlie." Daniel said calmly. "If we're wrong, we'll apologize. But if we're right, the Goa'uld know where we are right now. They know we're talking about making an alliance. And they'll know if they kill everyone here, it will probably never come to fruition. It's bad enough we've allied with the Asgard. If all the Goa'uld's enemies start rallying against them, they're going to be in big trouble." He turned to Garshaw. "I have nothing personally against Kordesh, and I don't know if our information is accurate or not. But if he is a Goa'uld spy, you'll find a long range communication device-- a ball about so big--" he cupped his hands to show the size, "--in Kordesh's possessions."
"I know what device you mean, but we have none of them. The system is not secure," Garshaw said. Her eyes were narrowed in suspicion. "Why should I believe you, over Kordesh, whom I have known for centuries?"
"Garshaw, this planet is about to come under attack," O'Neill said impatiently. "Now. Either Kordesh is guilty, in which case they're going to know every move we make, or he's innocent, and we owe him a profuse apology. Somebody want to search him so we know which?"
There was another a brief silence as Tau'ri and Tok'ra stared at one another hostilely. Then an alarm blared and Martouf said, "The ha'tak has entered orbit!"
As all attention shifted to Martouf, Charlie kept his eye on Kordesh, and was the only one to see him stealthily remove something from his pocket. "There, look!" he said loudly, pointing.
Kordesh froze, the incriminating device still in his hand. "I found this on the floor just now," he said. "I think one of the Tau'ri must have dropped it," he said.
"They could not have," one of the other Tok'ra said. "They have not moved."
Kordesh tried to bolt, but the other Tok'ra restrained him easily. "Kordesh, what have you done?" Garshaw asked sorrowfully.
"He has betrayed us," Aldwin said. "And now we have no way to escape." Two of the other Tok'ra restrained the struggling Kordesh.
"Let's not be hasty," O'Neill said. "We've got how long?"
"Minutes," Martouf said. "If Kordesh gave them the location of this base, the Jaffa are on their way to us now from the gate. And more will be landing from the ha'tak very shortly. They will have udajeets- those are-"
"Air support, we're familiar with 'em," O'Neill said. "Well, first we need to get out of these tunnels. What are our chances that if Apophis' troops arrive to find us gone, they'll assume we escaped before they arrived?"
"Not good," Bra'tac said. "They will see our tracks from where we leave the ring transporter."
"Is that the only way out?" Charlie asked. When Garshaw nodded, he continued, "Can't you make more of these tunnels more or less on demand?"
"I have some spare crystals," Anise said. "Yes, we could escape that way."
"To the surface of the planet," Martouf said. "Then what?"
"Then we'll at least have options we don't from here," O'Neill said. "So how about this tunnel? And can we please have our weapons back?"
Their weapons were returned without further ado, and they set out.
"This way," Anise said. "We should get as far as we can from the center of the current complex before starting the new tunnel."
They followed her without further discussion, the entire complement of Tok'ra seeming to come to about a dozen. Anise led them down two long halls. "Our tunnels intersected a part of a ruined underground complex on this site. We can get some distance before we need start the new tunnel."
"The further the better," O'Neill said, just as Daniel took several long strides to catch up and said, "Ruins?" in an interested tone.
"Yes, it seems to be part of a quite old structure," Anise said. "Considerably older than the ruined city that you might have seen on your way in-"
"Yes, we did." Daniel confirmed. They had nearly reached the end of the Tok'ra passage when they could see that it cut across the side of a much different construction. They reached the edge and Daniel immediately jumped down from the crystalline surface to the paved stone floor. He pulled out a flashlight and shone it into the darkened space that was revealed, then walked forward to examine the wall and paving. "Certainly nothing to suggest a particularly high level of technology here. Not that that's a real clue- Goa'uld structures are often built with low-tech slave labor."
"We think the previous inhabitants may have built on the ruins of an earlier civilization," Anise said. "That happens quite commonly."
"We've seen it frequently on Earth as well as other planets," Daniel said, walking forward. The Tok'ra and humans were all producing lights. O'Neill passed a spare flashlight to Bra'tac as well. The room was dry but there were bits of rotted wood and debris in it. "How far have you explored?" he asked Anise.
"There are only a few rooms here," she said. "One end of the furthest is collapsed. We think that might have been where the original entrance was."
They clashed at the door, then Daniel stood back to wave her through with exaggerated courtesy. "After you."
"This way," she strode across the larger space beyond without stopping. "The collapsed passage is beyond the far door."
Daniel's feet slowed to stop apparently involuntarily as the light hit the walls. "Wow." The light flickered over deeply carved panels surrounded by stylized markings Charlie assumed were writing from the way Daniel's mouth had fallen open. Clearly, the archeologist had just forgotten the existance of the Tok'ra, his teammates and the Goa'uld coming to capture them. He approached the wall, switching the light to his left hand so he could trace the writing with his right.
"Daniel!" O'Neill barked impatiently. "No time for sightseeing! We've got to get out of here!"
If Daniel heard a word of that, he gave no indication.
"Daniel!" O'Neill yelled louder. Charlie walked over and grabbed Daniel's shoulder and shook him gently.
"Wha-" Daniel turned and looked at them as if he was coming back from an immense distance. "Oh, coming. Just give me a minute--"
"Not a minute, not a second," O'Neill said. "Now, Daniel. This isn't a field trip." He looked at Anise. "Why don't you get that tunnel started?"
"But Jack-" Daniel started to protest.
"Not now, Daniel!" O'Neill was following the Tok'ra and Bra'tac.
Daniel stared after him in frustration and then went to the dias that occupied one end of the room. Charlie and Clare looked from O'Neill to him, then followed their teammate, who was running his hands over the carved panels at the back of it and muttering.
"Daniel?" Clare said "We really do have to go."
"There's another way out," Daniel said. "If I can get the door open."
"What?!" Kawalsky said.
"The panel back there--" Daniel pressed his light into Kawalsky's free hand. "Hold this for me, will you?" He reached down and leaned on two sections of the altar. "Of course it may be too stiff or broken or--"
"Or not." There was a grinding noise behind them as the floor tiles dropped downward into stairs. Clare pointed her light into the blackness that was revealed. "Positively spacious for a secret passage."
"It's not really secret," Daniel said. "After all, it's mentioned on the wall. I think it was used so that priests and important personages could get up from the city without getting their feet muddy or something."
"Can you close it again? Like from the other side?" Kawalsky asked.
"I think so." Daniel said.
"Daniel! Kawalsky! Tobias!" they heard O'Neill bellow.
"Colonel, we have another way out!" Kawalsky yelled back. "This way."
O'Neill and the others came back, gaping at the passage newly opened. "Where the hell did that come from?"
"Tunnel to the city down the hill, we think, sir," Tobias said. "Daniel thinks he can shut it behind us."
Daniel was already down the stairs, flashing his light around. "The controls seem simple enough," he called up. "And you did want to get as far away from the Tok'ra complex as possible before we started a new tunnel," Daniel said as O'Neill joined him.
"Yeah, I did," O'Neill said. He turned to the others. "Change of plans. Let's get a little further before we use those crystal things," he beckoned others down the stairs, pausing only to grip Daniel's shoulder briefly and say, "nice work" before going further down.
Daniel waited for everyone to descend the stairs and then leaned on a panel at the base of the stairs. The mechanism ground and groaned, but the columns of stone rose up again, sealing off the stair and leaving them standing in an apparently dead-end corridor.
Daniel half-smiled at Clare and Charlie, and threaded his way through the milling Tok'ra to fall into step at O'Neill's side. "No telling how far we can get," he said conversationally. "It might be collapsed further down."
"No, but they aren't going to have a clue which way we went," O'Neill said. "Sweet!"
"We could even hide here until they go away," Charlie suggested.
Garshaw and Bra'tac both shook their heads. "The Goa'uld will bomb the complex once they are convinced we have fled. They will not want to leave any resource that we could reclaim later," Bra'tac said.
"Not so good," Charlie said. The mixed party moved on, quickly coming to a set of stairs, which they descended carefully.
Anise asked Daniel, a trace of respect in her tone. "What writing was that on the walls? I did not recognize it."
"A form of cuneiform," Daniel said. "One of the earliest writing systems found on Earth."
Charlie suppressed a grin as Anise made encouraging noises, and Daniel launched into a full-blown lecture. The Tok'ra needed to learn that technologically less advanced didn't mean simple or unintelligent, and Charlie couldn't think of anyone more likely to drive the lesson home. He smiled at Clare, who was watching Anise suspiciously. "We may have been worrying about the wrong person."
"We should be so lucky," she said. "Just once, I'd like to come back from a mission with all of us in one piece, you know."
"I know," Charlie said wincing. He'd spent more than enough time in the infirmary himself recently.
The tunnel continued to stay in a remarkable state of preservation. There were a couple of places where trickles of water had found their way in, but it was all in good state of repair. There was no sign of any pursuit. The passage twisted and turned as it steadily went down, then finally leveled out and went more or less straight for a distance of at least a mile.
The tunnel system seemed endless. Charlie was unwillingly impressed that none of the Tok'ra were complaining, until he realized that their symbiotes were augmenting their physical strength and alleviating pain. He found himself beside Garshaw and realized she must be thinking along the same lines. She said, "I must admit that you are stronger than we had anticipated. I would have expected unblended humans to be tiring by now."
Kawalsky shrugged, "There is a great deal of variation in our species, Counsilor. Those of us who choose military service are expected to stay fit."
The Tok'ra woman nodded thoughtfully.
They at last came out into a modestly sized room. Garshaw said to O'Neill, "Colonel. There are no signs of pursuit. Before we go further, I would like to know the source of your information."
O'Neill gave her a considering look. Then he said, "I'll tell you and Martouf. Not the others."
Bra'tac gave him a stubborn look. "And I, O'Neill. I think I am owed that much."
"And Bra'tac, " O'Neill conceded.
Garshaw agreed, ignoring the resentful look that Anise gave them, and the four Terrans, the Jaffa and the two Tok'ra walked back into the tunnel a ways.
"Your information source, Colonel?" Garshaw said.
O'Neill glanced at the others. "Uh, Charlie? Your story."
"Gee, thanks, Colonel." Charlie said. He looked at Garshaw. If Apophis had never heard of alternate realities, it was pretty likely that neither had the Tok'ra. He decided to approach the subject obliquely. "I believe you once knew a Tok'ra called Jolinar of Malkshur?"
"We do," Martouf said. "She disappeared over a year ago. Have you news of her?" There was a sudden glimmer of desperate hope in his expression.
"Not exactly," Kawalsky said. "Am I correct in assuming you have never heard of alternate universes?"
"Alternate universes?" Garshaw said, her brow furrowing. "What is this foolishness? Please come to the point."
"All right." Kawalsky took a deep breath. "Earth scientists have theorized there are an infinite number of alternate universes, and in each one events take place slightly differently than in our own. Some are so different we wouldn't recognize them, others are.. very close."
"What does this have to do with Jolinar?" Martouf asked.
"Well." Charlie said. "I don't know what happened to Jolinar in our universe. But in a universe not very different from ours, she wound up on a planet called Nasyia. She was pursued by an ashrak. Her host was killed, and Jolinar went into a Nasyian man and concealed herself there for several weeks. But the Goa'uld found her and attacked Nasyia, just as a team from Earth was visiting. Jolinar's Nasyian host was killed and she jumped to one of the team from Earth."
"Then she is on Earth?" Martouf asked frowning.
"No," Daniel put in gently. "In this universe, the Earth team never went to Nasyia. Chances are the ashrak caught up with Jolinar there and killed her. We don't know for sure."
"But, this..alternate universe.." Garshaw said. "You said that your scientists theorized it? Than how--"
"We found a device," Kawalsky said. "We call it the quantum mirror. It allows us to travel from one universe to the other. We didn't do much with it until Earth was attacked by the Goa'uld. When our military fell, I fled with another person into the mirror and met the people of another reality there. They were... us. Only different." He looked at their confusion. "In their world, they had found a bunch of gate addresses on Abydos, the first planet we visited. They had a bigger exploration program. They went to a bunch more worlds than we did." He turned to Bra'tac. "One of the things that made a big difference for them was that they were joined very early on by a Jaffa called Teal'c, a protˇgˇ of Bra'tac's. He hoped that by working with the Tau'ri, he could free his people."
"Apophis' former first prime?" Garshaw asked incredulously. Bra'tac was surprised and shocked. "He... joined the Tau'ri? But I thought Teal'c was killed in the assault on your world."
"He was," Kawalsky said. "But that was in our universe, not the one we visited." He paused a moment to collect his thoughts, then went on with his story. "The humans in the other world had made an alliance with the Tok'ra. They provided a host for a Tok'ra called Selmac."
"We could find no host for Selmac when Saroush died," Garshaw murmured. She looked at them, "But in this other world, Selmac lived?"
"Yes," Kawalsky said. "In their world, they stopped the Goa'uld invasion before it happened. They met the Tok'ra. They contacted the Asgard, the Tollan and the Nox. They had not defeated the Goa'uld but they were in a much better position to do it than we were."
"What made such a difference?" Garshaw said.
Kawalsky shrugged. "We're not entirely sure," he said. "A lot of things. For the relationship with the Tok'ra, Jolinar's blending with an Earth person made a difference. It was her father that became a host to Selmac." He glanced apologetically at Daniel, "They thought that recruiting Daniel to the program early helped them a lot. Certainly their Daniel Jackson was one of the factors that helped to put them on Nasyia at the right time to meet Jolinar."
Garshaw considered them thoughtfully. "A very strange story."
"Frankly, it gives me a headache," O'Neill said. "But the fact is, the people from this other universe helped us to contact the Asgard and saved our world. I've seen the tape of somebody who looks a hell of a lot like me, walking around with someone who looks a hell of a lot like him," he pointed to Daniel. "And yet I know damned well it wasn't either one of us." He looked at Garshaw. "So far we haven't found many differences between that reality and this one that we can't trace directly to the differences in our own program of exploration. All of the offworld stuff we've been able to check has corresponded exactly. That's why we wanted to tell this to you and Martouf-- and Bra'tac. In the other universe, our counterparts seemed to think you were among the good guys."
"So now we've told you," Charlie said. "We should get going. We can't stay here forever."
Garshaw nodded. "We have escaped the complex, but we need to get off this planet."
"Well, the only two ways I see are the ha'tak or the stargate." O'Neill said. "Our chances of taking the ha'tak with a dozen people aren't very good. But it would be more unexpected trying for the gate. Options, people?"
Martouf and Bra'tac gave him almost equally incredulous looks. "Take the ha'tak? Are you mad?" Bra'tac said. "It contains many hundreds, perhaps as many as a thousand troops."
"We took out Ra's mothership with a six man team," O'Neill said. "And the folks in the other universe defeated two motherships with only seven humans and Jaffa. Granted both those teams were better armed than we are. So, suggestions? I want to know what we can do, not what we can't."
"We'd need a ring transporter to get onto the ha'tak," Tobias said. "I don't think we have one except the one back in the Tok'ra complex, is that right?"
"Yes," Martouf said.
Bra'tac said, "Apophis will have sent a ring transporter through the gate to land ground troops from the ha'tak. It will be installed near the stargate."
"That won't help us much," Kawalsky said.
"How many will they have guarding the gate?" O'Neill asked Bra'tak and the two Tok'ra.
"Ten, perhaps twenty," Bra'tac replied.
"That's a possibility, then." O'Neill said.
"We need a diversion," Daniel said. "We have some C4, don't we?"
O'Neill gave him a surprised look. "Charlie and I have a few blocks. What are you thinking?"
Daniel blinked behind his glasses. "Dunno, yet." He turned to Garshaw. "Anise had some of those crystals. Are the ring transporters integral to that particular section of tunnel? And if so, might Anise have a tunnel section with a ring transporter in it?"
Garshaw looked surprised. "She might. I hadn't thought of that." She called Anise to join them.
The Tok'ra woman confirmed that she did indeed have a tunnel crystal with a transporter. "They are rare, though."
"But more replaceable than us, I suspect," Daniel said.
"So we do have the means to try and take the ha'tak," Kawalsky said, fascinated. At that moment, he wouldn't have been able to tell this Daniel apart from the one who had sat at a table in the briefing room and laid out a plan to save his world.
"I was thinking more along the lines of getting rid of the ring transporter at the stargate," Daniel said. "Couldn't we use the tunnel rings to transport enough explosives to damage the ring transporter?"
"Indeed we could," Bra'tac said. "It would prevent Apophis from reinforcing his ground forces, though it would do nothing about the udajeets."
"And it should be pretty distracting to the Jaffa around the gate, too," Daniel said. "Maybe enough for us to get to the gate?"
"Works for me," O'Neill said. He and Charlie put their heads together with Martouf and they divided their troops, making sure everyone was armed and each person was assigned to the most effective position and knew his part in the plan.
#
"What about him?" Daniel asked Garshaw, looking at the sullen Kordesh, standing in a defeated posture between two watchful Tok'ra while O'Neill, Kawalsky and Martouf conferred.
Garshaw spoke briefly with the other Tok'ra and then took drew a zat. Kordesh's captors let go his arms and she fired three times, without hesitation. Kordesh's falling body dispersed into vapor before it hit the ground. She looked at Daniel's surprised expression. "He has shown himself a traitor. We cannot afford to bring him with us. I refuse to let him escape or leave a body to be revived by Apophis. What would you do?"
"I don't know," Daniel said. "But I do understand your point of view."
Garshaw's stony expression softened, and she put a hand on his shoulder. "I see that you do."
The preparations took about an hour. Bra'tac and one of the Tok'ra scouted the exit from the tunnel and reported it clear, with a straight run for the gate. The others would move out stealthily and get into position before the bomb was delivered. As the members of the party least skilled at moving quietly through the underbrush, Daniel and Anise were detailed to set off the bomb, and then run directly for the gate.
Anise grew the tunnel section, and the ambush party set off through the wintry landscape. A light snow had begun to fall, which was all the better for concealment as well as muffling sound and obscuring their footprints. Daniel listened at the door, hoping not to hear shouts and staff blasts as his friends were spotted. He checked his watch for the dozenth time and returned to Anise at the ring section. "One minute," he said.
Anise set the two zats they could spare to overload, while Daniel rechecked the fifteen second setting on the C4. "Ready?" he asked softly. She nodded and they set the timers. Anise went to the ring control and they waited the interminable ten seconds. Daniel counted them off. "Nine...eight...seven...go!" Anise triggered the ring transport, and the rings sprang up.
Anise and Daniel ran for the door, Anise pausing only to trigger the command that would collapse the tunnel behind them, and they started the sprint for the gate, making no attempt to conceal themselves. In his head, Daniel continued the count. "Five...four...three...two..." The noise of the rings moving inside stopped and Daniel could picture the light swallowing their little surprise package. At "One and..." They heard the loud boom from ahead of them. If he'd had the breath, he'd have sighed in relief. He'd been afraid they'd misjudge it and either get the explosives out too soon, so the Jaffa would be on their guard but unharmed, or too late and blow up only the Tok'ra rings.
Ahead of them they could hear firing, the zing of the zats making electric flashes of blue against the snow and the harsh chatter of three MP-5s punctuated by roar of Bra'tac's staff weapon. Other staff weapons, too many, replied. An armor clad figure loomed up ahead of them in the snow, shockingly close, and Anise stumbled, falling, the Jaffa's staff weapon tracking her. Daniel swerved in front of her, pistol in his hand as he faced the armored warrior.
Daniel couldn't even remember drawing the weapon, but he was aiming without even thinking about it, the endless hours Charlie had drilled with him on the practice range guiding his hands to the firing position. The head of the staff was crackling with sparks, but the blow went wide as Daniel's first bullet hit. The Jaffa's head dipped in surprise as the first two shots richocheted off his breastplate in a shower of sparks, but he obviously felt the mule kick as the slugs hit. The next two hit him squarely on the bridge of the nose, the third drilling his forehead as his body collapsed. Then Daniel was running again, pistol in one hand while he tugged at Anise's shoulder with the other. "Go!" he told her as she stumbled to her feet. He looked around for his teammates as he tried to lift his feet against the drag of the snow. Anise put on a burst of speed and quickly outdistanced him.
They were in sight of the gate, the shimmering blue surface lighting the white-covered landscape with an eerie glow. Ahead of him, Daniel could see the first of the Tok'ra diving into the event horizon as Anise sprinted to join them. Bra'tac was standing at the side of the gate aiming his staff weapon outward. He couldn't see any of the other members of SG-1 anywhere, though he could hear a pistol firing somewhere behind him. He could only trust that one of them had dialed Earth and received the green light. Daniel ran, concentrating on not falling over his own feet in the soft slushy mess underfoot. Anise had just thrown herself into the event horizon when the staff blast zorched by Daniel's head. He flinched and swerved involuntarily.
"Daniel!" Kawalsky yelled.
Daniel turned his head and spotted the Jaffa aiming at him just as Kawalsky tackled him flat into the snow. The staff weapon blast was close enough for Daniel to feel the heat melting the snow into icewater that soaked his jacket. Over the crisp cold scent of snow-covered evergreens he could smell ozone and charred flesh. Charred flesh?
Tobias and O'Neill finished shooting the last two Jaffa, and came over as Daniel eased Charlie off him onto his back. "You okay?" the major wheezed.
Daniel caught sight of the wound in Kawalsky's side. It was oozing blood through the blackness. Charred ends of ribs showed at the sides of the gaping crater. Nobody could survive something like that. "Me?" he choked. "Fine. Charlie..."
Charlie reached up and patted his cheek clumsily. "Glad.. fate.." He slumped to the ground limply and his breath wheezed and stopped.
"Damn it, no." Daniel groped for a pulse and didn't find it. He could feel his eyes starting to swim with tears. "God, Charlie, don't do this to me, please-"
Jack laid a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "He's dead, Daniel."
Daniel shook his head numbly. The man who'd welcomed him to the SGA, patiently taught him the military skills he'd needed to qualify for a field team, made a place for him in his circle of friends-- he couldn't be dead. His brain shifted into high gear. There had to be another way.
Tobias said, "There are more Jaffa coming, sir. We need to move."
Daniel nodded jerkily and scrambled up, dashing the tears out of his eyes. Then he reached down for Kawalsky.
"Daniel." Jack's voice was a mixture of gentleness and urgency. "He's gone. Leave him."
Daniel got a grip on Kawalsky's shirt and yanked, pulling him into a fireman's carry. His spine creaked; Kawalsky had to weigh fifty pounds more than Clare had, as much as Daniel himself. He straightened under the load, utterly determined. "No. Nobody gets left behind, Jack."
Tobias was already leading off for the gate, and Daniel followed her, feeling the strain in his muscles, but unwilling to leave his teammate behind. Jack cursed and covered their six as Daniel forced his pace to a jog to keep up with Tobias. Fortunately, he didn't have far to go. He could see Bra'tac waiting for them on guard as they pelted for the gate. The Jaffa closed up with O'Neill and followed him and Clare through.
He was gasping for breath and so cold he could scarcely breathe as he staggered through the event horizon. Tobias helped him lower Kawalsky's body to the ramp while Jack and Bra'tac ran out of the event horizon, a staff blast coming through before the iris closed with a reassuring grind and thunk behind them. The Tok'ra were milling around the bottom of the ramp. Two of them appeared to be wounded and were being looked at by Air Force personnel. Janet and the medical team rushed forward to examine Kawalsky. Jack looked toward the general, and shook his head. "He's gone sir."
Janet knelt beside Kawalsky's body, and checked for a pulse, staring at the charred hole in his side. She looked up a second later and shook her head, suddenly seeming very tired.
"General." Daniel surged to his feet. "We have to take Kawalsky to Area 51!"
"Daniel, he's dead." Jack repeated gently. He put a hand on Daniel's shoulder. "Let him go, they'll take care of him."
"You don't understand." Daniel clamped his hand around Jack's forearm hard enough to leave bruises. "They have a sarcophagus."
"They have a what?" Hammond asked.
"A Goa'uld healing device." Daniel said. "It can bring people back from the dead."
"Wait a minute." Jack said. "From the dead? Are you sure? Isn't that the thing that's supposed to have dangerous side effects?"
"Worse than being dead?" Daniel asked. The message from his other self had said, "There are extenuating circumstances, like being dead or about to be dead-" If the sarcophagus was worse than death, surely his counterpart would have said 'don't use it for any reason.'
"Good point." O'Neill studied Daniel's expression, then turned to his CO. "Permission to take Major Kawalsky to the Groom Lake facility, sir?"
#
Charlie took the glass of brandy from Jack and met the ironic expression in his eyes, before his friend returned to sit on the couch beside his wife. They'd both died now, and both come back to fight again. Charlie felt at once brand new and very old and wondered if Jack had felt changed after the Asgard returned him to life. He'd have to ask him some time. Maybe after he had the chance to yell at Charlie for a while for scaring the crap out of his team leader.
He'd had to be filled in on everything that had happened in the last wild minutes on the planet. The last he knew, he'd lost his MP-5 in a wrestling match with a Jaffa and emptied the clip on his 9 mil at his opponent, just before he'd spotted the second Jaffa targeting Daniel. He barely remembered the wild tackle to get him out of the line of fire followed by agonizing pain as he slid into blackness in the snow.
They at last had an ally willing to provide them transport to the beta site to let them know it was safe to reopen the gate. The Tok'ra had been treated at the SGA infirmary and sent on their way, promising to return and cement the friendship they had begun with the Tau'ri. They'd pointed out what Daniel had known, and O'Neill had loudly cursed when he'd realized, that Apophis could have captured and revived Kawalsky had they left his body. Charlie was beyond grateful they hadn't. When they'd revived him at Groom Lake, Daniel and O'Neill had been wearing broad grins, and Sam and Clare had hugged him warmly, which was a hell of a lot closer to heaven than he'd ever expected to get.
"I guess we have to chalk up another one to the alternate Daniel Jackson," Clare said idly, holding her marshmellow in the flame. She was sitting on the hearth in O'Neill's living room, toasting the puffed corn-sugar sweets on a long fork, while Daniel sprawled bonelessly at her feet. Charlie thought his young friend looked wrung out from the events of the last day and a half.
"It was our Daniel who thought of the sarcophagus," O'Neill protested. Janet sat on the floor in front of the couch with her third beer, nearly dozing. She'd greeted Charlie with an unexpected bruising hug when he'd returned from that undiscovered country beyond her reach, then turned unusually quiet during the party. Something they'd have to talk about. Something he now had the time to talk about.
As the returned-from-the-dead guest of honor, Charlie had preempted the archeologist's usual armchair seat beside the fireplace. He looked away from the silent doctor and leaned over to ruffle Daniel's hair. "And damned glad I am, too."
"It was Garshaw, really," Daniel said. "She zatted Kordesh three times so the goa'uld couldn't revive him. That was what reminded me. And I remembered when I read the report about Hathor, I wondered why she attacked Area 51 in our reality. I figured it was because the gold box found with her had been shipped there instead of here, and she must have followed it. And that just had to be a sarcophagus."
"I should have thought of it myself, damn it. I was there when Area 51 got it, after all." Clare frowned. "And if we'd realized what we had, we could have saved some people who died in Hathor's attack, damn it. That's what really bites."
"We all could have been swifter on the uptake," Sam said ruefully. "I wish the SGC hadn't been in such a hurry to seal their mirror. The full versions of some of their reports would have helped us a lot. As it was, I should have put the pieces together myself. The sarcophagus was mentioned in several of the SGC mission summaries--"
"If it comes to that," Charlie said. "I'd have had only myself to blame. Jack-- the other Jack-- told me what it could do. But that was when the airman called us to the infirmary because Sam was going into entropic whatever, and by the time we got back, I'd forgotten all about it."
"Well, you were hardly in a position to tell us about it yesterday anyway," Clare said practically, pulling the fork back from the flames. Her marshmellow was burning brightly. She blew it out and popped the blackened sweet off the fork and into her mouth. "Anyone else want some?" she mumbled around an obviously too-hot mouthful.
O'Neill wrinkled his nose. "Not Cajun-blacked, Tobias. Make mine lightly toasted."
She grinned at her CO and skewered another marshmellow on the fork. "Anyway, what I originally meant was it was Daniel who discovered the sarcophagus in the other reality," Clare said.
Daniel was turning a little red and scowled. "I'm actually getting kind of tired of that guy."
"What do you mean?" Sam asked.
"You know. Mr. Perfect. Larger than life, brightens while he whitens. I'm getting really sick of hearing what a great guy the other Daniel Jackson is." Daniel flopped back on the rug. "I suppose I wish I'd had the chance to learn the things he did in time to have done some good." He glanced up. "More good. No offence, Charlie."
Charlie frowned. "I'm not so sure we should envy them."
"What?!" Sam was curled up on the couch, her head on Jack's shoulder. "Their world didn't get trashed by the Goa'uld."
Charlie shook his head. "Yeah, but in some ways they've had a rougher time. Personally, I mean. Look, you've seen their mission reports. In their world, I got killed on the third trip through the gate. And didn't come back."
"That's gotta make things worse," O'Neill said with open affection. Charlie grinned back. "Yeah, well. Jackson lost his wife to the Goa'uld, Major Carter got snaked, you got snaked, Jack. Three-quarters of SG-1 died once. Jackson died a couple more times. They almost lost the planet on several occasions. And they had all the stargate addresses they needed. They ran more than ten times as many missions as we did. They were tired."
"We lost over a billion people," O'Neill said neutrally.
"Yeah. They are better off that way. And I guess I'd rather have done it their way, if we could have saved all those people," Charlie thought about the huge number of casualties, and remembered to be grateful no one had ever told O'Neill about the fate of the former inhabitants of Abydos. "But we still have the planet. We still have a chance for a different fate."
"Still going on about fate, Charlie?" Daniel said lazily from his spot in front of the fire. He stretched, relishing the heat.
Charlie shrugged and looked over at Sam and Jack on the couch, Fraiser beside them. "I'm just saying I think we've got a better shot with people like you and Fraiser part of it."
"Oh," Daniel really was blushing now.
"Yeah, so don't go getting any ideas about trying to be more like any other Daniel Jackson, okay?" O'Neill put in. "When I read those reports, I had to wonder how a guy who's supposed to be so bright managed to die so often." He scowled at his civilian. "You've had three near misses in as many months, and you've been spending way too much time in the infirmary as it is."
"Hey, I haven't died at all yet," Daniel protested. "Unlike the two of you." He gestured to Kawalsky and O'Neill. Then contrarily, he seemed to think he ought to defend his other self. "And anyway, I suppose I- um, he- thought whatever he was doing was worth the sacrifice."
"Yeah, well- we don't." O'Neill said emphatically. "So see that you stay in one piece." Charlie, Sam, Janet and Clare all nodded.
Daniel looked around at his friends and smiled a little shyly. "I'll try."
"Do or do not, there is no try," Charlie did an incredibly bad imitation of Yoda to smothered giggles from Sam and Clare and rolled eyes from Jack. But they all looked at Daniel expectantly.
Daniel's smile reappeared, "Okay. I will."
*end