The Long Night
Title: The Long Night
Author: aurora_novarum
Rating: PG
Warning/Spoilers: set anywhere after beg S4
Prompt(s): In a firefight, offworld, waiting for backup; telescopes/stargazing in general; Should Pluto still be classified as a planet (one for, one against)
Summary: Sam and Jack are holed up with an alien weapon and under siege.
Hour One
"Troops...-ing from...-est." Jack could barely make out Daniel's words over the percussion of gunfire. "Cut off from y-...Sam..." The familiar blast of Teal'c's staff weapon punctuated the transmission before ending. At least Jack hoped the weapon he heard was Teal'c's.
"Status report...Daniel, report! Teal'c!" Jack kept his voice controlled as he transmitted. He scanned with his binoculars, but even at this elevation, he couldn't see over the ridge that separated him from the other half of SG-1.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Carter heading back into the bowels of the machine.
"Carter...?" Jack was quickly feeling like the situation was getting out of control. And still no response from Daniel and Teal'c.
"Sir, if I can get this activated, it could give us the cover fire we need."
Jack frowned. "Didn't you say the something or other had melted from overheating, and we shouldn't try and turn the machine on?"
She immediately corrected him. "I said activating the device without the regulator wouldn't be recommended in an ideal setting, but the circumstances are less than ideal now, sir."
They stared at each other a moment. He gauged her confidence versus their mutual desperation. Carter's game face was determined even as her eyes mirrored his worry about their teammates. "Do it," he ordered just as the radio crackled back to life.
"We're still...okay, but...The Torares' intel...Jaffa..."
"Any Torares around?" Jack realized he was showing his stress level by not even bothering to mispronounce the name. He'd remembered it correctly because they were some of the nice aliens, but had still been mangling to annoy Daniel and Carter. The Torares had been a pleasant enough civilizationspeople very fond of wearing purple and yellow, and had gotten on Jack's "nice" list for being one of the few advanced people willing to trade their advanced technology for a variety of produce and cultural exchange. They even went so far as to let SG-1 study their "outdated" big honking space gun set up on their testing-ground planet off the normal Stargate network.
It had all been going so well...until Daniel and Teal'c's routine call-in to Hammond got interrupted by some Jaffa party crashers.
"Negative." This time it was Teal'c who responded. "Any Tor-...personnel...-vived first assault scattered to... Stargate clear for now, but...ship..."
Daniel cut in. "Jack, ...saw...number...headed to...you."
"Say again? How many?"
"Many," came Teal'c's terse response just before a new hail of gunfire echoed the open transmission. Jack looked towards Carter, who was waist deep in the lower control panel.
"Carter?"
"Working on it, sir!" Carter grunted and flung a screwdriver while blindly grasping for another tool. Jack looked through his binoculars. And saw the al'kesh. Did the Jaffa come by ship not through the 'gate?
"Is the Stargate clear? Can you reach it?" Jack shouted each word distinctly into his radio, hoping to break through the static.
"-firma-, O'Nei-..." That was Teal'c.
"Get home. Report to Hammond."
"Jack, we can hold the 'gate until..."
Jack glanced back towards Carter then towards the horizon, calculating how many miles to the Stargate as that al'kesh looped and doubled back. Carter was right, their best chance was digging in defensively on this high ground with a hopefully working big honking space gun.
"Not long enough, Daniel and you know it. Carter's getting the device online, and she and I will hole up in the outpost. Get out. Get reinforcements. Now, before the Jaffa reach the Stargate."
Jack cursed the bad luck. Of all the times not to have a spare SG team with you as backup. He hoped enough of that message got through. If Daniel and Teal'c ignored him, they were sitting ducks out in the Stargate's open clearing against that al'kesh. Please let them for once listen and not try and be valiant heroes.
Apparently enough of his message got through for Daniel to continue arguing the point. "I thought Sam said..."
Carter's voice echoed both through Jack's radio receiver and from inside the machinery. "Things have changed, Daniel, but I'm not sure the range of this thing. You and Teal'c should get out of the line of fire."
There was a pause before Teal'c's voice answered, "Un..stood."
Jack risked looking away from their perimeter to peek into the device from the control area. "You've got it fixed?"
She was five feet below him, under the device, her head barely visible amongst the open circuitry. She cursed under her breath as she fumbled with crystals and small multicolored pieces that looked like poker chips.
"Working on it, sir."
"But you told Daniel and Teal'c..." Her stare made his voice trail off.
"Yes, sir." Her voice was clipped as she turned back to tightening up some...thing with a wrench.
Oh, Carter. He had to admit, her plan to keep the guys out of trouble worked better than Jack's plan to yell some more. Probably nothing short of that would have kept Daniel and Teal'c from making an Alamo stand at the 'gate anyway. If Jack had been the one in their shoes, that was probably all that would've kept him back as well.
But bluffing Daniel and Teal'c didn't mean she wouldn't keep trying to make good on the bet even to the very last second. It was his job to cut her off before then. Right now they had precious seconds if the outpost was a lost cause. He pulled a clay explosive from his vest and hefted it into his hand. "Ready for plan B?"
Carter looked at him, wide-eyed. "C-4? Sir, this is..."
"Ach!" He interrupted. "We have three options. Get this thing working and defend the position, destroy it so the Goa'uld can't find this advanced big toy while we try and reconnect with Daniel and Teal'c, or stick our heads between our legs and kiss our-"
"Sir!" Somehow Carter was able to simultaneously glare him into silence and connect two doodads that made the weapon start to make a soothing, steady hum. She couldn't help give a triumphant smile. "I go with Option A, sir."
"Just in time, Carter. Al'kesh at our two o'clock." The percussion of blasts from the al'kesh were strafing outside, not close enough to be properly in range yet, but too close for Jack's comfort.
He wished he could fire the weapon himself, but couldn't make heads or tails of the poker chip and lego controls. Luckily, Carter had no such issues because a few quick flicks of this and that and the barrel was moving towards the position Jack had indicated, the roof retracting almost like an astronomy observatory back on Earth.
"Sir, you should step back."
Jack jumped over to be behind Carter on the moving part of the platform as she pressed a few buttons just before an al'kesh blast hit the roof. Whatever the Torares made this building out of, it was tough stuff. The ceiling cracked, but held. Then Carter hit a green poker chip and resulting blast knocked them both off their feet.
Jack scrambled up and races to what he now realized was the six inch gap in the roller track that made up the window of this place. Carter did the same, heading for another area. He couldn't see the al'kesh, but...
"Colonel! Five o'clock!" Carter pointed from her position. And Jack looked just in time to catch the damaged al'kesh impact the ground a mile away from them and exploded into a fireball.
"Nice shot." He turned to grin at the Major but she was already rushing back to the weapon, switching things around in a rainbow of colors.
"Carter?" Jack scanned the area she was watching. Had she spotted more of the enemy?
"I don't want this to overheat. If I can..." Her words became muffled as she bent into the access panel and pulled on something.
"Can we use it again?"
She poked her head back out of the machine and swallowed. "I think so, sir."
Jack decided to have confidence enough for the two of them. "Good enough." He just hoped Teal'c and Daniel had made it through.
Hour Two
It was a waiting game now, the part Jack always hated. It's not like he minded doing nothing. Hell, fishing at the lake, with no obligations or distractions was his favorite activity. Sometimes when stuck in sniper position for hours at a time, and the cramps started to work on muscles held too tense for too long, he'd imagine himself there, waiting for a bite on the line.
It never really worked.
Besides, it wasn't really applicable here. He wasn't alone. He had one team member watching his back with a squirrelly weapon and two more out there...somewhere.
They made it. They were fine.
"I'm sure they made it, sir."
Jack wondered when she had become able to read his thoughts. The change had come so gradually from the eager young captain with a chip on her shoulder to the confident officer by his side that he hadn't even realized it.
"Yeah, they're fine," he agreed. "Sending the cavalry as we speak."
Carter smiled, but the sentiment didn't reach her eyes. "Exactly."
Jack decided to take her mind off things. He was in charge of morale around here, commander's perogative. "How's it coming with our new toy?"
"I've found the power settings. I wouldn't recommend doing too many more blasts of that strength, but I think I can keep it stabilized for scattered short bursts." Carter was actually scowling at the multicolored panel, as if trying to make it do more with the power of her mind.
Jack raised his eyebrows. Carter may look disappointed, but this was exactly the news he wanted to hear. "I haven't heard any more ships overhead. I think our next assault will be from the ground. Lower could be good."
Carter nodded and went back to her work.
Hour Three
Carter had finished her fidgeting with the device and had now taken position opposite him, scanning for signs of the forthcoming forces. He really expected something by now. If not Jaffa, then at least radio communication from the reinforcements.
Because Daniel and Teal'c had to have gotten the Torare and/or SGC to send reinforcements. They'd be coming over the ridge any time now.
Or now...
Maybe now...?
Jack finally spotted movement, and it took a few seconds for Jack to recognize the figures out of the falling dusk. It wasn't reinforcements. A small Jaffa patrol heading from the wreckage. Probably scouts for salvage of the al'kesh and to track the source of the attack. They were moving in a tight but swift formation, and Jack was trying to gauge their numbers.
His slight hiss caught Carter's attention and he relayed the rest using hand signals. She started towards the big gun, but he waved her off. Six...no, four Jaffa wasn't worth the risk of using the technology. He knew she was just jerry rigging it. Save it for when they may need the big boom.
She nodded and joined him, settling into position at his side, her rifle at ready. As for Jaffa, they'd spotted the outpost now, and were moving closer, cautiously, taking cover at first, but seeing no movement coming from the outpost appeared to embolden them.
Carter shifted a bit -- not restless, she was too experienced for that - but her angle now let her know when Jack was ready to fire without him having to say a word. Had she always known these things and just adjusted to Jack's timing, or had Jack trained this warrior instinct into her?
Maybe he was taking on too much credit. She probably learned it from Teal'c.
He hadn't realized he'd smiled at the thought until he caught her raised eyebrow through his peripheral vision. A shake of the head and she turned her attention back to the Jaffa.
Jack was hoping for them to get a bit closer, but the scout patrol weren't idiots. They were starting to spread apart and flank the outpost. He couldn't let them spread too far. He slowly exhaled, then fired.
Beside him, Carter did the same. Two for two for each of them.
"Sir!"
Jack followed the pointing of her muzzle, but the two others - so there were six after all - were running too fast and too far out of range. Jack was tempted to give chase, but the light, the terrain, and the unknown made it not worth the risk. He reminded himself that this was the high ground. This was the reinforced area. Carter needed him here if and when she needed to use that weapon again.
Plus, there was something that was puzzling him. Something he'd spotted but hadn't really registered at first.
"Why didn't they return fire?"
"Sir?"
"The Jaffa." Even without Teal'c's intel, Jack had been witness to Jaffa battle tactics for too long. They were nothing if not predictable. He'd almost wonder if they were scared of the outpost. That didn't fit their m.o. Jaffa could be superstitious, but not usually scared. Usually they were brave to the point of foolhardy. "None of them even tried to return fire. Even the two in reserve. Not even as a distraction."
"We were too..." Carter's voice trailed off before she finished the thought. She realized it too. None of the Jaffa had even tried to prime their weapons.
Another mystery to solve. Jack filed it away with the question of what happened to their team.
Hour Four
It was fully night now, and still no sign of anyone else. No Jaffa, and no SGC. The rumbling in Jack's stomach told him it was well past dinner time. MREs were not his favorite, but this was looking like a longer siege, and he knew they both needed the energy if this was going to be an all night vigil.
He tossed a meal to Carter and opened one for himself. Had no idea what he'd grabbed in the dark until tasting it. Beef stew. One of the better ones at least. Well, except for the dessert that came with it. "You know, this tastes more like lemon dish detergent than lemon square."
"You got the beef stew, didn't you?"
"What did you end up with?"
"Chicken pot pie." Oh. Carter hated that one. She found it tasted like mushy cardboard.
"If Daniel were here, he would've traded." He was not going to feel guilty for eating the good one.
"Possibly." Carter's voice sounded disembodied in the dark. "The brownie makes up for it."
"I thought it came with M&Ms."
"Must've been an upgrade." Was Carter sounding smug?
If that's the game she wanted to play, Jack was all for it. "Don't suppose you'd want to trade..."
"No, sir."
There was a pause, a missing beat. Jack scrambled to fill it as soon as he became aware, but his mind had blanked for a moment.
Her sigh was audible across the room. "It's not the same without them, is it?"
That was the missing beat. They'd honed field ration banter as a quartet. As a duo, some of the harmony was missing. "Not quite," Jack admitted. "But the company's fair enough. Hey, of all the people to be stuck in a big alien weapon post with, I'm glad I'm with you."
"Even if I eat the brownie?"
"Especially if you eat the brownie. You need your energy to do your geek voodoo get us out of this mess." Jack had intended to increase her confidence, but he could tell from her silence he was probably just adding to her pressure. She hadn't even risen to the "geek voodoo" bait. Instead, he tried a different tact.
"After all, if it was Teal'c, he'd have stolen my beef stew and kept the brownie. And besides, while he's great in a firefight, putting together legoblock superweapons, he's strictly amateur. Probably comes from serving megalomaniacal parasites that had strict rules of peeking behind the curtain of their magic tricks. Daniel doesn't pack the rifle ammo or even the rifle, and would probably be giving me the etymology of the user manual...although on the plus side, he'd probably trade rations with me."
"There was no user manual, sir..and no way would he give up the brownie to you."
Oh, so she was going to play the literal game in her role as straight man, er, woman? Jack snorted. "He'd at least keep the chicken pot pie. He likes that meal."
Now it was her turn to snort. "I think it's because he insists everything tastes like chicken."
He caught the brilliance of her smile shining out of the gloom, but it was gone too fast.
Now it was his turn. "I'm sure they made it back, Carter."
"Yeah. Me too." If both of them wished for it hard enough, maybe it would be true. He caught her movement in the shadows a few feet before she reached him. "Here, sir."
She handed him half the brownie.
Hour Five
"Still no movement, Carter. I think our friends are scared of the dark."
"There, sir." She pointed a spot she'd been studying with her binoculars. Jack moved to her position and saw sticks moving steadily. Jaffa were not used to moving stealthily, and those staff weapons made piss-poor tree imitations. They were surrounding the hill.
"So, they're casting a net for us if and when we leave here."
"Looks like it." Carter had that pensive silence about her-the kind that Jack had honed whenever she and Daniel were about to come up with something either brilliant or foolhardy or both. "I've been wondering about the effect of that weapon. How the Jaffa never fired on us. I wonder if it was a side-effect of the blast...or even a direct effect for that matter. That the purpose of the device is to nullify the enemy's weapons and technology."
"It didn't affect our guns."
"It wouldn't. Everything's strictly mechanical. This is more a...it's like an electromagnetic pulse, but specifically geared for...maybe naquadah based technology."
"An off switch for Goa'uld stuff? Sweet."
"Sir, if I can study..."
Jack nodded, then realized, she probably couldn't see him that clearly in the dark either. "Keep working, Major. I'll keep an eye on our friends."
"Yes, sir."
Jack turned to watch the figures, spreading out further than he expected, but clear enough in the night now that the moons had risen.
Hour Six
Jack called out for Carter to stop what she was doing when he spotted movement in his awkwardly placed mirrors and headed for the other wall.
"They're rushing us." The Jaffa still weren't firing their weapons, but he saw glints of metal as they moved forward. Carter hadn't joined his side this time, instead hurrying to a right angle from his former position. He lost track of her as he shot at the targets. Jack downed the three Jaffa rushing bodily before joining her in time to see the last one fall.
No reinforcements came through. Jack scanned the whole area but saw no further movement. So, knowing SG-1's weapons worked fine was still giving the Jaffa pause. Jack liked that advantage. But if they ever tried to rush the outpost en masse, he knew that he and Carter would be toast. He adjusted his mirrors again and poked Carter.
"Back to work, Major."
She looked out at the perimeter again before turning back to him. He caught the worried look and swallow before she crisply nodded.
Hour Seven
Carter had finally stopped working on the machine. Twenty minutes after the first rush, they'd had another burst of movement from the Jaffa, but a flash from the alien gun, not as powerful as the last, had scared them back. Although the aftermath had led to a lot of cursing from Carter.
She'd been hours now working on this rickety superweapon. It was the only advantage they had, and it was mostly a bluff. He was hoping she'd finally rest, de-stress. As it was, he could still hear her mind whirring.
It surprised him, when she came up with a total nonsequitor. "Do you ever study the star patterns when we're offworld, sir?"
He absently quipped, "I'm usually too distracted by running, Carter."
"On the quiet missions, sir."
"We have those?" Jack couldn't resist teasing her further.
He heard her exasperated huff of breath as a response.
He couldn't quite figure out her point, so he kept his tone at a light tease. "I thought you designated new star systems all the time. Hell, Carter, they're going to have start naming whole galaxies after you from new systems you've discovered."
"That's mostly computers and data discovered from the Cartouche and what you inputted from the Ancient repository."
"Your programming of the computers." And why was he arguing about this? Who was trying to de-stress who here?
"Mine and a lot of other people," she countered. "You were the one that punched the addresses in. Galaxies could be named after you. You already had a spaceship with your name, after all."
"As I recall, you blew that up." Jack couldn't help but ponder the possibility. If his mother ever knew about a constellation with young Jonathan's name on it...yeah, right. That'll happen. He chuckled. "The O'Neill system."
Carter's laugh was outright now. "Maybe it could be a planet with lots of lakes."
Jack liked that idea. "Don't forget the loons."
"Yeah, sure, you betcha." He didn't have the heart to tell her that her Minnesota accent sucked. It was the thought that counted, and she seemed not to have that dark cloud hanging over her head anymore. Come to think of it, neither did he.
She spoke again, her voice so low he could barely hear her. "Sometimes, on the quiet missions, I look - especially if we're at a spot that correlates to Earth constellations."
Carter could calculate positions half across the galaxy. It's why she had those letters after he name. Jack felt lucky he could lead his team back to the Stargate on planets whose magnetic fields mostly screwed his internal compass to nothing.
Carter was still explaining. "Sometimes the pattern is almost recognizable. Other times it's completely different. The distinctions are fascinating, almost freeing. Worlds not seen by people, humans or otherwise in millennia, with stars ahead that can make their own stories."
"Yeah," Jack nodded. He didn't quite see it the same way as she did, but there were moments, now that she had brought the subject up... "You remember that planet with the cornfields?"
"P8C-332. We were there for harvest festival."
"Yeah, well, there were these two alignments of stars-one making a perfect arc, the other a smaller triangle under its starboard edge that reminded me of a certain bald headed friend of ours with his gold tattoo."
Carter chuckled despite herself, which was what Jack had intended. "So you named a constellation Teal'c?"
"I would never be so on the nose," he protested. "I named it 'In Deed'."
The laugh was more genuine this time. Jack grinned. "On the Land of Light, there's one that looked like a fountain pen...well at least kind of squiggly made me think of Daniel. Actually, I may have pointed that one out to Teal'c once. He named it some Jaffa word for scribe."
"Dare I ask..."
Yeah, he should've thought through bringing up the SG-1 star chart. "That planet you were doing three nights of observation with SG-7 and we had watch duty? There's two angled parallelograms joined together right at the north point."
"I remember that formation. It looked like a double form of Ursa Major."
"Yeah, it did look like the Dippers..."
"Wait." Carter's tone was dangerous. "You saw something that looked like the Big Dipper and it reminded you of me?"
"No!" Jack protested. Wow, too many ways to take that, and none of them good for his health. "I thought it was a laptop."
"When you think of me, you think of a computer?" Okay, out loud, it didn't sound much better.
"Well, not exclusively," he defended weakly. Jack wondered momentarily if he'd be better off out with the Jaffa. "You are always with one. Case in point." He gestured towards the computer she held in her hands, even if she couldn't see the movement in the darkness.
There was silence from the other side of the room. Jack waited for what he thought was a suitable interval, then cleared his throat. "Then of course there was the donut with sprinkles I named Homer."
She'd turned back to her computer by then. The monitor's eerie light revealed the smile she was failing to suppress.
Hour Eight
"Sir, I've done it."
"Great!" Jack was responding to her enthusiasm more than anything. "What did you do?"
A monitor display shined towards him, filled with several dots.
"I realized this weapon was set to fire into space, and therefore must need advanced trajectory. I found the program and input ground coordinates to display."
"So all the dots..."
"Are all the Jaffa," Carter confirmed.
Jack scooched forward and studied the display. Several Jaffa scattered around the center of display, presumably the outpost. This wasn't quite what he was expecting, but in a way it was better.
She explained, "I can't seem to get accurate enough readings if I zoom to a wider diameter. The weapon's designed for bigger objects in space, not necessarily individual life signs on the ground."
"How far is this reading?"
She shrugged. "From what I can best judge, five or six klicks."
Jack would take a 360 view of a couple of miles any day, especially in this darkness. The group was still spread out more than he would've expected. Granted the full force of a division may be waiting just out of range of Carter's makeshift radar, but they still should have a larger perimeter. As it was, Jack spotted a couple of gaps if they wanted and needed to make a quick getaway.
"Good job, Carter."
Hour Nine
Carter's grunts were becoming more spread out as she kept checking between her computer and the weapon. He caught her muttering numbers and formulas over and over again in her head. He had seen this happen before to his team, she was hitting the wall. He knew this work was vital, but she needed a mental break, if only for a few moments. Checking the skies for signs of new Goa'uld ships while holed up in a dead ringer for an observatory, it was no wonder Jack's thoughts once again turned to space. Plus, he was starting to feel a bit punchy from fatigue.
"Did you hear about Pluto's demotion?"
"Um..." Carter's thoughts were clearly somewhere else. But Jack was warming up to his rant, and he could sense she was becoming cross-eyed from computer staring.
"It got kicked out of the planet club in some spot in New York. How can you have a planetarium and not list all the planets? I guess that Times headline said it all. 'Only in New York'."
"You know," Carter mused, "they weren't wrong. More and more evidence shows Pluto is not really a planet, but instead fits a lot of objects in the Kuiper belt. It's been a quiet debate amongst astrophysicists for a while."
"Quiet debate? Between you, Daniel and the geeks on half the levels of the mountain, I've not found scientists are quiet about anything."
He caught the low chuckle from her side of the room. "Well, actually, Dr. Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto, was still alive up until...well really just a few years ago. In his nineties, he was still very active in the profession, especially when discussion of planets was on the agenda."
"I don't blame him if he had to defend against his discovery being demoted to being a chunk of rock on a belt."
"Colonel..." The sigh was very audible. Perhaps she realized he was being ornery just to keep up morale. Hell, she'd seen his bookshelves, filled with Lowell and Sagan and Michener. It didn't stop Jack from riling her all the same. Besides, the logic of science aside, he was a bit miffed at Pluto's demotion. First planet to be discovered by an American, and it got kicked out of the club.
He didn't make the patriotic argument, however. Instead, he went straight for the juvenile. He had no shame. "No!" I'd have to relearn my mnemonic. Many Very Eager Men Jump South Under New Pajamas."
There was a long silence, finally broken by something Jack suspected may have been a chortle. Mission accomplished. Carter finally spoke. "I've heard a lot of planetary mnemonics, sir, but that one...by far...is the weirdest."
"I'm old. I don't want to learn a new planet list." The irony of saying this on a newly discovered planetary address was not lost on Jack. Probably not on Carter either, but she wisely refrained from bringing it up. She was playing the game as well.
"Of course, sir." There was a long pause. "Is it because of the Disney dog?"
Jack allowed an even longer pause before half-mumbling his surprisingly honest response. "Maybe."
Hour Ten
The moons had set and pre-dawn was starting to brighten outside. Jack was thankful for Carter's monitor doo-dad because the light now was tricky to catch any Jaffa movement, besides the fact it had been a while since he'd pulled an all-nighter and it was starting to show. He was getting too old for this crap.
But the Jaffa remained in place, still spread out. Occasionally one had moved, but they stayed within the treeline, never moving closer...and in fact never moving back to where the other Jaffa Jack expected likely sat. In fact, it didn't seem like they replaced the Jaffa that had rushed them a while ago. It didn't make sense. Jack frowned, looking back at where Carter was now toying with a couple of the alien poker chips. Poker...
"It's a double bluff," he said.
"Sir?"
"The Jaffa. They don't have more out there. What your display is showing is all there is." He frowned. Why wouldn't they have more out there? It had been hours. "Do you think they all unloaded from the one al'kesh?"
"If that weapon affected their weapons on the ground, the range could've been wider than the shot that downed the al'kesh nearby. Other ships outside our visual range may have been hit too." She mused, "They may have only come in ships. The Torare's planted the Stargate here themselves, so it's off the grid. We would never know about this world if they hadn't told us. It's possible the Jaffa didn't know the address."
The strategy was still wrong. Because even if they had only arrived in ships..."Shouldn't they have been able to dial out?" he asked. "Communicate somehow? Do you think they have no home planet base to gate to?"
"That's possible, or else..." Carter paled. "Oh, no."
She raced to the panel and plugged her computer into the panel. Some days Jack was tempted to ask her how she was able to connect her Earth laptop to all the alien gadgets, but he was too scared of the technical answer. At this point, he just accepted it worked.
"I was thinking the weapon affected the naquadah, but...I was wrong, sir. It was designed to disrupt crystal technology."
Jack immediately understood those implications. "Crystal tech like what's in the DHD?"
"Yes, sir."
"So is the Stargate permanently busted?" That didn't make any sense. Why would they have the weapon on the world if no one could get off afterwards.
"It-it shouldn't be, sir." Jack didn't like the doubt in her voice. "This still works under the same idea as an electromagnetic pulse. So it should only affect the technology temporarily, with no permanent damage."
"Unless, say the ship crashes."
"Right."
"So what's the time limit?" He was still sensing a "but" in her explanation.
"That's the thing, sir. Any effect from the blast should've dissipated by now."
"Oh." Oh, crap.
Hour Eleven
Just when Jack thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.
The cursing coming from Carter was his first clue. She seemed to have forgotten his presence while tinkering with the legos and poker chips, working on her computer as if it would somehow hold the answer to if and when rescue would come.
Jack had been zeroing in on one of the gaps in the lines, wondering if it was a trap or a sure fire exit. It looked to be around that region where they had scouted that stream and gully...had it only been yesterday? He remembered Daniel lecturing about irrigation channels and Teal'c noting the groundcover. Focused on his own thoughts, he hadn't registered that first clue until her sudden silence. That was the second clue.
"Carter?"
Her expression was one of apology. "Sir, the system's in a power loop and won't shut down."
"Okay...and that means..?" He held up his finger as she looked ready to rattle off in the programming speak she'd been using while working. "Use small words."
She glared an admonishment of frustration, then swallowed. "Remember how I said the regulator was iffy on this device?" At his nod, she continued. "It's designed to shoot at orbital threats, and it's pretty old equipment. Running it at low power long term like this is having an impact. The monitoring equipment for trajectories has been bleeding into the weapons control."
"Remember, Carter, small words."
"I can't control where the power goes. The system's been running a low power pulse all this time. That's probably why we've never heard from reinforcements and why the Jaffa haven't used their weapons. Everything is still shut down."
"So then we'll shut it down. Turn off the monitoring"
"I already tried. But I can't. The regulator chips are too damaged." She held up a few of the green poker chips which looked a bit melted. "Colonel, this device is on overload."
Perhaps that could scoot the Jaffa back further. "So we can re-fire to burn off some of its excess energy, scare off the Jaffa, then turn it off."
"It's too late for that. Maybe if I had noticed it sooner, but I can't control the blast. There's too big a build up."
Okay, bad news. Very bad. He took a look at the gully gap that still displayed on her monitor. "When will this overload happen?"
Carter's response was cut off by an ominous beeping noise coming from the device.
"You said we can't unplug it, right?" Jack wondered how to convert ominous beeps to a timing countdown.
"No, sir, it's a cascade effect. It's going to explode, unless..."
Jack was seeing the legos blink. They'd never done that before. Carter's expression was enough advance notice for him. They were out of time. He pulled Carter away from the device, cable connections from the laptop she clutched trailing behind them.
No time to work on his plan for luring the Jaffa closer. No gauging on whether this pre-dawn light was enough confusion for them to get past the Jaffa line. Time to go.
"Move," he shoved her out the door shooting towards their right where he knew the closest Jaffa still nestled. Still no return fire, and as the Jaffa broke cover on either side, rifle fire was enough to down most of them before they hit the cover of the woods. Only a few more yards to the gully.
Carter was running ahead of him, a Jaffa was stumbling behind. Jack spun and fired, only to hear the resounding click of an empty magazine.
"Down!"
Jack ducked at Carter's shout and heard the percussion of her sidearm. She didn't have time to reload either. The armor piercing bullets did their job though and he spun and followed her again.
Just a few more feet to relative safety now.
The last thing he remembered was knocking Carter into the gully before light rained around him.
Hour Zero
Jack was floating in darkness. It was peaceful. The sun was shining on his face. He could hear a trickling of water, reminding him of the lake floating along the shore.
Then he remembered.
He sat up with a jolt, eyes swimming with different colors. He blinked looking around. Scattered stone and metal debris was around him, fallen trees covering the gully and muddy creek remnants where he lay. Sunlight shone down from a break in the foliage. What he didn't see was... "Carter?"
"Here, sir." came the low groan. It was coming from several feet behind him.
"You all right?" He squinted in her direction to see a mud spattered major blinking back at him.
She nodded. "I think so." She looked around their surroundings. "The outpost was only equipped to withstand external assault. The overload must have completely destroyed it based on how the blast wave knocked down the trees."
Jack looked around again. He found a nice chunk of the ceiling that had caused that opening in the trees and landed thankfully several feet from him. Also several of the legos looking pretty crispy were scattered in the muddy water around him.
He scrambled up the embankment to check out the situation from that sunlit hole, thankful that while his body groaned at the effort, everything was still attached and mobile. Standing on the rubble, he felt in his vest for his binoculars and looked out. Everything still speckled but he could gauge enough to see the devastation. It looked more like a desert what with the burnt grass and fallen trees. He couldn't see Jaffa or for that matter, anything living all the way down the hillside. All was quiet.
Jack gave a low whistle. "Good thing the Torares knew how to pick isolated planets. This place is toast."
He could hear Carter shuffling towards him. He looked down to see her pick up a half melted piece of the equipment.
"There'll be more lego blocks to play with another day."
Carter blinked at him a few moments, her reaction time appearing slower than normal. Jack wasn't sure if it was just him, or if she was injured too. When they got back home, and it would be when, not if, he figured they'd both be spending some quality time with Fraiser. Finally she answered.. "I guess they did look like Legos. I hadn't noticed before."
"You hadn't?" Jack thought the comparison was obvious. "Didn't you play with Legos as a kid?"
"I was more into the K-nix. Legos were too...limiting for me at the time. Then of course, I wandered around the motor pool section of the base and got to play around with some of the junk parts. Had my own kind of full-size Lego set, I guess. Mom got so mad when I'd come home covered with grease. She'd complain that she thought girls were supposed to stay cleaner than boys and how Mark had nowhere near the amount of stains my clothes did." She paused, musing, "Of course, when I was a kid, they were still just a bunch of blocks. Not all these detailed action sets they've got now. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten into all the greasy junk if they'd had that."
"Somehow, Carter, I doubt it." Jack couldn't imagine a Carter in any universe not trying to take things apart to see what made them tick. "I remember those fancy Lego sets. Charlie was really into them. I swear the pieces got smaller and smaller, and painful."
Carter had been frowning in sympathy, the way they all did when he brought up his son, but the expression turned puzzled and she paused open mouthed before finally asking "Painful?"
"All those little pieces scattered on the floor for you to step on. They were little toy land mines, especially when you were walking through the living room in bare feet."
Carter laughed at that point, long than it warranted under the circumstances. He'd told much funnier jokes and barely gotten a grin from her. But it was more than the joke, and he knew it. It was the letting go of adrenalin and exhaustion from the long night. He joined her in the laughter, leaning against the embankment and letting off a low chuckle while he still scanned for signs of Jaffa. The only thing moving were the lights dancing in his vision.
Eventually, Carter joined him on the makeshift boulder. Hell, Daniel and Teal'c could fit on the rock with room to spare, but she had to stand on tip toe to see over the trunk. at the devastation. "The valley should have protected the Stargate. If the signal was not disrupted..."
"...one niner, come in....is SG-One-Three. Repeat, SG-One...."
Carter almost fell off the boulder in surprise. Jack fumbled to keep her balanced as she reached for her radio and delivered the response they both were fine. Before she could even ask about the rest of SG-1, a new voice broke through.
"Sam, thank..." How many years and Daniel still ignored radio protocol? Jack didn't really care because the sound of their teammate's voice was music to his ears. "SG-3, 8...13...and...Torare med...and engin...ing...en route. This...first chance...wormhole lock...hours. Are...okay? Jack?"
Jack answered this time. "We're secure, Daniel. You and Teal'c?"
"We should be at the outpost within the half-hour. We are fine." Teal'c's broadcast came through loud and clear. They'd probably already crested the valley.
"Read you five by five, Teal'c. We're in Daniel's irrigation canal."
Carter looked dubiously at their muddy makeshift foxhole as she sat down on the boulder. She hadn't been around during the area reconnoiter, so didn't know the team history of this locale. Jack knew Teal'c would find them just fine. He merely nodded reassuringly.
Her smile was bright with relief. "I told you they made it, sir."
"I believe I told you that." Jack mock-protested.
She closed her eyes as she rested against the gully wall, still looking more amused than she should. "Of course, sir."
Author: aurora_novarum
Rating: PG
Warning/Spoilers: set anywhere after beg S4
Prompt(s): In a firefight, offworld, waiting for backup; telescopes/stargazing in general; Should Pluto still be classified as a planet (one for, one against)
Summary: Sam and Jack are holed up with an alien weapon and under siege.
Hour One
"Troops...-ing from...-est." Jack could barely make out Daniel's words over the percussion of gunfire. "Cut off from y-...Sam..." The familiar blast of Teal'c's staff weapon punctuated the transmission before ending. At least Jack hoped the weapon he heard was Teal'c's.
"Status report...Daniel, report! Teal'c!" Jack kept his voice controlled as he transmitted. He scanned with his binoculars, but even at this elevation, he couldn't see over the ridge that separated him from the other half of SG-1.
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Carter heading back into the bowels of the machine.
"Carter...?" Jack was quickly feeling like the situation was getting out of control. And still no response from Daniel and Teal'c.
"Sir, if I can get this activated, it could give us the cover fire we need."
Jack frowned. "Didn't you say the something or other had melted from overheating, and we shouldn't try and turn the machine on?"
She immediately corrected him. "I said activating the device without the regulator wouldn't be recommended in an ideal setting, but the circumstances are less than ideal now, sir."
They stared at each other a moment. He gauged her confidence versus their mutual desperation. Carter's game face was determined even as her eyes mirrored his worry about their teammates. "Do it," he ordered just as the radio crackled back to life.
"We're still...okay, but...The Torares' intel...Jaffa..."
"Any Torares around?" Jack realized he was showing his stress level by not even bothering to mispronounce the name. He'd remembered it correctly because they were some of the nice aliens, but had still been mangling to annoy Daniel and Carter. The Torares had been a pleasant enough civilizationspeople very fond of wearing purple and yellow, and had gotten on Jack's "nice" list for being one of the few advanced people willing to trade their advanced technology for a variety of produce and cultural exchange. They even went so far as to let SG-1 study their "outdated" big honking space gun set up on their testing-ground planet off the normal Stargate network.
It had all been going so well...until Daniel and Teal'c's routine call-in to Hammond got interrupted by some Jaffa party crashers.
"Negative." This time it was Teal'c who responded. "Any Tor-...personnel...-vived first assault scattered to... Stargate clear for now, but...ship..."
Daniel cut in. "Jack, ...saw...number...headed to...you."
"Say again? How many?"
"Many," came Teal'c's terse response just before a new hail of gunfire echoed the open transmission. Jack looked towards Carter, who was waist deep in the lower control panel.
"Carter?"
"Working on it, sir!" Carter grunted and flung a screwdriver while blindly grasping for another tool. Jack looked through his binoculars. And saw the al'kesh. Did the Jaffa come by ship not through the 'gate?
"Is the Stargate clear? Can you reach it?" Jack shouted each word distinctly into his radio, hoping to break through the static.
"-firma-, O'Nei-..." That was Teal'c.
"Get home. Report to Hammond."
"Jack, we can hold the 'gate until..."
Jack glanced back towards Carter then towards the horizon, calculating how many miles to the Stargate as that al'kesh looped and doubled back. Carter was right, their best chance was digging in defensively on this high ground with a hopefully working big honking space gun.
"Not long enough, Daniel and you know it. Carter's getting the device online, and she and I will hole up in the outpost. Get out. Get reinforcements. Now, before the Jaffa reach the Stargate."
Jack cursed the bad luck. Of all the times not to have a spare SG team with you as backup. He hoped enough of that message got through. If Daniel and Teal'c ignored him, they were sitting ducks out in the Stargate's open clearing against that al'kesh. Please let them for once listen and not try and be valiant heroes.
Apparently enough of his message got through for Daniel to continue arguing the point. "I thought Sam said..."
Carter's voice echoed both through Jack's radio receiver and from inside the machinery. "Things have changed, Daniel, but I'm not sure the range of this thing. You and Teal'c should get out of the line of fire."
There was a pause before Teal'c's voice answered, "Un..stood."
Jack risked looking away from their perimeter to peek into the device from the control area. "You've got it fixed?"
She was five feet below him, under the device, her head barely visible amongst the open circuitry. She cursed under her breath as she fumbled with crystals and small multicolored pieces that looked like poker chips.
"Working on it, sir."
"But you told Daniel and Teal'c..." Her stare made his voice trail off.
"Yes, sir." Her voice was clipped as she turned back to tightening up some...thing with a wrench.
Oh, Carter. He had to admit, her plan to keep the guys out of trouble worked better than Jack's plan to yell some more. Probably nothing short of that would have kept Daniel and Teal'c from making an Alamo stand at the 'gate anyway. If Jack had been the one in their shoes, that was probably all that would've kept him back as well.
But bluffing Daniel and Teal'c didn't mean she wouldn't keep trying to make good on the bet even to the very last second. It was his job to cut her off before then. Right now they had precious seconds if the outpost was a lost cause. He pulled a clay explosive from his vest and hefted it into his hand. "Ready for plan B?"
Carter looked at him, wide-eyed. "C-4? Sir, this is..."
"Ach!" He interrupted. "We have three options. Get this thing working and defend the position, destroy it so the Goa'uld can't find this advanced big toy while we try and reconnect with Daniel and Teal'c, or stick our heads between our legs and kiss our-"
"Sir!" Somehow Carter was able to simultaneously glare him into silence and connect two doodads that made the weapon start to make a soothing, steady hum. She couldn't help give a triumphant smile. "I go with Option A, sir."
"Just in time, Carter. Al'kesh at our two o'clock." The percussion of blasts from the al'kesh were strafing outside, not close enough to be properly in range yet, but too close for Jack's comfort.
He wished he could fire the weapon himself, but couldn't make heads or tails of the poker chip and lego controls. Luckily, Carter had no such issues because a few quick flicks of this and that and the barrel was moving towards the position Jack had indicated, the roof retracting almost like an astronomy observatory back on Earth.
"Sir, you should step back."
Jack jumped over to be behind Carter on the moving part of the platform as she pressed a few buttons just before an al'kesh blast hit the roof. Whatever the Torares made this building out of, it was tough stuff. The ceiling cracked, but held. Then Carter hit a green poker chip and resulting blast knocked them both off their feet.
Jack scrambled up and races to what he now realized was the six inch gap in the roller track that made up the window of this place. Carter did the same, heading for another area. He couldn't see the al'kesh, but...
"Colonel! Five o'clock!" Carter pointed from her position. And Jack looked just in time to catch the damaged al'kesh impact the ground a mile away from them and exploded into a fireball.
"Nice shot." He turned to grin at the Major but she was already rushing back to the weapon, switching things around in a rainbow of colors.
"Carter?" Jack scanned the area she was watching. Had she spotted more of the enemy?
"I don't want this to overheat. If I can..." Her words became muffled as she bent into the access panel and pulled on something.
"Can we use it again?"
She poked her head back out of the machine and swallowed. "I think so, sir."
Jack decided to have confidence enough for the two of them. "Good enough." He just hoped Teal'c and Daniel had made it through.
Hour Two
It was a waiting game now, the part Jack always hated. It's not like he minded doing nothing. Hell, fishing at the lake, with no obligations or distractions was his favorite activity. Sometimes when stuck in sniper position for hours at a time, and the cramps started to work on muscles held too tense for too long, he'd imagine himself there, waiting for a bite on the line.
It never really worked.
Besides, it wasn't really applicable here. He wasn't alone. He had one team member watching his back with a squirrelly weapon and two more out there...somewhere.
They made it. They were fine.
"I'm sure they made it, sir."
Jack wondered when she had become able to read his thoughts. The change had come so gradually from the eager young captain with a chip on her shoulder to the confident officer by his side that he hadn't even realized it.
"Yeah, they're fine," he agreed. "Sending the cavalry as we speak."
Carter smiled, but the sentiment didn't reach her eyes. "Exactly."
Jack decided to take her mind off things. He was in charge of morale around here, commander's perogative. "How's it coming with our new toy?"
"I've found the power settings. I wouldn't recommend doing too many more blasts of that strength, but I think I can keep it stabilized for scattered short bursts." Carter was actually scowling at the multicolored panel, as if trying to make it do more with the power of her mind.
Jack raised his eyebrows. Carter may look disappointed, but this was exactly the news he wanted to hear. "I haven't heard any more ships overhead. I think our next assault will be from the ground. Lower could be good."
Carter nodded and went back to her work.
Hour Three
Carter had finished her fidgeting with the device and had now taken position opposite him, scanning for signs of the forthcoming forces. He really expected something by now. If not Jaffa, then at least radio communication from the reinforcements.
Because Daniel and Teal'c had to have gotten the Torare and/or SGC to send reinforcements. They'd be coming over the ridge any time now.
Or now...
Maybe now...?
Jack finally spotted movement, and it took a few seconds for Jack to recognize the figures out of the falling dusk. It wasn't reinforcements. A small Jaffa patrol heading from the wreckage. Probably scouts for salvage of the al'kesh and to track the source of the attack. They were moving in a tight but swift formation, and Jack was trying to gauge their numbers.
His slight hiss caught Carter's attention and he relayed the rest using hand signals. She started towards the big gun, but he waved her off. Six...no, four Jaffa wasn't worth the risk of using the technology. He knew she was just jerry rigging it. Save it for when they may need the big boom.
She nodded and joined him, settling into position at his side, her rifle at ready. As for Jaffa, they'd spotted the outpost now, and were moving closer, cautiously, taking cover at first, but seeing no movement coming from the outpost appeared to embolden them.
Carter shifted a bit -- not restless, she was too experienced for that - but her angle now let her know when Jack was ready to fire without him having to say a word. Had she always known these things and just adjusted to Jack's timing, or had Jack trained this warrior instinct into her?
Maybe he was taking on too much credit. She probably learned it from Teal'c.
He hadn't realized he'd smiled at the thought until he caught her raised eyebrow through his peripheral vision. A shake of the head and she turned her attention back to the Jaffa.
Jack was hoping for them to get a bit closer, but the scout patrol weren't idiots. They were starting to spread apart and flank the outpost. He couldn't let them spread too far. He slowly exhaled, then fired.
Beside him, Carter did the same. Two for two for each of them.
"Sir!"
Jack followed the pointing of her muzzle, but the two others - so there were six after all - were running too fast and too far out of range. Jack was tempted to give chase, but the light, the terrain, and the unknown made it not worth the risk. He reminded himself that this was the high ground. This was the reinforced area. Carter needed him here if and when she needed to use that weapon again.
Plus, there was something that was puzzling him. Something he'd spotted but hadn't really registered at first.
"Why didn't they return fire?"
"Sir?"
"The Jaffa." Even without Teal'c's intel, Jack had been witness to Jaffa battle tactics for too long. They were nothing if not predictable. He'd almost wonder if they were scared of the outpost. That didn't fit their m.o. Jaffa could be superstitious, but not usually scared. Usually they were brave to the point of foolhardy. "None of them even tried to return fire. Even the two in reserve. Not even as a distraction."
"We were too..." Carter's voice trailed off before she finished the thought. She realized it too. None of the Jaffa had even tried to prime their weapons.
Another mystery to solve. Jack filed it away with the question of what happened to their team.
Hour Four
It was fully night now, and still no sign of anyone else. No Jaffa, and no SGC. The rumbling in Jack's stomach told him it was well past dinner time. MREs were not his favorite, but this was looking like a longer siege, and he knew they both needed the energy if this was going to be an all night vigil.
He tossed a meal to Carter and opened one for himself. Had no idea what he'd grabbed in the dark until tasting it. Beef stew. One of the better ones at least. Well, except for the dessert that came with it. "You know, this tastes more like lemon dish detergent than lemon square."
"You got the beef stew, didn't you?"
"What did you end up with?"
"Chicken pot pie." Oh. Carter hated that one. She found it tasted like mushy cardboard.
"If Daniel were here, he would've traded." He was not going to feel guilty for eating the good one.
"Possibly." Carter's voice sounded disembodied in the dark. "The brownie makes up for it."
"I thought it came with M&Ms."
"Must've been an upgrade." Was Carter sounding smug?
If that's the game she wanted to play, Jack was all for it. "Don't suppose you'd want to trade..."
"No, sir."
There was a pause, a missing beat. Jack scrambled to fill it as soon as he became aware, but his mind had blanked for a moment.
Her sigh was audible across the room. "It's not the same without them, is it?"
That was the missing beat. They'd honed field ration banter as a quartet. As a duo, some of the harmony was missing. "Not quite," Jack admitted. "But the company's fair enough. Hey, of all the people to be stuck in a big alien weapon post with, I'm glad I'm with you."
"Even if I eat the brownie?"
"Especially if you eat the brownie. You need your energy to do your geek voodoo get us out of this mess." Jack had intended to increase her confidence, but he could tell from her silence he was probably just adding to her pressure. She hadn't even risen to the "geek voodoo" bait. Instead, he tried a different tact.
"After all, if it was Teal'c, he'd have stolen my beef stew and kept the brownie. And besides, while he's great in a firefight, putting together legoblock superweapons, he's strictly amateur. Probably comes from serving megalomaniacal parasites that had strict rules of peeking behind the curtain of their magic tricks. Daniel doesn't pack the rifle ammo or even the rifle, and would probably be giving me the etymology of the user manual...although on the plus side, he'd probably trade rations with me."
"There was no user manual, sir..and no way would he give up the brownie to you."
Oh, so she was going to play the literal game in her role as straight man, er, woman? Jack snorted. "He'd at least keep the chicken pot pie. He likes that meal."
Now it was her turn to snort. "I think it's because he insists everything tastes like chicken."
He caught the brilliance of her smile shining out of the gloom, but it was gone too fast.
Now it was his turn. "I'm sure they made it back, Carter."
"Yeah. Me too." If both of them wished for it hard enough, maybe it would be true. He caught her movement in the shadows a few feet before she reached him. "Here, sir."
She handed him half the brownie.
Hour Five
"Still no movement, Carter. I think our friends are scared of the dark."
"There, sir." She pointed a spot she'd been studying with her binoculars. Jack moved to her position and saw sticks moving steadily. Jaffa were not used to moving stealthily, and those staff weapons made piss-poor tree imitations. They were surrounding the hill.
"So, they're casting a net for us if and when we leave here."
"Looks like it." Carter had that pensive silence about her-the kind that Jack had honed whenever she and Daniel were about to come up with something either brilliant or foolhardy or both. "I've been wondering about the effect of that weapon. How the Jaffa never fired on us. I wonder if it was a side-effect of the blast...or even a direct effect for that matter. That the purpose of the device is to nullify the enemy's weapons and technology."
"It didn't affect our guns."
"It wouldn't. Everything's strictly mechanical. This is more a...it's like an electromagnetic pulse, but specifically geared for...maybe naquadah based technology."
"An off switch for Goa'uld stuff? Sweet."
"Sir, if I can study..."
Jack nodded, then realized, she probably couldn't see him that clearly in the dark either. "Keep working, Major. I'll keep an eye on our friends."
"Yes, sir."
Jack turned to watch the figures, spreading out further than he expected, but clear enough in the night now that the moons had risen.
Hour Six
Jack called out for Carter to stop what she was doing when he spotted movement in his awkwardly placed mirrors and headed for the other wall.
"They're rushing us." The Jaffa still weren't firing their weapons, but he saw glints of metal as they moved forward. Carter hadn't joined his side this time, instead hurrying to a right angle from his former position. He lost track of her as he shot at the targets. Jack downed the three Jaffa rushing bodily before joining her in time to see the last one fall.
No reinforcements came through. Jack scanned the whole area but saw no further movement. So, knowing SG-1's weapons worked fine was still giving the Jaffa pause. Jack liked that advantage. But if they ever tried to rush the outpost en masse, he knew that he and Carter would be toast. He adjusted his mirrors again and poked Carter.
"Back to work, Major."
She looked out at the perimeter again before turning back to him. He caught the worried look and swallow before she crisply nodded.
Hour Seven
Carter had finally stopped working on the machine. Twenty minutes after the first rush, they'd had another burst of movement from the Jaffa, but a flash from the alien gun, not as powerful as the last, had scared them back. Although the aftermath had led to a lot of cursing from Carter.
She'd been hours now working on this rickety superweapon. It was the only advantage they had, and it was mostly a bluff. He was hoping she'd finally rest, de-stress. As it was, he could still hear her mind whirring.
It surprised him, when she came up with a total nonsequitor. "Do you ever study the star patterns when we're offworld, sir?"
He absently quipped, "I'm usually too distracted by running, Carter."
"On the quiet missions, sir."
"We have those?" Jack couldn't resist teasing her further.
He heard her exasperated huff of breath as a response.
He couldn't quite figure out her point, so he kept his tone at a light tease. "I thought you designated new star systems all the time. Hell, Carter, they're going to have start naming whole galaxies after you from new systems you've discovered."
"That's mostly computers and data discovered from the Cartouche and what you inputted from the Ancient repository."
"Your programming of the computers." And why was he arguing about this? Who was trying to de-stress who here?
"Mine and a lot of other people," she countered. "You were the one that punched the addresses in. Galaxies could be named after you. You already had a spaceship with your name, after all."
"As I recall, you blew that up." Jack couldn't help but ponder the possibility. If his mother ever knew about a constellation with young Jonathan's name on it...yeah, right. That'll happen. He chuckled. "The O'Neill system."
Carter's laugh was outright now. "Maybe it could be a planet with lots of lakes."
Jack liked that idea. "Don't forget the loons."
"Yeah, sure, you betcha." He didn't have the heart to tell her that her Minnesota accent sucked. It was the thought that counted, and she seemed not to have that dark cloud hanging over her head anymore. Come to think of it, neither did he.
She spoke again, her voice so low he could barely hear her. "Sometimes, on the quiet missions, I look - especially if we're at a spot that correlates to Earth constellations."
Carter could calculate positions half across the galaxy. It's why she had those letters after he name. Jack felt lucky he could lead his team back to the Stargate on planets whose magnetic fields mostly screwed his internal compass to nothing.
Carter was still explaining. "Sometimes the pattern is almost recognizable. Other times it's completely different. The distinctions are fascinating, almost freeing. Worlds not seen by people, humans or otherwise in millennia, with stars ahead that can make their own stories."
"Yeah," Jack nodded. He didn't quite see it the same way as she did, but there were moments, now that she had brought the subject up... "You remember that planet with the cornfields?"
"P8C-332. We were there for harvest festival."
"Yeah, well, there were these two alignments of stars-one making a perfect arc, the other a smaller triangle under its starboard edge that reminded me of a certain bald headed friend of ours with his gold tattoo."
Carter chuckled despite herself, which was what Jack had intended. "So you named a constellation Teal'c?"
"I would never be so on the nose," he protested. "I named it 'In Deed'."
The laugh was more genuine this time. Jack grinned. "On the Land of Light, there's one that looked like a fountain pen...well at least kind of squiggly made me think of Daniel. Actually, I may have pointed that one out to Teal'c once. He named it some Jaffa word for scribe."
"Dare I ask..."
Yeah, he should've thought through bringing up the SG-1 star chart. "That planet you were doing three nights of observation with SG-7 and we had watch duty? There's two angled parallelograms joined together right at the north point."
"I remember that formation. It looked like a double form of Ursa Major."
"Yeah, it did look like the Dippers..."
"Wait." Carter's tone was dangerous. "You saw something that looked like the Big Dipper and it reminded you of me?"
"No!" Jack protested. Wow, too many ways to take that, and none of them good for his health. "I thought it was a laptop."
"When you think of me, you think of a computer?" Okay, out loud, it didn't sound much better.
"Well, not exclusively," he defended weakly. Jack wondered momentarily if he'd be better off out with the Jaffa. "You are always with one. Case in point." He gestured towards the computer she held in her hands, even if she couldn't see the movement in the darkness.
There was silence from the other side of the room. Jack waited for what he thought was a suitable interval, then cleared his throat. "Then of course there was the donut with sprinkles I named Homer."
She'd turned back to her computer by then. The monitor's eerie light revealed the smile she was failing to suppress.
Hour Eight
"Sir, I've done it."
"Great!" Jack was responding to her enthusiasm more than anything. "What did you do?"
A monitor display shined towards him, filled with several dots.
"I realized this weapon was set to fire into space, and therefore must need advanced trajectory. I found the program and input ground coordinates to display."
"So all the dots..."
"Are all the Jaffa," Carter confirmed.
Jack scooched forward and studied the display. Several Jaffa scattered around the center of display, presumably the outpost. This wasn't quite what he was expecting, but in a way it was better.
She explained, "I can't seem to get accurate enough readings if I zoom to a wider diameter. The weapon's designed for bigger objects in space, not necessarily individual life signs on the ground."
"How far is this reading?"
She shrugged. "From what I can best judge, five or six klicks."
Jack would take a 360 view of a couple of miles any day, especially in this darkness. The group was still spread out more than he would've expected. Granted the full force of a division may be waiting just out of range of Carter's makeshift radar, but they still should have a larger perimeter. As it was, Jack spotted a couple of gaps if they wanted and needed to make a quick getaway.
"Good job, Carter."
Hour Nine
Carter's grunts were becoming more spread out as she kept checking between her computer and the weapon. He caught her muttering numbers and formulas over and over again in her head. He had seen this happen before to his team, she was hitting the wall. He knew this work was vital, but she needed a mental break, if only for a few moments. Checking the skies for signs of new Goa'uld ships while holed up in a dead ringer for an observatory, it was no wonder Jack's thoughts once again turned to space. Plus, he was starting to feel a bit punchy from fatigue.
"Did you hear about Pluto's demotion?"
"Um..." Carter's thoughts were clearly somewhere else. But Jack was warming up to his rant, and he could sense she was becoming cross-eyed from computer staring.
"It got kicked out of the planet club in some spot in New York. How can you have a planetarium and not list all the planets? I guess that Times headline said it all. 'Only in New York'."
"You know," Carter mused, "they weren't wrong. More and more evidence shows Pluto is not really a planet, but instead fits a lot of objects in the Kuiper belt. It's been a quiet debate amongst astrophysicists for a while."
"Quiet debate? Between you, Daniel and the geeks on half the levels of the mountain, I've not found scientists are quiet about anything."
He caught the low chuckle from her side of the room. "Well, actually, Dr. Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto, was still alive up until...well really just a few years ago. In his nineties, he was still very active in the profession, especially when discussion of planets was on the agenda."
"I don't blame him if he had to defend against his discovery being demoted to being a chunk of rock on a belt."
"Colonel..." The sigh was very audible. Perhaps she realized he was being ornery just to keep up morale. Hell, she'd seen his bookshelves, filled with Lowell and Sagan and Michener. It didn't stop Jack from riling her all the same. Besides, the logic of science aside, he was a bit miffed at Pluto's demotion. First planet to be discovered by an American, and it got kicked out of the club.
He didn't make the patriotic argument, however. Instead, he went straight for the juvenile. He had no shame. "No!" I'd have to relearn my mnemonic. Many Very Eager Men Jump South Under New Pajamas."
There was a long silence, finally broken by something Jack suspected may have been a chortle. Mission accomplished. Carter finally spoke. "I've heard a lot of planetary mnemonics, sir, but that one...by far...is the weirdest."
"I'm old. I don't want to learn a new planet list." The irony of saying this on a newly discovered planetary address was not lost on Jack. Probably not on Carter either, but she wisely refrained from bringing it up. She was playing the game as well.
"Of course, sir." There was a long pause. "Is it because of the Disney dog?"
Jack allowed an even longer pause before half-mumbling his surprisingly honest response. "Maybe."
Hour Ten
The moons had set and pre-dawn was starting to brighten outside. Jack was thankful for Carter's monitor doo-dad because the light now was tricky to catch any Jaffa movement, besides the fact it had been a while since he'd pulled an all-nighter and it was starting to show. He was getting too old for this crap.
But the Jaffa remained in place, still spread out. Occasionally one had moved, but they stayed within the treeline, never moving closer...and in fact never moving back to where the other Jaffa Jack expected likely sat. In fact, it didn't seem like they replaced the Jaffa that had rushed them a while ago. It didn't make sense. Jack frowned, looking back at where Carter was now toying with a couple of the alien poker chips. Poker...
"It's a double bluff," he said.
"Sir?"
"The Jaffa. They don't have more out there. What your display is showing is all there is." He frowned. Why wouldn't they have more out there? It had been hours. "Do you think they all unloaded from the one al'kesh?"
"If that weapon affected their weapons on the ground, the range could've been wider than the shot that downed the al'kesh nearby. Other ships outside our visual range may have been hit too." She mused, "They may have only come in ships. The Torare's planted the Stargate here themselves, so it's off the grid. We would never know about this world if they hadn't told us. It's possible the Jaffa didn't know the address."
The strategy was still wrong. Because even if they had only arrived in ships..."Shouldn't they have been able to dial out?" he asked. "Communicate somehow? Do you think they have no home planet base to gate to?"
"That's possible, or else..." Carter paled. "Oh, no."
She raced to the panel and plugged her computer into the panel. Some days Jack was tempted to ask her how she was able to connect her Earth laptop to all the alien gadgets, but he was too scared of the technical answer. At this point, he just accepted it worked.
"I was thinking the weapon affected the naquadah, but...I was wrong, sir. It was designed to disrupt crystal technology."
Jack immediately understood those implications. "Crystal tech like what's in the DHD?"
"Yes, sir."
"So is the Stargate permanently busted?" That didn't make any sense. Why would they have the weapon on the world if no one could get off afterwards.
"It-it shouldn't be, sir." Jack didn't like the doubt in her voice. "This still works under the same idea as an electromagnetic pulse. So it should only affect the technology temporarily, with no permanent damage."
"Unless, say the ship crashes."
"Right."
"So what's the time limit?" He was still sensing a "but" in her explanation.
"That's the thing, sir. Any effect from the blast should've dissipated by now."
"Oh." Oh, crap.
Hour Eleven
Just when Jack thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.
The cursing coming from Carter was his first clue. She seemed to have forgotten his presence while tinkering with the legos and poker chips, working on her computer as if it would somehow hold the answer to if and when rescue would come.
Jack had been zeroing in on one of the gaps in the lines, wondering if it was a trap or a sure fire exit. It looked to be around that region where they had scouted that stream and gully...had it only been yesterday? He remembered Daniel lecturing about irrigation channels and Teal'c noting the groundcover. Focused on his own thoughts, he hadn't registered that first clue until her sudden silence. That was the second clue.
"Carter?"
Her expression was one of apology. "Sir, the system's in a power loop and won't shut down."
"Okay...and that means..?" He held up his finger as she looked ready to rattle off in the programming speak she'd been using while working. "Use small words."
She glared an admonishment of frustration, then swallowed. "Remember how I said the regulator was iffy on this device?" At his nod, she continued. "It's designed to shoot at orbital threats, and it's pretty old equipment. Running it at low power long term like this is having an impact. The monitoring equipment for trajectories has been bleeding into the weapons control."
"Remember, Carter, small words."
"I can't control where the power goes. The system's been running a low power pulse all this time. That's probably why we've never heard from reinforcements and why the Jaffa haven't used their weapons. Everything is still shut down."
"So then we'll shut it down. Turn off the monitoring"
"I already tried. But I can't. The regulator chips are too damaged." She held up a few of the green poker chips which looked a bit melted. "Colonel, this device is on overload."
Perhaps that could scoot the Jaffa back further. "So we can re-fire to burn off some of its excess energy, scare off the Jaffa, then turn it off."
"It's too late for that. Maybe if I had noticed it sooner, but I can't control the blast. There's too big a build up."
Okay, bad news. Very bad. He took a look at the gully gap that still displayed on her monitor. "When will this overload happen?"
Carter's response was cut off by an ominous beeping noise coming from the device.
"You said we can't unplug it, right?" Jack wondered how to convert ominous beeps to a timing countdown.
"No, sir, it's a cascade effect. It's going to explode, unless..."
Jack was seeing the legos blink. They'd never done that before. Carter's expression was enough advance notice for him. They were out of time. He pulled Carter away from the device, cable connections from the laptop she clutched trailing behind them.
No time to work on his plan for luring the Jaffa closer. No gauging on whether this pre-dawn light was enough confusion for them to get past the Jaffa line. Time to go.
"Move," he shoved her out the door shooting towards their right where he knew the closest Jaffa still nestled. Still no return fire, and as the Jaffa broke cover on either side, rifle fire was enough to down most of them before they hit the cover of the woods. Only a few more yards to the gully.
Carter was running ahead of him, a Jaffa was stumbling behind. Jack spun and fired, only to hear the resounding click of an empty magazine.
"Down!"
Jack ducked at Carter's shout and heard the percussion of her sidearm. She didn't have time to reload either. The armor piercing bullets did their job though and he spun and followed her again.
Just a few more feet to relative safety now.
The last thing he remembered was knocking Carter into the gully before light rained around him.
Hour Zero
Jack was floating in darkness. It was peaceful. The sun was shining on his face. He could hear a trickling of water, reminding him of the lake floating along the shore.
Then he remembered.
He sat up with a jolt, eyes swimming with different colors. He blinked looking around. Scattered stone and metal debris was around him, fallen trees covering the gully and muddy creek remnants where he lay. Sunlight shone down from a break in the foliage. What he didn't see was... "Carter?"
"Here, sir." came the low groan. It was coming from several feet behind him.
"You all right?" He squinted in her direction to see a mud spattered major blinking back at him.
She nodded. "I think so." She looked around their surroundings. "The outpost was only equipped to withstand external assault. The overload must have completely destroyed it based on how the blast wave knocked down the trees."
Jack looked around again. He found a nice chunk of the ceiling that had caused that opening in the trees and landed thankfully several feet from him. Also several of the legos looking pretty crispy were scattered in the muddy water around him.
He scrambled up the embankment to check out the situation from that sunlit hole, thankful that while his body groaned at the effort, everything was still attached and mobile. Standing on the rubble, he felt in his vest for his binoculars and looked out. Everything still speckled but he could gauge enough to see the devastation. It looked more like a desert what with the burnt grass and fallen trees. He couldn't see Jaffa or for that matter, anything living all the way down the hillside. All was quiet.
Jack gave a low whistle. "Good thing the Torares knew how to pick isolated planets. This place is toast."
He could hear Carter shuffling towards him. He looked down to see her pick up a half melted piece of the equipment.
"There'll be more lego blocks to play with another day."
Carter blinked at him a few moments, her reaction time appearing slower than normal. Jack wasn't sure if it was just him, or if she was injured too. When they got back home, and it would be when, not if, he figured they'd both be spending some quality time with Fraiser. Finally she answered.. "I guess they did look like Legos. I hadn't noticed before."
"You hadn't?" Jack thought the comparison was obvious. "Didn't you play with Legos as a kid?"
"I was more into the K-nix. Legos were too...limiting for me at the time. Then of course, I wandered around the motor pool section of the base and got to play around with some of the junk parts. Had my own kind of full-size Lego set, I guess. Mom got so mad when I'd come home covered with grease. She'd complain that she thought girls were supposed to stay cleaner than boys and how Mark had nowhere near the amount of stains my clothes did." She paused, musing, "Of course, when I was a kid, they were still just a bunch of blocks. Not all these detailed action sets they've got now. Maybe I wouldn't have gotten into all the greasy junk if they'd had that."
"Somehow, Carter, I doubt it." Jack couldn't imagine a Carter in any universe not trying to take things apart to see what made them tick. "I remember those fancy Lego sets. Charlie was really into them. I swear the pieces got smaller and smaller, and painful."
Carter had been frowning in sympathy, the way they all did when he brought up his son, but the expression turned puzzled and she paused open mouthed before finally asking "Painful?"
"All those little pieces scattered on the floor for you to step on. They were little toy land mines, especially when you were walking through the living room in bare feet."
Carter laughed at that point, long than it warranted under the circumstances. He'd told much funnier jokes and barely gotten a grin from her. But it was more than the joke, and he knew it. It was the letting go of adrenalin and exhaustion from the long night. He joined her in the laughter, leaning against the embankment and letting off a low chuckle while he still scanned for signs of Jaffa. The only thing moving were the lights dancing in his vision.
Eventually, Carter joined him on the makeshift boulder. Hell, Daniel and Teal'c could fit on the rock with room to spare, but she had to stand on tip toe to see over the trunk. at the devastation. "The valley should have protected the Stargate. If the signal was not disrupted..."
"...one niner, come in....is SG-One-Three. Repeat, SG-One...."
Carter almost fell off the boulder in surprise. Jack fumbled to keep her balanced as she reached for her radio and delivered the response they both were fine. Before she could even ask about the rest of SG-1, a new voice broke through.
"Sam, thank..." How many years and Daniel still ignored radio protocol? Jack didn't really care because the sound of their teammate's voice was music to his ears. "SG-3, 8...13...and...Torare med...and engin...ing...en route. This...first chance...wormhole lock...hours. Are...okay? Jack?"
Jack answered this time. "We're secure, Daniel. You and Teal'c?"
"We should be at the outpost within the half-hour. We are fine." Teal'c's broadcast came through loud and clear. They'd probably already crested the valley.
"Read you five by five, Teal'c. We're in Daniel's irrigation canal."
Carter looked dubiously at their muddy makeshift foxhole as she sat down on the boulder. She hadn't been around during the area reconnoiter, so didn't know the team history of this locale. Jack knew Teal'c would find them just fine. He merely nodded reassuringly.
Her smile was bright with relief. "I told you they made it, sir."
"I believe I told you that." Jack mock-protested.
She closed her eyes as she rested against the gully wall, still looking more amused than she should. "Of course, sir."