The Cost of Honor

by Stargate

  "Daniel!" Her mind narrowed inward, excluding everything but the motion of her hands as she stripped the last wire, made the last insanely dangerous connection. This would work. Or it would blow them to hell, but who cared? They were almost there anyway. Reed already is. Burning in hell.

  Blood was drying on her hands. Must have come from her nose, she could feel it clogged and crusting on her face. Power cackled through the circuits, making them fizz. The whole rig was as reliable as a leaky boat. But it was all they had, all she could manage before their time ran out. How many months now? Five? Six? "Daniel..." The voice sounded alien. Was it hers? "Get out. This could blow."

  He didn't move.

  "Daniel!" When she looked up, she saw him patiently watching her, as intransigent as the ancient stones he loved so much. His solidarity found a crack in her anger; he wouldn't leave her. There was nowhere to go anyway, but that wasn't the point. He wouldn't leave her.

  She didn't deserve his faith, but it was too late to argue. Another violent shudder ripped through the ship. And it didn't stop.

  "Carter!" It was the Colonel. She could hear him running back to check her progress. They were out of time. "Carter!"

  She clenched her teeth and hit the switch.

  Metal screeched, sparks flew, the damn ship was tearing itself apart. "Carter!" Jack half-ran and half-staggered back to the engine room. Life was measured in moments, death reaching eagerly for them all with crushing, skeletal hands. Damn it... "Carter!"

  And then the rattling stopped. The impact of the sudden stillness threw him against the wall, cracking his head against the hard metal. "Carter?" A strobe light was flashing dully down the corridor, something was sparking and there was a pungent scent of ozone in the air. Fire? He'd taken two steps when Daniel came barreling around the corner.

  "Jack!" They all but collided.

  "Whoa! Slow down, Skippy."

  "We gotta go!" Daniel panted, dancing around Jack and racing back to the cockpit. "Teal'c!" He yelled. "We've got thirty seconds to get outta here!"

  Teal'c didn't need to be told twice. The ship accelerated so sharply Jack lost his footing and smashed against the bulkhead a second time, seeing stars all over again. The metaphorical ones. Stifling a curse, he pulled himself out the door and headed down to investigate the smoke. Smoke was never good.

  What he found was Frankenstein's lab. Carter sat amid electrical spaghetti - sparks flying, smoke billowing - and poked and prodded like an insane pasta chef What the hell was she thinking? "Carter! Get the hell outta there!"

  She ignored him, focusing entirely on the device scattered all around her. Something to her right exploded with a sharp bang, shooting sparks and smoke high into the air. The ship lurched but kept going, and Carter began pulling at whatever the hell had blown up, tugging out hot wires with bare fingers and twisting them back together. "Carter!"

  I do not believe she will permit herself to fail - whatever the cost.

  Picking his way through the tangle of cables, trying not to tread on anything vital, Jack grabbed her arm. "Let's go."

  "No!" She pulled free of his grasp. "I can't."

  "Carter-"

  "It has to work," she growled, fiddling with something else that was spitting and snarling at her. "Otherwise we're all dead."

  Something else went up with a bang, clogging the air with a bloom of harsh, acrid smoke. Coughing, Carter tried to carry on. But the smoke was thick and suffocating - Jack could feel it burning his lungs. Light-headed, with blood thundering in his ears, his vision started to gray out. Carter shook her head, heavy and lethargic. Drowning.

  Grabbing her arm hard enough to brook no argument, Jack wrenched her out of the knotted mess, staggering against the bulkhead and ignoring her protests. "Sir!" she tried to go back, slipping out of his grip and lurching away. But he was too fast, snatching hold with both hands and slamming her hard against the wall of the corridor. The air was clearer here, and he sucked in a wheezing breath. His throat was raw.

  "Stop!" he rasped. "Getting yourself killed in there won't solve a damn thing."

  She glared at him. "I-"

  "Enough." He shoved her ahead of him down the corridor. "You've done enough. We've just gotta-"

  The tel'takjerked to a halt. Engines screamed, rattled and then the ship shot forward with enough force to send them both crashing to the ground. Jack's knee exploded in new pain, and beneath him he heard the breath shoot from Carter's lungs as his weight landed on her back. He hoped she hadn't cracked a rib...

  The lights went out. Pitch black. The only sounds in the darkness were the wheeze of Carter's breathing and the fizz of dying electrics. He let his head come to rest on the cold floor and waited for the end.

  Game over kids. Game over.

  "Close the iris!" Hammond barked. "Defense team to the gateroom!"

  The Kinahhi were milling uncertainly around their equipment, casting nervous glances up at Athtar. He was doing a good job of masking his concern, but Hammond could see it nonetheless. What was he afraid of?

  A defense team raced into the gate-room, taking up positions, hampered by the hovering Kinahhi. Grabbing the mic, Hammond barked, "Major Lee, clear the gate-room!"

  But the Kinahhi were resistant, reluctant to leave their equipment.

  "Councilor," Hammond snapped. "Get your people out of there. We have no idea who - or what - is trying to come through the gate!"

  Athtar frowned. "Our equipment is most-"

  "Sir!" Harriman's voice was incredulous. "Receiving an IDC."

  Mentally, Hammond skimmed through all the teams off-world. SG-13, SG-3, SG-9...

  "It's SG-1, sir."

  His heart leaped. Not meaning to question his sergeant's word, he leaned over to confirm it for himself. "I'll be damned..." After five months! "Open the-"

  "Wait!" The voice was Crawford's, sharp as razor wire. "Don't do it."

  Hammond turned, white-faced with rage. "How dare you-"

  "How do you know it's them?" Crawford countered. "They've been gone five months. It could be anyone. It could be the Goa'uld."

  Curse him for being right. Furious, Hammond spun back to the gate. He felt time ticking by in seconds that lasted an eternity. Make the decision, George.

  At his side, Athtar slipped away; Hammond was dimly aware of him leaving the control room, like a fading shadow.

  Make the decision. Open the iris, and open the planet to attack? Or open the door and bring home SG-1? Keep it shut and protect the planet? Or scatter SG-1 like ashes in the cosmic void?

  Make the decision.

  It had been five months. Five months! And O'Neill had lied to him, he'd set Crawford up to take the fall and used Hammond to spring the trap. He'd lied. And it had been five months...

  "Sir?" It was Harriman, pressing for an answer.

  He made his decision.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  aniel hauled himself toward the cockpit, barely keeping his feet under him as the ship rolled and rattled so loud his ears hurt. Blazing agony in his shoulder told him it had dislocated again, and he clutched his arm to his chest.

  "Teal'c!" His friend's scalp was beaded with sweat, his jaw clamped as he clung resolutely to the ship's controls. "What's happening?"

  Through the window, Daniel saw light. Gray, thin light. Where the hell were they? Back on '451?

  "We have emerged from hyperspace above P3X-500," Teal'c said, with disturbing calmness. Somehow, he made himself heard. "But the engines have stalled. We are in an uncontrolled descent."

  The ship bucked, and Daniel grabbed for the back of Teal'c's chair to keep himself upright. He cursed silently, shards of fire shooting from his dislocated shoulder deep into his chest. "What about the black hole?" he yelled, throat tearing with the effort of making himself heard. Outside, the gray light was ripping apart like tattered fabric. Daniel caught glimpses of the world below, dry and desolate.

  "Major Carter's device allowed me to jump to light speed," Teal'c said, grunting as he w
restled with the controls. "In retrospect, it may not have been wise." His left hand shot out and touched something. Faintly, beneath the ship's death-rattle, Daniel heard the whine of struggling engines. It reminded him of his car.

  Below them, the rocky landscape grew relentlessly closer. Mountains gave way to a vast plain. The ship was shaking so hard Daniel could barely see straight, but he thought he could make out the remains of causeways and streets. Some kind of civilization long dead-

  "Daniel!" Jack lurched from the back of the cargo hold, Sam in tow. "What the hell's going on?"

  "Ah... we're crashing."

  "Into what?"

  "We have escaped the black hole, O'Neill!" Teal'c reported. "But the engines have stalled and I am unable to restart them."

  "I'm on it." Sam disappeared back the way they'd come.

  Jack cursed, hesitated and went after her. "Carter!"

  "Dr. Jackson?" It was Boyd.

  "Hang on!" Daniel yelled. "We can't die now, not when we're so close!"

  Again he heard the straining engines struggling to work, but the ground kept racing toward them. The sky was opalescent, the alien world desiccated. No life. No trees. Coming closer. Inexorably closer.

  "Holy Mary, Mother of God...." Boyd was white-knuckling the back of McLeod's seat. "Pray for us sinners..."

  Daniel envied Boyd his faith in the divine; his own rested solely in his friends. "Teal'c?"

  "...now, and at the time of our death..."

  Blood welled from the gunshot wound in Teal'c's arm, his face gray and his teeth bared in a grimace. Again, the engines whined. Nothing. The Jaffa howled defiance in the teeth of death and-

  The engines roared to life.

  Teal'c's fingers flashed across the controls, calm and unhesitating. Engines shrieked in protest, wind tore against the windows as the nose of the ship lifted. But they were going too fast, way too fast... A savage roar ripped from Teal'c's throat as he wrenched the ship out of its suicidal dive. Teeth rattling in his head, Daniel watched as the silver blade of the horizon crept up the window. Higher and higher, the ground tilting away beneath them as slowly, inch by inch, the ship leveled.

  Teal'c was gasping, shoulders heaving as he gradually eased back on the controls. "Daniel Jackson..." His voice sounded faint. "I believe.. .we have achieved..." He slumped to one side, eyes rolling back.

  "Teal'c!" Daniel pressed his fingers against Teal'c's neck. "Pulse is strong. I think he just passed out."

  "Daniel?" Jack appeared in the cockpit, a nasty contusion on his forehead and one hand gripping Sam's arm - holding her upright, by the looks of it. "What happened?"

  "He did it," Daniel said, eyes fixed on the wan face of his friend. "He pulled us out of the dive."

  Jack cast Carter a pointed look. "Hell of a team, huh?" She just shook her head and Jack frowned, turning back to Teal'c. "He gonna be okay?"

  Daniel nodded toward the world that now drifted below them. "Yeah, once we get home. We can land near the Stargate."

  Boyd pulled out his medikit and handed Daniel a sterile gauze pad. His hand was shaking, Daniel noticed. "There's a gate down there?"

  Taking the dressing with a nod of thanks, Daniel began applying pressure as best he could to Teal'c's bleeding arm. "All part of the plan."

  "Believe it or not, Major, we did have one," Jack snorted quietly.

  "I believe it, sir."

  Daniel attempted a reassuring smile. "Almost home now, Major."

  Boyd nodded with the guilty relief of all survivors. "Only been gone a day," he said. "I promised Lucy I'd be home for her birthday. She must be almost nine by now."

  There wasn't much Daniel could say to that. Boyd's was an unprecedented loss; years snatched away from him in a matter of hours. A five-year jail sentence served in a day. How the hell could he come to terms with that? "If we could have gotten here sooner," Daniel began. But Boyd cut him off with a shake of his head.

  "You came," he said. "That's what counts. I knew General Hammond wouldn't leave us behind, however long it took to get us home. We weren't forgotten."

  Daniel smiled his response, not sure how to answer. The truth was they hadn't been forgotten, but they had been left behind. There was a plaque on the USAF Memorial Wall in memory of them, and if Jack hadn't bulldozed his way through the niceties of Kinahhi diplomacy then that plaque would have been all that remained.

  Into the poignant silence, Sam spoke. "Major?" she said quietly. "I'm so sorry about Lieutenant Reed."

  Boyd shrugged, grieving but under control. "Not your fault,

  "If the device hadn't failed-"

  "Hey." Jack interrupted them both. "Enough of the guilt-fest. Truth is, none of us should've gotten outta this alive. The fact that any of us are still here is...well, miraculous."

  Daniel cut him a sideways glance. "Miraculous, Jack?"

  "It's an expression. Isn't it?"

  Oblivious to the exchange, Sam bit her lip and scowled at the floor. She looked haggard beneath her bloody nose and sallow skin; Daniel doubted he looked much better.

  "Colonel O'Neill is correct." The soft voice belonged to Teal'c, his eyes still closed and face waxy. "The odds of success were slim. We have achieved the impossible, Major Carter."

  Boyd smiled slightly. "Major, huh?"

  Sam didn't respond, just shook her head and headed back into the cargo hold. Jack watched her leave for a moment, his expression unreadable, then turned back to Teal'c. "You okay, buddy?"

  "I am not," came the frank reply. "However, I will recover."

  "That's the spirit." Jack dismissed the gloom with a brisk clap of his hands. "So," he said brightly, "who knows how to land this thing?"

  In the end, out of stubborn Jaffa pride, Teal'c himself brought the tel'tak in for a smooth landing fifty meters from the Stargate. The planet's sun was warm, its air dry and reeking of sulfur. Jack had no idea why the people of this world had left, but the stench was as good an explanation as any.

  "Let's hurry it up," he called to his team as they hobbled from the ship. "Or I'm gonna pass out here!" Carter was silent, and didn't respond to his lame humor. Teal'c looked like a stiff breeze would knock him flat on his back, but he was too damn proud to admit it. And Daniel... Unbelievably, even with his shoulder obviously dislocated again, Daniel was picking his way through the ruins of whatever city this had once been, brow furrowed with interest. Exasperated, Jack raised his hands to his mouth and yelled. "Daniel!"

  His friend turned, mouth opening as if to say something fascinating, and then abruptly reconsidered. With a nod, Jack beck oned him over. Reluctantly, Daniel came, talking the whole way. "You know, I think this could have been a Celtic society, because some of the-"

  "Look," Jack said, waving toward Carter and Teal'c, then Boyd and his traumatized team crowded around the DHD.

  Daniel blinked. "What?"

  "We're alive."

  A curious, unsure smile touched Daniel's lips. "Yes. Yes, we are.

  Jack glanced down at the arm his friend was cradling against his chest. "You want me to-"

  "No." He cleared his throat, squinting out into the distance. "I...ah, think I'll wait for Dr. Fraiser."

  Jack grinned suddenly, hit by a hundred fond memories of this man. Of this amazing team. But the moment turned sour as he watched Boyd dial home. He didn't know for sure what awaited him at the SGC, but he'd crossed a lot of lines this time. Too many, perhaps. He looked away, down at his scuffed boots. Wispy flurries of sand were blowing over them, and Jack suddenly wondered if this would be the last alien dirt he'd have to wash from his feet. Was this dead world the last he'd ever visit?

  "Jack?" Daniel's quiet voice touched him. "What's going on?"

  "Nothing." Denial. It worked for so many things, so many people.

  But not Daniel. "Don't do that."

  Jack looked up. He could see the wormhole flare out, as wild and dangerous as always. More so this time, perhaps. "Out of the frying pan, Daniel."

  "What does that mean?
"

  "You don't know what that means?"

  "I know what it means!" Daniel paused, exasperated. "I just don't know what you mean."

  Jack said nothing, pulling out his sunglasses and slipping them over his eyes. He saw Carter and Teal'c moving slowly toward the open gate, and headed out to overtake. He should be first to face the music. "Come on," he said to Daniel. "Let's go."

  Muttering in frustration, his friend followed. "You know," Daniel said as they approached the stone steps leading up to the gate, "I hope our IDC is still valid after all this time."

  It was a good point. Jack paused and straightened his shoulders. "I guess we'll know soon enough."

  "Or not," Daniel said with a wince.

  There were worse ways to go than being squashed like a bug against the trinium plating of the iris. Jack knew that for a fact. "Last one home buys dinner."

  If Daniel answered, his words were lost as Jack stepped into the icy clutches of the wormhole and rode the ferocious roller coaster all the way home. Perhaps for the last time.

  "Keep the damn iris closed!" Crawford barked, pushing up into the control room with all the zeal of an angry Chihuahua. "You're making a huge mistake!"

  "Maybe I am," Hammond snapped back. "But this is still my command, Ambassador. And it's my mistake to make." He turned to Harriman. "Open the iris."

  "No. Don't! You can't-"

  "Do it!" Hammond barked, grabbing the mic. "Defense team, stay sharp."

  Ten P90s lifted and pointed at the gate as the iris peeled back and the blue shimmer of the Stargate bathed the room. Hammond folded his arms across his chest and waited, his stomach twisting with the mounting tension. For five months he'd been waiting, but these final moments lasted forever.

  "Traveler in transit," Harriman reported.

  Hammond's jaw tightened, but he didn't reply.

  "You could be exposing the base to any number of risks!" Crawford hissed in outrage. "You have no idea what..."

  His words faded from Hammond's mind as the General focused everything on the rippling surface of the event horizon. It stirred, a minute indication of activity, and then with an explosion of conflicted emotions Hammond watched as Colonel Jack O'Neill stepped out and onto the ramp. From behind his sunglasses, O'Neill glanced around at the airmen without surprise, hands lifting half-heartedly from his weapon as he strode forward. But when his gaze alighted on the Kinahhi, Hammond saw it pause for a long moment before Jack turned and found Hammond, up in the control room. Deliberately, O'Neill pulled off his sunglasses.