STARGATE SG-1: Transitions

by Sabine C. Bauer

  “Well, that’s that then,” said General Landry, sounding not at all displeased to have achieved his goal without resorting to physical violence, which, in O’Neill’s case at least, might have been necessary. “We’ll think of other ways to help them, but—”

  “As I have told you before,” Amara cut in, “I am able to open the gateway to another galaxy. I wish to go as well. I will be able to help. I need to help. Please.”

  To Teal’c’s mind there was no question about her sincerity. Daniel Jackson appeared to agree. Of course he was always the one who would give a person the benefit of the doubt— even when that person had been forced to kill his wife.

  “How would you do that, Amara,” Daniel Jackson asked. “How can you open a wormhole? We haven’t got a key, remember?”

  “I won’t need it,” she declared, impossibly confident. “This”— she held up her arm, nodded at the bracelet she was wearing— “will suffice.”

  General Landry listed in the direction of O’Neill, who sat across the corner from him at the top end of the table, and whispered, “She’s nuts, right?”

  “Probably not,” O’Neill whispered back.

  Teal’c did not believe so, either. He was exceedingly familiar with the Goa’uld ribbon devices, and what were those but technology scavenged from the Ancients? It merely stood to reason that the original device would be more powerful still.

  “It is… what you might call an amplifier,” Amara explained. “You know that my people’s ultimate goal is Ascension. Those who, like me, have not yet arrived but have progressed far enough to acquire certain abilities, use devices such as this to enhance these abilities. Powers of the mind, mostly. I will show you. Take me to the gateway.”

  O’Neill and General Landry exchanged a look, then General Landry nodded. “Alright. You show us.”

  The briefing was over. SG-1 took a quick detour through the armory, and Teal’c, for one, was glad to feel the familiar weight of a staff weapon in his hand, even if it was not his own. This one had once belonged to a Horus Guard.

  Ready as they could be for what they might encounter in Atlantis, they rejoined General Landry, Amara, and Cassandra Fraiser in the embarkation room. O’Neill addressed the Ancient woman. “Okay. Do your thing.”

  She took a few steps toward the ramp and studied the Stargate for a long moment. Smiled. “This one is so old,” she murmured, almost reverently. “It’ll be easy.”

  Her right wrist, the one clasped by the device, floated up in front of her, the crystal in the bracelet glowing bright green. The fingertips of her left brushed across the gem. Teal’c frowned, puzzled, as the gesture sparked a distant, vague memory.

  But memories and puzzlement were swept aside when the wormhole established. Swiftly, quietly, and utterly different from the process he was so familiar with since early childhood. It was as though the event horizon slid across the empty ring of the Stargate, a sheet of water, silently unfurled. He had witnessed this only twice. The first time when Lya of the Nox had come to take the Tollans with her. The second time when Cassandra Fraiser’s older self had opened the wormhole to send them back to their own time.

  This was the memory.

  That version of Cassandra Fraiser had worn Amara’s bracelet.

  From a speaker above came Sergeant Harriman’s voice, breathless with amazement. “Eight chevrons locked. Computer confirms coordinates for Atlantis.”

  “Sweet,” O’Neill said, and turned to General Landry. “You may want to think about requisitioning five of those bracelets.”

  “You sure you want to do this, Jack?”

  O’Neill shrugged. “You got a better idea?”

  “Not really.”

  “Guess we’re stuck with Plan A, then. You keep an eye on Cassie for us.”

  “No probl—”

  “What do you mean?” Cassandra Fraiser squared up to O’Neill, a look in her eyes that reminded Teal’c of his own son at the height of filial rebellion. O’Neill was unlikely to win this battle. “I’m not staying here,” the young woman announced. “One way or the other, I’m part of this.”

  “No debate from me. It’ll be the other way. You’re staying.”

  Much to Teal’c’s surprise, Cassandra Fraiser backed down. He had never been as successful with Rya’c, but whether it was the implacable look on O’Neill’s face or whether she was mature enough to bow to reason, the tension left the girl’s shoulders and she stepped aside. “Fine,” she said, not without a moue of annoyance. “Go ahead.”

  Colonel Carter wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulled her close for a moment. “It’s better this way, Cass, believe me. It wouldn’t be safe for you.”

  “But it is for you, is it?” the girl snapped. Underneath the angry tone, Teal’c heard something else. Fear.

  Evidently he was not the only one. Colonel Carter turned her so they could face one another. “We will come back,” she said, quietly and intently. “I promise. We will come back.”

  “If you say so,” Cassandra Fraiser muttered, not looking convinced and avoiding her gaze.

  “You bet I do.” The colonel flashed her a quick smile, and glanced up at the control room window. “You’d better send them an ID code, Sergeant,” she called. “Make sure their shield is down.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Moments later, he spoke up again, troubled this time. “Ma’am, sirs, I can’t get confirmation from Atlantis.”

  General Landry spun around. “Why not?”

  “It could be the mainframe problems they’re experiencing, sir.” Colonel Carter was frowning. “They may not be able to reply. Alternatively, they may not be able to lower the shield, which—”

  “Would be a bummer,” completed Daniel Jackson, eying the event horizon with a mixture of apprehension and desire. Of course, he should have traveled to Atlantis days ago. The fact that he had been prevented might have saved his life. “What do you want to do?”

  “The guardian shield at the gateway won’t present a problem,” Amara spoke up and stepped up on the ramp. “Please, trust me.”

  “Do you want me to send a MALP, sir?” Colonel Carter asked softly.

  O’Neill shook his head. “I do trust her. She’s obviously happy to go through. Besides, remember when Lya did this neat trick? The iris didn’t stop her, did it?” He turned around. “Alright, kids. Let’s go!”

  Without realizing it, Teal’c was waiting for a deep voice with the distinct drawl of Texas to say, Godspeed, SG-1!

  Instead, it was General Landry who wished them, “Good luck, people!”

  Shaking off that strange bout of nostalgia, Teal’c followed Amara and his team through the Stargate.

  The fight had gone out of them, Elizabeth Weir realized. Even a few hours ago, there still had been voices that vehemently protested the quarantine, offering more or less absurd alternatives, though since the battle outside the command center doors there had been no further incidents of violence. Then the Wraith attack had started, and it seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  Eyes dull, resigned, people filed into the mess hall, found themselves a spot to settle down on for however long they would be required to stay. Nobody had so much as argued when she’d given the order, despite the fact that a gathering as large as this— or as pathetically small, she thought, doing a private headcount and coming up with fewer than sixty— increased the risk of infection, however slight it might be by now. But there’d been no choice.

  Ronon appeared in the door, signaled that this was it. She sent him a brisk nod and turned to the gathering in the mess hall.

  “As you know,” she said, desperately trying to inject a sense of hope and authority into her tone, “we’ve been experiencing problems with the city’s systems, which is why you’ve been ordered to come here. Your quarters aren’t safe in a sustained attack by the Wraith, and right now we can’t guarantee that the shield will be holding.”

  “We noticed,” a woman to her left muttered. The makeshift bandage o
n her forehead concealed several cuts from the shards of a shattering window. “Just wondering, who’s gonna pay for the water damage? It’s raining.”

  The joke was poor, but it brought a few titters. So maybe the fight hadn’t drained completely yet. Elizabeth fabricated a grin, fished for the woman’s name. An anthropologist, barely two months on the expedition. “I’ll let you know, Dr. Randall. Just as soon as we’ve arranged an appointment with the insurance adjuster.”

  More titters.

  Rather than interrupting, Elizabeth waited them out, then continued. This was the difficult part. “Security personnel will distribute weapons.” She raised a hand to fend off the inevitable complaints. “I know. I don’t like them either, but if the Wraith manage to breach the city, they will not be receptive to negotiations. I also know that most of you haven’t had weapons training, so listen to the instructions Ronon will give you. He’ll stay here with you”— she didn’t have to see the Satedan’s face to realize what he thought of this task— “and I trust you will obey his orders. Having said all that, you have my word that we’re doing all we can to make sure it won’t come to that.”

  Which at this stage didn’t mean a hell of a lot, and they all knew it. But they quietly nodded their assent as if they believed her.

  “Make yourselves—”

  Elizabeth’s words were drowned out by the deafening rumble of an explosion, and she could have sworn she felt the floor sway under her feet. Dust was raining from the ceiling and coiling from the floor, and then the shouts and screams began to crawl out from under the echoes of the impact.

  “Dr. Weir? You okay?” hollered a voice from among the dust clouds only to submerge in a hacking cough.

  “I’m fine, Ronon! See to the others!” Fighting the maddening tickle in her throat, she activated her radio. “Sergeant Khan! Damage report!”

  “Direct hit, ma’am!”

  Oh, really?

  It took all of Elizabeth’s self-control not to tell him that she’d arrived at that conclusion by herself. “What about the shield?”

  “It’s back up. For now. Major Laval wants to get Daedalus off the ground ASAP.”

  Elizabeth probably had heard one or two less surprising things in her life. She just couldn’t recall when. “What’s Dr. McKay’s progress?”

  “As far as I can make out in between the various complaints, he’s almost there.”

  “Then tell Major Laval to sit tight until Rodney’s finished. We’ll try to give him as much cover as we can for takeoff.”

  “Uh, that might be a problem, ma’am. So far Dr. Beckett’s got one drone in the air and ditched it in the ocean almost immediately, because he was afraid to hit the wrong target.”

  She closed her eyes, fighting the puerile urge to kick a piece of furniture. Or scream. Or something.

  “There’s something else, ma’am, and you really should come up here.”

  “What?”

  “Just before that hit…” The radio cut out for a moment, came back. “… wormhole established.”

  “What? Never mind, Sergeant. I’m on my way.”

  Despite the obstacle course of debris and minimal lighting, Elizabeth traveled through the corridors in record time. For once there was not a soul who could waylay her with questions or reports or simply the need for advice.

  Ahead, a broad strip of light streaked across the floor like a beacon. Somebody had decided that fast access was preferable to security measures and wedged the command center doors open. She headed past the glass cubicle that was her office, and out onto the gallery that overlooked the gate.

  Sergeant Khan was hovering by the dialing console, and she blinked down at the miracle. Torn wiring coiled from maintenance hatches and ceiling vents to spit sparks over bits of debris. In between it all, people were trying to patch up burn-blackened equipment. And somehow amid that mayhem Khan had managed to open a wormhole. It had to have taken a hand crank. But if the destination was even the least bit hospitable, they could evacuate. Elizabeth fought down a shudder of relief.

  “How did you do this and where is it going?” she asked Khan.

  “Not at all and it’s coming,” was the somewhat terse reply.

  It was like a slap in the face. Damn it to hell, couldn’t they catch any break at all? The last thing they needed were visitors, and if their current streak of luck held, it probably was the Genii, too. “Who?”

  “No idea. So far nothing’s come through.” He shrugged. “Just as well, I suppose, because I can’t raise the gate shield.”

  Which explained the pair of SFs who stood on the rubble-strewn floor below, aiming their guns at the gate.

  “Well, not exactly nothing,” Khan corrected. “There was what I’m thinking could have been a transmission burst, maybe an IDC, but with the whole system down, there’s no way of making sure.”

  “So we wait.”

  “We wait,” he confirmed. “If nothing else happens, it’ll shut down on its—”

  Something else did happen.

  The woman who came stumbling from the event horizon was a stranger, middle-aged, delicate, the Air Force BDU she was wearing at least two sizes too large for her. The second figure coming through, however, was very much familiar.

  “Hold your fire!” General Jack O’Neill bellowed at the SFs who looked thunderstruck and then scrabbled to attention.

  Hot upon the general’s heels arrived Colonel Carter, Dr. Jackson, and Teal’c.

  Elizabeth ran down the stairs, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “What in God’s name are you doing here? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t send you straight back!”

  “Glad to see you, too. Though you could have tidied up a little,” General O’Neill said, taking in the chaos in the command center. “Anyway, I’m here to stop Beckett from doing something he’ll undoubtedly regret. That’s one good reason. Carter’s here to see that McKay doesn’t do anything he’ll undoubtedly regret. We also happen to carry antibodies to your bug. That’s two, three, and four. Daniel and Teal’c, no antibodies as far as we know, but they’re generally handy around the house. Oh, and that’s Amara”— he pointed at the stranger— “she’ll refuse to go back. She’ll also be able to help with that nasty little epidemic of yours. That’s five and six. Any questions?”

  “Actually, yeah,” said Dr. Jackson, frowning. “Why’s the wormhole still open?”

  The answer arrived in the shape of a dark-haired young woman, and behind her the wormhole finally disengaged.

  “Cassie!” Colonel Carter shouted, somewhere between disbelief and plain panic.

  General O’Neill wheeled around.

  Elizabeth had known him for a number of years. She’d seen him with his head full of the contents of an Ancient library, she’d seen him cut Vice President Kinsey off at the knees, she’d seen him play the fool. But she’d never seen him go pale with shock. Nor had she ever seen that kind of gut-wrenching fear in his eyes.

  “Oh, for cryin’ out loud,” he whispered. “Cassie, I—”

  “Dr. Weir!”

  Elizabeth turned to find Radek Zelenka standing at the top of the stairs, shoulders slack, face and hair and clothes caked with dust. He looked as if he’d escaped from a ghost train. “I’m sorry, Dr. Weir,” he said. “The mainframe has locked me out altogether. There’s nothing more I can do. I’ll go and—” The assembly in front of the gate finally registered, and Radek gave a grim little smile. “Colonel Carter. I guess you just missed it…”

  “We’ll see about that, Dr. Zelenka. Maybe—”

  A new impact thundered through the city; thankfully this one was further off, must have struck one of the outlying towers. Peeling out from under the rumble came the unmistakable whine of Wraith Darts.

  “Crap!” muttered General O’Neill.

  Elizabeth couldn’t have said it better, and diplomacy be damned.

  “Alright, kids. Time to wrap up the meet and greet,” the general snapped and slid a quick glance at her. “Apologies for
wading in, Dr. Weir. Carter, head out to the Daedalus— preferably without getting scooped up by one of those Darts— and help McKay do whatever it is he’s doing. Though, before you do that, swing by the infirmary and leave a pint of blood. Teal’c, you’re with her, ditto on the Darts, and tell Laval to hand you one of those F302s. See if you can clean up a bit among the Wraith.”

  “Indeed.”

  “Daniel, take Amara and”— a withering stare at the girl— “Cassie and go with Carter. Make them stay in the infirmary. And by the way, Cass, we’ll discuss this later.

  “Dr. Weir, you’ve got ground defense organized?”

  “What’s left of it, yes.” She sighed. “Ronon’s in charge. He’s got a handful of SFs who weren’t infected, and the rest consists of sixty-odd civilians who were quarantined.”

  He growled something unintelligible and probably unprintable under his breath. “In that case I’d suggest you show me the quickest way to the chair room.”

  “This way, General.” For the first time in days Elizabeth felt like smiling a genuine smile. Maybe, just maybe, they’d finally caught their break.

  Chapter 32

  There wasn’t a piece of furniture in the known universe that Dr. Carson Beckett loathed more than this rainbow recliner— and that included the famously lumpy guest bed in his grandmother’s cottage in Ayrshire.

  So what, if he could light up all those nice colored panels?

  So what, if only a handful of people even got that far with the wretched thing?

  They could have it, lights and all, plus the kudos that came with saving the day!

  Fact was, he’d have given his right arm, if even one of them were here to step forward and take his place.

  You can wish until you’re blue in the face, Carson. And while you’re wishing, people are getting killed.

  Problem was, his trying to use the chair might turn out to be precisely what got people killed…