Air raid sirens bellowed nearby. Sam blinked and squinted against the muck in her eyes when a couple of trees exploded in the direction of the turtle pond and something shot out between the remaining foliage and straight up into the sky.
Oh.
Maybe the jumper getting her out of there would come later rather than sooner, given that the General couldn't cloak and shield simultaneously. She turned to Cancer Man with a malicious smile. “You're screwed.”
His face twisted. “Are those Russian fighters?”
Sam snorted and shook her head. Despite the adrenaline she still had a whole mess of drugs running through her system, otherwise she wouldn't be enjoying herself nearly this much. “You want the truth? Fine.” She turned to address the others, a mixture of dark suits and uniforms, which told her a whole lot more about members of the military being secretly involved with the NID. “What you are seeing, gentlemen, is a squadron of 'gate -capable death gliders which, I assume, means that the front entrance of the Met has just undergone a massive refurbishment, and the Egyptian sun god—or god wannabe, more precisely—Ra, is invading Earth.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Jack finished eating the breakfast bar from the MRE, pushed the packaging to one side, and, sipping his coffee, looked up into the star-filled desert sky. It was kind of sparse compared to the view from planets closer to the galactic core. The moon, a few days past full, hung low in the sky, its face pockmarked from passing debris and not, as was commonly the case on other moons, bombardment from Ha'taks controlled by squabbling Goa'uld.
Funny how that altered viewpoint never struck him as odd anymore.
In the distance a coyote let out a long, plaintiff howl. A reply echoed a moment later. Along with the chirrup of night insects, the sounds offered him a reassurance that despite the circumstances of their being here, there was a sense of peace in the world, something that he hadn't felt in...too long.
The sense of urgency to get Carter out of the NID's clutches hadn't left him, but they'd been down this particular road before. From what he'd heard through Carter's radio, the Army was under the assumption they'd been attacked by a bunch of Russian spies trying to retrieve an experimental plane and some weird biological weapon. That suited Jack just fine. They'd be mightily pissed off, and the red phone to the Kremlin was probably running hot right now, but it was a situation over which the military would feel it had control, and the incident with the control tower notwithstanding, Carter's being there confirmed that the entire alien thing was bogus.
Despite Jack's knee-jerk reaction to hearing the weapon fire, Daniel was right. The last thing the NID would be doing was shooting the one person who could provide answers to the sort of technology that had made An vanish in a beam of light.
A string of expletives put an end to his thoughts, and simultaneously silenced the crickets. Jack looked around to see Daniel limping in his direction, his glasses glinting in the moonlight.
“How's the leg?”
“Same as your ribs, I'm guessing.”
“Coffee?” Jack reached for the pot. He'd built the fire earlier in the evening partly because it was chilly at night up in the Guadalupe Mountains, but mostly because he'd been tense and bored and campfire coffee always tasted better than when the stuff was brewed over a stove.
Daniel nodded and muttered another curse as he sat down on the other side of the fire. “An's finally managed to install the transport into the jumper, but only after he had to fix more damage than a few bumpy landings would account for. That's not the problem, though. He's just found out why there's been a power supply problem with his escape pod.”
“Don't tell me. Loki's been a busy little Asgard.” Pickling was too good for that little SOB. He poured a cup and handed it Daniel.
“Thanks. Looks like he did-exactly the same thing to it as he did to the systems in the jumper. On the plus side, there's enough power to locate Sam via her transponder. Just not enough to beam her aboard.” He paused just long enough to take a sip before adding, “Well, that's not entirely true. An thinks if we get close enough he could beam part of her aboard.”
Thinking he'd misheard, Jack said, “Part? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“He recommended her head, which would of course allow him to transfer her consciousness to a clone. I explained that we don't have a spare clone of Sam lying around anyplace, so that option is off the table.”
Jack shoved the dying embers around, digesting that news. They'd just wasted a night when they could have used the confusion on the base to break in and get Carter out of there.
“And the time machine is beyond hope,” Daniel added, seemingly as an afterthought. “Loki made absolutely certain of that.”
“And the good news?” Jack looked up.
“Did I mention there was good news?” Daniel balanced the cup on the rocky ground, pulled off his glasses and began polishing the lenses with a handkerchief, something he only ever did when he couldn't see his way through a problem.
“There's always a Plan B, Daniel.” Jack emptied the remainder of the pot onto the fire, watching it sizzle and steam as it hit the embers. As much as the entire situation pissed him off, they still had a few aces up their sleeve, and Carter would be playing every one of them.
“On the upside, the Asgard transport will allow us to pinpoint her exact location.”
It was in Daniel's tone, but he wasn't going to come right out with it, so Jack did. “She's not dead, Daniel. You said it yourself, the NID wouldn't have shot her.”
When he didn't reply, Jack decided to let it slide. Until they'd recovered Sam, Mitchell and Vala, Daniel was going to keep blaming himself for everything that had gone wrong and there wasn't a damned thing that he could say or do to change that.
“If it's any consolation, An wanted you to know that the reason why the transport locked on to his signal and transported him into the pod instead of Sam, is a failsafe. An's physically smaller. Chances were that if you'd managed to beam Sam aboard, not all of her would have made it.”
“Okay.” Jack used the rock to ease himself to his feet, then kicked grit on to the remains of the fire.
Something moving through the night sky caught his eye. Daniel must have noticed the direction of his gaze as well, because he turned and looked up at the cluster of meteorites. It was a common enough site on any clear night, especially when you were parked in the desert miles from the nearest city lights, but then Jack remembered the date, and couldn't help but smile. “July 8.”
Daniel glanced at him. “So?”
“The July Pegasids.”
He was silent for a moment, and then, “You should go see Atlantis sometime.”
“I was about to make that very suggestion. We find Carter, get her out, and then go to plan B.”
The sound of footsteps drew his attention back to the jumper. Teal'c emerged and came across to join them.
“We ready to go?” Jack asked with a last glance at the dead fire. All things considered they weren't in bad shape.
Teal'c inclined his head in the affirmative.
Daniel downed the last of his coffee as they walked to the jumper. “What are we gonna do about the escape pod?”
An had parked the thing just inside the entrance to an old mineshaft. Jack stood on the hatch of the jumper, lifted his zat and fired at the clump of loose rocks over the entrance. The rickety timbers collapsed and he closed the hatch before the jumper filled with a wave of dust that rolled out of the mine. “If it's still here in sixty years, we can come back for it with a U-haul.”
An was seated in the copilot's chair, examining the readout on Carter's laptop and muttering to himself. Slipping into the pilot's seat, Jack noticed that the stars had already winked out and the eastern horizon was streaked with pale yellow. He swallowed back a yawn and powered up the jumper. “Have I got enough juice to cloak?” he asked An.
“Only if you dispense with shields.”
“Weapons?”
&nb
sp; An blinked at him, which was the first really Asgardy thing he'd done since Jack had beamed him out of the NFD's clutches.
“Just checking.” Under Jack's hands, the jumper came to life. He still couldn't quite get used to the idea that the machine read his mind, but flying it was, literally, like taking a walk in the park. “Okay, we stay cloaked all the way in, and then put this down on the roof of whatever building she's in.”
“Then what?” Daniel asked.
Jack tapped his shoulders. “Two stars, Daniel.”
“You think the NID will just hand her over? Besides, what if one of those MPs recognizes us.”
“That's what the zats are for.”
Within minutes, he had the Roswell Army Air Field in sight. “You picking up Carter's signal, yet?”
The lack of response from the Asgard wasn't the least bit reassuring. Neither was the squadron of what Jack was almost certain were P-51 Mustangs headed straight for them, because the jumper was supposed to be cloaked.
Actually, that didn't bother him as much as—
“O'Neill.”
“I see 'em, Teal'c.”
“See what...? Oh, oh,” said Daniel.
Three of the P-51s exploded in rapid succession as a pair of Stargate capable death gliders fired on them.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“The doctors say pneumonia has set in and they do not expect him to live much longer. He's asking for you.” Even in the darkness, Vala could see the hesitation in Howard Carter's stance, as if he had not fully comprehended the secretary's words. The vastness of the Egyptian desert night seemed to dwarf even the pyramids, and the whole eerie place filled Vala with reminders of her past she could have well done without. Still, it wouldn't be much longer now, she hoped, and Earth of the past, with its erroneous timeline, its low technology and its wretched fashions—what sane woman dressed like this in the desert on any other world?—would be well behind them.
“There...there must be some mistake,” the archeologist said, shaking his head. “He wasn't that ill...”
“Sir, Lord Carnarvon is dying,” the man assured him. “And he wishes to see you.”
Carter seemed torn between duty to a man he had come to love as a brother, and the curiosity that had driven him to follow Vala and Cam to the Giza plateau this night to witness something remarkable. His uncomprehending gaze turned to Vala.
Sensing his hesitation, she felt a wave of panic. Oh no you don't! You 're not going to bail on us now. Grasping his arm and pulling him close, she said, “Promise me, Howard. You'll wait until we're through before you go.”
“But if Lord Carnarvon is really dying...”
“Then you're not likely to be able to save him,” she pointed out a little more heartlessly than she meant to. She smiled, and added in a low voice, “You must replace the capstone exactly as we found it, and rebury the 'gate face down the moment we've gone. If you don't, Ra will return and this planet will endure a horror far greater than anything you could possibly Imagine.” She glanced over her shoulder at Cam, but couldn't read his expression in the torchlight. “This is more important than one man dying, Howard. This is your chance to save the whole human race.”
One of the many theories that she and Cam had discussed was that upon reaching Brown University and rectifying their mistake, they would cease to exist because the timeline would have been restored. So her warning to Howard that he must rebury the 'gate might be rather pointless, except...
Based on his knowledge of SG-l's files, and several conversations with Samantha Carter, Cam was concerned that this newly budded timeline might continue to exist as a parallel world. In all good conscience they couldn't risk leaving the front door wide open for Ra.
Once they returned to 1908 and discreetly rectified the ovent that changed everything, they couldn't afford to stay in 1908, of course, otherwise they would alter history again. And they could not go forward to 2006 because, as had happened when SG-1 team members from parallel worlds had inadvertently been directed to Earth, their dual existence in that world would eventually lead to all manner of nasty problems for her and Cam. The solution appeared quite simple. She and Cam would travel forward in time several hundred years.
Sadly, all of that meant that she would never see Daniel Jackson again. But then she and Cam had accepted that fate long ago, and things had worked themselves out between them in a way that had surprised them both. And in truth, she was rather looking forward to getting back out there in the big, wide universe. Fourteen years in one place had been excruciatingly trying.
Blinking in the light from the torch fires, his message delivered, Lord Carnarvon's new secretary—his previous secrotary had died within days of opening of Tutankhamen's tomb—looked around the dig suspiciously.
“Isn't this area under Dr. Langford's concession?”
Cam stepped up beside the secretary and clapped him on the shoulder. “You should head back to Cairo, son. If Carnarvon's dying, he'll need your help.” The faint shimmer of light silhouetting the pyramids was the only clue to their proximity to the city.
“But... I don't understand any of this. What are you doing here? You don't have a permit to be digging this area.”
“We have a special permit.”
“What special permit?” the young man demanded.
“The green kind,” Cam explained. He pulled a wad of notes from his pocket, mostly American dollars, and shoved them in the breast pocket of the secretary's crumpled linen suit. He might as well be rid of them, Vala thought. They weren't going be worth anything where they were headed.
“There. That should cover any inconvenience.” Cam let go of the secretary and stepped up to the rim of the pit where the Stargate had been buried, to join Vala and Howard Carter who were watching the workers check the rack of pulley blocks. The familiar ring, currently attached to the blocks by dozens of ropes, lifted reluctantly away from its capstone.
Oblivious to the profound nature of the event he was about to witness, the secretary glared up at Cam, highly offended. “Do you actually think you can bribe me into ignoring what's going on here?” he called after him.
Cam glanced back over his shoulder as he came to stand beside Vala and Carter. “Sure I do.”
“Some people aren't so easily bought, you know!”
“Then more fool you. After tonight, every one of these diggers, the guards and drivers will be able to retire.” Turning to Howard, he added, “So should you, by the way.”
“I'm afraid I don't understand, either,” Carter said with a puzzled expression.
“We left an envelope for you back at the hotel, with information that's also in the hands of our lawyers,” Vala told him. “I hate to break it to you, my dear, but apparently Lord Carnarvon didn't bequeath you much. All goes to the family estate, you know.”
“What did you say?” The secretary must have heard that last part. He scrambled up the earthworks behind them, a horrified expression on his face. “How could you possibly know any-thing of Lord Carnarvon's affairs?”
“Cam, dear, do we really have time for this?”
“Not really.”
She smiled brightly. “We could push him in front of the event horizon when the wormhole opens.”
“Don't tempt me.” Cam grinned back at her. He was trying to be cool about it, but all these years stranded in this timeline had been driving him crazy. The thought that they were only minutes away from gating out of here and putting things to rights had him bursting with anticipation.
Having discussed the logistics of this at great length, they had opted to raise the Stargate from the capstone, and then case it backward onto the ground rather than waste time trying to keep it supported upright. For one thing, it would have taken days to stabilize the 'gate so that it didn't tip over during the dialing sequence. Just as importantly, if by chance some Goa'uld took it into its scaly hermaphroditic head to check the Tau'ri 'gate before she and Cam managed to leave, it'd be in for a nasty surprise. Nothing quite as sq
uishy as the fate of the Jaffa they'd seen embedded in the capstone, of course, but travel through the wormhole was a one-way proposition, and falling back into the event horizon would prove equally deadly.
The only downside to that was the hand DHD wouldn't operate while the 'gate was in a horizontal position—a safety feature, no doubt—however the bezel could be rotated manually.
For a brief moment, the Stargate stood fully upright. Through the silent gray ring you could see the stars. Of all the people here tonight, perhaps only Cam and herself, Vala realized, understood that through this ring you could travel to them, too.
Stargate - SG-1 - 09 - Roswell Page 25
