by Crane, J. F.
Water punched past the closing gates, sweeping everything before it into the churning flood. Sam thought she glimpsed brown skin and a flash of gold and then the water hit her, bitter cold and hard as an iron fist.
She went under, felt her weapon snatched from her grasp, hit something solid and was carried past it. And then she hit the ground, turning over and over like a pebble in the surf, until she found herself beached. Water raced over her like a river, and then like a stream. And then, with a booming clang, the air sang with startling silence and the deluge began to ebb away.
Coughing, she hauled herself onto her hands and knees in the freezing water. Her wounded arm screamed like the devil, but she ignored it and pushed herself up onto her knees. Her throat was raw from the gallon of seawater she’d swallowed, and no amount of spitting could clear the taste from her mouth. In front of the gates people lay scattered like driftwood on a beach, while outside the wave kept on coming. She could see its dark mass over the wall as it surged all around the Ark.
But the gates had closed, cutting off the full force of the flood. The Ark held. And inside they were safe.
She got to her feet, the fear in her belly colder than the freezing water. If Daniel and Teal’c hadn’t made it inside…
Carefully, she began to pick her way through the stunned people. Close to the wall she spotted a patch of olive drab and stayed focused on that. But there were too many people climbing to their feet, getting in the way and making it impossible to be certain. She didn’t let herself hope until she saw that patch of color move and resolve itself into a shape. Into a man. He turned and—
“Sam?”
Relief hit her with more force than the tsunami and she broke into a run, shoving through the bewildered crowd as fast as she could. “Daniel!” He’d lost his glasses and was squinting at her past a nasty bruise that already was turning his left cheek scarlet. But he was grinning that I-can’t-believe-we-just-did-that grin she knew so well. Sliding to a stop, she gave him a fierce, one armed, hug, then glanced around. “Where’s Teal’c?”
“I am here,” he said from behind her, his own almost-smile as telling as Daniel’s grin. “It is good to see you well, Major Carter.”
“You too.”
“What happened to Jack?” Daniel asked, sweeping his hands through his hair and trying to squeeze out the water.
Sam shook her head. “We split up. He was going after Tynan…”
Suddenly Daniel grabbed her arm. “Look!”
“What?”
He nodded past her, over her shoulder, and she turned. All around the people of the Badlands were slowly rising. But that wasn’t what he meant. Tentatively at first, the citizens of the Ark began to help. A hand here, a word there, but then a woman picked up a crying Badland child and a man offered assistance to a woman who was too injured to walk unaided.
“See that?” Daniel said. “We did that.”
Sam smiled. “Yeah,” she said. “I guess we did.”
“Not alone.” Teal’c pointed at the tall figure of Faelan Garret who walked among his people. Sam recognized the swagger in his stride, not bravado now, but confidence. Here walked a leader. He reminded her of someone else she knew.
“Daniel Jackson,” Faelan said as he drew closer. For a moment he seemed lost for words, and then he raised his hands to encompass everything around them. “I never thought… Well, in my wildest dreams I never thought to be standing here and not be a prisoner.” He offered a slight bow. “We owe you a debt—all of you. You’ve saved my people.”
“Not really,” Daniel said with a shiver. “All we wanted was to get home. You’ll have to take the credit for leading them here yourself.”
Faelan’s eyes narrowed. “Will I now?”
“If you don’t,” Daniel said with a glint in his eye, “I think she will.”
Faelan turned sharply, and then his face was split by a smile of heartfelt relief. “Rhionna.”
She was already stumbling toward him, through the crowd and into his arms. “Thank the Lord,” she whispered against his shoulder. “Thank the Lord you’re safe, grádhán.” Faelan clutched at her, burying his face in her neck, as if she was the only thing that would keep him afloat in the chaos.
Aiming to give them what privacy she could, Sam looked away. As she did, her eyes found another face, and her smile, she feared, probably looked much like Faelan’s. “Colonel.”
He strolled closer, stopping at a judicious distance from her. “Carter.”
From the corner of her eye, she could still see Faelan and Rhionna holding each other tight, oblivious to the world around them. The colonel’s gaze flicked in the same direction, then returned to her. For what seemed like an eternity they said nothing. There was nothing they could say. Finally he gestured toward her arm. “You’re bleeding.”
“Oh.” She glanced down at her bloody sleeve. “Just a scratch.”
He nodded, eyes fixed on her face. “Good job today, Major.”
“Thanks, sir. You too.”
And then Daniel was there, and Teal’c, and for a moment everything was right, everything was just as it should be. But only for a moment.
When Rhionna drew back from Faelan, her face aglow with relief and happiness, Sam knew what she had to do. Excusing herself from her team, she made her way over to the couple and touched Rhionna’s arm. She felt like hers was the hand of death. “You need to come with me.”
Rhionna frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I’m sorry,” Sam said. “It’s your father.”
* * *
It was a small, if selfish, reprieve that Rhionna didn’t ask for the details of her father’s condition. There was no demand for reassurance that his injuries were not severe. Perhaps Sam’s face said enough. At any rate, it was clear that Rhionna knew Ennis was dying.
But when they got to the studio door, Rhionna slowed to a halt.
“I can’t…” Her face was pale, her jaw tight.
“Rhionna, he doesn’t have much longer.” Sam placed her hand on the woman’s elbow, gently urging her towards the door, but Rhionna pulled back, her eyes locked on the closed door.
“You don’t understand, Samantha,” she said in voice that battled with tears. “There were times… He was so zealous, so blind. There were times…”
“Times you hated him.”
Rhionna’s eyes darted towards her, shocked. “Yes,” she whispered. “I hated him.”
Sam smiled, a sad acknowledgement of what felt like a shameful truth. “And yet you love him too.”
Rhionna nodded, her face twisting. “How can that be?”
Sam shrugged, understanding all too well the confusion of those conflicting emotions. “He’s your father,” she said simply.
Rhionna looked back at the door. “He’s dying.”
“Yes.”
The words, said out loud, were enough to take her through the door.
The scene inside was much as Sam had left it, with Sorcha pressing the now sodden dressing onto the mortal wound she’d inflicted. Ennis’s breaths were shallower now, his pallor more ashen, and Sam wondered if he was even still conscious. But his eyes fluttered open, and he saw his daughter.
“Rhionna.”
“Oh God.” The tears spilled over in silent sobs, and she went to her father’s side, taking the dressing from Sorcha’s hands.
The old woman bowed her head. “Rhionna, I –”
“Not now, Sorcha. Leave us.” There was steel in Rhionna voice, a sign that recrimination would come later. Sam couldn’t help but admire her restraint as Sorcha withdrew from the room, her remorse futile and redundant.
“I’ll give you a moment,” said Sam, and turned to leave.
“No, please stay.” Perhaps it was a need for an ally that prompted Rhionna’s request, perhaps the woman sensed that Sam knew what it was to face the death of a parent, but either way it was a plea that Sam couldn’t ignore. After a second of hesitation she closed the door and retreated as far as th
e small room would allow. It wasn’t far enough to keep her from overhearing the final words between father and daughter.
“Did you succeed, child?” Ennis’s voice was a brittle rasp.
“Hush, father. It doesn’t matter.” She brushed limp hair back from his forehead, her thumb leaving a trace of red against his gray skin.
With an effort that showed on his face, Ennis reached up to grasp her wrist. “It does matter. Did you succeed?”
“Yes, we did. We brought them inside, Father. Faelan and I. We succeeded.” Her breath caught, her head dropping to his. “I’m sorry, Father. I’m sorry that I couldn’t be what you wanted.”
Ennis frowned and gave a sluggish blink. “You have…nothing to be sorry for. You did what I could not. What I…what I never tried to do.”
“It’s not what you believed in.”
“A foolish old man, is what I am, child. It’s just as well that my time is passing.”
Rhionna shook her head. “No, no I won’t…” But her words trailed off, as if she’d realized that denial would do no good. She sucked in a breath. “There’s more, Father. We think we’ve found Sciath Dé—we think it’s here, within the Ark. And we can make it work, we can save Ierna.”
“Sciath Dé.” The words rode on a mere wheeze. “Yes, it is here…”
Rhionna sat back, eyes wide. “You knew? You knew it was in the Ark?”
His hand reached for hers again, fumbling and blind. “Forgive me. I was… a coward, Rhionna. I was too afraid to believe that things could change.”
“Where?” The steel in her voice was back, threading through her grief. “Where is it, Father?”
“The library…”
Rhionna closed her eyes. “The Elect knew, didn’t they? All this time, for generations…” Tears fell again, but Sam saw as much anger as loss in them. “They let our world die just to protect their—” She let out a slow breath. With a gentle hand she touched her father’s face. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for telling me now.”
He smiled. “You have always been the brave one, my child. So fierce. Like your mother. You will make a fine Pastor.”
From the look on her face, it wasn’t something she’d considered. “I don’t know how to be Pastor. I don’t want to be Pastor.”
“Then you are more suited to the duty than anyone.” His eyes looked heavier now and his voice was so weak that Sam could barely make out the words. “You will restore pride and honor to our family, Rhionna. I am so sorry that I sought to douse the courage in your heart…”
“No, Father. Please…” Her voice caught on a desperate sob. Ennis Channon was no longer alive to hear her.
Sam bit the inside of her cheek and turned away. It hurt too much to see Rhionna’s raw grief as she wept over her father’s body. It was a scene that dredged up to painful memories, and Rhionna would not be given the reprieve that Sam had been granted; there would be no Tok’ra symbiote to save the life of Ennis Channon.
Sam was just about to leave when the door opened and Faelan entered, his expression solemn. Clearly the death of the man who had persecuted his kind for so long was no victory to Faelan Garret. Catching Sam’s eye, he nodded, a subtle dismissal. I’ve got this, it said, and she was glad to know that Rhionna would find some comfort in her grief. The last thing she saw on leaving the room was Rhionna falling into Faelan’s waiting embrace.
Chapter Twenty-one
A new dawn rose, two days after the storm had abated, and beyond the opalescent dome of the Ark, the sun had returned to bake the world of Ierna. Inside, however, things had started to change. Not just because the population of an almost empty city had doubled, but because minds had opened as wide as the gates of the Ark. And the omnipresent screens had fallen dark and silent.
The atmosphere in the city had acquired an edge, and Jack recognized it as it prickled the hairs on the back of his neck. A charge, an energy that just skirted the edges of danger. Hope and fear mingled in the certain knowledge that change had come and the future was unknown. He’d felt it before, on other worlds and sometimes on his own.
He’d felt it on P3R-118 when the glass ceiling had shattered and the light had blinded the people even as their eyes were opened to the truth.
His gaze wandered over to the men lined up before the open Stargate, their black robes stark in the morning sun. The Elect faced the judgment of another people whose eyes had been opened to the lies they’d been served with their morning coffee and evening entertainment. With the grim-faced stoicism of martyrs the former leaders accepted their exile, and Jack wondered if they truly believed they’d done the Lord’s work. Then again he knew all too well the power of wanting something to be true, the mind’s capacity to deceive itself when truth was hard and the lie so much easier to bear.
He pulled his shades from his pocket and slipped them on, aware of Teal’c hovering at his shoulder and suspicious, as always, of the Jaffa’s uncanny ability to see right through him.
“The punishment is severe,” Teal’c said, watching as Rhionna Channon stepped forward to speak. “But just.”
“I give them fifty-fifty odds,” Jack agreed. “More, if they figure out how to dial another gate address.”
“Indeed,” Teal’c agreed. “Acarsaid Dorch is a harsh environment for men more used to luxury than labor.”
Walking up the stairs that lead to the Stargate, Rhionna looked out across the crowd that had gathered on the manicured lawn outside the Chambers and beneath its cloistered walkways. Most were Badland refugees, but there were Seachráni and citizens of the Ark among them too. Then she looked down to where Faelan stood and, with a gesture, beckoned him to join her on the platform. Jack could see his hesitation, but it was momentary, and he felt a beat of satisfaction as he watched the man step up next to Rhionna. They exchanged a serious look of understanding, no smiles, before Rhionna turned back to the crowd.
“We stand before you,” she said, “not as Seachráni or Elect, but as citizens of Ierna. We are two peoples united where we were once divided by the tragedy that has befallen our world. Together we can reclaim Ierna from the seas, together we can promise our children’s children land as far as the eye can see, planted with grain enough to feed ten thousand mouths!” She glanced at Faelan. “The Ark was built as a place of refuge for all, a temporary shelter while Sciath Dé saved our world from disaster. At last, it will serve its true purpose and all those who share our desire to change our world are welcome here in peace and friendship.”
On cue—Jack figured they’d rehearsed—Faelan spoke. “An Dóchas Deireanach is no more. The Seachráni home has gone forever, claimed by the sea. It was named the place of Last Hope by men and women who witnessed the end of their world and hoped for a better future for their children. We are their children—all of us. We are Ierna’s children and in us that hope has survived. Now we stand here, together, in the Ark—in an Dóchas a Mhaireann.”
There was a murmur of unease at the sound of the forbidden name. Tynan Camus, his robes shifting as he moved, spat on the ground and made some kind of warding gesture across his chest. But Faelan didn’t hesitate, he only raised his voice. Jack smiled.
“We stand together in this, the place of Lasting Hope.” Reaching out he took Rhionna’s hand, lifting it high. “We have a saying among the Seachráni—ni neart go cur le cheile. There is no strength without unity. Together we are stronger, together we will rebuild our world. Together we shall live beneath a kindly sky and raise our children to love, not fear, the sunrise.”
Silence fell. Absolute silence. Then the applause began, far toward the back of the crowd, and it rolled forward in a wave of enthusiasm until it became thunderous. Jack flung a look at Teal’c, who merely raised an eyebrow.
After a minute, Faelan lifted his hands to quell the crowd, and then Rhionna spoke again. “Before us stand the Elect, men whose lies have denied us, for generations, the means to heal our world. I offer them this choice; disavow your faith and join with us to rebuild I
erna, or leave through the Sungate to Acarsaid Dorch and live there amid the lies you have sown.” She looked down at the row of men and women. “Who will join us?”
Tynan Camus stepped forward, signs of strain and fear marking his face, but defiant to the end. Jack could almost admire him for that. But not quite. “Know this,” Tynan said, loud enough to be heard by half the crowd. “The Lord will punish your crimes; you have defied His Will, consorted with the damned and brought them within the Ark. Your sins will be scoured from the land and only the faithful will be spared.” He turned, addressing the silent crowd. “Only damnation awaits you! Though you send us to hell it is you who will Burn beneath the Lord’s wrath, it is you who—”
Something hit him. Tynan cried out, clutching his head as blood spilled through his fingers from a gash above his eye. Then another stone was thrown. Another of the Elect was hit. The Guards didn’t move, seeming nervous and unsure. And Jack saw the whole damn situation about to unravel.
“Teal’c,” he said. “With me.”
In two steps, he was in the thick of it and felt a stone hit his shoulder. “Tanner,” he snapped at the Captain of the Guard, “get your men between the prisoners and the crowd. Faelan—give the damn order already!”
“Open the Sungate!” Faelan barked.
Jack sent a nod to Teal’c who strode over to the DHD as Jack started backing up. “Move!” he ordered the crowd as the gate began to spin. “Clear the area.”
Almost tripping over their robes, the Elect stumbled backward as the last chevron locked and the event horizon surged out amid a whoosh of static and ozone. The awed crowd froze, stones dropping from limp fingers. Even Faelan looked speechless. It was Rhionna who moved first. “The Sungate is open. You have made your choice. Acarsaid Dorch awaits.”
With the mob at their back, and hell before them, the Elect shuffled forward. Some muttered prayers, others curses. Rhionna’s face remained impassive as they filed past her, she didn’t even stir when Tynan Camus spat at her feet—save to put a restraining hand on Faelan’s arm.
