They worked in companionable silence for a while as Sam finished organizing what they had.
The colonel found one piece that was a bit damaged: an elongated crystal embedded in what looked like a brass ball. “This looks like something Colonel Mustard used to kill someone with in the parlor.”
“Wait a second.” Sam rummaged through the pile of intact items and found what she had seen at the beginning of the process: a brass box that had a circular indentation that was the same size as the ball at the end of the crystal.
Holding out her hand, Sam asked, “May I?”
“Don’t let me stop you,” O’Neill said as he handed the crystal over. “The crystal with the ball — or, dare I say it, crystal ball — is all yours.”
Sam sighed. There was no way she was going to be able to think of this as anything other than a ‘crystal ball’ now.
Sure enough, the brass ball fit perfectly into the indentation in the box, and as soon as she placed the former into the latter, the crystal glowed and a holographic display appeared next to it.
While Sam didn’t have any kind of fluency in Goa’uld, written or spoken — that was Daniel’s bailiwick — she did know the number system they used, since that was critical to understanding their technology.
And what she saw now were lots of Goa’uld numbers, as part of formulae.
“Please tell me this makes something like sense, Major,” O’Neill said plaintively.
“Yes, sir. It looks like Kali was wrong about there not being a backup. If I’m reading these numbers right, then these equations apply to the fabric of space. It looks like her scientists were trying to find a way to bring the Reetou completely into phase with normal space.”
“And that’s good, right?”
Sam smiled. “Yes, sir. I think they were trying to find a way to make it permanent, so the Reetou would always be visible and tangible.” She peered at the formulae at the bottom, and then her face fell. “Unfortunately, from the look of things, it requires a warping of space that would cause a cataclysmic explosion. I’ll need to look into it some more.”
“Knock yourself out, Carter.”
“Yes, sir.” Sam hesitated. “Sir, what if this does work?”
The colonel frowned. “Whaddaya mean?”
Sam took a deep breath and then exhaled. “If I make this work and make the Reetou permanently in phase with us, the Goa’uld can use it to wipe them all out. And you know they won’t just target the rebels — they’ll be indiscriminate. For that matter, what if by some miracle Kali does keep her word and lets us take this tech back with us? If the NID gets their hands on it…”
“One thing at a time, Major. Get it to work, first.”
Sam nodded. “If I can, sir. I just don’t like the idea of doing it for the Goa’uld — or the NID, for that matter.”
“Forget about the NID. We took care of Maybourne and we took care of Simmons.”
“Yes, sir.” Sam wasn’t as sanguine, though it was the colonel himself who had exposed both Maybourne’s covert Stargate operation and Simmons keeping a Goa’uld prisoner. The former was a fugitive and the latter was in prison, both charged with treason. Still, Maybourne’s ousting had just led to Simmons rising to power, and with the NID, the crap seemed to always rise to the top.
A few hours passed, and she managed to figure out how far Kali’s scientists had gotten before the Reetou hit them. She had the equipment to build another phase-shifter — the one they’d constructed was so much slag after the attack — but it would take time.
Before she could start, however, a Jaffa came in with a tray. “Here is your meal.” He dropped the tray on a table and took his leave.
O’Neill called after him. “Keep up that attitude, it’ll come out of your tip!” He went to the tray and popped what looked like some kind of purple vegetable into his mouth. “Well, this is awful. Crappy food and crappy service. Definitely not coming to this restaurant again.”
They still sat down to eat. The colonel had been correct, the food was horrible, but they had to eat something. She managed to choke it down. The tray also had a pitcher of what turned out to be some kind of fruit juice that managed to be too sweet and with a bitter aftertaste all at the same time.
After swallowing the last bite of the purple vegetable, O’Neill said, “This really sticks in my craw.”
Sam smiled. “I’m guessing you don’t mean the food, sir?”
“I mean working for the snakeheads. I don’t buy this I’ll-let-you-go-when-it’s-done act for a second.”
Sam sighed. “Neither do I. But we don’t have a choice. Besides, this is some really interesting technology Kali is letting me look at here.”
The colonel waggled a finger at her. “Watch it, Major — don’t get sucked in.”
“Oh, I won’t, sir. I learned that lesson a long time ago.”
“What do you mean?”
Smiling, Sam asked, “Remember that time I hustled those guys at pool?”
“Those would be the guys we beat the crap out of at O’Malleys?” O’Neill asked with a grin.
“Right.”
“I thought that your pool mastery was from the Tok’ra’s hinky bracelets.”
Grinning, Sam said, “No, that was all me.” Then the grin fell away and she covered her hesitation, and the reawakening of awful memories, by taking another bite of food. “After my mother died, my father and I — we didn’t talk much. Neither did my brother and I.”
Unbidden, the memories all came back — the day her father told her that Mom had died. The day everything changed between them.
She went on. “So I spent a lot of time on my own. I taught myself how to play pool — it was fun, like geometry.”
“For the record? Your definition of ‘fun’ differs from mine.”
Were he not her commanding officer, Sam might have pointed out that the colonel’s ideas of fun didn’t intersect all that much with hers, either, but he was, so she just said, “Yes, sir. Anyhow, pool tables tend to be in places that — well, they don’t have the nicest people around. It would’ve been really easy to fall in with a bad crowd. And I did hang out with some of them for a while. That’s where I first learned about motorcycles.”
O’Neill was grinning.
“Sir?”
“Always wondered where the bike love came from. Also, I’m trying to imagine you as a biker chick. Image isn’t really taking. So what happened?”
“Nothing, really.” Sam shrugged. “I mean, I was tempted by that life, but I realized that it was a bad path and I needed to stay away from it. And then I enrolled in the Academy.”
“Set you on the straight and narrow, did it?”
Sam looked away. “Well, eventually. Let’s just say there’s a reason why I wanted to mentor Lieutenant Hailey.”
The colonel nodded. Jennifer Hailey had been a troubled cadet whom Sam had all but rescued from being expelled from the Academy. She’d graduated with honors and had been, at the recommendations of both Sam and O’Neill, fast-tracked to the SGC.
“That first year, I still had some resentment toward Dad. Mostly because I was a legacy, and half the people who taught me knew Dad and kept comparing me to him — the same way all of Hailey’s professors compared her to me. But by second year, I’d settled down, especially with everything I was learning there.” She didn’t tell the colonel the other part — that she got into a couple of fights that first year, too. They were never reported, thankfully, as they might have gotten her expelled. Of course, that was mainly because she won all of them, and the boys she fought were too embarrassed to say they got their asses kicked by a girl. But that stopped by her second year.
Out loud, she continued: “One of the reasons why I got so interested in math was because numbers actually made sense. Mom dying, Dad and Mark fighting — I couldn’t explain any of that, but I could explain numbers. I could understand them. But then at the Academy we started learning about astrophysics and the Uncertainty Principle and Schroed
inger’s Cat and the double-slit experiment — it was amazing. Math was just as crazy and complicated and variable as real life.”
O’Neill frowned. “And that made things better?”
“I guess?” Sam shook her head. “It helped that I was in a more structured atmosphere, and that I was older, and that I’d finally started to forgive Dad.”
O’Neill swallowed the last of the food they had on their plates. “Well, much as I’d love to hear more about wacky teenaged Carter, you’d best get back to that crazy and complicated and variable math so we can get the hell out of here.”
Sam smiled and drank the last of her fruit juice. “Yes, sir.”
As they rose from the table where they’d been eating, the Jaffa who’d brought their food returned with two other Jaffa who were carrying a pallet bearing something wrapped in a sheet. They set it down and one of the Jaffa unholstered a T.E.R.
The first Jaffa silently cleared the table of the remains of their lunch, and then nodded for one of the others to remove the sheet, revealing a Reetou corpse.
O’Neill looked up at the first Jaffa. “Dessert?”
“The Mother Goddess thought you would desire a test subject.”
Sam nodded. “Useful.”
The third Jaffa lowered the T.E.R. and handed it barrel-first to the colonel. “You will need this.”
To prove the Jaffa’s point, Sam could no longer see the Reetou.
“Be advised,” the first Jaffa said, “that the weapon’s function has been neutralized.”
“Really?” O’Neill took the T.E.R., pointed it at the Jaffa and pressed the activator.
Nothing happened.
The Jaffa smiled. “Did you truly think we would simply hand you a weapon?”
The colonel shrugged. “Worth a shot. Or a lack of one, as the case may be.”
“Even if the weapon had been active, you would have been struck down by my fellow Jaffa the moment you fired.”
O’Neill smiled. “Still worth a shot.”
The Jaffa snorted, muttered words in Goa’uld that Sam was pretty sure translated to something along the lines of, ‘Humans are morons,’ and then the three of them left.
Sam looked at the seemingly empty table. Obligingly, O’Neill activated the T.E.R., making the Reetou corpse visible.
“Now,” O’Neill said, “it’s a party.”
Raising her eyebrows and blowing out a breath, Sam said, “Yeah. I better get to work on scanning it.”
CHAPTER NINE
A Tok’ra tel’tak in hyperspace
MEMORIES swam into the mind’s eye of Master Bra’tac as he slowly awakened from kelnorim.
The meditation itself was a state of blissful nothingness. Jaffa who achieved kelnorim emptied their minds, thus cleansing their spirits and renewing their bodies. It enabled warriors to face their next trials fresh.
However, the intermediate state, both when one first went into the trance and particularly when one came out of it, was fraught with memory and distraction.
The memories came and went like quicksilver, flitting to the fore of his conscious mind and then receding just as fast.
…the day his father told him that the Goa’uld were false gods and that one day the Jaffa who threw off the shackles of servitude would find their way to the paradise of Kheb.
…the day he met Mowren.
…the day Apophis named him First Prime, which was a proud day — not because he was serving a god, for he knew better, but because he was in a better position to aid those oppressed by Apophis’s madness.
…the day he took on Moac as an apprentice, thinking him to be a strong warrior and a noble soul.
…the day he met young Teal’c on Chulak, the boy filled with thoughts of vengeance against Cronus for the death of his father.
…the day Apophis made Teal’c his new First Prime following Bra’tac’s own retirement from that position.
…the day Mowren died.
All those memories and more assaulted Bra’tac in an instant, and then he was awake.
Blinking, he took in his surroundings. The Tok’ra had allowed Bra’tac to use the cargo compartment for kelnorim, saying he himself could, as he put it, “sack out up front.”
Bra’tac had only brought a few candles with him, which was probably why the memories were so much more intense than usual. The smell of the melting wax and the burning wicks always helped calm his mind.
Based on how far down his salvak candle had burned, he had been in kelnorim for three hours. Based on how readily he rose to his feet, it was more than enough time to refresh him. A quick check of his face with his fingers revealed that his prim’ta had healed all his wounds suffered at the hands of the Reetou.
After blowing out the candles and storing them in his satchel, Bra’tac went to the forward compartment.
Jacob Carter turned and smiled at Bra’tac as he entered. “Good, you’re awake. We should arrive at Imphal in two hours.”
Bra’tac frowned. “I was only in kelnorim for three hours.” It was not a question — his salvak had never been wrong before.
“Yeah,” Jacob Carter said with a small smile. “I’ve been flooring it — running the engines at a hundred twenty-five percent.” The smile fell. “That’s my daughter on Imphal.”
Bra’tac nodded and took the co-pilot’s seat. “You will not have the opportunity to rest.”
Jacob Carter shrugged. “I may catch a quick nap now that you’re up, but I’ll be fine. I slept on the trip to Anzarra.” He glanced over at Bra’tac. “Good dreams?”
“Jaffa do not dream as humans do. Sleep is unnecessary and kelnorim is a deep, dreamless state.” Bra’tac hesitated. “Although we do often see memories upon awakening.”
“Good ones?”
“A few.” Bra’tac allowed himself a small smile of his own. “I was reminded of Mowren. It has been some time since I last thought of her.”
“Old girlfriend?”
“Not as you would define it.” Bra’tac shook his head. “I was very young — I had only just finished my training and was on my first campaign in the service of Apophis. We had been sent to defend a naquadah mine against Cronus. The world had originally belonged to Cronus until the naquadah ran out, at which point he loosened his hold on it sufficiently that Apophis was able to take it from him. When Apophis discovered a fresh vein of the mineral, he created a mine — and sent his Jaffa to defend it in case Cronus decided to take the world back.”
“And did he?” Jacob Carter asked.
Bra’tac nodded slowly. “On the evening of our arrival, I went off duty and reported to the inn where we were to be fed. There was a woman serving the food that day. She was magnificent — skin the color of dark wood and a smile radiant as the sun.” Bra’tac shook his head ruefully. “I fell in love with her instantly.”
“So did you talk to her?”
Shaking his head, Bra’tac said, “Not for many days — except to express my gratitude for the food she served, of course. Finally, on the fifth day, I asked her what her name was. ‘I am Mowren,’ she said, ‘and you are Bra’tac of Chulak.’ I was surprised that she knew my name, for I was but a lowly Jaffa among many whom she served, and told her as much. She said to me, ‘Of all the Jaffa, you are the only one who thanks me. So I asked who you were, and your First Prime told me.’”
Jacob Carter grinned. “A match made in heaven.”
Bra’tac’s own face fell. “Sadly not, though her words made me love her even more. I resolved to court her, for all Jaffa are encouraged to have families so that more worshippers — and more potential Jaffa — may be born. But the next day was when Cronus attacked. His Jaffa came through the chappa’ai, his gliders strafed the surface, and his ha’tak fought in orbit against ours.
“Our forces won the day, driving Cronus from the world and maintaining Apophis’s hold on the mine. But the inn was one of the places targeted by the gliders. When the battle was done, the First Prime — knowing of my feelings and of Mowren’s
— released me to dig through the rubble of the inn for survivors. It was there that I found her broken body, the light of her smile dimmed forever.”
Jacob Carter said nothing, simply giving him a look of sympathy.
“In truth, that was the day I realized that Apophis was at the very least a capricious god. For the first time, I questioned him. I had fought well and defeated his enemy. I was loyal to him. Why, then, did he permit Mowren to die when we had only just found each other?” Bra’tac shook his head. “I have lived for over a century since that day, Tok’ra, and never have I loved another as I loved her.”
“That why you never started that family you said they encouraged?”
“Indeed.” Bra’tac smiled then. “Unless one counts the Jaffa I have apprenticed. They became my children — and I am proud of many of them, especially Teal’c.” He shook his head. “It has been years since I told anyone that story. I never even spoke of it to Teal’c.”
“Yeah, well, kids don’t always get it. They always figure they’re smarter than us.” He snorted. “’Course in my case, she really is smarter than me.”
“Major Carter’s strength and intellect are renowned. You should be proud.”
“I guess. I wish I could take more credit for it. You’re lucky, you got to mold Teal’c, train him. With Sam, it all pretty much happened on its own.”
Bra’tac stared, confused, at the Tok’ra. “Did Major Carter not also enter the same unit as you?”
“Well, yeah, she joined the Air Force like I did, but it was more despite me than because of me. Honestly, we barely even spoke to each other after her mother died. Not that I blame her. The accident was my fault.”
Frowning, Bra’tac asked, “Did you cause the accident?”
“Not exactly.” Jacob Carter squirmed a bit in the pilot seat. “I was supposed to pick her up, but something happened at the base that distracted me. She called from a pay phone wondering where I was, and she said she’d just call a cab when I told her I was still on base. The cab got T-boned by a truck on the way to our house.”
“Might that still have occurred had you been the one to convey her?”
STARGATE SG-1: Kali's Wrath (SG1-28) Page 8
