STARGATE UNIVERSE: Air

by James Swallow

  Digital charts of the world, near-Earth space and the solar system adorned the walls, and in the middle of the room there were ranks of desks with operations staff parsing a constant stream of data from ground based sensors, orbital satellites, as well as feeds from the new lunar base facility and even hidden scanner arrays aboard the International Space Station. Other members of O’Neill’s staff monitored information from much further afield, sifting intel from starships like the Apollo and the Odyssey, or from allied extraterrestrial groups like the Free Jaffa and the Tok’ra.

  Sharpe left O’Neill to address a question from a junior officer as the general crossed to his office. A familiar face intercepted him; Master Sergeant Walter Harriman had been a vital part of the Stargate program from the very start, and O’Neill had made damn sure the man came with him when he relocated to Washington. Harriman’s expression was much the same as Sharpe’s; something serious had happened.

  “Sergeant?”

  “A six, sir,” said Harriman, anticipating the question he’d already put to the captain. “Maybe even a seven.”

  O’Neill followed him to one of the wall screens. “Let me guess. Icarus?”

  Harriman nodded. “We received a garbled subspace signal that cut out before we could make sense of it. All the evidence points to heavy localized jamming. All communications in that area have been completely cut off. The SGC can’t reach them either, but we managed to get in contact with the Hammond.” He tapped a few controls on a keypad and the screen switched to a standby mode. “I have Colonel Carter for you, sir.”

  The general turned to the display as Samantha Carter’s face appeared on it. Behind her, O’Neill could see a slice of the Hammond’s bridge, and what appeared to be members of a damage control party working at blown-out consoles. What the hell happened out there? he wondered.

  Carter looked grim, and she wasted no time with preamble and got straight to the point. “General, we barely got away,” she said. “The enemy came out of nowhere with an invasion force, hit us before we could react.”

  “Who did this?” he demanded.

  She frowned. “We think it was the Lucian Alliance.”

  “What about Icarus Base?” He was dreading the answer.

  The colonel’s lips thinned. “We now have visual confirmation. The planet was destroyed. Vaporized.”

  “Good grief,” whispered Sharpe, from behind him.

  “That explains why we haven’t been able to dial in.” O’Neill’s mind was already racing, thinking quickly on every possible outcome, every ripple that could spread out from the center of this terrible incident.

  Carter went on. “We managed to beam aboard most of our people from the surface before jumping to hyperspace. We believe that the enemy forces were also destroyed in the planetary collapse.”

  That meant no prisoners, and no prisoners meant nobody to interrogate as to the reasons why the Lucian Alliance — if they were to blame — had come to Icarus with malicious intent.

  “Any word on how they may have gained intel on our base?” Carter was thinking the same thing.

  O’Neill glanced at Harriman, and the sergeant shook his head. “No. We don’t even know why the attack was launched.” The general’s frown deepened; the last they had heard of the Alliance, that loose gathering of interstellar criminal factions were in the midst of an internal struggle, fighting one another to fill a power vacuum largely created by the actions of SG-1. Maybe they solved their differences and turned on us instead, he thought grimly. He looked up at the screen. “Casualties on our side?”

  “Twelve,” said Carter. “Eighty plus MIA. Icarus’s bunker shielding technology prevented us from beaming out anyone inside. How many got through the gate to Earth?”

  Harriman shook his head again.

  “None.” And there it was; eighty people’s lives, cut down to one word.

  The signal from the Hammond flickered, brief cosmic static washing across the image. “None?” repeated Carter, her brow creasing in confusion. “Our sensors indicated that their Stargate was active for a full six minutes before the planetary core went critical.”

  “Well, they didn’t show up here.” O’Neill saw Harriman turn away and ask urgent questions of one of the desk operators.

  “Then where did they go?”

  “Good question,” said the general. “I’ll let you know when I have an answer.” He paused and offered his old friend a rueful smile. “Glad you’re okay, Colonel.”

  Carter nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Safe trip home,” he told her, and she cut the connection. O’Neill turned and Harriman was already there, holding a tablet screen and talking with Captain Sharpe.

  “No,” Sharpe was saying, “if they’d gated to one of the other SGC sites, we’d have heard about it straight away.”

  “It’s possible they could have opened a wormhole to an allied planet,” offered the sergeant. “A Free Jaffa world, maybe.”

  O’Neill shook his head. “Even if they dialed a random gate address, something from the SGC general database — and there’s no reason I can think of why they would — there’s nothing to have stopped them just re-dialing Earth once they were through.” He paused, considering. “All right. Send flash traffic messages to all our ships, bases and off-world teams, apprise them of the situation with Icarus and warn them about a possible new threat from the Lucian Alliance. Then get me everything we have on those scumbags, ’cos the joint chiefs are gonna want a briefing.” He paused. “And I still want my club sandwich.”

  Another non-com approached with a print-out and offered it to the captain. Sharpe scanned the paper. “Casualty report from Hammond, they sent it on a side channel. Looks like Colonel Telford made it out alive…”

  “Let me see that.” O’Neill took the list and studied it, his eyes dropping to the names beneath the header reading Missing In Action. “Where did you all go?” he asked quietly.

  Across a billion light-years of distance, huddled inside an iron dart racing through the dark, the survivors of the destruction of Icarus Base waited in the shadow of the Stargate.

  Matthew Scott walked around the edge of the group, looking for Lieutenant Johansen, and saw her still attending the injured Colonel Young. As he approached, he caught a snatch of conversation between Armstrong and a woman.

  “Senator,” she said, introducing herself, “I’m Camile Wray. I believe, as the highest ranking member of the International Oversight Advisory here—”

  Armstrong grunted and spoke over her. “Wray… You’re in Human Resources, right?”

  “With the IOA, yes,” she insisted.

  “Don’t worry,” the senator said, dismissing her, “I’m going to get things organized.”

  Scott’s lip curled and he moved away before either of them noticed him. He didn’t want to get into another fight over who was in charge, not right now. Tamara looked up and saw him as he approached.

  “His vital signs seem to be stable,” she said, nodding to Young. “He’s strong.”

  Scott nodded. That was about all any of them could be right now, strong. He turned, looking for Greer and found Armstrong instead.

  Despite a tone of gray across his face, the senator was clear-eyed and not about to be avoided. “Do we have any idea how long the air will last if we don’t get the life support fixed?”

  There was no point in lying to the man. “No, sir. Doctor Rush and the other scientists are working on that right now.”

  Armstrong made a face. “That’s not good enough, Lieutenant. We need answers.”

  “I agree,” said Scott. He glanced around and saw people turning to look at him, drawn by the sound of their conversation. Armstrong was right, they wanted answers, they needed them; otherwise they were just sitting around, waiting to die. And inaction could be more toxic to a group’s morale than any amount of bad news.

  Now he had their attention, he decided he was going to use it. “Okay, listen up. Everyone who is able, we’re going to se
arch this ship from top to bottom…” He trailed off, thinking of the acres of vessel he’d seen from the observation room window. “Or as much as we can, at least. Get yourselves into teams of three.” He glanced at Greer. “Sergeant, how are we set for weapons?” he said quietly.

  “Twenty-three firearms,” said the Marine, “including handguns.”

  Scott nodded back to him. “One per group, get them distributed.” The lieutenant returned his attention to the crowd. “Use flashlights and radios only when necessary. Once those batteries are dead, they are dead. I want regular check-ins with Doctor Rush in the control room from all teams every ten minutes.” He got a series of nods in return and saw men and women getting to their feet, a new sense of purpose in their eyes. “Keep in mind,” he continued, “as far as we know, this bucket is really freakin’ old, and there may be areas of damage where life support is unstable.” Scott turned to go, then hesitated, another thought occurring to him. “Look, just be smart, okay? Don’t touch anything that might be dangerous.”

  An airman at the back of the room raised his hand. “How are we supposed to know what’s dangerous and what isn’t?”

  Scott had to think for a moment to place the man. “Becker, right?”

  “Yes sir,” said the airman. “I work in the mess. I mean, I did.”

  The lieutenant considered it; Becker had a good point. “Don’t touch. Just…look. That’s all.” He stepped away, finding Greer. “Sergeant, you take Corporal Gorman and one of the eggheads with you.”

  “Got it,” said the Marine.

  Scott beckoned to two other figures standing in the shadows; one of them was Riley, the gate technician, and he fought down a jolt of surprise to see that the other was Vanessa James. It seemed like a lifetime ago since they had seen each other. He was pleased she was alive, but suddenly guilty as well. Their previous associations — if you could call them that — were not something he could let cloud the concerns of the moment. “You’re Lieutenant James, right?” he asked, the question as casual as he could make it.

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, with a pointed look.

  “You two are with me,” he added.

  Greer smirked and walked away. “Subtle, man, subtle…” he muttered, just loud enough that Scott could hear him.

  Armstrong was still standing nearby, and the lieutenant looked back at him. The senator was watching everything he said and did, judging his command ability. “If it’s okay with you, sir,” Scott said to him, “it might be best, given your obvious skills, if you could hang back here and keep the rest of these people calm.”

  The other man’s gaze never wavered for a moment. “Don’t patronize me, son.”

  “No, sir,” Scott replied. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sir.” He gathered up his rifle and moved out, following Greer’s team back into the corridors.

  Eli had been so engrossed in the depths of the alien computer system that he hadn’t even noticed that Rush has slipped out; but he saw him now as he came back into the control room, nexus chamber, whatever you wanted to call it. He had a case in his hand, one of those slim-line impact resistant types made out of stainless steel, the sort that bad guys in action movies used to transport wads of cash or top secret bio-weapons. “Did you go back to the gate room?” Eli asked. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing you need to be concerned about,” Rush replied, glancing at the consoles. “Any progress?”

  Park and Brody were clustered around one of the panels, and both of them looked up. Having something to keep their minds off the thinning air was certainly helping. “Well, fortunately for us,” said Park, “the life support system activated automatically when we dialed the ship, probably emergency reserves, but only in these sections.” She gestured at the walls. “And now the reserve is gone.”

  Brody was nodding along with the woman’s explanation. “Life support has been breaking down section by section ever since then. Resetting it doesn’t help.”

  Rush’s expression turned cold. “I asked if there was any progress. Can you tell me something I don’t already know?”

  Park frowned at his tone. “Unless something changes, based on my readings, we only have about six to eight hours of breathable air left.”

  Eli swallowed hard. To hear it put into numbers made it all seem horribly, inescapably real.

  “Anyone got any good news?” Rush’s gaze found him. “Eli?”

  He indicated the console in front of him. “I’ve got some sort of a main menu over here, I think.”

  “Try to find an internal schematic or a map of the decks.”

  Eli rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’ll just go ahead and look up Google Space Ship.” He blew out a breath, feeling a tightness in his stomach. It seemed like a long while since he’d had that steak. “Hey, I don’t suppose there’s any food in that case? I’m starving.”

  Rush’s grip on the case’s handle tightened reflexively. “No,” he said, heading back to the doorway. “Keep working.”

  “Where are you going?” Eli demanded.

  Rush threw a comment over his shoulder as he left. “To see if I can find a bathroom.”

  Eli considered the scientist’s comment for a moment. “Yeah,” he agreed, “that’d be good too.”

  What Nicholas Rush actually wanted was privacy, but there was no telling how long he might have it for. Back in the gate room, he’d heard Scott rallying the escapees with his make-work jobs for them all, and taken the opportunity to pick up the case while people’s attention was elsewhere. Rush had seen the case soon after they arrived on the ship, close to where Young had fallen coming through the gate, but there had been too many people around, too many people to ask questions and get in the way. His heart had leapt when he saw the silver container; he knew that it had been a part of Telford’s expedition inventory, but there was no guarantee it had come through from Icarus, and Rush had been unable to locate it before he had left the base.

  Young had done the job for him; and like the colonel, Rush knew the value of the artifacts inside. All of which made it imperative that he utilize them as soon as possible, before Young woke up.

  Off one of the side corridors, there were a series of small rooms that had clearly been designed as quarters for a humanoid crew. Rush chose one at random and entered, closing the door behind him. Inside, illuminated by sparse subsistence lighting, there was a pallet, a low couch, a table and an alcove leading to another sub-chamber. He sat and placed the case on the table, thumbing the latch codes and flipping open the locks. Inside, recessed on a bed of protective foam, there was a small device resembling a flat glassy plate, and three identical stones no bigger than the palm of his hand. Each of the stones was a smooth-edged, almost oblate shape, and their obsidian surfaces were whorled with intricate carvings of layered detail. Selecting one of the stones, Rush activated the plate-device and laid the stone on it.

  The objects were alien technology, relics crafted by the same minds that had built the ship around him. Fashioned by the Ancients, the so-called ‘communication stones’ were actually one single component of a much larger system. Like the Stargates, they had a reach that was unbound by conventional physics; so theory went, they operated using some form of quantum entanglement, whereby the physical distance between the stones and their base unit was immaterial, even if it was a matter of cosmic scale. The stones had been known to operate over intergalactic distances in the past; Rush hoped that they would do so again.

  The plate chimed and Rush reached for the stone. Moment of truth, he told himself.

  William Lee sipped his coffee and walked quickly down the corridor, shifting the bundle of paperwork under his arm to a more comfortable position. He’d been busy with a different project when the word came down from the tactical room about the attack on the Icarus, and immediately shelved what he was doing to assist in the follow-up. He hadn’t had much involvement in Project Icarus, aside from being in the loop at the high-level proposal end of things, and while he’d seen the merit in the science o
f it, he had to admit that he’d been soured by the attitude of the man they’d brought on to lead the program. Nicholas Rush, the one time Lee had met him, had been brusque and dismissive of his work, even refusing to take a look at the lengthy document on the minutiae of chevron programming Lee had put together in his own time as a pet project.

  But he put all that aside now. Elsewhere in the halls of Homeworld Command, General O’Neill and his staff were working hard to figure out exactly what was going on with the Icarus Base attack, and that meant that every extra helping hand was, well, helpful.

  And anyhow, it wasn’t as if Bill Lee had anything to rush home for. He blinked as he considered that. He’d been down here in the sublevels for quite a while, eating in the commissary, catching some sack-time on a cot in his office… Just when had he seen the sun last?

  He sniffed and waved the question away, wandering into the communications lab. He threw a jaunty nod to the two Marines guarding the door and as always, they didn’t respond. Across the room, where he could be seen by both the guards, a man in the same cut of lab coat as Lee was sitting at a desk, reading The Washington Post. A video camera and a slew of sensor gear was aimed at him, showing normal readouts on a panel of screens.

  “How are you doing, Frank?” said Lee, putting down his burdens.

  “Hey Bill,” said the other man, “just fine.” On the table in front of Frank was a flat metallic plate; the man was idly turning an etched stone in his fingers.

  “Anything?”

  Frank shook his head and put down the stone. “Nah.” He stood up, rolling his newspaper, and the two men signed their names on a time-in/time-out board.

  “See you tomorrow, then,” said Lee, sipping his drink and glancing at the camera. He put the stone back on the plate and activated it. “Initializing communication stone…” he announced for the camera, and touched the whorled artifact. “Stand by for… Nothing to happen.”

  Lee made a sour face and sat down, resigning himself to another shift of sitting in this uncomfortable chair, watching the clock, and being watched by two armed men who would probably have shot him if he made any sudden moves.