A couple of senators and congressmen kept looking around for the cameras so that there was proof of their working with the poor aliens of the doomed planet. Much to Jack’s surprise one of the senators, Brame from Mississippi, actually dug in and worked as hard as the rest of the troops. Paul reminded Jack that Brame was ex-army who worked his way up the ranks to major during Viet Nam. Jack didn’t care what the man thought about three people being married as long as he did the job assigned.
Only the kids got time off for food every few hours and a couple hours of sleep. For two, maybe three days, they’d survive. Most of the kids were legal age; only Katie, Matthew, Vinnie, and a couple others belonging to SG personnel, were underage. No one was really counting the non-Tau’ri children. While Jack was reviewing the evacuation plans, Katie was taking a two-hour power nap in a corner behind him. Matthew and Vinnie staggered in and fell into a Sua pile across the room. Colonel Reynolds came in shortly after and stuck his head into a bucket of water. SG-1 had taken the boys under their wing.
“Found an old woman caught under rubble,” Reynolds said after coming up for air. He used his shirt to wipe his face. “Vinnie’s still thin and small; he squeezed into the space and helped her out. I will never doubt the bravery or strength of a little gay boy again.”
Jack was exhausted, but he managed to crank one side of his mouth up. “All the kids deserve commendations,” he said quietly, looking at the sleeping boys. “We’ve had three fall under the pressure of real life; I’d say that’s not bad considering we have over sixty with us. How’s the field look?”
“Most of the immediate disaster zones are cleared,” Kevin said. He came to the board and marked off the zones. “The Sua are doing a final sweep with those noses of theirs. If you or Kendrick could finalize the area, that would be great. It’s going to take about a month before the planet is completely uninhabitable, so I recommend that the extended troops can be sent home tomorrow. We can take a little more time with the rest of the population. God, Jack; I wish we had had the time to clear out Korea like this.”
“I know,” Jack agreed, looking out across the deserted city. People had escaped through the gate with nothing more than the clothes on their backs and maybe a few treasured items from their homes. Their gate had been standing unused for centuries, their legends having told that it was from ancient times, from evil demons that had enslaved their ancestors. To say they had been surprised by it coming to life and seeing strange people running in and encouraging them to return through the stone hole would be an understatement. Soon after, more strangers showed up, appearing from nowhere and ships appearing in the skies. Strangers who wanted nothing more than to help them escape the death of the planet. “There were several hundred thousand people on the continent that the asteroid took out, though. Better than eleven million.”
“How’s the queen?” Reynolds asked after a moment.
“Walking through the infirmaries, I think,” Jack said, looking up toward the Argos in a low orbit. “Inanna’s taking care of her. I know the lady’s upset, but we needed to get things moving and I wasn’t about to beg for her permission every time I gave an order.”
“She’s in shock,” Daniel muttered, stumbling out of a sleeping pile and hunting for a loaf of the local bread. The bread was heavy, having been baked with dried fruits in the dough. “Men don’t give orders in this society. She’ll need to get over it.”
Jack and Reynolds both raised eyebrows. “Pretty radical, Dr. Jackson,” Jack said. Daniel lifted a shoulder.
“I’m too tired to be correct,” he said, biting into the bread.
The local government turned out to be extremely matriarchal. The ruling council was caught between accepting assistance from male strangers who seemed to know what to do in such an emergency, and arguing about taking orders from men. There weren’t many matriarchal societies, but they had run into a few on prior missions. Jack called in Inanna to deal with the women who wanted to argue, while everyone else who wanted to help was welcomed and formed into teams. Jack was a little annoyed by all the politics going on when the planet was dying.
The queen’s youngest daughter, Lisianna, was also annoyed. She was more level-headed and knew when to accept assistance from someone no matter what their gender. Lisianna quickly grasped who was doing what and who was who, and presented herself to Jack. Jack found a young lady who wasn’t afraid of work. He sent her off with Sam.
“Any leftovers from Ra?” Daniel asked.
“A few odds and ends in various museums,” Reynolds said. “They’ve been sent up to Prometheus’ hold. I didn’t notice anything spectacular, though.”
Colonel Jeffries came into the compound carrying a child who was sniffling and clinging to his neck.
“This little one was hiding under her bed,” he told them. “Could we get someone to take her upstairs and checked out? See if her parents can be found?”
Reynolds immediately called to the Argos. Children separated from parents had turned out to be a problem. In all the hustle and bustle, children were lost, hands dropped, and fear sending them into hiding.
“Cheers, mate,” Jeffries said, turning the child over to Reynolds. The Brit chucked the child under the chin, promised her she’d be taken care of, and took a loaf of bread with him as he went back out. Jack gently touched her cheek. Unknown to her, the scrapes on her face and arms began to heal.
There was an intake of breath behind him. Reynolds gave him a look and took the child away to find her family. Jack sent out a quick feeler.
“Rabbi, how’re you doing?” he asked without turning around. He touched the wire in his ear. “O’Neill. Well, do the best you can, Captain. We can’t force them to leave. People have survived worst. I can’t think of any people off the top of my head, but I’m sure it’s been done. You might try explaining the concepts of ‘nuclear winter’ and ‘extinction level event.’ Out.”
“Daniel, if you’ve caught a second wind, see if you can convince a settlement on the far northern continent that they really need to leave.”
“Are you sure?” Daniel asked quietly in Ancient.
“Yes, I am,” Jack responded. “I’ll be fine.”
The sky was noticeably darker after the couple of days that they were there. Water was showing signs of poison; mostly sulfur. Herders had rounded up their cattle and pulled them through the gate despite warnings from the scientists that the cattle might not be able to eat the grasses and grains on the other side.
“Do you walk on water, too?” Rabbi Aviram asked, stepping slowly to Jack’s side. Jack thought about it.
“Hey, old man,” he called out toward the pile of sleepers. “Can I walk on water?”
Enki lifted his head from somewhere in the pile. “You could try,” he suggested. “Shara’s our best swimmer; I’ll make sure he’s on hand to rescue you. The mouth-to-mouth part might interest him enough to volunteer.”
“No, I can’t walk on water,” Jack told the rabbi. He held out a hand toward Aviram’s arm and the long gash that was hastily bandaged. Aviram hesitated and then gave him a nod. Jack touched him for a moment.
“Did you get your shots?” he asked. Aviram nodded.
“Yes, before we got here,” he said. He removed the bandage and looked at his arm. The edges of the gash were visibly knitting. He murmured something in Hebrew.
“That’s about all I can do, rav, really,” Jack said.
“I have heard soldiers saying that you can read the thoughts of everyone all at once,” Aviram said. “You can hear the entire world.”
Jack shook his head. “The guys are as superstitious as anyone else. I can sense someone’s presence, if they’re close by, like you are, and I can sense their emotions. I don’t read minds. Haven’t you ever sensed someone near by?”
Aviram thought about it. “I guess I have, yes.”
“Well, I’ve practiced a bit at it, that’s all.”
“And the healing? Has God so blessed you?”
Jac
k glanced at him. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “It’s a recent thing. Lots of people are doing things, you know that.”
The rabbi looked closely at him and slowly nodded. “Yes, I believe I am beginning to understand why you do not believe in God. You see His secrets unraveling before your very eyes. But, Jack, think about this, would you? The universe, life, is logical. Does that not suggest to you a conscious effort behind the writing of the laws? No, we won’t argue about it here. Please… Think about it? For me?”
After the rabbi left, Jack shook his head and continued with the scheduling. He notified several teams to send their civilians home; the worst of the evacuations were over. He thought it would take longer, but fifty plus ships and a stargate made a big difference. Jack arched his back, stretching until joints popped.
“You keep healing people like that, it’ll become public,” Ninurta warned him in Ancient, taking note of the people scurrying about the headquarters. He had extracted himself from the pile of sleepers and took a small loaf of the fruit bread.
“I know,” Jack acknowledged. “I’m not so worried about that as I am about what happens if Earth finds out that Enki and the Ancients are the Creator that they’ve been looking for.”
“Yes, that’s a tricky one, isn’t it?” Ninurta agreed unhelpfully. “It doesn’t negate what the rabbi says, though, does it? A conscious effort did go into the writing of the laws. Why don’t you just tell them that you’re agnostic? It isn’t quite a lie.”
Jack thought about it. “And it would get them to leave me alone,” he thought out loud. “For a while, at least.”
The locals may not have been able to understand the Ancient and Jaffa languages being frequently used, but they stopped questioning male-rule when word began to circulate that Jack was a healer. Jack’s wife was seen as a strong leader, and Sam being in the field to help in leading troops comforted them. Most of the locals went to Sam for direction, which took a lot of responsibility off Jack; he could concentrate on the background of the evacuation.
Movement caught his eye and he turned to see Katie waking up. She was watching him from exhausted eyes.
“Did you understand any of that?” he asked.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Can I ask you something personal?”
“Sure, honey.”
“Are you having an affair with Ninurta?”
Surprised, Jack turned to look at her again. “No, honey, of course not. What makes you think that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just… the energy, I guess.”
He handed her a bottle of water and a piece of fruit. “Sometimes when two people work closely together in life and death situations, they rely on each other so much that it feels like sexual energy, when it isn’t. That’s all.” The line in Jack’s ear pinged and he touched it.
“O’Neill. Well, beam him out! Oh, fer…… alright. Take me to him.”
Moments later, Jack was stalking his way through a group of villagers. SG-1 was standing defensively as Daniel waited for the guards to get tired of pointing arrows at him.
“Daniel, what are you doing?” Jack asked, coming to a halt next to Reynolds.
Sam beamed in along with SG-3. The women muttered about ‘magic’.
“Jack, just chill, will you?” Daniel asked. “I’m fine.”
“Daniel, you have …1, 2, 3….. nine women pointing arrows at you. In what way is this “fine”?”
“I’m negotiating,” Daniel said.
Jack crossed his arms and waited. He felt a hand on his back.
“Let me?” he heard Sam ask. He nodded and she stepped forward.
“May I ask what the problem is?” she asked the archers.
One of the women lifted a haughty chin.
“These men say we must leave,” she informed Sam. “They say our world is dying. It is a demon-lie and we will have no more of it!”
“It isn’t a lie,” Sam assured her. “An asteroid, a very large rock from space, hit a southern continent. I can show you the damage.”
The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You are under their control.”
“We are a military organization and General O’Neill is my superior officer,” Sam clarified, gesturing toward Jack. “That is all. We are trying to help you. Most of your people are already on another planet and they will make their new home there. We want to help you to survive, too.”
The woman poked at Daniel with the tip of her arrow. “This one touched me without permission.”
“Daniel, apologize for touching the lady,” Sam told him.
“I did,” he said.
“Well, tell her again.”
“I’m sorry for touching you without permission,” Daniel said easily.
The woman looked closely at Sam. “These men will obey you?” she asked.
Sam leaned on her P-90 and shifted. “Well, he’s one of my husbands, so if he doesn’t obey me, he’ll be sleeping alone.”
Someone hid a snicker as the women relaxed slightly and whispered amongst themselves.
“You have more than one man?” the first woman asked.
“The general is my other husband,” Sam said, cocking her head in Jack’s direction. “He only gives orders when we are at work.”
“Two is an honorable number,” the woman reluctantly conceded. “I have three.” Her chin was held high, daring Sam.
Sam inclined her head respectfully. “You must be very powerful and wealthy in your village, to support three men. Will you allow me to show you the damage to your planet? It might help in decision making and making sure your men are safe.”
The women whispered again.
“We will hear your words,” they decided.
“Thank you. Daniel, do you have your laptop?”
“It’s in my bag,” he said. “They took it.”
“May I have the bag he was carrying? There is an instrument in it that will show you the damage.”
The woman sent one of the men to fetch the bag. He held it out to Sam from a polite distance and stepped back when she took it.
“Thank you.” She took the laptop and powered it up as the women gathered cautiously around to watch. She brought up the active monitors from the Prometheus in orbit and carefully told her audience what they were seeing. They didn’t really understand how the gash in the planet could hurt them on the other side of the world. Sam looked around and found a round melon.
“General, would you please take a shot at this?” she asked Jack, offering a silent apology for the order. Jack understood. He aimed and hit the melon once. People jumped at the unexpected sound and looked at the melon. Sam tried to roll it. “That’s what your planet is going to do,” she said, exaggerating slightly. “It’s going to keep trying to turn, but it’s going to get stuck on that hole and it will turn on its side. Are there caves here? What kinds of things grow deep in the caves where no sunlight ever goes?”
“Poison plants,” someone called out. Others called out names of plants and poisonous insects.
“Right,” Sam said. She held her hat over the melon, shading it. “The blast into the planet kicked so much dust into the air that it will be years until the sun will shine again. All the plants will die. Without plants, people and animals will die. We can’t force you to leave, but this is what is going to happen if you stay. Before the year is over, you and all the plants and animals will be dead. We want you to live. We want you to grow and we want your children to grow.”
The villagers looked at the clouded sky and the poor melon as they considered Sam’s words.
“Where is Queen Hannan?” someone asked.
“She’s on one of our ships helping people who were injured,” Sam said. “We can bring her here, if you’d like.”
The people would like that very much. While the queen was being found, Sam had Lisianna beamed in. The villagers were somewhat relieved to see the young lady as she walked around, reassuring people of the good intentions of the strangers and that she had flo
wn in their ships and had seen the damaged land with her own eyes. The land was rumbling and breaking apart near the damage and it was spreading along the ground’s power lines. Mountains were being born amidst red rivers so hot that they burned and melted everything in their path. Some people wanted to know about the evil god that had brought their ancestors to the planet. Sam assured them that the god was dead; they can live as they will on the new planet and no one will bother them.
The queen was beamed in, impressing the people once more by the magic. She smiled with a superior grace and walked among them, letting them see that she was alive and well. Jack was glad Inanna was dealing with the queen because he would have walked away from her two days earlier. He contemplated vetoing a protectorate status for them, and then decided he was being pissy; can’t condemn an entire society based on the arrogance of one queen. She flicked her robes away from the grubby hands of a child. Jack scowled and shifted his feet.
“You alright?” he asked quietly as Daniel came to his side.
“I’m fine,” Daniel said, wiping his glasses on the hem of his shirt and rearranging them on his face. Several people had recommended laser eye surgery but Daniel shuddered at the thought of a laser beam in his eyes. “They’re a little more conservative than the city people. New York versus Kansas. I did make a discovery, though.”
“What’s that?” Jack asked.
Daniel leaned in and nudged Jack’s arm with his. “Think I can get Sam to dress up in one of those archer outfits and hold an arrow at me while she makes me do things?”
Chapter 54
“Paul, if you don’t keep still, I’m going to tie you to a chair,” Daniel threatened. Davis was in the midst of a panic attack two hours before his handfasting.
Paul paused and then shook his head. “Don’t tease me, Danny.” He took it well, having his ‘day’ pushed back due to the off-world emergency.
Daniel yanked him still again and adjusted his tie. Across the room, Jack was having a glass of wine with Nick whose own panic was more subdued. Jack took the glass from Nick’s hand and shoved his head between his knees.
Unification: The Anunnaki Unification Book 5 Page 7
