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Five Roads Not Taken, Part 2
Edited 5/22/2007 - Big thanks to Ankhmutes for pointing out a typo that we somehow missed. No, Marshall Law and Martial Law are not the same thing unless that Marshall guy is really strict. *sigh*
Part 1, also known as parts 1 through 3 can be found here.
*****
4.
Rodney winced as he sat down on the metal stool. If he was going to be the president’s right hand man when it came to alien technology and defense systems, the least he could do was get him an ergonomic chair. He looked around the room and bit back a sigh. The lighting, while dim, did much to highlight the drab of the gray concrete and metal walls he now had the pleasure of seeing each day, every day, for most likely the rest of his life. The sunlit penthouse where he first greeted Sam and got into this whole mess it wasn’t.
Sam. Samantha Carter. Lieutenant Colonel Samantha Carter, not Major Samantha Carter. She was most likely home now, back in her own universe with her own friends and her own life, which, apparently, did not include him. Sounded like the universes weren’t so different after all.
Still, he owed it to her to help her back. She had been relatively honest and forthright with him, much like his own Sam had been. Who was he kidding? She was never his; they just figured it out in the other universe a whole lot faster than they ever did in this one.
The other universe. They were still under attack from the Ori in that one, as well as some freakishly evil beings in another galaxy where apparently the other him spent his time. The difference was that they had not completely alienated their allies there and had other resources to draw on if needed. They also didn’t have Martial Law and people being locked up for daring to speak poorly of a totalitarian dictator and trying to help their friends. Well, at least the first one, she was a bit sketchy on the second part, but he forgave her considering at the time she was under a bit of stress what with the whole different universe but the same bad guys trying to kill you thing.
She did leave him several notes on the other universe, and her research there. Her laptop had traveled with her and had a decent amount of information on it regarding alien tech and how to interface with it as well as the specs for some of the stuff she and her scientists had been coming up with on their own. She had downloaded it all for him, along with some contacts they might want to try if they hadn’t pissed them off yet, and some personal information on who she knew to trust in her own universe, in case it translated to here. Surprisingly, a great deal of the names were familiar.
That was one of the other reasons he had agreed to this stupid job – well, other than the gun to his head and the threatening to bankrupt all of his companies – his friends needed him. Cameron and Liz and Peter and even that quirky little Czech guy Liz talked to all the time, all of them, not just the doppelganger of his ex-wife, needed his help and he was now in a position to actually come through for them.
He had first met Liz at some boring diplomatic function where she was there to keep the peace and he was there due to his new banking database showing small nations they actually did have assets and helping to restore their economies. Through her, he met the others. That was back before full Martial Law was implemented and she was declared a bit too outspoken for her own good. She had used her international contacts to start up a resistance group, and he had used a small percentage of his multi-billion dollar companies’ profits to help fund said resistance group. Just a tiny percentage point here and there and no one could track the money; it was almost too easy and helped him see why money laundering was so popular.
Now he would be using that huge brain of his to do something more than determine which Mercedes to drive on which day and to funnel information to the resistance group the same way he was previously funneling funds. There was very little chance of him being caught considering he was the one who designed the mountain’s computer and security protocols in the first place. That, and a good number of the so-called “guards” assigned to him he had known on a first name basis before even agreeing to work in his underground cell.
One in particular made him smile. The name had been on the top of the list provided by his ex’s alternate and happened to be one he knew very well. The man was considered a concession of sorts by the president – no one was quite sure what to do with him anyway considering he was both a soldier and rather brilliant scientist in his own right. He would have been promoted long ago if not for his attitude, but it was that same attitude that managed to save his entire team from a town plagued by Priors so he was considered an “acceptable risk” by the higher-ups. For the time being at least, Rodney had his very owned armed research assistant that just happened to be more loyal to the concept of team and family than the Evil Overlord government they both now happened to work for.
“John, come here a minute, will you?” he called, snapping his fingers in habit. “Sam left some notes that I think you’re going to want to see.”
Sheppard looked over his shoulder at some of the data scrolling by. “Cool,” he drawled, reaching over to type in a command and pull up one thing in particular. Carter had called it a Puddle Jumper, a name Rodney snorted at but John loved and proved why he should never be allowed to name things as far as McKay was concerned, and she even listed some possible known locations for one. The fact that the thing was supposed to be keyed to John’s specific genetics was a bonus – they could use that as a reason to examine it up close and personal themselves.
Rodney leaned back on his non-ergonomic stool and smiled. He would work his way back up to the sunshine, bringing Sheppard with him as both earned the president’s utmost trust. Once they had everything they needed, they would crush him like the bug he was and try to set things right again.
*****
5.
“The mission was a success,” Bra’tac proudly declared as he entered the pel’tak where the others were gathered.
“Good to hear,” the current pilot congratulated him. “Are you certain no one detected you?”
“The Sodan cloaking devices prevented the Ori soldiers from determining our presence,” Teal’c replied.
“And you saw it go off? Nothing left to chance this time?” the Tok’ra probed. He was not doubting their prowess, but was questioning the effectiveness of the weapon based on past experience. The current alliance was shaky, but proving quite beneficial to both parties, especially after Earth all but cut themselves off from anyone and anything that might possibly risk draining their precious resources that could be used to save themselves. It was ironic that Earth taught them to work together despite their differences, but suddenly seemed unable to do so themselves.
Both the Tok’ra and the Freed Jaffa Coalition agreed this largely had to do with the unofficial disbandment of original SG-1. The unlikely group of friends had managed to not only create alliances, but to keep them strong over the years. Without them, there was no one willing to stand up to the current steamroller government that shattered the hard-won treaties without a second thought as to what was going to happen to their so-called allies. Those allies had decided to band together and pool their resources against their common enemy, not necessarily leaving Earth to the mercy of the Ori, but not exactly not either.
“We escaped after the explosion. The control room of the vessel will be inoperable for quite some time,” Teal’c confirmed.
“Which means the secondary explosions should be hitting right... about... now!” Jacob Carter added, pointing to where the explosions were now clearly visible on the view screen before them. When he next spoke, it was in the modulated tones of his symbiote, saying, “Congratulations, gentlemen, it would appear we have destroyed the Ori vessel.” A smile cut across the former General’s face, mirrored in far more subdued tones amongst the
“It was a difficult victory, but a victory nonetheless,” Bra’tac told him. He looked to Teal’c and Jacob, then at the small crew of Tok’ra and
His speech was cut off by a beeping from the front control panel. “It may have to be,” Jacob said, trying to pull something up on the display. “According to this, we have a ship approaching. Malek, see if you can determine just who’s visiting.”
The other Tok’ra started typing at another console, data streaming by as fast as he could read it. “No identification yet, but sensors indicate the size and composition are consistent with an Ori warship,” he announced.
“Have they made our position?” Teal’c asked, angling himself to better read the display.
“We are still cloaked,” Jacob promised.
Malek nodded in agreement. “The Ori vessel appears to be unaware of our presence. They are making no move towards us and appear to be approaching the Chappa’kol instead.”
Teal’c watched as the vessel flew right past them, pausing only beside the disabled ship that was blocking the path to what his Tauri friends had called the “Supergate.” The display showed radio signals being shared between the two vessels, but they could not yet pick up the frequencies to listen in, though it appeared both Jacob Carter and Malek were working to remedy that. All paused in their actions as the newly arrived ship fired upon the damaged ship, destroying it completely.
“That was certainly different,” Jacob said, emitting a low whistle.
“I have never heard of the Ori destroying their own kind,” Bra’tac agreed.
“It would be counterproductive to their goal of obtaining worshipers to feed their power,” Teal’c pointed out. “The survivors of that vessel could still have proven useful in their contributions.”
“Perhaps they were punished for allowing themselves to be defeated?” Malek suggested.
His fellow Tok’ra shook his head. “I agree with Teal’c, it’s not the Ori way, at lease until now. We may be looking at a whole new battle strategy if they are willing to kill their own.”
Whatever else he was going to say was interrupted by another alert from the screen before him. “We are being hailed,” Malek announced, not bothering to hide his surprise.
“You said this Alkesh was cloaked,” Teal’c accused, checking the readings for himself. “How could they determine our position?”
The former Tauri pulled up several more displays and then leaned back with a look of puzzlement across his features. “They are not hailing us exactly; they are hailing anyone in the area across nearly all frequencies. Let’s see if we can pull it up.”
He typed in a few more commands and a burst of static came across their comm system. “Hello? Anybody out there?” a very familiar voice called.
Looks of various levels of astonishment were shared amongst the coalition members. Jacob was the first to regain his voice. “That sounds like...”
“O’Neill,” Teal’c finished for him.
“We know someone has to be here since Ori ships tend not to blow up on their own,” the voice continued. “If any of our
“Get a visual,” Jacob ordered. “I want to make sure it’s him and that he’s not being coerced into saying any of this.”
“Our surveillance of Earth has not indicated a force powerful enough to overtake an Ori vessel,” Bra’tac revealed. The fact that several enemy ships were detected approaching the Tauri homeworld was further reason to believe they would not waste resources on such a far flung project.
Teal’c let the briefest hints of a smile cross his face as he added, “But should any team be capable of such a feat...”
There was a general consensus of nods around the room, with only Jacob wearily pointing out, “But our last intel from Sam stated Jack disappeared while searching for Daniel several weeks ago.”
“And was not Doctor Jackson himself captured by the Orisi?” Malek asked. All hoped for the best, but none could deny the facts as they knew them.
“Yes,” Teal’c confirmed, just as a visual of the communication was displayed. Before them, in extreme close up, stood O’Neill, still calling out to anyone and anything that could be listening. Behind him was clearly an Ori control room, the sleeve of a blue-clad figure just barely visible at the edge of the screen.
Against his better judgment, Jacob toggled the controls to open a channel to the enemy ship. “Jack, it’s good to hear from you, if it really is you and you’re speaking of your own accord.”
“Jacob? Is that you? Excellent!” Jack enthused. “We figured it either had to be the Tok’ra or the
“It certainly sounds like him,” Malek mused, earning a smile from his friend.
“Look, we’re running out of time here,” O’Neill kept going, oblivious to the side comments. “Any way we could count on you and your hopefully well-armored ship for some help?”
“We would love to trust you, Jack,” Jacob told him honestly. “There’s just the little problem of you being on an Ori vessel with a Prior behind you. How do we know it’s really you and that you’re still working for our side?”
Jack looked behind him in confusion, his face lighting up as he realized what they were talking about. “That’s no Prior, that’s just Daniel,” he explained.
The man beside him stepped fully into view, waving as he said, “Hi, guys!” His words were incongruous with his appearance. Still dressed in the rough blue robes and still wearing the scars of the purified, he looked as though he should be commanding villages to bow before him, not chirping a hello.
“Daniel Jackson,” Teal’c breathed, seeing one of his worse fears come true.
“Teal’c? Is that you?” Daniel asked. Jacob must have given up on keeping their identities secret and opened the two-way visual as the scarred man took a brief step back before narrowing his shadowed eyes to take in the scene before him. “And Bra’tac too? Oh, is it good to see you again!”
“We wish we could say the same thing about you,” Jacob admitted.
The pale face drew in a familiar look of consternation, before realization took over. “Oh, this?” he asked, waving in his general direction and in a motion that seemed to encompass his entire body. “Totally temporary,” he promised.
“Yeah, he keeps telling me that, but I’m not seeing the changes,” O’Neill pointed out. “So far he’s been on our side though. Took out the another ship, some Priors, and even the Orisi herself.”
“The Orisi is dead?” Malek asked doubtingly.
A haunted look passed over the other man’s features for the briefest of moments before he visually pushed it away. “No, I... I couldn’t let him and he didn’t really want to...” He sighed, taking a deep breath to continue. “She’s out of the picture for the time being though. Knocked out with that anti-Prior device of Sam’s slowing her down. We even got her pretty little trinket as a prize.” He held up the necklace the leader always wore with a shrug. “I’m not sure what good it’ll do us, but Daniel seems to think it’s important.”
Daniel cut in to explain, “It’s for her protection. It holds a piece of Celestis, the Ori homeworld, and is the reason why no one has been able to touch her until now.”
“So tell us why we should not destroy your vessel where you stand,” Malek challenged. “With the Orici unable to defend herself, now would be the perfect time to strike. As we do not know whether or not you have been compromised, we can remove this risk at the same time.” He heard the low growl from Teal’c behind him, and knew Jacob glared at his side, but also knew it was a sound strategy that neither could fully object to.
“Well, you could fire on us, but we still have some powerful shields. You could try to do to us whatever you did to disable the other ship too, but we’d be looking for it to stop you,” Jack told him calmly. “Not to mention that if we really were the bad guys, we’d have called in reinforcements by now and we could just randomly blast around the area until we hit you and took you out, but we don’t want to do that.”
“Then what is it you wish to do?” Bra’tac asked reasonably.
It was Daniel that answered, cutting off Jack with a single look. “We want to send this ship through the Supergate. We’ve got Merlin’s completed weapon on board as well as the Orisi. It’s only a matter of time before two very important things happen. The first being her overcoming the anti-Prior device and stopping us. The second being whatever Merlin did to me wearing off before I can send the ship through. He promised me I would change back eventually and he hasn’t been wrong about anything else so far,” he explained. “Now, only a Prior can pilot this ship. However, I can set the controls of the ship to fly it through the gate, but it is going to have to be soon and I would prefer not to be on it when it reaches the Ori galaxy.”
“Why?” Malek asked.
“Because it’s already wearing off, I can feel it,” Daniel said, exasperated. He held up his hand and they watched as several of the burns began to disappear and the coloring returned to a more normal human shade. “I don’t know about you, but I would rather not be stranded in the Ori galaxy after we nuke their gods.”
Teal’c stepped forward, asking, “You are confident the device will work?”
“I built it based on the knowledge Merlin downloaded into my brain,” Daniel replied. “We haven’t tested it because it seems to be a one shot deal and we would prefer if that shot was in Ori galaxy and not the Ancient galaxy. If it works like it’s supposed to, it will have the capability of destroying all Ascended beings, regardless of their alliances.”
“What would you need from us?” This time, it was Jacob asking.
“An escape option,” Jack answered honestly. “We understand if you don’t want us on your ship because you don’t know if you can trust us or not. We get that, really we do. The whole thing with Earth cutting you off and now us showing up looking like we’ve switched sides, it’s a lot to take in. But if you’re willing to spare one of your cargo ships, or even one of the death gliders, it would at least give us an option for making it out of here alive.”
Jacob looked to the others, then made the decision for himself. “We can do that. What else?”
Daniel answered, exhaustion evident in his voice. “We need to destroy the Supergate,” he declared. He paused, his entire body wavering until Jack wrapped an arm around his waist to support him. “I’m pretty sure I can open a wormhole and get the ship through on autopilot. I think I’ve got it set to shut down the wormhole once it’s through. The problem is that unless we take out the gate, there’s the chance they’re going to use it again. Well, that and the possibility that sending the Orisi through will attract the attention of every Ori ship in both galaxies and her armies might want to retaliate with or without the force of their gods behind them.”
Jack picked up for his weakened friend. “Look, we don’t know if Merlin’s device is going to work or not. At the very least, this is a chance to ship the Orisi back to her home galaxy and shut the door on them. Your ship will hopefully have enough firepower to destroy the connection between the gate pieces so we can take it out. We’d still have to deal with the ones left here in the Milky Way, but it would be a start. If we keep an eye out for any more Supergates being formed, we can at least make sure they don’t get any more reinforcements.”
“But we don’t have much time,” Daniel stressed again. They could see his second hand following suit of the first one; he was turning more human as they watched.
“If we’re going to do this, we need to do this now,” Jacob announced.
“We could let them ring aboard and take them into custody until we are certain of their identities,” Bra’tac suggested.
“I will go,” Teal’c agreed, initializing the zat from the holster at his side.
“This will be extremely risky,” Malek warned. He knew it was mostly for show. Looking around at the men who surrounded him, he knew the decision had already been made. Reluctantly, he nodded.
Jack must have sensed the decision. “Yes!” he exclaimed. “Okay, let’s do this. We’ll keep the channel open while Daniel dials up the gate so you can see it’s us ringing over and not some random Ori soldiers. We’re transmitting over what we think is the best place to attack to destroy the gate once the ship’s through. Hopefully this is the beginning of the end, guys.”
“Hopefully,” Jacob agreed, watching the data from the Ori ship stream in. He did not know if the plan would work, but he did know it was probably the only chance they were going to get at this. Malek was right about just how dangerous this could prove to be, but he had limited dealings with Earth and humans in general. If there was one thing Jacob had learned during his time with the Earth alliance, it was that many times risks paid off better than you could expect, especially if members of a certain team known as SG-1 was involved.
If this did work, Jacob wanted to take a risk of his own, and try contacting the SGC again. It had been quite some time since he had last talked to Sam, and he missed his daughter, missed his family and his friends. He understood that the humans got scared; they would be foolish not to be once presented with the danger an intergalactic presence could cause. He only hoped they would eventually see the error of their ways and realize they needed to work together, not cut themselves off from their allies. Once the Ori threat was contained, maybe they could work on that again. After all, if the Tok’ra and
He smiled as he watched the Ori ship disappear through the Chappa’kol, listening as Teal’c verified their guests were secured. He thought about how drastically things had changed in such a short period of time. Daniel had been taken by the Orisi, only to return after neutralizing her. Jack had disappeared looking for his friend, only to reappear both with him and with a plan to save the galaxy. If there was one thing he had learned from the famed SG-1, it was most definitely hope. Now he was counting on that hope to make his universe right again.
End.
Feedback would make me a happy kitty. Just sayin'...
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Self-pimping is good ;-)
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