STARGATE SG-1: Transitions

by Sabine C. Bauer

  Across from Cassie sprawled the #2 cause for concern, though in the case of Amara there could be no doubt that she was in fact asleep. No surprise there; healing Ancient-style took it out of you, as Jack could attest. And while he felt grateful to her, he also felt that it would be wise to let sleeping Ancients lie. This way she was unlikely to add to his list of problems, at least in the short run.

  Carter, on the other hand, was awake and returning his stare, spidey sense quivering. “What?” she mouthed, sliding from her seat.

  “Trouble.” Jack’s gaze traveled back to Michael, and he tossed the phone from one hand to the other. “We have to wake him. He’s just had a nuisance call.”

  She frowned. “I thought you were going to update General Landry.”

  “I did. Then our friends from the Trust phoned back. Sadly for them, they didn’t realize that the wrong person picked up.”

  “Crap,” she whispered with feeling.

  “Oh yeah.”

  No point in postponing the inevitable. Sucking in a deep breath— which, incidentally, didn’t make him feel better in the least— Jack crossed back to where Michael was snoring, crouched, and shook the man’s shoulder. The bass line terminated in a startled snort, loud enough to spark an irritated, semi-conscious mutter from Daniel.

  “Huh?” said Michael, blinking blearily and still two steps out of synch with current events. He smacked his lips a couple of times, licked them in an attempt to get rid of the parched feeling a good snore tended to leave behind. “Huh?” This last one a little more alert.

  “Sorry to wake you,” Jack murmured, knowing full well that waking Michael was the least he ought to be sorry for. “We need to talk. Now.”

  “Huh?” Michael repeated with flawless eloquence.

  Okay, so generally folks weren’t at their most coherent at two in the morning and halfway across the Atlantic, but this was pushing it. Jack looked up. “Carter, at the risk of sounding like a chauvinist pig, could I ask you to see if you can scare up some coffee? Black. Strong. A dash of nitroglycerin probably would be good.”

  Obviously he was losing his touch. She was supposed to grin at that. Instead she just nodded and tiptoed aft into the galley. Five minutes later— Michael was revving up to the full sound effects again— she came back with a tray that held three large mugs.

  “Thanks.” He grabbed one of the mugs and shoved it under Michael’s nose. “Wake up!”

  It had roughly the same effect as smelling salts. Michael jolted upright with a gasp, blinked some more, spotted the mug, snatched it greedily, and took a big gulp. Then he said, “What did you want to talk about?”

  Which qualified as a lucid sentence and meant that Jack’s period of grace was well and truly over. Best to dive right in.

  He grimaced. “Where’s Jenny, Michael?”

  “Huh?”

  “Come on, activate those brain cells! Where’s your wife?”

  “At home. I guess.” Frowning in confusion, Michael checked his wristwatch. “It’s half past eight in the evening there. So I’d expect she’ll be tucking the kids into bed—”

  “The what into bed?” For cryin’ out loud, please let there be no children involved! Let it be young goats!

  “Our grandchildren, Hannah and Jacob. They’re staying with us for a couple weeks while their mom and dad are off on a second honeymoon.” Something must have connected, because finally Michael came awake enough to ask the obvious question, his face darkening with worry. “Why?”

  “You had a call. A woman. Very likely the same lady— and I use the term loosely— who came to your office with Dr. Dimitriades. She wants you to give back what you’ve taken, else they… they’re going to take something of yours.”

  “Something of…” Michael literally crumpled. Face draining of blood, he shrank into the seat, for the first time looking like the old man he was. “Jenny. The kids,” he whispered. “I need to…” His hand whipped out at Jack. “Give me the phone! I have to warn them. They have to get out of the house right now.”

  “No.” Carter had been listening, and she’d gone nearly as pale as Michael. Now she gently took the hand he held out, patted it, as if comforting a child. “It would be the worst thing you can do. They’re almost certainly under surveillance already, and if anything, leaving the house would make the bad guys’ job easier.”

  “But I can’t do nothing!”

  “Carter’s right,” Jack said, trying to match the gentleness in her tone. “The good news is, they’ve made a mistake.”

  “What mistake?” Michael’s pallor was quickly replaced by a flush of anger. Preferable. Far preferable to that waxen helplessness. “And don’t you dare give me any of that jingoistic crap about them making a mistake in messing with the US Air Force!”

  “Who’s messing with the US Air Force?” Daniel mumbled, woken by Michael’s outburst. “I smell coffee,” he added, dreamily sniffing the air.

  Great. In a minute they’d have a group hug session. Jack would rather have handled this quietly and quickly. “The Trust. As usual,” he said and turned his attention back to Michael. “They tipped their hand. I’m guessing they’re either really nervous or they thought you’d just fold. Tactically, it would have made a lot more sense to grab Jenny and your grandchildren first and then start making demands. As it is, they’ve jumped the gun and given us time to send in the cavalry.”

  “Cavalry?” Michael parroted.

  “Cavalry?” asked Carter.

  “Oh yeah. You’re on, Carter. You’re the one with old flames in high places.” Jack thrust the cell phone at her.

  “Sir?”

  “The ever obliging Agent Barrett. I’d call him myself, but I’ve got a hunch that he’ll respond better to you, especially near midnight. Get him to yank some cross-border strings. Hard and fast. A SWAT team would be good.”

  She took the phone, dialed the number from memory. Why this should irk him, Jack didn’t want to contemplate. The ever obliging Agent Barrett must have been sound asleep, considering the amount of time it took for him to answer. For a moment there, Jack was worried that the call might have gone to voicemail, but the first word out of Carter’s mouth was “Sorry,” which didn’t quite gel with the usual routine of leaving name, number, and reason for calling.

  By the sound of it, the ever obliging Agent Barrett didn’t really feel like obliging. Else he was too sleep-drunk to string two rational thoughts together. Par for the course when it came to the NID, if you asked Jack, except nobody was asking. Carter was finishing up the second round of explaining it all in words of no more than two syllables and then fell conspicuously silent.

  Evidently Barrett was awake and talking now, and he was talking a lot. The sounds wiggling out from between the phone’s tiny speaker and Carter’s ear were unintelligible.

  At last there were a few seconds of silence, in the course of which Carter’s face took on a look of furious determination. Anyone who knew her would know it was time to get the hell out of her way.

  “I’ve got Mrs. Webber’s husband, the kid’s grandfather, sitting right here, Barrett. I think you should tell him yourself that you don’t feel like unraveling a bit of red tape,” she said sweetly. Then, “Dammit, Malcolm, you owe me!”

  Malcolm?

  And he did owe her. She’d saved his life. So the little jerk had better come up with the goods. “Want me to have a word with him?” Jack offered.

  Carter waved him off impatiently, straining to listen to what Malcolm was saying. What kind of a name was Malcolm anyway? Scottish nerd. She nodded. “Yes. That’s right. And if you’re off the mark fast enough, you might just bag yourself a couple or three Trust operatives. Could be useful, because we’ve now confirmed that they’ve got at least one agent in the Pentagon.”

  “They’ve got what?” This time Malcolm came over loud and clear. Getting a little agitated, was he? About time.

  “Tell him to check out Miz Graves,” Jack threw in.

  “You heard me.”
Carter gave a nod of acknowledgement. “It’s a woman, going by Graves. If you catch the goons, you might be able to persuade them to roll over on her… Yeah. Hang on.” She peered at Michael. “What’s the address?”

  He reeled out a street address, added, “It’s in Point Grey. That’s—”

  “It’s alright, Michael. The SWAT team’s local. They’ll find it,” she said around a quick smile, before repeating the address back to Malcolm. At least she wasn’t smiling anymore. “You got that? Right… right. When will you know? Okay. Oh, and I’d like an uplink so I can tap into their live footage… Yeah, well, ask nicely then. Sure. I will, yes. Talk to you later. Thanks.” She flipped the phone shut.

  “Well?” Michael nearly came out of the seat. “What is this Agent Barker—”

  “Barrett.”

  “— Barrett going to do?”

  “Exactly what I suggested. He’ll get an RCMP SWAT team rolling within the next ten minutes.”

  Michael’s eyes went wide as saucers. “He can do that? What is he? CIA?”

  “No,” Jack said. “Uglier than that. But he’s a decent kid. Relatively speaking.”

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “Now? We wait.”

  “And, hopefully, watch,” supplied Carter, booted up her laptop, and plugged in a gadget that was wired to a doohickey, which in turn was hooked up to a doodad. Or something.

  Jack decided against asking.

  Chapter 24

  “For the third and last time, Rodney. Absolutely not!” Elizabeth enunciated every single syllable of those final two words and hoped they truly were final now.

  Drs. McKay and Zelenka slumped in swivel chairs at their respective workstations and looked more than usually disheveled, which in Zelenka’s case meant he could easily have passed as a hobo. She doubted either of them had slept much more than a couple of hours out of the past seventy-two, both were in dire need of a shave, and Rodney showed clear symptoms of caffeine and candy withdrawal.

  Taking all that into consideration, they could be forgiven for summoning her down to their lab in order to lay out a plan that basically amounted to: take a Jumper and kick a hive-ship until it gets riled enough to spit out a Dart. Which then was to be captured and spirited back to Atlantis. Or something. They’d been a bit hazy on the spiriting part.

  Much to her surprise, it was Zelenka, usually the voice of reason, who launched one last attempt. “We really can’t see any other way, Dr. Weir. Rodney and I have been through all possible options and—”

  “And a dozen impossible ones,” Rodney threw in. “Before breakfast. I feel like the White Queen.” At Radek’s confused look, he added, “Alice Through The Looking Glass. It was written by a mathematician. You wouldn’t know it.”

  “I—”

  “Gentlemen!” Elizabeth barged in before the squabble could start for real. “Let me reiterate, and I promise you, this is final. The only person insane enough to pull off what you’re suggesting is in the infirmary in a fever coma and with a hole in his head. Without John you haven’t got a prayer, and I’m not going to agree to this. So I suggest you come up with something else. Because I’m feeling like one of the Little Oysters, knowing that the Walrus and the Carpenter are at the door. Am I getting through?”

  “At the beach,” Rodney corrected tiredly. “No doors at the beach.”

  “Whatever. Give me an alternative, and—”

  “Dr. Weir?” a cultured, British-sounding voice crackled in her ear-bud.

  “This is Weir.”

  “This is Sergeant Khan in the command center, ma’am. Those long-range sensor scans we’ve been running ever since the hive-ship showed up?”

  “Yes? Keep the suspense to a minimum, Sergeant. I’ve just about had it for this month.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. Well, the scan threw up another contact this time round, and it looks like Daedalus decided to hang around. They’re tucked in behind a sun, so the Wraith can’t see them, but we can.”

  “Bless you, Sergeant, that’s the first bit of good news I’ve had in a long while.”

  “We aim to please,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. It probably would be unfair to point out that lately it had been less the aiming part and more the hitting part that had gone awry.

  “Is there any way we can contact Daedalus?” She panned her gaze over Rodney and Radek to include them in the question.

  “Communications are down,” Zelenka mouthed and slashed a finger across his throat to illustrate.

  Rodney just sighed.

  “As a matter of fact, ma’am, I think I may have an idea,” replied Sergeant Khan. “Well, actually, it was Airman Tao’s idea, but he—”

  “Sergeant, at this juncture I’d take Chairman Mao’s idea, so let’s hear it.”

  “Well, ma’am, it seems to us that the communication units in the Jumpers couldn’t have been affected by the virus, because the Jumpers’ onboard computers are independent from the system, so—”

  Of course! He was right! “Who’s available to fly?” she asked.

  “Ah,” said Khan, a sure indication that the flow of good news was about to grind to a halt. “Ma’am, I hate to tell you, but other than three pilots currently off-planet, all others are infected. The only one who’s got the gene and is remotely qualified is—”

  Elizabeth’s gaze drifted in the obvious direction. “Dr. McKay.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sometimes you couldn’t shake the impression that Rodney was telepathic. At least when it came to matters that might affect him in a potentially detrimental way. He frowned at her. “What?”

  She held up a finger to stall his query. “Thank you, Sergeant. Weir out.”

  “What?” Rodney asked again, and the decibel went up by about fifty percent.

  “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news,” Elizabeth said. “The Daedalus is still in the Pegasus Galaxy, and we’ve got a means to—”

  “The Daedalus is still here?” Rodney had leaped from his chair and seemed at the brink of performing a quickstep. “But that’s… that’s fantastic! That’s—”

  “What he’s trying to say”— Radek, though apparently not about to break into dance, was grinning broadly— “is that we’ve just been handed that alternative you wanted, Dr. Weir.”

  It was Elizabeth’s turn to frown. “How?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake! It’s obvious, isn’t it?” spluttered Rodney. “The Asgard transporter! It doesn’t have the convenience of stashing the stuff it picks up in a handy little container like the Wraith beam does, but beggars can’t be choosers.”

  Elizabeth wouldn’t have phrased it quite that way. Then again, this didn’t seem to be the occasion to point out that an Asgard transporter was as state of the space-faring art as things got. Not to mention the minor dilemma of a hive-ship straddling Daedalus’s course back to Atlantis.

  Rodney came to a no doubt temporary standstill and pointed a finger at her. “When are they going to arrive?”

  “They’re not,” she said. “Not unless they’re told to come back.”

  “Well, then how about telling… oh…” He squinted at her. “That’s the bad news, I presume. We can’t tell them.”

  “As a matter of fact, we probably can. But, and this is the bad news, we need to take a Jumper into orbit to do it.”

  “Of course,” he muttered. “The Jumpers’ com systems are independent. Should have thought of that sooner.” Then the next thought struck. “So? What’s stopping you?”

  “Currently there’s only one person who’s able and available to fly a Jumper.”

  “And once more, so? Oh…” he said again, and Elizabeth could tell that it finally had dawned on him. It might have been a trick of the light, but he seemed to turn a pale shade of green. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You can’t expect me to… Ask anyone! My piloting skills are still, uh, under construction!”

  “Rodney, I’ll put it in the simplest of terms. It’s either that or no
beam.”

  “What about Carson? He’s got the gene. He can—”

  “He can’t. He’s needed here.”

  “Oh, and I’m not. Is that what you’re saying?”

  For Pete’s sake, he really was going to make her put on a nightgown, stick a pair of cinnamon buns on her ears, and go Help me, Rodney Wan Kenobi! You’re my only hope! Or perhaps not… “On second thought, you may be right.” She pensively cocked her head. “Odds are that Carson will have a better chance of success. He had the ATA gene to start with, so it should come easier to him, and we need every advantage we can get. I’ll keep you posted.” With that, Elizabeth turned and walked toward the door, holding her breath.

  “Wait!”

  Bingo.

  Turning back, she caught a glimpse of Zelenka, who rolled his eyes. He could tell what was coming. So could she. “Was there anything else?”

  Rodney squirmed. Or rather, he did the McKay approximation thereof. “Maybe it’s not such a great idea. Carson has never had a flying lesson in his life. Considering that one ATA gene is as good as the other, no matter how it was acquired”— and this, right there, was the real crux; Rodney still resented the fact that he, of all people, hadn’t come by it naturally— “and that a modicum of piloting experience can only improve our chances, well… I volunteer.”

  “Are you absolutely sure, Rodney?” She knew she was pushing it. “I’d completely understand if—”

  “Of course I’m sure. You don’t want an amateur at the helm.”

  Elizabeth thought she heard an odd, strangled noise coming from Radek’s end. On closer inspection, his face had gone alarmingly red. Then he covered it by bursting into a coughing fit. “I’m sorry,” he wheezed eventually. “Without the air conditioning there’s an awful lot of dust gathering in here. It does horrible things to my throat.” Then he rose and clapped a hand on Rodney’s shoulder. “You go on, Rodney. I’ll try to replace you to the best of my ability.”

  Her turn to clear her throat, especially since Rodney suddenly showed signs of realizing that he’d been handled in a big way. “Very well then,” she said a little hastily. “You have my permission. Contact me when you’re in the Jumper.”