“You are fools to believe Lord Anubis would permit such an easy escape,” Penthos’ droned on. “He preyed upon your naiveté. Your weakness. Your inability to see the truth.”
But Daniel refused to believe his words. Eight years of dealing with the Goa’uld had taught him their penchant for obfuscation, for deception, and Penthos’ loss hadn’t been a lie. Grief didn’t work that way. If anything, it forced truth into the open.
“Penthos!” Daniel stood up, aware of Teal’c’s wary eyes on him. “It doesn’t have to be this way! We can help —”
“Daniel,” Sam warned. “There’s no time.”
“I serve —”
Teal’c whirled toward the lens and shot it twice. The glass shattered and, with it, Penthos’ vision.
“Do it now, Major Carter.”
Sam threw a pained look at Daniel, then plugged the cable into the drive. She jumped back, grabbed her radio, and gave the symbiote its death sentence. “Hyper-drive is online, sir!”
An electric arc sizzled along the cable, enveloped the black box, and then rushed toward the nutrient tank. The symbiote thrashed, banging its body against the tank’s sides.
The ship lurched forward. A moment’s disorientation hit Daniel, followed by a microsecond of nausea.
Jack had kicked in the hyper-drive.
Daniel peered at the nutrient tank, its shape half lost in the hissing vapors that still leaked from the damaged ship. Penthos, the symbiote, had sunk to the bottom, his eyes still open.
Teal’c holstered his zat. “There has been enough loss.”
Daniel couldn’t disagree. He stepped closer to the tank, struck by how Penthos’ yellow eyes seemed to focus on him. “Sam, is he…?”
“He’s dead, Daniel.” She slid the hyper-drive drawer shut.
“I’m not sure if that’s what I was asking.”
She handed him his tool pouch with a sigh. “One thing’s for sure.”
“What’s that?”
“In the end, I’m grateful.”
Daniel turned toward her, surprised. “For what?”
“For being alive.”
He heard nothing. Saw nothing. Felt nothing.
A bottomless ache filled his senses. An ache for the life once joined with his.
A life no longer lived. A life duty-bound.
A life now honored.
Two days after returning to Earth, Jack managed to spring himself from the infirmary and go home. Carter and Teal’c set the table inside, while on the back deck Jack lectured Daniel on the finer points of grilling the perfect burger. Below freezing temperatures and heavy clouds threatened a last round of snow before winter gave up, but after spending three days stuck inside that sauna of a cargo ship and another two in the SGC, Jack opted to forgo a jacket. Daniel bundled up in enough layers to thaw a snowman.
If push came to shove, Jack would never be sure whether Penthos had been a Tok’ra or a Goa’uld. In the end, he’d been a snakehead and just as bombastic as the rest of them.
Or had he?
He dropped another burger on the grill, knowing full well that if Carter hadn’t connected the hyper-drive, they’d be as good as Daniel’s efforts at dinner: burned, toasted, dead.
It’d been a lousy mission with a lousy ending.
SG-1 still needed a win, a check in the victory column. Tonight, playing games and munching on food would have to do the job. Having the team’s honorary member join in was just the ticket to make sure that happened.
“Hey, Jack?” Cassie called out from the living room. “Since when is ‘bore’ a four letter word for a precalculus class?”
Why were teenagers always so nosey? He could have sworn he’d stuffed that crossword book where the sun don’t shine.
Spatula in hand, Daniel raised a Teal’c-like eyebrow. “Four-letter word?”
“Flip the burger before it burns, Daniel.”
“You do it.” Daniel shoved the spatula into Jack’s hands and ran inside.
Jack turned the burgers over and followed, prepared for inevitable jibes from the team. Cassie sat over by the fireplace, next to the stack of newspapers he used for kindling. She had the crossword book open in her lap. Carter sat beside her, and while her hundred-watt beam of a smile usually outshined any other, the shades of a grin on Cassie’s face for the first time in too long put the Major to shame.
“The answer is ‘trig,’ doofus.” Cassie grabbed a pencil from the coffee table and scribbled in the right word.
“Right, what was I thinking?” Jack waved a finger in the air. “How about some Trivial Pursuit? Cassie, pick the category. Sports, science, history —”
“One word to go, sir.” Carter peered over Cassie’s shoulder. “Thanks to a little help.”
“If I may?” Teal’c took the book and joined Daniel on the couch.
“Now hold on a second!”
Teal’c leafed through to the dog-eared pages at the end.
Well, crap.
“O’Neill, did you refer to the answer key in the back?”
Daniel started to laugh, but Jack shut him down with a proper O’Neill glower.
“Let’s make this interesting, sir.” Carter exchanged glances with Cassie. “I’ll bet you can’t finish the puzzle without referring to the answer key.”
“Hmmm, a bet, you say? What’re the stakes?
Cassie shot her arm in the air. “How about pie?”
“Apple or lemon meringue?”
“Winner’s choice?” Cassie’s grin widened just the smallest fraction.
“Deal.”
Cassie grabbed the book before Teal’c could fork it over. She opened it back up. “Okay… Five letters. An ancient unit of capacity equal to a hundred gallons.”
Jack knew the answer, but what the hell? He’d milk it. “Five letters, hmmm.”
“Here’s a different clue,” Cassie offered. “Bald. Wears a short-sleeved shirt.”
Teal’c raised an eyebrow. “Is General Hammond in your crossword, O’Neill?”
“Funny. Let’s see. Ancient units. Short-sleeved shirts. Bald —”
“Come on, Jack!” Cassie’s grin dropped away. “You know the answer.”
“Hmmm, that’s a toughie.” He grabbed a Guinness from the coffee table. Four faces stared at him as he screwed off its cap. Four faces that warmed up his home and made every trip through the gate easier.
And harder.
“Is it ‘homer?’”
“Bingo!”
“And here I thought we were playing a crossword puzzle. So, lemon merengue it is.”
“Not so fast, sir.” Carter grabbed a newspaper from the kindling stack.
He frowned. “Apple, then?”
“How about double or nothing?” She opened the newspaper, ripped out a page, and held it up.
It was another damn crossword puzzle.
“You’re on, Carter.” Jack flipped the bottle cap into the fireplace. “Two pies are always better than one.”
“But no help this time.” Carter eyed her teammates. “From anyone.”
“Even me?” Cassie asked.
Carter shook her head. “Especially you.”
The two exchanged million-watt grins.
In Jack’s mind, there wasn’t much more of a win than that.
STARGATE ATLANTIS:
Pleasure Cruise
by Geonn Cannon
The ship moved slowly across the pale blue sky, skimming across clouds until it blocked out the sun. She ignored the grubby fingers pinching the tailfins, the skinny, sun-kissed arm that stretched down from the rocket to her own body lying in the grass. Samantha Carter lay on her back just beyond the willow tree’s shadow, head tilted back and one eye squeezed tigh
tly shut as she plotted the vessel’s trip across the heavens. She didn’t like the toy very much, since it wasn’t an accurate representation of Apollo 11, but it was close enough that she could imagine. She had a very good imagination.
She could hear her parents talking with their friend, George, on the porch. They were having a barbecue, but it wasn’t the Fourth of July. Sam dropped the rocket and sat up, grass trimmings falling from her hair and clothes as she looked toward the house. She could see her mother and father, their features obscured by smoke rising from the grill. Something was off but she couldn’t figure out what. She stared at her mother and wondered why her presence seemed so miraculous and wonderful. She could smell the smoke very strongly, and her head hurt from being in the sun too long.
“Hello, Sam.”
She looked up at the lean and lanky figure of George Hammond. He’d served with her father in Vietnam and, according to her mother, had saved his life. He was dressed casually for the barbecue in a bright yellow shirt and shorts, but somehow she knew he would look more familiar in a uniform. She cupped her hand over her eyes as she looked up at him. She didn’t remember him being so broad-shouldered or so capable of blotting out the sun. He was like a monolith. And he sounded strange. Older than he should.
She smiled and waved. “Hi.”
He crouched and she saw he was still young, his red hair trimmed close to his head in the military style her daddy had. He gestured at the rocket with his chin. “Apollo 11?”
“Sort of. They got a lot of things wrong.”
George chuckled. “Well, I’m sure they did the best they could. Maybe one day you’ll get to fly the real thing.”
Sam smiled. “I hope so! Daddy said they went to the moon right after I was born so the road would be ready.”
“You’ll get there, Sam. I know you will.” He looked up into the sky. “It might take you a long time to get to the moon, but you’re going to go so much farther… and do so much more.”
His voice had changed again, and when she looked at him it was hard to see his face. She squinted, feeling oddly lightheaded. Something had gone very wrong, but she couldn’t remember what it was. There had been alarms, and people counting on her to make the right decision. Engines were… She looked back at the toy rocket and knew she needed to move it. They were in great danger.
“What are you going to do, Sam?” Hammond asked softly.
“Sir?” she said. Her voice sounded different, too. She cleared her throat and leaned back, hoping that stretching out on the grass again would help settle her head.
She started to slip out of her seat, and tightened her grip on the armrests before she could tumble to the floor. Her eyes widened as consciousness flooded back to her. The memory of the strange barbecue and the stranger conversation with General Hammond…
That didn’t really happen, did it?
She couldn’t remember ever having that conversation with him, but it didn’t matter; the autumn backyard was fading fast and she focused on the situation at hand.
She was… what? Where? She was aboard the George Hammond, her ship. But where was her crew? The bridge was vacant and smelled of smoke. A quick visual scan didn’t show any critical damage, but she remembered their systems had overloaded. Thin tendrils of smoke wafted up from a few stations but she saw no evidence of a spreading fire. The ship was too silent, too completely still in the wake of whatever catastrophe must have happened, so her first thought was that she’d ordered an evacuation. It took her a moment to remember the layout of her seat’s controls, pushing back the fog of her bizarre dream. She activated the ship-wide intercom, clearing her throat before she spoke.
“This is Colonel Carter. Anyone who is still aboard, contact the bridge immediately with your situation. I repeat, this is Colonel Carter. All hands, contact the bridge immediately.”
She didn’t truly expect a response, and she couldn’t sit and wait for one. After making sure she wasn’t physically injured she stood up and moved to Major Marks’ station, stumbling and catching herself on the edge of his monitor as she maneuvered down into the seat.
Power levels were dangerously low, weapons were depleted, and the shields had been completely knocked out. Asgard weapons were… That’s right, they were on the way back to Earth to have the Asgard weapons repaired. They were still in the Pegasus galaxy but there was little Atlantis could do even if Sam got a message out. She rested her hands on the controls and closed her eyes.
“Okay. Try to remember,” she muttered. “We were on our way back from Atlantis. Marks was talking about…something.”
She furrowed her brow and closed her eyes as she tried to remember.
“I’m not saying I expect anything as fancy as what they have on the show,” Marks said, “but it would be nice to have the distraction.”
Sam fought the urge to smile. “We went to a lot of trouble to stock a library of books and movies to fill these long slogs between galaxies. We don’t need a holodeck, Major.” They had been through hell the past few months, and it was nice to have a simple, uneventful cruise to wind down. Moments of pure relaxation were rare and to be treasured when they happened to pop up, because for every Goa’uld defeat there was an Ori threat looming in the shadows. But relaxation was one thing, frivolous luxury was another.
“Maybe not need,” he conceded, “but it would be nice. And the Asgard database probably has the technology to make it happen.”
“Even if it does, good luck getting the budget to have it installed.”
“Wouldn’t that go through General O’Neill?”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “Actually, now that you mention it…”
Captain Kleinman interrupted her thought. “Colonel, we have an unidentified bogie coming up fast on our position.”
She turned to face him, any trace of humor fading from her voice. “It’s tracking us through hyperspace?” Since defeating the Ori they had yet to encounter another race in either galaxy with the capability to track the Asgard core when the hyperdrive was engaged, but anything was possible.
“Yes, ma’am,” Kleinman reported. “At the rate it’s coming it will overtake us in approximately three minutes.”
If it was gaining on them in hyperspace then outrunning it obviously wasn’t an option. The only chance they had was to stand their ground and fight. Sometimes the bully just needed to see his prey stop running to show his true cowardice.
“Take us out of hyperspace. Shields and weapons at the ready.” The lights dimmed as they returned to subspace, red emergency lights flashing as Marks checked his instruments. “Major?”
“No matches on the database. Doesn’t look like anyone we know, Colonel.”
“Sound general quarters. Open a wide frequency.” She stood and stepped forward. “This is Colonel Samantha Carter of the United States vessel George Hammond. We extend —”
Her spiel was interrupted by a blast from the other ship’s weapons. The lights flickered as Marks reported. “Shields down to…” The awe in his voice was hard to miss. “Down to seventy-three percent, ma’am.”
“From one blast?”
“Apparently so.”
“Our new friends pack a wallop,” Sam muttered. She almost said they’d never encountered anyone with that kind of firepower, but something gnawed at the back of her mind. “Major Marks, evasive maneuver beta. If we can’t outrun them, maybe we can make sure we’re more trouble than we’re worth.”
“Aye, ma’am. Executing beta.”
Sam had just returned to her seat when the ship was rocked again by two consecutive blasts. The force of it nearly knocked her feet from under her, and she held tight to the chair to keep upright. A station to her left overloaded in a shower of sparks. She took a moment to ensure that no one had been injured before speaking again. “Shields?”
“Forty-o
ne percent, ma’am.”
Kleinman said, “The ship’s changing position, Colonel. It’s targeting our engines.”
“Return fire,” Sam said. If their opponent was powerful enough to knock their shields out so fast, they wouldn’t get anywhere with half-measures. “Give them everything we’ve got.”
“Aye, ma’am.” A moment later Kleinman reported. “Ma’am, they’re destroying the missiles before any of them could make contact. The alien ship is undamaged. Should we cease fire?”
“Yes,” Sam said. The back burner of her brain, the part General O’Neill claimed was always working on three different problems at once, was busy searching for that nagging memory of a past mission where something similar had happened. The Odyssey? No, it had been before that. The Prometheus. “Captain, do we have a visual of the ship?”
If Kleinman had ever answered, the memory remained lost for the time being. Sam’s strange sense of déjà vu lingered as she stared through the viewscreen at the empty space stretching out in front of them. But space wasn’t a horizontal plane and whatever had attacked them could still be around. She accessed the sensors and discovered something very large hanging immobile just beyond their visual range, objectively above their position. She recognized the shape of it without having access to her report from the SGC.
Five years earlier she had been part of the mission to retrieve the Prometheus from a planet where it had been forced to make an emergency landing. The return journey was slow going, due to mandatory cool-down periods between hyperspace jumps. During one of their stops they were overtaken by a vessel extremely similar to the one currently looming over her. The entire crew had jettisoned in escape pods only to be snatched up and taken prisoner by the unknown aliens. She was overlooked and left behind, unconscious with a head injury, because she was in a shielded portion of the ship. This time her exclusion had to be more deliberate. But why?
Stargate SG-1 & Atlantis - Far Horizons Page 25