SG1-17 Sunrise

by Crane, J. F.

  “Does that matter?”

  “It matters to me.” It was Faelan who had spoken this time, glowering at Jack. “How did you get into the Cove?”

  “I hitched a ride. You really should be careful who you let aboard your ships.”

  “Jack, I have this under control,” said Daniel. “In fact…” He set his mug down on the table and picked up the item he’d been perusing when Jack made his dramatic entrance; an electronic tablet which he activated by pressing the screen. “Faelan’s given me some information that I think may be of use to us. About the shield. This is a data module that was discovered in one of the laboratories here. It’s written in the same derivation of Gaelic we found on Acarsaid Dorch, but dates further back. Faelan tells me there are more of them here, up in the laboratories.”

  “Awful pally now, isn’t he?” said Jack, but he edged into the room all the same, weapon now at his side. But not holstered. Yet.

  Faelan also relaxed, his hand easing away from the knife. Next to him him, Daniel heard Rhionna’s relieved sigh.

  Jack nodded at the writing that scrolled across the tablet. “So what does it mean?”

  “It means nothing,” Faelan said. “It’s just a story from before the Flood. A myth.”

  “Like the Sungate?” Rhionna said pointedly.

  Faelan ignored her, glared out the window at the fragile towers of his dying city.

  “The Elect know something of the shield,” Rhionna said. “I know they do—and they fear it. Talk of the shield is forbidden inside the Ark.”

  “In my experience,” Jack said, “it’s always the important stuff they don’t let you talk about. What’s it say, Daniel?”

  Daniel looked up from the tablet. “This by itself? Not much, but if I could take a look at the rest of the material, I might be able to make some sense of it.” He glanced down at the device, at the tantalizing hints of a lost past—and at the truth he was keeping from Jack. But it was no good, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t lie. With a sigh, he put the device down and said, “Actually, there’s more. According to this the shield—”

  “—is a really big sunshade?” Jack swiped the hat off his head and flung it onto the floor. “Yeah, I know.”

  “You know that?” Daniel blinked. “How do you know that?”

  “I have my sources, why?”

  Daniel shrugged. “I don’t know, I just… So you’re not here to find the shield?”

  Jack was tugging off his coat, avoiding his gaze. “I came here to find you, Daniel. Before hurricane season starts.” He dropped the coat and readjusted his vest, at last looking up and meeting Daniel’s eyes. “No one gets left behind, remember? It’s an SG-1 thing.”

  “Yeah,” Daniel nodded, hiding a smile. “I remember.” And he did, he did remember. This was who they were, this was what they did. Then another thought struck him. “We still have to find the shield. If we can make it work, there’s a good chance the planet would start cooling enough for sea levels to begin to fall.”

  “And for kids to grow up without going blind? Yeah, I get it.” He holstered the Beretta. “So, what do we do?”

  Daniel grinned. Yeah, this was what they did. This was who they were. He smiled expectantly at Faelan, who still appeared distrustful. But the look shared between the man and Rhionna seemed to be filled, however briefly, with something like hope. “Faelan,” Daniel said, choosing his words with care, “if I’m right, I might be able to uncover technology that will help your people. All of them, including those in the Badlands. To dismiss these records as myth is myopic. Imprudent at best. Surely you’re wiser than that.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Jackson,” said Faelan, but his glance flicked over Daniel’s shoulder again, to where Rhionna stood by the window. Daniel thought he saw a question there, some silent communication. Rhionna gave a small nod, and Faelan sighed. “We don’t have much time,” he said, rising and heading for the door. “The storm is building, and we need to start the evacuation. Come now. You have until tomorrow to find out if what you seek is truly here. After that, it will be too late—the Cove will take her secrets to the deep.”

  As they left the room, Jack’s eyes strayed upwards scanning the ubiquitous graffiti that was daubed on practically every surface. Their host followed his gaze.

  “An Dóchas Deireanach,” he quoted. “A misplaced conviction, eh? It continues to amuse us even now.” His mouth curled into a wry grin, then he set off up the corridor, Rhionna by his side.

  Jack arched a look of query at Daniel. “The Last Hope,” he translated, with a shrug. “The original name of this place apparently.”

  “How apt,” Jack said sourly, stalking after Faelan.

  Daniel was left to follow—and to pray that the conviction wasn’t so misplaced after all.

  * * *

  Sam woke with a jolt as the cell door flew open and a bundle of rags and bones were thrown inside.

  “Heretic!” Ennis Channon filled the doorway. Scrunched in his hand was a wad of paper, his knuckles white around the yellowing parchment. “Filthy defiler of the innocent! Did you think you could undermine the Lord’s will?”

  Sam jumped to her feet as the bundle of rags resolved itself into Sorcha Caratauc, her face ominously bruised as she scrambled upright. All gristle and bone, she stood defiant before her accuser.

  “They’re only words, Ennis Channon,” she said. “Is your Lord so feeble that mere words can undermine His will?”

  Edging forward, Sam placed herself between Channon and the skinny old woman. No doubt Sorcha could handle herself, but Ennis was furious and Sam wasn’t taking any chances. She held up her hands, placating. “Look, Ennis, I’m sure—”

  “You,” he spat, jabbing the papers at her. “You dare come here with the very dust of Acarsaid Dorch on your feet? You seek to raise an abomination against our Lord! I’ll hear no word from you.”

  Across the cell, Teal’c shifted onto the balls of his feet and cast a glance at Sam. She knew what he was thinking; there is one of him, and two of us. Three, including Sorcha.

  There were no guards.

  “This vile heresy is over,” Ennis continued, still shaking the papers and making them rustle like leaves in a fall storm. “It is all destroyed, burned in that pit you call a home.” He must have seen shock on Sorcha’s face because he smiled, a malicious curl of his lips. “Yes, it is all gone—turned to ash. As you will be. You will never corrupt another innocent soul.”

  “Innocent you call it?” Sorcha laughed, a dry rattle in her throat. “It is ignorance you peddle, Pastor.”

  “Ignorance of sin.”

  “Of Knowledge!”

  Teal’c’s fingers flexed, and Sam recognized the question in the slight lift of his eyebrow. But it was broad daylight, and someone had to know Ennis was there—someone outside, perhaps close enough to hear a struggle. They’d only have one shot at this, and their odds were much better after dark.

  “Knowledge.” Ennis spat the word. “It was Knowledge that brought the Lord’s wrath upon us! It was Knowledge that befouled the Garden, that turned rank what once was beautiful. Did not the Lord send his great flood to wash away Knowledge and return us to innocence? And yet you seek to bring it back, to defy His will! Your sin is foul indeed, Sorcha Caratauc, and must be cleansed.”

  “Kill me if you will,” Sorcha said. “But Knowledge cannot be so easily destroyed. Do you think that my death will change what is true? Do you think it will return your daughter to ignorance?”

  His jaw clenched, as if holding back bile, and his eyes flashed murder. But all he said was, “I have no daughter.”

  Sorcha was silent. Teal’c was balanced to pounce, like a hunting cat. Sam held her breath.

  “They have forced you to this?” Sorcha said at last. “A strange kind of god who demands a father disown his beloved daughter. The same god who condemns the children for the sins of their fathers—the children, and their children’s children—who lets them burn beneath his Sun and damns them
even as they are birthed!”

  “Silence, heretic!” Breath hissed through his locked teeth, and the papers he held fell to the floor. “Only the Lord can judge you for your sins against Him, Sorcha Caratauc. Therefore, it is the will of the Elect that you be given over to His mercy; at Sunrise tomorrow you shall be taken from the Ark to a place of judgment, there to be staked out, flesh bared to the purifying fire of His Sun. By His will shall your heresies be burned away and your soul cast into the damnation it deserves.”

  Sorcha said nothing, merely spat her contempt at his feet.

  * * *

  The evacuation of the Cove had begun. In the gray pre-dawn light, a steady stream of people wound their way along the docks and onto the ships, while Jack O’Neill watched from his perch on what might have been a balcony once, but was now just a jagged, jutting jaw of granite propped up by unstable scaffolding. He’d seen operations like this before, of course, but here there was something missing.

  In his experience, with a mass migration of people, there was always an undercurrent of barely checked panic, a desperation to escape whatever disaster was on their heels. The Seachrání did not panic, and any desperation was buried under a bone-hard shell of stoicism. Survival for them was not just instinct; it was habit, honed throughout their lives. They didn’t know how not to do it.

  There was another characteristic of the Seachrání, however, that Jack found especially noteworthy: their strength as a unit. He had witnessed it on the ship, the devotion they had to one another and the bond that glued them together. It came from shared experience—hard experience—and it couldn’t be forced. Recently Jack had worried that it could be broken beyond repair. One thing he did know for sure; such a bond required one element that kept the parts of the whole together and stopped it from flying apart at the first gust of an ill wind. Down on the docks, that element walked among his people.

  Faelan Garret was a conundrum to Jack. More bitter and hardened than any jaded veteran Jack had known, with a hair-trigger temper, the man was a liability; Jack still hadn’t entirely ruled out shooting him so that he and Daniel could get the hell out of here. But an irritating inner voice insisted that this guy was so much more than what he claimed to be. Jack hated the wasted potential and hated even more that he found himself unable to dismiss it as someone else’s problem.

  He watched the captain make his way through the crowd, confident and assured, betraying none of the fears or doubts that might be brewing in his chest. With just a touch or a smile, he sowed encouragement.

  “No matter what he thinks, he is their leader,” said Jack to the man who had appeared at his elbow.

  “I won’t be arguing with you,” said Pádraig, scratching a thumb across the gray stubble of his beard.

  “Why is he so reluctant to accept that fact?”

  “Faelan does what needs to be done. Doesn’t matter what he tells himself.”

  “Sorry, Pádraig, but that sounds like bullshit to me.”

  Pádraig’s brow drew down, landing him the look of a man waiting to see whether a right hook might be called for. “And what would you be meaning by that?”

  “The way I see it, there’s a lot that needs to be done on this planet beyond running and hiding.”

  Pádraig faced him fully. “Now you listen to me, Jack O’Neill. I’ve known Faelan Garret since he first came wailing from his mother’s belly. His da was my brother in all but blood. That boy is Seachrání in his very marrow, and whatever he does, he does for his people.”

  “And what about those other people back at the Badlands?”

  Pádraig just turned back to glower down at the docks.

  “Yeah, I get it,” said Jack. “Not your problem.”

  “We take care of ours, O’Neill. We stand firm against the wind until it blows us over. It’s the way it’s always been.”

  Jack bit back a sigh of frustration at the old sailor’s mulishness. “Y’know, sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  But Pádraig just gave a chuckle like the rasp of a match. “Times are always desperate, O’Neill.”

  “Don’t try and tell me you’ve faced something as big as this before.”

  For a moment, Pádraig was silent, watching the activity below. After a while, he said, “Every Seachrání must face his final storm one day, O’Neill. Maybe this is ours.”

  “And you plan to go down with your ship, is that it?”

  But Pádraig didn’t answer, just turned and strode back into the lamp-lit building.

  Jack watched him go until the rattle of scaffolding against the ledge drew his attention. Peering over the edge, he saw Faelan swinging his way upwards on nimble hands and feet.

  “Jackson is still in the library?” asked the captain, as he pulled himself onto the balcony.

  “Yeah. Once Daniel has his nose in a book, he makes a terrible conversationalist. Rhionna’s helping him with the translations. I got bored and thought I’d take a look around. Hope that’s okay.”

  Faelan shrugged. Apparently they weren’t prisoners anymore. “Do you think he’ll find what he’s looking for?”

  “If anyone can sniff out a needle in a haystack, Daniel can. Though, in general, it has to be a really old needle. With weird writing on it. He loves weird writing.”

  The captain glanced over Jack’s shoulder and into the building beyond. “What did Pádraig have to say to you?” he asked with a jerk of his chin.

  “Oh, nothing much. We were just shooting the breeze.”

  Faelan didn’t look convinced, but said nothing more.

  “Where are you taking them?” asked Jack, scanning the docks again. The ships were filling rapidly, and men and women swarmed across the yards and lines, readying them for the voyage. On the quay, a few of the more hardened Seachrání remained, showing no intention to board.

  “Somewhere I hope is safer than here.”

  “And what about us?” he asked, hoping that his take on the guy wasn’t wrong, and that he wasn’t going to leave him, Daniel and Rhionna here for the storm to get them.

  “I’ll make sure you get back to the Ark.”

  “You realize that’s not what you’re supposed to do with hostages?”

  “That was a poor decision I made, Colonel. And not the first one either. I apologize for it.”

  Jack nodded. “Sometimes we all make decisions we regret.”

  A pained, fleeting expression crossed Faelan’s face; Jack suspected it had little to do with what had happened in the Badlands.

  “So you’re not coming back here then,” he guessed.

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I just figured…” Jack trailed off, something Pádraig had said scratching at the edges of his thoughts. He looked down again at the people still standing on the quay.

  “You’ll need a ship. I’ll bring one back,” said Faelan.

  There was a question that needed to be asked there, Jack knew, but it wasn’t the right time, so instead he nodded in the direction of the harbor. “Can I come with you?”

  Faelan looked surprised. “You want to join us on the voyage?”

  “Not especially, but considering these buildings aren’t much steadier than those boats—sorry, ships—then I figure I might as well stick to you like glue and make sure you keep your word about getting us home.” It wasn’t the truth; he had no doubt that Faelan would keep his promise. But there was that voice again, telling him that he just needed a little more time to talk this guy out of his bitter shell and persuade him that he could, in fact, make a difference.

  Apparently, Faelan wasn’t convinced by his explanation. He folded his arms across his chest and said, “What is it you hope to achieve here, O’Neill?”

  “Maybe nothing. Humor me all the same, huh?”

  After a brief pause, Faelan sighed in resignation. A flick of his head invited Jack to follow him down the scaffold. Feeling his way from pole to pole, trying in vain to keep pace with Faelan and not betray the ache in
his knee, Jack questioned the wisdom of his plan.

  Perhaps there was no hope for these people. Perhaps memories were influencing his actions, memories of bread rations and fear, and days colored by the furnace’s glare, when the only respite was a head resting on his shoulder. Perhaps this time, there was no hidden door to escape through.

  But perhaps, if there was a door, then Captain Faelan Garret would be the one to open it.

  Chapter Ten

  Faelan’s vessel, the Fánaí na Mara, set sail upon a too-calm sea. The sun had burned away the fog and now shone like vengeance on the mirror-flat surface. Even through sunglasses the glare was blinding. It was like nothing Jack had ever seen before, and from the look on Faelan’s face when they left the Cove, neither had he. The air felt heavy, expectant, and smelled of scorched metal. But if that hadn’t told him something big was coming, then the fat clot of black clouds squatting far off on the horizon certainly did.

  “They aren’t moving,” Faelan had muttered, almost to himself. “Why aren’t they moving?” The words, which turned those clouds into sentient creatures priming themselves to attack, had sent cold fingers walking up Jack’s spine.

  Now he sat in Faelan’s cabin, waiting out the Burn, which was harsher and lasted longer this far out to sea. The captain himself was off dealing with whatever matters needed to be dealt with on a ship like this. Eventually the door opened and Jack’s host entered, shucking off his coat and removing his hat and sun-visor.

  “So you gonna tell me where we’re headed?” said Jack, impatient beyond the point of small talk.

  Faelan ignored him. “Thirsty?” he asked, rubbing a hand over unkempt hair.

  Though he didn’t appreciate how the man avoided his question, Jack couldn’t deny the rasp in his throat and nodded. Faelan pulled a metal canteen and two cups from a chest on the floor. He filled both cups, handing one to Jack, who took a sip and pursed his lips in appreciation. It was just water, but cleaner and less bitter than the stuff he’d drunk back at Sorcha’s shack. He had to resist gulping it back.

  “We have more efficient desalination plants at the Cove,” explained Faelan. “What water we can spare we take to the people of the Badlands, but it’s never enough.”