SG1-17 Sunrise

by Crane, J. F.

  The Goa’uld weren’t the only threats to Earth’s future, and Sam could already see the obvious application of this knowledge at home. Geo-engineering was the future, and this technology could put them a hundred years ahead of themselves—if she could just get it to work. She smiled, the thrill of discovery quickening her blood, and, truth be told, it felt good not to be working on a weapon for once.

  “Okay,” she said again, “what we need to find is the interface, the computers that control the shield.” She looked over at Sorcha. “Do you know where that is?”

  The old woman nodded. “At the place of Last Hope.”

  “Appropriate name.” Sam sighed and rocked back on her heels. “I need to get there. If we’re going to get this working, I need to get there. Are there any boats?”

  “None that can travel so far, nor fast enough to beat this storm.” Sorcha frowned. “But your friend has the device from Acarsaid Dorch. Can he not do what must be done to make the shield work?”

  Sam glanced at the phone. “It’s not that simple. Maybe I could talk him through it, but…” She stared at Sorcha again, at the ardent hope in her eyes, and tried to find words to explain. “Look, the device we found at the outpost—at Acarsaid Dorch—can’t do anything on its own. It’s… Think of it as a patch to fix a leaky bucket. It’s useless if we can’t find the bucket to begin with.”

  “And this ‘bucket’ is?”

  “Some kind of control room—a bank of computers, machines. Something that can communicate with the shield in the same way your phone”—she waved a hand toward the device—“can communicate with the Cove.”

  Sorcha frowned. “There are old machines at the Cove—screens that are lifeless, they do not show Sunrise or anything else.”

  “Well, that could be it.” Sam nodded. “That could be the control room. But it’s pretty old, Sorcha, and I don’t know if Daniel will be able to figure out how to install the Acarsaid Dorch device. And that’s assuming there’s power there.” She trailed off in a sigh.

  And into the silence the phone bleeped. Sorcha stirred. “The link is back. Now, you can speak to your friend. You can tell him what he must do.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said, reaching for the handset. “Sure. Piece of cake.”

  * * *

  Despite his best efforts to quell his motion sickness, the voyage back to the Cove severely tested Jack’s limits. The sea churned beneath a night sky blackened further by the coming storm. The solar sails, useless in these conditions, had long been furled. The ship crested and fell with every mountainous wave, but the Seachráni barely blinked an eye and went about their duties with as much industry as ever. After a short debate with himself over proving his manly stamina versus retreating from the elements, Jack chose the latter and shut himself in Faelan’s cabin. On deck he was only getting under people’s feet anyway.

  “How can you even stay upright in this?” he asked Faelan, when the drenched captain eventually appeared below to pore over some charts.

  Faelan grinned. “This is nothing, Colonel. A light breeze. The sea can do much worse.” His humor faded and he said, “You’ll find that out soon enough.”

  “Will we make it back to the Cove?”

  “We should, but even if we do…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. If the coming storm was of the magnitude predicted, then it was doubtful that the already fragile structures of the Cove would remain standing.

  “You have to get the rest of your people out of there, Faelan,” Jack said around a wince.

  “We’ve evacuated as many as we can. The Tearmann can take no more. There are only a few of us left, and there’s nowhere else for us to go.”

  “Oh, I think there is. I think you’re just too pigheaded to admit it.”

  Faelan fixed his attention on the charts. “I don’t need to hear this from you, Colonel. I’ve heard it enough times from Rhionna. I will not plead for refuge at the Ark only to have the door slammed in our faces. Or worse.”

  “Worse how?”

  “You saw how we were treated in the Badlands. Even you and your people will have been judged by now. Do you think Ennis Channon would show us mercy? Do you think he even has that power? There are others who rule from the shadows, Colonel.”

  This assertion might have sounded like paranoia if Jack had not already assumed as much; there was always a man behind the curtain. And there was no way that Channon, or Camus, or whoever called the shots, would be persuaded to open the doors to a people they despised. It was a truth that could not be avoided.

  Still, he could not understand Faelan’s conviction that the Cove would withstand the storm. What was more, Jack could not forget his own selfish motivation. He had Daniel to worry about. And Teal’c. And Sam. He had to get back to them and to the gate. “Look, Faelan,” he said, trying to reason with the man, “we can’t stay at the Cove. It’s a miracle the entire place hasn’t fallen apart already. How can you think risking death there is better than taking our chances at the Ark?”

  Faelan folded up his charts and stowed them in a chest. “Rhionna can take you and Dr Jackson back to the Ark. I’ll provide you with a seaworthy vessel.”

  “But what if the Cove doesn’t hold? Why won’t you –” Jack broke off, the truth dawning. “You don’t care if it holds.” It wasn’t a question. “You don’t expect to make it, do you? Maybe you don’t even want to.”

  Faelan’s silence was answer enough.

  The knowledge sickened Jack, and for an instant, the cold metal of his P90 triggered a memory of Charlie’s room and another gun in his hand and a time when giving up seemed like the only option left. “Why are you so afraid?” he asked Faelan.

  The captain spun around, eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare.”

  “Oh, I think it’s you who doesn’t dare. You don’t dare hope, or let other people hope, because it’s all or nothing with you. You had big dreams that didn’t pan out, and so you just throw in the towel? Is that how this is going to end for you, Faelan? Going down with the proverbial ship? You’ll forgive me if I don’t call that brave.”

  Faelan turned back to lean on the table, the muscles in his shoulders bunching in anger. When he spoke his voice was quiet, but passionate. “I had hope once. I told my people I could help them. I asked them to let me lead them. I asked them to trust me.”

  “They still trust you, damnit!”

  “Then they’re fools.”

  “They’re a hell of a lot smarter than you!” Irritated, Jack scrubbed his palms over three days worth of stubble. He hated this familiar frustration, but was helpless against it. There was always a Faelan. On every planet, in every desperate situation, there was always that one person who had the potential to change the way things worked. Sometimes they understood that duty when it fell to them. But mostly their potential went wasted, through fear, or ignorance, or just plain bullheadedness. And all too recently, he’d been that guy.

  Not anymore. Turning a blind eye wasn’t part of a colonel’s job description, and neither was giving up easily.

  Besides, this wasn’t just some wiseass airman fresh out of the Academy. For Faelan, his proving ground was on a larger scale, with more at stake. Jack took a steadying breath. “You think you failed them, but I think you’ll find a few people back at the Tearmann who’d disagree with you. Imagine how many more you could add to their number.”

  Faelan stood still as a statue, unmoved by the pitch and roll of the ship. Then he said, “I’m tired of fighting.”

  To that, Jack had no reply.

  * * *

  Something wasn’t right.

  His nose all but pressed to the wall, Daniel Jackson was tracing his fingers over the scrawled words that showed up everywhere in the Cove.

  An Dóchas Deireanach. The Last Hope.

  The bitter irony of it was not lost on Rhionna Channon, nor on the Seachráni. But what Daniel Jackson found so interesting about these scribblings, she could not imagine.

  “Daniel?” The tinny voice that
came through the handset belonged to Major Carter.

  “This is Rhionna,” she said, “he’s just here. Daniel—it’s Major Carter.”

  He turned away from the wall with a startled look, as if he’d forgotten why they were in the room. “Right.” He nodded, gathering the wad of papers under his arm, and headed over. “Thanks.”

  Taking the handset from her, he sat down at the little table in the comms room and spread the papers out in front of him. “Okay,” he said into the device, “what have you got?”

  Whatever the answer was, it made him frown, and Rhionna paced, trying to pay attention to Daniel while listening out for the arrival of Faelan’s ship at the same time. They were going to fight again, and she was bracing herself for it—bracing for the fight, bracing for the fact that this might be the end. Of everything.

  Outside the storm blew harder, she could hear the sea thundering far below as it battered the Cove’s ancient foundations. Beneath her feet she felt the sway and wondered what it would look like at the end, when it all came crashing down. The Last Hope, swallowed in the end by the waters that had claimed her world.

  “No, that’s what I’m saying!” The rising pitch of Daniel’s voice drew her from her morbid thoughts. “It’s not here—there’s nothing here like that. There’s no control room, there’s not even any power. I’m reading by lamplight here.” He continued to listen, brow furrowing again as he looked through the papers. Then he nodded. “Yeah—okay. Look, it says here that they moved it at some point, close to the end I think. Maybe they tried to move it here, but they never made it. The thing is, and this might be nothing, but there’s something…odd with the name.” Another pause. “Last Hope. Yeah, but actually no. That’s not what it says. The place of last hope translates as an Dóchas Deireanach, it’s written all over the walls here, like a slogan. But what it says in the documents, what it actually says, is that they moved it to an Dóchas a Mhaireann—which translates as the place of Lasting Hope. I wonder if—?”

  “Oh, my God,” Rhionna’s voice was a whisper, but it still managed to reach him.

  He turned and shot her a curious look. “An Dóchas a Mhaireann? You’ve heard of it?”

  “Yes,” she said, that last hope sinking like a stone. “I know it. Speaking that name is forbidden, I’ve never heard it said aloud, but I know it.”

  His eyes were sharp, penetrating. “And do you know where it is?”

  She managed a nod. “It might as well be at the bottom of the ocean.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  For all the punishment taken by the Fánaí na Mara on the journey back to the Cove, it was the final few moments that proved the most treacherous. In just a few hours, the sea level had risen alarmingly, and when Jack saw the gap between the tops of the furious waves and the archway to the Cove’s dilapidated buildings he felt certain there was no way in hell anything would get through.

  “We’ll never make it,” he yelled at Faelan over the roar of the storm, and then winced at the God-awful cliché.

  But Faelan only grinned, wild and reckless, and spun the ship’s wheel with expert hands. “Course we’ll make it, Colonel. The Fánaí could fit though the eye of a needle if I asked her.”

  He’s actually lost it, thought Jack, trying to quell his panic as the Cove walls raced closer. He’s actually gone completely crazy.

  Then the entire ship was engulfed by shadow. The massive arch loomed overhead, swallowing them like a closing throat. Jack was sure that, if he reached up, he could scrape his fingers along the underside. Shutting his eyes, he waited for the impact and the inevitable screech of metal against metal when the sea crushed them against the towering buildings.

  And then all was calm. Calm-ish.

  Rain still lashed the decks, and the ship still rolled in a way that made him glad he hadn’t eaten supper, but as Faelan and the crew guided the Fánaí na Mara in to dock, it looked as though the threat of death was no longer imminent.

  With the lines barely secured, the captain was already striding down the gangway, but Jack had no intention of letting him go so easily. He matched his gait, catching up with him on the quay.

  “Faelan!”

  The man whirled around. “Stop, Colonel! Just stop!”

  Jack shook his head, wiping away the rain that stung his eyes. “You don’t understand the mistake you’re making.”

  “No, it’s you who doesn’t understand. The Sciath Dé, do you know what Ennis Channon and his like call it?” He didn’t wait for a response. “They call it Knowledge, and they sneer when they say the word, as if it’s something filthy, something corrupt. They let their people fill their heads with banalities, and keep them gorged on words without meaning. And do you know why they do that?”

  He paused, expecting an answer this time, but Jack said nothing, merely held his gaze. There was no need to reply, because the reason was obvious.

  “Knowledge, Colonel O’Neill.” His lips drew back, as if in disgust. “Said just like that. They call it sinful, wicked, and damn everyone who pursues it, while they hoard the truth like greedy kings and grow fat on their lies.” He threw his arms up, gesturing to the buildings that swayed dangerously around them. “This is my kingdom, Colonel. And if it falls then I fall with it.”

  Faelan turned away, his shoulders dropping, and when he spoke again, the fire was gone. “I’ll send you back in the Fánaí with the last of my crew. Good men and women. If anyone can get you home, they will.”

  With that he left, his footsteps echoing along the wooden dock. Only then Jack realized someone had been calling his name. He turned to find Daniel running towards him.

  “You made it back,” said Daniel, a grin on his face.

  “I made it back. Though I can’t say the same for the last three meals I ate. Never let me set foot on a boat again.”

  “Ship,” Daniel murmured absently, looking over Jack’s shoulder. “Was that Faelan?”

  “Yeah. He’s in a mood.”

  “A mood?” Daniel’s eyebrow quirked, and his tone was deadpan.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Jack brushed past him, stalking toward the Fánaí na Mara, which was already being prepared for the voyage back to the Ark. “Get your stuff. We gotta get out of here.”

  “Uh, yeah I know.”

  “And I don’t want to hear about how you haven’t found the shield yet–”

  “I have found the shield.”

  “Or how if you just had a bit more time–”

  “I don’t need any more time.”

  “Because this whole place is about to come crumbling down around our ears.”

  “Jack, we have to get back to the Ark.”

  “So we have to get back to the Ark. Wait. What?”

  “I found Sciath Dé. It’s back at the Ark. We have to get there, and quickly.”

  “Daniel, are you telling me this entire jaunt was completely pointless? That the shield was back at the Ark the whole time?”

  Daniel cleared his throat. “Well, if by pointless you mean accomplishing nothing, then no, because I would never have discovered some key information if it hadn’t been for the records here. Not to mention the whole saving me from the Seachráni part. In fact, what I did discover here was that the shield is in, uh, the place where we thought it would be right at the start.”

  Jack took a breath. “This better be good, Daniel.”

  “Oh, it is.”

  A shout came from the deck. Twenty minutes until they sailed.

  Jack grinned. “Clock’s tickin’, Daniel.”

  * * *

  When the line went dead, Sam sat back on her heels and stared at the handset. Sorcha shifted, got to her feet and moved toward the bookshelves that lined the walls.

  “An Dóchas a Mhaireann,” she muttered. “I’ve never heard the Ark called such a name. Never seen those words written.”

  Sam rubbed a hand through sweat-tangled hair. Going by the rising heat, the sun had to be up by now, beating down on the dirt roof of the cellar
and baking them like a pair of chickens in a clay oven. Shooing away her nascent claustrophobia, she said, “Daniel’s rarely wrong about these things, and Rhionna confirmed the name; Sciath Dé is in the Ark, Sorcha.”

  The old woman shook her head and for the first time since they’d met, Sam thought she looked beaten. “Impossible. The Elect believe the existence of Sciath Dé to be an affront to the will of their god—by its very nature it seeks to diminish His power, to shield all the world from His wrath instead of only them, the chosen few. Do you think the Elect would ever have permitted it to enter their precious Ark?”

  “Well apparently they did, once,” Sam said. “People change, Sorcha. Lines harden over time. Maybe things were different then? Less black and white.”

  Sorcha snorted, dismissive and defeated. “If it is in the Ark, then I tell you it is guarded by the Elect. They would not risk its discovery.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Sam rose, stretching out stiff legs. “I don’t think Ennis knew where it was—I don’t think he knows much about it at all.”

  “Ennis Channon is not the sum of the Elect,” Sorcha said. “He is simply their tool.”

  Sam shrugged. “So you just want to give up? Daniel and the Colonel are bringing the patch back here, running ahead of that storm, and you just want to give up on the bucket?”

  “No! Do not seek to school me in patience, Samantha Carter. This is the work of my life we are discussing. But this is my world, and I understand how it works. If Sciath Dé is in the Ark, then mark me—it is under the protection of the Elect. That is how such things work.”

  “You’re assuming they know what it is,” Sam countered. She shook her head, pacing as her mind began to connect the dots. “No. You said it yourself, Sorcha—they hate knowledge, they’ve done everything they can to destroy it. They killed the scientists at the outpost, just to destroy what they knew!”