The door was shut, but they pried it open with some difficulty, shining their flashlights around the space beyond before squeezing in.
“This is it!” Rodney said, bustling over to the familiar Ancient consoles, these neatly marked with signs in Athosian saying ‘do not touch the displays.’ “These are power control boards. Hmm, I don’t see the ZPM slot, but there may be a ZPM room in a different place. That would be a pain in the neck. Ok, let me get these up and running and see what the story is.”
“But if there’s no power….”
“Let’s find out.” Rodney held one finger in the air. “Don’t assume!”
“I shall not.”
Rodney’s hands flew over the boards, and Teyla let him work, instead wandering the perimeter of the room. It was not so long ago that her people had preserved this space. Had they known what it was? Or was it simply a mystery of Emege, a place of the Ancestors that was precious because of its antiquity? Had they understood that it might protect them? She turned, glancing back at Rodney. “Is it a shield generator?”
“I think so.” He didn’t look up from the cold instruments he was staring at. “But it’s not like the one on Atlantis. It’s a different design. Give me a minute here. I think I’ve seen something like it before.”
“Of course.”
There was a sudden whir, and the consoles blinked fitfully to life, lights flashing as the power stabilized.
“What?” Teyla said. “I thought you said the ZPM was depleted.”
“Obviously it’s not.” Rodney didn’t look up from the screens he was perusing. “Now. Let’s have a look at you. Ok. The system’s booting and it’s going to take a minute. But it looks like the process is orderly. I’m not seeing much in the way of fluctuation. I can’t get the power consumption menu up until it’s finished booting. Then we’ll see how much is left in the ZPM.”
“If the ZPM isn’t empty, why did they shut the shield down?”
Rodney glanced up. “The amount of power it takes to run this room is insignificant. You could run this room on .00001% of the ZPM. It would take lots more than that to run the shield. If they drained the ZPM almost all the way, they’d have enough power to run the control room but not keep the shield up. They could shut it down in an orderly fashion. This wasn’t blown out or knocked down. It’s doing a normal system boot like it was closed down the way Atlantis was.”
“So there could be some power left in the ZPM?”
“A little bit.” Rodney shrugged. “Not enough to do much more than this, but probably enough for some system diagnostics and so on. We can get a naquadah generator plugged in and do more. But I think the system is basically intact, and that’s good news for you guys. But no, there won’t be enough power to run the shield. As soon as this finishes, I’ll pull up the power menu and see what’s left.”
Teyla nodded. “That is good news.” And yet it pulled at her, the picture of those distant ancestors closing down the control room in an orderly way while the Wraith moved in, shutting down power systems neatly while Darts deposited landing teams in a city full of refugees. That was stranger and sadder than imagining the installation simply blown up.
“Ok, that’s weird.” Rodney’s voice was suddenly concerned. “Really weird.”
“What is weird, Rodney?”
“I’m reading full power. That can’t be right.”
“Full power?” Teyla came around the console, looking over his shoulder at the cascade of Ancient words on the screen, though she could read few of them.
“100%. That’s impossible. That would mean the ZPM is brand new. What in the hell?”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Teyla said. “Where is it? Maybe there is a malfunction in the reading or in the socket for it or something.”
“Probably.” Rodney’s hands danced over the screen. “I don’t see the ZPM socket in this room. Let me pull up a schematic of the power system and see where the actual ZPM room is. It’s probably in the substructure, like it is in Atlantis.”
“So we will have to find it and get there.” Teyla was not looking forward to another search.
“Yeah, I….” Rodney stopped. “Oh you’re kidding!”
“What?”
“There is no ZPM. There never has been. I knew I’d seen something like this installation before.”
“Rodney, what are you talking about?” This was the point where John would start shaking answers out of him.
“Taranis.” Rodney glanced up, an expression of triumph on his face. “Remember Taranis? We were there about five years ago? The people who found the shield generator and the Ancient warship? That we had to help evacuate?”
“I recall it vividly,” Teyla said. She certainly remembered nearly being choked by toxic fumes. “The people who had the enormous erupting volcano.”
“Their Ancient installation was running on geothermal power,” Rodney said. “They didn’t have a ZPM. It was tied into the geothermal power of the dormant supervolcano they were living on top of. They could pull plenty of power from it, enough to power their shield for more than a year before….” Rodney stopped again. “Oh crap.”
“I thought you said this room drew almost no power?”
“It does. That’s not an issue.” Rodney glanced around as though he could see through the walls to the outside, to the valley and the lake and the encircling mountains. “This is too.”
“A volcano? We have never had a volcano here. Not in our oldest lore.”
“Your lore doesn’t go back a few million years. This whole valley is the caldera of an enormous dormant volcano. It’s probably been dormant for literally millions of years and will be for millions more. But the geothermal activity is there. It’s deep underground, and it’s an enormous amount of power, just like on Taranis. The problem on Taranis was that they used it to power the shield on full for a long time and they destabilized the volcano. If they’d used less power, or if they’d listened when the warnings came that they were pushing it too much, they’d have been ok. It’s like I told them then — the shield isn’t meant to be run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for months and months on end. It’s supposed to be used at full power for brief periods only because it’s a real power hog. If they’d just cooled it a bit, they wouldn’t have had a problem.”
Suddenly, terribly, all the pieces fit. “My people, the Athosians who lived in the time of the Wraith armada, had a shield. They ran it for a year and a day. And then….”
Rodney took a deep breath, looking around the control room. When he spoke again his voice was oddly gentle. “And then they shut it down. Neatly, tidily and completely. They did a full systems shutdown. Because they were getting the warnings and they knew what they meant. The people on Taranis didn’t understand what they were. But the Athosians did.”
Teyla pressed her hands to her mouth. “They knew.”
Rodney nodded. “They knew that they were risking geological instability. That if they kept running the shield, they risked causing an eruption like the people on Taranis did, an explosion that would render their planet completely uninhabitable.”
“What an awful decision.” They had stood here, looking at these control panels and knowing that if they kept running the shield they would doom their world, doom every person and every animal and every plant on Athos that could not survive the eruption of a supervolcano. And that if they shut the field down, the Wraith would take this city — this beautiful city packed with refugees. “They knew,” Teyla whispered.
“They shut it down,” Rodney said quietly. “Your ancestors.”
“No,” Teyla said, blinking back tears. “Not my ancestors. Everyone who was here died. All the people of Emege, all the scientists who made this decision, all the rulers who agreed, all their families and all their children. They were food for the Wraith. But some
people survived, people who lived in outlying areas and who had deep mines or remote farms. Some of the people of Athos survived. Just not the people of Emege.”
Rodney didn’t say anything.
“They preserved our world. They preserved the lives of people who weren’t their kin, who weren’t with them in the city, in hopes that some of them would survive the Great Culling. Instead of holding onto the shield and dooming everyone, they sacrificed themselves to save this world for people they would never know.”
“I don’t know I’ve ever heard anything that sad,” Rodney said.
“It’s not sad!” Teyla brushed her tears away. “It’s a victory. Don’t you see? Life won. Queen Death didn’t win. Death itself didn’t win. Those people died, and our world endured and this city was rebuilt and reinhabited and rose again. We rise again. Every time we fall, we rise!”
She touched the control panels reverently. “And this is their gift to us, another gift. We have a working shield generator, and we can use it as it was intended to be used, occasionally in emergencies to protect us.”
“And you have a boatload of power the rest of the time,” Rodney said. “This thing could power an entire city without breaking a sweat. If you were just using it for ordinary things like lights and computers, you’d never have to worry about it. You’ve got all the power you want.”
“Enough power to let us decide our future.” Teyla closed her eyes for a moment, her hand against the smooth metal. A story. A new story about how Emege had fallen. A hero story about the sacrifice its last defenders had made for Athosians to come — for them. A bridge from the past to the present. What does it mean to be Athosian? It is to be the heirs of those who died in Emege.
She opened her eyes. Rodney was looking at her worriedly.
“We will go back to the Council,” Teyla said. “I have a new story to tell them. And then we have much to discuss.”
“Does that mean the Athosians will be coming back here?” Rodney asked.
Teyla nodded. “I think you may count on that.” Perhaps Torren would live here one day. Perhaps Jinto would rebuild the atrium and these other buildings. Perhaps Kanaan would open a brewery here, and Halling would plant fields of beans to feed them all. Perhaps, in time, these empty windows would shine with light pulled from beneath the ground, safely and warmly heating each room against winter’s cold. She would visit here, walking through the gate from Atlantis. And in that day, the Children of Emege would prosper.
Stargate SG-1
In Passing
Susannah Parker Sinard
This story takes place between seasons eight and nine of Stargate SG-1.
“Uh…Jack?”
In his peripheral vision, Jack could see Daniel hovering in the open doorway. Half-silhouetted and backlit from the briefing room, he had an aura about him reminiscent of the first time he’d been ascended. It made Jack do a double-take. But no, this Daniel was flesh and blood — again — and wearing what Jack had mentally dubbed his funeral suit. Jack had seen it too many times these past couple of years, including Catherine Langford’s memorial service last week. And, not unexpectedly, here it was again.
“Everyone else is ready.” Daniel nodded in the general vicinity of the gate room. “We should probably go. We don’t want to be late.”
Jack bit back the well-conditioned first response that came to his mind. Keeping the Tok’ra cooling their heels was a bit of gamesmanship he would have had no problem with, under normal circumstances. But not today. He wouldn’t do that to Sam, or the memory of Jacob Carter — although he was pretty sure Jacob might have appreciated the sentiment. Selmak too, for that matter. But, hey, they both were beyond the petty squabbles of this mortal coil now, and self-indulgently dragging his heels would only reflect poorly on Carter and the SGC, which was something he would not let happen. Not on his watch. And it was still his watch — for a while longer anyway.
“Tell Walter to dial —” The vibration under his feet told Jack they were well ahead of him. Daniel’s eyebrows arched innocently. “Right.” He swiftly slid the papers he’d been reading back into their folder and added it to the pile. The stack of folders on his desk would have to wait. Of course, by the time he got back, it would have doubled in size. Maybe tripled. The reproductive proclivities of SGC paperwork made rabbits look like amateurs. He didn’t even want to think about the quantity of paper he’d have to push at the Pentagon.
Snatching his starched and pressed service dress jacket off the back of his chair and his equally uncomfortable hat off the desk, Jack followed Daniel across the briefing room. Through the wide window he could see Teal’c and Carter already at the foot of the ramp. T stood placidly, hands clasped behind his back, gazing at the spinning Stargate. Carter, on the other hand… He could sense her subdued tension from two levels up. She was fiddling restlessly with something in her hands, and Jack recognized the box the Tok’ra had provided — the one that now contained Jacob’s and Selmak’s ashes. Sam was giving it the once over for what he was sure must be the hundredth time. Two-hundredth, probably.
Jack hadn’t realized he’d stopped walking until Daniel came back and stood beside him.
“I guess it hadn’t really hit me that this is our last mission together — if you want to call it a mission,” Daniel said, looking down into the gate room too. “It was lucky that the Prometheus’ departure was delayed so Sam could be here.”
Hammond was responsible for that. And for a few other things as well — like those orders on his desk. George always did have their six.
“Yeah. Well. Last I checked, deep space wasn’t going anywhere.” Jack turned away from the window and headed toward the stairs.
The fifth chevron was already locking by the time he and Daniel joined the others in the gate room.
“Did you ever anticipate, O’Neill, that the day would arrive when we would feel free to journey to the Tok’ra without our weapons at our sides?” Like Daniel, Teal’c was also wearing his civilian funeral clothes. Jack tried to picture him brandishing a staff weapon while wearing his turtleneck. It didn’t work.
“I don’t like it.” Going off-world without so much as even a pocket knife was just wrong. He felt vulnerable. Exposed. Like he was about to walk through the gate naked.
“Considering it’s a funeral, I hardly think a P90 would go with what you’re wearing. Besides.” Daniel patted at his own suit coat, to emphasize his point. “It’s not like we even have a place to put them.”
Jack glowered. “I’m just sayin’ — it doesn’t feel right, is all.”
“I agree — it feels a bit strange.” Carter spoke at last. Jack gestured toward her with both hands.
“Thank you!”
“But Daniel’s right. Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t be appropriate. I’m sure we’ll be fine.”
“Et tu, Carter?” Jack replied, archly. Fine. He knew when he was outnumbered. It didn’t mean he had to like it.
Overhead Walter’s voice announced the sixth chevron locking.
“Do you not feel safe amongst the Tok’ra, O’Neill, now that our common enemy has been defeated?” Teal’c asked.
“What I would feel a whole lot safer about, is knowing exactly where the hell it is we’re actually going.” This was the part about today’s plans that made him edgy. According to the instructions they’d received, the address they were dialing was just a rendezvous point from which they would be ‘escorted’ to their final destination. Proof the Tok’ra were still as paranoid as ever.
“If you think about it, Jack, this has to be one of the most secure places in the galaxy.” Daniel’s attention was on the spinning gate as he spoke. “I mean, we’re still the closest thing to an ally the Tok’ra have, and they’re not even telling us where it is.”
“And doesn’t that strike you as just a little bit — odd?�
�� Jack asked. “I mean, the bad guys are gone. It’s safe to come out now. ‘Ole-Ole-Olsen’s Free’.”
Daniel shrugged. “You can hardly blame them. Even with the System Lords nearly wiped out, I’m sure there are still some Goa’uld — Ba’al, for example — who’d be more than happy to make the Tok’ra pay for their role in bringing them down. And now that the Free Jaffa Nation is establishing itself as a key player in the new galactic order, it’s understandable why the Tok’ra might want to continue to lay low.”
“It was the Tok’ra who developed the symbiote poison which led to the death of many million Jaffa,” Teal’c interjected, with an edge in his voice.
“The Trust did that, so technically not the Tok’ra’s fault,” Daniel pointed out. “Although I’m not sure the Jaffa are ready to make that distinction just yet.”
“Indeed.”
Jack fidgeted as the Stargate finally blossomed to life. Some other time he’d take a moment to wax nostalgic about this final trip through the gate. Right now, though, he just wanted this whole event over with as swiftly as possible.
Beside him, Carter took a deep breath.
“You sure you’re gonna be okay?” he asked her as Teal’c and Daniel started up the ramp.
“Yeah. I’ll be fine.” She indicated the box in her hands. “I know Dad wanted this, for Selmak, so it’s the least I can do.”
Hardly the least, as far as he was concerned, considering they’d been through this once already when they’d spread some of the ashes at her mother’s grave. But then, underestimating Sam Carter was something he’d learned a long time ago not to do. And because there really wasn’t anything more he could say at the moment, Jack gestured toward the gate. “Then, shall we?”
Out the corner of his eye he saw her shoulders straighten with brutal determination as they moved forward.
STARGATE SG-1 ATLANTIS: Homeworlds : Volume three of the Travelers' Tales (SGX Book 5) Page 5