MEMOIRS OF
BRIGADIER GENERAL JACK O’NEILL
(Retired)
Part V
Chapter Five
By Arrietty
2006
My head hurt and a dull thump was pounding at the back of my head. ‘Well, this must be a good sign.’
I staggered to my feet and walked to the entrance of the cave; howling gales and rain were lashing the trees and land. The wind which hurt my ears whistled along the cliff face above the cave. The tall grass was flattened horizontally by the wind that roared across the landscape. For the first time, I didn’t know what to do. Should I go ahead and risk it, or go back and try again? I looked back into the cave and swung my flashlight around the interior.
The sound stopped.
I spun around with my P-90 ready to fire. The wind, clouds and rain had gone. What had been tall grass was now a long and winding dirt road. It wasn’t even wet from the rain. I let out a sigh of relief; I was home. This must be my reality as the planet that I had arrived on so many months ago behaved just as absurdly as this one.
I quickly checked my control device and memorized the markings on it, just in case. I had been bitten too many times and if it wasn’t my universe, it was pretty close.
I didn’t waste any time and headed straight to the Stargate, the planet seeming to behave itself the whole way there. I dialed up Kelowna and walked through the event horizon, eager to get home.
The horror that met me filled me with dread. Baal had been here, or his cohorts had. The familiar sight of lesions on the dead that littered the floor of the room, such as we had seen on the Beta site, made me sink to my knees and throw up. Kelownans and SGC personnel made up a mix of the people that lay there.
“Jack.” I turned upon hearing the sound of my name.
Jonas was propped up against the wall. I moved slowly towards him while his eyes tracked my movements.
“Jack, you’re okay.” I knelt down on one knee beside him, as he struggled to breathe. “Baal hit Earth and us simultaneously. It’s gone, all gone.”
“No,” I breathed.
“The self-destruct at the SGC, ha-“He scrunched his face up with the pain. “–have you set it?”
“No, Jonas. I will, but I need a GDO. Where is it?”
“Here.” He gasped and pulled it out from behind his body. Why he had it there, I would never find out. “The code is 2674930217”
I repeated the code. “2674930217”
He nodded. “Go.”
Before I stood up, I gently touched his shoulder; I wasn’t worried about contamination as I already knew I was a dead man. I gave him one last look before dialing up the ‘gate and sending through the code. I was half surprised to see it was accepted, but I knew that there was a fail safe set in if it was unmanned at any time, not that it had ever happened before.
As I stepped into the wormhole, Jonas called out something after me that sounded wrong. “We should have left Baal’s garrison alone.” All thoughts of what he said were blown out of my head as I arrived on the other side.
The ‘gate room mirrored what I had seen in Kelowna, but on a bigger scale. Friends and people that I knew and cared about were lying haphazardly on equipment and the floor; some were huddled into pairs or groups as they had died, while others had died alone.
“General?” The unmistakable voice of Walter was distorted by the croakiness of his throat.
I quickly looked up into the haunted eyes of the brave technician. He was barely hanging on, but he had managed to so I could come through safely. As I leapt over the fallen airmen and women and pounded up the stairs two at a time I watched him slowly slip down behind the console. By the time I had reached him, he had gone. Something hurt internally as I looked at this courageous man who had stayed alive, just to let me through.
I slowly walked through to what would now be Hammond’s office; I didn’t have long before the virus would take me down too. I needed to find out first if anyone else was alive, as only two senior officers could set the self-destruct and I hadn’t worked out how to manage that yet.
I pushed open the door and glanced around what I thought was an empty room, and then my heart started to race. First, I wanted to cry with relief, then with despair. I wasn’t in my own reality, this was an alternate one. I walked over to the couple that was half-sitting half-lying against the floor and wall. By the stars on his lapels I could see he was also a general. It was weird looking at myself, dead. The only consolation that I could feel was that he had died holding onto the one person he loved above all else in this world, Lieutenant Colonel Carter.
I couldn’t see her face as it was buried in his chest and her arms were tightly wound around his torso. His arms were wrapped around her shoulders, his head leaning back against the wall and his eyes closed. I checked to see if they were still alive, but they were cold to the touch.
I brushed the tears angrily from my cheeks as I staggered out into the briefing room. Now, what Jonas had said all made sense. This was not my reality and I would finally die here in another universe, on my own. No Sam to hold like the man back there. They were all dead. Even though not my people, it felt just as painful. A blind rage came over me at the thought of all the wasted lives. I don’t remember what happened during that time, but when the rage had left me; my arms ached from the exertion. I stared around me, the room was a shambles. I had never lost my temper to this degree before; smashed chairs were scattered around, glasses and equipment lay broken on the ground. I stared down at my bruised and cut hands. I quickly pulled out a handkerchief and wrapped it around a deep cut on the palm of my hand.
My heart began to slow down its excessive beating as I slowly walked from the room. Resolved to my fate and the fate of this complex I moved quickly through the corridors looking for anyone that might have survived. Even if they were like Walter, nearly gone, I still needed their help. Baal was not going to get the SGC and what we had worked so hard for. We as in O’Neill of this reality and me.
I worked my way to Sam’s lab; if anything about what had happened had been recorded it most probably would be there. I needed to find out how the toxin had been administered, if it was via the Stargate the SGC would need to be sealed, if it wasn’t already.
I made a quick detour via the infirmary, my hand was giving me trouble and I needed something to stop the bleeding. As I began to get closer to the infirmary I heard a dull banging noise, then it stopped. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but it seemed to come from the infirmary. Of course if someone was still alive, the infirmary would be the place. I began to run, shoving open the doors I burst into the large main room. I was met with the same sight I had seen in the Stargate room. As far as I could see they were all dead.
“Anyone here?” I called. My voice sounded hollow in the quiet room.
I moved quickly through to the isolation rooms; maybe something there would help me. The first room I came across filled me with sadness. Hanging by one arm, Daniel was half lying on the floor. His arm was hooked into a circular wheel like you see on submarines. This was something new to the SGC, something that hadn’t been here before. He was dead also. I heard a slight noise and I walked past Daniel into the observation booth and peered through the glass. It was fairly dark in there, but I saw a small scrunched over figure hugging her knees and rocking slightly forward and back, forward and back.
I banged on the glass, startled; Doctor Fraiser glanced up at me. She slowly shook her head and then buried it back into her knees.
I yanked the intercom mike over and pressed the button. ‘This'd better work.’ “Doc.” She stopped rocking momentarily then continued. “Doc! It’s me, O’Neill.” This time she looked up at me. I grinned at her and waved one hand at her. Then pointed to my bandaged hand. “I need your help, cut myself.”
She shot straight up and walked over to the wall and switched on the intercom. “I don’t understand; Daniel said you were dead.”
“Long story, I’m from another universe. You know the mirror thing that Daniel stumbled across. You gonna help me?”
She nodded, and then wiped her sleeve across her eyes. “I can’t get out. Can you get the door open?”
“No problem,” I replied, dreading the task that I was going to have to undertake.
I moved back out into the hallway, then stopped and walked straight back into the observation booth.
Lifting the microphone to my mouth I spoke to Janet again. “Doc.” She looked up at me and frowned. “If I come in there you will die.” She shook her head.
“How long have you been exposed to the air here?”
I looked at my watch. “About twenty minutes here and ten minutes prior in Kelowna.”
She smiled, “Then we still have time. Do you trust me?” I nodded. “Get in here, but hurry as your life may depend on it.”
Not stopping to ask why or what she meant, I went back through to the corridor and the door. Carefully I removed Daniel’s body. It was hard to do, not only physically, but emotionally as well. I laid him gently down on the floor; his eyes were shut tight as though he had been in pain as he died. Blocking out the emotions that flowed through me, I turned my attention back to the door.
The handle turned smoothly and quickly and I opened it to go into an airlock. I quickly shut the door behind me while Doctor Fraiser changed the air in the airlock. Then her door opened and I walked into the room. The first thing she did was to rip the sleeve from my arm, which isn’t easy I know, and stuck a needle straight into my arm, pushing the plunger down hard.
“Ow! What ya doing, Doc?”
“Saving your life, so shut up. Sir,” she added. Now we wait.”
“Wait for what? To die?” I asked.
“No.” Doctor Fraiser was back; she was busy checking my vital signs and was pulling out her medical kit, so that she could stitch me up.
I was just going to make some quip about the penlight when, lo and behold out it came.
“Doc, leave it out won’t ya?”
“No. Now let’s look at this hand.” She pulled my hand towards her and unwrapped the makeshift bandage. “What did you do this on?”
I shrugged. She looked up at me sharply, waiting for an answer. “I don’t know, something in the briefing room. I think it was the decanter of water.” She still looked at me. “I had just been in Hammond’s office.”
“Oh.” She looked down at what she was doing. “I see. Daniel told me.”
Finally, she took some blood and put it in a machine that whizzed around really fast.
“What happened, Doc?” Her back was to me as I asked the question and I watched her shoulders stiffen and then relax slightly as the busied herself with things on the bench.
Her voice was quiet. “I’m hoping that I’ve found an inoculation or cure for the virus that Baal has used.” She hadn’t answered my question. Doc peered through a microscope at a slide she had prepared, and then showed me on a monitor. “See, the virus is already attacking your cells.” I wasn’t surprised at what she had told me. “Please, I need more blood.”
I rolled up my sleeve on my arm that still had a sleeve on it and she once again drew more blood. “You have good veins; this makes it so much easier.”
I gave a half smile, tilted my head on one side. “Well, you only have the best to work with.” I was rewarded with a smile back.
Once again, my blood went into the whizzy thing then she carefully prepared a fresh slide. I watched as she peered through the microscope again. “It’s working. Look.” She switched on the monitor for me. “Less diseased cells.”
It looked like a mass of moving little blobs to me, so I didn’t understand what I saw, but I did understand what she was saying.
“Thanks, Doc.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet. Can you draw blood?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
“Good, you need to draw blood from me as it is easier if someone else does it.” She quickly rolled up her sleeve.
Some time later, we were again anxiously looking at the monitor, me not knowing what to look for, just waiting for Doctor Fraiser’s yay or nay.
“It’s clear, no sign of infection. This is good.” She turned to me and continued to explain. “We always thought at the beginning it was a contagion that you could catch off people, like the common cold, but I don’t think it is and this proves it. I believe it is airborne and dissipates after a while, making it easy for Baal and his Jaffa to enter the world and take it over as theirs.”
“That is good news for you.” I smiled gently.
I saw pain show in her eyes before she looked down at another slide and placed it under the microscope.
“It’s still working,” she exclaimed. “Look.”
I looked at the monitor and was none the wiser. “And?”
“The shot I gave you, it’s killing the virus cells. Look.” She touched the screen with her finger and pointed to a small blob. “It’s dead.”
Drawing more blood from the same arm, she went through the process again. By now we had been in the isolation room for five hours and I was hungry and very tired. It had been a very long day.
I started to walk around the room while she was working on my blood. I had tried repeatedly to find out what had happened, but each time, she had changed the subject and found things to stick in me - long sharp pointy needles - so I gave up after a while. I had searched all the cupboards for any kind of food; stupidly I had left my pack out in the corridor and until I was ‘cured’ I didn’t want to venture out there again. I searched the cupboards again, for something to do more than anything.
I heard a gasp behind me; I turned only to see Doctor Fraiser crumple to the floor in tears. I crouched down beside her and held her as muffled words were uttered in her anguish at what she had found.
“He died to save me… telling me I was Earth’s only chance… but it is too late.”
I pushed her away from me, and looked at the top of her head. “Janet. What’s wrong?”
Once again the sleeve was put to good use and she looked up at me through red-rimmed eyes. “Sorry, sir.” She slowly stood up, reached for a tissue and blew her nose daintily. Then announced. “You’re cured.”
I ran both hands through my hair. “I know I can be… well you know, but I didn’t think I was that bad.” My voice sounded like a petulant child.
She smiled, “No, sorry, sir. I found the cure too late for everyone else.”
I watched in admiration as she pulled strength from somewhere within. “We must see if anyone has survived, so I can help them.”
I opened the sealed door and we went through the airlock. It took a short while for the air to change and I hoped that her cure still worked. I saw her eyes move to Daniel’s body and pause before going straight to the telephone on the desk, quickly dialing her home phone number. She must have been listening to messages as her eyes filled with tears and she sat down on a chair.
Spotting another telephone, I moved away, giving her breathing space while she took control of her emotions. I dialed all the numbers that I knew, the automatic exchange was still working, but no one was answering. I then rang 911, surely that would get someone, but no answer interrupted the relentless ringing tone. Janet came and stood quite close to me.
“Cassie’s dead. She left a message for me.” Janet’s eyes were red and puffy.
It was then the idea that had been rumbling around in my mind became a reality. “Janet, come back with me.”
“Back where?”
“To my reality.”
“What about entropic cascade failure?”
“Doctor Fraiser is dead in my reality, there is nothing here for you and you said the Alpha site was hit as well.” She was indecisive for a moment. “Or I could take you to the Tok’ra? Whatever you decide, we have to destroy this base before Baal and his Jaffa come.”
“No.” The firmness came back into her voice. “Not the Tok’ra. But to go to another universe? I don’t know.” She was still hesitant at this idea.
“We need you; Cassie needs you and this serum/cure thingy could be the saving of us all.”
She closed her eyes tight while she thought; I had never seen Janet so confused and vulnerable. The Janet I had known was always in control and usually sticking needles in me - maybe they weren’t so different I realized, as I rubbed my aching arm.
“Okay, I will, sir.”
“Sweet, but you can stop calling me sir, now! I’m retired and my name is Jack.” I smiled to soften the gruffness of my tone. “Come, bring your stuff, we need to set the self-destruct.”
It took quite a while, but we loaded another two packs with her findings and serum. Before setting the self-destruct timer, I steeled myself for the discomfort of going back into the General’s office. I quickly lifted the receiver on the red telephone, but there was nothing. Silence. Not even a ring tone. Having crossed that off my list, I quickly took one last look at them. They looked as though they were sleeping; the lesions were not too pronounced on their faces. I was glad, because I knew that memory would never leave me however hard I would try to forget.
With the sound of the mechanical voice counting down to detonation of the bomb we had set, Janet and I stepped through the open wormhole onto the planet that I had only left twelve hours before.
~*~
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