Chapter 4
Kentucky Wilderness, USA
Project Ahrmuhgedn Initiated, Day 5
Their boats beached along the riverbank, the Gadarus group and personnel from Andrews were bedded down for the night. A short distance from the camp, Sam had settled her back against a conveniently located log as she gazed without seeing at the river’s surface. She looked up from her letter writing when the general stood before her. Jack gave her a lopsided smile as he held out a steaming mug of coffee.
Sam set the pad of paper she’d been writing on aside to accept the mug and company as Jack settled himself beside her against the log.
“So…” Jack began after stretching out his long legs and settling down. “Now that spring’s here,” referring to the global spring that Sequence 4 had thrown the planet into even though the calendar said late fall, “looks like all we’ve got to worry about is lions, tigers, and bears.”
Sam hid her soft smile behind her coffee mug at the general’s humour and reference to his favourite film. She couldn’t resist his light teasing as she quipped back, “Wolves, cougars, and bears Sir.”
“Is that so?” Jack cocked his head at her.
“Yes Sir,” Sam looked down into her coffee mug self-consciously at his expression.
“Pity,” Jack murmured lowly and a comfortable silence descended between them.
Sam disturbed the peace between them hesitantly as the sun sunk behind the western horizon, “Sir?”
“Yes Carter?”
“I’ve been thinking…”
Jack snorted as he muttered, “When do you ever stop?”
“About the Ancient’s eugenics program and they name they have for it, ‘Project Ahrmuhgedn.’”
“Aptly named if misspelled,” Jack quipped.
“Exactly Sir,” Sam nodded sombrely and her agreement caught Jack off guard.
“What? What’s exactly?”
“What’s happening and I think that even though Daniel said that the name and our word Armageddon is just a coincidence, when has there ever really been a coincidence with aliens and our myths?”
“So you really thing this Ancient program will end the world?”
Sam shook her head. “No Sir. What’s happening isn’t really an end of the world. It’s more like a renewal… or the beginning.”
“Carter?” Jack cocked his scarred eyebrow quizzically at her.
“Just think Sir,” Sam earnestly began explaining her theory, “the program occurs over six sequences that are twenty-four hours long. In other words, in six days. Sequence 1—I am not sure about the relation between light and darkness, but Sequence 2 purified Earth’s air and water. Sequence 3 was vegetation with Sequence 4 being the seasons.”
“You’ve lost me. What are you leading to Carter?”
“What religion is Armageddon from Sir?” Sam tried a different tactic.
“Christianity, the Bible.”
“Yes Sir, and how does the Bible start?”
“Genesis,” Jack said with a frown as he realised the connection that Sam was trying to present to him. “But God created the world in seven days.”
“No Sir, He did not. He created it in six days. The seventh day He rested.”
“Day one was light and darkness, day two was water and air, day three plants, day four seasons, this morning was birds,” Jack listed the days off. His face scrunching up when he thought about the rainbow dust mote swarm-things they had witnessed this morning. Birds roosting in the trees were swarmed by the coloured motes and once covered and turned solid white, were gone once the swarmed dispersed. “So what’s next?”
“Ah… actually Sir, today was fowl, fish, whales, and reptiles,” Sam corrected.
“How do you know all that?”
Sam looked away uncomfortably at that question and the unspoken answer hovered in the air between them. He remembered all too well now the one other time they had discussed Christian theology, in particular the Ten Commandments on a world being poisoned by its sun that had poisoned the minds of men as well.
“So, fishes and birdies on day five—today,” Jack remarked in a light voice as he attempted to smooth over the awkwardness between them. “And then people?”
“Yes Sir, and then animals and humans.”
Jack frowned at that information as he sank into his own thoughts. His mental ponderings were disrupted so much by Carter’s fidgeting beside him that he finally looked at her demandingly, “What else are you thinking about Carter?”
Sam stilled. “Sir?”
“You’re fidgeting, what else do you have to say?” Jack was surprised to see a rosy blush creep from her cheeks, down her neck, and disappear beneath her collar. He fleetingly considered how far the blush went before ruthlessly crushing the thought. “Carter?” he prompted in a teasing tone.
“I ah… I was thinking about that sixth day Sir, and how long I have to live.”
“Carter, don’t say that—” Jack began to protest.
“Why not Sir?” Sam demanded slightly irritated. “We have to face facts Sir. We haven’t been able to save ourselves and none of our allies are either. I am going to die in about twelve hours. How is saying it any different than being told you have months or weeks to live from cancer?”
Jack shifted uncomfortably as he lifted his shoulders in a shrugging motion. “It’s just—I don’t like thinking about it.”
“I know Sir, neither do I. But it’s something I have been thinking about. That and regrets.”
“What regrets do you have Carter?”
“I’ll regret dying,” Sam lightly repeated the words he had said years ago in a cavern of ice. Earning a baneful look from the general who was not amused by her flippancy. “To be honest Sir, I regret…”
The baneful look on Jack’s face faded as he looked at the return of her blush with interest. After some silence and the return of her fidgeting he finally cajoled, “Come on Carter, it can’t be that bad.”
“But it is Sir,” Sam blurted out. “Bad I mean, because it’s selfish and illegal although really I don’t know why I’m thinking about the legality when I am going to be dead. But you won’t be so it will still be illegal for you and that’s why it will also be selfish for me—”
“Carter!” Jack barked as he held up a hand to forestall her stumbling stream of words.
Sam halted her rambling as she took a deep, shuddering breath. She set the coffee mug he had given her earlier to the side and shifted so that she was facing him fully. When she spoke quietly again, she was much more controlled. “I can’t do what I want to do about my other regrets although I hope you’ll deliver my letters about them,” she indicated the pad of paper she’d been writing on, “but there is one selfish regret that I… you... that I might make a not regret.”
“What is it? And you could never be selfish if you tried Carter.”
“I said it’s selfish because… because I won’t be the one dealing… I won’t have the memories after my death.” Sam looked away to gather her resolve before she looked back and resolutely held his encouraging gaze. “Jack, will you make love with me?”
Jack physically froze as his face went blank at the earnestly begged question. His mind racing a mile a minute as he absorbed the words he never thought he would hear from Sam. Even at the end of the world.
Sam hesitated for a moment when he didn’t respond before forging onward. “I know it’s selfish because you would have the memories of it and my death, but this… I want this before I die.”
Jack’s mind and body reengaged at the same moment and he surged to his feet. His face a mask of shock as he looked down at the woman seated at his feet. “You… you… you want me to what! Geez, Carter—”
“Sorry Sir,” Sam stammered as she rushed to her own feet and began to retreat. “I didn’t mean to… I thought that—God, I don’t know what I thought. Forget it Sir.”
“Carter!” Jack barked after her retreating back.
Sam ignored the command to stop as she attempted to escape the mortification and embarrassment that coursed through her from the general’s reaction. She choked back the sob that threatened as ruthlessly as she fought back tears.
“Damnit Carter!” Jack exploded behind her as he went after her. He managed to catch onto her wrist a couple yards further down the riverbank and now out of earshot of camp. “Sam,” Jack yanked on her wrist, stopping her retreat and pulling her into his body.
“Sir!” Sam protested, struggling as she found herself firmly pressed against Jack’s body and firmly enveloped in his arms.
“Damnit,” Jack repeated as he countered her relatively feeble struggles as she was far more intent on getting away from him than hurting him for her freedom. “Samantha, listen to me!”
The use of her full name halted her struggles in instant surprise and Sam looked up at him through her threatening tears.
“Samantha,” Jack repeated his voice now a low croon. The hand not around her wrist and no longer needed to control her struggles, lifted to cup a cheek while his thumb brushed at a tear that trembled in the corner of her eye.
For one eternal moment their eyes held and spoke with each other.
Then slowly, deliberately so that she could avoid him if she wished, Jack lowered his head and as his lips hovered over hers breathed her name in a caress, “Samantha.”
Sam’s lips parted in response as a sensual shiver raced down her spine. Their mouths met softly and generously in an expression of love that had never been explicitly said between them, but demonstrated in so many ways.