Chapter 11
O'Neill Farmhouse, Blaine County, MT
August 21, 2010
It had taken some time for Daniel and Janet to digest, and for the O'Neills to tell, the story about how the Asgärd had essentially assimilated the replicators. The boys during the discussion had occasionally reappeared in the kitchen for another slice of bread and jam before disappearing into another area of the house to play with their, by now caught, replicator toys.
Daniel shook his head in baffled amazement. The Asgärd, more specifically their presence, had just seemed to disappear shortly after Earth had formed the Alliance with Aschen—and not merely from Earth, but from the entire galaxy. To learn that Jack and Sam hadn't just been living with them in their galaxy, but helped them win the war with the replicators was almost overwhelming in some ways.
"That's just…" Daniel shook his head again. Almost unable to come up with the words and finally settled for, "Almost unreal."
"We did a lot of unreal things as SG-1," Sam mustered as she thought back to their time as a team.
"Anyway," Jack said as he clearly began to switch topics, "you want to tell me a bit more about why you came out here to ask for my help? You have any plans in mind?"
Daniel and Janet exchanged looks. While Jack's voice was not very inviting at least he seemed more open to discussion then he had yesterday.
"Honestly," Janet began, "we don't know. We just know that we need to fix this mistake."
"Surely you had some idea?" Jack probed.
Janet shook her head.
"Not really," Daniel answered. "All our former allies, the Tok'ra, the Jaffa… relations deteriorated shortly after the Aschen and Earth devised and released the symbiote tonic."
"Yeah, and you didn't expect that?" Jack's voice was sharp with sarcasm.
Daniel looked away from Jack's accusing eyes as he was a little ashamed to confess, "No, everyone—we—were just so focused on removing the Goa'uld that we got tunnel vision and ignored the others that would be impacted by releasing the tonic. We forgot that even though we called it a tonic, it was really a poison. A poison that didn't discriminate between the goa'uld that stole hosts, the symbiotes keeping the Jaffa alive, or those that blended."
Thousands upon thousands had died when they'd begun dispensing canisters of the tonic on goa'uld inhabited worlds. In retrospect, it had been like Rwanda on Earth, with that the people of Earth not taking note of the deaths ors the governments writing them off as collateral damage in the drive to eradicate the Goa'uld. Even to this day, many people of Earth—the Confederation—were unaware of just how many Jaffa and Tok'ra had died at the same time as the Goa'uld.
"Did… did Jacob survive?" Daniel finally got up the courage to ask. All official contact with the Tok'ra had ceased with the first gassing and news had come sporadically afterwards. They knew there had been Tok'ra survivors, they did not know who they had been or how many.
Sam looked away at the question, but not before Daniel saw old grief in her eyes as Jack reached out to clasp one of her hands reassuringly. "No. He'd been undercover on Nekhen."
Daniel murmured his sympathies as Janet drew her breath in sharply. Nekhen the throneworld of Heru'ur, whom had been deemed the largest threat next to Apophis from Tok'ra intelligence, had been the test target of an earlier and particular virile strain of the symbiote tonic. No one depended on or host to a symbiote had survived that test.
"So, you have spoken with the Tok'ra survivors?" Daniel inquired.
"Yes," Jack said flatly, his voice inviting no further questions as he gave a reassuring squeeze of his wife's hand before lacing their fingers together. Looking at their guests questioningly again, Jack got the topic back on track. "So, back to this thing about asking me for help to fix this mistake you've made."
Both visitors accepted the change of topic as neither of them wanted to bring up more painful memories for Sam.
"Yes," Daniel agreed softly, "it is our mistake. A mistake that I wish we could take back. Change it. So that it never happened."
"Well it did happen, and you have no time travel machine. So, how do you think you're going to fix it?" Jack challenged.
Curiously Daniel's eyes lit up at Jack's challenging words and he turned beseechingly to Sam. "Maybe we can. Take it back."
"What are you talking about Daniel?" Janet asked.
"A number of years ago an accident sent us back to 1969. We could do what Hammond did to help us and send ourselves a message!" Daniel exclaimed with enthusiasm but when he looked at Sam and Jack, both O'Neill's looked very unimpressed.
"That's very… selfish," Sam said quietly. "Wanting to erase an action so that you don't have to pay the cost of the consequence."
"But we're talking about the entire human race!" Daniel cried.
"No, we're talking about a fraction of it on one planet of thousands," Sam countered with a sharp undertone in her voice.
"So, you two didn't really have any ideas about how I was supposed to help?" Jack intervening before an argument could brew between his wife and Daniel.
Daniel and Janet exchanged helpless looks. No, when discussing things with Teal'c, Cassie, and Dominic they hadn't really come up with anything besides knowing they wanted to 'fix' their choice and searching into just how encompassing were the changes that the Alliance had brought to Earth.
Their only real goal had been finding Jack and asking him for help. Hoping, wishing maybe, that the retired colonel would know what to do.
"No," Janet said regretfully, "Cassie was the one who suggested, and managed to find you after Teal'c tried to contact you at your cabin. Most of our thoughts have been about finding you, not on what help we were going to ask for."
"So, Cassie—as you've already mentioned—knows about the sterilisation, but Teal'c does to? I didn't think the Chulakian president visited Earth much these days." Jack remarked casually fishing for information.
The Jaffa, splintered already because of their service to various warring goa'uld, had remained fractured after the defeat of the System Lords. Each planet with substantial living Jaffa populations had developed into independent governments united more by heritage and traditions than anything else. Much like the city states of the ancient Greeks had been.
Teal'c had succeeded Bra'tac, when the elder Jaffa master had stepped down for health reasons, as first vice-president and then elected president of Apophis' old throneworld. As the president of Chulak and a Jaffa, it meant that Teal'c was far more involved with his people than the planet and people he had chosen to fight alongside ten years ago.
Daniel adjusted the frames of his glasses. "He was here for the anniversary ceremony and I convinced him to stay for a few more days afterwards. Then we found out about the sterilisation and when he departed he'd said he'd look for support off-world."
Sam gave Jack a speaking glance. Her husband remained looking at their two visitors but did give her fingers laced with his a subtle squeeze. He had heard and it would be something for them to discuss in private later.