Chapter 41
Perimeter of the Diplomatic Encampment, Alaris
Day Eleven of the Confederation Deliberative Assembly
Daniel cautiously navigated the rocky outcrop overlooking the beaten down area that served as a soccer field to off duty security personnel. His goal was the slight figure of Janet sitting perched on a particularly high rock outcrop, with her legs drawn up to her chest and head bowed. He did not know why she was here and as he drew closer, the sound of sniffling and raspy breaths from her form alarmed him even more.
Closing the distance between them, Daniel carefully seated himself beside her. When she did not react to his presence, he dared wrap an arm around her shoulders and tilt her towards him. Janet gave a ragged sigh as she slumped against him but otherwise did not acknowledge his presence. From that sigh, Daniel figured that either her crying jag had already ended or she was suppressing it now that he was there.
Daniel remained quiet for many more minutes, offering comfort with his presence and silence. Finally, Janet lifted her head, revealing tear streaked cheeks, and looked towards the soccer field while keeping her legs tucked to her body and arms still wrapped around her knees.
“I just finished talking with Cassie…” Janet’s voice choked for a moment. “I just finished telling her that she and Dominic can’t have children together.”
Daniel’s breath caught in the back of his throat as a wave of horror and sympathy washed over him. When he had regained control of his emotions, he dared to ask, “Why?”
“For Cassie,” Janet’s voice almost broke but she steadied herself again, “the Aschen’s anti-aging vaccine damaged her ovaries beyond repair. It is possible for her to undergo artificial insemination with one of her own extracted eggs as most are still good and her uterus is perfectly healthy. But the child couldn’t be fathered by Dominic because of what the vaccine did to him—to the world.”
“What did it do to everyone else that it didn’t do to Cassie?” Daniel was obviously confused.
“The vaccine reacted differently to Cassie because of the naquadah in her blood. In the reports from WHO, the resistance files, even tests on Dominic and me, show that the vaccine is actually engineered to prevent full maturation of gametes. No, it’s more than that, they are incapable of maturing. And because the eggs and sperm cannot mature, fertilization can’t take place and that’s why there is nothing anyone—even the Asgärd—can do.”
“So, there is nothing to be done?” Daniel asked helplessly.
“Nothing,” Janet affirmed bitterly as she lifted a hand a wiped at the remains of the tears that had tracked down her face. “The sterilisation, along with the longevity, is irreversible.”
“What? Why?”
“Reversing the vaccine’s longevity components wouldn’t just turn back on the natural aging process, but accelerate it,” Janet answered as she shifted upright so she no longer leaned on Daniel. “People can either live for hundreds of years childless, or live for less than a decade and die childless.”
Daniel gave the petite redhead’s shoulder a squeeze with the arm still wrapped around her. He could not think of any words to comfort her in her bitterness.
The tread of boots on the rocks behind them drew Daniel’s attention and he looked behind him. To his surprise, it was Jack nimbly making his way over the outcropping. The grey haired man up on reaching them, gave Daniel a curt nod of greeting, and then squatted on the other side of Janet.
Janet turned her head from fixedly looking at the soccer field to look Jack in the eye.
“I just got off the comm with Cassie,” Jack said, his face incredibly gently. The face of a parent connecting with another parent.
Janet turned her face back to looking at the soccer field, unable to bare another parent’s sympathy yet.
“Do you know how Sam and I got off Earth ten years ago?” Jack asked unexpectedly. Both doctors looked and blinked at him, thrown by the sudden change of topic and the man’s conversational tone. “Well, just after my retirement and just after finishing up the sale of my house in the Springs I went to see her again. We yelled at each other like we always did then but I managed to convince her to come with me so we left on Ozzy.”
“Ozzy?” Daniel asked, still off balance. “Who’s Ozzy?”
“What,” Jack corrected. “Ozzy is a goa’uld ship that is twice the size of a teltac that used to belong to Osiris—but saying ‘Osiris’ ship’ has too many s’s in it so I just called it Ozzy.”
“How did you get off-world—when did you get off-world—to get your hands on a goa’uld ship?” Daniel looked incredulous. “And how did you know it was Osiris’ ship?”
“I didn’t go off-world. Ozzy was buried in Egypt and I know it was Osiris’ because the snake was the one that bragged to me about it when I caught her outside that tomb in Egypt where you two and Sam found that Rayner guy all busted up.”
“And you never reported it?” Janet demanded incredulous.
“Oh, I reported it.” Jack waved a hand dismissingly as he obligingly explained. “No one believed Osiris was telling the truth after the geeks did a sweep of the tomb and area with their doohickies and only found that computer bank thing. But the snake had been a little too damn particular about what it said for my liking so after doing some hunting around, I found Ozzy. The geeks however had already reported that there was nothing there and I figured, with Kinsey breathing down our necks,” Jack shrugged carelessly as he let the statement hang.
Both still stared at him incredulously. He had found a Goa’uld ship on Earth and not reported it? Even with the man’s extreme sense of paranoia, they would have thought… apparently his paranoia was greater than they thought possible!
“So anyway,” Jack continued in the same careless tone of voice, “I found Ozzy and during those two weeks you Daniel were placating the Egyptian government, I figured out the ship, got it to Minnesota, and hid it in the pond.” Here Jack looked a little irate. “Had to raise the darn deck, the ship displaced so much water.”
Daniel and Janet’s expressions had gone from incredulous to out right stunned. How in the world had he managed to figure out the ship, pilot it to his cabin, conceal it, and still be in Egypt to fly back with them to the States? And not raise any eyebrows about an extra flight into Egypt? But, come to think of it, Jack and Teal’c had departed after they had already left and if Teal’c had never said anything about being the only passenger and Jack had been at Peterson to be picked up with Teal’c by the SGC driver… Jack’s possible manoeuvrings gave them a headache.
“As I was saying, once I convinced Sam to come with me, it was a simple matter to drive to the cabin, get Ozzy, convince Sam that I was not snaked, and then we were off to Ida to ask the Asgärd for help. I didn’t have any proof then about what the Aschen were doing so of course the Asgärd Council refused to interfere in our primitive politics as Earth was joining the Confederation of their own free will.” Jack gave an irate snort at the memory before moving on.
“We got caught up in their war while on Othala with Sam saving their butts with her dumb ideas and somehow, my dumber idea ended up being the end of the war.” Jack dismissed his contribution to the war with a flick of his fingers. “Knowing that they were safe and now had eternity to work on their genetic problem, we returned to the Milky Way and started touring the galaxy. First year we didn’t learn much but by the second when Sam set up her company, Stjarna Industries, we were catching bad rumours. By the third is when we started gaining recruits in people and planets in regions of space outside Aschen Confederation territory, reach, and influence. We knocked around space until 2007 when we returned to Earth to establish Earth’s underground movement.”
Daniel and Janet exchanged looks. Only Jack O’Neill would describe forming a resistance with one thousand one hundred ninety-two planets contributing in various ways—full alliance, armament supplies, resource contribution, political support, and more—as ‘knocking around space.’
“That’s also when we got serious about recruiting the nine allied planets of the Confederation as we already had quite a few of the federated planets, Volia, Abydos, Simarka, Juna, Madrona for example, and treaty worlds, Hadante, Velona, and the like.”
Daniel was awed about the amount of information that Jack had just freely told them but had no idea why Jack had just told them unless it was to get Janet’s mind off what she had to tell her daughter.
Jack gave a chuckling snort as he looked with amusement at the archaeologist’s expression. “Yes, Daniel, telling you all this has a point.” Jack’s face turned sombre as he looked Janet in the eye again. “The point is Janet, that it took Sam and me ten years to gain this. You have only had weeks of knowing and studying the problem. And as much as you hate the anti-aging vaccine for what it’s done to Cassie and the people of Earth, the Aschen have also given you something invaluable, time.”
Janet opened her mouth to protest and Jack held up a hand commandingly.
“I know you know your medical stuff, and I know what you learned is true—there is no reversal for those vaccinate. But that is now. The situation may be different in the decades to come. I know it is a faint hope Janet, but it is still hope.” Jack reached out and rested a hand on one of her knees. “And even if you can’t create a cure, if nobody can create a cure, you can make sure it never happens again.”