Hope For Tomorrow
Hope For Tomorrow
by Revvie
Summary: Catastrophe strikes Earth and all is lost- or is it?
Category: Action/Adventure, Angst, Future Story, Romance
Season: any Season
Pairing: Jack/Sam
Rating: FAM
Warnings: none
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. I have written this story for entertainment purposes only and no money whatsoever has exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author(s).
Archived on: 2004-11-26
Hope For Tomorrow
Sam relished the familiar taste of commissary jello as she read the next mission briefing for her team. The commissary was full of personnel and Sam found herself repeatedly distracted from her reading by the amount of activity around her. After a long weekend away, she had hoped to run into one or more of her team here, but so far none of them were to be seen. Then her eyes fell on the very familiar figure of General O'Neill determinedly making his way through the crowded room towards her.
"Carter!" He called and waved. The serious look on his face sent a shiver of concern through her. With a few more long strides, Jack slid into a chair facing her, leaned in close and began talking quietly so as not to be overheard.
"I've been looking for you. Long-range scanners have picked up some anomalies. I want you to come evaluate them. Now."
Sam shoved her jello aside and got to her feet.
"Sure," she answered, following O'Neill out of the commissary and down the hallway to the situation room. Teal'C met them at the door, alarm on his features.
"O'Neill," he said urgently, "the anomalies appear to be heading to Earth and they have made course adjustments within the past hour, ruling out natural phenomena. I believe them to be alien ships approaching Earth."
"G'ouald?"
"Too early to I.D. them, but that's a fair guess," volunteered Sgt. Siler.
"Colonel Carter, try to make contact with the Asgard. And see if you can locate the Tok'Ra or the Nox. Order Prometheus into orbit to get us some more information. I'm going to make a few phonecalls- keep me apprised."
O'Neill jogged off to his office and Carter ran towards the Stargate control room. Ice ran through her veins as she glanced back at Jack O'Neill's retreating figure. It had been a long time since she had seen him so alarmed.
Just over an hour later, Sam was back at the radar screen in the situation room, having failed to make immediate contact with any alien allies. Prometheus was already in orbit, and she hailed the commander.
"Anything you can tell us?"
Jack had stepped in behind Sam now, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek, and both were riveted to the screen as the blips approached.
"Only that the ships are approaching very quickly and from the energy signature they are G'ouald. Doesn't look good, sirs," responded Prometheus.
All of them knew that without a new power unit there wasn't sufficient energy in the recently discovered Antarctic weapon to fight off a full-scale G'ouald attack on Earth. Jack sighed and hung his head, eyes closed.
"Sir, we should make the call to start evacuations to the Beta site," Sam said, turning to him.
"Yeah."
His voice was a despairing whisper. Jack straightened up and left the room without a word. Sam watched him go, unwilling to turn back to the screen and watch Earth's impending doom approaching. Sam's insides felt frozen. So this is how it ends, she thought.
"Siler, can you make an estimate of when the alien ships will enter Earth's orbit?"
"Yes, Colonel. 5 hours. One of the ships is approaching faster than the others. It will be in Earth's orbit within four hours."
"5 hours!" She gasped. Sam knew it was right but her mind rebelled anyway.
"I'm going to help with the evacuation, Siler, carry on. You need to be ready to leave for the Beta site in 5 hours. We'll stay and monitor until zero hour."
"Yes, Colonel," Siler said calmly.
He turned back to his post. Sam turned and went towards her lab, stumbling a little as she tried to get her mind around what was about to happen. She needed to make sure all sensitive information and equipment from the base was either evacuated or destroyed. She had to ensure that the new colony on Beta had enough technology and supplies to have a fighting chance. Sam suddenly gasped as she realized how little time there was to get people to safety and ran to make a phone call in her lab.
"Pete!" She cried urgently as she heard his voice on the other end of the phone. As she explained the situation, she thought how advantageous it was that she had told Pete months ago about the Stargate program. At the time she had questioned whether she had done the right thing, in spite of the General's support of her decision to tell him everything. But now, because he needed no convincing, there was no question in Pete's mind that Sam's terse warning was real.
"I'll get as many people as I can get to believe me to come to the mountain, Sam. Will we be able to get in?"
"I'll make sure of it, Pete. Please hurry! And Pete- can you pick up Cassie for us and bring her with you?"
The thought of kind, gentle Pete or her beloved Cassandra being caught in a G'ouald invasion made her frantic with fear. She had one more phonecall to make.
"Catherine?"
"Sam, what's wrong?"
"Listen carefully. And get down here ASAP." Sam proceeded to tell Catherine what she had told Pete. She knew that she was losing precious minutes to get all the SGC equipment destroyed or transferred to Beta. But nothing in this base was worth the lives of her friends.
It was four hours later. Zero hour was almost upon them now. The SGC had opened up the gates of Cheyenne Mountain now that all essential personnel and equipment were safely on Beta, and were allowing anyone to go through the Gate. Pete had come through with about half the police force of Colorado Springs and their families. Although the Stargate was not public knowledge, enough people knew about the existence of an underground base that the mountain was slowly being filled with people seeking shelter from the impending air attack. The government had made the invasion public knowledge an hour ago, deciding that mass panic was a risk to be faced if the knowledge could somehow save a few more innocent people. The ship that was an hour in advance of the main fleet had already begun destroying cities on Earth.
The surprise and wonder on the faces of the civilians as they were introduced to the Stargate and dumped into it without ceremony would have been fascinating to watch if the circumstances weren't so dire.
"Carter, Siler, listen to this," O'Neill said in an incredulous tone as he turned up the volume on the emergency broadcast network.
"We are getting reports from all over the world of simultaneous bombing of the major cities of Earth..." the report went on, as the three stood transfixed by the news they had feared but had still hoped wouldn't come to pass. O'Neill's eyes closed in sorrow and anger. Each one of them thought silently of all the people they knew and loved who were about to be subjected to the G'ouald attacks.
Carter and Siler stood at their post mutely watching the invasion force, which it evidently was now, while the evacuation continued at a desperate pace. O'Neill walked up to Sam in the situation room and laid a warm hand her shoulder.
"You go now, Sam," he said quietly.
"What about you?"
"Siler and I'll be right behind you."
Sam looked at him, unable to stop tears of doubt and fear from filling her eyes. She never had totally trusted Jack's over-developed sense of bravado.
"I promise, Sam. I'll be through soon. I swear," he said firmly as he looked steadily into her eyes.
"Okay."
She started to go, then turned back to him, and with a cautious glance at Siler, reached out hesitantly to Jack. Jack's eyes flashed with sudden desperate intensity and he caught her up in a fierce hug that left her breathless, releasing her before she could react.
"We'll be right behind you. Now go."
She gave him another uncertain look to which he nodded his head reassuringly.
"Yes sir," she conceded, leaving for the Stargate.
"Siler, we can shut the Gate down at zero hour from the other side, right? I'd like to leave it open as long as possible in case anybody else finds their way down here."
They both knew that without any escorts left in the complex, the chance of that happening was slim, but Jack couldn't stand the thought of shutting the 'door' until the last second.
"No problem, sir, the Gate will shut down automatically as soon as the radio signal from Beta is cut off."
"Okay, then, time to go, Siler." The two men walked slowly to the gateroom, each looking around at the familiar sights of the now deserted SGC. They reached the ramp and Siler went up to the shimmering wormhole, but Jack paused, conflicted and seething with helpless anger, at the bottom.
"How can we just leave without a fight?"
"General, we're on the offensive, in a way- we're making sure part of Earth survives. Who knows, sir, maybe the Asgard will show up and we'll all be back here tomorrow."
"Yeah. Hey, Siler, are the dialing computers wiped clean?"
"There's not even a crumb for a mouse in here, sir."
Jack nodded. "Good work. Let's go." He strode up the ramp to where Siler stood waiting and they stepped through the event horizon, the last two inhabitants of Earth to leave the planet alive.
The first night on Beta was like a scene out of the Stone Age blended with high tech props. There was no power source yet, outside of the few buildings that had already been here and ran on modestly sized generators, so computers, more generators, and equipment sat uselessly around the Gate while huge bonfires glowed at regular intervals and tents were being erected by all available hands. Some refugees sat frozen in shock by the fires, while others worked at a frenetic pace to keep from having to think about anything.
Sam, unable to sleep, was putting her adrenaline to good use in one of the previously existing Beta site labs getting SGC equipment set up. Jack, Teal'C and Daniel were among the many putting up tents and helping the refugees get settled and fed. A surprisingly large number of people had been evacuated through the Stargate in the last few desperate hours, most carrying only the clothes they wore, all needing food and shelter. Beta had been designated for just this contingency years ago and consequently there were huge stores of supplies on the planet.
The length of the day on Beta was 33 hours, so it was after many hours of erecting tents in the dark that Jack finally gave out, completely spent, and collapsed in one of the tents with Daniel and Teal'C. As dawn began to lighten the sky, Sam found them. With a sigh of familiarity, she slipped off her boots and wormed her way in between Jack and Daniel, who were so tired they never even twitched as she settled down. Closing her eyes, she drifted to sleep imagining the four of them on an offworld mission, sleeping together under the stars as they had done so many times. It was a pretense that helped her forget. For a while, at least.
"Sam."
The blue-tinged Beta sun was shining through the tent flaps as Sam struggled to come back to the land of the conscious. Every muscle in her body was in full-blown rebellion. When she finally got one eye open, she saw Jack crouched next to her with a cup of water and an energy bar.
"Sam," he said softly again. "You okay?"
"I guess," she answered fuzzily.
"You've been asleep for about 12 hours." Sam sat up slowly and Jack stretched his legs out in front of him.
"Here- breakfast, lunch, whatever. Eat."
"Thanks," she looked up at him then. "I'm starved."
"Whoa!" Jack teased. "I need those fingers!"
Sam smiled at him, her cheeks full as she wolfed down the energy bar. Her face grew serious and wistful as she watched Jack gazing at her, concern and affection in his eyes. She was suddenly very grateful to be alive, and with her entire team, on this unknown world, when so many had been left behind to die. Jack met her gaze steadfastly, and after a minute a tired smile crept onto his face as he studied her.
"We'll figure this out together, all of us, Carter, one day at a time. Things won't always seem this bad, you know." He spoke with the calmness of one who had once been at the bottom of the pit and knew there was a way out.
"I was a little worried that you weren't going to come through the Stargate, sir."
"I thought about staying- but I promised someone I'd be here."
Sam nodded and let him help her to her feet to go join Daniel and Teal'C. A sense of belonging swept through her and lifted her spirits. These were her family now.
Jack kicked moodily at the edge of the buried Stargate, wondering for the hundredth time if anyone on Earth had survived the G'ouald attack. It had been two weeks since that fateful day, and still no communication had been received from any of their alien allies. Of course, the fact that they had buried the Stargate, albeit in self-defense, made it hard for any of their allies to contact them. It was a stalemate: they couldn't take the chance of opening the Gate until the Beta site defenses were stronger, but building a strong defense would be a lot easier with the help of their allies. Each day brought more frustration to Jack. The more it appeared that they were never leaving Beta, the more unbearable it felt to Jack to admit that this was now his home. Scans done on Earth had indicated that Beta was a larger planet than Earth. Maybe he needed distract himself by doing a little exploring soon. He shoved his hands in his pockets and studied his feet.
"That looks like Jack O'Neill body language for 'I'm bored,'" quipped Daniel as he came up next to Jack.
"Try, I'm sick of doing nothing to fight the G'ouald," Jack answered. "I just want a couple of those staff cannons, some C-4 and a..."
"Jack!" Daniel stopped him. "You want to really get back at the G'ouald? Come back to Base City and help build it up. We need every person on this planet right now. One day we will be strong enough to take them on and win."
Jack muttered as he stood and wiped the dust off his rear end. "Okay."
"Sam is almost ready to reinstall the dialing computer, if we can keep a reliable power source in place. If she can get the computer system to work with the DHD here, we can reinstall the iris and finally unbury our Gate."
"Cool."
"Come back to the lab and see what she's done," Daniel coaxed.
"Thanks Daniel. You go. I'll be back in a few minutes, okay?" Jack still looked pensive and restless.
"Okay," Daniel agreed. He turned after a moment and went back to the new settlement. Jack looked at the covered Stargate, homesick and lost in thoughts of Earth. It was one of the few times in his life when he had absolutely no idea what to do next.
Sam felt rather than saw a presence at the door of her lab later that afternoon and turned to greet O'Neill.
"Hi, sir, you been keeping busy?"
"Not really. I heard you have, though. How's it going?"
"I'm a few days away from giving the dialing system test run, but first we need to install the iris. That will probably be a bear of a job." She wiped her hands off and sat on a box near the door. O'Neill gingerly seated himself on the box next to it as if he was unsure whether it would blow up or something.
"So how you doing with all this, Carter?" Jack ventured.
" All this? Oh." She noticed his troubled mood then.
"Everything- it's overwhelming, actually. I try not to think too much."
"That must be very hard, for you," Jack mused with a small grin.
"You okay, sir?"
"Yeah, just thinking too much."
"Um, I'm tempted to say something but it might be insubordination." Sam smiled as she teased him, and he stood up to move nearer to her.
"I'm due back at base camp in a few for a 'preliminary governing meeting', Daniel says. Meetings are always soooo enthralling, I don't want to be late. Here we are on a brand new world Carter- how is it we still have too much to do all the time?"
"Can I walk over there with you? I'm finished here, for now." Sam put away her laptop and looked up at Jack.
"Sure, let's go. You too busy to sit and eat your MRE with me and the boys tonight? I've missed seeing you lately," Jack confessed.
"Well, sounds like a great date, especially the choice of food. Sure, I'd love to."
The meeting commenced early that evening, after everyone ate. Jack was the senior ranking military officer on the Beta site now. The Colorado Springs Chief of Police, Dan Riley, had survived, thanks to the quick reaction of Pete Shannahan to Sam's frantic call. He was a serious, reserved man in his fifties whom Jack liked immediately. Because of the swiftness of the attack, a few representatives from the Colorado State House were the only governmental figures there. They seemed dazed and unable to focus, so Jack concentrated on the military and police personnel at the meeting as they set up a provisional governing structure for Beta. Teal'C was at Jack's side getting curious stares from those from Earth who were still trying to grasp the fact that aliens existed and even that they were now on another planet.
Okay, folks," Jack said in his understated fashion. "Let's come to order here."
The clearing, lit by a bonfire, speedily became quiet. Jack's natural authority was just what this group of weary refugees was looking for, and Jack keenly felt the weight of their trust.
"Up until now, we've all been operating in crisis mode. I want to commend all of you. You've given more than 100 percent to this effort and in two weeks of effort we now have expanded access to water supplies and food supplies so that rations are adequately available to everyone. You've set up living quarters for the approximately 550 people who now live on this base, and helped bury the Stargate until such time as we will be adequately prepared to defend it.
We've all lost an incredible amount in a very short time. Your reactions to this crisis have been heroic. But there's a lot more to do. We can't afford to give in to grief and despair. If we are Earth now, we have a responsibility to all those left behind to survive and prosper. Let's pledge here and now to work together to see that we do."
The forty or fifty people who had come to the meeting murmured their agreement. Around the edges of the clearing, many others were listening as Jack continued. "For this purpose, I nominate Chief Riley as civilian commander."
"And I nominate General O'Neill as military Commander-In-Chief to work in tandem with the civilian government in all matters," Daniel interjected clearly.
"Second," several people murmured.
"All in favor say aye?" Daniel added.
"Aye," the clearing resounded.
"First order of business is to divide into task forces. Chief Riley will set up task forces to equally distribute supplies, explore food sources on the planet, and establish and protect individual homesites. I will oversee the scientists..." here O'Neill couldn't resist a tiny ironic grin for Carter, "in the development and establishment of energy sources, Gate travel when we are able, and research and exploration of Beta. This is a big planet and there's a lot to learn about it, I'm told. I will oversee the military personnel who have survived and the Chief and I will work together on any issues as they arise. Questions, comments?" O'Neill stopped and looked around the circle at the faces shadowed by the flickering firelight.
"How do we divide into task forces? Just volunteer?"
"Tomorrow morning I'll be here with General O'Neill to make a list of all your prior occupations and skills and preferences and we will start the process of assigning people to specific tasks." Chief Riley had stepped up and spoke with quiet authority.
"How do we get properly compensated for what we do?" The two leaders looked a bit annoyed at this.
"Everyone will receive the same rations and quarters, regardless of what they contribute," O'Neill said sharply. "We have some among us who need more time to adjust to the catastrophic event we've all been through. Until the medical personnel here have had a chance to evaluate and treat everyone, both mentally and physically, which I suspect will take a long time, there will be no unequal distribution. Therefore I anticipate that this order will apply for the foreseeable future."
There was a brief murmur at this, but everyone seemed to agree, for the walking wounded among them were more than evident.
"I suggest you all get a good night's rest. Tomorrow will be a busy day. Good night and dismissed." O'Neill turned and walked away from the crowd. Sam, Pete, and Daniel followed him.
"Good job, General," Sam said proudly. "That was a great speech."
"You sound surprised, Carter, should I be hurt?" O'Neill teased. Sam was glad to see him joking around a little, for she was worried that the role he had taken on was weighing heavily upon him.
"Thanks from me too, General. You encouraged a lot of folks tonight." Pete said earnestly.
"Well, we'll see in the morning how things fall out. Pete, how many of your police officers made it through?"
"Sixteen, counting the Chief. Most of their of their families got through with them." O'Neill nodded at this.
"That's good to hear."
"Well, I'm going to get some sleep. Good night, General, Pete, Daniel," Sam said.
She looked exhausted as she walked away. O'Neill noted to himself with surprise that Pete didn't follow her, although he watched her go with a wistful eye. Things seemed more distant between them, although they were friendly enough when they were together. Interesting. Jack decided he would have to figure that out when their more immediate concerns became manageable. Back on Earth, he had resigned himself to their engagement although he couldn't quite erase the ache in his heart. He had convinced himself that at least he still had Sam's friendship, and that was well worth holding onto. But now, watching her ambivalent attitude towards her fiancee, hope sprang up inside him even as he tried to quash it. Here on Beta, there was no longer anything preventing them from being together.
Except Pete.
He thought back to when Sam had been debating whether to accept Pete's ring- now how many women took over two weeks to make a decision like that?- and how surprised he had been when she had all but asked Jack's permission. What if things had been different between us, she had tentatively questioned him. And that first night on Beta, she had sought him out and not Pete. He thought back to the comfort he had felt in his heart when he had awoken in the dark of that first long night on Beta and found Sam nestled warmly at his side, sleeping curled up between him and Daniel. Yes, things could get quite interesting, Jack thought as he too said good night and went to get some much needed rest.
As the weeks went by, the weather became increasingly adverse. The small population of scientists who had been living on Beta over the past few years informed O'Neill and Riley that the winters at this latitude on Beta were harsher than those of the lower 48 on Earth, and the colonists were put to work immediately stockpiling food, fuel and fortifying the tent shelters to keep out the cold better.
Sam and her team of scientists had succeeded in installing an iris and getting it back to proper working order. It couldn't be monitored the way the Gate on Earth had been, as the Gate on Beta was out in the open, but when the day came for their first attempt at contacting another world, Sam set up laptop connections to the iris on a makeshift desk wired into the existing DHD. First contact had been put off much longer than orginally expected, for the wary group of Earthlings was not willing to risk any chance that the G'ouald might discover there whereabouts.
The planet chosen for first contact was an Asgard protected world where they had previously encountered the Sentinel, a mysterious machine that guarded all Gate travel on that world. From here, they reasoned, they might be able to contact the Asgard. Everyone was anxious to know Earth's final fate. Jack, being the primary contact for the Asgard, went through the Gate with Daniel and Guthrie, one of the police officers who spent all his time pestering Sam and her team for facts about Gate travel. Jack liked Guthrie's enthusiasm and attitude and had brought him along, recognizing his potential and wanting to give him some off-world experience.
They had been gone for two Beta days and nights before returning with the news that they had successfully talked with Thor.
The swoosh of an incoming wormhole activating the Gate for the first time since the evacuation was a bit frightening for the Beta community, and it was with a sigh of relief that Sam announced the incoming iris code was the General's. The three men stepped through the Gate to a large gathering of onlookers, many cheering this first completed mission. Jack looked around with a strange expression.
"What's all this?" he mused mostly to himself. Daniel and Officer Guthrie smiled and enjoyed their moment in the limelight.
"Welcome back!" Chief Riley and Sam greeted them.
After a brief exchange, Jack fastened his eyes on Sam and motioned for her to accompany him. He walked around the crowd to the mess tent for something hot to drink. Sam got a cup of tea and sat down with him. Daniel and Guthrie were just behind them, also getting something to drink and eat.
"What did you find out, General?" Sam said quietly.
"The Asgard are aware of the attack on Earth. They regret not being available to intervene, yada yada... the G'ouald didn't just take over Earth. They bombed it to oblivion, it's uninhabitable. They must really hate us."
Sam sat in stunned silence digesting this news. Daniel and Guthrie listened from across the tent, watching the news sink in.
"Are you going to tell everyone what you found out?"
"I don't know if that would be such a good idea right now. I don't think our people here are ready for this just yet," O'Neill observed as he sipped his coffee.
"Ready for what?"
Catherine had come in and was pouring herself some hot tea and had overheard the tail end of their conversation. The elderly woman moved in behind Jack's chair and put a maternal hand on his shoulder. Jack reached up and covered her hand with his own.
"Have I mentioned yet how very grateful I am to have you here with us, Catherine?" He looked up at her to find her smiling gently down on him.
"Well, now you have. And I feel the same about all of you. Ready for what?" She persisted.
"I just got some really bad news from Thor. About Earth."
"Oh." Catherine sat down apprehensively. "I think I can guess, but tell me anyway."
"There's nothing left. The G'ouald have made it uninhabitable."
Saying it again hurt just as much as hearing it for the first time.
"They're going to want to know what we learned from Thor," Jack said, gesturing with his head towards the outside of the tent. "How can I tell them this, after all we've already been through?" Jack closed his eyes tiredly.
"Jack, I don't think many of us have any illusions about what has happened to Earth. Nothing will be gained by withholding the truth."
Catherine was wise as usual.
"I just don't want to be the one that has to tell them."
He stood up slowly.
"Here goes," he murmured, summoning the courage he had gained from their support and going out to report to the others. It would be a long, dark night.
Sam slapped her hand explosively on the lab table in front of her as the power went out for the third time that week. The generators ran on various fuels they had found on the planet, but not as reliably as they did on diesel fuel from Earth. Since that was now long since depleted, the scientists put up with the fits and starts that occurred with the various new sources of Beta fuel, but not graciously. Sam ran a hand through her already unruly hair and began pacing the lab. She was working on creating surface maps of the planet from data being gathered by her scientific team. Having never done much mapping before was frustrating enough for her, but the power outages were pushing her into a truly scary mood.
Sam suddenly closed up her blank laptop and pulled a coat from her chair. She wanted to go for a walk, as fast and as far as she get away from here. She plowed out the door, barely closing it behind her, and set out for the ridge to the east of camp. There was a small, very lovely lake on the other side of the ridge where she had found tranquility from time to time.
After walking for over a half hour, Sam began to realize it was colder than she had anticipated. It was now well into the Beta winter. Her nose felt almost numb and each breath burned a bit as she gulped in air during her ascent of the ridge. But the vistas opening up around her as she climbed were worth the discomfort. Beta, at least in their little corner of the planet, was truly beautiful. The vibrant colors of different rock formations were mixed in ribbon-like layers in every direction.
As she crested the ridge, the lake was suddenly spread out below her in azure stillness. Sam realized she was already much more settled inside, from the combination of physical exertion and the effect of her surroundings. She sat down at the top, content to go no further, and drank in the solitary beauty around her. As she stared absentmindedly at the lake, she suddenly jerked to full alert as she watched three human figures come meandering out of the woods on the other side and approach the lake. Even from this distance, she was certain they were not from the Beta colony. They moved about with such unguarded ease she was pretty sure they had no idea what was on the other side of the ridge she was sitting on, so she crouched down and shimmied backwards down her side of the slope. She took another furtive look to try and memorize as many details as she could about the strangers. She then headed back the way she had come, running where she could, anxious to report this development to Jack and Riley.
"How is it that in the three years the Beta site has been in existence, and with all the teams we have sent out exploring since the refugee colony began, we have never seen any sign of indigenous people before?" Catherine asked as the six friends sat discussing this latest development in Sam's lab. Teal'C, Daniel, Jack and Pete were standing around the table where Sam and Catherine sat, pondering what to do next.
"Maybe they aren't very many of them, and maybe this is a group of explorers who are far away from their home," Daniel postulated.
"Why don't I take a team of my men to see if we can track them?" Pete suggested.
"I will accompany you," added Teal'C. His tracking skills were far more advanced than anyone's from Earth.
"Let me discuss it with Riley, and I'll get back to you," Jack said pensively, looking at Pete and Teal'C.
"We don't know what you might be walking into. It would appear that we really don't know as much about this planet as we thought we did."
"Well, we should at least go over to the lake and look at the tracks we can find while they are still fresh." Pete persisted.
"Teal'C, go with Pete and do that. Arm yourselves well and stay sharp. Report back ASAP." Jack was in now in command mode.
"Let's go," Pete said in answer, and the two men left the lab building. Daniel thought for a minute and followed them.
"Wait up, I'm coming!" He called, unable to resist a chance to learn about a new culture.
"Sam, wanna come with me to the mess?" Jack asked. He looked pointedly at her, and she knew he had something on his mind to discuss.
"Sure," Sam agreed. "Catherine, I'll be back to finish that UAV data analysis in a bit." "It's okay, Sam, I'm enjoying doing it by myself. Take a break, girl!" Catherine didn't even look up as she enthusiastically worked on the screen before her.
"You scientists are all the same," Jack teased.
In the mess tent, Sam held a steaming cup of tea between her freezing fingers. Jack sat across from her, playing compulsively with an empty cup.
"Sam, the next time you need to get some air, I want you to get someone to go with you. I'm not trying to be your daddy or anything, I just think we can't afford to get too comfortable here yet. You can always ask me, you know. In fact, I want you to. I've been stir crazy lately."
"Alright." Sam agreed succinctly.
"Huh? That's it? Alright?"
"You were expecting a fight, weren't you? Sir, I'm sorry I've been so difficult to get along with lately. I'm just out of sorts I guess. That's why I walked up there alone- to clear my head."
"Did it work?"
"No, not after I uncovered a whole new can of worms to worry about!" Sam chuckled.
"No offense, but why have you been out of sorts? I mean, anything aside from the obvious, that we're on a new, basically undeveloped planet, can never get back to Earth, no cable, no big screen TV's, no ice cream?" Sam smiled at him for a second, then her face grew serious and she looked at her feet.
"Back on Earth, I thought I had everything in my life figured out. Pretty arrogant of me, huh? My life now bears no resemblance to what it used to be. I haven't told you this, but I broke my engagement to Pete a few days after we got here. He agreed with me pretty quickly, too. I mean, what does that even mean anymore, to be engaged? Everything we enjoyed doing together back on Earth is gone. We have nothing in common here. I don't know what to think or feel..." Sam's voice tapered off into silence. Jack watched her soberly for a minute.
"Sounds like you need to give yourself time, Carter, and don't sweat it," Jack said gently, as he stood and stretched his long frame and sighed loudly.
"This," he gestured around himself universally, "is more than anyone should have to go through. And I'd say you're coping better than most."
Sam looked up at him with a new understanding in her eyes.
"Thanks, Jack. Really."
"Anytime, Sam. Hey, are you hungry? Why don't you come grab an MRE with me?" Jack said hopefully.
"Now that's an offer I can't refuse," Sam joked.
By the next morning, Daniel, Pete and Teal'C had followed the footprints near the lake back over a steep, rocky tableland to a large level clearing. Here the footprints disappeared. Gone, as if the people making the tracks had just vanished into the air. A faint circular pattern surrounded the last set of prints.
Pete was totally mystified, but Daniel and Teal'C knew immediately what they were looking at. Daniel glumly explained to Pete that the people they had been tracking had been transported to a spaceship using G'ouald ring technology.
"We must report this to base immediately," Teal'C urged. "We may already be too late."
"Agreed."
The three turned and hurried back the way they had come, fear freezing their hearts as they desperately tried to reach the colony before the alien ship found it first.
Jack found Sam working at the DHD, trying to figure out how to remove the burned out crystals within. Replacing them was a whole different project, and Sam wasn't even ready to think about that. She was lying on her back, her face partially obscured beneath the DHD panel that she had finally managed to open.
"How's it going, Carter?" Jack asked loudly from a good distance away, not wanting to startle her. Good men had been badly hurt that way. He came closer, trying to see around her body that was blocking his view of the inside of the panel.
"I've reached the crystals, but the burned ones are kinda melted to their sockets," Sam said grumpily.
"This is bad, isn't it?"
"I don't know, you tell me."
"It's bad for Beta, bad for us, if we can't get the Gate to open," Sam ranted. "And on top of that, we can't monitor incoming, although I think other Gates should be able to dial us. Although they'd just be stuck here with us if they decide to come through."
She pulled away from the DHD and jumped up to give it a kick.
"That's gonna hurt you more than it, you know," Jack observed casually . "You're right," she grimaced, rubbing her toes.
Sam wanted to scream. Only once before had she seen a DHD explode the way this one had a few hours ago. When Teal'C had been trapped in the SGC Stargate several years ago, they had removed the master control crystal from the Russian DHD they borrowed and the thing had blown up. Sam had thus concluded that the master control crystal in this DHD may have been faulty, but it she would never know for sure. All the crystals were now fried, with little hope of obtaining replacements. She closed her eyes as tears threatened to spill out.
"C'mere." Jack took her firmly by the shoulders and walked her away from the DHD and the Gate.
"You need a break. Let's go for a walk, then you can come back to it." Jack tried to sound commanding but inside he was holding his breath. He had no experience dealing with an emotionally unstable Carter.
"Well, ok, but I need to get back to work on this soon- all of Beta are depending on me."
"Of course they are! C'mon. Walk, walk..." he encouraged.
They walked around the perimeter of base camp, staying just out of the well traveled areas so Sam could decompress.
"Are you happy here, sir?" Sam asked unexpectedly as they slowly picked their way around the rocky edges of the camp. They sat down on a flat topped boulder, their legs dangling a bit over the side.
"Happy? Uh, I'm a little out of practice at happy, Carter. But it beats the alternative. This is a good planet, Beta is. What about you, Sam?" Jack could sense there was more lurking beneath the question.
"Not yet. But I think I could be," she reflected quietly. "I'm glad I'm here with you, and the team. You're my family now, you know."
Sam looked up at him with a serious and uncertain gaze. Jack smiled back.
"Same here. You, Teal'c and Daniel have been my family for a long while. Not a day goes by I don't think about Earth. We'll always miss it and think about it, every day. But I'm moving on. So are you. We're all starting to get back on our feet. And we're alive, and we're in this together."
Jack paused, wanting to say more, but not sure how to say it. Instead, he laid his hand on Sam's knee, trying to convey what he could not yet put into words.
A sudden realization that someone was rapidly approaching through the underbrush above them on the slope caused them to jump to their feet, weapons ready. Daniel and his team burst out from the brush, running breathlessly. Daniel saw Jack and Sam first and threw his hands up.
"Don't shoot!! It's us! The people you saw by the lake, Sam? They were ringed up to a ship. We found the tracks." Daniel was panting for breath. Jack's face registered sudden dread.
"That means we're in a state of emergency as of right now," he ordered. "Daniel, Teal'C- go put the base on alert, every person armed- and let's hope it's only one ship. We might have a snowball's chance of shooting it down."
But before they could move to comply with Jack's order, a silvery, oblong spaceship sailed smoothly over the ridge, gleaming in the sunlight, to hover directly over base camp. They all looked up simultaneously at the gigantic craft.
"We're too late," exclaimed Pete brokenly.
But the others wore grins from ear to ear.
"Prometheus!" They chorused, simultaneously crying and cheering.
"What the-" Pete started.
Rings shot down from the motionless ship and in seconds four men had materialized in the midst of the colony. General Hammond, Jacob Carter, President Hayes and the Secretary of State stood looking around at the ragtag colonists now beginning to swarm into the clearing to see what was happening. Sam went wild with glee, exuberantly hugging everyone in her immediate vicinity and then running to greet her father. Daniel whooped and followed her down the slope, Pete stumbling after them in a daze. Jack's heart was bursting as he surveyed the scene unfolding before him. It was unbelievable, incredible.
Somehow, against all odds, the Prometheus had survived.
The whole colony was streaming out of tents and buildings to see what was going on as Prometheus slowly landed just beyond the Stargate. Most of them had no knowledge of the Prometheus, Earth's one and only spaceship capable of hyperspace travel. Their mood slowly changed from fear to incredulity as they began recognizing the President. As the unbelievably huge ship settled completely on the ground, lower hatch doors opened and the crew began exiting along with many civilians they had managed to rescue. The voice of the colony was slowly building to an ecstatic roar as it became apparent that many more people had escaped certain doom. For many minutes, happy chaos reigned as the newcomers were hugged and greeted with shouts and tears. Sam pulled her Dad aside to sit with her and tell her what had happened and how they had managed to escape. Before long, Jack, Daniel, and Teal'C had joined their little circle and soon many were avidly listening to the story of the Prometheus.
The afternoon went by quickly. It was an amazing tale of near misses and lucky coincidences. The Prometheus had stealth technology borrowed from the Asgard that allowed the spaceship to fly undetected as they had landed several times to pick up survivors, beginning with those members of the government who had made it to Mount Weather's sturdy underground fortress in the Shenandoah Valley foothills west of Washington, DC. As they had headed out to space, the Tok'Ra had intercepted them and hidden them from the G'ouald on the planet which their base was currently located. With the coordinates of the Beta base in the possession of the commander of the Prometheus, Jacob Carter had come with the crew and survivors as the Tok'Ra representative, anxious to find the Beta base and see if his daughter had survived. They thought they had surveyed most of the temperate portions of the planet, searching for the Beta outpost, and had actually put the ship down just beyond sight of the base. That was when Sam had seen a few crew members poking around the lake. Sam and Daniel had a good time picking good-naturedly on the Prometheus' scientists for not knowing how close they were to a base that wasn't even hidden.
The two Carters sat next to one another the whole evening, Sam often reaching out to touch her father's sleeve as if she was reassuring herself this was not a dream. Jacob smiled back at her just as often as they got caught up on all that had transpired while they'd been apart. A lull in their conversation caused them to notice all the other groups gathered here and there for everyone on Beta was anxious to listen to any news of Earth, even the grim story brought to them by the newly arrived refugees.
"Sam," her father mused, "you are always welcome to come back with me and live with the Tok'Ra."
Jacob was taking in the rough hewn flavor of the settlement around him. He looked at his daughter with concern in his eyes.
"I'm staying with these people, Dad. We've been through a lot together. And I know it doesn't look like much, but we managed to get a lot of technology from the SGC here before we had to shut down the worm hole. I'm pretty proud of what's been accomplished here, and what will be accomplished."
"Then you're right, you need to stay and be part of it. I'm just worried about you, that's all. A father's right."
Jacob stood up and stretched. "Well, I'm going to get some sleep. Do you want to bunk on Prometheus tonight?"
"No, Dad, I'm fine. See you tomorrow morning. You'll get a good night's sleep here- the length of the day here is a lot longer than Earth's was. We've all grown accustomed to it, but when we first got here- well, you'll see when you wake up and it's still pitch black outside! Come find me in the mess tomorrow morning, or I'll come find you- I need your help with some technical glitches around here."
Sam kissed her father's cheek and wandered off. Jacob watched her go, his heart content for the first time in months, and went back to the ship.
Sam walked determinedly back to the large knot of people near the bonfire started by the Beta colonists to warm the night as everyone talked. She could see the same lost, overwhelmed look on the faces of the newcomers that she had seen and worn herself back in the first days of the colony. Comparing them to the ragged, sunburned Beta colonists, she saw something she wouldn't have otherwise noticed: in spite of the dust and wear and tear, the colonists looked strong, settled, even self-assured. Something was different between the newcomers and those who now lived here, and it was a life-affirming, hopeful difference, one that made the many months of struggle seem somehow less arduous.
Even as she mused on all that she saw around her, Sam was becoming more and more aware that her driving focus was simply to find Jack. She wanted to share this momentous event with him, watch his reactions, see it through his eyes. It was suddenly very important to her to be near him, and that dawning realization felt uncomfortable to her orderly, scientific mind. He was too important to her, too connected to her, in a way that scared her. She had never felt such a connection with Pete.
Sam stopped suddenly as her conscious mind caught up with her feelings. What was going on? She turned around, confused, having decided to just go back to her and Catherine's tent and get some sleep, when Jack's voice stopped her, and she turned around to find him walking up behind her.
"Carter!" Jack loped over to her, smiling widely. "I've been looking all over for you. Where's Dad?"
"He's gone to bed. I've been looking for you, too. Where were you?" Sam was captivated by the excitement in his eyes.
"Talking to the President...I've always wanted to say that," he joked. "Poor guy's pretty out of it, though. They all are. All their familiar points of reference are gone. And I don't think they expected to find the Beta site looking this rough, like something out of a Davy Crockett movie." Sam chuckled with him, then grew serious.
"It must be quite a shock, even after all they've already seen, to realize this is what's left of Earth."
Sam closed the distance between them and took his hand in hers.
"It doesn't look so bad to me, any more. There's a future here."
"You're right, Sam. Our future. They'll see it soon enough. They need time to adjust, just like we did, like we still do."
"I know how to fix the DHD," Sam announced in one of her characteristically abrupt changes of topic.
"Huh? I mean, how?" Jack asked in a confused tone.
"Well, the Prometheus runs on crystal technology, so for the short term we can use some of its crystals to repair the DHD. And later, the Tok'Ra can bring us more crystals. Problem solved."
"Well, that explains why you're in such a good mood," Jack observed. "You got your doohickey problem sorted out."
"That's it all right. Having the Prometheus show up helped my mood some too, though," Sam teased.
"No kidding. C'mon, Sam, sit with me for a while by the fire. I don't think any of these folks are going to call it a night any time soon."
The clearing was loud and full of celebratory activity. Jack was still holding her by the hand so he pulled her over to a low stone bench by the fire and they sank down to the ground, leaning back against it. Sam pillowed her head on his shoulder.
"Tired?" Jack asked, wrapping her in his arms.
"Very, but I want to stay here a bit longer. With you," she added shyly, snuggling into the warmth of his embrace.
"Good," Jack agreed in a whisper as they settled down further and closed their eyes. His head slipped onto hers. Sam was having a very hard time keeping her eyes open, but there was something she wanted very much to tell Jack, now that she had figured it out for herself. She fumbled around in her mind, trying to put the feelings into words.
"I don't know why it was so important to me to find you and share this night with you, but I just had to," she started.
"As happy as I am about the Prometheus arriving, it just wasn't enough until I saw the joy on your face, too."
Sam cringed as she finished, feeling she had sounded ridiculously mushy. But Jack's reaction wiped away her awkwardness as his arms suddenly tightened around her.
"Same here. I was looking all over for you. I saw you and your Dad talking, and I watched you two together earlier. I'm really happy for you. "
"What about you? Are you happy?" Sam asked, echoing her question from earlier that day.
"I am right now," he answered after a moment of thought, and the weight of his head cushioned on top of hers grew a bit heavier as he settled in further and yawned contently.
"Yup, I'm happy."
Sam's heart filled with warmth.
"Me, too."
If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Revvie
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