Oh yeah, this was one of those days. They were still a good five miles from the 'gate and it was starting to rain. Not lightly, mind you, but rather the great big drops that precede a serious downpour.
"Crap" O'Neill thought. At least the mission had gone well.
They had spent three days in the ruins with rocks, artifacts, rocks, samples and more rocks. A bit boring but they were all in one piece. He glanced upward at the sky noting the distant glowing flashes from far away lightning and pulled his collar up around his neck. The wind was picking up too. "Come on kids, let's pick up the pace here."
Teal'c was on point watching ahead as much as up to the sky for signs of danger. Daniel right behind him keeping up with the larger man's stride.
"Carter?" He turned to see she had fallen behind while struggling a bit with her pack. "I'm Okay, Sir." So they trudged on through the pelting rain and thunder.
By the time the 'gate was in sight they were at an all out run. The storm had increased to deafening levels of thunder and they were soaked to the bones. Teal'c had stayed by the less than sure- footed archaeologist and reached out his hand.
"DanielJackson! Give me your pack! I will take it while you dial home!"
Daniel gladly shrugged off the heavy weight made even heavier by the water. He leaned heavily on the DHD to catch his breath for a moment. Carter and O'Neill were a short way behind them when Carter slid on a muddy stone. She was saved from diving head first into the mud by O'Neill's arm grabbing across her waist. They both stopped for a moment, bent over with hands on their thighs, out of breath.
"You Okay?" he yelled over a clap of thunder. She just nodded, still trying to breathe thinking about how sore and swollen her ankle would be later. She was still walking but limping a bit.
The Colonel stayed beside her one hand on her upper arm for support.
"We're almost there, just keep moving."
Ahead O'Neill could see Teal'c and Daniel were at the 'gate already.
Daniel had dialed and was sending the iris code now. He yelled as loud as he could, "Daniel! Teal'c! Go on through, we're right behind you!" Teal'c nodded and turned to Daniel making sure he was coming. They quickly ran up the steps to the event horizon and leapt through together.
O'Neill and Carter were just a few feet from the base of the steps when a blinding and deafening CRACK exploded just ahead of them. They fell backwards to the ground dazed a bit and with the breath knocked out of them.
O'Neill recovered first, sputtering a bit from the rain getting in his mouth and leaned up to check on Carter when a deep cracking, roaring, ripping sound seemed to come from all around them.
"Sir! Look out!" She yelled, looking past him behind his shoulder. He glanced back, stunned. The whole stargate was shivering. Blue electric sparks were dancing all over it, some leaping off to the nearby trees. No wonder the ground was shaking. He instinctively leaned forward over her to protect her, no time to move away.
The ground quake was now shifting rocks around them and trees were falling. The sounds suddenly seemed to dissipate and O'Neill chanced to look up at the gate just in time to see it shift and lean back a few inches. A few inches more and then it went. The base gave way and it fell all the way to the ground, ripping and crashing with a tremendous whump as it hit. The dirt, rocks and any other small debris in the area was sent airborne in the shockwave. They both turned away and covered their faces from the rubble. It had gone down like a giant Redwood back on Earth being felled.
They both lay for a moment 'till the ground was still again. Carter leaned up on her elbows and looked toward the fallen gate. She squinted through the rain at the now still Stargate. The iridescent blue glow was gone, the wormhole was closed. the only sound was the rain. "Oh, God."
O'Neill saw it, too. "Crap."
He adjusted his ball cap and wiped the rain from his face. He shrugged off his pack then helped Carter with hers and helped her to her feet. "You think it will still work?"
"Well, Sir, we've seen a stargate activated in this position before."
"Yeah, I remember but what if some of the connections were ripped loose from the DHD?" She wiped her face on her sleeve, "there's one way to find out."
"No time like the present, Major." O'Neill squinted as he looked at her, the thunder and lightning had moved on but they were still in a downpour. They were actually standing in an inch of water now.
Whoever coined the phrase "Cats and Dogs" never came to P3C 509. These were Lions, Tigers, Bears...Elephants? Oh, my.
Carter moved to the DHD and dialed the address for Earth. Nothing happened. She tried again. Nothing. Okay, what about somewhere else. She'd made the mistake before of not trying all the options before giving up. They could easily gate home from several locations. She picked one and dialed. Nothing. "Sir, it seems to be shorted out. This is going to take some time. Everything looks okay from here but it's not working."
"Alright." O'Neill rubbed his chin where the dripping water was making his face itch. "They know where we are, we're not going to get any closer standing out here in the rain. Let's find some shelter, huh? It'll still be here when the rain is gone."
She nodded to the left, "You remember we found some caves not to far in that direction."
"Okay, to the caves." He was rubbing his head where a not so small rock had made a knot arise.
Despite the darkness and having to climb over numerous fallen trees, they made it to the cave in no time. Luckily they both still had their flashlights. Once inside they both sat, backs up against the back wall, packs to either side. Quite spent from the exertion. O'Neill leaned his head back against the wall. He felt hot and cold at the same time, and tired, really tired. "I don't suppose this would be a good time for a nap?"
The Major was rooting through her pack finding all but a very few items were soaked as much as they were. The waterproof matches were dry but there was nothing dry to light. Well, sterno, like back in Antarctica. She smiled at the memory, turned her head to say something to O'Neill. She stopped and looked closer.
Something wasn't right. "Colonel?"
There was no response. "He wasn't kidding about that nap." She mumbled to herself. She shone her flashlight toward him and noticed his face looked awfully pale. The flashlight shone on a dark streak running down the side of his head and neck. She reached out and touched it, then pulled her hand back and shone the light at her fingertips. Blood. "Oh, no. Colonel! Wake up!" She shook his shoulders.
"Alright, Carter! I'm awake. For cryin' out loud." He reached up and massaged his sore neck. God his head was throbbing. Carter breathed out a deep sigh. She didn't realize she had been holding her breath.
"You've got a nasty gash on your head, it's bleeding quite a bit." She pulled out some gauze that had been packaged in plastic and was therefore thankfully dry and started to clean the wound. It was still oozing but not bad. Head wounds always seemed to bleed a lot and with his hair being soaked from the rain, the blood had spread out and ran down his neck.
"Ow! Carter, do you have to do that?" He tolerated a few minutes more and then pushed her hand away. "Okay, Sir. Here, take this." She handed him some gauze. "You need to hold some pressure on it to stop the bleeding." "Okay, okay, I can handle that."
A few minutes later he looked around the cave and asked, "Have we got anything dry?" "Not much, sir. Only the stuff in our packs that was either wrapped in plastic or wrapped up really tight." She lit the sterno and went to the task of making some coffee. At least that might warm them up a bit.
The temperature had really dropped and the cave wasn't deep enough to give them much shelter from the wind. At least most of the rain stayed outside. She handed his a coffee and they sipped it in silence. Carter shuffled through the pack and found a couple MRE's. "Hmm, both macaroni and cheese, just what we wanted. Oh, well, it's food." She heated them up and handed one to her CO.
O'Neill tried to eat but only managed to get down a few bites. He was just too tired and sore. His head felt like a train was driving through it at full speed. He finally gave up and leaned back against the wall. "Sir, are you okay?" "Yeah, Carter, I'm fine. I'm just going to rest my eyes for a few minutes."
She felt herself wanting to go into 'mother hen' mode but thought better of it. At least her CO had not yet been overly crabby about their situation. If she started to fuss over him he would be for sure. A short rest was sounding like a good idea anyway. She leaned back against the hard rock wall, just to 'rest her eyes for a few minutes' too and drifted off to sleep.
Back at the SGC:
"Incoming wormhole!" General Hammond was just descending the stairs and strode over to the command center. "Report!" He snapped.
Simmons looked up at him and said, "We've got SG-1's iris code, Sir."
"Open it up, Lieutenant." SG-1 was due back any time now so the level of stress immediately dropped. The iris slid away to the rim of the stargate with a metallic scraping. Almost immediately
Daniel emerged forcefully and slid down the ramp as his wet boots made contact with the metal. Teal'c stepped out with his usual grace and moved to the base of the ramp. A moment passed, and another. The General inclined his head to one side not taking his eyes from the glowing pool.
Suddenly the gate was moving, the room was shaking and blue arcs of electricity were sparking from the great ring. The event horizon boiled outward then fell inward on itself and dissipated. The shaking stopped and all that remained of the light show were a few stray blue sparks.
"What the hell was that?" Hammond didn't wait for an answer and straightened up from the chair he was holding on to heading for the gate room. "Where are the Colonel and Major Carter?" Teal'c was the first to speak. "I do not know, General Hammond, they could not have been more than 10 meters behind us."
Daniel regarded the gate with wide open eyes. "General, they were right there behind us! You don't think they're caught in transit, do you? Or the wormhole could have jumped again."
"Hold on son, let's get a handle on what's going on, Okay?"
They made their way to the Control Room. "Alright people, any idea what just happened?"
"We have no idea, Sir. There was some kind of power surge. We've got shorts all over the system. We are effectively shut down."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow and stated "there was an intense thunderstorm with much lightning when we were returning through the Stargate. Perhaps a lightning strike was the source of the power surge."
Hammond thought for a moment, "could we receive an incoming wormhole if the Colonel was trying to get back?"
Simmons glanced at the mostly dark control screens. "I really don't know Sir."
"Alright people, get whatever backup you need from the computer center and get us back on line." Turning to Teal'c and Daniel he reminded them to head to the infirmary. "We'll debrief in 30 minutes."
Daniel started to say something but the General held up his hand, "I know, I know, but there's nothing we can do right now but let these people do their work. Go on."
O'Neill woke suddenly but didn't even twitch a muscle. His Special Ops training was kicking in big time. Something wasn't right. The sounds, the smells. Something was moving nearby and he knew it wasn't Carter. He slowly opened his eyes and surveyed the darkness of the cave. The rain was still falling heavily outside with distant thunderous crashes. Sam was a couple meters away dozing against the cave wall.
Looming over her still form, sniffing at the discarded MRE packaging was something that might have been a bear. If they had been on earth, that is. It was big and furry with a short nose that did not hide the large teeth of a predator. It had claws but it seemed to be able to articulate its paw more like a gorilla might have done. It turned the package over and over then started picking through the Major's pack.
The two P-90's were leaning together against the far wall of the cave.
Typical.
He thought for a moment and decided maybe it could just be scared off.
After all it wasn't trying to eat them or anything. His hand slowly moved down to feel for his sidearm. Yes! He unholstered it and made a slight wince as there was a little noise when he drew it out.
The creature had stopped, frozen in mid sniff. Listening. It knew he was awake. It turned toward him and sniffed again. It's nose curled up at the scent of blood. Now it's full attention was on him. His arm was a blur as he swung into action, shooting off two rounds over the creature's head. When it made no move to retreat he changed tactics and emptied the clip at the beast. He only made it mad.
Carter awake with a start at the deafening sound of shots being fired in the partially enclosed space. She was horrified at the sight. She jumped up and reached for her P-90 but the beast felt her move and swiped its huge claw toward her.
O'Neill yelled, "Carter, get down!" The claw actually missed it's mark but Carter smacked her head against the cave wall and was stunned into unconsciousness.
Now he was out of ammo but the creature was distracted for a moment. He lunged for a P-90 and landed near the cave entrance. The huge form was moving fast, after him. He scrambled out of the cave and something connected with the back of his shoulder. He spun around to the stench of the animal's breath on him. They were too close together for him to effectively raise the muzzle to point blank center mass so he started firing into whatever piece of the creature he could get. It howled in pain and swiped at him again.
O'Neill was knocked to the ground but in falling he had put a little distance between them. That was all the opportunity he needed. He held the gun up and fired repeatedly. It went down with a great splash into the deep puddles on the ground. Yet it was still moving, thrashing around. He quickly jumped to a position behind its head and grabbed a handful of fur. He unsnapped his knife and deftly slit the animal's throat.
He knelt there for a moment over the mass of fur and blood then rose to return to the cave but was swept by a wave of nausea. His head was pounding. He didn't make it very far before sinking to his knees in front of a fallen tree. He leaned over the tree and spit up the little food he had eaten. He was too tired and shaky to move again, so he just stayed there leaning half over the tree and dropped his head onto his hands.
Carter was jolted awake by shivering violently. She had been out for only a few minutes and was momentarily disoriented. She remembered some big animal thing in the cave and rubbed her aching head.
She scanned the cave quickly, no animal, no Colonel either. And one of the P-90's was gone. "Colonel!" she called getting no response. It was still dark outside and she could hear rain falling but not as heavily as before. She wiped her face on her sleeve and rubbed her hands to warm them.
She grabbed her flashlight in one hand and unholstered her pistol with the other and left the cave at a full run just about falling over the Colonel, not to mention tree limbs and other debris from the storm. She eyed the scene around her. The animal was huge to be sure and quite dead. The Colonel was only a few feet from it.
She leaned down and touched his shoulder. "Colonel?" There was no response but she could feel he was shivering heavily. He was half kneeling half sitting in about two inches of water that was cold as ice, and even more soaked from the falling rain, which had finally abated to a heavy mist.
She shook his shoulder hard, "Colonel! Wake up!"
"Hmmph, Carter? Mmm, C-cold."
"Yes, Sir, I know. We've got to get you dry and warm. Come on, I can't get you up myself."
Slowly he pushed himself up from the log, trying to stretch a muscle or two as he went. She slid her shoulder up under his arm and wrapped hers tightly around his waist, encouraging him to lean on her heavily. He groaned in protest but they made it into the cave and she urged him to go further in than before to get where it was driest. He lay down on his side using his hand as a pillow and drew up his knees, shivering badly. She crouched by him and quickly looked him over.
There was quite a bit of blood and the cloth on one shoulder was noticeably torn. She felt for and found no deep bloody gash to be dealt with, only some abraisions and what would certainly be a dark bruise by morning. The blood must have been from the beast. She quickly felt over his arms, legs and chest for broken bones.
She was relieved to find none. He had a few more scrapes and scratches than before but otherwise no worse. He began to shiver really hard now and his breathing was raspy. 'Oh, this is not good' she thought.
"Sir, we've got to get you dry." He only mumbled to himself in response.
The Major spoke to herself, 'survival training, start with the basics. Okay, I can do this.' She rolled her eyes at the ceiling, oh yeah, isn't that what the Colonel had said? This was one of those days.
She took a deep breath and started her task. She unrolled a sleeping bag; gladly finding the interior was dry. She looked at the Colonel. This was not going to be easy. She unlaced his boots and removed them along with his socks. With a lot of urging she got him to sit up so she could remove his jacket, shirt and t-shirt. She dried his chest and back off as best she could with the corner of a dry blanket.
He was listing to one side, ready to lie down again. "Oh, no you don't. Not yet." She pulled the sleeping bag over so he could kind of roll into it. She got him to lay his upper body onto the dry cloth and eyed his BDU's. Soaked, dripping even. She had to get them off. She shivered; it was just the cold, right? She took a deep breath and unbuckled his belt, then closing her eyes for a moment, pulled down the zipper. She yanked the fabric down as far as possible without moving him first.
Her eyes tried to find something interesting on the cave wall, but it wasn't working. "Colonel! You've got to help me here! "
He mumbled some incoherent words and she felt panic rising in her throat.
"Colonel O'Neill, I am the Chief Medical Officer on this mission and I am giving you a direct order! Now MOVE IT, airman!"
He mumbled something that might have been "Yessir" and rolled in the direction she was pushing him.
She was able to pull his BDU's down past his hips and after letting him settle into the sleeping bag, pulled them off one leg at a time. She glanced at him and shook her head slightly; his boxers were damp and clinging to his skin. She left them. She got him to scoot his hips over a little and as she maneuvered his legs into the bag, looked him over for any more wounds. She found some dark bruising over his ribs but no bleeding wounds so she pulled the zipper up part way. She cleaned up the shoulder wound and got as much of the blood off his hands and face as she could then pulled the zipper up the rest of the way, tucking him in.
She lit some sterno and had hot coffee ready in a few minutes. After taking several sips herself she took a cup over to the Colonel. She managed to get him to swallow maybe a third of the cup and felt that was good enough for now. He was still shivering, though. Actually so was she. She regarded her wet clothing and shook her head. Morning was still a couple hours away and she was freezing.
She sighed and quickly stripped off her clothing down to her underwear, unzipped the bag and slid in beside her CO. 'This is so not a good idea. Survival training or no.' He was laying on his back so she moved his arm and slid up next to him, resting her head on his chest, leaning as much of her body weight on him as she dared. He didn't stir, except for the shivering, but she noticed he was breathing more evenly. Hell, SHE wasn't. Difficult as it was at any given time for her to stop thinking, right now she had to. They were relatively dry and now needed to get warm. She thought of warm sandy beaches, warm water lapping on bare skin, oh yeah, this was a bad idea.
General Hammond looked on as his staff prepared for a test run of the Stargate. He was proud of them. In just under ten hours they had repaired, replaced and spliced every burnt out connection.
"Twenty percent, Sir. Operations normal."
"Go with power up, Lieutenant."
The gate lit up, "One hundred percent! All readings normal, Sir."
Teal'c and Dr. Jackson had been in and out of the control room for at least five of the ten hours they worked. Trying not to get in the way, they encouraged their co-workers to hurry the task along. Now Daniel spoke up. "General Hammond, can we go back now?"
"Hold on, Doctor. If that storm was as bad as you reported it was, you're not going anywhere. What if the gate on the other side was damaged as much as this one?" Turning to his staff, "I want a MALP sent through ASAP!"
O'Neill awoke coming to full alertness in a few moments which was his custom. Man, was it nice to be warm again. A bit of sun was coming through the cave entrance. He snuggled down a little in the sleeping bag. Feeling awareness return to his body. He was a little sore all over but generally felt pretty good. He was lying on his right side, arms wrapped around someone else whose back was to him so they were spooned together tightly. His left leg was forward and over the other's legs. He looked down at the blonde mussed hair, and slightly tightened his arm on the body. Too large to be Charlie. Sarah? No she wasn't quite as slender. She was gone too anyway.
He remembered being cold and sick and wet. He remembered that... bear, for lack of a better description. Carter! He remembered her going down after a swat by the beast. Thinking was making his head pound even more. Somehow he had gotten back to the cave, undressed and into the sleeping bag. Carter. He smiled to himself but couldn't help it turning into a grin. Too bad he hadn't been awake to enjoy her efforts. He closed his eyes, not to fall back to sleep but to just enjoy feeling warm and dry and... everything else.
More sun was now lighting the interior of the cave. Carter stirred a little, rubbing her nose through the fabric of the sleeping bag. She moved her feet and rubbed them together under some heavy weight. She opened her eyes sleepily and looking around lowered her eyebrows. She felt cozy and warm in the sleeping bag but there was more, her back was up against something radiating heat, firm and soft at the same time. And something was lying across her waist.
"Good morning, Major." He spoke it softly not to startle her but she jumped anyway.
She stiffened her back and turned to look over her shoulder. "Oh, my God. I am so sorry, Sir. I'm really sorry."
He didn't release his grip. "Whoa there, Major. You've got nothing to be sorry about. As I recall we were stuck here in a torrential downpour and freezing. I remember something like a bear giving us a hard time. Apparently I needed some help getting back in here and cleaned up. End of story." She smiled as he played down what must have been a fearsome fight to save them literally from the jaws of death.
"You did what you had to do to save our butts, er, lives." Oh yeah, that was a bad choice of words when hers was still tightly pressed against him. He raised his eyebrows and grinned to himself.
She couldn't see his expression but just knew what he was doing. She giggled.
"Haven't we been over that before? No giggling. Ah, any ideas of how we're going to get out of this sleeping bag with even a hint of grace?"
"Well Sir, you could close your eyes."
"Oh, and how much of that did you do last night?" He couldn't resist teasing her. He could almost feel her getting warmer with embarrassment. "Okay, Okay, I've got to get up anyway and water some plants right about now so I'll get up first. He pulled the edge of the sleeping bag across her face and unzipped it. He poked his finger into her side. "Now you stay put for just a minute."
He pulled on his BDU's, slid his feet into his boots and threw his still slightly damp t-shirt over his shoulder. "I'll be back in a few minutes, Carter."
She quickly got up and dressed and by the time he was back she had hot coffee in the works. They fished around in the food supplies and came up with some energy bars to eat. He looked at her.
"What condition do you think the gate's gonna be in?"
Carter glanced in the direction of the gate and said, "I don't know, maybe its just some broken connections I can fix without too much trouble. What really concerns me is that the power surge from that lightning could have gone through to our Stargate and blown some connections back there."
He nodded silently. Their eyes met, "Antarctica, part 2?"
"Yeah." They both knew it was a distinct possibility that Teal'c and Daniel could have been sent to a gate not on earth if the matter stream had shifted.
It was a bit harder getting back to the gate with all the downed trees but they managed well. They were both recovered from last night's ordeal. On reaching the gate they found a most peculiar sight. A MALP, rather part of a MALP was teetering precariously on the rim of the horizontal gate.
"Colonel, they must have sent it through to contact us and assess the damage and with the gate in the wrong position it didn't have anywhere to go. It looks like part of it didn't make it through the event horizon."
"So will it impede the gate activation?"
"I'm not sure, Sir. That is if we CAN activate the gate." She walked over to the DHD, scanning the ground between it and the Stargate. The DHD looked alright and the ground showed no signs of uncovered or torn connections. Just where the gate itself had been moved, the connections were exposed but not broken. "Oh, crap! Why didn't I think of it earlier!"
"What?"
"Remember in Antarctica I shut down the gate and rebooted the system? I haven't tried that here." She knelt beside the DHD and removed a panel. She knew the steps and quickly cut the power to the gate. "You know, this may not work, Sir."
"Carter, quit being such a pessimist. They know where we are. You're Okay. I'm Okay. They sent the MALP through. So we know the Stargate back home is Okay. If Hammond doesn't hear from us soon, he'll reopen the gate from their side and try to establish communications again. We are a long way from being out of options."
She blushed a bit. Back home in the briefing room he could be so full of sarcasm and pessimism, but out here in the field he was a true survivor. He never gave up, even when they really had been out of options. "Right, Sir."
"Right, you get to work on the panel, I'll move the trash out of the way." He responded. She went back to her work.
The power came back on without a hitch. The Colonel waved the GDO in her direction. "You ready to go?"
"Yes, Sir." She dialed the address and activated the center control. The Stargate whooshed to life looking like a geyser in this position. Quite beautiful, really. They shouldered their packs and stood right on the edge of the gate as he sent the iris code.
"Colonel, at the angle we have to jump through, you know, we're gonna be thrown really forcefully out of the other side."
"So, it's our signature entrance, isn't it?"
He reached one hand toward her. "Back to Kansas, Dorothy?" She met his grin and took his hand saying, "There's no place like home." They stepped off the edge together.
Coming through feet first turned out to be an advantage, they both landed lightly, even gracefully, on their feet. They looked at each other completely surprised and laughed. O'Neill leaned over and asked "can we do it again?"
Teal'c was already at the base of the ramp and heard the comment. He looked from O'Neil to Carter then to their still clasped hands and back to the Colonel again raising one eyebrow high. "I see you are well ColonelO'Neill, MajorCarter." Carter stifled a giggle as the gateroom filled with personnel, Daniel and Hammond at the lead.
"Colonel O'Neill, Major Carter, I take it you are alright?"
"Yes, Sir. Just wanted to stay another night in a cozy little vacation spot we found. Heyya, Teal'c, were glad to see you, too."
Hammond straightened his shoulders and tried to hold back the smile creeping to his lips. Covered with blood and uniform torn notwithstanding, it was not often he saw his 2IC in such a good mood. He seemed really relaxed and happy. "We'll debrief in one hour then." He knew he'd never hear the full story of what happened on that planet.
"Jack, we were so worried! There was a huge power surge and the gate shorted out and..."
"Whoa, hold on, Danny, you can tell me all about it. Come on. I think Carter and I are due for a check up in the infirmary." He laid an arm across the younger man's shoulders and turned him back to the door. He couldn't stop smiling. Yeah, he wouldn't mind having a few more of these kind of days.
Story Notes: Spoilers: Solitudes, First commandment
Archive: SJD, yes
Archive: SJD, yes
DISCLAIMER: All publicly recognisable characters, settings, etc, are the property of their respective owners. Any original characters and plots are the property of the author. No money is being made from this work. No copyright infringement is intended. ... [ read more ]