It was amazing. What this thing had built in just thirty-six hours. The Colonel had flippantly called it a nest, but he was right. It had arrived, secretly built a home, supplied itself with power, all in such a short space of time.
Of course, he wanted to blow it up, but that’s his answer to everything. But it had provided an interface, right there in front of me. It wanted to communicate.
I felt an affinity with it. How many times had we been in this position, trying to communicate with beings who had no real conception of who we were, what we were? The Colonel, however, still insisted it was dangerous. His analogy of the bacteria was correct, it was an infection, but the need to communicate implied intelligence, so I talked Colonel Hammond into letting me at least try to contact it.
I should have let Colonel O’Neill blow the damn thing up.
It had my picture on the screen, so I assumed it wanted to communicate with me.
“No,” the Colonel said. “I’m not sure about this. I’ll do the typing, you get ready with the cutters.”
I wanted to argue, but he had that ‘don’t mess with me’ look on his face. It was quite a victory to get him wanting to talk with it anyway, so I took my place with the bolt cutters securely positioned around the power source.
He stood in front of it, hands poised on the keyboards. Then he looked at me.
“What do I say?” he asked me.
“Ask it what it wants?” Daniel suggested.
He typed in ‘what do you want’
“It’s asking what I want?” he told us.
“It’s trying to figure out why we sent a probe to its world.” Daniel suggested.
“Tell it we’re explorers.” I said, leaning over so I could see the screen. I was eager to be doing this myself. I watched the screen, and that was a fatal mistake. I wasn’t concentrating on the Colonel. I didn’t see the problem until it was too late.
He typed the message in, but then the screen froze. Just s, repeated over and over again.
“Jack?” Daniel asked.
“Colonel?” I called, and then I saw the bolts arcing over his hands and I cut the wire.
Too late.
He was rushed to the infirmary, me following at a run. I couldn’t believe I’d done this. I couldn’t believe I’d let my attention slip, if only for a moment. What had I done?
I heard the monitor sound that flatline wail.
“Janet…” I said, trying to urge her on, to save him.
“Charge the paddles, one hundred.” She shouted. Then the monitor beeped. I stepped forward. I needed to see, to know what was happening.
“It’s normal sinus rhythm.” Janet told me. “Sam, look at this.”
She was looking at the brainwave readings. I recognised it. It was the same as the entity’s.
“Oh God.” I murmured. “Janet, its IN him.”
I stayed by his bed, watching for any sign of life, any sign of Jack O’Neill. I didn’t even mind if he woke up and told me that next time he wanted to blow something up, we damn well better let him. As long as he woke. I was aware of the others talking somewhere behind me, but I ignored them. I just stroked his hand, gently, over and over, hoping the touch would bring him back to me.
Then I thought I’d done it. He opened his eyes.
“Sir?” I asked, but I could see it wasn’t him. There was no life in those dead dark eyes.
“Janet!” I called, but she was already there.
“Sam,” she said gently. “The Colonel’s PET scan resembles that of a stroke victim. You know what that means.”
“That’s the entity in there, not the Colonel.” I confirmed. She nodded.
“It does have complete motor control though. I could rig up a speech synthesiser.”
“Do it.” I said. “Anything. If we can communicate, maybe we can get it out of him.”
She nodded, and left, touching gently on the arm as she went, to remind me, I wasn’t alone, I had friends, friends who do all they could to save him.
But I WAS alone. I’d wanted to communicate. The Colonel had taken my place to protect me, I knew that. To all intents and purposes, I’d killed him myself.
Back in the room, with the remains of the nest, Siler and I scanned, and probed, and watched for anything that could help, or at least explain. We found nothing, and after a while, I noticed Daniel had joined us, a silent, compassionate watcher.
“We should have blown it up.” I said.
“No, we shouldn’t. Whatever happens, however this turns out, you weren’t wrong to try to communicate with it.”
“It was a trap. It was meant for me, Daniel.”
“And what good could it have done if you’d been possessed? You’re probably the only person here who has anything like the knowledge to fix this. And Jack chose to take your place. That’s his first instinct, remember, to protect.”
“But I..”
“You know, you and Jack are very alike in some ways. You both have an endless capacity for self-blame.”
I was silenced by that.
“Sam,” he said, gently, “don’t blame yourself for this. I know what that’s like, to constantly live with the knowledge that you’ve hurt someone you care for. But none of it is your fault.”
I nodded, but I couldn’t speak.
“Major Carter.” Teal’c called from the door. “You are needed in the infirmary.”
Jack.. the entity was sitting up in bed, its fingers on a key board in front of it.
“Carter.” The voice said as I entered. It was mechanical, a voice like a robot version of the Colonel, but without the inflections, the tones, that made his voice so uniquely his.
“That’s me.” I said, trying to remain calm. “Who are you?”
“I am within.” He said, the fingers moving over the keyboard with a dexterity Colonel O’Neill could never have achieved. That was almost the most disturbing thing of all.
“This one has memory of you.” He intoned, coldly.
“He’s called Colonel Jack O’Neill.”
“Then I am Colonel.”
“No.” Janet said, standing beside me, offering much-needed support. “You only occupy his body. You’re not him.”
“There was no other choice. No other place to go. You wished to terminate.”
“You gave US no other choice.” I insisted.
“I should have entered you.” The voice continued. “This one is dangerous. He would have terminated. But he valued the life of you.”
I was silent. I didn’t want to hear. I didn’t want to know how Jack’s love for me would have been used against him. That would have hurt him, so much.
“You are important to this one. For this reason you were chosen. But this one will do as well. You will not end the life of this one. I cannot be removed from this mind without terminating. You will not terminate this one. Therefore, I will survive.”
I hated that entity then. All thoughts of communication, a peaceful end to the crisis had gone. It had taken something personal, something precious, a secret even I and the Colonel never spoke of, and twisted it, used it for its own safety. I was angry, almost mindlessly furious.
Now, I was dangerous too..
We held a brief meeting, but the outcome wasn’t good. We couldn’t send it back. Although it insisted Jack’s mind was still intact, Janet doubted it. The meeting ended with Daniel offering to talk to it.
As we left, the General stopped me.
“Major Carter, while Colonel O’Neill is incapacitated, you are in command of SG1”
That thought hadn’t even occurred to me. I mumbled an acknowledgement, and moved past, but he stopped me.
“That means, if there is a hard decision to be made, you will have to make it. I know you and Colonel O’Neill are close…..”
“He’s a good officer, Sir.” I said quickly, before he mentioned anything that he shouldn’t have known.
“I know, Sam.” he said gently, wearily. He hadn’t called me Sam in a long time, not since I’d joined the air force. “I know.”
It looked odd, Daniel introducing himself to his best friend. I’d insisted on being there, not for any other reason then to watch, to see if I could get a glimpse of the man beneath the entity.
It knew who he was, of course, and offered information in return for life. Daniel refused.
“We don’t want information. We want Jack back.”
We tried the peaceful way, we tried to offer to let it go back to the MALP room nest, but it claimed to have outgrown it.
It also claimed we’d attacked. Daniel tried to explain that we’d sent the probe in peace, as explorers, but it wouldn’t accept it. We’d destroyed their world, and now it wanted to destroy ours. I could understand. I could even sympathize, but this was no place or time for sympathy. All I wanted was Jack back.
And I had suddenly realised that when pushed to the limit, the very limit, I could be as dangerous, as ferocious as Jack, to protect and rescue someone I loved.
“We won’t send more probes.” Daniel was saying, but I saw my chance.
“Yes we will.” I said, coming forward.
“Sam?” Daniel asked, turning to face me, but he must have seen the resolve in my face, the face of a soldier, not a scientist, and he didn’t argue any more.
“We’ll send dozens of them, one after another. I don’t care what it does.”
“No.” the entity insisted.
“Leave him, now.”
“You won’t.”
“I will. The man you possessed would have done, if you’d taken me. So will I.”
“I must preserve.” It insisted, but its voice was growing desperate.
“I won’t let you. Let him go.”
“No, please.” It pleaded, begging for its life.
“Leave him.” I insisted, as cold and implacable as Jack had ever been.
“I must preserve.”
“If you want to preserve your world, Leave Colonel O’Neill right now.”
It ripped the monitors off, and jumped from the bed, running down the corridor. I shouted at the guards to let him pass, until he came to a junction, and stopped. He was trapped. There was no where left to go. Maybe it had realised that I was no so easy to manipulate as he had believed. Then he raised his arm, and shot bolts of power into the walls.
“I believe it is attempting to return to the mainframe.” Teal’c said. I couldn’t let it do that. If it got into our mainframe it could infect the entire planet, then all the planets in our dialling system. I had to stop it. I fired my zat, once.
It looked at me, Jack’s face, so surprised, then its expression hardened again, and raising his arms, he continued.
I couldn’t let him go on. But if I shot now, I would kill him. I couldn’t think what to do. Samantha Carter, the woman with all the answers, was completely lost. I thought to myself, what would HE do, if it was you standing there?
I knew.
I fired, for the second time.
He lay there, on the bed, oddly vulnerable. He was dead. I’d killed him. All that kept him breathing was the tube down his throat. I kept a vigil by his bed, as he told me his ancestors had once done, keeping watch by their dead. I didn’t cry. I didn’t do anything. I just waited. I didn’t know for what.
After a while, Janet came in. I knew she’d stayed away to let me grieve in private, but eventually, she had to tell me.
“There’s no change, Sam.” she said gently. “There’s no brain activity of any kind. No brainwave of either Jack or the entity. He’s being kept alive entirely on life support. I think its time to let go, Sam.”
Her voice broke as she told me. She’d liked Jack. He’d counted her as a friend. I had to remember that others had lost someone too. But I couldn’t, not just yet.
“I can’t let go.” I told her. “I always thought they’d be more time.”
“I know. There were things you needed to tell him.” she said.
“He’ll never know.” I said, staring at the white, sleeping face. “He’ll never know how I felt, how I…” my voice thickened. Even now, I couldn’t get the words out. But now, it was tears that stopped me, not protocol.
“He knew, Sam.” She told me. “Believe, he always knew.”
“But I should have told him.” I insisted.
Daniel came in, Teal’c following, solemn and silent.
“Just thought you ought to know.” Daniel told me. “Hammond ordered the mainframe thing in the MALP room destroyed, just in case the entity managed…” his voice trailed off. He could see I wasn’t listening.
“Sam.” he said gently. “You did the right thing.”
“Colonel O’Neill would have been proud of you.” Teal’c added.
But before I could answer, there was a call over the intercom. SG1 was needed in the MALP room.
When we got there, Siler was there, with explosives, and the screen had lit up again.
“I think our friend is back.” he said.
I was tired of this. I wanted it gone, out of my mind, my base, my life.
“Blow it up.” I ordered tersely.
“Wait!” Daniel cried, suddenly. He pointed to the screen. It had changed. On it were the words;
I AM HERE.
As we watched, the words multiplied, over and over, so they filled the whole screen.
“The entity?” I asked. “I thought it couldn’t go back.”
“Maybe it didn’t.” Daniel said. “Maybe it’s Jack. Maybe it put Jack in there.”
“Why?” Teal’c asked.
“I threatened to destroy their world. Send through armies of probes.” I told him.
“So it sent Jack’s consciousness here.” Daniel continued. “It allowed itself to be killed. It was the only way to save its planet.”
I grabbed the phone, and contacted Hammond.
“We have a situation.” I told him.
“So do we, Major.”
All over the base, computer screens were filled with the words
I AM HERE.
Janet hooked the EEG up to the machine, and we read it together. The deadness inside me was beginning to be replaced by a faint warm glow of hope. Maybe I hadn’t failed. Maybe I hadn’t killed him.
“Do you see that?” she asked me, pointing at the screen.
“The EEG matches the Colonel.” I agreed.
“So now what?” Hammond asked.
“There’s nothing I can do but provide a conduit for him to find a way back into his own body.” Janet told him. Together we hooked the Colonel up to the machine, then stepped back.
Power swept over him, making him arch his back, strain and shake with pain. I watched, intently for the first signs of returning life. Once he was still again, Janet checked his EEG.
“It’s him, Sam!” she told me. I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. He was back. He was safe. There was still time. I hadn’t failed.
Slowly, he opened his eyes. They weren’t dead any more. They were alive, staring straight at me, smiling at me.
“Hey, Carter.” He croaked.
“Hey, Sir.” I replied, grinning like an idiot. “How are you?”
“Tired. Is it gone?”
“All gone, Sir.”
“Knew you could do it, Carter.” He told me, smiling. Then his hand reached out, weakly, for mine, lying on the sheet. I held his hand, tightly, afraid to let go.
“I was shouting for you to hear me.” he whispered.
“I heard.” I told him.
©Michelle Birkby
Story Notes: mbirky@hotmail.com
Archive, Sam and jack, heliopolis please
Spoilers, entity
Status. complete
Author’s notes, Sam seems to have been getting a lot of whumping lately, in canon, so I rewrote entity to have jack be the one that’s possessed. This is told from Sam’s point of view. You will need to know Entity, or you won’t know the events leading up to the story.
Archive, Sam and jack, heliopolis please
Spoilers, entity
Status. complete
Author’s notes, Sam seems to have been getting a lot of whumping lately, in canon, so I rewrote entity to have jack be the one that’s possessed. This is told from Sam’s point of view. You will need to know Entity, or you won’t know the events leading up to the story.
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 ]