//------------------------------// // 11 - Execution // Story: Stargate - Rise of the Sun God // by Arvaus //------------------------------// The three of them made their way back through the warped corridors of the old ship, lights flickering on ahead of them as they returned from standby. "Looks like the power's getting low," Sam said. Jack looked up at the dim lights. "You sure this is going to work?" he asked. "Yes sir," she replied. "The DHDs already have the ability to remote-dial the Gate built in. I actually suspect the system was designed so it could be used in space. We can definitely dial it from here; the only question is just if the DHD has enough power." Jack nodded. "Right; hence the generator." "Exactly," Sam said, looking round at the pack on her back. "Still, we probably shouldn't hang around too long up here. We don't want to get trapped if the ship dies completely." "Sure," Jack said. "And speaking of time…" "I know," Ro'shur said. "We only have seven hours until the Chappa'ai reaches the sun. Do not worry; Lord Zipacna has an outpost in a neighbouring system where he was preparing ships for a possible invasion. They can be here before then." "Good to hear," Jack said. "It'd be cool to die saving the galaxy, but if I can survive saving the galaxy, that's even better." They reached the bridge, and Carter stopped. "You should be able to access long-range communications from in there," she said. She then turned to head on to where the Gate used to be, but hesitated for a moment. Jack noticed the pause. "You okay?" he asked her. "Yeah," Sam said, nodding. "This just all feels a bit… I'm not sure." "I can make it an order if it helps," Jack offered, but Sam shook her head. "No, I'm okay," she said. "I'm good." She turned and started down the corridor again. "Okay then," Jack said, walking onto the bridge. He looked around the sparse room for a moment, looking for something that looked like a long-range communicator. The only thing of interest was the pedestal in the middle of the room, the exposed crystals on the surface glowing weakly in the failing power. "Is this it?" Jack asked. "I do not think so," Ro'shur said, moving instead over to the far end of the room. "The design of this ship has some differences from the Ha'taks in use today, but if we assume they are basically the same, then communications will use a secondary… ah, here it is." He pushed his hoof down onto something hidden in the ground, and a second control pedestal rose up in front of him, a hatch at its apex opening and revealing a small, glowing blue dome. "Nice," Jack said, going over to look at it. Ro'shur placed his hoof on the dome, and a small holographic display appeared in front of him with lines of Goa'uld text slowly scrolling across it. "It is a crude system," he said. "I can only send and receive a text communication, but that should be enough." He stared in concentration at the screen for about half a minute, moving his hoof back and forth across the controls. Jack waited patiently as lines of text he couldn't read scrolled past, then Ro'shur turned and announced, "It is done. A ship will be here as soon as they can reach us. It should only be a few hours." "Okay," Jack said. "So now we just have to play the waiting game." "Indeed," Ro'shur replied. He pushed down on the communication console and it disappeared back into the floor, then the two of them went and stood by the window. The ship was listing somewhat, the planet now sitting off to the right, but other than that the view looked pretty much unchanged. The sun was visible in the distance now, beyond the limb of the planet, and Jack kept his focus on the desert below to avoid the glare. "May I ask you something, Colonel O'Neill?" Ro'shur said after a while. "Sure, go ahead," Jack replied. "Did you mean what you said earlier," Ro'shur asked, "when you told Koresh he was a good Jaffa?" Jack laughed. "You guys really don't know how to take compliments, do you?" he said. "Not—" "—from enemies. Right." Jack turned to face the Jaffa. "Look," he said, "if you want an honest answer... I definitely don't agree with all of your life choices, and some of them I'd take particular issue with, but... Yeah. When you're not shooting at me, the two of you seem like decent ponies. It's quite a while since you last tried to kill me, so that puts you well ahead of most of your race." He turned and looked out of the window again. "Koresh is a good kid," he said. "He can be a bit cocky, but he seems smart. He'll go a long way if he's got somepony he respects to guide him. Good thing he's got you, then." Ro'shur laughed. "If only he did," he said. "He respects my abilities, and my career, and he listens to me because he wishes to have them for himself some day, but I do not believe that he respects me." "That's a shame," Jack replied. "So why do you put up with him?" "Because," Ro'shur said, "I saw potential in him. When I first met him, he had the wisdom to become a great warrior, but not the skills. I am getting too old to be a warrior now, so I thought that training him to one day take my place would be a good use of my remaining time. I was never looking for his respect; I simply wished for him to have a good future." "Very noble," Jack said. "Do you think you succeeded?" Ro'shur stood silently for a long moment, staring in thought out of the window. Then he said, "I don't know. I tried to drive him by pushing him to be the best that he could be, and to be stronger than all his enemies. But I may have pushed too hard. Now he won't settle for anything less. This mission has not been easy for him." "Why not?" Jack asked. Ro'shur pointed at the star visible out of the window. "Because of the Ra'shek," he said. "When Koresh looks at an enemy, what he looks for is a way to defeat it – a way to beat it into submission." Jack nodded. "But how do you beat an enemy you can't even fight?" "Exactly," Ro'shur replied. "Let me guess," Jack said, looking round at Ro'shur, "that's why he wanted to have a fight earlier." "There were more reasons than just that," he replied, "but yes. Your overpowering him when we battled in the ruins only served to shake his confidence further, and if we were going to have any chance of succeeding I needed to have him feel confident once more." "Hmm," Jack said. "I think I'd have tried a different approach, but okay. Now can I ask you something?" Ro'shur nodded, so Jack said, "Why are you even bothering to tell me any of this? Less than an hour ago you made it very clear that we were your prisoners, and now you're letting me give orders, and telling me your life story. What's going on? " Ro'shur grunted. He stood in silence for a while, staring silently out of the window, and Jack was just about to change topic when he said, "Consider what we came up to this ship to do." "Kill the Ra'shek?" Jack said. Ro'shur nodded. "I came to this system seeking a force which even gods fear," he went on. "I was more successful than I had anticipated; I found a force capable of killing System Lords, and of destroying entire fleets of Ha'tak in an instant, and I have spent the past week trapped in my ship for fear that it would kill me. And now…" He looked over to the door. "Now I am here because you tell me that one of your team is capable of exactly that which makes the Ra'shek so feared." Jack chuckled. "An entire fleet of Ha'tak… I hadn't thought of it like that. So, what, you're scared of us?" he asked, barely hiding his amusement. But Ro'shur shook his head. "No," he said. "I am not. Why is that?" Jack raised his eyebrows "Hm," he said. "Well, if you're planning on starting worshipping Carter, you'll have to get in line." "I'm finished," Sam said behind him, making him jump. "Don't do that, Major!" he said. "Sorry, Sir," she said, smiling. "Anyway, the power boost worked perfectly and I was able to establish a link with the Gate and dial out. The DHD reports a successful connection, but the diagnostic signal from the Gate's coming in at a red shift of about twelve hundred percent." Jack blinked. "So… we're good to go?" he said. "Yes Sir," Sam replied. "Now we just have to wait." "How long?" Ro'shur asked. Sam turned to the window and summoned the map of the solar system again. A red line traced out away from the planet on a path straight towards the sun. "The sensors have been tracking the Gate since the explosion," she said, "so we've got a pretty good idea of where it's going. On its current trajectory it'll get there in… six hours and fifty three minutes." Jack looked at his watch, counting forward. "Good," he said. "Plenty of time." "Will the Chappa'ai still be active then?" Ro'shur asked. Sam nodded. "The black hole can power the wormhole indefinitely," she said. "At least until the Gate's destroyed in the… uh oh." Sam's eyes went wide, fixed on the map; Jack looked up and saw a large red indicator had appeared round the star. "The sun's flashing," he said. "Yes Sir," Sam replied, zooming the map in until it showed an image of the sun itself; the Ra'shek's face was lost in the glare, but what was visible was a long jet of plasma spewing out from its surface into space. "We need to get out of here!" she shouted, turning and galloping to the door. "Sensors just picked up a solar flare; a massive, focussed beam of plasma is heading straight for us!" Jack and Ro'shur followed her into the hall, running back to the rings. "But the sun's miles away!" Jack said. "We've got, what, at least eight minutes before it gets here?" "No, Sir," Sam said. "The ship's passive sensors are light-speed limited! We've got maybe a few—" The entire ship rocked to the side suddenly, a wave of force throwing the three of them against the wall. There was a crashing sound behind them and Jack felt air start to rush back toward the bridge, then a bulkhead sealed behind them and the ship went quiet again. "The viewscreen must've blown out," Sam said, picking herself up and looking round nervously at the suddenly silent ship. "Ya think?" Jack replied. "Was that the Ra'shek?" Ro'shur asked. "Could be," Jack said. "More importantly, do you think that's the worst of it?" "I don't know, maybe," Sam said. "If the damage is only superficial and it didn't destabilise the orbit, then we might be okay. Unless it hits something like—" There was an explosion behind them; the ship rocked again, the three of them staggering as they lost their balance. "The Naquadah generator," Sam said, her eyes wide. "I left it by the DHD…" "Never mind that!" Jack shouted. Metallic grinding sounds were filling the air again, the ship losing integrity. Ro'shur turned and ran immediately, Jack and Sam following close behind. There was another, more distant explosion, and lights started flickering. "There goes another generator!" Sam shouted. "This is bad!" Jack could see the corridor visibly twisting ahead of them as the ship began to buckle. Panels started to strain and break off the walls, and jets of gas burst from random gaps in the bulkheads. Jack pushed through them, trying to ignore the scorching feeling of the gas in his fur, and focussed on the tail of the Jaffa running ahead of him, hoping he was still leading them the right way. "We're not going to make it!" Sam said, as the sounds of entire sections of the ship tearing away got closer and closer. "We'll make it!" Jack replied, ducking as a burst panel flew over his head. The run was even more treacherous this time, holes opening up in the warped floor and debris piling everywhere. He tried to zone out the rising chaos, but the noises were everywhere. Another tremor nearly knocked them over, and there was a deafening tearing sound just a few metres away from them. "What the hell was that? " Jack yelled. They turned a corner, and immediately found the source of the noise; an entire section of corridor had broken away, the structure surrounding it having collapsed into a cavernous generator chamber below. Ro'shur leapt out into the void, spreading his wings and gliding to the opening on the other side, but Sam and Jack skidded to a halt at the edge and stared down into the gaping hole. "We need to get across there!" Sam shouted. "I know!" "I can't jump that!" "I know!" "Colonel, we need to get out of here!" Ro'shur called from the other side. "In a minute!" Jack shouted back. Pieces of metal were falling from all around the fissure down towards the generator below, which was pulsing intermittently and making strained noises. They weren't going to have time to find another way round, and he had no idea where the next nearest set of rings would be, or even if there were any. The only way was across, and he needed to get Sam over as well. "Hurry," Ro'shur shouted. "I'm thinking!" Jack yelled. Another distant explosion, as another generator went. The one below them must be one of the last now, and it was a big one. They needed to leave now. He turned to Sam and said, "You ever done a piggyback before?" Sam went pale. "Only in training, and never well," she replied. "You?" Jack blinked. "…Same," he said. "Come on, we need to hurry." He turned and ran a little way back the corridor then skidded to a halt and faced back toward the opening, focussing his eyes on the end of the corridor on the other side. Sam followed and drew up next to him. "You sure about this?" she said. "On three!" Jack shouted. "One, two…" A panel burst open behind them with a loud clang. Jack leapt forward, landing at a full gallop. "Three!" he yelled. Sam pushed forward and came up beside him again. Jack knew he was faster than her on the straight, but he focussed on keeping their speed matched. The jump was coming up fast already. About five metres from the opening Sam jumped into the air; Jack ducked down and slid under her, spreading his wings out at the same time. He pushed up again, felt the major grab hold of his shoulders, and leapt out into the chasm. He grunted at the extra weight, having to flap his wings to keep high enough. He kept his eyes fixed on the far side, where Ro'shur was still waiting, but could hear the generator growing unstable below. He hoped it would hold out another minute. They reached the other side; Jack grabbed the edge with his forehooves, and Sam scrambled forward off his back and turned to pull him up. "Come on!" Ro'shur shouted. "My thoughts exactly!" Jack said. The three of them set off at a gallop again, Carter just ahead of Jack and Ro'shur leading the way. They were nearly at the rings now, although the ship was falling apart so fast nothing looked familiar now. There were girders and struts sticking out of the walls, clouds of steam bursting out from all angles, and sections had twisted out of place so much they almost had to run on the wall. He could barely see ten metres in front of him, but he eventually managed to catch sight of the ring platform up ahead when— There was another distant explosion. A shockwave rippled through the bulkheads, and Jack saw a wide section of panelling ahead of him buckle outwards. "Major! Look out!" he shouted, but moments later the entire section of wall gave way; Jack skidded to a halt, shielding himself reflexively with a hoof, but when he looked up again all he could see was debris. "Ro'shur!" he shouted as he peered into the wreckage, searching for light anywhere in the gaps. "I am here!" came his voice from the other side. "Where is Major Carter?" "I don't know!" Jack shouted. He grabbed hold of the bulkhead panel and tried to pull it back, but the weight of it was too much and he was barely able to get it to move. The entire ship was shaking now, and he was having trouble keeping a grip on the metal. "Help me move this!" he shouted. There was a pause that felt like hours, and Jack began to wonder if the Jaffa had left without them, but then he felt the bulkhead start to shift. The two of them pushed together, forcing the wreckage back, until it all fell away to the opposite wall. Sam was lying on the ground, bruised and unconscious, but alive. "Get to the rings!" Jack shouted to Ro'shur. The Jaffa nodded and galloped away. Jack lifted Carter up onto his back as carefully as he could, then stood and ran straight ahead, ignoring the chaos unfolding around him. He ran straight past Ro'shur, skidding to a halt in the centre of the rings; the Jaffa hit a button on the wall then leapt in next to him; As the rings rose up from the floor, Jack felt the rumble of a distant explosion and saw a fireball rushing down the hallway towards them, then everything went white. They were in the cargo bay again. As soon as Daniel and Teal'c saw them, they leapt up and ran over, lifting Carter off the colonel's back and lowering her to the ground. Jack spun around and pressed his hoof to the side of her neck, bending over and listening for breath. "She's got a pulse," he said, "but she's not breathing!" "What happened?" Daniel said. "Later!" Jack barked. "Koresh! Get over here!" The young Jaffa, who had been watching, stunned, from the other side of the room, jumped at the sound of his name. "Me?" he said. "Yes, you!" Jack shouted. "You've got magic, can you wake her up?" "I don't know!" he replied. "Well it's time to find out!" Jack shouted, staring expectantly at him. Koresh cantered over, looking down at the unconscious major. Taking a deep breath, he pressed his horn against her forehead and closed his eyes in deep concentration. The hold went silent; Jack could hardly breathe himself as he stared at her, watching for any signs of life. Then her back arched up suddenly, her eyes flying open. Everypony jumped back, and Koresh looked up at the colonel. "That's all I can do!" he said. Sam was in spasms on the floor, her eyes darting round in panic. Her mouth was open, but no air was going in. Koresh staggered back, shocked. "What did I—" "Never mind that!" Jack shouted. "Everypony hold her down!" The others crowded round and grabbed hold of her limbs, holding her securely against the floor. Jack pushed into the group and knelt down by her, thrusting his forelegs down on her chest to try and get her breathing again. "Come on, Major!" he grunted. "You can do this." But nothing changed. He kept trying over and over again, pushing down on her chest and trying to force some air out of her, but he was starting to worry that the blast had collapsed her airway. He was losing her. He didn't dare look up into her eyes, in case her expression was the last one he saw on her. "Come on, Sam, don't die on me now!" he shouted. "Do you have any idea how much paperwork that is?" Sam's chest jerked downwards. The sudden motion caught Jack by surprise and he jumped back. It happened again, then again, and just moments later she was coughing up dust and puling in deep, shaky breaths. "There we go!" Jack said. The others let go of her and she rolled onto her side. Her breathing slowly started to settle down, and Jack approached her again and knelt down by her. "How're you feeling, Major?" he said. Sam laughed, coughing again briefly. "I'm not having a good day today, am I?" she said, smiling. "Eh, it's just a few bruises," Jack said, patting her on the shoulder. "A bit of rest and you'll be good as new." "Yes, rest," Sam said, "that sounds good..." Her eyes slid closed again, and her breathing settled into a slow, gentle rhythm. Jack fell back onto his haunches, breathing a sigh of relief. "How did you do that?" Koresh asked. "Natural talent, I guess," Jack said, shrugging. "Thanks for the help, by the way." Koresh looked at him uncertainly, then gave a small nod, turned and walked back out to the bridge. Ro'shur watched his student leave, then looked over at the colonel. "We will leave you be again," he said, following Koresh out and closing the door behind himself. "Yep," Jack said, scratching his head, "that went well."