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A Hard Day’s Work…
by Bethany
“Carter, hurry, will ya? Run!” Jack called over his shoulder as several Jaffa chased them to the gate of some alien land.
“I’m getting there, sir!” She called through the dust.
Daniel Jackson was dialling in the co-ordinates to Earth. Jack stood guard as he did so.
“I’ll help her, O’Neill!” Teal’c yelled over the thunder of a troop’s footfalls.
“I’m there, too!” Jonas called, helping Sam Carter to her feet, as he reached where she’d fallen.
Teal’c fired incessantly at the Jaffa on the heels’ of Carter and Jonas. He ran to catch hold of Carter’s arm, meaning to lead her through the dust. He shot at a few Jaffa as he ran. “Go, Dr. Jackson! Go, O’Neill!”
They did, thinking that their friends were not far behind.
But the last standing Jaffa rocketed the three with a staff blast, exploding the already existent dust cloud gathered around them. Jonas turned on his heel, aiming expertly for someone new to the field, and felled the last Jaffa forever, disintegrating him before he could bite the dust. Quinn almost collapsed through his stinging eyes and body wracked with coughing. Carter steadied him. They each turned to look at the gate.
“We have a problem…” Teal’c stated.
They all saw it. The DHD had gone to hell.
“We don’t have a Naqadah reactor!” Major Sam Carter announced with deadly quiet.
“General, they should be here!” Jack paced the floor at the ramp’s end.
“Where were they when you last saw them?” General Hammond asked patiently of the two men standing before him. He looked at the battered and shattered faces of O’Neill and Jackson.
“Teal’c had just gone to help Jonas and Carter… Sam had fallen… But she was ok, General. She was alright! Jonas helped her up and Teal’c went to keep the advancing forces off them both…” Daniel worriedly explained.
“We’ve gotta prepare a probe… We gotta find them, George!” Jack rubbed grit from the corner of his eye before it could irritate the hell out of him.
“We will, Colonel… We will!” Hammond made up his mind.
“What do we do now?” Jonas asked.
“Don’t worry yet.” Major Carter assured the newbie in SG1. “General Hammond’ll provide a cavalry.” She paused. “Teal’c, we’re sure we got the last of the Jaffa, aren’t we?”
“Yes, Major.” He stated.
“Good.” She replied.
“How can you be sure?” Jonas queried.
“Because we are…” Carter said.
“They are all dead, Quinn…” Teal’c began. “And we decimated the Prim’ta repository they were guarding… “But we should get some distance from the stargate. The Goa’uld may send a second shift of Jaffa to guard the nursery…. It is unlikely, but we should not discount it.”
“Why was that here?” Jonas inquired.
“Because the Goa’uld have taken to keeping their offspring off-world, in safe houses, as such…” Teal’c referred to the situation since the Jaffa Rebellion.
“Lucky we stumbled upon it really…” Sam Carter observed, moving her swollen ankle as she tried to rest it, sitting in the dust. Then, she made a pained effort to stand, while both Teal’c and Jonas went to aid her. They moved through the settling dust, scuffing their tracks as they went, just in case.
“If you say so…” Jonas replied.
“We have killed those who would one day take hosts.” Teal’c said triumphantly.
“Good for us..!” Jonas nodded. “I’m glad we got into this mess then…”
“It’ll be sorted…” Carter assured him, frowning from her ankle’s discomfort.
The group moved just far enough to find a little cover from obvious view, and sat down on the hard ground once again.
“The probe is almost ready for gate travel, Colonel… Go get some lunch or something…” Hammond, in his own way, fussed after those under his command.
“How can I, sir?” Jack was visibly distracted with concern.
“Your team-mates are going to be ok, Jack…” Hammond patted the Colonel on the shoulder, smiled wisely, and turned to walk away.
“I’ll come with you, Jack…” Daniel called, stepping away from watching those in the gate-room working over their consoles.
“So, Teal’c…” Jonas began. “You have family somewhere in the gate network?” There was nothing they could do but kill time talking.
“I do…” Teal’c confirmed. “My wife Sha’nauc and our five children.”
“Five???” Jonas was impressed.
“Five…” Teal’c affirmed. “Rya’c, Teal’c Jnr. , Daniel, Amijad, and my newborn and only daughter, Ammoni.”
“Daniel?” Quinn realised.
“Yes. He’s named after Daniel.” Sam Carter smiled.
“Daniel Jackson delivered him.” Teal’c said
“Wow…” Quinn thought.
“Sha’nauc was expecting Daniel when my eldest son, Rya’c, was kidnapped by Apophis… While we were out rescuing him, Jack, Master Breta’c, and I…”
“Me too…” Sam reminded him.
Teal’c nodded in her direction. “My wife was ready to give birth, and Daniel Jackson, who had volunteered to stay with her… He delivered my third son.”
“He stayed at home and delivered the baby while you rescued your eldest son..?” Jonas stated.
“That’s not the first time Dr. Jackson has delivered a baby!” Sam chuckled.
“It isn’t?” Jonas grinned.
“No. That one was named after him as well… It was back on Argos. We’d literally just stepped through the Gate, and this woman went into Labour…” Sam recalled.
“And Dr. Jackson knew what to do?” Jonas wondered at just how many talents Jackson possessed.
“He just kept calm, and then he learnt what to do…” Sam smiled laughingly, warmly at the memory.
“You and your wife owe Dr. Jackson a lot, huh?” Jonas asked Teal’c.
“We do…” Teal’c stated freely.
“How did you meet your wife… If you don’t mind me asking?… I thought Temple Priestesses didn’t usually play the dating game…” Jonas said. “That’s what Dr. Jackson’s notes say…
Teal’c raised an eyebrow at the mention of notes, “They do not… But Apophis seemed to tolerate my association with a Priestess of The High Temple. Bretak once told me that Apophis probably considered it motivation to my fellow Jaffa to do well, and work hard for their god…” Teal’c remembered. “Little did Apophis know that his prized examples were beginning the long path to realisation behind closed doors…” Teal’c paused. “That’s why Sha’nauc tried to convince that bastard…”
“Tanneth…” Carter interjected.
“of the Goa’ulds’ evil, when she was implanted with him… Sha’nauc had always held the theory that one’s symbiote could be communicated with, but she turned away from denouncing the Goa’uld just long enough to wait and hope for a new prim’ta…” Teal’c paused, coldly, “to teach… Because she wanted to be sure not to release a Goa’uld who could give away the secrets of our Rebellion… How much one’s symbiote can detect is still uncertain, especially as it matures… Sha’nauc was counting on the Tok’ra being reality, not legend… And so, when she became guardian of Tanneth, she began her task… He nested within her while she tried, nobly, to bring him round to our cause…”
Jonas shivered at the thought. “Do you have any family, Major?”
“My father is General Jacob Carter, host to the Tok’ra Selmak…” She began. “I have a brother and a niece and nephew. My brother’s name is Mark. He and his wife, Cheryl, are parents to Lily and Josh… Lily’s named after my Mom…” Sam decided to tell him. “She died.” Carter said sadly.
“Oh, sorry…” Jonas genuinely let her know.
“Don’t feel bad… If we’re gonna be saving the Earth together on a regular basis, I guess you need to know these things… Mom died in a car crash, a drunk driver hit the taxi cab in which she was coming home. He killed her outright, but the cab driver was alright… I was sixteen.” Samantha Carter recalled her father walking into the kitchen. Sam had known. Jacob, her Dad, had worshipped Lily Carter, and she him. Lily Carter knew him so well. A piece of Jacob’s soul had been missing ever since… “What was life like for you, back home?” Sam asked Quinn.
“Home is the SGC, Major…” Jonas admitted. “My high IQ shaped my life from pretty early on… My mother and father sent me away to the best academies. I was their only son, but they were always more concerned with my achievements than my affections. When I got called up to be on the Naqadrria Project, they seemed to feel I’d reached my pinnacle. But then, soon after, they died. My father was an old man, and my mother could not see the point in life without him. The Doctor told me she died of a broken heart… Simple as that really… I was half expecting to see them waiting for me when Oma DeSala took me in.”
“What did you see?” Teal’c asked interestedly.
“After I agreed to join her people, they showed me the Universe…” Jonas Quinn explained inadequately
“Which galaxies?” Sam Carter joined in the questioning eagerly.
“I’m not entirely sure…” He admitted. “But she showed me all the worlds that her kind have ever visited, over the millennia… Let me see all the people on those moons and planets, in those nebulas...”
“What were they like?” Sam furthered.
“All kinds… All colours… Humanoid, mostly.” He told her.
“Really?” Teal’c was surprised.
“It fits in with our theories about Irisa…” Sam Carter mused aloud.
“We have lift off!” Jack O’Neill watched the probe scuttle off into the wormhole joined to the planet where his friends had been stranded for an hour or so already.
“We’re not getting visual confirmation!” Jack said, punching down through the air in anguish.
“We have a radio signal coming through…” One of the console technicians in front of O’Neill, Daniel, and Hammond acknowledged. “It has the SG1 signature code!” He stated triumphantly.
“… SCG?…” Sam’s voiced crackled over the radio transmission.
“We’re here, Major.” General Hammond boomed happily.
“It’s good to know that, sir… The DHD on this planet exploded in the firefight with the Jaffa… They’re now dead, sir… But we don’t have a Naqadah Reactor, General. One is being made up in the Lab for our next mission however…” Sam stated.
“Only you don’t need it for your next mission, you need the reactor now… We’re on it, Major! I’ll send O’Neill and Dr. Jackson through the gate with it ASAP… Check in every twenty minutes until then.” Hammond ordered.
“Yes, sir.” Carter responded.
“Hey, campers!” O’Neill greeted his three friends. “Let’s get this posse home…!” He called to Daniel, who had just stepped through the gate.
A short time after O’Neill and Jackson’s arrival, all the members of SG1 stepped through the event horizon to planet Earth.
They all dashed down the ramp with the momentum of their eagerness to get this tiring day done.
“Welcome home, SG1!” Hammond said, like a relieved father.
THE END…