Relativity Page 3

  “So, you’re in charge of this, uh, fleet?” asked O’Neill. He glanced at the fighters. “I’m guessing that’s not all of it?”

  “We have many vessels in orbit. And yes, I govern my people...” He glanced at Ryn. “For the moment.”

  Daniel rolled his eyes and spoke, sotto voce. “Jack, don’t say it…”

  “So then I guess you’re the Leader of the Pack?”

  Vix nodded slowly. “Was that not what I just said?”

  The early tension of the meeting began to recede. “Thank you for your help against those machines,” Carter offered.

  “We hadn’t expected to find any other humans,” said Ryn. “The reports that brought us here spoke only of ruins and the possibility of salvage.”

  “Ours too,” said the major. She nodded to the wreckage of the robots. “Guess we were both misinformed.”

  “Lucky us,” said O’Neill dryly.

  Daniel gestured with his hand. “Before, you said you made claim. What does that mean, exactly?”

  “The Pack is not self-sufficient,” noted Vix. “We must trade and take salvage where we can to keep our ships functional.”

  “Never thought about settling down?” Jack said lightly.

  Ryn’s expression darkened. “Every one of us is from a world that was laid waste to by the System Lords. Those who allow themselves to take root place themselves in harm’s way.”

  “Wanderlust, huh?” O’Neill added, trying to ease the mood. “I get it.”

  “Colonel,” said Carter, stepping closer. “Seeing as we owe Vix and his people a debt for coming to our rescue, I think there might be a way to, uh, salvage something from this outing for both parties.”

  “Do tell.” Jack knew where she was going, and let Sam run with it.

  “Vix, you said the Pack are traders? Maybe we could find something that we have that you want.”

  From behind Ryn, the Death Glider pilot glanced up from a sensor device in his hand. “This sandball looks like a dead end, Vix. We’re not going to find anything of value here.”

  “But you are SG-1, the great Tau’ri,” said Ryn in a mocking tone. “What could mere refugees like us have that you might find useful?”

  “Those fighters… They might have some technology we could use for the F-302 program. It’s somewhere to start.”

  Ryn leant close to Vix. “They have a Jaffa among their number. Surely we should exercise caution—”

  Vix silenced his companion with a hard look. “I concur with Major Carter. What would you rather have me do, Ryn? Return to the flotilla and tell them we found nothing of use, or bring back the Tau’ri with the chance of trade?” He nodded at Jack. “Come. I’ll summon a ship for you.”

  As they made their way toward the parked fighters, Daniel glanced toward the fourth Pack pilot returning from the site of the crashed swan-ship. “What about your other man, the one who was shot down?”

  Vix didn’t look up. “Gravity took him. He’s got no place in the Pack anymore.”

  The faint blue glow was still enough to light the limestone walls of the Holdfast, catching the pale rock in the places where the radiance from the weak biolume bulbs did not reach. The haze of color flickered around the edges of the broken Stargate, dissipating from the snapped-off edges of the giant silver hoop; and then she was there, back again, in the gloom.

  Tekka was waiting for her, and it wasn’t until she shrugged off the cloak and looked him in the eye that her failure hit her with its full and unyielding weight. The scrawny, pale-skinned Pangaran tried to force a smile, but it stalled on his lips and he reached out a hand and touched her on the forearm. “Jade,” he said quietly, “I’m glad you’re safe.”

  She swallowed down the post-transition discomfort and gave a bitter chuckle. “No one else will be. I ruined it, Tekka. Another chance, and I burned it. Everyone was counting on me, and I—”

  “No, no,” He led her away from the chamber, toward the huge oval doors that sat rusted open across the entrance to the Holdfast’s interior spaces. “It’s not like you were the first. We all knew there was a chance of…” He hesitated. “That it wouldn’t come together. Even the Commander understands.”

  “Did he say that to you?”

  “Of course,” he responded.

  Jade smiled briefly, with a dart of genuine warmth that faded quickly. “You’re such a bad liar.”

  Tekka frowned. “All right, I admit he didn’t say it to me as such, but I have no doubt that he thinks that.”

  She looked at the floor. “If that’s true, then he does a good job of hiding it.”

  The corridors beyond were more regular than those of the natural shapes of the gate chamber, the striated walls cut by laser drills arching overhead like the cloisters of the cathedrals she’d seen in picture books and vids. It was warm and damp down here, in stark contrast to the chilly, frostbitten surface a mile or so over their heads. Jade had only been up there a few times; the twin suns in the daylight sky and the belt of snowy rings by night were just more reminders that this place wasn’t really home.

  In rooms off the passage she glimpsed groups of people at work in the stark light of the machine shops, or training in stiff silence on the practice decks. She saw Sebe’c leading a group of his Jaffa in hand-to-hand duels, and he made brief eye-contact with her. The warrior inclined his head in greeting, but Jade could see the question in his eyes, the small judgment. Wherever she looked, to the faces of the soldiers, the taciturn cadre of Langarans who tended the hydroponics, even the children in one of the teaching rooms, all of them seemed to look at her and know. They were still here because of her, because she had failed. The gloom of the corridors clung to her like the smell of smoke.

  The eyes of the children were the worst; there were so few of them now, and none of them had the artifice of the adults, none of them had the ability to mask their questions and disappointments. Jade felt a stab of self-loathing; a mix of disgust at her own mistakes and at her weakness for wallowing in it. She smothered the churn of emotions and looked back at Tekka.

  “Do you need to clean up before you debrief?” he asked, sensing the tension in her, giving her an out. “I can tell him you—”

  Jade shook her head. “No. I have to explain what happened, and I have to do it now. Time’s the only thing we can’t afford to waste.”

  They halted and the Pangaran rapped on the steel door of the Commander’s office. From within she heard the old man’s voice, gruff and sharp. “Get in here.”

  Tekka gave her arm a supportive squeeze, but she was already walking away, forcing down her emotions, becoming soldierly once again. The door thudded shut behind her.

  He was lit by the blue-white glow of a datapad, the holographic panels of text and graphics hanging ghostly in the air before him. At once she noticed the clutter around the edges of the desk; a used rejuve-nanite injector yet to be discarded, a scattering of papers. The gun that never left his side, and a tumbler with maybe an inch of scotch in it. The Commander gave her a long, steady look, eyes boring into her from a face of heavy lines framed by wispy, steel-gray hair. “What went wrong?” His voice was level, but it was as much a demand as if he had shouted it.

  She hesitated, unable to meet his gaze. “The point of arrival was incorrect. I was supposed to have more—”

  “Show me the pod.” He cut her off and held out a hand. Jade unclipped the device and gave it to him. He opened it with practiced ease and glared at the readout. “Power feed’s unstable. You knew that. You should have compensated.”

  “I thought I had, sir.”

  “Clearly, you didn’t,” he said firmly. “Is that it? Is that your explanation?”

  “No, sir,” Jade bit out the words, bristling. “The intel on the threat forces was way off beam. There were two, maybe three times as many of the mechs as I was told to expect.”

  “Maybe? Which was it, two times or three times as many? Give me specifics.”

  “Three,” she snapped, feeling
her color rise. “The threat force was more than I could handle alone. I had no choice. I had to abort.”

  With a terse flick of his wrist, the Commander let the pod roll away across his desk. “More than you could handle.” And there it was, the accusation. “You know why you were sent. Because you assured me, against my better judgment, that you could deal with the mission parameters.”

  A nerve in Jade’s jaw jumped and she pressed her lips together, resisting the urge to reply.

  “You know how important this is, what we risk each time we go. We can’t afford any more mistakes!” His voice rose to a growl.

  “I’ll go back,” she blurted out. “There are other windows, I can try a different approach.”

  “No.” The refusal came like a bullet. “You haven’t forgotten what happened before, all the people we lost when things went to hell. No.” He shook his head. “I told you what would happen, and even if you could try again, this thing won’t allow it.” He angrily stabbed a finger at the pod.

  “Dad, please.” The words slipped out of Jade’s mouth before she could stop them, and in return he looked her straight in the eye for the first time since she had entered the office. “Sir,” she amended, but it was too late. The line had been crossed. She had ignored the unspoken rule between them.

  The Commander’s expression became stony. “There’s no other option now. We’re going with the backup plan. Get yourself cleaned up and ready to go in ten hours.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” she insisted. “There’s too much that can go wrong.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” He glared at her. “Don’t you get it, girl? We’re past the point of no return now. There is no other option.” He looked away. “I gave you a last chance to do it your way and you blew it. Now we’ll do this my way. Prep your gear and be ready.” Her father returned to the holograms. “You’re dismissed.”

  Jade saluted, furious and dejected all at once. “Yes sir,” she replied, and left without looking back.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Vix summoned a Tel’tak cargo ship to ferry the team from the surface, and Carter positioned herself carefully behind the control console so she could observe the pilot’s actions. The pilot was a woman with an Asian cast to her features, who introduced herself as Suj. Sam couldn’t help but be aware that the cargo ship had a couple of extra crewmen whose sole purpose seemed to be to look menacing and carry large weapons.

  “An honor guard,” said Daniel, from the side of his mouth. “I feel almost royal.”

  “We’d be doing the same thing to them if they were on our turf,” noted Carter. “Just smile politely and look non-threatening.”

  “I excel at that,” Jackson noted.

  The transport ship trembled a little as it pushed out through the atmospheric envelope of the desert planet and into the airless void of space. Sam became aware that Suj was watching her through a reflection on the viewport. “I’ve never met a Tau’ri before,” she said. Her voice had a soft, almost musical quality. “Is it true what they say about your planet? That it is a fortress, guarded by an armada of Asgard warships?”

  “Oh, those little gray guys,” said O’Neill. “They’re wacky.”

  “We defend our planet if we need to,” said Sam, skirting the question. “Of course, we try not to let it come to that.”

  “You prefer to fight your battles on other people’s worlds.” There was the slightest air of reproach in her words.

  “In conflict, one can rarely choose the arena in which to meet the enemy,” said Teal’c. “A warrior must be able to wage war when the fray comes to him.”

  “Yes,” said Suj mildly. “I suppose a Jaffa would see it that way.” She worked the controls and brought the Tel’tak around in a languid turn to starboard. “What brought you to Golla IX?”

  “Is that what you call the planet below?” asked Daniel.

  “We call it P5X-404,” said the colonel. “Okay, so I’ll admit it doesn’t trip off the tongue…”

  “We’re exploring,” continued Jackson. “Some of our people heard rumors that there might be artifacts of interest there.”

  She nodded. “The spheres. We have encountered them on other worlds in this quadrant. We also have heard tales of abandoned technology here... But those mechanoids were something unexpected.”

  “I’ll say,” agreed Daniel.

  Sam saw glints of light from the hulls of the fighter squadron off to the sides where Vix’s ships were flying in echelon with them; and out beyond the near-orbital region she could pick out a shoal of objects lit by sunlight reflected from the surface of the planet. As they closed in, definition layered on to the shapes. At first, Carter thought she was seeing an oblate, asteroidal satellite— something like the Martian moon of Phobos— but it began to resolve itself into detail. It rotated slowly, turning about its longest axis. Craters on the object’s surface were lit with brilliant, city-bright clusters of color, and dozens of towering black spines extended from it in all directions. Around the construct there were slow-moving groups of more recognizable vessels. She identified a pair of Goa’uld motherships amid dozens of others that ranged in shape from winged lifting bodies suitable for atmospheric transit to oddly proportioned ships made from collections of saucers and rods.

  “Those motherships are from the war fleet of Khepera,” Teal’c noted quietly. “An ally of Ra who perished in battle many decades ago. Apophis believed that all such vessels had been obliterated…”

  “Yeah, well, he never was as smart as he thought he was,” said O’Neill.

  Sam made some swift mental calculations based on the relative size of the giant craft compared to the motherships; it had to be several miles long, at the very least. It’s as big as Manhattan Island, she realized. A self-contained city in space. The construct had an unkempt, slightly scruffy look to it that she saw reflected elsewhere in the Pack, in the hodgepodge of gear and ships with Vix and his men and again here on board the Tel’tak. The shuttle wasn’t standard-issue System Lord hardware; Carter could see clear indications where parts of the ship’s mechanisms had been gutted or replaced with technology of completely different origin. Everything about the Pack had a junkyard feel to it, as if they had taken off-cuts and discards from a hundred different worlds and hammered them together into something new. The ingenuity and cunning of it was amazing, in its own way. Her gaze went back to the viewport in time to see a formation of smaller ships fall away as they changed course.

  “Looks like a UFO convention out there,” said the colonel. “All those boats are yours?”

  “The Pack draws its membership from hundreds of worlds,” Suj explained. “We have been free for more than a generation.”

  “The largest ship…” Sam began.

  Suj nodded. “We call her the Wanderer. She was the first, and she remains our heart. She was once an orbital colony in the Calai system, until the System Lord Heru’ur began a campaign to subjugate the people there. Some among the Calaians retrofitted the colony with a hyperspace generator and used her to escape the Goa’uld. As they sought to flee the reach of the false gods, they came across others in similar straits and the first elements of the Pack were formed. Now wherever we go there are those who come to join us, seeking their own freedom.”

  “Are you from there? From Calai?” asked Daniel.

  She shook her head. “My birth world was in the Pasiphae Marches, before it was ruined in the wars between Cronus and Morrigan. I’ve spent half my life aboard Wanderer. She’s my home now.”

  “Gypsies,” opined the colonel. “With a space caravan as well.”

  “It’s not surprising really,” considered Daniel. “There are plenty of nomadic cultures on Earth who exist as essentially rootless societies. There’s no reason why a tribal populace couldn’t survive on an interstellar level…”

  “Ah, no offence, but I’d rather go for the whole ‘mud under your feet, wind in your hair’ lifestyle, thanks. Being cooped up in a tin-can with recycled air and
no sunlight would get real old for me pretty fast,” said O’Neill, glancing at Suj. “Not that your big rocky spaceship isn’t impressive…”

  “I understand your reluctance, Colonel,” said the woman. “Some of those who join us do find the transition difficult. But then there are many of our number who have lived all their lives in space, children who have never known mud or wind. To them, it is planetborne like you who appear worse off. In our flotilla, we live in a controlled environment where we never need fear the whims of nature.”

  The Goa’uld cargo ship shifted and turned, passing through the outer layer of the Pack fleet. Sam couldn’t resist the urge to stare at some of the designs of the vessels that flashed past, mentally taking notes. There were a fair few that looked distinctly non-human in design, craft like clutches of eggs on a rope or slender gold needles.

  “But all these different people from all these different worlds,” Daniel was saying, “isn’t it difficult to hold them together? We can’t keep the nation states on Earth from squabbling with each other and we’ve got a whole planet to spread out over.”

  Suj shot him a look that Carter caught. “We all have a common enemy, Doctor Jackson. You’d be surprised how strong a bond that builds between our people.” She turned away, back to the controls. “And Vix leads us well. We draw our principals from those among us who are best suited to the roles, the strongest and most intelligent.”

  “It’s an impressive undertaking, there’s no doubting that.” Sam spoke up, the questions pushing at her thoughts. “But I have to ask you. How have you managed to stay alive? I mean, the Goa’uld aren’t exactly known for their generous and forgiving nature. Why did they let any of you escape?”

  Suj sighed. “At first, we were too small in number to draw much of their attention, and they were too busy battling with each other and jockeying for position to pay us any heed… However, in recent years they have tried to eradicate us.” She paused, turning the ship toward a landing bay on the surface of the Wanderer. “But we refuse to give them what they want, Major Carter. We do not stand and fight. The Pack remains elusive, forever one step ahead of the System Lords.” Suj nodded to herself. “There will come a day soon when they wipe themselves out, and we will still be here, outlasting them.”