Event Horizon Part Eight – By Ladyholder

Reading Time:
13 Minutes

Art by Starkindler

Jack drove onto the access road to the SGC’s parking lot and headed for the spot closest to the entry point for the mountain. He backed into the delivery space they had painted for convenience and turned it off. “We’re here.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” Maybourne snarked. He twisted slightly to check the back of the car. “How’s Conrad?”

“Still snaked, and still unconscious. I don’t want to zat him again because I can’t be 100% certain that the 2nd zat won’t kill him.” Jack said. He frowned as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he thought about what he knew about the little weapons. “It’s been roughly 2 hours, and I expect he’ll be coming around soon. So, we’re going to stuff him in the brig for everyone’s safety.”

Maybourne glanced over at him and raised an eyebrow at him. “Will the snake be able to get out?”

“Sure, it can come out of its human suit, but it won’t get out of the cell. We brought some home shield generators years ago and installed them in the brig to keep people who need to be isolated, are actually isolated. They’re on their own power supplies, so they’re very useful,” Jack explained. He pulled out his phone and called the General. “Sir, I’m back, and I need a secure security team up in the parking lot. I’ve got someone who needs the brig.”

“Am I going to get in trouble with the President?” Hammond asked before covering the phone as he called for Harriman to send a detachment of security up to the parking lot.

“Only if the Trust complains,” Jack said with a shrug when Hammond got back on the line. “And I don’t think they’re going to want to let the President know who their guest was.”

“Right,” Hammond said with a sigh. “On to other news, Dr. Jackson is back, and he’s brought the object of his hunt back. It’s being installed by our engineers.”

“Bet that’s been fun,” Jack muttered. He got out of the car as he heard the elevator start to come up. “I’m going to get my guest ready for the security guys. Also, I brought our new head of security with me.”

“Who?” Hammond asked, voice wary.

“Former Colonel Harry Maybourne,” Jack said with a grin at the man in question. “I figure we need someone who is mean, vicious, and morally grey. But in our favor. Because you can’t say that he’s not loyal to whoever he’s working for.”

“True, he’s always been an interesting opponent. Right. I’m going to start the paperwork for him,” Hammond said. He ended the call without saying anything else, and Jack flipped his phone closed before slipping it into his pocket.

“One of these days, you’re going to push that man too far and he’s going to scream at you,” Maybourne said with a grimace. He moved to stand in front of the trunk before he waved at it. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s waking up,” Jack said after he let his senses wrap around Conrad “Opening this is going to be fun.”

“You have a twisted idea of fun, Jack. And that’s something coming from me,” Maybourne muttered. “Open it.”

“Right,” Jack said. He opened the trunk and stared at the snake. “How ya’ doing?”

“I will kill you,” Conrad ground out. He was lying on his side, and his arms were still zip-tied behind him.

“No, you won’t,” Jack said with a smirk. “If you want to live a little longer, you’ll stay in your current meat suit. If you slither out of it, I’ll kill you before you get all the way out.”

“We should have killed all of your kind when we discovered this planet,” Conrad hissed, his eyes lighting up as the snake lost its temper.

“Too bad, so sad for you. Because we’re going to make sure that you live to regret invading this planet,” Jack promised as he reached in the trunk to pull Conrad out.

“Stop taunting the snake, Jack,” Daniel called as he walked towards them.

“Guide,” Conrad hissed. His eyes were still lit up, and Jack had to suppress the urge to snap Conrad’s neck.

“Stop that,” Daniel snapped. He held his hand up, and Conrad stopped pulling against Jack’s hand.

“Stay in there, snake,” Jack growled. When Conrad looked at him, Jack glared at him. “Remember, I’ll kill you.”

“Fine,” Conrad said. He closed his eyes as Jack finished pulling him out of the trunk and turned him over to the MPs. When Conrad’s eyes opened again, the glow had faded from them, and they looked normal.

“He needs to go to the brig. We’ll be on the elevator down to the SGC with you, so the Goa’uld is going to behave,” Jack promised as he stared at Conrad. “Once we hit the brig’s level, you’ll place him in the shielded cell. No one is to be along with him.”

“Yes, sir,” the MPs chorused.

“Come on, Maybourne,” Jack called as he snagged Daniel’s hand. “I heard you were successful?”

“Yup,” Daniel agreed. He squeezed Jack’s hand and eyed Maybourne as he slid into the elevator beside him. “So, this is new.”

“Oh, yeah,” Maybourne agreed before rocking on his feet. “Things are about to get interesting.”

“Come on, Rodney. We’re getting breakfast,” John said, prodding his guide out of their room. He wanted an actual meal, and that meant the mess.

“Coffee,” Rodney stated firmly. He turned towards the elevator and stood in front of it before staring at the call buttons. “Which way?”

Snorting softly in laughter, John pressed the down button before pulling his guide back against him. “Are you awake?”

“Fuck you,” Rodney huffed. “I want lots of coffee. And bacon.”

“We’re going to breakfast; I’m sure there’s bacon,” John soothed. “And this is the SGC. Coffee is a requirement.”

“Good,” Rodney said before he yawned. He kept his eyes closed as John steered him into the elevator car. “Fuck, I’m tired.”

John tucked his face into Rodney’s neck and took a deep breath. From his baseline scent, his blood sugar was a bit low, and John wanted to get some food into him as soon as possible. “You need to eat.”

“I know,” Rodney said. He yawned again before he huffed out a breath. “Bacon.”

“That’s not going to make sure that your blood sugar stays steady,” John teased gently. “Even if the protein will be good for you.”

“Bah,” Rodney complained.

When the door opened, John moved Rodney forward and steered him towards the officers’ mess. “Coffee is this way.”

“Smells like it’s of a good quality,” Rodney murmured before he squeezed John’s hands and stepped away from him. “Let’s get breakfast so I can check what the simulation has come up with.”

“The Colonel’s back, so we should check with him to see if he has any information to add to your simulations,” John suggested.

“Okay,” Rodney said around a yawn. He made a happy noise when he stood in front of the coffee station and found that there were empty carafes sitting beside the pots. “I’m going to fill one of these and snag a table.”

John nodded once. “I’ll be in line. Make sure to grab me a cup?”

“Cream?” Rodney asked as he started filling a carafe.

“No, I’m good with black this morning,” John said.

“Gotcha,” Rodney said. He quickly settled on a table for them and put the carafe on it before taking a deep drink from his cup and walked over to stand behind him. When Rodney froze in place, John turned to look at him and found him staring at one of the mess specialists.

“Rodney?”

“Chief,” Rodney started to say, and when the woman turned to look at him, he continued after reading her name from the name tag on her chest. “Cooper.”

“Sir?” Cooper asked. “What can I do for you?”

Rodney reached up and tapped the S&G button pinned to his collar. “Are you online?”

“Yes, Alpha,” Cooper confirmed. She eyed him closely. “Are you here for breakfast?”

“We are,” John agreed. “While I can’t smell it, I want to make sure: No lemon went into anything, right?”

“Correct, sir; there’s no lemon in this meal, and none planned for the next week,” Cooper said with a nod. She glanced at Rodney and raised an eyebrow at him. “Sir, are you allergic to lemon?”

“Citrus. Any and all versions of it, including kumquats,” Rodney said. He scanned the breakfast line and smiled at the choices before glancing back at John. “Okay, I need to eat, but I would like to make an appointment to speak with you before I leave. If it would make you more comfortable, I can make sure that Dr. Jackson is there as well.”

“That would be good, sir,” Cooper said. She smiled as she waved at the breakfast line. “Now, what can I get you?”

Their breakfast choices were easy enough, John decided. He had high hopes that it would taste good because it sure smelled good. Their table still had their carafe on it, with their cups, and he settled in against the wall so he could watch the room. One bite of his meal and he hummed in satisfaction before he poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Why are you interested in Cooper?” John asked quietly before taking a sip from his cup.

“She feels like a guide who would fit Bates,” Rodney said softly. “And yes, I know he’s latent, but I figure once he meets her, he’ll flip online.”

“That’s going to be fun. I’ll make sure to let the Colonel know what you’re thinking when I see him. She’s in his pack, and I don’t want him to think we’re poaching from him,” John said.

“She called us Alpha,” Rodney reminded. “Something tells me that ship may have already sailed.”

“That’s fast,” John said with a sigh before pointing his fork at Rodney’s food. “Eat. You need to get to work soon.”

“Fine.”

“Carter, McKay,” Jack said. He was damn tired. He’d spent the hours between his arrival and walking into Carter’s lab debriefing Hammond on everything he and Maybourne had gotten up to.

To say Hammond hadn’t been happy to hear what the Trust had been up to would be an understatement. Thankfully, the man had agreed that they could throw Conrad through the gate to Cimmeria to be dealt with by Thor’s Hammer. Jack had promised to stay and wait to make sure that the human made it out to the other side.

Hammond had also given him a very long look when Maybourne had reported to him for duty. Jack had had to talk fast to make sure that the General understood why he’d brought the man back. Maybourne and his interesting ethics were going to be very useful when it came to dealing with the Trust.

But now, he needed to pass on what they’d learned to the two scientists so they could make sure that the information that the snake had given them was correct and then apply it.

“Colonel,” Carter said. She sounded slightly off to Jack’s ear, but he didn’t have enough available bandwidth to look into what was going on with her right then. He expected that she’d let him know what was up in her own time. “What can we do for you?”

“I have some information on a possible way to pull Teal’c out of the gate. We got it from a Goa’uld, so please take it with a dash of salt, but…” Jack tapped his forehead as he stared at her. “What little information I have from the Ancient Database agrees with what we got.”

“We have the time to run a quick simulation on what you’ve got, Colonel,” McKay said. He took the pages of notes and the memory card Jack handed him and started looking them over. “Want to tell us what we’ve got here?”

“Sure,” Jack said. He sat down at the small desk Carter had set up for him and started talking. When McKay and Carter had questions, he did his best to answer fully, but his attention kept getting pulled away from them. Something was pinging his attention, and he kept losing his place in his explanations.

“Colonel, what’s going on?” McKay asked finally. He had been typing steadily as Jack talked and sniping with Carter as they discussed the information Jack had gotten from Conrad.

“Something in here is pinging at me,” Jack admitted. “It sounds like an old-fashioned alarm clock.”

“Is that what that is?” Sheppard asked. When Jack nodded, the younger man shook his head and then shrugged. “I can hear it, but whatever it is doesn’t seem urgent to me.”

“It sounds very urgent to me. The pinging is getting annoying,” Jack huffed.

“Pinging how?” Carter asked. She stared at him from behind McKay, where she was reading over his shoulder. “Sound or what?”

“It’s an ‘or what’ I think,” Jack admitted. “It feels like some kind of Ancient tech is trying to get my attention.”

“How much is it trying to get your attention?” Carter asked. She glanced around her lab with a frown on her face as if she was trying to find what was vying for his attention.

“It’s urgent, but I think we can get this going before I need to shift my focus,” Jack said. He reached into his mind and found his bond with Daniel and poked it. He needed his guide because something in Carter’s office was setting off his instincts.

“Okay, I think I’ve got everything in place. The simulation we set up before we went to sleep was almost right, and the process you got us matched it by about 80%, so I think we’re on the right course,” McKay explained before turning to Carter. “Do you agree?”

“I do,” Carter agreed. She stared at the screen and nodded once. “It should take about three hours to run this simulation, and that will leave us about four hours after that to get everything in place so we can pull Teal’c out.”

“Sounds great,” Jack said. “Now. Carter, what do you have in here that’s Ancient?”

“Most of the stuff I have in here, sir, is small. Mostly harmless knickknacks that you’ve been playing with,” Carter reported promptly. When Daniel slid into the room, she raised an eyebrow at him. “Daniel.”

“Sam,” Daniel said with a small smile. He walked over to stand behind Jack and placed both hands on his shoulders. “What’s up, Jack?”

“Something in here is trying to get my attention,” Jack explained. “And it’s ramping up.”

“I can’t hear it,” Daniel said after several seconds. “But you’ve always been more sensitive to the Ancient’s tech than me.”

“Right,” Jack said. He looked at the knickknacks in front of him and shook his head at them. “It’s not one of these. Is there anything else?”

“Hmmm,” Carter hummed softly before she started walking around her office, inspecting each item in it. Jack got up and followed her because if whatever had his attention wasn’t on the table, it had to be somewhere else. The call of whatever machine was trying to get his attention was getting louder as he moved around the lab.

“Where’s this from?” Jack asked as he stopped in front of a large metallic chest.

“We pulled that out of Ma’chello’s lab,” Carter said. “From what I remember, you and Daniel carried that in here after we went back to strip his lab bare. I wasn’t able to figure out what it was, so I left it here in case I got a flash of insight. So far, nothing.”

“Well, it’s what’s been calling for me,” Jack said bluntly. “Daniel, get over here.”

“Oh?” Daniel asked. He walked over to stand beside him and stared at the chest. “Wow. Now I can hear it.”

“Interesting,” Jack murmured. He reached out to touch the chest and grabbed Daniel’s hand to place it on the surface of the chest. “Can you feel that?”

“Yeah,” Daniel said.

Jack reached out with his senses to wrap them around the chest to figure out what was going on. He could feel that Daniel was doing the same. “I…” He pressed something forward in his head, and he felt the whole chest give a deep-seated click.

“I heard that,” McKay said. He was staring at the chest in curiosity.

“So did I,” Sheppard agreed. “Sir, it looks like the side nearest you is hinged?”

“Yeah, it is,” Jack said. He let Daniel’s hand go and tugged on the side of the chest to pull the hinged portion down. “Oh. Shit.”

“What?” Carter asked. She tried to see around them and froze in place. “Oh, shit.”

“That’s a baby, Jack,” Daniel whispered.

“There’s two in here,” Jack whispered back. He reached in and pulled the first baby out and handed him over to Daniel. “Take him. I need to grab the other one.”

“I’m going to call Janet,” Carter announced.

“Good idea,” Jack said softly as he pulled a little girl out. “We’re going to need genetic tests on these two. But at least they look human.”

“Yeah,” Daniel said. He had the little boy cradled to his chest and was slowly starting to rock back and forth. “They’re cute.”

“They are.”