fic (A Thousand Points of Light) SG-1/Dark Angel) #46 star
Title: A Thousand Points of Light
Fandoms: Stargate SG-1/Dark Angel
Author: karrenia
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2,085
Prompt: #46 star
35/100
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and the characters of Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson, Teal’C and Mini-Jack belong to MGM, Gekko Film Corp and their respective creators and producers; they are not mine. Dark Angel and the characters who appear here or are mentioned are the creations of James Cameron; they do not belong to me and are only ‘borrowed’; for the purposes of the story. I claim only the words. Note: picks up where the previous story “Children of the Revolution” left off.
“A Thousand Points of Light” by Karen
Odd things go through your mind when you've lived most of the your adult life on the run. Even her earliest memories are of running, either to an objective or away from pursuit. It comes from being trained as a soldier
But as far as Max Guevara was concerned one usually stood a better than even chance if one kept moving; and as she led the small entourage out of the tunnels beneath the streets of Seattle and finally found a safe if temporary haven for Joshua and put a good amount of distance between themselves and any immediate pursuit.
She was still a bit leery of placing her full trust from the generous if still not entirely trustworthy United States Air Force officers, Max stopped moving and exchanged a significant glance with Alec; who true to form, had gone off on a tangent and begun to flirt with the attractive blond major.
Under the circumstances Max was getting more than a bit annoyed with Alec’s behavior.
After all White and his goons could be breathing down their necks at any second and Alec chose now of all times to start schmoozing and exerting his considerable charm on the female of the species?
**************
Alec his senses keyed up both under the stress of the current situation and to Max’s temperament and movements chose not to react or give any sign that he noticed that she was more than a little bit irritated with his behavior and posturing; although he knew it was more than the fact of their mutual attraction to each other.
His sensible side and his survival instincts honed over the years and from the results of the training at Manticore told him that allowing his defensives to slip was an extremely bad idea; but his other senses told him otherwise and he made a split second decision to tell his logical side to shut the hell up and leave him alone.
For her part Samantha Carter made a game attempt to acknowledge his flirting without drawing undue attention to it. Realizing that Teal’C still not quite steady on his feet from his ordeal of the past seventy two hours offered her arm for him to lean, buckling under his weight and then bearing up with remarkable aplomb. All the meanwhile making monosyllable replies to Alec’s verbal sallies in her direction.
“So, do we have any idea where we’re going? For cryin’ out loud I swear all those damn twists and turns underground have got me got completely disoriented,” said the teenaged version of Colonel Jack O’Neill as he stopped momentarily to catch his breath leaning up against the white-washed wall of a nearby gas station seemingly unaware of the splotch of fresh paint that smeared on the back of his jacket.
“I am no fonder of this running around than you are, O’Neill,” said Teal’C breathing heavily, “and I would much prefer to find a mutually satisfactory method from which to extricate ourselves from this present situation.”
“Stop.” Max muttered under her breath.
****
Before she had the opportunity to reply shots rang out. The first volley of shots missed by a considerable margin but no one among the tightly strung group took comfort in that fact; these were designed to be early warning shots, or meant to find the range.
“Nice of them to shoot first and ask questions later,” Alec muttered under his breath, but then I for one am not surprised as he dodged out of the way of the spray of bullets the sound of the soles of his boots crunching on the loose gravel of the street mingling with that of the spent bullet casings.
“We might still have a chance to reason with them. Whatever their intentions,” added Teal’C shoving off Major Carter’s restraining but supportive hand, with a nod indicating that he could stand upright without her assistance. “I am quite recovered by now, Major, thank you.”
Sam merely nodded and turned to Alec whom she had been only half-listening to his flirtatious chatter but had sized up as a more than capable fighter when push came to shove. “I take it, these are the ‘bad guys?”
“Yeah,” muttered Alec in response. “Those are some nice pieces of hardware, Major, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to ‘lend’ us some for the duration?”
“Can’t. Regs, you know,” she added with a wry grin of her own plastered on her face.
“I’m tired of running,” griped Mini-Jack. “Why can’t we just stop and confront them. We could pull rank and use some military authority and then turn them over to police.” He sighed and drew his hands through the strand of his hair. “For what you’ve told us, uh, Max, ma’am, I mean well, kidnapping, extortion, I get the feeling that that’s the least of the crimes that White and his goons have to answer for. Am I right?”
Max sighed. After everything that she had been through, she really wasn’t at all certain that forcing a confrontation with White and his goons was the right thing to do, strategically speaking.
She was more than relieved when she had seen her old friend Joshua and the big guy with the funny accent and the even stranger tattoo in the middle of his forehead safe and sound; and well out of harm’s way.
Really she should have been satisfied and pleased with even that small of a victory over the shadow of Manticore that still hung over all of the lives of the surviving members of her small but growing X-5 family.
She turned to face Teal’c and wondered what she should do now. She know Alec wanted to fight and so did the flushed with excitement and adrenaline teenaged kid that obiviously experienced Major Carter and Teal’c addressed with the deference due a superior officer. Max did not pretend to understand what was going on ‘there, nor did she care to at the moment; she had more important things on her mind.
****
“X-425 and X=429,”purred White, “what a pleasure to see you both again.” White moved slightly away from the huddled group of his men and approached them his arms lying loose against his lower torso, his steps measured and even as if he had all the time in the world.
Everyone in the small group could immediately tell that it was a calculated gesture meant to convince that he meant no harm and lull them into a false sense of complacency, but really meant quite the opposite.
“We got names, you damn…” Alec trailed off and would have added more to his tirade if not for Max’s elbow in his ribs that cut of his tirade.
“I am already certain that I do not care for this man,” echoed Teal’c.
“You and me both, big guy,” replied Max.
“There is no reason for this to turn any more unpleasant than it already has,” interrupted White in a conciliatory and only partially reassuring tone, “After all, you did manage to lead my men and I a merry chase, but,,” he added as the tone of his voice subtly altered. “This is where the chase ends. “As much as I would like to ‘regroup all of the remaining X-5s, I am hereby authorized to grant you a reprieve, as it were.”
“I like how it makes it sound like he’s doing you guys a favor,” muttered Sam under her breath. “Regroup is most likely an eupehism for rounding you all up and locking you up again.”
“Amen, Sister,” whispered Alec over his shoulder to her. “But don’t tell me that, cause’ you’d only be preaching to the chior. Tell him, that!”
“I am Major Samantha Carter of the United States Air Force, and these people are under my protection. You want them, Mr. White, if that’s really your name…”Sam trailed off meaningfully before adding. “You’ll have to deal with me first.”
White paused momentarily to confer with one of his men who handed him an already activated cell phone. White took it and spoke briefly with the other party on the line before turning his attention back to them. “This changes things, Major Carter, is it? I had a pretty good idea that your presence here might change the equation.”
“What the hell does that mean?” demanded Alec as his patience, never pronounced to begin with began to boil over.”
“It seems that I hereby authorized,” White sneered before adding. “To let Guevarra, McDowell and their freak friends go, for now.”
“So nice of him,” muttered Sam under her breath.
“Provided that you, Major Carter, turn over your friend, Teal’C to my protection.”
“Not going to happen,” Sam exclaimed hotly, her patience with this overbearing nutcase at last exhausted. “Either you let us all go, I call in the big guns.”
White visibly paled and seemed to be at a loss for words for several heartbeats. “You wouldn’t really do that, would you?”
“Believe, Mr. White. I would” Sam stepped forward until no more than a few feet separated them. “Do not push me on this, Mr. White. I push back.”
“Very well,” White muttered. “I concede. But I do not want to see you or your ‘friends’ in Seattle again.
“Leave them alone, and you will not ‘see us again,” added Teal’C.
*****
Conclusion
“Did we have to bring them here?”
“We wanted an evacuation and you know how Kinsey can be,” O’Neill said exchanging a significant glance with General Hammond. “In case I haven’t mentioned this earlier I really, really hate that guy.”
His teenaged-version smirked. “I know. We all know.” He grinned and then tacked a ‘Sir’ almost as an after thought.
“There’s still the option of sending them to the beta site, if they’ll agree to it,” said General Hammond before glancing down to briefly scan the contents of the report that lay spread out on the table before glancing up and meeting the gazes of the members of the SG-1 team gathered around him.
Major Carter shook her head and leaned forward. “I agree with you, Sir, but that’s the crux of the problem. We’re dealing with some rather, shall we say, stubborn individuals. I am not certain if they’ll want to leave Seattle.”
“If we hadn’t had to work around with Senator Kinsey and the NID,” Colonel O’Neill muttered and give them their concessions that they’ve wanted all along then we might have more to work with. As it is, hey, how many people are we talking about here?”
“McDowell and Guevarra were rather reticent on the subject,” Carter sighed and reached up to finger comb some of the worst of the snarls through her hair, “but as I’ve stated in my report. They’ve managed to carve out a medium-sized communal self-sustaining communal society.”
“For obvious reasons, “interrupted Mini-Jack, “They were reluctant to allow more than a half-hearted inspection of the place and I don’t blame them. But I think we’re talking at least two dozen or more.” He meet gazes with General Hammond and then broke away again before blushing. “Get this, they call the place, “Freak Nation.” I’m not certain why that is.” He shook his head again in an attempt to remove the inevitable cobwebs.
“Despite what the NID were trying to do, the fact remains, that the now defunct Manticore program was a civilian matter.”
“What they did those kids was both criminal and well, wrong, in so many ways,” exclaimed Carter rocking forward again in her chair.
“I happen to agree with you, Major,” replied Hammond, “but it really is not our place to bring the principals behind the project to justice.”
“And what of their ‘test subjects?” asked Teal’C arching one dark eyebrow at a pronounced slant.
“Again, we’ll present the option to leave Seattle and relocated off-world.”
“If they won’t go for it?” Carter sighed. Sometimes, no matter how hard you tried, no matter your intentions; there came a point in time when they really was nothing more that one could do.
“I guess, they’re no worse off than they were before. And we’re grateful for their assistance in returning Teal’C to us,” Hammond sighed.. “I am very much afraid that will be the best we can do.”
Fandoms: Stargate SG-1/Dark Angel
Author: karrenia
Rating: PG-13
Words: 2,085
Prompt: #46 star
35/100
Disclaimer: Stargate SG-1 and the characters of Samantha Carter, Daniel Jackson, Teal’C and Mini-Jack belong to MGM, Gekko Film Corp and their respective creators and producers; they are not mine. Dark Angel and the characters who appear here or are mentioned are the creations of James Cameron; they do not belong to me and are only ‘borrowed’; for the purposes of the story. I claim only the words. Note: picks up where the previous story “Children of the Revolution” left off.
“A Thousand Points of Light” by Karen
Odd things go through your mind when you've lived most of the your adult life on the run. Even her earliest memories are of running, either to an objective or away from pursuit. It comes from being trained as a soldier
But as far as Max Guevara was concerned one usually stood a better than even chance if one kept moving; and as she led the small entourage out of the tunnels beneath the streets of Seattle and finally found a safe if temporary haven for Joshua and put a good amount of distance between themselves and any immediate pursuit.
She was still a bit leery of placing her full trust from the generous if still not entirely trustworthy United States Air Force officers, Max stopped moving and exchanged a significant glance with Alec; who true to form, had gone off on a tangent and begun to flirt with the attractive blond major.
Under the circumstances Max was getting more than a bit annoyed with Alec’s behavior.
After all White and his goons could be breathing down their necks at any second and Alec chose now of all times to start schmoozing and exerting his considerable charm on the female of the species?
**************
Alec his senses keyed up both under the stress of the current situation and to Max’s temperament and movements chose not to react or give any sign that he noticed that she was more than a little bit irritated with his behavior and posturing; although he knew it was more than the fact of their mutual attraction to each other.
His sensible side and his survival instincts honed over the years and from the results of the training at Manticore told him that allowing his defensives to slip was an extremely bad idea; but his other senses told him otherwise and he made a split second decision to tell his logical side to shut the hell up and leave him alone.
For her part Samantha Carter made a game attempt to acknowledge his flirting without drawing undue attention to it. Realizing that Teal’C still not quite steady on his feet from his ordeal of the past seventy two hours offered her arm for him to lean, buckling under his weight and then bearing up with remarkable aplomb. All the meanwhile making monosyllable replies to Alec’s verbal sallies in her direction.
“So, do we have any idea where we’re going? For cryin’ out loud I swear all those damn twists and turns underground have got me got completely disoriented,” said the teenaged version of Colonel Jack O’Neill as he stopped momentarily to catch his breath leaning up against the white-washed wall of a nearby gas station seemingly unaware of the splotch of fresh paint that smeared on the back of his jacket.
“I am no fonder of this running around than you are, O’Neill,” said Teal’C breathing heavily, “and I would much prefer to find a mutually satisfactory method from which to extricate ourselves from this present situation.”
“Stop.” Max muttered under her breath.
****
Before she had the opportunity to reply shots rang out. The first volley of shots missed by a considerable margin but no one among the tightly strung group took comfort in that fact; these were designed to be early warning shots, or meant to find the range.
“Nice of them to shoot first and ask questions later,” Alec muttered under his breath, but then I for one am not surprised as he dodged out of the way of the spray of bullets the sound of the soles of his boots crunching on the loose gravel of the street mingling with that of the spent bullet casings.
“We might still have a chance to reason with them. Whatever their intentions,” added Teal’C shoving off Major Carter’s restraining but supportive hand, with a nod indicating that he could stand upright without her assistance. “I am quite recovered by now, Major, thank you.”
Sam merely nodded and turned to Alec whom she had been only half-listening to his flirtatious chatter but had sized up as a more than capable fighter when push came to shove. “I take it, these are the ‘bad guys?”
“Yeah,” muttered Alec in response. “Those are some nice pieces of hardware, Major, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to ‘lend’ us some for the duration?”
“Can’t. Regs, you know,” she added with a wry grin of her own plastered on her face.
“I’m tired of running,” griped Mini-Jack. “Why can’t we just stop and confront them. We could pull rank and use some military authority and then turn them over to police.” He sighed and drew his hands through the strand of his hair. “For what you’ve told us, uh, Max, ma’am, I mean well, kidnapping, extortion, I get the feeling that that’s the least of the crimes that White and his goons have to answer for. Am I right?”
Max sighed. After everything that she had been through, she really wasn’t at all certain that forcing a confrontation with White and his goons was the right thing to do, strategically speaking.
She was more than relieved when she had seen her old friend Joshua and the big guy with the funny accent and the even stranger tattoo in the middle of his forehead safe and sound; and well out of harm’s way.
Really she should have been satisfied and pleased with even that small of a victory over the shadow of Manticore that still hung over all of the lives of the surviving members of her small but growing X-5 family.
She turned to face Teal’c and wondered what she should do now. She know Alec wanted to fight and so did the flushed with excitement and adrenaline teenaged kid that obiviously experienced Major Carter and Teal’c addressed with the deference due a superior officer. Max did not pretend to understand what was going on ‘there, nor did she care to at the moment; she had more important things on her mind.
****
“X-425 and X=429,”purred White, “what a pleasure to see you both again.” White moved slightly away from the huddled group of his men and approached them his arms lying loose against his lower torso, his steps measured and even as if he had all the time in the world.
Everyone in the small group could immediately tell that it was a calculated gesture meant to convince that he meant no harm and lull them into a false sense of complacency, but really meant quite the opposite.
“We got names, you damn…” Alec trailed off and would have added more to his tirade if not for Max’s elbow in his ribs that cut of his tirade.
“I am already certain that I do not care for this man,” echoed Teal’c.
“You and me both, big guy,” replied Max.
“There is no reason for this to turn any more unpleasant than it already has,” interrupted White in a conciliatory and only partially reassuring tone, “After all, you did manage to lead my men and I a merry chase, but,,” he added as the tone of his voice subtly altered. “This is where the chase ends. “As much as I would like to ‘regroup all of the remaining X-5s, I am hereby authorized to grant you a reprieve, as it were.”
“I like how it makes it sound like he’s doing you guys a favor,” muttered Sam under her breath. “Regroup is most likely an eupehism for rounding you all up and locking you up again.”
“Amen, Sister,” whispered Alec over his shoulder to her. “But don’t tell me that, cause’ you’d only be preaching to the chior. Tell him, that!”
“I am Major Samantha Carter of the United States Air Force, and these people are under my protection. You want them, Mr. White, if that’s really your name…”Sam trailed off meaningfully before adding. “You’ll have to deal with me first.”
White paused momentarily to confer with one of his men who handed him an already activated cell phone. White took it and spoke briefly with the other party on the line before turning his attention back to them. “This changes things, Major Carter, is it? I had a pretty good idea that your presence here might change the equation.”
“What the hell does that mean?” demanded Alec as his patience, never pronounced to begin with began to boil over.”
“It seems that I hereby authorized,” White sneered before adding. “To let Guevarra, McDowell and their freak friends go, for now.”
“So nice of him,” muttered Sam under her breath.
“Provided that you, Major Carter, turn over your friend, Teal’C to my protection.”
“Not going to happen,” Sam exclaimed hotly, her patience with this overbearing nutcase at last exhausted. “Either you let us all go, I call in the big guns.”
White visibly paled and seemed to be at a loss for words for several heartbeats. “You wouldn’t really do that, would you?”
“Believe, Mr. White. I would” Sam stepped forward until no more than a few feet separated them. “Do not push me on this, Mr. White. I push back.”
“Very well,” White muttered. “I concede. But I do not want to see you or your ‘friends’ in Seattle again.
“Leave them alone, and you will not ‘see us again,” added Teal’C.
*****
Conclusion
“Did we have to bring them here?”
“We wanted an evacuation and you know how Kinsey can be,” O’Neill said exchanging a significant glance with General Hammond. “In case I haven’t mentioned this earlier I really, really hate that guy.”
His teenaged-version smirked. “I know. We all know.” He grinned and then tacked a ‘Sir’ almost as an after thought.
“There’s still the option of sending them to the beta site, if they’ll agree to it,” said General Hammond before glancing down to briefly scan the contents of the report that lay spread out on the table before glancing up and meeting the gazes of the members of the SG-1 team gathered around him.
Major Carter shook her head and leaned forward. “I agree with you, Sir, but that’s the crux of the problem. We’re dealing with some rather, shall we say, stubborn individuals. I am not certain if they’ll want to leave Seattle.”
“If we hadn’t had to work around with Senator Kinsey and the NID,” Colonel O’Neill muttered and give them their concessions that they’ve wanted all along then we might have more to work with. As it is, hey, how many people are we talking about here?”
“McDowell and Guevarra were rather reticent on the subject,” Carter sighed and reached up to finger comb some of the worst of the snarls through her hair, “but as I’ve stated in my report. They’ve managed to carve out a medium-sized communal self-sustaining communal society.”
“For obvious reasons, “interrupted Mini-Jack, “They were reluctant to allow more than a half-hearted inspection of the place and I don’t blame them. But I think we’re talking at least two dozen or more.” He meet gazes with General Hammond and then broke away again before blushing. “Get this, they call the place, “Freak Nation.” I’m not certain why that is.” He shook his head again in an attempt to remove the inevitable cobwebs.
“Despite what the NID were trying to do, the fact remains, that the now defunct Manticore program was a civilian matter.”
“What they did those kids was both criminal and well, wrong, in so many ways,” exclaimed Carter rocking forward again in her chair.
“I happen to agree with you, Major,” replied Hammond, “but it really is not our place to bring the principals behind the project to justice.”
“And what of their ‘test subjects?” asked Teal’C arching one dark eyebrow at a pronounced slant.
“Again, we’ll present the option to leave Seattle and relocated off-world.”
“If they won’t go for it?” Carter sighed. Sometimes, no matter how hard you tried, no matter your intentions; there came a point in time when they really was nothing more that one could do.
“I guess, they’re no worse off than they were before. And we’re grateful for their assistance in returning Teal’C to us,” Hammond sighed.. “I am very much afraid that will be the best we can do.”