Diplomacy (11b/27)
Title: Diplomacy ( Table of Contents)
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Nothing you recognize is mine. I gain nothing of material value from this.
Pairings: Gen.
Chapter1a-- 1b Chapter2 Chapter3 Chapter4 Chapter5a-- 5b Chapter6 Chapter7 Chapter8 Chapter9 Chapter10 Chapter11a-- 11b Chapter12 Chapter13a-- 13b Chapter14a-- 14b Chapter15a-- 15b Chapter16 Chapter17a-- 17b Chapter18 Chapter19 Chapter20 Chapter21 Chapter22 Chapter23 Chapter24 Chapter25 Chapter26 Epilogue
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"Ego indeo navo locas."
Daniel looked up blearily from his transcription. "What?"
"Ego indeo navo locas," Jack repeated.
Ego and locas were easy. As for the others... Daniel flipped to the page in the dictionary with 'ind-' and scanned down the list. "Indeo. 'Investigate?' " Jack shook his head. "Stop me if I say it. Indicate, introduce, need, wa--'need?' That's it?" Jack raised his eyebrows. "Fine. 'I need...something...location."
"Navo," Jack said again.
"Ship." Jack gave him a telling look. "Right, no. Navo...nova...new! 'I need a new location.' "
"Etium!" Jack agreed finally, clearly frustrated by the process. "Ego indeo navo locas."
"You need to go somewhere? Where?"
Impatient, Jack ripped the notepad from Daniel's hands and grabbed the pen Robert had been using, scribbling, 'I have to go through the Stargate!!'
"Jack, that still doesn't tell us..." Daniel snatched the pen back as Jack started to draw several more exclamation points. "You mean back to where this happened, P3R-272?" Jack huffed and sat down. That looked like a 'no.'
The phone on Robert's desk rang.
Daniel rose to his feet, reaching tiredly for the phone. "Jackson. Robert Rothman's off--"
"Daniel, it's me," Sam's voice said. "I'm just telling you we found a planet, designated P9Q-281. Dr. Rothman says the symbols that the MALP sent back are in that Ancient language, so he's going with us to check it out. If we find anything or anyone who could help, we'll call back."
"Thank you, Sam. I'll tell him. Good luck."
"You too."
Daniel dropped the phone back into the cradle and turned to Jack. "They might've found the place," he offered. "They'll keep us informed."
Jack glanced at him, then away again. Daniel cleared his throat awkwardly.
"So," he tried to continue, scanning down the bit he had written thus far, "you said something earlier about...asordo, right? Meaning 'help?' That device was supposed to help the Ancients, the people who wrote this?"
No answer. Not even a twitch of acknowledgement.
"Or they were trying to help someone else?" Daniel waited futilely for an answer, then suggested, "Asking for help?"
Jack paused at the blackboard to consider it, added '3.11 ani clavia' in one corner, then resumed pacing wordlessly.
"Jack. Jack, say something." Then, because English seemed to be getting less and less effective, he added, "Please. Comdo"--he flipped through his notes--"dic...uh, dic mie...gods, Jack! How am I supposed to learn this language if you won't talk to me, huh?"
Apparently hearing something in his voice that he hadn't been intending, Jack slowed, tilting his head in consideration, then cupped a hand around the back of Daniel's neck as he passed. "Daniel...ani ansius. Nol."
Daniel couldn't help a choked laugh from escaping. "So that's how you say 'worried,' I guess. We thought it was anquietas at first. So 'nol'...you're telling me not to worry. A negative imperative--okay, that's good, that's great, we've been getting stuck on the grammar--" Jack's hand squeezed gently to cut him off. "No, Jack, it...it's fine. I'm not worried."
"Nani veriumas."
"Not the truth," Daniel translated aloud while scribbling down a note about the contraction of the negative particle with the copula verb, because it was interesting, it was, really. "Yes, it is the truth, Jack. Veriumas ani."
"Ego ansius."
"Nol," Daniel ordered, leaning into the warmth behind him. "You shouldn't worry, either. We'll figure it out."
Jack sighed. "Na putas tua."
"Yes, I do believe that. Don't give up yet. Nol...uh, nol abiecieri. Don't give up." He turned and looked up into Jack's eyes. "Everyone's working on it--we all need you here. We'll solve this. I'm sure we will. I'll even leave base and go home, yeah? Show Shifu how messy your house is?" he tried to joke, even though he wasn't sure how much Jack was actually hearing.
A pained look came across the man's face. "Indes tua dormata."
"Ego indeo Jack!" Daniel burst out, then ripped his glasses off to scrub at his gritty, exhausted eyes and sighed, frustrated more than embarrassed. "Look, okay, stop worrying about me. I'll sleep, I promise, but first we have to figure out how to--"
But whatever control of himself he had temporarily regained, Jack suddenly turned away and practically ran out of the archaeology office without a backward glance. Daniel squeezed his eyes shut, put his glasses back on, picked up a dictionary, and followed him out.
...x...
2 October 1998; SGC, Earth; 0630 hrs
Coffee, Daniel decided, squinting into his polystyrene cup, tasted very different from how it smelled. It was unexpectedly bitter, but, after the first surprise, wasn't actually all that bad. More importantly, it was easy to find on base, no matter what the time of day or night, and drinking the strong liquid from the electrical engineers' coffeepot alongside Janet meant that he wasn't falling asleep on top of whatever it was that Jack was doing with the power source of a staff weapon.
"Do you know what he's doing?" Daniel asked her.
The doctor was watching closely, a clipboard filled with notes beside her. "Building something. I'm having trouble following beyond that."
"On vis indee," Jack explained, working furiously.
Daniel raked a hand through his hair as Janet turned to him and said, " 'It...needs...' Something. Uh, 'force' or 'strength,' maybe?" Then he remembered that they were dealing with something that centered on a naquadah power cell and amended, " 'Power.' 'It needs power,' Jack?"
Janet looked dubious. "This thing needs power? Sir, it would be really nice to know what that is before you start trying to plug it in."
An airman appeared at the entrance to the lab. "Mr. Jackson? General Hammond wants you in the control room."
"Maybe SG-1 found something," Daniel said hopefully to Jack, who continued to ignore him. "I'll...uh, I'll be back."
"I'll keep an eye on him," Janet said, still looking at the contraption being built. Jack ignored her, too, so Daniel put down his cup of coffee and left.
When he arrived in the control room, though, the expression the general wore was grim, and any ideas he had had about meeting friendly Ancients was erased. Without delay, the general said, "Mr. Jackson, SG-1 is trapped on the planet with Dr. Rothman."
Taken aback, Daniel asked, "Tr-trapped, sir? Why? Are the hostiles open to negotiation?" Please, let those not be the Ancients.
"Trapped by the DHD," the general corrected. "They haven't seen any local inhabitants. Something's wrong with the dialing mechanism, and they can't get back."
"Well..." Looking around the room, as if something would give him an answer, Daniel said confidently, "Sam will fix it. She knows more about Stargates than anyone on Earth, and Teal'c has probably seen something like this before. I mean, it's not the first time something has gone wrong with the dialing mechanism off-world." When the general didn't respond, he added, more uncertainly, "Right, sir?"
General Hammond shook his head. "I regret to say that the problem isn't anything Captain Carter or Teal'c have ever encountered. Dr. Rothman is hoping to find signs of life or communication around them in case there's a clue, but the heat will force him to stop soon."
"But...but, General, they'll figure it out eventually."
"We may not have that kind of time. There are two very hot suns beginning to rise on their planet, and she believes the temperature will soon be too high for them to survive."
Daniel took a step back and caught himself on the back of a chair before the heavy ball of dread in his stomach could weigh him down. "So...but...so that's it?"
"No," General Hammond said firmly. "We're not giving up on them. We have our best scientists here and Captain Carter there working to solve the problem. But in the meantime, they asked me to tell you that they don't think anything on that planet will help Colonel O'Neill's condition. As far as that's concerned, we're on our own. Any information you come across may be our best shot, so if you have a solution, don't hesitate, even if it seems improbable."
"Oh," he said faintly, trying not to imagine what it looked like when a person was burned to death by a sun--two suns--and thankful that he was too tired to fully digest the fact that it was Sam and Teal'c and Robert out there. He felt oddly like he should be there with them--they were his friends, after all, the three of them and Jack, and they were the closest he had to a team in this society. "I...sir, I still don't have any idea about..." He trailed off.
Sam knew more about DHDs and Stargate dialing mechanisms than anyone on Earth.
Except, maybe...
Ancient Ones. Road builders.
"I'm not trying to put pressure on you, son," the general was saying apologetically. "This may be beyond all of us, and you're not to blame if nothing comes up. I know this is hard, but I need you to focus now. Tell us if you can think of anything. We'll keep working on SG-1's problem, and I'll send for you if their situation takes a turn for the worse. You just stay on Colonel O'Neill's case and leave the rest to us."
"Wait...sir, what exactly did Sam say was wrong with the DHD?" Daniel said.
"Mr. Jackson..."
"Please, sir. I might have an idea of how to help them."
Looking skeptical, but clearly willing to listen to anything that could bring back the team, General Hammond said, "We recorded what she told us through the MALP."
"May I have a copy?"
Minutes later, he was hurrying back to the electrical engineering lab, video tape in hand. He entered just in time to see Jack flip a switch that made the contraption begin to glow.
"That's it, sir?" Janet said, sounding confused. There was relief in her voice, probably because it hadn't exploded, but also disappointment that it didn't really illuminate anything except itself. Jack shrugged again, apparently just as lost as they were.
"Um," Daniel said from the doorway, "Jack, there's something we need your help with." The man continued studying whatever it was he had just built. "Jack," he said, more sharply, gesturing out the door, "Sam and Teal'c are trapped off-world, and they need your help. Sam a Teal'c...uh...indente asordo."
That got his attention.
"You need to see this," Daniel told him quickly, inserting the tape. "Okay, Jack, right now, only I believe you have the knowledge of the original Stargate builders. So. Watch."
Sam's face appeared on the screen, and Jack tilted his head, listening intently to the problem. Then he lunged for the desk and pulled a sheet of paper and pens and rulers toward himself, and Daniel sighed in relief.
XXXXX
2 October 1998; SGC, Earth; 1000 hrs
It was a good thing Sam only needed about ten minutes to recover from being almost burned to death by a sun, because when the alarms started squealing, she was the first to make it to the control room. Out of habit, the rest of them followed, until Daniel turned and noticed Jack carrying his glowing naquadah-cell device into the area that housed all the power controls.
"Wait, Jack," Daniel protested as he watched the door start to swing closed. The power room was one place he usually never wandered, except a few times by accident when he had still been learning his way around. "Slow down! What are you doing with that?"
The door snapped shut, and, cursing, Daniel was forced to dig into his pocket for his ID card to swipe into the unfamiliar hallway. Footsteps came behind him, and he whirled to see Teal'c pounding down toward him. "Teal'c, he's..."
"Come," Teal'c said tersely, and Daniel obeyed, glad for once that there was someone to tell him what to do, because the gods knew he didn't have a clue for himself.
Jack was opening a panel that controlled...well, Daniel didn't know what it was for, but, to be fair, he was sure Jack wouldn't have known, either, if he'd been himself. Not for the first time, Daniel wished there were a few more Sam Carters around, so that one could figure out what was going haywire in the control room while another could come with them and see what going on in the power vault.
Teal'c made an uncertain movement as if to stop Jack from doing anything further, but stopped.
"What is this?" Daniel asked.
"Euge," Jack said, pausing to dig the heel of his hand into an eye before continuing whatever he was doing. "Vis indee."
"You're...doing something to the power systems? Something good?" When no answer came, Daniel tried again, rapidly losing hope, "Jack, you don't...you don't even understand me anymore, do you."
Jack inserted his contraption into the wall, pulling off what looked to Daniel like random cables and hooking them to the device. "Euge," he muttered feverishly. "Euge."
"O'Neill, we must know what you intend to do," Teal'c tried.
"Ego indeo navo locas," Jack repeated.
Daniel clenched his hands into fists. "I know, I know! Ego sc...shio. But where?"
"Vis. Ego indeo asordo. Indeo vis."
"For what, Jack? We want to help you, but I don't understand what you need!"
"Daniel Jackson," Teal'c said quietly. Daniel blew out an agitated breath and shrank back into the shadow of Teal'c's solid presence, watching Jack work and flinching each time something sparked.
"Farit," Jack whispered finally, panting a little, though it was hard to tell whether it was from physical effort or from trying to keep himself from going mad with all the information that was filling his head. Daniel wasn't sure he'd succeeded in that part, either.
Naturu.
"Indeo astriaporta." Jack brushed past both of them and jogged back the way they'd come.
"Teal'c, the Stargate. He's trying to get through, that must be what he's--"
"Then we must go with him," Teal'c said, rushing out of the power room.
Trying to keep up, Daniel was almost bowled over by someone going the other way as he ran out.
"What are you doing here, Jackson?"
"Sergeant Siler?"
"There was a power boost--"
"Yes, that must have been Jack. He just did something with the naquadah power cell...thing he built. No, no, don't! Just--" Daniel took a glance toward Teal'c's disappearing form and finished, "Sergeant, please, leave it there. It's important." Hopefully. He dashed down the hallway that led out of the power room, calling back, "Please!"
It might be the only chance to get Jack back, the way he had been before some alien had dumped a civilization's knowledge into his brain.
The 'gate was moving when Daniel made it back to the control room. "Where is it dialing?" he asked.
"No idea," Sam said, sitting in front of a computer but not even trying to do anything. "We've completely lost control. It's dialing somewhere automatically."
"Chevron four is encoded," Lieutenant Simmons announced from the console, glancing nervously at Sam.
"This must be part of the program the colonel put in earlier," Robert said. "I didn't think he'd finished writing it."
"Oh, he finished the program; we just hadn't figured out what it did," Sam said grimly. "If there was anything he didn't get a chance to finish, maybe it was the 'gate addresses."
"General Hammond," Teal'c reported, standing strategically to prevent Jack from being able to go anywhere, "Daniel Jackson believes that Colonel O'Neill constructed a power source using the staff weapon's naquadah cell."
"We just saw him connect it in the power vault," Daniel added.
"Chevron five is encoded," Simmons said.
"Well, that explains where the 'gate got all the extra power," Sam commented worriedly, her hands inching toward the keyboard, as if itching to try to do something.
The general looked sharply at Teal'c. "I would not have authorized that."
"Sir," Daniel said, "he's been talking for hours about going somewhere. He says he needs to go somewhere, through the Stargate."
"Chevron six is encoded."
General Hammond looked around at all of them, his gaze settling finally on Jack. "And I'm just supposed to let him go?"
No, no, no, Daniel thought. If they let him go, he might never come back, and they had no idea what was on the other side of the wormhole forming now. And maybe it was selfish, but he'd gotten to Earth in the first place because of Jack, and though he'd stayed for other reasons bigger than either of them, he wasn't sure what he'd do if Jack O'Neill walked off-world and never came back.
Jack didn't seem to notice anything or any of them; he had eyes only for the Stargate, still dialing through the control room window. It was as if Jack weren't there anymore. "Are you there?" Daniel whispered, just loud enough for Jack alone to hear if he was still there, but he wasn't--that much was obvious--and continued to stare like nothing mattered but the Stargate.
He was already gone.
They had to let him go, or he'd stay gone forever.
"Chevron seven...is encoded?" Simmons said, turning in question to Sam. "Captain?"
She leaned closer, looking from the monitor to the Stargate as if there were mistake, but the ring was still spinning. "It's not the point of origin. What's it doing?"
"Chevron eight," Simmons said in disbelief. "Locked. Wormhole is established. Tracking now...uh..."
"Sir," Sam said, watching the progress on the screen, "the computer indicates that the wormhole is leaving our known network of Stargates. It's leaving our galaxy. That must be why it needed the extra power source."
"That's why he built the extra power source," Daniel realized now. "All of this--it's all been leading up to this. And"--by the gods, he hoped he was right this time--"he's gone already, General, you can see that. We have to let him go if we're to have a chance of getting him back."
Jack looked at General Hammond, and for an instant, Daniel thought there was recognition in the expression. Then he turned stiffly and moved toward the embarkation room, and the moment was lost.
Daniel was down the stairs and in the Stargate room before anyone could stop him, Teal'c at his side. Footsteps sounded behind him, and the general warned, "Colonel O'Neill, without knowing where you're going and why, I can't give you a remote code device to open the iris. Do you understand?"
Jack was already partway up the ramp and didn't turn to acknowledge the words.
"Jack!" Daniel called, running to him and latching onto an arm. "Listen to me. If you do this...if you go, you might not be able to come back." When he received only a blank stare, he scoured his mind for bits of the Ancient language and started, "Hic locas... Dammit! Hic locas motabile..."
But a hand came up to cover his own for a minute. "Ego shio," Jack said, then peeled Daniel's hand away and disappeared through the event horizon.
Daniel glanced back down the ramp at Teal'c and the general. He didn't even realize he'd taken a step toward the wormhole until Teal'c's hand clamped on his shoulder. "If O'Neill is unable to return, you do him no good by becoming lost as well."
The wormhole disengaged. Daniel looked down and stared hard at the metallic ramp.
"He'll come back," he said.
"I believe that also," Teal'c said gently.
"Gentlemen," General Hammond called.
Nodding minutely, Daniel turned and followed them back up into the control room, where he turned to one of the monitors in the hope that it would tell him something useful that he could understand.
What he did understand was Simmons' announcement: "We've lost the traveler."
General Hammond stiffened. Daniel stared at the flashing 'TRACKING LOST,' then turned away.
Sam was back to typing. "That doesn't mean anything went wrong, necessarily," she said, her tone determined, as if she could make it true by saying it. "It's more likely that the wormhole simply went somewhere out of range, or that some difference caused by the extreme increase in the distance is confusing our sensors. I'm going to redial."
The general nodded, then started at the sound of a ringing phone. He reached across to answer. "Hammond."
For a moment, Sam's typing was the only sound in the room. Daniel folded his arms and waited, waited, waited, until, simultaneously, General Hammond hung up the phone and Sam announced, "The computer won't accept the eighth chevron."
"I'm not surprised, Captain," the general said. "Sergeant Siler says the device hooked to the power grid seems to be dead."
"Well, it doesn't really matter, does it?" Robert pointed out. "I mean, if we open another wormhole, we can send someone through, but it doesn't exactly help get anyone back."
"We could've sent a radio through, or a MALP," Sam countered half-heartedly. "A rescue team. All communications with that address are cut off, now."
"So what do we do?" Daniel asked.
"We wait," Teal'c said.
Sam glanced at them. "You know...we don't know if...I mean, we don't know how long it might take for Colonel O'Neill to finish whatever it is and come back."
Daniel shook his head in denial and repeated, "He'll come back. I'm staying unless someone orders me out." For a moment, he was afraid someone was going to do just that, but then, Hammond nodded and firmly planted himself in front of the console, clearly planning on watching and waiting as well.
Sam dipped her head a little in understanding and cleared her throat. "Uh, the power fluctuations have a lot of our systems on the fritz. I'm going to have to shut everything down and reboot."
The general's eyes flicked toward the inactive Stargate. "Can you close the iris, if need be?"
"Apparently not, sir," Sam said. "I'm working on getting back in at all. I'm still locked out."
Daniel knew that was a bad thing, but he couldn't help being a little grateful, too. Hurry up, Jack.
"Captain," General Hammond ordered, "I don't care what you have to do. I want control of this system back."
"Yes, sir, I'm trying."
Sinking down into a chair as well, Daniel tried not to think, which, he found out very quickly, was a futile exercise. Instead, he reached into his pocket for the voice recorder he had been using to record Jack's Ancient. "Robert--" he started, but was interrupted by a yawn. "Sorry. How do I...is this the rewind?"
"How do you what?" Robert asked, then saw what he was doing and said, "Oh. Rewind. Yeah, that's the one."
Sam gave him a surprised look that melted into understanding when he pulled his notepad from his pocket and positioned his pen to write. His own tinny voice came out, saying, '...indeo Jack!' He ignored her and continued to rewind the tape until Jack's voice said, 'I don't...it's a locas axselo.'
Robert, on the other hand, simply took an adjacent seat and asked, "Someone got extra paper? Pencil?"
Daniel had filled a few pages in his notebook with scribbled phonetic transcriptions and quick, approximate preliminary definitions before the familiar sound of locking chevrons overwhelmed the tape recorder.
"Uh oh," Sam said under her breath, then, louder, "Incoming wormhole, sir. Iris is still down."
The general leaned past her to bark into the microphone, "Security teams to the embarkation room. Off-world activation--iris is non-operational. Security teams to the embarkation room, all units!"
Daniel rose to his feet but didn't move, watching the event horizon as men dashed into the room, guns aimed up the ramp and toward the Stargate.
And then Jack walked out.
"Everything...seems to be back online again, sir," Sam reported. "Including the iris."
Now, if only they could be sure...
"Nice welcome wagon," Jack's voice called through the speakers
A sigh left Daniel's lungs in a relieved whoosh, and he darted out and made it to the bottom of the ramp even before Jack did.
"Jack," he breathed, almost mesmerized by the sight of a tiny quirk of a smile after a day of no expression other than frustration. "You're back."
"Do you still possess the knowledge of the Ancients?" Teal'c added.
"Nope," Jack said, and for once, Daniel decided to postpone his disappointment that so much knowledge had been lost to them. "Don't remember a thing."
"We were unable to track your location, O'Neill," Teal'c said.
"Yeah, you know. Long trip. Met some of Thor's Asgard buddies."
Daniel blinked. "Asgard?"
"Yeah. The little grey guys."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. They had a way to get all that stuff out of my head, so..." He shrugged. "Nice fellas. Had a little chat."
"A...chat?" Anything beyond repetition seemed beyond him at the moment.
Jack smiled faintly. "Apparently, we humans have potential. I think we're gonna be all right."
Still lost somewhere between 'Asgard' and 'out of my head' and 'all right,' gods, he was all right, Daniel stared at him without completely comprehending it was over until Jack took a step closer and pulled him away from the ramp with a hand on his back.
"You stayed," a quieter, more serious voice said into his ear from behind. "The whole time."
"Etium," Daniel answered dazedly, because of course he'd stayed; what else could he possibly have done?
A pause. "I have no idea what that means. But, ah...if that's what it feels like for people like you and Carter and Rothman to have so much crap floating around in your brains all the time, I'm so leaving all of that to you guys from now on."
A shaky grin broke over Daniel's face, and he let himself be steered out of the embarkation room and up to join the rest of the people waiting for Jack's return.
Next chapter (" Pawns")