Adventures, Ch 01 - Redemption, Part 2
Title: Adventures
Author: Soledad
Fandom: Stargate - Atlantis
For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the secondary index page.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EPISODE 01 - REDEMPTION, Part 2
Author’s note:
Again, while I understand that the show needed to focus on the main characters primarily, I found it a little unlikely that everybody but Carter and McKay would have been an incompetent idiot. So I allowed some of the others to have useful thoughts, too, giving the lines of the nameless extra scientists to those who’ll appear later on either SG-1 or Atlantis.
For the record: Chloe, whom I gave the surname Dr. Loewen, appeared in the SG-1 episode Avenger 2, while Petersen, Simpson and, of course, Kavanagh are SGA characters.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They reached the Gate Room just in time to see the holographic image of a cloaked and hooded figure coming through the Stargate, not the least hindered by the closed iris. It would have looked ridiculous, in a cheesy supervillain way, like the Big Bad from some second-grade comic or B-movie - had it not been for his face.
Or to be more accurate, for the lack thereof. For the figure had no face at all. Under his hood, there was nothing but swirling darkness. At the sight of which Calvin Thomas Kavanagh, long-time agnostic and sceptical to the bone, he who’d belligerently rejected the Reverend’s preaching about everlasting darkness and damnation, for the first time in his life got a clue what pure evil might be like.
Of course, he knew that it was just a holographic projection. He was a scientist, and a damn good one. It was the holographic projection of some megalomaniac Goa’uld with a real fleur for the dramatic as McKay had put it. Very theatrical with all that “You will bow to my awesome power!’ and ‘Prepare to meet your doom!’ kind of stuff.
But there was no denying the sheer malevolence of his intentions… or the fact that by the rate the Stargate was building up energy, they only had fifty-four hours left, at best. Whoever this Anubis character was, he apparently had the means to make his threats true. McKay’s mocking didn’t change that part of the equation a bit.
Calvin felt light-headed, suddenly remembering that he’d been called in without proper breakfast and hadn’t eaten a thing since coffee break, which was about four hours earlier. Hurriedly, he tore open the small package in his pocket and slipped two glucose pills into his mouth… then added another one for good measure. Fainting from the sudden drop of blood sugar levels would have been mortally embarrassing - especially in front of McKay, of all people.
His thoughts cleaning up due to the sugar infusion, he realized that Petersen was arguing with Carter about something.
“Remember, Major, when the Gate was connected to the black hole, through the other Gate on P3W-451, a shaped charge was used to disengage the wormhole. We could try the same method to…”
“No, we can’t,” Calvin interrupted, understanding what his colleague was talking about. “That was an outgoing wormhole, Willem.”
“True,” Petersen admitted, “but if we modify the…”
“No,” Calvin repeated, a little more forcefully, because Petersen was grasping at straws, and that was a dangerous attitude for a scientist during a crisis. “The blast would detonate the Gate.”
Carter and McKay, who’d become aware of the discussion, shook their heads in unison. Then, all of a sudden, McKay perked up. “Wait a minute…”
Petersen glared daggers at him. “I’m not talking to you, McKay! If you’d just let me finish…”
McKay waved dismissively and walked over tot the observation window to look down at the Stargate.
“No, you’re both horribly wrong, both of you,” he said in a distracted manner. “But you gave me an idea.”
“Oh, blast,” Petersen commented, dripping with sarcasm. “I’m so honoured! I’m gonna tell my great-grandchildren about the glorious day when I managed to give the great Rodney McKay and idea by being wrong.”
Calvin couldn’t quite suppress a guffaw, and even Carter smiled to herself. McKay ignored them, as usual when his brain kicked to high gear. He was thinking aloud.
“We know that certain waves can travel in both directions through a wormhole, right?” he said. “Radio signals, for one.”
“So what?” Carter asked a little impatiently. “We call Anubis and ask him to stop?”
“Yeah, that would work,” Petersen commented. “Because Goa’uld, especially ones with unlimited energy sources, are so charming, understanding guys.”
McKay gave him an irritated look. “You’re so not helping!”
“And you haven’t suggested anything potentially useful, so far,” Petersen countered. “Do you have an idea that might work or not?”
“As a matter of fact - yes, I do,” McKay replied. “We could send a massive EM pulse through the wormhole and knock out whatever power source this Goa’uld might have on the other end.”
General Hammond looked at Carter doubtfully. “Will that work?”
“No,” Petersen replied promptly in Carter’s stead.
“Perhaps,” Calvin and Simpson said in unison. Chloe shrugged noncommittally.
“Carter turned to her CO. “Sir, I already thought of it, and the reason I didn’t mention it is because it would be too problematic.”
“More so than the Gate exploding?” McKay inquired sarcastically. Hammond gave him a warning look.
“Problematic in what way?” he asked.
“The iris would have to be opened,” Petersen said.
“So what?” McKay asked impatiently. “The Gate Room is shielded, isn’t it?”
“Have you taken a look at the readings, McKay?” Petersen countered in exasperation. “Do you have any idea how long the shielding would be able to withstand the energy flow if we open the iris?”
“Or how much EM would be required to knock the energy source out, whatever it is?” Carter added.
Hammond frowned. “So, are you saying that this absolutely couldn’t work?” he tried to clarify things.
“No, sir,” Carter replied, with visible effort to stay calm. “What I’m saying is that there are too many unknown factors to risk whatever protection we still have.”
“Great,” McKay commented with biting sarcasm. “So, let’s just all go home and wait for the inevitable.”
The glare Carter gave him would have made a platoon of Marines tremble with fear. It completely failed to impress McKay, though.
General Hammond looked from one scientist to another in very obvious frustration. Finally, the urge to do something won over other considerations, and he turned to McKay. “How long will it take to set up?”
McKay thought for a moment. “Four hours, tops,” he finally answered; then, looking at Petersen’s team, he added. “That is, if these morons are willing to help me with the calculations. I’m a genius, but I’m not a computer, you know.”
“Four hours,” Hammond repeated. Then, looking at Carter, he added. “That is exactly how long you have to come up with something else, Major.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The next couple of hours were spent with feverish activity in the shared lab of doctors Petersen, Kavanagh and Loewen, with the assistance of Dr. Simpson. Carter and McKay were doing their own calculations, just to make sure they’d taken every possible aspect under consideration. There was no margin for even the slightest error left, so everyone was concentrating like never before in their lives.
Several gallons of coffee later, Calvin’s iron reserves of glucose pills were exhausted, the floor under McKay’s chair was littered with power bar package foils, and the results… well, the results were not promising.
“Just what I feared,” Petersen sighed. “Opening the iris will increase the flow of energy to the Gate by at least ten times.”
“Ouch!” O’Neill, who’d walked in some ten minutes earlier to see how they were doing, muttered. “That’s… not good, I guess?”
“No, sir,” Carter replied grimly. “It’s not good at all.”
“It means, if McKay’s idea doesn’t work, we’ll be cutting as much as half the remaining time before the Gate detonates,” Calvin added.
“You don’t think this could work, either?” O’Neill asked.
Calvin shrugged. “Honestly? I can’t tell. I’m only pointing out the possible consequences in case it won’t.”
“Do you have any better ideas?” O’Neill asked.
“No,” Calvin replied. “Which is the reason why I’m helping him at all. As you know, I have personal reasons to oppose the levelling of Colorado.”
O’Neill nodded. “Do your best,” he said on his way out. “And hurry up!”
“Yeah,” Petersen told his back nastily. “Because we’ve been scratching our lazy asses here all the time.”
“Don’t start doing so now, then!” Simpson retorted, without looking up from her computer screen. “We’ve got a planet to save, in case you’ve forgotten.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Just a little over four hours after McKay had suggested the desperate plan, Technical Sergeant Siler and his people were placing the EM pulse generator on the ramp leading to the Stargate, measuring the correct distance with a tape measure and turning the fairly futuristic-looking device into the right position. Above them, the Control Room was becoming fairly crowded with not only the Gate technicians on duty present, but also the scientists who’d been working on the problem, and also the leaders of those SG-units that weren’t off-world at the time.
One of those few was Colonel Dave Dixon, to whose unit Calvin nominally belonged - although he hadn’t taken part on any off-world missions yet, and if things kept going as they were at the moment, he wouldn’t likely have the chance to do so, ever. A big, balding man in his late thirties, Dixon wasn’t easy to panic, as a rule. Right now, however, he looked slightly green around the gills.
“I don’t know what’s worse,” he murmured in a low voice only Calvin could hear. “Being stuck off-world, with no idea what’s gone wrong back home… or being stuck here, knowing that you can’t do a thing to save your family.”
Calvin nodded in mute understanding. As much as Dixon might complain sometimes about his chaotic home, he loved his kids very much; and as a soldier used to act, being totally helpless must have bothered him twice as much as it would bother a civilian.
“I’ve lent Balinsky to SG-15,” he continued. “Dr. Corrigan wanted to show him something on P7X… whatsoever. The remains of some Ancient city or whatnot. He begged to let him go, so I thought why not? He has an elderly mother who depends on him… now she’s gonna die alone, without the chance to see him one last time.”
Balinsky was SG-13’s resident archaeologist, with a good technical background, which was the reason why Calvin didn’t need to go off-world with the team on a regular basis. He was also a good-natured man, enthusiastic about his job, albeit leaning towards eccentric. If he got excited, his face became as flaming red as his hair, and his freckles were positively glowing. As little as they interacted during their daily work, Calvin had come to like him a lot and could understand Dixon’s grief. Plus, for a team as close-knit as SG-units usually were, it had to be even worse to lose a member.
“Do you think this is gonna work?” Dixon asked. The Colonel had a fairly good understanding of technology - he had a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, after all - but this level of science was beyond his ability to comprehend.
“I’m not sure,” Calvin admitted. “There are too many unknown factors, as Major Carter has said. I hope it will, though, because, frankly, we’re out of options otherwise.”
In the meantime, McKay and Carter had arrived in the Control Room, after having checked the EM pulse generator thoroughly. They seemed cautiously optimistic at best. Calvin tried to ignore the expression of doubt on Carter’s face.
“We’re ready, sir,” she told the general and took the empty seat next to Harriman.
Hammond looked at the Chief Master Sergeant. “Close the blast doors,” he ordered.
Harriman nodded and carried out his order. The EM pulse generator turned on.
Hammond turned to Carter. “Open the iris.”
Carter did as she was told, using her handprint. Her eyes were firmly set on the control screens. “Energy transfer is increasing,” she reported. “Seven times greater… eight… ten times!”
“Sometimes I just hate being right,” Petersen muttered darkly, somewhere in the background.
“Do it!” Hammond ordered Harriman.
“Activating electromagnetic pulse,” the Chief Master Sergeant replied promptly, throwing the switch.
Down in the Gate Room, the machine was whirling frantically. As the electromagnetic pulse increased, the monitors started to shut off in the Control Room. Soon they wouldn’t be able to watch what was going on at the Gate, unless…
Calvin moved closer to the outer edge of the blast door protecting the observation window, where he could at least see whether the Gate Room was still illuminated or already dark… if not much else.
“Energy transfer is increasing!” Carter reported before her monitor, too, went dark. “Sir, if this was going to work…”
Down there, in the Gate Room, some kind of lightning seemed to jump around, although Calvin could not determine its source, of course. He backed off in a hurry when the energy bolt travelled to the blast door of the Control room, cut through it effortlessly and flashed around everyone.
“That went well!” Petersen commented dryly, but his face was deathly pale, and he was sweating profoundly.
“Close the iris!” the general shouted.
Carter laid her palm on the handplate to do so, but got shocked, the wave throwing her back, together with her chair. McKay stared at her in unveiled terror. Calvin had heard them flirt, with a good deal of hostility infused into their teasing, but realized fort he first time that the eccentric Canadian might really be interested.
Well, it was apparently too late for that - like for everything else, it seemed.
Harriman was typing furiously on his still-working computer - a small miracle within all that chaos - and the iris finally closed.
“We’re offline,” he reported in obvious relief.
Someone, perhaps Sergeant Siler, bent down to Carter, checking her pulse. After a moment, he nodded.
Hammond grabbed the phone. “Medical team to the Control Room!” he barked.
Petersen looked at his team-mates. “We’re back to square one, it seems,” he said flatly. “Let’s go back to the lab and see if we can come up with anything else.”
The others nodded in agreement and followed him out, McKay’s anxious voice trailing after them.
“She is gonna wake up, isn’t she?”
For a moment, Calvin almost felt sorry for him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Once back in the lab, they repeated the calculations with the now dramatically changed parameters.
“You were right,” Petersen said to Calvin. “That little stunt cut the time left to the detonation almost in half. We’ve got twenty-five hours, tops.”
“And here I hoped to God that I was wrong,” Calvin replied dryly.
Petersen gave him a funny look. “I thought you were an atheist.”
“Nah, I’m agnostic,” Calvin replied, re-checking his numbers.
Petersen raised an eyebrow. “There’s a difference?”
“Guys,” Simpson interrupted, before they could really get into it, “don’t we have more important problems at the moment?”
“More important than the possible existence of God and an afterlife when we’re in death’s door?” Chloe Loewen deadpanned.
The somewhat morbid joke broke the tension. They laughed involuntarily and turned their attention to the very real problem at their hands.
“So… twenty-five hours left - if we’re very lucky,” Simpson repeated, to remind them to hurry up. “Any ideas how we might prevent the inevitable… or, at least, put it off for a while? Major Carter will want to consult us within half an hour, and it would be helpful if we had to offer something. Anything.”
The others re-checked the results, trying to come up with something that might help. It wasn’t an easy task, especially since they’ve been doing it for hours upon hours.
“Well,” Calvin said after a while, more than a little uncertainly, as they were now reaching the realm of rather wild speculations, “we could encase the Gate in trinium alloy. That could reduce the eventual damage by as much as forty per cent.”
“And where would you take the time for that plan?” Simpson asked.
Calvin shrugged. “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m listening.”
Simpson shook her head hopelessly.
“What if we detonated the Gate ourselves right now?” Petersen asked. “That way, we could reduce the eventual damage by as much as twenty per cent.”
“The damage to the planet’s atmosphere would still be irreversible,” Chloe reminded him. “Any survivors would be stuck on a world incapable of sustaining life as we know it.”
“So far, we’ve been unsuccessful in our attempts to come up with a solution that would save the whole planet,” Petersen countered. “If we can save at least some people, theoretically they could be evacuated later by the Asgard… or any of our spacefaring allies. There would be still a slim chance for the human race to survive.”
There was a long silence - then Calvin nodded, slowly, reluctantly.
“Better than nothing,” he admitted, knowing all too well that his family wouldn’t have the chance to be among those survivors, no matter what. But that didn’t give him, the right to reject the poor solution and take that faint chance from others. “We should go to General Hammond and make the suggestion.”
“We?” Petersen echoed. “I thought it was my idea.”
“It is,” Calvin said. “But I’m gonna tell him about the trinium alloy encasing, too. Just so that he’d have at least two choices… such as they are.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Understandably enough, General Hammond didn’t like either of the offered solutions very much. Calvin couldn’t really blame him. After all, the general had his family, including his granddaughters, in the neighbourhood, too. Getting called morons by McKay - again! - was barely more than a minor annoyance, compared with the upcoming disaster. Not that both Calvin and Petersen wouldn’t have wanted to throttle the Canadian for it. But that was another matter entirely.
That was the moment when Jonas Quinn walked into the Gate Room, drinking his tea, and began to wonder how on Earth the Air Force had managed to get the Stargate down to Sublevel 28, under the whole Cheyenne Mountain. Currently out of anything useful to do, Carter walked down to him from the Control Room and showed him how the ceiling would retract.
“Above it is a shaft that leads to the surface,” she explained, “and inside is a crane mechanism that hoistered the Gate down.”
“Interesting,” Jonas commented, and Calvin, who’d asked himself the same thing repeatedly during the last three months, agreed with him. At the same time, he was angry with himself. He was an engineer; he should have figured that out on his own.
“Could it go up, too?” Jonas asked.
Carter shrugged. “It could, but that won’t shut it off. There’s nowhere on Earth that…” she trailed off, and her eyes began to shine in excitement. Patting Jonas on the back, she ran up to the Control Room again.
Calvin could almost see a light bulb appearing over her head.
“Nowhere on Earth, eh?” he asked when she entered.
She nodded, a wide grin appearing on her face. “Exactly. All we need to do is to get it far enough from Earth.”
“Can the X-302 achieve that, without having to enter hyperspace?” Calvin asked doubtfully.
“I think so,” Carter replied. “Besides, do we have a choice?”
“See, now that’s crazy,” McKay commented.
Petersen hated to agree with his arch nemesis, but facts were facts. “We have less than twenty-four hours,” he warned.
“And we ought to use those hours well,” Carter retorted. Then she turned to Siler. “Sergeant, how long would it take to get the Gate to the surface?”
“Two hours,” Siler replied, after a moment of thinking.
“It takes four to get it to Peterson and loaded onto a C-17,” Carter was thinking loudly, “And two more to fly it to Area 51.”
“Which leaves us sixteen hours to get the whole rig airborne,” Siler added.
“And none of this is gonna happen if we’re just standing around here,” Carter said.
“You truly believe this is gonna save the planet, Major?” General Hammond asked.
Carter sighed. “This is the most promising choice, sir,” she answered. “We ought to give it a try.”
The general shook his head in amazement. “You get the most outlandish ideas sometimes, you know.”
“It wasn’t all my idea, sir,” Carter replied, glancing at Jonas with appreciation, “and I daresay it’s not done yet...”
“Right,” Hammond admitted, sobering quickly.
“Also, sir,” Carter continued, “if this works, we won’t have a Stargate anymore.”
“The thought did occur to me, Major,” Hammond replied, “but we’ll still have a planet, which, I think, is preferable. Keep me informed,” and with that, he walked out.
Carter sighed and looked at Petersen and Calvin. “He’s right, of course. Well, gentlemen, are you up to help me with some more calculations?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They used the two hours necessary for the Stargate to get to the surface to make the calculations needed for the risky maneuver. Once again, Colonel O’Neill was foreseen to fly the experimental spacecraft, and he came to the lab before leaving to get briefed.
“So, what’s there I should know?” he asked warily. “I don’t like that expression on your faces. It screams ‘disaster’ to me.”
“Well, not exactly disaster, sir,” Simpson said. “It’s rather…”
“There’s concern that the X-302 may not have the full capacity to exit the atmosphere carrying the weight of the Stargate,” Calvin interrupted. He was not one to mince his words, especially when the time was short.
O’Neill frowned. “How’s that possible?”
“The engines were designed for a craft with an alien inertial dampening system that effectionally reduced its overall mass,” Carter explained.
“Yes. And?” O’Neill was still not getting the clue.
Carter shrugged. “Well, you’ll be carrying a very heavy load, sir.”
“How heavy?” O’Neill asked.
“The Gate weighs sixty-four thousand pounds, Colonel,” Petersen told him.
O’Neill was properly impressed. “That’s heavy.”
“And you’ll need to reach an altitude exceeding one hundred and eighty kilometres…”
“…at maximum escape celoci8ty before I release the Gate, or it will fall back to Earth… I know, I know,” O’Neill interrupted impatiently. “What’s the problem?”
Petersen looked at Calvin. “Care to answer that?”
“Based on the X-302’s fuel capacity, even a full burn won’t do it, which means the other engines will have to get you partways up, hauling something that weighs six times more than it was designed to carry,” Calvin explained.
“Besides,” Carter added, “the whole rig isn’t exactly aerodynamic, and…”
“Carter,” O’Neill said warningly, “I’m not sure I want to know any of it.”
Carter shrugged again, apologetically. “We’ll be working on the lightening of the 302, but that’s why you’ll have to go alone. Believe it or not, every pound counts.”
“Damn,” O’Neill commented philosophically, “I knew I shouldn’t have had that cake.”
Carter sighed, while the other - the civilian - scientists were rolling their eyes at that typical flyboy attitude. “I wish I could go with you, sir,” she said.
“I know,” O’Neill was already on his way out,” and I find that quite bizarre. Care to help me breach the good news to the general?”
Carter hesitated for a moment, but then military discipline won over scientific curiosity, ands he jogged after him.
“All right,” Petersen said when they were gone. “Let’s see what we can do to make the X-302 lighter.
“Are you sure that’s our job to do?” Calvin asked. He had a headache and the last thing he needed was a fight about responsibilities between the respective departments.
“No,” Petersen said. “But if we leave it to Murphy and his idiotic cronies, Colonel O’Neill will never be able to take off.”
“Yeah, but will they listen to whatever we suggest?” Calvin asked doubtfully.
“Probably not,” Petersen admitted. “But at least we’ll die with a good conscience.”
“You’ve got a morbid sense of priorities, Willem,” Calvin said, and then they went to work again.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the following four hours they were working on the possible modifications - in theory - with Petersen having repeated shouting matches with Dr. Murphy on the phone, as the Area 51 guys were the ones supposed to make their ideas work. Several other gallons of coffee were consumed in the process, and Calvin was forced to go to the commissary to restock his blood sugar levels, as he still didn’t want to faint into one of his colleagues’ arms. If he had to die so prematurely, at lest he wanted to die in dignity.
The solution they’d come up was a risky one - for Colonel O’Neill before everyone else, but also for others - many others - in case something went wrong. Unfortunately, there were a great many things that could go wrong this time. They practically had to strip the X-302 naked, taking out weapons, most of the life support, the radar, some of the crash safety mechanisms, the landing gear… that last part had made Dr. Murphy decidedly unhappy.
“You will have to take it out, in order to properly accommodate the clamping system,” Petersen argued through the phone.
“Yeah, but what happens when the colonel re-enters the atmosphere?” Dr. Murphy asked. Petersen had put him on loudspeaker, so that the others could follow the discussion.
Petersen shrugged. “He’s gonna have to eject.”
“That is, after he’s targeted to splash down off the coast of Florida,” Simpson added.
“Oh, my,” Dr. Murphy sputtered. “He’s not gonna be happy about this.”
“No-one of us is happy,” Petersen retorted, his irritation growing. “But this is the best we could come up with. Now, see to it that your minions don’t mess up anything, and then - pray!” He hung, up, swearing a blue streak in his native Danish. Calvin didn’t understand a word, but Chloe seemed amused and impressed at the same time, so it must have been good. Apparently, big, bad words sounded similar enough in Swedish and Danish; if so, both must have had quite the vocabulary in that area.
Finally, Petersen calmed down and wiped his face. “We can’t do anything for the next sixteen hours or so,” he said. “We need a break anyway. Kavanagh, go home to your kids… you might not get another chance to see them.”
Calvin, although usually a workaholic, didn’t even pretend to protest. “What about the rest of you?” he asked.
“Bill Lee’s coming in,” Petersen replied tiredly. “He’ll take over for me in twenty minutes. I’ll go to one of the guest rooms and sleep for a couple of hours. They’ve drafted McKay to help them watch the readings - I don’t feel up to the challenge to share breathing space with him right now.”
“I’ll stay here, too,” Chloe said. “Better than driving across Colorado Springs. Besides, there’s no-one to wait for me at home.”
“Guest room for me, too,” Simpson said.
That left Calvin with the problem of finding a lift. He could not call Patrick to fetch him, and he doubted that they’d lend him a military-issue car if he asked nicely. Besides, asking nicely was not something he was particularly good at. Especially after not having slept for almost three days.
Looking around on the parking lot, he spotted Sergeant Bates, the XO of one of the all-Marine SG-teams, to walk towards a jeep. That had some promise.
“Sergeant,” he called out to the man, “where are you heading?”
Bates turned back, gave him a short nod of recognition, and shrugged. “Colonel O’Neill’s asked me to bring some stuff to his place.” The dark, intelligent eyes in his impassive face showed understanding. “You need a lift, Doc?” Having been the one to help the Kavanagh clan move in, he knew they lived almost next door to O’Neill.”
“I wouldn’t mind one,” Calvin admitted. “My sister has my car, and I can’t exactly ask her to fetch me from the Mountain, can I?”
“Not likely,” Bates agreed, opening the jeep’s door. “Hop in; your place lies on my way.”
They talked on the way a little to fill the time. Mostly about basketball - Bates was a devout Lakers fan, and Calvin had played in the college team during his studies - because that was a safe topic. So… normal, like all other small concerns of daily life. Discussing the most recent game could almost make them forget that there was a good chance there wouldn’t be a next one. They both refused to think of that.
“I’ll have to go back to the Mountain in eight hours’ time,” Calvin said when Bates stopped the jeep before his front gate. “When are you due back? You could eat with us… or make a call to your kid brother if you want to.”
Bates shook his head. “Thanks, Doc, but I’m still on duty… besides, what am I supposed to tell the kid? I’d just make him worry with an unexpected call.”
“But you could hear his voice one last time, in case…” Calvin trailed off.
“Which is exactly why I won’t do it,” Bates said. “It would make everything so… real, you know?”
Calvin nodded his understanding. Personally, he would have made the call, but everyone dealt with emotional stress differently. Perhaps it was a Marine thing, too.
“Thanks, for the lifts, Sergeant,” he said as he got out of the jeep. Bates just nodded and drove away.
Part 03
Author: Soledad
Fandom: Stargate - Atlantis
For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the secondary index page.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
EPISODE 01 - REDEMPTION, Part 2
Author’s note:
Again, while I understand that the show needed to focus on the main characters primarily, I found it a little unlikely that everybody but Carter and McKay would have been an incompetent idiot. So I allowed some of the others to have useful thoughts, too, giving the lines of the nameless extra scientists to those who’ll appear later on either SG-1 or Atlantis.
For the record: Chloe, whom I gave the surname Dr. Loewen, appeared in the SG-1 episode Avenger 2, while Petersen, Simpson and, of course, Kavanagh are SGA characters.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They reached the Gate Room just in time to see the holographic image of a cloaked and hooded figure coming through the Stargate, not the least hindered by the closed iris. It would have looked ridiculous, in a cheesy supervillain way, like the Big Bad from some second-grade comic or B-movie - had it not been for his face.
Or to be more accurate, for the lack thereof. For the figure had no face at all. Under his hood, there was nothing but swirling darkness. At the sight of which Calvin Thomas Kavanagh, long-time agnostic and sceptical to the bone, he who’d belligerently rejected the Reverend’s preaching about everlasting darkness and damnation, for the first time in his life got a clue what pure evil might be like.
Of course, he knew that it was just a holographic projection. He was a scientist, and a damn good one. It was the holographic projection of some megalomaniac Goa’uld with a real fleur for the dramatic as McKay had put it. Very theatrical with all that “You will bow to my awesome power!’ and ‘Prepare to meet your doom!’ kind of stuff.
But there was no denying the sheer malevolence of his intentions… or the fact that by the rate the Stargate was building up energy, they only had fifty-four hours left, at best. Whoever this Anubis character was, he apparently had the means to make his threats true. McKay’s mocking didn’t change that part of the equation a bit.
Calvin felt light-headed, suddenly remembering that he’d been called in without proper breakfast and hadn’t eaten a thing since coffee break, which was about four hours earlier. Hurriedly, he tore open the small package in his pocket and slipped two glucose pills into his mouth… then added another one for good measure. Fainting from the sudden drop of blood sugar levels would have been mortally embarrassing - especially in front of McKay, of all people.
His thoughts cleaning up due to the sugar infusion, he realized that Petersen was arguing with Carter about something.
“Remember, Major, when the Gate was connected to the black hole, through the other Gate on P3W-451, a shaped charge was used to disengage the wormhole. We could try the same method to…”
“No, we can’t,” Calvin interrupted, understanding what his colleague was talking about. “That was an outgoing wormhole, Willem.”
“True,” Petersen admitted, “but if we modify the…”
“No,” Calvin repeated, a little more forcefully, because Petersen was grasping at straws, and that was a dangerous attitude for a scientist during a crisis. “The blast would detonate the Gate.”
Carter and McKay, who’d become aware of the discussion, shook their heads in unison. Then, all of a sudden, McKay perked up. “Wait a minute…”
Petersen glared daggers at him. “I’m not talking to you, McKay! If you’d just let me finish…”
McKay waved dismissively and walked over tot the observation window to look down at the Stargate.
“No, you’re both horribly wrong, both of you,” he said in a distracted manner. “But you gave me an idea.”
“Oh, blast,” Petersen commented, dripping with sarcasm. “I’m so honoured! I’m gonna tell my great-grandchildren about the glorious day when I managed to give the great Rodney McKay and idea by being wrong.”
Calvin couldn’t quite suppress a guffaw, and even Carter smiled to herself. McKay ignored them, as usual when his brain kicked to high gear. He was thinking aloud.
“We know that certain waves can travel in both directions through a wormhole, right?” he said. “Radio signals, for one.”
“So what?” Carter asked a little impatiently. “We call Anubis and ask him to stop?”
“Yeah, that would work,” Petersen commented. “Because Goa’uld, especially ones with unlimited energy sources, are so charming, understanding guys.”
McKay gave him an irritated look. “You’re so not helping!”
“And you haven’t suggested anything potentially useful, so far,” Petersen countered. “Do you have an idea that might work or not?”
“As a matter of fact - yes, I do,” McKay replied. “We could send a massive EM pulse through the wormhole and knock out whatever power source this Goa’uld might have on the other end.”
General Hammond looked at Carter doubtfully. “Will that work?”
“No,” Petersen replied promptly in Carter’s stead.
“Perhaps,” Calvin and Simpson said in unison. Chloe shrugged noncommittally.
“Carter turned to her CO. “Sir, I already thought of it, and the reason I didn’t mention it is because it would be too problematic.”
“More so than the Gate exploding?” McKay inquired sarcastically. Hammond gave him a warning look.
“Problematic in what way?” he asked.
“The iris would have to be opened,” Petersen said.
“So what?” McKay asked impatiently. “The Gate Room is shielded, isn’t it?”
“Have you taken a look at the readings, McKay?” Petersen countered in exasperation. “Do you have any idea how long the shielding would be able to withstand the energy flow if we open the iris?”
“Or how much EM would be required to knock the energy source out, whatever it is?” Carter added.
Hammond frowned. “So, are you saying that this absolutely couldn’t work?” he tried to clarify things.
“No, sir,” Carter replied, with visible effort to stay calm. “What I’m saying is that there are too many unknown factors to risk whatever protection we still have.”
“Great,” McKay commented with biting sarcasm. “So, let’s just all go home and wait for the inevitable.”
The glare Carter gave him would have made a platoon of Marines tremble with fear. It completely failed to impress McKay, though.
General Hammond looked from one scientist to another in very obvious frustration. Finally, the urge to do something won over other considerations, and he turned to McKay. “How long will it take to set up?”
McKay thought for a moment. “Four hours, tops,” he finally answered; then, looking at Petersen’s team, he added. “That is, if these morons are willing to help me with the calculations. I’m a genius, but I’m not a computer, you know.”
“Four hours,” Hammond repeated. Then, looking at Carter, he added. “That is exactly how long you have to come up with something else, Major.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The next couple of hours were spent with feverish activity in the shared lab of doctors Petersen, Kavanagh and Loewen, with the assistance of Dr. Simpson. Carter and McKay were doing their own calculations, just to make sure they’d taken every possible aspect under consideration. There was no margin for even the slightest error left, so everyone was concentrating like never before in their lives.
Several gallons of coffee later, Calvin’s iron reserves of glucose pills were exhausted, the floor under McKay’s chair was littered with power bar package foils, and the results… well, the results were not promising.
“Just what I feared,” Petersen sighed. “Opening the iris will increase the flow of energy to the Gate by at least ten times.”
“Ouch!” O’Neill, who’d walked in some ten minutes earlier to see how they were doing, muttered. “That’s… not good, I guess?”
“No, sir,” Carter replied grimly. “It’s not good at all.”
“It means, if McKay’s idea doesn’t work, we’ll be cutting as much as half the remaining time before the Gate detonates,” Calvin added.
“You don’t think this could work, either?” O’Neill asked.
Calvin shrugged. “Honestly? I can’t tell. I’m only pointing out the possible consequences in case it won’t.”
“Do you have any better ideas?” O’Neill asked.
“No,” Calvin replied. “Which is the reason why I’m helping him at all. As you know, I have personal reasons to oppose the levelling of Colorado.”
O’Neill nodded. “Do your best,” he said on his way out. “And hurry up!”
“Yeah,” Petersen told his back nastily. “Because we’ve been scratching our lazy asses here all the time.”
“Don’t start doing so now, then!” Simpson retorted, without looking up from her computer screen. “We’ve got a planet to save, in case you’ve forgotten.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Just a little over four hours after McKay had suggested the desperate plan, Technical Sergeant Siler and his people were placing the EM pulse generator on the ramp leading to the Stargate, measuring the correct distance with a tape measure and turning the fairly futuristic-looking device into the right position. Above them, the Control Room was becoming fairly crowded with not only the Gate technicians on duty present, but also the scientists who’d been working on the problem, and also the leaders of those SG-units that weren’t off-world at the time.
One of those few was Colonel Dave Dixon, to whose unit Calvin nominally belonged - although he hadn’t taken part on any off-world missions yet, and if things kept going as they were at the moment, he wouldn’t likely have the chance to do so, ever. A big, balding man in his late thirties, Dixon wasn’t easy to panic, as a rule. Right now, however, he looked slightly green around the gills.
“I don’t know what’s worse,” he murmured in a low voice only Calvin could hear. “Being stuck off-world, with no idea what’s gone wrong back home… or being stuck here, knowing that you can’t do a thing to save your family.”
Calvin nodded in mute understanding. As much as Dixon might complain sometimes about his chaotic home, he loved his kids very much; and as a soldier used to act, being totally helpless must have bothered him twice as much as it would bother a civilian.
“I’ve lent Balinsky to SG-15,” he continued. “Dr. Corrigan wanted to show him something on P7X… whatsoever. The remains of some Ancient city or whatnot. He begged to let him go, so I thought why not? He has an elderly mother who depends on him… now she’s gonna die alone, without the chance to see him one last time.”
Balinsky was SG-13’s resident archaeologist, with a good technical background, which was the reason why Calvin didn’t need to go off-world with the team on a regular basis. He was also a good-natured man, enthusiastic about his job, albeit leaning towards eccentric. If he got excited, his face became as flaming red as his hair, and his freckles were positively glowing. As little as they interacted during their daily work, Calvin had come to like him a lot and could understand Dixon’s grief. Plus, for a team as close-knit as SG-units usually were, it had to be even worse to lose a member.
“Do you think this is gonna work?” Dixon asked. The Colonel had a fairly good understanding of technology - he had a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering, after all - but this level of science was beyond his ability to comprehend.
“I’m not sure,” Calvin admitted. “There are too many unknown factors, as Major Carter has said. I hope it will, though, because, frankly, we’re out of options otherwise.”
In the meantime, McKay and Carter had arrived in the Control Room, after having checked the EM pulse generator thoroughly. They seemed cautiously optimistic at best. Calvin tried to ignore the expression of doubt on Carter’s face.
“We’re ready, sir,” she told the general and took the empty seat next to Harriman.
Hammond looked at the Chief Master Sergeant. “Close the blast doors,” he ordered.
Harriman nodded and carried out his order. The EM pulse generator turned on.
Hammond turned to Carter. “Open the iris.”
Carter did as she was told, using her handprint. Her eyes were firmly set on the control screens. “Energy transfer is increasing,” she reported. “Seven times greater… eight… ten times!”
“Sometimes I just hate being right,” Petersen muttered darkly, somewhere in the background.
“Do it!” Hammond ordered Harriman.
“Activating electromagnetic pulse,” the Chief Master Sergeant replied promptly, throwing the switch.
Down in the Gate Room, the machine was whirling frantically. As the electromagnetic pulse increased, the monitors started to shut off in the Control Room. Soon they wouldn’t be able to watch what was going on at the Gate, unless…
Calvin moved closer to the outer edge of the blast door protecting the observation window, where he could at least see whether the Gate Room was still illuminated or already dark… if not much else.
“Energy transfer is increasing!” Carter reported before her monitor, too, went dark. “Sir, if this was going to work…”
Down there, in the Gate Room, some kind of lightning seemed to jump around, although Calvin could not determine its source, of course. He backed off in a hurry when the energy bolt travelled to the blast door of the Control room, cut through it effortlessly and flashed around everyone.
“That went well!” Petersen commented dryly, but his face was deathly pale, and he was sweating profoundly.
“Close the iris!” the general shouted.
Carter laid her palm on the handplate to do so, but got shocked, the wave throwing her back, together with her chair. McKay stared at her in unveiled terror. Calvin had heard them flirt, with a good deal of hostility infused into their teasing, but realized fort he first time that the eccentric Canadian might really be interested.
Well, it was apparently too late for that - like for everything else, it seemed.
Harriman was typing furiously on his still-working computer - a small miracle within all that chaos - and the iris finally closed.
“We’re offline,” he reported in obvious relief.
Someone, perhaps Sergeant Siler, bent down to Carter, checking her pulse. After a moment, he nodded.
Hammond grabbed the phone. “Medical team to the Control Room!” he barked.
Petersen looked at his team-mates. “We’re back to square one, it seems,” he said flatly. “Let’s go back to the lab and see if we can come up with anything else.”
The others nodded in agreement and followed him out, McKay’s anxious voice trailing after them.
“She is gonna wake up, isn’t she?”
For a moment, Calvin almost felt sorry for him.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Once back in the lab, they repeated the calculations with the now dramatically changed parameters.
“You were right,” Petersen said to Calvin. “That little stunt cut the time left to the detonation almost in half. We’ve got twenty-five hours, tops.”
“And here I hoped to God that I was wrong,” Calvin replied dryly.
Petersen gave him a funny look. “I thought you were an atheist.”
“Nah, I’m agnostic,” Calvin replied, re-checking his numbers.
Petersen raised an eyebrow. “There’s a difference?”
“Guys,” Simpson interrupted, before they could really get into it, “don’t we have more important problems at the moment?”
“More important than the possible existence of God and an afterlife when we’re in death’s door?” Chloe Loewen deadpanned.
The somewhat morbid joke broke the tension. They laughed involuntarily and turned their attention to the very real problem at their hands.
“So… twenty-five hours left - if we’re very lucky,” Simpson repeated, to remind them to hurry up. “Any ideas how we might prevent the inevitable… or, at least, put it off for a while? Major Carter will want to consult us within half an hour, and it would be helpful if we had to offer something. Anything.”
The others re-checked the results, trying to come up with something that might help. It wasn’t an easy task, especially since they’ve been doing it for hours upon hours.
“Well,” Calvin said after a while, more than a little uncertainly, as they were now reaching the realm of rather wild speculations, “we could encase the Gate in trinium alloy. That could reduce the eventual damage by as much as forty per cent.”
“And where would you take the time for that plan?” Simpson asked.
Calvin shrugged. “If you’ve got a better idea, I’m listening.”
Simpson shook her head hopelessly.
“What if we detonated the Gate ourselves right now?” Petersen asked. “That way, we could reduce the eventual damage by as much as twenty per cent.”
“The damage to the planet’s atmosphere would still be irreversible,” Chloe reminded him. “Any survivors would be stuck on a world incapable of sustaining life as we know it.”
“So far, we’ve been unsuccessful in our attempts to come up with a solution that would save the whole planet,” Petersen countered. “If we can save at least some people, theoretically they could be evacuated later by the Asgard… or any of our spacefaring allies. There would be still a slim chance for the human race to survive.”
There was a long silence - then Calvin nodded, slowly, reluctantly.
“Better than nothing,” he admitted, knowing all too well that his family wouldn’t have the chance to be among those survivors, no matter what. But that didn’t give him, the right to reject the poor solution and take that faint chance from others. “We should go to General Hammond and make the suggestion.”
“We?” Petersen echoed. “I thought it was my idea.”
“It is,” Calvin said. “But I’m gonna tell him about the trinium alloy encasing, too. Just so that he’d have at least two choices… such as they are.”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Understandably enough, General Hammond didn’t like either of the offered solutions very much. Calvin couldn’t really blame him. After all, the general had his family, including his granddaughters, in the neighbourhood, too. Getting called morons by McKay - again! - was barely more than a minor annoyance, compared with the upcoming disaster. Not that both Calvin and Petersen wouldn’t have wanted to throttle the Canadian for it. But that was another matter entirely.
That was the moment when Jonas Quinn walked into the Gate Room, drinking his tea, and began to wonder how on Earth the Air Force had managed to get the Stargate down to Sublevel 28, under the whole Cheyenne Mountain. Currently out of anything useful to do, Carter walked down to him from the Control Room and showed him how the ceiling would retract.
“Above it is a shaft that leads to the surface,” she explained, “and inside is a crane mechanism that hoistered the Gate down.”
“Interesting,” Jonas commented, and Calvin, who’d asked himself the same thing repeatedly during the last three months, agreed with him. At the same time, he was angry with himself. He was an engineer; he should have figured that out on his own.
“Could it go up, too?” Jonas asked.
Carter shrugged. “It could, but that won’t shut it off. There’s nowhere on Earth that…” she trailed off, and her eyes began to shine in excitement. Patting Jonas on the back, she ran up to the Control Room again.
Calvin could almost see a light bulb appearing over her head.
“Nowhere on Earth, eh?” he asked when she entered.
She nodded, a wide grin appearing on her face. “Exactly. All we need to do is to get it far enough from Earth.”
“Can the X-302 achieve that, without having to enter hyperspace?” Calvin asked doubtfully.
“I think so,” Carter replied. “Besides, do we have a choice?”
“See, now that’s crazy,” McKay commented.
Petersen hated to agree with his arch nemesis, but facts were facts. “We have less than twenty-four hours,” he warned.
“And we ought to use those hours well,” Carter retorted. Then she turned to Siler. “Sergeant, how long would it take to get the Gate to the surface?”
“Two hours,” Siler replied, after a moment of thinking.
“It takes four to get it to Peterson and loaded onto a C-17,” Carter was thinking loudly, “And two more to fly it to Area 51.”
“Which leaves us sixteen hours to get the whole rig airborne,” Siler added.
“And none of this is gonna happen if we’re just standing around here,” Carter said.
“You truly believe this is gonna save the planet, Major?” General Hammond asked.
Carter sighed. “This is the most promising choice, sir,” she answered. “We ought to give it a try.”
The general shook his head in amazement. “You get the most outlandish ideas sometimes, you know.”
“It wasn’t all my idea, sir,” Carter replied, glancing at Jonas with appreciation, “and I daresay it’s not done yet...”
“Right,” Hammond admitted, sobering quickly.
“Also, sir,” Carter continued, “if this works, we won’t have a Stargate anymore.”
“The thought did occur to me, Major,” Hammond replied, “but we’ll still have a planet, which, I think, is preferable. Keep me informed,” and with that, he walked out.
Carter sighed and looked at Petersen and Calvin. “He’s right, of course. Well, gentlemen, are you up to help me with some more calculations?”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
They used the two hours necessary for the Stargate to get to the surface to make the calculations needed for the risky maneuver. Once again, Colonel O’Neill was foreseen to fly the experimental spacecraft, and he came to the lab before leaving to get briefed.
“So, what’s there I should know?” he asked warily. “I don’t like that expression on your faces. It screams ‘disaster’ to me.”
“Well, not exactly disaster, sir,” Simpson said. “It’s rather…”
“There’s concern that the X-302 may not have the full capacity to exit the atmosphere carrying the weight of the Stargate,” Calvin interrupted. He was not one to mince his words, especially when the time was short.
O’Neill frowned. “How’s that possible?”
“The engines were designed for a craft with an alien inertial dampening system that effectionally reduced its overall mass,” Carter explained.
“Yes. And?” O’Neill was still not getting the clue.
Carter shrugged. “Well, you’ll be carrying a very heavy load, sir.”
“How heavy?” O’Neill asked.
“The Gate weighs sixty-four thousand pounds, Colonel,” Petersen told him.
O’Neill was properly impressed. “That’s heavy.”
“And you’ll need to reach an altitude exceeding one hundred and eighty kilometres…”
“…at maximum escape celoci8ty before I release the Gate, or it will fall back to Earth… I know, I know,” O’Neill interrupted impatiently. “What’s the problem?”
Petersen looked at Calvin. “Care to answer that?”
“Based on the X-302’s fuel capacity, even a full burn won’t do it, which means the other engines will have to get you partways up, hauling something that weighs six times more than it was designed to carry,” Calvin explained.
“Besides,” Carter added, “the whole rig isn’t exactly aerodynamic, and…”
“Carter,” O’Neill said warningly, “I’m not sure I want to know any of it.”
Carter shrugged again, apologetically. “We’ll be working on the lightening of the 302, but that’s why you’ll have to go alone. Believe it or not, every pound counts.”
“Damn,” O’Neill commented philosophically, “I knew I shouldn’t have had that cake.”
Carter sighed, while the other - the civilian - scientists were rolling their eyes at that typical flyboy attitude. “I wish I could go with you, sir,” she said.
“I know,” O’Neill was already on his way out,” and I find that quite bizarre. Care to help me breach the good news to the general?”
Carter hesitated for a moment, but then military discipline won over scientific curiosity, ands he jogged after him.
“All right,” Petersen said when they were gone. “Let’s see what we can do to make the X-302 lighter.
“Are you sure that’s our job to do?” Calvin asked. He had a headache and the last thing he needed was a fight about responsibilities between the respective departments.
“No,” Petersen said. “But if we leave it to Murphy and his idiotic cronies, Colonel O’Neill will never be able to take off.”
“Yeah, but will they listen to whatever we suggest?” Calvin asked doubtfully.
“Probably not,” Petersen admitted. “But at least we’ll die with a good conscience.”
“You’ve got a morbid sense of priorities, Willem,” Calvin said, and then they went to work again.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In the following four hours they were working on the possible modifications - in theory - with Petersen having repeated shouting matches with Dr. Murphy on the phone, as the Area 51 guys were the ones supposed to make their ideas work. Several other gallons of coffee were consumed in the process, and Calvin was forced to go to the commissary to restock his blood sugar levels, as he still didn’t want to faint into one of his colleagues’ arms. If he had to die so prematurely, at lest he wanted to die in dignity.
The solution they’d come up was a risky one - for Colonel O’Neill before everyone else, but also for others - many others - in case something went wrong. Unfortunately, there were a great many things that could go wrong this time. They practically had to strip the X-302 naked, taking out weapons, most of the life support, the radar, some of the crash safety mechanisms, the landing gear… that last part had made Dr. Murphy decidedly unhappy.
“You will have to take it out, in order to properly accommodate the clamping system,” Petersen argued through the phone.
“Yeah, but what happens when the colonel re-enters the atmosphere?” Dr. Murphy asked. Petersen had put him on loudspeaker, so that the others could follow the discussion.
Petersen shrugged. “He’s gonna have to eject.”
“That is, after he’s targeted to splash down off the coast of Florida,” Simpson added.
“Oh, my,” Dr. Murphy sputtered. “He’s not gonna be happy about this.”
“No-one of us is happy,” Petersen retorted, his irritation growing. “But this is the best we could come up with. Now, see to it that your minions don’t mess up anything, and then - pray!” He hung, up, swearing a blue streak in his native Danish. Calvin didn’t understand a word, but Chloe seemed amused and impressed at the same time, so it must have been good. Apparently, big, bad words sounded similar enough in Swedish and Danish; if so, both must have had quite the vocabulary in that area.
Finally, Petersen calmed down and wiped his face. “We can’t do anything for the next sixteen hours or so,” he said. “We need a break anyway. Kavanagh, go home to your kids… you might not get another chance to see them.”
Calvin, although usually a workaholic, didn’t even pretend to protest. “What about the rest of you?” he asked.
“Bill Lee’s coming in,” Petersen replied tiredly. “He’ll take over for me in twenty minutes. I’ll go to one of the guest rooms and sleep for a couple of hours. They’ve drafted McKay to help them watch the readings - I don’t feel up to the challenge to share breathing space with him right now.”
“I’ll stay here, too,” Chloe said. “Better than driving across Colorado Springs. Besides, there’s no-one to wait for me at home.”
“Guest room for me, too,” Simpson said.
That left Calvin with the problem of finding a lift. He could not call Patrick to fetch him, and he doubted that they’d lend him a military-issue car if he asked nicely. Besides, asking nicely was not something he was particularly good at. Especially after not having slept for almost three days.
Looking around on the parking lot, he spotted Sergeant Bates, the XO of one of the all-Marine SG-teams, to walk towards a jeep. That had some promise.
“Sergeant,” he called out to the man, “where are you heading?”
Bates turned back, gave him a short nod of recognition, and shrugged. “Colonel O’Neill’s asked me to bring some stuff to his place.” The dark, intelligent eyes in his impassive face showed understanding. “You need a lift, Doc?” Having been the one to help the Kavanagh clan move in, he knew they lived almost next door to O’Neill.”
“I wouldn’t mind one,” Calvin admitted. “My sister has my car, and I can’t exactly ask her to fetch me from the Mountain, can I?”
“Not likely,” Bates agreed, opening the jeep’s door. “Hop in; your place lies on my way.”
They talked on the way a little to fill the time. Mostly about basketball - Bates was a devout Lakers fan, and Calvin had played in the college team during his studies - because that was a safe topic. So… normal, like all other small concerns of daily life. Discussing the most recent game could almost make them forget that there was a good chance there wouldn’t be a next one. They both refused to think of that.
“I’ll have to go back to the Mountain in eight hours’ time,” Calvin said when Bates stopped the jeep before his front gate. “When are you due back? You could eat with us… or make a call to your kid brother if you want to.”
Bates shook his head. “Thanks, Doc, but I’m still on duty… besides, what am I supposed to tell the kid? I’d just make him worry with an unexpected call.”
“But you could hear his voice one last time, in case…” Calvin trailed off.
“Which is exactly why I won’t do it,” Bates said. “It would make everything so… real, you know?”
Calvin nodded his understanding. Personally, he would have made the call, but everyone dealt with emotional stress differently. Perhaps it was a Marine thing, too.
“Thanks, for the lifts, Sergeant,” he said as he got out of the jeep. Bates just nodded and drove away.
Part 03