Under the Silent Stars - Chapter 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, Atlantis or Universe, I am only playing in the world.
Previously: Ch 1
Under the Silent Stars - Chapter 2
Selenis, Luna, July 2010
Sam looked over the balcony's railing from where she was standing by a console, interfacing her laptop into it, down towards the boys in front of the Stargate. She gritted her teeth slightly in annoyance. She loathed them. She really, really did. Vala lay a hand on her shoulder and she glanced over at her friend, her lips drawn thin. Seeing Vala's concerned look she closed her eyes and sighed. She gave a small smile and nodded, leaning forward and touching her mask to her friend's in gratitude. She looked over to Cameron and Daniel and walked down the stairs and across the smooth black tiled floor towards them with Vala looping an arm through hers. It wasn't their fault. Once they found out the base responded to spoken commands Daniel was all over it, he didn't have the ability to neurally interface with the base, but verbal communication was one of his strengths. Cam joined in, in part, Sam believed, to annoy Daniel. It really did annoy him that Cam spoke Alteran almost as well as he did, and knowing the base considered the fly boy as the senior member of their party thanks to his gene therapy only made things worse, but they'd been yammering on in Ancient for half an hour already and Sam had had enough.
"Can one of you please help me set up the translation interface? Some of us can't speak Ancient, and Selenis can't speak English." she groused, crossing her arms across her chest.
"I don't mind, but Samantha was about to start shooting at you. I quite like to listen to the two of you having so much fun." Vala smiled brightly, though it faltered at the look Sam gave her. "Oh, be honest, Samantha, you'd love to be able to do what they're doing." She hated to admit it, but it was mostly true. She groaned in frustration.
"Sam, you know we'll teach you whenever you want." Daniel offered with a small smile which just made her hate him at that moment.
"You guys don't get it! I'm horrible with languages!" she cried. "They were always my worst subject. Dad always used to tease me, saying I was lucky to learn English when I did because whatever made me a prodigy at everything, obviously made it so my brain wouldn't accept new languages." She sighed after letting it all out in a frustrated stream of babble.
"What are you talking about, Sam?" Cam came to stand closer to her and laid a hand on her shoulder, she looked into his eyes and saw his confusion. "You can speak Goa'uld just fine, and Jackson says that's a more difficult language to learn than Alteran." She raised a hand to brush her fingers on the back of his on her shoulder. She enjoyed that particular form of contact they often shared now.
"Only because of Jolinar." Sam stared off into the distance for a moment before returning her gaze to Cam. "When we were blended I gained access to a lot of the technical and linguistic knowledge she possessed. It helped me master Goa'uld technology and has stood me in good stead since with other advanced tech." She watched as Teal'c came to join the conversation at the mention of the fallen Tok'ra agent. "I also gained near fluency in Goa'uld, though there were huge gaps in the knowledge, gaps Teal'c had to help me fill."
"It took many years as I recall, Colonel Carter." the Jaffa warrior put in and Sam nodded gratefully at her friend.
"I still don't understand why Selenis has no translation facilities the way Atlantis does." Sam grumbled. They all glanced up as the base's distinctive lilt filled the 'gateroom.
"Selenis says it's because it's Ancient database is incomplete." Daniel translated. "Only data necessary during construction was available on-site, mostly engineering and medical sources. Certainly very few convenience functions such as automatic translation." Sam's mouth gaped open slightly in confusion.
"How did it understand what I said?" She glanced between Cam and Daniel while Selenis responded with a very long winded dissertation. Both men looked at each other for a moment.
"It's using me as a universal translator." Cam shrugged as Sam narrowed her eyes in disbelief. Daniel smirked ruefully before launching into a more detailed explanation.
"Selenis is able to use its neural interface with Cam, and the language centers of his brain, to understand the concepts of what you say as he hears and understands them." He shrugged. "Essentially his brain automatically translates what you say into Alteran so Selenis can understand it."
"Universal Translator." Cam crossed his arms and gave Daniel a look. The linguist just glared back.
"So it only works while Cam is in Selenis and a neural connection can be made." Sam posited and Daniel nodded. "Doesn't help us that much."
"Well, Jackson and I were discussing something earlier we thought might help you and those-" Cam started, but Daniel finished.
"The stubbornly mono-lingual." He was smiling in a very annoying way and Sam glared at him. Cam gave him a bit of a look as well before looking back at Sam.
"We've been working with the team creating courses with the Galaran memory device." When he mentioned the Galaran technology his eyes seemed to cloud over for an instant and Sam closed her hand over his lightly. Daniel took over after noticing the pause.
"We've already done a lot of work on a course for Alteran." he supplied. "It would give us a way to train new technical personnel in the language. And it would be very quick, at least to impart the knowledge. The way language works would necessitate some, I suppose you could call them, practical sessions." Daniel shrugged. "Listening to a fluent speaker to train your brain, so to speak." Sam was looking between the two of them with narrowed eyes.
"That would work for me too?" she asked at last.
"Don't see why not. I mean even Cam managed to learn Ancient the old-fashioned way, so it can't be that hard." Daniel said matter-of-factly to Cam's glare.
"Colonel Mitchell has demonstrated keen language skills in the past, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c pointed out with a small smile.
"That's right." confirmed Sam. "He picked up some conversational Arabic while we served in the Gulf in '91. Oh, and he spoke Mandarin with Shen Xaoyi, China's IOA rep. She was surprised by that."
"We were all surprised by that." Daniel said through a smile.
"Hey, I'll have you know I learned Mandarin, Japanese and enough Korean to allow me to properly order food while I was stationed in the Far East after Gulf War One." Cam had crossed his arms over his chest as he spoke of his accomplishments with pride. Sam smiled and rubbed his lower back as she stood next to him. He turned to look at Sam. "Watched a lot of TV while I was there."
"Did you learn watching those crazy endurance shows they have?" Daniel stifled a grin. Vala snapped her fingers.
"I've seen those! I thought it was rather barbaric to find the Tau'ri broadcasting torture sessions, until Sergeant Siler explained to me it wasn't torture at all." Vala's eyes lost their focus for a moment. "I'm still not sure I believe him. Some of the things I saw were very disturbing." She shuddered lightly and Sam patted her arm. "Why would anyone do those things unless under dire threat of something worse?"
"We don't disagree with you, Vala." Cam consoled her. "No, I didn't watch those, I watched... other stuff." Sam turned her head and looked at him appraisingly. She smiled knowingly and chuckled, which caused Cam's head to whip around to face her. He stared at her for several moments and Sam's breath hitched and her eyes widened slightly. She recovered quickly, trying not to give anything away, but it was too late. His eyes darted back and forth between hers and then roved over her features for several moments and she knew she was done for, so she simply quirked her eyebrow and smiled. He started shaking his head and wagging a finger in front of her face and even Teal'c was looking at him askance.
"Oh, no! Nuh-uh! No, Sam!" His lips drew into a hard line and his jaw clenched for a moment. "I don't believe it." He stared at her sternly. "You and I are gonna sit down and have a very serious talk about what's acceptable and what isn't in our relationship." She simply smirked at him. She could tell the others were getting worried. Vala came to stand beside them and tried to speak in the space between their masks.
"Um, could one of you clue in the rest of us who aren't able to tap into the Sam 'n' Cam telepathic network?" She was genuinely concerned and Sam turned to look at her with a smile, trying to indicate everything was okay. She turned back to Cam and she could see the disappointment in his eyes. She sighed and met his gaze forcefully, crossing her arms across her chest. This was a conversation they could not put off now.
"I'm sorry, Cameron, it's true." She tilted her head in expectation of his reaction to her admission. Cam's lips tightened into a thin line and his gaze became steely. He brought up his hand, a finger pointing up in warning before he shook it loose and pointed it at her with his jaw clenched. Vala was looking between both of them in great confusion and worry. "It was before I ever met you, Cam."
"We met in McLean in '78, remember?" he cried, his voice barely concealing his pain. She sighed and reached for him only to have him lean away from her. She narrowed her eyes at the move.
"And you forgot my name, remember that?" Her tone was somewhat hard-edged and he reeled as if struck.
"I was eight! You introduced yourself as Samantha! Girls were an alien species still. I never remembered girls' names. If you had introduced yourself as Sam-" He was trying to defend himself, but she wouldn't let him just rationalise it away.
"You would have remembered me as the girl with a boy's name." She tilted her head and regarded him coolly for a few moments until his shoulders slumped, she reached for him again and lay her hand on his shoulder. "As fondly as I now hold the memories of that day, I still count the Academy as when we truly met each other." He looked at her and this time his eyes were shadowed with confusion.
"But Sam... Seriously?" She nodded and he looked away for a moment. Soon enough Cam squared his shoulders once more to face her, his eyes hard. "You realise what this means, don't you?" She nodded. There was no getting around it.
"Yes, and I'm prepared to accept that." she replied, holding his gaze until he nodded himself.
"What? What does it mean?" cried Vala, nearly in a panic. Daniel and Teal'c were similarly confused and worried, unable to fathom what was happening between their two friends.
"It means Cam and I have some movie nights to plan." Sam grinned as Cam shook his head with a wry smile and let his fingers brush her facemask over her cheek. Vala and Daniel looked between them in bewilderment. Teal'c merely nodded and walked away.
"What just happened?" asked the raven-haired former thief and Sam took pity on her, walking over to hug her friend who accepted it in her confusion. Just then the base's feminine voice piped up in Ancient and Cam and Daniel tilted their heads up then looked at each other as their eyes lit up. Sam really was going to have to learn Ancient.
"Communications have been restored." Daniel enlightened them and Sam grinned, heading up to the balcony to the left of the gate which seemed to house all the facility's controls. The opposite side seemed dedicated to the 'gate systems and probably ship and traffic control. There was some overlap in the systems, but there seemed to be a clear distinction between the set-up of both balconies. Cam joined her by the communications station and entered a command sequence. Sam grabbed her laptop and brought up some information for him which he used before keying in a final sequence and lifting a hand to the comm in his ear.
"Stargate Command, this is Mitchell, come in." Cam looked at her with a smile and they all waited for a few moments before a static pop was heard over the comm.
"Colonel Mitchell!" Chief Master Sergeant Harriman's surprised voice held an edge of worry which wasn't lost on either of the Air Force officers. "The General will be here shortly, sir."
"Thank you, Walter." replied Sam. It took several more seconds, but eventually they got the boss.
"SG-1, this is Stargate Command, it's good to hear from you." came Landry's gruff voice, sounding relieved and somewhat strained. She eyed Cam in alarm and he looked at her again showing he hadn't missed it.
"We bid you greetings from Selenis, General Landry." Cam tried to sound enthusiastic while he gave a very brief report. Sam was sure the General would let them get that much out of the way before springing on them what was concerning him so much. "We're not fully set up, but we have power thanks to some old batteries the builders left lying on a shelf. The 'gate room is on its way to fully optimal life support and the rest of the facility will follow afterwards. This place is a monster, sir, but one that's willing to let us check its fangs." It was true, Selenis had readily accepted them all as entitled to being there, and Cam himself as being in charge.
"That's great news, Mitchell, though I'm not really sure where I'll find the funds in my budget for yet another new base discovered by SG-1. I'm sure we'll manage." Landry was also trying to be enthusiastic. "You'll have to cut your visit short though, and go back at another time. General O'Neill needs you all at Homeworld Command. A situation's come up concerning Destiny." Sam's eyes widened. What could possibly have happened in the last two hours? She signalled Teal'c and Daniel and Vala and they all rushed off to grab any gear that they couldn't leave lying about. She was surprised to see a panel open in the console by her hand and a small device slide up. Cam nodded his head towards it and she grabbed it, looking over it.
"Understood, sir. SG-1 will be ready for transport in five." He pointed at the device and indicated she should tuck it away somewhere safe and she slipped it into her jacket. "We'll signal Odyssey with our beacon. I advise against sending any other teams here until we can debrief, General. This facility will automatically raise a shield over the 'gate now that there's power. We have a remote which will send a signal to lower it."
"Copy that, SG-1, Landry out." They looked over the balcony and spotted everyone stowing gear out of the way and gathering up equipment they might need to take with them. Sam laid a hand on Cameron's arm as a sudden thought struck her.
"Cam, we need to disable the DHD or this 'gate will override the one at the SGC." She sighed at his confused look. "DHDs in close proximity negotiate with each other for precedence when an incoming connection is detected. Since we have no DHD at the SGC..." She tilted her head and smiled ruefully.
"Right, well we can do that... can't we?" He tilted his head up as Selenis' voice cut in with a reply. "We can, not from here though." She followed him down the stairs and behind the 'gate to the opposite balcony. "Alright folks, we're heading out, everyone have all their stuff? All the lights off? Did someone check the oven?" Everyone confirmed they were ready and Cam turned to Sam and leaned his facemask against hers, speaking softly so only vibrations carried the sound between them as he worked at a console which looked to Sam like a larger version of Atlantis' DHD.
"Really, Sam?" He looked at her in disappointment, she shrugged slightly.
"I was young, Cameron." she offered in her defense. He drew his lips together tightly and shook his head as she smirked. "And I still think I'll prove my case." He rolled his eyes.
USS Odyssey, above P3X-474, May 2007 + 52 days relative
Sam finished setting up her program and executed it. A bright light shimmered behind her and when she looked over, a cello along with a bow stood in its stand. She smiled. It had been so long since those few lessons she'd taken as a kid. She'd only decided to try out the instrument after she turned twelve. She had stopped after her mother's accident. Nothing seemed to matter after that. She pushed her chair over by the stand and sat down, positioning the instrument in front of her as she remembered. Muscle memory counted for something and she smiled.
She wasn't as pleased when she began moving the bow over the strings. It sounded awful. Did she make a mistake setting up the Asgard Core? Or was she just that bad right now? She struggled through the little she remembered of the drills she had done and lay the bow down across her lap and sighed. Well she wasn't going to give up after a single attempt. It was meaningless if she did. She picked up her bow and began passing it over the strings again. Just then her ears picked up Cam's distinctive running footfalls as he ran past the Core room the way he usually did in the mornings. She winced when she realised he could probably hear her strangling cats from the corridor, a suspicion which was confirmed when she heard his footsteps falter and stop. She grimaced. He'd probably tease her later, or worse get angry at her for wasting time, but she didn't care. She needed something to distract her from the work or she'd go crazy. If he couldn't handle that then he could just go take a long walk off a short pier.
She wondered why he hadn't resumed his running yet. There could be nothing interesting in listening to the awful sounds she was making with the instrument. It certainly wasn't music, but she could tell he was still outside. She tried for a sliding scale again and almost had it. She paused and sighed deeply. She forgot how much finger strength this took. Just then, she heard the squeak of Cam's trainers as he set off on his run again. Why he'd spent so long there she couldn't fathom. She stretched her neck slightly and put the cello back in its stand, laying the bow on its small hook. She returned her seat to the small table where her laptop stood. Time to get back to work.
Archive Storage Facility, Luna, August 2010
The hangar could only hold two or three jumpers. Access to it came from a shaft, the entrance of which was concealed under an overhang in the ridge face of the western edge of the inner ring of Apollo Crater. They had to cycle through a large airlock which was obviously designed as a fail-safe system in case the forcefield protecting the hangar failed, which it had. It took them a lot of time and a great deal of effort to rig some power into the airlock's systems from the jumper's powerplant to cycle the lock. Once through, Cam parked the jumper in a bay close to the far end of the hangar. Sam stepped out of the back of the jumper into the pitch darkness. Much like Selenis the atmosphere was non-toxic, but unbreathable, temperatures were also low enough to be slightly dangerous to humans. Which made it a good thing they had decided to come wearing Selenis' Alteran integrity suits, even if the airlock hadn't made it a necessity. She swept her P90 from side to side, illuminating the depths of the hangar until she found the door Selenis had detailed in the schematics it had shown them. She had a cylindrical case, hanging from her shoulder by a strap, which contained a ZPM they'd retrieved from Selenis' stores in case the outpost's problem was purely a lack of power as Selenis' had been. Cam exited the jumper behind her, his shoulders weighed down with tool cases and diagnostic computers of various descriptions. Cam chuckled to himself, realising Sam did like making him do the heavy lifting while she ran around waving her gun.
"What is it?" she asked him, turning to face him with a puzzled look.
"Nothing, I just like how you protect me." He grinned and she came and gave his arm a playful slap.
"We're through here." She waited for him to move up to the door and check to see if it required some activation with his gene therapy. It slid open slowly at his approach which indicated there was at least a little power left in the facility. They nodded to each other and Sam led the way. There wasn't much to the facility, a communications and control room, a small set of quarters in the back with sleeping and food preparation facilities in case someone needed to spend a while there. Beyond that was the real meat of the place. A huge room with tall spires of crystal which shimmered in the light from her P90. They walked along a catwalk until they reached some stairs and made their way down. At the bottom of the room, according to Selenis' schematics, was a power management station. Sam checked it over when they found it, it held only a single roundel, under which they could see the dimly glowing ZPM, quite obviously teetering on the edge of maximum entropy. Cam nodded at Sam and lay down his equipment, sidled over to the console and activated it. "Remember to charge the panel's capacitors before you remove the ZPM, give us a little time to make a switch." Sam unslung the container off her shoulder and opened it, sliding out the Alteran power generator and holding it one handed so she could redirect the light from her P90 back to the console. Cam lay his hand on the control interfaces and the containment harness slipped out from its port when the roundel slid aside. Cam took out the spent ZPM and lay it on the ground, accepted the replacement Sam offered, and slid it into place. Using the controls, he had the harness slide back in and immediately the facility began coming back to life. Power thrummed through the crystal spires behind them, which now glowed brightly.
"Done. Want to let Daniel know so he can check the connection?" Cam asked and Sam nodded, raising a hand to a button on the side of her helmet which activated the radio link with the jumper.
"Selenis, this is Carter, come in." She lowered her head until the radio connection popped from the other end.
"Samantha, this is Selenis, we're ready at our end, how are things with you?" It was Vala who replied and Sam checked the console, using her newly acquired knowledge of Alteran to read that all the outpost's power diagnostics had come up in the green. Obviously something else was wrong.
"Vala, we've restored power and the computer here is indicating everything is A-OK over at this end. Is Selenis unable to make a connection?" Sam looked around the room, but indicated that Cam should head back to the control room to check things out there. She must have been looking for an ancillary console. Cam nodded and climbed back up the stairs to the control room. Checking over the controls he reactivated life-support which began recirculating the air immediately as well as starting the heaters going. He checked the communications console and found what could be the problem.
"Looks like the physical connection between Selenis and here might be severed, Sam." Cam cycled the display over several different screens, quickly checking off information. "Vala, does Selenis confirm the same?"
"She does. She says she still can't raise the outpost." Cam smiled and heard Sam chuckle over the radio. Vala was perfectly happy anthropomorphising the Alteran base. Cam and Sam who had faced Replicators directly were always slightly wary of anything that might smack of artificial intelligence. Selenis itself didn't seem aware of itself in the same way. It referred to itself with personal pronouns, but that may just have been its programming. It didn't seem to have a sense of self beyond knowing what it was as a physical entity. Vala didn't care about any of that and quite happily used its one gender-defining attribute and referred to the base with feminine pronouns.
"We're going to have to schedule some particular films for team movie night, Cam." Sam joked to him over the connection with Selenis and they heard Vala's confused muttering off mic and Daniel's amused reply.
"I agree, Sam. Vala needs to learn some caution." He chuckled.
"Just let her read the mission files on the Replicators." It was Daniel speaking over the radio. He did sound amused.
"Only the mission files I write are the least bit interesting." Vala sounded indignant and amused at the same time. "I swear, reading some of the files you guys have written I can't actually remember doing anything as boring as you describe me doing."
"I'll draw some pictures for you next time." Cam grinned and he could hear Sam laughing.
"I appreciate the effort, Cameron, I really do." Vala sounded sincere which brought out Daniel's laughter.
"~I have ascertained the integrity of my connection with the archive right up to the final junction. Can either of you confirm this, Dr. Carter, Colonel Mitchell?~" Selenis' crisp tones cut over the connection in Alteran
"~Power certainly is no longer a problem Selenis.~" replied Sam. "~How about communications, Cameron?~" Cam looked over the comm console and flicked the screen over into a diagnostic mode. He traced several screens of connections and eventually found something.
"~Diagnostics indicate a failure in the main trunk line just before that junction. It may be the connection is damaged or simply was never completed.~" Cam marvelled at how well Sam had taken to the Galaran course. Her accent was more similar to Daniel's than his, something he loved to tease her about.
"~Damaged is more likely, Colonel Mitchell.~" Selenis supplied. "~I have retrieved information from the archive previously, though before it was complete. The facility was taken offline to receive its full service upgrade and was set to be reactivated before my scheduled completion date. If it is the case that the main trunk line is damaged the facility's computer should direct you to the location of any materiels necessary to effect repairs.~"
"~Is there a chance the facility simply wasn't upgraded, Selenis?~" asked Sam with concern.
"~When you returned power to the facility, Dr. Carter, how many of the crystal storage matrices activated?~" enquired the Lunar base's computer.
"~All of them.~" replied Sam. "~Does that mean the archive is complete?~"
"~That is correct, Dr. Carter. The likeliest scenario is damage to the trunk line. It may be necessary to use a set of connection splicers to cut away a damaged section of the connection.~" Cam was really hoping Selenis' A.I. was safe. It was extremely helpful.
"~Let's get to work then.~" concluded Sam. "Cameron, Can you show me the way to this junction, please?" she asked. He started at a faint sound from one of the other consoles and noticed that life-support had been restored throughout the facility, except for the resealed hangar. He unsealed the latch at the chin of his helmet and raised it up and around into its stow away position at the back of his suit. The helmet folded and slid away, leaving only the face shield shining against the back of his head. These suits were very well designed. He went back to the diagnostic station and made some queries, a slot slid open and a small tablet rose up from its depths. He took it and headed back to the crystal spire room and down to meet up with Sam.
On to Chapter 3