Under the Silent Stars - Chapter 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Stargate: SG-1, Atlantis or Universe, I am only playing in the world.
Previously: Ch 1 | Ch 2
Under the Silent Stars - Chapter 3
The Five Bells, Nether Wallop, Hampshire, December 1940
Cam watched his pilots shamelessly flirting with the local womenfolk as he sat at the polished oak bench set next to the window across from the bar. He leaned back against the straight wooden back of the bench and lifted the pint glass of stout to his lips and set it down again after taking a gulp. It had taken him some time, but he was starting to like the stuff. It was certainly different to the American beers he was used to. Morley slid into the bench opposite him with his own glass and smiled at his friend. Graham flicked his head over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow, Cam's eyes flicked over to get a look at what he was indicating and caught sight of the local village's school teacher, Mrs. Thornbury. Graham was incorrigible.
"She's been watching you most of the night, old chap. I don't mind telling you, if my old Miss from St. Swithen's looked like her I may have studied a little harder." He grinned as Cam just shook his head at him, ignoring the jibe, it was a different time. Eleanor Thornbury was a very intelligent and attractive woman, but there was no room in his life for that anymore.
"Don't let me stop you, Graham. I'm too old for that." He quaffed some more of his stout and sucked at his upper lip.
"Balderdash! You're the fittest 'thirty-eight' year old I've ever met. Fitter than me!" Morley's use of airquotes made Cam smile, it was a mannerism the younger man had learned from him.
"I'm not that fit, kid. And you're not that unfit." Cam still kept up his running regimen, though a lack of appropriate footwear was an issue. He stressed physical fitness to his pilots, and when they saw the manoeuvres he pulled on them in training they tended to become at least partial converts.
"Maybe so, but it's you that attracts most of the eyes when we're in the village, at your age. It makes us look rather pathetic the way you fill out that uniform." At Graham's nod in his direction, Cam looked down at the blue RAF uniform he was wearing.
"Should have seen me in my dress blues." he muttered softly only to look up, startled at his friend's chuckle.
"There you go again with the cryptic references to your mysterious past." Graham shook his head and looked at him intently. "She's the reason, right? Why you won't look elsewhere?" Graham was talking about Sam. Cam hadn't been particularly conscious of it, but small mentions of his wife had crossed his lips from time to time as he talked with Graham in the past. He frowned slightly and sighed. "She's been gone ten years, am I right?" Graham's tone wasn't condescending or pitying. He was a young man himself, but he understood grief, warriors always did.
"Eleven years, one month, six days." Cam's features turned stony with pain. "You must understand something Graham. For the first decade I could not mourn her. I... couldn't afford to."
"Would she have wanted you to not move on?" Graham asked gently, a look of concern in his eyes.
"Ordinarily, no she wouldn't, though I would still have been stubborn. And these aren't ordinary circumstances." Cam looked out the window into the dark winter night. "She would agree with me."
"Because there's a war on?" Graham asked softly. Cam turned to look back at him and shook his head.
"It's complicated." Cam smiled when his friend scoffed at what he recognised as another cryptic reference.
"Will I ever know anything real about your past, Daniel?" Graham's eyes always glinted slightly when he used Cam's alias. He was fairly certain the younger man knew it wasn't his real name.
"No offense, Graham, but if I ever told you anything, you wouldn't believe me and/or you would call me crazy, then I'd have to shoot you, yada yada yada. It would be a whole mess of clichés coming to trample all over us." he said seriously and took another drink. Graham gave him a lop-sided grin and shook his head. "I like clichés as much as the next guy, but I'm just looking to get through this life as quietly as possible." Graham's smile turned very sombre when he said that. Cam suspected the younger man knew he didn't particularly care if he returned from any of his missions as long as the rest of his flight survived.
"Flight Lieutenant Carter!" Cam looked up at Hodgkins as the young pilot appeared by their table. Good timing, lad. The junior officer gave his Squadron Leader a respectful nod. "Sir."
"What is it, Hodgkins?" Cam's question brought the young man's attention back to him.
"Well, sir, I've been sent to ask if you are planning on attending the Christmas dance, sir." Hodgkin's eyes flitted to the left and Cam's gaze followed to catch sight of the group of women clustered around the bar and the gaggle of young RAF pilots propping it up. Among them were the honey-blond curls of the village's schoolteacher and Cam glanced at Morley when he heard the man's snigger. Graham gave him a significant look in return and Cam sighed, closing his eyes. He had no intention of leading the younger woman on, and neither did she, Eleanor was good company and appreciated his outlook. She was a widow herself, and truth be told, just wanted someone to talk to who wasn't going to ask her when she was going to get remarried. Not that any of his fellow officers believed that when he told them.
"I will, Hodgkins. I do like a dance." Cam replied at last.
Stargate Command, November 2009
He could feel her close by, all his senses reacted to her presence automatically. He might not know where he was just then, or even who he was... wait... Cam Mitchell, Bounty Hunter... but he'd know her. She was his everything. He let his head roll to the side he knew she was on and felt a warm hand close over his, her touch sent a current through him and his fingers closed over hers. He forced his eyes open and blinked several times, was it dark? Was he blind? He saw a shape move into his line of sight and blinked some more, focusing his tired eyes on her smile. That wonderful smile.
"You gave me a fright, Cam, a really serious fright. Don't ever do that again!" Her tone was sharp, but with a hint of relief. Commanding, but with a touch of indulgence. He really felt it when her other hand came to brush at his cheek. So soft and gentle, smoothing away the pain he was feeling from his left shoulder all the way down that side of his chest.
"Won't..." He smacked his dry lips together and soon found a straw touching his lips from which he instinctively began to sip. "Not on purpose." He smiled lightly when she squeezed his hand hard.
"Ass." She leant down and lay her lips across his very gently, whispering very softly as she pulled away. "I love you, Cam." He looked at her and could feel the heat rising in his cheeks at her words and his eyes sparkled.
"You proposed to me." He chuckled at her embarrassed smile. "Will you get down on one knee now an' do it properly?" At her wide eyes and crimson flush he had to try very hard to keep from laughing. "No?" She shook her head vehemently. "I'll just need to do it myself then." At that she smiled broadly and leaned over and kissed him again.
"I have something to show you." She pulled at her collar and reached in to pull out a pair of silver chains, looping them up over her head and dangling them in front of him. There was a ring threaded on each one, one larger than the other, but both sharing common motifs. "This one is yours," she held one of them out a bit further, "I washed the blood off. This one," she indicated the other, "is mine. Catherine Langford gave it to me twelve years ago. I had forgotten about it, about the story she'd told me." She smiled sadly at him, slightly chagrined. "I only remembered when I saw yours against your neck yesterday." He nodded his understanding. She held both rings together and lined them up in front of his eyes. "Do you see that? How the filigree aligns?" He nodded again, they formed the Stargate address for Earth. She held up the smaller of the two rings and rolled it between her fingers, looking at it as her eyes welled up with tears. "We must have picked these out together. In that lost timeline." Holding a hand to her lips she showed him the ring so he could read the inscription. "To my beloved Sam, who took me to the stars..." Her voice nearly broke as she recited it in a whisper.
"To Cam, my heart, who brought me back home..." he recited from memory in a husky whisper, tears rolled down her cheeks when he spoke. "I love you, Sam." She leaned down and brushed her lips against his again, placing their rings in his hand and closing hers over it, she cupped her other hand over the back of his and held on tight. He smiled at her for several moments before speaking again. "So... no macaroons?"
Seattle, Washington, January 2009 (alternate timeline)
Sam stepped out of her front door and walked to the post box at the end of the path in front of her house. She cradled a mug of coffee in one hand to fight off the chill of the winter morning and waved to her next door neighbour Marcy as she backed out of her driveway on her way into town. She opened the back of the mail box and fished out a small collection of envelopes and held them tightly against her chest as she made her way back inside. Shrugging off her coat and shoes she took the letters into the kitchen and sat at her breakfast table, with her feet up on another chair, and took a bite of her pancakes as she began shuffling through the collection of bills, circulars, and newsletters. She paused, nonplussed, as one envelope stood out. Not for what was on it, but for what wasn't. It had no postage, no address, and no return, just her name in a very familiar hand. She held her breath a moment and wondered what could have possibly possessed him to hand deliver something to her house. Surely he wouldn't have done it himself! She flipped it over and tore at the seal with a slender finger, pulling out a single sheet of paper which contained only the words 'Café Darclee, midday, dress nice, don't bring the shadows.' As if she needed reminding of that last part! She was going to kill him! Flipping over her wrist to check the time on her silver watch, a birthday present he'd given her the week before, she found she still had a couple of hours before she had to leave. Time enough to 'dress nice' for his murder, she supposed. Why was he back in Seattle so soon after they'd parted? She finished off her toast and took a last swig of her coffee before cleaning the dishes and mug and heading upstairs to get ready.
As midday rolled around she was walking along the north end of Fisher Plaza on John Street, looking up at the towering height of the Space Needle across Broad Street. Turning left around the cylindrical glass tower housing a sports bar and above that the offices of the local news radio station, which looked out over Broad Street from behind a giant laminated image of Ichiro Suzuki. She took no notice of it, not being a Mariners fan herself, and walked the short distance onwards to turn into Fisher Plaza proper and the rendezvous spot indicated in her hand-written invitation. She could already see him through the glass as he looked out from a table inside the café, he spotted her and waved when he saw she could see him, flashing her a winning smile. She grumbled to herself and pushed her square rimmed glasses higher up her nose. She could see him gathering up his coat and walking towards the door, obviously this wasn't their final destination. She stamped her booted feet in the cold and huddled into her jacket for warmth until she could selfishly have him warm her up himself. Ever obliging, the first thing he did was wrap his arms around her shoulders and kiss her tenderly, she slipped her hands inside his leather jacket, around his waist and across his back. She melted into his warm embrace. She didn't care why he was here anymore, that he was here and she was in his arms was enough. He cradled her face in his still warm hands and smiled The Smile, the one which set off all her alarms. She furrowed her brow and looked him in the eye. He met her gaze with his glinting blue eyes and turned her around back towards Broad Street and pointed her towards the Space Needle, leading her there as she slipped her arm through his when he put his hands in his jacket pockets and stuck out the crook of one arm for her. He'd gotten them reservations for lunch and she had actually never been to the SkyCity restaurant before.
The view from the restaurant was spectacular. As it slowly revolved from its vantage point under the Observation Deck, they were afforded views as diverse as the downtown Seattle skyline and the imposing Mount Rainier to the south-east, opposite the distant Puget Sound to the north, while the vista of Elliott Bay and its islands, and beyond them the Olympic mountains to the west, were mirrored by Lake Washington and Mount Baker and the the heavily forested Cascade Mountains to the east. Cam had never been one for very fine dining and even now he wore only jeans and a button down shirt, but he knew how to entertain her, she laughed and grinned and talked and even on one occasion sang when he pressed her for some lyrics she had stuck in her head. She never could refuse him when he smiled at her that way. With lunch winding down, and their view once more facing the Olympic Mountains, she was surprised by the waiter laying before her a silver tray with a very tall sundae glass filled with blue jello, which she grinned at and forgot completely a moment later when she spotted what sat before it at it's foot: a small, navy-blue velvet box with a fine silver clasp. Blinking at it in surprise, she hesitantly reached for it, her fingers shaking slightly as they touched the top. She looked up at Cam and her breath hitched when she saw the look in his eyes as he watched her from across the table. He had that same look, the one she remembered from her dreams of their time on Odyssey. She bit her lip and looked down at the box again, her eyes welling up. Taking it in her hands she lifted the clasp and gently snapped open the box, revealing a golden band inside, nestled in silken folds which set off the arc of small diamonds curving along its top.
"Samantha Carter, would you do me the honour of marrying me?" His voice was barely more than a whisper, but the emotion laden tone behind it made her look into his eyes again. The tears rolled down her cheeks as she could only nod several times before finally breathing out a reply.
"Yes, I would, Cameron Mitchell." As she spoke his smile brightened and widened and suddenly they were both surrounded by cheering waiters and waitresses and clapping patrons as bottles of champagne were opened and flutes filled with them handed around to everyone in sight. She stood in her seat and kissed him when he did the same, and again when he took the ring and slipped it on her finger. She covered her mouth with her hands as people she'd never met came up to her and embraced her, congratulating them both and toasting to their happiness.
She made sure to eat her jello before they left.
Archive Storage Facility, Luna, August 2010
Sam turned around at hearing her name called and spotted Cam walking towards her holding a tablet. He wasn't wearing his helmet. She lifted her forearm and fiddled with the controls there and checked that indeed the external readings were nominal, as if the sight of Cam breathing wasn't enough of a clue. She undid the latch under her chin and lifted the face shield up over her head until it nestled at the back, the rest of the helmet's exterior plating sliding into the back and shoulderguards of her integrity suit, leaving only the collar with all its communications and breathing equipment wrapped around her neck under her chin and going over one of her ears.
"Is that a map to the junction?" she asked him as he held the tablet up and nodded in answer. Pressing a few buttons a small rotating wire frame model of the facility appeared on the display, showing a path around the back of the room they were in through some access tunnels. "Not far huh. Is life support in those sections nominal?"
"Everywhere except the hangar." he replied and led the way deeper into the room. "Let's check out the damage and I'll come back and get anything you might need." She followed along behind. The access tunnels were narrow, but they fit through comfortably enough before coming around a corner into a small room with a tower of silvery metal hoops encasing a bright, shining central pillar which darkened and went dead not far from the bottom. Cam stopped in front of it and handed her the tablet which she scanned. Quickly finding something that looked promising she pressed several buttons on the face of the device and the bottom half of the metal rings slid down into a cavity which opened in the floor, revealing the shining tower which ended right above a smooth, wedge shaped cut. Both of them stared at it in alarm and looked at each other. "Sam, that looks deliberate."
"You bet your ass it does." Sam replied and pressed the comm stud at her ear. "~Selenis, this is Carter, we're looking at what looks like deliberate sabotage here.~" She waited several seconds before the comm came back.
"~Say again, Sam. Deliberate sabotage?~" Daniel's dumbfounded voice returned over the radio.
"Roger that, Jackson. ~Someone took a laser cutter to this trunk line. No mistaking that.~" Cam answered as he stepped up and ran his fingers over the smooth, glass-like surfaces of the trunk line's cross-section. He looked at Sam and he flicked his chin to indicate she should look for the cutter.
"~That doesn't make any sense, Cameron. Why would the builders do that?~" asked Vala. Sam looked around the room for any other clues, but came up empty. She checked the tablet and with its help found a storage cabinet inset into the wall which contained various tools, including a laser cutter, neatly stored in its proper place. Deliberate was right.
"~What can I tell you, Vala?~" Cam came to stand beside her as she looked at him with growing disquiet in her eyes. "~Unless they were very polite bad guys who didn't like leaving a mess, this was done by the Alterans themselves. We just found the cutter all tidily stored away.~"
"Perhaps you will find some indication as to what happened in the facility's logs, Colonel Mitchell." Teal'c offered and Sam nodded to Cam who was already moving back towards the access tunnels and the control room before freezing at the threshold. He turned with a look of puzzlement on his face.
"T-man, ~have you been holding out on us?~" he asked slowly in Alteran and Sam's eyes widened in realisation.
"Indeed, Colonel Mitchell. I understand spoken Ancient perfectly well, I also had a lot of time to fill on Odyssey." At the clear amusement in Teal'c's voice Cam gritted his teeth and chuckled in wry amusement. "However, my accent is terrible."
"You sly dog." Cam was grinning. "Here I was thinking we were making you feel left out." He waved at Sam and she took the hint and followed him, they should check the logs together.
"I believe it will be Selenis that will be 'feeling left out' right now, Colonel Mitchell." Teal'c spoke over the radio and Sam chuckled.
"~We're going to check the logs now, guys. We'll play them over the comm if there's audio.~" she said and followed Cam back through the tunnels and up the stairs in the crystal spire room and into the control room, where they searched through the consoles looking for a log of some kind. "Cam, this is crazy. Why would the Alterans sabotage their own base?" She paged through several menus on the console before determining there was nothing resembling a log in it and moved on to the next.
"Sam, your guess is as good as mine. It could be anything. We know they left Earth in Atlantis around the same time. Maybe they didn't want to leave the place in a usable state. Although it's pretty damn usable right now as it is." His own searching seemed to be coming up empty as well. She had a flash and ran into the living quarters next to the control room and began searching. She found several tablets lying on the desk and gathered them up, inclining her head at Cam's curious look from the door until he came and followed suit. They carried them in to the control room and began feeding each into the main console. They did indeed seem to contain duty logs and the like, which were uploaded automatically into the computer. After searching through them they found the last chronological entry and played it. Sam flicked her comm on for the benefit of those at the base.
"~Final log, Selenis Archive. We were right. The Indesta tried to sabotage Selenis too. Like they did to Muranis and Kariala.~" The image was that of a fit-looking middle aged man, hair swept back along his skull, fine features looking tired and worn. He unconsciously fiddled with the collar of his grey worksuit as his eyes flitted back and forth across the consoles before him as he spoke. "~They sabotaged almost everything we tried to leave behind. Practically nothing will survive for the next evolution.~" He passed a hand over his eyes and when he pulled it back he looked haggard and broken. "~What sort of legacy can we bequeath our descendents when our own brothers and sisters wish to end everything.~" Cam looked at her in confusion and she shared it. "~They're gone now, but their work is complete. Selenis will no longer be operational in time. There is no point in using her as our home. Atlantus will do just as well for the few of us that are left.~" The man gave a mirthless chuckle. "~We'll arrive in Sele-...~" he paused a moment and covered his eyes with a hand before proceeding, "~Lantica long before they arrive in Thyilea. May they rot on their long journey. We'll supervise the seeding there personally, before focusing our efforts higher.~" The man gave a long shuddering sigh before looking straight ahead into the pick up. "~If anyone is reviewing this then do not reconnect the archive to Selenis. The Indesta introduced an intelligent polymorphic worm into one of the upgraded data core crystals. Once we realised what was happening, we began keeping logs on these tablets and initiated eradication protocols, but it will take the attack programs decades to destroy all instances of the worm and reconstruct the archive data. We were forced to physically sever the connection to Selenis as software blocks and firewalls would not contain it. We are leaving now, Selenis deserves better than this, but it is more than Muranis and Kariala received. Ilemus signing off.~" The log cut off and Sam stared at the screen for several moments.
"~Selenis, did any of that make sense to you? Did you recognise anything this Ilemus mentioned?~" Cam asked, whether he meant to ask the base or their teammates, it was the crisp feminine tones of the Alteran facility which responded.
"~ Ilemus was my Lead Designer and the Head Engineer of my construction project. I do not recognise any other references in the entry. I surmise this is information which may be available in the archive repository.~" Cam frowned and passed a hand over his eyes at the news. Sam rubbed his shoulder and he smiled wistfully at her.
"~'Lantica' would be the Alteran name for the Pegasus galaxy, probably named because they were going to use Atlantus to get there. I'll guess 'Thyilea' is the name of another galaxy?~" Daniel added.
"~Could be any of the galaxies in the Local Group. Andromeda or Triangulum maybe?~" Sam offered. "~Maybe even the Pegasus Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy? Lantica would be the Pegasus Dwarf Irregular.~" Cam crossed his arms against his chest as he leant on the console.
"~Muranis and Kariala, the way he spoke about them makes it sound like they were bases like Selenis.~" Vala added her own theory which sounded perfectly valid to Sam.
"~The other two addresses with eight symbol matches to Selenis?~" she offered and Cam nodded that it was a possibility.
"~Perhaps we could check somehow, later. Though it would depend on what the sabotage would have done to them.~" Cam scratched at his chin. "~What about these 'Indesta', any thoughts guys?~"
"They sound like separatists or dissidents, Colonel Mitchell. A group opposed to leaving any Ancient technology behind intact." Teal'c posited and Sam saw Cam nodding as he chewed his lip.
"~That sounds about right T, separatists who moved to another galaxy when the Ancients went to Pegasus. What did Ilemus mean by them arriving in Lantica long before the Indesta would arrive in Thyilea?~" He turned to Sam who nodded and added her theory.
"~If the Indesta left this galaxy in one of these moon ships the journey would be made entirely at sublight. They couldn't possibly open a hyperspace window large enough for a moon.~" Cam gently placed his hand over Sam's mouth and she looked at him questioningly.
"~Never say never, Sam.~" he said softly and she smiled, acquiescing. "~Still, Selenis doesn't have hyperspace engines, so the Indesta's moon ship probably doesn't, the idea they're moving at sublight must put a low end to their journey time, am I right?~"
"~There are fifty galaxies within four and a half million lightyears of us. Over eighty within ten million. If they picked one in the Milky Way's satellite galaxy system it could be at least anything from twenty-five thousand years to nine hundred thousand. Three million if they picked one of Andromeda's satellites or Triangulum. These are all fastest possible travel times at sublight. They'd have to move ballistically for most of the journey or they'd run out of power driving the gravitic displacement engine for millions of years, they'd need thousands of Potentia to make that happen.~" Sam leant on the console next to Cam and laid her head on his shoulder. "~If we're lucky they may not even have arrived, which would make them someone else's problem.~"
"~Why would they be our problem in the first place? Sounds like they're long gone.~" Vala countered.
"~Because if they ever found out we've been making use of Ancient technology, which they explicitly wanted to deny to us, they might make an issue of it. And remember, the Lanteans came back. So might these Indesta or their decendents.~" Daniel supplied.
"~These numbers are too big and too... vague to do anything with right now. Unless we can get at what's in the archive we're just speculating.~" Cam groused and Sam took his hand and gave it a squeeze.
"~Colonel Mitchell, it is too dangerous for me to reconnect to the archive while there is still a chance the worm is extant.~" Selenis' comment made Cam sigh and close his eyes. "~However, I am able to produce a scanning program which will heuristically search the core data crystals for any sign of the worm. It will determine whether the eradication protocols were ultimately successful as they should have been.~" Cam brightened instantly.
"~That is good news, Selenis. When can you get that ready?~" He looked over at Sam and smiled. However what Selenis said next caused the smile to drop away as if it had never been there.
"~It is ready now, Colonel Mitchell, I have transmitted the program to your 'jumper', there will be a tablet ready for you. However, it will take approximately 315.523 Terran days to complete the scan once execution commences.~" Only a computer could deliver such devastating news so dispassionately.
"~Ten months!~ What the Hell?" He stood up and Sam had to straighten herself at his movement. He turned around and put a hand on her shoulder in apology and she brushed her hand over it in acceptance.
"~It is a very large repository, Colonel Mitchell.~" came the ready reply.
"She's got a point, Cam." Sam smiled softly as he glared at her.
"Don't you start with the genderising too!" he snapped and Vala laughed triumphantly in the background. "What are we going to do for ten months?" Sam smiled slyly and flicked off both their radios very deliberately before leaning close and whispering softly into his ear.
"I can think of a thing or two."
On to Chapter 4