Stargate -- Kriegsspiel -- Hoodman's Blind -- Thirteen
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Thirteen
“Assuming everything went well, the Odyssey should be within communication range in a few minutes,” Carter said, looking at her watch. The ship had set out at roughly the same time they had, with a trusted skeleton crew. “What do we want to do with it when it gets here, besides land it?”
“We could move everyone into the living quarters on the ship,” Daniel said. “Treat it like a large building. Then we’d only need the sheds we’ve already build for storage, and to house the new ships.”
“The silhouette from the air would be too distinctive,” Mitchell said.
“We could bury it?” Vala suggested, but Jack shook his head.
“I’ve spent enough of my life in underground bunkers,” he said, and he could see Carter and Mitchell nodding emphatically in the corner of his eye. “I’m enjoying the sunlight. Besides, we couldn’t put the other ships underground-not with the limited technology we have-so we might as well let ourselves look like a village from the air. We can strip the Odyssey down and use the component parts and the equipment to shore up the buildings we’ve got and upgrade the ships.” Mitchell winced at this.
“We can bury her in the lake,” Daniel said, and Jack knew he wasn’t the only one who was looking at him like he was insane. “No, hear me out. If we’re worried about the ship being distinctive, just landing her on the ground won’t be enough to hide her. We don’t have the equipment to really take her apart, and anyway we’ll need at least one ship her size when we go back to Earth. So, we have to leave her in one piece. She’s airtight enough to travel in space, certainly that means she’d be waterproof. Right?” he asked, turning to Carter. She nodded, but was obviously swallowing her explanation of the completely opposite pressure differentials affecting submarine versus extra-atmospheric craft. Jack recognized the look from all the times he’d seen it directed at his blithe trampling over a truly important scientific point that didn’t happen to affect the plan at hand. “The lake we’ve been fishing in is only a few miles away, and the fact that it’s in a basin means that we can sink the Odyssey-for now-without flooding the surrounding land. The water’s deep enough that it should provide pretty good cover, and when we need a larger battleship, we’ve already got one.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Jack laughed. “Y’see? This is why we keep you around, Daniel.”
“Once she’s here,” Carter picked up, “we can take out all the removable equipment-medical, some of the computers, that kind of thing-and then we can sink her. I can use some of the equipment to rig up a power source. We probably won’t be able to use too many things at once, but it’ll be better than nothing.”
“Carter, have some of your engineers work on that,” Jack said. “And grab anyone else who’s free to help carry things.”
“It’ll spread us kind of thin with the ships,” she said. “Some of that equipment is a little too complicated to just unplug.”
“I have every confidence you’ll have us in the air soon,” Jack said, smiling at her. She beamed at him.
“Sir,” Carter said after a moment, with that tone of voice that said she was about to say something she thought he wasn’t going to like. “Up until now, the plan has been to wait for the Odyssey. What-what do we do next?”
Jack considered making a quip, but that play-it-dumb persona of his died with Hank Landry and Tom James and Nyan and everyone else who had disappeared and was probably dead by now, if not worse. “Well, the food’s going to run out eventually, even with the stuff that’s going to be on the Odyssey,” he said instead. “We’re either going to have to start trading with other communities for food, or growing our own.”
“It’s better to be self-sufficient,” Daniel said, exactly as Jack expected he would. “But unless we intend to be here for a long time, we’re not going to be able to grow our own food.” He frowned at Jack’s incredulous look. “You don’t just put seeds in the ground and then magically have food. Growing a crop large enough to feed all of us will take time. We’d be much better off trading labor for food and clothes and things. We can supplement that with native edible plants, and maybe animals like chickens, but there’s no point in becoming a farming community unless we plan to stay here for good.”
Jack rubbed a hand across his forehead; he hadn’t even thought of that. “Unfortunately, we need to be able to survive before we can worry about Earth.”
Suddenly, Carter’s walkie-talkie crackled. “This is Mama Bird, calling Baby AWOL,” Frank Davidson’s voice came through. “Come in, AWOL.”
Jack held out his hand for the walkie-talkie. “Who the hell came up with those callsigns?” he asked.
Davidson laughed. “Colonel Frank Davidson and the crew of the Odyssey reporting for duty, sir. We’ve just dropped out of hyperspace and are approaching your position.”
“Good,” Jack said. He gestured to Carter and Mitchell, who took off toward the field that had been cleared for the Odyssey to land. “You’ll see a large flat space about a mile away from the settlement. We saved you a spot,” he said, smiling slightly.
“Thank you, sir,” Davidson said. “I’m glad you guys made it out alright.”
“So’re we, believe me,” Jack said. “No trouble getting away?”
“They didn’t even realize we were gone until we were lightyears away,” Davidson said, clearly proud of his ship. “We disconnected anything that might have been used to track us, so we shouldn't have a tail.”
“Good,” Jack said. “We’ll set your crew up with quarters once you land.”
*
Daniel put down the electronic pad he’d been using to read and rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to reading on a screen instead of on a page. The Odyssey had brought a few more creature comforts with it when it landed, namely a large digital archive of books, movies, and music. They’d already set up a system to rotate the few dozen electronic pads and music players, and it was Daniel’s turn, so he was rediscovering the joys of escaping into a novel. It wasn’t something he’d ever spent much time doing before.
He was sitting on his cot in the slightly larger structure that SG-1 had claimed. Most of the teams had decided to stick together for the time being, and SG-1 was no exception. The space was a little cramped for six adults, but aside from Vala’s habit of jumping into other people’s cots, they were getting along just fine.
Vala and Mitchell were still in the mess hall, and Sam at the shipyard (she still had to be physically dragged away from her work most of the time), but Jack was lying in his own cot, baseball cap over his eyes, probably replaying old hockey games in his head. Teal’c was likely off communing with the treeline; even though he needed to sleep now, Daniel thought he found comfort in the familiarity of kel’no’reem.
“Look what I found in the engine,” Mitchell said, pushing through the pieces of fabric that served as a door, pulling Sam along behind him. Vala had Sam’s other arm, and was grinning. Teal’c was a few steps behind them, and Daniel would have sworn that his expression was that of an indulgent parent.
“A little dinged up, some greasy spots. Nothing we can’t fix,” Jack said, sitting up. “Did you feed her?”
“I can feed myself, sir,” Sam said, shaking off Mitchell and Vala’s hands.
“Nix the ‘sir,’ Carter,” Jack said. “We’re not exactly military anymore.”
“Nix the ‘Carter’, sir,” Sam said, grinning.
“Sam.”
“Jack.”
“Rocky,” Teal’c said, and who knew he was a Rocky Horror Picture Show fan?
“Bullwinkle,” Daniel added helpfully, and Jack laughed.
“I think that makes Mal Doran Natasha,” Jack said. “Vala, sorry. This is going to take some getting used to.” Vala waved a dismissive hand at him. “Still, I think we should set an example for everyone else. I’m perfectly fine throwing most of the chain of command out the window.”
There were nods around the room, and Daniel, who had never really followed the chain of command anyway, chuckled. Mitchell reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. “So, poker?”
*
Sam was up to her elbows in the propulsion system of their newest acquisition. It wasn’t a model anyone had recognized, but it was clearly inspired by Goa’uld technology. The design was sleeker-and there was a distinct lack of gold detailing-but the crystal control systems were pretty much the same. It would fit a crew of five or six, smaller than an al'kesh bomber but larger than a tel’tak cargo ship, and had a hold large enough to contain Sam’s old lab.
It would be perfect for the kind of work they’d be doing.
“Hey, Sam,” Cam said from behind her, and she turned to smile at him, swiping a hand across her sweaty forehead. Refitting starships wasn’t as fun as working on her motorcycle, but it was certainly less messy.
“How’re you doing?” she said, shifting her grip and loosening the panel covering another bank of crystals. One of them was burned out, but she couldn’t tell which one until she opened it up and looked inside. “I thought you were on the hunting party today.”
“We got back early,” Cam said, leaning against a bulkhead and tucking his hands into his pockets. “We caught a few of those big deer-like things; we should be set for a few days.”
“So what are you doing down by the ships?” she asked. Their little armada, mostly Goa'uld cargo ships, was up to half a dozen ships now-not including the Odyssey, which had already been stripped down to the deck plating and was keeping the fish company a few feet from the bottom of the lake. Between the military and civilian scientists, there were more than enough engineers to go around, and Cam wasn’t one of them.
“General-Jack,” Cam amended ruefully. “He wanted me to come down and take a look at this ship. She’s gonna be my baby, once she’s up to your specs,” he added.
“Congratulations, Cam,” Sam said, grinning. “Picked your crew yet?”
“I’m still asking around. People’re still pretty much sticking to their old teams, I don’t want to split anyone up.”
Sam nodded and pressed the button that would open the crystal tray. “Ah, there it is,” she said, plucking the burnt crystal out of its slot. “Could you hand me that blue crystal? The long one with the flat end.”
Cam shuffled through the pile of crystals and handed her the right one. “It’s kind of weird, flying again,” he said.
“Well, this’ll be nothing like the Snakeskinners,” Sam said, sliding the crystal into place and grinning when the whole tray lit up. She pushed the button again and the tray slid back into place. “You’re going to be an interstellar moving van.”
Cam laughed out loud at that one, and Sam was glad. They were getting by, but people didn’t seem to be happy. “Safer than fighter planes,” he said. “I don’t mind it, really. After all the excitement of those last few weeks on Earth, and then all the work we’ve put into building this place, I’m looking forward to something easy.”
Sam screwed the last panel back into place and sat back on her heels. “Don’t say that. The universe has a way of proving people wrong.”
continued in Fourteen
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Thirteen
“Assuming everything went well, the Odyssey should be within communication range in a few minutes,” Carter said, looking at her watch. The ship had set out at roughly the same time they had, with a trusted skeleton crew. “What do we want to do with it when it gets here, besides land it?”
“We could move everyone into the living quarters on the ship,” Daniel said. “Treat it like a large building. Then we’d only need the sheds we’ve already build for storage, and to house the new ships.”
“The silhouette from the air would be too distinctive,” Mitchell said.
“We could bury it?” Vala suggested, but Jack shook his head.
“I’ve spent enough of my life in underground bunkers,” he said, and he could see Carter and Mitchell nodding emphatically in the corner of his eye. “I’m enjoying the sunlight. Besides, we couldn’t put the other ships underground-not with the limited technology we have-so we might as well let ourselves look like a village from the air. We can strip the Odyssey down and use the component parts and the equipment to shore up the buildings we’ve got and upgrade the ships.” Mitchell winced at this.
“We can bury her in the lake,” Daniel said, and Jack knew he wasn’t the only one who was looking at him like he was insane. “No, hear me out. If we’re worried about the ship being distinctive, just landing her on the ground won’t be enough to hide her. We don’t have the equipment to really take her apart, and anyway we’ll need at least one ship her size when we go back to Earth. So, we have to leave her in one piece. She’s airtight enough to travel in space, certainly that means she’d be waterproof. Right?” he asked, turning to Carter. She nodded, but was obviously swallowing her explanation of the completely opposite pressure differentials affecting submarine versus extra-atmospheric craft. Jack recognized the look from all the times he’d seen it directed at his blithe trampling over a truly important scientific point that didn’t happen to affect the plan at hand. “The lake we’ve been fishing in is only a few miles away, and the fact that it’s in a basin means that we can sink the Odyssey-for now-without flooding the surrounding land. The water’s deep enough that it should provide pretty good cover, and when we need a larger battleship, we’ve already got one.”
There was a moment of silence, and then Jack laughed. “Y’see? This is why we keep you around, Daniel.”
“Once she’s here,” Carter picked up, “we can take out all the removable equipment-medical, some of the computers, that kind of thing-and then we can sink her. I can use some of the equipment to rig up a power source. We probably won’t be able to use too many things at once, but it’ll be better than nothing.”
“Carter, have some of your engineers work on that,” Jack said. “And grab anyone else who’s free to help carry things.”
“It’ll spread us kind of thin with the ships,” she said. “Some of that equipment is a little too complicated to just unplug.”
“I have every confidence you’ll have us in the air soon,” Jack said, smiling at her. She beamed at him.
“Sir,” Carter said after a moment, with that tone of voice that said she was about to say something she thought he wasn’t going to like. “Up until now, the plan has been to wait for the Odyssey. What-what do we do next?”
Jack considered making a quip, but that play-it-dumb persona of his died with Hank Landry and Tom James and Nyan and everyone else who had disappeared and was probably dead by now, if not worse. “Well, the food’s going to run out eventually, even with the stuff that’s going to be on the Odyssey,” he said instead. “We’re either going to have to start trading with other communities for food, or growing our own.”
“It’s better to be self-sufficient,” Daniel said, exactly as Jack expected he would. “But unless we intend to be here for a long time, we’re not going to be able to grow our own food.” He frowned at Jack’s incredulous look. “You don’t just put seeds in the ground and then magically have food. Growing a crop large enough to feed all of us will take time. We’d be much better off trading labor for food and clothes and things. We can supplement that with native edible plants, and maybe animals like chickens, but there’s no point in becoming a farming community unless we plan to stay here for good.”
Jack rubbed a hand across his forehead; he hadn’t even thought of that. “Unfortunately, we need to be able to survive before we can worry about Earth.”
Suddenly, Carter’s walkie-talkie crackled. “This is Mama Bird, calling Baby AWOL,” Frank Davidson’s voice came through. “Come in, AWOL.”
Jack held out his hand for the walkie-talkie. “Who the hell came up with those callsigns?” he asked.
Davidson laughed. “Colonel Frank Davidson and the crew of the Odyssey reporting for duty, sir. We’ve just dropped out of hyperspace and are approaching your position.”
“Good,” Jack said. He gestured to Carter and Mitchell, who took off toward the field that had been cleared for the Odyssey to land. “You’ll see a large flat space about a mile away from the settlement. We saved you a spot,” he said, smiling slightly.
“Thank you, sir,” Davidson said. “I’m glad you guys made it out alright.”
“So’re we, believe me,” Jack said. “No trouble getting away?”
“They didn’t even realize we were gone until we were lightyears away,” Davidson said, clearly proud of his ship. “We disconnected anything that might have been used to track us, so we shouldn't have a tail.”
“Good,” Jack said. “We’ll set your crew up with quarters once you land.”
*
Daniel put down the electronic pad he’d been using to read and rubbed his eyes. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to reading on a screen instead of on a page. The Odyssey had brought a few more creature comforts with it when it landed, namely a large digital archive of books, movies, and music. They’d already set up a system to rotate the few dozen electronic pads and music players, and it was Daniel’s turn, so he was rediscovering the joys of escaping into a novel. It wasn’t something he’d ever spent much time doing before.
He was sitting on his cot in the slightly larger structure that SG-1 had claimed. Most of the teams had decided to stick together for the time being, and SG-1 was no exception. The space was a little cramped for six adults, but aside from Vala’s habit of jumping into other people’s cots, they were getting along just fine.
Vala and Mitchell were still in the mess hall, and Sam at the shipyard (she still had to be physically dragged away from her work most of the time), but Jack was lying in his own cot, baseball cap over his eyes, probably replaying old hockey games in his head. Teal’c was likely off communing with the treeline; even though he needed to sleep now, Daniel thought he found comfort in the familiarity of kel’no’reem.
“Look what I found in the engine,” Mitchell said, pushing through the pieces of fabric that served as a door, pulling Sam along behind him. Vala had Sam’s other arm, and was grinning. Teal’c was a few steps behind them, and Daniel would have sworn that his expression was that of an indulgent parent.
“A little dinged up, some greasy spots. Nothing we can’t fix,” Jack said, sitting up. “Did you feed her?”
“I can feed myself, sir,” Sam said, shaking off Mitchell and Vala’s hands.
“Nix the ‘sir,’ Carter,” Jack said. “We’re not exactly military anymore.”
“Nix the ‘Carter’, sir,” Sam said, grinning.
“Sam.”
“Jack.”
“Rocky,” Teal’c said, and who knew he was a Rocky Horror Picture Show fan?
“Bullwinkle,” Daniel added helpfully, and Jack laughed.
“I think that makes Mal Doran Natasha,” Jack said. “Vala, sorry. This is going to take some getting used to.” Vala waved a dismissive hand at him. “Still, I think we should set an example for everyone else. I’m perfectly fine throwing most of the chain of command out the window.”
There were nods around the room, and Daniel, who had never really followed the chain of command anyway, chuckled. Mitchell reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. “So, poker?”
*
Sam was up to her elbows in the propulsion system of their newest acquisition. It wasn’t a model anyone had recognized, but it was clearly inspired by Goa’uld technology. The design was sleeker-and there was a distinct lack of gold detailing-but the crystal control systems were pretty much the same. It would fit a crew of five or six, smaller than an al'kesh bomber but larger than a tel’tak cargo ship, and had a hold large enough to contain Sam’s old lab.
It would be perfect for the kind of work they’d be doing.
“Hey, Sam,” Cam said from behind her, and she turned to smile at him, swiping a hand across her sweaty forehead. Refitting starships wasn’t as fun as working on her motorcycle, but it was certainly less messy.
“How’re you doing?” she said, shifting her grip and loosening the panel covering another bank of crystals. One of them was burned out, but she couldn’t tell which one until she opened it up and looked inside. “I thought you were on the hunting party today.”
“We got back early,” Cam said, leaning against a bulkhead and tucking his hands into his pockets. “We caught a few of those big deer-like things; we should be set for a few days.”
“So what are you doing down by the ships?” she asked. Their little armada, mostly Goa'uld cargo ships, was up to half a dozen ships now-not including the Odyssey, which had already been stripped down to the deck plating and was keeping the fish company a few feet from the bottom of the lake. Between the military and civilian scientists, there were more than enough engineers to go around, and Cam wasn’t one of them.
“General-Jack,” Cam amended ruefully. “He wanted me to come down and take a look at this ship. She’s gonna be my baby, once she’s up to your specs,” he added.
“Congratulations, Cam,” Sam said, grinning. “Picked your crew yet?”
“I’m still asking around. People’re still pretty much sticking to their old teams, I don’t want to split anyone up.”
Sam nodded and pressed the button that would open the crystal tray. “Ah, there it is,” she said, plucking the burnt crystal out of its slot. “Could you hand me that blue crystal? The long one with the flat end.”
Cam shuffled through the pile of crystals and handed her the right one. “It’s kind of weird, flying again,” he said.
“Well, this’ll be nothing like the Snakeskinners,” Sam said, sliding the crystal into place and grinning when the whole tray lit up. She pushed the button again and the tray slid back into place. “You’re going to be an interstellar moving van.”
Cam laughed out loud at that one, and Sam was glad. They were getting by, but people didn’t seem to be happy. “Safer than fighter planes,” he said. “I don’t mind it, really. After all the excitement of those last few weeks on Earth, and then all the work we’ve put into building this place, I’m looking forward to something easy.”
Sam screwed the last panel back into place and sat back on her heels. “Don’t say that. The universe has a way of proving people wrong.”
continued in Fourteen
back to Master Post