The man"s eyes scanned each of them in turn and he frowned. Jack guessed they must stand out like a sore thumb in their BDUs when the locals seemed to prefer the grubby rags look. This guy was also sporting a Jaffa tattoo on his forehead, and looked slightly better fed than the folk on the surface. Getting in with a Goa"uld obviously paid well.
The man"s gaze came to rest on Jack"s MP5. He didn"t seem hostile, just suspicious, so Jack decided to take a gamble. "Look," he said. "We"re here as friends, and to prove it we"ll put our guns down." He let go of the MP5, letting it hang from the shoulder strap - within easy reach should things go sour. "Carter? Teal"c?"
"Yes, sir," replied Carter following his lead. Teal"c took a few more seconds before closing his staff weapon.
"Who are you?" asked the man.
Daniel stepped forward. "We"re from a place called Earth. We came through the Stargate... the Chappa"ai... but there"s no dialing device to get us home. We were told that Dix may be able to help us. My name is Daniel and this is Sam, Jack and Teal"c. We really don"t mean any harm to you."
As Daniel had been speaking, the man"s expression had grown more and more perplexed. If it hadn"t been for his question, Jack would have doubted that he even spoke English. But just when he"d started to think that there was no chance of this guy taking them to Dix, the man gestured with his head and said. "I think you"d better come with me. Zuri is going to love you."
The four of them exchanged a glance and then followed the man, who introduced himself as Slade, further into the tunnels.
Eventually, they reached a large hole in one wall, about the size of a double doorway. A huge sheet of rusted metal covered it from the other side. Slade banged out a rhythm on it and after a few seconds it slid back to reveal a large cavern, manmade by the looks of it, and clear of debris. After the cramped tunnels they"d just crawled through, this place felt like Grand Central Station. Soft light came from a series of lanterns, which hung above orderly rows of chairs and tables. The room had a definite military feel, reminding him of, maybe, a mess hall.
He turned to say as much to Carter, but she was frowning again, lost in thought.
"Who the h.e.l.l are these fools?" barked a voice from across the room. A woman, tall and dark skinned, with close cropped hair, had risen from one of the tables and was approaching. "Slade, no one enters the Inner Circle without Dix"s authority. You know this."
"I didn"t think he"d say no to these ones, Zuri," said Slade. "Take a look at their sleeves."
The woman glanced at Daniel"s jacket, and then, with a frown, grabbed the sleeve and pulled him closer, her eyes on the SGC badge.
"Um, okay!" said Daniel, and tried to pull his arm back, but Zuri held it fast.
"I was right," said Zuri. "You are fools! Why do you come here brazenly wearing this mark?"
"They say they are SG-1," said Slade.
Jack cursed silently; he should"ve thought to take off their arm patches. Zuri"s reaction, however, wasn"t what he"d expected.
She gave a derisive snort of laughter and let go of Daniel"s sleeve as if she"d just discovered she was holding used toilet paper. "You are SG-1? Is this some kind of joke?"
"If it is, the punchline sucks," said Jack, his patience wearing thin.
"I a.s.sure you, Zuri," said Teal"c, "we intend no joke. We are in need of your help and must speak with Dix."
When Teal"c stepped forward, Zuri"s expression turned from scornful to pensive. "You are true Jaffa," she said.
Teal"c inclined his head.
Zuri crossed her arms and stood as if in thought for a moment. "You will wait here," she said, before marching through another door at the opposite end of the hall.
"I guess we wait then," said Jack.
As it turned out, they didn"t have to wait long and she returned within minutes.
"Will Dix see us?" asked Jack.
"Dix is here," she replied. It was only then that Jack noticed a figure standing in the shadows of the doorway behind her, watching them.
They stood in silence for a few moments, but, when it seemed clear this guy wasn"t going to break the ice, Jack cleared his throat and said, "Hey there. Dix, I presume? I"m Colonel Jack O"Neill and this is -"
"I know who you are, Colonel O"Neill," said Dix.
"Well that makes a change..."
Dix walked into the light of the lanterns, revealing a tall, broad-shouldered Jaffa, perhaps just older than Teal"c, with a dusting of gray in his black hair - and the mark of Apophis on his brow.
Jack frowned as a flicker of recognition pa.s.sed through his mind, as if he"d seen this guy somewhere before. "Do we know each other?" he asked.
But Dix wasn"t looking at him. He was watching Teal"c, and to Jack"s astonishment he saw a film of tears in the man"s eyes. "I knew you would return," Dix said. "I knew you were not dead."
Teal"c stepped forward, almost stumbling.
Beside him, Jack heard Daniel mutter, "Oh my G.o.d."
"Am I missing something here?" said Jack, looking around, but Carter too was staring open-mouthed at the scene unfolding between Teal"c and this strange Jaffa.
"No," whispered Teal"c. "No, it cannot be."
"I always had faith that you would return to us, father."
And then, of course, Jack understood. But understanding set off a clamor of denial in his head because somehow, impossibly, this man, this soldier, was Rya"c - the young boy he"d last seen only a few months ago in the Land of Light.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.
It should have been the best and the brightest, Hammond thought as he stood in the gate room and watched the frightened, tearful procession tramping up the ramp and through the event horizon. But instead they could only evacuate those who had reached the base before the attack began: mostly military, some civilians, a few bewildered children. Politicians, inevitably.
There were plenty on the list who"d refused to go, for whom the dual revelations of extra-terrestrial invasions and Stargates were simply too much to process, and there were others who didn"t have the d.a.m.n right but were going anyway. Maybourne was top of that list, though the wrongness of it almost choked Hammond. But then, if the colonel hadn"t appeared on the base, sniveling and cowed and all too ready to give up the Alpha Site address, it was doubtful that they"d have been able to save even this many. Hammond took a grim satisfaction in the fact that the man"s hubris had been knocked from him by whatever he"d witnessed topside. There had been no triumph, no I-told-you-so, just a small man desperate to escape. But the sight had offered little real solace.
As for the rest of the politicians, Hammond reserved judgment. They"d better d.a.m.n well learn to fight or farm, because partisan politicking was the last thing this fragile human outpost would need. It was exactly that kind of scheming that had gotten them here in the first place.
He was still having a hard time accepting that it had been Makepeace all along. The man who had sat in his briefing room and listened to Hammond deliver the bleak sit-rep, knowing the precariousness of their situation in the galaxy and yet saying nothing. He was gone now, a last gasp attempt at redemption perhaps. By Jefferson"s account, it was thanks to the colonel"s sacrifice that Jaffa weren"t swarming through the SGC"s corridors already. Makepeace had bought them time to evacuate, but it was still a bitter pill to swallow and Hammond didn"t think he was ready to forgive him yet.
Far above, something impacted the mountain and the whole base shook. Frightened faces lifted to the ceiling and the pace of the evacuation picked up a notch.
Stargate Command"s power and communications had been knocked out in the first wave; they were operating blind now, limping along on generators. It was barely enough to power the gate. Dust sifted down from the ceiling as the a.s.sault on the mountain continued and the dull rumbles and thuds penetrated even into the gate room.
What the state of the surface was like, he dared not imagine. He just prayed that the enemy were concentrating their a.s.sault on the mountain, because he had one final role of the dice to make if he could find someone brave enough to take a risk on his last gambit.
All around him, the men and women of Stargate Command prepared to leave, dragging as much kit as they could find into the gate room. Dr. Fraiser was marshalling her own people and it looked like she was trying to send every nut and bolt from the infirmary through to the Alpha Site - G.o.d knew, they"d need it all and more. She caught his eye from the opposite side of the gate room and lifted a hand to wave. He nodded, but didn"t disrupt her work. Every second counted. Once the gate shut down there would be no guarantee they could redial fast enough to prevent the Goa"uld from dialing in. They"d been lucky twice; he just prayed their luck would hold a little longer.
"Sir?" He turned to find Colonel Dixon standing at his side.
"Colonel?" Dixon"s Pentagon Strike Team had been parachuted in to oversee the evacuation, so he was surprised to see the colonel still in the gate room. "I thought your team had gone through with the President."
Dixon nodded. "Yes sir, they did." He looked uncomfortable. "Sir, requesting permission to stay Earth-side."
Hammond didn"t know him well, they"d crossed paths only once before, but he knew Dixon was a good man and this request was unexpected. "Why, Colonel? They need you out there on the Alpha Site."
Rubbing a hand across his face Dixon said, "Lainie, my wife - She"s expecting our first child in a couple months, sir."
Hammond closed his eyes for a moment, as if that could block out this one small tragedy among so many billions of tragedies. "And you want to be with her," he said and didn"t add at the end.
But Dixon shook his head. "No sir, she was in DC when the a.s.sault began." His face went tight and hard; they both knew that Washington must have gone already. "I want to fight, sir. I don"t want to run from the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds." He jerked his head up toward the skies above the mountain. "There are good men and women dying up there, sir. I want to join them."
It was a sentiment Hammond fully understood, but sometimes dying was the easy option. He considered Dixon for a long moment, tried to take the measure of the man in the few moments they had together. What did he know about him? He"d served under Frank Cromwell and had led the Pentagon Strike Team since Cromwell"s death here at the SGC. Dixon had an honest face, but it was full of banked rage and grief and he was burning to fight back. He might just be the man Hammond needed to put his plan - worthy of O"Neill in its reckless optimism - into action. "You really want to fight, Colonel?"
"Absolutely, I do, sir."
"You know we can"t win."
"We can die trying."
Hammond nodded, folded his arms and issued the challenge. "What if I said there was something else you could do? It won"t turn the tide - nothing can do that now - but it could save lives. A lot of lives."
"I don"t want to run," Dixon reiterated. "Lainie deserves more than that."
"It means staying on Earth," Hammond said. "I"m talking about resistance, son."
He shifted his feet. "How? Doing what?"
"It"s a crazy plan," Hammond warned. "In all likelihood it won"t succeed and you won"t survive."
Dixon gave a bleak laugh. "It"s the end of the world, sir. What have I got to lose?"
That made Hammond smile, made him think that maybe his last stratagem might pay off. "There"s a C-5 at Peterson," he said. "It"s fully crewed and waiting for orders - a.s.suming the base is still standing, of course." That was the first roll of the dice. "You"ll have to get out of the mountain first and over to Peterson. When you find that bird, I want you to take her to Groom Lake."
"Area 51, sir?"
Hammond nodded. "Retrieve the Beta gate and its DHD and take them as far away from here as possible. Find somewhere remote - perhaps with one of our overseas allies. Somewhere secret, somewhere no one who"s compromised by the Goa"uld would know about. Get the gate working, keep it working for as long as you can, and send as many people as possible through to the Alpha Site." He gestured to the forlorn procession of evacuees. "These shouldn"t be the only people with a chance, Colonel. Humanity needs more than them if it"s to survive."
Dixon"s face had blanched, but he was a good, solid man and he was up for the fight. Hammond might just have laid the salvation of humanity on his shoulders, but he wasn"t going to buckle under the strain. "I"ll make it work, sir. We"ll resist these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds all the way."
Hammond nodded. "Yes we will, son."
"What about you, sir?" Dixon said. "Won"t you come too?"
"No," he said. "My place is here until the end."
Dixon took a breath and nodded. "Understood, sir." Drawing himself up, he offered a sharp salute. "Good luck, General."
Hammond returned the salute. "G.o.dspeed, Colonel."
And with that, Dixon turned and started weaving his way through the orderly chaos of the gate room, breaking into a run as he left through the blast doors and disappeared into the emptying base. The dice were rolling now and Hammond knew he"d never find out how they landed, but he had faith in his people - in Dave Dixon and the crew of the C-5, in humanity as a whole. They might be down, but they weren"t out yet. And if Dixon could offer mankind a chance, a way of enduring and fighting back, then maybe these would not be humanity"s final days on Earth. At the very least, Dixon could offer them hope and sometimes hope was the most powerful weapon of all.
Shocked silence filled the room.
More than shocked, Jack thought, it was a kind of breathless incomprehension. How could this man be Teal"c"s young son? His mind felt like it was struggling to change gears, struggling to process something so impossible.
"How?" Teal"c said at last, voicing the question they all shared. "You were a boy when last we were together."
Dix - or could it really be Rya"c? - nodded. "So I was, but that was close to one hundred years ago."
Daniel"s breath left his lungs in a rush of disbelief. "What?"
"Oh my G.o.d," Sam gasped.
Jack just pressed his lips together in a hard, skeptical line. Bulls.h.i.t.
Teal"c seemed to share his opinion. "Why should I accept your word on this?"
"Because it is the truth and you are my father and must know your own son." Dix drew a step closer, further out of the shadows, and Jack couldn"t deny that the man bore a striking resemblance to Rya"c.
But Teal"c wasn"t convinced. "Your a.s.sertion is insufficient," he said.
Zuri pushed herself forward, chin lifted with an angry cynicism that rivaled Jack"s own. "Dix," she said, "surely you can"t think these people are really who they pretend to be?"
"I know my own father!" His flare of anger was familiar and Jack was disconcerted to see Teal"c react to it, as if in that unguarded moment he saw the boy he"d known. Rya"c had always been fiery.
Zuri wasn"t cowed, however, and cast her gaze over Teal"c and the rest of them without conviction. "How is it possible that they appear unchanged? This could be a Wraith trick."
"Yeah, a trick is exactly what this is," Jack insisted. "If you"re Rya"c, then I"m Rip Van Winkle."
"Sir," Sam said quietly, "theoretically it is possible. This wouldn"t be the first time the Stargate has connected with a gate in a different time."
"And we"ve woken up in the "future" before, Carter, and found ourselves in Hathor"s happy place."
"But we were unconscious then," Daniel pointed out. "This time we were awake all along. At least, you guys were, right?"
Jack acknowledged his point with a shrug, although it didn"t really prove anything, and for a moment there was nothing between them all but silence.
Daniel made the most of the opportunity. "Why "Dix"?" he said. "Why do you call yourself that and not Rya"c?"
Dix gave a tight smile. "Because "Dix" is a legend."
"Yeah, we heard. He leads the resistance, apparently. Is that you? Is this... ?" Daniel gestured around them. "Is this the resistance?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes." He glanced at Teal"c. "I adopted the name "Dix" because it has meaning here. I need these people to trust me."