The Furies

Chapter Eight The Last War

Sam slept aboard the Hammond, no matter what was going on in the city. To do anything else would give the wrong impression to her crew. It was one thing to use the office above the gateroom in Sheppard’s absence. That was a matter of convenience. But she slept shipboard. She might be the senior officer on station in Atlantis, but she was the commander of the Hammond.

Besides, that office was borrowed. This was home.

Her cabin was the largest on the Hammond, nice enough if you didn’t mind having your feet in the shower to brush your teeth. There was a small single bed built into the wall, storage space beneath it, the other wall occupied by a metal desk similarly bolted down. The chair wasn’t, as that would be really annoying. The wall between the door and the desk held a closet ten inches wide and a bolted on mirror. Above the bed a framed picture of the Hammond was likewise screwed in with four big screws.

Her laptop was on the desk, sharing the cramped space with her mp3 player and its mini speakers, currently blasting ABBA at the top of their tiny voices, When All Is Said and Done from one of the late albums, her email open on the desktop. There was nothing new from outside Atlantis, of course. It had been nearly a month since the last databurst. There was nothing she hadn’t read twenty times, nothing she hadn’t replied to.

But still.

September 24, 2009

Dear Cassie,

Sam looked up at the pictures held to the wall above her desk with magnets. There was Cassie smiling back at her, her mortarboard on her head, Jack with his arm around her grinning like a loon. Cassie had a bottle of champagne in her hand, and was holding on to her mortarboard with the other hand, a smile that ought to light the world on her face. Yellow letters printed across the bottom of the picture proclaimed ‘Congratulations Class of 2009!’

It was hard to believe that the young woman in the picture was the mute child they’d rescued so long ago, the one who had clung to her in the darkness waiting to die. Now she was the assistant’s assistant for an organization that helped refugee children around the world, the kind of starting position that a liberal arts degree got you these days. Mostly, she answered the phone.

I hope you’re doing ok, and that work isn’t too boring. It probably is, but it’s a start. There aren’t many jobs where you get to save the world at twenty two.

Sam hoped that didn’t sound too sanctimonious, or like the kind of letter Jacob had sent her when she was twenty two.

When she was twenty two she’d been in Saudi Arabia, part of the build up called Desert Shield. Her top ten class rank at the Air Force Academy had at least won her that. Not a top posting to a top squadron, not F-15s or F-16s, the best of the best, even though she had more than earned it, but at least she could shuttle a Warthog around behind the lines. Congress forbade women to fly in combat positions. It didn’t matter how much she deserved it or how well she had done, or even how much her superiors wanted to give her the chance. Congress said that her uterus disqualified her. The American public would not stand for women being killed.

She’d been bitter. Of course she had been. Bitter, and certain that it would not be long before that asinine rule was overturned.

Nineteen years later it was still here, ignored more than obeyed, gotten around by a generation of Air Force commanders her age who came up with baroque excuses to avoid saying they were actually sending women into combat, actually letting them compete on a level field with men. Congress hadn’t budged. But more and more positions were open to women, at least in her service.

Technically, captaincy of the Hammond wasn’t a combat position. Technically, the Hammond was a research vessel. Of course officially the Hammond didn’t exist, which made it much easier to ignore that its captain was a woman.

Mel Hocken was in the same position. It wasn’t technically prohibited for a woman to fly a 302, because technically they didn’t exist. And if they did exist, they were technically a research project into high altitude aircraft. Which certainly did not involve engaging in air combat with alien spaceships.

Sometimes she thought that the sheer dishonesty involved negated the honor they were supposed to embrace, but then Congress couldn’t be expected to be as progressive as the military.

All of which was not Cassie’s problem.

I hope you’re finding the work rewarding. I know that when you’re in a starting position, not directly in the field yourself, it may seem like you’re not really doing anything. But you are, even when you can’t see it yet. Even if you’re not the one out there working with kids directly, the work you do makes the field work possible. There’s nothing wrong with learning the ropes in a support position.

Ok, she had more or less bitten Jacob’s head off for saying the same thing, back when she was flying a Warthog around Saudi Arabia while Rotsy boys like Sheppard who barely graduated from state universities were flying vipers under enemy fire. Why yes, Dad! I should totally appreciate the chance to back up guys with half the brains and half the hard work because they’re men.

Jacob had been reasonable then, even if he’d overestimated Congress too. Just a couple of years, Samantha. Just a couple of years, and you’ll rise to the top. You’ll pass them and leave them in the dust.

Now she was a full bird colonel with the Hammond in her hands, and Sheppard saluted her. She’d make field grade, if she wasn’t killed, and he never would.

I know you want to make a difference, and you already are even if it doesn’t feel like it yet. You are, and you will. And as far as the conventional wisdom that an undergrad anthropology degree doesn’t lead anywhere, look at your Uncle Daniel. Sometimes you can’t imagine the places things can lead you when you begin.

Of course Sheppard didn’t want to make field grade. The last thing he wanted was a star on his shoulder and an apartment in DC, a desk job far away from Atlantis. He might not know it yet, but this was his last post. If anyone was ever stupid enough to try to transfer him out, he’d resign first. She’d make sure nobody was ever that stupid, if she could.

We’ve got a lot going on here, as I’m sure you can imagine. It’s gotten kind of hairy, but nothing as bad as we’ve seen.

That was circumspect enough. It sounded like she was in Iraq or Afghanistan, which she reasonably might be.

I want to ask you a favor, seriously, Cass. I know you’ve got a lot going on with your friends and your life, but can you look in on Jack for me? Drop in on him and keep him busy? Get him to help you with something. There could be something wrong with your car or your apartment or something. Give him somebody to take care of. I know you can handle that stuff on your own, and that you’re grown, but it’s good for him to be needed.

If she knew Cassie, her car barely ran and her shower had water leaking in the ceiling from the upstairs neighbor. Nonprofits paid receptionists even worse than the Air Force paid second lieutenants, and Cassie was sharing a falling down townhouse with five roommates in a fairly terrible neighborhood of DC. But she’d never ask Jack for help unless she thought it was for him.

Sam smiled, imagining Jack with his shirt sleeves rolled up, fixing the showerhead in a mildewy bathroom, while Cass sat on the edge of the sink and told him all about refugee kids in the Sudan, both of them feeling so good about helping each other. Then he’d take Cassie out to dinner somewhere she couldn’t possibly afford, smirking as everyone looked at his gray hair and three stars and the radiant girl with him. Dirty old man, they’d whisper, and Jack would soak it up until Cass said nice and loud, “Dad, this is just so swell of you!”

Take care of yourself too, and be careful. I wish I could say I’ll see you at Thanksgiving, but I probably won’t make it home by then. Maybe, if I’m lucky, and everything calms down here. It would be nice.

It would be nice, but unlikely. Cassie wouldn’t be alone, not unless she wanted to be. She’d have Jack, and maybe they’d go home to Colorado and there would be Daniel too, and Cam and Vala and maybe Teal’c if he made it. And Vala would pocket the rolls and Daniel would get tipsy on one beer and they’d talk about how they missed her. She and Janet would be the ghosts at the feast.

“Absent friends,” Daniel would say seriously, his glass lifted, and everyone would say it too, except Jack who never did, just silently touching his glass to theirs.

I love you, Cass.

Sam

It was the best seafood in DC, or at least the best in a place that wasn’t pretentious and full of power meetings. Jack O’Neill rolled up the sleeves of his plaid cotton shirt and waved as his guest came in the door, looking around cheerfully before he wound his way among the tables and sat down opposite.

“A fine idea,” said Konstantin Nechayev, tossing his jacket into the other side of the booth. “We are cold warriors again, meeting in some out of the way place where we will pretend to be fishermen.”

“I never did that,” Jack said, deadpan. “I really did work on a trawler out of Gdansk.”

Nechayev laughed as the waitress came over. “I will have whatever beer he is having. And I was on a shrimp boat just off Key West.”

Jack waggled a finger. “I thought there was something Forrest Gump-like about you, Konstantin.”

Nechayev flipped open the laminated menu. “So this is on your expense account or mine?”

“Whichever,” Jack said.

Nechayev looked at him over the menu. “It is sad, is it not? The things you do for your country. Dinner with an IOA member — what could be more dismal?”

“Dinner with a system lord,” Jack replied. He looked up at the waitress. “I’ll have the Fisherman’s Platter with the clam strips.”

“I will have the same with the shrimp,” Nechayev said. “I am yearning for my old shrimp boat days.”

The waitress duly sent off with instructions as to baked potatoes, coleslaw and other such, Nechayev spread his hands around his beer bottle. “So what is this about? You know that I cannot dig Dick Woolsey out of the hole he has dug himself. If he had kept quiet for a few months this would have blown over, but he did not. And now we do not know what is happening, which makes everyone imagine the worst.” He looked at Jack a little too keenly. “Including you. Are you sure Woolsey even has a command to return to?”

Jack shrugged. “It’s a communications problem. Stuff happens. You know that as well as I do. Civilians panic.”

“Yes, civilians. And we are old soldiers, you and I. I do not think this expedition is safe or will be accomplished without a great many casualties. It’s part of the cost. But most of the member states are not willing to explain how they even lost five men, much less many more. We will lose thousands if we see this through. And that is the thing you cannot say, not even to your president.”

Jack carefully examined the label on the beer bottle. “I don’t know.”

“You know as well as I that there is no such thing as a cheap war.” Nechayev took a long drink of his beer. “Nor should there be, in my opinion. It is when people think it is cheap that they get cavalier. Why not do it, if it can be accomplished with so little risk? Why not do it, if all it will cost is a few dozen sons of the poor?” He put the bottle down. “Or if it can all be kept secret.”

The waitress returned balancing a tray full of fried seafood, and it took a few moments to sort it all out.

Jack shook the ketchup over a spare corner of plate. “I won’t deny Dick’s dug himself a deep hole,” he said. “There may not be a way out.”

“So now we come to it,” Nechayev said, picking up a calabash shrimp and popping it in his mouth. “Will I support your candidate to replace him? Your Colonel Sheppard, I assume?” He chewed thoughtfully. “He seems like a good man, and I’ve no doubt he’s a good soldier, or they would not have held so long. But he’s military. They will not do it, not most of the other IOA members. They did not like Carter, and they slapped down the idea of Caldwell as though it burned them. They won’t buy Sheppard, no matter how you paint him.” Nechayev looked at him keenly. “They only swallowed Carter because they were terrified of the Replicators.”

“And fired her as soon as she cleaned them up.” Jack didn’t look up from his plate.

“Yes, well.” Nechayev shrugged. “That is the way it goes.” He took a long drink of his beer. “An entire sentient race wiped out.”

“They’re machines,” Jack said. He looked at Nechayev across the table. “Sophisticated machines. No different than blowing up a tank or taking out a satellite.”

“Not people. Not possessing an immortal soul.” Nechayev shrugged. “I am not arguing that they were. That is the thing about machines. You cannot appeal to their better natures. Failsafe devices and dead men switches.” His eyes met Jack’s. “We have seen those in our nightmares, yes? The machines that cannot be dissuaded from their programming, locked in a firing routine long after all those they protect are dead.” He took another long drink of his beer. “We are old cold warriors, you and I. There is no reasoning with the machine. It is as well that Carter destroyed them utterly.”

Jack didn’t reply, only turned the beer bottle around in his hands, reading the label.

“I only mention it to point out that I doubt she would have been so quick to annihilate them completely with no quarter asked or given if it had not been for her own experiences with the Replicators in the past. Taken prisoner and tortured terribly, was it not?” Nechayev shrugged again. “But then we are all what life has made us. We all have those we cannot forgive.”

“True enough,” Jack said, still turning the beer bottle around. He put it down and raised his eyes. “I know the IOA won’t have Sheppard or Caldwell. I had a civilian candidate in mind. Dr. Daniel Jackson.”

Nechayev whistled. “That is a game changer,” he said quietly.

“I thought you’d think so,” Jack said, spearing a clam strip. “How about it?”

“No one can say he’s not qualified,” Nechayev said. “He’s eminently qualified. One of the foremost experts on the Ancients in the world, active at the highest levels of negotiations for a decade. A close friend of yours, of course, but that is to be expected. You would hardly recommend someone you didn’t trust.”

Jack smiled pleasantly. “No. I wouldn’t.”

“Shen won’t buy it.”

“Of course,” Jack said. “She wants it herself.”

“When pigs fly, as you say,” Nechayev replied.

“We’re paying the bills. It’s an American.” Jack speared another clam strip and twirled it in the ketchup. “You know the saying, you’ve got to dance with the one that brung you?”

“I do know it,” he said. “And I will tell you something that you already know as well. Our interests are far more in the Milky Way than Pegasus. Not nearly so far, and much more friendly. There are many opportunities among the Jaffa alliances and others that do not involve going nearly so far, or encountering quite so many life sucking aliens. We want our hand in, if there is a hand in Pegasus, but frankly if the IOA closed down the expedition tomorrow we would not weep.” Nechayev took a long drink of his beer. “You are overcommitted, O’Neill. You know it. You are overextended on Earth and…” He cocked his head to the ceiling. “Now you are looking down the barrel of a sour economy and an isolationist population dreaming of a solution that will make everyone else’s problems not their problems. You hate the IOA, but we are your best chance at not having to fold your hand completely. Perhaps if you can shoehorn some of it off onto us or those hungry boys who are pretending they are building weather satellites for Ariane just outside Warsaw, you will not have to turn over the City of the Ancients to the Chinese.”

“The Austerlitz is eighteen months from completion,” Jack said quietly. “And it’s only the communications systems that are being assembled in Poland. The hull is being built in Clermont Ferrand.”

“And then the EU will have their own warship, and we are three years from replacing the Korolev,” Nechayev said. “And you’ve suspended work on your new vessel indefinitely.”

“Money,” Jack said.

“There is no such thing as a cheap war.” Nechayev shrugged. “Very well. I will back Jackson. But you…”

“I know,” Jack said. “I’ll owe you through the nose.”

“I was going to suggest a less polite part of your anatomy,” Nechayev laughed. “But I will take your nose if it is what is offered.”