Through the Stargate - To Gunsmoke
KaWHOOSH! The sound of the Stargate opening flooded Major Samantha Carter's ears as she stood at the foot of the ramp. Above her, the liquid explosion of the Stargate's event horizon opening billowed outward before settling back into a gently rippling surface, blue and glowing as though lit from within. Samantha Carter rolled her shoulders gently, feeling her gear settle into place, and picked up the portable naquadah generator. The MALP had indicated the all-clear, and as she turned to face her team her mind was full of the goal of this mission: to find Vash and Wolfwood and ask for their help one more time. She turned to look at her team: Teal'c stood quietly, arms folded behind his back, the golden symbol on his forehead gleaming slightly. Daniel was fiddling with one of the pockets on his vest, fussing over one of his quick-reference books. An involuntary smile touched Carter's lips as she looked at her comrades, then dropped away as she spoke firmly. "Okay, let's go." Teal'c inclined his head, and Daniel smiled and gave a quick nod. It was only the three of them; General Hammond had thought that it would be best in this sensitive situation to only include in the team those that Vash and Wolfwood knew and trusted. She turned and walked forward, her steps and those of her teammates echoing up the ramp. She took a small breath as she always did before entering the event horizon - no matter that it only resembled water, it always felt like diving into a pool face-first. She crossed the shimmering blue barrier a few seconds before the rest of her team. The howling of the wormhole filled her ears as she stretched, flying across space and time - to step securely out onto the gritty ground of Gunsmoke. Colonel O'Neill watched grumpily from the Stargate Operations room, leaning on the desk next to the technician dialing the gate. Lips clamped tightly together, he watched his team making their way up to the open Stargate. He clamped his lips together and grunted, then complained to the gate technician, "I still don't see why I couldn't go." The gate technician - Walter, yes, that was his name, O'Neill remembered - continued monitoring the gate, undisturbed. "I'm sure I don't know, sir." O'Neill sighed. "I suppose you don't." He straightened as the gate opened, shimmering blue light flickering across the gray surfaces of the gate room. Carter turned and spoke to Daniel and Teal'c, then led the way up to the Stargate. She stepped through the event horizon with barely a ripple, the other two bare steps behind her. The lights flickered. Suddenly - *ZZZOW!* One of the lights in the gate room exploded in a shower of sparks. Teal'c and Daniel froze, staring upward, as surges of energy started arcing across the gateroom in jagged lightning bolts. *Zzzackt! Zzzzackt!* The Stargate started to emit a high-pitched whine. O'Neill grabbed the microphone from in front of the startled technician, yelling into it. "Daniel! Teal'c! Get away from the-" *KraKOOM!!* Showers of sparks exploded off the Stargate. The contact points blew off from the sheer power surging through the gate, and the event horizon flicked once, twice, before evaporating into nothingness. A huge surge of energy blew out computer monitors in the operations room. O'Neill threw up his arm just in time to block the jagged shards of glass from slicing into his face. The mountain shuddered, and with one last muffled explosion all the lights cut out, leaving them all in darkness. O'Neill's ears were ringing. He found he was lying facedown on the floor. His arm hurt. With difficulty he pushed himself up to his knees, then staggered to his feet. Red emergency lighting pooled like blood on the floor. Walter was lying near him, blinking, his glasses askew on his face. O'Neill shouted over the ringing in his ears. "Are you all right?" The technician nodded blearily, then pulled himself up to look out the window down into the gate room. O'Neill staggered over to join him. Looking down, they saw bodies stirring from where they lay on the floor. Two were on the ramp - O'Neill saw Teal'c bending over Daniel, giving him a hand up. Of Carter there was no sign. "Carter. Where's CARTER?" O'Neill bellowed at the technician. "She entered the wormhole, sir!" "I saw that. Can you get it back?" Walter blinked. "I- I don't know, sir. I'll try." Futilely his hands moved over the keyboard, the computers empty of any sign of life. Walter's voice was shaky, but professional. "I don't think so, sir. The systems have been completely overloaded." He swallowed. "It's possible that the dialing data has been lost." O'Neill stared at the technician. "Lost? LOST?" He grabbed Walter's shirt front and pointed at the Stargate. "Carter's out there, on another planet, by herself, in another time, and you're telling me that you CAN'T GET HER BACK?!" Walter choked out, "I'll try, sir!" O'Neill let Walter go so abruptly he fell into his chair. "Well, DO IT then!" Walter bent to his task. "Yes sir!" But O'Neill could tell from the technician's movements and the sick pit of fear in his own gut that it was possible, even likely, that Carter was going to be stranded. Surely not for long, he thought. There's always the backups. Right? "What do you MEAN there's no backups?!" O'Neill was starting to get hoarse from shouting. He didn't even particularly like shouting, but he sure wasn't going to hold back when one of his team was on the line. "You get Carter back right now!" The scientist in charge said miserably, "We can't, sir! That accident released so much energy that it acted like an EMP. We've lost all the data from the last six weeks, including all of Major Carter's work and calculations on how to get to Gunsmoke. We'll do our best to recreate it, but, well," he cleared his throat, "Major Carter is our resident expert in these things. We have to do the calculations not only for the planet, but for the time period. A mistake could be disastrous!" O'Neill rubbed his forehead with his right hand. His arm itched abominably under the bandage, and he could feel a headache coming on. "How did this even happen?" The man cleared his throat and shifted. "Uh, well…" O'Neill's hand stilled, and he dropped his arm, staring into the scientist's face with laser-like intensity. "Oh. Oh no. Don't tell me. What did you do?" The scientist suddenly hunched, trying to make himself smaller. "W-well, Major Carter had hypothesized that the current plant prototype could output more power, given certain parameters. We thought," he cleared his throat and shuffled his feet as O'Neill stared, "we thought that we could… test that for her, while she was off on the mission, and have the data ready for when she returned." He looked up at O'Neill, the words coming out in a rush. "She was completely right, Colonel! The output was drastically increased! It surpassed even her estimates by a factor of ten!" The scientist looked up in the midst of his intellectual delight and made the mistake of meeting O'Neill's eyes. Suddenly he didn't seem to know what to do with his hands and feet. O'Neill spoke, his voice so dry it could desiccate a rainforest. "So you decided to do a little experiment while she was gone, huh. Well!" His voice sharpened and got louder. "Guess what! You'll certainly have time for that now, because she's GONE, stuck offworld until you FIGURE OUT how to GET HER BACK." His voice dropped as he leaned in towards the scientist. "And you better believe that that's all you'll be doing until she's here, safe, once more, you hear me?" The scientist seemed to be trying to melt into the floor. O'Neill waved him off with disgust. "Oh, go on, get going." The man scurried off, and O'Neill shouted after him, "You better work hard, because Carter is your first priority!" O'Neill sighed again, concealing a gnawing worry in his gut. I'd better tell General Hammond about this, he thought miserably, then straightened up. tugging his uniform jacket into place. At least he'll be on my side. "Resume normal operations?!" O'Neill couldn't believe what he was hearing. He repeated, "You're just going to resume normal operations, just like that? What about Carter? How are we going to get her back?" General Hammond leaned back in his chair. O'Neill was actually standing inside his office for once, a measure of how upset he was. "What would you have me do, Jack? We have teams offworld that need to come back, and we have urgent missions that can't wait, including a diplomatic envoy to the Tok'ra!" He leaned forward for emphasis. "We aren't giving up on her, Jack. But I don't see what else we can do, for the time being. We just have to wait and trust our valuable scientists' expertise to bring her back quickly." O'Neill ran an exasperated hand through his short gray hair. "I wouldn't trust those guys with a goldfish!" He lowered his voice, speaking urgently. "Come on. There's got to be a way to hurry these guys along, find the data, something!" Hammond's voice chilled. "You think I don't want to get her back?" He humphed as Jack deflated. "I know you're worried about her, Jack, and we're dong everything we can to get her back as soon as possible. But until we have a gate address you're just going to have to be patient." Colonel O'Neill rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. "Yeah." He turned to go, but was halted by the sound of General Hammond's voice. "Jack… I'm worried about her too." O'Neill paused, then nodded once. "I know," he said quietly. His boots echoed in the corridor as he walked away, and General Hammond sighed. Turning, he picked up the phone. It couldn't hurt to check up on those scientists a little bit…