Breaking the Curse

Chapter Fourteen:  A Final Stand

“Amazing, isn't it?” Daniel asked the woman staring down at the gate. She didn't seem to hear him, shaking her head as she was lost in thought or contemplation. It had to be daunting, the prospect of running all of this. She had only heard about this days ago, he suspected. Hammond made running the SGC look easy. It couldn't be as easy as it looked. “Dr. Weir? I'm Daniel Jackson.”

“I can't get used to being this far underground,” she told him apologetically, shaking the hand he offered her. “I keep looking around for a window.”

“I see you found the one with the best view,” he said, pointing to the gate. “I remember when we were first trying to get the stargate to work; I would come here and just stare at it for hours.”

“Is that a hint?” she asked, looking over at him, her hands in her lap. “I am aware that you've been an important part of this since the very beginning, Dr. Jackson. I am most impressed with your work. It is groundbreaking, to say the least.”

“Thank you,” he said, feeling a bit self-conscious. He hadn't intended his comment to be anything more than what it was. He was a part of the stargate program, and she knew that. Weir was a smart woman, one of few people who probably could do this job, even if she wasn't Hammond. The team knew the general, trusted him, and Weir was an unknown variable to most of them. Teal'c had been quiet after hearing the news, but he had to be concerned for his own welfare. Even after all this time, there was no way to know if new leadership would be worthy of trust, if he would not be imprisoned for being what he was. He no longer carried a Goa'uld, but that might not matter to certain people. Sam... Sam had been quiet. At the time, Daniel had been too busy trying not to puke or pass out to know what to think of any of it. Now, he had concerns, but probably not as many as the others. “So, a little bit of light reading...”

“I wouldn't call it light. I've been up all weekend. The reality of this is... It's absolutely amazing. Fascinating,” she said, gesturing to the briefing room table that was full of files.

“I've thought the same thing myself, many times,” Daniel agreed quietly. He could appreciate the woman's intellectual curiosity, and he was pleased to know that she'd read up on the program. That would help. He had to get her to agree to let them go on this mission. It was too important to wait for the review the president or whoever wanted. Jack could die. The knowledge in his head could tell them where Atlantis was. They needed to do this. Politics could not change that.

“You say that as though you do not feel the same way now,” Weir observed with perception. He looked at her, caught. He didn't know what to say to that. His disillusionment wasn't about the stargate program. It was more personal.

“That's not true. I... I am still fascinated by the stargate program, by what we have seen, what we will find, what we can learn...” He sighed. “Under other circumstances, I would ask for a personal leave of absence, but I don't have time for that now.”

“Around here, I don't think you ever really have time,” she said gently. “If you came to ask me about the mission, I am still considering it.”

“Considering? I'm afraid we don't have time for that,” Daniel began. “I know that your presence will mean changes. I understand that, and I can probably agree with many of them. But you're replacing a great man, uniform notwithstanding. It's hard not to think that someone didn't have an agenda in your appointment here. You were a political activist who lobbied against the government spending on the military.”

“You want to know how I end up working for those I was criticizing?” she laughed a little. “I've come to the conclusion that the best way to stop the proliferation of weapons is to try and end the need for them. I'd like to be the voice of reason to whoever will listen. I don't know why I've been given this job. I will, however, do it to the best of my abilities as long as I'm here. I'd to start by examining the mandate for this program—”

“Except that there is an immediate threat.”

“I'm aware of that. While the last thing I want is this country's history of manifest destiny continuing out to the rest of the galaxy, with this is all being done behind the back of the entire planet, I cannot ignore the concerns of your team and our allies.”

“I'm willing to agree. Not everything that has been going on around here is right. We have no right to play God, but neither do the Goa'uld. Now I know none of this may seem real on paper, but trust me, they're pure evil. If they had the chance, they would either destroy us or enslave us all. That is fact,” Daniel told her, and he saw pity in her eyes. “What you really need to do is go through that gate and see what's going on for yourself.”

“I'd certainly like that, though I am afraid my trip will have to wait,” she said with a tired smile. “I do not have the luxury of traveling at the moment. What needs to be done is to assess the situation with Colonel O'Neill and how best to proceed.”

“Jack only did what he did, because it was our only way to find the location of the lost city,” Daniel told her. The gate started turning, and Weir looked back at it with a frown.

“Unscheduled incoming traveler,” Harriman said over the communication system.

“All the off-world teams are back already,” Weir said, continuing to frown.

“Dr. Weir, we are receiving Master Bra'tac's personal identification code,” Colonel Pierce informed her.

Daniel was about to remind her what would happen if she didn't order the iris opened, but she nodded. “I understand, thank you. Open the iris.”

She started to walk down to the gateroom, and Daniel walked with her. Bra'tac came in through the gate, and as he regarded Weir suspiciously, Daniel quickly explained. “Bra'tac, this is Dr Elizabeth Weir, she's the new leader of this facility.”

Weir smiled warmly at Bra'tac. “Hello.”

Bra'tac looked at Daniel. “Has Hammond of Texas fallen in battle?”

“No, he's fine,” Weir quickly assured the Jaffa.

“We've had some recent changes in our political leaders,” Daniel explained a bit awkwardly. Bra'tac looked bothered and distracted. He was worried about something, and for him to be worried...

“I see.”

“Bra'tac, what's wrong?” Daniel asked with concern.

“I'm afraid I'm not the bearer of good news,” Bra'tac began gravely. “We have had word from Jaffa loyal to our cause. Anubis is gathering full force of his fleet. He will be here within three days.”

Daniel was sitting in his lab, trying not to get annoyed with Jack while the other man worked on a crossword puzzle. Daniel remembered something about a bet that Jack had lost with Sam, but he hadn't paid a lot of attention to that. He was busy, distracted, and not in the mood to deal with Jack right now. He hated that he had to try. It wasn't like the other man had apologized. He acted like he hadn't said or done anything wrong, and that wasn't true. Daniel brought a book over to him and pointed to the information on the page.

“Does this mean anything to you?”

“No,” Jack answered without looking up.

Daniel had to restrain himself from throttling the other man. Jack could be impossible sometimes, and this was one of those times. It had been building up since the “geek week,” with Jack's comments about the two of them, and after that last conversation at his house. “Could you at least look at it?”

“Daniel, I don't speak Ancient,” Jack said, and Daniel shot him a look. “Yet. And when I do—eventually—you know I'll never understand it.”

Because you're lazy, Daniel thought in annoyance. Jack could figure out Ancient if he really wanted to; anyone could learn a language if they wanted. Maybe they wouldn't speak it perfectly or have a very large vocabulary, but they could learn a little. Jack just didn't bother. “You have to try.”

“Look, last time things just popped into my fron.”

“Fron is head,” Daniel explained immediately. Jack looked at him without comprehension. As always.

“Now, you see, I have no idea what you're talking about.”

Daniel snatched the crossword puzzle off the desk. “Well, maybe if you stopped working on this stupid piece of crap—”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Jack protested as he tried to get it back. “I'd like to at least finish that while I can.”

Sam walked into the room and took in the fight with concern on her face. “I thought you were supposed to be working.”

Daniel looked at the puzzle, frowning when he saw the answers Jack had written in. “Thirteen across, you wrote 'Taonas.'”

“Yeah? So? What's it mean?”

“I don't know—you tell me,” Daniel almost snapped. He tried to control his temper. “Eight down, you wrote 'proklarush.'”

“What's eight down?” Sam asked, then clarified, “I mean, what is the question or hint?”

“Um... 'label.' There's empty spaces—I think the answer is supposed to be 'identification.' Thirteen across is 'sphere'... Sam, this is it,” he said as he turned to her with a smile. She didn't understand, but she smile back at him warmly.

Jack's tone was not half as friendly. “Now, see, I assume we still speak the same language...mostly.”

“'Sphere'—planet. 'Label'—name.”

“Following. Still. You. Not!” Jack said in a bad impression of Yoda. Daniel rolled his eyes and ignored him, focusing on Sam. At least she would appreciate the discovery he'd made.

“Proklarush Taonas. I think Jack wrote the name of the planet where we'll find the lost city in the crossword,” Daniel told her, and she smiled at him.

“Bit of a jump,” Jack muttered not quite under his breath.

Sam took the puzzle from Daniel and looked at it. She frowned. Or maybe it was a wince. “The clue for seven down is 'celestial body,' and he wrote 'Uma Thurman.'”

Daniel sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “The rest of it has to mean something.”

Jack snatched the puzzle back, straightened it out, sighed, and studied at it intently for a few moments. Daniel and Sam waited for something more, but all they got was, “I'm hungry.”

Jack got up and left the room. Sam and Daniel looked at each other for a moment and then sighed.

Sam could tell that Daniel didn't want to be working with the colonel right now. She had to admit, she wasn't really comfortable in the man's company, either. She'd gone to his house, she'd practically threw herself at him, and that was bad enough, but worse than that was the comment he'd made later. A part of it was true, but it was very inappropriate. She had been thinking about Daniel a lot, and maybe the colonel was right about the damn curse. Maybe Daniel was the answer. But she hadn't wanted to hear it like that.

“'Proklarush Taonas.' According to this it means 'lost in fire.' It was lost. This has to be the planet where that lost city is,” Daniel began, trying to get the colonel to cooperate with him. She knew that her commanding officer could be obstinate, but this seemed... petty.

“Unfortunately, knowing the name of the planet doesn't really help unless we have a gate address to get us there,” Sam reminded him as gently as possible.

The colonel reached out and yanked the SG-1 patch off Daniel's sleeve, dropping it onto the table. Daniel stared at him, unable to believe what he had just done. Neither could Sam, for that matter. The colonel picked up the patch and turned it round, dropping it onto the table again. He looked up at Daniel and across to Sam.

“Jack, what are you doing?” Daniel asked with disbelief and anger in his voice.

“At.”

Sam frowned. “What?”

“At,” the colonel repeated, looking at her, and she shook her head. She didn't get it. She knew that the colonel couldn't really control how the Ancient knowledge affected him or what it revealed to him, but he needed to try and help them out more than he was.

“This?” Daniel asked, pointing to his patch. Sam knew that it really bothered him, the way that it had just been ripped off like that. In other circumstances, it might have been a sign of Daniel getting kicked off the team, and it was a violation of his personal space.

“At.”

“That is At?”

“You can stop...that,” the colonel told Daniel with irritation, though he was the one who wasn't being clear. “And don't ask me what it means—I don't know.”

Daniel thought for a moment. He took out his notebook and started drawing on the paper, a stargate symbol. “I think I do. What's this?”

“'Shh.'” The colonel actually managed to correct himself this time. “That symbol is 'Shh'.”

“That's it,” Daniel said, and Sam frowned again, trying to figure out what he was getting at with all this. He flipped to another page in the notebook. “'Proklarush Taonas.' Six syllables. What if each symbol on the stargate has a corresponding sound so that it can be spoken aloud?”

She found herself smiling. Daniel was brilliant. “Like an alphabet.”

“Proklarush Taonas isn't just the name of the planet. It's also the gate address.”

Sam had way too much time to think on the al'kesh headed towards the planet where they hoped to find the lost city. They had been fortunate to get this one from the rebel Jaffa. It was a good thing that Teal'c and Bra'tac had been able to reach them, to convince them to give them aid. It was something that had worried Sam after what happened at the beta site, but it had worked out. At least something was going right because it felt like everything was out of their control.

She felt the most of control right now. Daniel was up with Bra'tac and Teal'c in the cockpit, and she was in the back with the colonel, who was working at yet another project that no one understood, not even him. She didn't know what to do. She had to speak to him, had to discuss what happened at his house. She hoped that Daniel couldn't hear her.

Sam cleared her throat awkwardly. “Sir, I think you should know that General Hammond authorized me to take command of the team if I determined that you—”

“Do it now,” the colonel ordered.

“Sir, I don't think that's necessary,” she began again, but he wouldn't let her finish.

“I trust you. I'll make it easy for you. I resign. You're in charge.”

Sam couldn't believe what she was hearing. She didn't know what to think or do. This was not what she'd trained for, and she was not ready for this. Not at all. And she had to address things that had gone unsaid for too long. “Sir, at your house before Daniel and Teal'c showed up, what I was gonna say was—”

“I know,” the colonel cut her off. She bit her lip as he slid the crystals back into position.

“About what you said about me and Daniel, sir—”

“Carter.”

His tone was a warning, but she wasn't finished. “You might be right. Still, what you said... It hurt him. It hurt both of us. And the fact that you might die doesn't excuse it.”

She moved up to the front as the al'kesh slowed down. They were entering orbit around a planet. She looked at the readings and down at the planet. “Well, this doesn't look good. The surface is almost completely covered by lava flows.”

“How could there have ever been a civilization down there?” Daniel wondered aloud.

“A star becomes a red giant like this near the end of its life. A million years ago this planet may have looked very much like Earth,” she explained, and Daniel nodded with understanding.

Then his expression turned to dismay. “So we're a million years late?”

She nodded slowly, trying not to wince. “Probably more.”

“That's very late.”

Bra'tac looked back at them to report. “I have scanned the entire surface.”

Sam and Daniel turned to look at the colonel. He had joined them, and he was just as quiet and belligerent as always. She wasn't sure that her words had gotten through to him. She hoped so, but she couldn't be sure. “What do you want me to say? I don't even know why we're here.”

“You did pack the hazmat suits for us,” she said with a shrug. “My guess is you knew the condition of the planet and you knew that we would have to go down there.”

“Then you know more than I do.”

Sam's frustration got the better of her. “No, sir, I don't. Sit down and take a look. That's an order.”

The colonel frowned, but he'd given her command, he'd resigned, and he'd told her to do this. Teal'c actually seemed surprised, and Daniel might have been cheering her on. Bra'tac got out of the seat and let the other man take it.

“Taonas.”

“Sir?” she asked, and then she could have kicked herself for it. She shouldn't address him by rank or sir because she would undermine her position.

“What?”

“You looked at the screen and said 'Taonas.'”

“If you say so.”

“You say so,” Daniel corrected, and Sam touched his arm gently, trying to calm him down. She knew that Teal'c and Bra'tac were the only ones with any patience left for the colonel at this point, but they needed him, needed the knowledge in his head.

Sam saw something on the screen and pointed it out to the others. “There's a small anomaly on the surface here. Like a bubble.”

“Is it a cavern?”

“It looks like a perfectly-formed half-sphere of molten rock. It's possible that a force field meant to protect the city was covered over,” Sam suggested and then shook her head. “Too small to have a whole city in there—and we aren't getting any energy readings from it.”

“Perhaps the shield has since failed.”

“We should still check it out.”

Daniel didn't like this place. There really wasn't much to like about it. It was on a planet overrun by lava, underneath molten rock. They were in hazmat gear—and he'd never been very fond of hazmat gear—and this place was... more than abandoned. It was haunted by the long dead. He shook his head. He was really not any better off than he had been since Sarah's death. He had never had time to pull himself together, and he wasn't sure there would ever be time, not when they were in a place like this. Sam took a reading as they looked around the dark structure. It seemed to be full of smoke or steam, and the lights barely made any dent in the gloom. “The radiation level's pretty high.”

“It seems a shield once protected this structure.”

“It's possible the rings compromised the dome's integrity,” Sam warned them, studying the walls somewhat nervously through her hazmat suit. “We shouldn't stay too long.”

“Architecture definitely indicates this was built by the Ancients,” Daniel said as they passed through the structure. Jack was leading them deeper in, into a large room with something in the middle of it, difficult to make out through the gloom.

“This facility does not appear operational,” Teal'c observed.

Jack walked to the stone chair in the middle of the room. It looked like a throne on a small platform.

“I don't know about you guys, but right now, I'm kind of hoping that this isn't the lost city,” Sam muttered. She noticed Jack standing by the chair, looking like he was about to sit down. “Sir, be careful.”

Jack sat down in the chair, lighting it up. Daniel looked around in concern. “Jack, are you sure you know what you're doing?”

Jack put his hands on the arm pads of the chair. A force field came up around the chamber, air filling the room. Without hesitation, or any concern for his own safety, before anyone could stop him, Jack took his suit's hood off.

Sam did a quick reading on the room. “The atmosphere is safe.”

Jack took his left glove off, touched the left-hand pad, and the chair reclined halfway back. Daniel glanced at Sam while they removed their hoods. He wanted to talk to her, even though he know this wasn't the time or the place. They weren't alone; they didn't even know what they were doing here. Jack used the pad again, making small movements with his fingers, and a three-dimensional holographic map of the galaxy appeared above their heads.

“It's a map of the galaxy,” Sam said with a slight bit of awe. This display was always impressive. The Ancients had such nice toys.

“Looks like every planet the Ancients ever colonized is on this map,” he said, pointing to a marker above his head. “This is where we are—Proklarush.”

The image shifted to a solar system with a single sun and nine planets. Sam looked at it as it focused on the third planet. “That's our solar system. Earth.”

Teal'c looked at the shapes of the continents on the image of the planet. “That does not appear to be Earth.”

“That's because it doesn't take into consideration thirty million years of continental drift,” Daniel told him. The Jaffa looked at him, cocking his head and raising an eyebrow before giving an “indeed” nod.

Sam looked at Jack. “Sir, why are you showing us this?”

Jack looked up at the image. He didn't say anything. Daniel sighed and prompted him. “Jack?”

“Terra Atlantis.”

“Terra would be Earth,” Daniel explained, even though he was pretty sure it wasn't necessary. “And Atlantis is... Atlantis.”

“The lost city of Atlantis?” Sam asked incredulously. She shook her head. They should have expected it, but even after all of this time, they could still be surprised.

“Are you saying the lost city of the Ancients is here?” Daniel pointed at the image of Earth. Sam moved over to pinpoint the location in Antarctica.”

“Subo glacios.”

“Under the ice,” Daniel translated. “The city we've been looking for is under the ice of Antarctica.”

“It's been on Earth the whole time?” Sam asked incredulously. Jack looked at her but said nothing.

“Jack, we were just there!” Daniel exclaimed in exasperation.

Sam was more frustrated than Daniel was; he could hear it in her voice. “So we came all this way just to find out that we have to go all the way back.”

“No,” Jack said as he manipulated the pad again. The holographic image disappeared, and the chair straightened up. He put his hazmat hood back on. Daniel and the others quickly followed suit. The colonel went to the edge of the platform and knelt down. He waved his hand over part of it, and a glowing device came out of the ground. He pulled it free and gave it to Sam.

“A power source,” Sam said as she turned the device over in her hands. They started to leave the cavern, making their way carefully, accompanied by ominous rumblings in the hardened lava. “Bra'tac, we're on our way. We know the location of the lost city. It's on Earth.”

Full circle. Back to earth, another underground cavern, another battle to save the planet. They had come back around. They were fighting the same battle, and she wasn't sure it would be their last. Well, for one of them, it was probably the last. For their ill-equipped defensive fleet, with only Prometheus to stand against the Goa'uld mothership, it was probably the end. That was what they kept thinking all the way to the Antarctic. They were down in the underground chamber, another throne room, and they were facing off against a kull warrior. It was over.

This was the end.

They had all thought it was, and then the colonel got in the chair. He closed his eyes and then it was over in a matter of minutes, in their favor. She could hear the fleet cheering and full of disbelief as the Ancient weapons went to work. And the kull warrior was gone. They had been saved.

The colonel had saved them.

He closed his eyes again, and his head rolled to the side. The lights on the chair went out. It—He—They both looked dead. Maybe they were.

“Sir?” She rushed over to him and held up his head, looking for his pulse. “Sir. His pulse is erratic. Don't you dare leave us now. We won.”

He opened his eyes a little, starting to move weakly. Sam took a hold of his face, trying to focus him, keep him conscious as the others came over to them. “Colonel.”

The colonel could barely make eye contact with her as she leaned over him. He wasn't going to last long. What he had done, everything today, had taken a lot out of him. She didn't want to watch him die. “Please...”

“Dolmata.”

Sam looked over at Daniel. He looked pained as he pointed to the capsule nearby. “That thing.”

Teal'c went to the chair and picked Jack out of it. He carried him to the chamber and set him inside. She watched, waiting. What was this going to do? Would it save him? Would it be in time? She watched the lights come on inside. Teal'c stepped back.

“Now what?”

“Aveo...amacus.”

Sam and Teal'c looked at Daniel, who answered, quietly. “Goodbye.”

A shield came up from the floor and wrapped itself around the colonel. Stasis. It was a stasis chamber. It could keep him alive until they found a way to reverse the effects of the Ancient knowledge. She hoped. She found herself shaking her head. “I would have thought with this being the lost city, there would have been some way to reverse this...”

Daniel shook his head, looking a bit sick. It was his friend that was trapped in the chamber, after all. He must feel awful. “I don't think this is it, Sam.”

“What do you mean?”

“The dome's too small. It's like Taonas. It's obviously not a city; it's just an outpost of some kind.”

She couldn't help the disappointment. She'd been convinced. They had all been convinced. They thought it was what they needed, what they had searched for, the lost city. “This isn't Atlantis?”

“I don't think so.” Daniel's voice remained quiet, subdued. She felt his eyes on her and wondered why.

“If this is not the lost city, then where is it?” Teal'c asked.

Daniel could not answer. Sam returned to the stasis chamber and put her hand against the shield. She had been right, earlier. This was goodbye. Here and now, she said goodbye.