Connor was sat at the desk in the video control room, trawling through the hours of tape in an attempt to discover how SG-1 had got to the Embarkation room. He was just uploading the fifth such cassette when the Colonel and Melissa burst in. The sergeant who was monitoring the current goings on ignored the intruders.Connor looked up.
"What's up Sir?"
"We think we have an idea as to what is occurring with SG-1" the colonel informed him. "However we need you to help us confirm the theory."
"What do you want me to do?"
"We need to correlate the times SG-1 disappeared and see if there is any connection. We'll also need to see the tape of the last incident. Melissa thought she saw something down there."
"You're in luck sir. I was just running that tape now." He leant over the keyboard and pressed a sequence of keys. the video began to play, the time counter showing the date and times of the recording.
"Can you get it play just the time when SG-1 collapsed. Time index 13:54, today?" Melissa asked.
"Certainly." The video whirred as it fast-forwarded to the requested time then began to play.
SG-1 could be seen walking into the embarkation room, perfectly relaxed followed by Melissa. They waited as the rings turned locking into place, before the wormhole exploded into existence.
"Run it slowly from here," King whispered her eyes fixed on the images before her.
Frame by frame, second by second, the story unfolded. Each member of SG-1 collapsing in slow motion as the wormhole vanished.
"Stop it there. Rewind to time index 14:02 and play it from there. Can you enlarge the image?
The picture jumped to fill the entire screen and played again as the gate began to disintegrate.
"Enlarge just the wormhole and center on it."
Now the center of the wormhole filled the monitor gradually disappearing.
"Stop" Melissa's voice was quiet, her entire concentration on the screen before her. "Freeze that frame." She pointed excitedly to the image on the computer screen. The proof of the crazy theory the two women had developed stared back at them. Now to convince everyone else.
Janet sat at the small desk inside the room where the members of SG-1 were located. There had been no change in the last hour since their discovery in the Gate room. Tired and drained she looked again at the records of her patients, trying to find an explanation for what was occurring, any clue that would help her cure her friends. A knock on the door caught her attention and looking up she saw Colonel King standing in the doorway.
"Can I help you?" she asked, her voice weary. She couldn't face another showdown with the Colonel. It had been too long a day and she was too tired. However the Colonel was also not in the mood to fight. She accepted the chair Frasier indicated.
" I think we have some good news Doctor."
Janet tried not too look surprised but was it the idea someone finally had an answer to the problem or was it the Colonel's own tired voice, echoing her own feelings?
"What have you found?"
"I think the best way to explain is to show you the video footage we have from the last seventy two hours. If you'd like to join myself and Thomas in the General's room now I think all should be explained." The Colonel stood to leave. "I hope this can help your friends." And then she was gone.
Janet arrived at the General's office ten minutes later having made her way from the infirmary after checking again that SG-1 were stable. The two members of SGI were already present, General Hammond sat patiently behind his desk. Seeing Janet enter, King began her final presentation of the theory on SG-1.
"We all know the nature of SG-1's discovery on the planet and most of us have viewed the footage of their distress call. However up to this moment we had no idea as to their present condition or how to reverse it.
I believe my team and I may finally have that answer." As she spoke the video in the corner of the room came to life showing the corridor outside the infirmary ten minutes before SG-1's collapse in the Gate room. The two guards posted after Sam's discovery in the computer suit were standing smartly outside on either side of the doorway. No one else was anywhere around.
The time counted down second by second and nothing happened. Then Janet noticed that inch by inch the door was opening. The guard on the left heard something and turned. A balled fist landed in his face, knocking him instantly to the ground. His friend couldn't help as he was slumped beside him rendered unconscious by a second assailant unseen from the doorway. Then, four stiffly moving figures emerged, dressed in white gowns, and headed away from the camera towards the gate room.
"But that's impossible." Janet could barely keep the incredulity of what she was seeing from her voice.
"Could the tapes have been tampered with?" Hammond asked.
"Just keep watching sir. I'll explain everything after this."
The tape was still rolling and now the angle changed to another camera. SG-1 was moving quicker now, Jack finding his voice.
"How..long Carter?"
"A..no..ther five minutes..until the gate is fully op..ened Sir."
"Lets keep..mo..ving"
A third camera change showed the fugitives now on level 28 corridor C leading towards the gate room. They were moving at brisk pace now, far more freely and their voices were no longer stilted.
"We've got another minute before the computers lock this place down sir."
By now the computerised voice was calling down the sequence of chevrons as they locked in position. SG-1 dived through the door just as the fifth chevron was locking up.
"Are you sure this is going to work Carter?" Jack asked.
"Well, it as good a guess as any sir. I don't fancy spending the rest of my life in limbo"
"Neither do I. And remind me when all this is over to ask the medical team not to have gapping holes in their gowns. It's draughty."
"Er, Jack."
"What is it Daniel?" He followed the line of Daniel's gaze and saw Melissa standing not more than five feet away. "Oh hell."
The rest of the scene unfolded exactly as those present in the room remembered. The Gate opened, SG-1 prepared to enter and as it began to close, one by one they collapsed. King paused the tape.
"So what is the explanation of what we have just seen Colonel?" Hammond's patience was running out. What he had just seen, regardless of all the things he'd seen in his time in command of this facility, was impossible.
"Can I ask you to bear with me for two seconds please sir. As we know Doctor Thomas here was in the closest proximity to SG-1 just prior to the final moments on this video and our own arrival in the Gate room. She saw something sir. A face in the event horizon of the gate sir, seconds before it vanished."
The screen came alive again, this time an enlarged version of the center of the Stargate. The light rippled and shimmered like a pond on a breezy day. It began to fall apart, from the edges inwards. The image froze. There, in the blue energy that formed the wormhole's event horizon, the face of Jack O'Neill, Colonel of SG-1, stared out at his collapsing body.
James and Connor sat in the computer lab on level 13, rerunning the scenario on the screen. The computer generated images rotated, lists of numbers running along the side as the computer went through the simulation of energies and the brain and the wormhole, checking and rechecking the possibilities of the theory that King was now explaining to Hammond and Frasier down on level 28
"Are you telling me that what we just saw was not tampered with in any way?" Hammond was finding it harder to control his disbelief.
"Yes sir. We've got James and Connor working on a way of reversing the problem which is essentially that SG-1 are somehow stuck in the wormhole between here and '351. Doctor Thomas here has found reference to a weapon, possibly devised by a Goa'uld, capable of separating the essence of a person from their body and dispersing it. However I believe that somehow, SG-1 were instead trapped within the Gate."
"That could explain the readings from the EEG I suppose," Janet conceded. "It was consistent with damage to the parts of the brain we believe hold our consciousness and would also account for the catatonia. But how do you explain what we saw on that TV a moment ago. How are they able to move, how did Daniel get into his office, or Sam get into the computer labs."
"Good question. As current Gate theory stands, the naquada of the ring acts as a giant energy capacitor. As it powers up, it releases that energy. The video would seem to suggest that as that energy has been released, SG-1 are more capable of moving, especially as they get closer to the Gate."
Melissa saw the look of uncertainty on the General's face. "Sir, we've checked the times of Daniel and Sam's incidents against the times of the Gate powering up. Daniel coincided with the activation of the Gate when a UAV was launched, Major Carter's with a similar incident. The final one when SG-1 were discovered in the Gate room also backs this up."
King watched Hammond take in the doctor's theory.
"Sir request a party to return SG-1 through the Stargate to P2X351."
Hammond sat in a stunned silence. His mind was having difficulty assimilating the barrage of information that he had just been given. Not being a physicist or biologist he was having trouble accepting the basic premise of the information, that somehow SG-1 were "stuck" for want of a better word, within the very Gate itself, free-floating disembodied energy that could only emerge as the Gate opened. And now, the Colonel was asking for him to send her team and SG-1 back through the gate to the planet where this had started on no other information than a video and some scribbled writings in a journal.
"I'm sorry colonel. I cannot allow you to risk any more lives travelling to that planet. If as you say, the natives have a weapon capable of doing what you say, it would be certain suicide and how could we be sure it would not happen again. I'm sorry but I can't authorise this." He turned to Frasier and addressed her. "How much does this help you?" Not a lot sir, I'm afraid. At least though I know what I am dealing with. Perhaps there is some way we can move SG-1 closer to the Gate while I try to find a way to reintegrate them. Other than that, we can only keep them comfortable."
"As I thought. Do what ever you have to doctor and keep me posted."
"Are you really not going to authorise this mission sir?" King couldn't believe that she was really hearing this. "You are not even prepared to try?"
"I'm sorry colonel but I cannot risk another team. We'd end up with no one left."
King looked at her feet. She understood what he was saying and she wished he hadn't. She still had an ace up her sleeve but she was reluctant to play it. She tried again.
"Sir, please. Think about how important Sg-1 is to this mission. You cannot tell me that when they are conscious they will be happy. You heard what Carter said on the tape."
Hammond's patience wore through at that point. "Colonel, My decision has been made. Thank you for your help but this is now an internal matter."
"I'm sorry sir." She stood and Hammond thought that she was going to leave. Instead she pulled an envelope from the inside pocket of her jacket and placed it on the desk before him.
"In that case sir, if you will not authorise this mission, then for the duration of my stay here, I am assuming command of the SGC on the orders of General Harris and the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
Hammond could do nothing but stare at the envelope as King, temporary commander of the SGC, turned to the Doctors sitting in the room.
"Doctor Frasier, prepare SG-1 for travel. We will be leaving through the Gate at 1500 hours. Doctor Thomas, could you inform the rest of SGI and put SG-2 on alert as well. They'll be coming with us."
The two women, stunned by the sudden turn of events, exited without a word leaving King alone with Hammond.
"I am sorry sir." She was sitting again now, facing Hammond in his office. "I was given those orders in the event I needed them. The General said you could phone to check with him. This is his private number sir." She placed a plain white business card on the table and then stood, saluted and left on a sharply turned heel leaving Hammond to contemplate what had just occurred.
They all stood in the gate room at 1500 hours; SG-2, Hammond, SGI and Frasier along with four trolleys on which lay the inert forms of SG-1, now dressed in standard fatigues instead of the white gowns in which they had spent the past three days. Beside them, large quantities of medical equipment beeped and chirruped, filling an uncomfortable silence but raising the tension that already pervaded the entire SGC.
The giant Gate stood inert as well, dominating the room with her presence. Above them, the technicians and observers finished the final countdown to Gate activation.
This was the final test of SGI's theory about SG-1. In the time since King had assumed command, there had been a hundred and one computer simulations and tests on SG-1 but this would be the final proof. King raised her hand, Davis in the observation room hit the final key and the Gate activation was underway.
From the large power dampers that held the Gate, steam and vapour released in a hiss as the gate began to use the power to turn her huge inner dial and create what until her discovery had been impossible: a stable wormhole to another planet.
For Frasier, monitoring SG-1, the effects of the Gate were as dramatic as they were instantaneous. The EEG connected to Daniel began to show signs of life returning, changing from the flat catatonic trace, to that of an actively minded 35-year-old male. Pulse, blood pressure, and nervous system: they were all coming back to normal, no longer being run on autopilot. It was almost like booting up as computer as each new system came online. A quick checked showed the same for Teal'c, Sam and jack. Life was returning to all four of them.
The inner ring began to move, grinding slowly, ponderously as it swung to the first co-ordinate for P2X351. A light appeared as it locked in place and a disembodied female voice reiterated the point.
"hey, keep the noise down would you. Some of us are trying to sleep." Daniel's mischievous voice bought a smile to Frasier's face and when he opened his eyes she thought she could fall into those two clear pools and drown.
One by one, SG-1 became more alert, sitting up, asking what was going on. It was Daniel who voiced the first question however.
"What's happening?"
The seventh chevron, at that very moment locked, unleashing the Gate's full power and opening the wormhole. Sam, eyes shining, realised what was going on.
"We're going through the gate Daniel. Reintegrate us fully with our consciousness. No more floating around the gate."
"Thank God" That from Jack. "It was beginning to make me feel dizzy"
King, watching this interplay decided that now was as good a time as any to complete her mission. "Gentlemen, and Major. If you'd care to follow me."
Daniel swung himself off the bed carefully, thankful when his legs didn't buckle beneath him. "Shall we?" he asked his colleagues as they detached themselves from Frasier's equipment.
One by one, followed by SG-2, Daniel, Jack Sam and Teal'c stepped through the gate before the wormhole collapsed behind them.
Daniel was the first to emerge from the gate, glad to be back. Being a disembodied "thing" in the gate had been fun at first but now he felt happy that he was back in his own body.
Jack came next, briskly moving away from the gate as though he were worried it would bite him. He shuddered as he thought about life or should that be existence, outside of his own body. Doubtless the scientists in the group thought it was fun but he was just glad to be back in the real world.
Teal'c stepped back from the gate his face as impassive as ever. What he thought of the experience no one ever really knew. His face was impassive as ever, carved from granite as always.
Sam's mind was racing as she returned to earth. Think of the possibilities, what this would mean to biology; neuroscience; physics; philosophy. The implications were endless. Pure energy, capable of thought, of existing in a non-corporeal form. It was incredible.
King stepped through last. No she'd been through the Stargate. Had seen what the other side truly held and she was glad. Glad that she didn't have to do this everyday of her life, happy that she would be earthbound for the rest of her days. She made her way towards Hammond who was waiting at the foot of the ramp.
"General"
"Colonel"
I'm sorry Sir. I did what I felt I had too. I am resigning command of this facility back to you sir." She saluted stiffly, unsure of herself momentarily.
"Resignation accepted Colonel. Debriefing at 1700 hours. Dismissed" He watched her leave. Now that SG-1 were back perhaps things could get back to normal, or as close to what passed as normal within this facility at any rate.