“And then?”
Her shoulders slumped. “Then he’ll take you back to the Badlands, run before the storm. You should be able to…” She trailed off and looked away, blinking.
The wind howled through the silence. “You said ‘you’. You said ‘he’ll take you back’.”
She wiped a hand across one cheek. “You have something to go back to, Dr. Jackson. If the Cove falls, if the Badlands are washed away. Then what do I have?”
“Your father?”
It triggered a bitter laugh. “Do you think I could stand it, to live in that dome while the whole world dies around me? To live there, waiting for the power to fail, for the crops to fail? To live there, watching their damn
Sunrise
, pretending everything is like it was, while outside—” She shook her head. Her voice was steadier when she spoke again, hard and heavy. “They called this place the Last Hope, Dr. Jackson. They were right. It was. And now that hope has failed.”
Daniel didn’t answer, just nudged his glasses along the bridge of his nose and turned back to the memo trapped beneath his hand.
Relocation of the global deflector interface to an Dóchas a Mhaireann.
Following last week’s disaster, we now fear that the Uplands will fall by the end of the week. Therefore the interface must be moved as a matter of urgency. We must consider evacuation of the research team, but given the current political situation it is possible that we will not be permitted to enter an Dóchas a Mhaireann, though it was conceived as a shelter for all–
Wait. He stared at the document, blinking at the words—
an
Dóchas a Mhaireann
.
That wasn’t the name of the place written in Dr. Maol Caluim’s journal, it wasn’t what was scrawled all over the walls of the Cove. “Rhionna?” he said, still staring at the memo. “What do the Seachráni call this place?”
There was a surprised pause, then she replied, “
An Dóchas Deireanach.
”
“Which means?”
“The place of Last Hope. You know that.”
He nodded. “Right. And before the disaster? Do you know what it was called then?”
“No.” She frowned, shook her head. “Does it say in those papers?”
He rubbed a hand across his brow, fingers pressing hard to dispel a brewing headache. “Maybe. I don’t know. There’s something…”
Daniel read on.
* * *
“Okay.” Sam raked her fingers through her hair. “Okay. I think I’m getting it.”
Cross-legged on the floor, Sorcha sat in silence while Sam spread a number of schematics around her. The room was getting stuffy now, and Sam was beginning to think they should risk cracking the hatch, just to get some air. But she was on a roll and didn’t want to lose track of all the threads she was holding in her mind.
The shield was nothing like the Ark, that much she did know. Even without Sorcha’s explanations—limited as they were by her total lack of scientific understanding—the schematics were clear. In fact,
Sciath Dé
appeared to be an astonishing feat of geo-engineering. The shield itself had already been deployed, probably years before the final disaster, considering that it would have required huge power resources. As far as she could tell it consisted of a sequence of lenses orbiting the planet and designed to deflect varying amounts of solar radiation. The strange translucent rainbows she’d glimpsed in the sky, the bright too-large stars, confirmed that the shield was in place. Theoretically, the angle of the lenses could be adjusted remotely to manage the amount of sunlight that got through, depending on the planet’s climatic requirements. Only, it evidently hadn’t worked. The lenses weren’t deflecting nearly enough radiation and the planet hadn’t cooled. Which left two questions—why wasn’t it working, and could it be fixed
The Goa’uld weren’t the only threats to Earth’s future, and Sam could already see the obvious application of this knowledge at home. Geo-engineering was the future, and this technology could put them a hundred years ahead of themselves—if she could just get it to work. She smiled, the thrill of discovery quickening her blood, and, truth be told, it felt good not to be working on a weapon for once.
“Okay,” she said again, “what we need to find is the interface, the computers that control the shield.” She looked over at Sorcha. “Do you know where that is?”
The old woman nodded. “At the place of Last Hope.”
“Appropriate name.” Sam sighed and rocked back on her heels. “I need to get there. If we’re going to get this working, I need to get there. Are there any boats?”
“None that can travel so far, nor fast enough to beat this storm.” Sorcha frowned. “But your friend has the device from
Acarsaid Dorch.
Can he not do what must be done to make the shield work?”
Sam glanced at the phone. “It’s not that simple. Maybe I could talk him through it, but…” She stared at Sorcha again, at the ardent hope in her eyes, and tried to find words to explain. “Look, the device we found at the outpost—at
Acarsaid Dorch
—can’t do anything on its own. It’s… Think of it as a patch to fix a leaky bucket. It’s useless if we can’t find the bucket to begin with.”
“And this ‘bucket’ is?”
“Some kind of control room—a bank of computers, machines. Something that can communicate with the shield in the same way your phone”—she waved a hand toward the device—“can communicate with the Cove.”
Sorcha frowned. “There are old machines at the Cove—screens that are lifeless, they do not show
Sunrise
or anything else.”
“Well, that could be it.” Sam nodded. “That could be the control room. But it’s pretty old, Sorcha, and I don’t know if Daniel will be able to figure out how to install the
Acarsaid Dorch
device. And that’s assuming there’s power there.” She trailed off in a sigh.
And into the silence the phone bleeped. Sorcha stirred. “The link is back. Now, you can speak to your friend. You can tell him what he must do.”
“Yeah,” Sam said, reaching for the handset. “Sure. Piece of cake.”
* * *
Despite his best efforts to quell his motion sickness, the voyage back to the Cove severely tested Jack’s limits. The sea churned beneath a night sky blackened further by the coming storm. The solar sails, useless in these conditions, had long been furled. The ship crested and fell with every mountainous wave, but the Seachráni barely blinked an eye and went about their duties with as much industry as ever. After a short debate with himself over proving his manly stamina versus retreating from the elements, Jack chose the latter and shut himself in Faelan’s cabin. On deck he was only getting under people’s feet anyway.
“How can you even stay upright in this?” he asked Faelan, when the drenched captain eventually appeared below to pore over some charts.
Faelan grinned. “This is nothing, Colonel. A light breeze. The sea can do much worse.” His humor faded and he said, “You’ll find that out soon enough.”
“Will we make it back to the Cove?”
“We should, but even if we do…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence. If the coming storm was of the magnitude predicted, then it was doubtful that the already fragile structures of the Cove would remain standing.
“You have to get the rest of your people out of there, Faelan,” Jack said around a wince.
“We’ve evacuated as many as we can. The
Tearmann
can take no more. There are only a few of us left, and there’s nowhere else for us to go.”
“Oh, I think there is. I think you’re just too pigheaded to admit it.”
Faelan fixed his attention on the charts. “I don’t need to hear this from you, Colonel. I’ve heard it enough times from Rhionna. I will not plead for refuge at the Ark only to have the door slammed in our faces. Or worse.”
“Worse how?”
“You saw how we were treated in the Badlands. Even you and your people will have been judged by now. Do you think Ennis Channon would show us mercy? Do you think he even has that power? There are others who rule from the shadows, Colonel.”
This assertion might have sounded like paranoia if Jack had not already assumed as much; there was always a man behind the curtain. And there was no way that Channon, or Camus, or whoever called the shots, would be persuaded to open the doors to a people they despised. It was a truth that could not be avoided.
Still, he could not understand Faelan’s conviction that the Cove would withstand the storm. What was more, Jack could not forget his own selfish motivation. He had Daniel to worry about. And Teal’c. And Sam. He had to get back to them and to the gate. “Look, Faelan,” he said, trying to reason with the man, “we can’t stay at the Cove. It’s a miracle the entire place hasn’t fallen apart already. How can you think risking death there is better than taking our chances at the Ark?”
Faelan folded up his charts and stowed them in a chest. “Rhionna can take you and Dr Jackson back to the Ark. I’ll provide you with a seaworthy vessel.”
“But what if the Cove doesn’t hold? Why won’t you –” Jack broke off, the truth dawning. “You don’t care if it holds.” It wasn’t a question. “You don’t expect to make it, do you? Maybe you don’t even want to.”
Faelan’s silence was answer enough.
The knowledge sickened Jack, and for an instant, the cold metal of his P90 triggered a memory of Charlie’s room and another gun in his hand and a time when giving up seemed like the only option left. “Why are you so afraid?” he asked Faelan.
The captain spun around, eyes blazing. “Don’t you dare.”
“Oh, I think it’s you who doesn’t dare. You don’t dare hope, or let other people hope, because it’s all or nothing with you. You had big dreams that didn’t pan out, and so you just throw in the towel? Is that how this is going to end for you, Faelan? Going down with the proverbial ship? You’ll forgive me if I don’t call that brave.”
Faelan turned back to lean on the table, the muscles in his shoulders bunching in anger. When he spoke his voice was quiet, but passionate. “I had hope once. I told my people I could help them. I asked them to let me lead them. I asked them to trust me.”
“They
still
trust you, damnit!”
“Then they’re fools.”
“They’re a hell of a lot smarter than you!” Irritated, Jack scrubbed his palms over three days worth of stubble. He hated this familiar frustration, but was helpless against it. There was always a Faelan. On every planet, in every desperate situation, there was always that one person who had the potential to change the way things worked. Sometimes they understood that duty when it fell to them. But mostly their potential went wasted, through fear, or ignorance, or just plain bullheadedness. And all too recently, he’d been that guy.
Not anymore. Turning a blind eye wasn’t part of a colonel’s job description, and neither was giving up easily.
Besides, this wasn’t just some wiseass airman fresh out of the Academy. For Faelan, his proving ground was on a larger scale, with more at stake. Jack took a steadying breath. “You think you failed them, but I think you’ll find a few people back at the
Tearmann
who’d disagree with you. Imagine how many more you could add to their number.”
Faelan stood still as a statue, unmoved by the pitch and roll of the ship. Then he said, “I’m tired of fighting.”
To that, Jack had no reply.
* * *
Something wasn’t right.
His nose all but pressed to the wall, Daniel Jackson was tracing his fingers over the scrawled words that showed up everywhere in the Cove.
An Dóchas Deireanach.
The Last Hope.
The bitter irony of it was not lost on Rhionna Channon, nor on the Seachráni. But what Daniel Jackson found so interesting about these scribblings, she could not imagine.
“Daniel?”
The tinny voice that came through the handset belonged to Major Carter.
“This is Rhionna,” she said, “he’s just here. Daniel—it’s Major Carter.”
He turned away from the wall with a startled look, as if he’d forgotten why they were in the room. “Right.” He nodded, gathering the wad of papers under his arm, and headed over. “Thanks.”
Taking the handset from her, he sat down at the little table in the comms room and spread the papers out in front of him. “Okay,” he said into the device, “what have you got?”
Whatever the answer was, it made him frown, and Rhionna paced, trying to pay attention to Daniel while listening out for the arrival of Faelan’s ship at the same time. They were going to fight again, and she was bracing herself for it—bracing for the fight, bracing for the fact that this might be the end. Of everything.
Outside the storm blew harder, she could hear the sea thundering far below as it battered the Cove’s ancient foundations. Beneath her feet she felt the sway and wondered what it would look like at the end, when it all came crashing down. The Last Hope, swallowed in the end by the waters that had claimed her world.
“No, that’s what I’m saying!” The rising pitch of Daniel’s voice drew her from her morbid thoughts. “It’s not here—there’s nothing here like that. There’s no control room, there’s not even any power. I’m reading by lamplight here.” He continued to listen, brow furrowing again as he looked through the papers. Then he nodded. “Yeah—okay. Look, it says here that they moved it at some point, close to the end I think. Maybe they tried to move it here, but they never made it. The thing is, and this might be nothing, but there’s something…odd with the name.” Another pause. “Last Hope. Yeah, but actually no. That’s not what it says. The place of last hope translates as
an Dóchas Deireanach
, it’s written all over the walls here, like a slogan. But what it says in the documents, what it actually says, is that they moved it to
an Dóchas a Mhaireann
—which translates as the place of
Lasting
Hope. I wonder if—?”