“Oh yeah?” A wave slammed over the side of the ship, knocking Jack hard into the side of one of the cabins. He swallowed a mouthful of seawater, coughed, and spat. “Sonofabitch!”
While he struggled to regain his feet, Faelan looked as if he’d barely moved.
Smug bastard
.
“We can’t take the boats into the dock because there are no docks,” Faelan explained. “Sea’s already took them.”
“Then how the hell do we get over there? And don’t say
swim
.” But Faelan didn’t need to say a word; the
Fánaí na Mara’s engines
roared into life once more.
“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” said Jack.
The Seachráni captain’s grin broadened, “I suggest you get below, Colonel. And hold on to something that’s tied down tight.”
* * *
“Storm doors,” Sorcha snarled, the wind snatching her words away. “We should have moved faster.”
Sam didn’t miss the accusation, but was unrepentant. All around them the people of the Badlands were gathering, crouched against the storm, pressing up to the scant shelter of the doorway. She couldn’t have left them behind.
Running her hands over the heavy door, she muttered, “If we just had some C4.” It would be a piece of cake to blow the tunnel right open if she had more to hand than the peashooter she’d snatched from their prison guard. Still, there
had
to be a way.
“Major Carter!” Teal’c was standing lookout on the low rise they’d climbed, his attention turned out to sea. She knew what he was watching for and scrambled up to join him, Sorcha following in recriminating silence.
“Holy…” Sam breathed as she joined Teal’c to stare down at the ravaged Badlands. The Seachráni ship was close now, clearly visible despite the rain and driving spray. It was huge, long and sleek, with a couple of tall masts and tightly furled sails, and it barreled across the waves with a speed she’d rarely seen on water. “It must use some kind of aerodynamic levitation technology to diminish the hydrodynamic drag.”
“The docks are gone,” Sorcha said. “They will have to anchor and come ashore in longboats.”
“In those seas?” Sam shook her head. “That’s impossible.”
Sorcha pushed wet hair from her eyes. “Watch,” she said. “There is a reason the
Seachrání
are called Seawolves.”
She did watch, trying not to think about the fact that the colonel and Daniel were probably aboard, trying not to imagine what it would be like to make land in a tiny longboat in thirty-foot seas. But Sorcha was right, the Seachráni knew what they were doing. All she could do was put faith in their skills.
Except, the ship wasn’t slowing. If anything it was speeding up, making a graceful turn as it aligned itself with the sideways sweep of the waves that sliced across the Badlands. And still it didn’t slow.
“They’re not stopping,” she said aloud, glancing at Teal’c.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Indeed.”
“Oh my God,” she said, realization dawning, “they’re going to beach the ship!”
“Impossible!” Sorcha clenched her fists. “Madness.”
Madness maybe, but true. Sam figured the ship was surfing the waves, using them to give it more lift and to keep the keel from snagging for a little longer. Although she didn’t understand how a ship that tall, with a corresponding draft, could hope to get anywhere close to shore. But it definitely wasn’t slowing, in fact it seemed to increase its speed as it rode the breakers, and for a second she thought it was flying. Then it struck ground, the screech of rending metal drowning out the roar of the storm as the hull tore across the jagged rocks and impaled itself on the debris of the Badlands.
For a moment it stopped, at rest, and then with a slow, inevitable grace it toppled and crunched onto its side.
“Huh,” Sorcha grunted. “Perhaps Faelan is at the helm after all.”
* * *
Daniel’s first thought when he came to was that the ceiling looked different; it took him a few seconds to realize that he was actually flat on his back and staring up at the bulkhead. There was no sound save the ringing in his ears, and the violent pitch and roll of the ship was notably absent. Apart from the buffeting by the storm, the vessel had come to a total standstill—and apparently on its side.
He tried to lever himself up, but found his elbow sinking into something soft.
“Ow! Watch it!”
“Sorry,” he mumbled, as Jack dug Daniel’s elbow from his stomach and sat up. “What happened? Did we crash?”
There’d been little warning before the ship’s sudden burst of speed, apart from Jack tearing into the cabin and yelling for Daniel to grab on to something. That had been followed by a gut-whipping lurch, and then they’d both been thrown backward, sliding up against the bulkhead as the ship accelerated. But the worst of it came in the last few moments, as they were tossed around the cabin like dice in a cup.
“Faelan and his harebrained scheme to get us on dry land is what happened,” growled Jack, rolling his neck until it clicked. “I think we’ve run aground.”
Daniel pushed himself to his feet, attempting to figure out how they were going to get through a door that was now located halfway up the wall. Suddenly that same door flew open and a head poked through. “Need a hand?” asked Faelan.
“I need Tylenol and a chiropractor thanks to you,” muttered Jack, but he grasped Faelan’s outstretched arm all the same and let himself be pulled up through the door. Moments later Daniel followed suit.
They clambered down the sloping deck, trying in vain to hide from the worst of the storm, and found themselves in a disaster zone. It was the Badlands, but they were devastated beyond recognition, torn up by the vicious wind and sea until nothing but fragments was left. In the middle of it all, like a defeated leviathan, sat the
Fánaí na Mara.
Faelan wandered through the wreckage, heedless of the debris that the wind hurled at his head. Daniel and the others tagged along.
“Who could survive this?” whispered Daniel, thinking of the people they’d left here just days before. By the look on his face, Faelan was asking himself the same question.
“They did survive,” said Jack, picking up on Faelan’s questioning glance. “There’s no bodies,” he added. “They couldn’t have been here when this happened.”
True enough. Despite the devastation, there was no sign of any human casualties; by all appearances, the Badlands had been abandoned. Shielding his eyes from the lash of the storm, Daniel scanned the bleak landscape.
“Then where –?” began Faelan.
“I think someone’s trying to get our attention, Captain.” The Seachráni who had spoken pointed toward the nearby mountain. High on the ridge, a light blinked on and off.
* * *
The tiny figures that had spilled from the beached ship now moved toward them, up the hill and away from the teeth of the storm. They had seen his signal. Satisfied, Teal’c tucked Major Carter’s flashlight back into his pocket.
Through the rain it was difficult to distinguish one man from another, but he kept his eyes fixed on the group until, halfway up the hill, two of the amorphous shapes resolved into Colonel O’Neill and Daniel Jackson.
Permitting himself a small smile of relief, he turned to where Major Carter was once more studying the storm doors. “O’Neill and Daniel Jackson are among the Seachráni,” he called down.
She spun around in a flash, a broad grin lighting her face. “Thank God.”
Teal’c kept his thoughts about divine involvement to himself, and merely said, “Let us hope that O’Neill still carries his C4.”
“You got that right.” Squinting up at the Ark, whose vast walls rose high above them, she said, “If we can’t get in this way, we may have to knock on the front door.”
Sorcha Caratauc, squatting with her back to the tunnel wall, cast a baleful glance at the major. “You’re a fool if you think they will ever open their door, to you or to anyone else.
Sciath Dé
is the only hope for my people.”
“Your people,” Major Carter said, and Teal’c recognized the bite in her words, “will die if they don’t find shelter. The shield—even if we get it working—can’t protect them from this storm. Or from the sea, or from the flooding. You have to understand, it’s a long term project.”
“Do not lecture me about perspective, Samantha Carter. Have I not devoted my life to this cause?” Sorcha Caratauc shifted, drawing her ragged clothes about her. “This is not the first storm we have endured. These are not the first people I have seen die.
Sciath Dé
is all that matters.”
Teal’c met Major Carter’s eyes and shrugged; it was futile to argue with such single-minded resolve. Sorcha Caratauc, in her own way, was as blind as the leaders of the Ark.
“What? No beer?”
The voice propelled Teal’c around to the sight of the colonel cresting the hill. “O’Neill,” he said, glad to see his old friend.
“Teal’c.” O’Neill’s gaze moved to the major. “Carter. Good you see you’re all in one piece.”
“You too, sir.” Her smile lingered, then she said, “Where’s Daniel?”
O’Neill jerked his head back over his shoulder. “Rabble rousing with the pirates.”
“Pirates?”
“Rum, parrots, pieces of eight. You wouldn’t believe it.”
She swallowed a smile. “No, sir.”
Sauntering toward the tunnel, O’Neill took in the shivering refugees and the decidedly closed storm doors. “Hit a dead end here, Carter?”
“Actually, yes.” She bumped her fist against the door. “Ennis locked us out. We were hoping you’d have the key, sir.”
Only the glitter in his eyes betrayed O’Neill’s amusement. “Shoo these people to a safe distance, Carter. It’s time to get out of the rain.”
“Pastor
Channon?”
The hesitant voice came from further down the city wall, and Ennis realized he was not alone in watching the progress of the storm. Walking toward him, stoop-shouldered and vague against the gray skies beyond the Ark, was their chief Archivist. He gestured toward the storm. “I did not expect to see you here, Pastor, when a new chapter of
Sunrise
is on the screens.”
“Nor I you,” Ennis said. They stopped some distance apart, and he found himself wary. There was something unspoken between them. “What brings you from the Library, Liam?”
“I come here sometimes,” he said.
“I rarely do,” Ennis confessed. “But…” Above them the dome was momentarily lit by a flash amid the clouds, a distant rumble of thunder following.
Liam’s eyes were flinty. “I heard that your daughter was outside.”
“I have no—” He stopped himself, unable to tell the lie again. Water ran in sheets down the dome, hammered against it by the relentless gale. In a low voice he said, “Yes. My daughter is outside, among the condemned.”
A pause stretched, seemingly endless, then Liam asked in a conversational tone, “Did you know, Pastor, that the word Ark has two meanings? One, as we are aware, means a place of refuge. More spiritually, however, it means the inmost heaven—the dwelling place of divine truth.”
The subtle emphasis on that last word was hard to miss. “Truth,” Ennis said, taking a step closer, “is often more complex than it appears.”
Liam smiled. “Truth is always simple, Pastor. The complexity comes in the telling of it.”
“Especially,” Ennis added, “when the truth is unpalatable.”
“Indeed.”
Another pause filled with thunder and a flash of lightning, one atop the other. The archivist glanced out at the storm. “I am glad,” he said, “to be inside the Ark. But there are those who would benefit from being brought within.” He smiled again, his meaning clear. “Within the Ark of Divine Truth, of course.”
Ennis let his own gaze stray toward the people gathered before the screens, faces upturned. The players’ earnest expressions suddenly looked like beautiful lies, and he realized that no word of truth had ever passed their lips.
Sunrise
was a thing of artifice, not truth. And somehow Rhionna, his child, had seen that—she had seen that to which he had been blind. “You spoke to her,” he said, suddenly understanding. “You spoke to Rhionna of this, of truth and what lies beyond our walls.”
Less sanguine but not afraid, Liam lifted his chin. Quietly he said, “There are truths hidden here, truths I have not seen save in the footprints they left upon the Library—words that once held meaning and now do not. What is a ‘scientist’ and why are they condemned? What is a ‘satellite’ and what danger does it pose? And what is the ‘Sungate’?”
“Knowledge,” Ennis said. “They are words of Knowledge.”
“Truths denied to us, like the truth of the condemned and the world outside.”
Hearing the accusation in his tone, Ennis asked, “What would you have me do? I am but one man.”
“Tell us the truth.” Liam’s arm swept into a circle, encompassing the men and women enrapt in
Sunrise
. “Tell us the truth of what lies outside and of the Time Before.”
“But I do not know it!”
“Then find it out!” Liam seized his shoulder, fingers biting. “Do you think Tynan Camus does not know the truth?”