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TITLE: Always the Stars Always the Stars He stared up at the night sky overhead, velvet spattered with millions of brightly gleaming stars. Jonas took a deep breath of the crisp evening air. He'd always come out here to the top of the mountain to find peace. In the early days, he'd had company in the form of a couple of SFs constantly around him. These days, he came up here - alone and unchallenged - to look up at the night sky and think of home. Tonight, he came here to not only think of home, but to honour the memory of seven men and women who would never see their home again. Jonas knew everything there was to know about the mission - not because he'd read it in the last twelve hours, but because it had been an interest from the day he realised he was truly stuck here on Earth, never to return home. Space. It had always fascinated him. All the more since the naquadriah project had begun. For the first time in decades, Kelowna had the kind of propulsion that might make possible not only flight into outer space, but also between the galaxies their astronomers had been finding in the night skies for the last few hundred years. But his people had never reached space, not like Earth had. What study he gave the Earth space program in his spare time had shown him that it was probably only a matter of time before his own people discovered a means of leaving the confines of their planet and venturing out into their solar system. Or at least, they would have if it hadn't been for the war. His home was never that far from his thoughts - particularly at night when there were less questions to ask and less people to answer them. From Teal'c's experience and at Teal'c's advice, he had learned not to think about the fate of his people by day. It wasn't necessary to the tasks at hand. But at night, his mind wandered a thousand million light years across the galaxy to a planet that Jonas had called home for so many years. And Jonas wondered. What kind of celebration would ensue upon their first shuttle flight into space? Years of hard work paying off, a mighty cheer among the technicians and officers who'd put so much time and energy into the project. Glasses of champagne and streams of data back to the command centre. What kind of crowds would gather to see such a momentous occasion? Thousands of spectators, watching the launchpad from a safe distance, staring into the sky. Jaws falling to their chests as the craft lifted slowly and inexorably into the sky and a new understanding of the galaxy. Flags waving, children laughing, parents crying, people hugging... What kind of tragedies would they suffer through? Men and women lost in an instant. Human error combined with the forces of nature to turn success into tragedy, a job well-done into a frantic rescue mission, a day of rejoicing into a day of grief and loss. Yes, there was joy and dreams and hopes in the stars - but also disappointment and pain. Jonas knew that. Beneath his feet, the SGC kept operating, the teams coming in and going out with clockwork regularity. General Hammond briefly came in to see a few people - people who had close ties with the NASA space program or the astronauts who had died. Teal'c was now in kel no reem, settling his mind and restoring his body through the soothing meditations. Both Colonel O'Neill and Sam were at home. Exactly how they were dealing with this, Jonas didn't know, but they'd deal with it in their own ways and in their own time. And this was Jonas' way of dealing with it. If he looked up at the heavens, at the multitude of sparkling points of light representing a thousand thousand suns, many with satellites. Possibly among them there were even some that he'd seen from a much closer perspective. It was all part of a bigger picture - and still Jonas had only seen the corner of it. He fancied that the seven astronauts of the Columbia had known that they were part of a greater whole. How could they not? And while that was little comfort to those left behind... There was a kind of reassurance in the stars. So huge and distant, and yet representing the hopes and dreams of humanity everywhere in the galaxy. Mankind had always sought the heavens - whether to dream or to divine, to worship or to wonder, to feel their true size and nature in the face of a huge, endlessly-moving galaxy and ultimately to see if they could reach out into the expanse of space and leave their fingerprint on the corner of the huge galaxy. The astronauts of the Columbia had been a part of that endeavour. They'd sought to be one tiny part of that print that might someday be seen and commented upon - the merest line in the whorl of a fingerprint, but when added to the many others who had contributed, line by line, to the sum and total of humanity's strivings... They had died, yes, but they had not died in vain. There were some things that people clung to in the face of death: meaning, understanding, faith, hope, a larger picture and a reason for living. A belief that there was a purpose to the universe and a purpose to life - something that made the emptiness of death a little less frightening and a little less all-encompassing. And Jonas clung to the knowledge that the Columbia astronauts had known that they were part of a greater picture - as he clung to the knowledge that his own exile was for a higher cause. It made the sadness, the burden, a little easier to bear. Over his head, the stars gleamed brightly in the cold winter sky, representative of the changeless face of the galaxy, even as humanity lived and died. But humanity would keep trying and Jonas would keep the bigger picture in mind. The price for dreams might be high but the cost of never dreaming was higher. The greater the endeavour, the higher the price. Jonas knew about paying a high price. And there would always be the stars. * FINIS |
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