Fragile Balance

Part One

Sometimes it was kinder to be cruel.

Sam Carter knew that. That was the meaning of 'discipline' after all.

And the Asgard trusted her. They trusted that she wasn't involved in the technology theft. They trusted that she could do this 'favour' for them. They trusted that she could carry this off.

If they'd gotten the Colonel back sooner, then maybe he would have been the one sitting in the locker room pondering what was about to be done.

// "You realise, Major, that there can be no turning back. Are you sure you want to do this?"

The General had given her the choice. He could have ordered her, but he didn't.

Sam wasn't unaware of the compliment he paid her in presenting this mission as a request and not a command, and because he had asked instead of ordering, she had done it.

"Yes, sir. I'm sure." Sam didn't like it. But she'd been trained as a soldier: emotions had to come second to the mission at hand.

She met Hammond's steady, measuring gaze, feeling the squirm in her stomach. She didn't want to do this - she was a soldier, not an actress! But her wants came second to Earth's needs. And Earth needed the Asgard and the Tollan more than they needed Sam's sensibilities. //

There wasn't even a guarantee that she'd get out of it alive. If things went pear-shaped on this mission, then she was as good as buried.

It wasn't a nice thought.

A worse thought was that the thin threads of trust between her and her team-mates might not survive. Over the last few months, her relationships with Teal'c and Daniel had been stretched to breaking-point, and come back to comfortable levels. Still, Sam was only too aware that just a little more pressure might snap some things that couldn't be fixed - especially since the Colonel had returned from Edora. And things were more fragile between her and the Colonel than they had ever been before.

Sam carefully steered away from that thought and the nausea that inevitably followed. Instead, she put her head in her hands and raked her fingers through her hair.

A week before the particle accelerator was finished, she'd been called into Hammond's office and the proposition was put before her. Initial attempts to cry off because of her work on the particle accelerator had been gently put aside.

//"Major, you've done a mighty work in creating that particle accelerator, but the fact is that I've come under some pretty heavy criticism for allowing such a large portion of research and resources to be diverted towards getting back a man who may or may not be dead anyway."

"The Edorans--"

"Are easily relocated," he said. "That's the opinion of the strategists in the Pentagon, not my own, Major. This matter of the technology smuggling is urgent - we have less than a month to clear it up before the Asgard and the Tollan sever diplomatic ties - including the Protected Planets Treaty we signed eight months ago."

The General didn't need to tell her how important the Protected Planets Treaty was to Earth. Without it, it was only a matter of time before the Goa'uld came in to dominate or destroy Earth and her population.

So Sam Carter made a choice. It might condemn the Colonel to several more weeks off Earth, but better be late bringing him home than making a decision which might mean there wouldn't be a home for him to return to.

"How long do I have to finish the accelerator before the Tollan and the Asgard start putting pressure on us to do something?"

Hammond looked grim. "A week."//

She'd done it in a week. Incredibly. Unbelievably.

Painfully.

The particle accelerator broke through the crust over the Stargate, the wormhole made it through to Edora, Teal'c reached the surface in time, they returned the Edoran refugees home and went to bring the Colonel home...

Only to find that he'd made Edora his home.

Now the nausea struck like a storm at sea, tossing her about in its throes. She swallowed hard and concentrated on making it go away. She couldn't afford personal emotions and distractions right now. She had a part to play and an audience to convince.

And what a tough audience.

Sam was desperately afraid that she wouldn't be able to do what it required, afraid she wouldn't be able to carry it off, and she desperately wanted the job to be handed to someone else. Except for the small problem that there was nobody else to do it.

Oh, the Colonel probably could have gone undercover, but the Asgard had asked for her help in his absence, and while they trusted that Colonel O'Neill wasn't involved, the less people who knew about this the better.

There had been concerns that she wouldn't be able to carry it off - among them, her own. She wasn't the loosest cannon in the SGC, after all, but once the Asgard and Tollan had fixed on her, they refused to hear of any alternatives.

Stubborn, headstrong aliens. No wonder they liked the Colonel.

With a deep sigh, Sam stood up and opened her locker to get her dress uniform out. Her misgivings about this were strong, but the longer she hesitated, the worse the fear would get and the more likely she would freeze when she needed to act.

The diplomatic mission to the Tollan was due to leave in two hours. It would be her second time in command of SG-1, so any nervousness on her part would be put down to that - or so she hoped. She wasn't all that fond of remembering the first time she'd commanded SG-1. Talking to tribal spirits? Letting aliens into the base? Planning to steal trinium from local tribes?

That mission had turned out badly.

And this one - well, she knew this one wasn't going to go down well.

Stealing from your friends never went down well.

General Hammond had said her actions would be attributed to the stress of the last three months. She'd withdrawn from Teal'c and Daniel since the General had assigned her to this mission, so she didn't need to worry too much about them cottoning on to her sudden, unusual behaviour. As far as she could tell, they'd assumed her behaviour was due to the completion of the particle accelerator and just let it pass by rather than confront it.

The trickiest bit would be convincing the people who only had her apparently perfect record by which to judge her behaviour.

She hung the uniform on the locker handle and stepped back, letting her fingers run over the heavy weave of the material. The guys would shortly arrive, Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c all sweaty after their morning sparring. They'd head directly for the showers, and she'd be left with a few precious minutes to change into her dress blues.

The Colonel wouldn't be going today. Officially, he was still being checked over from his three months on Edora. Unofficially, Hammond had made sure that Janet would keep him around today for more tests to ensure that Colonel O'Neill couldn't go to Tollana.

The Colonel's presence would wreck their carefully laid plans.

So Lieutenant Rumlow was temporarily assigned to SG-1 for this diplomatic mission to bring their numbers up to the standard four members for a Stargating team. The Lieutenant had been on SG-11 for nearly two years now, so he'd seen more than his fair share of diplomacy. He'd been working with Daniel to put together the presentation to the Tollan.

Daniel would be late, of course. He hadn't been sleeping well for a while now - even six months after her death, he was still dreaming - or having nightmares - about Sha're. He'd been the one to deal with the Edoran people and their relocation to another planet while Sam worked on the particle accelerator. He'd done his fair share of ideas-bouncing for her, moral support when Teal'c needed kel no reem and could no longer keep an eye on her as she worked herself into the ground. And he'd been the person she went to that first night after Colonel O'Neill came home, where she'd found that his sense of betrayal by the Colonel's low expectations was as strong as her own.

Her heart sunk. If she got through this alive...when she got through this alive, the Colonel would probably forgive her - or at least understand why she'd done it. Teal'c should. Those two might be a bit miffed, but they'd survive.

However, Daniel...

She put that thought away as she shut her locker door and heard the voices and footsteps down the corridor that indicated that her team-mates were approaching and her solitude was at an end. There was no point in fretting over the outcome of her actions today - she might not even make it through the whole charade.

Part of her hoped she wouldn't - at least then she wouldn't have to pick up the pieces afterwards.

Positive thoughts, Sam.

There was a knock at the door, "Carter?"

"Sir." Her voice was calm and cool, no tremors to betray her nervousness at the part she was about to play.

"Are you decent?"

"Yes, sir."

"We're coming in." A moment later, the Colonel's greying head stuck around the door. "Up bright and early and ready to hit your head against some thick Tollan skull, Carter?"

In spite of the roiling feelings in her stomach, Sam managed a smile. "Something like that, sir. How are you today, Teal'c?"

"I am well, Major Carter." Teal'c appreciated the formalities - even if the Colonel didn't usually observe them. "And yourself?"

"I'm good." Sam hoped her body language was consonant with her words. Between Teal'c and the Colonel - both of whom had years of experience training men and women and reading their body language - and Daniel, whose speciality in linguistics had led him to study the things people didn't say with their mouths, she could easily get caught on an iceberg she never saw coming until it was too late.

She hoped not. If she could fool them, she could fool anyone.

"Nervous about commanding again?"

Thank God for reasonable excuses. "A little, sir."

"Don't be. You'll do fine." He patted her on the shoulder, apparently unaware of how she stiffened under the well-intentioned touch of his hand. "Well, Teal'c and I are gonna shower before we stink up your dress blues, and we'll catch you in the briefing in thirty." He grabbed a towel and ducked into the stalls beyond, Teal'c following him with considerably less haste and more dignity.

Sam began unbuttoning her shirt.

Showtime.

----

It had been easier than she'd expected. And they were falling for it, hook, line and sinker.

Maybe she should have gone in for an acting career instead of the Air Force. Samantha Carter, actress - bratty officers a specialty.

"Major, do you realise exactly what kind of a situation you have placed us in?"

"Sir," she said with the forceful coolness she'd decided to adopt; close enough to her usual demeanour so it wasn't completely out of her ballpark, but changed enough to let them know that something had snapped. "I realise the situation. I also realise the kind of situation they've placed us in! We're nothing more than vassals to their technological superiority. Allies who aren't willing to share their knowledge with us or even give us the most basic of defence technologies."

"Your actions were out of order, Major!" The General wasn't half a bad actor himself - he was doing an excellent show of bewildered anger at the outrageous behaviour of one of his 'exemplary' officers.

"My actions were in line with the core mission of this base, sir. With all due respect, we are called upon to go through the gate and find technologies that will be useful in the defence of Earth against Goa'uld incursion."

"By stealing it from our friends?" Colonel O'Neill had been stiffly angry from the moment he'd realised that the technology she placed on the briefing table was not the peace offering between Tollan and Terran that he'd immediately assumed it was.

The looks he kept shooting her way indicated that he at least felt she'd taken leave of her senses. Sam didn't dare look at Teal'c or Daniel. Or at poor Lieutenant Rumlow, sitting bewildered and frozen in his chair.

She turned on the Colonel, "Sir, not one hour ago, we were wasting our time on the Tollan. They weren't going to give us the technology we wanted."

"That didn't give you leave to just take it, Carter!"

"No, sir. But I have, on occasion, been congratulated for my initiative." She let dry irony seep into her voice. Excuses were excuses when all was said and done.

"Not this time, Major." General Hammond told her. "You are relieved of your duties, effective immediately, and are to report to the infirmary until I send for you."

Her brows arched in deliberately mocking expression, "What? No base arrest?"

The alert started up for an incoming traveller a split-second later. The Tollan would be coming to Earth in their role of indignant victims at the theft Sam had committed.

Hammond glanced over at the red light flashing then back at her. "If you continue in this vein, Major, that will be next. Dismissed. Teal'c, please escort Major Carter to the infirmary."

The Colonel gave her a long look before he followed Hammond down the stairs. Daniel stood up from his chair, about to ask what was up with her, so Sam turned her back on him and walked away, refusing to engage him in conversation. She heard Teal'c's steady, measured footsteps behind her - could hear them behind her as she headed for the elevator.

His disapproval of her actions, though silent, stung.

It forced her silence all the way up to the infirmary, although once Janet walked out of her office, Sam knew she was facing what would probably be her toughest audience. The boys were more used to seeing Major Sam Carter, although they occasionally got to see 'just Sam'. Janet, however, had seen a lot more of Sam in the full array of her moods - not just as a military officer.

"I've been told to do a full set of tests on you," Janet said, eyeing her.

Sam shrugged. "Well, let's get it over with." She walked past Janet and hopped up on one of the beds.

Sam wasn't meant to catch Janet's bewildered glance at Teal'c, but she did. And Teal'c looked no less puzzled than the doctor.

They ran tests. Lots of tests. Janet asked when was the last time she'd had her period (a week ago) and when was the last time she had sex (too long ago). They ruled out PMT and pregnancy. Then there were blood tests and hormone tests, a CAT scan and a PET scan, an EEG and an MRI, and they took Sam's blood pressure.

It was a waste of Janet's time, although only Sam and General Hammond knew that. As Janet kept up a running commentary with Sam about things large and small, personal and work-related, Sam responded in her usual manner - but allowing herself a slightly looser rein. The only thing she had right now was a bad case of undercover agent nervousness. And there wasn't much that could take that away except the completion of her mission.

"Well, there's nothing wrong with you so far," Janet finished off as Sam swung her legs over the side of the infirmary bed. "It'll be a while before I get the hormone and blood tests back but...you're all fine."

Except for the sudden kleptomania, Sam thought dryly.

On cue, the infirmary phone rang and Janet went to answer it. "Fraiser. Yes, sir? Yes, she's here, I'll send her up." The phone was hung up, and a moment later Janet came back to the bedside. "General Hammond wants to see you in his office."

With a jaunty grin, Sam hopped off the bed. "Thanks, Janet. It's always a pleasure to have needles stuck into me." And she walked out, knowing that Janet was standing behind her with a surprised look on her face.

Teal'c faithfully shadowed her back down to the elevators, but didn't say anything until she'd pressed the button and was waiting for the lift. "I do not understand your behaviour, Major Carter."

She quirked a smile at him, "Oh, come on, Teal'c. Haven't you ever really wanted to cut loose before?" The elevator doors opened and she stepped in, her companion one step behind her. "Just to say what you really want to say and rules be damned?" There were moments when she'd wanted to scream, shout, cry, or laugh - and had been required to hold it under the mask of a good officer. Now, she had to behave as if she didn't care whether or not someone in authority perceived her as a good officer or not - all the while really caring that they would.

"I have not, Major Carter." Teal'c sounded, if not exactly distressed, then bewildered. Sam suspected that for him - as for her - the habits of self-control were so ingrained that 'letting loose' was more effort than being self-contained. Her behaviour would be incomprehensible to him until he knew the reasons why she'd behaved so oddly.

A shrug. Sam suspected she'd do a lot of nonchalant shrugging in the next couple of days. "Your loss, Teal'c."

The doors slid open at level 27. Sam strode out, heading for the Gate room and two corridors later found herself confronted by Daniel.

He put his hands up - partly to stop them from crashing into each other, partly to make sure that she didn't just walk by him. And she very nearly did. Today had been one confrontation after another with no respite - and the worst was yet to come.

He studied her through his glasses. "Sam, are you okay?"

"Sure, Daniel. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

Her question put him on the mark, forcing him to face what she'd done. "Well, your actions haven't exactly...it's not your usual behaviour."

"Daniel, you only ever see me when I'm on duty." Sam walked around him. "You don't know what my usual behaviour is." The dismissal was as abrupt as she could bear to make it - enough to sting him but hopefully not enough to really hurt him. She'd have to become adept at that in the next few days. And even more adept at making up in the weeks afterwards.

Assuming there were weeks afterwards.

It appeared the Tollan representatives were already gone - which was a relief. She didn't have to put on the act towards them for Teal'c's benefit. Even then, Sam wasn't sure that any such display would have been an act either. The position she was in was impossible: stuck between what Earth needed her to be and what she wanted to be.

Hammond had assured her that her actions during this mission would have no consequences on her career. Easy words to say before Sam did the irrevocable and said things for which there might be no forgiveness. The guys were stubborn. She'd find herself pressing every button to keep them away, severing all ties of respect and friendship to be sure their hands stayed clean - and that they stayed clear of what she had to do.

It was her only option.

She reminded herself of that as she strolled into Hammond's office to take her dressing down. There was no quailing under his stern gaze, nor under the Colonel's close and sharp scrutiny. And there would be no escaping this axe.

The door was surprisingly heavy to close - or maybe Sam's arms were suddenly weak. She closed it, though, shooting Teal'c a brilliant smile as he waited outside the door - a silent, solid guardian. Then, she sat down in the chair and regarded the General.

He came straight to the point. "Major Carter, you've crossed the line here. The Tollan have demanded the return of their technology and require that you are appropriately dealt with."

Sam interrupted, knowing what she was in for. They'd discussed this when the matter of her assignment first came up. What needed to happen, what would happen, and how it would happen. "By 'appropriately dealt with', are we talking the death sentence, sir, or merely a slap on the wrist, 'give it back'?" Light voice, easy tone, casual pose - she had it all down pat. At least, she hoped she didn't look like she was tense as a strung wire.

"We're talking about a court martial, Major. I have to press charges."

It took all her strength not to flinch from the words. Court martial. An officer's nightmare. Humiliation, separation from those you'd served with, black marks all over your record - and even if you were exonerated, at best they'd be scrubbed off to grey. If you faced court martial over anything, you were better off out of the armed forces since there would be very few who'd trust you again. Doubly so if you were a woman in the armed forces.

But they were waiting on her answer.

"Sir, you have your prerogatives and I have mine. You'll do what you have to as I did what I felt needed to be done." Her chin lifted and she met her gaze squarely. Indeed, she'd done what needed to be done - and hated every second of it.

The Colonel leaned forward in his chair, "Carter," he said. There was a sadness in his voice as he spoke and Sam kept her expression politely neutral as she turned to regard him. "There is another option other than court-martial. Discharge. Voluntary retirement. If you take it, then we hand back the tech, you resign and it's over."

Such final words.

Over.

Finished. Done with. Ended. Concluded.

Sam hated the Tollan and the Asgard more at that moment than she'd ever hated anyone or anything before in her life. Because this might be Earth's future, but it was her life - and they were asking her to give it up: not only all the work she'd done in the past but any hopes of a future.

Colonel O'Neill looked back at her with a very intent gaze, watching her, judging her - condemning her?

Sam transferred her gaze to the General. She met his gaze and saw that he understood the weight of the burden pressing down on her and all the hopes and dreams she would be giving up with this task.

She looked beyond him to the golden eagle, soaring on unfelt winds, representing the freedom that the USA and her armed forces strove to maintain.

Freedom and hope and a future, yes; but also responsibility and duty and sacrifice. You couldn't have the first without the second - and sometimes the individual desire had to be made subordinate to the greater good. Even the USA, as individualistic a society as it was, understood that in the requests it made of its armed forces.

"Major?"

She let a smile cross her face and a shrug lift her shoulders as she met General Hammond's eyes again. "I guess I'm taking a voluntary retirement, Uncle George." The childhood name seemed strange on her lips - and yet also fitting: a fond nickname and a familiar appellation. The personal in the midst of the impersonal, the uncertainty of a child in a strange and foreign place, and the silent fear of a soldier who knew how much rested on her shoulders and wasn't sure she could walk the path.

But she'd give it everything she had.

Because if she didn't give it everything she had, when the smoke cleared she wouldn't have anything at all.

----

Rob Makepeace caught up with Jack in the corridor, falling into step with a heavy tread.

"How's the search for a new 2IC going?"

The question was innocuous enough, but Jack still stiffened. "Slowly," he retorted.

"Can't find one to suit you?"

Jack stopped and turned on the other man, "And just what is that supposed to mean?"

Makepeace's expression was all astonishment. It might have even been real. "It's supposed to mean that finding a 2IC who you can trust isn't exactly the easiest task in the world. Jeeze, what did you think I meant, Jack?"

Jack didn't know what he meant. He turned away and kept walking. "Never mind."

The Marine kept pace with him, not bothering to ask if Jack even wanted his presence.

"Okaaaaay," Makepeace drawled, sounding as though he'd been taking lessons from Daniel in making un-comforting noises. "No idea what caused her to go like that?"

"None." Jack didn't want to discuss this. Not here, not now, and certainly not with Robert Makepeace. He'd rather not have to discuss it at all.

Unfortunately, Carter was out of the Air Force and there wasn't a force on heaven or on earth that could bring her back or turn back the clock by forty-eight hours.

"Just asking." Makepeace shrugged. "You going to be at the leaders meeting on Friday?"

"Do I get a choice?"

"You might be off-world."

"No 2IC."

"Then that's up to you, isn't it?" Makepeace walked on as Jack stopped at the elevators, jabbed at the button and swiped his card through the reader.

Then he stuck his hands in his pockets and didn't tap his toe on the ground.

Hammond was still throwing around ideas for a fourth member for SG-1 - another military officer, preferably one with a scientific background.

Jack didn't want another member for SG-1. He'd gotten so used to relying on Carter that turning around to find someone else guarding his six would just be...weird. And Carter was one of the best officers he'd ever had the honour to serve alongside.

The latest batch of replacements Hammond suggested (the first batch had been dismissed out of hand, and Jack suspected Hammond of re-entering some of the first batch into the second) included a vulcanologist, a chemist, two engineers, and a meteorologist.

No astrophysicists at all.

The situation sucked. Royally, supremely, and suckily.

At least Daniel was talking to him again, Jack thought. No cloud without a silver lining. Although, in spite of the pleasantness of not getting 'the Jackson cold shoulder' anymore, Jack would rather have skipped the cloud altogether - silver lining notwithstanding.

Carter had signed the papers in Hammond's office, saluted them both, and left.

Forty-eight hours later, her quarters were cleared out, her locker was empty, and her nameplate was gone. Her username and password had been revoked in the computer systems, the personal effects of her office taken away; she'd shaken the hands of the people she'd worked with, hugged Daniel and Teal'c and saluted Jack. And Jack still didn't quite believe that Carter was gone.

He still wasn't sure he knew what had happened.

He still wasn't sure he believed what had happened.

// The technology sat on the briefing room table, incredibly complex stuff in an exceedingly simple-looking package.

Jack nearly crowed with triumph. After seven months of fruitless negotiations with the Tollan pomposities, Daniel had managed to persuade them to part with one of their thingamabobs.

He'd thought the Tollan would never be swayed, although Hammond had evidently differed in opinion. God only knew why. Hammond wasn't one of the fluffy-hearts brigade.

"So what is this device you've brought back, Major?"

"It's a device which disables weapons as the bearers pass by," Carter replied. "It worked on both our weapons and the Goa'uld weapons when Colonel O'Neill and Daniel were defending Ska'ara in the Triad."

"That should come in handy." Hammond said, a smile breaking out on his rubicund face. "Well done, Major, Doctor."

"Thank you, sir." She seemed serene, poised...brittle.

The brittleness hadn't registered until everything around them had shattered.

"So what did you promise them in return, Dr. Jackson?"

Daniel shifted in his chair, oddly unelated by the acquisition of technology. Jack would later realise that only Carter burned with the inner flame of triumph - the rest of SG-1 was cold, damp ash in comparison. "Nothing." He glanced at Sam from under his lashes. "We didn't have to promise them anything, General."

"They gave us the device as a reward for saving them from the Goa'uld?"

Daniel pushed his glasses up, "Actually, they refused to give us any technology at all."

"Well, I'm confused. How did you get the device, Dr. Jackson?"

Jack was watching Carter's face, suddenly remembering an old saw about never really knowing a woman at all.

He didn't need her confirmation that she'd taken the device in the end. He realised it before the outraged disbelief seeped into Hammond's voice and demeanour, before Lieutenant Rumlow blurted out the situation, before her calm voice confirmed that she'd taken by force what the Tollan had been unwilling to render them in diplomatic exchange.

And she met his gaze squarely in a contest of wills, and he was the one who looked away first.

The woman who'd met his gaze was a stranger.//

Jack still didn't know what had gotten into Carter. Admittedly, she'd been acting odd those last couple of days. They'd only just returned to active duty after his return from Edora - between her exhaustion from working herself to the bone on the particle accelerator and his own re-acclimatisation to Earth, SG-1 had been put on downtime.

Jack had spent most of it by himself, interspersed with visits from Teal'c. At least Teal'c was still the same. Something had gotten into Carter and Daniel, and Jack didn't have the slightest idea what it was.

Later, as he sat down in Daniel's office, where Daniel was talking about Carter's resignation again, Jack realised he still didn't know what he'd done to get on Daniel's bad side. Not that it really mattered anymore. Whatever had been bugging Daniel had been pushed aside in favour of trying to work out why Carter had done what she'd done.

"Someone's got to go talk to her," Daniel was saying, and Jack finally tuned in. "Something's got to be wrong. Sam just doesn't do that kind of thing! You heard what she was saying during the briefing...that's not Sam..."

"Dr. Fraiser was unable to find anything physiologically wrong with Major Carter."

"Then, I don't know, maybe we should be looking at other things? It's not necessarily physical or hormonal...it might be emotional or stress-related..." Jack caught the quick flicker of the eyes that Daniel sent his way and frowned a little.

"Stress-related?" He let the emotional one slide for the moment.

"She worked very hard to get you back."

That particle accelerator of hers. He guessed she'd worked pretty hard on it. There were vague rumours of Major Carter's dedication to 'the Edora project' around the base, although the people in question always shut up when they saw Jack.

"What, you think the stress of the job cracked her?"

"Stranger things have happened, Jack." Daniel's voice held a note that indicated that Jack should find this significant. Exactly what Jack was supposed to find significant, he had no idea.

Jack put his head in his hands and scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "Look, Daniel, even if there was a reason for her behaviour - and I imagine it would be a pretty damn strong one - we couldn't get her back on SG-1. She's no longer Air Force, they'd never take her back..."

"Not even as a civilian?"

"Unlikely," Jack said. He didn't explain the convoluted reasons upon reasons for Carter's resignation - the fact that they'd probably never take her back under any circumstances since she'd 'proven' herself unworthy as an officer of the Air Force.

The ironic thing was that there were times when Jack had wondered if the technology thieves who'd been using the second Stargate didn't have the idea after all. Take what you needed as you needed it. Obviously not from people like the Madronans, but from people who had it...

Then, after thinking these thoughts, sanity would reassert itself. The only people worth stealing the tech from were those you'd rather were on your side, anyway. You really didn't want them mad at you. And if they weren't willing to give you the stuff, then the next best thing was to make friends with them and have them there to keep the bad guys away when you couldn't keep them out yourself.

Jack hoped that Carter's actions had just been a lapse in judgement - a very fatal one as far as her career was concerned, but it was better than thinking that he'd missed something. The dereliction of his duty in keeping an eye on the state of mind of his people stung as much as the betrayal of the values he'd thought were second-nature to both him and her.

It was easier thinking that than thinking she'd changed so much without Jack noticing it.

Not that Jack had been around to notice lately.

"Don't you want her back on the team, Jack?"

"Don't be stupid, Daniel - of course I want Carter back on the team! But it's not going to happen - not after what she did, certainly not after her resignation! At the most, they'd let her back in here as a contractor - maybe. If we were in dire circumstances - and they'd have to be really dire! But that's not usually the way things work on Air Force projects!"

"Well, I think you should go and talk to her, anyway."

That was an unexpected surprise. "Me?"

"You're the leader of this team," Daniel said.

He didn't want to go. Jack O'Neill didn't do 'talking' well. But Daniel had a point. He was the leader of SG-1 and Carter was a member of SG-1. Had been a member of SG-1. And something had happened to her while she was technically under his command and he'd never twigged. That it had gone so far was partly his responsibility, and he owed her the gesture.

Didn't mean he had to like it.

"You're closer to her."

"If you don't want to go, then just say so, Jack." Blue eyes glared at him. "Just don't make excuses."

"That wasn't an excuse!" Jack snapped back. So maybe Daniel talking to him again wasn't such a good thing after all. Distance definitely made the heart grow fonder as far as Daniel was concerned. "I'll go."

"Good." Daniel turned back to whatever it was he'd been translating before the issue of Carter's retirement came up. "And don't sound so cheerful about it."

Jack grimaced and went back to the personnel profiles.

Come back from Edora. No probs. He hadn't done a thing to help it, really.

Re-acclimatise to Earth. Easy. The three months of Edora were fading into his memory already.

Get used to sleeping alone again. Okay, not quite so easy. He'd forgotten how nice it was to wake up to someone else in the bed. But he couldn't have stayed on Edora and Laira would never have fit into his life on Earth. The situation was no more right for them than it was for him and Sara after Charlie died.

Go back on missions. More difficult. While he'd never liked the idea of grubbing around in the dirt, he had to admit that farming was peaceful. Uneventful. Certainly, nowhere near as stressful as the fighting he'd done all his life. Or as tiring as being diplomatic with hard-headed alien races.

Deal with the crisis kindled by the actions of a junior officer who had no previous record of any such behaviour, but certainly enough reason in the last few years to lose it in such a spectacular manner. Difficult. Coming hard on the heels of his return and dealing with everything he'd thought he'd lost and everything that had happened in his absence, it had spun him out, confused him. It still did.

Get Carter to talk about whatever had prompted the temporary insanity that had caused her actions on Tollana?

Damn well impossible.

----

By the end of the third day, Sam was getting antsy.

She'd cleaned the house from top to bottom, done the grocery shopping, written emails to all the friends she occasionally kept in touch with, manicured her nails, read through the graduate papers of the physics department at the Academy, and was reduced to reading the ordinary, everyday news.

None of it was good.

And it wasn't made any better by the apprehension Sam was feeling over this whole thing.

She wasn't quite sure what she was waiting to happen. Hammond hadn't been able to tell her anything, mostly because he didn't know anything.

They were expecting someone to contact her in the coming few days. They didn't know who, and they didn't know how. It was a leap of faith over a chasm in the dark. Once the solid ground was gone from beneath her feet, she'd have to wing it.

Once again, Sam wished that someone else had been chosen to carry out this mission. She'd never done undercover before and she had no idea if she was doing it right. If there was a right way to go about it at all.

She clicked through the TV channels finding nothing to her tastes, so she turned the TV off.

Then she glanced over at the chess game still in progress on the coffee table before the TV. She and Daniel had been in the middle of a 'best of five' the night before they left to go to Edora. All Daniel's attempts to lure her back to the game had been futile in the three months since, and the game stood, untouched and unwon, in a perpetual state of battle that might never conclude.

Sometimes she wondered if that was the way of their fight against the Goa'uld. Never-ending, never concluding. Old hopes dying under the crush of their duty and new hopes never being given birth as the war, like a monster, swallowed everything in their lives.

Miserable thoughts, Sam. She glanced out the back door at her garden. Maybe she should go outside and start fixing up the garden? It would give her hands something to do anyway, even if her mind wandered and wondered.

The knock at the door startled her and she turned to regard it with someone approaching a sense of dread. This was probably it. No going back from here.

You can't go back now. You have nowhere and no one to go back to, she thought grimly.

But when she pulled the door open, her guest was Colonel O'Neill.

She had a moment of absolute panic as a barrage of thoughts slipped in and out of her mind in mere seconds.

What's he doing here? I'm no longer his concern. Unless he's been sent to contact me... But...the Colonel? Of all the possible people she had envisioned as part of this setup, he had not been one of them.

"Carter."

"Sir."

He grimaced. "Lose the 'sir'. I'm not your commanding officer anymore." There was a definite gruff component to his voice and Sam suddenly had a slightly nasty sick feeling in her stomach.

Under different circumstances, she might have been very glad of those words. At least she wouldn't have to deny that the respect and affection she felt for him was, in Janet's euphemistic phrasing, 'a problem'. Maybe there would even have been possibilities opening up for them...

Bitter memory provided the clarity she needed as she remembered the frozen humiliation of him walking away from her - to the arms of another woman. Never mind that he didn't have the faintest idea about her own personal revelations while he was on Edora, it had still been a slap in the face.

And now, with so much riding on her ability to keep him and her other old team-mates away, Sam would have to issue the slap in his face that drove him away.

She shrugged, leaning against the doorframe. "Old habits. Sir." She gently emphasised the title and watched him grimace.

"May I come in?"

No.

"Sure. Not for too long, though. I've got things to do." Brisk and brusque. That's the way to do it, Sam.

He followed her down the hallway. "Keeping yourself busy, then?"

"Yeah. Puttering around the house. Makes a nice change from saving the world."

He paused at the entrance to the main living area, glancing around it in swift reconnaissance. "So have you decided where you're going to work now?"

Sam shrugged. "I haven't started looking yet. Enjoying the downtime." She didn't offer him refreshments of any kind since she didn't want him to stay. And if he started questioning her too intently, she wasn't sure how well she'd hold out. Hammond had warned her about being under scrutiny - especially after her ties with the SGC were broken. They'd want to make sure that her disgrace was for real.

Her house was probably bugged and she'd really had to fight the temptation to see if she could find them. That would give her away.

"I never figured you as the type to relax, Carter." He interrupted her thoughts, seeing that she wasn't about to make the small talk.

"It gets easier as you get used to it. You should know that from Edora."

"There wasn't a lot of relaxing on Edora." He sounded short now. That's right, get him on the back foot. Behave in a manner he wouldn't expect from 'Major Sam Carter', and confuse him enough so he doesn't ask questions until it's too late. "Mostly we were working to try to get the harvest set up so we didn't starve through the winter."

"Ah." His identification with the Edoran remnant was interesting. Sam filed that note away for later use.

He glanced up at her noise of doubtful understanding. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"From the look of things when we broke through to the surface, the harvest wasn't the only thing you seemed to be setting up."

The dark eyes narrowed a little as he stared at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Her voice was cool and slightly malicious as she said, "Only that it didn't take you very long to 'get comfortable' on Edora."

"That happened later."

"I'm sure." There was a certain enjoyment to be taken in being 'the bitch'. Sam always had a lot to say - she just didn't always say it. Military training had taught her that much, at least; given her a measure of self-control and a feeling for when to say something and when to rein it in.

Ostensibly, she wasn't in the military anymore. And while she didn't want to burn all her bridges, it was necessary that she at least singe some to the point where people would think twice about crossing them.

"Exactly what are you implying, Carter?"

It was a perfect opening.

She met his gaze, full force. "For a man who holds the view that nobody should get left behind, you didn't seem to have a lot of faith in the people you lead. For someone who knows that the Asgard and the Tollan and the Tok'ra can traverse galaxies in a matter of minutes, you seemed remarkably sure that you were going to be staying there permanently. And for someone for whom parenthood is considered such a sacred duty, you jumped into the sack with the Edoran fast enough." The information about the Edoran woman's desire for a child had come from a number of sources: base gossip, the Edoran refugees' gossip, and an overheard conversation between the Colonel and Teal'c. "Unless, of course, the local woman was just a passing fancy? A brief roll in the hay?"

His mouth tightened at the cavalier manner of her dismissal. But he still held onto his temper by the thinnest of threads as he gritted out, "Since when have I engaged in casual liaisons, Carter?"

Sam callously snapped the thread. "Both Daniel and Teal'c have indicated the occasional 'bar-cruise pick-up' on your part." Never mind that such 'encounters' were several years old. She watched him flush and took a small satisfaction in it. "And even while on duty, there was always the aging incident with the Argosians."

Irrationally, the memories ached a little. It was long after the fact, long before she'd particularly cared about him - although the incident with the Argosians was annoying for the ease with which he'd jumped into bed with the woman, drugged or not. Off-duty, his sex life was not her business. On-duty, what was she supposed to do with a commanding officer who had no compunction about taking up the first invitation to 'get it on'?

"That," he bit out, "was under an entirely different set of circumstances!"

"Ah, so we make exceptions if the lady is good at flirting in the darkness?" There was a certain satisfaction in being able to say all this. Under his command she was constrained from speaking her true mind. Out from under his command there were no holds barred.

And while a part of her felt sorry for him since he'd obviously come here to check how she was doing, another part was taking a fairly ruthless satisfaction in watching him back away. Whatever he'd been expecting from her, this barrage of accusation was not part of it.

"Laira was one of the few things that kept me going while I was stuck on Edora," he said in a low, dangerous voice. "She took me in when most of her people didn't care whether I lived or died. I was...grateful."

She looked him up and down in a manner that was no less insulting for that it was appreciative, "So I saw."

He bristled, his pride stung. "Carter, I thought I was stuck there on Edora!"

"You thought wrong, sir."

"I know that now."

"You should have known it then."

From the expression on his face - like he'd swallowed something unpleasant - her tactics were working. His features closed up and he stuck his hands in his pockets. "Maybe I should have." The bitter finality in his voice elicited a desire to tell him the whole plan - to blurt out the reasons for her peculiar behaviour, but she thought of the bugs in her house and kept silent. "I..." he looked like he was about to say something - something big and irrevocable.

Sam couldn't afford that. "Colonel," she said in her coolest voice, matching her expression to the tone and aching inside as she did so. "If you came to say sorry about not being more grateful about the rescue, then that's fine. I didn't do it solely for you, and the Edoran refugees were glad to be returned to their home, even if you weren't." Crisp words, sharp edges, cutting tones. A harsh sentence. "I'm sorry I interrupted your romantic idyll on the planet, but I'm sure she won't mind a visit from time to time." She made it sound as sordid as she could manage.

"That will be enough, Carter."

"You forget, Colonel. You don't command me anymore." And after all this, he probably wouldn't want to command her if she ever came back, either.

"Yeah," he said, the words clipped. "I forgot. I just thought that maybe a couple of years of working together counted for something and came to see how you were doing." And there was something terrible in his voice and his expression as he indicated the door. "But since you're doing fine, I guess I'll leave."

The haste with which he made for the door would have been amusing if it wasn't quite so nightmarish. Sam followed him out and was about to shut the door on him when he paused at the edge of the veranda and turned back. She couldn't read the expression on his face, but he was tense as a strung wire. "I never said this, Carter, but...I did want to come back. I just didn't expect to ever get back." He gave a little shrug that had some indefinable element to it that Sam couldn't quite pinpoint. "Thank you for getting me back."

"You're welcome." Her voice was a marvel of quiet unconcern. "Thanks for coming around."

He nodded once then turned away and walked down the steps.

Sam closed the door before he'd reached the path, then laid her head against the door and screwed her eyes tightly shut. All in all, that had probably been the worst fifteen minutes of her life.

She respected the Colonel. Respected and admired him - both as a fellow officer and as a man. The last couple of months had been hard. The last week had been harder.

And maybe it was just her imagination, but it seemed like he'd been so close to saying...to saying...

So close to saying what? She demanded of herself, irritably. To making a passionate declaration of undying love? Get a grip on yourself, Sam! The man's a professional - and so are you!

This whole undercover thing was getting to her, the near-constant tension draining her like a flashlight left on too long. The situation just added the stress of getting the Colonel back from Edora, her own...affection...for the man and the discovery of his relationship with the Edoran woman

Sam wasn't sure she could cope with it all.

And if she didn't work out how to cope in the next couple of days then she could kiss this mission, her life, and the Earth good-bye as the Protected Planets Treaty went down the drain and the Tollan revoked their alliance with Earth.

Levering herself off the door she headed out to the back of the house, seeking something to do with her hands. She'd noticed the gladioli were getting rather crowded in their corner of the backyard. She'd do some gardening to take her mind off what she'd just said.

And how badly the Colonel was going to take it.

----

O'Neill refused to talk about the discussion between him and Major Carter. Daniel Jackson was afire with curiosity, but O'Neill was silent on the details, saying only that their team-mate had told him his concern was appreciated but unnecessary.

Teal'c sat in his room, just emerged from kel no reem. His body felt rested and renewed, but his mind was still troubled. Primarily by Major Carter's behaviour, but also by the events which had transpired from that. The sundering of SG-1 was unwelcome and unpleasant; their team-mate's complete rejection of them no less disturbing than her fall from grace.

He was not sure what would have caused Major Carter to behave in the manner in which she had, but her refusal to talk about it - and O'Neill's refusal to talk about his discussion with her - boded badly for her state of mind at this time.

In the meantime, General Hammond had presented O'Neill with a list of officers from which O'Neill was to choose a replacement for Major Carter. Teal'c had seen O'Neill push the list aside, unwilling to contemplate anyone in Major Carter's role on the team.

Indeed, Teal'c could not imagine going through the gate without their missing team-mate present among them.

The recollection of that first day still clung to his memory. He had stepped through the wormhole to Earth, an unknown to these people, uncertain of whether death or imprisonment awaited him.

He had trusted O'Neill's word, knowing little else that was true in this new environment. He had seen the distrust in the eyes of the man he would come to know as General Hammond, and the wariness in the eyes of the people who had languished in Apophis' prison.

And he had seen the trust in the eyes of the woman who stood on the ramp, with the beauty of a rare and treasured wife, and the mien of a warrior. She did not understand him, but she followed the lead of the man who commanded her, and maybe her own instincts, too. She'd held out her hands to take his weapon - a gesture of trust between warriors - and, recognising a true and kindred spirit in her, Teal'c relinquished it to her hands.

But that had been long ago. Many changes had happened in that time, some of them immediately noticeable, others only gradually so. And somehow, the change in Major Carter had happened while nobody was looking.

It troubled him.

A knock on the door interrupted his thoughts. "Teal'c?"

"Daniel Jackson?"

The door opened, "Jack said to head up to the briefing room. We're getting our new team member. Apparently."

Teal'c rose from his seated position on the floor. "O'Neill has chosen?"

"I guess so." Daniel Jackson sounded less than pleased as he made that pronouncement. He exhaled with a huffing sigh. "Teal'c...did you notice anything about Sam while Jack was away?"

"I did not." Teal'c made the admission with regret. With little knowledge that could assist Major Carter in her endeavour to complete the particle accelerator, Teal'c had settled for keeping a watch on her as much as he could. He offered his services to General Hammond on other teams and training soldiers in use of the weapons of the Goa'uld during O'Neill's absence.

Another sigh. "Me, neither." Daniel Jackson had worked with many of the Edoran refugees, trying to reassure them that they would get home again, finding them somewhere they could stay while they were in the care of the SGC. He, also, had kept an eye on Major Carter, along with Dr. Fraiser. "You don't have any idea of what Sam could have said to clam Jack up like that?"

"I do not, Daniel Jackson." Teal'c felt no guilt at lying to his friend. He had perhaps a small idea, but he was fairly certain that O'Neill would not divulge such a thing, either to Daniel Jackson or himself. And Major Carter certainly would not. "Where is the meeting with O'Neill?"

"Briefing room." Daniel led the way.

Teal'c appreciated his team-mate's thoughtfulness in coming down to inform him of the news. While there was a phone in Teal'c's quarters, he preferred not to be called on it since it interrupted his kel no reem in a very abrupt manner.

"Did Jack say anything to you about who he chose as the new team member?"

"He did not. However, I believe he was inclined towards one of the younger officers with a scientific background."

"He was? I'm surprised. I'd have thought he'd had enough of 'geeks' in me and Sam to last him a lifetime." There was a mild bitterness in Daniel Jackson's voice. Relations between O'Neill and Daniel Jackson had been strained since O'Neill's return from Edora - mainly regarding O'Neill's reluctance to believe that his team would have come after him at any cost.

The question of self-worth and value was moot to Daniel Jackson's mind. His self-esteem was quite intact and he had no problem with the idea that his knowledge and expertise was valuable. However, Teal'c could see how O'Neill's experiences had inclined him to disbelief of his personal worth. In the end, the warriors that made up an army were expendable to those who commanded them - and the warriors learned that at painful cost to themselves.

Teal'c understood that as Daniel Jackson did not.

He had been disconcerted that O'Neill had given up hope, but he did not question O'Neill's desire to regain those things which had been lost to him years ago: the love of a woman and the joy of children. Every warrior understood the deep and abiding desire of his fellow warrior to return to someone at the end of each fight and to have little ones run to him for care.

O'Neill had once possessed both, but had since lost both.

So Teal'c could understand his friend's 'betrayal of faith', even as Daniel Jackson could not.

"I'm almost of a mind to go see Sam myself," his companion remarked. "Someone's got to go and make her see sense."

Perhaps someone did have to 'make Major Carter see sense', however Teal'c doubted there was either a man or Jaffa up to the task at this point in time - or possibly at any point in time. The only person who would be making Major Carter see sense would be herself. Whatever had come upon her, it was powerful enough to throw her from her customary behaviour into the irregular conduct she had displayed in the last week.

Teal'c said nothing, giving neither approval nor disapproval to Daniel Jackson's plans. However, he hoped that his friend would not attempt to speak with Major Carter at this time. O'Neill had been ripe for whatever she had said to him, and Daniel Jackson would be no less vulnerable in such a situation.

In the briefing room, O'Neill, Hammond, and a young woman were waiting for them.

"You've been called here to meet your new team member. This is Lieutenant Claire Tobias, Colonel O'Neill picked her to join SG-1."

"It'll be a pleasure to work with you all," the Lieutenant said. She seemed unusually self-possessed regarding her elevation in status. There had been a significant amount of interest in who would be chosen to succeed Major Carter on SG-1 among the junior officers, and Teal'c understood that someone had been running a betting pool on how long it would take O'Neill to choose a new officer, and who it would be.

Teal'c inclined his head to Lieutenant Tobias in polite greeting as Daniel Jackson asked, "Lieutenant. What's your background?"

"Engineering, Dr. Jackson. Mostly mechanical, although I have a little knowledge of computer and electrical engineering also."

"Lieutenant Tobias has significant expertise with alien technology," General Hammond informed them. "She's been out on assignment with several SG-teams, but this is her first permanent assignment to an SG-team."

Teal'c felt surprise that O'Neill had not chosen someone of greater Stargating experience than the Lieutenant, but he remained silent. Daniel Jackson did not.

"Well, no offence to Lieutenant Tobias, but...I was expecting someone with a little more experience in going through the gate."

The Lieutenant did not seem overly surprised by the objection to her presence on the team. Her answer was cool and collected, "Dr. Jackson, I assure you that I am fully conversant with the tactics of both Goa'uld and Jaffa, and have seen my share of action in my time on and off the various SG-teams. Neither my commanders nor the teams I've worked with have complained of my performance. Nor will SG-1."

"I'm sure you'll make Lieutenant Tobias' transition to the team as smooth as possible, SG-1." General Hammond looked around at them all, "Dismissed."

They milled around for a moment, O'Neill, Daniel Jackson and Teal'c facing off against the wiry young blonde. She regarded them with unusual self-possession in a human her age.

It was O'Neill who finally broke the silence. "Hammond says we'll be heading out on a run tomorrow. Nothing big, just a planetary survey. Done much geology, Tobias?"

"No, sir."

"Well, it's always good to learn new things. You should get quite a bit of a chance on SG-1." It sounded like O'Neill didn't quite know what to do with the Lieutenant.

"Yes, sir."

Once again, silence. "Anyway, I'm off to get some paperwork done before we have to go out tomorrow," O'Neill said. "I'll catch you guys in the commissary later. 'K?" And off he walked.

There was an uncomfortably silent moment of standoffishness before the Lieutenant evidently decided to bite the bullet.

"You don't have anything to say, Dr. Jackson? Nothing about how big the shoes are that I have to fill in Major Carter's absence?"

For once, Daniel Jackson chose to use the short answer instead of the long. "No," he said calmly. "We'll see how you do on the mission tomorrow." And with that he stomped off, clattering down the stairs.

Teal'c was left to regard the newest member of SG-1.

The polite expression dropped a little revealing a slight edge of desperation. "Is it going to be this hard all the way?"

"It will be difficult, Lieutenant Tobias," Teal'c said, deciding that alienating this young woman was not going to be the best way to foster team feeling. And, much as he did not like the circumstances under which she had joined SG-1, he would be obligated to work with her in the future. "We are accustomed to Major Carter. In time, we will become accustomed to you, too."

She smiled a little at that, evidently relieved. "Thank you. I'd better go off and answer all the questions my colleagues are going to want to ask me about this assignment." And with a barely-noticeable hesitation, she also left.

Teal'c turned back to the gate room, looking down at the now-quiescent Stargate.

So many changes. So many things to adjust to.

He wondered what Major Carter was doing. Whatever her state of mind, she was one of the few people in the base that accepted Teal'c as he was - and he missed that. O'Neill was like Teal'c's brother - but his restlessness could irk. Daniel Jackson was a great friend, but Teal'c did not understand the abruptness of his attitude when his concentration was elsewhere.

Major Carter had been driven enough in her pursuits - sometimes too much so - but she had been willing to stop and talk when Teal'c came to see her. Except during those three months when O'Neill had been trapped on Edora.

That time had been difficult for her - and by extension, for the other members of the team. While Major Carter was not yet a leader as O'Neill was, she still commanded their attention, even in O'Neill's absence - and her moods had translated over to her team-mates.

Even after O'Neill's return, she had been restless and troubled.

Teal'c attributed this to her discomfort upon realising that O'Neill did not trust his team as much as they trusted him. That he had not expected them to come for him or to find him after a mere three months. It was a difficult thing to find trust betrayed - and O'Neill had betrayed the trust of his team-mates in accepting his lot with the Edorans and developing a relationship with the Edoran woman.

Both Major Carter and Daniel Jackson had taken it hard - but her response had been out of all proportion. Unexpected and unwelcome when it came, and unfathomable to her team-mates.

Teal'c hoped she was well.

----

Maybourne turning up was nearly a relief after the Colonel's departure. Nearly.

He was cautious in approaching her. She'd had no record of insubordination before, so she guessed that he wanted to see what had broken the perfect Major cast.

In truth, he - and everyone else - had never looked beyond the surface of Sam Carter, model officer. They saw what she wanted them to see and what they expected to see: a woman who did her duty and obeyed orders.

She'd been burned by too many commanders who didn't want a subordinate who could out-think them most of the time. And her career was only everything to her. So she'd learned to keep her head down and stay out of the politics wherever possible. She knew that, eventually, she'd have to get into the politics if she was going to move up the officer ranks - the higher you got, the more political you became; and there were too few assignments where you could manage to avoid the intricacies of politics because you had enough clout to hold them off.

Stargate Command was one of those places. Enough classification to keep most of the political players off their backs, enough urgency to keep it open, enough leeway to run things in an unorthodox manner. Sam had seen the machinations in the corridors of the Pentagon. She'd kept out of it as much as possible as a mere Captain with a Doctorate in Astrophysics - and taken the transfer to the SGC the instant it came up.

So nobody had ever suspected that Major Sam Carter had a wild streak in her. Not even her team.

Certainly not Maybourne.

Sam played her part and, after an initial hesitation, he took the bait. A little too much cloak-and-daggers in Sam's opinion, and were the dramatics of 'This is your last chance to back out' really necessary? If only Maybourne had known - there was no backing out of this one for Sam Carter. No backing out at all.

Although Sam didn't want to back out of this one. Not with the kind of consequences it would incur for Earth.

Duty and sacrifice in the name of honour; personal, organisational, and planetary.

She sat in one of the seats of Maybourne's private jet plane. The second time in six months. Better not get too used to this. Last time had been no more comfortable for her than this time, with Maybourne, the Colonel, and Daniel all watching her like hawks. If she wasn't paranoid before they picked her up at the café, then she certainly was after they'd 'kept an eye' on her for half the plane trip.

The difference now was that while she might not feel any more comfortable, she was taking care to look more comfortable.

It seemed odd that Maybourne would want to take her to any location - unless it was a tax-free island run by the NID off the Bahamas through which they 'laundered' their tech. But she was pretty sure that they'd banked a couple of times since they lifted off, and for the life of her, she couldn't work out why.

Finally, aware that Maybourne was watching her closely, she turned to him and asked. "Are we going anywhere, or are we just trying to avoid surveillance?"

He grinned. "I was wondering if you'd work it out, Major. It's a lot easier to ensure no prying eyes or listening ears are about when you're thirty thousand feet in the air." A gesture, and two of his men removed themselves from the room but came in a moment later with what looked like a large copper box. He opened it and out rose a little platform with a silvery ball on it. "Do you know what this is?" Maybourne asked as he picked it up.

"A Goa'uld long-range telecommunications device."

He smiled with what passed for a cocky grin for him. "And my organisation didn't have to negotiate for it."

Sam caught the gist of what Maybourne was saying, but she decided that she'd play dumb or cautious for the moment. "NID?"

"Uh...not quite. We're an...offshoot organisation."

"Ah." And that said it all, really. Sam indicated the ball. "So, I take it you operate from off-world and communicate via this?"

"You're sharp, Major."

"Actually, Maybourne, it's Doctor. I'm retired from the Air Force." She didn't have to simulate the tensing of her jaw or the bitterness in her voice. So much that she'd left behind with so little hope of seeing it again. All she had to do was put one foot wrong...

So don't put a foot wrong, snapped her competitive side. You managed to avoid being known as 'General Carter's daughter' through the Academy - and that was no mean feat - you can do this in your sleep!

Maybourne continued, unaware of her thoughts. "Maybe you are. But you could still serve your country and your planet." He smiled. "And I'm too old to change my habits now. How would you like to lead teams through the Stargate, Major? You never had the chance under O'Neill."

"I did once." She thought of the misery of the mission to Tollana. "Twice."

Maybourne rallied well. "You could do it again. On a regular basis." He smiled. "Your reports indicate that both General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill think you're command material."

That was a surprise. "I doubt they hold that opinion anymore," she said, dryly.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not." Maybourne leaned forward, "Whether or not I agree with their methods, Major, I trust their judgement of you. You did well during the foothold situation at the SGC..." For the first time during their discussion, Maybourne looked a little abashed. "I hear you were up for a Presidential commendation for that one."

More surprises. Sam managed a cool little smile, "Perhaps." She shrugged, as if Presidential commendations didn't count for much in her book, "It doesn't make much difference now. Presently, I'm more interested in what you're offering me to work for you."

"Straight to the point. Very well. Leadership of one of the teams that go through the Stargate and pick up pieces like this." He hefted the device in his hand, then set it down on the stand. "It took us a while to work out how to use one of these without a Goa'uld at the helm, but, in the end, good old human ingenuity won out."

The gold surface of the device became translucent and the swirling gold-grey mists parted to show the face of a young man. Possibly of Hispanic background, the expression was personable and intent. "Colonel Maybourne."

"Newman. I'd like you to meet Major Samantha Carter. Retired." There was a hint of gentle mockery in Maybourne's voice as he pronounced the last word.

"Major Carter," Newman seemed impressed. "It's a pleasure to meet you, ma'am. I've read all the SG-1 mission reports, they're very impressive."

"Thank you, Newman."

"I believe we've even met before," the young man continued. "In the hangar of a Utah landing strip."

Sam turned to Maybourne. "So you knew about the Madrona Touchstone all along." She shouldn't have been surprised, really. They'd always suspected that Maybourne had his finger in more pies than just the NID and connections to the SGC.

One more piece to the puzzle.

But quite possibly not the final piece.

She had to find out more.

"Plausible deniability, Major." Maybourne tilted his head at her. "You know the routine."

And she did. What you didn't know, you couldn't tell; and what they thought you didn't know, you wouldn't have to.

"Newman presently heads up the teams going through our Stargate. However, with the extent of your involvement in the Stargate program, and particularly with your experience of command logistics, I think that you'll fit very neatly into the role as outpost commander." Maybourne smiled. "We tend to run things a lot less formally in this operation, Major, but it is your command to run as you see fit within our guidelines."

"Which are?"

"Newman?"

"Use whatever means necessary to obtain goods or technology that could help defend Earth against the Goa'ulds or other unforeseen aggressors."

Sam nodded. Not an entirely unexpected motto given the circumstances under which the SGC had been contacted by the Tollan and the Asgard. Now the interesting question was where they'd gotten hold of these people. She judged Newman to be her junior by some four or five years, and his address of her in the military mode wasn't forced or stumbling. "You're ex-military, aren't you, Newman?"

"That would be classified, Major," Maybourne interrupted before Newman could say anything more.

"If I'm going to work with these people, I'm going to need to know about them."

"You'll get that information upon acceptance of the command," he told her. "So how about it, Major? Ready to take a command which will enable you to achieve what needs to be done for this planet?"

Sam smiled tightly. "Ready." She was more than ready.

"It'll be an honour serving under you, ma'am," Newman said with apparent sincerity. "I'll see you when you arrive on-base."

"Thank you, Newman."

"We'll communicate at the usual time tomorrow."

The young man nodded and the opaque gold swirled back over the device.

Maybourne sat back, watching for her reaction, and Sam sat back, mirroring his pose.

"An off-world base?"

"Sent through before the SGC closed the second Stargate down."

She nodded once in satisfaction at the success of that particular operation - even if they hadn't managed to pin the head of the snake. That was her job now. "And how do you propose that I get to where they are, considering that the second Stargate is now under constant surveillance by the SGC?"

Her new 'commander' grinned. "Through the SGC Stargate, of course!"

And he laid out exactly how.

----

"You can't mean to just...throw away everything you've done here!"

They were in the elevator, headed down to the gate room. Teal'c was a silently disapproving escort in the background; Daniel was a noisily disapproving escort in the foreground.

"Why not, Daniel?" She asked coolly. "The military is a machine. If you don't fit into the pattern, then they don't have a use for you." And they don't have a use for me. Sam didn't say the words, but she felt them. She felt them in the core of her being, a frightened whisper that she refused to allow purchase. Not because they were true: the Air Force did have a use for her right now. But when she was finished... If she finished. If she made it through and got out the other side of the night into the daylight...

Don't think about that now. Think about the mission. That's all that matters now.

Her training helped. She put the fear behind her, what would happen would happen. She had to make it happen right - as much as she could.

"Don't do this, Sam. Please."

And more than anything else, at this moment, she wished she could tell him why she was doing this. Why she'd had to say what she said, do what she'd done.

"Daniel." She injected an amused pity into her voice as the elevator dinged for the gate room floor and the doors slid open. Then she walked past him and out into the corridor beyond.

The corridor leading to the Gate room.

// "I'd like to go off-world."

"I don't know that I can permit that, Doctor." In the absence of her military rank, General Hammond addressed her by her academic title.

"The Air Force has no jurisdiction over me anymore, General." It was hard to talk to him, aware of the two men hovering outside the door. At least, Daniel was hovering. Teal'c was standing out in the corridor, listening with eagle ears.

She didn't know where the Colonel was.

"Perhaps not, Ma...Doctor. However, we do have jurisdiction over the Stargate - and your skills and knowledge are too valuable for us to permit to fall into Goa'uld hands."

"I won't be going anywhere near the Goa'uld, sir."

The General looked confused. "Weren't you planning to go to a Tok'ra protected world?"

"Actually, General, I was thinking of Edora."

He blinked. "Edora?"

"Do you recall the blacksmith, sir? The one who asked permission to be taken on a tour of the facility?" While the others had lamented their fate and the fate of those left behind, Hiren had been fascinated by the place his people had come to.

General Hammond's eyes narrowed. "Yes. What about him?"

She felt her cheeks growing warm, "He..."

"I get the picture, Ma...Doctor." The General was grim and Sam hastened to reassure him.

"It was nothing like that, sir. He took an interest in the way the base worked. We were...friends. He said...that I was welcome on Edora any time I cared to visit."

His words had been more thoughtful than that, and prefaced with admiration. "I could never compete against your world, your people. And I do not think I could compete against your friends and the loyalty you hold for them. But part of me wishes otherwise." He smiled wryly. "Should you ever care to visit us, you will be welcome in my household." And he limped up the ramp - lame in leg, and yet strong in spirit.

"And if you're no longer welcome?"

Sam had thought this through. Maybourne had suggested the off world retirement option, she had chosen Edora. Mostly because she had few other options. The Tok'ra were a possibility, but there would have been no question of 'retirement' on Vorash. "The Edorans are rebuilding their culture, sir. A woman of childbearing age, with knowledge that could help develop their standard of living would be welcome in any case."

The General had sighed. "Sam... Your work here has been sufficient to permit me to give you some leeway in this matter, but you know that I can't give you a GDO . Once you're gone, you can't come back. Are you sure you want to do this?"

He met her gaze, both of them knowing what her answer would be. It was the same answer she'd given him when he asked her to take on this mission in the first place.

"Yes, sir. I'm sure." //

So now she walked into the crowded gate room as the gate dialled.

Once she stepped through that horizon, she would be on her own. There would be no team to back her up, no organisation to take her fall. It was just her.

It was terrifying.

Yet, as she glanced around at the people assembled in the gate room, Sam felt strangely sustained. These were the people for whom she was undertaking this mission. These were the people who she was closest to in all the universe - not even saving her father or her brother's presence.

And in spite of whatever reservations they had about her recent behaviour, they'd come to say goodbye.

Nobody approached her, but she felt surrounded by them, uplifted. There was a purity to the feeling, a rightness about her actions that she tried to hold onto, even as the final chevron clicked into place - the point-of-origin symbol for Earth.

Home.

The explosion of energy particles into the gate room prickled the hairs on her neck as she shouldered her duffle - all she was taking with her on this mission - although only she and the General knew it was a mission.

Behind her she heard the people milling around as she paused at the foot of the ramp.

She knew her team were there. Daniel stood in the control room, quietly seething, Teal'c might be beside him or up in the briefing room watching from the window, and Sam knew the Colonel was somewhere there. She didn't know how she knew. She just knew.

Others were in the gate room, too; Janet and Siler, the scientists she'd worked with, the young officers she'd tutored. People who'd been a part of her life every day for the last three years coming to wish her the best - no matter what they thought of her actions.

Their presence bolstered her, reminding her that she was doing the right thing - the only thing she could do. They didn't know the truth, but she did. They didn't understand now, but someday they would.

With that thought, Sam began the long climb to the open wormhole leading to more than just Edora.

"SGC salute!"

The rustle of material whispered softly through the room as all the people she'd worked with gave her a salute and she felt tears sting her eyes but didn't wipe them away.

Carters are strong, Sam. They're always the toughest. Her father's voice echoed in her head, a mantra from her teenage years.

Sam had always tried to be strong. And she had succeeded so far.

At the top of the ramp she paused, but didn't turn around. If she turned around and looked for the three men who had shared her life these past years, then she'd never do what she had to do.

One step. That was all it would take. One final, irrevocable step.

She took it.

----

The wormhole expelled her from the other side with a pop. Her 'transition' at Edora had been very brief as she brushed the faint dampness from her eyes and dialled her destination on the DHD: the NID's secret off-world site.

"Major Carter." Newman stepped up to her as she descended the stairs. "How was your trip in?"

"Cold," she noted dryly, taking the opportunity to glance around the room. It was a large room, almost warehouse sized. Overhead, through the clear ceiling, the stormy sky could be seen overhead, clouds roiling and tumbling around in what must have been gale-force winds. But from inside, she could hear nothing of the weather - the air here was still and quiet.

Behind Newman, row upon row of shelves stood, crammed full of all kinds of technologies. The sheer number of them stunned her - there must have been dozens of items here, all taken by stealth or force from various planets in the last two years.

A wealth of technology that the NID had coveted and refused to share.

She kept her anger carefully under control and instead concentrated on the people who gathered behind Newman, quietly observing her.

Her new command - such as it was.

They were a rag-tag bunch. Mostly military according to the files she'd read, one or two were civilians with specialised training. The military people were the wild or rogue cards of the deck. She'd seen and known the type in the academy and during her time out in the Gulf. They had a use during wartime, but during peacetime they tended to turn their energies to troublemaking.

Maybourne had found a better use for those energies.

"We're not exactly the cream of the crop," Newman acknowledged, seeing her glance over the informally assembled people. "But we're very good at what we do."

"Which is basically stealing technology."

"Whatever we need to do to protect our planet, Major." Newman stood his ground and eyeballed her. "Isn't that why they kicked you out?"

Sam quirked a smile. "Point."

The young man's expression eased as he turned to his compatriots. "Guys, this is Major Carter, formerly of SG-1. She's our newest addition to the team, and, depending on how she works out during these first few missions, Maybourne may set her up to run this place since she's seen the SGC in action."

She got a series of fairly solemn nods from the group. One or two individuals smiled a little as they greeted her, but, by and large, they all seemed fairly reserved. Newman went through the names, introducing them one by one. Sam figured she wouldn't remember all of them, but she'd have a decent chance of remembering most of them. Not too many of them stuck out, although she paid careful attention to the names of the older members: Colonel Greaves, Sergeant Rice, and a man of subcontinental descent who gave his name simply as 'Ranjit'. The older ones would have the greatest influence and the best chance of leadership - official or unofficial - and might resent her as the newcomer who was taking over the base. She made a note to try to get them on-side with her.

Judging from the reception she got, Sam gathered most of them would be watching to see how she did on the first couple of missions before they came to a decision about her. They were polite, but cautious.

As Newman took her through the complex, showing her the layout of the base, Sam realised that these people didn't have much reason to love her. After all, her team had put their Earth-based operations out of action and stranded them here. Whatever home, family, friends or loved ones they'd had on Earth, they hadn't seen or heard from in over a year.

She only half-listened as he pointed out the various rooms in the base to her.

For the first time, she felt the pangs of conscience. Not over what she and SG-1 had done in uncovering the existence of the ring but about the consequences that had come about as a result of it. In trying to keep the honour of their planet, they'd had to sacrifice the futures of these people.

In seeking to bring down this smuggling ring - and any others like it, Sam would be handing these people over to the mercy of the USAF, under whose authority the Stargate and all its activities undertaken by Earth bodies fell.

It wasn't a pleasant thought.

But no more pleasant than the thought of the millions of lives wiped out by the Goa'uld motherships. Without the Asgard-Goa'uld treaty, Earth was defenceless before the power of the Goa'uld. And the Tollan might not exactly be allies as far as sharing weapons technology, but their goodwill might mean the difference between annihilation and survival.

And that was what her mission was about.

With her reasons justified in her mind, Sam tuned in more fully to what her guide was telling her as they headed down another corridor.

"...and these are the living quarters. Most people share a room with one other person, but some of us get our own rooms. You'll get your own, for one." Newman gave her a cocky grin, "It doesn't do for the base commander to have to share quarters, after all."

Her 'quarters' were nothing more than a room with an attached bathroom, spartan in its simplicity. Teal'c had more furniture - if only in his candles. "It'll do," she conceded as she dumped her duffle on the bed. "Does the operation of the base take up all the time around here?" There had to be more to the complex than rooms where people were squeezed in and sent off on missions.

"Major, all work and no play make the people on this base very dull indeed - and we have to live with each other all the time - although we have a planet or two where people are allowed to go off-duty." Newman grinned. "Since the Committee for Appropriations isn't looking over our shoulder at the electricity bill, we don't have to keep an eye on our Stargate use like the SGC does."

Sam smiled. "I can see how that would be handy. Is there any more of the complex to see?"

"There is, but it'll have to wait until later. Colonel Maybourne is due to call us in ten minutes." He held the door open for her to go through. "The Colonel contacts us for a basic report. Senior operative usually gives it, now that you're here, that'll probably be you. Colonel Greaves hasn't been doing too bad a job, but he's not exactly a people-person." There was a wry note in Newman's voice as he described the Colonel.

Thinking back to the middle-aged man who'd nodded briefly and tersely at her, Sam allowed herself a faint half-smile. "Do you have a rank, Newman?"

"I was a Captain." She noted the past tense. "Dishonourable discharge." He didn't tell her any more and she didn't pry, but she did see the measuring look he gave her. "Not surprised?"

"I never said that," she replied easily.

"So what were you thinking, Major?"

She considered her words carefully, "I was thinking that you were the kind of person who would do well in whatever field they chose - as long as the field of expertise didn't require rigid adherence to the rules."

The grin he gave her was broad, "That about sums it up." They passed a set of rooms where the steady pounding of punching bags could be heard. "That's the gym. Some of the equipment is makeshift, but it works to keep us fit and healthy. We have two doctors on the base - and while they're probably not quite as knowledgeable as Docs Fraiser and Warner of the SGC," Newman quirked a grin, "They're good at patching us up when things don't work out as nicely as they should."

"Have there been any casualties?"

"Not yet. We usually operate by stealth. If we're met by natives, we usually play the 'SGC team' game, scope out their tech and if any of it's useful, we take it. Most of the time they don't even know what it does." Newman shrugged. "So they hardly miss it."

Which was quite incorrect, Sam thought. Someone had missed the technology and complained to whatever race was looking after them.

He led her to a room off the gate room, with a couple of comfortable chairs and the long-range communications device sitting in a stand on the table. "Like a crystal ball," Newman joked as he took one of the seats.

"How often are these meetings?"

"Once every two days. Our focus is more on the research than on the exploratory aspect - we don't have the resources to do what the SGC does regarding the Goa'uld. If our teams encounter a Goa'uld or Goa'uld forces, the first priority is to get out of there."

"What about natives?"

Newman held his hands out, "This is the only base we have off-world, Major. We don't have the resources to fight the Goa'uld on a scale that you do. Our primary commitment is to Earth and Earth's defences - and once we're secure there, then we can help other planets." He glanced at the surface of the gold ball, gold and white mists swirling around in its depths. "Ah, here's the Colonel."

Maybourne's smug face filled the volume of the device, "Major Carter, how's the tour of the base going?"

"Very well, Colonel," she said. "You've got quite an operation running here."

"It's small but effective," Maybourne said proudly. "We're doing good work, Major, and I'm sure you'll become accustomed to the routine. In the meantime, how about we send you out and show you what we're doing?"

She shrugged, indicating that she was fine, "Sounds good to me, sir. Have to learn the ropes sometime." And the more she knew, the more they'd be able to stop this from going anywhere else. While it seemed that this was the only off-world outpost, they had to be sure. There was no point in catching this nest of rats and then finding themselves facing another infestation in another six months.

"Willing to take some advice, Major?" Maybourne's slight hesitancy surprised her and it must have showed her face, because he added, "We run things slightly different here, as I said. I mostly give advice, not orders."

Sam noted the use of the term 'mostly'. "So I see. If the advice is worth taking, I take it."

"Let Newman or one of the other experienced personnel lead the mission the first few times. Ease yourself into our way of doing things. Certainly there are things that can be improved - that's where your experience in the running of the SGC will come in handy - but let's start slowly and work up from there."

Sam nodded agreement. "Sounds reasonable."

Maybourne and Newman fell into a quick briefing about the next planet they were to visit. An agrarian society, no links to the Goa'uld for what they thought was several thousand years, but children's rumours of 'magic troves', dismissed by the adults, but quite possibly what they were looking for.

Sam listened to the plans, one part of her filing away all the relevant information, while another part quietly noted that it seemed a very clumsy way of doing business. Although, she reminded herself, this outpost didn't have half the resources of the SGC and they weren't able to run things quite the way the SGC could.

And why am I looking at ways to improve the running of this base? I'm not going to be here very long, and I have nothing vested in these people. I can't have anything vested in them - I'm going to take their operation down. Ultimately, this base would be dismantled, their research taken back through the gate to the SGC, and these men and women would end up in jail for treason.

"I'll be in contact in two days time. Take Major Carter out on the next mission," Maybourne regarded Sam with no small measure of amusement. "Good luck on the first time out, Major."

"Thank you, sir."

----

Sam took her time exploring the rest of the base. While she didn't anticipate being here more than a week, both prudence and curiosity required she take a good look around the place.

She had to admit, the setup was very neat. Whoever designed the place had skipped the recreational and the more complex exercise facilities since they had an entire universe in which to spend R&R time. That left more room for the functions of the base - a good trade-off since the base was only about half the size of the SGC and the personnel of this place lived here twenty-four-by-seven - or whatever the hours and days of the week were.

The main concession to on-base recreation was the computer network set up in the server room.

"Diablo II?" Sam asked Newman, amused as they peered in on the four oblivious gamers. Whites, blues, reds, and greens illuminated the intent faces of the players hunched protectively over their keyboards. The whirr of the air conditioner and the tap-tap-tap of keys were the only sounds in the room - apart from the occasional yelp as a player was shot or scored a hit against someone or something else.

"You don't play?"

"No." She'd never had the patience for computer games. There were too many other things to do with her time.

"Well, there are other recreational activities," Newman said. "Whatever your preference."

"Most of my 'recreational' time tends to be spent in the labs," she admitted, wryly. Certainly, in the last couple of months, all her spare time had been spent in her lab, trying to get the particle accelerator working.

As she turned back to the corridor, she caught Newman studying her. Doubtless he'd heard about her efforts to get the particle accelerator going from Colonel Maybourne and was wondering about whether the rumours about Colonel O'Neill and her were true.

She ignored it, as she'd ignored many other questions and innuendos in the last three months, and he quirked a grin at her.

"Then we'll head for the labs, Major."

The labs were larger and busier than she'd anticipated, personnel standing in groups quietly tossing ideas back and forth. They looked up as she entered, obviously startled by her presence.

"Major Carter," one of the women stepped forward. "Lieutenant Jess Holland. It's truly an honour to meet you, ma'am." She was fairly young, probably in her late twenties, Sam judged. Bold enough to want to introduce herself rather than be introduced, young enough to believe that she was interesting to all who listened to her, enthusiastic enough to get away with it.

Sam opened her mouth to give an appropriately amused answer.

"Oh you can quit sucking up, Holland," interrupted another woman. "She's in here for the same stuff that we are. Getting caught with her fingers in the cookie jar." Dark eyes looked pointedly at Sam, who allowed a little of her amusement and none of her offence to show.

"But weren't the cookies worth it?" She asked, looking around at the things standing on the sideboards of the lab.

"Depends," said Dark-Eyes. "On what we had to give up when you and your toy-boys rained on our parade."

Sam felt her eyebrows arching, and projected amusement into her voice. "Boy-toys?" One corner of her mouth pulled out and up. "That's the first time I've heard my team-mates referred to as 'boy-toys'." At least in my hearing, although I wouldn't put it past some of the nurses...

"Some of us had lives before you and your saintly friends made it impossible for us to go home again, Major," Dark-Eyes spat.

"Helen," Newman said.

Helen ignored the warning. "Friends, families, children... Husbands."

Sam felt the longing edge of Helen's words like knives in her flesh. The sting operation had been over a year ago, and whatever the motives of these people, they were still humans with people they loved. People they'd been forced to leave behind when the operations got stranded off-world.

And, unbeknownst to them, their world was going to be up-ended once again when she revealed their covert operations for the second time.

"She's in the same boat as us now, Helen," Lieutenant Holland reminded the angry woman. "And whatever she had back at home, that's gone to her now, too. We're all stuck here, doing our duty - and that includes Major Carter." The Lieutenant managed a slightly hesitant smile. "Right, Major?"

The moment she took to regain her composure was no act. Whatever she had back at home was gone to her and she was stuck here doing her duty. And even once she'd done her duty, she wasn't sure she'd have anything to go back to.

Sure, she'd have a career and a commendation from General Hammond and whoever else had authorised this - but she was desperately afraid that she wouldn't have a team anymore. After what she'd said and done to ensure that there was enough distance for her to carry out her mission, she didn't think there'd be forgiveness for her actions.

So the smile on her lips was a little sad when it came. "That's right, Lieutenant."

"See?" The Lieutenant returned at Helen.

Helen just grunted and picked herself and her papers up and stalked out of the lab. Lieutenant Holland looked a little abashed. "I'm sorry about her attitude, ma'am. She's been like this for a while now."

"When we were stranded here, Helen left behind a husband and two children," Newman explained, leaning his hip against the desk. There was a sardonic expression on his face as he spoke. "She's since discovered that her husband has remarried, believing her dead."

Sam winced. That was a pretty fast remarriage. "Did most people here have family or partners they had to leave behind?" She asked softly.

"Some. Not all," Lieutenant Holland said. The young woman didn't appear to have left anyone she considered important behind. "We knew the risks when we got involved with this project, sometimes it costs you some, sometimes it costs you none." A shrug and a grin. "And some of us get more out of it than we ever would have gotten otherwise. Would you like to see the lab and some of the stuff we're working on?"

A glance at Newman produced a wry smile and a wave of the hand. "From all reports, we'd have a hard time keeping you out of the labs, Major. I'll leave you guys to it."

Jess Holland looked like she was about to bounce, "You're going to love the stuff we're working on here, ma'am! Even the SGC doesn't get a look at this kind of tech..."

As the Lieutenant took her through the labs, introducing her to the various personnel who worked in the labs, Sam learned that almost everyone on the base went out on missions and they all had a secondary role.

"For some of us, our primary role is going through the Stargate - Newman and several of the older ones are like that. Then there are those of us who mostly stay 'at home', so to speak. Ranjit's the only one who doesn't go out on any off-world missions. He prefers to stay on the base - one trip through the wormhole to get here was enough for him."

"And you're one of the people with a science background."

"Yup," Holland said proudly. "I did hope to get into the SGC, but they'd reached their quota and weren't looking for any other applicants at the time. My application for Area 51 was knocked back, but while I was considering other postings, Colonel Maybourne approached me and I ended up as part of this group."

It didn't seem to bother Holland that what she was doing amounted to stealing. Just like it didn't occur to her that taking the technology was in breach of the treaty with both Asgard and Tollan - and what that could mean for Earth.

Sam wondered if that was a tunnel vision the young woman had possessed at the start, or if it had been encouraged by the NID when they brought her to this base.

The young woman proudly showed Sam around the labs, nearly glowing with delight and enthusiasm as she explained the purpose of each of the items on the bench. The other scientists in the labs came and went, some listening to Holland's explanation and correcting her from time to time when her enthusiasm outstripped her knowledge, some merely nodding at Sam and getting on with their work.

Sam was fascinated by the technology, even as she was aware of how everything here had been obtained. Wasn't there some old quote about fruit stolen from the vine tasting sweeter? Certainly the stuff they had stored here was enough to make any scientist seriously consider theft as a living - if this was the result.

Even her.

Her attention was captured as Holland showed her an anti-grav device, explaining how the material in the device created a 'nullifying field' where an artificial gravitational pull could be generated. As yet, the people working on the device hadn't come up with a solution that would enable things like 'walk on wall' boots, but they were looking into it.

"Have many advances come out of these articles?" Sam asked, pondering the device and the many others around them. If they were all as inscrutable as this item, then the research would be hard going.

"Quite a few, actually," the Lieutenant sounded excited. "Have you ever seen 'Terminator 2', Major?"

Sam cautiously admitted that she had.

"In 'Terminator 2', the black guy who's the head of the technology company talks about the chip they took from the first Terminator. He said that it was damaged beyond repair, but it still gave them ideas they'd never had before. That's kinda like what's happening here." No doubt about it, Lieutenant Holland was excited about this kind of breakthrough. "We may not be able to exactly copy what they've done to produce the tech, but we've gotten ideas that are so far beyond anything that's been thought before - it's absolutely incredible..."

It was hard not to smile at the younger woman's enthusiasm and passion for this work - or not to feel an answering echo in her own psyche, even as she felt the swift pang of pity for the Lieutenant. When this base was closed down, Jess Holland would rot in a federal prison. A young woman who had wanted nothing more than to work on exciting new challenges would find herself working on nothing. Unwanted by any base or place that might have anything near as complex as this kind of technology.

Something occurred to her.

"You get all this stuff from other cultures, right?"

"Well it certainly doesn't turn up in the mail," the Lieutenant said with a touch of asperity. Her expression turned contrite as she remembered who she was speaking to. "Ma'am, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be disrespectful..."

Sam waved the girl silent. At this point in time she was more interested in how they procured the items and what happened after they'd researched them. "Be more careful of your phrasing next time, Lieutenant. Once you've gotten the tech and studied how it works - then what? All this knowledge doesn't do Earth a lot of good just sitting around here."

"No, ma'am, it doesn't." Now there was a touch of smugness in the Lieutenant's expression. "We have people in place on outgoing SG-teams who are contacted by Colonel Maybourne about pickups. With some advance knowledge of which teams are going to which planets, it's possible for us to hide the items near the Stargate on a planet that our contact will be travelling through. The smaller items can be easily hidden in packs or flak jackets, but we make schematics of the larger items and store them on data files or in hardcopy diagrams."

It was clever. It was more than clever, it was brilliantly organised and executed. Sam had to give them that. This base had operated in secret for over a year, gaining technological advances through theft and lies - and it had done it well.

Now it was her job to bring the card tower tumbling down with a mere puff of air.

"Major?" Holland had noticed her glassy silence and was looking at her with concern. "Are you okay?"

Sam managed a smile. "I'm fine, Lieutenant. Thank you for asking. It's been a long day..."

"Oh, of course! You'll want to lie down and take it all in." The young woman began escorting her to the door. "Do you need help getting to your quarters, ma'am? It can be very confusing at first - I know I wandered around for ages before I worked out how it all went..."

She assured the helpful Lieutenant that no assistance was necessary and made her way slowly through the base, accepting the nods and greetings from the few personnel she met along the way.

There were no more reactions like Helen's, but Sam felt the criticism of the other woman like salt in a wound. She felt the echo of that loneliness and abandonment in her own soul - the sense than she was in exile, unforgiven, unredeemed.

And this exile had been her choice. Helen's had not.

If she'd been trapped here by the results of someone else's choices, would she have been as bitter as Helen?

She didn't know the answer, and that scared her.

The material of her door wasn't metal - it seemed like some kind of a mesh weave - but when it closed behind her, she could no longer hear the sounds of the base. She flung herself down on the pallet, pulled the blanket up over her body, and took a long, deep breath.

She was alone.

Of course, she had to assume that she was under surveillance, even in here. They might suspect something, they might not, but she had to act as if she was constantly being watched. The ultimate performance.

She was alone.

No backup here, no support. Just her, flying on borrowed wings, hoping she could keep herself aloft, praying that she wouldn't betray the hopes of General Hammond, the Asgard and the Tollan.

She was very much alone.

Praying that she could make it through in one piece and go home.

Praying that the bridges between her and her team-mates were merely singed, not incinerated.

This operation had been her choice, but it was not her preference.

In the darkness, questions arose in her mind. Faced with the reality of the people whose work she was sabotaging, Sam no longer knew if she was doing the right thing.

Was it necessary? Yes. Earth needed the treaty with the Asgard and the goodwill of the Tollan.

But was it right?

In the darkness, the people she loved were a million miles distant from her and nearly twice that distant in spirit, Sam felt a yawning emptiness inside herself.

In the last two weeks, all the things she'd assumed were there for her had crumbled away.

She'd put all her energy and time into completing the particle accelerator, only knowing she missed his presence. The question of whether he wanted to return never occurred to her. She'd never thought he might give up hope of being rescued - that he'd question his value and assume they wouldn't try to get him back.

In the face of the answers, the mission had been a relief. Something else to take her attention, to draw her focus. The backwash of regrets and bitter hurt could be forgotten as she took up the next challenge and soldiered on.

Of course, she suspected they'd just be waiting for her when she got back. If she got back.

If she went back.

And suddenly a new avenue opened up to her.

I could stay here.

That thought died swiftly, put to death by her own practicality.

She couldn't stay here doing something she knew was wrong. She couldn't aid and abet the possible destruction of Earth through her actions in abandoning the agreements with their allies.

She was trapped.

In a way, Sam was trapped by other people's choices - by the choices of Helen, Jess Holland, Newman, the people who had come here, the people who had stayed behind to form the bridge back to the SGC, Colonel Maybourne.

They had chosen to steal technology from their allies instead of accepting their decision not to share technology directly, but give them the benefits of an alliance.

But she had also come here by her own choice.

Her choices were made, her bridges were burned, there was no turning back, bleak as the landscape before her was. Maybe there was indeed a promised haven beyond the wasteland, but she couldn't see it now and nobody could assure her that it was still there.

Slowly, the weight of everything on her shoulders crushed down on her, and she slept, but restlessly.

----

The new planet was a refreshing change after the artificiality of the base.

She'd gone through the rules of operation for the base early this morning when she woke and couldn't get back to sleep again. The lack of sleep made her tired, but the purpose of her presence here burned within her.

Around her, it was a crisp, chill morning. Trees yearned up to the sky - an intense royal blue colour. The sight had excited one of the scientists who promptly launched into a discourse about the probable atmospheric qualities of the planet.

Newman tugged his beanie down over his ears with an audible sigh and started walking, leaving Captain McCabe behind to catch up.

Sam grinned in spite of herself. There was a certain familiarity here - she couldn't count the number of times Daniel had started babbling about something the instant they hit the planet - or the number of times the Colonel had walked away without bothering to listen.

She knew of her own tendencies to 'techno babble' at the Colonel, but when they first arrived on a planet, she was usually more concerned about their military position than anything scientific - although there were always exceptions.

"Less chatter, McCabe," she said firmly. "Mission priority."

McCabe nodded with a decidedly sheepish look on his face. "Yes, ma'am."

"It's about two klicks that way to the nearest village," Newman indicated with one hand as Sam came alongside him. "But the caves we're exploring are on the other side of the village and we don't really want to alert the villagers to what we're doing..."

"So it's the long road for us," said the fourth member of their group - a Sergeant by the name of Franklins - as he shouldered his pack and headed off in the direction Newman had indicated.

Captain McCabe followed after, pulling out a tape recorder from his pocket and beginning to record his thoughts on the exploration.

"Does he do that all the time?" Sam inquired of Newman as they followed Franklins and McCabe.

"The recording? Yeah. He says it helps cement his impressions of the planet." Newman shrugged. "To each his own."

They walked through damp grass, the long strands sticking to their fatigues pants. Sam made a mental note to ask where the rogue group got their supplies from. There was no way they could appropriate this kind of stuff regularly over long-term, and, hard-wearing though fatigues might be, they didn't last forever.

And she still didn't know who the contacts within the SGC were.

She had to find out.

They didn't say much on the walk to the cave, starting only small conversations that were swiftly dealt with, leaving silence behind it.

The silence was unusual to Sam. On SG-1, there was almost always someone talking. Usually Daniel, although Sam was as guilty of talk as her team-mate. But Daniel would talk with anyone who would talk back to him - unless he was sulking, in which case he wouldn't talk to anyone. The Colonel, too, enjoyed conversation that was apropos of nothing in particular - which could be very amusing when Sam was in the mood to be entertained, and intensely frustrating when she wasn't.

Still, she wasn't sure about the tension in the air - her presence? The natives' hostility? Their own preoccupations?

They walked on, their boots squishing gently in the soft earth, leaving clear prints behind should anyone look along the trail of bent-and-broken grass in the meadow.

The chain of caves began in the hills, where the old rocky bones of the planet had split the fertile skin of the earth to jut through in a spine of mountains that apparently ran for several miles. They climbed a little way into the hills and were all breathing slightly harder when Sam saw the outline of what must be the cave mouth.

"Franklin, you're on watch. Major Carter, McCabe, you're with me."

They pulled out their flashlights, shining them into the dark. The caves seemed fairly empty right now, but that could easily change.

The opening of the cave was well-hidden, but the track inside it was worn.

"What were these caves used for?"

"They used to hide here when the Goa'uld came," Newman explained, his low voice echoing in the cave. "They were originally under Asgard protection - but something happened and the Goa'uld took them as slaves and brought them here. They retained some of the Asgard's technology - and we're hoping that some of it might still be useful to us."

"You haven't found many Asgard items?" Sam inquired.

It was MacCabe who answered her. "The Asgard are very protective of their technology. It's hard to get hold of anything."

"But something like this - overlooked, hopefully forgotten - it might be just what we're looking for."

It turned out to be exactly what they were looking for. A small stone-like item, somewhat resembling the half-egg 'control keys' Sam had seen in the chamber at Cimmeria. Some fiddling around with it showed its true purpose - to make the holder invisible.

Sam regarded the device with no small amount of amazement as Newman winked in and out of visibility like some military-dressed djinn.

There were some things, she suspected, that they would never be able to reverse-engineer - Asgard technology being one of them. It was just...alien. A completely different line of science to any they'd seen before on Earth. That wouldn't stop them from taking it and using it, of course - and maybe over time, they'd work out how the device worked and develop a substitute for it using Earth technology.

McCabe, at least, was very pleased with the find. He vanished from view, and a disembodied voice said he'd meet them outside the cave. They heard his steps scrambling up the slope - doubtless his intent was to give Franklin a shock.

Newman shook his head. "We should send one of the technical drafting teams here. This stuff is probably too bulky to move easily, but it would be worth our time to pull it apart and see if we can get some technical specs."

"We do that as well?"

He gave her a quick smile by the dim light of their torches. "We're a multi-talented bunch."

"So I see."

She gave one last glance around the room, then began the ascent back up to the mouth of the cave where Franklin was scowling at a broadly-grinning McCabe.

The daylight's brightness hurt her eyes and she slipped on her shades to block out the glare as Newman said, "Well, we found what we wanted. How about we head back?"

The journey back was more talkative than the one there. Captain McCabe recorded his ideas on the technology, interspersed with comments from Newman and Franklins, and Sam found herself drawn into the discussion about the possible means by which the device operated.

It was all speculation, of course, but it was decidedly enjoyable speculation. For a little while, Sam could forget she was on a mission at all, and just think that she was temporarily seconded to another team and laughing with them as they returned to base after finding some new item of technology.

Of course, once she stepped through the wormhole and found herself in what she was coming to think of as the rogue Stargating complex, that illusion was dispelled.

She changed and showered briskly and wearily. Now she needed to start collecting information - the people who were in sympathy with Maybourne and these people in the SGC. There was no point in cutting off the head of the beast if it merely grew another in a location more difficult to reach.

There was one shot at killing this monster, and she needed to be sure she'd gotten everyone.

They had to have some kind of database about who their contacts were at the SGC. Except, Sam realised as the hot spray washed over her skin, it was probably Colonel Maybourne who had the complete list since he would be the one to co-ordinate the pickups.

Sam would just have to make sure she was present for a pickup.

----

"You're sure about this?" Newman asked her.

She nodded. "I need to know the basics of this command from the ground up. Which means doing it at least once." That was Colonel O'Neill's mandate, and Sam had no doubt he'd done almost everything that was within his ability to do at least once. "It's no difficulty. I go in, plant the item, get out of there."

It should have been easy.

Wasn't there some old saying about the best-laid plans never lasting the first engagement?

The planet on which the pickup was taking place was beautiful. Compared with the barren harshness of the rogue base, Balesh was a lush green paradise.

Sam didn't waste any time in putting the wrapped package beneath a rock at the base of the DHD. According to Newman, their contact at the SGC would know to fetch the device from there.

Now, she just had to find an excuse to stay behind a little longer.

As it turned out, she didn't have to.

Chevrons began lighting up on the Stargate even as she turned, and she made a dash for the treeline. It was the work of a few moments to find herself a vantage point from which she could see the Stargate, the DHD, and the package hidden at its base. The binoculars stashed away in her pack would give her a clearer view of what was happening - whether this was an SGC team coming through, or someone or something else.

The Stargate burst open with its customary display of light and energy particles, and Sam watched as it settled to the shimmering blue surface of the event horizon.

She was too far to hear the noise that the surface made as the people came through, but not so distant that she couldn't recognise the men who came through. There was no mistaking their gaits, or the very distinctive way they moved.

SG-1 had been sent to pick up the package.

Her spirits sank.

Not them. Not these guys - I trusted them!

Her first reaction was denial. There was no way that any of her team-mates would get involved in something like this. The Colonel was too honourable, Daniel was too direct, and Teal'c held no love for the NID.

Still, in the last few days, she had come to believe that anything was possible of anyone. And if she could go so far out of her way as to go undercover to flush out a mole, then wasn't it possible that one of her team-mates might see a more direct way to achieve the goals they'd been striving for these last few years?

Maybe. Maybe not.

There was always the Lieutenant who accompanied them, blonde, tall and lanky with a focused air about her. Sam remembered her vaguely from the labs - Claire Tobias. Very driven, but with a reserve about her that rebuffed friendly overtures.

She could always hope.

At the Colonel's order, they wandered off in the opposite direction to where Sam had ensconced herself, and she breathed a sigh of relief. At least this wouldn't be a game of hide and seek.

Still, their presence here made her very nervous with a dry-throat, heart-drumming kind of terror. Terror that seized her on several levels.

It wasn't just that SG-1 had been sent to pick up the package, it was also that they were early. The information being received by the rogues was incorrect, which could cause trouble for Sam on several levels. Sam didn't know any of the rogue personnel by sight and doubted that any of the personnel from SGC Stargating teams would know them by sight. However, Sam was a different matter.

If this incorrect information was symptomatic of the data being received by the rogues, then Sam was in a very real danger of having both her cover and her career blown. If she arrived on a planet too late and was caught by the team, then she'd have no chance of reintegrating into the rogue group, nor of catching the person passing information from the SGC.

SG-1 took several hours to finish their task - several hours during which Sam started at every snapped twig or crackled leaf. A little nervous there, Major?

Maybe just a little.

She tried to occupy her mind with plans and options, to move now or to wait until she had more complete data, but it was difficult. She missed the guys. She missed her team. She missed the teasing and the camaraderie, the care they'd shown her - particularly Teal'c and Daniel those months when she'd worked herself into the ground. She missed the Colonel's drawl at her door, 'Wanna get some cake?' And the way he made spaces seem smaller with the chained energy of his personality.

At length, their voices grew closer again, and sh