A Greater Menace Than From Without

by Jb

The cameras were still down.

Sam leaned forward and punched the correct codes into the computer, but the grey fuzz on the screens remained unchanged. Whatever the robot had done to disable them, it was obviously something she couldn't overcome with a few keystrokes. Remembrance of the last thing she had seen displayed on those monitors burned into her brain, unfortunately no longer buried beneath the urgent need to take direct action, to save the Earth... yet again. Duty still called, however, and it seemed it'd be a while yet before she would be able to replace that image with something more reassuring.

Hammond stood at her shoulder, his face still grim despite the immediate threat having been neutralised. He waved a hand toward the steel blast shield covering the observation window. "Never mind that now, Major. Your priority is to ensure that we have full access to and control of the Stargate. I want these systems running, and I want them running yesterday."

Sam brushed a few replicator pieces off the chair in front to the main console, and sat down. She tapped the necessary keys and struggled with a resultant series of error messages, then finally was rewarded with the proper dialogue boxes flashing on to the screen. Okay, good. A few more commands, and the display began to scroll through the main and security protocol checks. A nondescript grunt from Hammond accompanied the successful completion of the system check, then she felt his relief in both the heavy sigh that followed and the gentle squeeze he gave her as he placed his hand on her shoulder.

She entered a few more commands, and watched the display. It wasn't all good news. God, please let this be the last bit of bad news she'd need to cope with for the rest of this day. She swallowed the worry, and refocused on the job at hand. "The system is mostly intact, Sir. The Stargate is on-line, and we have a good connection. Power readings and remote feedback tests are optimal, so we should have full control. But I can't tell if the Iris is closed or open; I'm getting a persistent error message when I try to access both the Iris controls and the IDC program." Which of course was not good. A voice sounded in her mind, the tone wry in its typical Danielspeak, 'Not good. Bad. Very Bad'.

"That isn't good."

No, Sir, it wasn't. It was... Bad. Where are you, Daniel?

"Try raising the blast shield, Major." Hammond's hand was still on her shoulder, his grip tightening ever so slightly as she did what she was asked but the metal curtain remained fixed in place in front of them. All her attempts at inputting the security protocol commands for both the shields and doors just resulted in error messages.

She swivelled her chair slightly and turned her head toward him. "I can go down there, Sir, and check it out. It may just be a problem with the readings, and not actually the Iris. You can try the IDC program from here, and I'll let you know on the comm what the response is."

He nodded his acquiescence, and slid into the chair as she vacated it and picked her way across the room. She hesitated just as she was about to turn the corner to go down the stairs, and not surprisingly he anticipated her, speaking without even turning around to look at her. "There is still a job to be done, Major. When we are finished here to my satisfaction, then you can go look for him." Then he did turn to face her, and his voice gentled as he reminded her, "Colonel O'Neill did indicate there was no need for a medical team."

She automatically responded with an obligatory acknowledgement, and left the room. What more was there to say? Obviously, there was no problem. A fine grit hung in the enclose space of the control room, the quarantine internal recycling system not able to cope with the high concentration of cordite and other suspended particles in the air. She could smell and taste it, ever more strongly, as she made her way down the steps. The corridor just outside the 'gate room was much worse, thick with it, and with the heavier smell of slag. Only one silent guard stood at the entrance to the 'gate room; everyone else who was not still protectively locked away pending the all clear was involved in a thorough sweep of the base. Sam paused to look down the corridor at the thousands of replicator remains littering the area, and her gut clenched almost painfully. They wouldn't find anything worth worrying about - she had realised that almost immediately as she and the general had emerged from the remote access room to find the bugs had suddenly all but totally disintegrated.

She pushed all that she knew that meant away with an effort, and tried just as hard to push away the heightening tension rising in her as she turned toward the hole in the blast door to the 'gate room. It would still be in there, but the colonel had confirmed its deactivation and she really did need to check the Iris. She had an important job to do. Whether or not they had control over the Iris had to be determined. Everything else could, quite rightly she told herself, afford to wait.

The edges of the opening cut into the door were uneven, and she stepped over the rim carefully, her head already turned toward the Stargate before she was even all the way through. The Iris was closed, and as she continued on through the opening, turning to go toward the bank of computers against the wall under the control room, her hand went up to her comm and depressed the switch automatically, her report to Hammond on the tip of her tongue. Until she caught sight of something out of the corner of her eye, and her ability to speak, to move, even to breathe, was momentarily stolen from her.

This time it was the sound of the colonel's voice she heard in her mind, his 'He actually thinks he was getting somewhere, that we were wrong - do you believe that?', bitterly spat out as he strode by her and the general in the corridor not much more than fifteen minutes ago. Her heart twisted in her chest as she stared across the 'gate room, the tableau in front of her provoking a confusing mix of emotion - surprise, relief, a flash of irritation... and surprisingly enough, embarrassment. And an unfathomable, bewildering sense of culpability which she ruthlessly shoved away as being completely inappropriate.

There was concern there too, though, ever increasing in intensity as she came to understand what she was seeing. Oh, Daniel. He sat next to the robot, his head bowed, hunched over in obvious dejection, glasses discarded on the floor beside him. He held one hand over his eyes and the other was resting in his lap... and the other, in his lap... it was -

Sam radioed the general as she quickly altered her trajectory from the computers to the other side of the room. "General, the Iris is closed. Ready to test on your mark. And Sir, I need a medic down here." She circled right the way behind Daniel, around to his right.

Daniel looked up, taking his right hand away from his face and carefully placing it under his left. He glanced at her, then turned his head to focus - or, not - at some indiscriminate spot on the far wall as she crouched down next to him. His voice was a gravelly whisper, every bit as gritty as the air. "No. Cancel the medic, Sam."

No way. She'd been pretty sure she'd seen him go down on the video just before the cameras went out, and that image had stuck with her, lurking in the background as she'd done what she'd had to do from that point on. There was little she could do about it then, but now was a different story. Now she could help. 'Help who?', her mind taunted her. She pushed back, rejecting the thought as being as ridiculous as her confused emotions were, and reached for his arm. The general's voice through her comm startled her into hesitating, as he announced over the comm that a medic was en route and that he was inputting the Iris commands. The Iris activated immediately, opening fully and then closing again in response to the commands, and with an almost overpowering feeling of relief that she was now free of that responsibility, Sam reached up and depressed the switch to report in. Hammond's tinny voice sounded equally relieved over the radio, and then the tone changed to concern as he enquired for the reason for the call for medical support.

Almost absently she reached out to Daniel again, but he grasped her wrist firmly, both preventing her from touching his obviously injured arm and garnering her full attention. Puffy, reddened eyes bored into her face with a depth of feeling which made her distinctly uncomfortable. He shook his head slightly, silently telling her in no uncertain terms that as far as he was concerned she was seriously misled if she thought a medic was even anywhere on, never mind at the top of, his wish list right then. Glancing at the bruises coming out on his hand and at the swelling mess which was his left wrist, she asked him, "Are you sure?", and nodded to herself in resignation as he gave her a tired, borderline belligerent, 'what do you think?' look. Still holding onto her wrist, he averted his eyes to gaze down at the robot, the expression on his face still one of pained exasperation with her.

She thumbed her radio with regret, not sure if she was doing the right thing or not. "Sir, please cancel the medic. Repeat, cancel the medic. Daniel is still here, Sir, and I thought he needed on-site medical assistance after all. I was mistaken. I apologise."

Daniel nodded, his expression softening from irritation back into sadness as he let go of her arm and quietly said, "Thank you. I don't want..." The words broke off as he carefully tried to tuck his fingers between his thigh and his injured wrist and immediately grimaced, letting out an easily audible hiss. Sam took a good look, ignoring the way he hunched forward protectively and growled a protest as she gently pulled back on the sleeve of his jacket. She wasn't going to leave him alone here, no matter how much he seemed to want to be. She'd been just as instrumental as he was in getting him into this state, after all. Oh, God... she hadn't meant to. She hadn't thought... hadn't had time to think it through. At least, not until after the cameras went down and she had to live with the uncertainty flowering at the back of her mind, helpless to do anything with it except try to push it away as a distraction she couldn't afford to indulge in.

She was dismayed to see the early bruising and angry swelling extended not only down onto his hand and into his fingers, but also well on up his forearm. Equally as disturbing was the way he squeezed his eyes shut and began a slow rhythmic rocking of his upper body as she ran her fingertips across his. And, oh wow, cold. Too cold! Alarmed, Sam ran her fingers down along his and onto the back of his hand. Also too cold. For the first time, she noticed that under the finger-shaped bruises on the back of his hand his skin colour was wrong. Pale, pastey even. She pressed carefully, her fingertips indenting his skin ever so slightly and then releasing as she watched for a change in colour, and even though she did her best to be oh so gentle Daniel muffled a cry by turning his face into his shoulder.

"God, Daniel!" She keyed her radio, realising her voice was far too loud as she reversed her previous message, but not caring. Sliding her fingers over to grope for his radial pulse, Sam couldn't help but let out her anxiety in a loud, chastising torrent. "Why are you just sitting here? You have to know better than this... look at you, look at this hand! What's the matter with you?" A pulse. Looking for a pulse. Daniel grunted and tried to move his arm away as she shifted her fingers and pressed a bit harder. Damn it! Where the hell is it? Was that it? She couldn't tell. He tried to move away again. "This is serious, Daniel. What do you think you're doing? Let me see it." She kicked and clambered her way over the robot to his left side, and held his elbow firmly with one hand as she clutched his wrist with the other and tried again.

"Sam! Stop!" Suddenly he was yelling, was jerking away and moving backward, feet kicking out as he scuttled on his butt away from her. "Argh! Damn it!" He cradled his arm across his chest and leaned forward, raising his head to glare fiercely at her, his voice lowering somewhat in volume but remaining just as raw in tone. "What the hell do you think you're doing? You're trying to fix the wrong thing. Leave it alone. Just leave it alone."

Sitting half-on and half-off the robot's legs, Sam stared stupidly at Daniel. Trying to fix - What? Noises, voices, coming from behind her, and she swung her head around to see a medic erupt through the opening in the blast door, with General Hammond not far behind him.

"Major Carter? Dr. Jackson? Just what in the sam hill is going on here?" General Hammond's eyes went from her to Daniel, and back again, his concern clouded by confusion. "Dr. Jackson? Are you all right, son?"

There was no answer. Sam glanced at Daniel, but he had his eyes closed. The medic was just coming to a crouch at his right side, looking equally as confused as the general. Sam advised him in a low, strained voice, "It's his left arm and hand. I think his wrist is broken, and I can't find a radial pulse." Hammond frowned, and the medic's eyes widened as he turned to Daniel and tried to coax the arm out from within the protective huddle.

"Major?" General Hammond was addressing her, but his eyes were fixed on the robot as he approached. His mouth tightened as he surveyed the damage. He indicated the robot with a wave of his hand. "Arrange to have this removed to an isolation lab. Thank goodness it's finally properly dealt with once and for all."

Sam winced at the alacrity with which Daniel's head jerked up, his eyes snapping open. "Excuse me?" He pushed the medic away with his good hand, and started to struggle to his feet. Helpless to stop him, the medic was reduced to coming up with him, acting as a support column as Daniel yanked on the man's shoulder to help get himself upright. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Sam edged away from the robot's legs and stood up, looking anywhere but at Daniel, acutely aware of the stare Daniel directed toward her even as the medic asserted himself and latched on to his upper arm. There was an irregular gap between the base of the ramp and the concrete floor, widening to the right edge of the ramp. She heard the general tell Daniel he should get to the infirmary, that they'd talk later. She hadn't noticed that the ramp was warped like that, there, before. It was all she could do to not close her eyes in what surely would be a futile attempt to block everything out as she heard the general further assure Daniel that they all knew he'd done his best, and not to worry, that it obviously just hadn't been the right approach. That it was over with now. All's well that ends well.

Silence. The moment thrummed at her, deafened her, dulled her senses and numbed her mind. Then a soft, completely demoralised, "Yes, Sir. Of course," ripped her heart out through her navel.

Footsteps, as the general turned and walked away. Some rustling noises, a soft murmur from the medic, a pained gasp from Daniel. They really ought to fix that gap; maybe squish some concrete putty in there or something. Daniel gasped again, and then swore softly under his breath, obviously in a fair amount of discomfort.

'If you could somehow manage to get close enough to her, you might be able to remove her power chip.'

He'd reached out toward her neck, he was doing it, he was almost there... but then she'd taken him down, and the cameras went out. And now his hand was too cold, and Sam couldn't find a radial pulse. He hadn't really wanted to do it that way - to purposefully manipulate and deceive it - even though he hadn't refused to go along with the idea. Sam knew that.

'I'd like to try and stop her first... Maybe, get her trust back...'

"No, wait. Sam..." Her attention was brought back to the here and now by the pain in Daniel's voice as he spoke her name. She looked over to see the medic trying to encourage Daniel out of the 'gateroom. He had sliced up along the outside of the sleeve of Daniel's jacket, revealing heavy swelling extending over halfway up to the elbow, and was supporting the length of Daniel's injured arm with his own as he tried to get him moving. Daniel's fingers were starkly white. "Sam, when you take Reece to..."

She moved quickly to Daniel's side, and addressed the medic. "I couldn't find a pulse. It's been over a half hour at least since it happened... you have to get him..." She stopped the flow of words at the medic's definitive headshake.

"It's all right," he told her. "There's a pulse; it's just not very strong or easy to find with the swelling."

Daniel mumbled under his breath, "More like it occluded when someone squashed the hell out of it trying to find it..."

The medic was still talking, trying to reassure both of them. "Nothing seems obviously displaced, Ma'am. The circulation isn't great, but if there's a fracture here, it's highly unlikely there's collateral damage to blood vessels. But we do need to get to the infirmary. There's a lot of swelling, and we'll want to get it down some, pretty quick." His tone brightened, as the medical staff's tone usually did when there was something worth worrying about but they didn't want you to know it. "Wouldn't want to end up with a case of compartment syndrome, or anything like that, would we, Sir?"

"No, of course we wouldn't," Daniel muttered. He still hung back, resisting their attempts to get him moving. Sam bit her lip as Daniel planted his feet against the medic's gently prodding and fastened an intensely saddened look on the robot. His voice was only marginally clearer as he spoke again. "Sam. She was shutting them down. He didn't have to do that." He looked straight at her. "He did it because you told him to, and I don't know what to think about that. Tell me, Sam. Tell me what to think about that."

'We can't just let her leave with the replicators. She lost control of them once; it could happen again."

Sam swallowed against a sudden mysterious lump in her throat. This was so stupid. They hadn't had any choice, and Daniel had to already know that. Why was he doing this to her? "Daniel, the colonel doesn't need me to tell him what to do when. Besides, you know she had to be stopped. Isn't that exactly what you were trying to do yourself?" He grimaced, closing his eyes for an instant, and she felt a stab of guilt over the low blow. She tried to wipe it away, to soften it. "Look, I really am sorry. I know you thought you were getting through to her, the colonel told us. But Daniel, there was no time left. The self-destruct was set, and we were just about at the end of the clock."

His eyes widened, his face going even paler than it was, and she suddenly realised he hadn't known that. It was confirmed when he tried to jerk away from the medic, away from her, bitterness colouring his voice. "The self-destruct. God. So that was the real reason."

The real reason? 'You're trying to fix the wrong thing.' No. She was fine; she was right. "Daniel, you know full well that if any of those replicators had gotten off this base... well. And really, for all we know at this point, one might have."

He closed his eyes, and his shoulders sagged. The movement was enough to jar his arm, pulling a low moan out of him, and the medic finally lost patience with them. He angled his shoulder behind Daniel's, and pushed. To Sam's surprise Daniel gave in easily, allowing himself to be propelled forward.

He had a last comment for her as the medic meticulously guided him through the opening cut in the blast door. "And if one has somehow gotten out, Sam? What of it? Think about that. Think about that, Sam, and then tell me what I should think about what happened here."

Then she was alone.

Well, alone save for the robot. Sam crouched down next to it, visually examining the damage, desperately trying to distract herself yet again from feelings she didn't understand. It was frustrating that when she should feel relieved and satisfied on two counts - that the threat was neutralised, and that Daniel was still more or less in one piece - all she actually felt was disorientatingly upset. Which of course was so totally dumb.

Events of the last hour ran through her head as she crouched there, running one finger absently along the disc insertion site on the robot's neck. So may replicators, everywhere. SG1 and the general standing just outside the door to the 'gate room, Daniel admitting he really wasn't sure what to do, but obviously willing to do just about anything if there was even the slightest chance of ending it all without violence, if it meant there'd be no 'nuke' sent through the Stargate. Her suggestion, the general's approval. How hard must it have been for Daniel to walk into here, into a room full of replicators, not really certain as to his welcome?

The moment when out of the corner of her eye, a split second before the cameras went out, she saw on the monitor that he was in trouble. The self-destruct. The desperate battle to keep the replicators back long enough so they could do what had to be done. The certain knowledge that Daniel must have failed - might not even still be alive - because the replicators were...

'It's like it doesn't know what to do...'

'Colonel, I think Reece is losing control. At least one of the replicators down here started to act on its own.'

Wait. Oh, God... wait. What had Daniel just said? The self-destruct was the real reason? That she should think about what if one had gotten out after all... that, to think about, what about it?

SG1 and the general standing just outside the door to the 'gate room, Daniel admitting he really wasn't sure what to do, but obviously willing to do just about anything if there was even the slightest chance of ending it all without violence. Herself, talking about the replicators. 'Right now, she's controlling them. If Daniel can shut her down, they might just cease to operate.' Ice collected in her gut, and her finger froze on the robot's neck as she remembered her own words. 'Look, they exist to protect Reece. If she's eliminated, they have no protocol upon which to act.'

Oh, Jesus. Out of the mouth of dumb babes. Sam lurched up and ran to the door, throwing herself through into the corridor. She stared at the incredible number of small bits of replicators covering the floor. An unfathomable, bewildering sense of culpability. Not bewildering anymore; she understood it now. Wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry as she understood that indeed, so what if one had managed to escape the base. So goddamn what.

The evidence of her error - no, of her pretentiousness and her fear - was right in front of her, littering the corridor from one end to the other. Sure, Carter, Reece was controlling them, so if Daniel could shut her down, they'd cease to operate. Without her, they'd have no protocol upon which to operate. Well, wasn't that just the truth. 'At least one of the replicators down here started to act on its own.' And wasn't that just the biggest load of shit she had uttered in recent memory.

Sam leaned against the corridor wall, then slid down it to sit on the cold, hard, concrete floor. The colonel had blown Reece across the room without even blinking, and it was a damned good bet that he did so on the strength of her warning that Reece wasn't in control any longer. She pushed at one of the replicator blocks on the floor next to her with her finger. "So, move then, you sucker. Go ahead, move. All on your own." It didn't, of course, and Daniel's grieving face flashed into her mind, his red eyes and pained expression searing into her soul.

'Think about that, Sam, and then tell me what I should think about what happened here.'

She tipped her head back against the wall behind her, biting her lip, and wondered if maybe Siler might have something they could use to seal up that gap at the right hand edge of the ramp.

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