Spark

by Biltong

The klaxon warning of an unauthorised incoming traveller had come in the middle of dinner, making Colonel Jack O’Neill scowl in annoyance. For once, the cafeteria had managed to serve up half decent hot dogs, and now he was in serious danger of him not eating a bite.

Ah, to hell with it. Ignoring his team’s amused grins, he stuffed as much of the dog as he could into his mouth and headed for the door.

" Come kids," he sprayed through a shower of crumbs.

Dutifully they trailed after him, making their way to the control booth above the gateroom, all three fully aware that their C.O. had switched completely into commander mode.

Daniel privately fancied that he heard the click as it happened. General Hammond had one of his rare weekends off, leaving Jack in sole charge, something Colonel Jack O’Neill always took extremely seriously.

" Sergeant, what have we got?" As usual, the poor man jumped, despite Jack trying to shuffle his feet.

" Err sir, I’m receiving the signal for SG6. The problem is that they haven’t come through as yet."

Jack crinkled his brows. Something was definitely amiss.

" Daniel?" He gestured to the communication desk. Daniel Jackson didn’t need to be told twice. Immediately pulling on the headphones he attempted to contact the missing team.

" Sugar Golf Sixer, this is control. How copy?"

Twice more he tried, whilst Colonel O’Neill stood, hands behind his back, staring intently at the open wormhole, as if willing Colonel Alistair and his team home.

" Nothing Jack."

O’Neill nodded, his brain whirring. " Ok, Teal’c, go and fetch SG 2." He looked at the big man. " Major Ferretti and team are still on duty somewhere in this base, I need you to find them quickly and get kitted out for a possible search and rescue mission."

" In the meantime Graham, we’ll send through a MALP as soon as the gate deactivates from our side, okay?"

Simmons looked up, wide-eyed to be referred to by his first name before nodding jerkily. " Yes sir."

Jack turned to Daniel. " Danny, keep trying. Maybe someone will answer. I’m going down to the floor to get the MALP ready."

He paused for breath for a moment.

" Go people."

Sam Carter immediately reached for her computer, readying it to receive the MALP’s telemetry, ignoring Daniel, Teal’c and Sergeant Simmons as they efficiently went about their assigned tasks.

She suddenly realised what her C.O had said.

" Sir, do you want me to go and sort out the MALP?"

He smiled at her, his eyes warm. " Nah, I’ll manage. Hold the fort. I won’t be a moment."

She frowned, some vague feeling of uneasiness trickling down her spine.

" Are you sure sir? I know the MALP better than you do."

" Promise. Your expertise rubs off on me occasionally. I should know what to do." Grinning at her he lightly vaulted over the railing, neatly avoiding the seven SF Soldiers still on alert.

The gateroom was eerily lit by the blue event horizon, making the MALP easy to spot.

" Okay O’Neill," he muttered quietly to himself, oblivious to the young SF soldier stood two paces away. " You punch the yellow button to activate it, like so, and then this antenna goes up like so and…

" Gas!"

Jack’s head snapped up at the hoarse cry coming from some of the soldiers on the floor, then he spun to face the stargate.

Something was boiling through the still open wormhole, something a bright luminous green, like smoke, definitely heavier than air, hugging the ramp as it insidiously crawled towards the frozen soldiers.

For a moment Jack O’Neill was paralysed.

But only for a moment.

" Everyone out," he yelled.

The battle-hardened soldiers of the SGC needn’t be told twice. Still maintaining discipline, which was commendable, they franticly ran through the blast doors.

Jack made to follow them, and then realised that he couldn’t. He was cut off from both the door and the stairs to the control booth. Whatever it was had formed a lake with his tiny section of the gateroom floor an island, one that was getting rapidly eroded away.

Suddenly the wormhole shut with a snap.

Jack O’Neill stared up at the control booth, seeing the white faces of his team.

Shit, this was not good. The gateroom floor was almost completely covered with an ankle high layer of green gas that was slowly spreading towards the corners of the room, towards him, and more importantly, as far as he was concerned, the open blast door.

" Carter, seal the base," he roared.

He saw her blonde head nod. Almost immediately the room was filled with a loud alarm and flashing red light. Thankfully, someone immediately cut off the sound.

The speaker clicked on. " Jack?" Daniel sounded worried. " Try to avoid the gas until Sam can analyse it, okay?"

He gave a bark of a laugh. " Hey Daniel, I could do with some help here."

The answer was immediate. " Climb on the MALP. That should give you a few minutes."

" Oh yeah, But you had better hurry and find out what this stuff is, because the atmosphere is getting a bit…thin."

" What do you mean?" Daniel asked, sounding puzzled.

" Thin. You know, as in not there?" Ignoring his concerned teammates, safely sealed away behind the control room’s airtight door, Jack carefully climbed on top of the rickety MALP, using the wall for balance. He was just in time as the gas soon swallowed up where he had been standing.

Carter’s voice floated down from the ceiling. " Sir, we have medics on their way in full bio suits." She hesitated, " Are we to understand that the gas is depleting the oxygen in there?

Jack O’Neill was beginning to get a bit anxious, not that he would ever let his team know this. Whatever the gas was, it was rapidly sucking the oxygen out of the gateroom, giving him a huge headache as he tried to breathe. Deciding that bravado was the best way to go, he acted nonchalant, not realising that this stood out to his team like a neon sign.

" Yeah. I’m beginning to see spots in front of my eyes."

The people in the control booth could distinctly hear his harsh breathing, amplified over the speakers.

" Hang in there sir," Carter’s voice sounded positive. " Janet and her team will be here shortly, and in the meantime I’m using the MALP you’re standing on to analyse the gas. For all we know, you can just hop off and walk out of there.

He turned a blind face towards her. " Doubt it…if that was the case…then SG6…would be here wouldn’t they?" He coughed painfully. " Damn… Hurts. Carter, call…Hammond.

The speaker clicked on. " He’s already on his way."

Samantha Carter was getting seriously worried. She was working as fast as she could go, trying to figure out what the mysterious gas was, whilst casting anxious eyes occasionally through the glass at the slumped Colonel. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that if the gas was consuming the oxygen, one of two things was happening in there. Either the gas was replacing the oxygen with something else, or it was sucking out the entire atmosphere, creating a vacuum. Either way it spelt certain death for Colonel O’Neill.

Everything rested on what she could coax out of the MALP. She was working furiously, her hands flying over the keys, vaguely hearing Daniel as he spoke over the base phone to Dr Fraiser and her medical team stuck on the other side of the gate room blast door.

Then the results were in, making her gasp with shock.

" Naquadah." Daniel and Simmons stared at her as he rose and pointed urgently down at the green coloured gas. " Guys, that is pure Naquadah in a gaseous form, something I thought was impossible up until now."

For obvious reasons, Daniel wasn’t anywhere near as enthusiastic as she about her new scientific discovery.

" Great, I’m happy for you. Can we get Jack out now?" His voice was laced with sarcasm. " You might have noticed that he isn’t answering us anymore?"

Her face fell, making him feel cold. " I don’t see how. According to the MALP the Naquadah is slowly leeching all the atmosphere from the room, gradually making a vacuum. If we open the blast doors, the oxygen from the rest of the base will rush in to the Gateroom with a bang. The force of that alone will pulp the Colonel."

Daniel felt distraught as he listened to the stuttering breaths from his trapped friend. " So what do we do? Just sit here and just listen to Jack die?"

His voice was harsh, wanting the scientist of SG1 to come up with something, anything. " Come on Sam, there must be something we can do?"

She was silent for one frantic minute, and then whirled to Sergeant Simmons, making him jump.

" Graham, give me a planet, any planet we have found that has an atmosphere but is harmful to humans."

Nodding enthusiastically, his fingers started flying over his own keyboard as she explained her plan to Daniel.

" My theory is that the only reason why the Naquadah came through the Stargate in the first place is because we had a higher level of atmosphere than the planet did, in essence, the gas was sucked here. Now the gas has almost made a vacuum out there, so if we can find a viable planet, one with some sort of atmosphere, in theory, the gas will be sucked out again the minute we open the stargate."

" Along with Jack." Daniel said.

She shook her head. " Hopefully not. I’m relying on the fact that we can still hear him breathe, albeit faintly. That means that there is still some atmosphere left. If we can find a planet in time, hopefully the pressure won’t be so great." She took a deep breath, and then continued softly. " Daniel this is the only thing I can think of."

They both watched in silence as Graham Simmons continually tried planet after planet, relying on his prodigious memory as well as previous MALP survey results. There had been one planet, he remembered. About two years ago they had come across something in sector eight. It was just a matter of time, something they had precious little of, especially Colonel O’Neill.

He couldn’t even imagine how horrible it must be to die from lack of oxygen…

Then to his delight the computer beeped at him.

" Got it," he burst out. N6Y B9J, sector eight."

They were behind him in seconds. " Graham, for God’s sake open…"

" I’m on it, wait a second." Not the best manner in which to speak to a commanding officer, but he was really beyond caring.

" Chevron one locked."

" Chevron two locked." The familiar routine made him calm down somewhat, and it was he that noticed the silence from the Gateroom.

" Uh, sirs…?

They stared at him, then at the gate. There was nothing they could do now for Jack, they were doing all that they could already.

" Chevron four locked."

Sam reached for the phone, calling Janet Fraiser. She had to be warned that she might be swapping one sort of danger for another. There may be a backlash of toxic gas back into the gateroom before they could deactivate the stargate again. For that reason alone they would have to hustle under the blast door because she was going to shut it again as soon as they were inside.

" Chevron six locked." Simmons voice was tight.

"And chevron seven…locked."

" Graham shut it down as soon as the gas is…"

He nodded, his eyes firmly fixed on the gate. " Yes maam."

Then with a whoosh the gate opened.

The results were beyond spectacular. There was a screaming sound as all the gas was immediately sucked out of the gateroom, the force of it making the control room’s reinforced window bulge alarmingly. Then they saw something they had been dreading. The MALP and the limp body of their C.O were slowly being pulled towards the blue event horizon.

" Major?" Simmons called urgently, his finger poised above the escape key.

She shook her head, her face white. " Not yet…wait. We must be sure…"

Slowly the pressure began to equalise.

" Now."

Simmons stabbed down hard on the key as she activated the blast doors, allowing four rubber-suited people to roll under the door before slowly shutting it again.

Then with a gasp she sagged back as the stargate closed with a snap.

There were still things that needed to be done urgently. Ignoring the medics frantically working on Colonel O’Neill, she used the still operating MALP to test the atmosphere now present in the gateroom.

Slowly the results came in, a mixture of helium, methane and oxygen, some still lethal in vast quantities, but not in the amounts present in the gateroom.

With a deep sigh, she reopened the blast door. The base air conditioning scrubbers could handle what little bad atmosphere remained.

" Sam?" Daniel asked.

" It’s safe."

" But is Jack?" he asked, looking sick.

They watched silently as Janet and her people worked feverishly over Jack’s prone form, the occasional mutter being picked up by the gateroom microphones, but for the most part there was ominous silence.

Then they heard a deep racking gasp.

Daniel’s hand gripped hers when Janet Fraiser’s voice was heard, urging her latest patient on.

" Come on Colonel, that’s it, deep breaths. That’s it…slow and steady."

Suddenly the red lights both in the control room and on the gate room floor turned to green, and a muted rumbling could be heard as the automated air scrubbers deemed the base air supply good enough to end their isolation.

Within minutes Teal’c, Major Lou Ferretti and an out of breath General Hammond arrived, to be rapidly filled in by Sergeant Simmons, the other members of SG1 having already made their way to the gateroom floor.

" I’m fine…quit trying to put that thing over my face will ya?"

Sam Carter couldn’t help her grin when she heard the faint voice of her C.O. They had him lying on a gurney with an oxygen mask over his face. This he was weakly trying to remove.

Janet Fraiser was having none of it. Having rapidly discarded the hot isolation suit the minute the all clear sounded, she was hunched over her patient, listening to his chest

" Colonel you either lie there quietly, or I will sedate you and you WILL lie there quietly." She glared at him. " Your choice."

Jack O’Neill was only arguing for appearances sake. Something was hurting deep inside from straining to breathe in life giving oxygen where there wasn’t any, and consequently he was shaking badly in reaction to Doc Fraiser’s sudden gift of plenty of it in pure form. When she snapped at him he subsided meekly, aware that his team had surrounded him.

" Thanks guys," he whispered, suddenly feeling quite faint, his eyes fluttering shut.

" Janet?" Daniel asked, looking worried. She looked up at him and the rest of SG 1, seeing the fear in their eyes.

" He’ll be fine, thanks to you. Tiredness is a usual side effect to anoxia." She looked at Major Ferretti and General Hammond, including them in her conversation. When he nodded, she gave the order and Colonel O’Neill was swiftly wheeled out, followed by his loyal team.

A day later, a still pale O’Neill was sat upright in bed, trying to make sense of what happened.

" So, if I had just waded through the stuff I would have died?"

Sam Carter nodded. " Yes sir, almost instantly. Naquadah is slightly toxic anyway, but in pure form, like that gas, well, you wouldn’t have stood a chance."

" Like SG 6 didn’t." Daniel said sadly. They were all silent for a moment, remembering good friends. A subsequent mission, using the same tactics that Major Carter had used previously, had found the bodies of SG 6 close to the gate.

" You know what I find the most frightening thing about everything that happened?" Three pairs of male eyes settled on Carter.

" No, what?" Jack asked gently.

" We were so worried about you, and the gas stealing oxygen, that we forgot the other property that Naquadah has."

" Oh?"

" It’s explosive." She shuddered delicately. " There I was, using a MALP full of electronics that was already being stood on by a fully grown man, completely forgetting that one spark…" She hesitated but no one interrupted her. " One spark, and the whole base would have ceased to exist."

Her words fell into stunned silence.

" And you kinda forgot this?" Colonel Jack O’Neill said after a time.

She nodded, hanging her head. " Yes sir."

He was silent again, watching Carter as his agile brain, so carefully hidden from the rest of his team, worked out and then discarded different scenarios.

Eventually he stirred. " I’m thinking you had no choice but to do what you did."

He saw Daniel and Teal’c nodding as well as they reached the same logical conclusions.

Daniel took over. " Jack’s right. You had to analyse the gas, find out what it was and get rid of it. Luckily for Jack…and us, there were no sparks from the MALP."

" No," Jack O’Neill murmured sleepily from his nest of pillows. " But we all would have been toasted had the door between the control room and the gateroom been open…"

As expected, he had their full and undivided attention.

" And why is that?" Daniel asked cautiously.

" Because the brightest spark of them all has blonde hair and one hell of a brain…"

*Einde*

BETA Tested by CiGiK

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