Chapter 35

The next day, the Kid Tree families all met at the Air Force Academy. The new commander was in agreement that a major talk needed to happen. Gabriel’s announcement was coming out on Wednesday so they had an impromptu gathering of kids and cadets on Tuesday. As usual, Daniel had it recorded. What people did not know was that it was close-circuited to President Hayes who wanted to listen in after Jack mentioned the meeting to him.

Unfortunately the Academy had a bad record of intolerance. The new commander wasn't going to allow it to continue, however; he had already informed several of the more evangelical instructors and chaplains that they needed to get with the new program or find another position.

The kids and adults were all very interested in the leap process, and were excited about it. A lot of the kids, parents, and teachers were relieved that what was happening to the kids was a good thing and they weren’t imaging the weirdness. Hammond had given the instructors leave to reorganize their classes and start teaching the cadets at a higher level than their current grades. 

When Daniel got around to sexuality and gender preferences, the wiggling started. Jack sent out a general feeler and found that many of the students had been concerned over changes in feelings. Old school instructors were not happy about either subject, especially the one about gender and sex.

“There will be zero-tolerance for intolerance,” Hammond told the cadets. “Respect will be shown for individual choices. This is a new world, ladies and gentlemen, and this new world needs to play nice with the galaxy. That means respect of all spiritualities, all gender preferences, and all individual choices.”

With three legends standing on the stage behind Hammond looking out at the sea of children and adults, they knew Hammond was serious.

Much to Daniel’s surprise, his previously recorded seminars were making money. The camera loved him and he spoke well. Someone was sending him profits in the form of checks. The best seller was the children’s seminar recorded at Stacy’s old school. It had been aired on public television and radio several times, all with high ratings, and schools around the world had requested permission to show it in class. The current seminar was handed over to Paul for whatever it was he did with them.

Since Jack couldn’t take off for Unification meetings, he had one of the meeting rooms at HomeSec turned into private space. Word was sent that if anyone needed him to see him there during office hours. Nyan had sent Jack more information on the Mulakma and the more Jack read the more he realized that the big four-legged birds lived in a society that hadn’t existed on Earth for hundreds of years. 

Most definitely a feudal society, they had a strict code of honor that Jack could appreciate. For the most part. Jack found the culture to be almost a complete opposite of the Sua. Unlike Europe’s feudal years, though, the Mulakma had advanced technologically almost to Earth’s modern standards. Jack couldn’t figure out how the hell they did that, walking on all fours and having claws instead of fingers, but they certainly had their own space ships and were certainly experts at flying them. 

It seemed that there was a faction of the populace that felt using the ships in their atmosphere was not honorable and that any fighting should be done the old-fashioned way: flight with their own wings in hand to hand combat. The ships should be used for off-world only. So far, the ruling party was in agreement on that score.

Jack wondered how the cats and birds would get along.

After the announcement from WHO, scientists all over the world had something new to yell about. A flurry of debates raged across the globe faster than light speed, which Jack ignored and went about his daily business. His current business was a strange request from a community representative in the Bahamas. Another boat had gone missing and they were a little tired of it; did HomeSec have any nifty toys that could scan their waters for whatever had been taking boats and planes? Jack called Sam.

“The Bermuda Triangle? Seriously?” she asked, incredulous. “Sure, we can turn the mikku toward the planet and see if anything is cloaked.”

On the video conference link, Jack watched the image as the mikku scanned the waters off the Bahamas Grand Island.

“What the hell is that?” Jack asked, leaning forward, staring at a black spot. Paul leaned over Jack’s shoulder, squinting at it.

“Have no idea.” Sam was clearly as surprised as they were to actually find an anomaly. Jack looked at his wizard, and Paul called an admiral. Jack had yet to figure out how his major kept all the names, ranks, phone numbers, and current locations in his head.

“Think you can dislodge whatever that is?” Jack asked Sam.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I need to know what it is, first. I’d like to take some equipment out there.”

“I knew you would,” Jack said. He looked at the screen Davis pulled up on his computer. “Contact Admiral Williams in Fort Lauderdale. And I’d like to see you back for dinner this week, not in a hundred or so years, please.”

“I’ll be careful,” she promised with a smile.

She called him two days later. “Need you out here,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because we’re getting life signs from it,” she said. “And I don’t mean people screaming for help. I think that thing is alive.”

Jack packed up his SF and hopped over to Florida in the al'kesh. Before leaving, Paul rapped his knuckles and reminded him to inform Daniel.

“The Bermuda Triangle?” Daniel questioned. “It’s bad enough you let Sam go, and now you’re going?”

“Daniel, she thinks whatever that black spot is is alive,” Jack told him.

“Doesn’t that make it my territory?” Daniel asked.

“I think she wants me to give it the heave-ho. Okay, okay, I can feel you thinking bad thoughts about me from across town,” Jack sighed. “Come with.”

Jack notified the SF that were set up around the neighborhood that the adults were going out of town; the SF would make sure Jerrie and the kids were well-guarded. Jack refused to live in a house that was surrounded by guards, so he compromised: the SF could set up posts, discretely, throughout the neighborhood and the surrounding woods. The neighbors weren’t wild about it, and then began to appreciate the guards when other neighborhoods had a rash of vandalism. Women and children could walk around at night without having to worry about abductions or attacks. Daniel pouted that he couldn’t get in any attacks of his own while walking through the woods with Jack or Sam.

Jack and Daniel, and SF entourage, were in Florida an hour later. The personnel at the Navy base watched in awe as the al'kesh settled and dislodged people. One man in Navy khaki stepped forward and offered a salute.

“General O’Neill, Commander Dattner, sir.” Jack returned the salute and shook his hand. He introduced Daniel and they walked quickly to the nearby buildings. Sam was waiting for them in a conference room, along with Admiral Williams and other staff.

“Do you remember that black cloud you dislodged in Rome?” Sam asked him. Navy people were blank. Jack nodded. “I think this is the same thing. Or same type of thing.”

“It’s one of those clouds?” he asked.

Sam wrinkled her face. “No, more like a collection of them,” she said. “It’s very dense… Do you remember watching 2001: Space Odyssey? With that black monolith? At the end, that guy went into it and ended up in another dimension? I think this black spot is like that. All our equipment signals disappear into it just as if it were a black hole.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully.

“And there’s nothing indicating a life form?” Daniel asked. “That black cloud was pretty angry.” The admiral and commander stared back and forth at them, and then at each other. They were talking about clouds. Angry clouds.

“If it’s noticed us at all, it isn’t reacting,” she said. “We tried all the settings we could find on the mikku; I even called Inanna and she confirmed that, as far as she was aware, there wasn’t anything else we could do with it. She doesn't know what it could be. No one wants to risk sending in divers or even a vessel.”

“How about something unmanned?” Jack suggested.

“We tried that,” Williams said. “It disappeared and none of the readings that were sent back were of any use.”

“I checked them,” Sam nodded. “The submersible readings were as ineffective as ours were.”

“Do animals disappear in there?” Daniel suddenly asked. Navy people thought about it.

“Like fish?” Dattner asked.

Daniel shrugged. “Fish, dolphins, whales….”

“We’d have to check stats, but I don’t recall hearing about schools or pods disappearing,” Dattner said. Others around him agreed.

Jack took a deep breath. “I haven’t tried this from this distance before,” he warned. Sam understood, although the Navy people didn’t. Jack sat down and closed his eyes. A moment later he was gasping for breath. Sam quickly shoved his head between his knees and gave the back of his neck calming strokes. The navel officers nearby blinked in confusion.

“Breathe,” she told him. “Slow and deep, in through your nose, out through your mouth.” A medic stepped in and took Jack’s wrist, counting his pulse. Jack shook them off and leaned his head back, shooting puffs at the ceiling and scrunching his eyes.

“Okay, I’m okay,” he finally told them. Williams and his people watched with concern. Neither the colonel nor Dr. Jackson were stressing, though…..

“Admiral Williams, may I suggest you prepare your people for an emergency,” Jack told the man. “If I’m right, you’re going to need a hell of a lot of space for evacuees.” He took out his cell phone and dialed. He stepped outside and briefed Maynard on the situation. Maynard opened a conference call with Hayes, the Florida governor, and the head of FEMA. Jack repeated the problem. Two out of four people reacted with disbelief. Jack expected it.

“Carl, if General O’Neill says it’s going to happen, believe it,” Hayes told the governor. “I’m authorizing it, Jack, do what you need to do. Florida and FEMA will give you their complete cooperation. Ms Rosario, please make sure FEMA is ready at all points of the triangle for any possibility. Jack, how long do they have to prepare?”

Jack shrugged. “It’s been sitting out there for how long? How about dawn, does that work for everyone?” Everyone agreed. Both the governor and FEMA needed time to get their ends situated. Jack went back into the building.

“We do this at dawn,” he told them. “Admiral, we will return at 0500 and get the show on the road at 0600. If that’s alright with you?” It was alright with the slightly puzzled admiral. “Great. You should be receiving a brief from General Maynard in your email shortly.”

Jack, Sam, and Daniel took their SF and jumped back home. They packed clothes, just in case, and rounded up Dr. Lam and her team, along with equipment. Landry was kind enough to authorize several SG teams to accompany them. 

By 0500, the SGC and HomeWorld Security descended upon the Florida east coast. It was an alien thing therefore the alien experts would deal with it.

Naval personnel stood back and watched their base swarm with men and women with the Tau’ri sigil on their jackets. The Joint Chiefs had asked pretty please if Adm. Williams would mind too terribly if their general took over for a few hours. Williams had squinted in confusion and agreed. Jack knew he was on touchy ground so he made sure to defer to the admiral and show due respect when they got to the base. 

Salutes were offered to the admiral and then went about the business of getting Dr. Lam and her team set up in the emergency area Williams had arranged.

“We may need more than that,” Jack commented quietly to Lam as they looked at the emptied warehouse.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked him.

“No,” he admitted. “Just a hunch. And since I don’t do hunches, I’d say that says something.”

He called Governor Montblank and then Ms Rosario at FEMA, double-checking; both had their parties prepared for the moment Jack said the word. The Prometheus was standing by, monitoring the ocean for signs of people. Williams had ships standing by at all three corners of the Triangle. 

Jack took a seat overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Sam was behind him with her equipment and a computer with an open line to the Yard and Captain Boggs who was her best assistant with the more advanced toys.

“Go easy, Jack,” Daniel asked quietly. “We don’t know if by blowing that thing away, anyone else that may be caught in it will also be blown away. Try and feel your way around before you do anything.”

“I know, Daniel,” Jack said, annoyed. “If anyone is alive in there, I want them out, too.”

“Ready, Captain?” Sam asked quietly into a microphone. The video feed from inside the sphere of the chair was visible, along with a clear image of the black spot.

“Ready, Colonel,” a voice said. She nodded to Jack and he settled himself in.

The dense, suffocating quality of the mass had almost choked him the day before, but he was almost sure he had sensed multiple people in it. Almost what he felt when he opened up to a room full of people. The multitude of emotions that bombarded him was almost too loud for him to handle. Jack reached out, forcing himself to skirt around the edges, trying to find a way in. Something blasted him out and he was thrown from his chair, startling the military. The general didn't fall from the chair, he was clearly pushed! Hands quickly reached for him.

“I’m fine!” he shouted, dusting himself off. He snarled and swore under his breath. “Get Kalam on the horn!”

Reynolds quickly called Prometheus, and Markham patched Enki through several minutes later. Jack updated him on the situation.

“Fucking thing blasted me right out of my seat!” he told the old man angrily as he paced. His own people waited while Navy personnel stood back and watched wide-eyed. The Navy was a little miffed at not having a reason for being in on any of the previous battles and so had no idea what was going on.

“I have never heard of this entity before,” Enki admitted. “Can you wait for me to arrive? I will come through the Gate.”

“Sure.” Jack slammed the radio down. “I need two aspirin and a couple hours,” he told the room. Dr Lam handed him the aspirin.

“I'm waiting for backup,” he told Williams after he took a couple of minutes to calm down. “One of those things I could handle. However many that is, is too many for me. My backup is on another planet; he’ll get here soon.”

“May I ask exactly what it is you’re trying to do?” Williams asked. “I don’t understand.”

Jack leaned forward, hanging his head as he waited for the aspirin to kick in. “You know all that leap stuff?” he asked. “Some people are starting to do weird things?” The admiral nodded. “I can do weird things.” The admiral wasn't any clearer on the subject.

Enki and Ninurta both arrived two hours later in the al'kesh Jack had an SF take back to the SGC. They looked at the spot in the ocean from the view off Sam’s computer. Enki talked with the captain and had him rotate the mikku to different views, and nodded thoughtfully as Sam reported on the various ways they had attempted to make way into the black spot. Enki then listened to Daniel’s recital of the events in Rome.

“Yes, yes, I agree,” he finally said. “This does seem to be the base for these entities, whatever they are. I spoke with Thor on our way here, and he also has not heard of these things. He’s here, Jack, just in case.” Enki gestured up.

“Welcome to the party, Thor,” Jack spoke to the ceiling. “Okay, let’s coordinate,” he said to Enki and Ninurta. Most of their coordinating was incomprehensible to the Navy. Jack’s own people were used to it and waited.

“You can do this, Jack,” Enki told him. “Just stay with us.”

Jack, Enki, and Ninurta planted themselves firmly on the deck, hands clasped tightly together. Jack knew when he was out of his league, so he let Enki lead the way. Once more, Jack skirted the edges of the thing. When the blast came, they flinched and stood their ground. As the blast radiated out, Enki took them in. Unknown to them, they had collapsed onto the floor. Concerned personnel rushed forward and Reynolds ordered everyone back. The medics knelt over the trio and checked pulses as they straightened limbs.

“Leave them for now,” Dr Lam ordered. “They don’t seem to be in any distress, so give them time.”

Jack found himself standing under a dome. Hundreds upon hundreds of coffin sized canisters were lined up, each containing a person. Some of them were clearly dead, desiccated and crumbling to bone. Others were in various states of decay. Jack pushed his senses out until he found a section that seemed to be emanating with emotions. The three flew through the dome until they came to another section of coffins.

“These people are alive,” Ninurta commented. “I wonder if these canisters are waterproof and will float? Let’s find the main hub.”

Jack sensed an angry presence the further they went.

“I feel it, too, Jack,” Enki said. They made their way through the dome until the presence was close. A black cloud tried to lunge at them and missed; their bodies weren’t actually present. It snarled in frustration. Jack felt a great hunger from it and knew that it had been feeding off the life energy of the people it had taken.

Enki felt around and they flew across the dome again. Jack saw a huge graveyard filled with ships and planes.

“Oh, my God,” Jack breathed. “They’re all here.” Vessels from current to ages past all lay together in as varying stages of decay as their previous owners. They had obviously been dumped on top of each other in a junk pile. Dark specks flew around them; more of the individual entities, he saw.

“Concentrate, Jack,” Enki warned him. “Stay with us, worry about that later.”

“Over here, Aba,” Ninurta said. He pulled them to another section. He had found control panels.

“Can we do physical work in this state?” Jack asked.

“No,” Enki admitted. “But we can take a good look.”

Before even being aware that he thought about it, Jack found himself inside the equipment. It had a partial crystal structure, much like the Ancient technology, but quite a bit of it seemed to be made up of gases which he guessed made sense, if the entities were clouds.

“Wait, let me see….” Enki muttered under his breath as he poked around. “Yes, yes, I think I see…… Let’s get back.”

The three were abruptly conscious and sprawled out on the floor. Jack groaned and rolled over as Enki jumped to his feet and shouted. No one seemed to understand the strange language but Daniel thrust his notebook at him. Enki started scribbling.

“No, stay down,” Dr. Lam ordered Jack as he tried to sit up. He was glad to stay down when his stomach threatened to rebel. Vomiting on the admiral’s boat would not be conducive to relations.

“You want what?!” Sam was looking at Enki as though he had grown a second head. “Do I look like Mr. Wizard? Okay, okay, I’ll…. how the hell….. we don’t have… Col. Markham, I need to see Thor.” Sam was beamed out. Navy personnel took another step back.

“Reestablish your central line,” Ninurta told Jack. “Kel’no’reem, Jack; force yourself to begin, it’ll center you and calm the storm.”

Jack floundered and rolled onto his back. Ninurta put his hand on the center of Jack’s chest.

“Feel it,” he told Jack. “Breathe, yes.”

Jack felt the line Ninurta sent and grabbed at it. He steadied and felt his awareness sitting in the center of his chest. The storm inside began to settle. As Ninurta slowly withdrew, Jack was able to follow the familiar path. Soon, he was able to slowly sit up without the entire world threatening to evacuate through his stomach. He found Daniel kneeling next to him, waiting anxiously.

“I’m okay,” Jack whispered hoarsely. “Got a craving for chocolate.” A candy bar appeared from out of the crowd. Dr Lam shoved a needle into his arm. He didn’t care.

“Where’s Sam?” he asked. The candy did indeed seem to ground him. Daniel told him. “Oh. Enki, what’re we doing?”

The old man turned to him. “As soon as Sam finds me the necessary materials, we’re blowing that thing back to whatever hell it came from,” he told Jack. “It's clearly from an alternate reality, which is why neither my people nor the Asgard know what it is. That’s also why your people have never spotted it before. 

“I think I can get rid of the entities and leave the underlying dome intact. The dome itself is just a structure. Most of the compounds are gases, and like everything else, every gas has a poison. I think those creatures are gas, and I think I know their poison.”

Jack took him at his word. No, he didn’t want to look at Enki’s scribbling. When he felt ready to stand, he took the hands held out by Daniel and Ninurta and heaved himself up. The world spun for a moment and then righted itself.

“Admiral Williams, how about we have a conference?” Jack suggested. The admiral gave a white-faced nod and they went to his office. Jack dialed out and Maynard got on the line with Hayes. Jack updated all of them on the situation.

“I’m not quite sure what Enki has in mind, but he seems to think he can poison these things,” he told the group. “Listen, whatever he’s up to, that black spot is covering a dome. Inside that dome are the bodies of everyone who has ever gone missing in the Triangle, including all the ships and planes. There are a lot of dead bodies, but there are living ones, too. We’re going to do our best to get those people out. 

“If we can get rid of the entities and leave the dome intact, we can get salvage in there, document the ships, and recover the bodies. The people who are still living, we will try and get out right away.”

“How many people are we looking at, Jack?” Hayes asked.

“Not sure,” Jack said. “I didn’t count ‘em, but I’m guessing a couple hundred.”

“Dear Lord... Are your people ready, Admiral?” Hayes asked.

“Yes, sir, they are,” Williams assured him.

Enki beamed up to Thor’s ship for a collaboration of minds. Several hours later, he and Sam were back. 

“Thor is going to bring his ship down,” Enki told Jack. “We came up with a gas I think will work, but he needs to be directly over the entity. He’s going to beam the gas down into it.”

Jack called the troops to order and had them standby while Williams called out to his ships waiting on the water.

“How serious of a water displacement are we talking about?” Williams asked Enki and Jack.

“No way to tell,” Enki said.

“If there is an explosion or a serious displacement, we could be talking about a tidal wave,” Williams told them. “Is the area under there that big?” Since Enki didn't know if any of the area under the dome extended into an alternate reality line, or even deeper under the ocean floor, he had no idea how big a bang they were talking about. Jack called the FEMA director, Ms Rosario, while Enki had Thor put on hold.

The public warning was given, without explanation, and Florida’s east coast, along with the Keys, the Bermuda Islands, Bahamas, Cuba, and Puerto Rico scrambled to sandbag their coasts. Georgia and South Carolina were given a warning, just in case, but they didn’t need to do anything yet. FEMA gave the others twelve hours. 

The base was emptied of all personnel to assist with the shoring up of their part of the coast line. From the janitors and grounds keepers all the way up to Jack and Admiral Williams, all hands worked. With hurricanes an annual occurrence, the east coast knew how to prepare quickly.

At the end of the twelve hours, everyone stood outside and watched the ocean. Jack called Thor and gave the go-ahead. Sam was watching her computer as Boggs monitored with the mikku. A low, throbbing hum filled the air as Thor’s ship came slowly into the atmosphere. Naval personnel dropped their jaws as the huge alien ship stopped to hover over the water. A few personnel unobtrusively slapped hands and turned over bet money to others.

“Now,” Thor calmly told Jack through the radio at his shoulder. Jack watched the water but nothing seemed to be happening. It’s gas, he told himself, not a bomb.

“Look!” Sam shouted. Jack and Enki quickly looked over her shoulder. The black spot seemed to be fading. Enki tuned out and Jack seemed to sense Enki’s presence heading out into the water. He followed. Another kind of roar filled his ears; this time it was of the entities dying from the poisonous gas that was beamed into their protective dome.

“The dome can be collapsed with no displacement,” Thor reported over the speaker. People relaxed with sighs of relief.

“Clear!” Sam shouted again.

“The dome will not hold for long,” Thor warned. “It is already beginning to show signs of stress. I will beam up all bodies and set them down in the prepared locations.”

Military and medical personnel hurried to positions as living bodies began to appear any place that had room for them. By the following morning, over three hundred people were being attended to by medical personnel evac’d in to handle the emergency. Thousands of dead bodies had begun to pile up, some of them hundreds of years old. The entities had removed any ID tags from military personnel, so the only way ID’s could be guessed at was through the identification of the ships which were, at that moment, being scoured by SCUBA divers.

Jack wasn’t sure what stunned him more: eliminating the entities or the fact that some of the people living were well over a hundred years old, and looked no older than the day they were originally taken. A couple of people claimed to be born in the 1800’s, and from their speech and their outlook, he believed them. He wondered what his world would look like when he was another hundred years old.