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Entry tags:
fic: newBSG/Torchwood, Unexpected Blue Skies, PG13
Dislcaimer: Not mine.
Rating: er... PG13? A little violence, some sex, some flirting, some het, some language.
Fandoms: newBattlestar Galactica, Torchwood, Stargate: SG-1 (sort of), Doctor Who
Pairings: Captain Jack Harkness/Everyone, Kara Thrace/Sam Anders, Tory Foster/Sam Anders.
Spoilers/Set: For BSG: post-Crossroads (picking up immediately after the fade to black), for TW: post-series one (handwaving certain aspects), for SG-1: er... after season six/referencing eight, for DW: mostly oldskool refs.
Notes: This went places I wasn't expecting, and now I have a whole new universe to play in and hash out the What Went Befores. (I mean, I know some of it, but there's other bits that I'm just not certain of) Knowledge of SG-1 isn't required, though if you know the show, it could be confusing.
Length: 12,000+ words
Unexpected Blue Skies
by ALC Punk!
They had thrown him into the cockpit with only the bare minimum of instruction--Sam Anders was a little surprised he hadn't been killed getting flung from the tube. But once in the free-fall of space, he'd found it easier. He'd always had a good spatial sense for who was where, which meant that he grabbed onto the tail of his leader, and hung on there grimly until a Cylon heavy raider blew him to frak thirty seconds into the engagement.
Diving after the frakker, he fired, trying to keep it away from the ships of the fleet. Around him, he could hear the wireless chatter as the other pilots fought what sounded like a losing battle against the Cylons.
Twisting his viper under a ship, he rolled with the heavy raider, a little scared at how natural flying felt. He'd never tried it before, and after the recent little revelation of what he was (not who, because, frak it, he was Sam Anders, and he'd defend the people he loved first before he adhered to some shallow concept of race), he wondered if that had something to do with it.
While he watched, the raider flipped and pointed itself at him, red light splashing over Sam's viper.
He sucked in a breath, waiting to see if it could take down his guidance systems. When it didn't, he fired, actually hitting it, this time.
The raider flipped again and dove further into the nebula. Sam stuck to it, weaving between ships and clouds with an ease he'd never anticipated. The clouds suddenly went red, then shifted into a dense grey and up ahead the raider disappeared.
Sam was jarred backwards as his viper bucked from some sort of turbulence--he cast a wild glance around, trying to see whether he was being shot at or not--
"Galactica, Hotshot, I've lost the heavy raider, has anyone else got it in their sights?" Boy, had he. The thing had just vanished. The viper shuddered again and Sam wondered if it was his imagination that made it seem as though it was falling. There shouldn't be anything to make it fall, no planets, no moons, just the nebula.
As abruptly as he'd hit them, the grey clouds cleared, and he stared in shock as he continued to drop like a rock through atmosphere.
There was a city, far below, and a planet. And water--but he shoved those brief impressions aside and grabbed for the stick, yanking on it as he tried to slow his descent.
Gravity had suddenly become a problem.
"Galactica, Hotshot. Do you read me? There's a frakking planet, here. I repeat, there's a--" he swore and broke off to concentrate on not dying abruptly.
Static was the only answer he was getting anyway.
Frak. He wasn't sure he could get back out of atmosphere--at least not without landing to get his bearings. For an instant, he considered ejecting, but then he figured he'd wait until his viper was incapacitated. It lurched, then jerked into a semblance of a stable flight, skimming the air instead of falling through it.
'Track's recent joke about meat pancakes would not be coming true, just yet.
Unless he tried to land, anyway. Landing in zero gravity, Sam could probably do. Landing on a planet, when there was gravity to compensate for might see him getting scraped off the blacktop for a while.
Now that he wasn't falling, though, he could gaze down at the scenery a little better. Definitely a city, with smaller, outlying cities and towns in the distance. This one looked about the size of Delphi. Trying his radio again, he said, his voice strangely quiet, "Galactica, I don't know if you're getting this--"
The relay shrieked with static and feedback and then a voice came back to him, replacing the cacophony of sound, "They're probably not. This is Captain Jack Harkness with Torchwood, and you're flying in restricted airspace, over."
Shit. Frak. "I apologize, that wasn't my intention, over."
"We need you to land, over."
Ah. Double frak. "Listen, this is Lieutenant Sam Anders, Captain, and that might be a little bit of a problem. I'm a bit new at this, and I am... a bit shaky on my landings, over."
"A bit?"
When the silence had stretched, Sam coughed, realizing they hadn't bothered with the over, that time. He hated the stupid military callbacks, anyway. "Yeah, to be honest, I've never actually landed in atmosphere, over." He probably shouldn't be sharing that information--he should probably be trying to fly the hell back up and out of the atmosphere. But this was a planet, for frak's sake. Being paranoid about them could wait until he wasn't smashing into the pavement.
Besides. He was the one intruding on their airspace. And if he could just pinch himself awake from this frakking nightmare, he'd be happy.
"That could be a problem. Why don't we tackle it once you're at the airstrip?" The Captain replied, adding after a moment, "I'm going to put Toshiko Sato on, to make sure we can get you to the right coordinates, over."
Coordinates. Sam suddenly remembered there were instruments on his viper, and eyed them, trying to remember what 'Track had said about them. "Yeah," he replied, "Go ahead, over."
It took nearly twenty minutes for he and Toshiko ("just call me Tosh") to sort through a workable conversion table for his coordinate system to theirs. Once the mathematics were computed out, Tosh directed him to the airstrip fairly accurately.
Of course, in Sam's favor, the landing strip was pretty visible from the sky, the strip of grey showing like an old scar against the landscape of roads, trees and houses.
"Right, ok. I know where to land," Sam muttered, eying it. "But actually landing..." He hadn't really been talking to anyone but himself, but he was glad that Jack replied a moment later.
"I'm going to talk you through it, Sam. Do you trust me? Over."
Did he trust a man he'd never met, from a planet whose name he didn't know, while falling from the sky and being completely and utterly lost? Sam barked a laugh, then replied, "Yeah. I trust you. Go ahead, over."
Sam listened to Jack, with the sweat dripping into his eyes and a combination of cold fear and sheer exhilaration churning in his gut. He was loving flying, he just wasn't loving the stopping side of things. There was a brief moment of panic as he circled the last time through and the landing gear didn't want to deploy. Then they did, and he was gliding down, pulling back on the stick at the right moment and bouncing against the deck.
Brakes. He needed his brakes to stop. Stomping the pedal caused the inertia of the viper to cut down, but he was still moving forward and the kinetic energy threw him against his restraints.
Ow.
The viper shuddered to a halt halfway down the long stretch. Sam sat in the cockpit, eyes closed, and felt the adrenaline pumping through his veins like a bad high. Gods...
"Hey," Jack said, "You ok in there?"
Sam took a breath, then opened his eyes and released it. "Yeah." He noticed one of the vehicles that had been on the airstrip pull to a stop. The doors opened, spilling a tall dark-haired man and a shorter dark-haired woman onto the blacktop. The man waved.
Now, Sam was paranoid. Now, he was beginning to regret landing. On the ground, they could shoot him, blow him up... well, they could have shot him out of the sky, too. "Going to shoot me?" He asked, unable to help himself.
"Nope. We just wanted to have a chat." Jack replied. The man waved again, and Sam made the connection that he was Jack.
Which seemed reasonable. Talk was cheap, but it had gotten more than a few treaties drawn up. Sam wanted to laugh at himself: what the frak was he thinking about treaties for? He was no frakking ambassador. Landing had seemed like a good option, though. Especially since he had no idea where he was and hadn't heard a thing from the Galactica. "All right."
Sam unbuckled his restraints and reached to release the canopy. He had a moment of wondering if this was all a hallucination, and if he'd die in the vacuum of space when he cracked the seal. He shrugged, though. Sometimes, you just had to trust in the Gods. He might not be speaking to them, right at the moment, but there was still some faith in him left.
Licking his lips, he hit the release. The seals opened with a hiss as the pressures equalized. Shoving the canopy back on its track, Sam paused before he pulled his helmet off and sucked in a breath.
Not dead yet. And not recycled air, either. Sam closed his eyes again and just breathed, taking in the smells. After months of flat, stale air, even the undertones of fuel and ozone were a nice bouquet.
"Gonna get out?" Jack asked, and this time, his voice wasn't piped through the radio.
"In a minute." Sam half-laughed, wondering what Kara would think of him now. The stab of pain that went through him at the thought of her was as painful as it always was. Trying to dull the pain with alcohol and mindless sex hadn't really worked.
He stood up, a little shaky after the hours in flight.
"You all right?" Tosh asked, her voice raised over the wind.
"Yeah," Sam said. It was a lie: his wife was dead, he was stuck on a planet he couldn't name, and he wasn't sure he wanted to go back. Shoving his thoughts into a box, he moved to the side and hoisted himself up and over, dropping to the ground easily. His boots took most of the shock and he straightened and shook himself before he held out a hand to the two people standing there. "Lt. Sam Anders from the twelve colonies. Where the frak am I?"
"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," the man introduced himself with an engaging smile as he took Sam's hand and held it a second too long. "Tosh, you've met--"
The woman standing next to him smiled, even as she stayed looking almost deadly serious.
"--and it's a little complicated."
"What's complicated about where I am?" Sam asked, shaking Tosh's hand.
"It's less where and more when--" Jack seemed to realize Sam still had no idea what planet he was actually on, and added, "And welcome to Earth, by the way."
Sam blinked. "Where?"
"Earth." Like it was a perfectly normal place to find oneself.
Sam wasn't conscious of pulling his side-arm until he was staring down the barrel at a spot perfectly between Jack's blue eyes. "No," he growled, "No. This is some sort of frakking Cylon trick, isn't it? Because Earth is a Gods-damned frakking myth--" and Kara's to find, according to a destiny he no longer believed in.
"Whoa--" Jack raised his hands, "Hey. Take it easy, Sam."
"You tell me this is Earth, and you want me to take it easy?"
"But it is Earth," Tosh pointed out, sounding surprised that he doubted it, "Where else would it be?"
"Not possible," Sam grated out. "I don't just fall onto Earth, by accident. For one thing, we're a long way away--"
"For another," interrupted Tosh, her expression worried, "You came through the rift. There's no telling what time you came from. Maybe you don't call this planet Earth, where you're from?"
"Twelve colonies," Jack said, snapping his fingers, as he recalled Sam's introduction. "You didn't just fall through time, you fell through space."
"Whatever the frak that means." Not dropping the barrel of his weapon, Sam stepped back, bumping into the viper. It was almost comforting to find it still there. "None of this makes any frakking sense. What the hell is the rift?"
"It's an anomaly in space and time," explained Tosh. She stepped towards Sam, "Are you going to shoot us?"
As though there was something incredibly ludicrous in the idea, and Sam realized that there was. He laughed, the sound cracking at the edges. "I don't know. Should I?" But he lowered the gun. They hadn't done this to him, probably. He couldn't be certain of anything, but standing here, pointing a gun at them was going to get him nowhere. "So. This is Earth, huh?"
"Yes." Tosh smiled in relief at him.
"Frakkin' Earth. I wasn't supposed to find it," he mumbled to himself. He sagged back against the viper.
"Sam?" Taking her life in her hands, Tosh stepped forward and touched his arm. "You'll have to give me the gun. All non-Earth weapons have to be checked before their owners can hang onto them."
He blinked at her, and then laughed a little, releasing the side-arm into her hands. His instincts were telling him he could trust her. "Don't break it. Colonel Tigh will read me the riot act." If he got back. If he ever saw the one-eyed Colonel again.
She studied it, then carefully poked the safety, "Is this on?"
"Yeah." He gestured, "That way, off, that way, on."
"Right." Tosh opened the case she was carrying and set the gun inside. "I'll just test this out, later, and get it back to you once it's passed its inspection."
"Thanks." Sam rolled his shoulders and then looked at Jack, "How does the rift work? And how do I get back? There are people counting on me. Or is this a one-way trip?" He finished, half-guessing that truth already.
Jack looked sad for a moment, then he moved and clapped his hand on Sam's shoulder, "The rift doesn't work like that. Let's go discuss this over tea."
"Alcohol would be better," Sam suggested.
"Once we've made sure we won't kill you with vodka, sure," Jack promised, grinning again.
-=-=-
They took him in the van to an office of some sort. Along the way, he watched the city as they passed through; it reminded him strongly of Delphi, especially the glimpses he caught of the less savory places. There'd been places in Delphi he hadn't liked going alone. He didn't share these observations with Tosh or Jack, and neither seemed inclined to ask him about his past and origins while they were driving.
Before leaving the airstrip, Jack had assured him that the viper would be placed in a hangar and kept safe, for which he was grateful. If it was the last thing he had of the colonies (not that he believed that), he wanted to be able to see it again.
Torchwood was underground, and Sam had the fleeting sense of the slabs of earth pressing down upon him, smothering him. He shook it off and nodded to Owen Harper and Gwen Cooper when they were introduced to him. Ianto Jones smiled as he handed him a cup of tea.
While he sipped at the sweet liquid, Dr. Harper poked and prodded him, listening to his heart and taking at least three blood samples. Sam was used to being poked, between drug tests as an athlete and the various check-ups from Cottle and his people while on Galactica, though he was a bit amused to discover someone with a worse bedside manner than Cottle.
"Jack," Gwen said, interrupting Jack's random conversation with Sam. That was fine with Sam, he couldn't concentrate on what Jack was saying, anyway.
Sam rubbed a hand over his face and half-listened while Gwen said something about readings Tosh had recorded, and how they coincided with other readings they'd taken of the rift before.
"Yes, I know--"
"No--Jack, listen," Gwen rattled the paper in her hand, "I was checking them against these--"
"Are those the readings from the night the Americans were testing their 'stealth' craft?" Tosh asked, moving to look around Jack's shoulder at Gwen's paper. "I was looking at those earlier."
"I know. You still had them up when the computer was recording the new readings," said Gwen, holding a second sheet of paper next to the first. "I wouldn't have noticed it, otherwise."
"Oh my god. Jack--" Tosh didn't wait for an order, she moved out of the pit, heading up to her bank of computers and monitors.
Sam shook his head, listening as she typed and chattered at Gwen, the words making little sense to him. He'd caught their reference to a singular god, but had already accepted this was Earth. One more difference wouldn't change that opinion--and he doubted the Cylons could pull off something this damned elaborate, anyway.
"It gets better," Owen said abruptly.
"I'm sorry?"
Owen shrugged and started putting away the blood pressure cuff, hands careful. "Loneliness. It gets better, or so I've been told."
A laugh escaped Sam, and he shrugged, "Yeah, I've heard that, too." Not wanting to talk about loneliness, dead wives, and losing everything he'd known (again), Sam changed the subject. "So. What do you people do here, anyway?"
"We catch aliens, as Gwen would say," Jack replied, having finished his conversation. He flashed a grin at Sam, then looked at Owen, "So, is he human?"
"As human as I can determine, without running his blood work."
The thought of his recent revelation made Sam almost open his mouth to tell them. But then, he decided to see if it were true--would he test as human, according to their rules, or would he test as something else? "According to my wife, I'm way too frakking human," he said, instead. The words registered after they'd left his mouth.
"You're married, then. I'm sorry." Touching his shoulder again, Jack gave him a sad look. In some way, he seemed to understand the loss Sam was feeling. "You probably won't ever see her again."
A crack of laughter escaped Sam, and he smiled, knowing it looked unpleasant, "Damn right I won't. She's dead."
The sadness in Jack's eyes shifted to something indefinable, "I think you could use some more tea. Ianto?"
"I'll put another pot on," offered Ianto, smiling above his suit like he didn't understand loss in any way, shape or form.
Sam shook Jack's hand off and stepped back. "I've put a lot of trust in you people, gave up my weapon, landed, let you poke me full of holes. How about some straight answers?"
"I try not to let little labels confine me," Jack replied cheerfully. "You're safe here, the rift can't be used to send you back, and we have just as many questions about you. What are the Cylons?"
"Robots."
"And the twelve colonies?"
"Exactly that. Twelve planets settled after the exodus from Kobol--" Sam shook his head, "History was never my strongest subject in school. Asking where we come from is definitely more a question to put to Laura Roslin."
Jack nodded, then shrugged, "You're not telling me much."
"I don't like being interrogated. Call it a failing."
"Who said this was an interrogation?"
Sam grinned, stepping towards Jack, "Normal conversations have a better flow, a give and a take to them."
"I like giving," offered Jack, eyes frankly amused as they watched Sam. "But in this case, we need to make certain you, and these Cylons, are not a threat to Earth. Now, are you going to explain more or should I have Ianto drug your next cup of tea?"
"That would be sacrilegious," objected Ianto, pausing in the act of setting the tea tray down upon the exam table.
"I was always more of a coffee drinker," Sam admitted, though he still took the proffered cup from Ianto. "Thanks." He frowned, "Now there's a question: how come you all speak the same language I do?"
"Maybe Earth is an off-shoot of the twelve colonies, or vice versa?" Jack suggested. "Not that this would be the first time an alien race harvested Earth genetic stock to start its own breeding programs, of course. And it certainly won't be the last."
Appalled, Sam stared at him.
"What? You think humans populate the galaxy because they're just that miraculously lucky?" Jack asked, looking surprised.
"Are you saying we're genetic experiments?" demanded Owen, "Because that is rather insulting."
"Not you, Owen. The planets out there that have been colonized in the name of truth, justice and Earth. Half of them were probably originally started because some mad alien scientist wanted to push the boundaries of understanding. Or in some cases, provide breeding stock for vampiric aliens."
Pausing for effect, Jack flashed them both a grin, "Not that any of that's true, anyway. Mostly. Though there are cases of Earth genetic stock being found in places it had no place being."
"We're searching for Earth," Sam said, feeling that if he talked, Jack wouldn't. And while the off-hand, casual flirting was refreshing after most of the fleet avoided him like hell, he wasn't interested. Not yet, at least. "The fleet is, anyway. The Cylons destroyed the colonies, razed the planets and now we're on the run."
"Earth isn't exactly going to welcome you with open arms, you know," Jack said.
Sam shrugged, "I was beginning to get that impression. Does the general populace even believe in the existence of space travel?"
"Well, some of them do, most think it's just a lovely hallucination, though."
"Gods." Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly craving a cigarette, a large bottle of ambrosia and twelve hours' uninterrupted sleep with Kara pressed up against his back. Knowing the latter two were an impossibility, he asked, already anticipating the answer, "Any of you smoke?"
"Nah, I believe in clean living."
"Them things'll kill you," Owen said. He shook his head, "As a medical doctor, let me assure you that the damage done to your lungs is extensive. And complete crap, if you're really cravin'."
"It's all right, I won't offend your delicate sensibilities." Sam rubbed his hands over his face, then sighed. He was exhausted. He'd been sleeping like shit for weeks, ever since he'd started training. And then there'd been Tory, and he'd slept even less. "I don't suppose there's somewhere I could sleep?"
"There's a couple spare bunks in the morgue," suggested Owen.
Sam wasn't sure he was serious, but he decided not to ask. "No. A chair? Someone's coat I could borrow?" Not that he'd get cold, as Kara used to complain when she was wrapped in three blankets and cursing living on the coldest planet ever while he wandered around their tent in his sleeveless shirt and bare feet. But a coat would make a decent pillow.
"C'mon, there's a couch," Jack said. He touched Sam's arm and then led the way up the stairs, around and then up again. A small room off the main area had a couch, a set of chairs, and yet another large-screen tv that was currently tuned to something that looked vaguely like a sport of some sort.
Had Sam been more awake, he might have been interested. Since he wasn't, he ignored it in favor of dropping down onto the lumpy couch with a sigh. "Wake me when the world ends."
"We're hoping that won't happen."
"Again," said Owen.
Ignoring both of them, Sam leaned against the arm and closed his eyes. It wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't standing, and it wasn't a flat slab of concrete or mud. He'd live.
-=-=-
Sam clawed his way free of dreams he half-remembered: white light and laughing children and death. He figured it was a product of too little sleep and too much information and rubbed his eyes clear. The television was still on, the sound off. He watched the pictures for a time, not really caring what they were, just needing some sort of other information in his brain. Something to make this whole problem seem less real, or more real. He was stranded, cut off from the fleet and lost.
And the kicker was, he was lost on Earth. Frakking Earth, the mythical place Adama and Roslin wanted them to reach. Sam might have believed in Kara, and half-believed in her destiny, but he'd never truly believed in Earth. It had seemed like a far-fetched dream, something to dangle in front of the common man to keep him docile as they fled from the Cylons.
Kara would be laughing her ass off, if she could see him.
"Did you sleep all right?" It was Ianto, looking polite and efficient. He held out a steaming cup of coffee to Sam. "I thought you might want this."
It smelled like the stuff he used to get at the corner market in Delphi, when he was still living in that horrible apartment on the lower east side. Gods... he took it and breathed in the steam. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," replied Ianto, ever-polite. He gestured at the television, "Did you want sound?"
"Nah. Nah, man. I'm good." Sam closed his eyes as he took a sip from the mug. The taste flooded his senses, and he gave a soft little sigh. Gods. He hadn't had anything this good since before the colonies went up. The ships in the fleet had stores of coffee, but it wasn't particularly good.
Jack wandered into the room and leaned against the doorway. "Hey, Anders. What else was around you when you came through the rift?"
"The fleet, a Cylon fleet, buncha weird clouds because it was a nebula or something." Sam was so not a scientist. He shrugged, "Why?"
"We think something came through the rift before you did, but we're not sure."
A sick feeling clutched at Sam, "There was a heavy raider in front of me. Gods." The damage the Cylons could do seemed unthinkable, for a moment. "Look, if that's what came through, you need to find it. Those Cylons were set on destroying the human race, they're not gonna stop just because this is Earth--and that's if they even ask, or care, about where they are."
"We have found it, sort of." Jack frowned. "It was picked up by the Americans a few nights ago. I've put a call through to my contact in the NID, to see if they can let us come have a look at whatever it is they found."
Sam stood up, "I should go with you. I can tell you if what they've got is more than just space junk." Or if it was Cylons, or another viper, though that seemed like a remote chance--he'd had no one else around him other than the raider, which was what seemed the most likely candidate. "And if it's Cylons..."
"You're going to tell me all about the Cylons, while we go," Jack said, his tone uncompromising. "I want to know what sort of threat they represent and where they come from."
Sam tugged at his flight suit, since it was beginning to slide off his hips. He'd been a little surprised at how easy it had been to get used to wearing the obnoxious rubber thing.
"He's going to need a change of clothes, Jack," Ianto interrupted. "He can't go wearing that, even the NID'd spot he wasn't one of ours a mile away."
"Damn. You're right." Jack looked Sam up and down, and sighed, "We'll have to send someone out to pick up something."
-=-=-
Ianto had found Sam clothing that supposedly made him fit into the rest of Torchwood. Sam shrugged into the long coat he'd pulled out of a closet, and felt a little weird. It was strange, having new clothing like this. Everything in the fleet had been used and over-used, without stores, it hadn't been easy to have 'new' clothing, though some had tried to make their own on New Caprica. That hadn't gone so well.
The flight wasn't a short one, and Sam spent most of the time detailing the Cylons, their methods, and getting into a little Colonial history. He felt talked out and exhausted again by the time they landed. Passing through the airports, customs, and other checkpoints gave Sam another lesson in the colonies being similar to Earth. He hadn't felt this poked and prodded since the last tournament game against Picon, when there'd been a rumor that the players were all shooting up, and everyone had been stringently checked. Jack had permits for every one of the weapons they'd brought with them, including Sam's colonial side-arm. Jack had said it was just a precaution to bring them along.
Eventually, they were released from the airport into the escort of a man who didn't smile. Corporal Thompson drove them in a jeep to the base where the artifact was housed. He never spoke, and he didn't seem to care that after a while, even Jack gave up on conversing with him.
Sam took the opportunity to doze, guessing he wouldn't get to sleep for a while. Next to him, Tosh typed away on her laptop, working on a report, or possibly writing porn. Sam didn't really try to look to discover. Jack had considered bringing Ianto, Owen and Gwen and ultimately decided they needed to stay in Cardiff to monitor the rift, in case anything else came through. Sam got the distinct impression that Jack wasn't really sure he trusted his team. He wasn't going to ask, though, since it wasn't any of his business.
The base itself put them through almost as many checkpoints as the airports had, and Sam put on his best 'been there, done that' look after a while, not really caring if they thought he was mocking their security restrictions. Eventually, they were shown into an office.
Jack looked around the room, then moved and took the chair behind the desk while gesturing Tosh and Jack into the ones in front of it. "I'm sure you're wondering why I've called you all here today."
Leaning back in his somewhat uncomfortable chair, Sam propped his feet up on the desk. "Not really, no."
Tosh rolled her eyes at them and pulled her laptop out again, beginning to type within less than a minute.
Bored, Sam put his hands behind his head and contemplated another nap.
The door behind them opened again, and a man coughed, "I believe you're in my chair."
"It's a very nice chair," Jack told him, not moving.
The man came forward and shook his head, "I'm Colonel Bauer, and you're only here because someone in your government convinced Kinsey this would be in our best interests. So get the hell out of my chair."
"Ooh, touchy." Jack gave him a brilliant smile, but got up with a sigh, "I'm Captain Harkness. We were told you would show us what your stealth craft picked up over Cardiff earlier in the week--a breach of protocol, by the way, stealing our UFO."
"It was an unexpected complication," the Colonel replied stiffly. He moved and took his seat. "And I'm not so sure I'm authorized to show you our prisoner."
"You have a prisoner?" Captain Harkness raised an eyebrow, "My contact only discussed the craft."
Sam got the impression that the Colonel hadn't realized that, though the man didn't move a muscle to betray himself. "Then your contact wasn't as well-informed as I'd thought."
"As for my jurisdiction," Jack smiled, the expression cold. "That craft should have landed in Cardiff, which makes its passenger my responsibility. And if you'd like to double-check that, I can make a few phone calls for you."
"Don't bother. At this point, I'm beginning to think unleashing our prisoner on you can only do my people good."
"Really?"
"She's been dangerous and uncooperative since we first picked her up--three of my men are in the hospital due to the injuries she's given them."
Violence. A Cylon, then, though it sounded like one of the human models and not a centurion. Sam followed Jack's lead and stood, as though expecting the Colonel to lead them out to see his prisoner then.
"We've run a few tests on her blood, and there are genetic anomalies," the Colonel continued as he got up himself. "Though those are all beside the point, given the violence she keeps exhibiting. She's tried to escape three times." He said it as though it were impossible for a prisoner to ever want freedom.
Sam liked the man even less. He laid a bet with himself that the model they'd trapped was a Six. She'd always seemed so innocent and careful, but he'd seen the damage she could inflict, more than once. And all of the Cylons were adept at violence. He was just glad it didn't sound like a Leoben model, though that would at least afford him the pleasure of killing one.
After all, he couldn't let Kara have the highest tally, there.
The Colonel led them through several corridors and through at least one more checkpoint before stopping in what was obviously an observation deck of some sort. He gestured at the curtain, "I'm not authorized to allow you to speak with her, but I'll show her to you. Not that she's talking, other than to demand her release and curse at my men. I wish they'd decide she was a threat so we could do more to soften her up."
Sam felt a little sick at that--the prisoner might be a Cylon, but being treated like an animal was dehumanizing. He preferred to just kill them, torture was inhumane and made them no better than the Cylons.
Reaching out, Colonel Bauer pushed a button and the curtain began to slide open, "She can't see us, of course. Although she has tried to break the glass before."
He said something else, but Sam was no longer listening, over the roar of the blood in his ears. He'd just lost his bet with himself. The woman in the cell wasn't a Cylon. Feeling way too many emotions and thoughts at once, Sam clenched his fists and closed his eyes to steady himself. He should have known. He should have frakking known. Elation spiraled through him followed fast by fear.
Opening his eyes, he found Tosh had moved to stand next to him, her face turned half towards him, as though worried.
Sam wondered if he'd made a sound, and locked down on his thoughts and emotions again. It wouldn't do any of them any good if he gave the Colonel some sort of hold over them. He tuned back into the conversation.
"Are you sure we can't speak with her?" Jack asked, his voice almost uninterested.
Bauer laughed, "You think you can get more out of her than her name, rank and serial number?"
"Well. We do have our methods," Jack replied, his smile whimsical for an instant.
Shaking his head, Bauer pushed the button again, "As I said, I'm not authorized to allow you to do that. You'll have to take it up with my superiors."
A shudder went through Sam as the curtain cut off his sight of her. He wanted to throttle Bauer and smash the glass, to pull her out of there and go on the run with her, blowing shit up and losing himself in Earth. He shoved the emotions down, pulling on the iron and steel that had gotten him through the occupation on NewCap. His voice almost lazy, he said, "Even if we'd get more out of her?" He chuckled, "Not to mention, she is kinda hot. Maybe your people just haven't been talking right to her."
"If you mean they haven't been flirting, no, that's not what they're here for, Lieutenant." The Colonel bristled a little, "And if she were declared a threat, I could try a lot more on her. But they're dragging their feet--something about humanitarian rights." He sneered.
Gods. Sam ached to rip his face off for those words. He felt sick and hoped it didn't show as he shrugged, "Honey attracts more bees than vinegar, sir."
"That's flies, lieutenant, and when I want your opinion, I'll ask for it."
"Yes, sir," Sam replied, sneering a little. "I just hope that stick up your ass is comfortable."
"Anders." Sounding as though he were halfway amused, Jack shook his head, "Don't argue with a superior officer, Sam. Colonel, I think we'll see your appropriated spacecraft and then we'll settle in a nearby hotel for the night."
-=-=-
It's too long for one post
Rating: er... PG13? A little violence, some sex, some flirting, some het, some language.
Fandoms: newBattlestar Galactica, Torchwood, Stargate: SG-1 (sort of), Doctor Who
Pairings: Captain Jack Harkness/Everyone, Kara Thrace/Sam Anders, Tory Foster/Sam Anders.
Spoilers/Set: For BSG: post-Crossroads (picking up immediately after the fade to black), for TW: post-series one (handwaving certain aspects), for SG-1: er... after season six/referencing eight, for DW: mostly oldskool refs.
Notes: This went places I wasn't expecting, and now I have a whole new universe to play in and hash out the What Went Befores. (I mean, I know some of it, but there's other bits that I'm just not certain of) Knowledge of SG-1 isn't required, though if you know the show, it could be confusing.
Length: 12,000+ words
Unexpected Blue Skies
by ALC Punk!
They had thrown him into the cockpit with only the bare minimum of instruction--Sam Anders was a little surprised he hadn't been killed getting flung from the tube. But once in the free-fall of space, he'd found it easier. He'd always had a good spatial sense for who was where, which meant that he grabbed onto the tail of his leader, and hung on there grimly until a Cylon heavy raider blew him to frak thirty seconds into the engagement.
Diving after the frakker, he fired, trying to keep it away from the ships of the fleet. Around him, he could hear the wireless chatter as the other pilots fought what sounded like a losing battle against the Cylons.
Twisting his viper under a ship, he rolled with the heavy raider, a little scared at how natural flying felt. He'd never tried it before, and after the recent little revelation of what he was (not who, because, frak it, he was Sam Anders, and he'd defend the people he loved first before he adhered to some shallow concept of race), he wondered if that had something to do with it.
While he watched, the raider flipped and pointed itself at him, red light splashing over Sam's viper.
He sucked in a breath, waiting to see if it could take down his guidance systems. When it didn't, he fired, actually hitting it, this time.
The raider flipped again and dove further into the nebula. Sam stuck to it, weaving between ships and clouds with an ease he'd never anticipated. The clouds suddenly went red, then shifted into a dense grey and up ahead the raider disappeared.
Sam was jarred backwards as his viper bucked from some sort of turbulence--he cast a wild glance around, trying to see whether he was being shot at or not--
"Galactica, Hotshot, I've lost the heavy raider, has anyone else got it in their sights?" Boy, had he. The thing had just vanished. The viper shuddered again and Sam wondered if it was his imagination that made it seem as though it was falling. There shouldn't be anything to make it fall, no planets, no moons, just the nebula.
As abruptly as he'd hit them, the grey clouds cleared, and he stared in shock as he continued to drop like a rock through atmosphere.
There was a city, far below, and a planet. And water--but he shoved those brief impressions aside and grabbed for the stick, yanking on it as he tried to slow his descent.
Gravity had suddenly become a problem.
"Galactica, Hotshot. Do you read me? There's a frakking planet, here. I repeat, there's a--" he swore and broke off to concentrate on not dying abruptly.
Static was the only answer he was getting anyway.
Frak. He wasn't sure he could get back out of atmosphere--at least not without landing to get his bearings. For an instant, he considered ejecting, but then he figured he'd wait until his viper was incapacitated. It lurched, then jerked into a semblance of a stable flight, skimming the air instead of falling through it.
'Track's recent joke about meat pancakes would not be coming true, just yet.
Unless he tried to land, anyway. Landing in zero gravity, Sam could probably do. Landing on a planet, when there was gravity to compensate for might see him getting scraped off the blacktop for a while.
Now that he wasn't falling, though, he could gaze down at the scenery a little better. Definitely a city, with smaller, outlying cities and towns in the distance. This one looked about the size of Delphi. Trying his radio again, he said, his voice strangely quiet, "Galactica, I don't know if you're getting this--"
The relay shrieked with static and feedback and then a voice came back to him, replacing the cacophony of sound, "They're probably not. This is Captain Jack Harkness with Torchwood, and you're flying in restricted airspace, over."
Shit. Frak. "I apologize, that wasn't my intention, over."
"We need you to land, over."
Ah. Double frak. "Listen, this is Lieutenant Sam Anders, Captain, and that might be a little bit of a problem. I'm a bit new at this, and I am... a bit shaky on my landings, over."
"A bit?"
When the silence had stretched, Sam coughed, realizing they hadn't bothered with the over, that time. He hated the stupid military callbacks, anyway. "Yeah, to be honest, I've never actually landed in atmosphere, over." He probably shouldn't be sharing that information--he should probably be trying to fly the hell back up and out of the atmosphere. But this was a planet, for frak's sake. Being paranoid about them could wait until he wasn't smashing into the pavement.
Besides. He was the one intruding on their airspace. And if he could just pinch himself awake from this frakking nightmare, he'd be happy.
"That could be a problem. Why don't we tackle it once you're at the airstrip?" The Captain replied, adding after a moment, "I'm going to put Toshiko Sato on, to make sure we can get you to the right coordinates, over."
Coordinates. Sam suddenly remembered there were instruments on his viper, and eyed them, trying to remember what 'Track had said about them. "Yeah," he replied, "Go ahead, over."
It took nearly twenty minutes for he and Toshiko ("just call me Tosh") to sort through a workable conversion table for his coordinate system to theirs. Once the mathematics were computed out, Tosh directed him to the airstrip fairly accurately.
Of course, in Sam's favor, the landing strip was pretty visible from the sky, the strip of grey showing like an old scar against the landscape of roads, trees and houses.
"Right, ok. I know where to land," Sam muttered, eying it. "But actually landing..." He hadn't really been talking to anyone but himself, but he was glad that Jack replied a moment later.
"I'm going to talk you through it, Sam. Do you trust me? Over."
Did he trust a man he'd never met, from a planet whose name he didn't know, while falling from the sky and being completely and utterly lost? Sam barked a laugh, then replied, "Yeah. I trust you. Go ahead, over."
Sam listened to Jack, with the sweat dripping into his eyes and a combination of cold fear and sheer exhilaration churning in his gut. He was loving flying, he just wasn't loving the stopping side of things. There was a brief moment of panic as he circled the last time through and the landing gear didn't want to deploy. Then they did, and he was gliding down, pulling back on the stick at the right moment and bouncing against the deck.
Brakes. He needed his brakes to stop. Stomping the pedal caused the inertia of the viper to cut down, but he was still moving forward and the kinetic energy threw him against his restraints.
Ow.
The viper shuddered to a halt halfway down the long stretch. Sam sat in the cockpit, eyes closed, and felt the adrenaline pumping through his veins like a bad high. Gods...
"Hey," Jack said, "You ok in there?"
Sam took a breath, then opened his eyes and released it. "Yeah." He noticed one of the vehicles that had been on the airstrip pull to a stop. The doors opened, spilling a tall dark-haired man and a shorter dark-haired woman onto the blacktop. The man waved.
Now, Sam was paranoid. Now, he was beginning to regret landing. On the ground, they could shoot him, blow him up... well, they could have shot him out of the sky, too. "Going to shoot me?" He asked, unable to help himself.
"Nope. We just wanted to have a chat." Jack replied. The man waved again, and Sam made the connection that he was Jack.
Which seemed reasonable. Talk was cheap, but it had gotten more than a few treaties drawn up. Sam wanted to laugh at himself: what the frak was he thinking about treaties for? He was no frakking ambassador. Landing had seemed like a good option, though. Especially since he had no idea where he was and hadn't heard a thing from the Galactica. "All right."
Sam unbuckled his restraints and reached to release the canopy. He had a moment of wondering if this was all a hallucination, and if he'd die in the vacuum of space when he cracked the seal. He shrugged, though. Sometimes, you just had to trust in the Gods. He might not be speaking to them, right at the moment, but there was still some faith in him left.
Licking his lips, he hit the release. The seals opened with a hiss as the pressures equalized. Shoving the canopy back on its track, Sam paused before he pulled his helmet off and sucked in a breath.
Not dead yet. And not recycled air, either. Sam closed his eyes again and just breathed, taking in the smells. After months of flat, stale air, even the undertones of fuel and ozone were a nice bouquet.
"Gonna get out?" Jack asked, and this time, his voice wasn't piped through the radio.
"In a minute." Sam half-laughed, wondering what Kara would think of him now. The stab of pain that went through him at the thought of her was as painful as it always was. Trying to dull the pain with alcohol and mindless sex hadn't really worked.
He stood up, a little shaky after the hours in flight.
"You all right?" Tosh asked, her voice raised over the wind.
"Yeah," Sam said. It was a lie: his wife was dead, he was stuck on a planet he couldn't name, and he wasn't sure he wanted to go back. Shoving his thoughts into a box, he moved to the side and hoisted himself up and over, dropping to the ground easily. His boots took most of the shock and he straightened and shook himself before he held out a hand to the two people standing there. "Lt. Sam Anders from the twelve colonies. Where the frak am I?"
"I'm Captain Jack Harkness," the man introduced himself with an engaging smile as he took Sam's hand and held it a second too long. "Tosh, you've met--"
The woman standing next to him smiled, even as she stayed looking almost deadly serious.
"--and it's a little complicated."
"What's complicated about where I am?" Sam asked, shaking Tosh's hand.
"It's less where and more when--" Jack seemed to realize Sam still had no idea what planet he was actually on, and added, "And welcome to Earth, by the way."
Sam blinked. "Where?"
"Earth." Like it was a perfectly normal place to find oneself.
Sam wasn't conscious of pulling his side-arm until he was staring down the barrel at a spot perfectly between Jack's blue eyes. "No," he growled, "No. This is some sort of frakking Cylon trick, isn't it? Because Earth is a Gods-damned frakking myth--" and Kara's to find, according to a destiny he no longer believed in.
"Whoa--" Jack raised his hands, "Hey. Take it easy, Sam."
"You tell me this is Earth, and you want me to take it easy?"
"But it is Earth," Tosh pointed out, sounding surprised that he doubted it, "Where else would it be?"
"Not possible," Sam grated out. "I don't just fall onto Earth, by accident. For one thing, we're a long way away--"
"For another," interrupted Tosh, her expression worried, "You came through the rift. There's no telling what time you came from. Maybe you don't call this planet Earth, where you're from?"
"Twelve colonies," Jack said, snapping his fingers, as he recalled Sam's introduction. "You didn't just fall through time, you fell through space."
"Whatever the frak that means." Not dropping the barrel of his weapon, Sam stepped back, bumping into the viper. It was almost comforting to find it still there. "None of this makes any frakking sense. What the hell is the rift?"
"It's an anomaly in space and time," explained Tosh. She stepped towards Sam, "Are you going to shoot us?"
As though there was something incredibly ludicrous in the idea, and Sam realized that there was. He laughed, the sound cracking at the edges. "I don't know. Should I?" But he lowered the gun. They hadn't done this to him, probably. He couldn't be certain of anything, but standing here, pointing a gun at them was going to get him nowhere. "So. This is Earth, huh?"
"Yes." Tosh smiled in relief at him.
"Frakkin' Earth. I wasn't supposed to find it," he mumbled to himself. He sagged back against the viper.
"Sam?" Taking her life in her hands, Tosh stepped forward and touched his arm. "You'll have to give me the gun. All non-Earth weapons have to be checked before their owners can hang onto them."
He blinked at her, and then laughed a little, releasing the side-arm into her hands. His instincts were telling him he could trust her. "Don't break it. Colonel Tigh will read me the riot act." If he got back. If he ever saw the one-eyed Colonel again.
She studied it, then carefully poked the safety, "Is this on?"
"Yeah." He gestured, "That way, off, that way, on."
"Right." Tosh opened the case she was carrying and set the gun inside. "I'll just test this out, later, and get it back to you once it's passed its inspection."
"Thanks." Sam rolled his shoulders and then looked at Jack, "How does the rift work? And how do I get back? There are people counting on me. Or is this a one-way trip?" He finished, half-guessing that truth already.
Jack looked sad for a moment, then he moved and clapped his hand on Sam's shoulder, "The rift doesn't work like that. Let's go discuss this over tea."
"Alcohol would be better," Sam suggested.
"Once we've made sure we won't kill you with vodka, sure," Jack promised, grinning again.
-=-=-
They took him in the van to an office of some sort. Along the way, he watched the city as they passed through; it reminded him strongly of Delphi, especially the glimpses he caught of the less savory places. There'd been places in Delphi he hadn't liked going alone. He didn't share these observations with Tosh or Jack, and neither seemed inclined to ask him about his past and origins while they were driving.
Before leaving the airstrip, Jack had assured him that the viper would be placed in a hangar and kept safe, for which he was grateful. If it was the last thing he had of the colonies (not that he believed that), he wanted to be able to see it again.
Torchwood was underground, and Sam had the fleeting sense of the slabs of earth pressing down upon him, smothering him. He shook it off and nodded to Owen Harper and Gwen Cooper when they were introduced to him. Ianto Jones smiled as he handed him a cup of tea.
While he sipped at the sweet liquid, Dr. Harper poked and prodded him, listening to his heart and taking at least three blood samples. Sam was used to being poked, between drug tests as an athlete and the various check-ups from Cottle and his people while on Galactica, though he was a bit amused to discover someone with a worse bedside manner than Cottle.
"Jack," Gwen said, interrupting Jack's random conversation with Sam. That was fine with Sam, he couldn't concentrate on what Jack was saying, anyway.
Sam rubbed a hand over his face and half-listened while Gwen said something about readings Tosh had recorded, and how they coincided with other readings they'd taken of the rift before.
"Yes, I know--"
"No--Jack, listen," Gwen rattled the paper in her hand, "I was checking them against these--"
"Are those the readings from the night the Americans were testing their 'stealth' craft?" Tosh asked, moving to look around Jack's shoulder at Gwen's paper. "I was looking at those earlier."
"I know. You still had them up when the computer was recording the new readings," said Gwen, holding a second sheet of paper next to the first. "I wouldn't have noticed it, otherwise."
"Oh my god. Jack--" Tosh didn't wait for an order, she moved out of the pit, heading up to her bank of computers and monitors.
Sam shook his head, listening as she typed and chattered at Gwen, the words making little sense to him. He'd caught their reference to a singular god, but had already accepted this was Earth. One more difference wouldn't change that opinion--and he doubted the Cylons could pull off something this damned elaborate, anyway.
"It gets better," Owen said abruptly.
"I'm sorry?"
Owen shrugged and started putting away the blood pressure cuff, hands careful. "Loneliness. It gets better, or so I've been told."
A laugh escaped Sam, and he shrugged, "Yeah, I've heard that, too." Not wanting to talk about loneliness, dead wives, and losing everything he'd known (again), Sam changed the subject. "So. What do you people do here, anyway?"
"We catch aliens, as Gwen would say," Jack replied, having finished his conversation. He flashed a grin at Sam, then looked at Owen, "So, is he human?"
"As human as I can determine, without running his blood work."
The thought of his recent revelation made Sam almost open his mouth to tell them. But then, he decided to see if it were true--would he test as human, according to their rules, or would he test as something else? "According to my wife, I'm way too frakking human," he said, instead. The words registered after they'd left his mouth.
"You're married, then. I'm sorry." Touching his shoulder again, Jack gave him a sad look. In some way, he seemed to understand the loss Sam was feeling. "You probably won't ever see her again."
A crack of laughter escaped Sam, and he smiled, knowing it looked unpleasant, "Damn right I won't. She's dead."
The sadness in Jack's eyes shifted to something indefinable, "I think you could use some more tea. Ianto?"
"I'll put another pot on," offered Ianto, smiling above his suit like he didn't understand loss in any way, shape or form.
Sam shook Jack's hand off and stepped back. "I've put a lot of trust in you people, gave up my weapon, landed, let you poke me full of holes. How about some straight answers?"
"I try not to let little labels confine me," Jack replied cheerfully. "You're safe here, the rift can't be used to send you back, and we have just as many questions about you. What are the Cylons?"
"Robots."
"And the twelve colonies?"
"Exactly that. Twelve planets settled after the exodus from Kobol--" Sam shook his head, "History was never my strongest subject in school. Asking where we come from is definitely more a question to put to Laura Roslin."
Jack nodded, then shrugged, "You're not telling me much."
"I don't like being interrogated. Call it a failing."
"Who said this was an interrogation?"
Sam grinned, stepping towards Jack, "Normal conversations have a better flow, a give and a take to them."
"I like giving," offered Jack, eyes frankly amused as they watched Sam. "But in this case, we need to make certain you, and these Cylons, are not a threat to Earth. Now, are you going to explain more or should I have Ianto drug your next cup of tea?"
"That would be sacrilegious," objected Ianto, pausing in the act of setting the tea tray down upon the exam table.
"I was always more of a coffee drinker," Sam admitted, though he still took the proffered cup from Ianto. "Thanks." He frowned, "Now there's a question: how come you all speak the same language I do?"
"Maybe Earth is an off-shoot of the twelve colonies, or vice versa?" Jack suggested. "Not that this would be the first time an alien race harvested Earth genetic stock to start its own breeding programs, of course. And it certainly won't be the last."
Appalled, Sam stared at him.
"What? You think humans populate the galaxy because they're just that miraculously lucky?" Jack asked, looking surprised.
"Are you saying we're genetic experiments?" demanded Owen, "Because that is rather insulting."
"Not you, Owen. The planets out there that have been colonized in the name of truth, justice and Earth. Half of them were probably originally started because some mad alien scientist wanted to push the boundaries of understanding. Or in some cases, provide breeding stock for vampiric aliens."
Pausing for effect, Jack flashed them both a grin, "Not that any of that's true, anyway. Mostly. Though there are cases of Earth genetic stock being found in places it had no place being."
"We're searching for Earth," Sam said, feeling that if he talked, Jack wouldn't. And while the off-hand, casual flirting was refreshing after most of the fleet avoided him like hell, he wasn't interested. Not yet, at least. "The fleet is, anyway. The Cylons destroyed the colonies, razed the planets and now we're on the run."
"Earth isn't exactly going to welcome you with open arms, you know," Jack said.
Sam shrugged, "I was beginning to get that impression. Does the general populace even believe in the existence of space travel?"
"Well, some of them do, most think it's just a lovely hallucination, though."
"Gods." Sam pinched the bridge of his nose, suddenly craving a cigarette, a large bottle of ambrosia and twelve hours' uninterrupted sleep with Kara pressed up against his back. Knowing the latter two were an impossibility, he asked, already anticipating the answer, "Any of you smoke?"
"Nah, I believe in clean living."
"Them things'll kill you," Owen said. He shook his head, "As a medical doctor, let me assure you that the damage done to your lungs is extensive. And complete crap, if you're really cravin'."
"It's all right, I won't offend your delicate sensibilities." Sam rubbed his hands over his face, then sighed. He was exhausted. He'd been sleeping like shit for weeks, ever since he'd started training. And then there'd been Tory, and he'd slept even less. "I don't suppose there's somewhere I could sleep?"
"There's a couple spare bunks in the morgue," suggested Owen.
Sam wasn't sure he was serious, but he decided not to ask. "No. A chair? Someone's coat I could borrow?" Not that he'd get cold, as Kara used to complain when she was wrapped in three blankets and cursing living on the coldest planet ever while he wandered around their tent in his sleeveless shirt and bare feet. But a coat would make a decent pillow.
"C'mon, there's a couch," Jack said. He touched Sam's arm and then led the way up the stairs, around and then up again. A small room off the main area had a couch, a set of chairs, and yet another large-screen tv that was currently tuned to something that looked vaguely like a sport of some sort.
Had Sam been more awake, he might have been interested. Since he wasn't, he ignored it in favor of dropping down onto the lumpy couch with a sigh. "Wake me when the world ends."
"We're hoping that won't happen."
"Again," said Owen.
Ignoring both of them, Sam leaned against the arm and closed his eyes. It wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't standing, and it wasn't a flat slab of concrete or mud. He'd live.
-=-=-
Sam clawed his way free of dreams he half-remembered: white light and laughing children and death. He figured it was a product of too little sleep and too much information and rubbed his eyes clear. The television was still on, the sound off. He watched the pictures for a time, not really caring what they were, just needing some sort of other information in his brain. Something to make this whole problem seem less real, or more real. He was stranded, cut off from the fleet and lost.
And the kicker was, he was lost on Earth. Frakking Earth, the mythical place Adama and Roslin wanted them to reach. Sam might have believed in Kara, and half-believed in her destiny, but he'd never truly believed in Earth. It had seemed like a far-fetched dream, something to dangle in front of the common man to keep him docile as they fled from the Cylons.
Kara would be laughing her ass off, if she could see him.
"Did you sleep all right?" It was Ianto, looking polite and efficient. He held out a steaming cup of coffee to Sam. "I thought you might want this."
It smelled like the stuff he used to get at the corner market in Delphi, when he was still living in that horrible apartment on the lower east side. Gods... he took it and breathed in the steam. "Thank you."
"You're welcome," replied Ianto, ever-polite. He gestured at the television, "Did you want sound?"
"Nah. Nah, man. I'm good." Sam closed his eyes as he took a sip from the mug. The taste flooded his senses, and he gave a soft little sigh. Gods. He hadn't had anything this good since before the colonies went up. The ships in the fleet had stores of coffee, but it wasn't particularly good.
Jack wandered into the room and leaned against the doorway. "Hey, Anders. What else was around you when you came through the rift?"
"The fleet, a Cylon fleet, buncha weird clouds because it was a nebula or something." Sam was so not a scientist. He shrugged, "Why?"
"We think something came through the rift before you did, but we're not sure."
A sick feeling clutched at Sam, "There was a heavy raider in front of me. Gods." The damage the Cylons could do seemed unthinkable, for a moment. "Look, if that's what came through, you need to find it. Those Cylons were set on destroying the human race, they're not gonna stop just because this is Earth--and that's if they even ask, or care, about where they are."
"We have found it, sort of." Jack frowned. "It was picked up by the Americans a few nights ago. I've put a call through to my contact in the NID, to see if they can let us come have a look at whatever it is they found."
Sam stood up, "I should go with you. I can tell you if what they've got is more than just space junk." Or if it was Cylons, or another viper, though that seemed like a remote chance--he'd had no one else around him other than the raider, which was what seemed the most likely candidate. "And if it's Cylons..."
"You're going to tell me all about the Cylons, while we go," Jack said, his tone uncompromising. "I want to know what sort of threat they represent and where they come from."
Sam tugged at his flight suit, since it was beginning to slide off his hips. He'd been a little surprised at how easy it had been to get used to wearing the obnoxious rubber thing.
"He's going to need a change of clothes, Jack," Ianto interrupted. "He can't go wearing that, even the NID'd spot he wasn't one of ours a mile away."
"Damn. You're right." Jack looked Sam up and down, and sighed, "We'll have to send someone out to pick up something."
-=-=-
Ianto had found Sam clothing that supposedly made him fit into the rest of Torchwood. Sam shrugged into the long coat he'd pulled out of a closet, and felt a little weird. It was strange, having new clothing like this. Everything in the fleet had been used and over-used, without stores, it hadn't been easy to have 'new' clothing, though some had tried to make their own on New Caprica. That hadn't gone so well.
The flight wasn't a short one, and Sam spent most of the time detailing the Cylons, their methods, and getting into a little Colonial history. He felt talked out and exhausted again by the time they landed. Passing through the airports, customs, and other checkpoints gave Sam another lesson in the colonies being similar to Earth. He hadn't felt this poked and prodded since the last tournament game against Picon, when there'd been a rumor that the players were all shooting up, and everyone had been stringently checked. Jack had permits for every one of the weapons they'd brought with them, including Sam's colonial side-arm. Jack had said it was just a precaution to bring them along.
Eventually, they were released from the airport into the escort of a man who didn't smile. Corporal Thompson drove them in a jeep to the base where the artifact was housed. He never spoke, and he didn't seem to care that after a while, even Jack gave up on conversing with him.
Sam took the opportunity to doze, guessing he wouldn't get to sleep for a while. Next to him, Tosh typed away on her laptop, working on a report, or possibly writing porn. Sam didn't really try to look to discover. Jack had considered bringing Ianto, Owen and Gwen and ultimately decided they needed to stay in Cardiff to monitor the rift, in case anything else came through. Sam got the distinct impression that Jack wasn't really sure he trusted his team. He wasn't going to ask, though, since it wasn't any of his business.
The base itself put them through almost as many checkpoints as the airports had, and Sam put on his best 'been there, done that' look after a while, not really caring if they thought he was mocking their security restrictions. Eventually, they were shown into an office.
Jack looked around the room, then moved and took the chair behind the desk while gesturing Tosh and Jack into the ones in front of it. "I'm sure you're wondering why I've called you all here today."
Leaning back in his somewhat uncomfortable chair, Sam propped his feet up on the desk. "Not really, no."
Tosh rolled her eyes at them and pulled her laptop out again, beginning to type within less than a minute.
Bored, Sam put his hands behind his head and contemplated another nap.
The door behind them opened again, and a man coughed, "I believe you're in my chair."
"It's a very nice chair," Jack told him, not moving.
The man came forward and shook his head, "I'm Colonel Bauer, and you're only here because someone in your government convinced Kinsey this would be in our best interests. So get the hell out of my chair."
"Ooh, touchy." Jack gave him a brilliant smile, but got up with a sigh, "I'm Captain Harkness. We were told you would show us what your stealth craft picked up over Cardiff earlier in the week--a breach of protocol, by the way, stealing our UFO."
"It was an unexpected complication," the Colonel replied stiffly. He moved and took his seat. "And I'm not so sure I'm authorized to show you our prisoner."
"You have a prisoner?" Captain Harkness raised an eyebrow, "My contact only discussed the craft."
Sam got the impression that the Colonel hadn't realized that, though the man didn't move a muscle to betray himself. "Then your contact wasn't as well-informed as I'd thought."
"As for my jurisdiction," Jack smiled, the expression cold. "That craft should have landed in Cardiff, which makes its passenger my responsibility. And if you'd like to double-check that, I can make a few phone calls for you."
"Don't bother. At this point, I'm beginning to think unleashing our prisoner on you can only do my people good."
"Really?"
"She's been dangerous and uncooperative since we first picked her up--three of my men are in the hospital due to the injuries she's given them."
Violence. A Cylon, then, though it sounded like one of the human models and not a centurion. Sam followed Jack's lead and stood, as though expecting the Colonel to lead them out to see his prisoner then.
"We've run a few tests on her blood, and there are genetic anomalies," the Colonel continued as he got up himself. "Though those are all beside the point, given the violence she keeps exhibiting. She's tried to escape three times." He said it as though it were impossible for a prisoner to ever want freedom.
Sam liked the man even less. He laid a bet with himself that the model they'd trapped was a Six. She'd always seemed so innocent and careful, but he'd seen the damage she could inflict, more than once. And all of the Cylons were adept at violence. He was just glad it didn't sound like a Leoben model, though that would at least afford him the pleasure of killing one.
After all, he couldn't let Kara have the highest tally, there.
The Colonel led them through several corridors and through at least one more checkpoint before stopping in what was obviously an observation deck of some sort. He gestured at the curtain, "I'm not authorized to allow you to speak with her, but I'll show her to you. Not that she's talking, other than to demand her release and curse at my men. I wish they'd decide she was a threat so we could do more to soften her up."
Sam felt a little sick at that--the prisoner might be a Cylon, but being treated like an animal was dehumanizing. He preferred to just kill them, torture was inhumane and made them no better than the Cylons.
Reaching out, Colonel Bauer pushed a button and the curtain began to slide open, "She can't see us, of course. Although she has tried to break the glass before."
He said something else, but Sam was no longer listening, over the roar of the blood in his ears. He'd just lost his bet with himself. The woman in the cell wasn't a Cylon. Feeling way too many emotions and thoughts at once, Sam clenched his fists and closed his eyes to steady himself. He should have known. He should have frakking known. Elation spiraled through him followed fast by fear.
Opening his eyes, he found Tosh had moved to stand next to him, her face turned half towards him, as though worried.
Sam wondered if he'd made a sound, and locked down on his thoughts and emotions again. It wouldn't do any of them any good if he gave the Colonel some sort of hold over them. He tuned back into the conversation.
"Are you sure we can't speak with her?" Jack asked, his voice almost uninterested.
Bauer laughed, "You think you can get more out of her than her name, rank and serial number?"
"Well. We do have our methods," Jack replied, his smile whimsical for an instant.
Shaking his head, Bauer pushed the button again, "As I said, I'm not authorized to allow you to do that. You'll have to take it up with my superiors."
A shudder went through Sam as the curtain cut off his sight of her. He wanted to throttle Bauer and smash the glass, to pull her out of there and go on the run with her, blowing shit up and losing himself in Earth. He shoved the emotions down, pulling on the iron and steel that had gotten him through the occupation on NewCap. His voice almost lazy, he said, "Even if we'd get more out of her?" He chuckled, "Not to mention, she is kinda hot. Maybe your people just haven't been talking right to her."
"If you mean they haven't been flirting, no, that's not what they're here for, Lieutenant." The Colonel bristled a little, "And if she were declared a threat, I could try a lot more on her. But they're dragging their feet--something about humanitarian rights." He sneered.
Gods. Sam ached to rip his face off for those words. He felt sick and hoped it didn't show as he shrugged, "Honey attracts more bees than vinegar, sir."
"That's flies, lieutenant, and when I want your opinion, I'll ask for it."
"Yes, sir," Sam replied, sneering a little. "I just hope that stick up your ass is comfortable."
"Anders." Sounding as though he were halfway amused, Jack shook his head, "Don't argue with a superior officer, Sam. Colonel, I think we'll see your appropriated spacecraft and then we'll settle in a nearby hotel for the night."
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It's too long for one post