#4 in the Life's Little Problems Series
Color Outside the Lines
A Little!Danny fic by: Maj. Cliffhanger
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Part 25
Katie
Dixon was a wonderful woman; a really great gal. Jack had always said
Dave was blessed to have found her. Given the jobs they did and the
secrecy that was involved - well, not a whole lot of marriages
survived that sort of thing. Katie didn't ask inappropriate questions
whenever something went wrong, or question the sometimes questionable
cover stories that came about. Nope, she just lifted an eyebrow to
let you know she didn't buy a word of the BS you were spouting and
then changed the subject. Dave said she did exactly the same thing
with him.
Making
the call to let her in on the project had actually been a no-brainer
as far as Jack was concerned.
Yep,
great gal - with a mouth like a sailor when she was mad!
Jack
winced at the memory of some of her more colorful phrases when he'd
told her that her son, along with Col. Carter and Danny, had
literally vanished from one of Dr. Lee's labs. She knew Jack too well
to let his rank stop her. Poor Dave had actually blushed a little!
Yeah,
she'd taken it about like he'd expected.... Dave would probably
remove him from his Christmas card list after Jack left him to deal
with the aftermath.
He
paused outside the lab door to make sure he had the right one before
swiping his card through the security reader. The security lock
opened readily and he entered the rather austere room with a
determined stride to discover Dr. Lee bent over one of the lab
tables. The white-coated scientist didn't even look up.
He
had headphones on.
Frowning,
Jack cleared his throat and closed the door behind him.
Nothing.
He
tried clearing his throat again, a little louder. ...Okay, a lot
louder then!
Nope.
The man was oblivious.
With
a frown, Jack stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered forward to
see what was so goldarned interesting. It wasn't until he all but
elbowed the man aside that Ol' Doc Lee finally glanced up.
"General!"
he offered, startled by Jack's 'sudden appearance.'
Jack
flashed him a generic smile and waited for him to remove the
headphones. Apparently they were hooked to some sort of Gieger
counter he was using to sweep the device Carter's laptop was still
hooked up to.
"What
brings you-- Oh, the device!" He answered his own question
before he finished asking it and then, with a frown, turned back to
what he'd been doing. "Yeah, it's ... um ... I've really only
just gotten started here...."
He
didn't remove the headphones. Fighting the urge to sigh, Jack reached
out and tapped the left ear piece.
"What?"
Bill glanced up again, as though surprised Jack was still there, and
Jack gave him a little frown. Not a heavy one, or a dangerous one -
not even a really mad one! - just an irritated one. "Oh, right,
um.... You want an update." Bill Lee frowned back down at the
Gieger counter. "Well, um, I'm afraid I don't-- That is, um--"
He
still had those blasted headphones on!
"We
have fairly constant power readings here but, um--"
Jack
reached out and pulled one of the ear pieces away from his head. "It
might be easier to hear what I want if you take these damn things
off, don't ya think?" He released the spring loaded, heavily
padded earphone to 'plunk' itself back into place. Lee winced but
Jack was pretty sure he hadn't actually hurt him.
But
he did get his attention.
"Oh,
um, right. Sure." He finally reached up to remove the
headphones, settling them to hang around his neck. He offered Jack a
chagrined little grin. "What can I do for you, General?"
Finally!
Jack
offered him a rolling motion with one hand to get him going again.
"Constant power readings and..."
"And--
Well, nothing significant, I'm afraid. Some trace amounts of lepton
radiation. I'm not sure where it's coming from...." He shrugged
and glanced back down at the Gieger counter.
Jack
frowned sharply. "Did you say 'lepton' radiation?" Why did
that sound familiar? Something.... "Aren't those the things that
go through Nintendos or something?"
"Ninten--
Oh! You must mean neutrinos!" Dr. Lee corrected him, glancing up
in surprise. "Uh, not exactly. Leptons and neutrinos are
related. You see there are six kinds of leptons - or what we call
'flavors': electron, muon and tau, and then each of their related
neutri--"
"--Muon?"
Oh, this was important. Jack knew it was. If he could just....
"Ah,
yeah," Lee continued. "It's an unstable second generation
lepton. Neutrinos are - well, they're basically leptons without any
charge; and pretty much no mass either because they travel at close
to the speed of light which means they can pass through, you know,
anything!"
"--No
matter how dense," Jack finally had it. He snapped his fingers
as the memory clicked into place. "Several years ago. Daniel
found a crystal skull that turned him invisible. The muon radiation
messed with the rest of us pretty bad. There was something about
lepton radiation with it too?" He couldn't remember the details
of Carter's technobabble.
"Oh,
um...." Dr. Lee frowned in thought and glanced back down at the
device pensively. "Yeah, I remember reading about that. He
didn't just go invisible though, he actually.... He actually went out
of phase!" He glanced up again in sudden excitement. "Of
course! If this device is similar to-- which doesn't make any sense
at all. I mean, the two technologies are obviously so different!
Unless...!" he was obviously on a roll. "...unless the
giant aliens developed their technology completely separate from that
of the Ancients. Which would mean they were at least--"
"--Uh,
uh, uh!" Jack quickly waved a hand to get him to stop. His head
was spinning already! "Out of phase," Jack surmised when
the other man stuttered to a halt. "They're still here, we just
can't see them, right?"
The
phone on the wall decided to interrupt them.
Lee
moved to answer it even as he continued to talk to the general. "You
know what this means?" he asked in obvious excitement, ignoring
Jack's question. "It means they weren't vaporized like I was
starting to think!" He shook his head and sighed in obvious
relief even as he lifted the handset for the phone to his ear. "Lab
four. Dr. Lee speaking."
The
good doctor was lucky he hadn't voiced his working-theory to Jack
before this!
"Uh,
you-- what?" Dr. Lee frowned sharply in confusion and glanced
back over at Jack. "...Three X-ray vests moving on their own in
the infirmary?"
"It's
them!" Jack suddenly exclaimed, making an intuitive leap that he
was sure would leave Dr. Lee scratching his head to try and figure
out - but Jack knew he was right. He was sprinting for the exit
already. "Tell the guards not to shoot! I'm on my way!"
"Uh..."
Lee frowned in surprise as the other man abruptly disappeared. The
voice in his ear brought him back to the here and now. "You
heard that? ...Yeah, don't shoot. I'll, ah, I'll get my stuff and be
right down - but, um, General O'Neill will probably beat me."
* * *
The
X-ray vests felt really, really weird. The heavily padded vinyl
covering offered no resistance at all; but, because it was connected
to the lead which did, it basically sank into Danny and stayed there.
The longer it was there, the weirder it felt. And the lead itself,
was weird too - almost spongy!
A
nurse had sounded the alarm even before Danny shrugged the backwards
facing vest over his shoulders.
The
things were pretty much a one-size-fits-all type thing, which meant
they were big and awkward for Danny and Jason. Danny shifted
uncomfortably and fought back a shiver as he watched Jason struggling
with his.
And
they were heavy: definitely heavy.
"Sam!"
Danny cried in alarm as he looked down.
"What?"
She turned as she was in the process of putting on her own vest and
immediately saw his predicament. He was sinking into the floor! "Get
it off, quick!"
"Whoa!"
Danny
wasn't the only one in trouble. Sam dropped her vest and grabbed at
Jason as he suddenly found himself in quicksand-like cement.
Danny
was half way-up to his knees as he struggled to shove the vest off
his shoulders and chest again. Unfortunately, whatever property made
the lead feel spongy, also made it sticky!
And
that was when Security showed up.
Danny
could only imagine what it must look like from the SFs' point of
view: one vest on the floor, two others jerking around in mid-air a
couple inches off the ground. Sam shifted her hold from Jason to his
vest and helped him pull it off. It dropped to the ground with a loud
thud even as the SFs drew their weapons and aimed at Danny. He was
still struggling with his vest and was now up to his knees in floor.
The deeper he got, the faster he sank as the mass of the floor
offered less and less resistance.
"Danny!"
Sam made a grab for him and missed even as the bottom edge of the
vest hit the floor. It actually stopped his sinking - at least until
he lost his balance and suddenly felt himself falling backwards.
Everything
was so cold and weird. The weight of the vest was half-crushing his
chest while forcing his torso through the floor! Sam let go of his
arm even as she and Jason both grabbed the vest and pulled. It
actually helped pull Danny up out of the ground. And then the vest
was gone and Sam was tossing it aside and hugging him close as he
shuddered violently.
"Don't
shoot!" someone was shouting.
Sam
suddenly grabbed Jason and pulled him close, shielding both boys with
her own body.
"General
O'Neill says not to shoot!" 'someone' repeated even as Danny
remembered that bullets had lead in them. They wouldn't really shoot
at the now still vests, would they? "He and Dr. Lee are on their
way."
The
SFs exchanged glances and backed up a step, but didn't lower their
weapons.
Danny
looked up at Sam. "Well, we got their attention," he smiled
as he fought back another shudder.
* * *
The
obelisk was only about fifty yards away when Cam shot a fist into the
air, signaling a halt. A gentle little breeze was playing in the
boughs overhead and stirring the top layer of leaf litter, making the
detection of an unknown enemy that much harder. The sparse and
slender trees didn't really provide any cover. Normally that would be
both good and bad, but if they were facing Volnek - it was just bad.
He didn't need to take cover to ambush them. He just had to use that
handy-dandy cloaking device the Sodan liked so much. 'Probably how
he'd taken out most of the village.
But
then, Cam wasn't convinced yet as to whom they were facing. Something
had to be more than messed up with the guy for him to mindlessly
slaughter his own people like that!
Knowing
chances were better than good that they too could be heading into an
ambush, he issued a series of short, sharp hand signals asking Teal'c
to fall back and cover their approach. Teal'c nodded his
understanding. Then with a sweep of Cam's hand, he and Hadden set out
again, separating to come at the objective from different angles.
No
point in giving the enemy too tempting a target.
The
unmoving and fallen forms of Stevens and Conway were now clearly
visible. Hadden sprinted the short distance to the nearest man as Cam
covered him. Stevens had taken a couple of hits from the looks of it
before collapsing at the base of a tree. Cam quickly continued to
where the second man had fallen not far from the obelisk itself. A
low moan greeted him.
"Conway's
alive," he called over to Hadden even as he quickly backed
toward the obelisk. It was their only way out of here. If anyone was
going to attack them, it'd be now....
No
sounds. No movements. If Cam were lucky and Volnek close enough, he
might get a one second warning when the other man primed his staff
weapon before firing.
Hadden
hurried over to check out Conway. Cam continued to scan the immediate
area as the major verified the other man was still alive. The SG-12
commander trusted his back to Cam and quickly retrieved a morphine
pen from his vest. A quick flip of his thumb removed the safety cap
before he deftly jabbed it into the injured officer's thigh even as
Conway struggled to speak.
"I
never ... saw him," the younger man gasped, trying to warn them.
"The shots ... came out of nowhere!"
Cam's
gaze continued to scan the surrounding area. Still nothing....
He
glanced toward Teal'c and lifted his hand to wave the Jaffa in.
Either this had been a hit and run and Volnek was long gone, or he'd
taken one look at the three of them in their highly defensive
postures and decided the odds weren't good enough. Earth weapons had
the advantage of being able to spray a large area with bullets and
were much more effective in such a situation than a staff weapon.
Invisible of not, a bullet could still kill him.
As
Teal'c came up, Cam turned to the obelisk and quickly input the code
to activate it. They needed to get help for Haikon and Conway both.
He wasn't at all happy about having left the medic alone in the
village when they didn't know for sure where the enemy was. They
definitely needed some back up on this one.
Nothing
happened.
Frowning,
he tried the code again. He knew he'd got it right the first time,
but-- Still nothing.
Damn it!
Hadden
glanced up from where he was applying a pressure bandage to the
injured officer's chest. "We've gotta get him back to the Gate
now."
Yeah.
Cam had kinda figured that out already!
Teal'c
stepped forward as Cam turned his attention back outward again. The
Jaffa pried the heavy stone panel open to reveal the Ancient crystal
technology that was the heart of the device. He scanned it quickly
and slid it shut once more.
"Someone
has removed one of the control crystals."
Of
course they had. Perfect little trap. Let the enemy in, then pick
them off one by one when they discovered they couldn't get out again.
Hadden
was a little slow on the uptake. "Then how are we supposed to
get out of here?"
Teal'c
frowned and joined Cam in scanning the surrounding undergrowth. "We
cannot," he answered simply.