Stargate SG1 Fan Fiction ❯ The Secret Life of a Major General ❯ Chapter 23 ( Chapter 23 )

Chapter 23

Detachment 3, Air Force Flight Test Center, Nevada Test and Training Range, NV
June 10, 2005
Morning

Sam looked at the Goa’uld characters streaming past on her computer screen as she adjusted the phone cradled between her shoulder and ear. “You’re confident that the linguists here have translated it right Daniel?”

“Yes Sam,” Daniel repeated patiently on the other end of the phone line. “I’ve gone over it—twice—just for you even though I should be working on the Nalini treaty draft. I don’t know why you’re so interested in this. It’s just mostly medical jargon as far as I can tell.”

“Nothing really big Daniel,” Sam soothed as her fingers clicked on the keyboard in front of her, pulling up the English translation to run alongside the Goa’uld simultaneously on a different monitor. “I just wanted to make certain that they had it right. They were also happy to hear that you’re so pleased with their translation. You’re something of a hero to the linguists here.”

“Yeah, well,” Daniel said faintly, embarrassed by the praise. His tone of voice turning more serious as he questioned Sam again about the ordeal she had undergone ten days ago. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” Sam stated exasperated, tired of rehashing the incident. “I already told you, besides being kidnapped I was just kept tied up all the time. No drugs, no torture, just threatening words from the Trust operatives that watched over me every now and then. I only ever saw Oceanus once, shortly after the street thugs grabbed me, and never even knew about Athena.”

It was the truth. Other than the initial terror that she had been kidnapped for more medical experimentation, her time as a captive had been almost as boring as sitting in an alien cell waiting for SGC to negotiate SG-1’s release. The reason for her capture had been as patiently stupid as the ones for sitting in one of those off-world cells. She had been seen and recognised by the Trust operative in the limo and Oceanus had arranged to have her captured because she had sensed naquadah in the vehicle.

She had suspicions there was more than that reason—Kinsey had been infested by a goa’uld after all—but she had not known until a comment made in passing by Barrett, once rescued, had confirmed that Oceanus had also been the one that had arranged for the kidnapping of Emily and Tyler O’Neill.

Hearing Major Altman and SG-5 stormed the room she was being held in had been a relief from the tedium of being guarded twenty-four seven. Learning that the general had commanded the rescue op had simply confirmed once again her faith that her team would come for her.

Once the goa’ulds had been secured General O’Neill had been understandably focused on his children—neither of which she had seen—and she had only met up with him along with Colonel Masiello for the debriefing on Oceanus and Athena’s disappearance. When Masiello had departed to interrogate Oceanus the general had held her back and questioned her directly about her ordeal and how she was fairing. Questions from everyone else that were getting tedious.

“Dr Lam and the doctors here confirmed that there was nothing done to me and Masiello still made me take a few days off after the General left before allowing me back on base,” Sam complained to Daniel.

“Sam, we’re just concerned about you.”

Sam sighed tiredly as she rubbed her forehead. “I know Daniel, but you and Pete and everyone else keep asking me and it’s getting tiring.”

“I’m sorry,” Daniel stated and tried to steer the conversation away from the kidnapping incident. “How is Pete by the way? Are we getting invitations any time soon?”

“Pete’s fine. I spent the weekend in Denver last weekend enduring his and his family’s coddling,” Sam muttered with remembered disgust. Pete’s mother Hilda had driven her up the wall with her soliciting, walking-on-eggshells attitude and she did not think she had ever been so thankful to get on a three-hour flight back to work.

Upon returning to Nevada she had discovered that she had missed all the excitement of HWS sources locating a building in downtown Seattle, the Halcyon Tower, constructed of Earth materials and naquadah by Ba’al. From what she had read of Julia Donovan’s article in the Insider’s Access was that the tower’s demolition had been explained as owing to a flawed superstructure because it had been laced with an ‘unstable’ synthetic material when the building’s owners had cut construction costs. A good a cover story as any the program had ever come up with.

Sam turned her thoughts back to the Daniel’s question to answer him. “Invitations have been ordered and I’ll be working with Cassie on selecting a bridesmaid’s dress in the next week or so.”

“Just Cassie as your bridesmaid?”

“Yeah, Pete offered his sisters but I barely know them,” Sam dismissed with a shrug. “Amy will be our flower girl… oh darn, forgot about getting her a dress.” Sam ruffled through the papers on her desk for a notepad and upon locating one and a pen wrote a note to call Mark’s wife Laura about her niece’s measurements. She could order the dress at the same time as Cassie’s as most bridal shops she had visited online and in person seemed to coordinate the bridesmaid and flower girl’s dresses.

“Amy…?” Daniel trailed off questioning.

“My niece,” Sam mumbled as she nibbled on the end of her pen. “She’s ten now. Surely I’ve mentioned her before?” Raising her eyes from the note she had just made her attention was caught by a particular phrase on the computer screen before her. “Daniel… I’ve got to go. I just got an interesting reading from one of the machines Oceanus had.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later Sam,” Daniel said obligingly.

“Yeah, later,” Sam said her mind already on what she was reading as she carelessly returned the phone to its cradle. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she entered more search parameters and called up more data from the DNA reader that Oceanus had had.

“What the…” Sam said quietly as she read the DNA reader’s final results. They couldn’t be right.

MATERNITY OF FEMALE ONE AND MALE ONE CONFIRMED
TO BE FEMALE TWO AT 99.99% PROBABILITY.

She knew from examining the tablet that her decoded genome had been stored in that ‘Female Two’ referred to herself. Female One and Male One were obviously the general’s two children, Emily and Tyler. But… maternity?

Sam turned a considering look to the pyramidal shaped DNA reader sitting on one of her lab desks. Turning back to the monitors in front of her, she picked up the phone again and dialled an internal number.

“Hi, Dr Barkway? This is Colonel Carter speaking. Could you come down to my lab for a minute?”

“Yes Colonel,” the female voice of a senior scientist on base responded. Doctor Nancy Barkway was currently involved in extracting naquadah from the Earth metals from the Halcyon Tower and was wondering why Colonel Carter was requesting her presence. “May I ask what for?”

“I want to check the validity of the DNA reader we just secured.” Sam went back to looking at the probability statistic. Hanging up the phone she dialled the security command center and gave one more order, “Airman, have Captain Barkway report to my lab.”

Two hours later, with Sam operating the necessary naquadah cued parts of the DNA reader, both she and Dr Barkway had come to the conclusion that the machine was accurate. Scanning both Nancy and Captain Dean Barkway had given a 99.99% probability of relation between mother and son.

“Too bad the device is Goa’uld,” Dr Barkway mused as she studied the results one more time. “It is much more thorough than our own DNA testing and would have readily application in the field. But that seems to be the way these devices go, it either needs to be reverse engineered or is broken.”

Sam could not disagree with that observation.

“Might I suggest though that we see if there are more personnel related to each other on base to test and see the probability percentage it gives for siblings and cousins?” Nancy suggested.

“We already know what the reader gave for the general’s twins,” Sam observed, “but it is a wise suggestions. To perform more analyses and compare with the known results.”

“I shall make the request of Colonel Masiello then?” Dr Barkway asked politely.

“Please do,” Sam responded giving the older woman a polite smile. “I don’t know how long it will take to go through on base personnel records but using the reader’s wand took a bit out of me and I think I should go and eat a large lunch.”

Nancy’s expression turned to one of concern, well aware of Sam’s recent ordeal and having witnessed the intensity needed by the colonel to operate the Goa’uld machine. “Do you need to see Dr Rude?” she asked naming DET 3’s chief medical officer.

Sam waved Barkway’s concern away with a casual hand. “No, I’m just feeling a bit hungry, that’s all.”

“Well if you’re sure…” Nancy said reluctantly as she headed for the door.

“Positive,” Sam said surely with a confident smile. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

As soon as the older woman and her son cleared the doorway and exited the lab Sam turned back to look at the machine with a grim expression on her face. She had not told the Barkways about why she had wanted to test the reader. And while more testing would be good, she did not think it would prove the first results she had read were in error. In fact, she would not tell anyone. Not until she was able to speak to a certain general about a certain result about maternity.