Part 30 (2/2)

Dixon nodded. ”Yes sir, they did.” He looked uncomfortable. ”Sir, requesting permission to stay Earth-side.”

Hammond didn't know him well, they'd crossed paths only once before, but he knew Dixon was a good man and this request was unexpected. ”Why, Colonel? They need you out there on the Alpha Site.”

Rubbing a hand across his face Dixon said, ”Lainie, my wife - She's expecting our first child in a couple months, sir.”

Hammond closed his eyes for a moment, as if that could block out this one small tragedy among so many billions of tragedies. ”And you want to be with her,” he said and didn't add at the end.

But Dixon shook his head. ”No sir, she was in DC when the a.s.sault began.” His face went tight and hard; they both knew that Was.h.i.+ngton must have gone already. ”I want to fight, sir. I don't want to run from the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds.” He jerked his head up toward the skies above the mountain. ”There are good men and women dying up there, sir. I want to join them.”

It was a sentiment Hammond fully understood, but sometimes dying was the easy option. He considered Dixon for a long moment, tried to take the measure of the man in the few moments they had together. What did he know about him? He'd served under Frank Cromwell and had led the Pentagon Strike Team since Cromwell's death here at the SGC. Dixon had an honest face, but it was full of banked rage and grief and he was burning to fight back. He might just be the man Hammond needed to put his plan - worthy of O'Neill in its reckless optimism - into action. ”You really want to fight, Colonel?”

”Absolutely, I do, sir.”

”You know we can't win.”

”We can die trying.”

Hammond nodded, folded his arms and issued the challenge. ”What if I said there was something else you could do? It won't turn the tide - nothing can do that now - but it could save lives. A lot of lives.”

”I don't want to run,” Dixon reiterated. ”Lainie deserves more than that.”

”It means staying on Earth,” Hammond said. ”I'm talking about resistance, son.”

He s.h.i.+fted his feet. ”How? Doing what?”

”It's a crazy plan,” Hammond warned. ”In all likelihood it won't succeed and you won't survive.”

Dixon gave a bleak laugh. ”It's the end of the world, sir. What have I got to lose?”

That made Hammond smile, made him think that maybe his last stratagem might pay off. ”There's a C-5 at Peterson,” he said. ”It's fully crewed and waiting for orders - a.s.suming the base is still standing, of course.” That was the first roll of the dice. ”You'll have to get out of the mountain first and over to Peterson. When you find that bird, I want you to take her to Groom Lake.”

”Area 51, sir?”

Hammond nodded. ”Retrieve the Beta gate and its DHD and take them as far away from here as possible. Find somewhere remote - perhaps with one of our overseas allies. Somewhere secret, somewhere no one who's compromised by the Goa'uld would know about. Get the gate working, keep it working for as long as you can, and send as many people as possible through to the Alpha Site.” He gestured to the forlorn procession of evacuees. ”These shouldn't be the only people with a chance, Colonel. Humanity needs more than them if it's to survive.”

Dixon's face had blanched, but he was a good, solid man and he was up for the fight. Hammond might just have laid the salvation of humanity on his shoulders, but he wasn't going to buckle under the strain. ”I'll make it work, sir. We'll resist these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds all the way.”

Hammond nodded. ”Yes we will, son.”

”What about you, sir?” Dixon said. ”Won't you come too?”

”No,” he said. ”My place is here until the end.”

Dixon took a breath and nodded. ”Understood, sir.” Drawing himself up, he offered a sharp salute. ”Good luck, General.”

Hammond returned the salute. ”G.o.dspeed, Colonel.”

And with that, Dixon turned and started weaving his way through the orderly chaos of the gate room, breaking into a run as he left through the blast doors and disappeared into the emptying base. The dice were rolling now and Hammond knew he'd never find out how they landed, but he had faith in his people - in Dave Dixon and the crew of the C-5, in humanity as a whole. They might be down, but they weren't out yet. And if Dixon could offer mankind a chance, a way of enduring and fighting back, then maybe these would not be humanity's final days on Earth. At the very least, Dixon could offer them hope and sometimes hope was the most powerful weapon of all.

Shocked silence filled the room.

More than shocked, Jack thought, it was a kind of breathless incomprehension. How could this man be Teal'c's young son? His mind felt like it was struggling to change gears, struggling to process something so impossible.

”How?” Teal'c said at last, voicing the question they all shared. ”You were a boy when last we were together.”

Dix - or could it really be Rya'c? - nodded. ”So I was, but that was close to one hundred years ago.”

Daniel's breath left his lungs in a rush of disbelief. ”What?”

”Oh my G.o.d,” Sam gasped.

Jack just pressed his lips together in a hard, skeptical line. Bulls.h.i.+t.

Teal'c seemed to share his opinion. ”Why should I accept your word on this?”

”Because it is the truth and you are my father and must know your own son.” Dix drew a step closer, further out of the shadows, and Jack couldn't deny that the man bore a striking resemblance to Rya'c.

But Teal'c wasn't convinced. ”Your a.s.sertion is insufficient,” he said.

Zuri pushed herself forward, chin lifted with an angry cynicism that rivaled Jack's own. ”Dix,” she said, ”surely you can't think these people are really who they pretend to be?”

”I know my own father!” His flare of anger was familiar and Jack was disconcerted to see Teal'c react to it, as if in that unguarded moment he saw the boy he'd known. Rya'c had always been fiery.

Zuri wasn't cowed, however, and cast her gaze over Teal'c and the rest of them without conviction. ”How is it possible that they appear unchanged? This could be a Wraith trick.”

”Yeah, a trick is exactly what this is,” Jack insisted. ”If you're Rya'c, then I'm Rip Van Winkle.”

”Sir,” Sam said quietly, ”theoretically it is possible. This wouldn't be the first time the Stargate has connected with a gate in a different time.”

”And we've woken up in the 'future' before, Carter, and found ourselves in Hathor's happy place.”

”But we were unconscious then,” Daniel pointed out. ”This time we were awake all along. At least, you guys were, right?”

Jack acknowledged his point with a shrug, although it didn't really prove anything, and for a moment there was nothing between them all but silence.

Daniel made the most of the opportunity. ”Why 'Dix'?” he said. ”Why do you call yourself that and not Rya'c?”

Dix gave a tight smile. ”Because 'Dix' is a legend.”

”Yeah, we heard. He leads the resistance, apparently. Is that you? Is this... ?” Daniel gestured around them. ”Is this the resistance?”

”In a manner of speaking, yes.” He glanced at Teal'c. ”I adopted the name 'Dix' because it has meaning here. I need these people to trust me.”

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