Confirming Carter Bk. 02 Daedalus Ch. 02

"Why do you think a vote would be so heavy in her favor?" Sheppard asked.

"Because nine hundred people have exchanged thirteen thousand emails on the subject, and that's what most of them say. Don't you people read your email?"

"I have." Tammy said.

"Why didn't you say something?" Sam asked her "What do they say?"

"I didn't say anything because you didn't want to hear it. And I didn't want you to get mad at Andi." She looked over at Andi. "And they've been talking about it longer than a few weeks, Andi. I started hearing about it right after she took over. People were saying that she should tell the IOA to get bent, and run the city the way she wanted. They knew she rescued our people from the replicator homeworld, and stayed with us while we landed the city. She put her ass on the line with us when she didn't have too. People respect that."

"I told you that you saved us, and I meant all of us, not just my team. You were what we needed, when we needed it." Sheppard said. "You gave us someone to rally around, and you reached out and let us know that you needed us to be strong, that we'd be okay. How much did you sleep in those first weeks? You were in every department, and knew every name in less than a week."

"I can't believe what I'm hearing." Sam said.

"Why Samantha?" Vala asked. "People know you care about them, and know you'll do your best to take care of them. When we first met, you gave me a chance. Ba'al only knows Daniel and Mitchell didn't. In our time together, I began to think of you as the sister I would have wanted. The do gooder that I knew would have my back when I needed her. No one had ever made me feel that way before. That's why I've missed you so much."

"She really was happy when she heard we were coming here." Daniel said.

"I need some time to think." Sam said as she stood up and walked to the door. She stopped and looked at them.

"Steven, go talk to your crew. Tell them what's happening, and give them their options. John, put a team together and inspect the Daedalus. Distribute the stores, and put the new troops in separate barracks away from our people. Set up a separate mess for them, and tell them that we need to keep them segregated because we don't want the IOA or SGC to know what's happened. Do the same thing with your crew, Steven. If we hear from Earth, we're going to say we haven't seen you. And we're not sending any of those people home yet. Not until I know what Ellis and the Apollo are going to do, so isolate them too, away from the other two groups. I want to keep leaks to a minimum, so Daedalus is need to know."

She threw her head back, took a deep breath, and started again.

"Daniel, get with Andi, and work out the details of what needs to be done on your outpost. I'd like to call it St. Louis, that was another gateway city, they filled up a continent going through there. Get with John and see who he can give up based on the skills you need. I'd like you to be ready to go in two hours."

"Tammy, take three ZPM's down to the power room, we can take care of that while Daniel and Andi are getting their team together. I'll work up a message for Teal'c while we're doing that."

"Vala, I'd like you to stay with me when Daniel goes to St. Louis. I don't want to be worrying about both of you."

"Jennifer, stay here, at least till Tammy gets back."

"I'll be in my office. Someone turn their eyes on."

She turned around and started down the hall.

"Shit, I just talked myself into a job." They heard her say.

Interior-Kitchen

1245 Hours

It was less than an hour before Daniel and Andi had gotten their team together. They had settled on a smaller team because they found matching skills among Sheppard's men. Sam told them that Daniel would go through first with three marines as security, and Zelenka had shown one of them how to install the ZPM's, and given them a checklist on how to bring the system up.

Andi and Daniel returned to Sam's suite, and found Sheppard and Caldwell at the foot of the table reviewing what they had completed. Radik Zelenka sat across from Caldwell, looking at his laptop.

"Are you sure that thing will work, Dr. Zelenka?" Caldwell asked, pointing to a small device sitting between them on the table.

"Yes, yes. With what we learned from the ancient database, now that we can read it easily, installing the cloaking generator on the Daedalus will be no problem." Zelenka said, turning his laptop so they could see it. There was a pair of schematics on the screen. "We've successfully integrated ancient equipment into our systems before. And since their technology is so similar to the Asgard's, we'll actually have fewer modifications to make than usual. If there are no problems, we should have this installed in a day. But I'd like to have two, just to make sure."

"No problem, doc." Sheppard said, picking up the device and turning it in his hand. "Take your time and do it right. We need to know it's going to work when we need it."

He paused and looked at Zelenka. "Has she appointed you chief scientist yet?" He asked.

Zelenka nodded, and took the cloaking generator from Sheppard, sitting it carefully on the table.

Sheppard grinned down the table at Samuels. "What does that make him, doc? Royal wizard?" he asked her.

"I like that." Andi said, bringing up her list and making a note. "I was wondering where we were going to get one."

Tammy stepped into the room and filled a glass with ice, and took two cokes from the fridge. "She wants to talk to you Andi. Take these with you." She said as she sat them in front of her, then walked around the table and sat next to Vala.

Andi took the drinks and walked down the hall to Sam's office.

Interior-Office

1255 Hours

Andi handed Sam one of the cokes and the glass as she walked into the office.

"Can I have this one?" She asked, holding up the other one. Sam nodded, and Andi popped the tab, took a sip, then sat it on a table beside her. She sat in a chair in the corner, and waited for Sam to speak.

Carter opened her coke and poured it as she leaned against the desk. She looked up at Samuels, but didn't say anything. She sat the drink on the desk, and dropped the can in a trash can, then pushed off the desk and stepped forward.

"You have three minutes to tell me why I should do this." Carter said as she started pacing back and forth in front of the desk.

"It's the smart thing to do, it's what we need to do, your people want it, and you're the only one that can do the job." Samuels said, crossing her legs as she leaned back in her chair. "I'm done."

"That's it? That's all you're going to give me?" Carter asked.

"You already heard from a room full of people giving you excellent reasons why you should do it. I can't make you want the job, Sam, but you've already got it, and I don't think you're going to quit. All we're really doing is changing the job title and adding a little to the job description."

She paused, looked at her tablet, then back up at Sam. "There are direct, and immediate benefits. A chance for improved relations with two powerful groups in Pegasus being the most important, one of which could come with manpower and ships. That alone should sell you on the idea. Improved standing with the rest of the societies in Pegasus, because we've broken off from Earth, are standing on our own, and are taking steps to grow and expand, without taking from them. We'll also improve our trade prospects through these first two items."

"Yeah, those are valid points. And like you said, we're just changing the job title. How involved do we have to make this?"

"The full monte for the first few months, maybe the first year. After that, we can scale it back. I was planning on modeling the government and the court after the Grand Duchy of Monaco. They keep the pageantry to a minimum, with a few state occasions every few years. Then our independence day, and your birthday, of course."

"What kind of occasions?" Sam asked, beginning to sense that Samuels was trying to slip something past her.

"The coronation of course. That has to be a big, high fallutin' affair, and Atlantis is perfect for it. Then there's funerals, royal weddings, royal births. But most of those are decades off."

"We'll need to make up a guest list for th..." Samuels continued, changing the subject.

"Back up a minute. Did you say royal births?"

"Yes...you'll have to produce an heir. Preferably in the first, but no later than the second year." Samuels said, looking at her steadily. "And we won't be able to fake it."

Sam went over to the door and jerked it open. "TAMMY!" She yelled at the top of her lungs.

Tammy came running into the room, and when she saw that Sam was okay, she grinned and said, "You bellowed?"

"She...she wants...she said I hav..." Carter sputtered, unable to make herself say the words.

"I told her she has to produce an heir." Andi said, trying not to smile.

"Well, I was going to wait a year bef..."

"What? You too?" Sam said, staring at her incredulously.

She went back over to the door, opened her mouth, then closed it. She stormed out, walking quickly down the hall to the kitchen.

"Those two say that I hav...they want...I don't...I can't! I'm not marr..." She said in a rush, pointing down the hall.

Tammy and Andi came in a moment later.

"What's she trying to say, Tammy?" Vala asked. "She's not making any sense."

"I've never seen her like this. What the hell happened?" Sheppard asked.

"Nor I." Teyla added

"No, tell me you didn't." Daniel said, looking at Andi.

Andi nodded. "I told her that she'll have to produce an heir."

"She doesn't appear to be taking it very well." Vala said.

"Ya think?" Sam shouted at her. "I don't want to have a baby! I'm not married. I can't have a baby!"

Tammy went over to the freezer and took out a bottle, then went over to the cabinet and got a small glass. She filled the glass, took Sam by the arm and led her to her seat. When she was settled, she handed her the glass and said, "Here, drink this."

She tossed down the drink, then coughed, her eyes watering. She looked back at Tammy over her shoulder, and held the glass out. Tammy filled it, then got a glass for herself and sat down. She filled the glass, sat the bottle on the table and turned to Sam.

"There's no other way, Sam." Andi said softly as she took her seat. "We have to have an heir to ensure the line of succession. And I think I'm about to make matters worse. Your not being married works to our advantage. The occasion may arise, before your heir reaches maturity, where..."

"Noooooo..." Sam said, staring at her wide eyed. She looked at Tammy

"It won't mean anything Sam, it will be purely political." Tammy said, taking her hands in both of hers.

"Couldn't you have waited?" Daniel asked. "At least until you had her committed to the idea?"

"No, I won't do that. She has to know up front. And she may not be committed to the idea, but she's accepted it." Samuels told him.

"You know that this is the only way we can make your plans come to fruition, Sam." Andi said.

"She's right Daniel. With what everyone said earlier, it does makes the most sense." Sam said. "It's just going to take me a while to get my head around it is all."

She looked at Samuels. "Can I use a donor? Or do I actually have to..."

"It's your realm, you can do damn near anything you please." Samuels said. "And I have a donor in mind already if we go that way. We'll get good offspring."

"Using a donor lets us screen out bad matches, look for undesirable traits and defects." Jennifer said. "I'm not talking about doctoring the DNA, just picking and choosing which little swimmers we let into the pond. and I think we should go in vitro anyway."

"Do you have a time table for all this, Andi?" Caldwell asked. "It seems like you're putting the cart before the horse. I'm not completely sure that this is a done deal yet."

"Forty-five days after the last threat is removed, we declare our independence, and announce Sam's election as ruler, queen, we can work out the language later. The coronation would be sixty days after that." Andi told him. "I have an outline that I've been playing with, more to entertain myself than anything else. I'll forward it to you later if you'd like."

"Yes, please." He said. "My daughter is a wedding planner and...we talk sometimes."

"I'm thinking that last threat is the Apollo. You're in a better position to tell us what they might bring to bear against us, that you didn't have. And what else the IOA may have to throw at us. I'll want to get with you and John later on that."

She looked at Sam. "We have two months before we have to get serious, so you have half that to make your final decision. I'll start making plans based on the presumption that you're going to agree. I think we can table this until we know for sure that we're going to need it."

"That's the best idea I've heard in the last half hour." Carter looked around the table. "This does not leave this room. Is that understood?"

She stood up and looked down the table at Daniel. "Let's get you going. I want to know more about the latest addition to my domain."

Samuels smiled as she looked down at her tablet, making a note of the date and time.

Interior-Gateroom

1455 Hours

It was more than an hour and a half before they heard from Daniel. They had had trouble bringing the outpost's power up, but they finally figured out that a breaker panel had tripped. Once they reset it, systems began coming up all over the compound.

Daniel told them that it would be several hours before he would be able to return. Carter objected at first, until he told her that he had already contacted Teal'c while the marines were working on the power problem, and that he had agreed to come to the outpost, and return with Daniel.

Carter had spent most of the time pacing back and forth behind the Ops tech's console. He had finally turned around and spoken to her.

"Excuse me, colonel. Would you please sit down, or go in your office?" He said. "I'm sorry if I'm out of line, but asking me if I've heard anything every five minutes isn't going to make them dial in any faster."

She looked at him, then grinned. "You're right Chuck. I'm sorry." She said as she pulled a chair over and sat down. "Can I?" She asked, nodding toward the console.

"Feel free." He said, "No one's around."

She leaned back in her chair and put her feet up on the console.

"Would you talk to me, Chuck? I'm out of touch, I don't get to talk to anyone anymore." She said. "I want to get out and talk to people, but there just seems to be so much to do, ya know?"

"Well, it's been quiet around here lately, colonel, now that we're not using the gate as much, so we have time to look at the ancient systems. Being able to read ancient makes it a breeze. I've been wondering who I should ask if we can disconnect our equipment, and just use theirs."

She nodded. "Not a bad idea. We'd free up gear we can use somewhere else, and theirs is probably more efficient anyway. Write it up, and give me a list of what systems would be affected, what equipment is freed up, along with a risk assessment. From what I read, there was alot of jury rigging at the beginning, and I want to know if we can undo it safely."

"Peter Grodin and I did most of the work up here. He died the first year, he was on an ancient satellite when the Wraith blew it up. They had already taken out one Wraith cruiser, but the power went out on them before they could get any more." He told her. "There wasn't as much jury rigging as you'd think, and when we reworked the system after the replicators rebuilt Ops, we patched in clean, so taking it out won't be a problem."

He looked down and checked his console, made an adjustment, and spoke to a team on the north pier.

"Another storage facility, colonel." He told her. "Looks like raw materials and spare parts. That'll come in handy."

"I knew exploring would be a good idea. How's the map looking?" She asked.

Chuck threw up a projection of the city in front of them. "The grey areas are unmapped, green is manufacturing, red is storage, and blue is residential." he grinned at her as he dropped everything but the blue off the map. "There's sixty thousand empty dwellings out there, and we haven't gotten to them all yet. And they're nice places too, I've seen pictures. There's alot of chatter about people wanting to upgrade quarters. I mean, after four years of sharing a little cubby, I wouldn't mind having a place to myself."

"I'm going to get to that, and soon. We'll need to get an inventory before we can start moving people around. We can't have people scattered all over the place. We have to keep them together. I'm thinking about splitting them out across the three main piers." She paused, then looked over at him. "Can you tell me what else people are talking about? You don't have to, I'm just curious."

"They're happy to finally be doing something they think is worthwhile, and they like getting out into the city and looking around." He said. "Alot of us are scared, we're not sure if this is going to work out or not, but most of us think we should have done it along time ago."

"Are they talking about how they think we ought to run the city?"

"Business as usual. You tell us what to do, and we do it." He said as he took down the projection. He disabled an alarm, and turned back to her. "There's some talk about what kind of government you should establish. Do you have any idea what you're going to do on that, colonel?"

"I'm an American, I was raised in a democracy. But I work in a military operation, that's basically a benevolent dictatorship. I have people telling me that a democracy would take too long to get going, and be inefficient, and we really don't have the population to support that right now anyway. Apparently, there are better forms of government for an emerging state, that would improve our standing in Pegasus, and leave us some diplomatic options open."

He hesitated, then said, "You don't sound too excited about those other options, colonel. There's talk about one of them, I guess that's where your people got it."

"What do you think, Chuck? What kind of society would you like to live in?" She asked him.

"I'm Canadian, colonel. We have a parliament and a prime minister. But we're still part of the British Empire, and for the most part, loyal to the queen, even though she's just a figurehead." He paused, then grinned sheepishly. "I'm partial to royalty, ma'am. I've been voting for you in the polls that are going around."

"How am I doing? In the polls I mean."

Chuck turned to his terminal and brought up his email. He opened a folder, and opened the first one at the top.

"That's the latest, I haven't read it yet."

"Oh my god, it's worse than I thought." She said, then looked at him. "I probably shouldn't have said that, huh?" She closed the email, and scrolled through the list. "There's over a hundred emails on just this, Chuck."

"Yes ma'am, it's a popular topic." Chuck said as he opened another folder.

Before he could show her more, the gate started to dial.

Interior-Office

1545 Hours

Carter was sitting behind her desk, going through her email. There were more than five hundred unopened mails, very few of them business related. She sorted them by topic, then started going through them, opening them randomly.

She spent the most time looking at the email list Chuck had shown her, but she found several on other lists that she forwarded to her staff. One was a detailed plan for relocating personnel around the city, and she thought the plan had merit. Another advocated importing refugees from worlds ravaged by the Wraith, and making them citizens. She marked both as priority, and added a note for her staff to contact the authors.