Lost in Time and Space

Chapter One Written for The Review Lounge, Too 2015 Green Room Challenge. Challenge Twelve: Colliding Dimensions

Beta Read by InsertImaginativeNameHere


Chapter One

The group known as SG-1 slowly stood to their feet. This was not the planet they had been travelling to. No Stargate was insight or MALP around. The room had lit up moments after they'd arrived. They were standing in a storeroom of some type. No one was around. No sound suggesting that people were nearby. The air in the room was stale and smelt of diesel. The eerie sounds of fans and machinery clicking away undisturbed by their arrival. The equipment in sight looked aged, covered with a film of dust. Wherever they were, no one had been here for many years. This incident was reminding the group all too much of the time they ended up in 1969.

"Carter." Jack looked at the only woman of their group.

"I don't have an explanation for what happened, sir. There were no solar flares predicted for Earth. We've been better at predicting them since the 1969 incident. Maybe the solar flare was for the for the planet we travelled to. Or we went through a sun experiencing a solar flare." She continued listing off possible theories to explain how they'd ended in a location without a Stargate. Theories that Jack didn't understand.

"Let's find out where and when we are," Jack ordered his team.

They armed themselves and exited the room. Signs in the corridor were all in two languages. English and an unknown language - unknown even to the linguist of the group.

Daniel told them, "This language shouldn't be too hard to learn if these are actual translations. JMC is labelled on everything as well, I wonder what it means."

"Company acronym?" Sam suggested.

"I'd assume so. It was on all the boxes in the room we arrived in," Daniel noted. "Similar to how everything for the base is marked as SGC."

They walked for many hours, not finding any signs of people. Opening doors to rooms that had long since been abandoned.

"O'Neil," Teal'c alerted the group. "It appears we are on a ship."

"Carter, any ideas where we are?" Jack asked.

Sam stood at the window for a long time, glancing at the different stars surrounding them. If anyone could figure out their location from the stars, it was the astrophysicist of the group.

"No sir, I don't recognise any of the star systems. We are in an entirely unknown part of the galaxy," she replied.

"Let's find a computer and find out where the closest planet with a Stargate is," Jack suggested.

"There are monitors everywhere, yet I don't see an interface for any of them," Sam pointed out. "Maybe when the ship was running it showed updates."

There was nothing on the ship indicating that it was nightfall. Going by their watches, it was getting late.

The group of four entered a small room setting up camp for the night.

"T, you take first watch," Jack asked the most silent member of the group. Teal'c nodded. "I'll take next watch. Daniel, Carter. You two get as much sleep as you can, we have a long day tomorrow. We'll need your expertise if we're ever going to get home," Jack ordered the two scientists.

- SG-1 -

They'd been on the ship for four full days. Four full days without coming across another person or even a computer for Daniel and Carter to look at. They'd covered several floors a day, finding nothing. According to the stairways they'd taken, there were many floors above and below.

"There are also a lot of vending machines," Daniel pointed out. "Maybe we should attempt to use one as a computer interface."

"You can interface with the computers in the drive room." The vending machine answered in a crackling tone to everyone's surprise.

They all shared a glance before turning back to the vending machine. They'd been walking past vending machines for days and not one had attempted to talk to them. They hadn't even tried to use them since they still had rations for the mission.

"How would we get to the drive room?" Jack asked the vending machine.

"How should I know? I'm just a vending machine. All I do is sit here all day. Every day. You should ask the lift. She gets to travel. Unlike me who is stuck here day after day," the vending machine complained. It was evident that it didn't like sitting in one spot all the time.

"Where would we find the lift?" Daniel asked.

"That is her just there. Directly across from me."

"Thank you," Daniel said to the vending machine.

"You just thanked a vending machine," Jack teased.

Daniel shrugged. "It talked."

Jack pressed the button for the lift. The display lit up counting down the time. "Expected arrival time 1 hour 36 minutes 50 seconds."

"We have to wait that long for the lift?" Jack asked.

"What do you expect? That you can instantly teleport between the floors. She has to travel here first before you can talk to her," the vending machine said in a crackled tone as if they were stupid.

"Do the stairs lead to the drive room?" Sam asked.

"Eventually. But that would take you weeks to travel to whatever floor the drive room is on. From talking to the lift, it takes her four hours to go from the top floor to the bottom floor if she doesn't have to stop for passengers."

"Are there many passengers?" Sam asked.

"Not anymore. I heard a rumour from the vending machine sixty floors up that the ship is now run by cats," the vending machine told the small group.

"Cats? Where are these cats?" Jack asked.

"Don't know, never seen them myself. You're the first people I have seen since the radiation leak. Michael Cranston, he was the last human I served before he died. He ordered a coffee. Died right where the guy with the tattooed head is now standing. Is he a hologram? I've never seen that tattoo before."

"I'll leave you two to the vending machine. T and I will keep looking around while waiting for the lift." Jack told the two doctors.

- SG-1 -

Three hours twenty-two minutes later the group had finally made it to the drive room. They'd been informed by the lift that since they were not crew they couldn't watch the movie or have cyanide pills in the event of a crash.

"Is a crash likely that we will need cyanide pills?" Jack asked Carter.

"Well, it doesn't look like anything has been maintained in a long time, sir. The lift failing is very likely." Sam replied to the Colonel.

Jack got very bored during the lift trip, using the chance to sleep while Teal'c meditated. Sam and Daniel sat talking science together, keeping watch for the other two members, Sam calculating how fast the lift was going.

When the lift finally stopped, they stepped out onto a floor that was cleaner than anything else on the ship. It didn't take long to find the drive room since it was close to the lift.

Sam went directly to the computer console.

"It's like nothing I have seen before," Carter said about the computer system.

"Can you operate it?" Jack enquired.

"Yes, sir. The technology is primitive compared to what we've come across in the past. Everything is mechanical. No crystals," Sam told him. "Plus everything is in English and the second language we've seen everywhere on the ship. It's a regular computer interface, despite being different, it is similar enough to the base computers."

They all stopped talking when they heard arguing. It was the first sign of life they'd seen in the four day's they'd been here. Teal'c and Jack both aimed their weapons at the doorway. They didn't know if they'd come across an enemy or potential new friends.

"Will you stop following me, and reading that book to me!" one of the voices demanded. Whoever he was, he was obviously frustrated with his companion.

The other voice was trying to reason with him. "You're certainly not going to read it yourself. Someone has to make sure you're looking after yourself. It's guaranteed that you're not going to do it and it's even less likely that the Cat will help take care of you. You're going to get a beer smoothie again. I just know it. It's from that vending machine in the drive room. He won't listen to me."

The ship really did have a cat by the sound of it. Maybe it was infested with cats if the vending machine thought that the ship was possibly run by cats.

"I'm going to have my beer milkshake and you can't stop me," the first voice argued.

The two men stopped walked into the drive room and stopped in shock at seeing SG-1. One of the men, Caucasian had a H on his head and looked like he wanted to bolt. SG-1 were wondering if they had come across a Jaffa of a minor system Lord they'd never come across before. The other man who looked of African descent wasn't even paying attention to the guns, he was looking at the Captain.

"Holly," the man who wanted a beer milkshake called out. The one of African descent.

A man in a sleeping cap appeared on all the screens in the room. "This better be important. I was trying to sleep. Who're they?"

"That is what we were going to ask you. Aren't you meant to detect when unknown people come aboard?" The possible Jaffa asked.

"I don't detect any vessels nearby," Holly replied. "Maybe you're imagining them, Arn."

"Oh yes, we are imagining four total strangers," the possible Jaffa that was called Arn answered with heavy sarcasm.

"Whoever you are, I hope you're single. Would you like to go on a date with me?" the one they assumed might be the minor system lord asked Sam.

"Ignore him." Arn rolled his eyes. "The last woman he saw was a female version of himself. It didn't end well. I'm Second Technician Rimmer and this is Third Technician Lister."

"You can call me Dave," Lister said to the woman.

"Colonel O'Neil." Jack introduced himself. "Captain Carter, Dr Jackson and Teal'c," he pointed to his team.

"Are you a doctor-doctor or a scientist-doctor?" Rimmer asked slight hope in his voice.

"My doctorate is in archaeology," Daniel replied.

"Oh," Rimmer said with disappointment. "I was hoping you'd know how to deliver a baby by caesarean. I've been trying to train the scutters, but it hasn't been going well? Listy here got himself into a bit of a pickle and now he's pregnant."

"I'm not pregnant. It's impossible. Men ... can't ... have ... babies." Lister insisted rolling his eyes at the other man.

"He's in denial," Rimmer replied.

"So even for your people it's not possible for men to fall pregnant, and yet he is, according to you, he's pregnant," Daniel asked trying to work out if he had his information correct.

"Under normal circumstances it is impossible for a man to fall pregnant," Rimmer told them. "We weren't under normal circumstances when he got himself into his current predicament. How did you get here? Are you with the Space Corps?" Rimmer asked.

"Never heard of the Space Corps," Jack replied. "We belong to a group called the SGC. We come from a planet very far away from here."

"Aliens," Rimmer declared with excitement.

Lister rolled his eyes. "How many times do I have to tell you, there is no such thing as aliens?"

"So you've never heard of the Goa'uld, Tok'ra, Nox, Asgard or the replicators?" Daniel listed off, clearly excited.

"Isn't Asgard where Thor and Loki from the Avengers movie come from?" Lister asked. "And nox is a spell in Harry Potter. Never heard of the others."

SG-1 shared a look. From the sound of it, these people were not from another planet, these people seemed like they were from Earth. What other planet had Harry Potter or the Avengers?

"What planet do you come from?" Daniel asked.

"He comes from Earth. Liverpool to be precise. I grew up on Io." Rimmer told them.

"Io?" Jack questioned.

"It's one of Jupiter's moons," Sam told the Colonel.

"I knew that," Jack replied in a cheery tone.

"Which planet are you chaps from?" Rimmer asked.

"We're also from Earth. Teal'c is from Chulak." Jack replied.

"Never heard of Chulak," Rimmer replied. "Is it one of the settlements outside of the solar system? I heard rumours of the Space Corp had set up a few colonies."

"It's approximately 2000 light years from Earth," Teal'c responded. "It was not developed by the Space Corp."

"Where we come from, Earth is the only inhabited planet in the solar system," Sam told Rimmer and Lister.

"The planets and moons started being colonised and terraformed in the late 21st century," Rimmer explained.

"So we are in the future," Sam exclaimed, "For us, it is October 1997."

"2183 plus approximately three million years," Rimmer replied.

SG-1 one shared a look. They were not sure if they should believe these people. They had been in situations before with the goa'uld faking to be from Earth and different years.

"We're over three million years into the future?" Jack asked in disbelief. "Carter, what the hell happened for us to become stuck three million years into the future?"

"I don't know sir," Sam replied. "I still don't know how we got here. Do either of you know where the closest planet is with a Stargate?"

"What's a Stargate?" Lister asked.

SG-1 one shared a look before Sam gave them a basic rundown on what a Stargate was and how it worked.

"You mean like on that show Wormhole X'treme?" Rimmer questioned, pulling a face. "I hated that show."

"Nothing like that exists," Lister told them.

"How do we get home without a Stargate?" Sam asked her team.