MoonGate: Part I
Ancient Moon
Prologue
Disclaimer: Sailor Moon created by Naoko Takeuchi and owned by Naoko Takeuchi and Kodansha. Stargate is property of MGM
Spoilers: Sailor Moon to the end of the Dreams arc in the manga (that means, for those who only know Sailor Moon from the anime, to roughly the sixth episode of Sailor Moon Stars). Stargate mid-to-late 5th Season.
Author note: I'll be drawing the background for Sailor Moon from both manga and (original) Anime. That doesn't mean that I won't draw from other sources (live action series, musical, videogames, etc.)
A.N. 2: I would appreciate feedback on the story, on how could be improved, or things that I have gotten wrong.
Major Samantha Carter home. Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Sam Carter was tossing and turning on her sleep, as the same dream that she had intermittently since she started to work with the Stargate, and with increasing frequency after Jolinar, came to her again.
She was in a vast chamber, operating a computer panel, which it seemed like Ancient technology, as people were crossing a kind of Stargate that was intimately familiar to her dream-self, but that she hadn't seen in her life. She looked up, looking at dream versions of Jack, Daniel and T'ealc, clad in unfamiliar garb and armed with strange weapons.
Jack and Daniel wore some sort of short tunic and pants ensemble in light grey with silver motifs tones, quite similar to the one that she was wearing, now that she looked at herself, and they were all armed with pistols that looked like something out of a 50s sci-fi movie. T'ealc was wearing a crystalline armor with gold motifs, and armed with a rifle, which had been clearly done with similar aesthetics.
There was another person, in the door to the chamber, a young woman with mid-length blonde hair and wearing a gold tunic over blue pants, clearly keeping watch over the corridor beyond, through the barely open doors. As the woman had her back to her, she couldn't see much of her, but she couldn't avoid a sense of... familiarity, as if she knew her. Suddenly, the woman moved and closed the door, as the last people crossed the event horizon of the wormhole, just before the time limit closed the wormhole.
"Beryl's minions are in the hallways." she said, matter of fact. Sam now recognized her, Jennifer Hailey, the young and brash lieutenant that she had met not too long before.
"Plan E it is." Said Jack, and then he looked at her. She nodded and got a crystal from the console and smashed it in the ground.
"Done. The Gate can't call out now. It's an antique, anyway." Sam heard herself saying. "This madness will stay confined in this system. At least Atlantis managed to get out before things went South."
Just in time, as it was, as somebody started to pound on the door to the room.
"It seems, that we have to make a last stand." she said as the door started to dent.
"It seems that way." Said Jack, who then faced her, smiling, picking her by the waist and kissing her deeply in the lips, just as the door started to buckle under the hits. They separated, with regret, but they looked into each other eyes and nodded, getting ready, although Jack couldn't avoid making a last observation.
"We may not be the Princess Guard..." this prompted a hmph from Hailey, but Jack continued as if he hadn't heard her "... they are holding the thick of the assault by themselves. But this sorry bunch will pay for this in blood." said Jack. "Any last words, people?"
And Sam Carter awoke in her bed, the last strands of her dream hanging in her memory, as well as the familiar throbbing in her head that always accompanied these dreams, whose meaning escaped her. For a long time she had thought that it had been provoked by her anxieties about the Stargate, represented in her mind as a Fantasy worst case scenario. But this explanation was growing threadbare as the dream was gaining clarity as time passed, as if it was really a memory which was resurfacing, rather that a manifestation of her subconscious.
'Focus, Sam, focus.' She thought, trying to get her mind out of those things, as she took a Tylenol 'It's only a dream, nothing more.'
She looked at the hour and decided not to try to get back to sleep, she had to be in the SGC in a couple hours. She took her breakfast, showered and got dressed in her uniform, and every free moment her mind went back to her dream. It had looked so real. She couldn't shake the feeling that they were memories... and they felt like hers, not Jolinar's. Maybe she had to talk about it with Dad, well, rather Selmak in this case.
Somewhere in outer space
"It's strange that you came here in person... so to speak, giving your kind's penchant for hiding behind their brainwashed soldiers." a cold and harsh female voice said in a condescending tone, with barely a hint of surprise in her voice. "Now, before I lose my patience, worm, why did you want this meeting?"
"As you probably already know, I'm not usual for my kind.." an inhumanly deep male voice answered, in a patient tone, like the one that one would use with a slow child. "Now, as for why I wanted this meeting... We are both the most powerful of our kind, and a fight between us will at least weaken the winner enough for our enemies to take us down easily, and very probably would destroy us both."
"And...?" said the woman, archly.
"I'm proposing an alliance." Said the male voice
"An interesting proposal..." started to say the female voice, her voice fading in the background
And then she saw an upright ring of stone, with engraved signs, and a glowing, watery surface in its center.
Rei Hino, Sailor Mars, awoke with a gasp. Quickly, she reassured herself, she was in her flat in Tokyo, but she couldn't repress a shiver. She hadn't had a premonition so strong since all the mess with the Messiah of Silence.
The part of her that was exclusively Sailor Mars, the Senshi of flame and passion, had recognized the ring, but the feeling had disappeared too quickly to find out its origin. This premonition puzzled her, as there was no clue of the identities of both enemies, as well as the lack of images, other than the ring of stone. Tomorrow she would try to get a vision on the fire, and warn the others, as apparently new enemies would show their face in a short time. She opened the window and looked at the lights of the city below, and then to the clouds hiding the few stars that could be seen in the middle of the city.
"A storm is coming." She said, as she felt a gust of wind, full of the scent of the sea.
The house shared by the Outer Senshi
Two women, a tall blonde with short hair, and the other with shoulder length wavy teal hair were sleeping together in the same bed. Another woman, a tall, dark-skinned woman with long green hair opened the door for a moment before closing it. The noise awakened the blonde, who spent several minutes just looking at her partner, who was moving and mumbling in her sleep, seemingly in her way to awakening. The teal-haired woman finally opened her eyes, saying something under her breath.
"What did you say, Michiru?" said Haruka Tenoh, Sailor Uranus, seeing the worried expression of her girlfriend.
"I said, Haruka, that a storm is coming." Said Michiru Kaioh, Sailor Neptune, looking at her lover and partner directly in her eyes. "And I'm not talking about the weather. Pick your clothes, we need to talk with the others."
Stargate Command
Daniel rubbed his eyes after waking up, having fallen asleep over the pictures that he had examined, that had been taken by the SG-7 in PGS-345. Obviously, he hadn't planned this, but with all the all-nighters he had pulled lately, mostly to avoid the weird dreams of last weeks, he hadn't even finished with the murals. He took his notebook and started to take a few quick notes.
They depicted mural writings in Ancient, although judging by the architectural style of the ruins where it was found, it was probably one of the most modern Ancient settlements in the Galaxy, dated only a few thousand years ago. If that world weren't now under Baal's control, he would be happy to spend there some time.
Back to the pictures, it was a recount of one event that had been obliquely alluded in some other Ancient texts that they had recovered, the fall of an important system to an enemy. But it was told in a very mythologized form, which, together with some archaic turns of phrase, made him wonder if the Ancients in that planet had fallen into a Dark Age somehow...
The story, as told in the inscriptions talked about how the enemy, which according to the text had been guided by "a spirit of chaos and darkness that had been hidden in the Sun" had been opposed by a group of female warriors, called the Anima Mundi, who had died defending their ruler. This ruler, also a woman, although the term used for her title was an Ancient word he wasn't all that familiar with, Rexis, had used an artifact, Empyreon Argyrokrystalos, to "seal the darkness" and give the fallen defenders... something. Unfortunately the wall was damaged in that part, but seemed to be derived from the same root than the Ancient word for Ascension, although that was not clearly the case.
"Good enough for now." He told to himself before getting down to the mess hall for breakfast and a big cup of extra-strong coffee. Once he got this, he noticed Sam, sitting alone, picking absently from a tray while she was drawing something in a leaf of paper.
"Hello, Sam. What's the matter?."
"Oh, I came early to get the results from Takahashi team on P7X-326." Sam said, still absently doodling in the leaf "But other than some preliminary data, they haven't transmitted much. And you?"
"I fell asleep on my desk." Daniel recognized with a chuckle. "Too many all-nighters. Not to speak of..." he trailed off when he noticed what Sam had drawn, because that wasn't a doodle. "Sam, look at what you are drawing."
"What? I was just..." said Sam, before looking at the paper. "Shit."
'36 symbols, different looking chevrons, it's exactly like the one in my dream...' she thought 'And the signs that I have been drawing, mixed with modern letter... it looks like Ancient. Orlin, if this comes from you...' she send the thought to Ancient that she had befriended recently. There was no answer; not that she expected one, as there had been no word from Orlin since the destruction of the weapon in Velona.
Daniel's attention were drawn to two words written in modern alphabet: Serenitas Rexis. Serenitas was the name of the ruler who had used the artifact in the story depicted in PGS-345 murals.
"It's really Ancient or it's Ancient-sounding gibberish?ยท asked Sam, with a little hint of anxiety in her voice.
"Ancient." Daniel confirmed "Look here, 'Astria Porta', that means..."
"Stargate." Sam said
"Yeah, and not only that, but the construction of some words is... archaic, more similar to Greek than Latin." Daniel said "In fact..."
He was interrupted by the sudden sound of the alarm.
"Later." Sam said.
"Later." Daniel repeated, nodding.
P7X-326
"Doc, can't you do it more quickly? Those Jaffa are almost here!" Captain Martha Mason, acting CO of SG-19, said to the head of the science team, Doctor Karen Takahashi, who was keying the address in the DHD, while the remaining members of SG-17 and SG-19 tried to hold the fort.
"It's not easy to press the keys while dodging staff blasts, you know!" she shouted as she pressed the last symbol, and the wormhole opened. Just in time, as a Death Glider appeared on the horizon
"Come on people!" Colonel Dixon, commander of SG-17, said as he and Captain Mason used suppression fire to give them time to scramble for the Gate.
Doctor Takahashi, started to run up the stairs, but trying to dodge a blast, she stumbled and almost fell, only for Mason to pick her up and jump into the wormhole, just as the Death Glider gun bolts impacted on the gate.
Somewhere
"My head..." moaned Karen Takahasi, as she tried to get up, only to be kept in the ground by a gentle, but strong hand. She had her eyes open, but she didn't see anything.
"Don't move, Doc." said the voice of Martha Mason, over her. Karen then felt something moving near her face "How many fingers do I have here?"
Karen groaned as Mason's weird humor sense reared its ugly head again.
"How the hell can I know? I can't see anything!' said Karen, as the darkness didn't alleviate as her head cleared and the details of the mission came back to her.
"Okay, okay. And you're right, Karen, it's pitch black down here." said Mason, rummaging in her pockets. "Wherever it is."
"Wherever? I was dialing the SGC!" said Karen, a bit of panic seeping into her voice.
"Have you read how we discovered the Antarctica Gate, you know, the one that the SGC was using for some time." Said Mason, as she kept messing with her pockets.
"Something involving the SG-1 trying to cross the gate under heavy... oh." she said as she realized what Mason was trying to say. 'Damn it! I studied the physics involved when I joined the program. Why didn't I remembered it?' she thought, and said aloud, analyzing the situation "The energy bolts from the Jaffa and that Death Glider must have overloaded the wormhole and deviated it to another gate."
"Pretty much. Ah, here it is!" she said as she produced something from her pockets, she twisted it, breaking something inside and shook it, revealing that it was a glow stick. "Better to conserve the flashlight batteries, besides, I have like two dozens of these things, good for like twelve hours or so. How many have you?"
"Uh... Standard load?" ventured Karen, she didn't remember how many did she had, honestly.
"That makes another dozen, good." Said Mason. "At least we won't be sitting in the darkness." Using the light, Karen checked her own pockets. She had packed the standard load, indeed. And given how much a pack rat Mason was, they shouldn't have to worry for food for some time, so she looked around.
The dim light of the glow stick revealed a rather spacious room, with the gate in an end and an open door in the other. The Stargate was different to any that they had seen, being darker and smaller with different looking chevrons. The symbols, though, looked like cruder versions of the ones in the normal Stargate. On one side, of the gate a control panel could be seen, pretty intact, for what she could see.
She went to the control panel, but it looked like even if it was intact, it had no energy to operate. At least the signs on the different controls made identifying its origin quite easy.
"Martha, I can be wrong, after all I'm not an archeologist, but I think that this is Ancient." Said Karen with a frown
"The gates were build by the Ancients, so what..." started to say Mason
"I mean that all of this." interrupted Karen, waving her hand around, "This installation was built by the Ancients, not the Goauld, and this..." she said, pointing to the Stargate "...could be a prototype Stargate."
"Jumping a bit ahead, aren't we?" said Mason
"Well, maybe." She conceded "But I want to explore these installations, who knows what could be here in the other rooms. Why don't you come with me?"
"Are you mad?" said Mason looking at her like she effectively was mad "To go wandering around when they could find us in any moment?"
"We have the radios to communicate and..." started to say Karen
"And we don't know if they work through the walls of this place, or if there is some kind of dampening field in this place that could make them useless." interrupted Mason.
"It has an easy solution. We can test, and I can use the glow sticks as bread crumbs to guide me back." Said Karen, reasonably.
"But..." she started to say, but she stopped, as she didn't really had no counter to that.
"But what?" said Karen, recognizing the sign.
Mason sighed and raised her hand in surrender.
"Very well, you can go to explore this, but I'm going with you. After all..." she said collecting her weapon"...we don't know what could be here. But remember, the moment that we find something remotely weird or dangerous, we come back."
"What?" said Mason as she got her notebook and scribbled a message to their would-be rescuers.
"...All right." Conceded Karen.
Mason didn't answer, as she was leaving the note under the glow stick, and the glow stick in the control panel, in case that a rescue party came, and followed the scientist through the corridors. She thanked her stars that the younger woman was quite coordinated, remembering stories about Daniel Jackson clumsiness back in the first days of the SGC.
"So, what do you think that the planet looks like?" said Mason to make a bit conversation as they checked empty rooms along the corridor.
"Small, thin atmosphere, probably quite arid..." said Karen
"And how do you know that?" asked Mason
"Well, gravity seems to be weaker than home, 0.8 times Earth gravity more or less, and..." she said as they opened another door and found a machine that seemed to be working. Karen went quickly to the control panel, and looking at the signs.
"Ok, I rectify, this planet, if it's a planet, is probably uninhabitable." Said Karen, and pointed to the machine. 'I have to thank Doctor Jackson for that Ancient lexicon that he compiled for the other SG teams', she thought, before adding "That, if I'm reading this correctly, is an artificial gravity generator."
"And that means..." said Mason in an interrogative tone
"That if it have a functioning gravity generator, but it still 0.8 g, the planetoid must be quite small."
"All right" said Mason, looking around, not seeing anything else in the room. "Let's keep going, then."
They kept looking until they found, almost hidden in what seemed like a closet a thing that looked suspiciously like an access hatch, with a manual opening.
"Shall we open it?" asked Karen "It could go into the vacuum."
"I find it doubtful, unless the Ancients were complete morons. A double hatch or a forcefield is more probable." Said Martha.
Karen, nodded and opened it a sliver. After no escaping air was heard, she opened it fully and saw... a ladder, but what was more important, it seemed like it was open up.
"Forcefield, or some kind of bubble." said Karen "I'll go up, at least we'll get a glimpse of this world..."
"All right." Said Mason, leaving space for the scientist to climb up the ladder.
When she climbed all the way up, she found herself in a small observation post. Looking around, she was about to pass it when what she had just seen registered in her mind, the very familiar sight in front of her.
"No... way..." said Karen.
"What is the..." started to say Mason, stopping herself when she saw the same thing that Karen had seen. Because outside, hanging over an arid, whitish landscape, they could see a blue and green globe, a planet, a very familiar planet.
Earth, as seen from the Moon.
TO BE CONTINUED...