Side Trip

3241


Major Kevin Sowell sat in the relatively plush chair with his wrists in cuffs. He had only recently been taken from his cell several floors below where he was and brought here by men in uniforms. Though their camouflage patterns were unusual to him, they wore rankings similar to Air Force operatives in the UEG. Inverted chevrons indicated that the two escorting him were low-ranking airmen. Sowell had gone without argument or protest, but he did not see the rest of his team in the hallway outside. the major reasoned they were still in their cells.

He was brought to an office that was quaint, most likely that of a high ranking person. Possibly a general. He remembered the rest of the Wolfhounds being surrounded by men as they came through the aperture, and instantly they had surrendered, not wanting to be a danger to anyone. That was three days ago. Now, Sowell was wondering just what these people had in store for them. These were Humans, no doubt. They looked Human, acted Human, and spoke in English, which was fantastic as it pointed to a way where they could communicate effectively. This universe appeared to diverge little than that of their origin.

Despite everything though, the UEG might not want to come to this particular EUS just yet.

Sowell sat in the chair, and noticed now that there was an American flag behind the desk. This comforted the major further, glancing at the flag on his own shoulder. Perhaps they could communicate even better than they thought. However, several thoughts came through the Marine's mind. Would this be the same United States? Were they in the same part of the world? Were the states themselves different? Hell, was Canada the US and vice versa?

The door behind him opened and a man wearing a slightly blue shirt, dark blue tie, and similarly colored pants walked into the room. He appeared to be in his late fifties to early sixties. On his shoulders were two stars, and on his breast was a silver set of wings. The man carried himself with the expected air of a general with quick pace, and directed eyes; directed at his desk, not Sowell. In one hand was a cup of steaming liquid - Sowell assumed coffee - and in the other, a file folder. Once again, Sowell assumed the file was about him and his Wolfhounds.

The major general took a seat, making himself comfortable and opening the files. He took a pair of glasses from his breast pocket and slipped them on his eyes for a few moments. Sowell noted the blue disks dancing around the wording, and in one instance, Sowell noted the general's mouth moved wordlessly. Then, they snapped to him.

"Do you understand me?" the man asked.

"Yes." Sowell responded quickly and curtly.

"Good. That's going to make things much easier. I have a linguistics expert on standby in case there's a few dialectical differences."

"I'm from the Delta, sir. I think we'll understand each other just fine."

The general cracked a small smile, but then it vanished.

"You claim your name is Kevin Sowell."

"Major Kevin Sowell, sir."

The general nodded. "OK. You claim to also be an American. That patch on your shoulder seems to support that claim, though it looks like you have fifty-two stars in that union."

"Fifty-two states of the Reconstituted Union, sir."

The general seemed to lean forward. "What does that mean?"

As a child, Sowell had learned this in school and he remembered it well.

"In the mid twenty first century, the United States split into four unions, where we stayed until the late twenty-sixth century, where we reformed under the reconstituted United States of America. The Fifty-first state is Puerto Rico and the fifty-second is Jefferson."

The general's head seemed to tilt ever so slightly and his mouth dropped a centimeter. He narrowed his eyes, but not out of suspicion, but regarding him in a new light.

"Did that not happen here, sir?" Sowell asked. "I count fifty stars."

"What year do you think it is, Major?"

Sowell thought for a second, thinking of a response, but then realizing that he had been told about this before when he had been assigned to the project. He had been stupid to forget it.

"Time doesn't operate uniformly between my origin point and the destination. If you don't mind me asking sir, what year is it?"

"It's the year 2015." the general said.

The man noted that Sowell looked as if he had been given a bit of a gut punch, and his curiosity rose.

"Now I think I asked you a question, Major. What year do you think it is?"

"3241."

Now it was the general who was surprised. "What?"

"Three thousand, two hundred, forty-one years after the birth of our Lord..."

"I got that." the general said. "Just give me a second here. How is that possible?"

"Didn't you know about this already, sir? Isn't it in that file?"

The general glanced down. "Well, somewhat." he admitted, shrugging. "It mentions you came with a full fire team, all of you spoke English, and approximately half of you had flags that correspond with countries on this planet. The remainder are nationalities not recognized by the United Nations." he flipped it open. "It mentions your weapons loadouts, none of which correspond with any existing manufacturer; in fact the markings on your weapons indicate that they were constructed on Mars. Is that correct?"

It seemed like a ridiculous question, but then Sowell gauged who he was speaking to. "Yes they were built on Mars. Misriah nearly has a damned monopoly on hardware."

"You seem to be taking all of this lightly, Major." the general said.

"The time travel? Well, usually we don't find existing civilizations. We tend to go more into the future than the past, and usually into the distant past."

"You do this regularly?"

"It's my job sir."

Now the general was overwhelmed with curiosity. "What job would that be?"

"0370 - infantry unit commander, commissioned officer."

"That's a US Marine Corps MOS code. But that doesn't answer my question."

Sowell sighed. Technically this was against the rules to divulge information, but this was a countryman... even if he was a millennium displaced.

" My men and I don't operate under the United States military. We are part of an interstellar state that nearly all Human worlds are a part of. Our government is called the Unified Earth Government, but I am an officer in the United Nations Space Command. We are 4th Division, 9th Battalion of the Marine Corps. We call ourselves the Wolfhounds. Our job, general, is to explore different universes."

The room returned to silence. A wall clock behind the general ticked ever so slightly. The general merely blinked and slowly leaned back in his chair. "You explore universes?"

The conversation had suddenly turned casual. Sowell nodded. "Yeah, that's my team's job specifically. They had a bunch more of us down the pipeline, but I command ten teams of Wolfhounds. Ten teams of around four to five men each - that's a fire-team to us. Together we're close to a battalion with our logistical staff keeping tabs on everything while we're on mission.

The general made no motion but blinked slowly and comfortably. He took the glasses off his eyes, bobbed his eyebrows, and took a sip of coffee. The man then cleared his throat and said, "I think you and I are going to understand each other very well, Major." He appeared as if he had forgotten something, and then gave a quick smile. "I apologize, Major. I don't think I've given you the courtesy of an introduction." He extended a hand across the table. "Major General Henry Landry, commanding officer of SGC."

Sowell took the hand and gave it a shake, suddenly a lot more calm. "Thank you, sir. I was able to read your nametag but I didn't think it appropriate to jump into things."

"Understandable."

"Sir, SGC?"

"Stargate Command, son. Welcome to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex."

Now it was Sowell's turn to act surprised. "Stargate?"

"Right, that ring you somehow were able to get through without us knowing."

"That's exactly what we call them. Well, it. We only have the one. Project STARGATE."

Landry shook his head while chuckling. "Well, stranger things have happened in my career. Come on, let's get your men out of lockup. Your weapons are still going to be under lockdown until we can establish that there's no threat from anybody on your team."

"I can assure you, General, we're professionals."

"As are the men under my command, but it's standard procedure. Come on, let's go for a walk. You drink coffee? Do they have coffee in your universe?"

"Yeah. Black."

"Good man." Landry said, getting up and clapping Sowell on the shoulder. He glanced at his watch. "Actually, if we move we may be able to make a return trip."

"Return trip?" Sowell asked getting up and moving behind Landry.

In the outside office, a man was sitting at a table in the hallway, looking at a small notebook. He was fairly athletic in build, had short hair, and large glasses sitting just down his nose. One hand held the notebook open while the other gently held a pencil. His mouth moved as he sounded out words that Sowell couldn't see. When he heard footsteps, he closed the notebook, set it down on the table and stood up.

"General?" he asked.

"That's alright, Doctor Jackson, we understand each other just fine. Major Sowell and I had a bit of a conversation involving his interesting appearance."

Jackson looked surprised. "Really? He was able to speak to you no problem?"

Landry smiled. "Actually, Major Sowell is from Mississippi."

"Just," Sowell interjected. "Not your Mississippi. Doctor." he said, extending his hand. Jackson raised an eyebrow and shook it.

"Well, I suppose that means I'm no good here." the doctor said. "I was expecting a dialect of the Goa'uld, not the... Deep South."

"Dr. Jackson is our linguistic specialist. Studied as an Egyptologist but now his skills have... broadened out over the last fifteen or so years."

"I'm sorry, did he say 'your' Mississippi? Implying he's from another? General, is he a time traveller?"

"No, Doctor." Sowell said, not liking that he wasn't addressed personally. "We're a bit beyond that. I'm from a different existence entirely." He thought for a minute. "Cheyenne mountains. That makes this... Colorado?"

"Correct." Landry nodded.

"Then I'm about eleven to twelve hundred miles off course from where I was supposed to end up."

"I don't understand." Jackson said.

"Major Sowell can fill you in as we walk. Come on, SG-2's scheduled to arrive in fifteen."

As they walked, Sowell stretched one of his arms, releasing tension he didn't even know was there. "I shouldn't really be talking about this."

"I shouldn't have told you about SGC. Even though the System Lords aren't top of the totem pole any more you never know when you can expect a Goa'uld spy."

"Sure." Sowell said, unsure of just what the hell they were talking about. "Whenever my team goes through, we typically tend to end up in the same spatial coordinates more or less on whatever planet's on the other side. Rift somehow seems to stay instanced on that planet. I guess what happened was that there's a gate on the other side like... what my team came through, so I guess we latched on."

"Where were you supposed to end up?"

"Somewhere near... Texas or Louisiana."

"So it's a mirror Earth?"

"You have no idea." Sowell said. "A mirror of our mirror, two degrees into the future."

"You're right, I have no idea." Jackson said.

"We're only here to get sensor data, sniff out how this universe's physics work. Look, I may have a pair of tags, but I work for scientists. They know all the little things like atmospheric composition, elements, you know."

"I'm not the guy to talk to about that." Jackson admitted.

The hallway was cramped and covered with hatches. It reminded Sowell of his service back on the Blind Monk. The bullseye markings on supports every now and again reminded him of the destroyer's cramped corridors. He felt comfortable here, even though this was clearly a different time and place.

Landry led Sowell through hatches, down elevators, and past guards. They gripped their weapons tightly. They didn't trust him even though he had an American flag sewed on his uniform T-shirt. Sowell wondered just how much people below the top were told. He knew there had to have been rumors of things though.

Eventually they came to one final doorway. Landry turned back to Sowell and said, "I'm going to ask you not to touch anything you see on this end, major."

"You've got it, sir." Sowell said.

Landry opened the door, revealing a control center staffed by men and women in woodland camouflage. Several had headsets on and were constantly monitoring computer screens. Sowell noted with some display that they were all apparently members of the Air Force, if their inverted chevrons were any indication. Landry singled out one of them.

"Chief?" he asked, "Status on DHD signal integrity?"

The man, who was shaved nearly bald and had a pair of glasses on, glanced at the three screens in front of him. "SG-2 is ready to come home. We're just awaiting the final signal from P4X-990."

Sowell's attention then went to the window, or more accurately what was beyond it. In the room beyond the control center was the object he and his men had come through. He hadn't gotten an opportunity to see it in detail. It was a ring, studded with markings all over it, impossibly ancient looking but obviously technological. He leaned forward slightly, supporting himself on a desk surface.

"That's it?" he asked.

"That's it." Landry said, "That's what you came through. That's what keeps us in a job."

Sowell analyzed it, using his sharp eyes to take in the small markings all over the ring. Each was a picture or a constellation of some sort. He thought he recognized maybe Orion on it, but not much more. There was something romantic about the ring that he just couldn't pin down.

"That's amazing. US Air Force made this?"

"What?" Jackson said, as if he was taken aback. "No. No, there's no way we could have put this together. This is Ancient technology."

"Doctor Jackson was actually part of the first team to head through the stargate; that was a bit before my time." Landry said.

"Yeah, the initial gate was excavated in Egypt. Not that though, that one's actually the, uh, second gate that SGC recovered from Antarctica."

Sowell asked, "So who made them then?"

"That's kind of a long story." Jackson replied.

"Offworld activation." The Chief Master Sergeant called out. "SG-2's attempting to dial back."

The ring beyond began to hum, and the Marine watched as it started to spin. The symbols wheeled around the large structure like an ancient telephone, stopping at symbols around the rim.

"General, how do you know it's your guys coming back from the other side?"

Landry spoke immediately. "We tend to have these sort of things worked out before hand."

"What, like a secret password?" the Major smirked.

"Actually yes." Jackson responded.

The ring continued to spin, stopping at six more constellations. On the seventh, something different happened. A blast of energy came from the ring. Sowell thought it was an explosion at first as what looked like a geyser of light and power exploded towards him, only to be pulled back into the gate, leaving a shimmering glow of what could have been the surface of a crystal-clear pool.

"Wormhole integrity established." the Chief noted, reading off several statistics on his monitors. "I've got remote codes coming through, General. Just waiting on SG-2."

There was silence for a few moments. Landry stood with one hand behind his back, one holding his coffee cup. Sowell was still captivated by the glowing pool of light. It looked nothing like this when his boys went through. When his world bridged an EUS, one could always see just what was on the other side. It was how most of their 'expeditions' were made.

This however, was different. There was a bit of mystery surrounding it. He liked it, but wasn't sure how to tactically approach this.

"Still waiting on SG-2." The Chief said.

Landry's jaw began to shift. "Try to send a transmission through the wormhole. Simple status update - the prebaked stuff."

"Yes sir." the man said, tapping a few controls. "Message away, awaiting response."

Sowell too was beginning to feel a bit of unease. Something was wrong. He tried to break the tension with the computer operator, who seemed to be the head technician here.

"So, Chief Master Sergeant."

"You can just call me Chief, sir. Chief Harriman."

"Sorry, Chief. I'm just used to calling out full rating. It's a Marine thing."

"No offense sir, I'm not sure if General Landry has cleared us to speak with you."

"It's OK, Walter." Landry said with a nod of his head. "He's one of us. Sort of."

"How long have you been doing this for?"

"Nearly since the beginning." Harriman said, never taking his eyes off the readouts. Indeed he was an incredible multi-tasker. "I was brought onto the staff just after General West originally had the first Abydos expedition back in 1996. I came in one year later and was here until '09. I transferred to the Pentagon after that."

"But you came back?"

"This is my job, sir." Harriman said with no small concealed point of pride. "It's what I do best."

"What's the matter, didn't fit in up in DC?"

"They didn't appreciate the finer points of our work." Harriman said.

"What the hell's going on over there?" Landry said, now with a gravelly tone in his voice. "You get a response yet, Chief?"

"Negative, General. Frequencies are still clean. SG-2 is not responding."

"Get SG-3 ready for an emergency crossing."

"Yessir." Harriman said.

Suddenly, Sowell said, "Wait a second, sir."

Landry made eye contact. "Major?"

Sowell bit his lip before he said, "Send me over, sir."

"Excuse me?"

"Send me over and I'll bring your people back."

"Out of the question." Landry said. "This is a US Air Force operation."

"I'm not exactly a civilian, sir."

Landry took a step forward. "You're still technically under arrest, you know that? I'm not going to let someone we haven't fully cleared just step on through."

"I won't be going alone though." Sowell said, turning to Jackson. "Fancy a walk, doctor?"

Jackson looked a bit surprised.

"Look." Sowell said. "I know from experience it'll take at least five minutes to get your next team all geared up and ready to move. If shit's hitting the fan on the other side of that thing, you want somebody there now. I do this just as much for a living as you guys do. If Doctor Jackson was part of the original team and by your admission he's done this more than once, I think we're both suitable enough to verify that your team is combat mobile or not."

Landry looked at Jackson. "Doctor?"

Jackson looked at Sowell. The Major expected him to be upset for dragging him into it, but he gave a slight huff and said, "SG-3 will take time to get up here. Not like SG-1 hasn't done its fair share of rescues."

"I know you have no reason to trust me." Sowell said, "Let me do it. I was an ODST for fifteen years dropping out of starship into a dozen kinds of hell. This? I can do this."

"Go." Landry decided. "Someone get them weapons. Doctor Jackson will be in command. Major, follow the markings to get to the main floor."

"Thank you, sir. I'll bring your people back." He saluted before turning and leaving.

Jackson was about to follow before Landry said, "Daniel?"

The archaeologist turned to look back at the general.

"If he so much as twitches the wrong way..."

"I'll deal with it." he nodded. "Though if he wanted to do something, he would have done it in your office, sir."

"Noted. Keep an eye on him."