Opening the Gate
Description: June 1990: Air Force Major Samantha Carter leads an Air-Force/Civilian team through the gate for the first time. AU retelling of the Stargate movie
Disclaimer: If you've seen/heard of it, then I don't own it. I'm making no money whatsoever off of this enterprise. If you've never seen/heard of it, then I may own it; please ask before using characters which I create.
Revised/Completed: December 2008
"Aliens, Dr. Jackson? That's preposterous!" Dr. Xavier exclaimed.
Daniel turned back to his audience and pushed his glasses up while protesting, "No, no, bear with me! The misspelling in—wait! Let me expla—" he pleaded while the group of archeologists left the auditorium. His words did not dissuade them, but his supervisor approached him.
"Daniel, I thought you agreed to abandon this line of speculation," the man said.
"Dr. Kelly, there's good evidence this—" he stopped, forestalled by Kelly's hand.
"Your grandfather was a good archeologist, Daniel," Kelly said, "but he got into crazy theories, and you know what it did to him."
Daniel crossed his arms, saying, "Please, this is nothing like—"
"Aliens, Dr. Jackson? It is rather preposterous. I was there when Nicholas started down this road. Give it up, Daniel, for your sake. You've already humiliated yourself, and the institution." Kelly turned away, saying, "Good luck."
"Dr. Kelly?" Daniel said as his mentor walked towards the elevator.
"I can't protect you from this, Daniel. I have to cut you loose."
Daniel's shoulders slumped as he looked at the empty seats. To his surprise, there was an elderly woman still sitting in the second row. They made eye contact, and she stood. "Dr. Jackson," she said, stepping into the aisle and walking towards him, "You should have waited for tenure before going public with these ideas. Then, you could make the claim of academic freedom. As it is," she shook her head, "You'll probably never get academic employment again."
"Thanks," he grumbled. Dr. Kelly was a respected friend, but Daniel didn't want to be lectured by some old woman.
"Fortunately," she answered, ignoring his tone, "I stopped working in academia a long time ago. Let me give you a ride." Intrigued, Daniel followed her through the atrium of the Park Plaza Hotel and into the June rainstorm. A white coup pulled up, and the woman opened the back door, climbing in and leaving it open for him to follow.
He got in and closed the door, buckling his seatbelt as the car accelerated. "So who are you?" he asked, brushing his hair out of his face.
"The only person who thinks you might be right," the woman answered. "My name is Catherine Langford. In 1928, my father discovered an artifact in Egypt, a great ring with thirty-nine symbols carved on it. After fifty years of study, we still haven't identified the ore—"
"Catherine," the driver interrupted as she merged onto the freeway, "He hasn't signed the confidentiality papers. You've already said too much."
"Don't worry, Samantha," Catherine answered, patting the driver's shoulder, "After the performance he just gave, Daniel could give photographic evidence of the ring and no one would believe him. Anyway," Catherine continued, addressing Daniel once again, "The Air Force has concluded that the ring is not of terrestrial origin. You're going to help us figure out what it does and how to use it."
"Do I have a choice?" Daniel asked.
"Well I'm sure that you could find a community college that would be thrilled to hire you as an ESL instructor," the woman smiled, "but if you want to keep working in archeology, this is probably your only shot."
Daniel pointed out the window: "We just passed my exit!"
"We're not going to your apartment," Catherine explained, "We stopped by earlier and got the things you'll be needing."
"How'd you get in?" Daniel frowned, crossing his arms.
The driver, Samantha, answered this: "I asked your landlord to let us in. Did you know he was a signalman in Korea? More than happy to help a major get her job done"
"So I never had a choice?" Daniel asked, sulking once again.
"I knew you wouldn't pass up the chance to prove your theory. This thing got its hooks in me when I was seven and hasn't let go," Catherine answered.
The MP stepped out of the guard booth, grateful that the rainstorm had passed. "I.D. cards," he told the driver of the coup.
Samantha reached back for Catherine's card, added it to her own, and handed them to the guard. "He doesn't have one," she said, pointing a thumb at Daniel.
The guard examined the cards, comparing the photographs to the two women. Satisfied, he handed them back to the driver and said, "You'll have to sign him in at the services desk. Back up and take a right; then just follow the signs."
Samantha smiled but didn't move the car. "Private," she said, "We are not here. That plane," she pointed across the tarmac, but Daniel couldn't see the plane from the angle of his seat "is not here. Why would someone who is not here need to sign in here to get onto a plane that is not here?"
The private hesitated and then answered, "He wouldn't, ma'am. Carry on." The private and his teammate behind the booth with an M-16 both saluted. Sam returned the salute and drove slowly through the gateway, saying, "Oh, and have someone pick up this car."
"Yes ma'am," the guard answered.
Samantha drove to the rear of the plane, which Daniel saw to be a small jet bearing the insignia of the United States Postal Service. A boarding ramp extended from the rear of the plane, and two uniformed servicemen came to attention as the car approached. Samantha and Catherine got out, and Daniel followed their example. Samantha returned the salutes of the two men and said, "Lieutenant Freeman, report."
"All quiet here, Major. Not so much as a pigeon," one of the men answered.
"Good," Samantha answered, taking the boarding ramp two steps at a time. Catherine went up at a more sedate rate, and so the major was already out of sight in the cockpit when Daniel made it into the cabin. Lt. Freeman and the other man came last, and Freeman hit a button that made the ramp pull into the bottom of the plane.
The cabin looked like that of a private jet, with white leather couches arranged around a table. The four sat down around the table. After a very brief time, the plane started taxiing, and Daniel watched through the window as the runway whizzed by and then dropped out of sight.
"You look nervous, Dr. Jackson," the other guard said, "Don't you like flying?"
"It's never seemed quite natural to me," Daniel answered, "What about yourself."
The man laughed, "Joseph O'Brian's loved planes ever since Grandpa took me up in that crop-duster."
The plane leveled at cruising altitude and the cockpit door opened. Carter came out, carrying a clipboard. She handed it to Dr. Jackson and said, "This is a standard non-disclosure agreement. On the next page, you'll find your civilian consultant contract. All you need to do is sign; we've already filled in your social security information and such."
Daniel thought that there was a fair amount of disdain in the woman's voice, but he glanced over the forms and signed, fairly certain that he didn't have any choice. Carter filed the papers and then sat down. She glanced at Freeman and O'Brian and said, "I think Warrant Officer Green is bored."
"We'll go keep him company," Freeman answered, and the two men walked to the cockpit, closing the door behind them.
Catherine opened a closet next to the lavatory and took out several rolled papers and a binder. She handed the binder and all but one of the papers to Carter and leaned over the table, unrolling the remaining paper. "This is a diagram of the ring I told you about. As you can see, the thirty-nine symbols are not hieroglyphics. We haven't found any connection with any other written language. Here are close-up views of the symbols," Carter handed her another paper, which she unrolled on top of the first."
Daniel pushed his glasses up and examined the symbols. "I've never seen anything like them. Um, why are six of them circled?"
"There was a cover stone buried inside the ring," Catherine said, unrolling yet another paper. "As you can see, there's a prominent cartouche containing those six symbols."
"Our theory," Carter added, "is that the device can create a wormhole to another ring. The six glyphs define a point in space."
"Like an address," Catherine said.
"Exactly," Carter answered, "dial the address: get a wormhole to that point."
"Dial?" Daniel asked.
"Look at the first diagram," Catherine said, "The part that has the glyphs is actually a separate ring enclosed within an outer ring. It can rotate, and if you rotate the ring to put each of the symbols into chevrons, then the chevrons light up and engage."
"You've done this?" Daniel asked.
"Many times," Carter said, "These glyphs and others, in different orders. A few combinations engage six chevrons, including the cartouche combination, but the thing deactivates after two or three glyphs in most combinations."
Daniel rubbed his forehead, thinking. "Why six glyphs," he asked, "There are nine chevrons."
Samantha nodded slightly and answered, "Six points can designate a single location in a three-dimensional space." She extended her index fingers. "Two points, you have a line. Four points, two lines, with an intersect, but if one of the lines is collinear with the line from dialing location to destination, I think it causes problems with maintaining the link, so it requires a third line, two more points, to establish an address."
"You think?" Daniel asked, raising his eyebrows.
Samantha narrowed her eyes, "I have a PhD in Astrophysics."
"Oh," Daniel answered. "So you dial these six symbols and then . . . what?"
"Nothing happens," Carter said, "It sits there."
"Have you tried dialing more glyphs?" Daniel pointed to the diagram of the ring, "All nine?"
"The seventh chevron won't engage," Carter answered.
"With any combination?"
"There are thirty-nine glyphs," Carter said exasperatedly, "With seven chevrons, not repeating any glyphs, there are 1,987,690,320 permutations." She shook her head, "there's no way to try every one of them."
"Besides," Catherine added, putting the cover stone paper back on the paper, "the cartouche only contains six glyphs."
The plane rocked, and then it shook violently. Catherine held onto the table for stability and lowered herself next to Daniel on the couch. "Turbulence," Carter said, dashing towards the cabin and crashing headfirst into it when the plane bucked again.
"Are you ok?" Daniel asked.
"Fine!" Carter snapped, bracing against the bulkhead while she opened the door and then slamming it shut behind her.
"I get the feeling she doesn't like me," Daniel commented to Catherine, "Not just now, I mean, but her tone when she was explaining about the chevrons . . ." he shook his head.
"She didn't want you brought in on this," Catherine agreed, "She thinks that you got lucky in coming up with a hare-brained theory which happened to be true, like a blind hog finding a mushroom. The fact that you presented your theory in the way that you did shows that you lack prudence, and that's a quality she wants everyone on her team to have."
"Her team?"
"General West is in command of Project Giza, but Major Carter will be the one leading the team through the ring, if we make it work. Figure out how to make it work and you'll have a fairly guaranteed slot on that team."
"And this is a good thing?"
"Where's your sense of adventure," Catherine slapped Daniel's shoulder, "the chance to go to another world, see things on one from Earth has seen in thousands of years."
"I'm sorry, but maybe we should review my theory about the aliens who built these rings," Daniel defended, "They were oppressive beings who used technology to impersonate gods. They made humans slaves and maintained forced labor camps. Eventually their depravities reached a point that the humans—our ancestors—revolted against them and drove them out."
"Most likely leaving through the ring," Catherine added, "and because of the cruelty of Ra, they buried the ring so that he could not return. I agree, it isn't a pleasant picture, but–"
"I'm sorry," Daniel interrupted, "Ra? I know he was one of the Egyptian gods, but how do we know that he . . ."
"The cover stone," Catherine answered, putting that paper back onto the table. "We translated the hieroglyphics across the top."
"Time a million years" Daniel stopped, frowning at the symbols. "This is awful! Who did you rely on for this? Budge?" He busied himself crossing out words from the printed translation and writing in replacements. "A million years into the sky is Ra the sun god/sealed + buried for all time." Daniel paused, thinking, "It's not 'door to heaven.' It's 'Star-gate'."
"Stargate?" Catherine asked.
"The ring. Wormholes to other planets, interpreted by primitive humans, would seem a lot like a, well, a gate to the stars," Daniel explained. Looking over the page again, he said, "This symbol under the cartouche; it isn't hieroglyphic."
"We think that it's just pictorial," Catherine answered, "This was found at Giza, and had to do with the worship of Ra. You have the pyramid, the human worshipers, and the sun, which was Ra's symbol."
"No," Daniel said, "Why would they put that here? I think that it's a seventh symbol."
"That symbol doesn't exist!" Catherine protested, "It's not on the gate."
"Yes, it," Daniel pushed aside the top page to uncover the one with pictures of the glyphs, "is right here." He circled one of the symbols and drew stick figure worshipers on either side. "Dr. Carter said that the six points define a destination. Now, if you want to get from point A to point B, knowing where point B is isn't enough."
Catherine gasped, "You have to know where point A is!"
"Exactly"
"Mail Run flight 227 requesting permission to land, Over," Maj. Cater said into the microphone.
"Roger Mail Run," the traffic controller's voice cackled over the speakers in her helmet. "You are cleared for landing on Runway Charlie. Approach from the South, Over."
"Roger, Runway Charlie, South approach, Over," Samantha looked at her copilot and gave a half-smile and nod. She then banked the plane rather sharply to the right for a tight 270 degree turn while pitching the plane into descent.
"This isn't an F-16, ma'am," Green said.
"You don't have to remind me of that, Warrant Officer," the Major answered without changing the pitch. She leveled the roll and reduced engine speed as the runway sped up towards the plane, and finally increased the pitch to level the plane shortly before the wheels hit the tarmac.
Once the plane had come to a stop, she turned off the engines and stood. "Take care of the taxiing," she ordered Green. Then she smiled at Freeman and O'Brian: Freeman looked rather pale after that landing, but O'Brian was grinning. She opened the door into the cabin and found her two archeologists looking woozy.
"Next time, let's take the bus," Catherine remarked. Samantha laughed and looked at the top paper, pointing at a seventh symbol that they'd circled and around which they'd drawn stick figures. "Dr. Jackson realized that the symbol under the cartouche contains a seventh symbol," Catherine explained.
"We think that it signifies the point of origin for the wormhole," Daniel added.
"Let's go tell the general," Carter answered, patting the pair on the shoulders.
By the time that the plane finished taxiing, everyone had recuperated from the landing and was able to walk to the main gate. "Cheyenne Mountain Nuclear Missile Complex," Daniel read aloud the words above the entry tunnel.
"This place was built back in the Sixties," Carter volunteered, "Of course, since the INF three years ago, we haven't officially kept any nukes here."
"Officially?" Daniel asked.
"She's pulling your leg," O'Brian said.
They reached an elevator, and Carter swiped a magnetic card and pushed the eleven button.
"I'm surprised that there're room for eleven levels," Daniel remarked, "The mountain didn't look that high to me." As the elevator began its descent, Daniel jerked his head up and said, "Ah, guys, shouldn't we be going up?"
"Sublevels," Catherine explained, "This elevator will take us almost halfway to the briefing room."
"Oh," Daniel answered, trying to act nonchalant.
At the eleventh level, they moved to a different elevator, and Carter again swiped her card and hit the 27 button. "Having a single elevator shaft would be less secure if the facility ever came under attack," she explained, "Splitting the shaft works kind of like an airlock." Daniel nodded understanding, thinking that her tone lacked the disdain that it had held earlier. The rest of the elevator ride passed in silence, and the group followed Maj. Carter down the hallway and to a nondescript blue door, upon which she knocked.
A middle-aged man with a thin mustache opened the door, and the military personnel in the group saluted. "Major Carter," the man said, returning the salute, "I assume that this is Dr. Jackson?"
"Yes sir," Carter answered, "This is Doctor Daniel Jackson. Dr. Jackson, this is General West."
"Nice to meet you General," Daniel answered, extending his hand.
The general shook Daniel's hand. "Let me know as soon as there's any progress." He started to return to his office, but Carter forestalled him.
"Actually, sir," she said, "They think they've already figured it out."
The general raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Already? Your plane landed less than fifteen minutes ago!"
"We worked on the plane," Daniel answered.
West shot Carter a look that might have been a glare, but Daniel wasn't sure what the problem was. "Come through here," he said, and they followed him through his office and into a briefing room. He sat at the head of the table, and the others took seats near him.
"Explain," the general ordered.
"Dr. Langford asked me to make copies of some of the research material to work on the plane," Carter said, "and since I was skeptical about Dr. Jackson's usefulness, I approved it. I figured there was no sense in wasting a day, Sir."
"And so once Dr. Jackson signed the paperwork, we showed him the materials," Catherine added.
"And he figured it out?" West asked.
"Ah, yes, General, Sir," Daniel stumbled over his words. "You see, sir, there was a seventh symbol hidden under the cartouche."
"A seventh symbol?"
"It was embellished with worshipers," Catherine said, "so we didn't recognize it. We think that it signifies Earth, where the wormhole should start. Think of it as drawing a line: you have to have both a start and an end, not just an endpoint."
"That also explains why it was outside of the cartouche," Daniel added, "The address within the cartouche is the actual address, and it would work from any Stargate. The point of origin is just for Earth, not really part of the address."
"Major," he said, "How does this sound to you?"
"It makes sense, Sir," she answered. "But I only know of one way to test it."
He nodded. "Let's go," he said, got up, and walked to a stairwell opposite from where the group had entered. The room they entered was a converted missile control room; it still had the same consoles and monitors, which had been modified to operate the Stargate.
Carter replaced one of the enlisted men sitting in front of the monitors and started typing into the computer. The Stargate, visible through the windows, began dialing, and then stopped, with one chevron lighting up. "Chevron One encoded," Carter said. The gate dialed, stopped, lit up, "Chevron Two encoded." The litany continued up to the sixth chevron, and then Carter looked at the General. "I recommend we close the blast shield, Sir."
"Go ahead," he said. The metal barrier lowered from the ceiling and the technician next to Carter switched a monitor to show feed from one of the security cameras in the next room.
Carter typed for a minute, and then the gate began rotating again. The pyramid symbol stopped in the next chevron, and it lit up. "Chevron Seven locked!" Carter said, and mass of bright blue shot out of the gate. "That's the unstable vortex we predicted," she said, "it should recede," by the time she'd said this, it had already done so, "into a stable event horizon."
"Radiation?" West asked.
"Safe," Carter said.
"Raise the blast shield," he ordered, "Sergeant, get a probe in there, and Major, assemble your team."
"Yessir," Carter answered. "Team Giza, report to Level Twenty Seven Briefing Room," she said into the microphone.
"It's beautiful," Daniel marveled, staring through the windows at the gate.
"The event horizon of a stable wormhole," Samantha answered, "Dr. Jackson, not to diminish the importance this has for archeology, but the implications this has for physics, the things we can test now; this is a big deal."
"We have the probe ready," the sergeant said.
"Take it up the ramp," West ordered, and Daniel saw a metal treaded device approach the gate. "Extend the robot arm," West continued.
Carter entered a command, and her monitor switched to a view from the arm-mounted camera. The arm reached the event horizon and then the screen went to static. "What happened?" the general asked.
"We think that matter can only travel one way through a wormhole," Carter answered. "The gate probably will store matter until an object fully passes the event horizon. That way, if someone pauses after entering the gate, half of them won't materialize on the other side."
"Try pulling the arm back," West ordered. The arm returned from the horizon, and Carter's monitor again showed the gateroom.
"Sir, I recommend we send the whole probe through," Carter said, "That's the only way we'll get a view of the other side.
"But nothing can come through in that direction," West answered.
"No matter," Carter corrected, "energy, including radio transmissions, should be fine."
"Alright," West nodded, "Go ahead."
"Proceeding through the gate," the sergeant said. The probe rolled into the gate. "Tracking outgoing traveler," the sergeant said, and then Carter's monitor went black. "The traveler has rematerialized on the other side," the sergeant said, "On a planet in the same spiral arm of the galaxy as Earth."
"Activate the probe's lights," Samantha ordered. The image on her screen changed to show a stone room with stairs leading down to a doorway. "Rotate to the left," as the camera moved, the major pointed to something. "That podium looks like it may control the gate." The camera rotation continued, eventually facing back into the gate.
"Sergeant, continue exploring the area," West ordered, "Major, let's brief your team."
Daniel, Catherine, and two other archeologists were the only ones at the briefing in civilian clothing. The rest of the table was filled with Air Force personnel; West, Carter, Freeman, Green, and O'Brian he already knew, but Carter opened the meeting by introducing all those present. "Lt. Freeman is my first officer. Lt. Kawalsky is from the construction battalion; under him are Airmen Harris and Johnson. Warrant Officer Green is pilot. Airmen First Class O'Brian, Jones, and Maybourne are in small arms. Airman Pasteur is a sniper. Everyone already knows General West, Dr. Langford, and myself. Doctors Lee and Milton are archeologists. That just leaves Dr. Jackson, who figured out how to make the gate work."
"As you can see through the window, we have made the," West hesitated, "Star-gate form a wormhole to another planet. We sent a probe through the wormhole and it has confirmed that the atmosphere and temperature are livable. However," West paused for emphasis this time, "We believe that matter can only travel one way through the wormhole. If we send anyone through, there may be no return trip."
"Can't we just dial back the same way?" Airman Pasteur, a young black man, asked.
"The dialing device on that planet may have a call-back function," Carter answered, "We didn't get one with our gate, so we don't know, but most likely we'll need to figure out Earth's address."
"That will be your job, Dr. Jackson, if you're up to it?" West asked.
Daniel thought, wondering if a wagon ride like this was a good idea. He remembered Catherine's comments on that and answered, "I wouldn't have figured out what I did without Dr. Langford's help, sir. If we're hoping for a repeat performance, I think she should come as well."
Catherine laughed once, "I appreciate what you're doing, Dr. Jackson, but I'm an old woman. I stopped doing field work a long time ago."
West and Carter took Daniel's suggestion seriously. "I'm not telling you to do anything you're uncomfortable with, Doctor," General West said, "But if sending you with Dr. Jackson means a better chance of success, then I'd like you to go."
Catherine grinned, "Then I guess I'm in."