Dry Ground, Chapter One
Rating: PG-13 (shouldn't go higher, maybe lower at times)
Word Count: 2,065
Disclaimer: One half of SSK Productions is owned by pygmies & debt collectors. The other half is owned by her dogs. Logically, then, they own nothing.
Summary: Following the events of Tidal Years, SG-1 finds themselves washed up on dry ground.
Pairings: Eventually, Sam/Daniel & Mitchell/Vala. Maybe more later.
Author's Note: This started as an idea for a missing scene fic for Atlantis and really spiraled out of control. We are insane, it's a given.
Tomorrow Never Knows
It never got old, stepping onto a totally alien world for the first time. No matter how many times Colonel Cameron Mitchell had done it, there was something unique, something different every time he stepped through the even horizon. And as he took in the vista before him, he couldn't help but think that they all had been given a second chance—even if he didn't remember it.
"What? No spiel?" Vala's voice cut into Cam's thoughts.
Cam smiled, knowing what she was talking about. "Welcome to P6X422," he began in his best tour guide voice. "You may want to pay special attention to the ruins," he continued, turning in a full circle. "Oh my…" He let the sentence hang unfinished as he saw the purple-pink sea stretch out no more than fifty meters away, contrasting the dull, sandy landscape he'd seen from the MALP pictures. And he couldn't help but stare at it. "That was not in the report," he said finally, pointing at the sea.
Sam smiled. "Briefly," she answered. "One small note on one of the last pages." She patted him on the shoulder. "It's okay, General O'Neill never read past the first sentence."
"If that," Daniel chimed in.
Sam pointed at Daniel in agreement, and they shared a smile.
"But it's so…." Cam struggled to find a word that adequately described what he was seeing.
Vala leaned closer to him. So close that he could smell the faint but pleasant scent of her shampoo. "The word you're looking for is magenta," she told him with a smile.
He broke off looking at the view again and turned to her. "It is not magenta, Vala," he insisted. "It's purple…with a little pink."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow. "Colonel Mitchell, that is in fact the definition of magenta."
Cam opened his mouth to contradict Teal'c, but really couldn't. The man had a point. "That is not the point, Teal'c," he answered, amused.
Vala smiled broadly. "Then what is the point, my dear Colonel?" There was a devious twinkle in her eyes.
Cam frowned. He stuck out his finger, not really pointing at anything or anyone in particular. "The point is…" he paused. "The point is that magenta is not a word that men should use…or know the meaning to," he finished. "It's like chartreuse or cerulean…or mauve."
"What are those?" Vala asked immediately.
Cam smiled triumphantly. "See? I have no idea."
"I hate to interrupt," Daniel began, "but I'm going to head over to the Ancient ruins we're here to study."
Cam nodded, back to business as usual. "Sounds like a plan. Sam, why don't you go with him." He smiled. "Try and keep the good doctor out of trouble."
Sam smiled, readjusting her P-90. "I make no guarantees," she joked back, elbowing Daniel lightly. They shared a smile.
Cam sighed. "Just try not to let him die again," he conceded. "And take the second MALP. God knows, it's mostly his gadgets anyway."
Sam chuckled as she took out the remote control for one of the MALPs, following Daniel up a slow incline.
Cam adjusted his hat a little. "Teal'c, why don't you scout the perimeter," Cam continued. "The UAV didn't show any signs of recent natives, but I'd hate to be surprised in the middle of the night or something."
Vala flipped her hair back and smiled at him, the sun catching her hair just so. "Why? Afraid of making first contact in your…what are they called?" She paused for a second. "Ah yes. Tighty-whiteys."
Cam looked at her, both amused and not. He shook his head ever so slightly. "I would…not first contact…Vala, go start unpacking the supplies." He turned, jogging after Teal'c. "And don't go anywhere," he called back.
She sighed, her hands resting on her hips. "Like there's anywhere to go," she called after him.
He waved his hand, not turning back to look. He caught up to Teal'c easily. "Thank god there are no locals for her to swindle," he muttered.
Teal'c raised an eyebrow, one side of his lips creasing into a smile. "Indeed."
Vala Mal Doran looked at the MALP with undisguised disdain. Piled high with supplies for their week long expedition, it looked like an insurmountable task to unload all of it. Not to mention unenjoyable, kind of like the week they would be spending on this backwater planet without all the amenities of the SGC. Oh, Colonel Mitchell claimed they had a shower, but Vala really didn't think it would be like the one she was used to. Besides, he had that little grin of his.
Truth be told, she was more of a city girl, and hadn't ever enjoyed the so-called "roughing it." It was going to be a long week, and she was going to have nothing to do while Daniel was off discovering some new secret about the Ancients.
She sighed, wrinkling her nose as a soft drifted along. It smelled slightly earthy, but whipped up a little of the surrounding sand. She wasn't a big fan of sand, but things weren't likely to change.
She looked at the MALP again, then grabbed the handle of one of the cases. She tried pulling on it to get it off the MALP. It wouldn't budge. Rolling her eyes, she pulled harder. It moved, but only slightly.
"You've got to be joking," she muttered. She gritted her teeth, got leverage by putting one of her feet below the case on the MALP, and pulled again. Abruptly, the case came loose. Unable to stop herself, Vala and the case went tumbling backward. Her head hit against what was probably the only rock in the area.
"Ouch," she said, feeling the back of her head where she'd fallen. She felt wetness and knew it was blood. "Well, that's perfect," she mumbled, sitting up slowly. The world spun around her a little. She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, her vision had cleared considerably, and she was left staring at the contents of the case.
"You know," Mitchell's voice startled her. "I didn't bring anything you'd want."
Vala smiled, picking up a pair of underwear. "Who says?"
He didn't look amused as he grabbed them out of his hands. "I should have known you'd go straight for them," he mumbled, leaning down to stuff them back into the case. Then he kneeled beside her. "Let me take a look," he said more gently. "Not too bad, a band aid should do it." A minute later, he'd put the band aid in place, and Vala was noticing the wind had picked up considerably.
Vala pulled her hair back into place. "Did Sam say anything about weather?" she asked, almost shouting to be heard.
Cam shook his head. "Not that I know of," he answered. "Go give Teal'c a hand pitching the tents. I'll call Sam."
Vala nodded, and regretted it, but shielding her eyes with her hand, she made her way to where Teal'c had one tent up and another almost up. It hadn't really sounded like a terrible lot of fun before, but now with the weather, she was starting to regret coming.
And that was before the rain started.
Excitement filled Daniel every time he had the opportunity to study possible Ancient ruins, because he knew that there was the chance of finding something completely undiscovered.
"You've got that look," Sam's voice broke into his thoughts.
He glanced at her sideways, returning her smile. "What look?"
"That one that says you're about to find something big," she answered.
Daniel carefully brushed some sand away from the engraving he was looking at. "I don't know what we'll find here," he admitted. "But the fact that these ruins are so intact, with no Goa'uld symbols present, leads me to believe that the Goa'uld either never knew about this planet—"
"Or never visited," she finished.
He smiled again. "Exactly," he looked back at her. "Could you pass me the video camera?"
She handed it to him a few moments later. "Have you ever wondered why the Ancients chose the planets they did?"
He opened the camera. "Usually for some source, possibly depending on where the planet or system was located," he said as he started the recording. "But honestly, I wonder that a lot."
"I suppose that's half the fun, finding the answers," she responded. "I'm going to walk the perimeter again."
"Okay, see you in a bit," he said absently as he made a few notes in his notebook. Though most defiantly Ancient, the writing was in a dialect that he'd never encountered before. From his previous studies of the Ancients, he would have guessed that it was one of the less recent ones, but every once in a while, he came across some symbols that he recognized as part of an older dialect. Relatively speaking, of course.
But still, it was fascinating. He picked up a few words right away, while others gave him some trouble. Either way, though, he was completely engrossed when a gale of wind nearly knocked him over.
"Daniel!" Sam shouted to be heard over the sudden wind. She grabbed his vest, helping him back up. "Sudden weather."
He squinted. "Yeah, I see that."
She sheltered her eyes with her hand. "I set up the tent. I think it's best we try and ride out the storm from here."
He nodded. "Are they staying by the gate?" he asked, grabbing his camera, notebook, and a few other things, and followed her. He could barely see a few feet in front of him.
"Yes," she answered. "There's no way we could get back to them in time."
Daniel followed her into the tent. "Cozy," he commented, shaking some sand out of his hair, having seen the containers stacked in the corner of the tent.
Sam smiled wryly. "Well, we only had one tent on this MALP. I suppose we were lucky there." She unclipped her vest.
"What? That I had so much stuff they had to send an extra MALP?" Daniel teased.
She chuckled. "Yeah." She had taken out her scanner and was staring at it intently.
Daniel heard the sound of water hitting the tent like shattering glass and flinched. "How big is this storm going to be?"
She shook her head. "The UAV didn't show anything but constant weather systems in the previous flybys." She hit her radio. "Cam, you need to move to higher ground. This storm's putting out too much moisture too fast."
Static answered her, then silence.
Sam looked at her scanner again, frowning. "It's like the water has its own EM field, and it's interfering," she told him. "Cam, do you copy? You need to move to higher ground," she repeated. When she got no reply, she slipped her vest back on. "We have to go help them." She opened the tent a little and rain drops flew in at them with such force that it stung.
He grabbed her arm. "Sam, we can't go out in that."
She looked at him. "We have to."
He shook his head. "We can't. The water is interfering with the radios, they could be headed to us, and if we leave, we could get stuck out in that."
She was still looking at him, but he could tell she knew he was right. Finally, she nodded, undoing her vest once again.
Daniel glimpsed out onto the now nearly pitch black landscape, hoping that he was right. When he turned around, Sam was looking at her scanner again, the color drained from her face. He walked closer to her. "What is it, Sam?"
She looked up at him, panic in her eyes. "It's gone," she said quietly.
He frowned. "What's gone?"
"The land," was her reply. "We must be at the highest point."
"What are you saying, Sam?" He felt his stomach churning.
"There's about a hundred and fifty meters of land around us, but the rest is underwater," she answered.
"That couldn't happen that fast, could it?" he asked, panic growing in him.
She looked away from him, her voice soft and emotional. "But it did."
"What about, Teal'c, Vala, and Mitchell?" He had to ask, even if he knew what she was going to say.
She shook her head. "I'm not reading any life signs besides ours," she whispered. "And the gate…the gate is just…gone."