Daniel followed Jack through the Stargate to P3S-216, Sam and Teal'c close behind him. The MALP had showed a desolate view of white sand and black, starless skies. Sam had wondered if high clouds could be occluding the stars; pollution was an unlikely factor, given the deserted look of the surroundings, but it was always possible that some long-ago event had left residue in the upper atmosphere.
Now that he was here, Daniel found himself questioning this; a moon shone brightly in the sky behind the gate, the odd crescent shape suggesting that a partial eclipse was occurring. So if the sky was clear, where were the stars?
Shaking off the uneasy feeling, he hefted his pack more securely onto his back, looking around for any sign of civilisation. The MALP's readings had shown nothing nearby, but Stargates were usually located near places with human habitation, whether current or past. From the look of this place, they might find nothing but ruins, especially since there was no sign of a DHD. Whoever had lived here had likely long since vanished.
Jack looked back at his team, who had all spread out from the gate, staring around themselves with interest. "Okay, SG-1, let's figure out where we're gonna go from here." Daniel and the other two headed back toward him; as they regrouped, Sam pointed off into the distance. "There seems to be a shape on the horizon there," she said. "Why don't we go investigate it?"
Jack nodded, and the four of them headed toward the blurry shape in the distance. As they approached it, it became clearer; it seemed to be the desiccated corpse of a strange creature, resembling an eight-foot-long scorpion. Jack signalled to the rest of them, and they spread out carefully, zats at the ready.
Teal'c moved toward it, looking it over; after a moment he nodded, signalling the rest of the team closer. "It appears to have died some time ago," he said.
Daniel leaned in to inspect it. "Hmmm," he said. "Given the dry desert air, there's no real way to tell how long it's been here." He stood back up. "Whatever it is, it's pretty big. It would need a lot of food to survive in a place like this."
Jack sighed. "Okay, let's keep going, then," he said. "As interesting as... giant, dead bugs... may be, I'd rather not stick around them if at all possible. You never know when a bunch more of them are gonna show up." He started off in the same direction they'd been heading previously.
"Hey," said Daniel, looking on the bright side. "At least now we know this place isn't deserted."
Jack shrugged in acquiescence.
xx
As they continued across the deserted landscape, several strange trees came into view. They looked dead, which Daniel didn't find surprising; trees in desert locations needed some way to store large amounts of water, like the liquid-conserving barrels of various cacti. He wondered if these were a failed attempt at farming, since there seemed to be no other explanation for the saplings.
Walking up to one of them, he looked closer at it. The bark seemed to shimmer in an almost crystalline fashion. Suspiciously, he reached for one of the twigs; it broke off in his hand, and he held it up to inspect it.
"Guys, you might wanna come see this," he called. As the rest of SG-1 gathered around him, he showed off the broken branch. "Look at this. It looks like quartz."
Sam took it from him, frowning at it. "It's definitely mineral," she said. "It's not petrified wood, either. It looks like the trees are made of quartz."
Jack lifted an eyebrow. "And this means... what?"
Sam rolled her eyes. "It means that they're not actual trees. Somebody must have made these and placed them here."
Daniel stared at the tree, slightly worried. "I hope we didn't blunder into somebody's idea of a museum or something," he said.
Jack smirked. "Wouldn't be the first time. C'mon, let's keep moving. If this is a museum, there's gotta be an information kiosk in it somewhere."
xx
After another ten minutes or so of travel, Sam called a halt. "Guys," she said, "look at the moon. Notice anything... odd?"
Daniel glanced up, not seeing what Sam was talking about, but after a moment Teal'c nodded. "The eclipse," he said. "It has not changed since we arrived here."
Startled, Daniel looked more closely at it. Sure enough, the moon was in the exact same crescent position as it had been more than an hour ago.
He frowned. "Is there anything that could cause that?" he asked Sam.
She looked thoughtful. "The orbit of the moon around the planet could be synced with the orbit of the planet around its primary star," she said. "But it's pretty unlikely."
"Or," said Jack, "maybe this really is a museum, and that's just the ceiling. Maybe it's even an exhibit about lunar eclipses or something."
"That would explain the lack of stars," said Daniel. "If so, that's a pretty big ceiling."
Jack shrugged and opened his mouth, probably to tell them to keep moving again, then turned rapidly and grabbed his zat. "Incoming!" he yelled.
Daniel turned to see what appeared to be a giant worm, its head covered in a bone helmet of some sort, moving rapidly toward them. There appeared to be several figures sitting on its back; was this a local form of transportation, like an airport shuttle or something?
The worm looked like it was going to head past them, but at the last moment it swerved toward them and stopped. Daniel stared at the figures on its back with interest. Most of them seemed to be human teenagers, a girl and four boys. One of the boys was wearing what appeared to be jeans and a long-sleeved shirt; one was wearing an odd white suit and cape, as well as-Daniel blinked, startled-glasses. The other three teens were wearing what looked like black martial-arts outfits, and were carrying what appeared to be swords.
There were three other people as well: a toddler and two people dressed in very strange outfits. All three of them sported bone masks similar to the one their ride was wearing, although the little girl had pushed hers up to rest on her head-which was covered in short blue-green curls. Ooookay...
The people on the worm stared down at them for a moment, then broke into excited chatter among themselves. Daniel was surprised; from the sound of it, the group was speaking Japanese. He'd learned the language years ago, but hadn't used it recently, so his skills weren't quite up to translating fast, excited babble.
Glancing at his teammates, all of whom looked confused, Daniel decided that it was obviously his turn. First contact, here we go.
Stepping forward, he cleared his throat. "Ano..." he said, trying desperately to remember what to say. "Watashi no namae wa-wa 'Daniel Jackson' ... desu."
The babble stopped abruptly. One of the boys, his hair an unlikely shade of orange, stepped in front of the others. "Kurosaki Ichigo. What're you guys doing here? I thought the only people here were Arankaru, but none of you have masks or holes as far as I can see."
Another boy, this one with long red hair and tribal tattoos, came up behind the first guy. "Ichigo, I don't think we should trust them. We have no clue where they came from. And look at that guy! Doesn't he look like Aizen?"
Daniel found to his dismay that while he understood nearly everything they said, he wasn't comprehending any of it.
The girl stepped up and put her hands on their shoulders. "Calm down, Renji," she said. "None of them seem to have any reiatsu, so they're not Horou or Shinigami. For all we know, they're just a group of lost Purasu." She shifted her gaze to Daniel. "Where did you come from? Did someone perform a konso on you?"
Daniel stammered slightly. "We-we're a group of explorers. We came here through the Stargate back there. We come from a place called Earth."
The girl stared at him for a moment, then giggled. "What a coincidence, so do we." She glanced up at the orange-haired boy. "Well, technically, only Ichigo, Ishida, and Sado do. Renji and I are from another dimension called Souru Sosaeti, and the other three are natives here. But that's not important." Her smile faded, and she looked at him seriously. "It's dangerous here, the four of you need to move on. I'm not sure how you got sent here instead of Souru Sosaeti, but you could all be eaten if you don't go to heaven soon."
WHAT?
Daniel cleared his throat, wondering if he was just misunderstanding the girl, or if she had really just implied that they were all dead.
"Hey," whispered Jack from behind him, "what's going on?"
Daniel turned. "We're having a bit of miscommunication here," he admitted. "I'm trying to sort it out."
"Well, hurry it up. We need to check back in with Command soon."
Sighing, Daniel looked back up at the girl. "I don't think I'm quite understanding you," he said. "The four of us are an exploration team that goes to other planets by using the Stargate, the big ring-thing over that way." He pointed. "It was built by a civilisation that existed on Earth hundreds of thousands of years ago. They left us a list of gate addresses, and the address that we used today took us here."
The girl stared at him a moment longer, then gasped. "Oh! That means..." She paused as if thinking, then said, "Are you based in America?"
Extremely confused now, Daniel nodded.
Her face lit up. "Urahara would love to hear about this!" she said excitedly. "He's been investigating reports of souls coming in from America who claim to have come from or visited other planets. We didn't know how that was possible, given the current level of human technology, but they must have come through your... Sutaageeto!"
The red-haired boy looked suddenly enlightened, but the others seemed just as confused as before. The girl glanced at them impatiently. "I'll explain later," she hissed, then looked back down at Daniel and the rest, her face serious.
"I'm sorry, Daniel-san," she said in what he recognised as extremely polite language. "The information you have given us will be very helpful, but I'm afraid I can't allow you to know of our existence. It could upset the balance of things on Earth." She reached into her robes.
"Wait, wait, wait!" said Daniel desperately. "What are you going to-" He knew that they could learn some incredible things from these people, if he could just keep them talking.
The girl pulled out a small tube and pressed the button on top. There was a loud pop and a cloud of smoke.
The last thing Daniel saw was a rabbit, swaying gently back and forth on its spring.
xx
"So, any luck?" asked General Hammond as SG-1 stepped back out of the Stargate.
Daniel shook his head. "The place was a deserted wasteland, sir. No evidence of a civilisation ever having been there."
He wasn't going to tell Hammond about the battle they'd witnessed between a group of masked teddy bears and sword-wielding, Japanese-speaking rabbits. Glancing at the rest of SG-1, he knew that none of them would say anything either.
Some things were just too weird, even for Stargate Command.