Note: This story takes place in Stargate: SG-1 Season Five
The damage to her ship was impressive. There were fist-sized holes in the bulkhead leading out into the corridor, dangling wires, and little bits of shattered artificial diamond everywhere. Fortunately the explosion had taken place in an empty cargo hold, not someplace vital like engineering. Unfortunately, it had also been the result of friendly fire.
"Lance," Leeza began, with more calm than she thought herself capable of right now, "why did you try to blow up the Treona?"
Her cousin was doing a good job of looking sheepish and betrayed at the same time. "It's not my fault, Lee," he said, gesturing to where Terinu was busy leaning up against the bulkhead and pretending not to listen. "That little grey-skinned cretin over-boosted my det charge."
The little cretin in question, a small, grey-skinned alien with a tail almost twice as long as he was high, glared at Lance with undisguised annoyance. "You were the one that wanted to see what my bion energy would do if we used it to enhance your explosive packs. It's not my fault the walls got singed."
"Singed?" Leeza repeated. "You took out part of the corridor bulkhead and the power router for the drive sensors. It's a miracle that we didn't have a hull breach. As it is now, we can't use our star drive. Which means we are sitting ducks if some Varn cruiser pops into this system and recognizes their chief annoyance."
"Hey, I used the smallest charge I could put together, inside a diamondiod safety box with just one opening for Terinu to send his little faerie lights through. It should have held against anything short of a SATNUC round." Lance's expression brightened. "You should have seen it blow!"
Boys and their toys, Leeza thought. "Did it occur to either of you to wait until we were down on a planet, and well away from the ship, before you tried this stunt? Preferably behind a thick safety barrier?"
"The Mad Bomber here said the box would absorb the blast," Terinu finally said. "How was I supposed to know he didn't know what he was doing?"
Lance bristled and raised a finger at Terinu, "I took every precaution—"
"—except for not doing it," Leeza cut in. "Enough! I don't care who is responsible, but I'm leaving it to you two to clean up this mess and start on repairs. I'll be along to help shortly, once Rufus and I find a bolt hole where we can hide."
Terinu's tail twitched in anger. "All I did was go along—"
"-when you knew perfectly well what you were doing was dangerous. You could have said no, or you could have brought it to me. I am still captain of this ship, you know." When I'm not playing den mother. "Now go help Lance get started."
Terinu mumbled something under his breath about finding a maintenance cupboard and brushed past the two humans.
"Sorry, Lee," Lance said with a shrug, when the grey-skinned alien had gone around the corner. "I still think he deliberately pumped up the charge though."
Why was it that the tension of whatever situation they were in went up by a factor of ten when Lance and Terinu were in the same room? It wasn't as if they were rivals at anything, beyond the fact that they were both good at making things go boom. I ought to be happy. At least they were working together for once. "You could have both been killed, Lance," she said, sighing. "I'd have hated to write a letter to my aunt starting with, I'm sorry your son died doing something stupid on my watch."
"It was perfectly… …okay, maybe it wasn't, but it was as safe as I could make it. The box should have held."
Leeza rubbed her forehead, where she could feel a migraine beginning to form. "Lance, could you just start cleaning this mess up please? I'll be on the bridge."
* * *
A quick diversion to the infirmary only served to discover that they were out of analgesics that were both non-toxic tohomo sapiens and wouldn't lay her out flat on her bunk for eight hours. There still were plenty of anti-acids available though, and she took a couple of tablets to swallow before making her to the bridge.
Rufus was leaning over a hooded display terminal, an uncharacteristic frown on his fox-like face. Leeza dropped into the seat beside him and tried to peer around his shoulder.
"Bad news?" she asked.
"Not bad, good really, just a bit unexpected." Rufus turned away from the display and looked her over with concern. "Our two young bucks at each other's throats once again?"
"Actually the Lance and Teri Show was a bit low key this time," Leeza told him. "I think I made them both realize how close they came to making themselves a smear on the bulkheads. I just wish I could have a civil conversation with the two of them together that lasted longer than two sentences." She shook her head. "That'll keep though. Have you found a place for us to hole up?"
Rufus tapped the display with a claw. "Yes. Lovely world, roughly equivalent to Vulpine Prime or Earth, with a moderate climate, and large amounts of plant life. Better still, no sign of an industrial civilization that might attract the Varn's interest. There's a large conifer forest region in the northern meridian I thought we might set down in. Shut down the reactor, cover the Treona with that sensor spoofer tenting we picked up, and we ought to be practically invisible from orbit until we're ready to go."
"Sounds good," Leeza agreed. "So what was making you frown earlier?"
"One minor, almost insignificant anomaly. It's not supposed to be there." Rufus grinned at Leeza's look of confusion. "According to the survey records for this system, this planet's orbit is occupied by an asteroid belt. It was too close to the local gas giants to allow for a proper planetary formation to occur. The asteroid belt is still there, but now there's a nice little habitable planet as well. Bit hard even for the Survey Service to miss that little detail, wouldn't you say?"
"Nova! They missed an entire habitable world?"
"Apparently. Should make for a diverting trip, I think."
"Boring," Leeza said quickly, "I prefer boring. Nice boring planets with nice boring plant life, no large animals with big teeth, or xenophobic natives."
Rufus' ears rotated in a way that Leeza had learned recognize as suppressed laughter. "Now where's the fun in that?"
* * *
The Treonawas a starship, not a shuttle craft or a fighter, and was just on the near side of being capable of interfacing with a planet's atmosphere. Something which it hadn't been asked to do, Leeza realized when she checked the ship's log, since it had completed its construction trials. But she felt safe enough with the ship in Rufus' capable hands, and there were no surprises as they went from graceful spaceship to slightly ungainly atmospheric craft.
They set down in a flat, grassy clearing in the middle of what looked like a pine forest. The spot was just wide enough to allow theTreona to land, and the trees tall enough to allow the spoofer tenting to be strung from their branches, something that Terinu agreed to do with his typical flinty reluctance.
"Why not get Lance to do it? He's the one that broke the ship," the boy had asked when Leeza had requested his help.
"Because Lance would need a grav-platform, which I might add he is going to be using as soon as he finishes with the post-landing checks," she said patiently. "You, on the other hand, can leap up into the trees just fine without one."
"And if I don't?"
Leeza took a deep, calming breath. "Then you leave us open to being detected by the Varn or their lizard warriors, and I'm sure you don't want that."
Terinu snorted, and turned away to grab a bundle of tenting and some plastic ropes to secure them. Leeza let out her breath and thanked all that was holy that she hadn't found a life partner yet. Because eventually that might translate into children, and from the looks of things teenagers were more trouble than they were worth.
He wasn't halfway finished with his task when he leaped down out of the trees and bounded over to where Leeza was scanning the hull exterior for micro-cracks caused by Lance's little experiment.
"Found something," Terinu said.
"What?" Lance asked from where he was setting up perimeter sensors, just in case there was any hostile native life around.
Terinu ignored him and kept his eyes on Leeza. "Some sort of weird temple thing, about a kilometer from here, in a little valley. I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't been up in the treetops."
"Nova!" Lance exclaimed, jogging up to where they stood. "Some sort of local aborigines?"
"Smarter than that," Terinu said. "There are a bunch of stone columns set up all around, but in the center is a weird sort of upright ring, made of a dark stone from what I could see, with a little altar near it. I'm gonna check it out."
"Terinu, wait!" But he was already bounding up and into the trees, heading in a generally southwestern direction.
"Idiot kid," Lance said, and Leeza was forced to agree.
* * *
Leeza, Lance, and Rufus all went together to follow the Ferin boy, finally catching up to him at the end of the little valley. It appeared to be pretty much as he described. Large stone pillars that reminded Leeza of the standing stones from some old Earth cultures surrounded what appeared to be a much more sophisticated looking ring, with a small tilted altar, or something, near it. The ring had a series of chevrons set at regular intervals along its edge, and a series of mysterious looking symbols on the inner part of the ring.
"Weird," was all that Lance had to say.
"You said something about not wanting to meet any natives earlier?" Rufus said.
"Maybe it's from some local civilization that died out," Leeza said uncertainly. She raised her hand scanner and aimed at the ring, then frowned at the results.
"What's the matter?" Rufus asked.
"That stone the ring is made out of. It's not really stone, or even steel. If I'm reading the scanner right it's something that's even tougher than diamondoid."
Lance crossed his arms and stared at the ring curiously. "Definitely not local then. Nobody could make that without a significant industrial base."
"Hey, I found something else!" Terinu called out. While the rest of Leeza's crew had stayed the edge of the perimeter defined by the standing stones, the young Ferin had approached closer the ring and was examining the ground in front of it.
"Teri, be careful!" Leeza called out. "What did you find?"
"Tire tracks!"
Leeza, Lance, and Rufus shared a puzzled glance, then rushed over to where Terinu was standing. There were indeed wheeled tracks on the ground, made by something perhaps half the size of a ground car. They led to the edge of the woods, where the crew got their second shock of the day.
It was a six wheeled, automated probe of some sort, with a variety of relatively primitive cameras and other sensors mounted on arms on the front of the thing.
"That's not Varn technology, or anybody else's that I'd recognize," Leeza concluded.
"Nor I," Rufus agreed.
"The tech on this thing has to be at least a couple of centuries old," Lance pointed out, peering into one of the cameras.
"So? That just means it was sent here by somebody who's cheap," Terinu said. "Tech doesn't have to be bleeding edge to work properly."
Lance looked at him grudgingly. "The kid has a point."
"That still doesn't explain how it got here," Leeza said. "Where we put the Treona down is the only place within ten kilometers to land, and there's no sign that this thing went through the woods on its own."
They doubled back to the strange ring, following the probe's tracks. They led right up to the low stone platform that served as the ring's support.
"It drove through the ring, to examine it maybe?" Leeza ventured.
"There aren't any tracks on the other side of this stupid thing," Terinu said, hopping up onto the platform. Meanwhile Rufus was poking at the little circular, slanted… sculpture? Altar? Anyway, the thing had two sets of concentric circles, marked with symbols matching those on the ring itself, with a large red circle in the center. I swear, it looks like the world's biggest panic button.
Lance was giving the ring an experimental shove. "Hey, this thing actually moves!" he called out.
"Don't touch anything!" Leeza ordered. "That goes for you too, Rufus."
"It's all right, I don't think this thing is working, whatever it is," he said, pushing at the altar experimentally. The symbol under his hand depressed slightly, but nothing else happened. "It's definitely some sort of technology though. No bunch of stone age primitives made this thing."
"Just please don't fiddle with it until we're sure what it does," she said. "We need to finish getting the Treona under cover, especially now that we know someone is interested in this planet."
Lance glanced back into the woods in the direction of their ship. "Understood. Come on, Teri, let's finish the job and let Leeza and Rufus figure this thing out."
"For the last time, it's Terinu," the boy snapped. "Finish it yourself, I got most of it done without your help. I wanna look at this thing some more." He gave the ring an idle kick.
With a sound that was something like whraara-CHUNK, the mysterious ring suddenly rotated, and one the chevrons lit up and locked into position.
"What the hell did you just do?" Lance cried out.
Whraara-CHUNK. Another chevron locked into place.
"I didn't do anything!" Terinu yelled back. Whraara-CHUNK. "I just kicked it!"
Whraara-CHUNK.
"Teri, Lance, get away from that thing!" Leeza yelled.
Whraara-CHUNK.
"You did something!" Whraara-CHUNK. "RIGHT NOW!"
Leeza jumped up onto the stone platform and yanked at Lance's arm, over-balancing him and causing them to both tumble to the ground. At that moment, a blue energy field suddenly filled the center of the metal ring. Terinu made a surprised vertical leap up onto the top of the ring, just as the energy field seemed to splash outward, like a spout of water from a depth charge explosion. The energy field expanded sideway about five meters away from the ring, then suddenly fell back, leaving the energy field rippling like water in the ring's center.
Lance helped Leeza to her feet, as they both brushed themselves off. His eyes were wide and starting at the ring. He and Terinu had been arguing right in front of it, and if they had tried to move a moment later, they would have been directly in the way of the energy field as it had expanded.
"I think we'd better get under some cover," Rufus said, standing up from he'd taken refuge behind the altar.
Terinu was leaning over, hands and clawed feet gripping the ring, almost upside down as he peered closely at the blue energy field. "Looks a little like my bion energy," he said.
"Don't tou—" Leeza began, as the boy gave the field an experimental poke. The field rippled, and his finger disappeared up to the second knuckle before he removed it. "—fool with it any longer," she finished.
"Yes, I think we should do as Leeza says," Rufus agreed, the swashbuckling, fox-like alien fighter pilot looking uncharacteristically flummoxed.
"Fine, fine," Terinu agreed reluctantly. He poised to leap to the ground, but before he could join them four figures emerged from the rippling field of energy. Flung out, rather, flying clear of the ring and landing in a rough heap six meters away.
They were all human, from what Leeza could tell, dressed in dark green and black military uniforms. Three men, one woman, and all four of them heavily armed with what looked like a combination of projectile and energy weapons.
Leeza's hand dropped to the butt of her pistol, while Rufus and Lance did the same. Terinu maintained his perch on top of the ring, which was suddenly empty as the energy field dissipated with a brief flash. One of his hands was closed in a fist, around a little bit of metal Leeza was willing to guess, suitable for an energy grenade.
The first of the newcomers to recover was a heavily built African man with a bizarre looking golden sigil literally inserted into his forehead. He also had a wicked looking heavy rifle slung under one arm, which he politely pointed towards the ground when he realized that they were surrounded.
The second of the group said, a grey-haired man with a more conventional projectile rifle, began to pull himself to his feet with a groan. "Carter, Daniel, are you all right?" he asked.
"O'Neill, we are not alone," the first man said.
O'Neill, or at least that's who Leeza assumed was being addressed, looked around to see her little crew. "Oh, for crying out loud. Carter, Daniel, wake up! We've got company!"
The third man began to push himself off the ground, and was helped to his feet by his female partner, a woman with short blond hair and an inquisitive eye. He was a relatively young, not terribly imposing looking fellow, wearing spectacles like someone in a historical drama. "Uh, hello," he said, glancing between her crew, obviously trying to figure out who was in charge.
"I'm Captain Leeza Blake, of the Treona," she greeted. "Who are you all and what is that thing?"
"Colonel Jack O'Neill," the grey-haired man replied, "United States Air Force."
"I'm Doctor Daniel Jackson," the younger man said. He gestured to the remaining two. "This is Major Samantha Carter and, um, Teal'c." Carter, the blond haired woman, straitened her cap, and Teal'c favored them all with a bow of his head.
Leeza glanced quickly to Lance, and they both said almost simultaneously, "United StatesAir Force?"
"Uh, yeahhh," O'Neill drawled, "you were expecting somebody else's Air Force?"
Dr. Jackson cleared his throat noisily, and said, "We're from a planet called 'Earth.'"
"We've heard of it," Lance replied, deadpan.
Jackson looked relieved. "Oh, good, that makes things a bit simpler, or at least I hope it does," he said, glancing at Leeza's sidearm.
"Not to me," Rufus interjected. "Why would humans coming from Earth be so surprising?"
"Um, well, because… …ah, where did you say you were from again?"
"Earth," Leeza replied, "Australia, a little town called Anakie."
O'Neill glanced at Rufus. "Y' get big dingoes in that town, I take it?"
Rufus grinned, and gave a little bow. "Viscount Ru-Ofanius Brushtail of Vulpine Prime."
"Uh, huh," Dr. Jackson said slowly. He looked up at Terinu, who was still perched atop the ring, "and you're from…?"
"None of your business," Teri replied.
"Great. Well, I'm totally confused," O'Neill declared. "Carter? Teal'c? Care to chime in?"
"I can offer no explanation," Teal'c replied calmly.
"I'm not exactly certain, sir, but I might have an idea," Carter said. "Captain Blake, I know this is going to sound like a silly question, but what year is it, from your perspective?"
"2564," Leeza said, "What year do you think it is?"
"We entered the Stargate in the year 2004," Carter said, "But I think something went wrong."
"Ya think?" O'Neill replied.
* * *
Note to self: Re-supply the infirmary with analgesics ASAP, Leeza thought, as the explanations continued. Her headache was back, with a vengeance.
"…so you've never heard of the Gou'ald?" Colonel O'Neill asked again.
"No," Lance, repeated, "We've never seen any of these 'Stargate' things either."
"Though I have to admit, these Gou'ald sound remarkably like the Varn," Rufus noted. "Certainly they're equally arrogant, claiming to be gods and all."
"So you need this 'dust-jacket' thing to prevent your ships from being hit by interstellar debris?" Major Carter was standing by Leeza, apparently burning with curiosity. Well, so was Leeza, given she'd just been confronted by time-travellers using some form of instant interstellar transportation system.
"That's right," she confirmed. "Otherwise we'd be torn to pieces as soon as we came close to light speed."
"But why not just pop into hyperspace before you reach a significant fraction of C? Then you wouldn't have worry about time-dilation effects."
"Time-dilation? The warp envelope compensates for that before we go super-liminal." Leeza blinked. "Wait, did you say hyperdrive? Like switching into a parallel continuum where you can ignore the laws of physics?"
"Well not ignore," Carter hedged.
Behind her, Leeza heard Terinu mutter, "What are they talking about?"
"The laws of physics," Rufus replied, "or rather some conflicting views of them. I think Leeza is ahead."
She ignored them and stayed focused on Carter. "Look, hyperdrives are science-fiction, like Verne's Martians, or, um…"
"…instantaneous interstellar travel?" Carter finished.
"That's what you said you did," Lance interrupted. "All I saw was a light show and you four falling on your faces."
Doctor Jackson raised his hands up before O'Neill, who was giving Lance a sour look, could interrupt. "Wait, wait, wait," he began, "if I'm understanding you right, the way you travel through space is completely different from the way Sam described to you, right?"
"Right," Leeza confirmed.
"And you've never heard of the Gou'ald?"
"Right."
"Or the Stargate, or the Stargate Program?"
"Right." Leeza blinked again. "You aren't trying to say…?"
Major Carter turned to O'Neill. "Sir, I think we're in a parallel universe, like when we used the Quantum Mirror."
The Colonel looked pained. "Carter, what did I tell you about messing around with the Gate's operating system?"
"It wasn't me, sir. Everything was normal."
"I mean, this is way worse than when you sent us back to the '60's."
"Yes, sir, I know."
"And that time we ended up underneath a Titan missile."
Carter's forehead became pinched to the point that her eyebrows were nearly touching. "Yes, sir, I know."
"Excuse me, but this has happened to you before?" Leeza interrupted.
"It's a really long, and completely irrelevant, story," Doctor Jackson intervened.
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.
Carter un-pinched her forehead and continued, "Look, the point is that somehow we managed to not only travel forward in time, but also apparently translate ourselves into a completely separate continuum, one where the Gou'ald don't exist, or at least never made it off their homeworld."
"I'm liking this place already," O'Neill declared. "Okay, Carter, how the heck to we get back?"
"Well, theoretically, since we didn't observe any anomalies when we transited the Gate, that might mean this world's Stargate is still somehow connected to our universe. If we dial out, it might just take us straight back home," Carter said.
"And if it doesn't?"
"Well, if it isn't still connected to our universe, that might mean that the Earth's Giza Stargate was never unburied, which means we'll either end up at the Antarctica Gate or not be able to dial home at all. In which case our best bet is to try for the one of the Asgard protected worlds and ask for a lift."
"Asgard?" Lance asked.
"Um, little grey guys," Doctor Jackson answered, then caught Terinu's annoyed glance and added, "really little grey guys."
"Nice though," O'Neill added, "they like me, us, I mean."
"Assuming they're still around of course, since in this universe we would have never helped them with the whole Replicator mess," Jackson added. He shrugged. "But if that were true then the Earth would have been destroyed by now anyway, so it's not much of a problem."
"Daniel, how about we just try the Gate and see what happens?" O'Neill said patiently.
"Oh, sure."
Major Carter stepped up to the tilted altar, and touched a symbol seemingly at random. As before, when Rufus had played with it, nothing happened.
O'Neill frowned. "Uh, Carter…?"
"Just a minute, sir." Major Carter tapped the altar a few more times, to no avail.
"Carter, the MALP did check the DHD, didn't it?"
"It's intact, sir," Carter insisted, "I don't know why it isn't working." She unshipped her backpack and began to rummage through it, pulling out a small tool kit.
"Anything I can do to help?" Leeza asked, kneeling down beside her. Carter seemed to be taking the idea of fooling with supposedly millennia old technology in perfect stride.
"Do you know anything about crystalline memory and power control systems?" the major asked.
"It's what we use to control the Treona's drives."
"Good. Hopefully this will make some sense to you then." Carter fished out what looked like a simple hex nut wrench from her kit and began to work at the underside of the altar, console rather.
Leeza kneeled down to watch her work. There were a series of small holes, presumably concealing whatever kept the console in one piece, into which Carter seemed to be inserting the hex nut wrench in a seemingly random pattern. "So what does 'DHD' stand for, anyway?" she asked.
"Dial Home Device," Carter answered with a grin. She pushed back the sleeve of her uniform coat, revealing a small transmitter that was strapped to her forearm. "Which you don't want to use unless you've also got your GDO, short for 'Garage Door Opener.'"
"Those aren't the official acronyms, I take it?"
"Actually, they are. It's one of the advantages of being part of a strictly black book project like the Stargate Program. You can make up silly names and not have anyone in the public chain of command make a stink." Carter made a final turn with her hex nut wrench, and there was a definitive sounding click inside the DHD. "That should do it."
They lifted off the top of the unit and set it aside. Leeza looked down at the DHD's mysterious innards, and then glanced at Carter, who was frowning deeply. Even to Leeza's untrained eye there was something obviously wrong. There were a series of multi-coloured crystals inset in the DHD, but there were also several empty slots where crystals had been obviously removed.
"Sir, you'd better take a look at this," Carter called to O'Neill. The colonel jogged over from where he and Lance had been studiously ignoring each other.
"What's up, Carter?" he asked, then glanced down at the DHD, "Okay, that can't be good."
"No, sir. It looks like somebody deliberately removed the crystals containing the Stargate's OS and the ones regulating the DHD's Naquedah reactor. So we're not going anywhere unless we can locate an alternate power source for the Gate."
Leeza fought the urge to lean over and start sketching out the pattern of power conduits visible. "How much power are we talking about?" she asked.
Carter shrugged. "That depends on the distance between the Stargates that you're trying to connect. Several megawatts at least, though you can feed the power in as slowly as you want. The Gate itself acts as a sort of capacitor, taking power from the DHD to use in one burst to create the wormhole."
O'Neill looked at Leeza, "You said something about landing here in a ship?"
"A few klicks from here," Leeza said cautiously, "but there's no way to run power all the way from our landing site to here, and there isn't enough room to move the Treona over, or Rufus' fighter." Terinu was looking at her curiously, probably wondering why she hadn't chose to mention his bion generating abilities. Well, for one thing, while he could generate utterly enormous amounts of power there was no guarantee he could produce enough to power the Stargate. Second… …well, perhaps she was being just paranoid, but she didn't feel the need to show all of her hand to a group of well-armed people she had just meet a little over an hour ago. Finally, his gifts were his to offer, not her, and Terinu could be understandably touchy about being looked at as nothing more than a walking, talking fusion reactor.
"Major Carter," Teal'c spoke up, "do you have any conjecture as to why the crystals have been removed?"
"I dunno," she said, "it wouldn't have been an easy thing to do. The Gou'ald would normally avoid fiddling with it, if only because they like to leave themselves with an easy escape route if they needed it. Besides, they likely wouldn't even know which crystals to pull to disable it."
"Most would not," Teal'c agreed, "but there is one who would almost certainly have the knowledge, and perhaps the daring to do so."
"Anubis," Daniel concluded.
"Bad guy?" Lance asked.
"Very bad," Daniel agreed.
"Really bad," O'Neill confirmed.
"Indeed," Teal'c said.
"But we're not in a universe where Anubis exists," Carter pointed out.
Oh, shit. Leeza cleared her throat. "But maybe we're on a planet where he might. Rufus, you said this world was missed by the Survey Service. What if they didn't see it because it wasn't here?"
"That's…" Rufus glanced at the Stargate and then back to the strange humans, "well, normally I'd say that's impossible, but I don't think I'll bother today."
"Oh, come on," O'Neill interrupted, "you can't shift an entire planet into another universe." He glanced at Carter. "Can you?"
"Well, theoretically speaking it's possible."
"Aww, jeez…"
"If the Gou'ald have an interest in this world, we must determine whether their forces are in the area," Teal'c said.
"Were there any sign of installations when you came down from orbit?" Dr. Jackson asked.
"Not that we saw," Lance said.
O'Neill scratched under his cap thoughtfully. "Weird. Usually if the Gou'ald build something they don't bother to try and hide it. Ain't their style. That and the Tok'ra and us don't have many ships to spy on them."
"If it's going to be anywhere, it'll be near the Stargate, sir," Carter noted.
"Right, okay I think we oughtta start patrolling. Carter, you and Leeza work on the Stargate, while the rest of us split into teams of two to find if there are any bad guys around."
Leeza cleared her throat loudly.
"Something on your mind?" O'Niell asked.
"I don't care for the idea of us wandering around randomly to see if there are hostiles in the area," she said, "or taking orders from someone I just met."
"Well, we don't know there are Gou'ald in the area, but if there are it's probably a better idea if we find them instead of them finding us," Doctor Jackson intervened. "Look, how about this? You and the Major work on the Stargate, while we split into groups like Jack said. We'll just make sure that one of your crew is teamed up with one of our group, and keep in frequent contact? Does that sound reasonable? I mean we both have the same goal in mind, to get out of here in one piece, after all."
"Just a moment," Leeza said. She motioned for the rest of her crew to gather round a few steps away from the SG-1 team. "All right, what do all of you think?"
"It seems like a reasonable precaution," Rufus allowed. "If there are hostiles on this world, it's better that we find them rather than they find us."
Lance shook his head. "I'm for popping back aboard the Treonaand taking off. We can find an asteroid and hide out there while we make repairs. We don't owe these people anything, and their story makes as much sense as a bad fantasy novel."
Leeza frowned. "Do you have an opinion, Terinu?"
The Ferin boy shrugged. "I don't like the idea of there being anybody else around that are as bad as the Varn. I say we get the hell out of here." His tail twitched involuntarily, which meant he was more frightened by the prospect than he was letting on. Teri grabbed the errant appendage and wrapped it tightly around his waist to prevent further betrayals.
"And that leaves me," Leeza said, "All right then, we're going to stay and help these people. If there is a threat here on the level of the Varn, we need to find out as much as we can about it so we can tell others. We'll split up into pairs and patrol as O'Neill suggested, while the Major and I look over the Stargate."
"I think it's a bad idea, Lee," Lance objected.
"Lance, don't make me start waving rank around," Leeza said, "Terinu, Rufus, I can't hold you to my orders, but I think this is the best thing to do right now."
"I've no objections," Rufus replied.
Terinu shrugged. "Nothin' better to do until we get outta here."
"Right." They returned to where O'Neill was waiting with ill-concealed impatience. "Okay, Colonel, we'll go with your plan. Who do you want where?"
O'Neill waved his team over. "Okay, Carter, you're with Captain Leeza here. Daniel, you go with the furry guy. I'll take the kid, while Teal'c goes with Vance."
"Lance," Leeza's cousin corrected.
"Whatever."
The large black man shook his head a fraction of an inch. "O'Neill, I would prefer it if you allowed me to patrol with Terinu."
"You sure?" the Colonel saked.
"Yes."
Terinu looked more dubious. Leeza touched his shoulder and took him aside.
"That guy is a lot bigger than I am," the young Ferin noted quietly.
"Yes, but he doesn't know about your bion generating abilities," she replied, "and frankly, I'd feel better if we had an ace up our sleeve against him, just in case these people aren't as pleasant as they seem."
The appeal worked. Terinu straightened up from his perpetual slouch and nodded his head. "All right, I'll keep an eye on him."
"Thanks, Terinu."
It was about the last thing that went easily for her the rest of the day.
* * *
It was Rufus' legs that were giving Daniel so much trouble, he decided, as they walked in a northerly direction from the Stargate. Digigrade feet just didn't seem right for a biped, especially one that could pass for a Kitsune from Japanese myth if the linguist squinted a bit.
"Something wrong with your eyes?" the Vulpine asked.
"Um, no, nothing," Daniel replied hastily, nudging his glasses back into place. "I was just thinking about the Varn. Just how big of a threat are they, theoretically speaking? I'm mean, my homeworld has enough of a problem dealing with the Goa'ald, never mind… other things." It probably wasn't the best time to start talking about little things like the Replicators, the occasional alien mad scientist, invisible invaders, et al. They enough on their plate right now as it was.
"A good question," Rufus admitted, "I've never seen a Varn face to face, only their soldiers. Unfortunately they have a lot of soldiers." He paused, sniffing the air unconsciously. "Most of what I know is from history. My people, and many other races, believed them to be gods. We acted accordingly, and never questioned their wisdom. It follows that they're arrogant, but it's arrogance leavened with an intelligence that shouldn't be underestimated. They've been plotting their comeback onto the Galactic scene for literally centuries. We can't just assume that we can trip them up with their own egos, even after the Humans disproved their divinity." He frowned. "They're also dangerous in other ways. There are some in the Galactic community who look upon the days of Varn rule and only remember how comforting it was to let others make the hard decisions for them. We've been on our own for five human centuries, but sometimes I wonder how deep the old instincts hold."
"That almost makes our situation seem easier," Daniel said after a moment. "One thing about the Gou'ald, they don't lack for arrogance. But I think it's an arrogance that's always been covering an inferiority complex. I mean when you get right down to it, all they are is a bunch of parasitic slugs that need a host body to actually do anything. The whole Godhead thing is a sort of massive ego-reinforcement, from one point of view. Which makes playing up to their weaknesses a lot easier."
Rufus nodded in agreement. "I'm not sure the Varn have any weakness- whaULP!" The foxish pilot tripped over an stone that was in their path and would have fallen to the ground if Daniel hadn't grabbed his arm.
Digigrade feet. Less surface area to provide a stable walking platform, he thought absently. Which normally would probably be compensated for by improved reflexes, but even someone faster on their feet than the human norm could have an off day.
"Are you all right?" Daniel asked.
"Thank you, I'm just fine," Rufus said, hopping on one foot briefly and flexing his bruised toes. "Too much talking, not even attention to where I was putting my feet. No permanent harm done though."
"Oh, good," Daniel kneeled down. The stone was part of a paved path, long since broken up and partly hidded by the roots of the forest that had grown around it, running roughly southeast to northwest. He pulled out his communicator and paged Jack. "Jack, I think I've found something," Daniel rattled off a description and general location of the path, "Rufus and I are going to follow it and see where it leads. Maybe we can find a clue to our missing crystals."
All right, but be careful, Jack answered, I want you to check in every fifteen minutes.
"Will do." Rufus was looking at him curiously, and Daniel shrugged, "Jack, um, worries."
"Good commanders usually do."
* * *
Frelling stupid planet, Terinu thought irritably, hopping from branch to branch as he paralleled the trail the big guy was pacing down below him. Too many trees, not enough corridors or alleys. Why couldn't they have found a nice, civilized planet to break down near, where he could safely disappear into the crowds, instead of this near unpopulated frelling forest?
He didn't care much for the company either. The Colonel reminded him too much of Leeza's cousin, all jokes and smiles until something didn't go his way. This Teal'c guy wasn't much more comforting. He was like some of Marva's bully boys, the really quiet ones that seemed almost halfway safe to talk to, who could shoot a man dead and then go back to drinking their coffee.
Teal'c halted, and gestured for Terinu to come down to his level. The Ferin boy dropped out of the tree, hanging upside down by his tail in front of the large human.
"Yeah?"
"I wished to ask, are you familiar in the use of energy weapons?" Teal'c said solemnly. Actually he said everything solemnly.
I am an energy weapon. "Yeah," he admitted.
The big man reached into his holster and pulled what Terinu assumed was a hand gun of some sort. Assuming it wasn't just some sort of weird sculpture of a snake, which was what it looked like. Teal'c pressed a button on the side, and the thing hummed with the sound of harnessed energy, and snapped up like a cobra preparing the strike. Definitely a weapon.
"This is a Zat'nikatel, or "Zat" if you find that unpronounceable," Teal'c explained, "If you fire and strike an enemy with it once, they will be in great pain, possibly knocked unconscious. Fire it at the same target twice, and they will be killed. Fire a third time, and their body will be completely disintegrated." He touched the side button again and the zat folded back down, and then he handed it to Terinu. "Do not use it unless you believe it to be absolutely necessary."
"Uh, thanks," Terinu replied. He let go of the tree limb and flipped upright as he dropped to the ground, landing on his feet. Slipping the zat into the pocket of his tunic, he asked, "Aren't you going to need it?"
"I have other weapons," Teal'c said, hefting his big energy rifle. "You, on the other hand, appear to only have your sword, which would be insufficient if we encounter any Gou'ald or their servants on this world."
Terinu blinked. "You trust me with it?"
"If I do not give you the opportunity to take the weapon, I will never know whether to trust you or not," Teal'c replied.
"I guess that makes sense." Teal'c resumed walking, and Terinu chose to follow him on the ground. "Could I ask you a question?"
"I will answer to the best of my ability, so long as it does not compromise Stargate Command operations."
Terinu guessed that meant yes. "What the frell is that thing in your forehead?"
"It is the symbol of the System Lord Apophis, granted to me when he chose me to be his First Prime," Teal'c answered.
"It looks like somebody just poured molten gold into your head."
"They did, after opening the skin with a ritual knife."
Terinu winced. "That must've hurt!"
"It was excruciating," Teal'c answered, in the same tone he probably used to discuss the weather.
Terinu stopped in the middle of the path. "Wait a minute, I thought the System Lords were those Gou'ald that your Colonel was talking about."
Teal'c nodded. "That is correct."
"And you used to work for them?"
"Indeed. Apophis, like all the System Lords, portrayed himself as a god to my people. We followed him without question. I killed many in his name, for his glory, and only slowly did I come to question his wisdom and infallibility. But it was only when I encountered O'Neill that I came to realize that there were others in the universe that might challenge the power of the System Lords, and free my people from the bondage of ignorance and the worship of false gods."
"What did he do?"
"He showed me his digital watch."
Terinu gave Teal'c a sharp look, but there wasn't anything resembling humor on the human's face, so he shrugged and walked on. The big man seemed content to continue their patrol in silence, though he remained alert, examining every turn in the path as if it might conceal an enemy.
Teal'c made a sharp gesture for Terinu to stop, then pointed up towards the tree branches. The young Ferin didn't have to be told twice. He leaped up into the concealing branches, as Teal'c took cover in the brush alongside the path.
"Jaffa, kree!" a voice called out, and a squad of soldiers dressed in ornate grey armor and carrying metal staves came hiking up the path. Like Teal'c there were symbols on the forehead, tattooed fortunately, not gold engraved, and they didn't look particularly friendly. Fortunately they didn't pause in their march or bother to look up, and they disappeared over a small ridge within a few minutes.
When they were gone Terinu dropped out of the trees and rejoined Teal'c, who emerged from the brushes looking concerned.
"Bad guys?" he asked.
"Indeed," Teal'c confirmed. He pulled a comm from the breast pocket of his uniform jacket and flipped it on. "Teal'c to O'Neill. There are indeed Jaffa warriors on this planet. We just encountered a squad made up of Serpent, Setesh, and Horus guards."
Any sign of Anubis?
"Not directly," Teal'c said, "but he is most likely the best candidate to bring such disparate forces together."
Copy that, O'Neill replied, Okay, the nature walks are over. We all better meet back at the Stargate and plan our next move. Carter, Daniel, you copy that? Copy that, Sir,
Daniel?
There was a lengthy pause.
Daniel, you copy? O'Neill's voice sounded notably more anxious, anybody else receiving him? Negative, Sir.
"I am not," Teal'c confirmed.
Damn. Teal'c, you and the kid hustle back to the Gate to protect Carter and Captain Blake. Lance and I will try and scout out Daniel and Fox McCloud's last reported position. We can protect ourselves, Sir. You can't watch for bad guys and try and fix the Gate the same time. That's an order. Yes, Sir.
"We will return shortly," Teal'c said, and put his comm back in his pocket. "Come," he said to Terinu, "we must hurry."
"Forget it." Terinu planted his feet and crossed his arms over his chest. "Rufus is a friend of mine. I gotta find him if I can, and two search parties have a better chance than one."
Teal'c frowned and said, "I consider Daniel Jackson a friend as well, but we have our orders. Colonel O'Neill is quite experienced, and I am confident that he can locate Daniel and Ru-Ofanus. More importantly, there is a possibility that the patrol that just passed us may come near Major Carter and Captain Blake's position."
Terinu chewed his lip for a moment and then spat out, "Frell it. You'd better be right." Together they jogged back up the path, ears open for the enemy that might lay ahead.
Continued in Part Two