Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate SG-1 or the characters, I'm just borrowing them for a while for my story and I'm not making any money for it. This is all for fun so please don't sue folks ;-)

AN/ In the first series of Stargate there many times when the dialogue refers to events that have happened outside of the episodes which we get to see. One of them is the events of P3X595. During the episode 'Emancipation' O'Neill refers to a time when Carter was pleased to see the team after drinking something that made her take off… we never find out what it was but by Carters reaction we know that it was embarrassing. All the cultural references come from internet research and are loosely based on Aboriginal Australian Dreamtime Mythologies. If they are incorrect then please remember this is only a work of fiction, and my intention was to write only a story, not to offend anyone.

The story so far…

The team gate to P3X595 where Daniel discovers some old ruins and convinces Jack to stay longer on the planet. During their investigations they meet a Human boy of Aboriginal Australian origin and realise that the Goa'uld must have been visiting Earth in ships long before the Stargate was used by Ra. The boy doesn't speak English but Daniel finds a way to communicate with him and they go with him to his village.

Chapter 2

"Wow, Jack, look at this place, its incredible!"

Daniel eagerly followed the boy from the ruins who lead them through the tropical forest to a small clearing where a village appeared as if from nowhere, as though it grew from out of the earth, rocks and jungle of its own accord. As they entered, the villagers gathered to stare in wonder at the strange pale visitors. All were human and resembled Aboriginal Australians with dark mahogany skin and wavy hair, dressed in beautifully coloured robes decorated with a mixture of bright and earthy colours, intricate patterns resembling local plants and animals with polished stones and shells in their fastenings and jewellery.

The boy brought them directly to the village elder, who had a large white beard with beads woven into it and a bush of grey white hair on his head. He introduced the elder as Rinje, the eldest and wisest of his people, and he invited them to sit on bright cushions in a large hut like structure decorated inside with coloured swathes of cloth. As they sat down a young girl approached Carter cautiously smiling at her. Sam smiled back and watched as she settled down within arms reach.

The young girl was beautiful with large brown eyes and she did not stop staring at Carters light blond hair the whole time. Sam leaned across to Daniel and whispered to him slightly uneasy by the attention; all the staring reminded her of all those first days at a new school whenever her father would be transferred to a new Air base.

"Daniel, why is that little girl looking at me like that?"

"Well Sam, you're probably the first blond person she's ever seen. We're probably the first people to visit them; I think that's maybe why our guide from the ruins was so afraid of us"

Carter nodded in understanding and relaxed a little; the young girl seemed to sense the change in her mood and moved closer to touch Sam's hair. Carter ducked her head towards the girls hand and smiled as she gently felt the texture and compared it to her own dark curls. O'Neill looked on and quietly pleased. His team may seem like an odd bunch at times and Carter would not normally have been his first choice, but he was unsure how a bunch of 'tough guy' special ops military men would have been greeted here. The locals appeared to be welcoming them and his during his initial assessment he hadn't caught sight of any weapons which was always a good sign, even if they were outnumbered.

Daniel was a typical over enthusiastic scientist most of the time, he hadn't changed much since the day Jack met him. Carter seemed to balance being a fine officer, a capable soldier, and scientist. Not to mention innocent looking enough not to scare the locals. O'Neill took a moment to glance at the Jaffa at his side. Teal'c never seemed to show any emotion, he was big and scary yet behind his dark eyes was a wise mind that knew when to take action and when to let others take the lead. O'Neill had to admire the grace with which Teal'c accepted his command. There are few men that could go from leading an entire army to serving under other command light years from home, let alone fold his 6'4 form to sit cross legged and dignified while Daniel did what he did best.

As the village settled down Rinje sat down opposite them and gestured for them to speak.

"Hello, I'm Daniel Jackson, this is Colonel Jack O'Neill, Captain Doctor Sam Carter, and Teal'c. We're peaceful travellers from Earth, the Tau'ri"

Daniel offered the page in his notebook showing the seventh chevron in Earth's Stargate address and the old man seemed to understand they were from beyond the stars even if he did not know exactly where and that their intentions were peaceful.

After some time Daniel had made some headway through the language barrier, using some ancient Goa'uld and Teal'c help with a few words he had understood quite a lot of what they had been told. Rinje invited them to stay the night and celebrate their friendship and over dinner, which O'Neill agreed to once Daniel had managed to convince him that they were not on the menu. Sitting by the fire with the villagers sharing plates of vegetables, fruits and something that appeared to be a roasted wild boar, O'Neill started to relax a little reminded of the hospitality of the Abydonians and thankful that he got to avoid eating MRES on yet another mission. While they ate, Daniel explained to the team all he had learned of the origin of the Aborae peoples.

"So you're saying that Namir'kun brought all these people here by ship as slaves then used the Stargate to transport people and offerings throughout the galaxy?"

"If I'm interpreting their mythology correctly Doctor, uh Sam, yes"

"So how did they overthrow him?" Jack asked trying to make sense of how a seemingly simple living folk could overthrow the Goa'uld.

"We'll according to Rinje, the god Namir'kun first appeared to them as a lizard but later took one of the village people, a beautiful young girl and took her body as his own. This angered the Aborae people who felt that the land spirit that entered her body had essentially been evicted by Namir'kun and they no longer saw him as their god. There was some kind of uprising like back on Earth in ancient Egypt and a warrior from the Aborae people threw a boomerang at Namir'kun. The force of the blow killed him, I guess they didn't have a sarcophagus around to revive him, or um, her"

"Maybe the Goa'uld didn't have that technology then." Carter pondered, cocking her head to one side as she ran over the possibilities in her mind "I mean, the Goa'uld are scavengers by nature so maybe they hadn't come across it yet"

"What of Namir'kun's Jaffa" Teal'c questioned.

"I'm not sure about that." Daniel crossed his legs in front of him and started flicking through the notebook to a page Rinje had drawn for him earlier. "Rinje described men that were crossed between lizards and ants that came from the mountain, which I'm assuming was the ship, but they became less in number. I'm guessing that the Goa'uld really were dying off at the time"

"The Goa'uld have used many species as hosts, they only prefer humans as the body is easily repaired with the sarcophagus"

"Right, that's how Ra became so powerful back on Earth"

"So like on Earth, the Goa'uld that came here didn't come in a human host" Carter surmised.

"It looks that way"

"Great, so no big honking space guns then, just…boomerangs" O'Neill said sarcastically "OK guys we stay here tonight with these fine people then we ship out tomorrow unless you can give me a good enough reason to stick around - and Daniel you know what I mean by a good reason before you start with the old rocks again "

Before Daniel could argue, Carter jumped at the chance to make some headway with her own research.

"Actually Sir, with your permission I'd like to observe the stars tonight in order to update the navigational computer at the SGC"

"Sure. Great, so this mission isn't total bust then?"

Daniel was amazed at how short sighted Jack O'Neill could be at times.

"Well I wouldn't say that Jack, we made first contact with a people who haven't seen anyone from Earth in 30,000 years, I'd say that's pretty incredible. Who knows what we can learn from them, they've maintained their nomadic culture and lived in harmony with their planets resources"

Jack sighed, he should have seen that coming.

"Daniel I'm looking around and I think that maybe we could learn just as much at home, we're out here to find technology and weapons to defeat the Goa'uld and get Sha're and Skaara back. Everything else can wait"

Exasperated and somewhat annoyed that Jack would doubt Daniels own desperation to get his wife and brother in law home he pressed further.

"Jack, no one is more keen to defeat the Goa'uld and get Sha're and Skaara back than I am, I'm just saying that the achieving those objectives and making contact with these cultures are not mutually exclusive goals"

Pausing for a moment Jack looked at the young archaeologist and replayed the words in his head, as though slowing down the caffeine hyped sentence all would become clear. It didn't, and instead he frowned in frustration.

"What?"

Sensing an argument brewing between her commanding officer and the Archaeologist, Carter quickly stepped in as intermediary.

"I think what Daniel is saying Sir, is that by meeting other cultures we could not only learn a lot but we could become allies against the Goa'uld"

"Exactly!"

Finally pleased to have someone from the military on his side Daniel slapped his hands together in exaltation which only succeeded in aggravating the Colonel further.

O'Neill eyed them both carefully and sighed. It wasn't that he disagreed with Daniel over making intergalactic friends; he was just becoming impatient with the progress they had made since they started visiting other worlds. So far they hadn't found any cool anti-Goa'uld stuff and if every mission involved hours of Daniel translating and gesturing he wasn't sure he could cope. O'Neill was a man of action, talking was Daniel's box of tricks. Taking a deep breath he decided that it was time to take a walk and leave cultural attaché work to Daniel and Teal'c.

"Fine, we are here all night so Daniel learn as much as you can, make friends and tomorrow we report back to Hammond, it's his call whether or not we come back here. Teal'c, you stay here with Daniel, Carter we'll go set up your telescope."

As the last vestiges of daylight slipped below the horizon Sam completed setting up the telescope on a small outcrop not far from the village. The planet appeared to have no moon and with only the light of the village fires far enough below in the valley she was guaranteed a good view of the stars.

This was the first time that SG-1 had spent a night off world where they were not captured or being chased by Jaffa and the excitement pulsed through her. Ever since she was a child Samantha Carter had dreamed of going into space but she never imagined she would actually get to camp out on another world. The telescope gave her the perfect opportunity to stay awake and enjoy the moment as she doubted she'd get much sleep anyway. As she looked up from her equipment she spotted Colonel O'Neill returning to check on her.

"You all set Carter?"

"Yes Sir, with these observations I should be able to update the computer back at the SGC to make a more detailed Star chart. It's incredible really, up to now we've had to rely of probe data and telescopes to view the universe and from Earth that means that the light we receive has been travelling through space for millennia. Sir, this could completely alter our understanding of the universe!"

"You know, you and Daniel are like a couple of kids in a candy store when you get all excited about this science stuff"

Remembering that the Colonel had his own telescope on the roof of his house Carter couldn't help but wonder if the grumpiness was just a front.

"You mean you're not excited by instantly travelling to other planets outside our solar system, meeting lost civilisations and sleeping out under a blanket of stars that no other human on earth has ever seen?"

O'Neill couldn't help but smile a little realising she probably saw straight through his pretence after he'd shown her his rooftop sanctuary.

"Oh I'm excited on the inside, like Teal'c. What are you looking at anyways?"

"Actually I'm making a record of the major constellations unique to this world. The one I'm observing right now has a nebula unlike any I've seen before. Would you like to take a look, Sir?"

"Sure" He moved to kneel down beside her and peered through the lens. "Nice. So…how is it different from a regular nebula?"

"The colour of the gasses are related to the presence of certain elements, the unique colouration of this gas cloud indicates much heavier elements than are typically found in other nebulae which suggests that the cloud probably formed after the destruction of other nearby stars that reached the end of their life. The difference is there are no stars inside the nebula and none nearby, at the moment it's just a gas cloud only a few light years across. Young nebulae are usually composed of much lighter elements so this one is really quite unique…"

"I'll take your word for it Captain"

Not entirely understanding everything she was saying O'Neill decided not to let her waste any more of a perfectly good explanation. Stopping mid sentence Carter realised that she had probably let her excitement get the better of her but at least her CO was smiling, she couldn't help but return it.

"Yes Sir"

"Listen I don't like leaving you up here on your own but it's not far from the village and Daniel wants to chat some more with the leader guy Ringo, so check in every 30 minutes on the radio, understood?"

"Yes Sir. Don't worry, I'll be fine"

"OK. Don't stay out here too late, we ship out early tomorrow"

Watching him leave Carter shook her head confused. O'Neill wasn't like any other CO she had ever served with before and she still wasn't entirely sure what to make of him. Having her check in every 30 minutes on the radio made her think that he didn't entirely trust her ability as a soldier yet, even on night patrol in the Gulf she'd had more leeway. Thinking maybe O'Neill considered Daniel and herself as kids to be babysat, she was determined to prove him wrong. O'Neill wasn't the first CO to doubt her just for being who she was, either as a woman, or the daughter of a General, or in this case a scientist, but she knew she'd win his trust sooner or later.