A/N: This chapter references the season 4 episode, Scorched Earth. Background from this episode will provide source material for some of the next few chapters.
Chapter 2: The Invitation
At the SGC …
Daniel Jackson stood at the elevator waiting for the rest of his old team. It had been too long since they'd all been together. Four months since Jack and Sam's wedding and, actually, only three months since they'd traveled through the gate to witness the ceremonial destruction of the Goa'uld, Ba'al. It seemed like forever.
That last trip had been a pretty routine off world stop. No muss, no fuss, just the end of the last system lord. Fun, actually. So what if Jack had almost fallen asleep listening to all that chanting before the show got started. That was Jack. You had to love him.
At least Sam did, loved him that is. Daniel had finally caught on to the 'moon-base' cover. He'd underestimated his friends' romantic bent and their determination to find alone time. Well, they deserved it after all. And the team would all be together again soon, at least for a couple days. He had to admit, he missed the camaraderie. Sure he had a new team, but it would never be quite the same.
Daniel and the others had been summoned by General Landry two days ago. The SGC had received a voice transmission from Enkara, the original, long lost Enkaran homeworld. The communication was totally unexpected. After all, they'd been told the planet didn't have a Gate.
"Daniel!" Jack roared as he exited the elevator, fully two steps ahead of Sam. "Long time no see."
"I was going to say that," Daniel replied, jolted out of his silent musings. "It sounds like we're going to a party."
"Old times," Jack said. "It was always a party for SG1."
"Right … that's how I remember it," Daniel said.
"Is that sarcasm I hear?" Sam walked up and hugged Daniel, shaking her head as she did so. "Don't mind him, Daniel, he's incorrigible," she continued, "and he's getting worse with age."
Jack pulled the innocent look Sam had grown to love.
"Who, me? What did I say?"
"O'Neill," Teal'c called as he came around the corner to find his old friends waiting for him.
"That's what I'm talking about," Jack said, "the gang's all here. It's about time."
OoOoOo
Without much more delay, the reunited team made their way to the briefing room. It had been some time since Jack O'Neill's team briefed for an off world mission. He had to admit, he was itching to go through the Gate again, even if it was for a boring diplomatic visit.
"The lovebirds are back," Vala announced as the O'Neills made their way through General Landry's office and into the familiar conference room. With its bird's eye view of the Gate, this room had hosted many similar sessions for the original flagship team of the SGC. At the table, Cam Mitchell had been waiting with Vala. He cringed at her typically audacious comment, daring to look up at General O'Neill to gauge his reaction. Worse yet, the younger military officer barely had time to pull the alien woman back into her seat after she'd jumped up to give the General a welcome home hug. Now that would be a sight to behold, Cam thought.
Hank Landry quickly took his place at the head of the conference table as the others seated themselves silently. Fortunately, Jack and Samantha O'Neill reverted to professional form as soon as they entered this arena. By force of will, they were able to ignore Vala's comment aside from Sam's wide eyed expression and a brief cockeyed grin from Jack. Daniel sat next to Vala and gave her a glare guaranteed to freeze her in her tracks. And Teal'c, well he was inscrutable as always.
General Landry cleared his throat to bring the briefing to order.
"As you know, four of you have been invited to attend a celebration on the Enkaran homeworld as their honored guests," Landry began. "Apparently, they haven't forgotten the enormous effort you and your team expended on their behalf, Jack."
"They're good people," Jack said. "We're glad it worked out."
"It almost didn't," Daniel added.
"Indeed."
"Well, they want to thank their saviors," Landry said. "Hedrezar says things have gone well since the Gadmeer returned them to Enkara."
"That's wonderful, I'm happy for them, really I am," Vala said. But why can't Colonel Mitchell and I go too," Vala said indignantly. "We're part of SG1 and you all know how much I love parties."
Sam held her head in her hands for a moment. She'd come to value the other woman's friendship, but there were times …
"You and Colonel Mitchell will have some downtime during which I intend to see some reports written," Landry responded flatly. "However, I wanted you both here for this briefing to familiarize yourselves with the situation. After this one meeting, it may well be up to our current teams to follow up on an unprecedented opportunity for culture exchange."
"If you don't mind me asking," Cam ventured, "how so, Sir. I thought this was just a simple thank you from a fairly primitive people."
"There's that," Jack supplied nonchalantly. "But they're good simple people, the best."
"And they have an unorthodox connection to a technologically advanced race we know very little about," Landry added. "In fact, that race, the Gadmeer, apparently want to get to know us."
"Really?" Daniel exclaimed. "That's fascinating. So, they kept in touch… through Lotan?"
"Back up a minute," Cam interrupted. "I've read the report, but I'm not so sure I'm up to speed on the connection between these two races. Care to fill me in?"
With that, Sam stepped up to provide an explanation.
"Cam, as you know, six years ago SG1 found two hundred refugee Enkarans on a routine survey mission. They'd fled there to escape the Goa'uld, but they were slowly dying of radiation poisoning. We found what we thought was the perfect planet for them to relocate, one with an extraordinarily thick ozone layer, thick enough to protect them from the radiation that was slowly stealing their eyesight. Everything was going well until the Gadmeer showed up."
Jack continued the story from his point of view.
"They had this big ship terraforming the planet. Burning off the atmosphere, replacing it with some really stinky stuff that would have killed the Enkarans, but apparently was what the Gadmeer folks liked."
"So these Gadmeer," Vala interrupted, "what kind of people were they?"
"See they weren't exactly people," Jack said. "More like reptiles on two legs with really big tails" he said, stretching out his arms as far as they would go, while Sam rolled her eyes. "And we didn't actually get to meet them. It seems their civilization had been dead thousands of years; some of them were freeze dried samples on that ship."
"The plan was to revive their civilization in a new world of their own making," Teal'c supplied. "They believed P5S-381 to be uninhabited."
"And it was," Sam added, "until we relocated the Enkarans."
"So you had a problem," Vala observed.
"That we did," Jack said, recalling the near tragedy that had befallen the Enkarans.
"But you settled it," Mitchell said.
"Wasn't easy," Daniel said. "It was a no win situation, at least at the beginning. SG1, mostly Jack, faced a bleak choice between two civilizations. One culture, extremely advanced and by all standards, alien; the other simple, friendly and humanoid. And there we were in the position to play god, to decide which culture, which civilization had the right to survive. Because, given the circumstances, only one could survive.
"If I read the records correctly, Dr. Jackson," Hank Landry interjected, "SG1 was saved from making that choice by a serendipitous discovery."
"You could say that, Sir," Daniel agreed, warming to his subject. "See, the Gadmeer had scanned thousands of planets looking for their new home. Without knowing it, they'd located the original Enkaran homeworld. Lotan volunteered to take the Enkarans there."
"Lotan?" Vala asked. "You mean the Gadmeer ship's artificial intelligence."
"I suppose you could call him that," Sam said. "But he started to think of himself as Enkaran."
"Alright people, now that we've done the history lesson," Landry interrupted, "can we get on with the mission." Jack hadn't remembered his friend Hank being this impatient; then again, it had been awhile.
Landry finally took the floor to begin the formal briefing.
"In the brief transmission we received, Hedrezar, the leader of the Enkaran population you knew, said her people had easily been assimilated into the prevailing culture. According to her, their largely agrarian way of life has remained unchanged."
"What did she say about the discovery of the Gate?" Daniel asked excitedly.
"According to Hedrezar, the Enkaran gate was excavated only recently. Seems it was there all along."
"Who knew?" Jack quipped. "Apparently not the Enkarans."
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.
"The whole story is incredible," Daniel remarked.
Jack rolled his eyes. "Here he goes," he whispered to Sam.
"Think of it. The ways their cultures diverged, then dovetailed, how they integrated their histories. And then the discovery of the Stargate. That couldn't have been easy. And Lotan, what a story he'll be able to tell, part of an entirely different culture …" Stuff of legend, Daniel thought.
"Easy, Space Monkey," Jack said, eliciting a strange look from Vala.
"Before I give this mission a go," Landry said, "we're sending a MALP. We've never been to Enkara. Despite what they say we need to check it out. You and your team might want to be here for that, Jack. I'm thinking even our MALP will meet a friendly reception committee, probably with a message for you.
And sure enough, Landry was right. Thirty minutes later when the MALP crossed the event horizon and made its way to Enkara, Hedrezar, Lotan and "Colonel Jack" were there to meet it.
Lotan began.
"It is good to see all of you again, if only from such a distance." Lotan was much as the team remembered him, a calm, peaceful, non-assuming sort now dressed in native Enkaran garb. If they hadn't known he was originally a creation of the Gadmeer ship, they'd have been none the wiser.
"Yes, Colonel O'Neill, it is good to see you," Hedrezar agreed, her blind gaze directed just toward the left of the MALP's camera. "We are anxious to welcome you to Enkara, the home you made possible for us. We have waited much too long to thank you."
"Who's the kid?" Jack asked in his usual flip tone.
Hedrezar smiled, glancing down at the now six-year-old boy standing silently at her side, holding her hand.
"This is my grandson, Colonel Jack," she said. "Remember, we promised to name the first new Enkaran after you, Colonel."
OoOoOo
On Enkara …
Once the MALP transmission had ended, Lotan left precipitously, taking Colonel Jack with him. Eliam emerged from behind the MALP to join his mother.
"You cannot do this to them," Eliam said. "We cannot deceive them this way. They deserve better."
"You speak the truth," the aging leader said. "It pains me greatly to do this, my son. But we have no choice."
Though she could not see the one who'd held the weapon to her son's head during the transmission, Hedrezar knew he was still watching.
TBC
A/N: It was great to hear from so many of you after Chapter 1. Hope this story meets your expectations.
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