Sam Carter
October 1995
The Doorway works. It actually works.
I'm surprised. Giddy with excitement.
But downright jealous.
It should have been me.
I've been working on the Creek Mountain Project for a little over four years. Studying the device our top scientists told us was called the 'Door to Heaven'. We analysed everything we could about this mysterious stone circle: It's composition was entirely alien, perhaps truly alien. The symbols on it were seemingly untranslatable. We figured it had one of three functions: A weapon that would send people to 'heaven' or 'hell'; a learning tool that would teach us about space; or a method of transportation to the stars.
I'd nearly always bet on the third, and now I knew that I'd been right.
But I never got to see it in action when my hard work paid off.
No, I had to go and get Salmonella which knocked me for six – A week in hospital and a month's rest – Doctor's orders.
When Catherine came by my house to tell me that the Doorway worked – and that it was called a Stargate – I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Apparently some conspiracy nut wrote a paper that Catherine liked the sound of. She brought him onboard, and within two weeks he'd cracked the code our guys have been scratching their heads over for months.
A Colonel O'Neill was drafted in to lead the team when the Conspiracy Theorist agreed to work with us. Apparently they needed someone with the correct clearance who wouldn't hesitate to go on a highly dangerous mission. Don't know why he was picked, but Ferretti says he never cracked a smile the whole time he was on the base – or on the Planet Abydos for that matters.
I haven't had access to the full reports of the mission, and I won't until I'm back at work. All I can do is listen to General West and live vicariously through Catherine who's been dropping by for tea every other day.
It's torture for me being cooped up at home and agonising to know that my sister-in-law's cooking cost me the opportunity of a lifetime.
But I shouldn't mope. The greatest discovery we could ever possibly make has happened!
We are not alone! There are aliens. Real, live aliens, and we've already met them.
I never thought my meeting with General West those few short years ago would have led to anything like this…
March 1991
It was cold March day in Denver, and I had been back in Colorado for only a day or two. I was on downtime following the end of the Gulf War. I was exhausted, mentally and physically, and was trying to get back to normal life. My brother had been in touch to find out how I was doing and rather than just the usual pleasantries, he'd been happy to talk on the phone. We'd had a great talk, and out of the blue, I invited him and his wife over for dinner. Bad idea considering my sister-in-law's a catering manager and the most I ever cook is…well I don't, to be honest.
I had just gotten out of my car and slammed the door shut, arms laiden with groceries, when I saw a Colonel on my porch. He noticed my bags and walked over to help. I didn't know him, but I obliged when he offered to take some of the bags. I walked up the steps and let us both in. As he crossed the threshold into my house, he removed his cover and nodded.
"Colonel West."
"Uh, Lieutenant Carter, sir."
It was a dumb thing to say. Obviously he knew who I was, or he wouldn't be at my door.
Why was he at my door?
"Can I get you something to drink sir?"
"Water would be fine Lieutenant," he smiled at me.
I returned the smile, which I'm certain looked more like a grimace, and headed for my kitchen. As I poured two glasses of water – and made sure my ice cream was in the freezer – my brain did overtime, and I immediately thought of all my friends who I knew had been deployed in the Gulf.
I carried the glasses back through, set them on the coffee table, and sat opposite Colonel West who had made himself at home.
"How can I help you sir?"
West leaned forward, grabbing the glass and taking a sip.
"How are you holding up after the Gulf Lieutenant?"
"Fine sir," I said. It wasn't technically a lie. I wasn't traumatised or shocked. Just very, very tired.
"That's good to hear. You'll also be happy to know that my visit has nothing to do with the Gulf. Actually it's more to do with your specialism."
My specialism. It had been a while since anyone in the Air Force had taken much interest in my specialism – they needed pilots more than physicists.
"My specialism?"
"Yes. We need you to come and join a small, preliminary research team that we've assembled at Creek Mountain. They have a project that could use a fresh pair of eyes and we think you'd be the most suitable candidate."
I was intrigued, and pressed on for more information.
"What kind of project?"
"Need to know."
That definitely got my attention, and West noticed this.
"I wish I could tell you more while we sit here Lieutenant, but if you want to find out, you'll have to come with me to Creek Mountain. If you agree to participate in the project – which I'm sure you will – we might take a little detour to Cheyenne Mountain."
"NORAD? Radar Telemetry?"
West had an odd, almost bemused glint in his eye when I mentioned NORAD, but he made no move to indicate if this project was something related to NORAD or not.
With little else to go on, I made up my mind. My curiosity got the better of me.
"I would be happy to visit Creek Mountain for this research project sir," I smiled.
West smiled and rose from his seat, "I'll give you time to put your shopping away and pack a bag."
"We're going right now sir?"
"Yes," he said, heading for my front door.
I was going to tell him about my plans for the night, but I had a feeling he wouldn't care. Instead I put my shopping away and went upstairs to pack a few essentials. Colorado Springs wasn't all that far away, but knowing the Air Force, I would be gone for days.
While I was upstairs I grabbed my phone and quickly called Mark to explain we'd need to reschedule dinner. Within seconds the warmth of our previous phone call was gone, and replaced by the all too familiar icy tone that Mark would reserve only for dad and I. And once again I found myself apologising to my little brother. He wasn't interested, only asking me to call again soon.
Bags unpacked and packed, Colonel West and I headed to Creek Mountain.
I had no idea how much my life was about to change.
I'd never been to Creek Mountain before. It was similar to Cheyenne Mountain only much smaller. I had thought it was only ever used for storage, but if this project was Need to Know, maybe I was wrong.
The elevator descended five floors, and we arrived in a dusty corridor. There weren't many signs of life beyond an airman futilely sweeping the floor which was caked with concrete dust, and the sound of a lively debate echoing in a room off to the right.
I could hear a few different accents, one of them Australian and very angry. An airman stood watch at the entrance to the room, and he gave us and apologetic glance as we walked into what appeared to be a small meeting room.
A gaggle of scientists were busy tearing each other asunder in a way only academics can manage. Fists clenched wads of journal papers while fingers pointed in faces and pens were flung about the room.
"You're all crazy!" The Aussie screamed, "I didn't move over here for this. It's batshit crazy. If you want to go to space, go to NASA!"
An older woman who had maintained a dignified silence in the melee looked at the Aussie and calmly responded, "We must keep an open mind. This is new territory for all of us. All possible theories and explanations must be kept on the table…In the meantime, I would prefer if you didn't scare a possible new recruit for the project."
The woman indicated to myself and Colonel West with an open palm. It was only at that time I noticed a General sitting at the back of the room, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else.
"Ladies and Gentleman, I'd like to introduce you all to First Lieutenant Samantha Carter. She is a theoretical astrophysicist we're reading into the Project," West said.
I nodded as the woman smiled and stepped closer to me.
"I'm Catherine Langford, head of the Creek Mountain Project. I've heard a lot about you and would like to thank you for agreeing to join us."
I hadn't agreed to join anything, but everything about this situation was growing stranger and stranger, so I merely smiled in response.
The General at the back of the room stood, and slowly walked over to me.
"I'm General Strachan, and I've been given permission from the President to read you into this Project. This Project is top secret, need to know. Ms Langford will get you up to speed, and you will report to the Colonel."
"Yes sir," I said with a hint of confusion.
Top Secret? Permission from the President?
The Australian who had earlier been ranting earlier now hugged his arms to his chest and tutted, glaring at me.
"So this is the respect the US Air Force gives us Catherine? A little girl to help with our science project?"
"I specifically requested the Lieutenant's help Edward," Catherine stated, an edge of anger seeping into her tone, "She would have been here sooner, but this 'little girl' was busy fighting in a war, not busy slowing us down with inane arguments and grandstanding."
Edward seemed to take a telling and skulked off to a chair at the back of the room.
"My apologies," Catherine said.
"Apology accepted Ms Langford,"
"We'll leave you to become acquainted with the research team," General Strachan said, "Catherine will bring you to us when you're ready to go to Cheyenne Mountain."
"Yes sir."
For the next few hours, Catherine gave me her life story, more or less. About how she had moved from Sweden to the US following her father's discovery of a huge and strange artefact on the Giza Plateau. And how since the early seventies, she had been trying to get the US Military to take a good look at the Doorway, as she called it.
Catherine told me fantastical stories about this artefact. How it was created to make our journey to the stars easier. How it was alien in origin, and how alien remains had been found at the dig site. It was all so fantastical that I wondered how the Air Force had been coerced into working with this sweet, stubborn, but slightly crazy old lady.
Catherine seemed to sense that attitude from me.
"A dreamer I may be, but a lunatic I am not," she told me, "If you're half as smart as people tell me, you'll become a believer too."
I took in everything she was saying, not daring to believe a word of it. But within an hour, with us just walking the corridors, I had to admit, I was beginning to hope her tall tale was true.
An hour or so later, General Strachan, Colonel West, Catherine and myself arrived at Cheyenne Mountain, and to a world of difference. We stopped at the security checkpoint for all staff on base and went down a shiny corridor gleaming with tiles and data analysts, and boarded an elevator which took us down several levels. We exited the Elevator and arrived at a barren intersect of two corridors. A lone airman sat at a desk logging visitors in and out. After a few moments wait, we boarded another elevator.
This one went much further underground.
Eventually, as the elevator read that we were on Level 28, we exited to more deserted (but much cleaner) corridors.
"You're in the old missile test facility of the mountain now Lieutenant, over half a mile underground, and we're here to show you the artefact the Catherine has no doubt told you all about."
"The Door to Heaven?"
"It's just down this corridor."
We walked for a few more minutes before arriving at a set of blast doors. The guard on duty quickly swiped us in, and Colonel West shouted to another guard.
"Get rid of that tarp!"
I arrived in the room to a flurry of material as a grey tarp was pulled aside to reveal to Door to Heaven in all it's glory.
It was huge, ancient, and alien looking.
"Holy Hannah…That is impressive."
"It will be even more impressive if we can figure out how to work it, with your help," Catherine smiled.
"This Artefact, which the Project team tell us is called the Door to Heaven, is one of the greatest mysteries in human history, and we need our brightest minds working on it," General Strachan informed me, "Catherine was telling you the truth when she said the Doorway was likely of alien origin. It's composed of an element we have not found anywhere on Earth, and we found a little something extra with it, of you'd like to follow me."
I followed the General, leaving West and Catherine in the room with the Doorway, and I gave the circle another look, knowing I had glimpsed something incredibly important.
Soon we were walking down pipe-lined corridors that all looked similar, and I was worried we were getting lost when Strachan turned abruptly.
Two heavily armed guards were watching over something at the dead end of a corridor, and at Strachan's nod, the opened the heavy gate that blocked entry to seeing the artefact.
The artefact was a human skeleton, embedded in rock like a fossil.
"Look perfectly normal at first glance, doesn't it?"
"Yes sir."
"We thought so as well, but biologists disagree. There are subtle differences in the skeleton that hint to this being a different human species than ourselves – The inside of the skull is different to ours. There's an extra rib. The structure of the bone is slightly different too, and do you notice the other skeleton?"
My eyes glanced below it's ribs, and sure enough, there's the skeleton of an animal the size of a small lizard, but it's like nothing I'd ever seen.
"There's no DNA left to help us find out what that was, but every biologist who's examined the animal's skeleton has been completely clueless as to it's origin. There's nothing on earth like it."
I was shocked at this, but everything has an explanation, and I knew I'd only get one if I were to agree to become a part of this project.
"This is incredible sir," I said, buying every word.
"It sure is, so you need to understand our position with this project.
"Catherine Langford has been harassing the US Government for years, asking us to do work on the device. She's convinced it's definitely alien in origin and I've conceded it's a definite possibility. We need to work with her team on this, and if she's right, ensure that the artefact is utilised in the best way possible. At the same time, we need you to suss out if the Project Team are telling us the truth. We have spent an enormous amount of money on this project, and so far, with no reward. We need you to keep us up to speed, and we need you honest opinion to determine if this project is worth the taxpayer's dollar. If you don't think it's worth it, the plug will be pulled. But if you do, and fight for this project, we'll need you to give it your all. Washington's split down the middle on continuing with the research."
I took General Strachan's words to heart as I began my work on the Doorway, and continued in the same ethos after he was promoted and West took his place.
West was a sceptic, though I knew deep down that he wanted to believe in our work.
As time went on, I became more and more engrossed in the project. Friends stopped calling, Mark told me I was worse than Dad, and Dad? I never saw him anymore. My peers became concerned as I stopped publishing, and one of my mentors from the Air Force Academy wrote to me noting her concern.
None of that stopped me though. The Doorway had the potential to change everything.
I believed in Catherine's theory, that the Doorway was a portal of some kind, and whenever a new face joined the research team, I took great joy in seeing them draw the same conclusions about the artefact.
I requested funding for extra generators and new capacitors, with the idea of hooking the device up to a supercomputer. The capacitors caused consternation, as they had to be made to the specifications I'd drawn up, and it was a lot of extra money to shell out, but their investment was rewarded when I lit up one of the glass-like panels on the device.
They needed more than a light though, so I set to work designing an interface program for the computer. The first prototype picked up multiple types of information being sent from the Doorway. I couldn't interpret what the data meant, but it proved I was headed in the right direction.
As Strachan predicted, Catherine and I had to fight tooth and nail to keep the project going. While I developed the interface, I also spent the best part of two years trying to reach out to those in-the-know at the Pentagon.
In 1995 they finally caved, and gave us a formalised block of funding. Not long after that, I finished developing the interface. I could now get the 'Chevrons' to light up and I could make the inner track move. It seemed to be enough to get me promoted to Captain.
But without having a way to translate the Doorway's symbols, we were at an impasse.
The meaning of the symbols eluded every translator who came to work for us, and eventually fatigue set in to the group as a whole, with many leaving to return to mainstream academia, and salvage their public careers and lives.
By August of '95 our team of thirty had dwindled to seven.
My own doubts started to creep in. My work was done until someone could interpret the symbols, and I yearned for a return to the 'real world'. Catherine was not pleased when I started spending more time away from the project, but she understood, and was happy when I informed her that my brother and I were talking again.
It was early October when Mark and his wife invited me to dinner. I had moved to Colorado Springs, so I took a couple of days off for the visit.
Unfortunately I fell fowl of Vivienne's Roast Chicken, and all three of us ended up with Salmonella. Thankfully my baby niece never got sick.
But the Salmonella kicked the stuffing out of me.
A week later, as I was about to be discharged from the Air Force hospital, Catherine appeared in my room.
"Sorry for not visiting earlier Sam."
"It's no problem Catherine, I know how busy you are-"
"We've made a breakthrough," she said, trying her hardest not to grin.
"Really?"
"A young academic has joined us, and he has some fascinating theories that we're looking at."
"And?" I smiled, "What's his breakthrough?"
"I believe he is," She said with a bemused look, "We're going to get where we need to be. And soon. Mark my words Sam."
This time she let the grin out, and she turned, leaving me alone to wonder what this new guy's theory might be.
Another week passed, and I knew from Catherine's silence that something must have happened, but it felt frustrating to be out of the loop.
The doctors had ordered me to rest up as the dehydration from the Salmonella had been severe. Mark, fully recovered, had been at the door several times, full of apologies.
My house was turning into a complete mess, so despite the doctor's orders, I decided to give the place a thorough clean.
When Catherine came to my door I was in my oldest clothes, hair typed back and make-up free, scrubbing at the grout at my kitchen tiles.
I ushered her in and apologised for the mess before fixing her a cup of her favourite tea.
She was very quiet and, reminiscent of that visit from West back in '91, she took a quiet sip of her tea, before setting the teacup on the table.
After a moment's silence, her eyes met mine, and my heart stopped in my chest.
"We did it."
The words didn't really register.
"What do you mean?"
Catherine's expression changed, and she couldn't hide her smile, the biggest I've ever seen.
"Jackson did it. He broke the code, and your interface worked perfectly."
My interface worked? How had they tested it?
"Jackson identified a seventh symbol on the cover stones. The seventh completed the code and allowed the Stargate to activate."
"Stargate?"
"That's the doorway's name. Seems our translation was wrong."
I was open-mouthed, trying to figure out what I could ask next, but what Catherine said with her next breath was more than I could ever have dreamed of.
"We are not alone, Samantha."
It's been a week since that revelation, and I've had plenty of time to think. I've heard scant details of the Abydos mission and the men (no women) who made history.
I've been told of the native people they encountered there – all human, perhaps of the same species as the fossil we have – and also of the animals which are positively alien.
There were human beings living on another planet, light years away! It's astonishing! They had their own culture, a language similar to one the Ancient Egyptians used, and they even had a Pyramid.
I also know that they were ruled by a malevolent entity that had technology hundreds, if not thousands of years more advanced than our own. An entity who by all accounts committed all manner of atrocities against the Abydonians.
That thought was chilling, but made all the worse by the realisation that Colonel O'Neill had been forced to detonate a nuclear bomb to stop this creature from getting to Earth.
Our First Contacted ended in Genocide – theirs and not ours.
It's like the Antithesis of Hollywood.
The conspiracy nut who figured it all out was Daniel Jackson. Sadly he was killed in the blast, so I'll never get a chance to meet him. Catherine said we'd have got on well.
Despite the car crash of the first mission though, I'm hopeful for the future. We know where the Stargate goes, and if it goes to another planet with life, then that means there must be millions out there waiting to be explored.
It's going to be fun figuring out how to get there.
And I'm never eating Roast Chicken ever again.
