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Part X

The Athosians had piled quite a bit of fresh food into the ships stores, along with the recipes for some of their more popular dishes. Sam sat at the large table in her quarters, along with Ferretti, Jonas and Kaímar.

The door to her quarters chimed. "Come in."

Teal'c's expression was somber as he entered, nodding briefly by way of greeting before taking a seat next to Sam.

"Isn't Bra'tac coming?" Sam asked.

Teal'c hesitated a moment before speaking. "Master Bra'tac sends his apologies. He is engaged in kel'no'reem."

"I thought that you guys didn't have to do that anymore, now that you're using tretonin." Jonas looked puzzled.

Teal'c didn't seem to have an answer to this, and Sam felt that more questions in front of everybody else would be a bad idea. But Bra'tac had barely said a word the whole time he'd been on the ship, and seemed almost constantly preoccupied. Having been consumed by her studies of the Ancient technology from Ultan and her duties as ships commander, she admitted to herself that she simply hadn't thought to find out what the problem was.

Sam had been somewhat taken aback when Teal'c had approached her on Atlantis and asked that Bra'tac be allowed to remain on-board. Assuming the Jaffa master would not want to stay away from the Jaffa Nation's council for very long, she had imagined he would return to Earth from Atlantis, and to Dakara from there. Despite her surprise she had been more than happy to agree. Now, she made a mental note to get Teal'c alone and find out exactly what was going on with his mentor.

"This smells delicious." Jonas said, eyeing the laden plates set out on the table, already forgetting his query about Bra'tac.

"Beats MREs, anyway," Ferretti joked.

"Just about everything does," Sam pointed out with perfect truth. She gestured towards their meal. "No sense letting it go cold, guys."

For a few minutes, conversation was minimal as they ate the delicious soup that had been sent up from the mess hall. They were midway through the main course when Sam started to get down to business.

"We'll be arriving at our next stop at some point tomorrow," she told them. "It's a galaxy Earth's astronomers haven't even spotted yet. It's listed in the Ancient database, and it has a stargate network. With our own gate onboard, we should be able to explore several planets at a time if we send out teams from the ship."

"So we need to pick teams?" Ferretti asked rhetorically. "Can I get Kaímar?"

"I must stay with Colonel Carter and learn from her." The Unas objected immediately.

"Maybe it would be a good idea if you joined one of the teams," Sam suggested hopefully. Although she was growing fond of Kaímar, having a constant shadow that had to duck under every doorway and still made quite a few people go pale was not an ideal situation. "It will give you a chance to get some experience with offworld missions and you'd probably be bored if you had to hang around my office all day."

"As you wish."

Sam turned back to Ferretti. "I figured the first team could be you, Teal'c, Jonas and Kaímar. And now that Bra'tac has decided to stay onboard, maybe he'd be willing to lead the second team." She suggested to Teal'c, who nodded, though he looked less than enthusiastic.

"What are we going to call these teams anyway? Ferretti asked. "Is my team gonna be SG-1?" He joked.

"Sorry." Sam shook her head. "Your team is Athena-1."

"I can live with that."

Sam now addressed Jonas. "I've arranged for a spot for you in the science labs, including office space. It's not quite your own department, but it's kind of being thrown together in a hurry. Obviously, your first assignment will be deciphering the ancient database. That oughta take quite a while. I can assign you an assistant too."

Kaímar cocked his head at this, but said nothing. Noticing his reaction, Jonas figured he was torn between his wish to study the Ancients and his self-assigned duties as Sam's bodyguard. Sam had apparently noticed too, and nodded her approval. "The job's yours if you want it." Kaímar beaming delightedly made a very odd sight.

"Entering the upper ionosphere. Should we settle into high orbit, ma'am?" Captain Sherwin asked from the helm.

"Is the planet inhabited?"

"Yes, ma'am," Dr Rivers told her. "I've located the stargate. It's above ground, and the DHD seems active. No evidence of habitation within almost seven hundred miles of the gate. Barring small craft like the puddle-jumpers on Atlantis, I'm guessing it's not in regular use. Our gate should be able to dial using its point of origin."

"Is there a suitable landing site near the gate? We should probably try setting down when we can until we've broken in the engines. Our dialing computer will be able to extrapolate gate addresses from here."

"Yes, ma'am." Captain Sherwin said, tapping the controls and bringing the ship to a gentle landing.

Sam smiled across at Ferretti. "Ready to take your team out, Major?"

"Yes, ma'am," he responded immediately, grinning. "Say the word and we'll be geared up in ten minutes."

"Good." She looked down at her own console. "Sergeant Atherson has three MALPs ready to go. Athena-2 and 3 will be going out too. You know the drill. Look around for anything new or weird, make contact with any locals you may come across, and find out about any trade networks or local bigwigs."

"Bigwigs?" Ferretti couldn't help chuckling. You've been hanging around General O'Neill too much.

Sam smiled too, blushing slightly.

Thirty minutes later, Athena-3 disappeared into the event horizon of the gate, which Ferretti had noted to Sam more loosely resembled the gates in Pegasus.

Sitting in her office, going through the files of the various applicants aspiring to fill the vacant places on the Athena, Sam's attention was only half on her work as she wondered how her teams were faring on their missions.

Now she could understand how difficult it had been for General Hammond and later for Jack to send SG teams on their missions, not knowing whether they would return safely – or at all.

Less than one hour later, Sherwin's voice came over the PA, calling Sam to the bridge. When she got there, she heard Hailey's voice on the radio.

"…wounded. We're cut off from the gate." Sam was thankful for the remote devices McKay had managed to piece together based on the puddle-jumpers own remote dialing system. The fact that he'd never mentioned this the whole time they'd been on the planet had made her want to deck him, and then it had come out that Dr. Weir had actually had to force him to provide her with the remotes. Without them, they probably wouldn't even know there was a problem.

Switching on the radio by her chair, Sam called out to Hailey. "What happened, Lieutenant?"

"No idea, ma'am. We were at some kind of bazaar, and all hell broke loose. We thought it was some sort of riot at first, then we heard heavy weapons fire. It's a ship, Colonel. Ground forces too. They don't seem to care who they cut down. Master Bra'tac doesn't seem to badly hurt, but Bryant's a mess. Ground forces surrounding the gate."

"Are you under fire right now?"

"No, ma'am. We're clear for the moment, but I don't know how long Bryant's gonna last. Heavy bleeding, and the wound goes right through. Cauterized at the back. I'm worried about his lungs."

Rapidly checking the planets location on the computer, Sam replied with "Hold tight, guys. Athena's en route. ETA forty minutes."

"Roger that, Athena. Hailey out."

Captain Sherwin had already begun the launch sequence. Sam ordered Rivers to dial teams 1 and 3 and let them know what was going on. "Tell them, barring any problems they've to stay where they are for now. Anything goes wrong where they are, they're to return here and wait."

"Yes, ma'am."

The ship exited hyperspace thirty-two minutes later, and the cloak was immediately engaged. "Arm missiles, and all forward rail guns," Sam ordered. "Stand by with the shields. We're not here to pick a fight, but we have no idea what's out there."

"Colonel, I have a lock on the team's radio signal. Weapons fire in the area."

Quite surprised to find how calm her voice was, Sam gave the order to beam the team directly to the medical bay, where Dr. Brightman had been forewarned of the situation as they knew it. That done, she was about to give the order to scan for the enemy ship, when she realized she didn't need to. She could already see it, and so could Sherwin. "Holy shi-"

"Get us out of here," Sam commanded, the calm fading from her voice. "Now!"

TBC.

Authors' Note: Hopefully, SG-1 – complete with a couple of new members – should be appearing within the next couple chapters.