This is very unlikely to ever become canon, but the idea amused me a lot and I was forced to write it
"What the hell is that?" The voice came from the solidly built figure of General Landry, who had been waiting in the gate room for SG-1 to return from their latest mission. With the end of the war against the Ori, they had reverted to being mainly an exploration team, although even so they seemed to get into far more trouble than by rights they should have. Daniel Jackson sometimes wondered if their team, or at least the SG-1 call-sign, was cursed.
Vala was leaning casually on the large device they had heaved through the Stargate on a cargo platform, looking smug. She was the one who had discovered it and had taken a proprietary liking for the thing. Probably because quite a lot of it seemed to be made of a platinum-iridium alloy, while the rest was of some gray metal that even Sam couldn't identify. It was impossibly hard, nothing they had even marked it, and seemed to have no measurable friction, being as slick as a slick thing covered in grease.
Sam thought it was probably some sort of probe from a very advanced civilization, one they'd never run into before. Her scans and prodding had determined that it had a power source unlike anything seen to date, using some energy that was detectable although not recognizable. There were what seemed to be some form of cameras peering through the casing in several places, the lenses made out of something harder than diamond and so transparent it was almost invisible. Other less identifiable sensory systems were scattered about the casing.
Overall, it looked a lot like some form of hybrid between a satellite and some enormous insect, mixed with a huge piece of jewelry. The entire thing was glittering and shiny, curves and straight lines merging together into an almost organic shape. Some six feet long and three wide, vaguely similar to a woodlouse in basic shape, it appeared to be designed to be self-propelled but had no wheels or any other visible means of propulsion.
Sam's best guess was that it was an alien equivalent to their MELF system, possibly using something like anti-gravity for a motive source. There was no sign of damage to it, it merely seemed to be dormant. Not having found anything like weapons on it, and detecting no signals being emitted either, she had after considerable thought and discussion with the others determined it was probably safe to take back with them.
There was no other sign of intelligent life on the planet the Stargate had been on, only this thing a few hundred feet from the gate, buried in the undergrowth. Vala had literally tripped over it, then claimed it as her trophy.
Not a particularly unusual approach for the woman, he had to admit. She was… acquisitive. Sometimes it drove him up the wall but she was completely immune to any form of criticism about her tendencies, merely looking pleased than she'd provoked a reaction from him.
Teal'c had been the one who had been most suspicious of the alien device, suggesting it might be best to leave it where it was, in case the owners wanted it back. The signs were that it hadn't been there all that long and there was a good chance they were still around, not like some of the discoveries they'd acquired over the years. Yet another advanced civilization they had no knowledge of becoming annoyed with them was in his view a bit much, considering the last decade or so. Cam had eventually decided, after listening to all their suggestions, that while he had a point, Sam was convinced they could learn enough from studying it that it was worth the risk.
Daniel wasn't entirely convinced, but was also extremely curious, while Sam was clearly barely restraining herself from trying to open the thing up and poke around inside. The only reason that hadn't happened yet was because nothing she had available could do the job.
So, they'd dialed back to Stargate control, had them send a heavy duty cargo platform and half a dozen strong men through, heaved the thing onto the platform with significant effort as it was implausibly heavy, then come back. General Landry had been waiting for them, looking both curious and apprehensive. Now he was also looking irritated, since Vala was sitting cross-legged on the device and smirking at him. She knew damn well that annoyed the hell out of the man, and kept doing things like that, even though she had privately admitted to Daniel that she both liked and respected the General.
She merely enjoyed winding him up.
Daniel was fairly sure the General rather liked her as well despite the scowls he shot her so often, as otherwise he'd most likely have done something much worse. Sighing, he moved over and shoved her, making her slide off the device and have to jump to the ground, where she landed easily then glared at him.
"What did you do that for?" she complained, fiddling with her hair, then putting her hands on her hips.
"Because you're a pain in the ass."
"You say the nicest things, Daniel," she retorted, making Cam briefly grin, then go back to a neutral expression.
"Keep it down, children," he sighed. Turning to his superior, he went on, "Sam thinks it could be very important to study this… whatever the hell it is. She thinks it's some sort of alien probe."
"It's extremely advanced technology, General," the blonde woman said as she walked over, having finished signing a clipboard held out to her by one of the gate staff. Behind them the iris spiraled shut over the now dormant gate. "I have no idea what the power source is, but I want to find out. None of the species we have encountered are behind this, I'm certain. It's completely unknown."
"Which makes it dangerous," the older man said immediately. "I'm not sure having it in my base is a good idea."
"It's not a weapon, that much I'm sure of," she assured him earnestly. "I'm pretty sure it's a probe. But I don't know what the casing is made of, those gray metallic parts are totally unlike anything we've ever seen. Even the platinum-iridium sections are alloyed with something else which has made them much harder than they should be. It shows an amazing grasp of metallurgy aside from anything else. Based on my initial readings and calculations, if we could duplicate that material, it would be a vastly superior armor for spacecraft than anything anyone else has. That alone would make it worth the effort."
"Anyone but whoever made it," he pointed out.
"Well, yes, but we don't know who that is. Perhaps we can work it out from studying it. That's another thing, we could establish contact with a completely unknown species." She looked at Daniel pleadingly, who nodded a little.
"She's right, General, I've never seen or heard of anything like this either, neither have Vala or Teal'c."
"And what do we do if whoever made this… probe… decides they want it back?" the General asked slowly. "They might consider your acquisition of it a little close to theft. Some people don't like that."
"The planet it was on is half-way across the galaxy, it's not emitting any sort of tracking signal, and I think the likelihood of whoever owns it finding us is very low," Sam replied immediately. "When we've finished studying it we can put it back, anyway. We haven't stolen it, we've just… borrowed it."
"Hmm." The base commander didn't look entirely convinced.
"What's the worst that could happen?" Cam asked with a shrug. "Sam and her geeks look at it for a while, probably find out they can't work it out, complain when we take it away from them and put it back where we found it, and we just keep going."
The sound of klaxons going off without warning made them all jump, Daniel nearly having a heart attack. They were incredibly loud inside the gate room. He slowly turned to glare at his team-mate, as did everyone else in the room.
"You just had to say that, didn't you?" he grated over the sound of the alarms.
"Off world gate activation!" came through the PA system. Daniel looked up at the control room to see the people there frantically working the controls. "Unknown source, it's not anyone we know."
They hastily moved to the side of the room, leaving the alien device in front of the gate, while the side doors slammed open and two heavily armed squads of soldiers poured into the room, their weapons all pointed at the closed iris. The gate was in motion, the inner ring rotating. Danial squinted at it. It seemed to be moving faster than normal.
"Chevron 1 encoded!" the PA squawked. He watched as the latch device operated, the ring resuming motion.
"Chevron 2 encoded!" It kept moving.
"No originating address," the PA added, sounding confused. "The activation isn't happening through the normal gate network."
Sam turned and stared up at the control room, then looked back to the gate, a very confused expression on her face. The gate kept turning and the latches kept operating.
"Chevron 6 encoded."
"Chevron 7 encoded."
They waited for the wormhole to form behind the iris, but nothing happened.
"Chevron 8 encoded." This made everyone look worried.
"Extra-galactic, then," Sam said, Daniel barely hearing her over the klaxons. "Atlantis?" she shouted up to the control room. The operator shook his head.
"No, ma'am, I don't think so." He looked down at his console, then back at the still turning ring. "Um… Chevron 9 encoded?!"
Everyone exchanged a glance. The gate never used the ninth symbol, and no one had been able to work out what it was for or how to drive it. Leaving aside the calculated energy required to make whatever it did happen anyway.
The last mechanism snapped into place and the characteristic sound of the wormhole forming echoed through the large room, rippling blue light reflecting from the wall behind the gate.
The soldiers all braced themselves.
Nothing happened.
"Stable wormhole, but it's… weird," the operator called. "I can't get a good read on it."
"Any signals?" the General shouted, not looking away from the iris.
"No, sir, nothing."
A few more seconds passed, then everyone twitched as there was a loud clunk on the iris. Wondering if something had tried to pass through the wormhole and expired on the blocked side, Daniel listened as the sound repeated itself several times. A weird suspicion was growing at the back of his mind.
"Does anyone else think that sounds like someone knocking?" Vala slowly said. He looked at her, then his companions.
"I was just thinking the same thing," he replied.
They exchanged glances again.
A pause of half a minute of silence passed as they all stared at the iris.
The sound came again, more rapidly this time, and somehow expressing impatience.
"There is definitely something knocking on the iris," Cam stated. Beside him, Teal'c nodded.
"It's not possible, unless someone is throwing things through the other end of the gate," Sam remarked, looking puzzled. "The wormhole is one way, you can't stick something through it and then pull it back. Once you go in you're committed."
They listened some more. The third series of knocks sounded annoyed and made them take a step back.
"Whatever is doing that is getting pissed," Cam muttered.
"Well, it can't get through, so let it," the General replied. After a moment, he looked at Sam. "It can't get through, correct?"
"No, sir, the iris is made of the most advanced alloy we know of, we upgraded it since the last attack on it. Nothing I can think of can get through it in the amount of time it's possible to keep a gate open."
She sounded confident.
Vala pointed.
"What about that? Did you think of that?"
Everyone stared at the tip of what appeared to be an enormous knife blade that had suddenly and with no apparent difficulty pierced the iris near the top edge, and was now rapidly following the inner diameter of the ring around the metal sections like someone peeling an orange. Sam gaped.
"No, I didn't," she mumbled.
"Fall back!" General Landry ordered. "Security teams, ready to fire on my command!"
They watched as the blade finished making a complete circle and retracted. Seconds later the severed inner section of iris gently tipped outwards, almost gracefully falling to the access ramp with an enormous boom, the individual leaves separating and sliding to a halt on the floor. They stared at the revealed open wormhole, which was a subtly different color and texture than normal.
"Wait for it..." Cam was kneeling on the floor, his P90 aimed at the gate, Teal'c mirroring his position next to him. Vala was standing behind Daniel now and peering past his shoulder. Sam looked confused, but had her weapon aimed as well.
Daniel was expecting almost anything to happen at this point. Over the years he'd pretty much seen and experienced everything the universe could throw at him. He didn't think he could actually be surprised by much these days.
The fifty foot long scaly arm that came through the gate, an enormous taloned reptilian hand on the end of it, rather put the lie to that thought.
So shocked they couldn't even fire, the soldiers simply gaped, as did everyone else. The hand and arm were covered in dark blue-black scales, remarkably human in shape but clearly not, while the claws on the fingertips were many feet long and even so looked razor sharp. Daniel stared as the hand headed directly for the 'probe' and picked it up without trouble, like someone collecting an apple. It smoothly retracted through the gate, the entire thing having taken about six seconds.
Everyone stared, then exchanged glances.
There was a pregnant pause, then the hand came back. It raised the index finger and slowly wagged it back and forth in an unmistakable gesture of censure, before vanishing again.
Twenty seconds later, it came back, more slowly, as a clenched fist, which positioned itself where the probe had been then opened. A couple of dozen shiny yellow blocks about four inches across, tiny against the impossibly large appendage, cascaded to the floor with a series of dull thuds. The hand pulled back, gave them a cheery thumbs-up, then disappeared for the final time. Seconds later the wormhole wavered and died as the Stargate shut down.
No one said anything for over a minute. The operator turned the klaxons off, but that was about it.
Eventually, Vala wandered over, a dazed expression on her face, and looked down at the glittering blocks on the floor, before kicking one. With a pained look she yelped, then knelt down and tried to pick it up, which was clearly a strain. "Gold," she reported in a faraway voice. "So soft it's probably pure."
"Payment for the iris?" Daniel suggested numbly.
"That's what the note says."
"Note?"
"Yes. It's wrapped around one of these gold blocks. Written in English."
Her voice was still distant, like that of someone who had experienced something beyond their ability to comprehend. He sympathized mightily.
'Sorry about your gate cover, it was in the way. Please don't take my things again, it's annoying. Hope this pays to fix it. Bye.'
She read the piece of paper she was holding in one hand out loud to the silent room. "It's signed with a letter K."
Standing, still cradling about forty pounds of pure gold in one arm, she came back to them and handed the General the note, then stared at the inactive gate.
Eventually, after another long silence, she said quietly, "Next time I find a weird alien machine, I'm turning around and walking in the other direction."
Every single person in the room nodded as one, the soldiers lowering their unfired weapons and exchanging wondering glances.
Vala sighed heavily. "I need a very big drink. Who's coming with me?" She held up the block of gold with a grunt of effort. "I'm paying."
In the end, they locked the gate room and all went off to think about something else for a while.
Which involved alcohol, oh, so much alcohol.