Previously:

All SG teams were recalled to the SGC following the attack on the Alpha site and the collapse of the coalition between Earth and its allies. Carter was discharged from the infirmary. She wanted to study Janeway's new weapon and shuttle, but O'Neill insisted she should go home instead, and offered to give her a lift because of her leg injury.
After surgery on her shoulder, Janeway woke up in the infirmary during the night, not knowing where she was. She went exploring by herself and quickly realised that she had been transported more three hundred years in the past and to an alternative Earth.
Meanwhile, Voyager's crew has been battling widespread power failures on the ship, and Chakotay has learned that Janeway's shuttle might have been caught in a temporal wormhole.

Introductions

General Hammond crossed his hands on the Briefing room table. "How is our mystery guest doing, Dr Fraiser?"

The diminutive woman opened the file in front of her. "She suffered fourth-degree burns to the left shoulder and necrosis of the underlying muscles caused by a glancing blow from the drone's energy weapon. As well as first-degree burns to the palm of her right hand from a different source."

Sam knew the damage the drone weapon could inflict. The woman who had saved her life had been lucky to survive, but that didn't make her injury less severe.

"The surgery on her shoulder went well, and the risk of infection is low. She is ready to leave the infirmary this morning," Janet Fraiser continued.

"Any idea where she comes from?" O'Neill asked, leafing through the document in front of him. "Seems nobody in the US military has ever heard of a Captain Janeway."

"She hasn't said much. She is human, no doubt about it. Late thirties. No signs she ever bore a symbiote. Her clothes were not worth saving, but they were similar to the ones worn by her team, so I am thinking some sort of uniform. I also retrieved these items from her before she went into surgery."

She passed a small tube to Hammond, as well as a flat object shaped like a triangle with two wings. It made a metallic sound when it hit the table.

"Major Carter? I assume you had a look at those?" Hammond asked.

"I have, sir," Carter said. "The triangle is an electronic device. I would guess an identity pass, like our access cards. It's badly damaged and I couldn't see much under the microscope. The supersoldier weapon must have fried the circuits."

Hammond peered into the transparent tube. "And those four small cylinders?"

"They're made of an unknown magnetic metal alloy. The other people from Janeway's team had either one of those or a bar on their collars. Probably a military rank insignia of some sort."

"Military? From where? Russia? The UK? A planet nearby?" O'Neill rocked back in his chair. "How did they get to the Alpha site? That small spacecraft of theirs didn't look like a long-range ship to me, and it's too big to go through a stargate."

General Hammond lifted his eyes. "Quite. And one of the criteria for the location of the Alpha site was that the system was uninhabited."

Janet Fraiser stood and gathered her papers. "I might know more about the origin of those people after I examine the bodies more thoroughly. I'll also test the blood samples I took from Janeway. See if I can find something at the genetic level."

"Let me know when you have results, Doctor."

Hammond waited for Dr Fraiser to leave the room before turning to Sam. "Anything you want to add, Major Carter?"

"Janeway's weapon. I had a quick look at it in the lab this morning. It's some kind of energy disruptor, using naquadria or some variant of it as its power source," Sam said.

O'Neill brought two of his fingers close together. "Looked a bit…small."

"That's what is so interesting about it, sir. To miniaturise such an unstable energy source speaks of a remarkable level of technology. From my preliminary examination, I believe it could also prove to be more versatile than a Goa'uld zat."

"Didn't seem to be working too well, from what we saw," O'Neill added.

"Yes. I don't know what to make of that," Sam admitted. She longed to return to her lab and test the theories churning in her head. "Captain Janeway might be able to shed some light on how that weapon operates. It would be worth talking to her about it." Sam was not hopeful—most front-line personnel used the technology at their disposal without dwelling into the science behind—but it was worth a try.

"I agree. It's time to see if she'd be willing to assist us. Airman," he said to the soldier standing near the staircase to the Embarkation room, "please bring Captain Janeway here."

Dressed in a hand-me-down Air Force uniform, a khaki green jacket thrown over the shoulders, Janeway looked much less imposing than when Sam had last seen her attacking the drone. The arm in the sling and the red gash on the cheek did not trouble the woman, but there was a weariness behind the blue eyes and pale face that seemed to come from deeper than her physical wounds.

"Captain Janeway," Hammond showed her to a seat at the table. "I am General Hammond, leader of this facility. You've already met Colonel Jack O'Neill, Major Carter and Teal'c."

She nodded at everybody in turn, giving a quick smile that did not reach her eyes to Sam, before facing Hammond. "General, let me first express my gratitude for your care and hospitality."

"A small gesture in return for helping save Major Carter's life from the supersoldier before the colonel and Teal'c came to the scene. And please accept our condolences for the loss of your team," Hammond said.

Janeway's eyes hardened. "If I may, can you tell me more about those supersoldiers? I would like to be prepared when I go back to my…people."

Sam glanced at O'Neill, who lifted an eyebrow. Janeway had wanted to say something different. 'Go back to my planet', 'to my base'. A ship maybe. As the colonel had noted, her spacecraft did not look capable of long journeys. A larger ship orbiting close by made sense. What had happened to it?

"The supersoldiers are a formidable foe. Major Carter was testing an upgraded power unit for a new weapon against them when our base was attacked. The drone had been sent by its Goa'uld masters to retrieve it by any means," Hammond added.

Janeway gave Sam an appraising look. "That's why the drone was after you."

"I was carrying the unit, but the colonel had the weapon," Sam said. "We needed both to kill a drone."

"The people who created those drones. I don't recognise their name."

"You do not know of the Goa'uld, Captain Janeway?" Teal'c's deep voice made itself heard.

"No, Teal'c. Are they a species local to that sector?" she asked him.

In Sam's experience, most people were either afraid of the Jaffa, or dismissive of him. His proud demeanour and imposing physique did not encourage small talk and friendliness, but Janeway was treating him with the same respect she was showing to the General. She was obviously used to meeting other species, and on friendly terms, contrary to most off-planet humans SG-1 had encountered so far. Sam filed that information for later.

"It's unusual to come across people with your level of technology who have not met the Goa'uld, let alone heard of them," Sam said, fishing for more information.

"We are travellers," Janeway countered.

Sam waited for the woman to explain herself, but Janeway was clearly not willing to divulge more. For a fellow space traveller, she seemed particularly cagey.

"The supersoldiers are one of the Goa'uld's finest inventions of late," O'Neill said. "Anubis' new toys," he added with a thin smile.

Janeway's jaw tightened. "That toy costs the life of three of my team, Colonel."

"And more than fifty of our people, Captain, when they attacked our base at the Alpha site," Hammond said. "We have been fighting the Goa'uld for many years now, holding them back from invading Earth, but we could do with some help."

"Major Carter tells me that your weapon for example is of a design which could be of interest to us," Hammond went on, unfazed by Janeway's silence. "We were hoping you would be able to tell us more about it."

"General, I am grateful for the trust you've extended me by bringing me here, but I am not at liberty to share the technology of my people with others. We have very strict protocols about that."

"Not another one of those." O'Neill threw his pen down on the table. "Why are your kind always thinking we aren't worthy of your great intellect?" He returned Janeway's dark glare with a smirk.

"I know this will sound harsh coming from somebody whose life you've just saved, but I must insist that all the weapons and devices you took from me and my crew are returned to me immediately."

Hammond's face reddened. It was part of his job to convince uncooperative aliens of Earth's pressing needs for anything that would help protect it from the Goa'uld, but Sam knew his diplomatic skills were often seriously tested. She wished Daniel was attending this meeting instead of chasing after the free Jaffa faction.

"I also need to alert my people to the danger those Goa'uld could pose," Janeway stood and plowed on regardless. "I formally request to be returned to my shuttle with the bodies of my team members and all our possessions."

"What you are asking is out of the question, Captain. The gate on the planet might be under Goa'uld control. We cannot risk another confrontation with them at the moment."

Janeway leaned over, her eyes fixed on the General. "That…stargate. It's how you brought me back here, isn't it?" She waited for a nod from Hammond. "Then let me use it on my own, so your team is not put in further danger."

Again, Sam glanced at O'Neill who was sitting very still. Not only did Janeway not know about the Goa'uld, but she wasn't familiar with the stargates either. Maybe she came from an early Goa'uld colony who had been cut off the rest of the galaxy for a very long time.

"You are in no state to fight your way through by yourself, Captain," Hammond said, pointing to her arm in the sling.

"I am willing to take that risk. The longer my shuttle stays on that planet, the more chances it has to be discovered by your enemy," Janeway asserted with an icy stare.

The woman had guts, Sam admitted to herself. Offering to return alone to the place where she'd lost three of her own was daring, to the point of recklessness. Why was she so eager to leave? What was she not telling them?

"Janeway's got a point," O'Neill noted. "We can't let those snakes get their grubby little hands on new technology."

Sam had long been an admirer of the colonel's mixed imagery. She focused her attention on the papers in front of her, trying hard not to smile.

Hammond put his hands flat on the table. "I will not send you back there alone, Captain. If they haven't yet, the Goa'uld will soon hear our alliance with the Tok'ra and the Jaffa is floundering. They might attack our bases at any time, and I don't want to have a team stranded off world when that happens."

Janeway dropped back on her seat, her lips pursed.

"However, I am not insensitive to your predicament," Hammond added with some sympathy. "SG-3 will investigate the Alpha site once the evacuation of the other systems is finished. That's the best I can offer you at this stage."

Janeway opened her mouth, then closed it, visibly unhappy. "And I shall remain your prisoner in the meantime."

"Not at all. First of all, as a sign of good will, I am returning the devices you were wearing."

Janeway picked up the tube and metal triangle. She looked at them with longing in her eyes, Sam thought, before putting them in the front pocket of her jacket. "Thank you, General."

"Please consider yourself a guest of this facility. You'll be given VIP quarters on the base, and an around-the-clock escort. Major Carter, could you show the base to the captain, so she can familiarise herself with what we can offer."

Sam stood, recognising the not-so-subtle request to bring the woman to their side of the bargaining table. "Yes, sir."

"Show her the mess hall, Carter," O'Neill drawled, waiving his hand. "See if she likes the desserts," he threw as the two women made their way out.

"Is the colonel always so…flippant?" Janeway asked, her tone snappish.

Sam refrained a smile. She did not feel like explaining Jack. That was Daniel's task usually, and it always took a long time.

###

Carter chose food from the shelves and brought her tray to the table. Janeway carefully followed her lead, but avoided the brightly coloured blobs floating in the tall glasses. "Jell-O?" she asked. Neelix had made very similar looking concoctions when Voyager had come across a stranded human colony soon after their arrival in the Delta quadrant. She had not warmed to the trembling jelly.

"The blue kind is my favourite, but it's an acquired taste," said Carter.

"Hopefully, I won't be here long enough to develop a craving for it," Janeway retorted, quelling the terseness of her words with a smile. She needed help to go back to the shuttle, and hopefully to Voyager, and she felt an affinity with Carter she did not share with the others.

"I'm curious, Major. Who are the Goa'uld?" Janeway asked as she sat down.

"The Goa'uld are…" Carter's voice hardened, "gods, or that's what they claimed to be for eons. In reality, they are parasitic war-mongering aliens who need human hosts to keep them alive. They have enslaved entire populations on hundreds of star systems. On Earth, they took the guise of Egyptian gods until they were kicked out more than four thousand years ago, but not before humans were sent all over the galaxy to do their bidding. We met them as soon as we reactivated the gate a few years back, and we've been fighting them ever since."

Janeway stopped eating after listening to the first few words, and put her fork down, trying to get her mind around the tall tale that Egyptian gods had been beings from outer space. This planet was certainly not her Earth unless all knowledge of that history had been concealed so well that Starfleet had never known about it. Or never divulged.

She pondered the wisdom of asking more questions. It was better, for the moment at least, to pretend she was not from Earth, even if another one. If the Temporal Prime Directive did exist, a very similar rule had to be in place to prevent alternate universes from knowing too much about each other, especially when they were so different.

Which means she was truly alone. At least on Voyager, she could count on the support of more than one hundred people, the friendship of many among them, and a close bond with—

Carter was looking at her with raised eyebrows. "Captain? Are you okay?"

Janeway blinked. "Yes, I'm fine."

"We could zip past the infirmary after lunch to get that shoulder of yours looked at again."

"That won't be necessary. I don't like infirmaries very much. What about your leg? It looked like a nasty wound."

"Fine. Don't need the crutches anymore. It sure beats concussion though," Carter said, finishing her plate.

Janeway smiled. They were comparing injuries like two veterans of the Cardassian war. "Had many?" she asked. She managed to spear a recalcitrant cherry tomato with her fork.

"Concussions? Only a couple, so far. And you?"

"The usual—broken ribs, fractured legs, transporter malfunctions, phaser burns—" She closed her eyes. The medication she was on, or was it the company, were causing her to relax her guard. She had to be more careful before she blurted something Carter should not know about. Like phasers and transporters.

Sam did not react, and Janeway resumed eating. The food tasted bland, and she had a few bites before pushing the plate away.

"Coffee?" Sam asked.

"Yes, please." At last something which was obviously a multiverse constant.

Carter took the plates to a counter and returned with two piping hot cups. Janeway had to stop herself from sighing at the aroma. "What about the supersoldiers?" she asked. "How do you kill them?"

"A supersoldier is not really alive, technically. They are artificially grown and have a very short life span. The weapon I was working on when the Goa'uld ships attacked the camp I was working at drains its life force away, bypassing the armour."

"I am impressed. A kind of disruptor?"

Carter lifted her eyes from the rim of her cup. "I am sorry. I can't tell you much more until General Hammond gives you…"

"Security clearance?"

"Yep. But your energy weapons would have worked as well, I think."

Janeway flinched. "Something went wrong. They aren't supposed to overheat for one," she said, looking at her bandaged hand.

"You use naquadria as the energy source, don't you?" Sam asked.

Janeway could not help a chuckle. Sam was as eagerly inquisitive as B'Elanna when faced with a new engineering challenge. "Sorry, you remind me of a friend of mine." Her mirth did not last long. "And I don't know that name either. Naquadria?"

"It's a very unstable energy source we discovered during our travels through the gate. I've been working on stabilising it, but never to the degree you've achieved. It's a remarkable feat."

Blast, that woman was not only an exceptional fighter to have survived hours pursued by that drone, but she was obviously very smart. An admirable combination, and a dangerous one.

"You are a scientist?" Janeway finished her cup. The coffee tasted as if it had stood on the hot plate for too long.

"Theoretical astrophysicist. Enough to make do when we meet new people and their advanced technology," Sam smirked, but her eyes were dancing.

Janeway bowed her head. "Touché."

Dangerous indeed, she thought.

###

Soon after lunch, Sam was summoned by General Hammond. She excused herself, promising she wouldn't work on the phasers without Janeway's permission.

Janeway was left to her own devices to freely roam the base, shadowed by an uncommunicative six-foot tall chaperone. Even if she had known how to go back to her shuttle, she was loath to alienate Hammond and the SGC. She needed them more than they needed her.

She took note of the internal communication system—no individual combadge, fixed devices on walls and desks, and simple push buttons in the lifts in lieu of voice commands. She didn't know what bit of information would be useful, but rule number one when a 'guest': find out as much as you can about your hosts. The fact she was on Earth made little difference. She had to treat this place as if she was on an alien base.

The levels marked labs and that mysterious Stargate were out of bounds, guards blocking her passage. Her request to go outside was met with a 'Sorry, Ma'am' from the tower of muscles accompanying her. At the end of the afternoon, she returned to the infirmary where Dr Fraiser took a blood sample and asked a few questions. The woman had better bedside manners than Voyager's EMH, but she did not miss much. The questions became more pointed until Janeway admitted that yes, her shoulder was hurting, and yes, some painkillers could be useful.

Then she was shown to her quarters on Level 25. Her escort opened the door to a comfortable if somewhat utilitarian room. "I'll be outside if you need anything, Ma'am", he said before retreating.

Janeway collapsed on the bed, light-headed and her shoulder on fire.

###

"Captain!"

The voice was deep and insistent.

Something must have gone very wrong with the engines because she couldn't hear them, and why was the red alert off and the ship shuddering around her.

"Chakotay?" she whispered.

"Janeway! Wake up!"

Brown eyes were watching her. O'Neill's face solidified in front of her, his hand shaking her awake.

"What's happening?" she heard herself slur. Dreams of another place ebbed away. Wrong man, wrong place…

"The Alpha site is clear. The General has given us two hours to find your aircraft and secure it. You've got five minutes to get ready." And with that, the tall man was gone, leaving her with a massive headache and what seemed to be a small mountain of equipment to put on.

How was she going to keep Carter away from the shuttle? Should she even try?

###

The carved inner circle turned, the glowing triangular and enigmatic icons locking into place one after the other. Janeway soon understood why everybody was standing at the bottom of the metal ramp leading to the gate. Defying gravity, a massive turbulence soared towards her from the round opening, before collapsing as suddenly into a rippling shimmering surface held vertically, as if by magic, within the arched boundary of the ancient artefact.

O'Neill and Teal'c walked up the ramp, and she followed, Sam at her side. "You can touch it," Carter said, grinning like an enthusiastic kid showing off her latest discovery.

Janeway put her hand against the flowing substance, encountering a slight suction as it disappeared into the liquid wall. Either the laws of physics as she knew them did not work the same way in this universe, or this Earth had made a discovery which the Federation knew nothing about.

"Did you build this?" she asked, spellbound.

"No. The entire gate system across the galaxy was built by a race we call the Ancients. This particular one was found in an archaeological dig in Egypt in the 1930s, but nobody could make sense of it as it obviously predated human history by millions of years. Daniel was the first to realise it was a portal which enables travel to other planets," Sam explained. "Each gate is an Einstein-Rosen bridge—"

"It creates a stable wormhole between two worlds. That's amazing!" Janeway's mind was whirling with the kind of technology that could achieve that effect. She could not stop smiling.

She took a step back, pointing at the circle above her head. "Those seven symbols must be galactic coordinates, then, with Earth as the origin," she added. "But, what about the exit vectors? Wouldn't they have wandered off course with time if the gate is several million years old?"

"You mean stellar drift? You are quite right. We had to recalculate the position of—"

O'Neill coughed. "You know me, Carter, I can listen to you sciencing for hours on end, but we haven't got all day."

Carter straightened her back and lifted her weapon. "Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir."

Janeway shook her head. The woman's knowledge and dedication were remarkable. Sam's scientific expertise had to be an asset to the SGC, and yet, there she was, carrying what looked like a heavy gun and equipment as if it was the most natural thing in the world. All in the name of protecting her team when going back to the planet where she'd almost died.

"Good. Teal'c and I will go first. You bring up the rear." O'Neill stepped into the shimmering wall and disappeared. A few moments later, Janeway stumbled through a similar gate and into a late afternoon sun setting on a planet tens of thousand light years away from Earth. She was back in the Delta quadrant.

She fell to her knees and was promptly sick.