[This is set is season six. Post-Daniel (although he still shows up in it a lot) and pre-Jonas (he doesn't show up in it at all). It follows two earlier stories 'Epilogue' and 'The Question'. For an explanation of why the first story is called 'Epilogue', see 'The Question'. In fact, this story probably would make a little more sense if you read those other two first. grin This takes pace three months after 'The Question', about six months after Daniel's ascension.
My thanks as always to Pettygrew for putting up with me and my ramblings, helping me to avoid the gaping holes I manufactured and for coining the phrase 'geo-babble'. grin]
Signs"Profffffeeeessorrrrr…" The word was drawn out, caught between a warning and an exasperated laugh.
Emma Collier, SG6's resident geomorphologist, teetered on the edge of the cliff and looked back at her team, golden eyes wide with curiosity. "Yes, Patrick?" She asked, toes hanging over the edge.
"Emma, for cryin' out loud. Could you at least wait until the gate closes before you plummet off the edge of the earth?"
The woman frowned and pushed her sunhat back with her thumb. Her mouth made a round 'o' of understanding and she grinned. "Geomorphologists don't plummet, Patrick. We 'mass waste'."
"Yeah, well it'd be a mass waste of my time to go and haul your sorry, bedraggled backside outta a pit when you should be here helping with the gear." By the time he finished ranting, Emma was already on her way back to her team.
Major Patrick Sanchez was checking the ordinance. Technically this world was uninhabited. A primary survey team, SG1, had come through a few days earlier. Their reports, combined with MALP and telemetry readings made the planet attractive to the SGC's resident topographic survey team. They were on P8T-119 to evaluate any mineral or mining potential, as well as to conduct some classification and soils studies. Early surveys had shown the possibility of gold-bearing gravels in nearby river valleys.
Most SG teams had a specialty of one sort or another. Some were first contact teams, often having anthropologists or linguistics experts with them, with the other members having a wide range of skills. Some were scientific teams, having biologists or archaeologists with them. SG6 was a minerals survey team.
Sanchez, their leader, was a life-long military man. He was there to make sure everything happened as it should and to keep discipline. His second in command was Captain Joe Moresby. The short, stocky black man was a doctor in environmental chemistry, specifically toxicology and also a military lifer. Emma took a pack from Sergeant Dimitri Vale. The incredibly tall, slim man was a geologist. His military ties were a little more tenuous. He had joined up to help the country, but a good education for a poor young man was a more realistic goal. Had the Stargate program not come along, he probably would have returned to academia. Emma, a former associate professor, handled the landscape questions, including hydrology, sedimentology and soil science.
Together, they made their ways onto new worlds and evaluated the landscape for mineral and mining potential as well as conducting research in pristine environments. One of the hardest parts about conducting earth science experiments on earth was that almost every environment had, in some ways, been impacted by human activities. Many of the worlds they entered were pristine, a blank slate for eager scientists.
Not many potential mining sites were found. Emma and Dimitri theorized that, just as they were doing, the Goa'uld made their way across systems and surveyed many of them. The naquadah-rich planets had all been claimed and communities planted by the creatures to mine the ore. Likewise the gold bearing planets. Now and again, they struck it rich though. The foursome had worked on P2R-183 for almost a month, and returned home well-tanned, with a cart-load of gold for the SGC's coffers. Now, a few hundred pounds of gold put barely a dent into the SGC's multi-billion dollar budget, but it was enough to put SG6 into the good graces of the management and allow the scientists to get the good field kits and monitoring gear.
On P8T-119, the Stargate was located on the top of a mountain, overlooking steep post-glacial landscape with rich, abundant forests running alongside streams cutting through thick gravels and sands.
Like many parts of Europe and North America, P8T-119 looked to have been impacted by a large ice age in its geologically recent past. The Stargate had been cleverly built in an area that looked unaffected by the kilometre-plus thick sheets of ice that had ground their way across this world, levelling everything in their path.
Before leaving for P8T-119, Dimitri and Emma had debated loudly whether the Stargate received otherworldly assistance in remaining unburied by the ice. Emma pointed to the gate hidden on earth in the Antarctic. Certainly nothing there had protected it from the ice. If the builders had the technology to protect the gates, why build them there? Dimitri had countered that at one point, the South Pole had been in Johannesburg, not the Antarctic. Perhaps when the gate was built, the Antarctic was not in any danger.
Dismissing Dimitri's 'South Pole' theory as geologically too ancient to consider, Emma moved on to other points. The exposure was likely naturally protected, she offered. Areas of the Yukon and Alaska had not been covered by the last age, allowing refuge for many creatures, including antelopes and camels. Dimitri, however, felt that the area here did not fit the same topographic profile of the protected areas in the north and had expounded at great length as to why.
Eventually, Patrick had to put an arm around Dimitri's waist, while Joe grabbed Emma. They simultaneously pulled the two scientists into opposite corners of the room, making them face the wall until they agreed to speak politely to each other. Patrick further punished them by limiting them to monosyllabic statements for two whole hours. Emma spent much of the two hours sticking her tongue out at Patrick and grunting, while Dimitri giggled behind his sleeves, trying not to let his CO catch on. The impasse had been resolved by the appearance of SG1.
The two teams had chatted for a short time, preparing gear for their respective missions. Emma had misplaced her field checklist, but thought she had remembered everything anyway. Finally on the planet, she checked out her supplies, pawing through the kits. "Crud." She muttered under her breath.
Patrick looked up immediately. "Something wrong, doc?"
Emma didn't answer, pulling out a box and dropping to her knees. She lifted out the pH, nitrate and phosphate kits and then the various manuals and record sheets before looking up at the Major. "I lent my Munsell colour charts to SG8."
The tall, burly man cocked his head. "And that is bad… why?"
Emma put the kits back in the carrying case. "Because, Patrick… we're supposed to be developing an offworld soil identification key here. Uh… most countries use different soil classification systems and different naming techniques which differ according to, um, local conditions… if you catch my meaning." Emma was distracted in her search, speaking a mile a minute. The words tumbled over one another in their eagerness to be heard.
"In Canada, they have, uh… well, for example, podzols, chernozems and, um… cryosols. We have Oxisols, Mollisols and Gelisols. In Europe, there's something else. Each of the main…" She held up a zip-loc bag of books and shook it before continuing on. "Main soil orders have sub-divisions, and sub-classifications. They're just not applicable, not, uh, not useful for off-world use."
"And…" Patrick cut her off, lifting up his hat and scratching his close-cropped black hair. The other two members of his team had at least a general idea of where Emma was going with all this geo-babble. Although he would never admit it, Patrick had picked up a few things along the way as well, even in their few short months together. He wasn't the 'yessir, nosir' jarhead he appeared to be. Still… a day without baiting Emma Collier was a wasted day indeed.
He caught Emma's attention. The woman pushed her glasses up. "And I can't tell what colour a soil is without a Munsell chart. Many soil classifications use colour along with texture as a primary identification technique. We were thinking that if we made the off-world system entirely colour based, well as much as possible, then it would function as an easy system for other teams to use, even without specialized training."
"Black, brown, red, yellow. What's so tough?" Hook baited, line set.
Emma held up a finger and shook it at the Major. "Ah… ah, no. Munsell differentiates soil into values… say a two, five or ten, and then further divides it into, uh, yellow-red influences." She put a pack on the ground. "Oh… not to mention the gleyed soils… there's, what, two pages of colour tiles for the blue-grey soils… Hard pressed to do any real scientific evaluation without accounting for the blue-grey variants, I can tell you."
Patrick cocked his head and frowned. "Wait a minute. You're talking about that pack of paint chips, aren't you?" Long cast into still water.
The scientist returned Patrick's frown with a pained look. "Major Sanchez… a Munsell colour chart is not a 'pack of paint chips'… it is scientifically ordered colour blocks-"
"Paint chips." Patrick interrupted. Tug the line.
"Which," Emma over-rode him putting a finger to her lips as she did so. "Are given specific colour designations, allowing a scientist to identify correctly the hue, value, and chroma of a soil."
"So why is it important again?" Sanchez asked innocently, throwing a wink to the other officers. Reel in a little… and…
Emma looked up and narrowed her eyes but did not fall for the trick. "Now you know why geographers don't like people."
Joe laughed, white teeth showing up brightly against his dark skin. Dimitri shook his head and said. "I thought it was because they messed with your… 'stuff'."
"That too." Emma sniffed. Like Emma, Dimitri had known a few hard-core earth scientists who disdained the human race for their predominantly negative impact on the landscapes under study. Both Emma and Dimitri liked to fall back on their 'hate all people' routines when annoyed.
"Emma." Patrick called as the woman pointedly turned away from him and busied herself with the packs. Dimitri and Joe exchanged grins, blue eyes meeting brown. Both knew that Emma was not angry with the Major. The CO and the civilian had made irritating each other into an art form and such an art demanded a great deal of practice. "Emmmmmaaaa…" Sanchez drawled. He started fanning himself with a small binder-style book. "I talked to SG8 before I left." He was speaking in a sing-song voice, taunting her.
Emma closed her eyes as she realised what it meant and slowly turned. Patrick grinned and held up the book so the corner touched his temple. Emma groaned. He had the Munsell book, and she'd have to suck up to him to get it back. She decided to stand her ground. "Good." She held out a hand. "Remind me to thank them when I get back."
Patrick held up the book. "And me?" His deep brown eyes twinkled merrily, small wrinkles forming at their corners.
Golden eyes narrowed behind the lenses of her glasses and Emma set her lips in a straight line. "You can thank them too." She kept her hand out.
The Major sucked on his teeth and opened the book. "Paint chips. Wonder what colour I should do my livingroom, hey Joe?" He looked at his second in command.
"All due respect, sir, you're about to get your butt kicked." Joe grinned back at his commander, shaking his head.
Emma advanced on the Major, a smile on her face. Sanchez looked at her suspiciously and then groaned as she put a foot long piece of pipe in his hand. "What is this, Collier?" He sighed.
"You're so hot to keep the Munsell charts, fine. You do the soil coring and cataloguing." Her grin was evil, but the effect was lessened by her giggle as she skipped back to the packs. The Major sputtered.
"Emma… I ought to-" He was cut off as a gout of blue electricity caught him, arching him backwards and sending him crashing to the ground.
"Patrick?" Emma cried. Recovering quickly, she jumped behind the gear sled and grabbed the Major's leg, pulling him to shelter. Joe bolted for cover behind the DHD's pedestal and Dimitri crouched by Emma. All three had guns and zats at the ready.
"What the hell?" Dimitri swore. "That was a zat blast. This planet's supposed to be uninhabited!" The duo dropped as another zat blast hit the gear. Emma looked over at Joe.
"We need to cover him so he can dial out." She yelled to the officer. Dimitri lifted his gun, and Emma readied her zat. With a nod, they spread cover fire in the direction the blasts had come. Joe stood up and dialled over the back of the pedestal, keeping it between himself and the zats as much as possible. He jumped as a zat blast hit the ground at his feet, but avoided the sting. Finally, he slammed his hand down on the central crystal and the wormhole burst into being. He triggered the GDO code and looked at his team-mates.
Joe grabbed the radio on his shoulder. "SGC, can you read? SGC?! We're taking fire and are pinned down." He shook his head. No answer.
"Go!" Emma yelled, as she and Dimitri tried to take down their attackers. "Go!" She screamed again as a zat blast from a new angle took out Dimitri. Joe took a few steps toward the gate before a blue haze enveloped him and he fell. Left alone, Emma bit her lip and looked at her fallen friends. Her only hope was to make it to the gate and get help. She stood up and blasted a few random shots before turning and bolting.
The blue shock took her in the back before she made it ten feet from the gate and she slumped in a twitching heap.
The clearing was silent for two long minutes while the Stargate rippled and hummed. Finally, a squad of Jaffa stepped out of the woods and picked their way to the fallen team. A booted foot nudged Captain Moresby, rolling him on to his side.
"Is it SG1?" A voice echoed hollowly behind the metal of the helmet.
"No."
"Were we able to block their transmission?"
"Yes. They were able to transmit their codes before we activated the blocking device, but no more than that."
The lead Jaffa looked at the scattered officers. "Take them." He intoned. "The others will come for them. Our lord will know what to do." He pointed to one of the Jaffa. "Two minutes after we have left, you will shut down the gate. Follow us quickly. They will send probes first. I want no sign of our passing to remain."
- - - - -
"What on Earth…?" General Hammond whispered softly, shaking his head.
Five minutes earlier the Stargate had dialled up with an unscheduled offworld activation. The security crew had scrambled and was in place, guns pointed at the gate. The medical team had also scrambled. This was fast becoming protocol for unscheduled SG team returns. His people were good, were competent. They didn't run without cause. Returning early usually meant that they were hauling wounded. He looked down and met the concerned gaze of Janet Frasier as she stood, one hand on the gurney.
They had received SG6's code shortly after the gate was established, and had opened the iris, but now… nothing. They had people on the radios, trying to establish some sort of link with SG6, to determine what had happened. No answer. He barked orders at the officers around him, trying to get them to do something, anything to make this make sense.
He cut off in mid sentence as the gate flickered out. Everyone went silent. Hammond, as was proper, reacted first. He clicked on the microphone and said tersely. "Stand down. Clear the embarkation room." He clicked off the microphone and looked around. "I want a MALP ready to go on ten minutes. I want to know just what happened back there. Open the gate back to P8T-119 immediately, I don't want anyone slipping through the gate until we're ready to let them out."
"Problem, sir?" Jack O'Neill asked casually as he climbed the stairs to the observation deck. He looked around at the hive of activity. He and the rest of SG1 were next on the docket to leave on a mission, a half hour after SG6. They had been amiably chatting with Emma and her team, waving them off only twenty minutes earlier. When they came to the embarkation room, they found it abuzz with activity… but with no discernable cause.
Hammond looked out the window briefly, before turning back to O'Neill. "I don't know yet, Colonel. SG6 rang in early, but then never made it through the gate."
Teal'c cocked his head. "That is the team to which Emma Collier belongs."
Jack looked quickly at the big man and then back to the General. "Yeah. That's right. They just went through, too. General… if you need someone to run a search, then SG1 is already kitted up and ready to go." He held his hands out wide and gave an ingratiating grin.
Hammond nodded with a small almost-smile. "Thank you, Colonel, but I will not be risking any further SG personnel without a thorough reconnaissance by the MALP and UAV." He turned away and then turned back, thinking of something. "Colonel, you and SG1 are the only members of the SGC to have visited this planet. I want to see your team in the briefing room in fifteen minutes with your mission reports. We told SG6 that P8T-119 was uninhabited. I want to know if we possibly missed something."
- - - - -
As SG1 made their way to the briefing room, and a MALP lumbered slowly across the event horizon, the still bodies of SG6 were dumped unceremoniously onto the floor of a small shuttle. The Jaffa who stayed behind pounded into the shuttle thirty seconds later, having made the trek at a jog. Without any further delay, the shuttle lifted off. By the time the UAV roared through the gate, the shuttle was off-world and far out of reach.
- - - - -
Carter, hands folded on the table before her, shook her head. "Sir… there was nothing. Nothing." They'd been going over the details of their initial explanation of P8T-119, all to no avail. They hadn't even found so much as a discarded gum wrapper on their four day expedition. They had made use of two UAVs and had nothing come back from either of them. There were no life signs, nothing.
"Could someone have come through the gate and ambushed SG6?" Hammond asked, as frustrated as the others, but still maintaining a professional cool.
"The Stargate was re-opened fifteen minutes after SG6 went through." Jack shook his head. "If something got them, it sounds more like they should have been waiting on the other side already. It would be a hell of a coincidence for them to gate in on top of a team who just arrived there." Jack leaned back in his seat, resisting the urge to pace. "We should go back there, sir. Now."
Hammond reached out a hand, touching the surface of the table lightly, the same way he would touch someone's shoulder to help calm them. "Colonel. I told you. I will not risk any other members of the SG team until the MALP and UAV sweeps are complete."
- - - - -
TBC