Chapter 5: Nobody Here But Us Tourists

Giles' phone rang half way through breakfast. He washed down the bit of toast in his mouth with a swallow of orange juice as he went to answer it. "Rupert Giles. … Oh, good morning Robson. … Yes. …" A worried expression took over his face. "What time? … No, you were right to call me right away. … Yes. … Yes, we'll take care of that from here. … All right, thank you. Goodbye."

He hung up the phone, and returned to the table, a frown on his face. "Willow, you need to arrange for air fare to get us to the Shetland Islands as quickly as possible."

"What happened?" asked Buffy.

"The alarm crystal was activated this morning," said Giles. "Someone has disturbed the temple there."

"Tickets for how many?" asked Willow. She was already opening her portable computer.

"Buffy, you, me…" Giles looked at Xander.

"I'm in," said Xander.

"Me too!" said Kennedy.

"And me," said Dawn.

"Dawn—"

Dawn cut her sister off. "You're supposed to be showing me the world, remember? So far all I've seen of it is a bit of southern England."

Buffy looked back at Giles. "Whatever killed those people twelve years ago is already dead, right?"

"Assuming there was only one in the temple to be released…possibly," said Giles. "We never found any non-human bodies though."

Buffy looked back at her sister. "Alright, you can come."

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" cried Dawn.

"You might want to reconsider," said Giles. "The island is uninhabited. We are going to be roughing it."

"Camping's fun!" said Dawn.

Giles turned back to Kennedy. "We need to leave someone here, in charge of the other Slayers."

Kennedy looked at Willow. "But I want to come with you!"

"And I want you to come, baby," said Willow.

"Giles is right." Buffy looked at Kennedy. "These girls have barely started their training. We can't leave them alone now."

Kennedy looked disappointed, but she nodded her acquiescence.

"So, tickets for five then," said Willow. "Where exactly are we going?"


Dawn leaned over the railing of the fishing trawler, retching. "Next time," she told herself, "I'll let them leave me at home." She had spent most of the five hour boat trip at the railing, not that she had anything left in her stomach to throw up. She had mostly been dry heaving from ten minutes after they had left the harbour. She had also learned an important lesson: throw up over the downwind side of the boat. She looked up at the growing island. "How much longer?" she asked a crewman.

The man smiled kindly. If he was amused by her discomfort, he managed to keep it to himself…not something that could be said about everyone in the crew. "About an hour, miss. We have to land you on the southern side of the island. That's the only place you can get a boat ashore here."

Dawn could believe that. All she could see were waves crashing against sharp rocks, or sheer cliff faces. It didn't look like there was any way to get onto that island.

Buffy was standing nearby, with a pair of binoculars focused on the top of one of the cliffs. "There's someone up there," she said. "I can see two of them."


Jack handed his binoculars to Teal'c. "Maybe they're just tourists."

"Did not Daniel Jackson say that this is the wrong season for tourists?"

"Maybe nobody told them that," said Jack.

Teal'c examined the boat. He was not familiar with such craft, but he counted five people on the deck who seemed to be much more interested in looking at the island than in manning the ship. They also had clothing that set them apart from the others on the boat. One of them appeared to be a small, blonde woman, who was looking back at him through her own set of binoculars. "We have been seen."

"So smile, and wave," said Jack, as he proceeded to do so. "We aren't doing anything suspicious here. We're just admiring the view." He saw the girl with the binoculars lower them, and wave back.

They kept watching the boat as it sailed past the island, and then turned to the south, toward where there was a sheltered cove with a rocky beach that you could land a small boat on, if the weather conditions were favourable.

Jack and Teal'c returned to their camp. Sam was off watching over the archaeological team. Without her or Teal'c supervising them, they tended to wander off, and start digging in other places. Daniel was in the tent that they had set up as a field lab.

"I think that we're about to get some visitors," said Jack.

"Really?" said Daniel. "That's unusual."

"They might just be tourists, but I don't like the coincidence," said Jack. "Teal'c and I are going to go meet them. See if we can maybe encourage them to go someplace else." He opened up the long case containing their weapons, and pulled out an automatic pistol and a couple of clips for it. He checked, and loaded the gun before he slipped it under his jacket.

Daniel pushed his glasses up his nose. "We are way outside the jurisdiction of the U.S. Air Force here, Jack."

"That's why I'm only going to 'encourage' them." Jack pulled out Teal'c's staff weapon, and handed it to him.

Daniel raised his eyebrows. "That's a lot of encouragement."

Teal'c's expression echoed Daniel's. "Indeed."

"If they're just tourists, it'll look like a fancy walking stick to them, big guy," said Jack. "Now come on, we don't have much time to get to the landing."

Jack and Teal'c passed Dr. Daryl Hawley on their way out of the tent. He ignored them, and went to the table that Daniel was working at. "You were right," he said. "The strata are all wrong for a natural deposit. Someone deliberately buried this place. From the looks of it, about ten years ago."

"So this is the temple that the British team found," said Daniel. "And someone deliberately hid it, again."


Xander pushed the zodiac that had been used to land them away from the beach, and waved goodbye to the man at it's helm. "See you in a week!" he called.

The man at the helm just waved, as he slowly backed the boat away. He shifted into forward gear, and advanced the throttle as he turned the boat away from the shore and headed back out into the deeper water where the trawler was waiting for him.

Dawn was gulping down a bottle of water. "How you feeling Dawnie?" asked Buffy.

"Better." Dawn lowered the bottle and looked around. "The world is still swaying a bit, but it's better." They seemed to be surrounded by sheer cliffs on three sides, and the ocean on the fourth. "So how do we get out of here?"

Giles pointed down the beach. "There's a path over that way, that we can climb up. Everyone grab your pack."

Dawn stowed her half full water bottle, and lifted her pack onto her shoulders. Giles and Xander inspected the others' straps before Giles started to lead them down the beach toward the cliffs. They kept looking just as sheer, and unclimbable to Dawn until Giles suddenly disappeared around a rocky outcrop. When Dawn came around it she saw a narrow path leading up through a steep ravine cut through the cliff.


Jack saw the people climbing up through the ravine before they saw him. His first impression was 'tourists.' All except for the man in the lead looked like kids to him. The dark haired girl in the middle especially looked like she was still a teenager. Most of them seemed to be labouring under the loads of their packs, but there was something about the way the blonde girl moved. She seemed to be moving effortlessly, despite the heavy look of her pack. He looked for weapons, and didn't see anything aside from the knives that some of them were wearing in sheaths on their belts. Not that unusual a thing for people on a camping trip to carry. There was a curious shaped…something…strapped to the blonde's pack. It was enclosed in a case so he couldn't see it, but it was a little over a meter long. It might have been an axe of some sort, but he couldn't think of why someone would put an axe in a case like that, and the closest thing this island had to a tree was some low scrub.

The blonde picked that moment to look up, and her eyes met his. She stopped suddenly, which made the girl behind her almost run into her.

"Howdy!" called Jack.

They all stopped at the sound of his voice, and looked up toward him and Teal'c. "Oh, ah, hello," said the man in a breathless English accent. Jack thought that he had heard the voice somewhere before.

Jack had a good look at them while he waited for them to climb the last few meters up to him and Teal'c. Most of them were looking pretty tired from their climb…again the exception was the blonde: she wasn't even breathing hard, and that made him wonder. Even the fittest of the SG team members would be looking a little tired after making that climb with packs on their backs. The other four all looked about like what he would expect civilians who were in better than average shape to look.

They all came up out of the ravine. The man in the lead was maybe approaching fifty. He was followed by the short blonde. Once she got up onto the flat land, Jack saw that she was even shorter than he had thought at first. The second girl was quite a bit taller, with long dark hair, and she looked to be the youngest of them. The third girl, with shoulder length red hair looked to be in her early twenties, like the blonde. The last of them was a young, dark haired man, about the same age as the older girls, with a patch over his left eye.

As soon as they were on the flat ground, they all removed their packs, and most of them found something to sit on while they caught their breaths.

"So, what brings you folks to this island paradise?" asked Jack. "You've missed the bird watching season."

"What?" asked the older man. "Oh…um…archaeology, actually. I've heard that there are some interesting ruins here, that my students and I want to have a look at."

'Ah shit!' thought Jack, but he hoped he kept his reaction off his face. "Ruins?"

"Yes," said the man. "Up at the northern end of the island. Near where we saw you from the boat."

Jack knew it was pointless to try to deny it. "Yep, that was us."

"So, you're archaeologists?" asked the man.

"Who, us?" asked Jack. "No, we just came along to help carry stuff." He stuck out his hand. "Jack O'Neill." He nodded toward Teal'c. "And this is Murray."

The man shook his hand. "Rupert Giles."

'Aw shit!' thought Jack again. He'd thought the voice was familiar. He almost didn't catch the first name, as Rupert started to introduce the others. The blonde was named Buffy. 'What sort of parent would name their kid Buffy?' he asked himself, as Rupert introduced the others.

"So, you're all archaeology students?" asked Jack.

"Nyah," said the one named Xander. (Did none of these people have normal names?) "They just brought me along to help carry stuff."


Buffy watched the two men who had met them at the top of the cliff carefully. They seemed friendly enough…at least Jack did. The large black man, Murray, still hadn't said anything, and he kept his face expressionless, but his eyes were alert, like he was always on guard. He was wearing a hat that was pulled down over his forehead, almost like he was trying to hide something. There was an ornate staff of some sort, that he was holding as if it were some sort of walking stick, but something about the way he held it said 'weapon' to her. She was feeling something else from him too: something not human. Jack on the other hand felt perfectly normal to her. She thought he looked pretty good—for an old guy. He obviously kept himself in shape. He and Murray had just hiked a few miles over rough ground in a little over an hour, and neither of them looked the least bit tired. She looked around at the others. Dawn was just finishing off her water bottle, and Xander, Willow and Giles were looking like they were ready to start moving again. She picked up her pack and swung it onto her shoulders. "So, was Giles right?" she asked Jack. "Are there interesting ruins here?"

"Oh yes," said Jack. "In fact an acquaintance of his is leading the dig. A Dr. Daniel Jackson."

"Oh, he's here?" asked Dawn. "I wanted to meet him. He sounded cute on the phone."

Jack smiled at Dawn. "I'll have to tell him you think so."

Dawn looked mortified. "Oh, don't! Please don't!"

"So, Dr. Jackson is here," said Giles. "I wonder how he found this site?"

"I was wondering the same about you, Dr. Giles," said Jack. "Daniel gave me the impression that you told him you had no idea where this is."

"Yes…well…I'm afraid I've been trying to keep this place my little secret, until I could get the funding to properly excavate it," said Giles.

"Well, since we are all here now," said Jack. "We might as well combine our efforts, don't you think?"

"Yes, yes, of course!" said Giles. "Capital idea."

Jack pulled a small radio out of his pocket. "I'll just call our base camp, let them know we're coming." He lifted it to his mouth. "Hello, Danny, you read me?" He waited for a response that didn't come. "Sam, are you there?" Buffy's eyes narrowed. She could see that he wasn't pushing the button properly for his radio to transmit.

"I guess something's blocking the signal," said Jack. He pointed to a rise of land. "I'll try from up there." He jogged away up the hill. Buffy glanced at Murray, and saw his calm eyes looking back at her. She felt like he was guarding them, to make sure they didn't wander off.


Jack lifted his radio again when he got far enough away to be sure that he couldn't be overheard. "Daniel, you read me?"

"I read you Jack," crackled Daniel's voice. "So what's with our visitors?"

"One of them is your Dr. Rupert Giles," said Jack. "He says that the others are his 'students.'"

"Dr. Giles has never been a teacher," said Daniel.

"Why am I not surprised?" asked Jack. "I want you to phone home and ask them to get you everything they can on four people: Buffy Summers, Dawn Summers, Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris."

"Oh, I talked to a Dawn Summers, when I first tried to contact Dr. Giles."

"I know," said Jack. "She said you sounded cute on the phone."

"You told them I was here?"

"It seemed pretty pointless to deny it, since there really isn't anything we can do to chase them away, now is there?" said Jack. "So I invited them to come join us."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" asked Daniel.

"You know what they say: 'keep you friends close, and your enemies closer.'"

"So, which are they?"

"Don't know yet," said Jack. "But either way, I want them where I can keep an eye on them."

"I guess you're right," said Daniel.

"Okay," said Jack. "I figure it's going to take us a couple of hours to get back, with these kids along. When we get there I want everyone to remember that we are all supposed to be civilians. We all call each other by our names, no ranks, and Teal'c's name is Murray."