At the same time that Shawn and his roommates were finally making progress towards civility, a pair of small spacecraft were entering the Earth's atmosphere. They were small, one man ships that were sturdy and sleek and in the pre-Stargate days on Earth, they would have landed completely unnoticed by anyone. Now, however, with the advancements that they'd made in radar and tracking, NORAD caught sight of the objects as they entered orbit, and tracked them as they came down.

The first thought was that they were too small to be ships. Falling space debris was the most popular theory. Or maybe a couple of satellites or meteors. But the symmetry of the landings was too perfect. They fell together, and presumably landed together. The call went out, and teams of investigators were sent out to check on it less than an hour after the first call had come through.

The ships had been well hidden, but the occupants obviously hadn't been aware of the ability of the humans to track radiation emissions and other gases – or they hadn't cared. Which was entirely possible. The teams found them easily, and wearing hazmat suits, they swarmed all over the ships, opening them up and finding them to be single man ships that were stripped down to bare bones indeed. All they found inside was a hologram type machine, displaying the image of a young human male that none of the members of either team recognized. He was brown-haired, and brown-eyed, and aside from a pale scar that ran above his right eye, he looked perfectly normal to them. Of course, he couldn't be all that normal if a spaceship had a picture of him, and the teams knew it. Taking the machine with them, they carried the puzzle back to NORAD, where a completely different group of people tried to figure out who this was – if anyone.

&&

"Are you certain you'll be able to find this place, Kuy?" The voice was harsh and deep, but if anyone had been close by, they wouldn't have been able to see the person who was speaking. Of course, the one he was speaking to could, but that was because he was inside the same cloaking shield at that moment, and the two Ashrak had no trouble seeing each other. It would have been impossible to carry out the mission they'd been sent on if they couldn't see each other, after all.

"I can find the boy."

The speaker touched a tracking device that he was holding in one hand. In the other was a vicious weapon that looked vaguely gun-like, with a far larger barrel than any gun found on Earth.

"Will it work here?" The other Ashrak looked around him; this was the craziest looking planet he'd ever been on, and he was nervous. If not for the cloaking devices, he'd never have left his ship – no matter how much they were being offered to kill the boy.

"It should. We have his DNA sample, and it'll track him just fine with it."

"This place is vile..."

"You're not settling here, Ler, and I don't intend to stick around too long once we kill the boy. Just avoid running into anyone or anything and we'll be fine."

He looked down at his machine. They'd landed in a small field surrounded by rocky hills, and it took them a few moments to get their bearings, but eventually the machine started blinking, and pointing them in the right direction.

"He's this way... let's go," Kuy said, heading out and leaving Ler to follow him.

&&

"Did I get steak?"

"No. You got sandwiches and potato salad, just like the rest of us."

"I ordered a steak."

"Go get it yourself."

"The Colonel said you guys had to be nice to me..."

Shawn smiled and handed the tray over that they'd brought River's food in on. Ian was carrying the heavier one that was holding his and Shawn's lunches.

"He did not."

"Yes, he did."

"He said we had to bring you lunch, stitch-head," Brooks said, putting the tray he was holding down on Shawn's desk. "We even brought you a glass of milk."

"It's close to a steak," Shawn said.

River scowled, "How is a glass of milk close to a steak?"

"We reasoned it out that they both come from cows, so they must be related... like pork chops and bacon..." Ian told him. The New Yorker was making a concerted effort to remain on speaking terms with River – more because he was already tired of arguing with the Californian. Stereotypes aside, Ian didn't like to argue, and he didn't like always being on the defensive. He didn't know what it was about the blonde cadet, but River just got under his skin most of the time – although he had a sneaking suspicion that if given half a chance, the guy would make a good friend. Look at the way he was always sticking up for Adams, after all.

"Pork chops and bacon are at least both meat," River grumbled, sitting up and taking the tray Shawn handed him and draping it across his lap. Since he was excused from any activities for the day, River had changed out of his uniform while the others were gone, and was now wearing a pair of brilliant red and green pajama bottoms, and no shirt. "Milk and steaks are way off..."

"Well, if you don't like it, go get it yourself," Shawn said. "Hopefully no one will mistake you for a Christmas tree and start decorating you."

Ian snorted. He'd wanted to make a comment about the pajamas but had been certain it would have started an argument. Luckily, Shawn wasn't so concerned.

"Hey, my mom gave me these."

"Proving once and for all that she wanted you to get beat up at the Air Force academy," Ian told him, taking his plate from the tray and sitting down at the desk to eat.

"I love my mom."

"I love your mom, too."

River scowled, waiting to hear something that he could round on Ian for. That comment wasn't really enough, but he was certain Brooks had more to say than just that. The New Yorker turned to Shawn, though, surprising both of them.

"Okay, pipsqueak," he said – and this time it didn't sound quite so much like an insult – "Tell us about this plane you crashed."

River was instantly distracted from the mom comment, and he turned to Shawn as well.

"Yeah, Shawn. Do tell..."

Shawn took his plate and his glass over to his bed, sat the glass down on the stand by his bed next to his picture of him, Sam, Jack and Jaffer, and took a bite out of his sandwich. He had plenty of near misses with Jack, so it was just a matter of using one of those and actually allowing them to crash.

"It was three years ago, and I was just learning to fly..."