Unexpected Visitors

Major General George Hammond, commanding officer of Stargate Command, and as such the man in charge of all of Earth's defense against interplanetary attack, was not a happy general. Between continual minor and not so minor skirmishes with the parasitical Goa'uld, the mechanical Replicators, and the constant negotiating with the Tok'ra, Jaffa, Asgard, and several other alien races, he had enough on his plate without the addition of a wild card in the form of a spacecraft from an unknown race. At present he was sitting in the the command's main conference room with his primary advisors, Dr. Jackson, Major Carter, Colonel O'Neill and and the Jaffra warrior Teal'c, trying to make some sense out of their new, and unwanted visitors.

"Dr. Jackson, what have you heard from our friends off planet concerning this new player in the game?" he asked.

"Not a thing, General," replied Dr Jackson. "None of our allies or contacts have ever heard of these people." Of medium height and build with an unruly mop of hair that defied all attempts at barbering, and wearing a pair of glasses that were always threatening to slip off his nose, Dr. Daniel Jackson was Stargate Commands xenoarcheologist. While by nature inclined to talk rather than fight, he was fast and deadly accurate with a hand gun should the need arise.

"About the only thing we know for sure, is that they have the same problems with English that most visitors have. Their initial communiqué was from their ship's captain stating that he 'was ordering the recent systems easily found wealth large fast warship Andromeda on top.' Fortunately they appear to have an excellent computer translation system, and things are going much smoother. For the record what the captain said was that he was 'in command of the New Systems Commonwealth cruiser Andromeda Ascendant.' Unfortunately, neither we, nor any of our contacts, have any idea what the New Systems Commonwealth is."

The general couldn't help but smile at Dr Jackson's description of the communications difficulties. "I see", he said. "Major Carter do you have any information for us?"

Major Samantha Carter was blonde, and blue eyed, with a figure that could have earned her a position as the centerfold in Playboy magazine. She also had a doctorate in astrophysics, and was one of Earth's leading experts on off world technology. Like Dr Jackson, she preferred to talk first and shoot second, but when she needed to shoot, she rarely needed to shoot twice at the same target.

"Actually, Sir, I do. According to the Prometheus the ship is huge, over 1300 meters in length and nearly 1000 meters across the beam. It has a volume of nearly 390 million cubic meters and weighs approximately 98 million kilograms. Which is amazingly light for something that size"

A long loud whistle from Colonel O'Neill interrupted her briefing.

Continuing on she added, "Neutrino emission analysis reveals a decay pattern characteristic of proton anti proton interactions, so we're speculating that the ship is powered by a matter-antimatter reaction system. Their translight propulsion system seems to be quite inefficient. The amount of energy released when they entered normal space was spectacular. We could easily have detected their arrival if they had emerged in the vicinity of Pluto. Unfortunately, that's about the sum of what we have determined so far."

"Thank you, Major Carter. Colonel O'Neill, do you have anything to add?"

With light brown hair graying at the sides, a square jaw, and a ramrod straight posture, Colonel Jack O'Neill, looked exactly like what he was, a member of a special operations team. "Well, they're talking rather than shooting. That's always a good sign."

"Indeed it is," said Teal'c. Physically Teal'c looked like a large man of African descent, however he had not been born on Earth. He was a Jaffa, a member of a race that had been largely but not entirely subjugated by the Goa'uld.

At this point the phone rang. General Hammond picked it up, listened for a minute then put it down. "Well in just a few minutes, we're going to get a chance to know them much better. That was the Officer of the Day. The helicopter transporting our visitors from Area 51 has landed on the helipad. They should be arriving at the main gate within ten minutes."

The general and his entourage arrived at the security checkpoint just as their visitors arrived. Apparently it was raining outside, and equally apparent a quick thinking member of the watch had procured rain gear for the visitors. Hammond made a mental note to himself to find out the name of that individual, and to remember him or her when it came time to write annual fitness reports.

There were six visitors in all. As they removed their rain gear, and handed it to one of the security guards, Hammond had to control an effort not to stare. Either the Commonwealth had odd standards when it came to uniforms, or the commanding officer of the visiting spacecraftdid not run a very tight ship.

Their obvious leader was a large man, apparently in his mid forties, tall, well muscled, with short cut brown hair and wearing black pants and a black jacket. The jacket was partly undone, and Hammond could see a red shirt underneath it. On his right leg he was wearing some sort of holster, in the holster was a cylindrical device. From its location, and the fact that the wearer was keeping his hand near it, Hammond deduced that it was some sort of weapon.

Two women flanked the man. The one on his left was handsome rather than pretty, with short cut blonde hair. She was wearing a black jumpsuit and a choker collar necklace. A low slung holster carrying a large pistol was strapped around her waist. She looked like a movie maker's idea of a female space pirate; all she needed was an eye patch to complete the look.

The other woman was different matter entirely. While the one on the left might have come from a B rated science fiction movie, this woman could have stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine. Young, probably in her late 20's, she was tall, slim, and vaguely oriental looking. Her hair was a deep dark brown highlighted with streaks of red and immaculately coiffured. She was wearing a jumpsuit that exactly matched the color of the red highlights in her hair; it was form fitting and displayed what the general thought was an unprofessional amount of cleavage. In contrast to the pirate woman whose face was bare of makeup, this woman's face was heavily and expertly made up. She was also wearing two of the holstered cylinders, one on each leg. Apparently she served as something more than decoration.

Behind her was another man. He was perhaps half the age of the first, wearing red pants and a black T-shirt. He had blonde hair that rather badly needed cutting and combing. Like the lady pirate he was wearing pistol in a low-slung holster. He was showing an almost puppyish excitement as he surveyed the area. Mentally Hammond tagged him as "the kid"

Behind hem were two more people, a man and a woman, girl actually, and these were the ones that caught the general's interest. The man was dark complected, and like the first one well muscled. However, while the first man's hair was cut short, this one's hair was long and flowing, reaching to the middle of his back. In addition, unlike the other two men who were clean-shaven, he had a beard and a mustache. He was wearing black trousers and what Hammond usually thought of as a "muscle shirt". Like the pirate and the kid he was wearing a holstered pistol, however in addition to the pistol, he was carrying a rifle of some type. The striking thing about him was the leather vambraces he wore on his forearms, and the spikes that protruded from them. All in all, he reminded the general of a large predatory beast.

It was the girl that really occupied Hammond's attention. If she had left her teen years behind her, it couldn't have been more than a few weeks ago. While the others were dressed more or less sensibly, she was dressed in a way that reminded the general of the female singing stars he had seen his younger airmen watch on MTV. She was wearing a halter-top that left one shoulder bare and exposed a plentiful section of midriff, while her shorts barely made it down to mid thigh. A pair of silver colored boots that came up to mid calf completed her ensemble. Unlike the others, she didn't seem to be carrying any weaponry. However, it wasn't the girl's youth or costume that caught his attention, it was the rest of her appearance. She was purple, and had a tail. The tail was twitching, and Hammond found himself wondering how many times a day it got stepped on.

With the exception of the fashion model, all of the visitors had some sort of small box attached to their belts. Each box had a wire running from the box into the wearer's right ear. The general assumed it must be some sort of translation device. Shifting his thoughts away from twitching tails, he stepped forwards towards the man he assumed to be the leader. Holding out his hand he said. "Welcome to Stargate Command. I'm General Hammond commanding officer."

Either handshaking was a custom in the Commonwealth, or the man was a quick study, for he reached out and took the generals hand. "Thank you, General. I am Captain Dylan Hunt, commanding officer of the Andromeda Ascendant."

Indicating the blonde woman he went on. "This is Beka Valentine, the Andromeda Ascendant's first officer, and senior pilot."

As Hammond had suspected the boxes were translators. It was rather odd hearing his guest speak in one language, then hear his voice again coming out of the box in English, but compared to some of the other things he had seen while in command of Stargate Command, nothing to get overly excited about.

Gesturing at the fashion model the visitor continued, "Our ship's avatar, Andromeda."

She gave him a brief smile. "Good afternoon, General," she said.

"Interesting," thought Hammond. "No translator, was she the ship's linguist?"

"Ships avatar?" murmured O'Neill to Dr. Jackson. "What the heck's a ship's avatar?"

"An avatar is the earthly manifestation of a god," replied Dr. Jackson.

"I know that, but what's a ship's avatar?"

The group's leader was continuing the introductions. "Harper, our chief engineer." This was the kid, who had stopped fidgeting and was now concentrating his attention on Major Carter.

"Our weapons officer, Tyr Anasazi.." Somehow Hammond wasn't surprised to find that the predator was the weapons officer.

"Trance Gemini, our ship's medical officer, and xenobiologist." The General had to conceal his astonishment at the last introduction. That child was their medical officer? Either she was a prodigy or the ship's medical staff was woefully short of personnel.

Now it was General Hammond's turn to make the introductions. "I'm very pleased to meet you, Captain Hunt." Indicating each of the others in turn he made his introductions. "This is Major Samantha Carter, research and development; Doctor Daniel Jackson, xenoarcheology; Teal'c, our liaison with the Jaffa republic; and Colonel Jack O'Neill, tactical operations." While none of the descriptions were exactly true, they were close enough, and it wouldn't hurt to have the visitors think that Dr Jackson and Carter were simply scientists, and not combat tested veterans.

"If you will please step through the security scanner, we can adjourn to a conference room where we can talk more comfortably. Please hand your equipment to the technician before you step through; it will be returned to you on the other side."

All went well until Rommie stepped through. The security scanner was a sophisticated device incorporating a metal detector, a radioactive substance detector and explosive compounds detector. Unfortunately since she was an android, Rommie contained large amounts of the first and significant amounts of the second. The scanning system went berserk. The technician looked helplessly as Hammond who looked back at him equally confused.

Something clicked in O'Neill's mind; ships avatar, metal, radioactives, that was no woman that was a robot. "Crikes" he said. "Put that thing outside, the rain won't hurt it. It's nothing but a friggin machine."