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Part Five


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"Well, this is new." Jack frowned and indicated to his team to take up position by the gate. He turned to Daniel, who nodded and stood next to the DHD so that he would be nearby in case he had to dial home quickly.

"Sir."

Jack turned to the young Lieutenant that had accompanied them this mission, and followed his gaze to a rather large rock. "Again," Jack said, moving towards the younger man, "that's new."

Jack glanced around at the landscape. As far as the eye could see, the ground was covered in rocks of varying sizes. They were embedded into the ground, looking as if they were meant to be there, in fact, if Jack didn't know any better, he would have said they had been there for thousands of years. Some of the rocks were covered in enough moss and overgrowth to support that theory, but SG1's previous visit proved it otherwise.

"Asteroids?" Daniel asked, glancing about at the terrain.

"I doubt it. The impact would have left a crater," Jack replied absently. "No, these rocks look like they were embedded here on purpose." As if realising that he was still speaking, Jack looked up at Daniel's shocked face with a sheepish grin. "So I'm not entirely stupid."

"Let me guess, your way of pulling Sam's pigtails?"

Jack shrugged. "That and I love listening to her talking."

Jack noted the look of pity on the Lieutenant's face and instantly got back to the matter in hand. He glanced at the rock closest to him again. It looked harmless enough, so he took a step closer, making sure that his gun was at the ready, although not entirely certain what a rock would be likely to do that would require shooting it. Then again, Jack had seen too much over the last few years for him to rule out angry rock people.

"I don't think they cause any immediate danger." Jack said, after closer inspection. "Teal'c keep an eye out, would ya?" Jack reached out his hand and pressed it cautiously against the rock. Nothing happened. He felt around to make sure that there were no inscriptions and no buttons, nothing that would indicate the rocks were anything dangerous.

"Anything?" Daniel asked after a few moments.

"No, seems to be just a big ol' rock."

"I believe we should be cautious, O'Neill."

"Agreed," Jack said, pulling back. He turned to face the team. "Okay, the museum is about twenty minutes away. Keep a sharp eye."

The trip to the museum was uneventful, and Jack was beginning to get uneasy. The closer they got what had been the town centre, the larger the rocks seemed to get. They were built around the city in a large circle, as if to protect it, and these rocks wre all smooth and bumpy. Once inside, the sizes were, again, varied, and Jack couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. Closely.

"Anyone else feeling a little on edge?" Lieutenant Anders asked.

"Oh, I'm right there with ya," Jack said, suppressing a shiver. "Rocks are your speciality Daniel, any theories?"

"Actually…well, no."


The continued in silence until they had reached the museum, an old fashioned and elaborately built stone building. It was a large structure, looming over the town in an almost omnipotent fashion, the fact that it was slowly beginning to crumble doing nothing to its presence.

They entered and Jack quickly led the way to the Sports museum, hurrying Daniel along whenever he expressed any interest in something along the way. Desipte the obviousness of Sam's absence, Jack had felt something click when he entered the Stargate; it was as if things were okay so long as he could pretend that it was just another routine mission. Sam was back at her lad working on something of great importance that was impossible for anyone other than her to understand, and she'd be there to greet them when they returned.

But now that they were nearing the one thing that could help in finding her, Jack was beginning to find it harder to pretend. The fact that this could be the one breakthrough they had been looking for was weighing heavy on his mind, and he wanted nothing more than for it to be over. Because when it was over, they could start looking for Sam again.

"This way," Jack said, coming out of his thoughts when he spotted the large painting ahead. The figure of a muscled up female in shorts stared down at them, a small ball in each hand; she as in the middle of an extremely complicated manoeuvre involving them landing in the grid a few feet above her head. However, to Jack it looked more like she was trying to juggle.

Give me hockey any day. He thought, shaking his head. "Here it is," he said, stopping in front of a podium near the centre of the room. "Guess they put the glass round it after I nearly broke it." He smiled wryly and lifted his gun.

"Woah, woah! What are you doing?"

"Well, I was going to break the glass," Jack said, trying to shake the gun from Daniel's grip.

"As nice as it would be to watch you make a mess in a museum," Daniel said sarcastically, "why don't we just try hitting the button that says open beside it."

"I guess we could try that." Jack shrugged as Daniel rolled his eyes, leaning to press the small red button on the rim of the podium.

There was ac click as the glass began to move, sliding aside to create a small hole in the glass. Daniel reached in carefully and pulled out the book, fingering it a little before he placed it in his bag.

"That it?"

"Well, Yes, I suppose it is." Daniel said, pulling his bag back on. "But I really wouldn't mind a closer look at the emerald statue in the great hall we passed through. It looked rather like a depiction of the Greek God Zeus, and I'm not sure why the similarity is there, but I wouldn't mind finding out. I mean, the links-"

"That's a yes, then." Jack said firmly. "We don't have time for this, Daniel."

"Yes, you're right, I'm sorry."

Jack forced a smile, and nodded to his friend. "Hey, when we get her back you can both come here and explore to your hearts' content. Okay?"

Daniel smirked. "I'm going to hold you to that. And I have witnesses. Right guys?" Daniel frowned, ignoring Anders' laugh, and took a few steps closer to Jack, staring over his shoulder.

"What?" Jack asked, turning around.

"I might be going insane, but I'm sure I just saw someone."

Jack instantly held his gun at the ready. "This planet is dead, Daniel."

"Well, I've been dead a few times myself and I'm still here."

"Point taken." Jack signalled for Teal'c and Anders to get into position and follow him. They slowly crept towards the hall that Daniel had been looking into, but couldn't see any movement. They quickly searched all the adjoining halls, and soon had looked through the entire museum, but had found nothing.

"You sure you saw someone?" Jack asked as they were making their way back to the Stargate. They were being extremely wary at every little noise, but nothing had appeared so far.

"I'm positive. I mean, we've heard of stranger things, besides we used the Stargate to get here, what's to say she didn't?"

"She?" Jack asked, eyebrows raised. If there was one thing that was worse than Daniel wanting to know more about someone on another planet, it was Daniel wanting to know more about a female someone on another planet.

"Yeah, she was about 5"4', brown hair. I swear she was listening to us."

"You said you only saw her for a few seconds."

"I did, but that was what she looked like."

They reached the Stargate and Daniel was ordered to dial home as quickly as he could. There was no way Jack was letting anything get in the way of a new chance of find Sam. He signalled for the others to enter the Stargate first and did one more glance around before stepping through himself, completely unaware of the high pitched noise echoing through after him.

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End of Part Five

Again, sorry for the wait! This is me starting to get a little into the plot now! I hope you can forgive the lack of posting for this fic of late. I hope to have at least one more part done by Christmas, maybe two.

Feedback is always appreciated :)