The Road to OZ  (3/?)

by Anne Olsen

Ratings/warnings: OK (Oz/Kiwi spelling/grammar etc) – PG13 – Action, drama, angst.  Gundam Wing/Stargate SG1 xover.

Pairings:  - Gundam Wing: 3x4, 1x2, 5+S.
                 - Stargate SG1: Non specific (at this stage although this may change as the story progresses.)


Summary: When a gateway is unintentionally opened, two unrelated missions become one desperate struggle for survival. SG1 and the Gundam pilots must join forces to take control of a weapon that could affect the future of both their worlds.

Kashie's drawn some gorgeous fanart for chapter one which you can see here –


Archive:


Disclaimer: Gundam Wing belongs to Bandai, Sunrise and Sotsu Agency. I promise to return the boys in one piece, more or less, when I'm finished, but hold no liability for any physical injury or psychological trauma sustained by them in my fiction.

Stargate SG1 are owned by Stargate (ll) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Products.


Thanks to the beta team: Bast, Hex, haraamis, Gina, Spaceseeker and Anon. Also to Misanagi and Shadow for their input and support.

Comments to: anneo @ paradise.net.nz

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Chapter Three

Daniel groaned and rubbed at his temples. He felt like shit. Opening one eye carefully, he winced at the bright light and tried to pull himself into a sitting position.

"It's okay, Daniel. Lie down, and I'll get you something for the headache." Janet's voice was firm but reassuring. "You're going to feel nauseous and unsteady for a while."

"Thanks," Daniel replied, easing himself back onto the pillow.  "Knowing that makes me feel so much better already." After turning his head slowly, he realised, as his vision cleared, that he was in the infirmary. Reaching over to the cabinet by his bed, he fumbled around for his glasses.

"Here," Janet handed him the spectacles before helping him into a half sitting position so that he could swallow the pill she offered. The water felt wonderful against his dry throat, and he nodded his thanks.

"Try to take it easy," she advised. "You've been hit with a powerful sedative."

"Jack?" Daniel glanced around the room with a start when he realised that his friend was nowhere in sight. When he'd lost consciousness, bullets were flying and Nichol and his men had been closing in.  Sam and Teal'c had already managed to get through the gate so they would be safe, but Jack…

"He's fine," Janet told him. "You've just missed him; he'll be back later." She nodded in the direction of the beds to Daniel's left. The two boys who they'd met on the mission were sitting on the one furthest away. Quatre gave him a smile. "Rest," Janet continued, "and you're not to get out of bed until the dizziness and nausea passes."

Daniel feigned innocence. "Would I do that?"

"Yes!" Janet gave him a stern look. "I'll be back later to check on you, and I expect you not to have moved from this position when I do."

"Yes, Doctor." Daniel had seen an annoyed Dr. Frasier in action before.

Janet smiled at him. "I'm glad to see that we have an understanding." She gave the two boys a glare. "And those orders to rest apply to you as well."

"Yes, Ma'am." Quatre answered quickly, and Trowa several moments later. The side of Trowa's mouth twitched, and Quatre glanced at him. Trowa shrugged, but said nothing.

As soon as Janet had left the room, Quatre padded over to Daniel's bed. "How are you feeling?" he asked.

One of the guards posted inside the room took a step forward, but Daniel raised one hand. "It's okay," he said. "We're going to talk for a while, that's all. They're friends."

The guard stared at him for a moment, then returned to his post.

Quatre helped himself to the chair next to the bed. "You'll have to excuse me for sitting but I'm still feeling a bit unsteady on my feet."

Finding another chair, Trowa joined Quatre. "A bit?" He raised an eyebrow. "And you're /not/ in any fit state to stand."

"I think I'm the one to judge that, not you." Quatre glared at Trowa, then returned his attention to Daniel. Daniel watched them with some amusement; these two were close friends, their banter and body language showed that very clearly. "How are you feeling?" Quatre repeated his earlier question.

"I've been better," Daniel admitted. He struggled to rise and his stomach lurched. "This has definitely been one of /those/ days," he groused. "Is it just me, or has the room forgotten that we have gravity on Earth?"

"It's you," Trowa said, moving over to pour a glass of water from the pitcher that Janet had left on the cabinet. "Here," he said, "sipping it slowly will help."

"Thanks." Daniel took the water gratefully and eased himself back into the half-sitting position. His stomach seemed to appreciate the action.  "Trowa, isn't it? You sound as though you're speaking from experience."

The two boys exchanged a glance. "Trowa Barton," Trowa nodded. "I apologise for not introducing myself sooner, but I was rather...out of it. Thank you for helping Quatre and myself; we appreciate it."  After effects of sedation did not appear to be the only thing in which he was experienced. Sidestepping questions neatly was also an acquired skill.

"Daniel Jackson." Daniel shrugged. "And no problem regarding the help. Quatre helped us out too, so now we're even."

"Really?" Trowa seemed amused. "I had a feeling he was downplaying his involvement in our escape." 

"I didn't do that much," Quatre muttered, looking uncomfortable. "Your weaponry is quite interesting. Your technology must be quite ahead of ours." Trowa frowned, and Quatre shook his head slightly before continuing. "I've never seen anything like that stone circle before…"

"The Stargate?" Daniel interrupted. "You've never had travellers come through it to your planet before?"

"No, at least not as far as I know." Quatre paused. "Why is it called a Stargate?  Where are we exactly?"

"You're on Earth." Daniel frowned as the boys exchanged another glance. "What? Have you heard of Earth? I suppose with all the trips we've made through the gate and the people we've met, it's not surprising that you have. It's a remarkably small universe out there." He stopped for breath and grinned. "Well, small considering that everyone seems to know everyone else, big in the sense that there are a lot of planets we still haven't visited. We've only seen the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. It's quite a daunting thought really. So much to explore, different societies to study, people to meet."

"Where exactly /on/ Earth?" Quatre interrupted him.

"Stargate Command," Daniel answered. "And sorry, I can't tell you anything more." The Stargate project was highly classified; so far, he had not told them anything that they would not already know, or that would not be easily guessed. Telling them what planet that they were on was permissible, where on that planet was not.

"That's not very helpful," Trowa muttered.

"At least we know we are on Earth and not the Colonies," Quatre appeared to be thinking aloud. "So it's a device for instantaneous travel between the two. That's interesting. I had no idea that such technology existed."

"Colonies?" Daniel asked. "Is that the name of your world?"

"You could say that we're from the Colonies," Trowa answered dryly. "Well, Quatre is, I'm not entirely sure where I'm from originally."

"But I thought you said that no one had come to your world through the Stargate before?" Daniel was confused. While it was true that most worlds which they had come across had been populated by Goa'uld slaves, most of the natives were unaware of their past and presumed that their current planet of residence was their place of origin. Or could their world have discovered interplanetary travel? It would explain the boys' talk of the 'Colonies' /and/ knowledge of Earth. Others SG1 had encountered, such as the Tollan, had advanced technology…

"I said not as far as I know," Quatre repeated his earlier statement. "I wonder what else they've been doing on that satellite that I'm not aware of."  The angry tone creeping into Quatre's voice belied the smile that he gave Daniel.  "I'm sorry that you and your friends got involved in this. It isn't your fight, it's ours."

"You were outnumbered," Daniel remembered. "We don't make a habit of standing by and doing nothing given that kind of situation." He smiled as he remembered Jack's comment. "Your friend Nichol needs to take some lessons on how to win friends and influence people." 

"He's not our friend," Quatre sighed. "We have a…let's just say there's no love lost between us. We've fought on different sides in the past, and I doubt he's ever going to forget that. A lot of people don't. It can be difficult to…"

"Cat," Trowa warned.

"It's okay," Quatre looked down at his lap before continuing brightly. "So are you a medical doctor, Daniel or…?" 

"Cat?" Daniel asked, ignoring the question for the moment. He knew that Quatre had been very subtly grilling him for information. Two could play at that game.

"Short for Quatre," Quatre explained.

"I did work that out, yes," Daniel rolled his eyes. "Did you realise that your name means four in another language?"

"Yes, I did. And no, I wasn't the fourth child in my family. I was named after my mother." Quatre laughed. "I get asked that a lot."

"Your mother's name was Quatre?" Daniel's mind began working through possible scenarios. If they also spoke French, how many other languages could their people have remembered? The possibilities were endless.

"Quaterine," Quatre replied, pronouncing it as Katherine, but again with that odd inflection.

Surely it must be a co-incidence? The Goa'uld had always transplanted potential slaves through the Stargate from specific areas on Earth. If these teenagers were aware of the different languages of Earth, rather than just English, it would mean that they were unlike any group that SG1 had encountered before. But even if they had come from different locations originally, surely one language would have dominated over the others? Could that be the reason for the inflection in their speech? Language was fluid; it changed and evolved over time. If the English which they spoke had originated on Earth thousands of years ago, it might explain the slight differences in syntax, especially if it wasn't their native tongue.

"Parlez-vous francais? [1]" Daniel asked, keen to test his theory. A multi-lingual society would need further investigation.

"Oui [2]," Trowa replied, "but I'm very rusty," he continued, slipping back into English. "Why?"

"Just curious," Daniel said vaguely. One word wouldn't be enough; he needed a few sentences, at least to draw any helpful conclusions regarding the speech inflection. Had the Goa'uld tried to develop a multi-cultural society on this planet deliberately? Could they be trying to duplicate what had happened on Earth, and what would be the point of this experiment?

"What was the language on the podium we found? It was similar to that on the Stargate." Quatre's sudden question took Daniel by surprise.

"What do you think it was?" Daniel took another cautious sip of water; the pounding in his head was beginning to recede as his mind took off at several miles an hour in search of a solution to his current puzzle. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and the glass slipped from his hand. Trowa caught it before it hit the floor.

"Are you okay," Trowa asked.

"Yeah, thanks. Just going to take me a while to get rid of those sedatives." Daniel's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "How are /you/ feeling," he asked Quatre. Although Quatre must have been hit by one of the tranq darts after Daniel, the boy had apparently woken first and was showing less residual effects.

"Better than I was," Quatre's reply didn't answer the question, but Daniel wasn't surprised.  "And I don't know what language was on the Stargate or the podium; that's why I'm asking you."

"Any ideas at all?" Daniel pushed for more information. He would go along with it if Quatre wanted to shift the conversation away from the sedatives. After all, Janet would be doing her own investigation, of that Daniel was certain.

"I know what it's not," Quatre admitted.

"Which is?" Daniel prompted.

"English, Japanese or Arabic." Quatre leaned back in his chair and sighed. "And before you ask, yes, I speak Japanese. My father insisted on a well rounded education for his only son and heir."

Daniel sat bolt upright in the bed, all thoughts of how he was feeling forgotten. English, French, Japanese /and/ Arabic? Surely this couldn't be a co-incidence?

"Quatre…" Trowa warned his friend again.

"What?" Quatre spoke in an even tone, but his patience seemed to be waning. "I've already given my name to Colonel O'Neill, and Nichol knows who we are. The Winner name is well known throughout Earth and the Colonies, so I'm not giving Daniel any information that isn't readily available." He rose to his feet, walked over to his own bed and poured himself a glass of water before returning to his chair. "I'm tired of playing games, Trowa. Either Daniel's our friend, or he's not." Quatre paused. "I have a feeling that we can trust him. We have to trust someone."

"No," Trowa didn't sound convinced. "We don't. I trust your judgement, Cat, but I don't trust them. There's too much at stake here. We're being detained, they have our weapons and…"

Daniel coughed. "Excuse me, but I'm still here. And you haven't finished answering my question."  Quatre knew Japanese and Arabic, and Trowa spoke French. How many samples had been taken from different cultural groups? The boys had referred to the Earth several times. Had they managed to maintain their connection to their world of origin, to his world? Daniel shook his head. That was highly improbable but…he needed to know more. 

Both boys turned to stare at him. "Yes, I did," replied Quatre. "I told you that it wasn't English, Japanese or Arabic."

"You can read Arabic?" Even with taking into account the multi-lingual transplant theory, and presuming that Quatre and Trowa's world /had/ developed along the same cultural patterns as Earth, it didn't make sense. Not this combination of languages. French and English were both Indo-European, Arabic was Semitic, and scholars were still arguing about the origin of Japanese.

Had their world had been manipulated to develop its history and culture along similar lines to that of Earth? If SG1 had travelled through a quantum mirror to reach this world, Daniel's guess would be that it was a parallel universe, but they hadn't.

"Excuse me?" Quatre sounded somewhat on edge. He stopped, rubbed at his chest, and then started to laugh. "You really have no idea who I am, do you?"

"Should I?" Daniel frowned. "Your name is Quatre Winner. At least that's what you told Jack…Colonel O'Neill. Is that supposed to mean to something?"

"I'm sorry," Quatre apologised. "I think we've been talking at cross purposes all this time; I should have realised sooner." He gave Trowa a weary smile. "Maybe this situation isn't as bleak as we thought."

******

Duo yawned and climbed into the co-pilot's seat. "I told you to wake me when we were three hours away from the satellite. You forget how to tell time all of a sudden?"

"You were tired. It was better that you got as much sleep as possible," Heero gave him a smile as he looked up from the shuttle controls. "I have everything under control, and I require less sleep than you do."

"You still require /some/ sleep though," Duo reminded him. "How much did you get, exactly?" They had left the shuttle on autopilot for most of the journey; L4 was quite a distance away, and as neither had gotten much sleep the night before, it was important that they arrived at their destination well rested and ready to kick butt.

"Enough," Heero replied. "Even if you did insist on shoving your elbow in my ribs for most of the night."

"Hey!" Duo protested. "I thought you liked me up close and personal." He grinned before leaning over and giving Heero a kiss. "You could upset a guy with comments like that." Yawning again, he stretched. "I'm going to get a coffee, do you want one?"

"Yes, thank you," Heero said. There was a pause. "And I do like you 'up close and personal.' I would just prefer it if the next hard thing pressing up against me wasn't your elbow."

Duo blinked, then laughed. "I'll see what I can arrange once this mission is over." He gave a mock bow before leaving the cockpit to make the coffee.  Heero's sense of humour had developed an interesting quality to it over the past three years. He'd come a long way for a guy who really hadn't had a clue about such things, but in some areas he still had miles to go. Their progress in undoing all the damage that J had done was slow, steady, and very much worth it.

Glancing at his watch, Duo watched the cups fill with the muddy brown liquid that the  Preventers loosely referred to as coffee. About the only thing going for it was the caffeine. Even Quatre, a self-confessed coffee addict, had wrinkled his nose at the smell and asked if there was tea available instead. Trowa had laughed and whispered something in Quatre's ear, after which Quatre had blushed a rather fetching shade of red. Neither would share what had been said, but knowing those two, Duo wasn't sure he wanted to know.

The milk powder added to the slosh, Duo made his way back to the cockpit. "I hope Cat and Tro are okay," he said, more to himself than to Heero, as he gave one cup of hot coffee to his partner and took a few cautious sips from the other.

"Quatre and Trowa are both Gundam pilots," Heero reminded him. "They are more than capable of looking after themselves."

"Yeah, that's what worries me," Duo ran his tongue over his teeth, trying to rid them of the furry residue from the coffee. "If they've run into something /they/ can't handle, what the hell's going down on that satellite." He shook his head. "I don't care what Une says, this whole scenario stinks. What the hell could these people want with our friends? And why them? We're all Gundam pilots. Why not go after us instead?"

"We need to discover what this weapon is that the enemy is supposedly working on," Heero reasoned. "This set up has been carefully orchestrated." He blew on the coffee then drained his cup. Duo stared at him; he could never get used to that habit. "It has also occurred to me that if Trowa and Quatre's arrival at the satellite was expected, then it is highly likely that they may be expecting this rescue attempt too."

"How long till Wufei and Sally check in?" Duo checked his watch again and answered his own question. "About ten minutes. I know that we decided that it was better to split our resources and send in an advance scouting party, but I'd feel happier if it was us in there, rather than them."

"Why?" Heero raised an eyebrow. "Wufei and Sally are just as capable as we are." He frowned. "You're worried about them, aren't you?"

"Of course I'm worried!" Duo snapped. "I've already got two friends missing and in god knows what danger; I don't want to lose two more." He put his cup down, and interlinked Heero's fingers with his own. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take it out on you. Damn Wufei and his 'let's toss a coin for it.' We're two hours behind them; /if/ they do run into trouble, that's two hours too long before we can get there." They had agreed at the time that sending an advance scout party, rather than putting all their eggs in one basket, was the way to go, but now that they were getting closer to their destination, Duo was having doubts.

"It also gives them two hours to make a lasting impression on whoever is behind this." Heero checked one of the readouts on the console before engaging the stealth technology. Only a select number of Preventer shuttles possessed cloaking capabilities – Duo had installed it under the pretence of doing other modifications - and only the pilots knew the password to engage it. If only they still had their Gundams. The shuttles were fast, and very manoeuvrable, but the Gundams…

Nothing could compare to the Gundams.

They would be effective weapons to fight back with, once the fragile peace did crash and burn around them. Although hopeful that it wouldn't, Duo had seen enough of human nature to not put stock in that dream. No, all his dreams normally were the stuff of nightmares.

Well, almost all.

Noticing Heero watching him, Duo smiled. This was one dream which had turned out better than he could have hoped.  He was determined to hang onto it firmly with both hands and not allow it to be ripped away from him.

"I've lost too many friends, Heero," he repeated. "I suppose that's why I'm so protective of the ones I have now. You guys are like family to me, hell, you /are/ family."

"You're my family too, Duo." Heero affirmed quietly. "All of you are." He squeezed Duo's hand before releasing it and turning his attention to the shuttle console.

"05 to P2. Come in, P2." Wufei's voice shattered the silence.

"02 here, 05. What's your situation?" Duo kept his tone crisp and his questions to the point. He might have aired his concerns to Heero, but that didn't mean that he was going to allow them to endanger the success of the mission.

"We're in position and moving in to assess the situation," Wufei replied.

"Any sign of 03 and 04?" Heero asked.

"Negative." Duo could imagine Wufei shaking his head. "It's too quiet. Almost as though the station is deserted, or long since abandoned. I don't like it."

There was a moment's silence before Wufei spoke again. "Damn it, we're going to need…"

A sudden burst of static filled the shuttle's cockpit. Duo gripped the side of the console and tried to control his growing feeling of dread.

Then the radio went dead.

*****

[1] Do you speak French?

[2] Yes

*****

End of Chapter Three

TBC