"Are you ready?" Reilly hissed softly at the team arrayed behind him. He had one hand on the mechanism that Brown insisted would open one of the smaller hatchways embedded waist high at various points around the cargo bay.
The rest of the team nodded solemnly and he slammed the lever down

with a grunt and the accompanying squeal of rusted metal giving way.

The hatch popped open with an unceremonious sound of sand and grit

finally being dislodged and cascading over Reilly's feet. Immediately there

was a groan from the team. Light flooded inside forcing everyone to grope

for their tinted desert goggles, swearing softly.

"Move out!" O'neil hissed and half hopped half crawled out of the low

hatch while making even such a clumsy maneuver look smooth and graceful.

Porro and Brown moved left while Kawalsky and Ferretti went right, Freeman

and Daniel followed Colonel O'neil while Reilly stepped out backwards and shut

the door behind him, glancing upwards with his M-4 carbine to make sure

nobody was preparing to lean out a hatch and drop a grenade on their

heads. He shuddered for a moment, trying to forget what it was like when

alliance forces finally drove into Mumbai after the initial landings, he tried and

failed.

The team spread out and secured what looked like a barren sandy waste

abutting a nearly vertical cliff face of red sandstone. The rock wall rose to

their right hand side, and the tracks left by massive caterpillar treads wound

into the distance in front of them, crushing several small dunes within sight.

Off to the left was a flat and barren plain choked off by a narrow canyon.

They were in a cul de sac. O'neil kicked at the tracks briefly and motioned

for everyone to cluster behind the huge vehicle.

"So, where are those little yellow eyed guys?" Daniel asked a little too

loudly.

A moment later they could hear the sounds carried on the dusty wind. A

series of electronic beeps and a cacophony of yips, barks, and squeals. O'neil

moved to the edge of the sand crawler and glanced around the corner.

"We've got company," he said.

"Why, who is it?"

"Uh, Cosmonouts on lizards," O'neil quipped.

A man in a white spacesuit decorated in a slightly different fashion from

the others approached several of the short robed creatures standing beside

the Sandcrawler. The EOD robot sat placidly in the sand along with a half

dozen other bedraggled looking machines. The largest of the short robes

desert dwellers, no more than four feet high move up to the leader of the

spacemen and began a rapid fire conversation that the Spec-ops men could

just make out. Although they could hear the voices, they had no Idea what

they were talking about.

Several of the space suited men approached sporting long barreled

weapons that looked heavy and intimidating next to the Spec-ops M4

Carbines and MP5's.

One of the spacemen turned away from the discussion and began

speaking to a third party, a couple of bespectacled and uncomfortable

looking civilian types, one holding a small box in one hand and ponting it

towards the action, and the other talking slowly with the Spaceman while

nodding solemnly towards the man with the little black box. After a moment

the last white suited spaceman and the two civilians dismounted from their

lizard and joined the discussion.

The spaceman leader shouted an order at the smaller creatures who

looked surprised and alarmed, prompting the leader to repeat his command

and wave his arms a little.

Slowly, the little creatures moved towards him.

"What's going on?" Daniel asked from his position behind the caterpillar

treads.

O'neil turned on him, "You're the genius, why don't you tell us what

they're saying?"

Daniel looked mystified, "I don't speak... whatever it is they are using.

That's gibberish to me."

"Oh, great some expert you are--man if you fuck this mission up I am

gonna--"

"--can it Ferreti, ok, Jackson, you better come up with something quick,

we are not equipped to get into a first contact situation, especially not with

another military force, midget garbage men is one thing, this is another.

Let's get that Stargate started up and get outta here." He motioned with his

thumb towards the hatch.

"Uh, there's a problem, I'm sure I can dial us back home--" Daniel

mumbled.

"I hear a 'but' coming," Reilly chimed.

"But..." Daniel mumbled.

O'neil's face went white, "What do you mean 'but'?"

Daniel opened his mouth to reply when a few more of the small creatures

exited the vehicle in order to get a look at what was going on.

Everyone in the team froze as the 'midget garbage men' trundled past

their hiding place without so much as a downward glance.

Suddenly there was a musical chirp and one of the creatures said in plain

English: "Data to Counselor Troi, come in please."

Luke sat with his arms crossed in the passenger seat throwing dark looks

Data's way as the droid piloted his craft skillfully along the rocky canyons

missing obstructions and outcroppings at a speed that rivaled his own locally

renowned skills.

"I don't have the biological life forms propensity for piloting craft at

unsafe velocities, but in the case of an emergency I can engage in such

activities as long as said actions do not endanger... BUzz Buzzz bzzzzz..."

Luke and Biggs glanced at one another and shut out Data's ramblings

which merged with the whipping wind into an incoherent background noise.

Artoo suddenly came to life, squealing and rotating his domed head

rapidly.

"What is it Artoo?" Biggs asked.

"Artoo has pinpointed the signal, It is just beyond that ridge, less than a

Kilometer from here," Data announced.

Data's communicator chirped and emitted a rapid fire conversation

between a half dozen high pitched voices arguing over something 'valuable.'

"Oh great, frackin' Jawas!" Luke cried, slamming a fist on the console.

"Listen, the jewel talked!"

"It's not a jewel then dummy, it's a--."

"--Well, what did it--?"

"---I don't know but if you'd all shut up maybe we could hear it."

The argument between the Jawas erupted suddenly and they all fought

and squabbled over the silver and gold emblem.

"Don't fracking ignore me you little scum!" the Stormtrooper Captain

shouted, "tell me, is this your cousins Droid or isn't it?" He pointed a

gauntleted finger at the EOD Bot sitting forlornly on the desert floor.

Another of the small creatures moved over to try to protest the officer's

actions.

"Hey! Am I talking to you? AM I TALKING TO YOU! Then stay over

there and shut your mouth, Eh? Now if you move again I'm gonna shootcha."

'We can understand them!' Daniel thought, "We have to do something,

this could turn ugly!"

"Dr. Jackson, you are a civilian so I am gonna say this as respectfully as

possible, but shut the fuck up now or I swear to fucking God--"

"--At ease Kawalsky, we're leaving, now."

The team began to crawl backwards, and the watch that Kawalsky's

grandfather carried in WWII caught a random beam of sunlight and gleamed

for only a moment, but that moment was more than enough.

"Rebels!" came the shout, followed by a shot from the hip that caught

Freeman in the upper chest spraying superheated blood and bone

fragments over Brown and Reilly.

"Fuck!"

The chatter of automatic weapons fire rose in response to the blaster

bolt, scything through the Stormtrooper ranks and dropping them like flies.

Dewbacks plunged and ran wild, unable to understand the dozens of wound

which erupted along their bodies. Not enough to kill them but enough to

drive them mad with pain.

One of the imperial stormtroopers on picket duty astride a Dewback

chose that moment to link his helmets drinking tube to the contained of

water strapped to his back thus taking his eyes off the horizon for a moment

too long.

"Good shot mister Luke," Data shouted above the wind, the

Stormtrooper tumbled from his mount, dead before he hit the ground, a victim

of Luke's long barreled blaster rifle. The speeder careened through the valley

with Luke, Biggs, and Data blasting away at the stunned Imperials. But there

was something else as well, a rapid popping noise accompanied by small

flashes of light coming from the rear of the Jawa carrier.

"What's that?" Biggs asked.

"I believe those are the signs of twentieth or early twenty-first century

firearms," Data shouted and stunned another trooper trying to turn and face

the new threat.

"Oh."

One of the stormtroopers hit the desert floor with bone crunching

force, 'I'm hit! I'm hit!' he though furiously, but the did a split second self

assessment. Wait a minute, I'm hit but it didn't kill me. He glanced

down and saw several dark metal blobs embedded in his armor. I'm alive!

They're weapons don't do a fracking thing!

The trooper glanced over to his partner and saw a pool of blood

spreading over the desert sands from where one of the rebel projectile

weapons had hit him in the throat. Okay, almost nothin'.