Alexander and his new family were very busy in the days that followed, not having much time to talk beyond the technical meetings and the 'how was your day' exchange of information, but when they'd pretty much prepped the gate for final activation through mechanical dialing and applying a massive charge of power until it works, they called for a day of rest. The group went site-seeing, taking in cultural and scenic landmarks, and even taking in a Triad game. Toward the setting of the sun, Dawn took Xander aside.
"Xander," she said reticently, "I don't seem to have my Slayer or most of my Sentinel abilities anymore."
"When did you first notice it?"
I really wasn't paying much attention, but I first noticed it a couple days after landing here on Caprica," she sighed, "But it was probably during the last couple of jumps, when I started to get morning sickness."
"So maybe it's just the, uh, pregnancy that's doing it?" he asked, "Maybe to keep the baby from super-mom overload?"
"I'm hopin' that's all," she exhaled, "'Cause I kinda liked the extra boost I got."
"Have you asked Willow and Tara how they feel?"
"Not yet, I just wanted to say it out loud, and kinda already figured with Willow and Tara being pregnant, they wouldn't really miss the whole power thing."
"Probably right, if they get it at all, since they came into it with you already being, ur, pregnant and all."
"Is it that hard to say?" she asked as she sidled up and sat next to him, leaning in.
'It's so unexpected, Dawn, I guess the amazement factor is still off the charts, and then there's the whole not being killed by your mom."
"Yeah, there is that," she snickered, "I guess for once the craziness worked in our favor, and the fact that the doctors told her that I hadn't shown any of the signs of having had sex didn't hurt our case." Xander blushed slightly at that.
"So, do we know anything else about the little fellows?"
"For boy or girl? Nah, still too soon, but I swear I can sense them a little."
"Sense them how?"
"The Force, I think, but I hadn't really thought about what I was doing until I just told you."
"Maybe meditations would help you, Master Cain and Master Jinn knew many techniques if you need a few more than you have."
"So I guess I have the Jedi twins from the books?"
"According to the doctors, we have the twins…" Alexander chided playfully, "You just have all the work to do."
"HA, HA, Mr. Funny Guy, but how do you explain Tara getting pregnant from dressing up as Willow?"
"Well, Willow was feeling sick before you, so I'm guessing that she was pregnant first," Xander contemplated, "So Willow probably ended up with Alia when she dressed for Dune, since with Duncan and Liet around at the same time, she'd have been expecting in the early book. Then, I went as Belgarion to her Ce'Nedra, and so I'm guessin' she's bearing little Geran."
"That's only two, and even then, that'd be only two for Tara also."
"Ah, well, maybe Willow dressing as you means she's also mommy to a pair of Jedi Smuggler Diplomats," he smirked, "And so is Tara now."
Two of the same?"
"Well, from what little the doctors mentioned DNA-wise, I'm guessing they're ours, but imbued with extra abilities and such from their…god parents if you want to think of them that way. And when we've Reset, there have been physical feelings or even if you look at the Mount Xander that I've become, growth."
"So, what now?"
"Well, tomorrow we try to fire up the Chappa 'ai, Dawn, and see if we can at least get to an Earth, so we can more safely do this sliding thing. Which reminds me, I have to make a call to the Professor and let him know we've finished drawing up specs for the conversions to 1997 computer tech for Galactica and the Vipers."
"Yeah, the extra space on the Vipers could give them either better sensors, make them real two-seaters and maybe even allow slightly more efficient fuel controls."
"You got it…I, uh, better go…" he said somewhat nervously. He gave her a quick peck on the cheek and almost dashed from the room, leaving a giggling Dawn behind.
With less than 36 hours remaining until the slide, many Council and Fleet figures gathered around the stargate as with safeguards such as the iris in place, they could proceed. Willow snickered and turned to Xander.
"Go ahead, Xander," Willow smiled, "You know you want to be the first to dial out, old guy memories or not." He flushed a little, then his hands pushed buttons that signified the Earth coordinates from the show. The chevrons really were as loud as the show as they clanked into place.
"Unscheduled Off-world Activation," the voice declared over the speakers. SG-1 and Hammond hurried into place with the gate room forces in place. Siler looked up from the console.
"Receiving incoming transmission, General," the capable non-com reported, "In English, shall I put it on, he's repeating every thirty seconds." General Hammond nodded.
"Hello, this is Alexander Harris of Earth speaking, is it safe to transit the Star Gate? There are several of us with a very militarily advanced bunch of fellow humans that want to trade and ally, as well as a few of us just wanting to get home. Please respond, as we just got this gate jury-rigged just a couple steps up from a big battery and almost-manual operation. No red stone thingie. Or, if you feel better, you can dial us and come through."
"So far this is the third time sir, and it's not recorded," Siler contributed. The general nodded, thinking. He reached for the microphone.
"Please consider yourselves invited, no more than six of you," Hammond transmitted.
"How about fourteen of us, sir?" Xander replied, "There are ten of us Earthlings and four representative of the Council of Twelve hoping for first contact, though I guess technically it's a second contact and we already made a good first impression."
"Very well, proceed," Hammond replied, then turned to his officers, "He reminds me of you for some reason Colonel O'Neill." Daniel snickered.
Three minutes later, a troupe of people in the uniforms of Colonial Warriors or Council Members stepped through, but Xander in something similar to a golf cart loaded with baggage. He beeped his little horn at his companions to move out of the way.
"For crying out loud, we were invited," Xander complained, "they're not going to shoot us until we whine about the lack of even basic cable in the guest rooms or cheat on our golf scores."
"The General's right, Jack," Kowalski sighed. Daniel snickered again.
"Indeed."
"'fraid so, Colonel."
"Hey, Kowalski!" Xander called out, "Are you the Kowalski that possessed a kid that fought vampires in Sunnydale?" The Lt. Colonel's eyes got wide as he and SG-1 suddenly focused hard at the new arrival, "'Cause if you are, thanks for the help, and it's good to see you avoided that nasty snake in the head business. That woulda sucked."
"Definitely an O'Neill somehow," Ferretti contributed, the others nodded except a Jack with a mock-innocent, mock-outraged look on his face.
"Stand down," Hammond ordered, "Please show our guests to the briefing room, please."
Ten minutes later, they gathered in the briefing room, juices and water brought in to offer the visiting dignitaries. General Hammond and SG-1 plus Kowalski on the SGC side of things. Xander was given the nod by Adama.
"Hello everybody, I'm Xander," the young muscleman began, "And with us today are Fleet Commander Adama, Battlestar Commanders Cain and Artemis, and Colonel Apollo, and they represent The Council of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol, and believe that Earth may be the Thirteenth Colony. That aside, these folks with us now speak English, and the worlds they represent have a population of around seventy or so billion. Their main needs are a computer and electronics revolution, raw resources and the feeling that as they are in a war to the death with a machine race, they are not alone. That aside, they are in almost every other way technologically and scientifically advanced, and can offer that as their side of things. Think 1970s science fiction; they have all this cool advanced stuff, but their computers are at that level. For real military transfers, you'll need at least the permanent members of the Security Council made aware of the situation and allowed supervised but equivalent access to the exchange of benefits. They recognized the word Chappa'ai, but in the last eight thousand yarens of history do not know of the Goa'uld. The NID are bad and will not be allowed to monopolize anything, everything must be free and open, even if you choose to wait a little while until revealing the situation to the general populous. And by the way, Caprica and the other worlds aren't really reliant on petrochemicals for anything, they even have a different basis for plastics, so the Middle East-sized oil and gas reserves within five hundred miles of the Gate might be enough to have your government consider revelation of your off-world activity, as most of the old network to within a mile of the Gate is in mothball, maybe just six months from activation."
With that, things settled back into general discussions for a while until Daniel couldn't wait any longer, and approached the Sunnydale contingent.
"Okay, so how did the mind transfer thing work?" the anthropologist asked, "And how is it there are vampires on your world?"
"Magic is real, and it was done on a dimensional rift for want of a better word," Xander considered, "The spell was to convert the people into their costumes, effectively a possession, but with the dimensional weakness and the way available energy, we now think it drew on the reality where it existed, and seems to have worked that way. Also, do you have a Sunnydale, California here? If ya do, you probably haven't noticed the shadow world around you."
"Magic, huh?" Samantha Carter asked skeptically, "How exactly does that work?"
"Well, in different realities, it varies, but there seems to be a mental access to the underlying energies of the universe," Xander considered, "Though the energies, I suspect, are really from the…static charge…or frictional differences between the dimensions, or maybe even the remaining primordial chaos…like the stress energies of tectonic plates as they move at different speeds."
"So you're not really sure?" she pressed.
"I really haven't examined that part of creation," Xander admitted, "Though my own experiences are more involved with Sorcery rather than the ritualistic applications."
"Sorcery? What's the difference?" Daniel interjected to keep the conversation from degenerating.
"Sorcery is…almost a Quantum Moment," Xander tried to explain, "Application of Will and its release through a Word or gesture, to change something at a specific moment and way, tapping the underlying universe to achieve this."
"Kinda Zen don't ya think?" O'Neill remarked as he approached. Daniel and Carter looked at him in confusion, so he clarified, "Observed, experienced moment? Never mind. It would require far too much discussion for too little gain. So what's the deal with other magic?"
"Well, Angus, it seems to involve certain materials, each of which physically and in some ways metaphysically interacts with the universe around it," Xander tried to simplify, catching Jack's briefly-panicky expression at the use of his other name, "And certain combinations of materials, placed in expected ways, with Application of Will through action if not consciously taps the necessary power. Then the words and such usually involved are the instructions to the 'spell' that on end of saying them, taps the energy for execution. Then there are magics that are similar to this but invoke a deity or powerful entity to provide the empowerment."
The one real advantage to lucking out at least once, means that sometimes people actually forego Prime Directive styles of gift-withholding. The Sliders and Sunnydalers decided to take this to heart. With five men and five women, all capable of handling a decent enough backpack and on-person gear, managed to take with them a lot of information, technical, scientific and historical from the Colonies and the SGC, Dawn's knowledge of Apophis and his force deployments because of her possession by Ammonet proving enough to leverage from the SGC itself weapons, minor niceties of life, a captured ribbon and a captured healing device.
The SGC hadn't wanted to let the last things go, but when Dawn gave them a few sets of coordinates to under-guarded caches, and gave them hints of various aspects of snakehead weaponry, even the just-arrived Maybourne was hard-put to nix that deal. The sliders concentrated on gathering and prepping laptops, software, timer spare parts, high-quality freeze-dried rations and camping equipment. Doyle gathered and secreted weapons and ammunition
"So ya got everything?" Jack asked Xander and Quinn as everyone gathered near Santa Barbara where they'd all relocated in anticipation of the slide. Even members of the Council of Twelve were on hand to watch the send off, having bestowed a few honors, and thanks before letting them activate the timer. Quinn still rubbed the spot where the Colonials had removed the Kromagg tracking device, and worried again about how many worlds had fallen behind him.
"Yeah, Jack, thanks," Quinn answered as they watched Teal'c hand over a staff weapon to Xander and bow, "Hopefully we'll be able to come back someday and visit." The group gathered together at last, words and hugs being completed, Captain Starbuck slipping a couple of ancient bottles of ambrosia to Doyle while the girls were busy.
"You've done a lot for us, son, you have our thanks," General Hammond added paternally as the vortex opened, blue this time, "God speed, ST-1."