AUTHOR'S NOTE: Lots and lots of talk and no action in this chapter. Sorry about that. Besides, it's not empty words, but important. And I promise the next chapter will take us among the dinos again. :-)
Out of all the Goa'ulds out there, of course it had to be Anubis who'd found Dinoland. The worst one of them all. It did fit Daniel's idea of Dinoland's origin, though. If the Ancients had created it, then perhaps Anubis had also learned about it since he was half-Ascended.
"I take it that you know this Goa'uld?" Leo asked. He'd probably noticed the dark looks his news had evoked from SG-1.
"Oh yes," Jack assured him. "Are you absolutely certain it's him? How do you know it, anyway?"
"When a few of our scouts ran into his Jaffa and tried to speak to them in the Goa'uld-language, they told them to 'surrender, in the name of Anubis'. I think that's a pretty good clue. So, who is this Goa'uld?"
"He's the worst one there is. The Goa'uldosaurs who used to rule Dinoland were nice and sweet compared to him," Jack said.
"Then you must help us! We have no means to fight such an invader."
"What about the Tok'ra?" Sam asked.
"They won't do a thing. They're too busy doing their own stuff. You should've heard how hard it was for Ghhrrwuaghr--Barney, that is, to convince them just to pick me up, take me to the nearest world with a stargate and let me use their code to come through. They promised they would take me back as well, but they have too many fights to fight that they'd care about a planet and a civilization pretty much meaningless to them."
"But Barney's one of them!" Jack frowned.
"They barely kept contact with him. I speak with Ranys, Barney's symbiote, sometimes, and he feels abandoned. Apparently, the Tok'ra couldn't think of anything that a dinosaur could do for them. He's just too strange, and too easy to recognize."
"Somehow, I'm not all that surprised to hear that", Jack muttered.
"Okay, so, if the Tok'ra won't help them, then we have to," Daniel declared, pointing his words at General Hammond. "We've got to do something."
"I agree, son, but I'm not sure we can. Their planet doesn't even have a stargate anymore. Going there to fight Anubis would take far too much resources, and I doubt we could even win such a fight. And, as much as I hate saying this, once again, there really isn't much in it for us."
Daniel nodded thoughtfully. He'd known to expect that, and in a way, Hammond was right. But still, there had to be some way they could do this. There was no way he was going to accept it that they'd freed the dinosaurs from Goa'uldosaurian rule, just to watch them succumb to Anubis.
"Maybe we could come up with a different plan? The Tok'ra could take just a few of us there, and we could go undercover?" Sam suggested.
Jack shook his head. "Yeah, but what would we do once we got there, Carter? The four of us against Anubis's army?"
"I believe the dinosaurs would have the upper hand in a battle on the surface," Teal'c commented. "They know the jungle, they move far faster than any Jaffa, and if they could also harness some of the greater dinosaurs to help, then they could win. On the other hand, it is likely that Anubis simply bombards them from space, and then there is nothing that they, or we, can do."
"But no, wait," Daniel raised a finger for silence. They were all going on about the wrong things. They did have a way to win this battle, and also a reason to fight it. "I think it's pretty obvious there has to be Ancient technology on the planet. Some kind of defenses. Maybe the stargate used to have an iris, but then ran out of power. Who knows what they've got in there. Maybe the dinosaurs were never actually taken to that planet, maybe they were cloned, and the technology remains."
"Jurassic Park, anyone?" Jack quipped.
"Jack--just think about it. Can you explain why Anubis would care about Dinoland, if not for technology? As far as we know, there aren't any important minerals there. Its location isn't tactically important. It's more than possible that there's advanced technology there that he wants, and we can't let him have it. We need to go there, and figure out the technology before he can, and use it to defeat him."
Daniel thought that settled it, but no one else seemed to think that way. They stared at him with frowns and puzzled expressions.
"Daniel, there's an awful lot of ifs in there, and a lot of guessing. It's not much of a plan. Besides, we never saw any Ancient technology there. Maybe there isn't any," Jack said matter-of-factly.
"But you never saw all that there was to see," Leo suddenly joined the conversation. He had produced a large papyrus roll from the leather bag he was carrying, and spread it on the table. "I only gave you the short story, remember? I didn't tell anything about what happened on Dinoland after we buried the gate. You see, once we began to clear the area around the gate so we could bury it, we found... stuff. We had no idea what it was. Strange technology, all around the stargate, and stone slabs with writing that we could not understand, lost deep in the undergrowth. I did a drawing of it," he gestured at the papyrus.
Leo really was good at drawing details. Daniel had seen him sketch dinosaurs before, so maybe it was a hobby of his. The picture looked almost like a photograph in black and white, and it revealed that the stargate's pedestal was more than just a flat stone with stairs. There were several blocks covered with markings in different parts of it, some of them clearly attached to the gate's ring. There were also a few low stone pillars set some feet away from the gate. Unfortunately Leo hadn't copied the text in them, only a few symbols here and there to give the idea of writing, but that was enough to reveal that it was in Ancient. Daniel could hardly believe they had never noticed all this, but now that he thought about it, the gate and the pedestal had been completely overgrown. There could've been far stranger things hidden there without SG-1 noticing.
"We didn't know what to do with these things", Leo went on. "The dinosaurs were afraid to touch them--they were even afraid to touch the gate, since it was so completely alien to them. In the end, we took the gate ring off the pedestal and carried it elsewhere where it could be buried more easily. That was five years ago. The plant growth has probably hidden all the technology again, and I could never find it from the jungle, but I'm sure the dinosaurs can."
"It's a good thing it's well hidden. If it wasn't, Anubis's troops might have found it already," Daniel said. "He must've found the Goa'uldosaurs' temple complex already, since it's large enough to rise above the treetops."
"It's quite possible. The Great Temple of the Rulers was abandoned as the Goa'uldosaurs were defeated. Now, it's really in ruins, no one ever goes there. The Neotroodonian dwellings lie in many different places around the jungle. The largest one, the capital, is quite near to where the stargate used to be."
"Good. We can go there, then," Jack was with Daniel in this, now. Ready to go. "General, SG-1 is willing to take this mission."
"Very well, Colonel. You will go to P4X-215 and attempt to find and recover any Ancient technology, and, if possible, use it to defend the planet against Anubis. However, should you be unable to find it or operate it, you are not to take any action against Anubis's forces. You are to return home, despite of the consequences to the dinosaurs. Am I making myself clear? If the Ancient technology doesn't work or isn't useful, then you abort the mission."
"Crystal clear, sir," Jack answered for the whole team. It was all Daniel could've asked for. The technology would be there, he was sure of it, and somehow they'd have to figure it out.
"Then we just need to call the Tok'ra and ask them to arrange for our safe passage back to Dinoland," Leo said, smiling. "And while we wait for them, I think I need to fill you in on what's happened in Dinoland. Things are quite different from what they were five years ago."
"While we're at it, I think we'd better ask if they could just lend us a ship, unless they're willing to come and fetch us once we're done. Otherwise we'll have some serious trouble returning to base if the mission's a failure," Jack added.
Daniel knew Jack would rather have left the Tok'ra out completely, if it was up to him. But though the SGC now did have space ships at their disposal, none of them would work at such a long distance. They still lacked a stable hyperdrive.
Fortunately, the Tok'ra were willing to co-operate. They actually promised them a tel'tak vessel, given that SG-1 would also return it to them, in full working order. Daniel couldn't help grinning at that. The chances were this wasn't going to be an easy mission, so they should be happy if they got it back at all.