"It's not going to be adaptable, Sam…" Ian said, slouching in a chair in her lab only half an hour later. "It's not designed for defense. It's not really even designed to hide as much territory as we're using it to hide now."

"We should be able to come up with something," Sam replied, looking over at the schematics that McKay was glancing through – and had been since they'd arrived in her lab. He hadn't said anything as he was going through them; but had been making noises under his breath that neither of them could decipher. "The Ancients must have needed defensive capabilities, no matter how advanced they were."

McKay looked up, proving that he'd been listening even though it hadn't seemed he was.

"They built the Stargates. Who did they have to fear that they'd need defensive technology?"

Ian scowled.

"They had enemies."

"How do you know?"

"None of your fu-"

"Lieutenant Brooks is pretty much our expert on the Ancients," Sam said, interrupting Ian.

"Then no wonder you need me and my expertise here."

"You know, I've had about as much of your shit as I'm going to take," Ian growled, glaring over at McKay. He'd actually taken a lot more than he normally would have, and only because of the seriousness of the situation – and the fact that Hammond seemed to be impressed by the guy. Ian wasn't so sure.

McKay rolled his eyes.

"Really? Well then, I suppose I shouldn't bother to tell you that you're wrong about what this shield can do?"

Sam raised an eyebrow.

"Wrong, how?"

"I'm not wrong," Ian snapped. "It's a passive cloak only. There's no way it'll stop an attack from the Goa'uld."

"It could if we narrowed the amount of coverage it gave, and converted the cloak mechanism into a force field."

Sam frowned.

"We can't do that. For starters, we don't have anything that would generate the power that would be needed for something like that."

She knew. Her and Ian had already considered that back when they'd adapted the thing in the first place.

"So we just have to find something to generate that much power," McKay said, shrugging. "The Asgard probably have something – if we could get them to part with it."

Sam looked over at Ian.

"Well?"

He shook his head.

"It won't work. No matter what the Asgard have. The shield is passive only. It can't be turned into a force field. It's not designed for that. We'd be better off just trying to make a force field from scratch."

McKay made a rude noise.

"I'm telling you, it can be done. You just need to stop thinking about what you believe can be done and start looking at what might be done if you use a little imagination." He slapped one of the papers down on the table in front of them. "The cloaking technology is amazing. If the Ancients could cloak, then they can do anything."

"No, they couldn't," Ian told him. "But even if they could, it doesn't matter. They had force fields. They didn't need to turn their cloaking devices into them, so they didn't make them adaptable to a force field. It's-"

"They might have had force fields, but since I don't see one sitting on the table here, we're going to have to improvise. It can probably be done."

"It's a waste of time," Ian told him. "The cloak will protect the SGC, because the Goa'uld can't find it. That's what it's designed for – in a much smaller scale."

"How small?"

"It's designed as a personal cloaking device. To hide a single person."

"But you managed to adapt it to a different use…"

"Yeah."

"Then why don't you think we can adapt it further?" McKay asked, sounding both frustrated and as if he were actually trying to be reasonable.

"Because it won't work," Ian told him, again. "It's not designed-"

"Yes, I know. You've said it plenty of times. It's not designed to shield, only to hide. But I'm telling you, it can be."

"Ian…" Sam said, breaking in before they could start yelling again. "Is there anything you can think of that might make the cloak into a shield? Anything at all? No matter how off the wall?"

He didn't know everything he knew, after all. They'd already discussed that. The knowledge of the Ancients was there in his head, but he hadn't actually consciously sifted through it all. Who knew what was in there waiting to come out?

Ian sighed, and shrugged.

"Let me think about it for a bit…" He didn't expect to come up with anything, but he would at least give it a shot – for Sam.

She nodded, and turned to McKay.

"Finish looking through that information, McKay. You need to understand it thoroughly by the time Ian-"

"I understand it," McKay interrupted. "It's brilliant, but it's not that hard to follow. I-"

"It's easy to follow because Ian made the newest schematics easily read," Sam told him, annoyed at the interruption. "I want you to look through the original ones he made, and be ready to make any changes he might suggest."

"Why are you letting him run this thing?" McKay asked, just as annoyed. "He's a boy. He might have some rudimentary understanding of this technology, but there's no way he knows as much about the Ancients as you and I – especially me."

"How many Ancients have you met?" Sam asked.

"What?"

"How many Ancients have you met?" she repeated.

"None. The Ancients are gone. All we have to go by is-"

"They're not gone," Sam said. "They've been around millions of years, and some are still around. And Ian's met them and learned from them. So I suggest you stop ignoring what he's saying, and start taking him seriously, because I do – and Hammond does."

Meaning Hammond would back any idea Ian gave before he backed one of McKay's.

Rodney threw his hands up in the air, frustrated still.

"Fine. I'll look through this – and then I'll be able to explain to you exactly how to adapt the cloaking device into a force field. Just give me some time…"

"Time's one thing I don't think we have a lot of," Sam told him.

"It won't take long, I'm sure."

He was a genius, after all.

Ian just shook his head, and closed his eyes. He'd think better if he didn't have to watch McKay.

OOOOOOOOO

"NORAD is picking up another Ha'tak, sir!"

Hammond was on his feet almost before the announcement was complete.

"Where?"

"Over Europe. The media is already on it…"

Of course they were. All over the world, news cameras were focused on the skies hoping to catch a glimpse of the ship that had suddenly turned the world upside down.

"Let's get a feed," Hammond said, heading for the control room.

"We're working on it, sir," Harriman said, trotting ahead of him so he was already in position. "The networks are-"

An alarm blared through the SGC, then, and the gate started dialing. Harriman looked down at the dialing computer, and Hammond looked at him, questioningly.

"It's the Tok'ra."

"Lower the iris. And get me that network feed," Hammond ordered. He reached over and took hold of the microphone. "Security teams to the embarkation room, immediately."

So much for the quiet week he'd been expecting.