The First of Four

'Four planets to visit?' Kyna asks, after having bought up to speed by Aelix, the group stand by the gate pool on Epona. 'When do we go?'

'Now, if you are ready?' Daniel settles his glasses firmly on his nose and removes a small electronic device from his jacket pocket. 'This holds the Spinner's star map as a holographic projection. I am hoping it will work over any pool and not just the one in the throne room on Maere.'

'A holo…?' Kyna trips over the word.

'Like a spell, Kyna.' Aelix explains.

Kyna is about to say the little box does not look magic when Daniel places it in the palm of his hand and presses a button. The air around them is suddenly full of strange shapes and lights, slowly weaving into a silvery web of constellations, that trail into the water of the gate pool. Above them the holographic constellations align and the pool suddenly leaps into action, a vortex spinning up as the Star Gate opens.

'Time to go.' Teal'c, staff ready, steps into the vortex, followed by Kyna, Aelix and finally Daniel. It feels as though they are travelling throughout time itself, to a far distant point and just when it feels as though they could be lost forever, the vortex drops and they are standing in a pool, bathed in green sunlight, in a woodland glade.

Teal'c raises his fingers to his lips and indicates to his three companions be quiet and follow him. He treads silently to a nearby fallen tree a defensive position and they take stock of where they are. Daniel notes the woodland is like Blick Mead, apart from the soft green light. The woodland glade is empty, the pool silent.

'The land rises this way.' Kyna points with the blade of her zyphos behind them as she whispers, 'We should try and find a vantage point.'

Teal'c nods in agreement and the two of them melt into the woodland behind them as Aelix and Daniel follow as quietly as they can. Within a few minutes they reach the brow of a ridge of densely wooded hills and view opens before them. Daniel almost gasps at the sight and the four of them stare out from the treeline at the sight in front of them.

The ridge of hills gives way to a sweeping plain, a barren, scarred landscape, ruined cities and ravaged land, pockmarked with craters and chasms. Nothing moves, nothing grows. Beyond this scene, reaching up into the sky is a greenish glow where a cloudless sky gives way to distant stars and what appears to be a green sun. In the distance, the planet falls away into nothing, there is no horizon, half the planet is missing. The tree covered ridge they are standing is the only living thing in sight.

'I don't think this is the place.' Daniel sizes up the ruins in the distance. 'Those are not the ruins of giants. More our size.'

'We should check the nearest ruin. See if it will tell us what happened here. Who lived here. Why all this destruction!' Aelix starts to stride down the ridge to the plain below.

By the time the four of them reach the first huddle of buildings on the plain, the light has changed from a pale bright green to a richer, darker hue. Dusk must be close.

'We ought to hurry and find shelter or return to the pool.' Teal'c stops in the shattered doorway of the building and sighs. 'This place clearly has been abandoned a long time ago, Magus.'

As they step inside the building it is obvious that the ruins are old and anyone living in the place has long since gone. Everything is either turned to dust or stone. No technology of any kind is to be seen in any of the empty rooms. In the third building they explore they find a frieze on one of the walls, most of it flaked and faded away but just enough left to work out it is a map. Daniel takes time to explore the image, trying to see if he can decipher any sign or symbol on it. 'Look, this could be the ridge we were on. That circle… maybe the StarGate pool. I… I can't see anything that looks like language, no pictograms or syllabary… maybe this is a settlement…a cart…'

'No, Daniel, you are wrong, stand here and you will see.' Aelix has been standing further back from the frieze, taking it in as a whole. 'See, the circle is the gate pool, then the larger circle, this planet, with a half of it missing, destroyed. The green sun beyond.'

'That would make this cart-thing enormous…and out in space…' Daniel stops. 'Not a cart, a spaceship...A giant's spaceship!' Daniel smiles. 'This isn't the giant's home world. Well, one down, three planet's to go!'

'We must return to the pool. The light is fading fast.' Teal'c picks up a steady pace as they exit the little huddle of buildings, maybe once a village, heading back up the ridge to the StarGate pool and on to the next planet, leaving the devastation behind.