The Star Gate Program (Hetalia/Stargate SG1 X-Over)

Author: Ashynarr

Summary: It was the discovery of the century. A device older than human civilization, capable of transporting people across the galaxy in an instant. But things have a way of quickly becoming complicated, pushing America and others to their limits as they find themselves embroiled in galactic politics and intrigue throughout the stars.

Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine. Stargate isn't mine.

Warning: Alterations of the Stargate timeline/canon and Hetalia canon

[Inspired by Stargate Reopened; I recommend reading it if you have the time.]

[Chapter 17]

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Matthew was extremely thankful he'd been exempt from his usual paperwork and meeting schedule in order to stay on site while the Giza mission was active; he didn't think he could handle the ceaseless worrying and invasive thoughts of everything that could go wrong if he were back in Ontario right now.

So far, nothing spectacular had happened during the six days since Alfred and the others had gone through the Gate, aside from the previous check in that had let them know a sandstorm had blocked communications between Alfred's forward team and the gate team. Despite the pang of worry this had caused initially, nothing of his strained senses towards his people out there indicated anything serious going on.

He took another deep breath, shutting his eyes and calming himself by focusing inward on his people here on Earth, who for the most part were happy and satisfied. He'd be useless if something went wrong in this state; he had to trust Alfred and the men and women out there to handle themselves, just like his brother would with him.

"Up early, sir?"

Matthew startled, turning to the woman who'd just entered the main control room overlooking the Ring. "Yeah; figured I'd wait for the next check in before getting myself coffee."

"I think you're better off passing for a bit; Dr. McKay's managed to pull another all nighter going over the next data parcel from Heliopolis. Something about the Gate's functions, if I heard his muttering right." She admitted around her own cup.

The Canadian nodded in understanding; the man was well and determined to be the world authority on the workings of the Stargate, especially after the Constellation discovery. He'd managed to peek in at the man's workspace once on his way from the break room - it'd practically looked like an encyclopedia or three had exploded all over the table.

"Duly noted," He nodded, shaking his head and smiling as he looked around at the other people streaming in one by one to take over from the night shift. "I thought you were on afternoon shift."

"Oh, I am," Samantha admitted, grinning. "I'm just taking the chance to go over some interesting data of my own before I have to comm the chairs for eight hours straight."

"From Heliopolis?" He asked.

"Actually, from the Giza world." She laughed quietly. "I've been trying to work out the orbital mechanics of three moons around an Earth-sized body."

"That's right, Al did seem way too amused when he sent those pictures through," Matthew mused, before nodding for her to continue.

"Without knowing the exact distance to them, I can't really tell how accurate any of my numbers are, but from what messing around I've done, the most stable system would have all three be around the size of Pluto or smaller, with each moon's orbit about a third of the way out further than the one before it. It's too bad we don't know if the planet has oceans anywhere, because the effects of high and low tides would be far more impressive than anything on Earth."

The Canadian was impressed. "And you did all that for fun?"

"Yes, sir." Sam admitted without a blush, still smiling. "Before I got assigned to the Giza Project, I'd been hoping to get into NASA and go to space."

"And now?"

She waved her hand at the Ring. "Now, I'm part of the first manned project to send people to other planets hundred of light years away; I'd have to be insane to leave when this is basically the dream job I never imagined could happen."

"It does feel a bit like something out of a science fiction novel, doesn't it?" Matthew asked rhetorically. "Sometimes I feel like we should all be looking out for the Enterprise appearing over San Francisco, looking for whales."

"Oh my god, don't remind me about that movie," She groaned, pressing a hand to her head in mock pain. "Don't get me wrong, I liked it, but there were so many things wrong with the physics it pains me to think about."

"Don't let Al hear you say that; it was his favorite."

Whatever reply she had was cut off by the overhead announcing the next Gate activation in five minutes, requiring everyone working on fixing the left-back turret stuck on its hinges to pack up most of their equipment and leave until the wormhole had closed; it was a safety precaution due to the low, but constant levels of radiation that streamed through the Ring while it was open.

(Though it seemed air couldn't travel through the wormhole's surface on its own in either direction, any other substance in the air did, including dust, bugs, and an unfortunate Little Hellion; it was a wonder the amount of radiation wasn't higher with the mass to energy conversions involved. Probably another failsafe by the aliens who'd invented it.)

However, his attention didn't return to Samantha, his gaze trying to peer across the immense distances to where he thought he could just feel -

"Sir?"

Matthew's fingers twitched, coming up to rub the edge of his shirt between them. "I just got a bad feeling about something."

"About the mission?"

He bit down on his instinctive 'yes'. "I don't know, but just-" He sighed. "It's probably nothing."

"We'll know in a few minutes, if that helps."

"I guess," Matthew admitted, even as his a small part of his mind kept pinging at him to demand the gate be dialed nownownow - what if someone was standing in front of the Ring, not expecting an early check in?

Distracted as he was, he didn't see Samantha's frown increase as he continued to stare towards the Stargate, gaze a million miles beyond it.

She wouldn't admit it, but his sudden concern for the mission had gotten her just a bit on edge herself. She didn't believe in things like premonition too much - after all, how often did you hear about someone's bad feelings that didn't pan out? - but his near surety was slowly but surely becoming infectious in the room, causing a few others to start nervously tapping or fussing with their papers as well.

Finishing off the coffee in her cup, Sam gave herself a few seconds to fuss with the paper rim before turning to throw it away, a momentary flash of pleasure distracting her as she managed to toss it right into the bin on her first shot. The atmosphere of the room quickly snapped back, leaving her foot tapping on the floor as she glanced more than once at the clock counting down to check-in.

She glanced back to Colonel Williams, who was probably the only person in the room who at this point hadn't looked to the time. It suddenly struck her that his brother - his twin if the rumors were right - was leading the mission over there, leaving him quite a bit more invested in the safety of the away team than even the General.

An idle thought of whether twin bonds might really be a thing and if so how they would even work provided a welcome distraction for the next two minutes to the final warning siren.

"Thirty seconds to Gate activation - clear the room -"

The man at the dialing station seemed far more invested in his job this time around, fingers almost flying across the keys as he input the seven symbols for the supercomputers to process and then send to the motors sliding the symbol part of the Ring.

By the time the final symbol was locked in, everyone had dropped any pretense of not being interested, watching the pool settle into place with an almost eerie finality.

No one dared to take a breath. The radio remained silent for a long fifteen seconds, then-

"Command, I'm reporting hostiles, over."

Samantha's heart sank as the Colonel all but jumped from his seat, leaping for the radio before the woman chairing it could think to reply. "What happened?" He asked, voice quiet but firm.

"We were waiting out the sandstorm inside the pyramid, getting ready for the night watch to take over so the rest of us could get some rest, when an earthquake lasting a few minutes shook everyone awake. A few of us were just settling back down when some sort of teleportation system in the main hall activated, leaving two aliens wearing anubis helmets in the middle of base camp."

There was a pause, then the soldier continued quietly. "They were using some sort of energy blast from their staves to knock us out; our bullets were just bouncing off their armor. Barston got a lucky shot in through a weak spot under their arm; the other hostile shot him twice. ...he was dead before he hit the ground.

"They've captured most of the team; I think they're taking them back to - wherever they teleported from. If you send through reinforcements, make damn sure they have something that can pierce through whatever they're wearing before they can get a shot in on you. I don't think I'll be able to hide long enough to wait out the rest of the storm and inform the Colonel; as far as I know the forward team is still at the native city and safe."

Matthew hit the speak button again. "Private, you make damn sure you don't get killed or captured, do you understand?"

There was another pause before the radio came up again. "I think I can only promise the first one, sir - the Ring's sure gotten their attention at this point. I think one of them is approaching - you can see it with the MALP camera-"

He dropped into silence again, just long enough to hear the furious typing of one of the others as they activated the MALP as fast as they could. Everyone's gaze turned to the camera as it flicked to life, the VCR it was hooked to whirring to life as it recorded everything the machine saw.

And what a sight it was - the being wearing that mask was imposing even through the screen, its red eyes flaring along with the ear frills as it turned from its examination of the pool to the device. It lifted the staff just as the soldier on the other end of the line replied with a final, almost silent, "I'll try to get the rest of the team through this alive if I can, sir, but I don't think I can do it for long."

The colonel swallowed, but nodded as the screen died, the MALP likely blasted to bits, or at least out of commission. "Understood, and godspeed."

"Thank you, sir," came the final reply, before radio silence took over.

Everyone looked to each other, all but forgetting the open Ring - at least, until another energy blast came through, smashing into the cement below the window and sending debris across the floor.

"SHUT THE RING DOWN NOW!" The Colonel shouted as he twirled, the man at the dialing station instantly smacking his hand down on the emergency button, causing the sirens to go off as the wormhole abruptly dissolved into nothing.

No one dared breathe for almost a full minute.

Finally Colonel Williams, lips pressed into a thin line, turned to look at them all. "Emergency stations - this mission just got compromised. Get me an ops team equipped with heavy armor and armor-piercing guns ready in the next ten minutes. I'm going to inform the general."

He twirled on his feet, practically storming out of the room towards the General's quarters, leaving the room behind in a sudden frenzy as everyone scrambled to follow his orders, shouting instructions over the basewide intercom and preparing the Ring room's defensive layers.

Samantha closed her eyes, took two deep breaths, then promptly joined the latter group, praying that that soldier who'd risked himself to report in would make it out of this alive.

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

AN: The more fics that appear on my randomizer list, the higher the chance I'll actually get around to updating them a few times this century. At least, that's my hope at this point.

Yup, more Mattie and General West, since we haven't seen them in two whole chapters. It's really sorta disappointing how easily that 'elite' squad of soldiers was taken out by a dude in a jackal helmet, especially with those open shoulders that you could inflict nasty damage with a bullet on at close range. But hey, that's why I'm only sorta following canon with this.

In other news, one of my friends bullied me into making an AO3 account, so if you look for me under the same username there you should see all my works popping up there. If nothing else it'll give me an optional place to retreat to if I decide to abandon ffnet temporarily or permanently.

(On a completely unrelated note, Abydos having three moons? Totes easy. I mean, Pluto has freaking five moons! And it's tiny! So yeah I honestly don't feel in any way bad for geeking out a little through Sam, ehe. If it's not accurate, who even cares because I can come back and correct it when I know the actual maths for it all.)