Chapter 17

"Offworld activation!"

Sergeant Walter Harriman's voice rang out over the com system as General Hammond came quickly down the stairs to the control room. The event horizon roared into life behind the titanium and trinium iris.

"Receiving Tok'ra IDC, sir."

"Well so much for having to contact them. They beat me to it," George said ruefully. Leaning into the mic he called into the gate room, "Defense teams at the ready", and then turned back to Harriman. "Open the iris."

Harriman placed his hand on the palm sensor and the iris peeled away and disappeared. Though the shimmering gate a very angry looking Jacob Carter came storming down the ramp, heedless of the dozen deadly weapons aimed at him.

George winced, hastily ordered the defense team to stand down, and made his way down to meet him. He didn't want to be right, but he was pretty sure that he knew why his old friend was so mad.

This is not going to be pretty!

"George! What the hell is going on?" Jacob demanded, sounding every bit as angry as he looked. His red face clashed alarmingly with his tan Tok'ra uniform. His eyebrows didn't look like they could get any closer together or lower over his eyes. It was a look that had surely sent his kids scrambling for cover when they were little.

George thought it best to buy himself some time to think, even though he had no doubt that it would only infuriate Jacob all the more. "What are you talking about, Jacob?" he asked innocently, trying to sound genuinely confused as he tried to formulate an explanation.

"What do you mean, 'what are you talking about'? Where's my daughter?" Jacob's voice continued to rise as the SF's on duty in the gateroom tried to pretend that they weren't listening in, shifting about uncomfortably.

His suspicion confirmed, George sought more thinking time. Allowing himself to show much of the guilt he felt, he asked, "How do you know about that?"

"'How do you…' How do I know? Do you remember sending SG-9 through to us on a little diplomatic visit a few days ago?"

George nodded cautiously.

"Well, I wasn't there, but one of the team let slip the fact that my daughter had been missing for three days with no trace of her or her team! One of my friends only just told me now when I got back from my mission! Now, quit stalling and tell me what's going on here, George!"

Jacob, calm down! Your blood pressure isn't exactly fun to deal with, you know!

Selmak, he's hiding something and you know damn well how much I hate it when someone's purposely keeping me in the dark!

Jacob was looking absolutely murderous and George had no better way of explaining than to tell the whole truth.

"It was standard recon. We sent a M.A.L.P. and then a U.A.V. to P5X726 and found two structures. One was about 20 meters from the gate and we still don't know what it is. The other is a ruined city in a valley of the nearby mountain range."

"How did they go missing?" Jacob asked, slightly calmer now that he was getting some answers.

"That's the strange part. We don't know. Colonel O'Neill missed his scheduled contact about an hour after they went through and we sent another team immediately after the M.A.L.P. showed no sign of them or any hostiles."

"What about the first structure?"

"I've ordered all personal that go through not to touch it. There are no signs of a power source that we can find, but we have no clue to what's its purpose is. Frankly, I don't know what to do. We've searched the whole damn forest, assuming that they wouldn't have gone to the valley without first contacting home."

"Well maybe that's your mistake right there, George. Maybe it's time to search a little farther."

George knew what Jacob meant even though they both had a feeling they would only find another dead end. Yet, lacking another course of action, at least this was something.

Leading Jacob back up to his office, the General gave the order. "I want SG units 3 and 5 ready to go as soon as possible."

"And I'm going too."

George turned to disagree with is old friend, but it was pointless. He could tell from the look on Jacob's face.

"Alright. You'll go too."