"Sorry sir," Carter winced, "but that's exactly what it looks like."
The object of their discussion sat at the other end of the room, on top of the close fitting cradle. Four pairs of eyes swept up from the power cables at the base, up the sweeping curve of the shining silver ring, taking in the nine smaller glowing circles equally spaced around the ring. Four pairs of eyes swept down the other side of the ring, taking in the ramp leading up to the arched ring.
"We call it the Portal." came a sheepish voice from behind them.
O'Neill shook his head at the nerve of it. He thought the Russians had been quite clever operating their own gate without them finding out.
But just how in the universe had the British managed to build a Stargate?
"General Hammond, sir!" Once again, Sgt. Harriman ran into the General's office without knocking. "SG-1 on the line for you!"
"Thank you Walter." Hammond was already picking up the phone. "Jack! What's going on over there?"
"Well sir, you won't believe this, but it would appear the device that was stolen was in fact a Stargate."
"A gate?" Hammond's brow shot up. "How were they operating it? We have the only Earth gate."
"Not one of those gates, sir, they've built their own. Seems to be completely separate to the Ancient gate system. Carter says it works on the same principles, but uses a different dialling and control system. Looks like they had two prototypes built, and they've now lost one. Looks a bit slicker than ours – all shiny and smooth. Maybe Walter could give ours a makeover?"
"Hm. I presume you heard about Sgt. Harriman's efforts to track the hyperspace destination?"
"Yes sir. Looks like Thoth wanted the gate that the Brits were building, for whatever reason."
"Is it more advanced than an Ancient gate, somehow?"
"I don't know – I've got Carter having a poke around here." As O'Neill said this, he looked over to the other side of the room. He could see Carter looking at the controls at he gate, while Teal'c simply stood in front of her and stared down anyone who dared think about removing them from the room.
"Well, Colonel, when you have completed your investigation, you are to return to the SGC and prepare for a rescue mission to P3W-924. If you can secure or destroy the British Stargate, so much the better. We'll send a team of scientists over to investigate more thoroughly. Does it look like the gates were being used for research or actual gate travel?"
"No sir, I believe they've only got the two gates. I have no idea where they got the knowledge from to build a new gate from scratch. The Air Force here aren't being too co-operative at the moment."
"Well, Jack, I'm going to need to call the President in on this one. Get back here as soon as you can, and good luck." Hammond put the phone down and sighed.
Some days, he could really do with some missions that just involved people getting shot at by the Goa'uld. At least that was tiresomely predictable.