Part 2: Why do odd things happen to good people?
Colonel Jack O'Neill was on his way to a briefing for the upcoming mission of Stargate Command's flagship team, SG-1. After more than six years of whooshing around the galaxy and fighting aliens with way too much attitude and way too little fashion sense he was starting to get tired of the constant weirdness. He knew that things were crazy when he found himself remembering how much more relaxing it was running black ops into places like China as opposed to places like Mars. What he'd had to do that morning hadn't made things any less weird.
Major Samantha Carter came up behind him. "Hi, sir." She said cheerily.
"Carter." He acknowledged.
"So how'd it go?" She asked eagerly.
"How'd what go?"
"You took, uh, 'little Jack' to his first day of high school today, right?"
"Oh yeah." Recently Jack had awakened to the sight of his entire team standing around his bed staring at him. Come to find out that he had spent the preceding seven days being probed or something by a little gray guy who didn't wear pants and talked funny. Ok, so none of the Asgard wore pants. It was still weird. Not only that but while he was gone Loki (Where did these guys come up with these names? How come he never met little gray men named Bill or something? Or Steve, Steve was a decent alien name.) had created a copy of him, but because he was dumber than the average Asgard the copy ended up being 15 years old. So now there was a 15 year old walking around somewhere knowing everything he knew just because some Asgard screw-up had wanted to get a look at Jack's super advanced human brain. Super advanced, Jack scoffed. Fat lot of good that had ever done him, he couldn't even do the crossword puzzle in the morning paper, not for lack of trying. "A 6-letter word for a digit." What did that even mean?
"So," Carter prodded again, "how'd it go?"
"It went fine. Kid's gonna be alright."
"'Little Jack'" she said again. "We really need to think of something better to call him."
"No, we don't." Jack responded firmly. "I don't plan on seeing him again."
"You're not going to keep in contact?"
"Absolutely not."
"Why not?"
"It would be," Jack searched for the right word.
"Weird?" She replied, knowingly.
"I was thinking weird." He confirmed.
"Well, I am."
"You go right ahead."
"I liked him. He's a good kid. Besides," she grinned wryly, "I kind of like being taller than you."
O'Neill was getting a little fed up. "He is not me!"
"He's got the same DNA." She replied.
"Well, that doesn't make him me. I am me. He's┘ someone else. He's a lot┘" once again Jack was searching for just the right thing.
"Shorter?" Carter suggested.
"Exactly!" He confirmed, "and whiny. I am definitely not that whiny."
"Who's whiny?" While they'd been standing in the hall talking Dr. Daniel Jackson, Ph.D. Archeology, had walked up, on his way to the same briefing.
"Little Jack" Carter responded.
"Oh, that's right," Daniel said, "you took him to school today. How'd that go?"
"I am done talking about this." Jack said. Then he turned the corner and walked into the conference room where Teal'c was already sitting patiently, waiting for the briefing to start.
The other two weren't quite done, "The colonel doesn't want to see him again." Sam told Daniel as the two of them walked in to take their seats as well.
"Oh yeah?" Jackson asked. "Why not, Jack? I think you two would have a lot in common."
"I said we're done talking about this, ok?' Jack replied, beginning to get truly irritated.
"Fine, fine." Daniel said finally. Then he turned to Sam. "They're both so stubborn."
"I know." She replied, grinning.
Before the conversation could go any farther the base's commanding officer General Hammond came in. "Ok, SG-1," the general said, "here's your next mission." He handed each of the four team members a manila folder with all the details about their upcoming mission. "MALP recon," he began, "leads us to believe that the stargate on P3X-725 is in some sort of storage facility or laboratory."
The team members pulled photos from their folders. The photos showed a dark, cluttered room. There were lots of things sitting on the floor or on tables, most of them were covered with sheets.
"Inhabited?" Daniel asked.
"From the information the MALP has sent us it appears that no one has entered the room containing the stargate in years. If the planet is still inhabited the inhabitants have stayed away from this room." Hammond explained.
"So they just left all this crap lying around?" O'Neill asked, flipping through the pictures rather absently.
"It would appear so." Teal'c responded.
"Your mission," Hammond said, trying to get the briefing back on track, "is to go in and examine what's there. Try to see what's outside, if you can. Ideally the planet has been deserted and we can take possession of anything useful they have stored there."
"So, like a garage sale." Jack concluded.
"More like grave robbing." Daniel said coldly.
Hammond ignored both comments. "If there is useful technology in this room it's just sitting there not doing anyone any good. If you find anything useful and there are still inhabitants in the area then maybe they'll trade with us."
Daniel seemed only slightly appeased by that statement. Something about walking on to a dead planet and digging through the stuff they left behind for anything valuable brought up an image of vultures in his mind, but he had to admit that the general was right. There might be something there that they could use. If so, why leave it gathering dust? It wasn't like they hadn't found a bunch of other useful stuff just lying around on distant planets, collecting dust.
"And team," Hammond continued, "for once, can you please try not to activate any alien doomsday devices or brain switching machines or inter-dimensional transporters while you're there? The MALP didn't pick up any active power sources, but that's never stopped you before."
Jack smiled. "We'll see what we can do, general." He stood up from his chair. "But no promises."
Hammond sighed. "You leave at 0700 tomorrow, SG-1. Dismissed." With that he got up and walked back into his office.
"Well," Colonel O'Neill said as he stuffed the material back in the folder and tossed it on the table, "Carter, looks like you may have some new toys to play with soon." With that he walked out of the room.
"Goody." Carter said, with a mix of sarcasm and anticipation. Then she left the room as well, taking her briefing information with her.
Daniel turned to look at Teal'c. "Looks like we've got the day off."
"Indeed."
A moment of silence passed between them before Daniel decided to push forward with the conversation. "So┘ pizza and a movie?"
"What film, Daniel Jackson?" The two of them rose and started walking toward the door together.
"Oh!" Daniel said, remembering something, "I just bought a new DVD. Have you seen Old School?"
As they walked through the doorway, "I have not."
"I think you'll like it."
The Next Morning
The team gathered in the gateroom at 0700 the next morning, decked out in their black fatigues. All of them including Teal'c were armed with P-90s for this mission. Teal'c had forgone his usual staff or large Earth weapon in deference to the crowded, confined space they were gating into. The last thing they needed was a huge weapon accidentally brushing up against something that would suddenly blow them all up. As usual they were also each wearing a zat sidearm.
"Excited, Carter?" Colonel O'Neill asked.
"You bet, sir."
Suddenly the stargate started to spin, and Walter's voice came over the speaker. "Beginning dialing sequence."
"Another day, another dollar," Jack said with a smile.
"Chevron one, encoded." The speaker announced.
"Another galaxy to save." Daniel added.
"Chevron two encoded."
"We do seem to do that a lot, don't we?" Jack noted. "Save galaxies and things, I mean."
"Chevron three encoded."
"Perhaps we should request additional monetary compensation." Teal'c said.
"Chevron four encoded." The gate continued to spin, steam rising off of it as it went through the dialing process to connect to P3X-725. The team didn't even take notice of the incredible sight in front of them, so common-place was it by this time.
"A raise?" Carter asked.
"Chevron five, encoded."
"Now there's an idea." Daniel said.
"Chevron six, encoded."
Before Jack could respond to Teal'c's suggestion General Hammond's voice came over the speaker and the team turned around. "Good luck, SG-1."
"Chevron seven, locked." With that their stargate made a connection, via a wormhole, to another stargate halfway across the galaxy with an explosive release of energy akin to a huge sideways splash.
Jack gave the general a small two-fingered salute, "Adios, general."
Hammond just rolled his eyes and walked away as Colonel O'Neill turned to walk up the ramp and join the rest of his team. Then they stepped through the undulating event horizon and were gone.
Almost instantly the team stepped out of an almost identical stargate. This one, however, was on the planet they had designated P3X-725, and as far as they could tell at the moment the planet was composed of one very dark room. The air was stale and a little unpleasant which seemed to confirm the fact that no one had been in the room for quite some time.
Jack turned on his flashlight and looked around. "Maybe we can just get them to give us like frequent flyer miles for this stuff." He said, harkening back to the conversation that had begun in the gateroom. "Carter, get the MALP light running."
MALP stood for "Mobile Analytic Laboratory Probe." About four and a half feet tall and 7 feet long the MALP was the tool that the SGC (Stargate Command) sent to planets ahead of them through the stargate to make sure there wasn't anything dangerous on the other side. To this end it was equipped with sensors, cameras, radio equipment, even little arms that could reach out and manipulate objects if necessary. More than anything it resembled a miniature tank, except that in place of a gun it had a large robotic arm on top. It also happened to be equipped with a light for situations like this one.
Carter, using her flashlight, walked over to the MALP and flipped the switch to activate the light. The area directly in front of the stargate was suddenly illuminated, but farther out most of the room was still shadowy and somewhat foreboding with objects of all sizes cloaked in sheets like so many ghosts waiting off in the darkness.
They could also see the remains of a large sheet lying behind the stargate. Carter shined here flashlight back there. "It must have been over the stargate when we activated it." When the stargate activated and released its large splash of energy anything in the path of the splash or the "kawhoosh" atomized instantly.
The only other unsheeted item immediately visible was the DHD, or dial home device. This device, which they no longer had on Earth, was the usual companion to the stargate. It allowed people to dial the gate. An SG team rarely went through the gate before the MALP first confirmed that there was a DHD present to allow them to get back. In this case the MALP had used its robotic arm to remove the sheet that had covered the device in order to confirm its presence.
"Ok, team," Jack prompted, "let's see what we've got." He pulled the sheet off of the nearest thing to him, which turned out to be a large unmarked crate. Then he added, "but try not to┘ you know, touch anything┘ too much."
"Riight." Daniel replied, walking off in another direction.
"Yes, sir." Carter confirmed, pulling the sheet off of another object, which appeared to be a large, unadorned rock.
Jack tried to open the crate, and the lid lifted easily. "Whoa," he said when he saw the contents, "seen one of these before." Carter left her rock to look at his find. It was one of the large spherical communication devices that their long-time enemy the Goa'uld often used.
"Can't hurt to have another one of those." Carter said cheerily before walking off toward a laboratory table in one of the darker corners of the room near where Daniel was standing.
Teal'c had managed to find what appeared to be the only entrance to the room. He examined it for a few moments with his flashlight before testing his considerable strength against it. The door refused to budge. "I do not believe that we will be able to exit this room, O'Neill." He concluded after a few tries.
"Well," Jack said, "I guess it's an alien technology buffet. No one here to complain, so if we find anything cool, we ship it back to the SGC. No one will ever even notice."
Daniel's countenance revealed that he still was not entirely comfortable with the idea, but he didn't say anything and Jack didn't push him.
Carter lifted a small device from the lab table and shined her flashlight on it. Somehow it looked really familiar to her, but she just couldn't place it at first. Then, suddenly, it hit her. "Colonel, come here!" She said eagerly.
Teal'c and Jack both weaved their way through the sheets and boxes over to where Sam had made her discovery. "Look at this." She said, holding the small device up proudly.
"Looks familiar." Jack said. "┘ What is it?"
"If I'm right," Carter began slowly. She was looking around for something nearby that was about the right size and shape. Then she spotted it, not 5 yards away just next to where Daniel seemed to be intently studying the wall for some reason. She quickly made her way over to the sheeted device with Jack and Teal'c following in her wake, and she tugged the sheet off and let it fall. "Aha!" She proclaimed triumphantly.
"Whoah." Jack said. Teal'c looked on with interest but said nothing.
Underneath the sheet was something that they had all seen before. They'd even brought one back to Earth at one point, but the government had eventually been forced to destroy it, for various reasons. Now they were standing face to face with a second one, looking as mysterious as its predecessor, another quantum mirror.
Carter manipulated a control on the small device she'd found, the mirror's control unit. It flickered to life, revealing another room exactly like the one they were currently standing in. Except the room in the mirror was filled with what appeared to be scientists, right down to the lab coats which, in their case, were green for some reason. She manipulated the control again and the mirror showed darkness, presumably in the same room in the same condition that they'd found it in the darkness here. "There we are." Sam concluded.
The quantum mirror was a bridge across realities. You could use the control device to tune it to an infinite number of different quantum realities where the same mirror also existed. Then, by touching the mirror you were instantly transported to the reality to which you had it tuned. The first quantum mirror had given them the information necessary to save Earth from a Goa'uld invasion. It had also caused them a lot of trouble. That's why the government had chosen to destroy it.
"Ok," Jack said slowly. "Well, let's definitely not touch this thing." The other two nodded their assent.
Just a couple of feet away Daniel Jackson was standing, completely oblivious to the discovery that his team had just made. While sweeping the room with the beam from his flashlight he'd caught sight of what he had initially perceived to be some kind of faint writing on the wall. He'd gone up to examine it, but the darkness, the dust, and what may have, at one time, been a coat of paint were obscuring it. He slowly began wiping and scraping the wall, trying to determine what it was he was seeing.
It turned out not to be writing at all but a design that seemed to be actually carved into the wall. On closer examination he realized that it stretched as far as he could see. Maybe, he thought, it was the material that the wall was made out of. It looked somehow familiar to him.
Then he realized what it was that he was looking at and the realization caused him to jump backwards several feet very suddenly. Unfortunately the spot that he chose to leap backwards into was already occupied, by Teal'c. The sudden unexpected jolt caused the large Jaffa to fall forward into Colonel O'Neill who never stood a chance of keeping his balance when confronted with the mass of Teal'c and Daniel combined. Jack fell into Carter who didn't notice what was happening until it was too late, so engrossed was she in examining the mirror and its control device.
Carter tumbled forward toward the mirror, and thinking quickly tried her hardest not to touch the deceptively reflective surface of the quantum mirror. She reached for the stone border around the edge of the mirror's surface. The mirror itself wasn't nearly stable enough to support all the weight suddenly pressing against it. It too began to topple backwards. Sam knew she was going to fall directly on top of the mirror and there was nothing she could do to stop it anymore. The mirror hit the ground, and SG-1 heard it shatter. "That's odd." Sam thought. "I didn't even know that could happen."
A sudden white flash and the room that represented all Earth knew about the planet designated P3X-725 found itself once more devoid of life. The feeble light coming from the MALP still illuminated the room as best it could, but SG-1 was gone.
The four members of SG-1 were still in a dark room, but this one felt much smaller. Jack's flashlight no longer seemed to be working. "Where are we?" He asked the others who he could feel crumpled on the floor around him.
"Dark room." He heard Daniel reply.
"Thank you, Daniel." The colonel responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "But that really doesn't give a whole lot of new information with which to answer my question." He said it again, this time louder for emphasis. "Where are we?!"
Then he heard a muffled voice coming from somewhere to his right. "What was that noise?" The voice demanded.
Then a door opened flooding their tiny space with light, and Jack's heart sank as he heard a sound that he had, through no fault of his own (at least as far as he was concerned), become all too familiar with over the years, guns cocking all around him.
Then Daniel took it upon himself to answer Jack's previous question again. "In trouble."
"D'oh."
Written by Data laughing
Tech advising: oberon227 and Drums888
Some editting done by Drums888 and oberon227
Thanks for reading Part 2. If you have any feedback positive or negative email it to or post it in my journal on RvB.