Odyssey

a Torchwood & Stargate story

by RoadrunnerGER

Disclaimer: I neither own Torchwood nor Stargate.

Summary: Abducted away from Earth and sold into slavery Team Torchwood has to fight for survival. Being left behind Tosh works with the Stargate team, going on a frantic odyssey across the universe in order to save her friends. Crossover, set s2

A/N: Hey. I don't want to go into detail about why it took me so long to return to this. Let's just say we can all be glad that I can actually update it. All right? Between everything that is happening I hope that I'll be able to get back to this one, too. Let's start with ch16 and see what happens. Thanks to you all. Enjoy.

Chapter 16

Toshiko was left in the dust of the officers rushing out of the board room to undertake their assigned tasks. Rather stunned she sank back against the high back rest and closed her eyes. She had to process everything she had learned during the meeting. Though she had to admit that a lot of it left her clueless. She simply lacked background information.

Out of the corner of her eye she registered movement at the door and turned her head. It was Dr. Jackson who leaned against the doorframe as he peeked into the room.

"Dr. Sato," he said. "You look kind of lost. I was on my way to the cafeteria. Would you like a cup of coffee?"

"Coffee would be wonderful," Toshiko sighed.

"Well, then come with me."

Toshiko did not need to be told twice and followed Jackson to the cafeteria. There he got two big mugs of coffee. He put them atop of his stack of books. Toshiko held her breath as he was balancing his load, then she decided to save the precious coffee and took the mugs from him.

"Thanks," he chuckled. "Let's go to my office. We can talk undisturbed in there."

Toshiko nodded and trailed behind. Entering his office she almost dropped the coffee in surprise. The room was filled with shelves and each shelf crammed with artefacts. What a treasure, she thought.

"Please, have a seat," Jackson said and pulled a chair out for her. Then he dropped the books on his desk and sat down in his office chair. He smiled as Toshiko placed one of the coffee mugs in front of him before she sat down and sipped at the hot brew. "Thanks."

"Thank you, Dr. Jackson," she replied.

"Daniel."

"Okay… Daniel. I'm Toshiko, Tosh."

He nodded and drank from his coffee. "Okay, so… what do you want to know?"

Yes, what did she want to know? There were so many questions burning inside of her, but she had to start with something, anything, so she asked, "Who is Neith and where is she from?"

"Neith is a Jaffa woman and second of command of the Hak'tyl," Daniel began to explain. "Ishta is their leader. She once was in the service of the Goa'uld Moloc as a High Priestess before she created a safe haven for female Jaffa who were being sentenced to die at birth under Moloc's reign. Once she met Teal'c, she joined her group, the Hak'tyl, with the Rebel Jaffa and began to use Tretonin." Seeing Toshiko's inquiring gaze he added. "Tretonin is a drug that frees the Jaffa, genetically altered humans, from carrying a Goa'uld larva."

"Genetically altered?" Toshiko prodded.

"Yeah. The Goa'uld use humans as hosts. The lifespan of a Goa'uld is much longer than that of a human, but they knew how to repair the human body and extend its lifespan. Some Goa'uld are several thousand years old." Noticing that he drifted off the question she had asked Daniel said, "They gave the Jaffa longevity and perfect health. The price the Jaffa have to pay is to carry a Goa'uld larva in a stomach pouch until it is grown up."

"So that's what the Jaffa are for? They carry the spawn of those creatures?" Toshiko was disgusted. The idea of being a host was abhorrent.

"That's one of their purposes, yes," Daniel agreed. "Male Jaffa are warriors who fight for the System Lords of the Goa'uld. They provide their armies and body guards. All Jaffa need a Goa'uld larva to survive once they reach the age of prata, puberty. For a Jaffa it is an honour to carry the child of their god…"

"God?" Toshiko interrupted him, nearly undrinking her coffee.

"Yes," Daniel nodded. "The Goa'uld possess far superior technology that they use to suppress their people. The System Lords have created their legends as gods in order to get their slaves' absolute obedience. Goa'uld are posturing ego-maniacs driven by an insatiable lust for power. Each one capable of unimaginable evil."

"And Neith is a Jaffa, as well as Teal'c?"

"Yes."

"And they're independent of those larvae."

"Yes. Because they use Tretonin," Daniel confirmed. "The Tok'ra developed it from a formula invented by the Pangarans. They made it from ground up symbiotes."

"I see," Toshiko said thoughtfully. "So Neith lives on another planet, right?"

"Yes, on Hak'tyl."

"And Teal'c? He's working with you, isn't he?"

"Yes, he's part of our team." Daniel smiled over his coffee mug. "After our first successful mission on Abydos we believed that was the only planet the Stargate led to, but then a Goa'uld came through the 'gate. First we thought he came from Abydos and the military wanted to destroy the population there with an atomic bomb. We could prove, though, that the Goa'uld came from another world and when we found out from where our team was sent to eliminate the threat. We were caught and the System Lord, Apophis, would've killed us if we wouldn't have been able to convince the First Prime of his Jaffa army to help us escape."

"Teal'c?"

"Yes. As it turned out he already had his doubts about the divinity of the Goa'uld. His teacher, former First Prime, Master Bra'tac, woke those doubts in him. He taught him that the Goa'uld were false gods. That saved our lives."

Toshiko nodded thoughtfully. There was quite a lot to process. "You said that you believed that Abydos was the only world reachable with the Stargate up to that point."

"Yes."

"But there are more? Like the world Apophis ruled over?"

"Yes, there are many more," Daniel said, sitting up straighter. "We first thought that the Goa'uld were the builders of the Stargate Network, but we later discovered that they had merely made use of the relics left behind by a different and extinct race, the Ancients."

"Network?" Toshiko gasped.

"Oh, yes!" Daniel enthused. "There are thousands of Stargates out there. Abydos and Chulak were just the first ones we happened to find. After Sam figured out how to calculate the drift of the planets we suddenly got numerous gate addresses that can actually be dialled."

"How do you do that? That dialling, I mean?"

Daniel took a deep breath. "Sam could explain the workings of the Stargate better than I can," he admitted. "I can merely tell you the gist of it, that Stargates are large rings composed of a mineral called naquadah. Each Stargate possesses nine chevrons on the outer ring and on the inner ring are 36 symbols representing star constellations as well as one symbol for the planet of origin, in our case Tau'ri, Earth."

"And with six of the constellation plus the point of origin you can direct a course to another world," Toshiko threw in.

Daniel's eyes widened with surprise and he smirked. "Yes."

"And how do you get through?"

"The Stargates generate an artificial stable wormhole between each other," Daniel said. Then he chuckled, "And I memorized that."

Now Toshiko smirked, too, while Daniel shrugged.

"I told you I'm not a technical expert. My thing is archaeology, specifically writing systems and languages."

"Yeah. You deciphered how the symbols on the Stargate had to be arranged. Now that you explained it to me I understand better what little I read in the file I got about Stargate Command."

"I'm glad that I could help," Daniel smiled. "And I hope that we'll be able to find the abducted people."

"Yeah." Toshiko sighed. Just that quickly her thoughts were returned to Jack and the rest of the team. "I still hope that I'll get an opportunity to talk with Colonel Carter about the exact mode of operation of the Stargate."

"As technical expert of Torchwood that surely is interesting for you," Daniel agreed. "Most times she starts to talk about technology of any kind it's way over my head. Or Jack's." He laughed.

"I know what you mean. I often need to explain myself a second time, too."

"You certainly have experience with alien technology, right?" Daniel asked, a sudden hint of excitement in his voice.

"Yes."

"Um…" He jumped up from his chair and hurried to a shelf, searching something in a box. "Have you ever seen this?" he asked as he returned to the desk and placed the item in front of her on the tabletop. "All we know is that it's neither Goa'uld nor Ancient."

Now it was Toshiko's turn to stare. She could not believe what she saw. The silvery thing looked like a flattened egg with several diagonal grooves. There was no visible button or switch, the surface smooth except the grooves.

"Where did you find that?" Toshiko demanded to know, barely able to contain her excitement.

"On PX2-147," Daniel said. "The civilisation there was long gone, but we found a whole box of those things in the ruins. We ran the usual tests on it, but nothing happened. Maybe it's just a paper weight."

"You could certainly use it as that," Toshiko chuckled, "but it's not what it is."

"You know it?"

"Yes. Stand over there," she told him and shoved him gently a bit further to the centre of the room. Then she brushed her thumb over the item and let it fall to his feet.

"What the…!" Daniel cried out when he all of a sudden was surrounded by an energy field that glowed in a very faint shade of purple.

"An inflatable cell," Toshiko cheered. "It's cool, huh?"

"It is," Daniel panted as he tried in vain to get out of it. "How do you turn it off?"

"Um…" Toshiko thoughtfully put two fingers over her lips. "I never used it myself."

"Oh, great!" Daniel huffed. "So I'm stuck here?"

"No, it can't be that difficult," Toshiko replied, squatting down and fumbling around with the silvery stone.

"Maybe you should go and get Carter?" Daniel suggested.

Glancing up at him from her squatting position Toshiko scowled. "Why?"

"Figuring out how it works?" he replied nervously.

"That won't be necessary," Toshiko smirked. Then she swept her fingers along the grooves on the cell, snapped her fingers, and the force field vanished. Picking the device up, she straightened up and pressed it into Daniel's hand, saying, "Torchwood may be just a small time operation compared to Stargate Command, but we still have safety protocols."

Of course, actually following said protocols is another matter entirely. Thinking that made her insides constrict painfully as she was reminded of her team mates, what they might say, how they might act. She had to take a deep breath.

Realization dawning, Daniel returned her grin. "You were just pulling my leg!"

Toshiko did not have it in herself to continue with the banter, but she still smiled, "Did you really think I'd be that foolish and toy with the thing if I didn't know what it is and how to handle it?"

For a second there he hesitated before he shook his head. "No. It was me. Usually I don't panic that easily." His smile softened. You took me by surprise."

Toshiko smiled back. "Thank you."

tbc...