Picking a gate which hadn't been used in a long time he dialled it and stepped through the gate to the other side. Then he hurried up to the dialler and dialled Terra, just letting the gate lock before shutting it down and dialling it again. He wasn't about to risk his life not known what was on the other side. But at least the gate established a wormhole over and over again. After the eighth time he stepped away from the gate and sought cover between the nearby trees.
Inspecting his surroundings while he waited for a response he found the planet to have changed remarkably since the Alterrans had last visited. The large plains which had stretched across the area around the gate had been replaced by the trees and the area behind the gate had fallen several kilometers down or perhaps the gate was now standing on a raised plateau, either way he could see a giant forest stretching out behind the gate as an incoming wormhole arrived.
Coming down the slightly raised platform was the strangest of machines he'd seen. Clearly made of some grey metall the man long machine looked as sluggish as it moved when it came down the steps from the platform to the dialler. In an attempt not to scare it he distinguished himself from the trees and approached it from the end which had come through first, hopefully the front.
As he came closer a grey cube with a black circle spun around so the black circle was aimed at him. Talking in a calm voice he approached the machine and sat down right in front of it with a hand touching the side of the dialler, still with the black circle aimed at him. Seconds after he asked the machine for a representative he felt, through the dialler, that something had entered the other side of the wormhole and as the four packages arrived he shut it down and locked the gate from further use.
The four packages were two males and a female of the seeded plus a Jaffa, a first prime none the less. In a loud voice one of the men said something, possibly to him, while the Jaffa and female moved towards the forest. Possibly in response to the loud male the second male leaned in close to the loud one before walking up to him.
With a finger pointing at himself the man began to speak. "My name is Daniel." Then the man pointed his fingers at him. "Can you tell me your name?" Did this man take him for a child?
Still he needed something from them. "My name is Mokar, formerly of the Jaffa, now of the Alterra." That seemed to hit the man like the blast from a stunner. "I require something from your people and offer to repair the clavis of your world in return."
"You are of the Ancients?" The man asked. Behind the man's eyes he could see the questions burning.
"I am of the Alterran race, not some ancients." He declared. "Now will you accept my offer?"
From the edge of the cliff he heard the loud male and the female shouting something at them and as the male called Daniel replied he realised the mistake he'd made, they were of the seeded so like the Jaffa they would of course be talking the language of the seeded.
"Have oversight with my mistake Daniel, I did not realise your people talked the language of the seeded." He said and again Daniel looked shocked.
"You speak English?" Daniel asked.
"If that's what you call it, we call it the language of the seeded." He said. The language must of course have been given a name by its users. Something they hadn't done when they thought it to them. "Since you have given the language a name I presume you have given yourself a name?"
"We are humans, the humans from our planet are called Tau'ri, it means the first ones, or those from the first world." Daniel explained.
"But we came before you Daniel, we are the first. Humans as you call yourself would be the second, or third depending on if you count the servant race we created or not."
"We didn't name ourself the Goa'uld did, as a Jaffa you should know."
"Before my transformation to Alterran I was not aware that the rest of the galaxy existed or the true nature of the Chappa'ai, Astria Porta, gate or what you would call it."
"We call it a Stargate and the clavis we call a DHD, a dial home device." Daniel continued his explanation.
"The DHD as you call if, of your world is drained and I offer to charge it if you give me the right materials and something I need."
"Yes, but how did you know that? It's in a secret facility under heavy guard."
"They are all linked together and an Alterran could diagnose anyone of them from another by touch. Your bodies, as my before, are not advanced enough to use this function."
"We have created our own DHD and use it for the gate so I'm not sure we have any use for the broken DHD."
"If you have created a true DHD then your races are more advanced than I have given you credit for Daniel."
"Erhm, we didn't build a DHD, we built a computer, a console if you will, like the one in Atlantis. Last I checked half of the signals given by the gate are ignored. I assume you know what Atlantis is?"
"Yes I do know what Atlantis is, it is good to see the city sprawling with life. Then you are still rather advanced are you not?"
"Yes we are one of the more advanced races in this galaxy, but you claim you can see Atlantis?"
"There are many things you seem to not know Daniel and I have already given you much more knowledge of our technology than I should have. Now I must ask you to accept my offer to you."
"I can not do that. I will need to speak to the leaders of my world. I think you would be most welcome, many have longed to talk to a living Anci...Alterran."
"I can not Daniel, you seem worthy and you show much respect, but I do not trust the rest of your people to be the same. I only contacted you because I need your help."
"You are afraid of getting trapped?" Daniel asked in disbelief. "You're an Alterran, you could do as you wanted, your kind once ruled the galaxy."
"At our height of power we ruled more than one galaxy Daniel, but now we're almost at our lowest point. I'm only one and should I be stopped we will be at our lowest again. Maybe later I will have the honor of returning to the former crown piece of our rule."
"How will you then repair the DHD?"
"You bring someone here I can teach and show, it's not overly complicated. We built them to be simple to use and maintain."
"What are you asking in return?"
"An energy source. I think you don't need to ask what I need that for?"
"I have a small energy source in this." Daniel said and held up a small metal cylinder with a clear cover in one end and then pointed to the machine. "The MALP has one too, but from what I know about Ancie…. Alterran technology it drew much more power."
"I would not need something to replace a Potentia."
"Potentia, potentia, pot...Oh right, we call them ZPMs, but we have nothing close to the power of a Potentia. We've search the galaxy for them but only found a handful. The closest we have are generators powered by the same material which you have used in the gates, but I do not think we will give you one."
"Bring the DHD and one of these generators here so I can examine it. If it gives off enough power for my needs I can give you what you need to figure out the other half of the feedback signals." His first thoughts of Daniel had quickly been shattered and he felt a trust building up to the man. "Stand up Daniel, I'm going to show you something."
Hesitating for a second Daniel stood up next to him. "Sure, what is it?"
Putting his hand on the red orb of the dialer he held up his hand towards Daniel. "I have never done this before so it might be confusing at first. Also don't try to move or the connection will break and you will feel pain." Then he touched Daniel's right temple and the other man's eyes rolled backwards.
From the side he saw the other three running towards them. "Release him." Shouted the loud man.
"Easy now." He said as he sorted through the list of gates in his head until he found the one he wanted and transmitted the images the sensor pack in the DHD provided into Daniel's mind. Then he held the transfer for a few seconds until he removed his left hand. "I hope you trust me now Daniel."
"That was amazing. Was that a live feed?" Daniel said enthusiastically.
"Yes, now I ask that you carry my message back with you. I trust this MALP of yours have a memory unit ."
"It does, but you will need this to interface with An..Alterran consoles." Daniel said as he opened a small hatch and withdrew a long wire from the compartment inside together with a small black box which he fitted to one end of the cable. "You should be able to download things through the cable onto this hard drive."
"When you return here with your answer, should you accept I will return this to you with the information about all the signals from the gate inside."
"That's a very pleasant way of asking us to get our asses of your planet." The female said as she and the male pointed something which could have been weapons at him and the Jaffa had his staff trained on him.
"Vala! Mitchell Teal'c, please make her shut up." Daniel snapped as he tried to dial the gate. "We'll return in two days with the answer."
"Allow me." Mokar said and put his hand on the orb of the DHD and dialed Terra.
"How come the thing didn't flush?" The loud man, Mitchell, asked as the wormhole was created.
"We've seen the Asgard do the same, so it's not surprising that the creators of the gates can do so too." Daniel said as he motioned for the others to get to the gate.
"Indeed." Teal'c said as they approached the gate. "Thor did use a device to create a similar wormhole for him and Colonel Carter to return to Ida."
"He's the short grey thing right?" The female asked as the four stepped through the gate.
On the other side of the gate a rather short man was waiting in his navy blue uniform. "So how did it go?"
"We made contact and he made some demands General." Mitchell said. "The normal evil guy things."
"Except for the fact that he's a living Ancient, or Alterran as he seemed to prefer, who asked for our help in exchange for fixing the DHD in Area 51 and giving us an explanation of the feedback signals the gate sends out. It could further improve the dialing computer." Daniel said.
"We'll have a debriefing in five minutes." The General said. "And I would very much like to know where you kids lost the MALP."
"Consider it an investment." Daniel said as the four walked down the ramp.
...
"I'm a con-artist so I know when I see one and that man is one." Vala said when they were seated in the briefing room five minutes later around the long table. The other three who'd come through the gate and the General all looked at her with disbelief.
"Care to tell me what really happened Colonel?" The General asked.
"From what I understand we seem to have stumbled upon an Ancient Sir."
"More like he stumbled upon us." Vala said.
"No no no, he knew about us. About our drained DHD and more. Hell he dialled in eight times just to get our attention." Daniel said.
"Still sounds like a con to me." Vala said.
"What about this deal or exchange you talked about?" The General asked.
"He wants one of our generators, in exchange he'll fix the DHD in Area 51 and show us all the signals the gate sends out." Daniel said.
"Absolutely not. If he tampers with it he's got a bomb."
"Sir, this I'll have to go through Homeworld Security." Mitchell reminded him. All trades with alien cultures had to be approved by them.
As Daniel continued to ramble on about what they could learn a white light flashed in the window to the General's office. "Somebody called?" A voice called out from the office as another man in navy blue uniform stepped out of there.
"General O'Neill. I didn't know you had been informed." The first General said.
"Landry. Oh, but a little bird sung in my ear." O'Neill said and held up his phone. "So I heard we're going to do some trading."
"We're not going to offer a Naquadah generator to someone we just meet." Landry shouted.
"No matter what you think about this General Landry the decision is mine. You are dismissed."
"This is outrageous." Landry shouted as he stormed out of the room.
"Don't worry, I'll keep him off your backs." O'Neill said as he slumped into the chair at the end of the table. "So thoughts about this? Vala?"
"He's clearly a fake. The Ancients or Altarons or whatever haven't been around for quite a few years." The lady replied. "Have they?"
"It's Alterran and no they haven't. But they did create libraries of knowledge which can be downloaded into the human brain, only it's usually lethal." Daniel said calmly.
"Oh." She said sliding deeper into the chair.
"Teal'c?" O'Neill asked.
"I am not certain O'Neill. He had the clothes of a Jaffa, but no mark and his skin was much too light in colour."
"Mitchell?"
"He seems harmless enough Sir. Still don't know if we should give him one of our generators Sir."
"Ok, thank you. Daniel stay, the rest of you can go." O'Neill said and waited for them to leave before he walked over to Daniel and sat down on the large table. "Talk to me Daniel, what do you really think?"
"I honestly think we have found a true Ancient, or Alterran as he prefered. I think we should take his offer."
"You think a DHD for a generator is a fair deal?"
"No, but this isn't about that Jack. If he's a true Alterran, and all proof points to him being one, then he could be the key to obtaining ZPMs."
"Daniel, he's asking us for power, I think if he had access to ZPMs he would use them instead."
"What if he needs the power to access them? He said that at the height of their power they ruled multiple galaxies, he might need the power to dial that galaxy and acquire the ZPMs. Either way this is good, this is a chance for us to get on his good side. The next time he needs something he will come to us and then we could be offered something of much more value." Daniel said as his enthusiasm grew for every word that came out of his mouth.
"You know we can't send you through the gate with one of those when we don't know what's on the other side."
"Come one Jack. This is a chance to good to be missed."
"If what you're saying is true then it is, but I'm not willing to risk our best team."
"So you're going to squander this chance?"
"No. When did you say the next meeting was suppose to be?"
"In two days time. Why what's happening?"
"Then we better tell Sam to hurry up and get the X-401 of the ground."
"You're sending a cargo ship as our backup?"
"Yes, Atlantis did pick up both the Apollo and the Sun Tzu on its way back to the Pegasus galaxy but they're both in bad shape and even with all the spare parts we sent with them it's going to take time to repair them I'm being told. The Daedalus is on on it's way back to Earth after ferrying Atlantis to Pegasus and the Hammond is already halfway there. Of course Odyssey is still on its mission. That only leaves the X-401 which, luckily for you, is due to make a test run this week."
"You won't regret this Jack." Daniel said as he rushed out of the room to prepare all the questions he had for the Alterran. Then he remembered what he'd been shown and popped his head back into the room.
"Yes Daniel?" O'Neill asked.
"He told me something, call it a proof of good fate or something. He claims that there's seven wraith ships heading for Atlantis. So you know, you might want to turn the Daedalus around again."
"Thank you Daniel." O'Neill said as he vanished in a white light.