Teal'c sat down with the others at the crowded briefing room table. It was only SG-1 and SG-7, the two gate teams, SG-3 and SG-5, had already conducted their debriefing. The general sat at his customary place. Though there was much to celebrate, the atmosphere in the room was reserved.
"Welcome back, SG-1," Hammond offered sincerely. Each gave a small nod of acknowledgment. "I know you have somewhere else you'd rather be, so we'll do this as quick as we can. I'm sure you have as many questions as I do about the last five days."
A small flash of surprise washed over Jack and Daniel. Teal'c knew they were not really that surprised about the passage of time. They had just been too preoccupied with other things to take note in it until then.
"There's not much that we can tell you from our end," Jack said. "We gated to the planet, we went to the city. A local saw us approaching and apparently contacted their military. They picked us up at the edge of the city."
At Hammond's quirked brow Daniel broke it down further. "We tried to explain to their leader, Talquin, that we were peaceful explorers, but they wouldn't lower their weapons. He was more willing to believe that we were from some sort of rebel faction that was playing some sort of hoax. I guess they're divided into those who believe the 'gods' exist, and those who think it's all a myth."
"O'Neill offered that we would leave and not return, but he refused this as well," Teal'c said.
"We had to surrender... there weren't any alternatives," Jack added. He clearly doubted the soundness of his choice, even though there hadn't been a choice.
"No one is doubting your judgment in this matter," Hammond replied, knowing that Jack was laying blame on himself for what had transpired. Even if there was nothing he could have done about it. He moved the topic forward. "So what after you were taken captive?"
Daniel spoke again. "They drove us to some building in the city and locked us up. Then the leader came back and wanted us to give names of these 'Believers' as they call them. We kept trying to tell him that we had no part of it. Then... they took Sam away to be interrogated. And they never brought her back."
"What about the three of you?" Hammond asked.
"They never touched us. We tried to get the guards to tell us what they were doing to her, where she was, anything... but they ignored us," Jack said as he shook his head. "We were under constant watch so we couldn't try to escape. We just sat in that cell until Colonel Ryan and his team showed up. Then we searched the rest of the building until we found Carter."
Hammond was already aware from that point on. He had been present when they had given all the pertinent information to Janet that they could. That she very clearly had been hooked up to some sort of drugs. How she floated in and out of consciousness, but was never very lucid. The multiple times that she had vomited in their presence, and obviously had done so previously as well. Unfortunately, they had even less to offer the doctor than they did the general in terms of information.
He brought them up to speed on events from their side.
"When we activated the stargate for your first check in, there were several people standing around the MALP. They told us that there were rumors about people coming through from somewhere else. We tried to raise you on the radio but got no response. Apparently they had spies with the division that took you. We asked them for information and they were finally able to tell us that you had been captured, but their description of the defenses made it clear that an extraction with our limited resources would not be feasible.
"They saw this as a way to prove their claims. It was their idea to stage mass riots in the area, pulling most of the military force away to reestablish order. SG-7 went in and retrieved you during this window. They hoped that if they made the event large enough, there was no way that the government could deny its occurrence. I believe they even took footage of the active gate."
"Good for them," Jack said dryly. Teal'c had to agree, he really didn't care what happened on the other planet.
There was little else to be added, so the debriefing quickly drew to a close.