Disclaimer: Stargate: SG-1 and all related concepts are the property of MGM, while the character of Spike belongs to Joss Whedon and James Marsters, among other people (Also, the original idea for this story came from Jedi Buttercup's 'An Unexpected Gift', so I don't own it either, although I have put my own spin on things, and have been given his full permission to use his idea)
Feedback: I'd appreciate it, of course
The Ghost in the Team
As the majority of SG-1 moved into the main briefing room- Spike, naturally, walking through the wall rather than through the door; if he was going to be like this on a long-term basis he was going to make the most of it- their eyes instantly fell on the small man sitting at the table of the briefing room, a pile of scripts in front of him as he looked anxiously at the door, standing up and breaking into a grin as Sam, Daniel and Teal'c entered the room.
"Hey there, guys!" he said, walking over to enthusiastically shake their hands, apparently unconcerned about their slight hesitation in responding in kind; he was a nice enough guy, but the man's enthusiasm could sometimes be a little off-putting. "How's things since we last met?"
"Oh… the usual," Daniel replied, shrugging slightly as he indicated Mitchell, Vala and Spike. "Been on a few missions, defeated a few Goa'uld, encountered some new adversaries, recruited some new members… stuff like that, you know."
"Gotcha," the man said, before he turned to Mitchell and smiled warmly at the lieutenant colonel. "So, you're Jack O'Neill's replacement, huh? Martin Lloyd, but you can call me Marty; everybody does."
"Uh… I'm Lieutenant Colonel Cameron Mitchell," Mitchell replied, looking somewhat bemusedly at the man before him as he shook the offered hand. "This is Vala Mal Doran- resident former thief- and this is Spike, who's… well, he just got here, really; Landry's working on giving him official clearance to know about everything we do here, so feel free to talk about anything in front of him."
"Oh, you're new?" Marty asked, smiling over at the platinum-haired man as he held out his hand. "Good to meet you; trust me, you're working with some modern-day legends right now…"
Spike just stared at the land as though someone had presented him with a piece of modern art; it almost looked as though he had no idea what he was meant to do with it.
"I can't touch that," he said, looking back at Marty. "Or didn't you notice me walking through the sodding wall to get here?"
"Oh… uh… I assumed that it was just something you liked to do… y'know, like Kitty Pryde in X-Men…" Marty said, looking slightly awkward for a moment before he raised a puzzled eyebrow and studied Spike more closely. "Wait, you mean you're like that all the time? How did that happen? And how come you aren't falling through the floor?"
"That's a rather long and complicated story that has nothing to do with the current issue, Marty; can we just see the scripts you've got for us?" Sam interjected, looking with a mixed expression of apology and frustration as she and the rest of SG-1 sat down around the table. "We may not have much time until the Stargate's ready for us to go through; if we're going to look at these at all, we should probably begin right now."
"Oh… uh… right-o," Marty said, turning back to the table to pass the scripts out among the various members of SG-1. "You guys just… check over the opening scene and tell me what you think of it; I've got a call or two I need to make."
With the last script handed out, he turned around, took his phone out of his pocket, and walked out of the room, leaving the group to look around at each other, shrug, and begin to study the scripts before them. Spike, lacking the ability to sit down or study a script on his own, simply stood at one corner of the table, looking critically at the scripts in Sam and Daniel's hands as the two scientists studied the pages before them.
"Ewoks?" the vampire said after a moment's pause, looking in confusion at the others. "They're having you guys encounter sodding ewoks?"
"Actually," Daniel said, turning to look critically at Spike, "the Furlings are meant to be one of the Four Great Races who lived in this galaxy millennia ago- nobody really knows what happened to them- and we're pretty sure they didn't look like Ewoks; it's just some 'artistic liberty' the producers are taking for the script."
"Ah," Spike said, nodding slightly.
"It's the rest of it that really annoys me," Sam said, indicating the script in frustration. "I mean, we lead the Goa'uld to the Furlings- no matter how unintentionally-, and then the entire planet blows up in the attack? I mean, forget about it just being disrespectful to the Furlings to believe that they could be defeated that easily; it makes us look… stupid."
"You realize it's not actually us," Daniel pointed out, looking over at his friend in a manner that Spike took care to pay attention to.
"OK, OK, but it makes the characters look stupid," Sam said, shaking the script in irritation. "I mean, do you really think the best way to introduce the heroes of the story is to show them causing a massive catastrophe?"
"Well," Mitchell said, in a tone of voice that suggested even he wasn't entirely sure about what he was saying, "you've got to open big… catch people's attention… make them think the whole thing is going to be jam-packed."
"Ooh, I love jam," Vala put in, smiling broadly only for the expression to fade as Mitchell, Daniel, Sam and Spike turned to look at her as though she'd suddenly become green and hadn't fully realised it.
"Oh, I get it," she said, smiling awkward. "It's yet another playful twist on words in your 'Earth' language."
"Sorry; in our 'Earth' language?" Spike interjected, looking over at Vala in surprise. "You mean you're not from Earth?"
"Of course not; I'm the 'space thief' General Landry mentioned earlier," Vala replied, smiling nonchalantly over at Spike as she spoke. "Didn't you guess?"
"Damn…" Spike muttered, as he studied Vala for a moment in a reflective manner. "Gotta admit, you're looking good for someone who didn't come from here; the last sucker I met who wasn't from Earth was a whacked-out indestructible skank who sucked people's brains and turned into a guy at irregular intervals."
Sighing, Mitchell shook his head and turned back to the script before him, although he made a brief note to ask Spike what he'd been talking about with that last comment.
"Look, let's just keep checking this over," he said, as he looked around at the others with a hopeful smile on his face. "C'mon, it'll be fun."
"You know, you say that about everything," Daniel stated, sharing a brief smile with Sam before he sighed as he stared at the script before him. "Come to think of it, why am I even doing this?"
"To make sure that the air force is being properly represented," Landry stated as he walked into his office, looking critically at the team. Daniel raised a hand as though to make a query, but Landry continued by saying "and because general O'Neill has requested you specifically", which proved enough to make Daniel lower his hand and make it into a brief fist.
"Of course he did…" the archaeologist said, sighing in frustration as he sat back in his seat.
"Cheer up, Jackson, willya?" Mitchell asked, smiling encouragingly at his friend. "I mean, how often do we get to give notes on a big Hollywood feature script?
"I believe this is intended to be a television movie," Teal'c pointed out.
"Exactly," Landry said, as he picked up a script and waved it in the air as he looked at the others. "A fictionalized, albeit, slightly ridiculous version of Stargate command is an excellent cover for the real thing in the event of a security leak."
"Plausible deniability," Sam stated, nodding in confirmation.
"I'm sorry, sir; did you say slightly ridiculous?" Daniel asked, prompting another grin from Sam.
"Gotta agree with him there," Spike put in with a slight smile of his own. "There's good-ridiculous- Monty Python, natch- and there's just poor-ridiculous- Shaun of the Dead, anyone? And so far, this thing's just poor-ridiculous."
Turning to look at Spike, Landry treated the vampire to a harsh glare for a few moments before turning back to look at the rest of SG-1
"You're doing this," he said, in a tone that boded no argument. "You have no choice. Just give the man five minutes. I'll get you out of this when the time comes."
"Um…" Vala put in, raising one hand as she used the other to flick through her copy of the script, "I've been looking through this, and there doesn't seem to be any mention of a…sexy female alien…"
Noting Sam's raised and clearly curious eyebrow, Vala looked indignantly at her fellow female teammate.
"Anywhere," she stated, tapping the script in frustration. "I'm not even in this."
"You know," Sam sighed, as she looked around at the others, "the really unbelievable part is that anyone would consider spending millions of dollars on this thing. I mean, seriously, all these writers, and they couldn't come up with anything better?"
"I don't know," Vala said, shrugging slightly. "I've been watching a lot of television lately, and apart from one glaring omission" (Spike doubted there were any prizes for guessing what she was referring to) "it doesn't seem to be that bad."
"Hey; maybe we can make it better," Mitchell put in, smiling hopefully at his friends as he made a few brief notes.
"No… I'm with Sam on this one," Daniel said, shaking his head grimly. "I mean… who makes a movie out of a series that only lasted three episodes?"
"It allegedly performed well on DVD," Teal'c put in, as blunt as ever.
"Yeah, well, I knew some people who could 'act' well in real life and sucked whenever anybody asked them to go onto the stage; just 'cause it does well in one market doesn't mean it'll work in another," Spike interrupted, as he stood in the corner of the room looking critically at the piles of paper spread across the table. "Why the hell that guy thinks something like this could work, I'll never know…"
As though he had been 'summoned' by Spike's comment, Marty chose that moment to walk back into the room, talking animatedly into his mobile.
"No, I'm not using any shots from the series," he said, apparently unconcerned about the presence of the others. "It's a movie, not a clip show. The budget is the budget. They are a bunch of pencil-pushing, bean-counting idiots. You tell them if they don't like it, I'm going to take it somewhere else."
For a brief moment, he turned away from the table, whispering something into his phone- SG-1 vaguely caught the words 'Not to say that last part', but the full details were inaudible- before he continued speaking in a normal voice. "Yeah, movie, not clip show, is fine. Yeah, I got to go. Yeah."
With that, he hung up, and turned to look apologetically at the team sitting around the table. "Cell coverage is just terrible in here," he said, shrugging apologetically. "How's it going? You done?"
None of the team appeared willing to respond to that statement; Spike just raised an eyebrow as though asking what the hell Marty thought he was doing, Sam fiddled with her pen, Daniel just reached over to drink some of his coffee, while Mitchell and Teal'c just stared at the new arrival.
"Well," Vala said, finally breaking the silence, "it... certainly seems to be packed full of 'jam'."
Martin sighed slightly as he stared up at the ceiling.
"I knew I should have given you my first draft," he said dejectedly. "The… the producer brought in… the other writers."
"I thought you were the sodding producer," Spike asked, looking critically at the man before them.
"No-Yeah, the real one," Marty said apologetically, before he sighed and sat down in one of the other chairs. "Uh, look, just… be honest. I… I trust you guys. That's why I'm here. Just tell me what you think."
For a moment, there was silence, broken only by the slight movement of Daniel checking his watch, clearly wondering how long it would be until the Stargate was working.
"Come on," Marty said, looking pleadingly at the group, "you must have some ideas. Don't be afraid. Just pitch them out."
When silence remained in the room, Marty waved a hand promptingly. "We call it spinning," he explained, as he looked around at the team. "Don't worry. No one's going to judge you."
Finally, Mitchell broke the silence.
"OK," he said, as he glanced at his notepad, "for starters, I think you need a strong opening title sequence."
"Are you serious?" Marty said, laughing slightly as he looked at the SG-1 commander. "No one does that anymore. You just throw up the title and get on with it."
"Ah," Mitchell said, sighing slightly before a smile suddenly spread across his face as he glanced back at Marty. "Hey, how's about this; I'm running through the SGC corridors, guns blazing, as the entire staff have been turned into… well, zombies. I get Walter to dial the Stargate to ditch the tel'chak device- only way to stop the zombie thing- just as he's being eaten in the control room, I'm being backed up to the Stargate surrounding by the undead, and then…"
Raising his hands, Mitchell pointed the fingers out like gun barrels as people had done the world over since the gun was invented, and 'fired' at his teammates, accompanying his actions with a brief 'Bam, bam!' as he did so.
"Look," Marty said, looking uncomfortably at Mitchell, "uh… no offence, but zombies have been done to death."
As though realising what he'd just said, he appeared to inwardly curse before continuing to speak. "Uh… no… pun intended."
"Good, 'cause it would've sucked anyway," Spike interjected.
"Besides," Marty continued, as though the 'ghost' hadn't spoken in the first place, "this is science fiction, not horror."
"Did I mention the tel'chak device?" Mitchell asked, looking inquiringly at Marty. " "'Cause that's what turned them into zombies."
"The wha?" Spike asked, looking over at Daniel in confusion.
"It's a piece of technology constructed by the Ancients- the people who built the Stargate- that can heal people so extensively that it can- theoretically, at least; the version we discovered apparently had a few design problems and we've never discovered a more efficient version- bring them back from the dead," Daniel explained as he looked at Spike.
"Ah," Spike said simply, tilting his head to one side as he looked at the archaeologist. "What kind of-"
Spike's question, however, was interrupted by the ringing of Marty's cell phone.
"Oh, sorry," the man said, smiling apologetically at the team as he pulled the phone out and put it to his ear. "Go for Marty. Oh…hey…Charlie. What's up?"
Noting the inquiring looks he was drawing from the rest of the people in the room, he briefly whispered to them, "It's the studio", before returning to the phone in his hand.
"What kind of problem?" he asked as he walked out of the door, leaving SG-1 and spike to sit in the briefing room staring at the script.
"Just out of curiosity," Daniel asked, turning to look at Mitchell, an action that was soon copied by the rest of SG-1, "what was the rest of the team doing while your character was fighting the zombies?"
Fortunately for Mitchell, he was saved from answering the question by Marty's return to the room.
"Son of a bitch!" he groaned, as he slammed a frustrated hand against the wall.
"Studio executives, huh?" Mitchell asked, seizing on the chance to talk about something else.
"What?" Marty asked, looking in confusion at the SG-1 commander before realisation dawned and he shook his head. "Oh… No, Charlie…no…he's a great guy. He's the only one I trust."
"So what's the problem then?" Spike inquired.
"Our lead backed out." Marty groaned. "I mean… How am I supposed to tell a story without my lead character?"
"Easy," Mitchell put in, smiling. "Just bring in a character to replace him."
Silence settled over the room as the rest of the group stared critically at him.
"What?" he said, prompting a despairing shake of the head from Sam.
"You guys have to help me," Marty protested as he looked at the team. "I mean, how can I keep the main character in the story without actually having the actor who plays him?"
"Well…" Sam said, shrugging slightly, "you could have the other characters refer to him all the time… maybe… get him on the phone once in a while."
"Oh, yeah, right," Marty said, laughing slightly before his expression once again became more anxious. "I mean… something cool, like…um… face-switching or body-swapping?
"As if anyone would believe that," Vala laughed, prompting a brief glare from Daniel that prompted Spike to make a mental note to ask about that as soon as he could.
"Come on," Marty protested, looking hopefully at the team, "you guys must have some real-life experiences I can draw on."
"Oh…" Sam put in, as inspiration seemed to hit her. "Well, there was that time that Colonel O'Neill was invisible."
"He what?" Vala asked, looking in surprise at her teammate.
"Yeah, he was bombarded by the particle field being emanated by the cloaking generator of a ship we were on during a mission, resulting in him being rendered totally invisible," Sam explained; given how much this reminded him of something he'd seen in Star Trek- the new prequel series, to be exact- Spike wasn't sure if she was being serious or not. "It got more than slightly frustrating, really; he was never there when we thought we were talking to him, he sneaked into… rooms where he wasn't wanted… and generally took the opportunity to play little jokes on the rest of us in the process."
"Mmm…" Marty said, nodding thoughtfully for a moment, before he finally shook his head. "It might feel like kind of a… cheat."
"Maybe it's best just not to mention the guy at all," Mitchell added.
"Yeah..." Marty agreed, before shrugging and looking apologetically at Sam. "Besides, invisibility can be very powerful. You might not want to open that can of worms; you don't want your heroes to become too powerful."
"Well… you could always invent some negative side-effects," Sam pointed out. "That's how we talked Colonel O'Neill into becoming visible again.
"Yeah, tell me about it; nothing that cool ever comes for free," Spike snorted from off to the side. "I… knew… a girl who became invisible once; for some reason it would've caused her body to fall apart if she'd stayed like that for too long."
"Really?" Marty asked, looking over at Spike with renewed eagerness. "You mean that stuff actually works? Can you remember anything about how the process actually worked? Could you-"
"OK, that's it," Landry said, walking into the room before Marty could even finish his sentence. "SG-1, you are cleared to leave."
"Thank you!" Daniel sighed as he jumped up, looking in relief at Landry. "See what you can do about getting Spike official clearance while we're away; we'll be back as soon as the mission's over."
"They can't leave!" Marty yelled as SG-1 walked out of the room. "They haven't finished reading my script!"
"Funny thing; last time I checked, he was in charge here," Spike put in with a slight smirk.
"Quite," Landry nodded, before looking critically over at Spike. "And don't interrupt me; just because you're a 'ghost' doesn't give you the right to be insubordinate."
"Sorry, 'boss'," Spike said nonchalantly as he jerked a thumb at the departing SG-1. "By the way, where are they going? Daniel mentioned it was a 'recon' mission, but is there anything else to it?"
"No, it's just a recon mission," Landry replied, shrugging slightly as he looked at Spike. "The only special thing about it- according to Colonel Mitchell, at least; I haven't actually checked yet to see if he's being accurate- is that it's his two-hundredth trip through the Stargate; that's apparently counting trips back and forth through the Stargate, rather than just actual missions."
"Ah," Spike said, nodding slightly before he raised an eyebrow. "By the way, since I'll probably be hanging around for a while, where is this 'Stargate' thing you keep talking about anyway?"
"Oh, you want to see it?" Landry said, smiling casually at Spike as he walked over to touch a button on the side of one wall of the room. "Just look this way."
Before Spike could ask what Landry meant by that, what he'd previously assumed to be a solid wall literally rose up towards the ceiling, leaving a large glass window through which Spike could see an underground room of significant size.
Right in the middle of the room, with a metal ramp leading up to it, was a large ring, made of some material Spike couldn't immediately identify. Almost large enough to reach the top of the room, it had seven triangle-like shapes positioned along its outer rim, with small symbols that Spike couldn't quite identify from this distance, drawn on the inner ring. As he watched the Stargate before him, the inner ring began to spin, almost as though it was 'powering up', a theory that was reinforced when some of the triangle-like shapes began to light up (Accompanied by a voice yelling stuff like "Chevron one encoded!")…
Then, right in front of Spike, the gate suddenly powered down, just as Spike had noticed his new 'acquaintances' (It was still too early to think of them as friends) standing in front of it, Mitchell looking eagerly at the gate before him.
"Eh?" the 'ghost' said, looking inquiringly over at Landry. "What's that all about?"
"Problems with the Stargate," Landry said, shrugging apologetically at Spike. "Sorry; looks like you'll have to wait a bit longer to see the thing in action."
"Oh, great!" Marty yelled, jumping up from his seat, prompting brief glares from Spike and Landry. "I mean… well, now they have to look at my script!"
"Joy…" Spike muttered as he slumped against the wall- or rather, tried to slump; he nearly fell through the thing again before he regained his balance. "I'm sure they're just going to love that."
A few minutes later, as work on the script continued while Sam studied the Stargate's control systems, Spike's prediction was rapidly looking far more accurate than even he could have guessed; having just read a scene where the fictional version of the team had managed to escape a veritable army of killer cyborgs and alien warriors, Spike had only one question to ask the guy sitting at the table before him.
"How the sodding hell did they escape from that?" the vampire once known as William the Bloody asked, voicing the opinion of his new friends before any of them could even speak; he may not know much about what these people tackled on a regular basis, but even he doubted numbers like that could ever be easily dealt with.
"Isn't it obvious?" Marty asked hopefully.
"Even if the valley wasn't filled with Jaffa," Mitchell stated grimly, "we could never have made it to the gate and dialled out in under 10 seconds."
"Good!" Marty smiled, clapping his hands together once as he nodded eagerly at Mitchell. "See, that's why we're here. So, what do you think? 30 seconds? Maybe not such a round number. How about 38?"
"What difference does it make?" Daniel said as he looked at the man in front of him. "I mean, it's not like you're going to have an actual ticking clock on the screen."
"That's brilliant!" Marty yelled, pointing at the archaeologist.
"OK, I've changed my earlier opinion; now it's stupid-ridiculous," Spike interjected.
"Trust me," Marty said, smiling in what Spike assumed was a reassuring manner at him. "Jeopardy plus ticking clock is box office. It's the emc2 Of the entertainment world. Ask any executive."
"Except I think you've replaced jeopardy with certain death," Vala stated.
"Oh, come on," Marty said, looking dejectedly at the team, "you guys have escaped situations more dire than this before."
To Spike's surprise, Mitchell nodded.
"He has a point," he said simply.
"Care to give an example?" Spike asked critically.
"Well, there was the time these guys had to destroy two Goa'uld motherships while they were in orbit of Earth and get off the ship alive," Mitchell explained nonchalantly. "I'd call that pretty more extreme."
"Ah," Spike stated; he knew it was stupid, but he genuinely couldn't think of anything else he could say.
He had to admit, that was somewhat more serious; at least in the situation in the script the guys could have just tried to hide and wait for another opportunity to try to get away…
OK, so that wasn't likely to have happened- from what he'd read of the bad guys they faced Spike doubted they'd have stopped looking just because they couldn't find them at first- but it would still have been at least an option.
"Why not just show the actual escape?" Daniel interjected.
"Oh, no, no, no," Marty said, shaking his head resolvedly. "You can't give away too much too early. It'll step on the ending."
"Maybe if my character doesn't say, "this is a problem"," Mitchell suggested, raising his hand. "He could say something like, "this should be easy"."
"How many times do I have to tell you?" Marty asked, looking in frustration at Mitchell. "It's not you; Colonel Danning is based on Colonel O'Neill."
"What, the guy who asked them all to do this thing in the first place?" Spike asked, raising an inquiring eyebrow as he looked at Marty.
Before Marty could reply, Sam came up the stairs from the control room, shrugging helplessly as she looked at Mitchell, clearly anticipating his question before he'd even asked it.
"No luck with getting the Stargate working again; I'm sorry," she said apologetically as she turned to look at the rest of the team. "We're running another diagnostic, but right now, we're stumped. Power's getting through to the capacitors, but for some reason, the charge isn't holding. That's causing the control crystal to send feedback into the interface and reset the programming code of the base computer's dialling protocol."
"Uh… can we have that in English?" Spike asked hopefully; he hadn't heard that much technobabble since… hell, ever; not even Willow in her 'geeky' stage had talked that much gibberish.
"Whoa!" Marty smiled eagerly. "That was awesome! Say that again!"
"No," Sam stated simply.
"Oh," Marty groaned, before smiling as inspiration struck him. Uh, everybody, take five. I've got to get that down before I forget it." As Sam headed down stairs, Marty continued to mutter the phrase under his breath- sounding to Spike like he was getting some of the details wrong- only to be interrupted by Vala walking over to him.
"Hey," the former thief said to him. "Forget about the techno-talk; no one's really interested in it."
"Uh… you're an alien, right?" Marty said as he looked uncertainly at her.
"Exactly," Vala said, nodding at him. "Trust me, I know just what this movie needs."
"Look," Marty stated as he looked critically at her, "no offence, but you're from another planet; how would you know what sci-fi fans from Earth would be interested in?"
"Aren't you also an alien?" Vala pointed out.
"Yeah, but I've been here quite a while," Marty said, shrugging dismissively.
"Yeah, sure," Vala said, nodding briefly at him. "Look, I think I know a good story when I hear one. Don't you want this movie to appeal to a broad range of people?"
"From Earth," Marty stated bluntly as he looked at Vala.
"Look," Vala insisted, "I have had all kinds of fabulous adventures, none of which have been classified by the Air Force; you can feel free to use any of them for the plot of your movie. How's this; I was in a stolen cargo ship on my way home when a solar flare from a nearby star wreaked havoc with my navigation system, and I was forced to crash-land on the nearest planet."
"OK…" Marty said, nodding thoughtfully as he listened to her.
"In a bizarre twist of fate," Vala continued, "I crashed right on top of the Goa'uld who ruled that planet, which was fortunate because my ship was too badly damaged to repair, and I needed help. The local villagers were very grateful. They introduced me to a lovely fair-haired Tok'ra who had been hiding out on the planet. She told me the legend of a powerful ascended being who supposedly lived in some distant, far-off mountains-"
"Hold on," Spike interjected, looking in frustration at Vala. "That's not something you did; that's the sodding Wizard of Oz!"
"Oh…you've seen that one?" Vala asked, looking over at Spike with raised eyebrows.
"Uh, yeah…" Marty said, looking gratefully at Spike before he picked up a pad of paper and made a few quick notes. "Look, as far as the movie goes, how's this for an idea? Your characters are discussing a problem with the Stargate, they try to get it working, something goes wrong- maybe the thing starts drawing too much energy from the capacitors-, you all do your best, but the doors are electrified, you're in lockdown, the mountain blows up just as a code red evacuation is declared…"
Setting his pen down, Marty smiled casually at the staring faces around him as he folded his hands behind his head, "…and that is the end of Act Two."
Daniel blinked.
"The mountain...blows up?" he said incredulously.
"No possible hope for survival," Marty said, grinning broadly. "Cool, huh? I just wrote it based on what's going on with the gate. I love it when art imitates life."
"Hang on..." Mitchell commented, as he glanced at the script, "according to this thing, we're all still alive at the beginning of Act Three."
"Oh, I just haven't fixed that part yet," Marty explained nonchalantly. "I'm thinking I can back-sell it and say you were beamed out at the last second."
"Beamed out?" Spike said incredulously. "What is this, sodding Star Trek? I thought you guys used the sodding Stargate to get about, not bloody spaceships!"
"Well, we've got spaceships, we just don't use them that much for actual travel…" Sam explained, before she shook her head and turned to look critically at Marty. "And isn't it too convenient that there happened to be a spaceship near enough to beam us out just at the last minute?"
"Not if you hang a lantern on it," Marty replied simply.
"Eh?" Spike stated. "What does a sodding lantern have to do with anything?"
"It's a writer's term," Marty replied nonchalantly. "Another character points out how convenient it is; Dr. Levant can say, 'Wow, that was great timing'…"
He shrugged dismissively. "That way the audience knows I intended for it to be convenient, and we move on."
"Really?" Mitchell stated sceptically.
"OK…" Marty said, looking sheepishly down at the script, "where were we?"
"Scene 24," Teal'c said grimly.
"Oh, great, one of my favourite scenes," Marty said with a broad smile. "Go ahead."
"Well," Vala said casually, "interior bridge… the crews man their stations… One of the crew reports that the singularity is about to implode… Weapons are ordered to be put at maximum… a solar flare is heading for the ship…"
"Hold on a sodding minute," Spike stated grimly, "is this script for that Wormhole X-Treme thing or is it sodding Star Trek?"
"What's wrong with it?" Marty asked in a nonchalant manner.
"Spike has a point; I mean, 'The singularity is about to explode'?" Sam stated sceptically. "Everything about that statement is wrong."
"How exactly is having weapons at maximum going to help the situation?" Daniel added, his voice practically dripping with sarcasm.
"The audience isn't going to know the difference," Marty said casually. "They love 'weapons at maximum'."
"Is that your solution to everything?" Spike stated sarcastically as he stared at Marty. "When you're stuck for a plot, have something blow up? How the hell you ever wrote anything that somebody liked, I'll never know…"
"I too do not understand why everything in this script must inevitably explode," Teal'c put in.
"Yeah, tell me about it," Spike put in, glancing critically at Martin. "I've been in explosions myself once or twice; it's cool to watch, but there's no fun to be had in actually being in them."
"Look," Marty said, apparently ignoring Spike's comment about being actually in explosions, "you guys may all know how things really work out there in the galaxy, but I know the film business. Explosions make great trailers. Simple fact."
Once again, Spike raised his eyebrows slightly as he saw Sam and Daniel exchange a look and a smile with each other; if there wasn't something going on between the two of them, he'd be very surprised.
"More explosions, better trailer," Marty continued. "Better trailer, more viewers-"
Whatever he'd been about to say was interrupted by his cellphone ringing again.
"Yeah…" he said, reaching into his pocket and pressing the button to accept the call, "Go for Marty. Oh, hey, Nora… What?" he asked, his eyes widening in frustration. "That's ridiculous. Tell them to stop panicking. We're gonna sign him. Don't worry. I already put in a call in to his manager. We'll get back to you. Yeah. Bye."
With that, he hung up the call and looked apologetically at the team.
"Trouble with Nora?" Spike said, smirking slightly at the man before him.
If this was what the motion picture business was like, he hoped he never got his own movie; there were some things that should just be left alone, really.
"No; Nora- she's great," Marty explained, before he groaned before slumping down in his chair. "But since Nick Marlowe is holding out, one of the new junior executives at the network has suggested we re-cast the whole movie with younger, edgier versions of the team. Can you imagine that?"
"Mmm…" Daniel mused slightly as he looked up slightly, before shaking his head.
"No," he said simply.
"Uh-uh," Carter agreed, shaking her head.
"I've only just got here, and even I can guess that an idea like that would just be majorly stupid," Spike stated bluntly as he glared at Marty.
"Nope," Mitchell stated simply.
For a moment, Marty just sat there as Teal'c stared grimly at him, until he finally stood up.
"I need a latte," he said simply as he headed for the exit.
"Look," Vala asked, standing up and moving to follow Marty, "how about this one? We were in a cloaked cargo ship on a simple, three-hour reconnaissance mission, when—"
"Oh, now you're ripping off Gilligan's Island?" Spike groaned as he looked at her.
Vala blinked.
"You got that from 'three-hour reconnaissance mission'?" she said sceptically as she looked at the vampire.
"At least try something a bit more obscure…" Spike sighed as he looked at the alien thief.
"Oh, OK," Vala said casually. "How about this; we're on a living spaceship-"
"Oh, now you're trying Farscape?" Spike groaned. "Can't you at least make some effortto come up with something on your own?"
Before Marty could reply, his cell phone beeped.
"Oh, for crying out loud, what now?" he groaned as he pulled out the phone, red the message, and groaned.
"Oh, give me a break!" he said, sighing as he walked back over to sit beside the others. "I just a got a text message from the studio. The foreign distributor went bankrupt; they're slashing my budget.
"You got that in a text message?" Sam said sceptically.
"This totally screws up the end of act three!" Marty said, apparently ignorant of what she'd just asked him.
"What happens at the end of act three?" Mitchell put in.
"With these cuts… not much." Marty sighed, as he slumped back into his chair. "Act three just… ends."