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
The subsequent couple of days travel in the Odyssey progressed relatively smoothly, even with the obvious gloom that had settled over the group at the thought of the new war with the Lucian Alliance that had just been unwillingly declared.
The crew as a whole were reluctant to push the engines too far until they were certain that everything had been completely tested, so the Odyssey was merely maintaining a comfortable cruising speed until they arrived at a planet with a Stargate so that they could get better equipment to carry out the remaining repairs. With Sam, Vala and Mitchell doing what they could to contribute to the repair work- Vala and Mitchell's knowledge might be basic but it was still better than most-, Spike found himself with little else to do the following morning but head off to Daniel's office to try and see how things were progressing for the archaeologist.
"Hey there, Danny-boy," Spike said, poking his head through the door of the archaeologist's room with a casual shrug, his new friend sitting in front of a computer idly studying the information it displayed. "How's tricks?"
"Well, I know what I'm doing, I just don't quite know where to go from here," Daniel replied, turning to face Spike as the intangible vampire walked into the room. "It's like... look, you remember what we told you about the Sangraal during your briefings?"
"That weapon thing that Merlin developed to destroy Ascended beings?" Spike responded (A part of him had almost regretted his usual disinclination for much interest in the supernatural elements of his vampiric background; the idea of the mystical Merlin being an alien was something that would have probably made Rupert wear a hole in his glasses, he'd have been rubbing them so much...). "What about it?"
"Well, I've been looking over what we've found out about it so far, but I'm just having trouble finding the common factor," Daniel explained, as he indicated the display currently on his screen, which showed three planets highlighted. "These are the locations of the planets that Arthur and his knights set off to in their quest for the Sangreal. Castiana, Sahal, and Vagonbrei. Now we searched all three and came up empty, so I thought it was a dead end, until I noticed this..."
As Daniel tapped a few buttons on the keyboard, the display changed to focus on the relative positions of the three planets in relation to each other, another tap of a button creating equal-length lines between the planets, as they were displayed in a two-dimensional format on the screen before the archaeologist and the vampire.
"Their coordinates form an equilateral triangle," Daniel continued with a slight smile. "Now, add in the knight's departure point- which we've come to refer to as the 'Camelot' planet-, and you get..."
As he tapped another key on the computer, a fourth point appeared on the screen, causing the display before them to move into a more three-dimensional shape that displayed a wire diagram of a pyramid connecting the four planets.
"A pyramid?" Spike said, looking at the sight before him in surprise. "I'm guessing that's not exactly normal?"
"It's distinctive, anyway," Daniel replied with a nod. "It means something; I'm just not sure what..."
"Maybe there's something in the pattern?" Spike asked with an uncertain shrug.
Daniel blinked.
"Pardon?" he said, looking at the vampire uncertainly.
"Y'know, maybe it's meant to be a diamond and there's another planet at the bottom point that's what you're looking for?" Spike asked with an uncertain shrug. "Or, y'know, maybe there's something in the middle of the triangle that-"
"The middle..." Daniel whispered, his eyes widening as he leaned over and began to rapidly tap at the keys on his computer, a smile on his face as he contemplated the implications of his latest idea.
"What?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at Daniel. "Did I say something wrong?"
"No... actually, that might be it..." Daniel said, looking at Spike with an approving smile at the vampire's sudden insight. "Maybe if I had Sam run all three addresses, we could find a planet that exists at a location where it combines symbols from the addresses of all three of these worlds..."
"What, you mean you stick them all together and work it out from there?" Spike asked, looking uncertainly at the archaeologist. "That's... a bit of a leap, isn't it?"
"If you're anyone but Daniel, yes," a voice said from the door, prompting Daniel and Spike to turn around and look at the door in surprise, Sam Carter casually standing in the door as she looked at her two colleagues with a slight smile. "Trust me, Spike; when it comes to intuitive leaps, Daniel's one of the best people I know."
"OK, so maybe I've made a few correct guesses-" Daniel said awkwardly.
"A few?" Sam repeated, looking at him with a wider smile. "Daniel, aren't you forgetting which of us was the one who figured out how we could use the addresses on the Abydos cartouche to calculate the current location of the planets involved with no prior knowledge of astrophysics?"
Spike wasn't sure what Sam meant by that, but judging by the slightly embarrassed expression on Daniel's face it was probably something that had been fairly significant at the time, and he made a mental note to find out more so that he could tease his new friend about it as soon as possible.
"Anyway," he said, deciding that he might as well get their attention back to the more immediately relevant issue at this point- much as he'd like to tease Daniel and/or Sam about this, he could do that later; with a galaxy potentially at stake, they had more important things to worry about right now-, "you think that could work?"
"Putting three planets together to use the Stargate addresses you get from combining those chevrons to find where they hid the Sangraal?" Sam said, shrugging slightly as she looked thoughtfully at the screen. "It's possible, I admit; I'd just prefer to take a look at it once we've managed to get the Odyssey somewhere where it can be repaired; right now I'd prefer to focus on the more immediate problem of getting back in contact with Earth."
"Fair enough," Spike said with a confirming nod before he shot a brief smile at his two friends. "In the meantime, maybe the two of you could see about catching a movie of something- think I saw something about a DVD library somewhere around here when I was wandering around-; y'know, give yourselves a break while we sort out the fine details?"
With that, he turned around and walked out through the wall of the room, leaving the archaeologist and the astrophysicist to exchange uncertain glances with each other while the vampire chuckled slightly.
He knew that it was a cheap way to go about getting people to stop talking about anything going on with him and Vala, but he couldn't help it; something about the idea of those two getting together really kind of appealed to him...
Bloody romantic, he scolded himself, with a mix of frustration and resignation in his thoughts
Why was it that even after over a century in existence, he was still 'love's bitch'...?
Later that day, the Odyssey finally managed to reach a planet with a Stargate, the crew subsequently dialling Earth and requesting assistance to complete what repairs were left. With the planet being relatively uninhabited although otherwise in good condition, the crew were able to land the ship directly in order to help facilitate the reconstruction efforts around the hull and the engines without worrying about needing spacesuits, leaving SG-1 free to return to Earth and continue to follow up Daniel's latest theory (Spike wondered if he should insist on 'credit' for some of it, but decided it wasn't worth making a big thing about it; he didn't even know if the damn idea would work, after all).
As Spike walked through the Stargate and subsequently out of Mitchell's body- and how long would it take for him to ever feel comfortable doing that; he still felt like he was wearing something that was a bit too tight when he started out?-, he was surprised to see General Landry standing at the end of the ramp, a pointed glare on the general's face that automatically shifted in his direction as soon as he'd stepped out of his current 'lift'.
It might have been a couple of days since they'd last spoken to the general directly, but he didn't think there'd been anything in their reports on the situation to suggest that something had happened that Landry needed to take a more personal interest in...
"Spike," Landry said, walking over to stand slightly closer to the vampire, his glare now fixed on the other man's eyes in a manner that was somehow intimidating even with Spike's knowledge that Landry couldn't hurt him, "would you care to tell me what the hell you are doing ordering packages for this address?"
"Huh?" Spike said, looking at the colonel in confusion. "Someone sent me something?"
Landry's glare faded at the obvious confusion on the vampire's face.
"You didn't know?" he said, looking in slight surprise at the vampire. "I thought you'd just gone and ordered something for yourself online when we lost track of you..."
"Well, I didn't; how the bloody hell am I meant to have ordered something anyway?" Spike asked, looking at the colonel in frustration. "Aside from the fact that I don't even know what our mailing address is here, in case you didn't notice, I don't exactly have credit cards on me, stealing someone else's wouldn't exactly be practical even if I knew where anyone kept anything, and I spent most of the last few years after the 'net kicked off living in a crypt or on the road; when you're a vampire sticking around somewhere long enough to even think about having stuff sent to you by mail tends to be a bit stupid..."
He paused for a moment in reflection before he shrugged. "Well, Dru did it once or twice, but she was just nuts and we didn't always get it anyway..."
"OK, putting your past aside and getting back to the more... immediate situation," Daniel put in, shooting a brief glare at Spike before he turned to address Landry once again, "what exactly is the 'package'?"
"All we've been able to determine so far is that it's an apparently normal box; we've no idea what's in it or what it's doing here, unfortunately," Landry replied before he turned to look at Spike. "In your absence- particularly given the circumstances under which you joined us in the first place-, I had the science teams carry out a couple of quick scans on the box just in case we could determine something about it that way, but nothing unusual came up in our analysis of it. The best we can determine is that whatever's in there is giving off some strange kind of energy, but we have no real idea what it is beyond the fact that it's similar to the readings we've detected from the amulet, and nobody's entirely sure about what would happen if we opened it."
"What, you're thinking someone sent Spike something that would make him... go into the light or something?" Mitchell asked.
"We thought about it, but we just didn't know," Landry replied with a grim shrug. "We've been waiting for you to get back so you could have a look at it yourself, Colonel Carter, but so far the only option we've got left is to actually open it..."
"Well, I'll take a look, but given our limited knowledge of... what brought Spike here... opening it could be our only option," Sam said with an uncertain shrug before she looked over at Spike with a slight smile. "Don't worry, though; we'll open it in the sub-basement-"
"The sub-basement?" Spike repeated in surprise. "We're already underground; what do you need a sub-basement for?"
"We have a room in the lower areas of the base that we sometimes use when experimenting with potentially volatile chemicals," Sam explained with a slightly reassuring smile. "It's lead-sealed and isolated from the rest of the base. Since we're not certain about the contents of the box, we can open it there; anything potentially dangerous inside it should be contained fairly securely..."
"How securely are we talking here?" Spike asked, looking pointedly at Sam.
"We once used the room to contain an explosive blast that would have been powerful enough to level this entire base if it had taken place anywhere else on-site," Sam replied.
Spike could only nod at that.
"Well... go ahead," he said with a brief nod before a thought occurred to him. "Just don't ask me to watch it; some things can get you just by you lookin' at them-"
"Don't make you watch it opening up; understood," Sam said, nodding reassuringly at Spike before she turned
"So," Mitchell asked, looking over at Spike in slight confusion, "with the question of what we're doing with the box, that just leaves the question of who the hell would send post to a ghost?"
The lieutenant colonel paused and held up one hand, a thoughtful expression on his face as he processed what he'd just said, before he groaned in frustration. "I can't believe I just said that..."
"Well... we won't hold it against you if you don't," Vala said, smiling nonchalantly at Mitchell before she looked at Daniel. "So, where do we watch this box being opened?"
A few minutes later, Spike having been left in a disused office to avoid the possibility of being accidentally exposed to anything, the rest of the team sat in the lab watching as Sam manoeuvred the robotic arms of the sub-basement towards the box.
"Once again, you're sure it's safe?" Mitchell asked as he glanced at Sam. "I've heard some of Spike's stories; I'm not exactly keen to let out some kind of... deranged Indian spirit or something like that..."
"The room's secure, Cam; we'll be fine," Sam said, nodding reassuringly at her friend before she turned her attention back to the matter at hand. "OK then; here we go..."
Reaching out with the mechanical arms, she carefully opened the box, which released a brief flash of light that momentarily filled the room before it vanished, leaving SG-1 looking at what seemed to be nothing more than an empty box.
"Huh," Mitchell said, looking over at his team. "Very 'all flash and no substance', wasn't it?"
"Could somebody have attempted to send Spike a spell for some purpose?" Teal'c asked.
"Well... it's possible, I suppose," Sam said, even as the slight twitch at the corner of her mouth hinted at her discomfort at the idea of legitimately considering magic as an explanation for something they'd encountered. "The energy readings we got from the box were definitely similar to what we've been detecting from the amulet, but there's still no way to know what it was meant to be capable of; we just don't have enough information about magic to figure it out..."
"OK, so if we can't get anything that way, any way we can figure out where the parcel itself came from?" Mitchell asked.
"Not likely," Sam replied with an apologetic shake of her head. "It's a good idea, don't get me wrong, but without a return address on the package, our only clue is the fact that whoever sent this addressed it to the Cheyenne Mountain Facility rather than to the SGC. Whoever sent this might not know where Spike really is, but that doesn't exactly help us work out how anyone with these resources would know he was here in the first place; outside of us, the only person on Earth who knows that Spike's here is Agent Finn, and he didn't strike me as the wizard kind of person..."
"Ah well," Mitchell said, shrugging slightly dismissively. "You win some, you lose some; no harm, no foul, so let's just forget this and move on."
"Damnit!" Lindsey roared, slamming one hand against the wall when the spell he'd cast to check on Spike's status showed no signs that anything had changed.
Great... he groaned, slumping down in his desk as he stared at the wall in frustration. All that effort to get that spell shipped, and the damn thing was a dud?
How the hell was he meant to convince Spike to go anywhere now? As long as Spike was tied to the amulet, there was no chance of making him go somewhere else on his own, and even with his recent mystical upgrades, he was still reluctant to actually break into a secret military facility, particularly when he didn't know what was so secret about it; if he stumbled into another mess like that 'Initiative' that had been set up in Sunnydale a few years back he'd really be screwed...
Right now, unless he could come up with something else, it looked like his plans to undermine Angel's self-confidence had just hit a serious snag...
"Back to the drawing-board," he reflected in frustration, pushing his plans for Spike to the side as he turned his attention back to the more immediate issue.
Actually, maybe he could do a better job without Spike; if Angel didn't know who was responsible for the 'vigilante vamp stakings' he'd been planning to arrange for Spike, it might make him more frustrated with his current role...