A Dream Given Form

A Babylon5 / Stargate SG-1 Crossover

By Nicholas Nada

Become the Dreamer, open your eyes

Become the Keeper, free your mind

Become the Builder, destroy the bridge

Become the Sleeper – Awaken!

Daniel Jackson took off his glasses, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. As he did so, he became aware that the talk around the meeting table had died down.

"Are you okay, Doctor Jackson?" asked General Hammond.

"Uh, yeah," replied Daniel. "Just tired, I guess. I've been having these odd dreams lately and haven't been getting much sleep."

"Do you need to be excused?"

"No, no," said Daniel, suppressing a wince of pain. "I'll be fine, really."

Hammond regarded Daniel for a moment longer, then turned back to Major Samantha Carter, who was standing beside a large screen that cycled slowly through some grainy aerial intelligence photos. "Major, please continue."

"Thank you, sir," said Sam, casting a concerned glance at Daniel before turning back to the screen. "As you can see from these UAV images, the defences around the installation are slight at best. I don't think they're expecting an attack."

"It is most likely a trap," said Teal'c.

"Of course it's a trap!" said Colonel Jack O'Neill. "Like the Goa'uld are just gonna leave a big, honkin' weapons cache like that unguarded."

"With respect, sir, I disagree," said Sam, turning back to the screen behind her. "These next pictures were taken only two hours ago and you can clearly see – "

She broke off as Daniel gave a cry of pain and fell from his chair, clutching his head.

Hammond leapt to his feet. "Get a medical team to take him to the infirmary, now!"

Jack and Teal'c held Daniel's shoulders as he writhed on the floor until Doctor Janet Fraiser and her medical team arrived.

"Become the Sleeper," muttered Daniel as he was lifted onto a medical gurney. "Destroy… bridge…"

Daniel awoke in the infirmary, a nurse leaning over him.

"Doctor Fraiser," the nurse called out. "He's conscious."

Janet Fraiser moved quickly to his bedside. "How are you feeling, Daniel?"

"Fine," said Daniel, with a confused frown. "I don't know what you did, but I feel… fine."

"I didn't do a thing, I'm afraid," said Janet. "There was nothing we could do, except administer a sedative and wait for the seizure to pass. We ran a CAT scan while you were unconscious and found no anomalous readings. Everything looks as though you're in perfect health. Well, sudden seizures aside."

Daniel laughed. "So, you're saying there's nothing wrong with me, except for whatever's wrong with me?"

Janet smiled warmly. "Hey, you don't like the bedside manner? Find another doctor."

Daniel swung his legs over the side of the bed. "No," he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "No need for a second opinion."

"Does he at least get a lollipop for being good?" said a voice from the doorway.

"Jack, hi," said Daniel. "I was just coming to see you."

"Feeling better, are we?"

"Much, thank you. That's not why I wanted to speak to you, though."

"Oh?"

"I wanted to tell you about the dreams I've been having," said Daniel.

Jack winced and looked to Doctor Fraiser. "Don't we have psychiatric professionals for this sort of thing, Doc?"

"Cute," replied Daniel, unamused. "No, I think they're more than just dreams."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "More than just dreams? Seriously, Janet, are you absolutely sure he's safe to be let out of here?"

"Come on, Jack," said Daniel. "I'm serious. I think they're a communication of some kind."

"All right," said Jack, still sounding sceptical. "Let's go talk it over in the refectory. I get the feeling I'm gonna need a serious amount of pie to get through this one."

Later that day, SG-1 was back around the long table in the briefing room with General Hammond. Daniel shifted uncomfortably in his chair, although this time it was due to embarrassment rather than pain.

"I know," he said. "It sounds ridiculous, but it was so clear."

"And you say this being, what was his name – Kesh?" started Sam.

"Kosh," said Daniel.

"You're saying this 'Kosh' gave you a Gate address?"

"Don't forget the poem," put in Jack. "It came with a little poem, too."

Daniel frowned. "Look, I don't know what it was all about. All I know is that I had a dream about someone who called himself Kosh, spouted a lot of mystic mumbo-jumbo, indicated that he needed our help and showed me a Gate address. He said something about a 'bridge'. It makes no sense, I feel a fool even bringing it up here, but what if it is something more?"

"It can't hurt to dial the address," offered Sam. "If it doesn't connect to a Gate, what have we lost?"

General Hammond sat back in his chair, silent for a moment, pondering his decision. "Agreed," he said at last. "Let's give it a try."

The great wheel of the Stargate spun in its housing, coming to rest at the last of Daniel's Gate coordinates. The final chevron slammed into place and locked, the swirling blue of the wormhole twisting out into the room with a roar, before snapping back to form a stable, vertical pool that rippled and glimmered.

Up in the Control Room, the team exchanged looks of surprise. Daniel, however, realised he had never been in any doubt that the address was valid. The dream had been so vivid, so urgent, that he almost felt he could still see the symbols when he closed his eyes.

"It appears that you were correct, Daniel Jackson," observed Teal'c.

Daniel nodded but said nothing. He had almost hoped he would be wrong. Something about the message in the dream had disturbed him and knowing that the Gate address worked meant that the danger he perceived was likely to be very real as well.

General Hammond pressed a button next to a microphone. "All right," he said. "Send through the MALP."

On the ramp before the Stargate, a bulky, remote-controlled vehicle with a robotic arm began to inch forward on its caterpillar tracks and, once it reached the top, slowly slipped through the wormhole.

"Receiving MALP telemetry now, sir," announced the Gate technician, once the device had reached its destination. The team crowded around his monitor screen to see what images the video camera onboard the MALP would send back.

The screen was black. "Sorry," said the technician, after a moment. "We're not getting any visual data. According to these readings, there's no atmosphere either."

Daniel let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. The Gate led nowhere; the danger was passed.

"Wait a minute," said Sam, pointing at the screen, "are those stars?"

Against the black background, almost undetectable in the grainy image sent back through the wormhole, tiny pinpoints of light could be seen, gently rolling up the screen.

"I don't think this Gate is on a planet!" Sam exclaimed. "I think what we're seeing here is the MALP spinning through space."

"There's a Stargate in space?" asked Jack, sounding sceptical.

"It could have been jettisoned from a Goa'uld ship," suggested Teal'c.

Jack frowned. "Why would the Goa'uld discard a functioning Gate?"

"Perhaps they were transporting it and their ship was destroyed," replied Teal'c. "The Stargate may have survived."

"Hold on," said Sam, "I think we're getting something else."

The MALP had rolled forward until it was pointing back the way it had come.

"What the hell is that thing?" asked Jack. The screen now showed four massive, girder-like structures, hanging in space. In the centre of the four beams, a conical vortex twisted away, like a distortion of the Stargate wormhole.

Teal'c studied the screen. "I have never seen anything like it before."

"Whatever it is," said Sam, as the image rolled off the bottom of the screen again. "It seems to be acting like a Stargate."

"Is that even possible?" asked General Hammond.

Sam shook her head. "I wouldn't have thought so, sir, but…" All she could do was gesture at the screen as evidence.

"There's something else there – look," said Jack. The MALP had rolled again so that it was almost facing away from the metal structure and the screen now showed a long, bumpy cylinder, slowly revolving on its axis. At one end, two huge prongs like a massive pincer jutted from the object, while the other end held six fin-like structures that appeared to be solar panels, three on either side, at right angles to the object.

"I think that's a space station," said Sam.

It looked vast. The team stared in wonder until they were startled by a transmission relayed through the MALP's radio system.

"Unidentified craft," said a woman's voice. "This is Earthforce station Babylon 5. Please transmit your identification. Your craft appears to be out of control. Do you require assistance?"

Hammond cleared his throat, taken aback, "This is General Hammond, of the United States Air Force," he said into the microphone.

"Whoa, not so loud!" said the voice. "How are you even doing that?"

"Doing what?" replied Hammond.

There was a pause. "Never mind. Who did you say you were again? And please, make it brief."

Hammond shot a puzzled look at Jack, who returned it with an equally bemused shrug. "General Hammond of the United States Air Force," Hammond repeated. "Did you say that your space station was called Earthforce?"

The woman sighed. "The US Air Force, huh? Look, is this some kind of joke? Because believe me, it's been a very long day and I didn't have much of a sense of humour to begin with."

"No joke, ma'am, I assure you," said Hammond.

There was another, longer, pause. "This is an Earthforce station, affiliated to the government of the Earth Alliance, and its name is Babylon 5," said the woman, slowly, as if talking to a child. "My name is Lieutenant Commander Ivanova, and I have now officially run out of patience. Please either dock or get the hell out of my sector."

Sam had an idea. "Lieutenant Commander," she said into the radio, "what year is it?"

"Good grief!" exclaimed Ivanova when she heard Sam's voice. "How many of you are crammed into that tiny thing?"

Sam laughed. "Oh, no, this vehicle is just a probe we use to gather data – it's not a ship."

"A probe?" said Ivanova, sounding suspicious. "Sent from where? For what purpose?"

"From Earth," replied Sam, "but if I'm right, I don't think it's the Earth that you know."

Again, there was silence from the radio as Ivanova thought this over. "Can we continue to communicate if I bring your probe on board the station?" she asked.

Sam checked her watch to see how long the Stargate's wormhole had been open. "I think so. I can keep communications open for about twenty more minutes. After that, we'd have to re-establish contact."

"Good," replied Ivanova. "I'll send a ship out to tow your probe in. I think you and I need to have a little chat."

"Thank you, Lieutenant Commander," said Sam, "I'd like that. Can you just confirm something for me? What year is it?"

"The year?" asked Ivanova. "It's 2258."