Chapter Summary: On the road again, through more gates
Chapter Word Count: 3,622

"So, what have you learned?" Andy asked Joy as they all gathered for a final planning session before resuming their journey home.

"It's a dead planet," Joy said. "There's nothing that I can find to indicate how it happened. Everything has been dead for so long that my instruments can't make any sense of it. This facility," she waved at the cavern, "appears to have been built later. Much later."

"So, someone or something came along, destroyed the planet, and left no signs? And then our friendly Gate builders came along and set up this Gate and used it for a while and then they disappeared also?" Jack asked.

"That's basically it," Joy said. "There are foundations of buildings and faint outlines of roads and other things but it's like someone traced them in the sparkly radioactive dirt with a finger."

"So, we know not to wander around outside if we ever come back," Andy said. "What else did you find?"

"Those crystals Janice found? It's someone's diary. I think," Joy said. "But, it seems to document travel through their Rings. If we can look closer at it, I'm sure it could be used to create a map."

"Oh, now that is helpful," Jack said. "How much have you figured out so far?"

"Well, I know the names of their Rings," Joy said. "They don't translate into any Earth languages. There are thirteen of them."

"That seems odd," Sam said. "Is thirteen a special number in this universe? You have thirteen Clans, and thirteen gates?"

"Nine is our special number," Janice said, shaking her head. "The Nine Goddesses of the Underworld, which our Council of Nine is based on. And there were nine original Clans if we go back far enough, four of which became big enough that they split creating the thirteen."

"Is your clan one of the original Nine?" Sam asked.

"Of course," Ginny said.

"We believe so," Janice said, correcting her, "but every Clan claims that."

"Before we get side tracked into a history lesson," Jack said, "what did you learn from the diary?"

"It's possible to travel from the first one to the last, without knowing the address of each Ring," Joy said. "It's a form of exploration pattern. Similar to how we started. Build a Ring, go to another planetary system, build another. Each ring can go back to a specific Ring or back to the original in an emergency."

"So, we've gone through three of the Gates but can skip back to the first one that dropped us here?" Sam said. "Can you go back to one in the middle?"

"If the entire network was completed, and they installed multi-destination DHD's, yes we could," Joy said, "but as far as I can tell, they built the thirteen Rings but never completed the installation. The diary just says there was a problem with activating them. Only members of their exploration team could use the Rings and they couldn't figure out why."

"Did they know they were in a different universe? That their initial Ring was in a place where the science stuff works slightly different?" Jack asked.

"Science stuff?" Sam stared at him in disbelief. "Science stuff?"

"You know, physics," Jack said. "I did notice that things are different here."

"Like what?" Harry asked.

"Your hard suits for one thing," Jack said. "Sure, they work in our universe but I've heard you arguing with each other about some of these things. There's no way they could have been invented in our universe, the ideas behind them are too different. And not just those nanites you like using as an excuse for everything."

"What kinds of ideas?" Andy said. "I must have missed those arguments."

"The material you use for your hard suits, for one thing. It's impossibly strong for how light it is," Jack said. "And I can't believe I'm the one saying this."

"It's just a composite material, Jack," Sam said. "We have those also."

"Ah, but these are built by those damn nanites, which we don't have. We'd never think of creating things like that material using microscopic builders."

"Okay, I get it," Harry said. "We get the benefit of our nanotech to build things in different ways but how does that make the science different?"

"Have you noticed how strong your hard suits are? It's like something out of a comic book," Jack said. "Sam, don't tell me you didn't notice? It's not so much superior technology as it is 'magical'. They get months on a charge and can wear them for weeks. If I wore the same clothes for a month I'd be very uncomfortable. And actually, I have. We've been in the field for months at a time."

"And we had to throw them out afterward," Sam said. "The materials we use are designed for that kind of treatment."

"Well, legend has it that a certain someone did design our combat suits based on their favorite anime," Ginny said. "They didn't like the original Clan designs and convinced the AIs to design them differently."

"So, different science," Jack said. "Doing impossible things. It's a good thing the hard suits you and Sam designed are simpler," he said. "Who knows how they'll work when we get home. I'd really like that flash jumping thing but I wouldn't want it to fail in the middle of a jump because Science suddenly noticed we were doing something impossible and turned it off."

"That won't happen," Sam said. "The science behind it is sound, even if it comes from a direction we weren't aware of. It won't break in the middle of using it."

"All I'm saying is 'Splat!'," Jack said. "I'd rather not go splat."

"We don't want you to go splat either, Jack," Ginny said. "You'll just need to trust the suit designers, Sam and Joy, and that they did a good job on them."

"Can we get back to the map?" Sam asked. "So, right now it looks like we have to go through the gates in order? Is there any indication from the diary where each Gate is?"

"They predate the Confederation," Joy said. "And the stars have moved since then. When we get back to Earth, we might have the computing power we need to figure out where each Gate is physically based on the information in the diary. But right now? It doesn't make any sense. If we compared it to existing star charts, the very last Ring looks like it's somewhere in Earth's planetary system. But we should have detected it by now."

"Any other clues?" Andy asked. "We know where the first Ring is because there was a navigation buoy that your sensors picked up. Did either of the other Rings we've been through have anything like that?"

"There's another nav buoy that I've detected but it seems to be damaged. I know it's there but couldn't get any valid readings from it," Joy said. "And that should be impossible from what I know of them. It's like I'm seeing only a shadow of one and not the real thing."

"How about those Rings that the AI's gave us coordinates for?" Andy asked. "Do they match any of the ones in the diary."

"Not enough detail," Joy said. "They didn't use the same coordinate system as we do. Given enough time and compute power we might get lucky."

"So, just a simple plan?" Jack said. "Just like before. Send Harry and Janice through the gate, they take a look around and come back. If it's safe we all go through."

"What do we do if we can't go through?" Ginny asked. "If the Rings are all linked together, if one is blocked we're stuck."

"Hopefully, if that happens we'll be able to contact the Fleet," Andy said. "And get a pickup."

{Ring 6}

"Nice," Harry said. "Another beach. Maybe we can spend a couple days here."

"Not if the old guy has his way," Janice said. "He really wants to get home. Before that UST takes over and he and Sam do something about it."

"Well, I think we need a break," Harry said. "We're half way through the Ring system and it's been a bit bland so far. Trees and deserts. And another dead planet. Nothing exciting, except for those pirates we hid from."

"We want to get home in one piece," Janice said. "We're still on a rescue, not a road trip."

"A long rescue mission," Harry said. "It's been over a month already. I wonder if Lady Q and the Memory have done anything yet."

"You aren't going to win the pot," Janice said. "Only Lady Shadow knows when it'll happen."

"So, what'd you find?" Ginny said, after they came back through the Ring. "More desert? Or trees?"

"An actual beach," Harry said. "Lots of sparkly sand and warm air."

"The scanners are running but I don't think we'll find anything," Janice said. "Just a place to take a break."

"We took a break at the last Gate," Jack said.

"Because we needed it," Sam reminded him. "We spent a week hiding from those pirates when we went through that Gate after the cave."

"We should have stolen their ship," Harry said. "We could have beaten them."

"We weren't prepared for pirates," Jack said. "And how were you going to take it with us through the Gate?"

"Still should have done it," Harry said, pouting.

"Okay kids, let's hit the road," Jack said, shaking his head.

"I could do with a swim," Andy said, speaking in Miranda's private channel, as they lined up again in front of the Ring.

"I'm sure we can prevail on Jack," Miranda said. "We don't need to rush through every Gate."

{Ring 10}

"Open the Gate," Jack shouted, running up the hill. Shouting could be heard in the distance.

"Not without Miranda," Andy said.

A glowing white light appeared next to her. "No need to wait," Miranda said, solidifying.

"Cutting it close," Andy said, quickly hugging her.

"The natives wouldn't take no for an answer," Miranda said.

"How'd you get away?" Andy asked. Miranda raised an eyebrow.

"Right, sorry," Andy said.

"I told them I needed to speak with my fellow goddesses," Miranda said.

"So, you lied to them?" Andy said. She turned to the others, just as Jack reached them. "We'll all go together. No time for our regular plan."

{Ring 12}

"One last Gate," Jack said, looking at the others. "Do we know where it goes?"

"That last Ring was under water," Andy said. "Let's hope it doesn't happen with this one."

"I'll never get the mud out of my suit," Harry said, grumbling. "Going to need a complete refit once we get home."

"I think we'll all need a complete refit, kid," Jack said. "And some brain bleach for some of us."

"Hey! You should have knocked," Ginny said. "We don't walk in on you and Sam when you're doing 'things'. Once was enough."

"I did," Jack said. "And Sam and I don't do 'things' like that. I don't think either of us has quite the flexibility."

"Jack!" Sam said, blushing.

"It's not the flexibility," Ginny said, her disgust clearly audible on the com. "It's the old people thing."

"We all get old, eventually," Jack said. "Don't know it until you get there."

"Are we done?" Andy said, quickly jumping in.

"Yes," Joy said, dragging Ginny into position.

"Ready?" Jack said, after a long pause, hand poised over the button. "This is the one we want so close to our solar system that we get a pickup in hours, not years."

"We've all got our fingers crossed," Andy said, nodding. Jack dramatically pressed the button, and waved Harry and Janice through the Gate.

"What was Harry humming?" Sam asked, frowning.

"The theme to Lost in Space," Ginny said. "She thinks it's good luck to taunt Murphy."

"Murphy? Just by existing we taunt that rat," Jack said. "Only Murphy would have screwed up that jump that took us to that Amazon planet."

"They weren't real amazons," Sam said. "Just a matriarchy."

"Well, they looked like weight lifters and they were ready to worship Miranda. So, that makes them Amazons. And they didn't have any men."

"That's because they figured out how to have children without them," Joy said.

"Millions of people already worship Miranda, not just me and the girls," Andy said, kissing her wife on the cheek. "There was a whole magazine devoted to her wishes."

"I can't wait to meet your girls," Sam said. "They must be amazing with you two as parents."

"It's all Miranda," Andy said. "I just stare in amazement at the wonderfulness that they are."

"You deserve a lot of the credit," Miranda said, shaking her head. "Especially for the last few years."

"What do we think they'll find?" Joy said. "This is the last Ring. We've been to all of them."

"We've had a beach, plenty of forests, a cave, Amazons, those fury creatures that looked like muppets, and pirates. There isn't much left," Jack said.

"A castle?" Ginny said. "I bet it opens up into a dungeon."

{Ring 13}

"Whoa! Watch that first step!" Harry said, stopping abruptly several feet from the Ring. "It's a long way down!"

"That's an amazing view," Janice said. "Where do you think we are? Asteroid belt? Exploded planet?"

"I'm getting comm chatter," Harry said, "though it's not any I recognize."

"Pirates!" Janice said. "Really old pirates. That's a very insecure code level. We hacked that in training."

"Set up the scanner and get some intel?" Harry said. "We hid from those other pirates."

"I'm also getting some old Clan comm traffic. They're using the same codes as the original Serpent clan used when they set up on Earth," Janice said.

"So, time travel?" Harry said. "I bet that star is ours."

"Looks like it," Janice said. "Fortunately, our data profile is way below what either of them can detect."

"We can't interfere," Harry said. "But maybe we can go pirate hunting?"

"That'd be interfering," Janice said. "Unless we're here after the Clan was captured by the pirates."

"No, I think we're here at the wrong time. But why don't you set up a probe to record everything it can and hide it. When we come back here at the right time we'll have all sorts of interesting info to look at."

"Of course," Janice said excitedly. "If we can find where the pirates stashed everything they stole from us, we'll stop the Black Hats in their tracks."

"And maybe, maybe, we'll find more Clan in stasis," Harry said.

"Hopefully not," Janice said. "They'd probably want to take over because they're older."

"Well, the entire Council of Nine from back then/now was killed so they can't."

"Give me a minute to set things up, and then we can go back, and get Sam and Joy to figure out how to get us to the correct time."

{Back at Ring 12}

"So, what'd you find this time," Jack asked. "A castle?"

"Outer space," Harry said. "It opens up to vacuum in an asteroid belt somewhere in the Sol system."

"So we just need to set off a rescue beacon," Andy said. "And then we can get Sam and Jack home."

"Not so fast," Janice said. "It appears to also go back in time, at least a thousand years."

"A thousand years?" Sam said. "That means…"

"It means we could go rescue the Clan from the Red Pirates," Joy said.

"And wipe out our own history," Janice said. "We can't do that. Tinkering with time can be tricky."

"No, we can't," Andy said. "Too many things would be changed or cease to exist. And we'd be stranded in this time."

"So, no pirate hunting?" Harry asked, clearly disappointed.

"Not this time," Andy said.

"How about we hunt for pirate treasure instead?" Harry asked. "Janice is recording all comm traffic from both sides. Once we figure out how to get back to the right time we can use it to find where they hid things."

"Okay," Andy said. "I don't see why that can't be done, but we'll need to run it by the Council before you start digging things up. Assuming you can find it."

"Great!" Janice said. "We can leave the scanner probe where it is and pick it up later. And I'll set up a beacon to activate at the right time for when we want a pickup."

"So, we have plenty of time to figure out how to recalibrate the Ring to go to the present and not the past." Sam said. "There was a section of that diary that discussed using the Rings to travel through time. We just need to figure out how to do the calibration."

"While you do that, we'll set up camp. Come on kids," Jack said. "And maybe we can do some fishing off the beach."

"Shark fishing?" Harry asked excitedly as she, Ginny, and Janice followed him. "And clams? We can have a seafood barbecue."

"Haven't done that in months," Ginny said. "Once we get the camp ready we can do a barbecue, right Jack?"

"Definitely," Jack said. "Have you figured out how to use the suit protein packs to create beer yet?"

"We had that figured out ages ago," Ginny said. "It just takes some special programming, that the armorers don't approve of."

"Well, I approve, and we're celebrating finding Earth," he said, "so while Harry and I fish, can you and Janice work that out?"

"On it," Janice said, grabbing her hand.

"So, how long do you think it'll take to recalibrate the Gate," Jack asked. "The troops are going to get antsy if we don't do something soon."

"We have it mostly figured out now," Sam said. "But we need several crystals of a type we don't have to trigger it."

"So, no go?" Jack said. "Does that mean we need to leave a message in a bottle and hope the other side doesn't have the same time problem?"

"Well, Janice and Harry came back through so the calibration seems to be in both directions. So, no." Sam rubbed her temple. "Miranda believes she can make the right crystals by forcing them to change composition but she's never done anything like that before. So that might take a while."

"Okay," Jack said. "You keep working on that and I'll find something to keep them busy."

"Don't get caught," Sam said.

"Get caught? Doing what?"

"I didn't see it, and I don't know," Sam said, waving him off.

"What is he going to do?" Andy asked, concerned.

"Field exercises," Sam said. "He's going to take Harry, Ginny, and Janice out into the last Gate and explore. Nothing like experience to hone the senses, as he likes to say."

"As long as they don't get caught," Andy said, nodding. "Documenting the Clan's missing history will make them extremely popular with the Council."

"How is Miranda coming with those crystals?" Sam asked.

"She almost has it," Andy said. "Apparently, manipulating crystal structures is a natural ability for her in that form."

"I wondered why the Ancients used crystal in everything. I suspect that they had Ascended helping them and they didn't all ascend until they had no choice." Sam sighed. "As soon as Miranda figures it out, we should be able to realign that ring to go to the right time."

"How are you planning to do it? Align it to our time now or closer to when we left?" Andy asked.

"We've only been gone three months," Sam said. "Does it matter?"

"Not really," Andy said. "We've already agreed to send you home to an earlier time, only a couple weeks."

"That's different, though," Sam said. "No one will notice. But we look older than when we left. Your equipment looks well worn. I'm sure your armorers would like to examine it to see how well it is wearing."

"Oh, we wouldn't want to keep it a secret," Joy said. "Time shifting is fairly common due to the learning pods used by the Clan. No one is really the age they look. The AI actually keeps track of real and relative ages of everyone but no one really cares."

"Hadn't thought of it that way," Sam said. "Let's just use the current time. That should be simpler."

"I'll go check on Ixchel," Joy said, pointing towards the shore

"So, how are you and Jack handling the closeness," Andy asked, after checking for eavesdroppers. "Has anything happened yet?"

"No, he's been the perfect gentleman," Sam said, sounding frustrated. "But I'm not going to force the issue, that would make things worse. We're just going to have to wait it out. They won't let him retire, he's too valuable to the program, but it's getting to the point where he won't be able to go out into the field like he does now. So when he retires from field ops and we are no longer in each other's chain of command, we'll deal with it then."

"That's too bad," Andy said. "The Clan doesn't have issues with such things. Relationships across departments and commands are common. Of course, that's partly because they don't have any hangups about that because of the examples set by the Council. And it's a completely different culture."

"We can't stay," Sam said. "Our lives are back there."

"You'd be very welcome here," Andy said, nodding, "but we understand. You have your own world to save."

"You'll have to keep us updated," Sam said. "If we can provide help of any sort..."

"I'm sure any help would be appreciated," Andy said. "Though we've already borrowed you and Jack for longer than your General would probably like."

End Note: Some day, I'll go back and write up what happened on the 3 worlds they visited where something interesting happened (the pirates, the muppets, and the Amazons). But not in this interlude. Probably after the rest of the entire story is complete, whenever that happens.