Chapter Summary: Home
Chapter Word Count: 3,470

"What's that?" Santana asked, leaning forward to look at the small pitted and dented object on Brittany's desk.

"It's a relay beacon," Brittany said. "It appears to be one of the newer models we sent with Andy's Shadows. But we only had half a dozen of those and they took all of them."

"Where'd you find it?" Santana asked, frowning.

"In that section of Mars we use for advanced Shadow training. It suddenly started broadcasting," Brittany said.

"So, why haven't you opened it yet?" Santana asked her.

"It's time locked. Open it too soon and it'll wipe itself," Brittany said. "It should unlock and open by itself in a few minutes."

"So, do you want to get the others down here for this?" Santana asked her.

"I've already sent for them," Brittany said, leaning back in her chair.

"You didn't send for me!" Santana said, pouting. "Why not?"

"Because I knew you would be here already, silly," Brittany said, smiling at her. "It's almost lunch time."

"Oh, right," Santana said.

"So, what do we have," Quinn asked, entering Brittany's office, followed by Rachel.

Santana held up the small object for them to see.

"Is that a memory beacon?" Rachel said, after staring at it for a minute.

"Close, Rach," Brittany said. "It's one of the relay beacons we gave to Joy and Janice for Andy's op to rescue Miranda. One of my training squads found it on Mars."

"Does that mean there's one of those Rings on Mars?" Rachel asked.

"Not likely," Quinn said. "We would have found it by now. We have Mars fairly well mapped out. They aren't exactly inconspicuous."

"It means that they were somehow able to place it there," Brittany said. "Which is very unlikely."

"It's beeping!" Rachel said, stepping back when it emitted a series of beeps.

"They do that, Shorty," Santana said, quickly putting it back down on Brittany's desk.

A small hologram of Janice appeared above the beacon and started talking. "Hey guys! Guess what! The last Ring in the Ring system is actually in the Sol system. We found a diary from one of the techs who installed the Rings and we've worked our way to the last one. You'd never guess where it is! It's out in the asteroid belt between Earth and Mars. But there's one small problem."

"Of course there is," Santana grumbled. "Just for once I'd like something to be simple."

"The Ring we're at connects to the last Ring in the past. Not too far back but far enough back that we can't really go there. But you'll see that when you look at the data we've stuffed into the beacon.

So, we need you to find the Ring. But don't expect us to show up until at least ninety days after we last communicated with you. We've actually been traveling through the Rings, and seeing some amazing things, for a year at this point. But we're not sure how accurate we'll be when we recalibrate the Ring here to the correct time. See you then!"

With a flicker, the hologram disappeared.

"That's certainly different," Rachel said. "So, they're stuck in the past until they can figure out how to fix the last Ring?"

"It's not actually the last ring they need to fix but the one that connects to it," Brittany said. "Did you hear that Artie?" she asked. "How long will it take to search for that Ring?"

"They didn't include any co-ordinates?" Santana asked.

"Things move," Brittany said.

"The asteroid belt is fifty percent mapped now, and we have not detected any object resembling a portal Ring," Artie said. "If we devote additional resources to it, we can map the remaining belt in a month."

"That should work out," Quinn said. "They've only been gone from here for two months. If we take a month to find that Ring we should be able to do it before they come back."

"What data did they include on the beacon?" Rachel said. "Anything I'd be interested in?"

"I am decoding it now," Artie said. "You will all be very interested in the contents."

"Put it up on the screen," Brittany said. An overhead view of the Yucatan appeared. As they watched, it focused on a specific area, gradually narrowing down to a familiar looking city full of bustling figures.

"They didn't," Rachel said, gasping. "They did! They somehow managed to video the original Clan compound. How did they manage that?"

"That answers when they ended up," Brittany said. "Though I'm not sure how they were able to do this, Janice's scanners don't have that ability."

"What else did they get?" Quinn asked.

"They recorded comm traffic," Brittany said, going through the data Artie was dumping to her comm systems. "Both Clan and some others."

"Tell me they grabbed Red Pirate comm traffic," Santana said. "If we can figure out how they operate and where they built their local bases we can get rid of the Black Hats completely."

"They did," Brittany said. "Someone will have to dig deeper into it and analyze it," she added. "There is some other data that we might find interesting but it is mostly recorded comm traffic over a hundred year period."

"Still useful," Rachel said. "Until now we had no information from the Clan's time here other than what we found on that cruiser with Mother. This is important historical information."

"And militarily important," Quinn said. "Does it say how this beacon ended up on Mars? They didn't have any atmospheric craft, just their hard suits. Unless Miranda was able to put it there, we don't know a lot about how her energy form works."

"No dissecting Mirandas," Rachel said firmly. "She's a family member. A powerful one in fact."

"No plans to do that," Brittany said. "We are hoping for a little research time with her so we at least know her capabilities better."

"That's different," Rachel said, nodding.

"Here we go," Santana said, looking up from her tablet, doing her own digging. "A mission report on capturing a pirate vessel."

"Wouldn't that affect the timeline?" Rachel asked. "How'd they get away with it?"

"Looks like they found one that was abandoned after a couple pirates got into a fight and sprayed some kind of gas all over it, making it uninhabitable." Santana said.

"So, how'd they fix that?" Rachel asked.

"Doesn't say, other than Miranda provided an antidote that neutralized the gas." Santana sighed. "I'm sure there was cleverness involved, since this is Ginny and Harry we're talking about and that Colonel O'Neill, who seems to be a bad influence. He called it a training exercise."

"Does it say what they did with the pirate ship?" Quinn asked. "We don't have any intact examples."

"It's probably a crumpled wreck on some asteroid," Santana said. "I'm surprised they didn't get killed. Those things are death traps. If they weren't used by pirates, they would be banned."

"They must have been space worthy at some point," Quinn said. "Unless they stole working ships and modified them.

"I bet someone somewhere is hoping the pirates get themselves killed with their own ships," Santana said. "That's what I'd do."

"You're a very civic minded person, San," Brittany said. "I'll set my best team to analyze the comm traffic in this beacon. And we need to find that Ring as soon as possible."

"Well, if they're stuck in a temporal anomaly," Quinn said, "is there any real rush? They aren't going to get any older than they already are."

"We have no way to communicate with them," Brittany said. "This is all one way." She waved at the beacon.

"Once the Ring gets recalibrated, we can use the Ring system ourselves," Santana said. "There must be some useful places it goes to."

"Look at report Alpha-Zed Three," Brittany said. "It's a short summary of everything they found traveling the Rings. I don't think they'll be useful at the moment. We can send out deeper exploration teams in the future but I think this would just be a distraction."

"What about the Bugs?" Santana said. "We don't want them finding the Rings and using them."

"No one has been able to figure out how to use the Rings until now," Brittany said. "The chances of the Bugs figuring it out are very slim. You need some of that metal the Goa'uld use and that doesn't seem to exist in this universe except for what came with Sam and Ixchel."

"Bugs?" Rachel asked.

"It's what the JJ's started calling the Enemy. I know they aren't really bugs but I think calling the 'Enemy' bugs makes them easier to grasp. Enemy is too generic. And 'Bugs' means we'll be more cautious."

"Bugs it is," Quinn said. "I recognized the reference."

"Seems appropriate," Santana said. "Your troopers are our equivalent of the Mobile Infantry even if they never had women in their ranks. And your hard suits are a lot more girly."

"Of course they are," Quinn said, smirking. "We're girls so our hard suits should reflect that."

"I find it interesting that they spent time creating hard suit-like armor for the three others. Samantha Carter was able to understand our tech in days where we still have Earthers who can't quite grasp the concept after months of exposure. And she improved on the idea in several places," Brittany said. "We now have a basic design for a male hard suit. Sure, it could be improved using our nanite tech but they had very limited amounts of that available."

"Cross pollination of ideas is a winner," Rachel said. "We need more of it, right?"

"We really can't keep her," Quinn reminded Brittany. "We promised her CO that we'd send her and O'Neill home when they got back from this galactic road trip."

"I want to go on a Galactic Road Trip," Rachel said, pouting. "There's so much to see out there. And we're missing it."

"Once we take care of…" Quinn started saying.

"…the Bugs… I know, I know. No adventures until we deal with the Bugs. All of our efforts need to go towards that. But we've been working on this for what feels like decades and it'll be a few more years before they show up, if they show up," Rachel said. "I need some action."

"I don't want to hear about that," Santana said, covering her ears. "That's personal and should be kept in the bedroom. Why aren't you keeping your woman happy in the bedroom" she said poking Quinn.

"She's not my woman," Quinn said, poking her back. "Stop calling her that."

"She would be if you got your act together," Santana said.

"Children," Brittany grumbled. "Everybody out!" she shouted. "Take your UST somewhere else!"

"Me too?" Rachel said, watching a squabbling Santana and Quinn leave Brittany's office.

"No, you can stay," Brittany said. "They just need to grow up. If anyone saw them they wouldn't believe those two women command others in battle and win."

"Maybe it's time for some reverse psychology," Rachel said. "I can write an epic having them do things they know they shouldn't and losing. I'm sure there's a name for such a thing."

"Don't waste your time on fixing them," Brittany said. "They'll figure out their issues eventually."

"Well, it's taking them too long," Rachel said. "How can I get Quinn to focus on me if she's constantly arguing with Santana."

"I won't tell you what works for me and Santana," Brittany said. "Quinn needs a different incentive. Maybe, once we're done with our Bug hunt, the two of you can do a Ring tour."

"I'm not sure I want to have Quinn going near these Amazons," Rachel said. "They'd probably make her queen and she'd be stuck. She's too honor bound to run away from a responsibility like that."

"So, don't go there, or sneak through in the middle of the night. It appears that the Ring goes both ways so you never have to travel away from it if you don't need to. I think San and I will do it also," Brittany said. "It'll be fun."

"Once the Bugs are gone," Rachel said.

"Goes without saying," Brittany said.

"So, after the pick-up, are we having a party to celebrate?" Rachel asked.

"A 'Welcome back from your adventures among the Ring Dwellers' party?" Brittany asked. "We can, and must do that! Artie, remind me later please."

"Of course, Lady Shadow."

"Any response yet?" Sam asked. "We've fixed the time issue when the Gates connect."

"Nothing," Joy said. "It's possible they haven't found the Ring yet."

"Or they're waiting for the right time and we're early," Andy said.

"Or you did something to the timeline when you stole that pirate ship," Sam said. "We really didn't need it. It was a wreck."

"Which we fixed," Jack said.

"With help from Miranda, otherwise it'd still be a wreck. Next time get something smaller, like some pirate weapons. I'm sure those would be interesting," Sam said. "And you could even take them with you when we go home. All that pirate ship is good for is junk. Junk that we had to destroy. It was a death trap."

"We might not have actually destroyed it," Jack said. "It seemed like such a waste so we put it someplace safe."

"Jack! You're just as bad as they are. At least they had an excuse, you leading them into trouble."

"I'm self trouble-actualized," Jack said, smirking. "I don't need anyone to lead me there, I can find it on my own."

"Obviously," Sam said. "But you need to be more careful. Lady Quinn isn't going to be happy with us if we ruin two of her best troopers."

"I bet Lady Shadow will probably find the whole thing amusing," Andy said. "She expects her people to be creative problem solvers and creators."

"Well, they're certainly being that," Sam said. "At least they haven't infected Ixchel with their sense of humor."

"She does have a sense of humor," Miranda said, appearing next to Andy, dressed in what Sam assumed would be all the rage in Paris, some day. "But it's a little dry. The Goa'uld have no sense of humor according to her, and Jack."

"The Tok'ra have a sense of humor, so the Goa'uld must," Sam said. "But it's a bit on the dry and slow side according to my father."

"At least they have some. From my experience with the Ascended Ancients, humor was very lacking in their lives," Miranda said. "That diary certainly showed no feeling or warmth."

"I can't image living without laughter," Andy said. "And it sounds like we have a bite," she added as a bell tolled on their public comm channel.

"I'd really like to know how she managed that," Sam said. "There should be no communication between the Gates in this ring system unless they are connected."

"She offered to show you how she did it," Andy said.

"It won't work with the Gates in our system," Sam said. "It's dependent upon a feature specific to the crystal design of these Gates, not the naquada ones in our system."

"Is everyone suited up?" Jack said. "Let's go meet the new neighbors. Without anyone dying."

"And off they marched, to do battle with what they knew not," Harry whispered loudly.

"When do you find time to read all of the things you read?" Jack asked her. "You can't possibly have free time if you expect to stay in top form."

"Plenty of time for recreational reading, Jack," Harry said. "You just need to know when to squeeze it into your schedule. I bet you find plenty of time for watching hockey and the Simpsons."

"Of course," Jack said. "But I'm old and well seasoned. You have that hard suit and you can't tell me that you have to almost live in it to stay proficient in its use."

"She does live in it," Joy said. "It's a bit disturbing."

"All troopers have an intimate relationship with their hard sit," Janice said. "They go through intense psych evals to make sure they won't go crazy if they have to spend days like that."

"What about the Shadows?" Sam asked. "Don't they spend as much time in their hard suits?"

"Only in the field," Janice said. "We don't have to hop into our suits at a moment's notice. And ours are more comfortable anyway."

"Speak for yourself," Harry said. "I find my suit very comfortable."

"So, where are they?" Quinn asked. "We followed directions, and sent a message through the Ring."

"Give them a few minutes," Brittany said. "We don't know how much temporal distortion is still happening here. Our temporal sensors are still on the fritz from whatever they did to calibrate that Ring."

"Should we leave it here?" Santana asked. "Or put it somewhere safe."

"We need to ask Sam and Joy," Brittany said. "They're the Ring experts."

"If we don't we'll have to set up guards or build around it. Which we should have done anyway. Even though they all have EV suits of some sort, dealing with vacuum like this can be dangerous," Quinn said.

"I'd prefer it be put in safe storage until we can examine it," Santana said. "My chief tech is drooling at the thought of having a working Ring system to test."

"It's nearly indestructible," Brittany said. "We wouldn't want to drop it in the sun but nothing short of a nuclear blast will move it."

"And there they are," Rachel said. "Very scruffy explorer like in appearance. We are recording this right?"

"You have to ask?" Brittany said. "From several different angles."

"The Chief is going to have a conniption," Quinn said. "They look like they were in a running battle with a couple buzz saws."

"They've been wearing those suits for a year," Brittany said. "They can be worn that long without being refurbished, this being the proof, but they won't look new at that point. The Chief should be happy to see just how durable her new hard suit design is."

"And the new male hard suit design," Santana said. "I can see a lot of uses for those, especially with all of the men we inherited with NASA. I'd bet anything that this design is better than anything NASA could come up with."

"Welcome home," Brittany said, stepping forward. "As soon as the docs check you all out we have some important business to attend to."

"What kind of business," Andy asked, looking around at the gathered suits.

"They'll be at the welcome home party," Rachel told her, understanding what she was looking for.

"The business of the formal adoption proceedings for our new Clan members," Brittany said. "We haven't adopted anybody since, well, me, and this is an important milestone for our Clan."

"I told you we'd get a party!" Harry said, over their team comm channel. "I wonder if we'll get medals or a reward."

"A reward for accidentally ending up far from home?" Janice said. "I doubt it. We'll be lucky if we don't get docked pay to have our suits refurbished."

"Don't worry, guys," Brittany said, interrupting them. "This is just the beginning."

"But first into the shuttle," Santana said. "Medical is waiting."

"How are they?" Rachel asked, impatiently waiting in the aft reception room of Fleet's flagship for the wanderers to finish evaluation.

"They all passed," Brittany said. "Medical was surprised."

"Andy took good care of them," Quinn said. "O'Neill said she showed excellent leadership skills."

"Surprised he didn't try to take over, as the only testosterone junky," Santana said.

"If you looked at his records," Brittany said, "you'd see he isn't like that."

"So, he set a good example," Santana said. "How many like that are we going to find on our side of the dimension?"

"There are sure to be some," Brittany said. "Not that we need any right now, but we know what to look for."

The sound of running feet interrupted anything else she could say.

"Where are they?" Cassidy and Caroline said, rushing up to them.

"They'll be here as soon as medical finishes with them," Rachel said.

"They've been gone a year, their time," Quinn reminded them. "The docs aren't going to rush things. They'll be here in a couple minutes."

"Caroline? Cassidy?" a quiet voice said. Turning, Caroline and Cassidy paused a moment before darting to the back of the room where Miranda and Andy had appeared. They both grabbed Miranda, and held her tight, as if planning to never let her go.

"Girls?" Andy said, gently moving them away from the door.

"Andy!" Caroline said, turning to her. "You brought her back!"

"Yes," Andy said, wrapping her arms around them with a huge sigh. "We're home."

End Note: And this side story is complete. It was written during NaNoWriMo 2015. In the coming months, I'll start posting the next part of this story, written during NaNoWriMo 2016 which will bring the focus back to our main characters and one step closer to war.

Disclaimer addendum: This quote is not mine:

"And off they marched, to do battle with what they knew not"

Unfortunately, I can't remember where I got it from, and the all powerful Goog was not helpful in jogging my memory. Apologies to whomever originated it for not giving proper credit.