Dungeon Planet - 2nd Challenge - October 9th
Beyond the sliding door of the safe room, the hallway was dimly lit by a scattering of dim blue lighting that filtered down from the ceiling through leathery looking beams, and the occasional bulbous organic column spaced evenly the walls cast an orange glow. The effect was rather like a laser tag arena built inside a living thing.
The floor was level and solid feeling aside from a slightly leathery texture, and a low mist hung above the floor with only the occasional disturbances from near invisible air filtration systems.
"I don't like this," O'Neill said.
"Indeed," Teal'c said.
O'Neill shouldered his weapon and started a slow crawl into the hall, Carter shouldered her own weapon and moved up to his left, Teal'c was on his right and Daniel followed in the rear with his new side arm.
A hazy shadow flitted across the corridor ahead at a junction.
O'Neill brought the procession to a halt and pulled out the kino and remote, kicking himself that they'd forgotten about it.
The team held their position watching the kino as it floated down the hall.
"Wish there was a minimap," O'Neill grumbled.
The screen on the remote flickered and a little wireframe map of the hall appeared in the corner with little dots showing the team.
"Huh, and now I'm thinking of a slice of pie," O'Neill said, tilting his head.
"You literally just had one," Carter said.
"What, it was worth a try," O'Neill said.
"How is it doing that?" Daniel asked.
"There must be mapping hardware built into the kino," Carter said.
"No, I meant responding to what he asks for," Daniel clarified.
"Voice recognition? There's some limited examples of that technology in development back home," Carter suggested.
The team watched the map fill in as the kino worked its way through the maze of hallways and junctions.
"Hope you brought the golden thread for the maze, Daniel," O'Neill said.
Daniel looked askance at O'Neill's reference to the mythical labyrinth but chose not to say anything, because two blips had briefly appeared as the kino passed an open door.
"Let's go see what this enemy looks like," O'Neill said, having spotted the blips as they faded.
The patrolling wraith warriors that greeted them were an intimidating pair of blue-grey skinned humanoids with long white hair. They were wearing dark bumpy masks that completely covered their faces, and Jack wondered how they could see with those things on. The snarls came through clearly though and the weird not mouth on their hands was an obvious problem.
Daniel was the quickest to react with the flamethrower up and blasting the wraith drones enraging them further, as they thrust their weapons forward.
The first of the warriors only managed to send a single blast of cyan colored energy towards them, which hit Teal'c before Carter and O'Neill responded with their electrified P-90s and blasted crackling holes into the snarling warriors stitching a line of holes across their chests and downing them.
O'Neill warily watched the two bodies as Carter knelt to examine the long and pointy energy weapon the closer drone warrior dropped when he fell.
"Sam," Daniel called out.
"Carter," O'Neill said at the same time as Daniel.
Captain Carter looked up from the weapon and jumped back as she noticed the wraith's arm was twitching, the fingers grasping and clawing at the ground as though the warrior could drag itself closer to her from sheer finger strength alone.
The captain used her P-90 and fired another couple rounds and bolts of energy into the head of the warrior, until it stopped twitching and the body was absorbed into the ground as they'd come to expect.
The wraith stun weapon remained behind as their loot.
The second wraith warrior was still there so Daniel used his new side arm on that one figuring it was somehow still alive if disabled if the cave hadn't removed it yet.
O'Neill looked up realizing that Teal'c's silent presence seemed to be absent and looked around for the big guy only to spot a third wraith that had appeared from a now empty room behind them and had slammed its hand into Teal'c's chest, and not in a way that looked at all helpful for the big guy.
The wraith seemed incredibly angry about something though as whatever it was trying to do didn't seem to be happening as the wraith wanted, and Teal'c was having a bad reaction.
O'Neill's P-90 blasted the third wraith warrior of the day away from his friend. The impact disrupting the hold the wraith had on Teal'c's chest as the Jaffa warrior took one last shaky breath before being whisked away by the dungeon's retrieval system. The wraith warrior on the other hand twitched back and forth with each shot before finally collapsing.
"Dammit, Teal'c had better be waiting for us alive and unharmed in the safe room," O'Neill said.
Carter and Daniel followed the unhappy Colonel as he retrieved the kino and marched back the direction they'd come and through the doors.
Happily for the team, Teal'c was indeed lying in a medical pod that had extended from one of the shapes covering the walls of the safe room. Above the pod a second wall piece had moved aside to reveal biometric data graphs showing things like the pulse, breathing rate, and brain activity of the patient.
SG1 rushed over to Teal'c. O'Neill reached out to gently wake the warrior.
"Teal'c, are you alright?" O'Neill asked.
"That was most unpleasant, O'Neill," Teal'c's said once he'd gathered his wits and figured out where he was. "It felt as though the wraith was trying to take something from within me but was unable to do so.
"I really hope those aren't a real enemy, it took way too much work to bring them down," O'Neill said.
"I am in agreement, Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c said.
"Are you sure you should be moving just yet?" Carter asked.
Teal'c pulled himself into a sitting position with a grunt and replied, "I will be fine, Captain Carter. This was a remarkably cleaner feeling than waking up from a sarcophagus. I will only require a few moments to gather my strength."
"So, we can just use that door to go back to the gate, right?" O'Neill said pointing to the indicated door the hologram had informed them of.
"That's what the hologram said," Daniel agreed.
"Let's get out of here, I'm missing a new episode of The Simpsons right now," O'Neill said.
SGC - October 9th, 1997
"The builders of the training facility called the stargate an Astria Porta, and the bugs in the first challenge Iratus bugs. If I make some very heavy assumptions those are very close to Latin root words for, star, door, and irate or angry," Daniel started.
"Oh yes, because I really needed to know they called them the angry bugs in Latin," Jack muttered.
"Doctor Jackson, does knowing that the builders may have spoken something similar to Latin get us any closer to understanding why the place seems to ignore all prior precedent we know of?" General George Hammond interrupted the doctor's theorizing and leaned back in his chair at the head of the briefing room table.
"Well, uh... Sam?" Daniel seemed flustered.
"Nothing concrete sir, just this," Carter passed a printout of the picture Daniel Jackson had taken of the stone counter displayed above the entrance to the bug part of the dungeon.
"It was blank until the entire team was present and then sort of slid open to reveal those symbols," Captain Carter explained.
"I believe it's some form of counting system, the display updated after we entered the first time, and every subsequent time," Doctor Daniel Jackson interjected. He clicked a button causing an image of the symbols in the relief to show up on the projector, the last symbol was different showing additional blocks of stone hanging above a short fat T shape that took up a two block high by three block wide space at the bottom of the symbol. "Based on the spacing, I believe it will continue adding blocks in a three by three grid as a form of numerical counting."
"That second picture is from after we retreated from the wraith section and used a transport booth of some kind to go directly from the safe room between sections to the gate room."
"And what was this bit about the hologram using the appearance of one of the NID specialists," Hammond said.
"We think that was the facility trying to use a familiar face," Daniel said.
"Either that or a hint that they might still be recoverable if we get to the end of the challenges," Captain Carter said.
"Speaking of the first section, I assume the flamethrower was a success," Hammond prompted.
"It worked like a charm," O'Neill replied.
"Daniel Jackson was most proficient in the handling of the flamethrower," Teal'c said.
"I'm still surprised he handled it so well," Carter said.
"Gee thanks for the vote of confidence," Daniel said.
"We should get you certified to use that thing normally," Jack said.
"...I am certified. That's part of why I was using it," Daniel replied.
"...certification takes three weeks, minimum, if they put you through the rush course," Sam said.
"He's been certified for the last two months now," General Hammond said.
Jack turned to Daniel, his face the perfect expression of confusion.
"You aim to be a pacifist whenever possible. Why are you certified on flamethrowers?" Jack asked.
"I've been working my way through all the weapon certifications so that I know how to not kill myself when you inevitably hand me a weapon that is liable to kill me."
"Huh," Jack leaned back.
"They won't let me take the crew-served weapon certifications, since I'm not supposed to be manning those here in the base and we don't bring anything like that into the field," Daniel huffed and crossed his arms.
"Is that a sulk?" Jack leaned back.
"If we're finished with the relevant topics of this debriefing," the general interrupted Jack's heckling of the archaeologist.
"Actually, I wanted to know when you wanted us to make another attempt at things, Sir," Captain Carter said.
"Perhaps after another mission to a different planet, I'd rather not have you burn out from the stress of constant combat that the dungeon planet seems to offer," Hammond said. "And I'm sure that everyone involved in examining things would like more than a couple of days to look over the latest 'bounty'."
"Daniel did have something he wanted us to take a look at," O'Neill suggested.
"Ah, well you see, it looks like the original Langford team managed to make a connection back in 1945, I believe I should be able to determine the address from the film reel the pentagon sent over," Daniel said.
"That can be your next project then, SG1, dismissed," Hammond said.
- A new line has appeared -
SGC - October 10th, 1997
Colonel O'Neill sauntered into Captain Carter's lab with two cups of blue jello, he placed one on the table next to her with a spoon and started eating the second one. In between scoops he leaned forward to examine what she was looking at.
"What's that?"
"Schematics for everything we could identify in the shock grenade, sir," Carter said, absentmindedly picking up the jello cup he'd placed down for her. "There's what looks to be an RF chip module here, and a sync button. I've been working on decoding the signals and programming a remote control. I've identified two unbalanced motors that can be used for movement and a second circuit here for discharging the shock grenade."
"And that?" O'Neill pointed at the portable DHD case.
"I've been hesitant to try and disassemble it since it doesn't have the same easy access screws as everything else, just the access hatch with sixteen clear crystal cards in slots and the input/output ports. Also, there's no obvious peripherals, so I've been waiting for the air-gap dummy machine to arrive from procurement before I power it up."
"Did Andy have anything to say about the power crystals?" O'Neill asked.
"Yes, actually, how did you know Doctor Covel was a lapidarist," Carter said around a spoonful of blue jello.
"Ah well, we had a chat in the mess hall a few months back and he mentioned he could fix a loose setting on Lieutenant Morris' birthstone ring," O'Neill said.
"That explains things, anyway, Covel was able to shave off a thin slice of the crystal and identified that it wasn't a pure corundum crystal, it has two intertwined microscopic lattices of lithium-ion and nanostructured carbon, the corundum separates the lattices attaching to a band of pure copper on either end."
"That was a waste of a perfectly good explanation," O'Neill said.
"It's a solid state ceramic battery sir, we don't have the techniques to duplicate it exactly, yet, but the chemical composition is very viable using more conventional film deposited construction methods, and it's in line with the most advanced battery research in the private sector."
"So, big battery?"
"Pretty much sir, our home grown versions are also just slightly unstable, think bursting into flames if punctured and not reacting well to contaminants during the production process."
"That might be a feature for if you need a self destruct option," O'Neill mused around his own blue jello.
"Also, it's about half the capacity of the crystal for the same weight," Carter said.
"Did they say anything about those armor inserts yet?" O'Neill changed the subject.
"Those are with Dr. Lee in lab four," Carter said.
"No live fire testing?"
"Not so much sir, we want to identify the composition first before we proceed to destructive testing on something we have a limited supply of."
"Ah, did they bring Doctor Franks the materials and chemistry guy in on things?"
"I don't know, let me check."
"Well, keep me informed," O'Neill said. Taking the empty jello cups with him past the airman with a PC tower and a pineapple on a cart that was headed into the lab. Behind him he could hear Carter happy with the arrival.
"Is that the air-gapped computer I requested?"
"Yes, ma'am, signature please?"
O'Neill whistled as he continued on to his next destination.
- A new line has appeared -
Daniel pulled another reel of film out of the box and a file folder full of blacked out text that made reading the documents rather annoying.
He'd just started the film rolling when Jack peeked into the room.
"Fascinating stuff," O'Neill asked.
"Oh definitely, if only they hadn't censored over half the documents," Daniel replied, waving the report at him.
"What's this?" O'Neill motioned at the film that was playing.
"Huh? Just more footage of the experiments they were running," Daniel trailed off, having looked up to spot the man in the diving suit entering the open gate.
"Those records didn't say anything about anyone using the gate, did they?" Jack said.
"You saw that too," Daniel said.
"You got the symbols they used right?" Jack asked.
"If it's the same ones as the other reel, yes. But I'll have this one sent over for digitizing and double check," Daniel replied.
"So...whoever that was went through. Don't suppose there's any footage of him coming back?" Jack asked.
"That's the last film reel in the box. All the other reels are just them trying different things, getting exploding generators and trying again, until they got a successful dial on the previous reel that I showed you," Daniel replied, standing up and removing the reel from the projector.
"What are you doing," Jack asked, watching as Daniel started flitting around his office space moving things around.
"Unfortunately all the names are blacked out in the documentation, so the only person I know that's still alive that could tell us about the experiments, even if she wasn't directly involved, is Doctor Catherine Langford," Daniel said.
"So you were just planning on dropping everything, to what, go and interrogate her?"
"Jack."
"Daniel."
"She has to know something."
"And there are procedures, Daniel, she could be the president, and I'd still have you go clear this with General Hammond first," Jack said.
"And if he says no?"
"He's not going to say no, Daniel. If he does though, then we find out if he has a good reason, and work around those concerns until he says yes."
"What kind of good reason would you accept?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe if she recently died."
Daniel looked aghast at the suggestion.
"What?" Jack asked. "It's a valid reason, she's old, Daniel, I'm pretty sure she's still alive, but it's a valid concern and you can't exactly ask a grave questions. We have a very good reason to go bother her in her retirement, and she's under existing NDAs that simplify things. Besides, the general will probably want to know what she knows just as much as we do."
Jack held an arm out and motioned for Daniel to walk with him to the general's office.
- A new line has appeared -
Teal'c swung his bo-staff sweeping the legs out from under the airman he was sparring with.
"You are improving, Airman Richard Bosworth," Teal'c said, holding out a hand to pull the airman up from the mat.
"It doesn't feel like it," Bosworth said, rubbing a shoulder.
"Your feelings can lie. Trust me, you are getting better," Teal'c said.
"Show me how you did that last move," the Airman asked, dropping back into the stance he'd been in.
Teal'c nodded and proceeded to show Airman Bosworth the sequence of moves that he'd failed to properly counter and then moved onto showing him the proper countermoves.
"Thanks," Bosworth said.
"You are most welcome," Teal'c gave a head bow of acknowledgement. "You will practice and next time we spar, you will be better still."
The Airman hobbled off the mat to the bench on the side where he grabbed his bottle of water and dropped onto the bench.
"I'll take next, if you're willing," Major Castleman stepped up to the edge of the mat.
"What do you wish to work on today, Major Castleman," Teal'c asked, not knowing the major as well as other members of the SGC.
"Hand to hand, if you would," Castleman said.
Teal'c nodded and returned the staff to the equipment rack before taking his place opposite the Major.
A crowd gathered to watch the match.
- A new line has appeared -
"So, Daniel and I are off to see Doctor Langford," Jack said as he poked his head into Sam's lab.
"Oh? Tell her I said, 'Hi.' Also sorry for missing our Tea date."
"Tea date?"
"Yeah, I usually take a Saturday off at least once a month to go have tea with her. Had to cancel this week," Carter motioned to the piles of projects across the room.
"Huh," Jack said, picking at a fingernail. "So, what are you up to now?"
"I'm going to be looking over the console thing with all the gate glyphs we got from the dungeon."
"Oh? Wishing you luck," Jack said.
"Thanks, but I was still trying to figure out if it's turned off because I haven't found the on button or because I need to hook it up to a power source."
Jack looked at the console for a moment before tapping a symbol on the corner of the thing. The symbols lit up and blinked on and off a few times before going dim. "Huh." Jack walked around the table until he was looking at what was presumably the back side of the device where the peripheral ports and card access door was. He pointed to a handle that was sticking out next to the access door. "What's that, and why is it sticking out like that?"
Carter leaned forward to see what he was talking about. The handle was obvious now that he'd pointed it out. With a shrug, she twisted the handle until it lined up with the depression where it slowly sunk into the slot. The lights on the power indicators went from feebly dim to full power.
"Must be an internal power disconnect mechanism," Captain Carter mused.
O'Neill stood there for a moment longer as Captain Carter grew more engrossed in the lines scrolling by on the screen of the computer she'd connected to the dialing console over the serial port on the back.
"I'll just leave you to it, then," O'Neill said, already moving for the door to the lab.
"Huh, sure" Carter vocalized, not even looking up from the screen.
O'Neill had reached the door and was half a step out of the room when the captain spoke up.
"Don't forget to tell Catherine 'Hi' from me," Carter said before O'Neill had fully disappeared through the door to her lab.
"I'll tell her," O'Neill said from the hall.
- A new line has appeared -
"You brought an overnight bag, right?" Daniel asked.
"Yup," Jack patted the duffle with a change of clothes and other essentials he was carrying. He decided to poke at Daniel on the way out of the mountain.
"Say Daniel, where is Doctor Langford living these days anyway, the base directory only had a post office box address listed for her somewhere up in Boulder."
"Ah, well she's up near the University, the house is held in a trust, so it won't show up under her name in any of the databases," Daniel replied.
"How do you know the address?" Jack asked.
"She insisted I stay with her back when she hired me for the project, I wasn't exactly financially stable if you remember," Daniel said.
"Huh, that's better than I expected, I was prepared to have to fly out of Peterson and ask for a vehicle from another base's motor pool. We should be able to get there in less than three hours, maybe get a hotel if we stay there late enough," Jack said.
Jack found the drive up from Colorado Springs wasn't that bad. It was just a short drive in Jack's truck, and they didn't even need to stop for gas.
"Daniel! You don't write, you don't call, why, one might be forgiven for assuming you had died or something. And you, Jack, I do appreciate the birthday and Christmas cards you sent last year, but you could call every now and then as well," Doctor Catherine Langford was in fine form, having received General Hammond's call that the two men were on their way to visit her.
Jack merely nodded in acknowledgement and leaned against the doorframe enjoying watching Daniel squirm under Catherine's piercing motherly concern.
"Thousands of Stargates, planetary shifts. Didn't you think I might be interested?" Catherin asked.
"That's why we came," Daniel tried to defend himself.
"Now, six months later. You could have told me sooner," Catherine needled.
"Wait, sooner?" Daniel asked.
"I have so enjoyed my chats with Samantha," Catherine smiled.
"Chats?" Daniel asked.
"Carter said, hi, by the way, and that she's sorry about missing Saturday Tea," Jack interjected.
"Thank you for relaying Samantha's words, Jack. She mentioned she might not have the leave schedule she originally planned when we last talked," Catherine said.
"... Saturday Tea? Cards? How am I only hearing about this now? No, wait, more importantly, how am I failing to be the good son here," Daniel asked.
"Don't look at me," Jack shrugged.
"Sit! Sit dears, I had Maggie prepare some tea before you arrived," Catherine waved for Jack to take a seat in one of the comfortable chairs opposite her.
Jack sauntered the rest of the way into the room and settled into the offered chair.
"I take it the general warned you of our impending arrival?"
"He did," Catherine said. "Something about early experiments done in 1945. How did you learn of those by the way?"
"The Pentagon was reviewing old materials recently for declassification, and they ran across old file boxes that someone recognized as related to the stargate. So, they sent them to us," Daniel explained.
"My father worked on the research team that worked on the gate during the war. Actually, they didn't know what it was then. But President Roosevelt was like that, curious. They suspected the gate was a weapon, or could be used as one. Nothing ever came of it though," Catherine reminisced.
"You weren't involved with the research?" Daniel asked.
Catherine scoffed, "you show how young you are, you forget that was 1945, the military had little use for a young woman such as I was then. I only know what little my father and Ernest were willing to discuss during dinner when they thought I wasn't listening."
"Ernest?" Jack asked.
"My late fiance, he was quite a dashing young man and a protégé of my father," Catherine trailed off into memory.
"You know, I was the one that suggested they use direct current instead of alternating current for powering the gate," Catherine said.
"Did you know the government kept the original files?" Daniel asked.
"I had my father's notes. He told me that was everything they had. Do you know how many administrations I had to petition to get the program started up again? Forty years had passed; the information was classified and buried. I never asked for the files, because I thought I had them. General West never offered, because he probably didn't even know they existed," Catherine replied.
"So, you don't know that they achieved a stable connection to another address in 1945," Daniel said.
"They did what now?" Catherine asked.
"They made a connection," Jack reiterated.
"No, I never knew they turned it on. My father never told me. It wasn't in his notes either."
"Then you should probably see this," Daniel said, and made a VHS tape appear from somewhere.
"I'm going to ignore the blatant disregard for proper handling of classified materials," Jack said looking up and away.
"Oh hush you," Catherine said, motioning for Daniel to make use of the VCR that was in the corner of the room. "Maggie left for the evening, the house is secure, and I have all the relevant NDAs signed."
"And I cleared it with Hammond before we left," Daniel added. "I can learn, you know. I'm not completely hopeless."
The picture flickered into existence and the trio watched the familiar ring in a less than familiar setting as a team of scientists in lab coats walked around checking things.
"Ernest," Catherine gasped as she caught sight of the younger man walking into view with a partially assembled diving suit, only identifiable thanks to carrying the helmet in his hands.
"That's Ernest?" Jack asked.
"That... that, idiot," Catherine said.
The three watched as Ernest in his diving suit stepped into the active puddle of the gate and disappeared. Shortly after he made it through, the shimmering puddle disappeared and severed the diving tether, stranding the young scientist at the destination.
"So, Ernest is the man that went through the gate," Jack said.
"Yes, and my father lied to me. He said Ernest died in an accident, an explosion. Probably thought he was protecting me," Catherine scoffed.
"From what?" Daniel asked.
"From knowing that my fiance chose to risk his life, that he chose his idea, his work, over me, without even talking to me about it first," Catherine replied. She then turned to Daniel. "You said this was a different address. Not Abydos?"
"Not Abydos," Daniel agreed.
"Jack?" Catherine asked, sweetly.
"Don't give me that look," Jack said.
"You get to explain this to General Hammond," Jack told Daniel.
"Oh don't be so dire, he's practically a teddy bear," Catherine waved off Jack's dire sounding statement. "I would go back to the mountain with you, but I'm scheduled to be a guest lecturer at the university in the morning. And this way you get to provide a nicer warning than if I came calling out of the blue. Oh, where are you staying tonight, you're not planning on driving back tonight are you?"
"It's only a two or three hour drive," Jack said.
"Nonsense, I have perfectly good guest rooms. You shouldn't endanger yourselves with too much driving, you'll stay the night. I insist," Catherine said.
"So, that's why you insisted I bring an overnight bag," Jack said to Daniel.
Daniel snorted. "Of course she was going to do this. How did you not know that she was going to?"
"Hey, it's not like I knew she'd have guest rooms. Though, you'll note that I didn't exactly argue about the overnight bag," Jack replied.
"Boys," Catherine laughed. "Daniel, you remember where your room is. Jack can take the one across the hall. Maggie will have breakfast served at seven. To think after all these years... I need to get my mind back on my lecture notes."
- A new line has appeared -
The next day Jack and Daniel returned to the SGC to a scene of chaotic alarms a little after noon.
"Colonel O'Neill, Doctor Jackson," General Hammond met them at the last checkpoint having just arrived himself, having been called back due to the situation and apparently just finished receiving a briefing from an airman. "I take it you had a good trip."
"Generally relaxing, though I'm not fond of the traffic in Denver. What's going on, sir," O'Neill asked.
"The gate has been... acting up since about ten hundred hours this morning," General Hammond said.
"Carter?" Jack asked.
"She's in the control room going over the diagnostic logs from the dialing computer, she said something about the gate going through some sort of recalibration cycle when I talked to her over the phone," General Hammond replied.
"Let's go get our gear on, just in case," Jack said to Daniel and turned for the locker room.
"I'll meet you in the control room, Colonel," General Hammond said, and disappeared down the other hall.
Jack was quick to trade his civilian clothing for the BDU and snagged the remote he'd stowed on the shelf, only for it to light up with an obvious console log scrolling down one side of the screen and a wireframe of the gate with various red lines pointing to different things on the other side, one line changing to green seemingly at random as he watched.
At the top of the screen there was a series of words with arrows between each word, like a breadcrumb trail of sorts, though Jack still couldn't read the blocky script.
"Interesting," Jack said.
"What's that?" Daniel asked.
"I think I know what kicked this all off," Jack replied.
"Oh?" Daniel finished buttoning up his own olive green drab shirt and followed Jack out of the locker room.
"Yeah, I just want to take a peek in Carter's lab," Jack said, deftly turning through the maze of corridors heading towards his destination.
Jack smirked as he spotted the CRT monitor and computer hooked up to the alien console, with the remote in his hands he was able to quickly see how it updated with a new line in the blocky script at the same time as a new line appeared in the console window on the computer. He hesitated to call the words appearing on the screen English, the letters and words were all familiar, but the way they were arranged on command line interfaces on computers... Jack suppressed his distaste.
O'Neill ran a finger along the newest line that seemed to be something relating to a cleaning mechanism for the inner symbol track that was clearing out sand if he understood the reference to silica compounds correctly.
Looking at the remote in his hand, it looked like the inner track was about seventy-five percent of the way through the cleaning cycle and should stop spinning in another five or so minutes, at least if he understood the blocky little symbols next to that red line pointing at the inner track on the wireframe.
"To the control room," Jack said, leading the still slightly confused Daniel out of Sam's lab and down a flight of stairs and past some Airmen transporting a cart full of armor inserts to another lab.
Daniel wasn't quite sure why Jack slowed to a stroll but figured it had something to do with what he'd seen on the computer in Sam's lab and whatever was on the ancient remote control for the Kino, so he slowed as well.
"And we're being calm now because," Daniel asked.
"Because this is all Carter's fault, and not actually a problem," Jack replied.
The two entered the control room at O'Neill's leisurely pace to see Carter looking through a similar if less informative list of scrolling information on the SGC's dialing computer, and General Hammond standing in the middle of the room, arms crossed.
"This code here: must be for the inner... some metric relevant to the inner track since these codes here are referencing the rotation of the glyph track. Couldn't tell you what more than half these other signals from the gate mean. But so far, I know for sure that there have been log entries for each of the chevrons and every light on the gate, it even adjusted the iris, opening and closing the internal motors we attached the titanium shell to. I just have no clue what could've triggered it," Captain Carter said, pushing a strand of hair out of her face and back behind her ear.
"You did," Jack said.
"She did?" General Hammond said.
"Yup," Jack replied.
"How, I wouldn't even know where to start," Captain Carter picked up the cup of coffee next to the keyboard and took a sip.
"How many cups of coffee is that today?" Jack asked.
Carter looked at the mug in her hand and started counting fingers on her other hand.
"Too many, I take it, how long have you been up anyway?" Jack said.
"What day is it?" Carter asked.
"It's Friday, Captain," General Hammond said.
"I may possibly have pulled an all nighter," Carter said sheepishly.
"This is why I don't leave you to tinker in your lab often," Jack muttered.
"Back to how it's Carter's fault," Daniel said.
Jack held up the remote with the same scrolling console log, "The gate can apparently work wirelessly, and you told a fascinating piece of equipment currently sitting in your lab to run a full set of diagnostics and calibration cycle."
"I did?" Carter said.
"Yup, and if the pretty pictures on this are correct, it should be finished in about another hour," Jack said, before frowning and looking at the screen more closely. "No, make that two? Maybe three."
General Hammond shook his head, "get some rest, captain."
"But—" Carter motioned to the logs.
"The logs will still be here after you get some sleep, probably even easier to manage since you can review them with timestamps, Carter, get some rest," Jack said.
"I'll even have someone prepare a copy of the camera footage for you as soon as the gate finishes whatever it's doing," Hammond added.
"Sirs," Carter said, pushing back from the computer and looking at her cup of coffee, "I think I'll just dump this."
"Good idea," Jack said.
The three watched the captain leave the room, Jack waiting until her footsteps had faded before grabbing a sticky note and pen.
"What are you up to," Daniel asked.
"I'm just going to suggest that she review the log from the terminal on the computer hooked up to the dialing console in her lab as the logs there are in English and appear to be much more complete. Not telling her now or she won't sleep, but I'd hate for her to waste several days on guess work for unknown sections of the log using that when there's a more complete version already in her lab," Jack motioned at the less than legible log scrolling past.
General Hammond chuckled, "I'll make sure it's on top of the copy of the video when they hand it to her. Let me know when the gate is finished doing... that."
"Oh, by the way, sir," Jack said, turning to the General. "Doctor Langford requested that she be allowed to be involved, while we check on the status of her thought-late fiance. She said to let you know she'd be arriving in two days."
"I see," General Hammond replied.
- A new line has appeared -
"Sam!" Catherine entered the control room at General Hammond's side.
"Catherine, so good to see you! Just a moment, I'm waiting for the upload of the new code definitions file to complete," Captain Carter said from the control room computer where lines of code scrolled past.
"Doctor Langford," Jack greeted the doctor of archaeology.
"Jack, I told you to call me Catherine," Catherine scolded.
Jack shook his head. "I'm on duty and you're here on official business. Protocol says that you're Doctor Langford."
"And since when do you stand on protocol?"
"When it amuses me or sufficiently shiny brass is around," Jack shrugged.
Catherine vocalized her general disbelief of this statement.
"Is that your old ID badge?" Jack asked.
"It is, they let me keep it, though it expires soon," Catherine said.
"We just visited security to renew her clearances. Though it's a little delayed since new protocols require a new background check and my signature on the paperwork after it comes back," General Hammond grumbled.
"We actually run background checks to let people in here?" Jack asked.
"Yes," was the general's short reply.
"Could've fooled me, considering those idiots that came through last week," Jack muttered.
"And, done," Captain Carter said as the codes on the screen stopped scrolling and the system restarted. The familiar wireframe gate and symbol selector setup replaced the scrolling lines of configuration logs. "All the new diagnostic codes have been identified and definitions uploaded to our system. It's already improving the level of control our dialing computer has over the gate."
"Good work, Captain. Let's get this briefing under way," General Hammond motioned for SG1 and Doctor Catherine Langford to follow him up the stairs up to the briefing room.
"Catherine, this is Teal'c. Teal'c, this is Catherine," General Hammond introduced the one member of SG1 that Doctor Langford hadn't had a chance to meet before taking his seat at the head of the table.
"Daniel's told me all about you. Ah, let me see if I have this greeting right. Tek-ma-te," Catherine held a hand out to the Jaffa who gently took her arm and bowed his head towards her.
"Tek-ma-te, Doctor Langford," Teal'c replied.
"Doctor Jackson, this is your show," General Hammond said.
"Ah, right, yes, I've prepared some handouts," Daniel stood, handing the stack of the papers he'd prepared to Jack to be handed down the table, and clicked a slide onto the projector.
"We received several file and film documents from the pentagon recently regarding experiments performed on the stargate in the 1940s where they managed to achieve a connection to the following stargate address," Daniel clicked the remote, advancing the slide to enhanced images of each glyph shown on the gate as it had been manually dialed.
"The planet in question is relatively close to Abydos, so it shares several of the same locator glyphs as Abydos address," Daniel continued.
"The important part, though," Captain Carter interjected as Daniel paused in his presentation. "Is that the address in question was not present on the Abydos cartouche where all our existing database of addresses came from. "
"If you'll pardon the question, how is that significant?" Catherine asked.
"The absence from the Abydos cartouche implies that the Goa'uld haven't been there, which is additional proof that the gate network is merely being used by them and not their creation," Daniel said.
"Though that should be fairly obvious now given the dungeon planet," O'Neill said.
"The Goa'uld are scavengers by nature," Teal'c clarified.
"Additionally, this man went through the gate in 1945," Daniel clicked to the next slide showing Ernest Littlefield in a diving suit walking towards the gate.
"Doctor Ernest Littlefield, Also, Catherine's fiancé. While he would undeniably have had a hard life alone, while not exactly likely, it's entirely possible he's still alive and stranded there without the address to come home," Daniel said.
"Genuine American Hero, there," Jack said.
"Excellent and thorough analysis of the situation, SG1, I can see why Catherine wishes to be present, go send a MALP and if it's a viable address you have a go," General Hammond said.
- A new line has appeared -
Half an hour later, SG1 had changed into their gear and fitted Catherine with her own tactical vest and expedition uniform; they had a Field Remote Expeditionary Device waiting at the edge of the ramp.
"Spin it up!" O'Neill hollered up to the control room window, where General Hammond nodded to the on duty technician.
The FRED disappeared up through the gate, a MALP having already been sent along earlier to confirm the viability of the address.
"SG1, good luck," General Hammond's voice echoed through the gate room.
"Piece of cake," O'Neill said in a calming voice while Daniel held onto Catherine's other arm.
"Ready?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah," Catherine stepped forward into the puddle with Jack and Daniel on either side of her.