"Carter!" Jack yelled and pulled the kino controller out of his pack, frantically pushing buttons to go through the menus.
"Come on, where's the dialing program? You can show me gate diagnostics, so you should be able to dial the stargate too," Jack barely had time to complete his thought let alone do anything with his remote before an odd warbling tone sounded and then a flash of light signaled the entire group being removed from the gate room.
As his vision cleared, he wasn't sure but didn't think he or the remote had anything to do with the change in scenery.
The room had a high octagonal ceiling supported by teal metal columns with bronze accents, the floor was a marbled bronze color with a darker pattern of lines leading away from the center of their arrival point, against each wall was a medical pod that reminded the colonel of the medical pod from the dungeon planet.
"Ah, the infirmary," Ernest said, and O'Neill spun on his heels to face the older man.
"What do you mean, infirmary?" O'Neill said. "You know where we are?"
"Exactly that," Ernest replied dryly. "Every time I got hurt worse than a scrape, I'd find myself here, these miracle machines would glow and I'd feel better, and then I'd find myself back at the castle. We're in a valley a short walk from the main castle, there's a couple other support buildings here that seem intended to act as additional space for whatever staff would've been working at the main structure where the gate is," Ernest replied.
"Oh?" O'Neill said.
"Yes, I found myself here many times over the years, transported whenever I had a severe enough injury," Ernest said.
"Well if it can transport us here, it should be able to send us back," O'Neill said. "I doubt they'd have wanted people out in that mess."
"The storm shield should be up by now," Ernest said.
"Storm shield?" O'Neill asked.
"Yes, it usually takes a few good lightning strikes or a day or so when the winds are strong enough. It surprised me the first time it appeared, like a soap bubble, all shimmering blue. The entire structure past the cliff into the ocean is protected by a glowing blue energy field that protects it from the worst of the storm; it lasts even longer if it is activated from lightning hitting the rod at the top of the tallest spire."
"Fascinating, and you said it should be active by now," O'Neill said, and looked up as the sound of the storm had calmed significantly.
"That's why I'm so surprised it hadn't already activated to stop that tree limb," Ernest said.
"Where's Carter?" O'Neill asked, his situational awareness having identified the lack of the team scientist from the group.
"Colonel O'Neill," Teal'c called from next to one of the medical pods which was active.
"Excellent work, T," O'Neill said.
Colonel O'Neill and Teal'c took the direct path to the single active pod, where an automatic scanning arm moved back and forth over Captain Carter's prone form, while a second smaller arm was already busy applying a golden ray of healing energy to her head wound. Above the bed they could see a generalized scan of the body annotated in that strange blocky language, updating with the passing of the scanner and a graph and numbers that Jack assumed were vital signs like pulse, blood pressure, temperature, and a dozen other items he wasn't as confident about.
"Now what?" He muttered over the displays. Reaching out and brushing against one of the floating holograms before flinching back after they reacted and changed to some sort of form, it seemed the facility considered him to be the one with the authority to approve anything more than basic patient stabilizations. Then he spotted the graphical "button" that was blinking out of the available options. Colonel O'Neill shrugged and pushed a finger into the hologram.
-| A new line has appeared |-
"I think they've forgotten about us," Ernest said quietly to Catherine.
"Oh hush, you. Sam got hurt, though I'm a little disappointed in Daniel. He's still back in the hologram room isn't he?" Catherine replied.
The two observed SG1 around Carter's medical pod where O'Neill was working his way through the holographic interface hanging over it.
"What are you doing?" Catherine asked. Ernest had taken the opportunity to approach the medical pod opposite from the Captain and had one leg half way into the thing with a determined expression.
"Catherine," the man paused, "I've survived living alone on this abandoned planet with yearly monsoons; my aches have got pains, and I'm tired. I haven't had a medical checkup in fifty years, but these medical pods have always left me feeling better. You should use the one next to mine; see what it finds, if there's anything needing looking at," Ernest said. "Catherine, help me out here."
"I suppose it's not a horrible idea," Catherine said, stepping up to assist Ernest the rest of the way into the medical pod. "How do you suppose this thing turns on?"
Ernest looked up at her and smiled, "It was always automatic when I used them." Then the medical system detected it had a patient and an orange isolation field shimmered into existence, and he closed his eyes. The scanner arm undocked from the wall followed by the healing arm. The display at the head of Ernest's pod flickered on just like the one at the head of Captain Carter's pod. Slowly the pod started working on addressing his issues.
Catherine shrugged and decided she might as well get her own checkup and climbed into the next medical pod where the process repeated.
-| A new line has appeared |-
Colonel O'Neill looked up after clearing the last of what appeared to be treatment authorization screens for the captain. Teal'c had moved to a guard position with his back against the wall where he could keep an eye on the entire room, and he nodded in acknowledgment of the Colonel's renewed attention.
His team was accounted for, but his two V.I.P.s weren't readily visible, though their location was easily resolved when he spotted the two additional active medical pods and their waiting holographic screens.
"Ugh, I am not scrolling through a hundred treatment options again, those had better have a simple option to approve some sort of standard recommended full treatment course," O'Neill complained as he marched over to examine the new options. "Daniel, any thoughts?"
Colonel O'neill looked around before remembering that the team's archaeologist had been in the hologram room, so he hadn't been transported with everyone. Sighing, he grabbed his radio. "Daniel, you there?" He grumbled a bit when there was no response, they should still have been within radio range if Ernest was correct about the support building being so close, but the storm might be interfering even if the construction of the castle or this 'sickbay' weren't blocking things, and looked back at the dialog box over Ernest Littlefield. Shrugging and grumbling, he pushed a finger into the hologram that obligingly reacted, the holographic button moved inward away from his finger until the entire dialog request blinked out of existence.
"Huh, so that's a thing," O'Neill said and repeated the process for Catherine's pod.
-| A new line has appeared |-
"Hot diggity dog!" Ernest exclaimed as he danced a little jig in front of the medical bed. "I feel like I'm in my twenties again."
Teal'c raised an eyebrow.
"You certainly don't look it," Catherine said from where she sat on the edge of the medical bed having finished her own round of treatments. "Ah, you simply don't realize how many aches and pains you live with until they're gone."
"Catherine?" Ernest wiggled his eyebrows at the rejuvenated Doctor Langford.
"Ernest!" Catherine giggled, as Doctor Littlefield picked her up and twirled her around before setting her on her feet. "Oh, you silly man."
The two touched foreheads sharing the moment between themselves while Teal'c turned to give them some privacy.
"They said your name is Teal'c, right?" Ernest said several moments later.
"That is correct, Doctor Littlefield," Teal'c replied.
"I take it Captain Carter is okay?" Catherine asked.
"Good, you're up. And yes, Captain Carter is recovering," O'Neill interrupted.
"Indeed," Teal'c replied.
"The medical pod just doesn't want to release her yet," O'Neill whined.
"I guess even advanced ancients treat concussions seriously," Sam interjected exasperatedly.
"Would be nice if we could just take the pod with us," O'Neill muttered.
There was a clunk noise behind them.
"What's it doing?" Samantha Carter asked.
"The pod appears to have detached from the floor and wall," Teal'c replied.
"I'd really really like to be out of here soon," Captain Carter said.
"Relax, based on that timer display I think it's saying it'll be done in about an hour?" O'Neill said. "Or is that a three? Hmmm. But we need to get back to the gate."
There was no flash of light to send them back, and O'Neill grumbled before digging in his pack for the four rain ponchos he'd packed for emergencies. Then he clipped a line to the hovering medical pod and his belt and trudged towards the door.
"You know the way back?" O'Neill asked.
"Of course," Doctor Littlefield replied, and took point.
O'Neill, Teal'c, Doctor Littlefield, and Doctor Langford trudged out of the infirmary onto a muddy path followed by the medical pod with Captain Carter, a thin golden bubble shield appearing over her pod to block the water that was dripping from everything except the sky which was currently glowing a teal blue as it stopped the storm from affecting the area.
-| A new line has appeared |-
Heliopolis Hologram Room
O'Neill's poncho crinkled noisily as he took a seat, shedding droplets of water next to the team's archaeologist. Jack frowned and firmly tugged the journal out of Daniel's hands.
"Careful," Daniel started. "You're dripping water everywhere."
"Oh, so that's what you notice first? I'm very much not happy with you right now, Daniel," Colonel O'Neill said quietly as he slipped the journal into his pack.
"Why? What just happened?" Daniel asked.
"While you were too busy fiddling with that meaning of life crap, the storm tossed a tree through the gate room and Carter got injured while trying to dial the gate," O'Neill said, still a little miffed at Daniel.
"It's not crap, Jack. It's an important discovery, probably one of the most important ones we've ever made," Daniel muttered.
"Daniel, the entire rest of the group has been gone for four hours, you've been in here stuck in your head, that journal, and that hologram for four hours without noticing we've been nowhere around." O'Neill said. "And possibly ignoring your radio as well, for that matter."
"..." Daniel was speechless.
"There's a time and a place to geek out over new discoveries, the middle of an ongoing situation with someone else's written notes that you can take with you isn't the time," O'Neill said.
Daniel slowly looked up, and hesitantly said, "okay? But—"
"Ah-bup, no buts. You quite literally have a written journal here that you can take with you, every observation Doctor Littlefield made over the thirty or so years he spent here," O'Neill patted the pack with the journal. "I fully understand that this is exciting new information for you, meaning of life and all that, it won't do anyone any good if you get stranded here, or killed because the area wasn't safe to stay in. Understood?"
"Understood," Daniel reflexively swallowed; O'Neill having unknowingly hit on just the right approach to drive his point home.
"Now, I do have something your talents could help me with," O'Neill said and held up the handheld remote for the kino. "I think this might have a dialer program for the gate."
Daniel nodded and opened his own notebook and notes on the Ancient script.
O'Neill tapped the button that he had previously learned would go deeper into the menu tree and give him another list of options. A wireframe image of the stargate appeared, reminding him of the diagnostics that had appeared back at the SGC. There were more menu options, and he found the one word that had appeared in the breadcrumbs list when the remote dialed this place. It looked sort of like the Latin word, clavis, if one used their imagination and rotated the C to stand on its opening, and the V to rest on its left side.
The breadcrumbs list updated, adding the blocky word he was pretty sure now was Astria, and the menu updated to show three new options. The first one gave him what he assumed to be a "favorites" list that only held the address to the dungeon planet, assuming he recognized those symbols correctly. Maybe he could add Earth? The second seemed to be some sort of directory of local stargates within a set range, or at least he assumed that some of the maybe-numbers were distances. They were supposed to be close to Earth, and he wasn't surprised to find the correct set of symbols included.
Tapping the little 'favorite' symbol from the previous menu had it highlight as though selected, and then he pointed at the likely-distance numbers. "I think this might be how far away from Earth we are."
At Jack's prompting, Daniel scribbled the maybe numbers down in his notebook and put the distance from earth to heliopolis next to it with a question mark, since Carter had a program that told them roughly how far away an address was in lightyears after dialing.
The Final menu option was the manual dialing option he'd been looking for with a sort of virtual keyboard on the screen with all the gate symbols.
Now that he'd found what he was looking for, he quickly cycled through the options, returning to the option that reminded him of the favorites from the bigger list and tapping that to autofill earth's address in the input box, the seventh symbol showing up on its own for him. Another button on the remote lit up, visually hinting that if he pressed it then the remote would send the address to the stargate in the other room.
"I think that does it," O'Neill said.
"Hey, wonder what's with the two compasses," Daniel said, pointing out that at the top of the screen there were two dials pointing in different directions, and they moved with how Jack was holding the remote.
Jack fished out his military issue compass and compared, "interesting, one of them is definitely the magnetic compass since but it's pointing south, maybe the other one points at the gate? It's pointing that direction, anyway."
"Should we test it or something?" Daniel asked.
Jack fiddled with his remote until he was back at the dialing program, then walked to the other room and around the gate.
"What are you doing?" Daniel asked following him.
"Confirming that theory about the compass, it's definitely pointing to the gate," O'Neill said. He then looked at the others.
"Alright, campers, everyone ready to go home?"
"Just dial the thing already," Carter said from the medical pod.
SGC Gateroom - October 13th, 1997
"This is gonna be a good one," General Hammond's exasperated tone could be heard over the intercom as the MALP came through the gate followed by SG1 around a medical pod with Captain Carter, and their two V.I.P.s. The medical pod was hooked to the railing on the MALP and gently hovering freely behind it. "Someone get Doctor Fraiser down here."
-| A new line has appeared |-
SGC Infirmary - October 13th, 1997
"Well, captain, you're recovering nicely. I can't even tell that you had a concussion. Though, I have to admit, you guys coming back with a way to keep any of you from limping out of the infirmary wasn't something I expected. I think I'd have preferred if O'Neill was the one in the bed though, given that I believe he's behind on a couple of expected checkups." Doctor Fraiser said.
"Just get me out of this thing already," Sam muttered.
"Ah, it says observation for another hour, Captain," Doctor Fraiser smirked, before frowning. "Or at least that's what I think this timer says based on what the Colonel indicated, anyway."
-| A new line has appeared |-
Heliopolis - October 14th, 1997
The stargate activated and several short figures with bushy hair full of leaves and twigs stepped through, the tallest and oldest figure looked around and spotted the partial disassembly of the DHD and started grumbling.
The second member of the group shook their head and made a gesture at one of the walls revealing a hidden door and a series of control consoles one of which was a more advanced version of the dialing device. "Ignore it, that's part of the ancient's test, and you know it."
"It's a ridiculous test anyway," The third member of that team said, they stepped around the mess of crystal rods and metal panels to examine the hole in the ceiling closer.
"We each have our tests, ours may seem ridiculous to the others, our ways are ours, as their ways are theirs," the eldest said. "Besides, from the smell of things, I think there's some foreign materials in there and that particular version of the test has been damaged beyond the norm."
"There's a stock of them in storage, I'll just trigger a replacement," the second member said, now reviewing the logs from the revealed control room.
The third member of the group adjusted a woody vine wrapped around their wrist causing the stone to seemingly liquify before flowing upwards into the gap before turning solid once more.
The second member finished what they were doing in the control room and the pile of DHD components and disassembled DHD disappeared in a flash before being replaced with a new though non-functional duplicate that lacked the massive damage of the original.
The fourth and youngest member of the little expedition was just happy to be there and made no comment while examining everything with wide, excited eyes.
A moment later the second sighed and spoke up. "Janus, of all people, upheld his people's responsibilities and then some, while we somehow missed that someone was trapped here for decades."
The first flinched at that. "Are they still here?"
"No, another group removed them recently."