Chapter 8 - Back again? Lumos, Home free.
Heliopolis stargate room
"Someone, other than us, has been here, and recently," Daniel said warily.
The difference in the heliopolis stargate room was obvious: it wasn't humid and stifling to start with, likely because the hole in the ceiling had been repaired. Even the mess they'd made of the DHD had been cleaned up.
"I had a feeling after the medical pod downloaded that update from here," Colonel O'Neill said.
Captain Carter shook her head. "Janet's report said the downloads needed your approval, sir. They could've been in a system queue here waiting for that kind of approval for quite some time."
Colonel O'Neill raised a finger and looked like he was about to argue further, only to sigh and lower it.
"...fair point, but... counterpoint, those are repairs," O'Neill gestured at the clean and fresh looking gate room.
"Touché," Carter agreed, looking around the room.
"If you are finished, this location would not appear to be capable of supplying the treatments you described," Bra'tac interrupted.
"Okay, we're here with a medical emergency," O'Neill said. There was a light flash across the group, followed by nothing happening.
"Was that supposed to do something?" Bra'tac asked.
"Huh. Well, good news! Nobody is going to keel over from an immediately life-threatening medical condition," Colonel O'Neill said brightly.
"And the bad news, sir?" Carter asked.
"Ah, yes, the bad news; we have a bit of a walk ahead of us," O'Neill deadpanned. "Luckily, no thanks to Daniel, I know how to get there. Though, now I'm worried about the wind and rain. I don't imagine anyone packed their umbrella. At least our emergency ponchos should be in our kit, even if we have to double up the kids, we should be able to at least keep them dry."
"Teal'c obviously isn't carrying one," Daniel said, and set the map printout down to fish out the two prepackaged ponchos he'd packed.
"I see we were on the same page," Carter had followed suit retrieving three of her own.
"And here's another four," O'Neill said and dropped the four from his own pack onto the pile.
"Four sir," Carter asked.
"Well, I said to myself, Teal'c doesn't carry a pack like ours, and then I thought, Daniel might forget, and then I considered things. They really don't take that much space, so I thought, I might as well pack four. I'd have packed five if I could fit them all in the pocket."
"...might forget?" Daniel said incredulously.
Carter winced, "That's why I grabbed that third one."
"Sam?!" Daniel sounded betrayed.
"Hey, how many times did we trade off on helping you pack your bag before you got it down?" O'Neill asked.
"Jack..." Daniel grumbled, whined, and then winced, likely remembering several prior incidents of forgetting things he'd not considered important.
"Alright, that's nine ponchos. We can at least get the kids covered," O'Neill said, ignoring the grumbling and opening the first of the packets.
"Humph, such flimsy things and you're sure these will be of use?" Bra'tac asked.
"I have endured the rain before, O'Neill. Bra'tac may evaluate the effectiveness of my rain poncho, if he desires it," Teal'c calmly stated.
O'Neill looked over the group; Brennad, the youngest of the adult Jaffa, if he'd caught the name correctly from the quiet conversation between the Jaffa was limping from an impressive looking wound. "That will do, Tee. Unless several others are hiding wounds like that one."
The young warrior looked up from his charge in bewilderment at the sudden attention, and carefully shifted his weight away from the injured leg.
"Sir, I think Daniel and I should stay, we can contact the SGC and advise them of our status, plus I'd like to examine that replacement DHD," Carter said.
"You and Daniel want to stay?" O'Neill asked.
"Teal'c will obviously be going with you, his son is part of the group," Daniel said.
"And, you'll be needed for the medical pods, as they seem to respond best for you, though heaven knows why," Carter said.
"Okay, but your radios stay on you, and on at all times, and if I get even a hint that your radio wasn't out of range or blocked and you didn't respond. Well, I don't know what I'll do, but there'll be consequences," O'Neill said.
It didn't take very long for them to distribute the rain ponchos, and the group soon left the gate room behind. O'Neill led the way down the muddy path he'd taken just a few days before into the tree-line.
The children looked up in awe as they followed the path, overhead there was a swirl of teals and blues shimmering in the sky, lighting the area in an ethereal glow. The environmental shield was doing its job holding back the might of the storm, and fluorescing as it deflected the heavy rain. The older Jaffa of the group merely smiled at the enthusiasm, though were obviously less impressed as they had seen similar shields in use before.
After roughly ten minutes of walking they reached a clearing from which they could see the infirmary building with just a few large trees between it and them, and that was the moment when the shield overhead deactivated without warning. They had only a few seconds from the glow fading, and the growing sound of the storm reaching them, before they were drenched by the sudden deluge of water.
In the distance, the light from the infirmary door was now their guide.
O'Neill, Bra'tac, Teal'c, and the other refugees broke into a run. Carrying the children, they sprinted the remaining distance into the safety of the entrance.
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Heliopolis - Infirmary
"I suppose these ponchos may be more useful than they might first appear," Bra'tac said, shedding the thin plastic once they were well inside the building and clear of the torrential downpour.
"I knew you'd appreciate them," O'Neill said, and helped to hang the ponchos in the vestibule that kept the outside out of the infirmary.
"Indeed," Teal'c said, and led the group through a blast of warm air that helped dry them and push away the chill before they entered the octagonal main room of the infirmary proper.
"Alright, kids, into the medical pods." O'Neill said, pointing to the six pods around the room, the seventh pod being the one they'd run off with and apparently not replaced, and the eighth wall not having a pod at all as it would've sat against the door they just entered through.
The group followed his instruction except for the young man that was injured, as his charge was arguing with him.
"Woah, hold on," O'Neill said. "What's going on here?"
"Brennad is injured, I can wait," the young Jaffa told O'Neill solemnly.
"Zahkad, you are my responsibility, my injury has waited this long, it can continue to wait," Brennad immediately countered.
"He is correct," Teal'c interposed himself into the argument. "You are his charge and it's his responsibility to see that you are cared for."
"The pods are reusable, you know," O'Neill interjected. "Your brother can use the healing pod as soon as it finishes with you."
"Promise?" Zahkad asked.
"I pinky promise that's the most solemn vow there is," O'Neill replied, holding out his pinky finger.
"How's that work?" Zahkad asked.
O'Neill showed the young jaffa the custom.
"Zahkad, just get into the medical pod," Brennad groaned in frustration.
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Heliopolis - Stargate room
Captain Carter watched the Colonel and the Jaffa as they disappeared down the path before she returned to the gate room and the replacement dialing device.
"Now what?" Daniel asked.
"Now, you look around to see if there's anything in here that might suggest a secret door that Ernest might not have noticed," Sam said, reaching out to start pressing the glyphs for their home address.
Daniel shrugged and clicked on his flashlight to wander around the gate room. "Not sure what you're expecting me to find, stone is a thick building material and just about anything could be hidden with the right techniques."
"It was just a thought, as there's obviously technology hidden here, but I'm not actually expecting much," Sam said, and frowned as the dialing device was acting erratically. The glyphs she'd pressed hadn't lit up, but multiple other glyphs elsewhere had. With a sigh, she pulled the crystal interface tools out of her pack followed by a toolkit and her laptop. She started her laptop booting before working on prying open an access panel on the dialing device.
"Having problems?" Daniel asked.
"The dialing interface is glitched, it just lights up random symbols," Carter said, now into the guts of the dialing device and looking over all of the internal components.
"Well, there's maybe three spots I'd consider potentially hidden doors, but I don't see any way to trigger a mechanism," Daniel said. "Four if you count that the passage to the hologram room looks like it can be sealed off."
"I take it you want to go look at the hologram room?" Carter asked.
"A thousand times, yes," Daniel said, practically bouncing on his toes.
Captain Carter laughed and removed another access panel. "It's probably going to take me at least twenty minutes to diagnose whatever's wrong with this, so go ahead."
"Thanks Sam!" Daniel yelled, running out of the room to Carter's continued laughter.
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Heliopolis - Infirmary
"What now?" Ha'kiera asked once all the children had been situated.
"Now? The medical pods activate, tell us if there's anything that needs attention, and then they get healed," O'Neill said.
Around the room, the medical pods had already sensed their new patients and did exactly as Colonel O'Neill had said. Shimmering fields of energy had formed over each Jaffa child.
"You know it'd be nice to have a single interface for all of these, or maybe some sort of assistant to tell me what I'm doing." O'Neill said as the first of the holographic dialog screens appeared. "On second thought, since we have the guardians present perhaps they should be the ones making medical decisions for their charges."
The screen that appeared in front of the Colonel with each pod's readings and a summary of the findings stayed where it was at, while separate holographic displays appeared over each of the children, suitably translated into goa'uld text. While they were reading their individual results, O'Neill spotted a note on his screen that a common condition was present in all patients and an existing treatment for that condition had already been approved for general use.
With the overview screen, O'Neill was able to monitor their progress with an english translation as they worked through the list, and point out for Teal'c when something needed to be explained to the parental guardians of the younger Jaffa, but eventually each child's care had been settled and the pods set to work applying the fix to the genes responsible as well as clearing out any existing problems that had arisen as a result of their growing lack of immune system or the work needed for restoring it to a functional state.
Unlike Teal'c, who'd been without a functioning immune system for most of his adult life and would need to continue to rely upon the symbiote still in his abdominal pouch, the young Jaffa being treated would only feel a temporary vulnerability for a few days while their bodies adapted to the genetic changes, restarting the process of building new immune cells to replace the ones that had died off.
"I would speak with you, Teal'c," Bra'tac said, approaching his former student while the medical pods worked on the younger Jaffa.
"What is it you would have of me?" Teal'c asked.
Colonel O'Neill watched as the two Jaffa turned away from the group discussing things, only catching a few snippets about training and unfamiliar goa'uld words, and decided it was time to check in with Carter and Daniel.
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Heliopolis - Stargate room
"Yes!" Carter cheered as her laptop reported that she'd successfully negotiated a connection between the dialing computer within the DHD and the program on her laptop. "Now to see if we can actually dial somewhere... just as soon as it finishes the start-up checks."
The dialing pedestal had been laid bare, with every access panel that could be removed now on the floor. The red dome of the central button was lying off to the side and Carter's attempt at her own diagnostic cable was trailing from one of the data crystals normally under the dome to her laptop. The access cable that the team had gotten as a reward from the dungeon planet was attached to the second port of her laptop, looping around to the open access panel on the backside of the DHD and vanishing to connect deeper within the internals of the device.
A heavily modified version of the SGC's own dialing program that the Air Force Captain had been working on to interface with the dialing console they'd picked up had been hastily patched to work with the DHD instead and it was now scrolling through a series of diagnostics sending requests over the serial-optical adapter at the fastest possible speed for her laptop. Unfortunately, that seemed to be the slowest possible speed the DHD would understand. Her customized dialing software was building up a list of hardware IDs to work with by poking the DHD for control ports she was aware of and through it the stargate.
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Colonel O'Neill clicked the radio a few times.
"Carter, what's your status? Over," O'Neill said.
There was a short wait which Colonel O'Neill assumed was Captain Carter getting her hands on the radio to respond.
"All clear up here, that replacement DHD appears to have some sort of intentional sabotage but isn't outright damaged like the old one, sir, over," Captain Carter replied.
"Do you need me up there? Over," O'Neill asked.
"Not as of yet, over," Carter replied.
"Where's spacemonkey, over," O'Neill sent.
"Looking for hidden rooms in the hologram room, I think I found some possible buttons for a door but the exact combo is a mystery, over," Daniel interjected from his own radio.
"Nice to see you paying attention, over," O'Neill replied.
"If that's all, sir, I need to get back to disentangling the mess in the DHD, sir, over," Carter replied.
"Understood, captain, O'Neill out," O'Neill replied, returning his radio to the pocket of his tac vest.
Zahkad's medical pod was the first to stop glowing, the arms returning to storage and the field dimming until it winked out of existence, the first of the Jaffa children to finish their treatment and kind of proving that they'd not needed to go before their brother. O'Neill considered things and wondered if he could convince the systems to ask the adult jaffa directly what treatments they'd agree to rather than needing him to read through pages of medical information and make decisions for them.
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"That sounded promising," Daniel said, strolling back into the room having exhausted his search for buttons and unwilling to spend the time just yet trying to brute force a combo on the one set he'd found.
"It is, I've managed to get my laptop to interface with the control crystals. It's going through the programming on the DHD now. I did find the obvious problem though, as there's a missing connection here," Carter pointed at the darkened crystal that linked the upper section of the DHD with the lower section. "Also, if I'm reading this right, the upper portion of the dialing device has a program that just runs through random combinations of glyphs whenever you press one, and every seventh glyph press it lights up the dome before resetting the lights."
"That seems like an odd thing to do," Daniel said.
There was an unexpected noise of metal against metal that interrupted Carter's next comment as a metal iris slid out of the pocket in the stargate closing over the opening.
"What," Daniel asked.
"That's weird," Carter agreed, and picked up her laptop and started poking at the log. "I thought I disabled that section."
Daniel frowned. "Because there shouldn't be an iris here?"
"Well, yes, and because in testing on other gates without an iris, and before we installed our iris back home, even attempting to talk to that system caused a thirty second delay in the program runtime," Carter said.
"I take it this is something Jack should know about?" Daniel said.
"Probably, but let's see if I can get it to retract before we radio him," Carter said hopefully.
"Just a thought; Are you sure it was your program and not Jack playing with the remote that closed the iris?" Daniel asked.
Carter frowned and reached for her radio.
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"Well, that's new," O'Neill said, staring at the darker colored iris that matched the metal of the gate far better than their own version.
"You're telling me, sir," Carter said.
"If we could think of it for our stargate, I'm not exactly surprised there are other stargates with an Iris," Daniel said.
"We hooked our iris up to existing hardware in the gate," Carter pointed out. "All of them seem to have it, most just don't have anything attached and that causes attempts to talk to the hardware to fail."
"So, how'd this happen?" O'Neill asked, walking around the stargate and reaching out to rap his knuckles against the metal of the iris.
"I've been working on an updated version of the dialing program for if we ever decide to install the new dialing console, sir. There's a section on startup where it goes through a discovery loop for devices and then a brief test script to determine if all the connected hardware is functioning properly, including iris controls. I swear I commented out the iris control section of the code, but apparently I ran the version that didn't have it commented out," Carter explained.
"Well, get it open again then," O'Neill said.
"That's what I've been trying to do but it doesn't seem to be forwarding that signal to the gate," Carter said.
"Maybe the ancient remote can tell it to retract," Daniel suggested.
"Wait! One last try with an alternate routine I should have a copy of," Carter said, opening up the code file and uncommented an alternate code to control the iris derived from the new dialing computer before restarting the dialing program. She impatiently watched it scroll through the startup sequence one more time. O'Neill and Daniel watched the screen with her as she pressed the 'Open iris' control on the graphical user interface.
On the other side of the room they heard the characteristic slide of metal against metal as the iris almost reluctantly started to retract, getting about a quarter of the way open before abruptly reversing direction and slamming shut.
"Oh, for crying out loud," O'Neill muttered, reaching for the remote in his pack.
Carter and Daniel watched amusedly as O'Neill deftly navigated through the familiar menus to the program for the stargate and started looking for anything that might indicate an iris control. After a few minutes Daniel looked over his shoulder and pointed out a word, "I think that might be it."
"Thanks," O'Neill said sourly, and jammed a finger onto the selection button.
The iris abruptly sprang open at full speed with a startling thunk noise.
"There, see?" O'Neill said triumphantly.
"Uh sir," Carter said and pointed to the gate.
"Jack?" Daniel was also pointing.
O'Neill turned to look and the iris was slowly extending out of the pocket back into place with increasing speed, once he was fully paying attention as though it gave up on sneaking it sped back into place fully closed over again.
"Oh that is just," O'Neill started to complain. But, before he could get fully into his rant, the stargate activated behind the iris, and then a moment later, the iris opened normally as though nothing had been going on.
SG1 readied their weapons, not quite pointing them at the stargate. They were happy for the latter as several Nox soldiers, the only description they could think of, showed up with what looked like actual weapons.
There was a tense standoff with neither side willing to move much before a look of recognition and the Nox shifted into a more relaxed, though still ready, stance.
"Oh. It's you," The leader of the team of Nox soldiers said sourly.
"Yes. Us. Wait, are those actual weapons?" O'Neill snarked before fully registering that the Nox had come loaded to bear.
There was hesitence in the response but the lead Nox eventually replied, "...yes. We greatly dislike the necessity, but the last three times followers of the Goa'uld found this planet they were determined to dismantle it for their 'god' and we don't have quite the same access to our normal methods here."
"That does sound annoying," O'Neill observed nonchalantly.
"Would you happen to have seen a group of their followers? I believe they refer to themselves as Jaffa..." The leader said.
"I believe you can consider this group to be ex-followers, they've defected," O'Neill seemed inordinately proud of himself at this statement. "And they're currently using the medical pods. As such, they should have no plans on tearing things apart," he asserted.
"Astounding," the Nox said and made a gesture over a vine wrapped around his arm. "You'll forgive me if I don't stay and verify the information. I've requested those more familiar with you come deal with this."
A moment later Lya and Opher stepped through the gate, and the Nox strike team leader made another motion that caused the stargate to flicker and reverse direction before leading his team back through.
"I would see these Jaffa being healed," Lya said.
"I can accompany you, my lady," O'Neill offered, not wanting to sit around for another lecture from Opher about the ways of those young and old.
Lya took his arm and made a gesture as though pulling something out of the air with her free hand and the two of them disappeared from the stargate room with a flash of light.
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Heliopolis - Infirmary
By this point most of the children had completed their treatments within the medical pods and were resting in a pile against one of the walls while their guardians were now taking their turns within the medical pods.
"Lya! Do my old eyes deceive me?" Bra'tac greeted them as they arrived.
"Bra'tac," Lya smiled softly in recognition, she held her arms out, palms up, in the traditional Nox greeting for Bra'tac to take. "You are doing well, I hope?"
"Indeed, I am honored to be in your presence once more," Bra'tac said, accepting her greeting and bowing his head in return.
"Always so formal with you," Lya said.
"I was unaware that you were acquainted with Lya of the Nox," Teal'c said.
"There are many things about me that I expect you are unaware of, Teal'c," Bra'tac replied.
"It is good to see you again as well, Teal'c," Lya said, offering him the same greeting.
"It is agreeable to see you again as well," Teal'c returned her greeting.
"What made you seek out this place?" Lya asked the group.
"The young Jaffa currently resting in a pile against the wall had been denied their first symbiotes, my son is still in the pod there being treated for the sickness," Teal'c said.
"We knew the medical system here could help after we treated Teal'c for an incident where he and his symbiote were poisoned. Given proof in the form of Teal'c's treatment that the pods could solve that issue, and with the number of Jaffa involved, we came here," O'Neill interjected.
"You used the treatment we uploaded to the medical systems?" Lya asked.
"Including the modifications for the symbiote," Teal'c acknowledged.
"That was quite the risk, we had not completed testing," Lya started making another gesture causing a holographic screen to appear with the information from Teal'c's treatment. There was a dense block of text and some diagrams.
"From your expression the medical system appears to disagree," O'Neill said.
"Yes, it seems the system already had a fair amount of data that it was able to combine with the incomplete procedure we supplied to create a viable therapy," Lya said distractedly. "Though, now I'm wondering if I should inform the other teams."
"Oh?" O'Neill prompted.
"The system here is being remarkably verbose. I expect that half of them would immediately petition the elders to reopen our residential housing here so they can upload their projects and see what commentary is returned," Lya replied.
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O'Neill sauntered into the hologram treaty room where Daniel was making last minute notes before they left. He looked up, strolling around the room until he was at Daniel's side. "Yup, still a dry treaty between four boring old stuffy races. Come on, Danny boy, time to go home, we've overstayed our welcome," O'Neill said and started packing the notebooks Daniel had left lying around back into his bag.
"Show me a treaty that isn't dry," Lya said, having followed O'Neill.
"The young and old are generally in agreement that treaties are boring, it is only the young for which that is a problem," Opher commented.
"It's only a problem when Danny here gets lost in trying to decipher it," O'Neill muttered.
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Heliopolis - Gateroom
"You're sure about this?" O'Neill asked.
"I may be an old man, but I still have some fight left in me," Bra'tac said.
"I trust you will listen to everything Bra'tac tells you, son," Teal'c said.
"Yes, father," Ryac replied.
"You have the address?" Bra'tac turned to Captain Carter.
"These symbols, correct?" Carter asked showing Bra'tac the screen of her laptop with the selected address in the dialing program ready to be sent to the DHD.
"Before you go," O'Neill held out his GDO with a small piece of paper with a code Captain Carter had generated written on it for Bra'tac.
"What is this," Bra'tac asked.
"We have an iris on our gate. If you ever need to reach us you'll need the code to open the iris to come through. Watch for the red light here to turn green, that's the signal that the iris has opened. Just give us a few days to get the code registered in our system though," O'Neill said.
"There's a small handle that pops out of the back, if the light doesn't turn on at all, turn that handle for about a minute and then try it again. Just be careful because the dynamo is noisy, you'll want to make sure it has charge before you need to reach us if stealth is a concern," Captain Carter said.
Bra'tac accepted the offered device and memorized the numbers on the paper, then turned to Carter and nodded. "We are ready. Ryac, Zahkad, come."
"Good luck, Bra'tac," O'Neill said.
"O'Neill, I look forward to when next we meet," Bra'tac said.
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SGC Briefing room
"This certainly wasn't the stated goal of the mission," General George Hammond said.
"General," Jack started.
"Save it, Colonel, I'm not sure what sort of facility you think we run here, and I could've excused Teal'c's wife and son, but I'm going to have a much harder time with several complete unknowns and their dependents, and you didn't even bring back his son."
"Ryac and the other boy Zahkad accepted Bra'tac's offer for training in the way of Jaffa warriors. My wife, Drey'auc, chose to go with them," Teal'c said.
"We also met up with the Nox at Heliopolis and in my opinion left them with a much better impression of us. They claimed to be members of the alliance that originally built the place, And they told us that while they didn't mind the occasional visit we shouldn't stay there for long or frequently as its intended use is a neutral meeting place between the members of their alliance," O'Neill spoke up.
"I take it the plan to set up an offworld base around the infirmary building is off the table then?" Doctor Fraiser asked.
"I believe that seems to be the case, yes," General Hammond replied. "If that's all? SG-1 dismissed."
"Oh, Daniel," O'Neill caught the archaeologist on the way out of the briefing room.
"You needed something?" Daniel said, pausing to allow the colonel to catch up to him.
"Yeah, I'm getting tired of feeling dumb whenever the Nox show up with their pithy little sayings. Got any recommendations for books with equally pithy quotes of wisdom?" O'Neill asked.
"You mean like Zen Koans?" Daniel said.
"Sure, and anything else you got," Jack said.
The rest of the conversation between the two was cut off as they meandered their way towards Daniel's office and away from the briefing room.
"Did you need something, Captain Carter?" General Hammond said.
"While we were at heliopolis I was able to work on the DHD there, and well, I've completed the updates to the dialing program so it can work with both a regular DHD and the dialing console we brought back. I've also completed my general evaluation of the dialing console itself, it's much more secure than our current system, sir," Captain Carter said.
"And I take it, you want permission to install the new dialing device," General Hammond said.
"Yes, sir," Carter said.
"Get me a report before you leave for the day and I'll let you know in the morning," General Hammond replied.
"Yes, sir," Carter replied, leaving the room happily.
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Omake: 8.1 - Extended Treaty Scene by: CmptrWz
"It's only a problem when Danny here gets lost in trying to decipher it," O'Neill muttered.
Opher nodded. "Ah. Even the old sometimes fall into that trap."
"The overly-pretentious holographic display based on elements likely isn't helping," Lya added with a shake of her head.
O'Neill raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. Nice to know that we're not the only ones that go overboard with our monuments."
"Even the old can make mistakes. Our ancestors once terraformed a moon as a living monument, but without properly considering the effects of the gas planet on the orbit and atmosphere. It takes...far too much maintenance."
"See, now you're admitting to being fallible. Ruins the mystique you've got going."
Opher shook his head. "You are not so young as to believe us to be infallible, and we are not young or foolish enough to pretend it."
O'Neill nodded. "It's nice to have you admit it though."
"It's a lesson your people could learn as well."
"I've made many mistakes in my lifetime. Many of them still haunt me."
Daniel finally finished packing his notebooks away, having scribbled in several of them before placing them in his bag and still holding one. Looking at the three of them, he frowned. "Did you say something?"
"Nothing important enough to repeat," O'Neill replied. "Let's get going."