A Slight Detour, Part Five

[jeriendhal]

Note to self: Re-supply the infirmary with analgesics ASAP, Leeza thought, as the explanations continued. Her headache was back, with a vengeance.

"…so you've never heard of the Gou'ald?" Colonel O'Neill asked again.

"No," Lance, repeated, "We've never seen any of these 'Stargate' things either."

"Though I have to admit, these Gou'ald sound remarkably like the Varn," Rufus noted. "Certainly they're equally arrogant, claiming to be gods and all."

"So you need this 'dust-jacket' thing to prevent your ships from being hit by interstellar debris?" Major Carter was standing by Leeza, apparently burning with curiosity. Well, so was Leeza, given she'd just been confronted by time-travellers using some form of instant interstellar transportation system.

"That's right," she confirmed. "Otherwise we'd be torn to pieces as soon as we came close to light speed."

"But why not just pop into hyperspace before you reach a significant fraction of C? Then you wouldn't have worry about time-dilation effects."

"Time-dilation? The warp envelope compensates for that before we go super-liminal." Leeza blinked. "Wait, did you say hyperdrive? Like switching into a parallel continuum where you can ignore the laws of physics?"

"Well not ignore," Carter hedged.

Behind her, Leeza heard Terinu mutter, "What are they talking about?"

"The laws of physics," Rufus replied, "or rather some conflicting views of them. I think Leeza is ahead."

She ignored them and stayed focused on Carter. "Look, hyperdrives are science-fiction, like Verne's Martians, or, um…"

"…instantaneous interstellar travel?" Carter finished.

"That's what you said you did," Lance interrupted. "All I saw was a light show and you four falling on your faces."

Doctor Jackson raised his hands up before O'Neill, who was giving Lance a sour look, could interrupt. "Wait, wait, wait," he began, "if I'm understanding you right, the way you travel through space is completely different from the way Sam described to you, right?"

"Right," Leeza confirmed.

"And you've never heard of the Gou'ald?"

"Right."

"Or the Stargate, or the Stargate Program?"

"Right." Leeza blinked again. "You aren't trying to say…?"

Major Carter turned to O'Neill. "Sir, I think we're in a parallel universe, like when we used the quantum mirror."

The Colonel looked pained. "Carter, what did I tell you about messing around with the Gate's operating system?"

"It wasn't me, sir. Everything was normal."

"I mean, this is way worse than when you sent us back to the '60's."

"Yes, sir, I know."

"And that time we ended up underneath a Titan missile."

Carter's forehead became pinched to the point that her eyebrows were nearly touching. "Yes, sir, I know."

"Excuse me, but this has happened to you before?" Leeza interrupted.

"It's a really long, and completely irrelevant, story," Doctor Jackson intervened.

"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.

Carter un-pinched her forehead and continued, "Look, the point is that somehow we managed to not only travel forward in time, but also apparently translate ourselves into a completely separate continuum, one where the Gou'ald don't exist, or at least never made it off their homeworld."

"I'm liking this place already," O'Neill declared. "Okay, Carter, how the heck to we get back?"

"Well, theoretically, since we didn't observe any anomalies when we transited the Gate, that might mean this world's Stargate is still somehow connected to our universe. If we dial out, it might just take us straight back home," Carter said.

"And if it doesn't?"

"Well, if it isn't still connected to our universe, that might mean that the Earth's Giza Stargate was never unburied, which means we'll either end up at the Antarctica Gate or not be able to dial home at all. In which case our best bet is to try for the one of the Asgard protected worlds and ask for a lift."

"Asgard?" Lance asked.

"Um, little grey guys," Doctor Jackson answered, then caught Terinu's annoyed glance and added, "really little grey guys."

"Nice though," O'Neill added, "they like me, us, I mean."

"Assuming they're still around of course, since in this universe we would have never helped them with the whole Replicator mess," Jackson added. He shrugged. "But if that were true then the Earth would have been destroyed by now anyway, so it's not much of a problem."

"Daniel, how about we just try the Gate and see what happens?" O'Neill said patiently.

"Oh, sure."

Major Carter stepped up to the tilted altar, and touched a symbol seemingly at random. As before, when Rufus had played with it, nothing happened.

O'Neill frowned. "Uh, Carter…?"

"Just a minute, sir." Major Carter tapped the altar a few more times, to no avail.

"Carter, the MALP did check the DHD, didn't it?"

"It's intact, sir," Carter insisted, "I don't know why it isn't working." She unshipped her backpack and began to rummage through it, pulling out a small tool kit.

"Anything I can do to help?" Leeza asked, kneeling down beside her. Carter seemed to be taking the idea of fooling with supposedly millennia old technology in perfect stride.

"Do you know anything about crystalline memory and power control systems?" the major asked.

"It's what we use to control the Treona's drives."

"Good. Hopefully this will make some sense to you then." Carter fished out what looked like a simple hex nut wrench from her kit and began to work at the underside of the altar, console rather.

Leeza kneeled down to watch her work. There were a series of small holes, presumably concealing whatever kept the console in one piece, into which Carter seemed to be inserting the hex nut wrench in a seemingly random pattern. "So what does 'DHD' stand for, anyway?" she asked.

"Dial Home Device," Carter answered with a grin. She pushed back the sleeve of her uniform coat, revealing a small transmitter that was strapped to her forearm. "Which you don't want to use unless you've also got your GDO, short for 'Garage Door Opener.'"

"Those aren't the official acronyms, I take it?"

"Actually, they are. It's one of the advantages of being part of a strictly black book project like the Stargate Program. You can make up silly names for things and not have anyone in the public chain of command make a stink." Carter made a final turn with her hex nut wrench, and there was a definitive sounding click inside the DHD. "That should do it."

They lifted off the top of the unit and set it aside. Leeza looked down at the DHD's mysterious innards, and then glanced at Carter, who was frowning deeply. Even to Leeza's untrained eye there was something obviously wrong. There were a series of multi-coloured crystals inset in the DHD, but there were also several empty slots where crystals had been obviously removed.

"Sir, you'd better take a look at this," Carter called to O'Neill. The colonel jogged over from where he and Lance had been studiously ignoring each other.

"What's up, Carter?" he asked, then glanced down at the DHD, "Okay, that can't be good."

"No, sir. It looks like somebody deliberately removed the crystals containing the Stargate's OS and the ones regulating the DHD's Naquedah reactor. So we're not going anywhere unless we can locate an alternate power source for the Gate."

Leeza fought the urge to lean over and start sketching out the pattern of power conduits visible. "How much power are we talking about?" she asked.

Carter shrugged. "That depends on the distance between the Stargates that you're trying to connect. Several megawatts at least, though you can feed the power in as slowly as you want. The Gate itself acts as a sort of capacitor, taking power from the DHD to use in one burst to create the wormhole."

O'Neill looked at Leeza, "You said something about landing here in a ship?"

"A few klicks from here," Leeza said cautiously, "but there's no way to run power all the way from our landing site to here, and there isn't enough room to move the Treona over, or Rufus' fighter." Terinu was looking at her curiously, probably wondering why she hadn't chose to mention his bion generating abilities. Well, for one thing, while he could generate utterly enormous amounts of power there was no guarantee he could produce enough to power the Stargate. Second… …well, perhaps she was being just paranoid, but she didn't feel the need to show all of her hand to a group of well-armed people she had just meet a little over an hour ago. Finally, his gifts were his to offer, not her, and Terinu could be understandably touchy about being looked at as nothing more than a walking, talking fusion reactor.

"Major Carter," Teal'c spoke up, "do you have any conjecture as to why the crystals have been removed?"

"I dunno," she said, "it wouldn't have been an easy thing to do. The Gou'ald would normally avoid fiddling with it, if only because they like to leave themselves with an easy escape route if they needed it. Besides, they likely wouldn't even know which crystals to pull to disable it."

"Most would not," Teal'c agreed, "but there is one who would almost certainly have the knowledge, and perhaps the daring to do so."

"Anubis," Daniel concluded.

"Bad guy?" Lance asked.

"Very bad," Daniel agreed.

"Really bad," O'Neill confirmed.

"Indeed," Teal'c said.

"But we're not in a universe where Anubis exists," Carter pointed out.

Oh, shit. Leeza cleared her throat. "But maybe we're on a planet where he might. Rufus, you said this world was missed by the Survey Service. What if they didn't see it because it wasn't here?"

"That's…" Rufus glanced at the Stargate and then back to the strange humans, "well, normally I'd say that's impossible, but I don't think I'll bother today."

"Oh, come on," O'Neill interrupted, "you can't shift an entire planet into another universe." He glanced at Carter. "Can you?"

"Well, theoretically speaking it's possible."

"Aww, jeez…"

"If the Gou'ald have an interest in this world, we must determine whether their forces are in the area," Teal'c said.

"Were there any sign of installations when you came down from orbit?" Dr. Jackson asked.

"Not that we saw," Lance said.

O'Neill scratched under his cap thoughtfully. "Weird. Usually if the Gou'ald build something they don't bother to try and hide it. Ain't their style. That and the Tok'ra and us don't have many ships to spy on them."

"If it's going to be anywhere, it'll be near the Stargate, sir," Carter noted.

"Right, okay I think we oughtta start patrolling. Carter, you and Leeza work on the Stargate, while the rest of us split into teams of two to find if there are any bad guys around."

Leeza cleared her throat loudly.

"Something on your mind?" O'Niell asked.

"I don't care for the idea of us wandering around randomly to see if there are hostiles in the area," she said, "or taking orders from someone I just met."

"Well, we don't know there are Gou'ald in the area, but if there are it's probably a better idea if we find them instead of them finding us," Doctor Jackson intervened. "Look, how about this? You and the Major work on the Stargate, while we split into groups like Jack said. We'll just make sure that one of your crew is teamed up with one of our group, and keep in frequent contact? Does that sound reasonable? I mean we both have the same goal in mind, to get out of here in one piece, after all."

"Just a moment," Leeza said. She motioned for the rest of her crew to gather round a few steps away from the SG-1 team. "All right, what do all of you think?"

"It seems like a reasonable precaution," Rufus allowed. "If there are hostiles on this world, it's better that we find them rather than they find us."

Lance shook his head. "I'm for popping back aboard the Treona and taking off. We can find an asteroid and hide out there while we make repairs. We don't owe these people anything, and their story makes as much sense as a bad fantasy novel."

Leeza frowned. "Do you have an opinion, Terinu?"

The Ferin boy shrugged. "I don't like the idea of there being anybody else around that are as bad as the Varn. I say we get the hell out of here." His tail twitched involuntarily, which meant he was more frightened by the prospect than he was letting on. Teri grabbed the errant appendage and wrapped it tightly around his waist to prevent further betrayals.

"And that leaves me," Leeza said, "All right then, we're going to stay and help these people. If there is a threat here on the level of the Varn, we need to find out as much as we can about it so we can tell others. We'll split up into pairs and patrol as O'Neill suggested, while the Major and I look over the Stargate."

"I think it's a bad idea, Lee," Lance objected.

"Lance, don't make me start waving rank around," Leeza said, "Terinu, Rufus, I can't hold you to my orders, but I think this is the best thing to do right now."

"I've no objections," Rufus replied.

Terinu shrugged. "Nothin' better to do until we get outta here."

"Right." They returned to where O'Neill was waiting with ill-concealed impatience. "Okay, Colonel, we'll go with your plan. Who do you want where?"

O'Neill waved his team over. "Okay, Carter, you're with Captain Leeza here. Daniel, you go with the furry guy. I'll take the kid, while Teal'c goes with Vance."

"Lance," Leeza's cousin corrected.

"Whatever."

The large black man shook his head a fraction of an inch. "O'Neill, I would prefer it if you allowed me to patrol with Terinu."

"You sure?" the Colonel saked.

"Yes."

Terinu looked more dubious. Leeza touched his shoulder and took him aside.

"That guy is a lot bigger than I am," the young Ferin noted quietly.

"Yes, but he doesn't know about your bion generating abilities," she replied, "and frankly, I'd feel better if we had an ace up our sleeve against him, just in case these people aren't as pleasant as they seem."

The appeal worked. Terinu straightened up from his perpetual slouch and nodded his head. "All right, I'll keep an eye on him."

"Thanks, Terinu."

It was about the last thing that went easily for her the rest of the day.

TBC