# The Cheyenne Mountain Irregulars: A Stargate Story Hour. Updated 7/20



## Ladybird (Feb 28, 2005)

Welcome to “Cheyenne Mountain Irregulars”!

This storyhour will chronicle the adventures of SG-17, one of the elite military units that operates out of Stargate Command’s top-secret facility in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado.  Our heroes will travel all over the world – and all over the galaxy – in their attempts to defend Earth from the power-hungry alien Goa’uld.

Now for the meta-notes:

*On the Setting*: We’re playing the SG-1 RPG d20 system, published by Alderac Entertainment Group. It’s based on the TV show Stargate: SG-1, which in turn is based on the movie Stargate. It’s not strictly necessary to have any specific knowledge of the plot of either the TV series or the movie in order to understand this game, but knowledge of the setting is extremely helpful. If you’re a newcomer to the Stargate world, here are a few links that will help you get oriented:

http://www.stargatesg1.com/home.html - the official SG-1 website
http://www.gateworld.net - Gateworld.net, a fan site with an overview of the world and a complete episode guide.

If you _are_ familiar with the TV show, here are a few other things that you should know. First of all, we are _not_ playing the characters from the TV show, and no characters from the show will appear onstage in our game. (We don’t want any copyright problems!) Second, our game starts in 2010. All the events of the TV show can be considered to have taken place in our gameworld too, but we’ve extrapolated on the future history of the world, and we reserve the right to change future history if the TV show does something that we don’t like 

If you are familiar with real-world military practices, but not familiar with the TV show, please be aware that Stargate tends to play a bit fast and loose with military protocol in the cause of dramatic stories. Therefore, if we also bend the rules a bit, please understand that we’re doing it to stay in the spirit of the setting, not because we don’t know or don’t care about military protocol.

*On the Players*: You may recognize some of them from other story hours. Our intrepid GM is Obezyanchik, who plays Dove on Cerebral Paladin’s Story Hour. Joe is played by the same person who plays Metellus on Alea Iacta, and Orieth’s player also plays Kell on KidCthulhu’s Scarred Lands Story Hour.  And I play Kathleen in this game, Cornelia in Alea Iacta, and Ginara in Cerebral Paladin’s game. (To round out the party: Ked’rec isn’t in any other EN World-chronicled campaigns, and Reinhart is an NPC.)

And now with the disclaimers and explanations out of the way, on to the story! We’re having a lot of fun playing this campaign, and we hope that you enjoy reading about it!


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## Ladybird (Feb 28, 2005)

*Previously, on The Cheyenne Mountain Irregulars*

(The first few posts will be "prequels," in which we introduce the characters before the official campaign begins.)

May 23, 2008
With a whoosh of sound and light, the Stargate sprang to life on P2X-305, throwing a wormhole out into the desolate, rocky landscape, then sucking it back again into a shimmering vertical pool.

Nine people stepped through it, all clad in almost identical khaki jumpsuits and tall laced-up boots, lugging behind them a wheeled cart full of equipment.  As soon as they were all out and standing on the dusty road, the wormhole disappeared, evaporating to leave only the empty ring of the Stargate.

Two of the larger and burlier men – Marines – immediately broke away from the group, weapons raising as they trotted off to survey the perimeter. The others clustered into two smaller groups: one around Major Robert Farr, the commander of SG-22, also of the Marines, a tall man with a gray crew cut barely visible around the edges of his cap; the other around Captain Kathleen Fitzgerald, several inches shorter but still fairly tall for a woman, with bright blue eyes, short dark curly hair, and Air Force insignia on her jumpsuit. Major Farr already had one hand on his gun, too; Captain Fitzgerald clutched a laptop computer tightly under one arm.

“All secure?” Farr called out as the scouts returned. 

“All clear in the immediate vicinity, sir,” one of them reported. “Greenberg thinks that he saw smoke coming from the east, though.” 

“Yes, I did, sir,” agreed the other Marine. “Right over there, sir.” He gestured towards a distant patch of scrubby evergreen forest near the base of some hazy mountains. “Should we check it out?”

“Negative, Corporal,” said Farr.  “Stay here for now – we’re going to do a regular reconnaissance in the course of the mission.” Kathleen shot Major Farr a skeptical sideways glance, and her mouth turned down in a small frown, but she said nothing to contradict the superior officer’s orders. 

“Excuse me, sir,” piped up a tall blonde bespectacled woman, who seemed less at ease in her jumpsuit and combat boots than the others. “The initial MALP telemetry indicated that this planet might be seismically active. That’s why I came. The smoke could be an indication of that – volcanoes, hot springs, so forth. With your permission, sir, I’d like to look at it a little more closely, and sooner rather than later.”

“Fine, Dr. Powers,” Farr sighed. “Stay with my group, and we’ll send someone out with you.  Now, let’s get this thing started. Chen and Smith, you came with Captain Fitzgerald, so you stay with her and get your thing set up.” He waved a vague hand at the cart full of wires and receivers and computers, barely giving it a second look. “Stanley, you stay here too and keep an eye on them. Make sure they don’t wander off where they’re not supposed to. Greenberg, you go with Dr. Powers to check out her volcanoes. The rest of you, you’re with me. Standard recon mission: figure out what’s what and what’s where. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem, since there haven’t been any Goa’ulds here for ages, just a group of those rogue Jaffa.” Greenberg opened his mouth, about to object, but Farr barely paused for breath. “We’re not expecting anything to get in our way. We’re going to get in and get out and leave this useless planet alone. Captain – you can get your people set up over there.”

“Actually, sir, I wonder if we could move a bit further off the main path?” Kathleen asked. “Even though I’m sure there isn’t any danger, of course, sir,” she added quickly, with a smile that was just a fraction too ready and accommodating for complete sincerity. “I just think that, well, all that dust we’ve been kicking up might affect the equipment.”

Farr frowned, narrowing his eyes at her expression. “How many off-world missions have you been on, Captain?”

Kathleen straightened her shoulders, erasing any trace of a smile from her face. “This is my second one, sir.” 

“Right,” said Farr shortly.

“With all due respect, sir,” Kathleen tried again, “I’m concerned about the equipment. We don’t have enough time to get replacements if anything happens to it.”

Farr rolled his eyes. “Fine, Captain. Set up wherever you want. Keep your equipment happy. Hey, weren’t you supposed to meet a friend here?”

“Ked’rec, my Jaffa contact,” Captain Fitzgerald replied, her tone too polite to be actually correcting him, but with the implication there all the same. “And yes, I thought he was going to be here, but I haven’t heard from him in a while. I hope he shows up while we’re still here. I hope he’s all right.” Kathleen’s eyes flickered towards the east.

“Right,” said Farr absently. “All right, men! Lee, Freeman – you’re with me…”

Kathleen turned her back to Farr’s back, exchanging glances with Corporal Greenberg and Dr. Powers as she turned away. She raised her voice a bit, to be heard over Farr’s impatient orders to his crew and the tramping of booted feet over the hard ground. “All right, people.  This is going to be the newest information drop site on the Jaffa underground railroad. You know the routine – we need to get the coordinates encrypted and deposited in safe locations, and we need to get receivers and transmitters set up in the right positions.” She perched her laptop on a free corner of the cart, and flipped it open. “You know what to do – let’s get to it.”

Airmen Chen and Smith started hurriedly unloading equipment from the cart, while Roberts took up a position a few yards away, pacing around the perimeter, and Farr’s men started to fan out along the paths and into the rocky surrounding area. As soon as the major was out of earshot, Chen paused, arms full of cables, and asked softly, “Ma’am? Do you think your contact might have been compromised?”

“I hope not,” Kathleen replied, equally quietly. “A couple of his messages were a little worrying, but I’m pretty sure he can be trusted. We’ve dealt with free-agent Jaffa before, but each group is different, so it's hard to say what these ones will be like.” Kathleen’s fingers skipped deftly over the keyboard, chattering in a quiet counterpoint to her words as she scrolled through pages of diagrams and formulas. “But Nuada was more hands-off than a lot of other System Lords, so his Jaffa weren’t tied as tightly in to begin with. Plus, they’ve stayed free agents for a while now, so it seems more likely that they can be trusted to think independently. Smith, how are you doing with that transmitter?”

“Almost done, ma’am. Ready for the encryption when you are.”

“Good work.” Kathleen unhooked a small thin device, about the size of a finger, from one side of the computer. “Here you go. Now we just need to do that three more times and – uh-oh.”

A puff of smoke rose from behind the trees, followed an instant later by the sound of an explosion. Everyone froze.

“What the - ” said Captain Fitzgerald, instantly turning towards the noise. “Stanley, go-“

“I’m on it, ma’am,” said Private Stanley, heading off down the path towards the trees.

Kathleen reached for her radio. “Major Farr, it’s Captain Fitzgerald,” she said into it. Only crackling static replied. “Major Farr, do you copy?”

“Should we keep setting up, ma’am?” asked Chen.

“For now, yes,” Kathleen replied warily. “I don’t want to call the mission off on account of hot springs.”  She tried to laugh casually, and almost succeeded. The others bent to continue their work. “Smith, I’ve got the next encryption key for you when you’re ready,” she said over her shoulder, then spoke into the radio again. “Major Farr? SG-22? This is Captain Fitzgerald at the gate. Please respond.”

A moment later, another explosion sounded, a bit closer this time. “Nobody’s here. Shouldn’t be too much of a problem. Yeah, right,” Kathleen muttered, then lifted her voice. “All right, folks. Pack up. I think we’re – “ And another explosion, and a few smaller blasts: staff weapons, and automatic gunfire. The group froze, alert and on edge. 

Corporal Greenberg and Private Stanley came pounding down the path towards the gate, with Dr. Powers staggering breathlessly behind. Hard on their trail were two Jaffa, both in full armor with Nuada’s silver-hand symbol tattooed on their foreheads, and with staff weapons raised. From behind them came the sound of shouting, and more explosions. “Open the gate!” yelled Greenberg. “Open the gate! There’s a hundred of them!”


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## Obezyanchik (Feb 28, 2005)

*applause*

Nicely done, Ladybird.  This is off to an excellent start!  

I'll add some GM notes as soon as I get my act together, but for the prequels, it's not so urgent.  So enjoy, everybody!  (How'd I get so lucky as to have PCs like these?)


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## Look_a_Unicorn (Mar 1, 2005)

Can't wait to read your take on how the Stargate universe evolves


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## Ladybird (Mar 1, 2005)

“Oh my God,” Kathleen muttered, then scooped her laptop up to her chest and shouted, “We’ve got to get out of here! Chen, go! Start dialing!”

The airman took off running. The Jaffa in the rear fired his staff weapon at Chen, and the airman threw himself to the side, rolling into the rubble and dust at the edge of the path. The energy bolt went wide, and Chen scrambled to his feet, struggling back up the rocky embankment towards the path to the DHD.

“Fall back!” Kathleen ordered. “Fall back to the gate! Smith, leave that! No, wait – take out the encryption keys. We can’t risk them falling into the wrong hands. Take out the encryption keys and leave the rest! We need to get _out_!”

“Yes, ma’am!” cried Smith.

The Jaffa in the rear fired again, this time at Private Stanley. The bolt caught him hard in the shoulder and spun him around, and he crumpled to his knees with scarcely enough breath left to cry out in pain. The other Jaffa skidded to a stop, charging his weapon. Smith and Fitzgerald dove for cover behind the equipment cart, and Greenberg grabbed Dr. Powers, pushing her behind him to shield her. 

And the second Jaffa’s staff weapon fired, hitting the rearmost Jaffa square in the chest.  His face didn’t even have enough time to register surprise before it was planted into the dusty ground.

“Tau’ri!” shouted the second Jaffa. “He speaks the truth – there are a hundred Jaffa, led by Sobek. You must leave this place!” More gunfire behind them, and more blasts.

Kathleen looked up over the edge of the cart, eyes widening as she stared at the surviving Jaffa. “Ked’rec?”

“Indeed it is I,” he replied, lowering the angle of his staff weapon ever so slightly. “You are the one who has left messages?”

She had about five seconds to decide whether to trust him. 

“Yes I am,” she said. “Captain Kathleen Fitzgerald. How far can that thing shoot?” She nodded at the staff weapon.

“It has a range of approximately twenty n’bi,” Ked’rec answered.

“Twenty what?” asked Greenberg in confusion, but the wheels were already turning in Kathleen’s mind as she made quick translations and calculations.  “That’ll have to be far enough,” she said. “Ked’rec, get to the DHD and cover Chen while he dials.” The Jaffa’s impassive face registered the faintest confusion at the unfamiliar terminology. “That thing!” Kathleen fairly shouted, pointing at the DHD.  “Smith, get Dr. Powers to the gate.” She reached out to give Dr. Powers a brief touch on the shoulder that served both to steady the other woman and to guide her towards the gate. “Greenberg, how’s Stanley?”

Greenberg knelt down and felt quickly at the other Marine’s neck. “He’s alive, ma’am,” he answered, in obvious relief. “He’s in bad shape, but he’s alive.”

“Good. Get him to the gate too. Where did Farr and the others go? He’s not responding to the radio.”

Greenberg hesistated before answering, grunting with the effort of hoisting Stanley onto his shoulders. The wounded man groaned softly. “Major Farr took the rest of SG-22 north, ma’am.”

“All right. I guess…” Kathleen paused, looking around to take stock of who was there. “I guess I’ll stay here to wait for them.” The Stargate whooshed to life, and Kathleen let out a sigh of relief. “Good work, Chen!” she called. “All right, folks, go!” The marines began lumbering through the shimmering pool, ushering Dr. Powers through before them. 

“Incoming!” shouted Greenberg. 

From the west, there was the eerie screech of an aircraft, and a death glider burst forth from the trees. “GO!” Kathleen yelled, and Greenberg dashed through the wormhole, taking the wounded Marine to safety. 

The tiny ship skimmed down towards the soldiers, firing twin bolts of energy, and they dove for the ground. Ked’rec reached out to push Kathleen down behind the DHD, shielding her beneath him. She, in turn, reached out to shield her laptop in her arms as she crashed onto the hard dusty path. Chen ducked, rolled, and came up with his gun poised, firing up at the glider with a burst of bullets. The glider swooped down and up again, close enough so that the people on the ground could see the insignia on it as it sped past. It was Sobek’s mark, stark black against the metallic gray of the glider’s wings.

Sergeant Freeman burst forth from the trees, with Private Lee and Major Farr close behind him. Lee, in the back, kept pausing to turn and fire behind him at their pursuers: ten Jaffa, all with Nuada’s tattoo on their foreheads and Sobek’s sigil on their armor. And with staff weapons raised. 

There was the telltale zipping sound of staff weapons charging, and Lee and Freeman split off, each diving for cover on one side of the path. Major Farr picked up speed, confident in his ability to outrun the blasts – but at least three bolts hit him in the back. He took one more shocked staggering step, his body propelled forwards by the force of the blasts and the momentum of his running, and then his knees buckled and he went down. 

Sheltered behind Ked’rec and the DHD, Kathleen actually had a moment to register Farr’s death, and to gulp back a horrified cry. Chen, running only on reflex, spun to aim his spray of bullets towards the oncoming Jaffa, and let out a triumphant shout as two went down. Smith darted out from the cover of the DHD, standing in solitary vulnerability in front of the gate, ready to block any Jaffa who tried to go through, and giving Chen cover to slip through the gate behind him.

Freeman stayed down in the rubbly rocks at the side of the path, taking what little cover he could as he fired up at the legs of the marching Jaffa. One of the Jaffa stopped, aiming his staff weapon directly at Freeman, who barely rolled away from the bolt in time. The energy blast blew a singed hole in Freeman’s sleeve, but he was otherwise unhurt – and four of the Jaffa were on the ground, clutching at their wounded legs. 

Another zipping sound, and another bolt flew out of a staff – but this time it was Ked’rec’s, and it sent another of the Jaffa crumpling into the dust. The three remaining Jaffa spun towards the direction of the blast, weapons raised, alert and on edge…and with their backs to Lee. The Marine sprang up from the side of the road, hitting one of the Jaffa in a flying tackle and sprawled on the ground. Bewildered, the two left spun to face where Lee had been – which left their backs open to Freeman, who raised up on his knees to shoot the Jaffa in theirs.

“Smith! Go!” yelled Kathleen. The airman hesitated, looking back towards Lee, who was still rolling on the ground, exchanging punches with the furious but confused last Jaffa. “I said go!” Smith turned and ran.

From far down the path came the sound of marching feet. “More of them,” Kathleen groaned. “Freeman! Lee! Come on!”

“That sounds like the footsteps of twenty, perhaps thirty,” said Ked’rec, with the perpetual Jaffa calm despite the chaos around him. “Your people fight well, Captain Fitzgerald, but we cannot defeat them all.”

“I know. And that’s why we’re getting out of here!” She raised her voice to shout once more. “Freeman! Lee!”

Both Marines were on the ground now, entangled in a brawl with the Jaffa. One of the others, despite his wounded legs, was trying to crawl towards them to help his companion.

Kathleen ducked down behind the DHD again, mind working furiously. “Ked’rec – the ones that are coming – do they know you’re working for us?”

“I do not believe that any of them do. Even these did not know, and I do not think they saw that it was I who fired upon them.”

“Good. Then if this group gets any closer…take me prisoner.”

“But we are no longer adversaries, Captain Fitzgerald.”

“I _know_! Look, it’s to buy us a little time. If they don’t know that you’re on our side now, if you pretend to have captured me, maybe we can get them to back off for a little while – talk our way through things, and then take them by surprise when we run for the gate.”

Freeman and Lee looked up from the brawl, hearing the sound of footsteps. They glanced at each other, then Lee stood up, while Freeman gave the fallen Jaffa one final, vicious kick. “Down for the count,” said Freeman, as the Jaffa let out a roar of pain. “Let’s go!” As the Marines took off towards the gate, there was an ominous squeal from overhead – the death glider was returning.

“All right, scratch that,” said Kathleen. “Just run.” She sprang to her feet, poised to take off towards the gate. 

“Do you mean that I should run with you or away from you?” Ked’rec asked.

She had fewer than five seconds to decide whether to trust him this time.

“With. Come on!” she yelled to the others. “Get out!” She turned back to Ked’rec. “Twenty n’bi, huh? Let’s see what you can do against that thing.” She gave a quick nod towards the glider, then took off.

Freeman and Lee thundered towards the gate, each pausing at one edge of the shimmering ring as the Jaffa marched forward. Ked’rec let Kathleen go, then straightened up to fire one precise shot upwards at the approaching glider. The bolt clipped the edge of the glider’s wing, but the craft kept coming. 

Lee dove forward first, with Freeman close behind him. Then Kathleen, still sprinting at full speed, not even turning around to see if the shot she heard Ked’rec fire at the glider hit.

There was the chilly rushing sound of passage through the wormhole, and the dizzying sense of traveling in all directions at once…

…and then Kathleen was running down the ramp into the gate room of the SGC, computer still cradled in her arms.

“Closing the iris, sir,” came the microphoned voice of the airman on duty in the control room.

“No!” cried Kathleen. “There’s one more!”

And Ked’rec rushed through the Stargate, heavy boots clattering on the metal ramp.

“Now! Close it!” Kathleen yelled.

An energy bolt shot out through the open wormhole, and Ked’rec and Kathleen hit the deck together, rolling down the hard metal ramp with a series of hollow clanks.

And then the wormhole cut off, and the iris spun shut, and the room was silent.


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## Obezyanchik (Mar 3, 2005)

Look_a_Unicorn said:
			
		

> Can't wait to read your take on how the Stargate universe evolves




I wanted our gameworld universe to diverge such that the Boston Red Sox hadn't won the World Series in 2004, to make Fitzgerald a darker, more angst-ridden character.  I was overrulled.  Unsurprisingly.   

Glad to have folks reading, and thanks!


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## GreenArmadillo (Mar 7, 2005)

Eleven various Jaffa, loyal to Sobek, killed or injured: Nine Tau'ri and a rogue Jaffa
One Marine Private, injured in action: Eleven various Jaffa, loyal to Sobek



			
				Ladybird said:
			
		

> Major Farr picked up speed, confident in his ability to outrun the blasts – but at least three bolts hit him in the back. He took one more shocked staggering step, his body propelled forwards by the force of the blasts and the momentum of his running, and then his knees buckled and he went down.




One annoying commanding officer NPC, cut down by enemy weapons: Priceless.

There are some NPC's the party can't kill.  For everyone else, there's small weapons fire.  Check with your local GM for details.


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## Steverooo (Mar 9, 2005)

_Please_, sir, may we have some _more_?


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## Ladybird (Mar 9, 2005)

Steverooo said:
			
		

> _Please_, sir, may we have some _more_?




Never fear - more is on the way  There should be another update by the end of the week. 

Thank you for your enthusiasm! It feels great to know that there are so many people out there who enjoy reading our Story Hour!


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## spyscribe (Mar 9, 2005)

Hey Ladybird!  Sorry I haven't ducked in sooner.  I've been trying to find the time to get to this thread for nearly a week now.  Great start.

Welcome to the asylu-- I mean... club.


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## Ladybird (Mar 9, 2005)

spyscribe said:
			
		

> Hey Ladybird!  Sorry I haven't ducked in sooner.  I've been trying to find the time to get to this thread for nearly a week now.  Great start.
> 
> Welcome to the asylu-- I mean... club.




Thank you! I'm very glad you like it!


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## DrNilesCrane (Apr 7, 2005)

*Great beginning!*

You're definitely off to a great start - I like the characters & the action, plus there's a real feel for the TV series (could definitely see the scene play out well as if it was an episode)!

Keep it coming!


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## Ladybird (Apr 22, 2005)

Placeholder Post for Previews


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## Ladybird (Apr 22, 2005)

*Previously, on the Cheyenne Mountain Irregulars, Part 2*

(We're back! Sorry for the delay, folks - I hope to be posting more regularly from now on. Thanks to Joe and Orieth's players for their input on this post. Enjoy!)

August 14, 2010

Joe always liked working on his car.

It was quieter than you’d expect under there, when the engine was turned off – the heavy metal blocked out a lot of the noise of the outside world. He could focus on the motion of his hands, letting his mind go numb and just working through the physicality of it all, the sensation of grease and metal, not listening to anything except the instincts of his muscles as they turned, scraped, pounded.

Sometimes, at times like this, even the voice in his head stopped.

He kind of figured it got bored.

Today it had been pretty quiet – a little chattering in the morning, praising him on the new kind of bacon he had made for breakfast, but not much since then.  That’s why he thought it was the voice in his head, at first, when he heard a man speaking to him while he was under his car.

“Joseph Healy?”

_Not now_, he thought automatically. 

But the voice didn’t answer the way it usually did. Instead, it said it again. “Excuse me? Chief Petty Officer Joseph Healy?”

Joe twisted his head to the side, peering down the length of his body to the strip of light between the car and the ground. Two pairs of feet were standing there. Polished shoes. Crisply ironed pants cuffs. Uniform pants cuffs. _Why me?_

Joe rolled out from under the car, squinting into the sunlight. “Yeah?” And then he saw the rest of the figures. Dark blue uniforms; two stars on the shoulder of the taller man; a caduceus on the collar of the shorter one. Joe climbed slowly to his feet, pulling himself up with a hand on the fender as if he were stiff.  _Retired,_ he thought.  “General?”

The general smiled under the brim of his hat. “Mr. Healy.” An Air Force general? What did that mean? He nodded towards the house. “Can we go inside?”

The doctor, shorter and younger, and with an eager smile, added, “We’ve got some things to talk to you about that would, uh, probably work best if we were all a little more comfortable.”

“I don’t understand,” said Joe, narrowing his eyes warily.

The doctor nodded. “You will soon. Don’t worry, Chief – we’ll explain everything.”

Joe snorted. “It’s Joe. I’m retired. Sixteen years.”

He led the other two men into the house, hastily scooping away a pile of books from the battered couch to make room for them to sit down. The doctor blinked at the titles – Principles of Cognitive Psychology, The Sun Also Rises, The Last Tycoon – and Joe dropped the books in the corner, shooting the doctor a defensive glance. “So…what is this? Is this about those tests I had at the VA a couple months ago?”

The doctor nodded, quick to agree, but he didn’t look any more comfortable than he had outside. “Yes, that’s right.”

_They send generals now, to tell you that smoking is bad for you?_ Joe thought. _Hey, maybe he’s the Surgeon General!_ He let out a raspy chuckle.

_Stop that! There are other people around!_ There it went. The voice in his head. It wouldn’t have been nearly so annoying if it weren’t right most of the time. _And it wasn’t really that funny._

_It was too,_ Joe thought back. 

From outside his mind, there was the faint sound of a throat clearing – the doctor. “The doctors at the VA noticed…er…a few irregularities on your MRI.” From a large portfolio briefcase, the doctor pulled out a transparency, holding it up to the light of the dusty window. It took Joe a few seconds to realize that the strange collection of light and shadow on the film was his body – yes, there was the collarbone, and there was the spine, and there was…something else. It looked like another, smaller spine next to his own, with tiny feathery bones. He shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them and looked again.

The voice in his head started up. _Can it be? Has your technology really become sophisticated enough to detect me?_

_Shut up._

The voice ignored him.  It had gone tremulous, tightly controlled against fear-- or exhilaration. _There may be trouble.  Are we ready to run, if we must?_ 

_Shut up,_ Joe thought again, more forcefully.

He caught the doctor watching him with a sympathetic smile, completely misunderstanding the strained, uncomfortable look on Joe’s face. “Yes, I can understand,” the doctor said. “That’s about how the doctors at the VA reacted. They were, well, pretty disturbed. So they referred it to someone higher up – who, fortunately, knew enough to send your records to us.”

“The Air Force knows more about X-rays?” Joe ventured. His voice was absent, slightly distracted, as he fought back the voice in his head. _Shut up! That’s a general!_

_Yes, I know! The question is what he will do with us.  Let’s not run.  Not quite yet.  Although perhaps it m—_

_Shut up shut up…_

Outside in the real world, the doctor was still speaking. “Well, not exactly. But we do have some specialized knowledge that allowed us to interpret your MRI results correctly. Especially when combined with your other medical records.” From the same briefcase, the doctor pulled a thick dusty file. “The psychiatric evaluations…”

“Wait just a second!” Joe stood up, instantly on guard. “I don’t know what the – “ he caught himself, glanced at the general, then decided on “_heck_ you’re doing here, or who you are, but you have no right to be going through my medical records!”

“Hang on, Chief.” It was the General’s voice, slow, and soothing, that cut him off. “Sorry – I mean, Joe. I know this all must sound a little…weird. But trust me, it’s going to make sense soon. We’re not here to harass you, or put you in a hospital, or anything like that. In fact, we may have a job for you.”

“Both of you,” the doctor added.

Joe was suddenly filled with a sense of hope.  Also terror.  And he knew at least one of those emotions wasn’t coming from himself. _ Both, _ the voice prattled on. _Implying acknowledgement of dual sentience-- at last, at last--I had almost doubted myself!-- he tries to soothe me, but to what purpose?  How much knowledge was preserved by the Tau’ri?_ Joe pressed his mouth tightly shut, as if by doing so he could stop the other voice from talking; trying not to shiver in the sudden image of himself, dead; an asp next to him in process of being dissected.

“We think it probably happened when your ship was sunk--actually, we think it sank your ship,” the doctor was saying. “It was so close to the North Korean border that the wreckage must never have been found. And you recovered so quickly from your injuries, and have stayed in such excellent health since then. You’re – 78 now?”

“79,” Joe grunted, hunching his back reflexively. All his mental energy was going towards keeping that voice quiet. _Shut_ up _and I will let you buy all the stupid cheese and awful music you want!_ he thought desperately.

“And still running an eight-minute mile on the treadmill, according to the folks at the VA,” interjected the General. “Wish I could do the same.”

“So?  I heard there’s a hundred-and-four year old guy who runs marathons. You talk to him?” Joe started to get up. _Maybe if I get out of here, they’ll all stop talking…_

The doctor held up his hands. “The point is, we know that you’re not your average 79-year-old man. And we think we know why.”

The General leaned forwards, looking straight into Joe’s eyes. Joe could feel the other presence in his mind looking back at the General, sizing the other man up, wary and hopeful and fatalistic all at the same time, which was pretty much more emotion than he’d felt at one time in years. “I’m the head of a top-secret Air Force unit called Stargate Command – SGC, for short. We’ve been operating out of a facility in Colorado for the last thirteen years.”

_Apologies, my friend. _

“Stargate?  Chappa’ai?” It was Joe’s mouth that moved, but it wasn’t his voice that came out of it. It was deeper and more resonant, and its speech pattern was smoother than Joe’s usual monosyllabic grunts. _Oh God, why me?_ Joe thought, from somewhere far back inside his own mind.  

“Ah,” said the General, barely batting an eye at the sound of a different voice coming out of Joe’s mouth. “I thought so. To whom am I speaking?”

“I am Orieth, of the Tok’ra,” said the other voice.  Joe could feel his heart pounding.

The General smiled. “Pleased to meet you. It seems that your friends back home have been pretty worried about you for the past 50 years. They’ll be very happy to hear that you’re all right.”

“You’ve been in touch with the Tok’ra?” The eyes closed in relief; for a moment, Joe felt the reins to his own body fall-- most disconcertingly-- then Orieth’s voice lifted with excitement. “What is the status of the resistance? What progress have we been making?”

“Oh, you’ll be happy to hear that we’ve been working with the Tok’ra for some time now.  With their help, we’ve managed to eliminate quite a few of the System Lords.” The General’s smile broadened. “But we’ll have plenty of time to go into specifics later. I’d like for you to take a trip with us to our base in Colorado.”

“We’d like to run some more tests,” the doctor broke in, as if he thought this might be a treat. Then he caught himself, adding, “And….um…put you back in contact with the other Tok’ra, of course.”

“And maybe give you a job,” the General added. “We think that you have a lot of knowledge that could be very helpful to us at the SGC. So…what do you say?”


----------



## GreenArmadillo (Apr 22, 2005)

Once again, you've managed to capture exactly how this scene would play out on the show, were we able to hear the internal dialogue with the Tok'ra.  Great work, Ladybird!

And y'all actually went with the two players, one body Tok'ra plan I see.  Very cool.  Out of curiosity, how do scenes like this one play out at the gaming table?  Does Orieth's player cross-talk against the GM/other PC's (with the rest of the table pretending only to hear the currently dominant personality)?


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## Ladybird (Apr 22, 2005)

GreenArmadillo said:
			
		

> Out of curiosity, how do scenes like this one play out at the gaming table?  Does Orieth's player cross-talk against the GM/other PC's (with the rest of the table pretending only to hear the currently dominant personality)?




For internal communication, the two players actually have a notebook that they pass back and forth, writing comments to each other. It can produce some wonderfully realistic results sometimes - for instance, Joe laughing at something that Orieth has written, but that nobody else has heard.

Thanks for the comments and support! It's always great to know that people are out there reading and enjoying the Story Hour!


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## GreenArmadillo (Apr 22, 2005)

Ladybird said:
			
		

> For internal communication, the two players actually have a notebook that they pass back and forth, writing comments to each other.




Interesting, though I could sadly never play a Tok'ra - my poor host wouldn't be able to understand my handwriting.


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## Obezyanchik (Apr 22, 2005)

GreenArmadillo said:
			
		

> Interesting, though I could sadly never play a Tok'ra - my poor host wouldn't be able to understand my handwriting.




We don't _quite_ have the right equipment to have them chatting over an IM service on laptops during the game, but we've been discussing it.  Maybe eventually we'll get it to happen.


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## Obezyanchik (Apr 22, 2005)

Ladybird said:
			
		

> It can produce some wonderfully realistic results sometimes - for instance, Joe laughing at something that Orieth has written, but that nobody else has heard.




It really made my day when that happened.  It was just so cool!


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## Ladybird (Apr 23, 2005)

GreenArmadillo said:
			
		

> Interesting, though I could sadly never play a Tok'ra - my poor host wouldn't be able to understand my handwriting.




Fortunately for me, both players have decent handwriting  And that notebook is an amazing resource for a Story Hour writer - I mean, how often do you get to see what's _actually_ going on inside the other characters' minds?


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## Ladybird (Apr 27, 2005)

*Previously, on the Cheyenne Mountain Irregulars, Part 3*

September 27, 2010

Major Kathleen Fitzgerald stood outside the general’s office, going over herself one last time. Uniform – neatly buttoned, given one last tug to make sure it was on completely straight. Hair – tightly pulled back into a braid, even the last little unruly curls ruthlessly gelled in place. Hands – resolutely behind her back, so the general wouldn’t see them shaking. _I’m not going to let anything slip_, she thought. _Even if this _is_ the end._

He answered her knock almost immediately. “Come in!”

She stepped inside, closing the door quickly behind her. The general was behind his desk…no, he was mostly behind his desk and partly on it, with his feet propped up on a pile of papers as he tilted back in his desk chair, squinting up at a thick report. She snapped off a precise salute, her already-straight back becoming even more rigid as she did so. “You asked to see me, sir?”

“At ease, Major.” The general waved a casual hand at the chair opposite him as he swung his feet down from his desk and tossed the report aside.  Kathleen brought her hand down from the salute, but remained standing, hands folded neatly behind her back. A smile quirked up the corners of the general’s mouth, half bemused and half sympathetic. “That means, have a seat.”

“Yes, sir.” Kathleen took the offered chair, but her posture remained perfectly straight - shoulders squared, ankles neatly crossed, and hands folded together very very tightly. _This is it,_ she thought. _Keep it together. Don’t let him shake you…_

“So,” the general began. “How was the Sox game last night?”

Kathleen blinked. “Um. Excuse me, sir?” That wasn’t what he was supposed to say.

“What, you didn’t watch?” he asked, astonished. 

“Oh. Um. Yes. Yes, I did, sir. I – uh – thought that Gonzales’ pitching was a little off in the first couple innings, but they made the right call to leave him in.” Nervousness made her voice come out a little too high, a little too fast – she made herself stop before it got any worse.

“Yeah, me too.” The general gave Kathleen a sideways glance, taking in her stiff composure and carefully-neutral expression. “It’s called small talk, Major? You know, the kind of thing you do when you’re trying to put someone _at ease_?” He raised his eyebrows pointedly.

”Y-yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” She did not unbend.

“Well, I guess you’d rather not beat around the bush, then.”

“No, sir!” It came out with more relieved fervor than Kathleen had planned on. “Please,” she added, softly.

“All right, Major. Here it is.” Kathleen swallowed hard. _Here it is,_ she repeated in her mind._ We regret to inform you. Honorable discharge. However they’re saying it these days._ She pulled herself up straighter, waiting for the blow to fall.

“We’re putting together a new SG team,” said the general. “Reviving the SG-17 number. And we’d like you to head it up.”

Kathleen blinked. Speechless. _It’s a good thing I was already sitting down_, she thought incongruously.

“I think here is probably where you say ‘Yes, sir,’” prompted the general.

Kathleen stared. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

“They tell me you speak five Earth languages and three alien ones,” he continued, beginning to grin. It wasn’t malicious – it was just the pleased smile of someone who has been given the opportunity to pass on unexpectedly good news. “Can’t find anything to say in any of them?”

“Um,” Kathleen gulped, and finally managed to choke out, “Yes, sir. But - but you're putting me on _more _active duty? But - ”

“But you don’t have a lot of off-world experience,” he finished for her. “I know. But you’ve had an excellent service record in the cryptology division, and we think you’re a good candidate for this position.”

“But sir, I – “

Once again, the general cut her off. “Your second off-world mission wasn’t exactly a huge success.  You were still a big part of making sure that just about everyone made it back safely.”

“But sir,” Kathleen said yet again, and rushed the rest of the sentence out before the general could interject again. “Sir, you _do_ know about my...record?”

The twinkle faded from the general’s eyes. “Yes, Major,” he answered, his voice quiet and entirely serious. “I’ve read your file. _All _of it.” He met her worried gaze directly. “I want you on this team, Major Fitzgerald. We need someone who can think, and someone who can talk through any situation in any language. This is going to be the kind of team that goes into situations that you _can’t _just shoot your way out of. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” she said once more, her voice beginning to regain some of its steadiness. “When do I – we – start?”

“You start training two weeks from today.” The general shuffled briefly through the chaos of papers on his desk, emerging with a large manila folder which he passed across to Kathleen. “Here are the personnel records on your other team members. Get acquainted with them.” She reached out to take it from him, pulling the heavy file back quickly so that he wouldn’t see that her hands were still shaking. “We’ll meet again in a few days, once you’ve had a chance to start organizing things. In the meantime, read up on the rest of the team, and try to take a break, okay?”

“Yes, sir.” _Come on_, she told herself. _Can’t you think of anything else to say besides that? _And then she answered her own question: _No, not really_ “I’ll do my best, sir,” Kathleen managed. 

The general nodded. “Good. Unless you have any other questions, Major, that’s all for now. You’re dismissed.”

Kathleen got to her feet swiftly, pulling herself up just as straight as before as she gave a final salute. “Yes, sir.” She paused, bringing her hand down, and added quietly, “Thank you, sir.” Then she bent down again to pick up the files for her team. _My team!_ she couldn't help thinking, with a flash of pride, and a smile began to spread across her face as she turned to go.


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## Falkus (Apr 28, 2005)

Nice, I like it.


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## TDRandall (Apr 28, 2005)

Well, that's five great story blurbs in a row with no misses I could see.

Count me subscribed!  Now where's #6?


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## Look_a_Unicorn (Apr 28, 2005)

Still enjoying reading- especially the Tokra/human interaction. You say they are played by two different PC's?


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## Ladybird (Apr 28, 2005)

Look_a_Unicorn said:
			
		

> Still enjoying reading- especially the Tokra/human interaction. You say they are played by two different PC's?




Yup. They take turns talking to the group, and then pass a notebook back and forth between them for internal communications. (The two players have worked out a whole system - I'll let them jump in and tell more about how it works, if they want.)

Thanks to everyone for all the positive comments! I'm very happy that you're all enjoying reading the story hour, and I hope to have more updates for you soon!


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## GreenArmadillo (Apr 28, 2005)

Ladybird said:
			
		

> “Oh. Um. Yes. Yes, I did, sir. I – uh – thought that Gonzales’ pitching was a little off in the first couple innings, but they made the right call to leave him in.”




I don't know whether to be impressed that you took the time to look up a hot AAA prospecct for a Story Hour, or horrified that we had two starters hit the DL on the very day you posted this, meaning that this may happen a bit sooner than 2010....


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## Ladybird (Apr 28, 2005)

GreenArmadillo said:
			
		

> I don't know whether to be impressed that you took the time to look up a hot AAA prospecct for a Story Hour, or horrified that we had two starters hit the DL on the very day you posted this, meaning that this may happen a bit sooner than 2010....




Wow. I just chose a semi-common name at random. I had no idea the Red Sox actually had a new pitching prospect named Gonzalez.

Whoa. That's just too weird.


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## Obezyanchik (Apr 29, 2005)

Ladybird said:
			
		

> Wow. I just chose a semi-common name at random. I had no idea the Red Sox actually had a new pitching prospect named Gonzalez.
> 
> Whoa. That's just too weird.




Wait, when did the Red Sox pick up Gonzalez?  I think it was _after_ this piece was written.

Either way, whoa.


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## GreenArmadillo (Apr 30, 2005)

Obezyanchik said:
			
		

> Wait, when did the Red Sox pick up Gonzalez?  I think it was _after_ this piece was written.
> 
> Either way, whoa.




To clarify, the Dirt Dogs are more editorial commentary/speculation than actual news.  (Whether they should be prominently linked on boston.com is a valid question, but they do a good job of digging up gossip and quotes that don't necessarily make it to mainstream media.  Also a good place to go if you need an idea quick on how to trash the goat of the day's game, cause they'll do it, friend or foe. )  To my knowledge, Gonzalez has not been called up from Pawtuckett, where he has been since at least the start of the season, and might not be needed after all.  Did a bit more digging and it turns out that he is not so much of a prospect as one of those guys who bounces around the majors and minors, only to emerge when you need an extra starter.  The guy happened to put up a good day in AAA on the same day that Boston's 1 and 2 starters hit the DL, prompting educated, but perhaps ultimately incorrect, speculation by the BDD's.  That said, the guy is piecing together a solid enough year, and he's currently only 30, so it's certainly within the realm of possibilities that he might have a spot in the rotation in 5 years.  

(If you're curious on why Gonzalez may not be needed this year, Wade Miller (acquired from Houston for cheap after missing the whole 2004 season - very good upside if he works out, not much gambled if he doesn't) appears to be nearer to a big league debut than people had thought.  If Miller is good to go in another week and there's at least one travel day between now and then, the Sox may be able to get by with only 4 starters.  Of course, Bronson Arroyo is looking at a 6 game suspension for that game of beanball in Tampa Bay last weekend (if a player appeals, their suspension is delayed until after the hearing, and given the timing I think that's likely to happen here), and depending on when that materializes and whether Wells or Schilling are back by then, Gonzalez might yet be needed.  They won't call him up if they don't have to, though, because he's already played on major league teams for three years, and thus can't be sent back down again without clearing waivers.)

And with that, we apologize for the tangent on baseball and return you to your regularily scheduled SG-17 update.  

Now that I think about it, why was SG-17 retired in the first place?  Did this happen on the show at some point (I can never keep track of what happens to misc SG teams)?  Was the team vacant until someone could retrieve their Eagle from the invading Jaffa who wiped out the previous SG-17?  Or am I once again asking questions to be answered next time on CMI?


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## Ladybird (May 2, 2005)

*Mission 1: Closer to Fine. Part 1 - Coffee and Briefing*

In order to avoid spoilers for the TV series, I've answered Green Armadillo's question about the original SG-17 in a private message - they're not mentioned until one of the later seasons. Thanks for all your interest and positive feedback - now, on with the show!

---
December 18, 2010

RING! RING!

Kathleen rolled over, squinting blearily over at the clock. 5:00 AM. Oh-dark-thirty, as they’d called this kind of ghastly early-morning time back at the Academy. And she’d just barely managed to get to sleep, too…

RING! RING!

She fumbled for the phone. “Hello?” 

“Major Fitzgerald? It’s Airman Williams, from the SGC.”

Kathleen sat up, instantly awake. “What is it? Is everything all right?”

“Yes, ma’am. Well, mostly. The General wants to meet with SG-17 at 0700 hours. He says not to worry – there’ll be plenty of coffee.”

**

“Is not our first mission due to depart two days hence?” Ked’rec asked, his voice as neutral and calm as it ever was, despite the early hour. If the phone call had woken him up, there was no indication of it in his voice or manner.

“Yes…sir.” Even after two years of working with Ked’rec at the SGC, Airman Williams was still uncertain as to where the Jaffa fit into the rank structure. When in doubt, though, call him “sir.”  “SG-17 was set to start on the 20th. But there’s been a change of plans. Something’s come up, and the General needs you to start earlier.”

**

Joe reached over to pick up the clock from where it lay on the floor, nearly knocking over an ashtray brimming with cigarette butts. “It’s five in the morning,” he grumbled. The television screen flickered with black-and-white images – the all-night zombie movie marathon that Joe had been watching when he fell asleep in his chair was still running.

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. But the General wouldn’t have asked me to call you in if it weren’t urgent. He needs you at 0700 – “

**

Airman Williams stared at the phone in his hand. Joe had hung up on him. _Oh well,_ Williams thought with a shrug. _I made the call – I’ve done my part of the job. I can’t make him come in._

**
Ked’rec reached the conference room first. It had only taken about twenty minutes to get ready for the meeting, and he lived on the base in Cheyenne Mountain, so his travel time involved nothing more than getting on the elevator to travel from the living quarters to the briefing room. 

Joe slouched in a few minutes later, in a cigarette-scented haze, his dusty graying hair sticking out in several unpredictable directions. He went straight to the coffeepot, poured himself a cup, drank it in one gulp, poured another, and sat down without even pausing to acknowledge the Jaffa already seated at the table.

It took Kathleen a bit longer to drive to the base from her house in town, but she still arrived with several minutes to spare, and with her uniform and hair in crisp, spotless order. She glanced around the room with a weary but cheerful smile, offering a quick “Good morning,” to the other members of her team as she too headed for the coffeepot. She got a silent nod from Ked’rec in return, and a grunt from Joe. Through the briefing room’s wide window, she could see through to the General’s office, where he was having an animated conversation on the phone. _Uh-oh?_ she thought. Then she saw that it was the _red_ phone. _Definitely uh-oh._

“Uh-oh,” spoke a voice behind Kathleen. It was Lt. AK Reinhart, the junior member of SG-17, a young man barely out of the Air Force Academy. Even when he hadn’t just been dragged out of his quarters, his broad good-natured face always looked freshly scrubbed. He too was looking through the window at the General on the red phone, and he exchanged an apprehensive glance with Kathleen as he slipped past her to take a seat at the table. “Good morning, ma’am,” he added.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Kathleen replied, as she poured herself a cup of coffee and headed for the conference table.

“SG-17! Good to see you” the General called from the doorway, the forced cheerfulness in his voice belied by the dark circles under his eyes. No matter how early the team had had to wake up, he’d probably been up earlier. If he’d been to sleep at all. “No, no, don’t get up,” he said, waving a hand pre-emptively at Kathleen and Reinhart. 

“Good morning, sir,” said Kathleen, sinking back in her chair, but keeping her posture at-attention straight. “Is everything all right?”

“Well, I hope so. And I hope you all brought your parkas. There’s been a change in plans – you’re going to start your first mission a bit early. You’re going to St. Petersburg – and I don’t mean the one in Florida.”

“Russia?” Kathleen asked, with a sinking feeling. St. Petersburg, Russia, in December?

“Got it in one, Major,” the General replied. “The Russians are doing some naquadah research at St. Petersburg State University, and their instruments started picking up indications that there was some source of naquadah around that _wasn’t_ in their lab. They tracked the readings to a museum down the street, and in the basement of the museum, they found an underground passage, sealed with a stone that had this inscription on it.”

The General reached for a remote-control and clicked a button. Onto the conference room projection screen flashed a grainy picture: the corner of a sandstone block, into which were carved symbols that looked like a variation on Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Kathleen’s sinking feeling sank deeper. “It’s in Goa’uld.”

“Excuse me, sir.” The voice was coming from Joe’s mouth, but it was deeper and smoother – Orieth was talking now. “My previous understanding had been that there was little, if any, Goa’uld presence as far north as Russia.” 

“That’s what we thought too,” answered the General, with no sign of confusion or discomfort at the sound of Orieth's reverberant voice. Reinhart gave a brief double-take, but did his best to cover it up as quickly as possible. “And that’s why we – and the Russians – would like you to investigate. We want you to find out where this inscription came from, how long it’s been there, what it means, and what else is down there.” He looked around the table at the bleary, confused faces of SG-17. “Any questions?”

“Yes, sir.” Kathleen spoke up first. “What’s the museum that the stone was found in? Could the stone have been some Egyptian antiquity that was brought in without the Russians realizing what it was?”

“Not very likely, Major. The museum used to be some old Czarist palace, and now it’s full of Russian antiquities, art, things like that. Oh, and a waxworks, if you want to be even more creeped out. But nothing from Egypt. Also, the stone wasn’t in the part of the basement where they stored museum artifacts – it was part of the wall in a different section of the building.”

“Who are we supposed to report to when we get there, sir?” asked Reinhart.

“You’ll be meeting with General Andreyev. He’s my counterpart there. Yes, this is pretty big,” the General added, in response to the raised eyebrows and surprised looks that he received from the team. “Not only could it be an important archaeological find, but…well, things have been kind of tense with the Russians lately, so we need to handle this carefully. The President’s been on the phone with me and with General Andreyev, and she’s assured him that we won’t be looting Russia’s national treasures or anything like that. Their archaeologists are kind of anxious about having an American SG team come in.”

“If that’s the case, sir…”

“…why isn’t the Russian team going?” The General finished Kathleen’s question for her. “They’re off-world right now, in a situation that we can’t pull them out of. You’re the next-best thing.”

“Understood, sir,” Kathleen said with a decisive nod. “We’ll be careful.”

“Good. Then go ahead and get packed – we’ll have a transport plane ready for you as soon as you can make it back to the base. Good luck, SG-17.”


----------



## Lefferts (May 2, 2005)

Ladybird said:
			
		

> The President’s been on the phone with me and with General Andreyev, and she’s assured him that we won’t be looting Russia’s national treasures or anything like that.




I like how you non-chalantly threw this one in here. Is she democrat, republican, or 3rd party?


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## GreenArmadillo (May 3, 2005)

Lefferts said:
			
		

> I like how you non-chalantly threw this one in here. Is she democrat, republican, or 3rd party?




3rd Party?  In 2010?  This is Sci-Fi, but there are limits!  j/k  

Seriously, the SG-verse appears to hold its elections one year earlier than the real world does, so one could presume that she is whichever party the current guy isn't (would have won the Nov 2007 elections to be in power in 2010), unless the politics of SG-1/CMI Earth are strikingly different from real Earth when it comes to mounting a primary challenge against your own party's incumbent.  

Fun briefing scene, as always, Ladybird!  And it's an interesting hook - it seems like the sort of thing a new SG-team might be dispatched to investigate.


----------



## Ladybird (May 6, 2005)

*Mission 1: Closer to Fine. Part 2 - New Players*

Unfortunately, our intrepid GM has been swallowed up by an onslaught of real-life work. However, Obezyanchik promises to answer all your questions about the President and her political affiliation as soon as it clears up 

---
Dec. 19, 2010

At 7:00 local time the next morning, the military plane landed at an air base outside St. Petersburg. SG-17 piled out into the bitter cold, still exhausted – nobody had managed to get much sleep on the plane, and the fact that it was still dark outside, and would be for several more hours, wasn’t helping. Ked’rec tugged his black watch cap down to cover the tattoo on his forehead that marked him as a Jaffa. As far as anyone in Russia was concerned, he would be just an ordinary person. An ordinary person who always wore a hat pulled down low on his forehead, who had only one name and no official military rank. 

Waiting for them on the landing strip was a young woman, bundled up in the Russian military’s standard-issue overcoat. “Good morning,” she greeted them in accented but almost-fluent English. “I am Senior Lieutenant Sokolov. I will be driving you to Yusupov Palace.”

“We’re staying in a palace?” Lt. Reinhart gasped, eyes going wide.

“No,” Sokolov replied, barely suppressing a grin. “The museum that you will be working in is a palace. It was owned by the Yusupov family until the Revolution. You will be staying at a hotel nearby.”

“Oh.” Reinhart’s cold-pinkened cheeks flushed deeper, and he ducked his head into the fur-lined hood of his parka as he turned to follow the rest of the group across the tarmac to the waiting jeep.

Once they were safely in the jeep, Kathleen asked, “So what’s the history of this palace? When was it built?”

“In the eighteenth century,” Sokolov answered. “The Yusupovs were a prominent aristocratic family, very close to the Romanovs.” The jeep lurched into motion and took off, spinning around the corner onto the road at a frightening speed and precarious angle. Ked’rec’s expression never changed, but he reached out a hand to grip the door handle as the jeep merged into St. Petersburg’s morning rush hour traffic: thousands of other cars, all driving with as much speed and as little regard for things like lights and lanes as Lt. Sokolov.

 “So when did the palace become a museum?” Kathleen kept her eyes entirely on Sokolov, not daring to look out the window. _And I thought Boston drivers were bad…_ she thought to herself.

“In the late 1980s. It was a school for most of the Soviet period, and they did not restore the interior for several decades. It was even longer before they restored the basement. That is where the wax museum is – on the site where the Starets was killed.”

“Starets?” repeated Reinhart.

“It means ‘old man’ or ‘wise man,’ right?” Kathleen offered.

“That is right,” replied Sokolov. “It was a name commonly used for Rasputin. A nickname, I think the word is?”

Reinhart’s eyes widened. “This is the building where Rasputin was killed?”

“Well, they started to kill him here, I guess,” Kathleen said, with a dry laugh. “He was famously hard to kill.” The smile faded from her face as the wheels started to turn in her mind. “Oh, wait. Rasputin. Famous for his long life, and for being difficult to kill. Oh, _fascinating._.”

Sokolov turned her head to give Kathleen a curious look. “What is it?” Horns honked and tires squealed as the jeep started to drift out of its lane.

“Nothing!” Kathleen cried hastily, not daring to distract Sokolov from the road any more. “Nothing – don’t worry – let’s just get there!”  

_I think I like this place,_ Orieth thought, turning Joe’s lips up in a faint smile as they looked out at the erratically speeding traffic. _They know how to drive._

The jeep lurched around one final corner, turning off the Moika River Embankment into an alley that led around the corner of Yusupov Palace into a rear parking lot. Police caution tape ringed the palace’s broad neoclassical façade, and sawhorses formed a barrier that reached out into the street, making the traffic lanes even narrower, more precarious, and more crowded. “We are telling the public that there has been a chemical spill, and therefore the museum must be closed,” Sokolov explained as she skidded the jeep into a parking spot.

“Chemical spill? Yeah, that usually works as a cover story.” Kathleen was finally able to give a genuine grin, now that the peril of driving through St. Petersburg’s rush hour traffic had passed.

Sokolov led SG-17 through a back entrance and down a set of stairs that must have been the servants’ entrance a hundred years before. The sound of raised voices broke off abruptly as the door opened to reveal four men: two young Russian soldiers, each with his arms full of dusty boxes; a middle-aged man with thinning brown hair and glasses, wearing a threadbare brown jacket; and an older man in an ornate military uniform, who could only be General Andreyev.

At the sound of the door opening, General Andreyev turned swiftly towards it, a smile instantly pasting itself on his face. “Ah! You are here! Welcome to St. Petersburg. May I introduce Dr. Hramov, an archaeologist from St. Petersburg State University.”

A shiver of apprehension ran through Joe, and he knew that it wasn’t his own emotion. _Get a grip_.

_They have been arguing!_Orieth fluttered in Joe’s mind._The archaeologist – he’s very angry. Is it wise to enter? We must be prepared to run if the conflict escalates…_

The two younger soldiers hurried to the other side of the room with their boxes, eager to look busy, and to be anywhere else in the room other than between their bickering superiors. Dr. Hramov didn’t even acknowledge the presence of the team from the SGC, continuing instead to speak to Andreyev in angry Russian. 

Kathleen could understand him, though. “So, this is why you have been delaying in letting me go through the passage?” Hramov fumed. “You were waiting for these Americans to come in and take credit for our discoveries? If you think that I will give them a _single artifact_ –“ 

Hramov broke off, tangled in his own vehement splutterings, and Kathleen seized the opening. “Good morning,” she said, with a friendly smile and in almost-perfect Russian. “I’m Major Kathleen Fitzgerald. I’m very glad that you’ll be here to work with us – I’m looking forward to hearing what you’ve already discovered. It will be so helpful to have your advice.” 

Hramov’s listened, eyes widening, both impressed and wary – how much of his rant might she have understood?  Still, by the end of her speech, Hramov had softened visibly, as much from her use of Russian as from her conciliatory words. “Pleased to meet you, Major,” he said in Russian, then switched into English as he turned to give a still-cautious glance to the rest of SG-17. “I hope we will be able to work together on this project. Please, come this way. I will show you the seal, and what we have found so far.”

Andreyev let his breath out in a relieved sigh as the others followed Hramov across the room and through a door into an unfinished part of the basement. The roughly plastered walls gave way to stark gray stone and dirt floors, roofed with exposed wooden beams. Near the far side of the room was a large chunk of sandstone, about three feet on a side, its dusty red edges standing out sharply against the muted wintry gray of the basement. 

Joe shivered again, feeling the faint tingle of the presence of naquadah from somewhere beyond and below the sandstone. It was one thing to be told that some instrument in some lab had detected it, and another to actually _feel_ it himself. 

“So what have you been able to figure out about this inscription?” Kathleen asked, already standing with Dr. Hramov by the sandstone block.

“Well, it is definitely Goa’uld. And we think it is dating from the early part of the twentieth century.” 

Ked’rec raised an eyebrow. “Is that not rather late for a Goa’uld inscription?”

“Yes!” Kathleen agreed instantly, blinking down at the inscription in surprise. “But not unheard of,” she added, starting to turn the information over in her mind. “After all, Seth was wandering around Earth for thousands of years – there may very well have been another one stranded here.” She took a step closer to the sandstone block, squinting down at it. “Let me see…’All who pass through this door must kneel before...’” She broke off in her slow translation, glancing up at the others. “I don’t recognize that symbol. Have any of you seen it before?”

“I don’t recognize it,” said Joe. And then he opened his mouth again, to say, “Neither do I.” Orieth could speak in Joe’s voice, if he wanted.

Hramov stared. Joe let out a faint, raspy chuckle at the archaeologist’s confusion, relieved to have something else to think about besides the tingling sensation that the naquadah was sending through his body.

_Risking our cover like that is unwise!_ Orieth scolded. _I had already given the answer – there was no need to repeat ourselves. And it’s not funny!_

_I laughed._ Joe thought back.

_You didn’t sound very amused, to tell the truth._

Kathleen was already pushing ahead to cover up the awkward silence. “So…um…an unfamiliar symbol, and then ‘and worship her glorious countenance. Traitors will be…struck down.’ There’s that unfamiliar symbol again, and then ‘will live forever.’” She looked up at the others, eyes troubled “That symbol looks like it should be a name. Could this be a new Goa’uld?”

“If it were any sort of major one, we would have heard of it,” Orieth said, in Joe’s voice. _Let me do the talking! It will be much safer for both of us. And I won’t risk using my real voice._ “Therefore, I think it unlikely that it would be anyone powerful…”

“So,” said Kathleen, “it looks like we’ve got a new player on the board.”


----------



## Ladybird (May 13, 2005)

*Episode 1: Closer to Fine. Part 3 - Down the Hatch*

The sandstone block sat at the top of a square shaft leading down through the dirt floor of the basement to a dusty surface about ten feet below. A light at the top of the shaft illuminated a rope ladder that the Russians had rigged up, and shone dimly down to the red sandstone floor that lay beneath the gray rock and dirt walls of the shaft.

“I leave it in your hands, SG-17,” said General Andreyev. “You may contact me at the Stargate Headquarters if you need any further assistance.”

“Yes, sir,” said Kathleen. “And thank you.” A sudden flash of movement at the corner of her eye drew her attention away from General Andreyev, and she held out a restraining arm in front of Hramov, who was already moving towards the shaft. “Hold on, Doctor. Not so fast.” He began to protest, but she pushed ahead. “We have no idea what’s down there, or how dangerous it is. What we do know is that our team is much better equipped to deal with it. I want you to stay in back. It’s for your own safety,” she persisted, raising her voice over the beginning of Hramov’s sputtering objections. “_We_ will go first, and _we _will be in charge, and if we tell you to get back, you _will _listen. Understood?” She held his gaze steadily, until finally, grudgingly, the archaeologist nodded and withdrew to the rear of the group, a frown settling on his face.

Letting out a relieved breath, Kathleen turned back to the rest of the team. “All right, Ked’rec, you go first. Make sure that it’s safe.” As the Jaffa slung his staff weapon across his back and turned towards the ladder, she added, “And just in case – when you get to the bottom, kneel.”

Ked’rec gave a sharp, silent nod. He set one foot on the top rung of the rope ladder, then pushed off the side into the air. A foot touched one side of the stone wall, a hand the other, as he somersaulted down the narrow passageway, nimbly slipping past the stone walls in a flurry of motion to finish on his knees at the bottom, weapon raised.

Even Hramov looked impressed.

“Well?” Kathleen called.

“It appears to be safe, Major Fitzgerald. The room is deserted. There are three doors and more inscriptions, but no sign of any danger.”

“All right – down we go,” ordered Kathleen. “Reinhart, you’re next, then Mr. Healy, then Dr. Hramov.”

_Leading from behind,_ Joe thought, with a scornful mental sniff.

_She could be watching our backs,_ Orieth suggested mildly.

Joe’s only response was another snort, this time aloud, as he clambered down the rope ladder.

The shaft opened up into a rectangular room, built of the same incongruous red sandstone that made up the inscribed block. Three tall sandstone doors indented the wall, each inscribed with Goa’uld-looking hieroglyphics. Kathleen and Orieth could tell, though, that only one of the doors had symbols that actually meant something. “It says the same thing as the inscription on the capstone,” said Kathleen. “Stand _back_, Dr. Hramov.” she interrupted herself to say, stepping in front of the scientist again. “Don’t touch anything until we’ve had a chance to check it out.  Mr. Healy,” she said, turning back to Joe, “why don’t you see if there are any mechanical devices on these doors – booby traps, anything like that.”

Joe stepped up to the center door and knelt down, his knees letting out only the slightest of protesting creaks. One hand went up to the sandstone surface, and his fingers fanned out across it, feeling over the contours of the carved symbols. _Don’t you start,_ he warned Orieth. _Not now._

_I would not dream of distracting you,_ Orieth replied, faintly hurt. _Although if this were built by a Goa’uld, I would be rather more familiar with these sorts of mechanisms than you are. Therefore, if you require any assistance…_

_Shut up._

Joe closed his eyes, banishing everyone else from his world for a moment, and letting himself slip almost into the same state of mental quiet that he got when he worked on his car. “Got it,” he said aloud, after a long moment, and reluctantly opened his eyes and turned back to look at the others. “There are three slits, right here.” He pointed to a spot on the center door.  “Looks like something could come out of them.”

Kathleen narrowed her eyes, peering across the room at the door, but not going any closer. “Like what?”

Joe shrugged. “Dunno. Knives, maybe.” He jerked his head back at the opposite wall. “They’d hit back there.”

Ked’rec knelt in a smooth crouch, running a hand lightly over the wall at the spot where Joe had indicated. “There do not appear to be any marks on this wall. If the trap has indeed been set off in the past, it was either did not hit the wall hard enough to leave a mark, or something that would not leave a mark at all.”

“I’d like to spring the trap, ma’am,” Joe said.

Kathleen shook her head quickly. “Negative, Mr. Healy. What if it’s gas that comes out of those holes?”

Again, Joe shrugged. “I can take it.” 

Kathleen hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, I guess you can,” she agreed quietly. Then she raised her voice again and said,  “All right, Dr. Hramov, back upstairs.” With a resigned sigh, the archaeologist turned to climb back up to the main room. If it were possible to slouch up a rope ladder, Hramov would have been doing it.

“The rest of you, too,” Joe said. “Better if I’m the only one down here when whatever it is happens.” With equal reluctance, the rest of the team returned to the main room, leaving Joe downstairs.

Alone in the subterranean tunnel – well, as alone as he ever was – Joe knelt behind an upturned crate, bending down behind the wooden slats to protect himself from whatever might come out of the door. In one hand, he held a long stick, which he extended gingerly towards the buttons on the center door. 

Upstairs, Kathleen leaned over the edge of the hatch, peering anxiously down at Joe. Reinhart held his breath. The stick touched the buttons, with a faint hollow sound of wood against stone…

…and nothing happened. Joe could barely hear the soft click from deep within the stone door that came just before the door swung loose and opened a tiny crack.

“Nothin’ there,” Joe called up to the others. Still cautious, though, he leaned forward to use the stick to pry the door open a little further. “Yeah, there’s the trap. I can see it now.” He stood up, letting the crate clatter to the ground with an abruptness that made Hramov jump at the noise echoing off the sandstone walls.  A few moments was all that it took for Joe to disable the mechanism on the opposite side of the stone door. “Would’ve been blades,” he added. “Little springloaded things. Would’ve gotten you right in the chest. All clear now.”

“That was amazing!” Hramov gushed, clambering awkwardly back down the ladder even before Joe had finished the ‘all clear.’ “Where did you learn to do that? Never have I seen such a thing!”

Joe shrugged. “School.”

“What kind of school teaches _that_?”

_School of hard knocks, pal_, Joe thought, but all that was out loud was the dry chuckle that he produced with his own amusement.

“And here they were always telling us that American technical schools were never as good as Soviet ones,” Hramov chattered on, rushing up to stand next to Joe. “Perhaps they were not so bad after all! You must have gone to a wonderful technical school! Will you show me how you did that?”

Still at the top of the ladder, Kathleen directed Ked’rec down next with a quick hand gesture, drawing Reinhart aside for a moment. “Lieutenant,” she said quietly, “I’d like you to keep an eye on Dr. Hramov. Make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble. Or cause any.”

Reinhart nodded. “Already planning on it, ma’am.”

“Good.” Kathleen’s head was turned towards the opening in the floor, directed at the sound of the archaeologist’s voice even though he could not be seen. “There’s something about him that I don’t trust.”

“If I can speak frankly, ma’am – I don’t entirely trust him either.”

Meanwhile, Hramov was still gushing at Joe. “You are most skilled! Are you sure you cannot teach me how you did that?”

Without a word, Joe turned his back on the archaeologist, barely glancing up as Reinhart scrambled down the ladder. 

“Is it all clear, Mr. Healy?” Kathleen asked, climbing carefully down after the lieutenant. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Good. Then in we go.”


----------



## Obezyanchik (May 20, 2005)

Lefferts said:
			
		

> I like how you non-chalantly threw this one in here. Is she democrat, republican, or 3rd party?




Democrat.  Actually, the President in CMI is an analogue of a real person, even though that person isn't what you will think of as presidential material.  I haven't decided what particular divergences made her President in CMI; it doesn't make political sense.  It's an homage to a person I find interesting.

You may have seen Lt. General Claudia Kennedy (ret.) when she introduced General John Shalikashvili (ret.) at the DNC 2004.  I watched her intro, looked up her background, and decided we could use a second President Kennedy in CMI.

My hope was that we could sneak that little "she" in there quietly, so I'm glad you liked the effect.  I don't have more backstory for you on this at this point, but who knows, I might eventually.  If I ever dig myself out from under the mound of real life concerns that has eaten me, that is.


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## Steverooo (May 20, 2005)

Ladybird said:
			
		

> September 27, 2010
> 
> Major Kathleen Fitzgerald...




Oooohh!  PROMOTION!


----------



## sniffles (May 20, 2005)

Aw, makes me sad. I was in an aborted Stargate campaign. Too many other campaigns running, not enough free time. 



Shadows of Greatness:  A Forgotten Realms Campaign
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=131593


----------



## Ladybird (May 20, 2005)

*Episode 1: Closer to Fine. Part 4: More Questions than Answers*

A shadow fell across the red sandstone wall of the corridor: a standard-issue Air Force uniform cap, silhouetted by the dim beam of a flashlight. Below it, a distorted shape stretched back into the darkness, long and thin, then fading into a large amorphous blob. 

Ked’rec’s calm, even voice sounded incongruously loud in the stony silence of the hallway. “There is nothing here.” He straightened up, resting one end of the long pole he was carrying on the ground, so that the hat on other end of the pole hovered above his head, and looked back over his shoulder at the rest of the group.

“Can I have my hat back, then?” Reinhart asked. He was trying hard to sound casual, but couldn’t quite keep the plaintive note out of his voice. Was this some tease-the-newbie act, or was it a realistic safety measure?

“Not till we’re sure there’s nobody here,” Joe answered flatly. 

Kathleen confirmed the statement with a nod, giving Reinhart a sympathetic smile. “Plus, we don’t know what kind of automated systems they might have set up down here,” she explained, “or what their security devices are set to detect. Better that your hat gets hit with an anti-intruder device than one of us does.” The young lieutenant sighed and nodded, and the group continued on their cautious way down the hall. To anyone approaching from further down the corridor, the shadow of the hat and pole would look as if it were being cast by someone much taller than any of SG-17 actually were – and as if it were being cast by someone about five feet in front of the group.

After a few hundred feet, the corridor ended in a doorway. The sharp silent signal of Ked’rec’s raised hand brought the group to a halt, and the Jaffa nudged the hat-and-pole cautiously around the edge of the doorway, waiting for a long moment before lowering it and saying, “All clear.”

On the other side of the doorway, the ceiling lifted up, reaching away into the darkness and sending the group’s footsteps echoing hollowly around the walls. Kathleen shone her flashlight up – the ceiling had to be at least 30 feet high, ending in a closed-off hatchway.

“From the height of the ceiling, it looks as if it would be on a level with the surface.” It was Joe’s voice, but the speech pattern was unmistakably Orieth’s. 

“Right,” said Kathleen slowly, her attention still fixed on the ceiling as the wheels started to turn in her mind. “This is probably how they brought in all their building materials. See the break there? That looks like the place where it would open up.” 

“Nothing else in here.” Joe’s flat, terse tone was back.  “The other end of the corridor just goes back to the left-hand door. 

“Then I think it’s time to go back to the beginning and try the right-hand door,” The beam from Kathleen’s flashlight traveled back down to earth as she finally ended her intent study of the ceiling. “That’s the only place that we haven’t explored yet.” 

As soon as the group had circled back to the entry chamber, with its three doors and ominous inscription on the right-most one, Kathleen instructed, “All right, Dr. Hramov. Back upstairs.”  Reluctantly, the archaeologist started back up the ladder into the basement.

“Reinhart, you too. And Ked’rec,” Kathleen added after a brief pause.

“And you,” Joe prompted.

“No, I’ll stay down here to back you up, Mr. Healy.” _They might count a Tok’ra or a rebel Jaffa as a traitor,_ she thought, _but I haven’t betrayed anyone._

Joe regarded Kathleen warily for a moment. “Are you sure?”

She held his gaze steadily. “Yes, Mr. Healy.” By way of demonstration, she picked up the crate behind which he had been crouching before, holding it out to him. “You need to be really careful on this one,” she added, with a significant glance at the inscription.

_Worship her glorious countenance; traitors will be struck down,_ Orieth thought wearily. _Really, it could just be a fancy way of saying ‘kneel before your god.’ Which to a Goa’uld is like saying ‘pass the chips.’_

Kathleen blinked in surprise at Joe’s sudden fit of chuckling. “Mr. Healy, is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Joe answered with a shrug. 

She watched him for one more confused, concerned moment, and then together, Joe and Kathleen knelt down behind the upturned crate, while Joe reached out with the stick to push the buttons on the right-hand door to trigger its lock.

Kathleen didn’t realize she had been holding her breath until she let it out as the door swung silently open. “All clear,” she called up to the others.

Behind the door, there was hardly enough space for Ked’rec to hold out Reinhart’s hat on the pole before the hallway ended in a large chamber. It was furnished with heavy wooden tables and chairs, looking incongruously European against the Egyptian-style architecture of the sandstone passages. Even more out of place was what sat on one of the tables: a notebook, two quill pens, and an inkwell that had long since overflowed and dried up, leaving a scatter of black dust on the wooden surface. And a small metal object, about the size of the digital camera that Kathleen was already pulling out of her backpack to snap pictures of the room in its undisturbed condition. But this object had a wide viewscreen of some shimmering substance that was not glass, and its case wasn’t made of any metal that any of them had seen before, except for Orieth. “A Goa’uld tablet reader?” he said in astonishment, starting towards the table.

“Hold on!” Kathleen said, nearly at the same time that Hramov cried, “Stop!”  With only a brief glance at the archaeologist, Kathleen explained, “We need to get pictures of what this looks like first, before we move anything.” She started to make her way around the room, carefully framing the table in the viewscreen of her camera. Hramov watched in grudging respect – at least she knew how to treat an archaeological find. The rest of the team moved in, edging carefully around the tables and chairs as they began to survey the room’s contents.

“Major Fitzgerald? This notebook is not written in Goa’uld,” Ked’rec’s voice held a faint note of puzzlement.

Kathleen lowered her camera, moving over to look at the notebook. “No, it’s in…that looks like pre-Revolutionary Russian script. Dr. Hramov, am I right? Ugh, it’s a pain to read.”

“It is not so difficult if you know what to do,” Hramov replied, with a superior smirk. “And yes, it is the old-style writing.”

“Uh…ma’am? You’re going to want to get a picture of this…” Reinhart was standing by the second table, his hands hovering above it as if he had just stopped himself from reaching out to touch it. The entire table was covered by an enormous tablet of the same red sandstone that formed the walls, its surface inscribed with symbols.

“What language is this?” Hramov asked, leaning over to get a better look. “It does not look like standard Goa’uld script.”

“It isn’t,” Orieth replied, a slight frown coming over his face. “There are a few borrowings from Goa’uld, but otherwise the characters are almost entirely different.”

Kathleen put the camera down again, looking at the tablet with her own eyes instead of through the viewscreen. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it either. Although that bit looks like it might say…hm. If it were just Goa’uld written in different characters, then that pattern could fit…” Reinhart tried to follow the quick motion of her finger as it traced through the air over the tablet, but she was following some pattern that made sense only in her own mind, becoming increasingly lost in thought. “And if that means _that_,” she murmured, “then…” 

_Unless I am greatly mistaken,_ Orieth thought, _she could be at this for quite a while. And unless I am even further mistaken, the source of the naquadah readings that the scientists were picking up is somewhere to the right._

_Another locked door._ Joe shrugged in response to his own thoughts. _Doesn’t look too much worse than the others. I can probably get it._ He shivered a little as he let his senses follow Orieth’s towards the source of the naquadah. _Never gonna get used to that._

_Yes, you will,_ Orieth responded soothingly. 

_I wasn’t talking to you._ And then, almost as an afterthought, _Shut up._

“It _is_ Goa’uld,” Kathleen declared, the sudden sound of her voice drawing Joe and Orieth out of their internal dialogue. “But it’s written in different characters – I don’t know what they are. Plus, part of it is encrypted.”

“Can you not break the code?” Ked’rec asked, from where he stood keeping watch by the door.

Kathleen shook her head. “Not here. This isn’t an A=1, B=2 kind of cipher – it’s going to take some serious computer-power for me to crack it. I’ll send it back to the SGC and have some of our people back there start working on it.”

“You will send the tablet?” There was a rising note of alarm in Hramov’s voice. “You will take it –“

“No, Doctor,” Kathleen sighed patiently, holding up her camera. “I’ll send _pictures_. The tablet isn’t going anywhere right now.” She offered a conciliatory grin. “Plus, do _you_ want to carry that thing up the ladder? Now, the notebook, we can take with us – “

“No!” Hramov’s shout echoed off the stone walls of the chamber. “You must not take it!”

Reinhart took a wary step towards the archaeologist, and Kathleen looked hard at Hramov as she said evenly, “All right, then, we’ll leave it here for now. But we’ll have to come back for it. We need to know what’s in there. Same with the tablet reader.”

“All right,” Hramov agreed, after a long, unhappy pause. Kathleen kept her eyes steadily on him, until after a moment more, the archaeologist backed away from the table, gaze dropping to his feet.

_What was that all about?_ Kathleen thought. “Right. Let’s keep going, then. Mr. Healy? Which door do you think leads to what we’re looking for?”

“That one.” Joe jerked his head towards the door to the right, then reached out and tested it. “Locked,” he grunted. “Maybe trapped, too. I’ll check.” 

_Another trap? Really, this is getting a little old,_ Orieth thought as Joe’s hands worked over the door. 

_Shut up._


----------



## Obezyanchik (May 20, 2005)

sniffles said:
			
		

> Aw, makes me sad. I was in an aborted Stargate campaign. Too many other campaigns running, not enough free time.




Well, I hope you enjoy ours, because it suffers from similar pressures but it sure is fun!


----------



## GreenArmadillo (May 23, 2005)

_Which to a Goa’uld is like saying ‘pass the chips.’_

Best line ever.  And somehow, this strikes me as a good running gag for a Gou'ald sit-com.  

_Scene: Apophis, Baal, and Osiris are sitting in the living room watching TV.  The front door opens, and Anubis walks in._
Anubis: Your God has returned!  Kneel before me!
*beat*
Osiris: Pass the chips.
*Baal sighs and hands over the chips.*


----------



## Tamlyn (May 27, 2005)

Just stumbled across this. Never played the game but enjoy the show. Thoroughly enjoy the characters and story thus far. Keep up the great work.

~Tam


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## Ladybird (Jun 2, 2005)

*Episode 1: Closer to Fine. Part 5 - Behind Door #3...*

Twenty minutes later, it had gotten even older. The door was still very much locked.

Reinhart was pacing restlessly around the room, while Kathleen leaned against the wall opposite Joe, legs crossed and backpack on the ground beside her, her encouraging smile always present, but starting to look a little strained. Ked’rec, impassive as always, maintained his post by the door to the corridor. 

“So,” began Hramov, a mocking note in his voice. “American technical school is – “

Almost in unison, SG-17 turned towards him, glaring.

“ – is just fine,” he finished meekly. 

“Mr. Healy? Why don’t you take a break?” Kathleen suggested gently. “You know, sometimes if you go away from a problem and come back to it…”

“Or we could blast through it,” Joe said with a shrug. “We’ve got C4.”

“Negative, Mr. Healy!” Kathleen tried – with little success – to keep the alarm out of her voice. “We have no idea how structurally sound this place is, and we are _not_ going to risk damaging anything in this room, or on the other side of that door. Ked’rec!” she cried, seizing eagerly on a new idea. “Why don’t you see if you can pry it open? Maybe the lock will just break if we put enough force on it.”

The Jaffa disappeared down the hall for a moment, then returned with a long crowbar. 

Joe backed away from the door to make room for Ked’rec. “It’s all right, Mr. Healy,” Kathleen consoled him, with only a shrug and a grunt from Joe in response. The crowbar screeched against the stone floor, and Kathleen raised her voice to drown out the noise. “You’ve been doing great work so far. Sometimes you just need to go about solving a problem in a different way…”

“Major Fitzgerald?” Ked’rec broke in. “The door will not open.”

“C4…” was all that Joe said, as he started to rummage through his backpack.

“Still no, Mr. Healy.” Kathleen sighed, rubbing her eyes wearily. “Reinhart. How are you with locks?” 

Still muttering about explosives, Joe zipped up his backpack again, moving aside to let Reinhart approach the door. After a few moments of work, the lieutenant looked up. “Got it, ma’am!” he announced with a triumphant grin.

 “Good work, Lieutenant.” Kathleen hauled her backpack back up onto her shoulders, giving Reinhart a relieved smile. “All right, Ked’rec. You go first again – and everyone, be careful. If the door was that difficult to open, there’s got to be something pretty important in there.”

Weapon raised, Ked’rec led the way down a short corridor, ending in a squared-off archway. On the other side of the archway, the ceiling opened up, reaching high up into the darkness, and the narrow hall gave way to wide, echoing open space. Deeply etched inscriptions covered the walls, illuminated by Kathleen’s swiftly-traveling flashlight beam. As she stepped further into the room, the light was suddenly broken up by an enormous block of stone that cast a tall, distorted dark shadow onto the far wall. 

Hramov’s voice sounded artificially loud in the dark, silent room. “It is in the shape of…a tomb. A mausoleum,” he added, finding the right word after a brief search.

Cautiously, Kathleen edged around behind Ked’rec, shining her flashlight through the slanted rectangle of the mausoleum’s doorway.  The light reflected dully off of a corrugated metal ring set into the sandstone floor of the mausoleum: the unmistakable pattern of a Goa’uld ring transporter.

There was a very long silence.

“Um.” Reinhart said finally.

And then there was another very long silence.

“All right,” Kathleen said. “I think this is the kind of thing that we need to report to the SGC and General Andreyev.” _And I think that has to be in the running for the biggest understatement of the year,_ she thought giddily. “Back upstairs, everyone. And let’s take the notebook and tablet reader with us. We’re going to need more information before we go anywhere near that transporter. A _lot_ more information.”


----------



## Tamlyn (Jun 2, 2005)

Nice update.

I gotta say, the possibility of Rasputin being a Goa'uld is sheer genius. Extremely creative game going on thus far.

~Tam


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## Steverooo (Jun 3, 2005)

I just wanted to say that this story hour is great!


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## Ladybird (Jun 15, 2005)

*Episode 1: Closer to Fine. Part 6 - Communications*

While Reinhart and Hramov stayed downstairs to oversee the transporting of the notebook and tablet reader, the rest of SG-17 trooped back up the rope ladder to the basement of Yusupov Palace. With a sigh of relief to find something to sit on that was neither an archaeological artifact nor a block of red sandstone, Kathleen sank into a chair and pulled out the secure satellite phone that the General had given her before she left the SGC.

“Major Fitzgerald!” The General’s voice came crackling over the phone after a moment or two of switches between extensions at the SGC. He sounded far too cheerful. “Good to hear from you. How are things over there? Cold enough for you?”

“Yes, sir,” Kathleen answered, with a dutiful smile even though the General couldn’t see it. “I just thought I should check in and let you know what we’ve found, sir. It’s…pretty interesting.”

“I would expect nothing less, Major. What have you got?”

She quickly outlined the results of their search so far.

“You’re right, Major. Pretty interesting. You haven’t gone through the ring transporter?”

“No, sir. We’re fairly sure that it’s still operative, but we don’t want to do anything until we’ve got a better idea of where we’ll go. We’re hoping that either the notebook or the tablet reader will give us more information on that.”

“Well, keep going with that,” the General said vaguely. “Let me know what you find on the other side.”

“Yes, sir. Oh – I’ve also got a bunch of digital pictures of the inscriptions on the stone tablet. If I can find a secure net connection, I’m going to send them back for Chen and the rest of my – um, I mean, the rest of the computer team to look at. If they can get a head start on cracking that encryption, it would be a big help.”

“Well, you can send the pictures, Major, but…your Think Tank buddies are a bit busy right now.”

Uh-oh? “Is everything all right, sir?”

“Well…” The General hesitated. “The Russian team has gotten themselves into kind of a tight situation. All of the computer people are tied up with trying to help them get out of it.”

Kathleen grimaced. “Understood. I hope everything turns out all right.”

“So do I, Major. Is there anything else?”

“No, sir. I’m going to go report in to General Andreyev, if that’s all right.”

“Go ahead, Major. You’re dismissed.”

“Goodbye, sir.” 

General Andreyev, when Kathleen finally reached him on the phone, was much less blasé about the presence of the ring transporter. “You found _what_? Well! I suppose that would account for those naquadah readings, yes. Are you going to investigate further?”

The sound of tromping feet and slightly edgy voices announced the return of Hramov, Reinhart, and the materials from downstairs. Kathleen quickly filled General Andreyev in on the rest of the information, then excused herself to start looking at things for herself.

_I haven’t seen one of these in more than a hundred years,_ Orieth thought as he picked up the tablet reader.  With a few deft motions, he brought the screen shimmering to life, ignoring the faint recoil that Joe felt at the slick touch of the unfamiliar metal.  

Hramov crowded in, poking his head curiously over the Tok’ra’s shoulder. “How do you know how –”  he began but Kathleen cut him off before he could get any further. “Doctor,” she interjected smoothly, “could you please come give me a hand with this notebook? You probably have much more experience with this kind of thing than I do.”

Her flattery had the desired – and predictable – effect. Hramov immediately pulled away from the Tok’ra, puffing up with pride as he said, “Certainly, Major. I would be happy to show you how to do it.” With a barely-concealed sigh of relief, Orieth resumed his perusal of the tablet reader, while Hramov’s distracting stream of chatter, redirected towards Kathleen, continued in the background.

Screen after screen of numbers whizzed past Orieth’s eyes. _These must have meant something at the time,_ he thought. _Perhaps I’ll be able to come back to them later and sort them out…_ The endless stream of columns and numbers abruptly gave way to diagrams, and Orieth hastened to slow down the scanning speed. _Ah. Now this is more like it…_ Orieth’s admiring smile started to show on Joe’s face. “Whoever did this really knows their ships,” he said out loud.

Kathleen lifted her head from the notebook, jumping at the opportunity to escape Hramov’s litany of patronizing instructions. “Ships?” 

“Yes,” Orieth replied. “There are inventories of parts, diagrams, sections, everything for building Goa’uld ships…and…oh. Also for a kind of ship that I’ve never seen. It’s not Goa’uld.” 

“Really?” Kathleen asked in surprise. “Well. I guess we have a _really_ new player on the board,” she murmured, and pushed her chair back from the table, getting up to take a look for herself. “What else is on there?”

Orieth flipped through a few more screens. “Architectural diagrams – mostly for the building of the tomb. There’s one more room below the one with the mausoleum in it, and it looks like that’s where the ring transporter leads.”

Kathleen leaned over Joe’s shoulder, careful not to crowd him, but unable to hide the eagerness in her voice. “Is there any indication of when these records were made? What about that symbol that was on the inscription?”

“No, there’s no sign of the symbol. And no indication of what it might mean, either,” Orieth added after another moment or two of searching. There aren’t any names mentioned, anywhere in here. “As for dates…” Screen after screen of symbols and diagrams blurred past Kathleen’s eyes as Orieth skimmed back through the information. “There are a few here. They’re using the Goa’uld dating system, of course…”

“Right.” Kathleen gave the symbols one more look, then closed her eyes, running the calculations and comparisons in her mind. “That would correspond to…late nineteen-teens, in our calendar. I can’t get any more precise than that, but it certainly makes sense. I would have expected whatever was going on here to stop at the Revolution in 1917, if not earlier.” She looked back to Hramov. “How are you doing with the notebook, Doctor?”

“Well…it was written by someone named Yusef. And the first page seems to be a list of things to do,” Hramov began, then reluctantly admitted, “I have gone no further than that.”

Kathleen felt a small twinge of sympathy. Very small. “All right. Let’s see what we can do together.”


----------



## Tamlyn (Jun 17, 2005)

Woohoo, update! Keep 'em coming. Lot's of encouragement and excitement should create lots of updates. Woohoo!!!

~T


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## Ladybird (Jun 17, 2005)

Tamlyn said:
			
		

> Woohoo, update! Keep 'em coming. Lot's of encouragement and excitement should create lots of updates. Woohoo!!!




Well, lots of encouragement certainly creates a very happy writer  Thanks, Tamlyn! Now let's hope your enthusiasm can also create less work-stress for me and Obezyanchik, so that we can have more games and more updates for you soon!


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## Tamlyn (Jun 17, 2005)

If I could figure out how to do that myself, I most certainly would share with you.

~T


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## Ladybird (Jul 14, 2005)

*Episode 1: Closer to Fine. Part 7 - A Poster of Rasputin*

In honor of 3 of the CMI gang finding new places to live, in hopes for the fourth one who's looking to find one soon, and in honor of Obezyanchik's great new job, and in honor of Bastille Day, too, 'cause why not, I bring you...A Really Long Update!

Enjoy 

--
The remains of take-out dinners littered the tables around the edges of the room, the thin stripe of sky visible through the basement windows was dark, and almost everyone had long since left. Kathleen was bent intently over the notebook, carefully decoding its contents. It could have been any quiet, studious night at the SGC…

…except that Kathleen was not alone, and that her concentration was constantly being broken up by the chatter of too-loud instructions in Russian from Dr. Hramov. 

Reinhart and Joe had jumped at the chance to return to the hotel after dinner, and although Ked’rec had hovered around guarding the door for an hour or so afterwards, he too had finally acknowledged that there wasn’t much else he could do to help read the notebook. And as irritating as the archaeologist was, she had to admit that Dr. Hramov _was_ helping with some of the more difficult words, and that she did tend to work better when there was someone else to bounce ideas off of. 

“Another inventory,” sighed Kathleen, flipping over another fragile leaf of paper. “More office supplies – I think we were right about him being a secretary. How about you?”

“I have another list of things to do, from a date in 1915 like the last one. Buy more ink, attend a dinner party for the Ivanovs, get books for the Starets…ah, he must have been a secretary to a priest, or an old man.”

“The Starets?” Kathleen repeated, eyes widening. “Can I see that?” She stood up, circling behind Hramov’s chair to look over his shoulder at his page of the notebook. “Ohhh boy,” she said softly, then quickly switched back to Russian. “Yes, it says Starets. Oh, Yusef was definitely a secretary to a priest. ‘Starets’ was one of the things that Rasputin was called.”

Hramov, for once, was speechless. 

“Perhaps we should skip ahead a few pages?” Kathleen went back to her own seat, trying very hard to keep herself from reaching across to snatch the book away from Hramov so that she could get at the information for herself.

“Yes,” Hramov finally agreed, his voice flat with surprise. “Yes, let’s do that.”

After a few more pages, the lists and scattered notes gave way to smooth lines of curly script.

_February 13, 1916
The Starets has embarked on a new enterprise, one that will be even grander than anything he has done before. I am certain that the brilliance he brings to all his endeavors will give him success in this project as well. He wishes to build a secret chamber under the palace – for what purpose, he has not yet told me, but I am sure that his reasons are wise, and that he is keeping it a secret from me only because I am not yet ready to share in such lofty pursuits. But the Starets is not sure that he can trust everyone here – his patrons, yes, but not all of the guards. He has asked me to assist him in determining which of the guards are trustworthy enough not to interfere with his plans. 

March 2, 1916
The Starets went to visit Mama and Papa again today. Their concern about their eldest son grows with every day, and the Starets’s skill is the only thing that can ease their worry and the boy’s pain…_

“He means the Czar and Czarina,” Hramov explained.

Kathleen nodded. “Oh – so their son would be the heir, Alexei. And – oh, right! Wasn’t Rasputin one of the people who tried to cure his hemophilia?”

“Yes, he was. And he was successful, too, according to many of the reports of the time. Of course, I do not believe in faith healing,” Hramov added hastily. “But his supposed skill in healing was one of the reasons that Rasputin was able to become so close with the Czar’s family.”

_April 8, 1916
The construction is going very well. The Starets has had an enormous hole dug, through which all the building supplies are lowered. He has brought in a tremendous amount of red sandstone – I do not know where he could have obtained it, especially with so many shipping problems due to the war, but with Papa and Mama supporting him, I can only dream of what resources he has at his disposal. And surely with his great intelligence, he could figure out a way to get anything he might need.

However, the Starets fears that some of the guards at the palace are becoming hostile to him. I must admit that I agree with him; there is a great deal of whispering among the guards and servants about the Starets’s plans. I believe they are jealous of the favor that the Yusupovs are showing to the Starets – he is trusted and honored far beyond anyone else in the household. I know, of course, that he deserves every bit of admiration that our patrons bestow upon him, but the household guards do not know him as I do, and therefore they cannot see his true greatness.

June 17, 1916
I must never anger the Starets, for his fury is terrible to see. Mikhail Ivanovich, the guard who had been the most hostile to the Starets’s plans, actually dared to contradict him today, and the Starets flew into a rage without the slightest warning, shouting and waving his arms. I almost feared that he would strike the guard, but he did not.

What was almost more frightening, though, was how quickly the Starets calmed down afterwards. The very instant that Prince Felix came out to see what was going on, the Starets stopped shouting, and had a sweet smile to show to our patron. 

Thus are the ways of the great. I fear the Starets, but know that his ways are far beyond my understanding.

August 29, 1916
The Starets’ behavior grows more enigmatic by the day, and more of the guards are turning against him. At this point, I fear that his great project will never be finished; there are too few people to assist him in the construction. Five guards left today, and there are rumors that three more are going to leave soon.

Even more disturbing, I heard Princess Irina speaking to her husband about the Starets, actually speculating about whether he could be trusted or not. She fears that the Starets is growing too close to Mama and Papa, and that his influence is not healthy for Russia, no matter what effect it has on Prince Alexei. Of course, Prince Felix reassured his wife that the Starets was a great man, and that there was nothing to worry about.

September 15, 1916
The stone chamber is nearly finished. Princess Irina continues to object to the expense of the project, how long it is taking, and the inconvenience of having workers constantly trampling the grounds. Six months ago, she was in favor of the project; all she could speak about was how fashionable the Egyptian decorations were, and how happy she was to have something so grand in her palace.  I am sure that she is merely jealous of the Starets, and will use any excuse to work against him. The Starets claims that he has enemies behind every door – I am starting to believe him._

 “It is after midnight,” Hramov observed, with some concern. “Surely you must be having jetlag, after your flight and the long day…”

Kathleen straightened her shoulders. “I’m _not_ leaving this now,” she said resolutely. “Not when we’re almost done.” She reached out to turn the next page, her fingers fumbling with the fragile paper.

”Here, let me,” Hramov offered, all overbearing chivalry as he reached across Kathleen to turn the page.

_ December 1, 1916
I have been given a great honor and a great burden.

The Starets came to me tonight, entrusting his life to me. He fears that the Yusupovs are growing too jealous of his association with the Czar and Czarina, and that they may do something to harm him. I asked how anyone could bear ill will against someone who had done such good for poor Prince Alexei, but the Starets just smiled and said that the Yusupovs did not understand what was going on.

And then, strangely, he began to talk about demons – or rather, one demon in particular, which he called Kresnik. The Starets was Kresnik, he said – he had taken Kresnik into himself, and it was through Kresnik’s power that he was able to heal Prince Alexei.  I felt better, then – surely one so great as the Starets would have the ability to make even demons obey his will. 

But the Starets was most insistent that if anything should happen to him, that Kresnik must be saved. He told me of a special jar into which Kresnik should be put, and where in the stone chamber the jar should be placed afterwards.

I pray, of course, that I never need to use the information that the Starets has given me. But if I do, then I shall be prepared._

“Put the ‘demon’ in the special jar?” Kathleen groaned. “The _demon_?”

“The Goa’uld, you think?” Hramov asked.

Kathleen buried her face in her hands. “What else could it be? We’ve got a Goa’uld symbiote in a canopic jar down there. That’s what’s in the room that the rings lead to.”

“Shall we finish?”

“We have to. We can’t leave it now…”

_December 17, 1916_

“The ink is smudged,” Hramov said softly.

“Yusef must have been weeping…” Kathleen replied, her voice equally hushed.

_My grief is so great that I can hardly write. The Starets is gone.

Pyotr woke me in the middle of the night, telling me that the Starets had been taken, that some of Prince Felix’s men had tried to kill him. The Starets did not die easily, though – I would have expected no less from my dear, strong master! The Starets fought to resist those who attacked him, and fought hard to live. Eventually, they dragged him down to the river, trying to drown him.

He – no, it is almost too horrible to write – his _body_ was still warm when I found it, although I could not see any signs of breath or life. And then – even more horrible! – an awful creature emerged from the back of the Starets’ neck. It looked like a snake, but with wings, and a hideous four-sided mouth that hissed and shrieked at me. In all of the books I have read, no demon has looked more fearful than this Kresnik. But my Starets had told me what I needed to do, and so I did. I took hold of the demon, despite its squirming and shrieking, and put it in the jar that the Starets had given me, and shut the lid tightly. 

Then I had to journey to the lowest room in the Starets’ crypt – I had never dared to go there before, even though he had told me how to go. I stepped into the mausoleum, right into the center of the metal ring – and then it sprang up out of the floor to surround me! And it carried me down, I do not know how, to the lower room of the crypt that has no doors or windows. That is where I left the vessel in which the demon Kresnik rests, and there it will remain until he returns.

I tried to use the relics that the Starets left behind, but I could not understand how to use them. The box of metal and glass would not light up for me, as it did for the Starets; and the enormous stone tablet was nothing but rows of symbols with no meaning. (But this I feel no shame in admitting, for even the Starets could not decipher the symbols on the stone tablet.) If I could have used his possessions, perhaps I could have felt that he was still here. But no, the Starets is gone. He is dead.

Still, I live in hope that Kresnik will come again, that the demon will remain alive as the Starets has told me, and that he will emerge one day into a better world._

It was after 1:00 AM when Kathleen stumbled into the hotel, shaky and exhausted. At the sound of her footsteps, Ked’rec emerged from his room, still looking as fresh as he had before they had left Colorado. 

“Major Fitzgerald. The weapons are ready to go.”

“I’m not,” Kathleen replied flatly. Then, with a weary attempt at a smile, she added, “Try to get some rest. I think we’re going to have another long day tomorrow.”


----------



## Obezyanchik (Jul 14, 2005)

Ladybird said:
			
		

> Well, lots of encouragement certainly creates a very happy writer  Thanks, Tamlyn! Now let's hope your enthusiasm can also create less work-stress for me and Obezyanchik, so that we can have more games and more updates for you soon!




Yeah, everybody cross your fingers, because with the group redistributing across something like 250 miles of territory and my new job, it'll be wacky for a while.  But I am so happy people are enjoying this, and thanks to everybody who's being so encouraging!  Closer to fine, indeed.


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## Steverooo (Jul 15, 2005)

Y'kmow, I just aint buyin' it!

Yusef loves his "Master".  How many Go'a'uld can claim their servants do that?

"Starets" (almost a palindrome) heals a child, even if it's a royal.  How many Go'a'uld would give a hoot?

Was Rasputin a Tok'ra?  Stay tuned!


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## Tamlyn (Jul 15, 2005)

Obezyanchik said:
			
		

> Yeah, everybody cross your fingers, because with the group redistributing across something like 250 miles of territory and my new job, it'll be wacky for a while.  But I am so happy people are enjoying this, and thanks to everybody who's being so encouraging!  Closer to fine, indeed.




I know what you mean. One of my games includes someone 1400 miles away who we only see once a year. Thank goodness for the internet.


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## Ladybird (Jul 27, 2005)

*Episode 1: Closer to Fine. Part 8 - Twice as Cloudy as I'd Been the Night Before*

December 20, 2010

_I shouldn’t be feeling this good_, Kathleen thought giddily, as the van careened through the still-dark streets of another St. Petersburg morning rush hour. _I’ve had hardly any sleep, I spent most of last night with an irritating archaeologist, I’m probably going to get killed by an insane Russian driver, and I can’t find a decent cup of coffee in this town. Oh yes. And I’m about to deal with Rasputin._

Still, she couldn’t deny that she was feeling an odd exhilaration about everything as she explained the situation to the rest of SG-17.  “What worries me most,” she concluded, “is that Yusef seemed to be talking about the possibility that Kresnik would come back. The canopic jar might be on some sort of a timer, set to release him at some specific point.”

“Then would it not be safest for me to enter the room first?” asked Ked’rec. “Since I cannot be a potential host.”

Kathleen nodded. “Definitely. And Mr. Healy, you’ll go in too, for backup.” She gave them a brief grin. “We’ll send in the people with No Vacancy.”

Dr. Hramov, of course, was harder to convince. “Why do they get to go?” he argued, when they reached Yusupov Palace and told him about the plan. “I should be in the first group to go down there! I _must_ be the first to see it! This is a priceless archaeological find! A national treasure – ”

“And a dangerous situation,” Kathleen told him firmly. “Those two have special skills that will enable them to deal with it safely.”

“Special skills,” Hramov scoffed. “American technical school again. Do you expect me to believe – “

Kathleen cut him off before he could go any further with his skepticism about any ‘special skills’ that Joe and Ked’rec might have. “You’re staying up here.” She tried a smile. “With me. And Reinhart.” _And won’t that be fun,_ she thought.

*  *   *

The metal rings of the transporter zipped up around Joe and Ked’rec, and with a flash of light the two men disappeared from the mausoleum. Twenty feet down, another set of rings rose up, with them still in the center, uneasily back to back with their weapons raised. They had never been this close to each other before, but in the face of potential battle, their instincts took over – both men held their breath, on edge and waiting for the strike that they feared might come the moment the rings retreated.

And then…nothing happened. The room was empty, its walls shimmering with gold surfaces and heavily inscribed with Goa’uld characters. Orieth shivered. _I haven’t seen a room like this since the last time I was on a Goa’uld mothership._

Deep silence rose as the whizzing sound of the ring transporter died away, and for a long moment, the two men stood motionless. 

“No snakes?” Joe finally said. Orieth sent a wave of exasperation through his mind at the phrasing, but he pushed it away with a snort and started lowering his weapon slowly.

“Indeed, the symbiote does not appear to have escaped,” Ked’rec agreed. 

“Okay, then. Let’s see what we’ve got here.”

“We have reached our destination, Major Fitzgerald,” Ked’rec said into his radio. “And the canopic jar appears to be intact.”

Kathleen’s voice crackled over the radio in response. “Good. Still, be careful down there. Call if you need backup.”

“We will indeed,” Ked’rec replied.

Joe was already out of the circle of the ring transporter, exploring the small, sparse room. There was hardly anything in it except for a long low counter, glowing faintly yellow against the golden walls, on which sat a tall canopic jar inscribed with Goa’uld characters. His eyes flashed briefly, and when he spoke, it was with Orieth’s resonant voice. “Kresnik,” Orieth read from the jar. 

“You are positive that the seal has not been broken?”

“Oh, yes, I’m fairly sure that I would be able to tell if the jar had been opened.” Orieth moved closer, reaching out one hand ever so slightly, but still not willing to touch it. “And the jar’s naquadah mechanisms are still operational, too, so if Kresnik is still in the jar, then he’s being kept alive.” Deep inside, Joe gave an involuntary shudder at the sensation of the naquadah close to his hand. 

_You’ll get used to it,_ Orieth reassured him yet again.

_That’s what you said last time._, Joe retorted. _Hasn’t worked yet._ 

“Should we bring the canopic jar back up to the surface?” Ked’rec asked, breaking in on the internal dialogue.

“Oh, yes. I’m certain that they will want to take it back to the SGC for observation.”

The rings zipped up and down again, returning the Tok’ra, the Jaffa, and the jar to the surface. Hramov immediately rushed towards them. “Is that it? Do you have it? Let me see!”

Reinhart exchanged a quick glance with Kathleen, then cleared his throat loudly, stepping between Hramov and the jar. “Are you sure it’s in there?” 

The Tok’ra’s eyes closed briefly, as Orieth gathered his concentration to speak in Joe’s voice. “The seal hasn’t been broken, and the mechanism is still working. But without some way of looking inside, we can’t know for certain whether Kresnik is inside.”

“Would an X-ray work on something like that?” Reinhart wondered. 

Reluctantly, Kathleen turned to Hramov for confirmation. “I don’t think so…”

“No, it wouldn’t.” Hramov was already starting to puff up with pride at being an authority. “But there are…” He fumbled for the English words, then shook his head. “I have a friend who is a doctor at the university hospital. I think he may let us use some of the other kinds of scanners that they have there.”

“MRIs,” Joe muttered. “Great.”


----------



## GreenArmadillo (Jul 27, 2005)

Ladybird said:
			
		

> “MRIs,” Joe muttered. “Great.”




Glad I'm not the only one thinking "Snake in a jar, this can NOT end well..."


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## Tamlyn (Jul 27, 2005)

GreenArmadillo said:
			
		

> Glad I'm not the only one thinking "Snake in a jar, this can NOT end well..."




Now I suppose we'll learn what happens when naquadah gets zapped in an MRI. Mutant Goa'uld anyone?


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## trexmaster (Jul 28, 2005)

Tamlyn said:
			
		

> Now I suppose we'll learn what happens when naquadah gets zapped in an MRI. Mutant Goa'uld anyone?




Hmmm.. I'd rather bet on Fissile material (naquadah) + radiations (from the MRI) = Boom  
Potentially at least, but I admit it wouldn't make any sense storywise.
So... maybe the MRI will disrupt the jar's mechanism, letting the go'auld get out and take a host.


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## Steverooo (Jul 29, 2005)

trexmaster said:
			
		

> So... maybe the MRI will disrupt the jar's mechanism, letting the go'auld get out and take a host.




Hramov = BBEG?!?


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## Lefferts (Sep 9, 2005)

More please


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## Ladybird (May 10, 2006)

**Special Note* - Returning after the Crash*

Dear Folks,

By now, many of you are probably aware that EN World suffered a very bad database crash this week. The message boards have been restored to the condition they were on December 29, meaning that a good chunk of our updates have been lost. 

But fear not! I've got backups of the entire Story Hour, and I'll be re-posting them ASAP. In the meantime, let's send good vibes to Morrus and all the folks behind the scenes as they continue making the necessary repairs to EN World so that we can all keep enjoying it! 

Thanks for your patience, and thanks for reading!

--Ladybird


----------



## Ladybird (May 11, 2006)

*Episode 1: Closer to Fine. Part 9 - I Went to See the Doctor of Philosophy*

Joe sat uncomfortably on the edge of a chair in the waiting room of Pavlov State Medical University, a deep scowl wrinkling his face. 

“I’m not a fan of hospitals either,” Kathleen offered gently, with a faint smile. Joe snorted, and turned away. On the other side of Kathleen, Hramov sat waiting with the stoic patience of someone who had grown up with Soviet-era lines. “So…your friend,” she ventured. “How’s his security clearance?”

“We have worked with him before,” Hramov said shortly, with a defensive lift of his chin. “He is not authorized to know what is _in_ the things that we ask him to scan, but he is not worried about not knowing. And I will be with him at all times.”

The door to a back room opened, saving Hramov from any further awkwardness, and a balding man in a white coat stepped out. “Ah! Dr. Ivanov!” Hramov exclaimed. 

Kathleen stood up, with a quick smile and a hand stretched out to shake Dr. Ivanov’s. “Hello,” she said, switching into Russian. “I’m Dr. Kathleen Fitzgerald, US Air Force. I’m very grateful that you’re letting us borrow your equipment.”

“You’re welcome, Doctor,” Ivanov replied. “We’ll run your…er…artifacts under our MRI, and see what we turn up.” He glanced uncertainly at Hramov, who nodded with his usual confidence. “I will explain the results,” Hramov declared.

Ivanov turned to lead the way into the back room, but Hramov lingered for a moment, turning back to Kathleen with a sharp stare, half accusing and half admiring. “You are a doctor? You never said that! I’m sorry I doubted you – I never knew - ”

“Oh, I’m not a medical doctor. I’ve got a PhD in computer science.” She grinned, hoping that Hramov couldn’t see the ironic edge in it. “But if calling yourself ‘Doctor’ is what it takes to get respect in some places, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“Oh,” was all that Hramov could answer to that.

The door closed behind Hramov, and Kathleen turned back to the others. _I know they’re not going to like this,_ she thought, _but I really think we need to do it…_ Sitting back down in her uncomfortable waiting-room chair, she began slowly, “So, it’s been a bit of a challenge working with Dr. Hramov. He’s been very protective of the artifacts we’ve found, and I’m not sure he’d be willing to let us have as much access to them as we’d need. Or even to take them home with us. But I don’t think he’s a security risk, just that he’s a little overly protective. So…” She took a deep breath and said all at once, “I think we should take Dr. Hramov back with us.”

And then she waited for the storm of protest…that didn’t come.

“That may be the wisest course of action,” Orieth said. 

Ked’rec nodded. “Indeed, my teacher often said that it was better to keep an enemy close at hand than to let him go far away.”

“Nobody’s saying he’s an enemy!” Kathleen protested. _Yet._ “I just think that we should have him with us. He’d probably be more willing to let us have access to everything we’ve found if he can be there to watch.” She smiled again, a little wryly. “Plus, I’ll probably be the one who will have to deal with him the most.”

Only Reinhart offered any resistance, and that was mostly in the form of worry. “Are you sure, ma’am? I wouldn’t want to trust him at my back…”

Kathleen shook her head. “He had you alone in the tunnels, and he had me alone last night with the notebook. If he wanted to hurt any of us, he could have done it then.”

She couldn’t hear Joe’s grumbled thought. _You mean we’re going to have to be on the same team with a Russkie?_

_He will not technically be on the same team with us,_ Orieth soothed. _Besides, I thought that that term had become obsolete._

The door to the scanner room opened, and Hramov and Ivanov stepped out. SG-17 looked up expectantly. “It is definitely present,” Hramov said, with a significant glance towards them. Ivanov gave them a good-natured shrug. “That’s what he says.”


----------



## Ladybird (May 11, 2006)

*Episode 1: Closer to Fine. Part 10 - In the Can*

The basement of Yusupov Castle was abuzz with people and equipment, as SG-17 went through the process of packing up the artifacts to bring back to the SGC. Kathleen, directing traffic with one hand and holding her secure satellite phone with the other, was switching back and forth between Russian and English as she alternated between talking to the Russian soldiers and the General back at the SGC.

“No, put that _there_! Yes, sir, we’re all set. We’ve got Rasputin in a jar. No, sir, that’s not like Prince Albert in a can. We’ve actually got Rasputin, in a jar.”

Ked’rec clambered out of the tunnel, moving nimbly even though one hand was full, and was followed by Reinhart. “We found these in the same chamber as the canopic jar,” the Jaffa explained, holding his hand out to Kathleen to show her what he held: a few old coins, a gold cross, and a disc attached to a ring that she immediately recognized as a Goa’uld healing device. She nodded, and mouthed “In a sec!” to Ked’rec before she turned back to the phone.

“We’d also like to bring back a person, sir. A Dr. Hramov, who’s been involved in the first stage of the excavation, and is…very attached to the project.” Kathleen hoped that the General could hear the ironic twist in her voice, and was pretty sure that Hramov couldn’t. “We think that things would go more smoothly if he were to come back with us.” 

With a promise from the General to fast-track Hramov’s security clearance, Kathleen hung up just as the Russian soldiers were starting to load the canopic jar into a crate. “No!” she cried, and broke into rapid-fire Russian, emphatically pointing out to the startled young soldier the right way to handle the canopic jar. “That is _dangerous_! Don’t let it tip like that! Do you have any idea what might happen if it broke! You leave it upright, and put it _gently_ down into the crate!”

The rest of SG-17 couldn’t understand her, but her tone was unmistakable. _Do you ever feel like a biohazard?_ Orieth thought glumly.

_Can’t say that I have, no,_ Joe replied.

Ked’rec, still hovering nearby, cleared his throat when Kathleen was done. “What about these objects?” he asked again.

Kathleen glanced around at the others. “These, I guess we can leave with the Russians. The cross and the coins are historically interesting, but they don’t have much to do with our research, and we’ve got plenty of access to healing devices of our own to study.”

General Andreyev, when he arrived an hour later to do the final survey of the site before SG-17’s departure, was gratified at the decision. “It is good that you recognized the historical significance of these artifacts. I must admit,” he added grudgingly, “that I would rather not have the canopic jar and its contents leave, but you do have more resources available to study it at the SGC.”

“We’ll give you a complete report on all our findings,” Kathleen promised. “And we’re looking forward to being able to study the stone tablet, too.”

Andreyev’s good-natured expression darkened a little. “We were planning to keep that here,” he stated. “Certainly you will be able to analyze it well enough with the photographs that you have taken?” 

Now it was Kathleen’s turn to frown. “Well, we can make _some_ progress, yes, but it won’t be nearly as good as having the tablet itself. I’m sure our archaeological team would appreciate the chance to look at it themselves. In person.”

“We shall see,” said Andreyev. He sounded remarkably like a parent negotiating his children’s bedtime. And when a parent said ‘we’ll see’ like that, it almost always meant ‘no.’

--
Aboard the military plane once more, with the canopic jar in its crate but without the stone tablet, Reinhart dropped off to sleep almost immediately. Kathleen, restless as always, paced around the cabin – only to find Ked’rec, also awake, sitting next to the canopic jar. “Keeping watch?” she commented.

“In a manner of speaking,” Ked’rec replied, as serene as always. “I do not wish to let an enemy go unwatched. Even an enemy who has been…so thoroughly demobilized.”

Kathleen grinned tiredly. “I can’t say that I blame you.”

Orieth’s reverberant voice sounded from the other side of the cabin. “Major? I think you may wish to see this.” He held the Goa’uld tablet reader in his hands, and lifted his eyebrows in an expression of mild understatement that looked oddly incongruous on Joe’s weathered, sardonic face. 

Kathleen headed over towards the Tok’ra, and leaned over the back of his seat to peer over his shoulder at the tablet reader. “What have you got?”

“I have had an opportunity to examine these ship schematics more closely. Most of them still appear unfamiliar to me, but I have also found these.” He turned the screen towards Kathleen, showing her the sketchy diagram. At first glance, it looked like a Goa’uld ha’tak – the standard pyramid-shaped mothership. But as Kathleen leaned closer, she saw that it actually had _five_ sides on its base.

“A five-sided ship? They could land that thing on the Pentagon!” Kathleen gasped. Joe’s disdainful skepticism found its way out through Orieth’s serenity as he looked up at Kathleen, who just looked back with a shrug. “Well, all right, the Pentagon wasn’t built in 1916. But if it had been. . .” She let her sentence trail off, finishing it only with another shrug. “Is there any indication that that ship was ever built? Or is it just a speculative drawing – maybe an adaptation of the ha’tak that they were considering, but never actually made.”

Orieth scrolled quickly through the tablet reader for a moment, then shook his head. “No, it doesn’t seem to have been built. I wonder if it may not have been reversed, though – that this was the basis for the ha’tak design, rather than a later adaptation. The other ship schematics are unfamiliar – they could have been taken from the same race of aliens from whom the Goa’uld scavenged their design for the ha’tak.”

“That’s also a possibility,” Kathleen agreed. “We’ll have to cross-check those designs with the other things we have on file when we get back to the SGC. They really don’t look like anything I’ve seen before, but you never know what we’ve got tucked away in our computer files.

Orieth nodded. “One more thing that I thought you should see – and one more thing that you might want to check in your computer files.” He called up another screen on the tablet reader – this one filled with what looked like a string of numbers written in Goa’uld characters, grouped in sets of six. “They appear to be star coordinates, but. . .”

“In sets of six,” Kathleen finished for him. “As if they were Stargate addresses, but missing the point-of-origin glyph. I’ll run them through when we get back – if the point of origin is a planet we’ve got in our system, then we should be able to extrapolate which one it is, based on these other coordinates.”

--
December 21, 2010

_I guess the good thing about being back at the SGC,_ Kathleen thought, as she made her way wearily back to her on-base room, _is that you can’t really tell what time it is when you’re underground. How long was I on that plane? What time is it…?_ 

Without even looking at the clock, she unbuttoned her jacket with exhausted, shaky fingers and tossed it on the bed, pulling her dark-blue on-base uniform out of the closet to replace her fatigues. _Appropriate name for them_, she thought. _Now, I’ve got half an hour till the General wants to see us. I can get a shower and still have time to get some of those images from the tablet reader ready for the projector. Right. Gotta remember to do that…_ She picked up her PDA, ready to write down the note reminding herself to do it – but a violent tremor shook her hand, sending the stylus spinning out of her fingers and down to the ground.

Her face crumpled with frustration as she watched her shaking hands. _No. Please no. Not now. Not now._


----------



## Ladybird (May 11, 2006)

*Episode 1: Closer to Fine. Part 11 - More than One Answer To These Questions*

“I’ve got to say, I’ve never had a team capture a Goa’uld on its first mission.”

“Well, sir, he didn’t exactly put up much of a fight.” Able to relax now – well, as much as Orieth ever did – and let his true voice out, the resonant tones filled the briefing room. 

The General grinned at the Tok’ra’s reply, and leaned back in his chair. “So Rasputin is definitely in there?”

“That’s right, sir,” Kathleen replied. Her hands, tightly twined together to suppress the tremors that still ran through them, were neatly tucked under the rim of the table. “Or, rather, Kresnik is.”

“And he was working for…that other Goa’uld?” the General asked.

Slowly and carefully, Kathleen unfolded her hands and clicked the button on the remote, calling up the picture of the unfamiliar symbol that had been on the stone blocking off the tunnel network. “This one, yes, sir. We’re not sure what this means – it’s not a symbol we’ve seen before.”

“Looks like ‘pa’ to me,” Joe grunted. “See? The sticky-down part of the ‘p’ on that side, and then the tail of the ‘a’ on the other side of the loop?”

“Could that stand for ‘Ra’?” The General was looking mostly at Joe, but glanced at the others briefly.

Orieth answered, shaking his head, “That’s very unlikely. First of all, Ra had a very distinct set of symbols associated with him. Second, we have no other indication that his influence ever reached that far north. And third, this inscription clearly refers to a female. Yes, gender may be flexible at times, depending on the gender of the host, but for all of Ra’s time here, his host was male. This inscription appears to be associated with a Goa’uld who strongly identified with a female host – all the gender markers are definitely female.”

“That bit there, sir,” Kathleen offered, hitting the zoom button to focus the slide on a different area of the inscription. “Those are all of the gender markers. You see that line? That means - “ She cut off, seeing the General’s eyes starting to glaze over already. “Um. Right.”

“And what about those ships?” the General asked, glancing back towards Joe and Orieth. “The ones on the tablet reader?”

On cue, Kathleen called up the slide of the ship schematics that they had taken from the Goa’uld tablet reader. “They don’t match any known Goa’uld ships that we’ve got in our records. This one is similar – you can see that it bears a strong resemblance to the ha’tak, but with a pentagonal base. I’ll run the checks again, but on the first pass through, they don’t look anything that we’ve already seen.”

“So does this mean that this woman who Kresnik was working for _wasn’t_ a Goa’uld?”

“Well…” Kathleen hesitated, with a skeptical frown. “I mean, it’s got to be a possibility, but I’m not sure what else she could have been. I don’t know who else besides another Goa’uld could have had influence over a Goa’uld like Kresnik. And the rest of the inscriptions – worship her, traitors will be struck down – that sounds a lot like something a Goa’uld would say. On the other hand, we don’t know what kind of ships those are, so it could very well be another group of aliens that we haven’t met before.”

The General frowned too. “I don’t like all of that not-knowing, Major.”

“Neither do I, sir,” Kathleen admitted. “We’ll get on it.”

“I will examine the ship schematics again,” Orieth said. “Perhaps when I have a chance to look at them more closely, I will be able to determine more about their origins.”

Kathleen nodded, adding, “And I’ll have my people – I mean, Chen and _his_ people - run some more computer analysis on those ship schematics. And they’ve just started to work through the translation of the stone tablet. I’m going to work with them on that, so we might get some more information from that when we finish, but it’s going to take a while.”

“All right.” The General nodded decisively. “Good work, SG-17. You’re dismissed. And I’m off to call the President again. She’s going to want to hear about this.”


----------



## Ladybird (May 11, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 1 - Coordination*

December 22, 2010

When the members of SG-17 awoke, the SGC was even busier than when they had left. The booted feet of uniformed SG teams pounded through the corridors on their way to and from missions and meetings; technicians rushed to and fro with blue-covered reports; and every few minutes, the looping blare of the siren that signaled an off-world gate activation from some team returning or checking in.

Kathleen, coffee mug in hand, dodged and weaved through the crowds as she made her way towards the Think Tank. She could tell, as she looked at the straight back and squared shoulders of the man who sat at one of the computers, that Orieth was in control even before he spoke. “Ah. Major. I believe I have successfully transferred the coordinates from the tablet reader.”

“Good,” Kathleen nodded, taking another long sip of coffee before she rolled over a chair next to Orieth and sat down. “What have you got?” 

“Well, they seem to match up to a sector of the galaxy where the Tok’ra have been active in the past, but I haven’t been able to confirm it.”

Kathleen blinked. “Tok’ra? Really?” She leaned forward, reaching out – with steady hands, to her great relief – to type in a series of commands. “Hm. It looks like that matches up with P2X-721.” She pushed one last key, and the array of stars and planets on the screen tilted, zoomed, and refocused. “There – does that look familiar?”

Orieth leaned in, studying the screen intently. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Yes, it does. I have never been there myself, but I believe that that is a Tok’ra base.”

“Then what was _he_ doing with those coordinates?” Kathleen muttered, shaking her head at the screen.

“Ahem. Excuse me, Major Fitzgerald?” Airman Williams, young, bespectacled, and slightly nervous-looking, was hovering by the door.

“Yes, Airman?”

“There’s a guest here for you, ma’am. A Dr…Ramov?”

“Hramov,” Kathleen sighed heavily, exchanging a glance with Orieth as she stood up. “I’ll go deal with him. I’m sure I can get one of the archaeologists to babysit him while we’re working on other things.” She reached down to get her coffee mug, and sighed again. “And while I’m getting more coffee.”

**
“HIKE!”

The thunderous voice of a Marine echoed around the SGC’s gym, and ten large, beefy men sprang into action. Well, technically, five men and five male Jaffa. It was the weekly Jaffa-versus-Marines football game – as soon as there were enough Jaffa on the SGC staff, the Marines had immediately started teaching them the rules of American football.

Ked’rec took it in stride, as he did everything else, filing the complex rules away in his mind, and diligently going about his assigned duties as a running back. 

Today’s scrimmage, however, was broken up by the voice of Airman Williams, straining to be heard over the shouting and scuffling. “Ked’rec? Er…Ked’rec, sir?”

Ked’rec untangled himself and straightened up as the gym gradually fell silent. “Yes?”

“SG-17 is wanted in the briefing room, sir. At 1600 hours. You’re getting another mission.”

“I shall be present,” Ked’rec replied. “My apologies,” he added to the others, with a courteous nod, and started to head back to his quarters.


----------



## Ladybird (May 11, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 2 - Out of Touch*

Reinhart, of course, was already in the briefing room by the time that Kathleen and the Tok’ra got there, and so was Ked’rec. So was the General, although he looked as if he had just arrived – and as if he had just woken up. But being rumpled and frazzled seemed to be a constant state of affairs for the General these days, with the SGC so busy, and so many teams dealing with off-world situations.

“Have a seat, SG-17,” said the General, with a harried version of his usual grin. “Sorry to send you out so soon after getting back from Russia, but we’ve got a situation.” Kathleen was instantly alert, exchanging a worried glance with Reinhart. The Tok’ra slouched into a seat, Joe’s bored expression quickly taking over his face.

The General clicked the button of the remote, and a grainy black-and-white picture, clearly taken by a MALP, appeared on the projection screen. It was a barren, sandy landscape, dotted by scrubby trees. “This is P2X-435. Temperate but on the warm and dry side, sandy, with sort of evergreeny trees, as you can see. It looks like most of the habitation is near the coast, which is about 20 kilometers south of the gate, although there’s what looks like a single village ten kilometers north.

“SG-14 arrived there yesterday, and we’ve lost radio contact with them. There isn’t any environmental reason for it – no atmospheric conditions or odd magnetic fields that would disrupt things. And they checked in on their arrival, so we know they got there safely. But they missed their next scheduled check-in, which was supposed to be twelve hours after that. That was eight hours ago, and we haven’t heard from them since.”

“What were they doing there, sir?” Kathleen asked, with a worried frown.

“General survey and exploration. They’re an experienced team; they went in fully equipped with safety and survival gear, and they’re very reliable. That’s why I’m concerned that they haven’t checked in.” The General clicked the remote again, and a copy of an SGC personnel file appeared on the screen. “This is the team leader, Major Susan McNair.” Click. “Lieutenant Leo Gershwin.” Click. “Master Sergeant Wesley Gatwick.”

Click. “And this is Dr. Janice Haas, the scientist on the team. She’s a botanist, but she’s also been taking samples of the local soil and water. That’s one of the few things they said before we lost contact with them – there’s a stream close by the gate, and there’s something funny with the water there. It’s all right to drink, she said, but it’s brown, and it’s got some weird chemical in it. Sort of like tannin, the stuff that’s in tea.”

The General leaned forward, looking intently at SG-17. Kathleen and Reinhart met his eyes directly, worried and eager respectively. Ked’rec was as impassive as ever. Joe was staring off into space, drumming his fingers on the table. 

“Your job is to find out what happened,” the General said soberly. “It was just luck of the draw that you’re getting this mission, but we’re lucky – Reinhart, you’re one of the best field medics we’ve got. If SG-14 needs medical assistance, they’ll be in good hands with you. And if they’ve fallen into the hands of hostiles, _do not engage_. Call us for backup, and we’ll get an extraction team in there to back you up. That’s what the Marines are for.” 

The General stood up, and SG-17 followed suit. (Although Joe was, as usual, a beat or two behind the others in coming to attention.) “Check in every six hours. Good luck.”


----------



## Ladybird (May 11, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 3 - New World*

December 23, 2010

A rush of sound and a tunnel of shimmering light burst forth from the Stargate on P2X-435. It was nighttime, and chilly enough that Kathleen was briefly grateful for the heavy fabric of their standard combat fatigues. Boots crunched on sand, sounding oddly loud in the still, eerie quiet of another world. The moon – if this planet even had one – was dark, revealing countless stars, scattered in unfamiliar patterns across the deep black of the sky.

Ked’rec flipped his staff weapon up, holding it deftly in one hand as he flicked on his flashlight with the other. “The immediate area appears to be deserted.” The thin bright beam illuminated a clearing surrounded by scraggly bushes planted in sandy soil, and scrubby evergreen trees just at the edge of the flashlight’s range.

Kathleen squinted along the beam of the light, and nodded. “That’s good, at least.” She reached down for her radio and flicked it on, tuning to the standard SG team communication frequency. “SG-14?” she said into it. “SG-14, this is SG-17. Do you copy?” The only response was the faint crackling of static, and one of Joe’s universal snorts. “It was worth a try,” Kathleen said mildly. “All right. The last known location for SG-14 was that stream that they said was near the gate.”

“I believe that I can navigate towards the nearest source of water,” Ked’rec declared, at the same time that Joe muttered, “Gotta be some tracks around here…” as he trained his flashlight beam on the ground.

“Go ahead, then,” Kathleen nodded.

“I’ll take point,” said Joe, already moving off to take the lead. 

Ked’rec glanced back at Kathleen, faint confusion registering on his stoic face. “No, Mr. Healy,” Kathleen said. “Ked’rec should go first. You’ll be second, and Reinhart, you bring up the rear.” There was a brief grumbling from Joe, but after a moment, he fell into line behind Ked’rec.

The Jaffa led the way down a slight incline, away from the gate and into the loose forest of scrubby trees. “Like evergreens,” Reinhart murmured, running his hand along a slender branch. “Except with thin leaves instead of needles.”

“Could that be what’s turning the water brown?” Kathleen suggested. “Pine needles do that sometimes.”

“Guess so,” Joe shrugged. 

Ked’rec halted the group with a silent, upraised hand, then pointed down another small hill. “There is the source of water.” He shone his flashlight down, illuminating a rippling stream that appeared oddly dark, even in the direct light. “And it appears to be brown, in the manner that SG-14 described.”

“Good,” said Kathleen. “Ked’rec, can you get a sample? I want the SGC to test it to see what’s going on with it.”

“And don’t drink it!” Reinhart added. 

Joe snorted again, but Kathleen gave him a _look_. “Yes, Dr. Haas said it was all right to drink, but we don’t know if it _stayed_ all right. It could have some effect that didn’t kick in for a while. Reinhart’s right. Nobody drinks it until the SGC has said it’s safe.”

“Indeed.” The Jaffa picked his way nimbly down the bank towards the streambed, and although he wobbled slightly on the edge, he was able to scoop up a vial of the dark water with very little problem.

_There are the tracks!_ Orieth thought. Joe had the disconcerting sensation of his eyes being focused for him. He spoke up quickly, shaking his head to get rid of the feeling. “There. They milled around here for a while. Then they went upstream.”

“All right. Ked’rec, do you have that sample?” The Jaffa nodded in response to Kathleen’s question. “Good. Let’s get that back to the SGC. Ked’rec, Mr. Healy, you can run that back to the gate – you’ll have the best chance of navigating back here. Reinhart, you stay here with me.”

“Right,” Joe grunted. “Go to IR,” he advised Ked’rec, and turned off his flashlight, flipping down his infrared goggles instead.

The forest went silent as the Jaffa and Tok’ra moved back up the hill, leaving Kathleen and Reinhart alone in the dark. Kathleen tried her radio once more, but all she got was Joe’s grunted, “Nobody here but us” in response. She sighed, but kept her radio on, hearing the strange double echoes of Ked’rec and Joe’s footsteps, and an occasional snort from Joe.

_Stop messing with those!_ he thought at Orieth as they trudged up the path, scrunching his eyes in a futile attempt to push the symbiote’s presence away from him.

_But infrared technology is fascinating!_ Orieth briefly took control again, turning Joe’s head from side to side in an intrigued test of his IR goggles. _It operates on such a simple principle, yet it is very effective for what it does. Truly, this is an area in which the Tau’ri could advise others. Such simplicity could be very instructive indeed._

_Yeah, yeah,_ Joe thought back. _You never used them before? They’re not that special._

Back at the stream, there was a sudden rustling in the trees on the opposite bank. “Kill the flashlight!” Kathleen hissed, immediately following her own order. 

“But don’t you want to see what that is?” Reinhart sounded slightly disappointed, although he managed to hold his tone back from petulance. “It just sounds like a deer or something, and we haven’t seen any wildlife…”

“And if it’s _not_ a deer, we don’t want it to see _us_,” Kathleen replied firmly. “Lights out.”

Reinhart’s flashlight beam winked out. The light, careful footsteps on the other side of the stream rustled around for a few more minutes, and then the sound diminished, fading off into the distance, leaving only silence and darkness in its wake.

A few minutes later, there was another set of footsteps – two of them, heavier and quicker, as the Jaffa and Tok’ra returned from the gate.

“Sent the sample through,” Joe grunted.

Ked’rec inclined his head once in a serene nod. “And the Stargate Command has offered the use of a surveillance aircraft, if we so desire. Once it is light, of course.” 

“Good,” Kathleen nodded. “Good job. We’ll stay here for now, then – it’s only a few hours till sunrise, probably, and we don’t want to wander off in the dark and not be able to find our way back to the gate. Then when it’s light out, we can get our UAV and see what’s around here.”


----------



## Ladybird (May 15, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 4 - Time, Space, and Blueberries*

Dawn was dim and chilly when it finally broke over P2X-435, casting gray light over the barren landscape. 

“You know, this sort of looks like Cape Cod,” Kathleen mused, as she looked around at the sandy hills and scrubby evergreens. 

“I was thinking Jersey pine barrens,” Joe grunted. “Hey – blueberries.” He pointed at one of the bushes near the spot where the group had camped, which was covered with what looked very much like blueberries. Joe clambered to his feet and started poking through the thin branches.

“Don’t eat them!” Reinhart cried. Joe, his hand poised to pick one of the berries, gave the lieutenant a hard look and a sardonic quirk of a smile.

“Look, maybe _you_ won’t have any ill effects from eating them,” Kathleen conceded. “But I’m not going to do it until I’m sure they’re safe. And I still don’t recommend it, even for you. But _you_ get to be the one to take the samples to send back to the SGC,” she added, passing the Tok’ra a small plastic vial. Joe stared at the vial, then at Kathleen, then shrugged and popped a blueberry in his mouth before dropping one into the vial. Kathleen rolled her eyes and turned away with a sigh. “Right. It’s almost light enough to get the UAV, I think.”

“Will you need the assistance of everyone?” Ked’rec spoke up, from where he was sitting cross-legged and straight-backed.

“No, I think Reinhart and I can get it. Ked’rec, you and Mr. Healy can scout out the area downstream while we’re running the UAV.”

“Yes, sir,” Joe said, with a shrug of a salute. 

Kathleen shot him a look. With Joe, the line between serious and sarcastic was so thin that it was sometimes hard to tell which was which. Was he following the trend of the newer recruits, who often called everyone ‘sir’ regardless of gender? Had something gotten lost in translation from Orieth? Or was he mocking her? All that Kathleen could find to say in response was “It’s ‘ma’am.’”

Joe just grunted, and moved off to follow Ked’rec downstream along the bank of the brown river.

**

Half an hour later, both the ground and aerial surveys were completed. The UAV, sent upstream in the direction that SG-14 was believed to have gone, returned images of a village about twelve kilometers north of the gate on the other side of the river - a small cluster of houses, surrounded by agricultural fields – and a few kilometers beyond that, a swampy wetland area. But it was a spot closer to the gate that caught Kathleen’s attention.

“What’s up with those trees?” she asked, pointing to a roughly oval-shaped region, spanning both sides of the river, where the trees appeared to be of a different texture.

Reinhart squinted down at it. “I’m not sure, ma’am. But it’s on the way to the village, so we’ll run into it if we go there. It doesn’t look dangerous or anything, just…different.”

Joe had his hands full of blueberries when he returned, and tossed one ostentatiously into his mouth. Kathleen noted, unhappily, that they smelled like _very_ good blueberries. While Joe chewed, Ked’rec reported, “The water becomes lighter as it goes downstream. There are several other streams that join it along the way – they contain clear water, and therefore dilute the concentration of whatever is making this stream brown. Other than that, there are no notable features in the distance that we traveled.”

“Right.” Kathleen nodded. “It’s more likely that SG-14 went upstream, then, towards that village. Let’s go north.”

**

The sun rose higher as Ked’rec led SG-17 north on a path through the scrubby evergreen forest that he followed with confidence at every turn, but which none of the others could even begin to guess at. 

_We should mark our trail_, Orieth thought, with the beginnings of anxiety rising at the idea of moving into unfamiliar territory. _We must make sure that we will be able to find our way back!_

Joe shrugged off the feeling as best he could, but the uneasiness lingered. _Fine. Wouldn’t hurt_. As he tore the ragged strips of cloth to make trail markers, he found himself meticulously writing the time on each. _What’s that for?_

_We must keep track of the time, as well. If we find ourselves circling back upon our path, it will be helpful to know when we passed this way, in order to reorient ourselves. And if we take that, calculated with the average speed at which we walk…_

_Shut up_.

About six kilometers north of the gate, the early-morning sun suddenly broke through with surprising strength. Ked’rec, still in the lead, was startled to find himself towering over the tops of the trees. “This is most unusual,” he observed, placid and understated as ever.

“I think this is your weird spot on the UAV photos, ma’am,” Reinhart offered.

The group was standing on the edge of a large space, irregularly oval in shape and about half a mile across, filled with tiny trees. They looked exactly like the evergreens that had lined the edges of the stream the whole way up the river, except they were only four feet tall.

“All right,” Kathleen said. “We need to send back samples of these trees – needles, wood, pinecones, everything.”

“They aren’t pinecones, ma’am,” Reinhart replied, already starting to pluck a branch off of one of the little trees. “More like seed pods.”

“Well, get those then. And the soil, too. We need to figure out what happened here.”

“Looks like scorch marks on those trees.” Joe pointed to a few of the larger trees at the edge of the clearing. Kathleen shaded her eyes against the sun, squinting to follow his gaze as he continued, “Old ones, though.”

“Could a spaceship have caused it?” Kathleen asked. “It’s an awfully big diameter, but the Goa’uld have some that are big enough to fit this footprint. If a ship landed here, maybe it released some chemical into the soil that stunted the trees.”

Joe closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again, Orieth was speaking. “That would be unusual, but certainly possible, I suppose.  Perhaps it was not a chemical, but simply the effects from having the ship burning the soil and resting on it for an extended period of time?” 

No matter how hard they looked, though, there were no more clues to be found. In the end, Reinhart just stashed the samples in his pack, saving them to be sent back to the SGC later on, and the group kept moving north.

It was just after 0900 hours local time, by Orieth’s meticulous timekeeping, when the trees cleared away again to reveal a large meadow filled with blueberry bushes, and they saw the man picking blueberries.


----------



## Ladybird (May 23, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 5 - Outstanding In His Field*

SG-17 held a quick, whispered conference at the edge of the meadow.

“He does not appear to be armed,” Ked’rec observed, peering over at the man. He seemed entirely peaceful – human, as were the inhabitants of most planets with Stargates; and dressed in rough homespun clothes and sandals, carrying nothing but a basket, into which he was casually dropping blueberries as he strolled among the bushes.

”Still, we should be on our guard,” Orieth said uneasily. “We have still not determined when the last Goa’uld contact with this world was, nor what caused the trees to be stunted. Nor what happened to SG-14.”

Ked’rec nodded. “We should do our best not to appear hostile, then, so that we do not provoke an attack. We should not approach in force – one at a time, only.”

Kathleen looked around at the rest of the team: the huge Jaffa; the scruffy, erratic Tok’ra; and the earnest, young, but strongly-built lieutenant. “I’ll go,” she offered. “I’ll probably look the least threatening.” Ked’rec agreed with a solemn nod; Joe shrugged. Reinhart added, “Plus, you’ll probably have the best chance of understanding the language, ma’am.”

Slowly, Kathleen slipped her rifle off of her shoulder. _If I’m trying to look non-threatening, it’s better to leave this behind…_ Then she straightened up, and stepped out into the meadow. “Hello?” she called. _Why not try English first? Sometimes you get lucky._

The man in the field straightened up. He was about the same height as Kathleen, with sandy brown hair, fair skin, and light-colored eyes. For a moment he studied Kathleen, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. She resisted the urge to do the same – the sun was getting pretty warm, but she didn’t want to make any sudden moves. Finally, the man shrugged and called back, “Gut marg!” 

_German? Or Scandinavian?_ Kathleen’s mind raced. _Of course it would be one of the language families I don’t know._ “Uh…gud marg,” she replied, imitating his pronunciation as best she could. “We’re looking for some other people dressed like us?” She motioned down at her uniform and combat boots. The man stared back blankly. “We all came through the Stargate.” She did her best approximation of miming the action of a Stargate – sweeping her arm around in a wide circle, then motioning forward with a “Whoosh!” sound.

“Ah!” The man’s eyes lit up. “Vremdelingen!”

“Right! We came through the vremdelingen.” Kathleen struggled to piece together what little she could. “Can you tell us where they went?”

The man let loose with a stream of Germanic-sounding words that Kathleen could barely even catch the shape of – she thought she heard something that sounded like “dorp” and “bosbessen”. Fortunately, he also pointed upstream, along a well-trodden path that led through the trees. Kathleen nodded. “Right. Thank you very much. Er. Danke schön?” she ventured.

The man shook his head. “Ik begrip niet.”

Kathleen sighed, with a good-natured shrug. “Yeah, me neither.” Even if she didn’t really speak German – or whatever variant of it was spoken here - ‘I don’t understand’ was a useful phrase to know in multiple languages. 

--
An hour later, SG-17 arrived in the village. It was little more than a small cluster of thatched-roofed houses – fifteen, Joe noted, as they walked across the sturdy wooden bridge that spanned the brown stream. The stream had gotten browner as they moved up it – from a faint tea-stain at near the gate, its color had deepened into something approaching a coffee color. The water still hadn’t lost any of its clarity; it was just darker.

There were a few children playing on the dusty path that appeared to serve as the village’s main street, lazily tossing a ball around while their younger siblings watched from the sidelines. Rough post-and-beam fences formed a barrier between each house’s front yard and the street, and women wearing simple homespun smocks bent over small garden patches in a few of the yards. Farther down the path stood a larger building, clearly the focal point of the town: a town hall, or place of worship, Kathleen guessed. Or maybe both.

SG-17 hung back at the edge of the village, looking at each other uncertainly. “I guess I’ll try again,” Kathleen offered, and broke off to approach one of the women. “Gut marg,” she began, offering a hopeful smile and friendly wave over the top of the fence, then gestured to herself, adding, “Uh, my name is Kathleen.” _No use trying to go into rank structure before we know what we’re dealing with. And if they do know what’s happened to SG-14, they might know McNair as ‘Major’_.

The woman replied with something far too fast and elaborate to catch beyond “Marka,” which Kathleen hoped was her name, and as soon as she stopped, Kathleen continued, “We came through the vremdelingen…”

Before Kathleen had a chance to go through her Stargate mime again, Marka brightened. “Ah! Vremdelingen!” She immediately bustled out from behind the fence, and started to tug Kathleen down the street, chattering cheerfully in the same incomprehensible Germanic-sounding language the whole way. Kathleen gave the rest of her team a slightly desperate glance over her shoulder, beckoning them along after her, and allowed herself to be pulled.

As they passed the playing children, one of them looked up from the game, blinked a few times at the strangers, and went back to tossing the ball. “That’s odd,” Kathleen muttered, as the rest of the team caught up with her. “Kids, not being curious about these funny-dressed strangers who just walked into the middle of their town?”

Marka’s destination was the large building at the center of the village. She tugged Kathleen through the double doors at the front, into a large, square, room with bare wooden walls. Two large barrels of the brownish water stood near the back, and long straight benches filled most of the floor. It was vaguely reminiscent of an old New England church, except with nothing that resembled any religious symbols, just a speaker’s podium on a low platform at the front. _Town hall, then_, Kathleen thought.

There were also several people inside: a woman spinning on a distaff, an older man talking to her…and Sergeant Gatwick, of SG-14.


----------



## Ladybird (May 30, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 6 - No Really, We Mean It*

“Sergeant!” Kathleen cried, breaking away from Marka to rush towards him. “Are you all right? Where are the others?”

“Huh?” Gatwick looked up in surprise, blinking blearily as he struggled to focus on Kathleen. He was sitting slouched on one of the benches, still dressed in his standard field uniform of fatigues, but his shirt was unbuttoned, his hat was off, and the tops of his boots were unlaced. “Oh, hey!” Recognition dawned slowly across his face. “It’s Major Fitzgerald, right?” It took another moment for the idea to make it through Gatwick’s head that the proper response to the appearance of a superior officer was to stand up, and he did so slowly. “Good to see you! Uh…hey, what are you doing here?”

“At ease,” Kathleen replied, slightly unnecessarily, considering Gatwick’s thoroughly easy manner, even as her own tone was growing sharper in response. Gatwick drooped back down, and reached down to pick up a wooden cup, filled with something that looked like the brownish river water. He took a long drink as Kathleen continued,  “You missed check-in. You’ve been out of contact for almost 24 hours now. We came here to _find_ you. Where are the others?”

“Oh, we did?” Gatwick sounded honestly surprised. “Oh, man. I’m sorry. Well…uh…let’s see, hey, where _are_ the others? I dunno where exactly Dr. Haas is, but she’s off looking at flowers and stuff. I think the major is picking blueberries? Have you tried the blueberries? They’re _awesome_. And – oh yeah, Gershwin is taking a nap.”

Kathleen let him finish his rambling speech, even though she could sense Reinhart growing increasingly agitated behind her. When Gatwick finally came to a stopping point, Kathleen fixed him with a sharp glare and asked, “How much of that water have you drunk?”

“Huh? Oh, a bunch! It’s really good stuff!” Gatwick sounded more enthusiastic than he had in the rest of the previous conversation. “Here, do you want some? And did you try the blueberries?”

“Next you’ll be telling me that all the cool kids are doing it,” Kathleen retorted.

“Well…uh…everyone here _does_ drink it. And it tastes great! You sure you don’t want any?”

“Positive,” Kathleen stated.

“Oh well. Suit yourself. Hey, do you understand any of what these folks are saying?” Gatwick waved a lazy hand around at the others in the room – Marka was now deep in conversation with the older man, while the woman with the distaff looked on with vague interest. Joe narrowed his eyes at the villagers – all of them had the same glazed, distracted look as Gatwick, although their speech didn’t seem quite as slurred as his. “Dr. Haas said that she could,” Gatwick continued. “Sounds like Dutch, and she knows some from her grandmother. ‘Gut marg’ means ‘good morning’!” he announced proudly.

“Yeah, I got that bit,” Kathleen replied. Now that the immediate relief of discovering that SG-14 wasn’t in danger was wearing off, she was starting to lose patience with Gatwick’s foggy good cheer. 

He reeled off several more words, all of which Kathleen had already figured out for herself, until he got to “And…uh…oh, yeah, they’ve been calling us vremdelingen. That means ‘foreigners.’” 

“Ah. Hm. I thought that meant Stargate.” Interested despite her exasperation with Gatwick, Kathleen nodded, and filed away this piece of information, then turned back to the rest of her team. “Well, it looks like SG-14 isn’t in any danger,” she observed, with a slight ironic bite to her words. “Let’s keep looking around, then. Ked’rec, Mr. Healy – why don’t you continue to scout upstream. If the water – or, rather, that brown stain in the water – is what’s been having this effect on everyone, I want to figure out what the source is. Reinhart, you and I can stay in town and wait for the rest of SG-14 to come back – especially if Dr. Haas comes back and can translate, so we can get some more information. It’s about time for our check-in, too, and we need to tell the General that everyone is safe.”

Joe and Ked’rec started to troop out of the door again, followed by the slurred words of Sergeant Gatwick. “You sure you don’t want a drink of water before you go?”


----------



## Ladybird (Jun 7, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 7 - More Aliens, Less Talking*

Ked’rec and Joe followed the winding path of the river upstream, their feet crunching softly against the sandy soil.

They didn’t say anything.

The sun rose higher as the morning wore on, burning away the faint misty fog that rose from the dark-brown stream and beating down with bright heat through the two men’s hats.

They didn’t say anything.

With a silent step and sharply upraised arm, Ked’rec stopped abruptly, pointing off to the right. There, leading up a hill, was a side trail, winding its way through the scrubby trees. 

Joe didn’t say anything.

The Jaffa kept his arm up, head cocked to listen. There was the sound again – a tiny, barely-audible rustling. And then Joe saw it: rooting through the dusty sand at the foot of an evergreen bush, was a small animal that bore a general resemblance to a chipmunk, except that its face was wrinkled and flattened like that of a bat. Joe let out a snort as he caught sight of the decidedly non-threatening creature. “Ugly little sucker,” he muttered, and started to push around the Jaffa to continue heading up the path. 

“What about the trail that goes up the hill?” Ked’rec asked, raising his eyebrows mildly in response to Joe’s scornful reaction.

“Later,” Joe shrugged. “Let’s follow this path to the end before we look at that one.”

The path narrowed as the stream dwindled smaller and darker on the way to its source, and the evergreens gathered more thickly together until both river and trail faded into a large, forested boggy area. The water was the color of strong coffee, but it had none of the brackish or decayed smell that Joe would have expected. “Guess we found where the brown was coming from,” he grunted.

Inside his head, Orieth was buzzing with intellectual curiosity. _We must get samples of all of it! Water, grass, trees, soil – if there is any sediment in the water, we must get that as well._

_Shut up,_ Joe thought back automatically.

_Isn’t that what we’re here to do?_ Orieth sounded vaguely hurt, and Joe wasn’t sure if it was his own remorse or his sensation of the symbiote’s wounded feelings that made his next thought a little gentler. _Yeah, all right._

Joe spent a few minutes gathering samples, with much more care than he had originally planned, then looked up to see where the Jaffa was. He saw Ked’rec on the other side of the bog, holding the video camera that they had brought with them, diligently filming the bog and the surrounding trees. “Guess we’d better report,” Joe muttered grudgingly, and reached for his radio.

Kathleen answered Joe’s call almost immediately, her voice crackly over the radio but bright with interest after he finished his brief outline of what they had found along the way. “Have you found any feeder streams? Or springs?” she asked. “Or is the bog fed by groundwater coming up?”

Joe paced slowly along the edge of the bog, circling around on the opposite side from Ked’rec. “Yeah. Got a little spring. And it looks clear, too. Weird.” He lifted an arm to wave to Ked’rec. The Jaffa, intent on videoing another one of the little bat-chipmunks, didn’t notice Joe’s gesture for a few moments, but then came over to turn his camera on the tiny bubbling spring.

“So if the water is clear,” Kathleen was saying, thinking aloud in the long silences between Joe’s laconic statements, “then whatever’s turning the water brown must be in the bog, not the water. Maybe there’s a source of fresh, non-contaminated water around, then.”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed noncommittally. “You know, the water doesn’t smell _bad_…” He could hear Reinhart shouting frantically in the background, “Don’t drink it! I know it won’t hurt you, but still, don’t!” 

Joe rolled his eyes and said, “I’ll check in later. Over and out.” 

Laden with samples and video, the Tok’ra and the Jaffa wound their way back down the trail towards the village. Ked’rec stopped at the intersection with the side path again, checking warily around the corner through the trees (to Orieth’s approval) before leading the way up the hill.

“Footprints,” Joe grunted.

Ked’rec leaned over, narrowing his eyes at the faint tracks in the sandy soil. “Mostly animal,” he observed. “Although there are a few human tracks as well.”

The human footprints grew more plentiful and more distinct as they went further along the path and up a hill, until they reached a clearing – in which stood a small cabin. It looked like a single room, made of logs from the trees whose weathered stumps still stood around the edges of the open field, surrounded by an area of flat ground and a small but neatly-cultivated garden. Farther back, the trees thickened, growing more closely together to form a leafy barrier to whatever lay behind the cabin – close enough to indicate a river, perhaps, down behind the crest of the hill. 

“Should we approach?” Ked’rec asked softly.

“Yeah.” Joe replied, his voice just as subdued. “Quiet. But not sneaky.”

They edged carefully into the clearing, skirting around the edge of the trees at first, and then venturing out onto open ground towards the cabin. After a few yards, Ked’rec halted, with another one of his wordless raised-hand gestures to bring Joe to a stop too. There was a man behind the cabin, bent over as he worked in the garden. He was dressed similarly to the people in the village, but his clothes were slightly rougher and more patched, and a fur wrap lay over a stump next to him, discarded in the rising morning heat.

The Tok’ra and Jaffa stood motionless for a moment, watching, until the man stood up, stretching his back – and caught sight of them. Without a word and without a second look, the man lay down his hoe and walked straight off into the trees.

“That was most curious,” Ked’rec observed, after a moment of confused silence.

“I dunno,” Joe grunted. “He saw strangers, and walked away. Probably the most sensible thing I’ve seen all day.”


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## Ladybird (Jun 12, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 8 - Lost in Translation*

Back in the village, Kathleen was doing her best to investigate the possibility of  recent Goa’uld activity on the planet without speaking more than a few words of the language. Somehow, knowing the local words for “blueberries” and “good morning” wasn’t helping much. Marka – apparently the most extroverted of the villagers, despite the glazed and distracted look that she shared with all of the others – was listening with eager encouragement, but the village headman, Geert, had only mild confusion on his passive face as he watched Kathleen’s struggle to make herself understood.

“Do you know anything about the little trees? Um…kleine baumen?” Kathleen tried what she thought was an approximation of the phrase in German, holding her hand a few inches above the ground to mime ‘small.’ Geert and Marka turned to each other, puzzled, and discussed it amongst themselves for a few moments, trying to figure out what she meant. Finally they turned back to Kathleen, shaking their heads. Geert looked slightly surprised that she would ask such a question, as if nobody had ever thought to wonder about the strangely stunted trees. _Doesn’t anyone on this planet have any curiosity?_

“Okay….um…has anyone else come through the Stargate?” Kathleen tried the same motion that she had done before, waving her arm in a wide circle, then sweeping forward while making a ‘whoosh!’ sound, in her best imitation of a Stargate. Marka nodded enthusiastically, and started a discourse on ‘vremdelingen,’ but Kathleen shook her head. “No, besides us. Not me, not him.” She pointed to herself and Gatwick in turn, shaking her head emphatically after each.

Geert and Marka stared. Kathleen sighed heavily, and tried again. “No, _not_ us. People with flashing eyes? Deep voices?” She made fists near her eyes, then opened her hands swiftly, miming the flash of a Goa’uld’s eyes. Geert and Marka stared.

Fortunately for all of them, a distraction arrived in the form of Reinhart, fresh back from checking in with the SGC. “They’re happy to hear that everyone’s all right, ma’am,” he reported. “We’re supposed to stay here until SG-14 is all rounded up, and until we’re sure that there isn’t any health risk from that stuff they drank. They’ve got some preliminary reports from the samples we sent back – there’s definitely some kind of mind-affecting chemical in the water. There’s also another chemical that’s similar to the ones used in some preservatives.”

“Well, they do seem to be fairly pickled,” Kathleen muttered. “Anything else?”

“I think Dr. Haas might be on her way back, ma’am. I saw a group of locals coming up the road, and there was someone with them who looked like she was wearing an SGC uniform.”

“Finally!” Kathleen let out a sigh of profound relief. “Look, I’ll be back in a second,” she said quickly, turning back to the others. Gatwick gave her a mellow wave; Geert and Marka blinked in their usual incomprehension. 

“Dr. Haas!” Kathleen called, hurrying out of the town hall and into the brightening sunshine. _Ugh. It’s getting hot. That’s not going to be fun…_

A smallish figure, dressed in fatigues, split off from the group of villagers making their way down the path towards the village. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes as she squinted into the sun. “Is that…Major Fitzgerald? What are _you_ doing here?” 

Even from a distance, Kathleen could hear the slow pace and vague, distracted tone of Dr. Haas’s words, and she sighed again. _She’s drunk it too._ “We’re here looking for you,” Kathleen began.

Kathleen went through the entire situation with Dr. Haas, repeating herself a few times when the botanist’s attention wandered off towards the flowers that she carried in her arms.  “Sergeant Gatwick tells me that you understand the language?” Kathleen asked, when she was done.

“Oh, yes. My grandmother was born in the Netherlands. This language isn’t _exactly_ like Dutch, but it’s close enough that I can understand the locals, and they can understand me.”

“Oh, thank goodness! Look, can you help me out with some translation. I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s been any Goa’uld presence on this planet, and I’m getting nowhere.”

“I’d be happy to,” Dr. Haas replied. And then, as if the thought had just occurred to her, “Good idea, finding out if there have been any Goa’uld here.”

_It’s only one of our central missions,_ Kathleen grumbled inwardly, as she led the way back into the town hall. She sat, slightly impatiently, while Dr. Haas translated her questions about the Stargate, then again while Geert and Marka discussed it, again looking confused that anyone would be asking such questions.  Finally, Dr. Haas turned back to Kathleen. “It sounds like we’re the first people to have come through the Stargate in a very long time. They don’t have any idea what it’s for, and until today they didn’t even have any idea that people _could_ travel through it.”

“Well, that’s good, I guess,” Kathleen replied. “What about the local religion – any indications of Goa’uld influence there?” She looked around at the sparse walls of the town hall – if it did serve as a place of worship, there weren’t any Goa’uld symbols that she could see. 

Once again, Dr. Haas translated, and once again she returned with a negative answer. “As far as I can tell, their religion centers around ancestral spirits – nothing that would even suggest Goa’uld influence.”

“All right. That’s _definitely_ good. What about – “

“Got a bunch more samples for you.” Joe’s laconic grunt broke in – he and Ked’rec had returned. “Found some weird guy living out in the woods, too.” It didn’t take very long at all for Joe to make a complete report on the strange reclusive man that they had encountered at the cabin.

Through Dr. Haas, they asked the locals for more information – surprisingly, this received a stronger reaction from Marka than anything that they had asked before. The young woman’s expression darkened into a disapproving frown as she answered. “His name is Joost,” Dr. Haas translated. “He doesn’t like other people very much. I gather that he’s lived off by himself for several years.”

Suddenly, Ked’rec held up a hand, his head cocked to listen. The others fell silent, following his lead – and a few seconds later, they heard it too. Shouting, and then, running feet, approaching quickly from outside. 

“Hagadis!” it sounded like someone was yelling. “Hagadis!”

Kathleen looked quickly to Dr. Haas for translation, even as she was getting to her feet and hurrying towards the door, hand on her gun and eyes alert.

“I don’t know.” Dr. Haas shook her head helplessly. “It sounds familiar, but I’m not sure exactly what it means.”

By the time they got outside, the shouting was louder, and the people had nearly reached the town hall: two locals, and Major McNair of SG-14, all flushed and out of breath. “What is it?” Kathleen pressed. “A person? An animal?” 

Dr. Haas carried on a hurried conversation with the locals. “An animal. Big? Er – not hairy. Scaly?”

“What, is it a dinosaur?” Kathleen tossed off the question half-jokingly, but Dr. Haas’s eyes widened. 

“Er. Actually…I think ‘hagadis’ does mean ‘lizard.’ It _might_ be a dinosaur.”


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## Cerebral Paladin (Jun 12, 2006)

Heh.  The GM playing to the players' interests is always a good idea.  Ladybird is a notorious fan of dinosaurs.


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## Ladybird (Jun 12, 2006)

Cerebral Paladin said:
			
		

> Heh.  The GM playing to the players' interests is always a good idea.  Ladybird is a notorious fan of dinosaurs.




Hee! Yes, I was quite happy at the prospect of dinosaurs, and happily suprised that Obezyanchik put them on this planet. I don't think it was intended specifically as a present for me, but I certainly enjoyed it.

And the fact that (as we'll see in future episodes) Kathleen has a nephew who's crazy about dinosaurs has absolutely _nothing_ to do with the fact that my own nephew loves dinosaurs. Really. Not an opportunity for me to gratuitously mention my nephew, the Cutest Toddler in the World. Not at all


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## Ladybird (Jun 19, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 9 - On the Absence of Things*

If anything could motivate the stoned villagers and members of SG-14 to action, it was the possibility that a dinosaur might be nearby.

After a hurried conversation with Major McNair that covered most of the same ground as the first meetings with the other members of SG-14 – yes, we’re here to look for you, yes, you missed your check-in – and after she and the villagers had a chance to catch their breath, a small group headed back out to try to find the ‘hagadis.’ Marka , Dr. Haas, and Major McNair led SG-17 upstream, following approximately the same path that Joe and Ked’rec had taken at first, then veering off on another trail, away from the source of the river.

“It was just up ahead,” McNair said, dropping her voice to a sudden whisper as she came to a halt in the middle of the path. “In the blueberry patch in that clearing.” Marka nodded in worried agreement. Ked’rec exchanged a quick look with the other members of SG-17, then took up a point position, weapon raised, ahead of the others. He edged further down the dusty trail, disappearing behind the tree line as he stepped into the clearing.

“It has gone,” Ked’rec called back a moment later. “There is nothing there.” 

Relieved, the rest of the group moved into the clearing. Ked’rec already had the video camera out, and was aiming it at the ground as he walked slowly forward, parallel to the path of a set of large footprints. Kathleen pulled out her own camera and went over to take a few snapshots of her own. “Those really do look like dinosaur footprints,” she marveled, as she looked down at the huge clawed marks. “Probably something similar to a velociraptor, only bigger.” Reinhart looked at her curiously, and she shrugged, grinning up at him. “I’ve got an eight-year-old nephew. I know more about dinosaurs than I ever thought I wanted to.”

“According to the UAV surveillance, there was another marshy area not far beyond this clearing.” It was Orieth talking, although (probably in deference to Marka’s presence) he was using Joe’s voice. “Perhaps we should look at it, to see if it contains the same substance as the water in the river.”

To everyone’s surprise, including Marka’s, the water in the second marsh was completely clear. Orieth hurried over, starting to take samples with his usual meticulous care, while Kathleen skirted the edge of the marsh to look at some small plants growing by the edge of the water. “Mr. Healy, could you get some samples of these, too?” she called. “These look like unripe cranberries – I’m wondering how much they’re like Earth cranberries.” She grinned as she looked back down at the little white berries. “This planet is reminding me more and more of Cape Cod by the minute.”

“I believe the creature went off in this direction,” Ked’rec interjected, pointing off towards the scrubby evergreens clustered around the edge of the marsh. “It is gone, but we should still be on our guard in case it returns.”

“All right,” Kathleen agreed. “Now, what about this person that you saw living out here? Joost, was that his name?” She looked to Marka for confirmation, and received a nod of confirmation, and another disapproving frown at the mention of the hermit’s name. 

”His cabin is not far from here,” Ked’rec replied. “We can easily lead you to it.”

As the group started to head off down the trail again, Major McNair wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, brushing away perspiration. “Whew! It’s getting hot…” She reached for her canteen, and started to unscrew the top. 

“Major, wait!” Kathleen hurried to catch up with her counterpart, and held out her own canteen, filled with fresh water from back on Earth. “Here. Try mine instead.” For once, Kathleen was grateful for the lack of curiosity that the brown water seemed to inspire: Major McNair took the canteen without question, and drank. _All right. Let’s see if we can get her sober first, and then we’ll work on the others._

But by the time they were halfway back to the main trail, McNair’s face was pale under the brim of her cap, and she winced as the sun fell across her face. “I don’t know where this headache came from…” she muttered. Kathleen quickly handed over her own canteen again, but her eyes were shadowed with concern. 

But McNair’s headache only worsened, and soon she was grimacing in pain, and stumbling over her feet. Kathleen reached out to steady her – but this time, did not offer her own canteen. And after McNair had drunk some more of the brown water from her own canteen, the strained look began to disappear, and she straightened up from under the weight of her pain. 

Kathleen sighed, and dropped back to speak quietly to Reinhart. “It looks like she was starting to go through withdrawal.”

The young lieutenant nodded, his worried frown matching Kathleen’s. “If we want to get SG-14 off of this, we’re going to need to find another way to do it.”


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## Cerebral Paladin (Jun 22, 2006)

Incidentally, for those looking for another fix of Ladybird storyhour goodness, she's currently guest writing Aphonion Tales.  I think she's doing a great job, and I think that storyhour as a whole is worth reading (not that I'm biased or anything-- I'm the primary author of that storyhour).  She'll be writing up one session's worth, there.


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## Ladybird (Jun 22, 2006)

Awwwww  Thank you for the plug, CP! 

I'm having a lot of fun with the change of style (high fantasy vs. sci-fi) that writing the Aphonion Story Hour has given me. CP himself is a tough act to follow in the Story Hour department (there's no way that I could keep all those elven names and twisty plots straight the way he does!) but I'm grateful for his vote of confidence!

And for anyone who is reading Aphonion, I will have another post up soon...and another Cheyenne post up on my usual weekly schedule, as long as work and academia don't rise up to swallow me again...


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## Ladybird (Jun 26, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 10 - The Old Man of the Mountain*

The scrubby pine forest dimmed as the sun sank towards the horizon, providing respite from the heat of the day. The scurrying sounds of animals and strange hooting calls of birds echoed between the trees as the group made their way up the winding trail towards Joost’s isolated cabin. Marka’s expression was darkening, too, as they drew closer.

“She doesn’t approve of him,” Dr. Haas said quietly, relaying the young villager’s discontented words to the others. Major McNair had gone back to the village to rest, leaving only Dr. Haas and Marka to accompany SG-17 to the reclusive man’s cabin. “She won’t say exactly why, but she doesn’t.” 

Kathleen glanced worriedly behind her at Marka. “Does she have any tips on how we should approach him?”

“If it were up to her, I don’t think we’d be going at all,” Dr. Haas replied.

“I shall remain outside to keep watch,” Ked’rec offered, as the group rounded the bend into Joost’s clearing. “It does not appear that there will be a great deal of room inside his house.”

“All right,” Kathleen agreed. With swift, silent steps, the Jaffa split off from the group, heading off to patrol the edge of the clearing, while the others made their way up the path towards the cabin.

The rough-hewn wooden door swung open, and a man stood in the open doorway, staring warily at the group of strangers. Joost was only in his late 40s, but his hair was heavily sprinkled with gray, and his face bore the weathered lines of someone who had had a hard life, and one spent mostly outside in the strong sun. His eyes were pale blue, and narrowed sharply as he gave an inquisitive glance at the odd clothing and equipment of the Stargate personnel. 

Kathleen met his eyes directly, and a matching spark rose to answer his look, along with a smile. _Finally – someone on this planet who’s curious!_ she thought. _Now this, I can work with…_ “Dr. Haas, could you translate, please?” The other woman nodded, and Kathleen looked back up at Joost, offering another smile as she began, “Hello. We’re sorry to disturb you, but we were hoping that we could speak to you for a while.” She spoke slowly, leaving gaps for Dr. Haas to translate, but Joost was looking at Kathleen, listening intently to the unfamiliar language as she spoke it.  “We’re explorers. From very far away,” she added, not going into any more detail than that for now. “We’re trying to get an idea of what this area is like, and you seem to be in the best place of anyone to observe the environment – the plants and wildlife. And the water,” Kathleen added, after a slight hesitation. “You have your own source of water here, don’t you?” Joost nodded slowly. Behind her, Kathleen could feel Marka starting to tense uncomfortably. “I’m curious about that, too.”

Throughout the speech, Joost’s expression had been softening, and while he didn’t exactly _smile_, the crinkles around his eyes rearranged themselves in a slightly more benevolent way as he nodded. “Come in.” With relief all around – except for Marka, who hung back with a disapproving glower – the group stepped inside. “So, are you from the coast?” Joost asked, through Dr. Haas, with another inquisitive look at the visitors’ strange clothes as they tried to arrange themselves around the small, sparsely-furnished cabin. “We haven’t had much trade with them lately, but I didn’t think that things had changed quite so much.”

“No, we’re from…er, farther away,” Kathleen said awkwardly. 

Joost nodded, taking in the information with a thoughtful expression. “Well, it’s good to see travelers again, at least. There hasn’t been anything going on in this part of the riverlands for years.” He shot a disapproving look at Marka, who bristled upright at the implied insult, but she said nothing in return.

“It’s good to find someone who’s interested in meeting travelers,” Kathleen offered, along with another smile.

Joost rolled his eyes, but good-naturedly. “I wouldn’t be living out here if I wanted to talk to people. But it’s better than what’s going on in the village.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the village!” Marka snapped suddenly, breaking Dr. Haas out of the steady rhythm of her translation. The botanist looked back and forth between the two locals, startled and uncomfortable, but continued to translate, even as Marka’s unfocused anger rose. “Just because you think that you’re too good for the rest of us – “

“It isn’t that,” Joost retorted. “You’re too caught up in that brown water to see what it’s doing to you.” He turned to Kathleen again, speaking with greater force as he explained, “It’s changing them. Drinking that water makes them lazy, and tired all the time. You’ve seen the village? The fields that don’t have any crops in them? The houses that are standing empty around the edges, because there aren’t any people in them? Nobody’s having children anymore, are they?” 

“We’re happy with the way we live! We have everything we need.” Marka protested, with rising anger, but the slow cadence of her words drew an ‘I told you so’ look from Joost.

“My father could see what was happening,” Joost went on, looking back to the visitors. “Trade was going down even then, because nobody had the energy to go down the river to the coast. They just sat around and drank that water. My father always wanted to move out of the village, but never managed to do it. Still, he spent most of his time out in the woods – he’s the one who taught me how to fend for myself. So as soon as I was old enough, I came out here.”

“You build this place yourself?” Joe interjected, with faint admiration in his voice. Dr. Haas looked back, surprised at the laconic Tok’ra’s participation, but she translated anyway, drawing a small, proud smile from Joost in response as he nodded.

“It wasn’t easy,” Joost continued. “But it was better than staying in the village. Better than being around all those people all the time. And better than keeping on drinking that water. Although it wasn’t easy to stop drinking it,” he added, his eyes growing shadowed and distant.

“How bad was it, when you stopped?” Kathleen asked, her voice soft with sympathy.

“Bad,” Joost said quietly. “Bad enough that I couldn’t get into the village for a few days. Bad enough that I thought…” He shook his head sharply, dismissing the memories, but Kathleen and Reinhart exchanged worried looks as they recalled Major McNair's illness from just a brief period of withdrawal. Joost's frown lingered while he continued. “The cranberries helped. But it took a while for me to figure that out.”

“Cranberries?” Kathleen repeated, looking quizzically at Dr. Haas for confirmation of the word.

Joost nodded. “If you eat enough cranberries, it doesn’t matter how much of the brown water you drink – it won’t have any effect. My father said that that’s how we got along in the past. But nobody eats cranberries anymore. My father taught me how to prepare them, but they’re hard to cook. Nobody has the energy to figure it out these days. Just like everything else,” he said, with a pointed look at Marka, who glowered back.

“It’s just like methadone!” Reinhart exclaimed. Everyone turned to look at him, varying degrees of puzzlement on their faces. The young lieutenant flushed a little, and struggled to explain. “Well, methadone is used to treat heroin addiction. It acts on the same receptors in the brain that heroin does, so it blocks the heroin from having any effect. It sounds like these cranberries work the same way.”

“So that’s the cure?” Kathleen started to smile, startled and relieved by the simplicity of it all.

Reinhart hesitated. “Well, not exactly…” 

“You can get hooked on methadone just like you can on heroin,” Joe put in. Another round of surprised looks was directed towards him, and he shrugged, muttering. “Saw a lot of it at the VA.” He pushed back Orieth’s tentative wave of sympathy at the shared memory, and let out a snort that drew a few more curious looks.

But Reinhart was already talking again. “That’s right. So we have to make sure that the same thing won’t happen with the cranberries.”

”All right,” Kathleen nodded. “Let’s take samples and get the chemistry folks back at the SGC on it. And we’ll ask them to get some Earth cranberries, too,” she added with a grin. “If the same chemicals are in Earth cranberries, then we’ll be able to get this thing fixed in no time.”

Reinhart glanced over at Marka, who had resumed glaring at Joost. “Except if they don’t _want_ to fix it,” he said quietly.

“Well, we’ll still need to – “ A sharp rap at the wall cut off Kathleen’s next statement. Outside, framed dimly in the moonlight, Ked’rec had come to attention, his head was cocked, silent and listening. A few seconds later, Joe heard it too – a low grumbling sound that rose higher and opened up into a roar.

“Hagadis!” gasped Marka.

[Coming up next: When Dinosaurs Attack! – and the party’s very first combat.]


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## Steverooo (Jun 27, 2006)

We want to see the Dinosaur!
We want to see the Dinosaur!
We want to see the Dinosaur!
So bring him out, here, on the floor!

We want to see the Dinosaur!
We want to see the Dinosaur!
We want to see the Dinosaur!
One's not enough, so give us more!

We want to see the Dinosaur!
We want to see the Dinosaur!
We want to see the Dinosaur!...


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## Ladybird (Jul 4, 2006)

*giggle* Thank you, Steverooo! I am greatly amused 

And, as I said over in Aphonion Tales, I apologize for the tardiness of this week's update - I've been out of town. I will have a glorious dinosaur fight for all of you, once I've gotten over my jetlag


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## Steverooo (Jul 5, 2006)

Ladybird said:
			
		

> *giggle* Thank you, Steverooo! I am greatly amused
> 
> And, as I said over in Aphonion Tales, I apologize for the tardiness of this week's update - I've been out of town. I will have a glorious dinosaur fight for all of you, once I've gotten over my jetlag




I thought that you (and yer favorite Nevvy, the Cutest Toddler in All the World) might find that amusing...  

No worries.  We'll wait!


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## Ladybird (Jul 10, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 11 - When Dinosaurs Attack!*

By the time the hagadis roared a second time, everyone was on their feet. 

“Stay here!” Kathleen cried, motioning to Joost and Marka. For once, the two locals were in agreement with each other – Marka sat as if frozen to her rough wooden chair, and Joost gave Kathleen a single curt nod of assent.

Another roar echoed through the dim forest. Ked’rec’s gun let out a staccato burst of bullets, and the hagadis shrieked in pain. 

“What do I do?” Dr. Haas looked at Kathleen with wide, frightened eyes, her voice high and tight with apprehension.

“If you can shoot decently, come with us.” Kathleen’s words were short and clipped, coming nearly as quickly as Ked’rec’s machine gun fire. “Otherwise, stay here and stay safe. Reinhart, go out the front way. Mr. Healy – “

But Joe was already out the door by the time Kathleen turned to him, his gun raised and bored eyes suddenly wide and alert. Currents of anxious adrenaline ran through him – he could never be sure whose they were. It was Orieth who was thinking _Danger! Danger!_; he knew that. But there was excitement coming from somewhere deep inside him, too, rising up as he lifted his gun, and cresting in a shout as he came around the corner of the cabin to face the hagadis.

The creature was over eight feet tall, with huge taloned feet at the end of muscular legs, and viciously sharp claws on its waving arms. Its scaly hide shone dully in the moonlight, and its wide mouth opened as it advanced towards Ked’rec. 

The Jaffa instantly sprang backwards, lowering his weapon to fire upon the hagadis again. His shots were joined by another burst from Joe, advancing even as Orieth’s thoughts continued to beat against his mind in rising panic. 

Kathleen, turning the corner a second after Joe, watched the scene with her own mind racing. _I’ll never be able to hit it,_ she thought, swinging her rifle down to take aim. _Not at this distance. But if I can get it distracted…_ 

The dinosaur lunged towards Ked’rec, claws slashing and head bending to bite at him. Kathleen sent a flurry of bullets flying just above the creature’s head. It reared back in furious confusion, still striking out towards Ked’rec – but it was distracted enough for the Jaffa to spring nimbly aside, taking aim once more.

Footsteps crunched on the dry, sandy ground as Reinhart and Haas stepped out of the cabin. With his eyes narrowed to scan the clearing and broad shoulders poised protectively in front of Dr. Haas, the young lieutenant was on his guard – and the first to spot the rustling in the bushes. “Another one!” he shouted. “Over here!”

The first hagadis let out another roar of pain as another one of Ked’rec’s shots hit home, but the sound was followed by another, higher-pitched sound – Dr. Haas, crying out in terror as a second dinosaur sprang forwards out of the bushes, directly at her. 

_I think they’ve got that one covered,_ Kathleen thought, and she wheeled around to face the second dinosaur. _If it worked once, it can work again. And it looks like Dr. Haas will need more protection than Ked’rec._ She sent a burst of shots towards the second creature, hoping to distract it in the same way that she had distracted the first.

Almost exactly at the same time, Dr. Haas let loose with a single, precise shot of her own. To everyone’s surprise, most of all her own, the shot hit true, slamming into the hagadis’s scaly chest, and sending the creature flailing backwards in confusion and pain. 

From the other side of the clearing, there was an echoing shot from Joe’s gun and an echoing shriek from the first dinosaur. It was now staggering raggedly around the treeline, scattering blood on the sandy ground and flailing its arms weakly at Ked’rec. “You got this one?” Joe asked Ked’rec. Instead of answering, the Jaffa took a silent step to the side, lowering his gun and sweeping his staff weapon out in a wide arc until it was aimed directly at the hagadis. “Guess so,” Joe grunted, and trotted a few steps towards the second.

With the same intense, unearthly focus, Dr. Haas fired off another round at the second lizard as it stepped forward, and with the same deadly result. Joe’s shots followed a few seconds later, with a force that nearly spun the hagadis around. It staggered, wavering for a moment – and then collapsed to the ground.

The first hagadis was wavering, too, its beady eyes fixed on the imposing form of Ked’rec. The staff weapon zipped quietly, its edges glowing in the near-darkness as it charged. And the hagadis turned and ran. 

Ked’rec’s stoic face settled into an expression of faint disappointment as he lowered his staff weapon and set it down, unused.

“We did it!” Reinhart cried, as he dashed towards the fallen body of the second hagadis. Dr. Haas stood frozen in place, still slightly stunned by her own success. Kathleen gave the botanist a light, comforting touch on the shoulder as she moved to take a closer look at the dinosaur’s body for herself. Reinhart was still exulting, “They’re never gonna believe we got something like this! A brand-new team, led by a cryptographer – uh, sorry, ma’am…” The young lieutentant’s face turned bright red in the dim moonlight.

Kathleen just laughed, although there was a wry twist to her smile as she answered, “It’s all right, Reinhart. I know how people talk. They’ll be pretty impressed that we bagged ourselves a dinosaur.”

Reinhart nodded enthusiastically. “We bagged ourselves a _big-ass_ dinosaur! Uh. Ma’am.”


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## nobodez (Jul 15, 2006)

wow, can't wait for more! I love Modern SH, and I love SG1, and now, I love the CMI!

Joe/Orieth is my favorite (well, they are my favorite characters, but since they've only got the two legs...)


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## GreenArmadillo (Jul 20, 2006)

Ladybird said:
			
		

> Reinhart nodded enthusiastically. “We bagged ourselves a _big-ass_ dinosaur! Uh. Ma’am.”




I love Reinhart.


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## Ladybird (Jul 20, 2006)

*Episode 2: Don't Drink the Water. Part 12 - Food for Thought*

“You’re sending back a _what_??”

The General’s voice was clear as he spoke through the wormhole, even across the light-years that separated him from SG-17, and incredulity raised his voice several octaves as he repeated, “You’re sending _what_, Major? Sorry – I could have sworn you just said you were giving us a dinosaur.”

Kathleen couldn’t help laughing. She had saved the best for last, in her evening check-in to the SGC – she had told the General first about their conversation with Joost, and the possibility of using the local cranberries to cure the brown-water addiction, and only then had she dropped in the revelation about the dinosaur.  “Yes, sir, I did,” she said, still grinning broadly despite her efforts to pull herself back to something more closely approximating attention to a superior officer. “We were attacked by two dinosaurs, and managed to kill one. We figured the biology team would want to study the body, so we’re going to send it back through the gate.”

“_Want_ to study it? They’re going to _flip_!”

“Yes, sir, I thought they might,” Kathleen replied. She glanced back, watching Reinhart and Ked’rec trying to arrange the hagadis’s heavy body in a way that would make it easier to transport, and her smile turned oddly wistful. “The worst thing is,” she continued, her voice softening, “my nephew would flip even more. He’s crazy about dinosaurs, and here I am, having actually _seen_ one…but I can never tell him.”

“That’s working at the SGC for you, Major.” The General’s voice was gentler, too. “I had war stories that could top my granddad’s ten times over, but I could never tell him, either.”

“I guess so.” Kathleen’s smile was still sad, but it grew a little stronger as she said, “Thank you, sir. That’s all for now. I think I should be getting back to the others. The dinosaur should be coming to you soon. And the samples of the cranberries.”

“All right, Major. We’ll check on those cranberries for you, and see if the ones here have the same chemicals. Your Think Tank buddies are going to want to know if your cranberries are addictive, though, before they start using them to find a cure.”

“We’re looking into it, sir.” Kathleen resisted the urge to salute to the General’s voice, and settled for another, “Thank you, sir. Good night.”

Dr. Haas returned to the village from Joost’s house a short while later, still giddy with excitement at her recent victory over the dinosaur. “Good news!” she declared. “The cranberries don’t seem to be harmful, or to cause any replacement addiction. The trouble is that they aren’t really ripe yet – it’s too early in the season.”

“Well, we’ll have to figure out some way to deal with that.” Kathleen looked across the village green, watching Marka head back towards her cottage, and said more quietly,  “It’s probably just as well. I don’t think we’ll be able to persuade the villagers to stop drinking that water anytime soon.”

“Or we could just tie ‘em to a tree till they dry out,” Joe put in. Everyone turned to stare, with varying degrees of disapproval, shock, and exasperation. Joe just shrugged.

Kathleen cleared her throat, pointedly changing the subject. “Isn’t it about time for us to be getting to sleep?”

The villagers offered the use of one of the abandoned cottages, a two-room structure with its thatched roof nearly intact. Kathleen made appropriate expressions of gratitude, but there was a dubious look in her eyes as she surveyed the slightly cramped quarters, and Ked’rec cleared his throat quietly behind her. “I do not wish to impose,” the Jaffa said, with his usual calm tone, “and I do not need sleep in the way that humans do, but I will require privacy in order to properly complete my nightly meditation.”

“Some of us can bunk down in the town hall,” Reinhart offered. “There might be more room there.” Joe  found himself nodding in agreement, as Orieth’s anxious thoughts rose up. _Where will there be the most people? Safety in numbers. Safety in numbers…_

“All right,” Kathleen nodded. “Ked’rec, you can get the back room of the cottage. I can take the front, with Major McNair and Dr. Haas.”

**
December 24, 2010

Ked’rec moved nimbly despite the long hours he had spent in motionless, cross-legged meditation. He slipped out the back door of the cottage, avoiding the women still sleeping in the other room, and stepped out into the early-morning sunlight.

His head cocked, as if he were listening for something, but it was his sense of smell that had been alerted. Slowly, he turned his head, following the harsh, distant scent…and saw a plume of smoke, rising above the treeline.

Forest fire.


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## Obezyanchik (Jul 21, 2006)

GreenArmadillo said:
			
		

> I love Reinhart.




 

Yeah, me too.  I forgot about that one.


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## Tamlyn (Aug 22, 2007)

Ok guys. It's been a year and still no update. We've been patient enough.

Seriously, I've been going through the DVDs with my wife and realized that I've been missing this SH. So are y'all still playing? Can I bug you into sending an update or two?


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## Ladybird (Aug 25, 2007)

Awww. Thank you, Tam! It's good to know that there are still people out there reading.

Unfortunately, Real Life has pretty much swallowed the game - Joe's player has moved to California, and many of the rest of us are dealing with various levels of academic, professional, and personal busy-ness. I really hope that I will be able to write up the end of this session at some point, 'cause it was a great ending! But unfortunately, we haven't had another session since.

But! 

Obezyanchik and I are hoping to adapt some of the CMI material for Anonycon this December. Stay tuned - if any of you out there reading can make it to Connecticut, we'd love to meet you and have you play along!


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