SG-1 - Ordinary Extraordinary
Title: Ordinary Extraordinary
Genre: Gen, Friendship
Rating: PG
Length: About 3,500 words
Synopsis: It’s going to be a peaceful, relaxing mission where nothing goes terribly wrong. No, really it is.
Author’s Notes: For Bab’s challenge - Whump Daniel or Jack offworld with an ordinary object and have someone use another ordinary object to save them. This ended up a bit different than I originally intended, but I hope this suffices.
Disclaimer: I do not own them, people with a lot of money do. I am only borrowing them to play and making no profit from this.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was a quiet, relaxing mission. After all the crap that had been thrown at them lately, they really thought they deserved it, and General Hammond seemed to agree. A peaceful planet with no signs of life outside of the standard little critters they had come to know and expect and the ruins of a stone-like temple seemed to be the perfect solution. It was not a life or death scenario, but it had the potential to be one of those rare meaning of life scenarios instead.
“Can you pass me that light?” Daniel asked, glancing up from a particular section of carved pillar that had held his attention for the past half hour.
A flashlight dropped into his hand, a beaming Sam crouched beside him. “Didn’t think you’d need any more with all the natural light,” she smiled, peering at what he found so interesting.
The mission did not hold much for her, a simple temple on a planet with nothing other than a few geothermal energy signatures, but she was enjoying herself anyway. The temple was beautiful, with something similar to stained glass allowing light to stream in from colorful angles high above them. She had been busy postulating just what they were made of and how they had been placed so exactly to light nearly every corner of the central room into a living prism of brilliance.
She also had the joy of playing with all the awesome tech Daniel had brought along, possibly solely for her. The field of archeology was apparently changing and keeping up with modern advances, inventing new tools for old uses, speeding up some processes while adding details to others. They had measured the room in a matter of minutes, the laser equivalent of a measuring tape taking readings down to the fraction of a millimeter, and being able to reach the towering ceiling without the need for ladders and scaffolding or advanced mathematical calculations. She was also helping to document everything, not in old fashioned rubbings, though Daniel was still doing a bit of that, but with a digital camera she was seriously debating buying a version of for herself because it was truly just that neat.
All the technology in the world could not make up for a good old-fashioned hunch though, so here Daniel sat, traditional brush set and magnifying glass in hand, studying tiny carved text at the based of what had once been an elaborately decorated pillar. “There’s just something about the writing here,” he shrugged, stating the obvious, before shining the light on the place in question.
“Caught your attention?” she guessed, settling in beside him.
“Everything here is done on such a grand scale: the glass, the decorations, why put such tiny little text in pretty much the one place the light doesn’t touch?” he mused.
“Maybe it says, ‘Temple by Home Depot’ or the ancient equivalent,” Jack guessed, wandering back into the room. He had been checking out the rest of the structure with Teal’c, and possibly checking out the nearby stream for fishing opportunities of the damp cuffs of his trousers were any indication.
“Funny,” Daniel said dryly, barely glancing up at the intrusion. “From what I can discern, it’s a prayer of some sort. There’s something about ‘stability’ and ‘protection’ and something else I can’t quite make out.”
Jack made a non-committal noise that meant it ranked about a two or three on his internal interested scale, and started to wander around the room, checking it out. After a moment, he crouched down beside a matching pillar on the other side, shining the light from his P-90 to highlight what appeared to be tiny scratches across the bottom. “There’s more here too,” he pointed out. “Maybe it’s a prayer to the Evil Volcano Gods to not wipe them out or something.”
“That’s... actually not far off of an idea,” Daniel said, looking up in surprise.
“What?” Jack asked defensively. “I listen. I can come up with the crap from time to time.”
“There’s no volcanoes anywhere around here,” Sam pointed out. “The nearest one, per our estimates, is about fifteen miles away in the mountain range.” After getting the geothermal readings when they arrived on the planet, she had also taken more than a quick glance at the range in the distance, suggesting at least a section of it had been part of a once active cycle based on shaping and sizing.
“Could it not be a simple request for protection?” Teal’c asked from the doorway. “The columns in question appear to be load-bearing, perhaps the builders are asking for the strength of their gods to support it.”
Daniel blinked, and mentally reminded himself that his team had been working together for quite some time now, and had apparently heard many a lecture from him on various topics. He just didn’t think they had really been listening most of the time. “That actually seems likely,” he agreed. “It’s a temple, a place of their gods, and they could be either showing an extra layer of reverence, or simply hoping that all of their hard work be protected.”
“Seems to have worked, this thing survived better than most of the village,” Sam pointed out with a grin.
“Hmm, then maybe this little hidden panel is not holding some secret weapon or treasure, but an offering for their gods,” he said more to himself than to the others.
“I hate when he does that,” Jack mock sighed, standing from his crouch on the other side of the room. “Always has to one-up us based on something we don’t know. I thought we were doing good here, showing we were listening and learning and all that, didn’t you?”
“You were doing excellent,” Carter assured him, eyes twinkling.
“We were doing exceptionally well,” Teal’c agreed. “Daniel Jackson should be proud of his teaching abilities.”
The teacher in question chuffed out a laugh. “I am proud, of all of you, for not just zoning out all this time,” he promised. “I only saw it while you were talking, I swear.”
He reached for it, only to be stopped by O’Neill’s chiding, “Nuh-uh-ah, no touchy before translatey. If it’s a weapon...”
“No trace of anything to indicate anything sinister or evil, and Sam’s already confirmed there’s no energy signatures anywhere near here,” Daniel pointed out. “Not to mention that the few words I can decipher correlate with the group hypothesis here. It’s a drawer, Jack, a simple, stone drawer.” To prove his point, he dug his fingers into a tiny grooved latch and pulled, revealing exactly what he said it would be.
He peered in, feeling Sam at his side, finding tiny little baubles and remnants of what looked to have been feathers and fabric long ago. “Gifts to the gods,” he guessed.
“See if there’s one over there, sir,” Carter suggested.
The floor chose that moment to rumble with barely felt vibrations, sending bits of dust cascading down through the light. “Yeah, because that’s not ominous,” Jack muttered. He fumbled along the wall for a moment, fingers skating over stone, before pulling out a matching little square aperture. “We’ve got beads, something glass, and something that was either a feather fan or a dead chicken, but there’s no bones so I’m going with the fan,” he reported.
“See, no death rays,” Daniel grinned. He carefully placed the artifacts in the case Sam so helpfully provided before grabbing his gear and standing. He had planned on going over to Jack’s side of the building to collect whatever he had found, but something else caught his eye.
Knowing what he was looking for now, he found the little latch in the wall with no problem, barely tugging before it swung open on a central axis of it’s own accord. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the lack of light, but it was definitely worth it when he did. Before him lay a narrow room spanning nearly the full length of the temple. There were beautiful carved wooden cabinets and tables, and even two beds at opposite ends of the dwelling. Hanging on hooks were the remnants of what appeared to have once been elaborate garments and the shelves held what looked to be incense and candle holders.
“What did you find?” O’Neill’s voice echoed across the temple proper.
Daniel had already squeezed through one side, followed closely by Sam, but called back, “I think I found the quarters for the clergy.”
“This is extraordinary,” Sam breathed, taking the light from his hand and shining it around the dusty space. She carefully turned a crank set about waist level, and wooden shades pulled back from tiny windows, leaving dust and debris crumbling down upon her. She removed her hand quickly, looking over to Daniel apologetically. “Not touching,” she promised.
He followed after her, finding more of the tiny carvings now that he could see. He pulled his magnifying glass back out and placed his kit on the floor, trying to read some of the text he had found. “It makes sense, really,” he commented without looking up. “Priests and priestesses typically lived near the temple they served, if not within the temple itself. In Ancient Greece...” he began, but was cut off by another low rumbling.
“Daniel?” Carter asked, echoing O’Neill’s own worried call when the shaking did not taper off, but grew in intensity.
“Seems like you were right about the whole geothermal activity,” he mused without humor.
“Not a volcano, but an earthquake caused by the eruption,” she guessed, nearly shouting over the sounds of shaking stone and wood.
The door to the quarters slammed shut with a resounding thud, followed shortly by the sounds of Jack’s swearing, first through the walls and then through the radio connection. “You guys all right in there?” he demanded.
“Fine, sir,” Carter responded, brushing dust out of her hair and eyes as things seemed to finally die down.
That was, of course, when the floor decided to pitch again, sending a wooden dresser-like thing teetering to the floor. Daniel jumped out of the way just in time, but lost his balance as the ground lurched once more, crashing to the floor. “Ouch,” he bemoaned, followed shortly by, “Crap!” as the incense holders and candlesticks started to tumble around him. He tucked himself into a ball, letting a couple bounce harmlessly off his shoulder, finally unwinding himself when the worse seemed to be over.
“You okay?” Sam asked, pulling him up into a sitting position.
“Fine,” he insisted, looking at the damage. Aside from the dresser, one shelf was barely hanging on, and there were bits and pieces of rubble everywhere. “I don’t think this place is going to be the same though,” he sighed.
“I don’t think this is the first time this happened,” she pointed out, shining her light along one long wall. On the floor were various other baubles, some already broken, and all covered in dust.
“Still, it’s a loss to a nearly perfectly preserved site,” he pointed out, taking her offered hand to stand upright before wincing in pain.
Sam, of course, saw everything. “What’s wrong? Where are you hurt?” she demanded. “Did you hit your head?”
He shook it and felt no pain, from it at least. “Nothing more than bruises,” he promised, rolling his shoulders and feeling the slight tug that accompanied the damaged skin. Then, slightly more shyly, he offered, “And this.” He held up his left hand, and the remnants of his magnifying glass, revealing thick shards of glass embedded in his palm, slowly staining red. “Must have landed on it,” he sighed in disappointment.
Sam cradled the injured hand in her own, trying to angle the light to see the full extent of the damage. “We can get you a new magnifying glass when we get back,” she promised him. “Hopefully one that doesn’t break so easily.”
“I’ve had that one since grad school. It’s been all over the Earth, but I guess the galaxy was just too much for it,” he commented resignedly. He made a face as she turned his hand just a bit too much, feeling the glass grind inside his skin. “Ow...”
“Let’s get you back to the main room, the med kit’s there and there will be better light to get out all the pieces,” she directed, gently releasing him.
That was, of course, when she realized the door had slammed shut, blending in completely with the stone wall. Daniel cradled the injury close to him, picking up his remaining gear and stuffing it in his site kit with his good hand. “There was a little latch on the other side. There should be something similar here, if not more obvious,” he advised, shouldering his pack.
“Got it,” she said, finding a corded handle attached to the wall roughly where the door had been. She gave it a gentle tug, but it did not budge. She pulled harder, swearing profusely when it crumbled in her hands, leaving only a tiny divot where it had been attached.
“That’s not good,” Daniel sighed, leaning up against the wall. He eyed the little windows that were still letting in bits of light, but discounted them as way too small to fit through.
She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. “Let’s look at this logically,” she began. “Swinging door, cord on one side to pull, doesn’t it make sense to try pushing the other side?” Setting actions to words, she pressed on the side opposite where the handle had hung, grunting with exertion and swearing once again when it did not budge.
“Maybe there’s a lock or a latch or something attached to the cord so the lay people don’t accidentally wander into the clergy’s space?” Daniel suggested.
Sam shined the light on the little divot, looking for the locking mechanism. She pressed her fingers in and around it, but pulled back and shook her head at her companion. Keying her radio, she called, “Sir? Teal’c? Are you there?”
“Where else would we be?” came the tinny reply.
“Can you try the door on your side, sir? It appears to be stuck.”
“What do you think we’ve been trying to do for the last five minutes, Carter?” he responded. “It looks like there’s debris and crap stuck along the edges. We’ll keep trying on this end. You two okay in there?”
“Daniel sliced his hand a bit, but no serious injuries,” she reported. “I’ll see what I can do for him with what we’ve got and then we’ll see about getting out of here. Carter out.”
“It’s not that serious, Sam,” Daniel insisted. “Of all the things in here that I could have gotten hurt with, it was my own damn glass that did it,” he added, chagrined.
She had already set her light down on one of the remaining shelves and was digging through the pockets of her vest for supplies. “It can’t hurt to take care of it right away,” she insisted. “With all of this dirt, who knows what kinds of microbes could be at work. Not to mention, you’re dripping on your artifacts.” She had added the last part with a grin, and he knew she was shooting for what would hurt the most.
“Fine,” he relented. He eyed the supplies she had found, mostly spare ammo and C4, with a tiny syringe of morphine and a small pack of bandages. “I don’t think that’s going to get the glass out,” he pointed out. He unrolled his kit, revealing brushes and picks and a large set of near forceps-sized tweezers. His own vest was still on the other side of the wall with the main med kit.
“Those are too big,” Sam said, pointing to the forceps. “This might do the trick though.” She pulled out one final item from her pants pocket: a standard red Swiss Army knife, complete with the little tweezers and even a nail file and corkscrew.
He settled himself on one of the old wooden chairs, using his dusty bandana to catch the droplets of blood before they fell to the carpeted floor, while Carter used a little alcohol wipe she found with her bandages to give the tweezers a rough sanitation. He held her flashlight with his good hand while she picked out the larger pieces first, swabbing the area with one of the bandages, before moving on to the smaller pieces. He tried very hard not to flinch, even when she ran another alcohol wipe across the injured area, before tying the last clean bandage into place.
“That should be good enough for now,” she told him, straightening up and popping her back into place.
“Thanks,” he said, flexing his hand against the white fabric. “Now, let’s see if we can get out of here,” he suggested, standing once more.
As if on cue, their radios crackled to life. “Hey, Carter? Daniel? It looks like a no-go from this end,” O’Neill was reporting. “Even the little latch thing won’t move. Teal’c tried brute force, but all it did was dislodge a bit of the dirt. How’s things on your end?”
“I’ve got Daniel patched up and we’re going to give it another try here,” Sam responded, shoving things back into her pockets.
Daniel tried pressing against the door again, before realizing that was not the wisest course of action with a recently bandaged hand. He left Sam poking and prodding while he started to go through some of the smaller artifacts on the floor and shelving. “Maybe they had a backup in case this happened to them,” he explained, opening a drawer to reveal an exquisitely preserved example of ceremonial robes.
The drawer beside it held the remnants of a scarf of some kind, golden embroidery shining like spider webs over the few filaments of fabric remaining. Next to that was a wooden ring with several metal and stone pieces hanging from it. He squinted down, knowing to move it would most likely destroy the decaying structure. Four pieces matched the designs in the architecture outside, but three were curved into spirals of varying sizes, wider at the top and tapering down at the tips.
“Hey, Sam, can I see that Swiss Army knife of yours?” he asked, looking up to see her working the blade of her standard military issue knife between the stones.
She tossed it to him from her pocket, and he fumbled for it one handed, barely catching it. “The blade’s not long enough to get to the other side of the wall,” she pointed out. “This one’s not either, but I figure if the Colonel works from his end and us from ours, we might get it.”
“It’s not the blade I’m interested in,” he replied distractedly, prying open the corkscrew end and comparing it to what he was pretty certain were this society’s equivalent of keys.
With the hint of a motion, Carter stepped away and radioed for their teammates to do the same. The angle was a bit off, but with a bit of manipulating, he was able to slide the tip into the divot in the door and twist. There was the distinctive sound of a latch being released, and the door shuddered slightly. A shove from Sam, and Jack’s gloved hands came into view, pressing from the opposite side. Debris showered down on them and the light poured in from the other side, revealing two smiling teammates.
“Way to go, Danny!” Jack congratulated him, slapping him on the shoulder as he emerged back into the temple proper.
Daniel tried not to wince from his friend inadvertently finding pretty much his only bruise as he carefully closed the knife and handed it back to Sam. “So,” he said, blinking against the colorful light. “Who wants camera duty?”
He took the offered canteen from Jack while he watched Teal’c slide one of the hard-sided equipment cases into one side of the opening, making sure there were no further unfortunate accidents. Sam was digging through the medical kit for antibiotics he knew she would force him to take, just as he knew no one would tear him away just yet. There were samples to be taken and artifacts to record and fabrics to bring back that would have the textiles department in a happy haze for weeks. They would leave if the seismic activity resurfaced or grew in intensity but, in the meantime, he was determined to learn as much as he could.
After a more thorough cleansing and rewrapping of his hand, Sam grabbed the measuring tools and her laptop and Jack grabbed a spare memory chip for the camera. Both very studiously looked away at the pretty lights and patterns as he carefully replaced the offerings from earlier in the little stone drawers and slid them back into place. As he looked up, he saw Teal’c at his side, eyebrow raised in question. “It can’t hurt to have the gods on our side,” he shrugged.
Teal’c said nothing, but merely nodded. As he grabbed his own gear, Daniel glanced back and swore he saw the hint of an approving smile on his teammate’s face. Offering his own grin in return, he gestured towards the waiting temple and its hidden room. “Let’s get to work.”
End.
~~~~~~~~~~
Feedback is always welcomed.
Genre: Gen, Friendship
Rating: PG
Length: About 3,500 words
Synopsis: It’s going to be a peaceful, relaxing mission where nothing goes terribly wrong. No, really it is.
Author’s Notes: For Bab’s challenge - Whump Daniel or Jack offworld with an ordinary object and have someone use another ordinary object to save them. This ended up a bit different than I originally intended, but I hope this suffices.
Disclaimer: I do not own them, people with a lot of money do. I am only borrowing them to play and making no profit from this.
~~~~~~~~~~
It was a quiet, relaxing mission. After all the crap that had been thrown at them lately, they really thought they deserved it, and General Hammond seemed to agree. A peaceful planet with no signs of life outside of the standard little critters they had come to know and expect and the ruins of a stone-like temple seemed to be the perfect solution. It was not a life or death scenario, but it had the potential to be one of those rare meaning of life scenarios instead.
“Can you pass me that light?” Daniel asked, glancing up from a particular section of carved pillar that had held his attention for the past half hour.
A flashlight dropped into his hand, a beaming Sam crouched beside him. “Didn’t think you’d need any more with all the natural light,” she smiled, peering at what he found so interesting.
The mission did not hold much for her, a simple temple on a planet with nothing other than a few geothermal energy signatures, but she was enjoying herself anyway. The temple was beautiful, with something similar to stained glass allowing light to stream in from colorful angles high above them. She had been busy postulating just what they were made of and how they had been placed so exactly to light nearly every corner of the central room into a living prism of brilliance.
She also had the joy of playing with all the awesome tech Daniel had brought along, possibly solely for her. The field of archeology was apparently changing and keeping up with modern advances, inventing new tools for old uses, speeding up some processes while adding details to others. They had measured the room in a matter of minutes, the laser equivalent of a measuring tape taking readings down to the fraction of a millimeter, and being able to reach the towering ceiling without the need for ladders and scaffolding or advanced mathematical calculations. She was also helping to document everything, not in old fashioned rubbings, though Daniel was still doing a bit of that, but with a digital camera she was seriously debating buying a version of for herself because it was truly just that neat.
All the technology in the world could not make up for a good old-fashioned hunch though, so here Daniel sat, traditional brush set and magnifying glass in hand, studying tiny carved text at the based of what had once been an elaborately decorated pillar. “There’s just something about the writing here,” he shrugged, stating the obvious, before shining the light on the place in question.
“Caught your attention?” she guessed, settling in beside him.
“Everything here is done on such a grand scale: the glass, the decorations, why put such tiny little text in pretty much the one place the light doesn’t touch?” he mused.
“Maybe it says, ‘Temple by Home Depot’ or the ancient equivalent,” Jack guessed, wandering back into the room. He had been checking out the rest of the structure with Teal’c, and possibly checking out the nearby stream for fishing opportunities of the damp cuffs of his trousers were any indication.
“Funny,” Daniel said dryly, barely glancing up at the intrusion. “From what I can discern, it’s a prayer of some sort. There’s something about ‘stability’ and ‘protection’ and something else I can’t quite make out.”
Jack made a non-committal noise that meant it ranked about a two or three on his internal interested scale, and started to wander around the room, checking it out. After a moment, he crouched down beside a matching pillar on the other side, shining the light from his P-90 to highlight what appeared to be tiny scratches across the bottom. “There’s more here too,” he pointed out. “Maybe it’s a prayer to the Evil Volcano Gods to not wipe them out or something.”
“That’s... actually not far off of an idea,” Daniel said, looking up in surprise.
“What?” Jack asked defensively. “I listen. I can come up with the crap from time to time.”
“There’s no volcanoes anywhere around here,” Sam pointed out. “The nearest one, per our estimates, is about fifteen miles away in the mountain range.” After getting the geothermal readings when they arrived on the planet, she had also taken more than a quick glance at the range in the distance, suggesting at least a section of it had been part of a once active cycle based on shaping and sizing.
“Could it not be a simple request for protection?” Teal’c asked from the doorway. “The columns in question appear to be load-bearing, perhaps the builders are asking for the strength of their gods to support it.”
Daniel blinked, and mentally reminded himself that his team had been working together for quite some time now, and had apparently heard many a lecture from him on various topics. He just didn’t think they had really been listening most of the time. “That actually seems likely,” he agreed. “It’s a temple, a place of their gods, and they could be either showing an extra layer of reverence, or simply hoping that all of their hard work be protected.”
“Seems to have worked, this thing survived better than most of the village,” Sam pointed out with a grin.
“Hmm, then maybe this little hidden panel is not holding some secret weapon or treasure, but an offering for their gods,” he said more to himself than to the others.
“I hate when he does that,” Jack mock sighed, standing from his crouch on the other side of the room. “Always has to one-up us based on something we don’t know. I thought we were doing good here, showing we were listening and learning and all that, didn’t you?”
“You were doing excellent,” Carter assured him, eyes twinkling.
“We were doing exceptionally well,” Teal’c agreed. “Daniel Jackson should be proud of his teaching abilities.”
The teacher in question chuffed out a laugh. “I am proud, of all of you, for not just zoning out all this time,” he promised. “I only saw it while you were talking, I swear.”
He reached for it, only to be stopped by O’Neill’s chiding, “Nuh-uh-ah, no touchy before translatey. If it’s a weapon...”
“No trace of anything to indicate anything sinister or evil, and Sam’s already confirmed there’s no energy signatures anywhere near here,” Daniel pointed out. “Not to mention that the few words I can decipher correlate with the group hypothesis here. It’s a drawer, Jack, a simple, stone drawer.” To prove his point, he dug his fingers into a tiny grooved latch and pulled, revealing exactly what he said it would be.
He peered in, feeling Sam at his side, finding tiny little baubles and remnants of what looked to have been feathers and fabric long ago. “Gifts to the gods,” he guessed.
“See if there’s one over there, sir,” Carter suggested.
The floor chose that moment to rumble with barely felt vibrations, sending bits of dust cascading down through the light. “Yeah, because that’s not ominous,” Jack muttered. He fumbled along the wall for a moment, fingers skating over stone, before pulling out a matching little square aperture. “We’ve got beads, something glass, and something that was either a feather fan or a dead chicken, but there’s no bones so I’m going with the fan,” he reported.
“See, no death rays,” Daniel grinned. He carefully placed the artifacts in the case Sam so helpfully provided before grabbing his gear and standing. He had planned on going over to Jack’s side of the building to collect whatever he had found, but something else caught his eye.
Knowing what he was looking for now, he found the little latch in the wall with no problem, barely tugging before it swung open on a central axis of it’s own accord. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the lack of light, but it was definitely worth it when he did. Before him lay a narrow room spanning nearly the full length of the temple. There were beautiful carved wooden cabinets and tables, and even two beds at opposite ends of the dwelling. Hanging on hooks were the remnants of what appeared to have once been elaborate garments and the shelves held what looked to be incense and candle holders.
“What did you find?” O’Neill’s voice echoed across the temple proper.
Daniel had already squeezed through one side, followed closely by Sam, but called back, “I think I found the quarters for the clergy.”
“This is extraordinary,” Sam breathed, taking the light from his hand and shining it around the dusty space. She carefully turned a crank set about waist level, and wooden shades pulled back from tiny windows, leaving dust and debris crumbling down upon her. She removed her hand quickly, looking over to Daniel apologetically. “Not touching,” she promised.
He followed after her, finding more of the tiny carvings now that he could see. He pulled his magnifying glass back out and placed his kit on the floor, trying to read some of the text he had found. “It makes sense, really,” he commented without looking up. “Priests and priestesses typically lived near the temple they served, if not within the temple itself. In Ancient Greece...” he began, but was cut off by another low rumbling.
“Daniel?” Carter asked, echoing O’Neill’s own worried call when the shaking did not taper off, but grew in intensity.
“Seems like you were right about the whole geothermal activity,” he mused without humor.
“Not a volcano, but an earthquake caused by the eruption,” she guessed, nearly shouting over the sounds of shaking stone and wood.
The door to the quarters slammed shut with a resounding thud, followed shortly by the sounds of Jack’s swearing, first through the walls and then through the radio connection. “You guys all right in there?” he demanded.
“Fine, sir,” Carter responded, brushing dust out of her hair and eyes as things seemed to finally die down.
That was, of course, when the floor decided to pitch again, sending a wooden dresser-like thing teetering to the floor. Daniel jumped out of the way just in time, but lost his balance as the ground lurched once more, crashing to the floor. “Ouch,” he bemoaned, followed shortly by, “Crap!” as the incense holders and candlesticks started to tumble around him. He tucked himself into a ball, letting a couple bounce harmlessly off his shoulder, finally unwinding himself when the worse seemed to be over.
“You okay?” Sam asked, pulling him up into a sitting position.
“Fine,” he insisted, looking at the damage. Aside from the dresser, one shelf was barely hanging on, and there were bits and pieces of rubble everywhere. “I don’t think this place is going to be the same though,” he sighed.
“I don’t think this is the first time this happened,” she pointed out, shining her light along one long wall. On the floor were various other baubles, some already broken, and all covered in dust.
“Still, it’s a loss to a nearly perfectly preserved site,” he pointed out, taking her offered hand to stand upright before wincing in pain.
Sam, of course, saw everything. “What’s wrong? Where are you hurt?” she demanded. “Did you hit your head?”
He shook it and felt no pain, from it at least. “Nothing more than bruises,” he promised, rolling his shoulders and feeling the slight tug that accompanied the damaged skin. Then, slightly more shyly, he offered, “And this.” He held up his left hand, and the remnants of his magnifying glass, revealing thick shards of glass embedded in his palm, slowly staining red. “Must have landed on it,” he sighed in disappointment.
Sam cradled the injured hand in her own, trying to angle the light to see the full extent of the damage. “We can get you a new magnifying glass when we get back,” she promised him. “Hopefully one that doesn’t break so easily.”
“I’ve had that one since grad school. It’s been all over the Earth, but I guess the galaxy was just too much for it,” he commented resignedly. He made a face as she turned his hand just a bit too much, feeling the glass grind inside his skin. “Ow...”
“Let’s get you back to the main room, the med kit’s there and there will be better light to get out all the pieces,” she directed, gently releasing him.
That was, of course, when she realized the door had slammed shut, blending in completely with the stone wall. Daniel cradled the injury close to him, picking up his remaining gear and stuffing it in his site kit with his good hand. “There was a little latch on the other side. There should be something similar here, if not more obvious,” he advised, shouldering his pack.
“Got it,” she said, finding a corded handle attached to the wall roughly where the door had been. She gave it a gentle tug, but it did not budge. She pulled harder, swearing profusely when it crumbled in her hands, leaving only a tiny divot where it had been attached.
“That’s not good,” Daniel sighed, leaning up against the wall. He eyed the little windows that were still letting in bits of light, but discounted them as way too small to fit through.
She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. “Let’s look at this logically,” she began. “Swinging door, cord on one side to pull, doesn’t it make sense to try pushing the other side?” Setting actions to words, she pressed on the side opposite where the handle had hung, grunting with exertion and swearing once again when it did not budge.
“Maybe there’s a lock or a latch or something attached to the cord so the lay people don’t accidentally wander into the clergy’s space?” Daniel suggested.
Sam shined the light on the little divot, looking for the locking mechanism. She pressed her fingers in and around it, but pulled back and shook her head at her companion. Keying her radio, she called, “Sir? Teal’c? Are you there?”
“Where else would we be?” came the tinny reply.
“Can you try the door on your side, sir? It appears to be stuck.”
“What do you think we’ve been trying to do for the last five minutes, Carter?” he responded. “It looks like there’s debris and crap stuck along the edges. We’ll keep trying on this end. You two okay in there?”
“Daniel sliced his hand a bit, but no serious injuries,” she reported. “I’ll see what I can do for him with what we’ve got and then we’ll see about getting out of here. Carter out.”
“It’s not that serious, Sam,” Daniel insisted. “Of all the things in here that I could have gotten hurt with, it was my own damn glass that did it,” he added, chagrined.
She had already set her light down on one of the remaining shelves and was digging through the pockets of her vest for supplies. “It can’t hurt to take care of it right away,” she insisted. “With all of this dirt, who knows what kinds of microbes could be at work. Not to mention, you’re dripping on your artifacts.” She had added the last part with a grin, and he knew she was shooting for what would hurt the most.
“Fine,” he relented. He eyed the supplies she had found, mostly spare ammo and C4, with a tiny syringe of morphine and a small pack of bandages. “I don’t think that’s going to get the glass out,” he pointed out. He unrolled his kit, revealing brushes and picks and a large set of near forceps-sized tweezers. His own vest was still on the other side of the wall with the main med kit.
“Those are too big,” Sam said, pointing to the forceps. “This might do the trick though.” She pulled out one final item from her pants pocket: a standard red Swiss Army knife, complete with the little tweezers and even a nail file and corkscrew.
He settled himself on one of the old wooden chairs, using his dusty bandana to catch the droplets of blood before they fell to the carpeted floor, while Carter used a little alcohol wipe she found with her bandages to give the tweezers a rough sanitation. He held her flashlight with his good hand while she picked out the larger pieces first, swabbing the area with one of the bandages, before moving on to the smaller pieces. He tried very hard not to flinch, even when she ran another alcohol wipe across the injured area, before tying the last clean bandage into place.
“That should be good enough for now,” she told him, straightening up and popping her back into place.
“Thanks,” he said, flexing his hand against the white fabric. “Now, let’s see if we can get out of here,” he suggested, standing once more.
As if on cue, their radios crackled to life. “Hey, Carter? Daniel? It looks like a no-go from this end,” O’Neill was reporting. “Even the little latch thing won’t move. Teal’c tried brute force, but all it did was dislodge a bit of the dirt. How’s things on your end?”
“I’ve got Daniel patched up and we’re going to give it another try here,” Sam responded, shoving things back into her pockets.
Daniel tried pressing against the door again, before realizing that was not the wisest course of action with a recently bandaged hand. He left Sam poking and prodding while he started to go through some of the smaller artifacts on the floor and shelving. “Maybe they had a backup in case this happened to them,” he explained, opening a drawer to reveal an exquisitely preserved example of ceremonial robes.
The drawer beside it held the remnants of a scarf of some kind, golden embroidery shining like spider webs over the few filaments of fabric remaining. Next to that was a wooden ring with several metal and stone pieces hanging from it. He squinted down, knowing to move it would most likely destroy the decaying structure. Four pieces matched the designs in the architecture outside, but three were curved into spirals of varying sizes, wider at the top and tapering down at the tips.
“Hey, Sam, can I see that Swiss Army knife of yours?” he asked, looking up to see her working the blade of her standard military issue knife between the stones.
She tossed it to him from her pocket, and he fumbled for it one handed, barely catching it. “The blade’s not long enough to get to the other side of the wall,” she pointed out. “This one’s not either, but I figure if the Colonel works from his end and us from ours, we might get it.”
“It’s not the blade I’m interested in,” he replied distractedly, prying open the corkscrew end and comparing it to what he was pretty certain were this society’s equivalent of keys.
With the hint of a motion, Carter stepped away and radioed for their teammates to do the same. The angle was a bit off, but with a bit of manipulating, he was able to slide the tip into the divot in the door and twist. There was the distinctive sound of a latch being released, and the door shuddered slightly. A shove from Sam, and Jack’s gloved hands came into view, pressing from the opposite side. Debris showered down on them and the light poured in from the other side, revealing two smiling teammates.
“Way to go, Danny!” Jack congratulated him, slapping him on the shoulder as he emerged back into the temple proper.
Daniel tried not to wince from his friend inadvertently finding pretty much his only bruise as he carefully closed the knife and handed it back to Sam. “So,” he said, blinking against the colorful light. “Who wants camera duty?”
He took the offered canteen from Jack while he watched Teal’c slide one of the hard-sided equipment cases into one side of the opening, making sure there were no further unfortunate accidents. Sam was digging through the medical kit for antibiotics he knew she would force him to take, just as he knew no one would tear him away just yet. There were samples to be taken and artifacts to record and fabrics to bring back that would have the textiles department in a happy haze for weeks. They would leave if the seismic activity resurfaced or grew in intensity but, in the meantime, he was determined to learn as much as he could.
After a more thorough cleansing and rewrapping of his hand, Sam grabbed the measuring tools and her laptop and Jack grabbed a spare memory chip for the camera. Both very studiously looked away at the pretty lights and patterns as he carefully replaced the offerings from earlier in the little stone drawers and slid them back into place. As he looked up, he saw Teal’c at his side, eyebrow raised in question. “It can’t hurt to have the gods on our side,” he shrugged.
Teal’c said nothing, but merely nodded. As he grabbed his own gear, Daniel glanced back and swore he saw the hint of an approving smile on his teammate’s face. Offering his own grin in return, he gestured towards the waiting temple and its hidden room. “Let’s get to work.”
End.
~~~~~~~~~~
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