Rites & Passages
Rites and Passage
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for some language, gen
Spoilers: References Stargate (the movie), COTG, Enemy Within
For Settiai
Request details: The very first mission-gone-wrong where SG-1 (who are still barely strangers) have to work together as a team in order to survive.
Didn't Want: AU. Any type of non-con. Non-canon character death (unless it's temporary since - hey, Stargate).
Notes: Big thanks to SG Fignewton for a fast and excellent beta
"I wouldn't mind babysitting that."
Jack glanced over to where the muttered words had come from-a couple of green around the edges Marines, one of them not old enough to need shaving every day. He followed their stares to Carter's ass-she was bent over to help adjust the holster strap for Daniel's sidearm. Jack might not have said anything, except one of the jarheads added, "Yep, that's cute in my book."
He gave a small shake of his head, because no way could he let that ride. And he glanced over, determined to nip this before it became any kind of routine. Nice as pie, he asked, "Are you, by any chance, referring to a superior officer?" He glanced at the guy's uniform. "Sergeant?"
Both the kids went eyes-front stiff. Jack looked from one to the other and wondered which of 'em had been bored enough to egg the other into being stupid.
"Sir, no, sir."
Jack nodded, smiled like it was a good answer. "Right. So you're not talking about me. That mean you're calling Dr. Jackson cute?"
At the mention of his name, Daniel looked up. Jack caught the vague, blue-eyed stare in his peripheral vision, and he heard snickers going around the rest of the guards in the gateroom. Losing interest, Daniel went back to helping Carter fuss, and Jack decided he was going to have to get those two in the habit of gearing up in the gear-up room, not here. Then Jack went back to the jarheads.
The guy on the left had shot some sharp glares to quiet the muffled laughter. The other one went grim-faced at even the hint he might be looking at a guy, and said, words crisp as a new bill, "No, sir."
"Ah." Jack said. He turned and called out, "Hey, Teal'c, these guys think you're cute."
The snickers started again. They died as Teal'c stepped over, into looming range. He stared down at the jarheads, mouth pulled into the kind of scowl that had probably put religion into more than a few Jaffa recruits. Words measured in slow certainty, he asked, "This is an insult?"
"Oh, no, no," Jack said, his tone easy. He flashed a smile and added, "In fact, these two were just done being real cute, too. It's an expression."
Teal'c kept his stare on the baby-faced jarheads as if he was taking down their numbers-phone and serial. He nodded and turned his back to them. But he didn't move away. He planted the butt of his staff weapon between his feet so he stayed in easy hearing range of so much as a whisper from either of these two.
Jack glanced at the Marines. They were still mustering up like good soldiers and trying like damn not to sweat with Teal'c smack between them and any line of vision to Carter or Daniel. Jack would cut them some slack this time. They were good people-he couldn't see Hammond putting up with anything less. But these two were also Marines, and that meant they hadn't signed up to be hang-back wallflowers. They wanted action. After two weeks of a lot of heart-pumping knocking on the door, things had quieted down at what was now Stargate Command. That meant, from here on, the place you wanted to be, if you wanted to be in the middle of everything, was on one of the 'gate teams.
Jockeying for one of those coveted spots had gone past good natured about two days ago, and Jack had been hearing grumbles that hadn't yet settled. Not many, but a few, resented that a civilian had gotten on a team. But pity covered a lot with Daniel and shut up most of the complaints, because how could you grouse about a guy who wanted-needed-to find his wife and brother-in-law. The fact that Daniel had lived off-world for a year-and had been teaching classes in 'gate addresses and dialing sequences and languages-had gotten him some respect.
Not so for Teal'c, and there'd been mutters about trusting an alien-although not many would say anything to Teal'c's face, not when they had to look up to six-something and a few hundred pounds of muscle to say it. Jack had also heard some of the gossip about the captain in a skirt who'd waltzed in with a general for a daddy and no actual ground-combat on her record, and looking like she did, you had to know what that meant.
He wanted that kind of talk stopped dead.
It'd start as rumor, then spread. He'd seen it kill one good officer's career-got her a transfer out of a front line S&R unit and back home to training duties. And he might have bitched about Carter to Hammond because of the science background, but she'd done good on Chulak, and she and Daniel had started geek-night sleepovers in each other's labs. She even seemed okay with Teal'c, so all of that meant Jack was not letting some jarheads screw her over by noticing that ass of hers. Well, they could notice, but they'd damn well better keep it to themselves. Hell, they better keep a lid on it even if they noticed Teal'c or Daniel's asses, too.
These two Marines now looked like they were sorry they'd noticed anything, and the 'gate whooshing out-billowing a blue-white splash of water that wasn't wet, then sucking it back-got them a reprieve. Jack turned away and saw that Daniel and Carter had each lit up about as bright as the 'gate. God, it was going to be exhausting babysitting these two again today.
He'd been doing that for about three missions now-milk run recons, pretty much, since the heart-thumping panic of Chulak. And they’d all started with this eager-eyed enthusiasm in both of 'em. Then he'd watch disappointment settle in Daniel's eyes-the man never said anything, but Jack had caught the slump in the guy's shoulders, the jaw tightening against frustration at not having gained a clue to where his wife might be. Daniel would go quiet. And Carter's wide-eyed wonder would dim when she realized they didn't have time for all the experiments getting listed somewhere in her head. Then Teal'c would glance around like he was ticked off at the world for not giving him a bad guy to shoot. Jack told himself he loved these missions-quiet recon. Yep. Just the ticket. Gave 'em time, like breaking in a new car, slow and easy. That was the best. Except he was getting damned bored, too. And he wasn't getting the vibe off his team that he had a team.
He had three people. One with a noble quest, one with what looked like some not very noble scores to settle, and one who had an attitude about proving herself. That made it too likely that one of these days, these three would split into different directions unless Jack had them tied heart and soul to each other.
They had a few ties already from Chulak-but Jack wanted more, and he wanted deeper. He needed them to know they could lean on him or each other for anything, and he didn't know how to get to that point with milk runs. Maybe some ruins would help-they'd at least give Daniel a distraction from that undercurrent of misery dragging at him, and they had a full three days for poking around, so Carter would have time for measuring things. Teal'c would just have to be the one to settle for not getting anything to shoot. Buy, hey, there was always target practice, right?
"Come on, campers. The great out-there beckons." He swept an arm out, got a muted smile from Carter, and a blank look from Daniel, and Teal'c led the way up the ramp, setting the pace for all of them. They stepped through the 'gate, and onto the ground of another world. Jack tugged his cap lower and tried not to grin. God-what a rush. A few billion miles in a few milliseconds. Best drug in the galaxy to go through that gut-churning, skin-tingling wringer, and now he really couldn't blame those jarheads for just a little resentment that Carter got to do this, and they didn't.
He glanced back at Carter, found her checking over the MALP. Daniel was staring around them, turning in a slow circle, one hand up to hold his helmet in place and his mouth open to fly catch. Except there weren't any flies. Didn't seem to be much of anyone around, even if it looked something like a civic center. A plaza of sorts. A sharp wind that had teeth said they were up high. The thin air pulled into your lungs with labored breaths, and Jack made a note to remind everyone to stay hydrated, and to keep the exertion down for a day or so. But they were already used to Colorado, so it wouldn't be too much of a strain to get use to the altitude here.
The plaza just looked like a wide-open area, paved with a pale stone. Tall buildings edged one side, done up in more of that pale stone. Most were square, squat structures that had neglect hung on their bones. Something about them made them just butt ugly-the proportions maybe, with them being low and wide. And no windows. Or maybe it was all that plain, pale stone. A couple had the shape of a pyramid, and Jack turned to Daniel. "Goa'uld?"
Daniel shook his head, his mouth still hanging, then said, "I don't think so. Austerity doesn't exactly seem to fit would-be gods. And this isn't Egyptian, although there are faint echoes back to-"
"Good enough." With a nod, Jack turned to look the other way, to where the plaza seemed to fall out and open to a vista. He strode off that direction, and at the edge of a wide, long flight of shallow steps, he stopped and let out a soft, "Whoa."
He heard a step next to him and glanced over at Daniel.
Hands loose at his sides, but fingers twitching restless, Daniel stared out over miles and miles of an empty, ruined city. "Big place," Daniel said.
Jack glanced at him. There was a lot he didn't know about Daniel-hell, most things. He knew Daniel liked to talk, but he had no idea what was the man's favorite food, if he liked sports-he'd bet not-or even if Daniel had been genuinely happy on Abydos. But some things you knew without knowing; he knew he could trust this guy. He had trusted Daniel for a lot of things already. There was bedrock here, the kind that Jack sounded for in any one he served with, and Daniel's pinged hard and steady. But he had just learned one thing new-Daniel seemed to like understatement. Which was an odd mix to go with all that chatter.
Jack looked out at the city, took in the holes in the roofs, the wide streets that didn't give you any kind of good cover, the ugly pale buildings, the square and more pyramid shapes-all those sharp angles-and the greenery that was claiming the edges.
"Yeah. Big."
"It's interesting." Daniel waved a hand, like a magician without a rabbit or a hat. "The growth patterns."
Jack glanced over at the guy again, then back to the city. "I see trees. Buildings. Trees." He followed up each of the last two words with a gesture to each. Trees ringed the buildings and stopped abrupt, as if they couldn't cross the city line.
A small smile curving his mouth, Daniel glanced at him. "Yes. Exactly. Buildings. Trees. What does that suggest to you?"
"They gave the gardeners the day off?"
"Or?" Daniel prompted, and Jack thought about smacking him because this felt too much like he was back at the Academy.
Then he realized where Daniel was headed. "Or they stopped having gardeners-not enough folks to keep up the place?"
Daniel nodded. "Usually when a civilization goes into decline, the population disperses from city centers. Overcrowding, disease, or famine due to drought-those are the typical causes, and it's usually a combination of factors that force an entire people to abandon what they've built in order to survive. But this-" He swept out a hand again. "The core of the city was maintained, and the outlying areas were allowed to go back to nature."
"Let the suburbs go to hell?" Jack offered.
Daniel thought about it, then nodded and shrugged. "More or less. Obviously, the population-not the culture-was in decline. I wonder why?"
Jack glanced around and fought down a shiver. "No signs of a war. Something catching?"
The lines around Daniel's eyes crinkled. "Uhm, well, there have been cases of viruses living for long periods in the ground. Off the top of my head, I'd say this place has been abandoned for thousands of years."
"How do you know?"
"Well, for one thing, the size of those trees on the edge of the city, although they could be a fast-growing variety not found on Earth. However, when all you have left is stone, that's generally a good indication everything else has turned to dust. Although...does this feel like stone to you?" Bending down, he ran a hand over the pavement, then glanced up. "Seems too uniform, unless they had extraordinary polishing techniques. And…well, it just doesn't feel…right."
"Right," Jack said. And he wasn't going to admit that no, it didn't feel right to him, either, when all he'd done was walk over it. "Come on. Let's go see if this dump has anything to look at other than landscapes and bad architecture."
"You noticed, too?"
"What?"
"The buildings-I don't think…whoever lived here might not have been human."
Jack glanced at Daniel, though it was a good sized leap from ugly building to weird aliens. "Maybe these folks never got Architectural Digest out here."
"Why would they?"
Jack glanced over at Daniel to see if the man was joking, got back a deadpan expression and a couple of slow blinks, and he started thinking, Daniel, you have got to get out more. But getting Daniel out of the mountain was worse than prying a clam free for a clam bake. So far, he'd gotten Daniel busted loose twice. Once with the guy stunned his first night home. Once with him bitching every step about work to be done-that'd been after Chulak, and the guy was stunned again and seemed determined to learn how to never sleep again. Great team I've got, Jack though, unwilling bitterness leaking out. Type-A geeks who had no clue that the people around depended on them being some kind of decent alert, and not screwed-up from were working twenty-four seven.
He shook it off, because he had no right to complain when it was these geeks' too much work that had opened the 'gate, which gave him a reason to stay alive, after all.
Carter was still doing some geekish thing with the MALP when they got back to the 'gate. She had her helmet propped on it and the wind was tugging at her short, pale hair. Teal'c was just glancing around, relaxed enough that Jack figured no one was within any kind of hearing range.
Looking up, Carter pointed to the buildings and said, "The MALP's picking up a faint energy reading."
"So someone's left the lights on? Teal'c, take point." The big guy moved out, and Jack herded Carter and Daniel ahead of him. It didn't take much herding. Carter might not have ground combat on her resume, but she’d had the training. And, at times, Daniel seemed as docile as a rescued stray, willing to be pushed into a uniform or pulled into whatever was needed. Just pat him on the head and toss him a bone and he seemed fine. The key word in all of that was 'seemed.' Jack already had a good idea how deep that seeming went.
Daniel hadn't been shy about picking up a gun on Abydos. Nor about giving Hammond grief over the things that mattered to him when he got back to Earth, which had shocked the hell out of Hammond, then out of every staff officer on the base. But they all seemed to be getting used to it. Jack had caught a couple of folks trying to explain protocol and channels to Daniel, and getting arguments back. Jack had eavesdropped, amused, because the officers always ended up backed into a corner and looking like they wished they could put the guy on report. He had a suspicion that, for Daniel, there was the military, and there was SG-1. A few Captain/Doctors were still sneaking in with Carter, but it was mostly Sam and Daniel these days. And Jack had only gotten one 'colonel' addressed to him from Daniel-that was the day Daniel got his own office.
Jack had remembered that the last time with Daniel-before they’d opened the ‘gate-they'd had the guy camped out next to the cover stone and working off a folding table. The idea of his own space had stunned Daniel, left him stuttering, and then on his best behavior for about four hours. Or until Daniel needed Jack's help in moving a table, and he seemed to at least realize you don't ask a guy with eagles on his shoulders to do that. So he'd asked his pal, Jack.
Of course, all that good pushing to get things done was going to get pushed back in Jack's face sometime, and he had a bet with himself about how soon Daniel would start feeling secure enough to turn push into intellectual arguments that would have them all on their knees.
Carter wasn't much better.
She knew the military stuff, but she'd come on board with a chip on her shoulder about whose sex organs were where, just about bristling for a reason to show why she was as good as any guy. More push. Jack was pretty sure she'd step out of line if it meant shooting to the head of the class, and he wanted that toned down before it got her a medal pinned to her grave.
Hell of a thing when the guy you were counting on most was the alien.
Then they stepped into the building and Jack decided he'd been wrong about the butt ugly-even the skinniest, scrawniest, boniest ass he'd ever seen was prettier than this place.
Drab didn't cover the half of it. It wasn't so much gray as a pale beige that just looked tired. More of that damn stone that wasn't stone. The building had a peaked roof-sort of a four-sided pyramid ceiling that made for one big, echoy room. There was the main doors they'd come through-one of four sets of wide, double doors-and four smaller doors now led off to somewhere on each wall. Stone bench seats piled up high on the four walls, and Jack's ass hurt just thinking about a couple hours of sitting on them.
Above the walls, the ceiling had wavy lines that stopped and started, and the way the pattern got tighter, then wider, made Jack think of tree-ring grooves. With all the benches, it had to be some kind of gathering place, and Jack tuned-in to the steady, rapid flow of Daniel's words, which had started up, oh, when they stepped in here.
"…ritual significance. It's not unlike our own great assemblies where laws are passed, or even some of the major cathedrals."
"Why not sports?" Jack said. Daniel stared at him, blinked a couple of times, then pushed his glasses back into place and frowned. So Jack added, "I mean, why does it always have to be some big ritual thing? Why not just a place to come and watch a game?"
Daniel's mouth had gone prim, but now he shook his head and his glasses slipped again as he said, "Jack, I don't think you want this to be a sporting stadium." He sounded certain about that, so much so that Jack lifted his eyebrows, as in why the hell not. Daniel let out a breath, then said, "The coliseums of Rome, the ball courts of the Aztecs, even modern bullfight arenas-though most of history, sports are bloody events, and the losers often end up butchered as the big, crowd-pleasing highlight."
He couldn't help it-Jack glanced down at the floor, looking for blood stains. Cripes, but Daniel's imagination ran in patterns that left the Grimm brothers' stories looking like cheery, little tales. That's when he noticed the inlaid circles on the floor.
They started at the outer edge, just before they met up with those squared walls, and then got smaller, so Jack moved towards the center, following them, and he heard the echo of boots trailing him. There was one splash of color in the center of the room-a yellow dot of it. It shone like a beacon amid all the drab stone, and it was right under the pyramid-point of the ceiling.
He stopped to stare down at it. Carter came up on his right. Teal'c on his left. Daniel stopped opposite him. For some reason, Jack looked up at the same instant Daniel did-and he saw Daniel's eyes go wide.
Teal'c shouted the warning, but it was too late.
The rings lifted from the floor-hummed up so damn fast there wasn't time to move. Light flashed and then that weird sense of vertigo swept over him. The rings fell with a slam, and Jack was left standing in darkness with his team.
"Well, that wasn't fun."
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for some language, gen
Spoilers: References Stargate (the movie), COTG, Enemy Within
For Settiai
Request details: The very first mission-gone-wrong where SG-1 (who are still barely strangers) have to work together as a team in order to survive.
Didn't Want: AU. Any type of non-con. Non-canon character death (unless it's temporary since - hey, Stargate).
Notes: Big thanks to SG Fignewton for a fast and excellent beta
"I wouldn't mind babysitting that."
Jack glanced over to where the muttered words had come from-a couple of green around the edges Marines, one of them not old enough to need shaving every day. He followed their stares to Carter's ass-she was bent over to help adjust the holster strap for Daniel's sidearm. Jack might not have said anything, except one of the jarheads added, "Yep, that's cute in my book."
He gave a small shake of his head, because no way could he let that ride. And he glanced over, determined to nip this before it became any kind of routine. Nice as pie, he asked, "Are you, by any chance, referring to a superior officer?" He glanced at the guy's uniform. "Sergeant?"
Both the kids went eyes-front stiff. Jack looked from one to the other and wondered which of 'em had been bored enough to egg the other into being stupid.
"Sir, no, sir."
Jack nodded, smiled like it was a good answer. "Right. So you're not talking about me. That mean you're calling Dr. Jackson cute?"
At the mention of his name, Daniel looked up. Jack caught the vague, blue-eyed stare in his peripheral vision, and he heard snickers going around the rest of the guards in the gateroom. Losing interest, Daniel went back to helping Carter fuss, and Jack decided he was going to have to get those two in the habit of gearing up in the gear-up room, not here. Then Jack went back to the jarheads.
The guy on the left had shot some sharp glares to quiet the muffled laughter. The other one went grim-faced at even the hint he might be looking at a guy, and said, words crisp as a new bill, "No, sir."
"Ah." Jack said. He turned and called out, "Hey, Teal'c, these guys think you're cute."
The snickers started again. They died as Teal'c stepped over, into looming range. He stared down at the jarheads, mouth pulled into the kind of scowl that had probably put religion into more than a few Jaffa recruits. Words measured in slow certainty, he asked, "This is an insult?"
"Oh, no, no," Jack said, his tone easy. He flashed a smile and added, "In fact, these two were just done being real cute, too. It's an expression."
Teal'c kept his stare on the baby-faced jarheads as if he was taking down their numbers-phone and serial. He nodded and turned his back to them. But he didn't move away. He planted the butt of his staff weapon between his feet so he stayed in easy hearing range of so much as a whisper from either of these two.
Jack glanced at the Marines. They were still mustering up like good soldiers and trying like damn not to sweat with Teal'c smack between them and any line of vision to Carter or Daniel. Jack would cut them some slack this time. They were good people-he couldn't see Hammond putting up with anything less. But these two were also Marines, and that meant they hadn't signed up to be hang-back wallflowers. They wanted action. After two weeks of a lot of heart-pumping knocking on the door, things had quieted down at what was now Stargate Command. That meant, from here on, the place you wanted to be, if you wanted to be in the middle of everything, was on one of the 'gate teams.
Jockeying for one of those coveted spots had gone past good natured about two days ago, and Jack had been hearing grumbles that hadn't yet settled. Not many, but a few, resented that a civilian had gotten on a team. But pity covered a lot with Daniel and shut up most of the complaints, because how could you grouse about a guy who wanted-needed-to find his wife and brother-in-law. The fact that Daniel had lived off-world for a year-and had been teaching classes in 'gate addresses and dialing sequences and languages-had gotten him some respect.
Not so for Teal'c, and there'd been mutters about trusting an alien-although not many would say anything to Teal'c's face, not when they had to look up to six-something and a few hundred pounds of muscle to say it. Jack had also heard some of the gossip about the captain in a skirt who'd waltzed in with a general for a daddy and no actual ground-combat on her record, and looking like she did, you had to know what that meant.
He wanted that kind of talk stopped dead.
It'd start as rumor, then spread. He'd seen it kill one good officer's career-got her a transfer out of a front line S&R unit and back home to training duties. And he might have bitched about Carter to Hammond because of the science background, but she'd done good on Chulak, and she and Daniel had started geek-night sleepovers in each other's labs. She even seemed okay with Teal'c, so all of that meant Jack was not letting some jarheads screw her over by noticing that ass of hers. Well, they could notice, but they'd damn well better keep it to themselves. Hell, they better keep a lid on it even if they noticed Teal'c or Daniel's asses, too.
These two Marines now looked like they were sorry they'd noticed anything, and the 'gate whooshing out-billowing a blue-white splash of water that wasn't wet, then sucking it back-got them a reprieve. Jack turned away and saw that Daniel and Carter had each lit up about as bright as the 'gate. God, it was going to be exhausting babysitting these two again today.
He'd been doing that for about three missions now-milk run recons, pretty much, since the heart-thumping panic of Chulak. And they’d all started with this eager-eyed enthusiasm in both of 'em. Then he'd watch disappointment settle in Daniel's eyes-the man never said anything, but Jack had caught the slump in the guy's shoulders, the jaw tightening against frustration at not having gained a clue to where his wife might be. Daniel would go quiet. And Carter's wide-eyed wonder would dim when she realized they didn't have time for all the experiments getting listed somewhere in her head. Then Teal'c would glance around like he was ticked off at the world for not giving him a bad guy to shoot. Jack told himself he loved these missions-quiet recon. Yep. Just the ticket. Gave 'em time, like breaking in a new car, slow and easy. That was the best. Except he was getting damned bored, too. And he wasn't getting the vibe off his team that he had a team.
He had three people. One with a noble quest, one with what looked like some not very noble scores to settle, and one who had an attitude about proving herself. That made it too likely that one of these days, these three would split into different directions unless Jack had them tied heart and soul to each other.
They had a few ties already from Chulak-but Jack wanted more, and he wanted deeper. He needed them to know they could lean on him or each other for anything, and he didn't know how to get to that point with milk runs. Maybe some ruins would help-they'd at least give Daniel a distraction from that undercurrent of misery dragging at him, and they had a full three days for poking around, so Carter would have time for measuring things. Teal'c would just have to be the one to settle for not getting anything to shoot. Buy, hey, there was always target practice, right?
"Come on, campers. The great out-there beckons." He swept an arm out, got a muted smile from Carter, and a blank look from Daniel, and Teal'c led the way up the ramp, setting the pace for all of them. They stepped through the 'gate, and onto the ground of another world. Jack tugged his cap lower and tried not to grin. God-what a rush. A few billion miles in a few milliseconds. Best drug in the galaxy to go through that gut-churning, skin-tingling wringer, and now he really couldn't blame those jarheads for just a little resentment that Carter got to do this, and they didn't.
He glanced back at Carter, found her checking over the MALP. Daniel was staring around them, turning in a slow circle, one hand up to hold his helmet in place and his mouth open to fly catch. Except there weren't any flies. Didn't seem to be much of anyone around, even if it looked something like a civic center. A plaza of sorts. A sharp wind that had teeth said they were up high. The thin air pulled into your lungs with labored breaths, and Jack made a note to remind everyone to stay hydrated, and to keep the exertion down for a day or so. But they were already used to Colorado, so it wouldn't be too much of a strain to get use to the altitude here.
The plaza just looked like a wide-open area, paved with a pale stone. Tall buildings edged one side, done up in more of that pale stone. Most were square, squat structures that had neglect hung on their bones. Something about them made them just butt ugly-the proportions maybe, with them being low and wide. And no windows. Or maybe it was all that plain, pale stone. A couple had the shape of a pyramid, and Jack turned to Daniel. "Goa'uld?"
Daniel shook his head, his mouth still hanging, then said, "I don't think so. Austerity doesn't exactly seem to fit would-be gods. And this isn't Egyptian, although there are faint echoes back to-"
"Good enough." With a nod, Jack turned to look the other way, to where the plaza seemed to fall out and open to a vista. He strode off that direction, and at the edge of a wide, long flight of shallow steps, he stopped and let out a soft, "Whoa."
He heard a step next to him and glanced over at Daniel.
Hands loose at his sides, but fingers twitching restless, Daniel stared out over miles and miles of an empty, ruined city. "Big place," Daniel said.
Jack glanced at him. There was a lot he didn't know about Daniel-hell, most things. He knew Daniel liked to talk, but he had no idea what was the man's favorite food, if he liked sports-he'd bet not-or even if Daniel had been genuinely happy on Abydos. But some things you knew without knowing; he knew he could trust this guy. He had trusted Daniel for a lot of things already. There was bedrock here, the kind that Jack sounded for in any one he served with, and Daniel's pinged hard and steady. But he had just learned one thing new-Daniel seemed to like understatement. Which was an odd mix to go with all that chatter.
Jack looked out at the city, took in the holes in the roofs, the wide streets that didn't give you any kind of good cover, the ugly pale buildings, the square and more pyramid shapes-all those sharp angles-and the greenery that was claiming the edges.
"Yeah. Big."
"It's interesting." Daniel waved a hand, like a magician without a rabbit or a hat. "The growth patterns."
Jack glanced over at the guy again, then back to the city. "I see trees. Buildings. Trees." He followed up each of the last two words with a gesture to each. Trees ringed the buildings and stopped abrupt, as if they couldn't cross the city line.
A small smile curving his mouth, Daniel glanced at him. "Yes. Exactly. Buildings. Trees. What does that suggest to you?"
"They gave the gardeners the day off?"
"Or?" Daniel prompted, and Jack thought about smacking him because this felt too much like he was back at the Academy.
Then he realized where Daniel was headed. "Or they stopped having gardeners-not enough folks to keep up the place?"
Daniel nodded. "Usually when a civilization goes into decline, the population disperses from city centers. Overcrowding, disease, or famine due to drought-those are the typical causes, and it's usually a combination of factors that force an entire people to abandon what they've built in order to survive. But this-" He swept out a hand again. "The core of the city was maintained, and the outlying areas were allowed to go back to nature."
"Let the suburbs go to hell?" Jack offered.
Daniel thought about it, then nodded and shrugged. "More or less. Obviously, the population-not the culture-was in decline. I wonder why?"
Jack glanced around and fought down a shiver. "No signs of a war. Something catching?"
The lines around Daniel's eyes crinkled. "Uhm, well, there have been cases of viruses living for long periods in the ground. Off the top of my head, I'd say this place has been abandoned for thousands of years."
"How do you know?"
"Well, for one thing, the size of those trees on the edge of the city, although they could be a fast-growing variety not found on Earth. However, when all you have left is stone, that's generally a good indication everything else has turned to dust. Although...does this feel like stone to you?" Bending down, he ran a hand over the pavement, then glanced up. "Seems too uniform, unless they had extraordinary polishing techniques. And…well, it just doesn't feel…right."
"Right," Jack said. And he wasn't going to admit that no, it didn't feel right to him, either, when all he'd done was walk over it. "Come on. Let's go see if this dump has anything to look at other than landscapes and bad architecture."
"You noticed, too?"
"What?"
"The buildings-I don't think…whoever lived here might not have been human."
Jack glanced at Daniel, though it was a good sized leap from ugly building to weird aliens. "Maybe these folks never got Architectural Digest out here."
"Why would they?"
Jack glanced over at Daniel to see if the man was joking, got back a deadpan expression and a couple of slow blinks, and he started thinking, Daniel, you have got to get out more. But getting Daniel out of the mountain was worse than prying a clam free for a clam bake. So far, he'd gotten Daniel busted loose twice. Once with the guy stunned his first night home. Once with him bitching every step about work to be done-that'd been after Chulak, and the guy was stunned again and seemed determined to learn how to never sleep again. Great team I've got, Jack though, unwilling bitterness leaking out. Type-A geeks who had no clue that the people around depended on them being some kind of decent alert, and not screwed-up from were working twenty-four seven.
He shook it off, because he had no right to complain when it was these geeks' too much work that had opened the 'gate, which gave him a reason to stay alive, after all.
Carter was still doing some geekish thing with the MALP when they got back to the 'gate. She had her helmet propped on it and the wind was tugging at her short, pale hair. Teal'c was just glancing around, relaxed enough that Jack figured no one was within any kind of hearing range.
Looking up, Carter pointed to the buildings and said, "The MALP's picking up a faint energy reading."
"So someone's left the lights on? Teal'c, take point." The big guy moved out, and Jack herded Carter and Daniel ahead of him. It didn't take much herding. Carter might not have ground combat on her resume, but she’d had the training. And, at times, Daniel seemed as docile as a rescued stray, willing to be pushed into a uniform or pulled into whatever was needed. Just pat him on the head and toss him a bone and he seemed fine. The key word in all of that was 'seemed.' Jack already had a good idea how deep that seeming went.
Daniel hadn't been shy about picking up a gun on Abydos. Nor about giving Hammond grief over the things that mattered to him when he got back to Earth, which had shocked the hell out of Hammond, then out of every staff officer on the base. But they all seemed to be getting used to it. Jack had caught a couple of folks trying to explain protocol and channels to Daniel, and getting arguments back. Jack had eavesdropped, amused, because the officers always ended up backed into a corner and looking like they wished they could put the guy on report. He had a suspicion that, for Daniel, there was the military, and there was SG-1. A few Captain/Doctors were still sneaking in with Carter, but it was mostly Sam and Daniel these days. And Jack had only gotten one 'colonel' addressed to him from Daniel-that was the day Daniel got his own office.
Jack had remembered that the last time with Daniel-before they’d opened the ‘gate-they'd had the guy camped out next to the cover stone and working off a folding table. The idea of his own space had stunned Daniel, left him stuttering, and then on his best behavior for about four hours. Or until Daniel needed Jack's help in moving a table, and he seemed to at least realize you don't ask a guy with eagles on his shoulders to do that. So he'd asked his pal, Jack.
Of course, all that good pushing to get things done was going to get pushed back in Jack's face sometime, and he had a bet with himself about how soon Daniel would start feeling secure enough to turn push into intellectual arguments that would have them all on their knees.
Carter wasn't much better.
She knew the military stuff, but she'd come on board with a chip on her shoulder about whose sex organs were where, just about bristling for a reason to show why she was as good as any guy. More push. Jack was pretty sure she'd step out of line if it meant shooting to the head of the class, and he wanted that toned down before it got her a medal pinned to her grave.
Hell of a thing when the guy you were counting on most was the alien.
Then they stepped into the building and Jack decided he'd been wrong about the butt ugly-even the skinniest, scrawniest, boniest ass he'd ever seen was prettier than this place.
Drab didn't cover the half of it. It wasn't so much gray as a pale beige that just looked tired. More of that damn stone that wasn't stone. The building had a peaked roof-sort of a four-sided pyramid ceiling that made for one big, echoy room. There was the main doors they'd come through-one of four sets of wide, double doors-and four smaller doors now led off to somewhere on each wall. Stone bench seats piled up high on the four walls, and Jack's ass hurt just thinking about a couple hours of sitting on them.
Above the walls, the ceiling had wavy lines that stopped and started, and the way the pattern got tighter, then wider, made Jack think of tree-ring grooves. With all the benches, it had to be some kind of gathering place, and Jack tuned-in to the steady, rapid flow of Daniel's words, which had started up, oh, when they stepped in here.
"…ritual significance. It's not unlike our own great assemblies where laws are passed, or even some of the major cathedrals."
"Why not sports?" Jack said. Daniel stared at him, blinked a couple of times, then pushed his glasses back into place and frowned. So Jack added, "I mean, why does it always have to be some big ritual thing? Why not just a place to come and watch a game?"
Daniel's mouth had gone prim, but now he shook his head and his glasses slipped again as he said, "Jack, I don't think you want this to be a sporting stadium." He sounded certain about that, so much so that Jack lifted his eyebrows, as in why the hell not. Daniel let out a breath, then said, "The coliseums of Rome, the ball courts of the Aztecs, even modern bullfight arenas-though most of history, sports are bloody events, and the losers often end up butchered as the big, crowd-pleasing highlight."
He couldn't help it-Jack glanced down at the floor, looking for blood stains. Cripes, but Daniel's imagination ran in patterns that left the Grimm brothers' stories looking like cheery, little tales. That's when he noticed the inlaid circles on the floor.
They started at the outer edge, just before they met up with those squared walls, and then got smaller, so Jack moved towards the center, following them, and he heard the echo of boots trailing him. There was one splash of color in the center of the room-a yellow dot of it. It shone like a beacon amid all the drab stone, and it was right under the pyramid-point of the ceiling.
He stopped to stare down at it. Carter came up on his right. Teal'c on his left. Daniel stopped opposite him. For some reason, Jack looked up at the same instant Daniel did-and he saw Daniel's eyes go wide.
Teal'c shouted the warning, but it was too late.
The rings lifted from the floor-hummed up so damn fast there wasn't time to move. Light flashed and then that weird sense of vertigo swept over him. The rings fell with a slam, and Jack was left standing in darkness with his team.
"Well, that wasn't fun."