Of Rescue Missions and Invasions - Chapter 3
*Chapter 3: When Do They Ever Just Sit Around?
“Is it just me, or did we just get blown off?” Mitchell asked. He blinked and stared at the door. “In fact, it was almost like they didn't want to be rescued.”
“Did they look like they were being forced to go with the person that they met?” Jackson asked Mal Doran, walking over towards the door to peer out into the desert. He expected to see their silhouettes still in the distance, but there was no trace of them.
“Nah, this is someone that they knew for a while," Mal Doran said. “You could tell by the way they behaved. You could also tell that they weren’t exactly upset if we were discovered. I think that they were telling the truth and they were actually busy.”
“Too busy for a rescue?” Mitchell asked. He frowned. “I still think it's odd, I mean, how many times has anyone ever refused to be rescued and was in their right mind?"
"That doesn't usually happen," Jackson said.
"Though, I do think that they have a bit of a point about being clones," Carter said. "I mean, obviously they can't quite return to the lives that they, we're, used to."
"It's only a couple more years, besides, I sometimes wish that I could go back to being a kid again. It doesn't last long, but I would like to be able to sleep in more than I am now," Mitchell said. He shrugged. "Besides, I'm sure that we can work something out."
"I suppose so," Carter said, frowning to herself as she thought.
"We'll have to bring that up again when we next see them," Jackson said.
"You think they've traveled far enough that we can follow them?" Mitchell asked. He peeked outside once more and then turned towards Carter. "What does your machine say?"
"We're following them?" Jackson asked. He blinked. "Didn't they say to stay here?"
"And normally I would follow the General's orders, but he's in an uncertain situation and I can't trust his judgment," Mitchell said.
"Besides, when have we ever listened to something like that?" Mal Doran asked.
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed.
"Won't they get mad if they discover that we didn't trust them?" Jackson asked, still looking worried.
"Do you honestly want to spend a month or so here?" Mitchell asked, raising his eyebrows at Jackson and giving him a look. "Because I am not looking forward to that prospect."
"Well, we might be able to time it to head back through the mirror, wait out the period of time there and then come back. In that short bit of time, several days would have passed," Jackson suggested. He turned towards Carter. "Do you think that you can calculate how long we would have to stay for the correct amount of time to pass?"
"This isn't possible," Carter said, staring at her tablet.
"What? My idea is wrong?" Jackson blinked, clearly taken aback.
"What?" Carter asked, looking up from her tablet to blink at Jackson. She replayed the last few seconds of background noise back and then shook her head. "No, your plan was feasible, but this just can't be right."
"You also think that we should go and rescue them, right?" Mitchell asked.
"No, I'm talking about the tracker. They're almost out of range," Carter said, holding the tablet up.
"The rest of the clones that the general and the others are meeting?" Mitchell asked. "I thought that we already knew that."
"I'm not talking about the six clones we didn't meet, I'm saying that the three that we did meet are almost out of range of the tracker," Carter said. She lightly tapped the three red dots and they actually looked at the tablet, finding one other blue dot with them. "I wasn't paying attention at first, but when I looked they were already five clicks away and they're moving at a rate of a click a minute."
"How is that possible?" Jackson asked.
"Maybe they had some sort of vehicle out there that we couldn’t see?" Mitchell suggested. He frowned. "This does make things more difficult, though."
"It's possible, the tracker only really gives basic information about the world around them," Carter said. She frowned at the tablet. "It really wasn’t designed to really keep track of them, but more to distinguish which was a clone and which was the original."
"Not that really matters with our clones," Mal Doran chirped. She got a crafty look on her face. "Though, I wonder if that is possible."
"No, you can't try to trick people with your teenage clone when we bring them back to earth," Jackson said. Mal Doran pouted, but the scheming look didn't leave her eyes.
"Well, in any case, I think that we need to call in a couple more favors," Mitchell said. He gestured to the mirror. "Carter, do you think that you can make it so that we can call in those scientists and talk to them?"
"Just give me a minute," Carter said. She shot one last glance at the fast moving dots before she started fiddling with her radio. It took a bit, but with all of her recent experiences with different dimensions and so on, she was able to rig up a radio that would connect through the mirror. She handed that over to Mitchell. "There's a slight chance that it will come through in other alternate universes, but we'll just have to risk that. It's not like they can do anything at that point, anyway.”
“As long as it works,” Mitchell said. He held the radio up to his mouth and clicked the switch to activate it. “This is Mitchell, Ideriln are you there? Come in, Ideriln.”
“Colonel, this is quite a surprise,” the lead scientist’s voice came over the radio a moment later. “How is it that you are able to establish communication between two alternate realities?”
“We have a genuine genius here,” Mitchell said. “One who wouldn’t clone someone without permission? Anyway, we’re not calling just to chat with you; we need some supplies sent through the mirror.”
“Some supplies?” the lead scientist asked.
“We need some kind of vehicle, preferably something that wouldn’t draw too much attention,” Mitchell said.
“A vehicle that wouldn't draw too much attention,” the lead scientist repeated. “I don’t know if we can do that.”
Mal Doran reached out and grabbed the radio out of Mitchell’s hands. “Send through the Sanctuary Flux Sweeper.”
“How did you know about that?” the lead scientist asked after a long pause.
“I told you that I found all sorts of interesting things,” Mal Doran said. She grinned at the others, even though the scientists couldn’t see her. “And I think that the Sanctuary Flux Sweeper is exactly what we need.”
“But we haven’t tested sending objects through the mirror,” the lead scientist protested.
“I’m sure that you can work it out,” Mitchell said, stealing the radio back from Mal Doran. He switched the radio off and then turned towards Carter. “Right?”
“It should be possible to send an inanimate object through the mirror unescorted,” Carter said. She frowned and looked towards Mal Doran. “How big is this Sanctuary Flux Sweeper?”
“It’s only a three seater, but it’s small and fast and it has cloaking capabilities,” Mal Doran said. She grinned and rubbed her hands together. “It’s perfect for what we want.”
"We should probably clear a space around the mirror," Carter said as she looked around.
Luckily, there was not an awful lot of stuff around the Mirror; most of the stuff had been left out around the walls of the place and it was obvious that the place wasn't used that much. There were still some things that seemed to be used by the clones, but the experiments seemed to be the only things that were really dust free. There were signs, though, that the clones had used the room often before they stopped.
They had just finished clearing the needed space when the scientists appeared in front of the mirror and sent the Sanctuary Flux Sweeper through the mirror. Mitchell was actually pretty surprised that sending the aircraft through the mirror actually worked; it was odd to see something larger than the mirror appear. Though, given that flashes of light were involved, it wasn't quite as impressive as it would have been if it had actually gone through the mirror. Still, it was pretty cool all the same.
The scientist hurried away after that, obviously worried that they were going to be forced to come up with more stuff to give to SG1, but Mitchell didn't worry about that. They had a line of communication that worked if they needed anything more. He focused more on getting the aircraft out of the old temple. Luckily, since it was a temple, the doors were large enough that they were able to wheel the small aircraft through the opening.
Once they had it outside, Mitchell opened her up and sat down in the pilot's seat, looking it over to figure out how to run the thing. Compared to some of the aircraft he had seen, it luckily compared more to earthly technology than say the Ancient's technology and style. It was obvious that the scientist had found more Ancient technology along the way, but Mitchell figured that he could fly the aircraft.
"It's a simple design," he said, leaning out of the aircraft to talk to the rest of the team. Carter nodded in agreement.
"The things that they’ve done for fuel," Carter said as she shook her head. "This is why we are talking with them in the first place."
"Well, this will work for what we want," Mitchell said. "But there's only one problem. This seats three and we have five people here."
"I call shotgun," Mal Doran called out, raising her hand and waving it in the air.
"Actually, I was thinking about trying to stabilize the Quantum Mirror on this side," Carter said, even though she was giving the aircraft a wanting look. "My clone managed to fix it up so that it worked, but I am a bit worried that it could fall apart when we try to use it. It shouldn’t take me that long to make the fixes, though."
"It's obvious that my clone was working on learning the history of this place," Jackson said. "There are several scrolls in the temple, not to mention the words throughout the place. I was thinking that maybe I could look them over and maybe help us get a better handle on this world."
"So it's me, Vala and Teal'c," Mitchell said, clapping his hands together. "Teal'c the navigator, then."
"You don’t think that I could navigate for you?" Mal Doran asked as she pouted. "I could do it just as well as the big man."
"You'll be our look out," Mitchell decided. "We don’t know what kind of flying technology that they have and even though we'll be cloaked, we'll have to watch out for the others."
"I suppose that's good enough," Mal Doran said. She still pouted as Teal'c accepted the tracking device from Carter.
"We'll check in every hour," Mitchell said to Carter and Jackson. "Try to stay out of trouble, will you? We already have a version of you to rescue, we don’t need any more."
"Keep out of trouble, yourself," Jackson replied. "You're the ones who are actually going and doing something."
"Actually, we end up finding just as much trouble staying still as heading into the action," Carter mused. "Especially you."
"Thanks," Jackson grumbled.
"We'll keep in touch," Mitchell said as he chuckled. Teal'c and Mal Doran got into the aircraft, sitting in the back seats, and Mitchell started it up.
He took a minute to clear his mind before he instinctively figured out the way to get the plane up onto the sky. Using the sand as a runaway worked for the Sanctuary Flux Sweeper to get off the ground and after that Mitchell was able to fly it in a straight line. Finding the correct buttons to cloak the machine took a bit of time, but finally a flash of silver light that crept over the windshield let him know that they were no longer visible by those below them.
“How far away are they now?” Mitchell asked.
“They have stopped, but they are still on the edge of the tracker,” Teal’c replied. He studied the tracking device. “We should catch up to them within the hour.”
“Really makes you wonder what their technology is like here, if they can make it there in less than ten minutes,” Mitchell said. He glanced down at the fast moving ground; the Sanctuary Flux Sweeper wasn’t as fast a jet plane, but it wasn’t a slow aircraft either. Whatever technology that this world had seemed to be better than anything that he had encountered, which really did make him wonder what other bits of high tech that they had in this world. This might be worth all of the trouble that the scientists had put them through, if they could maybe get the specs for the ships and then maybe get something from this world as well. It was worth a shot.
"They are on the move again," Teal'c said before anything more was said about the technology.
Mitchell blinked and looked over to the Jaffa. "What, really?"
"They had paused for a while, but they are moving again at the same rate," Teal'c replied. "It appears that it will take us longer than an hour to catch up to them."
"Dang," Mitchell whistled. "Why do you think that they stopped?"
"It almost seems like a break of some sort, though why they would have to stop a vehicle, I do not know," Teal'c said.
"I'm so glad that we came, this is fun," Mal Doran said, still pressed against the window, looking down at the ground. "Hey, we're almost out of the desert."
"Huh, so this isn't a desert world all around," Mitchell mused, seeing trees up ahead. "They did say that they were in another part of the world."
"It will be interesting to see what they are doing," Mal Doran said. "I wonder if it's legal, even."
"Don’t make our clones out to be some sort of criminals," Mitchell scolded.
"Do you really think that they are in some kind of trouble?" Mal Doran asked.
"Why else wouldn’t they want to talk to us?" Mitchell asked.
"Because they were up to no good and they didn't want us to stop them," Mal Doran said. "It could be that they are going around and stealing priceless stuff. I bet that one guy is in on it all, he might be the ring leader."
"While you may find it fun to go and be a part of a criminal ring, I bet that the other clones will hold true and stop your clone from it," Mitchell said.
"There's no call to be mean," Mal Doran said as she pouted. "I'm sure that your clone is getting into just as much trouble as my clone is."
"Well, in any case, even if they were in some sort of criminal ring, I'm sure that it is only because they are being forced to," Mitchell said. He would have crossed his arms if he felt that he could let go of the aircraft's controls. As it was, he only pouted back at Mal Doran.
"Whether or not our young clones are a part of a criminal ring or are in any sort of trouble is what we are out here to ascertain," Teal'c interrupted the fight. "I suggest that we check on them before charging in."
"They aren't going to be too happy to see us," Mitchell agreed.
"Why's that?" Mal Doran asked.
"Because they told us to stay where we were and not to follow them," Mitchell said. "He might be shrunk, but General Hammond is still a General."
"Which makes me wonder why you are so intent on following them, thinking that they are in trouble," Mal Doran said.
"Well, you never know," Mitchell said. "Besides, why are you even here if you don't think that they are in any trouble?"
"Because it's more interesting than hanging around and watching Sam and Daniel play around in the sand," Mal Doran said. "Besides, they told us to stay there; did they really expect us to listen to them?"
"Probably not, but I am willing to bet that they didn’t take the Sanctuary Flux Sweeper into account," Mitchell said, patting the dashboard of the aircraft. "This baby will get us there before they realize it."
"Of course, we're going to have to take several trips if we are taking any of them back with us," Mal Doran pointed out.
Mitchell waved his hand in the air before returning it to the controls. "We'll figure that out when we come to it. But, Teal'c is right; we do need to first figure out whether or not they are in trouble."
"What are you going to do if they aren't in any trouble?" Mal Doran asked. "Are we just going to go back to wait? Because that would be boring and hanging around them would be more interesting."
"We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, too," Mitchell said.
"I'm in favor of sticking around to annoy them," Mal Doran said. "Maybe we could even help them steal things."
"Our clones are not thieves, Vala," Mitchell said. He sighed, now having the feeling that this was going to be a long and tiresome trip.
"They could be," Mal Doran said, intent on proving his feeling right.
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