For thousands of years it had waited in the dark. It would sleep and awaken at the slightest disturbance within its lair. Since the last of the lights had gone out and the wonderful darkness had taken over, nothing of any consequence had moved and now it was becoming restless. A short time ago the Great Circle had lit up, but nothing edible had come through, only some metal creature, which it had avoided and would continue to do so - unless it moved further. For now, it would bide its time, at least for another few decades.
~
Colonel Cameron Mitchell stepped through the gate between Teal'c and Carter. Behind them came Daniel and Vala, bickering like an old couple as usual. Mitchell turned on the small torch on his P-90, as did the rest of SG-1. He made no comment as his team began to spread randomly over the room. At the start he'd tried using the correct terms to move them around but apart from the fact that they all knew his job better than he did (except perhaps Vala – and even she thought she did), he found it immensely tedious to be constantly barking orders. He started away across the room, stepping around the MALP, and towards the staircase set into the far wall.
Then he looked up, pointing his torch at the ceiling. “Well,” came his voice back to the others, “it's definitely Ancient." He made a sweeping gesture, taking in the room around them. Daniel shot him a you don't say look and continued reading the Ancient writing he'd found on the wall.
Vala, on the other hand, walked up behind Mitchell and said, "Ancient, eh?"
"Yep," he answered, "and anything here of value'd be long, long gone, and if not we're taking it."
"But this stuff's worth an awful lot - look - I can split you in twenty percent."
"Nope."
Behind them SG-12 stepped into the room through the gate. The second that the MALP had revealed Ancient tech, SG-12 had been assigned to assist them. Major Davidson and Lieutenant Bolton both had the ATA gene and so would be no doubt be extremely helpful.
"Fifty-fifty, then," continued Vala without missing a beat.
Mitchell started up the stairs, doing his best to ignore her.
"Name your price..." Then she shrugged, frowned, and stopped, put off for a moment or so. Before she could start again, he began talking loudly, though everyone just looked up momentarily as his voice echoed around the room and then went back to work. He didn’t mind, but kept talking anyway, "I don't know why we get these stupid little flashlights."
He stepped up the first few steps and looked up around again. It was like Dagobah only minus the swamp; the whole place was dry, but he could just imagine some giant swamp monster reaching out of a dark corner and grabbing Daniel, now hunched over some archaic panel in the floor.
Mitchell kept talking, "I've seen those great big wide-beam things they've got in the SGC. They keep 'em under look and key though. Looks like they're stashing them up to power the Antarctic chair..." He reached the top of the stairs and looked over his shoulder. Vala had given up completely by the looks of it, and had gone to irritate Daniel instead. "Real flashlights," he muttered. Oh well, at least he'd shut Vala up. Just as he was grinning to himself happily, he tripped over something on the floor, which rattled dryly. He flashed his torch at it and jumped. "Man, some light would really save these nasty surprises!" He turned slightly and called down the wide staircase, "Hey, you guys - you'll want to get up here." Maybe they heard something in his tone, because the rest of his team raced up the stairs and suddenly, the combined lights of their torches lit up the ages-old body of a very, very dead Ancient.
"Well, someone isn’t doing so well. Remarkably well preserved," murmured Daniel.
"Indeed."
"Well, the base is probably so completely isolated from environmental factors that..."
Vala glanced around a little worriedly, "Do you get these often?"
"Now that you mention it..." smirked Mitchell, "Yeah."
Davidson's team joined them, and looked past SG-1 at the corpse, though Lieutenant Bolton – SG-12’s tech expert - had to balance a little awkwardly on the stairs to try and see around Teal’c.
"Well, whatever happened," began Daniel.
"It must have been pretty bad, for Ancients to lose," continued Mitchell.
They all looked at him.
"Haven't you guys read any of Colonel Sheppard's mission reports? When those guys lose the bad guys have really big guns." He paused and then muttered, "or there's thousands of them, or they suck the life out of you with their hands..."
"I can't seriously imagine anything here being worse than the Ori though," said Carter, "and…. I think I’ve found a way to access these computer terminals - but I'll need time to look at it."
Everyone except Carter and Bolton spread out across the room, Daniel drawn magnetically to the nearest panel with Alteran script on it, while Teal'c and Mitchell stood about trying to look important, glancing around and flickering their lights into dark corners, as though there might be a stray Iratis Bug or some R75 wandering around. Meanwhile, Vala just hovered around, getting in the way of Davidson’s men, then finally coming to rest next to Daniel - predictably.
"Don't you think it's likely some kind of creature killed those people?" she asked.
"No, I don't," he replied, "In fact, I think it's far more likely the disease the Ancients fled from killed these people before they could leave."
"No critters here anymore, anyway," commented Mitchell from the stairs.
Everyone fell quiet, and the only sound came from the scanner Carter was attempting to interface to the controls with. And the drip of water. Maybe there is a swamp in here after all, thought Mitchell, trying to imagine the look on Landry’s face if he were to write a report about meeting a small green guy with a habit for speaking backwards…
"I'm taking a walk," said Daniel.
Carter raised a hand in acknowledgement and Mitchell shrugged like 'go ahead'. Daniel walked off with Vala trailing between two old blackened lighting columns, the archaeologist moving quickly and confidently through the halls.
"What are we doing?" asked Vala curiously, bounding along beside him, "And how do you know where you're going?"
He glanced at her absently, "I think...” Then he paused momentarily, before stepping forwards into a circular room, “Ah, yes, here we are."
Her eyes widened, "This looks just like..."
He nodded, and finished before she could, "Exactly. Atlantis' hologram room.” They exchanged a look, before he added, “And it's in the same place and so is everything else…"
When they arrived back at the control room to share their news, a short time later, Carter and Lieutenant Bolton had finished their work on the interface to the base, and just as they entered, the astrophysicist was exclaiming, "This place! It's... another city of the Ancients!"
Back at the SGC, Colonel Carter went over the mission at the debriefing.
"...this new city seems to be identical in shape and size to Atlantis - although it seems to be buried under half a mountain of soil." She looked to General Landry and said, "With your permission, sir, I would like to return with SG-12 and at least a naquadah generator, to try and activate some of the city's basic systems." She paused - remembering something - "Also, I would like to give this sample to Doctor Lam, and find out if the subject died of a disease or not."
"I need to go as well," butted in Daniel, "From what I saw this city could be the oldest thing we've found in this Galaxy to date."
"Always to the point, aren't you?" commented Landry wryly. "Anyone else got any good reasons to send you back there?" he sat back into his chair and looked around, positively challenging anyone else to dare.
"They've got big guns, sir," murmured Mitchell. He knew exactly which buttons to push. Admittedly, everyone died, but mostly it was left to him, as SG-1's theoretical leader. "ZPMs, maybe, all that jazz. Probably stuff even Atlantis' mob have never seen."
"Well, put like that, how can I refuse?" The General grinned at them and stood up (to the sound of Carter and Mitchell's chairs scraping as they jumped to their feet) and said, "SG-1 you have a go to return to this city of yours, and you can take SG-12. Oh, and you're in luck - I happen to have to have he planet's second -" he nodded at Carter, "best for this stuff on hand."
Carter's smile faded with a dash of pessimistic premonition.
As they geared up, Doctor Rodney McKay listed his woes. "... dragging me off my work on this end of the intergalactic gate bridge, and dumping me with people" he glared pointedly at Mitchell, "Who can't even boast about MENSA at least..."
He turned to Carter, "At least there's someone here of measurable intelligence." He smiled broadly at her.
"So, who's that fruitloop that's coming with us?" demanded Vala not so discreetly.
"That fruitloop" snarked McKay, "is the smartest man on the planet."
Vala pulled a face, "Oh, well then... My opinion of this planet's intelligence just dropped."
When they reached the gateroom and McKay and Vala still hadn't shut up, Mitchell felt obliged to tell them to, and for a while they obeyed, though they kept giving each other narked looks.
"SG-1 and 12," said Landry's voice through the speakers, "You have a go. Bring me back some guns."
Meanwhile, Doctor Lam, working with Doctor Lee, had begun running tests on the sample Colonel Carter had brought back from the city. She'd already completed the preliminary tests and the results were really quite surprising. the virus that had wiped out the Ancients left easily visible symptoms, even on a sample as old as this. But, whatever had killed this man had been far more subtle and quick acting. A new strain, perhaps?
She'd stopped working briefly for a snack, stopped to see how Lee was going (no better than her, what a surprise) before continuing with some more precise tests.
~
Once again, creatures had come through the Great Circle. But before its brothers could be awakened they had gone again. But next time, they would not have such luck. It scuttled quickly towards the gate's control room. It climbed around the inner workings of the computers, naturally not understanding what it saw. But the hive-mind did. From the information passed down from the Ancestors it understood that by destroying, or at least removing a specific crystal in a specific console that the Great Circle would not activate from this end. There would be no escape. And now, they were ready. But before it could pull the crystal it snapped a wire with its foot. The current ran through it, and before it would pull way the current fried both it, and the control crystal...