Disclaimers: Stargate SG-1 belongs to Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Products. Roswell belongs to UPN, Melinda Metz, Twentieth Century Fox Productions, and Jason Katims. No copyright infringements were intended. This story was written for entertainment and not for profit.

Spoilers and Timing: In Roswell this takes place after "Viva Las Vegas" with spoilers for the Hybrid Chronicles.

Summary: Stargate Command discovers yet another alien race, but they're not the friendly kind. They're known to all as the Skins, and they've given Earth a choice: hand over the Royal Four, or they'll go to war with Earth.

Note: This story is much different than your normal Roswell episode. It's a big AU because it shows my view of what life is like on Antar and what it's like among Larek's people. In other words, I used a lot of imagination to create this fic. I hope you like it.

*****

PART ONE

On the planet of PX9-114, Col. Zack Thibodeaux of SG-4 kicked open an old, rusted-shut door. He stepped inside and glanced around, his high-powered rifle held at ready. His team followed him in, and the five of them fanned out to search the room.

They switched their flashlights on and looked around. One of them, Captain John Whit, ran his flashlight over one of the walls.

The wall was covered with alien symbols unlike any he'd ever seen. He was his team's archeologist, and even though he'd never be as good as SG-1's Daniel Jackson, he knew enough to know that these symbols were unlike any Goa'uld or Earth language he'd ever seen.

"Colonel!" He called.

A flashlight beam turned in his direction. A few minutes later, the Colonel appeared. "Yea, John? What have you found?"

John used the beam of his flashlight to show his friend his discovery. "It's like nothing I've ever seen, Zack. It's not like anything that we've found before. I don't think the Goa'uld had anything to do with this."

"That's your assessment?"

"That's my guess," John said. "With your permission, I'd let to take some pictures of this. I think we should let Dr. Jackson get a look at it. He'd be able to confirm or deny my hypothesis."

"All right, do it." Col. Thibodeaux turned to where he could see other flashlight beams not far away. "Stevens, bring that camera over here!" Major Stevens hurried over.

The minute the colonel turned away, John felt something crawl up his leg. It sent chills through it, making it feel numb.

"Ah!" John said, loosing his balance. He reached over to brace himself against the wall, and his hand pressed against an upraised portion he hadn't noticed before.

Almost immediately, light filled the chamber, leaving five very surprised men very viewable to one another.

"What the hell was that?" Col. Thibodeaux asked John.

John looked down at his leg. Nothing was there. He looked back up at the colonel. "I felt something crawl up my leg, and I lost my balance and hit this button." He pointed to the button.

"You okay?"

John nodded. "Yeah, I think so."

"Colonel, I've found something you might want to see," a team member on the other side of the room called.

Col. Thibodeaux and John walked over to the bent-over major. "Look at this," he told them.

They did. On the ground near the major's feet were a group of green crystals.

"What is that?" John asked.

"Better bag some of that, major," Col. Zack said.

"Yes, sir."

The colonel stood up and glanced around. "Let's head back to the Stargate." He glanced at John. "We'd better have you checked out. We'll send a team back in here to take pictures of the text."

A few minutes later, once the major had finished gathering a sample of the odd crystals, SG-4 headed out of the alien structure and back to the Stargate. They never knew that what they were bringing back with them, in the major's container and in Captain John Whit's body, would have been better off left on PX9-114.

*****

The button that John pressed wasn't just a light switch. On a nearby planet, in the same solar system as PX9-114, a decades-old war raged between two alien races. The leader of one of them, known to all as Kivar, was soon informed that someone had entered the ruins on Trollinar.

"Who is it?" Kivar asked his officer.

The Skin looked up from his computer console. He looked alarmed. "Humans, sir."

"Humans?" Kivar asked, surprised. "Have there been any ships of any kind heading toward Trollinar in the past six months?"

"No, sir. The computer is picking up an usual energy pattern, usually associated with a Stargate."

"So the humans have discovered how to use the Stargate on their own planet," Kivar deduced. "They no doubt have heard about the Goa'uld, and have probably found out about the Royal Four as well." He turned to his second-in-command. "Nicholas!" he called, using the Skin's chosen human alias.

"Yes, sir?" Nicholas stepped forward.

"I think I know how to get the Royal Four."

*****

Kivar wasn't the only one who received the signal from Trollinar. On a planet billions upon billions of miles away from Earth, Larek was also informed of the visitors to the ruins on Trollinar. When he learned that humans found the ruins, he was glad that it wasn't the Goa'uld, but the fact that some of the Tau'ri found them did merit some of his attention.

Later on, in his own quarters, he waited at his table for another important person to arrive. He couldn't decide what to do about this situation without her.

She entered the room not long afterwards. "Hello, Larek. What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?"

Larek stood up. "Your highness-"

"Please," she said. "You know you don't have to address me so formally, as if we were merely acquaintances. I always considered you as part of the family, since you and my son were so close."

She sat, and Larek sat down after her, still showing her respect, whether she wanted him to or not. "I'm sorry, Helena. But there's something I need to tell you about."

"What is it?" Helena, the birth mother of Max and Isabel, asked again.

"A team of five humans have discovered the ruins on Trollinar."

"Trollinar?" Understanding appeared on her face. "They've found out how to use the Stargate."

Larek nodded. "I don't think the humans are in league with the Goa'uld. They would all be hosts by now if that were true. I have been informed that Kivar plans to capture any SG teams he finds coming through the Stargates on the planets he occupies. He will hold them hostage until Earth agrees to exchange them for the Royal Four, who are still in hiding on Earth."

"We can't let him do that," Hellena stated.

Larek nodded again. "Unfortunately, all our resources are concentrated on fighting the Skins. It would be possible to rescue any teams that are captured, but we can't send anyone to Earth to protect the Royal Four from captivity."

"Then my children are on their own," Hellena said. "They do not know about the Goa'uld or the humans' knowledge of the Stargate. We should inform them immediately, so they will be prepared. We can't let Kivar know that we're doing that, though."

"Then I can't take over Brody Davis' body. Possessing a human body that is so far away takes up a considerable amount of my planet's resources. It is very hard to keep something like that a secret, and we need those resources to fight Kivar and our other enemies."

"Then you must send the message the other way."

"Yes," Larek nodded, standing up. Hellena stood up as well. "I will inform you when we know they have received our message."

*****

"I'm not sure I understand the purpose of baseball," Teal'c told Colonel Jack O'Neill.

"It's really for recreation," Jack began.

"It has no other purpose?"

"Well, no," Jack looked at him. "What, don't tell me that back on your home planet you never got to have any fun once in awhile?"

"All of our activities were centered around becoming better and stronger Jaffa."

Jack and the tall, dark-skinned Jaffa Prime were walking down one of the many corridors of Stargate Command, located in Colorado. They were headed for the gym where they would do a little sword sparing. Jack wanted them to try a few other sports, too, but he was having a hard time convincing Teal'c.

Major Samantha Carter appeared around the corner and walked over to them. "Hey. Daniel wants us to meet him at his workroom. He says he wants to show us something."

"Like what exactly?" Jack asked. Daniel tended to get excited over all sorts of things.

"I'm not sure."

Jack exchanged a glance with Teal'c before sighing. It looked like he'd have to introduce Teal'c to the art of baseball some other day. He'd been looking forward to it. "Well, we don't want to keep him waiting, do we?"

*****

When they reached Daniel Jackson's crowded archeology office, he waved them over to a table in the back of the room. "Teal'c, do you recognize this language?"

Sam, Teal'c, and Jack walked over. Spread out on the desk were pictures of a language chiseled into a stone wall. One symbol looked like a swirl with a dot in the middle, another looked sort-of like an 'A,' and another one looked like four circles connected by two crisscrossing lines.

"I do not know this language," Teal'c answered. "It is unlike any language found on any of the planets that I know the Goa'uld have visited."

"Daniel? Do you recognize it?" Jack asked.

Daniel shook his head. "I've never seen this before, either. I've been doing some research ever since SG-4 found this two days ago. It's unlike any language we've ever seen." He walked over to another table, and gestured for the others to follow him. "SG-4 also found this not that far away from the writing."

They walked over there and saw an unusual green crystal under a lamplight. "Sam?" Jack asked.

Sam looked at it. "It looks like a type of crystal, sir, but I've never seen one that's green before." She reached into a box of latex gloves and put one on, then gently moved the crystal under her fingers.

Suddenly, the crystal changed shape. Sam reacted, jerking her hands back.

"What the hell?" Jack asked, alarmed.

They watched as the "crystal," which was no longer a solid object, seemed to crawl across the table towards Sam.

"Daniel, we need something to contain this thing!" Jack said. Daniel searched through the pile on a nearby desk for a container.

The green mass reached the edge of the table and reached out toward the major. Sam jumped to the left, but the green mass followed her.

"Here!" Daniel announced, holding up a plastic jar. He hurried back and slammed it on top of the green mass.

Instantly, it reverted back to its crystal-like appearance. The members of SG-1 stared at it for a minute, frozen from alarm.

"I don't think that was a crystal," Sam stated.

"Can't say I disagree, major," Jack told her.

Teal'c seemed to regain his composer. "I think this is a matter that merits General Hammond's attention."

"Can't say that I disagree with that, either," Jack said.

*****

PART TWO

Michael stood in the granilith chamber. He stared up at the huge, purple cone that hung suspended from the middle of the ceiling. Inside it, purple light seemed to dance from one end of the cone to the other, creating a dazzling display. Michael was still enchanted by it and by the hint of the power it might contain.

He still wondered what it was like on that other world, and he wondered if the granilith was the key to getting there. Nasedo certainly hadn't left any clues about it, but from their dealings with the Skins and the Summit, he was sure the granilith had something to do with getting home.

Suddenly, the granilith seemed to come to life. Lights danced across the walls, and the crystal base beneath the purple cone lit up. A second later, light flooded the chamber until Michael couldn't see beyond it.

Before he knew what was happening, the beam knocked him back against the wall.

When he sat up, the lights faded out, and the granilith once again became as lifeless as it was only a few minutes ago. Michael checked for broken bones before scanning the rest of the room.

A silver object Michael hadn't seen before lay at the base of the crystal. Michael got up and picked it up. It was shaped like a football, and it looked exactly like those communicators they found last year.

Michael took it and ran out of the cave to Maria's Jetta. He needed to show the others this.

*****

Michael finished telling everyone assembled what happened. Everyone was there; Tess and Max stood next to each other, Kyle leaned against the door, Isabel and Alex took one chair, Liz and Maria sat on the arms of another, and Michael and Deputy Jim Valenti took places on the right side of the chairs. They were all assembled in his apartment, and looking very alert after what he said.

"Wow," Tess said. "If the granilith can do something like that, who knows what else it can do?"

"Yea, who knows?" Maria said, meeting Liz's eyes.

"Any ideas on what that thing is for?" Jim asked, pointing at the communicator in Max's lap.

"Don't know," Max answered. He looked at the other aliens. "We could do what we did last time."

"I don't know, Max," Isabel said. "What if it sends out another signal?"

"Yea," Alex said. "Brody found that signal last time. What if someone else did, too? If this one casts another signal, wouldn't it just help them find us?"

"I think this is too important not to take any risks on," Michael said. "I mean, it was created right before my eyes. What if it's from somebody on our world? What if they're trying to contact us? We should at least hear them out."

"If they wanted to talk to us, Larek would take over Brody's body," Max reminded him.

"What if he couldn't?" Liz asked. Max looked at her.

"I think we should see what they have to say," Kyle said.

"Me, too," Tess said.

Max glanced at Isabel. "I don't know, Max. What do you think?"

Max looked down at the football-shaped object. "I say it's worth a shot."

He held the ball out in the center of the group. Isabel, Tess, and Michael reached out and placed their hands on it. Together, the four aliens focused their energy on the ball.

A light formed above the ball, casting the room in a bluish glow. Everyone watched as the light changed into a hologram. It formed into the face of Brody Davis.

"Greetings," the holographic message said. "I'm appearing to you in this form because you are familiar with me visiting you in this body. I couldn't do that this time, however, because all my resources are required to keep the Skins off of my planet."

"I must inform you that something urgent has happened. On a planet near Antar, your home planet that Kivar currently rules, is the planet of Trollinar. Before the wars started, the Antarians, Skins, and my people worked peacefully on that planet performing scientific research. Part of that went into genetic research. Unfortunately, that was a disaster. The green crystals that infected Earth recently were created then."

"Gee, thanks," Alex muttered.

"Inside the research chambers, the crystals were harmless, as you know. They would only work if they were injected into human sperm. The sperm would then be able to infiltrate alien egg cells, therefore created a human/alien embryo," the holographic Larek continued. "Outside the chambers, however, the planet's atmosphere was very oxygen-rich, which caused any crystals they took outside to mutate. The mutated chrystal would infect the DNA of any sentient being it came into contact with, changing his or her own DNA, not their future children's."

"None of the scientists tried to take the crystals outside after this was discovered until the Goa'uld, another species, raided Trollinar. They needed oxygen to live, so they destroyed the chamber walls so oxygen could get through. It killed the Skin scientists, who unlike the Antarians and my own people, can only live in a completely oxygen-free environment."

"The Goa'uld killed the others. All of the crystal was now permanently exposed to oxygen."

He went on to explain who the Goa'uld were. "The Goa'uld are a very dangerous race. They are symbiotes, or parasites."

For the first time, the holograph changed from Larek's face to show a picture of a Goa'uld symbiote. No one liked the image.

"These symbiotes take control of a human host by entering through the back of the neck."

The message proceeded to tell them all about the Goa'uld. "Once in control of the host, the Goa'uld tends to pose as a God. Millions of beings spread across the galaxy believe them, and many of them follow them. They are either slaves to the Goa'uld, or they carry adolescent Goa'uld in pouches in their stomachs. The latter are called Jaffa. They can not communicate with the Goa'uld that they carry in their stomachs. But in return for carrying it, the Jaffa gets long life. When the Goa'uld is old enough, it leaves the Jaffa's body and seeks out a host. The Jaffa dies not long after that unless another adolescent Goa'uld is put in his body."

Oh, my God," Kyle said once it was over. He felt like throwing up.

"How could they do those things to humans?" Isabel asked, horrified.

Larek's face appeared again, looking sad. "I'm sorry I had to show you those things," he said. "But it is important that you know all about them."

"When they conquered Trollinar, they built their bases near the ruins of the chambers and set up a Stargate. Several months passed before they began to notice a change among their Jaffa slaves. By the time they figured out that the green crystals were causing the changes, we were already headed toward the planet in our ships. The Goa'uld and his Jaffa that weren't affected managed to contain the crystal in an oxygen-less room, then fled the planet through their Stargate. By the time our forces arrived on Trollinar, they were gone. We decided to leave the crystal contained the way it was."

"No one has gone back to Trollinar until only a few days ago, when a group of humans in the American military traveled through Earth's Stargate to the Stargate on Trollinar and discovered the ruins."

"What?" Max asked aloud, shocked. Everyone else felt the same way.

"We believe that they have unknowingly brought the virus back to Earth with them, and since they used the Stargate, we believe the Earth governments may have knowledge of the Goa'uld. We do not think they are in league with the Goa'uld but we don't know how they found out about the Stargate in the first place. Unfortunately, Kivar has also learned about the humans' visit to Trollinar, and he plans to capture some of their field units. He will try to make a trade with the Earth governments for you, so we have sent this message to you to prepare you for when that happens. I will come in person to help as soon as I can. Good luck, my friends."

*****

SG-1 finished giving their report to General Hammond, complete with camera footage of the entire incident. The general looked very thoughtful. "This is all very interesting." He glanced at Daniel. "What was it doing in the archeology department, anyway?"

"The scientific research room was getting a new paint job, so they had to move some of their equipment into my workroom for a few days," Daniel answered.

"We didn't know that the crystal was of any real importance, sir," Sam interjected.

"It's all right, Major," the general said. "As long as this thing is contained, there hopefully won't be any trouble. Colonel O'Neill, I want you to place two guards on that thing, and have them rotate in shifts."

"Yes, sir."

"I want your team to go back to PX9-114 and see if you can find an explanation or more evidence of those green crystals."

"Excuse me, sir, but are you sure that's safe? The sample SG-4 brought back could move and change shape very rapidly, sir, and I don't think its' intention was peaceful when it came after me. If there's more of this, we may not be able to protect ourselves."

"I want my best teams to give me a report on that planet. SG-2 and SG-3 will accompany you."

*****

"I told you, I'm fine," Captain John Whit argued. "It was two days ago! I haven't felt anything since then. I don't see why I have to spend five more days in the infirmary."

Dr. Frasier walked over to his infirmary bed and checked his pulse. "General Hammond's orders are to keep you under observation for an entire week. Until you're free to go, I expect your full cooperation."

John sighed, but nodded. He was so bored. He wanted to help Dr. Jackson interpret that new alien language, and he was afraid that by the end of the week it would be too late. Everyone knew that Jackson was the one who decoded the seventh symbol on the first Stargate mission, and that he did it in only two weeks. John wanted to help this time.

His infirmary room door opened, and Zack stepped through. "Hey, John. How's your vacation going?"

John smirked. "It's going just peachy, Zack. Have they found out what that weird language is yet?"

Colonel Thibodeaux shook his head. "No. They're waiting for you to get out of here and help them out."

"Right."

"Well, Daniel did ask how you were," Zack said. He sat down in the chair next to the bed. "How are you doing, John?"

"Good."

They talked for awhile before Zack stood up, said goodbye, and left the room.

But when he left, something was different.

John glanced wildly around the empty room. Confusion and rage clouded his thoughts and vision, making everything seem more dangerous than they really were. His leg was suddenly cold like it was on PX9-114, and it slowly worked its way up his thigh and into his chest.

Then he blinked, and the rage, confusion, and the cold feeling disappeared.

John rubbed his eyes and glanced at the clock. What just happened? He was sure that a second of his memory was gone. He shook his head. That's crazy, he told himself. Zack just left. Nothing has happened since then.

Convinced that it was all part of his imagination, John dismissed it, and quickly forgot all about it.

Part Two

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