Colonel Makepeace, commander of SG-3, sat in the control room, wearing headphones and watching a video screen, as Sergeant Harriman used a new MALP to repeat the survey of the Gate room where SG-1 disappeared.
The original rover, the one SG-1 relied upon, had been tampered with. According to Harriman, the first clue of the sabotage had been when the image failed to show the arrival of Teal'c, Daniel, and Sam on the far side of the gate. Jack stepped through the gate in the same moment Harriman called into the Gate room to hold him back.
Harriman said he was stunned when Dr. Coleman, who heard him tell Jack to wait, stepped through after Jack. Then Dr. Frasier's alarm went off, and it all made sense.
Now the Sergeant rolled the rover into the slot like doorway of the alien Gate room. The far end of a featureless dark passage looked onto a twilight, forested world.
"Can we pan the ceiling?" Makepeace asked.
"Sure, why?" Harriman rotated the cameras to point up.
"Now roll forward. Just a suspicion, I'll let you know if I....there..." A faint circular pattern appeared in the ceiling of the corridor. "Transport rings. Definitely a Goa'uld world." Makepeace paused. "How much time till the wormhole collapses?"
"I can't believe I missed that. We're looking at....six minutes, sir," said the Sergeant.
That meant four to reconnoiter, and two for his team to jump through if Makepeace thought it was safe.
"Our fault, not yours. It wasn't part of the protocol. Lets see how fast this thing can go."
Harriman leveled the cameras and ran the device full-speed down the corridor; the images bounced wildly every time it hit a bump. "Who! Must be kind of light over there. Low gravity, I mean, sir," he offered.
The MALP approached the end of the passage; Harriman slowed it to a skidless stop.
The tunnel ended on a long stone block, forming a ledge which overlooked a forested wild-land. Harriman panned the camera along the horizon; as he had reported earlier, there was no sign of habitation.
Then, following protocol, Harriman turned the camera upon the structure from which the MALP had emerged. The pyramid did not surprise Makepeace, but in the darkening sky above, even through the graininess of the image, he saw a plethora of bright lights, like stars.
Only these 'stars' were moving.
Only these 'stars' were moving like satellites, gilded bright by the setting sun.
By day they would have been invisible.
"Oh. My. God." Makepeace murmured. "I think its a shipyard!"
"No wonder they're in trouble," grieved Harriman.
"It's not your fault. Uh oh..." There was a sound in his earphones--transport rings.
Harriman lowered the camera to the pyramid's entry, just in time to see the silhouettes of Jaffa, illuminated deep in the tunnel by a staff-flash. The MALP image instantly turned into snow.
Makepeace threw his headphones onto the control panels.
"Damn!" He shook his head in frustration, and grabbed the microphone that spoke to the Gate room.
"Abort. Repeat, abort the mission. Debrief in five."
The words felt like the first handful of dirt on a grave.
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