New Information
Disclaimer: I own neither Stargate nor The Tribe or anything associated with it.
A/N: I'd like to thank ToBetasered for betareading this Chapter.
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Jack was pacing around like a tiger in a cage.
It was 2025 h SGC time and Daniel and Sam were late. Normally this wouldn't be a problem as SG1 had standard issue radios but Sam had told him that they would be trying to lose any trackers sent to follow them. Under those circumstances keeping in radio contact was counterproductive.
Trying to distract himself he looked over the list containing their resources.
Food, Medicine and Energy wouldn't be a problem, even though the MRE's tasted like Chicken. They also would have to be careful with their batteries, not because they didn't have enough but because the children didn't and might try to steal theirs.
Looking at his Wally-Talky he decided, that while having a well stocked Military Base as a HQ had it advantages, it didn't help in cases like this.
"Where the f****** hell are they" Jack muttered lowly.
He once more walked past Teal'C, if there was one thing Jack hated then it was waiting while his team was potentially in danger. Jack suddenly turned around and opened the door that separated the NZ SGC, as they called the New Zealand base, from the regular hospital. As he did so he noted that they really needed to find ot what the place was really called. Jack personally thought that NZ SGC just sounded stupid.
"I'll look around outside. Who knows, maybe they got lost in the hospital." He somewhat optimistically said to Teal'c
While both men knew that this was highly unlikely, anything was better than sitting around doing nothing. Jack entered the regular Hospital, closed the door and smiled. There was a small sign next to the door that told anyone who bothered to read it, that the supposed storage room he had exited held important paperwork. In Jack's opinion there was no better way to keep someone at distance than paperwork.
Teal'C sat next to the door waiting, when suddenly his radio crackled with static. "T, we're here." O'Neill's voice said over the channel, loud and clear. Before Teal'C could acknowledge the message the door opened than the rest of SG-1 entered, his team was once more complete.
Teal'c's eyes ghosted over his fellow team members, taking in the fact that Jack looked more relaxed than he had been a mere 5 minutes ago, while Sam and Daniel looked a bit messy. They had obviously to hidden in the forest, meaning they hadn't had as easy a time coming here undetected as they had hoped.
"So Campers, what's the situation?" Jack queried.
Daniel and Sam looked at each other before the archaeologist began to tell Teal'c and Jack about the Sectors, the Tribe system, the Tribe Circus and the Survivors.
"Anything to add, Carter?" O'Neill asked, in what they referred to as his CO voice, looking at her.
Sam nodded, "While the Tribe Circus is undoubtedly the most dangerous Tribe in this area they are by no means the most dangerous in the City."
The Major elaborated on her statement, saying, "From what Holly told me, that honour belongs to a group called the Demon Dogs." She said sarcastically, "Although," Sam continued, "It would seem that the Demon Dogs have been scattered after their leader was killed fighting a new tribe."
"A new tribe?" Teal'C asked
"Kathy told me that there have been sightings of, 'Creepy-looking robe guys that freaked the hell out of everyone'. They even appeared at a meeting of the Council of Tribes." Sam answered.
Jack seemed confused "Council, council…"
"It's a meeting of some influential tribe leaders and their right hand men or women Jack." Daniel interjected wearily, "I told you about this."
"You did?" Jack looked sceptically at Daniel
"Indeed O'Neill" Teal'c validated.
"Whatever. Back to the topic, what about the time issue? We are after all on a different time zone and while I can tell that it is lunchtime I'd like to coordinate our movements more precisely." Jack looked at his XO "Could we use the system time of the PC's?"
"You told me yourself that the whole system only activated after you started the emergency generator. This way the system had to start its synchronisation process which is normally done through a satellite, but..." Carter began explaining, before the colonel interrupted her.
"Yes or No? Carter." He asked impatiently.
"No, sir!" Sam replied, sheepishly. She hated it whenever he had to interrupt her because she once more got off the track.
"Actually, I know the local time." Daniel said, "At least, I assume I do." He temporized.
"How?"
"Well, Wellington is GMT +12 while Colorado Springs is GMT -6. This means that we have to add 18 hours to get the local time. This of course only works if this dimension does have the same amount of seconds to a day." Daniel explained.
"It should have." Sam said, "Even though this seems to be among the remotest dimensions we can reach it still only started to vary in the last 50 or so years. That means that anything that concerns events that are further back in time, like the development of the solar system is identical. A day here would therefore be just as long as a day back home. At most we could have lost a few seconds in transit, but that is highly unlikely.
"OK , whatever. Synchronise your watches, it's now 1451 h local time." Jack ordered.
He was answered by a chorus of replies from his team.
"Yes Sir!"
"Indeed O'Neill..."
"Yes."
*'*'*'*'*'*'*'*'*
Jack tried the Halloween make up and decided to use it to conceal his features, smearing different shades of brown and green along his cheeks, across his nose and forehead. The hoody Sam brought back fit but just barely, not surprising, seeing as Carter had guessed his size. He felt stupid wearing the ill-fitting piece of clothing and from the looks of the rest of SG-1, it seemed that they felt the same.
Well Sam and Daniel did. With Teal'C he wasn't sure.
"We need more information. Carter, check the computers and the labs for information concerning the remote and any allies this SGC has. Daniel, I found some documents written in some kind of Ancient text. I've put them on a table in the mirror room." Jack ordered them.
"Yes, Sir." Carter replied in typical military fashion.
"On my way." Daniel chipped in eagerly.
"Teal'c, you and I are going to be checking the video footage of the security cams in the Hospital on the days leading to the shutdown." He told the Jaffa.
*'*'*'*'*'*'*'*'*
SG-1 was once more divided and silence fell over the base, only interrupted by Carter typing on a keyboard or shuffling through papers in a lab; and by the scraping sound of a pen on paper made by Daniel, or...
"OK," Jack thought, "It's not totally silent." But still, with only SG1 on the base it felt unwelcoming to him.
"Colonel O'Neill, do you read?" Jack's radio crackled a bit, a sound that stopped as soon as he pressed the talk button.
"What's the matter Carter?"
"Sir, there are no Goa'uld in this Dimension." His XO told him.
"What?" Jack exclaimed clearly suprised.
"According to these records APC teams have in all their travels only encountered a handful of species, the Nox, the Tollan and a few others. But every planet that in our dimension that was colonised with slaves abducted from earth is empty. The Gate they use is the one from Antarctica, hidden by the ancients. Over."
"So no snakeheads, that's good news." Jack answered, relieved. "What's an APC team?"
"Their designation for the SGC is APC, Astria Porta Centre, after the Ancients name for the Stargate." Sam replied over the radio.
"Do we have Allies to gate to in case of an emergency?" Jack asked hopefully. Maybe Thor could help them, the Asgard where the most advanced species known to them after all.
"Negative Sir." Sam answered. "They were friendly with a few species but had no alliances. Over"
For a few short seconds there was silence as Jack and Sam thought about what they would do if it ever came to the point when staying was no longer an option.
"This is Daniel. We created the Virus." Another voice intruded on the channel.
"Daniel? Explain!" O'Neill barked, startled by the revelation.
"Well. I'm no chemist but the documents I translated were written by someone we've identified as rouge NID in our universe." Jackson explained. "He writes about experimenting with alien substances to create an immortality drug. From the way he writes this it wasn't his idea. The guy he reported to was an NID we had on our suspect list back home."*
"Great…just what we needed, the bloody NID." Jack sighed. "Anyone at least got good news for me?"
"Indeed O'Neill. This is Tango-India-Foxtrot-2-1-9." Teal'c gave his call-sign blandly, "I believe the remote was taken away by a scientist named Anderson. Over"
"Carter?"
"Found him Sir. Jason Anderson, married to Alyssia Anderson, two sons Martin and Bray both where underage when the virus hit. They were just moving so the system has no current address." The Major answered.
"So now we are searching for two boys of unknown age." Jack groaned. "Peachy just Peachy."
"Do we at least know what they look like?" He added as an afterthought.
"I'll print the Picture." Sam said, "But it is at least two years old, so I don't know how useful it might be."
Nothing interesting happened over the next few days. Sam had shut down every system they didn't need and closed those labs that where potentially dangerous, including the one in which the virus was developed; although Sam promised that without a host it had long since died. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons, she could not promise that the virus hadn't mutated and wasn't still active outside the hospital.
All Sam could tell the others was that it was highly unlikely that a mutated virus had a long lifespan. It would most likely be gone within a couple of weeks without anyone to infect. Daniel had finished translating the documents but had not found anything further that could be of interest. Sadly SG-1 hadn't found a better way to disguise their selves and had to rely on the fact that they at least weren't noticeable from afar would help them a bit.
Regardless, rumours about adults were already flowing through the city..
"O'Neill! There is an adolescent in the Hospital."
Jack looked at the screen that Teal'C had pointed at. It seemed as if screen duty had finally paid off.
O'Neill picked up his radio. "Carter, Jackson do you read?"
Jack waited for a response.
"One moment..." Daniel radioed back distractedly."...Yes."
"Colonel, what is it sir?" Carter answered crisply.
"We've got an unidentified Teenager, around 19, spraying a message on one of the walls of the entrance Hall. Get here for possible identification." Jack answered.
"Yes Sir." Carter responded.
"I'm on my way Jack." Daniel added a second later.
It took them a little over three minutes to get to the security room and the boy in the entrance hall was nearly finished.
"I remember seeing this boy. He's one of the Survivors." Sam said while peering at the screen.
"Lachlan" Daniel said, "His name is Lachlan. He's nineteen,his cousin is Holly."
"We didn't see much of him when we were there, but he was the only one of the tribe that didn't seem fascinated with the idea of adults being still alive." Sam added deep in thought, trying to remember as much as possible about the reclusive boy.
"Ok! Daniel, you and I are going upstairs to see what kind of message this kid left." Jack ordered .
The two men departed from the room, leaving Sam and Teal'C to watch the screens. Teal'C made sure that the way Daniel and Jack took was clear while Sam closely watched a recording of the earlier camera footage to make sure they hadn't missed anything.
"Section A3 is clear O'Neill." Teal'c radioed while keeping his eyes on the monitors.
"A4 clear."
Sam looked up."Sir, He left no presents. I repeat, no presents."
"Gotcha, Carter." Jack returned.
Perhaps they were being overly cautious but in Jack's opinion the only real advantages SG-1 had were their experience and the fact that no one knew for sure that they lived here. The two men had reached the Hall and Jack scanned the room with experienced eyes, before he focused on the message that Jackson was reading.
'To: Sam and Dan'
Jack looked at Daniel who cringed and mouthed Lori.
'of the Tollan'
Obviously the Survivors had bought their cover story.
'We need your Help. Holly and Kathy were taken hostage by slave traders on market day in the first warm days since you arrived.
Lachlan'
"Market is every 7 days. The first warm day was 8 days ago and the Market following was three days ago." Daniel supplied upon seeing Jack's baffled expression.
"But why not simply say so?" Jack asked.
"They don't have a calendar to determine the actual day and they had no way to know when we would find the message. Quite a few people have seen us in this area, together with the fact that Sam bandaged up a kid a few nights back they most likely assumed that we were here at least once and might come back again. The probably have already marked every medical praxis in this area."
Jack nodded "Go back and keep an eye on the cameras."
He activated his radio, and told the other's what they had discovered.
"You guys and I will try to get some info about the slave traders." Jack ordered, "Over and out."
He took out the chalk that was part of the standard SGC field pack and wrote: 'We will. Jack of the Tollan'
