Watching the lush grass flatten beneath her muddy boots then spring back up as if she'd never even touched it, Sam tramped through the sodden undergrowth. The overcast sky was grey and unpleasant, the wind was bitingly cold and the rain pelted down from darkened clouds hovering ominously above.
On point several paces in front walked the Colonel. Halting momentarily, and making a show of knocking the raindrops off his cap, he half-turned to her and pointedly sighed.
"Care to remind me why I ‘gave up' my first day of leave for this?"
"Sir, this planet is an incredible discovery. You saw the samples."
"Yes, I did, but why did we have to come here? Couldn't one of the science teams have done this?"
"Sir..."
Starting moving again, he turned back to face the direction they were heading.
"All right, I already know why we had to come... Major Doctor Samantha Carter couldn't possibly give up the chance to see this for herself."
She noted the intentional inclusion of ‘Doctor' in her name. She knew why.
"Sir, I know this planet isn't of strategic interest but..."
"I'm wet, I'm cold and I should be halfway to Minnesota by now, Major. Believe me, this is not the time to give me a lecture on the benefits of finding some fancy mud."
"It's not the mud, sir... the mineral deposits in the soil..."
Turning again, he held up an admonishing finger.
"Ah! Does that make me any less soaked right now?"
"No, but..."
"Then same difference."
Teal'c, bringing up the rear, had water dripping off of the emblem on his forehead.
"Major Carter, when shall we reach our destination?"
Though the question was innocent enough, she heard the underlying tone in the Jaffa's voice that suggested that he was on the Colonel's side in this little debate.
"Just beyond the next ridge. The original samples suggest the deposits are richer there."
The looks she got from them both caused her to wince and turn to look to her left for some back-up from her staunchest supporter. But one look at the civilian told her she was unlikely to get it.
Daniel was not having a good day. The undergrowth here was thick and absolutely bursting full of flowers. Even the downpour around them didn't appear to be making enough of a dent on the pollen count. He was having trouble seeing straight through his puffy red eyes and only stopped sneezing long enough to breathe in rainwater. For once, he almost agreed with Jack. This planet was going to kill him. It was possible to actually die from sneezing, wasn't it? It certainly felt like it.
Seeing where he was going was proving near-impossible with the raindrops smeared across his steamed-up spectacles doing nothing to alleviate the blurriness of his vision. He tried to make out the shapes of his friends around him but realised he couldn't distinguish between the green of fabric and that of the thick vegetation.
Sneezing violently, he became aware of a wall of vegetation coming up to meet him. No, strike that, a wall covered in vegetation coming up to meet him. Oh boy was this was gonna hurt...
Given the noise of the downpour, it took the disgruntled Jack a few moments to notice that the sneezing behind him had stopped. He turned to find that Daniel was nowhere to be seen. The others hadn't appeared to notice yet with Carter walking with head dipped from the rain and Teal'c scanning the forest behind them.
He couldn't prevent the rhythm of his heart increasing in tempo.
"Daniel?"
There was no reply. However, the reaction from the others was instantaneous with Carter's head snapping to the left and Teal'c spinning around.
"Daniel Jackson?"
"Daniel?"
Then, to his relief, he saw a hand shoot up out of a nearby patch of greenery followed, eventually, by the rest of the bedraggled civilian. Visually inspecting him as he rushed over, Jack saw him rubbing at his forehead but no other obvious injuries.
Gingerly clambering out of the undergrowth, with nose obviously blocked, he said uncertainly, "I'b here, Jack."
Daniel sneezed several times in rapid succession. From his expression, it hadn't done any favours to his aching head.
Making it to his side, he demanded, "What happened?"
"I hit idto subthick."
Looking up to where his friend had fallen, he noticed, behind a curtain of undergrowth, there was a wall.
Placing a steadying hand on his dazed friend, Jack called back, "Major, come take a look at this."
Carter came to his side and audibly gasped.
"Thought SG-3 said this planet was uninhabited."
"According to all our readings, it is, sir, but... that doesn't mean there wasn't a civilisation here at some point."
Then she obviously noticed something because, hooking her hands around them, she began to pull the thorny vines aside. As she did so, he realised that the natural curtain had been obscuring an opening. Teal'c came forward to assist her in pulling the vines aside and soon the entrance-way was free of tangled tendrils.
Moving cautiously, they crept forward into the darkness with flashlight beams shining before them. The rather bedraggled Daniel was doing his best to sneeze stealthily. As they reached the end of the corridor, his friend pulled off his glasses and rubbed at his obviously stinging eyes.
Jack turned to see a large panel of writing on the wall.
"Daniel, take look at this."
Blinking furiously, his friend sighed.
"I cad't look at adything, Jack. I cad barely see."
As he reached into his vest and pulled out his anti-histamines, Carter said, "Hey, look at this thing, sir."
Padding over, he found himself confronted by a large and dusty pedestal covered in symbols and small rectangles of coloured glass.
Rather redundantly, Teal'c intoned, "This is not of Goa'uld design."
Carter frowned slightly.
"This tech doesn't look like anything we've seen. As far as I can tell, this isn't Asgarde or Ancient either. Daniel?"
After blowing his nose, the civilian said, "Yeah?"
"D'you recognize these symbols?"
Wiping his eyes and putting his glasses back on, Daniel came across to the pedestal.
"Possibly..."
Prowling around protectively, Jack surveyed the scene before him. Daniel, looking rather the worst for wear, was kneeling by the pedestal. He was trying to translate the engravings he'd just discovered whilst, sporadically, rubbing at the noticeable bruise on his forehead. Given his rather unfocused gaze when he'd first surveyed the pedestal, Jack'd insisted there was a time-out whilst they established Daniel wasn't showing any obvious signs of concussion but he seemed okay, at least for now.
Meanwhile, round the other side of the pedestal, Teal'c was assisting the Major with her diagnostic of the controls. From the look of her, analysis of the pedestal device was a juicy enough prospect to have driven all thoughts of fancy mud from her mind. Sparing another quick glance to Daniel, he padded round towards her.
"Major, report."
She half-glanced up.
"I can't find any readings to indicate that this thing's active, sir."
"What is it, anyway?"
For a moment, she looked like she was gonna come up with several possible theories but then, caving, she deflated.
"I don't know yet, sir."
That rather knocked him for six. He wasn't quite sure why he'd expected that she should know after all of ten minutes looking at the broken alien device but he couldn't help his eyes widening slightly at the admission. Seeing his expression, all she could do was shrug apologetically and get back to her analysis.
Deciding to tap his other fountain of knowledge, he raised his voice slightly.
"Hey, any ideas what we're looking at?"
At least this genius would have a theory; Daniel always had a theory. The civilian was obscured from view by the pedestal but, after a pause, his voice drifted over.
"Not sure but I think it may have been part of some contest... there are definitely several references to a competition or dual of some sort..."
That was all the theory he got before, appearing from behind the pedestal, Daniel got to his feet and, camera before him, padded across to read the inscriptions on the wall.
"Major Carter, is that wise?"
The comment from their stoic comrade brought his attention back to Carter. Possibly out of determination to restore his faith in her super-genius credentials, she was now messing about in the centre of the device where there lay a ring of odd purple crystals.
He echoed Teal'c's sentiment.
"Sure poking about in there's a good idea?"
"Sir, these crystals..."
As she spoke, her fingers brushed off of one of the crystals and it began to glow a beautiful purple. She instantly retracted the offending hand but, in a type of domino effect, both of the crystals beside the glowing one also began to glow. Rapidly, the rest of them began to light up.
Wearily, he said, "Major?"
"Sorry, sir."
By the time the bruised linguist had come back across from the wall to see what was going on, the final crystal had just begun to glow. Then, suddenly, all the lights on the control panels came on and the whole thing began to hum gently. Getting a serious feeling of foreboding, Jack glanced round to see Teal'c's expression mirrored his.
His head snapped back round as the crystals sent a beam of purple light up to the ceiling and the humming became a screeching.
"Out of here! Now!"
For once, he didn't need to repeat himself. They all dashed for the exit but, before they could reach it, a ripple of energy burst from the device and caught them all. They were completely motionless for what seemed like several seconds but then the power died and they all fell bonelessly to the ground.