Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 122

Chapter 122 - Secrets of the Past - Part 3

“I feel like there's a joke here I'm not getting.” Vala muttered as she glanced between the three of them.

“Several.” Jack confirmed. 

Daniel's eyes flicked to the hologram before he gave a viable grimace. “You don't really think that was… You know, do you Jack?”

Jack raised an eyebrow at the Archeologist. “You tell me, was Daniel of Jackson a common name back then?” 

“Not really.” Daniel admitted. “The name Jackson is a modern patronymic descending from what would back then have been the surname son of Jack.”

“Then I'd say yes.” Jack told him. “It’s probably from that thing we’re not supposed to talk about.”

“Ohhh.” Rayle suddenly exclaimed. “Is this about that time you guys time traveled?”

Daniel spun around to stare at the Elf with an odd look in his eye. “You know about that?”

“Dad told me.” Rayla admitted, crossing her arms and letting out an almost bored sigh. “He used it as an example of why I should try to avoid time travel.” She cocked her head. “And then he began muttering something about temporal duplication, but I kind of turned him out at that point cause Mulan was starting another song.”

“As you do.” Jack agreed, having done the same with Carter more than once when she started going on about various science problems.

“Um… Sir?” Carter interjected, causing Jack to glance back over at the scientist to see her biting her bottom lip in a way he knew meant she had just had some thought she he wasn't going to like. “You remember what I said about us not needing to worry about it after we recovered the ZPM and tape?”

“Carter.” Jack said. “Please tell me you're not about to say what I think you are?”

Cater ducked her head in an embarrassed non. “It's just… Do you remember when we got sent back to nineteen sixty-nine?”

“Yes.” Jack confirmed slowly, not sure where Carter was going with this.

“And we exited the Stargate into the SGC only for the whole universe to kind of shiver before changing into the original missile silo?”

Jack gave a cautious nod. “You never did explain that.”

“Well… That's what I thought would happen to the other us when we didn't go back in time to do what they did.”

Pursing his lips, Jack tried to work that into something that made sense before giving up with a sigh. “Carter, I'm going to need a bit more than that.”

“Think of it like an echo, sir. When we traveled back to nineteen sixty-nine there was a brief moment where the echo of our normal space-time protruded through the wormhole. And when that wormhole collapsed, the echo faded away leaving us trapped in the normal space time of nineteen sixty-nine.”

“All right.” Jack followed.

“That's what I thought had happened to the other us.” Carter admitted, grimacing as she glanced over to the narrating hologram. “But this suggests it didn't, which means…” She frowned in that way Jack found utterly adorable. “I'm not actually sure what it means, because that's an obvious paradox and those shouldn't exist.”

“Paradox's cause time to branch into a new quantum reality.” Rayla offered glibly.

Carter twitched, turning slowly to stare at the Elf with an incredulous look on her face. “I'm sorry, what!?”

“It's part of why the Lanteans banned time travel.” Rayla offered, apparently unconcerned that she'd just said something Jack was pretty sure was going to once again force Carter re-write physics.

“You know what.” Jack said to distract the scientist from that. “Let's just put that on the back burner for now.” He made a sweeping motion across the temple. “What do we need to worry about here, Carter?”

That seemed to bring the woman out of her funk, and she glanced around the temple for a moment before her eyes tracked to the nearby moonlit form of Vesuvius. 

“Worst case scenario? This might have been the Ancient equivalent of a subway station. In which case outside of the holographic projector, teleporter, forcefield, and power systems mentioned in the message there might be an entire small facility buried under here.”

“On the bright side.” She continued with a wry grin. “It's very unlikely there's anything left of the outpost under Vesuvius.”

“The database core probably would have survived.” Rayla said in an odd tone. “Outposts utilize a type E core design which includes a burst forcefield and inertial dampeners rated to allow survival from cataclysmic level events.”

“She's basically saying they act as their own black box, sir.” Carter explained upon catching the look of confusion on Jack's face. “Which is really the way to do it if you have the technology to pull it off since that way you can preserve all the data instead of just a limited bit of it.

”All right.” Jack sighed. “Working from the idea that the thing still exists, how exactly would we go about hunting it down?”

Carter frowned. “Well, assuming the Goa'uld didn't find it, or the Asgard, or the Omeyocan, or the–”

Jack held up a hand. “I got it. There's been a lot of aliens hanging around Earth over the years.”

“It would probably have been blown clear of the mountain when it erupted.” Carter continued. “In which case it could be anywhere within at least fifty miles and probably indistinguishable from the average chunk of volcanic rock unless you know exactly how to look.”

From the sound of things it seemed likely he could toss that into the long term problem pile on top of the file for that Goa’uld starship they’d discovered under the ocean. 

Seeming to take his silence as an excuse, Carter turned to Daniel and shot the Archeologist a look that seemed equal parts judgemental and impressed. “A virgin goddess, really Daniel?”

“Sam…” Daniel whined.

“That whole virgin thing was really just branding.” Vala interjected with an amused smirk. “Qetesh got around, and let me tell you, those so-called virgin goddesses were anything but.”

Looking down at the body his friend was currently inhabitating, Jack couldn't help the brief image of Vala and Carter together that flashed across his mind.

“Didn't need to hear that.” He muttered, burying that thought down far enough he doubted even one of the Tok'ra's memory devices would be able to dredge it up again. “Leaving our many questions about Daniel’s love life for later, I still need to know how to shut that,” And he pointed at the hologram. “down before the city wakes up and I have to explain to the Italian Prime Minister about how Aliens exist.”

“Well sir.” Carter started, offering him an apologetic smile. “Given the details of the message, and the power transmission from the statue in the Smithsonian. I’d say it’s probably set to stop when someone takes the pendant from the vault.”

“See.” Rayla said proudly. “I told you.”

“You did.” Jack agreed, taking the opportunity as a chance to teach the girl how these things tended to work. “But then we would have missed the message, which is probably more important in the long run than whatever that amplification pendant is.”

“It isn’t.” Rayla put forward in an oddly firm tone. “Amplification devices enhance space wizard powers, or even give people on the borderline of having them naturally the capability of using them. Which means if the wrong person got their hands on it they could basically become Emperor Palpatine and take over your planet.”

All three original members of SG1 were giving the young Elf looks of concern now.

“That’s probably why Lucina didn’t want to risk dying somewhere the pendant could be easily recovered by humans.” Rayla mused.

“Right.” Jack said, mentally revising the item's threat level up a couple notches. “One Ring protocol then.”

He noticed Rayla and Vala shooting him confused looks, so he explained. “We grab it with an extendable claw and drop it into a heavy steel box.”

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Author’s Notes: I’m sure it will be just that easy, Jack. Sadly however we won’t find out just how that went till Eventus gets back and Rayla regals him with the story of her harrowing adventures across the globe.