ABANDON SHIP
Thomas D. Scott

Whoosh.

"SG-1, you have a go."

The bass voice of General Hammond boomed out over the gate room PA system, and the four members of SG-1 began to walk towards the shimmering blue pool that had, through forces incomprehensible to any living human, established a connection to another world, thousands of light years away.

"Ladies and gentlemen, please prepare for takeoff on this, the 0600 SG-1 flight to P9X-814."

Colonel O'Neill's flippant commentary, as usual, did nothing to quell the usual nerves that accompanied having your atoms ripped apart, flung through space, and reassembled.

"Please extinguish all cigarettes, turn off all personal communications equipment and place your seats in the upright position. Have a nice flight. Upon arrival, local attractions include -"

Slurp. Screech. Whoosh. Blup.

"- pine trees."

Somehow, somewhere, there were always pine trees. And, in this case, not much else. The Stargate was located in the middle of a beautiful, picturesque valley. Tall grass waved in the distance, rolling hills surrounded the valley on all sides, and a small stream trickled down the centre of the shallow gorge. The team could have been in any number of places on their home planet. This was perhaps the basis behind the next comment.

"Just once I'd like to see somewhere that doesn't look... Earth-like."

Daniel Jackson, the team's anthropolgist, egyptologist and resident geek, looked at O'Neill and pointed upwards.

"Hm?"

"Okay, so the planet has three suns. So what? Carter, how many planets have we been on that have three suns?"

Samantha Carter looked round.

"This is the only one, sir. Trinary systems, statistically, are incredibly unlikely to have planets. The gravitational forces causes by the interaction of the..."

O'Neill winced. He might have been the leader of the team, but astrophysics was not one of his top five subject areas. Carter picked up on his body language, and smiled.

"Sorry, sir. Suffice it to say, this place shouldn't rightly be here."

The fourth member of SG-1 was at this time observing the ridges of the hills around him. His peripheral vision caught a glimpse of something moving on the horizon, but as he looked round, he saw nothing.

"Teal'c? What d'you see?"

"I believed I saw movement, O'Neill."

"Well, keep your eyes peeled."

O'Neill was sorry the moment he said this.

"I do not believe it is possible for me to -"

"Keep watch, Teal'c. It means, keep watch."

At this point, a figure walked out from behind a cluster of pine trees.

"Or, you may not have to."

The figure was, to all intents and purposes, human. Apparently of Nordic extraction, the blond-haired, blue-eyed, six foot two Caucasian figure approached the team.

It - or rather, he - spoke.

"Na ray t'k sa loy pa chamo ze."

O'Neill turned to Jackson.

"Danny boy, care to translate?"

Jackson was already on the problem.

"That's some kind of cross-breed between ancient Egyptian, and a few European languages... erm..." - he addressed the figure - "Ca re to yashalo?"

"Re yi toaw."

"He says, we should not be here."

"To gaft y' Djuway, y restala."

"Djuway, the raven, is coming."

"Co! Co!"

"I think he wants us to come with him."

O'Neill raised an eyebrow. The being began to move off up the hillside, beckoning the team to follow. They did.

It was Teal'c who reached the brow of the hill first. Carter followed, then O'Neill, with Jackson bringing up the rear. Each one of them stared at the sight before them.

It was a Bronze Age city. Thatched huts, simple dwellings, fires, plus a building in the middle that Daniel quickly indentified as a 'church... or meeting-place... or town hall... maybe.' Carter talked mostly about the chances of life evolving in a trinary system. Teal'c, as was mostly the case, remained silent. O'Neill charted possible escape routes in the event that Daniel should inadvertently offend the chief.

As that was, apparently, who they were being taken to. As they progressed, they couldn't help noticing the sky begin to cloud over at an unusually fast rate.

"Please, let's not have a weather-controlling Goa'uld system lord try to zap us into oblivion," thought O'Neill, "pine trees would be preferable to that."

It was six hours later, following much translation and concerns about the rapidly blackening sky, that Daniel relayed the message that the people were peaceful, had never heard of the Goa'uld, and would be happy to invite SG-1 to their feast in honour of Djuway, the raven, that evening. Since the recon mission was scheduled to last forty-eight hours, and with the native food being quite palatable, the team unanimously decided to stay. A hut was made available for the 'honoured guests', as Daniel translated it, and by evening-time the smell of outdoor-cooked food washed over the encampment. At dusk, a girl - who Daniel identified as the chief's daughter - came to take them to the feast.

"Someone else in this team is going to have to take up linguistics," quipped Carter, "Daniel's having all the fun."

Presently, they arrived at the feast. The entire population of the town, it seemed, had turned out to the banquet, which was laid out under a fabric tarpaulin just outside the main town building.

"I have a question."

The team looked up from their respective plates - filled with various local meats and vegetation. Teal'c gave an expression which looked, as far as an expression by Teal'c could, like an expression of puzzlement.

"Who is Djuway?"

"Erm..." Daniel thought for a moment. "He's been mentioned as a raven, or as a crow, so it could indicate a literal raven god, or a metaphorical one, such as something black or dark, like, er..."

"Like a rain cloud?" O'Neill chipped in.

"Yes, that would... ah..."

It had started to rain.

"That would also explain why this feast is being held under cover, and also the black clouds. If the rains only come once a year..."

A thunderbolt shook the encampment. The rain began to pour down. Hard.

The chief's daughter came over and spoke to Daniel. Daniel looked round at the team and yelled over the noise of the rain on the fabric roof -

"I'm going with her to look at some of the encampment art."

He walked off with the admittedly beautiful woman, and O'Neill groaned.

"Not again. Somehow, Daniel always seems to get the girl. Why can't I, or Teal'c g..."

The rest of his sentence was drowned out by an enormous thunderclap. This was probably a good thing. The team resumed their meals.

It was early next morning when the team began their short journey back to the stargate. The rain had stopped, and the team had departed from their hosts with many thanks and handshakes. O'Neill looked as if he'd had a little too much of the local beverage last night. Carter looked like she was trying to work out the effects of the gravitational pull of a trinary system; which she was. Jackson had an enigmatic smile over his face, but whether this was due to the feast, the art or the chief's daughter no-one could tell.

They were approaching the brow of the valley containing the Stargate when Carter broke the silence.

"Sir, I just don't get it. How could life survive on a planet like this? The gravitational pull of these suns would cuae massive climate and tidal forces that could reshape a landscape in hours. I guess we'll never know where a Bronze Age settlement that large was able to..."

She paused as they reached the brow of the hill. It was O'Neill who spoke first.

"Well, this sucks."

Before them, where once there was a twenty-foot deep valley, was a twenty-foot deep lake.

"Major Carter, is it possible for a gate to engage underwater?" asked Teal'c.

"Gate physics doesn't forbid it. I guess there's only one way to find out."

"Hold on," interrupted Daniel, "but if we dial home, the iris will be open for a while - even for a short whle. At that pressure, with that amount of water... we could flood Cheyenne Mountain."

O'Neill looked at him.

"Cool."

Four emergency breathers later, the team was swimming around the DHD, despite the protests from Daniel that the pressure wouldn't do his allergies any good. Carter slowly entered the glyphs necessary for a connection to Earth. There was a kerwoosh, and suddenly the team found themselves being pulled with the current - towards the gate.

"Mmmf! Mmmf!! Glub!"

Interpreting O'Neill's noises correctly, Carter powered down the gate. The current stopped, and the team members surfaced.

"That quick connection should have sent about, oh, three hundred gallons of water flooding into the SGC," said Carter, "which should have been enough to get the General's attention."

"I am confused," enquired Teal'c, "why only open the gate for such a short time?"

The team's radios simulatneously blasted out the voice of a clearly angry General Hammond. "SG-1!"

"Because it'll do just this," said O'Neill - and then, to the radio - "O'Neill here, sir."

"What in heaven's name do you think you're doing?"

"Uhm... dialling home, sir?"

"You just flooded the gate room! We had seven gate guards blasted against the rear wall! Fortunately, they're recovering in the infirmary."

"Ah. Sorry about that."

"Is the gate submerged?"

"Yes sir. Under about, oh, twenty feet of water."

"Well, in that case, we'll keep this wormhole open as long as possible. The water rushing through the gate the wrong way should drain the lake."

"That's true, sir."

A voice piped up from the lakeside.

"It isn't doing."

"Well, it shouldn't be too long be.... what, Daniel?"

"It isn't doing."

"Ah. You copy that, General?"

"Confirmed, Colonel. Could you gate to another planet and then home?"

"I don't see why not."

A different voice piped up.

"Unfortunately not, sir. That last activation must have gotten water into the DHD. I can see it from here - and the glyphs for Earth are now permanently locked in."

"Carter says no, sir. Looks like you'll need a mop. Carter, hang up and dial home. Transmitting our iris code now, sir, for the next connection. I trust you'll keep the door open."

The general's protests were quickly cut off by the closing wormhole.

What happened next quickly became the stuff of SGC legend. With no option but to keep the iris open and seal the doors to the gateroom, General Hammond watched with dread as the seventh chevron engaged, and what can only be described as a Niagara of water poured out of the wormhole. Then, in the manner of fish being washed up on a beach, Jack O'Neill, Samantha Carter and Teal'c blasted out of the gate and landed with a squelch in two feet of water.

Daniel Jackson did not appear.

As the water steadily rose to six, seven, eight feet deep, the members of SG-1 became concerned. If Daniel didn't make it before the gate room filled to the top...

At twenty-five feet deep, Daniel blasted out of the very top of the gate, and landed with a splash. Quickly, the wormhole was closed - but not before the room had filled to at least thirty feet deep. The Stargate was drowned. Four slightly bedraggled members of SG-1 trod water and talked to General Hammond - face to face, for the water rose to the level of the glass observation window. With a slight grin, O'Neill addressed the General.

"Nice weather we're having, sir."

Hammond was about to reply, when the technician sat next to him yelled "Gate room door seals losing integrity!"

Doctor Frasier was immensely surprised to find three feet of water surge down the infirmary corridor as he asked her next patient in. She was even more surprised when Colonel O'Neill floated by, and gracefully bobbed through the infirmary and onward through the base.

Carter and Jackson followed a minute or so later. The current of water continued for at least another ten minutes, but not before Janet overheard this:

"So, Daniel, you never said - why did you have that smile on your face all the way back from the camp?"

"Well, you know that art that I went to see?"

"Yes..."

"It depicted a submerged Stargate. I kind of figured that..."

"You knew?!"

"Why do you think I took so long coming through the gate? And as Colonel O'Neill said... it was cool."