Astria Porta, Chapter 4

[sinnatious]

 Title: Astria Porta

Summary: Stargate SG-1 and Final Fantasy 7 crossover. Reeve finds a mysterious artifact in an archaeological dig beneath the Sleeping Forest.

Warning: LANGUAGE. 

Author’s Note: This fic will go on hiatus after this chapter, subsequent chapters are not yet in even a lowered-standards publishable state. Sorry! I did warn this would happen.


Chapter 1 
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

 

“He’s not a Goa’uld.”

Those were the first words out of Carter’s mouth as they convened for an emergency briefing on what to do about their latest incursion. She tossed the x-rays onto the table. There was a distinct lack of symbiotes crawling along the spine, or anywhere else.

Jack paused.  The silence drew out.  Eventually, he prompted, “That’s good.”

Of course, glowing-eyes not being Goa’uld didn’t mean him and his buddies weren’t still a threat, but Jack was a lot more likely to give them the benefit of doubt.

“Is it, Jack?”  Daniel was radiating waves of unhappiness.  “First contact with a new world as well as at least one entirely new race, and we tried to shoot them.”

“It’ll be fine,” Jack dismissed.  “I mean, some of our best alliances started with us shooting at each other.  Right, Teal’c?”

“Indeed.”

“See?  We just had to focus on not getting suckered into some crazy Goa’uld scheme first.”

The door slammed open and Hammond walked in.  They made to rise but the General waved them back down.  “I heard.  So we’re not dealing with a Goa’uld. What are we dealing with?”

“We don’t know, exactly, sir,” Carter responded. “We weren’t able to get any blood samples for analysis for diplomatic reasons. Skeletal structure is human, but bones far denser than the norm.”

“Whatever he is, it’s not human,” Jack offered. “You saw what he did to that door.”

Hammond acknowledged him with nod.  “And what do we have from questioning?”

“Nothing yet,” Daniel said, looking down at his notes, his forced nonchalance not hiding his disapproval in the slightest.  The archaeologist could be a champion of passive-aggressiveness when you pushed the right buttons. “We’ve barely had the chance to even get past an introduction.”

“They did not, however, appear to have arrived here purposely,” Teal’c added.

Hammond nodded.  “Very well, then, find out what you can. I need to go inform the necessary people of the cause of the lockdown, so I’m leaving them as SG-1’s responsibility for now. I expect a full report by the end of the day.”

  

…………….

 

After they’d done their x-ray, they’d been escorted to a conference room and summarily left there, with promises that the group who’d spoken to them earlier would be along shortly.

Cloud eyed the non-descript conference room warily.  It could have easily been one of the countless meeting rooms back at the WRO’s offices. Not exactly what he expected of another planet.

Cid dumped himself in the closest chair with a scowl that would have scared off a dragon. “Well, ain’t this a fine mess,” he grumbled, and shook Cait again for good measure. “Oi, Cait, you awake yet?”

The robot cat still hung limp. It was getting worrying.

Nanaki settled himself on the ground next to Cloud, ignoring the chairs altogether. He was still tall enough to see over the table’s surface, though just barely. “Do we have a plan for this?”

“Find a way home,” Cloud said.

“Yeah, obviously,” Cid grumbled. “Lookin’ for something a bit more detailed than that.” He’d just stuck a fresh cigarette in his mouth and started fumbling with his lighter when the group of four from earlier entered the room.

“Sorry, no smoking in the conference room,” O’Neill announced.

“Shit, dammit!” Cid tossed the cigarettes onto the table in disgust.  “I am having the worst fucking day.”

Daniel offered, “There are designated smoking areas on base. We’ll see if we can arrange a visit for you later.”

“Let’s hope we are not here so long,” Nanaki commented mildly.

Cid’s scowl just deepened, and he jabbed a finger at the strangers.  “You folks never finished your introductions. You two got names?”

“Colonel Jack O’Neill, call me Jack.” He gestured at the bald dark-skinned man to his right.  “The big strong silent guy with the tattoo on his head is Teal’c.”

“You,” Cid said, pointing at Teal’c, “Are the only damn one here with the good grace to look remotely alien.  And you ain’t even that weird.”

“You know, I’ve often thought the same thing,” Jack commented. Teal’c raised an eyebrow.  Jack raised one right back.  Cloud began to privately re-evaluate his impression that the grey-haired man was their leader.

“Sir,” Samantha prompted.

“Right!”  Jack clapped his hands, and swung into a chair of his own.  “First things first.  Welcome to Earth, sorry about the trying to shoot you thing. As Danny said, we have some unpleasant friends, and we mistook you for one of them at first. You folks mind telling us a bit about where you’re from and how you got here?”

“From another Planet, apparently.”  There was a light of excited curiosity in Cid’s eyes, but it was buried under several tonnes of disgruntled inconvenience.  “We’re familiar with the term Earth, but ain’t ever used it to refer to anything other than dirt.  Oi, Red, back me up here, you're the only other astronomy buff."

Nanaki picked up the slack.  “Coloquially, we come from the Planet.  Historically and scientifically it is often referred to as Gaia.”

Daniel’s eyebrows shot up.  “Gaia?”

“Mean something, Danny?” Jack asked.

“Potentially.  Gaia was one of the primordial deities in ancient Greek mythology, born from Chaos, considered to be the personification of Earth itself.  According to Hesiod’s genealogy, she birthed Uranus, god of the sky and heavens, and later with him the Titans that formed the first pantheon of Olympus.”

“We’ve met Titan,” Cid muttered, latching onto the one familiar word in that whole soliloquy.  “Bastard can be pretty useful.  Though I wouldn’t recommend calling him up in a cave.”

The strangers went silent, staring at them oddly.

“Do you think it’s a Goa’uld, sir?” Samantha eventually asked.

“I thought they were all Egyptian,” Jack stated flatly.

“It’s Babylonian, technically, and really the other way around,” Daniel said. “You know this, Jack.  Although given the description of the Asgard present in Norse mythology, it could just as easily be another space-faring race we’ve yet to encounter.”

“We can get back to that later then,” Jack dismissed.  “Let’s move on to how you got here.  For example, how you stopped the Iris.”

“We don’t know about any irises,” grunted Cid.  “Hell, we didn’t even know where the heck that thing was gonna take us.”

"We were investigating a... ruin.” Cloud didn’t think they could take the time to explain Jenova’s ship any other way.  “We came across a circular device - a kind of portal, it looked similar to the one in the room we arrived in.”  What had they called it?  A stargate?  “We had just figured out how to activate it when a quake hit.” Or more likely, the activation had been what caused the quake.  “The cavern was collapsing.  I judged it was safer to bet on the portal than it was to get buried alive."

"You probably woulda survived," Cid groused.  "Didn't Sephiroth drop a damn building on you once?"

Cloud glowered at him.  "Maybe.  But that doesn't really help you and Nanaki, does it?"

"I thought you said his name was Red XIII," Jack piped up.

"To use my true name is a right you must first earn," explained Nanaki.

"You'll be waiting a while," Cid muttered.  "How long we been working together?  You ain't offered even once."

"You've never asked," Nanaki responded with a nonchalant flick of his ear.

"Too many damn syllables, that's why."  He eyeballed Jack.  "You folks got a star map we could use, maybe?"

"What good would that do us?” Cloud asked.

"Ain't no point figuring out how to get home until we know which direction we've gotta be headed. So long as we’re in the same galaxy, there ought to be a couple of points of reference."

They still needed the means, though.  Cloud turned back to Jack.  “Is it possible to use your ‘Stargate’ to get back?”

“We have Siler running a diagnostic currently, trying to get a trace on the wormhole that brought you here.  If your gate address is anywhere in our records, we should be able to get you home,” Samantha reported.  “If it isn’t, that may complicate things.  From the sounds of things, you didn’t dial an address to get here.”

Cid glanced over at Nanaki.  “Huh, you weren’t completely off. It’s a damn interplanetary telephone.  So what, did we hit redial?”

A chill ran through Cloud.  “But if that was Jenova’s-”

Cid frowned.  “But there weren’t any signs of passage-”

“Jenova?” Jack interrupted.

“Damn freaky alien, came to our planet a thousand or so years ago,” Cid dismissed.  “Don’t think she got through, Cloud.  Else she woulda gone wherever she wanted to go instead of sticking around and putting us through all that crap.”

“Is this something we should be worried about?” Jack asked.

“Nah, Jenova’s dead.  We killed her for good a while ago.  Body gone, the whole shebang. The big concern is how we’re gonna get home and get out of your hair.”

“Like we said, there’s a reasonably good chance we’ll be able to backtrace the wormhole,” Samantha assured them.  “Although… sir, it sounds like their Stargate might be buried.  Even if we can dial back, they might not actually be able to return.”

That was a good point.  The ceiling had definitely been collapsing when Cloud had thrown himself through.  "We have a contact on the other side who knows where we were.  He'll probably excavate.”

“Perhaps even send a rescue party,” Nanaki volunteered hopefully.

"Doubt that.  Who else on the damn Planet do you know who can activate that many materia at once, huh?" Cid grumbled.  "You're already lookin' at him!  And the effort knocked him out!"

“Reeve can be inventive. He may find a way.”

Based on what he was hearing, Cloud wasn’t so sure.  They could probably rely on Reeve to excavate, but given the location, the timeline wasn’t exactly promising.  The dig was remote, and if Reeve wanted to keep Neo-ShinRa out of it his resources would be limited.  Cloud agreed with that stance in this case, but it also meant they couldn’t rely on rescue from that quarter – not with any reasonable timeframe.  “Without knowing what’s happening on our side, we can’t presume.  We should look for a way home from here.”

“We’d be happy to help however we can,” Daniel jumped to say before Jack could open his mouth.  “This is what this facility is for – exploration of other worlds and first contact with new cultures.  And believe it or not, you’re not even the first to land in this dilemma.”

“Sorry, but something about how you activated your gate-” Samantha interrupted.  “Did you say he activated it?”

Suddenly everyone was looking at him.  Cloud quashed the old spike of anxiety and explained, “I activated the materia that were running it.  It looked like a workaround. Your gate doesn’t seem to have anything similar."

She pressed her lips into a thin line, turning to Jack.  “This could complicate things.  I’ve never heard of any method of gate activation besides ours or a DHD.  It might explain why the Iris malfunctioned, as well.”

“Can we get some more details from you on that?” Daniel asked.

“If it’ll help,” Cloud said.  He rubbed his temples at the memory. 

“You okay?” Cid asked. “Lookin’ a bit peaky.”

Nanaki’s ears flattened in concern.  “The ethers were not enough?”

Cid scoffed.  “It’s been a helluva long day.”  He eyed the aliens – though it felt weird to think of them like that, when all of them, even Teal’c, wouldn’t have looked out of place back home.  Nothing like the strangeness of Jenova, certainly. “Any of us can fill you in on it instead.”

“We can take a break,” Daniel suggested. “It sounds like you’ll be here a few days at least. We’ll set you up with some quarters. I’m afraid we’re a military base so it won’t be luxurious, but you’re not the first guests we’ve had.”

Cloud nodded.  “Thanks.” The ethers had gone a long way in restoring his energy, as had the adrenaline rush with everything that had happened, but a faint thread of exhaustion still lingered in his muscles.  Like he hadn’t slept for days.

Samantha stood up. “I’ll get you that starmap. Just ask if there’s anything else you require and we’ll see if we can provide it.”

“Appreciated,” Cid grunted, picking up Cait as they all stood to leave the room.

“Is uh, your friend okay?” Daniel asked with an awkward gesture at the caped cat.

“We don’t know,” Cloud replied. “There’s nothing physically wrong with him as far as we can tell.”

“Do you require medical assistance for him?” Teal’c asked, the first time he’d spoken in their presence.

Cloud sent him a quizzical glance, but before he could reply Cid cut in, “He’ll be fine, he just needs time and rest, same as this one.” He patted Cloud hard on the shoulder, and Cloud took the hint to shut up for what it was, even as the strangers sent them confused looks. They didn’t press the issue, however, and instead led them through the base to a series of rooms. Cid insisted on the smaller room with the bunks rather than splitting them up, and then they were finally left alone.

Cid immediately set about searching the room for surveillance equipment as Cloud sat down heavily on the nearest bunk bed, Nanaki delicately jumping onto the one opposite, being careful to leave his tail hanging clear off the end.  It was a fairly drab affair - not much to look at beyond the basic bunks, a narrow wooden desk and matching chair, and the attached ensuite with little more than a washbasin and toilet. Even the walls were bare concrete. After a few minutes the pilot nodded in satisfaction. “Guess they were being honest about the diplomacy stuff, doesn’t seem like a proper cell.” He tried the door without opening it, pleased when it responded. “Might want to choose words a bit carefully though just in case - microphones can listen through walls.”

“What was the thing with Cait?” Cloud asked.

“Think back, when you first met Cait Sith, what did you think about him?” Cid prompted.

They didn’t know he was a robot? “Huh,” Cloud remarked. No wonder they’d given them such strange looks – at their apparent callousness towards one of their friends. “You don’t want them to know?”

“Alien planet, idiot,” Cid groused. “These folks seem nice enough, and I reckon we can trust ‘em, but think harder. What if it were our Planet and a bunch of aliens came crashing into the WRO?”

Cloud liked to think they would have had a more even-handed reaction than the first impression they got, even with their history with Jenova. But then… Neo-ShinRa. “Good point,” Cloud agreed. Even if he were inclined to trust these aliens, there was no proof there wasn’t a ShinRa-like entity on this world. Keeping a few things up their sleeves would be smart, and would protect Cait from tampering. “Good call on the bunks, too.”

Cid nodded distractedly. “I ain’t so proud to admit that without my spear I’m not much good in scuffle. You and Red are the only ones here who can fight, and if you collapse from materia exhaustion we’re all outta luck. So don’t go forcing yourself when you don’t have to, right?”

“You should rest now, while you can,” Nanaki agreed. “You and I can take shifts, so we’re not caught unawares. At least until Cait’s awake again to play sentry for us.”

“Maybe even then, if he’s gonna be this unreliable,” Cid complained, poking at the defunct robot in irritation.  “Dammit, shoulda brought Vinnie with us.”

"I'm not sure it would have been wise if he were to hear you calling him 'Vinnie'," Nanaki muttered.

“We’ll manage with what we’ve got,” Cloud said, lying back on the bed. The mattress was thin and firm, rather like a ShinRa bedroll. He didn’t like the idea of going to sleep in this sort of situation, but Cid had a point – pushing himself for the sake of paranoia had too much of a chance of backfiring on them later. “Let’s just be glad that we’re still alive and together for now.”

“Yeah, for now,” Cid grunted, but busied himself with the star map. “We’re in a fucking mess, you know.”

Cloud closed his eyes. “Not the worst one we’ve been in.”