Foothold-Epilogue/Missing Scenes
By
Denise

Disclaimer Stargate Sg-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.

The blast door slid up. There was a moment of shocked silence as all in the control room took in the sight before them. The gray walls were streaked with oily black soot. Even the Naquadah of the Stargate, which seemed impervious to millennia of corrosion or wear, was marked. The iron grate ramp was heavily damaged, whole sections of it literally blown away. The air was filled with a steady rain of ashes and soot. //Ya know if it wasn't alien body parts drifting through the air it would look kinda pretty.// O'Neill thought as he and Carter stood up from their consoles.

"They self-destructed," //Duh.// observed Carter breaking the stunned silence.

"The destruction appears to be complete." //Double duh.//

"That's a lot of damage," //Ya think.// continued Carter.

"Coat of paint, little touch-up, it'll be fine," Jack said. Carter shot him a look echoed by Maybourne and Teal'c. O'Neill figured the direct translation was something like 'Yeah right' or 'You gotta be kidding me', though all three refrained from putting their thoughts into words.

"Colonel, we've got to find out who's off-world."

"Carter?"

"If the gate's damaged they're marooned. If it's not damaged they're going to walk into...that," she said waving her hand at the scene before her.

Jack nodded. "Maybourne, any of your people have haz-mat training?"

The NID officer nodded. "All my people are trained. It's what we do."

"Sweet. Think your men can help us clean up that mess. I don't want the techs walking through a biohazard. Not to mention the fact it's JUST plain gross."

"Colonel, we should also lock down the mountain until we can sweep the base. We can't be sure all of them...blew up."

"We locked the door behind us Major," said Maybourne. "We'll help you sweep the base." He turned to one of his men. "Kingston, get Matthews, Henderson and Wilson in here. They're on haz-mat detail. Watkins' people will start a top to bottom sweep. I want an accurate count and location of all deceased hostiles."

Jack spoke up. "Major, you find out whose out and about and when they're due. Also see of you can get an idea how badly we're compromised. Once the gateroom's clean, you can get at the gate. I'll send Siler's team in as soon as I can."

"Yes sir," Sam replied as she reclaimed her chair and started to type on the computer. Jack turned to Teal'c standing impassively behind him.

"Teal'c, wanna go see who's hanging around on level 23?" Teal'c quirked an eyebrow at his CO and followed him from the room.

"Major." Sam turned to Maybourne.

"Sir?"

"I...should have listened to you major. Good job."

"Aah...thank you sir." Three men dressed in black combat garb walked into the control room.

"Captain Matthews reporting sir." he said as he snapped to attention saluting Maybourne smartly.

Maybourne returned the salute. "Matthews, I need you and your team to determine what, if any, bio-hazard is in that room." Maybourne pointed through the window.

"My God sir...What is that?"

"The hostiles self destructed. We need that room secure."

"Yes sir." Maybourne pointed towards Sam. "This is Major Carter, do what ever she tells you to."

"Yes sir." Maybourne nodded at Sam and left the room.

"Major, if you could show us your staging area," Matthews prompted taking in the sight of the petite blond air force major casually attired in combat boots, fatigue pants, T-shirt and a black leather jacket. //This is a strange group.//

"Right this way Captain," Sam said as she walked past Matthews and his men.

~~~~~~~~~~

Teal'c and Jack made their way up from level 28 where the gate was located to level 23 where the aliens imprisoned the replicated members of the SGC. //Thank God they needed us alive to access our memories or this would have been the end of the SGC,// Jack thought. They turned a corner and came to a sudden stop at the sight of two more ominous black smears on the concrete walls, small chips of concrete scattered among the ashes.

"Whoa."

"I believe this will require more than a coat of paint O'Neill."

"Ya think?"

"Yes O'Neill, I think." Jack let out a small chuckle and clapped his hand on the big man's
shoulder.

"Come on Teal'c, if Carter's right our people should be waking up anytime now. Maybe we should go rescue Davis from General Hammond."

"I believe that would be prudent."

~~~~~~~~~~

Major Davis sat on the steps of the ladder cradling the M-16 given to him by Colonel O'Neill as his eyes darted from the restrained alien to the closed door of the room. When he'd answered General Hammond's summons two days ago he had no idea he was going to become a key player in an alien invasion of Earth. This was all too surreal. One moment he'd sat in the general's office, the next he woke dangling in some harness hooked up to some funky alien memory device. He and O'Neill liberated themselves, after witnessing another member of the SGC being...replicated, yeah that term worked...replicated by aliens.

Then Dr. Daniel Jackson had barged into the room...wait it was really Major Carter using one of those holographic alien disguises. How the hell would he write this one up? It sounded like the X-files meet the X-men.

"What the Sam Hill is going on here?" a voice demanded. At the unexpected sound, Davis spun around and pointed his gun at the source. Unfortunately he forgot he was on the ladder. He ended up sprawled on the concrete floor looking up at the face of General George Hammond dangling from his harness 10 feet above him.

"General sir, you're awake..."

"Obviously major. Now can you tell me why the hell I'm hanging here like a damn piñata? And what are you doing here?"

"Well, sir..." Davis was saved from attempting to stammer out a plausible explanation by the opening of the door. He swung himself around to take aim at the entering figures.

"Whoa Davis, we're the good guys," Jack said raising his hands, one of which still clasped the 9mm he'd liberated from the Frasier doppelganger. Noticing he still held the gun and lacking a holster, Jack shoved the pistol into the small of his back. Davis lowered his weapon.

"Sorry sir."

"Colonel O'Neill, what the hell is going on here?" demanded the general. Jack looked up and was relieved to see that almost everyone was beginning to stir.

"Just a little alien invasion sir, nothing to worry about. Though you might want to start looking at paint chips. Just hang on we'll get you down in a minute." Seeing some of the personnel beginning to explore their harnesses he warned, "I wouldn't play with those harnesses though, if you trigger the release the first stop's a doozy."

"Jack?"

"Daniel?" Jack moved to see the archaeologist hanging in the back of the room.

"Where did you say the catch is?" Daniel fiddled with his harness.

"Daniel, I said don't..." Jack saw Daniel's hand find the latch and he crashed unceremoniously to the floor. Jack rolled his eyes and met Teal'c's gaze. He swore he saw the Jaffa almost crack a grin. Jack shook his head and walked over to Daniel sprawled on the floor.

"I said DON'T play with it Danny," he repeated as he offered Daniel his hand.

"Thanks," Daniel said abstractly as he regained his feet and focused his myopic blue eyes upwards.

"Whoa...aah...this is strange."

"It gets stranger." Jack pointed towards the alien tied up in the corner.

"Eeew...that's...that's an ugly alien."

"Like you're gonna win an intergalactic beauty pageant Danny boy?" Daniel shot Jack a look.

"Sorry. Look can you and Davis get our people down? We need to clean this mess up."

"Sure, no problem." Daniel turned back to the people hanging impatiently in their harnesses.

"Siler?" Jack called out.

"Yes sir." he heard a voice respond.

"We need your expertise in the gateroom."

"Yes sir...I'll...aah...be right down." Jack turned to Daniel and Davis who were starting to move
the ladder around the room.

"And Daniel."

"Huh?"

"I wouldn't keep the general in suspense." Daniel fought to hide a grin and nodded.

~~~~~~~~~~

Three hours later and things were starting to get back to normal. No one seemed to be suffering any ill effects from their little ride through the alien car wash. All seventeen levels were secure and every location of blast damage was marked for repair. Now Jack was on his way back to the control room to see just how bad things were there.

"So Carter, how bad did they get us?" he asked as he handed her a mug of coffee he'd snagged from the commissary.

"Huh? Oh thanks," she muttered as she took a sip of the hot liquid. He watched her close her eyes for a second savoring the caffeine.

"Carter," he prodded. She took one last sip and set the mug down.

"OK...um...well...not knowing exactly when they took over...um I'm assuming they came back with or as SG-6 since they were the last ones back before we returned from P3R928 so I'm guessing every file accessed in the last 72 hours is compromised. Of course we have no way of knowing what files were accessed by people before they were replaced..."

Jack held up his hand in surrender. "Whoa. Readers Digest Version."

Sam smiled. "About sixty percent of our data base including personnel files, codes, and our dialing program. As near as I can tell the one impersonating the general used HIS codes to get at files I didn't even know existed. This goes way past the SGC."

Jack whistled. "So this is bad?"

"Looks that way."

"Great. OK how about that?" Jack asked pointing at the gateroom where Siler and his team were working. The gateroom looked like a small construction zone, ladders and tools littered the room. One person was actually patching the holes in the ramp with sheets of plywood.

"That's not much better. The explosion fried about half of the capacitors so we can't dial out. The iris is intact near as we can tell but I still haven't figured out how the aliens messed with it. We still can't get it to respond to our commands. We may end up deleting the whole program and starting from scratch."

"So we can't gate out and we can't stop anyone from gating in."

"Yeah."

"And the good news is?"

"Well SG-4, 8, 9 and 11 are all off world. They can gate in if we don't mess with anything.

But leaving the door open for all four would mean we're sitting ducks here for several days. Assuming they all come back as scheduled."

"So if our ugly little friends decide to get even..."

"There's nothing we can do about it. And since we can't dial out we can't recall the teams. We can manually close the iris but there's no way to open it fast enough if any of them come home unscheduled."

"So we protect the base, take the gate off line potentially stranding four teams, possibly condemning them to death if their missions go bad and they need to retreat OR we leave the door open hoping no one decides to send through a bomb, invade us or something else just as bad until all our people get home THEN we can close the iris and fix things."

Sam got that 'boy our options suck look' on her face and nodded. "Yeah."

"Sweet. So does Hammond know?" Jack asked pointing up at the general's office. Sam shook her head with a pained look on her face.

"Aah, he just got back from explaining all this to NORAD."

"Ouch."

"Big...big ouch," she agreed as they both heard the crash of something being thrown upstairs.

"So I guess this would not be a good time to ask for a raise?"

"Only if you like spending time in the infirmary."

Jack snapped his fingers. "Speaking of. Frasier wants to check every one out. Make sure there are no side effects or anything. Why don't you go and I'll break the news to Hammond." Sam started to protest then hearing another crash from the general's office, she quickly agreed and left the room.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Teal'c, just relax. We'll be through in a moment," Janet said gently. She watched the large Jaffa attempt to relax his tense muscles. "I aah...I noticed the restraints on the bed in the isolation room. "Did I...aah the other me use those on you?" she asked as she started to draw some blood.

"The aliens were most curious about Major Carter's and my resistance to their duplication technology," he replied, discomfort evident in his voice.

"Did they do anything...permanently damaging?" Janet asked torn between not prying and wanting to make sure he hadn't been seriously hurt.

"Their experiments were most uncomfortable, however they inflicted no permanent damage." Janet sighed in relief.

"Good...Teal'c...I'm sorry I...she did that."

"There is no need for remorse doctor. It was not you."

"In an essence it was and I am sorry you had to experience that," she affirmed gently putting her
and on his arm and smiling gently into his eyes.

"Thank you doctor."

"So how's my hero?" Janet and Teal'c looked up to see Sam walking into the infirmary.

"Major?" Janet asked, confusion flitting across her face. Sam walked over and put her hand on Teal'c's shoulder.

"Once we woke up Teal'c stayed behind and bought me time to get out of the mountain. If it wasn't for him your double would be playing Dr. Moreau with us right about now." Janet nodded her understanding.

"He's fine," Janet assured her, "And he's free to go. Just let me know if you still feel nauseous, OK," she said to Teal'c.

"You feel sick too?" Sam asked Teal'c. Janet looked from one to the other.

"Sam, you're nauseous?"

"Yeah, ever since I woke up in the elevator."

"You were dizzy also," Teal'c reminded. Janet looked concerned.

"Maybe you are having a reaction to the sedatives used by the aliens. Do you know which one
they used?"

Both Sam and Teal'c shook their heads. "No idea."

"OK I've changed my mind. Teal'c why don't you stay here and I'll draw some blood from Sam. We'll figure out which sedative they used. Make sure nausea and dizziness are the only side effects."

Sam obligingly got up on an adjacent bed. "OK Janet, but promise me when you figure out which one they used, please don't use it again."

Janet grinned as she readied another syringe. "Deal."

~~~~~~~~~~

Twenty-four hours later SG-1 and General Hammond were seated in the briefing room. Below Siler and his crew were finishing work on the gateroom. It wasn't perfect but it was close enough. They'd been able to get the gate on-line and recall the four off-world SG teams. Now secure behind a closed iris, work could proceed on a less frantic pace.

"We figured out which sedative they used. Now we know it will react with the Naquadah in Major Carter and Teal'c's bloodstream. There are no permanent after effects. It appears to totally purge itself from a patient's system in about 48 hours."

"Thank you doctor." said General Hammond. She nodded as Colonel Maybourne walked into
the room.

"Colonel Maybourne, good save." said Jack O'Neill. He acknowledged the thanks with a small nod.

"I thought you'd like to know the alien posing as Dr. Jackson expired."

"What of the aliens that were not caught in the gateroom explosion?" Teal'c asked.

"We're guessing they were linked to their leaders in some form or another when he self-destructed."

"What about the aliens that escaped through the gate?" Sam asked. Maybourne shrugged.

"I guess we'll never know. We have to hope the same thing happened to them." General
Hammond stood and shook Maybourne's hand.

"We appreciate your help in this matter, Colonel Maybourne." //Maybe there is some hope for this guy.//

"Credit Major Carter. I do. Well I'm sure we'll see each other again," he said.

"That'd be nice Harry," Jack offered. //OK so I still don't trust the guy, but he did save our butts, might as well play nice.// Maybourne left the room.

Hammond spoke up. "Well, I guess that's all people. SG-1 you're on 72 hours down time. See you back here in three days." SG-1 answered with an assortment of nods and yes sirs as Hammond left the room. As soon as he left Sam plopped her head in her arms on the table.

"I wanna sleep for a week."

"No, no, no major. First we gotta clear up a couple of things."

"Sir?" Sam asked raising her head, confusion plain on her face. Jack got up and stood next to her.

"You shot me?" he asked.

Sam got a sheepish look on her face. "Actually twice," she admitted.

"Just for that, dinner's on you." Jack said as left the room.

"Hey, Uncle Sam still owes me for a plane ticket to DC," she protested following him into the hall. Daniel and Teal'c looked at each other, shrugged and followed their teammates into the hall.

~fin~

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