Coyote Tricks - Guardians of the Gates

A/N: These first chapters are what I originally wrote up before I stopped several years before. I'm reworking the outline for the story and I may have to come back and reedit these. This chapter is rated PG for graphic descriptions.

I've tossed in some fun cross-over references here, if you want to guess skip the rest of this paragraph. Bernard Quatermass is the creation of Nigel Kneale and BBC Television. Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and UNIT belong to the creators of Dr. Who and BBC Television. SHADO belongs to Gary and Silvia Anderson and ITC Entertainment. All are used here without permission. No profit may be made from this work. See the first section for all other disclaimers.

Chapter 1: A Celtic Mystery
Star Gate Command (SGC), Earth, 3 months ago

Daniel Jackson walked into the SGC dining facility and picked up bowl of cereal, Fruit Loops, and joined Colonel Jack O’Neal and Teal’c at a table. Jack eyed Daniel’s bowl with a look of distaste. Daniel had noted that Jack didn’t eat cereal anymore, though he wasn’t sure why.
“We have a secure VTC (A/N: Video Teleconference) at 0900,” Jack said between bites of egg.
“Oh,” Daniel said. “Who with?”
“British MOD.”
“MOD?”
“Ministry of Defense.” Jack said. “Seems they asked for you in particular.”
“Really.”

~~~

The VTC conference room was similar to the regular conference room except one wall was dominated by a set of projection screens and a camera. A control booth was hidden behind a one way mirror on another wall. A large SGC logo decorated the wall opposite the camera, presumably so the other members of the conference would know who they were talking to.

One screen showed an image of a conference room half the world away. It was much nicer looking affair than the SGC conference room with warm wood paneling. It was filled with three individuals. One in Royal Army uniform, the rest in suits. The man at the head of the table was distinguished looking gentleman who must have been about 80 years old. The other screen had a cover slide with a British MOD logo on it.

The man at the head of the table pushed a control on the table in front of him, the mute symbol with the words ‘Distant End’ at the bottom of the screen disappeared.
“Hello SGC, I think we’re ready to begin here.”
“We’re ready here also,” General Hammond said. “Why don’t I start with introductions on this end. I’m General Hammond the SGC COCOM. Starting on my right is Col. Jack O’Neill, Commander SG1, Major Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson and Teal’c.”
“I’m Professor Bernard Quatermass, the head of MOD Stargate Technologies Team,” the man on the other side said and continued indicating the two people sitting on either side of him. “This is Major-General Lethbridge-Stewart, my liaison and Dr. Silvia Jones, my research team lead.”

“So Professor, how can the SGC be of assistance?”
“Well we’ve found something rather unusual and I wanted to get Dr. Jackson’s opinion on it. We suspect it might be some left over Goa’uld technology. I’ll turn it over to Dr. Jones for the details.”
Dr. Jones was a dark haired woman in her late 20’s, dressed rather conservatively. She took the remote from Quatermass and adjusted her glasses as she looked up at the screen.
“First off, Dr. Jackson I wanted to say it’s a pleasure to talk with you. I really enjoyed your latest thesis on the evolutionary branches on modern Goa’uld and ancient Egyptian languages.”
“Ah, thank you, Doctor,” Jackson said slightly embarrassed.
Jack rolled his eyes. ‘The Space Monkey woos another one,’ he thought.

“Well, on to the subject,” Dr. Jones said and pressed a button on the remote.
The MOD cover slide was replaced with a picture of hill surrounded by woods. The hill had several stones mostly buried at atop it.
“A little over a month ago an archeological team was conducting research on this hill near Coventry.”
Two more slides advanced showing the stones from several angles with people working around them.
“They were researching,” she paused a moment to glance at her notes, “ah…the impact of earthworms on burying ancient artifacts or something like that. However it turned out earthworms had little to do with the burying of the stone ring at this site. It was destroyed by the firebombing of Coventry in 1940.
(A/N: The earthworm reference is based on an actual research project.)

Anyway, they did a sounding of the site to determine the structure of the underlying geology and discovered this.”
The next slide showed an illustrated cross section of the hill indicated a large hollow space.
“A previously unknown burrow under the hill. On excavating the first chamber they made a grisly discovery.”
The next couple of slides showed pictures of a small chamber. Mixed with the collapsed beams and stonework were more modern fixtures like a Coleman stove and lanterns. The third picture showed the skeletal remains of a man dressed in dated but obviously contemporary clothing.

“The dental records identify him as Professor Martin Summersby, an archeologist that was working in the area.”
“So,” Jack said. “The archeologists dug up an archeologist.”
Daniel and Sam gave him a withering stare.
“It just sort of seemed ironic, that’s all.” He said shrugging.

“Yes,” Dr. Jones continued. “The examination shows that Professor Summersby died by a broken neck. However, the experts are certain based on their examination of the body and chamber that he was dead before the chamber collapsed.”
“So how did he die?” Daniel asked.
“It appears he was strangled. The coroner believes it was done by one hand and with enough force that it actually crushed his neck bones.”

There was a moment of silence as everyone considered the strength required for this.
“The real disturbing find is what was in the main chamber.”
The next slide showed a large partially collapsed chamber. In the center of the chamber, with a large stone column collapsed on it, was a sarcophagus; one of the devices the Goa’uld used to preserve their lives.
“We examined the sarcophagus and found the beam collapse had irreparably damaged it but we are certain that it was operational and we believe in use shortly before it was destroyed.”

“So you think a Goa’uld may have been released by Summersby before the mound was destroyed?” Sam asked.
“It looks that way.”
“As you know,” Lethbridge-Stewart chimed in. “Since the Seth incident both our governments along with UNIT have instigated programs to monitor for signs of a Goa’uld operating on Earth.”
“Excuse me,” Daniel asked, “UNIT?”
“The United Nations Intelligence Taskforce,” General Hammond explained. “The bilateral agreements we have with Russia and China were inadequate to coordinate a truly global defense against a Goa’uld attack. So we coordinated the formation two new military units under the auspices of the UN. UNIT looks for signs of alien activity around the world and the Supreme Headquarters Alien Defense Organization or SHADO operates quick reaction teams that respond to detected infiltration.”
(Author’s Note: Yes, I do love mixing universes! Bonus credits to anyone who can list the three cross references in this meeting.)

“Yes,” Lethbridge-Stewart continued. “We applied all our intelligence indicators to the possibility that a Goa’uld came out of this site in 1940 and found nothing. This means that either our Goa’uld is very good at keeping a low profile or he didn’t survive the bombing. We are leaning towards the latter.”

“I see,” General Hammond said. “So where does that leave us?”
“We have been examining the surviving carvings in the chamber to try and identify the Goa’uld that was buried here but its all in fairly poor shape. Fortunately, Professor Summersby’s notebooks survived. The main problem we’re encountering though is what we’ve found so far is not Goa’uld but something similar to Celtic. We haven’t been able to pin down a particular dialect yet and to be honest we don’t have many Celtic experts with the security clearance necessary to work on this. That’s why we would like to recruit Dr. Jackson’s help with it.”

“I would be delighted to assist,” Daniel said.
“Excellent,” Dr. Jones said. “I’ve taken the liberty to have Professor Summersby’s notes scanned into a pdf file and I’ll e-mail that and all the pictures we have of the carvings still readable sent to your SIPRnet account.”