Chapter Text
When SG-1 stepped out of the Stargate, they expected the darkness.
When they had sent an exploratory robot to poke around the area, the camera had been in night mode the entire time. They expected their exploration-bot to be waiting at the corner of the gate, where it had been directed to power down after sending video streams and sensor readings of “parameters safe to support human life,” and “no detectable signs of sapient activity.”
Boots hit the ground. They spread out, flashlights barely cutting through the thick curtain of darkness that enveloped them. Pale motes of dust rose from every careful footstep, almost snowlike in the wormhole’s silvery blue glow.
They expected the soft dust underfoot and a sky shrouded in clouds.
Sam finished her sweep of the perimeter and turned to the DHD. The shapes were almost right, but-
Their crew back home was always so careful to check that the dial home device was present at each Stargate they sent a human through. Robots could be replaced. It was worth sending one, to double check.
But even cameras could be tricked.
Where a DHD was supposed to stand, was instead a stalagmite with a similarly angled break off the top. Just stone, without a single constellation or red button in sight.
When Teal’c turned to examine the Stargate itself, he did not find any platform, support columns, or other frame suggesting it was used or respected or remembered.
The ring stood at an angle, wedged between a rock and a craggy stone wall.
Beside it, Jack’s flashlight followed a track in the dirt from where the gate had apparently rolled into its current place.
As the wormhole dissolved and its pale wash of light vanished, the four of them found themselves visible only by their flashlights.
When they stepped out of the Stargate, they expected to be able to dial back and send a check in message back home.
They didn’t expect to be cut off in complete darkness, silence broken only by the shrill screams of alien creatures, echoing endlessly.