O'Neill piped up and said, "Looks like Arizona."
"I thought the Baja des― Holy crap!" exclaimed Doctor Jackson
The reason for the sudden exclamation was the sudden appearance on screen of a young human man. He seemed to appear as if from nowhere.
The camera of the MALP immediately focused on him as the clearly human Caucasian male looked back with an expression of curiosity on his face.
What was surprising was the way the young man was dressed. From the ground up he was wearing Jaffa boots and greaves, then tunic pants and under robe - the last two being the undergarments under Jaffa armour - Jaffa bracers on his wrists, then he wore a wide-brimmed raggedy hat with a floppy point that looked like a reject prop from a Lord of the Rings movie. He was also carrying a staff weapon in the ready position to shoot.
"Who does he think he is with a staff, robes and hat like that?" asked O'Neill. "Gandalf!?"
Jackson gave a snort of amusement. No one else even reacted. They were far too used to the Colonel's wry humour. Even Teal'c barely cocked an eyebrow at it, these days.
As they watched, the young man relaxed from his ready-to-shoot stance, switched hands with the weapon to his left and drew what looked like a thin stick of wood from under his left wrist bracer and began to hold it as if he wielded it like a weapon.
He then raised the stick and, making a couple of gestures with it, looked as if he was going to jab someone with it. At the same time the electronics on the MALP seemed to surge with static for a moment. The static faded away as the young man lowered his stick.
"Radiation?" asked Carter. "I thought the MALPs were shielded."
Clearly curious at what he was seeing, the man then carefully walked forward until he was close enough to better see. Then he bent down and was peering at something on the side of the MALP.
The five in the conference/briefing room then watched his lips move and frown even more.
That had Major Carter give a gasp of surprise. "He read what was written on the side of the MALP!"
"Yeah; so?" asked O'Neill.
Instead of responding, Carter glanced to the General and said, "Sir, please rewind to the part where he begins to bend forward." Not even saying a word, Hammond did precisely that.
"Now, play, please," urged Carter.
As all five watched, Carter kept pace with the man on the screen and said, "Mobile Analytic Laboratory Probe." Her words matched perfectly with the young man's lips.
"That shouldn't be possible," said Jackson, leaning forward to better see. "No other planet we've so far visited have a peoples who could read English. Hieroglyphs, runes, even ancient Chinese, yes; but not English, not even Latinised Greek characters."
As they continued to watch the young man, they saw as he grinned directly into the camera seeming quite happy to see it. Then he jogged backwards about fifteen feet, making sure to stay before the camera field of view, slipped the stick back up under the bracer, raised his right hand until it was palm up and before him with a fist, knuckles pointing directly towards the camera, and proceeded to signal to the camera with the universal 'Come here' index finger repetitive curl and flex.
Then he grinned again, hefted the staff weapon up in one hand, balancing the weight perfectly with such ease if was obvious he had a lot of experience with it, then he ran towards the MALP before ducking off to one side.
The camera was immediately spun to see where he went but could pick nothing up.
"What the... Hell?" exclaimed O'Neill.
"That should not be possible, either," added a surprised Carter.
The General, turning the video off, had the team of four return to face him. Once he had their attention again he said, "When we recovered the MALP we found the camera was working perfectly across all bands of light, both into the ultraviolet and infrared ranges. Whatever cloaking technology he's using, we couldn't pick him up."
"Well," said O'Neill, "He doesn't look like a demon to me. How is this so important a matter a team like SG-3 can't attend to it, Sir?"
Hammond smiled and returned, "It's the location of the planet that's the most concerning. It's C1S-204."
"C1―" stuttered Carter, suddenly sitting upright and looking more closely to her briefing notes. "Sirius?!" she exclaimed.
"Wow! Way to snark the General, Carter!" exclaimed O'Neill. "I think the General's being quite serious."
"No; Si-ri-US," said Carter, not even looking up as she read through the briefing notes. "The binary star Sirius, S-I-R-I-U-S, also known as the Dog Star, brightest star in the night sky, of the constellation Canis Major. Straight line, a little over eight and a half light years away. Astronomically, our second-most closest neighbour after Alpha Centauri; practically in our celestial backyard!"
"Precisely," said Hammond. "As it's so close and... as Major Carter pointed out... in our celestial backyard, I need my best team on this right away.
"Your mission is to go to planet C1S-204, find out who this individual is, question him, scout around to see if there are any others... especially Jaffa... and, if necessary, bring him back here."
"What if he's alone, as the Tok'ra believe him to be," asked Jackson, looking up from his own briefing notes.
"Then we just talk to him," said O'Neill. "If he can read English, I want to know how and why." When talking stopped for a few moments, Hammond said, "Well? What are you still doing here? Go suit up!"
That had all four moving.
As they walked out the door, Jackson asked, "Colour?"
"Desert!" O'Neill called back from in the lead.
In a cylindrical house on the top of a hill near the town of Ottery St Catchpole, standing four floors up and one down and giving the appearance of a giant black rook out of a chess set with windows, a young lady of eighteen sat at a worktable in her bedroom on the fourth floor. It was Luna Lovegood at the Rookery.
She was currently going through, yet again, her set of scrapbooks she'd been working on whenever she had the time. Inside she'd carefully stuck in specific articles out of the Daily Prophet, wizarding Britain's only daily newsparchment, articles out of her father's semi-regular monthly newsparchment, theQuibbler, articles from overseas newsparchments, and other information she'd hand-written herself all related to information she was collecting. It was information she began collecting back in June 1996 very soon after Harry disappeared through the Veil of Death; also known as the Astra Porta, the Chappa'ai and the Stargate.