The Lonely Path

Note: This story takes places during season 7 of Stargate SG1

Daniel Jackson stood looking at the Stargate as the chevrons locked into place, he hadn’t seen the address in advance but he knew which one would be locked in. He thought that is was déjà vu but he knew that didn’t fit because it wasn’t a feeling, he new what chevron was locking in place. Leary of saying anything to the others, he kept quiet to avoid complications; Complications in the way of a lengthy medical exam.

The final chevron locked into place and the wormhole flared to life as it normally does and the transport MALP moved forward with mission supplies. Jack walked up to the wormhole when it was his turn and knowing the bleak landscape that was to come, stepped through.

Jackson stepped out of the Stargate last into the grotto that the gate was in. They proceeded over the rise and all suddenly stopped.

“Whoa! Looks like one hell of a battle took place here!” exclaimed Colonel O’Neal.

Jackson looked out at the landscape that was obviously the scene of a recent battle and something was missing that he couldn’t quite place then he realized. “The planet’s missing!”

Everyone looked at him and Teal'c questioned, “How can it be missing if we are standing on it.”

Jackson realized everyone was looking at him and said, “This isn’t a planet, it’s a moon”, which opened more questions than it answered.

“Daniel! Would you mind explaining how you know so much about this place even though you missed the pre-mission briefing?”

Daniel Jackson looked at O’Neal and said, “I don’t know, I knew what the gate coordinates would be after a few were dialed. I don’t know how I knew; I just knew them.”

Sam Carter looked at the device in her hand and said “Colonel, I’m getting some high energy readings coming over the next rise.”

Weapons at the ready, they slowly approached the rise and peaked over and saw one of the last things they ever expected in a place like this, a 50’s era British issue Police box.

“Well that’s not something you see everyday!” snapped O’Neal.

The four members of SG1 crawled over the low hill and O’Neal said, “This isn’t the last thing I expected to see but close.”

“O’Neal, what would be the last thing you would expect to see”, responded Teal'c.

“Well, Homer Simpson standing saying in a British accent ‘A donut would be nice but I’d rather have Broccoli!’”

“Yes, that would be unlikely”, replied Teal’c dryly.

They approached the Police Box slowly. After walking around it and trying the door, Jack O’Neal said “Anyone have a lock pick?”

Almost on cue, Sam reached in a vest pocket to remove some fine work tools then started at the lock but soon realized that the lock was a fake and moved a cover aside to reveal a different lock behind the fake one and said “It’s some kind of electronic key.”

Teal'c commented matter of fact manner, “Maybe we should use the phone.”

O’Neal opened the phone cover and picked up the receiver. He half expected to get a dial tone but said “It’s dead; I guess they didn’t pay the phone bill”, replacing the receiver and closing the cover.

“Jackson; since you know so much about this place, do you mind enlightening us on this place and what this is here for?”

“It’s not that I know much about it, things just came to me just before I saw them. The only thing I do know about this place is the gate address and that it should be in orbit of a world. I feel there is something important about it but don’t know what it is.”

Carter commented, “It must be left over knowledge from when you were ascended”, everyone acknowledged that she was probably right about it.

She looked at the Police Box and said, “I remember something about a Police Box mentioned in an old U.N.I.T report!”

“Unit?” said Dr. Jackson.

“United Nations Intelligence Taskforce” replied Carter.

“Let’s head back so you can research that” commanded Colonel O’Neal.

Later at the briefing.

“Major, what did you find?” asked General Hammond.

“There is a police box mentioned in a few U.N.I.T reports but they are vague; something to do with a consultant called the Doctor and also referenced by the name of John Smith.”

“Well there is an alias if I ever heard one.” replied O’Neal.

“It also mentions something called a Tardis, I think they were referring to the Police Box.”

The General replied, “Who filed those reports?”

“Most of them were filed by a Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart”

“What do we know of U.N.I.T. or Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart?” responded O’Neal.

“U.N.I.T. is an organization that is somewhat like Project Blue Book but has responded to some actual extra-normal threats. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart headed the agency from it’s formation in 1968 until 1976 but appears to have been called on a number of times after that to assist with situations. The Brigadier lives outside London.”

“The records we have of U.N.I.T. are somewhat vague. We mostly seem to have the highlights of various missions but what isn’t said says more than what is. They seemed to have responded to a number of credible threats to Earth.”

General Hammond responded, “Do we have contact information for Dr John Smith?”

“No, very little information is on file about him. It’s highly likely that the name was an alias.”

“Major, I need you and Doctor Jackson to fly to London to see if you can enlist the aid of Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. I’ll get the necessary approvals from U.N.I.T and the British government.”

SG13 finished gathering a large sample of the debris from the moon and putting it into a robotic truck. Colonel Dixon entered the address for Earth in the DHD. While the stargate was distracting everyone's attention; they failed to notice a slug like form crawl under the robotic truck and cling to the bottom.

They drove the truck through the gate and the last of the SG team went through. Back on Earth the truck was moved to one of the storage rooms.

The slug almost didn’t have strength to cling to the truck until it was left unattended. The extended period without the nourishment feed from the armored transport pod had left it weak. After the humans left it dropped off the truck and ducked into a dark corner to rest for awhile.

Wandering for hours it finally found where the humans stored their food. It was more bulk than it needed but it managed to find a liquid in a can that provided the basics.

Three Days Later; the car carrying the two members of SG1 pulled up in the drive in front of the Brigadier’s estate. They walked up the cobblestone walkway to the front door and rang the bell. An elderly man opened the door.

“Hello, this is Doctor Daniel Jackson and I’m Major Samantha Carter.”

“Ah, I‘d been told to expect two representatives of the American military, I didn’t know it was going to be two members of SG1.”

The Brigadier said, “Please come in.”

“Have a seat” and the Brigadier walked to the next room then walked back in a few minutes later carrying a tea service. “Tea?”

After serving his guest’s tea, the Brigadier asked them, “Now what is so important that two members of SG1 would have to fly here to see me?”

Samantha Carter pulled a file from her briefcase, opened it and pulled out a photo. “Have you ever seen this?”

“Ah, the Tardis! So you’ve met the Doctor. Wonderful chap, all of them.”

“No, umm, them? You mean the Doctor is just a title?” responded Carter.

“No, just the one person. It’s rather complicated…” looking at the photo he said, “Where the Tardis is, the doctor isn’t far away.”

“Since you obviously know about the Stargate program, we… Wait, how did you find out about the Stargate and SGC?” responded Daniel Jackson.

“Your American military isn’t as good at keeping secretes as they would like to believe, especially from their allies and I still I have my contacts in the intelligence communities. Now you were about to explain where you found the Tardis?”

“We were sent on a mission to an address near the center of the Galaxy. There we found a world that appears to recently been a war zone. There were lots of craters, debris and the Police Box. We detected energy readings coming from it but there wasn’t anyone else there. What can you tell us about the Doctor and the Tardis?” said Major Carter.

“Well Major Carter, I can do more than that”, he gets up and walks to a table with an ornamental box, opens it and pulls out a chain with an object on it, “I can show you.”

“I’ve suspected that a visit from someone with the SGC might have something to do with the Doctor so I borrowed this from a friend.”

He held the chain up and both the members of SG1 looked at the designs on it that were curiously familiar on one side.

Days later back at the SGC, the Brigadier now in his military uniform, was lead by Sam and Daniel down a hallway to the conference room where the rest of SG1 and General Hammond waited.

“You must be Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart,” said General Hammond as he held his hand out which was greeted by the Brigadier’s.

“And you must be General Hammond and the rest of SG1 that I’ve heard so much about.”

General Hammond motioned for him to sit and took his seat then he opened the folder in front of him, as did everyone else with they’re folders.

“As you know, a week ago SG1 were dispatched on a mission to a planet we’ve designated PJK-002. Dr Jackson reported that he has a certain amount of for knowledge of the planet”, motioning to Daniel, “due to things that happened to him about 18 months ago. He had acquired a large amount of knowledge that he later lost.”

“The incident where he died and was ascended then returned?” asked the Brigadier.

“Yes. How did you know about that?”

“You and your team aren’t the only ones with top level clearance and since I’ve dealt with alien incursions to earth longer than any of you, I get to see quite a bit of intelligence information”, replied the Brigadier.

The General asked, “What can you tell us about the Police Box and the Doctor”

“As I told Major Carter and Dr Jackson, I would need to show them. Some things about the Doctor and the Tardis have to been seen. What I can tell you is that he belongs to a race of people that call themselves Time Lords. They have the ability to travel in time in those Tardis’. I’ve been to their home world Gallifrey once but not quite under the most pleasant circumstances”, replied the Brigadier.

Carter commented, “He has some kind of key to get into the Tardis.”

“Brigadier if you can loan the key to SG1, it would be helpful.”

“No, even with the key they wouldn’t be able to get in, the Tardis doesn’t know them.”

“Know them?” interjected Colonel O’Neal.

“The Tardis, like the Doctor is very complicated. In order to get inside, I will have to go with you.”

Jackson looked at the key the Brigadier was holding up and said, “May I see that for a second” and it was passed to him. He laid it beside the document in front of him and the symbol matched up with the home symbol on that world’s DHD. “That’s the home symbol on that moon’s DHD.”

A few hours later, SG1 and the Brigadier stepped out of the Stargate onto the surface of PJK-002 followed by a long tracked robotic truck.

“Interesting way to travel, not unlike a trans-mat”, commented the Brigadier.

Colonel O’Neal led them back to where the Tardis was but the Brigadier stopped on the way to examine an object curiously shaped like a bathroom plunger.

“Do you know what that is?” asked Major Carter.

“It appears to be one of the weapons of a Dalek”, looking around at the debris.

They walked up to the Tardis and the Brigadier said “I have to warn you to be prepared when you go inside; it does startle people at first.”

He inserted the key and walked inside followed by the members of SG1.

For once, O’Neal was at a loss for words.

“Incredible, it’s dimensionally transcendental! I always theorized that it was possible but to see it”, commented Carter as they looked around the open space.

“Wait, can you say that in English”, responded O’Neal.

“It’s trans-dimensional, the inside sits either in another dimension or a pocket of ours own.”

Off in the distance inside, bells were ringing like in a church Abby. Walking in, rounding the Tardis’ central control column the saw the glowing form of a man lying on the floor; his form shifting back and forth between two forms continually.

The Brigadier bent down by the fallen man’s side and said “Doctor?” then touched him. Instantly a glow of energy flared across to the Brigadier’s body and he staggered backwards. The glow on him slowly subsided and afterwards he seemed to have a little less gray hair and fewer wrinkles in his face.

The appearance of the man on the floor slowly stopped shifting from one with wavy hair to a more fit man with short hair.

The brigadier slowly recovered and walked to the prone man. “Doctor, is that you?”

The man’s eyes opened slowly looked at the Brigadier and said “Lethbridge-Stewart? What are you doing in my Tardis?” he attempted to sit up then passed out again, the glow totally gone.

Daniel led the team with the stretcher into the Tardis. They reacted much as everyone else when they entered it. After they had overcome their shock, Daniel took them to the Doctor. They lifted him on the stretcher and took him back through the door and too the Stargate.

Everyone left the Tardis and the truck pulled up to the side of it. They slowly tilted it onto the bed of the truck then headed back towards the Stargate also.

When they got to the Stargate, they hit the buttons on the DHD to dial Earth then the medics went through first. They then guided the truck to the Stargate then as it was going through, a totally unexpected thing happened. The truck went through the Stargate as normal but the Tardis just fell through the ring behind it like the wormhole wasn’t even there.

A small bit of the truck was still sticking out when lightning flared across Stargate as it shut down leaving the remainder of the truck behind. A short time later, a grating noise sounded through the grotto like something being drug across the strings of a piano and the Tardis vanished.

Stunned at the events, no one said a thing. For about a minute the DHD was dark. Just long enough for them to get worried then when the lights came back on, Major Carter dialed Earth again, punched in the code to open the Iris then walk through.

Shortly after they stepped through carrying the small part of the truck that got left behind and the gate closed, they heard the grating noise again and to their amazement, the Tardis appeared upright in the corner of the gate room with a boom as it finished appearing then settled on the metal floor.

The Brigadier said, “It may have followed the Stargate to Earth to stay close to the Doctor.”

Staring at the Tardis in the corner of the gate room, the General shouted “Debriefing in 10 minutes.”

After a short briefing, the Brigadier was lead to the medical bay. The doctor lay on the bed unconscious with some kind of apparatus above his mouth.

“How is he?” asked the Brigadier.

“I can’t tell. I don’t know what’s normal for him. His hearts are beating strongly and his brain activity seems to be low at the moment. Other than that, I can’t tell”, replied Dr. Frasier.

“Hearts?” questioned O’Neal.

Dr Frasier replied “Yes, he has a bi-pulmonary cardiovascular system. His internal organs are so different I’m surprised he looks human. There are at least two organs in him that I can’t identify. One is in his torso and the other in his brain. Also bio-energy readings from his body are extremely high. It’s as if every cell in his body were rebuilding themselves from ground up.”

Almost on cue, a wisp of glowing gasses came out the doctor’s mouth and slowly drifted into the device above his mouth and into a storage tank.

Dr Frasier said “He’s been doing that for the last half hour. The gas is a mix of normal air gasses and some highly energetic isotopes we can’t identify.”

“Brigadier, what can you tell me about him or his physiology?” asked Dr Frasier.

“Well I guess the main thing at the moment is that when he is killed, he has the ability to regenerate, each time he looks different. I know he has done it a number of times before. I’ve encountered all 8 of his previous selves. I would wager this is probably his 9th”, replied the Brigadier.

The slug like creature crawled through the vents in the SGC and being lead by scents to a particular room, one where a large amount of the debris from PJK-002 had been deposited. The creature crawled out of the vents and over to one large cylinder then proceeded to work at its task of rebuilding the object. The creature was grateful that the cylinder was on its side.

In the mind of the doctor he saw the replay of the events that lead up to his death. He had been on the front line of the war against the Daleks and had managed to stop one of their units from destroying the Stargate on Gallifrey’s sole moon. He destroyed the last Dalek on the moon. He watched it rupture open but not before it had gotten one last shot off nearly destroying his left arm. Loosing blood, he drug himself back to the Tardis, he looked up in shock as a creeping darkness crossed over Gallifrey and it vanished, leaving nothing behind not even dust. He crawled inside the Tardis and died.

He asked himself, had he dreamt the destruction of Gallifrey just as he dreamt the Brigadier standing over him in the Tardis. He must have, either event was unlikely.

Dr Frasier picked up a phone, dial a sequence of numbers and said “He’s seems to be walking up.”

A short time later, General Hammond, SG1 and the Brigadier walked into the medical bay, just as the Doctor started to open his eyes.

“Brigadier? Lethbridge-Stewart is that you? How did I get here; am I still dreaming? What are you doing here, more to the point what am I doing here?”

“Doctor, you are on Earth, specifically at the Stargate Command”, replied General Hammond.

“Cheyenne Mountain?” asked the Doctor.

“Does everyone know about the Stargate?” exclaimed General Hammond.

“Well I know a lot about a many different things. How did I get here, did you bring me through the Stargate?”

The Brigadier responded, “They’re SG1 team found your Tardis on a lifeless moon, they contacted me and I used the key you gave me to open it. We found you inside; you seemed to be stuck in your change. They brought you here.”

“My Tardis?”

O’Neal interjected “It sort of followed you here.”

“You didn’t try to take it through the Stargate did you? That won’t work.”

“We found that one out”, mumbled O’Neal.

“Doctor, the Tardis is down in the gate room” said Hammond.

“I must get down and make sure she is ok”, replied the Doctor.

“Is he well enough to leave the med bay?” said Hammond as he looked at Dr Frasier.

“As far as I can tell, I don’t know what’s normal for him”, she replied.

A short time later, they led the Doctor down to the gate room. The Doctor, SG1 and the Brigadier walked into the Tardis.

“The cloister bells, something’s wrong” as he checked the controls. “The energy levels are way too low, that’s not right.”

He quickly led through a maze of hallways to a large room with a structure in the center. The doctor removed a post and slowly opened the dome in the center. As he did, what lie behind it was nothing, not a blank place but the kind of nothingness that reason would say is impossible.

“The link to the Eye of Harmony is gone!”

Everyone except the doctor had to look away from the chaos that stared back at them.

The cover slowly closed back and the Doctor sat on the steps knowing that the absence of the Eye of Harmony could only mean one thing, the destruction of Gallifrey.

He felt deep inside his mind and knew it to be true. The link he always felt to other Time Lords was gone. He was the only one left.

“What does that mean?” asked O’Neal.

“That Gallifrey is gone” the Doctor replied sadly.

The Dalek crawled around the maze of junk looking for a blast weapon to put on the rebuilt environment vessel but couldn’t find one. He thought to himself that he would need to find a substitute. He crawled back into the vent and went looking for something. A short time later, he stumbled on a weapon’s locker. Over in the corner he saw exactly what he needed.

He thought to himself, that would do nicely but now he needed to figure out how to get it to his vessel.

He crawled down and over to the staff weapon. He began to dismantle it. He would carry it over there part by part.

Hours later, he had managed to carry the parts. He added the power crystal from two of the staffs to power his vessel. He used some acid to shorten the tubing of the staff to fit on the front the vessel. He didn’t need the external housing on the staff so he just left the weapon open. No need to close it when it should always be at the ready. Another few hours work and it would be finished.

The doctor forced himself to come out of the depression that was starting to set in. It was time to choose how he would present himself to the universe. He went to the clothing room and started to choose. He looked at himself long and hard in the mirror to find out whom he would be then started to pick his clothes.

A short while later; Samantha Carter was examining tools in a box near the central column. The doctor came out of a room off the main hallway. He was dressed plainly and wearing a black leather jacket. He walked up to the Major, looked down and said, “I wonder where I’d left that” and reached down to grab a sonic screwdriver in the box.

Sam and he were the only two left in the Tardis. She asked him about the tech of making things bigger on the inside. He replied to her. “Imagine taking a towel and pushing it through a hole until you have a large bag on the other side made out of the towel. Put enough stuff in the bag and the towel can never be pulled back through the hole.”

“What is the Eye of Harmony?” she asked.

“A powerful Time Lord by the name of Omega managed to capture a black hole and put it in a chamber on Gallifrey set against the mass of the planet”, he responded.

“How can you have it here on the Tardis when it’s on Gallifrey?”

“Imagine the chamber the Eye of Harmony sits in as a large multi-dimensional sphere with the universe wrapped around it. Each Tardis opening to it is set on a tangent to it. We ever a Tardis goes, it’s still in contact with it, drawing power from it.”

“The reason you saw the chaos in the door to the chamber is because when you cut the link to it, there is literally nothing left to take its place and since true nothingness can’t exist, only a window to the chaos outside the universe is left behind.”

Sam asked, “Without the Eye of Harmony, how can you power the Tardis?”

He looked at her and said “There are plenty of places in the universe to extract power. Power is everywhere but not always in high enough concentrations to be useful. The real question is where to I get the power needed to go hunt for the power I need to power it long term?”

The Major and the Doctor walked out of the Tardis into the gate room and through the security doors.

“I will also have to reconfigure the Tardis to conserve power.”

“Reconfigure?” asked Sam

“Merge some rooms, remove others… basically redecorate it.”

“Doesn’t that take a lot of power?”

The Doctor responded, “Not as much as you’d think, drag caused by the extra mass through the time stream takes more power. I will have to cut the link to where the Eye of Harmony was, the drag from that could consume enough energy to burn out a star over a few months.”

Stunned, Carter asks “How much power do you need?”

As Sam and the Doctor walked into the SGC control room; a soldier walked out and she said to the Doctor, “I think we might be able to help you.”

General Hammond was standing there with the Brigadier and Daniel Jackson, he looked at the Doctor and said “Major Carter, someone seems to have broken into the primary weapon’s locker.”

“The Doctor has been with me and the medical staff the whole time he was here.”

The Doctor looked at the General and asked, “What was taken?”

“A Jaffa staff weapon and the energy crystals from another one was taken.”

Daniel asked, “Could someone be working on a rogue project in the SGC?”

“Show me the locker”, the Doctor said with a deeply serious look on his face.

A short time later they walked up the weapon’s locker. O’Neal and an airman were waiting on them.

The Doctor looked at the lock and said “No sign of forced entry.” The airman opened the door. The Doctor stepped in, looked around, looked at the staff weapons the looked around then up to the air vent.

He then picked up the staff weapon missing the power crystals then put it back, looked at a piece laying on the floor. He picked it up and said “Curious!”

Sam asked; “What is it?”

“A piece from the staff weapon.”

“They must have dropped it when they removed the crystals” responded Carter.

“Could have but this part is still on the weapon. This is from the other one.”

He suddenly had everyone’s attention.

“The other one was taken apart too”, he said.

Before anyone could say anything else, the doctor asked, “Did anything come back through the gate? Did you bring anything back besides me and the Tardis?”

Sam responded; “When SG1 came back initially, we sent SG4 through the gate with a survey team. They gathered some of the debris from the battle field to be analyzed.”

“Typical human ego, you think you can understand every unknown thing laid before you, no matter the consequences.”

Sam started to say something but the Doctor said, “show me”.

They went to the next level down and a couple of guards stood ready as they opened the door.

There where several large piles of junk in the room. Much of it the Doctor recognized as scrap from some Time Lord equipment but mostly Dalek scrap.

They walked around the scrap and the Doctor said, “Someone has been working on it.”

He held up a wire running to a small pipe attached and inside the pipe was a carbon core from a D cell battery sharpened to a point.

“This was being used to weld with.”

They started poking at the scrap and Daniel said “Here! This large panel is covering a hole in the floor!”

They moved it and it dropped to a dark storage room below. Inside it something moved.

They stepped back and O’Neal said, “What is it?”

“Daleks I expect” replied the Brigadier.

“Exactly” said the Doctor.

The Doctor took two grenades from one of the solders, pulled the pins and dropped them down the hole.

They all jumped back and the explosion went off.

Someone said “Did that destroy it?”

The Doctor replied, “No, that was just to get its attention.”

The Doctor carefully leaned over and “Oi, you down there! Any famous last words?”

“Words do not matter, the Daleks will win the war!”

“You’ve already lost the war, you’re the last Dalek.”

“Identify yourself!”

“I’m the Doctor.”

“THE DOCTOR! YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF THE DALEKS! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!”

The sound of a staff weapon being activated came up from the hole. The Dalek started to rise out of the hole. It was obviously repair and a staff weapon had been cut in half and fused in place of the Dalek’s weapon and its central eyepiece had been replaced with parts from a high-resolution security camera.

As they dived for cover the guards started firing at the Dalek. The shells vanished inches from their target. With in moments Teal’c came running around the corner with a staff weapon and fired. The energy blast dissipated on the shield surrounding the Dalek.

Everyone was forced to fall back and expected the Dalek to follow but instead it turned and closed the door to the storage room. O’Neal came out of the elevator dressed for combat.

“What? Doesn’t it want to come out and play”.

The doctor commented, “Most likely it’s not finished with its repairs. If so, we have some time to prepare. Once it’s finished, it will definitely be on the move.”

“If we can lure it down to the basement, we can drop the trap on it” suggested Daniel Jackson.

“Trap?” replied the Doctor.

“A while back we setup a containment area in a room at the base of Stargate Command in case of this type of situation. We would lure the enemy down there and drop a hundred tons of sand on top of them. After the threat is over; we can pump the sand out.” Carter elaborated.

“That wouldn’t work. Any Dalek trapped with no hope of escape would likely self destruct which would take this entire mountain with it and leave a hole three times as big.”

O’Neal interjected “Well let’s leave that one for a last resort, right after attacking it with a horde of flying monkeys.”

“Or’thon 6”

“Or’thon 6?” asked Carter.

“Flying monkeys… You can get them on Or’thon 6. Wicked things, they love playing tricks on people. Although I’m not sure how they’d help out with the current situation.”

“Sweet! I’ve wanted my own horde of flying monkeys, now if I can just get a golden hat to control them” joked O’Neal.

“What would help is if we knew of a black hole near one of those Stargates.”

The members of SG1 looked at each other and Carter said, “P3W-451 but it’s likely that’s it’s been consumed by now. Even if it still exists, I’m not sure how it would help because we almost didn’t get the gate closed the last time we went there.”

“Closing it isn’t a problem if we add a gravity field suppressor to your Stargate.”

“and if it doesn’t exist?”

“Well it was there once; that’s all we need to know.”

The Doctor and Samantha Carter entered the Tardis. The doctor walked over to an equipment locker and started pulling out various devices then found what he’d been searching for.

“What is it?” asked Sam.

“A nearly burned out temporal-field generator.”

“Nearly burned out?” she asked.

“Well nearly burned out for its primary function but it should do the trick with a bit of tinkering” replied the Doctor.

He pulled out other small pieces of equipment and some cabling then started to connect them together fusing the connections with a laser torch from the tool box. He said generally, “One of these centuries I need to build a new multi function sonic screw driver tool“.

Finishing the final connections he said “Now we just need a power crystal from one of those staff weapons I saw in the weapon’s locker.”

They carried the device to the conference room and Carter ordered an airman to go retrieve a power crystal from the weapon locker.

A short time later the airman brought the crystal. The rest of SG1 along with the General and Brigadier came into the room.

“How long ago was the other Stargate being consumed by the Black hole?” asked the Doctor.

Carter gave him the date and the Doctor made some adjustments on the device he built.

“This must be hooked up to the power connection to your Stargate and to the control lines on the Stargate here. Once hooked up, dial the other gate and it should connect to a point shortly after the date you gave me. Now if we can find a power source for the Tardis.”

Carter replied “I think a Naquadriah generator can supply enough power for a couple of trips in your Tardis if we can filter out the instability.”

“I don’t think that will be a problem with the Tardis” replied the Doctor.

A short time later, the generator was brought to the Tardis and the Doctor took it inside and hooked it up to the central console. Once connected the generator started humming and glowing brightly then flashed and went dark.

“That should do it.”

Carter exclaimed “The Naquadriah is completely inactive, how can it do that, normally power drawn over a given rate will increase the instability?”

“Not if you do it slowly over years.”

“Years?”

“The Tardis is a time machine, local changes to the flow of time are easy for it.”

Before she could reply, O’Neal’s voice came over the loud speaker in the gate room. “Hurry it up folks, that thing is on the move.”

They hurried to where O’Neal was waiting and the Doctor said “I will need to lure it through the Stargate to that world and then I will go there in the Tardis minutes before you activate the gate and create a stable time field in the area around the other Stargate.”

“I’m sure glad you know what you’re doing because I did not understand that.” Interjected O’Neal.

“How are you going to lure it to go into the Stargate.” Asked Teal’c

“By going through the Stargate myself.”

“but if your going through the Stargate how are you going to be here to fly the Tardis there?” asked Sam.

“With this” and he held out his left arm to reveal a odd looking watch. “While I’m wearing this, I can’t be dematerialized by the Stargate I’ll just step through the wormhole to the back of the Stargate.”

“Nice trick!” replied O’Neal

“Now dialup the Stargate and take me to where the Dalek is.”

They lead the way to the area where the Dalek was and the Doctor proceeded to get the Dalek’s attention in the way he was best at.

“I command you to surrender by order of the council of the Time Lords.” Demanded the Doctor.

“THE DALEKS SURRENDER TO NO ONE!” shouted the Dalek then started coming at them.

They ran to the gate room and the members of SG1 ran to the Tardis. The Doctor headed to the Stargate. The Dalek entered the gate room and saw the Doctor dive through the event horizon of the Stargate.

The Dalek fired at him and just missed then followed him into the Stargate.

The Doctor emerged from behind the Stargate and ran to the Tardis. With in seconds, there was the familiar grating noise of the Tardis vanishing…

Moments later but years previously and a half a galaxy away the Tardis materialized near the other Stargate much to the surprise of Colonel Cromwell and Major Henry Boyd’s SG team.

The Doctor and the equally surprised SG1 team emerged from the Tardis. Before the others could ask anything the Dalek emerged from the Stargate and started firing. Someone on SG-10’s team yelled “What the hell” then they all dived for cover and started firing at the Dalek.

O’Neal yelled “GO IN THE BLUE BOX!”

Cromwell yelled back “We’re not going to fit in there… Wood isn’t going to stop that thing.”

“Just go in, that’s an order!” he responded.

They dived into the blue box and their first instinct was to escape the impossibility of it but their sense of self-preservation enabled them to resist it. After everyone was in the Tardis, the Doctor closed the door.

“O’Neal, what the hell is this thing? What the hell happened to your hair?” blurted out Cromwell as he noticed how much more gray O’Neal’s hair was.

“It’s a long story.”

The Doctor turned the monitor on and the Dalek was visible on it. He then flipped a control on the console and the stabilization field shrank to just inches from the Tardis and the Dalek slowed to a stop. What could have been moments or hours later and the Dalek started fall towards the singularity in slow motion.

The Doctor flipped some switches and the Tardis vanished into the time stream.

The Tardis materialized back in the gate room at the SGC and everyone filed out, much to the surprise of General Hammond and the staff in the control center. “Colonel Cromwell and Major Boyd where the hell did you come from?”

Jackson said “More to the point, how are we going to explain to your families that you’re all alive after being dead for more than five years.”

“Debriefing room in 5 minutes!” bellowed the General’s voice.

They started exiting the gate room. The Doctor and Samantha Carter fell behind.

The Doctor wanting to quietly slip away reluctantly said, “The Tardis is drained again. I’m afraid I’m going to have to get a boost from one of your generators again so I can go find some place to fully charge the Tardis.”

“That can be arranged. Follow me”.

After the debriefing, with the General’s approval Carter retrieved another generator and had it delivered to the Tardis.

The Doctor hooked it up and they watched as the Tardis drained it.

“Sorry use up so much of your Naquadriah supply.”

Carter replied, “It’s for a good cause besides I'm sure our research team will discover some interesting properties in the depleted Naquadriah.”

The Doctor asked “Would you like to come with me while I take the Tardis to charge up?”

“I’ll have to get permission from the General but he should be ok with one trip “ she replied and she left to get permission.

She entered the General’s office. He was talking with the Brigadier. She requested permission and the General agreed all the while the Brigadier had an amused gleam in his eye. In his mind, he was reveling at being independent observer to situations he himself had been in.

20 minutes later Carter returned to the Tardis and with in a few seconds the Tardis dematerialized.

As the traveled through the time stream, the Doctor selected a dying star with no planets to harvest the power he needed.

With in minutes the Tardis reached it’s destination and the Doctor opened up the engines to soak up the raw power needed. After 30 minutes the star made a final flair of light then vanished to darkness forever.

“Now to reconfigure the Tardis”

The Doctor walked to the wall and used his sonic screwdriver to loosen a cover on one of the circular opens. Inside he rearranged some circuits, fused some connections with the tool then walked to the console.

He flipped a number of seldom switches and the Tardis proceeded to redesign it’s self. Walls vanished and others changed. The control room expanded and off in the distance some never used rooms vanished all together. A short time later the change was finished.

The support columns had changed to a glowing coral like structure. The console was by the coral structure. The whole feel of the control room took on a very organic feel.

“WOW” she said in awe.

“Would you care to take a side trip?” he asked her

“We really should get back as quick as possible” she replied.

“This is a time machine, we could be gone for years and return with in seconds of leaving.”

She had a torn look of wanting to go but also wanting to obey orders.

“Come on, step outside being a good little soldier…Live a little.”

“Alright but just one side trip” she conceded.

“Fantastic!”

“Now where to go… We could go to Woodstock in 1969”.

“Been there…. 1969, not Woodstock.”

“Then how about Ancient Egypt.”

She had a sheepish grin she replied “Not a good idea, there is a version of me and the rest of SG1 there.”

Intrigued he said, “I know the perfect place” then with a gleam in his eyes started flipping the controls.

Before the change Carter had just begun to understand what some of the controls were for but now seeing the Doctor jump almost spastically around the central console, she didn’t have a clue what the functions were for.

“Now off we go!” he flipped a lever and the engines started their whine and they were off back into the time stream.

The Tardis materialized back at the SGC and they left the Tardis. The Brigadier was waiting. He noticed the look in Carter’s eyes, the look of someone that had traveled with the Doctor.

“Brigadier, need a lift back to your home?”.

“Tempting Doctor but no thanks, my wife is at a local hotel and we’re going to see the sights before heading back.”

Samantha gave the Doctor a quick kiss on the cheek. He vanished into the Tardis and with in seconds it vanished from view.

“Short trip my dear.”

“Yea, it was wasn’t it” she said smiling….