I own neither Mass Effect nor the Stargate series.

Thanks to Dusel for the beta work.

While Commander Shepard and her crew were being interviewed by Woolsey, a position that the members of SG-1 did not envy, the premier team of the SGC was preparing to step through the gate.

Earlier that day, the Prometheus had sent a subspace message to the Asgard to see if they could remove the knowledge from the Ancient database from Colonel O'Neill's brain like they had before, but received no response yet. Of the three spaceworthy vessels that the SGC had on hand, one of them was incapable of making the journey into Asgard space and two were damaged. Even if it were fully intact the Prometheus would need to remain in orbit around Earth to defend against any alien threats, which left the Goa'uld shuttle that SG-1 had arrived in.

Under ordinary circumstances Sam would have been in charge of its repairs and it may have been finished by now. However with her efforts focused on the Normandy those responsibilities fell to Doctor Lee and his team; while undeniably bright, no one person in that group could match Sam in sheer knowledge or expertise. In addition Doctor Lee could be a bit scatterbrained at times, which further delayed things. So with no other way to get in contact with their distant allies there was nothing that the SGC could do except go about business as usual until they received a response.

"Chevron one encoded," Walter announced as he entered the commands into the computer before him, the sound of metal grinding against metal echoing throughout the gate room as the stargate spun within itself. "Chevron two encoded…."

"So, what do you think will PXJ-529 will be like?" Daniel asked, making small talk while the stargate continued to spin.

"Well," Sam said, pondering the possibilities, "considering that the Ancients would logically seed habitable worlds with stargates, and the Goa'uld would most likely move them to places where they and their slaves could survive, I'd guess that it'd be like what we normally see." "Normal" in this context meant an evergreen forest of moderate temperature and humidity with a small village of humans nearby, most likely former Goa'uld slaves.

"Chevron seven locked," Walter announced. A warning alarm briefly blared twice before the stargate activated, throwing unstable energy forward before becoming a stable event horizon. A MALP drone slowly rolled its way up the ramp and into the event horizon.

"MALP is away," Walter said. "We should be receiving video right about…now." True to his word the screen that displayed what the drone's camera saw blinked to life, showing a forest. This did not surprise the members of SG-1 in the least. What appeared in the image a few seconds later, however, did.

Several beings wandered into the MALP's field of vision. Some looked like humans, except their faces were brown and wrinkly and they sported an extra pair of black eyes and six more pairs of nostrils. Others seemed to be the same species as Shepard's crew member Garrus Vakarian. All of them were dressed in armor colored blue and white as well as carrying weapons of various kinds. The image was suddenly filled by the face of a human. He had dark skin and sported a military haircut along with stubble on his face. The aliens were chattering amongst themselves too far away from the MALP to get a decent feed from them, but the external translators that Shepard had given them the day before allowed Weir and SG-1 to catch bits of what they were saying.

"Hey boss, what's that thing over there?" One of the aliens asked, prompting the human to turn away from the camera.

"How the hell should I know?" he shouted angrily as he stood up. "I don't even know how we even came to arrive on this mud ball!" He whipped out a pistol and fired at the MALP, terminating the feed. Weir waved her hand in a slicing motion at her neck; Walter nodded and disabled the stargate. Finding the nearest microphone, she pressed the button to activate it and bent down to speak into the device.

"Commander Shepard, report to the gate room ASAP." she announced. Several minutes later the redheaded commander finally appeared, followed by Legion.

"I'm here," she declared as she entered, she was wearing work-out clothes – a shirt, slacks and sneakers. "So, what did you need me up here so badly for?" she asked with a light frown.

"Watch this," Weir said, gesturing to the screen. Shepard made her way over to the computer and watched the video.

"Shepard-Commander, these beings are wearing armor and markings consistent with the Blue Sun mercenary faction," Legion stated, causing the others present to turn their heads towards him.

"Yes, I can see that, thank you Legion," Shepard said with sarcasm.

"We received this approximately ten minutes ago," spoke Weir once again. "Considering that they were wearing similar armor as you and had aliens like one of your crew members, I was wondering if you recognized them."

"Yeah, I recognize them," Shepard said. "The human is Vido Santiago, the leader of a group of mercenaries known as the Blue Suns. He's from my universe." Neither Weir nor SG-1 found this revelation particularly surprising; they were however wondering how they managed to arrive in this universe; Shepard silently pondered the full ramifications of the situation.

"Are they dangerous?" the SGC leader asked.

"In the grand scheme of things, not likely," Shepard said with a shrug. "However, they're smart and well armed, so they could probably ruin someone's day if they're not dealt with soon."

"I see," Weir said. "Prep your team, Shepard. I want you to coordinate with SG-1 to subdue these mercenaries and see what information you can get out of them. Maybe they can shed some light onto your situation."

"One can hope," Shepard said flatly. As she turned to leave, she held her finger to her ear and spoke to Garrus.

"Well, I guess you'll be seeing how well Shepard and her crew fare on the battlefield soon," Weir said.

"Indeed," Teal'c said, speaking for the first time during the entire ordeal.

"We should probably wait a while before stepping in," Sam suggested. "With all those people gathered around the gate, trying to take them down now would be suicide."

"I agree," Weir said. "We'll wait three hours, then you'll move. Hopefully by then, there won't be so many people waiting to greet you."

Three hours seemed to pass by like an eternity for SG-1 along with the Commander who had summoned Garrus to her side along with Legion, each equipped with their favored weapons. Garrus had a collapsed assault rifle attached to his back while he calibrated his M92-Mantis, a single-shot sniper rifle which had been modified for increased damage and armor piercing capabilities. Shepard wielded the weaker but more forgiving M-97 Viper sniper rifle. To her left, Legion held the monstrous M-98 Widow anti-materiel rifle, a weapon that seemed more a miniature cannon than a gun, which was exactly what the Widow was, in a way. Shepard did not believe that SG-1's P90 submachine guns would be powerful enough to take down the mercenaries' shields quickly, so she agreed to temporarily loan them some of her weapons, along with a crash course on loading and ejecting heat sinks; to that end, the three soldiers now wielded M-12 Locust submachine guns that had been modified for optimum shield penetration as well as some modular shield generators for protection. They also wore night vision goggles on their heads in case it was nighttime on the planet that they were about to visit.

"Remember, these guys are most likely wearing shields, so it might take more shots than you think to take them down," Shepard warned her hosts. "Still, with the mods you have on your weapons, I don't think it'll be too big a problem."

"Got it," Sam said as the stargate spun to life. "Since you know more about these guys than we do, you'll be taking point," she said.

"Understood," the redheaded commander said as she turned to the stargate. The two-toned alarm blared followed by the stargate throwing forth its vortex of unstable energy, causing Garrus and Shepard to flinch in surprise; being a robotic construct, Legion did not demonstrate such displays of emotion, only flapping several of his head plates as it analyzed the unfamiliar sight before it. Sam and Daniel smiled slightly; it was always amusing to see people's reactions when they saw the stargate activate for the first time. Shaking herself out of her reverie, Shepard held her weapon at the ready and motioned for those behind her to move up. She walked up to the event horizon and after a moment's hesitation, stepped through the portal. She felt her body go cold as she saw streams of light streaking by. A flash of light filled her vision, and Shepard found herself standing on another world, her subordinates stepping out of the gate behind her; when the last person stepped through, the stargate deactivated with a whooshing sound. The sun could barely be seen over the treetops, coloring the sky a deep orange.

"Split up in teams of two," Shepard ordered. "Legion, you go with Teal'c. Garrus, go with Doctor Jackson. We'll make a perimeter three kilometers around the gate. Maintain radio silence until one of us finds the target, then we'll rendezvous on their position. Move out," she finished, and the three teams went their separate ways.

Within the hour, the sun had set completely, engulfing the landscape in darkness and forcing Shepard and Carter to switch to night vision. Careful steps were taken as they stalked through the woods, always being alert for patrols or traps; the commander's sniper rifle would eliminate any distant threats while the colonel's SMG provided close-range protection. Carter briefly admired how the commander seemed to be so light of foot despite being loaded with several seemingly quite heavy weapons.

Spotting a light through the trees ahead, Shepard held up her hand to halt her companion. Peering at the light through the scope of her sniper rifle, the commander zoomed in to see several figures dressed in blue armor sitting around a campfire. Switching the vision to infrared, she saw one nearby figure patrolling the perimeter of the camp with another, more faint silhouette marking the presence of a second guard.

"Garrus, Legion, I have found the target," Shepard whispered into her radio. "They have set up camp approximately twenty meters west of my position. I count at least three patrols," she continued.

"Understood, Shepard," Garrus replied in a whisper. "We'll link up with you ASAP."

"Acknowledged, Shepard-Commander," Legion chimed in. As the two women waited, Shepard kept her rifle aimed at the camp while Carter kept vigilant for any enemies that may try to sneak up on them. Several minutes passed before their radios crackled to life.

"Sam, it's us, we're coming up to you," Daniel's voice whispered over the radio A few seconds later, the two other teams emerged from the foliage.

"What's the plan, Shepard?" Garrus asked, his claws gripping his sniper rifle.

"You and Legion take out the two patrols," Shepard ordered, stowing away her sniper rifle in favor for her Revenant machine gun. "After that, we'll try to subdue the rest non-lethally. Garrus, you take out the one on the left, Legion take out the one on the right," she continued.

"You got it," the turian said as he flicked the switch to activate the Disruptor ammunition modifier. He peered down his scope to find his designated target. He slowly followed his quarry until the batarian stopped to massage away the stiffness in his neck. "On three," Garrus whispered to his synthetic partner. "One…two…three!" The crack of his sniper rifle was covered by the thunderous blast of Legion's rifle. Garrus' electromagnetically-charged shot disrupted the Blue Sun guard's shields enough for the granular round to penetrate his skull, the kinetic energy liquefying the four-eyed humanoid's brains.

Being designed to penetrate the heavy shields and thick armor of tanks and other armored vehicles, Legion's shot simply overwhelmed the second guard's shields through sheer power and obliterated his head entirely, beheading him faster then the blink of an eye.

While the rest of the mercenaries were stumbling over themselves trying to grab their weapons to defend from the unexpected assault, Sam flung a flashbang grenade into the group, stunning them with a flash of light and noise. Their quarry temporarily distracted, the team of six quickly rushed in and subdued them before they could regain their senses. A few minutes later, eight mercenaries were leaning against a log, stripped of all their weapons and omni-tools, their hands cuffed behind their backs.

"Hello, Vido," Shepard greeted in a sing-song tone as she sat down next to the sole human mercenary. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" The brown-skinned man, still dazed from the flashbang, took a moment to recognize who had addressed him, and turned quite pale when he saw just who he was with.

"Sh-Shepard," he said with a nervous laugh. "What a coincidence meeting you here. Zaeed isn't with you, is he?" he asked, fear lacing his voice.

"Nah, we split up a few months ago," Shepard said, casually waving her hand around. "The real question is, what are you doing here?" As Vido stammered for an answer, he looked around to see the rest of his captors; he saw three humans wearing armor – no uniforms, possibly an armored vest – that he did not recognize, one of whom had a strange metal symbol shaped like a snake or a worm attached to his forehead, a scar-faced turian and, to his shock and horror, a geth. "Remember Vido, it's because of me that you're still alive," Shepard continued. Vido did remember; he remembered how Shepard, along with his ex-partner and nemesis Zaeed Massani as well as a black man whose name he did not know had completely leveled his base of operations on Zorya, only escaping due to Shepard taking a detour to free the imprisoned factory workers trapped within the facility, and even then he barely dodged a lucky shot that had taken out the man sitting next to him. He felt Shepard laying a hand on his neck and squeezing, wincing when he felt the pressure quickly turn into pain.

"Okay, okay, I'll talk," he grunted, sighing in relief when he felt the pressure recede. "About a week ago, we hit an Alliance freighter hauling Eezo that was going along the edge of the Terminus systems. Its escort was heavier than we expected and we suffered some damage, so we tried to escape." He grunted in discomfort when Shepard briefly clenched her hand around his neck again, continuing his story when she stopped. "But when we hit the relay, something went wrong. The ship felt like it was being rattled apart before we got dumped out." Shepard and Garrus looked at each other, surprise showing on their faces at the familiar description.

"I didn't want to risk another jump like that," Vido continued, "so we limped around until our fuel reserves ran low. We found this planet and figured that risking going groundside would be better than slowly suffocating to death, so we jumped into a Kodiak and came down here. That was yesterday." Shepard was silent as she pondered his story. If it were true, then the incident that brought her and her crew to this reality truly was a fault in the mass relays, but what could cause such a failure?

"Shepard, what are we going to do about them?" Garrus asked, nodding his head to the captives. Shepard stood up and looked at the bound mercenaries.

"We do not have sufficient space or resources onboard the Normandy to sustain prisoners," Legion commented. "The turians in particular would place an unacceptable strain on supplies relegated for Creator-Tali'Zorah and Vakarian-Officer," the synthetic construct continued.

"Legion's got a point and Vido in particular doesn't deserve any mercy," Garrus confirmed, though the members of SG-1 were unaware of what circumstances would have prompted such a statement.

"I agree," Shepard said, reaching for her pistol. "I guess there's only one thing to do," she said with a tone of finality.

"Actually, we can take them," Sam interjected before Shepard could execute anyone. "We have secure facilities where we can hold them."

"Yes!" Vido exclaimed, leaping at any opportunity to not get a bullet to the face. "We'll tell you anything, do anything, just don't kill us!" The other mercenaries gave similar pleas. Shepard was conflicted on what she should do. One the one hand, she did not relish the idea of such dangerous individuals being somewhere where she could not keep an eye on them, and killing them would ensure that they did not harm anyone in the future. On the other hand, performing what were essentially cold-blooded executions in front of her hosts could possibly sour relations with them, something that she did not need at the moment. Finally she made her decision and moved her hand away from her weapon.

"All right, you can have them," she conceded. "But I'm confiscating all weapons."

"Fair enough," Sam said as she pulled two of the mercenaries to their feet to lead them back to the stargate. The other mercenaries were brought to their feet while Shepard and her crew were gathering up the discarded weapons and omni-tools. Grabbing what supplies they could, the two teams led the mercenaries back to the stargate where Daniel dialed Earth and entered the code that would allow them safe passage. When the six warriors passed through the portal, they found Weir waiting for them.

"Shepard, SG-1, glad to see that you made it back alright," she said before switching her gaze to the prisoners. "Who are these?"

"Prisoners, ma'am," the blonde colonel explained. Weir frowned in confusion.

"I see…" she said with uncertainty; while she had been expecting the away team to return with one or two prisoners, she was not expecting so many. Turning to another soldier, she said, "Lieutenant, have your team escort our…guests to the holding cells until we can arrange more permanent accommodations for them," she ordered.

"Yes ma'am," the soldier said with a salute before he and his team led the Blue Suns off to their new homes. Turning back to the two newly-returned teams, Weir clapped her hands together.

"Well," she sighed before muttering half to herself, "this should make for an interesting debriefing."

In a star system hundreds of light years away, a jaffa by the name of Rolnek pilot resisted the urge to breathe a sigh of boredom. When his lord Ba'al had conquered this unclaimed system earlier that week he had found an unusual device near the edge of the system: It was many times the length of a Ha'tak Mothership and shaped vaguely like the head of a spear; its architecture was unlike anything that he had seen before. Unable to ascertain its function, the Goa'uld had ordered a constant guard on the device in case it activated.

As Rolnek blinked away the weight from his eyelids the device suddenly flared to life, wiping away any sense of fatigue that the jaffa felt. Bolts of lightning arced between the two arms of the device as the spinning center glowed ever brighter.

With a final brilliant flash, a ship appeared the likes of which Rolnek had never before seen. It dwarfed the tiny scout ship that he piloted many times over, and would make even ha'tak ships seem small in comparison. Its hull was black as the void of space and its many arms gave it the appearance of a macabre hand, or an insect or sea-creature of some sort. Shaking away the sense of wonder and foreboding that he felt, Rolnek activated his ship's communication array to hail the strange vessel before him.

"Unidentified craft, you are in claimed space," he announced. "In the name of Lord Ba'al, identify yourself immediately and surrender!" Rolnek waited patiently for a response; his wait was not long. The voice that answered was an unearthly sound suitable for demons of legend that chilled his bones and stabbed in his mind like needles.

"I am the Overseer of your doom," whatever foul entity that controlled the ship replied, the vessel's limbs twisting about. "Your annihilation is at hand." Rolnek now noticed that one of the arms was pointed directly at his vessel. A crimson beam of light erupted from the tip and sped towards him. The shields of his ship did not hold for even a mere second before Rolnek fell into the cold embrace of death.

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