Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate.

I promise the writing will get better in later chapters. Reviews and critisim are welcome.

"Achoo!"

"Bless you."

Tara reeled back from her cousin's sneeze and pulled out a handkerchief for him. They were currently in an elevator of a military compound they had been escorted to with one of a lieutenant named Kawalsky

"Cold?" The lieutenant asked.

"Allergies." Daniel took the handkerchief graciously and sneezed into it, "It always happens when I travel." He smiled awkwardly and stuffed the hanky into his pocket.

"You should really get some drugs for that." Tara patted his back. The doors of the elevator opened at level 28 and the cousins walked into a large corridor lined with pipes. Kawalsky led Daniel and Tara down the corridor where a man in a really ugly jumper met them.

"Dr Jackson? Dr Gary Meyers, how are you?" The man said.

"Hi." Daniel nodded. Meyers looked at Tara and gave her a polite nod.

"I'm sorry, I didn't get your ..?"

"Oh, Tara." She held out her hand but withdrew it when she noticed both his hands were full. "What is this place?" Daniel asked.

"Nuclear Missile Sylem." A woman with a black jacket and thick glasses joined them.

"What?" Tara exclaimed.

"Don't worry it's been completely converted. Barbara Shore." She said in one breath.

They all entered a room marked 'Research Laboratory. Authorized Personal Only' and Tara could not believe what she saw.

It was a massive stone tablet covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs. It was broken into several pieces and in the centre piece a cartouche unlike anything Tara had ever seen. She looked to her right and almost laughed at Daniel's expression, it was like a child in a lolly shop.

"Wow." Was Tara's only reaction.

An elderly woman walked out from a small cubicle that resembled an office and shook hands with Daniel. She turned her focus onto Tara and gave her a warm smile. "And you must be Daniel's young cousin Tara." They shook hands gently.

"Um, yeah."

"I'm Catherine Langford."

'So this is the lady huh.' Tara thought to herself.

"This is ... well ... uh ... where'd you find this?" Daniel managed to spit out, his eyes still glued to the tablet.

Catherine chuckled, "Giza Plato, 1928."

"I've never seen anything like it." Daniel walked up to it and traced his hand along the stone.

"Of course you haven't. No one has." She explained.

Tara squinted to try and read the hieroglyphs, "1928 huh? How come this was never reported?" She muttered to herself. A black board caught her attention while Dr. Meyers started explaining things.

"Now there's two lines of hieroglyphs. The inner track has the classic figures, but the outer track is like the cartouche in the centre. It's got writing unlike anything we've ever found before."

While Daniel inspected the tablet, Tara looked at the translation on the black board and knew it was inaccurate.

"Daniel?" She called him over and he too saw the error. "The translation of the inner track is wrong."

"Must have used Budge. I don't know why they keep reprinting his books." Daniel grabbed an eraser and began fixing the errors.

"Budge is good for beginners." Tara shrugged and worked on the second line.

"Excuse me? What are you doing? We've used every single known technique." Meyers interjected, but neither listened, too engrossed in the translation.

"This is 'sealed and ... buried' here." Tara pointed at the second line.

"And that's not coffin ... 'For all time'. Who the hell translated this?" Daniel asked.

"Well ... I ... I did." Meyers admitted. Tara sighed and mentally forgave him.

Daniel stood back and inspected their work, "Well, this should read 'A million years into the sky is Ra Sun God. Sealed and buried for all time ...' and ..."

Tara grabbed the spare chalk and scribbled in something. "It's not ... a door to heaven so to speak, it's ... ' His Stargate.'"

"Very good Tara." Daniel patted her back.

"I learned from the best." She answered smugly. Both Jacksons turned and looked at all the smiling and surprised faces. "So, why is the military so interested in 5,000 year old Egyptian tablets?" Daniel finally asked, something Tara was itching to know.

"My report says 10,000."

Everyone looked at the man who spoke. He was tall military man and looked somewhat important.

"Afternoon Colonel." Kawalsky greeted the man who nodded in return and passed his report off to Kawalsky, but Catherine seemed non-plussed.

"Um, do I know you?" She asked the man. "I'm Colonel Jack O'Neil from General West's office. I'll be taking over from now on."

All the scientists looked at each other confused, this seemed totally out of nowhere for them. Tara wasn't too worried about who was in charge, only about the number this colonel had mentioned.

"Well, Colonel O'Neil, I'm sorry but your report is wrong. There is no way that this is 10,000 years old." She gestured to the tablet, "Egyptian culture didn't even exist then."

The colonel gave her a disapproving look, "Miss you're not even authorized to be here."

"A... well ... she's ... she's my consultant." Daniel piped in, and O'Neil went on ignoring them.

"Danny, I'm right ..."

"Yes the figures ludicrous." He nodded

"We know, but the sonic and radio carbon tests are conclusive." Barbra cut in.

"Well, these are cover stones. Was there a tomb underneath?" Daniel asked.

"Oh no. But we found something, a lot more interesting."

"Really?" Tara leaned in to hear what.

"Excuse me. This information has become classified." O'Neil chipped in before Barbra could say anymore.

He looked at Tara and Daniel in particular before saying to Kawalsky, "From now on no information is to be passed on to no-military personal without my expressed permission," and walked out.

"Catherine what's going on here?" Meyers asked. "I don't know." She followed O'Neil while the rest of the team and Tara and Daniel were left standing there.

xxxxxxxx

Two weeks later, Daniel was still no closer to solving the cartouche. He and Tara had gone through almost every know book on hieratic symbols written and thought off every possible meaning behind the strange symbols.

What really rattled Tara's mind was the writing in the inner track.

'A million years into the sky is Ra Sun God. Sealed and buried for all time, his Stargate.'

What the hell was a Stargate? Was it some sort of artifact or treasure owned by the pharaohs? But the coverstones dates back before the known Ancient Egyptian civilization had been established, yet the hieroglyphs clearly stated 'Ra' the Sun god. Maybe this was an earlier culture that also worshiped Ra.

'A million years into the sky.' Wouldn't it make sense to write 'into the Heavens,' or is it referring to the actual sun? But an early civilisation wouldn't know that the sun was millions of light years away from the earth.

While Tara scribbled these notes down, Daniel was listening to a recording of himself, again.

"As much as I love the sound of your voice Danny," Tara yawned, "I'm sure you can just write your notes down."

"I think better when I hear things, rather than write." Daniel stared up at the coverstones, I steaming cup of coffee in his hand. Tara looked at her watched. It read 2:47 am.

She had to hand it to Daniel, he was persistent. He was actually the one who inspired her to become a linguist and study history.

Lack of sleep finally caught with Tara and she felt her eyes close and her pencil fall out of her grasp.

There was one thing Tara was sure of, and that was that she didn't dream.

On the rare occasion when she did, it would always be cryptic, and mysterious.

She dreamt that she was walking though a desert, the sun had not come up yet so it was cold, the wind blowing the sand against her legs and bare forearms. Daniel, O'Neil and Kawalsky walked in front of her, guns in hand.

A lone falcon swooped down out of nowhere and clipped the back of Kawalsky's head, causing him to shoot wildly at the bird. Several more appeared and started attacking them, clawing and nipping at their heads until they bled. O'Neil yelled at them to run but they were cut off by a snarling jackal, growling and forcing them back.

O'Neil and Daniel kicked sand at its face, but it still advanced on them. Tara turned to run back the way they came, but in the distance she saw a great pyramid, the light of the rising sun shining out from behind it. As the sun rose higher and higher, Tara felt warmth creeping back into her blood and her fear being washed away. Finally, the sun's rays shone over the peak of the pyramid and caused the falcons and jackal crumpled into dust.

The sunlight beckoned Tara to come forward, to be fully embraced in its warmth.

A terrible scream from behind made her turn. Daniel's skin turned red and boils formed all over. He scratched at his skin, making the pain worse and worse until his flesh caught fire. The same happened to O'Neil and Kawalsky, yet Tara remained unharmed by the light. In fact she relished it, let it consume her whole body. She felt complete, yet somehow empty.

Bang, clash.

Tara jolted awake to the sound of Daniel half tripping up the metal ladder next to the tablet. He was holding a piece of newspaper up and comparing it to the symbols of the cartouche. She checked her watch again. 3:18 am.

"Orion." She heard Daniel mutter. "Mmmm... what? Daniel it's ..."

"I've figure it out." He cried, climbing down the ladder and placing the article in the table in front of Tara. "Look. What do you see?" He pointed at the paper.

Tara rubbed her eyes and picked up the article, which showed a picture of the constellation Orion that had been drawn on. "You played 'Connect the Dots' with the stars?"

"Yes, in a way," he said laughing awkwardly, "But what does it look like?"

Tara focused on the symbol closely and started to make the connection. It looked just like one of the symbols on the tablet.

"Constellations?" She looked at him in disbelief. "You mean these symbols are actually constellations that were discovered almost 7,000 years after this thing was created?"

"Yes. It's not a language, they're coordinates." He sounded excited and started to rummage around looking for something. "And all we have to do now is match the symbols in the cartouche with the corresponding stars and we have our translation."

"Wait what, coordinates? What are you on about?"

He found what he was looking for in a cabinet and placed it on the table. It was a large map of the stars.

"You mean now?" Tara groaned. "I'm on a roll Tara. The soon this is done, the sooner we get paid."

"Dude, you've had too much coffee."