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The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. The Stargate franchise is currently owned by Metro-Goldwin-Mayer. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.

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Camelopardalis

Chapter 1

A New Constellation

Camelopardalis or the Giraffe constellation is a large, faint grouping of stars in the northern sky. The constellation was introduced in 1612 (or 1613) by Petrus Plancius. Some older astronomy books give an alternative spelling of the name, Camelopardus.

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The klaxon sounded throughout Stargate Command. General Jack O'Neill, lightly napping, propped up in his office executive chair with his feet on the desk, was abruptly startled awake. Glancing at the wall clock he muttered "What the Hell?" and stood up, pulling on his uniform jacket to free it from his armpits.

It would not do for the General to be caught napping in the afternoon. It would encourage sotto voce comments from, most likely, the members of SG-1, about the General's age. That would lead on to discussions about his hair again, which he definitely did not want to hear. He never intended to give that jokester Teal'c an opportunity to compare the merits of baldness versus grey hair ever again.

Exiting his office with his cover tucked under his arm he headed for the Gate room. By the time he was at the elevator doors the klaxon sounded again. The Gate was definitely being opened and he hastily searched his mind trying to remember if this was a scheduled activation or not.

He only traveled a floor in the in the magic box, as the natives of Athos had called it the first time they visited the base. He liked it. In a way calling it a magic box was more his style. The door opened directly into the control station for the Gate room.

Sgt. Chuck Harriman, the normal gate operator, was leaning up against the back wall with his arms folded and a patient look on his routinely mild-mannered face. His usual chair had been taken over by Stargate Command's blonde Goddess In Charge, Major Samantha Carter. Next to her was her constant companion, Daniel Jackson. Daniel was the team absent minded professor, a position Jack had been surprised to find that an exploration team needed

O'Neill leaned up against a convenient piece of wall beside Chuck Harriman. "What's the geek squad up to, Chuck?" He asked quietly trying not to disturb the members of SG-1 hard at work.

"They're opening up a new section of the sky." Chuck replied. "We're looking at the Camelopardalis constellation."

"Really?" Jack queried. "Can you say that three times fast?"

Chuck snorted. He had become used to the General's sense of humor a long time ago.

Daniel Jackson swiveled in his chair, alerted by the low rumble of the General's voice. "Hi, Jack," he said cheerfully. "it's the Camelopardalis, or Giraffe constellation. There's a kind of funny story about the name. Four hundred years ago a giraffe was a pretty exotic animal for European scientists. They thought it was a cross between a camel and a leopard and that's how the name Camelopardalis was created."

Jack cocked an eyebrow. "Thanks, Daniel. That's a real knee-slapper for sure."

"Daniel,' Major Carter interrupted. "That's enough of the geek spasm; next chevron, please."

"Oh, sorry, Sam." Daniel pushed his glasses back up his nose and tapped a plate on the controls. "This one should do it, I think."

The Gate activated with its characteristic grinding roar and the klaxon sounded again.

"That's the third time that thing's gone off this morning." Jack complained. "What's going on?"

Chuck leaned in, his voice now covered by the Gate's growls. "We suspect there's a gate on one of the planets. It fits the transportation net pattern that Dr. Jackson developed. They've been looking for it all morning with a sort of hunt and poke search pattern. They targeted planets that we know exist and then tried to get a ping back. The first two tries have been failures. This one however," Chuck paused as the Gate roared and exploded with a blue event horizon. "This looks like they've finally hit gold."

Samantha stood up, smiling at Daniel and extended a hand. "Good job, Dr. Jackson; excellent detective work."

Daniel responded by shaking hands with the Major enthusiastically. "Good, good. I knew it should have been there."

General O'Neill stepped forward to add his congratulations, shaking hands with the excited team members also while smiling broadly.

Down on the gate room floor a MALP was rolling its way up the metal incline. The machine's telescopic extension broke the rippling blue surface of the Stargate interface, continued forward and disappeared. All observers' eyes turned to the transmission screens as the MALP displayed the first look at a brand new world.

Jack peered down at the team assembled in front of the gate. "Who's that? SG-15? I thought Carlyle's group had been pulled from rotation. Isn't Carlyle down with some itchy rash from the last mew planet?"

Major Carter coughed into her hand. "You're right Jack. The idiot stuck his hand into a plant without gloves on and the plant took exception to being prodded. It bit him."

"The plant bit him?" Jack's eyebrows did a little dance. With just a few twitches he managed to express great surprise.

"He knows better than that. He wasn't thinking." The blonde Major went on. "It was that desert planet in Cygnus, CYG-235. Dr. Frasier is holding him back for a week more. She wants to make sure the poison doesn't replicate in his blood somehow. I think he's learned his lesson and won't be making that kind of a mistake again. I understand it feels like a new bee sting every couple of hours."

She looked down at the assembled team below and waved at a big, fully geared up soldier. The man turned his head and nodded in recognition. It was Teal'c.

"Teal'c has offered to lead the team temporarily," she explained. "I think he's actually getting bored with meditating."

Jack gave Teal'c a small wave. The Jaffa smiled back. The big guy often found Jack amusing.

On the overhead screen the MALP started to transmit pictures of the planet. As it swept the horizon a picture of jungle growth appeared, vegetation bathed in acid greens, dotted with vibrant, gaudy flowers. The sky overhead was blue tinged with shades of purple. Chubby clouds scudded by, reflecting a pale amethyst glow at the land below.

The sky was adorned with deep sky objects, visible even in daylight.

"Whoa," was Jack's response. "I can see resort potential here. The sky must be incredible at night."

"We expected something like this." Daniel Jackson said quietly. "But this is more than I could have dreamed. Camelopardalis is in the part of the celestial sphere facing away from the galactic plane and the planets we are scanning face outward toward various distant galaxies in a manner of speaking.

Major Carter took up the lecture. "I think we are seeing a daytime view of the Galaxy NGC 2403. It is classified as being between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy because it has faint arms and a large central bulge. It is only one of the deep space objects that we expect can be clearly seen from this world.

"The night time sky on this planet will bring Earth astronomers pictures of deep space objects like NGC 1502, a magnitude 6.9 open cluster about 3,000 light years from Earth. It has about 45 bright members, and features a double star of magnitude 7.0 at its center. Of course those magnitudes are as measured from Earth. This planet is so much closer." Major Carter seemed wonder struck.

"Cool down, Sam." Jack laughed. "We have to get there first. Let's see what the team brings back. There's a functioning gate there. It's possible we have a native population to deal with before we go planning astronomical installations on their world."

"Of course, General," Major Carter calmed down, regaining her professional demeanor.

Now Daniel Jackson started. "Come on, Jack. This world is beautiful, fertile and has what might be the most gorgeous sky we have ever seen. Of course we'll have to deal with the native population but I don't think we are going to be able to hide this one from Washington for long."

"Well, let's get the show on the road." Jack leaned into the microphone. "Teal'c, take your team in."

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The planet's designation for mapping purpose was CAM-20, the twentieth object to be described in the Camelopardalis constellation. Stargate Command had been using the constellations as named by Earth's historical astronomers as easy frames of reference for the explorers. Of course, everyone understood that these constellations only appeared in their familiar shapes from Earth's viewpoint.

From other planets these familiar constellations disappeared. Natives on other worlds would undoubtedly have their own constellation names, based on Gods, creatures and romantic figures their own ancestors thought that they could see in the sky.

Currently only Daniel Jackson spent any time wondering about the stories and fables of other civilizations. The rest of Stargate Command was only interested in finding allies, establishing bases and protecting the Stargate transport net from enemies both from the sky and on the Earth. One day when the major threats had been neutralized and the Gates were opened for civilian commerce the histories and dreams of other worlds would come to be of interest to academics and planetary scientists. Until that day the only non-military member of the team was Dr. Jackson.

Teal'c led SG-15 up the metal ramp to the Star Gate. Everyone on team SG-15 had been through the Gate more than once so there was none of the hesitation and delicate touching of the rippling blue interface that first timers always displayed. The team strode through the interface and disappeared one after another without even a break in stride.

The MALP activated the rear-facing camera and the safe arrival of SG-15's personnel was confirmed. Teal'c dispersed the cluster of personnel in different directions with gestures, not sound. The Stargate teams had learned long ago of the value of silence on new worlds.

The team broke into smaller groups, each one headed in a different direction and the exploration of CAM-20 had begun.

More personnel poured out of the Gate. They were the support troops who carried those items needed for a group of twenty soldiers to bivouac in an alien landscape; tents, food storage, extra weapons, communications gear, scientific equipment. Just as well trained as the exploration team the support team had a central base set up and running smoothly in less than a half hour. The Gate, an obvious landmark, was surrounded, protected and guarded.

Standing still while surrounded by hustling soldiers Teal'c kept careful watch on all his responsibilities, close at hand or walking slowly away from him. Everyone knew exactly what to and they were all ready for any surprises. Experience had taught them to expect surprises.

Each step the exploration teams made expanded the circle of control. They went out until they controlled a circle two hundred feet in diameter. This would be their safety zone. Guards would be posted and weapons dug in. This is where the troops would return if they ran into trouble.

Finally satisfied with the preparations Teal'c called his teams back after support personnel took over the guard positions. Now the highly trained and experienced SG-15 would go for a little walk.

Teal'c passed among the term members and murmured to those who wished to speak. The consensus seemed that the jungle ahead was the place to explore. Teal'c agreed. When he had stood on the raised Gate platform upon arrival he had thought he could see shapes obscured by the jungle growth. Those shapes did not look natural. They appeared to be geometrical; possibly buildings, he thought.

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With Teal'c leading SG-15 started their careful walk towards the jungle growth. The team was spread out in a wing formation, the tips of the wings on high alert. So far they had seen nothing but plant life. Teal'c had scanned the ground for insect activity but had not seen a single moving thing. He knew that could not be right.

If the shapes he had seen from the Gate were buildings then this planet had to be teaming with animal life. The Jaffa was tingling with the feeling of a thousand eyes on his back. He murmured into his com-link to Major Carter.

"Major, there is something out here watching us." He said. "I can feel it but I don't see it." He glanced from side to side and saw the flickering, nervous eyes of the men walking beside him. "I think that SG-15 members can feel it too. We will stay inside communications range."

Teal'c halted and his men halted with him. Nothing was moving in front of them. The leaves on the trees moved only with the breeze, fluttering in unison. There was nothing to focus on; nothing to watch but the feeling of eyes all around was almost stifling.

Teal'c contemplated the nonappearance of insect life. It was very strange. Nowhere in the so far explored universe had the Jaffa found a planet with shy insects. They usually just ignored the antics of men and carried on their communal lives. The world of men and the world of insects rarely interacted. If the bugs on this world were aware of the visitors and made a choice to hide that was just spooky. No insect life should be so aware of alien visitors.

Teal'c started moving forward again. They entered the world of the trees. Now the team pulled together in closer order. No one was more than an arm's length away from another soldier. They were all very aware of how a team member could just suddenly disappear, especially in a jungle landscape. Your buddy could be there one minute and gone the next.

They pushed on under the silent trees. The shade was cool and deep, tinged with the light purple blush of the sky. The place was dreamlike in its intensity but the silence was broken only by the rustling of wind stirred leaves. If there were animals on this planet, if herbivores grazed these lush landscapes, they were damn close to invisible.

Teal'c almost wished for the appearance of a predator. At least some kind of animal life would break the tension.

Just as he was thinking about it, Teal'c got his wish. There was a low, grunting noise and something shuffled in the forest duff. A small four legged animal appeared rooting at the base of one of the trees. It looked like a small pink skinned pig with thin brown strands of hair everywhere. One of the men laughed.

The pig creature looked up, startled at the sound, showing huge soft eyes. A moment later it was gone. The function of the brown hair was revealed as camouflage and it worked amazingly well.

"That looked like an animal from a kid's morning show." Someone said and several people laughed. The tension was broken and the entire group moved forward with more confidence. Teal'c wondered at how easily a small, pink, hairy pig had relaxed his team.

The Jaffa still felt eyes on his back. He swiftly turned to look to the rear and for just a moment he thought he saw a man like figure, standing in deep shadow watching the group. It stood on two legs, Teal'c was sure but it flickered and seemed to dissolve into the shadow before the Jaffa could identify it more clearly. He was sure of the legs and the man shaped body but it seemed to be smaller than an adult human. There was also something that moved behind it.

Teal'c spoke quietly into his com unit. "I believe I have seen our hidden watcher. It appeared to be humanoid but faded before I could see it clearly."

"Faded?" Dr. Jackson responded. "What do you mean faded, Teal'c?"

"It appeared to become part of the shadows under the trees." The Jaffa answered. "I believe that is the most appropriate way to describe the movement."