-1Disclaimer: Andromeda belongs to Tribune Entertainment and all related producers; and does not belong to me. Stargate SG-1/Andromeda crossover prompt #001 Beginnings written for crossovers100

For Want of a Nail series

Chapter 1

Vanguard by Karen

They only have a fraction of a second before the ship would become engulfed in heat and fire of an exploding sun going nova. The fact that it had been a calculated risk in order to escape from the Gou'ald Armada under the command of the System Lord, Anubis, certainly didn't improve matters much. Carter and her father had come up with the plan, and Colonel Jack O'Neill could never be entirely certain if that idea had surfaced in the thought processes and consciousness of the man that Jacob Carter had once been before he willingly became the host of the Tok'ra symbiont Selmak.

Sam's opinion aside, Jack had had a lot of experiences when it came to people possessed by the snaky aliens, a large percentage of those experiences falling into the category of all bad- so O'Neil figured he would hold out a final decision on the subject.

He was fond of every so often spouting occasional lines from popular Earth culture; he recalls a particular scene from an old Earth movie where the character of Captain Kirk on the eve of an important peace treaty negotiation records in his ship's log:

"He had never trusted Klingons, never has and never will all because they killed his boy. Jack can relate. He's been there, and the pain of that loss is still with him; he likens the numb feeling to getting a limb shot off in the middle of a firefight, like he's seen back during his stint with the Airforce and various black ops mission. It's called a phantom pain, technically, even with the missing limb gone, he's heard stories of old service buddies saying how they can still feel a tingling in their arms like the limb was still attached.

Meanwhile Sam and her father were down in the engineering part of their appropriated Death Glider fiddling with the multihued crystalline control rods that provided power to the ship.

"What's our status?" Sam asked.

"Peachy keen, jelly bean."

"I meant the ship, Dad."

"Does the term hunk of junk mean anything to you," Jacob Carter replied. "I know you did, Sam, but if we're about to buy it, I think I'm entitled to a little levity. If nothing else to know that we went out in a blaze of glory."

"Dad, I understand how you feel, but right now I could really use less levity and more technical skill," Sam frowned. "Which of these rods do we pull in what order to make this plan work?"

"Hang on a sec, I'll have to consult my other half." Jacob Carter closed his eyes, concentrating on the other presence in his mind, consulting the Tok'ra symbiont Selmak.

When he opened his eyes again his voice had changed and he provided the information that Sam need to get both the engines back up to full speed and the power distributed from the depleted shields to the transporter, just enough and in time to notify the others on the bridge that it was time to go and they could make it to the large ship passing by.

They needed to get far enough away to avoid capture and detection by their Gou'ald attackers.

Beka Valentine trotted at a fast clip across and down through the decks of her freighter.

The Eureka Maru is currently docked in the Andromeda's spacious landing bay. The heels of her leather boots made loud clomping noises in counterpoint to her muttering about how some people didn't understand the first thing about privacy.

Beka considered whether or not to make an issue of the fact that Dylan Hunt, bless him and his single-minded good-doer attitude always seemed to make 'her' ship the front line of defense of any plan of attack. Not that she minded a whole lot it was just that she would like to be consulted before he put her life, limb and profits at stack, of course not just necessarily in that order.

"He better not have damaged create #8411. I've got a lot of credits invested in that collection."

Beka swung down the last rung of the ladder leading to the chambers that she used for storing her personal items when she stopped short by the glimpse of several shadows criss crossing at the rear of the chamber. Reacting on instinct and the fact she pulled out the laser gun she kept in its holster strapped to her waist. "Whoever you are, you just bought yourself a whole world of trouble," she yelled and leapt forward.

Beka 's forward advance was stopped short by the long metal cylinder of an unfamiliar weapon blocking her own weapon.

"I hope you're not planning on firing that," a male voice said. "We found a box of Earth CDs and we wondering if you had anything to play them on."

"Don't you dare touch those!" Beka hotly retorted, not in the least worried about the logic of the situation.

"We won't," Jacob Carter mildly added, "If you put down your weapon."

"I've got a better idea. You put yours down first."

"Fine."

"I guess you have the advantage of me." O'Neill took a look around the crowded cargo bay and then turned back to speak to her. "Allow me to introduce ourselves, I'm Colonel Jack O'Neill and the big guy in front of you is Teal'C, and the folks standing beside me are Major Samantha and Jacob Carter. We're just shy one mild-mannered anthropologist to make a complete set."

"Why should I care?" Beka shrugged.

"Because we've got every reason to believe he's most likely wandering around lose on this big ship of yours and we'd like to find him before he causes too much mischief,
" O'Neill replied. "I think that's a reasonable arrangement, wouldn't you agree?"

"I don't have to like it, but okay, let's run with your theory for a while and see if it pans out," Beka replied. "And for the record, no one touches those CDs except for me, got it?"

"Got it, Ma'am." O'Neill grinned.

"Don't call me that," Beka muttered. "I look around for a woman that isn't me. You call me Captain Valentine, definitely not 'ma'am."

Elsewhere Daniel Jackson did not know quite what to make of the beautiful but deadly looking android holding a laser rifle on him. He was no stranger to such circumstances.

After all he had certainly being with the SG-1 team long enough to know how it felt to be under fire or face the business end of a deadly weapon, yet this was somehow different.

The fact that she was an artificial life form that looked and felt so much like a real living, breathing person certainly was not lost on him. "Care to explain your presence aboard my ship," she asked.

Daniel swallowed and gulped down dry taste in his mouth. "I'm sorry, we really didn't mean to come here, but our ship sustained quite a bit of damage and this was the only place that happened to be nearby we could reach in time before the whole thing blew up in our face."

Rommie considered this statement briefly, weighing the relative merits of veracity, her mind running through the various signs of whether the young blond human could be lying: all vitals signs, heart rate, pupil dilation, breathing and pulse feel into the category of 'he is telling the truth. Or at least as much of the truth as he believes safe to tell.'

Rommie took a step back and lowered the arm holding out the gun. With an almost inaudible command she contacted Captain Dylan Hunt who stood the late night watch on the Command Deck alerting him to the presence of the intruder and his companions.

Dylan Hunt regarded the intruder with a suspicious eye, considering his track record with folks boarding his ship with the intent to either seize or capture it, he certainly was not willing to take any chances.

"Mind telling me what the hell you're doing here?"

"I'm not here to cause any trouble, " Daniel Jackson replied. "If that's what you're thinking. The vessel I was on ran into a few obstacles and when our engines went boom, and this ship was the only one we could find. that's the truth."

"We?" That implies that there are others in your group. Where are they?" Dylan asked.

"That's the problem, I don't know." Daniel shrugged.

"Rommie, what do you make of this?" Dylan asked.

"He's telling the truth, Captain," Rommie replied. "He truly does not have any knowledge regarding the whereabouts of his fellow travelers. The thing that is perplexing is that when he gave his name, they are no known records in any of the ship's computer databases nor in those of the galactic ones we are able to reference."

"What is your name, young man?" Dylan asked, filing away the information for later reference.

"Daniel Jackson."

"Well, Mr. Jackson, for the sake of argument, let's say that you're telling the truth, and I believe you are. That would make you a stowaway, and normally I'd through you in the brig, but it seems you need help and I'm in the business of helping people."

"I'm no stowaway, at least not intentionally, I really could use some assistance in finding my friends. The technology we used to transfer from our ship to this one should have worked to bring us all to the same place. I don't think anything went wrong with the calculations, so maybe they just ended up in another part of the ship."

With a sub vocal command and a nod of his head Dylan ordered the three-dimensional representation of the Andromeda's avatar to appear on a nearby screen to the left and behind of where he stood by the pilot's chair. "Aside from the initial intruder alarm, no other unauthorized presence's have been detected, Sir."

The image on the screen furrowed her brow and titled her head to one side as if thinking something through. "The explosion of a sun going nova within 500 parsecs of our last known coordinates at 2200 hours when the alarm went off could have conceivably affected my sensors. That margin of error has been calculated at.00078 percent."

"A sun going nova?" Jackson echoed, puzzled. "That's what forced us to abandon our original ship and come here."

"Run a ship to stern diagnostic, Rommie," Dylan said, "If they all transported to the same coordinates, then they've got to be here somewhere." Turning his attention back to Daniel Jackson he added. "Relax, we'll find your friends. Don't worry about a thing. In the meantime I think you get some rest, it's a big ship but we'll find your friends."

"You mind if I withhold a final decision on that, because frankly I'm exhausted," Daniel said.

Much later Daniel is finally reunited with his friends.

"Well, well, look who's decided to rejoin us." Daniel smiled.

"Hey, pal, I'm not the one who was lost." O'Neill turned to Captain Hun who stood beside Rommie. "I would like apologize for any mischief he may have caused in our brief absence. "

"Hey, Jack, " Daniel protested. "I can take care of myself, you know."

"I know. I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," O'Neill began.

"Please, sir, that line got old after the half a hundredth time you've uttered it." Carter said.

"Well, then, I'll just have to come up with something else then."

"This might take a while, so let me outline the essential points," Sam began. "Are you telling me that we're no longer in our own universe?"

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Harper replied. "I'm not entirely certain how when the sun in your universe went nova affected the matter time stream at the exact same instant you engaged your transporter device, but instead of sending you to designated coordinates, and I guess it sent you here." He shrugged and scratched his head. "Funny how things work out, I mean, it could have been worse, you could have been reduced to your component particles."

"Not helping, Harper," Beka griped.

"There's one thing that I still don't understand," Jacob Carter said, "The odds of ending up in the wrong universe are pretty astronomical, but why this one?"

"There must be way a to return home to our own world," Teal'C said.

Sam felt everyone's stare on here," I got nothing. Yet."

"If we really did end up in another parallel or alternate reality, it stands to reason that its possible to return to our own," Daniel paused and considered the matter," I doubt that would recreate the circumstances that brought us here, though. It's not everyday that a sun goes nova."

Dylan coughed at the last sentence and tried to change the subject by saying: "No, but there might be other alternatives to consider."

"Look, I don't mean to complicate matters, but I need to know this," Harper asked. "What year is it? I mean in your timeline?"

"2006."

"I fail how the date of when we departed is of any significance," Teal'C said.

"Great, not only are they out of whack in terms of linear reality, they're also out of whack in terms of temporal reality." Harper sighed. "This complicate things."

"What do you mean by temporal reality!" Carter demanded.

"It means you've been hurtled forward almost 900 plus years into the future." Beka answered.

"What do you mean by 'complicates things'?" Jackson asked.

"Look, time travel just makes my head hurt, and I know what I'm talking about, they know what I'm talking about but we won't mention anything about what happened trying to make it work," Seamus Harper stated, pushing forward.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're from an alternate reality where the United States Air Force has access to a piece of alien tech that allows you to travel to distant galaxies?" Harper asked.

"Yes," Jack O'Neill replied. "The only problem with that is that occasionally while you're out exploring those galaxies you have encounters with those who are determined to be hostile. You make enemies."

"Hmm, Dylan, sounds familiar?" Beka smiled.

"Don't start, Beka." Dylan paused to consider O'Neill's statement.

The big fellow introduced as Telemachus Rhade waited and then added. "And sometimes those enemies come looking for you, correct? That said, I imagine that there is much that you are leaving out of your explanations Colonel O'Neill, and much that we would like to know, but I can admire your need to be circumspect."

"Got it in one, folks."

"Well, then, we'll have to come up with something," O'Neill grinned. "Look on the bright side, I doubt our enemies will never find us here, am I right?"

"Jack," Daniel sighed, "Sometimes you really are incorrigible."

Rommie and Trance, who up until this point had contributed very little to the conversation stepped forward and Rommie ordered up a schematic of a remote star system. "I might have the solution to your dilemma Colonel O'Neill. There is a world in this system referred to as Schroder's End. Located somewhere on the surface of the planet is rumored to be a quantum mirror, with it, it is said, one is able to travel between dimensions."

"If we find this mirror, we'll be able to go home." O'Neill grinned. "Well then, what are we waiting for. Let's go find it."

"Why didn't you ever mention this before," Dylan demanded.

Trance shrugged. "You never asked."

Dylan relented, the tension leaving the lines of his face, "Of course, I should have expected that response."

"We are set on this course of action, Sir?" Rhade asked Dylan.

"Yes. At this point I don't see any other alternatives, do you?" Dylan replied.

"No, Sir."

Carter darted a glance at Doctor Jackson saying without words that if the rumored quantum mirror was anything like the one back on their Earth that had been found on the ice in Antarctica, then it might well be their best shot, it also might be very dangerous. Daniel couldn't help remembering that the mirror back in their reality had been ordered destroyed by General Hammond, but not before it had managed to cause or rather be the root of a great deal of trouble.

"A tempest in a teapot, that's what we are, Sam,' Daniel thought, sharing her worried look,

"And I don't see our situation improving any time soon, do you, At least these people genuinely seem interested in helping us, but we can't afford to extend our trust too far, can we?' Daniel shoved the dark thoughts to the back of his mind and smiled reassuringly.

"Rommie, at our present course and speed, how long before we arrive at Schroeder's End?" Beka asked.

"Three days, two hours and 150 minutes," Rommie answered.

"Input the course correction, Captain Valentine, and take us out."

Beka left her spot beside Teal'C and strode forward to take a seat in the pilot's chair, squirmed around a bit to gain a comfortable position and then wrapped her hands around the controls. And engaged the engines. "You got it."