05:32, 1st October 2014

"Unscheduled offworld activation!"

The red lights flashed, and the klaxon sounded, with Harriman calling out over the mild hubbub that rippled through the night shift. The familiar kawoosh tore through the air, and the blue light from the event horizon reflected from the back wall of the gateroom, the iris firmly and irrevocably in place until some sort of signal was received that whoever had dialled in was someone known to them.

The minute or so waiting for that signal was interminable, and, finally, a code was received, a code that had been given to the Tollans a long time before. A code that was close to being revoked, in fact.

However, ostensibly, the Tollans were their allies, albeit shaky ones, and, as such, Harriman punched in the code to open the iris. The return code was sent to indicate that the iris was open, and it was safe to come through. The Tollans had the technology to bypass it, of course, but there was no harm in being courteous.

And... nothing.

Nothing happened at all.

Harriman looked a little confused, resending the code, and waited again. Still nothing. Hammond was offbase for the night, so he paged Major Davies, who looked as though he had just been dragged out of bed. He probably had. "What's the matter, muttered Davies, rubbing sleep from his eyes." Harriman shot him a look of pure sarcasm, and gestured towards the gate. "That's the matter," said Harriman. "It's the Tollan code, but nobody's come through, and we've not received any transmission either."

Davies frowned. He didn't like it when the gate was activated for seemingly no good reason. "Send a radio transmission through, on all frequencies. We need to make sure that everything is alright with them." It took Harriman a few moments to prepare the transmission and send it through, and then they waited.

And waited.

Davies felt more and more uneasy as the minutes ticked by and there was no response. It had been a while since the SGC had had any contact with the Tollans, and he had come to dread them getting in touch. It usually meant trouble to the Nth degree.

Nineteen minutes had passed by since the wormhole had opened, with no hint of contact, and no response to the hailing, when the wormhole flickered shut as suddenly as it had opened. "Get a team into the gateroom, check for radiation levels, and anything unusual." Davies blew out a long stream of air, pushing a hand back through his short hair in frustration.

"And get the General here!"

The team duly swept the gateroom, coming up with nothing. Davies frowned. "Dial Tollana," he ordered. Harriman punched in the code, but the seventh chevron refused to lock, almost as though the address had been locked out. He tried again: same result. "Nothing, sir," he muttered. "Could be the gate's open on their end, so I'll keep trying." He kept trying for an hour, the same result occurring, by which time Hammond had arrived, and the base was starting to stir to life.

An unscheduled gate event had, of course, brought out the security teams and amongst those teams were Taft and his Marines. Taft had abandoned the upper half of his base fatigues and sprinted to the armory in just an olive drab A-line shirt while buckling his pants up, skidded in, and snatched up his favorite combination of gear on his way toward the gate room. .45 handgun, a USAS-12 semi-auto shotgun, and a tactical vest that carried a tactical knife and ammo for both of his firearms. The few seconds of terror complete, the lot of the security teams then officially settled in for the hours of boredom.

After an hour, however, Taft came trudging up the stairs into the control room. "Sirs." He saluted the packed room full of people who outranked him while in that room. Crisp, clean, and short lived considering they were in a state of emergency that absolved him from having to hold it until somebody saluted back. "Any chance those of us on the bottom floor can help this situation or should I have them stand down to ready stations?"

Davies looked up in surprise at Taft's arrival. As far as he was aware, nobody had called security, and the team that had been on duty in the gateroom had had things covered, at least as far as he had seen. He'd have to find out who called security.

"Sergeant, I think we're covered," he said, indicating the gateroom. "The sweeps have all been completed, there's nothing out of the ordinary, we're maybe working on the theory that there was a misdial, or some sort of malfunction with the Tollan gate. Until we can get in touch with them, we won't know for certain what happened, or why their signal was sent through."

Davies shrugged. "Not much security can do, unless you want to sit around staring at an empty gate, along with the team on shift." He twitched an eyebrow up. "Unless you want to add a theory to the pot as to what happened?"

Taft scratched his neck idly as he considered what other theories there might be. "If we can't dial back how do we get in touch with them and how long would it take? And we're certain nothing came through? At all? Not even thump from the back of the iris or a ripple in the event horizon? It's damned weird sir, but all I can think of is they dialed, transmitted the code, and never made it through. Then the gate was somehow secured to keep us from dialing back. It's the tactic I would use if invading a world we're on terms with." He shrugged, he'd have to clear the extra teams out. When an alert was called all security went on active but he could dismiss all the non-duty stations until whatever time frame.

"I'll put the boys back to their regularly scheduled programming then. Let me know when you get through and I'll have you a Force Recon team ready to go through and assess the situation." He started to turn and leave but paused, looking back as it occurred to him what else he would do with such a distraction. "We should probably call our other friends and acquaintances, just in case a foe is using this as a distraction. Alpha site, etc."

Davis frowned. "We're still working on the logistics of contacting them, Sergeant," he said. "We've still got the long range communication device from the Tok'ra, so we're likely going to activate that, and ask them to get in touch with the Tollans for us. Just waiting for the General to get here before going ahead, though." He didn't want to go off half cocked.

"And yes, Sergeant, nothing came through. The event horizon was stable, nothing hit the iris. We received the Tollan code, and nothing more." Davis let a twitch of a smile tickle the corners of his mouth. "I think Force Recon is a bit of an overreaction, Sergeant, don't you? Once we determine what the situation is, we'll take appropriate action. If we need to send a military team through, we'll send one. Until then... stand your men down to regular duties."

He cocked his head upwards as Taft said something else on his way out. "Everything's in hand, Sergeant. We'll call you if we need you. Dismissed." And he went back to poring over the data on the screen in front of him.

"Right, E.T. Phone Home. Got it." He nodded. Get the Tokra to do something for Earth, that would be a fascinating conversation for people interested in such things. Taft felt the Tokra did precious little in return for all they had a tendency to ask the SGC to do for them but that wasn't his business, for the moment. It would have to wait until the president called and made Taft a General. So any day now...

Taft nodded sagely as the officer in charge indulged his questions, then shook his head just as sagely when asked if Force Recon was a bit much. "No sir. In the immortal words of Vanilla Ice, anything less than the best is a felony, sir." He threw out another salute, as he was dismissed and headed back downstairs.

"Alright boys! Stand down, extras back to duty stations. They'll call when they decide to return to a proper combat stance. Move!" Taft led the way out of the gate room as his Marines and all the other additional teams joined them. Taft himself headed back for the general barracks to finish putting on his fatigues after he dropped off his gear in the armory.