Track of the Apocalypse Ch2 Ficbit – Spur

“Be great if we could spot something that tells us which hill to-”

Sam blinked, and lifted a hand, pointing. More-or-less behind him, which if his mental map was right would be back toward the railyard, and heading anywhere near Doomtrain was not what he had in mind….

Dark metal, speckled with rust, arched partway into the sky.

Daniel got his voice back first, raising the videocamera to catch the clearest shot. “Is that an elevated track?”

“Part of one,” Jack mused, eyeing how supported metal came to an abrupt and ominous end just after it dipped down toward the railyard. Hey, somebody had to state the obvious. And since science geeks did the genius stuff, and Teal’c did the stuff with no words but deadpan looks, that left one hapless colonel for the job. He shaded his eyes with his hand; morning hadn’t gotten away from them too much, but man, summer sun was bright on this planet. “Curves a little, don’t see any other track near it… can’t get a good look where it hits ground from here, but I’m guessing that’s a spur line.”

“So… a special piece of rail?” Daniel brightened.

“And we’re looking for a special scientist’s lab,” Sam said dryly.

Heh. Looked like Sam hadn’t gotten over trying to keep track of body-musical-chairs, either. Which, fair. Sometimes Jack still had nightmares about shaving Teal’c’s-then-his-head, and that was cruelty to any man with hair. “Looks like… two hills over,” Jack concluded, hoping he was reading the landscape right. Sigh. No rest for the wicked.

Looked like they were finally heading the right way, though. At least if the ever-increasing signs of damage to windows, walls, and the wreck of stray overturned push-carts was any way to judge.

Halfway up the second hill, Jack held up a fist. “Danny. Get that.”

“Get- oh.”

Drawing his combat knife, Jack let out a deliberate breath, confident Teal’c and Sam would keep eyes and ears open while Daniel filmed him digging at a weathered but very suspicious glancing hole in what looked like an ornate fancy wood column of someone’s front gate.

Two careful probes, and a slanted mushroom-lump of familiar dull gray surfaced. Jack held up the slug, then weighed it in his hand, eyeing the direction the ricochet must have come from.

“Jack?”

“Guns confirmed,” Jack grumped.

“I see that.” To Danny’s credit, he didn’t seem too fazed. “What else?”

Oh boy this bit was even less fun than the locals are probably armed. “This hit something a lot harder than wood. And bounced.”

“Huh.” Daniel panned the camera up to some kind of faded indigo hanging still rustling in the wind. Frowned, and slung it over his shoulder again to take out old-fashioned pencil and site journal.

Juggling bent lead in his hand, Jack eyed the symbol etched in dull white against blue. Nothing that jumped out at him as Ancient or Goa’uld or, god forbid, Furling. And wouldn’t that have been just SG-1’s luck, to find traces of the enigmatic Fourth Race of the Asgard alliance on an empty ex-Goa’uld planet?

But, no. Didn’t look alien at all. Just a rough human-style circle crossed with some diagonal slashes, and two more vertical slashes that made it look kind of like a house in front of the sun.

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