“She will?” Jack snapped his full attention on the linguist. “You think she’s got direct command?” Because yeah, Tozuka had mentioned a Lady Ayame, but they hadn’t seen anyone who could give Kurusu orders yet-
And so far we’ve been here, and in a train car full of potentially contagious blood spatter, Jack realized. No good 2IC is going to let the guy in command walk into that.
“Dogen’s noble, and he got involved,” Daniel pointed out. “Either leading from the front really matters to these people, or – well, we’re on a train. There’s just not enough space to keep nobles properly separate from commoners or warriors.” He frowned. “And there’s something else. From the way everyone was acting, Dogen’s higher rank than the Aragane bushi. Yet Dogen didn’t even try to pull rank on Kurusu.”
“You mean, Kurusu’s standing for someone who ranks even higher than Dogen?” Sam perked up a little.
“Or at least has equal rank,” Daniel agreed. “And has the people who know how to run the hayajiro.”
“Game, set, match,” Jack said wryly. “Yeah. Possession being nine-tenths, and all that.” But Sam still had a point. “So speaking of possession, and tech….”
“We have radios, yes,” Daniel nodded. “They have working guns. And they seem… reasonable. Exhausted, but reasonable. If they want something, I’d guess they’ll try trading for it first. Or negotiating with us to use it for them. After all, Uryuu still has his bikes.” He squinted a little. “I just wonder what Uryuu thinks about us. And where they picked up his people.”
Oh good, two of them got the same vibes. “Allied, willing to take Kurusu’s lead when it’s down to the wire, but not the same command structure,” Jack said thoughtfully. “Which – actually, is pretty good for us. Long as we stay reasonable as Uryuu, they’ll probably treat us the same way. Extra backup, that they don’t expect to kowtow except when it comes down to protecting the train and not getting killed by Kabane.”
“We need to know everything we can about those… creatures.” Sam shuddered, like shaking off a dusting of snow down her neck. “Sir, I’ve seen a lot of things in this job, but I could have skipped this one.”
Crossover Queen's Creative Chaos 
Meeting Lady Ayame will be a surprise for them all.
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Come on Sam, you know deep down in your heart of hearts that you would have forever regretted not knowing about this particular skin crawling horror.
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Now, now, Sam, get back alive and SG-1 will never have to pay for your drinks again. That’s gotta be worth a little danger.
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Sam and Jack probably have so many challenge coins that they never have to pay for drinks unless they feel like it. Teal’c probably likes paying for his own drink. Daniel keeps forgetting his challenge coins.
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Presumably the other SG teams have their own stories, but only SG-1 has found a zpoc. With nigh-unkillable super-zombies you can’t headshot, at that. That’s gotta be above and beyond, even more than shanking System Lords.
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Don’t worry Sam, at least you’ll get the satisfaction of completely destroying the betting pool when you get back!
….
Yeah, I think even *Jack* might need some R&R after this. Zpoc is bad normally, but the Kabane take it to a whole new level. The only thing that could make this situation worse would be if some System Lord got the smart idea of loading a dozen or four in some sort of remote-controlled vessel and crashing it into enemy planets. As long as the whole thing didn’t immediately burn to a crisp you would have a serious problem for the locals
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Long as we stay reasonable
Reasonable is good.
Reasonable is probably lovely after dealing with people whose reasonableness has been flayed to the bone by stress and fear.
“Sir, I’ve seen a lot of things in this job, but I could have skipped this one.”
I think everyone would have liked to skip this one, Sam. Including the people native to that planet.
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