EXT. CREEK MOUNTAIN/PARKING LOT – DAY
Arriving from beyond the checkpoint, a black Cadillac limousine pulls into the parking lot and comes to a stop at the mouth of the entrance leading into the mountain. The doors swing open and SEVERAL HIGH-RANKING OFFICERS – all from all over the country and different branches of the military – step out into the open and begin making their way into the dark confines of the entrance tunnel. At the centre of this group, a pace ahead of the others, is MAJOR GENERAL W. O. WEST himself; in his mid-sixties with iron gray hair and a mustache over a firm upper lip, he is a man respected and feared by those who serve under his command.
INT. CREEK MOUNTAIN/LEVEL 27/CORRIDOR #1 – DAY
Col. O’Neal stands at attention before the closed elevator doors of Level 27, his hands clasped tightly behind his back as he stares fixedly at the red orange numbers counting down on the readout above. Once the readout falls on 27, the doors slide open, allowing West and his cadre of comrades to file out into the open corridor. Seeing the colonel standing there, the general walks up to him, reaching out to shake the younger man’s hand.
GEN. WEST: (grins) Jack O’Neal. How the hell’ve you been, airman?
O’NEAL: (deadpan) I’ve been good.
Turning around, O’Neal, West, and the other high-ranking officers begin walking up the corridor.
GEN. WEST: How’s Sarah? I’ve heard you two haven’t been on the best of terms since you took this assignment.
O’NEAL: (blunt) We’re separated.
GEN. WEST: I’m sorry to hear that.
O’NEAL: Some days are better than others, but I’m getting used to it.
Coming to a fork in the corridor, the troupe of airmen make a turn to the left.
GEN. WEST: (under his breath) I’ve got a few things to tell you that I couldn’t put in the report.
INT. CREEK MOUNTAIN/LEVEL 27/CORRIDOR #2 – DAY
Daniel and Barbara take an alternate route to the same destination O’Neal and the others were headed for. Barbara carries an external hard disk drive under her arm with stoic grace while Daniel sips from a mug of coffee nervously.
Eventually they come to their destination. Standing at the door, waiting for them, is Kawalsky, who greets them both with a casual smile. As they file past him into the room beyond, Daniel holds his mug out to the big officer.
DANIEL: Uh, here, can you take this?
Kawalsky accepts the mug with all the enthusiasm of a parent having to handle their baby’s dirty diapers.
INT. CREEK MOUNTAIN/LEVEL 27/BRIEFING ROOM – DAY
As Barbara and Daniel enter the long, rectangular room, the renegade Egyptologist’s lips go thin with trepidation when he sees who is waiting for them at the long, red-and-black conference table. Having expected to meet with West in relative privacy with maybe one or two other officers, he’s unprepared for the large number of military personnel and scientific staff who have come to hear what he and Dr. Shore have to say. Among those who have come to learn what the two scholars have uncovered is Meyers, O’Neal, and Lt. Anderman.
As Barbara and Daniel make their way into the briefing room, Kawalsky enters in after them, shutting the door behind him. Those gathered around the table take their seats, except for Catherine and Gen. West, who turn to acknowledge the two scholars.
CATHERINE: (waves them over) Daniel, Barbara, there’s someone I’d like you to meet. (gestures to the general) This is Gen. West.
Daniel and Barbara take their turns shaking the general’s hand.
GEN. WEST: (eyeing Daniel) Pleasure to finally meet you, Doctor. (turns to the other attendees in the room) All right, everybody, we’ve come a long way to hear this. Let’s get down to it and see what these two scholars have for us.
Walking up to the front of the room where a whiteboard has been built into the wall, the two prepare their presentation. Setting her external drive down at the corner of the head of the table, she connects it to a laptop computer and turns it on, causing the overhead lights to automatically die down. Prepared to deliver their presentation, the two scholars stand there, the bright light from the overhead projector falling upon them, regarding their audience silently for a sign to proceed.
GEN. WEST: (sourly) Any time.
DANIEL: Barbara?
Barbara opens the file of their presentation, and seconds later a drawn diagram of the coverstone is projected onto the whiteboard’s surface. Daniel and Barbara step aside to allow the others an unobstructed view of the image.
BARBARA: What we’re lookin’ at here is obviously a diagram of the coverstone.
DANIEL: The figures in the outer track, which we assumed were words to be translated, aren’t, in fact, fragments of an unknown language. They are actually digits or mathematical formulae belonging to a form of astronomical cartography completely unknown to us.
BARBARA: Markers for a stellar latitude and longitude, you could say.
MEYERS: How’d you figure that one out?
Barbara bends over the laptop and presses a button. A second later the projected image is enlarged, the central cartouche and surrounding bands of glyphs dissolving to show the details of the innermost ring containing the concentric lines.
BARBARA: We discovered that the band of concentric lines located near the centre of the coverstone was actually an abstract map of interstellar space.
She presses another button on the laptop and the ring of lines is reshaped into a spherical map of the interstellar space between Earth and Messier 37.
BARBARA: (cont’d) When aligned in a three-dimensional configuration, the intersectin’ points of the lines correspond to the various stars located between Earth and Messier 37, in the positions they would have been in ten thousand years ago.
Barbara presses another button and a blue line begins to run from Earth to a number of stars before reaching a system in Messier 37.
BARBARA: (cont’d) The marked-off points of the lines themselves represent a route, a course from Earth to M37.
Barbara presses a button and the map is replaced with a large image of the coverstone’s central cartouche.
DANIEL: The cartouche organizes a set of eight points necessary to chart the course to this destination.
Their presentation finished, Barbara closes the program and closes her laptop. The overhead projector shuts down and the overhead lights come back on. The Egyptologist and astrophysicist regard their audience, waiting for a reaction.
CATHERINE: (smiles) They did it.
AUBURN SCIENTIST: (excited) We suspected the device worked in such a fashion ever since Dr. Jackson decoded the hieroglyphic text. This discovery confirms it.
DANIEL: Device?
BARBARA: What device?
A number of attendees, mostly military officers, give the female scientist the evil eye. Realizing she has just let slip classified information in her exuberance, her face goes gray with dread.
CATHERINE: (smirks) I imagine you’ll have to show them now, General.
Gen. West, his stoney poker face unbroken, exchanges glances with O’Neal, who has been standing with Kawalsky at the back of the room this whole time. O’Neal, his own face set in implacable stone, merely shrugs.
GEN. WEST: (to Kawalsky) Show them.
Nodding, Kawalsky walks over to a switch box set into the wall. As he presses the green button, the whiteboard at the head of the room begins to retract up into the wall, undercovering a Plexiglas bay window beyond. Turning around, the two scholars move in close, their jaws dropping agape as they see what lies beyond. Meyers, not wanting to miss the action, quickly rises from his chair and joins them at the window.
Beyond the pane of Plexiglas is a large room. A former missile silo, it has been reconfigured to house something with far more dangerous potential. Standing there near the far back end of the room, held erect by four pneumatic support arms with a steel ramp running through its torus, is the unusual stone ring recovered from the Giza Plateau several decades ago. Now cleaned and polished, the onyx-black surface of the ring positively shines, its contours gleaming with iridescence.
MEYERS: What the hell is it?
DANIEL: (awestruck) It’s our stargate.
Catherine, who has remained seated this whole time, turns to Gen. West, an eyebrow arched. Without a single word being said, he understands what it is she wants.
GEN. WEST: Go ahead.
She smiles.