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stargÅtefan.com : episodes > season 3 > next episode: pretense

General Hammond awaits the return of a very wet SG-1 team, clad in rain slickers. They report a wild goose chase and lots of rain where they'd hoped to find Kheb and Ammonet's child. Hammond orders them to report to the infirmary over Jack's protests that he'd rather shower and change first. The loudspeaker announces a "contaminated materials" transfer.

Jack is having obvious trouble with water in his ears. A soldier escorts them in the elevator as a safety precaution, as there's a chemical spill on level 23. The soldier tells the team it was a tetra-chloro-ethelene rupture.

In the infirmary, Dr. Frasier prepares Jack for (as Jack puts it) "a needle in his butt" and he wonders how it will help the water in his ears. As Jack loosens his pants, he calls out to Daniel through the curtains, asking about the Harcissus child. Sam also tries to ask questions, but gets no response from the Colonel or Daniel. Janet tells her to "just relax" as she receives her injection and slumps onto the gurney. Janet announces "Let's begin!" The curtains are pulled back revealing an unconscious SG-1 team.

Teal'c awakens first to hear Janet and Hammond talking about the alien symbiote within him, interfering with some sort of procedure. They also discuss a problem with the human. Janet states her body has been chemically altered due to prior infestation by the dominant parasitic species of this galaxy. Teal'c also sees what appear to be alien beings talking with Hammond and Janet. Hammond orders Teal'c and Carter placed in a holding room and once the invasion is complete, Janet can study them further. These aliens appear to be searching for a viable new home world.

Teal'c is wheeled to an elevator, and taken to level 16. There he attacks and subdues his captor and escapes. He gets weapons from the armory, and ambushes Sam's captors as she's being wheeled out of an elevator. Sam is groggy and feels ill as Teal'c helps her sit up. He tells her there's been an alien incursion within the SGC, as he fills her in on what Hammond and Frasier were discussing and the two aliens he witnessed.

Sam and Teal'c go to the central monitoring room, to attempt to locate the Colonel and Daniel. After Teal'c zats the guard, Sam discovers not a single camera is working on level 23. Teal'c is certain the chemical spill is a subterfuge. They view the Gate Room cameras, and witness aliens arriving greeted by Hammond, the Colonel and Daniel!

Teal'c and Sam's escape is discovered. The alarm sounds as Sam opens an escape hatch to the outside. Teal'c stays behind to give Sam time to get free. He comes under fire and defends himself. Sam reaches the forest outside to darkness, and keeps moving, obviously exhausted after a long climb. Finally, confronted by the aliens, Teal'c is sealed off by blast doors and gassed until he collapses.

As it becomes day, Sam places a call at an airport. She calls Colonel Maybourne, and tells him there's a "foothold" situation. She wants him to meet her at an outdoor café outside the NID headquarters.

Teal'c is strapped to a gurney, unable to move. Janet asks how he's feeling, and says he went a little crazy. She had to sedate him. Teal'c claims to be unable to remember what happened. Janet explains that SG-1 was exposed to chemical fumes from the spill, and they became delusional. She wants to know where Major Carter is, but Teal'c says he doesn't know.

In Washington, DC, Maybourne waits for Carter to make contact at the café. When she joins him, he is intrigued that she would call the one person she didn't trust. Sam isn't certain how far up the chain of command the infiltration goes, but she's certain the General is compromised. Maybourne casually reveals that the General sounded fine on the phone. Sam is incredulous. She can't believe he'd call Hammond. Maybourne tells her to calm down, and that Hammond called him because he was worried about her. Maybourne finds a chemical spill causing delusions to be much more plausible than aliens taking over the SGC.

Sam gets up to leave in frustration, and runs directly into Jack and Daniel. Angrily she turns to Maybourne and shouts, "Maybourne! You are an idiot every day of the week! Why couldn't you have just taken one day off?"

Jack and Daniel try to convince Sam that they know what she's going through. That it's all due to the chemical and they felt it too. Jack also tells her that Teal'c is fine. Daniel insists they are telling the truth, and that she needs to go back with them to get checked out. Sam's resolve appears to be weakening, although she does tell Maybourne he should have followed procedure.

Sam wants to know if Jack and Daniel are asking her to return, and whether she is free to leave if she wants. Jack says yes, Maybourne says no. In fact, he tells Sam that she's under direct orders to return and if she refuses, she'll be handcuffed! He views her as a security risk in her current state of mind.

Daniel continues to tell Sam the effects must be starting to wear off. He bets she's thinking more clearly now. She admits to being tired and looks even more uncertain. Jack states that they're leaving and want her to come, but it's up to her. Reluctantly, she agrees and they all proceed to a waiting jet.

When the call comes to the SGC that Sam's been located, Janet states that they will begin experimenting on Teal'c immediately.

On board the plane, as Jack talks to Sam and Maybourne, his body blurs a bit and for a brief minute he appears to be one of the aliens. Sam reaches for Maybourne's gun, and aims it at Jack who keeps asking her to put the gun down. When Daniel says Sam is hallucinating again, Jack makes a move toward her, and Sam shoots him in the chest. He falls back onto a couch and transforms into alien form. Maybourne is shocked. Daniel appears to be shocked as well, asking, "What the hell is that?" Sam points the gun at Daniel and orders him to sit. Then another crewmember enters the cabin and aims his gun at Sam. Maybourne shouts a warning and Sam manages to shoot the guy as he emits a strange screeching sound. He too reverts to alien form.

Maybourne wants Sam to check the pilot. She orders him to go first. He takes out a knife and cuts his hand to show red blood, "Good enough?" He keeps a gun trained on Daniel as Sam goes to check the pilot.

Colonel O'Neill awakens, enveloped in a mask and head clamp device, suspended sling-like by long dangling cords from the ceiling of a room at the SGC. Others are there with him, but are unconscious.

Back on the plane, Sam removes a round device from one of the chest of a dead alien. Maybourne asks Daniel how it works. He tries to say he didn't know Jack was an alien, but Maybourne loses his patience and throttles Daniel fairly choking him. Sam asks Maybourne to hold on a minute and Daniel gasps for air, relaxing a bit. She opens Daniel's shirt to reveal the same round device attached to his chest, but it has flashing lights. She pulls it off and the alien reverts to its true form. As they suspected, it wasn't Daniel at all.

Sam realizes the devices are how they change their appearance. She asks if Daniel is still alive and where he is. The alien gives no response. Next, she puts the circle in contact with her own palm and she transforms into Daniel! She looks at herself in the mirror, then pulls it off and transforms back. There seems to be another small device, which Sam surmises allowed the alien to be connected to Daniel's thoughts. She tries to figure out what caused the signal from the device to falter. Perhaps it was engine noise. Sam and Maybourne start to work on the solving the problem.

The other man shot on board the plane, Major Davis, is also hanging in the room with Colonel O'Neill. He begins to awaken. Jack sees Hammond and Dr. Frasier also suspended there, but still unconscious. The two men hear someone coming and pretend to still be out of it. Jack watches as Frasier and several others wheel a man through an alien device that prepares him to be trussed up. Then they watch as a circular device is placed on an alien's chest and it transforms into that man. The "real" crewman is pulled up to the ceiling.

Teal'c is convulsing and suffering terribly as Janet experiments on his writhing, squeaking symbiote. Hammond orders Teal'c returned to the holding cell, as Carter is about to return.

Jack finally figures out how to unclip himself from the suspension harness and he crashes to the floor. Davis does likewise. Jack rolls a ladder over to Janet and attempts to wake her up by pulling off the headband. The "alien" Frasier falters a bit and an alarm sounds. Jack tries to replace the band and hides himself. As the alien Frasier comes to investigate, Jack sneaks up behind her, mumbles "Excuse me," and knocks her out cold with a punch to the jaw. "That was weird!" he comments to himself.

Carter prepares to reenter the SGC via the outside hatch disguised as Daniel.

Jack finds a weapon on the alien Dr. Frasier, and reaches inside her shirt looking for the "other thing," all the while repeating, "She's just an alien." He finds and removes it, and she reverts. At that instant, the door opens and "Daniel" enters, raising his gun at Jack who points an alien weapon back at him.

'Daniel' asks, "Colonel?"

Jack responds, "Yes."

'Daniel' again asks, "It's you?"

Jack, still holding the weapon, "Yes."

'Daniel' continues, "It's good to see you … (looking upward) … Oh my god! I figured they had to be keeping you alive to access your mind…"

Jack gets edgy now, "Whoa! Hey!" He waves his gun threateningly. "Who are you?"

'Daniel' asks "Sir?"

Jack points at the device on 'Daniel's' chest. At this point, Sam realizes and pulls the device off returning to her own appearance. Jack lowers his gun immediately, "Oh! Well… in that case… it's good to see you too!"

Sam tells Jack what she knows, including that Teal'c has been captured, and that Maybourne's forces are closing in. Jack can't believe she actually, willingly called Maybourne. Sam needs to go to her lab and recreate the tone that disrupts the devices. She changes back to Daniel in appearance and leaves. Jack and Davis head for the armory to secure weapons. Jack locates Teal'c and liberates him. Sam finds the disrupting frequency with under three minutes before Maybourne's troops are due to come. She sets up the sound to broadcast over the intercom. All the aliens begin to revert.

Alarms sound as Maybourne's troops infiltrate the complex. The aliens begin to panic. They activate the Gate, and a retreat is ordered. Sam tells Jack they can't allow the aliens to leave. They've had access to their minds and know "everything."

"Everything?" Jack stops and asks.

"Everything!" Sam repeats emphatically.

The seventh symbol engages and the Gate fires up. The surviving aliens begin to assemble on the ramp and in the Gate room. They begin to evacuate. Dozens leave before Jack regains control of the computer room and orders the iris closed. The code has been overridden, so Sam shuts down the Gate. The Gate room doors are also shut.

Maybourne enters the control room and orders everyone to freeze. Sam and Jack put up their hands. The Gate shuts down. One of the aliens activates a device and on instinct, Jack slams the blast doors shut, just as the alien explodes taking all those in the Gate room with it. When the blast doors are reopened, only cinders and ash remain.

In a briefing room, Hammond states that P3X118 is being locked out of the dialing program, and that they've changed all the codes due to the few aliens that managed to escape. It seems as if the first aliens came through impersonating SG-6. Davis says he was summoned but not told why. Presumably after the SGC, the Pentagon was to have been targeted. Sam recommends a frequency blast from the harmonic generator every time a team returns.

Maybourne enters the meeting. O'Neill greets him with "Colonel Maybourne! Good save!"

Maybourne reveals that the other aliens at the SGC died when the leader self-destructed, and perhaps they were linked in some way.

Hammond tells him, "We appreciate your help in this matter Colonel Maybourne."

Maybourne immediately responds, "Credit Major Carter… I do!" Then he adds, "I'm sure we'll be see each other again."

Jack smiles and sincerely states, "That'd be nice, Harry."

Everyone exchanges nods and smiles.

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