This is actually a science fiction story I am writing. Be it good, bad or totally boring, here it is.

Start at the bottom, each short chapter is numbered, with a short introductory chapter at the very bottom. I will add more as I write it. If you wish to comment on it, please do, but do not be rude. So newest is first.

5) The Long Kiss

It turned out to be more like a vacation on an exotic island world than a failed research attempt. The Namgilians were very hospitable and enjoy being hosts to many varied peoples. They really made us comfortable so far from our homes. I was truly beginning to dread the time when we would have to leave.

It was the third afternoon before the morning of our return trip home. It was not the trip I dreaded so much as the having to leave. This place was so nice and the people so friendly and kind. The weather was near perfect, the nights warm and clear. If ever I retire I think I might return to stay. I was sitting on my cot daydreaming when my friends entered the tent, a wad of dirty clothes in one hand and the dirty cloths bag in the other, I sat there wistfully staring at the tent where it met the fragrant thick grass when they came in. NyLaya plopped down beside me as TocsJon walked in front of me, brushing my cheek with his hand as he passed. "What's up Beautiful" he said sitting next to me on the cot.
"Oh nuthin' jez thinking." I stated, stuffing the clothes in the bag.
"Yeah, daydreaming like usual", SelRach blurted out from his post at the entrance. "You're always daydreaming, I'd like to get inside of that head of yours and see what it's all about."
"You wouldn't like it, wild frightening images, unspeakable things. It'd be rather like a mind meld between a human and a Vulcan. You wouldn't survive, you'd come away insane." I looked up at him in the doorway and said, "But then you probably aren't sane now anyway". We all laughed.

After packing up all our unnecessary things and getting ready for our impending departure, NyLaya and I met up with the guys at the same pub we visited upon our arrival. It had become our home away from home in the past weeks. We were such fixtures there they all knew us by name as we did many of them. It was familiar and comforting now. They had a band playing tonight. They were good and the music was hauntingly romantic. The kind that if you heard it again in 10 cycles you would remember exactly where and who you where with the very first time you ever heard it. They were playing a slow ballad type song when NyLaya and I got our drinks and made our way to a table near the back where TocsJon and SelRach were waiting for us. As we approached, TocsJon took the glass of wine from my hand and placed it on the table. He kissed the back of my hand and I felt my face grow warm as a light blush crossed it. He turned my hand over and kissed my palm, then my wrist and on up the soft inner side of my arm to my shoulder and neck. It tickled so I giggled. With his arm around my waist he almost carried me to the middle of the dance floor. On the way out there I could hear SelRach calling after us to get a room or something.

Out on the dance floor he pulled me tightly to him holding my body against his as we swayed to the soft sweet music. A big man with a powerful chest, broad shoulders and strong arms, he grew up working with his father in the quarries of our home world. Till they discovered he had a brain too and then began educating him and put him to work in the science field. That's how we met, otherwise we would have lived our lives without each other. There isn't much I don't like about him. Maybe his drinking, . . .My thought trailed off as I felt his warm breath on my ear, it made me smile and squirm a little in his grip. He was saying something about a picnic out under the stars near the lake past the camp site. The feel of his breath on my ear was an unexpected sensation and it made me feel weak. If not for his hold on me I think I should have hit the floor. He knows the power he has over me and he smiled sweetly when he felt me go limp. He looked deeply into my eyes and kissed me till the music stopped.

4) Near Disaster Averted

It was our third day aboard the Star Light, as we called the Tok'ra ship that was our laboratory. All was going well and Rettus checked on us several times in the arns that passed. We were so well matched with the two from the other team, SelAna and MeRack that we were working together like we had always done so. We found out that SelRach and TocsJon were on the aft side monitoring and mapping the stars magnetic field. NyLaya and I had the job of taking spectra with two members of a team from Shubfarue. The radiation alarm had gone off a total of 7 times so far this sol, least of any day so far. It was going off so frequently that it had just became part of the background hum of ships operation and we barely payed it any attention anymore. Till finally it did not go off within seconds of sounding. Annoyed by the shrill sound the four of us looked up at each other from our work and all realized at the same time what that sound was. Just then a Tok'ra crew member came by to usher us into the interior of the ship. Into the safe room. Mayhem was breaking loose all around us as many of us were crammed into this stark tiny little room. We were all frightened and hoping to see our friends. We did not see SelRach and TocsJon. Frightened almost to tears we held each others hand and waited.

The lights went out and someone screamed. NyLaya and I sobbed on each others shoulder, we were certain this would be our last moments. The ship was shaking so that if it were not for the fact that there was no room in there to fall down we all would have been on the floor. What seemed like forever finally passed, the shaking stopped with a heavy thump and the lights came back on. Then a moment later the door opened. A disheveled, but calm Tok'ra crew member with a gentle voice told us that all was well and we had landed.

Once outside we found TocsJon and SelRach their normally cool carefree expressions were replaced with visible signs of deep relief at seeing that we were fine and unharmed. Still they joked about it while NyLaya and I hugged them and sobbed for joy that we were all safe. Rettus came by to let us know that there was a massive shift in the stars magnetic field that knocked out the ships attitude gyros on the port side rendering it unstable. Moving us into the safe rooms was just a precaution as we were never really in any serious danger from radiation. When he spoke those words I got the feeling that he did not believe we had been safe at all times and it was just by luck that no one was seriously harmed. And so the research was cut short, but we had gathered enough data to last us for several months of study. But we were allotted a full rotation of the star and so we remained on world to study from afar.

3) A Rosy Glow

Next sol we awoke to the sound of our team leader's voice. "Good morning campers!" Rettus Yendor, a lean tall man with brush cut salt and pepper hair poked his head into our tent letting a sliver of the pale rosy golden light slip in across our faces. It was an eerie glow one that I was not used to on my home world. Then he was gone just as quickly. I turned to NyLaya, who was already half dressed and remarked softly. "Dig this light, it's really weird."
"Yes, it's the carbon star. For now it rises before the yellow one, next month it will set after the yellow one. So the evening twilights will be like this."
"Wow, cool." I marveled as I tried to get dressed as fast as I could and thought the hurrieder I go the behinder I get and a little chuckle slipped out.
NyLaya poked an elbow at me and said, "Yes, very romantic." I guess she thought I was having thoughts about TocsJon, she knows I love him just as much as she loves SelRach. But the research comes first, besides we will get enough time to play later. This is serious business and we must be focused. We giggled like children, hugged and then straightened up all serious and burst into robust laughter.
"Hey, what's so funny?" TocsJon's voice came boldly through the tent wall next to me. I stumbled back and almost fell onto my cot. "Better hurry, last call for breakfast."
"On my way!" I shouted back at the tent where his voice had come from, but I think he was gone already. NyLaya and I grabbed our work papers and headed out.

Once on the ship we found our stations easily enough, but not the boys.
"Hum, they must be in another part of the ship. We seem to be paired with two from another team. My papers don't say anything about that, do yours?"
"No." I stated flatly while searching my paper. "Well, let's make the best of it anyway."
"Agreed."


2) At Namgiles

Our arrival at Namgiles was pretty routine. We met with the other teams and got our working papers. I am always a bit apprehensive going through the stargate. I guess I am afraid that with my luck something will go wrong and I will end up slipping away to a frozen tundra with giant rat-like creatures waiting to tear at me as soon as I walk through to the other side. My friends TocsJon, SelRach and NyLaya all say that I am silly and that could never happen, but yet the thought is always there whenever I step through. No matter how much they laugh at me. So always my first thought upon arrival is to contact my sister and best friend, EnnAjo, she will make me laugh and forget how silly and scared I had just been. I wish she was not worlds away on her chilly home, Rutilus. It's a crazy world that has only 3 seasons (a short wet spring even shorter summer and then a long bitter cold winter), not the 5 like we have on Quar. I don't know how she endures such cold and damp. And to almost never see the stars, even though they be alien stars, for me, that is a fate worse than death. I need my stars. But I get carried away.

After the meet and greets with the other teams, my friends and I sought out some local flavor in the Town Pub. Funny how no matter how far and wide you roam, everything is so similar. Every small settlement has a Town Pub, oh the name is always different and the people are not exactly the same, but even they are similar. So we ate and drank while the hired locals set up camp. The boys, like usual, had a wee bit more than they should have of the local fermented drink, a musty dark brew it was, and NyLaya and I had to help them to camp and into their tent. How they could drink so much of that stuff is beyond us.

1) Expedition to Namgiles

My small unit of volunteers has been chosen for an expedition to Namgiles an inhabited world that orbits a double star. But this is not just any set of double stars one is of a rare class of stars called carbon stars the other (life giving star is a G5 star much like the star of the Tau'ri system in the Milky Way Galaxy). It is the carbon star that we will study. These are the most intensely colored stars known, they shine orange at their brightest and deep red at their dimmest.

There should be many scientists there of all disciplines. Our base will be a campsite on the planet, but our laboratory will be on a Tok'ra ship. We will be at a safe distance most of the time, but as these stars are very volatile that may not always be so. To say that it will be dangerous is putting it mildly, but I am excited and truly wish to go. The idea is that if the star decides to ignite it's carbon laden atmosphere the ship can jump to hyper space in less than .0348 seconds and we shall be safe again. I have every confidence in the Tok'ra's technology and abilities, I believe we will be safe. We still have a week to plan and pack. I will let you know how it goes.

I have been told that when the star is in outburst it casts a lovely rosy glow on the day side of the planet. I do hope I get to see that.

Barbie from Quar

My Astronomy Web Page

I am AraBarb TenHoben from the planet Quar. My big sister gave me the nickname Barbie from Quar when we were children and it has kind of stuck.

Quar is a very nice planet much like Earth with slightly more land mass, but very very far away. It is in the Pegasus Galaxy on a network of Stargates that the Ancients created. The inhabitants are bipedal humanoids and look much the same as the Tau'ri, we are a gentle race of people who study the stars.

I have a 10 inch Orion Atlas EQ telescope and a set of 30 x 80 mm binoculars. I love to study nearby planets like Aries a dusty burnt orange desert planet. But mostly I catalog faint nebulous objects, some star clusters, and I do enjoy the occasional surprise of a colorful double or triple star. Most recently I have been introduced to Carbon star observing. A fascinating field that is full of surprises.

My occupation is to send electronic communiques over the world wide cyber-network and some light customer service. I like to make things, cards on my computer and do crafts with materials gathered from nearby merchants.