See Part One for Disclaimers.        Rating: PG-13 for language.

While Taja, Siro and Kung Lao were drying off and the Klingon Muppet was occupying the armory with her brother, Rayden, Lord of Thunder was discovering that there is a difference between mastery of one's innate abilities and controlling alien artifacts.  Especially alien artifacts with glitches built into the wiring.

Rayden looked over the device in his hands.  He had seen the rotund woman with the peculiar silver and dark hair touch one of the raised surfaces on the device.  He thought it was -- this one.  He blinked as he found himself elsewhere without out even the twinkle of light that usually marked his passage from one place to another.  He looked around.  It was hot.  It was dry.  It was desert.  It was not EarthRealm.  He could sense the differences.  He was a little disturbed when the sand under his feet shifted and he found himself standing on the head of a very, very large sand colored dragon.  As he lost his balance on the moving entity, he hit another sequence of buttons and --

Tumbled down a hillside into a bog.

"This is not good," he muttered to himself as he tried to marshall his rattled thoughts enough to locate the tesserect and keep himself from being dragged down under the deceptively pleasant green of the surface of the bog.

Elsewhere, dragon and company were sorting themselves out having landed in the moon pool on the seaQuest.  Darwin laughed at them as they splashed down and floundered around getting out of the clear sided pool.  The seaQuest addict made a face and splashed at the dolphin who chattered back at her with a grin.

Lucas Wolencek watched open mouthed as the big gold furred thing got out of the pool rumbling and shook itself dry.  The others he'd met, except for Grace, of course.

"What are you doing?" he asked in a desperate whisper, hoping this wasn't another of dragon's hairbrained stunts.  Small hope.

"Getting out of the moon pool, blue eyes," Tes offered as she wondered if she could shake out and get dryer the way the  praahr had done.  She smiled at him with a warmth that made his collar seem tight.

"Tes," the seaQuest addict complained and reached for a hand to help her out of the pool.   At least she wasn't fighting the mischievous dolphin for her bathing suit this time.  Tes gave her a grin and an innocent look.  The addict looked at Lucas, right in his unbelievably blue eyes and sorta got stuck until the dragon pushed her toward him to get her out of the way.

"Running away," dragon explained as she gave Grace a hand out of the pool.

"I'm not dressed for this," she said looking down at her dripping form.  Great, her own version of the wet nightshirt and neither Kung Lao nor Rayden around to appreciate it.   She sighed.  "So, now what?"

"Well, we get dry and we get the tesserect back from Rayden."

Grace blinked at this.  "Rayden has a tesserect?" she repeated uncertainly.

"Yep."

"Then how did we get here?"

"Secondary version."

"Oh.  Good.  I think."  She ducked as the seaQuest addict and the dolphin in the moon pool began trading water splashes.

The addict grabbed one of the towels and attempted to thwap the dolphin who neatly caught the towel in his bean and pulled the addict back into the pool.  Splash!  dragon and friends ducked the water coming out of the pool while the addict spluttered and laughed.  Darwin was tickling her with his beak.  She climbed back out of the pool and grinned at Lucas.

"Why don't we repair to someplace not quite so public?" dragon suggested.

"Or so wet," the addict added.  She slid a sopping arm through Lucas'.  "Could I borrow some dry clothes," she asked with a sweet look into those devastating blue eyes.   Lucas grinned back.

"Hurry," he said.  He hoped they wouldn't meet anyone on the way to his room.

Well, almost.  They passed Dagwood doing his floor cleaning thing.  He smiled at the motly party.  It was only after they'd disappeared around a corner that he wondered what the big gold fuzzy thing was.  But it was too late to ask.  They met Tony Picolo in the hallway.  He took one look at the crowd with Lucas and ducked back around a corner.  No way he was getting involved in whatever this was.  Henderson was not so lucky.  dragon figured they could use her expertise in electronics, as well as her enthusiasm for interesting experiences.

"Hi.  I'm dragon.  We need your help."

Henderson looked bemused, but smiled and came with them, darting an inquiring look at Lucas.  He shrugged his shoulders in response and herded the increasingly odd group into the somewhat claustrophobic atmosphere of his quarters.  Tes and the seaQuest addict swiftly rummaged through Lucas' wardrobe, grabbed some dry flannels and found someplace relatively secluded to change.

"Now, what is going on?" Henderson asked.  To her dismay, she got told.  She tried very hard not to do the fish gawping for air look and failed.  Finally, she boiled it all down to a succinct "You guys are nuts" summation.  Then somebody handed her a tesserect field control unit.  It took a few minutes to retrieve her entirely dislocated lower jaw from the corner of Lucas' quarters in which it was hiding and trying to quietly gibber.   This done, she locked gazes with dragon for a very, very, very long moment before surrendering to the lurker version of reality currently in force.

"Okay.  Lucas figures out how to talk to dolphins.  Picolo is a merman.  Dagwood is a genetically engineered soldier who doesn't like to fight.  If I can accept all that, serve on the seaQuest and still believe in serving the UEO, I can accept this.  I think.  So, what's the problem?"

That explanation required duct tape restraints on both her lower jaw and her brain.  "Let me get this straight.  One of these," she exhibited the oversized remote looking device, "is in the hands of a being who plays with lightning for entertainment and comes from a pre-tech society."

"Well -- essentially.  Assuming you define technology as post horse and buggy and metallurgy, that would be correct," revsam chimed in.

Henderson sat down.  She surveyed the group, including Lucas who seemed to have twins attached to his arms.  "Lucas?"

He looked at her, a twinkle in those to kill for blue eyes -- she slammed the PG-13 lid back down on her libido, reminded herself that the words "jail bait" do  not look good on promotion reviews and accepted his nod as an agreement with what she had been told.  "We need to find a way to -- triangulate on the signal of the primary device," she finally managed to define the problem in a way that did not boggle her mind too badly.  "We need help."

Lucas laughed and sat on it.  He had frequently thought of dragon and companions' intrusions on his life that way.  "Suggestions?"

"O'Neill."

dragon frowned.  "Why do we need a linguist?" she inquired.

"He's not just a linguist.  He's very, very good with tracking on sonar and radar.   And he has a very unique way of looking at things.  I think this could use unique."

"So, where is he?"

"On the bridge."

dragon gave Henderson a very, very old fashioned look.  Which is when Tes spoke up. nbsp; "Shall I?"

Henderson started to object, then got a really good look at Tes' really green, slit pupilled eyes.  She looked at Lucas wide eyes as the teen looking vampire slipped into the corridor.  Henderson gulped.

Tes nodded at Dagwood as she passed him in the hallway on her way to the bridge.  In true vampire "I'm really not here" fashion, she slid onto the bridge, over to O'Neill's station and acquired his attention without catching anyone else's.  His eyes met hers, his widened, hers softened.  He smiled.

"I'll be back in a minute," he announced and walked off the bridge of the seaQuest, arm in arm with the vampire.  Tes looked very self satisfied.  It wasn't often she got to use her considerable talents for subborning humans.

She released him from her control as they entered Lucas' sanctum sanctorum.  He blinked and shook his head, adjusted his glasses and gave the crowd a bemused look.  Lucas gave him a quick run down on what was needed.

"And then they'll leave, and I don't have to explain anything to the Captain."

"Right.  I think."  He took a look at the device and what Lucas and Henderson had figured out between them.  "Looks good."  Twenty minutes later, they had altered the seaQuest addict's secondary tesserect to home in on dragon's primary one.

"Thank you!" dragon said with a hug.  She hugged Lucas and Henderson, too, which surprised both of them.  Then she and the rest of the crew folded out, back to Zhou Zhin, just outside of Reyland Imports.

From inside the trading post came shrieks and giggles.  dragon looked at Grace who looked at revsam who looked at the seaQuest addict and Tes who were looking innocently at the amazingly blue sky overhead, while Tes was also sheltering in a shadow.  dragon and Grace slid over to the door and peeped through, leaving revsam to attempt to look inconspicuous and stand guard.

Inside the trading post, the Godzillaphile and the Klingon Muppet had reloaded their SuperSoakers and rediscovered their supply of pre-filled water balloons.  They had also been discovered by Siro who had decided to check the armory, just in case.  It wasn't exactly clear who was winning the battle which was now ensuing.  Siro, Taja and Kung Lao were all soaking wet, again.  Siro was discovering that catching a couple of wary, athletic and armed kids was not as easy as it sounded, especially when they can duck under tables with ease and when they have armaments.

Siro was rapidly loosing his temper, Taja was torn between frustration and laughter as she dove under the table after the two eccentrically armed kids.  Kung Lao had decided that letting the battle come to him might be the best idea yet.  He was stripping off his soaked shirt as Grace looked in.  His tights were also soaked.  Grace made a little contented sound and got a silly grin on her face.

dragon, recognizing the effects of a soaking wet martial artist on her cohort in lurk, gently propped her against the door frame, and whistled the opening notes of a piping aboard to get the attention of the two kids who were just about to end up in Kung Lao's grasp.  Amazing how fast those two managed to vector toward the open door, dodging Taja's reach and Siro's grab as they did so.  They dashed to freedom with a wild squeal of giggles.  dragon pulled Grace out of the doorway and closed the door swiftly in the face of the troops inside.

"Rayden," dragon pointed out to Grace who was making a "I'm being deprived" face at her.   Grace brightened at the thought of Rayden suffering from the ministrations of the water gun armed lurkers. nbsp;(To say nothing of the thoughts engendered by consideration of helping said thunder god get dry again.)

Grace thumbed on the gizmo in her hand.  Nothing.  Her face fell and she pulled the puppy dog eyes routine on dragon again.  dragon rolled her eyes, noted that Taja had managed to get to her feet, cross the room and get the door open; and folded them elsewhere.

"Oh, shit," she expressed her opinion of where they landed quite inelegantly, if succinctly.  She thwapped the remote and tried again just as the submarine on which they had landed hit the monster of the week.  This threw the group enough off stride that they landed in a heap on the next beach when they arrived.

Grace sat up.  She looked around.  This was not a beach.  Well, not unless this was the sort of beach that took up half a continent, or something.  Sand.  Everywhere.  As in, everywhere.  Something moved, heaving sand aside in a rhythmic motion, heading toward them.  She jabbed dragon in the side to call her attention to the motion.

"What the hell is that?" she demanded.

dragon, adjusting her scewed glasses, took a look and then frowned at the tesserect.   "Check the tracker."  Grace looked at it and shook her head.  Nothing.  dragon rechecked her coordinates.  "OH, shit!" she said again.  Arakis!  OH Hell!   Sandworm!  Quickly she punched in new coordinates and yanked them out of the path of the on coming sandworm which got a large mouthful of sand instead of the tasty morsels it was expecting.  Luckily, sandworms can digest anything.

Grace picked herself up first.  She looked around at the sand.  "More sand?   If I spot Jawas, the Sarnak or Jabba the Hutt, you, girl, are in trouble," she told dragon.   revsam just lay on the sand trying to think cool thoughts.  Tes was thinking shade furiously.  After 4000 years, sun wasn't the problem it had been earlier in her existance, but it wasn't fun.

"dragon!" she hissed.  (And that's not easy with no sibilants in the word!)

"I'm working on it.  It's not Dune.  It's not Tatooine.  It's  -- oh -- sand dragons!" she yelped as the sand heaved next to them.  A huge head hove into view.  Hot air blew across all of them as it exhaled.  A low rumbling shook the sand around them.  Everyone except dragon was standing around open mouthed.

"Uh --'scuse me."  dragon closed her eyes and morphed into her dragon shape.  It took about two minutes to find out that Rayden had been there -- several thousand years earlier.  She morphed back.  "OK.  We're on the wrong track.  Back to Zhou Zhin."

Meanwhile, Rayden had discovered that 1) bogs are *very* slow to suck you down if you don't do a lot of moving 2) they are cold and wet and 3) while he could feel his powers, he couldn't seem to figure out a way to access them.

Bleh.

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