TITLE: Talkin' Turkey
AUTHOR: Tiffany Park
EMAIL: anderson7836@comcast.net
STATUS: Complete
CATEGORY: Humor, Thanksgiving
SPOILERS: None
SEASON: Season Two
PAIRINGS: None
RATING: G
CONTENT WARNINGS: None.
SUMMARY: SG-3. Friendly aliens. A nice planet. You know there's a catch, don't you?
ARCHIVE: Please ask.
DISCLAIMER: Stargate SG-1 and its characters are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA, Double Secret Productions, and Gekko Productions. This story is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. (No one else would want the blame for this, trust me.) This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Totally absurd drivel. Fortunately, it's really short. Read at your own risk. Written for the ColRMakepeaceSG-3 list at YahooGroups.com.

"Colonel--" Johnson began. His voice was filled with repressed laughter.

"Don't say it, Lieutenant," Makepeace hissed.

"But Colonel--"

"Not another word." Makepeace swung around to give his entire team the evil eye. "From any of you."

Sergeant Andrews coughed and cleared his throat. Lips twitching, Corporal Henderson stared up at the pretty blue sky.

"I mean it," Makepeace said quietly, glaring at all three of his smirking teammates. "These...people...are friendly. They're willing to open negotiations with Earth. I don't want you bozos screwing this up before it even gets started."

"But, sir, it's almost Thanksgiving back home," Andrews blurted out. Smirks turned to snickers, quickly stifled.

Makepeace hung his head, resisting the urge to whimper out a pathetic "Why me?" The timing of this mission sucked. Although, really, Makepeace doubted that any time would be good for this particular encounter.

PH1-125 had come as a pleasant surprise to the Marines. It was a perfectly nice world, with pale blue skies, a temperate climate, and an abundance of low-growing vegetation, mostly green but with reddish tints here and there. The gravity was almost the same as Earth's; a touch lighter, but nothing that would cause SG-3 any problems. The SGC had detected no local signs of intelligent life, nor any scary monster-like animals. The recon mission should have been a cakewalk.

Then the flying saucer had arrived.

It had extended a quartet of silvery struts and landed. A thick, heavy hatch had opened up, a long, smooth ramp had slid out to the ground, and a delegation of PH1-125's natives had strutted down to meet their uninvited guests.

Makepeace had been hard-pressed to keep his composure. The aliens looked like giant turkeys.

They had big, round bodies, clothed in B-movie silver lamé jumpsuits. Silver boots with split toes encased their feet. They had arms and fingers, rather than wings, and the exposed portions of their limbs were covered with a dark brown, downy growth that appeared to be a cross between fur and feathers. Small, pebbly-skinned heads bobbed on spindly necks. Their eyes were golden and beady. Loose skin flopped alongside gently curved beaks. They even had red wattles.

Incredibly, they were capable of speech that ordinary humans could comprehend. The accent was strange, the voices oddly high-pitched and lacking in resonance, but somehow the beaks formed understandable words.

Those tiny little heads couldn't possibly contain brains big enough to handle complex language. Not to mention being capable of building flying saucers. Makepeace figured the brains were probably housed somewhere in those round but solid looking torsos.

A short but polite conversation had revealed that the Stargate was situated in some kind of huge nature preserve, which accounted for why the SGC's probes hadn't detected any signs of the natives. The turkey people were actually rather cosmopolitan, viewing the arrival of the humans as an opportunity for learning and trade. After suppressing his unseemly mirth, Makepeace had been quick to make the SGC's standard pitch. The turkey people had gobbled it up.

Strike that last thought, Makepeace chided himself.

He wondered what the SGC's first contact experts would make of these...people. His amused and mildly neurotic ponderings about such matters led to thoughts of Chief Talking Head Daniel Jackson, who was inextricably linked to Chief Mouth Jack O'Neill. Makepeace smiled.

He checked his watch and mentally reviewed a few schedules. At this very moment, SG-1 was stuck on the base. They were between missions, and catching up on paperwork and an assortment of boring but necessary tasks.

"Is there a problem, Colonel Makepeace?" the turkey leader asked, tilting its head in an alarmingly comical way. Its wattle waggled. It stepped forward with jerky, strutting movements and a puffed-out chest.

Makepeace bit his tongue and turned back to face his hosts. Behind him, he heard one of his teammates make a strangled noise. He hoped they could control themselves for just a little while longer.

"No, no." He waved away the query. "I'm sorry if I was rude just now, but I needed to...consult...with my associates. You see, we thought this place was uninhabited."

"So it is," the turkey leader agreed. "It was an understandable mistake. Your surveillance probes obviously could not scan the entire planet."

"Thank you for your patience. However, our mission is basic reconnaissance, not first contact." Makepeace opted to fudge the truth a bit. As a precautionary measure, all off-world teams were trained in the SGC's first contact procedures. As today proved, you never knew when the unexpected might occur. But then, the turkey people didn't know that, and really, there were people back home much better suited to dealing with this kind of weirdness.

"I'm afraid we're feeling out of our depth," he continued. "Had my superiors known you were here, they would have sent first contact experts and negotiators." That, at least, was the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The turkey leader made an unfortunate, gobble-like noise. "I understand. We would prefer to speak with such specialists. You may contact your homeworld to send for them." Its head bobbed as it spoke, and the loose folds of skin quivered in an almost hypnotic manner.

"Thank you," Makepeace said politely, while nasty little demons inside him jumped up and down with glee. He looked back at his team, pleased that they had managed to keep their faces composed. "Johnson, dial Earth and get General Hammond on the horn."

He knew exactly what would happen next. All he had to do was extol the friendliness and the technology of PH1-125's people. No additional manipulation required. Everyone would be in perfect agreement, especially Jack's two science experts.

Today, talking turkey was a job for SG-1.

November, 2004

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