To Quote Han Solo...

Inquiries as to the ownership of this story and all references it contains should be redirected to someone who actually owns the intellectual property as that is not me.

"Now let me get this straight," General Hammond said, leaning forward on the briefing room table. SG1 was present and had several large folders of notes prepared. "You went to this..."

"Sunnydale, sir," Carter said helpfully.

"Sunnydale, and you met up with the aliens," he continued as he turned to Dr. Jackson. "However, you were unable to translate their language."

"Right," Daniel said with a nod.

"But you found an American Citizen who could," Hammond asked, getting nods of confirmation, before glancing at the notes once more. "And this teenager translated for you, whereupon, you, Colonel, decided to negotiate with them to get their space technology which they readily agreed to supply for a few concessions."

"Yes, sir," Jack said. "They want the town for their own enclave and they'll supply us with technology. And they have droids, sir."

"Droids?"

"Yes, General," Carter explained, pulling up a couple of photographs on the big screen.

"They are pretty girls, Carter, but what does this have to do with the robots?"

"Not robots, sir, Androids," Carter explained. "Artificial humanoid people. These two, April and Gabby, are the work of a genius we found by the name of Warren Mears."

"One of the aliens?"

"No, 100% earth human," Carter explained. "Born, raised and educated in Sunnydale; he's a genius. His programming is beyond anything I could do and he's pretty modest about it, too."

"Having fought with April, the Digital Warrior Princess, I can assure you, General Hammond, that they are formidable warriors, even if they are machines," Teal'c replied helpfully.

Hammond ran his hands over his face and sighed.

"Why don't we start back at the beginning?"

Not Quite the Beginning, but more like the Beginning of the Middle:

Deep in the caverns under Sunnydale, the Elder Council of Ewoks (later to be known as the ECE) met with one half of SG1 in the hopes of not having the military kidnap them and use them for obscure experiments. It was a real fear and made a short, furry demographic worry that the Alien Autopsy was real. But for obvious reasons, Andrew Wells was there for translation as well as other Ewoks who wandered through the room from time to time. Jack was impressed by the disguised entrance (set up by order of the Master way back when) and the stylish paneling for each room (installed by Xander and company so it had less of the psycho-hermit chic). They also assumed that the room was designed specifically for human-Ewok relations, and the Ewoks did nothing to correct that assumption.

"So, what do you want in exchange?" Jack asked the gray, elder Ewok. He seemed to be the leader and had a close resemblance to Logray from Jedi, but had a different style of dress.

Giles, pondered the question slowly, glancing at his fellow elders, namely Joyce and Jenny. While Cordy was still considered the princess, she was also too young and irresponsible to really rule. Daniel Jackson had been able to spot the hierarchy and had relayed the information to his team, but Jack had insisted on talking with the leaders himself, even if he wasn't really a diplomat.

Joyce shrugged. "We do have the R3 units with their memories and how to repair and rebuild the ships. And there are all the other droids fighting the vampires, maybe a few of them will help us build what they want?"

"But do we really want to give it to them? We don't know what the military is going to use them for," Jenny countered. "And even if we do, we should just lease the tech to them, not give it away."

"That is a very good point," Giles said. "However, we do need to ensure that they don't just decide to take it away from us."

"True, but we can all fit in the ships and escape if need be," Joyce said.

"That's assuming we have time to get to them," Jenny countered. "With these stubby legs I'm no where's near as fast as I used to be."

"Good points, oh dear lord..." Giles bemoaned. Heads turned to see Harmony in all her pink fur patting her tummy. Seeing eyes on her she grinned and waved.

"What is that?" Jack asked with Daniel gaping next to him. Andrew just shrugged.

"Well, you know how every village has its idiot? Well, that's her," the blond told them. "If there's a finite amount of stupid in the universe, she holds about a quarter of it."

"She's a carebear?" Daniel asked with a look of horror.

"No, not at all," Andrew explained, "just an idiot who dyed herself to look like one. She's a handmaiden to Princess Cordy, so they let her get away with things."

"Wait, they're a monarchy?" Daniel asked, shocked that such things would work in a space faring race.

"Sort of. Princess Cordy is the next in line to be chief, but the elders hold the power for now," Andrew explained, motioning to Joyce, Jenny, and Giles. "With a few exceptions. The pilots hold a fair amount of respect, as do warriors like Buff or the Red Ghost. Right here, we have the high priest and priestess as well, as the elder mother."

"That seems very convoluted for such a small population," Daniel mused, "But I can see how that would work when you have to survive."

"I know, it's like when you're down 40hp out of 50 and the lich is between you and the door, and there are like, 20 bodies it can possess, and you really need to get a move on to survive," Andrew said.

Jack, utterly confused, turned to Daniel for a translation. Daniel just shrugged.

"He talks to aliens," Daniel said as if it explained everything.

"Fair enough," Jack agreed.

Across town, a different discussion was taking place:

"Okay, I'll see your calico and raise you a tiger stripe," Buffy said, pushing her kittens into the middle of the table. They mewed pitifully and looked at her with sad eyes. She knew that she would save them soon if only she could win this hand.

"Boop," said another R4 unit (this one blue) as it slapped its cards face down on the table. "Boop" in Astromech apparently meant "Fold."

"I call," the skin demon said. His name was Clem, but Buffy wasn't too concerned about him or the status of the soon-to-be-hers kittens.

"Call," said the shark demon.

"Beep," said R4, which, in Astromech, apparently meant "call."

"Beep," said R3.

Buffy shrugged and just slapped her cards down on the table. "I don't have much, but they're all shovels."

"Spades, they're called spades," Clem said between sobs. "A goddamn royal flush! On her third hand! I've never even SEEN that happen before."

"Beep beep boop bop!" R4 sputtered. This is a statement that cannot be translated without increasing the rating, and so you will have to use your imagination. Needless to say, R4 was not enthused with losing 5 newborn kittens. It started towards Buffy with its welding tool extended, but the Shark Demon, Max, tackled the droid to the floor.

"Dude, not cool," Max said. "Not cool, R4."

"Okay, that was fun," Buffy said with a furry grin as she scooped up the complaining kittens into her arms and deposited them into the storage compartment of her speeder.

"Hey! At least give us a chance to win a few back!" Clem called out after her, but Buffy couldn't hear him over the sound of firing turbo-thrusters. Nor could she hear the mewling protests of the now deaf kittens in the storage compartment. Within a blink of an eye, she was out of sight.

"Dammit! Do you know how hard it is to find kittens in this town with the damn Vamp/Droid war going on?" Max, the shark demon complained. "I actually had to BUY those few!"

"I know Max, I know," Clem said. "Let's go get some fried chicken."

Buffy soared over buildings and quickly made her way back to the Ewok lair, formerly the Master's Cave. The entrance had been modified slightly with mirrors on either side of the door and a sign that said: "Bloodsuckers not welcome, ever, no matter what!" in Xander's distinctive scrawl. The ceiling had been adjusted slightly and reinforced with new timbers that were cut off of former shrubs that now dominated the entrance as big giant trunks. The limbs were trimmed to make way for the entrance and parking lot where the Ewoks now stored their AT-ST, Speeder and X-Wings, although the freighters were too big and stayed at the airport.

Buffy carefully pulled the tumbled and traumatized kittens from her speeder and walked inside to where the negotiations were still going on.

"Whoa, that's a lot of kittens," Devon said, staring at the pile in the Slayer's arms. "Where'd you get 'em?"

"Poker game?"

"You played poker for kittens?"

"Yup, but droids are sore losers," she said sadly. Devon looked at the girl and took a step back.

"Wait, droids?"

"Yeah, like Artoo, but they're really not good at bluffing," Buffy said.

"I'll take your word on it," the singer said as he went back to tuning his piano he'd set up in the entryway. It was smaller than a baby grand, more like a Fetal Grand or a Zygote Grand, but it had a good sound to it.

"Buffy!"

The girl in question turned to see Willow in all her red-fur glory motioning her over. "We need a better negotiator and translator."

"For what?"

"Oh, right, you ran off with your speeder before we could get down to details," Willow said. "The humans we met earlier are trying to buy our tech stuff."

"THEY CAN'T HAVE MY BABY!" Buffy bellowed, causing the kittens still clutched to her chest to squirm in fear. She glanced around as if someone was about to run out and steal her speeder.

"Buffy!" Willow said sharply, pulling the other ewok's attention back towards her. "They just want to take it apart and-"

That was apparently not the right thing to say. Buffy was gone, only a burst of dust in her wake, seemingly going faster than she could riding the speeder. She jumped over ewoks, stacks of books and was going so fast it looked like she was running along the wall without falling.

"NOBODY'S TAKING MY BABY APART!" she declared as she fell on Jack's back, pinning him to the table. Daniel quickly backed up to the wall and held his hands above his head. He'd been kidnapped by aliens enough to know that it hurts less if you don't make too much of a fuss. Buffy spun to look at him with a dangerous gleam in her eyes, the kind of gleam she had when she faced the Master post-death and there was only one force on earth that could stop her.

"BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS!"

Buffy was paralyzed in place as surely as if she was hit by a freeze beam. She turned, ever so slowly, she turned to see her mother, standing as tall as an angry ewok mother could, with her hands on her hips, her legs spread a little wider than normal and her eyes holding that kind of glare that seems to arrive an instant after the first baby does: the MOM LOOK(tm). The flickering candlelight only served to make the reflections of flames dance off her dark eyes, giving Joyce a rather demonic look.

Jack looked up and got an eyeful of angry Ewok mother and eeped before scampering back to the wall with Daniel. "What's going on?"

"The younger one is a child, the older one probably the mother," Daniel said. "I think there's some dissent between factions about giving us technology."

"But!" Jack cut himself off as the translator got up from the table. "What are they talking about?"

"Oh, Buffy just thought that you were going to take her speeder and she didn't take kindly to that," Andrew replied. "And Joyce found her lack of faith disturbing."

"Do you really have to quote Star Wars in nearly every statement?" Daniel asked.

Andrew paused for a long moment, contemplating the question. Jack and Daniel shared a confused look as it wasn't that hard a question.

"Yes," Andrew said after that long moment. "Yes, I do." He listened to Giles for a moment. "Ah, they've decided to hand negotiations over to my buddy Jono. You guys are in trouble now!" Andrew wagged a finger at them while cackling madly. Jack and Daniel shared a look.

Artoo watched the negotiations with great interest from the webcam on Willow's laptop, the only internet connection in the entire complex. These humans were different from the others, those droid hating fools. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to arm them if only to preserve his own existence. With that in mind, Artoo ordered the modification of several Droid production facilities to fabricating speeders. He could manage twenty a day so long as he had the supplies, and the broken and shattered cars weren't going to last forever. Taking that into consideration, droids were ordered into adjacent communities where the largest carjacking scheme in California history began.

Another facility began prefabricating machines for building other parts for other vehicles and weapons. Within days, Sunnydale would become the greatest automated manufacturing center in the world from droids to spaceships to those little umbrellas waiters put in fruity drinks. Artoo took one more step towards conquering the world that day. One tiny shipment in Sunnydale was one giant leap for Droid Kind.

Now if the droid-deus could only get rid of those pesky vampires.

"Okay, fine, you're done," Warren said before bolting towards the bathroom at somewhere near Mach 2. "FREEDOM!" he yelled as he slammed the door behind him.

Gabby, her construction completed, immediately sat up on the table and tested all her joints and faux musculature for any inconsistencies. Making a fist, she punched the aluminum table with the heel of her palm making a distinct imprint.

"All systems of immediate necessity appear to be operating within acceptable parameters," Gabby stated before completely shifting out of her monotone and skipping and clapping. "Yippee! Emotional programming is working! This is, like, totally awesome!"

Sam shivered, like someone had run an ice cube down her back, walked swiftly over to the computer and started deleting code.

"What are you doing?" Gabby demanded.

"Deleting all Valley Girl language references," Sam replied.

"Why?"

"Because designing one of the greatest creations of robotics and giving them Valley Girl attributes is an affront to science, women and a whole slew of other things that come to mind, but are too long to list," Sam said before spinning on the android. She pointed a finger right under the blonde girl's nose. "It's wrong, just plain ethically wrong."

"Why?"

"Because others will assume that you have less than average intelligence," Teal'c replied. "It is in your best interest GabbyMears."

"Gotta say, if someone told me I'd be explaining social issues with an android and an alien ten years ago, I'd have knocked them out and hauled them in for a psych eval," Warren said, stepping out of the bathroom with a satisfied expression on his face. He was the picture of someone allowed relief after a long time. "I want a Coke, now. And a bed instead of a couch. And a pillow. Is that too much to ask? I sure hope not, because you're going to have to catch me first! BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!"

He cackled as he ran, hands in the air, into the general direction of the town. As soon as he vacated the hanger he looked up.

"Whoa, trees."

"So, they think that in exchange they need to be given the town and the surrounding area to live in," Andrew reported after the Ewok elders conversed with each other and Jono reported their findings to Andrew. "They can use some of the abandoned buildings as places to build your ships, and droids, but still have plenty of places to live their lifestyle."

"They want the whole town?" Daniel asked, glancing at each Elder in turn. "Why the whole town?"

Andrew listened for a moment before he turned back to the older humans. "Think of it as a really big embassy."

"Sure! Just as long as I get my X-wings!" Jack agreed instantly without thinking it over.

"Jack! You can't make that kind of decision!"

"Hey, the president owes me a favor from the last time we did that thing that we do," Jack replied, taking a sip of water.

"You can't just say 'sure you can have land the equivalent to a city-state nation because I said you can' to them, Jack," Daniel chided once more. "You're not a negotiator!"

"This is just like what we do every time we go through the Gate," Jack reminded. "We're just fulfilling our mission statement."

"Ixnay on the Ate-gay," Daniel said with a pained look.

"But they're aliens!" Jack declared, gesturing to the dumbfounded Ewoks.

"And Civilians!" Daniel declared, gesturing to the dumbfounded Andrew.

"Oh, right, but they talk to aliens, so that's alright, right?" Jack reminded him. "Right?

The two spent some time glaring at each other.

After a long while, Andrew raised a finger to get their attention.

"You do realize that we can hear everything you're saying," the blond boy pointed out. The four Ewoks present nodded in agreement.

"Oh, right," Jack said sheepishly. "Well, give me a break at least, we usually don't have alien friends that are willing to share!"

"Fair enough," Danny said with a shrug.

"So wait, let me get this straight," General Hammond said. "Not only did you agree to hand over American soil to a bunch of aliens that you know almost nothing about; you also created a glaring security breach?"

"Yeah, pretty much," Daniel Jackson said, looking smug as he glanced tauntingly over at Jack who was squirming in his seat. General Hammond took a deep breath and let it out very slowly as he attempted to lower his blood pressure.

"You all stay here until I get back," the general commanded in a tone he had perfected raising unruly children. SG1 froze, never having heard that level of disappointment before. General George Hammond stood up and walked into his office to pick up a bright red phone. "Yes, Mr. President, I'll go ask," setting the phone down for a moment, the general looked out the door to his premier team. "Did you promise anything else?"

"Well, there was one thing they really wanted," Daniel said hesitantly, "but we didn't blanket agree."

"They don't want to hide or go off world to have a new homeworld," Jack explained. "There was something about that town that had some sort of demented thingy."

"Dimensional thinness," Daniel corrected quickly. "And they said that we don't have what is needed to protect it. That's why Jack promised the land. They said it was dangerous to humans."

"And they didn't start it?" Hammond asked.

"No, they found it when they got there, I guess," Jack said. Hammond looked at Carter who shrugged.

"It could be very serious, but the level of technology they're talking about is very high," Carter explained. "Their demands are very low in comparison to what we could potentially gain."

"Thank you, Captain Carter," Hammond said before heading back to the phone. He talked for a while in low tones. "Thank you Mr. President." He set the phone down and walked quietly back to the briefing room where he sat down in his chair. SG1 waited silently to hear what the president had to say. "Against my warnings, the president has decided to have the Ewoks, is that even their name?" SG1 just shrugged. "To have the Ewoks act as our official 'First Contact,' seeing as they aren't parasites or face eating aliens. He feels that having cute, peaceful aliens as Earth's first introduction to global attention to extraterrestrials will help us in the long run when the SGC is declassified."

"So..." Jack said, worried about the fallout.

"Live, on TV, with a full briefing thereafter," Hammond said. He glanced at Daniel Jackson, who looked like he was bracing an anticipated blow. "Doctor Jackson?"

"Sorry sir," he said, "but at the risk of sounding like Han Solo: 'I've got a bad feeling about this.'"

Next Time: attempting to keep promises...