"We'd better hurry, sir," Major Kovacek of SG-9 noted. "The Taldor believe punctuality is emblematic of civilized behaviour."
"They do, do they?" General George Hammond was not a happy Texan. Bad enough if it were just SG-1, and he'd be pissed on that account alone. But since the Taldor had put Volkova into their damn jail on these trumped-up charges too, there was an honest chance of this turning into an international incident.
"We'll be transported almost immediately upon our arrival, to their tal'al, or speaking area," Kovacek continued his briefing as the two men strode through the halls towards the gate room, undeterred by George's sarcasm. "Once there, the Taldor may, or may not, be willing to show you their actual face."
"Why is that?" On the other hand, with the Russian pressure to get Volkova back, he wouldn't have to worry about his own government writing off SG-1 in the name of relations with these more-advanced, and therefore useful, Taldor. Gave him a much freer hand to act than he might have otherwise had.
Kovacek pursed his lips. "To put it politely, sir, they're... xenophobic." He shrugged. "To put it frankly, they're arrogant, narrow-minded, self-centered-"
"I get the picture." George did appreciate it, though - he'd almost forgotten with Kovacek's preference for a diplomatic solution that the commander of SG-9 was just as pissed off as George himself was.
They stepped out into the gate room. "But they do seem to want to maintain diplomatic contact."
George just looked at him. That and two dollars might buy Earth a cup of coffee. The Taldor being 'advanced' was useless if they weren't willing to open up actual trade relations. And the prerequisite to actual relations was respect - right now, the Taldor hadn't been showing any.
The gate was lit up, gentle blue glow filling the room... "Special envoy, you may embark when ready," Staff Sergeant Laura Davis's voice echoed from her technician station in the control room.
George strode up the ramp, just looking at the beautiful, shimmering blue event horizon. He'd seen it plenty of times, but this time it looked surprisingly intimidating. "... Well, here goes."
"Since this is your first time, sir, a quick word of advice? It's better to exhale just prior to crossing the event horizon. One's instinct is to inhale immediately upon arriving on the other side. Also-"
"I think I'll figure it out on the way," George interrupted. He appreciated the concern, but every person under his command had, and while he was old and slow, he wasn't that old and slow. "... You're sure they dialed the correct address?"
Kovacek smiled. "Yes, sir."
"The things I do for these people..." One small step for a Texan...
He had tried the exhale-on-crossing thing, it did make the whole ride quite a bit less mind-boggling than he'd feared. Felt like he was riding a roller-coaster through a tunnel... and then the world around him was well-lit, widely-spaced, open forest.
George looked around, breathing in the fresh, pine-y air. This wasn't really his back home nature, but he'd been to Canada and it was fairly similar. Quite beautiful in a majesty-of-nature sense. The gate whooshed shut behind him.
And then flared. George's eyes widened, and he stepped away from the gate, followed by Major Kovacek. Good idea to avoid that unstable vortex, whoever the new visitors were...
After the roiling stabilized into a blue rippling event horizon, George saw them. Two. They both seemed to almost float through the gate, coming to land on the ground only once they were through.
The first one out was a girl, maybe eighteen. Looked asian, slim and fit, with short dark hair and eyes, somewhere between black and slate-grey. Civilian dress - yellow, Chinese-style shirt, short blue-grey skirt, brown slippers. And a pistol rested at her right hip - not a type he was familiar with. She quickly looked around, and took up a flanking position alongside the second one through the gate.
This one was a grown man - George would eyeball him as... thirty? Fourty? His features didn't look so much aged as hardened. Rather tall, dressed in billowing white almost fantastical clothing, and with long... dark green... hair, and pale brown, almost gold, eyes. A strange circlet decorated his forehead.
The man turned to George, and bowed slightly, green hair falling neatly to the side. "Good, I'm not late."
George recognized that voice. He'd only heard it once, but under the circumstances it was the kind of thing you remembered. "... Colonel Vindel Mauser? What are you doing here?"
Mauser rose. "It came to my attention that you were about to negotiate with a group that kidnapped your premiere team. I thought I would show solidarity."
George cocked his head. "I mean no offense, but what do you get out of this?"
"There are two answers to your question, General Hammond." He paused. "Actually, my apologies - three. The first: Earth is my homeworld, and I still live in the neighbourhood. Its defence remains important to me, both sentimentally and practically. Your SG-1 is one of the strongest forces you have for its defence. On that account, they must be returned."
Kovacek held up a hand. "Ah... Colonel... they're five people. They're great soldiers, granted, but... lynchpin of Earth's defence...?"
"Do not underestimate 'people', Major. A good soldier with a good weapon is superiour to every wonder weapon ever imagined. And an excellent soldier in the right place, with the right equipment... that can save or destroy a world."
George glanced at the silent girl at his side. The way she stayed close to Mauser seemed a bit more than professional - not sexual or romantic, there was no touching and nothing in the way she looked up at him that indicated that, but almost... filial. Very hard to see even that much, the girl's expression was blank and she hadn't said a word. But at this point, he really didn't want to risk the offer of help by airing his concerns about her youth - to an extent he hated himself for it, but he didn't know that girl, and he had to save his people first. "And the other reasons?" He was expecting one of them to be 'you'll owe me' - and if Mauser pulled it off, he would, but that didn't mean he'd compromise his duty to repay it.
"The second: If SG-1 are held, information regarding our world gets out into the galaxy at large. Even if you do not believe in their power to save a world, they do hold information that, in the wrong hands, could doom it. Again, we both need and want Earth to remain safe."
"Fair enough. And the third?"
"That brings us back to solidarity, General. Whether we operate under the same command or not, you are Tau'ri. We are Tau'ri. We will both receive the same response from the galaxy at large. If they do not act civilized to your people, they will not to mine. Protecting your people is the same as protecting my own."
George nodded slowly. "Well, I can't stop you... just make clear that we're from different commands."
"Of course. Ah..." He paused, tapping something at his collar. "Testing, one, two... and three." The 'three' came out in the ancient Egyptian derivative spoken across the galaxy, as did his remaining words. "Do our translators work? We had to rush the prototype into service for this."
"... An automatic translation device? Uh... it works, but isn't that completely science fiction?"
Colonel Mauser coughed politely, gesturing to the Stargate.
"... Okay, fine, but it's a bit different seeing it from a group that says it's from Earth."
"In fairness, these are reverse-engineered from aliens who tried to invade. They do not analyze unknown languages, either - one must load the appropriate database onto the translator. Also a little glitchy, they will translate names and expressions without consideration to their intended sound. But they suffice. Do inform me if I end up telling the Taldor that my hovercraft is full of eels, though."
George paused. "Wait, back that up for a minute, aliens who tried to-"
That was the point when the gleaming Taldor aircraft arrived overhead, shining its light down on them...
... and the world vanished.
George, Mauser, Kovacek, and the girl stood in darkness. George would comment on the decor, but there was nothing - simply a purely dark, absolutely unlit room. He supposed he'd have to sideline that 'alien invasion' bit for later.
A light shone down on them, and a woman's voice spoke, echoing as if the room was very large. "You are most punctual."
This was a courtroom? Or a meeting place...? The oppressive darkness of the room felt... absolutely wrong for either.
"Thank you," Kovacek responded.
A male voice: "You are the one called General Hammond?"
"Yes." George looked around, trying to find where the voices were coming from. "I am responsible for those people you have imprisoned."
"By using the word 'responsible'," Kovacek noted, "the general is in no way assuming accountability for the actions of SG-1." He lowered his voice. "Begging your pardon, sir, I don't want you to end up in prison along with them."
George turned towards where he thought one of the voices may have come from... "On the contrary! I would gladly hold myself responsible. I ordered them to this world in the first place."
"Is this an admission of guilt?" The woman asked.
"No, it is not," Colonel Mauser stated. George was about to angrily override the Colonel, when Mauser went onto a much less obsequious tack than he'd expected from that start. "It is impossible to be guilty of an action which is not a crime. Your jurisdiction does not extend to Earth. There is no action that can be taken on our world that is any of your affair."
"Who is this?" the man asked.
The Colonel looked up with a little smirk, arms folded. "Vindel Mauser. I am the commander of a force allied with General Hammond's."
"Then you do not belong here."
"The mistreatment of General Hammond's people will be considered mistreatment of my own. I am part of this negotiation to prove that it is not merely one nation that you have angered."
"The members of your 'SG-1' stand guilty of aiding a murderer, and were tried under law. This is not mistreatment."
George glared in the vague direction of that voice. They seemed to keep moving, he'd heard that guy before from another side of the room. "The members of SG-1 had no way of knowing that man's crime. Nor of knowing that aiding him constituted a crime. We will gladly accept exile from your world - if you want, we'll never come back. There is absolutely no effect punishment or leniency of SG-1 will have on your society."
"Ignorance is not a valid defence."
"They were from another world! There was no possible way for them to have not been ignorant!"
"That is irrelevant. There are no appeals."
George shook his head. They were starting to go around in circles, and he didn't know the Taldor legal code - assuming they even had a legal code beyond 'bad = life imprisonment' - anywhere near well enough to lawyer them out. So it was time to bull-rush it. "If my people are not released, the imprisonment of SG-1 will be considered a hostile act. Peaceful relations between our two worlds will end - right here, right now." In the end that would probably amount to cutting off prospective trade relations, unless the Russians pulled some spectacular diplomacy and got the United States to sign off on military action to get them back. Unless he got lucky, the threat was more powerful than the action.
"Our law is immutable," the woman stated.
"The books may not bend, but the people can," Mauser noted.
"You imply we break the law."
"You were given ample opportunity to discuss this, to negotiate in a civilized fashion. But like barbarians, you continually refuse to see matters from any perspective but your own. And you hold force and threats of action against General Hammond's attempts at reason and diplomacy - I heard that implied threat of imprisoning him."
"You insult-"
"If you wish to do this the barbaric way," Vindel interrupted, "then it will be done the barbaric way. For the sake of General Hammond, I will first clarify that he has no knowledge of, nor relationship to, the actions I am about to take." He unfolded his arms, pushing one of his voluminous sleeves up to glance at a watch. "From this moment forward. For every hour that his personnel are not returned, there will be destruction on your world. I will not specify the way, nor the target. Know simply that every hour, something will break on your world, until SG-1 is returned to the place where the gate lies."
George stared at the man.
"... This is extortion," the male Taldor voice eventually responded.
"This is hostage negotiation. If you are going to be criminals, you have no place complaining when others respond on your level."
"Taldor are justice. A crime is by definition an act against justice. Justice cannot commit crime."
"Actions are not legitimate merely by virtue of being carried out by an authority. An authority's legitimacy depends on the actions they take. State terrorism is still terrorism."
"On this world of Rillaan, your threats are a crime."
The girl's hand drifted towards her sidearm.
Vindel's lips quirked. "If you are considering placing me under arrest, do note that my subordinates are waiting for me. If I fail to return, you will not even have a world."
There was a sudden howling sound echoing through the room, and several members of the Taldor could be heard yelling in surprise.
"Word travels fast on this world. I presume you have heard of the explosive detonation over one of your islands that I ordered just a moment ago? In fact, by that sound, I would imagine that at least one of you is on said island... most useful to know. It was an airburst, of course, and non-toxic. There will be no damage. This time. So what will it be?"
"... You may go. Release of SG-1 is impossible," the woman eventually stated.
"Why?" George asked, casting another look at Mauser. He couldn't say he was entirely comfortable with someone who detonated explosives to make a point, but doing it nonlethally wasn't honestly all that objectionable, and to some extent he appreciated having an ally along who actually was free to threaten to blow things up if his people didn't get returned. George would probably be making the same threats if he had the authority to.
... Was Mauser playing the bad cop to George's good cop?
"There are no returns from Hadante. For anyone. It is not possible."
Vindel inclined his head. "That's your problem now."
The light shut out, leaving them in total darkness. The Taldor never had showed their faces, had they...?
And then a moment later, they were back in the forest in front of the gate. And in the middle of a group of armoured soldiers. Heavy equipment was still being set up around them.
George blinked. "... You brought troops through the gate?"
Mauser nodded. "A few. The 'Taldor' have, for the moment, been unwilling to open hostilities. I'd expect their command chain is too top-down for the people floating overhead to take action, and the highest commanders likely still haven't been briefed - the fascist air they affected back there would seem to imply it."
"And what are you going to do when they get orders through? With your threats of action, they will blow you away."
"That is why as soon as you have left, my people will be moving the gate to a more secure location." Colonel Mauser gestured to a few vaguely humanoid forms - not the rounded flying ones, but smaller, cruder... power loaders? "We will leave a message and equipment for SG-1 to contact us when they are returned to this location, and if you wish to use the gate, simply call ahead and we will arrange it."
George nodded, and frowned. "... You know, they may have meant that they can't get SG-1 back. It's possible they're just taking the zero-tolerance stance to cover up that they can't fix it."
"It's quite possible. But they caused this situation. Your people did not. They get to reap the rewards."
"You're going to kill innocent people over this?"
"Oh no, property destruction, absolutely taking all efforts to avoid loss of life. If it lasts long enough to set up an intelligence network then we may end up blowing up the Taldor themselves, but I have never targeted people who are not involved." Vindel paused. "That said, if they are unable to retrieve SG-1, this ends up as a mere act of vengeance. It makes our displeasure known, but it does not get them back. You have greater experience with the gate network, General, and far more personnel to work with - if a solution is to be found, it will be found with you." He bowed, stepping back and gesturing to the gate.
George pursed his lips. "... We'll talk about this later."
"You know how to get in contact with us."
George nodded, moving to the gate with Kovacek in tow.
The girl finally spoke up as he finished dialing. "... Good luck. Bring them back." Mauser glanced at her, a bit of surprise written across his features.
George turned to her, and put on his grandfatherly It's All Right smile. "SG-1 always comes home. It's a law of nature."
She nodded sharply, stepping back alongside Colonel Mauser.
George turned back to the gate, squared his shoulders, and marched through. Considering the last words he heard were 'Oh, and tell O'Neill she won't get to test out that Blackhole Engine idea on this world after all' (though directed, apparently, at the girl at Vindel's side), he had no intention of going back.
He'd ask his other questions when he was far, far away from any planet where the term 'black hole' came up.
He shucked the vest as soon as he was back in the SGC, marching out of the gate room and through the hall with Kovacek struggling to keep up. He'd called together a panel in the briefing room for when he returned - he hadn't really expected this point in the negotiations to get them back.
It was a matter of a few minutes and a lot of returned salutes before he stood in the briefing room - and they were there. General Hammond himself stood at the head of the table, already lowering himself into his seat. He hadn't even bothered changing out of his fatigues, clothing was a great deal less important than this.
Major Kovacek, catching his breath, took a seat at the table - he was here to provide diplomatic options.
Janet Fraiser, in the event a medical opinion was needed - it probably wouldn't, but there was nothing lost by having her ready.
The rest were new additions to the SGC.
Closest to Hammond was a tallish woman with short-cut red hair and green eyes, somewhere in her late thirties or early fourties. Lieutenant-Commander Jane Shepard, previously of Canada's Joint Task Force 2 (he wasn't sure if anyone had ever got around to asking what had happened to the first one), and now commander of the new SG-10. Here to provide the combat options. Normally the most prominent combat team commander short of O'Neill was Colonel Makepeace of SG-3, but SG-3 was off on a recon mission and Makepeace himself was... indisposed. (Fraiser had said something about the urinary tract, and George had immediately closed his ears.)
Across from Shepard was a Russian man of the same age, a face that looked odd now that he wasn't smiling. Uniform standing out as usual - Colonel Alexei Zukhov, SG-11, here to represent the Russians in this.
Next to Zukhov, a woman with tightly tied-back black hair, equally Russian. Doctor Svetlana Markova - new to the gate program, but not to DHD analysis, and with Carter gone, she was now the SGC's top physicist.
And across from Markova, a younger woman, bright-faced, with long red hair tied back behind her head in a loose ponytail, blue eyes, and freckles. And dressed in a brownish almost cowboy-ish style, down to the hat, for reasons George was honestly terrified to ask - she was Welsh, Doctor Rhonwen Browning of the British SG-20, and his new number two anthropologist. (He hoped SG-21 finished training soon, he'd heard good things about Doctor May Dripey.)
George took a deep breath. "All right. So far, negotiations with the Taldor have been unproductive - and threats don't seem to work either, Shadow Mirror tagged along with those negotiations and their threats weren't responded to." He cast a look around the table. "In case that misses anyone's notice, that means we have a leak. I'm going to want that found, but that's for later, not this meeting." He folded his hands in front of him on the table. "In summary, SG-1 has been taken captive by a human world with technology seemingly far more advanced than our own. I want you to reduce this to brass tacks and give me ideas on how to fix it."
Shepard cleared her throat. "Seems like our objectives are simple - get SG-1 back, and secure the Taldor as a trading partner. Care to clear up the order on that? Which one are you calling secondary?"
"You've got the order right, Commander."
She smiled slightly, leaning back. "Then I'd probably be remiss to not point out that we could just blow things up until they hand them back."
"I considered it, but at the moment I don't have the authority to do that. If it makes you feel better, Shadow Mirror is doing that right now. They were nonresponsive to offers of trade, as well - they claim that they can't return them, though they were unclear as to whether this was because of an inability, or an inflexible legal code."
Markova nodded. "Let us assume, then, that they are telling the truth. How could the prison be one-way, and how could we get them back without going through the Taldor?"
Zukhov glanced at her. "Should we assume that? They could be lying."
Browning tapped the table, shaking her head and speaking in a Texan accent. "If they're lyin', ain't much more we c'n do 'bout it. Y'all'll need permission from up top ta go in force, and they're holdin' ta their story so negotiatin' ain't gonna work - 'least, not fast."
George glanced at her. "... Your Texas accent is thicker than mine, Browning. You're Welsh."
She laughed. "Aw, don't mind it. An insult to thy heritage was not intended - this is merely method acting." Somehow, her words mutated from starting with a cowboy accent over to borderline-Elizabethan.
"... Right."
Kovacek spoke up in the strange lull that ensued. "Look, I might be the minority opinion here, but negotiation could still work. Do we really want to be risking the peaceful outcome working at all because it's not fast enough?"
"The priority was team retrieval, then peaceful relations," Zukhov noted. "I might be a minority opinion myself, but I do not want to be the minor partner in an alliance with people who have already demonstrated a lack of consideration or respect for any legal codes but their own."
The murmur that went around the table indicated that he was not - including from Kovacek himself. "I'm not saying compromise getting SG-1 back. We can shut the gate once we have them. But another solution could get a lot of people killed. Theirs, ours, and maybe even SG-1 themselves."
Shepard shook her head. "They could string this out for years and keep bleeding us dry. It wouldn't be the first time it happened. First rule of hostage negotiation is that you only give them what they want to get them into a position to get things done yourself - if you keep giving them stuff to get your people back, they'll learn that holding your people gets them stuff."
"So?" George asked, turning to Markova and Browning. "Any ideas why they'd call it 'impossible' to get back from Hadante?"
Markova shook her head. "Too many ideas, General, and not enough evidence to rule out even the silliest. It could be through the gate, it could be into a bottomless pit for all we know at this point."
Shepard frowned. "So basically, the problem is that we don't know what this prison is or where it is."
Browning perked up. "Solution: Someone goes 'n gits 'emselves arrested."
Most of the people around the room stared at the British redhead.
Shepard, though, was tapping her chin. "No... it could work. Put a tracer on our crook, track where they go, have a backup team with them to watch the gate and see if it gets dialed... We could have a fix on the prison if it's pretty much anywhere on the planet, or which planet it's on. A well-hidden tracer should stay - uniforms weren't returned, so it looks like prisoners are only stripped of their outer belongings, not strip-searched."
"This would leave us with another missing trooper," George felt it necessary to point out.
"So volunteer-only mission, but if we know where the prison is, we get a whole new world of options, and what we need to come up with any better solutions - information. And if it's an offworld location, we have even more options that we can pursue, completely cutting the Taldor out of it. SGC's got a lot of experience with the gate, so I'd call it very likely that you could find out why SG-1 can't get back once you know the location, and send them whatever they need to get back. If it's onworld, we can investigate, maintain radio contact with our crook, and find out why SG-1 can't get back, and see if we can scrounge up a solution."
"... The fact that this is the best plan we have come up with fills me with fear for the times ahead," Markova muttered.
"And not just you... but this is the best we've got." George stood up. "I want you to keep battering away and get any further plans, and pull as many kinks as you can out of it. I'm going to see if I can go get permission for our volunteer to break the Taldor law. Try to find me a better option before we have to do it."
-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-
Arklight Blue was less... gleeful about violence... than most of Shadow Mirror's soldiers, but he well knew there were a lot of battles that had to be fought whether you liked it or not. And securing the freedom of an ally seemed to be one of them.
For the record, Arklight also had absolutely no problems with his name, even if his parents had apparently been the twenty-second century equivalent of hippies - before they died in the Inspector War four years ago, at least.
Still, Arklight kind of hoped he wouldn't have to run this strike. They'd do their damnedest to avoid hurting civilians, but...
... It was out of his hands. All he could do at the moment was run one last check on his ASK-AD02 Ashsaber prototype - an updated version of the Soldifar and Ashcleef he'd started off with two years ago.
His mech hovered in front of the silent gate, calmly waiting. The Ashsaber was calm, at least. That'd have to do for him too.
"Sound off," Claire O'Neill's voice came through the comm. The chevrons thunked into position in rapid succession - apparently they'd MacGuyvered up a direct connection from their computers into the DHD, so they didn't have to take their time pressing buttons anymore - and Arklight was treated to his first direct view of it opening. It was... really pretty. "Gate is dialed and reading ready."
Another voice took over a moment later. "Contact established with recon drone. The Taldor didn't find it... all signs reading nominal. We have a first target." Maria Balthazar, one of the very few Shadow Mirror soldiers younger than him, though not by much.
Arklight nodded, switching his cockpit screens to show the display from the drone - a rather pretty northern climate island seemed to float below him in a sparkling ocean, and the view was centered on a city. Though that might be a loose use of the term, it looked like Lisbon... circa 1550.
He leaned back, and concentrated. Aside from its generally high performance, one of the prizes of the Ashsaber was its Simple Input System, originally prototyped on the Soldifar - a brainwave scanner that radically smoothed out control compared to the difficult-to-learn TC-OS. That one had been pretty much half the reason he'd been able to pilot the Soldifar at all, since he'd basically fallen into the cockpit and learned as he went.
The eight long, wedge-shaped Sword Breakers detached from the Ashsaber's shoulders, and turned to angle forward, towards the gate. "The Breakers look nominal, control is stable."
Now all they had to do was look at the clock. The hour had already passed, right now they were waiting twenty minutes past it - enough that news could arrive from the SGC if SG-1 had arrived right at the last second.
It was a short wait, but it seemed longer. The tension didn't help.
Then Doctor - ah, Lieutenant - O'Neill's voice came again. "Message from W-17. SG-1 has not been returned." She paused a moment. "Begin Thunder Run #1."
Arklight sighed. "Steer me right, Miss Balthazar."
"I will."
Arklight turned his attention to the screens displaying his Sword Breaker cameras, and focused. The eight drones darted forward as one. It was a mere matter of seconds before they were on the other side, and underwater - a small submersible had been pushed through the gate, and the gate dragged as near to the attack point as possible underwater. The Taldor couldn't stop the attack if they didn't know where it was coming from.
The drones surged up through the water, tesla drives cutting down on the drag and allowing them their high speed... and then he was out in the sky. He arced the Sword Breakers up a bit further while he checked where he was on the recon drone's point of view, and then sharply turned them towards the city.
"First target, those ships. Sink, do not blast, there are people on top so they need time to evacuate."
Arklight nodded, finding it very easy to identify the targets when Miss Balthazar outlined them in red on his display - honest-to-god sailing ships, even made out of wood. Four of them, so he split his attention and directed two Breakers at each.
The Breakers skimmed over the waves towards their targets, and at the last moment he dove them below the water. Instantly, they became makeshift torpedoes, their sharp-bladed edges and high-temperature plasma sheath allowing them to instantly slash and burn through the wooden hulls below the waterline.
And out, back up above water, and he brought the Sword Breakers back together, moving in on the city while the ships began sinking behind him.
"Statue." Very large, something on the order of fifty meters tall, a humanoid figure holding up a lantern and looking out sternly over the ocean.
With a thought, the Sword Breakers' noses split open, allowing the particle accelerators hidden within the drones to fire once each, at the legs.
Arklight had been careful to only evaporate the front half of the statue's legs, so as it began tilting to fall, it moved towards the ocean - he brought the Sword Breakers around behind it and rammed it with all eight to make sure it fell in the right direction before he moved onto the next target.
"Storehouse, no thermal signatures."
He dove the Sword Breakers towards it, unsheathing the particle accelerators again.
"Wait, thermal signature, hit the roads instead." Someone must have taken cover in the building.
Instantly, Arklight snapped the Sword Breakers up and down the nearest port road. There were a fair number of people along it, just now realizing that they were under attack and running in panic. It practically looked like medieval period dress... hadn't they said the Taldor were ahead of Earth?
Arklight took aim at the areas where there weren't any people, firing very, very carefully. Sections of road disintegrated under his efforts - there were carts of trade goods being abandoned by their owners as well, but Arklight avoided them. They were after government property, not what belonged to the people here.
O'Neill's voice came. "Okay, we've blasted enough for this hour, get the Breakers back to the gate."
The Breakers snapped around, and darted back over the town to the sea. On their cameras, he could see the ships continuing to take on water - he hadn't punched large enough holes to sink them that fast, so there was plenty of time to evacuate.
He saw it at the same time Miss Balthazar did. "You are being pursued." A gleaming silvery aircraft, in stark contrast to the medieval conditions of the city. Shaped almost like a disk... it looked like a bloody flying saucer. It was catching up fast, too - its inferior drag-shaping wasn't enough to make up for the substantially higher thrust it had.
Arklight flipped one of the Sword Breakers around, firing a shot at its side, blowing off a fair chunk of it and leaving the inside plain to view. It veered to the left. Odd that it hadn't fired... maybe it didn't have enough range?
"Thermal signatures disappeared... crew must have evacuated by transporter."
Arklight flipped the remaining Breakers, blowing it apart over the sea before it veered back over the city - didn't want it to crash into someone's house, after all. And then flipped them around to resume their escape - they'd shut down the wormhole and have the submersible crew (all W-Series) return the drones, and then move the gate again.
Since the mission seemed to have calmed down, Arklight brought up one of his smaller screens and began going over the mission recordings - he wanted to confirm zero casualties.
-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-
Jane Shepard was honestly looking forward to this, on one hand - she and O'Neill were presently even on which had bailed which out, so this one would finally put her in the lead.
On the other hand, she didn't know her team very well yet. She'd chosen them, and she'd worked with Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko a little, but she had not yet seen enough of these people to really work seamlessly with them.
Though really, all Jane, Kaidan, and the other two members of Canada's SG Team - Sergeants Ashley Williams and Ryoko Asakura (immigrant, thus the Japanese name) - had to do was stay hidden, this round out.
The one who was getting arrested was another member of the British SG Team - Lance Corporal Cedric Diggory, a youngish man with somewhat disquietingly pretty features. He looked a little irritable as he checked his Accuracy International AWM sniper rifle - he'd basically be going to the first area he found and firing potshots over the Taldor until they arrested him.
General Hammond stood in front of the team as they prepared - Jane didn't bother checking her C-8 again, she'd been over it already. "All right. Everyone here knows the details already. Unfortunately, we have not found any better plans. So in SG-1's name, I'm going to thank you for volunteering."
Diggory shot a short glare across the gate room at Rhonwen Browning, muttering "So shouldn't have made that bet..."
"For a given definition of 'volunteer'," Hammond continued, undeterred. "I don't need to elaborate that this is a risky mission."
"Less insane than blind-jumping onto an invasion fleet with four guys and C-4," Shepard noted. By which she meant 'fun' - she'd really have to find a way to even up that score with O'Neill.
"That it is. We're going to call ahead before you drop off to see where the gate has been moved to, so don't go jumping out right away." General Hammond looked up, past the Canadian and British SG members, to the control room. "Begin dialing the gate."
The stone gate's inner ring began to spin, and Jane watched. She'd been on a couple offworld acclimation ops already, but the gate was still a little new to her.
"Chevron one encoded."
It started spinning to the second stage... but then the gate lit up, alarms sounding.
"Incoming wormhole." The iris swirled shut. "IDC received - it's SG-3." The iris opened again, and General Hammond and the assembled reconnaissance team turned to watch the event horizon as six people trailed out.
Jane tsked once she saw O'Neill. They were still even on rescues, then. Diggory looked a little more pleased, though.
Quick head count, and Jane nodded. All five members of SG-1, plus one extra. She lowered her weapon, indicating the rest of her team to stand down, and tossed a short salute in O'Neill's direction. The bastard was immortal.
General Hammond found words a moment later. "... Where in the name of heaven did you come from?"
"Prison, actually," O'Neill chirped, grinning. "We just broke out. Volkova had to boot another escapee away from the gate, I didn't want too many unidentified crooks from a supermax penitentiary loose in the galaxy with knowledge of the gate system. Went to SG-3's scheduled mission site and bummed the GDO off 'em."
"Well, ho-" Hammond cut himself off a moment later, realizing that it would be a longer story and he'd need to be emotionally ready to hear it. "SG-9 and I spent the last two days trying to negotiate your release - with no luck, I might add. We were about to try something insane."
O'Neill nodded, catching sight of Jane. "I can see that. Hey Shep, SGC agreeing with you?"
Jane raised an eyebrow. "Not too bad. I could get used to it. I've read your mission logs, you still haven't got rid of that trouble-attracting aftershave of yours?" As a Lieutenant-Commander, she was equivalent to a Major - two grades below O'Neill. But special forces in general, and O'Neill in particular, were permissive enough that they could get away with banter.
O'Neill shook a head, pointing at her. "Oh no no no, that was all you. I haven't forgotten you proposing to our pilot just before we parachuted out that one time in 85."
Jane looked up, reminiscing with a little smirk. His memory must've sanitized it - she'd proposed as she jumped out. Her younger years had been a bit wild. "Hey, as I recall that mission turned out smooth as silk. Probably the only one we worked together on that did, actually..."
"Friend of yours, Jack?" Daniel Jackson asked.
O'Neill shrugged. "Oh, we worked together a couple of times - just so you know, any stories she tells you are lies and fabrications."
"Hey, you wound me, Jack, I wouldn't break the classified info like that."
Samantha Carter blinked. "Wait... the US doesn't use women in ground combat roles, I only get away with it because combat isn't technically my job and nobody really pays attention to the fact that it happens... how the heck did you work together?"
Jane tapped the maple leaf patch on her shoulder. "Being Canadian. All roles open, except submariners, and that one isn't likely to be too long." Though they'd technically only opened up after she'd been in combat roles - the tale of her military service was a sordid one indeed.
Carter looked a little irritated, and O'Neill caught on it, grinning at her. "Wishing you were Canadian now?"
"Mm... just a short fantasy. I like the US, warts and all."
General Hammond coughed into his hand, and gestured to the elderly woman standing with SG-1. "If I may ask?"
O'Neill chuckled. "Ah, I'm sorry. General Hammond, this is..." He searched for the name for a moment. "Linea."
"We wouldn't have gotten out without her, sir," Carter added.
Hammond smiled, bowing his head. "Then we owe you a debt, ma'am. Welcome to the SGC."
The woman looked around the gate room in wonder. "... I have never seen such a place. It seems so... alien."
The tall black man at the back of SG-1 - Teal'c - nodded solemnly. "So it was for me. Over time, it has become... home." He looked down for a moment. "I shall very much miss it when the facility is moved. But perhaps it will become a new home."
There was a moment as the members of SG-1 smiled at the man - Jane tugged Williams's gaze away from the moment, and Alenko and Asakura looked away as well. This wasn't between them.
It was a little while before Carter spoke up, breaking the moment. "General Hammond, sir, with your permission I'd like to offer Linea quarters here at the base. There's a great deal she has to teach us. In fact, I brought back samples of a root, that with Linea's activators, can generate a-"
"I'll take that into consideration, Captain," Hammond interrupted, before the technobabble could ensue. "In the meantime, I'd like you all to report to the infirmary, including your guest - begging your pardon, ma'am, it's merely a precaution."
Linea nodded. "Oh, I would do the same."
"We'll debrief after you've all had a chance to rest." He turned to Jane and SG-10. "And you can all stand down."
The groups began to disperse from the gate room, Williams moving up alongside Jane. "So wait, Commander, you're married? How the heck did this not come up?"
"Two reasons, Williams. Number one, wedding bands as brass knuckles? Hurt you more than the other guy." She'd learned that one the hard way. "So I keep it off on-duty. And he's USAF, he's been a little busy since the time this team came together."
"Huh. How does that work, exactly?" Alenko asked. "I mean, it doesn't really seem like you can talk about your work much."
"You'd be surprised how often it dovetails, actually. When it doesn't," she shrugged. "What do normal couples do when one of them's military? Talk about other things."
Asakura hadn't been saying much, though as she pulled off her helmet, Williams had to ask one thing. "Okay, seriously, long hair, fine... but why is it blue?"
Asakura blinked, smiling at Williams and twirling a lock of hair around her finger. "Dye."
"That answer was so obvious, I'm feeling kind of ashamed to have needed to ask."
Asakura chuckled. "Don't worry, I've been asked many, many times..."
Jane pulled off her helmet and whapped Asakura on the back. "Come on, let's get to the locker rooms and ditch all this gear, we can talk casual in the cafeteria."
-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-
Vindel Mauser shook his head, closing the folder on the world of Rillaan.
There were definite problems over there, the Taldor almost seemed to be pulling the same schtick the goa'uld were - holding themselves above the populace, trapping those under them in medieval peasantry and keeping the advanced technologies for their own use.
But Shadow Mirror was, at this point, in total, one hundred and fifty thousand people - about the size of the present-day army of Bangladesh. They could blow up Rillaan, they had the firepower for that. But they didn't have the people to spare to actually oust a regime. Not if they planned to cover for all their other commitments.
Oh, it was on the list. They'd see if it wasn't feasible to liberate it, but later. They already had a handful of wars on their plate, and while he planned to attend to it, he wasn't going to add the Taldor to his list of active shooting enemies until he'd either resolved one of the two they were embroiled with, or they were at least in a better position for it - uncontrolled wars only broke things, and usually his things. Though they could probably do with getting some more salvaged technology from them to analyze, the fragments of those patrol saucers could do with some supplementing.
He looked up - Lemon had seated herself rather comfortably on the side of his desk. "All right. What's the status of our SGC intelligence?"
The scientist shook her head. "Our chain of stunts cost us. They've cottoned on to the fact that Momo planted bugs and backdoors in their systems, and are starting to root them out. Fortunately, they don't seem to realize that Lamia transmitted from the bugs to our position."
Momo and Lamia... ah, W-14 and W-17. "Mm... unfortunate. But I suppose it wouldn't have lasted when they moved to a new facility anyway. We may as well use them up."
"Worth it, then?"
"I'd imagine so. SG-1 did return, though our efforts don't seem to have helped - it still benefited us in a foreign relations sense, though. It gave us a statement of intent, at the least."
"Speaking of interrogations, they're going a bit smoother now that we have the translators in early-stage production - though unless Miss Grace hasn't sussed out the answers yet, the 'jaf'fa' really don't know that much at all. And Jail reports some success with INSERT IGNOREing and removing a goa'uld from a W-Series without damage to either."
Vindel nodded. "All right, tell him to bring the experiments to a halt, then, unless he gets consent from the snake. That's as far into experimenting on people as I'm willing to go, and Jail should be working on Project Hyperion." He didn't really like even that much of a violation of the Nuremburg Code - one out of the ten tenets, and only to the point where it was absolutely required - but given that it was either learn the techniques now or learn them later when one of the snakes infested one of his people...
"He'll throw a fit," Lemon noted. "He was pretty near salivating over the chance to experiment on a completely alien species."
"Let him." He'd likely still have a bit of trouble sleeping for a few days, at least. Neither he nor the goa'uld had ever signed the Geneva Convention, Nuremburg Code, Hague Conventions, or the dozens and dozens of other articles of the laws of war, but that did not relieve him of the responsibility to act like a human being. He'd have poor standing indeed to complain about the behaviour of the Federation and the goa'uld if he went and did the same as they. "Shadow Mirror does not violate our articles of war."
Lemon nodded. "Oh, and Walther reported progress on the inertial compensators."
Vindel raised an eyebrow. "He knows how they work?"
Lemon coughed into a hand. "He's an engineer, Vindel. He knows that they work. He's constructed a - somewhat - functioning replica by simply copying the arrangement of parts, and is working on the finer details now. I believe the last he said was that some of the parts resemble the internals of the Stargate, the part that generates negative mass to hold open the wormhole throat... he handed me a few spreadsheets to work out the physics, he's better on the practical side than the theoretical. Open question as to whether my analysis or his experimentation will turn out better results faster, though."
"Mm... I've been working him more or less nonstop for over a month, haven't I?"
Lemon shrugged. "Him and O'Neill. Not a surprise, they were the only technical aces you had for a while."
"Still, it will probably freshen their minds a bit if I give them a different task... We'll have to figure something out for them. I was considering sending Vigil Platoon out to P7J-989 to check up on SG-1 - they went out of contact on their mission there, but they've returned by now."
"Again? This is almost the first time they stepped through the gate after the Taldor mess."
"A talented team, aren't they? They're well on their way to becoming the Beowulves of this world."
"I hope you mean that in the sense of achievements only. I don't want to deal with a second iteration of those monsters."
-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-V-
Author's Notes:
First of all, as always, thanks go out to prereaders (Sunshine Temple, Belgarion213, Ellf, DCG).
And second, as hopefully less frequent than it is at the moment, apologies for taking so long for so short. I was basically stuck on the 'Gamekeeper' coverage, then I realized nothing really relevant happened in Gamekeeper and it was filler for the show, so I may as well drop it - my whole difficulty was in making something actually original happening. Thus, Gamekeeper has been reduced to a one-sentence summary from Vindel - it happened, but isn't relevant.
Alokin: It's a crossover with Super Robot Wars Original Generation - specifically, the second game. Hopefully, you won't need to know SRW to get it - I'm writing it from the Stargate perspective. And you're right the Russians are pissed off - the general population isn't quite as controlled about it as Mister Volkova - a lot of tourists are getting harassed. He just knows who the biggest target is, and that if he acts directly against the Americans, he loses his shot at Apophis, and will create public support for the Americans anyway.
Ack, Deathzealot. I got your review only just as I was putting up chapter 3. It's sort of a crossover with the newer SRW series. One of the antagonist groups in SRW The Inspector is Shadow Mirror, a rebel group from an alternate version of the SRW universe. This Shadow Mirror... missed. And the review is much appreciated.
I figure the System Lords have Voldemort Syndrome, so they try to take care of as much as they can... but do you really think they spent months worth of hours in the grease and oil building a ha'tak's shields and engines?
Someone has to be making all the fancier toys the goa'uld have, and even if slaves had the skills for the wierder goa'uld technologies, would they really want some random human poking around at it? The tech's how they maintain their image as gods, after all, and there's only so much a System Lord can actually make on his own.Prisoners mostly didn't turn out all that differently until the very end, despite everyone's attempts, but I figured it merited at least a gloss-over to see what happened. Though my glossover got a few additional bits INSERT IGNOREed.
Regarding SG-3's commander... technically, this episode had it as Carl Warren. I have no honest idea - in 1-5, Makepeace was in charge of SG-3, then in 1-18 it was Major Castleman, 2-11 onward they kept Makepeace... I'm not entirely sure whether the staff actually took much look at the continuity, but I'm going to say that Makepeace is the commander and the others take over for him when he gets sidelined with some strange new injury or alien disease.
As far as 'Cedric Diggory', that's mostly an expy and reference to this story: www fanfiction net / s / 3918135 / 1 / The_Sniper (split up so FFNet won't kill it). Decide for yourself whether it's a joke or actually canon
Shepard... yeah, I went there. Canada needed a team, so I grabbed people from a Canadian-made game, plus one that anime fans ought to recognize. I considered using manShep, but John Shepard would just be inviting confusion if/when John Sheppard of Atlantis shows up.
As always, reviews, comments, corrections, and etcetera are appreciated whether for good or ill, and my email's always open (PaleWLF @ gmail com).
